Zompist Bboard Again

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu May 27, 2021 12:09 pm I think maybe a Western bias makes us label other religions as "weird", with a fancy Greek name. But I think we in the West are the weird ones. Does anyone in the world ever insists that people think correct thoughts, outside of Christians and far-left activists?

Neo-Confucianism, maybe. Though in general the Chinese lived with multiple religions, the Confucians were more bothered by the Daoists and especially by the upstart Buddhists. And of course the examination system was based on the mastery of the Confucian and then the Neo-Confucian classics: the whole idea of a canon implies some degree of correct thinking. The idea of zhengming (usually translated "the rectification of names") is pretty close to insisting that people think correct thoughts.

I agree that Judaism is far more interested in praxis, but surely part of that is because since the rise of Christianity, Jews didn't have to deal with many pagans. Judaism has reinvented itself several times, but one of those reinventions was during and just after the Exile, and included a strong indignation against the very idea of multiple gods. (Earlier parts of the Tanakh are arguably henotheistic: God is better than all the other gods.)

rotting bones wrote: ↑Thu May 27, 2021 10:17 am I don't think that's what Judaism says. I'm pretty sure Judaism says that you are rewarded solely for your works, but your works are dictated entirely by God. When you feel the urge to do good deeds/keep the commandments, that is a gift to you from God.

This is not something I’ve heard before. As Ares Land says, Judaism is very big on free will, and it is your choice whether or not you choose to sin.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu May 27, 2021 11:18 am IIRC, bradrn's an observant Jew. I think we can trust him on that subject

Sorry to disappoint you, I’m not really I mean, I go to an Orthodox synagogue (when I go at all, which is not often) and sorta keep kosher, and I’ve read a fair bit about Judaism, but aside from that, I’m not terribly observant. (I’ve even posted here on Shabbat, which is very very naughty of me and I shouldn’t do it.) I am not a rabbi, or even very religiously educated, and anything I say about Judaism should correspondingly be taken with a grain of salt.

I definitely got the impression that Judaism is extremely big on free will. (Good teachers are able to explain how to reconcile this with God's omnipotence and omniscience, but I can't follow their reasoning: it makes my brain hurt.)

This is correct, and I don’t understand it either.

From what I know of Islam (not that much, admittedly) it seems almost Calvinist in its insistance that God ultimately decides how He wants and that His decisions are in no way supposed to make sense to us.

In some ways this is true of Judaism. The standard line about otherwise nonsensical laws like kashrut is that humans don’t need to understand them; it is enough that God has decreed that we should follow His commandments, because He is all-knowing and thus knows what’s good to do. (And lest you condemn this attitude, keep in mind that in some times and places, giving charity was considered nonsensical also.) Indeed, obeying a mitzvah simply because God has told you to is considered superior to obeying it because it makes sense to you.

Traditional Judaism is not a religion in an orthodox sense of a faith commitment but in an orthoprax sense of a way of life of the Jewish people. In traditional Judaism, by contrast to Christianity, the debate faith or good deeds expresses itself exactly the opposite in which both sides are in agreement that good deeds are a necessary component of a religious life reflecting the orthoprax nature of Judaism, and the dispute is to what extent, if at all, faith is a necessary element. … As far as I am aware, no such extreme orthoprax position according to which the essence of religion is fulfilled through proper behavior, even without a proper faith commitment or belief in God, exists in classical Christianity. No such position is possible within Christianity because the very essence of Christianity is a faith commitment – faith in God and in Jesus as the savior.

This is exactly what I was trying to say: Judaism focuses on orthopraxy, Christianity focuses on orthodoxy.

zompist wrote: ↑Thu May 27, 2021 4:37 pm I agree that Judaism is far more interested in praxis, but surely part of that is because since the rise of Christianity, Jews didn't have to deal with many pagans. Judaism has reinvented itself several times, but one of those reinventions was during and just after the Exile, and included a strong indignation against the very idea of multiple gods. (Earlier parts of the Tanakh are arguably henotheistic: God is better than all the other gods.)

