text:
GDB XVIII: Injury woes on the Senate floor
Jason Gregor
November 10 2009 11:43AM
The injuries just keep coming for the Edmonton Oilers, as they get set to take on the Ottawa Senators tonight.
Robert Nilsson is out with a concussion, and with Florida claiming Steve MacIntyre on waivers this morning, the Oilers have recalled Ryan O'Marra for tonight's game. Taylor Chorney has a bad ankle and is out, so Ladislav Smid will draw back in.
Does someone have a voodoo doll and every few days decide to take down another Oiler? Maybe the producers of the lamest movie I've seen in years, Paranormal Activity, are making a sports-like spin off that has alleged demons stalking the Oilers. I can't believe that Theo Peckham told me he had to sleep with the lights on after watching that movie. I'll be juicing him hard when he gets back to Edmonton. There was nothing remotely scary about that movie. Plus the acting was worse than the Carolina Hurricanes.
I really don't think losing Nilsson is a big loss, and Smid is better than Chorney at this point, but you wonder how many more injuries this team can handle before it takes a toll on their salary cap.
With Nilsson out, my best guess would see Andrew Cogliano move to the wing and play with Gilbert Brule and Mike Comrie. Lately Pat Quinn has tried to go with two offensive oriented lines, and moving Cogliano there makes the most sense.
That would leave Sam Gagner with Dustin Penner and Patrick O'Sullivan, while Ryan Potulny would centre Fernando Pisani and Liam Reddox, and O'Marra can play between Zack Stortini and Ethan Moreau.
Know thy enemy
The Sens sit in 2nd place in the Northeast division, but like the Oilers they're currently out of the playoff picture. The Sens are 7-5-2 and are averaging three goals for and three goals against in 14 games.
Jonathon Cheechoo has been a bust since coming over from San Jose, with no goals and two assists in 14 games. Cory Clouston said he has realistic expectations of what Cheechoo can produce.
"That was a real special year for him (56 goals), he's worked extremely hard, is an intelligent guy and a real good teammate. I don't think telling anyone that he will score 50 goals again is realistic."
He added that Cheechoo is a 25-goal man, and maybe can reach 30 again and that is what they will look for from him. If Cheechoo gets 25 goals this year I'll be stunned. His foot speed is not good enough for him to get to the open spaces anymore. He is willing to go in the tough areas, but he can't get there fast enough anymore.
The Sens PP is 23rd in the league and they have only drawn 51 penalties thus far, only Calgary has drawn fewer penalties, 49, but the Flames have scored 12 goals to put them 5th overall on the PP.
The Oilers have had 68 man advantages, 13th most in the league, and after their four goal performance in Colorado they sit 6th on the PP at 23.5%.
Jeff Deslauriers' favourite team growing up was the Buffalo Sabres, so I'd guess that Khabibulin will start tonight and JDD will get the start tomorrow. With back-to-games tonight and tomorrow and then on the weekend in Atlanta and Columbus it looks like Deslauriers will double his games played in a five day span.
Report on O'Marra
O'Marra got off to a good start in Springfield, and finally seems to understand that if he's going to play in the NHL it will be as shut-down centreman. Rob Daum told me last week on my show, that his play had tailed off a bit of late. He did respond with some better play this past weekend.
O'Marra needs to show up and be good in the faceoffs, strong on the puck and be physical. He is one of the few centremen they have in the organization who has any sort of size. If O'Marra understands he needs to be physical, not fancy, there is an opening for him on this team. They desperately lack size down the middle and if he shows he can provide that, he might not be the first guy sent down when Horcoff, Hemsky and Jacques return.
Trade... for the Rush
I know you guys love the Oilers, but the Rush will announce a major trade this afternoon. They have acquired Gavin Prout along with Dean Hill from Colorado for a 1st rounder in 2010 and a 2nd rounder in 2011. Prout and Colorado couldn't agree on a new deal, and so the Rush made a call.
Prout is a top-ten scorer in the game. He has 230 goals and 671 points in only 127 games. He will quarterback their PP and along with Brodie Merrill the Rush finally have some elite talent. Hill might chip in if he stays healthy and in shape. In his only full season he scored 32 goals in 14 games in 2007. He was banged up last year.
November 10 2009, 11:54AM
Whooo! G D, B!
PS Oilers win 4-1.
November 10 2009, 11:54AM
I read that JDD gets the start tonight....
I still remember the last time the Oilers played in Ottawa like it was yesterday. Hopefully the Oilers don't allow a goal in the first 10 Seconds this time.
You know, Comrie that greasy little guy with Cogliano and Brule might surprise. At least I'm hopin' because you can only ice an AHL lineup for so long before it catches up with you.
Poor Pat Quinn. While other teams are working on goal-mouth tips, plays and game strategy, he's teaching positional theory to an increasing bunch of NHL newbies.
Anyways, maybe 4-2 Oil is the call. I figured they were hooped last game so maybe they won one they shoulda lost. I figure this is the winnable game on the road stretch, and with JDD in maybe the guys will be extra motivated to play well in front of him.
Crap. Now I've doomed them to a loss.
November 10 2009, 12:11PM
I really don't know what to think for tonights game. If we win something is horribly wrong in Ottawa.
November 10 2009, 12:12PM
I guess they want Khabibulin in against Buffalo since they are the better team.
Wouldn't it be better to play the better goalie and take the win agaist the weaker team?
November 10 2009, 12:18PM
My first star of the game is going to be split between the defensive pairing of Smid and Visnovsky.
Where's Wanye?
November 10 2009, 12:25PM
It's not like the Senators suck, and what if they lose with Khabibulin tonight. There really isn't a perfect plan, plus Deslauriers has played well in both games thus far, so they probably have confidence in him anyways.
I have lots of confidence in Deslauriers, it's the AHL team in front of him that is scaring me.
If you were in coma and woke up and seen today's lineup one would think that all those minor pickups that Lowe made must've worked and that he is a genius.
Gavin Prout really? That is awesome. He is a great player. I hope the Oil can find a way to win tonight, and I think it's awesome you guys put in a Rush tidbit now and then. We need some playoffs from one team this year.
@Jason Gregor
What are your expectations for the Rush this year? Is this their 5th season (or 4th)? I went to a few games the 1st year (maybe even the 2nd), but haven't gone since. Not that it was bad... it was actually fun. I don't know a lot about lacrosse, but I wouldn't mind going more this year. Of course, I said that the past couple of season's too. Maybe I'll get a lacrosse for dummies book. Afterall, it is Canada's game!
EDIT: Wow, I just checked out their schedule and there's only 2 games that I could possibly go to because of work. Shitty!
Wouldn't it be better to play the better goalie and take the win agaist the weaker team?
I think the idea is to have Khabibulin(the better goalie) bail out the players if they get tired from back to back games.
November 10 2009, 12:35PM
I don't think I will be ordering this pay-per-view game tonight. Way too many injuries on this team, but I hope they pull it off like they did in Denver. I don't want to watch it because I am tired of getting my heart broken during PPV games.
HEY, JASON GREGOR! Do you have any idea what the lineups would look like and where O'Marra might play? Would he be centring the fourth line?
November 10 2009, 12:36PM
the rush, really? this is a hockey website. i know they have ads here, but come on gregor. give me pucks and nothing else!!
ya, I agree, I would have thought the wall plays tonight....Oh well, i guess that's why I am reading here instead of preparing the team in Ottawa. On a diferent note, I just got a new sales rep for red bull, he's like wow, your a bigtime Oilers fan eh? I'm like ya, how can you tell....then he says, ever heard of Wayne Flemming? I'm like ya, the coach....he's like read my buissiness card, I'm his son...So right away, I'm saying, Well, how bout an autographed jersey for my wall or something!!!! that'd be cool.
There's a FREE game on Sportsnet tonight ;-)
November 10 2009, 12:38PM
Did bobby fall down the stairs?
~ it couldnt have been on ice contact~
Did bobby fall down the stairs?
~ it couldnt have been on ice contact~
Yeeee-ahh... he "fell"... that's right...
...OR... Pat Quinn pushed him down the stairs.
November 10 2009, 12:41PM
There's a FREE game on Sportsnet tonight ;-)
According to the Oilers TV sked and the Edmonton Journal, it's a PPV game tonight. I really hope it's wrong because I wouldn't mind watching it on Sportsnet.
November 10 2009, 12:42PM
According to the Oilers TV sked and the Edmonton Journal, it's a PPV game tonight. I really hope it's wrong because I wouldn't mind watching it on Sportsnet.
He wants you to watch the Flames tonight.
Poor, deluded RossCreek...
If the Oilers keep it simple and concentrate on doign the little things right, it should be a good game. I'm not going to throw out a prediction b/c I'm never right so here's hoping we play like we did against Colorado!
November 10 2009, 12:44PM
@Oil Kings 'n' Pretty Things
LOL! I forgot RossCreek is a Flamer.
November 10 2009, 12:44PM
The game is on Sportsnet EAST. So it will be blacked out for us westerners! 5 PPV games this month alone! that's just dumb!
He wants you to watch the Flames tonight.
Poor, deluded RossCreek...
I'm just sayin.
I watch free Oiler games over Flames ppv too.
lol. ditto.
The game is on Sportsnet EAST. So it will be blacked out for us westerners! 5 PPV games this month alone! that's just dumb!
Better than no chance to watch at all, isn't it?
November 10 2009, 12:49PM
When did Nils get injured?? I don't recall seeing anything.
This is true. There just seems to be a lot more PPV games this year then last. I think 5 more games if I'm correct. last year there were 11 games, this year 16! Just seems like a big jump considering every game was on TV last year as well...
