User talk:Lacatosias/Archive1

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Hi, Lacatosias/Archive1, Welcome to Wikipedia!

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Comments

Lacatosias, it's perfectly normal not to receive comments often. I rarely got comments when i first started, and they were mostly "You forgot to tag your images" or similar. I'm actually very impressed with your edits on the philosophy articles, especially for such a short period of time, and imagine others would be too; the lack of comments probably means your edits are welcome, appreciated, and there are no problems with them. The same with the Jerry Fodor article; i've created several articles that practically no-one edits; it just means they're excellent as you've created them. And as for the longest article, i have no idea; many of the religion articles, like Buddhism, Judiasm, Islam, etc. are very long; homosexuality is also very long; just off the top of my head. When you're editing a long article, it says at the top "This article is over x kilobytes; this may be too long." The lists can also get very long. You can check out Special:Longpages if you're curious. Anyway, be patient, and keep up the good work! СПУТНИК^{ССС Р} 13:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Alright. Thank you for the explanation and the encouragement.--Lacatosias 15:25, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Wallace Stevens

I'm fairly certain that none of Stevens's poems are in the public domain. If I find out different, I'll let you know, however. Hydriotaphia 15:21, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... I suspected as much. Thanks again.--Lacatosias 15:33, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Fodor

Thanks for your excellent article about Jerry Fodor. There are only a few good articles about philosophy of mind at Wikipedia. For this reason, an excellent article about Fodor is very important. If you also like to add a passage about Fodors arguments against reductionism and especially his special science argument, you could use this figure from the german Wikipedia. Thanks again. --Davidlud 13:04, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks...

Thank you for the input recommendations and collaboration above all, which is all I was really after. But thanks for the status vote as well.--Lacatosias 16:58, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

No problem. joturner 16:59, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Another thanks for the work you put into the Fodor article. It is very difficult to write clearly on such topics, but you have succeeded. Well done. Banno 21:23, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Formatting

Dear Lacat, I guess after our "rocky start" we did get along after all? ;-)

I responded on the "charisma" issue over at Talk:Adolf Hitler.

Another thing: It seems to me that you have some difficulty with the formatting - if you use the colon(s) to indent a post, take care to type the colon(s) everytime you start another paragraph, otherwise the next paragraph will again start at the start of the line.

If you don't have that problem and the occurences today were only accidents, than don't mind my advice.

Cheers, Str1977 19:02, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Re: Ganesha and a barnstar to relax

In answer to your question, I think you need a barnstar, so at least someone appreciates your effort here.

I award this barnstar for your numerous valuable contribtutions to Wikipedia DaGizza^{Chat ©} 12:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Hitler

Hello Lacatosias, since you have a cool head, I'd like to refer you to the Adolf Hitler article which User:Wyss is trying to monopolize with reverts and so-called "neutral" language (ie omitting facts). I suspect that someone will block me for participating in the revert war, so I'm asking you to make sure that this "encyclopedia" doesn't get all soft on Hitler. -- Simonides 03:07, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

PS since you seem new, BlueGoose and Wyss are "pals" who play the tag game - ie enforcing one POV by reverting alternatively so that the opposite party reaches 3 reverts first. -- Simonides 03:10, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

If you've worked that out, wouldn't the next logical step be simply not to make the fourth revert...? Alai 03:38, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm...I still don't know what to make of all this. I'm obviously on your side when it comes to the question of eliminating facts or whitewashing the nature of history in the name of protecting the artifical and meaningless "neutrality" of language. As I wrote on talk:Hitler, in order to be neutral, in the sense of balanced, about Hitler one would have to provide the Hitlerian, pro-Nazi POV on the matter on an equal level with that of those who oppose Nazism. Somewhere or other, I made the comparison between this situation and that of Holocaust denial, creationism, flat earth theorists and other "positions" that people take on various issues. How is it possible to be NPOV about Holocaust denial?? Just state the facts?? Of course, but it is precisley the facts that the Holocaust denier refuses to acknowledge, citing far-out and extremist sources to defend his allegations that nothing ever happened. I have always been of the view that NPOV is impossible, except as an ideal toward which to aim. But that's a long discussion that is going on in the NPOV versus balance metaforum, or something like that.

In any case, this tag-team elimination this that you referred to is extremely disturbing, if true. I can only promise to do my best to ensure that no important facts and serious contibutions are deleted in the name of rendering the article NPOV. As I also wrote on that page: wrt Adolf Hitler, NPOV IS a POV called neutralism or whitewashing. I wrote that in an edit summary, BTW, and was lashed at by Wyss for just having a POV with respect to Hitler. He wrote: "This reveals a blatant POV!!" Ummm....yeah, of course it does!! I cetainyl do HAVE a POV wrt to AH. Is even this disallowed for contributors to the Wikipedia?? If so, we're moving into thought police territory. Very disoncerting, and perhaps revealing.

Having said all that, the majority obviously rules in a system of direct democracy and I don't want to get caught up in an Ibsenesque unwinnable battle againt the "sacred majority" over this one page, since I have much more to contribute in other sections of the encyclopedia that are useful and well-organized. --Lacatosias 08:11, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

== Ganesha ==

Thank you for your contributions! I was looking for vandalism and noticed your edits to that page. Although I didn't know anything about the subject previously, I found the article extremely interesting and informative. Thank you very much for your efforts. -- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 09:19, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• (Update a few hours later): You really do deserve a Barnstar for your efforts.

