re: .sig
Brian Fenton (fentonb@mathds1.maths.ul.ie)
Wed, 12 Nov 1997 12:09:52 +0000 (WET)
Jessica wrote on Friday Nov 7th 1997:
>brian....
>
>is that a play on Descartes? "I feel, therefore I am." -me sounds a bit
>like "cogito, ergo sum," Descartes philosophy (translated as "I think,
>therefore I am) guess i am learning something in this philosophy class
>after all!
Well it's not a play on Descartes - it's actually my own philosophy.
I call it schmealism.
I wanted to write it in Latin but I don't know much. I guess it could be
"fellatio, ergo sum" but I'm not 100% if that's right. ;)
Seiously though, as a mathematician, I had Descartes imprinted on my
conscious to a scary degree, and it's only in recent years as I look at
the history of maths and logic that I see the profound impact he and
Aristotle before him had on society as a whole. I don't really know
enough of my facts (when has that ever stopped me?), but I'll try and
throw some sort of excuse or reason at you.
Firstly, it's probably a rebellious statement of sorts for
numerous, both personal and public, reasons (I'm an INTP, a mathematician,
I was brought up a Roman Catholic, stereotyped as a bivalent thinker
and feeler etc.) I may be a logical, even a linear thinker, but that
does not disallow me from emotions as wild as my drunken eyes. It's just
trying to encourage the pendulum to swing in the other direction a little.
I was going to launch into a huge theory there about Aristotle,
fuzzy logic, matriarchal society, the Catholic church, Freemasonry and
Bill Gates, but I really have to go to the bathroom. Ah well, maybe another
time . . . . .
cheers, Brian
PS by the time I read your mail, I had actually changed my .sig. Isn't
it ironic? I prefer the new one - it's nice and bitter :@
--
Brian
fentonb@mathds1.ul.ie
VENEER homepage: http://mathds1.ul.ie:8080/
--"Drop"-------------------------------------------------------
"all the love in an instant,
makes my life stop,
but then my hate for you,
makes the feelings of together drop"
-------------------------------------Red House Painters-------