And they probably haven’t read Whitehead either! Might not even know who he was. If he were alive today, he would be banned from publishing at “arXiv”, banned from crossing the Atlantic on a ferry boat and banned from teaching at Harvard. It would be considered detrimental to common order. No one would implore him to carry on, to move, to create. At the end of the day, it took the best minds of a generation 60 years to prove him “wrong” on an interpretative subject, and all the rest has been passed over like a monumental and beautiful wave on a bamboo raft.
Anyway, coming back to your doctrina elegans, what Mermin said is just a reflection of a common perception. You have a impeccable style. You can be read. My feeling back in the day was probably the same as that of everyone who has ever paid you any level of attention. We can tolerate anything from a philosophical mind, we can disagree with the argument, with the form and the conclusions, but we cannot tolerate a mind that cannot be read; yours is a joy to follow. You are as good a scientific writer as Bill Starbuck (and that’s where the spectrum ends effectively). In fact, both of you are on the same boat.
I cannot say anything about QBism, because I haven’t read a word about it (yet), but my first impression from what you say here is this: haven’t we said all that already before? This feels like my sleepy commute. I’m getting off here, even though I thought I already got off on the previous station, and they both look rather similar.
As of one interpretation or another being more preferred I cannot vouch one way or the other, but you not being read in the future, that is a non-event. Doesn’t matter what the referee community thinks. Humanity will (and are) losing good sense, but we will never lose style.
And they probably haven’t read Whitehead either! Might not even know who he was. If he were alive today, he would be banned from publishing at “arXiv”, banned from crossing the Atlantic on a ferry boat and banned from teaching at Harvard. It would be considered detrimental to common order. No one would implore him to carry on, to move, to create. At the end of the day, it took the best minds of a generation 60 years to prove him “wrong” on an interpretative subject, and all the rest has been passed over like a monumental and beautiful wave on a bamboo raft.
Anyway, coming back to your doctrina elegans, what Mermin said is just a reflection of a common perception. You have a impeccable style. You can be read. My feeling back in the day was probably the same as that of everyone who has ever paid you any level of attention. We can tolerate anything from a philosophical mind, we can disagree with the argument, with the form and the conclusions, but we cannot tolerate a mind that cannot be read; yours is a joy to follow. You are as good a scientific writer as Bill Starbuck (and that’s where the spectrum ends effectively). In fact, both of you are on the same boat.
I cannot say anything about QBism, because I haven’t read a word about it (yet), but my first impression from what you say here is this: haven’t we said all that already before? This feels like my sleepy commute. I’m getting off here, even though I thought I already got off on the previous station, and they both look rather similar.
As of one interpretation or another being more preferred I cannot vouch one way or the other, but you not being read in the future, that is a non-event. Doesn’t matter what the referee community thinks. Humanity will (and are) losing good sense, but we will never lose style.
Yours,
A
Hey Arian, don't embarrass me!