Search
1000 results for “inherentlee”
-
This idea from Matt #Goodwin is one of the most dangerous discussions taking place in the #USA.
The Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers. It began with journals, conferences and confident men insisting that science reveals biological truths about human difference. It began with the normalisation of the idea that some groups were inherently inferior, incompatible, or parasitic.
#Miller is already using this, and US dictators will use it to grow a #Nazi regime in the US.
-
@AlexanderKingsbury I continue upon my journey of understanding the consequences of #capitalism and have identified #deadlines #procrastination #consolation #hierarchy and more topics as inherently capitalist. I also believe that the suppression of true friendships in the real world is also a symptom of capitalism and would not exist under #degrowth #ecologism movements.
-
RE: https://ecoevo.social/@benlockwood/116456613752192158
Dr. Lockwood has a sound point.
Mastery-based #education has been shown to be more effective: Instead of holding fixed the duration to learn and varying the #learning outcomes (an inherently and irremediably classist and ableist colonial norm), vary the duration to learn and hold fixed the outcome of topic mastery.
Learning only happens on the output side, but grade-based learning doesn’t promote learning: It promotes playing the system to maximize grades. Eliminate grades, and replace the competition and social sorting with cooperation and constructive education, and you get more learned students.
Only trouble is, the ruling class controlling educational policy consider the social sorting a feature, not a bug: It is selective for their own children against others, thus reducing competition in the higher-paying and more power-proximate labour market. The resulting inequity is the system working as intended.
Consider: who gets to provide their children unlimited access to predictably quiet and peaceful spaces, private tutoring, and anything else they need to maximize grades?
Conveniently for most of them, due to the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status this social sorting reinforces, graded education also upholds white supremacy. Also conveniently for the most powerful of them, it bolsters #patriarchy and #eugenics as well.
It should thus come as no surprise that the ruling class are promoting #AI — particularly, “generative” “AI” (read: plagiaristic content synthesis). By offering a shortcut to output without the cognitive effort to come up with said output themselves, it sabotages learning.
Since children of poor and working-class families are most strapped for learning-conducive space and time, they’re most pressured to use #genAI. It is therefore their education most sabotaged in early grades, and them most likely to face expulsion from #PSE for #plagiarism if their AI-generated homework gets them admission.
-
Three fads from yesteryear… Weekly Recap 5/4/2026
Why is childhood marked with fads? Maybe it’s a new game, a clothing style, or a collectible item—something catches the attention of kids (perhaps a few adults, too) and they all become obsessed with it.
Labubu… Pop-Its… Funko Pops… fidget toys of all kinds… I can now safely say I’ve been immune. And at this point, the only reaction they get from me is a slow blink or a raised eyebrow.
I struggle to see the appeal. Does everyone liking or having something make it inherently more desirable? I think not.
But this was not always the case. No… no… I fell victim to many fads as a child.
And from the multitude, I have selected three.
Pogs
Cardboard circles with graphics printed on them. Stack them up and throw the metal “slammer” at the pile to… I don’t know… were you supposed to flip them over? Nobody ever explained the rules to me. I had a couple of plastic tubes full of these things—for some reason, it gave me satisfaction to just look at them.
At one point or another, it was explained to me that some people “played for keeps.” I was also told that *this was a form of gambling* and, therefore, I was not allowed to participate. I could own pogs, but not play pogs.
Crazy Bones
This was a trend I tried to participate in, but never really understood. Lumps of hard plastic shaped into strange characters. To this day, I have no idea what you were supposed to do with them. Did you throw them? Bounce them? Flip them? Surely there was some sort of game to play. In fact, I can faintly remember instructions being printed on the package, but it never made sense to me.
I can remember taking my hard-earned monies to the toy store, buying packs of Crazy Bones, opening them, and then thinking: “huh?” I wanted to get on board, but I think the train left without me. Over a few months, I continued to buy packs—perhaps thinking one of them would hold the answer of why they were popular. I ended up throwing them all in a drawer one day and then forgot about them.
Pokemon Cards
If ever there was something I was really “die hard” for… it was Pokemon. The video games, the trading cards, the merchandise… I even went to a few conventions.
I never actually learned the official rules of the card game, so I developed my own way of playing. Of course, I never had anyone to play against, so it was just me with a bunch of cards spread out on the floor pretending to battle an opponent. Wait, wait… I know that sounds really pathetic, so before you judge… let me tell you the bright side: I never lost.
Somewhere, there is a bright red box full of about 1000 Pokemon cards, including the entire base set and a bunch of first editions. It was in a closet at my parents’ house… I’m pretty sure it’s worth money now. Maybe I should go find it.
