Talk:Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz/Archive 1

message: I've made this addition to the Leibniz page because there appears to be a discrepency in the literature over the interpretation of the Calculus Ratiocinator
In Davis's Engines of Logic, he notes how there has been a tension between electronic and computer engineers and logicians. This difference in opinion seems to be apparent with respects to the calculus ratiocinator, where engineers see it as a calculus computing machine, and logicians see it as a language. Whether or not we can see it as a combination of these views is an interesting proposition. 
The inclusion of this difference of interpretation is for the historical record rather than revisionary history, however it has interesting implications as noted in the text.  Sholto Maud 04:40, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Two views on Leibniz's Characteristica Universalis and Calculus Ratiocinator

message: I would like to add that the wiki entry does not mention that Russell (who saw the universe as irrational, folloowed the Aristotelean static/mechanical tradition and saw advancements in technology as dangerous) was the philophical opposite of Liebniz (who saw order in the universe, followed the Platonic immaterial form tradition and was a lover of the advancement of technology). A quote from an excellent article I found located at http://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_91-96/943_tao.html has this insight:
-quote 
Russell’s 1900 A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz accuses Leibniz of publishing for no other purpose than to achieve fame and wealth! The book is fairly characterized as a series of hysterical fits in response to each reference by Leibniz to the ordered lawfulness of the physical universe, or to the fact that ideas are efficient causes of change. Russell was particularly incensed when Leibniz demonstrated that the laws of nature were good, in the sense of the positive self-development of the physical universe, rather than Russell’s preferred static (actually entropic) state of equilibrium; he, therefore (of course) repudiated Leibniz’s ontological proof of the existence of God. But Russell was nowhere capable of providing any justification for his attacks, other than his insistence on the libertarian right to be free of any moral restraint over his personal conduct or over his empiricist approach to science. Russell complained of Leibniz: “He rejected entirely the liberty of indifference—the doctrine that the will may be uncaused—and even held this to be self-contradictory. ... He held also that the indifference of equilibrium would destroy moral good and evil, for it would imply a choice without reason, and therefore without a good or bad reason.” One can see clearly the roots of the Copenhagen School’s “acausality” and moral relativism.
Although the “wave-particle” paradox was not yet known in its modern form (Max Planck’s discovery of the quantization of energy was in 1900, the same year as Russell’s book on Leibniz), Russell anticipated the problem by attacking (in a typically hysterical fashion) Leibniz’s implied solution in his theory of dynamics, and especially his rejection of Newton’s “action at a distance.” Leibniz, he says, simply refused to accept the fact that there are three and only three mutually exclusive theories of dynamics: (1) matter composed of hard, extended atoms; (2) a doctrine of the plenum, an all-pervading fluid or aether; or (3) unextended centers of force and action at a distance, as in Newton. Said Russell: “Leibniz failed to grasp these alternatives, and thus, from his love of a middle position, fell between not two but three stools.” Leibniz, he said, treated mechanical impact as atoms, space as a plenum, and the monads as unextended centers of force. “The failure to choose,” said Russell, “between these alternatives made his dynamics a mass of confusion.” In fact, said Russell, Leibniz only rejected Newton’s theory of gravitation as action at a distance to get revenge for their “personal quarrel” over the calculus! He ends his book by concluding that Leibniz was “the champion of ignorance and obscurantism.”
-unquote
-Dr. G Dr. Gary Carter 20:53, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoever wrote that didn't read the book properly. Russell calls the Catholic Church “the champion of ignorance and obscurantism”, not Leibnitz. --Will Beback · † · 09:11, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Bertrand Russell's Critical Exposition on Leibnitz

message: The following was previously part of the main page:
The best of all possible web pages,we have WindowlessMonads as well as Monads with a view.
Yet, in the 'best of all possible web pages' Monads can well afford not to have windows: They know anyway what is going on elsewhere, or atually, they have always known it. (By means of that 'PrestabilizedHarmony' Leibniz avoids the problem to explain how mind affects matter and vice versa.  "Car je  ne trouvois aucun moyen d'expliquer  comment le corps  fait passer quelque chose dans l'ame , ou vice versa, ny comment une substance peut communiquer avec une autre substance creee." Systeme Nouveau de la Nature etc.(12).  Descartes' followers had introduced the "Systeme des Causes occasionelles" to solve the problem:  God creates movements according to our will to move, and thoughts according to movements of exterior things. The idea of a God permanently busy to maintain the harmony of the universe seemed much less attractive to Leibniz then the harmony established once for all.)
Can anyone make any sense out of this? There seems to be actual content in the last paragraph, but i'm not nearly competent to sort it out :-/ --Anders Törlind
This passage seems to be a "piss take" on Leibniz philosophy, it does not have any interesting content. The french paragraph has the following meaning: "Since I can't find any means for explaining, how the body may move the soul or vice versa, and how a substance may communicate with any other existing substance" Well, then the quote stops abrubptly. Just forget it!
Actually, the concept of "monads" was developed by Leibniz to explain two philosophical 'problems'  (1) what is the nature of sensory reality? (ie, is the world really as my eyes, ears, nose, etc tells me or something different) and (2) What is the true nature of the composition of reality? (ie, some philiophers have used the word 'atom').  there should be some discussion of this topic for him. - Gratz
It seems to me, very misleading to state: "Curiously, Leibniz argued that matter was infinitely divisible, thus denying that atoms exist."  I think that some leading particle Physicists would take a stand much more similar to Leibniz than what is suggested here, and all would disagree with the implied indivisibility of atoms.  Fact: Atoms are absolutely not indivisible.  Once divided they are very unstable, for sure, but that has nothing to do with their divisiblity.  It seems that Leibniz may have been much more insightful than he is given credit for by this author.
:Atoms are by definition NOT divisible.  Of course, the things called "atoms" in the physical sciences today are divisible, but that's another matter entirely. Michael Hardy 01:34, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Optimism and Monads 

