Stephen Hawking...Intelligent Design?
monkeyhawk
Same old same old, near as I can tell.
And I got to wondering, "Why?"
I am most certainly no expert on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (other than
it's known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," and Lou should've seen in coming), but
it seems that most people who contract the condition die within a few years
of diagnosis.
So what's the deal with Hawking?
For sure, he's been the beneficiary of tremendous advances in science and
technology which allow him to continue with his largely-cerebral work,
something that the "Iron Horse" couldn't take advantage of in the 1930s.
But plenty of people have been stricken by the disease (disorder?
syndrome?) and haven't survived months, much less the decades that Hawking
keeps working his advancements (near as I can tell) in his specialty.
Near as I can tell, Hawking today is a carcass supporting a brain. Near as
I can tell, that's what all of us are. The only difference is some of us
carcasses are supposed to catch touchdowns and hit doubles into the gap and
some of us carcasses are supposed to look sexy in front of a movie camera.
Some of us carcasses are supposed to be able to type up stories that will
captivate the human minds. But most of us carcasses are here only because
of what happens in that meat brain between our ears. And Hawking becomes a
role model.
If any of us who aspire to be professional story-tellers were reduced to
communicating to the outside world the way Hawking has been so limited,
would we tell better stories? Be more honest in our analysis? Smarter?
More selfish? Have more insight?
There have been science-fiction postulations of a future world of human
immortality that's reduced to a computer-like cogniscance of reality that
transcends the weaknesses of the flesh. Is Hawking a prototype of what
humanity will become?
Is he, in some strange misdirection of what we consider "human life," a
prophet for what -- say, in a couple of thousand years, like those
"prophets" of the Old Testament, et al -- humanity is destined to become?
Joe Myers
"I just got to wondering."
ov...@aol.com
Stephen Hawking. They drive to work, sit at a desk, drive home, and sit
in front of the tube. On the weekends they sit and read, sit in the
theater, sit in the sports stadium, sit in the restaurant. Their main
variation is when they lie down and sleep.
Then there are other people who get so much joy from using their bodies
that they'd never willingly become just a basket for their brain. It
would take a catastrophe for the whole human race to willingly
relinquish the use of the body.
Lois
RonB
So, you got something against robots? What are *they* going to do if we
do their thinking and their moving about and doing things?
(Some people are just *so* selfish!)
--
RonB
"Son, could you hand me that soda, I... can't... quite... reach it."
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
news:drgt3d$48p$1...@reader2.panix.com...
>
> Is he, in some strange misdirection of what we consider "human life," a
> prophet for what -- say, in a couple of thousand years, like those
> "prophets" of the Old Testament, et al -- humanity is destined to become?
>
> Joe Myers
> "I just got to wondering."
The easierst -- and probably most accurate -- answer to Hawking's endurance
is "magic." But it also has to do with involvement. He is intensely
involved with his work, and that, all by itself, can keep people going when
facing incredible odds.
And then there's one other point to consider. More than any other living
being on this planet, he knows how the universe works. So maybe he's tapped
into something...? '-)
And he once worried about whether he had passed his Mensa admissions test...
LOL!!!
Caroline
ora...@aol.com
> So I got to surfing the web and wondered how Stephen Hawking's doing.
>
He aint playing MURDERBALL. www.murderballmovie.com
Oranse
monkeyhawk
>> Is he, in some strange misdirection of what we consider "human life," a
>> prophet for what -- say, in a couple of thousand years, like those
>> "prophets" of the Old Testament, et al -- humanity is destined to become?
>>
>> Joe Myers
>> "I just got to wondering."
>
> The easierst -- and probably most accurate -- answer to Hawking's
> endurance is "magic." But it also has to do with involvement. He is
> intensely involved with his work, and that, all by itself, can keep people
> going when facing incredible odds.
>
> And then there's one other point to consider. More than any other living
> being on this planet, he knows how the universe works. So maybe he's
> tapped into something...? '-)
Semi-regularly I check out James Randi's web site. I'm as big a skeptic as
anyone and really admire Randi's work.
And, still, I wonder.
The so-called "Idiot Savant" phenomenon (I guess it's "autistic savant,"
these days for the sake of political correctness) defies skepticism. As
tired as the cliché of blind people having super-attenuated other senses,
there seems to be something that might support the theory that the autistic
somehow are focused on *one* thing rather than having their brain powers
disseminated on all things, as most of us are.
I'm well-convinced that most self-ordained "psychics" are bunk.
But I'm skeptical enough of my own prejudice to admit the possibility that
somehow, some way, they may have a modicum of ability to see or perceive
stuff that most of us overlook.
Hawking's situation is remarkable in that his ALS took away from him almost
nothing that's important to his being. Technology supplants his inability
to talk and write and move. The only thing that's really important to him
is to think. Virtually every other person afflicted with ALS focuses on
what they're losing; Hawking has been almost *liberated* by the
meaninglessness of his body's incapacity.
If you believe that the human is the highest form of life, it's got to be
based on the meat brain between our ears.
The cheetah is faster, the gorilla is stronger, the giraffe is taller. All
we've got in the competition is an opposable thumb and a brain made of meat
that might be able to figure out what it's all about. (And, to be honest,
the raccoon has almost as good a thumb.)
Ya think?
> And he once worried about whether he had passed his Mensa admissions
> test... LOL!!!
Joe Myers
"The people of Mensa are stupid."
A New Dawn
> Near as I can tell, Hawking today is a carcass supporting a brain. Near as
> I can tell, that's what all of us are. The only difference is some of us
> carcasses are supposed to catch touchdowns and hit doubles into the gap and
> some of us carcasses are supposed to look sexy in front of a movie camera.
> Some of us carcasses are supposed to be able to type up stories that will
> captivate the human minds. But most of us carcasses are here only because
> of what happens in that meat brain between our ears. And Hawking becomes a
> role model.
>
> If any of us who aspire to be professional story-tellers were reduced to
> communicating to the outside world the way Hawking has been so limited,
> would we tell better stories? Be more honest in our analysis? Smarter?
> More selfish? Have more insight?
>
> There have been science-fiction postulations of a future world of human
> immortality that's reduced to a computer-like cogniscance of reality that
> transcends the weaknesses of the flesh. Is Hawking a prototype of what
> humanity will become?
>
> Is he, in some strange misdirection of what we consider "human life," a
> prophet for what -- say, in a couple of thousand years, like those
> "prophets" of the Old Testament, et al -- humanity is destined to become?
>
> Joe Myers
> "I just got to wondering."
Heavy shit to consider, and very eloquently put in writing...
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
> almost nothing that's important to his being. Technology supplants his
> inability to talk and write and move. The only thing that's really
> important to him is to think. Virtually every other person afflicted
> with ALS focuses on what they're losing; Hawking has been almost
> *liberated* by the meaninglessness of his body's incapacity.
What I find fascinating is the "holographic" (for want of a better word) way
that Hawking thinks. I've been an admirer of Hawking for a long time and
even had a girlfriend in El Paso who had studied with him and whom I pumped
for information, so don't ask me about my information sources because I
can't remember (I absorb pertinent information and drop the rest along the
road). Hawking thinks dimensionally in pictures the way an artist would.
He sees a black hole in his mind, same with the universe, or an atom, or
whatever he's working on. Although he knows full well how to state things
in the language of mathermatics, he doesn't do his primary abstract thinking
that way. If my understanding is fairly on the mark, you might even say he
thinks in movies. Or at least that's what I heard somewhere along the way.
I do recall hearing another cosmologist talk about the way Hawking thinks,
and he said Hawking is the only scientist he knows of who thinks that way.
That others, himself included, have to do their deep cosmological thinking
in front of a blackboard, or with pen and paper, because they write out
their line of logic in the language of mathematics, much the same way that
we, as writers, write out compound sentences, then read back to see if we've
stayed on track. I found the whole concept fascinating, because graphic
arts was my "first language," and that's very much the way I think.
As for Hawking's staying power, we are hardly at the edge of learning what
kinds of "self direction" the brain is capable of. I recently read/heard
that our body is even capable of changing things about us at the chromosomal
level. Then some research facility spent a fortune (probably government
funds) developing a deep sea diver video game for children who have
extremely painful conditions to see whether "distraction" is a valid way to
manage pain. And of course it is. I could have told them that for free!
As I age, I'm beginning to realize that most older people die of ostracism
because society denies them so much, including the right to contribute, so
they just wither up and cease to be. In Hawking's case, he is nestled in a
cradle of nurturers who don't dispute his validity as a thinking person.
That's a critical survival factor for those who are ill or aging..
>
> If you believe that the human is the highest form of life, it's got to be
> based on the meat brain between our ears.
Actually, I don't believe the human is the highest form of life. I think
the universe is. '-)
>
>> And he once worried about whether he had passed his Mensa admissions
>> test... LOL!!!
>
> Joe Myers
> "The people of Mensa are stupid."
Oh, I don't know. The annual membership in Mensa (requires an IQ in the
98th percentile or higher) is forty, fifty bucks. The annual membership in
Triple Nine Society (requires IQ in the 99.9th percentile or above) is only
ten bucks if you don't insist on a hard copy of their journal. Now, Mensa
has to at least be smarter when it comes to generating income.
ov...@aol.com
> Hawking's situation is remarkable in that his ALS took away from him almost
> nothing that's important to his being. Technology supplants his inability
> to talk and write and move. The only thing that's really important to him
> is to think.
Which of course brings us back to Teri Schiavo (sp). If we can't
explain Hawking, how does anybody know for sure that Teri wasn't also a
fully-aware mind trapped in an unresponsive body?
Lois
nmstevens
The same way we know that she doesn't currently have a fully-aware mind
trapped in a dead body -- or that she doesn't have a fully aware mind
trapped in the fucking ashes if they cremated her.
Hawkings' body may be a wreck, but the disease he suffers from doesn't
affect the brain -- which is where the "mind" is.
Take an EEG of Hawkings' brain and you get results that indicate that
he has a perfectly fine, fully functioning mind. Take an MRI of his
head and you can see a physiologically intact brain inside.
They did those things with Terry Schiavo and every test that took
indicated that she had a bowl full of mush where her brain used to be.
Maybe if we were to extract your brain, run it through a blender and
pour the puree'd results back inside your head, you'd still have a
fully functioning mind.
But not if the brain is the organ of thought and sensation. If it is
(and it is) once that's gone -- no thoughts, no sensations.
Brain gone in Hawkings? Nope, brain fine. Thus Hawkings' thought
processes are fine, despite the degeneration of his body.
Brain gone in Terry Schiavo? Yup -- mush in the head and a bunch of
pathetic relatives using her body as a living ouija board (Oh, she
twitched, that must mean that she supports Bush's agenda in Iraq).
As to why he's lived as long as he has with the disease? Who knows?
Lots of degenerative diseases (and other diseases as well) progress at
very different rates in different people.
The same chromosomal abnormality produces Downs Syndrome in everybody
that's got it -- but within that there is a broad range, from people
who are only mildy affected to others that are severely, even lethally
affected. Why? Who knows? When we learn more about how genetic factors,
both normal and abnormal, express themselves, we might find out.
There's a tendency to fill in areas that we don't understand with magic
-- that is, bullshit.
But Hawkings isn't still around because of magic, and Terry Schiavo,
sans brain, wasn't able to think by way of magic either.
NMS
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
<ov...@aol.com> wrote in message news:drif6u$enp$1...@reader2.panix.com...
It's not a question of whether Terri Schiavo had an alert mind, or even her
level of awareness. It's more a question of what she was enduring *IF* she
had any awareness of her situation. To me, it's far more of a question of
communication, because the ability to communicate with peers is what makes
life interesting. I've probably shared this story here before, so forgive
me if I'm repeating myself, but I once had a post stroke patient in Ohio,
who was transferred to the psychiatric ward as soon as she came out of coma.
One of the first things she did was call for her attorney to instruct him to
change her will. She then disinherited all of her children. While she was
comatose, they had held discussions in front of her about pulling the plugs
on her life support systems before her hospital bill ate up any more of the
family fortune, and bickered about who would get what. They talked as
freely as if she were already dead.
It is not at all unusual for people in coma to be fully aware of what is
going on around them. They just can't speak or move. So quality of life is
the question. Not level of consicousness. Can you imagine being in a
comatose state, yet being fully aware that your nose itches but you have no
means to scratch it yourself, nor any way to ask someone else to do it for
you? That itchy nose swells to become your whole realm of consciousness,
indeed your universe, and it's driving you nuts!. Or even though you're
comatose, someone has thoughtfully turned on the TV for you and you're
intensely interested in what's being discussed. Then another well meaning
person comes into your room and turns the TV off becaue they think it may be
disturbing you. You can't ask family members who they're talking about, you
can't tell a nurse your IV hurts and needs to be relocated, you can't ask
someone to close the blinds because the sun is hurting your eyes. I realize
that Terri Schiavo was not fully comatose, but had severe brain damage. And
the latest technology in studying the human brain says she was far from
operating at full capacity.
I'm the first to admit that we do not even come close to understanding
"consciousness," but to me being in Terri Schiavo's situation is absolutely
hell on earth. *IF* she was aware of her state. And that's the primary
difference between Terri Shiavo and Stephen Hawking. He can communicate
clearly and eloquently. He can tell people when his nose itches, and he can
tell all of us what's going on inside a black hole. The difference between
them is night and day.
Caroline
GrassDog
He sees a black hole in his mind, same with the universe, or an atom,
or
whatever he's working on.
I do recall hearing another cosmologist talk about the way Hawking
thinks,
and he said Hawking is the only scientist he knows of who thinks that
way."
Both Einstein and Feynman thought this way, if I recall from reading
their auto- and non-auto biographies.
I once had a theoretical physicist PhD guy for a housemate who thought
in pictures. He'd stare at a blank wall for hours, then scribble the
math on a blackboard. Smoked about a pack of cigarettes an hour and not
once noticed he was smoking. He was often surprised to find himself in
our house. He'd come out of his long trances and say things like "Whoa,
when did I get here?"
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
"nmstevens" <nmst...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:drihed$cka$1...@reader2.panix.com...
>
>
> There's a tendency to fill in areas that we don't understand with magic
> -- that is, bullshit.
Well, uh... Gosh, Pilgrim, if it ain't magic, what would you call it? '-)
Caroline
Paulo Joe Jingy
nmstevens wrote:
> They did those things with Terry Schiavo and every test that took
> indicated that she had a bowl full of mush where her brain used to be.
Horseshit.
That's what some of the liars who wanted Terry Schiavo dead claimed.
It had nothing to do with reality.
Which is exactly why the judge who made it his life's work to see that
Terry Schiavo was dehydrated to death, steadfastly refused to accept
the findings of "competent" doctors who disagreed with him. The judge
relied almost exclusively on one doctor who has a proven death
fixation, who writes books and goes around the country speaking about
how "wonderful" ending life is. For the record, this is the same
doctor who has made at least one mistaken diagnosis that a former
police officer was irrevocably "brain-dead" and convinced that police
officer's wife to seek to end her husband's life. The former police
officer is now recovering. So naturally the judge who wanted Terry
Schiavo dehydrated to death would take, as his "medical authority", the
word of a proven fuck-up doctor who claim's he can hear the people he
helped "release" from life "thanking him".
