Test - do not read this post. Really. It could lead to a reply.

[bonanova]

This is a test, only a test. If this were a real post, you would be required to read it, or memorize it, or pass a test on it. Since it is a test, you have no obligation whatsoever to read it, nor will there be a test. So given all that, what seems to be inexplicable is that you are reading it anyway. So help make the world more understandable and quit reading this post. I mean now. No, really. It's pointless and time wasting, even to be typing this, and infinitely more so to be reading it. So I'm going now, for a cup of coffee. Hah! I'm back. And, what? You're still here? Still reading? Let me recommend Getting a Real Life 101, an introductory course being taught at my local community college. Sorry. That was sarcastic. Didn't mean it. You have a perfect right to waste your time. If that is even a possibility. There is a school of thought that puts forth that any human activity, even reading vacuous posts on puzzle sites has eternal consequences. Of course, there is no clue as to whether said consequences have existential import. Or any import. But perhaps the pursuit of that question in and of itself has existential import. I for one do not know the answer to that question. Nor do I have any plans to post it as a puzzle. Actually, I'm only making this post to find out whether I can attach a file to a post that is not for example a graphical image. I'm sure there may be philosophical approaches to determining this, but I am an engineer by training and an experimentalist by vocation. So I intend simply to attempt it and see what happens. There is the complication that I am a retired experimentalist, but I'm thinking that that really should not matter. The laws of physics surely did not observe my retirement, and things should be now as they were, prior to. I'm convinced of it, in fact, and I'm somewhat reassured by the likelihood that it is true. Although from another point of view it places the personal events of my life in a somewhat diminished light. It is saddening to a degree that they may have had no effect whatsoever on my world and might have generally gone unnoticed. All of this really doesn't matter however. And because of that, the question arises once more -- why are you reading this? And that answer would seem to open myriad questions about that overall state of affairs in your life. Not to question them, nor to cast even a hint of utter meaninglessness to them, for that would be unkind and presumptuous, neither or which is my purpose in writing the pointless post. Which I am once again getting around to. I'm going to go now, and attempt to attach my file. When I get back I expect you to be gone, and therefore will not write anything more..

APL Idioms.doc

There. It's attached and soon will be posted. Glad to see you've gone. See if you can decipher a few hundred APL idioms. Or, go make a contribution to society. Anything. Just quit reading this ridiculous post. Your friend, bn.

[flamebirde]

You can't make me!

[bonanova]

Apparently so. But it was never my intent. So the question arises, does that constitute failure? And by failure I mean in a restricted sense only, not in a cosmological sense. Although it may be questioned whether cosmological failure even exists ... or can exist, and the answer surely must turn on the issue of whether cosmology can be understood to have existential import regarding one's ultimate goals. Putting it another way, (Hello? Are you still reading this? Sheesh ....) does cosmology personalize to the individual, or does the individual in every case simply adapt to the cosmological imperative? And even more basically, is there a cosmological imperative, in the first place? I confess that I Googled the matter, and I'm pleased to report there is. And well so, to some degree, as it at least partially assuages a tinge of fear that my mind might temporarily have entered free-fall. And, you might ask, what, precisely is it? A question I will answer upon hearing a satisfactory explanation of your continued reading of this pointless drivel. But pragmatically speaking, no need. It's already copied to my clipboard. Thus, with minimal further effort ... have a read:

A Cosmological Imperative: Emergence of Information, Complexity, and Life

We are entering an age of synthesis such as occurs only once every few generations. The scenario of cosmic evolution now grants us an opportunity to systematically and synergistically inquire into the nature of our existence, to mount an integrated effort to build a modern world view that people of all cultures can adopt-a big-bang-to-humankind story that traces generative and developmental change ranging from quark to quasar, from microbe to mind.

And if that does not at once and forever close the matter of existential import within the arena of cosmology, I simply cannot imagine what would. Well, except, it seems, in some logic-synthetic venues, thinkers with intellects that dwarf even mine contend that the matter may not be completely closed. Really? you ask? And somewhere in the shadows Shrek is heard to reply, rilly, rilly, rilly. And since, yes, my inquiring clipboard has again captured words providing prima facie support of this startling (for some, at least) declaration, we press, in sequence, CTL-V and produce the following. to wit:

The problem of existential import

Subcontraries, which medieval logicians represented in the form 'quoddam A est B' (some particular A is B) and 'quoddam A non est B' (some particular A is not B) cannot both be false, since their universal contradictory statements (every A is B / no A is B) cannot both be true. This leads to a difficulty that was first identified by Peter Abelard. 'Some A is B' seems to imply 'something is A'. For example 'Some man is white' seems to imply that at least one thing is a man, namely the man who has to be white if 'some man is white' is true. But 'some man is not white' also seems to imply that something is a man, namely the man who is not white if 'some man is not white' is true. But Aristotelian logic requires that necessarily one of these statements is true. Both cannot be false. Therefore (since both imply that something is a man) it follows that necessarily something is a man, i.e. men exist. But (as Abelard points out, in the Dialectica) surely men might not exist?^[3]

To which I can only say, Well, I am one.

At this time I posit that no more need be said on the matter. I mean, who would augment this discussion with a reply, and why, and what, under heaven, so to speak, could be said? That answer to these final questions is left as a problem to the readers. Who, I am certain at this point, surely comprise the empty set. This last statement in no way is intended to disparage or belittle the few conceivable lost souls who, beyond all justification persist in perusing these words. In fact I was a moment ago so certain that no eyes are trained here-ward, I might -- just for the fun of it, and for the fact that I am no longer under the tutelage of an English professor nor the editor-in-chief of a professional technical journal -- yes, I was both at one point -- I might, I say, insert a misspelled word or put to playful use a malapropism or two. But in the end ... and this is in fact the end, or near to it ... I could not. Why, upon consideration of relative values viewed through the prism of the grand scope of all things, did it occur to me that I could not? Well, dear, lost and delirious reader, that is the subject of a different story. Perhaps. Or maybe not. I mean ... really ... would the world be a poorer place if that story were never written? And the empty set of present readers of this pointless tome say, in unison if not in a loud voice, Certainly not! Which makes me wonder whether an empty set of speakers can elocute their merged opinion in a manner that is not in unison? More to the point I think, though, is the question: could they do so at all?

And that surely brings us back, does it not, to the matter of existential import.

Which has been adequately treated, I believe, from the perspective of this note.

Q.E.D.

Not to worry.