So we could perhaps say that, within the domain of ideas that are knowable, logic must work, by definition, because logic is neccesary for proof and proof is neccesary for knowledge. We have basically defined "knowledge" as "that domain of ideas to which logic applies", and thus tautologically logic must apply to all ideas that are knowable.
Pretty good thinking, if you ask me. I agree that talking about what is fundamentally incomprehensible is nonsense.
However, I'm left wondering if there might be other kinds of "knowledge" that aren't what we think of as "logical". I refer back to things like, "I love my mother". Might that be a sort of genuine knowledge that merely falls outside the realm of what's commonly referred to as "logic"? If we have an extra-logical universal set with the comprehensible as a subset of knowledge, and "logic" a subset of that, might there be room for something else, non-logical, but within comprehensible?
And if so, might statements such as "logic works" fall within that other set?
You seem to be doing fine on your own. Perhaps consider this: If, as part of "logic not working", we mean to also throw out the theory of non-contradiction, then what?
In case you're not familiar, or the title "theory of non-contradiction" isn't sufficiently clear, I mean what if something can be A and not-A at the same time? If so, it should be perfectly fine for logic to both work and not-work.
In fact, denying the theory of non-contradiction has the funny affect of also allowing for the theory of non-contradiction. In essence, assuming the theory to be false does not prohibit it from also being true.
In this sense, if we assume logic works, then we must say that logic works. If we assume that logic does not "work", we are still free to say logic does work. We're contradicting ourselves, but that sort of contradiction is allowable within the framework we've set.
As for your bigger argument, "fitness" isn't a step function where you're either perfect or you're dead, it's a gradual slope.
'Fitness' is also not an objective and isolated quality, which seems to be the mistake you're making. Fastest, biggest, strongest, smartest is not always 'most fit'. In the right situation, slow, weak, and stupid might be an advantage. When dealing with evolution, you sometimes need to look at individual animals, sometimes the pack, sometimes the whole species, and sometimes just the gene, and ask, "What's going to make this most likely to continue existing?" Sometimes traits are only as 'good' as they need to be in order to survive, and sometimes 'better' would cause more problems than it's worth.
Evolution will definitely select for the guy who's only 80% on the "fitness" scale but 200% on the procreation scale.
Again, you're missing the point. The 'fitness' scale and the 'procreation' scale are actually one inseparable scale. In evolutionary terms, when you talk about "fitness to survive", you must understand it in terms of the fitness of the genes to survive and continue to exist in subsequent generations. Insofar as you're talking about another idea of 'fitness' or 'survival', you're talking about something irrelevant to evolution.
Why do peahens (and others) find long tails so attractive? Who knows.
Indeed. Who knows. The difference is, you're assuming it's for no good reason, and yet if you believe evolution is a good theory, then we must suppose that there is a reason why large tails are beneficial traits in mates and/or offspring.
Is it just a fetish? I first thought so, but the market itself is evolutionary (where 'fitness' is what sells for the best price) and porn has definitely gotten more extreme (imo) as it's gone mainstream. A few years ago you could make a strong argument that this reflected a difference between guys who view porn and those who don't, but not now that it's readily available on premium channels and many hotels.
I wouldn't say fetishes stop being fetishes when they go mainstream. In case I'm not being clear, when I say "fetish", I don't mean "an unusual sexual practice". I mean a certain sort of unhealthy obsessive behavior.
I wasn't saying it was. I'm saying a man talking about something that is and must be utterly incomprehensible to him, by nature, is man talking about nothing. To use your analogy, it's roughly equivalent in meaning to the talk that goes on between the dirt and the rock insofar as they try to understand people.
My professor said that since logic has consistently proved itself in nature over the years, it's a decent branch of philosophy worth studying and trusting.
Personally, I don't think you should settle for such an answer. If you're truly interested, that is. It's a fundamentally un-philosophic answer, and there are better ones.
I suppose that will have to do, but I would have been happier spending the entire class on this one issue. If the foundation is not strong or trustable then the rest is not worthwhile!
It's not always true with philosophy that an unsure foundation means the rest of it isn't worthwhile, but I guess that assumes some of the answer to the question of "logic" we're talking about.
