Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 November 11

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November 11

Indirect consequentialism and general human irrationality

Selfish gene theory, combined with the number, strength, scope and prevalence of the various biases at List of cognitive biases, strongly suggests to me that non-calculative human behaviour is in general a very poor approximation of what is optimal, and therefore cannot maximize utility even within human computational limits, contra indirect-consequentialist theories such as two-level utilitarianism. Does this objection have a name, and what are the usual answers to it? NeonMerlin 05:56, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Optimal for what and what would be optimal? Dmcq (talk) 11:42, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

What objection? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:34, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I think that objection can be described as a manifestation of sesquipedalianism. Dmcq (talk) 14:29, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

You bet. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:28, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• Bounded rationality might be what you are looking for -- see also our article on satisficing. Looie496 (talk) 16:05, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I am fairly certain this is the source and concern of NM's post. μηδείς (talk) 22:59, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Wow. For a person associated with a Department of English at a prominent university, he seems to use precious little of it.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:17, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Divorce in Ireland

I know it was not legal a while ago, but when it started to be officially legal? Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 17:56, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Would this be the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland? Tommy Pinball (talk) 18:58, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

It's not that it wasn't legal before. It wasn't even possible before. Now it is. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:40, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Not even on grounds of adultery and/or abandonment? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:01, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Nope. Until that amendment, the constitution said, "No law shall be enacted providing for the grant of a dissolution of marriage." --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 18:06, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Man who battled the sea

Xerxes attending the lashing and "chaining" of the Hellespont (Illustration from 1909)

I'm trying to think of a name and recall the tale of a man, possibly a king. He was said to have gone down to the sea to fight with it. He stood in the water and beat at it with his sword, or something to that effect. He's often used as an allegory of someone trying to fight a hopeless fight. Anyone know who this is? Dismas|^(talk) 20:25, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

King Canute --Viennese Waltz 20:29, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! I was just coming back here to say that I finally hit upon the right words to get Google to tell me that. Thanks again! Dismas|^(talk) 20:33, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

There's also Xerxes I — Herodotus reports that when the bridge Xerxes was constructing across the Hellespont was ruined he order the body of water to be lashed and put into chains. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:14, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I might have been conflating the two stories but Cnut was definitely the one I was trying to use in an example elsewhere. Dismas|^(talk) 21:30, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Mind you, he did it not to (try to) exercise any power over the waves, but to demonstrate that he had no such power, his kingship notwithstanding. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:37, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Yep, thanks Jack. I re-read the pertinent parts of the article and confirmed I was using the correct person as an example in what I was writing. Dismas|^(talk) 05:34, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• There's also Obama on his own election to president and control over the oceans, yatta, yatta, yatta. μηδείς (talk) 22:55, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• Roman Emperor Caligula, at least in a recent TV series, somehow attacked and thought he had conquered the sea of the Sea God and had his soldiers collect trunks full of sea shells which he exhibited in his Triumph. no one had the guts to tell him he was bonkers. Did Suetonius or others write of this battle? Edison (talk) 01:54, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Yup, Suetonius mentions it. Adam Bishop (talk) 02:10, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Good catch, forgot about that one, although it's in I, Claudius. μηδείς (talk) 04:35, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Although Caligula was a looney, there was kind of a logic to his notion that seashells were the spoils of his Poseidon adventure. That story might have inspired Steven Wright to talk about his vast seashell collection, which he displays on beaches all over the world. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:34, 13 November 2013 (UTC)