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

hi Bx4

been a bit silent of late since like you i appear to have had enough of arguing in ever decreasing circles about the same old same old. even that poking-zem-mitt-schtick is not wot it used to be......darn it!!

would genuinely like to stay in touch, nothing heavy, just like to hear your adventures both daft and informative. same goes for your take on life and wotnot. even harbour the notion that 1 day you'll be in the B'ton neighbourhood and we can raise a glass or 10 mitt ?? who knows!

not sure what you and rg figured out, but it's reall simple to get hold of me; my 1st name then a dot then my last name followed by @ntlworld.com (simples!)

try it and i'll let you know asap that it works, and i promise not to spam you/share your address/etc.....psi can testify that i am terrible at writing emails and hardly ever do so. but nice to know the 2 of you are alive and well. that sort of thing (yes i am a terrible romantic)

just come back from a daft little trip back to Amsterdam. attended a school reunion from my class 6B. i last saw those "kids" 35 years ago to the day, guess my surprise when i arrived and worked my way through a room full of middle aged people! 1 was already a grandmother..... but lots and lots of great memories, especially from our old teacher (actually he's only your age, so not old at all). that guy really did have an influence on us that we maybe previously had not realised. in Holland you keep the same teacher for about 4 or 5 years, which to a small child is like forever....

the striking thing though was how "local" they all remained. most still within a stone's throw of where i last saw them, not a single one of them ever worked abroad, or wrote a book, painted a picture, travelled or somesuch. dull and safe i guess, had hoped for something a little more daring, but how you say; so it goes.

my trip included a few days extra so that i could recover from being the family butler, and yes the was fantastic, as was the Indonesian cuisine i am rather partial to.

to top it all the inflight announcement on my Easyjet flight there and back was yours truely! that is rather weird - hearing yourself instructing you to fasten your seatbelt, and place luggage in the overhead locker.....weird.

anyhooo, do email me so that we are ready for closing time.

ttfn

Hi Bx4,

"Perhaps soon I shall just quietly slip off into the night as psi appears to have done and wwatcher did so long ago...."

I still check occassionally to see whether you have posted any of those replies. I notice you have responded elsewhere, but in order to progress we still need to agree some basics.

ttfn

hi jank


Sorry for delayed reply

Poking-zem-mitt-schtick: I seem to have reached a Zen state where, giving the tirades I am subjected to, I poke them without intending so to do. The only reason I hang about is an attempt to show that the virtual soapbox and megaphone 'philosophers' are as Ozymandias. Otherwise it is all a bit too 'Dover Beach' and school debating society for me.

Reunions: I had a similar experience a few years back when I attended a primary school reunion. Like your lot most still live within 10-20 klicks of birthplace and apart from 'pekkidge' hols had never been 'furrin'.

As I had never returned, except on a couple of day trips, since I fled into the Wanderjahren and was living in a 'furrin' place that was more home than my birthplace we had little to talk about.

The only exception and the only one I had stayed in touch with someone who like me became a teenage 'wild child' as a teenager (and of whom I still have fond Dury 1 memories).

She became a fairly successful abstract 'painter' using traditional and digital batik techniques and lived and worked abroad for quite a while. This is one of hers that is on display at the Whitworth Gallery:

http://www.artfund.org/assets/image/artwork/2008005_C.jpg

We have a couple of her pieces though they are much smaller.

Brighton: I visited it once during the '70s when we had been invited to give a paper at a symposium at the UoS. Quite important for us as it was when everything changed when a GOM approved of our approach which had been thought too hetrodox. Only thing I recall of Brighton was lump of seriously awful 'heritage' architectural tat called the Pavilion.

Nearest I have been since is Bournemouth where my SO's parents went to die, which in the '90s, they did. Since then my only 'visits' to England have been the transit lounges of the odd aerodrome or two so if we happen to come across each other it wil more likely be in:

Amsterdam: Which is just down the road and can be reached lickettysplit from here either by 'boxer' or 'clockwork lemon'. I am pleased that you had time for and Indonesian.

There is a decent Indonesian restaurant here though Indochinese ones are for no apparent reason much more common. There is however a really good Indonesian supermarket near the Alster which stocks all the otherwise hard to get ingredients for home cooking.

Btw a Dutch friend of mine told me that the best Indonesian restuarants in Holland are in Den Haag. Don't know if it's true though.

