Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 September 13

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September 13

Looking for sources on Halford Mackinder influence ove Nazi policies

In some articles, like Halford_Mackinder#Influence_on_Nazi_strategy, there's a claim that Nazi "Drive to The East" and/or Heartland Theory policy was influenced by Mackinder's The Geographical Pivot of History. There are no sources. Can anyone lend a hand? Is it a viable claim, or should all this articles put with the hideous "citation needed"? אילן שמעוני (talk) 00:08, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd want to see a fantastically good citation for anything like that, given that Hitler wrote an extremely detailed book explaining exactly what his thinking was. ("The right to possess soil can become a duty if without extension of its soil a great nation seems doomed to destruction. And so we National Socialists consciously draw a line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre-War period. We take up where we broke off six hundred years ago. We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and turn our gaze toward the land in the east. At long last we break of the colonial and commercial policy of the pre-War period and shift to the soil policy of the future."—TL;DR version, "We need to conquer someone and our eastern neighbours are less well-equipped to fight back"; he goes into greater detail about why Russia will be easier to beat than the Western powers, which can be summarized as "Stalin's purges have weakened the military and damaged morale" and "the high Jewish population has weakened the sense of national unity".) "Greater Germany" as a concept existed long before Hitler ("From the Meuse to the Memel, From the Adige to the Belt" was written in 1841). ‑ iridescent 00:26, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

• The parallel is imperfect: there were Germans living on or near the banks of those four waters (though not a German state encompassing them); Hitler meant to plant Germans where they did not already exist. —Tamfang (talk) 20:28, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Communism

Do communist governments and communist parties nowadays still believe in communism? If not, then what do they believe in?

Desklin (talk) 04:54, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Marxism itself isn't in practice in most countries, even those that claim to be communist. There are very few countries that even claim communism as a form of governance; of those that do, the People's Republic of China has a market economy with strong government controls, very little of its policies are in line with any classic "communist" ideals. North Korea is nominally communist, but really practices a form of personality-based dictatorship known as Juche. The only state left I can think of off the top of my head which actually attempts to be communist is Cuba. --Jayron32 05:07, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Of course communist parties believe in communism, like anarchist parties believe in anarchism, like monarchist parties believe in monarchism, etc. Communism is one of the possible alternatives to the "there is no alternative" kind of "brave-new-world" we are supposed to live in forever without a chance to ever progress towards more equality before the law, more education equality, etc etc etc, social equality. They believe there have always been attempts throughout the history of humanity, to find a better way to organize society, than the basic "law of the jungle". Communism is one of these attempts. Akseli9 (talk) 08:08, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Albania used to be communist. Has the ideology changed? 80.43.196.11 (talk) 15:30, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Er, yes, since 1990 with the first free elections held in 1991. You may recall that Eastern Europe underwent certain political changes after that business in Berlin with a wall being knocked down? Other than Cuba, the only internationally-recognised country that still has a government which could be considered communist is Vietnam; China, Laos and North Korea are all nominally still communist but bear little resemblance to anything Marx, Lenin or Mao would recognise. Until recently, Guyana had a democratically-elected communist government as well. ‑ iridescent 16:17, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

In Italy, I believe that Milan used to have a communist mayor, and the communists were strong in local government. Is that still the case in any democratic countries today? 80.43.196.11 (talk) 16:58, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

European countries with at least one (pink) or more (red) hard-left representative in the European Parliament

I believe you're thinking of Bologna, which had communist local government between 1945 and 1999. There are quite a few democratic countries in which the Communist Party or equivalent is still a significant electoral force; Die Linke in Germany is probably the most important to Westerners, while in Cyprus and the Czech Republic communists are currently the main opposition party; they're also currently in power in Uruguay. If you go to List of anti-capitalist and communist parties with national parliamentary representation and click "Official ideology" to sort them, the ones listed as "Marxist-Leninist", "Eurocommunist" and "Trotskyist" are the genuine communist (as opposed to anti-austerity or redistributionist) parties. In terms of the EU (which isn't always a great guide, as the European Parliament is so toothless people tend to treat elections as a chance to vent by voting for protest parties so extremists of all kinds are over-represented), see the map to the right to get an idea of where the hard left is still active. ‑ iridescent 17:20, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Communism and Democracy

Why can't you have communism and democracy? Is there such a thing as democratic socialism? Is there such thing as social democracy?

Desklin (talk) 04:57, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

See Social democracy. Social democratic parties are major parties in many countries in Europe. Communism itself, as envisioned by Marx, is antithetical to liberal democracy in the sense that liberal democracy works to perpetuate the power structure of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat. Communism espouses dictatorship of the proletariat. Of course, that doesn't mean that no principles of communism or socialism have been adopted by liberal democracies, indeed most countries (even the U.S.) have some socialist policies. --Jayron32 05:02, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

See also: Nordic model. Education is key, see also (about Nordic model), Transparency [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(behavior)#Politics Akseli9 (talk) 08:24, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Jayron, one thing liberal democracies adopted hook, line and sinker is the social engineering aspect of Marxism (which stems from the 19th c. notion that society is like a machine) and was formalized by Cultural Marxism. But whereas the Russian communists tried to engineer society towards progress and the abolishment of hold-overs from pre-modernity in accordance with histmat, "liberals" use the same mechanisms to promote ethnic discord, globalization and ultimately a post-nation world and rule by MNCs. Cultural Marxism is the science of marketing an elitist agenda which has nothing whatsoever to do with progress, equality or even basic human well-being, to an unwilling populace. It is to histmat what market research is to psychology. Asmrulz (talk) 16:26, 13 September 2015 (UTC) Being liberal is being pro-mass immigration, pro-polygamy, pro-FGM and a host of other things while arguing that slavery should have been abolished gradually and slave-owners compensated for their losses, that's the essence of liberalism Asmrulz (talk) 16:43, 13 September 2015 (UTC) You're making this stuff up. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:39, 13 September 2015 (UTC) "No, I'm not" Asmrulz (talk) 17:49, 13 September 2015 (UTC) You're OK with all what's happening because you think you'll be one of those with a private helipad once the world turns into a global São Paolo. Asmrulz (talk) 18:13, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Paolo is an Italian word. In Brazil they speak Portuguese. Hence: São Paulo. 80.43.196.11 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:38, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

thanks, I'll take note Asmrulz (talk) 19:16, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Equality Before The Law

I've heard that, in reality, people are not equal before the law. Rich people can afford the best lawyers. Is that true?

