Re: Marriage is under fire!!

From: Rich Grise (null_at_example.net)
Date: 08/20/04 

Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 01:43:37 GMT

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

> Now you are backing off of what I've read from you, so that you make it
> sound we
> were talking about something else. That's not what you've been saying.
> Deal with your earlier words, Rich, and don't retreat this way by trying
> to summarize it all so reasonably.

OK, refresh my memory. There are what seems like about a half-dozen sub-
threads going on here, and I've evidently lost track.
 
> Nice tactic, Rich. But it won't work.
>
>>Of course there is no evidence, it can't be proved, and it's unscientific.
>
> I've always wondered why some people are so adamant about holding onto
> ideas they cannot even defend at all.

That's because they have some kind of emotional investment in being right,
even if they're not. I heard in AA once, "Most people would rather be
right than happy."

They're terrified that without that one thing that's giving them the
illusion of security, they'll die or worse.

> I mean, it's bad enough to only be able to manage some weakly made points.
> But to be unable to come up with any at all that can be communicated and
> to then still have the unmitigated gall and brazen effrontery to act as
> though it's an "of course" and "obvious" kind of thing is as terribly sad
> as it is gutsy.

Well, I wasn't saying too much of courses and it's obviouses, was I? Some
things are obvious to me, and not to others at all. I've been ragging on
Kevin about how it's "obvious" to him that Chinese Medicine is a load of
crap, and that sort of thing.

> Got me, Rich. I'm not terribly concerned what you believe. Especially
> those parts you aren't willing to defend with objective statements.

Maybe we should get a restart here. I claim to know stuff that other
people don't. Or, well, it's not that I know more, it's that I've learned
a different way of looking at things. A new perspective, as it were.
But it's a long way from having language that will describe it, because
the things that can get revealed aren't verbal.

I claim we're living at the fractal boundary between, say, existence
and nonexistence. All the interesting stuff happens at the edges, they
say.

And I could go on, about Divine Spirit and Divine Will, and the nature
of stuff, and bottom line, I've finally figured out how to be at peace
with myself and make it so life isn't a constant struggle.

Apparently, there really are people whose life has little or no real
hardship, or they're not presented with seemingly insurmountable problems,
and there might even be people out there who aren't dying of loneliness.

Well, life dealt me a weird hand, and I've lost a lot, but I think I've
finally got a handle on how to cheat. :-)
>
> The only turf I happen to care some about is when folks try and cloak
> their insane beliefs as being tantamount to the scientific method,

Oh heavens sakes! It's not _tantamount_ to the scientific method, it
includes the scientific method. There's nothing wrong with the scientific
method, as far as it goes. In fact, I am doing the experiment, testing my
theories as we sit here. My life is my laboratory.

And the only way to put my ideas to any kind of double-blind test is
to find somebody who : (a) understands this crap, and (b) wants to
take on some kind of "vision quest." Not many takers, so far.

Is that unscientific? Apparently so. Like I say, I've got the cure
for overweight, the cure for cancer, the cure for AIDS, and etc.,
and so on. And nobody wants to even look at how it might work. Just
by saying "it involves the release of repressed past emotions," I'm
shuttled to the lunatic fringe, I'm fantasizing, I don't know the
first thing aboutscience, and on and on and on.

> so that
> others might then imagine their nutty ideas should be thought of with
> similar respect.

It's not so much that I'd want to be "respected" for my nutty ideas -
in fact, now that I think about it, that'd be close to the opposite
of the response I'd _like_ to see. Which would be something like "where
can I find more about this?" or something like that.
>
>>Can your idol, Science, answer this question:
>>
>>How does a pile of quantum billiard-ball atoms come to contemplate its
>>own existence?
>
> Couch the question in clear, quantitative objective language and maybe
> I'll see
> if there is some source you can go to. What is a "pile?" What is a
> "quantum
> billiard-ball atom?" What is "contemplate?" What is "own?" What is
> "existence?"
>
> Science is very modest, Rich. Most of the real work is in asking the
> right
> questions. And by the time you have those pretty well worked out, you are
> only
> about 1 centimeter from the answer. Science works by moving slowly in
> these tiny steps.
>
> The really BIG questions, as I reminded you earlier about, are for the
> philosophers and religious pundits. Go ask them your vague, big
> questions. I'm sure they will have some wonderful answers for you.
>
Oh, I already have the Big answer. I'd like to see science catch a little
open-mindedness, to see if we _can_ find a way to investigate these things,
because if it turns out that my theory is true, It's got answers to stuff
like free energy, and levitation, and telepathy and other magic ***, and
possibly even FTL communication. I'm not too sure about FTL travel yet, but
I'm sure not ready to exclude anything - there's entirely too much of that
going on already!

Hope This Helps!
Rich