Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception

Newsgroups	comp.lang.python
Date	2016-03-02 09:02 -0800
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Message-ID	<eeb1ff13-cab2-4c86-9960-431e7729f3c7@googlegroups.com> (permalink)
Subject	Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception
From	Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com>

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On Tuesday, March 1, 2016 at 10:36:02 PM UTC+5:30, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Mar 2016 04:08 am, Rustom Mody wrote:
> 
> > And who is the last arbiter on that 'reality'?
> 
> I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that this is a genuine question, and
> not just an attempt to ask a rhetorical question to demonstrate your
> profundity.
> 
> You should not assume that there is any such thing as "the last arbiter" of
> reality. There is no arbiter at all, let alone a final one. But what we
> have are various ways of managing and uncertainty and error. One of which
> is consensus. For instance, there are seven billion people on earth who
> think they are people, and one who thinks he may be a butterfly. Which is
> more likely to be correct?
> 
> https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zhuangzi
> 
> To quote Terry Pratchett:
> 
>       'The poet Hoha once dreamed he was a butterfly, and then he 
>     awoke and said, "Am I a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or 
>     am I a butterfly dreaming he is a man?"' said Lobsang, trying
>     to join in.
>       'Really?' said Susan briskly.  'And which was he?'
>       'What?  Well...who knows?'
>       'How did he write his poems?' said Susan.
>       'With a brush, of course.'
>       'He didn't flap around making information-rich patterns in 
>     the air or laying eggs on cabbage leaves?'
>       'No one ever mentioned it.'
>       'Then he was probably a man,' said Susan.
> 
> 
> Because there are limitations on how we observe reality, there are limits to
> how objective we can be. We have an imperfect ability to observe the world
> around us (including our own mental states) and are prone to errors. But,
> over a wide range of conditions (although not *all* conditions) we can
> eliminate many classes of error by comparing notes with our fellows, so to
> speak. If I think I am a butterfly, and my wife thinks I'm a man, and my
> co-workers think I'm a man, and my neighbours think I'm a man, chances are
> good that it is me who is mistaken, not them.
> 
> Consequently reality is a shared construct -- or rather, our understanding
> of reality is at least partly a shared construct.
> 
> In principle, at least, *everything* is subject to disproof. But in practice
> some things are more certain than others. I wouldn't bet $100 on quarks
> still being considered the fundamental building block of matter in 200
> years, but I would bet a million dollars on the sun still seeming to rise
> in the east every 24 hours.
> 
> As Isaac Asimov put it:
> 
>     When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. 
>     When people thought the earth was spherical, they were 
>     wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is 
>     spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, 
>     then your view is wronger than both of them put together.
> 
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wronger_than_wrong
> 
> http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
> 
> It's not that reality itself is subject to change (except in the trivial
> sense that we can take actions that modify the state of the world: I can
> pick this cup up and move it over there, you can eat that apple) but that
> our understanding of reality is subject to change. Sometimes our
> understanding is full of uncertainty and doubt, sometimes it is subject to
> re-interpretation, and sometimes our understanding is almost certainly
> correct: it is difficult to imagine any credible or believable
> reinterpretation that would change the facts as we know them. A thousand
> years from now, the sun will still appear to be rising in the east.

Consensus? Um lets see...

Here are two writings:
[1] http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/blake/to_see_world.html
[2] http://www.bartleby.com/101/536.html

If you see [2] around line 75 it almost verbatim echoes Larry's complaint
of what 'they' did to Kennneth

And how is [1]'s starting different from Kenneth's finding his weight
to be the weight of the universe?

Maybe the authors of these need the services of a psychiatrist?

