Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 June 2

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June 2

Dogo Argentino Breeder

I'm looking to get a Dogo Argentino puppy and I would like to get one from Argentina from Ulises Nores the grandson of the original breeder. I have come across two websites: http://www.noresdogoargentino.com.ar and http://www.dogoargentinonores.com Can anyone tell me if either of these are legit or how I can go about confirming that they are. --195.244.210.38 (talk) 10:15, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

A good first step would be to type the name of the breeder and his company into Google and look for links (possibly on the second or third page of the search results) that don't come from either of those websites. These ought to get you some information written by other people about this breeder. If it's a complete scam, you should be able to find that out.

That said - are you aware that this dog is banned in the UK, some cities and states in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Singapore, Ukraine and Israel? Seems like it's a bad idea to own one.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:03, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

The IP traces to Gibraltar. Section 583 of Act 2011-23 prohibits the importation or keeping of a "dangerous dog" (p424 of the PDF), and lists Dogo Argentino as such a dog (schedule 10 part A; p474 of the PDF). So unless the Minister has amended schedule A subsequently (as they're allowed to do under section 583(3)), which wasn't the case at least as soon as 2012, this breed is illegal in Gibraltar. 87.115.106.1 (talk) 17:51, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

• Let me just add a link to our Dogo Argentino article. Looie496 (talk) 22:36, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Changing fate

Fate is defined as a predetermined future. As such, is it really possible to "change my fate"? After all, wouldn't "changing fate" be part of fate itself since it has already been planned out? ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 12:04, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Yep. It's nonsense to think that one can change one's fate, should such a thing exist. That's the simple logical answer. I can almost guarantee though that someone will present some amazing intellectual gymnastics in an attempt to prove you and me wrong. (You would see even better versions over at Conservapedia.) HiLo48 (talk) 12:28, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but it isn't simple either. Although ones' actions and circumstances matter such as with the butterfly effect, we know too that many events such as the sun rising each day are completely predictable, thus causality itself is complex. See causality for an over-view of the subject. --Modocc (talk) 13:54, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

There are two separate questions here:

• Is your future pre-determined? (ie Does "fate" exist?)
• If there is fate, can you ever know your future state? (ie Can you know your own fate?)

The first question is tricky. It hinges entirely on whether the universe is in any way truly "random". Some great thinkers believed that it cannot be. Einstein, for example, famously said "As I have said so many times, God doesn't play dice with the world." and fought hard to maintain the position that we live in a "clockwork universe" where everything is predetermined. However, Quantum theory really makes that a tough position to maintain - and I think that most modern scientists believe that there is true randomness in the universe - which means that future events are not predetermined and therefore fate doesn't exist.

The answer to the second question is a categorical "NO!". When we look out into space, we see the star Proxima Centaurii as it looked 4.2 years ago. We have no reasonable way to know what it's like today. Hence, a photon released from Proxima Centaurii today could arrive on earth 4.2 years from now, add a tiny amount of heat to an atom in the atmosphere, which over the course of a year might alter the weather (via the well-known "butterfly effect" of chaos theory) to cause you to be struck by lightning and killed outright. If there is no photon then you live - if there is that photon with that exact position and energy, you die. Your fate (five years from now) cannot even in principle be known without perfect knowledge about every fundamental particle in that distant star 4.2 years from now. It's true that in a truly deterministic universe, we might be able to observe the state of Proxima Centaurii as it was 4.2 years ago - and from that deduce whether a photon is currently being emitted there or not. But things like the uncertainty principle ensure that we cannot know all of that information about the star.

