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  • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
  • To: "xml-dev@l..." <xml-dev@l...>
  • Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 10:23:13 -0500

On 11/15/13 10:20 AM, Bev Corwin wrote:
How certain are you about that?
Odds are good.

As rhetorical moves go, though, that one rates up there with "why can't tolerant people tolerate intolerance", which is to say not very highly. There's no actual contradiction except in the mind of the questioner.

Thanks,
Simon

    On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 6:19 AM, Simon St.Laurent
    <simonstl@s... <mailto:simonstl@s...>> wrote:

        t's easy: I've learned over the years that people who believe in
        certainty, especially those who believe that they can
        communicate certainty, are dangerous.

        Something goes deeply wrong when people assume that it is
        possible to know things precisely, to name things precisely, and
        to communicate things precisely.  (I'll grant that claims of
        precision are slightly less dangerous than claims of accuracy.)

        I sometimes call it naive positivism, but there are other
        philosophical schools that lead to the same sad place.
          Computers, of course, encourage such delusions, but that is
        largely because they know so little about the world.


--
Simon St.Laurent
http://simonstl.com/


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