Mindy Newton

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Posts posted by Mindy Newton

  2. Posted · Report post

    Bravo!!
    When constucting the matrix, is the object to use each square once only? This scheme held true up to move 24 (D1), which was the square landed on for move 22. This threw me off balance, and I thought I had messed up at that point. I would think that using a square once only would make the creation of the matrix puzzle extremely hard, but easier to solve.

    Thanks for the "Bravo!!". It was a nice break from cryptoquotes, and perhaps I should complete the quote.

    "...as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul..."

    From Galts speech in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

    I didn't specify, and I don't, in fact, know what is the typical rule on that. I find there's a lot of induction in doing some kinds of puzzles.

    I once gave a boy-friend a bracelet with that engraved inside, the whole quote. ;-)

    Here's a new Knight's Move puzzle.

    The quote is from John Galt.

    X-I-JOH-EM-C-
    KW-U-K-I--S-G
    NVCAFE-HB-FYN
    AC-WO-K--T-J-
    WNRH-JTVIQA-E
    DW-LFBO-A-ZLU
    SEOOB-XERHD--
    ZDRV-M-IRY-IO
    P-NT-AA-M-YR-
    WFNW-ETFSEK-N
    L-L-PJO-PQ-SX
    RS-HA-D-GUHGI
    T-NQ-M-P--EDA
    CWC-VERBF-STN

    As before, the first letter is in the lower, right-hand corner,an "N." By the way, the "square" is made of 14 rows of 13 each.

    Enjoy!

  3. Posted · Report post

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

    I thought it just meant a conclusion reached by an individual.

    And that people meant ''that is only the conclusion you reached'' when said ''that's just your opinion''.

    Do they by that word actually mean ''that's just the 'inherently subjective' conclusion you reached''?

    Of particular interest is where the article says that “opinions can be persuasive, but only the facts they are based on can be said to be true or false” and where it references a distinction between opinion and “knowledge”. Although they say that an opinion is “normally” subjective, clearly they mean that it is always subjective, since it cannot be true or false and is not knowledge of reality. In other words they are saying that an opinion is just a floating piece of arbitrariness that, although it can be the subject of heated debate, is of no consequence when dealing with reality. This is concrete-bound nonsense and testament to the fact that the creator of Wikipedia, a self-described “Objectivist”, lacks an actual understanding of the philosophy.

    Incidentally, how, if opinions are neither true nor false, can they be persuasive? What is it that the author of this claptrap thinks opinions are persuading people of?

    This also goes to show you how screwed up the author the article is. How can facts be true or false, but not the opinion? A fact either exists or it doesn't. Truth refers to the correspondence between our thoughts and facts. What is a false fact? An assertion that something is a fact can be true or false.

    It might help to consider why we call an opinion an opinion.

    We describe our beliefs and conclusions, etc. with several different terms. We describe some ideas as beliefs, others as knowledge, opinion, judgment, suspicions, etc. In all such cases, we are recognizing the relationship of that idea to its evidentiary bases. "Opinions" are ideas we are somewhat unsure of. But that uncertainty doesn't have anything at all to do with subjectivity.

    Second idea here: All ideation is the ideation of some subject, some mind or another. That sense of "subjective" is the ontological one. The epistemological sense of "subjective" simply means that the content of the idea does not derive from the subject-matter it names. A subjective opinion about a restaurant might be based on how long you had to wait to be seated, or the rudeness of the waiter, though it is stated as how good the food was. So, just to be clear, if someone asks Joan how the food is at Mirabella on 2nd Avenue, and she answers it is only so-so, but she actually enjoyed the food a lot, but she was also annoyed at having to wait and at the rudeness of the waiter, but she doesn't sort out her feelings, she has made a subjective judgment. The judgment is not, actually, about how the food was. Her dislike was reasonable, but it was mis-attributed. That subjectivity represents a degree of carelessness, and sometimes it amounts to a lot worse.

