A priest, a rabbi and a minister walk into a bar ...

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August 11th, 2014 at 9:33:04 AM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Quote: chickenman
Thanx for the link. Now I know why most intellectual jokes are not funny, even after they've been explained.


Q: What's new?
A: e/h

Ok, but I don't know what that refers to.

So, let's see....

After dirinking at a bar the Neutron asks for the check. The bartender shakes his head and says "For you, no charge."
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
August 11th, 2014 at 9:53:15 AM permalink
Pacomartin
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 1068
Posts: 12569
Quote: Nareed
After dirinking at a bar the Neutron asks for the check. The bartender shakes his head and says "For you, no charge."




Try reading: Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid , also known as GEB, a 1979 book by Douglas Hofstadter. The tagline "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll" was used by the publisher to describe the book.

It would make a Neutron drink.


“The paraphrase of Gödel's Theorem says that for any record player, there are records which it cannot play because they will cause its indirect self-destruction.”

“This idea that there is generality in the specific is of far-reaching importance.”


“People enjoy inventing slogans which violate basic arithmetic but which illustrate “deeper” truths, such as “1 and 1 make 1” (for lovers), or “1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 1” (the Trinity). You can easily pick holes in those slogans, showing why, for instance, using the plus-sign is inappropriate in both cases. But such cases proliferate. Two raindrops running down a window-pane merge; does one plus one make one? A cloud breaks up into two clouds -more evidence of the same? It is not at all easy to draw a sharp line between cases where what is happening could be called “addition”, and where some other word is wanted. If you think about the question, you will probably come up with some criterion involving separation of the objects in space, and making sure each one is clearly distinguishable from all the others. But then how could one count ideas? Or the number of gases comprising the atmosphere? Somewhere, if you try to look it up, you can probably fin a statement such as, “There are 17 languages in India, and 462 dialects.” There is something strange about the precise statements like that, when the concepts “language” and “dialect” are themselves fuzzy.”

I think it would be a challenge to read in Spanish


¿Puede un sistema comprenderse a sí mismo ? Si esta pregunta se refiere a la mente humana, entonces nos encontramos ante una cuestión clave del pensamiento científico. Y de la filosofía. Y del arte. Investigar este misterio es una aventura que recorre la matemática, la física, la biología, la psicología y, muy especialmente, el lenguaje. Douglas R. Hofstadter, joven y ya célebre científico, nos abre la puerta del enigma con la belleza y la alegría creadora de su estilo. Sorprendentes paralelismos ocultos entre los grabados de Escher y la música de Bach nos remiten a las paradojas clásicas de los antiguos griegos y a un teorema de la lógica matemática moderna que ha estremecido el pensamiento del siglo XX : el de Kurt Gödel. Todo lenguaje, todo sistema formal, todo programa de ordenador, todo proceso de pensamiento, llegan, tarde o temprano, a la situación límite de la autorreferencia : de querer expresarse sobre sí mismos. Surge entonces la emoción del infinito, como dos espejos enfrentados y obligados a reflejarse mutua e indefinidamente. Gödel, Escher, Bach: un Eterno y Grácil Bucle, es una obra de arte escrita por un sabio. Versa sobre los misterios del pensamiento e incluye, ella misma, sus propios misterios. /
August 11th, 2014 at 10:33:39 AM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Quote: Pacomartin
Try reading: Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid , also known as GEB, a 1979 book by Douglas Hofstadter. The tagline "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll" was used by the publisher to describe the book.


Yours is the second recomendation for that book. Unfortunately I've moved all my non-fiction "reading" to Audible, and it's not available there.

Also I'm not that keen to read it. I'm mulling over getting Gamow's "Mr. Tompkins'" books instead. they're on Kindle and Kobo, but rather expensively priced. Still, the gimmick Dr. Gamow uses is clever: he reformulates parametrs so that you get relativistic effects at 30 mph, for example. IT's a lot easier to grasp the realtionship between energy and speed when explained as someone riding a bicycle, than most other forms I've come across.

Besides they're fun.

Quote:
It would make a Neutron drink.


I've gone through 8 hours of lectures on Quantum mechanics, plus Bill Bryson's attemtp to explain it in his "A Short History of Nearly Everything." Given all that Quantum emchanics claims particles can do, seeing a neutron drink would be a lot less shocking (once you got past the shock of actually seeing a neutron).
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
August 11th, 2014 at 2:18:16 PM permalink
TheCesspit
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 23
Posts: 1929
Given that the lay out of the book is as important as the mere words, it would not be a suitable book for audible.

It's a truly brilliant piece of work, a work I have returned to many times, and inspired me to go into post-graduate studies (nothing to do with his central theories, in the end, but neural networks was a topic I studied for a while).
It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die.... it's called Life
August 11th, 2014 at 3:15:44 PM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
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Quote: TheCesspit
Given that the lay out of the book is as important as the mere words, it would not be a suitable book for audible.


If you say "figurative verse," I will not hold myself accountable for my actions :)
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
August 11th, 2014 at 3:50:06 PM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
I have the beginning of a joke:

A photon walks into two bars...
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
August 11th, 2014 at 4:09:36 PM permalink
TheCesspit
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 23
Posts: 1929
Quote: Nareed
If you say "figurative verse," I will not hold myself accountable for my actions :)


Possibly, I dunno what those words mean. But I do know there's enough diagrams, pictures, layout and mathematical concepts that reading it out loud would destroy 3/5ths of it.

Sometimes the medium is the message.
It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die.... it's called Life
August 11th, 2014 at 4:29:37 PM permalink
miplet
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 8
Posts: 975
Quote: Nareed
I have the beginning of a joke:

A photon walks into two bars...

Was it bipolar?
"...remind me of clue: Colonel Mustard in the billiard room with the candlestick."- Derek Morgan
August 11th, 2014 at 5:13:22 PM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Quote: TheCesspit
Possibly, I dunno what those words mean.


It means arranging the words in a verse in the shape of something related to the title, theme or content of said verse. If you've read the original Alice in Wonderland, you've seen it in the Mouse's Tale/Tail (which is about as far as I got reading that book).

Quote:
But I do know there's enough diagrams, pictures, layout and mathematical concepts that reading it out loud would destroy 3/5ths of it.


Ouch! That would hurt the way I've been forced to read lately: during breaks and perhaps an hour around bedtime. That's why i've been doing more "reading" with Audible.

Thanks for the info.
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
August 11th, 2014 at 5:16:39 PM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Quote: miplet
Was it bipolar?


I suppose all particles are bipolar, if they do in fact spin about an axis. But given that such particles aren't always particles, then who knows whteher they can spin without an axis. If they do, howver, spin about an axis, then they must have a pole at either end. Ergo they are bipolar.

But that has nothing to do with the set up for the joke.
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
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