A revolution in thought

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

Except that is not what you have argued here. You have argued that some contingently true proposition x becomes necessarily true after the event occurs that the proposition describes. On this account, the proposition "Oswald kills JFK" is contingently true until Oswald pulls the trigger; after he does, the proposition is necessarily true. This is your claim. And it's wrong.

Obviously, no one can predict how something will play out until after the fact, but that does not change the fact that our choices are necessarily made based on antecedent conditions. They are not free in any sense of the word.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by wstewart

That's a demonstrably untrue statement, and it should raise eyebrows among those who are considering the question.

Review your posts and state the truth of the matter. Else you'll tie yourself willfully to a demonstrably untrue statement.

I didn't mean to interrupt, but I want to say one thing before you and David get at it. I hope this doesn't turn into an angry debate. I'm really curious (as I'm sure others are as well) what your ideas are on the subject, and I don't have a clue at this point. Is it possible to give us a quick synopsis so we can be brought up to speed?

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

This is about trust which you can't handle. You have no trust at all.

Trust, like respect, is something that is earned over time, and neither you nor Lessans has earned any of either on this forum. Since Lessans writings have conistantly been found to be based on fantasy rather than reality, there is little to trust. And since you have been caught in numerous untruths, there is also with you little reason to trust.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Wayne, if you're still here why don't you tell us a little about yourself. I think it was rather impolite to throw you into a discussion without giving you a chance to introduce yourself. Maybe you can also share a little about your book. I didn't realize you wrote one; I thought it was just an essay.

peacegirl, could you please explain how it is possible that for so long, you strenuously denied that Wayne Stewart was arguing for the same thing as Lessans, without having read what Wayne Stewart wrote?

You didn't even realize that he wrote a book on this subject? I linked the book to you for the first time, perhaps eighteen months ago.

You see, this is what makes people take personal umbrage with you. It's not Lessans' claims. It's your dishonesty.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

That's fair enough, but is Stewart alluding to a numerical identity of some sort, so that when one person dies the next person replaces him? I'm trying to see if it's at all in keeping with Lessans' claim of eternal life.

But that's not his entire thesis. Do you even know what it is?

Whose entire thesis? Lessans, or Clark and Stewart, or all three?

Yes, I DO know what it is; do you? In the post that you quoted, I was merely trying to establish the thesis that Wayne AGREES with Lessans that x, qua x, is permanently extinguished. Nothing more.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I don't have a clue at this point...

You don't have a clue what Wayne wrote? Then how could you deny that what he wrote, is the same as what Lessans argued?

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I really don't care what you think of me Lone Ranger.

Of couse you do.

You have stooped pretty low yourself to tell me I look like an idiot and world-class hypocrite when I have shared with you his findings which came from outside of the field, and are compelling whether you think so or not.

Not at all. I'm merely pointing out that if you insist that essentially all of modern science is completely wrong but can't provide a single piece of evidence to support that extraordinary claim, you look like an idiot. And the fact that you hold Lessans to completely different standards than science makes you a hypocrite. That's not a judgment or opinion; it's a fact.

Nope I don't, this is about trust which you can't handle. You have no trust at all; you are a very suspicious person which works in some situations but can backfire in others.

Only an idiot would accept a revolutionary, world-shaking claim that contradicts absolutely everything we know about physics, astronomy, optics, Relativity Theory, visual anatomy, neural physiology, etc. -- merely on "trust."

For all the hand-waving, the only "evidence" you've been able to provide is your assertion that Lessans made certain (conveniently unspecified) "astute observations." Every time anyone asks for details about these alleged "observations," you become petulant and try to change the subject.

Only an idiot would accept someone's word as legitimate and adequate evidence for such a claim, no matter the source.

And given how often you flat-out lie, you're anything but a trustworthy source.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I haven't read Wayne's paper on death so I can't speak to it anyway. And no one has read Lessans' chapter: Our Posterity. How can people talk about something they haven't carefully studied without looking foolish?

Good question. So why do you spend so much time making claims about subjects on which -- by your own admission -- you're completely ignorant?

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

And wormholes and time machines have proven trustworthy?

Are wormholes and time machines people conveying anecdotes? Have I ever said I trust time machines and wormholes to tell me the truth about their experiences?

I don't trust you either LadyShea, so it works both ways.

You don't trust me to do what and why do you distrust me? I was very specific in what I distrust you about, yet you retaliate with this broad generalization. I've not posted deceptive anecdotes or histrionic persecution delusions, so I can't imagine how I have proven untrustworthy.

And btw, I almost took a drug for fibromyalgia that was implicated for causing liver damage. I told you this already, and I will not defend it because you are suspicious.

Your initial anecdote had three points, two of which were lies. You were prescribed a drug is the only true statement..it was not pulled from the market, nor did it cause cancer, nor do you even know the name of it to verify that it caused anything at all.

[naturalist.atheist]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

What's funny is that she chit-chitted us to be on our best behavior if Tom Clark showed up, but then proactively scolded Wayne Stewart, who is well respected in his field and could be helpful to her.

