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Meaningness's profile
David Chapman
David Chapman
David Chapman
@Meaningness

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David Chapman

@Meaningness

Better ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—around problems of meaning and meaninglessness; self and society; ethics, purpose, and value.

meaningness.com/about-my-sites
Joined September 2010

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    David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 31 Oct 2019
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    David Chapman Retweeted David R. MacIver

    As far as I can tell, the whole job of mathematics professors is to obfuscate the fact that this is a thing. @DRMacIver is a computer scientist and hasn’t been forced to take the sacred vows of silence. Yet. They won’t let him go much furtherhttps://twitter.com/DRMacIver/status/1189827287748927488 …

    David Chapman added,

    David R. MacIver @DRMacIver
    Another thing that's hard to teach is when you need to use a formal proof by induction and when you can just say "and so on", because the dividing line is whether a mathematician would go "yeah that looks about right" and assume they could fill in the details if they wanted.
    Show this thread
    8:24 AM - 31 Oct 2019
    • 4 Retweets
    • 36 Likes
    • Sarah Constantin Janey Muñoz hegelian possum Corn Woman 🌽 Miikka Koskinen Ian Hines Chad Orzel entirelyuseless Emma 😷
    5 replies 4 retweets 36 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Laurens Gunnarsen‏ @MathPrinceps 31 Oct 2019
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        Replying to @Meaningness @DRMacIver

        The sentiment here expressed is no doubt somewhat tongue-in-cheek, so it's unclear how seriously to respond to it. But, for the record, obfuscation is not the whole job of any mathematics professor. Most strive ceaselessly to make themselves clear. (And usually fail, alas.)

        2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
      3. Laurens Gunnarsen‏ @MathPrinceps 31 Oct 2019
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        Replying to @MathPrinceps @Meaningness @DRMacIver

        What is true is that few mathematics professors are willing to confess publicly their private heuristics and intuitions; as Grothendieck once famously lamented, a perverse taboo among them seems to seal their lips on these matters, which, as Leibniz correctly argued, matter most.

        1 reply 1 retweet 14 likes
      4. 17 more replies
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      2. David R. MacIver‏ @DRMacIver 31 Oct 2019
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        Replying to @Meaningness

        I'more qualified to count as a mathematician than a computer scientist! I've got a masters in (mostly pure) mathematics and no formal qualifications in computer science.

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      3. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 31 Oct 2019
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        Replying to @DRMacIver

        Well if you didn’t get to the ritual with the beans and the pointer, you’re still in the dark. Or in the clear, depending on how you look at it. Anyway, tread carefully, because if you reveal too much, you might have an unfortunate accident.

        0 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
      4. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. Szymon Majewski‏ @brewingsense 2 Nov 2019
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        Replying to @Meaningness @DRMacIver

        Indeed. I'm tracking his location right now and reporting to the council.

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      3. David R. MacIver‏ @DRMacIver 2 Nov 2019
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        Replying to @brewingsense @Meaningness

        TBH I'm pretty sure the council considers being a computer scientist punishment enough.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
      4. End of conversation
      1. Pozorvlak‏ @pozorvlak 31 Oct 2019
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        Replying to @Meaningness @DRMacIver

        My undergrad tutor at Oxford would say "by an easy induction...", so he at least taught us that it was a thing. I don't think he gave any specific advice on when it was OK to do, though.

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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      1. Andrei‏ @Andrei39487505 2 Nov 2019
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        Replying to @Meaningness @DRMacIver

        As I like to tell my students, trivial does not mean "a proof is not necessary" but rather "a proof immediately springs into mind". And that depends on the mind.

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