(urth) interview questions

[Son of Witz]

On Jan 7, 2011, at 12:50 PM, Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
>> Dan'l Danahy-Oakes: This is a forced and false dichotomy. It is possible for Gerry to
>> believe you are wrong without believing you are stupid.
> 
> I disagree. When you tell someone else they are wrong it means you either think they are: 
> 
> 
> 1. ignorant- i.e. they do not have access to the full range of information necessary 
> 
> or
> 
> 2. stupid- i.e. they do not have sufficient brain power to use the information correctly
> 
> Perhaps you are suggesting Gerry doesn't mean to label others globally, just on a certain
> point of contention. I can accept this. But the fact remains calling someone else "wrong"
> is a designation of inferiority, even if only in limited scale.
> 
> As most people using normal social discourse understand, there are ways of disagreeing with
> other people which still show a full measure of respect for their knowledge and intelligence.

Lee, 
You couldn't be more wrong here.
And I don't think you are inferior for having the view. 
But really, it's not about a superiority ranking.
Me and Flato raise questions with each other over lunch, follow a line of reasoning as to some possibility, then often can't think up an objection.  Then after lunch, one of us surely emails the other and points out the obvious thing we overlooked.  Neither feels insulted.  We feel grateful we don't have it wrongbecause we forgot some simple detail.

Take my recent Out-on-a-limb suggestion that the Contessa could have gone back in time and had a tryst with Typhon and have the twins Severian and Ouen, to mesh with Fish And Frog. This was based off someone elses idea, but it seemed possible to me for a week or two.  Then Jordon reminded me of the simple fact that Ouen knows Dorcas is his mother, so therefore the Contessa/Catherine couldn't be Ouen's mother.  I'm not insulted, I feel like I've been done a favor.  Same with Roys assertion about the gravity if Green was Lune.  Duh! i didn't think of gravity at all when I entertained the idea. So quickly falsifiable, but I didn't think of that detail. I'm not stupid. They're not better. It's a huge confusing morass to try and keep in your head.

~witz