Actually, the evidence points in favor of neandethals being less intelligent then people. Their tools weren't as complex, varied, or as well-crafted, and their burial rituals were flowers and pigment, with some animal bones. In one instance we seem to have found a flute made by neanderthals.
That's it. Compare that to HS around the same time, which are as complex and varied as any HS stone-tool maker from any time.
Sure, Neanderthals *may* have been more intelligent, but the evidence points *against* it, or at least, doesn't support it.
Yes, I agree that Saddam Hussein is a terrorist. But the Bush Administration convinced Congress and the public to go to war in Iraq because of Saddams alleged ties to Al Qaida, not for what he had already done.
First off, Bush must be impeached (remember, impeachment is simply a trial -- it doesn't mean that he will be removed from office) for his administration's lies and false evidence built around the war in Iraq.
Second, there are plenty of evil dictators all around the world, and the United States doesn't have the resources to go around invading all of those countries, overthrowing their dictators, and then running them for the next decade. We are already stretched too thin in Iraq, and our administration seems to be preparing to attack Iran. This is getting to be way beyond ridiculous.
Yeah, that's a good point. I was jumping perspectives.
I would say that for most human groups throughout history, they consider themselves human, other Homo Sapiens *mostly* human, and of course, the rest are animals.
If you look at ethnographies of small tribal groups, usually their term for their own ethnicity is translated as "the people" or "human beings", their terms for their own language means "human speech", etc. 'Other' people (from an inside-the-group perspective) are not people like we are, and are legitimate targest for raids or sometimes even cannibalism. Of course, there is often contact for trading and marriage, so other groups are always a threat and an opportunity.
"Even still, the "hunting every last one" concept can be hard for many to swallow."
I think if you look at how modern humans treat each other, which numerous extermination attempts between ethnic groups, I don't think it's too hard to imagine a group of homo sapiens hunting down all Neanderthals, and being relatively successful if they have greater intelligence and/or weaponry.
We have seen genocide all throughout the Bible, mass extermination in early American History, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Pol Pot's Cambodia.
Humans seem to have this built-in response to de-humanize another ethnic group, comparing them to animals, in order to go to war against them. They pin outrageous crimes on them, and then convince themselves that if anybody from the other group lives, there will always be a threat to the group. In the case of Neanderthals, they technically *were* animals, and Homo Sapiens probably had no problem justifying eating them, or exterminating them wholesale.
Forgive me if I'm being naive, but couldn't we have more or less open posting if whatever bulletin board system required a PGP encrypted post, and checked it against a central authority, or even several authorities?
"... [A]s soon as you suppose that some god could violate logic, then you must assume that the universe, on some level, does not follow logical principles."
Not necessarily. There are several theologies (notably Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu) where God is transcendant from the universe. This is called the 'radically other' theology.
But you're right; to use the term theology ('knowledge' or 'study' of God) here is an oxymoron, because if God truly transcends the universe (and thus logic), then you can't have any knowledge of God (hell, you can't even refer to him), because all knowledge is based on logic. But, as the aforementioned religions attest, there are other ways of 'connecting' with God, even though knowledge is not a path: prayer, religious ceremony, meditiation, etc.
What you're arguing for is a very old Greek idea that ultimate reality is Logos, roughly translated in this usage as 'idea' or 'logic'. The logos, of course, can be reached through the intellect. I think it's accurate to say that most atheist scientist would agree with this idea: Laws (here 'rules' or 'logic') are the ultimate reality, and we can discover and understand these laws through observation and logic.
A radically-other God does not mean that we do not have to throw out logic and knowledge. A radically other God, about whom you can know or understand nothing, can still create logic and a universe that is logical.
You are right. It does not necessarily have to be elitist. But I think you should recognize that we are simply chosing one dialect to be the standard. To say that those who don't speak that dialect are misusing or abusing language is elitist, I think, because by definition, another dialect belongs to another group. So as long as we couch it in terms of 'standard' or 'agreed upon' instead of correct vs. incorrect, I'm happy.
