I'm mostly into programming as a method of being able to replicate and share my thoughts with others - the English language seems to contain an infinite chain of signifieds for every macroscopic signifier, and this ruffles my feathers when I try an communicate something that is taken entirely the wrong way. In going into program I'm looking to see if the emporer isn't wearing any clothes - that is, to see if the notions of nuance and signified sliding takes place in programming languages as well as human ones - after all, is not the development of programming itself down to a sharing of a new form of language - with the added notion of complete failure (that is, an inability to compute). I'm additionally learning programming because my developing notion of strategy as fundamental to human cognition is going to be a hell of a reach without some decent computer modelling to back me up. I'm sure somebody has already beaten me with these - I've yet to read Winnicots thoughts on this as well as homo ludens and have a grip on game theory whatsoever (see below) but until that date, I'd rather had a way of expressing myself comptetently, ergo programming
Html5 and the entire coding programme over at codecamp. I've fallen asleep countless times to their calculus I video over at youtube, so it seems to be a reasonable resource. I'm currently on their HTML5 module. I realise this isn't a programming language per se but it scratches the python itch with the added bonus of not having to drag around my calculus textbook.
I would love to be able to design and implement a blog like this but the design aspects are a bit beyond me currently, my hopes are to complete the html/css course and be able to follow along with this without making a purely carbon copy. The notion of adding images is very attractive
Generally speaking, I really enjoy maths - I always come up with some kind of excuse for enjoying it - "I love it's application to topics I work with" "Its a great way of learning other language-led disciplines (programming, logic etc)"
And generally speaking, yes, mathmatics has an almost excrutiating amount of applicability - in that sense it's closer to philosophy its its spread. It also shares many features with the creative arts, and there is a constant to and fro of communication between the two, simply put, a good mathmatical formula is like a good poem, or line of a novel, it can condense deeply complex topics sometimes into a few letters. It permits itself this by maintaining both a rigidity and an openness. Think of the diverse applications of the pythagoras theorem - all sticking rigidly to the same formula, but bearing on formula as diverse as mechanics to dance.
My original goal was to get to a standard of mathematics where I could engage with Calculus, and my prior assumption was that meeting this standard stood me in good stead to understand topics further astray, such as Topology or the work of Gödel. It turns out that this was deeply mistaken, but coming to that knowledge was a valid journey in and of itself. It reifies the idea that I came to quite early in my philosophy journey in that most learning is parallel to Zeno's Achilles' paradox, in which the area or topic of knowledge aimed at progresses in the process of attempting to reach it - consequently causing a forever fleeting horizon. On the way, retrospective checkpoints appear naive - here I'm drawing somewhat on Hegel's concept of natural consciousness, in which previous moments of spirit are encountered for the second time as trivial an childish notions. This idea is proved by spending even a few moments around highly completent people in most professions.
Therefore, I am currently attempting what roughly equates to a North American Undergraduate Major in Mathematics. This includes roughly (as adapted from https://www.susanrigetti.com/math):
Four semesters of calculus
An “introduction to proofs” courseCalculus I
Linear algebra
Two semesters of algebra
Real Analysis
Complex Analysis
Ordinary Differential Equations
Partial Differential Equations
My interest in physics is somewhat is in someway similar to my transition from Psychology - In a last ditch attempt to ground myself in applicability and the material world, Physics is for my own good. I would love to spend more time on physics, and no doubt I will come to it in more of a major way if I pursue the neuroscientific end of my own discipline. Again, I would like to reach the level necessary to be able to encounter theories and physical concepts with some degree of confidence, or as the Serenity prayer goes: the wisdom to know the difference. Here is a list of what is encountered in a typical Physics Undergraduate course in the US (adapted again from Regetti's website):
Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on perspective) somebody has quantised the learning of language into easy discrete chunks, meaning that the whole situation is much more quantifiable, and easier to generate salience. To prove knowledge in physics or mathematics, one can simply attempt a problem. In modern languages, the situation is rather different - here the signifier prevails, and not discrete but dynamic knowledge predominates. I've been quite taken by the Refold blog - and the notion of threefold method as follows:
Active immersion: When you pay full attention to your immersion.
Passive listening: When you listen to immersion throughout the day.
Active study: When you study vocabulary and grammar.
I'm not particularly convinced that this is an original notion - and have been wary of any similar methods in the past. As is typical, learning in the modern century is more about finding time, and using that time as efficiently as possible. In this way, language learning, and at least partially all formalised systems of knowledge are a language to the extent that languages are a formal system of elements. Therefore there is some level of equivelance, and possibly even inter-disciplinarian grasping (in the Begrieff sense). In that sense, the choice of discipline is a rather uninteresting one - akin to writing with a different instrument - it is clear that there are effects on the final text - but the final text is precisely fixed in that sense.
Lets put the cards on the table: German is probably the most useful language to learn as somebody that is interested in the history of psychology and philosophy, as practiced in Europe. Not to mention the long list of authors that I am interested in who wrote in German despite not even living there. The notion of being able to read Hegel, Kant, Freud, Wittgenstein etc... is tantalizing enough to get me out of bed in the morning. I'm so far behind in my German learning process vs. French, so It'll be interesting to see the consequences of starting a language with a distinct focus on reading, whilst French was more social in its scope. All of the grammar rules are so interesting, and being able to dig deep and translate individual concepts will deserve its own page to be found here