Pants
SWT
I just read a book titled "Nietzsche in 90 minutes" from my local lending
library. I HEART NIETZSCHE!
It seems strange to me that I find even his less intractable passages so
engaging, especially given that years ago (when I was in college and
accustomed to reading reams of dense, dry academic text before breakfast) I
found his writings not unappealing but simply incomprehensible. ERROR in
3360: CANNOT PARSE ILLUCID HENRY-JAMES-IAN PROSE. GO BACK TO READING "MR.
TICKLE", MISTER SHORT ATTENTION SPAN.
Nietzsche's aphorisms lends themselves exceptionally well to kontext-away;
genuinely representative quotes like "I'm not a man, I'm dynamite" mingle
with non-sequiturs like "We are not thinking frogs!", and my favorite
tourism slogan "You're not dead - you're in Germany!"
[B: Movie Callback Alpha]
80 minutes? NOBODY becomes an Ubermensch in 80 minutes!
[C: Triumph of the Will]
I was told as a child that "Will" in my name is not short for anything. (My
grandfather, from whom I received my middle name, hangs up the phone on
anyone asking for William). But apparently "Will" is short for "Will to
Power". If only Civilization: Call to Power had been subtitled Will to
Power, it would have given rise to many a hearty jest on the theme of
"eternal recurrence" during the mopping-up repetitiveness of the endgame.
O, ho ho! I am an Ultima III NPC, I have two frames of animation, and I
say: Beware of the bridge of lava!
[ 20 tons of cosmetic lava elided ]
Of course, to go by strict logic: Any two self-inconsistent collections of
statements are logically equivalent, because they're both fallacious. The
two collections are merely two sides of the same coin - or rather, two views
of an infinite wheelbarrow filled with beautiful memetic currency inflated
to worthlessness. But - and here is a parallel between Nietzsche's writings
and the Book of the SubGenius and, for that matter, Discordianism - it is
possible to enthrone usefulness as a higher value than truth. Maybe Picasso
is right, and art is the lie that lets us see the truth; but then again,
maybe Nietzsche is right, and language and consciousness are lies that
conceal no higher truth, but are necessary for survival.
[ dissertation on the effects of mass production on levels of workplace
trust omitted ]
My glass-bead-game can beat up your glass-bead-game.
[ insert smooth segue here...if you dare! ]
"Tod" is death in German, and "TOD" is a financial TLA for "Transfer on
Death". @toad is a command to destroy a MUCK object, and the Firesign
Theater wrote a mock hymn about "Where do we go when we're _towed_ away".
The inescapable conclusion is that you should send me all your Devo MP3s.
Speaking of Tod, I'm listening to a song titled Komm Susser Tod ("come,
sweet death") from Evangelion. The song has an ascendant, happy tone; a
non-English-speaking listener would probably guess it is about young love in
the springtime or somesuch. But the lyrics are just about as shiny and
optimistic as Trent Reznor on a bad day. Somewhere out there - and ONE DAY
I will FIND IT - is its sister song, some sort of macabre Bauhausian tune
with lyrics about bouncing fluffy bunnies, hippity hop, hippity hop.
The other musical EvilTwin I seek: Devo made a cover of Head Like a Hole,
with some zany noises, and a zippy woman's voice saying "MONEY!" I want to
find the Nine Inch Nails version of Whip It. (Or would that puncture the
wafer-thin layer of denial over the not-so-sub text of Whip It?)
[ stuff ]
Truth is complicated. Even in the ivory tower of mathematical logic, where
everyone is agreed on a basic set of definitions, strange things can happen.
I used to picture things like this: Lay out all statements about the natural
numbers on a grid. A particular set of axioms assigns a coloring to this
grid - one color for false, one color for true, and so you have one big
black-and-white image. (An inconsistent axiom-set makes every square toggle
between colors at the resonant frequency of chicken skulls, thus sending
innocent children into grand mal seizures. This is unfortunate, so let us
restrict our attentions to consistent axiom-sets, and continue to use
Pikachu for all our seizure-inducing needs)
But even this picture will have shades of grey - the (consistent) axiom set
will have some statements which are not (provably) true or false. DAMN YOU,
GOEDEL! KHAAAAAN!
