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

(I'll go on here, because I'm not sure it is extremely relevant to TGD thread.)

"Yes. I love the contradiction and irony... But surely not *exactly*? Is that not debatable? In all sorts of ways?. .And after all parallel lines do only meet at 'infinity', not infinity..."

I'd say they 'meet at infinity'

But really, 0.9.... is exactly equal to 1. One way to do it is: set x=0.9... Compute 10 times x (that's 9.999....), substract x (you get 9). Hence 9 = 10x - x = 9x, so x=1.

Or, try to write out 1 - 0.999... : you should get 0.000.... with a neverending line of zeroes, and surely that should be 0.



What is highly debatable of course, is the usefulness of pure mathematics in everyday life. Other than the fact that mathematicians can prove negatives

This 0.000.... story also reminds me of an amusing probability trick, about events which have an probability of exactly 0 but which can nevertheless occurr. Like, playing coin toss and never, ever obtaining 'heads': while it is, technically, possible, the probability is exactly 0.

One guy once had suggested a miracle-creating experiment: get one million people to play 'heads' and 'tails'. Those who get 'heads' stop the game, the others play again: that should be, in average, 500,000 people replaying. Those who get 'heads' again stop, and the others continue - about 250,000 people. And so on. After 15 rounds there should be about 30 people left: these would be 30 people who just obtained 15 times 'tails' in a row! Miracle!

I like the 'miracle' story. Just the kind of thing to convince the faither brain of the existence of God.

***

You have me on your mathematical reasoning, as I haven't a clue how to follow it, or maybe more truthfully I don't know if I'm capable of having a clue how to follow it, because my brain suddenly went all foggy. And I couldn't even see the fog for the fog...

I could just throw in another way of looking at things though, just as a bit of fun, cos it's a blatant piece of faither style nonsensical gymnastics..

In terms of written signifiers. 99.9, (you'll have to imagine that little dot over the top of the 9, I don't think I can do it with this keyboard), is always different from 100. Or A is A and cannot be B, literally as it were. They just kind of 'look' different don't they? And as all faithers can tell you, seeing is believing.

The miracle experiment is basically what is used in betting ring cons. Have a look at the Derren Brown show called 'The System' where he gets one woman to bet everything she has and more on a horse after she has won 6 horse races based on the names given to her by Derren Brown.

Basically he started with enough people to be able to get people to win everytime such tht there would be one person left who had won on every race.

They look different, just as 1/2 and 2/4 look different

It is quite intereting to see how con artists also rely on maths to trick people. Well, there's the National Lottery for a start! Also, I have seen a trick on TV which can get you easily free pints: you stack a pint glass on various items you can get hold of easily in a pub (ashtray, small stack of beer mats, whatever) and bet that the total height reached by your glass rim is lower than the circumference of said rim (ah yes, you need a piece of string to measure it in the end). Apparently, there is a point when your unsuspecting victim will believe the circumference is smaller than the height when in fact it is still the other way round.

... and of course:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/99706190@N00/1869299/

Yes I caught some programme the other day which showed a whole load of these scams and tricks used to trick people in real life out of their money. And it was just so easy to get people to fall for them. Most people, which in some ways is quite a good thing, are fairly trusting of their fellows. But if they can't see through the con they are completely duped. And we know the results of that in other spheres of life only too well.

I'm taking a break for now from that TGD thread. It's starting to send me mad I think. I do have a certain mental vulnerability to being subjected to too much complete and utter madness of games and thinking that make no sense. Trying to comprehend the endless variations of irrationality. Even my metaphor of gymnastics to deal with it, is no longer really working for me.

Like when the variations of practioners of it knock on my door, I just straight away shut the door now.

And suddenly all this faith type stuff doesn't seem very important anyway to me. It's not really me at all to get so obsessed with it. And I've got to keep my mind functioning sanely at present for art. At heart art is really always based on some of form of metaphor in its endless guises. This way of thinking is the best for keeping me sane, because the emotions also always have a big role to play . It's about finding ways to make relationships between 'thinking' and 'feeling' that actually sense and can therefore be creative. Artists love playing with themselves....( that was a metaphor though I won't deny a fair bit of the literal variety also goes on too...)

What, you don't like walking in circles? It is probably better to take a break from that thread then indeed.

Metaphor, that reminds me of those old paintings (well, probably the recent ones too) which just seem to represent whatever they represent (like someone holding a letter in a hallway) but actually tell you much more if you look for metaphors (like some water painting in the hallway to suggest that the letter is a love letter). Sometimes it requires quite some training to spot the metaphors and interpret them.

In many movies unfortunately they just tend to explain everything in great detail (backwards and sideways?) so reading between lines might be a talent which gets lost. Kieslowski had the following opinion about it. When Poland opened to the West in the early 80s, he said that the unfortunate consequence of no more censorship for the movies was that the audience was losing their ability to understand hints and subtlety in movies. Because before, you had to try and sneak meaning and sense into the movie in such a way that the audience would get it and censors wouldn't. But censors would get smarter and understand more and require harsher cuts. Then directors would use even more subtle metaphors and the audience would learn to understand these. Then, censors would also learn it, etc.



By the way, something (more or less unrelated) there is a delicious bit of British irony towards the French which I've always wanted to point out to you, surely you will appreciate this. Was it on purpose that the end station of the Eurostar was located in Waterloo station? Of course now it was moved (I think) to St Pancras, quite a shame in my opinion.

Oh what a shame they've moved it from Waterloo.. But I'm feeling quite cross that it had never occurred to me whilst it was still at Waterloo.

Maybe we should rename St Pancras, the Duke of Wellington?

And I'm very relieved the real Olympic games are about to start, (after the recent ones on TGD thread), another sore point for the French I believe, London 2012...not Paris 2012

We didn't really want them anyway