Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 September 10

= September 10 =

The Indonesian Tree of Life

 * http://dereisnaarbatik.blogspot.nl/2011/05/tropenmuseum-in-amsterdam.html
 * http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ENZE0ororrY/TcJcWQJ8TRI/AAAAAAAACOc/Y6UsuLoq-n4/s1600/P1120236.JPG


 * Tree of life ("levensboom") This specific one is used in Wayang to mark the beginning, end or the break of a Wayang play. The Tree of life is called Dewadaru. It stands for gift of the gods. The tree grows on the Karimunjawa Islands north of Java. The inhabitants believe the wood of the tree has heeling power and is used as an charm for protection.


 * http://www.sftribal.com/new-gallery/indonesian-art/frank-wiggers-cloth-sumatra/


 * Fine weaving representing a large stylized bird ‘pregnant’ with a smaller bird, surrounded by various creatures and humans stacked in a configuration resembling the mythological tree-of-life’. Birds in the Indonesian archipelago often are associated with creation myths, with omens for good and evil, and with concepts of death and resurrection.  In this rendering, the bird is a reddish brown figure on a natural color cotton base.


 * http://www.rugrabbit.com/node/64260


 * Very good and interesting tampan-ceremonial textile- from Indonesia (Lampung-Sumatra), 19th century, size 68 x 76 cm/ 27 x 31 inches. a boat with a large bird and tree of life with on top a frog or toad (rare!). Several other stylized animals.

These "Tree of Life" textiles with birds and many other animals were produced by Indonesians of the 19th century. I think today's Indonesians are mostly muslims. Did the use of clothes with animal decorations in a ceremony constitute some kind of idolatry in Islam? -- Toytoy (talk) 03:48, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I can't speak for the 18th century (other than to note that Raden Saleh was Muslim and painted portraits). I can, however, note that a) Indonesian Islam (particularly Javanese) has historically featured an amalgamation of Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic symbolism (Syncretism, such as in abangan Islam) and b) in modern Indonesia, many Muslims have no problem with depicting animals or humans... just so long as its not a/the p(P)rophet (see, for instance, the many "Pop Islam" films such as Ayat-Ayat Cinta). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:54, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Japanese art/ Chinese history question
I was browsing reproductions of Japanese woodblock prints on ebay and noticed one that seemed to portray Yue Fei. My reasoning is that the character has the same tattoo that the Song general was known for. However, a cursory Google search hasn't turned up any information on Japanese reverence for Yue Fei. Is it possible that this could just be a representation of a Chinese literary hero who paid homage to the general by tattooing themself? I can't make out any of the characters in the top of the picture and no larger versions are available. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 05:08, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Sughauli treaty

 * Question moved from RD/L Tevildo (talk) 08:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

when its effect are going to end? --182.74.188.218 (talk) 06:20, 10 September 2014 (UTC)azic


 * We have an article - Sugauli Treaty about the treaty. DuncanHill (talk) 09:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * It would appear to have been superseded by the 1950 Indo-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship which "cancels all previous Treaties, agreements, and engagements entered into on behalf of India between the British Government and the Government of Nepal". DuncanHill (talk) 09:10, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

was Spinoza an atheist, i.e. pseudo- theist (by analogy with 'pseudorandom', i.e. not at all random)
Hi,

Based on the arguments in The Ethics of Spinoza, is he really a total atheist, i.e. pseudotheist? I mean by analogy with a pseudorandom number generator: it's just not random at all, it's just an algorithm. Likewise, if you remove all choice from God, and say he has no choice but to follow Nature, then isn't it just a 'pseudo-theist' in perfect analogy with a pseudorandom number generator and, in fact, you are a perfect atheist?

