Re: Torkel Franzén is dead

George Dance wrote:
Did he attack someone for making a typo? It's possible. But it would be
better if you gave an example and also gave grounds for thinking that
the attack was not just motivated by what else the poster wrote as
opposed to calculating that the poster does not have a PhD.


Please look again at B.20 from the "Logic in Schools" thread (the link
for which I've already given you), in which Torkel Franzen attacks a
poster just for having made two typos in the past.

I asked that you quote the posts here. Then, if needed, I can also find
the post in the thread context. (And it's tedious going back up to
another post in this thread to find a link to evaluate it for yet
another issue - this time typos.) So, if you'll just quote Franzen,
then I'll consider whether he attacked someone just for making a typo
and whether the incident is grounds for thinking that the attack was
not just motivated by what else the poster wrote as opposed to
"correlation" with PhDs in math.

No, deciding on race is not simpler than just reading posts and
respondeding on the basis of what is in the posts. I would give ANY
poster the default (innocenct until shown not to be) that what they
respond to is what is in the posts they read much more so than to what
might be the race of the poster, UNLESS I had reason to think
otherwise.

The above is my reason for thinking otherwise; and I think the evidence
will show it.

What above is a reason? What evidence?

That he responded to posters in the same way whether he agreed or
disagreed with; those he was polite to, he was always polite to; those
he was rude to, he was always rude to. Since the content of those
peoples' posts wasn't always the same, but they were, it's unreasonable
to think he always responded based on the contents of the posts, and
not on Franzen's opinion of the poster.

You said it was related to the poster having or not having a PhD in
math. You haven't shown any such thing.

Let's stay clear on what I actually suggested; that having a math PhD
was sufficient to avoid being flamed by Torkel.

You haven't shown that the poster having a PhD is IN ITSELF what
Franzen used as the basis of his decision.

Since I haven't suggested that, I don't have to show it. You don't
prove anything by telling me I haven't defended a strawman.

Then would you please say just EXACTLY what it is you claim about
Franzen and PhDs in math.

I didn't suggest, and
don't think, that having a math PhD was necessary; and I see it as
obviously false that a non-math PhD was either necessary or sufficient.

Math PhD, non-math PhD, necessary, sufficient, whatever. You've not
shown that Franzen used any such consideration.

'Whatever'? You pretend to not understand what I'm saying, but demand
evidence for it anyway?

I'd like to know exactly what it is you're claiming and then for you to
give evidence of it.

First, let's get perfectly clear on what I am
saying:

Frankel divided people into two groups, my labels for which are
Mathematicals and Submathematicals - though, since you don't like the
latter term, I'll use the only one you've suggested: "Some People." He
was polite to Mathematicals, and trolled Some People. I've said that
virtually all of his logic posts were trolls of Some People, and you've
challenged my quantifier.

So this is going to lead into PhDs. Watch the bunny rabbit appear from
the hat in just a moments now...

Now, where's my evidence? To start, in the I've already given you, in
which Franzen does nothing but troll someone who, if my thesis is
correct, he saw as a typical example of Some People.

Which person? You mentioned two threads. One about logic in schools and
one about horseshoe elimination.

Morevover giving two examples does not come even within a light year of
showing VIRTUALLY ALL posts in the last five years on sci.logic are
stirring and perpetuating flames.

For example, Franzen had total contempt for philosophers who wrote in
symbolic logic (which includes a good number of philosophy PhD's),
considering them to have produced little more than "mumbo jumbo."

Please show a specific quote by Franzen saying that.


<Sigh> Same thread, post B.88; in reply to:
<quote>
Formalizing allows either party in a discussion to spot each others'
mistakes (either of translation, or of inference), and agree on them

Such ideas have indeed traditionally been put forward in philosophy.
In most arguments, however, using predicate logic formalizations
is just an irrelevant piece of mumbo-jumbo, more likely to introduce
new errors and confusions than correct old ones.
</q>

He did NOT say that he has "TOTAL CONTEMPT [emphasis added] for
philosophers who wrote in symbolic logic". (1) He said nothing about
having contempt. (2) He said "MOST" [emphasis added] predicate logic
formalizations in philosophy are mumbo-jumbo. Well, I don't know how
he'd sustain that argument, but at least it is not as YOU
characterized, a statement of total contempt for philosphers who wrote
in predicate logic, but rather a quantified statment that MOST (not
just unquantified as you gave it) of the WRITING is mumbo jumbo.

Time after time, I'm seeing that your paraphrases are egregious
misrepresentations. And yet you squawk at my having moved 'virtually'
to a different place in the word order. You're too much!

One
couldn't fget him to say when he was alive, as he didn't say, and one
certainly get him to say now.

