The other week my wife asked me whether she looked better in the green dress or the blue one. “How can you be so utterly ignorant in your approach” I scolded her, “all this talk of arbitrary values such as ‘green’ and ‘blue’, Wavelengths woman, Wavelengths!!” I didn’t think it even appropriate to tackle her obvious ignorance to the fact that colour is merely a perceptive artifact, occuring entirely in the mind, neither did I bother correcting her to the effect that it isn’t the dress that has any colur that can be percieved, it’s the light reflected by the dress; sheesh! some people are just too stupid for words.
Then again, the other day, she called me ‘Love’; “can I make you a cup of coffee Love?” was the precise wording If I recall - I was busy fixing one of my experiments, but I couldn’t let that pass without comment. “Please don’t cloud the issue by using such vague and unscientific terms as ‘love’; what you percieve to be love is merely the sum of a set of electro-chemical reactions that are driven by purely biological processes such as reproduction and security”. What is the matter with some people?
When will people wake up and realise that science is the only truth?
And so we bring a close to this week’s episode of “I Married a Vulcan.” Tune in next week, when after a perfectly logical and reasoned discussion on the pros and cons of parenthood, Mangetout’s wife goes upside his head with a skillet.
This (or rather Mangetout’s linked trigger thread) has made me think of one of my favourite songs, “Into My Arms” by Mr Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds. It stats of with Mr Cave intoning in his delectable bass-baritone voice the following lines:
“I don’t believe in an interventionist God,
But darlin’ I know that you do”.
(That’s fair use, right?)
Ought to go and listen to it now. Perhaps an “interesting” night’s dream featuring Mr Cave will ensue. I almost hope not. If it’s anything like last night’s “interesting” dream featuring Mr Sami Hyypia of Liverpool FC, I shall be spent for the week.
How is “sum of a set of electro-chemical reactions that are driven by purely biological processes such as reproduction and security” vague? How is it unscientific?
Also …
So, is color merely a perceptive artifact, or is it a property of light? First you say the former, then you say the latter. Equivocation!
A pretty good rant (6.3), but it would be better with more internal consistency.
I knew we were of like minds. Now all that’s left is for you to cast off your sentimental ties to the snow pea and we shall dwell together in our hypothetical solution space
Anyway, Mangetout, I don’t understand what’s all this to do over logic. We all know that the world is mostly an illogical place because there’s no rhyme or reason why men and women do some of the stuff they do. I don’t care how many forumlas, equations, or whatever you have. When it comes to dealing with folks, hon, you just have to be flexible and go with the flow.
i agree with you completely Mangetout. Such ignorance is both inconsiderate and unforgivable.
hmmm… wait… it appears i have unknowingly fallen into a trap of my own creation. ‘ignorance’? ‘inconsiderate’?! ‘unforgivable’?!!! what was i thinking?!?!?!
I see that your name also means “eat it all” and I consider this an unscientific (if not vague) insult to all of us. I shall therefore carefully not look at any screen names from now on in order to avoid your filthy advances.
**You see, this is the sort of misunderstanding that totally cripples the intellect of the layperson; re-reading the sentence, it is crystal clear that it is the verbal expression ‘love’ which is referred to as vague, not the underlying processes described as being responsible for the phenomenon.
Hardly; how can I explain this in terms that you would understand, Ah!, sometimes it is necessary for us to consider light to be composed of particles, other times it is convenient to consider it formed of waves when in fact neither view is strictly correct or complete, so you see science is littered with what, to the uneducated, appear to be contradictions.
When considering the system or set of systems that we might conveniently label ‘mind’ and considering how these systems interface to the outside world, it is useful for us to ignore the properties of whatever is being percieved as nothing can be percieved directly, however, were we to measure the properties of the reflected light using an instrument that you probably have never heard of, but which we call a spectrometer, the light will be found to have properties that correspond with certain parts of the visible electromagnetic spectrum, but in this case, it is quite valid to overlook or take for granted the role of perception as this is external to the system in which the measurements are taking place.
This statement is meaningless unless you also define the extent of the scale; please try to be more explicit.
I’m glad we had this talk; please don’t hesistate to ask if you have any further uninformed, illogical views that I can easily clarify under the cold light of scientific reason.
I am afraid I can not summon much sympathy for you and your diatribe, Magnetout. You have failed to prove, either through straightforward argument or with reductions ad absurdem, how the UNscientific method has affected your marriage. Although various UNscientific programs around the world may cause controversy, they are irrelevant in your case, and your criticism is unfounded.
The choice of the blue or green dress is more of a political matter, and therefore outside the scope of the international scientific community. If you need intervention in matrimonial relations due to increased tension in the region, you may request the presence of sky-blue helmeted peace-keepers, but intervention and security concerns are not the role of UN scientific personel.
what? oh… never mind.
I have just realized, Mangetout, that there is a fatal flaw in your initial experiment which renders it useless. As we both know, for any scientific experiment to be valid or usefull, there must be a test group and a control group. Where, Sir, is your control wife?
Now, we (being the educated folk we are) are all well aware that Dante (as related in Canto XXXIV of the Inferno) discovered at the center of the Ninth Circle of Hell, that the place is, indeed, covered in ice and that
while the ruler of that realm
So, it seems that, (her coy protestation notwithstanding), The Peyote Coyote appears to be offering to stand in as the control wife.