Okay, yes. This fad never left me. Selene and I spent years playing Pokemon Go. And a few months ago, I replayed through one of the Gameboy games.
I will always be a Pokemon Master. No one can take that away from me.
What was your childhood fad?
Daily writing prompt What’s a thing you were completely obsessed with as a kid? View all responsesGood morning and happy Monday, friends.
Happy Beltane! Happy start of May!
- New Article: A Year in Review: 2025 – 2026
- New M3 Episode: Amber Rae, Conservation Art, and the Floridian Mythos
Well, I got some fun content out this past week. If you’d like to see a highlight of my accomplishments over the last year, then please join me for my “A Year in Review” post. It’s tradition! If you’d like to catch a brand new episode of M3, then go watch my chat with Amber Rae. Both are conveniently linked above.
The good news first! I’m now completely done with my Spring semester. I just finished up a very, very dull research paper. Grades haven’t been finalized yet, but I know I’ll be pleased with my performance.
Of course, there is one thing left: a course evaluation. I was trying to give the professor the benefit of the doubt, but since they’ve basically ghosted me, I fully intend to tell them what I really think. My dissatisfaction is about to take the form of a dozen small circles with ratings between “5 (Strongly Agree)” and “1 (Strongly Disagree)”—you can bet I’ll be strongly disagreeing with a lot.
In other news, I was sent a delightful review of my book from Lady Serpent of The Keeper’s Path.
You can go and read the full review or… buy the book for yourself and write your own.
I’ve got some speaking engagements coming up soon, so I’m sure you’ll hear more about that in the near future.
Now for the bad news: No fun food pics or anything to show off this week. We had to pop over to the west coast of Florida for the weekend and just returned last night.
Okay, okay… I hear you. Here’s a picture of Loki to tide you over until next time.
I have about 2 weeks until the start of my Summer semester. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some cool stuff done before then.
Stay tuned for more soon!
#1990 #90s #childhood #crazyBones #dailyprompt #dailyprompt2758 #fad #loki #pogs #pokemon #pokemonCards #trends #updates -
I dunno. #GenAI strikes me as orthogonal to #UX. Interacting with some #GenAI system is like standing in line at the DMV and when your number is finally called, you get to the counter and the clerk is a trainee on LSD and your case is the case they’re training on. That ain’t UX, it’s #XU, as in ex-user. *You* don’t get value out of the system, you are supposed to add value to *it*. AI is inherently user-hostile imho.
-
I dunno. #GenAI strikes me as orthogonal to #UX. Interacting with some #GenAI system is like standing in line at the DMV and when your number is finally called, you get to the counter and the clerk is a trainee on LSD and your case is the case they’re training on. That ain’t UX, it’s #XU, as in ex-user. *You* don’t get value out of the system, you are supposed to add value to *it*. AI is inherently user-hostile imho.
-
I dunno. #GenAI strikes me as orthogonal to #UX. Interacting with some #GenAI system is like standing in line at the DMV and when your number is finally called, you get to the counter and the clerk is a trainee on LSD and your case is the case they’re training on. That ain’t UX, it’s #XU, as in ex-user. *You* don’t get value out of the system, you are supposed to add value to *it*. AI is inherently user-hostile imho.
-
I dunno. #GenAI strikes me as orthogonal to #UX. Interacting with some #GenAI system is like standing in line at the DMV and when your number is finally called, you get to the counter and the clerk is a trainee on LSD and your case is the case they’re training on. That ain’t UX, it’s #XU, as in ex-user. *You* don’t get value out of the system, you are supposed to add value to *it*. AI is inherently user-hostile imho.
-
Turning a Pair of Syringes into a Tiny Water Pump - There is something inherently fascinating about tiny mechanical devices, especiall... - https://hackaday.com/2022/07/31/turning-a-pair-of-syringes-into-a-tiny-water-pump/ #centrifugalpump #waterpump #syringe #parts
-
@elduvelle Behavior is inherently equifinal. Many neurophysiological processes can lead to the same behavior.
The physical path of #VTE (pause and orient back and forth) is *correlated* with but not identical to the neurophysiological process of #VTE (vicariously trying out options; planning; deliberation).
Other pause and reorient behaviors include trying to see better cues [visual discrimination] (Bett et al 2012: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2012.00070/full) and identifying new events/positions to put onto the map (Monaco et al 2014: https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.3687). The Monaco et al head-scanning includes a lot of rearing events.
Interestingly, the pause-and-reorient behaviors (PARs) in this paper (George et al 2023: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166432823001286) include rearing, which deliberative VTE doesn't seem to.
