The Kirk are doing it better

[Gonnagle]

Dear Floo,

You do know that you are a bit weird, not like all the really sensible posters on our little forum

Gonnagle.

[BeRational]

I saw an interview where Sean Carrol  explained that no detector had actually 'seen' a Higgs Boson nor would it ever.

The analogy he gave (which explained it to me was). Imagine you have coin, and you think think that one side of the coin weighs

0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of a gram more than the other. You could then calculate statistically if you tossed it, how much more often the heavier side would come down, and the only way to test if would be to toss to coin billions billions and billions of times. You never weigh the coin but can statistically determine that you are correct.

He explained, that is what the collider does.

I stupidly thought they did it lots of time because they were elusive, but now and again they 'saw' one. This is not what happened.

So the Higgs is statistically 'true' according to the model.

[floo]

Dear Floo,

You do know that you are a bit weird, not like all the really sensible posters on our little forum

Gonnagle.

My family have been telling me that all my life. My kids are saving up to send me on a one way holiday to Mars!

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi again Gonners,

Boy!! you read a load of rubbish       kiddin! old friend, kiddin!

Your book list sounds to me like, I should read more, but then I read avidly, if I have nothing to read I will read the back of a cornflake packet.

Anyway, down to business, and your first choice is a cracker, a wonderful Myth, my favourite book ( Sane and Gordon will be around to give you a big Mod Kiss ) "To Kill a Mockingbird".

I could be here all night, just let me check supplies, whisky, check, glass, check, I shall begin.

Looking forward to it! 

Let me see, a book written through a childs eye, now that could make you stop and ponder, to see the world through a childs eye, should we all stop and look at the world through a childs eye.

Depends: child-like good; childish bad!

So this is the beginning of the Myth, everything is sweet and rosy in Maycomb county, sun is shining, and Scout is waiting for new adventures, but unknown to Scout all around her are hunger, greed, racism, rape, and mans inhumanity to man.

This book is very powerful, it is why it is always, and always will be in the top ten, it is explosive, and why it is a wonderful and powerful Myth.

You’re using “myth” in an idiosyncratic way here. Normally it means something like, “a traditional story involving supernatural beings” or similar, but TKaM is a story that (for me at least) opened my eyes to aspects of the human experience that changed the way I view the world. As a young person at the time, I like to think it made me a better person at least by a little bit.   

And this is Armstrong's point, a Myth is not a true story, no fact, although it may be based on some actual event, it is a story to make you think, to take you away, to make you think about mans inhumanity to man.

Which is fine so far as it goes. TKaM could though have been a true story with no diminution of its effect – it makes no difference either way. Religious “holy” texts on the other hand tend to care very much about whether or not the events they claim as facts (a resurrection for example) actually happened.   

Armstrong in her books ask for more of these, more writing to take us out of our  mundane, more books, poetry, to make us all think about our place on this planet.

So let me conclude with a Christian Myth, or  a Judaism myth, Adam and Eve, a story of walking away from God, a story of original sin, or a story of man waking up.

And if those narratives are meaningful to you, fine and dandy. What you can’t do though is to use them to assert to children that homosexuality is a “sin”, that a man-god was alive then dead then alive again, that “God” is etc. All these matters would take a lot more than myth to establish their bona fides.

[bluehillside Retd.]

BR,

I saw an interview where Sean Carrol  explained that no detector had actually 'seen' a Higgs Boson nor would it ever.

The analogy he gave (which explained it to me was). Imagine you have coin, and you think think that one side of the coin weighs

0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of a gram more than the other. You could then calculate statistically if you tossed it, how much more often the heavier side would come down, and the only way to test if would be to toss to coin billions billions and billions of times. You never weigh the coin but can statistically determine that you are correct.

He explained, that is what the collider does.

I stupidly thought they did it lots of time because they were elusive, but now and again they 'saw' one. This is not what happened.

So the Higgs is statistically 'true' according to the model.

That's an important point. Sigma certainty doesn't care about the explanatory hypothesis (Hiigs-Boson etc) but rather about the data, and specifically about the likelihood of chance producing the same result.   

[BeRational]

BR,

That's an important point. Sigma certainty doesn't care about the explanatory hypothesis (Hiigs-Boson etc) but rather about the data, and specifically about the likelihood of chance producing the same result.   

