From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Tue Nov 11 2003 - 07:32:31 GMT
Hi Platt
9 Nov. you wrote:
> In the book section of today's NY Times under Paperback Non-Fiction is
> a review of a book entitled "Lost discoveries: the Non-Western Rootso
> of Science" by Dick Teresi, author of "The God Particle."
I was not able to locate the review, could you do it and show the web
address? I found a lot of Teresi stuff, he seems to be a reviewer too.
> In the review there are a number of observations made by Teresi that
> tend to dispute Jaynes' theory. Example: "The Babylonians developed
> the Pythagorean theorem at least 1,500 years before Pythagoras was
> born." Also, "The Egyptians mastered fractions, and Babylonian
> mathematics created a B.C version of the calculator, with its tables
> of reciprocals, squares, cubes, square roots and cube roots."
Was Jaynes mentioned? I don't think he refutes mental capacity -
including ability to calculate ...by mathematical methods even. But I'll
say no more, will have to try to find Jaynes' take on all this, hopefully
you'll produce the address . Thanks for the tip.
Bo.
PS
I couldn't resist attach this from Daniel Dennett's "What is
Intelligence?, The Darwin College Lectures, ed. Jean Khalfa,
Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press. 1994"
"Philosophical analysis by itself cannot penetrate this thicket of
perplexities. While philosophers who define their terms carefully might
succeed in proving logically that--let's say--mathematical thoughts are
impossible without mathematical language, such a proof might be
consigned to irrelevance by the surprising discovery that mathematical
intelligence does not depend on being able to have mathematical
thoughts so defined!"
> Philosophical analysis by itself cannot penetrate this thicket of perplexities. While philosophers who define
> their terms carefully might succeed in proving logically that--let's say--mathematical thoughts are impossible
> without mathematical language, such a proof might be consigned to irrelevance by the surprising discovery that
> mathematical intelligence does not depend on being able to have mathematical thoughts so defined!
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