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Re: OT: totally off-topic

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On Fri, 4 Apr 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

>>> Not an unwise decision.  But the wises decision is to buy a house.  An
>>
>> True. But a house means higher cost, more maintenance, more time lost doing
>> things I do not enjoy. So there is no perfect solution. But I have actually
>> thought about getting a house. So let's see what the future holds! =)
>
> I hope you get one.  It's all true about the work, but I also think
> that's good work.  A lot less USENET, a lot more house work is a good

Haha, well, my wife would agree with you there!

> idea.  We can start with offlining the USENET.  If there's little work
> to do, increase the uniform distribution of times you connect to
> exchange articles.  If there's more work, decrease it.

True. My usenet/mailinglist debt is starting to grow. I have become involved in
way too detailed and deep interesting conversations, and they are starting to
take their toll. =(

>> True. It is a little bit better in northern europe where people do not
>> want to socialize. Most of the time you meet no one. Another solution
>> could be to buy a nice pent house apartment, making sure you share the
>> floor with no one, and ideally, a private elevator! =D
>
> Living in an apartment never feels like the right thing.  One almost
> doesn't own the place.  If you decide to do something to it, you get to
> approval of the condominium.  The same would apply if you live in a
> house in a condominium.  Of course, the same thing applies to any house
> in any country.  But the less the better (while holding other important
> variables constant).

True. I have heard someone describing apartment associations like
"Karen-factories". One community in my apartment in sweden is quite alright
though. I'm starting to feel that that is pretty rare!

>>> Dude, 66% is no good. :)
>>
>> It's better than 0%! ;)
>
> Better doesn't imply good. :)

Depends on the starting point. ;)

>> Interesting, I have never seen this burger in europe! How does it
>> differ from regular cheese burgers?
>
> I think a regular cheese burger would not be a Cheddar cheese burger.
> But I agree any Cheddar is a cheese burger.  Over here now they have two
> options: you get the traditional Cheddar McMelt or you can order the
> double one.  The double one comes with three burgers, IIRC.  Besides the
> melted Cheddar, it also comes with chopped onions mixed in the Cheddar.
> I think that's it.  And a cheese burger is a burger with some slices of
> cheese.  I'm not the right person to ask about such things because I go
> there once in a few years, always planning never to come back. :)

This is making me hungry! =D

>> Sounds like a nice group of people to identify with if you can find
>> them. =) I've always been a loner from that point of view, so I tend
>> to not identify with others much at all.
>
> Oh, if you're a loner, you can identify yourself with pretty much
> everyone. :)  In a way I'm a loner as well.

Yes same here. But periodically I do feel a need for some company, but a pub
quiz or two quickly cures me of that. While fun, I don't really feel the need
for it more than 2-3 times per year or so. =)

>>> Yeah---the experts always include nutrition in their hypotheses.
>>
>> The question is... how can we, you and me, change the trend? ;)
>
> I don't think we can.  That would mean that a point can change the
> uniform average.  We could do something if we go from a uniform average
> to a weighted one and we somehow acquire the huge weight.  Nah.  I don't
> think there's true change that way.  I don't think we can change the
> world.  I don't think we should change the world.  Let nature follow its
> own course.

What if it is in my nature to change the world? Then that would be nature
following its own course. ;)

The biggest change can start with the smallest idea!

> Should a 4-leaf clover try to make every other a 4-leaf one?

Yes!

> Hey, there are 7 helicopters going round and round around a certain
> region where my house is.  They're all gray in color.  One follows the
> other.  They're really going around a circumference.  Any idea what this
> is?  I'd guess it's military exercise.  They're boringly going round.
> Not in high speeds.  They're not high in the sky; probably between
> 100--200 meters from the ground.  Probably 50 meters from the top of a
> hill around which they seem to flying.

Sounds scary! Be safe! =( In stockholm, due to the excessive uncontrolled crime
recently, police drones and helicopters are becoming more and more common. I
hate the surveillance society that sweden has been turned into and do not want
to live in it.

As we discussed above, I think a house in the country side, deep inside the
forest would be the ideal place for me!

>>> I had never heard of practical philosophy.
>>
>> It is a fairly new branch of philosophy, about 100 years old or so, depending on
>> how you define it.
>
> Kinda funny to me.  Philosophy is totally practical.  The impractical
> philosophy is that which is nonsense---you can't make sense of.

Ah, you mean modern analytical philosophy? ;) Pick up a book on metaphysics and
marvel at the nonsense! ;)

> I think it's the most practical of them all because it applies to what
> happens most of the day---for those who don't ignore the stimuli.

