User talk:Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters/Archive19

babble

Hi Lulu, nothing is happening on my watchlist now so I thought I'd fill up your talk page with junk.

Sounds great... that's what archives are (eventually) for. :-). LotLE×talk 07:12, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh my god, you're awake. Don't you ever sleep?

I've heard about that :-). Actually, my bedtime is right about now... so nighty night.

BTW did you get my email from yesterday? Ideogram 07:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

No... but now that I think of it, I might have accidentally started shunting my wikipedia email to the wrong place due to some rearrangements to avoid some rather massive spam. Someone started using my domain name in spam headers, resulting in thousands of bounces from many of the recipients... and presumably a lot of others who think gnosis.cx are assholes. Unfortunately, the bad people seemed to use some sort of random local names in these forged From: lines, e.g. aldl209092@gnosis.cx or the like. It makes my life harder. I'll see if I can dig up what you sent. LotLE×talk 07:43, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I didn't say anything important. I'll send it through Wikipedia. Ideogram 23:42, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking that I'm glad you were the first one to bite my head off; the fact that we (mostly) get along now gives me confidence that future missteps can also be recovered from.

Just nibbling.

Truth

I see you are into Philosophy and questions of Truth. I have done some thinking on this subject and picked up bits and pieces. It's nowhere near the systematic study you've probably done, but let me outline my thinking for you and you can tell me where it fits in with previous work.

The striking fact about the modern world is that two disciplines have made staggering progress since about the 17th century while the rest have not. Tbose two disciplines are mathematics and science. I feel the reason these two disciplines stood out is because they developed what I call "working definitions of Truth" that were significant advances over the Classical definition, and no other disciplines have done this.

Oh... not sure if I go along so far. What about painting and visual arts? (expressionism, impressionism, cubism, abstract expressionism, etc.)? What about music (even in "classical" we got harmonic innovation, 12-tone systems, atonalism, etc. in the 20th C; to say nothing of the newness of Jazz, and popular musics)? Film is pretty new too :-). Or in politics, the new notions or representational democracy, welfare capitalism, socialism, etc. (which frankly, really do seem like advances over theocracies and traditional monarchies). LotLE×talk 07:18, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

In what sense is cubism, for instance, a significant advance over the works of Leonardo? In a very real sense they are incommensurable, a term I use below. Jazz is new, but is it better than Beethoven? In the 20th century we also had Fascism and Communism and China may challenge the notion that a rich country has to be democratic (they are certainly trying). My point is not that nothing new happened, it is that in science and mathematics we have almost linear progress whereas other fields tend to spread out in all directions. Ideogram 07:24, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Nah, I don't think that's right. Marcel Duchamp was very well steeped in classical painting (his LHOOQ is a good example), and amazingly skilled technically (e.g. his brief but fabulous cubist stuff, to pick up on your specific example).

Technical skill can pop up in any generation, it's clearly not an example of progress.

No, no, you miss my point. I think a lot of people might say that Duchamp didn't paint like Leonardo because he couldn't. The point of noticing Duchamp's technical skill is that his choices were about conceptual systems rather than technical limitations. I don't know what Leonardo would have painted if he lived in 1920 (he, like Duchamp, had both the technical and intellectual "chops" to be innovative). Likewise, I don't know what Fermat would have done if he lived in 1920, alongside Hilbert. But the "ratios" Fermat:Hilbert and Leonardo:Duchamp have a somewhat similar distinctions. All are skilled and innovative, but the later ones come after several fundamental conceptual shifts... not just "linear progress", or mere accumulation of knowledge or techniques, but real reconceptualizations of the meaning of the fields (painting and math). LotLE×talk 01:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Leonardo did not choose between classicism and Dada (the latter simply not being conceptually available for him); Duchamp did make just such a choice.

By that argument any artist that comes later in time represents progress over earlier artists because they have choices the earlier artists (supposedly) did not. Note also that what is conceptually available depends on what is studied; I suspect neither artist was able to choose Chinese painting techniques for instance.

Well, not exactly. But it's not closer or further from what's going on in mathematics than it is in painting. LotLE×talk 01:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

And similarly in other areas: lots of Bebop musicians make deliberate gestures toward baroque or high-classicism, where the reverse was not an option (think Cecil Taylor, for example; and not jazz, but think of John Cage).

See above. The problem with your argument is that it is not even semi-objective. There are many people who think there is not and never will be music as good as Mozart's. There are many people who think Rock-and-Roll peaked in the 50's. Very few people like to listen to John Cage.

Sure, and there are people who think the constructive proofs are better then existential ones. That's what folks like Brouwer and Intuitionism are about, after all. But Schoenberg's innovation is not any more or less "objective" than is Cantor's. LotLE×talk 01:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Methods of proof are subject to taste. The Truth value of theorems generally are not. The fact that Schoenberg did something new is not what I'm debating. I'm asserting that you cannot objectively prove that his work is better than Mozart's. New is not always better. Ideogram 01:45, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Platonism, etc

Mathematics isn't so simple as that, post Lowenheim-Skolem, and especially post-Godel.

Godel proved a simple result about some Truths being unprovable, which certainly doesn't prevent practicing mathematicians from proving lots of new Truths.

