83,580
edits
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) (Created page with "{{a|confcall|}}Discourse on Intercourse is a well-intended basically wrong-headed philosophical tract formulated by delusional Austrian librettist Otto Büchstein in 1...") Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
(22 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) | |||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{a| | {{a|myth| | ||
[[File:God and Adam.png|450px|frameless|center]] | |||
}}[[Discourse on Intercourse]] is a well-meant though basically wrong-headed philosophical tract formulated by delusional librettist [[Otto Büchstein]] in the depths of dengue fever delirium in 1769. It immediately preceded — and some say influenced — his last, great unfinished play {{dsh}}. | |||
===Conference call epistemology=== | |||
Outraged by [[René Descartes]] [[Discourse on the Method|suggestion in 1637]] that the only indubitable thing in the universe was one’s own existence, [[Büchstein]] set out to deduce an entire multi-personal [[epistemology]] from the commercial inevitability of [[conference call]]s. | |||
{{Buchstein}}’s logic was this: [[All-hands conference call|all-hands conference calls]] ''must'' exist, since no-one in her right mind would make up such a horrendous idea if she didn’t have to. So, since someone ''has'' had such an idea, [[conference call]]s must therefore exist as a necessary, indubitable, fact of corporate life. | |||
On that predicate, it follows as an ''[[a priori]]'' fact that since a [[conference call]] must comprise more than one person (“a man cannot meet alone”, {{buchstein}} was fond of quipping), for conference calls to be possible one’s most basic [[irreducible]] [[ontology]] implies that universe must contain not just one but ''multiple'' individuals. | |||
At least three, thought [[Büchstein]]: the “meetor” (which he regarded as an analog of [[Descartes]]’ “thinking thing”, or ''[[res cogitans]]''), one “meetee” (which [[Büchstein]] characterised primarily as a “talking thing” (''[[res verbositans]]'') and since, transparently neither of these homunculi would willingly meet without there being some kind of compulsion to do so, a third person (a [[management consultant]] or [[project manager]] of some kind) to ensure the meeting happens, that minutes are taken, actions assigned and timelines “agreed” for “action closure” (this third person {{Buchstein}} called an “action-assigning thing” or ''[[res bossitans]]''). | |||
In any case, since they were all engaged on a [[conference call]], none of them ''needed'' to be, or indeed ''could'' be, God. Buchstein arrived at this conclusion with the following reasoning: | |||
“God is omniscient,” {{buchstein}} said. “Therefore, God doesn’t ''do'' [[conference call]]s. What would be the point? God already knows everything. And, come to think of it, God is also ''omnipotent''. It is, as I have said, axiomatic that ''no one goes on a conference call that she is not obliged to''. Since there is no way of forcing an omnipotent being onto a conference call it follows that ''omnipotent beings will never do conference calls, even if there was a reason for them to do so, which there isn’t''. | |||
This led {{buchstein}} to a dark place. Rather than simply rebutting [[Descartes]]’ assertion that there ''must'' be a God, by illustrating one was not necessary, [[Büchstein]] went further: “a universe in which [[conference call]]s necessarily exist,” he contended, “is logically inconsistent with the continued presence of an omniscient, benign, omnipotent deity”. He took this as an ''[[a priori]]'' proof of the ''non''-existence of God. | |||
===There is no new paradox under the sun=== | |||
As he fell deeper into his Dengue-inflected hallucinations, [[Büchstein]] went the other way, skirting dangerously close to a sort of [[High modernism|high-modernist]] nihilism. | |||
“If [[determinism]] is true,” he reasoned, “then everything is already [[known]] — or may be extrapolated from what is already known — and is therefore, is ''[[Constructive|constructively]]'' known. Now since all as-yet undeliberated outcomes can be deduced without having to go through the bother of actually deliberating them, and as a conference call is in its very essence a “deliberating thing” — a ''res deliberans''<ref>{{Buchstein}} seems, ''ad hoc'', to have assigned conference calls their own ''[[a priori]]'' [[ontology]] or even personhood here. There is no plausible justification for this, other than that he was very, very ill.</ref> — and ''only'' a “deliberating thing”, it has no ontologically essential purpose and can be safely dispensed with.” | |||
This, for a moment, brought the delusional librettist great joy, notwithstanding the self-contradiction within the confines of a single, laboured, sentence. | |||
Therein, a [[paradox]], because by {{Buchstein}}’s own calculations, the deliberated outcomes that he inferred would produced by conference calls ''if they were held'' — were different from the outcomes that would be produced ''if the call was not actually held''. The holding, or not, of the conference call ''itself'' determines the outcome. | |||
That is, the information content of a deliberated outcome is path-dependent. If the conference call happens, it has one value. If it does not, but is merely modelled, it has another value. This is a sort of Schrödinger’s cat paradox of business meetings. [[Büchstein]] dubbed this the “[[substrate]]-ambivalence” of the conference call. It remained a genuine mystery until the impish German jurist [[Dilbert’s programme|Havid Dilbert]] proved experimentally that, whether you hold them or not, the informational value of any conference call — whether judged from the frame of reference of participants, observers, or that remainder of the outside world who remains blessedly oblivious to them — is the same: ''zero''. | |||
Thus, along with his sanity in that mosquito-infested Mandalayan asylum, {{Buchstein}}’s paradox melted away, only to be replaced by a deeper conundrum, with which Dilbert wrestled fecklessly for the rest of his life: | |||
''Why are there conference calls at all?'' | |||
===In popular culture=== | |||
Buchstein’s theosophical musings, wanting as they were, found expression in the developed drafts of his final, unfinished play, {{dsh}}. | |||
{{quote| | |||
{{Dsh conference calls}}<ref>{{buchstein}}, {{dsh}} III, i.</ref>}} | |||
{{sa}} | |||
*[[Rene Descartes]] | |||
*Otto {{Buchstein}} | |||
*{{dsh}} | |||
{{c|Conference call}} | |||
{{c|Paradox}} | |||
{{Ref}} |