On Friday 09 May 2008 08:07, Tue Sorensen wrote:
>> >> In the very first episode, Adama realized that the cylon couldn't
get
>> >> to them if they didn't network their computers. And that only the
good
>> >> old fighters from the museum stood a chance. That, to me, was a
clear
>> >> reactionary anti-tech notion, and thereby a mark of non SF.
>>
>> > It was a homage to the old show! Get over it!
>>
>> No way, it's a central point early on.
>
> If you don't recognize a homage when you see one, there's nothing I
> can do about it. For me (who've only seen very tiny bits of the
> original series, and basically found it unwatchable) it was great fun.
> The designs (and characters) are some of the only things that still
> connect the new show to the old, and they've done it in a way that
> both honors and satirizes the old show. I think it is brilliantly
> done.
>
I can't see how this could possibly be an homage. It's not a detail in the
background, it has actual meaning in the plot. It's important, not part of
the dressing. In a later episode, the Cylons easily started breaking into
the system when our heroes coupled them together, which is almost as
ridiculous as sparks flying out of the control panels on the Enterprise.
>> >> You're the one who says that there only has
>> >> to be a spaceship for something to be SF.
>>
>> > Spaceships are good. I could eat them up. Yummy. But first and
>> > foremost there has to be a scientific attitude.
>>
>> So putting a murder mystery in a spaceship isn't necessarily science
>> fiction?
>
> Science fiction is whatever science fiction fans find interesting.
What??? This is a completely new definition, which is obviously completely
false. What're you trying to pull here???
> Science fiction fans tend to like spaceships, so a story in a
> spaceship setting is, ipso-facto, science fiction. In any case, if
> there's a spaceship in the story, there's a great probability that the
> basic world view of the tale is a scientific one as well, also making
> it science fiction.
>
You'd twisting otherwise straightforward concepts to have them fit with
you
preconceived notions.
>> >> >> >> >> > So for me the entire hard and soft categories are
>> >> >> >> >> > extremely fuzzy. I guess I would describe sci-fi with a
>> >> >> >> >> > poor scientific attitude and/or poor scientific content
as
>> >> >> >> >> > "soft". This would include time-travel and other
silliness,
>> >> >> >> >> > which is blatantly disregarding basic scientific tenets
and
>> >> >> >> >> > hence often ought to be described as fantasy.
>>
>> >> >> >> >> Which tenets exactly?
>>
>> >> >> >> > Oh... all of them?! You have to look pretty damn hard to
find
>> >> >> >> > anything, even in theory, that even begins to allow any form
>> >> >> >> > of practical time-travel.
>>
>> >> >> >> That's not what you said -- can you tell us what basic tenets
>> >> >> >> are _violated_?
>>
>> >> >> > Can you tell us which ones aren’t? ;-)
>>
>> >> >> Ohm's law. Your turn.
>>
>> >> > Since there is no science of time-travel you cannot know which
laws
>> >> > are not violated by it.
>>
>> >> Ohm's law is invariant to time, thus reversible. But you're not
>> >> holding up your end: you claimed that the very idea of time travel
>> >> blatantly disregards basic scientific tenets. Which tenets?
>>
>> > Since there is no science of time-travel, it is an irrelevant
>> > question.
>>
>> So you withdraw your claim then?
>
> Certainly not. Anything that is not scientific violates science.
>
Absurd! You're saying that because we don't currently have a theory of
quantum gravity, black holes "violate science"??? What does that even
mean, "violate science"?
And still, your original claim wasn't about violating, but simply that
time
travel "blatantly disregarding basic scientific tenets". I think it's very
reasonable of me to want to know which tenets you're talking about.
>> > How can the non-science of time-travel be related to
>> > existing scientific laws? You're trying to trap me into exposing my
>> > partial ignorance of specific science, but my name is Alan Greenspan
>> > and I don't work that way! (Now *there's* an obscure comics reference
>> > if ever there was one!) My knowledge of nitty-gritty science is
>> > admittedly relatively limited - I mostly work with large abstract
>> > questions -, and what detailed knowledge I do have tends to be
>> > passive, so I can't volunteer it. But I can analyze it into next week
>> > if you present it to me for scrutiny! But I still don't see how
actual
>> > science has any real relevance to the non-science of time-travel.
>>
>> Your knowledge of science and the history of scienc is absolutely
>> limited. "Large abstract questions" is your way of saying "philosophy",
>> even if you wont admit it.
>
> I'll admit it. Since the scientific community doesn't agree about what
> comprises the deep underpinnings of science, they aren't going to
> agree that my ideas are scientific, and hence I must, for now, call
> them philosophical. For now.
>
You've said that before, but you're still, time and time again, using the
word "science" in your own personal meaning. You're really not being
honest
about this. In one sentence you say that science means what people
generally take it to mean, in the next science is some grand human scheme.
Then it's philosophy and soon "Science fiction is whatever science fiction
fans find interesting". Really!
I think you should accept that what people generally, and scientists in
particular, think of as science is all that which you carelessly dismiss
as "nitty-gritty science". Math, research, logic, statistics, experiments,
forming hypothesis and theories, looking for errors, finding
correlations -- that's what it's all about. We are at the scientific and
technological level we are today, because thousands and thousands of
people
put hard work into those fields, not because a group of dedicated
philosophers thought and wrote about their personal interpretations of
what "to be" actually means.
>> Your analytical skills are hampered by your dogma.
>
> Your dogma prevents you from understanding that my ideas represent the
> ultimate abandonment of any dogma in the classical sense.
>
>> >> >> > Ahem. Knee-jerk reaction comin’ atcha: Everybody is entitled
to
>> >> >> > their opinion, but the idea that every opinion is of equal
>> >> >> > objective validity is the ultimate fallacy. Therefore
uninformed
>> >> >> > opinions should be challenged.
>>
>> >> >> We both know what happens when I do that...
>>
>> >> > We're currently neck-deep in what happens...
>>
>> >> The question is: what happens next?
>>
>> > A pause and a re-match. And then I win.
>>
>> Win? This isn't a game!
>
> Never said it was. Never the less, one world view will win out in the
> end.
>
Ah, this is obviously some new usage of the term 'ultimate abandonment of
any dogma' I was previously unaware of.
//Niels
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