A revolution in thought

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

Your optimism in the face of reality is impressive. I don't think anyone who has read the book (or the first 2 chapters) has done anything but laugh at the book.

In fairness, I didn't find it funny. At all. Appalling? Yes. Tortuous? Absolutely. (If anyone needed the services of a competent editor, it was Lessans.)

But amusing? No.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

Your optimism in the face of reality is impressive. I don't think anyone who has read the book (or the first 2 chapters) has done anything but laugh at the book.

Speak for yourself specious_reasons. And this is what you base your opinion on?

I wanted to see if people would contact me so I wouldn't be left hanging whether they went to the website or not.

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

Most hosting sites have statistics as part of their services. At its most basic, the service provider should tell you how many unique visitors accessed your site in a given timeframe. The person who set up your website should know this.

I know there is a way to access the stats. I will check it out as soon as I have a chance. Thanks for the tip.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

In fairness, I didn't find it funny. At all. Appalling? Yes. Tortuous? Absolutely. (If anyone needed the services of a competent editor, it was Lessans.)

But amusing? No.

Unbelievable! This one page (at the very end of the book) is what you judge his entire work on? Shame on you.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Unbelievable. And this one page (at the end of the book) is what you judged this book on? Shame on you.

Literacy isn't your strong point.

Read it again: The. First. Two. Chapters.



You remember how you told us that this was all we had to read in order to grok Lessans, correct? In that, at least, you were correct.

[Vivisectus]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

It is you who will lose, not them. Now how ironic is that?

Is this in the glorious new world which will begin to happen after everyone is dead?

[Vivisectus]

I almost forgot how he tried to sue the president. That is good old-fashioned crackpottery, done the traditional way. None of that gimgrack, shoddy, fling-it-down-the-kennel crackpottery you get these days. No sir! Fueled by high-octane overconfidence, a proper crackpot is so utterly convinced of his own genius that he does not let a mere lack of evidence slow him down and steams right ahead to make a truly magnificent ass of himself. I salute him for it.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

In fairness, I didn't find it funny. At all. Appalling? Yes. Tortuous? Absolutely. (If anyone needed the services of a competent editor, it was Lessans.)

But amusing? No.

I hit a point where I had to laugh, or else I would have to face the fact that two people's lives were wasted on this dreck.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I hope to get it him, but I have to do it in a way that doesn't backfire, otherwise, I may not get another chance.

If the knowledge in the book is so undeniable, and true, and all that you and Lessans have claimed for it, how could getting it to this person backfire, or do you think he might actually be a rational thinker rather than a Woo Merchant? People like Jerry Springer have a TV show that deals in nonsense but they do it anyway to make money, it is possible that this person is promoting these ideas to make money, while not believing a word of it. Sort of reminds me of Peacegirl.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

I almost forgot how he tried to sue the president.

Oh, he did more than just try; he actually did it! And you're quite right -- it's good old fashioned, down-home, country-style, original gangsta, 24-karat crackpottery of the sort we just don't see nowadays. In addition, I doubt there has ever been a complaint filed in any American court at any time before or since that even gets within hollering distance of such epic frivolousness.

Kinda makes ya long for the America of yesteryear, where any whackadoo with a manifesto and a weed up his ass could commence frivolous litigation against the U.S. government in a federal court and have the taxpayers foot the bill for getting the litigation dismissed.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

There is epistomological proof for efferent sight or the way conscience works? Amazing!

That's not what I said. I said that the way to knowledge epistemologically speaking is not necessarily through the scientific method of starting with a hypothesis and testing it. That is not the only way Vivisectus.

This is getting old already.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

But you have seen that if you apply the same standards to the book that you would apply to the idea that the earth is flat, you would not accept it. When I pointed this out, you even started talking about flat earth as if it was a viable idea...

What matters in any scientific endeavor is finding out what is true. The round earth theory is much more compelling than the flat earth theory. You don't know enough about my father's claims to understand why he came to the conclusions he did, yet you're so sure he's just another flat earther. That's just not the case so stop making this comparison.

That is absolutely false. How can you make these assumptions when you haven't read the book? You're are making unsupported assertions, the very thing you are accusing me of, but you're not objective enough to see it.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

Talk about getting old! I have read the book several times. That is how I know it contains no evidence. You know it too: that is why you can STILL not produce it.

I don't believe you for a second. You know nothing about this book except your ridiculous analogy: blame doesn't cause crime just as firemen don't cause fires. What's the two-sided equation Vivisectus? You really don't understand anything because you won't let yourself.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

I also know that the book explicitly promises that it will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the eyes are not a sense organ... and then just keeps talking about how the eyes are not a sense organ without ever proving a thing.