Desklin (talk) 05:00, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd have to trust that it's true that you've heard it. I have no real way to know what you've heard except your word. --Jayron32 05:03, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Did you have to answer that? Can't you just write nothing if you have nothing to write? Or perhaps such an answer was to show an example of how playing with words is for lawyers, always an accepted way to not answer to the point? Akseli9 (talk) 07:47, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

First example that comes to mind: O. J. Simpson murder case. Akseli9 (talk) 07:47, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

The prosecutors bungled the case. Having good lawyers only means that it's more likely you'll expose prosecutorial incompetence. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:36, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to equality under the law, the rich and the poor are equally forbidden from sleeping under bridges, from dumpster diving, and from picking over harvested fields for leftovers. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:40, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, ghettoes in Western cities have long reverted to fist-law anyway. Maybe it's even better this way, considering the amount of societal resources it takes to legally and medically process every pub brawl or a dom.vio. incident and the underclass's propensity for these things <sarcasm>. India has a ridiculously low incarceration rate. Are Indians the perfect citizens or do the police just not care as long it's within the caste/family or to a member of a lower caste? Well, that's how it will be in the West soon, too, as the commodification of security progresses and as the nation-states cease their legal authority to ethnic courts and whatnot. Soon people will have to pay through their nose to have an orderly European trial. Asmrulz (talk) 17:25, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

• And from braiding hair without first paying for a permit, and (if foreign-born) from sweeping floors without an engineer's visa. —Tamfang (talk) 20:31, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Where can I find good arguments showing it is highly unlikely that we are created by nasty naturally-evolved 'gods'?

• Short version: Where can I find good arguments showing it is highly unlikely that we are created by one or more nasty naturally-evolved 'gods' (unlike the non-evolved 'supernatural' 'gods' that are the only ones seriously criticised in Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion?

• Longer Version: Can anybody please either provide me with, or tell me where I can find, good arguments to suggest that it is highly unlikely that we are created by a non-supernatural quasi-deity (or quasi-deities), one(s) who has/have presumably evolved somewhere in some place such as the Multiverse (if the Multiverse exists; or if not, then somewhere else) by some mechanism such as natural selection, who is/are presumably neither all-powerful nor all-knowing nor perfectly good, nor necessarily appropriate for us to worship, etc, and who for some reason has/have created us, quite likely as part of some kind of experiment running in some kind of computer simulation (with both the apparent age and size of our 'universe' thus probably being illusions, which, oversimplifying a little for the sake of brevity, would seemingly make them deceivers, while human suffering, if not also some kind of illusion-cum-apparent-deception, would seemingly make them at best indifferent to our suffering, and at worst make them sadists).

Please note that, unfortunately, in The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins seemingly barely touches on this question and concentrates on attacking the notion of a 'supernatural' or 'Skyhook' 'God'.

Further Details:

----------------

• All Richard Dawkins seemingly says in The God Delusion about the kind of non-supernatural quasi-deity that has interested/worried me for many years are such things as:

• chapter 1, page 33 (page numbers are from the 2009 paperback edition, though the version I actually read is an earlier version which may be slightly different) : "The Nobel-Prize-winning physicist (and atheist) Steven Weinberg ... is surely right that, if the word God is not to become completely useless, it should be used in the way people have generally used it, to denote a supernatural creator that is "appropriate for us to worship"

• chapter 1, page 36: "... As I continue to clarify the distinction between supernatural religion on the one hand and Einsteinian religion on the other, bear in mind that I am calling only SUPERNATURAL gods delusional."

• chapter 2, page 98-99: "...Science Fiction authors, such as Daniel F. Galouye in Counterfeit World, have even suggested (and I cannot think how to disprove it) that we are in a computer simulation, set up by some vastly superior civilisation. But the simulators themselves would have to come from somewhere. The laws of probability forbid all notions of their spontaneously appearing without simpler anticedents. They probably owe their existence to a (perhaps unfamiliar) version of Darwinian evolution: some sort of cumulatively ratcheting 'crane' as opposed to 'skyhook', to use Daniel Dennett's terminology. Skyhooks - including all gods - are magic spells. ..."

• chapter 4, page 185-6: "...Or maybe the elusive crane that cosmologists seek will be a version of Darwin's idea itself: either Smolin's one or something similar. Or maybe it will be the multiverse plus anthropic principle espoused by Martin Rees and others. It may even be a superhuman designer - but, if so, it will almost certainly NOT be a designer who just popped into existence, or who always existed. If (which I don't believe for a moment) our universe was designed, and a fortiori if the designer reads out thoughts and hands out omniscient advice, forgiveness and redemption, the designer himself must be the end product of some kind of cumulative escalotor or crane, perhaps a version of Darwinism in another Universe."

• I have already asked this question by e-mailing richarddawkins.net but got no reply, at least so far. I have also asked the question here at Yahoo answers, and received several answers, but none of them have proved satisfactory (as you can see there from the comments I've added in response to each answer).

Tlhslobus (talk) 08:16, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Maybe it's Dawkins who doesn't really exist. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:28, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

You say that this fairy tale worries you. Why? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 13:33, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, KägeTorä. I don't have time to list all the reasons why it worries me (and it may not be responsible to do so publicly because of some of the crazy things I can see some people doing if they were to know about and take seriously some of the reasons that worry me). But the 'what kind of sadists...?' question I mention below in my reply to Asmrulz will do as a kind of illustration (although it's actually among the lesser of my worries). Of course if somebody can give me logical arguments that convince me it really is a highly improbable 'fairy tale' then I would have no reason to worry. However merely asserting that it is a fairy-tale will not convince somebody like me who has spent many years failing to either find such arguments or work them out myself (and if there were simple and obvious arguments I expect that I'd already have found them in Dawkins's book or elsewhere). Tlhslobus (talk) 06:51, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

