[ExI] Memorial for Lee Corbin Sunday Oct 16

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Forrest Bennett
Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2016 2:20 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Memorial for Lee Corbin Sunday Oct 16

 

Spike, 

 

I respectfully disagree that Lee was lost outside the topics of futurism, mathematics, and computers. I also know that you meant no harm by your comment, but were just representing Lee as you knew him. 

 

Lee was extremely knowledgable about history, physics, cosmology, philosophy, economics, chess (of course), evolutionary psychology, as well as certain areas of chemistry, biological evolution, and science fiction. He was also into classical music, go, geography, and movies. I may have left out some subject areas, but you get the idea. 

 

Lee's curiosity and knowledge were quite wide ranging. 

 

Forrest

 

 

 

 

 

Ja thanks for pointing that out Forrest.  Lee loved science and math, all aspects of it.  Now that you mention it, I recall his mentioning interest in classical music.  That he had interest in movies is a big surprise to me however.  I don’t recall his ever mentioning it, and just as well: I know nothing of movies.  The last time I attended one was Enders Game with the cryonics crowd, and I don’t even know before that, probably still in the 20th century.

 

Regarding chess: he and I intentionally eschewed it when together, for we both knew that chess can be all-consuming, to the expense of everything else.  I fear that had we played even one game, we would have been instantly addicted like a couple of hopeless crack addicts, and all other topics would have been swamped.  He was fascinated by the rise in the skill level of computer chess, and was as astonished as I was that computers could play as well as they did by about the mid 90s.  The first time I met Lee was at an exclusive invitation-only chess club in Palo Alto where you couldn’t even get in the door unless you were at least at expert level.  I believe Lee was a master.

 

I should have said it thus: when Lee and I were together, we didn’t waste time on matters outside our area of mutual knowledge: mathematical research, algorithms, nanotech, futurism and so forth.  I can assure you we spent no time on the latest clothing styles or fashion, which would be obvious to the casual observer.  We were geeks before it was cool.  For that matter, it still isn’t.  {8^D  But we like it that way.

 

Lee was a deep thinker and a very focused guy.  He didn’t let society’s craziness distract him much.

 

spike

 

 

 

On Sun, Oct 9, 2016 at 9:04 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net> > wrote:

 

>… On Behalf Of Anders
Subject: Re: [ExI] Memorial for Lee Corbin Sunday Oct 16

 

Tragic. Hopefully reversible, but still tragic. 

I remember him being a fixture when I first came onto this list. And a quite essential node in the networks when I made sociograms of our conversations.  Anders 

 

 

Lee was Dr. Matrix.  For those who followed the annual Dr. Joshua Irving Matrix columns in Martin Gardner’s Mathematical Recreations column in Scientific American, Lee could have been the model for Dr. Matrix.  If one wanted to talk about futurism, mathematics or computers, he was the man to see.  Very far outside those topics, he was lost.  

 

I went back over my notes from about ten years ago and reviewed our discussions.  He taught me Python, I taught him spreadsheet scripting language.  We were both doing mathematical explorations and both benefitted enormously from the other’s expertise.  I don’t know if I was the better teacher or he was the better student, but my progress in Python was slower than his progress in VBA.

 

Lee is gone but never forgotten.

 

spike  

 

 

 


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