I award this Barnstar to Lacatosias for excellent contributions to article Ganesha

Thank you, ladies and gentlement. I almost feel like.....crying!! (; seriosuly, thanks for the barnie.

Grazie per Ganesha

Grazie Lacatosias! È un bravo articolo. With the amount of work you put in, it definately deserves to become a FA. I'll just check if there are any spelling mistakes and some sentences which could be simplified. I believe it will be good enough then, I honestly don't think anyone can oppose such a beautifully contructed article. The only thing which may need changing is the order of the information. Btw, some of the overlapping material was because of me, eg. I translated the Iconography. But my Italian is no way good enough to translate the whole article on a Hindu Elephant-headed God. It is especially difficult to translate the spiritual concepts!

Also when my newer computer gets fixed (using old one now), I would be able to add the Sanskrit/Devanagari names for Ganesha. DaGizza^{Chat ©} 12:35, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Vandal block

I've not vandalised anything, including France. Check my contributions, and sign your posts on talkpages.--TheDoctor10 (talk|email) 16:34, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Kindly reply to this message.--TheDoctor10 (talk|email) 16:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but you did accuse me of vandalism - check out the link.--TheDoctor10 (talk|email) 16:44, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Ah hah... No, sorry about that!! I posted that message which I copied from the userpage of an anon and which was attribted to you and then forgot to add the question which I intended to ask you, which was "How can I block this user becuae he has done it again?"

In the meantime, someone else blocked him and I posted the question on that page, leaving the idiotic-looking messgae on your page. Sorry about that. No accusation.--Lacatosias 16:49, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, fine. Note that only administrators can block people.--TheDoctor10 (talk|email) 16:54, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Philosophy of Mind

Great initiative! I will see what I can do to cooperate with this project the best I can. Porcher 18:00, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Jerry Fodor on mental architecture

I was thinking of adding some material on Fodor's opposition to the massive modularity hypothesis (which he articulates both in the original Modularity of Mind monograph, and more extensively in The Mind Doesn't Work That Way. Since you've done so much good work on the article I didn't want to jump straight in. Any ideas about how to incorporate the additional information? Cadr 02:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Anomalous Monism

Lacatosias, could you move Anomalous monism to Anomalous Monism? My username is so recent I'm not allowed to move pages yet. I'd really appreciate it (the latter form is the universally used, but only realized that after creating the article). --- Kripkenstein 15:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I will see which one has more links to it and then determine whether I should move it or just leave is and create a redirect. In either case, I can create a redirect to make sure that the links all end up at the same destination.--Lacatosias 15:19, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

All set, they go to the same place.--Lacatosias 15:22, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! The article looks great already, although we can certainly improve it. Collaboration with someone such as yourself surely is rewarding! -- Kripkenstein 22:14, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Work

Dear Lacatosias, thanks for the thought! I did not receive a welcome message, but that's not so bad since I've been using Wikipedia daily for around a year now :) As for my work, lately I've been taking the time to take a look at each article on the philosophy of mind and, as you say in your userpage, there's still very much to be done. Many many pages need attention, so I'll keep listing them there in the project page, although I think apart from you and me and maybe one or two people, there are no souls working on the project. That said, it is my pleasure to work along with you on the project. -- Kripkenstein 17:45, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

It's somewhat surprising to know that there are really so few people working on this stuff. Is it just philopshy of mind, or is there a lack of people working on philosophy in general? One would think that more people would be working on philosophy of mind than, say, epistemology or philosophy of language. In any case, I'll do my best to try to help improve this partcular area, even though it's not my specialization and I don't have all the resources necesary. The nearest library to me is in Naples (a good 3/4 of an hour by train), so I generally have to buy books or get copies of artiles on line to use as sources (besides what I can remeber from courses that Iìve taken). --Lacatosias 18:01, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Portal: Mind and Brain

Lookin' good over there Lacatosias. You may also be interested in our little project Wikipedia:WikiProject Neuroscience. I've left a note over there for people to check out the Portal. I may also work a bit on some of the content on the portal page.Let me know if you feel I'm stepping on your toes at any point however, ok? Great work! :) Semiconscious • talk 20:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Eliminative materialism

What do you say we try to expand this one now? It is a rather poor-looking article which needs to be expanded and divided into sections. --Kripkenstein 00:45, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

In a similar, but not so admirable frenzy as yours on our dear anomalous monism article, I've fairly expanded the eliminative materialism article. Your further help and peer review would be much appreciated! --Kripkenstein 04:45, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I will definitely take a look at it as soon as posisible. I tried to log on three times yesterday, but the server had gone completely wacky. Later that day, I accidentally crushed my eyeglasses and had to put on a backup pair, which, along with my problems asscoaited with Meniere's syndrome, has provoked some rather bizarre neurological difficulties. --Lacatosias 08:22, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I hope you are alright! Thank you very much for revisiting the article, I was dosing when I finished because it was around three o'clock in the morning. I will make some additions to it later in the day and with your help perhaps we can call it, and move to another poor article, such as dualism (philosophy of mind). --Kripkenstein 12:39, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

It looked fine and was already a vast improvement on what was there. The main thing I have done is add to the "arguments for" section sicnce I thought it was a bit scarse. Now I think it's pretty close to comprehensive. I was thinking about going on to functionalism, but dualism probably needs more help. I haven't wanted to touch it becasue it looks like the main problem with it is "controversy" and "neutrality". In this case, I suspect there are religious and other sensibilities involved. So it might not be a simple matter of filling in and improving the article, but also of conflict resolution or something. ?: --Lacatosias 13:39, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