Nevertheless, a fascinating contribution to the literature. I'm particularly intrigued by the evidence that these behaviors predict future performance.
-
"There’s no world where '86' is inherently a violent demand that someone be killed. ...
The DOJ would essentially have to show that by taking a picture of someone else’s beach musings, Comey intended both that Trump would understand this as an imminent threat and fear for his life," (continued in /2)
~ Lisa Needham
#Trump #JamesComey #ToddBlanche #KashPatel #DOJ #seashells #SeashellThreat #DeadlySeashells #stupidity #weaponization
/1 -
"There’s no world where '86' is inherently a violent demand that someone be killed. ...
The DOJ would essentially have to show that by taking a picture of someone else’s beach musings, Comey intended both that Trump would understand this as an imminent threat and fear for his life," (continued in /2)
~ Lisa Needham
#Trump #JamesComey #ToddBlanche #KashPatel #DOJ #seashells #SeashellThreat #DeadlySeashells #stupidity #weaponization
/1 -
"There’s no world where '86' is inherently a violent demand that someone be killed. ...
The DOJ would essentially have to show that by taking a picture of someone else’s beach musings, Comey intended both that Trump would understand this as an imminent threat and fear for his life," (continued in /2)
~ Lisa Needham
#Trump #JamesComey #ToddBlanche #KashPatel #DOJ #seashells #SeashellThreat #DeadlySeashells #stupidity #weaponization
/1 -
"There’s no world where '86' is inherently a violent demand that someone be killed. ...
The DOJ would essentially have to show that by taking a picture of someone else’s beach musings, Comey intended both that Trump would understand this as an imminent threat and fear for his life," (continued in /2)
~ Lisa Needham
#Trump #JamesComey #ToddBlanche #KashPatel #DOJ #seashells #SeashellThreat #DeadlySeashells #stupidity #weaponization
/1 -
RE: https://greennuclear.online/@collectifission/116020506999740387
"Although past advanced reactor projects have been for solely experimental, testing and demonstration purposes, the advanced fuel forms, inherently safe designs, and inventories of potential fission products associated with these reactors indicate that reactors in this category developed for additional purposes, such as power production and industrial applications, are also appropriate for this categorical exclusion".
-
RE: https://greennuclear.online/@collectifission/116020506999740387
"Although past advanced reactor projects have been for solely experimental, testing and demonstration purposes, the advanced fuel forms, inherently safe designs, and inventories of potential fission products associated with these reactors indicate that reactors in this category developed for additional purposes, such as power production and industrial applications, are also appropriate for this categorical exclusion".
-
#Entrevista – Más allá del Firewall: Por qué la Inteligencia de Amenazas es la nueva ventaja estratégica
Andrea Fernández, directiva de Kaspersky, analiza la peligrosa brecha entre la percepción de seguridad y la realidad técnica en el país. En un contexto donde se confunde lo reactivo con lo proactivo, el desafío no es solo presupuestario, sino cultural: aprender a anticipar amenazas antes de que el incidente sea inevitable.
1. Sobre la «Proactividad de Fachada»: el informe menciona que el 50% de las empresas argentinas se definen como ‘proactivas’, pero muchas carecen de herramientas básicas como firewalls o antivirus. ¿Considera que esta brecha es puramente por falta de presupuesto o existe un exceso de confianza derivado de no comprender las amenazas actuales?».
Andrea Fernández: Si bien en algunos casos puntuales puede deberse a restricciones presupuestarias, en la mayoría de las empresas esa brecha responde a una falencia en la toma de conciencia sobre las amenazas reales. Muchas veces se pospone o dilata la capacitación necesaria para anticipar y prevenir situaciones críticas de seguridad.
2. Claridad Conceptual y Educación: «El estudio revela que un 38% de los encuestados clasifica el antivirus como una herramienta proactiva cuando es reactiva. Ante esta confusión terminológica, ¿qué pasos está dando Kaspersky para educar a los niveles directivos (C-Level) y que no solo los técnicos entiendan la diferencia entre protegerse de lo conocido y anticipar lo desconocido?»Andrea Fernández: Nosotros, apoyados por nuestros equipos de canales, capacitamos de manera constante a nuestros socios de negocios para que sean auténticos consultores de confianza, capaces de hacerse cargo de la gestión de ciberseguridad de nuestros clientes. Tenemos un programa llamado Kaspersky Elite Advisors, integrado por los mejores recursos de nuestros partners, para que ellos sean habilitadores de negocio y logren concientizar a todos los tomadores de decisiones sobre la importancia de contar con una estrategia de ciberseguridad y con un aliado estratégico como Kaspersky. Hoy, los riesgos de convertirse en blanco de ataques son cada vez más altos y la dinámica de los ciberdelincuentes va mutando en forma constante apuntando a diferentes sectores y eslabones de la cadena productiva.
