House of Eratosthenes

This blog’s third birthday is coming up, and in all that time we’ve managed to make a lot of friends for something that calls itself The Blog That Nobody Reads.

Some of the folks who pop in and hang around regularly, commenting in the comment section, or maybe going through the trouble to send an off-line, have expressed something without really expressing it. It’s a read-between-the-lines thing. Let’s see if I can paraphrase it here.

This Freeberg guy, I’ve read enough of his stuff now that I’m pretty sure how he’s going to handle any given subject, without being really sure what he’s going to say. He’s got some kind of method he keeps applying. He’s always scolding people for not thinking things out, and obviously he’s such a compulsive list-maker, it seems odd that he doesn’t have a list of things he does when he writes the things he writes and thinks the things he thinks.

I admit it. I do go to some lengths to keep my phrasing and word selection fresh and non-repetitive…with mixed results, at the very best, it seems sometimes. But if it is possible for a thought process to become boring — that’s really the big question right there, isn’t it? — I must be a repeat offender on felony levels. We have rules at this blog; how to do your thinking, not so much what kind of thinking to do. As I sometimes tell these pop-in, pop-out liberals who occasionally stop by to speak their “truth to power”: This is the House of Eratosthenes. This is not the “House of some guy who thinks whatever he’s told to think by others”; that little mud hut is out there somewhere. Not here.

The Oath of Eratosthenes can be found here, and it is reproduced in this post in full:

For the matter under discussion, and throughout the course of that discussion, I pledge to apply my thoughts to all of it and my feelings to none of it; to know what I can personally prove, nothing more and nothing less; and to believe what I can solidly infer from what I know, nothing more and nothing less. I will not be told what to think. Not by those who have power over me, who claim to have power over me, who aspire to have power over me, by persons possessing honors, credentials, pedigrees, awards or fame.

I understand the difference between an article of faith and a logical inference. I shall withhold both of those, from whatever beliefs directly contradict known fact. My power of inference will be applied only to those questions that can be decided by inference alone; and my inferences shall be decided as if my personal fortune, and other things precious to me, depended on them.

I shall admit my error quickly when demonstrated to be in error, but I shall harbor no ambitions toward being erroneous. I claim no monopoly on truth, and will grant no such monopoly to others.

I will not bully, intimidate or coerce, nor will I modify my own viewpoints because of someone else’s bullying, intimidation or coercion. I will lend no greater weight to a statement just for being concise or amusing, or lesser weight to a statement just for being bloated or monotonous.

I will apply the most vigorous scrutiny where I perceive others have failed to do so. But I understand scrutiny has nothing to do with actually disclaiming anything. Scrutiny is a process and not an outcome.

I shall comprehend, at all times, the critical distinction between proving A, and failing to prove !A. I shall not assign benefit-of-doubt to one side of a dispute, or to the other side, in order to please others, nor will I try to bludgeon others into doing that.

I shall faithfully distinguish between the subjective and the objective, between knowing things and believing things, and between feeling and thought.

Above all, I will know for myself without anyone else pointing it out, that if I should violate any of the above, I will no longer be standing in the House of Eratosthenes.

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The OathWednesday, October 10th, 2007

The Oath
Wednesday, October 10th, 2007