The argument (well, one of) against a natural (itself evolved by a Darwinian process) creator is the same as that against a supernatural (eternal, outside time and space etc) one - namely, that no creation was needed because the complexity in the world today didn't depend on some improbable, carefully engineered initial microstate, but that it is inherent in the laws of physics themselves (kind of like the simple rules of the Game of Life give rise to complex patterns.) The latter argument is explored e.g. in The Recursive Universe Asmrulz (talk) 15:33, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Asmrulz, especially for the book name. Can you suggest anymore? However I should perhaps mention that just because something isn't needed (and it seems to me pretty self-evident that no creator is needed) doesn't necessarily make it highly improbable - to mention just one of several reasons why it worries me, it seems to me that every one of the probably infinite number of different kinds of possible Universe-generating Laws of Physics (or 'Cranes' in the language of Dawkins and his philosopher friend Daniel Dennett) that could enable us to evolve could also enable more advanced beings to evolve and create us - indeed I would tend to expect that most models of a Universe/Multiverse should lead to both an infinite number of uncreated 'beings rather like us', and an infinite number of 'beings rather like us' created by the kind of methods I've just mentioned. And if we happen to be among the latter infinity we then have such problems as 'what kind of sadists would put us in a world as full of suffering as this one?'. Should you have arguments and/or book names that specifically answer that sort of problem, I'd much appreciate it. (I could also raise 'Copernican Principle' and other such objections to arguments based on notions like "THE laws of physics" and "THE universe" (or "THE world today", to use your expression) as opposed to "our currently observable sub-universe" and "our current least unreliable but known-to-be-at-least-partly-wrong-and-mutually-incompatible approximations (such as our mutually incompatible theories of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics) to whatever are the true laws of physics that apply at least in this part of our sub-universe at this time", but that can perhaps await another day.) Tlhslobus (talk) 05:33, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Tlhslobus, I agree, it's a sort of modal and/or plausibility argument. The Recursive Universe I got from the further-reading section in Reality: A Very Short Introduction. The argument was more about super-civilizations simulating (as opposed to creating) one another. But I wouldn't be surprised if many of the same arguments would work for your scenario, so check out Reality and its bibliography, too. I'm afraid I can't be more helpful than this, I'm one of those who read a lot but retain little and are endlessly fascinated by whatever they read last, as was the case with Poundstone's book :) Asmrulz (talk) 15:16, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Asmrulz - you've been very helpful. One hopefully final supplementary question. You started off by saying "The argument (well, one of)...". Does that mean you know of other arguments that might be useful in this context (of showing that evolved creators are highly unlikely), and that are not already covered in the references you've given me above (and that might not already be covered in the very useful references to the simulated reality debate given below by Ssscienccce and Paulscrawl)? If so, and if it's not too much hassle, a bit more on those lines might be helpful (but if it's too much hassle then please don't bother, as you've already been very helpful). Once again, thanks and regards, Tlhslobus (talk) 06:04, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Tlhslobus: no prob. I meant with the phrase that I suspect there might be other arguments, I'm just not aware of them Asmrulz (talk) 23:14, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that clarification, Asmrulz, and thanks again for all your help. Tlhslobus (talk) 23:10, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

The conventional assumption is that God pre-existed creation. How that would work is anyone's guess, but just trying to prove or disprove the existence of God is a futile exercise. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:33, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Baseball Bugs. I've no interest in the 'conventional God' (nor in what has been conventionally assumed about the said 'God'). As for existing 'before creation', that's rather easy - you and I are currently existing before the 'observable universes' that we will unwittingly create (and inhabit) next time we dream - and much the same is true of any evolved being that is capable of creating other kinds of virtual universes, such as those discussed in Simulated Reality.Tlhslobus (talk) 06:32, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

The conventional wisdom is that if God exists He is a mathematician. The answer to the question "Why are the laws of physics as they are?" usually given is that if they weren't we wouldn't be here. But as Fred Hoyle has pointed out, there is a lot more to it than that. The relationships that govern forces and masses are counterintuitive - not what we would expect. Again, if they weren't so there could be no life. Substances generally have greatest specific gravity as solids, but water is the exception. Its peculiar molecular structure means that it has the greatest density at about 37 degrees F. That's why ice forms a protective skin and stops a body of water from freezing solid, with disastrous consequences for life. As Hoyle observes, "It's a put - up job". Again, whatever people say it is impossible for life to come into being naturally - it's just too complicated. It was created once, miraculously. That's why we have no evidence of life elsewhere in the universe. There is no scientific explanation for all the miracles recorded in the Bible from turning the water into wine to the Resurrection. Neo - Darwinists talk about the blind watchmaker, but looking at the variety of life forms about and how superbly fit for purpose they are it is obvious there is a guiding purpose behind it all. 80.43.196.11 (talk) 18:23, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

80.43.196.11 (talk) is one of several London area IP sockpuppets of banned User:Vote (X) for Change

Thanks, 80.43.196.11. But as most unbelievers would say, there are plenty of possible explanations for such 'anthropic coincidences' that do not require a creator - in one of the above quotes, Dawkins mentions at least two such physical 'cranes' (the ideas of Martin Rees and those of Smolin), basically different variants of a Multiverse. However saying creator(s) are not necessary is not the same as saying they are highly unlikely (indeed almost all variants of a Multiverse seem logically to lead to the evolution of an infinite number of different kinds of creators - indeed in some ways we are some of those creators, in the sense that we unwittingly create (and inhabit) one kind of 'observable universe' every time we dream). Tlhslobus (talk) 06:23, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

There's no scientific explanation for the miracles in Harry Potter either, there's no such thing as "too complicated", and every species that didn't "fit together" dies. 24.57.54.196 (talk) 20:25, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Those who argue that natural evolution is "impossible" have really no comprehension of how long a million years is, let alone billions. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:43, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

The idea that the universe was created with a false history by a powerful deceiver is called omphalism. For some reason that redirects to "omphalos hypothesis", but it's not a (scientific) hypothesis: it can't be tested because it "predicts" that everything appears as though it were false. The article mostly talks about the god of Genesis, but the problem is the same regardless of the imagined nature of the creator. -- BenRG (talk) 02:36, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, BenRG. The modern version has nothing to do with Genesis or whether 'Adam' had a belly-button (omphalos in, I think, Greek) or other such fairy tales. It's called Simulated Reality (or 'Simulated Multiverse' when it's listed as one of Brian Greene's 9 types of Multiverse in our Multiverse article). Whether it (or anything else to do with Multiverses and/or the 'Cranes' of Dawkins and Dennett) is a testable scientific hypothesis is of very little interest to me - what I would like is some logical argument to convince me that it is highly improbable (and to say it's not testable by scientists tells me nothing about whether it's improbable or not). Tlhslobus (talk) 06:00, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

It is humans who invented the creation stories, across all cultures. They're not quite "false" histories, but more like "the best we could do at the time." Which, if you think about it, is the state of science. We don't "know" anything with absolute certainty. The best we can do is to cite available evidence. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:20, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