November 10 2009, 12:51PM
Game Day Prediction: The Oilers will win tonight. After scoring last game and getting the call to a higher line, watch for Cogliano to show Ottawa what they are missing out on. 2 goals and an assit from him, one from Comrie, one from Potulny and Penner. Final score 5-3.
Obvious Game Day Prediction: One Oiler will get a concussion, one will develop flu like symptoms and Steve Staios will block a shot with his face.
Not So Obvious Game Day Prediction: A backroom deal between Tambellini and Brian Murray sees Penner, Coglino and Smid traded for Cheechoo...until Cheechoo steps up and says no way. Thank God!
November 10 2009, 12:52PM
Thats almost 1/4 the season as PPV, better than no TV sure but really high for my tastes.
November 10 2009, 12:53PM
This is true. There just seems to be a lot more PPV games this year then last. I think 5 more games if I'm correct. last year there were 11 games, this year 16! Just seems like a big jump considering every game was on TV last year as well...
Laforge was saying that they tried to make sure there was a way to watch as many games as possible, if there were no PPV then there would be no way to watch the games.
Who knows Citytv has one game this year maybe it is a trial to see if it is worth it for them to buy more next year?
PEOPLE... the ppv games are there for the times they wouldn't be on at all on free tv. After CBC, Sportsnet & TSN pick the games they want, the leftovers get thrown on ppv. Luck of the draw for the most part. Is it 16 ppv's though. That IS a little excessive. 12 would be more reasonable. Couldn't they put it on CITYTV or something though?
In any case, its ppv or nuth'n... soooo... its up to you really. Don't like it, don't buy it. Watch the Flames. Or go to the bar (and spend more than 10 bux or whatever the ppv costs on beerSss & nachos.
November 10 2009, 12:55PM
@I'm a Scientist!
Obvious Game Day Prediction: One Oiler will get a concussion, one will develop flu like symptoms and Steve Staios will block a shot with his face.
Pure gold.
Sportsnet often showed Flames/Oilers double-headers last season, and this year they rarely, if ever do. Too many people complained about missing the first 6 minutes of the 2nd game when the 1st game was running late/going to o.t.
Also, with Sportsnet carrying the World Series, it affects the hockey at this time of the year.
There is usually a reason for the madness. 16 is too many though.
November 10 2009, 12:59PM
Man, there's a great Irish pub a block away from my building that makes these potato nachos... they're nachos, but they used the checkered potatoes (don't really know how to describe them, but they're like fries) instead of tortilla chips. Come to think of it, I might head down there tonight.
November 10 2009, 01:01PM
Gregor, I can't believe you have such bad taste in Football teams AND movies. We may have to engage in a match of fisticuffs when I get back to Alberta. Have at yet sir!
The only good thing about having this hilariously over the top amount of injuries is that my expectations for this team have plummeted to an all time low. If they lose, well no one should be surprised as it's a patch work AHL team for the most part. But if they win it's a huge bonus. Like having a young lady escort herself out the door the same night you picked her up. No need for an awkward morning goodbye.
I haven't seen the Senators play outside of highlights so far this season, but going off those I think tonight might be a very even game.
November 10 2009, 01:04PM
Going to the game tonight, 100 level. Like somebody posted above, let's hope the Sens don't score within the first 10 seconds of the game like last year. (I think it was 12 seconds actually...very depressing. Gilbert and Grebs fault as I recall). Can't believe O'Marra is playing, and no Hemsky or Bulin. Ah well... Whether we win or lose, it's the beer that counts....
November 10 2009, 01:04PM
Take your soother home with you. Did I force you to read it, no? The need to bitch and moan over a quick blurb is childish. Get over it.
~Where's a moderator when you need one? Is this the kind of language you use when your mom is reading over your shoulder?~
Edit: Emphasis added
November 10 2009, 01:05PM
@Oil Kings 'n' Pretty Things
Many places out here on the west coast call them "patchos". Pretty tasty if done right.
November 10 2009, 01:07PM
Many places out here on the west coast call them "patchos". Pretty tasty if done right.
RossCreek probably calls them 'cheesy-salsa-checkered-potatoes-with-sour-cream-and-jalapenos'.
On a side note, RossCreek calls me 'Jeff' because he thinks I'm one of the Jeffs that used to post.
On another side note the new edit button also edits the quote box for whomever decides to quote your post. You can use it to make people look foolish.
Like having a young lady escort herself out the door the same night you picked her up. No need for an awkward morning goodbye.
You mean some girls actually do this!? ITS AS IF THEY KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING! WOOOOOWW! Come to think of it... she may be a 'keeper'.
Call me cheap, and by all accounts I am, but I just can't justify paying $15 for the Oiler's PPV coverage. Kevin Quinn, Louie and Mean Gene stinking it up with even more air time to fill, yet they still manage to throw in enough product placements to completely ruin any flow to the game. Sorry to complain, but the production value on these broadcasts make 'Paranormal Activity' seem like an Oscar winner.....or is just me?....


text:
Flight Schedules from Qingdao to Kagoshima
Find cheap airfares for flights from Qingdao to Kagoshima. Use Wego.com to search and compare low airfare airline tickets for Qingdao to Kagoshima flights on various international airlines. FInd last minute flights and the latest low airfares for this route. Compare cheap Qingdao to Kagoshima flights at a glance and get the best deal for your trip.
Besides Kagoshima flights, find cheap hotels and quality accommodation in Kagoshima with Wego. Search and compare Kagoshima hotels online to book your ideal travel accommodation.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The newest local trend in floor tile doesn't look like floor tile, which might floor some traditionalists. Three members of the Milwaukee/NARI Home Improvement Council, Inc., the area's leading home improvement and remodeling industry resource for more than 48 years, offered advice on tile for homeowners considering remodeling their homes.
The Milwaukee trend that stands out is porcelain "planking," which mimics hardwood and can be installed like a parquet floor. Kim Temkin-Taylor, owner of Temkin-Taylor Design in Mequon, says, "The random plank lengths make it look like a real hardwood floor. It comes in elongated lengths, and can be three to four inches wide by 12 to 24 inches long."
According to Jim Swernoff, owner and executive vice president of Lakeside Stoneworks, LLC of Brown Deer, "The wood look is trendy now. Customers are putting it in their three-season rooms."
The Milwaukee trend reflects evolution within the tile industry, observes Natalie Green, design consultant/architectural sales at Childcrest Tile & Stone in Menomonee Falls. "Manufacturers are trying to make people see tile in a new way. The planking is a linear look," she adds.
Choice of Materials
While "ceramic tile" is a catch-all term for shoppers, many tile products are made of porcelain, glass, stone, and other materials, Temkin-Taylor notes. Various materials accomplish different goals. For example, workhorse tiles such as porcelain hold up in wet or high-traffic areas, including commercial buildings, laundry rooms, mudrooms, and kitchens.
Other tile use is famously ornamental rather than functional; glass can add sparkle anywhere. Stone could be featured on tabletops or as an inlay in a hardwood floor. Temkin-Taylor suggests using one material – porcelain tile that looks like stone, for instance – but combining it in varying sizes and shapes to create interest.
Porcelain has the advantage of hiding chips in the color. Temkin-Taylor explains, "The color goes all the way through the tile, so if it chips, you still see the color throughout, like you would in a carrot. With ceramic tiles, a chip shows the white color inside under the peel, like you would see in a radish."
Practical Points
Swernoff reports seeing more tile used in houses overall because of its durability, and more porcelain used, for the same reason.
He states that homeowners who have experienced water in their basements have turned from carpeting to porcelain tile. "They can place an area rug over the tile for everyday use. If they get water in the basement again, they can toss out the rug if needed, and the tile is fine," he says.
Swernoff emphasizes the importance of hiring a qualified tile installer to avoid problems with a nonconforming subfloor, which can lead to cracked grout and tile.
Budget Control
Temkin-Taylor praises the visual effect of tile in interior design. "You can get a lot of design bang for your buck with tile, even with just a few accent tiles," she says.
Homeowners should consider where tile will be placed and assess the logistics, she recommends. Some tiles are tricky to install, and therefore might have more labor cost. Conversely, mosaic tiles on a mesh mounting are installed more rapidly. Stone tile made of marble, travertine (unfinished marble), or limestone needs to be sealed, so that adds cost, Temkin-Taylor notes.
Swernoff advises, "Pick something you like in the colors you like and find it in a material you can afford. If you can't afford it in a stone, you can find it in a porcelain or a ceramic that fits your budget."
Local Trends
Green mentions that Milwaukee homeowners are choosing patterns that are circular and repeat from tile to tile. She says tile is being used for accent walls that extend upward from a backsplash, while bar areas are gaining tile accents.
Swernoff observes larger tiles being used, such as a large floor space covered by 16- or 18-inch-square tiles.
Temkin-Taylor comments, "Milwaukee as a market is still a bit more conservative, but glass is being used on backsplashes, walls, shower walls, and borders for mirrors. It's a recycled, green material." She also lists look-alike animal textures, including crocodile and ostrich; textile effects, such as a damask pattern on porcelain; and porcelain tiles that look like bronze, copper, and steel.
Since choices in tile have multiplied, where should homeowners start? Green suggests,
"Showrooms can be a bit overwhelming at times. Prepare with ideas that attract you. Magazines are a great resource. Bring them along with you to the showroom, and also bring other furnishing materials that will relate to the tile. Take samples of the tile home to view in that lighting."
The Milwaukee/NARI Home Improvement Council was chartered in July 1961, as a Chapter of the National Home Improvement Council. In May of 1982, the National Home Improvement Council merged with the National Remodelers Association to form NARI – the National Association of the Remodeling Industry.
