Science does not Make Predictions: a Platonic Dialogue by MC Complete

Daniel:  What do you think about science?  Do you believe in it?

David:  I don't believe in science.  There is no philosophical justification for science.  Science is based on inductive reasoning, which is unjustifiable.  Science is also based on memory, that is, science assumes that our memories are a reliable record of the past.  Philosophically speaking, however, there's no justification for believing our memories.  The accepted theories of the scientific community are based on countless numbers of experiments, but how do we know that those experiments actually happened?

Daniel:  In other words, science makes predictions about the future based on the past, but you don't believe in the future or the past, and therefore you don't believe in science.

David:  Cute, but crude.

Daniel:  But maybe that's only according to the conventional interpretation of science.  Maybe science can be reinterpreted so that you wouldn't object it to it.

David:  Really?  I'd be surprised.  Well, let's hear it.

Daniel:  What if you understand science as being descriptive, not predictive.  In other words, interpret science as being a description of the past, with nothing to say about the future.

David:  Well, if you say that science is about the past, then you still have the memory problem.

Daniel:  What if you understand science as not being about the actual past, but the apparent past?  In other words, what appears to have happened may not be the same as what actually happened, but science is about what appears to have happened.

David:  I hadn't thought of that.

Daniel pulls a tennis ball out of his backpack.

Daniel:  Will you hold this for a minute?

David:  What is this, some kind of philosophy experiment?

Daniel:  You know me too well.  Throw it up in the air.

David throws the ball up in the air and it drops on the ground.  Daniel picks it up and gives it back to David.

Daniel:  No, no, throw it up in the air and catch it.

David: OK...

Daniel:  Do it ten times.

David:  OK, this better be good...

Daniel:  Thank you.  Well done, well done.  Now.  Did you just throw the ball and catch it 11 times?

David:  I don't know.  How should I know?

Daniel:  But you remember throwing it and catching it.

David:  Certainly I remember it, but I don't know if it actually happened.

Daniel:  According to your memories, though, did it come down every time?  Did it ever continue into the sky, or stop and hover in midair?

David:  Sure, according to my memories, it did come down every time.

Daniel:  So you would never say, "What goes up must come down."  But you might say, "What goes up seems to have come down."

David:  Crude, but cute.

Daniel:  So every time a scientist says something like, "What goes up must come down," you just need to interpret it as "What goes up seems to have come down."  When a scientist says something like "F = (Gm1m2)/r", you just need to interpret it as "In the past, F apparently = (Gm1m2)/r".

David:  Cute.  So this is a skeptical interpretation of science?

Daniel:  Yes and no.  I'd call it a conservative interpretation, not a skeptical interpretation in particular.  It's an interpretation that even a skeptic can love.  But even a hard-core realist like your friend John can accept this interpretation.  This interpretation simply frees science from its dependency on induction and memory.  These questions become orthogonal.  Everyone can accept my interpretation of science.  If you happen to believe in induction, for some reason, so much the better, you can then take science and apply it to the future.

David:  Everyone can accept your interpretation, you say.

Daniel:  IMAO.

David:  Cute, Daniel, very cute.  I'll have to sleep on it.

consumer ballad

It's Friday and we've got a lot to do

There's brisket to braise and cholent to stew

There's parsley to soak and tea essence to brew

There's humidifiers to fill and lightbulbs to unscrew

I knew I should have listened to my guru

When he told me to beware of Orthodox Jews

But now I'm signed sealed and delivered to my Tel Aviv yeshiva

And I gotta go get some chopped liver

'Cause Friday is Abba's day at the tzorchania

No women allowed north of Carlebach

To you it may be just a hole in the wall

But it's my Chasidic shopping mall

(chorus)

Tzorchania

I'm having such a good time, I'm having a ball

Tzorchania

I'm having such a good time, don't want to stop at all

Out shopping and I'm having a good time

Out shopping and I'm having a ball

At my Chasidic shopping mall

I'm a crazy diamond

Like Paul Simon

Always parsley sage and rosemary thyming

Just in time for the last call for hala rolls
Yes sir yi yi three bags full
I'm in a river of gold like I was Billy Joel
And I feel like I'm going to lose control
I've got a shopping cart ready to reload
I'm going to go whoa whoa like it was Trader Joe's

