Both right, neither right, one right?

Johnno

The Living Force
I came across this passage at the Gurdjieff legacy website.

http://www.gurdjieff-legacy.org/40articles/mouravieff1.htm

Mouravieff, always absolutely confident in his own interpretation, revealed a dimension of his relationship with Ouspensky he never suspected when he tells of the two dining with Baroness O.A. Rausch de Traubenberg, a friend who was helping to translate Ouspensky's book from Russian into English. The baroness's twelve-year-old son came to the table and asked that the two men write something in his album. Wrote Mouravieff: "Whatever happens in life, never lose sight of the fact that two times two make four." Wrote Ouspensky beneath Mouravieff's sentence: "Whatever happens in life, don't lose sight of the fact that two times two never make four." Ouspensky smiled, and gave Mouravieff a mischievous look.

The baroness, who knew both men well, shrugged her shoulders and looking from one to the other, said:

"Well!—in your maxims, I recognize you perfectly, you two."

Of this Mouravieff wrote:

"Whim?—Certainly!—But from the point of view that interests us for the moment [Ouspensky's attitude toward life], Ouspensky was completely there [referring to the personality, not presence]."

In other words, in Mouravieff's view, Ouspensky was not scientific, not rational.

Of course, Ouspensky, a real teacher in his own right, was not denying the rationality of two times two making four. Rather, he was completing Mouravieff's assertion. What he wrote took the absolutism of Mouravieff's statement (a feature of his) and reopened the statement for the baroness' son in the sense of asking where and in what cases either of the statements is right or wrong, and further, in what instances they might both apply.
I'm not looking at this as a Mouravieff is "bad" according the followers of Gurdjieff type of deal. This bias is evident throughout writings..... quite a bit of turf protection going on.

It's more the last passage which I have made bold I found rather interesting. How could either both or possibly none apply? I couldn't fathom it. Then an answer of sorts landed in my lap.

So I was wondering if anyone would be game to use some "fuzzy logic" and give examples where they have found where either, neither or both apply. Doesn't have to be on the example above or perhaps there are insatnces where this applies using the above math problem.
 
Well, if M and O are talking about math literally without having their sayings having any symbolic significance, then I think M is absolutely correct, because in math, 2 x 2 is always 4....hmm, well however, if we start thinking in a non-linear manner, or at least try to, well perhaps, 2 x 2 can be more or less then four, say like in a non-local universe... But umm I don't know enough about non-locality and its type of chaotic math to say anything else then this wild speculation that just came to mind.

Well, anyways, ignoring that tangent thought for a moment, however, if they are talking about logic symbolically, then I think logic can be subjective to each individual, and perhaps this is what O means by stating "Whatever happens in life, don't lose sight of the fact that two times two never make four", so to speak.

So I guess M is correct in a linear universe, and O would be correct in a non-linear universe??? Hence they are both correct?

Well, just some "fuzzy" thinking I guess.
 
Johnno wrote:
So I was wondering if anyone would be game to use some "fuzzy logic" and give examples where they have found where either, neither or both apply. Doesn't have to be on the example above or perhaps there are insatnces where this applies using the above math problem.

This may not be a good example but take for instance 1 + 1 = 2. If you take into account the observer/observer's awareness 1 + 1= 3. Perhaps in the same way 2 x 2 can make 5. 2 times 2 makes 4 which is correct, 2 times 2 makes 5 which is correct, sometimes one or the other is correct, sometimes both, and perhaps sometimes neither is correct without the observer?
 
Maybe the idea that is being transmitted is along the lines of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Two people working together on a project will be able to produce a certain amount of work. Take two more working on the same project but separately and add the sum and you get a total of the work of two pairs of people or "4". Put all four working together on the same project and you might get an output equivalent to "5". Or as someone else said "networking works", and packs a powerful punch to boot!

Joe
 
Joe said:
Maybe the idea that is being transmitted is along the lines of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Two people working together on a project will be able to produce a certain amount of work. Take two more working on the same project but separately and add the sum and you get a total of the work of two pairs of people or "4". Put all four working together on the same project and you might get an output equivalent to "5". Or as someone else said "networking works", and packs a powerful punch to boot!

Joe
Yep!

I saw it in a similar way. Say if we look at the "two times two" from the perspective of a linguist. It doesn't equal four but "equals" a linguistic representation of two things doubled. So, if we take if we take either the mathematic or linguistic interpretation either is correct. If we consider both interpretations..... both assertions are correct.

The networking strengthens this if the mathematician and the linguist can see it from each other's perspective. Not only that, they each learn a bit about maths and linguistics. So the sum seems to have turned out greater than its parts.
 
The baroness's twelve-year-old son came to the table and asked that the two men write something in his album. Wrote Mouravieff: "Whatever happens in life, never lose sight of the fact that two times two make four." Wrote Ouspensky beneath Mouravieff's sentence: "Whatever happens in life, don't lose sight of the fact that two times two never make four." Ouspensky smiled, and gave Mouravieff a mischievous look.


Is it possible that both Mouravieff and Ouspensky may be speaking metaphorically about how to remain in a state of wakefullness?

