The There There Letter: Lies, Damned Lies, and Lewis Carroll
Three things from DAH.
DAH is me, David Anthony Hance. I pen, promote, and make change (not the coin kind).
First up this week, Lies …
I promise alliteration and instead you get this? Don't be nervous. I'm not talking politics, I'm talking life. And I'm talking gentle life-lessons, books, and Alice in Wonderland. Christine and I have television series we stream when we want a comfy warm bath experience. One such series is "When Calls the Heart" (a title I can't ever recall correctly). It's a Canadian Hallmark story about a little frontier town with a handsome Mountie and pretty school teacher. It's full of gentle life lessons. The other evening we saw an episode in which a young boy told a white lie (well-intentioned) about seeing a bear. But then the lie escalated until he claimed to have scared the bear away from the town school. He was hailed as a hero and rewarded, but eventually saw the error of his ways and confessed, despite fearing that all would hate him. They didn't hate him, of course (gentle life lesson). Stretching the truth, fibbing, or white lies meant to protect feelings: it's a rare life lived without any of these.
Why People Lie
Second up this week, Damned Lies …
"Figures often beguile me," wrote Mark Twain (Chapters from My Autobiography), "particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'"
There's no evidence that British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli ever said or wrote this. But it's apropos because I've recently been reading several books about number bias, communication distortion, and means of deceit. I'm particularly taken with a very recent book (the author's final touches were in Spring 2020) by Tim Harford, How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers. There's really an eleventh rule, Harford's Golden Rule: Be Curious. Here's a realization from Harford's book that alarmed me, about biased assimilation of new evidence: "If we already have strong opinions, then we'll seize upon welcome evidence, but we'll find opposing data or arguments irritating … the more we know, the more partisan we're able to be on a fraught issue." We humans are rather difficult, aren't we?
Tim Harford’s How to Make the World Add Up
Third up this week, Lewis Carroll …
I received an Alice in Wonderland Postcrossing postcard from Portugal, which partially inspired this item. Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Generally remembered now as the author of Alice in Wonderland, he also had quite a talent for mathematics. Despite a reputation as a distracted student, Dodgson's math talent won him Oxford's Christ Church College Mathematical Lectureship, a position he held for a quarter-century. There's much of logic and rhetoric and math in the seeming nonsense of the Alice stories. A favorite scene from Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll:
'I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't — till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'
The Hidden Math Behind Alice In Wonderland
And a bit more … from Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, Fit the Fifth: The Beaver's Lesson …
"Taking Three as the subject to reason about—
A convenient number to state—
We add Seven, and Ten, and then multiply out
By One Thousand diminished by Eight.
"The result we proceed to divide, as you see,
By Nine Hundred and Ninety and Two:
Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be
Exactly and perfectly true.
"The method employed I would gladly explain,
While I have it so clear in my head,
If I had but the time and you had but the brain—
But much yet remains to be said."
And that's all for this week.
From Mary Oliver's poem "Sometimes" …
DAH is me, David Anthony Hance. I pen, promote, and make change (not the coin kind).
First up this week, Lies …
I promise alliteration and instead you get this? Don't be nervous. I'm not talking politics, I'm talking life. And I'm talking gentle life-lessons, books, and Alice in Wonderland. Christine and I have television series we stream when we want a comfy warm bath experience. One such series is "When Calls the Heart" (a title I can't ever recall correctly). It's a Canadian Hallmark story about a little frontier town with a handsome Mountie and pretty school teacher. It's full of gentle life lessons. The other evening we saw an episode in which a young boy told a white lie (well-intentioned) about seeing a bear. But then the lie escalated until he claimed to have scared the bear away from the town school. He was hailed as a hero and rewarded, but eventually saw the error of his ways and confessed, despite fearing that all would hate him. They didn't hate him, of course (gentle life lesson). Stretching the truth, fibbing, or white lies meant to protect feelings: it's a rare life lived without any of these.
Why People Lie
Second up this week, Damned Lies …
"Figures often beguile me," wrote Mark Twain (Chapters from My Autobiography), "particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'"
There's no evidence that British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli ever said or wrote this. But it's apropos because I've recently been reading several books about number bias, communication distortion, and means of deceit. I'm particularly taken with a very recent book (the author's final touches were in Spring 2020) by Tim Harford, How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers. There's really an eleventh rule, Harford's Golden Rule: Be Curious. Here's a realization from Harford's book that alarmed me, about biased assimilation of new evidence: "If we already have strong opinions, then we'll seize upon welcome evidence, but we'll find opposing data or arguments irritating … the more we know, the more partisan we're able to be on a fraught issue." We humans are rather difficult, aren't we?
Tim Harford’s How to Make the World Add Up
Third up this week, Lewis Carroll …
I received an Alice in Wonderland Postcrossing postcard from Portugal, which partially inspired this item. Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Generally remembered now as the author of Alice in Wonderland, he also had quite a talent for mathematics. Despite a reputation as a distracted student, Dodgson's math talent won him Oxford's Christ Church College Mathematical Lectureship, a position he held for a quarter-century. There's much of logic and rhetoric and math in the seeming nonsense of the Alice stories. A favorite scene from Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll:
'I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't — till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'
The Hidden Math Behind Alice In Wonderland
And a bit more … from Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, Fit the Fifth: The Beaver's Lesson …
"Taking Three as the subject to reason about—
A convenient number to state—
We add Seven, and Ten, and then multiply out
By One Thousand diminished by Eight.
"The result we proceed to divide, as you see,
By Nine Hundred and Ninety and Two:
Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be
Exactly and perfectly true.
"The method employed I would gladly explain,
While I have it so clear in my head,
If I had but the time and you had but the brain—
But much yet remains to be said."
And that's all for this week.
From Mary Oliver's poem "Sometimes" …
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
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