8 ms·

The Raymond Smullyan Society

75 points by a4isms 5y ago

pasquinelli 5y ago
my daughter and i have used "what is the name of this book?" and now "to mock a mockingbird" as the first slot in the day for her homeschooling. his books are really wonderful. public schools should be lousy with them.
- lupire 5y ago
  Schools certainly are lousy without them.
dalmo3 5y ago
Got into a little bit of his work early in uni, which inspired me into logic research and ultimately to me publishing/presenting my research at a conference he also attended. I met him on a boat trip and he was doing coin tricks, at the age of 88. What a character.
a4isms 5y ago
The logician, concert pianist, Taoist, and magician Raymond Smullyan has always been of interest to computer scientists. Besides being a polymath, he had Feynman's knack for being able to explain complex subjects in an accessible way. In Raymond's case, via puzzles that unfolded ideas in recursion, infinity, Gödel's theories, logic, and more. The Raymond Smullyan Society was formed to preserve his work, and it has just launched this web site.
- leephillips 5y ago
  Fantastic. I suggest an RSS feed, so that I (for one) will know when new material is added.
  - smulloni 5y ago
    Especially since it would truly be an "RSS" feed.
    - leephillips 5y ago
      Nice.
cafard 5y ago
Nice. I recently bought a copy of his First-Order Logic, which is slim but dense.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  I was reading a review of it in Mathematics magazine recently.
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    My bad, it was a review of A Beginner's Guide to Mathematical Logic, in American Mathematical Monthly.
- eointierney 5y ago
  Got it upstairs and it's a treasure. Such a beautiful attitude and joyful playfulness shared with real generosity.
  - pasquinelli 5y ago
    iirc, his philosophy as a teacher was to give his students as much as he could while asking as little as possible from them. refreshingly at odds with most teachers i've had.
draw_down 5y ago
carapace 5y ago
I suspect that Smullyan was one of those sages who attained enlightenment by pure thought.
- paulpauper 5y ago
  Running on mind
mbustamanter 5y ago
In high school I had a Philosophy class, and its book [0] had chapters in which their endings short stories. Two of the chapters (5: Learning and Intelligence, 14: Reality) had interesting excerpts from Smullyan's books Alice in Puzzle-land [1] and Five Thousand B.C. and Other Philosophical Fantasies [2], respectively. They highlight philosophical concepts in a way that makes them sort of 'self-explanatory', especially for a beginner student. He also has a textbook, Set Theory and the Continuum Problem which is a rigorous and technical work, and does a great job introducing and developing some results on the idea of forcing [3]. [0] Introducción a la Filosofía, César Tejedor. [1] https://static01.nyt.com/packages/pdf/crossword/Smullyan_Alice_In_Puzzle-Land_Ch9.pdf https://static01.nyt.com/packages/pdf/crossword/Smullyan_Ali... the story is in pp. 1-6 [2] https://books.google.cl/books?id=fzuKc5dGN5gC&lpg=PT80&ots=Q-fHesKpvn&dq=raymond%20smullyan%20simplicus%20and%20the%20tree&pg=PT72#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.cl/books?id=fzuKc5dGN5gC&lpg=PT80&ots=Q... until the comment of Second Positivist [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forcing_(mathematics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forcing_(mathematics)
throw_away 5y ago
Fave Raymond Smullyan essay: https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/godTaoist.html https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/godTa... I once printed this out & gave it to a pair of repeat Jehovah's Witness door-knockers I had befriended. Don't know how they took it as the next time they came around my roommates, unaware of our friendship, told them I moved & they never returned.
- draw_down 5y ago
  Then you would love “The Tao Is Silent”! I believe this piece appears in the book, but either way it’s very reminiscent.
  - smulloni 5y ago
    It is indeed in The Tao Is Silent — Raymond's first popular book and one of his best. There's a recent reading of the dialogue on YouTube by Curt Jaimungal, on the "Theory of Everything" channel: https://youtu.be/P-jh6tRh3Jw https://youtu.be/P-jh6tRh3Jw
  - throw_away 5y ago
    Thanks! I had originally found it in Douglas Hofstadter's & Daniel Dennett's anthology, The Mind's I, which I also strongly recommend to those who haven't heard of it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

