I think this is worth explaining, even if it is not worth pursuing very far (perhaps only adding to the "noise" for which I have already been censured by more than one moderator).
After I was subjected to a verbal onslaught here a day or two ago (only a day or two after I joined), after the initial surprise and shock and anger had passed, I reflected that it might be a kind of "test". By this I meant two different things, which however might be related to one another. (One thing that I didn't mean, by the way, was that it was any kind of deliberate initiation or hazing ritual!) I had no intention of posting about this, until today, when almost the first thing that greeted me after I got out of bed was another such verbal onslaught, from a different member of the group.(I would have been far less bothered if it had only been the same person again.) I don't think I coped with the latest onslaught too badly; but, as I said, at least two moderators criticised me for my response, and I was threatened with a ban if I persisted. If I hadn't been ordered not to post any more in that thread (even though it was started specifically to rant at me!), and promised not to do so, I would naturally be posting these thoughts there; so, the moderators will presumably consider this whole thread as more "noise", and possibly even, if not a banning offence, then a reason for returning me to moderation. I think it is worth taking that risk, because I think that this is philosophical information, not noise. The first sense in which I thought that a personal attack on me in a group like this might be a "test" was that it might be incumbent on me to regard it as a challenge to accept the assault in a philosophical spirit (in a familiar everyday sense of "philosophical"), and not to respond in a petty egotistical way, or with too much self-pity (not that I think that self-pity is altogether a bad thing), but to be rational and ethical, and to see what I, at least, might learn from the encounter. For instance, even if I might not have done anything to deserve such an attack, might it not nevertheless be a kind of karma? (I use the word very loosely.) And, even though the person hounded me, and accused me of stalking and harassing him, and this was ridiculous, might each of in some unconscious way have been shadowing the other? (Again, no precise use of language is here intended.) But such questions are mainly for me to think about, and not to post about here. What I think does make it worth taking the risk of posting this article is that the second sense in which I thought those events (and today I thought this morning's events) might be a "test" is one which I think has meaning for more than just me. I have long wondered how one tests ideas about minds, given (what for me is axiomatic, although others may dispute) that the scientific method is not applicable. I have brooded for a long time about the need for a movement in psychology and ethics which is progressive in way analogous to the way in which science is progressive, yet (at least for me) cannot possibly be literally considered to be scientific. I don't want to get banned for excessive verbosity, and this article is getting a bit long already, so I'll cut to the chase. [Where on Earth does that phrase come from?] We all have ideas about minds, persons, selves. One of my reasons for being here, probably my main reason, and probably also one of the reasons why many others are here, is to test out such ideas in discussion, and learn new ideas, and modify ideas in discussion. Of course, we also have ideas about other things (also to be subjected to the same trial by dialogue), but it is only ideas about "minds, persons, selves" to which what I'm saying here is at all relevant. The test is: how do such ideas survive when things go "wrong" in the group? Can they even help to put "wrong" things "right", or do the "wrong" things have to be banned? (Presumably /some/ do, such as spam, or deliberate trolling.) When conversation results from something going wrong here, is such conversation only a distraction, is it only "noise", or can some of it, at least, be seen as a part of the total philosophical enterprise, perhaps in analogy to the way that engineering is related to science? Can Minds Eye own its shadow? (OK, here goes. I am hoping that this will lead to a discussion, not to a ban from discussion, but my luck in such matters is bad, so I can't be too hopeful, just a little bit brave. Prepare the hemlock!)
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