OT: Scientific reason why you shouldnt criticize Dale

Azalin · Post by **Azalin** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 2:54 pm

I was wondering if any of you have read the book called "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid"? It explains a "paradox" which the author calls a "strange loop". A strange loop is a pattern that progresses to an infinite number of loops, thus creating a "mathematical impossibily".

What the heck does it have with criticizing Dale? Well, I think that when you criticize Dale, you are actually creating a "strange loop". It just doesnt make sens. Without Dale, you would not be here at the first place. I think that how much you like Dale or hate Dale is irrelevant. So, you owe Dale your existence on this plane of reality (the forum), and by denying it you actually cease to "exist", but to cease to "exist" you must first exist to stop your existence... etc etc...

That's a strange loop, so here's your scientific evidence that, like it or not, you must go with Dale's rules or create a mathematical error...

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 2:59 pm

I think you're failing to draw a distinction between criticizing Dale as a person and criticizing his policies in regards to commercial posts, and how they are inforced. You can say 'I don't like this rule or how you inforce this rule' and still not imply 'Dale is a bad person'.

serpent · Post by **serpent** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 3:01 pm

Az, what'cha been smokin' these days? I want some!

serp

Celtoid · Post by **Celtoid** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 3:13 pm

I live in a strange loop anyhow.

Azalin · Post by **Azalin** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 3:19 pm

Cranberry, you've found a weakness in my interpretation of the theory, will have to study it some more

Serpent, no need for smoke, I'm born with those issues!

But really, you should have a look at the book, it's great. There's an image where you can see people moving up stairs that's going 'round a building, but when you look closely the stairs are actually coming back to their starting point.

Zubivka · Post by **Zubivka** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 3:25 pm

That's the shortest digest I ever read of this book.

Applying Math to Sociology is always risky, especially with Gödel's theorem calling for perfect isomorphisms...
Nevertheless, mapping it to our local system of rules and sets of a) members b) posts, the only thing I could infere from Gödel is that:
No matter how many rules you have at start (or how many you ad), one member will write, intentionnally or not, an unpredicted, uncontrollable post.
This without even breaking the rules: these just can't frame a complete, all-predicting system.

I start feeling better knowing this, then I remember Maths are ideal worlds... Weeks, did you snatch my Prozac?

The Weekenders · Post by **The Weekenders** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 3:37 pm

Az: Without doubt, this is one of the cleverest things I have ever seen from you posted here. And so very germane to the dust-up. I can never figure out why people knock Dale for pretty much the reasons stated.

Whether its good science or not is somebody-who-knows-better's business.

Thanks!

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 4:01 pm

If nothing else, you should read the book for the story of how Bach wrote the Musical Offering. Or when is the last time you improvised a five-part fugue on a chromatic theme proposed by your King?

Jerry Freeman · Post by **Jerry Freeman** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 4:07 pm

Azalin wrote:Without Dale, you would not be here at the first place.

I have it on good authority that my mother found me under a cabbage leaf and Dale had nothing to do with it.

Bretton · Post by **Bretton** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 4:09 pm

I've read all of Douglas Hofstadter's books, and might have even understood 50% of what I was reading. Now I'm working on "A New Kind of Science" by Stephen Wolfram. I think I'll be lucky to understand 25% of it. I manage to find them interesting to read even when I don't completely understand the material.

-Brett

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 4:47 pm

Leibniz tells of a young man who complains that
his father cheated him of nobility by marrying
a commoner, who bore him, not realizing that he wouldn't
have existed if his father had married
somebody else.

this gets deployed in the theology of evil:
if this world had been a better place, if there hadn't
been the wars and calamities of the preceding
centuries, for instance,
none of us would have been conceived.
My parents never would have met in NYC,
or been conceived themselves,
if Jews
hadn't been persecuted in Russia.
We owe our existence to those
calamities; none of us would have existed in a
better world.

What, then, is our complaint with God?
That he should have made a better
world without us in it? Best

TelegramSam · Post by **TelegramSam** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 4:55 pm

Sometimes I feel like I'm living in one big mathematical error. I think God divided by zero somewhere in my equation....

IDAwHOa · Post by **IDAwHOa** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 5:31 pm

Can invisible people survive in a "strange loop?"

Ridseard · Post by **Ridseard** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 5:52 pm

Azalin wrote:But really, you should have a look at the book, it's great. There's an image where you can see people moving up stairs that's going 'round a building, but when you look closely the stairs are actually coming back to their starting point.

http://www.annexed.net/images/escher/escher1.jpg

MurphyStout · Post by **MurphyStout** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 6:37 pm

[quote="Azalin"]Serpent, no need for smoke, I'm born with those issues!
[quote]

Oh hell yeah and sh*t!

Chiff and Fipple Forums

OT: Scientific reason why you shouldnt criticize Dale

OT: Scientific reason why you shouldnt criticize Dale

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Re: OT: Scientific reason why you shouldnt criticize Dale