I agree with the theory that world peace and contentment can be brought about by a shared personal experience, one that each individual shares with every other individual. But that experience would not be some cataclysm. Because after it was over those left would begin fighting again over food and property. No, the shared experience must be one that reveals the unity of all individuals. An experience of Love and Oneness such as experienced by dying. It is an experience that transcends all disasters with the knowledge of eternal existence and peace, and love. It is the ultimate personal experience.
Suffering leads to unity. But it must be on a large scale in order to trigger a massive elevation in the collective consciousness of Man. People would at first fight over resources as revealed by Edgar Cayce. People will die but such conditions will only lead to our understanding of being our brother’s keeper on a global scale. If you had people who had survived massive earth quakes on your doorstep dying from hunger, would you not let them in? Would you not share your home with these people in the most dire of times? Such conditions would radically eviscerate the selfish and isolated standards in today’s society and foster global dependence.
A lot of posters whom the TM find boring tend to do that (in their threads, only).
Now, if you are truly “taking care of old business,” then you are clearly a returning sock puppet/troll and the rules require that you be banned.
Holding that thought in abeyance, briefly, I will note that your “arguments,” (such as they are), are baseless, beginning with several unsupported assertions, (that appear to require an adherence to Christian belief), and extending through a number of “logical” constructions that fail to carry forward your argument*, and then leaping well out of reality to embrace “ufology.”
Briefly, I note:
[ul][li]There is no consensus that “The most essential question in the global ethics is: what can unify world opinion?” (I doubt that you can point to any serious philosopher who gives two hoots.)[/li][li] The year 2012 has no world wide recognition as anything other than the date that the Mayan calendar happens to experience a simultaneius rollover of its three counting cycles, after which the Mayans ran out of stone and did not bother to carry forward their calendar. No other culture gives a fig about that date and people who invest actual beliefs in the importance of that date tend to be poorly educated New Age crackpots.[/ul][/li]
Now, since I have already undermined two of your key bases, I can simply declare Nego Majore and leave this thread to those who are willing to bandy meaningless tracts, with you. That said, I will note that you have already pushed the envelope on rudeness in your posts and that if you do not restrain your insults, you will no longer be allowed to post, here, even if you are not a returning sock.
- (You should probably take the time to recognize that simply posting a few phrases of symbolic logic do not constitue an actual logical argument, particularly when your phrases stand in isolation and fail to develop an actual argument.)
Yes. Links to your earlier writings, which I assume are building blocks forming the foundation of your magnum opus as revealed in this thread, might help, too.
By the way, I suggest in the strongest terms that you concentrate on debating with lekatt. Win him over to your way of thinking, and I’m sure your status will grow considerably on this board, because we generally acknowledge him as the most unassailable of debaters.
Please do not fall into the error of meeting the OP at his own (rude) level.
Personal attacks are no more permitted on rule-breakers than by them.
[ /Modding ]
How ironic you should mention unsupported assertions as you, yourself, conjecture unsupported critique against something you clearly don’t understand. Since when is Ufology not real? Isn’t that bordering to Argumentum Ad Ignoriam?
Global ethics has, prima facie, one ostensible goal which is to seek a theory, a perspective, a theorem or anything that can be embraced by everyone or explain when and how unification is possible. A second possible purpose is to study global theories from a relativistic vantage point which is pointless. This pretty much leaves us with the former yes?
So I am a “New Age crackpot”. Good job buddy, Ad Hominem to layer the cake. Once again you and the other can do nothing but state a hostile personal opinion which has no truth value what so ever. I am winning this easily.
You can’t point to one formal flaw or informal fallacy in my argument. My structure is valid and sound and the theorem I have presented admits of no rational denial because there simply is none. Only ad hominem remains because I have crafted a transcendental piece of philosophy which clearly takes at least a Bachelor’s degree to comprehend. Ironically, not many people are that educated from my past experience in this forum.
Where is your evidence that I do not understand your doubletalk?
While there is the unlikely possibility that Earth has been visited by entities from locations not of this Earth, the body of “studies” about such visits are hokum.
Your failure to provide any actual evidence of this claim pretty well indicates that you made it up.
Now, I am not going to bother to respond to your next attempt at faux condescension, so make it a good one.
[ Moderating ]
You would do well to explain your earlier comment regarding unfinished business as a direct response to the question of why you picked this message board to post this argument.
