Very fascinating lecture. But I am not sure what it has to do with Boole or Shannon. It seems to be all about inventing systems designed to make money from their insights. Why about the money? Well, is it not always about money? I am not against people making a lot of money. Does anything else matter? But this is a called the Boole-Shannon lecture. Why does it not say anything about Boole or Shannon? This gentleman seems very urbane and accomplished (and maybe gave a lot of money to MIT, did anybody say "money", could you repeat that?). Nothing wrong with that. But why always only about the money? Is there a small place somewhere for the truth? George Boole is now largely forgotten. But once people realize what this man did it will be advisable to bury him next to Newton (who was also from Lincolnshire) in Westminster Abbey. It is time to bring Boole back to good old England. They belong together. Boole lectured about Newton in his teens with full understanding. Everyone is in love with their cellphones and computers But that is not the essence of Boole's insights. It is just the application. The digital applications are important and everywhere today (almost better than having sex). Just as Isaac Newton discovered the motions of the celestial bodies in the universe, Boole discovered the motions of rational human intelligence in the brain, the most complex chemical structure in the universe. Boole wrote to Lord Kelvin on January 2, 1851, that this is all he wanted to be remembered by. But what is written about Boole complete disregards his most ardent wish (probably due to total ignorance). Tindr is nice. Oh, the joys of digitality. But that is not what Boole had in mind. It is now generally assumed that Boole tried to explain how we think and failed (even if people know his digital applications are useful, after all one cannot deny the Boolean algebra that goes into your multiple Google searches). Yet, Boole led us most of the way towards how we think. Boole's work is worth two Nobel prizes in physics. There was this conference at the University of Cork in Ireland recently to celebrate Boole 200 (he was born in 1815). I am sure that all these people meant well and are honorable. But it was a total disaster. Just full of obtuse talk maybe meant to rake in millions of dollars of grants (maybe it was about the money, but then, is it not always about the money?). Everybody is just so impressed because of the huge amounts of money involved, hundreds of billions of dollars if not into the trillions (super computers everywhere). Any serious admirer of Boole should be deeply insulted by all this academic window dressing. I do have to admit that the president of the University of Cork wore a very nice tie in one of the videos that I saw. But is this all we get for Boole, whose stature will rise close to if not equal to that of Sir Isaac Newton? A nice tie? The University of Cork has every right to be proud of Boole. But it is time to put an end to all the obtuseness and misunderstanding and come to a true appreciation of who Boole really was and what he meant. I am sure that people will be shitting in their pants when they come to realize. Leo Depuydt (Brown University), soon shopping for a tie of exactly the right color, I so like that tie.