Black people can get it together and learn some basic english, or they can be rappers, football players, and comedians till the end of time.
You're missing the point. Your dialect of English is not basic English.
Those immigrants you talk about learned to speak the white American dialect of English, thus have have done better amongst white Americans.
Some people just odon't care about doing well by white folks, so who are you to say that you set the standard?
At this point though of is still a preposition and have is still a verb. Says who? A lot of people disagree with you. You may not hold the majority opinion in fifty years.
"C'mon, to be fair you have to admit that English has no word order rules... just like Latin, it merely has customs (and yet you insinuate that you are a linguist?!)."
I didn't say I am a linguist, but I have taken several classes in linguistics.
English has very strict word order rules. Consider:
The ball hit a boy.
A boy hit the ball.
The ball a boy hit.
A boy the ball hit.
Hit the ball a boy.
Hit a boy the ball.
Out of all [noun], [verb], [object] combinations, only two are grammatical, and those two have different meanings. Word order changes meaning in English.
" If English relied on word order (c.f., Asian languages) they would have had to subtitle Yoda. "
Yoda acutally uses word order rules, creating constructions that are often used in English poetry and verse. Consider:
The force you must use.
Away put your weapon.
Told you, did he?
However, we all know that Yoda *would not* say:
Force the use must you.
Weapon your away put.
He did you told?
Whereas in Finnish, for example, word order affects emphasis but not meaning:
Auto otti hän?
He took the car?
Otti hän auto?
He took the car?
Hän otti auto? He took the car?
Because of endings, a Finnish speaker knows which part of speech each word it. Notice the word order has to stay the same in English, but I've adopted html tags to represent verbal emphasis. However, Finnish word order can change in a sentence, yet each word is still the same part of speech. It does change the emphasis, which you can argue changes the meaning, but my point is that 'hän' is always the subject, 'otti' is always the verb, and 'auto' is always the object. It doesn't matter what order they are in.
If you say "The car he took?" meaning "He took the car?!" makes you sound like Yoda or an old Yiddish grandpa. Notice how I showed you what I mean by changing the word order in the sentence.
"English has rules. The phrase Should of violates those rules. Rules change. At this point though of is still a preposition and have is still a verb."
Yes, English has rules, but nobody will agree on what they are, and there is no authority to say what they are, or when they change.
"One could tell right away that they were writing in dialect and thus one could throw out all grammatical parsing and just use phonetic parsing."
Language is based on sound (or, in the case of sign language, visual form). There is no parsing other than phonetic parsing.
Your post is riddled with anachronistic, patronising ideas. I have no respect for this kind of elitism.
"Now that we have boards of English professors to sit around and decide what to call something,..."
We have no such thing. We have only a loose collection of self-appointed experts who has no particular authority over any body else. See Pinker's chapter The Language Mavens in _The Language Instinct_.
Claiming that there are mistakes and misuse of language only seperates classes based on racial and ethnic groupings. A dialect belongs to a group (no one has their own dialect). There is always a dominant ethnicity, who were the oringal conquerers. Once they teach the conquered ethnicities to speak 'proper' language, meaning 'our' language, the immediately criticise the dialects that the other ethnicities use as degenerate and mistaken.
If you want to argue for common communication standards, I would agree with you. But you see to be couching it in racist terminology, with word and phrases like "high language", "not correct", "trend", "misuse", devolve", "limited" and so forth.
As far as trends -- no word or grammar construction lasts forever. What is the cutoff point for a trend?
"the official language will only change if an expression or word can presumably be deemed more correct or better than another.
"First off, there is no such thing as 'the official language'. Even the language mavens disagree amongst themselves. There is no standard. Secondly, commonly accepted language changes when the 'old guard' of professors die out, and the new school has no problem with common speech, because they've been hearing it all their life, and it doesn't sound wrong to them.
