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Originally Posted by naturalist.atheist
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
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Originally Posted by LadyShea
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Originally Posted by naturalist.atheist
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Originally Posted by peacegirl
Lessans was a mathematician.
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Do you happen to know his specialties? Did he publish any papers? |
She claims he was an autodidact and had the knowledge of a mathematician without the formal education or credentials. |
That's exactly right. He had more knowledge than many Ph.D's combined. That is not meant to criticize those who went through formal schooling, but by the same token please don't disregard Lessans just because he didn't learn in a formal way. |
Peacegirl, you are right. I know of many Ph.D's that would have made better use of their time and money if they had become a tradesman.
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In fact, he said that he may have never made this discovery had he went to school because he probably would have accepted at face value what he was taught and would have never gone in the direction that led him to these findings.
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That may or may not be the case. But certainly you must understand that getting a first class education has not precluded the great scientists from making great discoveries. However in order to make the claim of a great discovery you have to show a great discovery. It must be something that anyone can verify. Otherwise it is just so much brouhaha. |
Having a formal education doesn't preclude someone from making a great discovery. By the same token, not getting a formal education doesn't exclude someone from making a great discovery. Of course it has to be verified, but due to the framework of thinking that we live by and accept -- and because these are not easy observations or relations to grasp the first time around --- it behooves everyone to take a little more time to understand these relations, even if it's to do more empirical testing, before rejecting it outright.
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Originally Posted by natural.atheist
And so far you ain't doing so good. But I think that is because you are way over your head. If you are gonna talk science you are gonna have to know science, and you don't know science. Not that Lessans appeared to know much science either.
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That's the problem. He was a mathematician, and he was also well versed in philosophy and literature, which is how he made these discoveries. In other words, he came to these conclusions through the back door, so to speak.
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Originally Posted by natural.atheist
The thing you must understand is that a great deal of school learning is showing the students what is there, such as magnetic and electric fields, neurons, stars, tectonic plates and so forth. These are no more a theoretical exercises than leaning your numbers or ABCs. They constitute practical knowledge that you must have if you intend to proceed further.
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Lessans did not dispute anything other than afferent vision. The truth is I don't have to know calculus to know that 3 is to 6 what 4 is to 8, because I can see that relation. Lessans saw certain relations. These accurate relations were not dependent on magnetic and electric fields, neurons, stars, and tectonic plates, or anything else, for their veracity. People are making a judgment that unless he knew this, he couldn't have discovered that, which is false.
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Originally Posted by natural.atheist
You don't have this knowledge so you would be doing yourself a great favor if you did not try to proceed. It just frustrates the rest of us. It would be like trying to teach a child to multiply that didn't bother to learn their numbers. Its a colossal waste of time.
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That is not a fair analogy. If I want to proceed in understanding something that requires a basic foundation, I agree with you. That is exactly why Lessans urged everyone to read the text in the order in which it was written, which people did not do. But I can understand why man's will is not free, according to these principles, without understanding every theory that's out there. I can also understand his reasoning as to why [he believed] the eyes are not a sense organ, without being an expert on SR, chaos theory, supernovas, etc. since this is not the method in which he came to his conclusions. I have to say that I'm learning a lot, and it certainly doesn't hurt to know more about these interesting topics.