Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

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agapooka
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Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

Greetings, people.

The debate is that of Wednesday. Is it 1/6th of a week or 1/7th of a week? I take the first position and this is my opening argument. Thank-you.

Wednesday is the third or fourth day of the week, depending on whom you ask. According to Wikipedian sources, certain Europeans have Monday as the first day of the week. Let us, however, look at the German word for Wednesday. They call this day Mittwoch, which literally means "Midweek" or "Middle of the Week." This is only possible within the 7 day weekly cycle if Wednesday is the fourth day. This document will therefore look at a week that begins with Sunday, where Wednesday accurately plays its role as the middle of the week.

Some may believe that by saying this I am arguing in favour of my opponent, however, take heed to this warning not to make assumptions! Do not make the assumption that all days are equal!

Is then my argument that Wednesday could be greater than other days? The theory that Wednesday is 28 hours long and Thursday is only 20 hours long has some merit and was a pioneer in this field, however it has become somewhat obsolete in light of information that provides a much more plausible explanation for Wednesday's mysticism.

Let us then start this journey at its roots. What does Wednesday mean? What are its roots? The English roots of the word are that of Wēdnes dæg, or "Woden's day." Who then is Woden? In Proto-Germanic, Woden's name is written Wōđanaz. This is also the Proto-Germanic equivalent of the Norse god, Odin. It is interesting to note that the Lombards worshipped a god, whose Proto-Germanic name is the same Wōđanaz, whose name was Godan, which may help us understand the pagan origins of the English word "god."

Odin was the head of the Norse pantheon of gods and we've named Wednesday after him. Wednesday is the middle of the week (Mittwoch), the center of attention and who is it centered upon? Odin. It is not this argument's intention to argue the existence of this god, but rather to investigate the reasons why Wednesday is given such special attention.

The following image may give us a few clues that we can then build upon in a manner that is appropriate for an opening argument.

Click to view

Odin rides Sleipnir, the 8-legged horse (and an ancient moderator of this forum)! This image gives us a few clues as to why Wednesday may be 28 hours long, but we'll have to do a bit of math. In order to do this math, we need to establish the number of completeness. The number of completeness, that is rightfully symbolic of such a deity as Odin, is 10. Odin's right leg is hidden by the horse, however, this image clearly shows two legs.

Here comes the math:
    //Evidence that 10 is the number of completeness (apart from the obvious that we have 10 fingers and ten toes)
    The total amount of legs in the above image is 10. (8 + 2)
    //Because Odin's legs are godly legs, his legs must each reflect the complete number and be multiplied by it, that is they are tenfold in value to us
    2 * 10 = 20
    //Add the legs of Sleipnir
    20 + 8 = 28

This is a bit of mathematical evidence, clearly demonstrating that Odin's day, Wednesday is worthy of no less than having the length of 28 hours.

This is the end of this opening. Auriel may now present her opening. :)

*Disclaimer: This author does not believe that Odin deserves any worship at all or that Wednesday ought to be dedicated to him. The author of this document only seeks to understand the reasoning of the worshippers of Odin and provides a detailed investigation of the reasons why Wednesday was given this apparent honour by believers in the pagan god, Odin.
Agapooka wrote:The argument that because a premise cannot be proven false, it must be true, is known as a Negative Proof Fallacy in logic.
Mister Sandman wrote:Nothing at all near the negative proof fallacy in logic. If it cannot be proven false, it has to be true.
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Re: Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

Good day, everyone.

In this enlightened debate, I will defend the position that Wednesday is in fact 1/7th of a week.

There are a few points I would like to make. First of all, I would like to define "a week". Following several historical paths in both Eastern and Western world, the 7 day week has become globally accepted as easiest solution to the complexities of maintaining a lunar calendar. (http://en.wikipedia.org/week) "Week" is defined as a fixed number of days, 7 in all modern societies. (http://www.answers.com/topic/week?cat=technology)
More importantly, we observe that days are equal in duration, thus where there are 7 days in 1 week, 1 day should equal 1/7th of that week.
I draw upon the power of King Louis XVI of France, who commissioned the International System of Units, which is closest to global acceptation as a system of units.
According to ISU, a day is defined as 86,400 seconds. Seconds are defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom. (http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/outside.html) We all trust these periods to be the penultimate constant in time-measurement, unless anyone has a better suggestion?

