Sailing the Seas of Thought

On charitable interpretation, resonance, and the Jazz of Ideas

January 22, 2021Posted inOdds & Ends
A woman stands in a narrow boat drifting on a stormy sea, surrounded by birds

I am an inveterate ‘sharer’. The shares that I take most pleasure in1 are ideas: papers, lectures, book extracts, podcasts, tweets. I see this in terms of missionary zeal: I derive pleasure from spreading the word. But the recipient does not always share my enthusiasm. Sometimes this is because I’ve overlooked some error or ulterior motive that a more patient observer would detect. I attribute much of this to a tendency for charitable interpretation. I fill out ideas with the help of memory and imagination; I smooth off the sharp edges. And even though I’m aware of this phenomenon, I miss flaws in what I share, seeing then only after someone else points them out2. But the overlooked flaws — which so often provoke irritation — are not always in the share itself, but in its source.

Correcting the Eurocentric History of Mathematics: A Series of Diagrams

December 11, 2015Posted inOdds & Ends

k9308In his book The Crest of the Peacock, George Ghevarghese Joseph documents how the popular picture of the mystical, irrational Orient and the logical, rational Occident breaks down when you actually look at the history of the spread of mathematical ideas. He starts with the tired old “Greeks Did Everything First” narrative, and then gradually builds up a more complex — and more accurate — picture of how mathematical ideas spread and evolved.

Here I’m going to show you some of the diagrams he used to help illustrate his case: