It was fractals that managed to re-ignite my interest in math after having it de-constructed by highschool teachers.
Amazing images embedded in suspiciously simple formulas. Irresistible.
I owe the man a lot, this is really not a good thing to go to sleep with.
I don't get why humans mourn the death of people who die at >80, and especially people who have lead such illustrious, incredible lives. It should be a time for celebration, of the incredible way in which Mandelbrot has contributed to the sum of Humanity's Greatness. We should literally throw a party in His honor.
Humans die around age 80, with a variance of about 55-105. It's just a fact. For all our claims of progress, we are still hopelessly emotional animals who are influenced by whatever-happens-to-influence-us rather than solely by logic and reason.
What's the point of celebrating now that he's dead?
My great grandmother used to tell all of us -- if you're planning to come to my funeral: don't. Use the money and time you'd spend then and come visit me now.
I think now is a reasonable time to mourn. A great mathematician is no longer around to give talks (I went to one a few years ago and thought it was very neat), and if you know him personally then you won't get to see him and converse with him anymore. That's very sad. Sure, he may have done abstractly great things, but there's no denying there are sad aspects to it.
But as for celebrations and parties, those should be done while the guy is still around to enjoy, I think.
There's no value in pointing out that most of the things we do when somebody dies make no sense. We all know that they make no sense, but we do them anyway, because we feel the need to do something, and aside from the bare mechanical fact of getting the corpse out of the way before it starts to smell there's really not much to do that does make sense.
My grandma’s brothers and sisters, kids and grandkids came spontaneously together in her living room shortly after she died at the age of 85. We told each other stories about her life, how she fought her illness late in life, about pranks her kids played on her, how she, as the oldest, had to take care of her brothers and sisters after her parents died early. It was absolutely wonderful and we laughed a lot. Not for her benefit but for us. Much better than the phony consolation and rigid structure of the funeral that followed.
My grandma should never have died. Nobody should ever have to die. But I have become convinced that if someone does celebration is the right way to say goodbye. The mourning will come anyway, be sure to celebrate a little.
I don't think that's a particularly useful or healthy attitude to have towards death, actually.
I like to be pragmatic. I know very well that I will most likely die in a few decades. That’s just how it looks to be at the moment. I do however strongly believe we and the generations that follow us should fight death and that we can win.
If we could live forever, than we couldn't have any children (our reproduction rate is exponential, but there's only one planet that can hold us all and it doesn't grow any larger).
Stretching this, there would be no real notion of parents or grandparents. And it would get pretty boring too.
As most of us here, you're probably too young. Do you have children? Wait until you see your first toddler walking towards you while laughing.
It's a sentiment worth dying for ;)
On a related note -- for anyone who hasn't read "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" -- It's brilliant.
I'm merely mourning the emotional complex of otherwise-logical humans. I happened to have a frustrating week due to coworkers being unwilling to think about logical benefits of proposed solutions, letting their emotions overwhelm their judgement. "Schedule feature requests? Schedules cause pain, anguish, and suffering; also monsters will materialize and devour your soul. Your whole soul. Scheduling is out of the question. P.S. I assigned you a bug to get done before tomorrow evening (seriously). Drop your multi-week project and work on that, now. Don't worry, I cleared it with the lead programmer."
So when I read the top comment of the top article on HN, and realized it was negatively charged with emotion, I suppose I got a little cynical. :)
In case anyone else is as skeptical as I am ("another Harry Potter fan fic? Why is it special?), I want to point out that this work is by Eliezer Yudkowsky, a major contributor to Less Wrong (lesswrong.com).
He has a remarkable ability to define and express rational ideas. He takes concepts and terms that I've only encountered in a classroom, and puts them in the middle of a sentence like they're ordinary ideas, and it makes sense. I know I'm not doing a very good job of expressing why I like his writing so much, but I do.
-- John Donne
Now, you could make the argument that they wouldn't want to die if they were in good health. But then you'd have to start thinking about how good your health needs to be - good enough not to need help? Good enough to be able to do anything you want? Good enough not to worry about doing stupid things? Good enough to keep up with the world as it races ahead, knowing you will eventually be required to understand all the new things?
I guess nature has also made it so that it becomes easier to die. As I said, if your physical health is dwindling day by day, perhaps there is a point when it doesn't seem so much fun to be alive anymore. Also if all friends have already died, perhaps it becomes lonely.
All these are just more reasons to feel sad, though. What if we could become 80 and still feel fit?
My grandfather in particular was an agricultural scientist, he loves plants and outdoors and working with tools, and used to be very energetic.
Now he has to sit on a wheelchair, and grows bored of watching TV and reading (it doesn't help that his eyesight is very bad).
Their current enjoyment are their grandchildren, and we've grown old. I just hope they can get to see their grand-grandchildren (my girlfriend and I expect to have children in 2 to 3 years' time), that might get them some enjoyment again.
Hm, maybe I'll just give her a WoW account + better graphics card for christmass. Who knows :-)
In theory the internet should be great for lonely people stuck at home. My problem is that apart from Hacker News, I don't really know where to turn on the internet when I feel lonely, either.
Any pointers? Most chat rooms seem really tacky, but I didn't do that much research.
Is there a MMORPG for the iPad yet?
This is a common snowclone (X is <far superior in some dimension - often intelligence> than you or I) that really bothers me. It's a kind of hero worship that attributes too much to the hero in question and makes unfounded assertions about "you or I".
I can understand that people become enthuisiastic about their heroes and that exaggeration is even a form of showing respect. But too much is no good for anyone.
I'll be the first to admit that the reason I'm sad about the not-particularly-untimely death of some dude I've never met has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with the reminder that I, and everybody I care about, will also die at some point. Mouthing the meaningless platitudes which we associate with death helps to take the sting away.
Because we wanted a little more time with him? Because we don't have enough geniuses?
Better now? ;-)
People who reach old age have fulfilled all the potential they can realistically expect to, and death is less unexpected (i.e. "everybody dies, you're lucky to have made it this far"). While we still mourn them, we can also celebrate their life and achievements.