Hi Platonist Guitar Cowboy
Nothing human is off-topic to me.
Which suggests that materialism and brain science are off-topic.
- Receiving the following content -
From: Platonist Guitar Cowboy
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2013-01-31, 11:29:36
Subject: Re: [Metadiscussion] Off topic posting on the everything-list
Now that the long time users have spoken, I feel the noobs should be
represented as well, so my two virtual cents:
On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 2:35 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:
On 31 Jan 2013, at 11:05, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 12:46 PM, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote:
I'm getting a bit jack of this term metadiscussion becuse it only ever gets
applied to what other people are choosing to discuss. People talk about what
people want to talk about. It's about taste, perception, preference and
prejudice. Even WITH rigidly adhered-to rules and conventions, this still
applies. The challenge is to take WHATEVER is spoken about and MAKE that
relevant somehow (to whatever you want to make it relevant to). That's harder,
more interesting and dare I say it - more relevant a process than simply
corralling all thinking under one topic or heading.
Yup. I mean, do people really want posting to be restricted, in terms of
relevance, to journal articles (relating btw to a somewhat fuzzy and
controversial notion of TOE) with high impact factor? I wonder how people sort
out the relevance issue in view of the halting problem. How do we know if this
computation or question will take up more weight in say the Ensemble TOE frame
as time goes by? How can you rule out that it might be an oracle, if you don't
give it any chance?
It is understandable that certain discussions don't interest people: but this
doesn't prevent you from deleting and or blocking posts from certain authors to
reach your inbox. I press delete everyday. Takes 10 seconds.
?
As soon as you start to set up rules, conventions and expectations the
population divides into those who feel that it is to their advantage to play by
the rules and those who believe that this is a constraint. This list is
remarkably troll-free. For that very reason I see no need to restrict what is
spoken of. The ensemble theories of everything probably won't come from the
brains of those who are exclusively obsessed by these things anyway since by
now their perception is circular and their belief supports their belief. You
need random thinkers, people who will break the local equilibrium and who will
introduce the creative concept of idea movement from time to time.
I agree, but a dose of civility and humility makes that freedom more palatable,
even though it's messy by default.
?
I like the idea of a moderator-free list, but nonetheless I agree with
Russell. The list was set up with a particular purpose in mind but in
the last few months the range of discussion topics has changed
radically. The Internet is large and there are plenty of other forums
in which to discuss politics and religion. Could we return to the old
list please?
Really? Sounds like: Please let's return to the good old days, when there were
only smart people, with proper scientific training, that posted with restraint
and wigs. If you want people to just parrot what you expect, what falls into
the range of discussion topics possible, then why use the internet at all?
Might as well set up a camp and force people to answer how we would like them
to... this is taken to absurd extremes: my point is not anti-elitist, more that
it shouldn't matter. Let people make up their own minds, and if somebody wants
to spam the list with whatever brain droppings just pop up: ignore or delete.
One could implement a weak what people found relevant filter: if a message
gets ignored, then it is automatically deleted after some time. Everybody's
restraint would help clean up the list and people that get no replies get the
implicit, non face threatening message to stay relevant to the group's focus,
rather than exclusively a fuzzy ideal. Also, whatever posting guidelines are
adopted, the freedom of the list should headline it along with the group
responsibility to keep something messy clean for people searching the list.
?
I agree. Religion might be discussed but only if it put a specific light on the
ensemble or everything type of TOE research, not on actual problems like
gun control which can be debated on better suited forum.
Is there a forum that tries to frame gun control as universally chaotic as
here, with this kind of variety of characters and types? Because then we would
also have to keep quiet on prohibition, an actual problem, which turns out to
be woven into beliefs and complex histories, that in turn bleed into conception
of science and assumptions concerning Ensemble TOE's.
?
May be people could also try to make less posts, more acute on their points, to
help the mailing boxes to not explode