message: Leibnitz (the correct spelling) was born in Leipzig. That´s why he can´t be a Sorb, because the area of the Sorbs does not cover this City. I say it, because I also was born in Leipzig, but my roots (on my mother´s side) are in the Lausitz (the eastern part of Saxony and the centre of the Sorbs) Angelika Lindner 21:36 Dec 31, 2002 (UTC)
Why do you think that Leibnitz is the correct spelling? Leibniz seems to be used overwhelmingly, even on German pages. AxelBoldt 21:28 Jan 4, 2003 (UTC)
And why do you think, that the spelling on theses German pages is correct?  Angelika Lindner 16:48 Jan 15, 2003 (UTC)
Angelika: First of all, because Leibniz was German? His signature only suggests a Latin-like spelling: Gotfridu Gvilhelmu Leibnitics (?) 
Also your argument that Leipzig was no Sorb is not very convincing... as you say: you yourself have Sorb roots and were born in Leipzig? Rinke Hoekstra 8:15 Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)
Rinke: I read the britannica article about Leibni(t)z, and I could find nothing that suggests he was Sorb or had Sorb origin. Therefore, I believe he wasn't Sorb. Do you have any evidence for your position?
Concerned Cynic: I had never encountered "Sorb" until reading this article, but do recall its synonym, "Wend," from my American childhood. I also had never heard until now that Leibniz had material Slavic ancestry, although this is by no means unlikely, given where he was from. I have seen the spelling "Leibnitz" in material typeset before the 20th century, but "Leibniz" seems universally accepted in our time. We should keep in mind that careful attention to the spelling of surnames was not the case before the creation of Departments of Vital Statistics in the 19th century.
Is there any source confirming the statement? I cannot find any hint of Leibniz being Sorbian either in Britannica (2003), (international) Americana (1975) or the German Meyer Encyclopaedia (1975). To me the edit looks like a practical joke. Regards, --GottschallCh 10:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling 

message: My source for Leibnitz's discovery of the role of feedback as a unifying concept is page 79, Automation, Friend or Foe?, R. H. Macmillan, Cambridge: At the University Press, 1956. Fred Bauder 13:54 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)
: Currently, the sentence about feedback is in the wrong place. Or does it have anything to do with theodicy? I'd move it out, but it has not enough content for a section on its own, and I don't have the book in front of me. How do people think about simply deleting it? Sebastian 00:09, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)
Yes I also found evidence for Leibnitz's discovery of the role of feedback in Norbert Wiener's book on Cybernetics Sholto Maud 04:29, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I should not comment on the specifics above. But it appears to have been the case that Leibniz was the first human to conceive of formal languages, binary arithmetic, AI, and other IT-related abstractions that have come to the fore over the past 100 odd years. These facts deserve mention in the entry. I have moved the sentence re feedback to a new section I've just created.202.36.179.65 17:53, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Feedback as a unifying concept 

message: ``Characters were, with Leibniz any written signs, and "real" characters were those which -- as in the Chinese ideography -- represent ideas directly, and not the words for them. Among real characters, some simply serve to represent ideas, and some serve for reasoning. Egyptian and Chinese hieroglyphics and the symbols of astronomers and chemists belong to the first category...''
Neither Chinese nor Egyptian characters are purely ideographic systems (see ideogram, Chinese character, Egyptian hieroglyph.)  In particular, a large number of Chinese characters are composed of radicals used mostly for their sound and with little relation to the overall meaning of the character. --Rynelm 12:48, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not the author of the quote objected to above. It is conceivable that Leibniz was mistaken about the nature of written Chinese. Also, in his day Europeans had no clue about how to read Egyptian hieroglyphics; the Rosetta Stone was not unearthed until 1798. Hence while the paragraph above may do justice to Leibniz's views, but those views may have been innocent of fact.202.36.179.65 17:55, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Characters 