[ /Moderating ]
The purpose of philosophy is to study and solve philosophical problems. Epistemology is the branch concerned with the truth and if there can be any certain truths (KK-Thesis). What else would the central question of global ethics be? How can you appeal to authories in global ethics when you don’t know of any at all?
I have not claimed to be ignorant of any such authorities. I have noted that you appear to be making stuff up as you go along and wondered which “authorities” would agree with your claim–much as it would be interesting to see whom you consider an authority (or what you consider a legitimate theory) in the realm of ufology.
I am done explicating ufology as it isn’t even mentioned in my original post and bears no relevance on this debate.
I am here to transcend you, that is my old business. I came here in high school and I wasn’t well equipped noetically to deal with all the wannabes. Now I am back with a college degree and a mind more powerful than yours. Evidently because I can write scholarship like this which not only earned me a high A in the global ethics course in my senior year but is also pending a submission to journals in the field.
From the Registration Agreement:
You are in violation of this agreement.
Contact an administrator to resolve your use of multiple usernames within the next day or you will forfeit all posting privileges.
[ /Moderating ]
Wasn´t that, like, three or four months ago?
They MOCKED me ! The FOOLS ! But soon I shall construct my secret ultimate weapon and RULE THE WORLD ! I’ll show them ! I’ll show them ALL ! ! Mwhahahahahaha !
Welcome to the Boards, pwned. Your OP did show some early promise, or was at least entertaining enough to hold my interest for a few paragraphs or so. You clearly have a keen imagination and facile mind; it sounds as though your classes have served the purpose of survey courses well and lit the flame of curiosity in you! It is a good start, my friend, and you may want to consider philosophy as a major.
But be warned: philosophy can get rather complicated rather quickly so stay on your toes and study, study study! I can tell that even for someone just starting out you already show great promise in the art of using deliberately obtuse symbolic representation to muddy the waters just a touch and deflect attention away from your somewhat weaker areas involving unity conceptualization vis-a-vis cross-cultural/cross-system analyses.
For instance, you assert (somewhat boldly for a beginner, but I like that) that what amounts to basic meme theory (you could have saved yourself a lot of typing but again-- it is delightful that you are learning so early in the process the ancient philosophical art of obscuring the frailty of one’s unseasoned flight-of-fancy hypothesis with parens and italicized variables. Good show!) is actually more powerful and, in the end, more fundamentally important than a priori shared human knowledge of objective reality.
You leap to unsupported conclusions about “top-level” migration of human consciousness from the I to the We (you would be better served to think of it in the more accurate socio-religios sense of inexorable “one-way” movement from the “Profane” to the “Sacred” but I can see why you shy away from that as it delves, necessarily, but with not a little confusion, into metaphysical “back-alleys” that are best avoided in the early stages of a first-year student’s training even though–as you will realize later on–it is a far better “model” of individual/group sensual entropy.
But I’m afraid you try to get away with some intellectual laziness when you slip in unfocused thoughts (that no doubt were quite interesting to you) about transmigration of consciousness WITHOUT EVEN ATTEMPTING to consider what consciousness is. You attempt to proceed as if human consciousness were universally understood while indeed the nature and origin of consciousness remain the single most difficult concepts for humans to objectively grasp. It is as catching a shadow.
Oversimplication of human grouping (spatial AND meta-spatial) behavior in the face of cataclysmic events will not get you very far. It rather comes across like some 17 year old faux-hippy dreaming up ways that God or the Universe mingles or minds together in times of great stress like some Cosmic Bartender slipping MDMA into all of our drinks.
Anyway-- sorry but I typed this out very fast off the top of my head. There’s a LOT I didn’t get into both because I am in a hurry and because I don’t want to get too deeply into things you won’t begin to really grasp until you are a little farther along.
Usually we tend to discourage students who come to the SDMB for advice and “help” on their high school or university papers because fairly or unfairly they are sometime perceived as basically wanting us to do the thinking (and the writing) for them. That is why I deliberately left out any “water-tight” logicraffit that you could just cut and past into your paper. But I think yours stuff’ is on the right track basically, maybe a little “puffed-up” and self-important, but it takes time to learn the beautiful simplicity.
So I don’t mind helping out, I can tell you are serious and not trying to cheat. Keep at it… it’ll come to you if you can handle it–it’s not for everyone you know.
