Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:52, 4 August 2006

Alright then. Things seem to have settled down a bit. It even seems that a few other "editors" are actually, genuinely improving the article from the point of view of style and prose. That's too bad. It's frightening actually. I will attempt to explain why, in my usual horrid and flabby prose style, shortly.

First, a confession and a bit of context is in order. As an aside, it's great that I can express this stuff while having the ear, as it were, of such a group of serious, enormously intelligent human beings. The Ph.D. candidate claim that used be on my user page is false. My "formal" educational background is as follows: I began studying music at the Berklee College of Music in Boston at the age of 17. After two fantastic years of perfect health and extremely laborious study, I began to experience bizarre symptoms of something which I can only describe as a sort of neurological blindness or, at any rate, disconnention between what my senses experienced and what my brain was processing. There were other symptoms as well, but nothing that can be neatly classified and categorized as symptom X or symptom Y. The sensation was just that there was something profoundly wrong with me neurologically and that it coninued to worsen gradually over time.

Eventually, I went to see "un neuro" (as they say over her in Italy), had CAT scans done, the whole business. Nothing was found. On to the psychiatrists. (There is an interesting sort of default logic in medicine, BTW: if you can't actually visualize it with the aid of our most advanced technology, then it must not exist. Send 'em to the psyhciatrist. Most of these men and women are Christians or pantheists of some sort too!!) Well, psychiatry didn't help (but I don't want to get into that story here), so I was basically house-bound for about five years. During that time, I discovered the world of BOOKS!! I began to devour everything imaginable and unimaginable. It started with the classics of literature; I fell in love. I wanted nothing more to do with the world. Tolstoy, Dostoyevskij, Dickens, Melville, Shakespeare, Proust, Joyce, Gibbon, Lewis Carrol, Jane Austen, the Bronte's (all of them!!), Gogol, Checkov, Homer, Virgil (translations of course), Milton, Virginia Wolf, Laurence Stern, Pope, Coleridge, Hugo. Then poetry: Wallace Stevens, Eliot, Silvia Plath, Dickinson, ad infinitum. I found a used anthology that had been lying around from my Berklee days: The Existentialists: Neitzche to Heidegger (or something like that) by Walter Kaufmann. This opened up the philosophy vein and simply overwhelmed me. Philosophy has remained my first love from then on. At the age of 27, I threw away all medication and determined to go back to school at all costs. The informal, unstructured hogepodge autodidacticism I engaging in was not enough. I needed to interact and see if I could learn something practically useful and intelletually challenging at the same time. I chose Computer Science almost arbitrarily. I took a minor in philosophy. (This was my first exposure to analytic philosophy, BTW). I completed my BS with honors, was on the Dean's list several times, worked my ass off, etc... But I was infinitely superior, and more passionate about, philosophy than CS. My writing was called "exceptional" and I never even had a single professor correct a single dot or comma in any of my classes. Sacre blue!! I took the US graduate record examination and scored a 790 on the English portion (top 1% of the population). I started graduate work at the same place, Suny Albany, the following year.First semester...fine. Second semester.....Oh NOOOOOOOO!! Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachtani!! I was struck by an attack of dizziness and vomiting so ferocious that I could not move my head from left to right. What was this now?? Labrynthitis, they said. It could last up to six months. It did. But it wasn't labryinthitis. I went back to school, but had to start the graduate course from scratch. The dizziness came back and I dropped out. Meniere's syndrome, it was now. I really did get depressed and attempted suicide three or four times in succession. I was eventually hospitalized for three months and treated with extremely potent anti-psychotics, anti-depressives, anti-vertigo...about 10 different medications in all. I went into a sort of iatrogenic semi-coma which lasted about a week.

