A parable, on how to ascertain what may not be plain.
Once upon a time there was a group of intelligent people who were cut off from the accumulation of human knowledge. So they were left behind the technological advances of human civilization, as sometimes happens. They generally lived together well enough, decently, as such is not an issue of technology.
Then one day a man saw a plane fly over their jungle and brought back the story to the village. Because he was known to be trustworthy the people believed his witness, the story of such a strange phenomena excited them and inspired a search for answers. Eventually a man and a woman in the community had their role come to be trying to figure out what it had been, among other things having to do with knowledge.
The man said, "We know natural things like birds, trees and flowers. This is all we observe. This is all we can test. So a natural explanation is all we can allow ourselves. So I think it was just a type of bird, like what we know."
"I do not believe that was a type of bird." replied the woman. "We can also observe that we can make things. If there was a race of humans or other beings that had a sort of intelligence similar to our own then there is no telling what they could make. I think that was something made by a civilization far, far in advance of our own."
"Well, I saw a bird fly the other day. So it obviously doesn't take any technology to fly."
"Are you sure?" replied the woman.
"Hmmm, what is technology, anyway?"
"It would seem that it is just the practical application of knowledge."
Then the man said, "Oh....this is probably going to keep us thinking for a while."
The woman replied, "Yes....thinking, well, that will probably keep us out of trouble."
So they kept thinking about the story of the plane and in so doing they began to accumulate knowledge, which kept them out of trouble.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Eating Disorders
I think I will research eating disorders. I was going to write a parable about the Beauty Queen. But in writing it, I'm not sure I know the patterns of her story so well. Another reason I want to research it is because I keep hearing, "Oh, she had (or has) an eating disorder." about various people. It's rather mysterious, how you could begin to abuse food or grow to refuse it.
To not like food!? Now that is quite a mystery to me, something to ponder.
One speculation, I suspect that people can condition themselves. I.e., something begins only as a way to lose weight, yet if you are throwing up and feeling nauseas from that then you have begun to condition yourself. Eventually, you will feel nauseas at the sight of food, etc. And who knows what psychological or social patterns can get in there to be associated with it all, perhaps built on such feelings too. Rats will starve themselves to death if they are conditioned with respect to a certain type of food by nausea once, rather than eat that type of food again.
So it is a strong form of conditioning, perhaps the strongest.
A side note,
I am not necessarily against feelings and their condition. For some reason that is a typical assumption that people who debate me make. Those who are ruled by their feelings have one little confrontation with the ratios of the rational and they begin to say, "Hey, I feel he must be a robot!" That is rather silly. No, I suppose I would say that I am for letting the rational/logic guide the emotional/feelings in a complementary way. It seems that it is best if they are married. That's my touchy feely feeling about that.
Anyway, I may write about eating disorders and try to get some understanding of their patterns, perhaps enough to write a little story on it. But I may not do so if I get bogged down with it. If someone already knows something about it, maybe leave a comment.
To not like food!? Now that is quite a mystery to me, something to ponder.
One speculation, I suspect that people can condition themselves. I.e., something begins only as a way to lose weight, yet if you are throwing up and feeling nauseas from that then you have begun to condition yourself. Eventually, you will feel nauseas at the sight of food, etc. And who knows what psychological or social patterns can get in there to be associated with it all, perhaps built on such feelings too. Rats will starve themselves to death if they are conditioned with respect to a certain type of food by nausea once, rather than eat that type of food again.
So it is a strong form of conditioning, perhaps the strongest.
A side note,
I am not necessarily against feelings and their condition. For some reason that is a typical assumption that people who debate me make. Those who are ruled by their feelings have one little confrontation with the ratios of the rational and they begin to say, "Hey, I feel he must be a robot!" That is rather silly. No, I suppose I would say that I am for letting the rational/logic guide the emotional/feelings in a complementary way. It seems that it is best if they are married. That's my touchy feely feeling about that.
Anyway, I may write about eating disorders and try to get some understanding of their patterns, perhaps enough to write a little story on it. But I may not do so if I get bogged down with it. If someone already knows something about it, maybe leave a comment.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
New Bloggers...
A Sci-Phi blog is beginning. I think it will do well. It seems timely in the wired world. Apparently they've come across some of the cold toads that I have had some back and forth with from before blogs.
Of this they write:
"When first learning of the existence of the Panda's Thumb and hearing that it was leveling a number of attacks upon Crux, I must admit that I was happy that our fledgling publication was being taken seriously enough by the scientific community to warrant some fifty-odd separate posts on our ID [Intelligent Design] coverage. Now that I've seen the substance of those posts, however, I feel somewhat ashamed of my initial enthusiasm. In fact, this is the last reference to the site that I will make in this blog. Such manipulative and decidedly unscientific ire is simply not worth my time.
Indeed, after wasting the better part of my morning reading through the many smug and mean-spirited comments attached to Brayton's analysis, it's all I can do to keep from telling these people where they can put their Panda's thumb."
cf. Crux Mag
A while back I began to heap scorn on the heads of the cold toads and their mythological narratives of naturalism. In contrast, the patience of the ID fellows with the Darwinist nit wits seems to be holding on and on. I'm not sure it should be.
On the same blog they note a separate article citing a Time magazine article on ID:
"A look . . . at the religious beliefs of many scientists who support I.D.," he writes, "makes it reasonable to suspect that [Eugenie] Scott's assertion is correct: intelligent design is just a smoke screen for those who think evolution is somehow ungodly."
Note,
"Evolution is the framework that makes sense of the whole natural world from the formation of atoms, galaxies, stars and planets, to the AIDS virus, giant redwood trees and our own health and well-being….
Dorothy was lucky because the Wizard of Oz was wise. The wizards of the Kansas State Board of Education look foolish in comparison."
--Dr. Maxine Singer
President of the Carnegie Institution of Washington
(Washington Post, August 18, 1999)
God didn't make sense, evolution makes all sense. Yes, that is "ungodly." It's the same sort of thing that pagans have always said. One half expects them to raise up some idols that merge the categories of human and animal, like some Egyptian Bird-man, etc.
Yet, they already did raise up Ape-man. So take down that cross and raise up an idol of Ape-man, with funding from an atheistic State. Socialists will believe that it is fine to actively fund one sort of mythological narrative, while also using the State to attack some historical symbols. For Ape-man does not threaten the totalitarian power of the Leftists and their collectivist State, no more than Dog-man threatened the tribalistic State of the pagans of old.
Perhaps those who believe in Naturalism must invariably be textual degenerates and therefore, moral degenerates. So then it does not matter what they write by natural selection, naturally enough. For their text is just matter and they will write whatever Nature selects for them to write. It is a universal sense that there is something wrong, or degenerate, in Nature. So that degeneracy will be included or amplified in their text. The symbols of "their," i.e. Nature's selections in their text will be amplified instead of being filtered out as it would be if they were actively intelligent, instead of passively degenerate.
DNA is also like a text, code is code. Without information you will have deformation, reformation goes against deformation, yet reformation is not creation. (As in the Reformation, sola scriptura, an infusion of information that was not new.) As any writer and programmer knows, information does not just up and write itself. Even if you write a program that contains adaptive and replicative capacities, it's still not writing itself. Perhaps you would keep writing it and creating it as you went. If so, it's still not writing itself. An interesting question is whether you would know before hand how all that you had programmed would adapt or change. And so on.
But instead of going on here, here are two old parables:
The Author
The Programmer
Of this they write:
"When first learning of the existence of the Panda's Thumb and hearing that it was leveling a number of attacks upon Crux, I must admit that I was happy that our fledgling publication was being taken seriously enough by the scientific community to warrant some fifty-odd separate posts on our ID [Intelligent Design] coverage. Now that I've seen the substance of those posts, however, I feel somewhat ashamed of my initial enthusiasm. In fact, this is the last reference to the site that I will make in this blog. Such manipulative and decidedly unscientific ire is simply not worth my time.
Indeed, after wasting the better part of my morning reading through the many smug and mean-spirited comments attached to Brayton's analysis, it's all I can do to keep from telling these people where they can put their Panda's thumb."
cf. Crux Mag
A while back I began to heap scorn on the heads of the cold toads and their mythological narratives of naturalism. In contrast, the patience of the ID fellows with the Darwinist nit wits seems to be holding on and on. I'm not sure it should be.
On the same blog they note a separate article citing a Time magazine article on ID:
"A look . . . at the religious beliefs of many scientists who support I.D.," he writes, "makes it reasonable to suspect that [Eugenie] Scott's assertion is correct: intelligent design is just a smoke screen for those who think evolution is somehow ungodly."
Note,
"Evolution is the framework that makes sense of the whole natural world from the formation of atoms, galaxies, stars and planets, to the AIDS virus, giant redwood trees and our own health and well-being….
Dorothy was lucky because the Wizard of Oz was wise. The wizards of the Kansas State Board of Education look foolish in comparison."
--Dr. Maxine Singer
President of the Carnegie Institution of Washington
(Washington Post, August 18, 1999)
God didn't make sense, evolution makes all sense. Yes, that is "ungodly." It's the same sort of thing that pagans have always said. One half expects them to raise up some idols that merge the categories of human and animal, like some Egyptian Bird-man, etc.
Yet, they already did raise up Ape-man. So take down that cross and raise up an idol of Ape-man, with funding from an atheistic State. Socialists will believe that it is fine to actively fund one sort of mythological narrative, while also using the State to attack some historical symbols. For Ape-man does not threaten the totalitarian power of the Leftists and their collectivist State, no more than Dog-man threatened the tribalistic State of the pagans of old.
Perhaps those who believe in Naturalism must invariably be textual degenerates and therefore, moral degenerates. So then it does not matter what they write by natural selection, naturally enough. For their text is just matter and they will write whatever Nature selects for them to write. It is a universal sense that there is something wrong, or degenerate, in Nature. So that degeneracy will be included or amplified in their text. The symbols of "their," i.e. Nature's selections in their text will be amplified instead of being filtered out as it would be if they were actively intelligent, instead of passively degenerate.
DNA is also like a text, code is code. Without information you will have deformation, reformation goes against deformation, yet reformation is not creation. (As in the Reformation, sola scriptura, an infusion of information that was not new.) As any writer and programmer knows, information does not just up and write itself. Even if you write a program that contains adaptive and replicative capacities, it's still not writing itself. Perhaps you would keep writing it and creating it as you went. If so, it's still not writing itself. An interesting question is whether you would know before hand how all that you had programmed would adapt or change. And so on.
But instead of going on here, here are two old parables:
The Author
The Programmer
Friday, February 11, 2005
Narratives and senses of humors...
I can say this for evolutionism or philosophic naturalism, if it is true that a sense of humor is as a sense of our own humors, then evolutionism is a grand joke. It reduces humans to humors or humus. So then a sentient being (If they are not reduced to the crass and crude by actually believing it.) can have a stronger sense of their own humors. I like reading what evolutionists have to say, since it is good material for some things, as is all spiritual monism. It seems that the materialist is the best material for satire.
Take an example, the male nipple is supposedly vestigial. In other words, men have a trace of a useless nipple because once upon a time there was a single proto-human who...reproduced on their own. Etc., there is some mythological narrative of naturalism for it.
Anyway, back to these vestigial nipples. (Why two, I wonder, perhaps one is ancestral to the other?) How about a story...
Once upon a time there was a scientist who created some little creatures and put them in a place he made for them. He noticed them doing some odd things and he heard them murmuring in to him what was a simplistic language, "Hey, I have nipples. But they don't do anything! Hmmm, that must mean that no one created us. Besides, if they did create then they covered it up well. Look at this, and that, it seems like it is all just of us and our own place here." So the scientist watched for a while as the little creatures pointed to their chests and pointed around in the place he had made for them. He was fascinated by some of the stories they came up with about it all. One day, it was time to do away with the place he had made for them. So he took some creatures he saved into a different place. But he set one of the ones he saved aside for a moment and asked, "About that nipple business, what were they thinking?" The little creature replied, "I really can't say. But like they said, why didn't you just make things obvious? Besides, why create things to be so that I have these little useless nipples on me, it seems odd."
The scientist replied, "I know more about my own creations than you do. But let me tell you a story. Once, I created some creatures, put them in a world, and made it be so that some would have nipples and some would not. But there was this problem with nipplism. Some of the creatures apparently thought, 'Hah, I have nipples and these others don't! That must mean that I, and all nipple people are superior!' So the nipplists began to mistreat the others....and well, it was a problem."
The creature looked thoughtful, "Well...I guess a creature like me can't know all that might happen."
Then he looked at his chest and said, "Huh, and here I thought these things were useless."
Take an example, the male nipple is supposedly vestigial. In other words, men have a trace of a useless nipple because once upon a time there was a single proto-human who...reproduced on their own. Etc., there is some mythological narrative of naturalism for it.
Anyway, back to these vestigial nipples. (Why two, I wonder, perhaps one is ancestral to the other?) How about a story...
Once upon a time there was a scientist who created some little creatures and put them in a place he made for them. He noticed them doing some odd things and he heard them murmuring in to him what was a simplistic language, "Hey, I have nipples. But they don't do anything! Hmmm, that must mean that no one created us. Besides, if they did create then they covered it up well. Look at this, and that, it seems like it is all just of us and our own place here." So the scientist watched for a while as the little creatures pointed to their chests and pointed around in the place he had made for them. He was fascinated by some of the stories they came up with about it all. One day, it was time to do away with the place he had made for them. So he took some creatures he saved into a different place. But he set one of the ones he saved aside for a moment and asked, "About that nipple business, what were they thinking?" The little creature replied, "I really can't say. But like they said, why didn't you just make things obvious? Besides, why create things to be so that I have these little useless nipples on me, it seems odd."
The scientist replied, "I know more about my own creations than you do. But let me tell you a story. Once, I created some creatures, put them in a world, and made it be so that some would have nipples and some would not. But there was this problem with nipplism. Some of the creatures apparently thought, 'Hah, I have nipples and these others don't! That must mean that I, and all nipple people are superior!' So the nipplists began to mistreat the others....and well, it was a problem."
The creature looked thoughtful, "Well...I guess a creature like me can't know all that might happen."
Then he looked at his chest and said, "Huh, and here I thought these things were useless."
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Anthropologists...
They have a habit of being Leftists at a rate of thirty to one, if there is even one in the thirty. The framework of their scholarship is cultural relativism, which is moral relativism. The pattern seems to generally go like this: They try to be objective by being more like a data recording object. They exchange the objective, the pursuit of truth, for just being more like an object. (This is also what some journalists do as well.) The more they are like an inanimate object then the more dead in the head they are with respect to Good and Evil. You do not become good or generally do good scholarship that way, instead you become more evil. Yet the Leftists who are dead in the head in such a way are not actually inanimate, like an "objective" object. So they still have some sentience, some judgment hidden away in their attempted lack of judgment. Their judgment will be against judgment itself, as it typically is among those who lack judgment. That is the only way to try to hide their own lack of judgment. Thus you will hear about something called "ethnocentrism." That is to consider your culture superior to another. As with any relativism, one ought to turn things around and begin to set to Right the relations between things that the Left cannot.
What is right is quite simple, some cultures are superior to others. Yes, amazing but true, some views are superior to others. If you were put on an island with a whole group of people who wanted to kill you right now then you'd probably agree that inferior and superior views exist. All that anthropologists are really saying is, "Hey, some groups of people believe that. Hmmm, other groups of people believe this. Therefore, we can safely say that everyone is wrong. Yes, we are sure, as a group, that we are right about that....and this too!"
(Note that it is not really news that people disagree with each other, even groups of people. Why this causes some to go off and argue that disagreement means that no one is correct, is not apparent. )
Let's say it is relative, as they say. If it is relative, what is it relative to? If it is relational, what is it all related to? Their conclusions seem to be where they got tired of thinking, relatively. Do these anthropologists consider their own academic culture superior? It certainly seems that they do. They seem to consider what they say from inside their academic "cult"ure as superior, something worth considering true. But how ethnocentric such a cult would be! Anthropologists, on the whole, seem to have a habit of being moral degenerates. So perhaps their culture is inferior.
One example, from many:
"Mentorships are a much more common form of homosexual behavior than previously considered. These relationships usually form between a preadolescent and either an older adolescent or an adult. Adams (Adams, B.D. 1985. Age, Structure, and Sexuality. Journal of Homosexuality. 11:19-33) has summarized the ethnographic data for male mentorships.
.....Ethically this is a particularly touchy issue. There is an enormous ["]prejudice["] against similar kinds of patnerships in the United States (indeed they are typically illegal), and the older partner is usually defined as mentally ill or as a sexual criminal."
(Annual Review of Anthropology,Vol. 16, 1987,
The Cross-Cultural Study of Human Sexuality,
By D. L. Davis, R. G. Whitten :69-98)
I would not mind the use of the term prejudice if it was meant in a conservative sense of collected and collective experience and tradition that is most likely valid. But anthropologists are not conservatives and to them the term is just a buzzword for supposed injustice, often associated with racism.
________
A side note on that typical belief of Leftists about "prejudices" and associating all prejudice with racism in simplistic ways. If the Leftist argument is true and homophiles are just like blacks then so are pedophiles with prejudice being wrong in all instances. There are African Americans who get a little tired of this pattern of deviants latching on to their history to try to alter public policy through the guise of "civil rights." It is little wonder. Everyone seems to want to be in on the bandwagon now, even fat people. I'm not really writing satire much of the time. There actually are fat people who are talking about fat pride, etc., just like gay pride. There are already law reviews being written about discrimination based on facial symetry. I.e., a few ugly people may be talking about ugly rights or ugly pride next. That one is hard to believe, yet I would've said the same about fat pride a few years ago.
Anyway, it probably would be a little tiresome to have gluttons or hedonistic sexual deviants trying to compare themselves to you all the time. Why do so many seek to abuse civil rights? It's mainly from the American judiciary becoming politicized. They politicized themselves, then their nominating process is politicized. Of course it is, and that is the fault of Leftists.
End, side note.
___________
What is right is quite simple, some cultures are superior to others. Yes, amazing but true, some views are superior to others. If you were put on an island with a whole group of people who wanted to kill you right now then you'd probably agree that inferior and superior views exist. All that anthropologists are really saying is, "Hey, some groups of people believe that. Hmmm, other groups of people believe this. Therefore, we can safely say that everyone is wrong. Yes, we are sure, as a group, that we are right about that....and this too!"
(Note that it is not really news that people disagree with each other, even groups of people. Why this causes some to go off and argue that disagreement means that no one is correct, is not apparent. )
Let's say it is relative, as they say. If it is relative, what is it relative to? If it is relational, what is it all related to? Their conclusions seem to be where they got tired of thinking, relatively. Do these anthropologists consider their own academic culture superior? It certainly seems that they do. They seem to consider what they say from inside their academic "cult"ure as superior, something worth considering true. But how ethnocentric such a cult would be! Anthropologists, on the whole, seem to have a habit of being moral degenerates. So perhaps their culture is inferior.
One example, from many:
"Mentorships are a much more common form of homosexual behavior than previously considered. These relationships usually form between a preadolescent and either an older adolescent or an adult. Adams (Adams, B.D. 1985. Age, Structure, and Sexuality. Journal of Homosexuality. 11:19-33) has summarized the ethnographic data for male mentorships.
.....Ethically this is a particularly touchy issue. There is an enormous ["]prejudice["] against similar kinds of patnerships in the United States (indeed they are typically illegal), and the older partner is usually defined as mentally ill or as a sexual criminal."
(Annual Review of Anthropology,Vol. 16, 1987,
The Cross-Cultural Study of Human Sexuality,
By D. L. Davis, R. G. Whitten :69-98)
I would not mind the use of the term prejudice if it was meant in a conservative sense of collected and collective experience and tradition that is most likely valid. But anthropologists are not conservatives and to them the term is just a buzzword for supposed injustice, often associated with racism.
________
A side note on that typical belief of Leftists about "prejudices" and associating all prejudice with racism in simplistic ways. If the Leftist argument is true and homophiles are just like blacks then so are pedophiles with prejudice being wrong in all instances. There are African Americans who get a little tired of this pattern of deviants latching on to their history to try to alter public policy through the guise of "civil rights." It is little wonder. Everyone seems to want to be in on the bandwagon now, even fat people. I'm not really writing satire much of the time. There actually are fat people who are talking about fat pride, etc., just like gay pride. There are already law reviews being written about discrimination based on facial symetry. I.e., a few ugly people may be talking about ugly rights or ugly pride next. That one is hard to believe, yet I would've said the same about fat pride a few years ago.
Anyway, it probably would be a little tiresome to have gluttons or hedonistic sexual deviants trying to compare themselves to you all the time. Why do so many seek to abuse civil rights? It's mainly from the American judiciary becoming politicized. They politicized themselves, then their nominating process is politicized. Of course it is, and that is the fault of Leftists.
End, side note.
___________
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