Paul Crowley's Identity
Bob Grumman
"Paul Crowley" was an assumed name. Otherwise he would have protested
my using his name as the author of the incredibly insane arguments I
quote in my book about him. Or, if a real person, what we know of him
makes near-certain he would have had to have scoffed at how foolish I
was to show him at his best and think I was doing the opposite. No
matter. He may be a computer program, but he is not so different from
Charlton Ogburn to make my diagnosis of his rigidnikry misled.
--Bob
Peter Groves
If he is, as I've sometimes thought, a perfectly sane person parodying
anti-stratfordian nuttiness, then it was quite clever of him to reject
the "Tudor Prince" nonsense, and thus retain a tiny grain of
credibility.
Peter G.
Bob Grumman
Do you really think a "perfectly sane person" would parody anti-
Stratfordian nuttiness for the length of time (13 or 14 years at HLAS)
and to the extent "Paul Crowley" has, Peter? Do you think Art could
be a similar parodist?
True, I believe one or more programmers could be behind "Paul Crowley"
without being insane. As an experiment in AI, for example, and/or to
investigate people like me to see who insanely long we're willing to
argue with lunatics. And a program could be set to continue to post
forever with only occasional maintenance by its creator or creators.
Interesting that one could make a computer that could convince people
it's a real insane person simply by giving it belligerant
monomania. . . .
--Bob
nordicskiv2
<7d69ebb7-61d6-4c1f...@e35g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,
Bob Grumman <bobgr...@nut-n-but.net> wrote:
> On May 22, 3:10Â am, Peter Groves <metrical...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On May 22, 11:53Â am, Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote:
> >
> > > I wonder if we'll ever learn who or what he was. Â I'm certain now that
> > > "Paul Crowley" was an assumed name. Â Otherwise he would have protested
> > > my using his name as the author of the incredibly insane arguments I
> > > quote in my book about him. Â Or, if a real person, what we know of him
> > > makes near-certain he would have had to have scoffed at how foolish I
> > > was to show him at his best and think I was doing the opposite. Â No
> > > matter. Â He may be a computer program, but he is not so different from
> > > Charlton Ogburn to make my diagnosis of his rigidnikry misled.
> >
> > > --Bob
> > If he is, as I've sometimes thought, a perfectly sane person parodying
> > anti-stratfordian nuttiness, then it was quite clever of him to reject
> > the "Tudor Prince" nonsense, and thus retain a tiny grain of
> > credibility.
> >
> > Peter G.
> Do you really think a "perfectly sane person" would parody anti-
> Stratfordian nuttiness for the length of time (13 or 14 years at HLAS)
> and to the extent "Paul Crowley" has, Peter? Do you think Art could
> be a similar parodist?
Art is certainly likely to be such a parodist. Indeed, Art is
intelligent and creative (despite his excellent impersonation of a
clueless moron) and he has a sense of humor (a self-defecating one,
true, but a sense of humor nonetheless). Crowley, on the other hand,
-- well, the less said about Crowley in these respects, the better.
> True, I believe one or more programmers could be behind "Paul Crowley"
> without being insane. As an experiment in AI,
Artificial Imbecility?
> for example, and/or to
> investigate people like me to see who insanely long we're willing to
> argue with lunatics. And a program could be set to continue to post
> forever with only occasional maintenance by its creator or creators.
>
> Interesting that one could make a computer that could convince people
> it's a real insane person simply by giving it belligerant
> monomania. . . .
Clearly, this isn't what its creator had in mind by the Turing
test.
> --Bob
Bob Grumman
> In article
> <7d69ebb7-61d6-4c1f-bf7b-6dcd40813...@e35g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,
> Â Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On May 22, 3:10Â am, Peter Groves <metrical...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On May 22, 11:53Â am, Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote:
>
> > > > I wonder if we'll ever learn who or what he was. Â I'm certain now that
> > > > "Paul Crowley" was an assumed name. Â Otherwise he would have protested
> > > > my using his name as the author of the incredibly insane arguments I
> > > > quote in my book about him. Â Or, if a real person, what we know of him
> > > > makes near-certain he would have had to have scoffed at how foolish I
> > > > was to show him at his best and think I was doing the opposite. Â No
> > > > matter. Â He may be a computer program, but he is not so different from
> > > > Charlton Ogburn to make my diagnosis of his rigidnikry misled.
>
> > > > --Bob
> > > If he is, as I've sometimes thought, a perfectly sane person parodying
> > > anti-stratfordian nuttiness, then it was quite clever of him to reject
> > > the "Tudor Prince" nonsense, and thus retain a tiny grain of
> > > credibility.
>
> > > Peter G.
> > Do you really think a "perfectly sane person" would parody anti-
> > Stratfordian nuttiness for the length of time (13 or 14 years at HLAS)
> > and to the extent "Paul Crowley" has, Peter? Â Do you think Art could
> > be a similar parodist?
>
> Â Â Art is certainly likely to be such a parodist.
You and I have debated this before, David. I still can't imagine how
anyone sane would parody (sometimes in incredibly long, boring,
incoherent posts) such easy victims so frequently and for so long, and
with so much repetition of parodies.
--Bob
Mark Steese
news:7d69ebb7-61d6-4c1f...@e35g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:
> On May 22, 3:10 am, Peter Groves <metrical...@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
>> If he is, as I've sometimes thought, a perfectly sane person
>> parodying anti-stratfordian nuttiness, then it was quite clever of
>> him to reject the "Tudor Prince" nonsense, and thus retain a tiny
>> grain of credibility.
>
> Do you really think a "perfectly sane person" would parody anti-
> Stratfordian nuttiness for the length of time (13 or 14 years at HLAS)
> and to the extent "Paul Crowley" has, Peter? Do you think Art could
> be a similar parodist?
It doesn't seem any more insane than spending 13 or 14 years
*responding* to such a person's anti-Shakespearean nuttiness in HLAS.
--
The Alps are grand in their beauty, Mount Shasta is sublime in its
desolation. -William H. Brewer
Bob Grumman
That depends. If you're carrying out a study of rigidnikry, it's
sane. If you like to argue and find ten or fifteen minutes a day of
arguing exercise a good way of keep in shape as an arguer, it is. I
think it may even qualify as sane if you're trying to get an important
defense of sanity maximally effective--certainly it's more sane than
parodying lunatics.
So, what have you been up to that's more sane than arguing with Paul
Crowley, Mark?
--Bob
Mark Steese
> On May 24, 6:33Â pm, Mark Steese <mark_ste...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote
>> innews:7d69ebb7-61d6-4c1f-bf
> 7b-6dcd...@e35g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:
>> > On May 22, 3:10 am, Peter Groves <metrical...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> [snip]
>> >> If he is, as I've sometimes thought, a perfectly sane person
>> >> parodying anti-stratfordian nuttiness, then it was quite clever of
>> >> him to reject the "Tudor Prince" nonsense, and thus retain a tiny
>> >> grain of credibility.