I would like a high-level meta-analysis here, and if you don't understand my analogy with pseudorandom numbers, I still welcome your opinion about whether he's really an atheist, based on the fact that he thinks nature is deterministic. a third-party web site says, "The difference [between leibniz and spenoza] goes back to that simple-sounding question: Does God have a choice? Spinoza says no; Leibniz says yes. Spinoza says that God has only one world to choose from, namely, the one that follows ineluctably from its own Nature." Well, okay, so then how is there a "God". It sounds logically equivalent to me saying that I control all cloud formations with the power of my mind, but with the caveat that I can - and must - make them move only, and in the exact way, that follows from meteorology and the laws of Nature. But I totally control them yo.

So in this sense is Spinoza literally an atheist or a pseudo-theist (believes God exists, much as a pseudorandom number is random; i.e. not at all.)

thanks for clarification on this.

213.246.165.17 (talk) 15:32, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * For Spinoza's atheism (or not), see Baruch_Spinoza and the dozen or so references therein.
 * For your analogy, I think it's unhelpful. Random has different meanings in different contexts. That is why we have the word "stochastic," so that in technical writing we can distinguish things like dice rolls from deterministic chaos, and other phenomenon that could be grouped into the catch-all term 'random'. It is true that pseudorandom number generators are not stochastic processes, but the whole point of the term is that pseudorandom numbers are 'sort-of-random', even 'nearly indistinguishable from random'. Saying pseudorandom numbers are not at all random is an almost willfully obstinate abuse of terminology. You can phrase your idea however you want, but I'd challenge you to look at a stream of a few thousand digits, and reliably decide if it came from the Mersenne_twister or from measurements of radioactive decay. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:50, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * But what I mean is suppose that you use "random" to mean "stochastic". Then a pseudorandom process is not at all random.  For example, a program that uses an unseeded pseudo RNG. That may have a single deterministic output, not at all random.  In formal terms, we might not know what that output is, for example perhaps the program has a very long running time, and we do not know the output unless someone calculates it through some short-cut.  In one sense, then, the output might be "random", as it has not been calculated.  In another sense, however, it is not at all random, it is totally fixed.  Calling the program "random" (stochastic) is then totally false.  Likewise, saying there is an intelligent, omnipotent God "ruling over" the Universe, when in fact "the God" is indistinguishable from one that does not exist, might be "totally false" (He is not intelligent, not omnipotent, and does not actually rule over anything.  In fact He is nulpotent, having no ability to do anything whatsoever".  In other words, my analogy comes from this: a stochastic random process might have entropy of 1 bit per 1 bit of output.  The program I mentioned instead has 0 bits of entropy per bit of output: non whatsoever, it is totally fixed.  Likewise, an omnipotent God might have 1 unit of "power" to affect the Universe.  A nulpotent God has 0 units of power to affect anything.  I feel the analogy is quite useful (and not just a matter of terminology) so if my analogy is still unclear I would be interested in expounding it further.  Have I made my question more clearer this way?  (I still don't know to what extent the analogy applies to Spinoza's philosophy - i.e. as a determinist - and quoted a third-party summary of his view; therefore I am interested in to what extent what I've written, and quoted, actually applies to spinoza in your opinion.)