I believe it will be solved only by the emergence, over the course of evolution, of a radically new principle, as different from and as superior to the principle of mind, as mind is different from and superior to unintelligent life (or life is to unanimated matter). The next Big Step, if you wish.
And what makes you think that this ever will be, or should be, or could be, or is meant to be "solved"? A careful analysis may show that you see as a "problem" may, in fact, be a necessary prerequisite for anything resembling "intelligent thought".
Anything else is talking about something that is fundamentally unrecognizable and incomprehensible to us, which is to say, talking about nothing.
Indeed, I spoke about the colors, since he sited other bird adaptations, and the fact that male birds have vibrant colors is often sited in the sort of argument he was making. However, you still haven't addressed the thrust of my post, which was the issue of why peahens find "big, exuberant tails sexy".
What's become a generally accepted theory is, the qualities that we find 'sexy' in the opposite sex are the same features that would make you, your mate, and your offspring more likely to survive and procreate. The fact that peahens find big tails 'sexy' could be taken as proof that the theory is wrong, *or* it could be taken as proof that big tails somehow indicate a greater likelihood of survival and healthy procreation.
According to the theory, if the tail was truly so negative towards the peafowl's survival, it would be a trait that, through evolution, peahens would finally find unattractive. Rather, it must be that we don't understand it which way the tail benefits the peafowl population/gene-pool. At worst, it must have been, at one point, practically beneficial, and presently benign.
If we discount the theory, and decide that large tails are extremely negative toward survival, then evolution cannot account for how it is that bloodlines of peahens who are attracted by large tails weren't driven out by the breeds who were attracted to smaller tails.
Happily, this discussion goes to the heart of what it means to believe something without proof.
Well, the whole point of logic is that if you follow the rules, and your premises are valid, you can only arrive at valid conclusions, right?
So now Gödel demonstrates that this is not necessarily so. In other words, starting from valid premises and following the rules, you could still reach invalid conclusions.
It's trickier than that. Let's assume logic works, and I present a logical argument that "proves" that logic doesn't work. If my argument is to be believed, my argument is a paradox that proves my argument meaningless.
If I have truly followed all the "rules" or logic, and we presume that logic still "works", then it necessarily follows that the premises are wrong. One premise that may be wrong is that "logic works", but surely I am assuming other things, including that I am applying the "rules" or logic properly. So we re-examine our premises.
As I said, one premise that may be wrong is that "logic works", but if we do not assume this, than we should not start off trying to construct any kind of logical system or creating logical proofs. I'm not saying you reach a complete dead-end, but any "theorem" or "proof" or "argument" or "demonstration" may be empty in the world you find yourself entering.
Therefore, if Gödel really were proving simply that "logic doesn't work" then it would be needlessly annoying to go through his argument. No, I'm afraid what he's proving (correct me if I'm wrong) is something more along the lines that even a self-coherent logical system cannot prove itself to be true. So he places a limit to logic under which it works.
Of course, the root (original) definition of "logic" (which is the definition I prefer) is something akin to "a way of talking" or maybe "in accordance with words". The "rules" of logic were not invented or discovered whole as inalienable truths, but are merely explicit statements of what sort of things "make sense" to us.
Male peacock tails are definitely counter-survival. IIRC several other bird and fish species have similarly extreme adaptations.
And you're so sure why peacocks have bright tails? The way I see it, saying animals "evolve" to be attractive doesn't make sense. It's like when people claim that people have "evolved" to look cute as babies so that adults will want to take care of them. It's not that evolution makes babies look like things adults want to take care of, but that evolution makes adults want to take care of things that look like babies.
To address it the other way takes for granted that there is an absolute variable of "sexual attractiveness" which evolution breeds into the species population. For this to happen would assume far too many common mistakes about the nature of evolution and still wouldn't explain why I'm not sexually attracted to peacocks.
It's far more reasonable and in keeping with the theory of evolution to say that bright colors and good grooming is a sign of health and social dominance. The opposite sex is evolved to be attracted to animals bearing signs of health and social dominance, and there you have your explanation.
