MemberlistThe Library Index  FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 
Principles of Applied Epistemology (APPLIED EPISTEMOLOGY)
Reply to topic Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 17, 18, 19 ... 38, 39, 40  Next
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Boreades


In: finity and beyond
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Mick Harper wrote:
It is the one characteristic identified by Mick long ago:
Conservatism is rural; liberalism is urban.

I am always pleased to have come up with something my sternest taskmaster approves of though I do not in fact recognise this statement. (Perhaps, Ishmael, you might track down a reference?) In The Megalithic Empire I point out that Christianity is urban and Megalithia is rural. Though I am not sure how that equates with left/right.

Other characteristics change but this does not. For example, in Iran, the liberals believe many of the same things believed by the conservatives of the United States; in Russia; the conservatives believe many of the same things believed by liberals in the U.K.


I find this a bit baffling. I hesitate to say 'untrue'. And certainly doesn't seem to coincide with the urban/rural split of Ishmael's argument. All I can say is that Western media are forever interviewing urban liberal types in both Iran and Russia in a highly approving way while I sit watching, fuming because I know that neither Russians nor Iranians (en masse) have the slightest wish to go the Western Way. Putin has just beaten his nearest challenger by forty percentage points. Result: western telly films a few hundred Muscovite liberals moaning about it.

Western AE-ists hesitate to prescribe what's best for Russia or Iran.


It's true, it is a bit baffling, as long as one is stuck on a Left Wing -- Right Wing (LR) dimension. A sadly one dimensional model of political psychology, and still the only one used by a huge percentage of non-AEL mainstream media pundits and commentators.

The next available dimension is the Libertarian -- Authoritarian (LA) dimension. For the sake of a simplistic model let's suppose it crosses the LR dimension at right-angles like an X-Y axis (realities might vary).

It looks (to me) like the LA dimension is largely ignored or hardly mentioned in mainstream UK media. Perhaps because we've largely forgotten the periods in UK history when the LA dimension was really active and important, and most of the UK parties are sitting on a similar part of the LA spectrum i.e. somewhere blandly in the middle (M'Lady Boreades and Green Eco-Fascists excepted). But other countries like Russia and Iran have a much more recent and visceral memory of LA issues.

It's then just a matter of coincidence when & where a belief (or statement) on the LR dimension crosses the LA dimension. It will also be a matter of misunderstanding and miscommunication when we assume the belief (or statement) in LR-space actually means the same to the other person in LA-space.

There will probably be other available dimensions that could be added to the mix, to expand the understanding, but I hope my work here is done (on this topic).
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

If someone can translate this into meta-English for me, please do.

http://contactform24.com/applied-epistemology.com/
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

The 'world record' factor is turning out to be more and more useful in Applied Epistemology. Basically, anything anomalous attracts our attention but ordinarily world records are not anomalous -- there has to be a highest, biggest, oldest etc so that in itself does not attract our attention.

What we found though, when writing Meetings with Remarkable Forgeries, was that over and over again something that had aroused our suspicion for some other reason also turned out to be the highest, biggest, (usually) oldest etc. In forgeries generally this is both obvious and non-obvious because while, say, the oldest gospel book in the world will be immensely valuable and therefore well worth forging, it is also going to attract the most specialist scrutiny so maybe better not forge one. It turns out this is not the case. The older it is the more the academics love it!

Anyway, an interesting world record has just come up in another sphere which I will tell you about anon.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Here are the top ten lowest points of land on the earth's surface

1) Dead Sea Depression Israel, Jordan, Syria 413 meters below sea level
2) Lake Assal (in the Afar Depression) Djibouti 155 meters below sea level
3) Turfan Depression China 154 meters below sea level
4) Qattara Depression Egypt 133 meters below sea level
5) Karagiye Depression Kazakhstan 132 meters below sea level
6) Denakil Depression (in the Afar Depression) Ethiopia 125 meters below sea level
7) San Julían's Great Depression Argentina 105 meters below sea level
8) Death Valley USA 86 meters below sea level
9) Akdzhakaya Depression Turkmenistan 81 meters below sea level
10) Salton Trough USA, Mexico 69 meters below sea level