I'm not a buddhist but I admire the mans practicality and empiricism! I have a
feeling that all buddhist deities and 1000s and 1000s of pages of text and
buddhist philosophy would make the original rotate in his grave. ;)

>>> No.  Certainly not.  I have nothing to do with consensus.  Truth should
>>> have nothing to do with consensus.  We can easily imagine an outrageous
>>> group denying obvious facts.
>>
>> There are facts, and then there are "facts". Is it true that blue is
>> the best color? Good luck answering that objectively. ;)
>
> There are meaningless sentences and questions.  Chomsky constructs the
> famous one---colorless green ideas sleep furiously.  Good luck trying to
> picture that in any way.  Truth (and philosophy) is not about nonsense.
> It's about honestly making sense of things.

Sometimes I think that is lost in a lot of modern philosophy.

> Sometimes people take language to great abstractions, which should come
> with lots of examples and simplicity.  If people fail do that, it is not
> a bad idea to ignore it.  For instance, Kant is recognized for having
> made the distinction between synthetic truths and analytic ones.  Have
> you ever understood?  I don't think it too unwise to ignore all that.
> But I don't mean it's bad work.

Well, for me, Kants biggest insight, is that we can never get to the
metaphysical through the physical. But then he adds a lot of stuff onto that,
and I don't quite agree with where he goes.

>> Is it true that there is a coffee mug on my right on a table, yes! And
>> if you were here with me, I am 100% certain that we would agree.
>
> Of course.  There's no point in even questioning that for too long.  We
> have so many other important questions to work on.  For instance, is
> there anything bothering any bit of your days?  How could we give you a
> better life?

Amen! A very important question that should be asked from time to time. I am
tomorrow leaving for a 2 month vacation. First 1 month in spain, then a weekend
in Lyon, and then a month in sweden. I am already looking forward to a lot of
good food in spain and 20+ C weather!

I am not looking forward to travel. Modern travel I find dehumanizing. It is all
built around controlling the masses, and treating them as badly as possible,
while still taking their money.

If I had infinite amounts of money, I would travel by private jet. If I had an
infinitely compassionate wife I would not travel at all. I would be perfectly
content to spend the rest of my life in my house, deep in the forest, fishing.

I feel I have done enough for the world. I feel like I can retire to fishing
with a perfectly clear conscience. =D

>>> I'm quite okay with the keeping ``truth'' undefined.  I may have some
>>
>> Even if your life depends on it?
>
> My life would never depend on such intellectual matters.  Life depends
> on food, shelter and relationships.  We could easily argue here that
> you're likely valuing the intellect more than you should.  The intellect
> has to be kept on the leash.

What ever we make into an obsession, tends to control our lives. I prefer to be
in control, so it's always good not to get too focused and one sided about
things.

>>> Our senses also do make mistakes.  And some things can't come directly
>>> from the senses---what we see in a microscope, for example.
>>
>> True, but just because we sometimes make mistakes I do not think is
>> enough of an argument to refute completely the idea that what we can
>> confirm with our senses is not the truth.
>>
>> When it comes to the microscope, it is true, but at the end of the
>> day, we do use our senses to look into the microscope.
>
> Totally right.  When it comes to information, it has to come through the
> senses at least indirectly.

Amen!

>> My theory, conincidence, selective memory, and priming your psychological
>> filter.
>>
>> 1. Yes, sometimes it is just conincidence.
>>
>> 2. You think a lot of things, and forget a lot as well. If you think about an
>> event x, and x never happens, you would have forgotten about it. If you
>> envounter event x, after first thinking about x, you'll say to yourself, Oh, I
>> did think about x, how strange that I know encountered x.
>>
>> 3. When thinking about a thing deeply, you are in a way telling your
>> subconscious mind to be on the lookout for that. So when you filter your 1000s
>> of daily sense impressions, your usbconscious mind has been programmed to
>> "trigger" based on what you thought about.
>>
>> Those are my 3 theories around why that happens.
>
> My theory is that it's not that much of an improbable thing.  The reason
> I imagine this specific person is likely because she's a pretty likely
> one, in fact.  My imagination is never quite towards fantasy---it's
> always towards making sense of things and making things reasonable.  I
> probably choose to imagine the person that actually had some reasonable
> probability of coming over.  But what I find very funny is that I guess
> I was right.  And it didn't take very long for it to happen.

That's nice. =)

> Now, I certainly maximized the occurrence of the event because I'm
> always at the beach.  Nevertheless, though, it could be that somehow
> that's not the whole story.

Let's see tomorrow!

