I found the first two chapters of PT:TLOS to be absolutely, wretchedly awful. It’s full of technical mistakes, crazy mischaracterizations of other people’s opinions, hidden assumptions and skipped steps (that he tries to justify with handwaving nonsense), and even a discussion of Godel’s theorems that mixes meta levels and completly misses the point.
Not to mention the totally unnecessary and irrelevant screeds against mainstream pure mathematics in general, which can only serve to alienate potential converts in that discipline (they sure alienated the hell out of me).
Larry D’Anna on Jaynes:
I found the first two chapters of PT:TLOS to be absolutely, wretchedly awful. It’s full of technical mistakes, crazy mischaracterizations of other people’s opinions, hidden assumptions and skipped steps (that he tries to justify with handwaving nonsense), and even a discussion of Godel’s theorems that mixes meta levels and completly misses the point.
Not to mention the totally unnecessary and irrelevant screeds against mainstream pure mathematics in general, which can only serve to alienate potential converts in that discipline (they sure alienated the hell out of me).