The Council's goals of encouraging ethical conduct, professionalism, and sound business practices in the remodeling industry have led to the remodeling industry's growth and made NARI a recognized authority in that industry. With over 900 members, the Milwaukee Chapter is the nation's largest.
For more information on the Milwaukee/NARI Home Improvement Council or to receive a free copy of an annual membership roster listing all members alphabetically and by category, and the booklet, "Milwaukee/NARI's Remodeling Guide," call (414) 771-4071 or visit the Council's Web site at www.milwaukeenari.org.
More from Consumer News
- Breastfeeding Safely While Taking Medication for Anxiety and Depression
- County Health Clinic proposal flawed
- Spring has Sprung! Tips for Pest Prevention (Indoors & Out) During Spring Cleaning
- American Cancer Society Cancer Prevention Study-3
- Helping Menomonee Falls Seniors Regain Their Spark
- Menomonee Falls Soldier Selected For All American Bowl Soldier Heroes
- How about a Green Christmas - save money and resources
- Fall Home & Remodeling Show Announces Advance Tickets Availability
- Cashel Dennehy Irish Dancers Win Four National Championships
- The Lovely Bones is May Book Club and Special Film Showing at Falls Library


text:
Skip to comments.'Explore as much as we can': Nobel Prize winner Charles Townes on evolution & intelligent design
Posted on 05/16/2007 6:54:51 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Charles Townes is the Nobel Prize Physics winner whose pioneering work led to the maser and later the laser.
The University of California, Berkeley interviewed him on his 90th birthday where they talked about evolution, intelligent design and the meaning of life.
I thought this would be good to share...
BERKELEY Religion and science, faith and empirical experiment: these terms would seem to have as little in common as a Baptist preacher and a Berkeley physicist. And yet, according to Charles Hard Townes, winner of a Nobel Prize in Physics and a UC Berkeley professor in the Graduate School, they are united by similar goals: science seeks to discern the laws and order of our universe; religion, to understand the universe's purpose and meaning, and how humankind fits into both.
Where these areas intersect is territory that Townes has been exploring for many of his 89 years, and in March his insights were honored with the 2005 Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities. Worth about $1.5 million, the Templeton Prize recognizes those who, throughout their lives, have sought to advance ideas and/or institutions that will deepen the world's understanding of God and of spiritual realities.
Townes first wrote about the parallels between religion and science in IBM's Think magazine in 1966, two years after he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his groundbreaking work in quantum electronics: in 1953, thanks in part to what Townes calls a "revelation" experienced on a park bench, he invented the maser (his acronym for Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission), which amplifies microwaves to produce an intense beam. By building on this work, he achieved similar amplification using visible light, resulting in the laser (whose name he also coined).
Even as his research interests have segued from microwave physics to astrophysics, Townes has continued to explore topics such as "Science, values, and beyond," in Synthesis of Science and Religion (1987), "On Science, and what it may suggest about us," in Theological Education (1988), and "Why are we here; where are we going?" in The International Community of Physics, Essays on Physics (1997).
Townes sat down one morning recently to discuss how these and other weighty questions have shaped his own life, and their role in current controversies over public education.
Q. If science and religion share a common purpose, why have their proponents tended to be at loggerheads throughout history?
Science and religion have had a long interaction: some of it has been good and some of it hasn't. As Western science grew, Newtonian mechanics had scientists thinking that everything is predictable, meaning there's no room for God so-called determinism. Religious people didn't want to agree with that. Then Darwin came along, and they really didn't want to agree with what he was saying, because it seemed to negate the idea of a creator. So there was a real clash for a while between science and religions.
But science has been digging deeper and deeper, and as it has done so, particularly in the basic sciences like physics and astronomy, we have begun to understand more. We have found that the world is not deterministic: quantum mechanics has revolutionized physics by showing that things are not completely predictable. That doesn't mean that we've found just where God comes in, but we know now that things are not as predictable as we thought and that there are things we don't understand. For example, we don't know what some 95 percent of the matter in the universe is: we can't see it it's neither atom nor molecule, apparently. We think we can prove it's there, we see its effect on gravity, but we don't know what and where it is, other than broadly scattered around the universe. And that's very strange.
So as science encounters mysteries, it is starting to recognize its limitations and become somewhat more open. There are still scientists who differ strongly with religion and vice versa. But I think people are being more open-minded about recognizing the limitations in our frame of understanding.
You've said "I believe there is no long-range question more important than the purpose and meaning of our lives and our universe." How have you attempted to answer that question?
Even as a youngster, you're usually taught that there's some purpose you'll try to do, how you are going to live. But that's a very localized thing, about what you want with your life. The broader question is, "What are humans all about in general, and what is this universe all about?" That comes as one tries to understand what is this beautiful world that we're in, that's so special: "Why has it come out this way? What is free will and why do we have it? What is a being? What is consciousness?" We can't even define consciousness. As one thinks about these broader problems, then one becomes more and more challenged by the question of what is the aim and purpose and meaning of this universe and of our lives.
Those aren't easy questions to answer, of course, but they're important and they're what religion is all about. I maintain that science is closely related to that, because science tries to understand how the universe is constructed and why it does what it does, including human life. If one understands the structure of the universe, maybe the purpose of man becomes a little clearer. I think maybe the best answer to that is that somehow, we humans were created somewhat in the likeness of God. We have free will. We have independence, we can do and create things, and that's amazing. And as we learn more and more why, we become even more that way. What kind of a life will we build? That's what the universe is open about. The purpose of the universe, I think, is to see this develop and to allow humans the freedom to do the things that hopefully will work out well for them and for the rest of the world.
How do you categorize your religious beliefs?
I'm a Protestant Christian, I would say a very progressive one. This has different meanings for different people. But I'm quite open minded and willing to consider all kinds of new ideas and to look at new things. At the same time it has a very deep meaning for me: I feel the presence of God. I feel it in my own life as a spirit that is somehow with me all the time.
You've described your inspiration for the maser as a moment of revelation, more spiritual than what we think of as inspiration. Do you believe that God takes such an active interest in humankind?
[The maser] was a new idea, a sudden visualization I had of what might be done to produce electromagnetic waves, so it's somewhat parallel to what we normally call revelation in religion. Whether the inspiration for the maser and the laser was God's gift to me is something one can argue about. The real question should be, where do brand-new human ideas come from anyway? To what extent does God help us? I think he's been helping me all along. I think he helps all of us that there's a direction in our universe and it has been determined and is being determined. How? We don't know these things. There are many questions in both science and religion and we have to make our best judgment. But I think spirituality has a continuous effect on me and on other people.
That sounds like you agree with the "intelligent design" movement, the latest framing of creationism, which argues that the complexity of the universe proves it must have been created by a guiding force.
I do believe in both a creation and a continuous effect on this universe and our lives, that God has a continuing influence certainly his laws guide how the universe was built. But the Bible's description of creation occurring over a week's time is just an analogy, as I see it. The Jews couldn't know very much at that time about the lifetime of the universe or how old it was. They were visualizing it as best they could and I think they did remarkably well, but it's just an analogy.
Should intelligent design be taught alongside Darwinian evolution in schools as religious legislators have decided in Pennsylvania and Kansas?
I think it's very unfortunate that this kind of discussion has come up. People are misusing the term intelligent design to think that everything is frozen by that one act of creation and that there's no evolution, no changes. It's totally illogical in my view. Intelligent design, as one sees it from a scientific point of view, seems to be quite real. This is a very special universe: it's remarkable that it came out just this way. If the laws of physics weren't just the way they are, we couldn't be here at all. The sun couldn't be there, the laws of gravity and nuclear laws and magnetic theory, quantum mechanics, and so on have to be just the way they are for us to be here.
Some scientists argue that "well, there's an enormous number of universes and each one is a little different. This one just happened to turn out right." Well, that's a postulate, and it's a pretty fantastic postulate it assumes there really are an enormous number of universes and that the laws could be different for each of them. The other possibility is that ours was planned, and that's why it has come out so specially. Now, that design could include evolution perfectly well. It's very clear that there is evolution, and it's important. Evolution is here, and intelligent design is here, and they're both consistent.
They don't have to negate each other, you're saying. God could have created the universe, set the parameters for the laws of physics and chemistry and biology, and set the evolutionary process in motion, But that's not what the Christian fundamentalists are arguing should be taught in Kansas.
People who want to exclude evolution on the basis of intelligent design, I guess they're saying, "Everything is made at once and then nothing can change." But there's no reason the universe can't allow for changes and plan for them, too. People who are anti-evolution are working very hard for some excuse to be against it. I think that whole argument is a stupid one. Maybe that's a bad word to use in public, but it's just a shame that the argument is coming up that way, because it's very misleading.
That seems to come up when religion seeks to control or limit the scope of science. We're seeing that with the regulation of research into stem cells and cloning. Should there be areas of scientific inquiry that are off-limits due to a culture's prevailing religious principles?
My answer to that is, we should explore as much as we can. We should think about everything, try to explore everything, and question things. That's part of our human characteristic in nature that has made us so great and able to achieve so much. Of course there are problems if we do scientific experiments on people that involve killing them that's a scientific experiment sure, but ethically it has problems. There are ethical issues with certain kinds of scientific experimentation. But outside of the ethical issues, I think we should try very hard to understand everything we can and to question things.
I think it's settling those ethical issues that's the problem. Who decides what differentiates a "person" from a collection of cells, for example?
That's very difficult. What is a person? We don't know. Where is this thing, me where am I really in this body? Up here in the top of the head somewhere? What is personality? What is consciousness? We don't know. The same thing is true once the body is dead: where is this person? Is it still there? Has it gone somewhere else? If you don't know what it is, it's hard to say what it's doing next. We have to be open-minded about that. The best we can do is try to find ways of answering those questions.