Claiming that there are mistakes and misuse of language only seperates classes based on racial and ethnic groupings. A dialect belongs to a group (no one has their own dialect). There is always a dominant ethnicity, who were the oringal conquerers. Once they teach the conquered ethnicities to speak 'proper' language, meaning 'our' language, the immediately criticise the dialects that the other ethnicities use as degenerate and mistaken.
If you want to argue for common communication standards, I would agree with you. But you see to be couching it in racist terminology, with word and phrases like "high language", "not correct", "trend", "misuse", devolve", "limited" and so forth.
"Should", "Could" and "Would" don't have ANY tense.
Incorrect. 'Should', 'could' and 'would' have a present and a present perfect tense.
Consider:
I visit the theater.
I would visit the theater.
I could visit the theater.
I should visit the theater.
I have visited the theater.
I would have visited the theater.
I could have visited the theater.
I should have visited the theater.
Would you visit the theater?
No, but I should.
Did you visit the theater?
No, but I should have.
Both "I should have" and "I should" are complete sentences. Both "should" and "should have" are complete verb phrases. The minimum requirements of a verb phrase are a verb. Since we know that "should" is a complete verb phrase, and there is only one word, then that word has to be a verb. You are confused by the fact that there is a main verb in the verb phrase -- that doesn't mean there aren't other verbs in the sentence.
You prove my point elsewhere.
"Also, 'have' in 'should have' is not a verb either. It's another modifier. "
If 'have' can act as a modifier, why can't 'of'?
You are absolutely correct that language evolves. However, you can't honestly claim that substituting "of" for "have" in any of the above examples is sensible, readable english because 'of' is a preposition. It might be acceptable in speech from the slurring of "should've" but that does not make it grammatically correct."
All I've shown is that some people are using 'of' for the modifier for modals. There is a new grammar rule operating.
Since we know that language evolves, how do we decide which rules of grammar are authoritative? How do we know when it is time to update those rules to reflect actual usage?
You are being obstinate. You understand perfectly well that "should of" is equivalent to the phrase "should have". It doesn't make any sentence unintelligible. I don't think that "it interrupts the flow of the sentence" -- that's not in any way an impirical judgement. C'mon. All that's happening is that you don't like this phrase.
So what? The whole thing is illogical in the first place. This doesn't make it any more or less logical.
"They have won the mach" will become, "They of won the match?"
I haven't heard anyone talk like this. Have you?
In English, modals like can, could, would, and should have special grammatical rules. For instance, they have no future tense. All that's happening here is that the phrase "Should have" is is being deprecated, and is being replace with "Should of".
Grammar rules change all the time in spoken language. This process is not wrong or incorrect. Please move along. Nothing to see here.
"Should of" is just as meaningful as "Should have". Words are an arbitrary association of sound to meaning. There's no logic in saying that "Should have" is not equivalent to "should of". You just don't like it.
It's funny that you bring in linguistics; a linguist would disagree with totally disagree with you. When children learn language, they reverse engineer what they hear, and devise devilishly complicated rules that most of us have never heard of, not even in grammar class. When some hears "Should of", they are not mishearing; rest assured they are making a perfectly functional set of rules based on the input. I'm not up on the currently literature, but I'm sure there is a lot of discussion about the rules governing "should of".
Spoekn languages change all the time -- not just vocabulary, but grammar rules, also. Just have a look at Chaucers 'English' poetry:
WHEN that Aprilis, with his showers swoot,
The drought of March hath pierced to the root,
And bathed every vein in such licour,
Of which virtue engender'd is the flower;
When Zephyrus eke with his swoote breath
Inspired hath in every holt and heath
The tender croppes* and the younge sun
Hath in the Ram his halfe course y-run,
And smalle fowles make melody,
That sleepen all the night with open eye,
(So pricketh them nature in their corages);
Then longe folk to go on pilgrimages,
You see that on the first line? "WHEN that Aprilis, with his showers swoot, " Showers sweet? Doesn't he mean "Sweet showers?" Why, he's putting the adjective *after* the noun! That's not English? But, yes it is; the rules have changed.
