Re: Silver Nemesis reborn, only with cappier music


"L. Ross Raszewski" <lraszewski@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:slrnfotm0t.7cn.lraszewski@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:48:29 -0000, Agamemnon
<agamemnon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Finally you have managed to answer the question properly.


Thank you. I will concede that I had been confused by your earlier
statements and took them to mean that you meant for me to look for
proof of The Clouds's fictionality in the text itself (specifically,
when I asked you for an example of what sort of proof you would accept
that, say, The Tempest was fiction). Had I realized that you meant for
me to look outside the text, I'd have gone to Socrates's response
immediately.


Now please have the decency to do likewise. You seem to have snipped
my challenge, presumably thinking it beneath you. I thought your
challenge was beneath me, but I answered it just to prove that I
could. Unless you do the same, I shall have no choice but to assume
you are unable to, and have been lying about your imagined
"consensus". I understand your notion that this "consensus" could
exist while excluding those too ignorant for you to count their
opinions. However, once the set of those who are too ignorant to count
is removed, I have seen no proof -- not even any evidence -- that this
"consensus" consists of anyone but yourself. Are you, like

And you have no proof to the contrary that there aren't people who are
rolling on the floor laughing at the ignorants.

Mrs. Slocombe, "Speaking for myself, and I am unanimous in this"? Or
are there really classics experts rolling on the floor laughing at me?
You seem sure that there are, but you haven't shown me any. YOu
haven't even pointed me at any.

Well they are not laughing at you any longer since you have answered the
question.




If you like. Personally, I think this is a poor proof compared to
those I have given you. I mean, it is itself written after the fact by

What? Are you serious? Prior to this you gave me no proof whatsoever. You
just gave me a personal opinion, with no contemporary historical
reference
to any of the characters in the play or the background behind it. You did
not provide any proof whatsoever that it was fiction.


A proof:

Not a proof.


1. Nonfiction contains only characters which are real people
(Definition of "nonfiction")

That has nothing to do with my original statement. I said that dramas was
BASED on historical fact. You are perfectly entitled to have a chorus (or
equivalent) or abstract concepts in a fact based drama.

2. Abstract concepts are not actual living people. (Common sense, but
if you want a citation contemporary to the period I've mentioned,
read, well, pretty much anything by Plato. I find that Phaedo puts it
particularly well)
3. Therefore a story which contains abstract concepts as characters is
not nonfiction (Modus Tolens)
4. (Lemma 1) Therefore a story which contains abstract concepts as
characters is fiction (Negation of "nonfiction")

WRONG and IRRELEVANT!

Fiction is that which is totally invented. Read the disclaimers on the
Hollywood movies, "all of the characters and events in this film are
entirely fictitious and any similarly with any personas living or dead is
purely coincidental."


1. Right Logic and Wrong Logic are abstract concepts
2. The Clouds contains Right Logic and Wrong Logic as characters.
3. (Lemma 2)Therefore the Clouds is a story which contains abstract
concepts as
characters (Transitive property)

IRRELEVANT!


1. A story which contains abstract concepts as characters is fiction
(Lemma 1)

NOT ACCEPTABLE

2. The Clouds is a story which contains abstract concepts as
characters (Lemma 2)
3. Therefore the Clouds is Fiction (Modus Ponens)


NOT ACCEPTABLE

You have to prove that everything is totally invented, including the
character of Socrates. Socrates denies any similarity with the character in
the play and explains that he did not engage in those things such as
speculating on the nature of the universe or making the worse seem better.

someone who had a vested interest in making SAocrates look good, and

Plato's Apology was written by a primary witness of the trial of Socrates
who stumped up the money to buy Socrates freedom or help him escape
captivity. Plato's Apology is regarded as a primary source for both the
trial of Socrates and Aristophanes Clouds, and is corroborated by
Xeonophon
and the fact that after Socrates death the Athenians were forced to
retract
their verdict and erect a stature of Socrates in the Agora for their
mistake
in killing an innocent man that did not harm to them.