Which is the odd one out and why? Not, repeat not, why it is the odd one out in actuality or in your opinion, but why it is anomalous in this list i.e. what would bring it to the attention of an AE-ist knowing nothing about geophysics?
Send private message
Ishmael


In: Toronto
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Dead Sea Depression. It is completely off the chart of the expected distribution curve.
Send private message
Hatty
Site Admin

In: Berkshire
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Dead Sea because it is almost three times lower than comparable sites.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

All right. We might also observe that below sea-level places are randomly distributed (all continents except Australia). Given that above sea level goes up to 10,000 metres, and there are an infinite number of them, it is clearly the case that 'below sea level' places not only fall into the category "rare but not anomalously rare" but into the "probably should be above but find themselves temporarily below sea level" category.

All of this might be relevant to geophysics because they are clearly 'natural'. The presumption therefore must be that the Dead Sea is either un-natural or geophysics (including our own revisionist geophysics) would have to be re-written.

You may have noticed one other oddity about the Dead Sea. It was described as being in 'Israel, Jordan, Syria' whereas all the others are single-country apart from 'Salton Trough USA, Mexico', also presumably political. The reason the others are a-political is that being below sea level seems always to be tantamount to 'back of beyond' and are found in either the middle of big countries full of 'back of beyond' places or straddle countries nobody can be bothered to distinguish between because they are themselves the back of beyond.

The Dead Sea is also the back of beyond (to look at) but just happens to be at the epicentre of world history/politics etc. All of which points to the Dead Sea being un-natural. Those of you who know the answer (my answer at any rate) should keep quiet for now and see if anyone else, now alerted, can come up with the (well, my) solution.
Send private message
Ishmael


In: Toronto
View user's profile
Reply with quote

I must point out that the Titanic is also a World Record. The Titanic Disaster requires several World Records.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

You should list them, though we have listed some. However my main objection is that--so far as we can ascertain--the Titanic seems to have no great ramifications even if it does prove more significant than popularly supposed. The Dead Sea should prove more potent.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Since the critical difference between the Dead Sea and ordinary, common or garden, natural, below sea-level areas is 413m vis à vis 155m, we are looking for human activities that can account for a thousand feet of excavation. This points to mining except that a thousand feet is way beyond antique abilities and the Dead Sea is way too big for mines, even joined up mines.

So what about open-cast quarrying? This would certainly, in theory, account for the lateral extent since open cast quarries are only limited by the occurrence of the lode and in the case of salt (the presumptive lode here) this can stretch for the requisite miles. But what of the vertical extent? Could the Ancients quarry down a thousand feet?

The barrier to all deep extraction in antiquity was always pumping out the water so the question is can you pump water out of open cast mines easier than ordinary ones? I don’t know. Second, are salt deposits inherently easier to pump? I don’t know. Third, is the water table in the Jordan valley high or low? I don’t know.

I suppose above all
1. Would there be a Jordan sans the quarry?
2. Is the Jordan the way they pumped out the quarry?
3. What would be left to see in the Jordan valley three thousand years after they stopped quarrying?
Send private message
Ishmael


In: Toronto
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Brilliant!
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Somebody pasted this up on Twitter

When my PhD was going terribly, my dad had wonderful advice. He shared a story of how Jane Goodall's committee hated her work and made her re-write it. At the end of the story, he asked: "Now, who remembers that committee and who changed her field?". That pep talk gave me wings.

To which our old chum, Kate Wiles, added

See also Rosamond McKitterick. She submitted Carolingians and the Written Word as a journal article. It got rejected. She turned it into a book and it changed the field.

