Drunken Philosophy: Find Meaning in Music & Stoli

[Math Is Hard]

I once joked with a certain member here about getting hammered one night and polluting the philosophy forum with wacky topics. I think there's a wealth of material from popular music:

1) Every rose has its thorn. Discuss.

2) What are words for? (When no one listens anymore.)

3) All we are is dust in the wind, dude. (Stolen from Bill and Ted).

4) If I could save time in a bottle.. what kind of bottle would it be?

5) Do you, YOU, feel like I do? (OK, that one's almost good for kicking off discussions on subjective experience).

Have you ever been a philosophical drunk? Have you ever found deep meaning in a song via a bottle of Stoli?

More importantly, how soon is now?

 

[zoobyshoe]

All perfectly sober philosophical quetions sound like the products of inebriated minds to me.

 

[lisab]

All perfectly sober philosophical quetions sound like the products of inebriated minds to me.

 

[Math Is Hard]

All perfectly sober philosophical quetions sound like the products of inebriated minds to me.

A philosophy teacher I had (who looked like a young Russell Crowe) once told the class, "Philosophy is not something you do when you're stoned or drunk; it's done alone in a dark room, with careful thought, after many cups of coffee." And I agreed. And then he said something else, but he lifted his arms to stretch and treated us to a glimpse of his perfect muscular abdomen, and I don't remember what the rest of it was..

what was I saying? Oh, yes.. so what's the over/under you'd give me on the number of these topics I could post at philosophyforums.com before getting banned?

 

[zoobyshoe]

A philosophy teacher I had (who looked like a young Russell Crowe) once told the class, "Philosophy is not something you do when you're stoned or drunk; it's done alone in a dark room, with careful thought, after many cups of coffee." And I agreed. And then he said something else, but he lifted his arms to stretch and treated us to a glimpse of his perfect muscular abdomen, and I don't remember what the rest of it was..

Philosophical considerations are subject to sudden evaporation under certain circumstances, yes.

what was I saying? Oh, yes.. so what's the over/under you'd give me on the number of these topics I could post at philosophyforums.com before getting banned?

Well, there is the true story of how V.S. Ramachandran wrote a fake EvoPsych article called "Do Gentlemen Prefers Blondes" and got it accepted to a peer reviewed EvoPsych journal. I think you could get away with just about anything on a philosophy forum.

 

[lisab]

A philosophy teacher I had (who looked like a young Russell Crowe) once told the class, "Philosophy is not something you do when you're stoned or drunk; it's done alone in a dark room, with careful thought, after many cups of coffee." And I agreed. And then he said something else, but he lifted his arms to stretch and treated us to a glimpse of his perfect muscular abdomen, and I don't remember what the rest of it was..

what was I saying? Oh, yes.. so what's the over/under you'd give me on the number of these topics I could post at philosophyforums.com before getting banned?

Lol, I'll give you 3/5. I think you can get that far because clearly all of the mentors there are sitting in the dark jittered on caffeine and thinking hard.

I love the bottle one btw and I think that's the one that will get you booted.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I love the bottle one btw and I think that's the one that will get you booted.

Strangely enough, I could produce a perfectly serious essay with that title.

 

[Galteeth]

 

[Galteeth]

Another one for the list:

Dude, it's all about perspective.

 

[BobG]

4) If I could save time in a bottle.. what kind of bottle would it be?

[PLAIN]http://www.humboldtmathfestival.org/kleinbottle.jpg

 

[DavidSnider]

 

[GeorginaS]

Oh sure, BobG, hurt my brain. Go right ahead.

MiH, I think your odds of becoming a philosophy board favourite are really good. I'd give you 9/10 odds.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I was a bit drunk when I decided to quote song lyrics in a discussion in the philosophy forum here. Sorry.

 

[rewebster]

I think this thread should have been posted in the philosophy sub-forum, then it would have been taken seriously.

 

[IcedEcliptic]

I would keep my Klein Bottle in an Alice Universe, with my friend the mad hatter. ;)

 

[fuzzyfelt]

10) "Where is my mind?
Where is my mind?
Wheeere is my mind?"



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gmE-Yyg9mw&feature=related

 

[EnumaElish]

Well, there is the true story of how V.S. Ramachandran wrote a fake EvoPsych article called "Do Gentlemen Prefers Blondes" and got it accepted to a peer reviewed EvoPsych journal. I think you could get away with just about anything on a philosophy forum.