  4. Posted · Report post

    I just came back from this event, and Jeff Britting did a great job. When it was his turn to speak about Ayn Rand's character in "Old School" by Tobias Wolff, he nailed it. Britting started by stating that Wolff's presentation of Ayn Rand was a "total distortion," among other words, and then went on in detail to explain who she was, the themes of her four fiction books, and a little bit of her philosophy. Near the end of his presentation he compared Wolff's "character that shares Ayn Rand's name" with the actual Ayn Rand and showed a few specific cases where the two are polar opposites. He also asked the audience to not take his presentation or Wolff's presentation of Ayn Rand on faith by reading Rand's books for themselves.

    Britting's presentation of Ayn Rand was everything Wolff's was not. While Wolff presentation Ayn Rand as a mean, dismissive, and rude woman that no rational person would want to be around (except for her dark-clothes-wearing acolytes), Britting presented an intelligent woman who took ideas and her writing seriously. And he did it in a way that would leave someone who knew little about her with a desire to want to know more.

    The panel also included a speaker for Robert Frost and a speaker for Ernest Hemingway, and both got a fair amount of time. I think Ayn Rand was the focus of the evening, however. Perhaps I'm a little biased in making that judgement, but the majority of the questions were about Ayn Rand and the more interesting responses seemed to come from Britting.

    The surprise of the evening for me was a student who read a few passages from Atlas Shrugged. Before each speaker a student came on stage and read a few passages from that particular writer. The student who was tasked with Ayn Rand's work came up with three great passages: one from Dagny's first ride on the John Galt Line, one from the Francico's money speech, and another from John Galt's speech. The passages she picked were just perfect, and it was heartening to see them read to the audience.

    The panel was taped with two cameras, and one of the camera operaters told me after the event that there might be a chance the video could be released online. I'll keep my eye out and see what happens.

    Overall, it was a great night! Thanks to Jeff Britting for making the trip all the way out to Kansas City. We don't get events like this very often!

    Thanks very much for this report!

    Mindy

  6. Posted · Report post

    This solution, of course, raises the question of whether the change in letter must maintain the same position in the word.

    My understanding of the game is that the single letter substitution must occur in place. No changing the order permitted.

    Bob Kolker

    I don't know anything about official rules, but the site I got this from allowed different degrees of freedom, such as changing two letters once in a sequence, and either allowing or not allowing changes in different places in the letter sequence...I wonder if there is a way to score the game so any of these is allowed, but you are penalized for using the easier tactics.

    Mindy

  7. Posted · Report post

    If Atlas Shrugged existed in 1918 do you think sending one to Lenin or later to Stalin would have changed their premises or the way they ran their governments? If so, send one to Chavez and let me know what type of rebuttal you receive?

    Some people are beyond worrying about or attempting to change and I think a lot of our politicians fall into that category.

    Good people are concerned with what is true and good. Bad people only care about what they can get away with. Atlas can provide the first group with the ideas they need and can impress the second group, as Mindy noted, that they had better put their evil agenda on hold for now.

    Please point to a time and place in history where the evil aggresors were ever appeased. I would instead offer that there is no appeasement of the evil aggressors, so let us not waste our time, money or efforts on tactics that will not work.

    Politicians represnt the ideas of the people/culture that elects them. If moral politicians are what we want then we need to start with changing the minds of the people that elect them. In other words, the politician is the end not the beginning.

    That's a great line, that the politician is the end, not the beginning! That should be etched somewhere (besides my memory.)

    Mindy

  8. Posted · Report post

    "If the rain keeps up, it won't come down"?

    Antanaclasis.... You taught me a new word. :rolleyes:

    LOL. That is great, and it is raining cats and dogs as I read it.

    You've invented a new category, though, it isn't an antanaclasis. The same word or words have to be used with different "meanings." Maybe yours is an antiantanaclasis? It has a "garden path" in it, like so much of humor.

    The garden path...taking the mind in one direction and then stranding it there, with the logical destination somewhere "over there." One of my favorites is this: the old man the boats

    I wrote that preceding phrase without punctuation so as to allow the reader to puzzle over it. It is actually a full sentence, right?