Nah, Godel did quite a bit more than that; or at least the implications of what he did are a lot broader than that. For example, Godel himself was largely a Platonist: he thought mathematical truths were true independent of provability within particular axiom systems. Just because the Continuum Hypothesis isn't determined by ZFC doesn't mean that it's not true... at least as Godel thought of it (and many other mathematicians agree, probably most). LotLE×talk 03:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

But I am not a Platonist. And anyway, my point is that Truths determined by ZFC are universally True for those that accept ZFC, not that statements not determined by ZFC are False. (There's a logical term for this confusion that I can't recall.) Ideogram 04:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, then that probably means you're not a mathematician. There aren't a lot of practicing inuitionists in mathematics (some sure, it's a position that has a lot of appeal to me; but I know enough to know it's uncommon). In particular, very few mathematicians really "believe" in ZFC as anything "deep" about the nature of sets... it's just a very handy formalization of some intutions. You may be thinking of "affirming the consequent"... it depends exactly how you forumulate the flawed reasoning. LotLE×talk 04:10, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand. Is Euclidean geometry or one of the many non-Euclidean geometries True? How can they all be True since they contradict each other? How do Platonists answer these questions? Ideogram 04:36, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

The article on Philosophy of mathematics doesn't look like a terrible place to start. I liked Benacerraf and Putnam's book way back when it came out as a good general collection, there might be something else more current... but that's a good collection of many famous articles by familar mathematical names. Mathematicians have some nuance about this, or at least the best ones do. It doesn't boil down to a soundbite caricature position for most any of them. LotLE×talk 06:57, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I wouldn't call myself an Intuitionist, I am more a Formalist and Embodied Mind believer (I really enjoyed Where Mathematics Comes From). I don't see them as conflicting; Embodied Mind specifies "what" we study, Formalism explains "how". To be more precise, Formalism is the rules of the game akin to the rules of Chess, but the human mind doesn't work by simply manipulating rules, it uses intuitions derived from embodied mind principles that apply because of the choice of objects studied. The rules of Formalism exist primarily as a low-level "check" that can be applied selectively. Ideogram 07:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Music

And music isn't just about "taste"; what Shoenberg did wasn't make music that was "nicer to listen to" than Mozart, it was about discovery and accumulated knowledge. As far as relaxation goes, I listen to rock music and prove that there are only five perfect solids (while eating organic tomatos)... that's a matter of taste, sure, but I know what else has been done in the fields. LotLE×talk 02:03, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

You are certainly free to assert that novelty equals progress (I've heard that argument before) but it doesn't change the fact that John Cage represents novelty which most people don't consider progress. This is why modern classical music and modern art have lost their audience and are generally considered ridiculous.

Here you completely lose me again. I don't think I've used the terms "novelty" or "progress". I indeed don't think the terms are coextensional, though they do have a certain family resemblance. Neither do I think that any of science, mathematics, music, painting, chess, literature, philosophy are simply characterizable by either term (or at least not in any particularly deep sense: obviously "new stuff happens" in all those areas). I don't think that either novelty or progress mean the same thing as "market share" (in neither music nor mathematics).

I'm not talking about "market share" either. The point is that even "experts" can't agree on whether John Cage's work is better than Bach's work. Ideogram 04:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Please define how music has progressed in the view of Deaf people. Ideogram 02:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Why? Is that supposed to be some kind of rhetorical refutation, or something? Obviously, deaf people don't listen to music, at least not if completely deaf. Some of them may understand innovation in musical forms, though I suspect that's not an area that a lot of deaf people study. And blind people probably pay less attention to visual arts. And the 99.9% of non-mathematicians in the world really have no idea about anything that's happen in mathematics in the last several hundred years. And a similarly small number of people know anything about advancements or changes in cosmology, or genetics, or physical chemistry, or... Most hearing people don't understand Cecil Taylor either, for that matter. LotLE×talk 03:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I thought you might make that point. My point has nothing to do with numbers. As above, even experts disagree on fundamentals about music, or agree that they are undecidable. Really, the question is quite simple: Is John Cage's work better than Bach's work or not? The question is unanswerable. Ideogram 04:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Discontinuities

The conceptual break between Fermat and Hilbert was also hardly just a matter of linear progress. Axiomitization, and especially Cantor's set theory, represented real paradigm shifts. Hilbert could certainly still have done number theory if he wanted to (just like Duchamp could have painted classically), but he chose something different. But someone like Erdos, even later than Hilbert, sort of continued more in Fermat's style (obviously, Erdos was perfectly aware of all the new things too, but there's definitely a difference between Erdos fondness for elementary proofs and the style of many of his contemporaries). LotLE×talk 07:52, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I shouldn't have said linear. Maybe monotonic. The point is that the mathematics and science of today is inarguably better than it was before, and it keeps getting better. Artistic and cultural innovation goes through fads where different influences and priorities are emphasized, making it difficult to assess objectively which style is better. Ideogram 23:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I definitely don't agree at all. Math and science have accumulated techniques. So have painting and music. All are more-or-less monotonic over the last five hundred years in that there are no real "lost secrets" of some earlier producers.

Your perspective is Western. If you compare Western culture and Chinese culture it is clear that Chinese painting and music have long traditions and accumulated developments that are generally not part of Western painting and music. You would be hard pressed to argue that Western painting and music represent significant advances over Chinese painting and music, but we have plenty of evidence that present-day mathematics and science is superior to traditional Chinese mathematics and science.

And all of them go through fads and vacillating preferences.

Do you consider Einstein's theory of Relativity a fad? Do you anticipate that someday Newton's theory will be considered more accurate? Please note I'm not saying Newton's theory is less useful, but it is universally agreed that Einstein's theory is more accurate.

