Notre-Dame de Paris - cathedral on fire!

[mumblethrax]

Whoever did this was into some serious black metal.

 

[sackett]

I capitalize Danish

Same as my experience. Even the worst attempt at French (je parler français comme une vache espagnole) gets a better response that starting with a slow and loud, "do you speak English?"

If I ever get to France with my gf, the only prob will be making her turn off le robinet francais. Give her .0125% of a chance and she'll hit anybody with paragraphs of garlicky-accented French.

Once in a Barcelona hotel, having no Spanish, let alone Catala, she asaulted a chambermaid with anxious French about getting our laundry back on time. She went into great detail, until the woman pityingly asked, "Do you speak English?" Ms. Chambermaid, it turned out, was from Uganda ( we tend to gravitate toward black people when abroad; more homey when you come from 'Troit), was only two weeks in-country, and had way bigger problems than learning French in Spain.

We got our laundry back in good season.

 

[Belz...]

You're saying you would prefer that people had died instead of the building burning down. I'm saying, sure if we can choose those people and they happened to be Islamic terrorists.

Well if we could choose, sure, choose the really bad folks.

 

[Belz...]

You mean you don't want to select your victims, you'd prefer them to be random? I applaud your bold choice to not choose, because it combines the elements of chaotic uncertainty with the bloodlust and human sacrifice.(...)

Yes, we're just having fun with you.

I'm still not sure...

 

[Myriad]

As an aside, I was giving evidence at a public inquiry last year (well, two actually...but that's another story) and in both cases the "Ship of Theseus" issue arose. Here it is sometimes referred to as "George Washington's Axe" or, for those Brits of a certain age, "Trigger's Broom". It's a fair point, and one oft discussed in heritage circles. At what point does the artefect being repaired actually cease to be the original article? This is one of the reasons there is a presumption of minimal intervention.

In my thinking, continued use of the artifact has weight in such an assessment. If the handle of "Washington's Axe" had rotted away and been replaced, and then the blade rusted away and been replaced, all while it was otherwise stored in a collector's warehouse, I'd be disinclined to call it Washington's Axe any more. But if the same replacements had been necessitated by wear and tear from successive owners continuing to use it to cut trees and split rails, then it doesn't seem to matter as much that the fabric has become completely non-original. There's a continuity of history that makes it still Washington's Axe, or more precisely, an axe shared by a growing group of people including Washington.

In the case of the cathedral, the fact of its continuous and ongoing usage for essentially similar purpose weighs very highly, to the point where even if it needed to undergo reconstruction so extensive that in other circumstances one would call the result a "replica" (like, say, the present-day Globe Theater), I would instead consider it the original structure rebuilt. I think that's what others are getting at too, when they say that this fire and necessary reconstruction will become "part of the [ongoing] history" of Notre Dame.

The book you referenced appears to only be available in hardcopy form. I'll see if my library system has it, or anything similar.

 

[theprestige]

Why do people keep assuming that I'd like to pick someone to die? Are you just having a bit of fun with me? Because what I said is that I'd prefer one outcome over the other. That's it.

It's much easier to trade human lives for cultural artifacts, when you can do it in the abstract.

Heaven forbid you actually ever find yourself in a position to say: "Dave, if you go in, you probably won't make it back out, but you'll save the cathedral. So... In you go!"

 

[Belz...]

It's much easier to trade human lives for cultural artifacts, when you can do it in the abstract.

Except nobody did it in the abstract. Did you even read the original post I made on this issue?

 

[Architect]

The book you referenced appears to only be available in hardcopy form. I'll see if my library system has it, or anything similar.

I have the 1999 version (in hard copy format) and it would suffice, if that's what your library system has or can get readily. There is the plain, unillistrated version online but it's not nearly as helpful for those outwith the sector.


If you can find a PDF version of BS 7913 that would probably do the job too, but I think it's less helpful.