So, on balance, you provide us with an axiom: "Fate is defined as a predetermined future" - but we know that this axiom is false - and it's a well-established principle of logic that from falsehood, you can prove anything. So the question of whether fate can be changed is akin to asking whether unicorns like sausages.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:52, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I once had a llama, who once bit at my hotdog and knocked it down. It ate the bun (and relish), but left the sausage. Its fate would be much the same with a unicorn, I'll bet. Speaking of betting, even if God rolled dice, there is an exact (though extremely difficult) way to roll any number on any surface, if you know all the variables. If God is all-knowing and wants his will done, even his dice would leave nothing to chance. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:14, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Our models of reality are distinctly different from reality, but I am confident that I'll be dead in the near future, and logic has nothing to do with that fate. The OP's reasoning included the notion of fate being planned (that is just one model) but in general causality is complex and depends on what kinds of events one is considering. --Modocc (talk) 15:11, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Our models of reality (collectively) don't even begin to enter into it, since our models of reality (individually) are also not reality. What we perceive is reality filtered through our own brain, and there's not even any way to establish with perfect precision using only our own faculties and sound logic, that anything outside of our own mind actually exists (see solipsism). There's no way to prove to ourselves with any certainty that the model of reality our mind has created has any connection to actual reality. Or simply put, there's no perfect proof that everything I experience is not a hallucination. At some point, we need to take the connections between reality and our perception thereof on blind faith. --Jayron32 17:21, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

perfect proofs don't exist; tangent
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Aye!! You are correct! But solipsism leads to being a fallibilist, but I'm a scientific realist and not a solipsist since I recognize that events are scientifically predictable and its the predictability of reality that gives us our science regarding nature and progress which I prefer not being trampled on by our own backward skepticisms regarding causality. --Modocc (talk) 17:36, 2 June 2013 (UTC) I'm not saying that one should believe in solipsism, merely that the core of scientific proof is the ability to apply logic to data to arrive at conclusions; but there is no such conclusion that will allow us to prove, in that manner, that our own experiences are real. We need to take it on faith. Once we are prepared to take that on faith, we can then move past that moment and then work to explain the reality we experience in terms of data, logic, and further conclusions. The problem comes when we expect perfect provability out of reality; that is if we expect that we can work backwards using nothing but data and logic and then come to a sound conclusion about our own existence to ourselves. We can't. It's the philosophical equivalent of Gödel's second theorem in the sense that we cannot establish the truth of our own experience using only our own experience. --Jayron32 17:42, 2 June 2013 (UTC) Since illusions are simply mental abstractions that are real in their own way, like the artwork we design... I'm going around in circles 'cause my reality is still present (maybe I need another chromosomal tilt switch, ;-)). --Modocc (talk) 18:08, 2 June 2013 (UTC) Illusions are an internal reality, created by your own brain. The fundamental question, the hard problem here, is how to connect your internal reality (the collection of nerve impulses that give you sensations and perceptions) to the external reality (stuff that exists whether or not your brain does that) in a way that is perfectly consistent with sound scientific proof, that is that connects data to a conclusion via logic. --Jayron32 18:14, 2 June 2013 (UTC) We don't need a brain to determine how plants interact with their external environment, nor do we need a sophisticated brain to determine how insects do too. Recently I read how our brains create phantom guesses as to what is happening when incomplete inputs (such as a severed hand) occur. Essentially, we are pretty good at guesswork, connecting the internal with the external, but only when we have sufficient data. I'm not sure how or why "proof" always needs to enter into our evaluations or beliefs. Modocc (talk) 18:24, 2 June 2013 (UTC) How would you have this conversation with me if it were not for your brain? I am confused by your assertion that the brain is not involved in constructing internal models of the world. How are each of our internal models of the world constructed if not by our brain? Is it our liver? Our left pinky finger. Enlighten me on the unimportance of the brain in thought processes. This should be interesting. Oh, and don't use your brain to do so... --Jayron32 18:27, 2 June 2013 (UTC) Sorry I didn't write that well. We have our brains, I meant the plant doesn't need a brain for us to objectively analysis it. I was simply pointing out that it matters who's brain we are talking about, my mother's or mine? Or those of some mice or whales? I suppose the short of what I'm saying is that I don't see how or why truths regarding self-awareness are impossible to know (I could make implausible assumptions regarding reality but that's still doesn't leave me empty-handed, for I've still existed (the last time I checked my memories' memes) --Modocc (talk) 18:35, 2 June 2013 (UTC) Prove that the model of the plant you make in your own brain is a reliable construction of what the plant really is if your brain wasn't there to study it, in such a way that does not, at some point, require you to say "We need to just accept this as true, without proof or connection to data and logic". --Jayron32 18:50, 2 June 2013 (UTC) I can't because I ate it. Its being digested into its constituent parts and no longer exists as a whole plant. But I'm pretty sure it did exist and there are more at my local stores. -Modocc (talk) 18:55, 2 June 2013 (UTC) No, you think you ate it. Maybe you didn't, and it was all an illusion. Establishing the difference is the tricky part. --Jayron32 19:01, 2 June 2013 (UTC) It does not matter whether we are ultimately wrong or right with regard to our beliefs (we can be happy with them anyway( it was great plant BTW)), and like I said I could make implausible assumptions, but I don't think that logic, philosophy or science requires us to merely assume or claim a philosophized "faith" regarding the realities of our little planet. With regard to perfect proofs, well everything isn't just dandy I suppose, and we can hat this tangential debate too. :-) -Modocc (talk) 19:19, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