 * "For Spinoza's atheism (or not), see Baruch_Spinoza and the dozen or so references therein." Thank you for that!   When I read "It is a widespread belief that Spinoza equated God with the material universe. He has therefore been called the "prophet"[92] and "prince"[93] and most eminent expounder of pantheism."  For me, specifically when you add determinism, it seems that this now fulfills the definition of Atheism.  If a program ignores 100% of my keyboard inputs and then exits [in all cases and under all conditions, not on one particular run!], it is proper to call it a non-interactive (batch) program, regardless of my wishes.  Likewise, if the universe ignores 100% of God's "input" (He has no control over anything today), it fits my definition of atheism.  My only question is whether Spinoza in fact believed this to be the case.  213.246.165.17 (talk) 16:15, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Our article on Atheism defines it as "the rejection of belief in the existence of deities," or "specifically the position that there are no deities." It does not include affirming the existence of a God who lacks free will.  Gravity has no free will, but it exists nonetheless.
 * Our article on Baruch Spinoza discusses him as a pantheist (from a simple perspective), or (from a more nuanced perspective) a sort of transcendent panentheist. Connections with atheism appear mostly from detractors ( and Shelley, but he's an overglorified hack, Ozymandias excluded, especially compared to Keats ).  This seems as applicable as claims that Socrates, Jews, and Christians are "atheists" for rejecting the state gods of Greece and Rome despite a rather firm belief in some sort of God.
 * The Spinoza article, in the section on beliefs regarding God, notes that he did not think that God was an aspect of Nature, but rather Nature an aspect of the transcendent God. It also says that "Spinoza meant God was Natura naturans not Natura naturata."  In other words, God is not bound by determinism, God binds determinism.  How, why, or in what way God binds determinism is not what defines God, it is that It binds it that matters.
 * For the record, I'm definitely more in the Indeterminism camp (such that I cannot personally reconcile Calvin and Christ), but I'm not seeing the conflict here between God being deterministic and God being omnipotent. To reverse the argument that God without free-will is not God: God with free-will makes His own choices, and so creates His will (which is at most a part of Him).  If God does what God chooses to do, He is ruled by something He created rather than Himself.  (I'm not affirming that that's correct, either, since I stick to the cop-out that humanly-contrived concepts of fate or free-will, while relevant to theodicy, are irrelevant to trying to understand the ultimate source of those human thinking).
 * Ian.thomson (talk) 16:37, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

American astronauts' fluency in Russian
Runglish contains the quote: "We say jokingly that we communicate in 'Runglish,' a mixture of Russian and English languages, so that when we are short of words in one language we can use the other, because all the crew members speak both languages well." Are American astronauts really fluent in Russian? Or is the above quote a mistranslation or something? WinterWall (talk) 20:27, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Speaking Russian is a requirement for all new astronauts. Nanonic (talk) 20:40, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks! That's completely new information for me. Does this apply to just NASA or do the other national space agencies (of non-English speaking counties) have similar requirements? Or does learning both English and Russian present too much of a burden?WinterWall (talk) 20:53, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Degrees
Are degrees worth it considering the fact that most graduates go onto jobs that didn't require them to go to college? What advantage if any does the degree give them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.14.148.85 (talk) 22:51, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Only if you like money. See This article as of June 2014 as to the value of a college degree in the United States. Even factoring in the exorbitant fees and crippling debt most college graduates end up with in the U.S., the investment still pays off hugely over the average person's working life.  Such statistics don't excuse the debt burden (after all, if one could reduce or remove the debt burden, the education would be worth THAT MUCH MORE), but clearly, employers still value the degree itself.  If a college degree were merely about job training, we'd all just go through vocational education.  The college degree is still an expression of the value of the liberal arts education; and regardless of what you or I think about it, or arguments we could make in either direction, employers and the marketplace still value it.  That you have reasons you could invent as to why the market shouldn't value such an education is mostly irrelevant.  The market does, so explanations which say it shouldn't are dead ends.  -- Jayron  32  23:19, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Employers who value graduates over non-graduates speak of them having learnt how to think. HiLo48 (talk) 23:22, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, that is something of the value of the liberal arts education (speaking extemporaneously and VERY OR/personal view here), the real value of education is not learning how to do specific tasks, like skills or knowledge specific to any one job, it's learning how to learn; really it's all those skills that make you good at any job. I've never heard of any employer who doesn't expect to have to train you on the job; no one expects a new hire to understand how to do anything at the company.  Instead, what employers want isn't necessarily "The specific skills to do this specific job" what they want is that when they teach you something, it stays learnt.  People who have demonstrated the perseverance to learn anything and to do well at it no matter what it is, regardless of whether they find it "relevant" to themselves, are highly valuable.  Does knowing how to write an essay about Hamlet's soliloquy get you a job as an Engineer?  Specifically, no.  The fact that you were willing to persevere and learn how to do that task because you had to, and did a good job at it even if you wouldn't have chosen to do it yourself, however, IS an employable skill.  The liberal arts education also teaches the sort of soft skills that translate well to any job: the ability to reason, use logic, write and speak well, organize your thinking, come up with novel solutions to problems, collaborate with others, etc.  That sort of stuff are things employers don't have the time to teach you.  They can teach you what they need you to do for your specific job you are hired for, and are expecting to anyways.  They don't want to deal with someone who needs to be badgered to complete simple tasks, or can't figure out how to solve a novel problem on their own. -- Jayron  32  23:40, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Worth noting there are some who think there is a higher education bubble which may soon burst, thanks to higher education expanding too quickly, the costs of getting a degree increasing, the value of a degree in terms of future employment decreasing because so many more people have one, and the loan system threatened by defaults. --Nicknack009 (talk) 07:39, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * A lot of jobs which used not to need a degree now need one. The jobs haven't got harder, but there's been a lot of "pulling up the ladder" by people anxious to maintain their status and money. DuncanHill (talk) 16:01, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Some economists say the value of a college degree is more as a positional good than in anything learned. —Tamfang (talk) 20:44, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Oliver-boy?
The Who's Who entry for the novelist Joseph Keating (1871-1934; no enwp article) is one of those odd gems clearly written by the subject - it has a detailed digression on his career as a child labourer in a Welsh coal-mine:


 * ...earning six shillings and ninepence per week as a door-boy; at thirteen he fancied he would like to be an oliver-boy; after twelve months at the oliver-fires he decided that the coal pit was more attractive... he was a collier boy; later he worked as a pit-labourer [and so on]

Most of these are fairly clear (a door-boy, as I recall, worked doors inside the mine itself to let trucks of coal through) but I'm baffled by oliver-boy/oliver-fires. Any idea what this might have been? Andrew Gray (talk) 23:16, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * That is a delightful entry - especially enjoyed at eighteen became a pit haulier, a delightful profession in which a horse does the work and the haulier draws the pay. Anyway, an oliver is "A tilt hammer having the arm or handle attached to an axle, worked with the foot by a treadle which brings the hammer down, and with a spring which raises it, used esp. in the shaping of nails, bolts, or links of chains." (OED) There are (or were) also steam olivers, presumably powered by the oliver-fires. DuncanHill (talk) 00:27, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * You can see a picture of a steam-oliver here. I did, for a moment, entertain the thought that he might have stoked the fires which bake another sort of Oliver, but discarded it as unhelpful. DuncanHill (talk) 00:58, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * There's probably a good article to be written just on quixotic entries alone. (Tony Benn's has had some wonderful evolutions over time).
 * Thanks for the pointer - I'd assume id was some kind of machinery and -fires definitely suggests steam-driven. Andrew Gray (talk) 16:07, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Most police officers killed by one person
All I've found is the "Lakewood, Washington police officer shooting" which was apparently the highest amount of police officers killed by one person at one time. What about most police officers killed by one person all together(Excluding bombings or use of weapons of mass destruction)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Radioactivemutant (talk • contribs) 23:53, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I couldn't find more than 4 officers killed at any one time. There was the Lakewood, Washington police officer shooting that you mentioned, the 2009 shootings of Oakland police officers and the Mayerthorpe tragedy. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 07:20, 13 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I've found quite a few, but they all involve bombs. If we're excluding them, it seems likely those three are the answers. Easy to fall through the cracks, serial killing riffraff. But the net closes very quickly when a cop is the first victim. Hard enough (relatively) to even kill one, with their training and equipment. InedibleHulk (talk) 16:21, 13 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I found a fictional serial cop killer in The Poet. Apparently, the key is making it look like suicide. No idea if there have been sets of mysterious police suicides in actual districts, but if so, there's a maybe. InedibleHulk (talk) 16:33, 13 September 2014 (UTC)