Conversation on train: FW Lawvere (contd.)

0:00 Bering, that's his biggest conceptual confusion. But that's Hellman. Meanwhile, Fields had given up on the whole nominalization program because he persuades that he couldn't be made to work for sophisticated scientific physics. He thought he just about had it to work for GR, but not for Bering. And obviously he took quantum theory on trust. So he went off instead and started doing all this, to me, you know, deadly dull stuff about the truth, saving the truth, truth, safe truth, truth definition. He was a pupil of cricket, I believe, yeah. He came to that meeting in Sicily, where Angus McIntyre gave very, very interesting thoughts, rather on a similar topic he gave at the École Normale here a couple of weeks ago. Just how far was our understanding of the notion of a model? A lot had moved on from where it was left by Tarski. Just how much, obviously, the catalytic realm has acted to understand what models are. Very, very interesting. But the problem was, it was a very disjointed meeting. It had a couple of very good talks. Angus MacIntyre and everything. One other guy. I'll tell you about the session. On about, you know, the theory of meaning and the constant homage to Frege, the great, the idea that all of the importance of the philosophy of mathematics is already contained. In Frege, or at any rate in Frege, with a little dash of Rechtenstein and Brauer thrown in afterwards, because it might be the cause that there really isn't a real world at all, but we all make it up as we go along.

2:30 Absolutely pernicious stuff. These incredibly endless array of debates try to provide a transcendental production for Hume's, the so-called Hume's Principle, one of the most monstrous pieces of misnaming. I must say, incredible the people on the stage, terrible the people, highly terrible the people, like Dermot and Crispin Wright, still completely trapped in a slime ball. Well, what's coming to the press is that what you're saying is that this Hartree-Fields actually knew something about physics, but couldn't have done that like the rest of them. Yeah, at least he knows a little bit of physics. That was the reason that Hellman called his book Mathematics Without Numbers, because the title of Keel's book was already widely known in the philosophical community. Well, Keel's book was called Science Without Numbers, so Hellman called his book Mathematics Without Numbers, referring to his. The so-called meta-structural representation of the laws of the world seems to some film nothing at all about numbers or any other structures. There's certainly math in this class. It's somewhat opportunistic, isn't it? Yes, well, the choice of science. I don't mind that story. Well, there's opportunism and there's tactical. There's choice of tactics.

5:00 Well, of course, the key point about your trial was that you put the continuum in the flow. In fact, several people who hadn't before came to hear it. But I mean loosely in my hearing, not obviously much of the category. That was a misprint. Yes, no, I just said, you know, Vas-Island, and then why did you say, you know, Vas-Synd, you mean Vas-Island, Vas-Solom, De Continuum? No, no, that's not it. Very, very deliberately chosen. Vas-Synd and Vas-Solom, De Continuum, because the whole point is there are many different categories of space. Well, I think the point was, you pointed me just across, like, where the subject was going, and so on and so forth. Oh, that reminds me, the other guy who I haven't really been able to contact, because I guarantee him, no, you gave me an email, I sent an email, but I didn't get a reply, about Albertos chasing him up anywhere. This is Federico Lasaglia, who I know is one of the people who would like to come. I mean, I haven't met him, but he sounds everything that you tell me about Albertos. He's a really great guy. An archive is kept and integrated into a material which is lying around but is incorporated into one. Yeah, I mean, the notes are by Perugia. Well, kept by him, you've told me, yes. And indeed, he very kindly, the recording of your, the earlier version of this talk, which you gave in, I can't remember if it was in Milan or in Cologne, when you were in Italy last year, anyway. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He also sent that to me, which was very, very, very kind. Oh, no, he seems a very, very diligent one. I'm looking forward to meeting you. The diverse speakers have been very nice.

7:30 Micrographics are common for us, you know, we are chemists. We may be draggles, but we are very useful. That's the conclusion about H0, because when I say that the complements for sufficiently high distension and isomorphism, a lot of the events, but with all sorts of ground, so that the secrets of groups, the whole sequence of groups, can be shoved around, so the way you have to do it, if you didn't prove it for all the K's, for all K's, you wouldn't be able to, so we forget this. It's a very pleasant city to sit in, isn't it? Actually, we're very interested to encounter this character that has organized this seminar and discover, well, after hearing, of course, what you have to say, which people like Cartier are going to do, I'm absolutely fascinated as to why he should be so interested in these reactionaries like Gentile. I can picture as you may have been a student at Browning. Ah, yes, that's right, you said, and I haven't been aware of it. I wonder what Bertin knows of this guy. Did you actually send the email to Bertin asking if he knew anything about this?