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Can we saint people before they're dead?

Yes.

I found the full (Dutch) video of this man:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKNMmf8l15Q

I think you will understand the relationship between the man and wife, even without subtitles.

Translated quotes from the interview:

Wife: It used to be that he'd watch whenever sesame street was on TV, and he'd be laughing whenever Bert or Ernie showed up. Well, I said, you're just as stupid as those two.
...
Interviewer: Are there any other people that don't like his laughing?
Wife: Yes, it also bothers his daughter. And it also bothers his brother.
Man [smiling]: They never visit me anymore. [starts laughing].
...
Interviewer: Is there anything that makes him cry?
Wife: He cries when you play the dutch national anthem. Then you need a tablecloth to catch all the tears, his handkerchief isn't big enough.

Is there any case where humans have done without hierarchies?

Not in any number or for any length of time, as far as I know.

We are social creatures. In my (limited) experience, even in an environment where there is no explicit social structure, where we don't consciously know it, there is a hierarchy. We communicate it with eye contact, with subtle pauses in our speech, with body language.

Maybe there was once an environment where this didn't happen. But it would have been forced and unnatural.

I think every person needs to belong to some kind of group where they generally agree on what the important questions are, and are at least close to each other with those answers. And that seems pretty close to a religion to me.

I said that a heirarchy is necessary.  Please don't take me out of context.

Sorry, I misread. It's late here.

It seems sort of arrogant: I don't need religion, but those other people do. But I think it is, in some sense, true.

Who said I don't need religion?

I was talking about the person referred to in the OP. Should have quoted, I guess.

I think it's absolutely necessary, as demonstrated by the fact that people will always generate one.

The fact that people always generate religion does not demonstrate that religion in necessary. I think religion pops up because it's easily created by someone crazy and/or seeking power, and memes of the religious type have a built  in ability to stick around.

On the other hand, the continued existence of religion in places like the USSR and North Korea proves something. According to wikipedia, 80% of the USSR professed religious belief, even after all the state anti-religious stuff.

It seems sort of arrogant: I don't need religion, but those other people do. But I think it is, in some sense, true.

I don't think people could just quit religion. A lot of them would miss the comfort and community they had. But this isn't that humans in general need religion, it's just that those people are used to it, and would have a hard time without.

Largeish communities of like minded people, be it a church, a bar with a lot of regulars, or a mensa chapter, do seem like a really good idea.

The underlying intent of eprime underscores the selective nature of perception, and tries to eschew over-generalized meta statements.  So once you understand the intent, you can construct your sentences to reflect that.

Where a lot of people seem to get it wrong is when they feel the need to use it when there's nothing really to clarify.  "The rose is red" is not eprime, but unless you're talking to someone from Alpha Centuri, people know what you're talking about.  To say "the rose appears to me as red when I look at the petals" makes people want to slap each other.

The place to use eprime is when you're trying to discuss or explain something that could either be easily misconstrued, or if it's unfamiliar territory for the audience.  It's absolutely necessary to include subjective context to the language in order to prevent misunderstanding.

I agree that if you get the intent of E-prime you can write about certain things more precisely and clearly. It's just that if you understand the intent of E-prime, you can use "is" without causing the problems E-prime tries to solve.

But I'm not really sure we're disagreeing about anything.

That's RAW's take on it anyway. I could be wrong, but I think Korzybski intended more pervasive philosophical changes to the use of language than RAW really gets into.

This whole discussion has reminded me about how interesting the whole subject is. Has anyone read any books on the subject besides quantum psychology? Were they any good?

I take your point, but* "The photon behaves as a wave" is also not correct, because that implies the photon always behaves as a wave.  "The photon behaves as a wave when observed under certain conditions" is more correct, which brings us closer to RAWs usage.

The point of the RAW passage was to clarify the observational context in which the sentence was made.  You could also probably get away with "I observed the photon behaving as a wave", although strictly speaking** you aren't observing the photon, you're observing the results of your photon detector, which means you should be saying "I observed my instruments detecting wave-like behavior of the photon."  And then, if you really want the point to get beaten to death*** you can say, "I observed my wave-detecting instrument detecting wave-like behavior of the photon."

