Principles of Applied Epistemology (APPLIED EPISTEMOLOGY)

[Pete Jones]

"While timorous knowledge stands considering, audacious ignorance hath done the deed."

---English poet and historian Samuel Daniel.

[Mick Harper]

For years I assumed audiobooks were for the infirm. I now realise it is a completely different medium. Books you might ordinarily reject for all kinds of reasons--from unfamiliar genre to tedium--when reading, you will listen to with great pleasure.

However, this is not widely appreciated. It is like driving. Journeys that you would forswear if you had to drive, can be undertaken happily if you're in the passenger seat.

[Mick Harper]

The Tyranny of Large Numbers ran headlong into the Immoveable Political Stereotype the other day.

Nobody knows how many Russians died in the Second World War, and the Russians have always kept firm control of the data required for making accurate assessments. For several decades it was 'twenty million'. Then suddenly, for no obvious reason, the figure became 'twenty-seven million' and that remained the unvarying number for the decades since.

The other day, presumably because of the Ukraine War, a western commentator uttered the fateful words 'twenty-five to twenty-seven million'.

[Mick Harper]

I was watching The History Boys and reading Infinite Jest but got impatient with both. The fictional characters kept going off on lengthy conversations with a technical content far beyond the scope of any similar types of people I've come across in real life. Indeed, far outside anything I could myself offer on the subjects in question. This led me to some AE musings.

I was entirely comfortable that the respective authors (Alan Bennet and David Foster Wallace) had the wherewithal to come up with these expositions. I was happy to recognise that putting them in the mouths of their characters made for excellent viewing/ reading. Nevertheless, I found myself getting increasingly irked.

The truth is, with some exceptions, I have never had a conversation ever of such complex interest with anyone. It would seem the people I, personally, come into contact socially with are either

* incapable of delivering them
* decline for some reason to deliver them, if they are capable
* do not allow me to deliver them (I am fully capable)
* or shut me up in short order if I manage to get started.

The 'some exceptions' led to

* great wonder on my part or theirs
* expressions of gratitude on my part or theirs
* no repetition of anything similar again
* with, at most, three exceptions.

Now you might think this must be because I have led a sheltered intellectual life. But this just isn't so.

* I have attended various academic institutions (and similar non-academic ones)
* I come from and have remained in social circles that prize intellectual endeavour
* I have conducted numberless conversations over the internet with 'intellectuals'
* I have demonstrated at all times I am 'up for it'.

So just what is going on? I really would like to know.