punk
-
Posts
466 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by punk
-
-
Look at it this way -
Suppose you let him play. Then every team knows they aren't going to win so whenever they are going to play this team they just forfeit.
Well that's nice, this team ends up with a perfect record, and never plays a game.
However, since we are talking about a league for 9 year olds, I think it is about more than winning every game. This probably has something to do with playing, having a good time, being out in the Sun.
You know - fun.
So they told him he couldn't pitch so everyone could have fun.
It seems pretty reasonable to me.
-
For example, the universal quantifier ∀ has one formal referent, and it isn't exactly the same as how "all" is used in natural language.That would be an example of the problem. One approach that logicians follow is to create their own special meanings to ordinary language so that they deem that "just in case" and ≡ are interchangeable. This doesn't conform to ordinary language use, so consider the perfectly sensible statement "You should take an umbrella, just in case it rains". The statement "You should take an umbrella if and only if it rains" is ridiculous, this "if and only if" is not equivalent to "just in case". Your point about universal quantifiers and existentials is another example: in the real world, an all-proposition entails and existential one, but only in the real world. This is not unaddressable in formal logic, it just isn't a fundamental fact about the universal quantifier.
Yes, formally one typically takes Ex ('there exists') as a basic thing from which Ax ('for all') is defined by:
Ax := ~Ex~ ('it is not the case that there exists something such that not...').
Again this is going to come up if one wants the system to be Boolean.
-
1) David / punk: can either (or both) of you recommend a book describing this notation. If it is more precise and less prone to confusion, I'd like to learn it. Unfortunately, I find Wikipedia and Mathworld are a bit too reference-y and scattered to learn things from scratch.
2) Is "just in case" equivalent to "if and only if"?
I'm sorry, It has been ages since I've done this stuff at an introductory or intermediate level.
Yes, "just in case" is the same as "if and only if".
bold mineSimilar to a statement I made in my OP, I hold that to state "for every yn" you must have at least one yn, otherwise it is vacuous reasoning.
Not really. If I say that every egg in an empty basket is red, that is a true statement. All of the eggs (of which there are none) are read. It gets at the way this is written formally:
Ax (E(x)&B(x)) -> R(x) ('every egg in the basket is red')
So what is being said is that for any x (which can be anything in the universe, say the star alpha proxima) you ask is it an egg? (no), is it in the basket (no), then it would be red if it were an egg and in the basket. If there were anything in the universe that were an egg and in the basket and were not red then you'd have a problem.
Effectively all the expressions are defined in such away that you can test every object in the universe to see if it holds.
The fact that no object in the universe satisfies the expression isn't a problem, the statement is still true by virtue of the fact that no object in the universe makes it false.
The alternative is to say "well no object in the universe makes it false, so it isn't false, but yet no object in the universe satisfies it, so it must be neither true nor false". But the minute you start doing this you have given up the Law of the Excluded Middle (which requires every expression be either true or false).
italics mineWhy couldn't one also say, "there is no element in the {} that is in the first, by virtue of the fact that there is no element in {}?
I still think that you can't determine anything about the properties or truth relations of a non-existence, because it has none, because it doesn't exist.
No, as above, if we require the Law of the Excluded Middle then every expression must be either true or false. You are saying that since the empty set is empty we can't ascribe properties to it. So for a given set A it is neither true that the empty set is a subset of A nor false that the empty set is a subset of A (as there are no properties to make the comparison).
Again, you've denied the Law of the Excluded Middle.
It only follows by vacuous reasoning. I think the error is clearer if you replace the arbitrary set in the definition with the empty set:Ø is a subset of Q, because every element of Ø is an element of Q.
If there are no elements in Ø, the phrase "every element of Ø" makes no sense. "Every" and "for all" assume "at least one".
No, you really need some way of reasoning with the empty set per what I said above, or else you drop the Law of the Excluded Middle.
Which is fine, there is a logic without that Law, namely Intuitionistic logic.
But I don't think you really want to go there.
