Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2007 December 15

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December 15

Equivalent before the invention of computers

I was reading someone's philosophical article on how one can't be sure that they're not just a brain in a jar hooked up to a computer. This problem obviously relies on the fact that a computer is generating our environment. Is there any equivalent to this question before computers were invented? (i.e. Something an ancient Greek thought of) --The Dark Side (talk) 03:41, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

See evil genius. Algebraist 03:46, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Reminds me of Shakespeare's Iago. Wrad (talk) 03:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Lao Tsu dreaming he is a butterfly?hotclaws 10:55, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

In some versions of Gnosticism, the material world was not so much a reality created by the demiurge, but an illusion created to hold us captive and keep us from enlightenment. Quoting from the article: Additionally, general Gnostic thought ... commonly included the belief that the material world corresponds to some sort of malevolent intoxication brought about by the powers of darkness to keep elements of the light trapped inside it, or literally to keep them 'in the dark', or ignorant; in a state of drunken distraction. This view is also found in the writings of Philip K. Dick. A related topic is solipsism, which was already considered by the Greek philosopher Gorgias (c. 483–375 BC).  --Lambiam 13:14, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The equivalent question before computers is knowing whether or not you are in a dream or being deceived by demons, etc. See Cartesian skepticism: I will suppose... some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me. I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgement. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 14:17, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I would consider some parallel as well to Plato's Allegory of the cave (written more than 2,000 years before even Babbage's Difference engine was in design, or Descartes' work), in which prisoners, chained from childhood to the wall of a cave, able only to see shadows on the opposite wall, hearing only echoes from the opposite wall, become convinced that the shadows on the wall are the "real" world. Although they see only shadows of puppets, hear only echoes of voices, they have no sensory means to learn that they see only the shadow of a simulation, rather than the original object in question.
A prisoner, once freed, could only slowly and with great mental distress come to accept the sunlit world above as more "real" than the shadows with which he has lifelong familiarity, and only with great difficulty similarly "free" another prisoner, who would consider him mad for supposedly misunderstanding the fundamental nature of reality.
It is not a perfect analog, but at least a fairly early discussion of how inaccurate sensory impressions can lead to a shared misapprehension about what is "real". It is also one of the few based entirely in physical possibility, requiring no demi-urge, demons, or gods be posited - It can be envisaged wholly in mundane, concrete terms.
Further examples might be found in a study of texts on Solipsism, the belief that nothing beyond one's own consciousness can be truly proven to exist, but I am not familiar enough with the philosophy to cite specific examples. --Narapoid (talk) 16:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Did George W. Bush hit his father?

I heard somewhere that as a teen Bush got into a fight with his father and physically attacked him? Is there any truth to the story that Bush hit his father? --Gosplan (talk) 16:39, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, but can we form a line and take turns? Saukkomies 00:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

As described by the Washington Post [1] In 1972 George W. Bush took his 16 year old brother Marvin out for a night of drinking. When George W. got back home, his car hit the neighbor's garbage can, causing caused his father George H. W. Bush to complain. George W. then challenged G.H.W to have at it "mano a mano." See also George W. Bush substance abuse controversy. Edison (talk) 02:50, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Lol Marvin Bush? Nil Einne (talk) 12:44, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Why is there no Engelist or Engelism?

Why does no one label themselves Engelist or Engelism?

