Planck limits

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>It appears to me that you perceive my comments in an exclusively negative sense. Thus the positive meaning of those gets muted.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

When a message and an attack are mixed together, only the attack is perceived. Your message was wasted because parties of all persuasions saw only the attack.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>No single party in the dispute should be allowed control over premises. Single-sided tinkering with the premises should be uniformly considered as unfair tactic.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

It is fair in science to say that your opponents premises are flawed or even based on a "logical error". It is unfair in science to say the error was "deliberate" because that simply insults your opponent by questioning his motives, but accomplishes nothing with respect to the merit of the issue.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Winning a dispute when the opponent controls the premises is next to impossible. And winning disputes is crucial to defending truths or even verities.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

You should have made an argument that the premises were invalid. By attacking your opponents motives, any such message was lost to everyone. You made it appear that you had no merit for your position, and needed to attack your opponent to change the subject because you were losing.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>(BTW, that's why you can't win in disputes with the orthodox relativists - they simply privatize the premises and refuse to come to common grounds.)<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

My experience is that the road is long and tough. But by patiently addressing every issue in a clear and definite way, one can win allies and even get published in mainstream journals. Your strategy does not seem to recognize that mainstream relativity controls the funding, the journals, and the agenda; and that they have far more people and resources than any reformer can possibly bring to bear. The example of David and Goliath notwithstanding, the attack strategy against an opponent with superior numbers and backing seems doomed to failure.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Being caught tinkering with the premises one is accused of unfair tactics by that very fact. According to your own declarations, such accusation is a personal attack of itself.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

No. Your attack was the use of the word "deliberate", which indicated that your opponent was not acting in good faith. This implies that you already know the truth, you represent the good side, and your opponents are acting dishonestly, deliberately, or with malice of forethought. How can an intellectual discussion, much less a learning process, continue under such a premise?

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>And it surely feels like that to the guilty party.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

Your very choice of words betrays you. Your opponent in an intellectual debate is simply using all available strategies to defend his/her sincerely held position. There is no cause for "guilt" in that, even if ultimately proved wrong.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>So there's an option for the guilty party to claim being attacked personally, without addressing the matters in question, and that's exactly what we've seen in this thread.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

However, my own position nominally more closely resembles yours than Enrico's. Yet I clearly saw this as a personal attack on Enrico, one that could have no effect but to make him very angry, which it did. I do not agree with his response, which was to counter-attack. But I see clearly who changed the subject away from the merits and onto the integrity of the participants -- a tactic normally used by someone who perceives himself as losing on the merits. You did that. So you cannot claim that objecting to an attack is a diversionary tactic when you were the first to create a diversion.

If your goal was to derail the discussion, you obviously succeeded very well. But we do not plan to allow that sort of tactic on this Message Board. OTOH, if your goal was other than derailing the discussion, you might want to review your tactics, because derailment is what you got.

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Thus your limitations against "personal attacks" get unfairly exploited; and that's only to be expected since fairness is not as widespread a virtue as one would like it to be.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

I thought Enrico represented his position fairly and well. Any discussion ends well if both parties leave it with new ideas to think over, and part amicably. People need time to change their minds because there are other consequences of our beliefs that take time to examine. It is not unusual to run into someone later and find they have completely changed their mind. Sometimes, they even pay you the ultimate "compliment" by quoting back something you said verbatim, having so thoroughly assimilated it that they have forgotten where they learned it. Sometimes, if you pay attention, you may even find yourself doing the same thing with things learned in debates with others. <img src=icon_smile.gif border=0 align=middle>

But if you react to frustration in defending a position by attacking, you will have very little success in life in communicating your viewpoints to others, or in unlearning things where you are on the side of the issue that is ultimately proved wrong. One can only advance one's knowledge rapidly by constantly putting one's beliefs at risk of falsification. People unwilling to do that may seldom have the experience of being found wrong, but create their own roadblocks to advancing their knowledge and understanding. Moreover, most people do not want to even attempt to argue with someone who can never admit error or back away from a losing proposition. Your opinions then get discounted even before you articulate them. -|Tom|-

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>[TVF] No. Your attack was the use of the word "deliberate", which indicated that your opponent was not acting in good faith.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>Tom, now your accusations are simply unjust. My post contained a specific notion against such an interpretation. And that was after the opponent openly attacked me in another thread, btw.
In any case a "deliberate mistake" is still a *mistake*, not a *lie*, i.e. something left there due to belief in general non-importance of the mistake or to any other conscious reason. So you really are taking my words totally out of context...