Having said that, we return to the issue of Wednesday being 1/7th of a week.
When all days last an equal period of time, and 7 of these equal days make for 1 week, any day of the week is 1/7th of that week. There is no circumstance under which a day of the week should have any other length than the one defined, 86,400 seconds.
Therefore, Wednesday not being any different, Wednesday is 1/7th of a week.

I trust my esteemed colleague will now form his eloquent countering. Although I sincerely doubt any substantial claims against the aforementioned reasoning can be formed. :)
Good luck.
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Re: Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

Before continuing with this debate, I would like to thank Auriel for her introduction. The truth is, however, that ISU is a voice among others, in a sea of opinions. Let me give an example.

In the Hebrew tradition, dating from Biblical times to the present, a day is defined as being a period of time starting at sunset and finishing at the next sunset. As we all know, the times of sunset and sunrise change everyday.

ISU has another opinion, that somewhere in the middle of the night (hence the term midnight) a new day starts until the following midnight. It sounds like a Santa story to me: "he comes in the middle of the night." In fact, this definition of a day is inaccurate, as is proven by the need for an extra day every four years.

In modern times, Wednesday is known by some as a bump or a hump in the middle of the week, whereafter there is relief because that milestone is in the past and one will be able to tell themselves that if they survived this far, they can survive the next half. This is, if you will, an important point when exploring mathematical and thus scientific evidence that Wednesday is longer and represents a greater portion of the week than any other day.

It is nothing but a standard distribution curve. Of an array of days, Wednesday is both the mean and the median and is therefore visited more often. It is at the peak of the curve, if you will. This may help us understand why it is viewed as a hump in the first place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wednesday wrote:An English language idiom for Wednesday is "hump day", a reference to making it through to the middle of the work week as getting "over the hump". It is also informally referred to as "the peak of the week".


The assertion that Wednesday is a period of time much like any other day can therefore only be illogical. The modern idiom that refers to Wednesday as the peak of the week is nothing but a modern interpretation of what the ancient Germanic tribes also believed when they decided to honour their most important deity with the longest day of the week. How many cultures have their pantheon seated upon the peak of a mountain? The Greeks weren't alone with mount Olympus!

The ISU has succeeded in bringing easy methods of counting distance and weight, such as in its contribution to the metric system, but it failed when it tried to force "pretty numbers" to the measurement of a the length of a day, where its opinion is nothing more than that - an opinion. Louis XVI can be remembered both as the king who created the ISU (SI) and as the king who officially lost his head.
Agapooka wrote:The argument that because a premise cannot be proven false, it must be true, is known as a Negative Proof Fallacy in logic.
Mister Sandman wrote:Nothing at all near the negative proof fallacy in logic. If it cannot be proven false, it has to be true.
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Re: Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

I wish to congratulate my esteemed colleague on the quality of his witticisms and the innovativeness of his arguments. I do however regret his decision to stake his arguments on interpretations of a long-dead culture's religion, for several reasons.

The etymology of Wednesday bears no merit to the arguments presented, as it restricts the general validity of the entire discussion, and is in fact disruptive to the "pro-1/6th-party". One cannot argue that Wednesday is the middle of the week on one hand, and on the other hand comment presented counterarguments are culturally restrictive.
By assuming a position where Wednesday is the middle of the week, numerous modern societies are excluded from the spectre of our discussion.

This quote, "This document will therefore look at a week that begins with Sunday, where Wednesday accurately plays its role as the middle of the week" restricts the discussion to a minority of societies, excludes valuable historical backgrounds (as many of these do not even agree with a 7-day-week) and is, in fact, a disqualification.

Let us for the sake of argument focus on my colleague's theory of 'Odin', 'Sleipnir', a certain amount of 'legs' and 'holy numbers'.
I concede the etymological value of Wednesday as Odin's Day. I also admit that it isn't up to me to argue the validity of Odin and Sleipnir as religious figures. It is however interesting to note that these characters would only carry meaning to a Norse-Pantheon-worshipper.
To one who does not consider the Norse Pantheon to be of any value, the entire reasoning behind Odin's holy legs and his steeds genetic variance and the relation of these to Wednesday's duration bears no merit at all.

