All I wanted was a reference or citation

Norm is right that the way that I put things had a lot to do with why he understood it. I am confident of this since I thought carefully about how I put things when I said them.

Ross is right that if Noem really tried to understand what you said, then he could have reached the same basic understanding a while ago. What this would have taken is a willingness to accept that Ross knows what he is talking about, and the willingness to skim what was said for the sense of it, skipping details that were too advanced. For instance Ross' explanation used the word metric. Norm would have had to ignore that. A little research on his part wouldn't have helped. I challenge anyone to find a simple definition of a metric that anyone with a highschool education should find clear. I know what it is, and I don't think that I can explain it reliably without having feedback on what part of my explanation has and has not registered. Certainly the usual [link|http://www.npac.syr.edu/projects/bbh/INTRO/section3_3.html|attempts] at a layman's explanation do little except confuse laymen in possibly amusing ways.

A further point of obvious frustration for Ross is Norm's unwillingness to accept the limitations of his own understanding. For instance no number of invocations of the fact that Norm got an A in highschool physics will address the fact that we are talking about material that is well beyond highschool physics. E=mc^2 is all well and dandy, but it isn't anywhere close to the right starting place. And as much as it is tempting to think that science is just free to toss away any theory and reinvent at will, anyone who knows science knows that it does not really work that way. Fiction can casually reinvent basic scientific principles, but science has to base its rules on concrete observations that take real work to understand and aquire.

So you are both right. And are both really frustrating each other. Why not take a break?

Cheers,
Ben

Post #132,822 by orion 12/30/03 3:12:57 PM Reply	All I wanted was a reference or citation it could have been from a book, that I could check out, or a web site, etc. That is the first thing they teach you in college, to use references and cite them in your papers. Happy New Year to you too. Hope the leg gets better. *"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"*
Post #132,825 by deSitter 12/30/03 3:20:53 PM Reply	Bull You wanted an excuse not to think about what I said, because you are lazy and self-indulgent. You are too chicken-shit to flame me directly so you took the first chance to do it sideways. You are a poster child for modern chemical psychiatry and its effectiveness. -drl
Post #132,836 by orion 12/30/03 3:51:11 PM Reply	Why did I think about what Ben said? Maybe because he was able to explain it in a way I could understand it, and provided a reference for me to read to learn more about it. That in itself shows that I am not lazy. I just could not grok what you where posting. *"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"*
Post #132,867 by ben_tilly 12/30/03 6:12:38 PM Reply	You are both right Norm is right that the way that I put things had a lot to do with why he understood it. I am confident of this since I thought carefully about how I put things when I said them. Ross is right that if Noem really tried to understand what you said, then he could have reached the same basic understanding a while ago. What this would have taken is a willingness to accept that Ross knows what he is talking about, and the willingness to skim what was said for the sense of it, skipping details that were too advanced. For instance Ross' explanation used the word metric. Norm would have had to ignore that. A little research on his part wouldn't have helped. I challenge anyone to find a simple definition of a metric that anyone with a highschool education should find clear. I know what it is, and I don't think that I can explain it reliably without having feedback on what part of my explanation has and has not registered. Certainly the usual [link\|http://www.npac.syr.edu/projects/bbh/INTRO/section3_3.html\|attempts] at a layman's explanation do little except confuse laymen in possibly amusing ways. A further point of obvious frustration for Ross is Norm's unwillingness to accept the limitations of his own understanding. For instance no number of invocations of the fact that Norm got an A in highschool physics will address the fact that we are talking about material that is well beyond highschool physics. E=mc^2 is all well and dandy, but it isn't anywhere close to the right starting place. And as much as it is tempting to think that science is just free to toss away any theory and reinvent at will, anyone who knows science knows that it does not really work that way. Fiction can casually reinvent basic scientific principles, but science has to base its rules on concrete observations that take real work to understand and aquire. So you are both right. And are both really frustrating each other. Why not take a break? Cheers, Ben "good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not" - [link\|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html\|Stefano Mazzocchi]
Post #132,882 by orion 12/30/03 7:43:07 PM Reply	I agree, end of discussion let's make a New Year's Resolution not to talk about it again. *"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"*

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