COMMENSAL ISSUE 90

The Newsletter of the Philosophical Discussion Group
Of British Mensa
Number 90 : January 1998

ARTICLES
27th November 1997 : Anthony Owens

SIG PRINCIPLES

Dear Theo,

Can I make a few comments on 'principles' ?

  1. Brief comments on a range of items do mean that more correspondents get a response and offer widened interest, though they may well be best if free-standing; introduce something new; and refer back little beyond the previous newsletter.
  2. Your own concurrent comments are likely to be very valuable because they assure at least one response; probably pre-empt too much duplication; and will tend to limit the number of newsletters over which a particular issue might run.
  3. Grouping by subject seems unnecessarily onerous on you but perhaps responses addressed to subjects (with appropriate references) is a good idea.
Personally, I always try to trim down my responses (usually from about four sheets of hand-written foolscap), perhaps too drastically sometimes, because I don't want to overstep my welcome. On the other hand if someone honours me with a response I try to add something even at the expense of missing out something else I wanted to send.

Your problem is, I suppose, the same only bigger: yet you want to double it by taking on PhySIG ! I used to be a member but I'm tempted nowadays to file Physics under F for Fantasy. Perhaps the SIG died because there are only so many daft reasons for denying Relativity that the perverse human mind can devise. Seriously though, if it isn't to become a black hole for you how about widening it to a Science Sig. Biology is a road which has some fascinating side-streets; but which was, perhaps wisely, deemed out of bounds for boys in my day. What about Colin?..... that's (SpaceSig) another of mine I thought dead !

Anthony Owens

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Anthony : Thanks for the views. The consensus seems to be to retain the status quo on Commensal, but with writers remembering that others will be reading what they’ve written. With respect to PhySIG, I’ve floated the idea that it might be expanded to become Science SIG ... thanks for the idea ! Only one response so far, from Colin Wagstaff, who would prefer to retain the focus on Physics. Space SIG is alive and flourishing, by the way, with a near-maximum size newsletter (Spacesignl) appearing every couple of months.

Theo