message: I am completely rewriting the section "Career", because I have copies of Aiton (1985) and Jolley (2005) at my side.
I think the whole "who invented the calculus" controversy deserves its own entry, simply because it is relevant to both Newton as well as Leibniz, in equal parts. Jolley speaks highly of Hall's Philosophers at War; hence I am happy agreeing with its bottom line re the calculus dispute.
Some things I've picked up about Leibniz's personality:
* He liked children and regretted not marrying;
* He was a happy extroverted man, more popular with noblewomen and their daughters than with their husbands;
* In his diplomatic endeavors, he could lie and pretend, as did all other diplomats in that era;
* He never did anything to undermine his patrons, but did not feel a strong moral obligation to do their bidding. His attitude tended to be "by having me as a courtier, you get to bask in the reflected glory of the smartest cookie in Europe. All that costs you is my salary plus some expenses. I think you have the better part of the bargain." Many would deem such reasoning self-serving.
* Leibniz often wrote as if he were a devout, even passionate Lutheran. In fact, he did not set foot in church during the last 20 years of his life, which led to his being deemed a deist by fellow Hanoverians. He also refused communion on his deathbed. 
* He strikes me as a classic case of a brilliant man who loved to start projects, but who lacked the staying power, the capacity for tedium, needed to finish anything more than a letter, article, or memorandum. 202.36.179.65 23:44, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that the separate controversy article is a good idea. Good luck with your edit. Even working from biographies is amazingly hard work. Cutler 23:49, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

text: This part is quite good, but it assumes that the reader is already familiar with a number of points of Leibniz' career, e.g. at the close of the second paragraph, it was at this time that he communicated the memoir to the Royal Society in which he was found to have been forestalled by Gabriel Mouton. What memoir? Can someone who is familiar with Leibniz' work edit this section to include notes on what the various referenced things are? Kwertii 23:02, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biography Section 

message: There is a long passage in French. Could someone please translate this? It's just silly and pretentious that we assume all of our readers can speak French. (I, for one, cannot). 08:39, 6 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  French Quote

message: Can anyone provide an accurate pronunciation for Leibniz?
:In German, e before i (ei) is pronounced like a long "i" is in English (the English word "eye"), and the 'z' is pronounced like a "ts", so the first part would be like English 'Lie' in "Leib" (but with the 'b' sound of course) and "nits." In certain instances the German letter "i" when alone is pronounced like a long 'ee', and is called such as a stand alone letter, but I don't believe it is here. (Velar nasals like "n" before or after give it the de-stressed sound common in English) Nagelfar 02:12, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: So that last i, does it make the niz part of the name be pronounced like "neets" or like "nits"? I always thought it was "neets", but my German knowledge consists of three semesters in college.Tommstein 08:49, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It must have been in that fourth semester that you would have learned that it should be pronounced "nits" (but with a harder ts then you would normally use in English) and definitely not "neets".  Hope this helps. --Easter Monkey 13:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Definitely. Must have been the fourth semester. Thank you.Tommstein 23:16, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation 

message: (IchBin 06:06, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. All you have to do is mention it in the edit summary though (or else no one would ever get anything done around here).Tommstein 07:44, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling 

message: 1671. Hypothesis Physica Nova (New Physical Hypothesis).
1684. Nova methodus pro maximis et minimis (New Method for maximums and minimums). 202.36.179.65 17:26, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Do We Really Need to Cite This? 

message: Regarding bibliography: the article mentions Russell's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_russell) analysis of Leibnitz but the book is not cited in the bibliography. It is not mere mention in BR's History of Western Philosophy, but an early major work, predating BR&AW's Principia:   Bertrand Russell, A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibnitz (c) 1900; the copy I have is Routledge (press) 1992 paperback xxvii + 311 pp.  (Incidentally, Leibnitz, and also Newton, appear as major characters in Neal Stephenson's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson) current trilogy of novels, "The Baroque Cycle".) Peter H. St.John, M.S. 05:01, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  additional bibliography 

message: Is there a way to know how many visits this article gets? Is it against Wiki policy to install counters?
This is the answer OwenX (and admin) gave me:
As far as I know, the current Wiki engine doesn't provide user-accessible counters. If you need an edit counter for a page, it shouldn't be hard to implement one as a Javascript (and chances are someone already did that), but I don't see how you'd be able to include that in the displayed page. Owen× ☎ 17:46, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Counter in article 

message: In my opinion, careful study of Leibniz's work began as recently as the 1940s and 50s, for which fact I propose three explanations:
* Until relativity, field theories in physics, and formal logic / systems theory came on the scene, many passages in Leibniz read like speculative nonsense;
* Leibniz's writings are a frightful mess. Sorting out that mess is perhaps the hardest editorial job in world civilisation. His very important correspondence, amounting to circa 15000 items, is the largest I know of. Most of that correspondence dated later than 1690 is still unpublished;
* It took 250 years for secular scholars to remain dispassionate in the face of Leibniz's rationalist metaphysics and his respect for Scholastic terminology and ideas.
Hermann Hesse, in his Glass Bead Game, predicted that the 20th to the 23rd centuries would not prove very interesting in artistic and intellectual achievements, excepting fields where knowledge is clearly cumulative, such as math, science, and technology. But he did predict that historical and exegetical scholarship would flourish. And I suspect that Hesse's prophecy has already come true, and that the ongoing exploration of Leibniz's genius is a case in point.202.36.179.65 18:23, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Golden Age of Leibniz Studies Began about 1945. 

