### Apollo BBS Archive - September 8, 1990

    Mail to John Cummings
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 14:53:20

    You said that things such as a tornado or flood or other natural disaster
    was the work of nature and it was just how things works.

    I thought I'd test you a bit and throw in a natural disaster such as a
    meteor that destroyed all life on the planet.  Most chrsitians would tell me
    that such an event would be the work of their little god.

    Would it be or would it be still the way nature works?

    Public & Free Bulletin Board command:$C

    Message: 69322
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: mecham/slime
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 15:44:47

    Except the ENSCO slime-plant. Not surprising. Also, notice that Mecham
    can't even keep his own finances straight, how can he keep the state's
    straight. And finally as far as the Mormon desire to rule America and
    the world, Mecham fits nicely in their plans. Notice that Mecham is
    still around but his nemesis Benson is in the boonies somewhere. Quite
    frankly, the
    Mormons scare me and the fewer in office the better.

    Message: 69323
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: radar
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 15:52:56

    Actually the frequency of the ramp wave-form need only be 1/102 nanoseconds
    which I believe is aroudn 10MHz. This frequency range has been available
    ever since WWII. (excuse me, the fundamental frequency, since there are
    harmonics at a higher frequency. As for your amusing rejoinder, I would
    like to point out that the arbitrariness of deciding at what point the
    string is broken has nothing to do with the fact that the string does
    break at some point. You have steadfastly ignored the true problem: Does
    the string have three states to account for your lack of points in real
    space. Enuff of that, it is clear you have nothing else to say. Let's try
    another tack. Consider real space. If there are no dimensionless points,
    then space must divided up into a set of discrete segments whose number must
    be less that infinity. Would you care to tell me how many discrete segments
    there are, in say, an inch ?

    Message: 69324
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: japan/defeat
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 15:59:44

    No, Japan was not totally defeated. The use of the Kamikaze pilots made
    it a chancy thing for us at Iwo Jima? when we got close enough to
    Japan so they could use their home bases. No, Japan was not defeated, and
    they would have been doubly lethal if we had had to invade Japan to defeat
    them. The whole nation of Japan would have been levelled not just
    Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    Message: 69326
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: jeff/limits
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 17:14:43

    Let's see what a real expert has to say about a function that increases
    to an arbitrarily large number as x -> C. Although you might consider
    a PhD not quite equivalent to your education and mentality, let me
    quote Lloyd E. Smail, PhD, Professor of Mathematics at Lehigh University.
    I'm sure that the good professor knows a little more than you, Jeff, even
    though your jejune attitude may prevent you from recognizing this fact.
    Here's what he says:

    "If a function f(x) is greater than an arbitrarily large positive number
    for all values of x that are sufficiently near a constant a and for which
    x ^= a, then we say that f(x) becomes positively infinite as x approaches
    a. We indicate this by the notation:

             f(x) -> +infinity as x -> a.*

    * This is frequently written: lim f(x) = +infinity
                                   x->a "

    Of course, if you had taken an elementary course in beginning calculus
    you would have known this rather than making a fool out of yourself over
    this point.

    Message: 69327
    Author: $ Beauregard Dog
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: George B. Thomas
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 17:53:51

    The author of _Calculus and Analytic Geometry_, pub. by Addison Wesley, was
    a professor of Mathematics at MIT for many years.  The aforementioned text
    was the standard college calculus text at MIT. It is also the text which I
    used in high school.

    The second chapter covers limits and various theorems about them.  In know
    place does it state that one should read "increases without bound".  In
    fact, it does state that the 8-on-its-side symbol "is read _infinity_, but
    it does not represent any real number."  It then goes on, in a note, to
    describe an 'extended real number system' where one can do arithmetic with
    plus or minus infinity, and gives examples{

    Message: 69328
    Author: $ Dean Hathaway
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: $Jeff/Oscope
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 18:18:29

      One thing to keep in mind is that the image on the scope is created by
    repeatedly scanning an event relationship at a high sweep rate to produce a
    fairly steady-state image of the event. You can't capture a one-time event
    like the return of a single pulse, because you wouldn't be able to see it
    cross the screen. There is equipment to more or less record an event like
    that and create an image so that it can be seen. I can show you how an
    oscilloscope works sometime.
       See You Later,
          Dean H.

