Reviews for Developing Mathematics Through Applications

The average rating for Developing Mathematics Through Applications based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-11-03 00:00:00 Patricia J Riley We are looking for the unity between mathematics and poetry. Actually, it's an easy question to ask but it might take one hundred pages to explain. It boils down to the fact that the human mind is organized around number. Number is useful for memory. Number is useful for collections. Number is useful period. Since the human mind developed in response to demands for survival number dawned on early man as the best way to organize living arrangements, eating habits, the raw and the cook, and the processes involved in hunting. But these details are not specifically addressed in Buchanan's book. What he does address is the simple fact that given this numerical bent he finds it in any and all activities suggesting the freedom of the mind when not preoccupied with questions of survival. The free mind rejoices in structure, not for its own sake, but as a toy to play with. The free mind is the playful mind. The free mind entertains itself with patterns, logic, reasoning and creation. The free mind is the poet of experience. In our collective experience there have been five variations in the development of the free mind, the Greek, the Christian, the Practical, the Commercial, and the Psychological. Let me briefly explain how the freedom of the mind expresses itself in these five stages. 1. Plato's Politeia: In the first dawn of freedom there was time. Time away from labor, toil, and trouble. No one who has tried to survive excremental assault will forget this period. It is best expressed in the Politeia of Plato, unfortunately translated as Republic. The dialectic is the instrument for the investigation of morality, especially what it means to be both fair and just, and thus becomes an object of desire for all ethically sensitive people. Even average people have a moral code, but they do not subject it to the rigors of the dialectic. Average people apply excremental assaults to those who fail according to their code of morality. The search for the "Good" became a dominant theme in Greek philosophy. Sadly, in our times, dear reader, we find ourselves barren in the field of dialectics because we have no regulatory nor any constitutive notion of the Good. 2. Augustine's City of God: With the dawn of the life of Christ understood as a revelation from the "Father" of us all, a new portal was opened. This portal leads to eternal life. For those sensitive to the excremental assault of sin in this lifetime, so common for all of us, the portal was viewed as the best opportunity to live with excrement. People hungered for eternity and they conformed to its demands by practicing the Father's sacramental grace. That road leads to what few people understand, genuine beatitude, a peace surpassing all understanding as St. Paul so eloquently places it. 3. Hobbes's Leviathan: When this new dawn of freedom was formulated in the 16th century freedom became that which makes death disappear from daily experience. Typically we moderns will witness, say, a brutal assault on a homeless person or we might hear reports that a dozen people have been killed while shopping at Walmart. Often the one carrying out the excremental assault is called a "white bigot," either fairly or unfairly. But the point is that Hobbes demanded a new standard for freedom: freedom from the fear of violent death. Living in such fear is not tolerable for a sane mind. Hobbes did not promise eternity, but he did promise that if we equip the government with the right tools, we can live without fear of violent death, tuning up our engines and getting on with pursing whatever it is we pursue because of the nature we have. Your typical Hobbesian character will say, "Free me from fear and I will stay out of your business." 4. Smith's Commercial Society: With the beginning of the 17th century a new dawn of freedom was proclaimed by Adam Smith when he showed how labor might be organized so that productivity could soar with less effort. By harking out the demon of specialization and organizing labor into mass production, the wealth needed to make life bearable might be generated. Even better leave the necessary calculations too those entrepreneurs who desire to become very wealthy, those that would feel cheated if they could not wine and dine at the most expensive restaurants. These people often show the rest of us that life does not need to be a series of excremental assaults. In this world of freedom people produce, barter, negotiate and compete for the best results. As one president put it, "the business of America is business." 5. Freud's Sado-Masochistic Community: Though not exactly a "follower" of the Marquis de Sade, we can say with a certain level of confidence that the great challenge to freedom was freedom from bondage. Yet what Freud pointed out is that bondage is also attractive. Some enjoy giving and others receiving. And what exactly is either given or received? Excremental assaults, of course. Where and how does freedom operate in such an environment? One portal is called 'therapy'-obviously a failure. The other portal is living within our dreams of what might be. The harshness of life denies us the freedom we need and want. Return to your dreams, dear reader, and there you will uncover the coercive mechanisms that keep you and the rest of us in place and which we dream of escaping. We all seek to avoid the Marquis' dungeon, except when are watching the latest TV series. Write down your dreams. Study them. Find your own pathway to freedom. A new freedom, this time a freedom from compulsion, from dead habits, and from the inane pleasure of the sado-masochists. Take heart, you can live beyond the newest excremental assaults.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-11-19 00:00:00 Jay Johnson This book is not for the faint of heart, but, for those willing to wrestle with the ideas in it, it does offer a compelling analysis of how knowledge is acquired and synthesized into systems of thought and belief. Well worth the effort.