Random Thoughts from a Sick Mind

Sep 12, 2011 06:41

... "sick mind" as in "staying home sick today with weird sinus-related wooziness", which is leaving my brain making strange, dissociated, random observations ( Read more... )

altered states, turing test fail, sick, weirdness

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foofers September 12 2011, 15:35:52 UTC
You're assuming that millennial and decade quantization occur on the same thresholds.

A decade, generically speaking, is any ten year span. A millennium is any thousand year span.

When you start referring to them with proper titles, as in "the 1980s" the semantics may be different, and aren't necessarily the same across the different interval and title types. With certain titles, that whole "no year zero" thing may take effect. Or not.

Thus, "The 1900s" and "The Twentieth Century" both refer to a period of one century, but not quantized to the same starting and ending points; the former being 1900 through 1999, the latter being 1901 through 2000. Overlapping, both 100 years long, but not the same century, strictly speaking. One's based on the placement of digits, the other on the idea that the First Century would start in Year One. So, along these lines, "The 1980s" can include 1980 without having to include 1990, and "The Second Millennium" can include 2000 without including 1000. "The 198th Decade" and "the 2000s" would be different. It's logical and consistent, as long as you can detach the generic concept of the time intervals from the specific proper title versions.

I have no butthurt about "millennial" celebrations that occurred in either 2000 or 2001...they're simply celebrating different millennial phenomena: the first is celebrating the large rolling-over of digits that once per thousand years, the second celebrating the start of a new thousand-year-quantized block of time that started with Year One. Both semantically valid. It's only when you try to attach the year 2000 either to The 21st Century (rather than 20th) or to The 1900s (rather than 2000s) that the meaning is corrupted.

Does that make more sense?

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foofers September 12 2011, 16:18:19 UTC
Same statement, in Venn diagram form. Scientists like Venn diagrams, right?



Can be adapted to other decades/centuries/millennia; same principle applies.

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You get a cookie! athelind September 12 2011, 17:01:05 UTC
Re: You get a cookie! foofers September 12 2011, 17:22:06 UTC
Peanut butter! Best kind!

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siege September 12 2011, 22:38:55 UTC
The spheres in that userpic are performing a trefoil braid.

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