I don't think the Law of Excluded Middle requires every statement to be either true or false. The ability to determine if a statement is true or false is predicated on the statement's relation to reality (or lack thereof). True/False determinability is therefore a property of a statement, subject to the Law of Excluded Middle.For any expression A the Law of the Excluded Middle states A v ~A. So every expression must be true or false. Otherwise you must assign some other truth value (neither true nor false) to some expressions (such as those involving the empty set, since every expression should be able to have some assignment, you could call the third state "vacuous"), but now you have three truth values (true, false, vacuous) and you've dropped the law of Excluded Middle since vacuous expressions don't satisfy A v ~A.
So, you first ask: "Is this statement related to reality (does it have a truth value)?"Yes => you can then ask: "Is it true or false?"
No => it has no true/false property.
The Law of Excluded Middle is used in both steps, a statement's truth value cannot be both determinable and indeterminable; if it is determinable, the statement cannot be both true and false. There is no semi-determinable or semi-true.
The Law of the Excluded Middle requires a truth value be assigned to every expression in itself. This is how deduction works. If I give you the expression "{} is a subset of A", the Law of the Excluded Middle says I can say "either {} is a subset of A or {} is not a subset of A" and that this statement is true. But with a third truth value (vacuous) it isn't true any longer.
The point of deductive logic is to create a system where every expression is either true or false and that there are methods of deduction that always reason from true expressions to true expressions.
But, again, you are proposing a non-Boolean system.
You can do it if you want to, but you are no longer doing classical logic.
As a concrete example: By the Law of Excluded Middle, the following is a true statement: "The lights in the hallway are either on or off." What if there are no lights in the hallway? Which is the case? Are all the non-existent lights in the hallway on or off? I hold that the answer is that the original statement is neither true nor false, not because it is between true and false, but because it is before true and false.Okay you have the expression "either the light is on or the light is off", but there is no light. If you are in a Boolean system with the Law of the Excluded Middle, then the expression must be either true or false. If you don't want to work in a Boolean system with the Law of the Excluded Middle you can get the result you want.
Again, you are proposing using a non-classical logic.
Isn't the Law of Excluded Middle just a restatement of the Law of Identity? A thing cannot simultaneously have and not have a given property.Edit: between/before sentence added.
This doesn't express the Law of the Excluded Middle. The Law of the Excluded Middle states that for any given property and any given object either the object has the property OR it doesn't have the property.
The expression you gave would be derivable from the Law of the Excluded Middle in a Boolean system.
-
If you have an empty sack, it may be grammatically correct to say: "The sack is filled with nothing.", but nothing is a metaphysical absence. In reality, there is no thing in the sack. It seems to me that there's a bit of a word trick going on, when one defines a set as "a collection of objects", then says a metaphysical absence is an element of all sets (as if an element can be a non-object). If a set is a collection of objects, and a set is composed of only those things which are its elements, then its elements must be objects.
{} or Ø, like 0, is not an object, it's a notation representing said metaphysical absence.
Like I said, one really shouldn't use that notation for this sort of thing. It is too prone to misleading the user. It is better to go with a more typical formal notation like:
Ax ~0(x)
for the empty set.
The real thing to use for a subset is what I gave:
S' is a subset of S just in case Ax S'(x) -> S(x)
That isn't exactly an easy sort of thing to express purely in the other notation.
I guess in the other notation you'd have to say:
given a set {x1,x2,x3,...} another set {y1,y2,y3,...} is a subset of the first just in case for every yn in the second there exists and xn in the first such that yn = xn. so if the second is not a subset of the first then there exists an yn, call it y, such that there is no xn such that y = xn. Now take the first and {}, then {} is not a subset of the first just in case there exists an element in {} which is not in the first. However there is no element in the {} that is not in the first (by virtue of the fact that there is no element in {}), so {} is a subset of the first.
It really gets back to how a subset is defined.
If one doesn't like that {} is the subset of any other set then one needs to redefine the notion of subset somehow.