    Someone here just gave me a different interpretation of your phrase, Laure: that if the rain keeps up, there won't be any moisture left to come down. That makes it a double antiantanaclasis, and, I'm sure the first of its kind. Anybody know the phone number for Guiness?

  12. Posted · Report post

    Vince Lombardi, in what would seem to be a pep talk, is quoted as saying, "If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm."

    He was using the figure of speech called an "antanaclasis." I imagine we have all heard, and used antanaclases, we just didn't know they had a name other than: clever phrasing.

    It makes one do a mental double-take, and in that way resembles Yogi Berra-isms, and also puns, but there is a definite difference, as the definition shows:

    The O.E.D. definition is, "A figure of speech, when the same word is repeated in a different if not a contrary signification; as: "In thy youth learn some craft, that in thy old age thy mayest get thy living without craft." --Johnson.

    With puns, the words are in fact different, and in Yogi Berra-isms, it seems that it isn't the signification, but the implication that changes. "You can observe a lot just by watching." "If you can't imitate him, don't copy him." Are they tautologies? Only technically.

    I like Lombardi's antanaclasis a lot more than Johnson's. I thought I'd invite people to list some they have come across. Better yet, invent some to share?

  13. Posted · Report post

    There's a high-powered language site called Languagehat I read when I can, and a link to a link brought me to a word-play game I thought might be fun. You are given two words. The task is to transform the one into the other (or the other into the one, if iconoclasm is your thing) one letter at a time. There are, obviously, more than a single way to do such a thing. I grabbed the names, "Rand" and "Galt," and tried it out to see how hard it was and how long it took...

    I did it in 12 steps, that is, there are 12 english words between "Rand" and "Galt." I didn't struggle with it, so there are probably shorter ways to do it. So, if anybody cares to give it a try, 12 is the number to beat. If you come up with fewer steps, speak up in a reply. Tell us how many steps you took, but leave the words out until others have a chance to work on it un-prompted, then we'll look at the winner's "short list." Have fun.

  14. Posted · Report post

    Cute! :rolleyes:

    I'm doing this wrong, but I don't think it matters... B)

    Seuss Sounds

    Seuss sounds, Seuss sounds, a "Cat-in-the-Hat" a day,

    Children's eyes and ears get round, when Dr. Seuss has his say!

    Juice sounds with Seuss sounds, saliva and tongue hunt their way,

    You'll stutter and mutter, and blush to re-utter, the synched sounds that Seuss sends your way!

    Soon sound soothed sounds, as sleep steals her slumbering slaves,

    So, softly! alliterate, litter your litter's late sleep with sweet Seuss-sounds, sooth-sayed(!)

    Mindy Newton

    The rhythm of this is a strong, even "forced" beat of seven, emphasized syllables with a silent final beat to each line.

  15. Posted · Report post

    I found another interesting link for those who like a lot of videos about people involved in astronomy: 400 years of the telescope.

    The telescope's "birthday" is particularly special because of the relation between the birth of science/philosophy and man's desire to understand the heavens. When man desires knowledge, even knowledge of the furthest objects and most immense events, he finds ways to get it. In celebrating the telescope, then, we are also celebrating man's mind, even mankind.

    Mindy

  16. Posted · Report post

    Sending books to politicians [unless you have specific information that a specific politician is open to our ideas] is surely an exercise in incredible futility.

    These people are supposed to already know that there's a U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. They have demonstrated that they don't care. Government by fiat and open plunder is already here. Under Comrade Obama, his fellow Marxists in Congress, and the futile pro-sacrifice, big-government Republicans, we are well down the road that Venezuela is following.

    Send the books to schools, via ARI's wonderful program, and give books individually to people you know who are receptive.

    I disagree with your judgment that it is futile. I bought 20 books and sent them with a cover letter I carefully wrote to say just what I'd like to say to these people if I had two minutes of their time. I do realize the letter will probably be read by an aide, and possibly not at all, but I imagine half or more will be read.

    Sending the book isn't an effort to educate, but to impress our representatives. It is an attention-getting action that places the outlook on government and the present situation which I hold, and which has the best chance of persuading our representatives to act usefully, right in their hands. It is a vote for capitalism.

