I would still recommend to read Ashby first. It's not a hard reading, however, it sets the philosophical point of view that I share. I still cannot believe that such a remarkable American Philosopher could be so obscure and unknown here. When you read it please do not take it too literally. It is the spirit of his point of view that is important. Burke''s web site has a lot of good books too. Also our "eipiphiny society" ( http://www.eipiphiny.org/ ) is a good source of reading materials as well. I proudly wear its symbol on all of my jackets and appreciate its mission very much.
I disagree in substance (though not in spirit). It's this kind of thinking that got us to where we are today: a country of intuitive feelers (on both sides of political isle). What should be tolerated is reasoned discourse; What shoudl be celebrated is a divergence of view point - but only if such views are in themselves well supported. Ignorance should be persecuted. Not view points are equal. Some are utterly nonsense: I speak of course to the utter hatred for intellect and reason that permutes this board (and especially the econ section).
Yes, I agree, of course, however, offering the podium to all might serve the purpose of exposing the few, don't you think?
Are you close to your family member Edward Lorenz?. dx/dt = s ( y - x ) dy/dt = r x - y - xz dz/dt = xy - b z ó = 10, â = 8 / 3, ñ >= 28
Fantastic. I've placed it at the top of my Goodreads list. I agree -- that's the first time I've heard of Ashby, so I'm glad to have a new facet to explore. Most of the Americans people consider to have made the big contributions to philosophy were Quine, Davidson, Feynman, Kuhn, Rorty, etc. I had an ex-girlfriend who studied something akin to cybernetics ("symbolic systems"); maybe I'll tap her brain about Ashby next time I speak to her. It might put me out of commission for a while in this thread, unless we venture into areas more familiar to me, but I'll enjoy the ride.
Really? Never knew about the safe-cracking, but I've found once some go so deep into academia and tap into the joys of a lifetime of pure discovery, they often end up incredibly quirky. Or maybe larger than life is a better term. His recorded lectures are very entertaining -- great speaker with an interesting personality.
His 'slop' theory of safecracking is fascinating. Someone told me that he could explain / entertain things so clearly that most would understand, but as soon as they left the classroom they'd be totally confused again. He was Reagan's hand picked guy for the investigation of the shuttle disaster too. He explained the whole thing in front of the commission (imagine talking to a herd of monkeys) using a glass of cold water and a piece of the rubber of the same material that failed in the rockets. My favorite genius of all time.
Yes, he was an incredibly brilliant master of popularization! He could present the most complex theories with such simple models that a child could understand them. My favorite prof. Dr. Ioffe (who knew Dr. Feynman) once told me: "If you, young man, cannot explain your findings to your 3 year old daughter then you do not understand them yourself!" He was 84 years old and I was just doing my first Ph.D. I missed him so much!