![]() ![]() ![]() Just as Euclidean geometry was, for the Jesuits, the highest and best of what mathematics could be, so the new “method of indivisibles” advocated by Galileo and his circle was its exact opposite. By the late sixteenth century, mathematics had become one of the most prestigious fields of study at the Collegio Romano and other Jesuit schools. Indeed, as Clavius never tired of arguing to his skeptical colleagues, mathematics embodied the Society’s highest ideals, and thanks to his efforts the doors were opened at Jesuit institutions for the study and cultivation of the field. ![]() This vision of eternal order was, to the Jesuits, the only reason mathematics should be studied at all. The Reformation and all the chaos and subversion that flowed from it would never have taken root in such a world. If only theology and other fields of knowledge could replicate the certainty of Euclidean geometry, they believed, then surely all strife would be at an end. It was the unmistakable hallmark of the Jesuit mathematical school. ![]() Even in the eighteenth century, when the direction of higher mathematics turned decisively away from geometry and toward the newer fields of algebra and analysis, Jesuit mathematicians held firm to their geometrical practice. And so, beginning with Clavius and for the next two hundred years, geometry formed the core of Jesuit mathematical practice. These relations are absolute, and cannot be denied by any rational being. Its demonstrations begin with universal self-evident assumptions, and then proceed step by logical step to describe fixed and necessary relations between geometrical objects: the sum of the angles in a triangle is always equal to two right angles the sum of the squares of the two shorter sides of a right-angled triangle is equal to the square of the long side and so on. For, as Father Clavius had taught, Euclidean geometry was the embodiment of order. When Jesuits spoke of mathematics, they meant Euclidean geometry. Should indivisibles prevail, they feared, the casualty would be not just mathematics, but the ideal that animated the entire Jesuit enterprise. Tacquet was, after all, a Jesuit, and the Jesuits were then engaged in a sustained and uncompromising campaign to accomplish precisely what Tacquet was advocating : to eliminate the doctrine that the continuum is composed of indivisibles from the face of the earth. Strong words indeed, but to the Fleming’s contemporaries, they were not particularly surprising. “Destroy or be destroyed- such were the stakes when it came to infinitesimals, according to Tacquet. Consider the following page from the book: “Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World.” It’s an age old struggle, the intellect versus the intuition. From here it follows that the mind processes emotion the same way as the body processes motion, configuring around the center-of-gravity.Ĭentral to calculus is the notion of the infinitesimal and it’s interesting to read how this concept was once considered to be a heresy. This is why in the NDT model emotion is a calculus of motion. And nothing could be more fundamental to locomotion than the body symmetrically configured around its physical center-of-gravity. Wolter’s work that movement is the fundamental principle of neurological evolution. I believe this is substantiated by the discovery that animals have an inherent sense of calculus, which is how they compute an efficient manner of movement. In my immediate-moment theory of animal behavior, the physical center-of-gravity of an animals’ body is how an animal becomes aware of its Self. ![]()
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