Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Assumptions Web Links
Assumptions Web Links
| DEFINITION OF ASSUMPTION |
| This entry at wordreference.com explains the many meanings of the word assumption. |
| http://www.wordreference.com/definition/assumption |
| HYPOTHESIS DEFINED - American Heritage Dictionary |
| Compare the definitions of the word hypothesis given at the Merriam-Webster and American Heritage dictionaries. |
| http://www.bartleby.com/61/3/H0370300.html |
| HYPOTHESIS DEFINED - Merriam-Webster Dictionary |
| Compare the definitions of the word hypothesis given at the Merriam-Webster and American Heritage dictionaries. |
| http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/hypothesis |
| JEAN PIAGET |
| This site is available for learning more about Jean Piaget and his theories on cognitive development. |
| http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/piaget.html |
| THESIS |
| "How to Write a Thesis Statement." A useful discussion prepared at Indiana University. |
| http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/thesis_statement.shtml |
E-Prime
E-Prime
TOWARD UNDERSTANDING E -PRIME
Robert Anton Wilson
E-PRIME, abolishing all forms of the verb "to be," has its roots in the field of general semantics, as presented by Alfred Korzybski in his 1933 book, Science and Sanity. Korzybski pointed out the pitfalls associated with, and produced by, two usages of "to be": identity and predication. His student D. David Bourland, Jr., observed that even linguistically sensitive people do not seem able to avoid identity and predication uses of "to be" if they continue to use the verb at all.
Bourland pioneered in demonstrating that one can indeed write and speak without using any form of "to be," calling this subset of the English language "E-Prime." Many have urged the use of E-Prime in writing scientific and technical papers.
Korzybski felt that all humans should receive training in general semantics from grade school on, as "semantic hygiene" against the most prevalent forms of logical error, emotional distortion, and "demonological thinking." E-Prime provides a straightforward training technique for acquiring such semantic hygiene.
To understand E-Prime, consider the human brain as a computer. (Note that I did not say the brain "is" a computer.) As the Prime Law of Computers tells us, GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT (GIGO, for short). The wrong software guarantees wrong answers. Conversely, finding the right software can "miraculously" solve problems that previously appeared intractable.
It seems likely that the principal software used in the human brain consists of words, metaphors, disguised metaphors, and linguistic structures in general.
The Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski Hypothesis, in anthropology, holds that a change in language can alter our perception of the cosmos. A revision of language structure, in particular, can alter the brain as dramatically as a psychedelic. In our metaphor, if we change the software, the computer operates in a new way.
Consider the following paired sets of propositions, in which Standard English alternates with English-Prime (E-Prime):
lA. The electron is a wave.
lB. The electron appears as a wave when measured with instrument-l.
2A. The electron is a particle.
2B. The electron appears as a particle when measured with instrument-2.
3A. John is lethargic and unhappy.
3B. John appears lethargic and unhappy in the office.
4A. John is bright and cheerful.
4B. John appears bright and cheerful on holiday at the beach.
5A. This is the knife the first man used to stab the second man.
5B. The first man appeared to stab the second man with what looked like a knife to me.
6A. The car involved in the hit-and-run accident was a blue Ford.
6B. In memory, I think I recall the car involved in the hit-and-run accident as a blue Ford.
7A. This is a fascist idea.
7B. This seems like a fascist idea to me.
8A. Beethoven is better than Mozart.
8B. In my present mixed state of musical education and ignorance, Beethoven seems better to me than Mozart.
9A. That is a sexist movie.
9B. That seems like a sexist movie to me.
10A. The fetus is a person.
10B. In my system of metaphysics, I classify the fetus as a person.
The "A"-type statements (Standard English) all implicitly or explicitly assume the medieval view called "Aristotelian essentialism" or "naive realism." In other words, they assume a world made up of block-like entities with indwelling "essences" or spooks- "ghosts in the machine."
The "B"-type statements (E-Prime) recast these sentences into a form isomorphic to modern science by first abolishing the "is" of Aristotelian essence and then reformulating each observation in terms of signals received and interpreted by a body (or instrument) moving in space-time.
Relativity, quantum mechanics, large sections of general physics, perception psychology, sociology, linguistics, modern math, anthropology, ethology, and several other sciences make perfect sense when put into the software of E-Prime. Each of these sciences generates paradoxes, some bordering on "nonsense" or "gibberish," if you try to translate them back into the software of Standard English.
Concretely, "The electron is a wave" employs the Aristotelian "is" and thereby introduces us to the false-to-experience notion that we can know the indwelling "essence" of the electron. "The electron appears as a wave when measured by instrument-1" reports what actually occurred in space-time, namely that the electron when constrained by a certain instrument behaved in a certain way.
