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I am reading S.I.Hayakawa's "Symbol, Status and Personality" book, here are some quotes.
"Living in a competitive culture, most of us are most of the time chiefly concerned with getting our own views across, and we tend to find other people's speech a tedious interruption of the flow of our own ideas. "

"Which is but another way of saying that while the result of communications successfully imparted is self-satisfaction, the result of communications successfully received is self-insight."

"For one who knows no language but his own," said the late Professor Warner Fite, "the correspondence of words and things is an assumption almost inevitable. For him then the words are not merely conventional symbols for things but real properties of things... It is then a disillusionment to discover, upon learning a foreign language, that what can be expressed in a word in one tongue requires a pair of words or a whole phrase in another, and that between no two languages is there more that a rather loose correspondence of word to word. This wrenches the word loose from the thing; it also introduces what is for me the most characteristic product of philosophical reflection; namely, a consciousness of the variety of human points of view. And the fact that this consciousness is slight an ancient pghilosophy, acute in all the modern period, may be traced, I think, to the fact that the modern philosopher lives in a world of many tongues, where the Greek philosopher knew only one. And I will go a step further and suggest that this experience of language which the ancients lacked is the most important item in any education for reflective thought."
"To a mouse, cheese is cheese - that’s' why mousetraps work"
Wendell Johnson
 
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Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
"To a mouse, cheese is cheese - that’s' why mousetraps work"
Wendell Johnson


"For the Mouse is a creature of great personal valour."
-- Christopher Smart
 
Michael Matola
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"Alleluiia bobram aleutskim!"*
-- Vosnesenskii
*Hallelujah to Aleutian beavers!
[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: Michael Matola ]
 
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Vot on kakoi, Severnyi Olen'!
Uhm...having troubles translating...something like a surprise to see something very unusual and unique, but in a wrong place?...
Shura
 
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Originally posted by Shura Balaganov:
Uhm...having troubles translating...


How about "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition"?
 
Shura Balaganov
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Never heard of that, not of Spanish Inquisition, the phrase...
 
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"I hate meeces to pieces"
--Mr. Jinx
 
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Shura,
That is a Monty Python thing.
 
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""
 
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Originally posted by Elaine Micheals:
""


Sounds like a quote from this thread... :roll:
 
Randall Twede
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"" the most popular string in the world
 
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Bibo ergo sum
I drink, therefore I am

(Urg. I can't believe I just posted to MD)
 
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Idi Khui Na Biliyad ......
One of my friend who did MBBS/MD from USSR (Makachkala) told me this word, but he never told me the meaning
..... Shura can you translate it.
 
Shura Balaganov
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OK Ravish, you'be done it...Cover up quick, before Map catches you! ]
Shura
 
Mapraputa Is
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I was confused about the last word, there is no need for the i after B, really. Also, there are some problems with word order, but anyway... Translation: "I would appreciate if you left me alone, you woman of the oldest of all professions..." or something like that.
More quotes from the same book:
"Living in a competitive culture, most of us are most of the time chiefly concerned with getting our own views across, and we tend to find other people's speech a tedious interruption of the flow of our own ideas. Hence, it is necessary to emphasize that listening does not mean simply maintaining a polite silence while you are rehearsing in your mind the speech you are going to make next time you can grab a conversational opening. Nor does listening mean waiting alertly for the flaws in the other fellow's arguments so that later you can mow him down. Listening means trying to see the problem the way the speaker which means not sympathy, which is feeling for him, but empathy, which is experiencing with him. Listening requires entering actively and imaginatively into the other fellow's situation and trying to understand a frame of reference different from your own. This is not always an easy task."
[ October 25, 2002: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]
 
Dave Landers
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... you woman of the oldest of all professions...


Farming?
 
Mapraputa Is
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From the same book:
"Intensional orientation is the habit of orienting oneself by means of words, to the more or less complete exclusion of a consideration of what the words stand for. It is orientation in terms of definitions, prescriptions, categories, Aristotelian "essences". In the apt phrase of Wendell Johnson, it is "letting your language do your thinking for you".
What Korzybski calls the "extensional orientation" is, in contrast, the habit of orienting oneself in terms of the nonverbal realities for which words presumably stand, to which words are often an imperfect guide, and from which we are too often shielded by verbal smoke screens. It is an orientation of fact-mindedness, as opposed to word-mindedness.
"
 
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"To be is to be the value of a variable" - W.V. Quine
 
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Why are you reading this book, Map? Btw, have you considered doctoral studies in linguistics?
 
