26 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
Mathematics is More Popular Than Music and Art
Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because
languages die and mathematical ideas do not. 'Immortality' may be a silly
word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may
mean."
[* * *]
A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns.
If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are
made with ideas.
[* * *]
The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's,
must be b...Mathematical ideas are more permanent in culture than artistic ones, and more people play in mathematical games without realizing it.
10 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
A Response to Leopold's Description
The passage shows how different aspects of
virtue connect. Patience is part intellectual virtue, part
moral virtue and part physical virtue, as it is portrayed
here. The humility which allows Leopold to lie down
in the muck unselfconsciously is a moral virtue, but
humble recognition of our own ignorance is also a key
intellectual virtue, as Socrates so often reminds us
(see also William Beebe’s description of the ideal
naturalist quoted earlier). Humility also makes
possible Leopold’s aes...Cafaro sees a great deal of virtue in a naturalist's description of getting muddy to witness nature and appreciate it.