But even the doctors the judge agreed with claimed Terry Schaivo was
"brain-damaged" not "brain-dead". Brain-damaged does not equate with
"a bowl full of mush".
Although I do agree that Terry Schaivo's injuries had no correlation
with the condition Stephen Hawking is in.
nmstevens
The Ancient Greeks had no idea what the real cause of lightning was.
That didn't constitute an argument in favor of their being flung from
Mount Olympus by an angry Zeus.
NMS
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
"GrassDog" <ste...@m2.spacelan.ne.jp> wrote in message
news:driicr$i26$1...@reader2.panix.com...
>
> Both Einstein and Feynman thought this way, if I recall from reading
> their auto- and non-auto biographies.
I hadn't heard this before. Thanks for sharing!
>
> I once had a theoretical physicist PhD guy for a housemate who thought
> in pictures. He'd stare at a blank wall for hours, then scribble the
> math on a blackboard. Smoked about a pack of cigarettes an hour and not
> once noticed he was smoking. He was often surprised to find himself in
> our house. He'd come out of his long trances and say things like "Whoa,
> when did I get here?"
>
LOL! You're having a fun life! '-)
Caroline
mary...@rcn.com
Paulo Joe Jingy wrote:
> But even the doctors the judge agreed with claimed Terry Schaivo was
> "brain-damaged" not "brain-dead". Brain-damaged does not equate with
> "a bowl full of mush".
>
> Although I do agree that Terry Schaivo's injuries had no correlation
> with the condition Stephen Hawking is in.
While I agree with all of the above, I wouldn't be in a hurry to pull
anyone's plug. As a friend of mine said, "The first million years
you're dead are just the beginning."
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
Well, Zeus ("Zefs" in modern Greek) is who they attributed it to. Maybe
Aristotle didn't, but John Q. Dimosios certainly did. "Magic" is what we
call those scientific phenomenon we don't yet understand.
Which brings up a curious idea I've been thinking about lately. Tis the
season of static electricity, so... What did the ancients think about
static electricity? They certainly had plenty of means of building static
electricity in their bodies, then ZAP! They touch someone after dark and a
teeny weeny bolt of lightning lights up the cave and flies between them and
they both squeel "Ouch!" Or whatever their ouch-equivalent was.
Which also brings up a parellel question about language... I was brushing
up on African click languages this morning; those ancient languages with
"double consonants." One theory is that in one of the two ancient click
languages, the click was used to sort of neutralize forbidden words. And
that made me wonder how a linguistic group develops "forbidden" words?
Maybe forbidden words were anything you said when your body discharged
static electricity? '-)
Caroline
nmstevens
Paulo Joe Jingy wrote:
> nmstevens wrote:
>
> > They did those things with Terry Schiavo and every test that took
> > indicated that she had a bowl full of mush where her brain used to be.
>
>
> Horseshit.
>
> That's what some of the liars who wanted Terry Schiavo dead claimed.
> It had nothing to do with reality.
Well, I'm not sure what "reality" you think you live in -- I suspect
it's one that substantially at odds with the real world in a number of
ways.
I also don't know if you read the full decision of the final appeal --
the one that was turned down.
I have, and I suspect that if you'd read it, you wouldn't be making the
kinds of statements you make below.
More than one judge was involved -- the case made its way through
numerous appeals -- and that means numerous *panels* of judges
evaluated the evidence -- not just one judge with an axe to grind.
Over the course of the litigation, no less than three separate
"guardians ad litem" -- that is, individuals appointed by the court to
represent the interests of Terry Schiavo, were appointed, the last one,
attorney Jay Wolfson, M.D. at the specific request of Jeb Bush.
All of them supported the conclusion that ending her life support was
appropriate.
> Which is exactly why the judge who made it his life's work to see that
> Terry Schiavo was dehydrated to death, steadfastly refused to accept
> the findings of "competent" doctors who disagreed with him.
Those quotes around "competent" are amply justified.
And did all of the judges on the various appeals courts also make it
"their life work" to kill Terry Schiavo? Did all three of the
court-appointed guardians?
Oh. Of course -- it was a grand "pro-death" conspiracy.
The judge
> relied almost exclusively on one doctor who has a proven death
> fixation, who writes books and goes around the country speaking about
> how "wonderful" ending life is. For the record, this is the same
> doctor who has made at least one mistaken diagnosis that a former
> police officer was irrevocably "brain-dead" and convinced that police
> officer's wife to seek to end her husband's life. The former police
> officer is now recovering. So naturally the judge who wanted Terry
> Schiavo dehydrated to death would take, as his "medical authority", the
> word of a proven fuck-up doctor who claim's he can hear the people he
> helped "release" from life "thanking him".
Really? Maybe you should have let the appeals court know about that.
This is quote from the decision:
Theresa Schiavo's case has been exhaustively litigated, including an
extensive trial, followed by another "extensive hearing at which many
highly qualified physicians testified" to reconfirm that no meaningful
treatment [*18] was available, and six appeals. As the Florida Second
District Court of Appeal stated, "few, if any, similar cases have ever
been afforded this h ei g h t en ed l ev el of pr oce s s . " Schiavo
VI, 2005 WL 600377
One judge? One doctor?
Get your facts straight.
>
> But even the doctors the judge agreed with claimed Terry Schaivo was
> "brain-damaged" not "brain-dead". Brain-damaged does not equate with
> "a bowl full of mush".
At autopsy, her brain was found to have degenerated to the point where
it weighed only 615 grams -- that's half normal. The rest of the skull
was full of spinal fluid.
Here's some more:
"After her death, Schiavo's body was taken to the office of the medical
examiner for Pinellas and Pasco counties. The autopsy, led by Dr. Jon
Thogmartin, occurred on April 1, 2005. Thogmartin also arranged for
specialized cardiac and genetic examinations to be made. The official
autopsy report[58] was released on June 15, 2005. Examination of
Schiavo's nervous system revealed extensive injury. The brain itself
weighed 615 g, only half the weight expected for a female of her age,
height, and weight.
Microscopic examination revealed extensive damage to nearly all brain
regions, including the cerebral cortex, the thalami, the basal ganglia,
the hippocampus, the cerebellum, and the midbrain. The neuropathologic
changes in her brain were precisely of the type seen in patients who
enter a PVS following cardiac arrest. (That is, Persistent Vegatative
State) Throughout the cerebral cortex, the large pyramidal neurons that
comprise some 70 percent of cortical cells-critical to the
functioning of the cortex-were completely lost. The pattern of damage
to the cortex, with injury tending to worsen from the front of the
cortex to the back, is also typical. There was marked damage to
important relay circuits deep in the brain (the thalami)-another
common pathologic hallmark of PVS. The damage was, in the words of
Thogmartin, "irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would
have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."[59] Dr. Stephen J.
Nelson, P.A., cautioned that "[n]europathologic examination alone of
the decedent's brain - or any brain for that matter - cannot
prove or disprove a diagnosis of persistent vegetative state or
minimally conscious state."[60] The vegetative state is a behaviorally
defined syndrome of complete unawareness, to self and to environment,
that occurs in a person who nevertheless experiences wakefulness. As
the condition is defined in clinical terms, it can therefore only be
diagnosed in persons who, at some point, are shown to meet those
clinical terms. Ancillary investigations, such as CT scans, MRI, EEGs,
and lately fMRI and PET scanning, may only provide support for the
clinical impression-as might the pathologic findings, after death. In
the case of Terri Schiavo, seven of the eight neurologists who examined
her in her last years stated that she met the clinical criteria for
PVS; the serial CT scans, EEGs, the one MRI, and finally, the
pathologic findings, were consistent with that diagnosis."
Gee -- SEVEN of the eight neurologists who examined her determined that
she was PVA -- that is, *completely unaware of herself or her
environment.*
i.e., brain = mush.
And let's guess whose parents number eight worked for?
And yet, according to you, it was just this one killer quack plus a
death-dealing judge (and let's not leave out her husband who wanted to
kill her for her money, or so that he could marry, or because he'd
actually been responsible for her injuries years before or -- fill in
whatever other looney-tune bullshit you want) who were responsible for
it all.
In addition, the damage to the vision centers of her brain made it
*impossible* for her to have seen.
Thus the claims, on the part of her parents, etc., that she recognized
them by sight, responded to their presence, etc. -- are, to put it
kindly, nothing but fantasy.
You, and a great many other people, are desperate to turn this into
some sort of evil conspiracy.
It wasn't. The court appointed her husband as guardian. He took care of
her for years, but when it became clear that there was no possibility
of recovery or improvement -- when it became clear to every non-addled
brain on the face of the earth that Terry, in fact, was gone, except in
technical sense, he opted to pull the plug.
When the family objected, the court appointed THREE independent
guardians. They all concurred. Pull the plug.
Even when the governor of Florida, the president, and the Congress
stuck their noses in -- on the side of keeping her intubated, the final
court of appeal ultimately threw out the request for an injunction --
on the grounds that the case in question could not succeed on its
merits.
You may not approve of it. You might not want it done to you -- but
that's your business. When an issue is brought before the courts, it's
decided on matters of law -- and legally, there was no basis for
continuing Terry Schiavo existence in the face of her legal guardian's
decision.
If you want to be kept pumping with your brain permanently checked out,
go for it. Let your nearest and dearest know about it and so long as
the insurance money pays, they'll keep you breathing.
But the reality is, as far as you are concerned, lying in bed -- you'll
never know one way or the other.
NMS
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
<mary...@rcn.com> wrote in message news:drilv9$fnf$1...@reader2.panix.com...
Time is relative. I suspect that, *if* Terri Schaivo had any concept of her
situation, a year in that condition could well be like a million years in
the afterlife...
Caroline
Unless reincarnation is true.
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
Time is relative. I suspect that, *if* Terri Schaivo had any concept of her
Paulo Joe Jingy
nmstevens wrote:
> Paulo Joe Jingy wrote:
> > nmstevens wrote:
> >
> > > They did those things with Terry Schiavo and every test that took
> > > indicated that she had a bowl full of mush where her brain used to be.
> >
> >
> > Horseshit.
> >
> > That's what some of the liars who wanted Terry Schiavo dead claimed.
> > It had nothing to do with reality.
Sorry, Neal, you gave up your right to the "high ground" and to be
sanctimonious when you used the unscientific and inaccurate term "bowl
of mush" to describe Terry Schiavo's condition.
> The judge
> > relied almost exclusively on one doctor who has a proven death
> > fixation, who writes books and goes around the country speaking about
> > how "wonderful" ending life is. For the record, this is the same
> > doctor who has made at least one mistaken diagnosis that a former
> > police officer was irrevocably "brain-dead" and convinced that police
> > officer's wife to seek to end her husband's life. The former police
> > officer is now recovering. So naturally the judge who wanted Terry
> > Schiavo dehydrated to death would take, as his "medical authority", the
> > word of a proven fuck-up doctor who claim's he can hear the people he
> > helped "release" from life "thanking him".
>
> Really? Maybe you should have let the appeals court know about that.
Or maybe, you and the appeals court could spend three fucken seconds
and do a Google search -- you think?
Schiavo's 'Dr. Humane Death' Got 1980 Diagnosis Wrong
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
April 12, 2005
(CNSNews.com) - A neurologist hired by Michael Schiavo to confirm that
his wife Terri was in a persistent vegetative state said he was "105
percent sure" of that diagnosis, but Dr. Ronald Cranford expressed
similar certainty about a patient he examined in 1980 who later
regained both consciousness and the ability to communicate.
Three days before Terri Schiavo's death, Cranford appeared on the MSNBC
talk program, "Scarborough Country," to discuss her condition. Cranford
was interviewed by reporter Lisa Daniels.
DANIELS: Are you 100 percent correct in your opinion that Terri Schiavo
is in a persistent vegetative state? Do you agree with that?
CRANFORD: I am 105 percent sure she is in a vegetative state. And the
autopsy will show severe irreversible brain damage to the higher
centers, yes.
DANIELS: Why are you so sure, doctor?
CRANFORD: Because I examined her ...
Cranford - who is assistant chief in neurology at the Hennepin County
Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minn., professor of neurology at the
University of Minnesota Medical School and a faculty associate at the
university's Center for Bioethics - went on to call another neurologist
who disagreed with his diagnosis "a charlatan" and accused Daniels of
being "stupid."
Host and former U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough interrupted to defend
Daniels, touching off a clash with Cranford, which included the doctor
admonishing Scarborough with: "You've got to get your facts straight."
Cranford also certain, but wrong about 1980 diagnosis
Cranford expressed similar certainty about another patient he declared
to be in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) in 1980, former
Minneapolis Police Sgt. David Mack.
''Sergeant Mack will never regain cognitive, sapient functioning,''
Cranford said six months after Mack was shot while serving a search
warrant on Dec. 13, 1979. ''He will never be aware of his condition nor
resume any degree of meaningful voluntary conscious interaction with
his family or friends.''
Based on Cranford's unequivocal diagnosis of Mack, the officer's
relatives removed him from a respirator in August 1980 "because his
family felt he should be allowed to die rather than exist in such a
state," according to published reports.
But Mack did not die.
On Oct. 22, 1981, 18 months after Cranford declared Mack's case
hopeless, doctors at the advanced care facility where Mack was being
treated noticed that he was awake. The Associated Press described
Mack's recovery.
"A policeman considered 'vegetative' after being shot in the head in
1979 has come out of his coma and, although doctors caution he may
never recover fully, he is spelling out some of his desires: 'TALK.
WALK. SKI. DOG,'" the news report stated, explaining that someone would
point to letters displayed in alphabetical order on a board while Mack
nodded "yes" or "no" until the correct letter was reached.
Asked how he felt about his recovery, Mack smiled and spelled out
"SPEECHLESS!"
"Doctors say Mack has recovered about 95 percent of his intellectual
capabilities," the news account continued, "and can understand
everything said to him."
Mack's wife, Marlies, said her husband could initially respond only by
taking a deep breath in response to a doctor's request.
"Then his eyes started following hand movements," she continued. "He
got better and better, but it was slow."
Cranford insisted at the time that his initial diagnosis was correct.
"There is no doubt in the world that he was in the persistent
vegetative state," Cranford said of Mack in a 1981 interview. "He had
no interaction with the environment."
In an interview last week with Cybercast News Service, Cranford
acknowledged a "mistake," but maintained that his original assessment
of Mack was accurate.
"At the time I said that, he was in a vegetative state," Cranford said.
"But, I did make that misstatement about Sgt. Mack and I was wrong and
I did make a mistake in that case."
Cranford argued that Mack's case is different from Terri Schiavo's
because a CAT scan of Mack's brain showed no atrophy, while Schiavo's
CAT scan showed severe deterioration.
"We learned something very valuable," Cranford said. "If you have a CAT
scan on a patient that you think is in a vegetative state and it does
not show progressive atrophy within six to 12 months, then you might
want to reconsider the diagnosis."
Making absolute diagnosis 'not totally responsible'
Dr. David Stevens is a physician and medical ethicist who serves as
executive director of the Christian Medical Association. He believes
there is a different and more important lesson to be learned -- that
"being an absolutist" when making a medical diagnosis based only on
observation and opinion "is not totally responsible.