Flesh out your substance some-- wild adolescent musings about God’s wonderful plan for all of our souls to meld in some orgiastic, cataclysmic Nirvana are cool around the dorm-room bong, but they aren’t philosophically sound-- and then come back and show us your second draft. When did you say it was due? And isn’t school out for the summer anyway? Are you really a freshman in college? YOu sound a bit younger if you don’t mind my saying.
PS-- that was pretty funny about us not being able to get any help from Wikipedia-- especially since you are they one who came here to learn from us-- at least I thought it was funny, but I think it came off a bit prickish to some folks here.
You are just starting out so a little humbleness is in order. This is a big-boy Board.
Ohh PPS-- I liked your TIMECUBE website, thought it was cute, though lacking any sanity whatsoever. Please send me your newsletter!
But, it’s so much fun! Like poking a very simple-minded puppy with a stick!
Thus far you have failed to say anything of significance, or which even approaches use-ability. I can’t “disprove” the rantings of a paranoiac either, but that doesn’t mean he’s somehow on to something.
I do hope you’ll resolve the multiple user name issue so that you can reply.
I really shouldn’t be doing this, but… Here’s a response. Due to length, I must spread it over two posts.
I will allow for your claim that “the most essential question in the (sic) global ethics is: what can unify world opinion?” as setting out the framework from which you intend to write. I won’t require that you demonstrate the claim, since you can’t do everything in a single short paper. We’ll take it as assumed. It doesn’t really do any work for you in the rest of the paper anyway.
What you do accomplish in this paragraph is to (purportedly) tell us what you are going to do. You are going to show us a “remarkable theorem that…can predict a pattern of logic that will unify world opinion.” What it means to “predict a pattern of logic” is not clear yet, but hopefully will become clear as you procede. I suspect you mean by the phrase something like “generate axioms according to a scheme” but I am not sure. Anyway, here is what I’m looking for as I read your paper:
- A remarkable theorem.
- That predicts a pattern of logic.
- The pattern of logic will unify world opinion.
Also:
- An explanation of every logical step toward a derivation of the theorem mentioned in 1.
A preview of my conclusions:
- There is no theorem expressed in your paper, much less a remarkable one.
- I have some idea what you mean by “predicts a pattern of logic” but I am not at all confident I’ve understood your meaning.
- …
- There is nothing like a derivation, even a partial one, in this paper, even omitting the fact that there is no theorem expressed in it.
I take it you are using “axiomatic” to mean “such that they are grasped immediately and intuitively as true by any rational agent.” This is an unusual use of the term, and it is best to mark such unusual use of jargon with explicit definitions.
In this paragraph you also make an interesting claim that certain laws exist independently of human thought, but also in the form of some kind of language. This is a substantial claim, which does not clearly contribute to the logic of your paper, and which itself requires considerable clarification and argument. It might be best to leave it out. What can it mean for something to have linguistic form yet not be the product of human thought? (I suppose one could imagine that E.T.s produce linguistic artifacts which are not the product of human thought, but you seem to be talking about something which is not the product of psychobiological thought at all.) I wouldn’t argue that this is impossible, but the claim requires deeper treatment than you give it here.
Again, this is too much too fast. You say “Thus the informal theories create…” but you don’t earn the “thus.” Just because there are beliefs that are only sustained through people’s subscription to them (I guess as opposed to beliefs that are sustained by reason or observation?) it doesn’t follow that there is a such thing as a “consensus reality” with actual full blown truth-values, indeed, truth. And it also doesn’t follow that the only such beliefs that are true are those that are imposed on others by the powerful. It may be that there are beliefs that are sustained only by subscription, but at the same time that there is no “consensus reality,” only a “consensus.” And it may be that the truth-value of these beliefs is independent of the consensus. A belief can be sustained through consensus or subscription, yet actually be false. (Orwell tries to illustrate this.) Finally, it could be that the consensus that is inevitably reached at least given enough time is not the one imposed by the powerful, but rather, one that arises despite the powerful. These are all important problems for the claims you make in this paragraph.
But still, I can simply take these introductory paragraphs as explaining to me the basic framework you intend to write in. But even taking it that way, you aren’t making it clear to your audience what you’re talking about. You are using terms in unusual ways, and putting "thus"es where they don’t belong making it unclear exactly how your thought process is supposed to go, and so on.
