On Nov 11, 2012, at 11:44 AM, William Conger <[email protected]> wrote:
> Can you determine error? What criteria do you use? Re error: Comparison and > contrast are essential to discovering differences in a set. One must choose > whether differences or similarities are the main criteria for error or accuracy. > If differences, then the most accurate example is the one with the most varied > differences in a set; if accuracy, then the best example is the set with the > fewest differences. Inexact replication. I am thinking primordially here, btw. Was the Big Bang perfectly equal in every direction? If not, why not? Was the very beginning of the Big Bang an event of perfectly equal and distributed energy? If not, why not? Why is there hydrogen and helium? How did it come to pass that an atom of atomic weight 1 changed into an atom of atomic weight 2? Again, I am not interested in instrumental or procdural explanations (how it happened), but of how it came about. When I track failures (not performing a task properly, e.g., a DNA split results in a mutated gene) I wind up at the molecular and then atomic levels and finally at Heisenberg's indeterminacy of a particle's position or velocity. (Does indeterminacy play a part in atomic behavior, bonding, etc.?) > Re quality: This relies on independent objective or > subjective criteria. If objective, then a rule or set of rules for quality can > be stipulated for comparison and contrast with the thing being valued; if > subjective, then it's a matter of personal taste and persuasion (by whatever > means from enticement to coercion); if a mix of the two, as is likely the most > common, then it's a matter of debate at best or the case remains unsettled. > That's what I think right now but I'm open to persuasion or intellectual > coercion, including witty rebuttals, nitpicking reason, shouts, cursing, > banging the table, throwing things, and threats against my character and > manhood, and solemn challenges to a duel -- with marshmallows, of course. I can't sing worth a damn. I've been told so by many people with odd looks on their faces. I cannot follow a melody very well, I cannot identify rising and falling notes reliably, and I cannot hear my own voice clearly enough to recognize all the tonal qualities of singing. I'm very good at controlling the inflections in speech. But singing well? Not in this lifetime! By comparison, I can distinguish an almost infinite range of colors, which other people just lump together as "tan" or "sea green." They see colors as badly as I sing. Those are examples of physical capabilities. I'm thinking more of quality of the art product. How is it that some people think that a kitschy image of a dog or bird or landscape is a suitable accomplishment? Do they just know their own limits and like when they reach those limits? or do they actually not discern the shortcomings? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
