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Friday, June 29, 2018

Relief on academia

Am relieved to be back to feeling that academia on the whole works ok. And feel like gained quite a bit from my education including my four years of college for my degree in physics. But also am looking at a current situation which highlights I think where academia can fail, but shows how the web is helping much.

The situation in mathematics with number theory is in MY OPINION, a total fail, where a demonstrated flaw with number theory has not been properly addressed now for over 15 years. And 14 years since a published paper with a wacky story that I think is telling. But mathematicians were weird about things anyway. ONE of their big claims was that their field was immune from upheavals, like had happened, ironically in fields like physics.

They were wrong.

However, it is of interest to muse a bit as am thankful to be back to being confident that MOST of academia prizes best knowledge. Which is probably mostly correct. So is interesting to consider how one of the most logical could go so wrong.

And yeah, mathematics is potentially dominated by logic and what can be proven. But what if people knowingly claim something shown to be false is actually still true? Then what? Oh well academics are not SUPPOSED to do that right? But what protections if they do anyway?

And there is the problem. Possibly we're lucky then that a problem can be shown where absolute proof lets us know, and then we can puzzle over why humans would behave that way.

We are communal creatures. Human beings can easily believe things NOT true for the sake of community. While knowledge can be very disruptive.

So with my situation, have demonstrated valuable information which is needed, and web let's me know. Web lets others know as well. But is like with my improvement on binary quadratic Diophantine reduction. People can just use the best and STILL support the current math community.

So you get an academic version and what people who want to actually best solve a problem use.

Which is the great news actually. As attention is indefinitely and relentlessly gathered to the correct result that will dominate over time. Web just lets discoverers watch, which is different from the past.

Means you can relax about many things. And is very wild actually though I try to talk casually. But more and more appreciate how things draw attention. And yeah, reality is MOST people are not listening direct to academics in any area. If academics try to force that one, notice what happens. Reality is at best you might get a snooze-fest. People just do not want to be forced to hear them. Though occasionally some popularizer may gain a bit of celebrity, but in math? Not any that I've noticed.

And even among academics in a particular field, most are unlikely to pay attention much to any particular academic at any given time.

In our times, appears that pursuing the traditional paths is often a way to be lost in the herd. You will never be noticed much. (But then again, why would you want to be?) Whereas here, look at what I have.

For someone like me there is a 24 hours a day global attention reality enabled by the web. Am POTENTIALLY known in over 100 countries. I find that troubling often. However that is checkable from objective and third party sources.

Reality is, am personally, bigger than most math departments can ever imagine being. And can conceivably rank with the biggest and most prestigious on the planet. But of course, I like to joke, they'd be terrified to invite me to talk my math. I'd crush them on every level. Which is sad to me, but true. They cannot compete with me. I wish they could. I wish they would try to be better.

Sounds so arrogant, but is the truth that explains so much behavior. May as well state it. Is the socially disruptive reality. Have thought about for over a decade now. Still find it hard to process. But is much easier now than before! So there is progress. I simply have some of the best math ideas out there right now. Still just feels so, off. And is easy for me to watch my ego just go wild.

It IS important for me to try to stay grounded. And I make myself rely much on data from others. Where there has been nothing like that ability to check in human history before.

And there is just no way to compete against that attention reality and there should not be. Is a pure merit reality.

Academia has long been built to give advantage to establishment people which I think will go away. We DO need institutions dedicated to bodies of knowledge and a best process for bringing new people into those organizations and taking care of them.

But from my own experience I know you do not need to reward people to convince them to discover.

Worse you can end up with those who pursue the rewards and rely on fraud, and work to hide that reality. So the reward can be counter-productive. For me is comforting to just be outside such things. And has been important for instance that I am NOT a mathematician.

Academia should focus on best knowledge without inappropriate credence given to assumed authority bestowed upon humans, as we know better now.

The knowledge is what will last. And how do we know really?

Truth demonstrates.


James Harris

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