Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947. In his lifetime, he published just one book review, one article, a children's dictionary, and the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921). In 1999, his posthumously published Philosophical Investigations (1953) was ranked as the most important book of 20th-century philosophy, standing out as "...the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations".Bertrand Russell described him as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived, passionate, profound, intense, and dominating".
Born in Vienna into one of Europe's wealthiest families, he gave away his entire inheritance. Three of his brothers committed suicide, with Ludwig contemplating it too. He left academia several times: serving as an officer on the frontline during World War I, where he was decorated a number of times for his courage; teaching in schools in remote Austrian villages, where he encountered controversy for hitting children when they made mistakes in mathematics; and working during World War II as a hospital porter in London, where he told patients not to take the drugs they were prescribed, and where no-one knew he was one of the world's most famous philosophers. He described philosophy, however, as "the only work that gives me real satisfaction."
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these in any profound sense. He was born in Monmouthshire, into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in Britain.
Russell led the British "revolt against idealism" in the early 20th century. He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege and his friend Ludwig Wittgenstein, and is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians. He co-authored, with A. N. Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, an attempt to ground mathematics on logic. His philosophical essay "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy." His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, computer science (see type theory and type system), and philosophy, especially philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics.
[last lines]::Arthur Seldom: "The butterfly that flutters it's wings and causes a hurricane on the other side of the world." Sound familiar? Are you that butterfly, Martin?
Arthur Seldom: There is no way of finding a single absolute truth, an irrefutable argument which might help answer the questions of mankind. Philosophy, therefore, is dead, because whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent.
Arthur Seldom: Since man is incapable of reconciling mind and matter, he tends to confer some sort of entity on ideas because he cannot bear the notion that the purely abstract only exists in our brain. "The beauty and harmony of a snowflake" - how sweet. "The butterfly that flutters his wings and causes a hurricane on the other side of the world" - we've been hearing about that damn butterfly for decades, but who has been able to predict a single hurricane? Nobody! Tell me something. Where is the beauty and harmony in cancer? What makes a cell suddenly decide to turn itself into a killer, metastasis and destroy the rest of the cells in a healthy body? Does anybody know? No! Because we'd rather think of snowflakes and butterflies than of pain, war, or that book. Why? Because we need to think that life has meaning, that everything is governed by logic and not by mere chance. If I write 2 then 4 then 6, then we feel good because we know that next comes 8. We can foresee it. We are not in the hands of destiny. Unfortunately, however, this has nothing to do with truth. Don't you agree? This is only fear. Sad... but there you go.
Martin: I believe in the number pi.::Arthur Seldom: I'm sorry, I didn't understand you. Uh, what was it you said you believed in?::Martin: In the number pi, in the golden section, the Fibonacci series. The essence of nature is mathematical. There is a hidden meaning beneath reality. Things are organized following a model, a scheme, a logical series. Even the tiny snowflake includes a numerical basis in its structure, therefore, if we manage to discover the secret meaning of numbers, we will know the secret meaning of reality.
Arthur Seldom: Miss Scarlet is now an electron, okay? And you're looking at her through a keyhole or a particle accelerator - as you wish - and every time you look at her, Miss Scarlet will have changed her appearance or her position because the very fact that you observe her alters her atomic state. How about that?::Martin: Don't try to confuse me with tricks.
Lorna: You're like two kids fighting over a ball.::Arthur Seldom: And you're the ball?::Lorna: No, I'm the nurse who's going to spank your bottoms if you don't shut up.
Arthur Seldom: The only perfect crime that exists is not the one that remains unsolved, but the one which is solved with the wrong culprit
Arthur Seldom: Of all the vast mountains of knowledge that as of yet you have not scaled, Martin, this slope is one of the most slippery. Be careful.
Arthur Seldom: [exasperated whisper] I don't know anything.
Arthur Seldom: We have an absolute truth! Everything is fake.
Plot
A dramatization, in modern theatrical style, of the life and thought of the Viennese-born, Cambridge-educated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), whose principal interest was the nature and limits of language. A series of sketches depict the unfolding of his life from boyhood, through the era of the first World War, to his eventual Cambridge professorship and association with Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes. The emphasis in these sketches is on the exposition of the ideas of Wittgenstein, a homosexual, and an intuitive, moody, proud, and perfectionistic thinker generally regarded as a genius.
Keywords: 3d-glasses, aeronautics, anachronism, art, auto-mechanic, ball, ballerina, ballet, ballet-dancer, balloon