Actually, along with all the others, chess is an art/science that has followed a similar course. While I could not begin to hold a candle to Morphy, real chess players (IMs and GMs) know things now that Morphy did not that are "objectively right" (I'm sure Morphy, mysteriously transported through time, could learn quickly, of course). LotLE×talk 01:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Games and sports do have a kind of a metric, since the results of a contest are universally agreed. The problem with them is that our only data comes from individual one-on-one contests. Constructing a ranking system from that is a well-studied problem fraught with well-known difficulties. It is perfectly possible, for instance, for A to usually beat B who usually beats C who usually beats A.

Oh... chess isn't about "winning". I mean, sure it is in a sense. But the advancements in chess are about the revalation of new truths in a much deeper sense. I'm just good enough a chess player to understand what that means, though not good enough to participate in that system of understanding. Then again, I also can't really contribute to algebraic topology, or musical composition, or quantum physics, or modern dance choreography, or lots of other areas where I know just enough to know that there is "something to know". LotLE×talk 03:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

But it is impossible to determine which of those deeper truths is more valid without testing over the board. Ideogram 04:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Please note also that my point is not about comparing individuals or styles or methods or techniques; I am not interested in arguing whethr Fermat is better or worse than Hilbert. I am asserting that theorems, once accepted, are almost never overturned, certainly not as a result of changing tastes; and scientific theories can only be superseded by appeal to experiments, also not as a result of changing tastes.

Well yeah... that's exactly like painting. Truths discovered in painting are almost never overturned. LotLE×talk 03:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Please give examples of Truths in painting that are universal. Popular ideas of Truths in painting that have been overturned are that it should be representational and that it should communicate human concerns. A lot of modern art is engaged in questioning Truths in painting that were once considered universal. Ideogram 04:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

The disciplines of painting and music are as old as human civilization, unlike the modern forms of mathematics and science which really have only existed for a few hundred years. Compared with respect to their lifetimes, you would have to be a cultural chauvinist to say that modern Western painting and music represent the pinnacle of achievement compared to their history and other cultures like the Chinese. On the other hand, I am confident that the development of mathematics and science will produce more universally accepted theorems and more accurate theories for thousands of years, assuming our civilization lasts that long. And even if it doesn't, if a future civilization or a civilization on another planet develops, their mathematical theorems and scientific theories will have to substantially agree with ours. Note that painting and music wouldn't even make sense to a species from another planet that doesn't have the senses of sight or hearing. That's the standard you have to live up to to assert Universal Truth. Ideogram 02:10, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the modern forms of painting and music are a bit newer than the modern forms of mathematics and science. But they're all of fairly similar age, and all have a fairly similar "pre-history" or "pre-modern history". There's also been a similar emergence of a "world culture" in all the areas. For example, I saw semi-locally a remarkable neo-Dadaist painter/sculptor named Huang Yong Ping who is a French artist of Chinese birth, and combines several cultural traditions. I also recently saw that Chinese born mathmaticians Cao Huaidong (now American) and Zhu Xiping rounded out the work of Russian Grigori Perelman in solving the French Poincaré conjecture. Of these, Huang is probably most distinctively Chinese, but all now work in a "world culture" environment.

Many worlds

The emergence of world culture is a simple result of globalization. There is no "interstellar culture" by which we can compare artistic forms across civilizations that have no contact. But mathematics and science can be compared across civilizations. Ideogram 04:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I think, FWIW, that the martians would be more interested in Earth painting than in Earth mathematics. We'll have to wait to see for sure. LotLE×talk 03:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Not if they don't have eyes. Ideogram 04:01, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

They have eyes. Any being with intelligence has eyes and hands, modulo a fairly loose meaning of those. For something to become cognitively sophisticated, it would need to make fine-tuned sensory judgements about the world, and be able to manipulate it at a pretty fine level. Eyes and hands, in other words. Hands could be made in lots of ways... but sensing EM radition is probably going to be required on any habitable planet. For intelligence, that is, of course, bacteria do very well with much less; but they're equally disinterested in painting and mathematics.... well, apparently some of them are fond of oil paint, but it's probably not exactly an aesthetic judgement :-)). LotLE×talk 04:23, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I really don't think you can "prove" that intelligence requires eyes. Blind people don't have any problems with brain development. Ideogram 04:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Ummm... I don't think I can prove what characteristics hypothetical space aliens have either :-). Did you think I thought that? Ever since I started wearing the tinfoil hat, I haven't let the aliens beam their videos into my brain. I'm sure writing science fiction is fun, so you can write a story about the race of blind people... my own common sense, such as it is, suggests that a species without something a lot like sight could not develop intelligence. Individual blind people, of course, can be quite smart, but I don't think a society of blind people could support themselves at a high level. Of course, lots of approaches to "sight" might work... echolocation, detecting EM frequencies other than visual light, etc. LotLE×talk 07:03, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

You do seem quite certain of yourself when you claim alien intelligences have eyes. How can you be so sure if you can't prove it? History is filled with people who were quite sure of themselves who were later proven wrong. Even Einstein was wrong when he said "God does not play dice with the universe".

