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

Hi! - sounds like you've been spending too much time in the Total Perspective Vortex!

However as one who is about to start his final year of a Philosophy undergraduate degree, I am in agreement with you that the pursuit of the sum total of human knowledge is possibly best left to the researchers of H2G2! Of which you are now one - congratulations!

Hi!

I am one of the ACE's here at H2G2. ACE stands for Assistant Community Editor. We are the official Meeters and Greeters of this wonderful site and try to be nice a friendly and appear knowledgeable about stuff. We flit from space to space and I've popped over to say a big friendly "Hello" and welcome you to this great on-line community.

By the way, if you take a look in Preferences you can change the viewing mode of the site. Things like Frames/Fullscreen or using the Alabaster and Goo skins. (My advice for what it is worth is to ditch the 'orrible white and yellow combo of alabaster and embrace the Goo!)
Stil you can learn more about all of that here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/welcome-newcomers

If you are wondering how to draw those little smiley faces that you occasionally see people employing in conversations. This site has loads of 'em and you can find out all about how to use them in conversations like this on by clicking on this smiley face --->

To start you off http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A270325 is a pretty much exhaustive (guide within a guide ) to all of the clubs and sillyness that Researchers (regularly) indulge in.
There are many, many different conversations being had here so try doing some investingating (or "Lurking" as it is known here on-site.)
You can join in by clicking the Discuss Entry button to start up a brand new conversation or if you want to reply to a message in pre-existing conversation just hit the Reply button (9/10 times it doesn't hit back! ) at the end of the appropriate posting.

To see where the community is talking
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/Talk - hosts a comprehensive list.
A good place to start there is
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/askh2g2 - here you can post a question about more-or-less anything! or
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/howdoi - Ignorence can be bliss but enlightenment may be sought here.

These are forums where you can engage with the rest of the community. The forums form one half of the site, they are were reseachers meet and chat. Forums stem from particular Guide Entries writtten by researchers.
For instance the AskH2G2 forums all stem from a page set up by the staff who run this site - fondly known as The Italics because there names all appear in bold italicised font - Gawd Bless 'em - they're lovely.

They all have pages on site. You can learn more about the team that runs the site here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/Team

The best part about using this on-line community is you get to write your own articles otherwise known as Guide Entries and have other people talk about them in the forums they generate. You can write about whatever interests you.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/index
As you can see Guide Entries can also be about anything at all. If you have an interst in diverse a topics as ballet, car mechanics, advanced quantum physics or the daily frustrations of trying to naviagte the London Tube System now is you chance to flex your writing muscles and put finger to keyboard. And there's plenty of help to get you started:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/Writing-Guidelines

The site supports two methods of writing. You can use either Plain Text or if you want to make a page look special you can use a specialised code system called GuideML. It is terribly simple to use. and I promise it doesn't require a doctorate to master and can enhance the look of anythig you write
It is based on a series of open <> and closed </> command brackets and is similar in structure though not indentical to HTML. A really helpful place to start then is the GuideML Clinic, which can be found here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/GuideML-Clinic It explains the basic structure of GuideML, how to use it and is the best place to go if you need any help or get stuck using it.
Your personal Space counts as a Guide Entry and can also be edited to include pictures and text formatting using GuideML. http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/C809
Try looking at other researcher's Spaces to get some ideas.
Click the Who's On Line button to call up a menu that displays all researchers currently logged-in.

There is plenty of help to get you started writing entries for the Guide
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/Writing-Workshop offers helpful advice and also there is the Peer Review System that lets researchers help each other out in puting the final finishing touches to their articles.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/PeerReview

If you are stuck for anything else you could try first checking the Don't Panic! Help Pages & FAQS :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/dontpanic or if you fancy it come and talk to the rest of the ACES here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/ACES - we are a friendly
bunch always ready with the and s

If you want to reply to this message you can by clicking on the Reply button in the corner. I will know if you do because my page dispalys a record of all conversations I have taken part in and have replies to. If you want to stop by my page as well, you are
more than welcome to come ask any questions or even pop over just for a quick chat.
I am here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/U113478

Welcome to H2G2.
Enjoy, reading, taking part in and contributing to The Real Life Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy [ Earth Edition ].