    Message: 69329
    Author: $ Dean Hathaway
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: $Jeff/Fraud
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 18:22:31

      I think that dealing with the problems of legally defining a lie is
    preferable to trying to make case by case determinations based on intent. If
    I make nothing but true statements, but my intent is to say only the good
    things about something, I don't think that should be considered fraud,
    unless my overall presentation is to do something like sell something as
    food when it is in fact poison.
       See You Later,
          Dean H.

    Message: 69330
    Author: $ Dean Hathaway
    Category: Politics
    Subject: $Jeff/monopoly
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 18:23:29

       Looking over the messages we exchanged earlier on the effect of
    market controls, I think that I had already covered most of the
    objections you raised in messages 69041-69042. In my description of
    free market capital flow as a moderating force against unrealistic
    prices, I explained the two types of monopoly that a free market does
    not destroy. One was a physical monopoly on a product by means of
    being the only possible supplier, such as the sole holder of a
    resource or the holder of an exclusive patent or copyright. The other
    was a monopoly on a product by virtue of being able to produce it
    more efficiently than anyone else.
       In the latter case, the position of leading the market is
    purchased at the cost of remaining more efficient than any competitor
    and passing that efficiency along in the form of lower prices. I
    explained that the supplier in this position can only hold his
    advantage as long as he does NOT try to increase prices enough to
    make competing with him attractive. Any unreasonable increase in
    prices brings competing capital into the market to produce the same
    product in search of the greater return on investment which high
    prices produce.
       The example I mentioned, that of ALCOA (Aluminum Company of
    America), clearly demonstrates both types of monopoly. ALCOA's
    founder developed and patented the electrolytic smelting process,
    which transformed aluminum from being a scarce commodity suited only
    for jewelry, into a cheap, mass-produced material. Patents protected
    ALCOA's monopoly for the first 17 years of operation and after that
    it became a purely competitive monopoly. By constantly competing
    against itself to improve production methods and meet market demands
    in advance, it was able to stay far ahead of its competition and
    dominate the U.S. market for aluminum. This period saw aluminum
    prices drop from about $8 per pound to 14 cents per pound.
       ALCOA's advantages were not the result of fraud or coercion, but
    of being an aggressive, R&D driven producer. The government's
    anti-trust division attacked ALCOA and won the famous 'Learned Hand'
    judgement against them in 1945. The testimony and judge's statements
    in this case make absolutely clear that the government's objective
    was not to suppress any fraud or force, but to punish success for its
    own sake. A quote from Judge Hand's opinion on the case demonstrates
    absolutely that ALCOA's intention to continue to succeed in the
    industry it created was the crime the U.S. government was there to
    remedy:

         It was not inevitable that it [ALCOA] should always anticipate
         increases in the demand for ingot and be prepared to supply
         them. Nothing compelled it to keep doubling and redoubling its
         capacity before others entered the field. It insists that it
         never excluded competitors; but we can think of no more effec-
         tive exclusion than progressively to embrace each new oppor-
         tunity as it opened, and to face every newcomer with new cap-
         acity already geared into a great organization, having the
         advantage of experience, trade connections, and the elite of
         personnel.

       Furthermore, Judge Hand explained that the purpose of the Sherman
    Act was not to suppress fraud or force, but to enforce Congress's
    notion of how industries and markets should be controlled:

         Having proved that ALCOA had a monopoly of the domestic ingot
         market, the plaintiff had gone far enough; if it was an excuse,
        that ALCOA had not abused its power, it lay upon ALCOA to prove
        that it had not (My note. Guilty until proven innocent?). But
        the whole exercise is irrelevant anyway, for it is no excuse for
        monopolizing a market that the monopoly has not been used to
        extract from the consumer more than a "fair" profit. The
        [Sherman] Act has wider purposes....Congress...did not condone
        "good trusts" and condemn "bad" ones; it forbade all.

