Woo-Woo Took a Beating in 2009
DharmaTroll
http://www.livescience.com/health/091208-alternative-medicine.html
By Christopher Wanjek,
LiveScience Bad Medicine Columnist
If there's a silver lining in the continued popularity of non-
scientific healing techniques, it's the fact that the scientific
community is at long last putting these so-called treatments and
potions through vigorous testing. And one by one they fail to live up
to their purported benefits.
Here are five woo-woo alternative therapies that were debunked or
denounced in 2009.
(1) Reiki
Reiki is a spiritual practice developed in Japan in the early 20th
century that, in the hands of Westerners, has evolved into a new-age
healing practice. Popular in Hawaii and California by the 1970s, reiki
has since become a staple at health spas and in granola-loving cities
across the United States.
Reiki involves a practitioner (that is, someone who has taken a couple
days of training) who places her hands on or just above a patient's
body to transmit healing energy — the "ki" or reiki, better known as
qi in Chinese traditional medicine. Reiki has all the trappings of new-
age healing: restoring balance and instilling life energy through
mysticism and/or vibrational energy. Akin to a hands-off massage,
reiki is said to relieve stress, fatigue and depression and promote
self-healing for just about any disease, including cancer.
The two largest scientific reviews of reiki, published last year in
International Journal of Clinical Practice and in November 2009 in the
Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, reveal that reiki
is not an effective treatment for any condition. Also in 2009, the
U.S. Catholic Church weighed in, stating at a March meeting of bishops
that, "since Reiki therapy is not compatible with either Christian
teaching or scientific evidence, it would be inappropriate for...
Catholic health care facilities... to provide support for Reiki
therapy."
Reiki is not an outright scam; the practitioners seem to believe in
what they are doing. In the end the soft music and whispery speech of
the practitioners during the reiki sessions merely helps one relax.
(2) Reflexology or zone therapy
What's the connection between the center of the ball of the left foot
and the heart? Apparently nothing, according to systematic reviews of
reflexology, or zone therapy, the practice of massaging the feet and
sometimes hands or ears to cure disease.
Maybe you've seen the charts. The toes are somehow connected to the
head and sinuses. There's a spot in the middle of the foot that can
help control diabetes, and next to that is the fresh-breath button.
Foot massages sure do feel great. But "feel great" and "cure
halitosis" are two different things.
As summed up in a study of over 250 adults, published in November-
December 2009 issue of the journal Heart & Lung, reflexology and other
massage techniques had no effect for heart surgery patients on
postoperative mood, pain, anxiety, hospital stay and several other
measures. (Actually, anxiety was lower in the group not getting the
foot massage.)
This study follows systematic reviews published in September 2009 in
the Medical Journal of Australia and in June 2008 by Taiwanese
researchers in the Journal of Advanced Nursing finding no evidence
that reflexology helps any condition.
(3) Homeopathy
Homeopathy is the use of physically impossible or implausible
dilutions of medicines — or, poisons, actually, for homeopathy's main
tenet is "like kills like" — to cure just about anything. Numerous
studies in 2009 found homeopathy to be either useless or marginally
better than a placebo. But results tilt towards the "useless" side
when the studies are bigger and the diseases are more serious.
In April in the journal Intervention Review, British researchers
reported that there's no evidence to support the use of homeopathy to
treat the adverse effects of cancer treatment. In June in the journal
Primary Care, a systematic review found homeopathy to be ineffective
for weight loss. In October in the Annals of Oncology, more
researchers reported no benefit from homeopathy in cancer treatment.
And a medical perspective in JAMA in October detailed the lack of
oversight for homeopathic products. (Maybe that's why they don't
work.)
Also, in August 2009, the World Health Organization felt the need to
make an official statement warning against the use of homeopathy for
serious diseases, such as HIV, TB and malaria, after word spread that
homeopathy was being promoted in some developing countries.
To be fair, the Faculty of Homeopathy, a UK-based professional
society, lists numerous randomized, controlled trials on its website
from previous years demonstrating the efficacy of homeopathy. If you
want lots of positive results, you can always subscribe to the journal
Homeopathy. And so the debate continues.
(4) Magnetic therapy
Unlike many alternative therapies that come with ample amounts of good
intentions, magnetic therapy seems like an outright scam. Most
manufacturers know the magnets have no proven benefit for health, and
yet magnets are added to everything from headbands to back braces to
shoe inserts.
The basic premise, that magnets somehow improve blood flow, defies
physics. The iron in your blood is bound to hemoglobin and is not
attracted to magnets of any strength. This is a good thing. Otherwise
you'd blow up in an MRI machine, with magnets thousands of times more
powerful than your shoe insert.
Also, the magnets in most magnetic therapeutic devices are far too
weak to penetrate the skin, particularly through clothing such as
socks. Simply cover a magnetic shoe insert with a sock and try to
attract something as light as a paper clip.
Nevertheless, some people swear by them, and some researchers still
have the stamina to test these despite decades of negative results.
And so, as published in August 2009 in Rheumatology International
Clinical and Experimental Investigations, magnetic therapy did not
improve the chronic pain associated with fibromyalgia.
The deathblow to magnet therapy should have been the large,
randomized, double-blinded study on pain published in 2007 in
Anesthesia & Analgesia. Yet sales of therapeutic magnets remain legal.
(5) Kava
Herbs hold great healing promise. Many common drugs, such as aspirin
and digitalin, were either once or continue to be synthesized from
botanical herbs. Yet herbs can be deadly, too. Kava is one such herb,
taken for relaxation. When mixed with alcohol, it can kill you. This
is likely not the level of relaxation you are after. Also, the leaves
and stems (but not the roots) can be toxic to the liver. Kava is
indeed banned in many countries through Europe, where herbal medicine
is otherwise popular.
In systematic reviews of kava and other herbals published in September
2009 in the journal Drugs and in Integrative Cancer Therapies,
researchers found kava to be more trouble than it is worth, because it
interferes with real medicines for cancer and other diseases.
Kava is not without its merits. Kava root is mixed into a drink in
many South Pacific countries with few adverse effects, other than
those that mimic alcohol abuse. Some studies have shown kava's value
in treating anxiety and depression from a specially prepared root
extract. But despite the availability of kava on supermarket shelves,
because of potential toxicity and drug interference, it is best to
check with a doctor before self-prescribing this herb.
Conclusion: Big bad mainstream medicine
Mainstream medicine has its faults and its critics. But consider how
HIV/AIDS has transitioned from a death sentence to a manageable
chronic disease in about a decade, with a cure surely on the horizon.
Advances in the treatment of HIV did not involve understanding its qi
or lack of qi or vibrational energy or the imbalance it causes in some
holistic manner. The search for a cure has entailed isolating the
cause (a retrovirus) and then building upon previous knowledge of DNA,
RNA, enzymes, transcription and the inner workings of the cell (all
Nobel-prize winning efforts) to create antiretroviral treatments that
employ nucleoside analogue and non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase
inhibitors and protease inhibitors.
Sound complicated? It is. People go to school for a long time to learn
how this works. And the medicine does have nasty side effects. But it
works better than a foot massage.
Lee
"DharmaTroll" <dharm...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:52d9b0e3-e795-4e49...@g31g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
by this type of convoluted "logic"
i guess i shouldn't suppose a
decent heart transplant from the
amateur surgeons in my neighborhood
and that in and of itself disqualifies all
surgery as being efficacious.
i practice qigong and i suppose that
the fact that i have no physical problems
and only one minor cold in the last twelve
years means nothing against this overwhelming
evidence of the uselessness of all such practices.
Charles E Hardwidge
news:52d9b0e3-e795-4e49...@g31g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
> http://www.livescience.com/health/091208-alternative-medicine.html
>
> By Christopher Wanjek,
> LiveScience Bad Medicine Columnist
>
> If there's a silver lining in the continued popularity of non-
> scientific healing techniques, it's the fact that the scientific
> community is at long last putting these so-called treatments and
> potions through vigorous testing. And one by one they fail to live up
> to their purported benefits.
Well, yes. But, they may be more enjoyable and less toxic alternatives to
the industrial-medical complex's reliance on placebos and treatment for the
sake of treatment. As an example, studies have shown that CBT is less
effective than Buddhism and the horrors of extending life while allowing
quality of life to suffer are obvious. I have no issue with questions being
asked but are they they right questions? Perhaps, a little less arrogance
and vested interest all round would help.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
DharmaTroll
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>
> news:52d9b0e3-e795-4e49...@g31g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
>
> >Woo-Woo Took a Beating in 2009
> >http://www.livescience.com/health/091208-alternative-medicine.html
>
> by this type of convoluted "logic"
> i guess i shouldn't suppose a
> decent heart transplant from the
> amateur surgeons in my neighborhood
> and that in and of itself disqualifies all
> surgery as being efficacious.
>
> i practice qigong and i suppose that
> the fact that i have no physical problems
> and only one minor cold in the last twelve
Yes, that means nothing! That's just the kind of bullshit false
causality that fosters woo-woo. It's called the post hoc ergo propter
hoc fallacy. You haven't got sick except for a cold in several years.
Then you arbitrarily pick exactly one of your habits (and it tends to
be a woo-woo habit), and then you claim that this is some sort of
evidence that your woo-woo habit had anything to do with your not
getting cancer or pneumonia or the swine flu or whatever.
I've gotten a cold or two, but other than that, I haven't been sick or
seen a doctor since college until last year just for a check-up
because my dad insisted, and they did tons of bloodwork, and I'm in
perfect health. It would be idiotic for me to claim that it was from
any one thing. Is it the Vipassana retreats? The trips to the gym? The
weekly bicycle rides to the pub, or even the pints of ale and porter
at the pub? Is it my not eating dead animals? Is it my not having
kids? Is it my not taking any prescription drugs for anything, nor
even using caffeine? Or is it my smoking good pot and drinking fine
ales? Is it my dad's genes (he's twice my age and in perfect health)?
I could weave a bullshit woo-woo story about any of those things.
I think practicing chi gong is great, just like yoga, btw. But if you
think that you have any evidence or indication that doing funky
Chinese yoga caused you not to get the flu or lots of colds, then
you're more of a gullible nutter than Keynes!
And yet silly people make such claims all the time. The rule of thumb
is this: the longer the temporal scope (i.e., years versus hours), the
more shaky and ridiculous any such claims are. If you do some exercise
like chi gong, and then you feel better right afterward, great. But
claiming that it has anything to do with your not getting colds is
nonsensical and superstitious nonsense.
Whatever you do, whether it's chanting Hare Krishna or praying on a
rosary or getting season tickets to hockey games, you can always have
said the same thing and then used that phony sarcasm that woo-woo-ists
use to cover their bullshit, and say "yeah, like that's just a
coincidence". Oh, and even the momentary good feelings you feel may be
just from stretching and exercising, and whether it was chi gong or
yoga or pilates wouldn't make a damned bit of difference. But you
can't know that, because you aren't looking at similar conditions of
all three and then a control group that watches tv or something.
So to finish your sarcastic bullshit claim:
> against this overwhelming
> evidence of the uselessness of all such practices.
That is, you're implying that your randomly picking one of hundreds of
activities of yours and assigning it a salient role of causality in
your not getting the flu or whatever, and now you can sarcastically
dismiss tons of research that is unbiased and repeated because of your
biased and arbitrary invocation of the post hoc ergo propter hoc
fallacy! Amazing!
--DharmaTroll
Lee
>Yes, that means nothing! That's just the kind of bullshit false
>causality that fosters woo-woo.
let's examine some dramadroll causality.
since there are a lot of amateur reiki
practicioners then a couple of random
studies disqualifies reiki. good start.
so following this "logic" i can safely
assume that since there are tone deaf
people there never could have been
a bach or a beethoven, even if beethoven
did write a lot of music while deaf, and since
there are people who can't draw a straight
line there could never be a michaelangelo
or a davinci.
i guess this is the same dramadroll "logic"
that assumes without evidence that i don't
have robert's book and assumes people
are nutters and lunatics without evidence,
and assumes that rocks trees and kittens
are "real" [whatever illogical, idealistic meaning
dramadroll wants to assume to this]
without evidence too.
carry on pot kettle black boy.