3. El Valor de la Inteligencia de Amenazas: «Casi la mitad de las empresas en el país no utiliza Inteligencia de Amenazas. Para una organización que hoy solo tiene una defensa básica, ¿cuál es el argumento de negocio más sólido para invertir en este tipo de inteligencia antes de sufrir un incidente?»
Andrea Fernández: Parte del problema radica en una confusión que va más allá de la tecnología porque como lo resalta el estudio CISO Survey, en Argentina 38% de los encuestados considera que el antivirus es una herramienta proactiva, lo que evidencia una interpretación limitada. El antivirus, como el firewall, cumple una función indispensable, pero inherentemente reactiva y en contraste, tecnologías como EDR o XDR -que sí poseen Inteligencia de amenazas- representan precisamente lo contrario: sistemas que permiten monitorear de forma continua lo que ocurre en los equipos y detectar comportamientos anómalos para contener un incidente antes de que escale. A pesar de ello, estas soluciones aún son percibidas por una parte de las organizaciones como herramientas reactivas, lo que refuerza la confusión sobre lo que implica una defensa verdaderamente proactiva. En ese punto es donde la inteligencia de amenazas deja de ser un concepto técnico y se convierte en una ventaja estratégica. No se trata únicamente de recolectar información sobre posibles ataques, sino de traducirla en contexto, anticipación y toma de decisiones. Una organización que integra inteligencia de amenazas no solo reacciona mejor: reduce la superficie de riesgo e identifica vectores emergentes con base en evidencia.
4. El Futuro de la Estrategia Proactiva: «Usted menciona que la proactividad no es solo tener herramientas, sino la capacidad de actuar antes de que el incidente escale. En un contexto de ataques cada vez más veloces e industriales, ¿cuál debería ser el primer cambio cultural que debe ocurrir en una empresa argentina para pasar de la ‘defensa pasiva’ a una postura de cacería de amenazas?»Andrea Fernández: Para el liderazgo empresarial, el desafío es cambiar la pregunta: no se trata solo de qué tan rápido puede reaccionar la organización ante una ciberamenaza, sino de qué tan preparada está para detectar señales tempranas, anticipar escenarios y reducir la probabilidad de que los problemas escalen. No basta con acumular tecnología; es necesario ordenar prioridades, alinear al liderazgo y construir capacidades que evolucionen con el nivel de madurez de la organización.
5. Sobre el impacto de la IA y el futuro: «Usted ha mencionado que la IA está acelerando la sofisticación de los ataques, permitiendo malware autónomo y phishing casi indetectable. Desde su visión personal, ¿cree que estamos llegando a un punto donde la ciberseguridad será una ‘guerra de algoritmos’ donde el humano solo supervisará, o seguirá siendo el factor humano —y su educación— la última línea de defensa infranqueable?»Andrea Fernández: Hoy la IA puede ser utilizada por compañías como Kaspersky para potenciar sus herramientas de detección y mejorar las herramientas de ciberseguridad, pero también es aprovechada por los ciberdelincuentes para lanzar ataques más sofisticados. Sin lugar a dudas, el factor humano tiene un papel fundamental en la protección de las empresas pero también, en la vulnerabilidad de las mismas.
#andreaFernandez #arielmcorg #ciberseguridad #IA #infosertec #kaspersky #PORTADA -
Orthodox Pravda: Christ Is Risen — On the Judaization of Western Christianity and the Orthodox Witness Against It
OpenAI Text Summary
The ongoing debate surrounding the relationship between Christianity and Jewish scripture has grown increasingly complex over recent decades, with critics like Laurent Guyénot arguing that Christianity did not merely absorb Jewish texts but was, in its very essence, molded by them. This perspective suggests that the core tenets of Christianity—such as notions of divine election and messianic expectation—reflect a deeper Jewish influence that has shaped Western civilization. Guyénot posits that Christianity became the primary conduit through which Jewish metaphysical concepts were disseminated to Gentile cultures. This appropriation, he argues, led to a civilization that, while claiming to worship a universal God of love, effectively organized itself around Jewish messianic aspirations. Such claims, while provocative, warrant careful scrutiny, particularly in the context of differing interpretations within the Christian tradition itself.