       Threatened with a forced divestiture for its heinous crimes, ALCOA
    was fortunate enough to instead be put under the jurisdiction of the
    U.S. court for over ten years. ALCOA was forced to determine what it
    cost its competitors to produce aluminum and to charge prices which
    would allow their competitors to profit, even though they could
    produce at a profit themselves at a much lower price. Aluminum rose
    from 15 cents to over 24 cents per pound during this time, and
    Reynolds and Kaiser aluminum reached nearly the same percentage of
    the market as ALCOA.
       Your argument against the basic theory of capitalism consisted of
    declaring that it had no application to the real world (odd
    considering that just about every particle of material progress we
    have enjoyed in the past century is traceable to those principles),
    and claiming that advertising and merchandising strategies somehow
    nullify the quest for return on investment that would normally bring
    competition.
       What is the effect of advertising on a product? For one thing, it
    must be counted as part of the cost of production. A flashy package
    and a major ad campaign add much to the cost of the product, but
    hopefully overcome that disadvantage by increasing interest in the
    product and thereby increasing sales volume so that greater
    efficiencies of scale can offset some of the cost.
       Part of the aim of advertising is to create and sell an image
    along with the product. If this makes the product more expensive than
    it would have been otherwise, then it us up to the buyer to decide if
    that image is worth the price. This is in no way a coercive power
    over the market. I am not forced to buy anything at a higher price
    because of its image. If I choose to do so, it is because I am
    purchasing that image. As long as there is no fraud (outright
    falsehood) involved in the advertisement, this is no justification
    for government intervention in the market.
       You basically restated a lot of what I had said, but in other
    terms, and called it proof that capitalism doesn't work. The fact
    that a well developed firm can produce something and sell it for less
    than a small start-up company could duplicate is a positive thing.
    Bully for them! Give them a medal! That is exactly what the goal of
    economic activity should be, to become efficient enough that your
    competition can't outdo you. Trying to force everyone to charge so
    much for what they sell that anyone can compete with them without
    offsetting their investments in capital and expertise is a sure
    recipe for economic stagnation and a falling standard of living.
       You pooh-poohed the notion of investment capital as a pervasive
    force which moves beneficially through the economy. That is the ideal
    situation, and the degree to which it has worked that way in the past
    is a major reason we are communicating with personal computers
    instead of sending messages by pony express or worse (not to mention
    the fact that we even have any leisure time to communicate at all).
       The real impairments to capital flow come not from business
    arrangements, but from government interference. The practice of
    holding capital hostage, or barring its entry, by legislation and
    regulation is much more effective and commonplace than any business
    means of impeding competition. For example, some state is always
    rushing through a bill to restrict a company from being sold or
    moved, because the legislators consider the economy and its capital
    as so much of their own property to dispose of.
       The root of the dispute between pro and anti market forces is a
    clash over the proper relationship between society and the producer.
    The anti-market stance is that creating and marketing something is a
    privilege that should be closely monitored and punished if it becomes
    successful enough to discourage competition. The pro-market stance is
    that it is society's privilege to benefit from those who create and
    produce, thereby raising the standard of living for all of us, and
    that government's only right to interfere on society's behalf is for
    the suppression of fraud and force.
       See You Later,
          Dean H.

    Message: 69336
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: message overload
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 18:43:04

    Too many to answer online.

    BTW, who censored two messages I left?