That isn't what I meant by false history. I meant fake fossilized cyanobacteria in rocks, fake incoming microwave radiation with subtle inhomogeneities consistent with the predictions of inflationary cosmology, and so on—evidence planted for no possible purpose but to mislead us about the history of the universe. -- BenRG (talk) 05:10, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I've heard some extremist creationists say that stuff. It's baloney. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:18, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Baseball Bugs. But it would be helpful if you could perhaps give us the logic underlying your assertion that it's baloney, preferably also letting people like Nick Bostrom know why his ideas about Simulated Reality are logically baloney, and also letting leading atheist thinkers like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett (the antithesis of creationists, let alone 'extreme creationists') know, so that the next edition of 'The God Delusion' can be improved with these useful logical insights that they mysteriously failed to notice up to now, thereby helping to create the current discussion. After all the whole point of this entire discussion is to try to show logically and convincingly that it is baloney, rather than merely asserting that it is. Tlhslobus (talk) 08:02, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, let's put it this way: If God deceives, then nothing we can observe can be trusted. However, if there is consistency in the observations, then we might suppose that, at worst, God is deceiving with consistency. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:20, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Baseball Bugs. I won't use the term 'God' - it carries too much confusing emotional baggage. If, perhaps as part of some experiment (or game, or whatever), our hypothetical creator(s) want(s) us at least sufficiently deceived to be uncertain whether we are created or not, then he/she/it/they presumably will make the deception sufficiently consistent to maintain our uncertainty. That's an argument for a deception being reasonably consistent, not for deception hypotheses being baloney. If the deception is reasonably consistent, then our pseudo-reality can probably be trusted in the short to medium term for most ordinary everyday purposes (and in any case in practice we probably have little choice except to work on that assumption most of the time, whether it's correct or not, and I don't want to go into possible exceptions - I mentioned in an earlier reply to somebody else that this might not be responsible - and it would also be very long to write). But as it happens others are coming up with good references for me to research - so thanks again for your time and efforts. Regards. Tlhslobus (talk) 05:43, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Some say that we may be living in a simulated reality. Bostrom even claims that, unless we're unlikely to reach a technology level in which we can create such simulations or if a comparable civilisation would likely not create a large number of such simulations, then we are probably living in one.

That would fit your description, created by naturally-evolved gods. Ssscienccce (talk) 06:52, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Ssscienccce. Another way of putting my question is 'Can anybody give me or point me to arguments that might convince me that it's almost certain that Nick Bostrom, among others, is wrong, (or, in other words, highly unlikely that he's right)?' Tlhslobus (talk) 07:10, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

An answerable Reference Desk question! You might try Are You a Sim? by Brian Weatherson. The Philosophical Quarterly Vol. 53, No. 212. (Jul., 2003), pp. 425-431. Register and read for free (not sure if PQ participates), or ask for on the Resource Exchange. Abstract:

Nick Bostrom argues that if we accept some plausible assumptions about how the future will unfold, we should believe we are probably not humans. The argument appeals crucially to an indifference principle whose content is unclear. I set out four possible interpretations of the principle, none of which can be used to support Bostrom's argument. On the first two interpretations the principle is false; on the third it does not entail the conclusion; and on the fourth it only entails the conclusion given an auxiliay hypothesis which we have no reason to believe." -- Paulscrawl (talk) 08:47, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
P.S. You'll also want Bostom's The Simulation Argument: Reply to Weatherson. The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 218 (Jan., 2005), pp. 90-97. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 09:55, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Weatherson's argument is on Bostrom's site, no need to register: http://www.simulation-argument.com/weatherson.pdf

Not that it's helpful, tried for half an hour to understand his second interpretation, with all the philosophical jargon and use of "philosologic". Should have spotted the problem straight away: " ∀Φ: Cr(Φ | fΦ = x) = x Bostrom doesn't formulate this more general principle, but it is clear he intends something like it in his argument". dead giveaway when a philosopher writes that... Ssscienccce (talk) 15:51, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Other critiques of Bostrom's 2003 article, Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?, abound. PhilPapers has a short curated list; and Google Scholar says it is cited by 361. Now do your reading, sim! -- Paulscrawl (talk) 09:30, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Ssscienccce and Paulscrawl - you've both been very helpful. Regards, Tlhslobus (talk) 05:49, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

The difference between the Bible and Harry Potter is that the Bible (by and large) recounts fact and Harry Potter is a work of fiction. Has Baseball Bugs ever been inside a church? For the believer, God exists for everyone. Jesus Christ is the redemptor of all mankind. From what I know of Aquinas, much of his work is an explanation that God exists outside space and time. No doubt at some point he states that God created space and time. Using Occam's razor, his views are far more plausible than those of people who speculate on multiverses, multiple deities of various hues and other such nonsense. 80.43.217.22 (talk) 11:00, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, 80.43.217.22, and my apologies (to you and to the others involved in this part of the debate), as I should perhaps have saved you all some time and effort by making it clear that my question is not looking for arguments that an evolved creator is highly unlikely on the grounds that the traditional un-evolved creator is supposedly for more likely due to such arguments as those of Aquinas or Augustine of Hippo or Occam's Razor. I'm broadly satisfied that the traditional un-evolved creator is pretty unlikely (though perhaps not quite as unlikely as Dawkins and Dennett think, but I won't go into that), but that, even if I'm wrong on that, I would expect such an un-evolved creator to be just as worrying as an evolved one, for much the same reasons as I find an evolved one worrying. So sorry if my failure to make that clear caused you to waste your time. Thanks for your efforts, and regards. Tlhslobus (talk) 07:13, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

"the Bible (by and large) recounts fact" ! Large parts of the Bible are not even purported to be factual - see e.g. the Song of Solomon. And even those parts that form a more-or-less coherent narrative are, at best, "inspired by real events". Historical science provides a very different picture than the Biblical narrative. No world-wide flood, no Egyptian exile, no sun standing still over Jericho. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:20, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't know how Thomas Aquinas crept into this. Catholic theology was laid down by St Augustine, who was a prolific writer, and I believe this subject was discussed in his major work "The City of God". That is, St Augustine of Hippo, there may be others. 78.145.22.185 (talk) 15:39, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, there's Saint Augustine of Canterbury for one. Alansplodge (talk) 21:26, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I thought that archaeologists had recently excavated the remains of the Ark on Mount Ararat. The flood legend is common to many ancient religions - they can't all be wrong. When the wind blows in a certain way it does heap up the waters of the Red Sea just as described in the account of the escape from Egypt, and artefacts have been found on the seabed. How can historical science prove the Israelites were never held captive in Egypt? It's no less plausible than the captivity in Babylon, which is well documented. 80.43.224.191 (talk) 13:00, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

how and where did life start? you are not answering the question by UFOing the question. you are just moving the question to another realm. life started here will end here after many heated arguments and waste of resources and lives. Right now we are in the middle of "WINNING". the last time we were deceived we were deceived mathematically. celebrating the start of the 3rd millennium worldwide on 1-1-2000 by the entire world , around the world fireworks on TV, the Pope asking us to come to Rome to celebrate on 12-31-1999 and warning us not to come the next year-the correct year for the new millennium-they all came together for the PERFECT STORM of deception in math where there is only one right answer. This was and is a miracle that was thought out before it came to be. This is possible because this is all a dream that will play out and be revealed to the doubter upon what we call death. When many coincidences happen throughout your life experience you grow knowing you "see" differently than those around you because of the hints along THE WAY. They are here for all to see for all to understand for all to come together. This is so simple few will understand.166.177.251.76 (talk) 19:04, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

This seems incredibly OT, but see Flood myth, which includes a section called "Claims of historicity", and Searches for Noah's Ark; perhaps also Outburst flood and Noah's Ark. There may have been some localised flooding in some areas. There was definitely no worldwide flood which required "two of every living thing, and seven pairs of every clean creature" on an ark. And no, no concrete evidence of such an ark has ever been found and whichever version you follow [1], there's a good chance someone in the time of the ark had no chance of building one presuming it would have even floated. Sure people find Noah's ark all the time. They are also always finding new ways to get net energy out of plain water and ways to perform cold fusion. Nil Einne (talk) 19:58, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Role of a governor in amending the US constitution?