Are you serious?! Are you really trying to have a debate about the sense organs of aliens? My jaw drops here. No, as I've said, I really don't have any personal knowledge of body organization of space aliens. Nor of whether any exist at all. Demanding proof of this sort of thing just mind-bogglingly misses the level of such a conversation (I think it's not entirely nonsensical to think about what evolution could and couldn't produce in exobiology; but such a conversation can't involve demanding "proof" of how the critters really are).... it is fine not to talk about if you wish not to. LotLE×talk 07:42, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Look, I'm going to take a little risk and be blunt right back at you. YOU brought it up. I was pointing out the possibility was open. We wouldn't be having this debate if you didn't try to support your position with such a statement. I don't know what you think the level of this conversation is, but you really can't blame ME for wanting to disagree with your assertion. And so far I've always been willing to talk about anything you were willing to talk about. Ideogram 07:55, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I notice you haven't read the Peter Wegner paper Allan McInnes suggests over at the Programming language talk page... Wegner revisits this. He thinks a post-Church-Turing computational model can prove Einstein right over Bohr and Bell :-). (Hidden variables versus hidden interactions)... Wegner sees into the mind of god, it turns out. :-).

I think it's a little early to make such an assertion. Ideogram 07:55, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean this? I'll read it forthwith. Ideogram 08:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I was about to make the point about different kinds of sight. How would Truths developed in painting generalize to a species that used echolocation, or compound eyes? Are there any Truths in visual arts that would have to be modified for a species that perceives different wavelengths or has different pigments in their eyes?

You still haven't given me a single example of a Universal Truth in painting. Ideogram 07:26, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the word "truth" means what you think it does. You also cannot present any "universal truth" in mathematics, nor in any science, not in any sense that is both non-trivial and propositional. Yes, I know that "2+2=4", which is an uninteresting true proposition. I also know a variety of banally true propositions about shape, representation, contrast and form, all of which are too embarassingly flat-footed to bother stating. Truths in any intersting way is not propositional, and that's probably even more true of sciences than of arts. One might contrast episteme, nous, and sophia here, but even that is rather too simplistic. LotLE×talk 07:42, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

(outdenting) I really don't understand what you mean by asserting that "truth" doesn't mean what I think it does. I admitted from the very start that I was twisting the definition from the Classical (and popular) Definition. In other words, I GAVE you my definition and if you want to assert it's not the popular definition, that's something I already admitted. Surely you don't think the term Truth has some objective meaning that all users of the term must abide by.

An example of a non-trivial Truth in mathematics is that the square root of 2 is irrational. This was sufficiently interesting that it shook the world of the Ptolemaists, and they couldn't prove it False so they just suppressed it. I don't know what you mean by a "propositional" truth, but I suspect theories in science are not propositional, and I don't see why they have to be. QED is sufficiently accurate to make predictions to dozens of decimal places that can be confirmed and have been confirmed by any number of experiments. To say that is not interesting or True would be astounding. Ideogram 08:02, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

The Truth Schtick

Classical Truth is by definition absolute and unconditional.

Mathematics is a game we play where Truth itself is not really defined; it is assumed for or assigned to some statements, axioms, and then by applying certain rules we can derive new statements, theorems, that must also be True. Mathematical Truth is certainly absolute; a theorem can only be True or False, even if it is unprovable. However, the Truth value of a theorem depends on the set of axioms it was derived from, and therefore is not unconditional. The cases of non-Euclidean geometry and the Axiom of Choice show that different sets of axioms can give rise to conflicting bodies of theorems. The fact that Mathematical Truth is not unconditional means that two theorems based on different sets of axioms may contradict each other and yet be equally True. This is impossible in Classical Truth.

Science doesn't really define Truth either, but it assumes that experiments (for some suitable definition of experiments) are the final arbiter of Truth. Whether a statement is True or not is determined by how well it agrees with experiment. Since we all live in the same physical universe, Scientific Truth is unconditional. But Scientific Truth is not absolute. A scientific statement can be proven False but we can only approach Truth by successive approximation; each confirming experiment adds to our Truth "confidence level", but no scientific statement can be absolutely True.

So we see that Mathematics and Science each relax one of the constraints in the Classical definition of Truth. I believe it is a general principle that fundamental progress requires adjustments to our most basic definitions, just as phlogiston and caloric had to be replaced with energy and entropy to create the science of thermodynamics.

But why is a working definition of Truth so important? Consider the classic case of two proponents of opposing views having a debate. How is an independent observer to decide which is correct? In e.g. politics, the result is determined by rhetorical ability and the prejudices of the observer. This method clearly yields different results for different observers. What Truth is, essentially, is a statement about objectivity. If it is True for me it should also be True for you.

Mathematical Truth reduces questions about the Truth of many theorems to assumptions of the Truth of a small set of axioms. If all observers agree that the small set of axioms are True, then they all must also agree that entire body of derived theorems is True.

Scientific Truth reduces questions about the Truth of theories to the results of experiments that, properly defined, must yield the same results regardless of which observer performs the experiment. Any theory confirmed by these experiments must be equally True for all observers.

These working definitions of Truth provide a metric (in the mathematical sense) for the comparison of bodies of statements, theorems in math, theories in science. This is a semi-objective way to determine which of two competing views is True. Note that the nature of the relaxed constraints from the definition of Classical Truth yields unusual behavior: in Mathematical Truth two theorems may be incommensurable because they come from different axiomatic systems and cannot be compared; in Scientific Truth one theory may be "more" or "less" True than another.

Because a working definition of Truth provides a metric, it makes progress possible. We can all agree on which of two views is better, and move on to better and better views. This is not possible in e.g. religion, where believers of different faiths have been killing each other since the dawn of time.

Note that the definition of Classical Truth I have given only has two features. This raises the question, is it possible for a third discipline to come along with a new working definition of Truth?

