Written by Vincent | 8 February 2010

Answers to philosophical questions must be reasoned

My friend wrote a short guide on what makes a question philosophical. The 3 conditions for a question to pass the philosophical test are interesting.

Has not been answered by science

The obvious reason is that, if it’s answered by science, there’s no point in answering it (philosophically).

For example, “Can penguins fly?” is answered by science. It’s “no”. Their bodies aren’t made for flying. Although…

Cannot be answered by conducting an experiment

“Can common salt be produced by mixing two liquids together?” can be answered with experiments. After laborious testing, you find that if you mix sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid, you get sodium chloride (and water), or more commonly known as salt.

If a question can be answered with experiments, then there’s no point arguing about it. Just do the experiment to test the answer.

So I conclude…

that my friend doesn’t like science. *smile*

No, it’s that when a question can only be answered by reasoning it through, then it’s considered a philosophical question.

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Tags: answer, empirical, experiment, philosophy, question, reasoning

Hungarian notation gone terribly wrong – lust

I was working on some legacy code in PowerBuilder, when I saw the name of a user interface control (heavily anonymised and fun-ised):

lust_staffname

Let’s break that down:

local (as opposed to global)
user (I think? User-created as opposed to system/standard)
static text (the Label equivalent in ASP.NET)

I wonder what was going through that programmer’s mind when he wrote that…

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Tags: hungarian, lust, notation, powerbuilder

Making things happen

This is a short announcement, and a slight deviation from the usual topics (not that the topics are consistent, but … never mind).

Making things happen

I’m excited to say that my Math Wizard ebook is going to be launched in about 9 days. Launch date is 10 February, and the time is

UTC 1400 (2pm London-ish)
EST 0900 (9am New York-ish)
Singapore 2200 (10pm. Because I’m like Cinderella. I have to go before midnight.)

Thank you for reading Polymath Programmer, with the wide (and sometimes weird) variety of topics covered. This ebook product I created is an amalgamation of my interests in math and Dungeons & Dragons (a tabletop roleplaying game). The price will be set at USD 10 (for now).

More product details will be announced on the launch date. For now, you can download a free preview of the Math Wizard, or you can read more on why I created the Math Wizard.

I’m making things happen. Tell me about yours.

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