You'll turn 90 on July 28. What's the secret to long life?
Good luck is one, but also just having a good time. Some people say I work hard: I come in on Saturdays, and I work evenings both at my desk and in the lab. But I think I'm just having a good time doing physics and science. I have three telescopes down on Mt. Wilson; I was down there a couple nights last week. I've traveled a lot. On Sundays, my wife [of 64 years] and I usually go hiking. I'd say the secret has been being able to do things that I like, and keeping active.
'Faith is necessary for the scientist even to get started, and deep faith is necessary for him to carry out his tougher tasks. Why? Because he must have confidence that there is order in the universe and that the human mind in fact his own mind has a good chance of understanding this order.'
-Charles Townes, writing in "The Convergence of Science and Religion," IBM's Think magazine, March-April 1966
Who created us? U.S. vs. UC Berkeley beliefs
A Nov. 18-21, 2004 New York Times/CBS News poll on American mores and attitudes, conducted with 885 U.S. adults, showed that a significant number of Americans believe that God created humankind. UC Berkeley's Office of Student Research asked the same question on its 2005 UC Undergraduate Experience Survey, results for which are still coming in. As of June 8, 2,057 students had responded.
Granted that is a misrepresentation of ID, namely in claiming that ID holds that everything was "made at once" with no further change. However you also misrepresent ID, at least to any extent that you imply this claim is rejected by or inconsistent with ID.
The truth is that any and all assertions or suppositions about when things were made are equally consistent with ID.
The accurate representation of ID is that is completely vacuous wrt to any claim about when creation or "design" events occur[ed]. Likewise as to whether or not they occur[ed] all at once or in some temporal sequence, to what extent if any they are supplemented by natural (non-design, evolutionary) change, how they occur, etc, etc.
Basically on absolutely every substantive, empirical claim ID is silent, vacuous and embraces self imposed and intentional ignorance and incuriousity, excepting exclusively the "inference" that certain features are the result of "intelligent design". But of course we don't know anything about what such "design" actually is, and even less what it means for something to be the "result" of it.
This state of affairs is an entirely intentional feature of Intelligent Design, which itself was designed not with a scientific mission but with a political/activist function: i.e. to serve as a kind of umbrella organization/ideology for antievolutionists. It's vacuousness is aimed at avoiding the fate of all previous such efforts at unifying antievolution activists: their tendency to fragment and schism over questions such as the age of the earth, progressive versus fiat creation, the origin of entropy, the global or local extent of the flood, the nature of the biblical "canopy" or "firmament," and other such questions invariably treated as matters of dogma rather than rational and potentially soluble scientific dispute.
The main activity of "Intelligent Design advocates" is to conduct and endless song and dance act aimed a making the casual observer think that it has something substantive to contribute.
That's news to me. HOW are they equivalent?
Prima facie ID is equally consistent with any amount of evolution and common descent, and equally so with no evolution. After all there are "design advocates" holding both position, i.e. those like Behe who have no problem with common descent, even with (at least potentially) univerisal common descent, and those like Jonathan Wells who seem to be thoroughgoing antievolutionists and quibble even with sub-species microevolution like industrial melanism in Peppered Moths.
It seems to me that -- since ID is consistent with any amount, or no amount, of evoluiton (see also my message just upthread on the vacuousness of ID) -- the question of whether or not "design events" occured is, logically, completely independent of evolution.
There is a connection but it has to do merely with the instrumental matter of detecting "intelligently designed" structures: i.e. the methods of detection suggested by IDers all amount to claiming that this or that structure couldn't have happened "naturally" (by a stepwise evolutionary process) so it must have been "design". However in this very message you explicity reject such logic (saying it couldn't have been that so it must have been this), at least when (you think) evolutionists do it, so this question of detection can't be the reason that proving ID and disproving evolution are "equivalent endeavors".
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The very purpose of ID is to identify which features are designed and which features are not designed.
"This state of affairs is an entirely intentional feature of Intelligent Design, which itself was designed not with a scientific mission but with a political/activist function: i.e. to serve as a kind of umbrella organization/ideology for antievolutionists."
Exactly why evolution is defined merely as 'change'. This intentionally vacuous definition of evolution gives politically-active naturalists the perfect 'bait-and-switch' tactic to get their agenda implemented under the umbrella of deceptive 'science'.
"The main activity of "Intelligent Design advocates" is to conduct and [sic] endless song and dance act aimed a making the casual observer think that it has something substantive to contribute."
The main activity of 'naturalist' advocates is to conduct an endless song and dance act aimed at making the casual observer think it has something substantive to contribute.
Wrong how? That's exactly what I said in the message you quote. All they do is infer design (say that this or that structure is the result of "intelligent design"):
Basically on absolutely every substantive, empirical claim ID is silent, vacuous and embraces self imposed and intentional ignorance and incuriousity, excepting exclusively the "inference" that certain features are the result of "intelligent design".
My point was that IDers refuse to say anything else about "intelligent design" structures, such as how, when, where, etc, the design is actually instantiated, and therefore we don't know anything useful about what it actually means to say something is the result of "intelligent design". We might as well say something is the result of "yarp" or "yada, yada". All I'm gonna tell you is that "yada, yada" is not "evolutionary naturalism," but as to what it actually is I ain't gonna say nothin'.
Your attempt, via bald assertion, to claim intellectually equivalency on this ground for evolutionary theory is amusing. Anyone who's actually read even a small sample of the relevant scientific literature knows that there is nothing remotely like the IDers' systemic incuriousity as to mode and mechanism on the evolution side. Indeed most dramatically the opposite. The literature is filled with discussions of specific mechanisms.
Or, the being of the universe is living, an organism. But why the caps? Do they make the organism a necessary being?
I agree that "proving ID" and "disproving evolution" are not necessarily "equivalent endeavors." I got a bit sloppy with that claim.
The truth of that claim depends on how "evolution" is defined. As you point out, there are many variations in the meaning of that word.
However, the claim *is* true for a particular meaning of the word "evolution:" The purely naturalistic meaning. The purely naturalistic meaning explicitly rules out any and all ID, so by definition, "proving ID" is equivalent to "disproving (purely naturalistic) evolution."
Amen.... it's so cool being a child of God..
Imagination is pregnant with possibilities in children..
Children are so comfortable with "observing" metaphorical entities but are made to enforce "observing" literal entities as they are assimilated into rational adult life..
Observing the literal and observing the metaphor must be very important factors in the study of "Observation".. Because thats the difference of what we are talking about with the observations of science and the observations of metaphysics.. When metaphysics students lose their childlike wonder they become serious scientists.. but unimpaired scientists can love metaphysics..
For the metaphor is far deeper in meaning and scope than any measly literal definition.. of anything.. The literal entity is bound by language but the metaphorical entity is released by it.. The Study of "Observation" MUST take into account the observation of the literal with the naked eye and the observation of the metaphorical with microscope and telescope..
When you jump from complementariness to the being of a living universe, why does this conjure the Ghost of Hegel with a smile? Chase him away, won't you? Otherwise it scares me overmuch into thinking this living being is what unifies the complements of being and non-being.
An artist once told me that the sculptor removes the stone which does not belong in order to reveal the masterpiece that was always there. I hadn't thought of it in terms of the observer problem, but it does make sense. The masterpiece was "real" in the mind of the artist and in the stone, though only he perhaps knew it.
I'll be meditating on your speculation that Being and Life could be seen as identities.
Your attempt, via bald assertion, to claim intellectual superiority for evolution as a theory is amusing. Anyone who's read a sample of the relevant scientific literature knows that there is nothing remotely like the evolutionists systemic story-telling on the ID side. Indeed most dramatically the opposite. The literature is filled with the wild imaginations of naturalists desperately proposing unobservable mechanisms to explain clear design in biological systems.
LOL consider them nervous tics if you like! One does not confer necessary being on anything by capitalizing its name. :^)
To me, the complementaries refer to the knowability of the universe, not the "beingness" of the universe. It seems to me the complementaries are dualistic in that they are seemingly "mutually-opposed" to one another; but they are not the "thesis" and "antithesis" terms that sum up as a totally abstract "synthesis," and so aren't dialectical in their form or relations. And if they sum up to anything at all, it would not be to any kind of abstract being, but only a (hopefully) truthful description of reality, not reality itself.
I confess to being a little nervous that you would find me doing metaphysics here WRT the principle of complementarity, when all I think I'm doing is epistemology....
Jeepers!!! I wasn't aware that I'd invited Hegel to this party -- did you really see him? Yikes!!!!!!!! LOL!
Thanks so much for writing, cornelis!
Bohr with his complementary logic is a bull in many China Shops.. Thank God.. All them idols "needed" "re-arraigning" anyway.. When logic comes to a "Y" in the road going one direction is what science does well.. following BOTH directions is what is intended.. according to Bohr.. Does this mean "scientists" are generally lazy?...
I don't think Bohr is saying that scientists are supposed to follow both roads for the simple reason that their methods and tools are suitable to only one of the roads -- natural science -- and not to the other road -- philosophy. Therefore, it is the job of scientists to make descriptions of what they can observe, not to tell us what the "nature" or "how" of Reality is, let alone the "why." In short, it seems he would like to see science purify itself of all philosophical tendencies....
Which really, is a very hard thing to do. As Alamo-Girl has pointed out, everytime a scientist puts a quantity into a mathematical formula, he is already dealing with universals -- which is the province of philosophy, not science. The physical laws themselves are said to be universals. And anytime a scientist tells you he is looking for a "grand unified theory" or a "theory of everything," he is hopelessly enmeshed in philosophical (metaphysical) presuppositions. For the idea of "unity" is a philosophical idea, not a scientific one, strictly speaking.