Why has there never been a movement of Engelists? Leninists, Trotskyists, Stalinists, Maoists, all call themselves Marxists yet reference their other founders. Engels on the other hand is never referred to as an ideology. --Jacobin1949 (talk) 16:41, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Probably because he is associated so closely with Marx that his work is inseparable from it. There was really no Marxism before Engels, whereas Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, all left their marks on Marxism long after Karl's time, their innovations all having created forks in the movement. Engels never broke with Marx in that way. Also, Engels' theories were not in competition with Marx, but tended to be supplementary and exegetical. Lantzy ^talk 21:59, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I like to compare Engels and Marx with Bernie Taupin and Elton John. When they both finally were breaking into the music scene after struggling to get there on their own, they were teamed up and became immensely prolific - Taupin was the lyricist and Elton John the composer. They were known to the music industry as an indispensible pair. When they began selling top hit albums, Bernie Taupin was given a lot of recognition on the cover labels and in the press. However, gradually Taupin faded into the background until he became almost invisible, even though he has still continued to write lyrics for Elton John even to this day. Elton John's most famous hits have lyrics written by his partner Bernie Taupin, and yet you never hear about him when they mention Elton John. Unlike the lyricist/composer pairs of Rodgers and Hammerstein, or the Gershwin brothers Ira and George, or Gilbert and Sullivan who were always included together, Bernie Taupin faded out while Elton John became predominant. This is how I see the relationship between Engles and Marx - Engels being Bernie Taupin, and Marx being Elton John. Marx, for a variety of reasons, became the front man who everyone talked about, even though they were very close to one another all through Engels life (Marx outlived Engels and posthumously published a book written by him). Saukkomies 01:00, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Saukommes, you have that the wrong way round! Engels outlived Marx by a dozen years, and continued to edit, publish and interpret his work, as well as writing his own material. If Marx is Moses, Engels is Aaron. Clio the Muse (talk) 01:25, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Bonk. I stand correcte, Clio. But did you like the comparison with Taupin & Elton John? I done thunk that one up on my own... Saukkomies 02:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

You done good! Clio the Muse (talk) 02:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh gosh, now I'm all tingly! A compliment from Clio! You have my sincere thanks. Saukkomies 10:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Jacobin, I would like to echo Lantzy's view here, but add something more. Intellectually Marx was always the dominant figure in the partnership, though Engels was to perform an indispensable service as an amanuensis and interpreter, the St Paul (yikes, another religious parallel!) of Marxism. There is even some truth that Marxism, in its final shape, owes more to Engels than the Moor!

There is another aspect to your question which should also be considered. Marxism, in its pure form, is about theory, not about power. The later 'isms' you have identified are increasingly more about power than about theory. Leninism, insofar as it is a theory at all, as opposed to a political practice, is about power and the attainment of power through Revolution. In Stalinism theory and practice begin to separate altogether, until the theory is no more than an expression of particular forms of power. All of them are linked, to some degree or other, are given legitimacy, even if it is only passing, by history, rather than depth of analysis or force of argument. Karl Kautsky or Rosa Luxembourg are not graced by an 'ism' for the simple reason that they were not favoured by events, even though as thinkers they once commanded far greater authority than Lenin, Trotsky or Stalin. Clio the Muse (talk) 01:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

As an irrelevant aside: should it not be Engelsism, almost sounding like anglicism! ---Sluzzelin talk 03:14, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it should. Well done, comrade, an addition to the canon of Sluzzelinism! (Say that out loud; it makes one sound positively sozzled). Clio the Muse (talk) 03:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Engels is, indeed, the Dutch word for English. Xn4 14:34, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Credit card security

Could someone please explain how credit card security works, and, given each security measure, how it is defeated? There is some info in the article Credit card, but I wrote that myself, and would like someone to please check it for me. Thanks to all, 203.221.126.9 (talk) 16:59, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Credit cards are secure? I suppose they might be if you never divulge your number to anyone and shred every statement.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 18:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Anon didn't say credit cards are secure, he or she said they have various security measures (which they do) and wanted to know what they are and how they are commonly defeated. Nil Einne (talk) 13:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Latin Empire compared to Holy Roman Empire

Just another completely barbarian usurpation of Rome, non-Roman on the face of it, except that unlike the HRE in respect to the West Roman Empire, the LE didn't totally supplant the East Roman Empire? 24.255.11.149 (talk) 17:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