The result really follows from the definition.
Hey, as long as we are at it, I could use an even simpler (and equivalent) definition of subset:
B is a subset of A just in case A u B = A (think about it)
So since we all agree A u 0 = A, then 0 is a subset of A. I thought this begged the result too much though.
Unfortunately all the nonsense that has gone on has distracted from this simple (and interesting) fact.
The question is can one come up with another definition of subset which doesn't lead to other (worse) problems than saying that {} is a subset of every set.
I suspect that any other definition of subset is going to force one to have to give up the Law of the Excluded Middle.
So you have a choice, the Law of the Excluded Middle or {} is a subset of every set.
The newer books are better than what? I'm wondering: if you haven't read Kleene, how you can determine the relative worth of the newer books to Kleene?I needed it for a reference on a particular topic once.
I only really used that one section though. It was for a graduate seminar on logic a decade ago, and I remember it had something to do with some result about some kind of "tree". I was probably using it to try to figure out something that wasn't clear in the assigned course readings.
I remember finding it an awful reference though.
-
Letters changed to overcome stupid emoticons. Subset(D,A) ≡ ∀x((x∈D)
(x∈A))Who? What? Okay, define 0 to be {}, a set which contains no elements. Thus the intension of 0 is a set s.t. ∀x(x∉0).Example: A ={1,2,3}. {} is not an element of A: ∃x(x∉A) when x={}. Inter alios.I have no idea where you got that from. We have a set, A, which does not contain 0. How do you get to the conclusion that ∃x(x∈0)&∀x(x∉0)? Here's where I'd like to see you reduce this to an actual Kleene-style axiomatic proof. You know Kleene's Mathematical Logic I assume. In other words, you can assume an empty set (it's a silly notion but whatever), and yet you have not given the proof that the empty set is in every set.We used Enderton for mathematical logic, Devlin for set theory, Boolos and Jeffrey for computation theory, and probably a lot of things I've long since forgotten about. I rather like Goldblatt for topos theory as it comes from a logician's view rather than that of an algebraic topologist.
But I'm more the mathematician type and mathematicians assume a knowledgeable audience that can fill in the obvious blanks (it makes papers and books much easier to read).
Anyway as you seem to be having problems with undergraduate logic:
~(Ax P1x -> P2x)
Ex ~(P1x -> P2x) (i.e. ~Ax Px <=> Ex ~Px)
Ex ~(~(P1x & ~P2x)) (i.e. ( a -> B ) <=> (~( a & ~B )))
Ex P1x & ~P2x (i.e. ~~a <=> a)
This struck me as obvious.
Being generous, I will point out that your problem lies in saying forgetting that you admitted that {1,2,3} is not the same as {1,2,{3}}, thus if 2 is an element of a set, {2} is not automatically so. Let us define the symbol <د> "duh" to be the content of {}, i.e. not the empty set but the extension of the empty set -- nothing. We may be able to demonstrate that <د> can be unified with any set, but it cannot be shown to exist in any set (since it doesn't exist) and at any rate it isn't the empty set. If you want to try again, feel free.Well, being generous, you aren't as familiar with this all as you suppose, even if you can name drop Kleene.
As I stated in my second proof the empty set is simply the set for which nothing is a member
Ax ~0(x)
I think you are confused by the straight set theoretic notation. It isn't too amenable to usage when nothing is denoted by a blank.
Let us denote nothing by @ for lack of a better symbol.
Then we can say {1} is equivalent to {1 @}.
I mean after all just writing down a symbol for nothing doesn't do much of anything. However it is obvious that from {1 @} we can get subsets {1} and {@}. I mean formally {1}u{@} is just {1 @}. So {@} is a subset (that is {} is a subset).
But this is confusing.
It is better to go the way I did in my second proof and define the empty set by:
Ax ~0(x)
So it is just the set for which the statement "x is a member of 0" is always false.
