[Tutor] [OT] Confusion [was Re: A file containing a string of 1 billion random digits.]

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:42:51 am Richard D. Moores wrote:

> The formatting operations described here are obsolete and may go away
> in future versions of Python. Use the new String Formatting in new
> code.
>
> I hope that use of '*' does disappear. It's the most confusing thing
> I've recently tried to get my mind around! 

If you think that's confusing, you should try reading up on Monads.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monad_(functional_programming)


> Before that, maybe, was the Trinity..

[Note: the following may be offensive to some Christians, in which case, 
remember that nobody has the right to not be offended, and nobody is 
forcing you to read on.]

The Trinity is simple to understand once you realise one thing -- 
despite all the obfuscatory pseudo-justifications for it, it is not 
meant to be understood, it's meant to be believed. It is a Mystery, 
something beyond human understanding. Not merely a small-m mystery, 
something which is possible to understand in principle, if we only knew 
enough. As Tertullian said (in a related but slightly different 
context):

"It is certain because it is impossible". 

Or, to paraphrase, "I believe it because it is absurd".

Like many religious beliefs (e.g. transubstantiation and dietary 
restrictions), belief in the Trinity is a shibboleth. Belief in the 
Trinity distinguishes Us ("true Christians") from Them (heretics and 
pagans[1]). The more ridiculous and crazy the belief, the more 
effective it is as a shibboleth. Anyone can believe that the son and 
the father are different people, because that's just ordinary 
common-sense[2]. But to believe that the son and the father are one and 
the same while being different *at the same time* makes no sense. It 
is, as Tertullian would almost certainly have admitted, absurd and 
ridiculous and totally crazy. Tertullian would have believed it 
*because* it was unbelievable.

It really is frightening to realise that, essentially, the Chewbacca 
Defence has held such a grip on human society for so many centuries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense




[1] Actually many pagans also believe in trinities. But they believe in 
the *wrong* trinity: the three-as-one nature of Brahma/Vishnu/Shiva,  
Ra/Horus/Osiris, Ceres/Liber/Libera, or (two-in-one) Apollo/Bacchus is 
mere pagan superstition, while the three-as-one nature of 
Father/Son/Spirit is self-evidently true, at least according to those 
Christian sects which believe in a trinity.

[2] So rare that it ought to count as a superpower.


-- 
Steven D'Aprano