DharmaTroll
wrote:
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
Oh I agree with all those points, Charles. I think the extending of
life a few more weeks at all cost is ridiculous. And if you're going
to use placebos to help, then I agree, pick your own, whether it's
Buddhism or something else. (Btw, if you're doing Buddhism to not get
the flu, you're an idiot. If you have any amount of intelligence or
sanity, you're doing Buddhism to lessen your craving, aversion, and
delusion and hence the unnecessary suffering in your life. Or you
wanna meet cool spiritual chicks.) As I replied earlier to Kitty:
<<Why not know the truth, so if it's psychosomatic and you know that,
then you could pick your own ritual and use that instead of the woo-
woo that's dictated by someone else and costs money, you see? If you
know it's psychosomatic, then you might get a cup of your favorite
tea, light a candle, play some special music, etc., and it would work
just as well. No need to add superstition to the mix. It isn't the
superstition or belief, anyway, it's the context. That is, skeptics
who don't believe in woo-woo have the same placebo effect as gullible
believers when exposed to a context of dim lights or candles, soft
music, a nurturing voice of the practitioner, etc. If you know that,
you don't have to have any blind faith beliefs in woo-woo at all, and
you can make yourself whatever healing context or ritual you wish to
max out the psychosomatic effect.>>
And there's another reason why placebos in the form of pills aren't as
effective. When you trust the doctor, and see your doctor as a caring,
nurturing healer who wants to heal you physically and spiritually,
then whatever placebo you get from him/her is going to probably feel
effective because you expect it too. However, woo-woo-ists have spread
a mistrust, a negative stereotype, and even hatred of doctors and
medicine, so that when a patient with a history of vague, difficult-to-
diagnose complaints who is sure that whatever therapy is prescribed
will do little to battle the problem, those low expectations are
inevitably met, and the placebo might even backfire (the nocebo
effect). And it's in the interest of the woo-woo-ists to mislead folks
and get them to distrust doctors, as it means more business for them
and their pseudo-science quackery. And then there is the trick of
giving someone woo-woo, and if they get sicker, blame it on something
else, but if they spontaneously feel better, credit the woo-woo.
That's what's known as 'anecdotal evidence' and it's worthless and not
evidence for anything at all (except for how clueless and/or deceitful
the woo-woo snake oil peddlers are).
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>
> news:62256816-0e4d-445e...@r12g2000vbm.googlegroups.com...
>
> >Yes, that means nothing! That's just the kind of bullshit false
> >causality that fosters woo-woo.
>
> let's examine some dramadroll causality.
Ah, here comes Loser Lee. As crazy as Keynes, except Keynes is a
funny, and presumably nice fellow, who likes to argue for the
absurdest of the absurd. Whereas Loser Lee is Evil Incarnate, a sort
of Sarah Palin with a Penis (or not), who is out to smear science and
reason and promote superstition.
> since there are a lot of amateur reiki
> practicioners then a couple of random
> studies disqualifies reiki. good start.
No, there are not 2 studies, there are dozens of them. They do tests
with double-blind parameters and random samples. They are repeated by
independent researchers.
Now, you're going to seriously argue that because there are more
witchdoctors than scientists doing rigorous tests that the
witchdoctors must be right, that it's a matter of consensus? Then the
Pope wins, as there are more Catholic Priests than there are woo-woo
witchdoctors. And you're in need of quite an exorcism, Loser Lee.
> so following this "logic" i can safely
> assume that since there are tone deaf
> people there never could have been
> a bach or a beethoven,
Sounds like Sarah Palin talk to me.
No, following my logic, you can ignore consensus, and look at facts
and methodology. When a huge number of people, all biased, hold a
superstition, and count hits and ignore tons of misses, and then when
research is done that doesn't bias the results, and compares hits to
misses and finds over and over and over again that the hits are no
more than one would expect randomly, that the woo-woo isn't more
effective than a sugar-pill, then you go with the research, and you
with very high confidence throw out the woo-woo as pseudo-science
which has been debunked.
> i guess this is the same dramadroll "logic"
> that assumes without evidence that i don't
> have robert's book and assumes people
> are nutters and lunatics without evidence,
Oh, you're that same asshole with a different name? I saw a list
asshole who insults and abuses people say that he saw something in the
book Robert helped with, and I was compassionately trying to protect
Robert from a cruel joke played by someone who is a rude, insulting
asshole on the list. When it turned out that this poster wasn't being
mean, and quoted the book, I said I was wrong, and I'm actually happy
I was wrong. So you claim to be the same asshole with a new name, eh
Loser Lee?
And now your argument is that because ignorant assholes are nice or
helpful sometimes, that means that crystal channeling or magnet-
therapy or reiki must be factual? Duh. I don't think that works. More
like it shows that DharmaTroll admits when he makes mistakes, unlike
woo-woo-ists who ignore misses and only display testimony of hits, to
deceive the gullible into thinking that their magical snake oil is
effective, when it is only pseudo-scientific quackery.
Now return to the rock you crawled under, fool.
--DharmaTroll
Charles E Hardwidge
> On Dec 26, 2:55 pm, "Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid>
> wrote:
>> Well, yes. But, they may be more enjoyable and less toxic alternatives to
>> the industrial-medical complex's reliance on placebos and treatment for
>> the sake of treatment. As an example, studies have shown that CBT is less
>> effective than Buddhism and the horrors of extending life while allowing
>> quality of life to suffer are obvious. I have no issue with questions
>> being asked but are they they right questions? Perhaps, a little less
>> arrogance and vested interest all round would help.
> Oh I agree with all those points, Charles. I think the extending of
> life a few more weeks at all cost is ridiculous. And if you're going
> to use placebos to help, then I agree, pick your own, whether it's
> Buddhism or something else. [...]
>
> [...] And then there is the trick of giving someone woo-woo, and if they
> get sicker, blame it on something else, but if they spontaneously feel
> better, credit the woo-woo. That's what's known as 'anecdotal evidence'
> and it's worthless and not evidence for anything at all (except for how
> clueless and/or deceitful the woo-woo snake oil peddlers are).
I assume a certain level of understanding about logic and evidence so will
leave it to someone else to bore on about fallacies and evidence.
This is orthogonal to the topic but, I note, people like David Cameron and
his Tory pals rail against "authoritarianism" and promote "localism". While
this is self-serving propaganda on one level they're none to keen admitting
the value of gold standards and problems with balkanisation. Unless, of
course, it's *their* scheme and greases *their* way up the polls.
Most people's psychology "fixes" around the age of 12. This is mostly middle
brain stuff geared towards power and relationships. Funny, then, that people
who wish to be "leaders" spend so little time attending to this which takes
us full circle back to the first paragraph.
It's notable that both quality of life, prevention, bedside manner, and
costs are hot topics. My view is that the left parties (Labour and Democrat)
has the edge on this and the right (Conservative and Republican) don't. At
least, I've seen nothing in the positions of individuals and party policies
which convince me. Perhaps, they assume we're as ignorant and stupid as they
are but the electorate aren't quite buying that, hence, the recent success
with the American healthcare bill and Cameron not sealing the deal.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Charles E Hardwidge
> Ah, here comes Loser Lee. As crazy as Keynes, except Keynes is a
> funny, and presumably nice fellow, who likes to argue for the
> absurdest of the absurd. Whereas Loser Lee is Evil Incarnate, a sort
> of Sarah Palin with a Penis (or not), who is out to smear science and
> reason and promote superstition.
> And now your argument is that because ignorant assholes are nice or
> helpful sometimes, that means that crystal channeling or magnet-
> therapy or reiki must be factual? Duh. I don't think that works. More
> like it shows that DharmaTroll admits when he makes mistakes, unlike
> woo-woo-ists who ignore misses and only display testimony of hits, to
> deceive the gullible into thinking that their magical snake oil is
> effective, when it is only pseudo-scientific quackery.
That's reasonable. In political terms this might be, say, like comparing
Wedgie Benn (genuine but wrong) and Daniel Hannan (presentable but shitty).
Genius and insanity are merely an atom apart but like the 0.0001% difference
in DNA between a chimp and a human that 0.0001% is important.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Lee
>Ah, here comes Loser Lee.
hilarious opinion loser troll.
Keynes
wrote:
>On Dec 26, 2:55 pm, "Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid>
>wrote:
>> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>>
>> news:52d9b0e3-e795-4e49...@g31g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> > Woo-Woo Took a Beating in 2009
>> >http://www.livescience.com/health/091208-alternative-medicine.html
>>
>> > By Christopher Wanjek,
>> > LiveScience Bad Medicine Columnist
>>
>> > ?If there's a silver lining in the continued popularity of non-
Social primates (and even dogs and cats) require petting and
touch to be physically and mentally healthy. Without it, alienation
and anxiety build up, and stress diseases worsen. The flea finding
of baboons is the barber and the salon for us. (And also the smiles
and small talk.) No woo woo about it. So there is hidden value in
a mate, children, good friends, and caring people. They have influences
not easy to measure, but impossible to live well without.
So my prescription is - if you want to have a friend, be a friend.
Practice kindness and generousity at every opportunity. It doesn't
cost much, and it often pays off big. Be the sort of person that you'd
like to have around all the time. Like may attract like. But even if it
doesn't, you have to live with yourself anyway. That's a blessing or a curse.
Appledog
>
> I don't think you've run into anyone here who is trying to foster a belief
> in Rieki - just pointing out different perceptions about the value of
> mind/body connection and cynicism of 'some' research, not all. I rather
> enjoy your rants. We otherwise mild mannered people have to get it out
> sometimes.
>
> Another interesting perceptual difference between you and I though, is that
> I usually find Keynes very insightful. I must have missed the post where he
> went nuts.
Keynes is a fool in that he turns discussions into arguments and
believes anyone with information other than his own is arrogant and/or
stupid.
Anyways, i've been following this thread with some interest. I wanted
to interject a classic passage from "Thoughtcode" before, but now
seems as good a time as any:
-----
From "Thoughtcode" Ch. 2, "Psychic Powers":
There are no Psychic Powers
There is no nerve pathway such that psychic thought transmission could
be received by the brain. Certainly psychic thoughts are not received
through the sense of sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell – these are
senses which read the actual physical world, not psychic energy.
There’s no capability for sight to do anything other than fire on
photons. The other senses are all similar. How would you “smell” a
thought being directed at you psychically? It doesn’t even make sense.
So we see then, that there is no way for a thought to be received by
the brain using the usual assortment of physical senses.
What about direct transmission from mind to mind? It seems plausible
in the sense that the brain operates on electrical signals, but there
is no transmitter or receiver in the brain. At some physical level,
the brain would have to transmit or receive psychic thoughts in the
same manner as the other senses, but it does not. First, the brain
does not utilize nearly enough “power” to perform a transmission of
any kind. Radio-like transmissions follow field equations and that
means their strength declines proportional to an inverse square. This
means if you are face to face with someone, say one foot away, we
might assume the “power rating” is 100. If we were two feet away,
however, wouldn’t be half as much (fifty), it would be twenty-five. If
we were three feet away, it would be eleven - just over 10% of the
power rating at the source.
Power at 1 unit Distance Inverse Square of Distance Power at
Destination
100 1 unit 1/1 = 1 100 (at one unit away)
100 2 units 1/(2*2) = 0.25 25 (at two units away)
100 3 units 1/9 11
100 4 units 1/12 8
100 5 units 1/25 4
The idea is simple. If you can't hear someone's thoughts when your
head is right up against theirs when the signal strength would be
highest, then you could not plausibly hear their thoughts from much
farther away. Being 5 feet from someone the signal strength would be
less than 4% of what it was were your heads touching. The next room
over? Across the world? Forget it.
So far all we have done is shown that the brain does not physically
transmit or receive any signal whatsoever on the physical plane.
There’s still one out for people who hold on to psychic phenomena; an
alternate dimension which does not obey the laws of physics. We have
not yet discussed a possible non-physical plane, such as for example a
plane where all is one and distance (and hence transmission power,
distance between sender and receiver, etc.) is not relevant to a
transmission being sent and received.
The only way for psychic thought transmittal to occur would be for the
brain to somehow connect to this plane to send and/or receive
information. If the brain did not connect to this plane, it could not
utilize it. That seems pretty obvious, assuming our brains can connect
to such a dimension breaks violates our former observation that there
are no other inputs to the brain. The only conclusion remaining is
that the brain itself cannot send or receive such thoughts simply
because there is no part of the brain which acts in such a manner.