Shura Balaganov
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"Russian сам себе страшен" :roll:
Viktor Erofeev, "Vremya rojat'" ("Time to give birth"), compilations of best young russian authors of XXI century.
Shura
[ October 30, 2002: Message edited by: Shura Balaganov ]
 
Mapraputa Is
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Why are you reading this book, Map? Btw, have you considered doctoral studies in linguistics?
Good questions. Bad thing, they are intermixed so tightly I do not know where to start. They form a semantic ring, and text has a linear structure -- one needs to start somewhere, and where to start is too arbitrary a decision for my taste.
Anyway, this will be my 5000th post and I am going to do my best to make it as meaningless as possible.
Why am I reading this book. One possible answer: this can be asked about any book I am reading, and I need to read something anyway, so I am reading this book. Another possible answer was given by Mikhail Epstein: "my brain knows what it needs" -- this was said to justify his own random reading list. Of course, Mikhail Epstein is not a programmer but a philosopher and literary man, so what would you expect... Yet another answer bring us to the next question:
"doctoral studies in linguistics" -- Michael Ernest was there and had to seek an intellectual asylum in RMI, so you can imagine how boring "doctoral studies in linguistics" are, if somebody could choose RMI instead.
Seriously, my mode of thinking is right the opposite to what doctoral studies require: I am making circles wider and wider, and doctoral studies make them narrower, like a kite who noticed a victim and is ready to swoop... One of admittedly arbitrary extensions of the G�del theorem is that any system can be explained and understood only in terms of an encompassing and embracing system -- hence my widening circles. What are these encompassing and embracing systems for programming? Predicate logic, set theory, lambda-calculus etc. from one side. Linguistics from another. I would name philosophy as an abstraction building activity on the third side, but I am not sure if there is anything philosophy can say besides what logic and linguistics already said. I am done with "Symbol, Status and Personality", by the way, and I am finishing "Understanding Semantics" and I can tell, all programming "language games" (aka UML or XML) are only a pale copy of what semantics can achieve.
To seek explanations is one motivation, another is to seek justification. I read "A Mathematician's Apology" by G.H.Hardy and wondered why would a world class mathematician undertake a task to provide justification for mathematics? He notices "I propose to put forward an apology for mathematics; and I may be told that it needs none", only to write later "I shall ask, then, why is it really worth while to make a serious study of mathematics?"
There is some humility in seeking justification for what was an essence of one's life.
Let's admit it, programming is a second-class intellectual activity, with a few exceptions. It's a caricature on mathematics, because it leaves a realm of pure abstractions and goes to the dirt of "real world", and it goes there with bad intellectual equipment -- or what else do you think is a meta-message of "bug lists", "bug databases" or whatever we call it...
More important, programming is a second-class intellectual activity because it is unimportant.
"A chess problem is genuine mathematics, but it is in some way 'trivial' mathematics. However ingenious and intricate, however original and surprising the moves, there is something essential lacking. Chess problems are unimportant. The best mathematics is serious as well as beautiful - 'important' if you like <...>
I am not thinking of the 'practical' consequences of mathematics. <...> if a chess problem is, in the crude sense, 'useless', then that is equally true of most of the best mathematics; that very little of mathematics is useful practically, and that little is comparatively dull. The 'seriousness' of a mathematical theorem lies not in its practical consequences, which are usually negligible, but in the significance of the mathematical ideas which it connects."
G.H.Hardy. "A Mathematician's Apology".
Programming isn't even chess, it's more akin to building a toy railroad...
But programming is a caricature of linguistics too, because it relies on degenerate languages, formal and dry, freed of anything that makes natural languages alive. With programming you cannot say anything original or significant, simply because your language lacks expressive power and ultimately leaves you silent.
So programming isn't rigorous enough an activity to be considered a legitimate branch of math, and it is too rigorous and formal to be considered of any interest for linguistics. The only consolation is it's a better philosophy than philosophy, because it has to run, and it's a better religion than religion, because you are a God and you create your own Universe, too bad I developed interest in neither philosophy nor religion.
[ November 01, 2002: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]
 
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Anyway, this will be my 5000th post and I am going to do my best to make it as meaningless as possible
Once again Map, you have exceeded my expectations. Congratulations!
[ November 01, 2002: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]
 
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Map, Five thousand posts - with your most meaningful contributions being in MD congrats
Your post is a poste-classique (not in the French sense ). Let me reply to a couple points here - even though it's all meaningless :roll:
>I am making circles wider and wider, and doctoral studies make them narrower
It should be possible to pursue studies in seek of a 'grand unified theory', right? where all your worlds collide and amalgamate, and suddenly, everything makes sense?
>The 'seriousness' of a mathematical theorem lies not in its practical consequences, which are usually negligible, but in the significance of the mathematical ideas which it connects
This significance, ofcourse, is perceived only by the cognoscenti, right? What is the grand aim of living on Earth anyway? To make money, spread your genes? To help your fellow human beings? To contribute to the 'advancement' of knowledge, or to the procurement of happiness?...
>because you are a God and you create your own Universe
But unlike 'real' God, you are still limited by the capabilities of the language - there are no infinite possibilities, no parallel universes.
While we ponder about these deep mysteries, here's something that could satisfy the characteristic human frailty for amusement: Turn the pc volume up, and click here.
[ November 01, 2002: Message edited by: Nanhesru Ningyake ]
 
Michael Matola
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Why are you reading this book, Map? Btw, have you considered doctoral studies in linguistics?
Good questions. Bad thing,
This is all so serious. You should get out and read some fiction, Map.
I once saw a list of "Top Ten Books on Linguistics" that a linguistics professor put together. Oddly, on the list appears Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed, which is fiction and has little to nothing to do with linguistics. The professor explained that the book was the most thought-provoking piece of fiction he had read recently and should appear on *any* top-ten list.
It's one of my favorites and I'd highly recommend it. I know it's available in Russian translation too. (I've read some other LeGuin (not recently) that was translated quite well into Russian, but not The Dispossessed.)
 