See you around.

Clive.

Hi Clive,

Thanks for your welcome message.

I'm a little stunned, and not just by the amount of smileys. What a fantastic idea this whole enterprise is. Seems to be a cross between a formal encyclopedia and an outlet for people who like writing clever things.

I have a theory about philosophy and philosophers, and I'll probably compose it as a journal entry, because it's more of a personal
view than a proper idea. Although that doesn't stop me from thinking I'm right. I've looked up the philosophy section, and I might have something to add at a later date, though the amount of stuff on liberatarianism and objectivism makes my skin crawl. Oh well....

TTFN


Otto

I have a long standing, as yet un-started (Very DNA of me) ambition to write a comprehensive Philosophy Entry, that would at the very least introduce people to the subject. Still, I would enjoy listening to you expound yout theory. In Real Life, I'm currently preparing to begin my final Dissertation on Existentailist Ethics.

I share with you completely your sense of amazement at this place.
When I first arrived, just shy of 2 years ago (I completely missed the publicity it's launch received and discovered it almost by accident.) The first message I wrote went something along the lines of:

This is great THE GUIDE on THE NET! - (I'd only just got my first internet connection through the university.)

That, I still believe is what this is. Douglas's vision for an interactive, real time guide who's content is largely provided by the people who use it. It sticks quite well to the *idea* of a hitchiker's Giide as it appeared in the books but as you've said it feels like a collosall encylcopoedia and an out-let for creative writing, with time for plenty of ness in-between.

It is such a fantastically, wonderful idea and I hope I've enthused enough to point out, IMHO simply the best internet Community I've ever had the simple pleasure to be a part of.

Clive

We *DO* have a lot of smilies, don't we?

Hi Clive....

I've just re-jigged something I wrote some time ago about philosophy and philosophical method. I don't think it's finished yet, and I'd welcome your comments, if you have time to peruse it between bouts of angst!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A609572

Best wishes

Otto

That was excellent! (It *is* amazing, isn't it, how often argument is just reciting positions - often loudly - which misses the point of debate. )

I particularly enjoyed the middle section about how Philosophy oppose dogma and uncritical thinking and really think you should expand this.

I'll read it through some more and if I think of anything I'll let you know.

Meanwhile, this is a link to the front cover of my H2G2 University Project for Philosophy http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A429482.
It really was only a sketch of what I'd wanted to cover I would *love* to work with you on this if you are up for it. Trick is, as you said in your own introduction the more you try and explain the minutae of a subject or topic the more you get drawn to such detail that the task becomes a mission in itself to explain concepts and ideas so far under-pinning your original investigation that they become almost seperate topics themselves! or else offers such a glib precé that the final result wasn't worth the effort.

If you would like to do a collaborative entry I'd be more than happy to give it a go. The University is here if you want to see what other in-depth entries this project has spawned.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/C573

*Existence may proceed essence but my thirst preceeds my action and I think this is looking lonely so let's get down there and relate to it.*

Clive (Graduate of the Zaphod Beeblebrox Acadamy of Existentialist Drinking Games & Physchoanalysis )
___
*

Hi Clive,


Thanks for your encouraging response!

I'd be delighted to collaborate on some philosophy stuff. My main areas are political philosophy and ethics, and I'm a bit rusty on everything else!

I think an appropriate aim would be to write something very accessible, slightly quirky, and interesting to the non-philosopher - if an academic philosopher wants to know something, I'm sure this isn't the forum they'd use. Something like: Philosophy, the interesting bits. I've also send a copy of "How to be a Philosopher" to Lear, who's produced a useful philosophy links page to Guide resources. Hopefully (s)he'll have some useful observations as well.

I'll do some more thinking about expanding the section you suggest. I think probably the final section about how to go about philsophising is probably the weakest. I was torn between detail and brevity, which, as you rightly say, is a great dilemma for this kind of forum.

Best wishes


Otto.

Me still lowly undergraduate (*grates knuckles across floor*) so I suppose you could say I'm beginning to specialise in Ethics but that's not my speciality yet, if you see what I mean.

