Robert J. Kolker

The Old Lady has no legal right to keep the football. Only a court of law can transfer the football to her as property. Bob Kolker

And to think I believed human sacrifice disappeared with the Canaanites! How wrong I was. Bob Kolker

Everything about a random variable is computable (in the generalized sense that real values can be computed). One can compute the mean (expected value) and the variance of the r.v. hence the standard deviation. There is nothing magic going on. Bob Kolker

I am not going to defend Kant. The major concept at the basis of his Critique of Pure Reason, the apodictic synthetic apiriori judgment is bogus. This is where I parted company with Kant. I have no interest whatsoever in his moral, ethical or religious philosophy. I have no time to waste on bogosity. In addition to the incoherence of the synthetic apriori, his thesis that the axioms of geometry (which is to say Euclidean geometry) are necessarily true is bogus. Kant was unaware of the development (during his lifetime) of non-Euclidean geometries that are just as consistent as Euclidean geometry. So on a purely factual level, Kant's suppositions are shown to be false. To put a point on it, Kant's philosophy is broken. Kant also made a similar assertion about Newton's theory of motion, that it was based on necessarily true axioms. Once again, an error. Newtonian mechanics, while useful as an approximation is false to fact. Velocities do not add, as is required in a Galilean Invariant theory nor are Newton's force laws entirely consistent with electrodynamics. The problem was solved by Einstein in 1905. Furthermore, Newton's law of Universal Gravitation is empirically false, as is demonstrated by the anomalous precession of the perihelion of Mercury. Once again, Kant's premises have been falsified. So there is no point defending his philosophy. It is wrong. I think this is just about all I wish to say about Kant, so let this posting close the issue for us. Bob Kolker

Every so-called real number other than integers or ratios of integers are also "place holders". A non-rational real number is the limit of a sequence of rational numbers. It does not exist except as a conceptual entity, namely the limit of an infinite (non-terminating) Cauchy sequence. You are taking the position argued by Leopold Kronecker in the late 19th century when he argued that Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was nonsense. Kronecker made the famous rhetorical declaration ---- God invented the integers, the rest is the work of Man ---. Kronecker would have no truck with irrational numbers. Fortunately for the future of physics, most mathematicians simply ignored what Kronecker had to say on this particular issue. David Hilbert the greatest mathematician of the late 19th and early 20th century had a similar dispute with the Dutch mathematician L.E.J. Brouwer. Brouwer would not permit any kind of mathematical object that could not be finitely constructed from the integers. Hilbert's rhetorical rant to Brouwer's position was --- From the Paradise created for us by Cantor no one shall expel us. ---- Again, most mathematicians simply ignored Brouwer's restrictions and mathematics went on to bigger and better things. Bottom line: Mathematicians went on, pretending that these non-existent things existed and produced the tools needed by our most advanced theories of physics. Most mathematicians will deal with any system of objects that does not lead to logical paradoxes. They rarely pay attention to philosophical arguments. Why? They are too busy proving theorems. Bob Kolker

You are clearly dissatisfied. Look, you have only one lifetime. You should be using your time in the way that pleases you best. If the money is not an issue (or not a big issue) and you are annoyed by the conditions of your employment then either seek other employment (if you can) are do something that will enhance your life without the paycheck, like learning a new field, or learning a new language or improving your current skill set. Or even start a business of your own (wow!). Your time is all you really have. A second wasted or lost is gone forever. Bob Kolker

May I make a suggestion? Start a new thread on whether Kant was immoral or just plain wrong. This is supposed to be a thread on sustainable development in action. The subject of such a thread is really the more generally question: what is morality and what is immorality? I would be happy to converse with you on these matters on a different thread. O.K.? Bob Kolker

The Civil War and its outcome ended the doctrine of nullification forever. The Federal courts would shred any effort to nullify a Federal regulation on tenth amendment grounds. The Constitution you know and love has been dead for some time now. Bob Kolker

Six or Seven years for me. No problems. Bob Kolker

Apparently the school authorities in Ko"nigsberg were not bothered. He taught for decades until his death and was generally liked by his students. If you look at teaching as a kind of entertainment, he gave a a sufficiently good performance so that students came back for more. It works for actors, comedians and teachers apparently. All the biographies I have read about the man indicate that his company was well liked and sought after. He was invited to dinners because people liked his reparte and he was also a good card player so his company was sought a the card table. The criterion for success in this instance, apparently was --- do you like what he teaches and the way he teaches and do you enjoy playing whist with this fellow. In modern contexts, people who go about giving seminars and such like to paying audiences are rated at the end of the course. If they score well, they are invited back to teach again. If they are not rated well, they are not invited back. At Princeton University, where I sometimes audit courses, the paying students fill out a rating form at the end of the semester. It sounds like a system that sustains itself in the short term. It is the market principle, or the principle of supply/demand applied over relatively short time horizons. Do you know of any breach of ethics in his case? He taught what he believed to be the case (however mistaken he was) and no one objected. If it were me, I would have walked out after his first lecture putting for the proposition that there are necessarily true synthetic apriori judgments. But that is me and I wasn't there having missed my chance by nearly 160 years. In my own life time, I have avoided attending lectures by Kantians actually advocating Kant's view, such as John Silver, President of Boston University. I have attended a course on the history of philosophy which went into some detail on what Kant did put forth in -Critique of Pure Reason-. Reading this straight in the German (or even in translation) is well nigh impossible so I opted to get a rendition of Kant's position by someone who apparently understood what he was saying. I was properly appalled and never delved into Kant again. However I do recognize Kantian arguments that people sometime put forth in other contexts. That puts me properly on my guard. When the pebbles start flying can the bricks be far behind? Bob Kolker