The thing is, you're just upset that people aren't speaking 'the King's English'. They never do, and they never will. Hey, I'm all for standardization of communication, but don't make false claims like people 'mishear' words. For an easy, accessible introduction into how language actually works, I suggest Pinker's _The Language Instinct_.
"Do hackers and geeks just not care about communicating effectively? Do they not realize that a mediocre command of written English makes them appear less intelligent?"
I would bet that internet communication is viewed as less formal than other situations where you have to write. What you have on the internet is an opportunity to see the writings of technology oriented people -- scientists, programmers, engineers, geeks in general -- whereas before there was no clearinghouse for the writings of those not linguistically inclined. A lack of appreciation of the rules of spelling does not make them look bad in their own circles. Spelling and small grammatical errors rarely confuse the reader as to the actual meaning that the writer intended -- to communicate effectively, you should be a fluent writer. There is a difference between making mistakes and making better sentences. A lot of writers just aren't good. There aren't necessarily grammatical mistakes, it's just not good writing.
" Am I missing something here?
Hackers value new technology and progress. Here's the bottom line that you are missing: Modern English spelling is an old and crufty system. It's hard to learn and hard to maintain. You can't figure out common mispellings by sounding the word out (otherwise there wouldn't be a common mispelling). Geeks are appreciative of the 'new and improved' -- which do exist, despite the occasional false billing -- so, it's no surprise that they have little respect from a relic of the Victorian era. In the US, I don't think it's been update much since Noah Webster.
" It will never take hold for one simple reason: the words don't make sense together. "Of" is not a verb; "have" is. Common usage or not, it will never logically make sense."
OK, but the corrollary of what you are saying that that "have done" or "should have" make sense. How does 'have' indicate action in the past? Are you holding or posessing an action, thus it occured in the past? Grammar itself is an *arbitrary* association of sounds to meanings.
" "Should of" almost certainly stems from phonetically spelling "should've" ("should have"). Even in speaking, therefore, it never occurs."
It most certainly occurs, evidenced by the fact that people write "Should of" when they write what they think they are saying". Let me repeat that. Those who write 'should of' think that that is what they are saying. They are not saying "Should have", they are not saying "Should've". They are saying "Should of".
Grammar changes all the time in spoken languages. In another 50 or 100 years, this might become standard.
"Note that nothing is said about humans versus machines, and there's no reason that humans aren't as subject to it as programs." Yes, I understand that this doesn't address minds vs. machines, but I never claimed it did. Other philosphers, such as J.R. Lucas have said this throws a monkey wrench into the idea that the computer is the same kind of thing as a human mind.
The catch is that a human can construct and prove Godel's theorem, whereas a Turing machine, by definition, cannot. So, a human can do something that a Turing machine cannot.
"(Or, as George Carlin put it: 'God can do anything' Well 'Can God make a rock so big that he himself can't lift it?')"
One of God's properties is that He or It or Whatever is omnipotent, no? The _supreme_ being? Why would a supreme being need to obey logic? Your riddle supposes that logic is the supreme entity or force in the universe. I would expect a omnipotent, supreme-being type God to be able to do non-sensical, as well as sensical things.
I don't think that people who claim that the Mind is not a Turing Machine (MinaTM) are claiming that the mind is infinite. They are claiming that the mind can recognize and construct a proof that shows this situation goes on ad infinitum, without having to calculate it all the way through. Whereas, they claim, a turing machine can never 'jump outside' the situation to see that this goes on forever.
Penrose's theory is just one based on the problem Godel's theorem presents to the Mind==TM crowd. I don't agree with it. Even if Penrose is wrong about the mind using quantum voodoo to work, that still doesn't address the potential problem of Godel's theorem.
