Is it possible?

On the intellectual front, I've started having the very strange feeling that it might actually be possible to refute the diagonal method.

From a political perspective, I know that such a thing is impossible. The fundamental dichotomy of transfinite theory exists because the political forces that dominates academic mathematics want such fundamental dichotomies to exist. Transfinite theory is essentially a political statement. It is impossible to refute a political statement.

Perhaps it would be better to refer to it as a religious statement.

Mathematicians love the paradoxes of transfinite theory because it gives them the ability to take a position on the foundations of mathematics. It is a theory that gives an immediate path into discussions of the philosophic.

The whole point of posting a Critique of the Diagonal Method was simply a quick jab at this boil on the face of mathematics, while I worked on the real contents of the site.

My primary hope in making a parody of the diagonal method was to give heart to the millions of students subjected to the method each year. The diagonal method has probably done more to drive people away from mathematics than any other single cause in the history of mathematics.

Transfinite theory is the beating heart of new math. Transfinite theory led directly to the current epidemic in mathematics illiteracy.

The theory is best described as a disease. The power of the dialectical methods of paradox is that, when you build paradoxes into the foundations of reason, anything you want can be true.

Transfinite theory is from the same generation of thinkers and has the same basic form of both communism and Freudian Psychology. You start by proclaiming the existence of a fundamental dichotomy. You stir in a number of profound insights and with dialectics of paradox, you can create an irrefutable intellectual paradox.

From that point forward, there is simply the matter of defending your interpretation of the paradox. Such activities are considered a plus by many thinkers. The process of defending interpretations of the paradox allows you to filter people by their politics. Such dialectical systems seem to be more about rewarding friends and punishing enemies than they are about the development of positive, productive discourse.

You can not refute theories such as Freudian Psychology or Transfinite theory. You simply have to sit and wait for the world to weary of the method.

The problem, of course, is that there is this massive body of literature on the fundamental dichotomy in transfinite theory. Although the very notion of trying to refute a belief system based on the dialectics of paradox is absurd. I wonder if it might be possible to write something that future historians to use as a basis to explain the disease that overtook mathematics in the modern era.

It really appears that people have tired of Freudian Psychology. There also seems to very small number of academics who question the logical foundations of communism.

Anyway, my mind has been burning with the idea of seriously trying to tackle the theory. Absurd, I know.

I recently read The Meaning of it All by Feyman. The classical analytic approaches used in science are so much more pleasing than the dialectical methods used in math and politics. I've read book after book after book on modern theories. It is gasp of fresh air to read to read about the scientific method...which is the absolute height of classical thinking.

The key to quality analytics is uncertainty. You create logical models that can explain phenomena, but must avoid the temptation of certainty...thinking that you have uncovered the invisible forms behind nature.

Set theory is this game where you wrap the whole intellectual universe in a cloud of ink and paradox so that you can feel smuggly secure in your intellectual invicibility.

I would rather live among the scientists who live with the specter that the next experiment just might prove them wrong, than with the mathematicians who have gained irrefutability by building paradox into the foundations of reason.

First Bid

I had the very first bid for the community adBlock program. I designed the program to be a blind bid process. So, I don't know if the person bid high enough to win the auction.

I decided to lower all of my reserve bids. Before they ranged from $10 to $12 for 1000 page views. I lowered the bidding to $8 to $10. I feel pretty good about the logic for running the bids. I need to rewrite the intro to the process and I need to decide the right amount of communication with the bidders. I hate spam, but we have to some communication to make products work.

My worries about the program vacilate between the fear that I am underselling the sites by having only three ad slots to fear that there is essentially no interest in the slots.

Lost Collar

I took CoCo to the Parley's Hollow unofficial off leash area yesterday.

She was doing a pretty good job not running ahead. We we were about 4/5th of the way to the culvert, she ran ahead. Uncharacteristically, she did not come back when I called. I called for about 4 minutes, and she came back ... without her collar.

So, now I have a strange mystery. What happened to her in those minutes that caused her to lose her collar. Did she get in a tussle with another dog? Did she meet a human that took her collar? Did she crawl under a bush and get the collar snarled in a branch? Does she know some secret collar escape trick, and waited for the opportunity to escape?

I looked for about twenty minutes for the collar but could not find it.