As we exit the hallowed halls of mathematics, things will only get more
complicated. For example, many people will talk about degrees of truth;
they will ask how true something is in much the same way they would ask how
tall it is. This comparison is apt, for just as "tallness" is
non-intrinsic, measured always in comparison to some other object or some
average of other objects, "truth" rests upon a statement's relation to other
statements. A is not, in isolation, true - A is true because it follows
from B and B is true; B is true because it follows from C and C is true; and
so on. Unless it's "turtles all the way down" (and even as a Utah native, I
find that kind of infinite regress to be an alarming amount of stuff to
believe in), the tower of reasoning will eventually rest on some
foundation - Y is true because it follows from Z and Z is true; Z is true
JUST BECAUSE IT IS.
What complicates debate is that (as you, Dear Reader, may have noticed)
people do not share one basic set of assumptions about the universe. People
choose their own set of "axioms" (and, in general, change them if they
become inconvenient). If questioned, they will describe these axioms as
"obvious" or "self-evident". This translates into the usefulness or the
acceptability of the axiom. And indeed, if people who behave as though X is
false generally suffer and die, and people who behave as though X is true
generally prosper and live, then we have a sort of "proof by survival" for X
as an axiom. Not that axioms need proof at all, but bear in mind that one
man's axiom is another man's corollary!
Because of this confusion on basic principles, a discussion over a given
issue must (if it is to end in agreement) find some "common ground", meaning
a set of statements that all concerned will agree on. Usually this
disoursal maneuvering avoids the controversial and steers toward the
"obvious", turning from the specific to the general (and, necessarily, the
vague). It may be that the participants quickly find enough shared
assumptions to decide the issue - this makes for a short conversation. They
may find a more fundamental disagreement, and "shift the battlefield" to
this new venue. Or - and this is where the sparks really fly - they may
agree on some "axioms", but not on enough to decide the issue under
discussion.
This is where things become interesting. Fred says "I believe A and B, and
they imply C is true, and so I believe C". Barney replies "I believe A and
B, but they imply C is false, so I disagree". It may be quite true that A
and B imply C if (and only if!) you add the unspoken assumption D. The
discussion may become quite heated, especially if Fred is unaware of his
extra assumption D! The debate may be protracted if neither side is
willing - or able - to bring these extra assumptions into the conversation.
For example, a christian and an atheist may have a political debate, and the
christian may make a point whose proof involves, at some point, the fact
that God Said So. If the two of them have made an agreement (tacit or
overt) not to argue about religion, the christian may consciously refrain
from playing The God Card, leaving a hole in his case's infrastructure which
the two of them will argue around.
An especially well-worn conversational path is this one: There are two
values that you and I (and probably everybody) agree on; if value A says to
do one thing and value B says to do another, what is the right thing to do?
(Less morality-minded conversationalists may choose different contenders for
the conversational cock-fight, such as Quake 3 versus Unreal Tournament).
The key to the puzzle (and the reason this becomes a conversation at all) is
that the answer demands the use of other values; probably more fundamental
values.
Truth is a strange thing. Even in the careful world of computer code, truth
is slippery. In C, 0 "means" false, while any other number "means" true.
Typically the special words TRUE and FALSE are taken (by the compiler) to
mean 1 and 0 respectively. In a patch of code I once debugged, some poor
soul put the bitwise-or | when he meant to put the logical or ||. Later he
made a comparison like this: if (bThingy == TRUE) { do stuff; }. Sadly, due
to the typo, bThingy was often neither 0 nor 1, neither fish nor fowl, TRUE
nor FALSE. WITH HILARIOUS CONSEQUENCES! (This bug lingered in code for
about 2 years. This just goes to show that given few enough eyes ALL bugs
are deep, har har)
[ OSHA-mandated whitespace inserted for your listening pleasure ]
This post is just six words long!