>>
>> > Do you really think a "perfectly sane person" would parody anti-
>> > Stratfordian nuttiness for the length of time (13 or 14 years at
>> > HLAS) and to the extent "Paul Crowley" has, Peter? Â Do you think
>> > Art could be a similar parodist?
>>
>> It doesn't seem any more insane than spending 13 or 14 years
>> *responding* to such a person's anti-Shakespearean nuttiness in HLAS.
>
> That depends.
No, that really is how it seems to me.
> If you're carrying out a study of rigidnikry, it's sane.
You missed my point. I wasn't arguing that spending 13 or 14 years
responding to Crowley is insane; I was arguing that Crowley spending 13+
years parodying anti-Shakespeareanism would not be *prima facie* insane.
For that matter, I don't believe Crowley would be insane for spending 13+
years sincerely expressing anti-Shakespearean opinions.
> If you like to argue and find ten or fifteen minutes a day of
> arguing exercise a good way of keep in shape as an arguer, it is.
I love to argue. Unfortunately, pointing things out to Crowley and getting
abuse in return is nothing like arguing; and calling Crowley names and
getting called names in return is even less like arguing.
> I think it may even qualify as sane if you're trying to get an important
> defense of sanity maximally effective--certainly it's more sane than
> parodying lunatics.
Argument by assertion? Tch.
The problem lies in the question of whether insanity is a medical
condition. If it is (and I think it is), it is fatuous for laymen to
pretend they can diagnose it in others whom they know only as an
accumulation of posts in a newsgroup.
And if insanity is a medical condition, the best way - indeed, the only way
- to defend sanity is to learn how to diagnose, treat, and with any luck
cure the various forms of insanity. If you honestly think that Crowley is
mad, mocking his madness is counterproductive at best - and at worst, is no
better than touring Bedlam to gape at the inmates.
Personally, I don't believe Crowley is mad, and I don't believe you are,
either, Bob.
> So, what have you been up to that's more sane than arguing with Paul
> Crowley, Mark?
And where did I say I had been doing anything that was more sane than that,
Bob? I gave up arguing with Crowley because I got bored, not because I
achieved sanity.
Bob Grumman
> Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote innews:c52ad00b-6311-4b4c...@h36g2000pro.googlegroups.com:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On May 24, 6:33 pm, Mark Steese <mark_ste...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote
> >> innews:7d69ebb7-61d6-4c1f-bf
> >> > On May 22, 3:10 am, Peter Groves <metrical...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> [snip]
> >> >> If he is, as I've sometimes thought, a perfectly sane person
> >> >> parodying anti-stratfordian nuttiness, then it was quite clever of
> >> >> him to reject the "Tudor Prince" nonsense, and thus retain a tiny
> >> >> grain of credibility.
>
> >> > Do you really think a "perfectly sane person" would parody anti-
> >> > Stratfordian nuttiness for the length of time (13 or 14 years at
> >> > HLAS) and to the extent "Paul Crowley" has, Peter? Do you think
> >> > Art could be a similar parodist?
>
> >> It doesn't seem any more insane than spending 13 or 14 years
> >> *responding* to such a person's anti-Shakespearean nuttiness in HLAS.
>
> > That depends.
>
> No, that really is how it seems to me.
>
> > If you're carrying out a study of rigidnikry, it's sane.
>
> You missed my point. I wasn't arguing that spending 13 or 14 years
> responding to Crowley is insane; I was arguing that Crowley spending 13+
> years parodying anti-Shakespeareanism would not be *prima facie* insane.
> For that matter, I don't believe Crowley would be insane for spending 13+
> years sincerely expressing anti-Shakespearean opinions.
I consider extreme irrationality insane.
Anti-Stratfordianism is extreme irrationality, hence arguing on behalf
of it, for even ten minutes, is insane. Arguing that beings from
outer space built the pyramids is insane. Some things are insane.
You disagree, I guess.
> > If you like to argue and find ten or fifteen minutes a day of
> > arguing exercise a good way of keep in shape as an arguer, it is.
>
> I love to argue. Unfortunately, pointing things out to Crowley and getting
> abuse in return is nothing like arguing; and calling Crowley names and
> getting called names in return is even less like arguing.
Who does the latter? I may have once or twice, but mostly I argue
with him, calling him names from time to time as I do so.
> > I think it may even qualify as sane if you're trying to get an important
> > defense of sanity maximally effective--certainly it's more sane than
> > parodying lunatics.
>
> Argument by assertion? Tch.
Not arguing, stating a fact. Badly, I should have said, "more sane
than parodying extreme lunatics for over ten years almost daily."
That should have been understood from the context, though.
>
> The problem lies in the question of whether insanity is a medical
> condition. If it is (and I think it is), it is fatuous for laymen to
> pretend they can diagnose it in others whom they know only as an
> accumulation of posts in a newsgroup.
Ad hominem argument. But of course anyone with a brain can diagnose
the sanity of a huge accumulation of posts in a newsgroup. 100 posts
stating that the Rapture occurred a few days, but no one was judged
Christian enough to get to Heaven, for instance, would have to be
judged insane. The number of posts Art has written on a no less
irrational delusion would, too. Parodying such a number would be,
too.
True, one would have to say why, which would call for a detailed
definition of insanity, which would require a detailed definition of
irrationality. Then using reason to see how your definitions apply to
Art's crap and Paul's. Showing how a dysfunctional nervous system
would cause irrationality would be a plus, I think, but not a
necessity.
Internet posts can't be expect to provide all that background.
>
> And if insanity is a medical condition, the best way - indeed, the only way
> - to defend sanity is to learn how to diagnose, treat, and with any luck
> cure the various forms of insanity. If you honestly think that Crowley is
> mad, mocking his madness is counterproductive at best - and at worst, is no
> better than touring Bedlam to gape at the inmates.
I only mock his madness the way he mocks my sanity, as part of the
game, which is primarily argument. I don't gape at him, I study him,
and look for good examples of his insanity to use to illustrate my
theory of its causes. See the thread I started on him--"The Mind of
of Greatest Scholar," something like that.
> Personally, I don't believe Crowley is mad, and I don't believe you are,
> either, Bob.
I consider him unarguably psitchotic, or situationally insane. I'm
not sure about myself.
> > So, what have you been up to that's more sane than arguing with Paul
> > Crowley, Mark?
>
> And where did I say I had been doing anything that was more sane than that,
> Bob? I gave up arguing with Crowley because I got bored, not because I
> achieved sanity.
I'll just say I feel you implied it. Gotta have some reason to argue,
and gotta find someone to argue with now that the Crowley program is
no longer run here, apparently. I could not possibly devote myself to
what Art babbles the way I have to Paul. (And Diana Price, who isn't
even here.)