A bottle of Diet Sprite yeah
I like to eat frozen treats that's why they call me Mr. Fahrenheit
I'm shopping at the speed of light
I'm going to buy a tout-banana candy for you
I'm shopping, I'm shopping, oy yoy yoy
I'm shopping, I'm shopping, I like it

(chorus)

Navigating the tzorchania can be complex
Because these aisles are skinnier than Slim Shady's body mass index
I feel like a Tyrannosaurus Rex in Anne Frank's annex
And I just got a call on my Nexus
My wife wants me home for breakfast in six minutes
My shopping trip is finished, but didn't I just begin it?

(chorus)

Twitter

The ceilings in the Yeshivat Har Etzion bet midrash are very high, and the windows do not have screens, at least they didn't when I was there 15 years ago, so it was not uncommon (don't tell George Orwell I just used a double negative) to see birds flying in the bet midrash.  At the time, I thought that was really cool.

One Shabbat afternoon after the shiur klali, I walked up to ask Rav Lichtenstein a question, but on the way, I stepped on something.  I looked down and I saw that it was a dead bird.  Quickly, I got paper towels, picked up the bird, and deposited it in the trash somewhere.

I think this was a big zechus for me in shamayim.  So today, when I wonder what in the world I did to deserve all the wonderful things I've been blessed with, I sometimes think of that dead bird on that Shabbat afternoon 15 years ago in Yeshivat Har Etzion.

the settlements don't make me safer

Sometimes I feel like we don't have a partner
Stay up late rereading the Hamas charter
Maybe Kahane was smarter after all
Than Rav Lichtenstein and Rav Amital
And in my dreams I still hear that call
"If we give them the West Bank, you think they're going to thank us?
Send some suicide bombs and other harmless pranks?
Import tanks from Iran?
Turn the land of Canaan into Hamastan?
It's all part of the phased plan
Don't you understand, can't you see
It ain't about the land or the sea
It's about peace with security
We all want the Palestinians to be free
But democracy is too scary
Our circumstances are extraordinary
The occupation is necessary
Apartheid?  We abhor that metaphor
Relentless struggle for peace but we're forced to choose war"
Oh yeah?  Well, I got one last question for Rabbi Raphael Schorr
What the heck are all of those settlements for?

(chorus)
This is my polemic
This is my bumper sticker
This is my attachment
Go on and double click it
This is my vanilla wafer
A treaty's just a piece of paper
But the settlements don't make me safer
They only make me sick

Now why do you look so nonplussed?
Does Israel inspire trust?
"Well, we're Jewish, so we must!"
Does Israel inspire confidence?
Is the occupation there for self-defense?
Or is it there for settlements?
'Cause the rent is too high in Jerusalem?
These are the facts on the ground and we're used to them
I just can't remember the excuse for them
I just don't understand what I read in the news
I got a bad case of the settlement blues

(chorus)

So come ride with me down Route 443
And I'll give you a lesson in political geography
Why are we occupying the West Bank, you ask?
So we can get to Modiin real real fast
But chas veshalom the Arabs should drive on their own road
If they want to get somewhere they can borrow my motor boat
I don't want to brag and I don't want to gloat
But who cares about them?  They can't even vote

I just want to end this song on a positive note
So if you feel the way I feel, I got the antidote

(chorus)

copt killer

Listen up Raboisai this is my pyramid scheme
Like something out of Bernie Madoff's wildest dreams
Stuff my message in a bottle and let it float downstream
Plague of boils and I think you'll need some vaseline
Time to garbage collect you like a virtual machine

'Cause it's survival of the fittest like the selfish gene

And even Sammy Harris knows exactly what I mean

So use your delusion like Richard Dawkins

You better read that Rashi before you start talking

'Cause tonight all the mummies in Memphis are going to walk

Here come the chorus, Pharaoh, let's rock

chorus:
Vanilla
This is my imitation
Vanilla
This is my flash animation
Vanilla
You put us on your plantation
But now I'm just in Taba for my Passover vacation

Every vilde chaya has its brain on hype
Every wild beast is a Copt killer tonight