Fortunately, I still have the bright purple collar that you see in the picture to the right. I am not sure if I will have to replace the rabies shot tag.

Marketers are Icky People

Yuck, I just read a marketer forum that was discussing different products for "content generation." You would put in the keywords for the market you are targetting. The programs would spew forth with blather in web pages and blogs. If you lace the cocktail with links to your ad efforts, then the program would theoretically over power the search engines with your machine generated garbage and you would be able to dominate the market.

Marketers really are horrible sick people.

The reason that marketers want blather generating programs that the search engines are getting better at filtering out the white noise that they've been creating with their various mass data replication schemes. Having stuff that the search engines couldn't distinguish from normal writing, will theoretically let them spam the web without getting penalized.

I think there is some open that human edited directories. The problem is, of course, that for each real human edited directory, there's seven or eight pretend human edited directory.

It is more likely that the marketers will simply consume their host (the internet). That would be sad because the internet was shaping up as a nice little tool where small companies and individuals could get their voices heard.

More Community Sites

I added two more sites to my family of web directories: Fort Collins (FtCollinsCo.US) and Durango. It will take awhile before I have enough links in these directories to be interesting, but I really like both of these towns. Anyway, it takes a couple of months for search engines to find new sites. So I figure that's not too big of a problem.

The verdict is in...

And the verdict is in.

"We the jury find the defendent ....


...


...


Silly!

Seems that, once again, the media's eyes apparently are fixated on the worst of our culture.

I view courts simply as a necessary evil, but I guess there's lots of people who loved to watch people being hauled off and judged.

It would be horrible if the view that life was simply a test given to spirit babies so that we can be judged was true.

The media circus around celebrity cases baffles me. I have no interest in the spectacle of judgment. Watching the media circus does give insight in to mantality of those who enjoy standing around the accused and wait for the judges nod to start hucking their stones.

Righteous Court

This is an interesting news item: In Ashcroft v. Raich, the Supreme Court is stretching the definition of internet commerce to the max to overturn the California medical marijuana act. The ruling is that simple existence affects efforts to control interstate commerce. Even a patient with a doctor's prescription who grows a plant in their home and uses the plant in their home is engaged in regulated interstate commerce. Very odd.

I am with conservatives on the need to reign in the activist Supreme Court. It seems to me that too many things that should be decided on the state and local levels are being dictated by courts. Stretching the Constitution to say that existence is interstate commerce wreaks of activism.

I've been hoping Bush would appoint judges set on legal reform, It will be interesting to see if the court does reform or if it simply leaps from "left" activism to "right" activism.

Ad Blocks

In the ongoing struggle to figure out how to make ends meet, I decided to add a bid for placement game to my community web sites. The front page of the site tends to get the most traffic. On that page, I placed an "ad block" with three slots. People in the community can bid for those three slots. It will be interesting to see if any one does. Here a list of the sites in the program.

As you can see, I don't have a lot of traffic. At the moment, the adBlock is live on ten different pages (whoopie!). To average page views per day for these ten pages is just over 500. So, if the three ads paid $10 per 1000 page views. I would be collection ($10 * 3)/(500/1000) = $15 a day!!!! Not minimum wage, but in Bush's America that is a lot for an independently owned organization.

During the beta test, I set reserve at $10 to $12 per 1000 ad views. I will probably drop the reserves when I feel comfortable with the whole process.

I think the ad block idea is a good way to handle bid for placement on small sites. If people like the ad block program. I will open source the code for it.

Mais, non.

I can't help but feel happy that the French said "non" to the EU Constitution. The pundits are all saying that the Constitution is too free market and not socialistic enough...I suspect, however that the reason for the "non" is that people are seeing that the march toward the EU is decreasing the ability of people to participate in the government decisions that affect them.

On the home front, I admit I would also feel a bit of glee if the Congress rejected the Bolton nomination. I think the US should have a strong willed diplomat whose eyes are on reforming the UN. However, the fact that so many US diplomats can't stand the guy, really indicates to me that Bolton is too much an abrasive iconoclast for the job.

I am always happy when the people's will stops the plans set by the empowered elite.

Now, if only more Muslims denied Al Quaida and the PLO, and if the Isrealis rejected the plans of Sharon and their ideologues, then we could have a few years of peace and prosperity.