    By the way, I ended up wrapping my books in some 6 mil. plastic sheeting I have, that is perfectly clear. I turned the first third of the letter outwards and folded it over the book cover, so it can be read without opening the package. That it is a book, and that it is Atlas Shrugged is "clear" without opening the package, and that also, I thought, might help with the security processing. Also, everybody from the P.O. workers who sort and bag and deliver the books to each person who has a chance to see the package sitting around will know what it is, and, possibly, read the opening of the letter!

    The books are likely to stay in the offices for a while, at least until the brouhaha over Tea Parties has quieted down, because if it doesn't quiet down, and the press start asking questions about book copies received, publicity-savvy politicians--that is, all of them--will want to be able to say what happened to the books people are saying they sent to them.

    Myself, I am going to follow up with a letter asking if the book was received, etc. That just adds more wattage to the overall effort to bring attention to the defense of freedom and prosperity a la capitalism. So, the whole point is to impress our politicians that we realize capitalism is not the cause of the problem, and that government interference in the economy is against our wishes and is anathema to both freedom and prosperity. The point is to tell them that we know this, and we require them, with all the force we hold--now we speak out and, when it is time, we vote--to act accordingly.

    Another reason to send books is that it helps clarify that Tea Party protests are not just tax protests. The liberal press are doing their best to smear, misrepresent, and denigrate this movement. Many participants have their own agenda, which is only partially aligned with a defense of capitalism. The more AS is put forth as the ideology of the protest, the better!

    By connecting one's protest to AS, you can join with people whose fundamental point of view you wouldn't agree with, but who are also speaking out in the present crisis, and collectively create a spectacle that impresses the powers that be, without implicitly endorsing ideas you don't hold or wish to promote. AS is a whole philosophical statement. It can't be misunderstood.

    This is a way to give voice to our ideas, and to the fact that people dedicated to those ideas exist, and are watching, and are willing to take action. How can you not be willing to give such a project the benefit of the doubt?

    Mindy

    Another thought: When the splash of an event is sufficient to get media attention, every politician must prepare him or herself to answer questions about it, just in case it is brought up! To do that, they have to become informed about the size of the event, and need to know what the protestors are in fact saying. They have to formulate their response so as to prevent seeming to take any position that will back-fire on them as the financial crisis develops--which is an unknown, still, and so as not to alienate voters. That means thinking things through, and isn't that exactly what we want?

  17. Posted · Report post

    g and interesting. It's been decades since I studied math, but it was quite enjoyable to see the source of primes expressed that way. By the way, why is 1 not considered a prime? I always thought it was strange to omit it, since it is divisible by itself and 1. And if it were considered a prime number, how would it affect your explanation?

    If 1 were admitted as a prime factorization would not be unique.

    1 = 1*1 = 1*1*1 .. etc.

    Bob Kolker

    Thanks for the feedback and kind words.

    If anybody is into divisibility, let me know. I have a scheme for "universal" divisibility that returns a factor. Note: it is not a factorization algorithm. It does not use any division itself, and looks, from the pseudocode, (I wrote the algorithm, and had someone write the pseudocode,) faster than division by a good bit, though not exponentially. I know very little about evaluating computability and such, I came across the divisibility algorithm from a number-theoretic point of view.

    So if anybody knows about these things, let me know.

    As far as why anybody would be interested in number patterns and such, it just is interestiing. I think you have to come onto a pattern yourself, and it grabs you. Trying to work out what a mathematician is pointing to in a math book is hard and frustrating, but if you get past the "wah?" factor, it is fascinating. I didn't study mathematics myself, but I did have excellent math teachers in high school. The principal happened to be a Ph.D. in math, and saw to it that we had excellent teachers and lots of courses. Two years of algebra, one of geometry and trig, and one of calculus. I exempted the Freshman math courses in college without even trying. A good high school is worth its weight in gold!

    There are some fun pattern problems in a subject called odd-and-even permutations. If I can find the notes I have from a friend at Illinois State, who set the problems up for me, I'll put them up here.

