Reply #89: I'm not sure anybody really understands this as I do. [View All]

[Stevepol]

First of all, while it may be true that 2 + 2 = 4 it all depends on where the calibration is done and who is doing the calibrating, as well as a number of factors extraneous to the calculation itself. Most such computations exist for the purpose of refining and exfoliating the continuums that are to be found in an academic setting where the results can be easily recorded and reported and thus are hard to confuse; however, in other settings (and here we should make it clear that each setting has many different sectors or population norms to design into the operation), the results are almost impossible to verify because of the various social-economic variables like language or the vocabulary used to designate the digits to be used in the operation (in this case additive or, in other words, addition). Of course, in defense of the operation as recorded, it can be said that efforts have been made to deal with these "design effects" central to such conclusions and of course in every other case where this operation has been used it has proven to be, if not entirely reliable, at least reliable to a substantial degree, as long as the purpose for which it was used agreed with my biases and with the inherent protocols of the scions embarking their barbeques in fromage. But that of course in itself shows how difficult it is to use the terms except when the purposes for which it is used are limited to those purposes for which the operation was specifically designed.

In other words, to jump to the conclusion that 2 + 2 = 4 would be hard for me in my position as a PhD from a highly respected institution to entirely substantiate or verify. The problems are too various and too profound to allow for a summary judgment.