Onward and downward, as it were. When I left the hospital (at age 33), I was unable to lift up a spoon or fork in order to feed myself. My mother had to wash me in the bathtub and change my clothes. Since it was just she and I (my father had died at the age of 43 from lung cancer when I was eleven and my only brother was strung out on drugs, manic-depressive and homeless most of the time) and she was getting up into her 70s, we decided to move to Italy, where she has an enormous extended family which could help out in case of emergencies, financial problems, etc.. There is also a universal health care system (!!), but I digress. After arriving in Italy about five years ago, I immediately felt substantially better. I still cannot find a rational explanation for this. Whether it was the change in climate, something about the flight itself or something else, I actually felt physically cured. I taught myself to read and write Italian well enough to read Giacomo Leopardi, Dante, Pirandello, etc., in the original. I also studied translations of the works of Frege, Micheal Dumett, Putnam (obviously), Fodor, Popper, Lacatos, etc., etc.. I then starting taking some courses in philosophy of langauge and philosophy of science at the University of Napoli. I was doing quite well.I went through an extraordinary two-year process of transferring of credits, evaluations and so on. The bureacracy in Italy can only be compared to the great scenes in Kafka's The Castle where K. is trying to determine wethere he has or has not been hired as a land surveyor and never finds out the answer until after his death. The documentation was finally in order and I switched to the philosophy major. Much time was lost as well as academic credits (Sorry Toni). But I kept studying as diligently as a dog eating a bone, both formally and informally. Two years later, the BEAST struck again. So what is this all about? A person who has been through what I have is obviously excruciatingly hyper-sensitive to comments to the effect that he writes poorly ("poorly written", "flab everyhwere, rewrite every sentence", "can't you understand that the comma goes here and that "instead" is not necessary"). Oh BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYY!! If only I could have had it as easy as some of you!! After all of the years, nay decades, of torture and neurological crucificion that I have experienced, and continue to experience, in this life, it is a miracle beyong imagining that I can write at all. That I am even capable of writing this right now is, hopefully, an indication that I am not completely finished yet. There are days when I cannot READ without struggling to focus. I am always uncertain as to whether my writing has improved, remained the same or deteriorated from what it used to be and whether this is due to the condition of my brain, whether I never really could write well in the first place, or whether some people are just being too damned finicky for reasons which I don't care about. Can you imagine the horror of such uncertaintly in itself. My life has been a total catastrophe and I am not resposnible for anything that has happened to me. But, one thing has remained constant throughout all if this horror up until this experience with the two FACS on Misplaced Pages: I have always been confident (or illuded myself into believing) that I DO know how to write English prose, perhaps not brillianty, but certainly competently. Now that confidence is gone. You've managed to rip out and shred into a billion irrecoverable pieces one of the last things that gave meaning to my miserable life: the belief in my ability to write. That's ALL I had left actually. It's time that this "too, too solid flesh did melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew". "How weary,stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world.Fie on it. Fie. 'Tis an unweeded garden gone to seed, things rank and gross in nature possess it merely. That it should come to this." --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 12:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Show of support

Hi Francesco. I really hope you're not leaving Misplaced Pages. Your contributions have been immensely valuable and a pleasure to read. I think you've done tremendous work. I completely understand why the thread in the Featured Article nom got to you: people were eager to express pedantic criticism and there was a definite paucity of praise. This is probably because people might take issues like recognition and support to be trifles in comparison with the business of making Misplaced Pages rigorous and standard. I don't think either should be neglected. I hope you reconsider your decision to leave, if you did in fact blank your page for that reason. Please leave a message on my talk page if you ever want to talk or blow off steam. Warm regards, --Ori.livneh 13:26, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I also hope you stay. You're doing good work, but some fields and contributors don't get much recognition. I have an article up for FAC at the moment, and it was only at FAC that I received any useful feedback. Gimmetrow 15:18, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

What I want to know is if there are people who are willng to help me out to make asbolutely certain that this thing gets through FAC. If not this time, then after I write up a criticism section, ask some of the really good writers here (Dbuckner and Slimvirigin, from what I can tell) to help copyedit and then slam the ***ing thing right up there you-know-whats. What you guys can do, if you really want to help, is make sure the references are not played with, that the dates are there and so on,. I'll get the references for the very small parts which are toally unrefernced : notice how she made it seem as if this was a vast part of the article takane at random.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:37, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Hello there, I'm sorry to hear that your FAC is causing you so much stress. Keep sticking with it, I'm sure your determination will not be for nothing. -- Natalya 02:00, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:32, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

RE your edit summary at Hilary Putnam

Your edit summary: don0t fuck with it trodler is inappropriate, especially since the changes I made fixed your improper datelinking. As we have not, to my knowledge, had any problem before, I think a better assumption of my intentions is warranted. As I didn't get a system edit conflict message. --Trödel 15:43, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the tone, but I think that your edits inadvetrtebely wiped out about two hours of work tht I had done on getting the names and publication dates (I think that's what she was talking about) inot the refercnes. You added access dates. I don't think that is what she was complaining about. Anyhow, much work was wiped out. So I was frsutrated. Again, I apologize for the tone. Also, I had exlicitly asked people NOT to edit the article for a little while. I know I don't own the article, but I have several reasons for this which I cannot explain right now.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 16:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

No problem - I didn't realize that you were still doing some major edits. If you get the conflict edit screen - scroll down to the second edit window - that is where all your changes are - I usually copy mine to a word or notepad document so I don't lose anything. May I suggest that if you are making major changes and are saving along the way - that you put a notice in the edit summary so that other editors will know what is going on - and will be less likely to create conflicts if they know that the editing is in process rather than complete and ready for some copyedits. Have a good day --Trödel 17:35, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 17:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

