What is Deleuze?

[poetix]

I've never once in my life met anyone who was "mathphobic". I have, however, met people who struggle with math and find it nearly impossible to understand, and in more cases, people who simply do not have the means nor the opportunity (to borrow a phrase from the law) to spend years and years on the sort of schooling it takes to master advanced mathematics such as set theory or geometric logic.

I've not been in a maths lesson since I was 16. And, in fact, I haven't "mastered" any "advanced" mathematics either. But it's certainly possible to get a grip on basic axiomatic set theory or category theory without a college education in maths. I mean, provided you're not living in the middle of a war-zone, etc.

Life/the world is not a meritocracy. Far from it.[/QUOTE]

Thank you for the gift of this wisdom. Do you have an opinion on whether or not it is possible for hard-working shoe-shine boys to become billionaires through grit, determination and good character?

 

[nomadthethird]

No, that is not how math works. Axioms are not proved. Theorems are proved, on the basis of axioms. Such proofs amount only to the demonstration that, given such and such axioms, such and such a theorem follows. Badiou works through some of these proofs - generally only very simple ones - as part of a demonstration of how axiomatic set theory hangs together, and uses the way in which it hangs together as a guide-rail for making his meta-ontology hang together. That's all!

From Wikipedia:

Modern proof theory treats proofs as inductively defined data structures. There is no longer an assumption that axioms are "true" in any sense; this allows for parallel mathematical theories built on alternate sets of axioms (see Axiomatic set theory and Non-Euclidean geometry for examples).

Yes, theorems are what are proved, not axioms, but Badiou is trying to prove his politically motivated ontological "axioms" with set theory and geometric logic.

 

[nomadthethird]

I've not been in a maths lesson since I was 16. And, in fact, I haven't "mastered" any "advanced" mathematics either. But it's certainly possible to get a grip on basic axiomatic set theory or category theory without a college education in maths. I mean, provided you're not living in the middle of a war-zone, etc.

Life/the world is not a meritocracy. Far from it.

Thank you for the gift of this wisdom. Do you have an opinion on whether or not it is possible for hard-working shoe-shine boys to become billionaires through grit, determination and good character?[/QUOTE]

I haven't been in math since I was 15 with calculus, and I was far too high to remember any at this point.

No, it isn't easy to master set theory. It's time consuming, and it's largely unrewarding unless you already agree with Badiou, which believe it or not a lot of people know that they don't agree with him without the mathbabble.

Do you have any opinion that isn't self-righteous, self-serving and severely limited by your own experience?

 

[josef k.]

Do you have an opinion on whether or not it is possible for hard-working shoe-shine boys to become billionaires through grit, determination and good character?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie#Early_life

 

[nomadthethird]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie#Early_life

Sometimes I really get the feeling that what people resent most about the American Empire is the fact that it does not reward self-righteousness.

 

[josef k.]

I like America, and America likes me.

 

[nomadthethird]

America doesn't like anyone.

What people really want is to feel like they matter, but the problem is that they don't. The world belies this stark fact at every turn but no one wants to believe it. "Life finds a way", and in humans this usually means that life preserves itself partially through the illusion of meaning and feeling and thinking that is the result of some relatively simple electrochemical mechanisms that we are too dense to fully understand.

If you really understand the meta-system that determines everything, if you're reeeally smart, you understand that we are at our best worm food, and that the time will come when we are all gone, and our species is all gone, and in all probability a time will come after that when microorganisms will be the last of the organic lifeforms that exist on this planet, if any do, and it will be as if none of this ever happened, because matter and energy will just keep moving and making space and time without us, and they won't remember us, except as a vague and impersonal (and metaphorical) causal blip on the cosmic radar.

So the highest possible aspiration for humanity, if that makes sense (and I don't think it does) is not to find out how to feel that you matter more but to let go of needing to matter and realize all of that Zen shit about nothingness and how everything is really nothing and none of it matters.

 

[poetix]

From Wikipedia:

Modern proof theory treats proofs as inductively defined data structures. There is no longer an assumption that axioms are "true" in any sense; this allows for parallel mathematical theories built on alternate sets of axioms (see Axiomatic set theory and Non-Euclidean geometry for examples).

Yes, theorems are what are proved, not axioms, but Badiou is trying to prove his politically motivated ontological "axioms" with set theory and geometric logic.

This is nonsense. Badiou is not trying to prove axioms. How could one possibly do so?

There are some weak norms for mathematical axioms - some rules of thumb about what makes a "good" axiom. There shouldn't be too many of them, and they should fit together elegantly. It should be possible to derive powerful and interesting frameworks from them. These are really criteria of efficiency and productivity. It would be interesting to try to devise a deliberately ugly and cumbersome set of axioms, from which it was possible to get useful results but only by fighting with the system they generated. Joke programming languages like Intercal and the fearful Malgebolge are inventions along those sorts of lines.