There are two ways in which we know this to be true. First, in a
physical sense, we know there is no physical part of the brain where
such input may occur - there is no "psychic sense nerve" input to the
brain. We may not know a lot about the brain, but we do know in a
general sense what certain parts of the brain do. Nope, no psychic
input nerve fibers. Secondly, we may presume there exists such an
input. In doing so there is an implicit assumption that we have not
yet discovered whatever part of the brain is connecting to the psychic
plane. Yet such an assumption is ludicrous because if there was any
sense organ receiving information or transmitting it on any level, it
would show up in brain scans.
And that’s not the only thing which doesn’t make sense about such an
assumption. Assuming any such sense existed to any degree, it would
affect the process of natural selection due to it's ability to
increase an individual's odds of survival. Imagine being able to
detect if there was a thief around the corner spying on you; you could
read his thoughts and escape with your life (and your money). Such
information would never become a repressed, hidden part of the
subconcious but would be a vital integral sense, relevant to our
survival, like sight or taste.
We may test this with a simple thought experiment. Suppose there
existed a meaningful percentage of people who were able to derive
meaningful information psychically. (Of course, we are not interested
in meaningless information or guessing). So, we first suppose there is
meaningful information to be had. Secondly, we propose that there are
a meaningful number of people with this ability. In this case we
assume that is some number greater than zero.
Given the above one would think there would be a decent number of such
people in any population. Call them mystics, seers, witches,
spiritualists, holy men. As the information they receive is
meaningful, we may ascribe some quality of life to this information,
some increased chance of survival. For example, suppose that just one
of these people had the ability to know when someone was planning to
kill them or when someone was lying to them or so forth.
Such a person would become unnaturally wealthy and powerful and live
an unnaturally long life. Not an obscenely longer life, but even just
a little. Such a benefit would propagate due to natural selection.
Soon a the group of people with such powers would grow, and come to
dominate the entire population. Yet this has not occurred. The obvious
conclusion of all this is that there is no meaningful information
which may be had from psychic ability. If there was, then everyone
would be psychic. In short it does not even matter if psychic
phenomenon exist, because we know for a fact that there is no useful
information which can be obtained via psychic sense, even if one were
to exist which we have not yet discovered by scientific means."
from: Thoughtcode, Chapter 2.
-
DharmaTroll
> On Dec 28, 10:46 am, "Kitty P" <paino2...@charter.net> wrote:
>
> > I don't think you've run into anyone here who is trying to foster a belief
> > in Rieki - just pointing out different perceptions about the value of
> > mind/body connection and cynicism of 'some' research, not all. I rather
> > enjoy your rants. We otherwise mild mannered people have to get it out
> > sometimes.
>
> > Another interesting perceptual difference between you and I though, is that
> > I usually find Keynes very insightful. I must have missed the post where he
> > went nuts.
>
> Keynes is a fool in that he turns discussions into arguments and
> believes anyone with information other than his own is arrogant and/or
> stupid.
>
> Anyways, i've been following this thread with some interest. I wanted
> to interject a classic passage from "Thoughtcode" before, but now
> seems as good a time as any:
Never heard of "Thoughtcode", Lollie-Pup, but I've heard most of those
arguments before, as they actually debunk astrology as well as psychic
powers. There are two main themes. One is the inverse squared law that
you quote. This also applies to planets. Astrology is popular because
the planets had weird, unexplained retrograde motion (which we now
know comes from the sun being at a relatively stationary focus and the
planets including ours having elliptical orbits about the sun). The
awe and wonder led to beliefs in astrology. But now knowing the
inverse square law, any 'true' astrology would be almost exclusively
about the positions of the sun and moon, which are the only bodies
that can affect, say, tides. But astrologists don't focus exclusively
on the sun and moon, as one would predict were they to any extent
'true'. If one then evokes a non-physical plane (like in your story
quoted below) so that the inverse square law doesn't apply and planets
can affect us equally as well from long distances, then we merely have
to point out the thousands of other huge planets we have discovered
around other stars (not to mention ones we can's see in our own
system, such as Uranus and Neptune). The effects of all those
thousands of planets, if distance weren't an issue, would drown out
the effects of Venus or Mars or Jupiter. So either way, astrology is
completely doomed and dead in the water, collapsing under self-
contradiction.
And as in your story, there is the chasm that's impossible to cross,
which is how anything non-physical (like a psychic signal) could ever
affect anything physical (like a brain), for if there was an effect,
the cause would be considered physical (like gravity). How a mind/body
duality could ever even get off the ground has been a problem that is
unresolvable ever since Descartes tried to claim that the 'soul'
interacted with the brain via the pineal gland, but how this could
happen, even in principle, neither Descartes nor any other non-
physicalist (mind/body dualist) has ever answered. Your story below
touches upon this with "the only conclusion remaining is that the
brain itself cannot send or receive such thoughts simply because there
is no part of the brain which acts in such a manner." That is, the
idea of a 'mind' separate from a brain instead of being the function
of the brain, is absurd. Naive nutters will point out the experiential
opacity, that we can't directly 'feel' our neurons thinking, but just
because we have to infer that our neurons are the cause of memory and
thought isn't really problematic, any more than how we have to make
inferences to conclude that other folks are sentient beings just like
us. We simply can't know with certainty, but only the nutters make
certainty a necessity, not sane folks.
--DharmaTroll
> 100 4 units 1/16 8
Charles E Hardwidge
> Never heard of "Thoughtcode", Lollie-Pup, but I've heard most of those
> arguments before, as they actually debunk astrology as well as psychic
> powers.
You're incredibly difficult to quote succinctly as you suffer from Grade 'A'
verbal diarrhoea.
I agree, there's no convincing evidence that either astrology or the psychic
fulfil their primary stated goals. Then again, it can be said that
consultant's reports and the internet fall short as well. People can get
over excited and misinterpret things but I'm generally comfortable with this
as a form of entertainment or a proxy for ambitions as long as it doesn't
get the whip hand. The same can be said of science and marketing.
Personally, I'm more focused on voodoo economics, celebrities, and
politicians who tell lies just to get elected. In particular, I'm concerned
about the likes of David Cameron who are benefiting from a seditious
astroturfing campaign, media and poll manipulation, and who threaten to
usher in a decade of Turbo-Thatcherism. That does worry me as I still
haven't got over the last time those wankers were in power.
I've commented before on issues like management competence and the politics
of sloganised emotions but the steel jawed heroes of British business and
headline chasing media are slow to admit to this. They would rather keep
peddling the same bullshit to stay in power or keep up their circulation
figures than admit they got it wrong even when the theory, studies, and
anecdotal examples provide an embarrassment of evidence.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Appledog
>
> Without space, where could it happen?
> Without time, when could it happen?
> Without a cause, how could it happen?
>
> If you can answer these questions I'll grant you
> some understanding. But if you admit that you
> can't answer these questions, and that your pretensions
> to knowledge (let alone 'wisdom') are vainglorious bullshit,
> I'll give you more credit.
AXE + CHICKEN HEAD = DINNER
You're babbling child's play, keynes. This is pre-basics.
-
Keynes
wrote:
Would that you had something to say.
DharmaTroll
wrote:
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>
> news:0551dcd5-049e-42bc...@33g2000vbe.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Never heard of "Thoughtcode", Lollie-Pup, but I've heard most of those
> > arguments before, as they actually debunk astrology as well as psychic
> > powers.
>
> You're incredibly difficult to quote succinctly as you suffer from Grade 'A'
> verbal diarrhoea.
I thought that I pretty much summed up the whole argument in a
paragraph or two, but I can do better. The cause of the emotional hype
of astrology is awe from observing the uncanny retrograde motion of
the planets, but given what we know now about effects from a distance,
all of astrology should have been focusing on the moon and sun but
isn't, and finally, if an exception is made to the inverse squared
distance rule, that all the other exo-planets discovered would drown
out any effect of the visible ones like Mars, so that astrology leads
to utter contradiction in every scenario. There, I put it in one
sentence for you.
> I agree, there's no convincing evidence that either astrology or the psychic
> fulfil their primary stated goals. Then again, it can be said that
> consultant's reports and the internet fall short as well. People can get
> over excited and misinterpret things but I'm generally comfortable with this
> as a form of entertainment or a proxy for ambitions as long as it doesn't
> get the whip hand. The same can be said of science and marketing.
My point is that astrology promotes sloppy thinking and people swallow
all sorts of fallacies and remain oblivious to confirmation bias. Then
they apply that sloppy thinking to more important issues, perhaps some
of these you care about.
> Personally, I'm more focused on voodoo economics, celebrities, and
> politicians who tell lies just to get elected. In particular, I'm concerned
> about the likes of David Cameron who are benefiting from a seditious
> astroturfing campaign, media and poll manipulation, and who threaten to
> usher in a decade of Turbo-Thatcherism. That does worry me as I still
> haven't got over the last time those wankers were in power.
>
> I've commented before on issues like management competence and the politics
> of sloganised emotions but the steel jawed heroes of British business and
> headline chasing media are slow to admit to this. They would rather keep
> peddling the same bullshit to stay in power or keep up their circulation
> figures than admit they got it wrong even when the theory, studies, and
> anecdotal examples provide an embarrassment of evidence.
>
> --
> Charles E Hardwidge
I don't keep up with U.K. politics too much, and here in America it's
a mess with every member of the minority Republican party voting no in
a block just to try to make the President look bad, and folks on both
extremes getting the most attention as they caricaturize and insult
the other extreme. Lots of critical thinking is needed here.
--Dharmatroll
Appledog
> On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:44:31 -0800 (PST), Appledog <oliver.rich...@gmail.com>
How can I speak with no sound to hear?
AXE + CHICKEN HEAD = DINNER
Do you see it now?
But, what? With no light to see?
-
Love
oliver....@gmail.com says...
>
>On Dec 28, 11:23=A0pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>> On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:44:31 -0800 (PST), Appledog <oliver.rich...@gmail.=
>com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >On Dec 28, 9:01=A0pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>>
>> >> Without space, where could it happen?
>> >> Without time, when could it happen?
>> >> Without a cause, how could it happen?
>>
>> >> If you can answer these questions I'll grant you
>> >> can't answer these questions, and that your pretensions
>> >> to knowledge (let alone 'wisdom') are vainglorious bullshit,
>> >> I'll give you more credit.
>>
>>
>> >You're babbling child's play, keynes. This is pre-basics.
>>
>> Would that you had something to say.
>
>How can I speak with no sound to hear?
>Do you see it now?
>But, what? With no light to see?
I'm still trying to imagine a 2D dinner...
--
Love
May Shai-Hulud clear the path before you.
Appledog
> In article <520477a1-c7e5-4d98-a75d-661c8e781...@j4g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>,
> oliver.rich...@gmail.com says...
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Dec 28, 11:23=A0pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
> >> On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:44:31 -0800 (PST), Appledog <oliver.rich...@gmail.=
> >com>
> >> wrote:
>
> >> >On Dec 28, 9:01=A0pm, Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote:
>
> >> >> Without space, where could it happen?
> >> >> Without time, when could it happen?
> >> >> Without a cause, how could it happen?
>
> >> >> If you can answer these questions I'll grant you
> >> >> some understanding. =A0But if you admit that you
> >> >> can't answer these questions, and that your pretensions
> >> >> to knowledge (let alone 'wisdom') are vainglorious bullshit,
> >> >> I'll give you more credit.
>
> >> >AXE + CHICKEN HEAD =3D DINNER
>
> >> >You're babbling child's play, keynes. This is pre-basics.
>
> >> Would that you had something to say.
>
> >How can I speak with no sound to hear?
> >AXE + CHICKEN HEAD =3D DINNER
> >Do you see it now?
> >But, what? With no light to see?
>
> I'm still trying to imagine a 2D dinner...
Exactly.
-
Tang Huyen
Love wrote:
> Kitty:
>
> >It is all well and good to make sure that science
> >and the critical thinking skills that can come from
> >scientific inquiry thrive in our lives and especially
> >in education. But sometimes there is an age old
> >and important thing to remember - if something
> >helps someone feel better and isn't harming
> >anyone - who cares if it isn't scientifically valid?
>
> I would say that it IS scientifically valid in that case
> and that science is failing to ask the right question.
> It's asking "is this belief scientifically valid" when it
> should be asking "is this belief beneficial". Of
> course, true scientists won't fail to ask the right
> questions. Only scientismists will.