An answer to the above is in my user talk page. While I'm here, I'd like to talk you about the dualism (philosophy of mind) article. These articles are messed up and full of "merging suggestions". I firstly thought that merging the articles was not a good idea and that we could simply expand these parallel articles, but it does seem like a lot of work. What we can do is merge the articles, turn dualism (philosophy of mind) into a complete and comprehensive article, and if this get out of hand (if the article becomes far too extensive), then in the future its sections can become separate articles, say on cartesian dualism, substance dualism and all that. Let me know what you think! (Oh, and as for the article dualism, I think it needs much improvement, but I think we owe it to ourselves to take care of dualism (philosophy of mind) first. --Kripkenstein 17:21, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I strongly support the idea of merging these articles into one. Note first of all that the Greman version is just fine (comprehensive, concise and compact in one artcile). Secondly,I don't think that dualism is an especially complex concept: the arguments for conisist essentially in the idea that physical exlantions are not enough, there must be something else out there, as it were, and this was most position was most clealy and cconvingly expressed by Deacretes as it is ever going to be. Lasly, Cartesiam dualism IS dualism, with a few subtle variatians here and there.The idea of a separate article is silliness. We may have to just take control of the page and rewrite it form scratch though--Lacatosias 18:28, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Taking a look at substance dualism and Cartesian dualism I arrived at the conclusion that they are simply worthless. I think we can start rewriting and re-organizating dualism (philosophy of mind) and when it is more or less done, we can ask for the speedy deletion of those two on the grounds that they are sections in the bigger article. --Kripkenstein 18:46, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I created a Sandbox, where I think I'll begin sketching the new article. I created empty sections just as a suggestion of the major divisions of the article. I think a historical overview is one of the most important features that this article will need and this is the section I'm going to start sketching now. You are by all means more than welcome to join in and edit the sandbox, if you are willing and have free time on your hands. If we do this as a collaboration and assigning specific tasks to ourselves, maybe we can pull this one off on our own. --Kripkenstein 18:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Fine with me. Right now, I have to get off-line though. Goodnight from Old Europe.--Lacatosias 19:04, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

"Good" articles

Back me up there, if you can. Also, I self-nominated Anomalous Monism for Good Article since I believe it is a good article, at least at the level of articles about philosophical concepts here. If you think it's too soon for a nomination, you're welcome to remove it. Cheers, --Kripkenstein 00:53, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I've backed you up on the other sites, but I would just like to point out that actually improving the articles you are talking about is my priority (espcially as one of them, at least, deals with my area of philosphy of science). A quick answre to your suggestions on semantic holism and eliminative materialism is that, since you didnìt particplate in writing semantic holism and you wrote, IMO, the bulk of eleiminative materialism, you can go ahead and put the GA status on SH it if you like it, while I can add GA status to EM as soon as I finish writing up thr refernces. Since we were both heavily involved in AM, it's a good idea to get input from others.--Lacatosias 08:58, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Semantic holism

Nothing is wrong with it as far as I've seen it, mate, I've just spent the day outside and haven't got around to reading it thoroughly and putting up the GA template on the talk page. Coming from you, I'm more than sure that it's a great article. --Kripkenstein 00:42, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Take it easy

Sorry if my comments seemed too personally hostile to your version, but the first sentence seemed to be a bit overwritten, if you'd like to discuss which version you like better that's fine. From the quote at the bottom of this page, If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it. An "is" was left out of the second sentence, I have no doubts that I know next to nothing about philosophy compared to you but there seemed to be a few simple mistakes and the goal behind having an encyclopedia anyone can edit is that we should be able to improve on each other's work. One of my personal concerns about articles getting too technical in any field is that they can be incomprehensible to anyone coming from the outside or overloaded with jargon. My attempt to edit an article isn't a criticism of your version or anything similar, just a way in which it could be made cleaner and more readable. --BigCow 09:49, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I got carried away. I actually agree that my own writing can get overspecialized and wordy very often. I somtimes forget that I need to keep in mind a general audience here. It's rather irritating to wake up in the morning, go on line and, after having contributed a tremedous amount of work voluntarily to something, notice that the only response or reaction is an edit summary that says "badly written in places , unintelliegible, etc.." This just by way of explanation for my emotional reaction. Anyway, most of your edits were fine. I will restore them and then see if I can't add something so that the idea of use and meaning is distinguished.--Lacatosias 10:00, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, and I'm glad you think I had something to offer. My apologies for the overtranslated philosopher comment, my brother's a philosopher himself and I sometimes pick on him for being wordy, but I was being a bit snobby myself to say that. I'll try to keep that in mind for the future.--BigCow 10:10, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to the Licorne show

Saw that you tried to moderate Licorne's POV statements on David Hilbert - unfortunately there were so many edits that he'd made to various parts of the article, all POV, that I reverted them all out - which unfortunately clobbered your change too. I'll try to restore, but you'd better check if I made it. See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Licorne for details on the editor in question. --Alvestrand 08:37, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

What is it with the all the one-track minded fanatics around here?? Geesh.. Anyway, I expect your changes are probably fine. I'll take a look anyway. Thanks for the warning on L.--Lacatosias 08:48, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Template talk:Book card

You may like this better than the existing infobox for Books, hoever there are all number of problems with this, not lease of which is that is diluting our efforts. It would be nice to have a debate about the merits/demerits of the existing infobox and its appearance and parameters first before stricking out on your own.