 

[nomadthethird]

Axioms like "the one is not" is what Badiou is trying to fit into all of the mathematic proofs. It's a fairly simple and straightforward statement to make and it's not rocket science. I don't think that you can prove that a statement or axiom like that is more coherent than any other using math. More formalism doesn't make what you're saying more viable or true or real or important.

Formalism for formalism's sake is always an option, like I said before, but you have to acknowledge that this is what's going on or you most certainly are appealing to math for its authority and purity.

 

[poetix]

Axioms like "the one is not" is what Badiou is trying to fit into all of the mathematic proofs. It's a fairly simple and straightforward statement to make and it's not rocket science. I don't think that you can prove that a statement or axiom like that is more coherent than any other using math.

You can prove that certain conceptions of "the one" are incoherent, which is what "the one is not" really means. In particular, you can prove that given a certain definition of what a set is, supposing the existence of a set of all sets leads to contradiction.

More formalism doesn't make what you're saying more viable or true or real or important.

No, of course not. But it can make it more internally consistent, and formal elaboration can demonstrate the internal inconsistency of other notions.

Consistency - or the dialectic of consistency and inconsistency - is something that comes up again and again in Badiou. He is really a thinker of consistency and its limits, or the limits a consistent multiplicity must assume in order to remain consistent.

 

[poetix]

Poor graduate students, being in the top--what?--10th percentile of employability.

It certainly felt that way when I started temping for the Alliance & Leicester, at very slightly above minimum wage.

The particular way in which I effectively cashed in my accumulation cultural capital over the subsequent few years bears examination, as there was very little direct utilisation of acquired credentials or social connections. People imagine that you flash a degree certificate at someone with the same school tie and doors magically open. It is actually a lot more insidious than that. But I digress.

My point is not that I've known true poverty and therefore empathise fully with the desperation of a prostitute in Bogota; just that I've known just enough poverty to be able to observe in my own life that it can have a sharply constraining effect on people's options. I would say that graduate student poverty is a kind of minimal poverty, poverty-lite, really the least poor you can get while actually being poor (or the most poor you can get while actually still being astoundingly privileged). Graduate student poverty plus parenthood tips it just over the line into where it starts to properly bite.

What really matters is thinking, curiosity, and high mindedness, then?

No, so..

That's exactly what I thought you were saying.

...no.

 

[poetix]

No, it isn't easy to master set theory. It's time consuming, and it's largely unrewarding

I said it was possible to learn the basics without a college-level education in mathematics, which indeed it is. It's not especially easy, but nothing worthwhile is. I didn't find it unrewarding, but YMMV.

Do you have any opinion that isn't self-righteous, self-serving and severely limited by your own experience?

I don't appear to have any opinions that can't be construed by you as self-righteous, self-serving and severely limited by my own experience. But you have formidable powers of inattention, so I shalln't worry too much about that.

 

[nomadthethird]

You can prove that certain conceptions of "the one" are incoherent, which is what "the one is not" really means. In particular, you can prove that given a certain definition of what a set is, supposing the existence of a set of all sets leads to contradiction.



No, of course not. But it can make it more internally consistent, and formal elaboration can demonstrate the internal inconsistency of other notions.

Consistency - or the dialectic of consistency and inconsistency - is something that comes up again and again in Badiou. He is really a thinker of consistency and its limits, or the limits a consistent multiplicity must assume in order to remain consistent.

But of course formal systems "cohere", that's what the point of them is. If your premises are false then I have no interest in the further elaboration of points no matter how tight their formal consistency is.

 

[poetix]

The premises are usually fairly uncontroversial, bland, almost meaningless in themselves: e.g. "there exists some set such that no other set is an element of that set". They don't have the property of being objectively true or false, they're just chosen starting points.

 

[poetix]

You could try developing a set theory in which there was no empty set, or in which there were several that were somehow distinguishable from each other. Really, the proof of the axiomatic pudding is in the theorematic eating.

 

[nomadthethird]

I don't appear to have any opinions that can't be construed by you as self-righteous, self-serving and severely limited by my own experience. But you have formidable powers of inattention, so I shalln't worry too much about that.

That's what opinions are, self-righteous, self-serving, and severely limited by individual experiences.

 

[nomadthethird]

The premises are usually fairly uncontroversial, bland, almost meaningless in themselves: e.g. "there exists some set such that no other set is an element of that set". They don't have the property of being objectively true or false, they're just chosen starting points.

In that case, wake me up when it's oovverrr...

 

[nomadthethird]

What was it that Lacan said about how claims to being misunderstood are misplaced and beside the point because language speaks us and so forth?

 

[nomadthethird]

I would say that graduate student poverty is a kind of minimal poverty, poverty-lite, really the least poor you can get while actually being poor (or the most poor you can get while actually still being astoundingly privileged).

I wouldn't know, since I worked full-time throughout graduate school.

 

[josef k.]