That insinuates essentially a "guilty unless denied" argument. Franzen
didn't have to say a damn thing about the subject.

Not unless he raised it himself. Which is relevant to the evidence
below.

Then please quote Franzen raising the issue of PhDs.


Please drop your strawman.

What strawman?! You wrote:

"It's also a matter of record, though, that (according to his
correspondents) he would discuss the subject with some, and refuse to
do that with others - and that the difference seems to correlate with
the PhD/non-PhD distinction."

So please say what "correlate" means and say what evidence there is for
this correlation. And my point is that if the "correlation" may also be
explained by the content of the post, not Franzen's knowledge of the
person having a PhD, then the PhD issue is irrelevent.

I suggested Timothy Murphy's polite
reception from Torkel was caused by Torkel's belief that Murphy had a
PhD: not to claim that Torkel ever 'raised the issue' of PhD's - which
I have never said

Here's what you wrote to Murphy:

"Then I assume that Torkel believed you had a PhD in math, and thus
considered you a peer, capable of understanding logic and worth
discussing it with. Which would explain the difference in your
experience of him, and that and some the other who have posted on this
thread."

Then, since you subsequently posted,

"It's also a matter of record, though, that (according to his
correspondents) he would discuss the subject with some, and refuse to
do that with others - and that the difference seems to correlate with
the PhD/non-PhD distinction."

the conversation led to you getting really ridiculous, as you responded
to my requst for you to back up your claim:

One
couldn't fget him to say when he was alive, as he didn't say, and one
certainly get him to say now.

That insinuates essentially a "guilty unless denied" argument. Franzen
didn't have to say a damn thing about the subject.

Not unless he raised it himself. Which is relevant to the evidence
below.

To which I replied:

Then please quote Franzen raising the issue of PhDs.

So you posted that Franzen did not deny a correlation, to which I said
he doesn't have to deny unless your judgement is "guilty unless
denied", to which you said "not unless he raised it himself."

So my NATURAL question is: Did he raise it himself? If he raised it
himself, then quote him. If he didn't raise it himself, then we're back
where we started: You making an unsubstantiated claim.

but because it's reasonable to believe that
Frankel considered math PhD's to be Mathematicals, rather than members
of Some People

You've not even shown that Franzen held any such dichotomy. Franzen
said (at least as far as you quoted him) that some people who reason
well informally get mixed up by formal logic. Now you snowball that
into a claimed correlation with PhDs (or more precisely even, a PhD in
math).

had Franzen considered Murphy to be one of Some
People, he'd have been as rude to him as he was in the posts I've
already given you links to.

Why don't you just write a novel or short story about a character named
Troken Farmul? Then you can freely make up whatever scenarios and
ascribe whatever mentalities and motivations to the characters as you
please.

And I don't know what you think that has to do with my original
challenge: You made some claim about Franzen and how he posted to
people based (necessary, sufficient, math, non-math, I don't know, I'll
let you state precisely what you mean) on PhD

Please back up your claims - give the specific quotes where (you say) I
claimed that Torkel discriminated "based ... on PhD", and that he
"raised the issue of PhDs" - or withdraw them as straw men.

I didn't say that you said that he raised the issue of PhDs. I ASKED
you to quote him doing so, in the context of YOU saying "Not unless he
raised it himself." As to 'discrimination', please quote me exactly
with context.

And specific quotes of yours are given in this post. Now, your turn is
to say what you mean by "correlation" and to support the claim of a
correlation and to answer my original point that whatever "corrleation"
you find is not just based on Franzen's reaction to the posts
themselves. Would you just please say EXACTLY - in some kind of
definite and self-contained way - what you mean by there being some
correlation involving PhDs in math and how you propose to justify your
claim of that correlation.

; but you've not cited
even a single example.

Timothy Murphy (a Mathematical) has said that Torkel Franzen was always
polite to him, even in disagreement.

So? Unless Murphy posted gibberish then that's no example. Franzen may
have disagreed with a lot of things without deriding them. That does
not in itself indicate a "correlation" with PhDs. And as to
correlation, even though yours is not an example, I'll give a
counter-example anyway: Me. Franzen has no reason to think I have a
PhD, but he treated me okay, even with encouragement, even when I wrote
him a quite naive post revealing my confusions about important matters
in mathematical logic.

In contrast, I have given you two
links to threads in which Torkel was the opposite to two other posters,
both of which (I'd infer) he saw as Some People. There are lots more
just like (2), which will follow after we've dealth with these two.

You CLAIM "he saw as" (regarding the logic student). You have this
great talent for seeing through the thoughts of other people. Maybe you
could figure out a way to make a lot of money in the stock market or
something like that with your talent.

