| TERM | WHAT IT MEANS TO A LAYMAN | WHAT IT MEANS TO A PHILOSOPHER |
|---|---|---|
| hooker | one who can be hired to engage in sexual intercourse | one who thinks that "if A, then B" is logically equivalent (in some sense) to "either not-A, or B"; can be hired to tutor undergraduates, and costs much less |
| utilitarian | almost precisely cubical and made of concrete, probably a multi-storey car park | one who believes that the morally right action is the one with the best consequences, so far as the distribution of happiness is concerned; a creature generally believed to be endowed with the propensity to ignore their own drowning children in order to push buttons which will cause mild sexual gratification in a warehouse full of rabbits |
| Benthamite | substance from the planet Bentham capable of draining the super powers of Wonder Woman, or Spiderman, or some such person | someone who really would ignore their own drowning child in order to push the rabbit-gratification button |
| supervenience | that's it! … he's the guy that gets killed by Benthamite | a one-way dependence relation between properties or facts of one type and properties or facts of another |
| personal identity | the subject of self-help books and those modern Broadway songs which involve the use of a spotlight | that by virtue of which I am the same person I was yesterday |
| logic | …dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,Captain | involves upside-down As and reversed Es |
| existential quantifier |
an angst-ridden statistician | a reversed E: see above |
| a posteriori | things you think of when you're sitting down | knowledge which is the result of and is based upon experience of some kind |
| a priori | something you've thought of to head your "things to do" list | things you think of when you're sitting down, in an armchair, usually with a snifter of brandy in one hand |
| Platonic | the sort of love which is all very well in its way | a philosophical position which posits abstract objects almost palpable enough to trip over |
| Platonic heaven |
this is a contradiction in terms: see above | a place where one might find triangles, the square root of two, and the abstract property of being a mountain goat |
| Lewis | author of books about Narnia | a contemporary philosopher with a formidable reputation and a truly colossal beard |
| Quine | an alternative spelling of the Old Scottish word "quean", a synonym for "strumpet" which one might just get away with using in a game of Scrabble; indeed, which one often has to resort to using if all of the U's are already on the board | a contemporary philosopher of formidable reputation who I've never actually met, and whose beard I am told does not exist, but who I imagine has quite an impressive snort |
| Kripke | the name of a policeman who is the subject of a song in West Side Story, spelled so that New Zealanders will pronounce it correctly* | a contemporary philosopher of formidable reputation who, I am reliably informed, does have something of an impressive snort |
| Locke | thatte whyche prevents rogues and arrant knaves from burgling Ye Olde English Tea Shoppe | a dead philosopher of politics, language and mind |
| Moore | Dan Quayle's description of Othelloe | a dead philosopher fond of mentioning that he had two hands |
| Hobbes | the butler | a dead political philosopher (who I also think of as having a snort to be reckoned with) |
| t | a letter of the alphabet | a moment in time |
| grue | another one of those Old Scottish words so invaluable in a game of Scrabble, this one meaning "a creeping of the flesh" | either green and first observed before time t or blue and first observed after or at time t |
| modal | something to do with different tonal centres and flattened leading notes, as in "Scarborough Fair" | the phrase "possible worlds" is going to be mentioned any second now |
| possible world |
a phrase which I seem to recall was used as a lyric in a recent animated movie from the Walt Disney studios | either the biggest spatio-temporally connected thing of which we are all part, in which case there is only one; or some sort of weird abstraction, in which case there are uncountably many; but for a different view see Lewis |
| realist | hard-headed | someone who believes in the existence of trees; usually hard-headed,but if you mean "realist about everything", decidedly soft-headed |
| idealist | see tree-hugging, below | one who doesn't actually disbelieve in trees, but who thinks that they can't be bumped into, take up no space, and are in constant danger of winking out of existence if they are not properly attended to |
| pragmatist | as hard-headed as they come | someone whose belief in the existence of trees depends on their belief in the disposition of scientifically-minded angels to believe in trees |
| slab | the noise made by a semi-literate, almost sub-sentient, drunken creature, in order to indicate that it wishes to be given twenty-four cans of beer | the noise made by a semi-literate, almost sub-sentient, drunken creature, in order to indicate that there is a piece of masonry in the immediate vicinity |
| Descartes | a mathematician | a philosopher |
| Leibniz | a mathematician | a philosopher |
| Davies | a philosopher | a physicist |
| classical | Helen of Troy, Beethoven, Corinthian architecture and similar things | a stodgy, old-fashioned logic which produces wildly implausible results: for example, according to classical logic, no proposition is both true and false |
| deviant | someone who does unspeakable things to furry animals | a logic which probably would do unspeakable things to furry animals, if it could |
| absurd | silly | very silly |
| Republic | a nation defined chiefly by its lack of a monarch | a nation which may well have a monarch, so long as the monarch believes everything Plato believes, and has Plato's taste in music |
| France | a country in Europe | a nation defined chiefly by its lack of a monarch |
| the folk | the people responsible for maintaining the national supply of macrame wall hangings | a collection of more or less sensible chaps who more or less know what they mean, and it's more or less what I mean |
| gunk | matter which was once made of atoms like ordinary matter but which is now a formless substance blocking your drains | matter which is not made of atoms like ordinary matter, as it is infinitely divisible |
| deconstructing the other |
??? | ??? |
| Continental | croissants, fruit juice, coffee | deconstructing the other |
| rabbit | rabbit | contiguous and bi-laterally symmetric (when considered three-dimensionally) fusion of temporal slices, chronologically ordered, of what you are so pleased to call a "rabbit" (rabbit, indeed) |
| metaphysics | somewhere between "crystal healing" and "tree hugging" in the Dewey decimal system | No! How many times do I have to tell you? Nothing whatever to do with this New Age stuff! Now move my book away from the stand containing Shirley MacLaine, or I shall be very upset |
Tag: random shit
Cause I've been playing at this all day
I might be moving to Montana soon to sing a sad song to turn it around because we're all dumb and jaded and now there's a look in your eyes like black holes in the sky.