[The name of Proxima Centauri ends with only one "i".—Wavelength (talk) 15:38, 2 June 2013 (UTC)]

• Fate as a metaphysical fact in a deterministic sense is impossible to prove, since we cannot run time over and see if it happens identically.

The claim is unfalsifiable. We cannot do an experiment to rerun reality, and even if it were possible there would still be only one real outcome.

• Fate in the sense of what will factually happen to you is a tautology. What will happen to you will happen to you by definition. To say it is fated adds no information.

The claim is meaningless. Consider the story from Diogenes Laertius of the philosopher Zeno of Citium, whose slave, when being whipped for theft, complained that according to his Stoic philosophy he was fated to steal. Zeno's response was yes, and I am fated to punish you.

• Belief that events of a broad scope will happen is reasonable, but not very helpful. Yes, you will die some day.

Yes, this is the beauty of science. And fat old smoker and drunkard Winston Churchill lived to 90, while Jim Fixx died at 52.

• Belief in specific fates--I will be killed by a spider I didn't see next year--is pathological. μηδείς (talk) 19:54, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

See various topics like paranoia, superstition, and risk illiteracy. [updated μηδείς (talk) 18:17, 3 June 2013 (UTC)]

Source for your broad/specific categorical distinction? Simple counterexamples would simply be astrologers that make broad inaccurate claims, such as the world ending tomorrow, or alternatively, an ancient/modern scientist that predicts an eclipse will happen at a specific time of year. --Modocc (talk) 18:27, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I am really not interested in an argument, but the is a wide difference between statistical predictions like how many calves will be born to a herd next year and causal predictions, like, as you are one month pregnant I expect you to deliver next february and pseudoscience such as humans will transition to machine minds by 2040. μηδείς (talk) 18:35, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Predicting a birth is not a casual endeavor but we seem to take such things for granted, and the differences between rational predictions and the irrational ones you speak of, whether these be statistical or not, is not of their scope or precision, but one of accuracy. Thus some things are generalizable, but others are not (see black swan), which is why counterexamples tend to refute unfounded claims. Modocc (talk) 19:01, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Your last point is not universal. Some predictions are pathological certainly, but sometimes we have reasonable grounds for predicting specific fates. --Modocc (talk) 20:28, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Like if someone spends all their time working with venomous spiders, they might reasonably surmise that a spider would kill them someday. And then God might surprise him with a falling tree. Kind of like with Steve Irwin. He might have supposed a croc might kill him someday. Falling to a stingray probably was not on his radar. Johnny Carson, though, once said to Ed McMahon about his chain-smoking, "These things are killing me." Which they eventually did. But that could only be considered "fate" if it's presumed it was impossible for him to stop smoking. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:32, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Seriously? Am I supposed to believe you two were unable to understand my point? μηδείς (talk) 00:07, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Try doing some science, or even engineering without making any accurate predictions. -Modocc (talk) 00:22, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I still think it's clear that by picking some bizarre prediction like "I will be killed by a spider next year" is pernicious if common superstition, not science, which falls under the broad predictions I mentioned above. See related comment below. μηδείς (talk) 02:45, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

The English word "fate" has various meanings. The concept of fate can be traced to ancient Greek religion and the Fates. A similar concept is predestination.

A physician might counsel a patient to make lifestyle changes in order to avoid a particular fate. An automobile driver might swerve to avoid a particular fate. Changes can be for the better or for the worse.