Similarly, "The electron is a particle" contains medieval Aristotelian software, but "The electron appears as a particle when measured by instrument-2" contains modern scientific software. Once again, the software determines whether we impose a medieval or modern grid upon our reality-tunnel.
Note that "the electron is a wave" and "the electron is a particle" contradict each other and begin the insidious process by which we move gradually from paradox to nonsense to total gibberish. On the other hand, the modern scientific statements "the electron appears as a wave when measured one way" and "the electron appears as a particle measured another way" do not contradict, but rather complement each other. (Bohr's Principle of Complementarity, which explained this and revolutionized physics, would have appeared obvious to all, and not just to a person of his genius, if physicists had written in E-Prime all along. . . .)
Looking at our next pair, "John is lethargic and unhappy" vs. "John is bright and cheerful,' we see again how medieval software creates metaphysical puzzles and totally imaginary contradictions. Operationalizing the statements, as physicists since Bohr have learned to operationalize, we find that the E-Prime translations do not contain any contradiction, and even give us a clue as to causes of John's changing moods. (Look back if you forgot the translations.)
"The first man stabbed the second man with a knife" lacks the overt "is" of identity but contains Aristotelian software nonetheless. The E-Prime translation not only operationalizes the data, but may fit the facts better-if the incident occurred in a psychology class, which often conduct this experiment. (The first man "stabs," or makes stabbing gestures at, the second man, with a banana, but many students, conditioned by Aristotelian software, nonetheless "see" a knife. You don't need to take drugs to hallucinate; improper language can fill your world with phantoms and spooks of many kinds.)
The reader may employ his or her own ingenuity in analyzing how "is-ness" creates false-to-facts reality-tunnels in the remaining examples, and how E-Prime brings us back to the scientific, the operational, the existential, the phenomenological--to what humans and their instruments actually do in space-time as they create observations, perceptions, thoughts, deductions, and General Theories.
I have found repeatedly that when baffled by a problem in science, in "philosophy," or in daily life, I gain immediate insight by writing down what I know about the enigma in strict E-Prime. Often, solutions appear immediately-just as happens when you throw out the "wrong" software and put the "right" software into your PC. In other cases, I at least get an insight into why the problem remains intractable and where and how future science might go about finding an answer.
This text comes from:
D. David Bourland, Jr. & Paul Dennithorne Johnston, "To Be or Not: An E-Prime Anthology," International Society for General Semantics, 1991, pp. 23-26
Robert Anton Wilson
E-PRIME, abolishing all forms of the verb "to be," has its roots in the field of general semantics, as presented by Alfred Korzybski in his 1933 book, Science and Sanity. Korzybski pointed out the pitfalls associated with, and produced by, two usages of "to be": identity and predication. His student D. David Bourland, Jr., observed that even linguistically sensitive people do not seem able to avoid identity and predication uses of "to be" if they continue to use the verb at all.
Bourland pioneered in demonstrating that one can indeed write and speak without using any form of "to be," calling this subset of the English language "E-Prime." Many have urged the use of E-Prime in writing scientific and technical papers.
Korzybski felt that all humans should receive training in general semantics from grade school on, as "semantic hygiene" against the most prevalent forms of logical error, emotional distortion, and "demonological thinking." E-Prime provides a straightforward training technique for acquiring such semantic hygiene.
To understand E-Prime, consider the human brain as a computer. (Note that I did not say the brain "is" a computer.) As the Prime Law of Computers tells us, GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT (GIGO, for short). The wrong software guarantees wrong answers. Conversely, finding the right software can "miraculously" solve problems that previously appeared intractable.
It seems likely that the principal software used in the human brain consists of words, metaphors, disguised metaphors, and linguistic structures in general.
The Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski Hypothesis, in anthropology, holds that a change in language can alter our perception of the cosmos. A revision of language structure, in particular, can alter the brain as dramatically as a psychedelic. In our metaphor, if we change the software, the computer operates in a new way.
Consider the following paired sets of propositions, in which Standard English alternates with English-Prime (E-Prime):
lA. The electron is a wave.
lB. The electron appears as a wave when measured with instrument-l.
2A. The electron is a particle.
2B. The electron appears as a particle when measured with instrument-2.
3A. John is lethargic and unhappy.
3B. John appears lethargic and unhappy in the office.
4A. John is bright and cheerful.
4B. John appears bright and cheerful on holiday at the beach.
5A. This is the knife the first man used to stab the second man.
5B. The first man appeared to stab the second man with what looked like a knife to me.
6A. The car involved in the hit-and-run accident was a blue Ford.
6B. In memory, I think I recall the car involved in the hit-and-run accident as a blue Ford.
7A. This is a fascist idea.
7B. This seems like a fascist idea to me.
8A. Beethoven is better than Mozart.
8B. In my present mixed state of musical education and ignorance, Beethoven seems better to me than Mozart.
9A. That is a sexist movie.
9B. That seems like a sexist movie to me.
