Definition - Contradiction

Interesting Word.
Its fun thinking: "uhm, what can I say about this word..." and then start having ideas bubble in ones brain! :D Mathematics has a way of molding your world view, and apparently, for me, this word has been completely taken over! hehe...

Contradiction: Self-negating; An argument or expression which concludes falsifying itself.

Contradictions are invaluable in the discovery of new truths; many famous contradictions are a critical part in the growth of knowledge and our understanding. In logic (mathematics) demonstration through contradiction is indeed one of the most powerful forms of proof! For example; a fables narates how a Greek named Hippasus drowned over a "proof through contradiction": most Pythagoreans thought there was no such thing as irrational numbers (as it went against their beliefs on the beauty of nature); so like all other numbers must indead be rational... except that this leads to a contradiction. As the story states, Hippasus must have noted this, apparently sharing the demonstration just before being told to go drown somewhere.

Contradictions are not paradoxes, and are neither undecidable nor incomplete; this is why philosopher's and mathematitians have found salvation and beauty in carrying out proofs through contradiction. The weight of this perspective can be condensed in the following quote by Ayn Rand: "Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." Thats exactly how we can demonstrate irrational numbers exist. Because of this; it was once assumed that mathematics was a self healing body of absolute knowledge we simply pearing into; Galileo stated: "Mathematics is the language through which God has written the universe".

So: contradictory as it seems, contradictions have been the source of truth, new realizations and a more secure untainted view of our reality.

Definition - Duality

It was fun thinking about this word; it kinda triggered thoughts about Batman, the quest for the Grand Unification Theory, and super moms!

Duality: Ability to fit two models.

To be both rational & spiritual; mother & lawyer, duality implies in these cases individuals capable of two seemingly disparate roles.

Another famous duality is that of light; in which it was found to behave as both a particle and a wave depending on how the experiment is setup (this duality is then beautifully enclosed in Schrödinger's wave function).

Duality is a basic form of versatility, although dual personalities are frowned upon; and "two faced" is not a nice thing to call someone. The problem appears in so far as the individual's versatility arrives in detriment to the rest of society.

Definition - Exception

This second word was picked because it sounded nice and was a central part of the movie: 'He's just not that into you'; oh joy!

Exception: a statistically improbable outcome.

The film (which is, by the way, lackluster and mind-numbing) uses it in reference to our psychological inability to work with extreme odds, a 5% chance never seems that much worse than a 15 or 10 percent odd of success, let alone our attempt to compare 1 in a million with 1 in a thousand.

Our simple minds, seem to keep things in more robust comparison buckets like: very rare, rare, infrequent, etc. If two events fall into the same category, we don't really care that much...

So hey, we're the exception, now kiss me you fool!

Definition - Maturity

I'm planning on starting a series of posts in which I'll simply write my personal definition for some words.. followed by some sort of quip.

Maybe this will be fun, lighthearted and profound?.. :D Any words requests you might have, or want to know what thoughts they trigger for me?

First experimental word:

Maturity: A complex landscape of peaks and valleys over the surface of social interaction. Said landscape is a function of net utility rendered to self and society over the area of all possible interaction scenarios.

Personality, foresight and past experience in general allow us to maximize said utility. The perceived mean height of this graph is more commonly used to call a person either mature or immature.

How is maturity related to play?!

Why are we more dishonest now?

Why are we more dishonest in the twentieth century, than the nineteenth?



Because we have oversimplified man's social behavior. Economist's models of the human mind, and the trickling of said model to the rest of our interactions have led to 'incentive systems' that override an older finer grained set of social cooperative regulators that have been genetically embedded in most of us.



This means that: 'Man as a rational beast will cheat or steal in so far as it is worth the risk'. Now thinks our elite, now think all of us. This simplification has been useful in laying a foundation for more elaborate treatise, theory and social-economic policies; but fortunately for us, the flaws are readily visible and as we continue to perfect our theories, these views are changing.



Behavioral economics, led by people like Dan Ariely (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X68dm92HVI&feature=sdig&et=1243083222.49, http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/MIT/Papers/dishonesty.pdf) are working on fixing this, by bringing more accurate psychological models of human behavior into economic predictions and economic policy making.



So: books like Freakanomics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics), as popular as they may be, still miss a very important point: It's not just about money!!!!

Sobre la muerte de Mario Benedetti

"La humanidad ha perdido alguien increíble"

Eso me parece estar al revés! El egoísmo detrás de eso. De querer sacarle más! De que quizás no lo hallamos aprovechado, de que en la humanidad hubo un talento, que nos pasó desapercibido, y ahora estamos arrepentidos de que no lo hallamos aprovechado!

Sabemos que la entropia siempre aumenta, y que las cosas mueren. Los insectos en dias, las personas en años, las familias en siglos, las civilizaciones en milenios, los planetas y las estrellas en un poco más.

Todo muere; hasta que resolvamos el famoso problema de la entropia, hasta el universo en sí esta condenado a fallecer. A mi entender: sucede que este mismo aspecto de la realidad (la segunda ley) nos provee con una dirección en el tiempo, una flecha constante que en esta realidad separa tan firmemente el futuro del pasado; la vida de la muerte.

Nos empuja a cambiar, a avanzar nuestras vidas; a sentir la firmeza de lo afianzado, de lo ya realizado. De lo que fue escrito; de nuestra historia, que me lleva a opinar que la muerte es tanto una bendición como la maldición que nuestro egoísmo e instintos nos sugieren.

Por eso quizás veo la muerte como un sello; a partir de este evento, todas las influencias del ente en cuestión son indirectas; y el ente a firmado todos sus hechos en el tapiz de la existencia.

Decir que se ha perdido algo cuando esta firma se establece me suena tan tonto, es un menosprecio de todo lo que SI hizo frente lo que hubiera quizás podido hacer a continuación o no.

Siempre debemos enfocar lo que SI fuera realizado y gozar de la continuación de esos hecho en el desencadenamiento de las mismas.

Que maravilla la existencia de Benedetti!
Sent via BlackBerry® device.

Wolfram's Black Box: a biologist's take on Wolfram|Alpha

Alpha seems to me like an excellent preview of the future for human - machine augmentation... I agree with all the critics of the system right now; but a bigger view of things is needed to grasp the potential, soon we will be able to help ourselves to better understand some of the more complex concepts in nature, and be better human beings because of it. (For example, we still suck at grasping exponential growth, volume, etc... See my previous post: )

What are your opinions on Alpha?

http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/-inusvajtig/wolframs-black-box-a-biologists-take-on-wolframalpha.ars
Sent via BlackBerry® device.

What To Do When a Megacorp Wants To Buy You?

En este artículo de Slashdot:
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/T6N-IoSIVfI/article.pl

Habla de vender una compañía pequeña; sin sentirse desmotivado, o abandonando un ideal...

Hubo un tiempo en que Trapezoid (una compañía americana) estuvo interesado en kindleit; sentí que era muy temprano para soltar las riendas del proyecto; que habían cosas que quería experimentar todavía, errores que me faltaban por cometer, y lecciones, retos y metas... No sé...

En realidad la propuesta de ser sub-contratados es una que yo encuentro ideal, y creo que me voy a acercar a ellos de nuevo, ahora que la estructura es otra. En especial para desarrollar aplicaciones financieras, también intentaré conseguir proyectos más divertidos y retadores.

Ayer, por segunda vez, un ex-empleado comenta que mi infraestructura no es verdaderamente singular; y realmente me cuestiono la validez de mis comentarios, yo por mi cuenta la considero un avance significativo a todo lo otro que he visto, la considero altamente flexible, cómoda, extensible y a prueba de errores; un entorno muy integrado y coordinado... No sé... Asumo que el simple hecho de que estén las mismas herramientas lo hace común y no valoran la integración realizada, ni la manera en que se consiguió la flexibilidad...

Aún así, me trae suma curiosidad, y me crean ansias de seguir el esfuerzo y avanzar la infraestructura...
Que es, para mí, quizás uno de los futuros productos de kindleit, y sirvamos de consultoría para ayudar a otros equipos de desarrollo...

Ya veremos, ya veremos...

:)
Sent via BlackBerry® device.

Quiet Bacteria and Antibiotic Resistance

Dominican society is a mixture similar to the one patented by these scientists:

• http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bacteria-antibiotic-resistance

No matter how much we remind each other of the uselessness and counter-productivity we can't help but lie cheat and steal

Karma, Revenge & Justice

Twice in the last few months I've heard someone ease the precarity of their situation by stating: "that's karma", as if they had just atoned for previous misdeeds with an unfortunate set of events in their present circumstance.

That's something I can readily understand, but subtly conceals issues similar to those of revenge. It is highly doubtful one individual can gauge the negative impact of an action, especially under emotional distress; while revenge is most assuredly a heated over-reaction, karma is an emotionally charged rationalization; a passive self-excusing correlation between unrelated accidents.

If revenge is justice for none, than karma is justice for one (the karma calculator)... a catch phrase of sorts, yes, but it at also points to the possible non-universality, not just non-objectivity, of justice.

Can justice be individually achieved?
What is justice?
What are your definitions?

Open Source Contribution

We (kindleit.net) currently released a maven plugin for working with google app engine.

• Maven Google AppEngine Plugin @ Google Code

I didn't know where else to post this, so, here goes! :D