Many people regard Bohr as being a pretty obscure thinker. So who's to say "my" interpretation is the correct one?
Thank you so much for writing, dearest 'pipe!
(a) observation yields limited knowledge, such that what we know is but knowledge in part. This is obvious. If our knowledge were exhaustive, we would no longer discover anything. But it is easily forgotten. If the observer problem has a problem it is that we often take what have discovered to hold for what we haven't discovered, or don't care to know, often by applying principles in one area of thought to stop the gaps elsewhere. All the -isms suffer from this, logicism, marxism, legalism, scientism.
(b) observation cannot fix the subject of study, such that "the act of observation itself disturbs the observed object, and thus changes the total system."
(c) observation results in concepts abstracted from existence, such that further theoretical speculation yields conclusions that may not hold true for the thing in the real. Thought is a world of its own. The $100 in my mind, for all its worth, is not a $100 in my pocket. A useful theory, as Ortega puts it, must "mate happily with reality" to become knowledge.
Ortega puts the problem very well indeed.
I'm not entirely sure what you intend by the word "fix" in (b). But it does seem clear to me that the observer can be seen "disturbing" and thus modifying that which he observes. Consider the case of a cultural anthropologist, for instance, who travels to a tribe of primitive people for the purpose of studying it. His very presence as a complete "outsider" of obviously different culture than their own disturbs the behavior of the people he's come to study. Or what of the claim by a literary analyst, that such-and-such book will have wide appeal among a variety of different readers, for each will find in it perspectives congenial to his own outlook.
More to cover but I must stop now: Dinner is served! And I'm hungry!!! I hope to be back later.
Thanks so much for writing, cornelis!
I meant no more than the citation (in your words) afterward explains.
Here's a tidbit from Gilson in Being and Some Philosophers.
The world of Aristotle is there whole, in so far as reality is substance. It is the world of science, eternal, self-subsistent and such that no problem concerning existence needs nor can be asked about it. It is one and the same thing for a man in it to be "man," to be "one" and "to be." But while keeping whole the world of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas realizes that such a world cannot possibly be "metaphysical." Quite the reverse, it is the straight "physical" world of natural science, in which "natures" necessarily entail their own existence . . . physics is that very order of substantial reality in which existence is taken for granted. As soon as existence no longer is taken for granted, metaphysics beings. In other words, Thomas Aquinas is here moving the whole body of metaphysics to an entirely new ground. In the philosophy of Aristotle, physics was in charge of dealing with all "natures," that is, with those beings that have in themselves the principle of their own change and of their own operations . . .But tell me, how could you be talking metaphysics when it concerned the the natural world?
As soon as existence no longer is taken for granted, metaphysics begins.
Because there's more to "the natural world" than physics, cornelis. Plus even the physicists and biologists can't seem to avoid doing it. As a case in point, much of modern day science is firmly premised in the philosophical doctrine of materialism. I've recently mentioned other examples hereabouts.
I mean, human beings are a part of nature; they are thus "natural." They also seemingly happen to be more than the sum total of the cells and molecules and the astronomical number atoms and sub-atomic particles and atomic quantum states that compose their bodies. It's not even possible to make a "full description" of a living organism or a human being based on the methods of present-day physics: Who knows, for example, how to gather and collate information about a virtually astronomical number of quantum states, affected by quantum events continuously triggered from "outside" the organism, which would also need to be quantified, which would be necessary for a full description of a living organism in physical terms?
The biologists have basically taken the position that life must be taken as an irreducible, foundational "given," and then just go on from there, happy as clams. To ask 'what life is?' is a foolish question from the standpoint of methodological naturalism: You do not have to know the answer to this question to do first-rate science. Similarly physicists take the quantum of action as irreducible to anything that could be further detected by science. Life and the action principle are both taken axiomatically.
I am fascinated by, and honor, the findings of state-of-the-art theoretical developments in the sciences. But to the extent that there's "more to man (and the world and society) than mere matter," neither physics nor biology has the complete answer to the questions that matter most to most thinking human beings -- and they are likely unable to produce one, on sheer methodological grounds.
So I admit I do see philosophy as fully "complementary" with the natural sciences. You don't get to do both at the same time, and possibly no one person can effectively do both equally well anyway; but you do need them both to make a "full description of the system" that includes living beings and especially man. :^)
Thank you so much for Gilson's statement RE: Aristotle's attitude toward his own philosophizing -- "In the philosophy of Aristotle, physics was in charge of dealing with all 'natures,' that is, with those beings that have in themselves the principle of their own change and of their own operations." Obviously, this attitude is founded on the premise that "nature" (or "natures") is to be defined as what bears within itself the principles of its own change and operations. Living beings, however, are finite and contingent; so it appears they cannot wholly be responsible for their dispositions themselves; they do not completely reduce to the expectation of the physicial sciences that once you know the initial conditions, then the laws of physics do all the rest.
Rather than the term "metaphysics" (incorrectly credited to Aristotle), I'd really prefer to use the more generic term, "philosophy" instead. Metaphysics has become identified with particular schools and doctrines; philosophy (as practiced by Plato and Aristotle) gives us a chance to return to "realist" models of exploring and understanding reality.
It seems the fundamental prejudice of a certain contemporary scientific attitude that no causes of things can arise outside the familiar four-dimensional space that we normally experience. And yet curiously I note that no "universal" seemingly can arise there either -- at least if you believe in the law of cause-and-effect as the lawful result of the actions of real bodies in close proximity on each other. Universals do not appear to be the products of four-dimensional spacetime "nature", but somehow as "ulterior" to it; but that nature appears to depend on and be governed by them. The physical laws of science themselves are universals.
Thank you so much for writing cornelis. Truly I value your comments. Obviously, I am still struggling to put my ideas into cogent order here, and to find adequate language to express them clearly.... It's good to have a highly well-qualified interlocutor.
Is it possible there are "no words" to adequately "explain the whole system"?..
Meaning mere language is insufficient to describe the physical and metaphysical reality..
If so, we humans are/may be in a maze.. we cannot fully understand.. to describe..
How intelligent would be the rat that made a nest in a Cul D'Sac instead of running the maze?....
Yep, I think that is possible, dear 'pipe! But we humans have to do the best we can.
Don't forget, God reveals Himself to us through His creation also, and evidently wants us to understand it to the best of our ability, as aided by His Spirit.
I hope this doesn't sound too "anthropocentrist," not to mention heretical; but it seems clear to me this whole show was put on for our benefit in the first place. It behooves us to appreciate the divine Gift by contemplating it and its meaning....
Thanks so much for writing, my very dear brother in Christ!
To me it seems the ULTIMATE complementarity is expressed in the Person of Jesus Christ, Who is simultaneously (and eternally) fully human and fully divine. This tells us (among other things) that God the Father dignifies the human in such measure that He would sacrifice His only-begotton son to physical incarnation as a human. I gather our Good Lord, in the Person of Jesus, was trying to draw our attention to His Spirit of Truth, His Logos, from which the beginning of creation was made, and which forever sustains it, in addition to His soteriological action in the Life of the Spirit which He commends to us, as befitting our created human nature as the image, the reflection of the divine nature, in the Name of, and by means of, His Son.
Give all thanks and praise to our Lord God, our Source and Sustainer from the Alpha to the Omega!
Truth be told every thinking person I know or have known and respect is a little heretical.. The others rely on dogma and others opinion like a "christian talmud"..
The purpose of this Donkey and spirit show is a Donkey Rodeo with clowns and everything.. Humans do indeed often take themselves too seriously.. A Rodeo is a SERIOUS TEST but it is entertainment also.. The shows producer(s) should be honored for such a "believeable" plot.. don't you think?.. ;) After the last curtain the conversation between us about the show should be stimulating..
Religion meets Science, ping!
Dear brother 'pipe, I hardly think that God intends us humans to fulfill our divinely-given natures as clowns in a Donkey Rodeo. To say such a thing is to cast in doubt His righteousness and purpose in creating man in His image in the first place.
The whole point and purpose of His Revelation, it seems to me, is to preclude such a ridiculous outcome. Or so it seems to me.
I'm really tuckered out dear brother, so am turning in early tonight. But I hope to see you again on the morrow! Meanwhile, may God bless you and fulfill all your needful requirements!
Good night, dearest 'pipe!
A God that can speak flesh into being so easily boggles the mind.. The harmonics of that speach should be a downright bodacious study.. Spiritual Telekinesis really.. Wonder if some of the Angels can perform spiritual telekinesis?... There could be levels of spiritual telekinesis.. Gifting in "heaven" could involve spiritual telekinesis in some form(s)..
Kinda makes you go..... Hmmmmmmm... know what I mean?..
The biblical metaphor of the Talents comes to mind..
I'm more of an announcer but I do know some clowns.. I see you as a proper lady with some kind of hat, commenting on the bull riding..
True enough. But this doesn't even nibble at what I was fishing for on this identity of Being and Life as applied to the universe. But hey, I'm not the greatest at fishing and get skunked all the time.
In the original article, this guy is all over the map on the multiple meanings he's using the rubric "intelligent design" to stand for. Is he talking about the creation of the universe? The origins of life? Behe's laundry list of things Behe can't explain and so concludes they must be explained by miraculous intervention by some "unspecified" supernatural entity? I doubt he even knows where he's wandering. There is a long history of scientists getting funny in their old age and signing on to odd things that catch their fancy. I had one prof once who had a picture of Osborne Reynolds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_Reynolds ) in his old age tacked up, showing him holding a bowl of marbles, apparently toward the end of his life he latched onto some theory about the whole universe working like a bunch of packed together spheres. The prof was worried about going out like that, clutching on some nutter theory at the end of his life. It's an occupational hazard I guess.
You have no clue what education is about.