Let us consider what it means for a statement to be True. If the statement "It is raining" is True, we might accurately predict that we will get wet. This is applying Scientific Truth to predict the results of an experiment. We might also issue the statement "You should take your umbrella (if you don't want to get wet)". This is applying Mathematical Truth to derive a new True statement from a given True statement (and it is conditional as well). So we see in a general sense that there are two things we can derive from a True statement, a prediction of the results of an experiment (an experience) or another True statement. As far as I can tell, these are the only two things we can derive from a True statement, which correspond to the working definitions of Truth in Mathematics and Science. I cannot even imagine what else you could do with a True statement that could form the basis of a new working definition of Truth.

By this reasoning Mathematics and Science are the only disciplines we have that will ever make real progress.

Intellectual Property

I see you have strong views on Intellectual Property. I have often thought that Intellectual Property should be completely abolished. The Founding Fathers all knew that ideas could not be property. The rationale for a Patent System was utilitarian; it was believed that by allowing inventors to profit from their work, more inventions would be encouraged. But as far as I can tell this is simply an assumption that sounds reasonable but has never been tested in any systematic way. The history of technology is filled with inventors who never profited from their useful inventions. This is partly because Patent Rights can be bought and sold, so inventors were easily cheated, and partly due to outright fraud. In the end I believe that creative people must be creative and are not motivated by money.

From reading your User page I suspect I am preaching to the choir here, which means this conversation will probably not be intellectually profitable for either of us. Perhaps it would be better to consider criticism of a "moderate" nature of this absolutist position.

The first I can think of is, if we abolish Intellectual Property, the Developed World will have nothing to export. It is a pretty tough decision to put your morals ahead of your stomach.

Oh, I reckon I'll keep eating. In any case, I make a fairly good living as a writer, and release nearly everything I write to the public domain. The cases where I do not do so aren't because I desire some mixed system of retained copyrights myself, but simply because I make compromises with publishers or employers to retain copyrights. But even stuff that I'm obligated to retain copyright on, I release on extremely liberal terms, and without financial obligation from readers (like my freely downloadable book). All of "my" software is also released to the public domain; but I do take jobs writing software on spec, which unfortunately often remains closed (but even then, I always urge my employers to release it). LotLE×talk 07:28, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Another criticism is that there is a long road between invention and commercialization; inventors love to create but it is hard to motivate them to address needs they don't consider important. In a capitalist society, the way to get something done that no one really wants to do is to pay money for it. From this perspective the purpose of Intellectual Property is not to reward the initial creators (who would do what they're doing anyway) but to motivate the Bill Gates's of the world to take those inventions and adapt them to the needs of those who can't create for themselves but have money.

We see this in the Desktop Linux vs. Windows wars. In my opinion Linux will never be ready for the Desktop because it's not an interesting problem. Linux developers love and understand computers and work on Linux to solve their own needs. The classic example of a new Desktop user is a Grandmother who doesn't know where the on switch is. Why would a Linux developer spend his valuable free time solving someone else's needs? There are only two possible motivations, love and money. You may love your grandmother and administer her system for her but you don't love everyone's grandmother so you aren't going to develop a system that doesn't need administration. As for money, well that's what Bill Gates is good at. He does what it takes to get people's money. Of course, as a businessman he will try to do the minimum necessary to get the most money, but that's capitalism.

Ok I'm kind of tired so I'll stop here. I'll probably be back unless you tell me not to :-). Ideogram 07:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

editing style

I've been using the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle and I didn't even know it!  :-) Ideogram 12:02, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

European Graduate School

Hello Lulu! I apologize for having said you were a member of the EGS, actually it seems I confused you with User:Lotu5. Sorry... Santa Sangre 17:53, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, there's nothing wrong with being affiliated with that school, per se. But your endless repetition of the claim, as if it was some sort of defense of your bad-faith AfD nomination, was quite peculiar.

I'm also unaffiliated with with Yale University (I've been to the campus two or three times though... it really does exist). And I'm unaffiliated with Black Mountain College (perhaps partially because it was dissolved before I was born). And I'm even unaffiliated with Holyoke Community College, a minor school I've used as an example simply because I drive by it occasionally, and it has a WP article. There would be nothing wrong with having any of those affiliations either, I just don't happen to have them.

Oh well, at least if anyone does another bad-faith nomination in the future, I'm pretty confident it will be speedily kept, given these last two nearly unanimous keep votes (this latest one will be something like 20 keep/1 delete, with most keeps strong or speedy). These bad-faith campaigns certainly are annoying though. LotLE×talk 18:14, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

That's awfully grumpy of you, Lulu, to respond to an apology with an accusation of bad faith. Ideogram 18:24, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Bad faith makes me grumpy (but then, so do lots of other things; I confess it's an easy state for me to reach). Santa Sangre has this weird crusade going on against this minor private school in Switzerland (but EGS looks somewhat interesting, graduate-only in some specialized humanities/arts fields). Somewhere in that effort, s/he decided that if I were defending keeping the article it must be because I was a "spammer" or "agent" of the school (though oddly, at other times, s/he denies the school exists at all, but is simply a hoax). The "apology" rings a little thin to me in the context of a crusade that doesn't seem to have actually slowed down. LotLE×talk 18:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't really care that much. Just wanted to give you a hard time :-). Ideogram 18:41, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

E-mail

E-mail for you. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:23, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

As requested

Take care. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:11, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

I have a suggestion for you. How about instead of living here in the USA where you **** and complain about our system, you move to Cuba. I mean it. After all, don't you believe Castro has built the world's greatest democracy? I mean, he said it himself! Then you can report back to us all the wonders of Cuba. Maybe you can convince Uncle Fidel not to jails his f**s. Maybe you can turn him into one too. This is just a friendly suggestion. Kimil 20:12, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion. I'll keep it in mind the next time I contemplate a relocation. LotLE×talk 20:14, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