"Unfortunately, oftentimes, medical opinions can be 'flavored' with the
individual's own worldview and preconceptions," Stevens said. "And, in
Dr. Cranford's situation, I think, though he accuses others of that, he
is guilty of the same thing.
"He is a 'right-to-die' proponent. He believes there are people who
have lives not worthy to be lived, and those lives should be ended,"
Stevens continued, "and that colors him and his medical opinions. And
examples of that are overstating the case to assure that people's
feeding tubes are removed."
Cranford said that he has "never been a member of any organization
that's primary purpose was to advocate active euthanasia because I'm
not that supportive of active euthanasia."
However, he joined the board of directors of the Choice in Dying
Society, an organization created when the Society for the Right to Die
and Concern for Dying merged in 1991. Research by Cybercast News
Service shows that both of those groups had previously changed their
names to remove the word "euthanasia" in response to negative
publicity.
Cranford also told reporters in 1991 that he wanted to be known as
"Doctor Humane Death." He has since publicly claimed to have
facilitated the deaths of between 25 and 50 disabled patients by
removing the feeding tubes that provided their nutrition and hydration.
PVS diagnosis 'based on probabilities, not absolutes'
The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) defines a "persistent
vegetative state" as a condition that appears within one month after a
brain injury and in which the patient shows:
* No evidence of awareness of self or environment and an inability
to interact with others;
* No evidence of sustained, reproducible, purposeful, or voluntary
behavioral responses to visual, auditory, tactile, or noxious stimuli;
* No evidence of language comprehension or expression;
* Intermittent wakefulness manifested by the presence of sleep-wake
cycles;
* Sufficiently preserved hypothalamic and brainstem autonomic
functions to permit survival with medical and nursing care;
* Bowel and bladder incontinence; and
* Variably preserved cranial nerve (pupillary, oculocephalic,
corneal, vestibulo-ocular, gag) and spinal reflexes.
The academy also states that "recovery of consciousness from
post-traumatic PVS after 12 months in adults and children is unlikely.
Recovery from non-traumatic PVS after 3 months is exceedingly rare."
AAN guidelines finally explain that the diagnosis of a "permanent
vegetative state" is, "as with all clinical diagnoses in medicine,
based on probabilities, not absolutes."
Stevens said that last criterion is the main problem with the types of
absolute statements made by doctors like Cranford when giving a PVS
diagnosis.
"With persistent vegetative state, that diagnosis is based upon an
observation and an opinion," Stevens said. "The diagnosis itself
carries with it a prognosis -- in other words, that people are not
going to recover, that this is permanent and that, therefore, you can
do things like were done with Terri Schiavo, where her feeding tube was
removed.
"A number of cases have shown this not to be the case," Stevens said.
"The one that [Cranford] was involved in is a good example of that, but
there are other cases as well, where patients thought to be in a
persistent vegetative state have then recovered, some of them quite
significantly."
Cybercast News Service found more than two dozen cases where published
news reports document patients diagnosed as being in a persistent or
permanent vegetative state, or coma "waking up," including:
* Recovery after three years - Marcello Manunza suffered a brain
injury during a car crash in November 1987. In July 1990, relatives
noticed that he was following them around the room with his eyes and
appeared to be trying to read encouraging signs that had been placed in
his nursing home room. Within days he was able to eat, control the
movement of his limbs and speak;
* Recovery after seven years - Hawaii resident Peter Sana lapsed
into a coma after contracting meningitis, an inflammation of the
membrane that encloses the brain and spinal cord. He was in a Honolulu
nursing home in September 2001 when he began responding to commands
from nurses. Sana's father visited him every day during the seven
years. His caregivers credit visits by family members with giving Sana
the will to wake up;
* Recovery after eight years - The first thing Conley Holbrook said
after rousing from a PVS in 1991 was "Momma." He then identified the
two men who had beaten him unconscious with a log on Nov. 27, 1982.
Holbrook awoke while he was hospitalized for pneumonia; and
* Recovery after 18 years - In 1983, Patti White Bull of South
Dakota was diagnosed as being in a coma or PVS due to complications
from a Caesarean section. Two months later, her husband and other
family members removed her from life support. On Christmas Day 1999,
White Bull woke up and asked to see her children. A day later, she was
walking around her nursing home room with assistance.
A 1996 study published in the British Medical Journal found that 43
percent of patients in the United Kingdom thought to be in a PVS had
been misdiagnosed. Of the 40 patients whose cases were reviewed, 17
were later found to be "alert, aware and often able to express a simple
wish."
A 1993 study of 49 patients found that 18 of them, or 37 percent, "were
diagnosed inaccurately.
"Errors in diagnosis may result from confusion in terminology, lack
of\super \nosupersub extended observation of patients, and lack of
skill or training in the assessment of neurologically devastated
patients," according to the study, published in "Neurology," the
journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Stevens said this is all the evidence that should be needed to call for
a higher standard when it comes to diagnosing a patient as being in a
persistent or permanent vegetative state.
"Unfortunately, right now, it's a circular diagnosis," Stevens
explained. "Doctors who are advocates for it are willing to state
absolutely that a patient is in PVS and then, when the patient comes
out of PVS, then they use circular reasoning and say, 'Well, then they
weren't in it at all.'"
Cranford admitted that a positron emission tomography, or PET scan,
could have been conducted to confirm or disprove the diagnosis in the
Schiavo case. The test measures the metabolism of the cerebral cortex
and patients in a verifiable PVS typically have less than 50 percent of
the PET scan activity of a healthy brain.
"The only reliable PET scan in the country that could do this would be
in New York City. And had I known this case would have gone to this
point, I would have advocated that (PET scan) three years ago during
the evidentiary hearing," Cranford said. "But we never knew Congress
would get involved."
Cranford said he also did not recommend the test because he believed
that neither Terri's husband, nor her parents would want her moved to
New York City. That explanation troubled Stevens.
"If you cannot make a firm and absolute diagnosis, you shouldn't make a
firm and absolute decision about what you're going to do with those
patients based on that diagnosis," Stevens said.
The Christian bio-ethicist also believes that the circumstances under
which a patient, like Terri Schiavo, can be denied nutrition and
hydration should be much more limited.
"We must have clear, compelling and written evidence that that is the
patient's desire before that is removed," Stevens argued, adding that
allowing such decisions to be made based on hearsay testimony creates
the potential for conflicts of interest, especially when those
testifying stand to gain financially from the death of the disabled
individual.
Even when such a written directive not to use a feeding tube to keep a
patient alive exists, Stevens argued that the physician's ethical
responsibility continues.
"The critical issue is that, if you do not put a feeding tube in, you
must, you must offer food and water by mouth," Stevens said. "If you
don't do that, it's not the disease that kills the patient. It's you
that kills the patient.
"That was the big ethical issue, the most foundational issue in the
Terri Schiavo case," Stevens said. "That is like not only taking
someone off a respirator because it's futile, but also, at the same
time, removing all of the oxygen from the room.
"Your intent is not to remove a burdensome therapy," Stevens concluded.
"Your intent is to remove a burdensome patient."
mary...@rcn.com
Paulo Joe Jingy wrote:
> The Christian bio-ethicist also believes that the circumstances under
> which a patient, like Terri Schiavo, can be denied nutrition and
> hydration should be much more limited.
He calls himself a Christian? All I can say is: Christ Almighty.
Please.
>
> Even when such a written directive not to use a feeding tube to keep a
> patient alive exists, Stevens argued that the physician's ethical
> responsibility continues.
And the pro-death doctor gets to play God. Talk about power.
>
> "The critical issue is that, if you do not put a feeding tube in, you
> must, you must offer food and water by mouth," Stevens said. "If you
> don't do that, it's not the disease that kills the patient. It's you
> that kills the patient.
So let's call it murder, okay? It's not like she signed a waiver, or
asked for a lethal injection. She was clinging to life as best she
could.
>
> "That was the big ethical issue, the most foundational issue in the
> Terri Schiavo case," Stevens said. "That is like not only taking
> someone off a respirator because it's futile, but also, at the same
> time, removing all of the oxygen from the room.
They sent her to the vet's, to be put to sleep.
>
> "Your intent is not to remove a burdensome therapy," Stevens concluded.
> "Your intent is to remove a burdensome patient."
And this happens in America, land of the free, home of the brave.
Paulo Joe Jingy
nmstevens wrote:
> Paulo Joe Jingy wrote:
> The judge
> > relied almost exclusively on one doctor who has a proven death
> > fixation, who writes books and goes around the country speaking about
> > how "wonderful" ending life is. For the record, this is the same
> > doctor who has made at least one mistaken diagnosis that a former
> > police officer was irrevocably "brain-dead" and convinced that police
> > officer's wife to seek to end her husband's life. The former police
> > officer is now recovering. So naturally the judge who wanted Terry
> > Schiavo dehydrated to death would take, as his "medical authority", the
> > word of a proven fuck-up doctor who claim's he can hear the people he
> > helped "release" from life "thanking him".
>
> Really? Maybe you should have let the appeals court know about that.
I unintentionally melded two people together. Dr. Cranston is the
incompetent doctor. The pro-death, nutjob who "thinks" he gets thanked
by dead people is Michael Schiavo's lawyer, George Felos. And the
judge "found" these two ghouls competent? Yeah, right -- no agenda
there -- what the hell was I thinking?
http://www.politicalgateway.com/main/columns/read.html?col=320
George Felos in the Twilight Zone
Comments? steve...@prairieinet.net
You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight
and sound but of mind. A dimension where attorneys simultaneously
degrade the lives of brain damaged, bedridden disabled people even as
they boast about communicating with said people telepathically. A
dimension where attorneys outwardly appear calm cool and collected
while inwardly fantasizing about bringing down jet airplanes with the
power of their mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination.
Next stop, the George Felos zone.
Terri Schiavo is now dead - murdered by a bastard of a "husband"
bent on killing her and aided and abetted by an arrogant, out of
control judicial system. The discussion of this tragic murder at the
hands of the judiciary can be left for later: But I thought I might
shed some light on the guy who seems to be the driving force behind the
death of Terri Schiavo.
The guy who is out there speaking up for his client, Michael Schiavo,
who, although the majority of the misguided folks in this country
support his efforts to kill his "wife" has been strangely absent
from public view is George Felos, a full fledged, euthanasia nut on the
order of good ole' Dr. Jack. In fact, you could say that George Felos
is to the vaunted legal profession what scary Jack Kevorkian is to the
medical profession. One difference: Felos is out of jail getting people
killed. Kevorkian is rotting in jail for having people killed.
Yes, if you thought Terri Schiavo was the first unfortunate woman Felos
has tried to have killed, you'd be wrong. The man who's said that
he's never seen Terri look more beautiful than when he and his client
were in the middle of starving her to death for a final time it seems,
likes pushing to have people killed. But not before he communicates
with them telepathically to make really, really sure they want to be
killed, or so he says in his book "Litigation as Spiritual Practice"
(Blue Dolphin Publishing, 2002):
As I continued to stay beside Mrs. Browning at her nursing home
bed, I felt my mind relax and my weight sink into the ground. I began
to feel light-headed as I became more reposed. Although feeling like I
could drift into sleep, I also experienced a sense of heightened
awareness.
As Mrs. Browning lay motionless before my gaze, I suddenly heard a
loud, deep moan and scream and wondered if the nursing home personnel
heard it and would respond to the unfortunate resident. In the next
moment, as this cry of pain and torment continued, I realized it was
Mrs. Browning.
I felt the mid-section of my body open and noticed a strange
quality to the light in the room. I sensed her soul in agony. As she
screamed I heard her say, in confusion, 'Why am I still here Why am I
here?' My soul touched hers and in some way I communicated that she was
still locked in her body. I promised I would do everything in my power
to gain the release her soul cried for. With that the screaming
immediately stopped. I felt like I was back in my head again, the room
resumed its normal appearance, and Mrs. Browning, as she had throughout
this experience, lay silent (73).
For those of you who remember him, this little pontification is as
nutty as some of the proclamations of Kevorkian, who liked to kill
people with his homemade machine in the back of his VW Bus. I wonder if
the people he killed screamed out their death wishes to him in the bond
of some insane mind meld?
As I mentioned earlier, Felos also believes he's capable of stopping
jet airplanes in midair with the power of his mind:
He illustrates the truth of the spiritual principle by explaining
how he once caused a plane to suddenly descend, causing chaos for the
crew and passengers, when he pondered, "I wonder what it would be like
to die right now?" The pilot later explained that the auto pilot
computer program mysteriously quit working, resulting in the sudden
descent. "At that instant a clear, distinctly independent and slightly
stern voice said to me, 'Be careful what you think. You are more
powerful than you realize.' In quick succession I was startled, humbled
and blessed by God's admonishment" (181-182).
Don't give yourself too much credit, there Georgie. But it's not
surprising you think you can bring down a plane with your mind
considering you believe I could create a Lamborghini for myself in my
driveway if I just ponder on it enough:
Felos later discusses the "cosmic law of cause and effect" in which
he argues that human beings create their own realities with their minds
and have the power to change their reality with their minds - including
causing a new, dream car to appear "out of the ether" (178-179).
And, apparently because he's all wrapped up in this nutty little
cosmic universe where everyone creates their own reality, he has a
decidedly different take of the slaughter of millions of Jews during
the Holocaust:
"The Jewish people, long ago in their collective consciousness,
agreed to play the role of the lamb whose slaughter was necessary to
shock humanity into a new moral consciousness. Their sacrifice saved
humanity at the brink of extinction and propelled us into a new age."
(pg 240)
And....
"If our minds can conceive of an uplifting Holocaust, can it be so
difficult to look another way at the slights and injuries and abuses we
perceive were inflicted upon us?" (pg 240)
In other words, thanks Jews, for agreeing to die for all of us because
your deaths were "necessary" and even "uplifting". What a sick
SOB we have here.
But of course, at the bottom of it all, Felos believes that death is a
consciousness raising experience. So the deaths of millions of Jews
were okay and all he's really trying to do is raise Terri's
consciousness. How very kind of you, George.
mary...@rcn.com
mary...@rcn.com wrote:
> Paulo Joe Jingy wrote:
>
> > The Christian bio-ethicist also believes that the circumstances under
> > which a patient, like Terri Schiavo, can be denied nutrition and
> > hydration should be much more limited.
>
> He calls himself a Christian? All I can say is: Christ Almighty.
> Please.
Oops, I miswrote - I misunderstood and responded to the wrong idea. I
thought Death Doc wanted *more* control, but it's the Life Doc who's
the Christian. My mistake.
mary...@rcn.com
mary...@rcn.com wrote:
> Oops, I miswrote - I misunderstood and responded to the wrong idea. I
> thought Death Doc wanted *more* control, but it's the Life Doc who's
> the Christian. My mistake.
Somebody stupid borrowed my fingers today, and now I have to clean up.
