Paradigm. Do you know what one is? Do you have one? Are you blinded by it?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Historians (especially the falsifiers of history).

You are referring to the fiction writers.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by notyoueither

You are referring to the fiction writers.

Why? I'd alway give to fiction writers as long as it is recognized that what is written is fiction.

History on the other hand is inherently a subject of falsifications without a warning.

[notyoueither]

I kind of have to grant that, given the way it is presented to the general public. When you get into it you have it drummed into you that this is an interpretation of events based on facts, and that other interpretations of the same or similar facts are possible. But school kids aren't taught that. They are given texts and too often encouraged to treat them as canon.

[The Vagabond]

True. Futhermore, in history, whether something is a fact is often a matter of interpretation.

[notyoueither]

Not really. I think you are mixing up facts, like the procession of the seasons and that so and so lived in this century and fought in such and such a battle, with interpretations like 'he was a real swell guy for laying the kick ass on the heathens'.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by molly bloom
By the by, karzyhoser, I think you meant smidgeon.

Unless smidgum is some Canadian physicists sticky sub atomic matter, or a Newfie fish dish.

Originally posted by Agathon


God you physicists talk a load of **** that doesn't even add up to a smidgum of knowledge.

Besides, you all smell and can't get any girls.

So:

a) Kiwi philosophers don't speak the English so good, yes?

b) Aussies are just retarted.

[KrazyHorse]

, by the way.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by notyoueither
I don't give a damn what philosophers may say about it, it is a useful thing to be aware of when studying history.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by The Vagabond


It's a synthesis and culmination of both.

In other words, it's nothing.

I honestly get the giggles when somebody like Aggie claims that what philosophers have gained is knowledge, whereas what scientists have gained is justified belief.

I'll agree with the second statement, but it's the first which gives me troubles.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Not really. I think you are mixing up facts, like the procession of the seasons and that so and so lived in this century and fought in such and such a battle, with interpretations like 'he was a real swell guy for laying the kick ass on the heathens'.

I am not mixing it up! I never said anything like that! The notion such as 'fact' is certainly applicable to history. But it is in this discipline that facts tend to be distorted by interpretation most.

Interrelation between facts and interpretation is a complicated philosophical matter though.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

In other words, it's nothing.

If this "nothing" is the same "nothing" as the vacuum is, I can live with that.

I honestly get the giggles when somebody like Aggie claims that what philosophers have gained is knowledge, whereas what scientists have gained is justified belief.

I can't believe that Agathon said anything like that. You are misinterpreting him!

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by The Vagabond


If this "nothing" is the same "nothing" as the vacuum is, I can live with that.

Which vacuum? |0> or |omega> ?

[The Vagabond]

Whichever!

[The Vagabond]

BTW, are there two types of vacuum?

[Ben Kenobi]

I was concentrating on the alchemy- I could have mentioned the theology, but the transmutation of base metal into gold was less likely to drag Obi Gyn away from his icon screen,

I belong to a church that eschews icons, molly.

If you're going to bother to drag me into a thread, at least get it right.

belching clouds of incense and anathematizing Copernican astronomy.

Well, you forget I have been an astronomy student for far longer than I have been a Christian. This isn't anything I haven't seen before.

presumably that's a flavour Obi Gyn hasn't tried yet.

And you would be wrong. I share many of the same sentiments as Faraday, on these points, especially in making scientific advancements accessable to everyone, rather than concealed in jargon, and mathematical formulae.