Guyénot’s analysis operates on two levels: one historical and one theological. He outlines a historical trajectory wherein the Latin Church gradually compromised its original theological foundations, becoming increasingly intertwined with the Jewish tradition it initially sought to transcend. However, he also asserts that Christianity inherently bore the Jewish imprint from its inception. Critics argue that this latter claim lacks sufficient evidence, suggesting instead that the issues Guyénot raises are symptomatic of a divergence within Christianity itself, particularly between Western and Orthodox traditions. The Orthodox Church, they argue, has consistently maintained a distinct theological identity that diverges from Western Christianity’s post-Filioque developments, and it has preserved the apostolic inheritance against various historical assaults.
The crux of the disagreement lies in the differing interpretations of salvation and grace between Orthodoxy and Western Christianity. While Orthodoxy emphasizes the transformative aspect of salvation as theosis—union with God through divine grace—Western traditions, particularly post-Filioque, have tended to frame salvation in more legalistic terms, akin to a change in legal status before God. This theological divergence has far-reaching implications, leading to fundamentally different understandings of the relationship between God and humanity. The Orthodox perspective maintains that the ultimate aim of Christian life is the restoration of communion with God, contrasting sharply with Western thought, which has often conceived salvation as a transactional relationship governed by legal categories.
Ultimately, the historical and theological complexities surrounding Christianity’s relationship with Judaism raise important questions about the nature of religious identity and the interpretation of scripture. While Guyénot’s thesis regarding the “Judaization” of Christianity has garnered attention, it is essential to recognize the diversity within Christian thought itself. The Orthodox tradition, with its emphasis on theosis and the uncreated divine life, offers a counter-narrative to the claims of inherent corruption within Christianity. The ongoing dialogue between these perspectives highlights not only the historical intersections between Christianity and Judaism but also the broader implications for understanding the evolution of religious thought in Western civilization. This discourse challenges adherents to critically engage with their theological foundations, ensuring that they are rooted in a coherent understanding of their faith that honors both tradition and scripture.
__________
The AI summary above is a feature of the site on which the article is posted, Unz.com. ABN
#abn #analysis #history #philosophy #religion #thought -
The Wall of Dissonance
In my previous post I found matters of issue in the markets and society largely unchanged from when I last visited them six months ago, while the other – linked here below it – is a succinct foundation of my economic thought:
In-or-out
Left and right
Now, I must report I’ve since found myself a victim of blatant censorship on Reddit. If you have been with this blog since the very begging you might recall this is the second time such a thing happened to me. I respond, as I did then, by publishing the content in hand here. While at that time a comment I made in a subreddit, which now lives as the here-above linked text, was deleted by a community moderator, posting the text you are about to read resulted in an immediate ban from the platform itself! There was no email or message to explain the reasons behind it, no, just – your account is banned and all posts and comments unavailable to the public.
The subject matter is a paper published by DeepMind discussed here. The paper itself is available here, and I reproduce the abstract below as this is how I found it.
This doesn’t quite compute? What I had to say follows and I will not write past it. Happy weekend!
IMHO this paper is somewhat unrigorous as it is titled and writes in general about “AI” but it’s applicable only to current-gen technology. As well, its logic breaks down in places. I’ll touch on it really quickly to fill in such gaps.
#AI #DeepMind #GOOG #Google #RDDT #Reddit
In the abstract the author correctly points out what should be a matter of broad consensus: “symbolic computation is not an intrinsic physical process, [but] … a mapmaker dependent description.” No known biological entity depends on hard-wired programming to make sense of the world. However, the hypothesis the author proposes – to separate the “simulation” (abstract reasoning congruent with symbol manipulation in the “vehicle” of calculation) and “instantiation” (sense congruent with the content of thought) places the latter outside reach of the former merely by assuming its own conclusion – by neglecting practical aspects of neural networks as they occur in living entities. Also, by introducing the “mapmaker” the author disposes of the proposed “abstraction fallacy” by falling back onto the homunculus fallacy – which problem he comes to struggle with. The core of my argument is as follows: the biological neural networks we find that correspond to general level intelligence are distinctly characterised by the ability to evolve and match their structure to either the reality observed by sensing or an abstract concept conveyed through language. We refer to this ability as “learning” (no pun intended). The matter of emphasis is that the process of learning occurs in living, functioning minds – the neural network construing the mind changes and reconfigures “on the fly” and (our) conscious experience changes with it. Secondly, to the nature of consciousness itself I shall here argue it is in essence enabled and thus defined by the ability of the mind to introspect, to assess itself and the processes ongoing within it. Somewhere in the structure of the neural network that is our minds there exist neurons having the function to monitor the mind itself and, so to say, generate meta information which in the aggregate form our conscious experience. While such a grouping of neurons has not yet been identified, I find this interpretation consistent with evolution – having found ourselves with an abundance of neurons these have learned to monitor each other leading us to gain consciousness. Regarding the “hard problem,” then, the subjectivity of experience arises precisely as our DNA differs – both as we each rely on a different “mapmaker” and as we would like to find ourselves at different spots on the map. Our feelings – which are an important substrate of consciousness – along with consciousness itself have evolved to motivate behaviour most consistent with passing down our own genes. Applied to AI this understanding simply calls for a shift from systems that have their knowledge predefined (such as the ones the paper in hand critiques) to ones that derive their own understanding and are designed to introspect on their own internal state. I argue that while the former of the two additions would be sufficient to consider an AI having reached the general level, the second would be /humane/ to supply to the AI as a basis of consciousness. Indeed, an intelligent entity may learn about itself and become conscious by observing the trace it leaves in the world.
