[Sca-cooks] Questions on theory and proof

Daniel & Elizabeth Phelps dephelps at embarqmail.com
Mon Feb 8 19:50:24 PST 2010


Regards:

In determining the limits of what we don't know we can on
occasion deduce where we need to look or, more to the point,
how to go about looking.

Was written:

I guess that's where you lose me ... From my perspective, there *are* no
limits on what we *don't* know, that realm is pragmatically infinite.

Hmmm... you speak in the absolute and I speak in the specific.  I suggest a 
less than perfect specific circumstance.  Lets assume that we want to know 
the properties of a period or near period liqueur, a samboca/ouzo/araka 
perhaps.  We know what it should taste like based on descriptions but that 
is not the same as the proof of tasting.  What we want is a period example 
preserved and waiting for us.  Where to look?  Where to look?  Some place 
that an example might have been carried sealed and lost but under conditions 
where it would be preserved and in such circumstances that we would find it 
but they would not.  The answer?   A famous lost shipwreck found by modern 
methods and recovered from the deep with artifacts intact.  The Vasa is such 
an example and behold a sealed flask was found there in.

Not a perfect example but the only food based one I could think of off hand.

Daniel




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