FOM: Complaints?Objections?Blame?

[Harvey Friedman]

This is a reply to a second cryptic message from Colin Mclarty, 4:08PM
1/13/98. The first cryptic message was 4:39PM 1/12/98.

>	Harvey has written in to ??complain?? of some things I posted
>(unfortunately I am on an old editor now which makes it hard to
>quote his post and impossible to consult the archive).

I merely asked you to clear up some ambiguities that made it impossible for
me to understand what you were referring to in the posting of mine that you
were responding to (8:33AM 1/12/98 Realism/philosophy). The fom is a
powerful medium of exchange of ideas that is best used with adequate
computer equipment.

>	He ??objected?? to my saying he had quoted an argument between
>him and a philosopher as to whether Wittgenstein was a greater
>philosopher than Frege, without saying which "argument" I meant.

I didn't object to anything. I simply asked what you were referring to.

>I should have been clearer that I was using "argument" in the
>non-technical sense of an exchange between two people, devoted to
>a disagreement between them. He quoted only one such exchange, and
>that a fairly long one.

In 8:33AM 1/12/98 Realism/philosophy, I quoted an exchange in which the
other person, PHIL, immediately converted the beginnings of a discussion
starting with me saying "what is this Wittgenstein worship in connection
with Godel?" into a discussion of PHIL and HMF consisting entirely of
intense derogatory statements. I explicitly made the point in my posting
that the writings of Wittgenstein and other "great" philosophers often
serve as a mirror in which readers tend to see themselves.

>	Harvey correctly notes that he was concerned with the
>intellectual importance of the results, not the "greater
>philosopher", and that his opponent did the quoted name calling.

OK.

>	I think my ??description?? of the exchange is fair.

What description of the exchange? To the minimal extent that you gave a
description, it appears incompatible with your previous statement above
"Harvey coorectly notes ..."

>But I am
>happy to correct any misimpression I may have given of ??blaming?? it
>??all?? on Harvey.

What does blame mean here? Obviously you want to blame *something* on me.

I think you should consider upgrading your computer equipment in order to
suitably prepare messages for the fom. There are currently 280 people on
the fom, who are looking forward to substantive carefully prepared
interchange.

You have already caused one subscriber to do some unnecessary work. He saw
your statement

>        A while ago Harvey announced some new results that will convince all
>the world. I look forward to these.

and he wrote me the following:

>I looked through my records of FOM in order to see
>if the "announcement" McLarty refers to is there, but
>I did not find something that would well match the
>description.

>If you understand what McLarty is talking about,
>could you please let me know a relevant reference
>(inside or outside of FOM).

>Thank you in advance.

I also asked you to clarify. And I also raised a number of other issues
concerning your posting which you haven't responded to.