message: Contrast this with Newton's nightmarish disposition: http://www.philosophy.leeds.ac.uk/GMR/homepage/sophiec.html
:Glad to see you point out this contrast. Leibniz was no saint; he was to eager to suck up to the kings and lords of his day, and some of his diplomatic activities were less than idealistic and scrupulous (he was no worse than the average diplomat of his day, and may have been a good deal better). But all my reading of Leibniz suggests a shrewd, energetic, and likeable man, with unbelievably broad curiosity about nature and the human condition. The marvelous anthology Wiener (1951), sadly long out of print, contains a curious essay by Leibniz sketching an intellectual theme park, a sort of 17th century Science Alive cum IMAX theater. This essay is great fun, and reveals a Leibniz who had a shrewd commonsensical understanding of the common run of humanity. On Leibniz and ethics, see also Jolley (2005: chpt. 7)202.36.179.65 17:26, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Although Russell's 1900 book on Leibniz says more about Russell than about Leibniz, and so is primarily of historical interest, what you write here intrigues nonetheless, as it reminds me very much of Leo Strauss's interpretation of much of western civilisation.202.36.179.65 17:26, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Leibniz as a caring human being 

message: I think we should expand it, for some interesting tidbits see:
http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath335.htm
Leibniz on the practical importance of his calculating machine (remember that he wrote this hundreds of years ago!):
"And now that we may give final praise to the machine we may say that it will be desirable to all who are engaged in computations which, it is well known, are the managers of financial affairs, the administrators of others' estates, merchants, surveyors, geographers, navigators, astronomers... For it is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculations which could safely be relegated to anyone else if the machine were used." 
From http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/chaitin/kirchberg.html) "Leibniz invented base-two binary notation for integers. Bell reports that this was a result of Leibniz's interest in Chinese culture; no doubt he got it from the I Ching. So in a sense, all of information theory derives from Leibniz, for he was the first to emphasize the creative combinatorial potential of the 0 and 1 bit, and how everything can be built up from this one elemental choice, from these two elemental possibilities. So, perhaps not entirely seriously, I should propose changing the name of the unit of information from the bit to the leibniz!" 
"5. Digital philosophy is Leibnizian; Leibniz's legacy 
None of us who made this paradigm shift happen were students of Leibniz, but he anticipated us all. As I hinted in a letter to La Recherche, in a sense all of Wolfram's thousand-page book is the development of one sentence in Leibniz: 
"Dieu a choisi celuy qui est... le plus simple en hypotheses et le plus riche en phenomenes" 
[God has chosen that which is the most simple in hypotheses and the most rich in phenomena] 
This presages Wolfram's basic insight that simple programs can have very complicated-looking output. And all of my work may be regarded as the development of another sentence in Leibniz: 
"Mais quand une regle est fort composée, ce qui luy est conforme, passe pour irrégulier" 
[But when a rule is extremely complex, that which conforms to it passes for random] 
Here I see the germ of my definition of algorithmic randomness and irreducibility. 
Newtonian physics is now receding into the dark, distant intellectual past. It's not just that it has been superseded by quantum physics. No, it's much deeper than that. In our new interest in complex systems, the concepts of energy and matter take second place to the concepts of information and computation. And the continuum mathematics of Newtonian physics now takes second place to the combinatorial mathematics of complex systems. 
As E. T. Bell stated so forcefully [32], Newton made one big contribution to math, involving the continuum, but Leibniz made two: his work on the continuum and his work on discrete combinatorics (which Leibniz named). Newton obliterated Leibniz and stole from him both his royal patron and the credit for the calculus. Newton was buried with full honors at Westminster Abbey, while a forgotten Leibniz was accompanied to his grave by only his secretary. But, as E. T. Bell stated a half a century ago [32], with every passing year, the shadow cast by Leibniz gets larger and larger. 
How right Bell was! The digital philosophy paradigm is a direct intellectual descendent of Leibniz, it is part of the Leibnizian legacy. The human race has finally caught up with this part of Leibniz's thinking. Are there, Wolfram and I wonder, more treasures there that we have not yet been able to decipher and appreciate?
(this from G. J. Chaitin the author of algorithmic information theory!) Dr. Gabriel Gojon 19:14, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Eric Temple Bell is a fun read, but was not careful biographer and was emphatically no Leibniz expert. For that matter, during Bell's lifetime it was impossible to be a Leibniz expert: not enough archival spade work had been done. Among living philosophically oriented mathematicians and information theorists, Gregory Chaitin is about as consequential as they come. But he too is not authoritative when it comes to Leibniz. He quotes Bell on Leibniz, the I Jing, and binary numeration. Much has been written about this in recent years, revealing that earlier writings are filled with misunderstandings and superficial readings. Begin with Aiton's 1986 biography and the sources therein. Leibniz discovered the power of binary numeration before he became a Sinophile in old age and learned of the I Jing. Nor is Wolfram, whom I do not think much of an authority on anything (I have tried to read his ANKS).202.36.179.65 19:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Informatics and Leibniz 

message: Anyone here capable enough to judge Leibniz' latin poetry? He considered himself to be quite good.
Dr. Gabriel Gojon 19:14, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Leibniz the poet 