Do American state governors have a role in the ratification process of a constitutional amendment? When the state legislature approves an amendment to the US constitution, has the governor to power to issue a veto (or sign it into law)? --Jerchel (talk) 08:53, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Article Five of the United States Constitution says state legislatures, and makes no mention of the Governor. But the president is not part of the approval process, and googling the subject it appears that the executives' roles are as conduits of information and certification rather than approval as such. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:31, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

The issue doesn't seem to be fully settled, since while websites advocating the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment mention arguments that the Constitution refers to legislatures only, regardless of governors, they also mention that Kentucky's acting governor vetoed a bill rescinding the state's approval of the same amendment. μηδείς (talk) 21:05, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

"Can god create" question

Can a omnipotent (All can do) god create a chair which is made only from Iron but also only from Copper? Thanks. Ben-Yeudith (talk) 12:32, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

There is no reference that can answer this question authoritatively. Anyone who claims to have the answer would just be speculating. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 12:56, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

There is a god that could do that. His name is Erwin. Widneymanor (talk) 13:00, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

That "thought experiment" is hopelessly flawed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:24, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

(ec) See Omnipotence and the Law of non-contradiction. People who argue for or theorize about an omnipotent deity typically exclude the logically impossible from the definition of "omnipotent", i.e. even an omnipotent god cannot do what is logically impossible, which is what you're asking about.

If omnipotence were to include the ability to do the logically impossible, for example to create something that is exclusively made of iron, but also of copper, then the very notion of "omnipotence" itself is logically absurd, at least in conventional formal logic. The concept could perhaps be considered according to dialetheism, which rejects the Law of non-contradiction. - Lindert (talk) 13:01, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

If you could define what the molecular structure of such an object would be, that would be a start in the right direction. Although the question "Can He create a chair?" by itself would also be a good place to start. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:19, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

• The problem is not a limitation on God, but that the question itself is incoherent, regardless of the posited agent. What is a chair that is all copper and all iron at the same time? The fact that humans can string noises together and tolerate cognitive dissonance doesn't mean that a string of words in any way applies to reality. For example, anyone who actually knows what copper and iron are is going to have to also accept that 26=29. If you accept that 26=29, then per ex falso quodlibet, you'll also have to accept that God does not exist. μηδείς (talk) 20:57, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Here's how 26 can equal 29: By the entire universe being compressed into a single point. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:52, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Or, if he can make a chair that is entirely copper and entirely iron, then he can simultaneously exist and not exist, and the him that exists is simultaneously both omnipotent and limited. But I speculate. I'm applying logic to a being to whom logic does not apply; anyone who can always have existed and will always exist, and who created the universe and is therefore separate from the universe but is also omnipresent throughout it, would have no difficulty with perpetual motion, which we consider impossible. So, we don't get to decide what God can and cannot do; the opposite is more likely. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:52, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

God already both exists and does not exist. If you're a believer, He exists for you. If you're non-believer, then He does not exist for you. And since His absolute existence or not is unprovable, whether God exists for you is the closest you can come to the absolute truth of the matter. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:33, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think perpetual motion is particularly on-point here. Perpetual motion may be physically impossible, but it's not logically impossible. Most philosophers consider the two things distinct, though I suppose the distinction has been challenged (all philosophical distinctions get challenged).

There are respected theological currents that consider God omnipotent but hold that that does not imply that God can do the logically impossible. --Trovatore (talk) 21:59, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

If you really want to get into it, the two relevant philosophers are Aquinas, who holds that God is logical, and Al Ghazali, who holds that logic does not limit God, and that God does not do what is good because it is good, but that what is good is good because God demands it. μηδείς (talk) 22:04, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Your second link points to a disambig page. I suppose you mean Al-Ghazali? --Trovatore (talk) 22:15, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, I was not aware they used hyphens in Arabic, but I did read Al Ghazali quite a few years back. μηδείς (talk) 01:13, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

To be clear, I wasn't criticizing your transliteration, just giving a link that works given the current state of Wikipedia. --Trovatore (talk) 07:24, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I find nearly all of these answers profoundly unsatisfying. Where did the laws of logic and mathematics come from? It seems to me that the existence of things such as six specific perfect shapes (I mean Platonic solids - isn't that a valid term for them?) in four dimensions (if one accepts that) are the proof of the objective existence of some higher plan and order to Creation, which are not inferred from the world we see around us, and not susceptible to any possible change by any human or even advanced alien agency. A defining attribute, perhaps the most defining attribute, of God would be the ability to create such laws, which implies the ability to change them. I don't pretend this is an answer, but only a comment that I think the question still is not answered here. Wnt (talk) 16:25, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

There are only five Platonic solids. I suppose you're counting the spherical ball as your sixth? (Note that the sphere is not a solid at all, but a two-dimensional surface.) --Trovatore (talk) 23:51, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

@Trovatore: Nay, I said in four dimensions - like if you put four dodecahedrons at the vertices of a tetrahedron, then bend in the 4th dimension until they come into contact. When I was young I worked them out on my own, without ever having seen another source on them, and so I use them as my example of something that exists solely as an idea, but has an objective reality that can be discovered independently by other people (this seems like an obvious thing to me, but just try arguing it with a Marxist!)