    Mindy

  18. Posted · Report post

    Bob, does your interest in math extend to the theory prime numbers?

    It sure does. Every mathematician who has ever lived has a thing about prime numbers.

    Bob Kolker

    OK, try this out:

    Every other number is odd, and every other other number is even. Both odd and even numbers arise at the same rate in the number series.

    That rate, however, is, itself, either odd or even. Thus, it fits into one of those series and is alien to the other one.

    As we know, the rate at which both odd and even numbers arise is two. You get one new odd number for each two you advance, from any starting point, and you get one even number for each two you advance.

    Two is an even number, and it is the smallest even number. So, for the even number series, the smallest number is also the rate at which new members occur. Every new even number is some number of size-two steps beyond the first even number, and the even number series is--beyond its first member, universally divisible. It enjoys this symmetry because the rate at which even numbers arise is the same as the rate at which they multiply.

    For the odd numbers, it is a different story. Odd numbers also arise at the rate of one for each two new numbers in the number series, but the smallest non-trivial odd number, 3, is larger than that rate of increase. As a result, odd numbers arise faster than they can multiply.[/i] It is this disjunction that is responsible for the existence and distribution of prime numbers!

    Looked at from the other side, consider the smallest odd composite number. It is 9. Nine is the smallest odd number that can be expressed as the product of factors. (It might help some readers to recall here that only from multiplying odd numbers can one get an odd composite number.) Since 9 is the smallest composite odd number, any and all smaller odd numbers are not composites, that is, they have to be prime. The odd numbers smaller than 9 (leaving "one" out) are 3, 5, and 7; and 3, 5, and 7 are, in fact, prime numbers.

    The next odd composite is 15--3 times 3 gives 9, and then 3 times 5 gives 15--which implies that the odd numbers smaller than 15, and larger than 9, are not composites, and must be prime. Those numbers are, of course, 11 and 13, and they are in fact prime. Continuing in this fashion, we note that 21 is the next odd composite number, and we check to see if the odd numbers that arise between 15 and 21 are prime, they are 17 and 19, and they are primes.

    Twenty-five is the next odd composite, leaving only one prime to add to the list, 23. Twenty-five is the first odd composite that isn't factored by 3. It is, of course, the product of 5 and 5. Beginning with 25, the series of composite numbers becomes more dense. Up to 25, odd composites were simply the sequential products of 3 and the odd series of numbers, yielding 3 + 6n. Within the gap created by adding 6 to each composite, exactly two additional odd numbers arise.

    Beginning with 25, a series defined by 5 + 10n of odd composite numbers is produced. As you've already begun to suspect, beginning with 7 times 7, 49, a third series of odd composite numbers, defined by 7 + 14n, is produced, and so on. The more general formula for each, prime-based series of odd composites will have occurred to you I'm sure: p + n2p.

    As the series of odd composites becomes more dense, the complementary series, which is the series of primes, becomes less dense. In principle, however, the distribution of primes is completely predictable. Prime numbers are "created" by the discrepancy between the rate at which odd numbers arise and the rate at which they multiply.

    That's about it. I haven't discussed this with anyone for years, so I might not have explained it well. You'll let me know if it doesn't seem to "add up?"

    Mindy Newton

  19. Posted · Report post

    Concepts and, therefore, language are primarily a tool of cognition—not of communication, as is usually assumed. Communication is merely the consequence, not the cause nor the primary purpose of concept-formation—a crucial consequence, of invaluable importance to men, but still only a consequence. Cognition precedes communication; the necessary precondition of communication is that one have something to communicate.

    - Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Chapter 7, "The Cognitive Role of Concepts"

    Exactly.

  20. Posted · Report post

    There seems to be some misunderstanding of what my position is in regard to various persons´ and groups´ moral responsibility. I am definitely aware that moral assessments have to be *individual*. There are many baby-boomers who are better than the average baby-boomer. Some individual baby-boomers are even heroes. Having said that, I have to say that the *majority* of the baby-boomers are, as far as I can see, pretty morally corrupt.