RE: Sadullah Khan

Hi. Thanks for letting me know. Cheers TigerShark 22:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

PL leader

Just wanted to compliment you on your recent work on the programming language leader. A few small tweaks, and you've made it read much better than it did before. Nice work! --Allan McInnes (talk) 18:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Btw. You're obviously a smart guy... I have a slightly unencyclopedic query over at Talk:Russell's paradox#An odd creature. But I thought you might have insight about this. It's really only my own curiosity, though if I get a good understanding, I'll probably create another easer egg for LoeWltcmittl. LotLE×talk 19:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Allan is the best. Ideogram 19:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

FAC noms

BTW it's not recommended to self-nominate two articles at the same time. Ideogram 23:23, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Also FAC noms are kept open as long as there is activity. If you want to keep them open, you need to keep responding. If you want to drop them, you can ignore them. (watchlisted) Ideogram 06:42, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Programming Languages

Actually, I think that the married bachelor is due to Aristotle, which should be enough fame for us. The problem with purple grass seemed to me that one could probably cultivate the stuff (and certainly could genetically engineer it), so the sentence is semantically and syntactically proper. In programming terms,

If color(grass) == purple

then

publish(Wikipedia)

End;

is perfectly sound. It just happens that we know of no current instance that will execute it. Many error recovery routines exist to cover vanishingly rare cases, yet are perfectly sound.

As for the fact that essential property is a bare stub, that can be fixed. Robert A.West (Talk) 04:27, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Ahoy there

Interested in this?: Population history of American indigenous peoples, I don't want to add to yer plate tho. --maxrspct in the mud 17:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Just watchlisted it. I'll look through history and talk page now. What concerns do you have in particular? LotLE×talk 18:30, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Churchill's position and responses over the 'blanket genocide' didn't seem to be present.. Both sides? --maxrspct in the mud 18:51, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the whole mention of Churchill seems wildly belabored for the article in which it occurs. His specific work might merit a sentence or two at most; but the whole digression into Churchill, his claims, his sources, disagreements, etc. seems to be the effort of our one-poney Pokey5945, huh? Given the hundreds or thousands of historians who have written about the matter, two paragraphs about Churchill is crazy.

Still, given the hostility some of the anti-Churchill folks have about me, I'd rather you fixed that particular thing than that I did. My own opinion is that the whole thing merits maybe: "Churchill claims <blah>; many other scholars looking at the same incident disagree". This is the wrong article for all the he-said/she-said stuff. LotLE×talk 19:03, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I happened to see this article mentioned here. It looks like a pretty good one to me, though I am no expert. I am curious, though, which countries teach the deliberate-extermination theory. (Although I have to admit that careers like George Armstrong Custer do little to refute that idea.) Robert A.West (Talk) 00:51, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite

If you have time, I'd really appreciate comments and suggestions concerning the new draft of the capitalism article, particularly from the standpoint of a specialist in political theory. [1] Regards. 172 | Talk 07:47, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I've watchlisted it. I'll take a closer look at the history. My initial fear, of course, is that given the contentious topic, it will be a huge labor to make the article good, and such effort will be violently reverted by various partisans. Managing contention on "little topics" is hard enough... but it strikes me as that much harder on "big topics" (all I mean in the rough distinction is topics are "big" if everyone thinks they know something about it, and want to opine). Y'know if I were to start, and edit, The Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, a few people might feel strongly... but most people would have no idea what it was about. Safety in obscurity (well... as obscure as one of the top-10 works in the history of economics can be; which apparently enough not to have an article yet).

FWIW, I definitely think your rewrite looks a hell of a lot better than what was there before.... I'll watch how it holds up. LotLE×talk 07:56, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply! I supsect that the partisans will not be as big of a problem on the article as in the past. The most active partisan, according to the page history statistics search for "capitalism", has just been blocked indefinatley. [2] I have my worries about a couple of other editors; but I was eventually able to work with at least one of them after rewriting the socialism article. I look forward to your revisions and comments. 172 | Talk 08:07, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes

Thanks for the help and the feedback! I thought the footnotes used in the article were standard. If I was mistaken, thanks for fixing them. 172 | Talk 17:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again for the feedback. I'll work on changing the references according to your advice as soon as some of the more contentious stuff is out of the way. By the way, if you want to relay any additional questions, comments, and concerns about the new draft directly through me, without dealing with the 'Marxists under every bed' silliness of the article talk page, please feel free to post any notes on User talk:172/Capitalism or any revisions to User:172/Capitalism, the sandbox I used to start the rewrite. 172 | Talk 21:04, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah... I haven't gone back to try that in the middle of all the edit warring. There's no point in getting caught between a reversion. It's pretty much as I originally feared when you asked for my input. Ultramarine has pretty much disregarded any concern with NPOV, and just wants to put in an editorial schtick advancing all the beliefs of the Heritage Foundation or whatever, regardless of their irrelavance to the specific article.

