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Format
This format will guide the HSG systematically through the
examination of Dr. Randell Mills' theory of classical
quantum mechanics and its comparison to available data.
It will allow every list member--whether a critic, supporter
or seeker--an opportunity to participate in the most thoughtful,
scholarly fashion possible on an e-mail list. It will
also maximize quality while minimizing volume.
- Be economical with your postings. Where possible,
respond to several different articles in one post.
That way every article can be worth reading, and we don't
have a needless combinatorial explosion in the number
of messages that people have to read and respond to in
order to keep up. Try to keep it down to one post
per day.
- Do not assume that just because you have formulated
a fiendishly clever objection to classical quantum mechanics
(CQM) that there is no possible way to answer it.
If you have an objection, ask a question--Dr. Mills has
most likely been answering objections like yours much
longer than you have been formulating them. Better
yet, read the FAQ so the moderator
doesn't have to append [Read the FAQ] to your post.
- Remember that CQM attempts to mirror QM experimental
results without invoking probability waves, zero point
energy (ZPE), and other theoretical features which lie
outside of the realm of experimentation. Mills asserts
that all of the experimental evidence in
favor of QM also supports CQM. See the FAQ.
- In general, we hope to see these kinds of posts:
- Questions about aspects of the theory and
experimental reports
- Responses to questions
- Reports of independent experimental replication
attempts
- Novel theoretical developments by group
members based on CQM
- News items of interest
- Please follow the FiLCHeRS
critical thinking guidelines.
- Dr. Mills has graciously agreed to participate in HSG,
and keeping him participating is one of our main goals.
Please keep in mind that Dr. Mills is a busy fellow and
may not have time to answer your every inquiry.
Others on the list may be able to help you better.
In any case, please do not confuse thinking you have found
an inescapable contradiction within CQM with a lack of
a personal response to your inquiry.
- The contents of the FAQ are very
much fair game for criticism and follow-up questions--your
comments can only improve it.
- Theories should be judged on the basis of:
- Conformity to experiment
- Internal mathematical consistency
- Plausibility of physical interpretation
- Completeness of its description of nature rather
than some subjective personal criteria for quality.
- Debates about abstract theoretical principles far removed
from any experimentation are rarely profitable and often
degenerate into philosophical discussions of little practical
value.
Rules:
- No ad hominem (i.e. personal) attacks.
This is not Usenet.
- No tautological arguments, e.g., don't support the veracity
of one part of QM (like the probability density interpretation)
with some other related QM principle (like QM operator
mathematics which describe probability densities).
Such arguments are "not even wrong".
- No blanket statements about how everyone knows that
QM is unassailable experimentally and CQM makes no sense
at all. Such rhetorical sound bites do not help
us very much.
- All posters must have previously read the FAQ.
No one wants to see the same question posted again and
again.
- Flame wars will be unceremoniously doused.
- Circular threads will meet their ends.
- Lengthy unsupported rants or pontification (as defined
at the moderator's discretion) will be sent back for rewrite.
- "Me too" and "I don't know much about
physics, but" articles will be suppressed.
Read the FAQ and lurk.
- Off-topic articles will not be approved.
- The moderators must make judgment calls about what they
want published, and it is within their right to make editorial
decisions which you may call arbitrary. This list
is ruthlessly moderated to ensure that
- the articles do not waste your time
- Dr. Mills' time is not wasted
- If you believe you have been treated unfairly, you may
e-mail the HSG Ombudsman, Eric Krieg, at eric@phact.org,
for conflict resolution. Eric is the undisputed
king of skeptics.
identified | well-aimed
| brief | delimited
| polite | literate | edited
| clear | self-contained
| civilized
The subject line should appropriately identify your article
to allow the disinterested to skip it and the deeply interested
to file it systematically. If you digress from the
main theme of a discussion thread, change the subject line
to identify your new focus. Subject lines such as
"Various" or "Miscellaneous" are worthless;
exercise your ability to think in essentials and demonstrate
that ability to your readers. You should include
your full name (or a consistent pseudonym) in your signoff.
Not only does this offer other list members the courtesy
of letting them identify you as something other than nameless
e-mail address, but it tells the moderator that your post
was not truncated on its journey through many different
mail server gateways.
For a brief period on HSG, we required identification of
actual names and credentials. However, we learned
that people would prefer to be classified according to the
quality of their arguments rather than the authority given
to them by their educational background. One could
say Dr. Mills, who formal degrees are not in physics, could
fall into this category as well. We'll be completely
tasteless and throw in Einstein and de Broglie. Also,
some researchers may prefer to be anonymous rather than
have it known that they are participating in HSG for professional
reasons.
The original idea was to help readers decide whether or
not a given poster was credible. Unfortunately, we
learned that a PhD in physics is no guarantee of reasonableness.