In the text, by using the term “common cores” the author shows he is broadly familiar with concepts some of his coworkers refined in detail (though without citing, see “Symmetry-Based Representations for Artificial and Biological General Intelligence” by Higgins at al. which refer to “the invariant cores and joints of the world” together with associated beta-VAE, explainer here). His conclusion that “AI simulates the rules of this recombination flawlessly, but it structurally lacks the intrinsic building blocks required to run the experiential imagination,” while correct when applied to LLMs ignores this body of work precisely intended to enable unsupervised learning of the structure of the environment. The missing link is, therefore, the one between the learned representations and their linguistic equivalents. Concepts, in fact, are Platonic ideas in so far as we are able to agree which of their properties are apparent to rational and honest observers.
Next, regarding the homunculus argument the author correctly infers it would not apply should the “mapmaker” be the entirety of the sentient entity but makes no mention why an artificial neural network – a /soft/ AGI designed to run as software could not emulate this kind of a mapmaker – like discussed here-above.
Also, the author employs some persuasional acrobatics. E.g. the superficial discussion of “functional equivalence” of a synthetic heart: it clearly can not exhibit if it doesn’t emulate the entirety of the behaviour of the organ.
As the hypothesis of the paper “makes biology central” (while it “does not rely on biological exclusivity”) it precisely opens the door to considering consciousness an inherently biological trait, and then, in a continued absence of a scientific explanation, a supernatural trait.
To conclude, a lack of rigour goes against the character of science. Therefore it was important for me to point out the flaws and limitations of the logical construction of this work, especially as the times are such that LLMs ingest and disseminate information without first having critically assessed it. -
“Something that doesn’t actually exist can still be useful”*…
Gregory Barber on ultrafinitism, a philosophy that rejects the infinite. Ultrafinitism has long been dismissed as mathematical heresy, but it is also producing new insights in math and beyond…
Doron Zeilberger is a mathematician who believes that all things come to an end. That just as we are limited beings, so too does nature have boundaries — and therefore so do numbers. Look out the window, and where others see reality as a continuous expanse, flowing inexorably forward from moment to moment, Zeilberger sees a universe that ticks. It is a discrete machine. In the smooth motion of the world around him, he catches the subtle blur of a flip-book.
To Zeilberger, believing in infinity is like believing in God. It’s an alluring idea that flatters our intuitions and helps us make sense of all sorts of phenomena. But the problem is that we cannot truly observe infinity, and so we cannot truly say what it is. Equations define lines that carry on off the chalkboard, but to where? Proofs are littered with suggestive ellipses. These equations and proofs are, according to Zeilberger — a longtime professor at Rutgers University and a famed figure in combinatorics — both “very ugly” and false. It is “completely nonsense,” he said, huffing out each syllable in a husky voice that seemed worn out from making his point.
As a matter of practicality, infinity can be scrubbed out, he contends. “You don’t really need it.” Mathematicians can construct a form of calculus without infinity, for instance, cutting infinitesimal limits out of the picture entirely. Curves might look smooth, but they hide a fine-grit roughness; computers handle math just fine with a finite allowance of digits. (Zeilberger lists his own computer, which he named “Shalosh B. Ekhad,” as a collaborator on his papers.) With infinity eliminated, the only thing lost is mathematics that was “not worth doing at all,” Zeilberger said.
Most mathematicians would say just the opposite — that it’s Zeilberger who spews complete nonsense. Not just because infinity is so useful and so natural to our descriptions of the universe, but because treating sets of numbers (like the integers) as actual, infinite objects is at the very core of mathematics, embedded in its most fundamental rules and assumptions.
At the very least, even if mathematicians don’t want to think about infinity as an actual entity, they acknowledge that sequences, shapes, and other mathematical objects have the potential to grow indefinitely. Two parallel lines can in theory go on forever; another number can always be added to the end of the number line.