Here you begin by talking about what ideas are “real” in a couple of different senses. This is different than talking about what ideas are “true,” which you acknowledge in the last sentence just quoted. But then, that means your comments about which ideas are “real” are floating without purpose. Why are you talking about what is real in those sentences? What does this add to my understanding of your paper?
You end the paragraph by saying “But it is their truth-value that is being questioned.” Who is questioning their truth-value, and why, and what does their questioning have to do with your paper? I am not sure what you are telling me.
What does it mean for a law to be “timed?”
Is it laws that can be timed, or constants? These are two different kinds of things. But in one sentence you talk about laws as being timed, and in the next, you talk about a constant as timed.
Why are you telling me that your theorem has properties which “follow a logical pattern?” Presumably every theorem has properties that follow a logical pattern. The claim here seems contentless.
“Despite this fact that some constants can be considered timed.” is an incomplete sentence. Even ignoring that, now you’re talking about constants being considered timed. Are they timed, or only considered timed. Of course they can be both, but then why hedge with the word “considered” in this sentence?
“It’s not any less paradoxical than…” What’s not any less paradoxical? You haven’t made clear any paradox. It has something to do with constants being “timed” but what does that mean? And where’s the paradox?
This sentence is practically contentless, in the sense that it serves no purpose. It advances no claim, it provides no argument for any claim, it doesn’t explain anything important about the background of your paper. It doesn’t do anything. Of course there are a lot of powerful ideas that help us think about various issues. That’s practically a truism. There’s no need to tell us this. Putting it in more words than the way I worded it doesn’t make it any more contentful.
The thesis that theory is underdetermined by data is one thing. The fact that you can name any theory “t1” and another one incompatible with it “t2” is a different thing. They are unrelated. The UTD-thesis doesn’t show that you can name these two theories whatever you want. (You can name them whatever you want regardless of what theses may be true or false.) Rather, it shows that any set of data is compatible with a pair of theories (call them t1 and ~t1, since you can call any theories whatever you wish anytime you want) which are themselves incompatible.
This “ergo” does not belong, at least not the way you’ve exposited it. If I have two theories, a1 and ~a1, it does not immediately follow from UTD that a1 and ~a1 are empirically equivalent. UTD could be true even if a1 and ~a1 are empirically distinct. (For example, for a1 read “The theory that cats are mammals.” For ~a1 read “The theory that cats are not mammals.” There, see? The two are empirically distinct, even though UTD remains true.)
[/quote]
What problem is that?
This does not follow any logical syntax I know of.
X is, apparently, an object. It is equal to something. What is that other thing? You denote the other thing by “([t1 ^ ~t1] + [t2 ^ ~t2] ∞ )” This is not a name, I take it, so it must be a description. But it follows no syntax for description that I know of. What is the interpretation of “+”? What is the interpretation of the infinity symbol, and of its placement in the description?
What do you mean by “parameter?” You do not seem to mean what most people mean by the term, but it’s hard to say, because it’s not clear what you mean.
So “t1^~t1” is supposed to denote a border of a cognitive sphere? What is a cognitive sphere? In what sense does it have a border? How does it act as a “parameter?” (I can imagine a way to work this out, but this is the kind of thing you need to explain (and work out) for yourself.) A parameter of what exactly?
Here your substantial claims above about “consensus reality” turn out to have some weight in your paper. All the more reason to explain them more clearly–or leave them out and revise this part of the paper.
What does it mean to “realise from an existential and ontological standpoint?” How does saying “realize from an e and o standpoint” say more than simply “realize?”
But you called it a “cognitive sphere.” You’re going to need to rename your sphere, I think, and explain more clearly what it is a sphere around and why it makes sense to treat it as a unit. (BTW find Clark and Chalmers’ “The Hypothesis of Extended Cognition” if you haven’t already read it for an Analytic style defense of an at least tangentially related idea, I think.)
This seems like a nonsequiter following upon what I last quoted. If it is not supposed to be, then the connection should be made more clear. If it is a nonsequitor, it should either be deleted or put into a new paragraph.
Also, you use the term “bonds” in the last sentence, but you don’t tell us what that means. Same with “clusters.” What are clusters? How do they bond? What does it mean for the bonds to be intense? Why do they need to be mitigated, what is wrong with them? And so on.
This kind of thing should come after your logical demonstration. Where is that thing, anyway?
You’re talking about bonds again, but not explaining what they are. Also, here, apparently bonds are between theories, but before, they were between “clusters” in your “matrix.” The connection between a “theory” and a “cluster” is not clear.
