[SharedKnowing] Applying the massive collaboration model tomathematics

[Daniel Mietchen]

[I also post this to your individual email addresses because my reply
from yesterday still "awaits moderator approval", as far as I can
tell]

Meanwhile, I've actually read the post and seen that he has redefined "stupid"
:
"
(In the sense in which I am using "stupid", it means something
completely different from "unintelligent". It just means not fully
thought through.)
"
In the mathematical context, this means that an idea is "stupid" if
the one who proposes it cannot provide an ultimate proof to it. With
this redefinition, it is probably even more desirable to have five
stupid ideas than none at all.

Having read the post, I could not help thinking of the advantage of
bringing people like Gowers and his commenters aboard CZ by providing
a separate namespace for research (and TeX functionality to the
forums). I am sure that any discussion there of the type proposed by
Gowers will create loads of articles in the main namespace, just to
clarify terms and concepts. This is mentioned on several points in the
blog discussion as "summarizing" (and such).

Daniel


On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 12:22 PM, Daniel Mietchen
<daniel.mietchen at googlemail.com> wrote:
> That phrase was embedded in the context of "massive collaboration" -
> so if each of these many collaborators constantly produces ideas and
> shares them with the others (at least some of which are assumed to
> come up with "non-stupid" ideas occasionally, and Fields medals may
> not be the only hint to them), the chaff can be sorted out quickly
> (indeed, some of the "stupids" may still be good at pointing out flaws
> in the ideas of others), leaving the community with the wheat.
>
> That's certainly better than nothing.
>
> Daniel
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 5:40 AM, Larry Sanger <sanger at citizendium.org> wrote:
>> Gee--I'm not so sure about that.  It depends on whether the stupid ideas are
>> followed by better ideas.  Five disastrous ideas, with no good consequences,
>> are certainly worse than no ideas at all.
>>
>> I'm just sayin'.
>>
>> --Larry
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: David Goodman
>>> Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 10:52 PM
>>> To: SharedKnowing
>>> Subject: Re: [SharedKnowing] Applying the massive
>>> collaboration model tomathematics
>>>
>>>
>>> Found about halfway down:
>>>
>>> " better to have had five stupid ideas than no ideas at all"
>>
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>