Max has frequent epileptic feats and suffers from major migraines, His nose bleeds and his hands shake. He is also on painkillers, amphetamines and drugs throughout most the movie. But he also experiences moments of pure intellectual concentration, minute perceptions and peace of mind.

He is also a Surgeon who performs brain surgery operations on two patients – His mainframe motherboards and CPU, and his own brain – He tries to locate/map the point of his migraines pains in his head. He daydreams in the subway about poking a human brain with a pen – his mathematician cryosurgical tool. He also messes with his brain with his electric driller…

Part of the code Max finds cause the stock market to crash. It also causes Sol's stroke. Max migraines cause him to crash his head against objects to make the pain go away...

Max in Auclid

Following is a list of Binary oppositions that are going to be explored as this project evolves:

Man / Machine

Numerology / Mathematics

Max is a professional trained mathematician who works with mathematical theories. He finds himself dealing with mystical symbolism. Sol, his intellectual godfather and mentor warns him that that he’s crossing the line when he looses scientific rigor.

Religion / Science

Max is a scientist who uses scientific tools such as number theory and computers. He cares little about established religion but as the movie continue we see that in his own unique and way, max becomes a very religion individual.

Metaphysics of presence / surface topology

Rabbi Cohen: “You have seen nothing, it was just a glimpse, there is much more…”,

Max Cohen: “No, I have seen it all…”

Free-will/determinism

Genius / Madness

Max is obviously moving between both. Max, a brilliant number theorist. Published at the age of 16; Ph.D. At the age of 20; sought after by NYC market forecast companies.

Sol : “This is insanity Max,”, “well maybe it’s genius…”, Max answers.

Professor/Student

Old/Young

Mentor/Apprentice

Dry-Ware / Wet-Ware

Max using computers to model his theory but he also reaches for the final frontier – The human brain. He tries to locate/map the exact location of his migraines and day dream in the subway about poking a human brain with his pen.

Theory / Practice; Math/Physics

Intellectual integrity / Material Wealth

Inside / Outside

Max also studies and observes the other in the outside from the inside of his apartment/scientific laboratory through his piping hole. For Sartre in Being and Nothingness, this is a prototypical existential mode of being….

Apartment / Street

Host / Hostage

Smell the web....

Part III - Tools for understanding Pi: Fuzzy Deconstruction

We are reaching a point in History where history itself is in danger of collapsing as a concept. It is being replaced by Celebrities, Icons, sponsored news items and media real-time duration.

If you aware of the philosophical tradition of the western culture, from the pre-socratic to the postmodernists and to the digital revolution and culture that’s around us as we reach the Y2K landmark, than we hope you may find the text below mind provoking and challenging. It is also useful to know something about binary and fuzzy logic theory and about the writings of Derrida before proceeding…

Derrida suggested deconstruction as an interpretive approach to textual systems (i.e. texts, language, art, you name it.. ). In deconstruction, we first attempt to expose the binary opposition that are woven in the text. This opposition creates hierarchies or trees of meaning, roots of understanding and so called ‘truths’.

This exposition helps us to see that in any major western text, one opposition is marginalize, i.e. it’s bad, illogical, black, “0”, unnecessary, out of style… and one opposition is white, logical, “1”, central, moral, valuable…

Than we can show that paradoxically, the marginalized concept is actually inseparable and necessary for the text structure to hold. We subvert the text and read it as if the poison is the remedy.

The process result is that the two opposite can now engage in a dynamic free play of nonhierarchical meaning.

This method is important since it allows us to keep multiversity but does not lead to much more, since what we find – the Pharmakon, the Joker, the Difference is a pure possibility of play and of meaning. It has no essence, it’s a void inside any system that escapes definition. So it seem we can’t say much more about it. But we claim that we can say more about it. We suggest a meaning for the difference – the poison and the remedy. We claim that it’s possible to continue from the point where Derrida brought us to, and left us standing at…

Lofti Zeda and Bart Kosko, two mathematicians and computer scientists helped develop the theory of Fuzzy Logic. See….

