Posts by 81stcolumn
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I will wave cheerfully at any driver who just about ploughs into me because they are gabbing on their cellphone, and I will smile at cyclists I just about wipe out because the morons have just run a red light.
<chuckle> With age comes wisdom indeed so even handed in your displeasure. Please smile at any fool you can catch running a red light. Happy new year.
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Two responses to this thread you can figure out which one to take seriously for yourselves…
On the matter of cats in boxes…
With the aid of Sox our backyard cat I have been able to get in touch with Schrödinger’s original cat (we used a cat modified Ouija board). In cat philosophical terms the cat claimed to belong to Schrödinger points out that ownership should be understood from the point of view of cat or cats owning Schrödinger and other parties involved. Sox went on to point out that this solves matters of uncertainty such as ownership implied by multiple viewers (when the image of the cat formerl;y known as Schrödinger’s appears in my head do I own the cat ?); because the cats as we know own us all…Thus when we see the cat in the box formerly known to be Schrödinger’s we instantly become the property of the cat we think we are viewing (of course allowing for the fact that the cat is there at all and that it is the same cat at all times –which has yet to be verified). Everyone clear on this ?
For those of you still hung up on falsification and Popper it is worth looking at the Duhem–Quine Thesis. Personally I don’t think Bayes gets us out of this hole. I do think science and behaviour does in so far as supernatural events consistent with their denomination do not stand up well against criterion of confirmation, reliability and simplicity which are unavoidable hallmarks of useable applied science.
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Hmmm Christmas…typically I have only just noticed its here. I am kind of hoping that at some point offspring will change my view of Christmas…we’ll see. Working in the license trade for too long changes the way you see things.
Peace on earth 1.
My father and I spent the day arguing I’m drunk, he’s barely conscious. We have guests. I’m laying the table, I drop a fork, he tells me to wash it, I reply “you f*****g wash it”. The guests have to restrain us both and someone else washes the fork. We sit to eat, I’m serving my father, doing it silver style, I twitch, purely by accident and cover him in overdone, quite mobile greens. He eyeballs me, I eyeball him and the room elects not to take any further breaths for the time being. Then I see what I think is the vaguest crinkle next to his recently greened eye. We both look to either side and I really can’t remember who started it. A smile, a chuckle, a giggle and then peals of tear busting, asthmatic provoking laughter; the spirit of Christmas brings peace for another day.
Peace on earth 2.
Still not over the breakdown of a 4 year relationship, feeling quite sorry for myself, I elected not to celebrate Christmas. I was nursing an extraordinary hangover having passed out at 7pm the day before. The house was freezing and I could not be bothered to connect up the new gas bottle, I crawled into bed instead. The phone rang three times; I decided not to be in. Then this awful banging on the door “Saes ! we know you’re in there - John and Della are coming to collect you in half an hour !”. John and Della owned a farm over the hill, Della had been my tutor at Uni, they are both the most decent committed Christians I know and I am about as atheist as they come. Failing to contact me by phone, they in that very North Wales way checked with my neighbours and got them to alert me instead. People like me don’t deserve friends like that. I don’t remember the meal or much of the following days. I do remember standing in an empty slate quarry with five companions singing Hymns and carols for all my voice, and what could be taken for a soul was worth. I can neither describe nor understand the peace that moment brought me.
A gift from my partner.
My partner gets my need for solitude which is a great comfort to me. One Christmas shortly after we first got together, we finished work on the evening of the 23rd, packed gear and drove from Sheffield to the northern highlands of Scotland. Late afternoon met our arrival at the bottom of a small range of Corbett’s and Munro’s I’d recce’d the year before. We did a night tramp for the first part, pitching out about two thirds of the way from the top of this particular peak. Christmas day from the camp looked a bit misty and not too bright, by eleven it had cleared just enough for us to photograph the wreck of a WW2 Wellington bomber. We could just see the peak and decided to have a go with what looked like quite a long zigzag route. As the ascent progressed the Sun came out and we went really fast, no words, just the crunch of snow and us. They call it a flow state and it was one of the most complete moments of my life. At the top I could see the range, the sea, my partner, two sets of tracks and not another living soul. Not the highest peak I’ve ever done and by no means the most difficult or indeed the most spectacular scenery, but it was mine. Only half the chocolate was mine though. It became clear at the peak that my partner was getting very cold very fast; with old gear not really up to the job, I cracked out my dry set and my partner doubled up layers. We set off downhill quite fast and made quite a wise decision at camp deciding to continue the walk off. I put my partner in the bothybag with a hot pack and pitched up. As we walked off a blizzard followed us all the way down to the tree line where we camped briefly and then carried on the then thick snow. Sat finally in a snowbound car I realised my partner who really hadn’t enjoyed the show, had given me one perfect Christmas day.
If Santa didn’t exist would we have to have had invent one anyway ?
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I should perhaps have added this one for good measure..
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Sarah & Fletcher B, n'all –
When looking at argument it is worth bearing in mind a handful of things that are likely to shape what has been and is being said:
i) Memory is constructive – that is to say when we cannot remember we will try and fill in the gaps even to the point of “remembering” things neither said nor done.
ii) In recall we demonstrate systematic and predictable biases – Experimentally recorded biases include compliance (the people around you), the emotional content of words used in reporting events, and the basic desire to cast oneself in the best possible light.
Looked at in this way both the adoption of extreme positions and slight shifts in point of view are to be expected in discourse over time; indeed certain editors have relied on this approach for many years as far as I can see.
For your further enjoyment:
Cognitive bias
Misinformation effect
Picture superiority effect
Recall bias
List of cognitive biasesI deliberately sat on my hands over “that raid” threatening to blog on it later. I still have really mixed feelings about it all.
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Cheers Luke - I was about to point out that if it was the ref’s fault then there was nothing wrong with the coach. From an outsiders perspective it won’t be coaching that undoes world cup ambitions but the structure of the game domestically and S14. Can we go easy on the Welsh please I’m wounded enough as it is.
RB. Yes Rickards deserves to be asked some hard questions but not in a public forum where it can hurt the kids.
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Hwyl am y dro, ewch a serchiadau (in less than perfect language).
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All this talk of politics and music made me think of this.....
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I'm overwhelmed by the sheer nearmissedness of the year.
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Oh chwith…..