Yes you remind me in the same interview, they saw a spike in the data which excited them, but with more data the spike went away, and was just a statistical anomaly.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Blue,

Normally it means something like

I think you want the word modern not normally, anyway I am now off to the Dentist, I would like to thank the forum for taking my mind off of that thought, I hate the Dentist, don't know why, it is never as bad as I first thought

Gonnagle.

[ad_orientem]

Ain't this gone all boring. Zzzzz!

[bluehillside Retd.]

ad,

Ain't this gone all boring. Zzzzz!

Yeah, I'm with you old son - all that reason and logic and stuff. Who needs it eh? Let's get back to the un-argued assertions and party likes it's 1599 eh?

Woo-hoo!

[Dicky Underpants]

packet.

Anyway, down to business, and your first choice is a cracker, a wonderful Myth, my favourite book ( Sane and Gordon will be around to give you a big Mod Kiss ) "To Kill a Mockingbird".

However, it seems that the author had second thoughts, and has re-written it, implying that racism is okay, and makes the lawyer Atticus Finch something of a racist himself.
I haven't read the second version, so I don't know whether I'm misrepresenting her present position, but this was more or less what I heard on Radio 4.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Dicky,

No my friend, sorry but the author had written through the eyes of a grown up Scout "Go set a Watchman" where she challenges her father on the methods he employed, her father ( put simply ) another time when he knew he was up against rampant racism, his methods, he had to tread very carefully.

But it could be another great Myth, this is where I ask old Blue about his word "Normally" ancient Myth ( according to Armstrong ) can be revised, revisited, adapted, added too, which it was and has been done down through the centuries.

Adam and Eve, was a story told to think about how we think about our beginnings, St Augustine changed it to original Sin, there are many other examples, Confucius changing how we thought about the Worship of Ancestors.

The point being that Myth had a very direct purpose, or sorry "Mythos" as opposed to "Logos" Myth asked what are we all about, logic asks, is the planet flat or round.

Gonnagle.

[ippy]

Dear Dicky,

No my friend, sorry but the author had written through the eyes of a grown up Scout "Go set a Watchman" where she challenges her father on the methods he employed, her father ( put simply ) another time when he knew he was up against rampant racism, his methods, he had to tread very carefully.

But it could be another great Myth, this is where I ask old Blue about his word "Normally" ancient Myth ( according to Armstrong ) can be revised, revisited, adapted, added too, which it was and has been done down through the centuries.

Adam and Eve, was a story told to think about how we think about our beginnings, St Augustine changed it to original Sin, there are many other examples, Confucius changing how we thought about the Worship of Ancestors.

The point being that Myth had a very direct purpose, or sorry "Mythos" as opposed to "Logos" Myth asked what are we all about, logic asks, is the planet flat or round.

Gonnagle.

More of a miss than a myth Gonners.

ippy

[Gonnagle]

Dear ippy,

 really!! I await the the findings of the court, if the court proves against I will plead insanity, "there ain't no Sanity Clause"

Gonnagle.

[Rhiannon]

I like coming her because it means I get to talk with people who are as sane as I am.

[Dicky Underpants]

The point being that Myth had a very direct purpose, or sorry "Mythos" as opposed to "Logos" Myth asked what are we all about, logic asks, is the planet flat or round.

Gonnagle.

Righto, Gonners -  I need to read the new book.

Re - Mythos and Logos - well, so Karen Armstrong says. She states directly that the ancient knew exactly which kind of thought or writing they were dealing with. I'm not so sure that everything was quite as conscious as that, given the variety of types of philosophy offered by the ancient Greeks. And as regards biblical matters - there's still a lot of debate over the meaning of Genesis 1 - poem, myth or literal account? (since many scholars think it was written by the 'Priestly' author, that cove was extremely precise in his prescriptions e.g. Leviticus) Has our Karen been more specific? Did she cite writers who used both forms of expression, and the means by which we can tell they knew what form of thought processes they were using?

[Sassy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-39623071

Good to see.

Why is it good to see?

I see nothing wrong with any establishment not lying or pretending that marriage can be between two men or two women.
They are selling a lie. I believe same sex couples should be protected so what they build together cannot be taken away from each other but why lie?