You confuse the real with your ideal. The real
is that science is based on what is measurable,
quantifiable, repeatable, and preferably
mathematisable. What does not fit such criteria
is not object of science. The realm of meanings
and values largely escapes such criteria, and is
taken care of by religions, spirituality, art,
literature, philosophy, and the human studies
that are associated with them, like religious
studies. If anything, religions and spirituality
outside of Jewish mythology -- I have in mind
Stoicism, Daoism, Buddhism -- explicitly claim
that they do not fit usual norms and standards,
and that they are wholly outside of norms and
standards, not just usual (conventional) norms
and standards. They explicitly claim to get
wholly outside of norms and standards as a
class, and if anything, their only norm and
standard is to have none. They claim to have no
reference, to be referenceless. If so (and I take
them to be sincere and correct in such claims),
science cannot study them. They fall outside the
scope of science. And I take such a situation to
not be bad. Science needs to be rigourous, and
such fields are definitely not. They are vague,
fuzzy, ambiguous, and cannot be pinned down
to anything precise and definite, and such an
orientation *makes them valuable* to us. If
some kind of spirituality claims to be scientific,
i. e., measurable, quantifiable, repeatable, and
even mathematisable, I would not want it, surely
not as spirituality. It would be as dead as a brick
even before its arrival.
If any spiritual or religious experience occurs to
somebody, its authority, if any, extends only to
that somebody and to people who accept the
authority of that somebody. People, who may or
may not be in the physical presence of that
somebody, may verify such experience by
following the method taught by that somebody
and perhaps attain to the same experience
themselves, or merely take it on faith and not
question it further.
However authority of that somebody does not
extend further, as such experience is at best
anecdotal, even if some people (other than the
original claimant) can verify it by experiencing it
themselves (but how can they tell that it is the
same experience?).
What if such experience is fiction? Or, if not
fiction, at most purely subjective, strictly
sentimental, with nothing out there or in here that
it can be tied down to? If it is supposed to be
referenceless, as it is in Buddhism, how can it be
tied to references? How can it be studied by
science?
Tang Huyen
Wilson
"Tang Huyen" <tanghuyen{delete}@gmail.com[remove]> wrote in message
news:coadnR2DU6iHaqDW...@supernews.com...
Why do you feel compelled year after year, to crosspost your blatherings
all over usenet? I find it to be rude and inconsiderate.
Ned Ludd
"Wilson" <Wil...@nowhere.net> wrote in message
news:V7ydnWnPDMWDlaPW...@supernews.com...
> ...
>> What if such experience is fiction? Or, if not
>> fiction, at most purely subjective, strictly
>> sentimental, with nothing out there or in here that
>> it can be tied down to? If it is supposed to be
>> referenceless, as it is in Buddhism, how can it be
>> tied to references? How can it be studied by
>> science?
>> Tang Huyen
>
> Why do you feel compelled year after year, to crosspost your blatherings
> all over usenet? I find it to be rude and inconsiderate.
>
Why wasn't this cross-posted to a.b.s.f.g.?
Ned
Kitty P
"Tang Huyen" <tanghuyen{delete}@gmail.com[remove]> wrote in message
news:coadnR2DU6iHaqDW...@supernews.com...
>
>
I didn't write the second paragraph you're referring to in your post. I
don't have a problem with this topic except wondering at the vehemence of
people who insist that whatever the opposing thought to theirs might be is
incorrect. If people reject science because they don't understand it - then
it can be detrimental to their existence, but also might have no effect at
all. If people reject anything they can't scientifically quantify - then it
can be detrimental to their existence, but also might have no effect at all.
So why not just ascribe to the old 'If it feels good, do it'? We try to make
things so difficult when they are actually pretty simple.
A happy new year to you
Kitty
zenworm
> "Tang Huyen" <tanghuyen{dele...@gmail.com[remove]> wrote in message
without the vehemence of insistence...
without the rejection of ignorance...
simply serenity?
sublime!
great start to the new year Kitty!
ZN :D _/|\_
absolute permanent perfection overflowing without effort
DharmaTroll
wrote:
I agree completely with Tang on this one!
If spirituality makes mathematical, measurable, scientific claims,
then it is just a bad version of science, called pseudoscience. It's
worthless. Art and poetry (and true religion I consider to be a form
of art and poetry), are always orthogonal to religion. What I object
to is pseudo-science, not just the quackery of astrology, reiki, and
crystal channeling, but also Creationism (whether the Evangelist or
the Keynes variety) which makes claims about the age or origin of the
Earth and so forth. As Tang says, it's dead as a brick even before its
arrival. Taking religious texts, whether Buddhist sutras or The Bible
or Koran, as scientific facts is nonsensical. True religion is always
a form of poetry.
That said, only pseudo-scientists have any thing to fear from science.
It's the dogmatic believers in pseudoscience that label good science
and empiricism as "scientism" (you rat bastards know who you are!) and
think science is in conflict with religion. Wise religious folks, like
the Dalai Lama, point out that where science and Buddhism conflict,
science is right, because Buddhism isn't a competitor to science, but
has to do with values, not facts.
> If any spiritual or religious experience occurs to
> somebody, its authority, if any, extends only to
> that somebody and to people who accept the
> authority of that somebody. People, who may or
> may not be in the physical presence of that
> somebody, may verify such experience by
> following the method taught by that somebody
> and perhaps attain to the same experience
> themselves, or merely take it on faith and not
> question it further.
That I don't go with. Spirituality is a form of poetry and art, or in
the same category. To say that a thug who plays "rap music" is the
same as Mozart, and that it's all merely subjective, is plain wrong.
It isn't objective reality, as are stars in science, no. But there are
criteria and while its made-up, it's within a cultural context. There
is a lot of subjectivity, as we all have different taste in music, and
what's important is that the music brings out emotions and memories
and puts you in a particular mood. Some silly songs bring me back to
12 years old, or 16, or 20, and they would have no effect on Tang and
just annoy him perhaps because he hasn't heard them before. But there
are some standards, and some music is better than others.
> However authority of that somebody does not
> extend further, as such experience is at best
> anecdotal, even if some people (other than the
> original claimant) can verify it by experiencing it
> themselves (but how can they tell that it is the
> same experience?).
Well, if they can't tell (to some degree) that it's the same
experience, then even suggesting it is so is nonsensical. What's going
on is that people describe qualities and properties of their
experience. If another person claims that their experience had similar
qualities and properties, then we guess and take the leap of inference
and say "I've felt the same thing." Now if you say that the experience
is 'indescribable' or 'beyond any description', then you're talking
nonsense. What happens in real life is that people say (let's take
food as an example and then apply the analogy to spirituality) after
taking a bite of a dish ("that was indescribably delicious"). Now if
you eat somewhere and you also say "that was indescribably delicious",
does that mean you ate the same food and had the same experience? One
might be talking about a delicious spicy Thai dish, the other about an
exotic flavor of ice cream! And then if they say "we must have had the
same experience -- all food is One", they would be insane, as it's the
particular tastes of the dish that make it so wonderful. We can
describe the dish, the texture, the nuances, and so forth, and it's
that description that makes us think we are enjoying the same flavors.
The point of 'indescribable' is simply that no words can create the
taste, which is obvious, and that when food is good, you just want to
say "mmm" or "yum".
The same with spirituality. When we claim to have a certain experience
that is the "same", we mean that we can list the same properties: it
may feel timeless, light instead of heavy, euphoric, calm, silent,
etc. And if we see that description with someone else's experience, we
may say "I've felt the same thing". We can't know for sure if someone
else had a deep spiritual experience, or a moment of enlightenment. We
can at best tell if they have not and rule out some experiences. When
the Zen masters certify students, they don't sense enlightenment or
kensho -- what a crock. Rather, paying attention and being observant,
the Zen Master fails to notice anything inauthentic or ego-centric,
and then makes the guess that it was an authentic deep experience.
When nutters take that to be some kind of fact known by the Zen
Master, rather than a guess based on no negative tells, then we're
back to pseudo-science again. In the end, we can't tell if we had the
'same' experience as others, but we can list how many unusual
properties the two experiences had in common. That's no guarantee, but
it allows us to make a guess.
> What if such experience is fiction? Or, if not
> fiction, at most purely subjective, strictly
> sentimental, with nothing out there or in here that
> it can be tied down to?
But it can be tied down to our behavior, Tang, and how we relate to
the world. We can't know for sure, but watching how folks behave can
tell us a hell of a lot about them. The question shouldn't be "is
Teacher X enlightened"? The question should always be, "Does Teacher X
express the values that I hold dear, so that if I were to become more
like Teacher X (by following X's advise or hanging out with them or
duplicating their practice) I would more embody the values that I
cherish?" That's the question. And to the extent that the answer is
yes, then one should follow that tradition or that teacher's teachings
and try out their advice. If the answer is no or just sometimes, then
one is better off finding another teacher or path.
--DharmaTroll
zenworm
Tich talk
What is between red and green?
^worm
Lee
"zenworm" <zens...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:36a951ce-91bd-49ed...@g31g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
an eye for a tooth to the rigid wake of qualia
& quantia depths divided to dwelling specific to
res interna with digit thin quotient rich mega
reductionaries spilling sideways torqued divine
and quiesced to its vague yet monoimplicate
moebius revery until the vast inoperative,
imperative and invicarious profilements dig
deeper and deeper their death defibulating
debaucheries under haze of a finger tip fog
and rabid catch22ishness all foibled sense
driven interdendritingly prosaic and tertiarially
omnifabalistic but microhemiphallically intrinsic.
zenworm
> On Jan 1, 3:09 pm, "Lee" <original...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > "zenworm" <zensp...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> >Tich talk
> >What is between red and green?
> an eye for a tooth to the rigid wake of qualia
> & quantia depths divided to dwelling specific to
> res interna with digit thin quotient rich mega
> reductionaries spilling sideways torqued divine
> and quiesced to its vague yet monoimplicate
> moebius revery until the vast inoperative,
> imperative and invicarious profilements dig
> deeper and deeper their death defibulating
> debaucheries under haze of a finger tip fog
> and rabid catch22ishness all foibled sense
> driven interdendritingly prosaic and tertiarially
> omnifabalistic but microhemiphallically intrinsic.
very nice
and the one word summary?
^worm
Nobody in Particular
Why are you trying so hard to be offended?
AdvocatusDiablo
"zenworm" <zens...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:36a951ce-91bd-49ed...@g31g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
^worm
--------------------
zenwormfood, the answer to your question is...'yellow'!
'red' means stop... 'green' means go.... and 'yellow' means...go real fast!
AdvocatusDiablo
very nice
^worm
--------------
imagination!
Keynes
Hot damn.
I had the same experience!
Lee
>very nice
that erudite cacphony bequested and honed to
fine intrusion whilst in behind & outside the snake
climes the rapid litmus test behooven and drained
its underbelly erose and quixotic to fates of mammary
sin dancing alone by cobra hooded merriment conversion
their indulgence demagogic, couriers betwixt, magnetic
fumes aloft, a moonbeam fragrance in the wind, wherein
the sacrament divine, cloistered & shouldered, badged
beyond repair, that invisible dreamscape with rythym to
spare, no facsimile grounded, no undecamerous sequence,
no penalty incurred, its tapestry of silence longitude to neap
and ebb, the moon hung suspended, luna dipole and sequester,
the musick mind, the pygephaneous reflectives, the silk eclipse,
its sun a polaris, the lash corollary, the friction proximity, the
sultanesque design betrothed in convulsion, to puzzlement
of zero, the happenstance in ribbons, the sacred now profane.
zenworm
all of that
and more and less and niether and both...
Momenting
^worm
AdvocatusDiablo
Momenting
^worm
lee's got writer's block!
Lee
>Momenting
tables turned, the whisper of soft dread encapsulated
in shapeshifting regalia, the corp de spiritus endowed
by futurus osmosis until its explicate epineural density
of haruspex crystal balling to order first their horizon
of lopeared philauty bemused astir not coated but
inveiglementingly supreme [the ways the dust went] with
pleodant pride bespoken aloud their tapestry of hold
& drag, too auspicious in verb its quantenary measure
of no import.
DharmaTroll
> On Fri, 1 Jan 2010 15:09:31 -0500, "Lee" <original...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >"zenworm" <zensp...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Heh. That's a good one, Keynes!
--DharmaTroll
zenworm
Your crossword cross referencing, glossary of association
regurgitation skills are showing.
^worm
Tang Huyen
Love wrote:
> dharm...@my-deja.com:
>
> >No, science has to do with the understanding of
> >everything that is, and to correctly understanding it.