We have an article, Latin Empire. I should hesitate to call it "completely barbarian", and, indeed, a "usurpation of Rome". From the point of view of the Greeks, the Latin (or Romanian) Empire could barely be called barbaros in Greek: at first that meant either non-Greek or specifically Italian, but by the 13th century it meant (like barbarus in Latin) 'neither Greek nor Roman', and although many Crusaders could be called barbarians, the Romanians of Romania saw themselves as Romans. The Latin Empire was, at least, more Latin than the medieval Eastern Roman Empire (now called the Byzantine Empire) and in some ways (such as religion) less non-Roman. Xn4 02:50, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I meant Frankish/Germanic outsiders/foederatii, compared to the Classical Civilization of Rome--which began in Troy, only to make its way back to Constantinople. 24.255.11.149 (talk) 04:46, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Wagner a Nazi?

Can Richard Wagner, in his support for racism, nationalism and militarism, be seen as an early National Socialist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.156.5.136 (talk) 18:40, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Wagner was not a militarist, but a pacifist. On that issue at least, he would have been quite out of step with the Nazis. Lantzy ^talk 22:04, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Nevertheless, Hitler was quite influenced by Wagner's views on vegetarianism and antisemitism. bibliomaniac15 22:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

You might think so if you ever read Wagner's Das Judenthum in der Musik. You might also think so if you read Mein Kampf, where Hitler praises the composer as 'a great revolutionary', claimiing that he had no other forerunner. Joachim Fest, a German historian, makes Hitler's debt to Wagner even more plain; "The Master of Bayreuth was not only Hitler's great exampler; he was also the young man's ideological mentor. Wagner's political writing...together with the operas, form the entire framework for Hitler's ideology...Here he found the grantite foundations for his view of the world." (Hitler, 1974). And it was Hitler himself, in power, who said "Whoever wants to undersatnd National Socialist Germany must know Wagner."

So, yes, it is possible to give Wagner a Nazi make-over. But look a little more closely. Above all, behold the man. Wagner was a positive monster of egoism, and his political and artistic reactions were almost always predicated on his rather solipsistic view of the world. In other words, there was very little consistency, or continuity, in his attitudes. Look hard enough and you will even find traces of the old liberal Wagner, the Wagner of 1848, different in every sense from Hitler's political monomania. In On State and Religion, published in 1873, he argued that patriotism was no more than a useful means of bringing people together, though for the enlightened ruler the interests of mankind in general should go beyond narrow considerations of power. Earlier still in What is German he warned of the dangers of the yearning for vanished national glory, expressed in the old Kaiser-Reich, the Holy Roman Empire. In his essay on Beethoven, published in the very year that the new Kaiser Reich came into being, he considers that the real mark of Beethoven's genius lay in his ability to transcend ethnicity.

For Wagner the real questions of the day were decided not by iron and blood but by their impact on, well, Wagner. His support for the Revolution of 1848 was because he believed a new Germany would give proper voice to the artist. He supported Bismarck's Reich for much the same reason, an enthusiasm that waned when the Iron Chancellor refused to subsidise his Bayreuth theatre. It disappeared altogether when Kaiser Wilhelm I preferred to attend military manoeuvres than the first Bayreuth festival in 1876. Even his notorious hatred for the Jews was hardly consistent. He described his early association with Samuel Lehrs as "the most beautiful friendship of my life." Wagner continued to have Jewish friends, including Carl Tausig, who was appointed to manage the whole Bayreuth festival.