Does Death Doc have a religious persuasion? Does he think he's a
shepherd of souls, or something? I mean, really. If he's so keen on
killing maybe he should take up hunting. And me a vegetarian. Maybe
he can't help himself - maybe he needs a stint in Bellevue.
monkeyhawk
====
Terri Schiavo's condition brings into full focus that there's something to
life more than nerve cells firing and muscles reflexing.
Terri is a hunk of metabolizing meat. She's been this way for fifteen
years. She never gets better. She never gets worse. She never gets
anything.
What she's got isn't life. What she's got is neuro-muscular animation.
She's sittin' there but she's not there. There's no there there where she
is.
Except for meat and bone and the neurological capacity of a sponge, she
isn't.
Naturally, she's become the intellectual symbol of the Republican Party.
The pro-"life" faction of the Republican Coalition is flexing its muscles
and firing off its nerve cells over Terri Schiavo because they're so
pro-"life" they see it everywhere, even where it doesn't exist. They think
stem cells are people, every sperm is sacred, and "I gave my word to stop at
3rd" t-shirts will convince high school kids to remain virgins 'til their
wedding night (so long as they're not gay, mind you).
Funny how you don't hear these people ranting so much about the "sanctity"
of marriage, like they were a few weeks ago. These so-called
"conservatives" want secular government to trump sanctity now. Michael
Schiavo, who at least had the common decency to marry someone of the
opposite gender, says his wife and life partner wouldn't want to live like
this, in this non-living state of nothingness. The closest person in her
life -- at least according to the "pro-family" crowd up until a couple of
weeks ago -- knows she's not alive. He's up against a Republican majority
in Congress that thinks it can legislate resurrection and subpoena life
------
I think back to the weekend before she was taken off life-support.
Remember when the Republicans subpoenaed Terri Schiavo to *testify* before
Congress? (The last time someone of such limited intellectual capacity was
asked to appear before Congress, he insisted Cheney come along and the whole
thing be kept off the record.) That subpoena came after the Republican memo
was circulated about how the Schiavo case was "...a great political
opportunity for us!"
The GOP was driven into the case by the "Christian" faction of their
coalition which was concerned that people might come to realize that
neuro-muscular animation and *life* are two distinct and very different
states of being. If a being with no cognitive capacity were to be allowed
to cease "living like this," some people might get the wild idea that stem
cells aren't little bitty people. *Quality* of "life" might creep into the
Right to Die issue. Some people might get the idea that the rights of a
cognitive, living, breathing woman might be as important as a clump of fetal
cells developing in her incestuously-raped womb.
Add to the mix the fact that Michael Schiavo isn't a saint. After doing
everything humanly possible for seven years to cling to the futile hope that
Terri might recover, he'd resigned himself to the realization that, "she
wouldn't want to 'live' like this," and (as Tom DeLay had decided with his
father) instigated the steps to facilitate the inevitable. Only because his
in-laws *couldn't* accept the reality of Terri's condition did the melodrama
stretch out for eight more years. It didn't help that Michael looked eerily
similar to Christopher Walken in "At Close Range." And the "moralists"
salivated at the fact that he got along with his life in the interim,
entered into a relationship with another woman and (as he couldn't with
Terri, due to complications caused by her bulimia) started a family.
Then, the same "right to 'life'" people who have had no compunctions against
bombing women's health clinics and shotgunning doctors came out of the
woodwork. The same politicians who voted to outlaw the very kind of
malpractice lawsuit that financed more than a decade of Terri Schiavo's
life-support started crying crocodile tears over her "suffering."
It's astounding that no one has noted that this poor girl -- who got in the
condition he was in because she systematically purged herself of nourishment
and spent the last years of her "life" having food pumped into her system
without her permission -- finally got out of life in the manner she
instigated: starvation.
Did she suffer at the end? The preponderance of evidence from nearly forty
court reviews persuaded liberal, conservative, Republican-nominated,
Democrat-nominated, bi-partisan-confirmed judges that, no, there wasn't a
functioning brain left that was capable of suffering. As if to punctuate
that fact, hours after Terri Schiavo's heart stopped beating, the
cognitive-aware Bishop of Rome resigned himself to the inevitable and
decided *he* "didn't want to live like this," ordered *his* feeding tube
removed, and slipped (by all accounts) painlessly toward the ultimate abyss.
Part of the inherent comfort of living a good Christian life is faith that
this life is not the only one, that the sacrifice of the Christ means
everlasting life in the bosom of the Creator of life; that death is merely a
part of life, a time for those of us left behind to celebrate life, and that
eternity in Heaven is paradise.
I wonder why Jerry Falwell is so frantic about keeping *his* machine pumping
life into his bloated carcass. Perhaps he knows he's not going to be
communing with Terri Schiavo or John Paul II any time soon.
===
Joe Myers
"Falwell is still brain dead."
nmstevens
Gee, there's certainly nothing here to suggest a biased point of view.
>
> Terri Schiavo is now dead - murdered by a bastard of a "husband"
> bent on killing her and aided and abetted by an arrogant, out of
> control judicial system. The discussion of this tragic murder at the
> hands of the judiciary can be left for later: But I thought I might
> shed some light on the guy who seems to be the driving force behind the
> death of Terri Schiavo.
i.e. -- the lawyer who's representing the so-called "bastard."
Of course, Terry's delusional parents who want to keep a fucking
force-fed potato version of their daughter hanging around indefinitely
so they can convince themselves she's still alive -- who accused her
husband of murder and attempted murder --
No, no way that these pair of delusional nutjobs might be considered
"bastards" in your particular magic land.
>
> The guy who is out there speaking up for his client, Michael Schiavo,
> who, although the majority of the misguided folks in this country
> support his efforts to kill his "wife" has been strangely absent
> from public view is George Felos, a full fledged, euthanasia nut on the
> order of good ole' Dr. Jack. In fact, you could say that George Felos
> is to the vaunted legal profession what scary Jack Kevorkian is to the
> medical profession. One difference: Felos is out of jail getting people
> killed. Kevorkian is rotting in jail for having people killed.
Kevorkian didn't "have people killed." In fact, he arranged things such
that the final act -- and thus the final decision, was always in the
hands of those who committed the act.
You may think that your life belongs to some invisible sky daddy. Your
privilege. But whether it is or not, for fucking sure, your life isn't
the property of the state. If you are of sound mind and choose to end
it -- what business is it of the government to intervene? If you choose
to hurt somebody else, that's the business of the state. But if you
choose to hurt yourself -- that's your business.
If you want to knowingly engage in risky activities, and you end up
dead -- that's your tough luck. And just because some guy helps you put
on the skis, that doesn't mean that he's to blame if you run into a
tree and end up dead.
And if you make the decision to end your life, provided that you're
mentally capable -- that's also your business. And if you want somebody
to help you do it -- there's no compulsion involved. You're not forcing
him. He's not forcing you. Nothing has been done that requires the
weight of the law to balance a wrong.
If I want to die, that's my business. If that constitutes a wrong
against some invisible creator in whom I don't believe, that will
ultimately be between me and him. Unless I'm mentally incompetent, and
thus not responsible for myself, there's no reason for the state to
become involved.
>
> Yes, if you thought Terri Schiavo was the first unfortunate woman Felos
> has tried to have killed, you'd be wrong. The man who's said that
> he's never seen Terri look more beautiful than when he and his client
> were in the middle of starving her to death for a final time it seems,
> likes pushing to have people killed. But not before he communicates
> with them telepathically to make really, really sure they want to be
> killed, or so he says in his book "Litigation as Spiritual Practice"
> (Blue Dolphin Publishing, 2002):
So, he's into some sort of New Agey Bhuddist stuff.
So, it's bullshit. The trouble is, you think that what he's talking
about is bullshit, but all that stuff about God becoming a human and
getting himself crucified, and now people who believe in him can go to
Lourdes and the almighty God of the Universe will reach down and suck
their tumors out --
-- that, you think is reasonable and makes perfect sense.
Personally, I weigh the bullshit factor in both as about equal.
Come to think of it, didn't a certain TV Minister recently assert that
he'd changed the course of a whole hurricane by means of the power of
prayer?
Compared to that, shifting one tiny little jet liner would seem like
small potatoes, spiritually speaking.
>
> As I continued to stay beside Mrs. Browning at her nursing home
> bed, I felt my mind relax and my weight sink into the ground. I began
> to feel light-headed as I became more reposed. Although feeling like I
> could drift into sleep, I also experienced a sense of heightened
> awareness.
>
> As Mrs. Browning lay motionless before my gaze, I suddenly heard a
> loud, deep moan and scream and wondered if the nursing home personnel
> heard it and would respond to the unfortunate resident. In the next
> moment, as this cry of pain and torment continued, I realized it was
> Mrs. Browning.
>
> I felt the mid-section of my body open and noticed a strange
> quality to the light in the room. I sensed her soul in agony. As she
> screamed I heard her say, in confusion, 'Why am I still here Why am I
> here?' My soul touched hers and in some way I communicated that she was
> still locked in her body. I promised I would do everything in my power
> to gain the release her soul cried for. With that the screaming
> immediately stopped. I felt like I was back in my head again, the room
> resumed its normal appearance, and Mrs. Browning, as she had throughout
> this experience, lay silent (73).
>
> For those of you who remember him, this little pontification is as
> nutty as some of the proclamations of Kevorkian, who liked to kill
> people with his homemade machine in the back of his VW Bus. I wonder if
> the people he killed screamed out their death wishes to him in the bond
> of some insane mind meld?
Again, whoever wrote this clearly is completely unaware of the methods
used by Kevorkian. In every case, the participant had to physically
remove the clip that allowed the death to take place. No "screaming in
their minds" -- they make the final decision to proceed or not and
personally act to bring it about.
And the only reason that these things were done on the sly was because
he risked prison if he did it openly.
Well, as I said, this sounds vaguely like some new age version of Karma
-- which, of course, is bullshit -- but then again, the idea that you
can commit acts in a finite lifespan that warrant an infinite amount of
reward or punishment -- that's bullshit too.
And is it any more ridiculous for him to imagine receiving messages
from someone spiritually, than the notion that Terry Schiavo could
somehow "communicate" with her parents -- in a literal way?
>
> In other words, thanks Jews, for agreeing to die for all of us because
> your deaths were "necessary" and even "uplifting". What a sick
> SOB we have here.
>
> But of course, at the bottom of it all, Felos believes that death is a
> consciousness raising experience.
And isn't that exactly what you believe? That when one dies, presuming
that one has been well-behaved, that your consciousness, your soul
rises up to God?
Sounds pretty silly either way -- but it has nothing to do with the
merits of the case. Whatever the lawyer might believe personally, he's
not going to argue the legal position in court on such bases -- nor
would they have had any significance in a judge's determination, nor
the cadre of court-appointed doctors and guardians that testified, nor
in the determinations of the various courts of appeal that ultimately
upheld the ruling.
If you want to knock a position on the grounds of who supports it,
you'd better be careful -- because on that basis you find yourself
squarely in George W. Bush's camp.
Even if you happen to think that he's right on this particular issue,
you certainly wouldn't want the strength of the argument to rest on the
fact that it was defended by him.
And the fact is, this thing went through countless appeals, went past
numerous judges and courts of appeal and none of the arguments
ultimately held sway.
You can always find a doctor who's prepared to testify on behalf of any
position -- pro or con, but it was not simply the opinion of a single
doctor, on either side, that formed the basis of the decision, but
ultimately seven doctors who examined her, examined the evidence and
came to the same conclusion -- she's gone and she's not coming back.
By the time she died, her brain had degenerated to around the size of a
peach. When she suffered the initial accident, her brain was starved
for oxygen -- and a substantial portion of it died. The cells that died
never came back -- they simple withered away and were flushed out.
Can people suffer brain injuries and recover? Sure. Can Doctors make
wrong diagnoses? Sure.
But there is also a point beyond which recovery is impossible. We may
not like it, but it's true. There is such a place, and there are cases
when it can clearly be determined -- cases where doubt or the hope of
recovery or improvement essentially constitutes wishful thinking in the
face of an irreversible tragedy.
And we are compelled to ask, when all the evidence we have so strongly
supports the view that a patient has reached that point -- and the
evidence was overwhelmingly in support of that position in respect to
Terry Schiavo, are we really justified in permitting the state to
intervene over the wishes of a legal guardian, to forcibly continue
some shadow of an existence in the hope that God will take a detour
from Lourdes and regrow a brand new brain inside somebody's skull?
Clearly, opinions on this subject may differ -- but there are
legitimate issues to be argued on either side, and nothing is served
either way to attempt, as was done unforgiveably in this case, to
villify those who hold a particular position.
Ultimately, you may decide either way, but nobody here holds the moral
high ground -- nobody can lob hard balls from some place of
inaccessible moral certitude.
NMS
nmstevens
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen) wrote:
> "nmstevens" <nmst...@msn.com> wrote in message
> news:drilg3$a28$1...@reader2.panix.com...
> >
> > Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen) wrote:
> >> "nmstevens" <nmst...@msn.com> wrote in message
> >> news:drihed$cka$1...@reader2.panix.com...
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > There's a tendency to fill in areas that we don't understand with magic
> >> > -- that is, bullshit.
> >>
> >>
> >> Well, uh... Gosh, Pilgrim, if it ain't magic, what would you call it?
> >> '-)
> >>
> >> Caroline
> >
> > The Ancient Greeks had no idea what the real cause of lightning was.
> >
> > That didn't constitute an argument in favor of their being flung from
> > Mount Olympus by an angry Zeus.
> >
> > NMS
> >
>
> Well, Zeus ("Zefs" in modern Greek) is who they attributed it to. Maybe
> Aristotle didn't, but John Q. Dimosios certainly did. "Magic" is what we
> call those scientific phenomenon we don't yet understand.
Well, it's not what I call it -- I simply call then "phenomena that we
don't yet understand."
>
> Which brings up a curious idea I've been thinking about lately. Tis the
> season of static electricity, so... What did the ancients think about
> static electricity? They certainly had plenty of means of building static
> electricity in their bodies, then ZAP! They touch someone after dark and a
> teeny weeny bolt of lightning lights up the cave and flies between them and
> they both squeel "Ouch!" Or whatever their ouch-equivalent was.
The word electricity comes from the Greek "electrum" -- the word for
amber -- a material which, when rubbed produced a significant static
electric charge.
So clearly, they did recognize the existence of the phenomenon, but
nobody connected the tiny little spark with the huge crash of a
thunderbolt.
In fact, I believe that it was Benjamin Franklin and his experiments
with lightning and electricity that confirmed that, in fact, lightning
was an electrical effect, like the tiny little spark of a static
electric charge.
>
> Which also brings up a parellel question about language... I was brushing
> up on African click languages this morning; those ancient languages with
> "double consonants." One theory is that in one of the two ancient click
> languages, the click was used to sort of neutralize forbidden words. And
> that made me wonder how a linguistic group develops "forbidden" words?
>
> Maybe forbidden words were anything you said when your body discharged
> static electricity? '-)
It's an odd notion -- this idea that there are words, which people
presumably know, but which can't be spoken or even written down in
full.
I think that it probably arises from the same mental process that
yields the idea of sympathetic magic.
That is, that there is some sort of deep connection between a thing and
its image, such that if you make an image of a thing, you have the
ability to act upon it, or invoke its power.
