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Arts & Entertainment Give meaning to your life or distract you from it for a while |
View Poll Results: Does the hunter go around the squirrel? | |||
Yes. He goes around the squirrel. | 16 | 61.54% | |
No. He does not go around the squirrel. | 10 | 38.46% | |
Voters: 26. You may not vote on this poll |
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06-21-2012, 11:00 AM | #106 |
Wearing her bitch boots
Join Date: Apr 2006
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Hmm, I missed the original argument.
In my opinion, the hunter has gone around the tree. Not the squirrel. The squirrel has ALSO gone around the tree. But it doesn't mean one went around the other just because they both went around the same object. If I'm walking around the perimeter of a museum and so are you, I cannot reasonably claim to have walked around YOU. I might not even see you during my trip. Unless you stop and I walk past your back, in which case I have now walked around you as well as the museum.
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06-21-2012, 11:57 AM | #107 |
a beautiful fool
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what if you walked past and I was facing you?
you're substituting the concept of behind for around. If your path traced is entirely contained within mine, I HAVE gone around you. maybe not gotten behind you... but, yes.. around.
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06-21-2012, 03:47 PM | #108 |
Wearing her bitch boots
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Seems as though you are substituting my path for me.
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06-21-2012, 06:34 PM | #109 |
a beautiful fool
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for me go around perhaps. but then, if you take your path away, you can't go around anything.
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06-21-2012, 07:53 PM | #110 | |
To shreds, you say?
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Quote:
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06-21-2012, 07:56 PM | #111 |
erika
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: "the high up north"
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Here's my take on it.
If you stood still in the center of my wide circle, i definitely went around you. Then, it stands to reason, if you stood off-center, i still did. Therefore, if you stood anywhere in the circle I made, I went around you. I then posit that, if you milled about slowly and aimlessly, just sort of wandering more-or-less in-place, within my circle, I still did go around you. Then, finally, my conclusion is, if you moved with purpose in a circular path, instead of aimlessly and more-or-less in place, as long as your circle was smaller than mine and entirely contained within the path I took, i walked around you. That doesn't mean I was using you as the center point or the subject of my circle, but i still went around you.
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06-21-2012, 09:42 PM | #112 |
UNDER CONDITIONAL MITIGATION
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Oh fer chrissake. This again?
Look, all motion is relative. All of it. In the case of, say, Earth and Mars orbiting the sun, we prefer to think of the sun as being stationary, but you could just as easily create a legitimate frame of reference in which Mars stands still, such that the Earth and sun would fly around at erratic speeds and appear to actually encircle Mars. Imagine that the squirrel does not go around the tree, but rather the tree and the entire Earth are spinning under the squirell's feet, like those dudes who roll logs on water*, or the circus clown who runs backwards on top of a big ball in order to roll it forward on the ground. In this 'squirrel is stationary' frame of reference, the hunter is a pawn to the Earth, and appears to move around the squirrel. But now imagine instead that the hunter is stuck in one place, moving his legs but it's like he's on a treadmill (yes, I said it)--a giant Earth-sized treadmill... and now, think hard to imagine it... in that frame of reference the squirrel is moving around the hunter. *There are competitions, even! Behold: |
06-22-2012, 01:11 AM | #113 |
erika
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...well, sure, i guess I'm going way out on a limb and assuming our frame of reference is the one we use every day in speech to describe motion on Earth. I don't really think assuming that calling the Earth stationary and just dealing with the practical applications of relative movement of creatures fixed by gravity on a relatively "flat" plane moving, when not by their own actions, otherwise identically, is going against the spirit of the question. In fact, in constructing my argument, i used stormie's museum construction in my head... and then re-constructed it using a tree instead of a museum and came up with exactly the same explanation.
I mean, if he never saw the squirrel while it was behind the tree, maybe it was dead, or neither alive nor dead, or some other sort of cat-in-a-box theoretical argument. I think the question is not remotely about astrophysics or the implications of relative motion. it's face-value and in colloquial terms, and merely a question about the definition of the word "around". in this case, stormie disagrees with my definition because, if i understand her correctly, to her it's about intent. to me, the question of whether something went "around" something is no more complex than, did the circle/ellipse/shape of A's path completely contain the shape of B's path.
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06-22-2012, 04:36 AM | #114 |
Nearly done.
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...and, of course, the Earth doesn't really go around the sun - they both orbit a common point.
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06-22-2012, 09:02 AM | #115 |
Person who doesn't update the user title
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Voting is closed.
This is where we get to the moving on part. |
06-22-2012, 11:11 AM | #116 |
erika
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im, you spoilsport! STOP DISCUSSING THIS DONT WANNA HEAR IT LALALALA
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06-22-2012, 11:15 AM | #117 |
Goon Squad Leader
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come on, Ibram. we can't go around the squirrel without moving, now can we?
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06-22-2012, 11:26 AM | #118 | |
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06-22-2012, 11:37 AM | #119 |
erika
Join Date: Apr 2006
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of course it's not a "practical" question - it's a semantic question, on what it means to "go around" something. If you don't find semantic discussions fun then you won't like the discussion, but that doesn't make it a "dumb argument". I happen to enjoy discussing semantics because I think that a HUGE percentage of disagreements happen because people just aren't talking about the same thing, or are using the same word to mean different things. thinking seriously about what we mean when we say things is important to me. that doesn't make me dumb for "arguing" about it, or make it a dumb thing to talk about.
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06-22-2012, 11:41 AM | #120 |
Person who doesn't update the user title
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Fine, then. The hunter does not go around the squirrel and to suggest otherwise is ludicrous, at best. Magic tricks again.
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