Pointless Discussion and Pithy Retorts

[Middy]

Throw in quantum entanglement and you have Cat people watching humans panicking about little box's dying to know what's inside..Ref galactic plane . 45643.3.

Sometimes you have to cesium the moment....

A particular favourite of mine or just a small wave from me..

[mansr]

7 hours ago, jabbr said:

What is the chance the cats not in the box, but rather on the moon?

Depends on the strength of the local improbability field.

[Cebolla]

Local deities suck, especially lunar ones. The one true Almighty manages omnipotence in an infinite improbability field.

[christopher3393]

Concluding Unscientific Postscript to "What uncontroversial audible differences cannot be measured?", posted here so as to avoid what would likely be considered further hijacking of wgscott's thread: https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/32034-what-uncontroversial-audible-differences-cannot-be-measured/?do=findComment&comment=671817

"Just to clarify, I fully understand that there are differences that cannot be reduced to measurement, like an emotionally-charged vs. bland rendition -- you can measure these differences, presumably, but there is little if any indication how to interpret such measurements in terms of how emotionally compelling a rendition might be.  (The differences are objectively measurable, even if the interpretation of them in this manner is not possible.)"

 

“On Exactitude in Science”, Jorge Luis Borges, 1946:

Quote

... In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.

 

from Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, Chapter XI, London, 1895:

Quote

"What a useful thing a pocket-map is!" I remarked.

"That's another thing we've learned from your Nation," said Mein Herr, "map-making. But we've carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?"

"About six inches to the mile."

"Only six inches!" exclaimed Mein Herr. "We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all ! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!"

"Have you used it much?" I enquired.

"It has never been spread out, yet," said Mein Herr: "the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight ! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well."

 

from Jean Baudrillard,  Simulacra and Simulations, 1981:

Quote

If we were able to take as the finest allegory of simulation the Borges tale where the cartographers of the Empire draw up a map so detailed that it ends up exactly covering the territory… this fable would then have come full circle for us… Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory - precession of simulacra - it is the map that engenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map.

 

from John Atkinson, "Measurements, Maps & Precision", Stereophile, Jan 14, 2008

(review of the Audio Precision SYS2722):

 

Quote

It is tempting to believe that the file cabinets full of graphs that I produce with this gear can supplant the results of the careful listening performed by the magazine's review team. But the integration of measurements into Stereophile's equipment reviews is not to describe or replace the listening experience—that is, and probably will always be, impossible. As I wrote in November 1990, soon after we started our measurement program, "Those who place their belief in measurements alone should remember that it is still the experience itself that matters, not the description of the experience, no matter how thorough or well-researched that description."

The map is still not the territory.

 

[Ralf11]

https://mechanism.ucsd.edu/teaching/models/levins.modelbuilding.pdf

[wgscott]

3 hours ago, christopher3393 said:

Concluding Unscientific Postscript to "What uncontroversial audible differences cannot be measured?", posted here so as to avoid what would likely be considered further hijacking of wgscott's thread:

 

At least your hijackings would be interesting and worth reading.

[christopher3393]

23 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

https://mechanism.ucsd.edu/teaching/models/levins.modelbuilding.pdf

 

Thanks. This is a helpful reframing for me. I highlighted the final paragraph:

 

Quote

  The multiplicity of models is imposed by the contradictory demands of a complex, heterogenous nature and a mind that can only cope with few variables at a time; by the contradictory desiderata of generality, realism, and precision; by the need to understand and also to control; even by the opposing esthetic standards which emphasize the stark simplicity and power of a general theorem as against the richness and diversity of living nature. These conflicts are irreconcilable. Therefore, the alternative approaches even of contending schools are part of a larger mixed strategy. But the conflict is about method, not nature, for the individual models, while they are essential for understanding reality, should not be confused with that reality itself. ( concluding  paragraph, p. 431)

 

 

[Jud]

On 6/16/2017 at 8:12 PM, Middy said:

She looks like she was poured into that dress and forgot to say when....

PG Woodhouse

 

Quote

If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

 

- Dorothy Parker

[Middy]

haha