HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.logic
Subject: Re: Doctrines of Maybe: 7 truth values
Date: 8 Jan 93 18:45:34 GMT
Reply-To: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Followup-To: sci.logic
Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie

cjh@tinton.ccur.com (Christopher J. Henrich) wrote:
> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>> I read [*] that an ancient Hindu sect, the Jains, rejected the law of
>> the excluded middle and instead believed in seven truth values,
>> yielding their Doctrines of Maybe.  Anyone know how they characterized
>> these seven shades of truth?
>> [*] in "The Creators" by Daniel J. Boorstin.
> It would be very interesting to compare this system with modern
> "modal logic."  This is the name for a diverse class of logical
> systems that formalize the concept of Possible along with True and
> False.  My reference is _Survey of Modal Logic_ by Hughes & Cresswell;
> title approximate. 

There are two books: "An Introduction to Modal Logic" and "A Companion to
Modal Logic".  The first is very out of date in some of its techniques:
try the articles in the "Handbook of Philosophical Logic" for a more modern
introduction.  (It's still useful as a reference, though).

> This book describes one system in which there are 6 truth values,

... by which you probably mean S5 ...

> and refers to another in which there are 42.

... which must be S3.

You've got this muddled.  Modal systems are *not* the same as multivalued
ones (though some modal systems have multivalued interpretations, these are
usually of limited informativeness, and may need infinitely many
truth-values to describe a finite set of distinct modalities).  The old
book by Rosser and Turquette is a reasonable introduction to multiple-
valued logics: they're not a very exciting research area.  Their main
significance nowadays is in their being adopted by the "fuzzy logic"
brigade as a way of getting mathematically meaningless answers with the
speed that only custom silicon can provide.

There are actually quite a few Western surveys of ancient Indian logic,
which was a lot less inane than this discussion so far might indicate.
Indian thinkers sometimes anticipated their Western or Arab counterparts by
a few centuries.  We could use a logical/philosophical analogue of "The
Crest of the Peacock".

Followups to sci.logic.

-- 
--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:23967 rec.arts.sf.written:16995
From: curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Date: 5 Jan 1993 22:44:02 GMT
Organization: CS Dept. Snakepit - Do Not Feed.
NNTP-Posting-Host: asp.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <C0D3qr.1Fx@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:
|                                     Monday, the 4th of January, 1993
|
|Curtis Yarvin writes:
|  Exactly - better for what?  "Better" is an absolute; when
|  you say one book is better than another, you are making
|  a statement which is logically clear and extremely powerful.
|
|In regards to my definition, ``better'' ought to mean simply better at
|pleasing the literary tastes of literary experts.

Fine; I am happy.  We have worn our fists down to the nubs.  Hold that
definition, freeze its frame, and hang it on your wall; and pretend not
that it has any inherent utility or worth; and my canons shall be, at last.
spiked.

c
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: The Wall Street Journal (was: 1992 in Review)
Organization: Clark University
Date: 5 JAN 93 02:06:10 GMT

Desiree Sy writes:

>[Julie] Salomon is (was?) the film critic for the Wall Street Journal.

Dave Schaumann writes:

>WSJ has a *film critic*?  I never would've guessed it...

Not only do they have one, but Julie Salamon is one of the best around.
I read the Journal for her column, the rest of the arts page, and the
"center column" article on the first page (usually about something
off-the-wall, such as the origins of Budweiser, or eelpout fishing in
Minnesota).  

The Wall Street Journal: Not Just Boring Stock Market Garbage.

(Think I can make it on Madison Avenue?)

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Paul Johnson (was Paglia)
Date: 12 Jan 1993 20:08:56 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

John A. Nickles writes:

	For years, I had been bewildered and annoyed by a line in 
	Edmund Crispin's THE MOVING TOYSHOP. Gervase Fen is attempting 
	to find a kidnapped witness.  He is in a truck being driven 
	by a D.H. Lawrence fan. They come to a crossroad Fen says: 
	"Let's go left. Gollancz is publishing this book."  I didn't 
	have the foggiest idea what that meant. Now I know. This 
	illustrates the principle that biographical detail is needed 
	to truly understand a writer. 

Why biographical detail? Surely most in Great Britain would have got the
allusion without knowing beans about Crispin. Victor Gallancz' publishing 
house was to my mind a major player in the defeat of Churchill and the 
Tories at the end of WWII. Who will ever forget *GUILTY MEN*, an expose 
of the persons who ran or influenced the Conservative Party? A gaudy yallah
dust cover made intentions quite clear. I bet Jack Campin has the book
somewhere around and could elaborate.

