Still busy, but things are looking up for finding the time. I'll have to revisit what I wrote before, though, because some of it was garbage. Nailed the red state blue state thing, though, even though I didn't explain adequately.
I always had a problem with showing my work. On Monday, July 19, 2010 at 9:16:24 AM UTC-4, Mark Buda wrote: > > I agree with pretty much everything you are saying, Jesse; unfortunately, > I don't have the time at the moment to respond adequately. > > I think it would greatly improve the signal-to-noise ratio on this list if > everybody else kept quiet on this thread until you read my response to > Jesse. Please be patient, I have a lot of stuff to do today. > > Waiting is. :-) > -- > Mark Buda <her...@acm.org> > I get my monkeys for nothing and my chimps for free. > > > ------------------------------ > On Jul 19, 2010 9:04 AM, Jesse Mazer <laserma...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > > > > Please, seek medical help. If you're right, you lose nothing and might > > > convince at least the psychiatrist you talk to. If I'm right, you get > > > cured. It can't do you any harm, but leaving what looks to me like a > > > serious illness untreated may well do you some serious harm. > > > > Look, I've already seen a psychiatrist and a priest and a therapist and > > they don't see a problem here. > > How long ago did you see them? Is it possible things have developed > somewhat since them? You did mention that you told the priest that you're > God. But what exactly does "don't see a problem" mean? Presumably the > priest didn't actually agree that you are God (unless he was a mystically > inclined priest who thought you were just saying that all of us are God), > so do you just mean that the priest didn't try to argue you were wrong? > Sometimes when people encounter someone with a mental problem their > instinct may be to try to show empathy and to guide the conversation in a > more human (less cosmic/grandiose) direction rather than trying to > dismantle their ideas through argument... > > As for the psychiatrist and therapist, did you also try to explain these > sorts of grand ideas to them? How did they react? > > > > > Every animal on this planet has evolved an instinctual means to care for > > its young. Except us. We have no natural instinct. Or do we? > > > > Holy crap. Richard Dawkins doesn't even understand the point of his own > > books. Our sense of humor and our mathematical intuition and our genes > > form an impossible triangular causal loop. Selfish gene, indeed. > > Mark, these kinds of sentences and paragraphs are completely solipsistic. > Even if you have some sort of valid insight, you simply haven't provided > enough context and intermediate steps of your reasoning to make it possible > another person could *understand* why you think, for example, that "our > sense of humor and our mathematical intuition and our genes form an > impossible triangular loop". You're just making a lot of grand > pronouncements whose only purpose seems to be to express how excited you > are about your own brainstorms rather than to communicate with other human > beings. This is, I think, one of the big reasons myself and others get the > sense of a mental disorder from your posts--disorders like mania and > schizophrenia are associated with losing the ability to (or no longer > caring to) consider the the understanding of other people, to consider what > background context will be shared enough that it doesn't need to be > explained and what context is not shared and *does* need to be explained > (for instance, on this list we can talk of 'quantum immortality' without > explaining what it means, but with most people you'd have to launch into > some background about the many-worlds interpretation before using the > term), in order to communicate in a way that will make some sense to others. > > Also, in a person with mania at least, I think this kind of partial > mindblindness is related to being over-optimistic about the likelihood that > others have understood/agreed with what you have said...in the case of the > priest, you seem to have taken his lack of counterarguments as a sort of > tacit agreement (or at least an acknowledgment that he found sense in your > arguments), which may not be true at all. Did you ask him (or others you've > talked to about your ideas) any questions to try to gauge their > understanding of what you were saying? Along the lines of "do you follow" > or "does this make sense to you"? > > > > > Back to the point. We don't have instincts to tell us how to care for our > > young. We rely on culture for that. And culture is still really, really > > young. The memes are just getting started! That's it! Richard Dawkins is > > God, then, because he is the source of the idea of the meme. Whee! What a > > marvelous yet annoying thing God hath made. Can't wait to see what's > next. > > Another example of the same solipsistic communication style here. *Why* > does Richard Dawkin's invention of the concept of the meme make him "God"? > It's a huge leap of logic and once again you seem to be too excited by your > insight to bother with filling in any of the intermediate reasoning that > might make this paragraph meaningful to anyone but yourself (and it doesn't > really seem like you were thinking of the problem of whether others would > understand when you wrote it). > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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