Apollo BBS Archive - September 1990

Apollo BBS Archive - September 8, 1990

Mail to John Cummings
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 14:53:20

You said that things such as a tornado or flood or other natural disaster
was the work of nature and it was just how things works.

I thought I'd test you a bit and throw in a natural disaster such as a
meteor that destroyed all life on the planet.  Most chrsitians would tell me
that such an event would be the work of their little god.

Would it be or would it be still the way nature works?

Public & Free Bulletin Board command:$C

Message: 69322
Author: $ Roger Mann
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: mecham/slime
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 15:44:47

Except the ENSCO slime-plant. Not surprising. Also, notice that Mecham
can't even keep his own finances straight, how can he keep the state's
straight. And finally as far as the Mormon desire to rule America and 
the world, Mecham fits nicely in their plans. Notice that Mecham is
still around but his nemesis Benson is in the boonies somewhere. Quite
frankly, the 
Mormons scare me and the fewer in office the better.

Message: 69323
Author: $ Roger Mann
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: radar
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 15:52:56

Actually the frequency of the ramp wave-form need only be 1/102 nanoseconds
which I believe is aroudn 10MHz. This frequency range has been available
ever since WWII. (excuse me, the fundamental frequency, since there are
harmonics at a higher frequency. As for your amusing rejoinder, I would
like to point out that the arbitrariness of deciding at what point the
string is broken has nothing to do with the fact that the string does
break at some point. You have steadfastly ignored the true problem: Does
the string have three states to account for your lack of points in real
space. Enuff of that, it is clear you have nothing else to say. Let's try
another tack. Consider real space. If there are no dimensionless points,
then space must divided up into a set of discrete segments whose number must
be less that infinity. Would you care to tell me how many discrete segments
there are, in say, an inch ?

Message: 69324
Author: $ Roger Mann
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: japan/defeat
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 15:59:44

No, Japan was not totally defeated. The use of the Kamikaze pilots made
it a chancy thing for us at Iwo Jima? when we got close enough to 
Japan so they could use their home bases. No, Japan was not defeated, and
they would have been doubly lethal if we had had to invade Japan to defeat
them. The whole nation of Japan would have been levelled not just 
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

Message: 69326
Author: $ Roger Mann
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: jeff/limits
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 17:14:43

Let's see what a real expert has to say about a function that increases
to an arbitrarily large number as x -> C. Although you might consider
a PhD not quite equivalent to your education and mentality, let me
quote Lloyd E. Smail, PhD, Professor of Mathematics at Lehigh University.
I'm sure that the good professor knows a little more than you, Jeff, even
though your jejune attitude may prevent you from recognizing this fact.
Here's what he says:

"If a function f(x) is greater than an arbitrarily large positive number
for all values of x that are sufficiently near a constant a and for which
x ^= a, then we say that f(x) becomes positively infinite as x approaches
a. We indicate this by the notation:
 
         f(x) -> +infinity as x -> a.*

* This is frequently written: lim f(x) = +infinity
                               x->a "

Of course, if you had taken an elementary course in beginning calculus
you would have known this rather than making a fool out of yourself over
this point.

Message: 69327
Author: $ Beauregard Dog
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: George B. Thomas
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 17:53:51

The author of _Calculus and Analytic Geometry_, pub. by Addison Wesley, was
a professor of Mathematics at MIT for many years.  The aforementioned text
was the standard college calculus text at MIT. It is also the text which I
used in high school.
 
The second chapter covers limits and various theorems about them.  In know
place does it state that one should read "increases without bound".  In
fact, it does state that the 8-on-its-side symbol "is read _infinity_, but
it does not represent any real number."  It then goes on, in a note, to
describe an 'extended real number system' where one can do arithmetic with
plus or minus infinity, and gives examples{

Message: 69328
Author: $ Dean Hathaway
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: $Jeff/Oscope
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 18:18:29

  One thing to keep in mind is that the image on the scope is created by
repeatedly scanning an event relationship at a high sweep rate to produce a
fairly steady-state image of the event. You can't capture a one-time event
like the return of a single pulse, because you wouldn't be able to see it
cross the screen. There is equipment to more or less record an event like
that and create an image so that it can be seen. I can show you how an
oscilloscope works sometime.
   See You Later,
      Dean H.

