What’s in a Name Part 2 & 3

Errol Morris’ What’s in a Name parts 2 and 3. It’s definitely an interesting series of essays, as people in Chinese cultures have a very different way of approaching names. While most of them never change their family name, a lot of them change their English name and Chinese first name, even at a very young age. I’ve had grade 1 students change their names very suddenly. It’s rarer to change your Chinese first name, but it happens often compared to what I’m used to.

Errol Morris on Names

Errol Morris is back with his latest series of articles in the NYT. This time around, he investigates what a name is. I found this particularly interesting, because Taiwanese people/children change their English names and Chinese first names (but not their family names) quite often.

Errol Morris on the Invention of Email

This is the first part of a five-part series on the NYT by Errol Morris. I’ve finished the first and I’m starting the second part today. They make very interesting reads.

The Asthray By Errol Morris Part 3

Le penseur par Rodin, via Wikipedia

The third installment of The Ashtray is online over at the NYT. It’s the longest of the series, until now.

Commensurability or incommensurability is a concept in the philosophy of science. Scientific theories are described as commensurable if one can compare them to determine which is more accurate; if theories are incommensurable, there is no way in which one can compare them to each other in order to determine which is more accurate.

★

Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans were devoted to a higher spookiness. It is their distinction. With his vein-ruined hands describing circles in the smoky air, Pythagoras has come to believe in numbers, their unearthly harmonies and strange symmetries. ‘Number is the first principle,’ he affirmed, ‘a thing which is undefined, incomprehensible, having in itself all numbers…’ Half-mad, I suppose, and ecstatic, Pythagorean thought offers us the chance to peer downward into the deep unconscious place where mathematics has its origins, the natural numbers seen as they must have been seen for the very first time, and that is as some powerful erotic aspect of creation itself…
David Berlinski, “Infinite Ascent”

There is an anomaly — an inability to find a rational fraction that measures the diagonal of a unit-square. This is followed by a mathematical proof that shows conclusively, irrefutably that there is, that there can be, no such fraction.

It’s a very nice essay, presented in an almost academic fashion. A must for any mathematician.

The Ashtray: Paradigm Shifts by Errol Morris

Errol Morris is at it again with a new essay called The Ashtray. The first part was published yesterday. The second appeared today.

The most important and most controversial aspect of Kuhn’s theory involved his use of the terms “paradigm shift” and “incommensurability.” That the scientific terms of one paradigm are incommensurable with the scientific terms of the paradigm that replaces it. A revolution occurs. One paradigm is replaced with another. And the new paradigm is incommensurable with the old one. He made various attempts to define it — changing and modifying his definitions along the way. In the 1962 edition of “Structure” incommensurability was likened to a Gestalt-flip. Presumably, it was about how we see the world.

The Anosognosic President Woodrow Wilson

Part 3 of Errol Morris’ opus has been online for a few days, but I’ve been saving them for today. It’s one of those things that you need to completely focus on, and read word for word, no skimming allowed. Since I read thousands of articles for work every week, I tend to skim a lot of it.

Anosognosia: Lack of Knowledge of One’s Illness

Errol Morris has published his second part of his new five-parter. In this part, he explores anosognosia, the lack of knowledge of one’s illness. I really devoured this one. I think I need to read some of his earlier essays again, The Case of the Inappropriate Alarm Clock.

The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: A New Errol Morris Series @ NYT

Errol Morris has just delivered the 1st part of a new five part series. It’s called the Anosognosic’s Dilemma and talks about unknown unknowns.

Where Is Errol Morris?

I started reading the Errol Morris blog over at the NYT a year or so ago ― I can’t really be sure of the exact date, but his long posts and examinations are though provoking. A few days ago, I started getting all this Opinionator junk in my feed reader. What happened to Errol Morris?

Ricky Jay

I’ve never seen Ricky Jay perform, but from this profile in the New Yorker, I imagine that he must be quite the magician. That’s not all. Errol Morris interviewed him for his series on lying. Actually, I do remember him playing a villain in Tomorrow Never Dies.

He is a sleight-of-hand expert and is notable for his card tricks, card throwing, memory feats, and stage patter.

*