I think I've lost the thread of my argument on all this stuff, Trevor, but I
do glancingly notice your possibly unintentional link with statistics as a
form of superstition, that gave a smile. Every involvement I've ever had
with stats in that big real world out there has told me that stats cannot be
taken seriously, their presiding god could be Enron.

Take for instance a bar. In this hypothetical bar the staff are allowed one
staff drink every day, at the same time there is wastage when say the wrong
drink is poured, when a new beer comes out bad, when the pipes are cleaned
etc etc. Now when the stocktakers come the figures show down, the stats
assume that every exception to normal sale is recorded, which of course
doesn't happen, the staff forget, or they are too busy at times, likewise
the stocktakers estimate the contents of the barrels, by tipping kegs to
judge their weight, putting dipsticks in casks, which is a notoriously
inaccurate method, and guessing the number of shots left in the optic
bottles.
Yet the results are presented as gospel. One could say the same about the
unemployment figures, or the census - the last British census was apparently
at least a million short on the population figures, so one of the richest
and most developed countries in the world doesn't even know how many people
live in it. Mathematical models, like stats, are mumbo-jumbo that succeed
because they work to a certain extent, planes still crash without reason,
the trains run to timetables that largely bear no resemblance to what is
published, but it gets by.

And I am NOT a lamenting conservative, btw, and it does matter to know where
people are coming from, that's an assertion I will stand by.

Best

Dave


David Bircumshaw

Spectare's Web, A Chide's Alphabet
& Painting Without Numbers

http://www.chidesalphabet.org.uk


----- Original Message -----
From: "Trevor Joyce" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 12:03 PM
Subject: Re: connection


>H'm, what is superstition, Trevor? It would take a long answer. Some
>superstitions have a very practical basis - not walking under a ladder
comes
>from the very sensible concern that heavy objects were likely to fall off
>mediaeval building sites and hit one on the head. Others, though, are
>particularised images of generalised uncertainty: if star X is occluded by
>cloud at the vernal equinox it presages the failure of the harvest, etc.
>Many are to do with power: the late eclipse doth portend the fall of kings,
>blah. Some are sadly and beautifully silly: if you see a penny and pick it
>up then all day long you'll have good luck.
>
>Superstitions are attempts to rationalise chance, we are all prone to them.

So should I understand you not to be distinguishing what you're
saying from superstition, but instead asserting that it's a
widespread phenomenon? (Incidentally, since statistics might be
characterized as an "attempt to rationalize chance" it might be well
to qualify supertition as being a spurious attempt.) If this is your
argument, my politest response it to say that I remain unconvinced.

>I don't know what you Duh! comment on the remark I made about a
hypothetical
>Shakespeare being born into a nineteenth century Tasmanian tribe means as
>you seem to be somehow dismissive without saying why. Surely you don't mean
>that this hypothetical Shakespeare would have gone on to write this that
and
>the other despite material circumstances?

On the contrary, I meant to indicate that it was so blindingly
obvious as to be not worth the utterance. This was one of the points
where I objected to my own tone last night; it would have been more
courteous as well as clearer if I'd expanded on the gnomic 'duh!',
but that's what I can be reduced to by seeing a theoretical mountain
labour to bring forth so weak a mouse.

>I didn't say I believed that Buddhist tradition, rather I mentioned it as a
>figure of something that gives me the shivers, just as Lawrence's
expression
>for a 90% reduction in the human population.
>
>My assertions are laced with qualifications. I'd like to know, Trevor, just
>what your position is, rather than you telling me what is wrong with mine,
>but I honestly haven't the faintest idea where you stand on anything, only
>where you don't stand.
>
>Politics? Religion? Physics/Metaphysics? Anything You Like?
>
>I was a straightforward Old Labour Trade Unionist (I used to be a shop
>steward) without any particular religious background ( C of E, i.e
>agnostic). The compass marks I grew up and matured with have all gone awry
>so I'm somewhat lost myself.
>
>So what's you, Trevor?

When, and if, I ever think it necessary to berden the list with my
personal details, I'll do so. The labels you apply to yourself I find
wholly irrelevant and unnecessary. One might equally well say "I was
a simple member of the aristocracy (I used to be patron of several
charitable societies) without any particular religious background (C
of E, i.e devout). The compass marks I grew up and matured with have
all gone awry."

The specific markers you give are not determinant. it would be
difficult, I'd suggest, to find anyone over forty today who couldn't
at times assert that their compass marks have gone awry. It's also
been a constant from conservative figures throughout history:
Confucius and Plato are just two who persistently decry the
abandonment of the old mores. It's not the feeling that I take
exception to in your mails, but the quality of the 'rationalization':
the henny penny school of philosophy with theoretical support from
Marx. (I've here reversed the mountain and the mouse; I like the
smell of chiasmus in the morning.)

Trevor
so I'm somewhat lost myself."

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http://www.soundeye.org/trevorjoyce