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

Oh...and my basic contention is that we simply have to muddle through, uncertain of whether we've got it right. That's the human condition.

>> I wonder what would happen if you stuck a monkey in a bath of primordial soup? <<

It woudn't be able to vomit?

RF

I think then the problem is with the 'should'.
'should' implies some sort of right and wrong answer(s). But there aren't any. It implies other assumptions about the effect of the decision. Everyone will judge that 'should' against some internal list or values. Since each person will have their own lists/values and they may differ from person to person there is no right or wrong answer to the question as it stands. Indeed, as it stands it does not have any real meaning and thus we can't answer it using any method, including the scientific method.

Like asking 'what does green taste like' it is not a meaningful question. Unless you qualify it, eg 'what does green taste like to person X who has synaesthesia of taste/colour'.

You could answer 'If we do not want to end up with a social backlash from a particular section of society, should we introduce capital punishment?' - ie which of the many answers given would not lead to this outcome. As there will be many outcomes we either do or do not want we can whittle down the answers until we have one.

Or we could ask "if we want social group D to support us on issue 'n' which answer should we choose".

The problem is with the language and the structure of the question making it unanswerable and thus meaningless.

>>The problem is with the language and the structure of the question making it unanswerable and thus meaningless.


And yet the question *is* answered by legislators the world over.

And it's a fairly simple question that any Sun reader can understand.

Would you care to give a scientific answer to this? http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F19585?thread=6230346

" And yet the question *is* answered by legislators the world over."

Ah, but they aren't answering the question stated, they are answering one of the variations of the question I pointed out.

The 'argument from readers of the Sun' is definitly a new logical fallacy to me

as for "Would you care to give a scientific answer to this?"
Again, the question is not fully stated. Should the punishment fit the crime or the criminal *in order to acheive X* - for varied and possibly multiple values of X.

So are you now admitting that science isn't capable of formulating the question? That it and other perfectly valid, practical, everyday questions are unscientific?

I'm not 'admitting' anything, I am making conclusion from the debate we're having.

And the conclusion is that the question being asked is not the question being answered. Not using the scientific method, not using personal revelation, not using intuition and not using millenia old oral traditions.

I'm saying the question is not valid and we can only say the words and voice the question due to the way language is structured and how we process it. No one has answered the question as stated - they all add in some implicit qualifiers, as they must.

The question is not valid? I don't get that.

What about:
'What words shall we include in our statute books for the punishment of murder?'

Is that valid? Feel free to rephrase it if not?

Gif
>>Isn't it in fact the case that this verse was 'reinterpreted' by Muslims in light of science?<<

"The heaven, We have built it with power. Verily. We are expanding it."
'Heaven' is the translation of the word sama' and this is exactly the extra-terrestrial world that is meant.
'We are expanding it' is the translation of the plural present participle musi'una of the verb ausa'a
meaning 'to make wider, more spacious, to extend, to expand'.

Well, I think that's probably a more authorative explanation of the issue. That's the best I can do without
arabic script, I'm afraid.

So I'm just curious why no Quranic scholar noticed this until 1976, what with it being so clearly stated. Could it be because many words in Arabic can have several possible meanings, and the word used here does not necessarily indicate 'expanding'? In fact, that the more natural reading is 'vast extent', 'vastness of pace' or 'things ample', as *every* previous translation gave?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RH4SWvrG1OU

Any word on the muddy spring where the sun sets yet?

Gif

'What words shall we include in our statute books for the punishment of murder?'

Well the 'shall we' is answerable since it implies a future event that will happen and therefore can be answered.

So lets rephrase back to what we had before and make it 'should we' instead.

Now lets assume my answer is 'life imprisonment'.
Why is that my answer?
Because I think that it meets all the criteria I have implicitly applied to the original question.
I.e I'm internally qualifying the question with things like:
"if we don't want the state killing people"
"if we think that a murderer cannot be rehabilitated and accepted back into society"
"if we think we have to have a punishment on the books for this crime"
etc
etc

So I am not actually answering the question as stated, I'm answering a number of versions of that question I have created internally.

And even if there is a moral absolute (say god exists and says that murderers should be locked up for life) then the internal variation is "if we wish to keep god happy and do as he has told us".

Gif

>>I'm just curious why no Quranic scholar noticed this until 1976<<

Well, I think the answer to that is in the fact that very few people translated
the Quran into English, that were proficient in classical arabic prior
to 1976 because there were not many English speaking Muslims in the world before then.

Surely the best translation would be from a professor in classical arabic language.
It would be interesting to research whether the grammatical 'root' verb has changed meaning in modern arabic.
Wouldn't that be more concluding than questioning past translations into English.

>>Any word on the muddy spring where the sun sets yet?<<

Sorry, no, not yet

QI: the Quran was first translated into English in about the 14th Century.

Gif

>>And what about "when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring"<<

I think you're referring to this verse being 'unscientific' ?

Well, I expect you can gather from that verse similar to me, but I don't know.
A rational explanation, imo:

The “setting of the sun,” is an Arabic idiom meaning ‘the western-most point’

So, Dhul-Qarnain went west and saw the sun setting over the horizon so that it looked to him
as though it was setting into some water, which is murky-looking.
God knows Best.

pedro

>>the Quran was first translated into English in about the 14th Century.<<
Yes, but who by, I wonder, and with what intention ?
Where did they get there knowledge of arabic ?
etc. etc.

Actually, I was talking shite.

It was translated into *Latin* in 1143 by an Englishman, who was an archdeacon in Pamplona. I'd imagine his knowledge of Arabic came from the other bits of Spain.

Also, the book I got that from says copious pedantic notes were put in the margin, so it was probably more 'know thine enemy' than 'learn more about god'.

warner:



'On the second day of November 1938, a funeral was held for Ali Tarrabain in the newly-completed mosque. This was the first religious event in the building. On the 12th of the next month, the Mosque was officially dedicated. IF Shaker, the Mayor of the town of Hanna and Mayor Fry of Edmonton each spoke at the dedication which was conducted by Allamah Abdallah Yusef Ali, a well-known translator of the Qu'ran.'

A1081225 (yes, I wrote that bit)

and

'Muslims across the world refer to different translations of the Quran, but anybody who has gone through the translation of the Surahs by Abdullah Yusuf Ali in English will agree that his knowledge of a great many subjects-comparative religion, world history, both English and Oriental literature, in addition to Islamic lore is marvellous.
Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s Translation and Commentary of the Quran was first published in Lahore in 1938. Thus, from that year till his death, Yusuf Ali was recognised and acclaimed as a great scholar of Islam who had rendered valuable service to the Quran by enabling the English readers to understand its meaning and message better.'

http://www.islamicvoice.com/December2004/BookReview/index.php