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

Hi Bx4,

In answer to your question about whether they are the same children, the answer is yes, but in a Ship of Theseus kind of way perhaps.

I think it was you who suggested postal Buckaroo though.

Is it just me, or do you get the impression that the Blackburn interview is a translation?

hi psi

Ship of Theseus: children(->fairies-&gtteenagers. Well known fact.

Postal Buckaroo:SoT may apply here.

Translation: Reading the interview I can see why you might think so but I would doubt it.

Translation scenarios

a)Blackburn speaks fluent Portuguese and gave the interview in that language and that it was, for reasons unknown, then translated into English

or

b)Blackburn does not speak fluent Portuguese and gave the interview in English which was subsequently translated in to Portuguese and then, for reasons unknown, the interview was subsequently retranslated into English.

or

c) Blackburn does not speak Portuguese and the interviewer does not speak English but both are fluent in a third language. The interview was conducted in that language and subsequently translated into English.


However, against these scenarios we have the fact that ethic@ is a refereed journal that publishes in both Portuguese and English. So why would a translation be necessary?

I fear we must concluded that Blackburn has *not* been mistranslated with all that that implies

His psi

For some reason I can't post to Rubbisher that Thou seems to work but when I revisit its gone
Thread a victim of recent server update, perhaps. AFK for next 4-5

1. e4 Nf6
2. e5 Nd5
3. d4 d6
4. c4 Nb6
5. f4 dxe5 (PxP)

bsy

hi Bored, howdy Psi,

in no specific order......

just to make sure you've got the right end of the stick (yup, pun) Bored, about that white pole bloke on the Skutsje; he's most definitely not using this thing to gauge depth. he is however essential to get the great beast going by pushing for all he's worth. it can take several grunting white pole wielding blokes to get off out of the sticky stuff (this is just writing itself....must stop). there is just no point to try and use a pole to gauge depth because by the time you've gauged it, it's already wayyyy to late to do anything about it. there's no room for "making it up as you get to it". try and think more in terms of a tanker trying to stop.....


the Moody 40 is part of a large family i have discovered. in one of the studios this week there were a few sailing mags lying about. definitely not the industry norm for studios....found a Moody 52 (i think) and some other numerical version. is it for length, or sail area, or...? still, even without all the fancy frippery, the 40 is an absolute beauty.

Bop it; what's y'r top score Psi? just asking like......not like a challenge or anything.....(competitive? moi?).

Chesstykov; love all the "events" in that chess game. just to witness the locating of the board, the false starts.... initially i was going to volunteer to referee or somesuch, but 1st looked up what the "mathematical" method looked like, then i didn't volunteer.... the words of Clint Eastwood (as Dirty Harry) came to me; "A man's gotta know his limitations." though if the comedy level of the chess game dips too low then i'm willing to rethink, 3 Stooges anyone?

i dig therefor i am; Bored, that youtube JCB footage, you look so....young!

threads; thanks Bored for dragging the "God's a slacker, discuss" thread up every now and then, i think it's best to let it die, though i was greatly amused to see you predict in uncanny fashion what the main points were going to be. eerie. though with hind sight maybe it's just obvious, as well as me repeating ground well covered elsewhere.

rrright, kids to skin and all that. must go and parent....



btw Psi, how many kids do you have? i am the proud owner of a 9 year old dude, and a 6 year old dudette. (no need to answer if you don't want, i'm just a nosey so and so)

Evening jank,

I can't honestly remember my high score. I do remember my eldest beating me (she's just gone to uni). I think it might have been a hundred and something, so nothing to write home about (voxbop, Bop It Extreme).

Middle child is the one who asked me about the mathematical induction. He's doing A2's this year.

Youngest-she is at secondary school.

I suppose I do take algebraic chess notation a bit for granted now, I'm really used to it. Gripping stuff though eh? And we're already up to move 6!

Morning jank


It never occurred to me that the white polemen were punting to get started. Or is it to increase speed during the race?. The mind of the competitive sportist is something of a closed book to me.

The boat on which we are planning our trip is classed as a 'Groninger boltjalk'. You will understand the following rather better than me I suspect:

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolschip
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sk%C3%BBtsje
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sk%C3%BBte

However while it is now clear that tonnagedistinguishes a skutsje from a skutse , it is not clear how either is distinguished from a boltjalk

Family:

There is indeed a a large Moody family including two distinct Moody 40s. This is the other one:

http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1999/Moody-Center-Cockpit-Sloop---The-Only-Moody-40'-on-the-Market-in-the-USA---Like-New-Condition-1553886/Midcoast/ME/United-States

I have been trawling a bit further and turned up this:

http://www.apolloduck.com.pt/feature.phtml?id=67977

Not as spiffy as the one with the wood though the fridge/freezer and washing machine seem a bit OTT.

