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What if https://mathgenealogy.org https://mathgenealogy.org , which purports to document who was bitten by whom, is a fraud? All mathematicians are actually vam

What if https://mathgenealogy.org https://mathgenealogy.org , which purports to document who was bitten by whom, is a fraud? All mathematicians are actually vampires, and to cover their tracks they periodically "die" (stop publishing under a given name) and pretend to be someone else's "student" (starting publishing under a new name). This hypothesis would certainly explain the mathematicians' conceit ("recall...") that, instead of learning knowledge, we are just remembering what our souls once knew.

defrost 2y ago
Fake picture!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao#/media/File:Paul_Erdos_with_Terence_Tao.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao#/media/File:Paul_E... Crafted on the CSIRONET CDC Cyber 205 to hide the passing of torch ... https://csiropedia.csiro.au/csiro-computing-history-chapter-3/#1983-84 https://csiropedia.csiro.au/csiro-computing-history-chapter-...
Terr_ 2y ago
I can't find the title, but there was some short-story where all physics was actually magic, and it was finally revealed to the public when a nuclear physicist was caught chanting incantations over a warhead--the security guys thought it was Russian and arrested him as a spy.
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  Technology is magic. A chatbot is a rock that has been enchanted to think and talk. I don’t want to oversimply! First we had to flatten the rock and then trap lightning inside it.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    > It is well known that stone can think, because the whole of electronics is based on that fact, but in some universes men spend ages looking for other intelligences in the sky without once looking under their feet. That is because they've got the time-span all wrong. From stone's point of view the universe is hardly created and mountain ranges are bouncing up and down like organ-stops while continents zip backward and forward in general high spirits, crashing into each other from the sheer joy of momentum and getting their rocks off. It is going to be quite some time before stone notices its disfiguring skin disease and starts to scratch, which is just as well. -- Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
    - jona-f 2y ago
      There's a nice short movie about that, it's in german but has english subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOPwXNFU7oU&t=469 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOPwXNFU7oU&t=469
  - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
    Seems like https://medium.com/luminasticity/sufficiently-advanced-technology-3f4b0b1d6ec5 https://medium.com/luminasticity/sufficiently-advanced-techn... >The advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic because our bodies, our physiological and psychological ways of interacting were evolved in primitive environments and so complex technology asserts itself upon us like all the uncontrollable phenomena would dominate the minds of the non-modern human.
  - drodgers 2y ago
    > [Taiwan] A singular place on earth where silicon wafers are endlessly etched with arcane symbols 4 nanometers in size, engraved by the light of heaven; life breathed into sand to help shoulder the burden of the world. -Roon
8474_s 2y ago
The amount of sigils and occult jargon math invents on the spot is very weird in context of most sciences: imagine creating entire fields/theories and gaining followers, like a religious sect, in a field like geometry?

defrost 2y ago

Fake picture!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao#/media/File:Paul_Erdos_with_Terence_Tao.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao#/media/File:Paul_E... Crafted on the CSIRONET CDC Cyber 205 to hide the passing of torch ... https://csiropedia.csiro.au/csiro-computing-history-chapter-3/#1983-84 https://csiropedia.csiro.au/csiro-computing-history-chapter-...

Terr_ 2y ago

I can't find the title, but there was some short-story where all physics was actually magic, and it was finally revealed to the public when a nuclear physicist was caught chanting incantations over a warhead--the security guys thought it was Russian and arrested him as a spy.

jiggawatts 2y ago
Technology is magic. A chatbot is a rock that has been enchanted to think and talk. I don’t want to oversimply! First we had to flatten the rock and then trap lightning inside it.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > It is well known that stone can think, because the whole of electronics is based on that fact, but in some universes men spend ages looking for other intelligences in the sky without once looking under their feet. That is because they've got the time-span all wrong. From stone's point of view the universe is hardly created and mountain ranges are bouncing up and down like organ-stops while continents zip backward and forward in general high spirits, crashing into each other from the sheer joy of momentum and getting their rocks off. It is going to be quite some time before stone notices its disfiguring skin disease and starts to scratch, which is just as well. -- Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
  - jona-f 2y ago
    There's a nice short movie about that, it's in german but has english subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOPwXNFU7oU&t=469 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOPwXNFU7oU&t=469
- bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  Seems like https://medium.com/luminasticity/sufficiently-advanced-technology-3f4b0b1d6ec5 https://medium.com/luminasticity/sufficiently-advanced-techn... >The advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic because our bodies, our physiological and psychological ways of interacting were evolved in primitive environments and so complex technology asserts itself upon us like all the uncontrollable phenomena would dominate the minds of the non-modern human.
- drodgers 2y ago
  > [Taiwan] A singular place on earth where silicon wafers are endlessly etched with arcane symbols 4 nanometers in size, engraved by the light of heaven; life breathed into sand to help shoulder the burden of the world. -Roon

8474_s 2y ago

The amount of sigils and occult jargon math invents on the spot is very weird in context of most sciences: imagine creating entire fields/theories and gaining followers, like a religious sect, in a field like geometry?