XPost: alt.dreams.castaneda   
   From: aon2@hotmail.com   
      
   Hi Laura,   
      
   we are talking again, nice.   
      
   > On Fri, 12 Nov 2004, Laura wrote:   
      
   > More matrix. Yay :-|... the whole matrix spiel is getting tiresome.   
   > Another rather poor hollywood excretion.. filled mostly with   
   > sophomoric brawling with a jumbled sprinkling of pop-cyberpunk   
   > philosophy.   
      
   All right then, no more movie "spiel" just "proven facts" from now on,   
   reality (show:) pure, I promise.. or at least let's see for how long   
   I'll resist the temptation. By the way, did you notice you managed to   
   hurt me big time this time round :)   
      
   > That's religion, which you are free to have, but don't confuse it   
   > with knowledge or science... Science is not meant to cover up the   
   > truth. Religion, on the other hand, claims to know the final truth,   
   > and thereby categorically denies any new information that runs   
   > contrary to it... You are no skeptic. You are a true believer.   
      
   In what? Some Words, maybe, or true Logos theories made thereof (of the   
   ultimate/divine set, combination, permutation of words:). That was the   
   cheap shot, seriously though :), are you not "true___" yourself, or   
   shall I repeat...   
      
   {..from the "new to group--with lots of questions" on dreams thread, 24   
   Oct. I'm not sure my next honesty will be appreciated :), but will   
   nevertheless share the subjective feeling with you: to me even now it   
   still feels as if talking to the same person. I could just as well   
   imagine talking to any other science apologist, Jeremy say. Do not get   
   me wrong here, I'm well aware it was Kaycee back then, a rather   
   different name from yours, and perhaps personality, but when it comes   
   to discussions it feels that way, alike. To the extent that I now   
   conjecture that the religious method wasn't in 'fact' (by its outcome:)   
   that different from the scientific one, that maybe scientists' ultimate   
   goal wasn't actually the attainment of absolute Truth, Information,   
   Knowledge (Bliss, in short:) but rather the uniformity of thought and   
   'brain' patterns.  Now back to the independent testing and verification   
   of the said hypothesis by repeating...}   
      
   ..the long listing of cherished illusions, best educated guesses and   
   truest beliefs. Surprise, surprise, but the real difficulty lies not in   
   the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones which ramify into   
   every corner of our minds. And that is what I'm going to check now, how   
   easy it could be for "a scientifically-minded person to abandon hope   
   for absolute certainty" (Kaycee:). If you manage to read to the end the   
   following list of "proven facts" (although "There are no facts, only   
   interpretations."  Friedrich Nietzsche:), a feat in itself, I'll then   
   like to hear the objective probabilities you might assign to these   
   'events'.  {That in turn were selected as part of my quest for the   
   answer to: What came first, 'spirit', 'matter' or the Word?} So here is   
   an illustrative   
      
      
   			List of modern beliefs:   
      
       In the Beginning there was:   
      
       Chance before Choice,   
      
       Body before Soul,   
      
       Matter before Mind.   
      
       The world existed long before humans came about.   
      
       It were primordial gases, dead matter first.   
      
       In fact, it is at all possible to define the word 'matter'   
       unequivocally.   
      
       And it is also possible to define 'living matter' unambiguously,   
       e.g. as just another "property" of matter.   
      
       Life and consciousness are just an emerging property of "organized   
       matter".   
      
   {Or could it rather be the opposite, "Organized matter" a property of   
   consciousness and perception. Or worse :), Any 'matter' or other Word   
   of Logos a 'property' of consciousness. Of course, feel free to apply   
   Occam's razors and such, or any other 'objective' tool/criterion   
   that'll help you select between the two on the basis of say,   
   simplicity, parsimony of assumptions.}   
      
       There is this objective application of Occam's razor.   
      
       There is such a thing in simple Nature as "unorganized matter".   
      
   {Like separate, isolated, completely independent parts, gases, chemical   
   elements pure, for the idea of scientific splitting the h/air check   
   "Derrida's philosophy of deconstruction" (a.d.c, Oct 24, 27)}   
      
       However, a dead body is still an "organized matter".   
      
       (Therefore, as such it possess its inherent, emerging property of   
       consciousness:)   
      
       In the Beginning there was nothing, no Word, not even that   
       infinitesimal singleton of infinite mass.   
      
       Then suddenly there was a Big Bang, the cunning 'point' (Word:)   
       exploded..   
      
       ..and started to expand greedily.   
      
       Gradually matter began to orginize itself, spontaneously.   
      
       Until one day eventually the miracle happened, the world saw   
       spontaneous generation from non-living objects. By pure luck then   
       dust and gases gave rise to the first simple living organism. (the   
       Darwinian common ancestor, I guess:)   
      
       Which then grew, split and started to evolve, from simple and less   
       favoured to more complex forms, until the fittest one victoriously   
       emerged from the Evolutionary Process.   
      
       Evolutionary bio-scientists can make a flea.   
      
       Moreover, random chance/mutations are for real.   
      
       Therefore :), there is pure randomness in nature.   
      
       Thus :), the theory of chance wasn't just a product of researcher   
       choice.   
      
       Probability theory and mathematical distributions are for real.   
      
       Hence :), some external entity must be making independent draws from   
       the distribution, somebody must play dice, if not God then Nature,   
       perhaps, or the Process.   
      
       In short, statistical methods are the best tool mankind has invented   
       so far.   
      
       The same goes for the scientific method, the best tool for...   
      
       Overall, notwithstanding minor misdemeanours, science has produced   
       results profitable to the human (or any other:) race.   
      
       The scientific method of having just one ruling theory (textbook,   
       fittest dogma) at a time can be best described as tolerant.   
      
       In the Beginning it was the chicken before the egg. (just checking,   
       you are not falling asleep, are you, not just yet:)   
      
       The Big Bang is known to have occurred.   
      
       Kepler's laws of planetary motions are true.   
      
       Newton's law of universal gravitation is right, his gravitational   
       force is real.   
      
       The neural network is real, or as real as it gets.   
      
       The brain mechanism is well understood, the model of the brain as an   
       electro-chemical neural network works fine, brain surgery based on   
       that scientific understanding works exactly as expected.   
      
       Dreaming too is a product of the gorgeous organ, the brain   
       performing some sort of task in order to consolidate real life   
       experiences and discard irrelevant information.   
      
       Dreams just a hippocampal activity consolidating our day   
       memories/residues.   
      
       However, Jung's Archetypes are real too, and as deeply ingrained in   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)