User:Snowded/brews

For assembling diffs to failure to abide by sanction and/or continuation of same behaviour on another subject

Original case here with subsequent escalation and enforcement IN particular the bleed onto physics related topics


 * Philosophy definition
 * Hawkings (physics) PLUS reference to recent related ban)
 * Two Rfi s
 * Rfi response

Inappropriate use of Village Pump coupled with canvassing on 25th April (added myself and Machine Elf who already knew to give the appearance ....)

More inappropriate use of Village Pump and edit warring Snowded  TALK 06:13, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

June 2013 Sets up new article to include material which he couldn't get elsewhere including the Hawkins stuff again Internal–external_distinction

THEN BLOCKED FOR A MONTH. RETURNS, no change

Use of policy forum to attempt to deal with a content dispute at WP:OR Response to everyone who does not agree same forum And again and warned by another editor this time

Possible failure to abide by Physics ban - use of dubious source "The Vibrating Universe' which "The Vibrating Universe systhesizes the superstring theory of modern physics and the vibration concept of ...."

Using policy and help pages with polemical references to attempt to get his own way, while discussion continues elsewhere and is not yet resolved.

ANI case

Personal attacks and intransigence at OR notice Board

2015
Editing a physics article

Added by Peter Damian
In March 2015 he returned to the article on Free will. Many of his edits have been to add references, but these are frequently problematic. For example, he typically combines sources into a novel synthesis e.g. here which was never claimed by the orginal authors. He also duplicates sources, turning the article into a rambling incoherent mess. He has a poor grasp of the philosophical content, meaning that he fails to understand the sources he is using, or their relevance. For example, he will source Steiner and Wilber, neither of whom are notable writers on the philosophical  aspects of free will. Since 16 March editor has been reverting edits so they can be discussed on the talk page. In response, Brews has flooded the talk page with all sorts of irrelevant requests and comments. He does not appear to grasp the fundamentals of the subject, and fails to listen when they are explained to him. This is exhausting for other competent editors who are trying to restore the article to its former status.

Some of the competence issues are listed below. Competence is not necessarily a problem if the party is prepared to listen and take advice. Sadly, Brews' arrogance is directly proportional to his ignorance of the subject.


 * In this edit, brews clearly misunderstands the nature of implication. He thinks that 'p implies q' entails that p is the more general claim, q the more specific. Of course it is the other way round, which the other party picks up straight away. If p implies q, then q can be true with p being false, so q is more general. But p cannot be true with q false, so p is more specific. This is philosophical logic 101, and it is hard to continue a discussion with someone who persistently or wilfully disregards it. Note brews reply that this is nitpicking forms of implication, and that the other party (who has since left Wikipedia), has failed to respond to the issues. Yet no issue could be more basic than the implication!
 * In the discussion immediately above, brews mentions a discussion "based upon [Jaegwon] Kim of physical determinism+causal determinism." Kim nowhere mentions this (which Brews eventually concedes), but then immediately trivialises it. ("You seem to think that my use of the construction  "physical determinism+causal closure" is some kind of misreading of Kim. Kim has not used this construction, but its use by me here is not some flagrant misrepresentation").  But it is not trivial, for the whole article depends on a careful understanding of the terms. Briefly, causal closure obtains if every event has a physical cause, assuming it has a cause at all, thus it obtains even when some physical events have no cause. Physical determinism obtains when every event has a physical cause, i.e. the difference between physical determinism and causal closure is the stipulation of no uncaused events. Causal determinism (which is by definition the same as 'nomological determinism') obtains when every event, whether physical or not, has a cause, and so is a much stronger claim. Thus neither the expressions "physical determinism+causal closure" nor "physical determinism+causal determinism " make much sense, given that physical determinism already implies both causal closure, and causal determinism.  If brews doesn't understand even these basic terms, it is pointless having these long protracted discussions.
 * Note that he later concedes all of this, but at what cost? Care about the use of terms, and perhaps just paying attention to what the other party actually says, would have avoided all this.
 * Here he seems to misunderstand the nature of a 'contradiction'. I made the simple point that a contradiction can only be between propositions, and he prevaricates and obfuscates.
 * A remark by John Blackburn here suggests that the problem is not confined to philosophy. " If you had read and understood the sources you claim to be basing your contributions on you would know this".
 * This probably won't be allowed on Wikipedia, but this Citizendium article on the same subject was almost entirely written by Brews. It is philosophically incompetent, in my judgment. Worryingly, it points to what the Wikipedia article would look like if Brews were to continue unhindered and unconstrained, free.
 * [edit] Blatantly fails to understand the precision required of philosophical discourse, see also.
 * [edit] Use of 'subjective event'
 * Persistently fails to grasp WP:SYNTH,, in particular see this.
 * Poor writing, misrepresentation of sources etc. See also the recommended rewrite.
 * appears not to understand compatibilism.
 * Fails to understand parallel postulate
 * Quantum indeterminism nonsense

Note that his main interest in the article appears to be to 'prove' that the problem of free will can be solved by an appeal to quantum mechanics. It is generally accepted by philosophers that this will not work, and is irrelevant to the core philosophical problem. Quantum indeterminism is also a matter of physics, not philosophy, and Brews has been restricted from editing on the subject of physics.

POV forks
Brews also creates whole articles, some of them clear POV forks based on his preferred method of concocting a monstrous salad of unrelated sources. See e.g.


 * Subject–object problem (currently nominated for deletion)
 * Internal–external_distinction
 * Dilemma of determinism
 * Nomological determinism
 * Causal closure
 * Enactivism