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

Hello,

The conversations I've seen you in I like *wonders how to say that properly or - yeah properlyish*

Actually what I really wanted to ask is what is a catch 22? I take it it has something to do with the book?


If you're a philosopher, I would've thought you'd be above writing someting about winning arguements.

I'm weird, I know

Hi Ed, how's things?

The phrase "Catch-22" does indeed come from the book. The original Catch-22 was this:

The fighter pilots have to keep flying combat missions, but they don't have to fly them if they're insane. To be declared insane, they have to ask. But wanting not to fly combat missions is a sign of sanity, and therefore any pilots who request not to fly combat missions must be sane, and should therefore continue to fly combat missions.

But it's used elsewhere in the book to justify any unreasonable or arbitrary decision by authority. Incidently, I can't recommend the book highly enough. The film is okay, but the book is probably the greatest ever written in English, in my very humble opinion.

You might have a point about philosophers and the desire to win arguments, but I offer two suggestions in my defence

Every point of view deserves a fair hearing, and without the ability to put forward their views in a clear, coherent and persuasive manner, people's views won't get a fair hearing. Mill was very concerned with free speech, and would probably accept this kind of argument.

My second suggestion is that discussing how to "win" arguments is a good way of exposing both legitimate and illegitimate methods of argument. The latter are presented for detection and public information purposes only, of course..... I certainly wouldn't advocate the misuse of such information!

Best wishes

Otto

Otto,

I started the 'Philosophy in Science' thread to provoke thought in people who take science too seriously. There are a lot of them, and I don't want them resting on their laurels. I can see now, that, thanks to your and others' contributions, that there's not much chance of that.

P.S. Thinking about it, I may have to change my life motto to 'Read Catch-22'!

Hi Jack,

I'm not sure. I think I killed the thread! I can see the tumbleweed blowing through it even as we speak!

There's no guide entry on the philosophy of science, so perhaps there's an opportunity for you there

I loved the philosophy of science, mainly just because it gave me an excuse to annoy scientists....

Best wishes

Otto

Looks like the thread's back and running again

I'm a linguist by training - I don't really know enough about philosophy of science to do an entry on my own. By the way, while you're there, do you by any chance know how to make tables on GuideML?

Jack

Have you tried.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/GuideML-TABLE

I think there's also a way to reverse engineer pages to see the coding, which might also help. I've managed to make a table for my Great Escape entry, but it's not very good!

Good luck!

Otto.

Excellente! That was what I couldn't find. Muchas gracias!

You didn't ruin the thread, I haven't spent a lot of time on this since before easter.

Hi again Ed,

Sorry - confusion reigns!!

I wasn't talking about this thread: I was talking to Jack about a philosophy of science thread that went very quiet after I posted something- I didn't mean this one!

Best wishes

Otto

PS Have you read Catch 22?

Hi all!

There is an entry about Catch-22 at A291133!


and a related entry on Endless Loops at A600940



And, the trick to find out the GuideML behind an entry is to replace the 'A' with 'test':
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A600940 ----> http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/test600940

Exception: personal spaces need to be examined by replacing 'U' with 'testuserpage':
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/U132240 ---->
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/testuserpage132240

Hi Sir Bossel,

I'm *very* impressed by your entry on endless loops. It's a first class piece of scholarship, if I may say so.

I think there is an opposite of a vicious circle - I've heard the phrase "virtuous circle" used a few times, but mostly by academics (mostly philosophers).

I've seen the Catch-22 entry before - I was going to write one, but it's been done! It *could* be made much better - I understand that standards are much higher now than they were, and I suspect from the reference number that it's a very early entry...

Best wishes

Otto

thanks a lot * bows respectfully *

The virtuous circle has been mentioned in one of the threads below the entry, but I didn't get to see it before the entry was out with the SubEd.

Hey, Edited entries aren't meant to stay fixed forever! There's the h2g2 Update HQ at A496451 where you can submit any amendments to existing entries