See Ezekiel 33:1–20 and Romans 11:17–24.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:44, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

You are speaking metaphorically. You are quite aware doctors warn about certain diseases and people swerve to avoid collisions. This sort of stuff is the ref dek at its worst, folks. μηδείς (talk) 00:07, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I'll repeat these sort of gotcha answers (what if I work in a spider lab?) are the worst ref desk has to offer outside direct personal attacks and the sort of trolling that gets one hatted or banned. Any system can be hacked, any interaction can be gamed. It is not helpful to say, in a discussion of fate in the metaphysical or magical sense that fate exists because doctors warn against the potential results of overeating. If I were playing that game I could say, but you might get hit by a bus on the way home from the doctor's. In this case I am stepping back and saying let's not play these semantic games. Modocc has politely asked me to provide sources for my comments above such as that dtererminism can't be tested, which I didn't do, and which is a stepping back on his part. I will do so, but tomorrow, forgive me; it is late, and I have work in the morning. μηδείς (talk) 02:45, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I followed up like I promised, yesterday, but I am not interested in debate so I probably won't respond further. μηδείς (talk) 18:35, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

In this world, accidents happen. See Ecclesiastes 9:11.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:36, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Master Oogway: There are no accidents. ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 04:07, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

• It might also be interesting to consider that a fate as something decreed that one cannot act to avoid is a religious notion, and rather than the three fates tracing from the Greeks through the Romans, the three fates/Norns/witches/weavers of Greek, Roman, Slavic and Gemanic tradition represent the pre-Indo-European Old-European culture of the triple goddess discussed in the works of Marija Gimbutas and in Robert Graves' White Goddess. μηδείς (talk) 21:02, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Robert E Vardman Cenotaph Road

Dear Wikipedia,

I was sending this to comment on a bad link. In your entry for Robert E Vardman, the author, you mention that he is the author of the Cenotaph Road series and you have a link to Cenotaph Road. However, the link goes to the place "Cenotaph Road" and not the book. His book is a fantasy novel and has nothing to do with that place.

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Audiophile66 (talk • contribs) 17:18, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I fixed the link. It is now a red link as no article yet exists about this work, but it at least doesn't link to an unrelated topic. --Jayron32 18:11, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

You beat me to it by a couple of seconds! To Audiophile66, usually the best place for these comments is on the Talk Page of the article - in this case Talk:Robert_E._Vardeman; however there seems to be very little activity on that article, so you have done the right thing. Alansplodge (talk) 18:18, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Recycling

Hi there. Reading article about recycling. Can not find any reference to colour coding of waste materials in general. Here in Australia, kerbside pick up of recyclables are denoted by green for landfill, blue for assorted clean household recyclables & red denoting garden waste. Have been reading the article above & cannot find information regarding the existence of ISO Standards in relation to colour coding of receptacles, (if any). Can you assist in advising of any such standard, & which reference article to research. Thank you AeragRRR — Preceding unsigned comment added by AeragRRR (talk • contribs) 23:56, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd suggest that such colour coding is not even standard in Australia. I live on the outskirts of Melbourne, and have never heard of it. Where are you AeragRRR? HiLo48 (talk) 00:34, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Am aware of differing standard, that is why the question referred to ISO units. There are multiple standards as applied through local municipal councils & indefinite packaging, resulting in waste going to landfill. In reading Wikepedia could find no reference in defining colours. Have worked in different industries, where each have used differing colour codes to assist in the sorting of recyclable material. Hope this clarifies the matter.AeragRRR AeragRRR (talk) 03:44, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Standards Australia has AS 4123.7-2006: Mobile waste containers - Part 7: Colours, markings and designation requirements.--Melburnian (talk) 04:14, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Does ISO sometimes use colours? I thought they might want to avoid it, given the large number of colour-blind people. --Lgriot (talk) 08:44, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Here in the UK, each collection authority decides on its own colours and what materials it collects for recycling. This results in regular confusion for holidaymakers from a different area. Dbfirs 15:56, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that seems to be the case in Australia too. I spend a fair bit of my time at a community facility just in the next municipality. Their bins a differently coloured from mine, and I do get confused. Proper standards would be nice. HiLo48 (talk) 18:38, 3 June 2013 (UTC)