XPost: alt.philosophy, alt.atheism
From: fleetg@newsguy.spam.com
On Wed, 05 Apr 2006 19:23:48 -0700, "David V."
wrote:
- Refer:
>Michael Gray wrote:
>> On 5 Apr 2006 06:21:35 -0700, "Chameleon" wrote:
>>
>>> Michael Gray wrote:
>>>
>>>> "Joseph H" wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Michael Gray wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> "Joseph H" wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Truth has no legs. It doesn't run. It has no
>>>>>>> narrative. It doesn't stir the heart. It doesn't
>>>>>>> insist or demand. It doesn't dream. It has no form
>>>>>>> or beauty. It doesn't offer hope or redemption. It
>>>>>>> has no flags or anthems. It has no symbols.It
>>>>>>> doesn't market itself well. It just is.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I bet you are the life and soul at parties!
>>>>>
>>>>> To equate a man's beliefs, or lack of beliefs, with his
>>>>> personality is somewhat trite, is it not?
>>>>>
>>>>>> (Ah, I see, you are a "philosopher". That explains
>>>>>> your absolute statements of quite unsupportable and
>>>>>> erroneous personal opinion, as though they were
>>>>>> somehow universal immutable facts.)
>>>>>
>>>>> I thought I was making a quite reaonable point: that the
>>>>> creations of the human mind, driven as they are by
>>>>> considerations of form or hope or entertainment or
>>>>> salvation, are innately more attractive than mere
>>>>> iterations of the truth.
>>>>
>>>> Hold everything Dick Tracy!
>>>>
>>>> Examples please. You can clarify what you are driving at
>>>> with simple examples. You could be referring to a zillion
>>>> things, some combinations of which contradict your
>>>> assertions outright, some that fit in correctly, and the
>>>> bulk of them in-between, thus rendering your above
>>>> statements quite useless.
>>>
>>> You want a zillion examples? All the holy books of the world
>>> which depict in hyper-realistic mode myriads of miracles and
>>> hosts of hopes for our future well-being; all the novels and
>>> myths and epics and sagas and wandering tales since the
>>> beginning of time which give credence to heroic deeds and
>>> happy endings; all the...
>>
>>
>> Are you Chameleon, or Joseph? It makes no difference, as your
>> above reply is not English. I consider my skills at grammar
>> and parsing to be well above average, but I cannot make
>> "head-no-tail" of your word soup. I can only assumed that this
>> is a defence tactic of Philosophers.
>>
>> I cannot comment, other than to say that my request for
>> clarification resulted in nonsense jibberish.
>>
>> I get the very strong feeling that you are "having me on".
>>
>>
>>> But, really, I would've thought the contention was
>>> self-evident. The human mind, guided by principles of form
>>> and beauty and happiness and hope, possesses charm to soothe
>>> those of us - i.e. all of us - who find reality dispiriting
>>> and grim.
>>
>>
>> More non-English.
>>
>>
>>> Nothing revolutionary there - except that the saying or the
>>> seeing of it might be revolutionary.
>>>
>>>> Examples please, so that I can nail down what it is that
>>>> you are attempting to say, with some greater clarity.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I see this as a problem for humanity. Our creations
>>>>> determine and colour so much of our existence - our
>>>>> beliefs, our attitudes, our outlook, our responses to
>>>>> others. If a creature has the constant capacity to
>>>>> create a sustainable - though ersatz - reality that is
>>>>> far removed from the actual state of affairs then that
>>>>> creature runs the risk of never really facing reality.
>>>>> My counters to that risk would be (a) to strive to
>>>>> create a depiction of reality that would satisfy the
>>>>> various human needs for form and satisfaction and (b) to
>>>>> insist that reality offers the hope of such a
>>>>> resolution.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am sure that you are quite certain in your own
>>>>> self-effacing way that this is all wrong.
>>>>
>>>> I cannot extract any coherent meaning from it, taken as a
>>>> whole, so am unable to judge it's correctness.
>>>
>>>> (You also need to define "reality", and "truth", amongst
>>>> other things. I am a scientist, and so those words have
>>>> very strict meanings to me, in Relativistic Quantum
>>>> Mechanics even more so, and your definition of what you
>>>> mean by these terms may wish to take this into account.)
>>>
>>> To seek to define reality is to seek to impose a very
>>> limited form of words - themselves mere constructs - upon
>>> the vast complexity of existence. Indeed, the insistence on
>>> such definitions is part of the falsification I speak of.
>>> Reality is independent of our definitions. Matter exists;
>>> the universe exists; energy exists; earth exists; life
>>> exists; human beings exist. Our knowledge of all of these
>>> entities and locations is increasing daily. The question of
>>> the existence of the reality of which we are a part should
>>> not delay us. The quest for further knowledge of this
>>> reality is another matter. My contention is that (a) in our
>>> ignorance and in our eagerness for meaning we imposed
>>> categories on the unknown flux of existence and (b) that
>>> even if in some near future time we might claim to know most
>>> of what there is to know about the conditions of existence
>>> we would still find the creations of the mind inherently
>>> more attractive than lumpen reality. But - and this, I
>>> suppose, is what I'm coming to - as we go on to create a
>>> global enfranchised society, one in which the individual
>>> will have more and more freedom and opportunity, it is
>>> surely important that we can agree on certain fundamental
>>> precepts about existence; it is important that we can agree
>>> on a narrative that will enable us to share meaning with
>>> each other (instead of, as we do now, lapsing back into
>>> ancient nationalisms and religions). To do this we will need
>>> to learn how to present reality - i.e. what we are, how we
>>> evolved; what we can do etc - in a manner that will appeal
>>> to all the people of the globe.
>>
>> Are you able to respond coherently and clearly? If not, you
>> may consider our interaction closed. --
>
>I could have told you. The guy substitutes verbiage for intelligence.
You might have done so earlier, and saved me some unnecessary typing!
His so-called "sentences" don't even scan.
A computer driven "philosobot" does much better.
They seem no more than textual soup that has been regurgitated.
I feel ashamed for having been "taken in" by such a transparently
juvenile waste of time as he.
What is it with these people?
It is a crying shame that they have nothing better to do than continue
the "schoolyard bully" career that they dreamed of, but did not gain
the requisite pathetic skills to execute, (until the age of 46).
--
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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