Then there is the true (?) story of John Nash figuring out his equilibrium concept (game theory) by thinking about the choices of two men engaging two women, one blond and one brunette, in a bar. This was part of the movie A Beautiful Mind (in which a youngish R. Crowe played John Nash).

 

[turbo]

More Cowbell! Discuss.

http://www.funnyhub.com/videos/pages/snl-more-cowbell.html

 

[Math Is Hard]

Well, there is the true story of how V.S. Ramachandran wrote a fake EvoPsych article called "Do Gentlemen Prefers Blondes" and got it accepted to a peer reviewed EvoPsych journal. I think you could get away with just about anything on a philosophy forum.

Neat! That makes me think of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair" .

I like that band. Their singer is a prof at UCLA.

Lol, I'll give you 3/5. I think you can get that far because clearly all of the mentors there are sitting in the dark jittered on caffeine and thinking hard.

I love the bottle one btw and I think that's the one that will get you booted.

Oh sure, BobG, hurt my brain. Go right ahead.

MiH, I think your odds of becoming a philosophy board favourite are really good. I'd give you 9/10 odds.

I think the trick would be too sneakily manipulate the lyrics until the key question is still there, but it is not recognizable as song lyrics. After the thead's been going for awhile, then it might be fun to begin to subtly rephrase the quetion back to way it was posed in the song. And do it for all the threads of course. Eventually, someone realizes that all the threads I started were from song lyrics. har har har

Then there is the true (?) story of John Nash figuring out his equilibrium concept (game theory) by thinking about the choices of two men engaging two women, one blond and one brunette, in a bar. This was part of the movie A Beautiful Mind (in which a youngish R. Crowe played John Nash).

Russell Crowe was really hot in that. Really, really hot. But still.. he was no http://xkcd.com/182/" .

10) "Where is my mind?
Where is my mind?
Wheeere is my mind?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gmE-Yyg9mw&feature=related

I like that song. It was in Fight Club?

 

[fuzzyfelt]

I like that song. It was in Fight Club?

Not only that, NASA sent the song to Mars.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mer/images.cfm?id=48

The rover "Spirit" woke up to the song after a software transplant in 2004.

 

[EnumaElish]

Russell Crowe was really hot in that. Really, really hot. But still.. he was no http://xkcd.com/182/" .

The comic in MIH's link is correct about Nash vs. the screenwriter, and here's why:
http://econweb.tamu.edu/npaez/Regarding A beautiful mind.pdf

In the game I suggested there were 2 guys & 2 gals; and the strategy pairs (blonde, brunette) and (brunette, blonde) are both Nash equilibria of that game. Inclusion of more brunettes (in the action set of each guy) would not alter the solution (the Nash equilibrium) in the qualitative sense. (Unless one of the guys is Feynman, I guess.)

A mixed strategy also exists; each guy "flips a coin" to decide which woman he should approach.

If one wishes, one can construct the game so that it was the women engaging the men, and the men were in women's action sets.

More reading on the subject:
http://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2...lem-from-a-beautiful-mind-buying-new-or-used/
http://math.about.com/library/weekly/aa012002a.htm
http://www.virginia.edu/economics/RePEc/vir/virpap/papers/virpap359.pdf
http://plus.maths.org/issue47/features/rey/index.html
http://variagate.com/equilib.htm?beaumind

 

[BobG]

The comic in MIH's link is correct about Nash vs. the screenwriter, and here's why:
http://econweb.tamu.edu/npaez/Regarding A beautiful mind.pdf

In the game I suggested there were 2 guys & 2 gals; and the strategy pairs (blonde, brunette) and (brunette, blonde) are both Nash equilibria of that game. Inclusion of more brunettes (in the action set of each guy) would not alter the solution (the Nash equilibrium) in the qualitative sense. (Unless one of the guys is Feynman, I guess.)

A mixed strategy also exists; each guy "flips a coin" to decide which woman he should approach.

If one wishes, one can construct the game so that it was the women engaging the men, and the men were in women's action sets.