Even so, it's always tricky to examine *why* an animal has evolved a certain way. We keep finding out that there are plenty of good reasons for things that we just hadn't thought of in previous examinations of the topic. Therefore, I don't rule out that there may have been (and probably is) some other more practical benefit to the brightly-colored tail of the peacock.
Humans - at least as shown in American porn - also have counter-survival preferences.
Ah, but that gets extremely complicated. First, one might argue in some situations, cosmetic surgery is some sort of a sign of social dominance (has the money for surgery) or some such thing, and so it effects people on some psychological level beyond the simple physical appearance. Like people like jewelry because it's pretty, but also because it shows off social dominance to show off wealth. Also it does seem that a certain level of attraction to those physical assets is a health issue. We like athletic women, but also women who are well-fed and healthy enough to have the fat to spare.
However, I think in extreme cases it's merely a fetish issue. By that, I mean a degenerative (and counter-instinctual) impulse similar to a lot of obsessive, compulsive, and addictive behavior.
In short, I don't think your position holds water.
True, true. Every argument takes something for granted. But all arguments take for granted a certain same thing, along with whatever else they take for granted: that a properly structured argument gets you closer to Truth. (say it however you like)
Not only that, but there are different arguments about the proper use of argumentation and logic. So, not only does every argument presume that "logic works", but it presumes that a certain sort of "logic", namely the sort of logical attack you're using at the time, works. So Euclid isn't only taking his 5 postulates for granted, but also that his sort of geometric proof is appropriate, what constitutes a thing being proven, as well as a sort of spacial intuition without which geometry is impossible.
It's a very complex topic that, unfortunately, few people bother to examine properly. For the record, I'm not saying that, since we can't prove anything without assuming something, we shouldn't attempt to prove anything. I am saying that, since we are always taking things for granted, we should carefully examine and understand what it is that we assume. Once you understand how much you're assuming, even in order to complete the simplest of tasks, you'll understand that assumptions, in and of themselves, are not bad.
I believe, though I cannot prove it, that three--not two--selection processes were involved in human evolution.
The first two are familiar: natural selection, which selects for fitness, and sexual selection, which selects for sexiness.
Are those really two? I mean, isn't it pretty well accepted that the attractiveness of other people is based on cues on who would be a better survivor (physical fitness, symmetry, health)? Isn't sexual proficiency and ability to reproduce one aspect of being "fit" to survive (i.e. your genes being fit to survive for more than one generation)?
Like I said, I agree that Apple should go open-[whatever] whenever possible, and also go cross-platform whenever possible. Working in IT, I'll tell you that one of the attractive selling points of a Macintosh is that they play well with others (which Windows desktops don't really). So going open-source both boosts the "playing well with others" aspect as well as being a good PR boost for the/. crowd (and those like-minded).
However, if you notice, Apple isn't really an open-source shop. They help open-source, they support open-source, they use open-source, but they don't really open-source their own products. I'm not saying they shouldn't, I'm saying that don't.
However, I do think their profitability would be hurt by, say, open-sourcing all of OSX, iTunes, iPhoto, etc. If I were running Apple, I also wouldn't choose to create an open-source office suite or run an OpenOffice porting project. Like I said, they'd be risking Microsoft withdrawing support of MS Office (as well as quashing other 3rd party developers) by creating a project that they won't be able to sell. I don't think the peripheral benefits would be sufficient.
Again, if I were running Apple, I would sooner create an office suite and port it to Linux and Windows. But I probably wouldn't even do that. Most likely, I would probably make a highly compatable closed-source office suite with open file-formats while throwing some help/support toward the OpenOffice/NeoOffice projects (and the support would include helping them read the Apple file-formats). For Apple's current business model, it makes a lot of sense to cultivate an open-source community, but not a lot of sense to open source your own products.
Make the format an open standard. Let anyone write an app to read or write Apple Office documents. This is the corollary to the point above. Don't give people reasons to fear switching to or from your app. Give them the ability to change their mind. That's a feature; people will buy it.