Having said that, as an example of a varitant approach this is very valuable and should be used in a debate with other editors on which approach to take. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page) 10:04, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

example problem

just for example, as this is a generalised "book" infobox, have you considered two thing, that genre and certainly sub-genre may not be at all relevant if the book is non-fiction. The infobox or it's existant one will potentially be of use across "WikiProjects" and not "owned" by one. Why are we adding another template when slight tewwking of the existing would do. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page) 10:11, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Responded on that talk page. Slow down a bit.--Lacatosias 10:20, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

talk now on Template_talk:Infobox Book and I have started off the discussion on "series" - you might like to take a look at a few example of it's use, one such is on The Mauritius Command article. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)} 10:51, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

yes, yes. I think it is fine, for the most part, and much eaier to maiantin that my version. Iìve added a few sugestions and the point about color is well-taken. Please understand that I was certainly not trying to denigrate anyone's work in all this. Just trying to help. Period!!--Lacatosias 11:06, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Ungrateful bipeds

That's from Dostoyevskij (yes, that's the correct spelling!!) Underground Man. This is what I get for putting in an extrordinary amount of work to help improve this damned encylopedia. Thre about 50,000 pages which have spelling and grammatical errrors so atrocious that there is really nothing to do but rewrite the entire pages. But here comes one fellow...oh no, you left an IS out of that paragraph and the first sentence is too long for me to understand. What the?? He calls me an overtranslated philosopher. I don0t even know what the hell that means?? Does it have any meaning?? The next day I wrote up a template and found out itìs useless because there was alerady another one just like it. Well, how the deveil was I supposed to know, eh?? Do I have to read through the list of all the (at least) transfinite cardinal range number of templates that exist in this place before I try to write somehting. What a waste? There's no coopreation,. There's no collaboration. The next day, I create another one called Book Card. There's already a template which does essentually the same thing called Userbox Book. Have I ever sen Userbox boook? How many of the book-related entries in this megalopolous encylopeida universe have the userbox Book transcluded in them?? Does anybody have any idea?? But the propietor of the aformentioned Template goes into a ruckus and starts bomnarding mewith messages all over the place isnsiting that I must get off his turg becuae there is ONY and ONLY ONE template for books on the English Wikipedia.

This is the apprectition I get around here. I have written about 20 or so actiles from sratch (most of them of substantial lenght and decent quality). I have rewritten and imporved several key philsophy articles and provided comments to help puit n other project,. I have cerated ttwo projects, oe of themhas been completely ignored. I get nothing but complaints, criticisms and territoriality, dog-like dominace behavior. Thanks folks. Obviously you don't want my contribution here, so why should I contiue contributing??--Lacatosias 18:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The human condition... a lot of reasonable people, most of them quiet and sociable, and then there's enough atrocious idiots that spit in your face to make life far less fun.... and just when you think someone's reasonable, it turns out that given the right chance remark, they too turn into raving lunatics.... I have hope for the world, but mostly because we've managed to muddle through somehow so far..... if a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing, and the people who want to spoil my fun in doing it shouldn't get the last word. At least that's what I think.... --Alvestrand 20:52, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

FA

Yeap, I really believe it can reach featured status one of these days. I think it might already be one of the top 20 articles in philosophy and we can maybe bring it to top 5. Excellent work, Lacatosias. --Kripkenstein 00:05, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Still a bit weak on the arguments againts section and perhaps a bit long overall. But it is turning out nicely. One wouldn't expect dualism to turn out to be such an interesting topic.--Lacatosias 07:59, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Appeal to logic

I chose to ask for your help (or an admin you know?) to help with this discussion. Karl Popper has been one of my favorite philosophers and your background seemed well-suited to assist me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Eldon_hoke

Sorry, but all I could gather from that user page is that someone with the username of Eldon_hoke has been insistent on gaining private information about another user for reasons which I, personally, absolutely do not consider to be legitimate. I have no idea what this person is really interested in accomplishing with such personal data but I am, in principle, very strongly opossed to the involuntary release of IP addresses or anything else regarding an individudal user to third parties who do not absolutely require that access, such as the very highest level administrators of the site (and even here I an dubious). The criteria for release of private data to third parties are, in any case, listed in the Wikedmia Privacy policy page as the following:

  1. In response to a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from law enforcement
  2. With permission of the affected user
  3. To Jimbo Wales, his legal counsel, or his designee, when necessary for investigation of abuse complaints.
  4. Where the information pertains to page views generated by a spider or bot and its dissemination is necessary to illustrate or resolve technical issues.
  5. Where the user has been vandalising articles or persistently behaving in a disruptive way, data may be released to assist in the targetting of IP blocks, or to assist in the formulation of a complaint to relevant Internet Service Providers
  6. Where it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public.

None of user Eldon_Hoke's justifications for wanting to gather information on other users seems to meet these criteria. Indeed, if the user is appealing to number five on the list, then what should have been done is to simply request intermediation or some of the other normal, consensual paths to resolving editing disputes or for blocking vandals. Since he did not do so, he was rightly blocked in his turn.

