Or there is influence from some highly intelligent extra terrrestial minds, who determine our thoughts on earth?
I started in April 2002 on the now closed BBC history messageboard with my first thread: "About history". In the mean time I put a lot of messages in threads as: How scientific is historiography? On the Historum forum, also "History and historians". Ferval is my witness, that I contributed in depth to the questions. Even overhere I contributed on the subject with a lot of intelligent response from Nordmann...
Perhaps nordmann is a highly intelligent extra terrestrial mind who is attempting to influence all our thoughts on earth - you don't think he's actually a sort of Irish Dalek, do you? (Only joking - absolutely no offence intended.)
Seriously, I was not accusing you or anyone else here of having a closed mind. We all enjoy our discussions - or I think we do - and you more than anyone else have set us an example of good manners and friendliness in the most robust of these debates. But even you, like most people here (Priscilla excepted and she, alas, has disappeared - and how much poorer we are for that), do tend to laugh at the likes of me and my childish/childlike belief in God or a Higher Power: I just have to be grateful that the responses to my posts usually display amused, even affectionate, tolerance rather than attracting hurtful, vitriolic sarcasm. But it does get a bit like being patted on the head and being told to run along and play while the grown-ups discuss the serious stuff. But that's OK - I know I'm not as daft as I sometimes sound...
To quote again from your message, this time leaving out all the "winks" and other irritating emoticoms -
Quote :
Or there is influence from some highly intelligent extra terrrestrial minds, who determine our thoughts on earth?
- the only honest answer to this rather interesting question - at the present point in human history - is "We don't know"... And that's before we attempt to define "influence", "extraterrestrial", "minds" and "thoughts". Pesky words again - the signifiers and the signified and the slippage. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven..." - oh dear - that does rather sound like a rather pathetic submission to some sort of extraterrestrial Being, doesn't it? But it's not.
I read von Thingy when I was a teenager. I thought it all was jolly interesting, but I would read anything back then. He made a fortune, didn't he?
Last edited by Temperance on Mon 17 Jul 2017, 09:38; edited 1 time in total
Meles meles Censura
Posts : 5084 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : Pyrénées-Orientales, France
.... I just have to be grateful that the responses to my posts usually display amused, even affectionate, tolerance rather than attracting hurtful, vitriolic sarcasm. But it does get a bit like being patted on the head and being told to run along and play while the grown-ups discuss the serious stuff.
If it's any comfort Temp I often feel the same way. There was a discussion here fairly recently - not this one and I can't now remember which - where people were using really big words like epistemological and such ... and when someone mentioned "mapping spacial awareness", or anyway something with the word "map" in it, the only thought that crossed my bewildered brain was, "maps, I like maps". I too felt rather like a child latching onto some random comment while the adults are discussing important stuff ... so kept quiet.
.... I just have to be grateful that the responses to my posts usually display amused, even affectionate, tolerance rather than attracting hurtful, vitriolic sarcasm. But it does get a bit like being patted on the head and being told to run along and play while the grown-ups discuss the serious stuff.
If it's any comfort Temp I often feel the same way. There was a discussion here fairly recently - not this one and I can't now remember which - where people were using really big words like epistemological and such ... and when someone mentioned "mapping spacial awareness", or anyway something with the word "map" in it, the only thought that crossed my bewildered brain was, "maps, I like maps". I felt rather like a child latching onto some random comment while the adults are discussing important stuff ... so kept quiet.
You've got to watch this, MM. "Epistemological problems" are mentioned by Sir Humphrey as he utterly baffles. Isn't nordmann just like Sir Humphrey? And our response is usually just like poor Hacker's in the clip!
Nah, nordmann's not an alien but sometimes he's replaced by a computerised answer bot. I wish it would just say "Don't be so bloody daft" rather than respond with a perfectly composed and beautifully expressed, thoroughly researched and very erudite but humourless and unemotional post. God, sometimes I wonder how he manages to sit down with a broom handle up his @rse. Temp, I quite often disagree with you but I think you can see that my replies are at times hardly measured and often embarrassingly reveal that you have got severely on my wick. In other words, human.
