Assume v. Presume

[MikeSh]

Ah, but does the weather make decisions? The validity or otherwise of free will is crucial to apportioning blame, assigning faults, rather than unavoidable determinism.

No, the weather doesn't make decisions. Drivers make decisions and those that don't consider the weather or other external influences tend to make decisions that don't end well. In this country we have free will; in places like India (I believe) determinism is common ... But I was told off a page or two back for not keeping the subject UK only, so we won't go there

 

[MikeSh]

From The Times today:

The latest study involved commuters wearing air pollution monitors who undertook hundreds of journeys by car, bus and Tube.

WTF? For lack of a comma...

I'd have put a couple more commas in, but I probably use too many in general. It's a tad long but actually reads fairly OK to me.

 

[Black Hole]

The latest study involved commuters wearing air pollution monitors who undertook hundreds of journeys by car, bus and Tube.

Where would you put another comma?

I would put it after "bus", but I use an unconventional approach to punctuation I refer to as "functional punctuation". I prefer the elements in a list to all have a comma after them (until the last element in the list, which is signalled by "and" or "or"), but the normal convention is to omit the comma preceding the "and"/"or". That can leave a problem with interpretation - for example: "pubs I might go to tonight are the Greyhound, White Hart or Dog and Duck."

 

[Deleted member 473]

Comma after monitors, else the monitors appear to be worn by the commuters, and make loads of trips, presumably by hopping off the commuters, and on again.

That can leave a problem with interpretation

Easily solved by use of italics. Else, repeat the before each pub name, which you might have to do if speaking.

 

[Deleted member 473]

No, the weather doesn't make decisions. Drivers make decisions

Have you not understood anything?

 

[MikeSh]

Have you not understood anything?

Probably not.


But is that my fault for being stupid or your fault for not explaining it sufficiently?

 

[Trev]

for example: "pubs I might go to tonight are the Greyhound, White Hart or Dog and Duck.

Nothing wrong with that. The 'or' obviously is the indicator of the last element, but to disambiguate it more I would write "for example: "pubs I might go to tonight are the Greyhound, the White Hart or the Dog and Duck.

 

[Deleted member 473]

Nothing wrong with that. The 'or' obviously is the indicator of the last element, but to disambiguate it more I would write "for example: "pubs I might go to tonight are the Greyhound, the White Hart or the Dog and Duck.

Snap!

 

[Deleted member 473]

Probably not.

But is that my fault for being stupid or your fault for not explaining it sufficiently?

Nobody is at fault! I thought you would read the WP article, but clearly not. I don't understand why you think we have a choice all the time. Could you really have done differently to what you did? How could you test that? Your brain has decided what you are about to do even before you become conscious of having "decided."

I understand what you say, I am possibly even more strict about motoring habits than you! I rigidly adhere to speed limits, signal right at roundabouts, drive cautiously in bad weather and get cross when others fail to do likewise, but none of that is what I would see as choice. It's more likely to be to do with my early life, my driving instructor, and other factors. Yet in most ways I am quite a liberal.

Other motorists no doubt curse me as much as I curse them!

 

[Deleted member 473]

==

Since when was business week a single word?

 

[MikeSh]

Nobody is at
...
much as I curse them!

The article itself states near the top:
The field remains highly controversial. There is no consensus among researchers about the significance of findings, their meaning, or what conclusions may be drawn. The precise role of consciousness in decision making therefore remains unclear.

However, I don't disagree with the idea that in the short time scales we may (appear) to have decided an action before we are conscious of the decision. But I'm not convinced that this is related to free will. I regularly make conscious decisions about how I will deal with speed limits and it varies even for the same stretch of road. To suggest that I am not exercising some type of free will in those choices is frankly daft. Your choice to abide by rigid rules is still a conscious exercise of your free will ... the alternative interpretation is that you have been programmed much like a not very sophisticated Android

 

[MikeSh]

Since when was business week a single word?

Since Bloomberg created it and thus put copyright on it perhaps? The words separately could be used by anyone.

 

[Black Hole]

Nothing wrong with that. The 'or' obviously is the indicator of the last element, but to disambiguate it more I would write "for example: "pubs I might go to tonight are the Greyhound, the White Hart or the Dog and Duck.

Italicising is a cop out; my solution is simply to put in an extra comma: "pubs I might go to tonight are the Greyhound, White Hart, or Dog and Duck." My reasoning is the way you would say it - there is a longer pause before "or" than in the gaps between "or Dog and Duck", which is said as a single phrase with hardly any gap between the words at all.

Yes, I agree with the comma after "monitors".

 

[Deleted member 473]

I regularly make conscious decisions about how I will deal with speed limits and it varies even for the same stretch of road. To suggest that I am not exercising some type of free will in those choices is frankly daft.

But this is the dualist argument, of a body and a consciousness, and that the latter controls the former. What physical laws allow that to happen? Plus, we know now that brain activity accompanies, and even precedes, all activities we are aware of. The illusion of free will is not such a daft idea after all.

As for the disclaimer, that will have been inserted by a religion obsessed brain because it negates everything it thinks it knows. WP has form for not stamping hard on myths. Have you ever tried editing an article about some nonsense in the bible?

As for being a dumb android, my brain is concentrating on road conditions, hazards, signage, rather than being obsessed robotically with whether I can gain a few seconds by exceeding the speed limit! To me, exceeding a legal speed limit is just as bad as driving too fast in inclement weather. By bad I mean likely to cause accidents.

 

[Deleted member 473]

Italicising is a cop out

Why are you so opposed to established printing conventions? I notice you sometimes even use the anachronism of underlining to avoid font modifiers. Underlining is appropriate for hand written or typed documents, but deprecated in other circumstances, eg, printed and electronic documents, such as here.

 

[Black Hole]

Who says? The reason I use italic+underline is because (a) the reader can easily not notice the italicising when skimming, and may not have the best of eyesight anyway, and (b) when quoted, all text becomes italicised, and therefore stress would be lost without the underlining. Are you confusing fashion with some kind of ratified standardisation?

Yes, I use combinations of the font modifiers (they're available, why not use them - and I don't exclude underlining from the set of font modifiers) to achieve levels of stress or emphasis on specific words or phrases which would be stressed when spoken to achieve the desired meaning. Punctuation does not indicate stress, only pauses, and it is the pauses that I was talking about above (and conversely, stress does not indicate pause).

Okay, the next thing you will ask is why not just underline and not use italicising at all; I happen to think it looks softer.

 

[Trev]

Italicising is a cop out;

I didn't

 

[Trev]

By bad I mean likely to cause accidents.

Exceeding a legal speed limit is not 'likely to cause accidents', but it is likely to make them more serious if they do happen though.

Okay, the next thing you will ask is why not just underline and not use italicising at all; I happen to think it looks softer.

Emboldening usually works to emphasise certain words without changing the font or underlining, both of which interrupt the 'flow' and make the text more difficult to read.
Here you go.

Not convinced? I invite you to find a book, newspaper, or magazine that underlines text. It’s a look mostly associated with supermarket tabloids. If that’s the impression you want to make with your writing, by all means, use underlining. If not, don’t

{sic}

 

[af123]

Emboldening usually works to emphasise certain words without changing the font or underlining, both of which interrupt the 'flow' and make the text more difficult to read.

Interesting, I found /that/ emboldening definitely interrupted the flow and I paused while reading at each one.

 

[gomezz]

I am an old school teletypist and often use *embolden*, /italicise/ and _underline_ as I prefer to make fewer assumptions about the capabilities of the reader's device.