Shura Balaganov
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Queen Margo: More important, programming is a second-class intellectual activity because it is unimportant.
Thank you maam. Unfortunately, the cheese is inside the mousetrap. First-class intelectual activities do not usually support the lifestyle...
"A chess problem is genuine mathematics, but it is in some way 'trivial' mathematics. However ingenious and intricate, however original and surprising the moves, there is something essential lacking. Chess problems are unimportant. The best mathematics is serious as well as beautiful - 'important' if you like <...>
I disagree entirely with Mr. Hardy (may you forgive me this blatant meaningless?..) I guess Mr.Hardy considered chess a funny game. As well, as probably music and art...."The 'seriousness' of a chess problem lies not in its practical consequences, which are usually negligible, but in the significance of the chess ideas which it connects." Do you notice any difference?...
Programming isn't even chess, it's more akin to building a toy railroad for someone else...
The only consolation is it's a better philosophy than philosophy, because it has to run, and it's a better religion than religion, because you are a God and you create your own Universe...and because some of us get this shiver up our spines when our creation actually runs...I wouldn't know, but how is it compared to giving birth?
What are these encompassing and embracing systems for programming?...only few seek the answer...and for some of us copy-and-pase function works wonders :roll:
I wanted to leave a quote about upcoming age of women in Russian literature, but it would be too long and umbiguous. "...Женщины из мелочей создали Бога детали..."
Shura
[ November 01, 2002: Message edited by: Shura Balaganov ]
 
Shura Balaganov
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Speaking of semantical fiction, this Ftrain.com Google article is as good place to start as any
Shura
 
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Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
I am reading S.I.Hayakawa's "Symbol, Status and Personality" book, here are some quotes.
"Living in a competitive culture, most of us are most of the time chiefly concerned with getting our own views across, and we tend to find other people's speech a tedious interruption of the flow of our own ideas. "


Sounds like S.I. to me. Mr. Hayakawa, by the way, was Chancellor at San Francisco State University in the late 60's. Going back to those time, the above quote might well have been a self-portrait, if not a muted apology for his actions at the time, which included being the first chancellor to invite the state's militia on campus to "deal with the uproar." Less than two years later, 4 dead in Ohio. Thanks, S.I.
SI was a Republican hardliner. For a university president, he sure wasn't interested in what the young people had to say. The quote above may well have been his view of his students at SF State, but I'm not sure if he would be surprised to hear such people still have much worse things to say about him.
You didn't bring him up on the event of your 5000th post just to rattle my cage, did you, my sweet?
 
Michael Ernest
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This wrenches the word loose from the thing; it also introduces...a consciousness of the variety of human points of view. And the fact that this consciousness is slight an ancient philosophy, acute in all the modern period, may be traced, I think, to the fact that the modern philosopher lives in a world of many tongues, where the Greek philosopher knew only one. And I will go a step further and suggest that this experience of language which the ancients lacked is the most important item in any education for reflective thought."
Is it just me, or does this premise sound utterly absurd to anyone else? The most educated among the world-conquering Greeks were only familiar with one language? Utterly unaware of the separation of language and reality? Exsqueeze me? Baking powder?
 
Mapraputa Is
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Tiger!
If I only knew the man bothers you so much, I would quote him more! Gee, I think, I know what to send you for your next birthday
The quote above may well have been his view of his students at SF State, but I'm not sure if he would be surprised to hear such people still have much worse things to say about him.
This reminds me Sokal's hoax. Professor of physics decided to check whether the humanities are science or not, and sent his article "liberally salted with nonsense" to "a leading North American journal of cultural studies". "a leading North American journal" gladly published submitted text only to learn later that this was a parody on cultural studies rather than cultural studies as such. Comments from the culprit:
"Of course, I'm not oblivious to the ethical issues involved in my rather unorthodox experiment. Professional communities operate largely on trust; deception undercuts that trust. But it is important to understand exactly what I did. My article is a theoretical essay based entirely on publicly available sources, all of which I have meticulously footnoted. All works cited are real, and all quotations are rigorously accurate; none are invented. Now, it's true that the author doesn't believe his own argument. But why should that matter? The editors' duty as scholars is to judge the validity and interest of ideas, without regard for their provenance."
Michael, in your last post you misspelled the word "excuse", I am afraid
[ November 01, 2002: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]
 
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