						RABworm
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Same difference
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 20:24:53 GMT

In article <1ik82lINN4qb@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
>All this talk of difference feminism has reminded me that I had promised
>to read *DIFFERENCE ENGINE* in 1992, and I did not. So, may I reopen
>discussion to a short thread on this book? Who wrote it, &c. It did
>occur to me that Ada Lovelace could herself be described as a difference
>engine in modern terms. So, do I still want to read it?

I recommend it highly, Francis. You may also be interested
in Betty A. Toole's _Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers, A Selection from the
Letters of Lord Byron's Daughter and Her Description of the First
Computer_. See Howard Rheingold's review in the summer, 1992 issue of
Whole Earth Review.


--Mike


-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
mnemonic@eff.org| The only one that's coming."
(617) 864-0665  |                           
EFF, Cambridge  |                   --Robert Frost
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 15:51:49 CST
From: Cole Kendall <U48073@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The WORST novel ever written?
 <1993Jan11.195807.12663@midway.uchicago.edu> <C0qu3q.D8M@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk>
 <1993Jan12.180034.3470@athena.mit.edu>

In article <1993Jan12.180034.3470@athena.mit.edu>, kamorgan@athena.mit.edu
(Keith Morgan) says:
>
>Jack Campin dilates parenthetically:
>
>  (The original condemnation quoted here was from the ultra-right
>CIA-funded propagandist Robert Conquest, from who you'd expect a kneejerk
>condemnation of anything Lenin liked enough to steal from.)
>
>        Ah yes, Robert Conquest. This reminds me of what Conquest said
>after the Soviet archives were opened and he was approached about
>reprinting a revised edition of _The Great Terror_. The publisher
>suggested a new title in keeping with the spirit of the project.
>Conquest, not missing a beat, replied, "How about _I Told You So, You
>Fucking Assholes_."
>
This anecdote and several similar justify the purchase (in paperback,
when it finally gets to the US) of Kingsley Amis' _Memoirs_.

Memo to Taranto:  note how we can go from stage 12 back to stage 1
in 1 simple posting.

Cole Kendall
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: Homophobia (really not about  Homeschooling)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 16:50:53 GMT

                                     Friday, the 8th of January, 1993

Evelyn C. Leeper tries out the substitution of ``Jewish or
Muslim Religious Observance'' in CO2. See, Evelyn, I
think at the moment such a substitution would work fine
in the measure. As fine, that is, as ``Homosexual Orientation''.
The only problem I'd have with it in your alteration would be
that the First Amendment already implies this to me (that
government shall not privilege or give special status or special
claims to discrimination on the basis of any religious observence).
Therefore, I would think it redundant.

Evelyn writes:
  Had CO2 listed heterosexuality as also barring one from a claim to "any
  minority status, quota preferences, protected status or claim of
  discrimination," I might (*might*) actually believe that someone might
  think it was intended to provide equal protection to all.  As it stands
  it clearly does not.

I would think that it would have been much better if CO2 had said
``Sexual Orientation''.

  As I have said many times, if people would run statements about gays
  and lesbians through a filter that substituted "Jews" and/or "blacks"
  for "gays/lesbians" and then read the results and asked themselves,
  "Does this sound bigoted?" we might be saved a lot of silly posts.

But, you see, we're so used to picking out *anything* with the
keywords ``Jews'' or ``blacks'' in it and construing it as bigoted
that *of course* if we substitute these words it is going to ``sound
bigoted''. The question is, *is* it bigoted? When I read the measure,
I mentally did exactly the substitution you now suggest, but I also
tried to read for *what it says*, *suppressing* my emotional response
to the *sounding bigoted*. (Heck, my emotional response to the *sounding
bigoted* is already there with the language as it is without the
substitution.) My problem is, though I would agree that it sounds
bigoted, I nevertheless think it is not bigoted, and in fact is much
milder than I had been led to believe. (OR9, on the other hand, is as
bad as I have been led to believe.)

For what little it is worth to this discussion, Evelyn, (but
since it's in your .sig) I happen to believe that the military
ban on homosexuals is both stupid and wrong.

                  Mike Morris
         (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Paglia
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 23:45:04 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.212042.5346@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:

>I'd claim that in Mailer's case, claims of extravagance as much represent
>wonderment and mild amusement as any negative evaluation.  There's something
>about pride and self-promotion which is viewed affectionately when it comes
>from a male--"that's my boy", yet is imbued with negative overtones when
>such behavior is observed in women.

By whom? I'm just as amused by it in Paglia as I am in Mailer.