10A. The fetus is a person.
10B. In my system of metaphysics, I classify the fetus as a person.
The "A"-type statements (Standard English) all implicitly or explicitly assume the medieval view called "Aristotelian essentialism" or "naive realism." In other words, they assume a world made up of block-like entities with indwelling "essences" or spooks- "ghosts in the machine."
The "B"-type statements (E-Prime) recast these sentences into a form isomorphic to modern science by first abolishing the "is" of Aristotelian essence and then reformulating each observation in terms of signals received and interpreted by a body (or instrument) moving in space-time.
Relativity, quantum mechanics, large sections of general physics, perception psychology, sociology, linguistics, modern math, anthropology, ethology, and several other sciences make perfect sense when put into the software of E-Prime. Each of these sciences generates paradoxes, some bordering on "nonsense" or "gibberish," if you try to translate them back into the software of Standard English.
Concretely, "The electron is a wave" employs the Aristotelian "is" and thereby introduces us to the false-to-experience notion that we can know the indwelling "essence" of the electron. "The electron appears as a wave when measured by instrument-1" reports what actually occurred in space-time, namely that the electron when constrained by a certain instrument behaved in a certain way.
Similarly, "The electron is a particle" contains medieval Aristotelian software, but "The electron appears as a particle when measured by instrument-2" contains modern scientific software. Once again, the software determines whether we impose a medieval or modern grid upon our reality-tunnel.
Note that "the electron is a wave" and "the electron is a particle" contradict each other and begin the insidious process by which we move gradually from paradox to nonsense to total gibberish. On the other hand, the modern scientific statements "the electron appears as a wave when measured one way" and "the electron appears as a particle measured another way" do not contradict, but rather complement each other. (Bohr's Principle of Complementarity, which explained this and revolutionized physics, would have appeared obvious to all, and not just to a person of his genius, if physicists had written in E-Prime all along. . . .)
Looking at our next pair, "John is lethargic and unhappy" vs. "John is bright and cheerful,' we see again how medieval software creates metaphysical puzzles and totally imaginary contradictions. Operationalizing the statements, as physicists since Bohr have learned to operationalize, we find that the E-Prime translations do not contain any contradiction, and even give us a clue as to causes of John's changing moods. (Look back if you forgot the translations.)
"The first man stabbed the second man with a knife" lacks the overt "is" of identity but contains Aristotelian software nonetheless. The E-Prime translation not only operationalizes the data, but may fit the facts better-if the incident occurred in a psychology class, which often conduct this experiment. (The first man "stabs," or makes stabbing gestures at, the second man, with a banana, but many students, conditioned by Aristotelian software, nonetheless "see" a knife. You don't need to take drugs to hallucinate; improper language can fill your world with phantoms and spooks of many kinds.)
The reader may employ his or her own ingenuity in analyzing how "is-ness" creates false-to-facts reality-tunnels in the remaining examples, and how E-Prime brings us back to the scientific, the operational, the existential, the phenomenological--to what humans and their instruments actually do in space-time as they create observations, perceptions, thoughts, deductions, and General Theories.
I have found repeatedly that when baffled by a problem in science, in "philosophy," or in daily life, I gain immediate insight by writing down what I know about the enigma in strict E-Prime. Often, solutions appear immediately-just as happens when you throw out the "wrong" software and put the "right" software into your PC. In other cases, I at least get an insight into why the problem remains intractable and where and how future science might go about finding an answer.
This text comes from:
D. David Bourland, Jr. & Paul Dennithorne Johnston, "To Be or Not: An E-Prime Anthology," International Society for General Semantics, 1991, pp. 23-26
"Is of Identity" In Popular Media
"Is of Identy" in Pop Media Below are some examples of famous advertisement slogans:
"Coke is it." (Coca-Cola)
"A diamond is foreever." (De Beers Consolidated)
"Guinness is good for you." (Guinness)
"Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is." (Alka Seltzer)
"Don't be vague. Ask for Haig." (Haig Scotch)
"It is. Are you?" (The Independent)
"You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's." (Levy's Rye Bread)
"The future's bright. The future's Orange." (Orange)
"Where's the beef?" (Wendy's)
"Coke is it." (Coca-Cola)
"A diamond is foreever." (De Beers Consolidated)
"Guinness is good for you." (Guinness)
"Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is." (Alka Seltzer)
"Don't be vague. Ask for Haig." (Haig Scotch)
"It is. Are you?" (The Independent)
"You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's." (Levy's Rye Bread)
"The future's bright. The future's Orange." (Orange)
"Where's the beef?" (Wendy's)
What's wrong with this picture? -- Some Answers
- The curtains in front of the closed window are blowing in the wind, while those in front of the open window are hanging straight.
- The horizon visible through the left window is higher than that visible through the right one.