If logic and mathematics had to "come from" somewhere then why not God himself? --Golbez (talk) 17:41, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I see where the reference to Thomas Aquinas comes from. Mathematicians can solve problems by supposing up to ten dimensions. Although we can't see the majority of them, they follow the rules of dimensionality. Proof that not only does God exist, He is a mathematician. Many apparently impossible concepts may not be - cf Schrodinger's cat. As has been pointed out, a professor of philosophy is just a very slow - moving waveform. 78.145.22.185 (talk) 17:37, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

If theologians can consider something that is simultaneously all human and all divine, why not all copper and all iron: :) - Nunh-huh 06:09, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

But does this all-iron and all-copper chair have one nature, or two simultaneously? We could have created a whole new heresy! Iapetus (talk) 09:47, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Brass is a monophysite alloy - the old twelve - sided threepenny bits were all - copper and all - tin. These dodecagonal (one for each disciple) heresies are going to be resurrected as the new pound coin. 80.43.224.191 (talk) 12:18, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

The boring answer to "Where do the laws of maths come from?" is that they are derived from a set of "axioms" - basic rules which seem to be obviously true, but which you can't really prove or disprove (for example "There is an infinite number of numbers" or "You can draw a straight line between two points"). Axioms are still human inventions, but what counts is whether or not they seem to accurately represent the universe (for a long time, we thought parallel lines never cross, until it turned out that space was curved, and a different mathematical system had to be used by physicists, and mathematicians still argue whether it's possible to choose from between an infinite number of identical choices). You might ask where the axioms come from, but the answer is probably "They just are" in most cases – there's no reason for there to be an infinite number of numbers, except that there's also no reason why there shouldn't be. Smurrayinchester 15:00, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

This is more or less the standard formalist line. I too once thought as you do.

Now I find formalism extremely lacking as either a description of mathematical practice or as an explanation for its successes.

The formalist considers the axioms to be primary and the objects the axioms describe to be unimportant. But (especially in set theory) this is just not so. The intuitive picture of the objects described by set theory is simple and clear (the so-called von Neumann hierarchy). The literal set of accepted axioms, Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, is complicated to the point of being Baroque, and not even close to a canonical set of axioms corresponding to the picture (arguments can be made for both weaker and stronger systems, though the arguments for the stronger ones are ultimately more convincing).

The reasons for the axioms really don't have much to do with physics, certainly not in set theory, but really not even much in geometry. I have been told (I have not really studied them) that the Euclideans were explicitly talking about an ideal realm of geometry, and not about the physical world. However, being foundationalists, they hoped to reduce geometry to a simple set of axioms, and thought they should be able to prove the parallel postulate from their other axioms, though it's not entirely clear to me why they thought that was likely. As it turned out, they were wrong about that; the parallel postulate cannot be proved from the other axioms. But it is nevertheless true, in the sense that it holds in their motivating picture, which we now recognize as corresponding to manifolds of zero curvature.

Somewhat similarly, the axiom of choice is obviously true, in spite of not being provable from the other ZF axioms. If you give assent to the motivating picture of set theory, it is very difficult to avoid giving assent to the axiom of choice, notwithstanding its formal independence from the axioms of ZF. --Trovatore (talk) 05:17, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

@Smurrayinchester: The idea that the laws of math "just are" puts them in the position of the first cause or unmoved mover. My impression is that monotheists generally believe God is in that position; he is not just someone playing some crappy free game on the Web who can place an archery range or a tower but not a bordello or a concentration camp; he is a superuser, a programmer, not the captive of the parameters laid out for him by some impersonal and unaccountable "just is". Atheism need not make that placement, but it is a puzzle that it imagines that rules of thought are the prime mover, yet the prime mover is incapable of thought! Wnt (talk) 18:34, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

• Omnipotence paradox is a related article.--88.2.8.193 (talk) 11:01, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

• "Can a omnipotent (All can do) god create a chair which is made only from Iron but also only from Copper?". One issue here is what, if anything, is meant by words like "omnipotent" (see for instance Omnipotence paradox, and thanks for the link, 88.2.8.193) and "god" (see, for instance, Ignosticism).

But much of the discussion here seems to take it for granted that it is logically impossible for a chair to be made only of copper and also only of iron. Much of the discussion also seems to assume things like that god cannot both exist and not exist. And so on. But one editor above has already shown one way in which 'God' (arguably) does and does not exist (he exists for believers and not for unbelievers). There are arguably plenty of others. For instance if our universe is the result of chance and/or logic, then arguably chance and/or logic is then the creator of the universe, and is thus arguably 'god', and arguably chance and logic are things that do and don't exist, meaning that they exist in some senses, and don't exist in other senses (chance arguably exists, but not in the same way that my chair exists), much like an awful lot of other things. For instance we all know that Santa Claus doesn't exist, yet we can find a Santa Claus in most major stores at Christmastime - similarly all Walt Disney's non-existant creatures such as Mickey Mouse exist in Disneyland, a person you meet in a dream doesn't exist yet he or she may actually be your best friend when you wake up, and even if the dreamperson has no counterpart in the awake world, he or she arguably still has a kind of existence while you are dreaming (and he or she can arguably also have an existence of sorts afterwards in your memory). And so on ad infinitum.

Carl Sagan (in Broca's Brain, if I remember right) once wrote that Thomas Aquinas had said that God couldn't create a triangle whose internal angles didn't add up to 180 degrees, before claiming that he (Sagan) could easily perform this task, adding "(on a curved surface)"; a Thomist (a supporter of Thomas Aquinas) would probably reply that Sagan had cheated by moving the goalposts and/or that a triangle has straight sides by definition and that Sagan's alleged triangle has curved sides and is thus not a triangle. So who's right? How would I know, as how would I know who decides what counts as a 'true' triangle? That assumes that expressions like 'true triangle', 'true god', 'true Santa', 'true reality', 'true existence', etc, have some kind of 'objective meaning', an assumption which is far from self-evident.

Fuzzy Logic is one set of ideas intended to address this sort of issue (as also are such ideas as the already mentioned Ignosticism). The chair I'm sitting on is solid to me, but to a neutrino it's almost entirely empty space, so it arguably isn't solid to a neutrino. Glass is solid to me but a photon (a 'particle' of light) has no difficulty going through it, so glass arguably isn't solid for a photon. Music may be loud to me and silent to a deaf person. And so on. It seems perfectly possible to create a chair that seems distinguishable from iron but indistinguishable from copper to some kinds of being and that seems indistinguishable from iron but distinguishable from copper to some other kinds of being, and I've no reason to suppose that an 'omnipotent god' is needed to do this. In which case it seems arguably true (especially to devotees of things like Fuzzy Logic) that the chair is made only of copper for some and only of iron for others - whether that Fuzzy Logic argument is 'correct' may well be as difficult (and perhaps impossible) to decide 'objectively' as the similar argument about whether Sagan or the Thomist is 'objectively correct' about Aquinas's triangle.Tlhslobus (talk) 01:03, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Learning a second instrument

I know from experience that learning a third or fourth language (by instruction) is much easier than learning your second. After having formally studied French, I found taking German much easier, given such common phenomena as front round vowels and the use of to be with intransitive perfects.

I am curious, is there any such phenomenon with music? If so, is there a name for the phenomenon? And, if so, is there any particular instrument the mastery of which (say, the violin) has a greater reputation for making other instruments easy to learn, as opposed to, say, the saxophone? (I don't play any instruments, so those examples are just a guess on my part.) As a linguistic example, I would say that if you've formally studied Russian, Latin and German would be a breeze, while studying Spanish would not give you a leg up on Chinese or Arabic.

Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 20:48, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Some things, like solfège is common ground, so you won't need to re-do it, it's instrument independent - that includes pitch, rhythm, melody, notes. Piano is often considered a basic instrument. Low notes are on the left, higher to the right. If you press a key it generates the right tone, doing the same with a violin requires years of practice. Playing piano can be pretty gratifying from the beginning, which is certainly not the case of violins and the like. Scicurious (talk) 22:25, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I hope you don't mind that I linkified that French word I had never heard of previously. The back story is that my second nephew has decided to follow his elder brother in taking up violin, after he has had his own study in drumming, and has performed Leroy Brown rather well in concert. My impression was that since the violin seems so much more difficult than instruments with fixed stops, that it would be a much better introduction to music in general. I appreciate the generous answer. μηδείς (talk) 01:11, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I think it's difficult to give a general answer here. On all levels of proficiency there are examples on either side (flourishing multi-instrumentalists/explorers, versus those who really want/need to stick to the their one beloved instrument, and in-betweenies who vary within a closely related family (cellists/bassists, reed + flute players, ...) . I'm not sure the violin is necessarily "a much better introduction to music in general". It's certainly a harsh trainer of one's ear/sensory-motor coupling, but, again depending on personality, interest and inclination, more polyphonic instruments such as the guitar or piano might be equally, if not more instructive. A student of drums might also study percussion in general including pitched polyphonic instruments such as the vibraphone, marimba, ... with the potential of filling the tonal gaps ... There's no straight answer, and, in my very considered opinion, the pupil's own desire is by far the most important thing here. The combination you mentioned, in reverse order, reminded me of violin prodigy turned drumming showman (no offense, I really do love him) Joe Morello. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:32, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Again, what I guess I should emphasize is that my "sample" are my nephews, 8 and 10, both of whom have had a lot of exposure to music. (I can sing on key, and this fascinated them as infants.) And that they get free violin lessons from their school, but not free lessons in other instruments. The younger of the two picked up drumming on his own (he can drum all of imagine Dragons' hits), while the elder asked to be schooled in the violin, and they are now both taking the violin. I know a bit about music theory, and can sing on key. But what I am really wondering is, is their study of violin an advantage in music in the way the study of a "difficult" language might be in linguistics, and is there a name for this, or a source about the topic worth reading? Given that I know we have people like JackofOz posting here, I was hoping for an answer by someone with overlapping skills. μηδείς (talk) 01:52, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I can't add anything to what Sluzzelin has said. But i'll relate a story about Jascha Heifetz, a violinist without peer. He was once asked if he could play the trumpet, and he said "I don't know, I've never tried". A lot of people would answer "Yes" to the question "Can you play the violin?". But if it were "Can you play the violin like Heifetz did?", then it would be almost universally "No". So, it all depends on what one means by "learn an instrument". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:07, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I've just finished a 3 year Bachelor of Arts in Music, mostly with fellow students about 40 years younger than me, so can offer some observations from that. Firstly, there are clearly a number of transferable skills between any instrument: undersstanding of notation, rhythm, pitch, key, transposition, etc., etc. Therefore if you can play one instrument with sight reading, you're in a better position to play any other: you just need to gain the mechanical skills. Secondly, musicians find it relatively easy to move between insruments of the same type: if you can play the clarinet, you can probably pick up any saxophone and give it a go. Similarly, you'd be able to make a decent stab on a recorder. Brass players quite often play lots of instruments (trombone being a general exception). It's also interesting to note that some instruments come in different tunings (trumpet in Bflat and A for example) so you could count being able to play both as playing two instruments. Thirdly, most decent musicians can play the piano to some extent: it's used for practice, and again, once you understand the basics of music, you can always plonk a tune out on the piano. Fourth: any decent musician will play fair unpitched percussion: it's only rhythm and fairly basic motor skills. My instrument of choice (when I couldn't sing) was, of course, the triangle. Finally: violin seems to me to be a general exception to a lot of this. Most people who play violin stick to it as a single instrument: they don't dep on the cello when there's a missing cellist, whereas a horn player might fill in on trumpet, for example. HTH. --Phil Holmes (talk) 07:38, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

This [2] scholarly paper is mostly about practice, but mentions a bit about second instrument. More like this can be found searching /learn "second instrument"/ and similar phrases on google scholar. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:54, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

My thanks for all the responses above. I'm going to unreoutdent since the rest of this post will be in response to IP 80. The two problems I run into with being a polyglot are examples of linguistic interference. I will sometimes create a word or invent a grammatical form in one language where it does not exist in a closely related language.

Examples of this in Spanish are my use of the non-existent word "fontana" based on the assumption that if it's called a fontaine in French, it has to be a fontana in Spanish (it's fuente) and my use of the non-existent idiom "no tengo que dos..." to mean "I only have two..." based on the French "je n'ai que deux..." Having spoken fluent street Spanish for most of my life but having studied formal French in high school I have sometimes tried to gloss the French onto the Spanish. A lot of time this works, and I was understood in the cases above even though what I was saying wasn't proper Spanish.

Having studied Spanish formally only late in life, I have often done things like used "estoy vuelto" to express "he vuelto" or wished there were some way to say J'y vais or N'en ai rien in Spanish when there wasn't.

As for Portuguese and Italian, and even French sometimes, I will think that I am hearing Spanish when I am not. This is most common with Italian, which I will often listen to for several minutes until I realise it is not Spanish. I have also watched films like La flor de mi secreto, Um filme falado and Sin noticias de Dios and heard French but not realized that they had switched from Spanish or Portuguese to French.

As for Spanish and Portuguese specifically, I can read the latter fluently, but rarely understand it when spoken colloquially. Portuguese is like English compared to German, or Russian compared to Croat. The reduced unstressed vowels of the former languages mean that what looks the same when written often sounds quite mumbled when spoken. When I was hospitalized for months with an infection that required major surgery, we were visited by Jehovah's Witnesses who were distributing Bibles. By the time they saw me, all they had left were the Book of Psalms in English, and The New Testament, but only in "Spanish." I told them I would much prefer the New Testament, but it was only after several pages of wondering where all the ells had gone that I realized it was the Portuguese, not the Spanish version.