I know, I know, that's not fair to the Great Infallibility and he does have a well developed (but waspish and very academic and, oddly, not too dissimilar to the much missed P's) sense of humour but sometimes it reminds me of my mother who found my father's refusal to enter into a good old row and his unfailing rationality as so frustrating as to render her speechless with irritation. This board is a relationship between a group of adults with similar interests not a tutorial and yes, sometimes there is a feeling of being in a group of, not very bright and rather badly behaved, pupils being put right by a long suffering teacher.
I will now quietly accept detention and retire to write my 1000 word essay on 'Gratitude and Respect for my Betters' but I can't promise not to stick my tongue out as I leave the room.
Ah, but we all have a sneaky admiration for him, don't we, him being so brainy and all? Bloody annoying, but there it is.
He'll be so embarrassed by all this that we won't hear from him for about three weeks now. But he should remember:
WHERE ARE YOU WASPISH PRISCILLA? WE KNOW YOU ARE OUT THERE BUZZING ABOUT...
PS I'm sorry I get "severely on your wick", ferval. I do have that effect on some people and I never know why. Is it God or my sloppy thinking, or both?
Last edited by Temperance on Mon 17 Jul 2017, 15:25; edited 1 time in total
Temp, some of my dearest friends and those I most admire get severely on my wick, it's probably a manifestation of the Scottish cringe which is possibly not a million miles from how we all respond to the Boss.
Temp, your last few pics haven't shown up and it's getting on my wick(!) - unless you want to use an imge hosting site you must check that they have httpS at the start of the address, http won't work.
Have changed image above to one with the requisite "s", and have deleted the picture repeated in this message. Hope picture above can now be seen. I do usually check for the "s".
Last edited by Temperance on Mon 17 Jul 2017, 13:08; edited 3 times in total
Ferval - your picture has disappeared now. Can you still see mine? My images - the girl having an exasperated tantrum and the Oscar Wilde quotation - are visible to me, but not sure if they can still be seen by others...
Nordmann - I do hope our banter from this morning hasn't offended you - it was meant in a friendly way, as I really do hope you understand.
Saying your English is like that of the awesome Sir Humphrey was a compliment, you know.
I'm also worrying that Priscilla is annoyed at being likened unto a wasp. Oh, what an absolute minefield this place is for the unwary...
This is weird - my pic. is still there and your original one, the one of tantrum girl which I couldn't see before, is showing all big and beautiful but your replacement pic. has disappeared.
Of course I am out there. i have just opened my venetian blind (never fully opened) mind and had some laughs. What's wrong with wasps? My staying away is because the arc ley of my humour intersects too often with that static broom handle and the thin places get raw. I am not up to growing olives for more branches because this is a frosty area. Eyore can surely bear getting wetter - in a neopositive mode it is probably of little consquence.
Am still laughing about Paul and the workshop metaphysical observation. People I worked with - across the illiterate to Doctorate level in some cases who induced observation about a few of the inept among them that they were surely proof of life after death.
Being open minded here brings to mind trap door spiders -fast on the trigger. Best I stay out and get a daily private giggle about what I would like to have posted. My response to posts - as indeed is this - was always straight off; no prep, edit, cut and paste so sometimes a tad thoughtless and offense was taken where none was intended. Temps never tries to offend but gets mown down anyway. So back to the key hole for me...... and wondering how I once ever applied the formula for a Bonne projection. My desert island book, ferv, would be the maths of spheres, cylinders and cones which still really fascinate. But like Temps. really we don't no nuffink not no 'ow and stone curling our opinion on thin ice is about all we ought aim for. With a couple of brushers who speed things along to get a hot result. yep, i miss Res Hist but am too old to change...........not that the same ought be thought of the hallowed leader in these parts.....gosh. Gone too far again. Regards, P.
Nothing wrong with wasps so long as you treat them with due respect, busy, useful creatures and creative home-makers. Some people just don't appreciate them. One stung me once, on the back of my heel and knackered my achilles' tendon. I bear them no ill will though and would be pleased to offer one a small port.
Won't you stay and join our bonspiel? A bit more broom action would liven up the place.
Temps never tries to offend but gets mown down anyway.
Good grief, you make me sound like a sort of abused Little Weed! The Chelsea Chop is good for plants - makes 'em come back stronger and with more blooms.