Say what same thing? I asked you to cite specific posts in which the
poster having a PhD was a factor (in whatever sense you are claiming it
was a factor) with Franzen.

I'll cite: (1) Mr. Murphy's testimony,

Did Murphy say anything about PhDs in math?

and (2) the contents of the two
threads you have already been sent.

No evidence there that Franzen was not just responding to posts as
opposed to a lack of PhD in math.

There's a lot more threads on
sci.logic just like (2), if you really want to look for them.

I guess I should start with the search term 'PhD in math', huh?

But for
now, let's just look at what I've already presented.

We just did. You've not supported any correlation, let alone one which
Franzen himself thought about PhDs in math as opposed to just the
content of the posts.

The fact that you'd seize on the opportunity to make and attack an
apparent strawman - apparent, since you still have a chance to show
that I said Franzen discriminated "on PhD" period - indicates your bias
on the subject.

Strawman? Just state exactly what "correlation" you have in mind, so
that I have some definitive statement of yours that I can quote, then
you can try to prove it. First, it was about PhDs in math. Now it's
about a partition of people, which is a strawman YOU impose on Franzen
(egregiously going well beyond what he actually posted, at least as far
as you quoted him) then on again to PhDs in math.

2) Torkel does so only as a troll: to distract attention from the topic
under discussion(which he ignores completely) and try to provoke a
flame war by calling someone an SM.

You only CLAIM that.

And you claim the opposite; which we're in the process of discussing.

I dispute your ridiculous generalization, a smear, that VIRTUALLY ALL
of Franzen's posts in sci.logic in the last five years were stirring or
perpetuating flames. The FIRST item on that agenda is for YOU to
support your claim, which involves much more than a few incidents but
indeed showing that VIRTUALLY ALL of Franzen's posts of stirring or
perpetuating flames, which involves comparing a vast number of posts,
and if you were sincere in an accurate presentation, also noting
postive examples of not stirring or perpetuating flames.

As I understand Torkel's point, it is that Some People - a class that
he does not name, but identifies by pointing to examples

How specious. It does not follow that by pointing to examples that one
makes a sweeping partition of all people as you mischaracterize Franzen
doing.

- should not
even be 'exposed' to formal logic, much less learn it, because it
causes them to assert absurdities.

Did he say that certain people should not even be exposed? (Perhaps he
did somewhere.) Anyway, his main point was that formal logic is not
needed universally as a subject to be taught to all students.

Which point he uses as a premise to
argue against formal logic's being taught universally (the subject of
the thread).

He said that certain people who reason well informally get mixed up in
informal logic. That is probably true. (But I am unconvinced by
Franzen's argument; I don't find it enough reason to dissuade us from
having formal logic as a school subject at an early age.)

So he was very much right on topic in that
thread.

How so? How do you see that as addressing the topic (teaching logic in
the public schools) at all?

He's right on topic by arguing that it is not a good idea to have
formal logic as a universal subject in public schools. You know, being
on topic does not require agreeing with you or me on the topic.

Some children who are perfectly good at
counting get 'mixed up' when they first use addition; is that an
argument against teaching those children to add?

(1) Whatever merits of the rebuttal, it doesn't show that Franzen was
not on topic in the thread, (2) Even though I'm more in sympathy with
(though hardly a staunch advocate of) formal logic being taught, I
don't find your rebuttal a very good one, just as has been pointed out
to you: People generally need basic arithmetic to reason numerically,
but it is not clear that people need formal logic to reason informally
or even to reason in special fields that don't directly depend on
formal logic.

You're miffed because he used your own previous confusions in
formal logic as anecdotal for his position.

Please do not tell me what I think.

Okay, you're not miffed that he used your previous confusions in formal
logic as anecedotal for his position. But that was the nature of his
personal attack in that thread, so if there were a stronger personal
attack in that thread, then I don't know what you have in mind, except
that maybe you're just not miffed about it.

Meanwhile, as to what people think, you are on and on and on about what
you claim to be Franzen's attitudes and motives.

I do not care whether Torkel
Franzen (whom, as I've already told you, I consider a troll) considered
me to be a typical example of Some People (an SP). What bothered me
were his asseretions that there were SP's. .

You just keep insisting that Franzen's views are as you characterize
them.

His doing that was surely a
barb against you, but it still was an apropos illustration of his point
and his point still was very much on the topic of that thread.

His remarks were 'on the topic of that thread' only if you interpret
his remarks as I've been doing - as an argument against Some People
being exposed to logic via public education.

So what? It's still on topic even if you disagree with his viewpoint.

So when you say he "ignores completely" the topic of the thread, you're
as good as lying.