And what, after all, are words, if not "images" in a sense, of the
things that they refer to?
Thus to invoke certain words that applied to sacred things would amount
to invoking the power of the thing that those words describe.
Thus, for instance, the Hebrew notion of not uttering the name of God
-- or G*d as you'll find it written in English by Orthodox believers.
It's sort of like calling your father by his first name -- it suggests
an equality that does not exist -- at least not between men and gods.
(or g*ds).
NMS
DackJaniels
understand the complexities of the universe in which we live, but also to
mystically control their own fate to some extent.
But then maybe I've just been watching too many old Twilight Zone reruns.
"monkeyhawk" <monke...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:drgt3d$48p$1...@reader2.panix.com...
> So I got to surfing the web and wondered how Stephen Hawking's doing.
>
> Same old same old, near as I can tell.
>
> And I got to wondering, "Why?"
>
> I am most certainly no expert on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (other than
> it's known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," and Lou should've seen in coming),
> but it seems that most people who contract the condition die within a few
> years of diagnosis.
>
> So what's the deal with Hawking?
>
*snip*
smither...@yahoo.com
commenced, she had been diagnosed as in a PVS by at least 4 attending
neurologists.
At the last trial, in 2002, 3 of the 4 neurologists at trial testified
she was in a PVS with no hope of recovery.
Of those neurologists who actually examined her, this is the only one
who disagreed with the PVS diagnosis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hammesfahr
It appears Dr. Hammesfahr still chooses to misrepresent himself as a
Nobel Prize nominee.
You can throw out Dr. Cranford and you still have at least 6
neurologists (of the ones who performed a personal examination) who
have diagnosed her in a PVS.
Remember, the appellate court noted they would make the same findings
of fact as the trial judge.
"this court has closely examined all of the evidence reviewed in this
record.
We have repeatedly examined the videotapes, not merely watching short
segments
but carefully observing the tapes in their entirety. We have examined
the brain
scans with the eyes of educated laypersons and considered the
explanations provided
by the doctors in the transcripts.
We have concluded that, if we were called upon to review the
guardianship court's
decision de novo, we would affirm it." (pp. 9-10)
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
news:drjaj5$gie$1...@reader2.panix.com...
>
> I've found that most genius physicists not only have the capacity to
> understand the complexities of the universe in which we live, but also to
> mystically control their own fate to some extent.
>
ummm... Then why isn't Richard Feynman still alive? Bummer! But your
"genius physicists" has me smiling. How many physicists have you known or
heard of who *aren't* geniuses? "Genius" IQ starts around 140. I doubt
there are many working physicists with IQs below that. But I'm not counting
high school physics teachers as physicists either. '-)
Caroline
GrassDog
discussion about having a genius IQ and using it. Lots of people have
IQs of 140 or more but very few (one, as a matter of fact) came up with
E=MC squared. Why?
For an answer, let me haul out basketball great Julius Irving who said
he practiced just as much as some of his friends during his elementary
and junior high years. One by one until high school, they got cut from
teams or dropped out. Some were, according to Irving, better than he
was. Why did he bet to play for the Nets and 76ers and set records for
both teams? He said, and I paraphrase because I can't find the quote,
"There must be something higher than us."
Feynman may very well have wanted to get to the next plateau (and meet
again his first wife) or he may not have controlled his fate very well.
As for Hawking? Man, who knows. He obviously should be dead by now.
He has a daughter who inherited his ALS. Does anyone know if she's
still alive?
GrassDog
new...@virtual.com
Freisen\)" <otto....@verizon.net> wrote:
--- snip ---
>I do recall hearing another cosmologist talk about the way Hawking thinks,
>and he said Hawking is the only scientist he knows of who thinks that way.
>That others, himself included, have to do their deep cosmological thinking
>in front of a blackboard, or with pen and paper, because they write out
>their line of logic in the language of mathematics, much the same way that
>we, as writers, write out compound sentences, then read back to see if we've
>stayed on track. I found the whole concept fascinating, because graphic
>arts was my "first language," and that's very much the way I think.
The blackboard of the mind is as dark and austere as the deepest
depths of intergalactic space...
I once heard that in a noodle factory in Taiwan.
Doug
Just a virtual guy... in a virtual world
GrassDog
I meant, as far as I can tell, GET to play for the Nets and 76ers.
Sorry. (But I do love my wine. Tonight: Santa Carolina, 2000. A merlot
from Lontue, Chile.)
Grass-hic-Dog
GrassDog
the...?
Yes, I do.
By the way, and I'm sure this has no relation to my typo, I'm drinking
a fine Chilean wine: Santa Carolina 2000. A Merlot.
Grass-hic-Dog
new...@virtual.com
<monke...@cox.net> wrote:
>I wonder why Jerry Falwell is so frantic about keeping *his* machine pumping
>life into his bloated carcass.
Because he knows it's damned near imposible to get at the loot from
the other side?
new...@virtual.com
"Ah, pondering the subjects of life, death and "mind-interval"...
It's as wide as it is deep. Ah...
I could pontificate at least... Well, at least all day on these
wonderful subjects of infinite wonder... Mmmm..."
(The heavenly scent of broiled hamburgers wafts into the livingroom.
Doug's nostrils flair excitedly, drool forms at the corners of his
mouth.)
"Hamburger? Thank G*d I have a brain!"
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
<new...@virtual.com> wrote in message news:drlag8$sad$1...@reader2.panix.com...
I can see the billboard over the factory now...
"TAIWAN NOODLE FACTORY
We use our noodles to probe the cosmos"
Undoubtedly in neon!
Oh, Happy Chinese New Year everybody! And does it mean dog will achieve a
higher place on the menu in China this year? '-)
Caroline
I'll have an order of mushi pug, please.
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
<new...@virtual.com> wrote in message news:drlcfs$lua$1...@reader2.panix.com...
Don't forget the grilled onions, Grasshopper!
mary...@rcn.com
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen) wrote:
> news:drjaj5$gie$1...@reader2.panix.com...
> >
> > I've found that most genius physicists not only have the capacity to
> > understand the complexities of the universe in which we live, but also to
> > mystically control their own fate to some extent.
> >
the technical faith way , not the church-dogma way. I don't know about
them controlling their fates, but (knowing a couple of them) they do
have a more mystical view of the way things work, and a less skeptical
idea about fate. Didn't Einstein say, "God does not play dice with the
universe?" And him a veg, too. Maybe it's all physics, maybe that's
the higher power - who knows? Let's keep looking for answers.
Ron
"mary...@rcn.com" <mary...@rcn.com> wrote:
> Didn't Einstein say, "God does not play dice with the
> universe?" And him a veg, too. Maybe it's all physics, maybe that's
> the higher power - who knows? Let's keep looking for answers.
He did. But the context of that quote is one which religious people
should bear in mind when commenting on issues of science.
Einstein devoted much of the later part of his life (after he had
developed his theories of relativity) to trying to disprove quantum
mechanics. He simply didn't believe that the universe worked that way -
some of this, perhaps, coming from his religious convictions.
But he was wrong.
The quote you cite was delivered in the context of Einstein repeatedly
trying to imagine experiments which would disprove quantum mechanics.
Many of those experiments have since been done, and contrary to
Einstein's predictions, they have supported the conclusions of quantum
mechanics.
So when Einstein said "God does not play dice with the universe" - or
whatever the exact wording was - he was wrong.
His religious convictions were blinding him to scientific truth.
Einstein's brilliant skepticism was, in many ways, one of the best
things that could have happened to quantum mechanics. If he couldn't
disprove it, then it became pretty hard to disbelieve it.
But to the extent that he wasn't speaking rhetorically (which he may
well have been) his religious convictions, where they implied scientific
conclusions, were simply wrong.
There's a lesson there that other religious people should bear in mind.
-Ron
mary...@rcn.com
Ron wrote:
>
> But to the extent that he wasn't speaking rhetorically (which he may
> well have been) his religious convictions, where they implied scientific
> conclusions, were simply wrong.
>
> There's a lesson there that other religious people should bear in mind.
I think there's a difference between the scientists who are brought to
faith via research (an open-minded belief in something or someone,
maybe God the Engineer or something), and stupid religious fanatics who
"believe" in whatever they believe in despite any evidence to the
contrary - the ones who will not bear contradiction, the ones who say:
"It was created in EXACTLY SIX DAYS, and you'll burn for saying
otherwise!. Maybe Einstein started out as a blind believer, but I
don't think he ended up as one.
>
RonB
wrote:
> I think there's a difference between the scientists who are brought
> to faith via research (an open-minded belief in something or someone,
> maybe God the Engineer or something), and stupid religious fanatics
> who "believe" in whatever they believe in despite any evidence to the
> contrary - the ones who will not bear contradiction, the ones who
> say: "It was created in EXACTLY SIX DAYS, and you'll burn for saying
> otherwise!. Maybe Einstein started out as a blind believer, but I
> don't think he ended up as one.
I doubt Einstein was a "blind believer." Those who deal with the
universe are almost always religious -- it's because they are awed by
the magnitude and complexity of it all. There's nothing in natural
science that can explain the origin of the universe, nor nothing in
*natural* science that can disprove (or prove) a *supernatural*
religion. Nothing comes from nothing.
--
RonB
"There's a story there...somewhere"
monkeyhawk
I keep coming back to Mark Twain's observation, "God created Man is His own
image; and Man returned the compliment."
It seems to me that anthropormorphizing "God" is where people get in
trouble.
It may work for a nomadic shepherd to sit out on the side of a hill with his
flock and contemplate a Higher Power and use the metaphor, "The Lord is *my*
shepherd..." and have it make sense. That doesn't mean "God" is walking
around in a pasture with a crook in his hand.
It's a goddamned metaphor.
It's a parable.
It's how Jesus spoke to bigger, more complicated issues.
Or, did He really mean that his disciples should be "fishers of men,"
literally?
In that case, no one is "saved" unless they're caught in a net or hooked in
the mouth.
"God" isn't some guy in the sky sitting on a throne with Jesus sitting on
His right hand and (who? Pat Robertson?) sitting on His left hand. If "God
has a left hand that means he has a left buttock. Who's underneath that?
(Okay, Skip, perhaps. But that's too much theology for me right now.)
"God" is bigger and wiser and deeper and wider and longer and smaller and
more powerful and more knowing than anything that can possibly fit into an
anthropomorphic model. "God" doesn't simply know how many grains of sand
there are on a beach, "God" is embodied into ever last one of them, and
every drop of water and every planet in the universe and every soul
(whatever *that* is) that lives or ever has or ever was. "God" is bigger
than you can imagine.
Einstein, on the other hand, might have had a glimpse at imagining what
"God" might be.
When Einstein said, "God doesn't play dice with the universe," or whatever,
the point was that somehow it probably makes sense to a force or logic or
power that can understand *all* things in the universe.
Clearly, with our pathetic brains made out of meat, that kind of
understanding is out of our grasp.
Einstein never thought he'd figured it all out.
Einstein pretty much knew that, despite his discoveries, there was plenty
more he didn't know.
One mark of intelligence is knowing that you do not know.
Fundamentalist religion depends on faith that *they* have *all* the answers.
Sure beats thinking for a living.
Joe Myers
"I think."
mary...@rcn.com
monkeyhawk wrote:
> "God" isn't some guy in the sky sitting on a throne with Jesus sitting on
> His right hand and (who? Pat Robertson?) sitting on His left hand. If "God
> has a left hand that means he has a left buttock. Who's underneath that?
> (Okay, Skip, perhaps. But that's too much theology for me right now.)
Oh, too rude!
> One mark of intelligence is knowing that you do not know.
>
> Fundamentalist religion depends on faith that *they* have *all* the answers.
I totally agree. And the scientists keep looking for more.
>
> Sure beats thinking for a living.
>
> Joe Myers
> "I think."
"Therefore I yam what I yam" - Popeye Descartes, Rene's younger
brother.
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
"Ron" <ronald...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:drm2q6$jve$1...@reader2.panix.com...
Not ezackly... Einstein's remark was specifically directed at Heisenberg's
Uncertainty Principle, the one where you can't see where a particle of an
atom is to see how fast it's moving because shining a light on it will
change its speed and/or location because even the smallest weakest light you
shine on it has to be at least one quanta, and that'll do it! Same general
idea as the famous Cat in The Box erick from Schrodinger, or however he
spells his name this week. Anyway, Einstein didn't like uncertainty, but it
turns out God does... '-)
Caroline
Ron
RonB <ron...@spamNOgmail.com> wrote:
> There's nothing in natural
> science that can explain the origin of the universe, nor nothing in
> *natural* science that can disprove (or prove) a *supernatural*
> religion. Nothing comes from nothing.
There's nothing in science that can disprove a supernatural religion,
unless that supernatural religion is supposed to manifest in our world
in some way.
And I think most secular people would have a much smaller problem with
religion if religious people didn't keep trying to ascribe supernatural
rationale to natural events.
As for "the origin of the universe," natural science has explained a lot
about that. It hasn't explained all of it, of course. But when you say
that it can't, as a matter of principle, you're confusing what science
doesn't know from what it can't know.
In fact, a tremendous number of experiments have been proposed which
would answer fundamental questions about the origin of the universe. The
problem is that we can't, with current technology, actually do those
experiments.
But this is normal with advanced physics. Einstein was proposing
experiments (which he thought would disprove quantum mechanics) that
nobody would be able to perform for another 50 years.
There's no evidence to support a claim that, after those experiments and
the experiments those experiments inspire, and others after them, are
done that science will be fundamentally unable to explain the origin of
the universe. There may be practical problems which prove
insurmountable - but they may not be.
-Ron
RonB
> There's nothing in science that can disprove a supernatural religion,
> unless that supernatural religion is supposed to manifest in our
> world in some way.
>
> And I think most secular people would have a much smaller problem
> with religion if religious people didn't keep trying to ascribe
> supernatural rationale to natural events.
And I think most religious folks would have less trouble with secular
scientists if they would occasionally say, "I don't know," when they
don't know.
> As for "the origin of the universe," natural science has explained a
> lot about that. It hasn't explained all of it, of course. But when
> you say that it can't, as a matter of principle, you're confusing
> what science doesn't know from what it can't know.
No. It can't know. How do you explain, using natural science, something
emerging from nothing, or eternity (you're only two choices for the
origin of the universe)?
> In fact, a tremendous number of experiments have been proposed which
> would answer fundamental questions about the origin of the universe.
> The problem is that we can't, with current technology, actually do
> those experiments.
But all these theories presuppose matter. To really get to the origin,
you would have to explain where *that* came from.
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
"RonB" <ron...@spamNOgmail.com> wrote in message
news:drmbqq$8jq$1...@reader2.panix.com...
>
> But all these theories presuppose matter. To really get to the origin,
> you would have to explain where *that* came from.
>
Big Bang, Baby! '-)
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
>
> Joe Myers
> "I think."
"I think, therefore I am."
Descartes
"I am, therefore I think."
Caroline
RonB
<otto....@verizon.net>, wrote:
But what caused the bang? And what pre-existing thing "banged?" And was
it really a bang if no one heard it? And how come I have seven hands
clapping? Aren't we supposed to have only two in this dimension?