    Message: 69337
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Bulletins
    Subject: current behavior
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 19:44:22

    What began as ordinary snobbery and dry witticisms has degenerated into
    venomous and hateful personal attacks.  In particular, after reading the
    latest ripostes on the COSmos SIG, I found myself calling Roger Mann with
    the intent of cursing and intimidating him.  Instead, before he answered the
    phone, I decided to attempt to *communicate* with him.  This was a wise
    choice, as I hold him in high regard and value his friendship.  Quite
    frankly, I also found the tone of current "discussions" distasteful, even if
    I did feel justified in responding in kind.
    The personal attacks are a shame for another reason; the issues under
    conderation are fruitful and interesting, and personal animosities as well
    as the irrelevant remarks they engender only serve to cloud and soil what
    should be an intelligent exploration.  While there is frequently the desire
    to prove one's self correct and to disprove the position held by one's
    opponent, I feel that this attitude robs everyone of the opportunity to
    learn new things and expand our own models of "reality."
    While the image of grown men running hand-in-hand through a field of daisies
    might be considered maudlin at best, let's attempt to stick to the issues,
    and let's do our best to take advantage of current circumstances;
    circumstances which provide a forum for some really outstanding individuals
    to pool their knowledge and resources for mutual benifit.

    J.B.

    Message: 69338
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: jeff/last
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 21:39:52

    I agree. I got carried away with the insults. I enjoy the mental
    jousting on the field of ideas, but the use of "ad hominem" attacks
    only hurts someone , and I don't want to do that. So, if you will
    accept my apology for getting carried away, let's return to our discussion.

    Message: 69339
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: jeff/limits
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 22:21:54

    Your definition is correct according to Smail. Smail's definition is:
    "A function f(x) is said to approach a limit L as x approaches a if
    the difference between f(x) and L is numerically less than an arbitrarily
    small positive number for all values of x in the range of the definition
    that are sufficiently close to a and for which x ^= a. We indicate this
    by the notation:

            lim f(x) = L
             x->a "

    This is the rigorous mathematical defintion of a limit. Clearly my use
    of a limit with a f(x) of the form K/x+C, does not fit the definition
    of the rigorous definition. Instead, the term "limit" is loosely or
    informally applied, but obviously not with mathematical rigor.

    Message: 69340
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Roger/last
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 22:29:40

    Yes, apologies and good will are mutual.

    Thank you for your post on limits.  I am going to post my own, mainly
    because I had already composed it offline (and don't want to feel that I
    wasted my time) but also because I think it responds to some interesting
    points B. Dog raised regarding transfinite arithmetic.

    Message: 69341
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: limits
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 22:31:19

    Limits:  I am sure that Smail would agree, as Roger and I have in voice
    conversation, that while the use of infinity as a "limit" is common enough,
    and arguably, convenient enough, this use is inconsistent with the
    formal definition of limit.  It has not been my contention that the symbol
    "infinity" is synonomous with unbounded increase or decrease.  Quite the
    reverse; it represents a transfinite cardinality of indeterminant order.
    Yes, Cantor created a transfinite mathematics where infinities of various
    orders obey the familiar operations of finite cardinal numbers.  But there
    are some important differences to consider when evaluating infinity as a
    proper limit.  In transfinite arithmetic, the formulas  m=m+1, m+m=m, and
    m*m=m   hold for any transfinite cardinal m.

    The formal definition of limit states:  Let f(x) be defined for all x in an
    interval about x=a, but not necessarily at x=a.  If there is a number L
    such that to each positive number epsilon, there corresponds a positive
    number delta, such that  ABS[f(x)-L] < epsilon, provided that
    0 < ABS[x-a] < delta, we say that L is the limit of f(x) as x approaches a.

    While infinity is certainly a number, here, it clearly cannot be called a
    limit (in rigorous technical usage).  Because if m=m+1, then m=m-1.  Since
    f(x) has a finite value, ABS[f(x)-L] is equal to ABS[m].  Since I can make
    epsilon as small as I want, as long as it is positive, m cannot be a limit.

    Let's go on to more fruitful topics.

    Message: 69342
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: reality)
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 22:32:48

    Strings and States:  It is my contention that the terms "broken" and
    "unbroken" , in the current context of the discussion, do not refer to any
    physical conditions which are qualitatively different from each other in any
    objective sense.  They are simply words which we use to describe our
    subjective perspective; a perspective which depends both on our size
    relative to the objects we apply the terms to, and on our physiology. The
    terms are useful because we have these things in common.