The property? What property? Its relationship? Which relationship?
Here you are presupposing that every theory is either true at all times and all places (maybe this is what you meant above by “timed?” If so you should explain that above) or else it is a belief sustained only by subscription. This is not strictly correct–there are other possibilities, such as belief sustained by shared biological predispositions, or (a subcase of biological predisposition) sustained by illusion, or non-universal theories believed by no one, but I don’t doubt you can clean this up to make it more strictly correct, or at least plausible.
You don’t make it clear what the relationship is between the two sentences I just quoted. Say I accept that non-universal theories are consensus realities. Why should that mean no single theory can unify world opinion? We just get everyone to concede to the consensus, right? Well, why not? That’s a question that needs an answer, which you don’t provide. Perhaps you think you do with the following:
[quoteThus, it will be lost in the vast web of interconnectedness of theories and people will be quick to imagine an alternative theory as shown in the matrix above.[/quote]
But that’s just to repeat the claim. Can there not be a consensus reality so compelling that people aren’t quick at all to imagine an alternative theory? If not, why not? And is your goal merely the unifying of world opinion, or the permanent unifying of world opinion? I suspect the latter but you only claim the former.
A fuller exposition of Trundle’s argument would serve you well here. As it is, I can’t make anything of your claims. I don’t know what his modal argument is, and so can’t evaluate it, and can’t compare your argument to his. This would help me to understand your argument.
Part two:
The above does not seem to have anything to do with what comes immediately before or after it.
Do you mean the “X=” statement above? If so, how is it a theorem, and for that matter, what is its interpretation? Do you mean something else? If so, then let’s have it before we start talking about it so much!
You will need to explain how “values” can be in the “foundation” of a theorem. Now I myself subscribe to a view which I might formulate by saying that fundamental assumptions reflect the values of the one assuming. But it doesn’t seem like that’s what you mean, at least not from what follows. So what do you mean? We don’t generally think of “values” as being part of the foundation of a “theorem.” The two terms don’t generally compute together for most people.
Here “=” is to be interpreted as “is the root of”?! Why use such a non-standard notation? And what exactly does “is the root of” mean? Just “is a necessary condition for?” If so, then why not use the material conditional?
A very strong and controversial claim which can’t simply be stated baldly like this. A lot of people disagree with what you just said. It’s true you can’t do everything you need to do in a paper, and there will always be people who disagree with something in your paper. But who is your audience supposed to be? Are they for the most part going to give you this claim? If not, you need to at least acknowledge this, if not at least make some gestures towards making it plausible, answering some counterarguments, something.
You seem to intend simply to take your stand on claims like this, which can be fine, but you will rapidly lose the attention of your readers as they become less and less sympathetic.
e1 is the root of c1? Or e1 is the same as c1? And how does “Experience is different around the world” “give rise to the form” e1 = c1? What does it mean to “give rise to the form” anyway? Does “give rise to” mean “suggest?” “Show conclusively?” “To be expressible by?” Or what?
Also, from “experience is different around the world” and “Each individual experiences a psychological separation of the ego from the rest of existence,” it doesn’t follow that all consciousness can be termed as singular. For one thing, you don’t make it clear what it means to say consciousness can be termed as singular. Do you mean consciousness can be understood as a series of conscious moments? Do you mean each individual’s consciousness can be understood as a unit, separate from other individuals’ consciousnesses? Something else? I don’t know. Anyway, just taking it as you worded it, we have the argument:
Each individual experiences a psychological separation of the ego from the rest of existence.
Experience is different around the world.
From premise 2, we conclude c1=e1.
Therefore, consciousness can be termed as singular in the form: c1, c2, c3 and so on.
The conclusion doesn’t follow. For line three does not follow from line 2. Line two says nothing about consciousness, but line three does–which means line three doesn’t follow from line two. The conclusion says something about how things can be “termed” but remarks about how things can be “termed” show up nowhere in the argument as exposited, and so the conclusion does not follow from the argument. It’s a simple nonsequitor, like saying “Cats are mammals, mammals have hair, therefore frogs have scales.”
