The Study of Mathematicians

Dear Readers, such an exciting day!

Eileen has been using me in her role-playing games as part of the Social Media Pastoral Studies weekend! To do this I had to hide from the group that were on the course, and respond to their comments via a computer in an IM conversation - pretending to be someone on-line who could be engaged with in pastoral encounter.

Why the only computer I could use to fulfil this role was in the attic, I am unsure. Eileen said it was to ensure I did not contaminate the process by being close enough psychically to influence the delegates. But it's rather scary up here, and the Archdruid's brother is at the far side of the attic, restrained only by the chain and the presence of Mrs Rochester, his nurse.

Eileen has just messaged me to tell me that my job is over for the day. Apparently I drove several members of the course into a state of deep despair, but that was what the Archdruid called the "weeding-out process", and she had no problem with that. No, it was later on that I was told I could step down, as I had failed the "Turing Test". I think this may be a bad thing.

So, finding that the attic is locked from the outside again, I have sat up here, studying Sipech's comments on Mathematicians causing all the ills in the world. I have to tread carefully here. Eileen has told me that "all the best people come from Dunstable", so I would not like to risk her wrath in arguing with Sipech. And the good news is that he is right. It is applied mathematicians that have called all the woe in the world - statistics, made-up facts, the systems that drive the Stock Exchange and related commodity-trading systems. Pure mathematics, especially when allied to physics, have only resulted in such relatively benign effects as the nuclear bomb. Other than that, they just help us to explain the universe within a logic-based framework.