Leaving aside the reprehensible practice of editing a post after the fact just a second before I responded, this suggests to be that you have a very informal notion of "formal proof". Hence I retract my unfounded statement about assuming familiarity with Kleene 1967.I'll use my psychic powers better next time around.
And as indicated above, while I haven't read Kleene, I've read newer and better books.
-
Since you upped the ante by talking of formal proofs, I want to see your formal proof. Don't leave home without it.
What I gave was a formal proof, schoolteacher.
That was the typical sort of proof a working mathematican gives. Every word corresponds to an obvious symbol (assuming one has experience in higher mathematics that is).
Do you want to argue about the issue at hand or do you want to play petty games?
If there is a part of it you find unclear, then please specify which part that is.
...
Well I had time so here is something more formal:
using Ax for "for all x" Ex for "there exists x", and S(x) for "x is an element of S" -
1. We define a set S' to be a subset of a set S iff Ax S'(x) -> S(x)
2. So a set S'' is not a subset of S iff Ex ~(S''(x) -> S(x))
3. That is S'' is not a subset of S iff Ex S''(x) & ~ S(x)
4. We define the empty set 0 to be the set with no elements, ie Ax ~0(x)
5. Suppose 0 is not a subset of a nonempty set S
6. Then Ex 0(x) & ~S(x), call this x 'y'
7. So 0(y)
8. But by 4 we have ~0(y)
9. =><=
10. Therefore 0 is a subset of S
-
I know you said what you said, but what you said is false, as I showed. As a starting point, are you aware that {1,2,3} is not the same as {1,2,{3}}?
I'm fully aware of that.
If you would give us a formal proof of your claim, we could check it for errors. Otherwise, I don't know how we can help you. There is no formal proof of the claim that the empty set is in every set (or whatever one might think the claim is) under discussion here: the discussion is about an informal talk-"proof". If you want, you could look for an actual (complete) proof and then translate it into English for us. I'm just saying that your attempt missed the mark.Given a set A we define a subset B of A by the usual convention as:
B is a subset of A if and only if for every x in B x is in A.
Suppose 0 is not a subset of A, then there exists an x such that x is in 0 but x is not in A.
However by definition 0 has no members thus there is a contradiction.
So 0 is a subset of A.
-
Here's a more formal way of saying that: the union C is the set which contains all elements that are in A and all elements that are in B. Since Ø is not an element, it is not in A or B, so it is not in C either. Thus for any set C which is the union of two sets A, B, the empty set is not in C.Except that since 0 i.e. {} has no elements, and since C is all of the elements of the two component sets, then C does not contain Ø.
On the contrary, I said what I said. That if you want to say that adding the empty set to a given set and get the original set back then you have to say that the empty set is a subset of the original set. Otherwise you will have a contradiction.
I think you've given us a nice example of why people rightly mistrust informal "formal" proofs, i.e. derivations that do not procede by listing the axioms and giving a symbol-replacive axiomatic proof (as one finds in Kleene's textbook).I think you have given us a nice example of why people who don't understand what formal proofs are trying to achieve for the system taken as whole mistrust what they fail to understand.
The point is to make sure that the entire system is consistent.
The whole notion of the "empty set" is something that only makes sense within a formal system, and it only has meaning by virtue of that system.
The fact is if you want to have a consistent system which also says that the union of any set with the empty set is the original set itself you are also going to have to say that the empty set is the subset of any set.
Either one is going to imply the other.
If you want to say that 0 is not a subset of any other set, then you have to say that A u 0 = A1 which is distinct from A, which goes against the entire notion of the empty set. If you say this you are saying that adding nothing to a given set somehow generates some member which isn't nothing.
What you are proposing will lead to contradictions within the system.
The fact is the statement that every set has the empty set as a subset is effectively a dual to the statement that the union of any set with the empty set yields the original set.
...
Anyway this is all necessary if you want to work in some Boolean topos like Set (i.e. set theory). If you don't like it, you can always move to some non-Boolean topos that makes you happier, of course then you'll have to work with Heyting Algebras and Intuitionist logic.
