|
Hi Mark, as with many of the things I say, a ton of it is kinda like guesswerk, which sometimes reflects reasoning which has taken place on a level other than conscious , (which I have found over the years to be pretty accurate in many cases) for the mathematicians' situation, it seems to me that there is a whole lot of mental effort exerted to achieve the clarity required to achieve solutions to problems (which can also be supported by explanatory demonstrations of logical soundness) ... this effort disallows the mathematician from taking the easy way out which the mind sometimes really wants to do (although 'heuristic' channels of thinkning sometimes emerge out of the mix .. different chapter). anyway, this inner-pushing , if done at the physical level, could result in hernias or torn ligaments or whatever ... as athletic people probably know better than I, over exertion can result in injury. Is there any reasoin to suppose that mental exertion is spared from paying this price? this being said (all more or less opinion on my part) the types of mental injury (if the _meta_phor isn't stretched too far) would likely vary from mental activity -types which are associated with the causation (if there is any truth to this way of thinking, I'd guess that dumb as dirt mental illness differs from 'mathematical mental illness' <sorry, but I have to make up words here, even tho classificatory language de_script_ive of this differentiation probably doesn't exist .... dunno) ok, half-formed thought reporting more or less done, my guess is that this is how I arrived at this conclusion. a second guess is that it's the degree of effort put out in *using* a talent which is more predicitive of injury than having a talent itself. time to go work in the yard now, tracy mark lages <
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
wrote in message can you consider the possibility that a mathematician stretches the innate mental capability of the human organism to a far greater degree than most other people do in their pursuit of truth and insight? .... and as a possible consequence become more susceptible to problems characterized by the application of the term madness ? Can you be more specific? How do you arrive at this conclusion? Why would an expanded mental ability in something such as mathematics make anyone more prone to madness? Isn't the term madness related to mental illness issues such as paranoia, mood changes, schizophrenia, phobias, etc.? There are *lots* of mentally ill people who are dumb as dirt. I don't see how any of these illnesses relate directly to having a talent in any certain intellectual field. I don't necessarily disagree with you. I'm just curious to know how you have arrived at your conclusion. ....Mark
|
Favoured: 0