It is by the by that Prof McKitterick was sent a copy of Forgeries, the point is these people know that the academic system discourages (forbids?) radical innovation but think it heroic to go outside it. Without thought of taking the step themselves.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Hatty has been engaged in a Twitter exchange that has highlighted the embattled relationship between us and academics. It all started innocently enough with this routine tweet from one of our foremost specialists in medieval manuscripts, Eleanor Parker, of ye olde Oxford University

24 August is the feast of St Bartholomew, 'Bartlemas Day' - a late-summer holiday which was (and still is) the occasion for some wonderful customs

which led to the wonderful custom of the academic folk all breathlessly agreeing with one another in a congratulatory fashion. Things were gambolling along nicely until Hatty arrived. What was her interest? Well, as it happens ol’ Bart features in Meetings with Remarkable Forgeries on account of his arm turning up in a list of Canterbury relics recorded in the Augustine Gospels which we were blackguarding in the book so Hatty rather fancies herself a bit of an expert. Which, as you will see, faute de mieux, she is. She mildly observed

Quite a coup for Canterbury to get hold of a St Bartholomew arm. We only have the word of "Eadmer" of course but who would question the veracity of a monk from, er, Canterbury?

Oh dear, the cat had landed firmly among the pigeons. But would they notice?
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

You need to know that the eleventh century Eadmer is the alleged source for rather a lot of faux history. (According to us, true history according to them). Ms Parker (there’s a manuscript in-joke there) took a rather dismissive attitude to the interloper

There's no reason to doubt Eadmer's veracity in this matter; other sources indicate that the arm was indeed at Canterbury in the Middle Ages.

She doesn't say what these other sources are (a 'careful ignoral' signal to AE-ists) but since they would certainly include the list in the Augustine Gospels there is a good reason for her reticence. Even Ms Parker understands somewhere in her addled brain that defacing the earliest surviving book in England five hundred years after it was allegedly written by scribbling into its margins a list of relics is so weird it is best not to mention it as a source. She thinks she is on safer ground with this

Whether the arm obtained from Benevento was genuine is another question, but Eadmer's account of how it reached Canterbury is plausible.

Oh dear, oh dearie me.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Even the ever-credulous Parker understands that there isn’t an actual genuine arm of St Bartholomew floating round Europe in the Middle Ages which means there are only two possibilities: 1. The arm came from a Canterbury graveyard to dupe the faithful 2. The arm came from a Benevento graveyard and was sold to the dupes at Canterbury. The only question of interest is whether Eadmer is in on the joke but either way, he is hardly likely to mention graveyards when supplying the provenance of the arm. To say that

Eadmer's account of how it reached Canterbury is plausible

is not a historical statement it is a truism. Nevertheless it’s worth saying in one sense. If Eadmer did in fact exist and if he did in fact supply the provenance, whether made up or not, it at least proves that St Bartholomew’s arm was actually in Canterbury during the eleventh century. British medievalists might investigate this reasonably interesting question by, for example, hopping over to southern Italy to see whether Benevento was or was not a plausible origin for a St Bartholomew’s arm relic. I haven’t checked but this is supremely unlikely since I am confident the archaeology will reveal that Benevento has no great antiquity, certainly nothing that would make it somewhere suitable for possessing antique arms.

There is though the possibility that Benevento is an eleventh century relic factory and poor old Canterbury got suckered. Well, no, not poor old Canterbury because she grew rich by becoming Britain's (if not Europe’s) leading purveyor of relics to the masses. It seems she kept on getting suckered. However, Hatty knows from long experience that the manuscript specialists would find all this far too rich a fare to swallow so she elects for a quietest approach

Plausible to certain historians perhaps, if treating Eadmer's saints' "Lives" as gospel. Nowadays we are less credulous when it comes to self-styled eyewitness accounts. Q: Cui bono? A: Canterbury

Not quiet enough as it turns out. Not by a long, long chalk.
Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 17, 18, 19 ... 38, 39, 40  Next

Jump to:  
Page 18 of 40

MemberlistThe Library Index  FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group