How about some nice, simple XML-based format? I mean, XML was so hyped, and MS blew long and hard about how everything was supposed to be XML, and yet we still have to deal with word documents. I mean, can't we make a word-processing document with a format using some sort of human-readable tagging system?
Or is there some reason why this is a bad idea that I don't know about?
That, and when CleverNickName chimes in on ST:TNG posts. It's really strange to realize that, when talking on the internet, the people you're talking about could be reading.
I agree that Apple should be open (open source, open standards, open document formats, all of the above), because one of their great advantages right now is the fact that OSX can interoperate with Linux/Unix systems and use many of the same apps. However, I don't see Apple selling a rebranded OpenOffice.
First, if it were a rebranded OpenOffice, they wouldn't make much in the way of sales (GPL, people would have to be able to get it free). This might not sound so bad, except why jeopardize Microsoft's interest in developing Office for the Mac by starting a potentially money-losing venture (takes money to develop, but won't sell). Plus Sun would have too much control (since they are behind OOo). If Apple is making its own office suite, I would imagine part of the motivation would be to be out-from-under relying on another company to make sure you have basic productivity apps.
But there's another reason why it wouldn't make sense to go with OOo for their word-processor-- they've already done too much in-house work on the components necessary for a word-processor. Spell-checking, reading/writing Word documents, and PDF generation are all built into the OS. TextEdit can already be used to make basic docs. I bet some of the advanced formatting and interface design that is missing from TextEdit, Apple's already worked out for Keynote (I haven't used Keynote, but I'm saying some of that work could probably be reused). So, if they just expanded the capabilities of TextEdit and improved the interface a bit, it could be as good a word-processor as I'd need.
So why start over with a non-native office suite, spend all that time an effort porting it over, reviewing the code, bla bla bla, when you could just pull together some in-house components and have a pretty good app?
Mac rumor sites offer a constant barrage of unfounded and stupid speculation about every possible product Apple might possibly offer. Thinksecret tends to be pretty reliable to start out with, but whenever Thinksecret has an article with photos or screenshots removed "at the request of Apple's lawyers", it's a pretty good confirmation of the truth of the info.
I suspect that the poster is referring to Windows users who use MS Office over OpenOffice.
In that case, I'll tell you what keeps MS Office on my Windows machine: Outlook. There isn't another option for exchange clients. Port Evolution to Windows, and I'll gladly drop MS Office on my Windows system.
How do I know this is true? Simple. There are tons of people who are actually into the OSS movement, love Slashdot, run Linux servers, run OS X, etc. that *still* run MS Office when they can run OpenOffice instead? Why is that?
Don't you think it might have something to do with the fact that there isn't a native OSX port of OpenOffice? NeoOffice isn't out of beta, and I don't want to install/run X11 for a single app, especially when that one app is likely to give me problems of not integrating properly into the OS. It'd be one thing if it were some utility where the UI wasn't too vital, but consistancy is extremely important to the productivity of something like an office suite.
If someone had a nice, complete, stable, native port of OOo (which hopefully we'll get one of these days), I think you'd see it get some use.
I think it's quite obvious that it's in IBM's best interest A) for Apple to gain in the market and B) for Linux/Unix to gain in the market.
Any gains for Apple means more IBM processors sold. Nothing hard to understand about this.
If Linux hits it big on the desktop market, then for people to migrate from x86 to PPC architecture becomes trivial. If you're running Ubuntu on x86 and someone switched you over to using a PPC processor, who would ever know the difference? Likewise, Microsoft developing a PPC version of Windows is (potentially) a big win for IBM (obviously).
So, yeah, IBM's big fields of success as of late are hardware (processors and big iron) and e-business services. Helping Apple and Novell (who's pushing Linux big-time) succeed is the best way to ensure continued success in those fields, and they're openly partnered with each of those companies. Where's the conspiracy?
And, oddly enough, this is also what Microsoft's own OSX exchange client does. Entourage's Exchange connection is also accomplished over OWA, however the implementation in Entourage seems less fully-featured and more buggy than Novell's.
Strange, that Microsoft's implementation of an Exchange client is so bad. At least it's strange until you consider Microsoft has little reason to make OSX look like a reliable business platform.