But, really, do we need to develop some unfalsifiable theory about how
arrogance is taken in one gender as distinguished from the other? 
I honestly think that the people who are offended by Paglia's arrogance
and self-promotion are not really driven by sexist attitudes toward strong
women--primarily because the people who've been most critical of her
personality, in my experience, have been feminist women!
 
I've seen lots of criticism of Paglia since I first started recommending
her book, and most of the criticism of her self-presentation has come from
women who see her as an enemy of feminism. If it seems that more men are
saying so here, consider the relative numbers of men and women on Usenet.


--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
mnemonic@eff.org| The only one that's coming."
(617) 864-0665  |                           
EFF, Cambridge  |                   --Robert Frost 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: pgyger@ulys.unil.ch
Subject: Re: The WORST novel ever written?
Organization: University of Lausanne - CH (Switzerland)
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 11:28:43 GMT

In article <1993Jan11.110557.22561@actrix.gen.nz>, John.Roseveare@bbs.actrix.gen.nz writes:
> In his "Stalin: Breaker of Nations" Robert Conquest notes that "What is to
> be Done?" by Nokolai Chernyshevsky has been described as "..the worst novel
> ever written..".
> 
> 1) Can anyone who has read Chernyshevsky venture an opinion as to whether
> the reported description is warranted?
> 
> 2) Are there any other nominations for the title? To qualify, I suggest
> that candidates should have been written as "serious" fiction and
> considered as such by at least a few people somewhere, sometime.
> 
> 3) Reasons for nominations may be even more interesting than the
> nominations themselves.

 I recently heard about a young russian author (I don't remember his name
but I could find it if requested nicely) who wrote a book called 'Ford'.
The book contains the word 'Ford' repeated a few hundreds of thousands times.
This author is now working an another book: 'Coca-Cola' (a sequel to 'Ford').
   I think this could be considered as a pretty bad novel, but at least I hope
the author didn't make too many typos.


 Patrick J. Gyger (pgyger@ulys.unil.ch)  "Smile like a reptile!"
                                          Mink Mole & Dr.Adder

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dgordon@well.sf.ca.us (Daniel B. Gordon)
Subject: Wanted: best Mark Twain biography
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 21:44:53 GMT


Any opinions about a good Mark Twain biography.  I'm mainly interested
in his literary career...

post or mail to me, dgordon@well.sf.ca.us

Dan Gordon
From: mls@panix.com (Michael Siemon)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Books I Got For Xmas
Summary: o tempore, o boxtops
Date: 5 Jan 93 02:40:51 GMT
Organization: Panix Public Access Internet & Unix, NYC


People have generally given up the practice of buying me books
(or recordings) for Christmas, unless I have carefully prepped
them with a shopping list (and this tends to inhibit the joy
of selecting for oneself, which is part of the point of gift-
giving).  I only got one book this year, a most clever jape:
_Indiana Jones Explores Ancient Egypt_, Little Brown and Co.,
ISBN 1-55970-183-8.  Despite the egregious title, and the cameos
of Harrison Ford on every other page, it is a quite decent short
treatment of the subject.  One presumes that it was the "clever"
idea of someone charged to "make the damn subject interesting to
ordinary kids."

As I edit my videos of a recent Nile cruise, I am tempted to use
my Macintosh to overly my photo and substitute "Nebraska" for
"Indiana" in a few suitably bizarre places of the output ...

-- 
Michael L. Siemon	"We honour founders of these starving cities
mls@panix.com		 Whose honour is the image of our sorrow ...
			 They built by rivers and at night the water
			 Running past the windows comforted their sorrow."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: The Fortunes of Nigel (was: academic settings)
Organization: Clark University
Date: 10 JAN 93 20:58:46 GMT

Sanjiva Prasad wrote:

>My own favourites are (1) the Jennings (and Darbyshire) books and (2) 
>the Nigel Molesworth books. Sorry I can't remember the authors of either 
>(Would the RABworm know?).  The Jennings books are very Richmal
>Crompton-like, and I've been searching for several years for the Molesworth
>chiz.  

The Nigel Molesworth books are by Geoffrey Willans, with illustrations by
Ronald Searle.  The titles are (I think this is the right order) _How to be
Topp_, _Down With Skool!_, _Back in the Jug Agane_ and _Whizz for Atomms_. 
The Molesworthian credo "ALL BOOKS WHICH BOYS HAV TO READ ARE WRONG" might
have been an appropriate entry in the recent r.a.b. school-curriculum
discussion.

Three cheers for St. Custard's, chiz chiz.

