Krister Axel

Reductio ad absurdum is a mode of argumentation that seeks to establish a contention by deriving an absurdity from its denial, thus arguing that a thesis must be accepted because its rejection would be untenable. It is a style of reasoning that has been employed throughout the history of mathematics and philosophy from classical antiquity onwards.

A classic instance of reductio reasoning in Greek mathematics relates to the discovery by Pythagoras – disclosed to the chagrin of his associates by Hippasus of Metapontum in the fifth century BC – of the incommensurability of the diagonal of a square with its sides.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/reductio/

I dedicate my favorite xkcd comic:

Although sudo has no effect on my wife and I suspect women in general. How odd.

Happy Birthday!

http://xkcd.com/149/

Well, here I am finally writing an actual blog update. I’ve been tweeting a lot, and posting code/geek stuff on codeboxer.com, but not a lot of personal updates. I’m still preparing to release some new music, but I don’t have an album cover yet. I am completely out of touch with almost everyone I know, due to a pretty long string of bad phone experiences (theft, not working, etc.) and some tough times at work that leave me feeling a little too angry about the world to reach out at all. But that seems to be changing, bit by bit. Of course I am still completely enamored with my beautiful wife and next year sometime we are going to start a family, so there is a lot to look forward to.

I have been slinging database code for 10 years now, and Ruby on Rails for over 3. What a life this has been so far. In a horrible economy, I managed to pick a career that is still woefully short on good talent and I am very grateful for that.

Tomorrow, I start working from home which is basically a dream come true.

I know I have been slacking a little in terms of releasing music, but I still have some new tracks available that are new and most of y’all haven’t heard.

I am also really excited about ‘Pain & Joy’, which will be my newest release once I can get someone to do an awesome album cover for me.

Finally, you can hear a sneak preview from the upcoming release at my podcast – here .

later!

This was copied from http://www.amazon.com/tag/religion/forum/ref=cm_cd_ttp_emf_rft_tft_tp?_e…

The link may not work forever. It is a fascinating discussion about God. The two camps are:

1 – Jesus is totally real, duh!
2 – Do you even know what a plethora is?

Guess which camp I’m in! I’ve heard it said best like this (paraphrased, and mind the sarcasm):

“Oh, so Superman, we totally made that up. And the X-Men, that also didn’t really happen. Godzilla, also a myth. But Jesus? He’s real!”

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The one common thread I’ve found in ALL of my seeking is this: humanity has an inborn desire to be connected to Divine source or nature, somehow- something other, or larger than one-self, or the individual awareness, such as the Collective Unconscious of Carl Jung’s description, the Cosmic Consciousness of the New Agers, or whatever you prefer to call it.

Without belief or faith in SOMETHING, existence is simply not possible. This is why I find it more credible to believe that there is an intelligent order of design in the universe, which is fractal in nature (apply the science of mathematics here!) and recursive, as well as spiral and cyclic. Our own minds support this theory because we systemize data according to some kind of intelligent order. Our brains have to interpret our perceptions somehow, even though individual interpretation can and very often is often completely fallible. That, to me, does not suggest ‘accidental’ development if the universe is in fact fractal in nature.

Most religion, to me, is simply crap because it is only man-made interpretation of what man’s ‘animal-mind’ perceives about divinity or other forces that it cannot otherwise explain. Try explaining plasma energy to an amoeba, if you could somehow communicate with the amoeba. See if the amoeba does not ‘deify’ you if it could be proven the amoeba has the qualities of the human psyche.

My latest conclusion is this- everything is INTERCONNECTED, and this is an UNAVOIDABLE fact- we all exist on the SAME ‘playing field’ since all matter is energy at its most basic elemental makeup, and energy has been proven scientifically to be indestructable. Atomic cohesions can be broken into smaller elements, but they can be broken down no further than their most basic makeup, which of course, is ENERGY in a myriad of different configurations.

If the Universe is therefore made up of LIGHT (energy), then the LIGHT must be intelligent and aware, and an active principle in the continuing evolution of universal existence. Whether we ‘anthropomorphize’ this force or not in our attempt to ‘create God in our own image’ is largely not a consideration, since the human species is likely only a fractional division of the life extant within the vastness of the universe. It would be arrogant of us to assume otherwise in light of what science has observed thus far.

But we ARE here for a reason, and I don’t believe it was through an ‘accidental’ occurrence that’s been labeled as the ‘big bang’. I personally believe that we are meant to evolve to a much higher level of consciousness (existence, awareness, reality) than where we are now. Maybe that makes me sound like a New Ager, but so be it.

Then again, we may all be like rats trapped in a huge maze, some “meta-experiment” gone wrong and then abandoned by the ‘experimenter’, but even at that, there must still be a way OUT of the maze- some doorway or exit that very few but the smartest or most aware find.

If nothing else, then one must AT THE VERY LEAST have a belief or faith in ONE-SELF, or we might as well ‘shut the whole thing down’! Get out the nukes and ‘have at it’ once and for all!

These conclusions are NOT based on any mythology, other than the value that said mythologies have at presenting the most common elements with other systematized schemata from world history.

from http://ask.metafilter.com/55153/Whats-the-middle-ground-between-FU-and-W…
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One of my wife’s distant friends has attempted to invite herself to stay with us, again. She did this last March, and we used the excuse of me starting a new job and needing to do x, y, and z as well as the “out of town” excuse for any remaining dates. This got us off scot-free, but we both knew the time would come again… and it’s here. We need a final solution.