This is no doubt correct, but you might be surprised how many challenges to belief there were. Early in Jewish history, there was the split between the Pharisees/Sadducees/Essenes/etc. Then slightly later on, the Karaites split off; IIRC both the Karaites and the Sadducees believed that the Oral Law was invalid and the Tanakh should be taken literally. Still later, there was a big split between the Mitnagdim and the Chassidim, which involved… well, I’m not too sure actually, but the division persists to this day.

Interestingly, a lot of these debates are talked about in terms of praxis rather than doxis. (Is that the right word?) You could say ‘the Karaites believe the Oral Law is invalid, which is obviously a wrong belief and therefore heretic’. But the single book I’ve seen mentioning them says something more like: ’the Karaites are a heretic group who do not accept the oral Law, which means for instance that they don’t light candles on Shabbat’. And I’m not even sure what the underlying disagreement is between Chassidim and Mitnagdim, because everyone just focuses on the differences in praxis: the Chassidim dance and sing enthusiastically throughout the service while the Mitnagdim say prayers formally and solemnly, and so on.

(Not to say there is no orthodoxy: Maimonides formulated the Thirteen Principles of Faith, and anyone who disbelieves any of them is conventionally considered a heretic. But that’s not the focus.)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu May 27, 2021 1:47 pm It is decreed by God, but I think that doesn't preclude free will. (that's honestly the bits I don't understand)

The word "free" doesn't occur in the article, right?

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu May 27, 2021 12:09 pm (Inasmuch as Christians really do that. Most church-goers I know focus on doing the right thing and seem uninterested in doctrine. I've met a few Catholics who'll insist that the Orthodox are blasphemous or something, but I never really understood their take on Catholicism. Their main article of faith was complaining about the Pope, which seems a very un-Catholic thing to do.)

It could be that after theology became less believable, the inquisitors moved on to politics. (Edit: Though Papal controversies specifically are very old. Google: Antipope.)

bradrn wrote: ↑Thu May 27, 2021 11:25 pm This is not something I’ve heard before. As Ares Land says, Judaism is very big on free will, and it is your choice whether or not you choose to sin.

You don't get it. Even though it doesn't use the term "free will", Islam also says that individuals are basically free to accept or reject Shaitan's advice. At the same time, traditional theology says both good and ill are inspired by the will of Allah. This is why it's difficult to pick up bodies of thought just by being around people who profess them. Schools of thought are fundamentally inconsistent. You have to study them systematically to learn what their inconsistencies are. For example, Ares Land's response sounds to me like: It's true that Judaism rewards good works. It's true that good works are decreed by God. But humans have free will.

It's not clear to me yet that this is an inconsistency in my position so much as an inconsistency in Judaism itself. Could you please ask the rabbi of your synagogue to resolve the issue of free will for us?

Go look up "Judaism and free will": you'll find plenty of resources -- Judaism is an exceptionally well-documented faith.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri May 28, 2021 6:36 am
It could be that after theology became less believable, the inquisitors moved on to politics. (Edit: Though Papal controversies specifically are very old. Google: Antipope.)

I'm pretty sure it always was about the politics. Even the early controversies, Gnosticism, Manicheism, and so on were most probably only superficially about theoology and actually about who got to be bishop.

The inquisitors always were political. The inquisition, in its various inquisition, was nothing more than a judicial system (actually more sensible, humane and efficient than its secular counterparts.)

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri May 28, 2021 6:36 am For example, Ares Land's response sounds to me like: It's true that Judaism rewards good works. It's true that good works are decreed by God. But humans have free will.

This is exactly correct.

It's not clear to me yet that this is an inconsistency in my position so much as an inconsistency in Judaism itself. Could you please ask the rabbi of your synagogue to resolve the issue of free will for us?

