h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What have you found, anything good?
I know, I'll pretend you're enjoying
a poem or two of mine, thanks.
Well stanger, don't be, keep in touch.

... and thanks for liking dolphins.

As for your major, I've given it a lot of thought,
you should study philosophy full time,
well I mean when you're not writing poetry.

"... and thanks for liking dolphins."

You very welcome. They're really cool, though, aren't they? I saw a really interesting Omnimax film about them earlier this year... they even use a form of language! They've also been known to gang rape ...I guess junk like that is just somehting that comes along with intellegence.



"As for your major, I've given it a lot of thought,
you should study philosophy full time,
well I mean when you're not writing poetry."

I never wrote much poetry... mostly for school. I think I should start doing it again.

Philosophy... I don't think I could tolerate it the way they teach it. From what I hear from those who take it, it's taught really subjectivly. As if there will never be any answers, just all opinions. Modern mainstream intellectual thought is just to Hegelian for me to deal with, so I'm gonna stick to the sciences (AFA classes are concerned... learning on my own is another matter).

Almost half the profs I ever had were below average.
It is a problem, please solve, thanks.

"Almost half the profs I ever had were below average.
It is a problem, please solve, thanks."

Solve.... go to Harvard, maybe? Then, much more than half would be above average.

Maybe... what is average? For a prof? Prof rating seems to be where the bigger problem is. Maybe we could just go by height or something, to rate them. T'would be considerably easier, no?

...and do you know what
"the exception that proves the rule"
really means?

Well goodnight, nice meeting you.
May you dream in all your favourite colours.

Nopers. Haven't heard it before. I can't figure it out. Whatsit mean? How could an exception prove a rule?

G'nite! TTYL!

Hope it's not rude to shortly join your conversation, but I stumbled over your question concerning this 'exception proving a rule' thing. That is to do do with science theory.
The idea is that as long as you can predict an exception the underlying rule - and thus your theory - may be sound. Let's say you have the theory that the television routine in a given familiy is usually dictated by the most powerful person in that familiy. Now, you think that it's usually the man, the father, who's powerful in a family. So, what you do is, you ask a lot of families about their television habits and you find that in 80 percent of the families (NB: This is a fictional example!) the father's the one who decides upon what is being watched on TV. In 20% of the families, though, it's the mother. Of course, you've asked these people a lot more questions, and the answers to some those indicate the status of the familiy members. Now you find that in those 20% of the families, the mother was in fact the most powerful person. So, you have a rule (dad's the one to decide upon what is being watched), and an exception of that rule (sometimes it's mum), but these exceptions in fact prove your theory, because in theses cases mum was the one to have the say in the family.
Again: I made that up!
Take care, the both of you.

Okie dokie... kewl. So, it's a matter of re-defining what is meant by 'rule' ... it's not like a basic logical construct where, if I say "all cats are mammals" and I find an exception, it disproves the rule.

It sounds kinda like, there is a model that is being tested, and part of that model is a rule, and other parts of the model are exceptions to that rule. When the acceptions are shown valid, it shows the model is valid, and thus shows that the rule is a good generalization. Am I right?

I think I see how I was confused... thanks!

You're welcome.
Theoretical conceptions of science itself are a truly fascinating field.