I must admit I prefer bees to wasps - I'm extremely fond of bees and my garden is deliberately planted with the things they love. At the Hampton Court Flower Show this year there was a chap who is encouraging Urban Bees in London. He has hives on his roof-top garden and produces stuff called London Honey which you would think would taste of filth and grime, but is actually quite delicious.
Dear Little Weed - small, but a fighter and a survivor - she had to be sharing the plot with Bill and Ben. However, I do realise saying that is rather tempting the gods and inviting a killer (weed) comment.
We do seem to have strayed rather off the (not) straight and narrow today. Back to Ley Lines. Er - is there anything else to say about these wretched (non) things?
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
.... I just have to be grateful that the responses to my posts usually display amused, even affectionate, tolerance rather than attracting hurtful, vitriolic sarcasm. But it does get a bit like being patted on the head and being told to run along and play while the grown-ups discuss the serious stuff.
If it's any comfort Temp I often feel the same way. There was a discussion here fairly recently - not this one and I can't now remember which - where people were using really big words like epistemological and such ... and when someone mentioned "mapping spacial awareness", or anyway something with the word "map" in it, the only thought that crossed my bewildered brain was, "maps, I like maps". I too felt rather like a child latching onto some random comment while the adults are discussing important stuff ... so kept quiet.
Temperance and Meles meles,
"If it's any comfort Temp I often feel the same way." On the old BBC you had a "lol beeble", who wrote also such sophisticated prose. And I said it to him: I have two read it nearly three times to understand your text. But nevertheless it became a kind of a tutor for me over the years. I especially remember for instance the mention of "bottleneck" in the evolution of men...For 2002 (the early years I have still somewhere on a disc (my contributions) and the last 5 years you can still consult as it is thanks to Lisa still available on the internet) I was walking with a big bow around any philosophical or religious bookshelves in the local library...and I said that too to lol beeble...another erudite from the beginning years 2002-2005? was a certain "Mad Max", but he wrote a rather less difficult language....perhaps all that prepared me for "the" Nordmann... Temp and MM, about the "yes minister": a Belgian MP (became some time head of the NATO and he played music)...they published some speech of him in the papers with all his difficult words in capitals, just to tease him...of course in that sense he was also a thankful subject for cartoonists....but perhaps as the filmstars he used it as a kind of trade mark with which he constantly "stood" in the news?...
And yes I have only done 6 years "humaniora" (MM, knows what it is) and a bit of chemical studies...and many times I am obliged! to write above "my" level...
Kind regards to both from your friend Paul.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Of course I am out there. i have just opened my venetian blind (never fully opened) mind and had some laughs. What's wrong with wasps? My staying away is because the arc ley of my humour intersects too often with that static broom handle and the thin places get raw. I am not up to growing olives for more branches because this is a frosty area. Eyore can surely bear getting wetter - in a neopositive mode it is probably of little consquence.
Am still laughing about Paul and the workshop metaphysical observation. People I worked with - across the illiterate to Doctorate level in some cases who induced observation about a few of the inept among them that they were surely proof of life after death.
Being open minded here brings to mind trap door spiders -fast on the trigger. Best I stay out and get a daily private giggle about what I would like to have posted. My response to posts - as indeed is this - was always straight off; no prep, edit, cut and paste so sometimes a tad thoughtless and offense was taken where none was intended. Temps never tries to offend but gets mown down anyway. So back to the key hole for me...... and wondering how I once ever applied the formula for a Bonne projection. My desert island book, ferv, would be the maths of spheres, cylinders and cones which still really fascinate. But like Temps. really we don't no nuffink not no 'ow and stone curling our opinion on thin ice is about all we ought aim for. With a couple of brushers who speed things along to get a hot result. yep, i miss Res Hist but am too old to change...........not that the same ought be thought of the hallowed leader in these parts.....gosh. Gone too far again. Regards, P.
Priscilla,
"Am still laughing about Paul and the workshop metaphysical observation. People I worked with - across the illiterate to Doctorate level in some cases who induced observation about a few of the inept among them that they were surely proof of life after death."