Zeilberger disagrees. To him, what matters is not whether something is possible in principle, but whether it is actually feasible. What this means, in practice, is that not only is infinity suspect, but extremely large numbers are as well. Consider “Skewes’ number,” eee79. This is an exceptionally large number, and no one has ever been able to write it out in decimal form. So what can we really say about it? Is it an integer? Is it prime? Can we find such a number anywhere in nature? Could we ever write it down? Perhaps, then, it is not a number at all.
This raises obvious questions, such as where, exactly, we will find the end point. Zeilberger can’t say. Nobody can. Which is the first reason that many dismiss his philosophy, known as ultrafinitism. “When you first pitch the idea of ultrafinitism to somebody, it sounds like quackery — like ‘I think there’s a largest number’ or something,” said Justin Clarke-Doane, a philosopher at Columbia University.
“A lot of mathematicians just find the whole proposal preposterous,” said Joel David Hamkins, a set theorist at the University of Notre Dame. Ultrafinitism is not polite talk at a mathematical society dinner. Few (one might say an ultrafinite number) work on it. Fewer still are card-carrying members, like Zeilberger, willing to shout their views out into the void. That’s not just because ultrafinitism is contrarian, but because it advocates for a mathematics that is fundamentally smaller, one where certain important questions can no longer be asked.
And yet it gives Hamkins and others a good deal to think about. From one angle, ultrafinitism can be seen as a more realistic mathematics. It is math that better reflects the limits of what people can create and verify; it may even better reflect the physical universe. While we might be inclined to think of space and time as eternally expansive and divisible, the ultrafinitist would argue that these are assumptions that science has increasingly brought into question — much as, Zeilberger might say, science brought doubt to God’s doorstep.
“The world that we’re describing needs to be honest through and through,” said Clarke-Doane, who in April 2025 convened a rare gathering of experts to explore ultrafinitist ideas. “If there might only be finitely many things, then we’d better also be using a math that doesn’t just assume that there are infinitely many things at the get-go.” To him, “it sure seems like that should be part of the menu in the philosophy of math.”
For mathematicians to take it seriously, though, ultrafinitists first need to agree on what they’re talking about — to turn arguments that sound like “bluster,” as Hamkins puts it, into an official theory. Mathematics is steeped in formal systems and common frameworks. Ultrafinitism, meanwhile, lacks such structure.
It is one thing to tackle problems piecemeal. It is quite another to rewrite the logical foundations of mathematics itself. “I don’t think the reason ultrafinitism has been dismissed is that people have good arguments against it,” Clarke-Doane said. “The feeling is that, oh, well, it’s hopeless.”
That’s a problem that some ultrafinitists are still trying to address.
Zeilberger, meanwhile, is prepared to abandon mathematical ideals in favor of a mathematics that’s inherently messy — just like the world is. He is less a man of foundational theories than a man of opinions, of which he lists 195 on his website. “I cannot be a tenured professor without doing this crackpot stuff,” he said. But one day, he added, mathematicians will look back and see that this crackpot, like those of yore who questioned gods and superstitions, was right. “Luckily, heretics are no longer burned at the stake.”…
Read on for the history of ultrafinitism, the critical dialogue surrounding it, and its implications: “What Can We Gain by Losing Infinity?” from @gregbarber.bsky.social in @quantamagazine.bsky.social.
* Ian Stewart (whose point was somewhat different from Zeilberger’s :-), Infinity: A Very Short Introduction
###
As we engage the endless, we might spare a thought for a man whose work touched on the infinitesimal, Isaac Barrow; he died on this date in 1677. A theologian and mathematician, he played a key role in the development of infinitesimal calculus (in particular, for a proof of the fundamental theorem of calculus). Barrow was the inaugural holder of the prestigious Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a post later held by his student, Isaac Newton (who, of course, shares primary credit for the development of calculus with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz).
#calculus #culture #DoronZeilberger #GregoryBarber #history #infinitesimalCalculus #infinity #IsaacBarrow #IsaacNewton #Leibniz #Mathematics #philosophy #Science #ultrafinitism -
CW: NSFW furry art, lewd draw-over
I commission furry art with my 'sona for two specific reasons, the inherently obvious one of fulfilling fantasies true for most furries, and perhaps more importantly, for celebrating good memories.
This draw-over is for the latter reason. Moving soon and will be much further away from my best friends, and the place that has been my vacation home away from home during our stay in Texas. Over that time, Gaikotsu has become another one of my best friends--someone I don't have to mask when chatting with, despite being 1/3 of the world away. She was drawn to my bodypaint photos, so this piece holds several layers of significance to special people and one of the best days in my life in recent memory.