Message: 69329
Author: $ Dean Hathaway
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: $Jeff/Fraud
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 18:22:31

  I think that dealing with the problems of legally defining a lie is
preferable to trying to make case by case determinations based on intent. If
I make nothing but true statements, but my intent is to say only the good
things about something, I don't think that should be considered fraud,
unless my overall presentation is to do something like sell something as
food when it is in fact poison.
   See You Later,
      Dean H.

Message: 69330
Author: $ Dean Hathaway
Category: Politics
Subject: $Jeff/monopoly
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 18:23:29

   Looking over the messages we exchanged earlier on the effect of 
market controls, I think that I had already covered most of the 
objections you raised in messages 69041-69042. In my description of 
free market capital flow as a moderating force against unrealistic 
prices, I explained the two types of monopoly that a free market does 
not destroy. One was a physical monopoly on a product by means of 
being the only possible supplier, such as the sole holder of a 
resource or the holder of an exclusive patent or copyright. The other 
was a monopoly on a product by virtue of being able to produce it 
more efficiently than anyone else.
   In the latter case, the position of leading the market is 
purchased at the cost of remaining more efficient than any competitor 
and passing that efficiency along in the form of lower prices. I 
explained that the supplier in this position can only hold his 
advantage as long as he does NOT try to increase prices enough to 
make competing with him attractive. Any unreasonable increase in 
prices brings competing capital into the market to produce the same 
product in search of the greater return on investment which high 
prices produce.
   The example I mentioned, that of ALCOA (Aluminum Company of 
America), clearly demonstrates both types of monopoly. ALCOA's 
founder developed and patented the electrolytic smelting process, 
which transformed aluminum from being a scarce commodity suited only 
for jewelry, into a cheap, mass-produced material. Patents protected 
ALCOA's monopoly for the first 17 years of operation and after that 
it became a purely competitive monopoly. By constantly competing 
against itself to improve production methods and meet market demands 
in advance, it was able to stay far ahead of its competition and 
dominate the U.S. market for aluminum. This period saw aluminum 
prices drop from about $8 per pound to 14 cents per pound.
   ALCOA's advantages were not the result of fraud or coercion, but 
of being an aggressive, R&D driven producer. The government's 
anti-trust division attacked ALCOA and won the famous 'Learned Hand' 
judgement against them in 1945. The testimony and judge's statements 
in this case make absolutely clear that the government's objective 
was not to suppress any fraud or force, but to punish success for its 
own sake. A quote from Judge Hand's opinion on the case demonstrates 
absolutely that ALCOA's intention to continue to succeed in the 
industry it created was the crime the U.S. government was there to 
remedy:

     It was not inevitable that it [ALCOA] should always anticipate
     increases in the demand for ingot and be prepared to supply
     them. Nothing compelled it to keep doubling and redoubling its
     capacity before others entered the field. It insists that it
     never excluded competitors; but we can think of no more effec-
     tive exclusion than progressively to embrace each new oppor-
     tunity as it opened, and to face every newcomer with new cap-
     acity already geared into a great organization, having the
     advantage of experience, trade connections, and the elite of
     personnel.

   Furthermore, Judge Hand explained that the purpose of the Sherman 
Act was not to suppress fraud or force, but to enforce Congress's 
notion of how industries and markets should be controlled:

     Having proved that ALCOA had a monopoly of the domestic ingot
     market, the plaintiff had gone far enough; if it was an excuse,
    that ALCOA had not abused its power, it lay upon ALCOA to prove
    that it had not (My note. Guilty until proven innocent?). But
    the whole exercise is irrelevant anyway, for it is no excuse for
    monopolizing a market that the monopoly has not been used to
    extract from the consumer more than a "fair" profit. The
    [Sherman] Act has wider purposes....Congress...did not condone
    "good trusts" and condemn "bad" ones; it forbade all.
  