More reading on the subject:
http://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2...lem-from-a-beautiful-mind-buying-new-or-used/
http://math.about.com/library/weekly/aa012002a.htm
http://www.virginia.edu/economics/RePEc/vir/virpap/papers/virpap359.pdf
http://plus.maths.org/issue47/features/rey/index.html
http://variagate.com/equilib.htm?beaumind

If there's more than two guys and more than two brunettes (in fact, at least as many brunettes as guys) as in the movie, then it's not a true Nash equilibrium. Any of the guys could improve their lot by agreeing to all go for the brunettes, but then switching his choice at the last second ... with the problem that more than one would opt for this strategy.

The only way Nash's solution works is if this is the blonde:

If, instead, this is the blonde (below), then the heck with Nash equilibriums - I'm going for the blonde!

[PLAIN]https://www.physicsforums.com/customprofilepics/profilepic2024_3.gif

 

[EnumaElish]

If there's more than two guys and more than two brunettes (in fact, at least as many brunettes as guys) as in the movie, then it's not a true Nash equilibrium. Any of the guys could improve their lot by agreeing to all go for the brunettes, but then switching his choice at the last second ... with the problem that more than one would opt for this strategy.

No; http://econweb.tamu.edu/npaez/Regard...ful mind.pdf already assumes more than one brunette -- that's clear from the payoffs: (blonde, blonde) brings (0, 0) because the guys "block each other." But (brunette, brunette) brings (5, 5), implying there is no blocking. Therefore, there are multiple brunettes.

What would happen if there was one brunette, as I first suggested? This changes the payoff under (brunette, brunette) to (0, 0) -- because "they block each other." Now, each man has an even stronger incentive to focus on a single woman, and ignore the other (10 vs. 0 instead of 10 vs. 5). Therefore, (blonde, brunette) and (brunette, blonde) remain the two pure-strategy Nash equilibria.

If, instead, this is the blonde (below), then the heck with Nash equilibriums - I'm going for the blonde!

I guess that leaves the brun... Darn, Feynman!

 

[BobG]

I think the trick would be too sneakily manipulate the lyrics until the key question is still there, but it is not recognizable as song lyrics. After the thead's been going for awhile, then it might be fun to begin to subtly rephrase the quetion back to way it was posed in the song. And do it for all the threads of course. Eventually, someone realizes that all the threads I started were from song lyrics. har har har

The real challenge is to make a mistake in one of the posts and convince a mentor to go in and fix your typo for you and still not realize what you're doing.

 

[EnumaElish]

The real challenge is to make a mistake in one of the posts and convince a mentor to go in and fix your typo for you and still not realize what you're doing.

I don't think I've ever asked any mentor to fix my problems for me, but surely I've learned to stay away from questions that aren't my specialty. Unless, of course, it's a GD thread In GD, PF'ers don't have to be so unforgiving of themselves.

 

[rewebster]

The real challenge is to make a mistake in one of the posts and convince a mentor to go in and fix your typo for you and still not realize what you're doing.

well, you just need the ability to edit anyone's post---that would fix the problem

 

[lisab]

well, you just need the ability to edit anyone's post---that would fix the problem. which isn't too hard to do really, just quote the person and there you go

that's how that's done

 

[rewebster]

that's who's done hats

Oh---oK

 

[lisab]

Oh---oK

 

[GeorginaS]

I think the trick would be too sneakily manipulate the lyrics until the key question is still there, but it is not recognizable as song lyrics. After the thead's been going for awhile, then it might be fun to begin to subtly rephrase the quetion back to way it was posed in the song. And do it for all the threads of course. Eventually, someone realizes that all the threads I started were from song lyrics. har har har

You do that, then you'd have to provide screen shots. I'd print and frame that kind of brilliance.

Almost philosophy, I think, and from a time far, far away and long, long ago, I was sitting around one evening with a couple of friends. We were parked on pillows on the hardwood floor because one of said friends had just newly moved into the apartment and hadn't acquired furniture yet. (Long, long ago when we weren't all burdened with entire households of stuff yet.) And she didn't have any proper decorative lights for her living room, yet, so she'd strung Christmas lights around for both light and effect. It was June, I think.

We weren't drunk, exactly but somewhere in that neighbourhood. Not quite or even messy but very pensive and introspective. You know what I mean. So I was staring at the Christmas lights and my eye followed the wire they were strung on all the way to the plug in the wall. Then I stared at the electrical outlet and I said to my friends, "I we were moving at the speed of electricity, would we be able to see it?"

I don't know whether that's considered off-beat philosophy or not, but we gave the idea a good long chew nonetheless. *curtsy*