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Something I find fascinating is that many of Borges’ stories demonstrate a solid grasp of fairly advanced mathematics of his time [0] but he had little formal e
by steppi 3y ago
Something I find fascinating is that many of Borges’ stories demonstrate a solid grasp of fairly advanced mathematics of his time [0] but he had little formal education. I like to try imagine the work he must have put in to attain this knowledge. I think of Pierre Menard as an example of the extremal principle [1], bringing insight into how works of literature are interpreted by considering extreme cases. A good counterpart to Pierre Menard is The Library of Babel [2], also in Ficciones.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges_and_mathematics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges_and_mathem...
[1] https://brilliant.org/wiki/extremal-principle/ https://brilliant.org/wiki/extremal-principle/
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel
- kjellsbells 3y agoBorges may have studied mathematics, but I posit that he was simply a well educated man of the time. Its not unreasonable to assume that he would have read ancient Greek thinking, grounding him in logic and paradoxes, for example, or looked at Pascal and Descartes for their philosophy and picked up mathematics on the way. I see evidence of a well educated and supremely well read humanist rather than someone quietly studying Cauchy and Legendre on the down low.
- steppi 3y agoBorges’ depth of knowledge of philosophy and mathematics far exceeded what would have been covered in the BA he received in 1914. He was an autodidact who quietly studied a great deal of topics [0]. Beyond being an educated man of his time, I think he was a genius. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autodidacts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_autodidacts