I suggest this possible interpretation because they are inscribing these words in the album of a twelve year old, and each of their entries begin with the words, "Whatever happens in life, don't lose sight of the fact...." Young children are quite literal, but by twelve, children are capable of more abstract thought.

There is nothing more literal than basic math, at least in the way it is traditionally taught to children. And yet as one progresses in this subject it gets more difficult. For example +2 *
-2=0.

The value of the 2 changes when it is assigned a positive or negative value.

In life we assign positive and negative values to people and experiences based on past experiences. However, past experiences may not provide enough information to perceive objective reality.

Once fairy tales served this purpose, but with the Disneyization of fairy tales, the lessons of caution are often edited out as the depiction of the evil that is being warned against is neutralized by cuteness.

Here is an excerpt taken from "Infidel" , by Ayaan Hirsi Ali whose childhood was spent in Somalia. This story was told by her grandmother on pages 4 and 5.

There was once a young nomad who married a beautiful wife, and had
a son...The rains didn't come, so the nomad set out to walk across the
desert, looking for pasture where he could settle with his family. Almost
as soon as he began walking he came upon a patch of green grass. On
it was a hut made of strong branches, covered with freshly woven mats and
swept clean"

"The hut was enpty. The man went back to his wife and told her that after
just one day of walking, he had found the perfect place. But two days later,
when he returned to the pasture with his wife and baby, they found a stranger
standing in the doorway of the hut. This stranger was not tall, but he was thickly
built, and he had very white teeth and smooth skin."

"The stranger said,"'You have a wife and child. Take the house, you're
welcome to it," and he smiled. The young nomad thought this stranger was
remarkably friendly, and thanked him; he invited the stranger to visit any
time. But the wife felt uncomfortable with the stranger. The baby, too, cried
as soon as he cast eyes on the man."

"That night an animal sneaked into their hut and stole the baby out
of his bed. The man had eaten well and slept heavily; he heard nothing.
Such misfortune. The stranger visited the nomad and his wife to tell them
of his sorrow. But when he spoke the wife noticed that there were tiny
pieces of red meat between his teeth, and one of those strong teeth was just
a little broken."

"The man stayed on with the couple in the house. For a whole year,
the grass stayed green and the rains came, so there was no reason to
move on. The wife had another baby in that hut, another beautiful son.
But again, when the child was barely one season old, an animal came in
the night and grabbed the baby in its jaws. This time the child's father ran
after the creature, but he was stoo slow to catch up.

"The third time the nomad caught up with the creature, and struggled
with it, but the animal overpowered him. Again, it ate the baby! Finally,
after her third baby was eaten, the wife told the nomad she would
leave him. So now that stupid nomad had lost everything."

“So what have you learned? My grandmother would shout
at us? We knew the answer. That nomad had been lazy.
He had taken the first pasture he found even though
there was something wrong with it. He had been stupid:
He had failed to read the signs, the signals, which the
baby and woman had instinctively felt. The stranger
was really He Who Rubs Himself With A Stick, the
monstrous being who transforms himself into a hyena
and devours children. We had spotted it. The nomad
had been slow of mind, slow of limb, weak in strength
and valor. He deserved to lose everything."
Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (pages 4-5)


To survive and thrive in this world, it is necessary to be discerning as the above example
illustrates. Not everything is what it seems. Two plus two does not always make four.

By twelve children are able to understand, at least intuitively, that they live in a world of duality, and they need guidance in how to navigate through all the traps that duality sets for the unwary.

It seems to me that Mouriveff and Ouspensky are each giving half of the duality: one the positive and the other the negative. It would be very didactic to give this information flat out especially to a twelve year old. Instead, phrasing it in the form of a paradox makes it more intriguing, and more likely to stay in the mind.
 
"Whatever happens in life, never lose sight of the fact that two times two make four." Wrote Ouspensky beneath Mouravieff's sentence: "Whatever happens in life, don't lose sight of the fact that two times two never make four." Ouspensky smiled, and gave Mouravieff a mischievous look.
Maybe another thing Ouspensky was trying to point out to the son was that no matter how truthful, logical and set in stone any statement appears to be, even 2*2=4, there are always exceptions, and never just accept anything without first thinking about it and trying discover if there are any exceptions to the rule.
 
If the question is simply one of mathematics, then 2*2 = 4. Period, nothing else to be said. One can raise questions about when and what type of mathematics is applicable in modeling various physical phenomenon, but that's entirely different from whether or not 2*2 = 4. Insofar as the latter numbers have a meaning at all, they exist within a specific axiomatic system, the system of natural numbers, in which 2*2 = 4. With regards to the actual applications of mathematics to the real world, there often is more than one applicable model depending upon what the aim is. In certain contexts people will allow themselves to assume that interest grows linearly. More often it is viewed as growing exponentially. Whichever model you use may give you a different forecast, and sometimes the model used needs to be adjusted to take into account that the previous model did not include all relavant factors. But that has nothing to do with the correctness of 2*2 = 4.
 
An engineer used to working within accepted tolerances might argue that 2 * 2 = 5 for large values of 2 and small values of 5.
 
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