The above should be mandatory reading for the 21^st century free thinker and theorist.

But they both fail to see that what they engage in deconstructing western science and formal logic. When Bart Kosko starts writing about metaphysics of presence, morality and psychology, the educated reader feels that something went wrong. The reader may be surprised to discover, in this otherwise brilliant work the bart is just a plain natural determinist and an evolutionist. There must be more to fuzzy logic than that…

We suggest Deridda’s deconstruction as a tool and justification for the fuzzy logic main argument and fuzzy logic theory as a tool and as justification for deconstruction. We claim Fuzzy theory and deconstruction are both part of Fuzzy Deconstruction. They are complementary theories that can be synthesized to a more useful and coherent theory. To see this you’ll have to be familiar with both Deconstruction and Fuzzy Theory. This text assumes you are. Come back when you are ready.

Both theories starts from the notion that In its essence, western culture since Greece is based on axiomatic logic. We tend to define concrete terms, we categorize phenomena to concepts and ideals. We write these concepts down and speak them. Since Aristotle most agree that either A or Not-A, that A and not A can’t be, that B must belong to A on belong to not A. Religion, morality and metaphysics emphasizes the one and marginalize the other. It seems that the binary mode of thinking is essential to thinking but deconstruction and fuzzy logic shows us this is not the case. One thing is common to rational philosophers, religion scholastics, twentieth century scientists and positivists – Aristotelian logic and truth statements. Derrida already showed us that this claim to truth is a form of metaphysics of presence, a search for a root for our otherwise chaotic existence, but fuzzy logic shows us an alternative approach that is both scientific and practical. It takes two man of extraordinary intellectual integrity, moral courage and plain old nerves to shout aloud the alternative to the world we live in and therefore are of. We are fortunate that some are able to escape for short while for the global veil of ignorance and peak at the world from an original and fresh perspective. It’s a pity but natural that other schools of thought, both in science and in ‘the humanities’, both inside academia and outside it, dismiss these two concepts as non-scientific, non-philosophic and invalid.

We need to see through the politics of Academia to see the real importance of the notions of fuzziness and deconstruction, it may happen on a grand level well into the 21^st century.

To break the binary opposites that form our world-view, deconstruction shows the reversal is possible and valid. Fuzzy logic theory also speaks about the opposites but it does not attempt to reverse them since it shows that universes that we can and must speak about, exist between them. So the notion of the deconstruction reversal is helpful in opening our minds to the possibility of degrees. Fuzzy logic theory is in its essence quite simple. It is established on the principle of incompatibility. Its main argument, is that all matter of facts are a matter of degree (since Hume) and western logic is black and white, therefore western logic is incompatible with reality.

Reality: 0<= t(a) <= 1, where t(a) is the truth value of claim a.

Logic: t(a) = 0 or t(a) = 1, since Either t(a) or not t(a).

Bart Kosko does a good job in explaining why 20^th century scientists don’t recognize or believe the above notion. Fuzzy logic can use deconstructive theory to show that these polarities are arbitrary.

Most people believe or are thought in schools and universities that logic is a tool in proofing truth claims of arguments. Isn’t it?

But they may be shocked if someone thought them that actually, for the most of the 20^th century, you can proof any claim, be it a matter of fact or a logic, morality or metaphysic.

Modern Set Theory – Cantor and Russell.…

1. A and not A can be both hold together.

2. Truth-Value assignment or any definition, conceptualization and determination is a matter of degree. A concept is a fuzzy set.

3. There are no binary opposites in nature but truth value assignment is possible, there is no probability or randomness in nature, just in the human psyche.

Problem: Determinism.

1. A and not-A are binary opposites that identifiable momentum in any text/system, where A (1) marginalized not-a (0)

2. We can show that Not-A can be (1) and A can be (0).

3. Once we show this we turn the text/reality to a dynamic play, or dance of meaning.

Problem: Dead End, lost of essence, desperation, reactionzm…

1. A and not-A are binary opposites that identifiable momentum in any text, where A (1) marginalized not-a (0)

We can show that Not-A can be (1) and A can be (0)

2. Fuzzy logic shows how A and Not A can hold together in theory and in practice. And that we can apply truth values in degrees.

