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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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That is true. I depend on intellect to guide my emotions. I have learned this from exposure to overly emotional religions, which have hurt me in the past, but which I feel can offer comfort in the future.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Philosophy has always been an innate part of my character. It's only this year that I've started to undertake a more formal study of philosophy at University. It's also this year that I've started to look at philosophy from a different viewpoint- I used to view determinism as absolute, but that was entirely incompatible with my morals and worldview.
As a linguistics major I'm particularly interested in semantics, language and cognition and I think it's important that we look at the different between words (which are often absolute) and the referents that inspire those words (which seldom are). Once you draw distinctions between the words of "knowledge", "self" and "free will" and the actual concepts associated with these words it becomes much easier to understand that there is a lot more subjectivity to the universe than one might intuitively assume.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Despite any coincidental links with any real world language my name is simply a shortening of my first two initials and the first 3 letters of my last name:
S A Ben(nett)
I was assigned it as a computer username at University in 2003 and the moniker kind of stuck.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Philosophy has always been an innate part of my character. It's only this year that I've started to undertake a more formal study of philosophy at University. It's also this year that I've started to look at philosophy from a different viewpoint- I used to view determinism as absolute, but that was entirely incompatible with my morals and worldview.
---Yes. Yes. It is incompatible with my worldview as well---
As a linguistics major I'm particularly interested in semantics, language and cognition and I think it's important that we look at the different between words (which are often absolute) and the referents that inspire those words (which seldom are). Once you draw distinctions between the words of "knowledge", "self" and "free will" and the actual concepts associated with these words it becomes much easier to understand that there is a lot more subjectivity to the universe than one might intuitively assume.
---Surprisingly enough, I have studied linguistics considerably too. And I can readily see its application to philosophy, of which I have mainly been interested in as an avocation for many years. YOu have a very mature way of looking at philosophical questions, in my opinion, so I would suppose that you are an older person. But even at a more advanced age, the love of an area of study can lead you to excel. In my opinion you have the makings of a superb philosopher, although I do not know how such a profession can put bread on the table in today's world.---
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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I'm 24. Is that an "older person"?
My current interest philosophically is "liberal utilitarianism", a view that I believe is barely looked at by most modern philosophers. In modern utilitarianism action and inaction are treated as morally equivalent. I don't believe they are. I reject the idea of negative responsibility and I believe that inaction cannot be moral or immoral. Otherwise we're in a constant state of almost absolute morality while simultaneously being in a constant state of absolute immorality. A position that feels too paradoxical and too contradictory to be acceptable.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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JimB
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Likes it here |
Registered: December 2006
Messages: 349
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Saben wrote:
> what makes humans more than the sum of our atoms?
>
Our minds.
JimB
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Current research in neuroscience is drawing closer and closer to the conclusion that every part of "our mind" is just a reflection of "our brain". The brain is just a bunch of proteins, carbohydrates and other chemicals. How does this do anything but confirm the original premise?
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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ray2x
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: April 2009
Messages: 429
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I work with mentally handicapped adults. They are terific people and do overcome more than their handicaps. Being gay or straight or bi isn't too difficult.
love and hugs
Raymundo
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JimB
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Likes it here |
Registered: December 2006
Messages: 349
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Everything is made up of atoms. The difference between a rock and a human being is that the human is sentient, we have a brain. Other beings are also sentient but the functioning of our brain is what differentiates us from primates, dogs, etc.
JimB
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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My son has Asperger's Syndrome. He has overcome much, and a lot of challenges are still in front of him.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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IN my opinion, you are wise beyond your years, Saben. Your area of philosophical interest is intreaguing. Suffice it to say that I feel strongly both ways on the subject (am conflicted). I fear that too much philosophy is out of place on this board, so I won't begin a discussion of it here. Have you ever visited http://www.ilovephilosophy.com?
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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If you expose certain seedpods to extreme heat they open and release their seeds.
If you expose a human to heat the brain has certain conditioned reactions based on previous experience.
There's nothing to say that a human brain is any different from a rock. Both are made up on atoms reacting with other atoms at the macro level.
