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I’m incredible, arrogant, and deluded, but not for the reasons you argue

Dear Anonymous,

Wow, I haven’t had an anonymous comment in a while. I’d actually grown to miss them! And I’m not even being facetious. I like anonymous comments. I even argued for them here.

Anyway, here’s the comment. I’ve split it up to respond to each part.

Forgive my sounding like a jerk, please, but you can’t be serious.
If you claim to know the answers to all of these questions, you are incredibly arrogant and deluded.

You don’t sound like a jerk and I’m not really serious. The post was mostly tongue-in-cheek. I was trying to come up with a list of 100 things and ended up locking myself into that style. I realized my list should have included much more history, but then I realized how little valuable history I knew.

More than anything, the post was an attempt to show that— no matter who we are— our education could always be improved. I was trying to list human realizations, accomplishments, and discoveries that people should be aware of as part of our cumulative heritage. Does that seem fair enough?

“What is a black hole?” Really? You know? Publish!

A black hole is an area of condensed mass so great that even light cannot escape. Extra credit would go to anyone who used the terms ‘Hawking radiation,’ ‘quantum mechanics,’ ‘general relativity,’ ‘quantum gravity,’ ‘event horizon,’ or ‘spaghettification.’ Double-extra credit for the last one. My post didn’t ask for precise knowledge, only working knowledge, which I have just provided.

“What do Muslims/Christians/Hindus/etc believe?” You think that they all believe the same thing?

They should if they’re being logically consistent with their beliefs. But even though most people cherry-pick their faith, there are core tenets of certain faiths that all members have in common. For instance, I cannot call myself a Muslim while simultaneously believing Mohammed was a wanker who conned everyone. I can have Muslim-like beliefs, but Islam-proper is removed from my grasp. I have no problem with people believing different things than other members of their faith, I just want people to have a general outline of what these faiths imply because I think it’s important to know your world.

“What is gravity?” What is a force? Please tell us.

Gravity is the force mass exerts on other mass in the form of pull. The net result is always that the smaller object gets pulled into the larger object. Force is mass times acceleration unless you’re being ‘deep,’ in which case I have no idea what you’re aiming at.

“Explain quantum theory” Wow. This just shows your ignorace. (sic)

If you didn’t get the joke, how could you single out the punchline? I know nobody can explain quantum theory just like I know nobody (myself included) has full knowledge of all the things on that list. That’s why it’s on there: to call attention to itself and the absurdity of the list. Sorry if that went over your head, perhaps I should have been less subtle. ((*WHOOSH*))

I’m sure you get the idea. Give me a break.
And you clearly need to do some reading on metaphysics–you don’t know what “is” means. Get rid of this list and start back there–look up “ontology”.

🙂 That’s rich. You realize I’m a philosopher, right? “Is” is a form of “to be.” Aristotle specified two forms of “is” into qualitative identity and numerical identity. To say that something is something else is to imply that it has properties similar to the other thing (qualitative) or that it is necessary and sufficient to form that thing (numerical). I think you imagine me to be using the second form, when in reality I’m using a more colloquial speech to better suite my readers. I could use a more precise formal language, but that seems counter-productive.

Ontology is the study of being. I always remember by thinking of the exact opposite as “Offtology,” ha ha. I’m not sure why you mentioned ontology at all. It’s tangential at best, irrelevant at worst. If you’ll tell me, I’d gladly respond.

I imagine you’re an undergrad at York University interested in philosophy of science and checking your favourites tab from your work in an office or something. I don’t think you really want to get into a flame war. You probably just took the previous post too literal and too arrogant, then mistook my personality from that post and commented in an attempt to show me the ‘light.’

How far off am I?

—Pixelation Qyw Styx

Dear Anonymous, Wow, I haven’t had an anonymous comment in a while. I’d actually grown to miss them! And I’m not even being facetious. I like anonymous comments. I even argued for them here. Anyway, here’s the comment. I’ve split it up to respond to each part. Forgive my sounding like a jerk, please, but…

2 Comments

  1. That anonymous commenter was a total hose bag.

    Not that I’m the end-all, be-all .. but I thoroughly enjoyed that post. Checked out a few links on stuff I wanted to brush up on, smiled when I actually knew something & then reminded myself that obviously? I need to remember I’m a big idiot in the grand scheme of things.

    Heh.

  2. Deutlich,

    I’m glad my post actually hit the target with the fans I care about. 🙂

    But yeah, I expected people to disagree with the items in the list or call me arrogant, but I didn’t expect a full repudiation. I also didn’t realize I was being so subtle when I said, “explain quantum theory. Use examples.”

    Oh, well. I welcome civil disagreement. It makes me defend my positions better.