This will mean dropping the Law of the Excluded Middle though.
-
You need to say the empty set is a subset of every set for consistency's sake.
Now given two sets A,B take the union and call it C = A u B, so A is a subset of C and B is a subset of C.
Let's use 0 for the empty set then C = A u 0 and A is a subset of C and 0 is a subset of C.
But in this case C = A (as C and A have exactly the same elements), so A = A u 0.
So the empty set must be a subset of A.
-
I'm sure it's not simple. The German experiment failed to control for training: what they needed to do is take innocents without prejudices, and teach them to insert needles without indoctrinating them in a belief that there are specific spots with salubrious consequences.
Setting aside the question of whether acupuncture works, the fact is there are particular spots that must be used, and one must be trained to put the needle (or pressure if using acupressure) on the correct spot.
The spots do correspond to clusters of nerves and a needle being put incorrectly into an acupuncture point will hurt a lot more than a needle being put incorrectly into a non-acupuncture point.
Also, if you've ever had a sore and/or knotted muscle you will find that rubbing some points alleviates the soreness and helps undo the knot more than rubbing other points. These points are acupuncture points.
So, no, a person can't just be sticking needles anywhere.
-
The scapegoat du jour of the whole situation with rising oil and commodity prices in general, at least amongst the people I speak with, seems to be speculators. It's always, "those damn speculators are responsible for this mess we're in."
Is there any merit to this claim? As far as I can see, it seems as though the speculators certainly fuel the fire. Then again, would that fire exist in the first place to the degree that it does if it weren't for significant amounts of government interventionist policy?
I was talking with my friend who is an energy analyst, and he says there is a big debate among the analyst community as to whether it is a bubble.
The feeling is that it would be due to the large amount of liquid capital that is floating around looking for places to make profits.
For recent history the simplified view of events that effected the US would go like this:
1. In the late '90s there was the dot-com bubble driven by this liquid capital, the big shots were able to pull out before and during the collapse and had money on their hands to invest in ...
2. The real estate bubble of the '00s, and again the big shots were able to pull out before and during the collapse and had money on their hands to invest in...
3. The oil bubble.
So it is all to say the price of oil is being driven by a large quantity of liquid capital looking for the highest rate of return, and finding that return by buying barrels of oil instead of real estate or dot-com stock.
At least that is one side of the debate.
Anyway, if this scenario is true one ought to be looking for the likely next bubble and get in on the ground floor.
-
During the tragically brief period when the scholars of the Islamic Domains showed bright and brilliant light in the intellectual sphere, Muslim scholars made substantial advances over the Greeks in the fields of mathematics, optics, chemistry, medicine, pharmacology and navigation. The Greeks never developed algebra (nor did they have the zero, as did the Babylonians, the Chinese, the Indus, the Arabs and the Maya). The Muslim, al Jabir did and the field is even named after him. The notion of the calculation recipe is the brainchild of al Kwarizmi, after who the algorithm is named. Muslim scholars wrote their names of a good deal of mathematics that drove European development. Europe excelled and went way past the Greeks insofar as they pursued analytical technique (algebra, analytic geometry, calculus) as opposed to synthetic technique as exemplified in Euclid and Eudoxus. Mathematics was finally healed and strengthened when the analytic approach and the synthetic approach were reconciled and merged in the 19-th century by European mathematicians. In their intellectually fertile period, the Muslim scholars developed a strong empirical thread in their theoretical science, a tendency that moved to Europe along with the works of the ancient Greeks. The presence of Aristotle in Europe during the Middle Ages came to be by way of import from the Muslim east and from the Andalucia in Spain (which was Muslim until the time of Ferdinand and Isabella)
Unfortunately for the Muslims (and us) their brief period of intellectual brilliance was brought to an end by the Darkness Within. Islam, the religion, hosted a dreadful meme that led to the Muslims to suppress the open spirit of inquiry and subordinate it to religious bigotry and mysticism. So fell Andalus and Baghdad. Alas! A great loss to both them and us. We are seeing the results even as we read the daily newspapers.
ruveyn
I'm not sure about the "deadly meme", but I do understand that the Mongols had quite a bit to do with the decline of Islamic civilization.