Of course, all of the above is probably only applicable to photons, because they're pretty fucked up things, Macro-istically speaking.


I think it's fairly well known that I use eprime (or some bastardization of it) quite often in my everyday posts.  Don't hate me because I'm a robot.

*Sorry for the upcoming pedantry.
**I know, I'm doing it again.
***You know, we really do need a :requia: emote.

I agree with you here. That was actually my point, but it takes a lot of effort to make if you are trying to use e-prime, so I will stop doing that.

You can make correct statements using e-prime, you can make incorrect statements using e-prime, you can make correct statements in English, you can make incorrect statements in English.

So if we take the (incorrect, english) original statement "A photon is a wave", the direct translation "A photon behaves like a wave" is e-prime and incorrect.

RAW's translation "The photon behaves as a wave when constrained by certain instruments" is correct and e-prime, but it is not correct because it is e-prime. It is correct because of the qualifier.

And if we define wave as follows: "something that can be described by a wave equation" (not e-prime, and a definition, so independent of correct or incorrect) we can make a correct English statement:

"A photon is a wave when constrained by certain instruments"

No need to apologize for the pedantry, that's the whole point here.

E-prime is a useful teaching tool, as it can highlight the different usages of "is" and teach you when they are a problem. It's also important in teaching you how to read: often you should subsitute "is" with some form of "seems to the author". But I don't think it's useful for communication.

Yes, passive voice is sometimes necessary, but is incredibly disengaging when overused. That's one of the things I loathe most about e-prime; it relies heavily on passive voice.

But isn't e-prime supposed to be disengaging? Gland free communication for a sedate tomorrow?

Yes. It's a perfect form of communication for androids.

When I tell my friends about e-prime, they find it hard to believe that you can express (almost) every idea without the word "is". I do have one problem with e-prime: almost every mistake e-prime tries to avoid can still be made.

Allow me to demonstrate with an example from Quantum Psychology. RAW gives the following as an example of a wrong statement:

"The photon is a wave".
Bob tells us we should say "The photon behaves as a wave when constrained by certain instruments". This fixes the original sentence using additional content not required by e-prime.
"The photon behaves as a wave" seems a better translation to me.
You could also say: "The concept 'photon' belongs in the category of concepts we call 'waves'". Now we have used e-prime, but we haven't solved the problem with the original sentence.

This is probably my favorite golden apple design that I've seen a picture of: http://www.contrariwise.org/2008/09/14/the-golden-apple/ . There's another one in the comments.

this one is pretty cool, but if you're getting tattooed someday it better be something that nobody has it (or at least there's nothing like it in the internet:)), something that you were involved in the making

It doesn't have to be unique for it to be personal. Besides, I wanted a five-fingered-hand before I saw anyone else had one.

I am -13 people. Sometimes I go to a party and no one shows up.

Its most distinguishing characteristic, besides the unsettling giant bascule action of the raising mechanism, is probably the colored lighting (shared by many bridges in town) which highlight its piers at night.

I wanted to have a look at this, and I found this picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/atul666/2506794938/lightbox/

Also, you can actually pay to have the lights colored the way you want. Why would someone do that?

I remember a while ago talking about where this came from:



Today I came upon the original, rather disappointing, context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmtEwDKYHbE

Yeah, August 1969 is just shortly before the PD 4th edition was published, so that makes sense.

Sure. Prior work history upon consideration for employ, criminal BG for people dealing with kids, guns or airplanes. Before you get promoted to guns or airplanes, though they'd damned well better know what you're like on the job without having to read your LiveJournal or find out how much you're paying for your mortgage.

This is probably to trusting-the-govermenty for Americans, but around here we have, IIRC, a pretty good system for this. The potential employer tells the government what the job will be. The government looks at the criminal record of the candidate, and they report any relevant items to the potential employer.

And lets not forget that Trip is from the Belgian part of Scandinavia, along with Regret. Hell, wasn't there a Merkin spag that got absorbed by them? I know there is I just forget which one.

The only Discordian American I know around these parts doesn't hang around the forums, just IRC.