@boarders.bsky.social
Thanks to impermanence all things are possible
Working on a book on topos theory
Working on a book on topos theory
There is a certain three-valued-ness to syllogistic logic whereby we interpret the predicate symbols as subsets of some domain of discourse and the important judgments are that a subset is empty, a subset is non-empty or that a subset may be non-empty
November 14, 2025 at 2:34 AM
There is a certain three-valued-ness to syllogistic logic whereby we interpret the predicate symbols as subsets of some domain of discourse and the important judgments are that a subset is empty, a subset is non-empty or that a subset may be non-empty
“Well now all of them know his god damn name” - Tish James
November 5, 2025 at 2:51 AM
“Well now all of them know his god damn name” - Tish James
Reposted
Reposted
There is a paper from the topologist Christopher Zeeman about modeling the brain as a neural top space and using Brouwer’s fixed point theorem to say there are inescapable thoughts [iirc] ☠️
October 22, 2025 at 1:59 AM
There is a paper from the topologist Christopher Zeeman about modeling the brain as a neural top space and using Brouwer’s fixed point theorem to say there are inescapable thoughts [iirc] ☠️
Reposted
I don’t think a long book is even primarily about plot, or character, or any of the patterned information on its pages. A long book is practicing over time a way of being in the world. Reading even a very good summary is not the same as giving over some portion of your own life to that practice.
October 13, 2025 at 8:41 PM
I don’t think a long book is even primarily about plot, or character, or any of the patterned information on its pages. A long book is practicing over time a way of being in the world. Reading even a very good summary is not the same as giving over some portion of your own life to that practice.
Reposted
America is in crisis.
So it's a small relief that the rest of the world is actually getting remarkable stuff done with energy. We just passed a huge milestone globally!
Now back to work on America.
billmckibben.substack.com/p/something-...
So it's a small relief that the rest of the world is actually getting remarkable stuff done with energy. We just passed a huge milestone globally!
Now back to work on America.
billmckibben.substack.com/p/something-...
Something extraordinary just happened
But of course there's a but. Or two.
billmckibben.substack.com
October 8, 2025 at 11:22 PM
America is in crisis.
So it's a small relief that the rest of the world is actually getting remarkable stuff done with energy. We just passed a huge milestone globally!
Now back to work on America.
billmckibben.substack.com/p/something-...
So it's a small relief that the rest of the world is actually getting remarkable stuff done with energy. We just passed a huge milestone globally!
Now back to work on America.
billmckibben.substack.com/p/something-...
Reposted
World's worst calendar: label the 168 hours of the week by elements of PSL(2,7).
September 29, 2025 at 2:53 AM
World's worst calendar: label the 168 hours of the week by elements of PSL(2,7).
The literate ages created classes of people through possession of secret information, in the sense that “every profession is a conspiracy against the laity”. This is the reason the coming post-literate age lies concomitant with growing institutional skepticism and a loss of faith in expertise
September 24, 2025 at 1:38 PM
The literate ages created classes of people through possession of secret information, in the sense that “every profession is a conspiracy against the laity”. This is the reason the coming post-literate age lies concomitant with growing institutional skepticism and a loss of faith in expertise
“Commerce and manufactures can seldom flourish long in any state which does not enjoy a regular administration of justice, in which the people do not feel themselves secure in the possession of their property, in which the faith of contracts is not supported by law”
August 26, 2025 at 2:39 AM
“Commerce and manufactures can seldom flourish long in any state which does not enjoy a regular administration of justice, in which the people do not feel themselves secure in the possession of their property, in which the faith of contracts is not supported by law”
One of the harder meta-cognitive aspects to mathematics is embracing that there is, generally, no preferred metaphor or example or intuition for a given concept; there is no preferred example(s) or intuitions of a group or vector space, or matrix or category
August 13, 2025 at 9:19 PM
One of the harder meta-cognitive aspects to mathematics is embracing that there is, generally, no preferred metaphor or example or intuition for a given concept; there is no preferred example(s) or intuitions of a group or vector space, or matrix or category
Musing on the prototypical temperaments towards reductionism vs holism:
liberal/realist: the correct unit of analysis is the individual/gene/neuron
communitarian/anti-realist: let us humble ourselves before irreducible complexity
marxist/structuralist: the unity of opposites
liberal/realist: the correct unit of analysis is the individual/gene/neuron
communitarian/anti-realist: let us humble ourselves before irreducible complexity
marxist/structuralist: the unity of opposites
I like Douglas Hofstadter’s (to me) dialectical question “who pushes whom around?” — do individuals push history around or vice versa? do neurons push thoughts around or vice versa? Do formal symbols push truths around or vice versa?
