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

My source for the 'fascinum' factoid: http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,835404,00.html

NLP - yeah, yeah...some interesting tricks in it...but don't they try and dress it up somewhat? It always seems to me a bit like Scientology in that to get to grips with it properly you're meant to pay money to accredited NLP specialists. I once attended a 3 day seminar with Genie Laborde, incidentally, and have a signed copy of one of her books.

>> NLP is a load of b------s cobbled together from a few pseudo-scientific facts.

Depends on how you look at it. I am an NLP Practitioner and Master Business Practitioner, and what I do works. (I can give you references!)

HOWEVER - there are a LOT of crap NLPers out there, and a lot of bulls**t surrounding it, and for that reason I neither evangelise NLP, nor call myself an NLPer in polite society. I merely use it.


>> When a Roman boy of noble birth came of age, he was presented with a 'bulla' - a small leather purse to be hung around the neck.

Now that *is* fascinating. I will be gender-specific with it from now on!

And the question of whether it was intended to *be* a charm or protect *against* charms is - no I won't say it - it's interesting too.


B

Cool, ani... My penfriend wasn't sure, oddly...

I love the wooden car joke! (I'll tell Jim when he gets home.) My favourite joke from Star Trek involves Lt Cmdr Data (!) and the pucn-line "I said kiddleys, diddle-I?"

<<>> 'fascinating' refers to an erect penis<<>>
What a scary thought! On Star Trek 'fascinating' was on of Mr Spock's favourite words..

Adelaide. Re <>

I have no idea what you are trying to tell me. And the last thing I posted on this thread is back in the stone age. I think it was on when to listen to what a man is saying. That got blown out of the water. (D-oh!) And rightly so, as it was gender stereotyping. I apologize to all those men who do not watch ball games. I don't know what got into me.

Please explain to me why I am cool again...or even just the first time. Ani.

PS: Your penfriend? (Note to self: Oh gawd I am so lost. I can't speak the English language anymore. Et puis ku donc? Moi jsuis perdue; jpeux p'us parler ni un mot de francais. Niaizeuse! jsuis niaizeuse en deux langues, tabernouche!

Sorry, ani, I didn't make it clear, I was talking about barm cake, barm bread etc, and you said you made some.. My penfriend wasn't sure what it is, which surprised me - he lives in L'pool, close enough to Coro St country, that I would have thought he'd know... But there you are!
NZ is full of sports-obsessed men (and some women)... my ex-husband was/is one.

In Canada too. Hockey is on strike. So people are coping in their own ways. I guess they are playing their own hockey. I had to inch my way back from work through a mob of rambunctious young and old men toting huge hockey bags and sporting various Leafs clothing.

Yes, I have made barm. Maybe that's why I am so barmy. Ani.

Hockey sounds cool - here it's rugby or cricket. Sigh..
Is barm as nice as it seems on Coro?

This (Hallowe'en) is the season for barm brack in Ireland. It is a bready cake with raisins and the like (sorry, can't be more specific, cooking is a mystery to me) and always has a ring hidden in it. The one who gets the ring in a slice of brack is to be wed within the year . . . money (for wealth), a bean (for poverty) a stick (to beat the wife? husband? be beaten with?) and other charms are also put in by guardians of ancient tradition; but bought ones just have a ring.

<>

Possibly. But the problem is that the mind is not unitary (there's no "central meaner"). So people are quite capable of really meaning quite contrary things, just as they are capable of believing two mutually exclusive propositions at the same time. Context/stimulus generally decides what gets accessed and expressed.

Noggin

-- And that's what they show when they talk nonsense (at cross purposes with themselves). And hence the common feeling "How can I know wht I think until I hear what I say?"

(Welcome, all, to the Linguistics and baking thread)!

>>"How can I know wht I think until I hear what I say?"

A very good point, Mr R. This is exactly what lies behind 'non-directive counselling', is it not? (Q How many Rogerian therapists does it take to change a lightbulb? A How many do YOU think?

But...is this anything to do with language, per se? I agree with Noggin that there is no single centre of meaning in the brain. I suggest that what is happening is that one is first taking the opportunity to put a collection of unconscious thoughts together and THEN shoving them through the speech centres. It's not the process of formulating the words, as such, which turns the background babble into meaning.

How does all this compare with yer man Wittgenstein? A good starting point for a discussion on whether he is consistent with developments in neuroscience. (preparatory homework: If you haven't already, check out the 2003 Reith Lectures via the Search box at the very top of the page).