Thanks for the ping, Betty. It's good to see a scientist with enough humility to know that we don't knew everything and never will. It is a realization that clears the way for seeing beyond ideological molds and mantras.
Amen, my lovely sister.
There are "biology-friendly" cosmologies being constructed by physicists and astrophysicists right now, e.g., Lanza, Grandpierre, others, some of which advance the notion that the entire universe is a living being. It's fascinating to me -- so reminiscent of Plato. At the very least, they claim there is a "biological priciple" more fundamental than physics in the universe; that there are biological laws that work to set up the initial and boundary conditions of biological organization and processes first, and then the laws of physics can go to work.
Grandpierre, an astrophysicist whose specialty is the Sun, avers that he has seen evidence of biological behavior in our star. He has a book in the works: The Book of the Living Universe, already published in Hungarian by Springer-Verlag (2000), which is now being translated into English, with substantial revisions. Grandpierre believes that the theoretical biologist Ervin Bauer, a Hungarian employed in Soviet science until Stalin had him killed in 1947, discovered the key biological laws. (I can look them up for you if you're interested, cornelis, and report back.)
Mostly these ideas are hooted at by mainstream science. I find them interesting nonetheless; and so I'll get hooted at too, for sure! :^)
Guess that must make me an empty blowhard, too, omnivore; for I was a double major in literature and philosophy. (I hope my minor in history might improve my "rep" a little in your eyes....)
Goodness, I find it amazing that you would find the humanities "dehumanizing." I'm simply speechless....
But I'm over that now: If I might make a "humanities" recommendation: Boccaccio's Decameron, a fourteenth-century collection of 100 short stories. It is a celebration of universal humanity that is by turns hilarious, ribald, scatological; serious, profound, tragic, noble. It presents man as he is, warts and all; saints and sinners, heros and villains, etc., etc. Everytime I read this work, I am struck by the thought "I KNOW these people! They are just like the people you meet everyday!" -- a testimony to the constancy and durability of human nature, down the ages.
Plus the book gives a fascinating account of the Black Plague in ~1350 A.D. Florence: the horrors, the social transformations it caused, etc. (Recommend the Mark Musa and Peter Bondanella translation. Their language is very modern and fresh -- which is most fitting; for Decameron was among the very first works of literature to be published in the vernacular: It was "the height of modernity" in its own time. The book was deplored and condemned by the religious authorities practically everywhere it went. :^) Up to quite recent times! Go figure....)
You wrote that most college-bound students have a good handle on the basic skills of reading and writing "by the end of the third grade." Simply amazing, that they could begin their college career "literate," and yet manage to graduate as illiterates -- and not just in reading and writing skills, but also in terms of knowledge of their own culture and history.
If you believe that writing doesn't require the most painstaking thinking -- well, I guess I should stop myself now, otherwise I'll surely say something I'd regret....
You wrote: "If philosophy were actually so all-fired 'fundamental' and important, philosophers would be at the leading edge of finding new knowledge...."
omnivore, philosophy is the MOTHER OF SCIENCE. As late as the 19th century, science was still called "natural philosophy." Philosophy is the historic source of mathematics (Pythagorus, Euclid), psychology (Plato's specialty), biology (Aristotle), physics (Democritus, Leucippus) -- the list can be easily extended, but I hope you get the picture.
Both Einstein and Bohr -- you know those guys who radically transformed all of physics in the twentieth century -- had a consuming interest in the philosophy of science, and Bohr was probably one of the greatest epistemologists who ever lived. Einstein was (IMHO) a frank Platonist; and his thought was strongly influenced by Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza, a seventeenth-century Jewish philosopher.
You wrote:
For me, reality starts where we leave the words behind, and the weird stories and primitive beliefs that we construct with words, and deal with the physical world physically, in its own language, which is mathematical.For me, reality starts before there are words to describe it. And that is why our articulations about it are so important -- they are the only means we have for grasping knowledge and communicating it to others.
We -- you and I -- are parts of the physical world; but neither of us is reducible to mathematics in the sense I gather you to mean.
Guess we just have different points of view, omnivore. Thank you so much for sharing your observations with me!
Thanks for the ping, and for continually asking the unaskable, and attempting to answer the unanswerable.
(and for dragging the naturalists out of their comfort zone)
The search for truth is a divinely-drawn, unending quest.
Strange that anyone who would reduce our existence to the merely mechanical level of the physical world would consider the humanities *dehumanizing*.
And sadly, that's where most high school graduates stay. But it's not the fault of the humanities.
And no contact with the real (physical) world is required, that's strictly optional.
The same could be said for most *scientists*. Getting stuck in the lab all the time conducting experiments for a living tends to warp ones view, which is likely where the absent-minded professor stereotype comes in. Totally useless in the real world.
Of course there are philosophers and then there are philosophers. Some are engaged in trying to explain or identify truth, and these are the greats, there are the ones who even after a hundred generations we can still read with profit, because the questions are still current, even with all of the water under the bridge since then.
To read these guys, and to attack the same problems with modern eyes is to become part of a 3 thousand year old conversation that is still ongoing.
Others seem to be engaged in building their own reality, and in this I am in agreement with people who refer to it as empty wordplay (as would Socrates, who spent most of his time going after such people). Foucault is a good example of this, and a host of others like him.
When you think of philosophers, you think of the classic thinkers, and of the war of ideas that we deal with every day, and there is nothing more necessary, nothing more interesting, civilizations rise and fall on the outcome of these debates. These debates are not really fought out in college classrooms by the clueless boobs assigned to teach them, obviously, they are fought out in peoples souls.
To be ignorant of the big questions is to be just one more of the herd, unaware of your destination and purpose, unaware of who is directing your steps and with what motive.
You arent a philosopher because you have a PHD and tenure, you are a philosopher if you have a clue, and are engaged in the war of ideas. In other words, you, my friend, are a philosopher in the best sense of the word, I say that having read you for years now. I know you. But if your college philosophy professor was one, it was a lucky accident.
There is another class of philosophy as it relates to science. Philosophy in this context is both pre-science and post-science, in a way. Science operates at the edge of knowledge, and when our scientist stares out into the dark past the ring of campfires and asks the unasked question, he is engaging in philosophy. He may be a scientist on his day job, but at that moment he is doing philosophy. The scientist sets about doing the research that sheds light on the question, and as the data is uncovered, it is again the scientist wearing his philosophers cap that tries to make sense out of what he is seeing.
And then there are guys like me, looking over his shoulder, I cant do the science but I can do opinion all day long.
I didnt always have a high opinion of philosophy because I didnt have a high opinion of most of the empty nonsense that pours out of the pens of people who are usually being lauded as great thinkers. They remind me of the kind of guy your school system hires as this years poet laureate, who pays for his years stipend with some awful and endless verse that the kids have to be forced to listen to at some school assembly, or the guy who is this years resident composer who comes up with some awful symphony that will be mercifully forgotten as soon as everyone files out of the auditorium and can get to their MP3.
The ones we love to hate are precisely the guys like Derrida and Foucault, and why leave out frauds like Chomsky, guys only a college professor could love, and will be forgotten as soon as the current crop have retired and been replaced by the next crop of walking clichés.
Real philosophy is precious when you find it. Most of its would-be practitioners are not only wrong but laughably wrong, or dangerously wrong, ranging from the too-dumb-to-know-theyre-wrong to transparently evil to conmen, and if you have the stomach for it you study them so you can defeat them before their ideas become headlines in your morning paper or whole chapters in a history book. And the few philosophers who are capable of divining truth, doing battle on its behalf, and refuting the rest, these are the guys you are looking for. These are the guys we aspire to be.
Which really, is a very hard thing to do. As Alamo-Girl has pointed out, everytime a scientist puts a quantity into a mathematical formula, he is already dealing with universals -- which is the province of philosophy, not science. The physical laws themselves are said to be universals. And anytime a scientist tells you he is looking for a "grand unified theory" or a "theory of everything," he is hopelessly enmeshed in philosophical (metaphysical) presuppositions. For the idea of "unity" is a philosophical idea, not a scientific one, strictly speaking.
Many people regard Bohr as being a pretty obscure thinker. So who's to say "my" interpretation is the correct one?
He may not realize it, but his sense of all that there is will guide his understanding. Ditto for what he accepts and how he values knowledge how sure he is that he actually knows something. Likewise for the mathematician who discovers a formula with universal application and substitutes a variable for a constant to accomplish that end.
Even so, scientists generally speaking do not have the necessary toolkit of methods to do philosophy or theology even though they choose and apply it (perhaps unawares.)
Thus I strongly agree with Bohr that science should limit itself to what it can say about the physical and phenomenal world using its own methodology and resist the urge to speak about the essence of any thing.
Oboy! Another opinion on Evolution. Six billion to go.
Thanks for the ping, betty. Like you, Im amazed.
Im amazed that anyone but a Liberal would think that most college-bound students are at an acceptable level in the basic skills of reading and writing. On this very forum have we not heard, from almost every side, that Americas reading & writing skills are in a miserable state? Is this not the case? Correct me if Im wrong. I would be very glad to hear that I am mistaken.
Im amazed to read that Bill Bennett is an empty blowhard. I didnt know there was any other kind of blowhard save an empty one, but its shocking to learn that friend Bennett is to be found among them. But, then, again as usual, we read the accusation stripped of any attempt to make the case, as though the accusation proves the fact. Of this latter I am not at all amazed, for it is a standard Liberal schtick.
I am amazed to read that the humanities are "dehumanizing." I wasnt aware that there was anyone of discernment left in America incapable of making the distinction between the humanities and what in most universities is quaintly identified as the Humanities Department (more often some bastardized title being substituted). Anyone who has followed the battles of Dr. Mike Adams with the University of North Carolina surely must understand the distinction without a need for coaching. And, of course, there are many on this forum who have no need for the example of Dr Adams either, being themselves participants in the battle.
