I hope those philosophical questions have been food for your thoughts during this week and you have now some relevant points to add to the discussion or to your diary.
Always take a diary, note things down, carefully …
Back to our matter of concern, das Denken, my personal vision is:
In maths as in life, when the philosophy is crystal clear, the applications follow easily.
It is not possible in fact to formulate an astonishing new mathematical theory, intending to describe the reality, the immanent, playing it by ear. One should work rather first on the logic, on the abstract beautiful palace under construction, find out the arguments, select the papers, read the books, take notes, learn, my friends, learn and then come up with a bulletproof theory.
However, the question might be at this point: “What books should I read? “ Ah, this is a good one! I must admit it.
Well, I would say, for sure you should not take a book on knitting, when you are working on gradient flows, but I would also say ... maybe the book on knitting brings something to the table as well, something that you must contemplate, a new approach, a back road, something no one has ever imagined doing. Hahahah let's go buy that book now!
I mean, this is the reason why I firmly believe in the unity of things. (I am not the first one, maybe you should really have a primer on Presocratic philosophy.) Mathematicians should also be philosophers, at least if they aim at accomplishing some extraordinary brand new result while playing around with reality, cosmology, structures, past and present. Mathematicians should be above all curious, cast their net wide, so to say.
What would the issue be if you discover me on some linguistics or on some neuroscience? Anything helps everything! Trust me.
We live in a society with a compartmentalised view of learning and skills. Do we really need it? Is that useful to the marketplace, to the financial markets, to the humanity? I do not think so. Imagine what a salesman equipped with some serious knowledge of neuro-linguistic programming could only achieve!
Great leaders are multi-skilled, geniuses of the past were, inventors were … and are.
Question for the next time: When exactly did creativity turn to a crime and why?
See you next week!
Federica
P.S. Comments and likes are very welcomed.
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