What's even funnier is holding a clearly insane person to any standard.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

As I have pointed out, and as you have agreed, the one way system requires special circustances in order for it to work: people need to already not want to do selfish things. As a method for determining what is selfish and what is not, it is utterly useless: this has been clearly demonstrated, and your only answer to this has been "Ah but people would not want to do selfish things".

You're not right Vivisectus. It is extremely useful. In fact, I use it in my life now and it has saved countless arguments.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

The same sort fo thing happened when we asked "Why should we assume conscience works as the book describes".

It can very easily be seen that conscience needs an excuse to do bad things to others, even if the justification isn't overt.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

Or when it was shown that if you follow the reasoning of the book, then it pretty much states "That which people end up choosing is that which people end up choosing" since the only way to find out what led to the "greater desire" is to see what people choose... you simply denied this too, even though the denial itself is your only real answer: you are unable to support it in any way.

It's true that the only way to find out what leads to the "greater desire" is to see what people choose. The only predictive power this knowledge provides is the fact that, under the changed environmental conditions, man will be unable to derive greater satisfaction out of hurting others when not to becomes the preferable choice.

There is no mathematical standard as to
what is right and wrong in human conduct except this hurting of
others, and once this is removed, once it becomes impossible to desire
hurting another human being, then there will be no need for all those
schools, religious or otherwise, that have been teaching us how to cope
with a hostile environment that will no longer be.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

Then there are the mountains of evidence that disprove efferent sight: we have already demonstrated that if you apply the standards required to uphold efferent sight in the face of this evidence is the kind of standard that treats flat earth theory as plausible and that is unable to dismiss the existence of fairies as unlikely.

But no - no critical examination here! Hardly any critical questions at all!

Your ability to stick your head in the sand and just dismiss any criticism that you cannot answer is amazing.

You keep going back to the flat earth theory. I already said that each claim has to be judged on its own merit. You cannot compare the two in all fairness. You are conflating two different trains of thought, with completely different proofs, as if they are one and the same.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I'm glad Mr. Stewart is here. Maybe he will be instrumental in bringing this discovery to light. How coincidental would that be?

Coincidental my ass, Mr. Stewart is here because DavidM invited him here, do you forget your rant because DavidM invited someone here without consulting you for your permission? You really can't be that stupid.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

You are a slow learner, Maturin. Saying that Homosexuality is one of the problems that will be solved by letting young people fall in love with one anothers genitals the way God intended them to is not bigoted, because Seymour was an unbigoted person who was the only person in the 60's and 70's who did not call black people niggers.

You are not going to go back to that garbage about genitals if you want to talk to me ever again. You are maligning him for no good reason, and I'm not going to let you get away with it.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

Thus, anything he said about homosexuals was unbigoted by default: it is probably for their own good that Seymour proposed to cure them.

You're making shit up Vivisectus. What's your problem?? If you keep this up, we will never talk again because you've crossed the line, just like Maturin. It's no wonder you support each other. Your common denominator is the derision you both have for Lessans. It's turned into a sickness.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

By the same token, we have already been assured that he worked a long time on the book, so if there were mistakes in it, he would have spotted them and fixed them, so there cannot be, so the book must be right in all respects.

Besides, we have recently discovered the book is the Word of God, and perfect. So really you are calling God a bigot! This is very arrogant of you. Fortunately it is not arrogant of PG and Lessans to claim this: you see, Lessans was very humble as well as unbigoted, so anything he claimed or wrote must also be humble.

I have finally figured it out: You're crazy!

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

Right then - so are we to throw the question

"What distinguishes an "I" that is the same "I" as a previous "I" from a completely new "I" that has never existed before?"

on top of the heap of other questions you have no rational answer for?

Do you actually think I have any desire to talk to you? You're ruining it for yourself. It's true, I have no rational answer to your question. That should make you happy.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by thedoc

Scientists are generally not 'self-righteous', but are evidence driven to their conclusions. They ask a question, then do an experiment, when several experiments and tests all point to the same conclusion, the response is 'this must be true'. If you have another test or experiment that gives a different result, propose it and some scientist will try it, but you must have some justification for believing it may be true. That Lessans wrote it in a book with a lot of other wild claims is not justification enough.

There is a lot of professional jealousy within the field itself, so it's not difficult to understand why someone outside of the field would cause anger.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by ChristinaM

I couldn't do what moms do either and I can more easily babysit for 200 crazy homeless people than I could get through 24 hours with 3 kids. There's a flip side too and not everyone was impressed with my ability to raise funds and they called me a shark and accused me of being politically manipulative if I got money that they were trying to get too. They were probably right.

I'll look at the rest of your post later because I just woke up. In the meantime I think that there are a few people waiting for you to reply to them

Well, you must have done something right because you held that position for a long time. You can't argue with success no matter what anyone says.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

There is a lot of professional jealousy within the field itself, so it's not difficult to understand why someone outside of the field would cause anger.