I'm sorry. I'm confused again. YOur proof that the words Plato related
as coming from Socrates regarding Aristophanes are accurate is that
Xenophon corrobotrates it? I just read Xenophon's account, and he
doesn't mention Aristophanes.

Xenophon corroborates Plato's account and refutes the impression of him
given by Aristophanes, without actually mentioning his name.

"[11] He did not even discuss that topic so favoured by other talkers, "the
Nature of the Universe": and avoided speculation on the so-called "Cosmos"
of the Professors, how it works, and on the laws that govern the phenomena
of the heavens: indeed he would argue that to trouble one's mind with such
problems is sheer folly. [12] In the first place, he would inquire, did
these thinkers suppose that their knowledge of human affairs was so complete
that they must seek these new fields for the exercise of their brains; or
that it was their duty to neglect human affairs and consider only things
divine? [13] Moreover, he marvelled at their blindness in not seeing that
man cannot solve these riddles; since even the most conceited talkers on
these problems did not agree in their theories, but behaved to one another
like madmen. [14] As some madmen have no fear of danger and others are
afraid where there is nothing to be afraid of, as some will do or say
anything in a crowd with no sense of shame, while others shrink even from
going abroad among men, some respect neither temple nor altar nor any other
sacred thing, others worship stocks and stones and beasts, so is it, he
held, with those who worry with "Universal Nature." Some hold that "What is"
is one, others that it is infinite in number: some that all things are in
perpetual motion, others that nothing can ever be moved at any time: some
that all life is birth and decay, others that nothing can ever be born or
ever die. [15] Nor were those the only questions he asked about such
theorists. Students of human nature, he said, think that they will apply
their knowledge in due course for the good of themselves and any others they
choose. Do those who pry into heavenly phenomena imagine that, once they
have discovered the laws by which these are produced, they will create at
their will winds, waters, seasons and such things to their need? Or have
they no such expectation, and are they satisfied with knowing the causes of
these various phenomena?
[16] Such, then, was his criticism of those who meddle with these matters."



Neither does the fact that the Athenians later retracted their verdict
indicate anything about THe Clouds. In their reversal, did the
Athenian couts say "We are retracting our previous verdict, and
thereby confirming that the Clouds is a work of fiction?" Surely not,
because whether or not THe Clouds was a work of fiction was NOT WHAT
WAS ON TRIAL. It tells us that socrates was wrongly executed, no
doubt, but what in the world does that have to do with whether or not
some play was fictional?

I already told you that there was only one quote that could do the job and
that was from Plato's Apology. There rest is corroborating evidence, and
without Plato's account would not be enough to prove that The Clouds is
fiction.

You will probably never be able to prove that Lysistrata is fiction.



DId I not give you an enumeration of the Socratic dialogues which
I've
read? You can, indicentally, add 'Apology' to that list if it
wasn't
there before. I dug my copy out last night, because, having read
from
those useless opinions of others that Socrates did not seem much
bothered by 'The Clouds',

Well there you go. You can't trust the ignorant opinions of others.


Now I'm very confused. I read the opinions of others, saw reports
that Socrates was not much bothered by 'THe Clouds', which suggested
to me that I should have a look at his response to it, I pulled out my
copy of 'Apology' and had a look, and I found that those ignorant
opinions were correct, as, in the passage I cited, Socrates brushes it
off without anything that seems like malice. SO, what I found is that
those ignorant opinions were EXACTLY RIGHT.

POPPY***!

Socrates was bothered about Aristophanes play and so much so that he
referred to it in his deference in order to refute it.


Better still, the passage those ignorant opinions led me to was
*exactly the passage you wanted me to find*. SO the ignorant opinions
of others led me WITH LASER GUIDED PRECISION to the thing I wanted to
find.


There were still ignorant if they claimed Socrates was not bothered. If he
was not bothered then he would not have mentioned it in his defence.




No he was not. That was Alcibiades.

My bad.


didn't have homosexuality, did they?)

No they did not. They just use other peoples bums for masturbation.


Whereas the bums you use are the residents of rec.arts.drwho.

I do not do anal.


Well, technically, it's your *ego* you're stroking, but still.


.

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