MAY THE WIND TAKE US TO INFINITY

Just in case one of my readers wants to know a little more about the situation in Colombia (just a little), I have decided to write a little remark about it, centered in sometying very picturesque (in a banana-republic kind of way) that happened some weeks ago.

It has to do with hands.

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Image: Willard van Orman Quine, one of the most important logicians of the twentieth century.
Seeing how the word "logics" is used in the mass media (a rather unfortunate use, I think) I would like to put an enlightening text about it.
I will transcribe the digression of a logics professor, in his comment of a scene of the movie "Monty Python and the Holly Grail". The scene was about the flaw loaded reasoning of people from a town leading them to the pretension of burning a woman after accusing her of witchery.

This is the digression, transcribed by some Mr. and Mrs. and Mrs. Zambesi:

Good evening. The last scene was interesting from the point of view of a professional logician because it contained a number of logical fallacies; that is, invalid propositional constructions and syllogistic forms, of the type so often committed by my wife.

'All wood burns,' states Sir Bedevere. 'Therefore,' he concludes, 'all that burns is wood.' This is, of course, pure bullshit. Universal affirmatives can only be partially converted: all of Alma Cogan is dead, but only some of the class of dead people are Alma Cogan. 'Oh yes,' one would think. However, my wife does not understand this necessary limitation of the conversion of a proposition; consequently, she does not understand me, for how can a woman expect to appreciate a professor of logic, if the simplest cloth-eared syllogism causes her to flounder?

For example, given the premise, 'all fish live underwater' and 'all mackerel are fish', my wife will conclude, not that 'all mackerel live underwater', but that 'if she buys kippers it will not rain', or that 'trout live in trees', or even that 'I do not love her any more.' This she calls 'using her intuition'. I call it 'crap', and it gets me very irritated because it is not logical. 'There will be no supper tonight,' she will sometimes cry upon my return home. 'Why not?' I will ask. 'Because I have been screwing the milkman all day,' she will say, quite oblivious of the howling error she has made. 'But,' I will wearily point out, 'even given that the activities of screwing the milkman and getting supper are mutually exclusive, now that the screwing is over, surely then, supper may now, logically, be got.' 'You don't love me any more,' she will now often postulate. 'If you did, you would give me one now and again, so that I would not have to rely on that rancid Pakistani for my orgasms.' 'I will give you one after you have got me my supper,' I now usually scream, 'but not before'-- as you understand, making her bang contingent on the arrival of my supper. 'God, you turn me on when you're angry, you ancient brute!' she now mysteriously deduces, forcing her sweetly throbbing tongue down my throat. 'Fuck supper!' I now invariably conclude, throwing logic somewhat joyously to the four winds, and so we thrash about on our milk-stained floor, transported by animal passion, until we sink back, exhausted, onto the cartons of yogurt.

I'm afraid I seem to have strayed somewhat from my original brief. But in a nutshell: sex is more fun than logic-- one cannot prove this, but it 'is' in the same sense that Mount Everest 'is', or that Alma Cogan 'isn't'.

Goodnight.

I found it very didactic. Now, you can call me male chauvinist pig. Enjoy.

YO CAN GET THE SPANISH VERSION OF THIS POST HERE

Perhaps I am not a very cosmopolite person, but some days ago I was deeply impressed by the image of river Kelvin in a moment of increased turbulent flow. If I was from a city by a river, or by the sea, it would perhaps not impress me as much as it did, but the experience of that image is pervaded by local flavor, which may be, for somebody from the tropic, something similar to a lack of flavor.
River Kelvin, going through the middle of Kelvingrove park, is some 10 meters wide, and its waters look green, more because of vegetal residues than by the growth of Spirogyra algae that use to dye tropical waters when the flow is slow enough to allow for a good and placid exposition to sun light.

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Image: a page of the drafts of LANARK: a life in 4 books, by Alasdair Gray.

I am neither from Lanark in Scotland, nor from Lanark in Canada, nor from Lanark in the USA. I did not even know about those places, untill a rather recent date. That is not the reason for my nickname. I am going to enumerate some alternative reasons, so the reader can choose:

1. I came to Scotland in an ark. And this came full of LAN cards. It was a LAN ark.
   
2. I wanted to be "anarchy in the UK" but being a coward, wanted to disguise in a foreign language, saying for example "l'anarchie pour le UK", and in a final coward cut, only l'anark was left.
   
3. I read "lanark: a life in 4 books" by Alasdair Gray, and found that I am pretty much like Duncan Thaw, alias Lanark, and adopted the nick long before I knew I was going to live in the city that inspired Unthank, in the nearby of a city called actually Lanark.
   
4. I read "lanark: a life in 4 books" by Alasdair Gray, and lost my mind, and I actually believe that I am Duncan Thaw, alias Lanark.
   
5. Seeing the end of civilization coming, I put all my hopes in the utopic model of Mr. Robert Owen in New Lanark, and even take its name for my nickname.
   
6. I chose my nickname at random
   

About the name of the blog, it also comes from a book. It is called, in spanish, "Quizá nos lleve el viento al infinito", the same as my spanish blog, and was written in 1984 by Gonzalo Torrente Ballester, a wonderful spanish writer (if you do not read spanish, a BabelFish translation will have to be enough)

What is that? That is me, on the right, and my other half, on the left. What is this blog? It is a translation of a blog I began in spanish some months ago. What kind of blog is that? Well, at first it was intended to be a "dear diary" blog, to have my people back in Colombia aware of my deeds here in Scotland, without repeating the same story again and again by email, messenger, telephone or whatever. But rather soon I started using that blog to expose my defenseless public to my missleadingly sure opinions about art, film, politics, philosophy, and other things. The number of clichés I fell into has grown too much for me to be sure of it. I have copied song lyrics, I have souly complained, I have even published a short story. I lost the sense of shame in spanish; now I have to lose it in english.

Later, I started knowing people who did not speak spanish, but whom my greedy ego wanted to expose to my opinion shower as well. So, I knew that I was going to make an english version of the blog sooner or later. I suppose that an english blog is going to open a new world of blogging people to me, and that perspective horrorizes me, because I already have problems with my blogging habit in spanish. Mainly, problems of time. I do not read nearly as much as I used to before, because all my leisure time is eaten by my nasty blogging habit. But however, I am not a cautious person, and here is my blog, so let it be. Ramen.

It is perhaps fair to let part of the burden fall on someone who gave me inconsciously a little boost to undertake the translation. It is my greek philosopher friend Takis. We agreed that we are going to have a deep and long discussion on the subject of anarchy, and it would be perhaps of some use to him to know my position about some critical things. And that is the reason for the next post, a translation from my spanish blog.

Whoever fell here by accident, welcome as well. Enjoy if you can.