Yes me too, from illiterates to doctorate level, discussed "it"...and open to their arguments and respecting them, I nevertheless didn't find any proof of life after death...up to now...perhaps the furthest I came was a kind of "deism"? (I read just about the "cool" one) and it seems that mine is not "theism" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
My last take on the stuff (up to now): The Universe is God. We are all part of that universe and in that "bordered or not) timeless infinite universe we as individuals play our infinitesimal "play" and are as such a part of that timeless universe. Perhaps that on given moment there is a proof of communications between elements of that universe, but up to now again there is no "proof" of it (except from some adepts, who try to show it as proven). And yes that explanation is "cold" against the colourful "narrations" of the religions...these colourful thingies seems to be more "human"...
Priscilla, " My response to posts - as indeed is this - was always straight off; no prep, edit, cut and paste so sometimes a tad thoughtless and offense was taken where none was intended. Temps never tries to offend but gets mown down anyway. "
My response to posts was and is the same: straight off...but perhaps as Dutch is my native language and English after all those years is still a foreign language, I prepare my texts with care and reread it mostly three times and by that way I see some anomalies and correct them, but once the button "send" touched never a correction anymore...and to me too it happened that I said afterwards: I had better said it another way...but hey, we, our little bunch know now each other for years...even many from the early times of the BEEB...
"So back to the key hole for me..."
Priscilla, I don't see how a discussion as ours for instance now, can degenerate into something nasty...?
"My staying away is because the arc ley of my humour intersects too often with that static broom handle and the thin places get raw. I am not up to growing olives for more branches because this is a frosty area. Eyore can surely bear getting wetter - in a neopositive mode it is probably of little consquence."
Priscilla, I have sometimes the impression that you are easely offended. what others find quite normal, you see it as a personal attack...get a bit more thick skinned...if you were on the American Historum forum...that's another kind of fish in the kettle... No Priscilla, don't forget, you are a kind of "atout" (trump card?) for this board and for all! of us, even Nordmann...
It's odd how we all in the UK love this character who is/was after all a complete Machiavellian b*stard. He is in the great tradition of Oxford-educated British civil servants - the devious, calculating, but terrifyingly clever folk who actually run this country. It could be argued (Heaven forbid!) that Sir Humphrey's English is actually dreadful, because he is usually incomprehensible, but that, of course, works always to his advantage. It is the secret of his success! I wonder if his equivalent across the Moat - over there in Euroland - is the aloof and snooty French philosopher/intellectual type?
...John Searle of the University of California, Berkeley, describing how Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu--two eminent French thinkers whose abilities Searle obviously respected--told him that if they wrote clearly they wouldn't be taken seriously in France.
Searle begins by reciting Paul Grice's four Maxims of Manner: be clear, be brief, be orderly, and avoid obscurity of expression. These are systematically violated in France, Searle says, partly due to the influence of German philosophy. Searle translates Foucault's admission to him this way: "In France, you gotta have ten percent incomprehensible, otherwise people won't think it's deep--they won't think you're a profound thinker."
I've often wished poor James Hacker - Sir Humphrey's usual victim - would give Appleby a copy of George Orwell's famous 1946 essay.
PS It should be added that a much-loved Downing Street cat (Humphrey) was named after Sir Humphrey - and there is no greater British honour than that...
PPS Here is my favourite bit from Orwell's essay. Orwell's "translation" is pure Sir Humphrey. There should be a complete Sir Humphrey Authorized Version of the Bible - that would make the Church of England a force in the land once again...Sir Humphrey getting religion and becoming Archbishop of Canters - now there's a thought. If only Nigel Hawthorne were still alive... But here's Orwell:
I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Here it is in modern English:
Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
Last edited by Temperance on Tue 18 Jul 2017, 09:34; edited 1 time in total
Meles meles Censura
Posts : 5084 Join date : 2011-12-30 Location : Pyrénées-Orientales, France
And yes I have only done 6 years "humaniora" (MM, knows what it is) ....
Oh Paul, I think you rather overestimate my intellect and learning ... I hadn't a clue what "humaniora" was, and even now having looked it up in a dictionary, I am still, to be honest, little wiser ...
And yes I have only done 6 years "humaniora" (MM, knows what it is) ....
Oh Paul, I think you rather overestimate my intellect and learning ... I hadn't a clue what "humaniora" was, and even now having looked it up in a dictionary, I am still, to be honest, little wiser ...
Mmm - you are a graduate of Imperial College, London, aren't you, MM? That place is up there in the top-ranking universities of the world, along with Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge...