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Homophobia
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 20:19:52 GMT

In article <C0p4Lz.H6y@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:

>(No doubt you will claim that on previous occasions
>of applying your Rule you have only done so where you have judged
>the instantiation to be a light one?) 

How does this follow from what I said?

>Mike responds:
> Yes, now that we've had laws on the books for years that bar
> anti-Semitic employment practices, Jews and non-Jews are at each other's
> throats.
>
>Did you read the word ``some'' in what I wrote, or no?

I read it. If by "some" you mean "some slight amount," then I no longer
object to your characterization.

>I think you should consider the possibility that some civil rights
>laws are part (a big part) of the problem.

I've considered this trendy view (see Charles Murray's LOSING GROUND and
Shelby Steele's THE CONTENT OF OUR CHARACTER, for examples of the trend),
but decided that the biggest part of the problem is bigotry, pure and
simple.

>We are *not* talking about killing here, but about hiring and firing.

Most of the Nuremburg racial laws had nothing to do with killing, but had
lots to do with hiring and firing. Didn't you know that?

>By the way, Mike, do you not also understand that, as these laws
>are often used (in practice, I mean, in reality) we are talking
>about prosecuting employers for a thought crime in which presumption
>of innocence is thrown out the window?

We're not talking about "prosecuting" employers for "thought crime."
We're talking about suing employers for discriminatory acts.

> I mean how in the heck are
>you going to *prove* discriminatory hiring or firing?

How do you prove anything in a courtroom, Mike?


--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
mnemonic@eff.org| The only one that's coming."
(617) 864-0665  |                           
EFF, Cambridge  |                   --Robert Frost
From: mworley@mathcs.emory.edu (Meg Worley)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: 92 in rabreview
Date: 4 Jan 1993 17:18:02 -0500
Organization: Emory University, Dept of Math and CS
NNTP-Posting-Host: emory.mathcs.emory.edu

In article <1993Jan4.203628.13812@nas.nasa.gov>, wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith) writes:
> 
> I read one book in 1992.  It was a very good book, but the title and
> the author's name escape me at the moment.  I highly recommend it.
> 
> I'm now searching for a book to read in 1993.  I want to start soon
> so I'll finish this year.

Are we to assume, then, that your shopping list is very,
very long but your refrigerator empty?  Quick, somebody,
stock the man's cupboards!

meg

-- 

 Meg Worley 				Internet:  mworley@mathcs.emory.edu
From: jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: academic settings
Date: 11 Jan 93 01:05:11 GMT
     <1993Jan10.191547.3470@athena.mit.edu> <1993Jan10.200424.24455@ecrc.de>
     <1iq1k0INNq98@FUNCTOR.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU>
Organization: UT Art History
X-UserAgent: Nuntius v1.1



In article <1993Jan10.191547.3470@athena.mit.edu> Keith Morgan,
kamorgan@athena.mit.edu writes:
>Jane Langton: The Memorial Hall Murders

The estimable Jane also has at least one other academic mystery in her
Homer Kelly series: _The Dante Game_, out in the last couple of years,
which takes Homer and Mary to Florence, where they teach in an
Americans-study-abroad college that has more than its share of
questionable occurrences. (I was most interested to discover a couple
weeks ago that she is mother to Chris Langton, one of the hotshots of the
complexity field--see Mitchell Waldrop's fine book, _Complexity_.)

Another, considerably older, academic mystery which I might recommend is
H.R. Smithies' _An Academic Question_. If you can get around all the
drug-running, you will find some nice satire on classics departments.

Of course, there's always Amanda Cross, whose Kate Fansler mysteries
reflect the author's increasing perturbation at the position of female
scholars. (Cross is a pseudonym for Carolyn Heilbrun, who recently took
early retirement from the Columbia English department, well documented in
the NYT Sunday magazine sometime in this past November or December.)

And if you want to look into an English "physical training College,"
there's always _Miss Pym Disposes_, by the incomparable Josephine Tey.
--

"They like sitting around reading all the books there are. And then they 
love arguing about them. Some of those arguments go on for millenium 
after millenium. It just seems to keep them young, for some reason, 
arguing about books." -- Julian Barnes          

Joann Zimmerman (jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 07:28:17 GMT

In article <C0H211.B61@news.iastate.edu> s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu writes:
>Certainly one doesn't need to know the sordid
>>details of Foucault's life to discuss his theories: they may *amplify*
>>that discussion, but don't provide the essence of the debate.
>
>I don't appreciate your calling the details of Foucault's life "sordid" just
>because he happened to be gay . . . Or are you referring to something else?

The man was no nun, from all reports.  How much of the gossip is to be
believed to qualify as "sordid", I don't know.


-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books