Talk:G. Spencer-Brown

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Philip Meguire, 22.10.05: I cleaned up this entry as part of my rewrite of Laws of Form, adding some links that may address some of the questions and concerns raised below. George Spencer-Brown is an amateur philosopher and mathematician, who has made embarrassing claims in print. Some who have interacted with him tell me that his prickly character leaves something to be desired. Charles Peirce anticipated much of what is valid in Laws of Form, but these writings of Peirce's have also been largely ignored by the intellectual establishment. Nevertheless, it remains the case that LoF shows a way of making elementary logic and Boolean algebra a lot easier to learn than they are at present.

Why isn't this at George Spencer-Brown? Or is he more commonly known as "G"? RickK 22:56, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

He is more commonly known as G. and that is his pen-name. SamuelWantman

G. Spencer-Brown is primarily know for Laws of Form, which he published under the name G. and not George. This is similar to wikipedia entries for G. Gordon Liddy, H. Rap Brown, J. Edgar Hoover, etc... If you feel this is incorrect, please discuss your reasons before moving the page again. Thank --Samuel Wantman 10:18, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] VfD?

I'm half-tempted to nominate this at WP:VFD. He published one (possibly crank) book, and came up with a wrong proof of the four color theorem. He doesn't seem notable to me. Dbenbenn 07:23, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Does that mean that someone who comes accross his name or book shouldn't know anything about him? Why? --Samuel Wantman 10:01, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That, and even if his laws of form are crank, they are one of the building blocks for one of the more influential sociological theories of the last decades. -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 10:35, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Looks like a clearcut "kook" to me, except for his having held positions at reputable universities. Do we have some references to verify those? -- Danny Yee 04:19, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I believe everything in this article is accurate. Check out the Laws of form website. He had a bit of a following in the 70's which continues still. I don't see any reason to delete. There is no reason why the "less notable" cannot have articles about them. He may be eccentric, but he is not a "kook". -- Samuel Wantman 10:29, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, there is no reason to delete this article (nor is there any reason to delete L. Ron Hubbard). Howver, it is extaordinarily POV (not to say hagiographical nonsense). A large number of mathemticians and logicans consider him a crank. This is not POV. It is a fact thta a large number of mathemtaicians an logicians conisdre hima crank. I will get the sources and try to balance out this matter.--Lacatosias 07:52, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

JA: Coming up with an incorrect proof of a difficult theorem does not qualify one as a crank or a kook in mathematics, else few would scape a whipping. The use of ad hominem arguments instead of proofs might, however, count as an early symptom. Jon Awbrey 14:06, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

It is not fair to accuse me of ad hominem, since I was not talking about Spencer Brown but rather the lack of balance in the article. Here is one example of contrary opinion to that which is exemplified in the article(the only thing I can find on short notice but I will certainly work on finding more):

I wrote Martin Gardner, he replied 30-Nov-79: "I once planned a column about Spencer-Brown, but Donald Knuth talked me out of it on the grounds that it would give valuable publicity to a charlatan! But I have some paragraphs about Brown and his flawed four-color proof, and his Laws of Form, coming up in my Feb column. Conway once described the book as beautifully written but "content free." I describe it as a "construction of the propositional calculus in eccentric notation." But it has a big cult following, and even a periodical devoted to it."

--Lacatosias 15:31, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Look, here's a quotation from the Laws of Form web site itself:

The work is powerful and has established a passionate following as well as harsh critics.

All I'm asking is why isn't this "harsh criticism" represneted in the article as well. Leaving it out gives an extremely misleading impression that there is a universal consensus about the value of LOF. It's just that simple.--Lacatosias 15:42, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

JA: I was commenting on the entire collection of comments on this page. The use of terms like crank and kook is ad hom, no matter how you look at it, just as an appeal to Gardner's appeal to Knuth is an appeal to authority, neither of which contribute to mathematical argument proper. Any acquaintance with the history of science tells us that people with all sorts of kooky ideas can now and then have a doozy of a good one, witness Descartes and Newton, to mention just a couple. Jon Awbrey 15:48, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Fine, leaving out appeal to authority and "crank", I'm appealing to Wikipedia policy of NPOV. You still have not responded to the following fundamental point:

The work is powerful and has established a passionate following as well as harsh critics.

All I'm asking is why isn't this "harsh criticism" represneted in the article as well. Leaving it out gives an extremely misleading impression that there is a universal consensus about the value of LOF. It's just that simple.--Lacatosias 15:42, 2 April 2006 (UTC)--Lacatosias 16:03, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

JA: As I understand it, the procedure is to add whatever you see fit, so long as you source it with a reliable source. I am personally less interested in opinion in a matter like this, but maybe some people are. Jon Awbrey 16:30, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] James Keys

He also wrote poems (23 Degrees of Paradise) and a (to my mind rather annoying) half-poem/half-prose piece about his views on the sexes called Only two can play at this game, both under the name James Keys. And there is also a document floating around (possibly never formally published? I'm not sure) in which several people (some of them, I believe, connected to Co-Evolution Quarterly, now Whole Earth Review) spent a few days with him in a Q&A about some of his ideas that sit weirdly at the boundaries between math and mysticism. I've seen it, but I don't have a copy any more. I believe that somewhere in there, though, is one lovely quote: "A mystic is not someone to whom everything is mysterious; a mystic is someone to whom everything is perfectly clear." Anyway, I'm not particularly interested in putting in time on this one, but this may provide some useful leads for those who are.

In any event, I think Laws of Form has enough of a cult status to merit an article on him even if he is a bit of a crackpot. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:51, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Niklas Luhmann

Niklas Luhmann was a vastly prestigious Professor of Sociology in Germany - died 1998 - and has dozens of books in prints and about 20 translated into English - he cites GSB very frequently and respectfully, and regarded GSB's work as foundational in his own. This was my stimulus for looking up Spencer Bown, and I think it is vital that Wikipedia has a listing, indeed probably a more detailed listing than this one.

But the section: "...he studied at Trinity College Cambridge, earning Honours in Philosophy (1950) and Psychology (1951), and where he met Bertrand Russell. From 1952 to 1958, he taught philosophy at Christ Church College, Oxford, earning M.A. degrees in 1954 from both Oxford and Cambridge" must be a bit confused.

The MA is the only undergraduate degree from Oxford and Cambridge, but (I think this is correct) graduates initially receive a BA, which can then be automatically upgraded to MA after 3 years on payment of a small fee. The following is a guess - and I don't know where to check the facts. Probably GSB received an BA from Cambridge in 1951 (the 'tripos' degree having two parts, after 2 years and after 3 years, each awarded a separate title - in this case the Philosophy and Psychology names). This BA Cantab may have been automatically upgraded to MA after 3 years - in 1954. The Oxford MA of the same year was probably honorary (there was no time to complete a further course of study) - I would guess - since Oxford staff are/ were awarded an Oxford MA for the rather obscure reason that other universities degrees are not recognized for certain internal procedural purposes (membership of some committees, voting in certain elections etc). Therefore, the Oxford MA was probably not an extra degree in its own right, but just a matter of formality.