Das Boot, is more of a high tech slum by comparison.

The 40 refers to the length 39' 6". (there is also a Moody 39 which is the same length) Quite small compared with skutses and groninger bolschips.

There is a Moody 52

http://www.boatshed.com/moody_52-boat-1617.html

though I have never encountered one.

Here (apart from the deeply naff interior decor) is my dream sloop.

http://www.boatsandoutboards.co.uk/view/NAL265

Morning jank

Chesstykov: Not sure we can guarantee a humorous game but remind me to tell you sometime how chess got me into trouble as the school 'Red'.

The way of the JCB: My stint was not nearly so 'exciting' as I was backfilling. I suspect the auteur of the video was well into baffydom.

I am currently engaged in digging wee holes in the big holes I filled in.


Gods Days Off: I see the thread has leapt/staggered into life again.

Sorry to have anticipated your final strategy though I only thought of it after you posted.

The Way of the Spade calls.

Catch you later

Hi psi

Equal treatment: Such an daft demand provokes more than a wry grin though. I have noticed that most anti-theists are somewhat fixated on the Christian God.

Clearly I should start a campaign demanding that anti-theists should treat all monotheists, polytheists, pantheists, panentheists and other supernaturalists equally.

Fairness demands it!

Naive assumption: Indeed. universal ethical principles. Pah!

My 'English fixation' may have been an over hasty generalisation.

Rather a belief particular (by no means intellectual) elite not applicable to 'lesser breeds', local or furrin.

Audit: No my conclusion was, on the comparative numbers of posts, that I was biased against theists.

Anyhow most of my critiques of anti-theists' posts were not directed at their anti-theism (apart from the 'zealot bit obviously).

Scottish: Well I like to think of myself as more European but the cultural tradition I was referring to was:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Enlightenment

(Note the comment by Voltaire;. Empire? Pah!)

Though I see myself as leaning somewhat the Humean pessimist tendency.

On being an intellectual: To declare oneself such in Scotland would be see as being 'big heided' (the Scottish equivalent of the philosopical misandrist's 'inflated ego')

One *must* be declared an 'intellectual' by others.

This first time this happened to me went thusly:

When young and temporarily living in Glasgow, I used to frequent a somewhat insalubrious boothed diner which, for somewhat involved reasons, had moussaka and dolmathes on its otherwise 'Chips with everything' menu.

Anyhow, one Friday night after 'chucking oot' time a friend and I were occupying a booth when two extremely drunk 'neds'( very 'No Mean City')sat down opposite.

After much scowling and muttering (and a growing concern that I might be imminently chibbed) one of them leaned towards me waved his fork in my face and said:

'Hey you, jimmy, Bet ye dinna ken whae Samuel Beckett iz?'

I replied in the patois (adopting protective coloration to avoid immediate impalement of eye with fork):

'Yir wrang, seen his plays, read his bukes. So whit?'

An exchange followed which seemed to satisfy him that I was not 'pulling a flanker' to avoid impalement.

Whereupon, he turned to Ned 2 gave him an ungentle cuff and said:

'Will ye stoap eatin yir peas wi yir knife, fur Christ's sake, this man's an intellectual.'

Onwards and upwards, thereafter

Morning Bx4,

I don't think anybody would be as daft as to call for equal treatment across the board. That isn't what happened. Rather, your particular proclivities were noted in a way that was reminiscent and thus produced a wry smile. You do let blue get away with things that you wouldn't let people who challenge him get away with, and you have your reasons. Fair enough.

I'll stick with my naive notion that some moral concepts are transcultural if you don't mind. You haven't managed to dismantle the idea with cogent argument yet, so nor will pah^n (n a positive integer).

In terms of your anti theist bias, I must say I have never detected it. That is to say, I'd be more inclined to say you have an anti-bunkum bias, whether said bunkum is theist or atheist in nature. My personal impression, on limited data, is that you cut certain specific theist posters more slack than what you term 'anti-theists' and I have a memory of you admitting that, and retorting that your reason is that you feel atheists ought to know better. But now you have done an audit I don't doubt that it is more comprehensive than what I have attended to.

On being an intellectual, I just think it is a bit of a silly term. I don't think I'm one and I don't really consider it for other people. Some people are academics, they do that for a living. I'm a guitar player and guitar teacher. You do clever stuff for money. Probably because you are clever.