We live in a small 2 bedroom apartment, in New York City. People like to visit here, and they don’t generally want to pay for a hotel. We understand this. However, we also don’t want people staying with us who we don’t know or don’t like.

My wife received the following email (summarized):

I’m going to be in NYC the night of the 5th to the morning of the 15th for [blah blah blah some work-related singing event thing]. Maria (my boss) said it is on the lower east side at Gramercy Park. I do have another friend who offered me her place to stay, but not for the whole time. Is there a chance that I could stay with you and Jeff for a portion of that time? I’d be using the subway the whole time and I’d be gone from 10-10 probably every day, so I’d be out of your way most of the time. Let me know if this might be a possibility! Your choice on the dates, it’s pretty flexible when I stay at her place. Thanks for your help – I hope this works out so we can see each other!

Oh my god. First, I don’t even know this woman. I’ve never even spoken with her. My wife doesn’t really like her, but she’s one of those people who just won’t go away. To complicate things further, my wife is one of those people who doesn’t really like to say no or to turn away people from her past, so I’m sure this woman will be following us wherever we go. Granted, they do have history in that they used to go to school together from ages 11-16. A decade ago. Then, they’ve seen each other sporadically when they’ve been home at the same time. This complicates the issue a little since it begs the question “does past history automatically equate to present friendship?” Even so, I’m reluctant to allow her stay because it’ll set a precedent and possibly ruin the (slim) chances of her just fading into the past, and never hearing from her again.

Further, it really annoys me when people just invite themselves over, or present the possibility of you accommodating them. This is something I strive never to do. If anything, I might “test the waters” by mentioning I’ll be in town, and see if an offer comes my way, but suggesting that you should allow me to stay in your apartment with you and your significant other whom I have not met seems borderline if not downright rude. Presumptuous, definitely.

I doubt this will be the last time this happens, so we need a final solution.

The only thing I’ve thought of so far are:

1. Our apartment has a weird key (true), and we haven’t been able to get it duplicated (somewhat true). We need our keys (true). Sorry.

2. Keep it vague. “Sorry, that isn’t going to work for us” seems like a pretty good solution, but a) it’s still pretty awkward to say to someone, especially since I wouldn’t put it beyond this woman to inquire further — “Why, though? Why can’t I stay?” — and b) it’ll be hard to get my wife to say this to her.

Have you had similar experiences? What would you do in this sort of situation? Is getting cornered into an unfortunate situation like this just a fact of life I’m refusing to accept?

and the response:
________

This is a classic case of Ask Culture meets Guess Culture.

In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it’s OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get no for an answer. This is Ask Culture.

In Guess Culture, you avoid putting a request into words unless you’re pretty sure the answer will be yes. Guess Culture depends on a tight net of shared expectations. A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won’t even have to make the request directly; you’ll get an offer. Even then, the offer may be genuine or pro forma; it takes yet more skill and delicacy to discern whether you should accept.

All kinds of problems spring up around the edges. If you’re a Guess Culture person — and you obviously are — then unwelcome requests from Ask Culture people seem presumptuous and out of line, and you’re likely to feel angry, uncomfortable, and manipulated.

If you’re an Ask Culture person, Guess Culture behavior can seem incomprehensible, inconsistent, and rife with passive aggression.

Obviously she’s an Ask and you’re a Guess. (I’m a Guess too. Let me tell you, it’s great for, say, reading nuanced and subtle novels; not so great for, say, dating and getting raises.)

Thing is, Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other Guess people — ones who share a fairly specific set of expectations and signalling techniques. The farther you get from your own family and friends and subculture, the more you’ll have to embrace Ask behavior. Otherwise you’ll spend your life in a cloud of mild outrage at (pace Moomin fans) the Cluelessness of Everyone.

As you read through the responses to this question, you can easily see who the Guess and the Ask commenters are. It’s an interesting exercise.
posted by tangerine at 11:38 PM on January 16, 2007

EDIT: some key comments added:

It’s really interesting that so many people think the request isn’t rude. I think it’s rude, or maybe a better word is pushy, to ask someone for a favor a second time after you’ve already been turned down once. I feel like the first refusal is the unspoken social signal that we hope people pick up on so that they don’t put us in the position of having to be rude and say no a second time to a request for a favor.
There’s a lot of good advice about different ways of saying no – if it were me and I did want to have some future contact (but not a house guest), I would go with “No, we can’t , have a great visit, let me know if you have time to meet up, etc…”
posted by gt2 at 11:42 PM on January 16, 2007

Wow, gt2 — I couldn’t have asked for a clearer demo of Guess-type thinking, complete with the assumption that you should never “put [people] in the position of having to be rude and say no” — italics mine.

For comparably unmistakable Ask-type responses, see dobbs and tkolar.

WTF? How on earth is this person being rude? Her email sounds quite polite to me. Your interpretation of it, however, is downright ghastly. Of course, just say no to her question, but crikey, don’t blame her for asking it as it’s perfectly reasonable. She probably has no idea you dislike her so which isn’t surprising based on your post.
posted by dobbs at 2:37 PM on January 16, 2007

jeffxl wrote….
Further it really annoys me when people just [...]present the possibility of you accommodating them.

Get over it. There’s nothing rude about asking to crash at someone’s place, particularly in your mid-twenties.

Is getting cornered into an unfortunate situation like this just a fact of life I’m refusing to accept?

The only unfortunate thing in this situation is the fact that your wife doesn’t appear to be able to say “sorry, no” to someone asking a favor. That is a fact of life that you had better learn to accept.
posted by tkolar at 5:32 PM on January 16, 2007