   Threatened with a forced divestiture for its heinous crimes, ALCOA 
was fortunate enough to instead be put under the jurisdiction of the 
U.S. court for over ten years. ALCOA was forced to determine what it
cost its competitors to produce aluminum and to charge prices which 
would allow their competitors to profit, even though they could 
produce at a profit themselves at a much lower price. Aluminum rose 
from 15 cents to over 24 cents per pound during this time, and 
Reynolds and Kaiser aluminum reached nearly the same percentage of 
the market as ALCOA. 
   Your argument against the basic theory of capitalism consisted of 
declaring that it had no application to the real world (odd 
considering that just about every particle of material progress we 
have enjoyed in the past century is traceable to those principles), 
and claiming that advertising and merchandising strategies somehow 
nullify the quest for return on investment that would normally bring 
competition.
   What is the effect of advertising on a product? For one thing, it 
must be counted as part of the cost of production. A flashy package 
and a major ad campaign add much to the cost of the product, but 
hopefully overcome that disadvantage by increasing interest in the 
product and thereby increasing sales volume so that greater 
efficiencies of scale can offset some of the cost.
   Part of the aim of advertising is to create and sell an image 
along with the product. If this makes the product more expensive than 
it would have been otherwise, then it us up to the buyer to decide if 
that image is worth the price. This is in no way a coercive power
over the market. I am not forced to buy anything at a higher price 
because of its image. If I choose to do so, it is because I am 
purchasing that image. As long as there is no fraud (outright 
falsehood) involved in the advertisement, this is no justification 
for government intervention in the market.
   You basically restated a lot of what I had said, but in other 
terms, and called it proof that capitalism doesn't work. The fact 
that a well developed firm can produce something and sell it for less 
than a small start-up company could duplicate is a positive thing. 
Bully for them! Give them a medal! That is exactly what the goal of 
economic activity should be, to become efficient enough that your 
competition can't outdo you. Trying to force everyone to charge so 
much for what they sell that anyone can compete with them without 
offsetting their investments in capital and expertise is a sure 
recipe for economic stagnation and a falling standard of living.
   You pooh-poohed the notion of investment capital as a pervasive 
force which moves beneficially through the economy. That is the ideal 
situation, and the degree to which it has worked that way in the past 
is a major reason we are communicating with personal computers 
instead of sending messages by pony express or worse (not to mention 
the fact that we even have any leisure time to communicate at all). 
   The real impairments to capital flow come not from business 
arrangements, but from government interference. The practice of
holding capital hostage, or barring its entry, by legislation and 
regulation is much more effective and commonplace than any business 
means of impeding competition. For example, some state is always 
rushing through a bill to restrict a company from being sold or 
moved, because the legislators consider the economy and its capital 
as so much of their own property to dispose of.
   The root of the dispute between pro and anti market forces is a 
clash over the proper relationship between society and the producer. 
The anti-market stance is that creating and marketing something is a 
privilege that should be closely monitored and punished if it becomes 
successful enough to discourage competition. The pro-market stance is 
that it is society's privilege to benefit from those who create and 
produce, thereby raising the standard of living for all of us, and 
that government's only right to interfere on society's behalf is for 
the suppression of fraud and force.
   See You Later,
      Dean H.

Message: 69336
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: message overload
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 18:43:04

Too many to answer online.
 
 
BTW, who censored two messages I left?

