Descartes by Jorge Luis Borges
I am the only man on earth, but perhaps there is neither earth nor man.
Perhaps a god is deceiving me.
Perhaps a god has sentenced me to time, that lasting illusion.
I dream the moon and I dream my eyes perceiving the moon.
I have dreamed the morning and evening of the first day.
Showing posts with label certainty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label certainty. Show all posts
Friday, July 15, 2011
I have dreamed geometry
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Attitudes of Numbers
I like Bruce Snider 's "The Certainty of Numbers" (which you may already have found online at The Poetry Foundation website, featured in the April 14 posting) even though I disagree with the initial attitude toward mathematics expressed by its narrator. Writing a poem can be a voyage of discovery with the narrator's view flexing as the poem progresses.
Snider's poem brings to mind a view of mathematics that repeatedly bothers me: I wonder why some people -- who would not complain about the fixendess of spellings of "cat" or "dog" or "sum" -- dislike mathematics for the so-called rigidity of arithmetic facts such as "2 + 4 = 6." ? ? ?
Snider's poem brings to mind a view of mathematics that repeatedly bothers me: I wonder why some people -- who would not complain about the fixendess of spellings of "cat" or "dog" or "sum" -- dislike mathematics for the so-called rigidity of arithmetic facts such as "2 + 4 = 6." ? ? ?
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