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>In any case a "deliberate mistake" is still a *mistake*, not a *lie*, i.e. something left there due to belief in general non-importance of the mistake or to any other conscious reason. So you really are taking my words totally out of context...<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

I cannot tell if you are oblivious to the meaning of your words or simply do not take kindly to being corrected. I said a few messages ago that I was trying to allow for inuendos not being familiar to those for whom English is a second language.

"Deliberate" means "carefully thought out and done intentionally". "Lie" means "to deliberately say something untrue". So I don't know what distinction you think you see here, but I am assuring you it is not real. A "deliberate logical error" is indeed a "lie". And whether the criticism is valid or not, the phrase deals with imputed motives and not with the merits of the issue, so it is a change of subject, a diversion.

Besides that, it is the custom among courteous people in this culture, upon seeing that we have angered someone even without any intention to do so, to apologize for causing a misunderstanding. That way, the offended party at least knows we did not intend to offend.

Perhaps, as you claim, the first insult occurred in another thread and you were just retaliating. I did not see that, and the Moderator and I will certainly be more vigilant in the future. But just as I did not allow Enrico to retaliate against you, I cannot allow you to retaliate against him.

There was a similar incident in the "mark" fiasco where you said something ambiguous that might be read as an insult or might not. Mark took it as an insult and went ballistic. That makes you an instigator, allegedly "innocently", in both incidents. It seems reasonable to conclude that your posting style is at least subject to misinterpretation as personal insults, even if that is not what you intended. I am therefore requesting you to take special care so that, in the future, there is less room for misinterpretation. When you read something that ticks you off, visualize the other party saying it with a smile. We are all more tolerant of speech if the speaker is smiling. -|Tom|-

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>[TVF]"Deliberate" means "carefully thought out and done intentionally".<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>That's more or less true, it rather means "thought out" or "intentional". Your definition must be closer to your personal vocabulary or you are over-emphasizing the word's meaning.<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>A "deliberate logical error" is indeed a "lie".<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>No, it is not; a "lie" does imply an intention to deceive, which a "mistake" clearly does not.<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>And whether the criticism is valid or not, the phrase deals with imputed motives and not with the merits of the issue, so it is a change of subject, a diversion.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>Imputed motives exactly, and those motives are the willful neglect of physicality of the problems; the opponent has made those motives abundantly clear in his earlier posts in the other thread. My intention was to bring the discussion to those motives and their consequences that actually constitute the root cause of the whole argument in this thread! So I attempted no change of subject or diversion - exactly the opposite!<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Perhaps, as you claim, the first insult occurred in another thread and you were just retaliating.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>I specifically was not retaliating here, and I posted exactly on topic. My tone was rather harsh, yet civil.<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>There was a similar incident in the "mark" fiasco where you said something ambiguous that might be read as an insult or might not.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>This is not true. I restrained from any insults till the very end of that debacle; unless saying that someone "got it wrong" is an insult. But then again, when one wants to find an insult - he/she finds it everywhere.

P.S. Tom, do you understand that you have accused me here of a lot of bad things that I never actually did? Would that qualify for an insult?

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Tom, do you understand that you have accused me here of a lot of bad things that I never actually did? Would that qualify for an insult?<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

I apologize for any insult you might perceive. It was not intended. What I intended was a caution. If a similar incident occurs in the future, our Moderator or I might be obliged to step in again to keep this Message Board on a scientific level in accord with the policies established by our Board of Directors. Although you have not yet crossed the line, you have come close. What would be unfair is if we did not draw this to your attention in advance, then had to deliver an unpleasant surprise during some later discussion.

If you regard this caution or guidance as an insult, then we may already have a problem that cannot be fixed, and should part company now while we are still friends.

But neither of us wants that to happen -- now or in the future. So let's not take any risks. Is what I am asking of you clear? Do you agree it is reasonable for me to ask it? And are you willing to try to avoid even the appearance of personal insults to others? (If one does happen truly by accident, an apology will usually fix the accident before it causes long-term damage.) -|Tom|-

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>I apologize for any insult you might perceive. It was not intended. What I intended was a caution.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>I don't really feel insulted by you personally, so apologies weren't necessary. And I do understand that you acted with good intentions. The problem is that good intentions can't excuse unjust and overly subjective policing; and I still can't decide if such an event has happened.<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>If a similar incident occurs in the future, our Moderator or I might be obliged to step in again to keep this Message Board on a scientific level in accord with the policies established by our Board of Directors.<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>The policies you declare allow for too much subjectiveness, and as such contain a potential threat (trap) to posters and to the moderators on this board, IMO. I can only hope that accidents of overly subjective policing never happen at this board in the future, be that with or without my immediate participation. I shall respect the imposed moral requirements only while such are out of conflict with my conscience.