Afternoon psi


across the board: If fairness is a moral principle then isn't universality entailed?

Proclivities: So it is not my general proclivities towards theists that are at issue but specifically those towards blue?

However, on the 'Proof' thread, discounting his infelicities of expression I tend to agree with his position.

I find it strange that this is seen as evidence of a supposed proclivity to act preferentially towards theists.

transcultural: I don't think I ever said that moral imperatives couldn't be transcultural only that this should not be taken as implying that they were innate.

bunkum: I think you and I, if push came to shove, would define our default position as skeptical. I am less interested in debunking religious faith because many are already doing so whereas the assumptions of metaphysical/philosophical/ontological naturalism and scientism are rarely questioned.

I tend to follow Quine who argued (Two Dogmas of Empiricism) that this type of philosophical belief, in a sense, serves the same role for its proponents as religious belief does for its proponents.

Slack: I cut theists slack because faith, is I think, intrinsically irrational, and thus demanding a rational defense is, imo, either naive or disingenuous.

However, many militant assert that their positions are founded solely on reason and evidence.

If one makes such a claim then one should expect to have the irrational and unevidenced elements of one's beliefs examined.

On being an intellectual: Joking aside I do think English culture (allowing the over-hasty generalisation) has a problem with the notion. I came across this definition:

'a person who places a high value on or pursues things of interest to the intellect or the more complex forms and fields of knowledge, as aesthetic or philosophical matters, esp. on an abstract and general level.'

I would suggest, irrespective of the fact that neither you or I would self-label as such, that this is how we behave.

Moreover, I would not consider that the label 'academic' means quite the same thing.

Clever: Well, as a subject of an early version of the infamous 'E stream' experiment, I'm officially 'clever'

However there is a joke about people who join Mensa - 'Clever enough to join, not clever enough not to'.

I think this encapsulates the absurdity of the notion that being clever confers some special merit and says much about the intelligence of those who think it does.

Clever for money: Not really. My particular talent is that I see patterns in data that other people to not. Intuition rather than intelligence, I guess.

Anyhow must

bsy

Afternoon Bx4,

You could argue that fairness is a universal moral concept yes, but I doubt that either of us would argue that there would necessarily be a way of discerning impartially what is fair in a specific instance. Hence perhaps it would be absurd to demand complete even handedness from anybody, let alone on a message board.
As for innateness that's just another can of worms. I doubt we disagree much on that one.

On proclivities, blue just supplies the most stark example I think. You seem to pounce on the infelicities of those with whom you disagree, yet let howlers by from the likes of blue, not even because you agree with them completely, since you don't, but because they are arguing against the anti-theists.

On slack, we have argued that before and I remain unconvinced that theists deserve any more slack at all. I have a feeling we never concluded that one.

I agree we are sceptics, perhaps with a different emphasis and I also agree with your thoughts on being intellectual. Though I think intuitively detecting patterns is clever.

hi psi

Universal: I am not persuaded by the idea of universal moral imperatives but I agree that demanding that someone be 'impartial' on a message board of the kind does seem absurd.

It seems even more absurd when someone who is clearly being partial demands that someone else should be impartial.

innateness: I am not sure that we do agree about it. You did raise it as a topic on 'Murder' and I had begun a reply when that thread degenerated into nonsense.

It is an interesting topic, now that the thread has become moribund I will finish my post when I can.


Proclivities: As I am to blue perhaps you might be to wwatcher.

However, my #403 to bluehillside was not in support of blue but against one of Dawkins more simplistic ('Stalin's moustache') arguments used by bhs.

Both you and curried seem to be proponents of an 'My enemy's enemy is my friend' POV. Not one I share.

slack: I think we might be are cross purposes here. I am not saying that theists 'deserve' slack rather that it is pointless to deploy rational analysis against an intrinsically irrational faith.

By contrast non-theists do assert their position is rational and I think therefore it is legitimately the object of skeptical analysis.

skepticism: I don't know how much we do differ since we never did managed to get very far with our Kantian' noumenon/phenomenon/ding an sich debate.

If differences there are the I suspect that's where they will lie.

I suspect if there are differences they will lie in areas like 'truth' and 'reality'

intuition: It doesn't seem to have much to do with cleverness. It also happens when I look at data from areas I know nothing about.

I don't 'analyse' the data and deduce a pattern. I just 'see' the pattern .

Afternoon Bx4,

I don't think I would quite sign up to universal moral imperatives either. I think the level of description is wrong. It is easy to think of such a putative imperative and point to individuals who don't seem to have it, or cultures who treat them very differently. However I think I would go as far as to say that it seems likely that the vast majority of humans have predispositions in common with regards concepts like fairness. Again, like language, young children without pathology easily acquire a culturally modulated set of moral concepts.

On innateness, I suppose we will have to see if we reach agreement.

I don't think your wwatcher analogy works . The reason is that I took wwatcher to task on more than one occasion and even got him to rethink his position once. I've never seen you do anything like that with blue, though I could be wrong since I haven't followed all your dialogues.

I certainly am not a proponent of the 'My enemy's enemy is my friend' principle though I did suspect that this was part of your motivation for treating posters differently. If you say this is not so then I take that correction, fair enough. That leaves us with your other idea about irrationality and faith and the wisdom of deploying certain arguments.

The point that atheists sometimes assert that their point of view has a totally rational foundation and that this is a valid target of sceptical criticism is one I wholeheartedly agree with. What I still don't understand though is why theists should be exempt from sceptical criticism, and the point that their faith is intrinsically irrational seems inadequate as a reason to justify differential slack. Although you claim that this slack is pragmatic on your part because rational criticism of an irrational faith based positions is futile, I have two problems with this view.

Firstly, if you want to claim that atheists aren't as rational as they think they are, doesn't that undermine any basis for differential treatment?

Secondly, if theists basically said 'yes I have a commitment to this view, it might not be totally rational but so what?', they would be immune, I agree, but they don't. They endlessly rationalise their position in order to make it compatible with the rest of what they observe. The only reason I can think of as to why you don't seem to criticise blue when he does that badly, is that it is simply a matter of personal taste, which of course would be fair enough.

On truth and reality, that might be where we disagree, but I'm not sure I have a stable position on these matters at all. Every time I read stuff on the topic I come away less convinced that I have even the vaguest clue. The most recent thing that is closest to how I think on this is probably the Michael Frayn book 'The Human Touch'.

I suppose you are right about cleverness if we interpret the word as meaning something slightly different from intelligence, something that has to be explicit, conscious and deliberate perhaps. I think your skill shows high intelligence nonetheless.

Bx4,

By the way, jank has asked for your drop address. I thought I'd better clear it with you first. Jank, I hope you are still following the chess.

hi psi

innateness: Indeed interesting to explore. I avoided posting because of the nonsense that was the end of days on murder. I tend to write long replies offthread so I still have the partial reply.

I'll get round to it once have done my other outstanding replies two to you on'Pychology' and , one a 'first cut' look at theological non-cognitivism and two to curried-duk.

Selectivity: My point wasn't really that you always cut atheists slack but that you sometimes did.

Not a criticism as such more a recognition that one can't respond to every post. For example on Noah there are some 'frequent flyer' anti-theists who back up their position with 'cod' interpretations of mathematics, evolutionary biology and genetics. I feel I should intervene but choose not to.

Odd that you think you have never seen me to anything like that with Blue since on 'Proof' I got him to agree that 'atheism = communism' was a flawed equivalence which seemed central to the rather daft argument that was going on between him, bhs and c-d.

I also had several exchanges on 'Delusion' where I disagreed with him.

Enemy's enemy: On 'Proof' I made it fairly plain that I did not agree with bi2 argument which I thought because it could so easily be shown to be flawed allowed proponents of the equally flawed 'Stalin's moustache' argument to deploy diversionary 'smoke and mirrors' to conceal this.

In the context of my argument blue's position helped rather than hindered.

Exemption: I think you might have misunderstood. My 'exemption is limited only to the 'fideist' aspects of theism . If a theist asserts evidence of a supernatural intervention in the natural 'world' then no slack would be cut. I guess that would apply to 'natural theology' arguments generally.

I agree that few theists seem to deploy the 'so what' argument. A shame really as it would be interesting to see how the proponents of 'reason and evidence' as having some special virtue would react.

The latter do seem to get a bit skittish when you start questioning their implied philosophical naturalism and ofttimes scientism though.

truth and reality: I'm not sure that I have a fixed position either though i do have a default one perhaps I would probably be a skeptic with respect to the coherence theory of truth and a non-cognitivist' with respect to 'reality'.

Funnily I came across the Frayn in my local library but haven't got round to reading it yet. I did pick up another book dealing with this but the title and author escape me for the moment.

cleverness: Strangely I don't see it as such except in the' idiot savant' sense. An unusual bit of neurological wiring, perhaps?

Basically what happens is I look at the data and see a sort of 'graph' of their inter-relationships.

hi psi

Jankaas - no problem.

Is this the fabled long awaited third album?

Might be a good idea if he checks let me know when he is going to post academic shutdown imminent and after what happened to your first I need to make sure contact will be around.

Meant to ask is new quartet a response to perceived limitation of duo format?

Chess: No I haven't dropped out. Just got involved a second postal game with my erstwhile 'real world' opponent and juggling two games on one board was proving a bit difficult.

Also assembly of shiny new bike......

However I have now acquired a second (hence five sets now) remarkably spiffy 'portable' ( rather than pegged) magnetic set and once everything is setup again I'll reply to 21(?).

Evening Bx4,

Selectivity: I haven't claimed that your point was that I always cut atheists slack. I sometimes do and I sometimes cut theists slack too. My point is that an observer might notice a difference in our respective slack cutting styles. I'm not talking about selectivity in terms of to whom one responds because you are right, you can't respond to everything. I'm talking about selectivity as in differential slack in the responses we /do/ make.

Odd that you think getting blue to agree that 'atheism = communism' was a flawed equivalence is in any way parallel to the concession I got from ww. In fact, your example demonstrated that you deal with blue's infelicities very leniently compared to some others, since it seems clear that he was drawing no such equivalence. Rather, instead of saying 'so you mean communist states do not tend to espouse atheism'?, he said 'Are you then saying that communism isn't atheism?' which was infelicitous to say the least. He did subsequently make it clear that he wasn't making such an equivalence, so to agree to such was no concession from him.

Exemption: No I don't think I have misunderstood. I remember when you went all 'look, the borg'. The theists were, nonetheless, attempting at the time the very thing you are now saying would void their exemption, namely attempting to rationalise their view. Did it make a difference? Not a bit.

I think coherentist theories are a bit fishy too. I'd be interested to see what you make of the Frayn.

On 'idiot savant', you seem to have the savant side without the idiot, which is perhaps best described as being very intelligent in a particular way. I would bet a lot of mathematicians just 'see' relationships and patterns. Would you want to argue that they aren't clever? Perhaps cleverness is a result of unusual neurological wiring?

hi chaps,

hope you're both well and all that. i have been v timepoor* of late and hence way behind with posts in the sense of joining in. both kids had tonsilitis, my wife is now enjoying a viral chest infection, hence i'm slowly unravelling. thank the sweet lord for wine and cake.....

just to wish you both a merry wotnot 'n that, and that i've posted you both some muzak from the vaults of my distant and more distant past. posted today so fingers crossed....

Psi: i've sent you a copy of "the glorious failure album" i previously mentioned. Bored already has it courtesy of Ebay or somesuch.

Bored: a copy of the last album from the previous band i was in. it has lyrics, so no excuse for not singing along!! sent to your drop zone.

cheers




*clearly not too timepoor for my recidivist tendency on the Ark thread, but hey i'm weak.....guilty as charged....

Hi jank

V. timepoor myself hence general absence andabandonment of 'Noah' as upsurge of 'dodgy' science (extending to include the maunderings of many of those of the atheist persuasion) and appearance of 'reality'*

SO and part-family arrive for Weihnachten Tues so much rushing about to make sure everything is ready. Fortunately friends have pitched in with contributions, homemade stollen, etc. so should be OK.

Also need to get this current stage of project finished so that we can get back to Scotland for Hogmanay (else 'no true Scotsman.....) then SO and I back here. Weekend trip Muiden planned to see boltjalk.


Archive: The Oirish band? And what about....? Much appreciated though I may not get it until new year.

Hope family are better soon.


I don't think you are being recidivist but be careful with iconoclasm about Big Bang with JeremyP. He get v. upset if you question the 'standard model' Still if you want a laugh you could post this link:

http://www.cosmology.info/

Thought his 'to deny the Standard Model is to deny reality' was v. choice. Mind you since he talked utter pish about Shannon information theory - no surprise.

It would take too long to explain why he is 'Not Even Wrong*' on the Internet and anyhow Noah seems to be turning in to a metaphor for Steihardt's cyclic model and is way too long already.

Psi: catch up with your posts here and on 'Psychology' asap. The book I was thinking off was Jim Baggott's 'A Beginners Guide to Reality'.

Have a good solstice festival of cultural choice.

*Always found Heisenberg's

'What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning'

quite a good gambit with the 'reality' boys

**Plagiarised from Peter Woit