COMMENSAL ISSUE 92

As usual, we start off by welcoming new members to the SIG. We have a goodly number this time round, partly because of the delay in the appearance of Commensal 92. Still, it is heartening to see so many new joiners - we must (collectively) be doing something right. So .... welcome to :-

• Vivienne Bering


• Anthony Bray


• Mr. S. Clarke


• Graham Dare


• Colin Eyre


• Jo French


• Michael Hawkes


• John Heymer


• Mr. B. Jones


• Alan Lee


• Mr. G. O’Dubhtaigh


• Bernard O’Leary


• Mr. H. Rajani


• David Shenfield

It was good to meet a couple of PDGers at last ! Roger Farnworth, Leslie Haddow & I met with some 13 other Mensans & associates to discuss Learning from Life - The Acquisition of Knowledge v. The Pursuit Of Wisdom. The papers presented were, maybe, a bit informal (even) by PDG standards, but it was still good to get together to talk about serious issues. The Braziers College setting seems ideal for possible PDG conventions. The three of us discussed this possibility at some length, and a proposal / questionnaire appears at the end of this issue of Commensal.

The next Mensa at Braziers conference is being organised by Leslie Haddow and runs from 25th to 27th September 1998. The subject is Crime and Punishment, so please be thinking about whether you would like to attend. You can book now direct with Braziers, at the address given in C91.

I have in mind that the first "official" PDG gathering should take place in May 1999 (exact dates to be advised). As people tend not to respond to general adverts (where were you all this time round !) I will obviously have to undertake some personal solicitation on the matter - so prepare to be pestered ! Any of you that feel miffed at not being pestered, please pester me ! But, more of that later !

As reported last time (and forgive me the repetition here), please note this programme of courses. While they do not require attendees to have any prior qualifications, they are serious affairs, with lots of pre-course reading and an essay to produce before you get there. You also have the benefit of individual tutorials. The courses last a full week and cost £540 full board if you want a single room (£390 for a twin; £295 non-residential but including lunch & dinner). There are several philosophy courses. Those with places free as of the end of April are :-

You can get more information (including course synopses & preparatory instructions) from :-

PDG member Malcolm Burn will be attending the course on Hume (and also one on Shakespeare 15-22 August : glutton for punishment, he !). I think it rather less likely that I will be attending this year.

My second SIG seems to be taking off a bit now. We managed to string it out to 24 pages in the 3^rd Newsletter, so my fears of a still-birth seem to have been groundless. I’m sure some of you out there would be interested in joining, so why don’t you ? The hot news is that Anthony Owens has just signed up, so let this be a stimulus to the rest of you with interests along these lines. We’re discussing such issues as time travel & the existence of the future, and the foundations of Quantum Mechanics & General Relativity (with the usual batch of heretical theories). Much to get philosophical teeth into !

As you will see from the conversations later in this issue, objections to putting Commensal on the WWW can be made, but not, I believe, sustained. I have as yet to received any sort of guidance from the SIGs Officer, Mike Carley, (this is not a complaint - I’m sure he’s as busy as I am !). There are also alternatives - as Rick Street suggests, eg. initiating a parallel rapid-fire venture, with a summary appearing in Commensal bi-monthly. My view on these things is that not all possibilities - bad or, I might add, good - can be foreseen at the commencement of any venture & it’s best just to get on and do it. However, as there seems to be a lack of enthusiasm on the part of these with the capacity to take part, with the exception of a late vote of confidence from new joiner John Heymer, and since I’m excessively busy, I’ll leave this one on the back burner for the time being.

No progress on this front either. The only feedback I got to the passage in C91’s editorial was a less than positive response from one of our more energetic contributors ! To my mind, this showed a lack of appreciation of the situation, so I’ve decided to excise that passage from his contribution & deal with the matter outside Commensal. I don’t believe this is the first step on the slippery slope of censorship, by the way, so no complaints please !

That said, I’ve been dilatory in progressing things with Professor Hanfling and hope to make amends shortly.

While I’m dropping names, I’d like to raise the philosophical point about co-incidences. I cannot remember Professor Anthony O’Hear being in the news before, but as soon as we mention him in these pages he gets embroiled in a controversy over the nation’s response to the Princes Di phenomenon & appears all over the papers, on the radio, and all that ! I’ve got a summary of all this in The Week (another, slightly disappointing, periodical that I subscribe to). The title of this paragraph stems, it is said, from a kindly epithet appearing in The Mirror - yet another reason for not reading that paper. It is good to read a philosophical response to a philosophical position.

I hope you’ll forgive me for including a long article on the Dead Sea Scrolls in this issue. There was space (and no whining, you "paying" members, about being charged the extra 4p). This is not really covering a philosophical issue, though I imagine we will be able to draw philosophical issues out of it - such as how do we know things about the past, how do we judge rival reconstructions and what are the respective roles of experts and amateur theorists ? Please let me know what you think, both on such issues, and on maintaining a tight philosophical focus. Much of what we discuss isn’t philosophy in any case, but we have to watch out for casually metamorphosing into a "general interest" group.

The opinion on Monthly Newsletters I’ve received so far (ie. from Rick Street) indicates a preference for the status quo. I discussed the matter with Roger Farnworth and Leslie Haddow at Braziers. Roger was strongly in favour of retaining bi-monthly issues, to provide time for reflection, while Leslie was equally strongly in favour of monthly newsletters, to provide more pace - he’d prefer more frequent, but shorter, newsletters. I must say that the majority of those who write in do so fairly soon after Commensal hits their doormats, so I expect we would have enough material for monthly newsletters. However, I suspect this would just lead to twice as much work for me. So, selfishly, I’d prefer to leave things as they are for the time being. I rely on a "fallow" month to get PhiSIGma out for PhySIG. So, bi-monthly we remain !

That said, if we are to recover our schedule (more or less maintained over the last 18 months) the closing date for submissions to the July 1998 edition of Commensal (C93) is 22nd June 1998. Hence, we’re effectively "monthly" for a month. We’ll see how this works out.

Staying in Touch

Please don’t forget that if you are a paying member and your balance falls below 60p you will stop receiving the newsletter after one reminder. Welcome back to Albert Dean in this respect !

Best wishes,

Theo