message: • “Games combining chance and skill give the best
representation of human life, particularly of
military affairs and of the practice of medicine
which necessarily depend partly on skill and partly
on chance.” — Leibniz (1710)
• “… it would be desirable to have a complete study
made of games, treated mathematically.”
— Leibniz (1715)
From: www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/ Classes/420/handouts/Lecture-17.pdf 
Dr. Gabriel Gojon 02:00, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I found related sentences in Wiener (1951). Mind you, such thoughts were in the air in the 17th century, the time when discrete probability,
modeled by games of chance began. Pascal, Fermat, and Mersenne dabbled in this as did, I think, the Bernoullis. It amazes me that no one wrote on the mathematical structure of strategy and conflict until, to my knowledge, Emile Borel did so around 1920. Keep in mind that Leibniz did not do anything here, beyond speculating that game theory cum probability would be a worthy research agenda (the 20th century proved him right)202.36.179.65 19:25, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Leibniz the founder of game theory 

message: The Leibniz "bibliothek" site says the following  
"Two examples from the (modern) field of automatic control engineering stand out above others. These are his drawings of a device to automatically and continuously turn the sails of a windmill into the direction of the wind, and his conception of an automatic braking mechanism to control the speed of rotation of the wind-shaft of a vertical or standard windmill."
Leibniz apparrently also designed a
"functional water management system using pump-storage reservoirs" 
"In 1685 and 1686 he carried out trials at a pit of the Rosenhof lode using an endless or continuous rope attached to the bottom of the conveyor skip giving complete counterbalance."
* 1. It seems to me that these very important practical application of Leibniz's work is not emphasised in this Wiki article, and it should be. 
* 2. It seems to me that the issue of the invention of the steam engine should also be included, but perhaps only if someone can scan an image of Leibniz's designs/sketches into the Wiki imgage database as a proof that Leibniz did actually make these sketches. 
::*The "Rosenhof lode" (above) seems to be analogous to the Atwood_machine ~ providing a link to the principle of maximum power
::*There is a need to document all the other designs as proof of these engineering claims - this would also seem to link Leibniz with the field of ecological engineering. 
* 3. Moreover th notnion of an "automatic braking mechanism" would seem be analogous to Watt's engine govenor - making the link between Leibniz, steam, cybernetics and engineering more persuasive . Sholto Maud 03:16, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Impressive, I think you should add some of this things to the main article.
Dr. Gabriel Gojon 06:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Leibni(t)z the Designer in water management, mine engineering and control engineering

message: Since he is featured so much as the man who dreamed up Wikipedia who else thinks he should be the symbol of Wikipedia, and what can we do to accomplish this? Dr. Gabriel Gojon 08:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A worthy suggestion, in light of a multitude of biographical facts.202.36.179.65 18:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

text: This is an excellent idea. His genius truly deserves that distinction. What can we do ? 82.65.92.63 19:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Care to delineate? I'm not well versed enough on all of his ideas to know in what respect he dreamed up a networking wiki phenomenon. I always thought of wikipedia as more of a analogy to some empirical parallel to the Akashic records. Was his idea something along those lines? Nagelfar 09:00, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Leibniz should be the symbol for Wikipedia 

message: There are two conflicting reports on it: On a congress of German anthropologists, which was held in Dortmund in August, 1902, a Professor Waldeyer stated that an examination of the skull of the philosopher Leibnitz, who died in 1716, had shown that its contents only measured 1450 cubic centimeters, which corresponds to a brainweight of 1300 grammes. The other one states that Leibniz skull was gigantic but I can not find the reference (I read it a long time ago), can anyone help with this please? Dr. Gabriel Gojon 03:38, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is useless to speculate, because Leibniz's grave took a direct bomb hit during WWII (Aiton mentions this). Moreover, there is absolutely no
evidence that geniuses have larger heads or brains than the rest of us.202.36.179.65 18:35, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Leibniz Skull (brain size) 

message: MacDonald Ross, George, 1984. Leibniz. Oxford Uni. Press.
A good free intro to Leibniz's thinking, and to Leibniz the Man for All Seasons of the 17th century.
http://www.ifs.csic.es/sorites/Issue_04/item3.htm (Leibniz against the "billiard ball universe").
http://www.dfg.de/en/news/press_releases/2004/press_release_2004_68.html (the Leibniz prize).
http://members.aol.com/abelard2/leibniz.htm (Leibniz on "Lazy Reason").
http://www.edge.org/discourse/schirrmacher_eurotech.html (Leibniz the Informatician).
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Isaac%20Newton (Newton's hatred of Leibniz, Newton the alchemist. Also see in Isaac Newton discussion related themes).
Dr. Gabriel Gojon 01:41, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting Links 