Plague of the first born is your birthright

Plague of darkness suddenly you ain't so bright

And even at the Valley of the Kings we gon fight

'Cause denial ain't just a bloody river in Egypt

And the plague of locusts isn't a bug, it's a feature
And frogs and toads are my favorite creatures

'Cause I got more rhymes than there's modern Coptic speakers

Evil speech is my niche, good thing I don't usually practice what I preach

Or I'd wind up in a cell in a police spreadsheet

chorus:
Vanilla
This is virtual reality
Vanilla
This is poetic brutality
Vanilla
You put us on your plantation
But now I'm just in Taba for my Passover vacation

Everybody make the hieroglyphic sign
And please leave me your jewels, I'll return them in no time
Man, this Giza complex is a virtual gold mine
So take my plague of pestilence, please
Cause I think your goat's got mad cow disease
Cause tonight I'm colder than a settlement freeze
And I don't need PhD's to bury you like archaeology

Because Wikipedia is my epistemology

I ain't no Ice T, I won't make no apology
I won't wipe this song off my discography
I'll wipe Egypt off the geography

chorus:

Vanilla

This is new world order

Vanilla

Making history shorter

Vanilla

You put us on your plantation
But now I'm just in Taba for my Passover vacation

Am I too nice?  Plague of lice

Stone you with hail like I was Vanilla Ice
What you trying to be Potifar's wife?
Secretary General Ghali? Boutros twice
I do know one thing though, nations they come they go
Blood frogs lice animals pestilence
Boils hail locusts darkness yo

You lasted five thousand years but I think your time is up

I'll explicitly delete you like Bjarne Stroustrup

I don't mean to interrupt your long history

But the secret of your survival is too big of a mystery

You're like a story told by Dore Gold

After five thousand years it starts getting old

Real fast, you just ran out of gas

Your civilization is a thing of the past

Yo!  May I have the attention of the class?

chorus:
Vanilla
This is the ten plagues
Vanilla
However many it takes
Vanilla
You put us on your plantation
But now I'm just in Taba for my Passover vacation

Pesach hotel
All food Badatz Rav Landa
No matza balls
No internet
I'm just playing Egypt, you know I love you!

Clearly, the Cherubim are Cabbages

Whenever the Ark of the Covenant is depicted, the cherubim are depicted as babies with wings.  (Usually, they don't have diapers on.)  We know that cherubim have wings; the Torah talks about their wings.  But are cherubim really babies?  The Torah gives us almost no details or context about the cherubim, except for the wings.

The Rashbam says that they're birds, and he gives some proof or other.  I remember Rabbi Menachem Liebtag suggesting that cherubs are calves, although I didn't find this suggestion on his website.  I don't remember all his proofs for this, but it was part of an attempt to explain why the Jews in the desert made a golden calf, and especially why Yeravam ben Nevat made two golden calves, one on each end of his kingdom.  Rashi, for some reason, only says that the cherubim have faces of babies, but neglects to comment on their bodies; maybe because it was obvious to him that they have humanoid bodies?

Wikipedia, commenting on the "Jewish view of cherubim", notes the prophecy of Yehezkel describing "the cherubim as a tetrad of living creatures, each having four faces: of a lion, an ox, an eagle, and a man. They are said to have the stature and hands of a man, the feet of a calf, and four wings. Two of the wings extended upward, meeting above and sustaining the throne of God; while the other two stretched downward and covered the creatures themselves".  Wikipedia also notes that the modern academic Near East historians are convinced that cherubim have the body of a lion and the head of a man, like the mythical sphinx.

But let's be honest: we all know that cherubim are cabbages, just like seraphim are snakes and ofanim are chariot wheels.  The "wings" of the cherub are obviously leaves of the cabbage.  And cabbages certainly make fearful guardians of the Garden of Eden, at least when they are wielding a revolving sword.

Oh Sweet Latke

לביבה מתוקה

מתאימה לחנוכה

לביבה מתוקה

בורא פרי האדמה

כמו אוזן של המן

50% שומן

בקיטנה וגם בגן

נס גדול היה כאן

Lyrics: Oren Hatch
Melody: traditional
Note: Some latkes may not be ha'adama.  Ask your rabbi.