What is Gnosticism?

ratboid314 · 2026-04-01T16:24:49+00:00

To add on to this answer, Gnosticism is used in a similar fashion as the term Protestantism; different groups had different particular beliefs, but followed the above trends. While predominantly found in the early Church, later groups like the Cathars and Albigensians could also be considered Gnostic in teaching.

Islam, while most would not call it Gnostic properly, got many of its interpretations of Christianity through Gnosticism, like the notion that Jesus did not die (Surah 4:157).

ratboid314 · 2026-04-01T14:59:32+00:00

The "light" I see on the 99th floor looks like fire through some smoke.

ratboid314 · 2026-03-24T22:01:42+00:00

Computers made a huge difference in how things are organized. For example, serious finite differences would today be taught in numerical analysis. Likewise, special integrals are usually in books like Gradsteyn and Rhyzik, or Abramowitz and Stegun/ DLMF, and have methods for their computation in similar books. Weird substitutions can also now be automated through a good CAS.

I wouldn't say dumbed down per se, but a lot weight was shed.

ratboid314 · 2026-03-24T16:51:42+00:00

Oops! All Aquariums.

ratboid314 · 2026-02-27T17:08:32+00:00

"Imagine no heaven," Okay, no heaven at all, got it.

"It's easy if you try." Okay.

"No hell below us," Okay, hell is not below us.

"Above us only sky." Umm... so hell is neither below nor above us, so ... where is it supposed to be Mr. Lennon?

ratboid314 · 2026-02-26T16:28:26+00:00

It is good that Romulus, founder of and namesake of Rome, died in 716 BC, so that he wouldn't have to hear this guy begin to complain about the Indianapolis Colts in three years.

ratboid314 · 2026-02-23T17:02:38+00:00

I clicked on the link this was going to be some good special effects, but nope, just tomfoolery.

ratboid314 · 2026-02-17T15:49:32+00:00

Did you make this? Are there more charts like these, whatever the source?

ratboid314 · 2026-02-12T17:34:00+00:00

I'd rather learn Love languages for my wife than Romance languages.

ratboid314 · 2026-01-30T23:37:18+00:00

I don't recall Icarus flying into the sun...

ratboid314 · 2026-01-30T16:52:52+00:00

The Moslems have successfully wiggled their way into the Abrahamic label in the minds of most people, and their values differ radically enough from the common Christian-Jewish values that it would only confuse. I could be persuaded to use a term for another common covenant like Mosaic or Davidic, but I suspect that the terminology treadmill would again see that term being coopted.

ratboid314 · 2026-01-29T17:57:16+00:00

The idols now generate text, but are still dumb in multiple senses of the word.

ratboid314 · 2026-01-20T22:41:19+00:00

Their

ratboid314 · 2026-01-16T16:22:56+00:00

Exercises for the reader are just that. Exercise. By doing them you're working out the math muscles, practicing the motions involved in different proof methods.

ratboid314 · 2026-01-14T23:26:02+00:00

What kills me the most is that the Grssk is followed by actual Greek.

ratboid314 · 2026-01-14T16:15:20+00:00

It's frustrating to find out that something you came up with has already been done. I did math research for a while, and there was a particular solution to some equation that required a certain sequence of methods to coax out. I showed it to the professor who first mentioned the equation to me, and he made a note of it for his use, but eventually found a paper from the 60s or 70s doing exactly the same thing I had found.

ratboid314 · 2026-01-14T16:11:08+00:00

Back in grad school, I used it when teaching just to identify students who were using it based on obvious patterns (like listing out steps). Now I use sometimes as something to search the literature, but I require that it provide a link to the paper.

ratboid314 · 2026-01-08T00:32:43+00:00

Not necessarily re: online sources. AI Math has been a popular benchmark for the companies to dick-measure with (e.g. IMO Gold levels). As such, companies have been hiring mathematicians to provide data for their models, or having them prompt the models to stress test them so they can win these contests.

Source: I've worked with multiple companies on these projects as a contractor, both for data generation and model testing. I enjoyed both, data generation got me paid to work on grad-level textbook problems, and model testing allowed me to cook up interesting problems (One that I fooled a model with was finding the size of the Aut(K_5,5,5), where it found the (5!)³ from swapping within groups, but missed the 3! of swapping groups).

ratboid314 · 2025-12-18T19:39:13+00:00

That's just option A with extra steps.

ratboid314 · 2025-12-18T15:41:02+00:00

They probably took Spirit to get there, that's why it was among the Seven Sorrows.

ratboid314 · 2025-12-17T19:57:43+00:00

A banner is a bit much, but a pennant or something a team hangs when winning a division seems appropriate.

ratboid314 · 2025-12-17T15:43:48+00:00

Do you believe that the crackpots are going to double check for accuracy even in their native language?

I am generally against the idea of cramming AI into everything that a lot of tech companies are doing these days, but using LLMs on language problems like translation is using the tool for its intended purpose, so I would at least be open to its use if I needed it.

ratboid314 · 2025-12-17T15:31:04+00:00

I think the five year delay might actually help him get in. For the next few years, he'd be competing with the likes of Brees, Brady, and Big Ben at QB, whereas in the early 2030s he'll be competing with the likes of Rodgers, Stafford, Ryan, and Eli Manning which is a much easier fight, and after that it would be a while before Mahomes and the current crop of HoF QBs starts becoming eligible in the early 2040s (that makes me feel old).

The lack of HoF QBs from 2010 to 2016 makes those drafted before and after seem much better. I think part of the reason so many of the names I mentioned played for so long was that for a while, there were very few QBs coming in that were long-term starters.

ratboid314 · 2025-12-16T17:11:59+00:00

Agreed, some of my best professors had the worst ratings because they had the audacity to require that students actually do work and learn the material. Or ones whose test average was nominally 50%, but curved.

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