--Bob
Mark Steese
> On May 26, 5:50Â pm, Mark Steese <mark_ste...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote
>> innews:c52ad00b-6311-4b4c-b7
> 7e-e721...@h36g2000pro.googlegroups.com:
>> > On May 24, 6:33 pm, Mark Steese <mark_ste...@yahoo.com> wrote:
[snip]
>> You missed my point. I wasn't arguing that spending 13 or 14 years
>> responding to Crowley is insane; I was arguing that Crowley spending
>> 13+ years parodying anti-Shakespeareanism would not be *prima facie*
>> insane. For that matter, I don't believe Crowley would be insane for
>> spending 13+ years sincerely expressing anti-Shakespearean opinions.
>
> I consider extreme irrationality insane.
I consider 'extreme irrationality' to be a subjective term
> Anti-Stratfordianism is extreme irrationality,
It is possible for a clinically insane person to have delusions
regarding the authorship of Shakespeare's plays - there is some reason
to believe that Delia Bacon, for example, suffered from insanity. But
for the majority of people, believing that someone other than
Shakespeare wrote his works is no more insane than believing in God -
and God is also a subject about which clinically insane people may have
delusions.
> hence arguing on behalf of it, for even ten minutes, is insane.
> Arguing that beings from outer space built the pyramids is insane.
> Some things are insane. You disagree, I guess.
I don't think beliefs such as 'ancient astronauts' are insane in the way
in which, say, the Fregoli delusion is insane. I think 'ancient
astronauts' beliefs, like anti-Shakespearean ones, are evidence of
profound ignorance rather than madness.
>> > If you like to argue and find ten or fifteen minutes a day of
>> > arguing exercise a good way of keep in shape as an arguer, it is.
>>
>> I love to argue. Unfortunately, pointing things out to Crowley and
>> getting abuse in return is nothing like arguing; and calling Crowley
>> names and getting called names in return is even less like arguing.
>
> Who does the latter? I may have once or twice, but mostly I argue
> with him, calling him names from time to time as I do so.
>
>> > I think it may even qualify as sane if you're trying to get an
>> > important defense of sanity maximally effective--certainly it's
>> > more sane than parodying lunatics.
>>
>> Argument by assertion? Tch.
>
> Not arguing, stating a fact.
I assumed that you believed you were stating a fact. If I had accepted
it as factual, I wouldn't have characterized it as argument by
assertion.
> Badly, I should have said, "more sane than parodying extreme lunatics
> for over ten years almost daily." That should have been understood
> from the context, though.
I understood what you meant; I still don't consider it factual.
>> The problem lies in the question of whether insanity is a medical
>> condition. If it is (and I think it is), it is fatuous for laymen to
>> pretend they can diagnose it in others whom they know only as an
>> accumulation of posts in a newsgroup.
>
> Ad hominem argument.
In what way?
> But of course anyone with a brain can diagnose the sanity of a huge
> accumulation of posts in a newsgroup.
Anyone can say that "a huge accumulation of posts in a newsgroup" are
insane, but that doesn't make it a meaningful judgment.
> 100 posts stating that the Rapture occurred a few days, but no one was
> judged Christian enough to get to Heaven, for instance, would have to
> be judged insane.
"Would have to be judged"? That suggests a compulsion for judging
whether newsgroup posts are insane. I'd worry about someone who felt
compelled to do that.
> The number of posts Art has written on a no less irrational delusion
> would, too. Parodying such a number would be, too.
I disagree.
> True, one would have to say why, which would call for a detailed
> definition of insanity, which would require a detailed definition of
> irrationality. Then using reason to see how your definitions apply to
> Art's crap and Paul's. Showing how a dysfunctional nervous system
> would cause irrationality would be a plus, I think, but not a
> necessity.
And there it seems to me that you've got it exactly backwards. It's like
saying that you're obliged to conclude that anyone with a persistent
cough has lung cancer, and then defining lung cancer as a condition
characterized by a persistent cough.
> Internet posts can't be expect to provide all that background.
They can't provide *any* background where insanity is concerned. As I
said, I believe that insanity is a medical condition, and I don't
believe it's possible to diagnose medical conditions by reading
newsgroup posts.
--
The boughs rustled, and the air was stirred by the muffled beat of their
wings: I could see them, like unearthly, boding shapes, as they swooped
between me and the stars. -Bayard Taylor
Bob Grumman
> Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote innews:c34eb2bd-10d9-435c...@k16g2000yqm.googlegroups.com:
>
>
>
> > On May 26, 5:50 pm, Mark Steese <mark_ste...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote
> >> innews:c52ad00b-6311-4b4c-b7
> >> > On May 24, 6:33 pm, Mark Steese <mark_ste...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> [snip]
> >> You missed my point. I wasn't arguing that spending 13 or 14 years
> >> responding to Crowley is insane; I was arguing that Crowley spending
> >> 13+ years parodying anti-Shakespeareanism would not be *prima facie*
> >> insane. For that matter, I don't believe Crowley would be insane for
> >> spending 13+ years sincerely expressing anti-Shakespearean opinions.
>
> > I consider extreme irrationality insane.
>
> I consider 'extreme irrationality' to be a subjective term
So a mathematical theorem based on the proposition that three plus two
can equal nineteen is not extremely irrational. Or, as I said, that
beings from outer space created the pyramids. Or that a conspiracy
theory for which there is no hard evidence that explains a situation
that copious hard evidence fully explains, without explicit
contradiction, in the view of more than ninety percent of those who
have studied the matter, and all of those who have studied the matter
and done other things in the field that indicate expertise in it, is
not irrational.
Paul Crowley's insistence that none of the sonnets are addressed to a
male is not extreme irrationality?
Well, I differ with you because I feel certain that given time, I
could spell out what irrationality objectively is--basically an
arrangement made by the brain of data that causes the person making it
seriously to err in his predictions. The first Chinaman Joe sees
kicks him so for the rest of his life Joe hides whenever he sees a
Chinaman in spite of all attempts to make him recognize he has made a
faulty generalization. Absurd and simplistic but an exact model of
one form of irrationality people like Paul display that I call mental
hyperconvergency.
> > Anti-Stratfordianism is extreme irrationality,
>
> It is possible for a clinically insane person to have delusions
> regarding the authorship of Shakespeare's plays - there is some reason
> to believe that Delia Bacon, for example, suffered from insanity. But
> for the majority of people, believing that someone other than
> Shakespeare wrote his works is no more insane than believing in God -
> and God is also a subject about which clinically insane people may have
> delusions.
I'm not going to argue about the sanity of believing in God except to
say that anti-Stratfordianism differs from theism in not being based
on faith. Recognizing that there is no rational basis for a belief in
God but that faith tells you He exists would protect one from a charge
of insanity, I believe. Actually, there are a lot of arguments based
on reason for God that are better than the reasons for Oxford, say.
If God did not design human vision, who did, for instance. This can
be answered, but not easily. But we KNOW who wrote the plays of
Shakespeare if Oxford did not.
