i don't believe in "myself," from a certain point of view ..

[grey_ghost]

More than half the time I think I am best measured by the friends I have. By that, I mean that what they say gives fascinating ideas and lead me to paths of thought that I'd otherwise not have considered.

A friend of mine wrote this in a comment to when I supposed that I was an automaton.
I think here you fall back too easily on your mathgradness

Comments

analysis of post

[anonymous]

first paragraph: actually, this should be _all_ the time. as the proverb says, "A man is known by the company he keeps

[grey_ghost]

first paragraph: actually, this should be _all_ the time. as the proverb says, "A man is known by the company he keeps".

Proverbs aren't facts. For instance, another proverb says that whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

Also, what happens if a man keeps no company? Does it mean that he cannot be judged? q:

proverbs

[anonymous]

actually, my favorite proverb pairs are: look before you leap/he who hesitates is lost//beware of greeks bearing gifts/never look a gift horse in the mouth

but there is a grain of truth to this. does a virtuous man life in a whorehouse? does a straight A student hang out with the troublemakers in class?

a man with no company is deemed a loner, for he is either misanthropic, paranoid, or both. someone with no company also has our pity.

Re: proverbs

[anonymous]

"A" students are totally troublemakers :) that's been my observation. And Jesus was all up on the whores and other riffraff, and made a big speech about how virtuous that is.

i should honor all the philosophical ideas in this thread with more thought, but i've got to sleep. meanwhile here's a quickie i'm-such-a-nerd comment; i used a corny ODE-trajectory metaphor for some of my grad school apps. but really i like the random walkin.

i think there's some entity you can call one's "self." it just encompasses a lot, and changes constantly, some apparent stability but of the dynamic-equilibrium kind.

--johanna

[grey_ghost]

mathgradness is a state of being. unlike, say the other sciences in which you _do_ things (experiments, tests, analysis of data, write books, etc) math is something in which envelops you.

I wouldn't be so quick to say that. What about the 9-to-5 mathematicians? Though few in number, they do exist.

however, one must be cautious so as not to confuse ones actions with "how you act". in the same way that painting the mona lisa does not make me da vinci, one can not conclude that someone who builds a hospital for terminally ill children is altruistic

You make a good point, but my doubts remain and prevent utter certainty. How are we ever certain that the motivation we guess is indeed the true one? I myself have had encounters where I could not determine whether I had a reason behind my actions.

I don't mean to raise Freudian issues, but I don't think we can claim understanding to the mind and whether it works in terms of such clear causality.

Thanks for writing, by the way. I didn't expect anyone to raise that many issues.