I want *real* answers, dammit! REAL answers!
RonB
<otto....@verizon.net>, wrote:
"I think, therefore I am... I think."
Gary Larson(?)
And...
"I smell breakfast!"
Firesign Theatre
RonB
> you're only two choices
I hadn't us'd up my quot'a of ap'st'phes for the day.
--
RonB
"Ah, that s better..."
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
"RonB" <ron...@spamNOgmail.com> wrote in message
Well, okay. You can ask Dr. Hawking if you want to... Here's his website
and email address:
http://www.hawking.org.uk/home/hindex.html
Enjoy! '-)
And if you really want to know what there was before the big bang, the
answer is...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
....
...
...
...
...
...
....
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Extra Chunky Peanut Butter...!!!
RonB
<otto....@verizon.net>, wrote:
I suspected as much. Thank you!
nmstevens
RonB wrote:
> On Mon 30 Jan 2006 05:23:20p, Ron <ronald...@hotmail.com>, wrote:
>
> > There's nothing in science that can disprove a supernatural religion,
> > unless that supernatural religion is supposed to manifest in our
> > world in some way.
> >
> > And I think most secular people would have a much smaller problem
> > with religion if religious people didn't keep trying to ascribe
> > supernatural rationale to natural events.
>
> And I think most religious folks would have less trouble with secular
> scientists if they would occasionally say, "I don't know," when they
> don't know.
And I think most secular folks would have less trouble with religious
folks if they'd stop saying, "I know absolutely, positively, beyond any
possibility of a doubt," when, in fact, they don't know.
"Not knowing" is the business of science -- the stuff that science has
already discovered sits in books -- working scientists investigate
areas that are, by definition, unknown. The work of science is to
attempt to explain what we don't know.
How then do scientists have a "problem" with saying that something
isn't known?
Or do you simply mean that they refuse to say that they don't know --
in respect to some things that they know perfectly well -- but which
you don't agree with?
>
> > As for "the origin of the universe," natural science has explained a
> > lot about that. It hasn't explained all of it, of course. But when
> > you say that it can't, as a matter of principle, you're confusing
> > what science doesn't know from what it can't know.
>
> No. It can't know. How do you explain, using natural science, something
> emerging from nothing, or eternity (you're only two choices for the
> origin of the universe)?
You need to familiarize yourself with quantum theory. "Something
emerging from nothing" is something that happens countless trillions of
times every second. Quantum theory predicts precisely that occurence in
the form of "virtual particles" -- and experiments have confirmed this
prediction.
The uncertainty principle predicts that pairs of sub-atomic particles
can come into existence and vanish -- provided that they do it in a
brief enough period of time. Essentially, such virtual particle pairs
fill the entire universe -- popping in and out so quickly that they are
essentially unnoticeable.
But not without observable consequences. Their presence (presuming that
they do exist) exerts a certain pressure on materials that are
sufficiently close together -- a pressure that wouldn't be there, but
for the existence of those virtual particles.
And the pressure is there. The particles, however counter-intuitive it
may seem, likewise are there.
Thus, far from being strange or unlikely -- things coming into
existence from nothing represents the normal state of affairs. Most
things in the universe, in fact, come into existence from nothing --
and almost immediately go back to nothing.
> > In fact, a tremendous number of experiments have been proposed which
> > would answer fundamental questions about the origin of the universe.
> > The problem is that we can't, with current technology, actually do
> > those experiments.
>
> But all these theories presuppose matter. To really get to the origin,
> you would have to explain where *that* came from.
Once again, you're mistaken. Many theories not only do not presuppose
"matter" which, in any case, could not have come into existence until
some time after the Big Bang -- they don't even presuppose the
existence of space and time.
Ultimately, whatever explanation you embrace, you're stuck, at some
point, with something coming from nothing or eternities -- or
circularities (a space finite but unbounded by virtue of it curving
around. Time might be the same. Just as, if you travel far enough in a
straight line, you'd end up back where you startted, it may also be
true that if you "travel" far enough into the future you might find
yourself back in the past).
You simply declare, by fiat that one thing -- that is, the universe,
requires an explanation that excludes any of those things -- and then
embrace another explanation that, for some reason, need not exclude all
of those things.
If a maker of universes can simply be eternal -- there's no reason that
the universe cannot be.
If a maker of universes can simply "be" without any prior creator --
who not simply take that capacity, that you reserve for your preferred
object of worship, cut him out, and move it up to the Universe --
allowing it to "be" without any prior creator.
If I proposed that the universe was created by a Universe Maker -- and
that Universe Maker was made by a "Universe Maker-Maker" -- which was
eternal and uncreated -- you would be well within your rights to say --
why do you need two? What extra explanatory weight does having two
accomplish?
Well, that's what I say about having one? What do you need him for?
What explanatory weight does having such a thing accomplish? In what
sense does this putative explanation account for anything -- what more
do you know, accepting this construction, than you knew before?
NMS
RonB
> And I think most secular folks would have less trouble with religious
> folks if they'd stop saying, "I know absolutely, positively, beyond
> any possibility of a doubt," when, in fact, they don't know.
Or, at least, you *think* they don't. You don't know I don't know, you
can only *think* you know that I don't know. That's not knowing.
> "Not knowing" is the business of science -- the stuff that science
> has already discovered sits in books -- working scientists
> investigate areas that are, by definition, unknown. The work of
> science is to attempt to explain what we don't know.
I understand that.
> How then do scientists have a "problem" with saying that something
> isn't known?
>
> Or do you simply mean that they refuse to say that they don't know --
> in respect to some things that they know perfectly well -- but which
> you don't agree with?
Scientists don't know 1) how life arose from non-life (which they're
finally admitting) or 2) how species arose from another species. Sure
they claim to know -- they ridicule those who don't agree with their
various (sometimes conflicting) theories but they don't really *know.*
They see a certain, unmistakable order and make assumptions -- and then
they try to explain away the difficulties, the gaps, the lack of
intermediates, but the very fact that they have various and (sometimes)
conflicting theories for the absence proves they don't really know --
despite all the ridicule they heap down on those who don't share their
faith.
RonB
> You simply declare, by fiat that one thing -- that is, the universe,
> requires an explanation that excludes any of those things -- and then
> embrace another explanation that, for some reason, need not exclude
> all of those things.
>
> If a maker of universes can simply be eternal -- there's no reason
> that the universe cannot be.
Except we can study the universe, that's in the realm of natural
science -- and, scientists have taught us that it is *not* eternal --
hence the "Big Bang" theory.
> If a maker of universes can simply "be" without any prior creator --
> who not simply take that capacity, that you reserve for your
> preferred object of worship, cut him out, and move it up to the
> Universe -- allowing it to "be" without any prior creator.
See above.
> If I proposed that the universe was created by a Universe Maker --
> and that Universe Maker was made by a "Universe Maker-Maker" -- which
> was eternal and uncreated -- you would be well within your rights to
> say -- why do you need two? What extra explanatory weight does having
> two accomplish?
Aristotle struggled with this. He concluded that, at some point, there
had to be an Unmoved Mover, or an Uncaused Cause. But is any of this
really in the realm of natural science?
> Well, that's what I say about having one? What do you need him for?
> What explanatory weight does having such a thing accomplish? In what
> sense does this putative explanation account for anything -- what
> more do you know, accepting this construction, than you knew before?
See above. The universe can be studied and scientists often cite
evidence to show that the universe is finite and expanding, not
eternal.
BTW, I believe that eternal God the Creator exists, by faith. I don't
confuse it with natural science.
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
"nmstevens" <nmst...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:drmnjr$nad$1...@reader2.panix.com...
Sort of, but not quite. Virtual particles (aka vacuum fluctuations) are
made up of one matter particle and one anti-matter particle, and they are so
very very small they can only be proven (and they HAVE been proven!) by
virtue of their impact, not by direct meaurements. They come into being,
then annihilate each other. They are what makes gravity and light work
without any measurable mass, and they are as plentiful in a vacuum as they
are without. You might say that they are the "blackboard" on which the
universe is drawn. But sometimes, when they pop into being, they pop near a
black hole, and sometimes one of them is captured by the black hole while
the other escapes. When this happens, the "forsaken particle" (Hawking's
words) may go shooting a far distance from the black hole and then
"transmute" from a virtual particle to a real measurable particle with mass
that emits radiation in the transition. In a gross oversimplification, this
is the process that digests/annihilates the blackboard on which the universe
is drawn, and the means by which the universe will gradually vanish
altogether leaving behind the ultimate "nothing." And then none of us will
be able to question "reality" because there won't be any left! '-)
Caroline
nmstevens
RonB wrote:
> On Mon 30 Jan 2006 09:04:11p, "nmstevens" <nmst...@msn.com>, wrote:
>
> > And I think most secular folks would have less trouble with religious
> > folks if they'd stop saying, "I know absolutely, positively, beyond
> > any possibility of a doubt," when, in fact, they don't know.
>
> Or, at least, you *think* they don't. You don't know I don't know, you
> can only *think* you know that I don't know. That's not knowing.
States of mind aren't determinable -- but knowledge isn't simply the
state of a mind -- it is the relationship between a thought and its
referent -- the thing that you are thinking about.
I may believe that a thing is true. I may conclude that a thing is
true. The thing that I believe or conclude to be true may, in fact *be*
true -- and yet I might nevertheless not *know* that it is true.
Perception and inference are our only access to the external world.
While the former may yield perfectly accurate results, since inference
is derived from some sort of minimal observation, whether what we
conclude to be true is limited by the accuracy of our capacity to
perceive the world.
And that capacity cannot be determined, by any means, to be one hundred
percent accurate.
There is no way to determine, with perfect precision, whether any
perceived thing correlated precisely to thing perceived.
There is no way to tell whether any experienced thing corresponds with
the thing putatively experienced.
It's a good bet. It's a robust conclusion -- but it is not
independently demonstrable.
So when we speak about "knowing" something in its precise definition
(as opposed to say, "I know the guy who cuts my wife's hair) it can
only apply to two different categories of things.
One is direct experience -- one can know absolutely that one is having
an experience -- because it only refers to itself. The act of having
the experience is its own confirmation.
Having the *experience* of watching a movie on TV is an absolute truth.
Whether that experience correlates to an actual event -- you sitting in
a real chair watching a real TV -- that is a very good bet -- but it
cannot be demonstrated to be true, expect by means of other perceptions
which, like the initial perception, are inherently uncertain.
The only other kind of way that we can "know" things is conditionally.
That is, *given* the truth of certain things -- among them the
existence of a world external to our experience, and the notion that
the world, in fact, corresponds, to some significant degree, to our
experience of it -- then it is possible to make conditional statements
that absolutely tree.
That is, given that A=B, we know that B=A.
But there is no way to independently demonstrate that A=B. It is simply
given.
All scientific statements, all scientific "knowledge" is conditional.
Scientific theories, by their nature, require unique perceptible
consequences -- not omniscience.
The theory of relativity, or quantum mechanics, are both consequential
-- both make unique predictions -- that is, the world has to be a
certain way, and *cannot* be certain specific other ways, given the
truth of the theory.
Relativity predicts that objects moving close to the speed of light
become more massive. They do.
Relativity predicts that light bends in the presence of a powerful
gravitational field. It does.
Relativity predicts that clocks slow down when they are brought close
to the speed of light. They do.
Relativity predicts that the speed of light is independent of the speed
of the source or the observer. That is, if you're travelling at a
thousand miles a second and shine a light out in front of you -- the
light doesn't travel at C plus a thousand. If you're travelling in the
opposite direction, light doesn't travel at C minus a thousand.
That's been checked -- and it's true.
Quantum mechanics, likewise, makes countless extremely precise
predictions about the way things in the world behave -- things that
have to be true if the theory is true, and other things that cannot be
true, if the theory is true.
Likewise, QM has been tested, and it passes every test.
But even so, scientists know that either one or both of these theories
is incomplete -- because each fails to make accurate predictions in the
realm of the other. They are incommensurate.
So the position that scientists take in respect to these highly tested
theories is that, for now, they are the best descriptions of their
particular areas of the world that we have -- but that they must be
incomplete.
Just as Newton's theories failed when used to predict objects moving
close to the speed of light -- so each of these theories has a failure
point.
Which means that there's more to be learned.
>
> > "Not knowing" is the business of science -- the stuff that science
> > has already discovered sits in books -- working scientists
> > investigate areas that are, by definition, unknown. The work of
> > science is to attempt to explain what we don't know.
>
> I understand that.
>
> > How then do scientists have a "problem" with saying that something
> > isn't known?
> >
> > Or do you simply mean that they refuse to say that they don't know --
> > in respect to some things that they know perfectly well -- but which
> > you don't agree with?
>
> Scientists don't know 1) how life arose from non-life (which they're
> finally admitting)
No working scientist would claim to *know* how life arose. At best
there are theories about it that have not yet been confirmed.
What working scientist claims that one given theory of the origins of
life has been confirmed?
You can't judge what scientists claim by reading text books.
or 2) how species arose from another species. Sure
> they claim to know -- they ridicule those who don't agree with their
> various (sometimes conflicting) theories but they don't really *know.*
The theory of evolution -- that is the proposition that life has
changed over the course of geological time, is as confirmed as any
scientific theory ever could be.
There is no serious non-supernatural explanation for the fossil record
other than that life has changed over the course of time.
Once you invoke the supernatural, one might as well claim that the
whole world was created twenty seconds ago, with me in the midst of
writing this, with my head full of memories of things that never
happened.
Any such claim -- any claim for supernatural intervention in the past
-- is incapable of being confirmed by any contemporary observation.
The world wouldn't look any different if it was truly billions of years
old, or simply created a moment ago to *appear* to be billions of years
old.
And if the world looks exactly the same given the truth of a
proposition as it does, given its falsehood -- then that claim is
inconsequential -- it is devoid of *determinable* truth.
> They see a certain, unmistakable order and make assumptions -- and then
> they try to explain away the difficulties, the gaps, the lack of
> intermediates, but the very fact that they have various and (sometimes)
> conflicting theories for the absence proves they don't really know --
> despite all the ridicule they heap down on those who don't share their
> faith.
You could say exactly the same thing about any scientific theory. By
their nature, scientific theories are conditional and incomplete.
The germ theory of disease predated our understanding of viruses -- of
what they were and how they worked. The mechanisms of transmission of
of immunity -- why some people get some diseases and others don't -- is
still not completely understood. The mechanisms of viral infection and
reproduction are incompletely understood. Transmissable diseases like
Kuru seem to be spread by neither bacteria not viruses, but by a
completely different mode of transmission -- a mutated form of a
particular protein.
It it's true, then the whole underlying principle of what constitutes a
contagious element will have to be revised, since prions, clearly, are
not living things, and yet reproduce and produce pathologies.
That may be true or it may not.
But none of that incompleteness, none of the countless things we
*don't* know about disease transmission and immunity -- has any effect
upon the truth or falseness of the underlying theory.
To the extent that any theory in science can be thought of as true --
and that is always conditionally and provisionally -- the the Germ
Theory of Disease is true.
Likewise, the Theory of Evolution -- the theory that life has changed
over geological time -- that is, the theory that new species arise over
the period of millions of years that did not exist before -- is as
confirmed by the evidence as anything possibly could be.
