Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Tue, 21 Jul 1992 01:53:10 CDT
From:         Tushar Samant <tushar@ZAPHOD.UCHICAGO.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Five Reasons (was tushar, boy..)
Comments: To: words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu

There has been a hiatus in mail affairs here. I had to ftp the archives
and trusted, like the Goddess that nothing interesting had happened. How
naive I was! I had thought, just yesterday, that I would never again be
amazed at any posting which ever made its way around the net under the
header of words-l, but clearly I am too innocent to realize the real
magnitude of the problem that's afflicting us.

Yes, to realize the real. Redundant as it sounds, it's something I still
have to learn. It's with surprise commingled with sadness that I read
this some time ago:


>     Zinc did blow chow in the living room this morning, but this was
> caused by an overindulgence in Science Diet, not by tushar's arcane
> imprecations.

This already exhibits a poor grasp of elementary epistemological
principles, and though this is hardly central to my thesis to follow,
I quote it show the kind of assumptions this letter is based on.


>  And the goldfish are just fine, thank you for asking.

Again, a serious delusion is apparent in the second clause. Passing lightly
over these relatively unimportant details, though, let us examine what has
been said:


>     Still I feel I must respond to this harsh cascade of bombast, even at
>     the risk of embroiling myself in an oinking contest with the Boar's
>     Head himself:
>
>
>     Five Reasons Why Tushar is Not as Happy as My Cat:

My puzzlement already starts at this point. Clearly, the latter sentence
has to be bound to the "I must respond" in the former. On the other
hand, five reasons why Tushar is Not as Happy as My Cat can hardly be
a response to the claimed harsh cascade of bombast, even if it were a
harsh cascade of bombast, which is open to doubt. All in all, I have
come to the conclusion that I am up against a very different, and to me
alien, framework of reasoning.  Although I am not biased per se against
alternative formalisms of logic - far be it from me to do that! - it
makes good sense to mention this to everyone lest the argument should
become incomprehensible in the future.


> 1.  Tushar worships a harsh god with unattractive personal characteristics.

The inherent cultural assumptions are apparent here, since Invocation of a
god is a concept different from and independent of Worship. When any
assumptions to the contrary are made without further examination, I regret
to say that one can be sure that intellectual indiscipline is soon to set in.

>     Zinc worships the beneficent Cat Mother, who is perpetually manifested
>     in the Soft Lap, the Full Bowl, and the Catnip Mackerel.

We will assume that Zinc is the name of the Cat. If so, the contrast
presented above seems hardly significant (e.g. not more so than, say, the
trivially true statement that "nothing is just like any other thing").
Can one blame me for a sense of hopelessness? Instead of arguing I am
reduced to the menial task of meta-argument.


>2.  Tushar vents his psychic pain by making horrible threats against
> innocent kittens.  Zinc's limpid consciousness is untroubled by any
> intimation of tushar's existence (happy cat!); nor would anything on
> earth cause him to wish tushar ill or to heap feline execrations on
> tushar's head, unless tushar were to eat a tuna sandwich in front of
> him without sharing.

It ought to have been obvious, but my experience with frustratingly
illogical arguments makes me spell it out in hideous detail, that
"threats", "innocent" etc are words which are defined only in a cultural
matrix. We seem to differ here in something as fundamental as rules of
the predicate calculus, fat chance indeed can more complicated semantic
constructions have of being shared as a common base. So forgive me if I
say that it is impossible for me to answer this - there is no objective
point being made here.


>3.  And even then Zinc's enmity would be brief, for he lives in the eternal
>    immanence of the moment; whereas tushar is tormented by epistemological
>    and ontological paradoxes that are incomprehensible to those around him,
>    humans and cats alike.

I freely confess that I fail to understand what the eternal immanence
of the moment could mean. I have a certain construct which approximates
what is meant by a moment, and since that is the only one I can rely
on at the moment (and perhaps for eternity), I have to conclude that
the Zinc the cat forever dangles in a single moment unable to resolve
his state in any way, leading me to believe that he belonged earlier to
Erwin Schroedinger, although I must admit that even uttering the world
"earlier" in this context would well be misguided; however, I approach
this question with an open mind - the difficulty could be resolved if
the other side cooperates, for although I don't understand the eternal
immanence of the moment, I have momentarily had an understanding of
the immanence of eternity, to say nothing of the momentous immanence of
eternal understanding, and have no reason to doubt a priori the immanent
understanding of the eternal moment.

This is, please note, in marked contrast to the brash assumptions that
Carol makes and has the rather amusing expectation of not being questioned
on.

As to the laughable mention of "epistemological and ontological paradoxes"
I would counter with the levity it deserves: "Name three". Please forgive
me for saying so, but so far you have only exhibited a very faltering
understanding of any epistemological principle. As to the relevance of
any ontological paradox, even if present, I am clueless. One wonders what
prompted Carol to mention them here.


> 4.  Like tushar, Zinc has evil designs on the goldfish, but in this
> he is perfectly embodying his essential cat nature.  Tushar has no
> genetic excuse for his hostility.

One tires of vague statements of this sort in anything purported to be
a serious reply, but I must express my surprise here at the confidence
with which "essential cat nature" has been mentioned, for all that I have
read so far gives me no lead towards believing that there is anything
as clearly defined as this sentence seems to make it - an ancient and
very crude device in any argument, which Carol so naively expects to work.

I scarcely need mention the illogicality of genetic excuses (which I hope
is amply clear) except for the purpose of pointing out again to all that
I am fated to deal with, alas, a very alien mode of thinking.


> 5.  Zinc's relations with the rest of his world are marked by directness,
>     simplicity, and trust (except for the dogs next door, whom he hates
>     with a pure and gemlike passion).  When the evil fit is upon him,
>     tushar baffles his friends with mathematical obscurities, falsely
>     ingenuous questions, and scathing blasts of rhetorical excess.

There is nothing more to be pointed out here except the fact that it
proves that I have excellent reasons to believe what I have already
claimed - that this strange letter has been based on questionable
assumptions and highly subjective concepts. At the risk of being
facetious I may say that they are so subjective that there is probably
only one human who has constructed them and invests credence in them.
Evidently such premises will not go to make a serious debate about
fundamentals but will only result in shouting matches. As is evident
from my reserved tone in this response, I have tried hard to avert this.
However it now depends on the other party to cooperate and turn this
discussion to more comprehensible directions - in expecting this, however,
I fear I might be too sanguine.


>     In a future posting:  Seven Reasons Why Tushar Closely Resembles
>     an Old Testament Prophet.

Perhaps these will pass some basic tests of intelligibility, if not actual
logicality; I still retain the childish naivete to hope for that, but even
to me, relevance seems to much too expect.

I make again an impassioned plea for sanity and a reexamination of the
fundamental principles by which we conduct discourse. This remarkable letter
has yet again opened my eyes to the shocking intellectual indiscipline which
has creeped into the thinking of many. There is no closing them now, alas!

tushar
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