>
> > hence arguing on behalf of it, for even ten minutes, is insane.
> > Arguing that beings from outer space built the pyramids is insane.
> > Some things are insane. You disagree, I guess.
>
> I don't think beliefs such as 'ancient astronauts' are insane in the way
> in which, say, the Fregoli delusion is insane. I think 'ancient
> astronauts' beliefs, like anti-Shakespearean ones, are evidence of
> profound ignorance rather than madness.
I don't know what the Fregoli delusion is, but the people I call
insane are those who have been exposed to sufficient evidence to cure
them if they were not insane, and are not feebleminded. Some high
school kid who is sure Bacon wrote Hamlet is probably just ignorant.
If after an hour with me he doesn't change his mind, he's probably
just hard-headed. If ten years later, after visiting the Kathman/Ross
site, he continues to believe in Bacon, he is situationally insane.
Of course, I think lots of people are situationally insane. But maybe
most of them are "just" impregnably stupid.
>
>
>
>
>
> >> > If you like to argue and find ten or fifteen minutes a day of
> >> > arguing exercise a good way of keep in shape as an arguer, it is.
>
> >> I love to argue. Unfortunately, pointing things out to Crowley and
> >> getting abuse in return is nothing like arguing; and calling Crowley
> >> names and getting called names in return is even less like arguing.
>
> > Who does the latter? Â I may have once or twice, but mostly I argue
> > with him, calling him names from time to time as I do so.
>
> >> > I think it may even qualify as sane if you're trying to get an
> >> > important defense of sanity maximally effective--certainly it's
> >> > more sane than parodying lunatics.
>
> >> Argument by assertion? Tch.
>
> > Not arguing, stating a fact.
>
> I assumed that you believed you were stating a fact. If I had accepted
> it as factual, I wouldn't have characterized it as argument by
> assertion.
Well, any argument is eventually an assertion of facts.
> > Badly, Â I should have said, "more sane than parodying extreme lunatics
> > for over ten years almost daily." That should have been understood
> > from the context, though.
>
> I understood what you meant; I still don't consider it factual.
>
> >> The problem lies in the question of whether insanity is a medical
> >> condition. If it is (and I think it is), it is fatuous for laymen to
> >> pretend they can diagnose it in others whom they know only as an
> >> accumulation of posts in a newsgroup.
>
> > Ad hominem argument.
>
> In what way?
Wrong because the person advancing it is a layman.
> > But of course anyone with a brain can diagnose the sanity of a huge
> > accumulation of posts in a newsgroup.
>
> Anyone can say that "a huge accumulation of posts in a newsgroup" are
> insane, but that doesn't make it a meaningful judgment.
No, but if he intelligently diagnoses it, by spending way more time
defining terms than is worth doing in a forum like this, it will be a
meaningful judgement.
> > 100 posts stating that the Rapture occurred a few days, but no one was
> > judged Christian enough to get to Heaven, for instance, would have to
> > be judged insane.
>
> "Would have to be judged"? That suggests a compulsion for judging
> whether newsgroup posts are insane. I'd worry about someone who felt
> compelled to do that.
Or "are obviously insane." Unless you want to believe a hundred or
more things that even professors would agree are irrational.
> > The number of posts Art has written on a no less irrational delusion
> > would, too. Â Parodying such a number would be, too.
>
> I disagree.
It would seem that you're simply a compulsive relativist.
> > True, one would have to say why, which would call for a detailed
> > definition of insanity, which would require a detailed definition of
> > irrationality. Then using reason to see how your definitions apply to
> > Art's crap and Paul's. Â Showing how a dysfunctional nervous system
> > would cause irrationality would be a plus, I think, but not a
> > necessity.
>
> And there it seems to me that you've got it exactly backwards. It's like
> saying that you're obliged to conclude that anyone with a persistent
> cough has lung cancer, and then defining lung cancer as a condition
> characterized by a persistent cough.
Not if you formed your definitions first, as I have--only refining
them with my "clinical" studies of Paul and Art. Or, even if you
started with the cough and then in your definition of the causitive
cough showed how it led physiologically to cancer--which you wouldn't
be able to do, but which you might be able to do with a particular
kind of persistent cough distinguished from all other persistent
coughs by some kind of sophisticated auditory analysis.
>
> > Internet posts can't be expect to provide all that background.
>
> They can't provide *any* background where insanity is concerned. As I
> said, I believe that insanity is a medical condition, and I don't
> believe it's possible to diagnose medical conditions by reading
> newsgroup posts.
Well, we'll have to see what others say when (and if) my book doing
just that comes out.
I hope you're just ignorant of how many, uh, errors of thinking Paul
Crowley has been guilty of. All kinds of evidence of active public
theotres in Shakespeare's time that he denies. All kinds of evidence
of the existence of certain writers of the time that he denies. A
convoluted interpretation of the sonnets that no one agrees with. A
certainty that a female character in Twelfth Night is based on
Raleigh. All the nuttiness I describe in my post on him--the mental
hyperconvergency--the belief, for instance, that all theatre managers
would be sure to keep errors our of the plays they put on. No
Stratford youth of Shakespeare's time would ever consider writing a
sonnet. There are many more. If he isn't psitchotic, what is he?
--Bob
> The boughs rustled, and the air was stirred by the muffled beat of their
> wings: I could see them, like unearthly, boding shapes, as they swooped
> between me and the stars. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â -Bayard Taylor- Hide quoted text -
Paul Crowley
> Bob Grumman <bobgr...@nut-n-but.net> wrote in
>> If you like to argue and find ten or fifteen minutes a day of
>> arguing exercise a good way of keep in shape as an arguer, it is.
>
> I love to argue. Unfortunately, pointing things out to Crowley and getting
> abuse in return is nothing like arguing;
Check the record. It seems that Steese does not
like to argue -- if he is likely to encounter anyone
better informed or stronger-minded. Over the past
few years he has occasionally participated here --
but mainly in off-topic matters, and light gossip.
> I love to argue. Unfortunately, pointing things out to Crowley and getting
> abuse in return is nothing like arguing;
The last time Steese engaged with me was around
2004. And, of course, at the time he never complained
about 'abuse' -- because there wasn't any -- or any
of significance.
Interestingly, this (very much delayed) reaction is
similar to that of David Kathman's. He likewise
claimed that I had abused him. I re-quoted my
previous six posts to him and asked him to point
out any abuse -- in those or in earlier posts. Of
course, I never got a response from Kathman.
To Strat 'minds' like those of Kathman or Steese,
'abuse' consists of defeating them in logical and
factual arguments, to which they have no reply.