    However the average baby-boomer is *not* worse than the average child of the baby-boomers. He is, if anything, better. Today's young are, if anything, still worse, on the average, than their parents. The trend has for many decades been that each new generation is till worse, on the average, than the preceeding one. That is of course due to the corrupting power of bad philosophy.

    I do not see anything wrong with making moral assessments of groups, *provided* that one makes clear that one is only judging the *predominant* trend or pattern in that group. In other words, one can only say that the *average* member of a group is good or bad or whatever. The group´s dominant philosophy determines the moral character of the average member of that group tends to be.

    Morality isn't a natural characteristic like height and weight. It can't be described by a bell-shaped curve, and statistically predicted according to mean, mode, etc.

    The only way to come to a valid conclusion that most baby-boomers are immoral is to check that more than some are immoral. That means making a lot of individual judgments about the lives of a lot of people. To judge the life of an individual, you have to gather the necessary knowledge of that individual. You haven't done that.

    Does a group's "dominant philosophy" determine the moral character of the average member of that group? Average member? That speaks to characteristics that are distributed across a population as per the bell-shaped curve. Morality just can't be used in that way.

    The influence of people such as Kant is huge. But would you parcel that harm out to estimate the "average morality" of the people who lived when he did? His thought dominates whole periods of time. Its dominance is, in part, due to the fact that no other individual formulated an opposing view. Are all individuals who failed to do so guilty?

    I don't understand the rush to condemn whole groups of loosely associated individuals, on moral grounds.

    I don´t see that I have to judge a person´s moral choices over his *whole life* before I can judge him morally. Of course, I should not rush and make moral judgments hastily, but whenever I interact with people, and see that they characteristically choose not to think, then I concemn them morally, at least in the privacy of my own mind. I usually do not have to interact with people for a terribly long time, before I notice that they pursue a policy of habitually not putting forth mental effort (and that is what most people do, that is to say most people habitually *don´t* put forth much mental effort).

    But what´s the point in having a negative view of the majority of the members of mankind? If you would like to see one of the reasons that I am so inclined to condemn people morally, you should read my two most recent posts in the psychology section. Especially the post "The Psychological Value of Contempt" explains what the "cash value" of my attitude is.

    OK, I did go and read it. It makes you feel good, it keeps depression away, is that right?

    You might consider that that might actually be a trap, and a very dangerous one. Any false basis for feeling good about oneself works like a drug, and, as happens with drugs, one would have to increase his "dose" until he comes to need to act out those thoughts --such as you say you now keep private. You discussed why you didn't act out your contempt, the social problems it would involve, etc. The possibility that keeping those feelings hidden wouldn't be enough to "work" as it does now is a consideration.

    A similar psychodynamic occurs when somebody "trades in" feeling guilty for feeling injured. It is much more comfortable to feel that I am the injured party. Blaming somebody else for one's pain is emotionally a good deal. But it requires me to maintain the lie about being injured. Maintaining lies means maintaining evasions of the truth, and of all the concrete facts that point at the truth. Evasion grows, and it cripples one's judgment and competence in increasingly large segments of life. (I'm just using guilt and injury as an example. Trading in anxiety for depression is another example of a downward-spiraling strategy of rationalizing one's emotions to oneself.)

    This is a speculation, of course, but it seems possible that it fits what you have described. From the point of view of psychological growth, being emotionally independent of what other people think of you is important. But what you are describing seems to put how you compare yourself to others at the heart of the matter, and that isn't a position of independence. I know myself that it is tempting to turn the tables on all those people who want to put me down by just putting them down, and in spades. That doesn't last, though, and it is a shaky place to be when things go wrong, when stress gets high, etc. Won't that boomerang back on you when you actually do make mistakes or have set-backs? Also, how would it work if you suddenly found yourself in Galt's Gulch? If I needed to remind myself of how contemptible Reardan and Dagny are in order to feel OK, I'd be in deep cocoa.

    The better reason is, you don't need it.

    Mindy

  21. Posted · Report post

    There seems to be some misunderstanding of what my position is in regard to various persons´ and groups´ moral responsibility. I am definitely aware that moral assessments have to be *individual*. There are many baby-boomers who are better than the average baby-boomer. Some individual baby-boomers are even heroes. Having said that, I have to say that the *majority* of the baby-boomers are, as far as I can see, pretty morally corrupt.