Yes some hydrocarbon compounds, in particular acids, proteins and carbohydrates react in very unique ways and that means humans are a pretty complicated set of reactions. But the brain is still just a lump of atoms reacting with each other in an orderly manner.
If you add oxygen and sugar the output will still be CO2 and water. The fact that humans are very efficient at obtaining oxygen and sugar doesn't change the fundamental nature of a cell. We're not that different from an algae or a siphonophore. We're just a more sophisticated collection of cells.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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Dear Macky,
I've just searched the Vector archive site and none of Sylvia's papers are available there yet. I'll have to get them from her and attach them to an email to you. Sorry about that. I had hoped to give you a link.
Love,
Anthony
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Dear Saben,
I wonder if I've heard the phrase 'liberal utilitarianism' before but I doubt if there is a better two word summary of where I stand philosophically.
I think you might find detailed justification for your position in the work of Sir K R Popper. The R stands for Raimond which will please Macky. There is a fairly good introductory book by Bryan Magee in the Fontana 'Modern Masters' series first published in 1973. I expect you could get a copy from abebooks http://www.abebooks.com/.
His great work 'The Logic of Scientific Discovery' was published in 1935 but the first English translation was only 1959 - the year after I left university. I think he solved one of the great puzzles of philosophy when he showed why, although induction could not be reduced to deduction as philosophers had been trying to do for thousands of years, it could be explained as the process of adopting those hypotheses that you were unable to disprove however hard you tried. That's what 'scientific discovery' is but it is also the basis for all the knowledge the human race has about the universe!
I think Popper is undoubtedly the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. Regrettably he has not been recognised and many professional philosophers traduce his work and belittle it. For example the work of David Stove - an Australian whose work can only be deliberate misrepresentation or total stupidity (and I can't believe he's stupid). Philosophers who cannot be trusted to tell the truth ought to be ignored.
Love,
Anthony
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No, JimB, it isn't our minds because they too are parts of us and made of atoms.
No what makes us more than the sum of the atoms (and other particles if there are any) is the arrangement of the bits - as anyone who has ever played with meccano could tell you.
The arrangment of the bits is what survives the growth and change of living things which is why, although most of the atoms of which I was made when I was a child have left my body, they have been replaced by others which have preserved the arrangement of the bits.
When we get old it is because the arrangement of the bits doesn't perfectly reproduce earlier arrangements.
[I like rearranging people's bits!]
Love,
Anthony
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Dear Saben you wrote:
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The brain is just a bunch of proteins, carbohydrates and other chemicals.
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But you surely don't think it is 'just' a bunch of atoms, do you?
Using 'just' like that makes me feel you are belittling it.
You might as well say the world is 'just' part of the decaying products of a collision between stars. The fact is that it is the arrangement of it and the interactions between its parts that makes a brain what it is and we don't understand the interactions nor can we make a model that works in any respect. Even if we make a computer model of the arithmetic processes we can have the computer model make realistic mistakes!
You belittle us - but why, I can't tell.
Love,
Anthony
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But, Saben, by saying we're 'just' a more sophisticated collection of cells you are getting close to an assertion that the simple bits can only have simple reactions like the bits of a clock but also electrical and chemical.
And that is what I want to deny. If you put into your head the idea that we are just made of simple bits that react with each other in simple ways then there is no escape from the conclusion that either we are wholly determined or what isn't determined is random. (when three billiard balls or three atoms collide simultaneously the outcome is undetermined - that is to say many outcomes are possible according to our best mathematical models).
But a Gérard Langlet said 'Nature always decides'. In real life we can't do an experiment that sets up a three atom simultaneous collision and we can't observe the result either. But SOMETHING happens and we cannot find a model that helps us to know what. This has led people to say the result is random - but they have no reason for saying that except that they don't know how it works or why it works or indeed anything about what really happens.
So I have to call attention to the fact that mathematics is wholly a construct of the human mind. The real world does not have to conform to mathematical models, even when there ARE plausible models. Quite often as in the three body collision there is no satisfactory model.
