A conversation between a graduate student, a technician and a post-doc:
— Can you precipitate cDNA-1 for only 3 hours after RT [reverse transcriptase reaction]?
— How many cells?
— 50.
— Hmm. No, I wouldn’t do it. Do overnight. By the way, you know, some people precipitate at room temperature. I don’t believe it [the method].
— You don’t believe it?
— I’ve never done it myself.
— I’ve heard people precipitating not at −20 but at +4.
— I’ve never seen these data. You can try and tell us how it looks. But the more important part is spinning.
— For 30 minutes?
— Some people do even 10 minutes. I would do an hour if you’re worried.
Later:
— Here’s some DNAse. But you know, K. warned me it’s fragile. Be gentle with it.Oral tradition... And much of this stuff is like black magic. So much of it seems subjective, but it works. Discoveries are made. Cancer is treated much more successfully. We know so much more about brain development.
— Be gentle with it?
— Yes, don’t mix it by pipetting up-and-down. Just tap it, like you do with other enzymes for RT.
— OK, so how much do you add?
— Hold on, I have it here. [Takes the protocol for the main reaction. The notes for DNase application are hand-written on the margin.]
— Thanks. Let me copy that.
Much of it is in the books, protocols, published. But the way the information is transmitted is, at least initially, from person to person. And many of the tricks are not written anywhere. Most importantly, it’s nearly impossible to follow a protocol successfully without someone physically showing you how at least once.
I wonder if this is how the transmission of mesoira looked like.
47 comments:
Impressively enough, your post makes sense. Scary.
Scary because...?
I wasn't expecting it.
Are you scared for yourself, for me, or for the world?
Be not afraid. (And if you watched House, M.D., you’d know what this is in reference to. Not that I do. Not that I don’t.)
I won't be.
what's so soul-polluting about this post?
Is it that any mention of the development of the mesora as a historical process is asking for trouble?
I second trs' thoughts. I too wasn't expecting coherence when I saw the title of this post.
It talks about chochmas chitzoinius. So, unless you’re not in a bathroom right now (no details, please), the chaba"d of your neshama have just been metumted. Which may or may not result in your wearing denim skirts. More details here.
You guys give me too much credit. Wait, is it too little credit? Anyway, have I ever written an incoherent science post?
using ch"ch to illustrate a point in judaism does not contaminate the mind.
Are denim pants also evil? cuz that's what I'm wearing.
TRS: examples?
e: but you didn’t know I was illustrating a point in Yiddishkeit until the end. All this time your mind was being polluted, as you were genuinely enjoying my description of a conversation about lab protocols.
Re: denim: I refer you to a fascinating post on the topic. Apparently, it’s wrong, because it makes you look MO. My heard wants to agree with this logic, and my brain cannot disagree with it, because it’s too busy laughing very hard.
heart*
1. the torah is metahair your learning of ch"ch l'mafraya
2. it wasn't such enjoyable reading
I am relieved.
Actually, I guess, this is similar to my laptop (or conditional get) question. If you’re reading a book on ch"ch, at the end of which, the author uses it in an excellent way to illustrate a point of Torah, before you reached that point, is your neshama tameh?
I suppose, however, that the difference here is kavana.
Pick any random sampling of five posts, and I bet three of them are incomprehensible.
Is this a remark on my authorship or your comprehension skills?
Actually, out of my five posts, three probably have videos of something. And since you don’t watch YouTube clips, I can see why the posts make no sense to you.
Fair enough.
So much meta-commenting... Do you guys have nothing to say on the main question: is this what the mesoira looked like (more or less)? Or was it something more ruchniusdik?
Both.
Hey, CA, now that you're making sense and all, care to explain this?:
http://basementblogging.blogspot.com/2009/03/shamor-vzachor.html
and re your q- more ruchniusdik
It was really just a piece of art. I think I meant that + and − were coming from the same place (shamor v’zachor b’dibur echod), i.e., Havaya = Elokim. And that mitzva = connection to Hashem.
Oh, and that you need both + end and − end for the circuit to work, so don’t just do positive mitzvos without the negative. Or, you need a light AND a keili, i.e., Torah im derech eretz. Or something.
Although, I answered to you that power supply is not a metaphor for Hashem, so I don’t remember what I was thinking exactly.
Actually, I probably didn’t mean Torah im derech eretz. But I do now.
Is this how Rebbe Rashab felt when he was giving over S"V, contradicting what he had said in M"G?
lol! CA you don't even remember what you were talking about??