Amen! And build fast breeder reactors. That goes a long way to dealing with the disposal of nuclear waste and by-products. Bob Kolker

Is there anything unethical about selling a person something he wishes to buy, assuming that the person knows the nature of what he is buying and no misrepresentation or fraud is taking place? Bob Kolker

To say all P are Q is to say for all x if x is P then x is Q. The denial of this is: there exists z such that z is P and z is not Q. This is a simple exercise in the definition of implication (if p then q) and the negation of a universally quantified formula. -(x)P(x) == Ez.[-P(z)] (note: (x)P(x) is standard logical shorthand for: for all x P(x) and Ez is short hand for there exists z ... In the textbooks this is usually written as a backward E but I don't have that symbol so I used the forward E). Now that leaves the following question: how do we show there does not exist z such that Q(z)? One way is by reductio ad falsi or reductio ad absurdum which is to show that if such z existed a contradiction would follow logically. Let me give you an example: I say there does not exist a pair of positive integers m, n where m and n have no common denominator other than 1 and such that (m/n)^2 = 2. This is the famous assertion that the square root of 2 is irrational. How do I prove this negative existential proposition? As follows. Assume there do exist m, n positive integers with no common denominator other than 1 such that (m/n)^2 = 2. Expanding this m^2/n^2 = 2 hence m^2 = 2*n^2. This implies that m is even, since the square of an even integer is even and the square of an odd integer is odd. O.K. that means m = 2*k for some integer k. Plugging that back in (2*k)^2 = 2*n^2 and rewriting a bit 4*k^2 = 2*n^2. Now divide by 2 and we get 2*k^2 = n^2. Whoa Nelly! That implies that n is also even! Which means both m and n are divisible by 2. But wait! We assumed to begin with that m and n have no common divisor other than 1. We get a contradiction. Where did the contradiction come from? From assuming that a relatively prime pair m,n existed such that (m/n)^2 = 2. Q.E.D. No such pair, the square root of two is irrational. Bob Kolker

The question you put will mislead you from the answers. No one makes them do anything. They choose to do what they do. The causes are internal, not external. Bob Kolker

The Hobbit was a kid's story. Tolkien later spun off a serious novel from it, -The Lord of the Rings-. The back story for -Lord of the Rings- was the Silmarillion which is a book of tales and a cosmogeny. Bob Kolker

Whenever I see that grue and bleen nonsense I have an overwhelming urge to fire my 3.5 inch WW2 surplus bazooka. Curses upon Nelson Goodman for that abomination. Bob Kolker

Any thing (object, existent) that is not a raven is a non-raven. This is just shorthand for saying the thing is not a raven. A non-raven is not some other kind of bird. A non-raven might not be a bird at all, for example, my left foot is a non-raven. My left foot exists, it has properties and among the properties my left foot has you will not find the property of being a raven. It is this weird semantics that makes the use of modus tolens inappropriate. So Hemple's "paradox" is explained on semantic grounds, not logical grounds. The moral of the story is: beware of word games. They are sometimes fun but not always serious. Bob Kolker

Answer: it doesn't. Confirmation makes us feel comfy cozy with the notion that all P are Q, but the only way confirmation proves all P are Q is if P is exhausted, which in most cases is impossible to do. The only sure fire thing that confirmation/disconfirmation can do is to disprove all P are Q by coming up with a P that is not Q. In principle a single counterexample kills the generalization. Bob Kolker

Also notice that banks which did not take government bail-out money are to be penalized. What are they being penalized for? Being run in prudent and profitable fashion. Go figure. This is the nastiest type of collective punishment. The entire banking business is to be whipped for the sins of a few. Collectivist and atavistic in the extreme. Obama is no socialist. He is an outright fascist thug, Chicago style. The German fascists sent people to the concentration camps. Obama pushes his foes under the bus, which is to say he taxes them in a discriminatory fashion. Bob Kolker

I am more like a J.R.R.Tolkien fan who sometimes reads J.K.Rawling's Potter novels. I think Tolkien is deeper and more serious, than Rawling and his writing is better crafted. Tolkien was first and foremost a linguist so this is not surprising. Bob Kolker

Follow your strongest talent. If you don't like it, you can always switch later. Bob Kolker

Government Production is an Oxymoron. Like Military Intelligence. Bob Kolker

Longstreet, "Old Pete", knew the war was over when it was over. Eventually he became a Republican. He was a capable field commander and eventually knew a lost cause to be a lost cause. To his credit, he was no enthusiastic supporter of slavery, but he was surely a Southern patriot. Bob Kolker

Perhaps the O.P.'s original vast idea is only half vast. Ba'al Chatzaf

Ted Kennedy died in August, but he was finally buried in January. Scott Brown won the Senate seat in Massachusetts 52 percent to 47 percent. What this means is that the Independent voters of Massachusetts have had it up to their nostrils with Lord Obama and his cronies. The only way a Republican can win in Massachusetts is for the Independents to vote him in. Lord Obama not only has egg on his face, he has sh*t on his face. Good! Bob Kolker