> >And there are lots of true theories about lots of
> >things. So science is almost limitless.
>
> With a statement like that the only thing that looks
> limitless here is your own narrowness.
>
> Science is not about understanding everything that
> is. It's about forming theories and testing them. The
> idea that everything that is can even BE understood
> is a religious one. In your own terms, that's
> woo-woo.
The predicament of DharmaTroll is very ironical
and very sad. He worships religion (woo-woo), but
one religion (Christianity) ruined his view of religions.
In order to fight Christianity, he (like Fu) works up
his physicalism into a rich lather, but (like Fu) he is
seduced by the wholistic outlook of religion. He (like
Fu) doesn't know how to untangle the crossed threads.
<<It is not absolutist to say, "We have no evidence
for magic, souls, spirits, gods, and trancendental
realms. We have tons of evidence, from Newton on,
that the physical matter/energy universe is complete
within itself and isn't driven by magic, that the planets
aren't pushed around by angels, and that
consciousness came into play late in the game.">>
As you (Daryl, Love) say:
<<The idea that everything that is can even BE
understood is a religious one. In your own terms,
that's woo-woo.>>
Look at how religious DharmaTroll can be:
<<We have tons of evidence, from Newton on,
that the physical matter/energy universe is *complete
within itself*>>
A scientist doesn't say any such thing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/science/29essa.
html?emSkip to article
<< In my view from the cosmic bleachers, the pot is
bubbling for discovery. We all got a hint of just how
crazy that might be in the new age of the Internet on
Dec. 17, when physicists around the world found
themselves glued to a Webcast of the results from an
experiment called the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search.
Rumors had swept the blogs and other outposts of
scientific commentary that the experimenters were
going to announce that they had finally detected the
ethereal and mysterious dark matter particles, which,
astronomers say, make up a quarter of the universe.
In the end, the result was frustratingly vague and
inconclusive.
�We want it to be true � we so want to have a clue
about dark matter,� Maria Spiropulu, a Caltech
physicist working at CERN wrote to me the night of
the Webcast.
�And it is not easy,� Dr. Spiropulu said. �The
experiments are not easy and the analysis is not easy.
This is a tough, tough ride over all.�
Although we might well solve part of the dark matter
conundrum in the coming years, the larger mystery
winds out in front of us like a train snaking into the
fog.
We may never know where we came from. We will
probably never find that cosmic connection to our lost
royalty. Someday I will visit Norway and look up those
ancestors. They died not knowing the fate of the
universe, and so will I, but maybe that�s all right.
Steven Weinberg, a University of Texas physicist and
Nobel Prize winner, once wrote in his 1977 book
�The First Three Minutes�: �The more the universe
seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.�
Dr. Weinberg has been explaining that statement ever
since. He went on to say that it is by how we live and
love and, yes, do science, that the universe warms up
and acquires meaning.
As the dark matter fever was rising a few weeks ago,
I called Vera Rubin, the astronomer at the department
of terrestrial magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of
Washington, who helped make dark matter a cosmic
issue by showing that galaxies rotate too fast for the
gravity of their luminous components to keep them
together.
But Dr. Rubin, who likes to stick to the facts, refused
to be excited. �I don�t know if we have dark matter or
have to nudge Newton�s Laws or what.
�I�m sorry I know so little; I�m sorry we all know so
little. But that�s kind of the fun, isn�t it?�>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/science/20angier.
html?sq=mathematics%20physics%20obama%20
women&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=all
<<only 4 to 6 percent of the matter in the universe is
visible>>
Scientists -- the real ones, those who actually do
science for a living -- are quite modest about what
science knows and can know.
Only a devotee of scientism says: <<the physical
matter/energy universe is *complete within itself*>>.
That part is pure woo-woo.
Tang Huyen
DharmaTroll
wrote:
> Love wrote:
> > dharmatr...@my-deja.com:
>
> > >No, science has to do with the understanding of
> > >everything that is, and to correctly understanding it.
> > >And there are lots of true theories about lots of
> > >things. So science is almost limitless.
>
> > With a statement like that the only thing that looks
> > limitless here is your own narrowness.
>
> > Science is not about understanding everything that
> > is. It's about forming theories and testing them. The
> > idea that everything that is can even BE understood
> > is a religious one. In your own terms, that's
> > woo-woo.
Nonsense. I never have claimed that everything could be understood. If
I said that, that what can be known is the same set as what is, I'd be
in the Idealist nutter camp. There are things that objectively mind-
independently exist, which we will never know, sure.
> The predicament of DharmaTroll is very ironical
> and very sad. He worships religion (woo-woo), but
> one religion (Christianity) ruined his view of religions.
Nonsense, Tango. I use the word "science" to have to do with facts,
and "religion" and "art" (I indeed often see one as a subset of the
other; which one is the subset depending on the conversation) as a
matter of values.
> In order to fight Christianity, he (like Fu) works up
> his physicalism into a rich lather, but (like Fu) he is
> seduced by the wholistic outlook of religion. He (like
> Fu) doesn't know how to untangle the crossed threads.
Well, that's not fair. Geez, Tang, when you got all hot and bothered
and went on one of your crazy rants about Fu last week, you didn't
mention me at all. And now that Fu's on vacation, it's "he (like Fu)"
and "but (like Fu)". I'm an AlphaTroll, Dammit! I'm not just "like
Fu".
> <<It is not absolutist to say, "We have no evidence
> for magic, souls, spirits, gods, and trancendental
> realms. We have tons of evidence, from Newton on,
> that the physical matter/energy universe is complete
> within itself and isn't driven by magic, that the planets
> aren't pushed around by angels, and that
> consciousness came into play late in the game.">>
>
> As you (Daryl, Love) say:
>
> <<The idea that everything that is can even BE
> understood is a religious one. In your own terms,
> that's woo-woo.>>
No, you're quoting Daryl misquoting me. Of course, that's no worse
that quoting yourself misquoting me, silly.
> Look at how religious DharmaTroll can be:
>
> <<We have tons of evidence, from Newton on,
> that the physical matter/energy universe is *complete
> within itself*>>
>
> A scientist doesn't say any such thing.
Yes, they say it all the time. They are called "closed systmes",
Brother Tang. In traditional physics, we talk about the vector sum of
all the momenta remaining constant, and so forth. I'm claiming that
from the evidence we have, this is the "top" layer of reality, that
there isn't a Cosmic Beastie or Mind or Matrix Machine causing the
planets to orbit and brains to be conscious. It's simply an inference
to the best explanation, Tang. It's possible that we're a simulation,
for example, within a supercomputer in a 'realm' transcendental to us,
but I doubt it. I simply have no reason to posit more entities beyond
necessity, Brother Tang.
Great article below, Tang, even the title, which you left out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/science/29essa.html
"The Joy of Physics Isn’t in the Results, but in the Search Itself"
Fantastic!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/science/20angier.html?pagewanted=all
"In ‘Geek Chic’ and Obama, New Hope for Lifting Women in Science"
> <<only 4 to 6 percent of the matter in the universe is
> visible>>
>
> Scientists -- the real ones, those who actually do
> science for a living -- are quite modest about what
> science knows and can know.
Um, Brother Tang, I agree with all of that. You're having another
Rosanne Rosannadanna moment, Tang!
Again, my claim is that science is about fact, and religion/art about
value, but not that we can know an infinite or totality of facts. That
would, indeed, be silly. By your definition, I am a real scientist,
then, albeit an amateur one, who is awed by the mystery of the cosmos,
as I feel, as the wonderful title of your first link states, that "The
Joy of Physics Isn’t in the Results, but in the Search Itself".
> Only a devotee of scientism says: <<the physical
> matter/energy universe is *complete within itself*>>
Not at all, Brother Tang. All those statements are about all the
unknown mysteries WITHIN a complete, closed universe (or isolated,
complete 'bubble' within a larger multiverse, which is actually what I
tend to say, Tang).
Now you may say, how can I have my cake and eat it too, but I can have
my cake and eat it too, for as M.I.T.'s Alan Guth, a pioneer of
inflation theory, says: "I call the universe the ultimate free lunch."
Speaking of which, I'm going to go eat lunch now, and then I'm going
down the street to my NASA rocket scientist friend's house, as he just
sent me an email and said he's having friends over for board games,
which are just like astrophysics, because the Joy of Board Games isn't
in the Winning, but in the Playing itself." Hope you had a nice
Palindrome Day, Brother Tang!
--DharmaTroll
Tang Huyen
DharmaTroll wrote:
> Tang Huyen:
>
> > Look at how religious DharmaTroll can be:
> >
> > <<We have tons of evidence, from Newton on,
> > that the physical matter/energy universe is *complete
> > within itself*>>
> >
> > A scientist doesn't say any such thing.
>
> Yes, they say it all the time. They are called "closed
> systmes", Brother Tang. In traditional physics, we talk
> about the vector sum of all the momenta remaining
> constant, and so forth. I'm claiming that from the
> evidence we have, this is the "top" layer of reality, that
> there isn't a Cosmic Beastie or Mind or Matrix Machine
> causing the planets to orbit and brains to be conscious.
> It's simply an inference to the best explanation, Tang.
> It's possible that we're a simulation, for example, within
> a supercomputer in a 'realm' transcendental to us, but I
> doubt it. I simply have no reason to posit more entities
> beyond necessity, Brother Tang.
A Cartesian Malin G�nie would think us, talk us,
speak us, unbeknownst to us. That would be
something like:
<<It's possible that we're a simulation, for example,
within a supercomputer in a 'realm' transcendental to
us, but I doubt it. I simply have no reason to posit
more entities beyond necessity.>>
But the Church thinks you, tallks you, acts you,
unbeknownst to you. You are merely a marionette
to it. Are you going to let it keep doing so for the
duration of your life?
As to your claim of the world being "complete in
itself", ot that you get to a "top" layer of reality,
you have claimed the contrary:
<<And this is the impasse that has been bickered
about for literally thousands of years. If your
dispositions incline you to see woo-woo, you'll see
it everywhere, in Nanananda, in Quantum Physics,
and in the tea leaves at the bottom of your cup. If
you don't, you'll see rational, empirical explanations,
and you'll take anomalies not be proof that you are
in the Matrix, but only evidence that *your theories
and maps are always provisional and incomplete*,
and for pragmatic use only. It pretty much boils
down to the particular tint in your own sunglasses.>>
So, from you claim that theories and maps are
always provisional and incomplete, how do you
arrive at the world being "complete in itself"? How
do you get to a "top" layer of reality?
<<You've just made a category mistake. There is no
thing called love. Love refers to relationship. You may
as well ask me to prove the existence of 'between'.
That's as nonsensical. Relate this to how thinking that
when a cat goes out of sight the best explanation is
that the cat is behind the couch, or why belief in magic
powers or miracle cures without empirical evidence
willful ignorance.>>
From a worldview of relationhips only, how do you
arrive at the view that the world is a "closed system"
"complete in itself"? If the world is made up of
relationships and nothing more, how do you know
that it is "complete in itself"? You can chase
relationships forever, but how do you arrive at the
envelope of the world, how do you get to a "top" layer
of reality? Have you the power to grab the whole of
the world as a single unit and look at it from the
outside?
<<You may as well ask me to prove the existence of
'between'. >>
If you don't want to admit a "between", why do you
posit an envelope to the world? Why do you posit a
"top" layer of reality?
<<I simply have no reason to posit more entities
beyond necessity.>>
If you simply have no reason to posit more entities
beyond necessity, why do you posit an envelope to
the world? Why do you posit a "top" layer of reality?
How is that different from Christians positing their
God?
Woo-woo must be overcoming you. Or rather, does
the Church blow such thoughts into your mind and
make you type them up on these boards in its stead?
Tang Huyen
zenworm
joyful gratitude for opportunity
of wining in the playing
by playing without need of winning
to be grateful for the joy
^worm
Hollywood Lee
William James made similar observations when commenting on mysticism:
"(1) Mystical states, when well developed, usually are, and have the
right to be, absolutely authoritative over the individuals to whom they
come.
(2) No authority emanates from them which should make it a duty for
those who stand outside of them to accept their revelations uncritically."