And maybe in the future if Linux becomes a more useful office environment tool that is used (same with Mac's) then software that needs to cross the boundaries of OS will be needed.
I'm not sure what you mean, but Linux really is getting to the point where it really is a good desktop OS (and therefore, I would call it a "useful office environment tool"). It's stable, flexible, and secure. If all your users need is the replacements for Word, Excel, IE, and Outlook (which is an awful lot of users), then take a look at the current state of OpenOffice (soon to be 2.0), Firefox 1.0, and Evolution 2.0. All three are getting pretty ready-for-prime-time. (with a Mac, you have Word, Excel, Firefox/Safari/Camino, and Entourage.)
But for the majority of small to medium offices, the need isn't there.
There isn't necessarily a need to get off of Microsoft products, but there really is a need to have another option. What I'm saying is, it's perfectly alright to choose to use Microsoft Office, but any IT professional should find it worrisome whenever you're locked in to one product from a single vendor. Even a small business can benefit from the lower up-front cost of OSS, an arguably lower TCO, and cross-platform compatibility. In that +/- 15 person office-work-related shop, imagine they could switch hardware/software platforms without worrying about whether their file-formats will be compatible, because they can use the same office suite whether they run OSX, Linux, or Windows.
The reason small shops like this are all the same platform is, specifically, that they don't want to deal with the incompatibilities that come from using a different hardware/software platform. However, if you take away the incompatibilities, you can choose your hardware/software purely on the basis of "what's the best hardware/software" and not "what will work with our current setup". I don't care what size your IT staff is, that's a good thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Pretty good thinking, if you ask me. I agree that talking about what is fundamentally incomprehensible is nonsense.
However, I'm left wondering if there might be other kinds of "knowledge" that aren't what we think of as "logical". I refer back to things like, "I love my mother". Might that be a sort of genuine knowledge that merely falls outside the realm of what's commonly referred to as "logic"? If we have an extra-logical universal set with the comprehensible as a subset of knowledge, and "logic" a subset of that, might there be room for something else, non-logical, but within comprehensible?
And if so, might statements such as "logic works" fall within that other set?
In case you're not familiar, or the title "theory of non-contradiction" isn't sufficiently clear, I mean what if something can be A and not-A at the same time? If so, it should be perfectly fine for logic to both work and not-work.
In fact, denying the theory of non-contradiction has the funny affect of also allowing for the theory of non-contradiction. In essence, assuming the theory to be false does not prohibit it from also being true.
In this sense, if we assume logic works, then we must say that logic works. If we assume that logic does not "work", we are still free to say logic does work. We're contradicting ourselves, but that sort of contradiction is allowable within the framework we've set.
What do you think about that?
'Fitness' is also not an objective and isolated quality, which seems to be the mistake you're making. Fastest, biggest, strongest, smartest is not always 'most fit'. In the right situation, slow, weak, and stupid might be an advantage. When dealing with evolution, you sometimes need to look at individual animals, sometimes the pack, sometimes the whole species, and sometimes just the gene, and ask, "What's going to make this most likely to continue existing?" Sometimes traits are only as 'good' as they need to be in order to survive, and sometimes 'better' would cause more problems than it's worth.
Evolution will definitely select for the guy who's only 80% on the "fitness" scale but 200% on the procreation scale.
Again, you're missing the point. The 'fitness' scale and the 'procreation' scale are actually one inseparable scale. In evolutionary terms, when you talk about "fitness to survive", you must understand it in terms of the fitness of the genes to survive and continue to exist in subsequent generations. Insofar as you're talking about another idea of 'fitness' or 'survival', you're talking about something irrelevant to evolution.
Why do peahens (and others) find long tails so attractive? Who knows.
Indeed. Who knows. The difference is, you're assuming it's for no good reason, and yet if you believe evolution is a good theory, then we must suppose that there is a reason why large tails are beneficial traits in mates and/or offspring.
I wouldn't say fetishes stop being fetishes when they go mainstream. In case I'm not being clear, when I say "fetish", I don't mean "an unusual sexual practice". I mean a certain sort of unhealthy obsessive behavior.