I like Philosophy: The Interesting bits.

A collaboration? Marvellous!
If we were to work together and produce a working entry on Philosophy using a clear approach is absolutly critical, I agree. Funnily enough on My ACE rounds I bumped into another new researcher, dunno, if they were serious or not, but they were talking about Philosophy as being "mired in inaccessability" Well anyway....
this is demonstrative perhaps of the kind of audience who might end up reading such and article and having no clear idea how it can relate to them.

I really did enjoy reading your article and think you've hit something on the head that I've been struggling with, which was: How do you go about starting to present a general, acceptable overview of something like Philosophy, notwithsatnding the inherent difficulties we've already discussed, but then to adaquetly equip a reader (presum,ably with little or none for-knowledge) with sufficient ideas to engage their enthusiasm with out merely breaking into your notes of Kantiansim or Peter Singer or Whatever.
By presenting Philosophy as the activity of critical exploration of argument. The start of that process is clear and it then is easier to move from that to any relevant subject you wish to discuss *and come back again*, without necessarily have to start off with any one partisan issue, like say Other Minds or Animal Rights.

Again you don't want it to feel like it is just rehashed academia. I made a mention of "literary examples" - that wasn't very clear but I meant to demonstrate that it need not contain a bulk of dry textbook learning but "quirky" anecdotes" that reflect a serious Philosophical point.

I *am* looking forward to this -

Clive.

Hi Clive....

I've dropped the bit about animal rights and replaced it with a conversation between a mother and daughter about whether the latter ought to be allowed to go to a party on a school night. I think it's an improvement, but I'm still not sure.....

I'll think about it some more and probably submit it for peer review sometime soon.

I'll give some more thought to Philosophy: The Interesting Bits.....


Best wishes


Otto.

K' here are some of my thoughts as promised.

1.) I would consider dropping The paragraph starting "Likewise Joestein Gaarder." It feels a little out of place and on the whole I think reads better if you move straight from "Namely: 1,2,3" to "Other areas include." Maybe introduce it as a footnote perhaps. (Do you know how to d these in GuideML?)


2.) Also "An academic at Reading once said" seems to place the subject right back in the laps of the academics. and Whilst I think the point the paragraph is making is a valid and interesting one, you could try re-working it along the lines of:

::Just my attempt feel free to edit::

"Most subjects that people study at school and at college are in many respects philosophical. If you think about any subject hard enough you will discover underpinning all topics are certain basic assumptions and fundemental ideas. Uncovering those and subjecting them to scrutiny is just one application of Philosophy. Indeed such questions are bound up in the very nature of of the things concerned and are often described as "The Philosophy of" that subject.
Science, for instance, may have given us Dolly the sheep but it seems that to ask: What is Science? Is there such a thing as the scientific method? Should we clone endangered species? Should we clone each other? Fall outside the domain of science itself to answer. Attempting to understand those sorts of questions is a task for Philosophers.
This entry can be seen as an attempt to construct a view for a philosophical method. It is one of the curious things about pursuing philosophy that definitive right answers are always very illusive. Even if you think you are right,there is bound to be somebody who disagrees with you. To understand how to be a philosopher is to learn about the nature of argument and how best to state your case...."

*PHEW!* I've been away from the books too long! If I think of anything else, I'll post here.

Clive



.

Thanks for your suggestions!

I've been playing around with it a bit, and I've edited your editions (editions? editings?) a bit and added some references.
I've tried to give you a writing credit on it, but it flags you up as author and me as editor, which is a little odd. Any idea how I can get you credited?

I've just submitted it for peer review, just for a laugh really....

Best wishes



Otto.

Thank You for the credit. you didn't have to - I wasn't expecting any. So really, Thank You!

There should be a little box at the bottom on the edit page, allowing you to enter "U" numbers this I believe adds more than one researchers name to the writing credit. I think you get the editors slot because you created it. If it gets accepted to the guide the sub-editor's name eventually goes there and the people involved in actually contributing to the article (ie. all those who are given researcher credit, including yourself) are named as Authors.

I'll keep an eye out for it in PR.

Bye for now.

Clive.