>> True! No hocus pocus at all! =)
>
> You see, we have this preference for destroying mystery.  Other people
> prefer the mystic.  We are more warranted in our preference than the
> others are in theirs, but we should do it very carefully because
> otherwise we're doing the same silly thing other people do.

It is dangerous to argue against peoples beliefs. That wakes up the worst in
people.

>> Oh yes... I am not against imagination and speculation, if that serves
>> to motivate a person, or inspire him, or help him advance theories. My
>> main beef is when people confuse speculation and theorizing, with what
>> we can or cannot prove. Mistaking the map for the real world so to
>> say.
>
> Most people hardly have an education.  They don't know what a theory is
> and what speculation is very well.  Unfortunately.

Well, from that point of view, we are lucky to have had a good education! I just
look at the students I have today, and get depressed. =(

Last friday I had a meeting with the management of the school, and they forbade
me to have dead lines for assignments out of fear that fewer students will pass
the courses.

That's complete b.s. And I told them that they are prioritizing profit over
quality of education.

They smiled and said that no, they would like both profit _and_ education.

I said that that is unrealistic especially if they remove all demands, and want
courses to be easier. Then I asked them to imagine how their children would be
if they said yes to their every wish. Would that be how they raise their
children or do they teach them to respect dead lines, boundaries and work hard?

They said, well, you do have a point. But we are your customer, and we pay, so
we decide the rules.

And I had to agree with that, sadly. But at least I told them what will happen,
so now they cannot blame me when the credibility of their students degrees drop
in the market!

At least I won a small victory. Apparently they could possibly consider a dead
line in _one_ course, if the task is changed from lab to project. But probably
only in one course.

Very sad state of affairs. If this is a global trend, we are getting closer to
the end of civilization! =(

>>> very hard read, but to see them all you could skim a quantum theory book
>>> by descant.
>
> Lol---what?!  By descant?  Lol.  That's a spurious end of sentence.  I
> was totally offline, unable to look anything up, but I wanted to make a
> reference to the book

Hmm, sorry, I must have slipped on the keyboard. I actually have no idea what I
meant to say! =/

>> I think we are never forced to make up our minds. I am happily
>> agnostic about the interpretations of QM and I live my life just
>> fine. I am just content to note that some interpretations are absurd,
>> some impossible (in my opinion) some meaningless, and some I do not
>> understand.
>
> It's a real puzzle.  It's not about choosing axioms one would prefer.
> Any choice is problematic.  That's the fun.  Reading d'Espagnat would
> clarify how puzzling it is, but reading it would also be a problem in
> itself.

I feel perfectly content keeping the QM models separate from the
interpretations. If the models work for generating testable predictions, that's
fine by me. I feel no need for half baked interpretations. =) A simple way to go
through life and to avoid a lot of useless metaphysical speculation! =D

>> Like the buddha said somewhere... he cannot do the work for you. You
>> have to do the work (meditate, live a good life) yourself if you want
>> peace. Buddha can facilitate, point in the right direction, but you
>> have to do the work to experience the result.
>
> Yeah.  No royal road---a beautiful law of nature.

Very much true!

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                Re: broken schools Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> - 2025-03-14 12:10 -0300
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                Re: broken schools Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> - 2025-03-17 00:02 -0300
                Re: broken schools Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2025-03-18 03:00 +0000
                Re: broken schools Eva Lu <evalu@tor.soy> - 2025-03-18 21:20 -0300
                Re: broken schools D <nospam@example.net> - 2025-03-18 11:17 +0100
                OT: totally off-topic (Was: Re: broken schools) Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> - 2025-03-19 13:51 -0300
                Re: OT: totally off-topic (Was: Re: broken schools) D <nospam@example.net> - 2025-03-19 23:20 +0100
                Re: OT: totally off-topic Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> - 2025-03-21 11:52 -0300
                Re: OT: totally off-topic D <nospam@example.net> - 2025-03-23 00:31 +0100
                Re: OT: totally off-topic Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> - 2025-03-29 20:50 -0300
                Re: OT: totally off-topic D <nospam@example.net> - 2025-04-01 16:43 +0200
                Re: OT: totally off-topic Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> - 2025-04-04 11:20 -0300
                Re: OT: totally off-topic D <nospam@example.net> - 2025-04-06 23:17 +0200
                Re: OT: totally off-topic Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> - 2025-04-10 15:19 -0300
                Re: OT: totally off-topic D <nospam@example.net> - 2025-04-12 21:05 +0200
                Re: OT: totally off-topic Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> - 2025-04-13 13:10 -0300
    lifestyles Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.netREMOVE.invalid> - 2025-03-11 20:20 +0000

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