message: "Many of his ideas were too radical for his own age,"
:In many respects, Leibniz's approach to philosophy was more respectful of the medieval Scholastic and ancitent Aristotelean traditions than the writings of contemporaries Descartes, Spinoza, and Locke. Leibniz was no radical in his avowed political or religious thinking, either. I do not agree that he advocated equal rights for all, or some form of democracy. He was quite happy with a hierarchical society, ruled by enlightened autocrats.202.36.179.65 01:40, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The main reason why it has taken centuries for Leibniz's many ideas to unfold is not so much their being far ahead of their time as the slow pace of publication of his writings. Not before 1900 did we have a reasonable (although far from complete) body of work in hand, and catalogs of his manuscripts and letters.
It has often been the case that by the time a lot of Leibniz's ideas were discovered by scholars, our overall civilisation has surpassed him. A dramatic case in point is Wolfgang Lenzen's discovery in the 1980s that Leibniz had indeed discovered Boolean algebra and sentential logic. True, but by the time this became clear, every conclusion Leibniz had reached was old hat. I believe that the philosophical logic that began with Hugh MacColl and C I Lewis has since evolved into an instrument that would satisfy most of what Leibniz desired out of a universal characteristic.202.36.179.65 01:40, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The anonomous author appears to have a considerable knowledge of the universal characteristic, which she/he might like to contribute to the charateristica universalis page. Some criteria and descriptions have been posited on that page, however it would benefit from further review and quotations if the author knows of some that are relevant but not presented. Sholto Maud 10:35, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I rather doubt our understanding of Leibniz the philosopher, mathematician, and physicist will undergo major change in the future. What is more likely to evolve is our understanding of Leibniz the Sinophile, the philologist, the applied scientist, and most of all, our understanding of his biography and of the House of Brunswick. I predict that Aiton (1985) will be seriously obsolete by 2050. Note that two of the 8 series announced by the Academy edition have no volumes to date.202.36.179.65 01:40, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

text: His calculating machine was the best ever up to his time, and he did work on a few engineering problems. But I would not call Leibniz an important inventor. His real creativity was in math and theoretical physics.202.36.179.65 01:40, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disgreements with certain recently added sentences. 

message: :This entry may suggest that Leibniz, while brilliant, was also a bit devoid of humor and imagination.
Why??  I don't see anything in this article that could suggest this.  Obviously, what Leibniz did would be impossible without imagination! Michael Hardy 01:20, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am the author of the quote, which I intended as ironic and rhetorical. Leibniz was very much a product of scholastic philosophy and the law,k two fields rather renowned for the self-importance of the typical practitioner. Moreover, in Leibniz's day, one made one's mark in the world by verse and drama. Leibniz did not shine here. I wrote the section beginning with the quote to show how he still left us with some nice bits and pieces.202.36.179.65 18:44, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why would anything here suggest Leibniz lacked humor or imagination??

message: The section Theodicy and optimism reiterates certain ideas about intelligent design which more or less makes it out to be accepted and coherent, which it is not. Nor do I think Leibniz' thoughts on the best possible universe can be seen as relevant to the fact that our universe happens to support our form of life...
I think we should lose this bit, anyone else care to chime in? Lundse 19:13, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intelligent Design 

message: Was Leibniz a Jesuit? Sholto Maud 08:38, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems not, though his anti-Jansenist polemics in Theodicy tend to support Jesuits. He seems to have been a Catholic-sympathetic Protestant. More and more, it seems to me he borrowed much from Aquinas.--Anthony Krupp 03:15, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Religion?

message: I was a bit surprised that the Leibniz Prize (Germany's highest scientific award) was not even mentioned among all the other stuff on Leibniz. Note that the Leibniz Prize is the world's largest yearly science award: nearly US$ 2 million as of 2006, more than a Nobel Prize. But unlike the Nobel Prize it cannot  be used for personal purposes.  I put it in the reputation section for now, but probably it deserves an extra subsection. Science History 13:29, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Leibniz Prize

message: I think there should be a section like this, but it has to be more carefully written. I will do my part ASAP, and invite others who know Leibniz to do so as well. The text I removed is here:
"Whereas Spinoza's system focused on a pantheistic determinism, Leibniz' required action from a God who is perfect. Following from this, he viewed perfection and the pre-established harmony as the highest ends of man. He espoused a philosophy which came to be known as deism, in which God creates the world and its contents as perfect, and as a result, it is not required as necessary that God intercede in the world at all--in fact, to ascribe such an action to God would be to make his actions seem superfluous. God's creation did it all. Thus, for monad x at time t1, that monad causes the changes present in itself at time t2, and God cannot act upon monad x at t2. Leibniz's determinism seems focused more on a causal chain of experiences in time, and not on any nature-God association or conflation, as does Spinoza's. This general principle of metaphysics, of a God who does not to intercede in a world created by him as perfect as he is perfect, is a principle which guides his theodicy."
Several problems with the preceding: (1) pre-established harmony is for Leibniz a fact, an explanation of why mental and physical states seem to affect each other. It is not an end of man, at least in nothing I've read by Leibniz. If I'm wrong, please someone bring a quote from Leibniz to show that. (2) Calling him a deist also doesn't fit his writings about Jesus Christ in the Abrege (his summary of Theodicy), nor does it fit what he writes about conception possibly being a miracle. (3) God did not create the world as perfect, but rather as optimal. Best of all possible worlds, remember? (What Leibniz text were you reading that led you to write 'perfect'?) --Anthony Krupp 03:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Metaphysics

message: Leibniz's Slavic Origins:
 