Nobody is claiming that the human mind is infinite. All I'm saying is that I and others (including some really smart famous philosophers) have concluded, based on Geodels' theorem, that turing machines and minds are qualitatively different things.
"All you have to do is make one so long that it a person could not live long enough to solve it"
This is a red herring. You can make the same problem for a computer -- one where there is not enough fuel in the universe for the computer to computer the solution. This is how modern cryptography works. Sure, you can theoretically compute the key, but not before the universe ends. Again, it doesn't address the claims that I or others make about computers or minds.
That's sad about autopr0n. But I think it would be relatively easy to resume it in some kind of blogging software, like you mention.
BTW are you drunk or high tonight? What's up with these sloppily formatted posts and animal pr0n you're posting?
Slashdot Mirror
That's it. Compare that to HS around the same time, which are as complex and varied as any HS stone-tool maker from any time.
Sure, Neanderthals *may* have been more intelligent, but the evidence points *against* it, or at least, doesn't support it.
First off, Bush must be impeached (remember, impeachment is simply a trial -- it doesn't mean that he will be removed from office) for his administration's lies and false evidence built around the war in Iraq.
Second, there are plenty of evil dictators all around the world, and the United States doesn't have the resources to go around invading all of those countries, overthrowing their dictators, and then running them for the next decade. We are already stretched too thin in Iraq, and our administration seems to be preparing to attack Iran. This is getting to be way beyond ridiculous.
I would say that for most human groups throughout history, they consider themselves human, other Homo Sapiens *mostly* human, and of course, the rest are animals.
If you look at ethnographies of small tribal groups, usually their term for their own ethnicity is translated as "the people" or "human beings", their terms for their own language means "human speech", etc. 'Other' people (from an inside-the-group perspective) are not people like we are, and are legitimate targest for raids or sometimes even cannibalism. Of course, there is often contact for trading and marriage, so other groups are always a threat and an opportunity.
I think if you look at how modern humans treat each other, which numerous extermination attempts between ethnic groups, I don't think it's too hard to imagine a group of homo sapiens hunting down all Neanderthals, and being relatively successful if they have greater intelligence and/or weaponry.
We have seen genocide all throughout the Bible, mass extermination in early American History, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Pol Pot's Cambodia. Humans seem to have this built-in response to de-humanize another ethnic group, comparing them to animals, in order to go to war against them. They pin outrageous crimes on them, and then convince themselves that if anybody from the other group lives, there will always be a threat to the group. In the case of Neanderthals, they technically *were* animals, and Homo Sapiens probably had no problem justifying eating them, or exterminating them wholesale.
Because left-wingers find jabs at right-wingers funny; while right-wingers lack the intelligence and sophistication to understand a clever jab ;)
Forgive me if I'm being naive, but couldn't we have more or less open posting if whatever bulletin board system required a PGP encrypted post, and checked it against a central authority, or even several authorities?
Not necessarily. There are several theologies (notably Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu) where God is transcendant from the universe. This is called the 'radically other' theology.
But you're right; to use the term theology ('knowledge' or 'study' of God) here is an oxymoron, because if God truly transcends the universe (and thus logic), then you can't have any knowledge of God (hell, you can't even refer to him), because all knowledge is based on logic. But, as the aforementioned religions attest, there are other ways of 'connecting' with God, even though knowledge is not a path: prayer, religious ceremony, meditiation, etc.
What you're arguing for is a very old Greek idea that ultimate reality is Logos, roughly translated in this usage as 'idea' or 'logic'. The logos, of course, can be reached through the intellect. I think it's accurate to say that most atheist scientist would agree with this idea: Laws (here 'rules' or 'logic') are the ultimate reality, and we can discover and understand these laws through observation and logic.
A radically-other God does not mean that we do not have to throw out logic and knowledge. A radically other God, about whom you can know or understand nothing, can still create logic and a universe that is logical.
