Organization: Current Science Tel: +44 71 323 0323 Fax: +44 71 580 1938
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Tue, 21 Jul 1992 18:57:39 EDT
Reply-To:     Graham Toal <gtoal@ed.ac.uk>
From:         Graham Toal <gtoal@CURSCI.CO.UK>
Subject:      Re: Five Reasons (was tushar, boy..)
Comments: To: Words-L and the Bandwidth Hogs <words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu>

On Tue, 21 Jul 1992 01:53:10 CDT, "Tushar Samant" <tushar@ZAPHOD.UCHICAGO.EDU>
 wrote:
> 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
>
Tushar, don't you think the Jim Thomas pastiches have gone on <long enough>?
What did he ever to you anyway to merit this bombasity?

G
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