Now in Punjabi

Another song video, and this time, a song in the Punjabi language.

 

@Pontifex hasn't tweeted yet.

The Pope hasn't tweeted yet, but will at http://www.twitter.com/pontifex. Currently, his Twitter page simply reads : "@Pontifex hasn't tweeted yet."

The Pope is to begin sending Twitter messages using the handle @pontifex as his personal account, the Vatican said. 

A spokesman said Pope Benedict XVI wanted to "reach out to everyone" with tweets translated into eight languages. 

The first tweet from his account, whose name means both pontiff and builder of bridges, is expected on 12 December. 

Last year, the Pope sent his first tweet last year from a Vatican account to launch the Holy See's news information portal. 

"We are going to get a spiritual message. The Pope is not going to be walking around with a Blackberry or an iPad and no-one is going to be putting words into the Pope's mouth," Greg Burke, senior media advisor to the Vatican said. 

"He will tweet what he wants to tweet," he added, though the leader of the world's 1.2 billion or so Roman Catholics is expected to sign off, rather than write, each individual tweet himself.

Another Gangnam Style video

Continuing the theme of serendhomophony, here is another misheard lyrics version of the song "Gangnam Style".

 

n-ary variables

One problem with the concept of binary oppositions is that it seems to imply that Western philosophical thought is concerned only with two-valued quantities. For instance, a coin toss X is an event that may be represented as follows.

X = { H, T }.

Other two valued quantities :

X1 = {"good", "evil" }
X2 = {"on",   "off"  }
X3 = {"left", "right" }

Note that these are all the examples from the Wikipedia article on "binary opposition".
However, some variables can take three values.

Y = { +, - , 0 }

Y1 = {"good", "evil", "neither good nor evil"}
Y2 = {"on", "off", "neither on or off"}
Y3 = {"left", "right", "neither left nor right"}

You could have a N valued quantity for many different values of N. Here are two
examples of seven valued quantities.

Z1 = {"M", "T", "W", "R", "F", "S", "N" } --> for the days of the week
Z2 = {"black", "white", "American Indian", "Asian Indian", "Chinese", "Filipino", "Samoan"}

Western philosophical thought has ben concerned with seven valued quantities as well. As, for instance, in any analysis in which days of the week enters the picture. Also, some of the quantities that Western philosophical thought has considered have been continuous variables as well.

Speed of Zeno's arrow = {x | x >= 0 }
Velocity of Zeno's arrow = {x1 | -infinity < x < +infinity}

The problem of continuous quantities  has not been considered by Jacques Derrida. Note that if the example of 'left' and 'right' given in the Wikipedia article on binary oppositions was intended to refer to political preferences, please note that individual political preferences may be considered multi-dimensional (some varying level of authoritarianism on one axis and another varying level of left-versus-right on another axis - as for example in PoliticalCompass.org's PoliticalCompass thing) and so the idea of 'left' and 'right' may be approximations too. The reason I am bringing this stuff up is that it is entirely unclear why Derrida manages to get so much attention when his theory leaves so much out.

Comment : 3QD comment on Derrida

Here are my comments on Derrida posted on "Three Quarks Daily" (slightly edited).

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As recreation while preparing for a graduate program at a certain business school, I was reading a bit of Derrida. I was not impressed.

I, for one, continue to be underwhelmed by virtually all of Derrida's 'theories'. It is unclear to me that his contributions to modern thought, and that of the deconstructionists, amounts to anything more than the following single sentence. "A line of text can be amibiguous in meaning."

Other than that totally trivial observation, it beats me what Derrida has really said or contributed to the world of intellectual thought. Indeed, I would term Derrida's work philosophizing for the lazy intellectual. 'Lazy' because a good analysis based on mathematics and statistics would resolve these 'binary oppositions' that Derrida talks about. If there were "binary opposition"s and they were a construction of the "West", then how could the same sort of analytical tools that are used in the "West" are also effective in the "East" - e.g. in countries like India and China?

n-ary oppositions

I am coining a new term in the field of deconstructionism and in the field of Western philosophical thought. It is the term "n-ary opposition". It is, I believe, a new concept for Western philosophy. Below is an explanation of n-ary opposition. To be honest, it is a bit of a cut-and-paste of the Wikipedia entry for "binary opposition". But I am perfectly serious about all of this.

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N-ary opposition


In critical theory, an n-ary opposition (also n-ary system) is a set of n related terms or concepts which are spread over a 'spectrum' of meaning. The term, introduced by the columnist Anand Manikutty, is also used to refer to the opposition that exists among the n concepts. Binary and ternary oppositions are common types of n-ary oppositions. A binary opposition is a set of two related terms or concepts which are opposite in meaning. A ternary opposition is a set of three related terms or concepts. A ternary opposition may be a set of three related terms of concepts out of which two are opposite in meaning and the third is a null concept. Ternary opposition, also a term introduced by Anand Manikutty, is the system by which, in language and thought, three theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off agsinst one another. It is the contrast between three mutually exclusive terms, such as positive, negative and zero. Another example : up, down and "middle" (although various other terms may be used in place of "middle" such as zero position). A third example is left, right and "middle". Again, various other terms may be used in place of "middle".

N-ary opposition is proposed as an important concept within structuralism which sees such distinctions as fundamental to all language and thought. In this extension of structuralism, a n-ary opposition is seen as a fundamental organizer of human philosophy, culture and language.

Office hours for December and January

My planned office hours for December and January are scheduled for Monday, December 3rd, 7:30 am to 8:15 am PST and Monday, January 7th, 7:30 am to 8:15 am PST. If more office hours are needed, I will be adding more times. The theme will continue to be "Religion and politics".