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Infinities, Tolstoy, dreams and Nabokov

My interest in mathematics is more personal than it is academic. I learned what I know formally, in the usual sequence of undergraduate and graduate math courses. But it has penetrated my personal life, and I have come to see mathematics as deeply rooted in a fundamental human drive to live more, or to live […]

Cognition and Will

I see mathematics as associated with a searching, instinctual will, whose direction is shaped by our biology. I find some of its roots in the way our visual system constructs what we see, or in the way grid cells (neurons lit by location) tell a rat where it is, or the way ants can find […]

From Kant’s mathematics to Schopenhauer’s will…

To give shape to this blog, I’ve been jumping around quite a lot through the fields of mathematics, physics, and the neurological and cognitive sciences. I decided today to let more of my weight drop into philosophy.

It’s not unusual when reading about 19th century developments in mathematics (the ones that lay the groundwork for […]

Nature’s Culture

In another blogging heads interview (and in a related blog), John Horgan explores with David Rothenberg the significance of beauty in scientific thinking. Rothenberg’s new book Survival of the Beautiful, is the subject of much of their discussion. While the conversation centers on questions of beauty (how biology does or does not take it into […]

The Gift of Steve Jobs

Contrary to the by-line, this post is by Bob not Joselle. She wanted me to post an item that’s been of interest lately.

As a reader of Mac and Apple rumor sites over the years, I was surprised the night of October 5th when I went to cnn.com to show Joselle a news item which […]