The invocation of Karl Popper is a non-sequitor. I have nothing further to say on this matter. --Lacatosias 08:27, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Something further to say

Sorry for the confusion, Eldon_hoke and mindlike are myself, Peter, and not just sockpuppets. I don't see anywhere in policy that states having multiple pseudonyms, without a record of misuse, is a violation. And I really don't intend to start purposefully violating now. While it is convenient for admins to cite policy, it has now caused more than an inconvenience for me to simply have a meaningful dialog with an admin.

Essjay wrote "Since you demonstrate no understanding of how Wikipedia operates, and have done nothing since you arrived but troll other users in search of private information that cannot and will not be released to you,"

Should my response have been "Since you have demonstrated no understanding of astrophysics, and have trolled poor souls in search of their faith and beliefs that will not be released to you?" No! because that isn't right or fair treatment of rational human beings.

First of all, I talked to one other user Moe, not users, who was less than helpful. My first mistake. Secondly I have an understanding of Wikipedia as a _reader_ whether I've demonstrated that or not. I have not attempted to edit pages (maybe once a while ago) or vandalize. I have never researched a "private" IP address either. Provided that IP addresses are not private by design and that Wikipedia is allegedly a factual repository, it seems the facts have their limits and that truth is actually not simple to ascertain when it comes to sources. Is there some harm in knowing what IP address wrote something? Perhaps the privacy policy should be revised given potential subtle disinformation can not be easily traced or observed without sound dialectical reasoning skills, profound familiarity of a topic, or a f** subpoena, and even then you may just get hastily banned. The rational response would have been to ask me when, who, what, where, and why? That questioning would have led to more _useful_ information and towards sound judgement. Encyclopedias 'contain information on ALL branches of knowledge' not limited to proprietary agents. Wikipedia's protective position opposes the values of an open society and subverts encyclopedic knowledge. IP addresses are not vital to individuals but are vital to discourse.

And I'm hardly just trolling for plural IP addresses since I have not gone over reasons yet or taken part in genuine dialog. Moe or Essjay did not solicit reasons in earnest or attempt to understand my position. My comments were construed personally rather than towards a rational truth. I was treated with a cynical ban rather than patient inquiry, that was UNFAIR. I have enjoyed reading Wikipedia for over 2 years mostly in the realms of science, music, math, geography, and literature. I did not "do nothing since [I] arrived but troll," and I've had no run-ins or problems with anyone on this site before. You can verify this by my original pseudonym Kerstalis. I don't use Kerstalis because of the developing nature of this inquiry, but proves I didn't just arrive as a troll.

Non sequitur? An appeal to logic rather than authority is a sequitur. You may see this in Essjay's discussion stating 'good reasons' then contradicting himself with 'absolutely not' -- I found this IP BAN to be an attack on my _undeclared_ reason and interest in Wikimedia Privacy policy #5, by a rash theologian (stated proudly on his personal page) who reacted with swift bureaucratic disdain. While that may work in Essjay's divinity classes, that is not how communal knowledge systems should "operate" and draws into question the integrity of adminships at Wikipedia.

I am an advocate of open source software and scientific method, privacy/secrecy is normally not my concern or priority.

I would like my IP unbanned and a dialog started, or intermediation however that works, on obtaining this "private" information. This can not involve the user Metalingus as I'm researching for reasons I will explain only under open and patient dialog. If at the end of reasoning you are dissatisfied I will respect that and desist. I realize you are busy admins but this is quite important and I apologize if I haven't handled it delicately enough up to now. If I receive another simplistic rebuttal I will discontinue using, recommending, and potentially contributing specialized knowledge to Wikipedia. The behavior of this admin was personal, fascist and doesn't show tolerance of earnest, perhaps even frustrated, individuals.

Good day.

Look, first of all I am not an admin, so there is really not much I can do for you anyway probably. What has happened here is that you posted a comment on my talk page srongly suggesting that you had been unfairly treated in being indefinitely blocked from editing the Wikipedia by a certain administrator. You pointed me to a link to a user page which contained an extemely limited amount of information from which to formulate a judgement on the merits or demerits of your case for being unblocked. The page consists of three or four comments (mostly warnings, as I recall). You are accused several times of asking for (or seaching for) people's IP addresses (this is private informaation whether you like it or not) without their consent and hence in violation of the policy guideliness on protecting privacy in Wikipedia.

Now, let's get a bit deeper into this: Every community has rules, whether it is a nation, a city, a countryclub, a university, a blog, or Wikipedia. Most of these rules are NOT logical. The US Constitution is one of the most contradictory and profoundly illogical documents that I have ever read. Community rules do not emerge pristine from the magnificent brain of the most brillian logician on earth at the end of a series of mathematical equations. They are the results of trial and error, experimentation, imitation of other's successes, community consensus and other fundamentally irrational processes. This is why I say that Popper and logic are irrelevant to issues of social interation and interpersonal social dynamics. You seem to disregard and dismiss the idea of rules and limitations completely and this is what makes me think that you are not really seriously presenting me with a case of unjust banning which needs to be addressed for immorality, but are trying to get me involved in some sort of attempt to introduce complete and meanignless anarchy on the Wikipedia.