3. A and Not A are not binary oppositions but has fuzzy values i.e. between 0 and 1 inclusive. This opens the text/reality for interpretations that are more precise, less dogmatic and more meaningful.

Reconstructive solution to the fuzzy theory dead-end:

4. Determiniszm is a fuzzy concept: in the middle stands the human being – 0.5 deterministic; 0.5 – free will.

We know for some time know, that Contrary to common thought there is no one root, essence or meaning to things both around and inside us. The world of ideal is fictitious, words and concepts try to categorize things around us into group. But there is no higher source of knowledge, All we have are words around us that are differentiated only from other words or concepts. In this surface or textually we can imagine an infinite number of signifier and signified pairs that are only different from each other. There is no root to form either signified or signifier since it’s just another concept.

On the other hand, fuzzy logic theory shows us that both the signified and the signifier are fuzzy concepts. Any category is a fuzzy set so that everything and nothing belongs to, to some degree. The pairs themselves can be viewed as fuzzy sets too.

The post-modern view of difference lacks one important detail that can be borrowed from fuzzy theory, and fuzzy theory can use this view to establish it’s arguments: Fuzziness allows the difference to escape it’s totalitarian role as dichotomy, but more important, it allows us to escape rigid categorization when speaking about the difference while not escalating into mumbling of gibberish. Fuzzy logic shows us how A and not-A can be together both in nature and in concept. The difference is now seen in a new light, and can be well defined:

Difference = 0.5 difference and 0.5 similarity. 0.5 heterogeneous and 0.5 homogenous. This was the aim of Derrida when he wrote: Difference.

This now may be established based on a logical and mathematical foundation without losing any meaning.

It’s the principle of fuzziness itself. On the other hand, fuzzy theory can stop it’s bad habit in using mystical terms when speaking about the “black hole” in the middle of the fuzzy hyper-cube.

Bart Kosko’s Buddha is no longer necessary since we can use a concept that is more constructive and less intrusive to western dogmatic scientist and western philosophers. So we see how beneficial it is for the discourse of both disciplines to converge on common agreement but without presuming any metaphysical base.

Part IV: Beyond Pi

Pi as the irrational number constant that separates math from physics or any of the above binary opposition from reconciling. We, the Greek, know the Circle. We know its radius and want to calculate it’s diameter – but we run into irrational numbers. Today we know how to use them but we still have to arbitrarily cut them to compute anything with them on a computer, as in the movie at 216 digits after zero is a necessity with computation. It’s the black whole the Greek had in their geometry. They new triangles and rectangles but root of 2 confused them. The point is that we can’t reach precision when applying math to worldly calculations. What buffles me is the movie didn’t go into complex numbers.

Pi stands as the unbridgeable gap between the purity of the mathematical perfect circle and all physical circles. To know Pi in 100% precision (Which math proved is impossible since there is always a next number to the fraction), is impossible since it will bridge math and reality. But this is impossible since reality is not pure, not black and white but in shades of gray. Everything in reality is a matter of degree…

Also Fibonachy numbers are a simple sum series that introduce a irrational number (root of 5) into the computation of the series, but the next fib number is always integral…

But all of the above oppositions can be reduced to a dialectics of binary logic (Math) Vs. and fuzzy logic (matters of degree, reality) where pi is the Phramacon, the Joker that laughs at the face of science, philosophy and language. The contradiction that is at the heart of the seemingly stable structure of western science. Pi is the Joker that sits in the heart of the above structure. It’s dialectics supports it, debabelize it and destroys it.