Message: 69337
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Bulletins
Subject: current behavior
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 19:44:22

What began as ordinary snobbery and dry witticisms has degenerated into
venomous and hateful personal attacks.  In particular, after reading the
latest ripostes on the COSmos SIG, I found myself calling Roger Mann with
the intent of cursing and intimidating him.  Instead, before he answered the
phone, I decided to attempt to *communicate* with him.  This was a wise
choice, as I hold him in high regard and value his friendship.  Quite
frankly, I also found the tone of current "discussions" distasteful, even if
I did feel justified in responding in kind.  
The personal attacks are a shame for another reason; the issues under
conderation are fruitful and interesting, and personal animosities as well
as the irrelevant remarks they engender only serve to cloud and soil what
should be an intelligent exploration.  While there is frequently the desire
to prove one's self correct and to disprove the position held by one's
opponent, I feel that this attitude robs everyone of the opportunity to
learn new things and expand our own models of "reality."  
While the image of grown men running hand-in-hand through a field of daisies
might be considered maudlin at best, let's attempt to stick to the issues,
and let's do our best to take advantage of current circumstances;
circumstances which provide a forum for some really outstanding individuals
to pool their knowledge and resources for mutual benifit.
 
J.B.

Message: 69338
Author: $ Roger Mann
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: jeff/last
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 21:39:52

I agree. I got carried away with the insults. I enjoy the mental
jousting on the field of ideas, but the use of "ad hominem" attacks
only hurts someone , and I don't want to do that. So, if you will
accept my apology for getting carried away, let's return to our discussion.

Message: 69339
Author: $ Roger Mann
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: jeff/limits
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 22:21:54

Your definition is correct according to Smail. Smail's definition is:
"A function f(x) is said to approach a limit L as x approaches a if
the difference between f(x) and L is numerically less than an arbitrarily
small positive number for all values of x in the range of the definition
that are sufficiently close to a and for which x ^= a. We indicate this
by the notation:
 
        lim f(x) = L 
         x->a "

This is the rigorous mathematical defintion of a limit. Clearly my use
of a limit with a f(x) of the form K/x+C, does not fit the definition
of the rigorous definition. Instead, the term "limit" is loosely or
informally applied, but obviously not with mathematical rigor.
 
                     

Message: 69340
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Roger/last
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 22:29:40

Yes, apologies and good will are mutual.
 
Thank you for your post on limits.  I am going to post my own, mainly
because I had already composed it offline (and don't want to feel that I
wasted my time) but also because I think it responds to some interesting
points B. Dog raised regarding transfinite arithmetic.

Message: 69341
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: limits
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 22:31:19

Limits:  I am sure that Smail would agree, as Roger and I have in voice
conversation, that while the use of infinity as a "limit" is common enough,
and arguably, convenient enough, this use is inconsistent with the
formal definition of limit.  It has not been my contention that the symbol
"infinity" is synonomous with unbounded increase or decrease.  Quite the
reverse; it represents a transfinite cardinality of indeterminant order.
Yes, Cantor created a transfinite mathematics where infinities of various
orders obey the familiar operations of finite cardinal numbers.  But there
are some important differences to consider when evaluating infinity as a
proper limit.  In transfinite arithmetic, the formulas  m=m+1, m+m=m, and
m*m=m   hold for any transfinite cardinal m.
 
The formal definition of limit states:  Let f(x) be defined for all x in an
interval about x=a, but not necessarily at x=a.  If there is a number L
such that to each positive number epsilon, there corresponds a positive
number delta, such that  ABS[f(x)-L] < epsilon, provided that 
0 < ABS[x-a] < delta, we say that L is the limit of f(x) as x approaches a.
 
While infinity is certainly a number, here, it clearly cannot be called a
limit (in rigorous technical usage).  Because if m=m+1, then m=m-1.  Since 
f(x) has a finite value, ABS[f(x)-L] is equal to ABS[m].  Since I can make
epsilon as small as I want, as long as it is positive, m cannot be a limit.
 
Let's go on to more fruitful topics.