-
Nie zgadzam sie z toba. Jesli inni nie moga cie zrozumiec poniewaz piszesz codem, zwlaszcza jesli jestes filozofem, to jest twoj problem.
Oh you don't understand what I wrote above? Well... it is your problem not mine. What I wrote is actually revolutionary - if you don't get it - just accept who you are that you are not smart enough to comprehend it.
/sarcasm off
All I said was that if one doesn't like a book one shouldn't read it.
If one persists in reading a book they don't like, they should ask themselves why they are bothering to plod through. Is it simply to say they read it? Is it to impress people at cocktail parties?
I mean why waste one's time doing something unpleasant?
There is nothing in that about the intelligence of the reader, or the clarity of the writer.
All that is going on here is Nietzsche wrote what he wanted to write, some people enjoy it and some people don't, and the people that don't enjoy it are making out like the people that enjoy Nietzsche (and Nietzsche) are engaged in some elaborate insult against them and their intelligence.
Why?
-
Kant doesn't spoon-feed his readers either. It is only just that he have contempt for unintelligent readers who want to be spoonfed (comprehend what is being written).
I'm well into Beyond Good and Evil and I'm still thinking its junk and not understanding half of it ... maybe I'm just not smart enough to comprehend such deep thoughts.
At what point do you blame yourself for not understanding and what point do you attribute the bad writing to the author? I've read Rand and while personally I find many of the concepts difficult to integrate her writing makes perfect sense and is very clear to follow.
Why would you continue to read a book you aren't enjoying?
If you don't like it, toss it aside and move on.
It is what Nietzsche would want...and that wouldn't be an expression of contempt on his part. His attitude would be "look I wrote what I wanted to write and that is good enough for me...if you like it great, if you don't...pass on by and find what resonates with you".
To some degree his whole corpus of writings can be summed up by the secondary title to "Ecce Homo"
-> Become who you are
We are who we are and we all spend too much of our lives trying to be someone else (part of the herd), and as a result we are unhappy.
The problem is we are all hemmed in by social pressures and try to become this and that for all sorts of reason that have nothing to do with whether that is the person we really are. The superman is simply the person that has overcome all of this and lives for him or herself and ignores all those outside pressures.
Nietzsche would basically say "look if you are reading me simply for the sake of being able to say you have read me, well, that is simply herd animal behavior" (although he'd say it better than that).
-
This would be insufficient for a conviction in my jurisdiction (and should be elsewhere too.) You have to put the driver behind the wheel of the car while it is being operated or has been operated. All kinds of reasonable doubt could be created with a guy standing outside of the car with the keys, even if the hood is warm - assuming the guy hasn't confessed.
If said witness put that suspect behind the wheel and testified to such in court, then it could stand.
The main thing here is that probable cause is frequently a far cry from beyond a reasonable doubt.
Short of that, if other places allowed convictions without putting the person behind the wheel beyond a reasonable doubt, that is scary law and scary practice in my opinion.
Oh, I agree that there is all kinds of reasonable doubt.
I think though that the post giving the case which characterized the situation as a guy sitting innocently by his car in a parking lot with keys in his pocket and waiting for a cab is unlikely to have been the actual entire situation.
If this were the entire situation, then he'd have little to worry about as just about any lawyer could get a jury to acquit him (assuming he could afford a lawyer, but I think even a court appointed lawyer would have no problems with such a case either).
I've noted though that when people are telling you about the time they got arrested, they tend to leave things out.
My money would be with either the guy blabbed about driving, or someone reported his car to the cops.
-
» It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book. -Friedrich Nietzsche
One should bear in mind that Nietzsche is compact and that he expects the reader to put the work into understanding him. He isn't going to spoonfeed the reader and has only contempt for readers that would expect to be spoonfed.