Here is a copy of the last post (of any significance)
I made to Steese, back in February 2004. At the
time he was claiming NOT to be a Stratfordian --
only 'a Shakespearean'. (A classic "David Webb"
mark of mental indolence and moral fibre.) But
like most who, in fact, proclaim firm adherence
to the Strat cause, Steese is a coward, and will
disappear from Shakespeare forums when he finds
he cannot cope with anti-Strat arguments.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
---------- 10 February 2004 ----
-------- Thread: Re: As For That "Documentary"...
"Mark Steese" <mere_...@charter.net> wrote in message
news:Xns948AA85C...@216.168.3.44...
>>>> > >> > What other writer lead so dull a life?
>>> > >>
>>> > >> Flaubert, Dickens, Turgenev, to name three.
>> > >
>> > > Incredible! Each of them got into numerous difficulties in their
>> > > lives -- legal, political, financial, etc., and were thought (by many)
>> > > to be morally scandalous (or at least reprehensible).
> >
> > True also of Shakespeare.
What legal, political or financial difficulty
did the Stratman every face?
Was he ever hauled before any court?
We all know that he was not.
Given what little we do know of his
character (e.g. his greed, his litigiousness,
his money-lending, tax-avoidance, grain-
hoarding, double-dealing on the enclosure
issue), and of the litigious nature of
Stratford people at the time, he probably
did get into all sorts of difficulties with his
neighbours, business associates and the
authorities -- but his local state-appointed
'guardian', Thomas Greene, would have
sorted the matter our quietly and kept him
from appearing in court and done his best
to prevent his name appearing in any local
scandal.
>> > > Only extremely thick Strats deny being Strats.
> >
> > Ah, another axiom from the Book of Oxspeare.
> >
> > As I have explained to your brothers-in-'armlessness Peter Dickson and
> > Toby Petzold, the evidence clearly indicates that a man named William
> > Shakespeare wrote the poems and plays ascribed to him.
So -- you're a Strat.
> > Even if you
> > could come up with evidence to discredit the particular William
> > Shakespeare who hailed from Stratford, that would only indicate that it
> > was another William Shakespeare who wrote the works.
Sure it was. Any fool can see that 'Will Shake-
speare' is a made-up name. The Shagsper
stooge in Stratford (and all the other Shaxbers,
Shakspers, etc., in the country) adopted that
form only after the poet had made it famous
and well-regarded (among the great ignorant
public who did not know what it meant).
> > Now, there may be people who would reject decisive evidence against
> > Shakespeare of Stratford, if any were to come to light; I am not one of
> > them.
Yes, you are. The evidence against the
Stratman is overwhelming. But your
Stratfordian blinders prevent you from
seeing it.
---------- End of post of 10 February 2004 ----
Paul.
Bob Grumman
Regarding "abuse," it's too subjective to pin down, I think. I
believe you and I abuse each other all the time, but we're both more
concerned with what we're also arguing to care.
--Bob
Mark Steese
> On May 27, 5:35Â pm, Mark Steese <mark_ste...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote
>> innews:c34eb2bd-10d9-435c-a5
> e2-d217...@k16g2000yqm.googlegroups.com:
>>
>> > On May 26, 5:50 pm, Mark Steese <mark_ste...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >> Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote
>> >> innews:c52ad00b-6311-4b4c-b7
>> > 7e-e721356d5...@h36g2000pro.googlegroups.com:
>> >> > On May 24, 6:33 pm, Mark Steese <mark_ste...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> [snip]
>> >> You missed my point. I wasn't arguing that spending 13 or 14 years
>> >> responding to Crowley is insane; I was arguing that Crowley
>> >> spending 13+ years parodying anti-Shakespeareanism would not be
>> >> *prima facie* insane. For that matter, I don't believe Crowley
>> >> would be insane for spending 13+ years sincerely expressing
>> >> anti-Shakespearean opinions.
>>
>> > I consider extreme irrationality insane.
>>
>> I consider 'extreme irrationality' to be a subjective term
>
> So a mathematical theorem based on the proposition that three plus two
> can equal nineteen is not extremely irrational.
Who knows? Without a metric for irrationality and a collection of data
with which to estimate the mean and the standard deviation, what does
"extreme" mean?
> Or, as I said, that beings from outer space created the pyramids. Or
> that a conspiracy theory for which there is no hard evidence that
> explains a situation that copious hard evidence fully explains,
> without explicit contradiction, in the view of more than ninety
> percent of those who have studied the matter, and all of those who
> have studied the matter and done other things in the field that
> indicate expertise in it, is not irrational.
Of course it's irrational. The question is whether it's "extreme"
irrationality or just garden-type irrationality.
> Paul Crowley's insistence that none of the sonnets are addressed to a
> male is not extreme irrationality?
Who knows?
> Well, I differ with you because I feel certain that given time, I
> could spell out what irrationality objectively is--basically an
> arrangement made by the brain of data that causes the person making it
> seriously to err in his predictions.
And how do you propose to quantify it? What degree of error qualifies as
serious?
> The first Chinaman Joe sees kicks him so for the rest of his life Joe
> hides whenever he sees a Chinaman in spite of all attempts to make him
> recognize he has made a faulty generalization. Absurd and simplistic
> but an exact model of one form of irrationality people like Paul
> display that I call mental hyperconvergency.
How would you test that model?
>> > Anti-Stratfordianism is extreme irrationality,
>>
>> It is possible for a clinically insane person to have delusions
>> regarding the authorship of Shakespeare's plays - there is some
>> reason to believe that Delia Bacon, for example, suffered from
>> insanity. But for the majority of people, believing that someone
>> other than Shakespeare wrote his works is no more insane than
>> believing in God - and God is also a subject about which clinically
>> insane people may have delusions.
>
> I'm not going to argue about the sanity of believing in God except to
> say that anti-Stratfordianism differs from theism in not being based
> on faith.
It seems to me that anti-Shakespeareanism is very much based on faith.
> Recognizing that there is no rational basis for a belief in God but
> that faith tells you He exists would protect one from a charge of
> insanity, I believe.
Few, if any, of the theists I've known would agree with you that there
is no rational basis for a belief in God.
> Actually, there are a lot of arguments based on reason for God that
> are better than the reasons for Oxford, say.
I disagree.
> If God did not design human vision, who did, for instance.
There was never any evidence that human vision was "designed" in the
first place.
> This can be answered, but not easily. But we KNOW who wrote the plays
> of Shakespeare if Oxford did not.
>>
>> > hence arguing on behalf of it, for even ten minutes, is insane.
>> > Arguing that beings from outer space built the pyramids is insane.
>> > Some things are insane. You disagree, I guess.
>>
>> I don't think beliefs such as 'ancient astronauts' are insane in the
>> way in which, say, the Fregoli delusion is insane. I think 'ancient
>> astronauts' beliefs, like anti-Shakespearean ones, are evidence of
>> profound ignorance rather than madness.
>
> I don't know what the Fregoli delusion is,
There's this thing called the Internet nowadays, makes a wonderful
research tool, or so I've heard.