Anyhow I hope you did not gorge on Indonesian to the extent that you neglected to have some Vlammse frites met mayo in Damrak or the Voetboogstraat. My favourite variant is Patatje flip (though I learnt to call it by the apparently no longer acceptable patatje oorlog).

During my Pirsig tour of the 'Low Countries' I pitched up at a street frietkot in Antwerp offering 'Friet oorlog' which turned out to be something very odd indeed.

Backstops: Our backstop of last resort was to join Twitter ( I never thought I'd write that) where you can go private. That notwithstanding in the short period before his going private rg received a /very/ rude offer from a lady.

Tweets are limited to a max of 140 characters so quite restrictive. My SO thinks this is a 'good thing' as it will curtail my 'chuntering on' as I am doing now.

rg also set up a google 'group' which seems to be pretty much the same as a hootoo conversation

http://groups.google.com/group/morning2011/topics

psi has what seems to be an upmarket version of this, a google blog:

http://psiomniac.blogspot.com/

Email: No problem. Couldn't rememember your last name. All your oeuvre here being on iPod Nano. Having a very senior moment I didn't do the obvious but got there circuitously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-steering_gear#Developments

Clever? No. .

I've several addresses with different ISPs but best one for you is routed through the global academic cloud to a proxy server somewhere in Mittel England. Exactly like yours, forename.surname3 (except for the digit) and, weirdly, the same ISP. Not on this machine though so I'll e-mail you tomorrow, or if not you to me.

and so to bed

bs

jank

I'm having these at the moment with the machine that supports 'at'ntlworld.com. Might take a bit of time to fix. Can you confirm that you have my e-mail address?

bs

Jank

BSoD crashes still continuing but I've set up this Google group:

http://groups.google.com/group/not_even_wrong/

and sent you a G-mail which you should have received inviting you to join.

If you dont have a google account it's easy to set one up via the Google Accounts homepage. see here.

http://groups.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46438

I think my inviting you to join means you don't have to ask me to join the group but if that hasn't worked here how to do it

http://groups.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46606

By the way once you have joined you don't have to log in to the group to post to it you can e-mail the address displayed in the first link. I haven't done this but rg has.

bs

jank

Sent an alternative e-mail address if you didn't get it let me know.

bs

evening Bored


"Sorry for delayed reply"; oh purleaze, you are dealing with the King Procrastinator.....with my motto "why do today what you can put off till tomorrow" i am not in any hurry, but will always get back to you. fact.


"Zen state"; an envious position, one day......till then i will just give in and poke.

"on display at the Whitworth Gallery": like most abstract art, i find it absolutely impossible to resort to mere words to describe the effect it has on me. i never learned the language i guess? but i like. the couple we bought our current house off are abstract artists;

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=6252

though i never did a Dury 1 with either of them...


"the Pavilion"; which provides free entry once a year to Brighton residents. not something a Dutchman passes up easily!


"amsterdam"; you never know, maybe next time i'm there we can arrange something?

this time there apart from and Indonesian i though it a great idea to smoke an actual Jazz cigarette in the bath, just chilling and wot not. 10 minutes of bliss followed by an almighty Whitey that took an hour to shake.....will i ever ever learn........tobacco is the Devil's work.

btw love your familiarity with all things friet!! i only ever eat "patat met" (fries and mayo), all other variants are just "wrong" imho. but i do have an addiction to "kroketten" of which i consumed about 1 every 4 hours or so when awake, and crucially, in Holland. don't ask what's in 'em, the best way to describe them is "meat ragout in breadcrumbs, deepfried".


"Twitter"; let me just say O.....!M.........!!G!!! i will not "go there", no thanks.

and i did have a minor choking fit at the notion of RG being groomed online by some lady or other!!


thanks for all the links, and the invite to join other ways of staying in touch, will get on with it today. no, tomorrow.....no, soon!!


groetjes

hi jank

Hi jank.

My birtday today. My allotted time -2. There will be prezzies and a party

Amsterdam: Indeed, let me know when you will be there and depending on where I am.....

Smoke: I haven't for a long time hence mostly or high end vaporiser.

Met mayo: The classic. A friend of mine, on a visit to a Edinburgh chip shop, concluded that after living in A for a bit I had gone 'furrin' when I got a bit miffed that there was no mayo to be had. That being said I quite like proper 'war chips' met mao and chopped raw onions.