I am not sure any of this is directly comparable in music, since mixing up vocabulary and sounds seems to me more like mixing up lyrics or changing accents than getting notes or chords wrong. I am curious at this point if there are any musical concepts that correspond to linguistic concepts such and interference which I mentioned above, or code-switching. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 20:08, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

(undent)I suppose that sometimes there could be such interference. [Personal story/WP:OR warning] I don't play a lot of instruments. My main instrument is a 6-string acoustic guitar. Based solely on my acoustic guitar playing, I can also passably play electric guitar, ukulele and bass guitar, though each presents its own challenges. For example:

• Electric guitar: While the tuning is the same, there are distinct differences in playing techniques between acoustic and electric guitar, especially with regard to fretting, where an electric guitar is so much more sensitive, if you use the same left-hand technique for both instruments, the electric guitar notes either double-sound (because of accidental hammer-on and pull-off notes) or problems with note bending due to the MUCH thinner gauge strings used on electric guitar.
• Ukelele: I can play baritone uke the best, because the tuning is identical to the 4 high strings on a standard guitar. Other ukes have the same note spacing, but transposed 5 semitones down (plus an octave or two). That means guitar fingerings are often transposable for some chords, but others sound odd. For example, the "D" chord is identical on both a guitar or a baritone uke. But a "C" chord requires some rethinking: Because you've only got 4 strings, using open C major fingering on a baritone uke causes an odd chord inversion C/F, which ends up sounding very "minor", as this is the same fingering as Am/F, so you need to come up with an alternate fingering just for the baritone uke if you want a good major-sounding chord; many of the open chords on a guitar end up with inversions in the uke, because the root note on the guitar is usually on one of the two bottom strings, missing from the uke. So you either have to deal with the inversions, or come up with alternate fingerings.
• Bass guitar: Probably the easiest to play from a note perspective, as the notes are the same as the bottom four strings on a guitar (on a lower octave), but playing technique can be different, especially as bass guitar is often played very differently (using index and middle finger to pluck notes, which is almost never done on a 6-string guitar). I can play with a pick, and it sounds OK, but often doesn't match the technique of people who play bass "natively".

I hope that helps some, at least as anecdata... --Jayron32 20:27, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

μηδείς, the article "Cross-training" focusses on athletic training, and the entry wikt:cross-training does also, but http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cross-train is more inclusive.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:51, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I play lots of instruments (once you get into renaissance woodwind, there's a pile of stuff you can just pick up and blow), but I started on the violin. Fretless stringed instruments are murder (for the neighbours) while you are learning, finger positions simply have to be hard-wired into the hind brain by practise. This makes the violin a brilliant introduction to strings, and you usually play lead in small groups. You need to learn the language as well, and that comes naturally about 3rd/4th instrument. Doing the "book work", learning theory, really helps. The important thing for a young player is not to get bored out of playing by uninspired teaching. Encouraging a young player to work with friends, and to play material that they have chosen themselves, will usually get them hooked for life. Fiddlersmouth (talk) 00:39, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, my thanks in plenty to all the above very interesting answers. Both of my nephews are very enthused about their playing. The younger, who played Leroy Brown, had a few flourishes when he played solo in concert after less than a year of tutoring (even though his father is tone deaf) and the elder has played in concert (Led Zeppelin's Kashmir) orchestrally and also in solo with a somewhat famous local violinist. They both have MP3 players with a week's worth of music that I made for them for Christmas 2013, which they listen to constantly.

As for practice being murder, it's actually quite interesting to hear the elder nephew practice, since when he gets the notes right they are very right, and when he gets them wrong they are very wrong, and quickly corrected.

I suspect from a lot of the above comments that music can be analogized to language in the way that historical linguistics can be analogized to evolutionary biology. Some of the concepts overlap just about fully, and other concepts really don't translate. For example, one can easily analogize mutation between biology and languages, but adaptation doesn't quite get you anywhere in linguistics, since the success of a language is based on the expansion of the culture that uses it, not on the biological fitness of the words or sounds to any environmental constraints.

μηδείς (talk) 01:28, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

One must be careful to avoid confusing the different motions of a baseball bat and a tennis racket and a golf club and a hockey stick. Likewise, one must be careful to avoid confusing the different fingerings for a piano and a flute and a clarinet and a trumpet.

—Wavelength (talk) 02:41, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I guess that explains why I keep knocking my teeth out with that damn toothpick. :) μηδείς (talk) 19:38, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Tom Lehrer once compared his piano to "an 88 string guitar". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baseball Bugs (talk • contribs) 19:21, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

The little he knows. I currently own 2 pianos; one is a 120-year old Blüthner, with only 85 keys, which was standard in those days. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:59, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Austrian + German + Dutch ethnicity

How do you refer to the ethnic group of Austrian + German + Dutch? It's clear that two of them don't consider themselves ethnic Germans for obvious reasons. But how do your refer to the common ground of these groups?--Scicurious (talk) 22:04, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Germanic people, although that includes the Norse? Maybe West Germanic although that's linguistic and also includes the English? Dietsch was used to describe the Dutch, Flemish, Frisians and Luxembourgers by Joris Van Severen and others of a similar mind, although they never included the Germans and Austrians. Not sure any such specific term exists personally. Keresaspa (talk) 00:52, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

• See Istvaeonic and Irminonic as opposed to Ingvaeonic, which is closer to English than Dutch or Austrian. 01:59, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I fail to see how the set Austrian, German, Dutch can be an ethnicity. Not even linguistically would that make sense. Dutch people do not consider their language to be German. And what about the Swiss German? They would necessarily be a part of a German-speaking ethnic group. Add to this that all these four groups consider themselves to have a separate national identity, disregarding its common Germanic origin. --Jubilujj 2015 (talk) 13:59, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me that this is a clear example of confusing a linguistic grouping with an ethnicity. They aren't the same thing at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.22.185 (talk) 14:40, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

However, Dutch is considered to be part of a dialect continuum with German. Rojomoke (talk) 16:45, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

The spectrum goes from English to Friesian to Dutch to German (i.e. from Low to High German). Where do you draw the line? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.22.185 (talk) 17:19, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

You can't go wrong with "European" unless you're trying to include English people :-) Alansplodge (talk) 21:23, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Except that "European" includes even more ethnicities that are even less German than the Dutch or Austrian. --Jubilujj 2015 (talk) 22:01, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

What about the Holy Roman Empire which included people who are now Dutch or Austrian? These "ethnicities" seem only a little older than the "American" ethnicity, if there is such a thing. G. K. Chesterton railed against the dismemberment of the Roman Catholic Austro-Hungarian Empire rather than the Prussian Empire after WWI. My great grandfather considered himself Austrian (and wrote in broken German) although he was Ruthenian. It seems absurd to me to call Austrian an ethnicity, when my Austro-Hungarian great grandfather was writing things like "Ja kupil haus". μηδείς (talk) 01:36, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Contrary to popular belief, ethnicity is not immutable, permanent, unchanging, or unitary. That is, ethnicities come and go, change over time, including across all of humanity, and in all subsets of humanity, down to a single person. The same is true of all culturally and socially defined traits, including race, nationality, heritage, culture, etc. --Jayron32 15:01, 15 September 2015 (UTC)