All that is now and all that is gone and all that's to come: a pointless life has run its course, the red rimmed eyes, the tears still run. My only problem is my problems feel all right, and it's hard for us both to let our feelings show.
I cut waves like some unborn sage and you've clipped my wings before I learnt to fly. Where you are is where I want to be. I need a dirty woman, I need a dirty girl. I think I need a Lear Jet.
No, I'm not insane. Well, not much. This is what happens when you spend your day translating shit. There are 14 song quotes in there. A prize to the person who gets them all. No cheating. Highlight the text below to get the answer.
Frank Zappa – Montana
Daniel Powter – Bad Day
Our Lady Peace – 4AM
Pink Floyd – Shine on you crazy diamond
Pink Floyd – Eclipse
Pink Floyd – Yet another movie.
Beanfield – Keep on believing
Sting – It's probably me
Kasabian – Processed beats
Metallica – Dyers Eve
Santana – Love of my life.
Pink Floyd – Young lust
Pink Floyd – Money
Dire Straits – Money for Nothing
Daniel Powter – Bad Day
Our Lady Peace – 4AM
Pink Floyd – Shine on you crazy diamond
Pink Floyd – Eclipse
Pink Floyd – Yet another movie.
Beanfield – Keep on believing
Sting – It's probably me
Kasabian – Processed beats
Metallica – Dyers Eve
Santana – Love of my life.
Pink Floyd – Young lust
Pink Floyd – Money
Dire Straits – Money for Nothing
I'm perverted. Really, I am.
I went to Starbucks this morning and the barista was named Bodil. This made me think of Michel and giggle silently to myself. Unless you khow why, I'm not telling you the reason.
Spent ooodles of money this morning. It's going to cost me 100 quid to get my watch serviced. The good news is that I'll now have another 12 months of warranty. The bad news is that it's going to take a month to do. Did some more xmas shopping. I'm almost done with everybody, only some bits and pieces left to buy.
Weird assed shit
Shit like this freaks me out when it happens. Katy was channel surfing and stopped on Family Guy. My only exposure to that show has been through LJ icons and the random bits that Sara's quoted. I was only half watching the show when I thought of one of those Sara quotes: “I've licked my share of peanut butter”. 5 minutes later, I kid you not, Brian the dog says that exact line. Woah, dude!
Katy and I spent ooodles of money today on xmas prezzies. Yaay! Funfunfun. Pretties and shinies and tasties and smellies. Still have a bit to cover, but most people are well under way. It's been a weird day. The Grogan clan and I spent the day outside and shopping to change our collective thoughts. Other interesting incidents occurring today were Katy poking me in the eye with her finger and being offered a Star wars balloon, finding out that all of the computers we wanted to buy were discontinued and out of stock and me spending over an hour in a bookstore and coming out bookless. How sad is that?
Yoinked From <lj user="suzn">
| Your Birthdate: August 7 |
 Born on the 7th day of month gives you a tendency to be something of a perfectionist and makes you more individualistic in many ways. Your mind is good at deep mental analysis and complicated reasoning. You are very psychic and sensitive, and you should usually follow your hunches. You may not take orders too well, so you may want to work alone or in a situation where you can be the boss. |
Psychic? or Psychotic? Hmmmm…
What the hell is wrong with me?
Last night, I dreamed that I went trick or treating on the McGill campus (which looked like the Cambridge rail station) and President Dubya Bush gave me a kitkat.
WTF??
I've come up with a nice term for weird dreams: introucing bugs in my OS (It came to me while I was dreaming, but I like it). Katy woke me up last night at 1am to ask me who the pretentious man in a suit was. Mmmokay. She'll come up with random statements like that when she's asleep. Apparently, she was trying to stop a war so it's ok.
I don't know what I did to myself last night but this morning *both* shoulders hurt.
Not a happy camper.
Yet anther weird dream
So last night my dream involved:
buying a house from my current landlords and finding the poopsmith in the basement and further finding out that one of the rooms lead to a leasure establishment (think Spirited away, but more Tiki than Oriental) that had Elvis Fridays. Fast forward/segway into an evil overlord-type plan to do something evil (that part is still murky) that involved an insane asylum, the grown up children from Roseanne and a shower that turned me into a really buff samourai with white hair and a sculpted (and well endowed) body… Muh?
Random blurbs
- We started on our xmas shopping yesterday. Got some cute things. Katy and I are developping a serious Bobbles obsession.
- I saw a woman buy a laptop at Tescos. Stuff like that still weirds me out.
- I'm going to stay off the chilies for a while, as I think they give me heartburn.
- I'm sleeping better these days, but there's still some things niggling at my usual good night's sleep.
- I'm watching Industrial Revelations on Discovery. The host reminds me of Katy's dad. I like that sort of series.
Put down the tweezers, woman!
Katy sniped a backhair with a pair of tweezers while I wasn't looking.
YEEEOUCH!
Katy has done a bad bad thing.
My mother has been corrupted by the fab five. She's now a fan of Queer Eye for the Straight guy.