And mathematical models in some respects CANNOT possibly match the real world. For example Newton's/Leibnitz's calculus (which has many marvellous uses) assumes a continuum. Its model of space and time and forces assumes that they are all infinitely divisible. That is fine on the large scale and we can calculate the trajectory of a spaceship to send men to the moon with it but when we are dealing with things at the atomic and sub atomic scale it is not true that time and space are infinitely divisible. The evidence is that time and space, like energy , come in quanta and that there is (in our models, you understand) a distance which is too small to move and a period too short for anything to happen.
The world is how shall we say 'granular' not only in its substance but also in the ticks of time and the nudges of space. At scales where the granularity can be expected to be relevant to what the outcome is there are no satisfactory models at all.
If we think everything must be like the models we construct then we are bound to be unable to understand anything we can't make a model of.
Love,
Anthony
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Me, too, Saben. acam is just Anthony CAMacho from my name and was assigned to me by Peter Chandler when I was his computer planning manager at Hunting Engineering in 1979 (I think).
Love,
Anthony
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Not really into this trendy trend scientific reductionism. It again finds a way to dismiss what it can’t describe or understand yet.
This ended up in the wrong place somehow it was in responce to Saben.
"Current research in neuroscience is drawing closer and closer to the conclusion that every part of "our mind" is just a reflection of "our brain". The brain is just a bunch of proteins, carbohydrates and other chemicals. How does this do anything but confirm the original premise?"
[Updated on: Fri, 08 May 2009 14:04]
People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Oh, Anthony. I really like this post. Our science may be more BS than can be found in a Chicago slaughterhouse. To tell you the truth, the minute my Algebra teacher told me that anything to the zero power is 1, because you subtract when dividing exponents and anything divided by itself is 1, well....to me...and very unscientifically....just with what seemed logical...well...that didn't make sense. It's plain stupid to say "Multiply something by itself zero times". I think its just one point that shows that we are missing something in our math. So this sort of thing seems to demand that we take unproved hypotheses based on faith...based on what seems logical to us based upon our observations of the world around us. (Slipping into poetic thought now.) This would seem to demarcate a chink in the fabric of heaven, which may broaden to expose God and all his angels.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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I know of Popper's work in the sphere of science and refutability "all swans are white". He raised some of the most important objections that we have to scientific method as providing definitive truths. But I never knew that he wrote on moral/political philosophy! I recently had a lecture by Dr. Jeremy Shearmur, a political philosopher that studied under Popper, but I never realised that Popper had contributed so much to the notion of "The Open Society" (a quick wiki corrected me!)
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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JimB
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Likes it here |
Registered: December 2006
Messages: 349
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Saben wrote:
> There's nothing to say that a human brain is any different from a rock.
>
LOL...OK
JimB
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Just had to note, that I agree discrimination of any form is just about as abhorent to me as murder is- and I try actively, and still sometimes, fail - not to discriminate against anyone.
I know this is a BIG isshue related to a baseless argument that the 'all gays are evil' groups sometimes spew, thinking that gay people choose to be so, but I find it hard not to discriminate against people who - like obese people - have a greater potential (note the keyword, potential) ability to controll those things for which they are discriminated against. That is also, I think, a reason why biased people like to think we as homosexuals choose to be homosexual - it makes it easier on their conciounce(sp?) to hate us.
I agree that hiding who we are creates a great big PILE of stinking stuff in our lives that some of us tend to drag along forever. However, the very ability of us to hide in plain site is a great argument for us being normal and not fair to be discriminated against.
A truth told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent
-William Blake
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No. This is fascinating, logic and reason on a scale I would love to emulate - regardless of whether something someone says seems right or wrong or besides the point, just the fact that you are debating important isshues in the manner that you are is more than enough to keep me reading every post and thinking deeply about every sentence
A truth told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent
-William Blake
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Thats sooo unfair, If I take just my initials I get a monstrosity:
DdWPFAAvdB-dM III
How would I construct a cool username out of that?
A truth told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent
-William Blake
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>DdWPFAAvdB-dM III<
If only the language had a v, you could pronounce that in Welsh.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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I agree Dee,
I never knew the hurt that could be caused by hiding one's true self. I found that my relationship with my wife morphed into something unbelieveably different after coming out to her.