On a lot of articles lately, a thing that has bothered me is a sort of fetishism about WP:V. This false reasoning supposes that simply because some material is verifiable (and, of course, supports the opinion of that particular editor), it must be included in an article. The fact the material isn't actually topical, or is undue weight, or is badly written, is then treated as irrelevant by these editors. I'm almost thinking of trying to edit WP:NOT to include a section like "Wikipedia is not a photocopier". LotLE×talk 21:22, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Well-stated. The mess on the Coleman article was another example of that "fetishism." When I have the time, I bet it'll be a good idea to expand Wikipedia:Relevance, and then promote the expanded guidelines though a chanel like Wikipedia:Forum for encyclopedic standards. 172 | Talk 22:15, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, actually the Coleman thing was a good example of that. I saw your solicitation for comments on another editor's talk page, which is what attracted me to opine over there. I had never edited, or even read, Coleman's article before that. The editors who gave that long list of every newspaper that ever syndicated the slight human-interest story about Coleman staffers was a perfect example of verification-fetishism. One of the many cases where simply being true and citable doesn't necessarily mean a thing is notable (for a given article).... I thought over there that the spin-off article on "congressional staffer edits" (or whatever the exact title) was a good approach. Not that it's the most essential topic to have an article on at all, but the topic is at least past the threshhold for notability, and within that article, the details make sense. LotLE×talk 00:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I thought I sent you one of the Coleman notes. I guess I didn't get around to finishing my "spamming"... I like they way you described the matter above. I'm tempted to insert a variant of your remark in Wikipedia:Relevance or Wikipedia:Notability. We definately need to clarify notability guidelines in the Wikipedia content policy pages. 172 | Talk 00:44, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure where this issue best belongs. Most of the guidelines and policies have more to do with whether an article as a whole should exist. For example, WP:NOT has a good discussion of topics (how-to guides, random lists, etc) that may be factual and verifiable, but aren't good article topics. The concern I have with "verification-fetishism" is more about content within articles that are definitely notable as general topics. Even WP:NPOV#Undue weight isn't really precisely targetted to the concern I have, though it's on the right track. LotLE×talk 00:52, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Edit conflict

Pooh=pooh...I had just finished a copyedit, and went to hit save and didn't want to mess up your footnotes, which I didn't due to edit conflict...I'll try again when the article gets more settled.--MONGO 06:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Yah...just some fixes with a few typos...are we strivng for an FA...I can help, but basically just with fact checking and NPOV...as well as copyediting.--MONGO 06:45, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, FAC seems pretty ambitious as a goal. I'm not sure I see the article becoming stable enough for that. It would be nice, sure. But it would mean that no more POV-warriors agressively edit for a good while (or at least not so much). LotLE×talk 06:48, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, probably right...there is a huge amount of commentary on the talk page...I'll review our discussion and see in what fashion I can add commentary that might be helpful. Capitalism sucks...but did you see that Warren Buffett gave 30 billion to the Gates foundation[3]...for pete's sake... I live just down the street from him...you'd think he could at least throw one bag of hundreds at me...cheapskate. Ha.--MONGO 06:59, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I heard that Buffett actually lives in a pretty modest neighborhood. Is it so, if you actually know specifically where he lives? LotLE×talk 07:06, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but I don't think he is there more than 20% of the time...I would rank his house as lower wealthy class...would probably sell in this market for 500,000...equal to about 1.2 million in Hartford CT...about 4 miles from me...I'm in the slums! No, just kidding...but considering his wealth, he lives well below his means...rumour has it that his wife and him lived apart, though never divorced and remained close, but that she moved out after an argument over the need for new draperies...but that's the myth of course. I understand that Buffett bought his first house in cash as a teenager, before he could even drive. My understanding is he is fairly down to earth and his motto has always been to never buy anything on credit.--MONGO 07:42, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Coulter

I think you misread the vote, I almost did myself. The the proposal is to change "civil rights advocate" to "former litigator with the 'nonprofit public interest law firm' Center For Individual Rights". Check out my comment. I do think that it could be argued that such information should go later on the in the article, but I personally don't see the intro as bloated as it stands. Haizum 08:07, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[4] We have to accept this as credible. Haizum 08:19, 27 June 2006 (UTC)\

Why? Normally hightly partisan organizations aren't the best source for characterizations of themselves. LotLE×talk

1. You could say that about any organization. 2. I don't see you complaining at Center for Individual Rights, or any other self-citing article for that matter -- just the Coulter page. Haizum 09:07, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Citing mission statements I think is the best way to go, as the description of a group is always heavily subjective... why quote another source which will always be biased when we can just quote them directly? --kizzle 09:10, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

If you cite a controversial mission statement, you should say, "According to their mission statement, Flaz Blam is ...". But as long as it's noted that an organization is the source of its own characterization, that seems fine. LotLE×talk 15:55, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I really don't care that much (I was asked to contribue), but if you accept the CIR as credible and you don't want Coulter called a "civil rights advocate", then you pretty much have to vote the other way. Otherwise you're saying you don't even want the part about her working for the CIR mentioned...which isn't part of the poll. Haizum 08:22, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

What other way do you think I should vote? I indeed think Coulter's work for CIR should be mentioned, and I said as much in my comment. I just don't think CIR should be mischaracterized in the sentence that mentions her work for them. I don't really care either way whether "Coulter worked for CIR" is in the lead or later; but I certainly don't want the proposed sentence anywhere in the article. LotLE×talk 08:32, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

From Public interest: "While nearly everyone claims that aiding the common well-being or general welfare is positive, there is little, if any, consensus on what exactly constitutes the public interest." So, it appears that your objection to "nonprofit public interest law firm" is subjective, which is fine, but I wouldn't bother to mention it in the poll. Haizum 09:13, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