From e1 = c1 = t1 (which you’ve failed to explain or prove) you can’t conclude that “the values are the substratum for X.” First of all, I don’t see “the values” in “e1 = c1 = t1.” I know from your remarks above that “the values” are rooted in experience (and so, it seems, in consciousness and theoretical understanding) but this in no way suggests that the values are the substratum for anything, let alone X. Rather, it suggests that e1, c1 and t1 are the substratum for the values, since it is the values that are rooted in ect1, not the other way around. Not only do we have no valid suggestion that “the values” are a substratum for anything, moreover there’s no explanation why they should be the substratum for X in particualar. You say something about a “matrix” but you haven’t explained what this is supposed to be referring to. A matrix is generally supposed to be an indexed collection of values (in the mathematical sense, not the ethical sense). What is your matrix a collection of? How is it indexed?
Relevance not clear at all, and content not very clear. The formula follows no syntax I know of. What is the interpretation of the minus sign? How do I evaluate the truth value of the “=” operator here? In general, when is “(A^B)=C” true and when is it false? Such a formula does not exist in any standard (or any nonstandard) logic (that I know of) and so I need to have these things explained.
Since you’ve given us almost no help in interpreting the symbolism of “the matrix,” I can not evaluate your claim that it only assumes the existence of t1 and ~t1.
What comes after “thus” could only plausibly follow from what comes before if “the matrix” is demonstrated to be a universal law. I haven’t seen a demonstration of that. You’ve written it down, but you have not explained it, and you have not demonstrated it. You seem to have tried to demonstrate something else (e1 = c1 = t1) but that is not, as far as I can tell, “the matrix” that is supposed to be a universal constant, and that is supposed to be express a universal value of preservation. Anyway, your demonstration of that latter formula was deeply flawed as I have explained above.
How does it (the right to be) imply that? Surely it doesn’t imply the right to freedom from all possibility of danger or death?
Relevance? Is this supposed to support your argument? Illustrate its conclusion? Change the subject? Or what?
You will need to demonstrate how denying one group’s rights is denying everyone’s rights. I can imagine ways this might go, but you need to explain it and work it out so we know what you are talking about.
As far as I can tell, your basic idea is this:
For there to be a struggle between theories at all, there must be people to struggle, and for there to be people to struggle, certain requirements of freedom must be met.
From this I can conclude that if there is a struggle between theories, then those requirements of freedom have been met.
Or I can conclude that if the struggle between theories is to be valued, then the requirements of freedom must be met.
But the first does not seem to be the kind of conclusion you are after, and the second seems closer but relies on the iffy premise that the struggle between theories is to be valued.
I’ll skip much of the last section in the interests of time.
V. The Theorem: The Great Plan
We are once back to the question: what can unify world opinion? Recall as I showed that experience is stronger than reason in the form: e1 = c1 = t1 which is the form of an individual experience. What if human beings could be united by experience and not reason? An experience (e) on a global scale (ge) would necessarily translate into: ge = gc = gt.
[/quote]
“Necessarily translate into?” No, you’re simply stating your notational convention. There’s nothing necessary about that, nor anything that anyone could possibly object to.
You are presupposing there can be such a thing as a global experience, I think. That is a strong claim which needs a lot more development.
Also, it is not true that if there is a global consciousness, there is no distinction between “I” and “We.” It could be that each individual retains her “I” identity while at the same time engaging in activity which contributes directly to the cognition of the “We” identity. If you can buy the idea that an anthill cognizes, then you can see that individual ants have their own identity even as their activities together contribute to the cognizing activity of the anthill itself.
You have not even begun to explain what it would mean to “plug in the new values” here. We don’t know how to interpret the formulas you’ve given us, and we do not know where “values” can be “plugged in” to them.
Your use of the three dots here reminds me of the South Park episode in which some characters show a chart going something like this:
Plan For World Domination:
- Steal underpants.
- ???
- Profit!
You need to explain how your formulas are put together syntactically, and what rules of inference are supposed to work on them, before we can understand how “X = [(gt)]” is supposed to follow from your general formula for X as given above together with “ge1 = gc1 = gt1.”
-FrL-
I am actually a grad student. But you already knew that, you’re just trying to piss me off. Isn’t the internet wonderful so people who never graduated from college can sound off as if they are Professor Emeritus. Seriously, it’s really cute what you wrote and I wish sarcasm was up to par with geniune wit. Thanks for admitting you didn’t read it; I knew it was a bit beyond your ken.
Erratum: In the very first paragraph of my response, I had intended to delete the sentence “IT doesn’t do anything for you in the rest of your paper anyway” since I soon realized that it sets the stage for the main point of the paper. Sorry about that.