Assuming for the sake of argument all things my valued colleague has put forth until his "math", one cannot help but wonder at his use of the number 10 for completeness. Surely, if such values can be attached to any number, an interesting thought comes up. For certain 3, 7, 9, 10, 12, 70, 77, and many more numbers can be considered "numbers of completeness" - the plurality of this invalidating the mathematics behind my colleague's argument. Consider the possibilities, when one would chose 3, or 70, as numbers of completeness.. the results would amount to Wednesday in fact lasting an entire week, or barely a few hours..

Essentially, my colleague's assumption that Wednesday is the middle of the week is so restrictive, that it robs our discussion of merit.
Secondly, my colleague's use of an ancient, dead religion is (dare I say it) sketchy.. it can hardly be considered a generally acceptable source, can it?
Thirdly, the mathematics behind my colleague's argument is, as we have seen, conjecture, disregarding any interpretation but the one suiting the outcome. It is biased mathematics.


I will leave it to my dear colleague to react to this, and I look forward to his undoubtedly eloquent and well-thought out counter.

Kind regards,
Auriel


Agapooka wrote:*Disclaimer: This author does not believe that Odin deserves any worship at all or that Wednesday ought to be dedicated to him. The author of this document only seeks to understand the reasoning of the worshippers of Odin and provides a detailed investigation of the reasons why Wednesday was given this apparent honour by believers in the pagan god, Odin.

Neither does this author.
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Re: Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

Auriel wrote:One cannot argue that Wednesday is the middle of the week on one hand, and on the other hand comment presented counterarguments are culturally restrictive.
By assuming a position where Wednesday is the middle of the week, numerous modern societies are excluded from the spectre of our discussion.

This quote, "This document will therefore look at a week that begins with Sunday, where Wednesday accurately plays its role as the middle of the week" restricts the discussion to a minority of societies, excludes valuable historical backgrounds (as many of these do not even agree with a 7-day-week) and is, in fact, a disqualification.

Auriel wrote:In this enlightened debate, I will defend the position that Wednesday is in fact 1/7th of a week.

There are a few points I would like to make. First of all, I would like to define "a week". Following several historical paths in both Eastern and Western world, the 7 day week has become globally accepted

If my argument disqualifies, I would like to propose that my esteemed colleague's argument contradicts her previous statements. Can any of it be founded? For the purposes of this argument, I shall assume a certain level of credibility, however, it is clear that she is not without clashing views.

I shall begin by pointing out that my use of an obsolete religious belief as evidence is limited to the reasoning used by the worshippers within the scope thereof. It was not rare for ancient cultures to associate supernatural beings and/or manifestations to phenomena that was, to them, inexplicable.

In terms of holy numbers, there are many, but they also have different meanings within that scope. Three is the number a trinity and is therefore present both in Christianity and in its antitheses. Seven is often representative of the "perfect number," eight is the "plus-perfect," nine is popular with the babylonian mystery religions as a mystery number and ten is a number of completeness. This last number was understood as being a number of completeness by almost anyone that looked at their hands, but also by my esteemed colleague's ISU, which is seemingly held in high regard thereby. The metric system's obsession with ten and multiples thereof is revealing.

In dealing with the other numbers, 70 and 77 simply have the common multiple of 7 and are simply not the root and cannot be used in this equation. As for 12, it is a multiple of 3. Number 9 also is, but it is three to the power of three, and so the ancient belief goes:

http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue52/mystery_numbers.html wrote:Number NINE, is all-powerful, composed of the Triple Triad, which symbolizes fulfillment and attainment, and, at times, an angelic figure. It is also an ‘incorruptible’ number signifying the limit of numbers, all others existing and revolving within it. The number NINE also interprets the beginning of the end in air and water. The ancient believers circled the altar nine times in honour of Thanatos (Death). And nine is the sign of doom from Durga, the malevolent mother goddess.


As for Wednesday being the middle of the week being restrictive, I see not how.

...the German name for Wednesday has been Mittwoch (literally: "mid-week") since the 10th Century.

The Finnish name is similar: Keskiviikko (literally: "middle of the week") as is the Icelandic name: Miðvikudagur ("Mid-week day").

