From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/6698 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Peter Freyd Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Willams Lecture Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 15:43:29 -0400 Message-ID: Reply-To: Peter Freyd NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1306882562 15854 80.91.229.12 (31 May 2011 22:56:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 22:56:02 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Wed Jun 01 00:55:57 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtpx.mta.ca ([138.73.1.30]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QRXqs-0005ux-KE for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:55:55 +0200 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:39402) by smtpx.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QRXok-0006ZS-JK; Tue, 31 May 2011 19:53:42 -0300 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QRXog-0008Am-BN for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Tue, 31 May 2011 19:53:38 -0300 Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:6698 Archived-At: If one goes to itunes or ipod and searches for "antiphilosophy" you will find two free downloads (one with and one without video) for "An Anti-philosophy of Mathematics." I attempt therein to give a definition of math. (Before you get there you might first be taken to a page that gives you a choice of "Lectures and Events..." or "The music of Awannabepoet." Choose the first: it leads to a chronological list of the Williams Lectures at Penn and antiphilosophy appears at the end.) You might well skip the first 14 minutes and 50 seconds (it's mostly about the 1960s history of the Penn philosophy department. Just in case you do watch it, the Aravind I refer to after the first 6 minutes is Aravind Joshi sitting in the audience, the distinguished computer scientist best known for his "tree-adjoining grammars" in linguistics). If you get as far as 42:40 I start answering questions and, as usual, on these things, you can't hear them being asked. So here's something of a list: 42:40 Zoltan Domotor asks if my definition sheds light on issues of objectivity and truth in mathematics. 50:20 Someone asks if my definition depends on assumptions about the world 53:00 I forgot this question most likely because -- as becomes evident -- I didn't answer it. 55:15 Murray Gerstenhaber asks if math [just as every other subject, I might add] is defined by the questions that are asked and don't those questions ask themselves anyway. 1:02;15 "How can we be non-arbitrary in this arbitrary world?" 1:04:00 A question about machine proofs. 1:06:20 "Would your analysis lead to a 'fusion' of logicism and formalism?" Which --,wonderfully enough -- immediately took me into the coda I had planned. If you listen and don't see the video, it's worth knowing that I only twice used a projected image. The first use -- it appears at the very beginning -- displays the following email I had received (from an author who insists on not being identified}: How could you? An "Antiphilosophy" for mathematics? You -- who sat at the feet of Curt Ducasse, Wesley Salmon, Stephan Korner, Roderick Chisholm, Carl Hempel, Alonzo Church, Kurt Godel, John Myhill, Ernest Nagel, Marvin Farber, Nelson Goodman, Dana Scott, Stanley Tennenbaum, Paul Bernays, Alfred Tarski -- you're now an antiphilosopher? Please: tell me it's a hoax. The other projected image (at 21:50) was a web page that can be found at: http://www.math.harvard.edu/history/peirce_algebra/005.html It shows the famous opening line of Benjamin Peirce's "Linear Associative Algebra," to wit: Mathematics is the science which draws necessary conclusions. [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]