If not you may find some appeal in this modernized version:
http://blog.languager.org/2011/10/vagaries-of-intelligence.html


As for Asimov, yeah he's right perhaps in distinguishing wrong wronger and wrongest
Not so much in underestimating the time for humans to autocorrect their errors
A collection [inspired by earlier comments of yours :-) ]:
http://blog.languager.org/2016/01/how-long.html

Thread

[Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-02-27 20:37 +1100
  Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2016-02-27 09:50 +0000
  Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2016-02-27 14:06 -0800
  Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Jason Friedman <jsf80238@gmail.com> - 2016-02-27 17:00 -0700
  Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Larry Martell <larry.martell@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 11:21 -0500
  Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 09:47 -0700
  Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2016-03-01 03:56 +1100
    Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 09:08 -0800
      Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2016-03-01 04:33 +1100
        Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 09:54 -0800
      Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Larry Martell <larry.martell@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 17:40 -0500
      Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2016-02-29 23:29 +0000
      Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Joel Goldstick <joel.goldstick@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 18:33 -0500
      Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-03-02 04:05 +1100
        Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-03-02 09:02 -0800
          Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-03-03 13:27 +1100
            Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-03-03 13:35 +1100
              Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception alister <alister.ware@ntlworld.com> - 2016-03-03 17:21 +0000
                Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2016-03-03 11:03 -0700
                Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception alister <alister.ware@ntlworld.com> - 2016-03-03 20:20 +0000
                Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2016-03-03 13:33 -0700
                Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception William Ray Wing <wrw@mac.com> - 2016-03-03 18:02 -0500
                Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception alister <alister.ware@ntlworld.com> - 2016-03-04 14:05 +0000
                [Still off-top] Physics [was Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception] Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-03-04 11:04 +1100
                Re: [Still off-top] Physics [was Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception] Oscar Benjamin <oscar.j.benjamin@gmail.com> - 2016-03-04 10:19 +0000
                Re: [Still off-top] Physics [was Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception] Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-03-04 12:38 +0200
                Re: [Still off-top] Physics [was Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception] Dan Sommers <dan@tombstonezero.net> - 2016-03-04 13:10 +0000
                Re: [Still off-top] Physics [was Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception] Oscar Benjamin <oscar.j.benjamin@gmail.com> - 2016-03-04 17:35 +0000
                Re: [Still off-top] Physics [was Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception] André Roberge <andre.roberge@gmail.com> - 2016-03-04 11:12 -0800
                Re: [Still off-top] Physics [was Requests author discusses   MentalHealthError exception] Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2016-03-05 15:51 +1300
                Re: [Still off-top] Physics [was Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception] Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-03-05 14:13 +1100
                Re: [Still off-top] Physics [was Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception] Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-03-05 10:31 +0200
                Re: [Still off-top] Physics [was Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception] Oscar Benjamin <oscar.j.benjamin@gmail.com> - 2016-03-05 13:11 +0000
                Photon mass (was: [Still off-top] Physics) Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-03-05 16:38 +0100
                Re: [Still off-top] Physics [was Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception] Gene Heskett <gheskett@wdtv.com> - 2016-03-05 10:15 -0500
                Photon mass (was: [Still off-top] Physics) Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2016-03-05 16:46 +0100
                Re: Photon mass (was: [Still off-top] Physics) Gene Heskett <gheskett@wdtv.com> - 2016-03-05 12:36 -0500
                Re: Photon mass (was: [Still off-top] Physics) Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2016-03-06 12:16 -0500
                Re: Photon mass (was: [Still off-top] Physics) Larry Martell <larry.martell@gmail.com> - 2016-03-06 09:21 -0500
                Re: [Still off-topic] Physics Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-03-06 16:36 +1100
                Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError   exception Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2016-03-04 19:34 +1300
                Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError   exception Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-03-04 08:52 +0200
            Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-03-02 19:57 -0800
              Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2016-03-02 23:44 -0700
              Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-03-04 02:50 +1100
              Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2016-03-03 16:21 +0000
      Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Anders Wegge Keller <wegge@wegge.dk> - 2016-03-03 08:23 +0100
    Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2016-02-29 16:35 -0800
      Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2016-02-29 16:54 -0800
  Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Larry Martell <larry.martell@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 17:36 -0500
  Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Larry Martell <larry.martell@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 17:38 -0500
    Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-03-01 23:13 +1100
      Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception "Sven R. Kunze" <srkunze@mail.de> - 2016-03-01 17:49 +0100
  Re: [Off-topic] Requests author discusses MentalHealthError exception "Mario R. Osorio" <nimbiotics@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 20:11 -0800
  Re: Photon mass (was: [Still off-top] Physics) Gene Heskett <gheskett@wdtv.com> - 2016-03-06 16:46 -0500
  Re: Photon mass (was: [Still off-top] Physics) Larry Martell <larry.martell@gmail.com> - 2016-03-06 17:51 -0500

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