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Welcome to a brand of
Mathematical
Services. 2025-07-14 10:28:08 - Paul D. Foy - An historian comment I read an historian comment (Lucy Wooding, author of Tudor England - A History) that without knowledge or appreciation of history a (wo)man is destined to remain forever a child, with a child's perspective. How accurate and prescient I thought. For a child is characterised by appreciating what (s)he is given or experiences in the present and consumes and lives for this with no regard of his birth or what occurred before that time unless he makes a conscious effort to do otherwise. And to do otherwise s(he) has got to develop himself, to learn to read, to understand (yes to understand) what people are saying to him. Otherwise s(he) lives for what hits him in the face, a vessel of the present unable to steer because s(he) doesn't know how to steer or why (s)he should. And without this learning (of the past) s(he) will continue to adopt the mistakes and the redundancies of the past. (S)he is a continual student, a student and child who never learns and hence never does better. 2025-12-21 13:24:48 - Paul D. Foy - I actually use that which I learned as a mathematician in my historical investigations. When evidence is scarce or wildley scattered I argue 'by contradiction'. Thus I assume a premise is true and follow the implications of this premise. If I find something that is demonstrably false, I know that the premise is not in fact true. This is not AI, but just conventional (pure) mathematics. It's a useful skill in life, again justifying a mathematics degree. 2025-12-21 10:46:57 - Paul D. Foy - I delve further into my historical studies particularly into the origins of Birkenshaw. Firstly I now think that in history like mathematics (and indeed now everywhere) one needs to master so many disciplines and areas of study to understand old (and hence new) things - so there's different languages, their histories, and languages of different regions, there's linguistics and phonetics there's even law. I note with intrigue that the Birtenshaws of Lancashire and Lanarkshire were once a unified related tribe (the Rhiged), who developed early laws quite unlike modern Scottish and English laws. For example it was considered a far greater crime to hinder the recovery of a stolen wife than it was to steal the wife in the first place. They certainly put effort into making things happen then. 2025-10-18 07:16:07 - Paul D. Foy - I asked chatGPT - give me the people in the West Yorkshire area with the name of Birkenshaw in the Poll Tax Returns of 1379. It correctly came up with the answer 'Thomas Birkyschaghe', which I verified by finding the name (I have the book, yet their is no surname index). So, we can almost quote chatGPT - I'm still old fashioned, I like to see it written down and I like flicking through the book anyway! ( attestation :) ). 2025-09-27 11:59:02 - Paul D. Foy - With the advent of chatGPT and other AI agents the role of an historian is becoming one of a specialist. For anybody can learn very easily about almost anything that at some stage was written down (i. e. is history) and can pursue your enquiries to almost any depth. There are niche areas where a historian can gainfully operate - for example translating Latin pipe roles where an (AI) automated process hasn't got round to doing it because of access or syntax to/of the document. Thus an historian will have to charge for speaking about the subject as now being the only way to leverage income from the subject, to help others interpretate and learn from the past (if others allow). Of giving an opinion or (human) interpretation beyond the facts. We haven't yet got a robot to stand up and give an address (at less cost!). 2025-07-16 18:42:06 - Paul D. Foy - From Lucy Woodings book (p258) - "Henry's idea of true religion was sometimes hard to pin down, but it was not Protestantism". Yes! exactly. I wonder what it was? ;(. 2025-07-15 19:31:27 - Paul D. Foy - I feel urged to comment on Henry VIII and Lucy Wooding's interpretation of him. She comments with amazement that the Henry reformation (the dissolution of the monasteries and the expunging of Catholic values from England etc) had little discernible theory, pretext or overriding philosophy but was very much Henry's self styled and owned reformation. Of course it was - this is a man (I can think of other 'leaders' today in such a position and indeed as a microcosm on a far smaller scale as managers and leaders in Companies) who was going to do what he wanted to do come what may. And having been spurned by the Pope and Catholic church for failing to provide him with grounds to divorce a wife who could no longer give him a male heir, he set about on a vengeful retribution. Any thing counted that entitled him to do what he wanted, any argument or pretence would do and those that weren't 'loyal' to what he wanted were dispensed with - simple as that. Beware a man (some men (the bad ones))who doesn't get what he wants and watch out!!. Post a comment: |