I wasn't saying it was. I'm saying a man talking about something that is and must be utterly incomprehensible to him, by nature, is man talking about nothing. To use your analogy, it's roughly equivalent in meaning to the talk that goes on between the dirt and the rock insofar as they try to understand people.
Personally, I don't think you should settle for such an answer. If you're truly interested, that is. It's a fundamentally un-philosophic answer, and there are better ones.
I suppose that will have to do, but I would have been happier spending the entire class on this one issue. If the foundation is not strong or trustable then the rest is not worthwhile!
It's not always true with philosophy that an unsure foundation means the rest of it isn't worthwhile, but I guess that assumes some of the answer to the question of "logic" we're talking about.
And what makes you think that this ever will be, or should be, or could be, or is meant to be "solved"? A careful analysis may show that you see as a "problem" may, in fact, be a necessary prerequisite for anything resembling "intelligent thought".
Anything else is talking about something that is fundamentally unrecognizable and incomprehensible to us, which is to say, talking about nothing.
What's become a generally accepted theory is, the qualities that we find 'sexy' in the opposite sex are the same features that would make you, your mate, and your offspring more likely to survive and procreate. The fact that peahens find big tails 'sexy' could be taken as proof that the theory is wrong, *or* it could be taken as proof that big tails somehow indicate a greater likelihood of survival and healthy procreation.
According to the theory, if the tail was truly so negative towards the peafowl's survival, it would be a trait that, through evolution, peahens would finally find unattractive. Rather, it must be that we don't understand it which way the tail benefits the peafowl population/gene-pool. At worst, it must have been, at one point, practically beneficial, and presently benign.
If we discount the theory, and decide that large tails are extremely negative toward survival, then evolution cannot account for how it is that bloodlines of peahens who are attracted by large tails weren't driven out by the breeds who were attracted to smaller tails.
Happily, this discussion goes to the heart of what it means to believe something without proof.
So now Gödel demonstrates that this is not necessarily so. In other words, starting from valid premises and following the rules, you could still reach invalid conclusions.
It's trickier than that. Let's assume logic works, and I present a logical argument that "proves" that logic doesn't work. If my argument is to be believed, my argument is a paradox that proves my argument meaningless.
If I have truly followed all the "rules" or logic, and we presume that logic still "works", then it necessarily follows that the premises are wrong. One premise that may be wrong is that "logic works", but surely I am assuming other things, including that I am applying the "rules" or logic properly. So we re-examine our premises.
As I said, one premise that may be wrong is that "logic works", but if we do not assume this, than we should not start off trying to construct any kind of logical system or creating logical proofs. I'm not saying you reach a complete dead-end, but any "theorem" or "proof" or "argument" or "demonstration" may be empty in the world you find yourself entering.
Therefore, if Gödel really were proving simply that "logic doesn't work" then it would be needlessly annoying to go through his argument. No, I'm afraid what he's proving (correct me if I'm wrong) is something more along the lines that even a self-coherent logical system cannot prove itself to be true. So he places a limit to logic under which it works.
Of course, the root (original) definition of "logic" (which is the definition I prefer) is something akin to "a way of talking" or maybe "in accordance with words". The "rules" of logic were not invented or discovered whole as inalienable truths, but are merely explicit statements of what sort of things "make sense" to us.
And you're so sure why peacocks have bright tails? The way I see it, saying animals "evolve" to be attractive doesn't make sense. It's like when people claim that people have "evolved" to look cute as babies so that adults will want to take care of them. It's not that evolution makes babies look like things adults want to take care of, but that evolution makes adults want to take care of things that look like babies.
To address it the other way takes for granted that there is an absolute variable of "sexual attractiveness" which evolution breeds into the species population. For this to happen would assume far too many common mistakes about the nature of evolution and still wouldn't explain why I'm not sexually attracted to peacocks.
It's far more reasonable and in keeping with the theory of evolution to say that bright colors and good grooming is a sign of health and social dominance. The opposite sex is evolved to be attracted to animals bearing signs of health and social dominance, and there you have your explanation.
