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July 29, 2006 U-K columnist Fred Smith included three quotes by the famous mathematician and logician Bertrand Russell at the end of this article. These departing salvos missed their mark and they move me to make some comments on Bertrand Russell and his work. For one thing, the man was very complex. Because of his complexity one can't comprehand or promote Bertrand Russell's point of view or intelligence by simply quoting three of his numerous quotes. To see there's a bit of murkiness in Russell we need to look at more of his quotes. Bertrand Russell was intrigued by verbal paradoxes and he devoted years of his life to research on mathematical foundations. Later Russell saw in a dream the last printed copy of his and Alfred North Whitehead's famous work "Principia Mathematica" being relegated to a librarian's trash bucket. Here's a relevant quote by the Cambridge mathematician G.H. Hardy: "I can remember Bertrand Russell telling me of a horrible dream. He was in the top floor of the University Library, about A.D. 2100. A library assistant was going round the shelves carrying an enormous bucket, taking down books, glancing at them, restoring them to the shelves or dumping them into the bucket. At last he came to three large volumes which Russell could recognize as the last surviving copy of Principia Mathematica. He took down one of the volumes, turned over a few pages, seemed puzzled for a moment by the curious symbolism, closed the volume, balanced it in his hand and hesitated.... G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology Here are some examples of paradoxes: (1) This sentence is false. (2) In your city, if Jack Quinn the barber shaves all those who do not shave themselves, and no one else, then who shaves Jack Quinn? Other paradoxes are: Achilles and the Tortoise, The Arrow, The Paradox of the Heap, Hempel’s Ravens, Hilbert’s Hotel, The Paradox of Latent Belief, The Liar Paradox, The Preface Paradox, The Problem of Specious Present, The Paradox of the Stone, Theseus’ Ship, Tristram Shandy, The Two Envelope Paradox, and The Unexpected Hanging. Many people are upset by talk or writing that contradicts itself. Consequently certain people work hard to make sure that their expressions are logically consistent. I think that Fred Smith is concerned about the consistency of his thinking. On the other hand, Bertrand Russell is known to have written: "I am looking forward very much to getting back to Cambridge, and being able to say what I think and not to mean what I say: two things which at home are impossible. Cambridge is one of the few places where one can talk unlimited nonsense and generalities without anyone pulling one up or confronting one with them when one says just the opposite the next day." Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith, who became his first wife (1893); published in The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell, Volume 1: The Private Years (1884-1914), edited by Nicholas Griffin. Yes, Bertrand Russel was very complex, and he was something of a joker. Funny as he sometimes was, Bertrand Russell devoted himself to mathematics and logic and eventually he became world-famous. One consequence of this is that now we can study Bertrand Russell's quotes on most any subject! To verify this, visit the many Internet sites on Bertrand Russell quotations. This long Internet romp may be entertaining, but the premise is fallacious: just because you are famous for your pole vaulting, or for your research on the foundations of mathematics, you are knowledgeable about everything. That conclusion is fallacious. Indeed, the idea is really funny. People ARE funny. In fact, people are not reasonable at all. Un-reason pervades human thinking, speech, and writing. So Fred, are you with me? To illustrate one example of human un-reason, Bertrand Russell comments: "Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths." Impact of Science on Society (1952) Indeed, Aristotle WAS a funny and sometimes un-reasonable man. Even so, he sometimes doted on logic, classified logical fallacies, and constructed rules of logical thinking. Aristotle was a pioneer logician, in fact. But sometimes, when you make a strong claim, you've just got to physically examine the subject of your claim, like, for instance, the teeth of your wife. Aristotle's dead, however, so he can't read this. Fred Smith, on the other hand, is still very much alive, I hope. Well, on this matter of female and male dentition Aristotle was caught in a bind, perhaps because certain subjects are considered too sacred (or too silly) to study, and a woman might not want her husband to be scientific about her teeth. Here's another example of a too silly or a too sacred a subject: A yogi might not want medical scientists studying his brain activity when he is transmitting the sense of unity (yoga) to his disciples. Swami Rudrananda called this the transmission of "yogic force." During this transmission exercise all the disciples are gazing directly at the yogi and not thinking or speaking. What's this behavior all about, anyway? Is unity too sacred or too silly for psychologists to study? Speaking of un-reason, sometimes referred to as insight, intuition, or guess-work, in the following quote Bertrand Russell points out the need for un-reason or intuition in creative problem solving even in the most purely logical realms: "In fact the opposition of instinct and reason is mainly illusory. Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first leads to the beliefs which subsequent reason confirms or confutes; but the confirmation, where it is possible, consists, in the last analysis, of agreement with other beliefs no less instinctive. Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new." Our Knowledge of the External World Note therefore, that out-spoken (or should I say out-written) champions of reason in science and life (such as U-K columnists t411sh and Fred Smith) quote Bertrand Russell at their peril. Bertrand Russell was a very complex person. The universe also is very complex. Because of this complexity, to know and explain nature a scientific genius or mathematical genius is very complex. In view of his genius, we should ponder what made Bertrand Russell spend less and less of his time, energy, and talent on mathematics and logic and more and more of his time, energy, and talent on originating popular books and still-repeated quotes. What caused Bertrand Russell to lose his focus on his rare talent? Perhaps he grew distracted by his fear. Concerning this fear and the resulting sense of personal despair, Russel wrote, "That Man is the product of causes that had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins- all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built." A Free Man's Worship (1903) Note that Bertrand Russell doesn't prove logically or scientifically that it's impossible for space-age humanity to ever create the means of sustaining the sun's fusion reactions longer than nature can by itself alone. Furthermore, if humanity becomes ecologically responsible and also abolishes war, then humanity has about five billion or more years left to advance science to the poiont of managing the sun. Maybe. On the other hand, if humans can't control the Sun, then perhaps future humans will migrate to another planet, or create a new world in space, or manage to live underground on the Earth, on the Moon or on Mars, and so forth. By hitching imagination and science together, humanity has achieved seemingly impossible results. Bertrand Russell was also afraid of nuclear technology and what humans might do with it. To see this, study The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955). Here's a quote: "The Russell-Einstein Manifesto was issued in London on 9 July 1955 by Bertrand Russell and signed by 11 prominent intellectuals and scientists, most notably Albert Einstein." Here's a thought. I've often read the sentence: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear." (Bible, 1 John iv. 18.) I've also seen that claim verified many times. Genius that he was, perhaps Bertrand Russell needed more love in his life to cultivate more love in himself and thereby nurture and sustain his proven talent in logic and mathematics as well as reduce his debilitating chronic anxieties. Please note. All the references are from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell ------------ About the author: sixty-six years young, and vigorous in mind, body, emotions, and spirit, John L. Waters is an independent researcher on self-healing, integration, creativity, and unity. To help demonstrate the effectiveness of his research, John has created thousands of drawings, paintings, instrumental music pieces, songs, prose pieces, poems, and other inventions. John has used his research to help persons remove a mental block and solve a problem. John also gives personal presentations which illustrate his research results. Each one of these works demonstrates the effectiveness of John's research. For more information, read John's letters of recommendation: about John's self-healing and integration: about the mystical energy or yogic force and related topics: about John's independent research: about John's seeking an agent or a publisher: Email: blueguntwo@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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