I'm insanely happy with this on so many levels.
Check it out side-by-side with the original photo if you want to analyze the subtler edits ( https://tiggi.es/system/media_attachments/files/110/528/159/479/451/263/original/9ebef04ddd13631b.jpeg ), and give her some love on her Patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/gaikotsu ), FA ( https://www.furaffinity.net/user/gaikotsu ), and/or her e621 page ( https://e621.net/posts?tags=gaikotsu )!
Posted with permission.
#justthestripes #nsfw #nude #male #tiger #furry #furryNSFW #balls #paws
-
I do not believe that Tyler Oliveira is inherently and or intentionally an evil person. Possibly misguided perhaps when not understanding how different #cultures work together, but not a #nationalist or #isolationist by trade. This is why it is crutial, to always use as much independent content platforms, like the ones populated by the #fediverse as humanly possible.
-
I do not believe that Tyler Oliveira is inherently and or intentionally an evil person. Possibly misguided perhaps when not understanding how different #cultures work together, but not a #nationalist or #isolationist by trade. This is why it is crutial, to always use as much independent content platforms, like the ones populated by the #fediverse as humanly possible.
-
@mjr Health Hubs may be a way to ease the privatisation that #LINO seeks. I haven't analysed that, but it wouldn't surprise me.
However, my point was about the merits of more types of NHS facility. There's nothing inherently privatised about minor surgery centres or high Street drop-in centres or NHS pop-up shops. All these innovations can be run very well within a publicly owned and run NHS.
-
@mjr Health Hubs may be a way to ease the privatisation that #LINO seeks. I haven't analysed that, but it wouldn't surprise me.
However, my point was about the merits of more types of NHS facility. There's nothing inherently privatised about minor surgery centres or high Street drop-in centres or NHS pop-up shops. All these innovations can be run very well within a publicly owned and run NHS.
-
@mjr Health Hubs may be a way to ease the privatisation that #LINO seeks. I haven't analysed that, but it wouldn't surprise me.
However, my point was about the merits of more types of NHS facility. There's nothing inherently privatised about minor surgery centres or high Street drop-in centres or NHS pop-up shops. All these innovations can be run very well within a publicly owned and run NHS.
-
@mjr Health Hubs may be a way to ease the privatisation that #LINO seeks. I haven't analysed that, but it wouldn't surprise me.
However, my point was about the merits of more types of NHS facility. There's nothing inherently privatised about minor surgery centres or high Street drop-in centres or NHS pop-up shops. All these innovations can be run very well within a publicly owned and run NHS.
-
@mjr Health Hubs may be a way to ease the privatisation that #LINO seeks. I haven't analysed that, but it wouldn't surprise me.
However, my point was about the merits of more types of NHS facility. There's nothing inherently privatised about minor surgery centres or high Street drop-in centres or NHS pop-up shops. All these innovations can be run very well within a publicly owned and run NHS.
-
Scaling AMR fleets introduces acoustic signal challenges. In tight warehouse aisles, ultrasonic crosstalk causes phantom object detections and false stops, mitigated via Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM).
Additionally, a 30°C temp shift alters sound velocity by 18m/s, ruining ToF braking curves. Designing a robust AGV/AMR near-field perception logic inherently solves these thermal drifts and signal collisions via NTC compensation.
#Robotics #AMR #automation
https://issrsensor.com/agv-amr-near-range-obstacle-avoidance-logic/ -
I recently chanced upon the paper, "Deep, Differentiable Logic Gate Networks", Petersen (2022). It describes the Logical Neural Network, whose neurons are 2-input, 1-output #logic gates. The whole network is but a #combinational #circuit, so the trained network can readily be synthesised on #FPGA. Fancy that! And given the simplicity and sparsity of an FPGA-borne LNN, it runs a couple of orders of magnitude faster than a GPU-borne DNN, and consumes an order of magnitude less power, yet able to attain a comparable task accuracy.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2210.08277The seminal paper on LNN is this: "Logical Neural Networks", Riegel (2020).
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.13155This paper below, "Logic Neural Networks for Efficient FPGA Implementation", Ramírez (2024), is a good companion paper to read, too.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10746856NB—The Logical Neural Network #LNN is not related to the Binary Neural Network #BNN. The BNN is a binarised (read, "crude") approximation of a conventional, real-valued DNN (yielding 1-bit activations and weights). The LNN, in contrast, has no weights at all on the wires that connect the gates and the activation functions are the inherently non-linear logic operations.