Curiosity Over Pride (FYI: To comment, send an e-mail to scifidink@gmail.com)

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Rattling the cage's bars

My last comment on the last post having been ignored, I am now going to sound off.
Is this problem that I'm going to deal with one more example, an illustration of Lacan's postulate that there is no such thing as sexual relations ?
Does it fit roundly into the box, "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus " ?
I sometimes feel here as though when I post, some people (particularly YOU, Thai..) read, pat me on the head, and promptly continue on their orbital path, resuming the discussion at the point when I "broke in".
I hate being patted on the head.
For info, I do NOT consider that over there in the jungle, Hell pats me on the head.
He does not. He.. RESPECTS me, and my way of thinking.
I have already asked that you try to vulgarize some of the more technical aspects of the scientific docs that you throw down here, and I honestly try to engage intellectually with you, to the extent that I am capable of understanding these rather abstract subjects.
If you want to hole up in the corner, and have specialized discussions, by all means use E Mail, telephone or whatever.
I am not allergic to scientific thought when it is presented in a manner in which I can understand it.
But I AM allergic to the fact that YOU, THAI, make no attempt whatsoever to engage intellectually with the points I bring up EVEN WHEN THEY ARE CONCERNING YOUR SUBJECT (at least, recently, that is..).
And I am starting to feel like all we do on this blog is to talk past each other, while gratifying our own egos.
I don't have time to waste on that.
If I want to write, I will find a public to listen to me, and appreciate my writing.
I don't.. NEED you for that.
But... discussion, that's another matter altogether.
We are not discussing well enough for MY taste on this blog.
C+
Can do better.

13 comments:

Dink said...

Ah, its so perfect that you were designated the feline of the saloon! Now please remain calm and read before unleashing the claws because what I say is said with affection and not malice.

Cats are graceful, majestic, and elegant creatures. And they know it. They are prideful and demand that others acknowledge their superior caste (both male and female cats, BTW).

When some insolent sub-animal brings up some trick that the cat is less skilled at.... well the cat strategy may be to protect the ego by killing the sub-animal. Problem solved ;)

But perhaps as an experiment you might want to try rat strategy. Eject the ego and try to learn the sub-animal's skill. Defile yourself on Wikipedia. I was in a bookstore and saw a book on the history of shipbuilding in the kid's section. So I picked it up and read it for a while. Would a cat's ego prevent it from this admission of ignorance on this, or any, subject? It would have missed some fun illustrations!

Conversely, perhaps cat has a favorite toy that it displays to the sub-animals. And the obnoxious rat has the audacity to sniff it, sneeze, and wander off. Its disappointing, but such is life (you did blow off rat's attempt to open a discussion on Voltaire, BTW).

You know, perhaps instead of the saloon analogy I should have gone with a playground analogy. One kid brings a kick ball, the other kids start to play with him. One of the kids gets distracted by the monkey bars so the kick ball game ends. Another kid finds an ant hill and we poke at it with sticks for a while. I like it! Deb, think of us as easily-distracted, but not unkind, four year olds.

Please don't be distressed. Its only a playground so get dirty (wikipedia?) and have fun ;)

Dink said...

So I read Thai's link about trimers and I run away confused. I go to the gym where I find salvation through repetitive motion and loud music. And it works for a while.

But then ideas start trickling in. Is Thai insinuating that since scale-free networks have a basic structure of triangle (then pyramids,... then tangles) that this trimer concept is the.... jump to complexity. The phase transition moment. No, no, run away to the TV.

But then I'm about to go to sleep and I grab Fire Upon The Deep. Once an entity figures out transcendence it only continues to interact with the "real world" for a very short time. So the non-transcendent really don't know what happened to the others. Like how bacteria would have no concept of what happened to their buddy who evolved into an amoeba...

Too much thinking. Retreat for now. But never, never, never give up.

Debra said...

Dinky, I am sorry I didn't respond on Voltaire.
I don't know much about Voltaire. I have an irrepressible urge to dislike Voltaire.
For having outed Rousseau's abandon of his children.
So.. I'm not going to discuss Voltaire with you when I can only claim ignorance.
In all fairness, I read SOME of Thai's links (not all of them, agreed..). And I try to understand. And.. I HAVE responded here.
So, dinky, my problem is not really with YOU.
It is with.. THAI. As the post expresses.
We have.. SOME kind of intercourse, dinky.
But Thai appears to be on another planet...
And I HATE head patting.

Debra said...

As irony would have it, Dink, I am traversing a prolonged period of doginess on my loony forum.
So...hearing that I am a cat here...
DON'T YOU FEEL ASHAMED ABOUT CONFUSING ME IN MY IDENTITY ??
Next thing we know, I'll be making an appointment with a surgeon for a little operation...

Debra said...

Should read... dogginess. Sorry

Thai said...

re: Moving in parallel, or at least not in sync.

"yes"

I get VERY engrossed/focused on a particular subject when I truly have it in my gun-sights. It is simply how my mind works... you can imagine how much my wife/kids hate the trait at times.

As you might have guessed, it can be a godsend while working in the emergency department at times as well- e.g. zero-sum.