Please back up your claim - cite one post in which Torkel addressed the
topic in any other way than his barbs at the SP - or withdraw it.

He argued that such universal instruction in the subject is an
ill-premised idea. That he did that in a way disagreeable to you does
not entail that he was not on the topic of the thread. He was on topic
of the thread - he argued that the idea of such universal instruction
is ill-premised.

Moreover, enough of his posts in that thread are
informative enough to add to the chunk of those that are not just
stirring and perpetuating flames so that these are evidence toward the
verdict,

Well, now, that's debatable. Please cite one 'informative' post of
his.

First tell me the minimum required for me to cite (and for you to
acknowledge) to refute your claim that VIRTUALLY ALL of his postings in
the last five years on sci.logic were stirring and perpetuating flames.

even in just this one "Exhibit", that it is not the case that
virtually all of his posting was stirring and perpetuating flames.

Thank you for your opinion. Now let's see you back it up. Please
start by finding the two posts that I requested: an on-topic post that
was not a 'barb', and a 'barb' that was informative, about anything.

YOUR mission, Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to back up YOUR
INITIAL claim: Virtually all of Franzen's posts on sci.logic in the
last five years were stirring and perpetuating flames.

Now, you asked me for two posts to serve as examples of my own. What
happens should I produce two such posts? Will you then find two more
that you claim to support your claim? Then if I produce two more?. How
long does that go on? Please state how many posts I must adduce to
refute you? Meanwhile, I'll tell you what you need to justify your
claim: You need to show that VIRTUALLY ALL of what he posted (sci.logic
since 2000) is stirring or perpetuating flames. And that includes not
just posts that support your claim but whatever posts you come across
(even if to Franzen's credit) that contribute to VIRTUALLY ALL of
Franzen's posting. Meanwhile, my burden is so much easier, since all I
have to do is bring out enough posts to show that NOT virtually all of
his posts (sci.logic since 2000) are stirring and perpetuating flames,
as just a real good chunk of such posts suffices.

Otherwise, I will continue to count every Franzen post in that thread -
as well as every Franzen post in the other thread I've now sent you -
as a troll. If you object regarding any post in particular, please
cite the specific post.

I'll comment as I please.

Anyway, both of those threads are far from what I would cite as
Franzen's best threads. But even in one thread:

[Franzen post without quote he's addressing:]

That's a different matter. Logic students do not very often
confuse (Ex)(P(x)&Q(x)) and (x)(P(x)->Q(x)). But they very often
indeed confuse

(Ex)(P(x)->Q(x)) and (Ex)(P(x)&Q(x))

and

(x)(P(x)&Q(x)) and (x)(P(x)->Q(x))

In the first case, indeed, a simple explanation for why the
corresponding confusion isn't encountered outside formal logic is that
there is no ordinary form of expression corresponding to
(Ex)(P(x)->Q(x)). But in the second case, both forms correspond to
ordinary statements, and nobody who has not been confused by the
pernicious study of formal logic is likely to mix up the two.

[end Franzen post]

That's hardly a revealatory post, but for the context of the
conversation it makes at least a modest on-topic point and it is not
stirring or perpetuating flames. (Though, I don't agree with his
characterization 'pernicious'.)

Next is even a post you referred to:

[Franzen post without quote he's addressing:]

My repetition in this instance has concerned a point that we know to
be uncongenial to you, the fact that logic students often make
mistakes when working with formulas that they would not make in
informal reasoning. Formal logic is essentially a mathematical
subject, and experience supports neither the idea that people who
reason well in non-mathematical contexts should have an aptitude for
formal logic, nor the idea that a study of formal logic will help
people reason well in non-mathematical contexts.

Thus, when you suggest, as a translation of "There is exactly one
giraffe", the formula

(Ex)(Ay)(Gx & Gy -> x=y),

this is typical of the kind of mistake only a logic student can make.
The above formula, which doesn't even have any equivalent in ordinary
language, illustrates how the use of the formalism of predicate logic
can confuse people who would have no difficulty reasoning about the
number of giraffes in ordinary informal terms.

[End Franzen post]

Whether I agree with that post or not, it is on topic, it is not
stirring or perpetuating flames, and it does raise a point that is
helpful to consider rather than just blindly endorsing universal
instruction in logic. And even if I conceded that his using 'you' in
those posts is stirring the embers of some past exchanges, the posts is
still on topic.

So you lied by claiming that Franzen "completely ignored" the subject
of the thread. Or, your definition of the 'subject of the thread' is so
ridiculously narrow as to exclude such postings as above, even though
they are concerned with specific examples that Franzen's cites in his
argument against universal instruction of formal logic.

MoeBlee

.