Citations from the book “Rex Germanorum Populus Sclavorum, An Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of the Serbs/Slavs of Sarmatia, Germania & Illyria”, Dr. Ivo Vukcevich, University Center Press, Santa Barbara, California, 2001 pp 329-330: 
Following earlier explanations that Slavs lived in present-day Germany since prehistoric times and that the German name for this population was Wend in German or Serb in the native tongue, the author continues in the chapter entitled: “Hanover Wendland, Venedica Gen”: 
“As late as the 18th century one could still hear Slav or Wend-Polab speech (die plabishcher sprache) or Wend Drevani speech (wendischer sprache Drawey) in the Duchy of Luneburg (in den luneburgischen Amtern Dannenburg, Lucho und Wustro), and in the Wendland known as Hanover Wendland or das Hannoversche Wendland (J.H. Schulze, Etwas uber den Bezirk und namen des wendischen Pagus Drawn, 1795. O. Koch, Das Hannoverschen Wenderland der de Gau Drawehn, 1898. B. Wachter, Zur politischen Organiyation der Wendlandischen Slawen vom 8. bis 12. Jahrundert, 1980). 
… 
Numerous 17th and early 18th century sources note that in some rural areas the sounds of German speech were seldom heard or understood: Die alten Lautte weil sie Wendisch, verstehen nicht Wort die deutschen Sprache, will geschweigen den Catehchismum, 1669. 
… 
Serious interests in the study of the Slavic language in Hanover Wendland and Germany’s Slavic languages generally was stimulated by Abraham Frencel’s pioneering encyclopaedic study of the Serbian language or Srbska rec, a word that affirmed its antiquity and historical-cultural merit (M. Abraham Frenceli, De Originibus linguae Sorabicae. Liber primus, 1692; Liber secundus, 1694-96). 
Dedicating his work with a note of welcome in Serbian to “the great Tsar and Grand Duke Peter I”, expected to visit Dresden, “who with many millions of subjects speaks in our Wendish or Sarmatian language”, Frencel did not hesitate to hail Linguae Sorabicae’s great political potential. 
… 
The next important step was taken by a native of the ancient Serb civitas of Lipsk in the historic Srbska Votchina, namely G. W. Leibnitz, the great philosopher, mathematician, and scholar who emerged as a leading patron of efforts to record and preserve the Slavic languages of Germany. According to the Slavonic Encyclopaedia: “William von Leibnitz (1646-1716) was of Slavic descent…His true name was Labienicz, derived from the river Laba/Elbe.” 
It is important to note that Liebnitz took a personal, active, and hands-on interest in Polabian Studies (K.Bitnner, Slavica bei G.W. von Liebniz, Die polabische Frage, Germanoslavica, I, 1931). One of the first Polabian texts (1691), for example, originated in a letter from Liebnitz to privy Councillor Christian Schrader in Celle, who, in turn, wrote to Georg Friedrich Mithoff, the magistrate in Luchow, regarding Polabian antiquities and language (G. F. Mithoff, De lingua Winidorum Luneburgesium, 1691). 
Thus it is not surprising that the first important collection of texts, vocabulary, and commentary on lingua Winidorum Luneburgensium appeared in 1711, namely a study by one of Liebnitz’s research assistants, Georgi Eccardi’s “Historia Studii Etymologici”. 
… 
In 1717 Liebnitz’s book “Collectanea Etymologica” was published, a collection that featured a number of Polabian texts and glossaries including an Anonymous Glossary (Designatio Vocabulorum Aliquot, Windis Luneburgensibus), considered to be the oldest text of its kind, and G. F. Mithoff’s De Lingua Winidorum Luneburgensium, 1691.” END OF QUOTE
Therefore it follows that it would be more precise to designate Leibniz as being of Polabian Serb origin (river Elba was called Lab in Wendish), Dr. Ivo Vukcevich uses an older term for Slavs/Wends which was Serb, this term was used by the nation itself.--81.132.189.96 00:57, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to say, I agree with the five comments, and find the logic of the five replies to be lacking. If proof of Leibniz's family's slavic origins, or whatever, is provided, then great: let's insert it. But the proof isn't yet here.--Anthony Krupp 16:29, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Born in Germany does not equal being German? I think you're wrong about information bothering people. We're asking for reliable information, not a tenuous spin on it, which is what I think you've provided. I'm completely open to the idea that Leibniz's grandfather was Slavic, or whatever. Just bring the proof, and don't whine when we ask you to. (Otherwise people won't take you seriously.) Anyway, this might be a good time for you to read WP:VER.--Anthony Krupp 22:48, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gottfried Leibniz's Alleged "Slavic Origin" 

