--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[Shemp wrote:] > > All I'm asking for is a reasonably honest employment of the > > word "real". > > What you're asking for is a definition of levitation that > can be verified by someone outside of yourself. You > are saying that you don't trust subjective experience. Shemp is asking for a reasonably honest employment of the word "real," especially in a context in which "real levitation" is understood by almost everyone to mean objective physical levitation. Why is this so impossibly difficult for you to understand? <snip> > Shemp, I'm trying to be HONEST with you. Levitation is > no big deal. You only think it is because you haven't > experienced it. > > You've built up all these fantasies in your mind about how > big a deal it would be to witness, and how the world would > change if it could be "proved." I'm trying to tell you that this > is a fantasy. I'm trying to tell you that if 100 people were in > a room and were able to witness 100% "real" levitation, by > any standard you could specify, 50 of them would have > found a way to deny that the experience ever happened > within a week, and another 25 would have found a way to > deny it within a month. And the other 25...? I've been saying for years that there would be *huge* resistance to accepting actual physical levitation, as well as profound psychic dislocation, *including* among many TMers who think they believe it's possible. It would take repeated demonstrations, but it would eventaully sink in, most likely because at least some reputable scientists, after their initial shock and dismay, would want to take up the extraordinary challenge of revising science to incorporate it. Scientific curiosity can be incredibly powerful, and the mechanisms of levitation could well hold the key to all kinds of other current scientific mysteries, possibly even the elusive "theory of everything." The scientists who did finally accept it would force those who were still resistant to stop denying physically demonstrable facts, because to persist would make a mockery of science itself. There would be a great deal of freaking out along the way, including among scientists, some of it permanent. The freak-outs would pose the greatest danger to levitation becoming established fact if they sought to eliminate the sources of their extreme anxiety and were successful. Or a government might seek to suppress it from public view and classify it for its own strategic use. But if these pitfalls could be avoided, there's no way it would not ultimately become accepted, changing the world in the process. However...I'm very skeptical that real levitation could ever occur as long as there is the potential for the kind of resistance and psychic disruption I described. I strongly suspect the world has to change *first*. <snip> > > But would any serious person describe the experience as a "real" > > levitation? > > It's a magic show, Shemp. And you're just struggling to > find reasons to disbelieve my experience. Since nobody is insisting that it was real physical levitation, Shemp has no basis to try to find reasons to disbelieve that it was. <snip> > > > There *might* be levitation that extends to the physical > > > plane, > > > > ...then don't use the word "real", please. > > I will use any word I please. Then be prepared to take the consequences of using a deceptive term. > Shemp, you obviously do not consider purely subjective > experiences to be "real." Shemp (and I) consider the unqualified term "real" to be deceptive when it's used to refer to a subjective experience--*especially* when it's used to characterize levitation in a context in which "real levitation" is understood to mean objective physical levitation. <snip> > If you really look into what you're experiencing, Shemp, > I think you'll find that what you are most fearful of is that > my experience was *exactly* as I have described it, and > thus as "real" as an experience can get. (See what we mean about "spiritual one-upmanship"?) <snip> > > No, Shemp's advice is that you should not try to pump up your ego > by trying to deceive people by misusing the English language. > > Shemp, YOU are the one who is terrified to call anything > that can't be objectively verified "real." For the record, I have absolutely zero problem with the reality of subjective experiences. But I have exactly the same objection Shemp does to using the phrase "real levitation" when what you meant was "subjectively real levitation." > Don't try to pass your > fears along to me. I got over that one. Sounds a lot like you haven't gotten over it at all, when a vigorous challenge makes you so unpleasantly antagonistic. <snip> > Have you ever transcended, Shemp? Was it real? > > Prove it. Bogus analogy. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