I can certainly try if I see him, but my family doesn’t often go to shul — especially in these COVID-infested times — so you could be in for a long wait.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri May 28, 2021 7:33 am The inquisitors always were political. The inquisition, in its various inquisition, was nothing more than a judicial system (actually more sensible, humane and efficient than its secular counterparts.)

Possibly you have a different definition of this word than I do, because it makes me immediately think of the Spanish Inquisition, which was neither sensible nor humane.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri May 28, 2021 7:33 am Go look up "Judaism and free will": you'll find plenty of resources -- Judaism is an exceptionally well-documented faith.

Yes, but searching "Islam free will" says that Islam believes in free will too. While not necessarily incorrect, that is at least a somewhat controversial position. I'm looking for an argument that bypasses the PR perspective.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri May 28, 2021 7:33 am I'm pretty sure it always was about the politics. Even the early controversies, Gnosticism, Manicheism, and so on were most probably only superficially about theoology and actually about who got to be bishop.

The inquisitors always were political. The inquisition, in its various inquisition, was nothing more than a judicial system (actually more sensible, humane and efficient than its secular counterparts.)

The Wikipedia article seems to support the idea that the primary goal of the inquisition was to fight heresy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition "Nothing more than a judicial system" says nothing to me. What does it matter if a system is well-organized if the laws it is designed to uphold make no sense?

It was not just the Catholics. Later on, Protestants purged Catholics too.

It's important to clarify that there were many religious purges under Islamic states. For example, Muslims purged Jews whenever they claimed to have found a messiah, and that is something they habitually did. The authorities feared the messiah might try to remove them from power. The point is, those purges weren't systematic attempts to instill specific beliefs. To be clear, some Muslim leaders tried that too. One Muslim leader even tried to create religious uniformity by creating his own religion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Din-i_Ilahi But they were very much exceptions as compared to the situation in Europe. My understanding is that with time, Eastern Christianity drifted into orthopraxy as well.

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri May 28, 2021 7:55 am I can certainly try if I see him, but my family doesn’t often go to shul — especially in these COVID-infested times — so you could be in for a long wait.

Thank you. I'll wait.

twitter is rolling out a new paid service,allowing the ability to unsend tweets (permanently, not just delete where it leaves a hole) and other things such as organizing and better control over the infinite scrolling. rumor is that there will be more than one level of paid access as well. https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/13 ... 8049303555

I've been doing lots of interesting research lately that's resulted in pretty colors.

Pretty! What are these?

They look like tiny iridescent fantasy CDs.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 2:45 pm Pretty! What are these?

These are droplets of a cholesteric (aka chiral nematic) liquid crystal without any surfactant and stabilized with a polymer. The mixture is red-reflecting, but due to structural color and the resultant Bragg reflection, we get very pretty colors other than red. If you notice, you can draw lines that connect the green reflections from one droplet to another!

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 4:46 pm They look like tiny iridescent fantasy CDs.

These are a bit too small for that, though... on the order of 50 µm, tops.

doctor shark wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 12:59 pm

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 4:46 pm They look like tiny iridescent fantasy CDs.

These are a bit too small for that, though... on the order of 50 µm, tops.

Tiny iridescent fantasy CDs for pixies not visible to the naked eye.

doctor shark wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 12:59 pm

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 2:45 pm Pretty! What are these?

These are droplets of a cholesteric (aka chiral nematic) liquid crystal without any surfactant and stabilized with a polymer. The mixture is red-reflecting, but due to structural color and the resultant Bragg reflection, we get very pretty colors other than red. If you notice, you can draw lines that connect the green reflections from one droplet to another!

Huh, I actually understood most of those words. And a search for ‘chiral nematic liquid crystal’ brings up a good paper which helped me with most of the ones I didn’t. Very interesting stuff.

In vaguely related happy news, I finally got back MS and NMR spectra for the sulfonamide drug I’ve been making in chemistry labs. If I’m reading them right, my synthetic method has actually worked, and the white powder I synthesised is in fact the compound I was aiming for. This came as something of a shock to me.