August 11, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Musing on the prototypical temperaments towards reductionism vs holism:
liberal/realist: the correct unit of analysis is the individual/gene/neuron
communitarian/anti-realist: let us humble ourselves before irreducible complexity
marxist/structuralist: the unity of opposites
liberal/realist: the correct unit of analysis is the individual/gene/neuron
communitarian/anti-realist: let us humble ourselves before irreducible complexity
marxist/structuralist: the unity of opposites
Scarcity and Evil is a book where the US Amazon page has a single 5 star review from Hilary Putnam
Scarcity and Evil: An Original exploration of Moral issues on the Frontier Between Guilt and Tragedy
Scarcity and Evil: An Original exploration of Moral issues on the Frontier Between Guilt and Tragedy [Walsh, Vivian Charle] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Scarcity and Evil: An Original exploration of Moral issues on the Frontier Between Guilt and Tragedy
www.amazon.com
August 2, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Scarcity and Evil is a book where the US Amazon page has a single 5 star review from Hilary Putnam
More people should listen to one hour of old radio a week to rid themselves of radical presentism. Episodes of ‘bookworm’ from the late 80s and early 90s will have authors regularly explain that their novel is in response to sheer over-stimulation of modern society and to our secular malaise
August 2, 2025 at 3:55 PM
More people should listen to one hour of old radio a week to rid themselves of radical presentism. Episodes of ‘bookworm’ from the late 80s and early 90s will have authors regularly explain that their novel is in response to sheer over-stimulation of modern society and to our secular malaise
We used to have popular culture like Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison and Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song and now we have an enormous industry of stranger danger true crime/evening news nonsense as the main way of thinking about criminals
August 1, 2025 at 5:50 PM
We used to have popular culture like Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison and Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song and now we have an enormous industry of stranger danger true crime/evening news nonsense as the main way of thinking about criminals
All I would really like is Maren Ade’s adaption of Middlemarch
Listen if money was no issue I'd just be commissioning artists and studios to make media that I personally think should exist but will lose money on the market. I'll gladly give you one example per like if you want (I've got like 100 in my head of varying levels of detail)
new engagement bait prompt:
1 like = 1 frivolous purchase i'd make if money wasn't an issue
1 like = 1 frivolous purchase i'd make if money wasn't an issue
August 1, 2025 at 2:03 AM
All I would really like is Maren Ade’s adaption of Middlemarch
I think this channel, including the pared-back, unfussy aesthetic and mode of delivery, speaks to a growing vibe shift against various legitimizing ritual objects and images that have become a root cause of online status anxiety
Productivity Is a Trap. Clarity Maxxing Is the Escape.
YouTube video by Westenberg
www.youtube.com
July 25, 2025 at 10:03 PM
I think this channel, including the pared-back, unfussy aesthetic and mode of delivery, speaks to a growing vibe shift against various legitimizing ritual objects and images that have become a root cause of online status anxiety
There is no longer a monolithic tv show where one set of fans watch it as devout Protestants careful to point out how they feel not one iota of libidinal desire towards the iconoclastic behaviour of the main character, and the other form a cult fandom around a dumb guy that does evil each week
July 25, 2025 at 3:07 AM
There is no longer a monolithic tv show where one set of fans watch it as devout Protestants careful to point out how they feel not one iota of libidinal desire towards the iconoclastic behaviour of the main character, and the other form a cult fandom around a dumb guy that does evil each week
Think often of this quote as it becomes ever clearer which path we have chosen: “In the year 1948 the reading of Plato’s dialogues by a large number of people could make the difference between a century of folly and a century of wisdom for the world.”
July 25, 2025 at 2:20 AM
Think often of this quote as it becomes ever clearer which path we have chosen: “In the year 1948 the reading of Plato’s dialogues by a large number of people could make the difference between a century of folly and a century of wisdom for the world.”
Reposted
"There are no positive male role models" sure we're just gonna pretend this guy didn't exist gotcha
July 22, 2025 at 9:19 PM
"There are no positive male role models" sure we're just gonna pretend this guy didn't exist gotcha
Despite being clearly perturbed by Lewontin’s critique of Dawkins as engaging in a form of dualism, I feel like he never adequately manages to address the point. What typifies one collection of behaviours as adaptive but another as against evolution’s relentless selfish drive
July 22, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Despite being clearly perturbed by Lewontin’s critique of Dawkins as engaging in a form of dualism, I feel like he never adequately manages to address the point. What typifies one collection of behaviours as adaptive but another as against evolution’s relentless selfish drive
The Epimenides paradox — “all cretans are liars” — is only a paradox if one reads “liar” with universal quantification (X always lies i.e. X is a knave), an unusual reading. I’m not quite sure what the usual reading is; what is the distinction between ‘a liar’ and someone who is ‘not honest’
July 18, 2025 at 5:13 PM
The Epimenides paradox — “all cretans are liars” — is only a paradox if one reads “liar” with universal quantification (X always lies i.e. X is a knave), an unusual reading. I’m not quite sure what the usual reading is; what is the distinction between ‘a liar’ and someone who is ‘not honest’
A nice elementary example of a category is the collection of all choices of a basis of a vector space V with morphisms given by change of basis. If you have two such categories for V and W then a linear transformation gives a natural transformation between their interpretation functor into Vect
July 17, 2025 at 4:54 PM
A nice elementary example of a category is the collection of all choices of a basis of a vector space V with morphisms given by change of basis. If you have two such categories for V and W then a linear transformation gives a natural transformation between their interpretation functor into Vect
Tentative: re-ascendancy of ‘fate’ in the form of sports betting, astrology, meme stocks, crypto, manifestation etc. should be seen as part of emerging anti-rational post-literacy culture
July 14, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Tentative: re-ascendancy of ‘fate’ in the form of sports betting, astrology, meme stocks, crypto, manifestation etc. should be seen as part of emerging anti-rational post-literacy culture
Should be called English logic instead of classical logic since
- it was invented by George Boole
- it typifies the English approach to both jury verdicts, and public life (give an answer and never a reason)
- it was invented by George Boole
- it typifies the English approach to both jury verdicts, and public life (give an answer and never a reason)
July 11, 2025 at 4:26 AM
Should be called English logic instead of classical logic since
- it was invented by George Boole
- it typifies the English approach to both jury verdicts, and public life (give an answer and never a reason)
- it was invented by George Boole
- it typifies the English approach to both jury verdicts, and public life (give an answer and never a reason)
I am reading Calculus Made Easy, a popular introductory text from 1910, to prepare for a class I’m teaching and it has this immortal prologue
June 28, 2025 at 3:20 AM
I am reading Calculus Made Easy, a popular introductory text from 1910, to prepare for a class I’m teaching and it has this immortal prologue