Here are some examples of free word order in Finnish that I posted in another comment. Would you agree with / modify them?Thanks!
Auto otti hän?
He took the car?
Otti hän auto?
He took the car?
Hän otti auto?
He took the car?
You are right. It does not necessarily have to be elitist. But I think you should recognize that we are simply chosing one dialect to be the standard. To say that those who don't speak that dialect are misusing or abusing language is elitist, I think, because by definition, another dialect belongs to another group. So as long as we couch it in terms of 'standard' or 'agreed upon' instead of correct vs. incorrect, I'm happy.
But here in Columbus, Ohio, 'should've' sounds exactly like 'should of'.
That's why people write "should of". It's exactly the two words they hear.
Those immigrants you talk about learned to speak the white American dialect of English, thus have have done better amongst white Americans.
Some people just odon't care about doing well by white folks, so who are you to say that you set the standard?
"C'mon, to be fair you have to admit that English has no word order rules ... just like Latin, it merely has customs (and yet you insinuate that you are a linguist?!)."
I didn't say I am a linguist, but I have taken several classes in linguistics.
English has very strict word order rules. Consider:
The ball hit a boy.
A boy hit the ball.
The ball a boy hit.
A boy the ball hit.
Hit the ball a boy.
Hit a boy the ball.
Out of all [noun], [verb], [object] combinations, only two are grammatical, and those two have different meanings. Word order changes meaning in English.
" If English relied on word order (c.f., Asian languages) they would have had to subtitle Yoda. "
Yoda acutally uses word order rules, creating constructions that are often used in English poetry and verse. Consider:
The force you must use.
Away put your weapon.
Told you, did he?
However, we all know that Yoda *would not* say:
Force the use must you.
Weapon your away put.
He did you told?
Whereas in Finnish, for example, word order affects emphasis but not meaning:
Auto otti hän?
He took the car?
Otti hän auto?
He took the car?
Hän otti auto?
He took the car?
Because of endings, a Finnish speaker knows which part of speech each word it. Notice the word order has to stay the same in English, but I've adopted html tags to represent verbal emphasis. However, Finnish word order can change in a sentence, yet each word is still the same part of speech. It does change the emphasis, which you can argue changes the meaning, but my point is that 'hän' is always the subject, 'otti' is always the verb, and 'auto' is always the object. It doesn't matter what order they are in.
If you say "The car he took?" meaning "He took the car?!" makes you sound like Yoda or an old Yiddish grandpa. Notice how I showed you what I mean by changing the word order in the sentence.
"English has rules. The phrase Should of violates those rules. Rules change. At this point though of is still a preposition and have is still a verb."
Yes, English has rules, but nobody will agree on what they are, and there is no authority to say what they are, or when they change.
"One could tell right away that they were writing in dialect and thus one could throw out all grammatical parsing and just use phonetic parsing."
Language is based on sound (or, in the case of sign language, visual form). There is no parsing other than phonetic parsing.
"Now that we have boards of English professors to sit around and decide what to call something, ..."
We have no such thing. We have only a loose collection of self-appointed experts who has no particular authority over any body else. See Pinker's chapter The Language Mavens in _The Language Instinct_.
Claiming that there are mistakes and misuse of language only seperates classes based on racial and ethnic groupings. A dialect belongs to a group (no one has their own dialect). There is always a dominant ethnicity, who were the oringal conquerers. Once they teach the conquered ethnicities to speak 'proper' language, meaning 'our' language, the immediately criticise the dialects that the other ethnicities use as degenerate and mistaken.
If you want to argue for common communication standards, I would agree with you. But you see to be couching it in racist terminology, with word and phrases like "high language", "not correct", "trend", "misuse", devolve", "limited" and so forth.
As far as trends -- no word or grammar construction lasts forever. What is the cutoff point for a trend?
"the official language will only change if an expression or word can presumably be deemed more correct or better than another.