When you have an edit conflict, the window has two edit boxes. All your edits are in the second box. If you don't want to redo the work, you can (usually) just copy everything from the second box and paste it into the first box. This over-writes the other edits. Then you, or more likely the other editor, can redo the other edits later. You can also add the {{inusefor|60 minutes to do something}} template to warn others before starting your edit. Gimmetrow 16:32, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip about INUSEFOR.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 16:35, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

• np. The article to become FA does not need consensus. I think the article needs pics, of him or something else. It wont be because of me that the article won't become an FA, don't worry. If I see my object will cause any problem to the FA status I'll remove my objection. --Pedro 19:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't care what the real problem is any more. I juts wasted an ENOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORMOUS amount ofd time and energy on that piece oif shit!!! Does it suck?? Yeah,, it probably does actually. But, after reading what I have been through above, one would try to understand why such a person would be enormously proud to have Hialry Putnam praise his article, for example. Just leave me alone please and let Misplaced Pages's philosophy section continue to be the laughinstick of the acedemic universe (dare anyone here DENY that it is). You have some outstading writers and editors of science fiction enclyopedia enties, it seems. It's too bad. I left once before because it was mno longer fun corretcing the billions of grammatical, spelling, factual, logical and other errors of 99.099999999999999999999999% of the raticles. I leave noe because breaking into that top .1 or whatver it is has become TORTURE without recompense. Another one bites the dust. But, as my cousin (THANK GOD FOR MY FAMILY) Dimitri (a very waelthy lawyer who can't write himseklf out of a paper bag but has published about four books and teache theology at the local unibersity) tells me (he just came in)......perché ti arrabia con questi paggliacci. Mangiamo un po' di gelato e lascia stare queste schiochezze. YEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH, HE KNOWS!!--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:31, 4 August 2006 (UTC) --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:31, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

There's no time-pressure. There's no time-pressure. There's no place like Rome. No, Rome is quite a long way from here actually. An extraordinary city though. Depressing in a way. Joyce said something like "it's just an old cemetary making money by showing off it's skeletons"!!. Unbeleivable madman. That0s why he could write like that: Stream of though, stream of consciousnes, the great stream of being, stream of words,blah,blh, blah.......big words, small words, worda above me, words below me, words without bearers, words, words, words, the matter that you read my Lord.....no time-pressure...what does it mean?...time is passing always, it does not stop not even per un attimo..........if there is a correspondence bwteen the sttes of the machine mae with the freshly gathered manure of a hyena and the states of the machine of the made up o the baked and impasted streets which lend a tyraanous and a damned eye to a lords murder....gelatiere....gotico............................Kakà!!

Lately Putnam says "I sometimes think that mathematical logic seems impressive because of the symnolism. Wow, we even get to use backwors Es!!"...He's lost it completely.Gine over to the other side.....the continentals..Lincoln continentals....continenteal congress...I wonder if the ability to type well makes a significant difference the smooth flow of thought and expression when wwiritng in he Inteneret.It has to. This is prorbably the first time Iìve felt the frustrattion of not being ale to juist type whatvere I feel ot thingk immdiatly with all five of my fingers insetad of banging away with one damend finger and making a total, ridiculous mess,....Do I have to leren to type too?? At th age of 38??'

Some observations and a suggestion

After seeing the progress on the Putnam article I am supporting. There are still some issues but the article is quite good now that you've gone over it all, and I am confident the "small" issues will get addressed. Yes, the text could be tighter (shorter) in the lead and bio sections, but I don't think the philosophy discussions can be said much shorter (or much better) any other way. The only "major" content issue is the part in "Functionalism" explaining what is a Turing machine. It doesn't seem to me to fit the flow of the article; I doubt it's anything you wrote. Could everything in "In non-technical terms, a Turning machine.... prints a 1 and remains in state three" be replaced by a one- or two-sentence definition?

The FAC itself is another issue. It has gotten so large that I can't really follow what is going on. It's now almost 3 times the size of the article! This brings up the personal text that you wrote a couple days ago. Sandy suggested, and I agree, that it might not be something you want to remain on wiki forever. (I am only referring to the FAC page - your talk page is entirely your own business.) The FAC page can be refactored and the history of that part removed entirely, if you wish. Just something to think about.

By the way, I have my own article going through FAC at the moment. Despite getting far fewer comments than your FAC, my article has grown over 40% in a week. (I almost wonder how considering the time I've spent here!) Anyway, relax, have that gelato. Ah gelato, reminds me of Florence. Regardless of all the museums, I mainly remember an organ concert in a small church one night, and having coffee gelato near San Marco's in the summer. Cheers. Gimmetrow 20:52, 4 August 2006 (UTC)