- The waves visible through the left window cannot be seen through the right one.
- The door frame is not square. The top piece extends too far to the left.
- The legs on the chair next to the door are not touching the floor.
- The cord leading from the electric guitar on the floor runs to the telephone instead of a wall jack.
- The wine glass contains red wine, while the wine bottle contains white wine. The left front leg of the guitarist's chair doesn't touch the floor.
- The open window sashes are upside down.
- The walls of the room appear to be covered with exterior rather than interior plaste
- The palm-like plant to the left of the "wine" table does not appear to be planted in the pot beneath it.
- The "shade" on the floor lamp in front of the open window appears to either be upside down or a bowl.
- There appear to be odd things on top of the stereo receiver.
- The antenna sitting on top of the TV does not appear to be connected to the antenna wire attached to the upper left back corner of the TV set. That wire appears to lead into a leaf on the plant.
- A filtered cigarette is sticking out of the crumpled pack of Camel unfiltered cigarettes lying next to the wine bottle.
- There does not appear to be a door knob on the door. The top hinge is visible on its left side, so a door knob should be just to the left and below the spot where the doorbell is shown.
- Given the apparent lighting in the room, the shadow of the chair next to the door may not be right.
- The floor looks to be sub flooring that should be covered with carpet or hardwood strips.
- I'm not sure why there is a double-barreled shotgun propped up in the corner between the door and the mirror.
- The apparent deck of cards sitting next to the TV set might have a problem.
- The photo on the cover of Andrew Gold's previous album (visible on the floor leaning against the music bench) might not look as it actually did when sold in stores. Ditto for the cover on the issue of People Magazine that is lying on the floor beneath the TV set. In fact, I'm not sure that Andrew Gold ever appeared on a People Magazine cover.
What's wrong with this picture?
Andrew Gold: What's Wrong With This Picture?
This is an LP cover from Andrew Gold. Mr. Gold claims there are 32 things wrong about this picture, but I haven't found all of them by far ... I'll list some of the most obvious : the drapes are moving in front of the closed window, the horizon is different in the two windows, not all legs of his chair touch the ground ... Now it's your turn. (fromhttp://www.planetPerplex.com
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Fourteen Words Key to 100,000 Words
PREFIX | SPELLINGS | MEANING | # | KEYWORD | MEANING | ROOT | SPELLINGS | MEANING |
de | down, away | 1 | DETAIN | delay | tam | ten, tin | to have, hold | |
inter | between | 2 | INTERMITTENT | periodic | mitt | miss, mie, mit | to send | |
pre | before | 3 | PRECEPT | principle | cept | cept,cap, ceiv, ceit, cip | to take | |
ob | oc,of,op | to,toward, against | 4 | OFFER | provide | fer | lat, lay | to bear, carry |
in | il,im,ir | into, not | 5 | INSIST | demand | sist | stat, sta, stan | to stand, endure, persist |
mono | one, alone | 6 | MONOGRAPH | writing | graph | gram | to write | |
epi | over,upon, beside | 7 | EPILOGUE | ending | log | ology | speech, science | |
ad | a, ab, ac, af, ag, al, am, an, ap, ar, as, at, a | at, to, towards | 8 | ASPECT | distinct feature | spect | spec, spi, spy | To look |
un | not | 9 | UNCOMPLICATED | clear | plic | play,plex, ploy, ply | speech, science | |
com | co,col, car | with | ||||||
non | not | 10 | NONEXTENDED | core | tens,tend | stretch | ||
ex | e,ef | out | ||||||
re | back, again | 11 | REPRODUCTION | replica | duct | duc, duit, duk | To lead, make, shape, fashiion | |
pro | forward, in favor | |||||||
in | il, im, ir | not | 12 | INDISPOSED | not well | poc | pon,poat | put,place |
dis | di,dif | apart from | ||||||
over | above | 13 | OVERSUFFICIENT | over supply | fic | fac,fact, fash, feat | To make or do | |
sub | suc,suf, sug, sup | under | ||||||
mis | wrong | 14 | MISTRANSCRIBE | write incorrectly | scribe | scrip,scriv | write |
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
where do you stand?
Where do you stand with regard to critical thinking?
FEET: What do I stand for as a foundation of critical thinking?
STOMACH: What upsets me about critical thinking?
HEART: What do I love about critical thinking?
HANDS: What do I feel about critical thinking?
EARS: What do I hear about critical thinking?
EYES: What do I see about critical thinking?
BRAIN: What do I think about critical thinking?
FEET: What do I stand for as a foundation of critical thinking?
STOMACH: What upsets me about critical thinking?
HEART: What do I love about critical thinking?
HANDS: What do I feel about critical thinking?
EARS: What do I hear about critical thinking?
EYES: What do I see about critical thinking?
BRAIN: What do I think about critical thinking?
Monday, June 7, 2010
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