Message: 69342
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: reality)
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 22:32:48

Strings and States:  It is my contention that the terms "broken" and
"unbroken" , in the current context of the discussion, do not refer to any
physical conditions which are qualitatively different from each other in any
objective sense.  They are simply words which we use to describe our
subjective perspective; a perspective which depends both on our size
relative to the objects we apply the terms to, and on our physiology. The
terms are useful because we have these things in common.  
 
Spaces and Places:  It is my contention that the terms "time" and "distance"
refer to abstractions.  These abstractions exist as elements of our interior
model of reality.  We tend to confuse them with real entities because we are
not properly taught to distinguish our models from reality, because we may
have a genetic predisposition to view things analytically (i.e. because
that's the way we're built), and because they are, being models of reality,
analogous to reality; but most important of all, we confuse the concrete
with the abstract because we are not, after all, thinking machines, but
animals with developed brains; and because we are in this sense, hybrids,
our language and consciousness reflects this.  To be sure, a most versatile
system; but this advantage is countered (not too greatly) by the unfortunate
consequence that we are often not aware that we are mixing concretes with
abstractions.  The concretes, of course, are the objects and phenomena we 
sensibly observe and agree to call objective physical reality.  The 
abstractions consist of the quantifications and logical relationships we
impose on these objects and phenomena.

In a sense, we are not engaged in an ontological debate, but rather a
semantic debate.  It is not my intent to show the difference between
our models and the "ultimate nature of reality."  I can't even prove
that any of you are real, where the term "prove" refers to a logical
necessity.  No one can prove that the "concretes" we sensibly perceive
exist, or that we even "sensibly perceive," in the empirical sense of
the term (i.e. vision, hearing, touch, smell, & taste).  What I am
attempting to do is stimulate a deeper analysis of the way we use words,
and of the analytical systems which incorporate those words.  I want to
clarify the symbols we use, to understand what their formal but tacit
(and often as yet unacknowledged or unrealized) consequences are, and to
examine the systems which use them with the purpose of eliminating internal
inconsistencies.
 
I cannot prove to you in any ultimate sense that "matter" exists, but I can
try to show, as a logical consequence of definitions which you accept, that
certain terms do not and cannot refer to materials.  That is, if you agree
that matter has length, height, and width (i.e. three *physical* as opposed
to conceptual or theoretical dimensions), then even when some of these
dimensions are negligible by our scale of reference, matter cannot occupy,
or be referenced with, "points," these being mathematical entities of zero
dimension, *except when considering matter as symbols within a model*.

To speak of the "locations that an object has as it moves from one place
to another" is to speak of models, as far as I am concerned.  In my view,
it is semantically nonsensical to speak of "real" space and "real" objects
this way, because the term "location", used in this manner, implies a
sectioning off, a process of definite and quantitative delineation, and
our definitions of "real" space and objects do not allow that there is
any such actual physical delineation of space and objects. In other 
words, there is no physical, material metric grid; metrics is an
abstract concept which we impose on real space and objects for our
convenience; that is, metrics are part of our model of "real" space and
objects.  Similarly, to ask questions such as "Is there space between the
places?" and "How many places are there in between the places" is to ask
questions about how we model reality; very important and valid questions,
I might add, but hardly empirical.  The answer to the questions is, "It
depends on what analytical system we decide to adopt for a particular
model," and as long as we are consistent in our use of these conventions and
as long as they are the most useful conventions for the given circumstances,
then their details are purely arbitrary.  I am not avoiding the problem; I
merely claim that the problem is spurious.
 

Message: 69345
Author: $ Steve MacGregor
Category: Question?
Subject: Above
Date: 09/08/90  Time: 23:36:17

  Now we're getting somewhere.
  "To speak of the 'locations that an object has as it moves from one place
to another' is to speak of models, as far as I am concerned."
  I think this is the crux of the matter.  As long as you understand what is
meant by the model, I'd appreciate it if you would rephrase the above to
talk about the object itself, and not some model of it.  In other words,
subtract the model from the discussion, and tell us what's left about the
object and location themselves.

      We all live in a   ___nhnnn__________   yellow subroutine