And concerning my latest forays into metaphysics... I have been reading a lot on the subject and think I found what I was looking for in Bose-Einstein condensates- molecular evidence for structures where individual subatomic particles lose their identity under the influence of an external factor.
The very property which creates (of all the great ironies) superconductors. ;-)

Add a few fractal into the brew and one can imagine wonders.

I am still looking for evidence people have shown Bose-Einstein structures are really teams or consciousness and a will have reached a temporary plateau.

... Indeed, I am a little surprised they do not similarly fascinate you as a psychologist interested in consciousness/cognition- oh well, just how our minds work.

Dink- I did talk with my friend today about my theory. Oddly he is working on an AI project and had not thought about them so he is going to get beck. He does seem my point with no comment one way or the other.

Deb we really can move on to your subjects. This walkabout is done for now.

AND you are just going to have to tolerate my spelling.

My spelling is what it is.

Debra said...

But Thai, this is not an either /or framework.
I am not hostile about discussing these subjects. But I am NEVER going to be a physicist now, and there is only so far I can go without a solid science background.
So... that is why I constantly feel that it is so important to be able to translate.
Moving from one language to another. Finding phenomena in one field, and then seeing WHERE they could be in another, under another name, or likeness (to the extent that is possible).
One thing that I have noticed is the fact that, as you said, matter is made of building blocks that sequence together.
And this property can be seen everywhere, in my book. It is what justifies the structural approach to analysis.
For my two cents on this issue, oxymoron should be explored as an intrication, a "joining" of phenomena which appear antagonistic.
And to what extent does our language reflect these elementary properties of matter ?
THAT interests me.
But you will have to translate this better, Thai.
Throwing down links is NOT the same as thinking.
Links are nothing more than metonymy. Juxtaposing one item after another.
But coordination of those items into thinking... THAT TAKES ADDED ENERGY..

Thai said...

Deb, how about remembering the following to help your mental "constants":

I too have always said it is not an either/or, it is really AND (i.e. BOTH). But for it to be AND (both), you have to be removed from the system or thing or action you are observing.

If you actually interact with it, or become part of the system, then your viewpoint changes and the "AND" (i.e. BOTH) goes away (for you) as it becomes either or you relative to you.

In other words from far away, head AND tails are both part of the same coin, but close up they are only heads from one viewpoint or tails from another.

The theory of relativity is all about the observation (or viewpoint) of things relative to different observers looking at the same thing from different viewpoints.

In a way, you can think of it as saying there is no such thing as absolute truth, etc... only relative truth.


And I tried to show you this visually with the following video.

And I quote:
"the observer collapsed the wave function simply by observing"

This is why so many conversations are so difficult- at some level impossible. They are difficult because people forget that we need to first define aspect or viewpoint they are coming into the conversation with before the actual conversation can occur.

The internet just makes the problem so much more obvious than day-to-day real world conversations where we tend to forget about how things like physical context and body language supplement other communications channels to give speakers/listeners a better understanding of each other's aspect/viewpoint.

And I believe that "sensitive" people are much better at reading viewpoint/aspect issues in others than insensitive people, etc...

I am guessing, but admit this could be a bad guess, that you are "sensitive" and hence became a psychologist and take for granted these skills you have but they are why you are comfortable giving money to a stranger who you think will pay you back and why you are frustrated with the criminal justice's systems lack of effort to redeem people, etc...

But understand this (take it on faith if you will), some of us think that the conservation of energy is absolute and the implications of this are truly vast.

One of them is that RISK never goes away and this is why people like Taleb are writing books like this.

Debra said...

Taleb's book doesn't go through the looking glass far enough for me, Thai.
He is not asking WHY risk, rather its elimination, has become so fundamental to us, and what THAT means.
He is still focusing too much on WHAT is observed and not on WHO is observing, and why.
His thought is STILL reductionist, even while claiming NOT to be reductionist.
From MY viewpoint, you might say...
Thai, in terms of being removed from the system in order to use the copula I will say..
That is is perhaps possible to be in two places at once. Perhaps.
That's what metaphor is all about.
Being in two places at once...

Thai said...

By the way, this has just given me an incredible business idea I am going to ask my SETI friend about.

Why I did not see it before is beyond me.

Debra said...

I'm intrigued, Thai.
Please explain your reasoning, your idea, and what triggered it.
This kind of stuff fascinates me...
A (French) word for my spam filter again...
Speaking two languages increases probabilities.
Reminds of me why I hate Scrabble.
Being bilingual is a bugger with Scrabble...

Thai said...

Basically, my idea is simply that I wonder if there is a way to build intelligence into queries/blog comments to better convey issues of aspect/context.

Is a HUGE issue

Debra said...

If it works like your car... with electronics that will almost wipe your butt for you, I am hostile.
I don't like artificial intelligence that thinks in my stead.
In NO form whatsoever...
Why is that Ricains are so devoted to eliminating ambiguity ?
Eliminating ambiguity elimnates the possibility for all surprise and wonder.
Have you forgotten your Dune saga again ?
Those... perverted Honored Matriarchs ?

The Most Fabulous Objects In The World

  • Hitchhiker's Guide To The Universe trilogy
  • Lord of the Rings trilogy
  • Flight of the Conchords
  • Time Bandits

Followers