-
I think sleeping/being passed out in a running automobile, in a lane of traffic, at a traffic light should constitute reckless driving, if it doesn't already. (In addition to weaving in or outside your lane of traffic.)
That reminds me of another stupid law in my area. I spoke with this man who got a DUI a year or so ago. He was still on probation, or whatever, for that when he went out to have a few drinks with friends. Realizing he had too much to drive, he called a ride and was sitting on the curb in the parking lot near his car waiting for this ride. (The bar had closed, so he was waiting outside.) The police pulled up and because he had his car keys on him (although his car wasn't running and he wasn't inside of it) they charged him with DUI and arrested him. Now he is being prosecuted as a second time offender and it's really screwing up his life. Was he supposed to throw his keys in the trash can? And how can you be prosecuted for a driving offense if you're not even inside a running vehicle? It's absolute insanity.
I think the question in this case was whether the hood/engine was warm.
If he was the only person near the car, had keys, and the hood/engine was warm, they have probable cause that he had been driving it recently.
Even worse, if someone reported they saw the car driving poorly just a little earlier.
What your post doesn't tell us is if he drove for a while and then decided he was too drunk, or never drove the car.
Most DUI laws have provisions for cases where they can establish you were drunk now, and have driven the car in the recent past (I read about a case where people reported a car for wreckless driving, they went to the owner's house, found the car and found her drunk in the house...which was enough to bring charges).
If he started to drive, changed his mind, parked the car and called a cab, they still have the case that he was driving before he changed his mind.
-
I am going to assume that you meant to say "which" instead of "that".
Actually, having checked a grammar book, I can state that the only correct choices are "who" and "that", since the word "population" refers to people rather than things.
"the tree which grew in the courtyard"
"the man who gave the boy a book"
"the population who/that would be at odds with each other"
"Who" and "which" as relative pronouns may always be replaced by "that".
That, and I was referring to former colonies in the Middle East as well as Africa, so your correction isn't quite right.
The accusation that the British intentionally gerrymandered the Middle East so they could gleefully watch the different ethnicities battle is absurd!The British and the French deliberately created territories with populations that didn't get along with each other to make it less likely they could try to throw off the colonial governments.
Divide and rule.
-
Hegel never ever used the terms thesis/anti-thesis/synthesis by the way, thats was earlier Kantians like Fichte/Schelling. Hegel did believe that history often evolved through negation, but it wasnt as simplistic as the "thesis and antithesis merge to form a synthesis" stuff that gets falsely attributed to him.
Yeah, Hegel suffers from the problem that most of the things people "know" about what he said, they get through Hegel's self-proclaimed followers. All too often then what people "know" about Hegel is what some follower of his said but that Hegel never asserted.
But most famous thinkers suffer from the same problem (although Hegel's bad style makes it worse in his case).
-
Hello, new to the forum and to objectivism and could use your thoughts on this something that's been nagging me lately. I live in Phoenix, AZ, where we have a zero tolerance law in place. Anyone who's drank ANY amount of alcohol and drives is arrested (if noticed) 3 days and fined something in the neighborhood of 2-3 thousand in addition to a 6-12 month rehabilitation school (which you pay for). Now I know that whatever risk I take is entirely my choice (regarding myself) and shouldn't be up to anyone else, the problem here is that I may put others at risk, therefore violating their rights? Is the government then justified to pass this law if it is to protect your right to your life from others that may choose to endanger it? A problem I see with this though, is that not all the people who've drank will be necessarily intoxicated or unable to drive safely. .08% BAC seams to be the standard in most other places, as I understand it anything under that is not considered intoxicated and therefore you don’t get fined and/or arrested. Essentially anyone who is under that, say .03% (here) will still be treated in the same manner as someone who is really far gone and clearly shouldn't have tried to drive. It seams to me that the ones under this limit are being unjustly arrested... though how would one judge how 'intoxicated' one is?. Although I personally know when I can and when I shouldn't drive, I can see how it may not be the same for everyone. As I notice, Rand wasn't very enthused with the idea of justifying an action by 'feel' (and rightly so), so how exactly could one determine objectively if one should drive after drinking? Should it be avoided all together? regardless of how 'sober' you may feel? is it morally wrong then to drive after drinking even if you don’t 'feel' impaired?