I'm not going to make a big deal of this, but I've started a Crowdfunder page in the hope that I can get some help in covering the cost of upgrading my now ageing laptop, getting some rather expensive books on linguistics (why these books have to be so expensive is beyond me) and maybe any software I may need in the future. It would also help me lessen the need to do overtime at work in order to afford this stuff, affording me more time to work on my worldbuilding project.

I'm not going to keep posting about it, I'll leave it at this one post. Any donations are greatly appreciated. https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/jonlang

Dear Jonlang, please do not take it badly when I say your FundMe request is a bit out of touch. You are competing with millions of other charitable causes that all claim to address some Big Problem or personal tragedy, and you make it clear you need the money to buy expensive books for your hobby?

Books can be found as free .pdfs online. If you need help finding them, and do not mind to potentially tread a legal grey area, I am willing to help you. If you want some tips on open source software, likewise. Feedback on your conlang? Sure. But giving you "hobby money" for something that is both extremely personal and a labor of love seems a bit out of touch with reality to me, as I too have worked hard for that money and had to skimp on sleeping hours in order to conlang.

If anything, I would advise you to make it more explicit what your worldbuilding prtoject consists of and what the envisioned end result is. Are you working on a book, or can we check on your progress on a website?

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 8:56 pm

doctor shark wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 12:59 pm

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 2:45 pm Pretty! What are these?

These are droplets of a cholesteric (aka chiral nematic) liquid crystal without any surfactant and stabilized with a polymer. The mixture is red-reflecting, but due to structural color and the resultant Bragg reflection, we get very pretty colors other than red. If you notice, you can draw lines that connect the green reflections from one droplet to another!

Huh, I actually understood most of those words. And a search for ‘chiral nematic liquid crystal’ brings up a good paper which helped me with most of the ones I didn’t. Very interesting stuff.

Oh, funny, that's one of my old papers! (I'm the second author.)

In vaguely related happy news, I finally got back MS and NMR spectra for the sulfonamide drug I’ve been making in chemistry labs. If I’m reading them right, my synthetic method has actually worked, and the white powder I synthesised is in fact the compound I was aiming for. This came as something of a shock to me.

That's a definite plus; if you don't mind me asking, what kind of NMR? (And would an additional IR spectrum help confirm if it worked?) But very cool to hear overall... despite being a physicist, I did enjoy my work in chemistry labs.

Also cool to hear that you're a synthetic chemist. Are you working in academic research or industry?

doctor shark wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 7:45 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 8:56 pm

doctor shark wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 12:59 pm
These are droplets of a cholesteric (aka chiral nematic) liquid crystal without any surfactant and stabilized with a polymer. The mixture is red-reflecting, but due to structural color and the resultant Bragg reflection, we get very pretty colors other than red. If you notice, you can draw lines that connect the green reflections from one droplet to another!

Huh, I actually understood most of those words. And a search for ‘chiral nematic liquid crystal’ brings up a good paper which helped me with most of the ones I didn’t. Very interesting stuff.

Oh, funny, that's one of my old papers! (I'm the second author.)

What a coincidence! (Actually, not quite: I saw the author list and thought ‘hmm, I’m sure I‘ve seen that name somewhere before…’)

… very cool to hear overall... despite being a physicist, I did enjoy my work in chemistry labs.

Also cool to hear that you're a synthetic chemist. Are you working in academic research or industry?

Neither. I’m a third year undergraduate student doing a double major in physics and chemistry. Chemistry labs are indeed very fun, but so are physics ones; I still have no idea which one I prefer.

In vaguely related happy news, I finally got back MS and NMR spectra for the sulfonamide drug I’ve been making in chemistry labs. If I’m reading them right, my synthetic method has actually worked, and the white powder I synthesised is in fact the compound I was aiming for. This came as something of a shock to me.