> but the people I call insane are those who have been exposed to
> sufficient evidence to cure them if they were not insane,
If they were not insane, what would the evidence be "curing" them of?
> and are not feebleminded.
> Some high school kid who is sure Bacon wrote Hamlet is probably just
> ignorant. If after an hour with me he doesn't change his mind, he's
> probably just hard-headed. If ten years later, after visiting the
> Kathman/Ross site, he continues to believe in Bacon, he is
> situationally insane.
I see no reason to believe in such a thing as situational insanity.
> Of course, I think lots of people are situationally insane. But maybe
> most of them are "just" impregnably stupid.
>
>> >> > If you like to argue and find ten or fifteen minutes a day of
>> >> > arguing exercise a good way of keep in shape as an arguer, it
>> >> > is.
>>
>> >> I love to argue. Unfortunately, pointing things out to Crowley and
>> >> getting abuse in return is nothing like arguing; and calling
>> >> Crowley names and getting called names in return is even less like
>> >> arguing.
>>
>> > Who does the latter? Â I may have once or twice, but mostly I argue
>> > with him, calling him names from time to time as I do so.
>>
>> >> > I think it may even qualify as sane if you're trying to get an
>> >> > important defense of sanity maximally effective--certainly it's
>> >> > more sane than parodying lunatics.
>>
>> >> Argument by assertion? Tch.
>>
>> > Not arguing, stating a fact.
>>
>> I assumed that you believed you were stating a fact. If I had
>> accepted it as factual, I wouldn't have characterized it as argument
>> by assertion.
>
> Well, any argument is eventually an assertion of facts.
An argument is generally defined as a series of propositions with which
one creates a logical case for the truth of a premise.
>> > Badly, Â I should have said, "more sane than parodying extreme
>> > lunatics for over ten years almost daily." That should have been
>> > understood from the context, though.
>>
>> I understood what you meant; I still don't consider it factual.
>>
>> >> The problem lies in the question of whether insanity is a medical
>> >> condition. If it is (and I think it is), it is fatuous for laymen
>> >> to pretend they can diagnose it in others whom they know only as
>> >> an accumulation of posts in a newsgroup.
>>
>> > Ad hominem argument.
>>
>> In what way?
>
> Wrong because the person advancing it is a layman.
If you consider laymen who have never met their 'patients' to be as
well-qualified at diagnosing medical conditions as medical professionals
who have firsthand contact with their patients, you can certainly save a
lot of money, but if medical professionals sometimes make faulty
diagnoses of their patients (and they do), the likelihood that a layman
reading newsgroup posts will correctly diagnose a poster's medical
condition is not great.
>> > But of course anyone with a brain can diagnose the sanity of a huge
>> > accumulation of posts in a newsgroup.
>>
>> Anyone can say that "a huge accumulation of posts in a newsgroup" are
>> insane, but that doesn't make it a meaningful judgment.
>
> No, but if he intelligently diagnoses it, by spending way more time
> defining terms than is worth doing in a forum like this, it will be a
> meaningful judgement.
Not in medical terms.
>> > 100 posts stating that the Rapture occurred a few days, but no one
>> > was judged Christian enough to get to Heaven, for instance, would
>> > have to be judged insane.
>>
>> "Would have to be judged"? That suggests a compulsion for judging
>> whether newsgroup posts are insane. I'd worry about someone who felt
>> compelled to do that.
>
> Or "are obviously insane." Unless you want to believe a hundred or
> more things that even professors would agree are irrational.
"Even professors"? Why the fuck would I care what professors consider
irrational? Did you miss the part where I said, and then said again,
that I consider insanity to be a medical condition? For people who
actually suffer from insanity, diagnosing it is not some game for
intellectuals, it's quite literally a matter of life and death.
>> > The number of posts Art has written on a no less irrational
>> > delusion would, too. Â Parodying such a number would be, too.
>>
>> I disagree.
>
> It would seem that you're simply a compulsive relativist.
I am nothing of the sort. Insanity is a real, diagnosable, and very
dangerous condition. *That's the problem*. You're treating a potentially
fatal condition as though it were fucking literary criticism.
--
Usually annihilating a culture and romanticizing it are done separately,
but Bunnell neatly compresses two stages of historical change into one
conversation. -Rebecca Solnit
Bob Grumman
> with which to estimate the mean and the standard deviation, what does
> "extreme" mean?
Baloney. In sane life, everyday things like rationality can be put on
a
continuum without statistical analysis. If you hold the steering
wheel of a
car steady and it nonetheless goes off the road, its behavior for a
car is
extremely irrational. If a hamburger tossed into a pond causes steam,
it's
extremely hot. Same with human beings. Just about everyone can
recognize extreme irrationality.
>
> > Or, as I said, that beings from outer space created the pyramids. Or
> > that a conspiracy theory for which there is no hard evidence that
> > explains a situation that copious hard evidence fully explains,
> > without explicit contradiction, in the view of more than ninety
> > percent of those who have studied the matter, and all of those who
> > have studied the matter and done other things in the field that
> > indicate expertise in it, is not irrational.
>
> Of course it's irrational. The question is whether it's "extreme"
> irrationality or just garden-type irrationality.
Okay, we need definitions. According to my theory of psychology it is
psychotically irrational because it clearly leads to conclusions that
are the
opposite of it in the involved field and work, but the victim of it
can
correct.
> > Paul Crowley's insistence that none of the sonnets are addressed to a
> > male is not extreme irrationality?
>
> Who knows?
I do. But make that his "insistence and refusal to correct it in the
fact of the
evidence against it--his refusal, in fact, to aknowledge that the IS
any
evidence against it however often evidence many many people believe
refutes him has been shown to him, by many different people."
> > Well, I differ with you because I feel certain that given time, I
> > could spell out what irrationality objectively is--basically an
> > arrangement made by the brain of data that causes the person making it
> > seriously to err in his predictions.
> And how do you propose to quantify it? What degree of error qualifies as
> serious?
I would call an error serious to the degree that the person making it
continues to make it in spite of correction. You could quantify it by
counting how many times he makes the error--and, possibly, the volume
of
his anger when he asserts he's correct.
The number indicating insanity would be decided by a consensus of
those
involved in the measurements.
> > The first Chinaman Joe sees kicks him so for the rest of his life Joe
> > hides whenever he sees a Chinaman in spite of all attempts to make
> > him recognize he has made a faulty generalization. Absurd and
> > simplistic but an exact model of one form of irrationality people like >
> Paul display that I call mental hyperconvergency.
>
> How would you test that model?
I wouldn't test it, I would accept it. However, a grind could test it
with
some computer game that good thinking lets you win and hyperconvergent
thinking makes you lose. Make sure the player understands and agrees
that
winning is better than losing. Give him a reward he is not feeble-
minded
and clearly wants for winning. Promise torture he clearly wants to
avoid
for losing. Have him try to drive a virtual reality car in such a way
that he
doesn't drive it into virtual walls. If he consistently drives it
into walls, he's
nuts.
