Log24

"A Phenomenological Perspective,"
Ch. 2 in The Star and the Whole:
Gian-Carlo Rota on Mathematics and Phenomenology ,
by Fabrizio Palombi, A K Peters/CRC Press, 2011—

"Rota is convinced that one of the fundamental tasks of phenomenology is that of highlighting the primordiality of sense. In his words, if 'many disputes among philosophers are disputes about primordiality' then 'phenomenology is yet another dispute about what is most primordial' (Rota, 1991a,* p. 54). In this way he evidently does not intend to deny the existence of matter, of objects, or of that objective dimension proper to science, in favor of a spiritualist option, but rather to posit as primordial another dimension of the world connected with contexts and with roles, which is considered primordial because each one of us is confronted with it primordially."

* The End of Objectivity: The Legacy of Phenomenology ,
Lectures by Rota at MIT 1974-1991, 457 pages,
MIT Mathematics Department, Cambridge, MA

"The Ultimate, Apocalyptic Laptop"
by George Johnson
Published: September 5, 2000, by The New York Times—

"In a paper in the current issue of Nature , Dr. Lloyd describes the ultimate laptop— a computer as powerful as the laws of physics will allow. So energetic is this imaginary machine that using it would be like harnessing a thermonuclear reaction. In the most extreme version of this computer supreme, so much computational circuitry would be packed into so small a space that the whole thing would collapse and form a tiny black hole, an object so dense that not even light can escape its gravity."

Related material: Rota and "Black Hole" in this journal, as well as the Sator Square.

Thanks to Jillian’s Specials for the following quotation:

“… faith is…. validated by individual experience and inspired by epiphanies.”

— “Where Physics Meets Faith,” by Robert C. Cowen, Oct. 21, 2004

Individual Experience:

See, for instance, the link in last Sunday’s entry to a remarkable group-theoretic map.

Epiphanies:

Part I: For Jillian —

(with a nod to Matthew McConaughey and his films Contact and, more recently, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past).

Part II: For a mountaineer–

(with a nod to Tom Hanks and to Gian-Carlo Rota and the Black Hole of Rome (cf. Psychoshop) as well as to the mountains, both real and imagined, in last Sunday’s link “a remarkable group-theoretic map“).