Having said all this, the fundamental point is not that I should have asked "what, where and why" but that you ahouls have provided me with all of that information to being with. The one interesting point in that jumble of incoherent comments and warnings on your take page, for example, that I have reflected on is that you seem to have been banned indefinitely in a rather abrupt manner. I'm not sure what the policy is on blocking for one day, temporary blocking, indefinite blocking, banning and so forth. I thought there were supposed to be several explicit warnings and then an RFC or something along those lines, as has happened on several other occasions that I know about. You must keep in mind that I am relatively new here and am still learning all of this stuff. I have not had any experience with someone being blocked for apparenrly violating privacy policies. The only thing I can think of that I can do to help your case is to refer it to someone I know who has been here longer than I and who may be an admin. I wouldn't be too hopeful however.--Lacatosias 16:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

--

Popper wrote on science _and_ society, and provided your background in linguistics implied you cared about the meaning of units, nature, structure and mofidication of all language, not limited to your selection bias, we've now failed to understand eachother. Your English was a bit rough, and I confess I don't speak Italian, but I sense it is delivered from a procedural position and not a patient dialectical understanding. In this sense I conjectured you would help and not just argue rules. I respect your argument at least, however we both should stop making mountains of molehills, I'm sure you'd agree to that.

For myself that was the final line of disappointment. I don't think I talked about the U.S. constitution but rather inherent quality of IP addresses being public knowledge and not private per RFC 1918. Information wants to be free and interconnected as observed by scientific and information entropy, not philosophy of language and ideas, or theology.

Snippet from Wikipedia on information entropy...

"[As] demonstrated by the Maxwell's demon thought experiment. In this experiment, a direct relationship between information and another physical property, entropy, is demonstrated. A consequence is that it is impossible to destroy information without increasing the entropy of a system; in practical terms this often means generating heat. Thus, in the study of logic gates, the theoretical lower bound of thermal energy released by an AND gate is more than for the NOT gate (because information is destroyed in an AND gate and simply converted in an NOT gate)."

--

Now Wikipedia, while capable of destroying vandalism and misidentified trolls, does not seem capable nor interested in ease of protecting itself against disinformation. Essjay destroyed or at least harmed my ability to discourse using my idiolect and our schema to isolate reason. You may observe 'summarily' this as a negentropic-type reaction. From now on if I have a question or seek to learn information I will discriminate Wikipedia for outside and open knowledge centers or until I learn this policy on IP address privacy has been reviewed more carefully in favor of an open society and its absolute sources (if you care, please email me peter@mindlike.com when this seems likely). In a sense this is a disinformation boycott more than detesting Wikipedia. I will elaborate these points to non-Wikipedia institutions (such as UC Berkeley, Slashdot, Oxford University, NSF, and F.B.I.) so they are at least made aware and understand the harm Wikipedia is capable of doing, to an open society, by defining its own secret values of identity.

These threats to integrity of public domain knowledge are perilous regardless of the society that comprises the multitude of traditions attempting to undermine rational discourse. Wikipedia, as I see it now, is rather parasitic than groundbreaking in the sense that bringing new and useful knowledge to the public domain is not only difficult but almost impossible without being censored in the process.

A benevolent tyranny? of a select few admins and a user projecting anarchy (or my entropy) onto dialog is not productive or considerate.

Regretfully Peter

Wallace Stevens Poll

This is to invite you to respond to the editors poll on the Wallace Stevens talk page at Talk:Wallace_Stevens#Editors_Poll. You have either contributed to the talk page or have made a substantial contribution to the encyclopedia page within the past three months. Thank you. --Halcatalyst 01:49, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Bohr-Einstein debate

Hi Lacatosias. I'm not digital artist, but I'll try to make new images based on the ones you uploaded (Energy-time.PNG and Phots.PNG). I think you should try that software I recommended you, though (Photofiltre). It's not hard at all to use and it would look much better even if you're not an expert (neither am I, and those images I uploaded looked OK I think). I'll get back to you if I have any success recreating the images. --Kripkenstein 17:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, please donìt lose any sleep over it. I was just asking because I don't know many others around here and you have done well on the ohter images. If you do get around to it, it would be greatly appreciated. But, seriosuly, do not beat youself over the head with this problem or something. I just thought I would ask.Thanks in anyc case.--Lacatosias 17:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry! I already uploaded this slightly improved version of "Energy-time.png". Tell me if it's OK and I'll try to improve the other one in the same way (the other is slightly harder though). It's my pleasure to help in any way, especially because I've been focusing on other things other than Wikipedia lately. --Kripkenstein 17:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

That's great. Much better than my version.--Lacatosias 18:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Where was "Image:Ebohr1.png" scanned from? I think you should specify the origin of such an image (although I believe you word that it's GFDL). I will upload a straightened-out version of it right away (had to rotate it 1,15 degrees). --Kripkenstein 18:01, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Scanned from a book called Philosophy of Physics. I may have to take it off since I don't really know the copyright status. I'll just try to draw the thing (or a version of it myself). Yes, even I get lazy sometimes and wanted to get this nice diagram up there. On the other hand, even the scan took me about an hour of eliminating all the junk around the diagram.--Lacatosias 18:33, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Whose Philosophy of Physics? I further changed the image just now (contrast level) and it looks pretty good. It would be a shame to lose that image, but what can we do. --Kripkenstein 20:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I just saw the reference there in the article (Boniolo). I don't know the book, but unfortunately since it's from 1997 it's pretty much copyrighted stuff. We can whether create an image like that from scratch or modify it enough so it becomes original. --Kripkenstein 20:17, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll have a go at it using Photofilter this time. But I doubt the results will be any better than the others. I am simply graphically handicapped, as far as these things go. But it actually doesn't look as hard as the three-level photons one. get on it right away.--Lacatosias 08:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