 

[Myriad]

Except nobody did it in the abstract. Did you even read the original post I made on this issue?

I would say, rather, that it's always and constantly being done, in the abstract. Every local allocation of highway funds; every change in tax rates; every update to medical best practices; saves or protects some lives at the cost of others. It's in the abstract not because there's any doubt that lives are lost, but because we never know for sure which ones.

If you wouldn't send Dave in to save "the cathedral," would you send him in to save three lives statistically likely to otherwise be lost as indirect economic results of the cathedral's destruction?

 

[Belz...]

I would say, rather, that it's always and constantly being done, in the abstract. Every local allocation of highway funds; every change in tax rates; every update to medical best practices; saves or protects some lives at the cost of others. It's in the abstract not because there's any doubt that lives are lost, but because we never know for sure which ones.

Oh, absolutely. We always make that calculation, but we like to pretend that "nothing is worth a human life". Turns out, money and convenience are worth a human life.

My point is that I didn't discuss this. I was talking about preferences and how I value important historical artifacts.

If you wouldn't send Dave in to save "the cathedral," would you send him in to save three lives statistically likely to otherwise be lost as indirect economic results of the cathedral's destruction?

Sorry, what?

 

[Myriad]

I have the 1999 version (in hard copy format) and it would suffice, if that's what your library system has or can get readily. There is the plain, unillistrated version online but it's not nearly as helpful for those outwith the sector.

If you can find a PDF version of BS 7913 that would probably do the job too, but I think it's less helpful.

Thanks! It will probably have to wait a few weeks, but I'm interested in learning more about what appears to be in part a practical application of the most easily dismissed or maligned topic in philosophy, mereology.

 

[Dave Rogers]

If you wouldn't send Dave in to save "the cathedral," would you send him in to save three lives statistically likely to otherwise be lost as indirect economic results of the cathedral's destruction?

I haven't had the training, but I'm prepared to have a go if there's nobody else available.

Dave

 

[Myriad]

Sorry, what?

Sorry, that part of my comment wasn't directed at you, but at theprestige's response to you.

 

[Myriad]

I haven't had the training, but I'm prepared to have a go if there's nobody else available.

I believe you.

"We are simply passing through history. This... this is history." - The Bad Guy, Raiders of the Lost Ark

 

[Elagabalus]

A good question. Is the HMS Victory the original, considering that all of its parts were replaced at one time or another? Am I the Belz... who was born in the 70s, since all my cells were replaced since?...

When is a rebuild an acceptable rebuild?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mark's_Campanile#Repeated_restoration

 

[sackett]

Let's pray to jeezus & his ma that they rebuild with modern everything. Just so it comes out looking good.

Those old guys in the middle ages would bop you with a mason's hammer if you did anything else.

And I'm sorry I lived to see this happen.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Since discovering consciousness isn't steady state the question isn't just whether the axe is the axe but whether we are us. I incline to 'no'. I'm not me, and I'll be damned if any of you aren't, neither.

 

[Roboramma]

I would say, rather, that it's always and constantly being done, in the abstract. Every local allocation of highway funds; every change in tax rates; every update to medical best practices; saves or protects some lives at the cost of others. It's in the abstract not because there's any doubt that lives are lost, but because we never know for sure which ones.

If you wouldn't send Dave in to save "the cathedral," would you send him in to save three lives statistically likely to otherwise be lost as indirect economic results of the cathedral's destruction?

Well said.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Let's pray to jeezus & his ma that they rebuild with modern everything. Just so it comes out looking good.

Those old guys in the middle ages would bop you with a mason's hammer if you did anything else.

And I'm sorry I lived to see this happen.

The traditional response of medievals to a burned cathedral was to build a better one on the site. Too lazy to look up whether there were prior cathedrals on ND site, but I think Chartres and Reims were built as replacements.

 

[Trebuchet]

Depends what the asterisked word is.

Are we allowed to say "*****" on the forum?

ETA: Apparently not!