Russian does not use pagan names but instead uses sredá, meaning "middle," similar to the German Mittwoch. Likewise, Portuguese uses the word quarta-feira, meaning "fourth day."

Quakers traditionally refer to Wednesday as "Fourth Day"

The Chinese use of the seven day week (and thus Korean, Japanese, Tibetan, and Vietnamese use) traces back to the 600s CE. The 28 stars were arranged in order of sun, moon, fire, water, wood, gold, earth, and every 7 days were called "qi-yao".

As we can see, even the Chinese observe a week that begins with the day of the Sun (Sunday), and therefore, the equivalent of Wednesday is also in the middle of the week. Other cultures with the same view, as expressed through their languages are: the Anglo-Saxon culture, the Germanic culture, Portuguese culture: a Romance language, the Finno-Ugric language group, which is comprised of Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian; the Sino-Tibetan language group:

Chinese (Sinitic) and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia.

Not to mention the Slavs in Russia. All these people demonstrate, through their language, that Wednesday is the middle of the week. I wouldn't call that very limiting. Wikipedia may say that today, there are cultures that view the week as beginning with Monday, but the fact that the languages say otherwise demonstrates that this is a recent change and that it is not universal. It is a recent, flawed change, that does not remove from Wednesday's true role in the week. If the names of the days of the week have shifted in recent history in some delusional cultures, it does not change the fact that the spirit of the day is thus and that it is the longest day.
Agapooka wrote:The argument that because a premise cannot be proven false, it must be true, is known as a Negative Proof Fallacy in logic.
Mister Sandman wrote:Nothing at all near the negative proof fallacy in logic. If it cannot be proven false, it has to be true.
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Re: Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

I apologise for the delay in my reply.. I fail to acquire sufficiently capable facilities that would allow for a well-formed reply to be written. As I still have not really found one, I am forced to keep to short replies that do no justice to the debate.
I would appreciate a timeout for this debate.. when I get full net-access back on my own PC I can use my notes and comments again. As it stands, I don't have those available.

Can we have a timeout?
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Re: Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

If pookie agrees.
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Re: Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

Pookie agrees. 8)
Agapooka wrote:The argument that because a premise cannot be proven false, it must be true, is known as a Negative Proof Fallacy in logic.
Mister Sandman wrote:Nothing at all near the negative proof fallacy in logic. If it cannot be proven false, it has to be true.
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Re: Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

Pookie is still waiting for someone worthy to answer, seeing as Auriel, who is worthy, seems to have taken a very long break from debating. :?
Agapooka wrote:The argument that because a premise cannot be proven false, it must be true, is known as a Negative Proof Fallacy in logic.
Mister Sandman wrote:Nothing at all near the negative proof fallacy in logic. If it cannot be proven false, it has to be true.
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Re: Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

Didn't realize we were back
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Re: Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

Bah, I'm just waiting for Auriel to respond.

She knows. I talk to her almost everyday these days.

<.<

I guess it's settled. Wednesday is longer. I win. 8)

I've waited almost 6 months for an answer, ya know. :lol:
Agapooka wrote:The argument that because a premise cannot be proven false, it must be true, is known as a Negative Proof Fallacy in logic.
Mister Sandman wrote:Nothing at all near the negative proof fallacy in logic. If it cannot be proven false, it has to be true.
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Re: Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

*bows head in shame..*
*admits defeat*

Perhaps there's a more enlightened mind in these parts who could defend the position?
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Re: Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

There's nothing to be ashamed of, Sunshine. 8)

The nickname "Sunshine" actually fits her well. She goes to bed when the sun starts shining again. That's how much she loves the sun. It has to be the last thing she sees before sleeping. :shock:
Agapooka wrote:The argument that because a premise cannot be proven false, it must be true, is known as a Negative Proof Fallacy in logic.
Mister Sandman wrote:Nothing at all near the negative proof fallacy in logic. If it cannot be proven false, it has to be true.
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Re: Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

Agapooka wrote:There's nothing to be ashamed of, Sunshine. 8)

Sunshine O_o
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Re: Wednesday - THE DEBATE!

:shock:
Agapooka wrote:The argument that because a premise cannot be proven false, it must be true, is known as a Negative Proof Fallacy in logic.
Mister Sandman wrote:Nothing at all near the negative proof fallacy in logic. If it cannot be proven false, it has to be true.
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