• Dear Lacatosias, please make sure that in your editing process you do not inadvertently delete internal references or duplicate material already covered by another article. For example the "Third Phase" is a description of the EPR already covered by EPR_paradox article. You may wish to move some of the EPR-related material to its own article. Also, make sure the formalism is standard and use the usual letters and fonts to make Wiki-articles uniform. Thanks!-- Prof. Afshar 13:37, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, it's extremely difficult to know when one is duplicting material already covered by other articles in the Wikipedia because it's simply overwhelmingly enormous. The only way I can know is usually if someone, like yourself, informs me about the existence of the overlapping material. There's no problem in renaming the section headings of course. I wil get right to it. I was also, just this moment in fact, planning to try to figure out a way to cleanuop and clarify the formatting in the mathematical sections. I'm not that familiar with the Latex syntax and other conventions for mathematacal espressions yet. but you've given me a simpler idea, I'll just take a look at the other articles and standarize based on that. I think you will grant, however, that the article I wrote is a vast improvement on the mess that was there before???--Lacatosias 13:53, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh hoh, the experiment was delinked. I was a bit careless. Well, this deaf, dumb and blind kid usually catches on after a few hours anyway. (: --Lacatosias 16:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article History of molecular biology, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--Gurubrahma 00:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Great!! It's good to know that I may have provided some useful and intersting information even in a small way to the history of science section as well. I suspect I know a lot of intersting facts, but I usually assume that everyone else already knows them. (: --Lacatosias 08:28, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

RFC and RFA

An RFC is the first step in dispute resolution - say what the issues are, and who believes what. The hope is that one can come to an amicable solution. But since Licorne just ignored or ridiculed the process, that didn't work. A Request for Arbitration is an appeal to the 13-or-so people who have the right (granted by Jimbo) to do dramatic things like throw someone off Wikipedia forever. They've accepted to hear the case now; the status is at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Licorne. If the arbitrators rule, that's binding. --Alvestrand 10:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks for the explanation.--Lacatosias 11:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Hibernation

Hello there! It's true, I've been editing very superficially these last days (it's my last week of vacation and I've been playing a lot of chess in the computer thanks to Chessmaster 10th edition). But I'm coming back. I plan to work a little on the History of science in the Middle Ages article, mainly expanding some paragraphs and adding more to "Islamic science". Do we have a new project? If you think there's an article out there that needs our care as much as Dualism (philosophy of mind) did, let me know. Btw, great job on Bohr-Einstein debates, fascinating stuff.

About the picture, I reverted to the earlier version just now. Don't take this the wrong way, but it looked nasty, and I will do exactly what you did but using that software I talked to you about. I think it's going to look OK. Kripkenstein _{τ κ}

it looked nasty. LOL! It's a good thing I wasn't drinking something or I might have choked to death from the urge to laugh. You need not worry about offening me when it comes to graphics. As I said before, I am graphically handicapped. My five year old nephew could probably have done a better job, but I was ashamed to ask.--Lacatosias 15:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

LOL :) So, I've uploaded a slight changed version of the double-slit experiment image, and I think that if we change it any more we will spoil it. And I've made a new version of [1] because, in comparison to the double-slit one, it was still awful. Note that I tried to make it look like the double-slit one. Warn me if there are any errors in the image. Kripkenstein _{τ κ}

No, that's fine. It's a very simple image. But the better you make those images, the worse the one on the other page looks (Phots.png). That's obviously the most complicated of the three. --Lacatosias 16:10, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I know. I should try to make a new version of Phots.png soon. Kripkenstein _{τ κ}

I would appreciate it, of course. I'll pay you back for the help some time, just as long as it has nothing to do with graphics. Speaking of which though, I've been trying to find some way to improve the Philosophy Portal (it's way too wide on my screen and looks like it was jumbled together haphazardly. Most of the really good portals use something called Subst:portalbox or something like that. I couldnìt figure out how it worked. I tried to just copy the code and all of the templates from another portal but it didnìt work. Strange.--Lacatosias 16:51, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The portal looks OK here, but I'm using a high resolution (1280x1024). Are you using 1024x768? Because if you are, then the portal should be changed indeed, since that's the resolution most people use. The overall look of the portal isn't that great either, if you compare it to Portal:History of science. We need someone with expertise on html and that kind of stuff. I will take a look at it, though.

Oh, and could you give me a detailed description of what is going on on Phots.png? I didn't quite get it one the two times I looked at it. It would help a lot! Kripkenstein _{τ κ}

Yes,exactly. History of science is one of those portals that are using this mysterious Subst:portalbox or whatever the heck it is. Anyway, I have to get off-line. I'll try to clear up the meanings of the three digrams in phots.png tomorrow.--Lacatosias 19:32, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Taylor and Popper

I will answer your questions in Popper's talk page concerning your reversions: 1) Taylor uses the word, if is is not quite clear to you, I will here copy paste The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, definition on "hearing" (clearly, the 3rd definition is referred)

hear·ing ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hîrng) n.

1. The sense by which sound is perceived; the capacity to hear. 2. Range of audibility; earshot. 3. An opportunity to be heard. 4. Law.

  a) A preliminary examination of an accused person. 
  b) The trial of an equity case. 

5. A session, as of an investigatory committee or a grand jury, at which testimony is taken from witnesses.

adj. Able to hear: a deaf child born to hearing parents.