I look forward to your responses.~ Armando
It occurs to me (unless I am mistaken) that "zero tolerance" DUI laws are applied to only people that are under the legal drinking age and are found to be driving. So you have the case that the individual has already violated the law by drinking at all and is compounding that by then driving.
A quick search of the net seems to confirm that Arizona's "zero tolerance" law is one of these.
-
First of all, remember that 0.08 BAC isn't even a legal limit in most places. Even in places that claim that is a limit they can charge you even if you have a lower BAC if the officer thinks you are "impaired".
In Oregon you can't even get an arrest for DUI off your record even if you have end up having a BAC of 0.00 (and this has in fact happened to people).
This is all really just neo-prohibitionism, and 0.08 is really a low number anyway.
In fact, when it was lowered to 0.08 in states, they noticed that there was a bump in your typical responsible women getting arrested after long lunches.
-
We should keep in mind that none of the countries that were originally arranged as European colonies and later gained independence make much sense at all.
They were deliberately designed to contain a non-homogenous population that would be at odds with each other.
Iraq, as with all these countries, is little more than a geographic designation, created without any reference to the human population.
Iraq only worked when it was ruled by a dictator with an iron fist.
-
My understanding is that we maintain something called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for this purpose.
Ah, my confusion, I thought that was what was being discussed here.
-
Hmm. I think almost everything made _after_ 1970 was over-rated or worse (frequently approaching if not exceeding "anti-art").
Movie makers have dispensed with plot, replaced purposeful dialog with stream of consciousness babbling, replaced heroes with anti-heroes, replaced thoughtful, important themes with invitations to navel staring and saying "Oh wow, man" and replaced pretty much everything else with mindless action. There are exceptions, but overall the aesthetic level of movies since 1970 or even 1960 is very, very low compared to before then.
I think that should be unsurprising, in fact expected. There is no way philosophic corruption of the sort that produced James Joyce's "Ulysses", "modern abstract art" and the hippie culture of the 1960's could leave movie making untouched - it just took longer than it did for other art forms.
Here are some examples of what I consider to be fine examples of pre-1970 movie making. Gee, as it turns out, they're all pre-1960:
"Queen Christina", 1934
"The Prisoner of Zenda", 1937
"Only Angels Have Wings", 1939
"The Four Feathers", 1939
"Ninotchka", 1939
"This Land is Mine", 1943
"The Winslow Boy", 1950
""High Noon", 1952
"Shane", 1952
"Twelve Angry Men", 1957
"The Big Country", 1958
"Rio Bravo", 1958
There are hundreds more like these that I have seen but don't have their titles handy. My personal favorite is "This Land is Mine" for the superlative speech the Charles Laughton character gives near the end.
Mark Peters
You'll note that your cutoff is about when Hollywood started having to compete with television.
When television started being able to make and air good inexpensive shows, Hollywood couldn't really market a solid little movie anymore. So Hollywood started going for what TV couldn't do: expensive productions, lots of extras, in short spectacle.
Too Good to Pitch
in Current Events
Posted · Edited by punk
The alternative is that no other team is ever going to play that team.
Okay they win every one of their games by forfeit.
Kudos.
They win every game.
If their goal in the league is to win every game, they've got it.
No, I think that since no other team appears to want to play that team that he isn't going to play even if he is pitcher.
I mean, if it is about a perfect record, they'll get it by forfeits.
There, they won.
Look at it this way - if a master chess player wants to play chess with me, I'm going to say "no". Why? Because I wouldnt' have a chance. If he wants to take some pieces off the board I'll play him. Is it wrong of him to not play the full game (with all the pieces) because someone else demands he do so?