[reeve]

I thought Kuhn's view would be that as long as you approach the onsight from a new set of fundamental principles then you are free to claim the onsight, but the validity of your whole ascent may be questioned by later generations 

[Jaspersharpe]

It will be anyway, especially if you leave the first three bolts preclipped.

[Sloper]

I thought Kuhn's view would be that as long as you approach the onsight from a new set of fundamental principles then you are free to claim the onsight, but the validity of your whole ascent may be questioned by later generations 

Kuhn was a filthy relevistic top roper who'd claim the onsight of a neighbouring line on the basis that he recognised the fundamental principles and how their were understood and from that the inference was that he'd climbed the route.

Si O'Connor basically followed a similar approach, although his swans were photoshopped into black and white.

Anyway Kuhn's premise was that the move toward web based media and the consumpion of it is different from a real experience hence the 'onsite' (sic) not blowing the onsight.

PS I hated reading and applying Kuhn etc with a passion so this might all be total bollocks

[mrjonathanr]

Correctly using the term 'onsite' gives you an immediate 'pedant point' - congratulations !(Sadly UKB has a binary option only - as befits t'interweb I suppose, so you got a 'wad point' instead.)

Kuhn - go on don't keep me guessing: Alfred or Thomas?

Although Escher can be helpful in examining the 'Si O'Conner Fallacy'  the usual point of reference in this case, 'The Scott O'Connor Postulate' [viz 'if some really big numbers are said to be pulled down in a plantation when there is no-one there to witness, can we believe the event occurred in fact?'] is perhaps more illuminating:

"…For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things first ascents without any relation to their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligible. Their esse [to be] is percipi [to be perceived] " [ Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Bouldering Knowledge, 1710 ]

Subsequently re-articulated by Husserl as 'No witness no [wad-] point' in Logische Untersuchungen following his fabulous 1900/01 winter season in the Frankenjura, although regrettably the rigour of his methodology has been woefully abandoned by later devotees, notably Bocke, M....blah blah blah....