Regarding the first point, he goes on to note that "[a]s a matter of
psychological fact, mystical states of a well-pronounced and emphatic
sort are usually authoritative over those who have them. They have been
'there,' and know. It is vain for rationalism to grumble about this. If
the mystical truth that comes to a man proves to be a force that he can
live by, what mandate have we of the majority to order him to live in
another way? We can throw him into a prison or a madhouse, but we cannot
change his mind- we commonly attach it only the more stubbornly to its
beliefs. . . . The mystic is, in short, invulnerable, and must be left,
whether we relish it or not, in undisturbed enjoyment of his creed.
Faith, says Tolstoy, is that by which men live. And faith-state and
mystic state are practically convertible terms."
Déjà Flu
Imo, this is precisely why there are so many instructions to
let go of these, along with their authority (both inward and
outward). Though I do agree with his short-term conclusion.
> It is vain for rationalism to grumble about this. If
> the mystical truth that comes to a man proves to be a force that he can
> live by, what mandate have we of the majority to order him to live in
> another way? We can throw him into a prison or a madhouse, but we cannot
> change his mind- we commonly attach it only the more stubbornly to its
> beliefs... The mystic is, in short, invulnerable, and must be left,
> whether we relish it or not, in undisturbed enjoyment of his creed.
> Faith, says Tolstoy, is that by which men live. And faith-state and
> mystic state are practically convertible terms."
Yes. But I apply the Julian Principle here and arrive (unsurprisingly)
at a different answer entirely. I wonder if that makes me a mystic
rationalist or a rational mystic? After all, there's a label for every
(one/thing).
Happy 11111011010, bud.
Hollywood Lee
Yeah, I agree. BTW, did you see Brit Hume's advice to Tiger Woods? He
said:
"He [Woods] is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers
the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian
faith. So my message to Tiger would be, "Tiger, turn to the Christian
faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the
world."
Gotta love that sort of hubris.
>
>> It is vain for rationalism to grumble about this. If the mystical
>> truth that comes to a man proves to be a force that he can live by,
>> what mandate have we of the majority to order him to live in another
>> way? We can throw him into a prison or a madhouse, but we cannot
>> change his mind- we commonly attach it only the more stubbornly to its
>> beliefs... The mystic is, in short, invulnerable, and must be left,
>> whether we relish it or not, in undisturbed enjoyment of his creed.
>> Faith, says Tolstoy, is that by which men live. And faith-state and
>> mystic state are practically convertible terms."
>
> Yes. But I apply the Julian Principle here and arrive (unsurprisingly)
> at a different answer entirely. I wonder if that makes me a mystic
> rationalist or a rational mystic? After all, there's a label for every
> (one/thing).
I thought maybe one of the many available options (other than trying to
change their minds or leaving them in peace) is to turn DT on them and
let him annoy them to no end.
>
> Happy 11111011010, bud.
You too. My new year's resolution is to not try any more stunts on my
grandson's sled that involve snow, a mountain, and standing up, screaming.
Déjà Flu
LOL!
T'would be fitting if Tiger came out as a Pentacostal Exorcist
and pulled a Ted Haggard on him.
>>> It is vain for rationalism to grumble about this. If the mystical
>>> truth that comes to a man proves to be a force that he can live by,
>>> what mandate have we of the majority to order him to live in another
>>> way? We can throw him into a prison or a madhouse, but we cannot
>>> change his mind- we commonly attach it only the more stubbornly to its
>>> beliefs... The mystic is, in short, invulnerable, and must be left,
>>> whether we relish it or not, in undisturbed enjoyment of his creed.
>>> Faith, says Tolstoy, is that by which men live. And faith-state and
>>> mystic state are practically convertible terms."
>>
>> Yes. But I apply the Julian Principle here and arrive (unsurprisingly)
>> at a different answer entirely. I wonder if that makes me a mystic
>> rationalist or a rational mystic? After all, there's a label for every
>> (one/thing).
>
> I thought maybe one of the many available options (other than trying to
> change their minds or leaving them in peace) is to turn DT on them and
> let him annoy them to no end.
DT is always one of my favorite options (aside from power steering
and the customary turbo moon-roof cup holders).
>> Happy 11111011010, bud.
>
> You too. My new year's resolution is to not try any more stunts on my
> grandson's sled that involve snow, a mountain, and standing up, screaming.
Yeah, snowboards are much better for that sort of embarrassment.
Hollywood Lee
:)
DharmaTroll
wrote:
> DharmaTroll wrote:
> > Tang Huyen:
>
> > > Look at how religious DharmaTroll can be:
>
> > > <<We have tons of evidence, from Newton on,
> > > that the physical matter/energy universe is *complete
> > > within itself*>>
>
> > > A scientist doesn't say any such thing.
>
> > Yes, they say it all the time. They are called "closed
> > systmes", Brother Tang. In traditional physics, we talk
> > about the vector sum of all the momenta remaining
> > constant, and so forth. I'm claiming that from the
> > evidence we have, this is the "top" layer of reality, that
> > there isn't a Cosmic Beastie or Mind or Matrix Machine
> > causing the planets to orbit and brains to be conscious.
> > It's simply an inference to the best explanation, Tang.
> > It's possible that we're a simulation, for example, within
> > a supercomputer in a 'realm' transcendental to us, but I
> > doubt it. I simply have no reason to posit more entities
> > beyond necessity, Brother Tang.
>
> speak us, unbeknownst to us. That would be
> something like:
>
> <<It's possible that we're a simulation, for example,
> within a supercomputer in a 'realm' transcendental to
> us, but I doubt it. I simply have no reason to posit
> more entities beyond necessity.>>
>
> But the Church thinks you, tallks you, acts you,
> unbeknownst to you. You are merely a marionette
> to it.
Geez, Tang, the same-old, same-old. What, if you repeat this nonsense
accusation enough, claiming that it's all fluff and you babble "in-
closed-loop" when I press you on it, that that will make it true?
> As to your claim of the world being "complete in
> itself", ot that you get to a "top" layer of reality,
> you have claimed the contrary:
>
> <<And this is the impasse that has been bickered
> about for literally thousands of years. If your
> dispositions incline you to see woo-woo, you'll see
> it everywhere, in Nanananda, in Quantum Physics,
> and in the tea leaves at the bottom of your cup. If
> you don't, you'll see rational, empirical explanations,
> and you'll take anomalies not be proof that you are
> in the Matrix, but only evidence that *your theories
> and maps are always provisional and incomplete*,
> and for pragmatic use only. It pretty much boils
> down to the particular tint in your own sunglasses.>>
>
> So, from you claim that theories and maps are
> always provisional and incomplete, how do you
> arrive at the world being "complete in itself"?
> How do you get to a "top" layer of reality?
First of all, the maps are 'of' the top-layer, I'm claiming. That is,
we can't ever know everything about the universe, only small
incomplete, but more and more accurate, maps. By top layer, I mean
that I don't think there's reason to believe that all this physical
reality which we call "the universe" is really a simulation or
illusion, created by a computer or mind or deity on a transcendental
"higher realm". While this logically could be true, as Descartes
beautifully demonstrates, we now (since Newton) have good reason to
think that natural laws of physics govern the universe, rather than
gods and angels or Keynes' woo-woo "Mind". And rather than this being
a dream or fabrication made by a deity or by magic from a
transcendental realm, that this universe is governed by natural laws
alone, and that there isn't any evidence for a transcendental layer.
That doesn't mean we won't find more about the universe as it is in
it's physicality, such as that our universe is in a bubble which is
one of zillions of bubbles in a multiverse and that the scope of some
of our natural laws extends only to our bubble, etc. I'm just saying
that the claim that the laws of physics, and natural properties, like
momentum and inertia, account for the orbits of the planets instead of
postulating transcendent angels or Keynes trancendental ego doing it.
> <<You've just made a category mistake. There is no
> thing called love. Love refers to relationship. You may
> as well ask me to prove the existence of 'between'.
> That's as nonsensical. Relate this to how thinking that
> when a cat goes out of sight the best explanation is
> that the cat is behind the couch, or why belief in magic
> powers or miracle cures without empirical evidence
> willful ignorance.>>
>
> From a worldview of relationhips only, how do you
> arrive at the view that the world is a "closed system"
> "complete in itself"? If the world is made up of
> relationships and nothing more, how do you know
> that it is "complete in itself"?
Well, I don't. I'm claiming from the evidence we have, that when we
have complex physical dynamic systems like brains interacting, all
sorts of cool new properties emerge, such as consciousness and love.
But I'm claiming that these are not 'proof' nor even evidence of
transcendental souls. When Keynes or others say that without a
transcendental soul there is no consciousness or freedom, I reject
this as a likely story, and think that love and freedom and so forth
are completely part of the physical universe, emerging from these
systems, and not from outside the universe, from some woo-woo realm.
> Have you the power to grab the whole of
> the world as a single unit and look at it from the
> outside?
Of course not! I don't think the universe has an outside!
> If you simply have no reason to posit more entities
> beyond necessity, why do you posit an envelope to
> the world? Why do you posit a "top" layer of reality?
>
> How is that different from Christians positing their
> God?
Saying that I don't see evidence for a God or woo-woo transcendental
realm is different because I'm not the one making the claim. I'm
saying that there is no evidence that transcendental hyper-real realms
exist, and I demonstrate that they don't explain anything but they
just "past the buck" to a mysterian woo-woo ambiguous realm that
conveniently can't be examined.
So saying "I don't see any reason to posit anything supernatural, and
think Nature is all there is" does differ because I'm not positing
anything. I could be wrong. I'm just saying that in the light of not
having any evidence for Keynes' soul or for a teapot flying around
Mars or for unicorns or devas or ghosts, I don't posit those things
and won't even think about their existence as anything more than pure
speculation until evidence shows up for them. That is, when we get a
body of a space alien, or even a hubcap from an alien flying saucer,
then and only then should we sound the alarm.
> Woo-woo must be overcoming you. Or rather, does
> the Church blow such thoughts into your mind and
> make you type them up on these boards in its stead?
>
> Tang Huyen
Now why don't you just admit that your accusations are baseless, Tang,
and that I am the Alpha-Male and you can't discredit me with your
"Closet Catholic" accusations, any more than the flaming nutters
around here who call me a 'liar' and 'fundamentalist' when I
demonstrate that I know what I'm talking about and I provide evidence
for it? Face it, Tang, I rule!
--My Divine Grace Yabba Dabba Dukkha Dharmakaya Trollpa
possum
That's fine DT, but the problem i have with it is that governments
believe that they govern the bit of the universe with all the people
in it, and it appears that some financial institutions and
multinationals appear to believe that governments work for them (i
don't know if it is true or not). They pack a lot of power, and the
basis for it may well be a pile of woo.
it might be a minor blip on the cosmological scale but i relate to it
rather strongly...and there has to be a better way than a total no
tolerance zone against all suspected woo-wooists to the point of
refusing to talk about stuff...
possum
Keynes
wrote:
>
>First of all, the maps are 'of' the top-layer, I'm claiming. That is,
>we can't ever know everything about the universe, only small
>incomplete, but more and more accurate, maps. By top layer, I mean
>that I don't think there's reason to believe that all this physical
>reality which we call "the universe" is really a simulation or
>illusion, created by a computer or mind or deity on a transcendental
>"higher realm". While this logically could be true, as Descartes
>beautifully demonstrates, we now (since Newton) have good reason to
>think that natural laws of physics govern the universe, rather than
>gods and angels or Keynes' woo-woo "Mind". And rather than this being
>a dream or fabrication made by a deity or by magic from a
>transcendental realm, that this universe is governed by natural laws
>alone, and that there isn't any evidence for a transcendental layer.
Your mind is transcendental. With it you sense the world.
(If there truly is one. And if you could discern what it is.)
With your mind you model the world in an attempt to
understand it. Just as Aristotle did, and with the same
or likely a much lesser degree of accuracy. Because you
accept the limits of your dualistic rational mind, and
can't imagine there is anything more real and true than
your own opinions. Just like everybody else.
Even in the vanishingly unlikely event that your map
were accurate, knowing the truth about everything can
not make you happier or a better person. We're talking
buddhism here, not cats and sofas. Buddhism recommends
the abandoning of delusion, meaning close-minded rigid
opinions. Years ago you'd have been arguing for Ptolemy
and against Copernicus. (Because it is written, therefore
it must be so.)
Is and is-not are true and false depending on level of
context, not absolute across all levels. Good and bad
just bring on the confusions and pains. Gain and loss,
life and death are the dualistic rational point of view,
and not absolute truths outside their abstract domain.
These are narrow-mind domains, not natural limits.
