Llama2 70B Chat is having an constructivist existential crisis :-
Me: what is the tangent of pi / 14 ?
Llama2:
... I must point out that the tangent of a number is ... defined as the ratio of the opposite side to the adjacent side of a right triangle. However, π is irrational ... and cannot be expressed as a fraction. Therefore, it is not possible to take the tangent of pi (π) / 14 or any other number.
As a Freudian and a Platonist (which is actually, per Plato, an affirmation of the generic, anomalous, supersuccessive and *subjective* nature of truths) I can't help but recognize the #constructivist wager in #mathematics as an appearance of what psychoanalysts call "the university discourse", the discourse concerned with the management of truths rather than their promulgation. At the same time, as a hacker, I cant help but be interested in #HoTT, and recognize that what is happening there is beautiful and even novel (for hackers, at least). And as a Benjaminian, which is to say a dialectical messianist, I cant help but think that our epoch's imperative to reduce all phenomena to computation is what he called "the aestheticization of politics", nor do I doubt that what our moment requires is the "politicization of art", if we wish to avoid the worst of all possible worlds.
Hackers often fancy themselves as misunderstood mathematicians, but any serious inquiry into the work of hacking reveals that the hacker is an artist whose medium is rithm or caesura, and that hacking is thus in truth a form of poetics; albeit the poetics of mechanics*. On the other hand, mathematicians often fancy themselves as misunderstood poets, even if they can't be bothered to study in detail the playful successions of caesura that differentiate rithm for the poet, preferring to deal with mathematical concepts like topoi and posets. On the other hand, some mathematicians are also poets, and may be drawn to #Coq et al, and may even use it to produce novel results in mathematics. But I dont think that will be a matter of of the superiority of a constructivist research program, just as producing an immortal program such as emacs doesn't imply the eternality of "GNU slash Linux". Its rather because being a mathematician doesn't preclude one from being a hacker, and most hackers are likely to become fascinated by ITPing if they give it a try. But to demand that all mathematicians subordinate their curiosity to that of the hacker-mathematician is absurd, and furthermore, ethically obscure.
The point of this post being that I contain multiplicities, and so do you.
[ * ] note the undertones of proletkult
Blog post by @davecormier:
A letter to my students about why I disagree with Paul Kirschner about the failure of #constructivist / PBL / IBL / etc.
http://davecormier.com/edblog/2023/09/18/a-letter-to-my-students-about-why-i-disagree-with-paul-kirschner-about-the-failure-of-constructivist-pbl-ibl-etc/
Iliazd (Ilya Zdanewitch), Ledentu le Phare, 1923.
See more from this book in the Online Archive: https://oa.letterformarchive.org/item?workID=lfa_russia_0019
#Abstract #garden #sketch in #OilPastel and #BlackInk. Vaguely #constructivist in form.
@actualham So many true statements in that article that resonate with me (and probably everyone who subscribes to the #constructivist view on #education). #Learning is experience, interaction, and dialog, not checking boxes on a #rubric.
Reading the brilliant #ReconsideringReparations by Femi Taiwo and noting that the tactics he supports for moving #constructivist approaches to #reparations forward are the same tactics used to alleviate the climate crisis in Kim Stanley Robinson’s hopeful speculative fiction #MinistryfortheFuture.
Anyone familiar with the idea that the #DorsalStream is #DirectPerception and the #VentralStream is #Constructivist ? Just came across a paper on it from 2002, and want to make sure it's not considered totally debunked before I read it. This is an area I've been trying to better understand lately
#PhilofMind #psychology #neuroscience #Gibson #EcologicalPsychology #constructivism #affordances
