Political Theory

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

Scrooge McDuck — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:54:54 GMT

Did he try to kill him with one of the bombs, or was this a separate incident?

Chomsky was on his to-bomb list. Maybe he didn't actually try to kill him.

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

Fephisto — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:39:28 GMT

Beards definitely help. Gives you cred.

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

BrianAnderson — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 20:20:55 GMT

I don't get it.

I was being sarcastic. I don't really think you need to have a beard and make bombs in order to do math. But it does help.

Kaczynski tried to kill Chomsky.

Did he try to kill him with one of the bombs, or was this a separate incident?

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

John Ess — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:04:09 GMT

'tried to kill Chomsky'

I wonder if this is related to the fact that Ted was friends with John Zerzan. Zerzan, a famous anarcho-primitivist, wrote an essay damning Chomsky called 'Who is Chomsky?' or something like that.

Found it: http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/whochoms.htm

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

Giant_Joe — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:32:22 GMT

Hey there:

http://mises.org/Community/forums/p/6932/106558.aspx#106558

A lot of math people are around.

Haha! I didn't mean to be offensive or anything. I've done plenty of supplementary math studies when getting my computer science degree. From the math courses I've been through and seen, and the math majors I've spoken with, there doesn't seem to be much talk of methodology outside of the little bit in statistics courses. Not that epistemology is a central topic for mathematics in and of itself, but I think it's important to know it anyways.

I'm just interested in having this stuff exposed to the "intellectual" or "opinion forming" (as I see it) class of people.

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

Scrooge McDuck — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:37:37 GMT

Kaczynski tried to kill Chomsky.

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

baxter — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:26:56 GMT

>That's the only way to do real math. With beards and bombs.

I don't get it. He sounds like a nutjob who blew up innocent people. The little math he did do is so abstract that no one gives two craps about it.

If you want to see a real genius, look at Euler. He wrote like 800 papers on math and didn't leave behind a trail of bodies.

>I'm left wondering if such mathematicians are even aware of the philosophy of methodology when it comes to the sciences.

Probably not very. I mean they use the tools of deductive logic and they use the scientific method (e.g. Euler and Gauss did tons of numerical experiments: http://www.maa.org/editorial/euler/How%20Euler%20Did%20It%2022%20False%20induction.pdf; the Riemann hypothesis is studied experimentally with computers and is often used as a practical assumption in proofs).

Also, a lot of it is really intuition, some of it visual and spatial (I believe Hadamard addressed this: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/5896.html). But you don't have to be an expert on epistemology to use most of these tools. The average person off the street knows these tools to some extent.

> Honestly, it would be great if some of these mathematicians saw what Austrian econ. had to offer, and took up some of the ideas/arguments.

As the axioms are plausible, it is appealing to a math guy. But the use of imprecise verbal argumentation rather than symbolic manipulation makes it lose some of its appeal. P.S. from a scientific (not strictly mathematical) point of view, the dearth of experimental evidence is frustrating.

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

BrianAnderson — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:09:14 GMT

A lot of math people are around.

I feel like many of those mathematicians didn't go from this to this within their own lifetimes. That's the only way to do real math. With beards and bombs.

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

Fephisto — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:41:18 GMT

I'm left wondering if such mathematicians are even aware of the philosophy of methodology when it comes to the sciences. Honestly, it would be great if some of these mathematicians saw what Austrian econ. had to offer, and took up some of the ideas/arguments.

Hey there:

http://mises.org/Community/forums/p/6932/106558.aspx#106558

A lot of math people are around.

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

Giant_Joe — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 05:34:49 GMT

I'm left wondering if such mathematicians are even aware of the philosophy of methodology when it comes to the sciences. Honestly, it would be great if some of these mathematicians saw what Austrian econ. had to offer, and took up some of the ideas/arguments.

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

Alex Habighorst — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 05:28:30 GMT

I am not really sure how his work can relate to Austrian theory though, maybe someone with more knowledge of his work can discuss it further.

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

BrianAnderson — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 05:25:56 GMT

That's awesome. I hadn't really studied his economic beliefs before. I'll never understand why the government doesn't listen to these intelligent economists.

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

Alex Habighorst — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 05:24:40 GMT

Kind of related to that, Nash did call for some sort of Gold standard or currency competition here which was kind of interesting.

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

BrianAnderson — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 05:20:38 GMT

a preview to his dissertation

I wish so much I could understand that type of math. I love math geniuses, especially like in A Beautiful Mind and Good Will Hunting.

Re: Theodore Kaczynski

Alex Habighorst — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 05:10:54 GMT

Wikipedia says that his field of study was something called geometric function theory, though my mathematics is woefully inadequate to understand exactly what he was doing. Here is a preview to his dissertation though.