I am blogging to offer profound thanks for resolving an important philosophical question that has been heatedly debated over the years. Who even knows where the rumination began? The question raised and agonized over, lo these many years, is one that I've never read about in any philosophical treatise, and yet I have found it has applied to countless situations and conversations overheard in bars, sales meetings, web logs, political debates, etc. etc. etc.

Posit the question: Do two people who don't know what they are talking about know more or less than one person who doesn't know what he's talking about?

In your recent postings regarding credentials, trustworthiness, and comparisons to reputable auction houses, I believe you definitely answered this query and have put our debate to rest. Amazingly enough, you proved that even in a case where one person might know nothing about a subject, it is possible for two people to know even less!

One person will only go so far out on a limb in his construction of deeply hypothetical structures, and will often end with a shrug or a raising of hands to indicate the dismissability of his particular take on a subject. With two people, the intricacies, the gives and takes, the wherefores and why-nots, can become a veritable pas-de-deux of breathtaking speculation, interwoven in such a way that apologies or gestures of doubt are rendered unnecessary.

I had always suspected this was the case, but no argument I could have built from my years of observation would have so satisfyingly closed the door on the subject as your performance on the intricacies of buying art, and with your attempt to compare parkwest to Christie's and Sotheby's , and then indulge in lengthy theoretical postulations on the whys and wherefores allowed me to observe that you were finally putting this gnarly question to rest.