And you can cook...
Nielsen Triumviratus Rei Publicae Constituendae
Posts : 595 Join date : 2011-12-31 Location : Denmark
And yes I have only done 6 years "humaniora" (MM, knows what it is) ....
Oh Paul, I think you rather overestimate my intellect and learning ... I hadn't a clue what "humaniora" was, and even now having looked it up in a dictionary, I am still, to be honest, little wiser ...
Mmm - you are a graduate of Imperial College, London, aren't you, MM? That place is up there in the top-ranking universities of the world, along with Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge...
And you can cook...
Besides cooking MM, you can describe what you're cooking in an understandable language, and find the pictures to show how it ought to look.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
I take only this from the excellent whole... "I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Here it is in modern English:
Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account."
We had once a "café" in the neighbourhood where a "philosophical" painter had put old Egyptian and Babylonian texts on the walls. And it were look alikes as yours...
Some comments (if I understood it well ): "to be commensurate with innate capacity"
It's all question of statistics, Temperance, (although I learned in the factory that when applied intelligently one could prove nearly anything with statistics ). As in card playing the good players don't come out in the first plays, but after some tenths of plays the good players score best, while the "hasard" is at the end downplayed (some play on words?) by the innate capacity... But they correct it a bit with: a considerable! element of the "hasard" must ("invariably? Is this a tautology?) be taken into account...
And yes I have only done 6 years "humaniora" (MM, knows what it is) ....
Oh Paul, I think you rather overestimate my intellect and learning ... I hadn't a clue what "humaniora" was, and even now having looked it up in a dictionary, I am still, to be honest, little wiser ...
Oh Meles meles I didn't know that I opened such a can of worms...and yes, when I search in google with "humaniora studies" it are all Dutch language Belgian texts, hundreds of them, but in texts from old students from this humanioras (nothin in english nothing in French, as our French language Belgian brothers use "humanités", and that too has several meanings. And I forgot that you lived in France, where thesix years from 12 to 18 are at the end: "le baccalauréat" Did some quick research and didn't find only some text about the former Belgian "Humaniora" on a site from "The Netherlands" And I tried once on the old Beeb to compare the British, German, French, Dutch, Belgian systems and it is a Tantalus work...In Germany instead of 6 years 10 years, starting at 8/9 till 18/19... https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baccalaur%C3%A9at_en_France https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algemeen_secundair_onderwijs
Het aso werd vroeger de humaniora genoemd en bestond uit de klassieke of oude humaniora, met Latijn (+ soms Grieks), en de moderne of nieuwe humaniora, zonder Latijn in het vakkenpakket. Deze term wordt nog vaak in het dagelijks woordgebruik aangewend. Zes schooljaren werden verdeeld in de eerste drie (lager secundair onderwijs) en de laatste drie (hoger secundair onderwijs). Het voorlaatste jaar van de humaniora was de poësis-klas, het laatste jaar de retorica-klas. Het aantal studierichtingen was beperkter. In het hoger secundair onderwijs bestond deze uit:
De Latijnse
Latijn-Wiskunde
Latijn-Grieks
Latijn-Wetenschappen
De Moderne
Wetenschappen A (meer Wiskunde)
Wetenschappen B (meer Wetenschappen)
Economische
Humane wetenschappen
Een merkwaardig feit was dat in dit systeem de leerjaren terugtelden. Zo begon men bv. in de zesde Latijnse en studeerde men af na de eerste Latijnse. Humaniora: two directions: classical old humaniora and modern humaniora. First three years Lower secondary education, second three: higher secondary education. The Latin one: three directions: Latin-mathematics Latin-greek Latin-science My first three years were latin-Greek and the last three years Latin-science The modern one: Science A Science B Economics (the fourth: "human sciences" didn't exist in my time.
Yes and I forgot in our time the "humaniora" started with the 6th year, and the second of last was called "Poésis" and the last year "Réthorica" (all those old rememberings ) And after that I did three years higher studies (till 21) Chemistry with speciality for plastics...
Home 
He made a fortune, didn't he?
Dear Little Weed - small, but a fighter and a survivor - she had to be sharing the plot with Bill and Ben. However, I do realise saying that is rather tempting the gods and inviting a killer (weed) comment.