That's a definite plus; if you don't mind me asking, what kind of NMR? (And would an additional IR spectrum help confirm if it worked?)

Um… not sure, actually. This is one of the disadvantages of being a student: I don’t know a lot of this detail yet. (In fact, my first reaction to this was: ‘there’s different kinds of NMR‽’) I did take an IR spectrum, which wasn’t terribly helpful for me — reading spectra isn’t one of my strengths — but it at least doesn’t actually look inconsistent with my intended product.

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 8:23 am

doctor shark wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 7:45 am … very cool to hear overall... despite being a physicist, I did enjoy my work in chemistry labs.

Also cool to hear that you're a synthetic chemist. Are you working in academic research or industry?

Neither. I’m a third year undergraduate student doing a double major in physics and chemistry. Chemistry labs are indeed very fun, but so are physics ones; I still have no idea which one I prefer.

How did I think you were older? Sorry! But very good to hear... actually, having both, if you're going further into academic research or looking at pursuing a postgraduate degree, is quite useful. My major was physics, but I also had a chemistry minor (along with French, but that's a different story)... I mostly picked physics because the organic chemistry classes really kicked my ass, plus physics is more math (which I'm better at) and the education was geared less towards rote memorization, which unfortunately felt a lot like how the chemistry was taught. (My favorite chem classes were physical chemistry, perhaps unsurprisingly.)

But a "physicist with chemistry training" is actually a good place to be, I've found, especially in a field like mine (liquid crystals). One of the M.Sc. students I'm supervising in part for the next half year actually is doing a project right in that sweet spot: he'll first synthesize a compound that we'll want to use to make an artificial cytoskeleton, and then he'll incorporate it into liposomes (which mimic the cell wall). My support will be in the liposome stage, but the chemistry stage is still fascinating (and I'm thinking I'm providing nonzero feedback).

In vaguely related happy news, I finally got back MS and NMR spectra for the sulfonamide drug I’ve been making in chemistry labs. If I’m reading them right, my synthetic method has actually worked, and the white powder I synthesised is in fact the compound I was aiming for. This came as something of a shock to me.

That's a definite plus; if you don't mind me asking, what kind of NMR? (And would an additional IR spectrum help confirm if it worked?)

Um… not sure, actually. This is one of the disadvantages of being a student: I don’t know a lot of this detail yet. (In fact, my first reaction to this was: ‘there’s different kinds of NMR‽’) I did take an IR spectrum, which wasn’t terribly helpful for me — reading spectra isn’t one of my strengths — but it at least doesn’t actually look inconsistent with my intended product.

[/quote]
Spectrum reading actually was one of the things I felt I was good at in organic chemistry, though normally I needed a table just to calm my doubts. Most NMR spectra you start with are proton (¹H) spectra, because (a) they're both qualitative and quantitative and (b) they're easy. In fact, many atoms with an odd weight can be "spin-active", meaning that you can get an NMR signal from them, but whether or not that signal is useful is a different story... the major other NMR is ¹³C, but that's qualitative only and quite tricky to resolve. (For me, that was in 2nd-year organic chemistry, though my university had a very strange sequence for the chemistry major!)

But, hey, often the important thing is making sure that the probability you have the desired compound exists. Characterization is a bit of an art form, as is purification... actually, often the purification is as challenging as the synthetic steps!

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 8:23 am What a coincidence! (Actually, not quite: I saw the author list and thought ‘hmm, I’m sure I‘ve seen that name somewhere before…’)

Indeed, I've posted some of my other papers here (and people who think hard and believe in themselves can easily ID me), so not a surprise. More of my surprise was that said paper was one that you found as a reference; there's quite a long and tangled history with that article, as it took I think almost two years from initial submission (where it got rejected in the review stage) to the final appearance online. And that was from my Master's work, which was... uh, about six years ago? (Crap, I feel old.)