Or the empiricists could make a list of fallacies like the belief that
the
world was created in 4004 BC--fallacies that just about all educated
people
accept as fallacies. Find out which one your subject believes in, and
count
how many times he rejects evidence against it.
It occurs to me that certified psychologists probably have tests that
would
work. They have a lot that wouldn't, too. A psitchotic, for example,
could
be generally highly logical. Rigidniks usually are. But in the field
they are
psitchotic in, which may be outside any test they are given, their
psitchosis
overrides their usually excellent reasoning--for reasons my theory can
explain (albeit not necessarily accurately).
> >> > Anti-Stratfordianism is extreme irrationality,
>
> >> It is possible for a clinically insane person to have delusions
> >> regarding the authorship of Shakespeare's plays - there is some
> >> reason to believe that Delia Bacon, for example, suffered from
> >> insanity. But for the majority of people, believing that someone
> >> other than Shakespeare wrote his works is no more insane than
> >> believing in God - and God is also a subject about which clinically
> >> insane people may have delusions.
>
> > I'm not going to argue about the sanity of believing in God except to
> > say that anti-Stratfordianism differs from theism in not being based
> > on faith.
>
> It seems to me that anti-Shakespeareanism is very much based on faith.
Not in the immaterial.
> > Recognizing that there is no rational basis for a belief in God but
> > that faith tells you He exists would protect one from a charge of
> > insanity, I believe.
>
> Few, if any, of the theists I've known would agree with you that there
> is no rational basis for a belief in God.
Then they are psitchotic. Which is all I'll say about it here.
> > Actually, there are a lot of arguments based on reason for God that
> > are better than the reasons for Oxford, say.
>
> I disagree.
>
> > If God did not design human vision, who did, for instance.
>
> There was never any evidence that human vision was "designed" in the
> first place.
So what? Because:
> > This can be answered, but not easily. But we KNOW who wrote the
> > plays of Shakespeare if Oxford did not.
I don't think we can know in the same certain way that no one designed
human vision--or designed the grand evolutionary process which led to
it--
although I'm sure of it.
> >> > hence arguing on behalf of it, for even ten minutes, is insane.
> >> > Arguing that beings from outer space built the pyramids is insane.
> >> > Some things are insane. You disagree, I guess.
>
> >> I don't think beliefs such as 'ancient astronauts' are insane in the
> >> way in which, say, the Fregoli delusion is insane. I think 'ancient
> >> astronauts' beliefs, like anti-Shakespearean ones, are evidence of
> >> profound ignorance rather than madness.
>
> > I don't know what the Fregoli delusion is,
>
> There's this thing called the Internet nowadays, makes a wonderful
> research tool, or so I've heard.
Thanks. I should have made you look up hyperconvergency on it.
After finding it, I agree that it's a different kind of insanity from
Paul's, but
not more pronounced--except that I suppose it screws up its victim's
life
more--because more a life insanity than a situaltional one. My main
interest in it is that it seems to be the result of one or more
mechanisms that
don't works as they are supposed to whereas rigidnikry is the result
of a
mechanism's working as it is supposed to except more so, like a car
that
goes too fast when you step on the accelerator as opposed to a car
that
bounces up and while the widowns open and shut when you step on the
accelerator.
> > but the people I call insane are those who have been exposed to
> > sufficient evidence to cure them if they were not insane,
>
> If they were not insane, what would the evidence be "curing" them of?
an irrational belief based on ignorance
> > and are not feebleminded.
> > Some high school kid who is sure Bacon wrote Hamlet is probably just
> > ignorant. If after an hour with me he doesn't change his mind, he's
> > probably just hard-headed. If ten years later, after visiting the
> > Kathman/Ross site, he continues to believe in Bacon, he is
> > situationally insane.
>
> I see no reason to believe in such a thing as situational insanity.
You don't think a person can be insane, by any definition, about who
wrote
Shakespeare but not about anything else? All I can say is that I
think that
they can and my theory on the matter demonstrates it.
> > Of course, I think lots of people are situationally insane. But maybe
> > most of them are "just" impregnably stupid.
>
SNIP of now -irrelevant material
> >> >> Argument by assertion? Tch.
>
> >> > Not arguing, stating a fact.
>
> >> I assumed that you believed you were stating a fact. If I had
> >> accepted it as factual, I wouldn't have characterized it as argument
> >> by assertion.
>
> > Well, any argument is eventually an assertion of facts.
>
> An argument is generally defined as a series of propositions with which
> one creates a logical case for the truth of a premise.
Every argument ends up with an assertion that X is a fact: for
example, if I
tell you that you are wrong to say Joe hates green suits because it is
a fact
that he is wearing a green suit right now.
> >> > Badly, I should have said, "more sane than parodying extreme
> >> > lunatics for over ten years almost daily." That should have been
> >> > understood from the context, though.
>
> >> I understood what you meant; I still don't consider it factual.
>
> >> >> The problem lies in the question of whether insanity is a medical
> >> >> condition. If it is (and I think it is), it is fatuous for laymen
> >> >> to pretend they can diagnose it in others whom they know only as
> >> >> an accumulation of posts in a newsgroup.
>
> >> > Ad hominem argument.
>
> >> In what way?
>
> > Wrong because the person advancing it is a layman.
>
> If you consider laymen who have never met their 'patients' to be as
> well-qualified at diagnosing medical conditions as medical professionals
> who have firsthand contact with their patients, you can certainly save a
> lot of money, but if medical professionals sometimes make faulty
> diagnoses of their patients (and they do), the likelihood that a layman
> reading newsgroup posts will correctly diagnose a poster's medical
> condition is not great.
You sound like you don't know what an ad hominem argument is.
But I find it astonishing that you don't think a lunatic's lunacy
could be
revealed by several hundred Internet posts even to a layman.
> >> > But of course anyone with a brain can diagnose the sanity of a huge
> >> > accumulation of posts in a newsgroup.
>
> >> Anyone can say that "a huge accumulation of posts in a newsgroup"
> >> are insane, but that doesn't make it a meaningful judgment.
>
> > No, but if he intelligently diagnoses it, by spending way more time
> > defining terms than is worth doing in a forum like this, it will be a
> > meaningful judgement.
>
> Not in medical terms.
I'm not concerned with medical terms. I'm concerned with
verosophical, or
trut-seeking, terms.
> >> > 100 posts stating that the Rapture occurred a few days, but no one
> >> > was judged Christian enough to get to Heaven, for instance, would
> >> > have to be judged insane.
>
> >> "Would have to be judged"? That suggests a compulsion for judging
> >> whether newsgroup posts are insane. I'd worry about someone who
> >> felt compelled to do that.
So use different words, use:
> > "are obviously insane." Unless you want to believe a hundred or
> > more things that even professors would agree are irrational.