The means by which this occurs -- which is a different theory (and one
that has nothing to do with the origins of life, or of the universe) is
the theory of natural selection.
Natural selection can only work on populations of organisms that
reproduce with variations. Until you get such populations -- whether of
micro-organisms, or of enzymatic molecules, or whatever -- natural
selection won't work.
But in the presence of such populations, it does work -- and it has
been observed to work on the scale that time permits us to observe it.
Does that mean that no other forces are at work in the process of
evolution? No. Even Darwin didn't claim that, and other forces, such as
genetic drift, may very well play a part in the process.
But the theory of natural selection, like any scientific theory, is
consequential. The world has to be a certain way, and can't be other
ways.
And the world *is* the way that the theory predicts. No other
non-magical process has ever been proposed that offers comparable
explanatory power.
And science is not in the business of evaluating magical claims -- any
more than you can call upon science to make a determination of whether
the universe really came into existence two minutes ago, looking
exactly the way it does.
Does that mean that it is true in some absolute, "sky daddy" way? No.
Science doesn't make those sorts of claims -- like that some guy walked
on water and was god and man and dead and alive and up and down and in
and out, all at the same time, and it's okay that it doen't make any
sense because, you see it's a "mystery."
Science addresses itself to that which is determinable. Indeterminate
claims are not the business of science.
But all such theories, even the most tested, are by nature incomplete.
No one asserts that scientific theories are absolutes -- only that they
are our *best* understanding of how something works.
Science leaves absolutist claims about the world to others.
NMS
nmstevens
RonB wrote:
> On Mon 30 Jan 2006 09:04:11p, "nmstevens" <nmst...@msn.com>, wrote:
>
> > You simply declare, by fiat that one thing -- that is, the universe,
> > requires an explanation that excludes any of those things -- and then
> > embrace another explanation that, for some reason, need not exclude
> > all of those things.
> >
> > If a maker of universes can simply be eternal -- there's no reason
> > that the universe cannot be.
>
> Except we can study the universe, that's in the realm of natural
> science -- and, scientists have taught us that it is *not* eternal --
> hence the "Big Bang" theory.
That there was a Big Bang does not exclude or require a universe of
finite age. It may be that time and space, as well as matter, commenced
at the instant of the Big Bang -- or they may not have. There may have
been something prior to the Big Bang -- or nothing -- not even a "when"
in which something might have happened.
>
> > If a maker of universes can simply "be" without any prior creator --
> > who not simply take that capacity, that you reserve for your
> > preferred object of worship, cut him out, and move it up to the
> > Universe -- allowing it to "be" without any prior creator.
>
> See above.
Not a response. The fundamental argument from Design asserts that the
Universe is too complex and ordered to have arisen without having been
created by some intelligent force.
Yet, in order to make a universe, such an intelligence would have to
embody a level of order and complexity that transcends that which is
observed in the universe.
Thus, in sticking with the underlying premise, such a creator,
inevitably, must have been created by something of a still higher order
-- ad infinitum.
Oh, but no. When we hit "creator" we simply change the rules. What was
essential in respect to the universe is unnecessary when applied to
invisible magic guys.
> > If I proposed that the universe was created by a Universe Maker --
> > and that Universe Maker was made by a "Universe Maker-Maker" -- which
> > was eternal and uncreated -- you would be well within your rights to
> > say -- why do you need two? What extra explanatory weight does having
> > two accomplish?
>
> Aristotle struggled with this. He concluded that, at some point, there
> had to be an Unmoved Mover, or an Uncaused Cause. But is any of this
> really in the realm of natural science?
Certainly, he didn't draw a distinction, and to the extent that the
issue keeps cropping up -- and describes not some invisible realm, but
addresses a question regarding the material world -- then yes, it is
relevant.
I think that it is clear that, in some way, shape, or form, the issue
of where the world came from must terminate in some "uncreated" state
of affairs. If there was a first instant, then nothing came before it.
If the universe is eternal or circular, then likewise, that state of
affairs did not emerge from some prior state of affairs.
If created by some supernatural being, the same things apply any
discussion of that being.
>
> > Well, that's what I say about having one? What do you need him for?
> > What explanatory weight does having such a thing accomplish? In what
> > sense does this putative explanation account for anything -- what
> > more do you know, accepting this construction, than you knew before?
>
> See above. The universe can be studied and scientists often cite
> evidence to show that the universe is finite and expanding, not
> eternal.
But last time I checked, the word "universe" applied to everything.
Everything. Everywhere. Every time. Every dimension. Every realm. The
idea of "outside the universe" -- given that definition, is
meaningless.
If there is a God, or a heaven, or a hell, in addition to a cosmos --
then those entities, along with teapots and kumquats, exists *within*
the universe -- because there is no such thing as a thing apart from
"everything."
Clearly, by any believer's claims, the two closely interact. God
perceives things -- which means that information flows from where we
are to where he is. God acts -- which means that energy, of some sort,
moves from where he is to where we are.
Any two realms that interact in that way are clearly part of a single
system. If one asserts that God is responsible for events in the
natural world, then God ought to be determinable -- the world should be
measurably different given his absence as it would be given his
presence.
But, apparently, when push comes to shove, this being -- on account of
he's shy or something -- always acts invisibly, except long ago and far
away in places where his really dramatic stuff can hunker down safely
beyond our capacity to examine them.
>
> BTW, I believe that eternal God the Creator exists, by faith. I don't
> confuse it with natural science.
Does that mean that God is, in some sense, "unnatural?"
Deists, like Tom Paine, asserted that the only significant evidence of
God would have to be found in the natural world --- since only the
natural world is equally available to all observers. Thus (and many
other theologists have asserted this) there would be no distinction
between the study of the natural world and the study of God. One ought,
in principle, lead us to the other, just as we can infer certain things
about the sub-atomic world, even though, clearly, it is not directly
observable to us.
But, of course, it doesn't, really. In the end, all our studies of the
observable universe lead us to are statements about the universe that
are either observable, or inferrable from our observations.
If I accuse you of killing Joe Blow -- and there's absolutely no
evidence that you did it -- maybe that means that you actually killed
him, but did it in a way that left absolutely no perceptible trace.
Or maybe it means that you didn't do it.
If God "did it" -- that is created the universe, but did it in a way
that left no trace that identifies him, as distinct from strictly
natural processes -- maybe that means, as people clearly claim, that he
"did it" -- but in a way that left no trace of his presence, because
that would mean -- some stuff about faith, or not having it, or
whatever.
Or maybe it means that he didn't do it.
NMS
mary...@rcn.com
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen) wrote:
Hey! I started this, with "I think, therefore I yam what I yam." -
Popeye, Rene's younger brother.
MC
"mary...@rcn.com" <mary...@rcn.com> wrote:
> > > Joe Myers
> > > "I think."
> >
> >
> > "I think, therefore I am."
> > Descartes
> >
> > "I am, therefore I think."
> > Caroline
>
> Hey! I started this, with "I think, therefore I yam what I yam." -
> Popeye, Rene's younger brother.
"I drink therefore I am."
-- Australian Philosopher Bruce
--
Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world.
-- Jean-Luc Godard
Ron
RonB <ron...@spamNOgmail.com> wrote:
> But all these theories presuppose matter. To really get to the origin,
> you would have to explain where *that* came from.
Sure. But suppose I performed an experiment which showed that matter
could appear from nothing (one of the current theories, essentially that
all matter is a stastistically predictable random event - matter and
anti-matter created in tandem, being, on some level, indistinguishable
from nothing)
Now nobody can do this, right now. But there's no reason to presume that
we'll never be able to.
-Ron
mary...@rcn.com
Ron wrote:
>
> Now nobody can do this, right now. But there's no reason to presume that
> we'll never be able to.
My two cents: I have an unshakable - a revived one, and so far,
untested - faith, and yet I don't have any truly strong beliefs. I
think there's a higher power, far be it from me to try to grasp its
scope and intensity. Maybe the Bible stories happened, maybe they
didn't, maybe all I can do is behave myself and count my blessings. I
do think the Ten Commandments are pretty good rules to live by.
Otherwise? Let the scientists measure everything they can, let them
count the grains of sand on the beach, let them study the science of
sand, as if knowing about silica will help them understand the
relationship between surf and sand. The waves pound relentlessly, and
there they are with microscopes.
RonB
> I may believe that a thing is true. I may conclude that a thing is
> true. The thing that I believe or conclude to be true may, in fact *be*
> true -- and yet I might nevertheless not *know* that it is true.
But I do. I have Faith.
MC
"mary...@rcn.com" <mary...@rcn.com> wrote:
> My two cents: I have an unshakable - a revived one, and so far,
> untested - faith, and yet I don't have any truly strong beliefs. I
> think there's a higher power, far be it from me to try to grasp its
> scope and intensity.
My rather wavery and vague faith took an awful battering over the
tsunami.
How can a loving, forgiving, generous -- and *omnipotent* -- deity
either directly cause, or at least not prevent, a tsunami that killed a
quarter of a million people?
I am familiar with the stock responses and I'm afraid they are simply
not satisfactory.
My faith hasn't vanished. Not at all. It's just that I can't reconcile
death on that scale with a god who has our best interests at heart. I
can't find a way to have it make sense.
RonB
> That there was a Big Bang does not exclude or require a universe of
> finite age. It may be that time and space, as well as matter,
> commenced at the instant of the Big Bang -- or they may not have.
> There may have been something prior to the Big Bang -- or nothing --
> not even a "when" in which something might have happened.
If there was nothing before the "Big Bang" than there was nothing to
cause the "bang" or to "bang." Nothing comes from nothing.
RonB
> Sure. But suppose I performed an experiment which showed that matter
> could appear from nothing (one of the current theories, essentially
> that all matter is a stastistically predictable random event - matter
> and anti-matter created in tandem, being, on some level,
> indistinguishable from nothing)
Something "indistinguishable from nothing" is not nothing.
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
"RonB" <ron...@spamNOgmail.com> wrote in message
ROOooonnnn... Come on, think about it. "Faith" is believing something
without proof, "knowledge" is knowing something because it has been proven.
Not the same critter... '-)
Caroline
RonB
<otto....@verizon.net>, wrote:
> ROOooonnnn... Come on, think about it. "Faith" is believing
> something without proof, "knowledge" is knowing something because it
> has been proven. Not the same critter... '-)
I know. Knowledge is subject to error. Supernatural Faith is not.
mary...@rcn.com
MC wrote:
> My rather wavery and vague faith took an awful battering over the
> tsunami.
>
> How can a loving, forgiving, generous -- and *omnipotent* -- deity
> either directly cause, or at least not prevent, a tsunami that killed a
> quarter of a million people?
Because maybe, if there is a God, he/ she/ it is not a nice guy? I can
have faith and still not like what happens. Sometimes you have to say,
"So be it."
>
> I am familiar with the stock responses and I'm afraid they are simply
> not satisfactory.
>
> My faith hasn't vanished. Not at all. It's just that I can't reconcile
> death on that scale with a god who has our best interests at heart. I
> can't find a way to have it make sense.
I think some things don't make sense, and I'm not sure a higher power
is interested in our day-to-day comfort. I think faith has to come
from knowing you are doing the best you can under your given
circumstances, and playing by the rules, and knowing that shit happens,
and muddling through anyway. It's like having a baby. Nobody wants to
get up at all hours of the night for feeding and changing poopy
diapers, but we do it anyway - it's part of the deal, and the reward
is the growing child. I think faith is something you need to nurture
and prune relentlessly, if you want it to take proper shape.
>
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen)
"RonB" <ron...@spamNOgmail.com> wrote in message
LOL! That's funny. It's the super slippery slide of the universe! Youre
cute! '-)
Caroline
Ron
RonB <ron...@spamNOgmail.com> wrote:
> Something "indistinguishable from nothing" is not nothing.
What is it, then?
Unfortunately, Ron, you're struggling with fundamental physics which you
just haven't studied.
The fact is that matter appears and disappears all the time, on a very
small scale. Your belief that "something can't come from nothing" is
provably false.
As this impacts on the origins of the universe, the difference is
primarily a matter of scale.
-Ron
Ron
RonB <ron...@spamNOgmail.com> wrote:
> Knowledge is subject to error. Supernatural Faith is not.
Well, this is an interesting one.
Because your faith, which you hold honestly and strongly, is completely
incompatible with the faith of millions of others, which they hold just
as honestly and strongly.
Some of those faiths are moderately incompatible with yours (eg, a
Russian Orthodox Christian who disagrees with you primarily on matters
of the primacy of the church). Some of them are significantly
incompatible with yours (a Muslim who thinks the Jesus was a profit, but
not the son of god). Others are completely incompatible with yours (eg,
a hindu's.)
How does a rational and thinking person reconcile that? Given that the
vast majority of people who feel faith as strongly as you do are in some
way deluded (eg, you can't all be right), how do you have any confidence
that you are not similarly deluded?
Or do you just not ask yourself these questions?
-Ron
mary...@rcn.com
Otto Mation (Caroline Freisen) wrote:
> >
> >> ROOooonnnn... Come on, think about it. "Faith" is believing
> >> something without proof, "knowledge" is knowing something because it
> >> has been proven. Not the same critter... '-)
Faith and knowledge are indeed different. You can know your math
facts, but you have faith that your mate will come home after work,
even though he/ she may not, one day, come home. I agree with RonB.
And I think that having fanatical beliefs - as opposed to basic faith -
isn't a good idea.
> >
> > I know. Knowledge is subject to error. Supernatural Faith is not.
> >
> LOL! That's funny. It's the super slippery slide of the universe! Youre
> cute! '-)
>
> Caroline
Uh-oh, Caroline's poking us again.
MC
"mary...@rcn.com" <mary...@rcn.com> wrote:
You're a thoughtful girl, Marybones. That's a very interesting answer.
Thanks.
MC
Ron <ronald...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> a Muslim who thinks the Jesus was a profit
Ahem...
Er...
Wilford Brimley
Alan Brooks
> My rather wavery and vague faith took an awful battering over the
> tsunami.
>
> How can a loving, forgiving, generous -- and *omnipotent* -- deity
> either directly cause, or at least not prevent, a tsunami that killed a
> quarter of a million people?
Really? Some 11 million children under 5 die every year, the vast majority
from things that we, as humans, could prevent if we weren't so busy blinging
our SUVs. I don't see why a single catastrophic thinning of the population
would shake a faith that you (or anyone) can maintain in the face of all the
senseless day-to-day pain and death humans experience.
Alan Brooks
---------------------------
A Schmuck with an Underwood
-- ...the lord god made them all...
MWSM FAQ: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/faq.html
Filtering Trolls: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/trolls.html
nmstevens
RonB wrote:
> On Tue 31 Jan 2006 07:08:51a, "nmstevens" <nmst...@msn.com>, wrote:
>
> > I may believe that a thing is true. I may conclude that a thing is
> > true. The thing that I believe or conclude to be true may, in fact *be*
> > true -- and yet I might nevertheless not *know* that it is true.
>
> But I do. I have Faith.
>
Faith is not knowledge -- and *cannot* be knowledge.