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You are posting messages on a list that has more than 100
members. Your articles can be read by many, and
they can be ignored. Don't assume every member will
read everything you post. Try to submit something
of interest to more than a few list members. For example,
mere assertions--whether positive or negative--about the
value of someone else's article are best accomplished through
private e-mail or as a parenthetical comment at the end
of some other message. Remember the limit of no more
than one assessment per per person per document. If
you feel you have to do more, you are probably not focusing
your effort.
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In written communication (other things being equal), the
shorter, the better--given that you have all the data needed
to make your point. The apology "I'm sorry this
note is so long; I didn't have time to make it shorter"
is fine for private mail, but inappropriate for scientific
discussion. The longer the submission, the more time
you should have spent editing it. I suggest that you
remove irrelevant formulations with which you're in love
and save them in a private file if you can't bear to wipe
them out totally. I've been told that novelist Ayn
Rand said a good writer had to be prepared to "murder
his darlings" in removing extraneous material from
his writing.
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Try to stick to one fundamental point or theme in each
assessment. Other issues should be appropriately subordinated
to minimize digressions. It is better to focus
on either content or method--not both--when pointing out
what you believe are someone else's mistakes. Because
objective judgments of others' methods require more analytical
skills than most HSGers yet possess, because objective critiques
of others' methods require better writing skills than most
HSGers now possess, and because people are not often receptive
to criticism of their manner of thinking, your first choice
for criticizing another person's posting should be to focus
on content, not method. (For your own education, the opposite
will give faster payoff: improve your method.)
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Rude comments are inappropriate in public discussions despite
the examples set by our politicians. My suggestion
for dealing with people who are rude to you (or to others
you respect) is to ignore them. If you feel compelled
to answer them, do it by private mail. If they've
made some egregious error that you feel will mislead other
readers, write an article narrowly delimited to that error;
but focus on presenting the correct view. I believe
that intentionally rude people thrive on attention from
reasonable people. Starve rudeness by paying it no
attention. In those rare cases where it is appropriate
to respond to rudeness, address the public, not the offender,
and explicitly point out the inanities, illogic, and crassness
so strongly with such cold politeness that the offender
would not even want to show his mother what you wrote.
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Your writing reveals your thinking. Sloppy, careless
writing is indicative of an untidy mind. Grammar books,
dictionaries, and spelling checkers are easy to obtain.
Some pet peeves of mine: "loose" where you meant
"lose"; "principal" where you meant
"principle"; split infinitives. I don't
mean to be fanatical about this. A compilation of mailing
list messages is not an edited journal, nor should it be.
I've noticed typos and spelling errors in my own postings,
too; but there is a difference between not trying and not
being infallible. Literacy in the context of HSG means
taking the effort to read the assigned document and not
dropping the context that there are other intelligent list
members who have been studying Dr. Mills’ theory for years.
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As mentioned in point 3, the longer the assessment, the
more time you should have spent in the editing phase.
If it's long, have a friend read it before you ship it off
to the list. In editing, take literally the words
you've written and ask yourself if that's what you really
are trying to say. On HSG others will take your words
literally, so please think before you post.
If the article is longer than a page, you should have outlined
it first. On topics that are particularly complex,
a day's rest between drafting and editing is necessary.
Objective communication requires not dropping the context
of the reader. On HSG, that context includes the reader's
willingness to pay a price in time and effort for the privilege
of studying Mills' theory in an electronic forum.
When you disagree with someone, your default assumption
should be that at least one of you needs to enlarge your
context. Pay attention to your format, and remember
that (1) you should limit your posts to 70 characters per
line and 132 lines per post to avoid problems with older
mail gateways, and (2) you should assure that each line
in your post has a line break at the end of it. Use
white space to facilitate reading.
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Clarity should not be sacrificed for brevity. It
is best achieved by illustrating abstractions with simple
concretes. Borderline cases should be tackled only
after the straightforward ones are made clear. Using
a contrasting example also aids clarity. Clarity is
also enhanced by integration. For example, what is
the relation between your abstraction and other ones your
reader already knows? Is your abstraction making (e.g.)
a physical or a theoretical point? If it is physical,
is it more fundamental than first principles (e.g.) or is
it derivative from it?
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Articles do not get to every location in the same sequence.
Give enough contextual material to allow your reader to
know to what you are replying. But don't violate brevity, and
do not clutter a posting by including others' irrelevant
material as a pseudo-insurance against the charge of context-dropping.
Exercise and demonstrate your ability to think in essentials
by summarizing that to which you are responding. Lengthy
inclusions with ">" ( and worse: with nested
">>") should be left to the lazy and semi-literate
on other e-mail lists.
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Articles should not violate the bounds of good taste.
If your article uses language that would keep you from getting
invited back to a formal dinner party, you've gone too far.
Please do not confuse vulgarity with candor. It should
go without saying that articles should be legal. Fraud,
slander, libel and blatant copyright violations outside
of "fair use" will not be tolerated on HSG.
By the way, the law recognizes all private communications
as copyrighted by the author.
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Many thanks to Bob Stubblefield for allowing HSG
to borrow and modify these guidelines from the Objectivism Study
Group.
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