User talk:Ryguasu

Thank you for your note on basic process. My thought is that this is a good example of how useful wikipedia is for exposing to someone who has an idea that it is indeed new work. I am actually quite surprised that someone has not explored this concept. Hopefully I will be able to in some other context regardless of what happens here. Fredbauder 16:00 Nov 12, 2002 (UTC)

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Belated welcome and good luck. I've noticed quite a bit of your work, but when you agreed with me under "Votes for Deletion" I felt I had to drop by and say hello. My user name, too, is specifically designed to be "the only one in the world". Ortolan88

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Hi there - I've answered your Sanskrit/page moving query on my talk page. --Camembert

By the way: I'm curious as to why you think definition of music has "too much silliness" in it. I wrote a lot of that article (it's a work in progress, of course, and needs a lot of tidying, organisation, and elaboration), so feel a sort of parental responsibility towards it :) --Camembert

Most of my objections to definition of music revolve around rejecting the idea that music can be defined in any sensible way at all. I certainly don't object to covering attempts at defining music, and I think the article as stands gives an interesting summary of these attempts. But I think the article could use more context RE the potential futility of any definition of music, as well as some discussion of why people have attempted to define music; it certainly isn't an everyday activity, or a very useful one. =)

Once I figure out how much of this has to do with music in particular and how much has to do with attempts at definition in general (which I view as quite problematic), I might add some comments to the article.

One issue the article must face, thanks to its name, is what conception of "definition" is being used. My strongest objections are to definitions in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions (at least when they occur outside of math.) If "definition" is meant in a looser sense, as a synomym for "what is music?" then my objections are probably less. Some of these issues could potentially be cleared up by changing to name of the article, say, to "What is music?"

In the end, I don't have a very clear sense of how to resolve these half-formed worries. That is why I have placed the article on my list of "silliness", rather than make useful edits. --Ryguasu 15:54 Dec 2, 2002 (UTC)

Thanks for your response - I have sympathy with a lot of what you say. I think we're coming at the article from quite different directions, however: I used to be a music student, and sat around for god knows how many hours in utterly useless (in my view) chin-rubbing seminars discussing what music is. Complete waste of time - all you discover is that nobody agrees, and even if agreement could be reached, what good would it do? But, I also have had experiences of playing a piece of contemporary music and having people say "oh, but that's not music!" because it "doesn't have a tune" or whatever. Yet such things are "music" to a lot of people (the composers for one, me for another). I think that in that sense, people do actually make judgements about what music is every day - for instance, they put on a CD and listen to it as music, but they don't listen to traffic noise in the same way.

As you say, some of these problems can perhaps be solved by just avoiding the word "definition". "What is music?" sounds a bit rhetorical for an encyclopaedia article, but it's not a bad idea, certainly.

Anyway, thanks again for the response - it's got me thinking about the article anew. Hopefully I'll be able to improve it somewhat one day - that article is hard work though :) --Camembert

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sorry I hadnt gotten back to you on the Grok issue,- Im not too concerned with it. however 'intuitive understnding might have substance outside of the Heinlen book, which i havent read, and am only groking an understanding of.. ;) --Stevertigo

on Raelzm - Im not going to add any more, except to say youre point is well taken. Still, there is a necessity to separate claims from the facts. They are a sect. they claim to these abilities, realities. etc. lets not be too confused into mixing the two together, as those who are of this cult would prefer. still some things are claims which are fundamental to their identity, and these are facts. Just a clarification. i dont think were in disagreement. -thx. Sv

"deep thoughts": no, just pointing out that special interests tend to like the lines blurred - this is universal. I dont want to beat this boring subject to death. "blatant" may be the wrong word. The line should be clear, though. this separates the factual from the claim. Catering to carelessness - this may be confusing the simple with the simplistic. Simple, good. And yes, it's all very case-by-case. --Sv

On the redirects: Agreed, delete them. Though I can find other things that might be more interestng. I shant be attached, though. No prob. -Sv

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Hi. I was the one who made the comment about market efficiency concerning "insider trading."

I read your comment on the insider trading talk page and just want to mention that I do agree with your comments -- the view I was representing on the help page was what I take to be the view of neo-classical economists (which I am not) who do define efficiency their own way, and do make the claims about markets, efficiency, and complete knowledge. I do agree with you that one can (and should) question both their definitions of efficiency, and the construction of a model that assumes total information. But I do think it is this model that is at least a partial basis for codes penalizing insider trading. Slrubenstein

-on NVN, etal. no, i dont think people with superiority complexes can get very far (in a genuinely democratic system at least) , and I appreciate your follow up. if my writing was ambiguous, it was somewhat deliberate, and done in the attempt to navigate the ambiguous reality behind NVN. Its a good article though, and taking on a cultural charachter, rather than a scientific one, because thats largely what NVN is, where science can deal with NVN as a serious issue, politicians (i.e. culture) et al, often latch onto the euphemism as if it were science.

The issue of genetic testing for employment - (insurance/health risk factors) is a very hot topic culturally, though superior thinkers, like Justice Breyer, et al, will see through it simply as a question of conflicting purposes - employer costs, vs employee privacy. Very, very ambiguous and murky stuff. But once again ive gone on too long.... --Sv

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Greetings. Your article on Computer Vision was the first one that I read in the Wikipedia.

I am an engineer working in machine vision, which is essentially computer vision (an academic area of research) applied to factory automation. Perhaps I'll be writing to you in the talk pages related to these topics. Rethunk

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It was good of you to provide a force to prevent the removal of the racism section by me, or someone else, from the SARS page. I'm now seeing this stuff in the news more and more so it definitely has a place on the SARS page. Thanks. dave 00:43 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

I agree. The dispute over the racism section of the SARS article has motivated me to go out and actually look for evidence. THe article's not bad now, I think. Thanks to both of you. Jfitzg

Hope you got my e-mails about Karl Popper. The Wikipedia article is probably a better source of information, though. Jfitzg

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The Wikipedia articles on the laws of con-contradiction are not as clear as they could be. Would you mind taking a whack at our articles on Law of excluded middle and Law of non-contradiction? In particular, how could we give an example showing how the these are similar, and how they are diferent? Functionally, when are they practically identical? What examples can best show us when differences between these laws arise? RK 20:14 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Ah, I was about to ask the same thing. I see you're interested in logic, could you have a look at bivalence and related laws? Specifically, do you know anything about fuzzy logic and the like? If so, have a look at the last section and see if what I've written is totally wrong. If you have time and feel so inclined, of course. :-) Evercat 00:12 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think you both overestimate my knowledge in this area. I do have an interest in logic, but I haven't found all that much time to pursue it. Perhaps I'll eventually get around to learning more about some of these fine distinctions and updating the articles. But no promises. --Ryguasu 03:54 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)