[r-t] Falseness (was Re: The null change

[Don Morrison]

On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 6:21 AM, John Harrison <john at jaharrison.me.uk> wrote:
> Was that before or after Richard Smith's paper 'Shades of Truth', which
> when I read it moons ago seemed a coherent summary of the issues, and which
> is somewhere on the web.

I believe, but may be mistaken, that the discussion preceded it, and
the subsequent discussion of Richard's 'Shades of Truth' (which I
believe started life as a contribution to this list) was a sort of
follow-on to that discussion, about a year later. And further the
basic premise of 'Shades of Truth' may have been inspired by an
observation Iain made in that earlier discussion. The whole truth
discussion itself was, I think, part of a larger discussion started by
an attempt to recast the decisions of the Council by Philip Earis,
responding (I think) to a challenge from Graham. Oh, and, in going back
and skimming the archives to try to ascertain these things, I see the
Matthew instead was a active participant in the discussion, answering
my own implied question.

While I've had a fuzzy notion of how cyclic this discussion is,
skimming the archives does make concrete how amusingly like that
previous discussion this one is. Many of the same ideas, just back in
new clothes. Sadly I think there is less participation by some folks
who had interesting things to say before; I suspect they largely
remain exhausted and uninterested in repeating what they've said
before since it essentially led nowhere. On the other hand, this time
around we do seem to be being at least a little more focused (hard to
believe, I know) and converging to some interesting near-consensus
views. Whether to anything beyond that, of course, is unclear.

If anyone is interested in having a look themselves, the archives are
at <http://www.bellringers.net/pipermail/ringing-theory_bellringers.net>.
The discussion appears to begin in August 2008, though, of course, it
didn't just spontaneously arise and so can be viewed as a sort of
follow-on to some discussion in July or even earlier. I think it
really is worth a look through. Many folks, most still active in
this list, had a lot of worthwhile, deeply considered things to say.

Apologies if I've misstated any history or people's involvement. As
I said, I only had time to skim things lightly.



-- 
Don Morrison <dfm at ringing.org>
"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and
that which is done is that which shall be done: and there
is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof
it may be said, See, this is new?"