A given proposition cannot be simultaneously true and not true. Yet
there are countless mutually exclusive propositions in competing
religions -- claims about the world that are not simply asserted to be
"true for me" -- but rather true for the universe.
All of these various competing and mutually exclusive claims are taken
as true on faith by their respective believers. Some or none of those
claims may actually be true.
But nobody involved can possible *know* -- in the sense of having
*direct access* to the truth of the claim in question.
One can only gain access to such putative truths either through
perception -- I saw God and he told me, or through inference, "God
spoke to me in my head."
But, in fact, inference always plays a part, because even in the former
case, we must "infer" a correlation between our experience of a
putative god -- and the physical reality of that experience.
Either way, doubt remains, as it necessarily must in respect to
anything beyond direct experience.
That someone may have an "experience" of Jesus, or Jehovah, or Allah --
or Apollo, for that matter, and may believe in the truth of that
experience -- that is, believe in the correlation between the
experience and the reality of the God in question -- doesn't -- and
cannot -- constitute knowledge.
NMS
RonB
> In article <droff8$l26$1...@reader2.panix.com>,
> RonB <ron...@spamNOgmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Something "indistinguishable from nothing" is not nothing.
>
> What is it, then?
*Something* indistinguishable from nothing. You're own words.
> Unfortunately, Ron, you're struggling with fundamental physics which
> you just haven't studied.
>From what little I know of Quantum Mechanics, I know that it works with
"sub-atomic particles." Again, not nothing. The word "quanta," itself,
deals with a quantity. You can not have a "quantity" of nothing.
> The fact is that matter appears and disappears all the time, on a
> very small scale. Your belief that "something can't come from
> nothing" is provably false.
The "nothing" you speak of, is always in reference to something. In other
words, in the strange world of quantum mechanics (if I understand it
correctly), you use this *nothing* to accurately measure the probability
of something *really* happening. So, no, Quantum Mechanics can not
explain how something comes from nothing. In nothingness you have no sub-
atomic particles, no energy, no waves, no fluctuation -- nothing.
> As this impacts on the origins of the universe, the difference is
> primarily a matter of scale.
Oh, sure. It's all there, except for the dotting the i's and crossing the
t's. A mere formality.
mary...@rcn.com
Ron wrote:
> Because your faith, which you hold honestly and strongly, is completely
> incompatible with the faith of millions of others, which they hold just
> as honestly and strongly.
>
> Some of those faiths are moderately incompatible with yours (eg, a
> Russian Orthodox Christian who disagrees with you primarily on matters
> of the primacy of the church). Some of them are significantly
> incompatible with yours (a Muslim who thinks the Jesus was a profit,
prophet
but
> not the son of god).
God.
Others are completely incompatible with yours (eg,
> a hindu's.)
Hindu's
>
> How does a rational and thinking person reconcile that? Given that the
> vast majority of people who feel faith as strongly as you do are in some
> way deluded (eg, you can't all be right),
Actually, we can all be right, to a certain extent.
how do you have any confidence
> that you are not similarly deluded?
>
> Or do you just not ask yourself these questions?
This thread is taking a turn towards the rude. Anyone who has
seriously looked at religion knows the philosophical similarites far
outweigh the differences. Any religion can have fanatics. Faith does
not equal religion, nor does it mean the person of faith doesn't ask
questions.
nmstevens
That presumes that "something" never comes from nothing -- that is,
nothing arises without a unique and essential precursor.
But that's not true. That fundamental idea went out when Quantum
mechanics came in.
In QM's description of the universe, particles may be emitted in
certain reactions -- but when that will occur can only be described
statistically. At any given moment a particle may be emitted or may
not. But when it happens, nothing is different than it was before the
particle was emitted. There was, in fact, no unique precursor --
nothing that caused the particle to be produced at a given place and a
given time.
Virtual particle pairs come into existence -- out of nothing. Nothing
produces them. Nothing causes a given pair to arise at any given point.
Their behavior is inherently uncertain. In fact, it is the uncertain
nature of the universe that is the heart of the prediction of the
existence of virtual particles -- a prediction that has consequences
and which has been confirmed.
They are out there -- they, in fact permeate all space. You're
surrounded by the very thing that you assert cannot happen --
"somethings" that arise from nothing.
"Cause and effect" is not a natural law -- there's no such thing as
conservation of cause and effect. It is simply something that we
observe in operation under certain scales and conditions -- but does
not operate under others.
NMS
nmstevens
RonB wrote:
> On Tue 31 Jan 2006 01:01:19p, "Otto Mation \(Caroline Freisen\)"
> <otto....@verizon.net>, wrote:
>
> > ROOooonnnn... Come on, think about it. "Faith" is believing
> > something without proof, "knowledge" is knowing something because it
> > has been proven. Not the same critter... '-)
>
> I know. Knowledge is subject to error. Supernatural Faith is not.
>
That, RonB, is an absurdity. Your faith tells you that Jesus was the
son of God -- that is an article of faith for you.
Followers of Islam believe that Jesus was a prophet, like Moses --
nothing more.
These are both irreducible tenets of their respective supernaturally
based faiths.
Yet at least one of them must be wrong. If something *must* wrong, it
follows inevitably that it *can* be wrong.
Thus "subject to error."
NMS
Alan Brooks
> Ron <ronald...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> a Muslim who thinks the Jesus was a profit
>
> Ahem...
No, Ron got it right.
Alan Brooks
---------------------------
A Schmuck with an Underwood
-- No profit is accepted
in his own country. -- Luke 4:24
At least not for tax purposes.
MC
"mary...@rcn.com" <mary...@rcn.com> wrote:
> > a hindu's.)
>
> Hindu's
What's a Hindu?
It lays eggs!
(Source: The Goon Show).
MC
> This thread is taking a turn towards the rude. Anyone who has
> seriously looked at religion knows the philosophical similarites far
> outweigh the differences. Any religion can have fanatics. Faith does
> not equal religion, nor does it mean the person of faith doesn't ask
> questions.
Exactly. I once attended a lecture given by David Frost and someone
asked him who his most memorable interviewee had been, and he cited a
Salvation Army guy who had spent his adult life in India working for the
poorest of the poor... and he wasn't sure if he believed in God.
RonB
> In article <drog89$dlm$1...@reader2.panix.com>,
> RonB <ron...@spamNOgmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Knowledge is subject to error. Supernatural Faith is not.
>
> Well, this is an interesting one.
It certainly is, isn't it?
> Because your faith, which you hold honestly and strongly, is
> completely incompatible with the faith of millions of others, which
> they hold just as honestly and strongly.
Or so you claim. Despite your cluelessness as to what I mean when I say
"Supernatural Faith."
> Some of those faiths are moderately incompatible with yours (eg, a
> Russian Orthodox Christian who disagrees with you primarily on
> matters of the primacy of the church). Some of them are significantly
> incompatible with yours (a Muslim who thinks the Jesus was a profit,
> but not the son of god). Others are completely incompatible with
> yours (eg, a hindu's.)
My Supernatural Faith is in Almighty God. I doubt that it is as
incompatible to others' Faith in God as you seem to imagine.
> How does a rational and thinking person reconcile that? Given that
> the vast majority of people who feel faith as strongly as you do are
> in some way deluded (eg, you can't all be right), how do you have any
> confidence that you are not similarly deluded?
I think you assume too much. (See above.)
> Or do you just not ask yourself these questions?
I've asked myself many, many questions. That's why my Supernatural
Faith led me to Catholicism. My Supernatural Faith (in other words,
faith from God) existed long before I was Catholic.
But *do* feel free to lecture me some more on what you think you know
about my beliefs. It's always amusing to read.
MC
Alan Brooks <ch...@panix.com> wrote:
> > How can a loving, forgiving, generous -- and *omnipotent* -- deity
> > either directly cause, or at least not prevent, a tsunami that killed a
> > quarter of a million people?
>
> Really? Some 11 million children under 5 die every year, the vast majority
> from things that we, as humans, could prevent if we weren't so busy blinging
> our SUVs. I don't see why a single catastrophic thinning of the population
> would shake a faith that you (or anyone) can maintain in the face of all the
> senseless day-to-day pain and death humans experience.
Apples: What human beings could do if they would stop being such shits.
Oranges: What an omnipotent God *must* be able to do, but chooses not
to.
nmstevens
It is clear that, in terms of the requirements that religions place on
its members, there are substantial similarities -- but that's not
really surprising, since religions grow out of human social groups, and
social require certain basic sorts of behaviors in order to exist at
all.
But religions also make irreducible claims about the nature of the
world -- about historical events, about the nature of their respective
deities, about the origins of the world and its ultimate fate.
These claims, whether the believers are thoughtful or not -- and I
believe that there are many thoughtful religious persons -- can't
simply be swept under the rug.
When people die -- something happens. Either our consciousness ends and
our bodies rot -- or we are reincarnated, or some people go to heaven
and others to hell, eternally -- as Christianity describes, or people,
depending on their sins, go through a temporary form of hell and then
move on to heaven as, in various ways, Judaism and Islam predict -- or
maybe something completely different happens.
But these schemas are not "believer specific" -- Christians do not
believe that Heaven and Hell is something just for good and bad
Christians, while the Hindus go on and get reincarnated, as they
believe.
Neither do Hindus (so far as I know) think that they get reincarnated,
while members of other faiths get to go to the afterlife of their
choice.
These beliefs are mutually exclusive. They cannot all be true. Either
our consciousness continues -- or it doesn't. Either that consciousness
if reborn -- or it isn't.
And while others may dispute it, everything that I see suggests to me
that the respective believers in these incommensurate systems, believe
what they believe with absolute sincerity.
One could hardly question the conviction of an Islamic Imam, or a
Rabbi, or a priest -- people who devote their entire lives to their
respective faiths. Some, obviously, may be phonies, but I can't see any
evidence that phonies are more present in one faith than another.
The same is true with sincere believers. It follows, inevitably, that
sincerely believing in the truth in the tenets of a particular religion
*require* -- as a logical matter -- believing in the untruth of those
mutually exclusive beliefs.
Whether posed rudely or not Ron's question is a legitimate one.
If sincerity of believe is some measure of a belief's truth content --
how do you explain the sincere and committed belief in mutually
exclusive propositions?
It may be true that all the sincere believers are simply wrong. But it
is logically unavoidable that some of them *must* be wrong.
NMS
RonB
> That, RonB, is an absurdity. Your faith tells you that Jesus was the
> son of God -- that is an article of faith for you.
That belief is the result of my Supernatural Faith. Yes. I believe
because the God, whom I have Faith in, revealed it.
> Followers of Islam believe that Jesus was a prophet, like Moses --
> nothing more.
They're wrong. But their Faith in God may be as strong as my Faith in
God.
> These are both irreducible tenets of their respective supernaturally
> based faiths.
And I believe that a Muslim, if he has no way of knowing the truth, yet
still lives according to his Faith in God to best of his knowledge, is
by virtue of Baptism of Desire, a Christian.
(I know this definitely *not* natural science now.)
> Yet at least one of them must be wrong. If something *must* wrong, it
> follows inevitably that it *can* be wrong.
But the Supernatural Faith in the existence of God is *not* wrong in
either case.
> Thus "subject to error."
Nope.
Drenowski
> The "nothing" you speak of, is always in reference to something. In other
> words, in the strange world of quantum mechanics (if I understand it
> correctly), you use this *nothing* to accurately measure the probability
> of something *really* happening. So, no, Quantum Mechanics can not
> explain how something comes from nothing. In nothingness you have no sub-
> atomic particles, no energy, no waves, no fluctuation -- nothing.
QM offers a lot more "usefull evidence" about the existence of Something
Grea(er). The whole issue of observing, and thus changing, what happens
or does not happen, for example. But... unfortunately it has very little
to do with the creation of matter/energy as we know it.
For instance, lets assume there was nothing before Big Bang. And lets
assume that Something Great(er) caused it all and out of nothing came
something. Er... Where did Something Great(er) come from? Out of
nothing? Out of something? If Something Great(er) could have come to be
out of nothing, what is to say that the physical universe could not have
come from nothing instead? Since there was nothing it (Something Great
(er)) could not have existed at all? Unless it was merely a thought, a
wave... oops. Energy?
But energy transforms into matter and vice versa so if there had been
energy then the appearance of the material universe is merely a question
of time. Unless back then, when there was nothing, there was no time as
well. Because if you look at how physics explains time today, it turns
out time has no meaning if there is no matter and there is no energy.
Which brings us to the final mindboggling question of 'nerdy' science
clubs at well-off schools: if there was nothing material, no energy and
no time... Well, what is to say that the Big Bang did not happen in what
we now think is the future?
Yes. Because if there is no time then there is no reason to believe that
something needs to happen in the past in order to have its effect today;
or in the future.
That's why anyone serious about the Big Bang theory will only claim that
the universe as we know it now might have been created with the BB.
There had to be something prior to that, just as we can assume there
will be something after this universe expires and contracts back to a
critical mass of subatomic particles and high energy.
This is not to prove that there is Nothing Great(er); merely stating the
obvious that the noting-comes-from-nothing argument does not fit all too
well in the where-the-hell-did-it-all-come-from discussion.
nmstevens
Well -- Yup. I guess that puts you in your place.
You somehow seem to presume that there is one universal definition of
God that everybody agrees about.
That's clearly not true.
Even if you presume that a person is believing according to his best
lights -- nevertheless, the fact that you draw a distinction makes it
clear that you believe that there is one.
The "god" in which you believe is one that came down to earth in the
form of Jesus, died in order to redeem mankind, and was reborn.
That is not a god in which Islamic, Jewish, or Hindu worshippers
believe.
If one says, "I believe in God" -- you might be a deist, or Jewish, or
Catholic -- or a Mormon, or an animist, or a Zoroastrian.
But the fact that they all use the same word doesn't mean that they
believe in the same thing.
So the question, I suppose, is just how de minimus a definition are you
prepared to embrace?
For many thousands of years, the majority of religious belief was in
"gods" -- plural -- not in a single overarching mono-theistic deity.
Would a sincere belief in Isis, or Zeus, or Thor, pass muster?
Certainly there were Vikings around after the advent of Christianity --
so would a sincere worshipper of Odin, who knew no better, by your
definition, be subject to the "Baptism of Desire" -- thus qualify as a
"Christian?"
I'm not saying that such could not be the case (this is obviously
something that you know a lot better than me) -- but it certainly seems
to stretch the definition a little bit far.
NMS
RonB
wrote:
> This is not to prove that there is Nothing Great(er); merely stating
> the obvious that the noting-comes-from-nothing argument does not fit
> all too well in the where-the-hell-did-it-all-come-from discussion.
I can tell you one thing... I'm going to do some studying into Quantum
Mechanics -- extrememly interesting.
Thanks for the message.
Paulo Joe Jingy
Ron wrote:
> The fact is that matter appears and disappears all the time, on a very
> small scale. Your belief that "something can't come from nothing" is
> provably false.
>
> As this impacts on the origins of the universe, the difference is
> primarily a matter of scale.
I can absolutely prove intelligent design exists. The fact that you're
typing on a keyboard and sending a message that I can read on my
computer, absolutely proves it.