They are self-confining, self-confirming delusion.
The smarter you suppose you are, the dumber you
become.
Nobody lives in the world. We all live in the mind.
The mind is not never-never-land. It is handy and familiar.
You've been living within it from the beginning. And
in fact there is nowhere else to go for anything.
Do some vipassana and see for yourself.
"In the seen, just the seen."
DharmaTroll
You mean financial institutions are based in supernatural belief? I
don't think so. I think they are simply trying to maximize their
profit. Which is fine to some extent, but not when they are allowed to
destroy the competition, which leads to exploiting folks if not kept
in check. Competition and government regulation counters negative
effects. Whether you prefer more of the former or the latter is
usually the difference between party views, whereas both extremes are
problematic.
> it might be a minor blip on the cosmological scale but i relate to it
> rather strongly...and there has to be a better way than a total no
> tolerance zone against all suspected woo-wooists to the point of
> refusing to talk about stuff...
>
> possum
Well it's not about refusing to talk, it's about checking out claims.
In practical matters, its a nice buzz-word "multinational
corporations" and we get to bond together by hating these alleged bad
guys in suits that drive big black sedans. While I'd love to shut down
McDonald's permanently, the hatred of oil companies is absurd. If we
can slowly change over from oil to hydrogen powered cars, and get
Exxon-Mobile and whoever to invest in that tech and profit from it,
then everyone will benefit. And you have to look at specific cases.
The naive blame of everything on "corporations" is pretty
problematic.
The attack on big pharma is the worst. Yeah, there's always corruption
in big business, and they get nailed and it hits the headlines every
time there's a scandal. But big pharma are blessed saints and heroes
who save lives compared to all the New-Age quackery and
"acupuncturists" sticking pins into folks like voo-doo dolls and
homeopathic medicine which is believing that pouring magic water that
has "ancient memories" onto sugar pills can cure cancer or colds. My
brother-in-law used to teach in a medical school, and now he's a top
researcher for one of the biggest pharma corporations in the world,
and he says that it's not like any of the stereotypes, that everyone
he works with is dedicated to saving lives and it's what inspires them
to work so hard. If they just wanted money, they'd get an MBA and work
on wall street or become a lawyer. So even in this case, the hatred of
"multinationals" is the worst thing, though there are serious crimes
committed by particular folks in particular cases.
I think the splitting off from reality/nature as you have with both
the Creationist Fundamentalists and the Keynes'-type reality-deniers
and vibrationologists and quacks is the biggest problem, as such folks
rebel against the very act of thinking rationally and questioning
things, which is much deeper and overarching than a particular
political issue of some X exploiting some Y. If you can't develop the
awareness and rationality to understand the situation without reducing
it to buzzwords and fortune cookies, then you're simply going to be
manipulated into being a meme replicator.
--DharmaTroll
possum
I mean that polarizing the government of the universe between "the
natural laws of physics" and "god, angels or woo-woo Mind' omits the
'world of man' - in a way that bothers me. assuming that knowledge of
the way the physical universe works benefits us as a species, how do
we relate it to the segment of the universe most directly affecting
us?
technologically, we utilize knowledge of physical laws for what we
believe advances our comfort and convenience and prosperity. we
overcome physical limitations - eg we have no wings, but can fly,
assuming one's underwear and passport is in order...to the extent that
in developed nations we can live lives several layers removed from the
reminders that we are subject to physical laws, until it snows, or
floods or something penetrates our delusion bubble. like the
fascinating slime- mold, we have organised ourselves...http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold ... but when one looks at the mixed
evidence of our achievements in the world around us, it's difficult to
deny that there is room for improvement. part of our self -
organisation involves 'institutions' of many kinds, financial
institutions, religion, military, law, education, and so forth...there
is a long (and interconnected) history behind each, leading to where
they are today, and i have no reason not to be sceptical or question
whether their considerable power to govern my life is in fact derived
from the authority of woo-woo.
wherever we go, we go from here...and i can't see that the
extermination of religion, as opposed to awareness of its positive and
negative influences will help us to 'self- adjust' our social
organisation in a fruitful or effective way. i don't have answers or
solutions... i seek them, but know that i am part of the problem
too...
> I
> don't think so. I think they are simply trying to maximize their
> profit. Which is fine to some extent, but not when they are allowed to
> destroy the competition, which leads to exploiting folks if not kept
> in check. Competition and government regulation counters negative
> effects. Whether you prefer more of the former or the latter is
> usually the difference between party views, whereas both extremes are
> problematic.
>
> > it might be a minor blip on the cosmological scale but i relate to it
> > rather strongly...and there has to be a better way than a total no
> > tolerance zone against all suspected woo-wooists to the point of
> > refusing to talk about stuff...
>
> > possum
>
> Well it's not about refusing to talk, it's about checking out claims.
> In practical matters, its a nice buzz-word "multinational
> corporations" and we get to bond together by hating these alleged bad
> guys in suits that drive big black sedans.
It's been a while since i 'bonded'.
While I'd love to shut down
> McDonald's permanently, the hatred of oil companies is absurd.
My pet hate at the moment is Group4Securicor. I have my reasons but
i'll spare you the rant. : )
the whole system is teetering on collapse into absurditity, with some
inevitability, as far as i can see.
can you be sure that some freshly squeezed woo, (possibly wrung out of
one of Karen armstrong's old habits (as opposed to freeze-dried
fossilised fake relics) injected into the Nestle board room would get
a re-think on buying up third world debts and enforcing them on
impoverished nations, for instance? o, haz that alreddy hapnd?
If we
> can slowly change over from oil to hydrogen powered cars, and get
> Exxon-Mobile and whoever to invest in that tech and profit from it,
> then everyone will benefit. And you have to look at specific cases.
> The naive blame of everything on "corporations" is pretty
> problematic.
as is naive support. however, i feel a lot naiver than the guys in
suits in big black sedans, so please excuse me if i'm not ready to
override my 'don't swim with sharks' instincts just yet... : )
>
> The attack on big pharma is the worst.
attack? you're over -reacting.
you'd know if i attacked - that was just a subversive little dig...
granted, minnow bites can add up to a lot, even for sharks...
Yeah, there's always corruption
> in big business, and they get nailed and it hits the headlines every
> time there's a scandal.
Your faith in this is quite touching...
but why should i believe it...?
and why should i accept systemic corruption, and not want to change
it?
and why should my not believing it be regarded as a threat (a
negative) ?
>But big pharma are blessed saints and heroes
> who save lives compared to all the New-Age quackery and
> "acupuncturists" sticking pins into folks like voo-doo dolls and
> homeopathic medicine which is believing that pouring magic water that
> has "ancient memories" onto sugar pills can cure cancer or colds.
blessed saints and heroes bestowing and withholding cures for as much
as they can get?
all hail big pharma.
>My
> brother-in-law used to teach in a medical school, and now he's a top
> researcher for one of the biggest pharma corporations in the world,
> and he says that it's not like any of the stereotypes, that everyone
> he works with is dedicated to saving lives and it's what inspires them
> to work so hard.
i think 'right occupation' is one of the interesting and challenging
aspects of the 8-fold...reminds me...
i don't doubt that there are many good, conscientious and dedicated
people working within any institution... the difficulty is that
institutions have a sort of 'entity' life of their own,
notwithstanding the good intentions of its employees...this raises
lots of questions for an individual, and from the outside, i wonder
how the heckthis 'entity' thingy works...
i know quite a few nice people who work for the inland revenue, and i
don't hate them, but you don't want to get me started on HMRC as an
organisation...
If they just wanted money, they'd get an MBA and work
> on wall street or become a lawyer. So even in this case, the hatred of
> "multinationals" is the worst thing, though there are serious crimes
> committed by particular folks in particular cases.
>
> I think the splitting off from reality/nature as you have with both
> the Creationist Fundamentalists and the Keynes'-type reality-deniers
> and vibrationologists and quacks is the biggest problem, as such folks
> rebel against the very act of thinking rationally and questioning
> things, which is much deeper and overarching than a particular
> political issue of some X exploiting some Y. If you can't develop the
> awareness and rationality to understand the situation without reducing
> it to buzzwords and fortune cookies, then you're simply going to be
> manipulated into being a meme replicator.
Interesting. i agree that far too much bollocks is spoken and
buzzwords can be a problem and a turn-off, but 'getting the truth out
there' is a bit of an art, isn't it?
possum
possum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold
possum
DharmaTroll
> On 6 Jan, 05:50, DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> > > > First of all, the maps are 'of' the top-layer, I'm claiming. That is,
> > > > we can't ever know everything about the universe, only small
> > > > incomplete, but more and more accurate, maps. By top layer, I mean
> > > > that I don't think there's reason to believe that all this physical
> > > > reality which we call "the universe" is really a simulation or
> > > > illusion, created by a computer or mind or deity on a transcendental
> > > > "higher realm". While this logically could be true, as Descartes
> > > > beautifully demonstrates, we now (since Newton) have good reason to
> > > > think that natural laws of physics govern the universe, rather than
> > > > gods and angels or Keynes' woo-woo "Mind".
>
> > > That's fine DT, but the problem i have with it is that governments
> > > believe that they govern the bit of the universe with all the people
> > > in it, and it appears that some financial institutions and
> > > multinationals appear to believe that governments work for them (i
> > > don't know if it is true or not). They pack a lot of power, and the
> > > basis for it may well be a pile of woo.
>
> > You mean financial institutions are based in supernatural belief?
>
> I mean that polarizing the government of the universe between "the
> natural laws of physics" and "god, angels or woo-woo Mind' omits the
> 'world of man' - in a way that bothers me.
I think that the world of man is completely a subset of nature, and
that there's no evidence that something supernatural is added that
affects the world of man.
> assuming that knowledge of the way the physical universe
> works benefits us as a species,
Yeah, understanding the patterns around us has a hell of a lot of
survival value!
> how do we relate it to the segment of the universe
> most directly affecting us?
> technologically, we utilize knowledge of physical laws for what we
> believe advances our comfort and convenience and prosperity. we
> overcome physical limitations - eg we have no wings, but can fly,
> assuming one's underwear and passport is in order...to the extent that
> in developed nations we can live lives several layers removed from the
> reminders that we are subject to physical laws, until it snows, or
> floods or something penetrates our delusion bubble. like the
> fascinating slime- mold, we have organised ourselves
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold
> but when one looks at the mixed
> evidence of our achievements in the world around us, it's difficult to
> deny that there is room for improvement. part of our self -
> organisation involves 'institutions' of many kinds, financial
> institutions, religion, military, law, education, and so forth...there
> is a long (and interconnected) history behind each, leading to where
> they are today, and i have no reason not to be sceptical or question
> whether their considerable power to govern my life is in fact derived
> from the authority of woo-woo.
You seem to be discussing politics. Now you wonder whether financial
institutions are derived from the supernatural? That doesn't make any
sense to me at all. They are created by groups of people.
> wherever we go, we go from here...and i can't see that the
> extermination of religion, as opposed to awareness of its positive and
> negative influences will help us to 'self- adjust' our social
> organisation in a fruitful or effective way. i don't have answers or
> solutions... i seek them, but know that i am part of the problem
> too...
Oh, I never said I'm for the extermination of religion. Did you infer
that I said such a thing? Actually, sometimes I argue that religion is
a necessary evil. If we didn't have people going to Church, praying to
Jesus or whomever, then communism or fascism is going to fill in the
gap. It's belief that's my enemy, not religion. Non-woo-woo belief
systems such as communism, are just as treacherous as Christianity.
The "new atheists" like Dawkins like to say that if we just teach
science, then people won't be superstitious and won't subscribe to
religion and religion will die out and the world will be a better
place. However, in Nazi Germany, science was taught more than any
other culture in history. And they kicked our butts in technology,
inventing the rocket and the jet plane way ahead of us. The result was
disaster. Communism filled the same needs as religion and tens of
millions were murdered by it and many times that lived in cruel
conditions for most of the last century. In the end, woo-woo isn't the
problem -- belief systems are, I'd say.
> > I
> > don't think so. I think they are simply trying to maximize their
> > profit. Which is fine to some extent, but not when they are allowed to
> > destroy the competition, which leads to exploiting folks if not kept
> > in check. Competition and government regulation counters negative
> > effects. Whether you prefer more of the former or the latter is
> > usually the difference between party views, whereas both extremes are
> > problematic.