Abstract: I got exposed early having a slightly older mate , an apprentice welder, who later went to art college. Abstact are being popular at time.

However, an acquired taste I agree and one best undersood by seeing the real thing. For example, I didn't really 'get' Barnett Newman until I saw his 'Cathedra' at the Stedelijk:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_TqEgwfdvtr4/Sd6-HtwRpMI/AAAAAAAAB_k/WyiHutWFQdA/s400/cathedra.jpg

Zilch in repro but if you see 18' by 8' original then it begins to connect. That is if you manage to look at in in the absence of some Dutch loon with a carpet knife:

http://www.artcrimes.net/cathedra

Dury I: Always fun despite the disapproval of the Mrs. Grundys who clearly prefer the world of later novels of Barbara Cartland

Kroketten: A simlar dish is to be had in Scotland where it is called a 'rissole' the name apparently being Indonesian in origin.

Pokings: Your E&F thread on Myers the 'Godless liberal' seems to have died. I think you should have worked the word 'Christian' into your OP for it not to have been banished to the badlands.

bs

dear Bored,

many happy returns!! i see you've treated yourself to some Poking-Mitt-Schtick, enjoy!


van harte gefeliciteerd

hi jank

Many thanks. /will/ be had tonight possibly with candles but certainly with.....

Pokings: However my original pokings on the thread were aimed at the champions of the tribe of village atheists and the idols of their quasi-religion.

Inevitably one of them mistook me for a 'Chrispy'. 'Twas ever thus......

bs

Hi Bx4,

I hope you had a good birthday.

I think it's a shame that you have responded in the way you have on my blog. Always modal logic...

ttfn

Birthday excellent except for unwanted G3 Kindle

'Always modal logic...'

I am quinian*** at heart so not for me:

P->Q (where -> is lewis' fishook)
P
_________
Therefore Q

No 'necessary' necessary.Walking down ladder rather than up gets you to P not @P.

***Hence unpersuaded by Kripke structures

bs

Hi Bx4,

Hmm I've wondered whether those ereaders were any good, are you not a fan or was there another reason why it was unwanted?

I've thought for a long time that it was probably your Quinian disposition that lay behind our disagreement, but I've never been able to precisely nail why. I've always seen Ramsey's ladder as horizontal but until your latest replies I simply hadn't thought of incorporating modal operators as rungs. That was an eye opener.

Anyway, I suppose we should put modal logic amongst religion and politics in the dinner party conversation sense

ttfn

hi psi


ereaders. Never been really into them preferring yr actual books. 5" screen too small for my taste.


'I've thought for a long time that it was probably your Quinian disposition that lay behind our disagreement, but I've never been able to precisely nail why'

Perhaps the why lies in K's 'Naming and Necessity' whose arguments for de re contingency I find unpersuasive. Nor have I seen any convincing justification for arguing from de dicto to de re alethic modalities since the two are formally distinct:

de dicto: @ExQx

de re: Ex@QX

'I've always seen Ramsey's ladder as horizontal but until your latest replies I simply hadn't thought of incorporating modal operators as rungs. That was an eye opener.'

This puzzles me since in your #557 on the 'compatibilism' thread you say:

'@p means necessarily p, which is short for 'necessarily p is the case, ie p is true, recall Ramsay's Ladder.'

which seems to firmly incorporate 'modal operators as rungs'.

'I suppose we should put modal logic amongst religion and politics in the dinner party conversation sense'

http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-use-proper-dinner-party-etiquette/

Autres endroits, autres moeurs I'm afraid.

Hi Bx4,

I've seen some Kindles and their competitors in the shops and I can imagine that one day I might see the benefit of having one, but I doubt it will never replace the book for me.

I'm open to the suggestion that the de re/de dicto distinction might be the cause, but I'm not clear yet on exactly where in my argument that this becomes a problem.

"This puzzles me since in your #557 on the 'compatibilism' thread you say:

'@p means necessarily p, which is short for 'necessarily p is the case, ie p is true, recall Ramsay's Ladder.'

which seems to firmly incorporate 'modal operators as rungs'."
I'm sorry that wasn't clear. I did not intend the interpretation of the above that incorporates modal operators as rungs. The interpretation I intended is:

@[p]==@[p is true] (by Ramsey's ladder).

hence @p means necessarily p is true or necessarily(p is true).
So I only use Ramsey's ladder in the brackets, not on the '@' operator.