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This post is just six words long!
[ Postscript! For YOU! ]
I went to do a web search and see if Henry James is the author I was
thinking of way back in Paragraph Two, but I clicked the "Start Diablo 2"
icon instead of the "Altavista" icon. WHEEE! MY SUBCONSCIOUS MIND IS
WEARING A FREUDIAN SLIP! TIME TO KILL THE ZOMBIES! AND MAKE THE DONUTS!
KOMM, SUSSER TOD! BEFORE I DIE! I WANT ANOTHER PIECE OF PIE!
I MAY HAVE BURNT OUT MY FRONTAL LOBE IN AN EFFORT TO REFUTE A DISPROOF OF
THE VALIDITY OF THE CONCEPT OF CONCEPTS, BUT MY SORCERESS CAN BEAT UP YOUR
SORCERESS!
SWT
news:397ceed5....@news.sprint.ca...
> C'mon up and see my graph theories sometime, Big Boy. I gotta
> four-colour proof that will make your hair stand on end...
Ooh, I hear the original proof involved case-analysis that was both
exhaustive and exhausting. I can bring along a cute proof of the
fixed-point theorem for recursive functions.
And at some point, I really need to brush up on my knot theory...
Ben Wolfson
TOT! TOT! TOT! ICH MACHE DICH TOT! TOT! TOT!
ahem.
>Speaking of Tod, I'm listening to a song titled Komm Susser Tod ("come,
>sweet death") from Evangelion. The song has an ascendant, happy tone; a
>non-English-speaking listener would probably guess it is about young love in
>the springtime or somesuch. But the lyrics are just about as shiny and
>optimistic as Trent Reznor on a bad day. Somewhere out there - and ONE DAY
>I will FIND IT - is its sister song, some sort of macabre Bauhausian tune
>with lyrics about bouncing fluffy bunnies, hippity hop, hippity hop.
There are some songs in the Carmina Burana that come close to that.
F'rinstance, the beginning of "Si puer cum puellula" sounds all heavy and
oppressive, but the first three lines translate as "if a boy should be
delayed in a little room with a girl, what a happy conjunction!"
Also "Circa mea pectora", in which the singer asks the gods to agree to his
plan that some woman not leave his company virginity intact, or parts of
"In taberna", which is all about how everyone loves drinking.
--
Barnabas T. Rumjuggler
Oh, oh, 'courtesan', oh aren't we grand. Harlot's not good enough for us
eh? Paramour, concubine, fille de joie. That's what we are not. Well
listen to me my fine fellow, you are a bit of tail, that's what you are.
-- Monty Python, "Biggles Dictates a Letter"
Ben Wolfson
>This post is just six words long!
>This post is just six words long!
>This post is just six words long!
>This post is just six words long!
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
--
Barnabas T. Rumjuggler
In the morning I came awake as I always do, like a man trapped in a car
going over a cliff.
-- Russell Hoban, _The Medusa Frequency_
Matt McIrvin
<dumpl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Nietzsche's aphorisms lends themselves exceptionally well to kontext-away;
>genuinely representative quotes like "I'm not a man, I'm dynamite"
and I WANT JOE FRAZIER!
>I used to picture things like this: Lay out all statements about the natural
>numbers on a grid. A particular set of axioms assigns a coloring to this
>grid - one color for false, one color for true, and so you have one big
>black-and-white image. (An inconsistent axiom-set makes every square toggle
You are Greg Egan, and I claim my thirty minutes on Luminous.
Quick! Industrial Algebra are enlarging the defect!
--
Matt McIrvin http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/
Darla
McIrvin) claimed:
>In article <snpmpp...@corp.supernews.com>, "SWT"
><dumpl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>I used to picture things like this: Lay out all statements about the natural
>>numbers on a grid. A particular set of axioms assigns a coloring to this
>>grid - one color for false, one color for true, and so you have one big
>>black-and-white image. (An inconsistent axiom-set makes every square toggle
>
>You are Greg Egan, and I claim my thirty minutes on Luminous.
