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Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2010 1:12 pm
by Stable
emeraldemon wrote:Most of y'all have probably seen this one...

I like that, very clever. Took me a couple of minutes.

Why is the citric acid cycle called a cycle?
Because it goes round.

Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2010 3:39 pm
by amnal
Liisa wrote:
hyperpape wrote:Hegel trolled astronomy by giving an a priori proof that there were seven planets. And I just trolled philosophy by mentioning it.


I do not know how Hegel proved it, but there really is seven planets. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and seventh Neptune. Earth-Moon system is a double planet, so it should not be counted as a planet in singular.


Trolling the troll thread? Subtle :mrgreen:

Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2010 4:42 pm
by Aphelion
Had to mention this.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$Bcm1 White 8 is bad.
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Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2010 4:47 pm
by palapiku
In the same vein:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$Bcm1 Move 2 lost the game
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Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2010 4:51 pm
by hyperpape
@amnal I actually thought of mentioning Curry's paradox but wondered if it would be trolling by posting an actual paradox that isn't based on any obvious error in reasoning, and which lacks any accepted solution.

Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2010 5:35 pm
by tundra
More for children than adults:

Q: Which is better, a peanut butter sandwich, or eternal happiness?

A: A peanut butter sandwich, of course.

Proof: Most would agree, that nothing is better than eternal happiness. But on the other hand, a peanut butter sandwich is certainly better than nothing. (Just ask a hungry person.)

Ergo, a peanut butter sandwich is better than eternal happiness.

Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2010 3:09 am
by freegame
Asian trolls:

Japanese, arashi (あらし)
Korean, nak-si (낚시)
Chinese, diào yú (钓鱼)

I think I'm going to add the Japanese one to the common go terms page on Sensei's

Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2010 6:28 am
by DeadTired
tundra wrote:More for children than adults:

Q: Which is better, a peanut butter sandwich, or eternal happiness?

A: A peanut butter sandwich, of course.

Proof: Most would agree, that nothing is better than eternal happiness. But on the other hand, a peanut butter sandwich is certainly better than nothing. (Just ask a hungry person.)

Ergo, a peanut butter sandwich is better than eternal happiness.


Funnily, I saw this one mentioned as an example in set theory... (probably not aimed for children). It goes as follows:

The set of things that are better than eternal happiness is empty. But the peanut butter sandwich is better than the empty set. So the paradox is that in one case,
the empty set is the set of objects that are being compared, while in the other, the set itself is being compared to something. It illustrates that the set itself
can be viewed as an element, as in 0 and {0}, where 0 is the empty set.

Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2010 9:09 am
by Stable
Trypanosma brucei populations undergo apoptosis.
Boom!
[Edited for italics and phrasing]

Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 9:04 pm
by Jedo
Go is 100% Theory and 0% Reading

Image

Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:40 pm
by jts
Liisa wrote:
hyperpape wrote:Hegel trolled astronomy by giving an a priori proof that there were seven planets. And I just trolled philosophy by mentioning it.


I do not know how Hegel proved it, but there really is seven planets. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and seventh Neptune. Earth-Moon system is a double planet, so it should not be counted as a planet in singular.


Hegel's proof that there are seven planets (or more specifically, that there is no planet between Mars and Jupiter) is quite funny. There is a vague (verrry vague) regularity in the spacing of the planets called Bode's Law. It's hard to even express what the relationship is with an equation, which shows how dodgy the law is. However, on any formulation of Bode's law there is a large error term for each entry in the sequence, and - oh yes - one step in the sequence doesn't have a planet in it.

Any empiricist might say "this isn't a very good astronomical law." Starry-eyed 18th c. rationalists instead decided to find the planet which must exist between Mars and Jupiter. So Hegel wrote an essay attacking Bode's law, in which he defended an alternative, equally arbitrary cubic equation (which Hegel fit to the data, so the error terms were smaller). And of course, Hegel's equation doesn't predict another planet (which at the time would have been an 8th planet) between Mars and Jupiter.


**********And my own contribution:

Have you ever wondered if you were actually a brain in a vat? Or maybe a body in a vat, like in the Matrix? Well, don't worry. If you were actually a brain in a vat, you would never have seen any actual brains, or any actual vats, for that matter. In fact, if you were just a brain in a vat, you'd have no way of knowing that brains, or vats, really existed! If you think about it, if you don't know anything about what sorts of objects actually exist, on the whole it's highly unlikely that the sort of objects which you believe exist, actually exist. (After all, for every object that actually exists, there are millions of objects that only exist in our imaginations.)

So if you were a brain in a vat, then it would be almost certain that there were no such things as brains or vats; and if brains and vats don't actually exist, then you definitely aren't a brain in a vat.

Aren't you reassured?

Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:47 pm
by Solomon

Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 7:10 pm
by Jedo
Araban wrote:It was only a matter of time: http://www.urlesque.com/2010/10/25/i-sh ... professor/


bah already saw it on reddit :geek:

Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 9:07 pm
by palapiku
jts wrote:
Have you ever wondered if you were actually a brain in a vat? Or maybe a body in a vat, like in the Matrix? Well, don't worry. If you were actually a brain in a vat, you would never have seen any actual brains, or any actual vats, for that matter. In fact, if you were just a brain in a vat, you'd have no way of knowing that brains, or vats, really existed! If you think about it, if you don't know anything about what sorts of objects actually exist, on the whole it's highly unlikely that the sort of objects which you believe exist, actually exist. (After all, for every object that actually exists, there are millions of objects that only exist in our imaginations.)

So if you were a brain in a vat, then it would be almost certain that there were no such things as brains or vats; and if brains and vats don't actually exist, then you definitely aren't a brain in a vat.

Aren't you reassured?
This reminds me of another favorite troll: Why are you alive right now, and not in the far future? The human population is increasing exponentially. If it continues to increase, or even if it stays steady in the future, then the probability of you being born so close to the beginning of human history is almost zero. Surely if in the future humanity spreads throughout the galaxy and there're trillions of people alive at any one time, you're almost certain to be born then and not now.

Unlikely explanation: you're the equivalent of a jackpot winner, an enormously rare "early human".

More likely explanation: in the near future, the human species will die out. Then it's not strange at all that you're living now.

Re: Trolling in [field of study].

Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 1:30 pm
by Ben
A hard tesumego
Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$Bcm1 Black to play and win
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$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]