On 2/25/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I suppose that that is technically correct, but such a strictly rational system exists only in theory. The logical extension of your rational system is personified in Mr. Bean.
Not really.
Technically it was personified by one of the more extreme Greek sceptics but given his followers kept having to pull him out of the way of carts and things I suspect there are limits.
There are even more pressures to conform to established structures such as government bureaucracies and an endless flow of useless forms.
Common sense tell the civil servant that one extra form wont matter.
This has got to be one of your more idiosyncratic pieces of sophistry. Imagine! Purporting to logicaly disprove the existence of common sense.
No. Something exists that people describe as common sense. The definition shifts from person to person mind (try reading the editorial columns in any news paper to the right of you).
The problem is that all these systems of common sense have a tendency to break down if asked to do anything as mildly complex as calculus.
There's a famous scene from a Jack Nicholson movie ("Five Easy Pieces"?) where he orders something slightly different from what is on the restaurant menu. The waitress cannot comply because it's not written on the menu. I've had a similar experience at breakfast in a restaurant. My then wife wanted one egg, but the menu only specified two eggs. In the establishment's mind serving only one egg was impossible.
Because they were not applying logic to the situation
Common sense is what keeps things from being stupid.
Going by what happens when people try to apply common sense to quantum physics I beg to differ.
Taking refuge in rules doesn't solve very much.
Saves me haveing to go over old ground.