    However the average baby-boomer is *not* worse than the average child of the baby-boomers. He is, if anything, better. Today's young are, if anything, still worse, on the average, than their parents. The trend has for many decades been that each new generation is till worse, on the average, than the preceeding one. That is of course due to the corrupting power of bad philosophy.

    I do not see anything wrong with making moral assessments of groups, *provided* that one makes clear that one is only judging the *predominant* trend or pattern in that group. In other words, one can only say that the *average* member of a group is good or bad or whatever. The group´s dominant philosophy determines the moral character of the average member of that group tends to be.

    Morality isn't a natural characteristic like height and weight. It can't be described by a bell-shaped curve, and statistically predicted according to mean, mode, etc.

    The only way to come to a valid conclusion that most baby-boomers are immoral is to check that more than some are immoral. That means making a lot of individual judgments about the lives of a lot of people. To judge the life of an individual, you have to gather the necessary knowledge of that individual. You haven't done that.

    Does a group's "dominant philosophy" determine the moral character of the average member of that group? Average member? That speaks to characteristics that are distributed across a population as per the bell-shaped curve. Morality just can't be used in that way.

    The influence of people such as Kant is huge. But would you parcel that harm out to estimate the "average morality" of the people who lived when he did? His thought dominates whole periods of time. Its dominance is, in part, due to the fact that no other individual formulated an opposing view. Are all individuals who failed to do so guilty?

    I don't understand the rush to condemn whole groups of loosely associated individuals, on moral grounds.

  22. Posted · Report post

    Here is a perfectly grammatical and meaningful statement: […] This example of repeated uses, in close proximity, of the same term for different specific parts of a device illustrates the versatility of grammar.
    Grammar used for claim construction and interpretation does not use generally accepted English grammar. In combination with varied lexical common sense starting points of patent drafters, examiners and judges, and contentious propriety of dictionary usage, patent claim grammar is frequently intended to convey syntactical and contextual meaning outside conventional understanding. Excerpting a portion of one claim does not support your purposes of providing the example.
    Language is such an achievement! How few of us live up to it.
    To reiterate the responses in the thread Changing the language and usage, the Court of Appeal decision in Autogiro Company of America v. the United States aptly states that things are not made for the sake of words, but words for things. By proper law, an inventor - any of us - is his own lexicographer, but this does not allow any word to take on any meaning for the sake of constructing and interpreting claims by predating and cannibalizing English language misuse. Communication is useful, language only historically so. Communication is achieved by individuals who invent and alter language to describe entities and their relationships, not by honouring linguisitic agreements unless doing so implicitly makes communication easier.

    How does patent language not use standard grammar?

    Do you not recognize the role of grammar in allowing us to combine concepts so as to create propositional meaning?

    Mindy

  23. Posted · Report post

    Let ABC be a triangle with base BC and vertex A. Let the angle bisector of angle ABC intersect AC at point D. Let the angle bisector of angle ACB intersect AB at point E. If BD = CE then triangle ABC is isosceles.

    I said the theorem was nifty (i.e. elegant). I didn't say it was easy to prove.

    If the going is too rough look up Steiner-Lehmus Theorem for a proof. Interestingly enough this is a modern theorem (circa 1840). It was never in Euclid, although it seems to have same character as the famous pons asinorum (bridge of asses) theorem, Euclid I.5. What makes this theorem interesting is that there seems to be no direct synthetic proof. One must use reductio ad falsi (indirect proof) to get the result. If you find a direct synthetic proof then publish it and become famous overnight.

    Bob Kolker

    Bob, does your interest in math extend to the theory prime numbers?

  24. Posted · Report post

    It isn't quite that bad. As hells go, this one is liveable....

    Cheer up, then. We've got it good. The real challenge facing us is whether we live up to the potential of our potential in the best, most advanced civilization ever to exist!

