Perhaps I am just dumb

[Skip Montanaro]

Sheila already provided pointers to some good introductory material.  I will
comment on just one thing you said:

    wookiz> .... Yet I feel I need to be doing a university degree course in
    wookiz> philosophy or mathematics to follow almost any discussion....

Most of the discussion tends to be about more controversial aspects (or
proposed aspects) of the language.  This generally means people are
discussing stuff that is around the margins.  It sometimes tends to get a
bit esoteric, but once you have a firm grasp of the core language - the 95%
everybody tends to use for most of their work - you'll begin to understand
some of the marginal issues more.

-- 
Skip Montanaro (skip at pobox.com - http://www.mojam.com/)