It has to be said that the later Wagner cult, like the Nietzsche cult, has very little to do with Wagner the man. He would not have been a good, or acceptable, Nazi. Clio the Muse (talk) 01:12, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Clio, your point about Tausig is pertinent, but the details are slightly off. Tausig was a Wagner devotee and he certainly devised the plan to raise funds for the building of the Festspielhaus. He might have gone on to manage the Bayreuth Festival itself, but he never got the chance - he died suddenly in 1871, five years before the first Festival opened. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely; thanks, Jack. My point was not at all clear. Tausig, rather, was appointed to manage the plan for the Festival. Clio the Muse (talk) 23:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I have to say that I enjoyed this question. I have all my life harbored a secret guilt about absolutely LOVING Wagner's music, all the time knowing he had connections with proto-Nazism. Thanks for enlightening me, too, on this subject. Saukkomies 18:43, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Rest easy, Saukkomies. One could appreciate Hitler's water colours purely from an artistic perspective, whether you knew the identity of the painter or not. What he did in the rest of his life has no bearing on the artistic quality (or lack thereof) of the paintings. Same with Wagner's music. Daniel Barenboim got into hot water for having the effrontery to conduct Wagner in Israel; without wishing to be insensitive to the feelings of Jews about anything even minimally connected to Nazism, I don't think that their criticism of Barenboim was justified. It's music - not neo-Nazism; and in this case, music written before Hitler was even born. That Hitler chose to glorify it for evil purposes wasn't Wagner's fault. Wagner may have been a monstrous anti-semite, but when he sat down to write Tristan or the Mastersingers, he wasn't thinking "This will show those Jews just how much I despise them". -- JackofOz (talk) 23:15, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

King Billy

I've been studying Irish history particularly the conflict between the Catholics and Protestants. Thinking of William of Orange I was wondering if it is right that he has been held up as a symbol of anti-nationalist and anti-Catholic Protestant triumphalism? Is he really best seen as a Protestant symbol?Donald Paterson (talk) 19:57, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

There is perhaps no better illustration, Donald, of the process by which history is, and can be, turned into mythology than William's sojourn in Ireland. For the Protestants he became an iconic figure, mounted on his white horse with sword raised, a detail taken from Benjamin West's painting of the Battle of the Boyne, and once reproduced on a thousand gable-ends! For Catholics he was also an icon, one of an unwelcome Protestant ascendency, expressed, at its worst, in the Penal laws. But William came to Ireland not as a crusader but to fight a campaign that was part of his more general struggle against Louis XIV.

It is crucial to understand here that the French king offered his support to James II, the exiled Catholic king of England, not out of a sense of dynastic and confessional solidarity, but simply as a useful way of opening up a fresh theatre against William, his great Continental rival. In this regard the Irish campaign of 1689-90 was merely a small part of a more general European war, in which religion played only a minor part. As such William was a representative of a more general alliance against Louis and his imperial ambitions, an alliance that included Pope Innocent XI. After his famous victory on the Boyne the bells of Rome were rung out in celebration!

It seems likely that William, if the matter had been left to him alone, would have favoured a large measure of religious toleration throughout his lands. But the matter was not left to him alone; he was dependant on the ruling aristocracy in both England and Ireland. After the final victory in 1691, and the Treaty of Limerick, the ruling Protestant minority in Ireland were in no mood for any form of compromise. For them William, living and dead, was the expression of their power, depicted in statue and paint. The divisions between the communities became even more acute in the nineteenth century, with the emergence of the Orange Order, committed to the Protestant cause by constant reminders and celebrations of the past. Clio the Muse (talk) 00:20, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Clio once again I have to thank you. You really are incredibly clever.Donald Paterson (talk) 20:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

English-Dutch Union?

Were England and the Dutch unified as a single Kingdom during the reign of Will of Orange? --Jacobin1949 (talk) 20:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Even less than England and Scotland were united, Jacobin, though William was king of both! You see, until 1795, Holland was a Republic, of which William, as Prince of Orange, was only the Stadholder-the hereditary steward. He was, however, devoted to his native land, which he spent many years defending against the ambitions of Louis XIV. His accession to the thrones of England and of Scotland after the Glorious Revolution enabled William to pursue his struggle against Louis with even greater strength and determination. In strategic and political terms the British Isles was tied to the United Provinces in an ever expanding war with France; so in that sense at least, if in no other, there was a kind of unity. Clio the Muse (talk) 23:35, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Clio the Muse's explanation is spot on, as usual. The Netherlands and England were united in a personal alliance against Louis XIV, but the two countries were never unified. Aecis^Brievenbus 23:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)