Levi Dalton
Levi Dalton
wow, three. 6 billion people and you've nailed down three. Bravo.
TN: Two Rinaldi Baroli and Pisca Port with Oliver
- Thread starter David from Switzerland
- Start date
wow, three. 6 billion people and you've nailed down three. Bravo.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
Is pseudo-literary inferior to pseudo-empirical?
David M. Bueker
David M. Bueker
I'm honestly not sure why I have followed this discussion through this absurd turn, but the one thing I am sure of is that it is incredibly disrespectful of David who has been a member of the on-line wine communities for as long as I can remember. He provides fascinating notes based on drinking (rarely just tasting) the wines (and if you have followed his notes, often multiple times with the same winees), and yet the focus goes to a number that he uses to merely sum up detailed descriptions. I know exactly where the disrespect is here, and it's not with David.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Giving points can't be disrespectful unless the giver of the points lacks respect. Respectfulness is an attitude, not a thing. Giving points may be misguided, but that's another issue.
The only problem with points and wine remains the view of some of the givers of them and of statisticians that one is actually assigning numerals instead of communicating via signs that happen to look like numerals. To my mind, it's not a great way of communicating, but if it works for some people, I don't see why I would deny it to them. If David's points confuse you when you try to match them up with his prose, I suggest disregarding them, as if he were trying to hum an evaluation and you didn't get it, but really didn't need to get it. If it weren't for Parker (and more recently Suckling who mixes up being and points), really who would get worked up?
The only problem with points and wine remains the view of some of the givers of them and of statisticians that one is actually assigning numerals instead of communicating via signs that happen to look like numerals. To my mind, it's not a great way of communicating, but if it works for some people, I don't see why I would deny it to them. If David's points confuse you when you try to match them up with his prose, I suggest disregarding them, as if he were trying to hum an evaluation and you didn't get it, but really didn't need to get it. If it weren't for Parker (and more recently Suckling who mixes up being and points), really who would get worked up?
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
I heard Being and Points was an early work by Jean-Paul Sartre that never really got off the ground.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Too bad. One could have sent a copy to Suckling to help him tell the difference.
Florida Jim
Florida Jim
Dave's not here.
Best, Jim
Best, Jim
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
You cause my breast to puff with pride.
But seriously, I thought you were suggesting he could mean only one person, and I was trying to broaden the field a bit. Always assuming discussion is limited to the participants here, which make up a miniscule subset of the six bill (and isn't it closer to seven now?).
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
I don't see a contradiction in a respected person having a disrespectful attitude (towards an object).
I couldn't disagree more. Everyone has made a point of saying how much they respect David's experience and words.
David M. Bueker
David M. Bueker
While simultaneously saying that he is disrespectful. You cannot have that both ways.
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
I am saying that I find points disrespectful to wine, so someone who is otherwise respectful and deserving of respect can be, in my opinion, disrespectful in that single, solitary aspect. There is nothing disrespectful of David in that.
Levi Dalton
Levi Dalton
Ah, I see. I read you wrong.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
"I don't see a contradiction in a respected person having a disrespectful attitude (towards an object)."
"Respected" is a red-herring. That describes the attitude of other people toward that person, not the attitude of the person. A person who has respect for wine cannot also be disrespectful of it. It follows that if that wine-respecting person gives points to wine he can't intend to be disrespectful and--with respect to respect--if he isn't intending disrespect, he also isn't achieving it. Again, respect is an attitude, not a quality of an action.
"Respected" is a red-herring. That describes the attitude of other people toward that person, not the attitude of the person. A person who has respect for wine cannot also be disrespectful of it. It follows that if that wine-respecting person gives points to wine he can't intend to be disrespectful and--with respect to respect--if he isn't intending disrespect, he also isn't achieving it. Again, respect is an attitude, not a quality of an action.
The whole dis-respectful to wine just sounds silly to me. It's the kind of position that someone could only have if they have never made an agricultural product.
Oh Christ, signs and signifiers, or whathaveyou. Reminds me of undergrad trying to talk philosophy with my good friend, the comp lit guy. We could never really understand what the hell the other was talking about, but we both liked alcohol and basketball.
In fact, it doesn't matter what symbols you use to represent numbers. If you use them consistently (which human beings are want to do, we are hard wired to seek patterns) and there is enough data, it can be modeled and produce a score that is predictive of perceived quality. Whether it is 93, green hearts, purple stars, or blue diamonds.
It just struck me that this whole thing is about how you explain beauty. For some of us, the striking beauty we can find in wine is irreducible. I think this is the take of the "artist types" for lack of a better term.
While I'm not a radical reductionist by any means, decomposing things into explanatory units doesn't make the whole less beautiful to me.
Then there is Joe, who thinks like I do but tries to pretend he doesn't.
While I'm not a radical reductionist by any means, decomposing things into explanatory units doesn't make the whole less beautiful to me.
Then there is Joe, who thinks like I do but tries to pretend he doesn't.
Florida Jim
Florida Jim
Well said.
Equally.
Best, Jim
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
VLM,
You're not understanding a distinction doesn't mean it doesn't exists. If I designated my preferences with a set of symbols that you couldn't do mathematical computations with (say @#$%^, or for that matter, good, very good, lots of very good, etc.), then they would give you no statistical information. I am saying those things you see that look like numerals aren't really numerals but symbols like the ones in the above parentheses. You can do computations with the numerals they look like but your computations won't have any relationship to the evaluations those symbols convey because they aren't really numerals.
You're not understanding a distinction doesn't mean it doesn't exists. If I designated my preferences with a set of symbols that you couldn't do mathematical computations with (say @#$%^, or for that matter, good, very good, lots of very good, etc.), then they would give you no statistical information. I am saying those things you see that look like numerals aren't really numerals but symbols like the ones in the above parentheses. You can do computations with the numerals they look like but your computations won't have any relationship to the evaluations those symbols convey because they aren't really numerals.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
I think we should go further and say dysrespectful to wine. They are still hammering out the DSM-V; still time to sneak it in under the rug.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
Please stop belaboring this, VLM. It's not very smart.
Or at least it takes things too seriously (though this whole thread is an exercise in that).
Respect? I don't even think of it.
Politics.* Don't think of that angle, but many people do.
I think the weird thing that stuck in people's craw w/r/t David from Switzerland was that what you could glean of his feelings for a wine from his tasting notes and the corresponding point score were out of whack. That was Eric T.'s thrust.
It's as though I wrote a pseudo-literary description of a beautiful, well-crafted wine and posted a picture of muddy gunk with dead flies in it.
*Notice the change in punctuation; it's a confirmation, rather than an interrogative.