14.0122 divisions & categories; WWW & cultural theory

From: Humanist Discussion Group (willard@lists.village.virginia.edu)
Date: Tue Jul 18 2000 - 06:26:24 CUT

  • Next message: Humanist Discussion Group: "14.0124 password problems"

                   Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 122.
           Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   <http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
                  <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>

       [1] From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni- (10)
                     dortmund.de>
             Subject: Article by Prof. Theodore P. Hill in American
                     Scientist

       [2] From: "Osher Doctorow" <osher@ix.netcom.com> (45)
             Subject: Re: 14.0117 thoughts on philosophy

       [3] From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni- (6)
                     dortmund.de>
             Subject: [URL] The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural
                     Theory: Magic, Metaphor, Power

    --[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
             Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 07:14:37 +0100
             From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni-dortmund.de>
             Subject: Article by Prof. Theodore P. Hill in American Scientist

    Dear scholars at Humanist,

    Hi, I hope --you are doing well and thought --might interest you, that
    recently Prof. Theodore Hill has written an article on "Mathematical
    Devices for Getting a Fair Share" --which is published in American
    Scientist Magazine, the abstract of the essay is available online at
    <http://www.sigmaxi.org/amsci/articles/00articles/Hill.html>

    In the article, he has discussed Dubin's method and Steinhaus's Ham
    Sandwich Theorem, and many more --the article sounds very interesting.

    Thank you!
    Sincerely yours
    Arun Tripathi

    --[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
             Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 07:15:34 +0100
             From: "Osher Doctorow" <osher@ix.netcom.com>
             Subject: Re: 14.0117 thoughts on philosophy

    From: Osher Doctorow osher@ix.netcom.com, Mon. July 17, 2000, 3:58AM

    Dear Colleagues:

    These are exceptionally interesting fundamental categories - in ordinary
    language curiosity, reality, assumptions. Epistemology, metaphysics, ethics
    in other terms - although there is something of an overlap of categories in
    comparing the two lists. Does what is real depend on our assumptions about
    either the real or unreal? How much does what we know depend on what is
    real, how much of the real do we know, and how does what we know relate to
    what we assume? Does what we are curious about depend on what we know or
    what is real, and how? Does what we are curious about reflect our
    assumptions or vice versa? The Ancient Greeks were curious about what
    looked like a linear universe of straight lines and so their axioms reflect
    this curiosity - circles and spheres to them were in many ways merely side
    issues determined by real lines (the determination by real lines is true in
    many spaces, but the side issues part has been effectively disputed by
    non-Euclidean geometry and general relativity). Modern physics and
    engineering are especially curious about ratios or division, which
    dimensional analysis seemed to indicate the importance of in the real world,
    but what about the axiom assumed here - that division makes sense but
    subtraction is not important on an equal footing? The question is very
    relevant for statistics and probability and hence for all behavioral and
    social science research and for computer-related humanist fields.
    (Bayesian) conditional probability-statistics is the mainstream "division
    oriented" discipline, while non-mainstream logic-based probability is the
    subtraction oriented version. The former works fairly well for
    frequent/common events and events which influence each other very little or
    not at all, while the latter works well for rare events and events which
    influence each other fairly well or very much and for events which are
    contained in (subsets of) other events. We may well find that the three
    pairs of categories are the fundamental irreducible categories of the
    universe.

    > <http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
    > <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
    >
    > Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 07:55:00 +0100
    > From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni-dortmund.de>
    > the
    > foundations upon which thinking of any sort must rely"
    >
    --According Richard Hooker, Philosophys' chief branches
    > include logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ands ethics. For more details
    > about *The Origins of Western Thought and Philosophy*, please visit
    > <http://people.delphi.com/gkemerling/hy/2b.htm> Thank you.
    > Best Wishes
    > Arun Tripathi))
    > *********************************************

    --[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
             Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 07:19:23 +0100
             From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@statistik.uni-dortmund.de>
             Subject: [URL] The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural
    Theory: Magic, Metaphor, Power

    Dear Humanists,

    Hi, the details about the book, "The World Wide Web and Contemporary
    Cultural Theory" can be found at:
    <http://www.Frontlist.com/catalog/detail.htm/0-415-92502-9>

    Thanks!
    Sincerely yours
    Arun Tripathi



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jul 18 2000 - 06:27:53 CUT