"First off, there is no such thing as 'the official language'. Even the language mavens disagree amongst themselves. There is no standard. Secondly, commonly accepted language changes when the 'old guard' of professors die out, and the new school has no problem with common speech, because they've been hearing it all their life, and it doesn't sound wrong to them.
Claiming that there are mistakes and misuse of language only seperates classes based on racial and ethnic groupings. A dialect belongs to a group (no one has their own dialect). There is always a dominant ethnicity, who were the oringal conquerers. Once they teach the conquered ethnicities to speak 'proper' language, meaning 'our' language, the immediately criticise the dialects that the other ethnicities use as degenerate and mistaken.
If you want to argue for common communication standards, I would agree with you. But you see to be couching it in racist terminology, with word and phrases like "high language", "not correct", "trend", "misuse", devolve", "limited" and so forth.
Incorrect. 'Should', 'could' and 'would' have a present and a present perfect tense.
Consider:
I visit the theater.
I would visit the theater.
I could visit the theater.
I should visit the theater.
I have visited the theater.
I would have visited the theater.
I could have visited the theater.
I should have visited the theater.
Would you visit the theater?
No, but I should.
Did you visit the theater?
No, but I should have.
Both "I should have" and "I should" are complete sentences. Both "should" and "should have" are complete verb phrases. The minimum requirements of a verb phrase are a verb. Since we know that "should" is a complete verb phrase, and there is only one word, then that word has to be a verb. You are confused by the fact that there is a main verb in the verb phrase -- that doesn't mean there aren't other verbs in the sentence.
You prove my point elsewhere.
"Also, 'have' in 'should have' is not a verb either. It's another modifier. "
If 'have' can act as a modifier, why can't 'of'?
You are absolutely correct that language evolves. However, you can't honestly claim that substituting "of" for "have" in any of the above examples is sensible, readable english because 'of' is a preposition. It might be acceptable in speech from the slurring of "should've" but that does not make it grammatically correct."
All I've shown is that some people are using 'of' for the modifier for modals. There is a new grammar rule operating.
Since we know that language evolves, how do we decide which rules of grammar are authoritative? How do we know when it is time to update those rules to reflect actual usage?
You are being obstinate. You understand perfectly well that "should of" is equivalent to the phrase "should have". It doesn't make any sentence unintelligible. I don't think that "it interrupts the flow of the sentence" -- that's not in any way an impirical judgement. C'mon. All that's happening is that you don't like this phrase.
So what? The whole thing is illogical in the first place. This doesn't make it any more or less logical.
"They have won the mach" will become, "They of won the match?"
I haven't heard anyone talk like this. Have you?
In English, modals like can, could, would, and should have special grammatical rules. For instance, they have no future tense. All that's happening here is that the phrase "Should have" is is being deprecated, and is being replace with "Should of".
Grammar rules change all the time in spoken language. This process is not wrong or incorrect. Please move along. Nothing to see here.
It's funny that you bring in linguistics; a linguist would disagree with totally disagree with you. When children learn language, they reverse engineer what they hear, and devise devilishly complicated rules that most of us have never heard of, not even in grammar class. When some hears "Should of", they are not mishearing; rest assured they are making a perfectly functional set of rules based on the input. I'm not up on the currently literature, but I'm sure there is a lot of discussion about the rules governing "should of".
Spoekn languages change all the time -- not just vocabulary, but grammar rules, also. Just have a look at Chaucers 'English' poetry:
WHEN that Aprilis, with his showers swoot,
The drought of March hath pierced to the root,
And bathed every vein in such licour,
Of which virtue engender'd is the flower;
When Zephyrus eke with his swoote breath
Inspired hath in every holt and heath
The tender croppes* and the younge sun
Hath in the Ram his halfe course y-run,
And smalle fowles make melody,
That sleepen all the night with open eye,
(So pricketh them nature in their corages);
Then longe folk to go on pilgrimages,
You see that on the first line? "WHEN that Aprilis, with his showers swoot, " Showers sweet? Doesn't he mean "Sweet showers?" Why, he's putting the adjective *after* the noun! That's not English? But, yes it is; the rules have changed.
