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

[David Hutto]

On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 8:57 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
> 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 meant to be understood, and it is understood, yet man has
attachments to an 'earthly' realm, which leads to a hinderance in the
principles given to guide them...to be all Zen about it.




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.

Think of the parent child windows, while one is the master the slave
has limitations, but still can display the 'words' of the parent.

 It
> is, as Tertullian would almost certainly have admitted, absurd and
> ridiculous and totally crazy. Tertullian would have believed it
> *because* it was unbelievable.

Debate 101 can cause men to take strange stances in order to perfect
their arguments.


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

Haven't read it yet, but will get to it eventually.
>
> 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,
Who can really say what is and what isn't, if your stance above is
that [It] is undefinable and a mystery to man.

 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.

Anyone can believe that the son and
> the father are different people, because that's just ordinary
> common-sense[2]

How does this relate?

>
>
> --
> Steven D'Aprano
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