On my way to work this morning, I noticed that according to the time-and-temperature display at Toomer’s corner, the temperature in Auburn was 143°. But it didn’t feel that hot (or that cold, if it was in Kelvin).
By Roderick
On my way to work this morning, I noticed that according to the time-and-temperature display at Toomer’s corner, the temperature in Auburn was 143°. But it didn’t feel that hot (or that cold, if it was in Kelvin).
Tagged Lapsus Linguae | 13 Responses

The Empirical Me
I’m Roderick T. Long, Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University. I’m an Aristotelean/Wittgensteinian in philosophy and a left-libertarian market anarchist in social theory. (More about me here.) This blog, Austro-Athenian Empire, is a continuation of my earlier blog, archived here.
Feminism Terror Free the Earth Antiquity Can't Stop the Muzak Rand Arma Virumque Ethics Financial Saga Industriels Boring Administrative Stuff The Thin Blue Line Therapeutic State PI Complex Molinari/C4SS Praxeology Left and Right Left-Libertarian Juvenilia Humor Guest Blogs Lapsus Linguae Science Fiction Labortarian Spencer No Borders Paterson Personal IP Unethical Philosophy Science Fact Jove's Witnesses LGBT Conflation Debate Space Online Texts Anarchy Democracy Resistance Is Not Futile Cato Encyclopedia Antiracism Elseblogs Thank You Please May I Have Another
Copyright © 2012 Austro-Athenian Empire.
But then, Kelvin isn’t measured in degrees.
If that was Kelvin I don’t think you’d be alive to read the sign. Thus, we can say a priori that reading a sign saying the temperature is 143 degrees Kelvin where the sign is accurate is impossible, or another way to say it is that being in that situation is incoherent.
“I don’t think I’m alive”…”impossible”…”being in that situation is incoherent”…that’s what I kept thinking the last time I tried to watch a Michael Bay movie.
Bank time-and-temperature signs always send me into a rage. It seems they always have to squeeze just a LITTLE BIT MORE of the streaming advertising and community bullshit in there between each flash of the time and temperature, until half the time you’re already driven past it before the whole thing can cycle through. You’d think pissing potential customers off wouldn’t be a good business model for banks (well, YOU probably wouldn’t think that, obviously, since you know different).
If a hidden flying camera could follow Kevin Carson around for a week, I wonder what it would find. “Here we have Kevin Carson stopping at a red light. He briefly ponders the effects of statist, liberal, managerialist Sloanism on propping up the traffic light monopoly before the light turns green a moment later”.
It’s not really anything as well thought out as that. It just pisses me off to be inconvenienced by that kind of incompetence.
Maybe it was 14.3°C (about 58°F). It sounds reasonable to me. I’m not sure how it’s in USA but in Europe Kelvins are used only in science.
Yes but they wouldn’t be using the evil Metric system in these United States.
Roderick, is that to which the Tao refers identical with Logic? (I realize I can’t say ‘that to which Logic refers’ since it is not the function of Logic to refer)
The Tao that may be referred to as identical with Logic is not the eternal Tao.
What about the Tao that may be referred to as identical with that to which the word logic refers?
Unfortunately, the referent that may be referred to is not the eternal referent.
Does that to which we may not refer occupy the same space as that to which the word logic or Wittgenstein’s use of the word grammar refers?