75 points by a4isms 5y ago

my daughter and i have used "what is the name of this book?" and now "to mock a mockingbird" as the first slot in the day for her homeschooling. his books are really wonderful. public schools should be lousy with them.

lupire 5y ago
Schools certainly are lousy without them.

dalmo3 5y ago

Got into a little bit of his work early in uni, which inspired me into logic research and ultimately to me publishing/presenting my research at a conference he also attended. I met him on a boat trip and he was doing coin tricks, at the age of 88. What a character.

a4isms 5y ago

The logician, concert pianist, Taoist, and magician Raymond Smullyan has always been of interest to computer scientists. Besides being a polymath, he had Feynman's knack for being able to explain complex subjects in an accessible way. In Raymond's case, via puzzles that unfolded ideas in recursion, infinity, Gödel's theories, logic, and more. The Raymond Smullyan Society was formed to preserve his work, and it has just launched this web site.

leephillips 5y ago
Fantastic. I suggest an RSS feed, so that I (for one) will know when new material is added.
- smulloni 5y ago
  Especially since it would truly be an "RSS" feed.
  - leephillips 5y ago
    Nice.

cafard 5y ago

Nice. I recently bought a copy of his First-Order Logic, which is slim but dense.

selimthegrim 5y ago
I was reading a review of it in Mathematics magazine recently.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  My bad, it was a review of A Beginner's Guide to Mathematical Logic, in American Mathematical Monthly.
eointierney 5y ago
Got it upstairs and it's a treasure. Such a beautiful attitude and joyful playfulness shared with real generosity.
- pasquinelli 5y ago
  iirc, his philosophy as a teacher was to give his students as much as he could while asking as little as possible from them. refreshingly at odds with most teachers i've had.

draw_down 5y ago

carapace 5y ago

I suspect that Smullyan was one of those sages who attained enlightenment by pure thought.

paulpauper 5y ago
Running on mind

mbustamanter 5y ago

In high school I had a Philosophy class, and its book [0] had chapters in which their endings short stories. Two of the chapters (5: Learning and Intelligence, 14: Reality) had interesting excerpts from Smullyan's books Alice in Puzzle-land [1] and Five Thousand B.C. and Other Philosophical Fantasies [2], respectively. They highlight philosophical concepts in a way that makes them sort of 'self-explanatory', especially for a beginner student. He also has a textbook, Set Theory and the Continuum Problem which is a rigorous and technical work, and does a great job introducing and developing some results on the idea of forcing [3]. [0] Introducción a la Filosofía, César Tejedor. [1] https://static01.nyt.com/packages/pdf/crossword/Smullyan_Alice_In_Puzzle-Land_Ch9.pdf https://static01.nyt.com/packages/pdf/crossword/Smullyan_Ali... the story is in pp. 1-6 [2] https://books.google.cl/books?id=fzuKc5dGN5gC&lpg=PT80&ots=Q-fHesKpvn&dq=raymond%20smullyan%20simplicus%20and%20the%20tree&pg=PT72#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.cl/books?id=fzuKc5dGN5gC&lpg=PT80&ots=Q... until the comment of Second Positivist [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forcing_(mathematics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forcing_(mathematics)

throw_away 5y ago

Fave Raymond Smullyan essay: https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/godTaoist.html https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/godTa... I once printed this out & gave it to a pair of repeat Jehovah's Witness door-knockers I had befriended. Don't know how they took it as the next time they came around my roommates, unaware of our friendship, told them I moved & they never returned.

draw_down 5y ago
Then you would love “The Tao Is Silent”! I believe this piece appears in the book, but either way it’s very reminiscent.
- smulloni 5y ago
  It is indeed in The Tao Is Silent — Raymond's first popular book and one of his best. There's a recent reading of the dialogue on YouTube by Curt Jaimungal, on the "Theory of Everything" channel: https://youtu.be/P-jh6tRh3Jw https://youtu.be/P-jh6tRh3Jw
- throw_away 5y ago
  Thanks! I had originally found it in Douglas Hofstadter's & Daniel Dennett's anthology, The Mind's I, which I also strongly recommend to those who haven't heard of it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]