The thing is, you're just upset that people aren't speaking 'the King's English'. They never do, and they never will. Hey, I'm all for standardization of communication, but don't make false claims like people 'mishear' words. For an easy, accessible introduction into how language actually works, I suggest Pinker's _The Language Instinct_.
I would bet that internet communication is viewed as less formal than other situations where you have to write. What you have on the internet is an opportunity to see the writings of technology oriented people -- scientists, programmers, engineers, geeks in general -- whereas before there was no clearinghouse for the writings of those not linguistically inclined. A lack of appreciation of the rules of spelling does not make them look bad in their own circles. Spelling and small grammatical errors rarely confuse the reader as to the actual meaning that the writer intended -- to communicate effectively, you should be a fluent writer. There is a difference between making mistakes and making better sentences. A lot of writers just aren't good. There aren't necessarily grammatical mistakes, it's just not good writing.
" Am I missing something here?
Hackers value new technology and progress. Here's the bottom line that you are missing: Modern English spelling is an old and crufty system. It's hard to learn and hard to maintain. You can't figure out common mispellings by sounding the word out (otherwise there wouldn't be a common mispelling). Geeks are appreciative of the 'new and improved' -- which do exist, despite the occasional false billing -- so, it's no surprise that they have little respect from a relic of the Victorian era. In the US, I don't think it's been update much since Noah Webster.
OK, but the corrollary of what you are saying that that "have done" or "should have" make sense. How does 'have' indicate action in the past? Are you holding or posessing an action, thus it occured in the past? Grammar itself is an *arbitrary* association of sounds to meanings.
" "Should of" almost certainly stems from phonetically spelling "should've" ("should have"). Even in speaking, therefore, it never occurs."
It most certainly occurs, evidenced by the fact that people write "Should of" when they write what they think they are saying". Let me repeat that. Those who write 'should of' think that that is what they are saying. They are not saying "Should have", they are not saying "Should've". They are saying "Should of".
Grammar changes all the time in spoken languages. In another 50 or 100 years, this might become standard.
The catch is that a human can construct and prove Godel's theorem, whereas a Turing machine, by definition, cannot. So, a human can do something that a Turing machine cannot.
One of God's properties is that He or It or Whatever is omnipotent, no? The _supreme_ being? Why would a supreme being need to obey logic? Your riddle supposes that logic is the supreme entity or force in the universe. I would expect a omnipotent, supreme-being type God to be able to do non-sensical, as well as sensical things.
What I mean was, your summary of Godel's theorem is wrong, or at best, misleading.
I don't think that people who claim that the Mind is not a Turing Machine (MinaTM) are claiming that the mind is infinite. They are claiming that the mind can recognize and construct a proof that shows this situation goes on ad infinitum, without having to calculate it all the way through. Whereas, they claim, a turing machine can never 'jump outside' the situation to see that this goes on forever.
Penrose's theory is just one based on the problem Godel's theorem presents to the Mind==TM crowd. I don't agree with it. Even if Penrose is wrong about the mind using quantum voodoo to work, that still doesn't address the potential problem of Godel's theorem.
"All you have to do is make one so long that it a person could not live long enough to solve it"
This is a red herring. You can make the same problem for a computer -- one where there is not enough fuel in the universe for the computer to computer the solution. This is how modern cryptography works. Sure, you can theoretically compute the key, but not before the universe ends. Again, it doesn't address the claims that I or others make about computers or minds.
That's sad about autopr0n. But I think it would be relatively easy to resume it in some kind of blogging software, like you mention.
BTW are you drunk or high tonight? What's up with these sloppily formatted posts and animal pr0n you're posting?
Thank you -- I was going to write 'reasonable and necessary', but that seemed verbose. Again, I am not a mathematician ;)