The Rebbe Rashab doesn't contradict! He's explaining it on another level, from another prespective, vechuley, vechuley...
Nu, I am on a higher madreiga than I used to be. Or lower.
And different levels contradict each other. Or would contradict if they were on the same level.
Are you saying Hillel doesn’t contradict Shammai?
Anyway, semantics.
Profound.
Also profound.
Ya I guess they can contradict but both be right.
Perhaps.
The problem with this as a metaphor is that it is developed over tens of years of trial and error - someone did it this way and it worked, so they told their friends, you get better results doing this, etc.
With Yiddishkeit, how can results be measured?
I wrapped seven circles around my arm, results were 25 percent better?!?
I am only talking about transmission. A grad student comes to the lab, he doesn’t know how to do X. How does he learn? 10% by reading a book, 90% by having someone show him and explaining what the book says (plus showing some tricks which are not in the book). And then there are different shittos.
How this information was obtained is obviously different.
(On the side, it’s an interesting question how the shittos arose lehatchilo.)
dovid: How then did it look? When the rabbis chit chatted with their students back then, what was it like?
I was disagreeing with a charactarization of mesorah as a historical process with trial and error and tweaking till you get it right. We didn't use the Yitro trial and error approach.
Its more ruchniusdik, with direct divine guidance- Moshe Rabbeinu memorizes word for word what Hashem says and then tells Aharon, etc, etc.
Achiya Hashiloni decends from on high and teaches the Baal Shem.
The Shach wakes up one morning and the halacha is explained on a paper.
Its not like the Baal Shem tried to serve Hashem a bunch of different ways until he figured out the right protocol.
Regarding 10% book and 90% mesorah, I guess you could say that. Though nowadays its probably the opposite.
So why do we, as rational people, believe such sources of information to be valid?
People assume that if you're a man of faith you are entirely gullible and ignore rational ideas. They also assume that if you're a rational person you shouldn't believe anything solely on faith.
People are wrong.
I said neither of the two assertions. Also, it depends on what one means by faith. Some people would say, Judaism has no concept of faith = irrational belief, but has a concept of faithfulness = sticking to what you know in your mind is right, even when your heart is telling you otherwise.
Alternatively, faith = trusting a source of information, even though it is beyond your comprehension. It’s like knowing that black holes exist, even though we can never see them.
But believing for no reason at all is different.
Who said to believe for no reason?
So, that’s why I am asking: what’s the reason we believe in the validity of such sources of information?
I.e., there is a clear reason why we believe in Torah in general. Revelation, Kuzari, etc. There is a good reason to believe in Oral Law. You can make a compelling argument to believe in Kabbala (sort of). All of the above is rationally based, even though some laws given at Sinai are not rationally based (which is where faith comes in.
But what’s the reason to believe in the products of private revelations?
Usually a conversation like this goes as following:
CA: Why do we believe in X?
B (believer): Why do we believe in Torah?
CA: Kuzari.
B: attacks Kuzari
CA: defends Kuzari
they go back and forth for a while
CA: so, why do you believe in Torah?
B: I just believe. Not everything is based on logic.
CA: yes it is.
B: No it’s not. Some things are just intuition.
CA: How can you live your life based on intuition?
they argue for a while
CA: stupid.
B: heretic.
they part ways
So may I assume that you don't believe in the "products" of ruach hakodesh and nevuah?
LD.
I’d say the only one I am ever skeptical about is Ramchal. And even there, not so much.
Who said the Ramchal's work was based on ruach hakodesh? He lived after the Shach and Taz.
As did Ba’al Shem Tov or Rebbe Rashab.
Ramchal was presumably taught by a “malach”.
They were neviim its different.
Oh.
They were neviim according to halachic criteria?
Also, I think that HaYom Yom refers to paskening with ruach ha’koidesh. Which I still don’t understand — isn’t it the case that every time a rav paskens, he does so with ruach ha’koidesh?
Well, since the Rebbe and Fridiker Rebbe are neviim, I assumed that their predecessors are as well.
Never thought of that. Could be that-
1. Different level of Ruach Hakodesh.
2. The Ruach Hakodesh for a rav is only manifest in paskening an actual halacha, while the Shach and Taz even recieved R"H for their works which were not Sh"ut.
Did they officially demonstrate their ability to predict future, etc.?
I suppose poskim after them were like Noideh B’yehuda said: when other Jew’s following of halacha depended on their decision, they were guided by r"h.
I assume they did.
Yup.
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