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Wednesday, November 19, 2003

I finished reading David Foster Wallace's everything and more [See Notes]. The story provides an extremely one sided view of history with Aristotle (and his bastard child logic) as the greatest enemies of civilization. Zeno, Plato, Hegel, Cantor and that crowd are the greatest champions of truth (I should say truth after it is properly redefined) Justice (again, justice after it is properly sanitized) and the academic way.

Anyway, I now need to take a couple days and write a rebuttal in which the people who have defended logic, liberty and the individuals are the heros. The problem is that Cantor has given us such a twisted view of the infinite that it is extremely difficult to unravel. Discussions about the transfinite simply turn into shouting matches with one group saying "I can see the completed infinity." the other group saying "no, I cannot." I guess I should add a third group. The Wittgenstein's who know the whole thing was just a game.

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