(I can give more LC references if interested, but I can instead PM them to you. Clogging up this with a technical science discussion might be too much for some onlookers.)

doctor shark wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 12:35 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 8:23 am

doctor shark wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 7:45 am … very cool to hear overall... despite being a physicist, I did enjoy my work in chemistry labs.

Also cool to hear that you're a synthetic chemist. Are you working in academic research or industry?

Neither. I’m a third year undergraduate student doing a double major in physics and chemistry. Chemistry labs are indeed very fun, but so are physics ones; I still have no idea which one I prefer.

How did I think you were older? Sorry! But very good to hear... actually, having both, if you're going further into academic research or looking at pursuing a postgraduate degree, is quite useful. My major was physics, but I also had a chemistry minor (along with French, but that's a different story)... I mostly picked physics because the organic chemistry classes really kicked my ass, plus physics is more math (which I'm better at) and the education was geared less towards rote memorization, which unfortunately felt a lot like how the chemistry was taught. (My favorite chem classes were physical chemistry, perhaps unsurprisingly.)

But a "physicist with chemistry training" is actually a good place to be, I've found, especially in a field like mine (liquid crystals). One of the M.Sc. students I'm supervising in part for the next half year actually is doing a project right in that sweet spot: he'll first synthesize a compound that we'll want to use to make an artificial cytoskeleton, and then he'll incorporate it into liposomes (which mimic the cell wall). My support will be in the liposome stage, but the chemistry stage is still fascinating (and I'm thinking I'm providing nonzero feedback).

Oddly enough, I much prefer organic synthesis to physical chemistry. There may be a connection to the fact that I don’t particularly like theoretical physics either; my favourite part of my degree so far was when I spent a summer project doing Monte Carlo simulations of light scattering in water. (Which is also pretty odd, since I absolutely love maths.) But I agree there is a huge overlap, especially with stuff like microscopy and optics, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up working in that area.

That's a definite plus; if you don't mind me asking, what kind of NMR? (And would an additional IR spectrum help confirm if it worked?)

Um… not sure, actually. This is one of the disadvantages of being a student: I don’t know a lot of this detail yet. (In fact, my first reaction to this was: ‘there’s different kinds of NMR‽’) I did take an IR spectrum, which wasn’t terribly helpful for me — reading spectra isn’t one of my strengths — but it at least doesn’t actually look inconsistent with my intended product.

Spectrum reading actually was one of the things I felt I was good at in organic chemistry, though normally I needed a table just to calm my doubts. Most NMR spectra you start with are proton (¹H) spectra, because (a) they're both qualitative and quantitative and (b) they're easy. In fact, many atoms with an odd weight can be "spin-active", meaning that you can get an NMR signal from them, but whether or not that signal is useful is a different story... the major other NMR is ¹³C, but that's qualitative only and quite tricky to resolve. (For me, that was in 2nd-year organic chemistry, though my university had a very strange sequence for the chemistry major!)

But, hey, often the important thing is making sure that the probability you have the desired compound exists. Characterization is a bit of an art form, as is purification... actually, often the purification is as challenging as the synthetic steps!

Oh sorry, I do actually know what you’re talking about! It was a proton spectrum. (¹³C spectra are uncommon enough that I totally forgot they exist, even though I did indeed learn about them in second year.)

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 8:23 am What a coincidence! (Actually, not quite: I saw the author list and thought ‘hmm, I’m sure I‘ve seen that name somewhere before…’)

Indeed, I've posted some of my other papers here (and people who think hard and believe in themselves can easily ID me), so not a surprise. More of my surprise was that said paper was one that you found as a reference; there's quite a long and tangled history with that article, as it took I think almost two years from initial submission (where it got rejected in the review stage) to the final appearance online. And that was from my Master's work, which was... uh, about six years ago? (Crap, I feel old.)

(I can give more LC references if interested, but I can instead PM them to you. Clogging up this with a technical science discussion might be too much for some onlookers.)

Yes please! (Though I can’t promise I’ll read them all soon, what with exams in a week.)