Post by snacky on Aug 19, 2014 6:29:34 GMT
I was reading a book today that claimed that the secularist conclusions of the late 19th century related to the effect Cantor's set theory and orders of infinity had on mathematics and philosophy - which was apparently widely debated among theologians as well. At one point Cantor had to write the Pope about it and claim freedom to follow where the logic of math led - i.e. natural law over revealed religion or the Papal Infallibility recently claimed by the Church:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor
Here's how the book I was reading put it: once you've reduced everything to sets, then there's nothing that puts one set above any others. In other words, set theory infected all "thinking minds" with radical relativism: all religions were equal to each other. Letting one particular religion steer the State while discriminating against people who believed other creeds seemed arbitrary. There was a lot of textual/linguistic/myth research coming out of Germany which had been comparing the Bible to the sacred books that lay at the heart of other great cultures. While people still believed in God, it got harder and harder to believe the specific doctrine of your Nation State was THE truth.
Funny to think all that could come out of an idea from MATH. Especially considering how obscure math concepts are to most of us today.
But William was very well versed in math. I'm kind of wondering if he has an opinion on Cantor.
Ps. The same book mentioned the work of blind mathematicians, which was enabled by the emergence and justification of schools for the disabled. A teacher from Boston's Perkin's School for the Blind developed a proof for the Pythagorean theorem. She was the teacher of Annie Sullivan who went on to teach Helen Keller. I'm wondering if there's an idea for an episode in there somewhere: a blind person that needs to do some math. Or a chess player.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor
Here's how the book I was reading put it: once you've reduced everything to sets, then there's nothing that puts one set above any others. In other words, set theory infected all "thinking minds" with radical relativism: all religions were equal to each other. Letting one particular religion steer the State while discriminating against people who believed other creeds seemed arbitrary. There was a lot of textual/linguistic/myth research coming out of Germany which had been comparing the Bible to the sacred books that lay at the heart of other great cultures. While people still believed in God, it got harder and harder to believe the specific doctrine of your Nation State was THE truth.
Funny to think all that could come out of an idea from MATH. Especially considering how obscure math concepts are to most of us today.
But William was very well versed in math. I'm kind of wondering if he has an opinion on Cantor.
Ps. The same book mentioned the work of blind mathematicians, which was enabled by the emergence and justification of schools for the disabled. A teacher from Boston's Perkin's School for the Blind developed a proof for the Pythagorean theorem. She was the teacher of Annie Sullivan who went on to teach Helen Keller. I'm wondering if there's an idea for an episode in there somewhere: a blind person that needs to do some math. Or a chess player.
