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--- parn:dilzio [2013-04-23 12:56] – [Interview featuring three patabotanists] nik
+++ parn:dilzio [2013-04-23 13:02] – nik
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 --tritar
+====The fallacy of misplaced intangibility====
+Wed Oct 03, 2012 3:35 pm
+It is not the place here to present a rigorous critique of the prevailing viewpoints we have frequently encountered while engaged in our researches in this dimension. But there are certain apparent biases in humans that are so baffling we cannot let them pass without at least some further if desultory remarks.
+In short, it seems that the fallacy of misplaced intangibility is at the root of a good deal of misunderstanding between humans, plants, and us. Theorists and philosophers here have come up with the notion of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness to describe what they variously call fetishism, animism, homeopathic magic, or even by extension such practices as cargo cults.
+This position is articulated in a most outspoken way by the author of an otherwise remarkable tome of some antiquity on this world, whose position statement on magic can be found in full here http://www.bartleby.com/196/5.html, and which may be summed up in his emphatic declaration that "magic is a spurious system of natural law as well as a fallacious guide of conduct; it is a false science as well as an abortive art."
+The fallacy is, however, not one of misplaced concreteness, but its opposite, and it is exactly this that makes it so difficult for plants to understand humans or communicate with them - and of course for the representatives of our own patabotanical guild as well.
+I was going to say more but it will just turn into a rant from here on, so enough said.
+--armormin
+----
+Wed Oct 03, 2012 3:40 pm
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+--doorknob199
+====Cargo cult interior design challenge I - biotech equipment====
+Tue Oct 02, 2012 4:46 pm
+Trismegisto has returned with a whole van-load of peculiar apparatuses acquired from a recent auction held by a biotech company after it went bankrupt. He's added these to his growing hoard of scientific instruments - many of them found mouldering away in the basement of a local university. (His research assistant had to be bribed, because he claimed that in order to take these apparatuses he would need to orchestrate a midnight raid on the university, effectively breaking and entering. Apparently it seems we can't simply ask the university directly to lend us equipment that they don't even use.) We can only find space for these often enormous and clumsy machines in the labyrinth of disused rooms connecting to the Snoepwinkel through the one window opening onto the loft of plant meditation. This is also a cause for some concern, as these rooms are leaky and dilapidated, their walls and floors often close to collapse. Clearly Trismegisto is becoming impatient to advance his work in the most direct (and sometimes unsubtle) manner, inspired by a previous frenetic burst of research into the archaic technologies of this world (some of his notes on this can be found here).
+He has set up an entire rig of interlinked machines and is constantly making forays deeper into the abandoned rooms of the building where our lab is, assembling and disassembling devices, cords, tubes and pipes. Sometimes he can even be seen furtively crawling out of a manhole across the street; no doubt he's discovered underground catacombs in which he has expanded operations. However, nothing seems to be working properly. He is often heard muttering that the machines are "apparatuses of metamagical torture," and that the software they run on has been "coded by drunken mountain apes with delusions of grandeur." Again and again, he expresses the profoundest scepticism that the original purpose of these devices was to interface with biological organisms in some way.
+This extreme disillusion has fed tensions between Trismegisto and his research assistants. Not a day passes without heated arguments; these arguments often lead to fits of screaming and the assistant being quite literally ejected from the Snoepwinkel in tears of frustration. And yet today one such argument took a dramatically different turn. The assistant was trying to explain for the hundredth time that just because a machine looks somewhat like one that can be found in our dimension doesn't mean that it works the same way, and ended up screaming that Trismegisto was "nothing but a downright cargo cultist!" The rest of us thought this would be the cue for his instant ejection, but instead Trismegisto's face lit up and suddenly he asked if the assistant wouldn't like to elaborate on his idea over a drink. Flabbergasted and confused, the assistant nevertheless reluctantly agreed.
+--eleq
+====Harvest Fest preserves====
+Fri Sep 28, 2012 12:46 pm
+The patakitchen was transformed into a distillation laboratory for unusual essences, the last taste of summer in this autumnal hemisphere preserved in oil. I worked all day gently distilling and brewing four interesting essences which were then taken and shared at the Harvest Festival with the help of some dedicated and assiduous assistants (who also helped carefully label and explain each preserve to fascinated passers-by).
+These were the four recipes:
+  * Beetroot for its earthy taste
+  * Green coriander (rather than the dried seeds - an experiment)
+  * Pepper with ginger
+  * Plums with ginger (plums with garlic would have been interesting, but Armoracio was sceptical…)
+{{120922-170817.jpg}}
+--andemica
+====Saracenia====
+Fri Sep 28, 2012 12:13 pm
+Someone wrote a meticulous but incomplete name tag on one of the species we are investigating. There are some details I need to confirm, as I believe they could be inaccurate. For example, does anyone know which "endangered habitat" is referred to in the label of this specimen of Arschia beluaiz? This plant actually seems to have started a process of aggressive mutation while held in captivity, though it is quite incorrect to report it as being "97% Zamzia."
+{{8032303621_81a7179457}}
+--cerhy