matthew flaming – misc & ephemera

“This very distinguished philosophy professor came out on the platform in front of this gang of students and took a bit of chalk and scrawled up a proposition in symbolic logic on the board. He turned to the audience and said, ‘Well now, ladies and gentlemen, I think you’ll agree that that’s obvious?’

“Then he looked at it a bit more and started to scratch his head and after a while he said, ‘Excuse me!’ And he disappeared.

“About half an hour later he came back beaming all over his face and said triumphantly, ‘Yes, I was right — it is obvious!’”

A beautiful example of wordless storytelling by cartoonist Vera Brosgol. If only sentences could be so concise.

read online here

Did the early Middle Ages really exist?

This question in itself – and more so the answer ‘NO, the early Middle Ages did not exist’ – is surprising, to say the least. It contradicts all basic knowledge and attacks the historian’s self respect to such an extreme that the reader of this paper is asked to be patient, benevolent and open to radically new ideas.

Since 1998, a radical theory called the “Phantom Time Hypothesis” (PHT) has been propagating steadily through academic circles. The punchline: contemporary chronology has it wrong, and we’re currently living in (roughly) the year 1712. Although hardly credible, this is the kind of conspiracy theory (with lots of obscure footnotes) that makes my day: Umberto Eco, eat your heart out.

Also see here for a quick summary.