>
>Quick! Industrial Algebra are enlarging the defect!
C'mon up and see my graph theories sometime, Big Boy. I gotta
four-colour proof that will make your hair stand on end...
MMmmmMMm.
Darla
--- twirling her Crayolas.
"Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching." ---Satchel Paige
Darla
claimed:
>... I can bring along a cute proof of the
>fixed-point theorem for recursive functions.
>
>And at some point, I really need to brush up on my knot theory...
You are such a tease, Dimplechin! <smooch>
Is it pee or knot pee?
Just wondering---
-=D=-
Michael Straight
> "Tod" is death in German, and "TOD" is a financial TLA for "Transfer on
> Death". @toad is a command to destroy a MUCK object, and the Firesign
> Theater wrote a mock hymn about "Where do we go when we're _towed_ away".
> The inescapable conclusion is that you should send me all your Devo MP3s.
>
> Speaking of Tod, I'm listening to a song titled Komm Susser Tod ("come,
> sweet death") from Evangelion. The song has an ascendant, happy tone; a
> non-English-speaking listener would probably guess it is about young love in
> the springtime or somesuch. But the lyrics are just about as shiny and
> optimistic as Trent Reznor on a bad day. Somewhere out there - and ONE DAY
> I will FIND IT - is its sister song, some sort of macabre Bauhausian tune
> with lyrics about bouncing fluffy bunnies, hippity hop, hippity hop.
Speaking of Tod, "Christ lag in Todesbanden" is my favorite song EVER.
"Nietzche ist Tod!" -- Jesus, doing a "burn"...in GERMAN. Ooooo!
> As we exit the hallowed halls of mathematics, things will only get more
> complicated. For example, many people will talk about degrees of truth;
> they will ask how true something is in much the same way they would ask how
> tall it is. This comparison is apt, for just as "tallness" is
> non-intrinsic, measured always in comparison to some other object or some
> average of other objects, "truth" rests upon a statement's relation to other
> statements. A is not, in isolation, true - A is true because it follows
> from B and B is true; B is true because it follows from C and C is true; and
> so on. Unless it's "turtles all the way down" (and even as a Utah native, I
> find that kind of infinite regress to be an alarming amount of stuff to
> believe in), the tower of reasoning will eventually rest on some
> foundation - Y is true because it follows from Z and Z is true; Z is true
> JUST BECAUSE IT IS.
Actually A-Z are all true JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE (unless they aren't).
It's your knowledge of whether A is true that depends on B-Z being true,
and after Z it really is turtles all the way down.
> What complicates debate is that (as you, Dear Reader, may have noticed)
> people do not share one basic set of assumptions about the universe. People
> choose their own set of "axioms" (and, in general, change them if they
> become inconvenient). If questioned, they will describe these axioms as
> "obvious" or "self-evident". This translates into the usefulness or the
> acceptability of the axiom. And indeed, if people who behave as though X is
> false generally suffer and die, and people who behave as though X is true
> generally prosper and live, then we have a sort of "proof by survival" for X
> as an axiom. Not that axioms need proof at all, but bear in mind that one
> man's axiom is another man's corollary!
Given the context, I'm sure over 55% of your readers wackyparsed that as
'coronary'.
> For example, a christian and an atheist may have a political debate, and the
> christian may make a point whose proof involves, at some point, the fact
> that God Said So. If the two of them have made an agreement (tacit or
> overt) not to argue about religion, the christian may consciously refrain
> from playing The God Card, leaving a hole in his case's infrastructure which
> the two of them will argue around.
This is why Christianity should be illegal, according to Stanley Fish.
> [ OSHA-mandated whitespace inserted for your listening pleasure ]
>
> This post is just six words long!
> This post is just six words long!
> This post is just six words long!
> This post is just six words long!
Michael Straight wouldn't dare write in the SWT-mandated whitespace.