message: I made some changes to the discussion of infinitesimals in the calculus section.  They were then rewritten again by an unregistered user who I think is well-meaning, but may not have understood all of the points I was trying to make.  The situation is subtle and needs to be stated carefully so as not to mislead students of mathematics.
Contrary to certain popularizations, non-standard analysis is actually only a peripheral contribution to rigorous mathematics.  It is important work, and it does vindicate Leibniz in a way, but it is not nearly as important as the approach due to Cauchy, Riemann, and Dedekind.  Moreover, Leibniz's intuition was never really in doubt.  What did look somewhat dubious was some of his deductive reasoning.  So I rephrased it to say that nonstandard analysis is a vindication of Leibniz's reasoning.  "Vindication" is a better word than "triumph" because nonstandard analysis is too arcane to be what Leibniz had in mind, even though it is an extension of his thinking.
Concerning differentials.  My point here is not just that scientists and engineers use differentials as a non-rigorous but handy formalism.  A few mathematicians might say so, but they are ill-informed.  The point is that after the work of Weierstrass and Cartan, differentials are completely rigorous algebraic objects.  They are as important in certain areas of 100% rigorous mathematics, for example in differential geometry, as they are in physics and engineering.  You can't use them to replace Cauchy's limits and epsilons and deltas, but you can go the other way around:  You can use Cauchy's reasoning to justify calculations with differentials.  "Useful" is also a kind of understatement that suggests a lack of rigor, so I changed that word to "fundamental".
(Also, this talk page is kind-of long and should be archived.)
Greg Kuperberg 23:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infinitesimals and rigor in calculus and mathematics 

message: I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information.  I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list.  Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article.  Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here.  Regards, Durova 16:04, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Cultural depictions of Gottfried Leibniz]] 

message: Leibniz used the expression "Cogitationes caecae" or "Cognitio caeca" in some of his Latin works to indicate a kind of thinking that, although it is efficient from  the cognitive viewpoint, it does not allow a discerning vision of its meaning. Leibniz refers, then, to such expressions when, both in Nouveaux Essais and in Essais de Teodicée, he dwells on the limits of this kind of thinking under an ethic-physcological profile. 
He writes that this French expression has the same meaning of the Latin expression "Cogitationes caecae", but he adds that "Pensées sourdes" are not able to touch the soul and modify our way of feeling and behaviour. 
The expression "Pensées sourdes", already used in particular by F. Lamy, indicates, in the field of Cartesianism, a kind of "marginal" and "clandestine" thinking which develops collaterally towards the conscience at a preconscient or inconscient level.  
I wrote an Essay in which I try to clarify the relationship between Leibniz’s two expressions according to the different meanings that the second one assumes, respectively, in Leibniz's works and within Cartesianism. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.223.160.245 (talk • contribs) 3 November 2006.
:Is your essay published? If so we may be able to use it. We have quite strict guidelines on what material we can use, see WP:RS. --Salix alba (talk) 17:14, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blind and deaf Toughts in Leibniz and Cartesianism 

message: The Monad section says:
The monadology was thought arbitrary, even eccentric, in Leibniz's day and since. It now seems less so, in the light of key notions in contemporary physics such as field, and the action at a distance and entanglement characterizing quantum mechanics.
Modern Physics theories cannot make a philosophy made some hundred years ago to be less arbitrary! Leibniz couldn't have a clue about any 20th century experimental result leading to Quantum Mechanics! Come on, stop the hype about this guy...
The paragraph is like some "Leibniz fan" saying "You see, He also knew that!" --euyyn 22:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Leibniz's thougths taken out of their time 

message: The 3rd paragraph in the article states:
Leibniz also [...] anticipated notions that surfaced much later in [...] knowledge engineering [...].
I had to read the damn whole article to find that, as it appeared, this isn't but nonsense.
I'm removing it, but since it's in the leading of the article and I really hope to hear from the fan who inserted it (to have some laughs), I announce it here. --euyyn 22:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good stuff. The article could do with a lot of pruning. --Salix alba (talk) 00:54, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A "lot of pruning?" Perhaps so. But, WHAT to delete? This man was unique in so many respects that to condense or abbreviate his accomplisments would pay little justice to the intellectual giant that he surely was.T.E. Goodwin 02:08, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, delete (surely not abbreviate) junk like the one above on Knowledge Engineering. Just for the article to remain factual, not shorter. --euyyn 00:03, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Knowledge Engineering LOL 

message: Just wished to point out that contrary to the suggestion made in the article, Beethoven is van Beethoven and not von Beethoven. In contrast to von, van (which, similar to von, means from and is very common in the Flemish and Dutch names --- Beethoven's paternal ancestors are Flemish) is not suggestive of nobility. Further, it seems inappropriate, if not deeply offensive, to name Voltaire and van Beethoven as examples of "ambitious" (i.e. `ardently desiring distinction' OED) individuals who would "insert, starting in midlife, "de" or "von" before their surnames" (I do not know "Beaumarchais" sufficiently deeply to judge whether he deserves the attribution "ambitious", but suspect not).
BF 06:29, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  van Beethoven and not ''von'' Beethoven 

message: This article seems really long. Can we split it?
Metakraid 15:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. It has become uncontrollably long, especially the some paragraphs go much into peddling details about his life and his career. For example, it occupies 6 lines just to tell the readers how to spell his name. Causesobad → (Talk) 16:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But what articles would be the receiving articles of the split information then? It feels kind of awkward to have an article called "Gottfried Leibniz's career". Lord Metroid 11:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Possible subarticles could also be Philosophy of Gottfried Leibniz and Mathematics of Gottfried Leibniz, mentioning these here only in Summary style. That would allow this article to concentrate on his biography, which could perhaps also be condensed a bit instead of attempting to include every detail in a subarticle. Kusma (討論) 11:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too long