"Autres endroits, autres moeurs I'm afraid."
I suppose so. ttfn

hi psi

'I've seen some Kindles and their competitors in the shops and I can imagine that one day I might see the benefit of having one, but I doubt it will never replace the book for me.'

I would tend to agree though I can imagine situations in which the bigger DX version would be useful.

'The interpretation I intended is:

@[p]==@[p is true] (by Ramsey's ladder).'

Well in your blog I quoted Blackburn:

'This takes us from p to it is true that p, to it is really true that p, to it is really a fact that it is true that p, and if we like to it is really a fact about the independent order of things ordained by objective Platonic normative structures with which we resonate in harmony that it is true that p...Ramsey’s ladder is horizontal. The view from the top is just the same as the view from the bottom, and the view is p.'

Which seems to say the the ladder does no work since each supposed 'progression' simply reduces to p. So presumably your ladder says no more than @p==@p.

However, suppose @p is the proposition 'neccesarily, the solar system is geocentric' then in terms of your ladder would we not have

@[p]==@[p is false]

rather than

@[p]==@[p is true]


Moreover as I pointed out earlier (from SEP):

'A modal is an expression (like ‘necessarily’ or ‘possibly’) that is used to /qualify/ the truth of a judgement' [my emphasis].
('Modal Logic, SEP)

My problem is that I have yet to see a coherent account of what /actual/ work is done in the world by the modal qualifiers ‘necessarily’ or ‘possibly’.For example, given my:

PrF

Where:

F is is the fact (rain at x,y,z,t)

P is the proposition('it is raining at x,y,z,t')

r is 'has as a referent'

Then I am unclear as to the basis on which you assert:

'P is contingent on F. It is not necessary.'

'I suppose so.'

Certainly in my culture(s) this particular mores is not extant though it may be a necessary 'principle' in yours.

bs

Hi Bx4,

"Well in your blog I quoted Blackburn:"
Yes, I thought when I mentioned Ramsey's ladder that you knew that I'd read that book and so we would be singing from the same hymn sheet.

"Which seems to say the the ladder does no work since each supposed 'progression' simply reduces to p."
Yes, that's precisely the aspect I was trying to use to make my point. If 'p is true' is equivalent to 'p' then @[p is true] reduces to @p.
Now consider the reverse equivalence, @p is equivalent to @[p is true], which is what I was trying to get you to agree when I originally referenced Ramsey's ladder.

"However, suppose @p is the proposition 'neccesarily, the solar system is geocentric' then in terms of your ladder would we not have

@[p]==@[p is false]

rather than

@[p]==@[p is true]"
That's right, that's the only point I was trying to make, namely that @p means 'necessarily p' which means necessarily p is true' by Ramsey's ladder. So the second equivalence above is valid, the first is not. I hope this means we have cleared up this misunderstanding now.

"Moreover as I pointed out earlier (from SEP):

'A modal is an expression (like ‘necessarily’ or ‘possibly’) that is used to /qualify/ the truth of a judgement' [my emphasis].
('Modal Logic, SEP)"
I can't see anything in what I've said that is incompatible with this.

"Then I am unclear as to the basis on which you assert:

'P is contingent on F. It is not necessary.'"
The basis is that if F were not the case, p would be false.

ttfn

hi psi

'That's right, that's the only point I was trying to make, namely that @p means 'necessarily p' which means necessarily p is true' by Ramsey's ladder. So the second equivalence above is valid, the first is not.'

The problem is that you have not shown why you consider @p==@p is false is invalid. There seems to be nothing in a Ramsey ladder that precludes:

'This takes us from p to it is false that p, to it is really false that p, to it is really a fact that it is false that p, and if we like to it is really a fact about the independent order of things ordained by objective Platonic normative structures with which we resonate in harmony that it is false that p...Ramsey’s ladder is horizontal. The view from the top is just the same as the view from the bottom, and the view is p.'

where p is 'the solar system is geocentric'. So I still don't see how other than simply asserting that 'p is true' that it follows 'that @p means 'necessarily p' which means necessarily p is true'.

