SHEsaysWITHaSMILE.blogspot.com

I AM LIKE A MATHEMATICIAN (me!) ORIGINAL POST 10/13/2010

to be sure, i am a strange loop is both over and inside my head. but even though the number talk eludes me, the truth and beauty and pattern talk, is exactly m,y language.

and it is no secret what a time i've had with math & numbers throughout my life.. not an area of strength,

so, well, -how can i describe?

says here: location 1692 [kindle, not paperback]

Mathematicians are people who at their deepest core are drawn on indeed, are easily seduced by the urge to find patterns where initially there would seem to be none.

"that's me!" i'm like a mathematician of human behavior. let me share my most recent example:

because i am all the time, not just living day-to-day life, but kind of observing myself living day-to-day life also, and often those self-observations create graphs/patterns/maps in my mind

one of my patterns looks like this

SOMETHING DESIRED

DETERMINED ACHIEVABLE

LOW LEVEL OBSTACLES = CREATIVE SOLUTIONS

HIGH LEVEL OBSTACLES =

and here i determine whether i should try harder or surrender, based on whether or not it feels within my control.

HIGH LEVEL OBSTACLE OUT OF MY CONTROL = STOP. SURRENDER. PEACE. MOVE ON...

****

that is, i won't stay upset, or keep banging my head against the wall, or pray for.. wish for, try to work around or pre-occupy myself with thoughts of defeat, injustice, or anything along those lines.

but this took a while to figure out.

the thing is -it seems a pretty predictable pattern for me now, and it doesn't much matter what the desired object and/or experience is -that's a variable

and it doesn't matter what the low level obstacle is -another variable /but longer map appears for determining low level vs. high level obstacles. i don't need to go there to make my point

and so, having observed this in myself, of course! i look for & find patterns in others. it's fun.

***

and i'm quite struck by hofstadter's "where there's a pattern, there's a reason" -i know it's true. i know it's as true for human behavior as it is for prime numbers

i'm a HUGE ADVOCATE for INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH & STUDY -he's not the only one to point it out, but eric kandel gives great testimony for how valuable it is to have psychologists AND neuroscientists AND biologists AND psychiatrists all working TOGETHER. sharing their insights, knowledge, discoveries, wisdom, -sharing their questions, dilemmas, stuck places... -let us add mathematicians, historians, artists

and keep adding.

let us not segregate letters and numbers.. religion and science... let us, each specialized group, dare to leave our specialized labs, and -commune

working together i think we can move forward and evolve with much greater momentum. -and there are so many areas that overlap...

****

also,

i watched via podcast, hofstadter's talk on analogies as a core cognition. a wonderful presentation..

no doubt about it. and he does a great job of demonstrating "what" our minds do -this ongoing analogy-triggering process we all seem to do

but no discussion of the why or how.. (we just do..)

i turn then to "where there's a pattern, there's a reason' -and am confident, the neuroscientists coming up today -in collaboration, of course, with other disciplines

will be able to provide the why & how to hofstadter's what.

posted by SHE @ 8:58 AM