Even so, it's always tricky to examine *why* an animal has evolved a certain way. We keep finding out that there are plenty of good reasons for things that we just hadn't thought of in previous examinations of the topic. Therefore, I don't rule out that there may have been (and probably is) some other more practical benefit to the brightly-colored tail of the peacock.
Humans - at least as shown in American porn - also have counter-survival preferences.
Ah, but that gets extremely complicated. First, one might argue in some situations, cosmetic surgery is some sort of a sign of social dominance (has the money for surgery) or some such thing, and so it effects people on some psychological level beyond the simple physical appearance. Like people like jewelry because it's pretty, but also because it shows off social dominance to show off wealth. Also it does seem that a certain level of attraction to those physical assets is a health issue. We like athletic women, but also women who are well-fed and healthy enough to have the fat to spare.
However, I think in extreme cases it's merely a fetish issue. By that, I mean a degenerative (and counter-instinctual) impulse similar to a lot of obsessive, compulsive, and addictive behavior.
In short, I don't think your position holds water.
Wait... what?
Joking aside, proving that logic can't prove itself is easy enough. Proving that logic doesn't work is another matter entirely.
Not only that, but there are different arguments about the proper use of argumentation and logic. So, not only does every argument presume that "logic works", but it presumes that a certain sort of "logic", namely the sort of logical attack you're using at the time, works. So Euclid isn't only taking his 5 postulates for granted, but also that his sort of geometric proof is appropriate, what constitutes a thing being proven, as well as a sort of spacial intuition without which geometry is impossible.
It's a very complex topic that, unfortunately, few people bother to examine properly. For the record, I'm not saying that, since we can't prove anything without assuming something, we shouldn't attempt to prove anything. I am saying that, since we are always taking things for granted, we should carefully examine and understand what it is that we assume. Once you understand how much you're assuming, even in order to complete the simplest of tasks, you'll understand that assumptions, in and of themselves, are not bad.
The first two are familiar: natural selection, which selects for fitness, and sexual selection, which selects for sexiness.
Are those really two? I mean, isn't it pretty well accepted that the attractiveness of other people is based on cues on who would be a better survivor (physical fitness, symmetry, health)? Isn't sexual proficiency and ability to reproduce one aspect of being "fit" to survive (i.e. your genes being fit to survive for more than one generation)?
(didn't RTFA)
ep... you have your proof... no longer counts.
I mean, go ahead and prove it, but you'll still be taking it for granted, or you wouldn't bother with a proof.
However, if you notice, Apple isn't really an open-source shop. They help open-source, they support open-source, they use open-source, but they don't really open-source their own products. I'm not saying they shouldn't, I'm saying that don't.
However, I do think their profitability would be hurt by, say, open-sourcing all of OSX, iTunes, iPhoto, etc. If I were running Apple, I also wouldn't choose to create an open-source office suite or run an OpenOffice porting project. Like I said, they'd be risking Microsoft withdrawing support of MS Office (as well as quashing other 3rd party developers) by creating a project that they won't be able to sell. I don't think the peripheral benefits would be sufficient.
Again, if I were running Apple, I would sooner create an office suite and port it to Linux and Windows. But I probably wouldn't even do that. Most likely, I would probably make a highly compatable closed-source office suite with open file-formats while throwing some help/support toward the OpenOffice/NeoOffice projects (and the support would include helping them read the Apple file-formats). For Apple's current business model, it makes a lot of sense to cultivate an open-source community, but not a lot of sense to open source your own products.
How about some nice, simple XML-based format? I mean, XML was so hyped, and MS blew long and hard about how everything was supposed to be XML, and yet we still have to deal with word documents. I mean, can't we make a word-processing document with a format using some sort of human-readable tagging system?
Or is there some reason why this is a bad idea that I don't know about?
That, and when CleverNickName chimes in on ST:TNG posts. It's really strange to realize that, when talking on the internet, the people you're talking about could be reading.
First, if it were a rebranded OpenOffice, they wouldn't make much in the way of sales (GPL, people would have to be able to get it free). This might not sound so bad, except why jeopardize Microsoft's interest in developing Office for the Mac by starting a potentially money-losing venture (takes money to develop, but won't sell). Plus Sun would have too much control (since they are behind OOo). If Apple is making its own office suite, I would imagine part of the motivation would be to be out-from-under relying on another company to make sure you have basic productivity apps.