'I can't see anything in what I've said that is incompatible with this'

The SEP definition means that the modal qualifier does not determine the truth value of p hence the modality 'necessarily' doesn't affect the truth value of any arbitrary proposition p merely qualifies, in some /vague/ sense that truth value. Given axiom M of system T

@p->p== @p(T)->p(T) or @p(F)->p(F)


then the truth value (true or false) of p remains unchanged /irrespective/ of whatever work the modal qualifier is supposed to do.

What seems to be incompatible is your assertion 'that @p means 'necessarily p' which means necessarily p is true' because from my 'geocentric' p then nothing precludes that @p means 'necessarily p' which means necessarily p is false'

This surely is consistent with the IEP's

'Many philosophers divide the class of propositions into two mutually exclusive and exhaustive subclasses: namely, propositions that are contingent (that is, those that are neither necessarily-true nor necessarily-false) and those that are noncontingent (that is, those that are necessarily-true or necessarily-false).'

So there is no reason to presuppose that the modal '@' in front of some arbitrary proposition p fixes @p as {necessarily-true}(p)rather than {necessarily-false}(p).

(the above should not of course be taken to indicate that I share the view of the 'many philosophers' who hold the contingent/non-contingent dichotomy. Clearly I don't.)

'The basis is that if F were not the case, p would be false.'

I think this is at the root of our disagreement. Since F(rain at x,y,z,t) /is/ the case (the /actual/ state of affairs) then asserting a counterfactual conditional

@(¬F)=>¬P)

does nothing to change /actual/ state of affairs that has F(rain at x,y,,t) nor do I see how asserting a purely /logical/ counterfactual conditional makes PrF contingent.

That is to say consideration of a /hypothetical/ ¬F is irrelevant in the face of an /actual/ F so any positive atomic proposition P which has as a referent some fact F cannot be false and hence cannot be contingent.

bs

Hi Bx4,

So it seems we have two main disagreements, over the meaning of @p and over whether p can be contingent if PrF and F is an actual state of affairs.

I'd still like to try to solve the first before proceeding to the second.

"The problem is that you have not shown why you consider @p==@p is false is invalid."
I think I have, since I've said before that 'p' simply does not stand for 'p is false'. For that, you would say '¬p'.

So although Ramsey's ladder works just as well to take us from ¬p to it is false that p, to it is really false that p, to it is really a fact that it is false that p, and so on, it can't get there from 'p' I'm afraid. This is just a grammatical point really.

"where p is 'the solar system is geocentric'. So I still don't see how other than simply asserting that 'p is true' that it follows 'that @p means 'necessarily p' which means necessarily p is true'."
The point is that if you say 'p', that /means/ 'p is true'. Likewise, if I say 'the solar system is geocentric', I mean that 'it is true that the solar system is geocentric'. I do not mean, when I say 'the solar system is geocentric' that 'it is false that the solar system is geocentric'. As it happens, if I say 'p' in this particular case, then I'm /wrong/ but that is irrelevant to the debate here I think, which is just about syntax.

"The SEP definition means that the modal qualifier does not determine the truth value of p hence the modality 'necessarily' doesn't affect the truth value of any arbitrary proposition p merely qualifies, in some /vague/ sense that truth value. Given axiom M of system T

@p->p== @p(T)->p(T) or @p(F)->p(F)"
I disagree with this interpretation. If this is the quote:

'A modal is an expression (like ‘necessarily’ or ‘possibly’) that is used to /qualify/ the truth of a judgement' [my emphasis].
('Modal Logic, SEP)
Then I think this means that I can make a judgement that 'the solar system is geocentric'. If I say 'necessarily the solar system is geocentric' then the 'necessarily' doesn't alter the fact that I think that it is true that the solar system is geocentric. It just qualifies the way in which I think it is true. As it happens I'd be wrong in both cases since it is false that the solar system is geocentric which entails that it is false that necessarily the solar system is geocentric.

Here is a quote:
"@p is standardly translated as /necessarily p/ or /it is necessary that p/ or /p must be true/."
(-Modal Logics and Philosophy by Rod Girle p3, Acumen Publishing Ltd, 2nd edition 2009, Italics in original, I have replaced the box symbol with '@').

ttfn

hi psi

V busy workwise at the moment so reply will be delayed. Tonight or possibly tomorrow.

I'm still on old format hootoo does new one allow quotes and suchlike?

bs