(urth) Monkey business

António Pedro Marques entonio at gmail.com
Fri Jul 9 13:03:48 PDT 2010


James Wynn wrote (09-07-2010 20:35):
>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On 7/9/2010 12:12 PM, Ryan Dunn wrote:
>>>>>> Could the elderly person in Casdoe's house be an aquastor?
>>>>>
>>>>> James Wynn wrote (09-07-2010 18:35):
>>>>> Sure. But anyone...probably any living thing...could be an
>>>>> aquastor. Why
>>>>> would being an aquastor help things along?
>>>>
>>>> On 7/9/2010 12:59 PM, António Pedro Marques wrote:
>>>> Hey!
>>>
>>> James Wynn wrote (09-07-2010 19:26):
>>> Bait the hook, then reel them in. You still haven't delineated the
>>> relevant differences between "Inire is Rudesind" and "Dorcas is
>>> Severian's grandmother".
>>
>> On 7/9/2010 2:27 PM, António Pedro Marques wrote:
>> It's not my fault if you can't read.
>
> Read what? Still no citation? Tsk tsk.
> Five dodges now.

Citation of what, James? I've said which two things are wrong with your 
question and given a further explanation. Since your attention span seems 
not be be having the best of days, I'll repeat them, which is something I abhor.

1. Why your first question made no sense at all:
On 7/7/2010 4:18 PM, António Pedro Marques wrote: I'm not talking about
narrative advantage. I'm talking about speculative advantage. And as a
side note I'm against the idea of narrative advantage. I don't see that
real life employs it, why should fiction?

2. Once you had corrected it, the information you ask for is in the archives 
and I have better things to do than reenact the whole discussion:
On 7/7/2010 6:05 PM, António Pedro Marques wrote: That has been
discussed to death.

3. If you're really interested to know what's different instead of simply 
trying to sound clever, you can start with this:
On 7/9/2010 5:56 AM, António Pedro Marques wrote: One key difference is that 
Dorcas being Severian's grandmother tells us
something about a character we knew nothing about (Dorcas as Severian's
grandmother) and Severian's family tree, i.e. the level of data increases.
Whereas Rudesind being Inire actually decreases the amount of data by
dropping one character.
And again, the identity of Dorcas is all but spelled out. When discussing 
whether or not she was Severian's grandmother, it's more of a debate between 
'she obviously is' and 'it's so obvious maybe it's wrong'.


It would be quite nice if you'd keep track of what people say and didn't 
mangle the quotation system. It's not hard, you know. On the top of every 
quotation, there is a line saying who said what when. Then the text is 
indented by a greater-then sign. This can be nested. If people don't mess 
with it, as you do by trimming, then it's easy to follow the conversation. 
Plus, if you actually take the time to read what the other person says, you 
won't have to keep asking when did they say what.

You want me to replay the discussions from the archives? How stupid would I 
have to be to do your bidding? You don't get any rhetorical edge by making 
preposterous challenges.

>>> James Wynn wrote (09-07-2010 19:26):
>>> So this gives me a chance to show the value of
>>> wild speculation.
>>> There's no reason to get Talmudic on the difference between your
>>> proposed standard and my question. I am only asking "How does viewing
>>> the old man as an aquastor resolve the apparent connection between him
>>> and Rudesind?" Also, "How does the old man being an aquastor resolve the
>>> issue posed by Mr Berman that the old man might be female?"
>>> What I am not asking is "What difference would it make if the old man
>>> and Rudesind were connected?" or "If the old man is an aquastor, then
>>> what?" Because in these instances the question is the answer: "The old
>>> man and Rudesind might be connected" and "The old man might be an
>>> aquastor".
>> On 7/9/2010 2:27 PM, António Pedro Marques wrote:
>> If X then X?
>
> Irrelevant question in this case. No speculated advantage. See what I
> did above? I used specific instances and showed how they were different.
> Try that.

You showed no such thing.

>> On 7/9/2010 2:27 PM, António Pedro Marques wrote:
>> Way to go about not saying anything.
>
> Self-congratulation is unseemly, Antonio.
>
> u+16b9
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