    You seem to be quite the optimist, Mindy! That's good to know. :D

    But I think we live in a Dark Age on the issues that matter most: philosophy, politics, morality, and spirituality. However much and sweetly hard science and technology have advanced the last few centuries, they aren't the essence of life. The others are.

    The world could have had the Industrial Revolution in the 100s BC in my view. Aristotle and his pals should have done better. They should have smashed the double-talking Sophists and Platonists, as well as heatedly, bitterly refuted and laughed at the concept of "god."

    But they didn't. B) Now we may soon see a world of Depression-based socialism and Big Brother, plus widespread surrender to Islam. :rolleyes: Your high spirits and the Internet won't help much, Mindy. I think only highly-rational "confidentist" and "certainist" philosophy can save us.

    Things would go a lot better in the next few decades if we could finally, brutally kill our terrible ur-enemy, philosophical Skepticism!

    I don't think I understand what the philosophical skepticism you refer to includes. Is it mainly the Kantian view, that we don't actually know the real world? That sort of thing?

    Mindy

  25. Posted · Report post

    Although skepticism about intellectual matters in general is a great virtue, there's a kind of dogmatic, extremist, fundamentalist, philosophical Skepticism which is basically the destroyer of this earth.

    Early philosophical Skeptics like Pythagoras, double-talking Sophists, and Plato doubted that: things exist, reality is real, X=X, 1+1=2, triangles have three points, black and white are different, up and down are opposite, fire is hot, water is wet, etc. They more or less based their virtually limitless and dogmatic skepticism on the idea that: individuals differ in their opinions, a stick in water often looks like it's where it's not, one can create a variety of tricky word paradoxes, etc.

    All this nonsense should have been defeated by the highly-rational "confidentist" and "certaintyist" thinkers Democritus, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Zeno the Stoic. Instead, these imminently reasonable, logical, scientific folk were ludicrously but successfuly labelled "dogmatists." Meanwhile, the true dogmatists and super-skeptics like Pyrrho, Arcesilaus, and Carneades eventually prevailed. Soon after, their close cousins Faith and "God" also dominated the world.

    And that's where we are today. In hell.

    Reason, confidentism, and certaintyism have been refuted in favor of a truly irrational, mindless, senseless, and absurd ultra-skepticism, dogmatism, relativism, subjectivism, and definitive know-nothing-ism.

    It isn't quite that bad. As hells go, this one is liveable. Look back to how the average person lived in the Middle Ages. Look at how minority religious persons were treated in early America. WE HAVE THE INTERNET. Books changed the world, and the internet will change it in the same way, only more so. YOU have the internet. You can learn anything, and you can talk to anyone!

    One of the most encouraging things I've learned from my (sketchy) study of the history of philosophy is that where dogmatic systems of belief come up against each other, each loses its hold over the minds of the people. This has happened in trade centers throughout history. East meets west, and everybody starts living a secular lifestyle. Mysticism can't stand up to that, nor skepticism to the practical virtues of science and technology!

    The internet (global media of all sorts) will defeat dogmatism in every nook and cranny on earth, when people simply have available to them alternative ideas and the world-full of evidence that this treasure of technology allows. It is only a matter of time. Those of you who are pre-thirty, your future is going to be awesome. The world cannot return to the sort of tyrranical dominance pre-books held. Weave all the post-apocalyptic scenarios you want, knowledge for all is flooding the world.

    If I seem to be denying the reality or effects of volition, let me comment: individual choice will always be there to waste and destroy. But that the choices of some can rule and impoverish the lives of others is less and less workable as individuals everywhere learn about the wide world and how alternative systems work. As civilization matures, as science and technology grow, evil shrinks in potential. Evil always needs crutches, like ignorance and fear and dogma. Discoveries cannot be undone. Aristotle was lost, but only temporarily, note. China will never be the same. A man dragged into a tree by a python, in Kenya, saved himself by his cell-phone! Who needs burning bushes? The lid is off, possibilities abound, and nothing can change that.

    Cheer up, then. We've got it good. The real challenge facing us is whether we live up to the potential of our potential in the best, most advanced civilization ever to exist!