Published on 12, July, 2020
I decided that I needed a new book to read and managed to find one on my bookshelf that I’d only half read so thought I’d finish it off: Tower, An epic History of the Tower of London by Nigel Jones. I just wondered what everyone else is reading at the moment? What does everyone else like to read?
Currently in various stages of progress:
* The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric by Sister Miriam Joseph.
* Understanding Numbers in Elementary School Mathematics by Hung-Hsi Wu.
* Teaching Students How To Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate in Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills and Motivation by Saundra Yancy McGuire, Stephanie McGuire.
* Metaphysics: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) by Stephen Mumford.
* The course texts for the OU course I'm registered on that starts properly at the beginning of February.
That all sounds very philosophical. I hope that you enjoy reading them and doing your course. I need to get back into studying again at some point, maybe once the youngest starts school. What course are you going to be studying?
Finished the metaphysics book. Quite interesting - philosophy not been too much my thing in the past. Rather than trying to explain what metaphysics is, he has a question a chapter and then looks at what you can say about that question from a metaphysical perspective. Seems like there are lots of different "camps" in metaphysics! But just because there are no agreed answers doesn't mean the questions aren't worth asking.
What do you think of Roger Penrose's approach that consciousness and, therefore, ideas originate from the quantum world via microtubules? This would link in with Gödel's assertion that one can never prove a system of logic (including maths) from within the rules of the system, even though they are true insofar as they work, but that one has to step outside of the rules of the system to see that a proof is possible? Now where would that come from? Not from a computability model, surely? In other words, a system of rules can never prove itself without an attending consciousness?
It's quite small, so handy for your situation, plus it's an interesting book. I have the Cambridge University Press version 978-0-521-42706-7 which has quite an extensive forward by C. P. Snow.
Thank you for the book tip
I'm interested in Physics to a degree, but I don't really have the urge/time to get massively current on it, but I like to keep a vague eye on the goings-on.
There's a bit in:
A Mathematican's Apology by G. H. Hardy:
where he talks about the fact that mathematical theorems are however known to be true and for all time.
Thank you for explaining further. I think it’s the case with all science from physics through to philosophy. We can have good evidence in support of a model/theory but not proof per se and we can also see that the current model/theory is perhaps not the best if you start getting results that you wouldn’t get if it were ‘correct’. I did a bit of physics several years ago as part of a science module with the Open university. Is Physics an interest of yours then?