FLEOEVDETYHOEUPROEONREWMEILECSOFMOERSGTIRVAENRGEEARDSTVHIESBIITBTLHEEPSRIACYK
Ethical Mirth Gas/"I'm chaste alright."/Magic Hitler Hats/"Hath grace limits?"
"Irate Clam Thighs!"/Chili Hamster Tag/The Gilt Charisma/"I gather this calm."
Stefan Elisa Kapusniak
In alt.religion.kibology, "SWT" <dumpl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
[...stuff...]
...see also uk.politics.misc
HTH!
-- Kapusniak, Stefan e
SWT
news:Pine.A41.4.21L1.00072...@login5.isis.unc.edu...
[...]
> Speaking of Tod, "Christ lag in Todesbanden" is my favorite song EVER.
Dude, I hate it when I get Christ lag! I'm all set for a deathbed
repentance, then a couple of packets are dropped, and WHAM! Eternal
damnation!
> "Nietzche ist Tod!" -- Jesus, doing a "burn"...in GERMAN. Ooooo!
Jesus speaking German just sounds weird to me; German seems a much more Old
Testament language. AM ANFANG SCHUF GOTT HIMMEL UND ERDE! Written in one of
the Gothic fonts. For that matter, PERL is an unforgiving, Old Testament,
almost qaballistic language. Aiyaah! Let he who is without off-by-one bugs
cast the first stone!
I think the phrase "God is dead" is more memorable to Christians than to
atheists. By declaring God to be dead Nietzsche anthropomorphizes; he makes
God into a being rather than a concept, and this begs the question of
whether God might not actually still be alive. (Of course, Nietzche
anthropomizes MOST concepts, because he's really INTO it). "Religion is the
opiate of the masses" is a much less comfortable slogan for the faithful,
because it calls their MOTIVES into question, which is really hitting below
the belt. "God is dead" is a slogan trapped behind enemy lines; a contrary
sentiment surrounded by faith; it begs the question of who ATHEISM is the
optiate of.
Of course, a memeticist would be interested to see whether God, the CONCEPT,
is alive and well. And from this standpoint, declaring God to be dead is a
great way to keep Him alive. Nietzsche might just as well have said "Don't
think about elephants!" Memes are like bullies; you have to ignore them to
make them go away.
Memes also confusing to me; is the negation of a meme another meme? And
what about meta-memes? If "God" is a meme, then "God exists" and "God does
not exist" are also memes, as are "'God exists' is false" and "'God does not
exist' is false", and so on into bozocity.
"Wahhh!" said Philosopher Barbie, "Arguing for or against the telic nature
of the universe is HARD!"
[...]
> >Y is true because it follows from Z and Z is true; Z is true
> > JUST BECAUSE IT IS.
>
> Actually A-Z are all true JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE (unless they aren't).
> It's your knowledge of whether A is true that depends on B-Z being true,
> and after Z it really is turtles all the way down.
You...you...Platonist!
Truth-or-falsehood is relative to a set of axioms; to be precise, one should
write true with a subscript denoting what axiom set one chose to work with
that day. (Remember: No well-ordering principle before Memorial Day!)
Usually the axiom set is understood, so one just writes "true" with the
tacit understanding that this means "logically derivable from our current
collection of axioms", just as one can (in most contexts) write 42 withot
fear that someone will read the digits in base 20.
Of course, I'm kind of a Platonist too, so my original post has the concept
of "intrinsic truth" running around in it, giggling madly. (Are theorems
*created* or *discovered*? What about melodies? These distinctions hold
within them the seeds for much fruitful high-level thinking, which is quite
comforting to those of us who don't have a date for this Friday night)
[...]
> This is why Christianity should be illegal, according to Stanley Fish.
...A purveyor of railway literature is trying to outlaw Christianity? (When
gods are outlawed, only outlaws will have gods? Blah blah blah from my cold
dead hands?)
> Michael Straight wouldn't dare write in the SWT-mandated whitespace.