I am not sure that all obese people are that way by choice. In particular native Hawaiians seem to have a special problem controlling their weight. I haven't researched it, but I've visited Hawaii a few times and have always been amazed by the weight difference between full blooded native Hawaiians and immigrants to the state and mixed bloods. I would guess that Hawaiians adapted genetically to their native diet, then, with the introduction of Anglo foods, the Hawaiian metabolism couldn't adjust properly, yielding a larger than normal obesity rate..
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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LOVE your sense of humor, Nigel! More, more, more.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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ray2x
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: April 2009
Messages: 429
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Image is always something I teach to my students whether you are large, small, tall, short whatever. These students cannot hide the fact of their handicap, which by the way is a unique cultural aspect of their culture, the culture of the handicapped where the others - us - are the unfortunates and the same goes for deaf people, blind people, mentally ill people, etc. They are the kings and queens of the dominate culture, and we normals are the handicapped. I've tried to crash into their culture and like the anthropologist of old, they have only allowed me limited access into their culture and society.
Raymundo
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Aussie
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Really getting into it |
Registered: August 2006
Messages: 475
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What's wrong with........
Devanbender?
Aussie:-()
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Dear Saben, it's a quite splendid joke that the example of induction chosen by Mill for his attempt to make induction like deduction was so soon an example of a mistake.
Mill thought that the more white swans you saw the more chance there was that they were all white.
Popper said that if you thought that you should look hard for counter-exapmles and only if your serious search of all likely places where there might be a swan of another colour failed could you entertain the hypothesis that they were all white.
When I read 'The open society and its enemies' what surprised me was who the enemies were. It taught me that great men sometimes make howling errors that betray the interests of civilisation. Who would think Plato did great harm?
Love,
Anthony
[Updated on: Sat, 09 May 2009 10:31]
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Yes, Macky, but you MUST make the important distinction between maths and science.
Maths is a construct of the human mind. It doesn't occur in the real world except for human intervention. It's in Popper's 'world three'.
Knowledge (science) is what we know about the real world. The real world is Popper's 'world 1'.
Knowledge of maths isn't about the real world and there is no reason to expect anything in the real world to match a mathematical construct. There is nothing in the real world to correspond to i (the square root of minus 1).
Maths can invent impossible things; no-one can discover impossible things in the real world.
Love,
Anthony
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Easy, Dewald, just leave some out. I did. I am Anthony John Camacho.
And as you have so many you probably can make a better user name than most of us by suitable selection.
Love,
Anthony
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Aussie said:
What's wrong with........
Devanbender?
The first time it sounded cool, the second time less so, by the fith repetition it conjured up a hideuous torture device normally used to reshape sitting-room furniture. ::-)
Good try though!)
Hmmm...I'm still thinking about something cool
A truth told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent
-William Blake
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No, no, Dewlad, de van bender is the driver that reshaped the van.
Love,
Anthony
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PS would you like to be dewlad instead of Dewald?
Sorry about that. I should read it before I Just Hit Send!
Love,
Anthony
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Aussie
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Really getting into it |
Registered: August 2006
Messages: 475
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Cool......You want COOL?....
You'll just have to settle for somthing like .....
De Iceberg then
)
Aussie
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LOL...dewlad? Thats funny, and it would be unpronounceable, except in English, or maybe something from a bad russian horror movie.
It IS origional though...mmmh...
PS. Does anyone actually know how to pronounce my name correctly?
I only now remembered how difficult it always is for people who have a different first language than I have to pronounce it the first few times.
Its pronounced: D (like normal English) e (as in the double e's in leer, sneer, deer, veneer) w (pronounced v) ald (pronounced like in vault, malt, salt, cult with the d as a t).
Essentially: Deëvault
A truth told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent
-William Blake
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JimB
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Likes it here |
Registered: December 2006
Messages: 349
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I was wrong only where it came to the 'W', however I should have known better. Just to clarify, are 'W' and 'V' pronounced the same or is there a slight difference?
JimB
[Updated on: Tue, 12 May 2009 22:59]
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W in my language is pronounced exactly like V is in Eglish, and V in my language is pronounced the same as 'F' is in english
A truth told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent
-William Blake
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