(By the way - In Northern England - especially Yorkshire, but also Weatherfield and commodious environs - the traditional Halloween/ Bonfire night baked good is 'parkin' - a sticky cake made with oats, treacle and ginger. Just the thing to line the stomach while burning effigies of Catholics!)

Dan Dennett's "multiple drafts" theory in "Consciousness Explained" is roughly that the brain processes various possible scripts to explain whatever input is coming through, and one is (automatically) chosen as the most plausible or useable; this one becomes adopted (automatically) as one's personal history, the stream of consciousness. The automatic part of it is easily enough demonstrated, as when people are given subliminal orders, for instance to stand up; if asked "why did you stand up" they immediately give a reason, such as "to go for a pee". This experiment is done on people whose brain-hemishpere connections are severed, so their language centre can be truly unaware of what's happening on the other side of their brain.

Some find it hard to swallow this theory; they call his book "Consciouness Explained Away".

I expect Wittgenstein would have problems with the automatic bits. He treats the person as that which is consciously controlled (I think). But other people such as Robert Wright (excellent book "The Moral Animal") are exploring the possibilities of an ethics that admits we have less control than we pretend.

>> a stick (to beat the wife? husband? be beaten with?

A woman, a dog and a walnut tree
The more you beat them the better they be

(And people refer to the Good Old Days. Ptah!)


>> <>

>> Possibly. But the problem is that the mind is not unitary (there's no "central meaner").

My bad - especially as I should certainly know better and be more accurate in what I say - "people often say exactly what they mean". Or - in the light of subsequent posts, people always say exactly what one part of them means.


Halloween? Pumpkin pie, and bangers and mash!

B

>> Context/stimulus generally decides what gets accessed and expressed. <<

I quote that succint line out of context to stimulate everyone to re-read your entire posting. It set off a chain reaction of brilliant postings on the human CPU, unitariansim, wife beating and the little hamlet of Wittenburg, Nova Scotia which is just left of Stewiacke. ( I'm going there tomorrow to look at property for sale.)

While generally correct your overall contention that 'two mutually exclusive propositions' cannot exist at the same time fails to consider that Episode Six of the Tertiary Phase is only NOW just available to the colonies via the web.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/

I would only add that "what gets accessed and expressed" involves several levels of consciousness, some capable of independent reasoning, others purely habituated (eg:language) or instinctive (eg:denial of the unknown) reflexes. And yet all levels seem to have the capacity to react negatively, positively or indifferently. (Ying, yang and young. )

Perhaps some choices are even made for us by external force other than random stimuli. Those who claim to have heard a little voice telling them what to do are barely scratching the surface of the input we depend upon to process the modern world.

kerry on,
~jwf~

Oops I've killed another thread. Shame really, it was just starting to gather steam in about five different directions.

The problem is trying to reply to all 5 conversations hoping to offer insight on each at two on three levels and still expect anyone to understand why I would bother to say anything about the other 4 when theirs is their favourite. (They being the infamous 'them'.)

But I find that when one selectively choses only one of 5 ongoing topics it discourages the other equally valid conversations. So four people think they are being ignored and the 5th runs out of stuff to say because no one else is talking. Better then perhaps to be discredited by each and all and every for even bothering with 'the others'.



~jwf~

Ach, John, my previous was pretty fatuous.

Language. Linguistics. Let me see.

Are poetic forms best allowed to be specific to their originating language?

Japanese is more condensed than English, so you can get more into a 17 syllable Haiku in it's native language than you can when it emigrates to ours.

French has fewer rhymes and therefore a greater choice of rhyming words, so the French forms, most of which restrict the poet to two rhymes, are infinitely more flexible in French than English.

Both of these have driven out the original English form which was alliteration.

So - verse forms - worth importing or not?

Discuss. (Or ignore!)

B

Italians refer to the concept of 'an Italian Conversation'. It is not considered impolite to hold more than one conversation at a time, drifting from topic to topic as the attention is caught. Neither is it impolite to suddenly interject, 'Anyway...as I was saying...'

On the other hand...what *were* you on about, squigglejwfsquiggle?

So...Wittgenstein and Neuroscience, anyone?

I *like* the idea of an italian conversation. My grandmama was Italian, and I have obviously inherited her conversational habits. I am, on the other hand, very good at keeping track and pulling conversations back to the topic last veered away from!

I know nothing about Wittgenstein, so I shall squeeze oranges on the side lines ready for the players at half time.

B