Swiss Ephemeris

[Deborah Swanson]

> 
> Rustom Mody wrote, on Monday, April 10, 2017 11:50 PM
> > 
> > On Monday, April 10, 2017 at 11:26:47 AM UTC+5:30, Deborah Swanson 
> > wrote:
> > > The great ancients were no less endowed with intelligence than we
are,
> > > they simply directed it to different ends.
> > 
> > And just when I was convinced by the all-knowers that my gpa
> > was a monkey you've spoilt my complacence
> 
> Good! It's unhealthy the way modern folk strut around 
> thinking they're the smartest humans to ever walk this earth. 
> We've gone farther with technology than any other time or 
> culture, but invention (and innovation) is only one aspect of 
> intelligence.
> 
> > > ... medical astrology...
> > 
> > whether that is hooey or scepticism of it is hooey, I dont
> > know [Yeah I genuinely don't know what that term means for you]
> 
> I don't know that anyone does. I use a very strict 
> interpretation of the orginal rules that you won't by find 
> googling "medical astrology". (I know, I've tried, in the old 
> Google as well as the new.) There's no pretension to mystic 
> art in my form, but mine's a lot more accurate and 
> information rich, so far as I can see in the few writings 
> about it. I think concentrating on the actual and valid 
> relationships while ignoring all the mysticism yields more 
> useful results. I know the ancient Greeks were wed to their 
> gods and I forgive them for that. I just think they would 
> have done better without the mythology.
> 
> > However you may be interested in
> > http://blog.languager.org/2016/01/how-long.html
> > which is a > motley collection of the incredible 
> > persistence of humans to erroneous ways and outlooks and 
> > their damaging consequences
> 
> I think you also talk about the incredible persistence of 
> other concepts and perceptions, notably in music and 
> mathematics (which were always linked in earlier times).
> 
> I would find your other examples of erroneous thinking a bit 
> skewed in lengths of time. Tofler was right in Future Shock. 
> We've accelerated our intellectual development since the 
> Middle Ages, though I don't think it's because we're any 
> smarter. I can't remember exactly when it was that the human 
> brain reached it's current size and mental capacity, but it 
> was shortly before the time of the ancients. Physiologically 
> we've changed very little since then, but the knowledge base 
> we've built on over time was what eventually caused the 
> acceleration. No single person in modern times is 
> intellectually capable of buiding the concepts we now use 
> from scratch. We stand on the shoulders of giants.
> 
> > [Frank Admission: That list started with a discussion on this list 
> > where I
> > suggested that OOP is already debunked hooey and that FP is 
> > the way forward for programming. To which Steven asked that 
> > since FP is at least 50 years old and has not got 
> > very far, what makes one think its going anywhere...
> > To which I wondered... Is 50 years a long time? By what standard? 
> > Hence that list ]
> 
> 50 years isn't that long, though you must consider the 
> accelerated times we're living in. LISP is likely doomed 
> though. It's chief claim to fame was AI, and it's unlikely to 
> reclaim its former glory, not with languages like Python 
> leading the charge.  My only contact with LISP was from a 
> computer science professor in 1975, who literally raved about 
> how superior LISP was. I dunno. I was doing AI in PL1 then 
> and had several debates with this fellow. I don't remember 
> much of the substance of those debates, but I know he never 
> persuaded me that LISP was superior to PL1.
> 
> Deborah
>