If your position is simply, "keep it out of the intro", I'd just leave it at that. It's a perfectly reasonable position btw; she hasn't worked for the CIR for quite some time. Haizum 08:28, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Echo Haizum, voting to exclude from the intro is valid IMHO, but if so we should mention her tenure at CIR briefly in her bio, as long as it's not "civil rights advocate", yeesh. --kizzle 08:41, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Capitalism

I protected the article, as you know, before I saw your post about Ultramarine at 3rr...I have gotten Ultramarine to agree to leave the article alone for at least a day and am asking you to do the same. Ultrmarine claims at 3RR that you are over or close to 3RR yourself...so, just don't edit the article for a day...take it all to the discussion pages...see..I told you...I'd make everyone mutually unhappy!--MONGO 12:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. I was careful to avoid actually 3RR'ing myself; though I confess that being one shy of it isn't necessarily best behavior. But I'll stay about from Capitalism today. LotLE×talk 15:53, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if this edit helps in the short-term. [5] It'll give Ultramarine a pretext for removing the content altogether. I have lots of experience dealing with Ultramarine. I'm convinced that Ultramarine is not working in good faith, and will exploit any possible excuse to mess with the article. 172 | Talk 20:54, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid that's just what I'd say of your edit. I tried inserting the pretty reasonable compromise proposed by Vision Thing. Since Vision Thing is otherwise sympathetic to Ultramarine, using something close to her/his version seemed like a way to smooth the conflict. But then you reverted my efforts to the fairly bad semi-compromise that was there a bit earlier. I don't mind your version after my simplification: but it's really quite important that we say "Thinkers have emphasized..." (or similar) rather than "Defined in many...". The latter is just sickeningly "meta" in its excess of reflexivity.

Btw, I pretty much am certain that SneakyTodd is a sockpuppet. I'm not sure of whom, for certain... but both the username and edit history make it pretty clear. LotLE×talk 21:06, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I revised strategies and inserted Slrubenstein's proposal... Vision Thing's intro started off with an excessively restrictive definition implying that capitalism requires free markets and free market determination of the price of money. That'd rule out a lot of economies, especially before the past couple of decades, that economic historians have described as capitalist. Regarding SneeakTood, I bet he's a sockpuppet of User:RJII. I'm considering requesting a sockpuppet check on WP:ANI, but I don't have time at the moment, having to log off the computer soon. 172 | Talk 21:12, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Vision Thing's, even with the problem you observe, is much better. Slrubenstein's later proposal is better than his earlier one with the bullets. But the bullets are yucky. And moreover, the version you inserted completely failed to include the "critique" element that both later prose suggestions included. I'm definitely not behind your latest edit... and I'm quite certain it will lead to much more pointless edit warring. LotLE×talk 22:07, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I have been willing to compromise with less than the best versions of particular sections-- anything to get the page to stabilize without deteriorating too dramatically. At this stage, please don't assume I'm strongly committed to any of the particular changes I make to the article... In a few days, I expect, Ultramarine will scale back his activity on the article and go back to his much longer-running edit war on democratic peace theory. Then I think we'll be able to make much more progress on the aritcle. 172 | Talk 07:50, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Not to worry. The lead stuff sorted itself out well enough. Your use of Slrubenstein's prose-style introduction works, modulo a little tweaking since then. We actually seem to be doing OK; I'm surprised how well, actually. Ultramarine has backed off the nonsense, at least for now. Vision Thing is tilting slightly in the nonsense direction, but nothing like the absurd agressiveness about it. Btw. Not important, but you use a male pronoun for Ultramarine... I could have sworn I saw him/her use a female pronoun of him/herself on a different article discussion. Am I remembering wrong, or are you just making a guess? LotLE×talk 07:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I just assumed to use the male pronoun because other editors have been doing so. I could have sworn I saw him/her use a female pronoun of him/herself on a different article discussion. The same happened with Libertas, who was generally described with a male pronoun by other editors at first. Maybe you're thinking of Libertas? 172 | Talk 08:18, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm definitely not thinking of Libertas, whom I've never heard of.

Ultramarine actually did some work... well, good is going too far. S/he was on the "right side" at the article Race and intelligence. At that article, that I've long since given up trying to keep on my watchlist, the main editors are a mixture of naive scientistic types and outright white supremacists. Those who are merely naive—several of them things like biology grad students—are wide-eyed innocents who are sways by the fact that folks like Rushton and Jensen use these fancy looking presentation of numbers and statistics. The fact the data is fabricated and falsified doesn't really seem to matter to them. Of course, I think those folks are pretty willing to believe some pretty ugly things, but they're a bit different than the outright neo-Nazis who also show up there.

It turns out that Ultramarine, despite what one might think given her/his Heritage Foundation stuff, is quite opposed to the racialist stuff. S/he has edited that, and it's been to get rid of the garbage... but, of course, it's quite scattershod and disruptive. S/he will delete stuff that isn't any actual problem because it reminds her of the stuff that is. And s/he'll put all sorts of tags on the article that are mostly just disruption rather than improving things. And of course, the 5000 word rants on the talk page. So I'm actually pretty familiar with her/his editing style. That was what I had seen first, so I was surprised to learn about the neo-con/sado-moneterist spin; the left wing certainly has its share of ranters too, and based on the race thing only, I figured s/he was the latter. But then I saw her disruption on Cuba at a later time, and that was what you'd expect. LotLE×talk 08:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[6] Agreed. Still, I think just one off topic paragraph is worth the price of calming him down, especially as he is showing himself to be a more compromising character than Ultramarine. 172 | Talk 07:55, 30 June 2006 (UTC)