2) again, literal translation of Taylor, he is I believe referring to continental philosophers who do philosophy on philosophers, that is to say, philosophers whose philosophy consists of reading and analyzing others' philosophy.

3) Popper's views

4) I really believe you have reading problems after this statement, by the way, my paragraph was mostly a literal translation, if you have problems understanding such a clear philosopher as Taylor, you certainly can't read much philosophy (at least not in English, given you are Italian).

5) "Overcoming Epistemology", in Philosophical Arguments, Harvard University Press, 1995.

I really don't have time to respond to this at the moment, sir. I would have you note that I was born and lived in the United States for the first 33 years of my life and have only lived in Italy for five. I studied Computer Science at the University of Albany, New York in the United States. If you will take a moment to look at some of my contributions (all IN ENGLISH), which are listed on my user page, you may be able to provide youself with a more accurate basis of evidence for judging my exceedingly high level of knowledge of the English language: I was in the top 1% of all of the human population tested on English languiage grammar and usage skills in the Graduate Record Examinations of the United States of America. Your sentence was extremely badly written and their was no source cited. Period. You have indicated the source. Tomorrow morning, I will be glad to provide any help that is necessaery in order to clarify the edits that you are trying to introduce into the article so that they ae comprehensible in the Enlgish langauge.--Lacatosias 19:39, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, William. You are a native speaker, nevertheless, you clearly have problems of understanding in certain topics. For example, anyone can look beyond the fact that the relative clause starting with "which" is inmediately preceded by "philosophers of the tradition", because the information the clause is adding (that its antecedent is false) could in the context modify no other antecedent than Popper's views (the context is of course, Taylor's criticism of Popper). Apart from that, you made no other direct criticism of syntactic ambiguity (I hope you realize that even if you felt it was ambiguous, sintactically, the sentence follows all standard rules). You did made two other "language criticisms": the use of two words (both used by Taylor) that you felt were incomprehensible: hearings and philosophers of the tradition. And this is, I believe, what may show your possible lack of understanding of the language in "certain" topics. In the context of the topic, one knows Taylor is, among analytical philosophers (if he is one) a constant supporter of the continental tradition. Similarly, in the context, hearings can have no other meaning than the third one shown in my copypaste of the AHD (if you know the uses, which you didn't in its full extension). Therefore, if you are acquainted with the context both words are clearly comprehensible. Now, you may say "wikipedia has readers that are not acquainted it should be clear to them". Well, that is up to a point, if you enter the article on first order logic and have no ideas of what inference rules are, what axioms are, what propositional logic is, you will find yourself completely lost. This is more or less the same. I have just argued against your three specifici criticisms that point towards my supposedly bad use of the language. I hope, then, unless you have any other punctual case to argue, that you stop with that silly claim. I also hope you promptly make changes on the article or discuss this further. If not, well, I guess Ill revert your reversion while adding the source and putting almost all of the paragraph between inverted commas. YoungSpinoza 15:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Hello!! Look, first of all I wanted to apologize for being a bit rude and brusque in my comments on the Popper talk page. It was clearly inappropriate to

"bite the newcomers", as they call it here, but I had just come out of a frustrating discussion with a fanatical type who travels all around the 'pedia insisting that Einstein plagiarized basically all of his ideas. His writing style is really' idiosyncratic, to use a neutral term, and this frustration carried over into my edit summary and the polemical tome of the remarks I made on the talk page.

Nevertheless, I did have trouble understanding what you were trying to add to the article. This is probably because, if I understood you correctly, you translated it literally from some other language into English?? If that is the case, you should know as well as I do from translating many Italian articles, that literal translation often results in very bad formulations in the destination language. In any case, let me try to reformulate what I interpreted those sentences as saying in my own words and then we will find see where the problem lies. "Charles Taylor has suggested that Popper exploits his fame as an epistemologist to write articles diminishing the importance of philosophers of the continental tradition (as in Sartre, Heideger. etc??). According to Taylor, Popper's views are baseless." Is that the idea??--Lacatosias 16:24, 3 March 2006 (UTC) sccording to

Work on Fodor

Well done Sir, though I am not the first to say it, on the Fodor article. We need more people like you who know philosophy, and who can write well. You understand the problems on the Philosophy page. I have been wrestling with this from time to time, but to no avail. Well done, again. Dbuckner 13:48, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I'm honored by such comments coming from a professional philosopher with much experience in the field. Re the philosophy page, it seems to me to be the usual sort of thing that happens with broad and popular philosophy or social science topics that I've noted throughout Wikipedia: everyone on earth feels the need to get their two cents in on the matter and everyone, of course, knows something about philosophy because that's just what people do when they think about life or existence, isn't it? On the other hand, no one will go over and lay their hands on the histology page unless they are extreely qualified to do so or have done the research to make sure the facts are correct. At any rate, thanks again for the kind words. --Lacatosias 14:14, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Philosophy

I replied to your comment over on my talk page. I'm glad to see another philosophy graduate student step into the battles of wikiphilosophy. KSchutte 16:41, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I've already been involved in a few battles: over on the David Hilbert page where there are several bizarre claims being made over and over and on Adolf Hitler. But this is the first one I've run into with regard to phi. so far. It's probably because I've tended to avoid the extremely broad articles like philosophy or something.--Lacatosias 16:55, 3 March 2006 (UTC)