We all know who is in charge of our universities and our public schools. It is not Conservative Christians. Yet we learn that it is the fault of Conservative Christians that our universities and schools are overflowing with Socialist/Marxist garbage. I am not merely amazed to hear this; I am astounded.
And then once again I am propelled well past mere amazement to learn that self-evident truths and the consent of the governed are but pointless words and useless philosophy.
This would be a result dearly to be desired, dearest sister. But it is also a devilishly difficult thing to do. It cuts across the very grain of how human beings actually live their lives -- which usually involves trying to integrate their knowledge and experience with a view to the future, by drawing on the past. This seems to be the general condition of most intelligent human beings, whether they be great scientists, or just plain folks like you and me.
According to Niels Bohr, the very thing that ought to be avoided in science is exemplified by his dear friend, colleague, and (sometime) adversary, Albert Einstein.
To put this into perspective: As earlier suggested, Einsteins thought tended to the platonic. That is, he assumed an eternal universe, without beginning or end; and he thought that at the root of the cosmos, a fundamental mathematics, or logic, or geometry would be found to specify the implicate order (to use David Bohms term without permission) that governs the unfolding (or evolution) of the universe in space and time.
Then in my reading of late along comes the eminent physicist John A. Wheeler, a friend of Einstein, and friend and close colleague of Bohr, with his intriguing insight that Einsteins continuing rejection of complementarity [i.e., the uncertainty/indeterminacy relations of quantum physics], and 19171929 rejection of the big bang [theory], were influenced by his youthful admiration for the thought of Benedict Spinoza, implacable advocate of determinacy and of a universe that goes on from everlasting to everlasting. [J. A. Wheeler, Physics in Copenhagen in 1934 and 1935, in Niels Bohr: A Centenary Volume; Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1985; p. 224.]
Plato and Spinoza seem to be in agreement with respect to the eternal-universe model: That is, a universe that subsists forever, with no beginning or end, for the reason that God subsists forever, without beginning or end. Moreover the two thinkers seem to be in accord on the conjecture that the universe is, at root, mathematically or geometrically founded and ordered.
But where it seems Plato and Spinoza part company is over the question of determinism.
For Spinoza, there is no free will in the universe: Even God creates by necessity; it is His nature; and it is by, through, and from His (immanent) substance that all other natural things are the reifications. In effect, Spinoza has created a fascinating pantheism on the basis of seemingly ineluctable rational principles.
Yet for Plato, the universe is not ordered deterministically, but by persuasion. Persuasion leaves room for free will, which Spinoza absolutely denies. The unknown god of the Beyond, Plato's Epikeina, draws us unto his everlasting truth by persuasion, not by force.
Anyhoot, much more can be said on this topic, and probably will be said in time. But for now, lets leave it this way: Einsteins philosophy was his lifelong guide to his scientific judgment. Which is hardly unexceptional. For who can make any judgment at all, if he lacks criteria of meaning, and a standard for his judgment?
I read Spinoza in my college years, and found him fascinating. I still do. Having revisited him recently at Wheelers suggestion, from what I know about Einstein (which is exceedingly partial in two senses), I conjecture that, if you can understand the thought of Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza, you just might gain insight into the workings of one of the greatest minds of all time, the guy who discovered the photon and gave us relativity theory.
And then spent the rest of his life arguing with Niels Bohr. :^)
To be continued sometime. Hopefully. :^)
Thank you oh so much for writing, my dearest sister in Christ!
Indeed YHAOS. Thanks you so much for your observations!
To read these guys, and to attack the same problems with modern eyes is to become part of a 3 thousand year old conversation that is still ongoing....
To be ignorant of the big questions is to be just one more of the herd, unaware of your destination and purpose, unaware of who is directing your steps and with what motive.
So beautifully said, marron! Human beings are still asking the same questions about themselves and their place in the universe that they have been asking since the dawn of recorded history. The essential questions do not change. This is the irreducible core of the humanities, especially including philosophy.
Thank you so much for your very kind words, dear marron, and for your beautiful essay/post!
Humans are born totally needy.. as a parasite..
Some may never stop being a parasite.. but grow up as takers..
To become a "giver" maturity is required..
What is maturity?.. A Sacrificing of self centeredness to everything else..
The "Center of the Universe", then, is other than personal and becomes timeless..
Thoughts of "God and/or Eternity" can become relevant..
And questions about each can be interesting and not boring..
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.


text:
Compare free quotes from Bathroom Installers now
Bathroom Installers in Lennoxtown
Find Bathroom Installers in Lennoxtown, East Dunbartonshire and get free quotes fast with Bark. Whether you're replacing the bath, redoing the shower or starting from scratch with a whole new bathroom Bark has 100s of local Lennoxtown, East Dunbartonshire Bathroom Professionals ready to help you today.
Bathroom Installers in Lennoxtown ready to help
Dynamic Home Improvements
Dynamic Home Improvements provide a complete bathroom & kitchen design and installation service throughout Glasgow and Lanarkshire. Our team of highly skilled designers and installers take pride in their work, creating beautiful designer bathrooms & kitchens at reasonable prices. We offer a completely free plan and design service in the comfort of the potential customers own home. and our craftsmen are 100% employed by us to include plumbers, tilers, plasterers, joiners, painters and electricians so clients have complete peace of mind, knowing that continuity of work remains up to our extremely high standard. We NEVER use unquantified sub-contractors. All work is guaranteed for one year and products are warrantied for up to 25 years!
0800 Property Services Ltd
About Us Providing your special service... We strive to provide the best available service and believe that communication and customer choice have been underrated in the past. Feedback from our customers goes a long way and therefore we will always be available for a chat over the phone or online. We even offer a tailored package where you can customise the frequency of your maintenance service. Our aim is to combine these elements with the highest quality service and reliable tradesmen. 0800 Property Services Ltd - striving to raise standards throughout the industry. 0800 Property Services Ltd are an established contracting company operating throughout the UK and is able to provide all building projects and can guide you through all of the build stages. We strive to provide an excellent service and outstanding build quality, keeping within our time scale and financial targets. We work closely with all Local Councils and Building Regulations Authorities ensuring strict adherence to the building and construction codes of practice.
Technique bathrooms
Ecosse property ltdCertificate of Excellence 2015
We specialize in all aspects of property maintenance.
Jch building contracts
Celsius Plumbing & Heating
Chas Stewart Plumbing & Heating Engineers Ltd
Crest Bathrooms
Bathroom designer/supplier and Installer
Adan Gas Services
Create Bathroom + Kitchen Studio
Create Bathroom + Kitchen Studio are based in our Rutherglen showroom where we can supply bathroom and kitchen products from manufacturers such as Matki, Roper Rhodes, Frontline, Utopia, Ellis, Silestone, Bristan, Porcelanosa, Ceramic Tile Distributors, Thomas Crapper (we are the only showroom in Scotland) and more. We are happy to supply goods, or visit your home and provide a quotation for the full project including all required trades, materials and removal of rubbish. We are Gas Safe Registered and able to carry out installations of gas cookers and boiler renewals.
NO1 Gas BoilersCertificate of Excellence 2015
A professional gas and plumbing company with over 30 Years Experience in the Gas Industry .
Perthshire Premier Plumbing
Smc joiners
Pink Plumbing Services
SC Design
R.G.Gibb Plumbing & Heating
Small family orientated plumbing & heating business established in 1994 employing a staff of 14
BMCD Plumbing Heating & Gas
Bee Builders Ltd have been successfully working within the Glasgow and surrounding areas since 2000. Kitchen and Bathroom Specialists. Fully fitted kitchens and bathrooms. Bee Builders Ltd- B&Q Approved installer- Home fit approved tradesmen. Landscaping and Design (patio, decking, fencing, artificial grass and many more... ). Insurance Work. Free Estimates. With expert always on hand to provide help and advice, we offer you the design, planning and installation, whatever the size of your space or badget. We always provide punctuality and high quality work. The majority of the work is repeat business and recommendations from existing customers.
Kitchen Design
Hammers and spanners
Paul McGuire
West Lothian HandymanCertificate of Excellence 2015
The business offers a professional service to client across central Scotland. We will assist with; -Ktichen and bathroom installation -General Joinery -Painting and decorating -Electrical services to 17th Edition wiring regulations -Plumbing -Plastering -Landscaping -Handyman services
Fresh Interiors Edinburgh
C & D Plumbing Ltd
Number One Gas and Plumbing Services Ltd
Local , reliable plumbing heating and gas engineers operating 24/7 We specialise in all plumbing heating and has work.
Lenzie Plumbing
Group 3 Energy
Newton mearns builders ltd
Craft joiners
Local joiners
Kms ltd
The Wetpanel Warehouse is a family run business and was founded back in 1999, with a 12 year background in construction, shop fitting and property development, with the vision to provide quality customer service and value for money, and to operate with honesty and integrity. Today this fundamental principal is still paramount, along with a refreshed drive and enthusiasm to take The Wetpanel Warehouse from strength to strength. The Wetpanel Warehouse approach has always been based on offering a complete service, which would include expert advice on choice and professional installation of wall & ceiling panels and floor products. Leading the UK in Quality and Design Wetpanel Warehouse only offers those product ranges of the highest quality, boasting an exclusive and extensive range of collections from some of the leading factories around the world. At Wetpanel Warehouse, we make sure we stay up to date with all the latest developments and trends in Europe through direct contact with the manufacturers. This way were always ahead of the competition and we can provide our customers with the best available choice, including a wide variety of exclusive decor ranges from around the world. Service The Wetpanel Warehouse offers an excellent range of products, including PVC wall panels and laminate flooring, combined with friendly service to meet every customers needs, from technical advice and choosing the right product to design ideas for your home. WE HAVE INTRODUCED THE INTERIOR DESIGN MUST HAVE TO OUR COLLECTION GLITTERWALL IS AN UNIQUE FABRIC , (THIS IS NOT PAPER) This is fabric backed material and covered in SHIMMERING GLITTER pieces to provide a super dazzling effect. MAINLY USED AS WALLCOVERING BUT CAN BE USED FOR PELMETS, CURTAINS, CUSHIONS, HEADBOARDS,CANVASES, LAMPSHADES,BLINDS, ECT THE ONLY RESTRICTION IS YOUR IMAGINATION
Absolute Plumbing & Heating Services
DFW Pipe Restoration, LLC
Contact DFW Pipe Restoration, LLC for high quality residential and commercial plumbing services in Dallas, Fort Worth, Irving and Grapevine communities.
