Post AjU6avQ0NsofIE5KKW by irizoris@hcommons.social
(DIR) More posts by irizoris@hcommons.social
(DIR) Post #AjU3z5b3tRdJwq5TUm by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-07-01T10:33:12Z
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Does anyone know of a good book or biography of Cantor? I've always found the way his struggles with mental illness were discussed to be a little ... flip."He thought about infinity too much and went CRAZY"It's reductive, and plays into the mystique and fear-mongering around mathematics. (That acts as a kind of gatekeeping and is bad.) While stigmatizing and abstracting mental illness. 1/
(DIR) Post #AjU4L6bGqLrLQlgPpY by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-07-01T10:37:07Z
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That all said, I don't think the mental illness, & distinct from mental illness but intersecting, neuroatypicality are irrelevant to human creativity and scientific advancement. I would like to know if Cantor was captivated by infinity, in part because of his "melancholy" or was mathematics a way to escape?It's obvious that without "special interests" we'd know much less about the world. It's good that all minds do not work in the same way, even though atypical thinking can be a struggle. 2/2
(DIR) Post #AjU4SJg0ckFW0uL0m8 by caranmegil@sencha.house
2024-07-01T10:37:59.449Z
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@futurebird@sauropods.win i remember learning about cantor with my undergraduate informatics degree. however, learning he has probably been diagnosed with "cyclic manic depression" (bipolar disorder in modern terms) makes me feel more connected considering i know of another historically important person had what i had. thank you for bringing this up and i'll keep an eye out for any good biographies on him.
(DIR) Post #AjU5atEKQ8FYYH2hAe by lienrag@mastodon.tedomum.net
2024-07-01T10:51:11Z
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@futurebird It's not really an analysis, but have you read Logicomix ?
(DIR) Post #AjU67gtlI4MjrV3zVI by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-07-01T10:57:09Z
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@lienrag I have not, but I'm putting it on order in the NYPL right now! Looks fun.
(DIR) Post #AjU6avQ0NsofIE5KKW by irizoris@hcommons.social
2024-07-01T11:02:26Z
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@futurebird Not a biography of Cantor but a book about infinity that features Cantor: Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity, by David Foster Wallace.https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393339284
(DIR) Post #AjU6dYhhIEotiIcG2K by lienrag@mastodon.tedomum.net
2024-07-01T11:02:54Z
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@futurebird I was a bit disappointed that they didn't delve deeper into their main (and most original) hypothesis, but the book is quite good anyway.
(DIR) Post #AjU7Tw8DR0LJQozmfQ by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2024-07-01T11:12:21Z
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@futurebird Boltzmann gets similar treatment, mostly because of one famous joke in a textbook.
(DIR) Post #AjUCPZowwWgqqfiyYa by Elias@kosmos.social
2024-07-01T12:06:39Z
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@futurebird https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/Asellus_aquaticus_Wasserassel.jpg/300px-Asellus_aquaticus_Wasserassel.jpg
(DIR) Post #AjUc4VilaWiYrPRpJ2 by jbcrail@mastodon.social
2024-07-01T16:54:59Z
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@futurebird As a neurodivergent with a mathematics background and side interests in mathematics' intersection with philosophy and history, Cantor has always fascinated me. Inspired by your post, I found an excellent biographical paper, "Towards a biography of Georg Cantor" (1971), covering his life, work, and mental illness in a sensitive yet balanced way:https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1080/00033797100203837
(DIR) Post #AjUdB4oQ8I6tNxmro0 by jbcrail@mastodon.social
2024-07-01T16:57:09Z
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@futurebird Summary from the paper: "The great influence of Georg Cantor's theory of sets and transfinite arithmetic has led to a considerable interest in his life. It is well known that he had a remarkable and unusual personality, and that he suffered from attacks of mental illness; but the 'popular'' account of his life is richer in falsehood and distortion than in factual content."
(DIR) Post #Ajubl0HaInqCapdZfE by dahukanna@mastodon.social
2024-07-14T05:54:09Z
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@futurebird Question: How do we know or measure the degree someone is “neurotypical/neurodiverse” other than behavior observed + judged + categorized by others?Question: What or who is the “typical” baseline reference used to compare all who “diverge” from it?Opnionated observation: The adjectivial labels “neurotypical/neurodiverse” are usually applied as societal “match/acceptance” categorization, rather than only descriptive.
(DIR) Post #AjunicdMSJlu7PSDEO by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-07-14T08:08:09Z
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@dahukanna Ideally self-reporting of a "problem" should be part of such descriptions. Eg. the person themselves says they are having a hard time coping because of their mind. (And Cantor did say things along these lines)In practice though there can be pressures and standards to meet that make this encompass just difference rather than disorder.