>
> "Even professors"? Why the fuck would I care what professors consider
> irrational? Did you miss the part where I said, and then said again,
> that I consider insanity to be a medical condition? For people who
> actually suffer from insanity, diagnosing it is not some game for
> intellectuals, it's quite literally a matter of life and death.
You sound more and more like that other Mark, Mark Houlsby. So, put
medical doctors or psychiatrists (than whom no one is more
psituationally
psychotic) in place of "professors." Read the official book they
publish
every few years defining various mental illnesses to find out how out
to sea
they in their attempts to pin them down, and they limit their
defintions
almost entirely to symptoms, not to what is going on in the nervous
system
to cause the illnesses.
> >> > The number of posts Art has written on a no less irrational
> >> > delusion would, too. Parodying such a number would be, too.
>
> >> I disagree.
>
> > It would seem that you're simply a compulsive relativist.
>
> I am nothing of the sort. Insanity is a real, diagnosable, and very
> dangerous condition. *That's the problem*. You're treating a potentially
> fatal condition as though it were fucking literary criticism.
Oh, dear. Actually, I'm not. Psituational psychosis is never fatal.
And, of
course, I'm not treating it as having to do with literary criticism
but as
something that can manifest itself in the field of literary history
(not literary
criticism unless you want to consider Paul's analysis of the sonnets a
form
of literary criticism, as I tend to, instead of the literary history
he considers
it since he has no idea what literary criticism, or literature, is).
But even if
Paul's insanity could be fatal, what difference does it make how I
treat it?
Certified psychologists will still go about their practice their
mostly
inadequate way.
Unless one of them paid attention to my theory, which you assume is
valueless but may not be, my being to theoretical psychology what the
ill-
educated Shakespeare was to drama not being impossible.
Bottom line: I claim that by my definition of the term, which is
underlain
by a quite complex theory of the nervous system, Paul and Art are
psitchotic, you claim that clinical psychologists would not so
classify them.
So we are at an impass. I would love to have a clinical psychologist
visit
HLAS and analyze the posts of Paul and Art, though. I'd love to hear
from
him why he could not diagnoze them as situationally insane.
I will concede that when I write about Paul and Art's mental
dysfunctionality, it can easily seem I'm calling them insane, but I'm
only
calling them psitchotic, and most of us are psitchotic about
SOMEthing.
Insanity, which I believe I also know a good deal about, is something
else--
a world view so irrational that it makes one incompetent to care for
oneself,
and may make one a danger to others. If Art's delusions about the
masons
were worse--if he thought they were going to destroy him and his
family,
and that his only recourse was to assassinate their leader, Oprah, he
would
be a hyper-rigidnik according to my pschology, or psychotic rather
than
situationally insane, according to conventional psychology. He'd be
pharmaceutically treatable, as the medocrities in the field realize,
although
they don't have much of an idea why the drugs they use work. I do.
(Whee.)
--Bob
Paul Crowley
>>> Paul Crowley's insistence that none of the sonnets
>>> are addressed to a male is not extreme irrationality?
Your statement is false -- as I have told you on
numerous occasions. (Your inability to remember
simple facts should, in itself, inform you as to the
nature of the 'mental' processes going on in your
head.) SOME of the sonnets are 'addressed' to
others, e.g. in Sonnet 126 "O thou my louely Boy"
is an insulting way to speak to Raleigh. Sonnet 75
is, in part, addressed to his departing turd. Likewise
Sonnet 26 to his erect penis. And so on. The poet
led a complicated life and his poems reflect that.
>> Who knows?
>
> I do. But make that his "insistence and refusal to
> correct it in the fact of the evidence against it--his
> refusal, in fact, to aknowledge that the IS any evidence
> against it however often evidence many many people
> believe refutes him has been shown to him, by many
> different people.
You know nothing, but you have a quasi-religious
Faith, and you articulate its doctrines again and
again and again and again, not knowing nor caring
nor being able to conceive of what the 'evidence' is
for them. In fact, to you, evidence and your Faith
do not inhabit the same realm.
In this case, as I have pointed out to you on dozens
and perhaps hundreds of occasions, your 'evidence'
consists of one poetically-catastrophic reading of
one line in Sonnet 20:
But since she prickt thee out for womens pleasure, 20:13
You "read" this as " . . since Nature gave you a prick . . "
a kind of flat statement of fact, of the sort that you
would yourself (in some weird fantasy) inform your
neighbour -- for his enlightenment -- since it would
be an aspect of his anatomy about which he would
be unaware.
This illogicality of such a 'statement' somehow never
gets home to you. Your Faith is so strong that no
objections can be made. You cannot defend it, yet
you cannot doubt it. So you endlessly come out
with this ridiculous garbage.
>>> Well, I differ with you because I feel certain that given time, I
>>> could spell out what irrationality objectively is--basically an
>>> arrangement made by the brain of data that causes the person making it
>>> seriously to err in his predictions.
[..]
> and that his only recourse was to assassinate their leader, Oprah,
> he would be a hyper-rigidnik according to my pschology, or
> psychotic rather than situationally insane, according to
> conventional psychology. He'd be pharmaceutically treatable, as
> the medocrities in the field realize, although they don't have much
> of an idea why the drugs they use work. I do. (Whee.)
Paul.
Gary
> On 30/05/2011 00:17, Bob Grumman wrote:
>
>>>> Paul Crowley's insistence that none of the sonnets
>>>> are addressed to a male is not extreme irrationality?
>
> Your statement is false -- as I have told you on
> numerous occasions. (Your inability to remember
> simple facts should, in itself, inform you as to the
> nature of the 'mental' processes going on in your
> head.) SOME of the sonnets are 'addressed' to
> others, e.g. in Sonnet 126 "O thou my louely Boy"
> is an insulting way to speak to Raleigh. Sonnet 75
> is, in part, addressed to his departing turd. Likewise
> Sonnet 26 to his erect penis. And so on. The poet
> led a complicated life and his poems reflect that.
Indeed. Honestly, Grumman, why can't you keep such obvious
readings clear in your mind!
- Gary
Paul Crowley
The first thing to remember is that the poet/
playwright had no sense of humour whatsoever.
He never made a joke, nor would have tried to
be humorous in his poetry. He was as straight-
laced as your New England Puritan maiden great-
aunt -- as is reflected by every 'interpretation'
made by Victorians and Americans (even, or
especially, by anti-Strats like Whittemore).
The second thing to remember is that he would
have banished all possibility of bawdy and the like
from his verse. To do otherwise would have broken
its 'tone'.
The third thing to remember is why he wrote his
poetry. He was, as a near-peasant poet, employed
by a great noble family to persuade its young scion
(with whom he was having a homosexual relationship)
to get married as quickly as possible, so that he
could pass on his beauty while he still possessed it.
He was paid by the family to achieve this purpose
by addressing the young man with passionately
erotic homosexual love poetry.
You know how it all makes sense.
Paul.