    Spaces and Places:  It is my contention that the terms "time" and "distance"
    refer to abstractions.  These abstractions exist as elements of our interior
    model of reality.  We tend to confuse them with real entities because we are
    not properly taught to distinguish our models from reality, because we may
    have a genetic predisposition to view things analytically (i.e. because
    that's the way we're built), and because they are, being models of reality,
    analogous to reality; but most important of all, we confuse the concrete
    with the abstract because we are not, after all, thinking machines, but
    animals with developed brains; and because we are in this sense, hybrids,
    our language and consciousness reflects this.  To be sure, a most versatile
    system; but this advantage is countered (not too greatly) by the unfortunate
    consequence that we are often not aware that we are mixing concretes with
    abstractions.  The concretes, of course, are the objects and phenomena we
    sensibly observe and agree to call objective physical reality.  The
    abstractions consist of the quantifications and logical relationships we
    impose on these objects and phenomena.

    In a sense, we are not engaged in an ontological debate, but rather a
    semantic debate.  It is not my intent to show the difference between
    our models and the "ultimate nature of reality."  I can't even prove
    that any of you are real, where the term "prove" refers to a logical
    necessity.  No one can prove that the "concretes" we sensibly perceive
    exist, or that we even "sensibly perceive," in the empirical sense of
    the term (i.e. vision, hearing, touch, smell, & taste).  What I am
    attempting to do is stimulate a deeper analysis of the way we use words,
    and of the analytical systems which incorporate those words.  I want to
    clarify the symbols we use, to understand what their formal but tacit
    (and often as yet unacknowledged or unrealized) consequences are, and to
    examine the systems which use them with the purpose of eliminating internal
    inconsistencies.

    I cannot prove to you in any ultimate sense that "matter" exists, but I can
    try to show, as a logical consequence of definitions which you accept, that
    certain terms do not and cannot refer to materials.  That is, if you agree
    that matter has length, height, and width (i.e. three *physical* as opposed
    to conceptual or theoretical dimensions), then even when some of these
    dimensions are negligible by our scale of reference, matter cannot occupy,
    or be referenced with, "points," these being mathematical entities of zero
    dimension, *except when considering matter as symbols within a model*.

    To speak of the "locations that an object has as it moves from one place
    to another" is to speak of models, as far as I am concerned.  In my view,
    it is semantically nonsensical to speak of "real" space and "real" objects
    this way, because the term "location", used in this manner, implies a
    sectioning off, a process of definite and quantitative delineation, and
    our definitions of "real" space and objects do not allow that there is
    any such actual physical delineation of space and objects. In other
    words, there is no physical, material metric grid; metrics is an
    abstract concept which we impose on real space and objects for our
    convenience; that is, metrics are part of our model of "real" space and
    objects.  Similarly, to ask questions such as "Is there space between the
    places?" and "How many places are there in between the places" is to ask
    questions about how we model reality; very important and valid questions,
    I might add, but hardly empirical.  The answer to the questions is, "It
    depends on what analytical system we decide to adopt for a particular
    model," and as long as we are consistent in our use of these conventions and
    as long as they are the most useful conventions for the given circumstances,
    then their details are purely arbitrary.  I am not avoiding the problem; I
    merely claim that the problem is spurious.

    Message: 69345
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Above
    Date: 09/08/90  Time: 23:36:17

      Now we're getting somewhere.
      "To speak of the 'locations that an object has as it moves from one place
    to another' is to speak of models, as far as I am concerned."
      I think this is the crux of the matter.  As long as you understand what is
    meant by the model, I'd appreciate it if you would rephrase the above to
    talk about the object itself, and not some model of it.  In other words,
    subtract the model from the discussion, and tell us what's left about the
    object and location themselves.

          We all live in a   ___nhnnn__________   yellow subroutine

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