A review of two theories of truth described
by a clergyman, Richard J. Trudeau, in
The Non-Euclidean Revolution—
"But, I asked, is there a difference
between fiction and nonfiction?
'Not much,' she said, shrugging."
— New Yorker profile of tesseract
author Madeleine L'Engle
(Click image for some background.)
See also the links on a webpage at finitegeometry.org.
(A sequel to the previous post, "What's Up?")
From a search in this journal for "Theories of Truth" —
"According to a platonist about arithmetic,
the truth of the sentence ‘7 is prime’ entails
the existence of an abstract object , the number 7.
This object is abstract because it has no spatial
or temporal location, and is causally inert."
— Alex Miller in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"Causally inert? " . . . See Maori Chess.
ART WARS
The Rhetoric of Power:
A meditation for Mental Health Month
From “Secondary Structures,” by Tom Moody, Sculpture Magazine, June 2000:
“By the early ’90s, the perception of Minimalism as a ‘pure’ art untouched by history lay in tatters. The coup de grâce against the movement came not from an artwork, however, but from a text. Shortly after the removal of Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc from New York City’s Federal Plaza, Harvard art historian Anna Chave published ‘Minimalism and the Rhetoric of Power’ (Arts Magazine, January 1990), a rousing attack on the boys’ club that stops just short of a full-blown ad hominem rant. Analyzing artworks (Walter de Maria’s aluminum swastika, Morris’s ‘carceral images,’ Flavin’s phallic ‘hot rods’), critical vocabulary (Morris’s use of ‘intimacy’ as a negative, Judd’s incantatory use of the word ‘powerful’), even titles (Frank Stella’s National Socialist-tinged Arbeit Macht Frei and Reichstag), Chave highlights the disturbing undercurrents of hypermasculinity and social control beneath Minimalism’s bland exterior. Seeing it through the eyes of the ordinary viewer, she concludes that ‘what [most] disturbs [the public at large] about Minimalist art may be what disturbs them about their own lives and times, as the face it projects is society’s blankest, steeliest face; the impersonal face of technology, industry and commerce; the unyielding face of the father: a face that is usually far more attractively masked.’ ”
From Maureen Dowd’s New York Times column of June 9, 2002:
“The shape of the government is not as important as the policy of the government. If he makes the policy aggressive and pre-emptive, the president can conduct the war on terror from the National Gallery of Art.”
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From the New York Times, The National Gallery of Art in Washington has just acquired Tony Smith’s first steel sculpture: “Die,” created in 1962 and fabricated in 1968. “It’s a seminal icon of postwar American art,” said Earl A. Powell III, director of the National Gallery. |
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Die (Tony Smith) |
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Bishop Moore |
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From a New York Times obituary, Bishop Dies Paul Moore Jr., the retired Episcopal bishop of New York who for more than a decade was the most formidable liberal Christian voice in the city, died yesterday at home in Greenwich Village. He was 83…. Bishop Moore argued for his agenda in the most Christian of terms, refusing to cede Biblical language to the Christian right. Although he retired as bishop in 1989, he continued to speak out, taking to the pulpit of his former church as recently as March 24, even as illness overtook him, to protest the war in Iraq. “It appears we have two types of religion here,” the bishop said, aiming his sharpest barbs at President Bush. “One is a solitary Texas politician who says, `I talk to Jesus, and I am right.’ The other involves millions of people of all faiths who disagree.” He added: “I think it is terrifying. I believe it will lead to a terrible crack in the whole culture as we have come to know it.”…. [In reference to another question] Bishop Moore later acknowledged that his rhetoric was strong, but added, “In this city you have to speak strongly to be heard.” Paul Moore’s early life does not immediately suggest an affinity for the kinds of social issues that he would later champion…. His grandfather was one of the founders of Bankers Trust. His father was a good friend of Senator Prescott Bush, whose son, George H. W. Bush, and grandson, George W. Bush, would become United States presidents. |
Related material (update of May 12, 2003):
Question:
Which of the two theories of truth in reading (2) above is exemplified by Moore’s March 24 remarks?
Rebecca Goldstein
at Heaven’s Gate
This entry is in gratitude for Rebecca Goldstein’s
excellent essay
in The New York Times of December 16, 2002.
She talks about the perennial conflict between two theories of truth that Richard Trudeau called the “story theory” and the “diamond theory.” My entry of December 13, 2002, “Rhyme Scheme,” links the word “real” to an article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that contains the following:
“According to a platonist about arithmetic, the truth of the sentence ‘7 is prime’ entails the existence of an abstract object, the number 7. This object is abstract because it has no spatial or temporal location, and is causally inert. A platonic realist about arithmetic will say that the number 7 exists and instantiates the property of being prime independently of anyone’s beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and so on. A certain kind of nominalist rejects the existence claim which the platonic realist makes: there are no abstract objects, so sentences such as ‘7 is prime’ are false…”
This discussion of “sevenness,” along with the discussion of “eightness” in my December 14, 2002, note on Bach, suggest that I supply a transcription of a note in my paper journal from 2001 that deals with these matters.
From a paper journal note of October 5, 2001:
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The 2001 Silver Cup Award Glynis Johns is 78 today. “Seven is heaven, “There is no highway in the sky.” “Don’t give up until you See also page |
Added 12/17/02: See also
the portrait of Rebecca Goldstein in
Hadassah Magazine
Volume
78
Number 10
(June/July 1997).
For more on the Jewish propensity to
assign mystical significance to numbers, see
Rabbi Zwerin’s Kol Nidre Sermon.
For the significance of “seven” in Judaism, see
Zayin: The Woman of Valor.
For the significance of “eight” in Judaism, see
Chet: The Life Dynamic.
For the cabalistic significance of
“Seven is heaven, Eight is a gate,”
note that Zayin, Seven, signifies
“seven chambers of Paradise”
and that Chet, Eight, signifies
the “gateway to infinity.”
For the significance of the date 12.17, see
Tet: The Concealed Good.
Swashbucklers and Misfits
There are two theories of truth, according to a a book on the history of geometry —
The “Story Theory” and the “Diamond Theory.”
For those who prefer the story theory…
From a review by Brian Hayes of A Beautiful Mind:
“Mathematical genius is rare enough. Cloaked in madness, or wrapped in serious eccentricity, it’s the stuff legends are made of.
There are brilliant and productive mathematicians who go to the office from nine to five, play tennis on the weekend, and worry about fixing the gearbox in the Volvo. Not many of them become the subjects of popular biographies. Instead we read about the great swashbucklers and misfits of mathematics, whose stories combine genius with high romance or eccentricity.”
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Russell Crowe, |
Marilyn |
Hollywood has recently given us a mathematical Russell Crowe. For a somewhat tougher sell, Marilyn Monroe as a mathematician, see “Insignificance,” 1985: “Marilyn Monroe on her hands and knees explains the theory of relativity to Albert Einstein.”
For a combination of misfit and swashbuckler in one Holy Name, see today’s earlier note, “The Artist’s Signature.”
See also my note of October 4, 2002, on Michelangelo, and the description of “the face of God” in this review.
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