Back to Home

God & Science Forum Message

Forums: Atm · Astrophotography · Blackholes · Blackholes2 · CCD · Celestron · Domes · Education
Eyepieces · Meade · Misc. · God and Science · SETI · Software · UFO · XEphem
RSS Button

Home | Discussion Forums | God and Science | Post
Login

Be the first pioneers to continue the Astronomy Discussions at our new Astronomy meeting place...
The Space and Astronomy Agora
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Forum List | Follow Ups | Post Message | Back to Thread Topics | In Response To
Posted by Alan on November 17, 2003 07:34:39 UTC

Thank you Aurino for your thoughtful reply.

I thought of several titles, one was "you're on to it" (as you wrote: "All the things you experience have no name, in English or any other language.)

My newborn recall includes conversations (without official English words obviously) with my newborn twin. (Although I might be able to translate into English from so-called "telepathy" sort of).

If you understand about phenomena existing independent sticking a known word-tag on then you understand a lot.

Roger Penrose also recognises that thought is more basic than language I think. Everyone has probably experienced thinking numerous things in a flash that might take pages to write out.

As an English-speaker my understanding of the meaning of the word "evening" is that it has several meanings in practical common usage:

1. "between sunset and midnight"
2. In far north or south locations: probably about between 5pm and midnight.
3. Depends on context: you might ask someone if they had a good evening at a party: it could mean 7pm to 10pm.
In practice around 10pm evening seems to become night.
But in summer there are "long summer evenings" which might include hours of late daylight: so evening might be from 5pm or from 6pm or from 7pm...
4. "tommorrow evening" would not be 3pm; nor 4pm; but in winter in Norway perhaps it could be 4pm; usually I think it would be 5pm in winter and 6pm or 7pm in summer.....seems to depend on the latitude...and the season...

"Night" seems to be after midnight; but also sunset to sunrise; so the usage of "evening " and "night" mean the concepts overlap. But I think "evening" probably always stops by midnight.
And I don't think it starts earlier than 4pm but more usually starts 6 or 7pm (but maybe 5pm in winter?).

In the "Trueman Show" the lead character says "If I don't see you; Good afternoon. Good Evening. and Good night".

Quote: "If you live 70 years, you will experience more than 25,000 nights, each different from the other. The word "night" is supposed to describe what all those thousands of experiences have in common, which on close examination turns out to be nothing! There is not a single thing that is common to all the 25,000 nights in the life of a 70 year-old man!"

It is true that each item by definition is different; but there is much in common: you told me one thing that was in common: "the life of a 70 year-old man!"

He is a "background" against which those nights are seen here. I they had nothing in common, how could you count them?

Quote: "no matter how precise your definition is, there is always a way to show when it does not apply."

Please see my post "If you read this": here you will find a revealing explanation from a philosophy book which shows the issue about how words are defined.

Idea: you can know what "night" means when blind; just as you can know what "radar" means even if you are not a bat. By context and associations.

Actually the visual design of the word "night" and its audio are in our sensory world....

Idea: Things can have names; its all a question of agreement. You cannot pin things down twice; they are already counted before you name them or how would you have something to name? But the relationship of you and the thing is a bit entangled in "naming" if you name it; as you have created a relationship of "you named the thing"...

What facts does Thomas Szasz allegedly deny? He points out that "mental health" is a metaphor (like "economic health"); he does not deny that some people are mystified or upset at the behaviour of others; he just shows that the definition of these alleged disorders and the terms in which their remedy is sought is at odds with each other.

You do not use medicine (drugs) to fix a sick economy (but you might use metaphorical: "economic" medicine). Psychiatrists confuse metaphors with reality.

The solution to the social disputes mislabelled by society as "mental health" problems is to correctly identify these phenomena for what they are:

disputes about appropriate behaviour
disputes about what human beings are
lack of understanding
play-acting
law-breaking
people trying to control each other
disputes about what kind of society we shall have
etc.

The so-called "mental-health" problems can be solved by:
dispute mediation and arbitration between conflicting parties;
compassion;
tolerance;
honesty;
freedom of thought;
freedom to not be forcibly "saved" by some religion disguising itself as "therapy".

Heating Bills: Seek and you shall find.

Regards,

Alan



Follow Ups:

Login to Post
Additional Information
Google
 
Web www.astronomy.net
DayNightLine
About Astronomy Net | Advertise on Astronomy Net | Contact & Comments | Privacy Policy
Unless otherwise specified, web site content Copyright 1994-2024 John Huggins All Rights Reserved
Forum posts are Copyright their authors as specified in the heading above the post.
"dbHTML," "AstroGuide," "ASTRONOMY.NET" & "VA.NET"
are trademarks of John Huggins