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• Talk:bmorton3/archive1 June 2 - Sept 20 2006

The Inestimable Barnstar of High Culture

Thanks, Lac!

Cats

Hey B. The cats are a bit of a mess to begin with: there are too many of them IMO and there's massive horizontal and vertical duplication.

In reply first to your last post on Astrology, the policy and guideline do disagree. The policy obviously gives primacy to majority scientific opinion and suggests that it ought to be brought to bear over-and-above the dissent of non-science opinion (i.e., the scientific view is held as more important than total consensus in adding content). And to repeat what I said on Astrology talk: if that (IMO, seriously flawed) bullet point from WP:GL can be used to override a categorization, our categories would suffer greatly. Intelligent design, for instance, would not be categorized as pseudoscience (given that some would obviously dissent), which would be a serious error in the presentation of accurate information.

As for 1, 2, 3, 4, I'm not sure if I wholly follow you in how these relate to the Astrology discussion. I suppose I agree with 3--significant minorities can add cats, but that would come with its own caveats. A significant minority of non-scientists should not be used to place something in a science cat, for instance. Marskell 18:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

By "over-and-above" I did not mean a form of censorship, i.e. presenting the scientific categorization as the only one at the expense of how believers (for lack of a better word) would categorize it, and in this sense I don't think we're interpreting NPOV that much differently. To phrase it as a simple question: if we have a half-dozen cats that astrologers agree with, why shouldn't we have the one that scientists would (especially given that NPOV defines the majority opinion vis-a-vis science)? I agreed with protoscience for instance (as a source or two was presented once upon a time). Where we seem to part company is this idea that we should be more circumspect with the cats than the body. Why? We must represent the majority scientific viewpoint as such; this should apply both to the body and the categories. Your analysis of of Intelligent Design, for example, I find baffling. Admit in the lead "An overwhelming majority of the scientific community views intelligent design as unscientific" and then demur in categorizing it as such? And, IMV, the sentence you quote from the end of the pseudo-sci para on NPOV is not a rebuttal to SPOV so much as a clarification that it doesn't need to be a stick: present the minority views, sure, and present the scientific view as majority (not least because the scientific view is generally more verifiable and follows an NPOV method). Why wouldn't this include categories?

Again, to invert: what I find scary is that dozens of fringe topics on Misplaced Pages might be left in the hands of "believers" to decide on presentation in the absence of watching from others (same is true, in a different way, of polemicized political topics). Nowhere does policy tell me that I should interpret categorization distinct from pages in this regard. And yes, policy—when you've been around long enough, you realize there is a qualitative difference b/w policy and guidelines. There's flaws in all of them, but the policies, especially the big three, have been scrutinized and are watched like no other pages in the Wiki namespace.

Finally, one last point repeated: I find little solid argument that astrology is termed pseudoscience is a controversial fact. What is true is that some people (who are generally into astrology) don't like the fact. These are two distinct points. That mainstream science calls astrology pseudoscience (or something in that vein) is a slam-dunk. And again, the disputation of adherents of a given topic cannot be used as loophole to avoid critical categorization. Marskell 21:16, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

"Perhaps you feel that because of things like WP:IAR, you can discount guidelines you disagree with, but not policies." Again, I discount guidelines where I feel they contradict policy. I have explained why I feel that this is the case here and we disgree. What your suggestion amounts to is giving adherents a veto over categories, which I find unacceptable and does not appear to be the wiki practice. Note, for instance, that Category:Gnosticism is a sub-category of Category:Heresy. Re "termed", I just meant that it would be a different thing if there were some dispute the label is regularly applied to astrology.

Continuing to debate this probably won't go far unless taken to a wider forum. But I would suggest NPOV talk, not the guideline talk. As a last thought, Wiki defines a loophole as "A weakness in a law that allows it to be circumvented". I consider the GL bullet to be a loophole because it allows people to circumvent the normal application of NPOV. Marskell 10:05, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

N & G

D@mn good start but 2 noticeable problems 1. The word gnostic in the east is not a bad word in christian circles or platonic ones examples; Clement of Alexandria, gnosiology. Just professing or using gnosis was not bad, but only bad if so in a false prophet way, Platonic, Pythagorian, Neoplatonic and christian cross pollenation and sharing of terms would not make someone a "gnostic". It seems that you imply that everyone's a gnostic (from the intro to the book and conference, BUT do not acknowledge the cosmology of the sethian text enough to clarify that the cosmology was the main characteristic, that and that "secret" teachings -gnosis- was what got the groups ostracized LIKE Alexander of Abonutichus and his Glycon. .This is why I wrote this..

"Another was to separate and clarify the events and persons involved in the origin of the term "Gnostic". From the dialogue, it appears that the word had an origin in the Platonic and Hellenistic tradition long before the group calling themselves "Gnostics" -- or the group covered under the modern term "Gnosticism" -- ever appeared. It would seem that this occurrence of the misuse of the word "gnostic" today leads people to confusion. People seeking a higher truth through knowledge (rather academic or spiritual since Plato represents both) could be easily confused into thinking they were "gnostics" rather than "philosophers". This tradition of sectarians taking Greek terms and so misnaming themselves or misusing the terms seems to have continued with not only the platonic philosopher's traditions but also the Greek and Egyptian Hermetic ones (see Alexander of Abonutichus for one example)."

Accuse me of poor articulation but I consider the point neccasary.

2. To little Neoplatonic specifics. What specifics did Plotinus say like the truths of gnosticism being nothing but stolen over from Plato. Or what changes specifically did Plotinus make (I would argue clarify) to Plato understanding.

Also the gnostic/Islam link I understand might be little unscholary but it is consistent with the "common" understanding of gnosticism. Although I wish to find a better tie in say the druze and sufism.

I do think it is a vast improvement you write much better then me:>) LoveMonkey 22:29, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I would like to thank you (even if you get alittle, yes ALITTLE) revert and stingee edit crazy on the articles. THEY ARE FANTASTIC. I think they can be posted whenever the general one is sourced. The missing parts can be added and brooded over, on the fly. U da man! PS I wonder if we could somehow cover "problems with a physical God" like say misotheism and dystheism in the general article. LoveMonkey 14:39, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Uhm I'll have to look a little more carefully at this in a while, but I meant to say something about the revert crazy stuff. I cut more than maybe I should from the draft of the outcomes of the conference part, and a few other places and I wanted to make sure you looked back over it. In one or two places I disagreed, but in most places I just wasn't sure of your English (which is pretty good and no doubt better than my Greek). If there is stuff that I've cut that you want back in, it might just be that we have to hash out the English rather than any real disagreement, so feel free to put stuff back in. Or to point out dumb errors (like Zeusnoos did on my Fathers of Gnostic Christianity article, eesh). The Gnosticism/Islam/Sufism stuff is valuable and appropriate, its just that I don't know any good sources, and I'm sure I'll slip into OR if I try to write it. (That was one of my first OR's back as an undergrad!) Bmorton3 16:27, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey lets post the articles.

LoveMonkey 22:04, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

monad

Hey could you give me some advice on this page? LoveMonkey 04:29, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Square of opposition

Hello - I left a message for you on the talk page of the article above. Dbuckner 10:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

PS I thought the article Logical quality was wonderfully obscure (not your treatment of it, the subject itself). But very interesting all the same. Keep it up. Dbuckner 10:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

PPS The first sentence of Logical quality has a curious grammar. Dbuckner 10:45, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Er as I often do, I screwed up the 2 halves of the wiki-link, now its fixed Bmorton3 14:40, 29 September 2006 (UTC)