In whitespace, no one can hear you fill in the ovals completely with a
number 2 pencil.
SIDENOTE: I can never talk (live! and in person!) about this sort of thing
without losing my train of thought or lapsing into a stream of recycled
MST3K quotes. HOORAY FOR USENET!
Crgre Jvyyneq
20:41:00 GMT]
>> the christian may consciously refrain
>> from playing The God Card, leaving a hole in his case's
>> infrastructure which the two of them will argue around.
>
>This is why Christianity should be illegal, according to
>Stanley Fish.
>
Is that what those things you see on cars sometimes are called?
--
Peter Willard http://www.drizzle.com/~petew
``The fact that inhumanity is coupled with so much stupidity
makes one feel almost optimistic in a dangerous way.'' -Erich
Hecke
Beable van Polasm
> > debate, and the christian may make a point whose proof involves,
> > at some point, the fact that God Said So. If the two of them have
> > made an agreement (tacit or overt) not to argue about religion,
> > the christian may consciously refrain from playing The God Card,
> > leaving a hole in his case's infrastructure which the two of them
> > will argue around.
>
Or alternatively, make Christianity COMPULSORY and then the problem
will also disappear. I feel the urge to post in a Christian group
and ask all the Comrades to pray and fast for D&D'ers. WE HAVE TO
SAVE THOSE POOR DELUDED F00LS!
cheers
Beable van Polasm
--
WHAT WOULD JOE BAY DO? IQC 78189333
I was really surprised to be asked here tonight to honour Bob Hope.
Surprised isn't the right word... annoyed -- Ronald Reagan
http://members.xoom.com/_______/news/index.html
pete
[snip]
> I feel the urge to post in a Christian group
> and ask all the Comrades to pray and fast for D&D'ers.
While I was attending Navy Nuke School in Orlando FLA,
one of my comrades was having trouble with his grades.
He told us about a special counsel session with the chief.
The first thing the chief said was, "Larry ... , are you into D&D?"
--
pete
Dag Right-square-bracket-gren
says...
> Speaking of Tod, I'm listening to a song titled Komm Susser Tod ("come,
> sweet death") from Evangelion. The song has an ascendant, happy tone; a
> non-English-speaking listener would probably guess it is about young love in
> the springtime or somesuch. But the lyrics are just about as shiny and
> optimistic as Trent Reznor on a bad day.
Hey! I love "Komm, süsser Tod"! (showing off my mastery of umlauts)
It's even better when you've seen "End of Evangelion" and the scene where
the song is used.
And keeping with the anime theme, I hear "Battle Angel Alita" quotes
Nietzsche on occasion. Unfortunately I have not gotten the opportunity to
read it myself. Waah.
Tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down.
--
Dag Agren <> d...@c3.cx <> http://www.abo.fi/~dagren/ <> Legalize oregano
"This box contained a tiny Archimedes Plutonium, running in circles and
screaming 'I CAN RUN FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF STUPIDITY!'" - Eurakarte
Gardner S Trask III
Crgre Jvyyneq wrote:
what those things you see on cars sometimes are called?
BUAG's, but that may just be a personal issue.
Gard "The official Traskmobile theme song is the Peter Gunn Theme" Trask
Eli M. Balin
Dag Right-square-bracket-gren <d...@c3.cx> wrote:
>
>And keeping with the anime theme, I hear "Battle Angel Alita" quotes
>Nietzsche on occasion. Unfortunately I have not gotten the opportunity to
>read it myself. Waah.
Not only does it quote Nietzsche, and almost every other existentialist,
but towards the end of the series the writer managed to insert the "O
Fortuna" bit from "Carmina Burana," which is even sillier when it's done
in print.
"Battle Angel Alita" also footnotes each frame at least once, which makes
it almost like a scholarly journal, only with robots and mutants.
--
elib...@panix.com http://www.panix.com/~elibalin/
"I hope the Spice Girls never get a cannon." - James "Kibo" Parry