Bullshit! Just because Lessans wrote it doesn't make it true, Lessans is just about the least reliable source of information about science and scientists, since he didn't know anything about science to how science is done, and even less about actual scientists.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Well, you must have done something right because you held that position for a long time. You can't argue with success no matter what anyone says.

In that light can you say that someone has done something wrong, if everything they have done is a failure?

[LadyShea]

You are not going to go back to that garbage about genitals if you want to talk to me ever again.

It's in the book though! It can't possibly be garbage!

Originally Posted by Lessands

One face is not better looking than another — just different —
although we will always find certain differences we like better. It is true that we have already been conditioned to move in the direction of certain preferences, but we cannot be hurt when these individuals reject us at the very outset and when other choices in a mate will never be directly or indirectly criticized. If a boy desires a type of girl like Elizabeth Taylor who does not desire his type, he is compelled to put the proverbial horse before the cart and search for the type of girl who is ready to have sex with him. He will then fall in love with her sexual organs...and her features will become secondary because nobody will ever refer indirectly to her as ugly by calling other types beautiful, which in our present world could possibly make him regret his choice and keep an eye out for someone who would be looked upon by others as having more to offer in the way of physical appearance. But how is it possible for him to regret his choice for a mate when the world stops criticizing that choice and when he falls desperately in love with his beloved which takes place after, not before, the sexual union?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

You responded to his post just now telling him not to be obstinate and defensive...pre-emptively, I guess?

Well, I know how it feels to be attacked in here, and I can imagine how he must feel when people attack his ideas. Just reading over the conversation he had with David makes me feel compassion toward him. Anytime someone has a new idea, it's immediately rejected which puts the person on the defensive.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I have not met you. However you got here, here you are. You seem to be serious in your intentions to understand what happens after we die. I hope you find comfort in Lessans' observations. If not, no one here is telling you how to feel or what believe in regard to death, so there is no reason to be defensive or obstinate.

At first I thought it was some lurker, not Mr. Stewart. Lurkers sometimes come out of the woodwork to say something sarcastic, which is why my guard is up. I have it hard enough with the participants. I wish he had introduced himself first so I would know who I was talking to.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

It's in the book though! It can't possibly be garbage!

Why are you doing this? To start an argument? What he is explaining is very important, but you obviously understand nothing, you never did. You are now on probation along with Vivisectus.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

Yes, did you not notice that it was his post you replied to earlier?

I didn't know it was him. I thought I was talking to some newcomer. I deleted that post because it looked like I knew I was talking to him, but I didn't know.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

You just don't understand science. Worm holes or time machines may or may not exist, but they are derivations of solutions to general relativity, and general relativity has been well attested science for a century. There is such a thing as speculative science; we can speculate about future technology based on our best current science. General relativity does tell us, indeed, in principle, that it might be possible to build a time machines. As previously noted, the reason we don't see travelers from the future right now, is because the time machine has not yet been built: if it is possible to build such a machine, no one could travel to a time before the machine was built.

Then why is this in complete contradiction to what other physicists are saying? How do you know you're right David? This is really funny.

The researchers also briefly examine how this new view of time fits with how we intuitively perceive time. Many neurological studies have confirmed that we do have a sense of past, present, and future. This evidence has led to the proposal that the brain represents time with an internal “clock” that emits neural ticks (the “pacemaker-accumulator” model). However, some recent studies have challenged this traditional view, and suggest that the brain represents time in a spatially distributed way, by detecting the activation of different neural populations. Although we perceive events as occurring in the past, present, or future, these concepts may just be part of a psychological frame in which we experience material changes in space.

Finally, the researchers explain that this view of time does not look encouraging for time travelers.

“In our view, time travel into the past and future are not possible,” Sorli said.
“One can travel in space only, and time is a numerical order of his motion.”


Read more at: Scientists suggest spacetime has no time dimension

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

No, what gets personal, even for someone like the Lone Ranger, who is a perfect gentlemen, is your torrent of lies, your condescension to your betters, your hypocrisy, your goalpost-shifting, your refusal to answer straightforward questions as soon as you see that the only possible answer contradicts Lessans, and so on. Just think about how many times you've been asked, and failed to answer, this question: If real-time seeing is true, why does NASA incorporate delayed-time seeing to send spacecraft to other worlds? The fact that NASA does this by itself conclusively disproves Lessans' claims on light and sight. So I ask you this question again. Will you answer it? Or will you lie and weasel again?

You do not arouse personal animosity because of Lessans' claims, which are easily shown to be false and provoke only laughter among us. You arouse animosity because you are a , and nobody, online or irl, likes a weasel.

I never said light doesn't help determine the trajectory or location of a planet.

Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Technology

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Spacemonkey

It's nonsensical bullshit that you refuse to discuss because you know you can't explain it without contradicting yourself. You are not being honest with us or yourself when you claim it to still be plausible. It is not.

Then let it go Spacemonkey. It's not worth arguing about anymore. I have done the best I can, but obviously not to your satisfaction.