Pi The movie is a black and white piece about the inevitable crash of an electrical drill into the mathematician brain, at the end of a doomed process of applying black and white mathematical thinking (i.e. logic, cantor’s set theory and numbers) upon gray-scaled reality. The movie brings this elements into play. In one scene, our logician is drifted, as any Greek who just died, in Styx: the NYC subway tunnel system, in a boat: The subway, to nature – i.e. the last stop – Coney Island. He is awaken by Charon who comforts him with a handkerchief to wipe his bleeding nose. He reaches the ocean and drifts away in his thoughts, observes the waves, trying to form them into a pattern, as they crush on the rocks. Suddenly, he is interrupted by mechanical beeps omitted from a passerby’s metal detector. The beeps are becoming more frequent, as the man nears to a triangular object. He picks it up, stares at it, laughs and drops the object. Our mathematician is intrigued, he walks to the object and observes it’s a sea shell.. He picks it up and observes it carefully as he turns it with both his hands – He observes the spiral pattern, the same pattern he tries to impose on nature throughout the movie… One scene later he picks up a piece of computer board he crushed into the floor in a moment of crisis. He treats the board as the shell… This is the focal point of the story, it has double meaning. The computer board contains chips, units of integrated circuits that operates with Binary Logic (i.e. 0’s and 1’s). The shell symbolize nature, it was created in a natural process and shows a pattern that our Archimedes tries to break into code. This is the essence of the story right here – Break nature code with binary computation. As we’ll later show, and as we see in the movie – this will end in an inevitable crash. Nature simple does not obey the law of Aristotelian logic. Attempt to reduce nature, life, you name it to a code, a mathematical formula, is doomed to fail. Science must admit this before any significant achievement in AI can happen. Max sees the simplicity of the circle and tries to reduce chaos back to it, but the circle is not simple in the first place, it is fuzzy…

Seduced by the chip, His own crashed, but computer humming sounds melds with behind the wall neighbor love-making noises.

Subjective science – Laboratory Journal: Time, observation, result. 24 hour time base – like the stock market he is following. No days or dates. It is worthwhile to notice that Max uses the same journal and entry types for entries about his research into patterns in the stock market, using Euclid as a modeling tool and for entries that record his own migraine attacks, the drugs he administrates on himself and his forecast for the next attack. Here, the dialectics of poison and medicine, doctor and patient, professor and student becomes visible: the scientist ( the culture physician and healer) is also the object of scientific observation (as a sick test subjects who needs healing). He also documents summarizes of sources of inspiration from the classical scientific tradition.

Moment of enlightenment – The meaning is between the numbers. Max, knows very well that the cabalistic mystics could have used any 386 grade PC to produce all possible 216 digit numbers and translate them to the Hebrew alphabet. He has the number in him. it is his not theirs. The number is the Phrmacos. The market research company and the orthodox Jews look for the 216 digits number because they look for a formula, an answer that may be spoken – to the Jewish god by the high priest or to a number crunching stock exchange prediction algorithms. But the ‘cut’ to 216 digits is arbitrary and essentially inaccurate. Formulas must be finite for us to formulate them, but pi is infinite. But as Max sees in a moment of enlightenment, the meaning is in the semantics, between the formula’s syntax. Max perceives himself in this moment as a chosen subject. Here, his personal salvation and knowledge is manifested in an esthetical mode of being. Again, It is poised as the fuzzy middle of two oppositions: The Hasidic Jews are the religion establishment who claims ownership on the concept of purity and morality, they seek the code for reconnecting with their one god – technology for metaphysics of presence. The market research company embodies instrumental science since it seeks Max’s scientific discovery to control the stock exchange market for reasons of profit and materialistic gain. Both opposites claim ownership of the ultimate code or natural and supernatural phenomena.

The problem with both binary and fuzzy logic is that they both presume we have in our minds-eye the perfect circle. The perfect example that we compare instances in nature too. I doubt it.

Max Cohen is a modern ‘Cohen’ i.e. Priest. A priest of modern math on quest to find the code to everything. The numbers between the seemingly randomness of natural phenomenon.

But max fails when he reaches the wet-ware, both literally and figuratively, since he can’t notice the fuzziness of reality.

Part V - 12:46 Restate my assumptions – The Pi Theorem