But there's another reason why it wouldn't make sense to go with OOo for their word-processor-- they've already done too much in-house work on the components necessary for a word-processor. Spell-checking, reading/writing Word documents, and PDF generation are all built into the OS. TextEdit can already be used to make basic docs. I bet some of the advanced formatting and interface design that is missing from TextEdit, Apple's already worked out for Keynote (I haven't used Keynote, but I'm saying some of that work could probably be reused). So, if they just expanded the capabilities of TextEdit and improved the interface a bit, it could be as good a word-processor as I'd need.
So why start over with a non-native office suite, spend all that time an effort porting it over, reviewing the code, bla bla bla, when you could just pull together some in-house components and have a pretty good app?
Mac rumor sites offer a constant barrage of unfounded and stupid speculation about every possible product Apple might possibly offer. Thinksecret tends to be pretty reliable to start out with, but whenever Thinksecret has an article with photos or screenshots removed "at the request of Apple's lawyers", it's a pretty good confirmation of the truth of the info.
In that case, I'll tell you what keeps MS Office on my Windows machine: Outlook. There isn't another option for exchange clients. Port Evolution to Windows, and I'll gladly drop MS Office on my Windows system.
Don't you think it might have something to do with the fact that there isn't a native OSX port of OpenOffice? NeoOffice isn't out of beta, and I don't want to install/run X11 for a single app, especially when that one app is likely to give me problems of not integrating properly into the OS. It'd be one thing if it were some utility where the UI wasn't too vital, but consistancy is extremely important to the productivity of something like an office suite.
If someone had a nice, complete, stable, native port of OOo (which hopefully we'll get one of these days), I think you'd see it get some use.
Any gains for Apple means more IBM processors sold. Nothing hard to understand about this.
If Linux hits it big on the desktop market, then for people to migrate from x86 to PPC architecture becomes trivial. If you're running Ubuntu on x86 and someone switched you over to using a PPC processor, who would ever know the difference? Likewise, Microsoft developing a PPC version of Windows is (potentially) a big win for IBM (obviously).
So, yeah, IBM's big fields of success as of late are hardware (processors and big iron) and e-business services. Helping Apple and Novell (who's pushing Linux big-time) succeed is the best way to ensure continued success in those fields, and they're openly partnered with each of those companies. Where's the conspiracy?
Strange, that Microsoft's implementation of an Exchange client is so bad. At least it's strange until you consider Microsoft has little reason to make OSX look like a reliable business platform.
I'm not sure what you mean, but Linux really is getting to the point where it really is a good desktop OS (and therefore, I would call it a "useful office environment tool"). It's stable, flexible, and secure. If all your users need is the replacements for Word, Excel, IE, and Outlook (which is an awful lot of users), then take a look at the current state of OpenOffice (soon to be 2.0), Firefox 1.0, and Evolution 2.0. All three are getting pretty ready-for-prime-time. (with a Mac, you have Word, Excel, Firefox/Safari/Camino, and Entourage.)
But for the majority of small to medium offices, the need isn't there.
There isn't necessarily a need to get off of Microsoft products, but there really is a need to have another option. What I'm saying is, it's perfectly alright to choose to use Microsoft Office, but any IT professional should find it worrisome whenever you're locked in to one product from a single vendor. Even a small business can benefit from the lower up-front cost of OSS, an arguably lower TCO, and cross-platform compatibility. In that +/- 15 person office-work-related shop, imagine they could switch hardware/software platforms without worrying about whether their file-formats will be compatible, because they can use the same office suite whether they run OSX, Linux, or Windows.
The reason small shops like this are all the same platform is, specifically, that they don't want to deal with the incompatibilities that come from using a different hardware/software platform. However, if you take away the incompatibilities, you can choose your hardware/software purely on the basis of "what's the best hardware/software" and not "what will work with our current setup". I don't care what size your IT staff is, that's a good thing.