>
> > > it might be a minor blip on the cosmological scale but i relate to it
> > > rather strongly...and there has to be a better way than a total no
> > > tolerance zone against all suspected woo-wooists to the point of
> > > refusing to talk about stuff...
>
> > > possum
>
> > Well it's not about refusing to talk, it's about checking out claims.
> > In practical matters, its a nice buzz-word "multinational
> > corporations" and we get to bond together by hating these alleged bad
> > guys in suits that drive big black sedans.
>
> It's been a while since i 'bonded'.
Ok, I mean you define yourself against a fantasy bad "they".
> > While I'd love to shut down
> > McDonald's permanently, the hatred of oil companies is absurd.
>
> My pet hate at the moment is Group4Securicor.
> I have my reasons but i'll spare you the rant. : )
>
> the whole system is teetering on collapse into absurdity,
> with some inevitability, as far as i can see.
>
> can you be sure that some freshly squeezed woo, (possibly wrung out of
> one of Karen armstrong's old habits (as opposed to freeze-dried
> fossilised fake relics) injected into the Nestle board room would get
> a re-think on buying up third world debts and enforcing them on
> impoverished nations, for instance? o, haz that alreddy hapnd?
I have no idea what the hell you just said. Maybe you can restate that
in English, please. So I'll say something general. If you want anyone
in any board room to do something you want, find a way for them to get
paid for it. Money talks; bullshit walks. Assume everyone will
rationally maximize their own gain, and then make rules such that
maximizing their own gain helps others. That's how economic works, and
if you ever wish or ask someone to go against their self-interest,
you're simply deluded and don't understand the game.
> > If we
> > can slowly change over from oil to hydrogen powered cars, and get
> > Exxon-Mobile and whoever to invest in that tech and profit from it,
> > then everyone will benefit. And you have to look at specific cases.
> > The naive blame of everything on "corporations" is pretty
> > problematic.
>
> as is naive support. however, i feel a lot naiver than the guys in
> suits in big black sedans, so please excuse me if i'm not ready to
> override my 'don't swim with sharks' instincts just yet... : )
Again, I have no judgment on any institutions or companies: I see them
as simply self-interest-maximizing machines. So I would try to make
rules and set up the game so that their win is always a win-win
situation instead of a win-lose situation. That's all there is to it.
> > The attack on big pharma is the worst.
>
> attack? you're over -reacting.
No, I'm not. Woo-woo-ists slander doctors and the makers of drugs that
save countless lives, while the woo-woo-ists peddle bullshit. I went
to a woo-woo convention ("Common Boundary") in D.C. with a brother-in-
law of mine who is a psychiatrist (different bro-in-law than the one
who researches new drugs). He demanded that I not ever, ever mention
that he's a doctor, much less a shrink. Apparently I let that slip
out, and a dozen new-age ladies gave him scowls after that. At other
modules of the weekend event, he instead introduced himself as a
"clinical practitioner of healing arts" or some bullshit like that,
and the woo-woo ladies instead were all flirting with him. So It's not
just all my neighborhood nutters: the slander on science and medicine
and rationality is rampant. It must be stopped! Deprok Chopra must
DIE!!!! (Just kidding.)
> you'd know if i attacked - that was just a subversive little dig...
> granted, minnow bites can add up to a lot, even for sharks...
Ok, slandered then, the way the nutter Keynes slanders rationality.
> > Yeah, there's always corruption
> > in big business, and they get nailed and it hits the headlines every
> > time there's a scandal.
>
> Your faith in this is quite touching...
I have no "faith". Them's fightin' words.
> but why should i believe it...?
You shouldn't blindly believe anything, not even the awesome DT. Read,
educate yourself, and find out.
> and why should i accept systemic corruption,
> and not want to change it?
First, you have to accept the way everything is before you can change
it. (That's a spiritual lesson you should have come across by now.)
Second, you can do things such as vote. But what I find is that
activists tend to have a hidden motive -- they identify against, or
with, some group because it makes them feel like somebody. So I'd
meditate or do therapy or something introspective first, and get to
know what's motivating you. For example, even though I agree with some
views and disagree with others, I have no anger whatsoever with any
politicians or political parties. Yet I see folks on both sides angry
and demonizing the other. The personal hatred I've seen people babble
about "the conservatives" or "the liberals" is amazing. So I'd say
that if you have any anger about it, you should back off and meditate.
That doesn't mean you have to ignore the issue: I think Martin Luther
King, Jr. did more than any angry activist to change things.
> and why should my not believing it be regarded as a threat
> (a negative) ?
Um, if you get cancer and someone like Keynes convinces you that
doctors, medicine, and science are all full of shit, and so you go to
a woo-woo-ist who babbles about your chi and your negative flow of
energies and cleansing your toxins and restoring your holistic balance
while playing New-Age flute music and burning sandalwood incense,
then, um, you'll probably die instead of getting help. So it's a
threat to you. And if you think big pharma are evil, you may not
vaccinate your children, as lots of gullible folks are being convinced
by the woo-woo-ists these days, and then you might end up murdering
your kids negligently as well.
> >But big pharma are blessed saints and heroes
> > who save lives compared to all the New-Age quackery and
> > "acupuncturists" sticking pins into folks like voo-doo dolls and
> > homeopathic medicine which is believing that pouring magic water that
> > has "ancient memories" onto sugar pills can cure cancer or colds.
>
> blessed saints and heroes bestowing and withholding cures for as much
> as they can get? all hail big pharma.
Don't hail them -- just give them money for good research and punish
them when they fuck up, that's all.
> > My
> > brother-in-law used to teach in a medical school, and now he's a top
> > researcher for one of the biggest pharma corporations in the world,
> > and he says that it's not like any of the stereotypes, that everyone
> > he works with is dedicated to saving lives and it's what inspires them
> > to work so hard.
>
> i think 'right occupation' is one of the interesting and challenging
> aspects of the 8-fold...reminds me...
> i don't doubt that there are many good, conscientious and dedicated
> people working within any institution...
In fact, if you actually visited the people who work for them, you'd
be amazed at how many intelligent, caring folks who are motivated by
compassion there are, unlike the ridiculous stereotypes.
> the difficulty is that
> institutions have a sort of 'entity' life of their own,
> notwithstanding the good intentions of its employees...this raises
> lots of questions for an individual, and from the outside, i wonder
> how the heckthis 'entity' thingy works.
Well, it has to do with a diffusion of responsibility, even though
there is no actual extra entity, but like talking about our having a
fictional self, it makes sense in terms of strategy to treat
corporations or countries as if they were people, and then look at
their motives and needs. And you take into account that self-interest
is always a primary motive at that level, and you adjust for that.
I recommend a brilliant book on economics on this subject, called "Co-
Opetition: A Revolution Mindset That Combines Competition and
Cooperation, The Game Theory Strategy That's Changing the Game of
Business" by Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry J. Nalebuff. It's
fantastic, intuitive, insightful, jargon-free, and really easy to
read.
> i know quite a few nice people who work for the inland revenue, and i
> don't hate them, but you don't want to get me started on HMRC as an
> organisation...
>
> > If they just wanted money, they'd get an MBA and work
> > on wall street or become a lawyer. So even in this case, the hatred of
> > "multinationals" is the worst thing, though there are serious crimes
> > committed by particular folks in particular cases.
>
> > I think the splitting off from reality/nature as you have with both
> > the Creationist Fundamentalists and the Keynes'-type reality-deniers
> > and vibrationologists and quacks is the biggest problem, as such folks
> > rebel against the very act of thinking rationally and questioning
> > things, which is much deeper and overarching than a particular
> > political issue of some X exploiting some Y. If you can't develop the
> > awareness and rationality to understand the situation without reducing
> > it to buzzwords and fortune cookies, then you're simply going to be
> > manipulated into being a meme replicator.
>
> Interesting. i agree that far too much bollocks is spoken and
> buzzwords can be a problem and a turn-off, but 'getting the truth
> out there' is a bit of an art, isn't it?
The truth is out there, Mulder!
>
> possum
>
--DharmaTroll
possum
this is bullshit.
AdvocatusDiablo
"possum" <jhk00B0S...@spambox.us> wrote in message
news:75d703cb-66df-41cf...@26g2000yqo.googlegroups.com...
this is bullshit.
possum...what did you expect from...the bull goose...of this newsgroup...?!
possum
> "possum" <jhk00B0Sn3VdC...@spambox.us> wrote in message
good point. droppings, but not funny walks. heh!
i really should shut up now, shouldn't i...
possum
DharmaTroll
Are you circus clowns going to just hurl vague insults in my
direction, or are you going to specifically discuss some issue I
mentioned with which you are attached or interested in some way?
--DharmaTroll
--DharmaTroll
Lee Rudolph
>On 7 Jan, 23:02, "AdvocatusDiablo" <instantkarma...@gmail.com> wrote:
...
>> this is bullshit.
>>
>> possum...what did you expect from...the bull goose...of this newsgroup...?!
>
>good point. droppings, but not funny walks. heh!
>
>i really should shut up now, shouldn't i...
Aw, shucks. Just when it's looking like Tang's prophecy ("he's gonna
C*R*A*S*H!!!1!") might finally come to pass--on-screen, in-group, no
need to hear about it from the chorus--you're going to stop piling
straws on the camel's back? What fun are *you*?
Go on, scrape off some more flowers, button your lip. *I* don't care.
Lee Rudolph (and Happy Eastern Orthodox Xmas, by the way)
possum
happy eastern orthodox Xmas to you too, Lee. i suppose we could have
a custard pie fight...?
possum
Lee Rudolph
Pashka!
Oh, wait, that's for (Orthodox) Easter.
Lee Rudolph (and I'm rather off snowballs, as I'm sure you are by now)
Déjà Flu
Pashka fight!
Ingredients
* 2 pounds homemade cottage cheese or farmer's cheese
* 1 1/2 cups sugar
* 8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature, cut into pieces
* 6 large hard-cooked egg yolks, crumbled
* 1 1/2 cups heavy or whipping cream
* 3/4 cups ground almonds
* 1/2 lemon, zest grated
* 1 teaspoon lemon extract
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 large vanilla bean, split lengthwise
* 1/2 cup golden raisins
* Chopped candied fruits, for decoration
Directions
In a large bowl, combine the cottage cheese or farmer's cheese, sugar,
cream cheese, and egg yolks, stirring to mix.
In batches, process the mixture in a food processor, adding an equal
amount of cream to each batch, until completely smooth. Transfer back to
the bowl.
Stir in the ground almonds, lemon zest, lemon extract, and vanilla
extract. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and add them to the
cheese mixture along with the raisins. Mix thoroughly.
Line a clean, unused 8-cup flower pot with a double layer of rinsed and
squeezed-dry cheesecloth. Spoon the cheese mixture into the lined pan,
then fold the ends of the cheesecloth neatly over the top. Place a
saucer on the cheesecloth, then a 2-pound weight, such as a can, on the
saucer. Put the flower pot in a bowl large enough for the liquid to
drain into. Refrigerate for at least 12 hours.
Empty the bowl. Unmold the pashka onto a serving plate and carefully
remove the cheesecloth. Decorate with candied fruit, pressing some of
the fruit into the pashka to form the letters XP, which stands for
Khristos voskres ("Christ has risen").
liaM
Love Pashka !
AdvocatusDiablo
"DharmaTroll" <dharm...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:ec84a079-bd5c-441f...@q4g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
--DharmaTroll
--DharmaTroll
--------------------
we're starting a new school...it's going to be called "the buddhist clown
school"...looks like you're the first successful student...tvtom...!
possum
> Le 1/8/2010 3:03 AM, Lee Rudolph a écrit :
>
> > possum<jhk00B0Sn3VdC...@spambox.us> writes:
>
> >> On 8 Jan, 01:40, Lee Rudolph<lrudo...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> >>> Lee Rudolph (and Happy Eastern Orthodox Xmas, by the way)
>
> >> happy eastern orthodox Xmas to you too, Lee. i suppose we could have
> >> a custard pie fight...?
>
> > Pashka!
>
> > Oh, wait, that's for (Orthodox) Easter.
>
> > Lee Rudolph (and I'm rather off snowballs, as I'm sure you are by now)
>
> Love Pashka !
wooo. i've never tried it but it sounds yummy. i especially like
that you can make with flower pots...
possum
possum
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
Bo Zo school.
2x4 method
usual naughty step...
possum
AdvocatusDiablo
that's a good one...possum...so we can count you in...!