Crest Bathrooms
"Bark quickly finds the best professionals for any job - consider it done."
Nick HewerBBC's 'The Apprentice'
How Bark works
Within hours, we'll introduce you to several interested and available Bathroom Installers in your area. You'll be able to compare quotes, messages, reviews and profiles. Then when you're ready, hire the right professional.
We have 5781 Bathroom Installers actively using Bark.com.
We'll reach out to them as well as others, based on your requirements.
Within hours, sometimes minutes, they'll contact you on Bark.
Professionals value their reputation on Bark and strive to do a great job for customers they find on our platform.


text:
Posts: 420
Registered: 01-11
Posts: 522
Registered: 09-05
Posts: 2614
Registered: 02-12
Posts: 129
Registered: 03-11
Posts: 173
Registered: 02-12
EvilNed01 said:
the health issue, yeah, I guess so. Any specific parts?
Posts: 176
Registered: 08-07
Posts: 2751
Registered: 07-11
cannonball said:
Thanks evilned, as for map10, I played through it and I have to admit the red key route is a little tight on ammo. I think I was biased towards the blue key area on testing, though there is a zerk pack on that side. I will probably add some more ammo in the form of shells and perhaps a rocket box and a couple of small cell charges.
The is a bfg in the yellow key/yellow door room which you only need one of the two keys to get to, best route would be to use the red key door at the top of the lift in the central hub at the start. You just need to bypass a caged cyber and a couple of weak enemies. I will give this map an overall in the new year when other responsibilities have eased which will also include adding co-op starts/monsters and difficulty settings.
EvilNed01 said:
Also, Arjak,
I'd love to play that map.
Posts: 3016
Registered: 10-06
Paul D said:
issues with your newest map EvilNed, tested with prBoom
- Player can't open the door at sector 29. I think it is because line 124 is too close to line 155, so when you try to press use on line 155, it doesn't work because the game thinks you are trying to interact with line 124. On the other hand, line 522 has the same action as line 124, so was line 124 a mistake?
That said, Here's a demo of my first attempt in prBoom after I fixed that broken door myself. note that I had played it several times before in another port with no issues.
Last edited by Paul D on Jan 17 2013 at 07:42
Posts: 1555
Registered: 04-10
Posts: 165
Registered: 03-08
Paul D said:
Here's a map that I saw while asleep, dreaming. ... Maybe somebody else could take it from here? https://dl.dropbox.com/u/39292814/dreamlevel.wad
In other news, I'm happy to say I've finished another song. ... I hope somebody makes a cool map that it could accompany!
< Contact Us - Doomworld
Powered by vBulletin
Copyright vBulletin Solutions, Inc.


text:
You Know What I Hate?! - March 19th
Cam Davie
March 19 2012 09:36AM
This zombie is angry. And so am I. She's probably pissed off because
someone ruined the ending of the show while she read about it on Twitter.
Because zombies are complete idiots.
(Photo courtesy AMC/The Walking Dead)
Today I continue my weekly feature of me venting and raging on stupid crap happening with the Canucks, their fans and around the NHL. Two things about feature... 1) It will appear (hopefully) every Monday (this week, Tuesday!), and 2) It is blatantly ripped off from a stand-up bit from comedian Craig Anton. On either point, I make no apologies. Enjoy. Or don't.
This week, I slag on the focus on useless stats, trolling your team's favourite players and bitching about spoilers.
You know what I hate?! Not knowing why Manny Malhotra took two games off for personal reasons. I know his reasons are private, but I am an incredibly nosy person and I demand to know absolutely everything about every hockey player on my favourite team, including all of the sordid details of their personal lives that are none of my business whatsoever. Yep, I'm a nosy, petty little man. Oh wait... Nope. I don't give a sh*t and neither should you.
You know what I hate?! The media focusing on useless statistics like +/- and blocked shots. Largely the MSM have come around to ignoring +/- as a useful stat, but there are still some that quote it like it's some sort of valid representation of a player's usefulness, especially on a game-by-game basis. During the Vancouver/Columbus game, Ben Kuzma tweeted about the number of shots that the Blue Jackets had blocked against the Canucks, in comparison to how few shots the Canucks had blocked. In other words, in his opinion, the Canucks weren't blocking enough shots. And why do you think that was, Ben? Was it because the Canucks were completely dominating play and were literally taking ALL of the shots? I like Ben, but that's just stupid to bring that up. And he's usually better than that. But not all MSM'ers can be warm to the idea of focusing on Corsi/Fenwick numbers. Only the good ones.
You know what I hate?! Idiots on Twitter who decide to chirp and pick fights with players. And not just any players, but players on their favourite team! On Sunday, both Kevin Connauton and Bill Sweatt had separate incidents of dealing with complete dummies who decided to bitch at them. Connauton's idiot took time out to complain that Kevin was talking about eating McDonald's because that's not the type of diet that and elite athlete should follow. And Sweatt's clown just told him he didn't have the skills to play in the NHL. I just don't understand the point of doing this. If you're doing this, what's your objective? Are you trying to make yourself feel like a bigger person, because you took a shot at someone who is quasi-famous? Do you think you know something extraordinary that they don't? Listen, I don't have a problem with people who have constructive, even critical, dialogue with athletes/celebrities. Hell, I've done it - I even accused Mike Duco of being a vampire. But if you're going to do it - be constructive and you sure-as-sh&*t had better be correct. Make a valid point that's pertinent to what they do. Criticizing what a guy eats? SERIOUSLY?! Telling someone he won't make it to the NHL? Really, dummy - Bill Sweatt played in the NHL this year!
You know what I hate?! People who complain about spoilers on Twitter. You have GOT to be kidding me. So you don't want an upcoming episode of your favourite show ruined because you can't watch until later. Great, I get that. I've been there many times. So you know what to do? YOU TURN OFF TWITTER, YA A-HOLE! What do you expect is going to happen? Do you think everyone in your timeline will just magically decide NOT talk about their favourite show because you can't watch it right now? Are you being held captive with your phone crazy-glued to your hand with Twitter open and jammed in your face with your eyelids pinned open? Honestly, dummies, turn off your damn computers/phones and avoid it. It's really not hard. Just DON'T look.
But it's not an unwarranted attack if it's true!
Mike Duco IS a Vampire!
Chris Higgins IS a Zombie!
And David Booth is really a Godzilla-like monster that eats gas stations! (Wonder where he gets the bread? Need a huge loaf to put a whole gas station on.)
March 19 2012, 10:36AM
Hey Tuque, in some bizarre space/time paradigm I find myself in agreement with all four of your points, frightning really. Similar views yes, however you're still a nosy, petty little man who doesn't give a sh*t....and I'm not!
March 19 2012, 11:34AM
Who is Manny Malhotra? Is that the man I refer to in my boxscore as VAN27?


text:
Time for a brag:
I was right! Kishi is more pictographic and cleverly communicative visually. The last sequence in kakashi gaiden contextually SEEMS like kakashi's voice in the darkness, waking up from his first fight using sharingan BUT they were obito's words in the darkness and kishi's drawn panels all followed a technical logic for discerning it correctly, he just allowed people to only be aware of the context in the story to assume it was kakashi.
So, IM taking extra credit and Brownie points.
Who says kabuto's trump card failed? It still has MUCH room to play! Madara is not revived the way he needs, that in itself us significant and the fact kabuto had no intention of releasing edo tensei anytime soon means things might still be according to his plan, whatever it is.
Obito is already showing signs of displeasure at madara's existence.
Kishi's drawing logic and situational mirror-
I also said madara or izuna was obito's father or grandfather. Its extremely likely now since obito's flashback is a situational mirror to kakashi's own steps between this world and the next. The pieces must match because obito's flashback in the chapter referenced his words linking him conceptually to kakashi. The pieces must match so the old uchiha in obito's flashback will without a doubt be immediate blood relation. That special realm seems to link family or relationally important people. BTW, IM talking about when kakashi met his dad.
But the big question this chapter asks is huge yet totally understated...
I want everyone to think about it and see what everyone comes up with because there is so little to go by in the way of clues and signs, anyway..
Madara says,"did you start midway? It's you, you must have some plan... what happened to nagato... my revival... ill get the 8 and 9 tails.. WE ARE STILL IN/ON TIME (HAVE TIME)."
I paraphrased but WHAT IS THE TIMING THEY ARE DEPENDENT UPON? there is definitely something that will occur and as that event begins madara, as well as obito, know they have to have all their ducks in a row or risk everything being for nothing or a huge setback. WTF is their timing following, especially to force obito's rush job?
Special state of the moon? Will the moon be close enough to get the rest of the 10 tails stuff but not again for years?
The only other clues are the obsession with destiny and preordained conflicts between the lineage of the two sons.