'For the person or persons that hold dominion, can no more combine with the keeping up of majesty the running with harlots drunk or naked about the streets, or the performances of a stage player, or the open violation or contempt of laws passed by themselves than they can combine existence with non-existence'.

- Benedict de Spinoza. Political Treatise. 1677.




Monday, June 29, 2009

on certainty 44


44. If you demand a rule from which it follows that there can’t have been a miscalculation here, the answer is that we did not learn this through a rule, but by learning to calculate.



yes – if you follow the directive that is the calculation –

you will calculate

if you don’t – or you can’t –

it’s not that you miscalculate

you just don’t

calculate


© greg t. charlton. 2009.