• you can type /msg JerboaKolinowski (no, seriously!) to message me

• please do this if you have an opinion, comment, suggestion, correction or (especially!) a critique for one of my writeups

• or if you have any other questions you think I might be able to answer

• or if you just feel like it

• in short:

  /msg jk

New to E2? Here, we can learn by clicking on things!

Read this, and this. This also. And this. Don't forget to read this, of course, and while you're at it, have a look at this.

Philosophical nodes expressing my views:

• Reflection principle
• Apeiron
• Inverse spectrum argument
• The problem of logical fatalism
• "No" is a complete sentence
• Some thoughts about the Language of Thought
• Sorites Paradox
• An Argument Against Pragmatic Critiquing

Noders not to pick an argument with:

• ariels - You can argue, but will you understand the response?

  "Learning is like being an iron stake held due north and being hit on the head with a hammer."

  Sometimes, however, capitulation is immediate, graceful, and satisfyingly complete:

  2002.03.05 at 15:17 ariels says POMO PHILOSOPHERS `RIGHT ALL
  ALONG'; DEPTS OF MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS TO
  DISBAND THURSDAY. (AP) In a shocking letter to
  Physical Review Letters (series C) this morning,
  prepublished at http://arxiv.org, a group of prominent
  physicists
  

  2002.03.05 at 15:19 ariels says and mathematicians announced "the
  disbanding of the fields of mathematics and physics". Offering
  only "a profound apology", Prof. R. Penrose of Oxford
  announced his new course on Derridean Ethics, mentioning
  also that "all tilings are
  

  2002.03.05 at 15:21 ariels says periodic." Prof. S. Shelakh of HUJI was
  at a loss to explain how confusion about levels of precedence
  had caused Gödel's proof to be accepted; "Gödel coding is
  clearly wrong, and we request nobody use ASCII encoding until
  

  2002.03.05 at 15:21 ariels says we resolve this situation". (cont. page ?)
  

• Cletus the Foetus - Guaranteed to get you tied in knots - and it's you who'll be doing the tying.
• Gone Jackal - You may supplement his views, but not correct them. Oh no.
• Gritchka - Knows everything.
• jderrida - 'nuff said.

• wharfinger -
  

  displays his mastery of the complex world of IT,
  with special reference to E2, god powers, dialup
  connectivity, and advanced operating system technology:

  001.08.26@07:29 wharfinger says
  Jesus! You're still borged! Yet you
  talk! WTF?! Is this some weird
  shit w/ Linux PPP?

One asks, Why should such disparate groups as the Soviet Union and the U.S. intelligence community back the same man? I am no political theoretician, but Nicholas one time said, "They both like figureheads who are corrupt. So they can govern from behind. The Soviets and the fuzz, they're all for shadow governments. They always will be, because basically each of them is the man with the gun, the pistol to the head."

No one had put a pistol to Ferris Fremont's head. He was the pistol itself, pointed at our head. Pointed at the people who had elected him. Behind him stood all the cops in the world, the left-wing cops in Russia, the right-wing cops in the United States. Cops are cops. There are only divisions of rank, into greater and lesser. The top cop is probably never seen.

Philip K. Dick, Radio Free Albemuth, 1976.

Balzac said that behind every great fortune there is a great crime. I would amend that and say that behind any great movement of American history there is crime.

James Ellroy, on French TV, discussing The Cold Six Thousand, 2001.

These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, 'How much is that?' Oh, I'm just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.

Where did you go? "Nowhere."
What did you have to eat? "Nothing much."

Even if you don't know what you want,
buy something, to be part of the exchanging flow.

Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.

It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.

Rumi, 'We Are Three', Mathnawi VI, 831-845

Noding heuristics

I use these heuristics, listed here in case they prove useful.

• vote for the ages
• when E2 is timing out, nagle at the user layer
• not too much boundary posturing and social grooming
• consult the oracle when you get stuck
• change your nodes when no-one is looking.

The Catbox thinks:

• On buying software from PC World:

  <amnesiac> I agree, the only reason i get
  my s/w from #irc leech crack channels is
  that the technical support is usually better
  

• On web design:
  

  <mat catastrophe> applets are sin.
  sin is communism. communism is
  drug money that supports terror.
  terror is not listening to your
  dreams.
  

• On semantic opacity:

  <vuo> checking the dictionary one
  word by one, I find nothing
  meaningful.
  

Thought for the day:

    If the being of phenomena is not the phenomenon of
    being, is the sytem of phenomena different from the
    phenomenon of system? No, they are the same in all
    essential characteristics. System is the same everywhere.   

Old thoughts:

    [today is not a good day for thinking]
    "E2 is in some ways very like a frontier town."
    "E2: towards a connectionist Academy!"
    "linking is punctuation."
    "Always press 'home' before hitting 'talk'."

• pre-E2
  • language games  The later Wittgenstein in 512 chars :-)
  • Woody Allen's definition of epistemology
  • The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
  • Apostrophe Theory  expanded, corrected, and moved to The third wor*d war.
• E2
  • Pythagorean comma   My 23 cents
  • boundary posturing   An academic perspective on AYB
  • social grooming   A small, bitter, comment on the futility of language
  • E-space   A poor attempt to lay the groundwork for a mathematical theory of Everything
  • The third wor*d war  A remarkable book, which you really should read
  • argue   Staking a modest claim for philosophy as the ultimate source of all knowledge
  • cangue   Every home should have one
  • fractual   Logicism is bull - noticing the credibility gap
  • Sir Henry At Rawlinson End   Essential
  • The Very Model of an Eliminative Materialist   Ontological filk
  • Of First and Last Noders   Short fiction about a forbidden topic
  • Duck-rabbit   Now you see it ...

  
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                       ......------"""             )
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                                          )      \
  
  
  
  

  This is all good food: