On May 9, 2005, at 8:30 AM, Gary Denton wrote:
I have suspected "Erik" is actually an Eliza-type program that responds to
my statements with non-specific phrases that accuse me of lacking
understanding and and stringing together phrases like an Eliza program. The
program will be triggered by the preceding sentence.
And sure enough, it was.
There is never any factual content he indicates he is disagreeing with and
it can barely be called criticism. Just an insult program that states some
people notably myself are putting phrases together in ways he is not
familiar with or the reply had a certain proportion of words he uses in the
response.
This explains something else. I've noticed he (it) doesn't seem to be capable of *maintaining* a discussion. Not only is there no factual basis given for the discord, but the program then claims that its "time" is being wasted, and it withdraws entirely from further correspondence.
An alternate theory is that there are two Eriks. One is the one that makes grandiose claims on his website about being tolerant and fostering discussion -- that Erik occasionally surfaces here -- and the other is the dominant personality (here anyway), which is threatened by the existence of the other and does everything he can to suppress any clues to that personality's existence. If that Erik is threatened by the ghost in his head it's hardly surprising he'd be so belligerent about (for instance) religion, which in some ways can be seen as ghosts in others' heads.
There's a much more parsimonious explanation (two, actually, but I already suggested one in another note) but it would be pretty damn vicious to air it, so I won't.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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