PLATT: Nor do I agree that absolute truths, such as
the date of your birth, are always bad.
ERIN: I find it interesting that I should put my birthday as an absolute when
I have to accept that date on FAITH. Although faithfully accepting it may be
the best route to go how is it the logical route?
True story:
My stepfather who was born in Ireland was told "two" birthdays. One he was
told by his mother and one he has on his birth certificate (story about the
time lapse is not important) Since he can't remember his birth which is more
"logical" to believe. I don't really have a problem with people wanting to
faithfully accept love, birthdays as absolutes but again I just don't how it
is 100% objective or logical to do so.
I am going to guess the argument against this is that he has a birthdate even
though he doesn't know it. I still think it has to be accepted through faith
not logic. Also I thought Wilson's article came to mind and I asked what
calendar are we using to arrive at this birthdate? I am having a hard time you
can give be an 100% objective birthdate without a 100% objective calender.
WILSON:
18 Archemides 30 a.T.
Wait a Minute--
What Goddam Millenium?
I have used a variety of different calendars over the past 30 years--partly
because I find it amusing to do so, but mostly for reasons of neurolinguistic
self-education. [I employ a few dozen other devices of this sort to re-program
myself out of conventional semantic grids: experiments, if you will, on Guinea
Pig Bob.] For instance, I often use Ezra Pound's post-Christian calendar to
date this column. Beginning at midnight 30 October1921 -- when Joyce wrote the
last words of Ulysses -- this chronolog has six months for the male/solar
divinities (Hepheistos,Zeus, Saturn, Hermes, Mars, Phoebus) and six for the
female/lunar divinities (Kupris, Juno,Athena, Hestia, Artemis, Demeter.) In
this system, these words will appear on 8 Hestia 78 p.s.U.
Sometimes, I use the Discordian calendar, which dates everything from the
Original Snub (see http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tilt/principia/body.html) and makes
today 1 Bureaucracy 3165 y.D.
As you can plainly see, we have 923 years to go until the next millenium (1001
p.s.U.) on the Poundian calendar, and 836 years to go to the next millenium
(4001 y.D.) in the Discordian system.
A few other random calendars yield results like this:
Thelemic: present year 96. 905 years until 1001 millenium,
Hebraic: present year 5759. 242 years to 6001 millenium
Mayan: present year 5113. 888 years to 6001 millenium.
Pataphysical: present year 126. 875 years to 1001 millenium.
Islamic: present year 1420. 581 Islamic years (or 563 solar years) to 2001
millenium.
Why all the fuss, then, about the totally arbitrary Gregorian millenium? Well,
maybe some intellectual Catholics (Jesuits, probably) have convinced
themselves that Pope Gregory XIII created the "one true" calendar by tuning in
-- infallibly -- to some Cosmic Clock. Einstein, however, has proven
mathematically, and his successors have proven experimentally, that no such
"one true" clock exists anywhere; and most of us don't believe in Papal
infallibility, anyway. Dating the year after next 2001 (Gregorian) has as much
and as little validity as dating it 5761 (Hebrew) or dating it 128
(Pataphysical.) I think most people honest-to-Gawd believe the Papist date
"is" the "real" date because they never stop to think about it.
I suspect, also, that most people do and say most of the things they do and
say for exactly the same reason: they never stop to think about it. I know
this sounds brutally cynical, but at least it explains the religious and
political behaviors of our species, which otherwise seem totally beyond
rational comprehension.
By the way, I used an excellent new calendar to date this data-about-dating:
the Tranquility calendar which begins on the day of the first moon landing (20
Athena 48 p.s.U; 20 Fructidor 177 a.R..). You can thank Pat Farley for calling
this calendar to my attention. You can also thank him for the weird and lovely
style of this website. He designs it.
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:01:47 BST