Did you choose the life of an intellectual?
And do your cool discoveries compensate you for lost social interaction?
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DrWatson · 70-79, M
@Carey I know. That's why i said we're "on our way".
Back in high school, I had an English teacher who used to cite that quote by Montaigne over and over, as she urged us not to make unsupported generalizations in our essays. I remember thinking about that quote and realizing that it led to some interesting logic. It was the first time the notion of 'self-reference' ever occurred to me, although of course I did not know the term.
We eventually read that essay by Montaigne, and I expected the next class to be about the question, "so if this generalization is also imperfect, does that mean some generalizations are OK. And what if this generalization is OK?" I really was confused and intrigued by this at the ripe old age of 15 or 16.
But much to my surprise, none of this was on my English teacher's mind at all. She simply repeated her dictum about not writing general statements in our essays. I was quite disappointed.
Many years later, I learned about Kurt Gödel!
Back in high school, I had an English teacher who used to cite that quote by Montaigne over and over, as she urged us not to make unsupported generalizations in our essays. I remember thinking about that quote and realizing that it led to some interesting logic. It was the first time the notion of 'self-reference' ever occurred to me, although of course I did not know the term.
We eventually read that essay by Montaigne, and I expected the next class to be about the question, "so if this generalization is also imperfect, does that mean some generalizations are OK. And what if this generalization is OK?" I really was confused and intrigued by this at the ripe old age of 15 or 16.
But much to my surprise, none of this was on my English teacher's mind at all. She simply repeated her dictum about not writing general statements in our essays. I was quite disappointed.
Many years later, I learned about Kurt Gödel!