He demonstrated why he believed the eyes are not a sense organ. Can you repeat what he was trying to explain?

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

The same happens with conscience.

Not true. You don't know what you're talking about. You're a liar when you say you read the book. Tell me how the new economic system will work.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

So - why don't you produce the evidence you keep alluding to? The answer, as we both know, is that there is none, or you would have produced it a long time ago.

He provided evidence by correctly describing what he observed. As in the analogy I gave, I am describing in great detail this animal to you that you have never seen. You keep telling me prove it. Show me the evidence. I can't show you anymore evidence until you see this animal for yourself. Then you will say my description was spot on. By the same token, there's no other way to prove to you that what Lessans has described regarding conscience (and the eyes) is accurate until you see the validity of his observations for yourself. He also said that his observations regarding the eyes could be scientifically tested.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

Oh, he did more than just try; he actually did it! And you're quite right -- it's good old fashioned, down-home, country-style, original gangsta, 24-karat crackpottery of the sort we just don't see nowadays. In addition, I doubt there has ever been a complaint filed in any American court at any time before or since that even gets within hollering distance of such epic frivolousness.

Kinda makes ya long for the America of yesteryear, where any whackadoo with a manifesto and a weed up his ass could commence frivolous litigation against the U.S. government in a federal court and have the taxpayers foot the bill for getting the litigation dismissed.

If you represent the kind of person who is reading this thread, God help us all!! You have no understanding of why he did this; no compassion; no empathy whatsoever. If you knew that this discovery was genuine and will one day change our world for the better, you wouldn't be speaking this way. If you knew that war and crime (which will save the taxpayers tons of money) was coming to an end, you wouldn't complain that he used taxpayers money for this reason. Actually, it never went to court so there was no money involved. You are the kind of person who will attack someone at his weakest point. To call this discovery a manifesto is just as ignorant as everything else you have ever said. You only had one good question in two years.

[Stephen Maturin]

Once again, I'll gladly converse with you on any topic except Lessans and the book. On that topic I'll only converse with others. Your admissions that the book is your Bible and that nothing could ever convince you that Lessans was wrong about anything therein establish your complete closed-mindedness, and life's too short to spend any of it on the closed-minded.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I said that the way to knowledge epistemologically speaking is not necessarily through the scientific method of starting with a hypothesis and testing it.

Lessans claimed that this was scientific knowledge, and the only way to learn scientific knowledge, is through the scientific method, anything else is opinion. That Lessans claimed that this is scientific knowledge and you tell us that he came to it, not through the scientific method, puts you both in a lie. The knowledge Lessans claims, is not scientific. The same principles would apply, and the knowledge is not mathematical, or undeniable, It is simply a Lessans wet dream put on paper.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

But this is pretty-much exactly what Lessans has done. He clearly wanted to try to ride the coattails of the hard-earned respect that science and mathematics have earned, so he insisted on calling his work "scientific" -- even though it's the exact opposite of scientific by the word's actual definition.

That's what happens when you try to be all things to all people. He plainly used the word "scientific" in an attempt to give himself cred with scientists. He described "God" in personal terms that would be comfortable to the Judeo-Christian mind, even though he apparently didn't believe in a personal God, to give himself cred with the religiously oriented.

Thing is, any idiot could see Lessans was intentionally misusing the words at issue in a transparent ploy to gain support. His apparent refusal to recognize that readers would easily see through the ruse borders on outright contempt for those readers.

The funny part is Lessans' insistence that definitions which don't correspond to reality are useless. Lessans defined "scientific" as synonymous with "undeniable," which doesn't correspond to scientific reality in any way, shape or form. Thus, by his own criterion, Lessans' definition of "scientific" is useless.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

I wasn't talking about Lessans' dishonesty and hypocrisy, nor his made-up definitions. I was talking about the fact that you display exactly zero understanding of what words like "science," "scientific," "logic," "facts," "evidence," and "theory" mean when anyone other than yourself uses them.

I know exactly what they mean and this is not logic or opinion. Man's will is not free. This is an undeniable truth. He does not start out with a premise which could lead to a false conclusion. I do understand the scientific method. You are disregarding the entire book just because you didn't like the claim that this knowledge is just as undeniable as 3 is to 6 what 4 is to 8, and doesn't require your approval for its validity.

A premise is a statement that an argument claims will induce or justify a conclusion.[1] In other words: a premise is an assumption that something is true.

Premise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

And that's a big part of the reason why it's apparently impossible for you to make a coherent argument. You're in the position of someone trying to carry on a conversation in French -- and adamantly insisting that she's doing just that -- when she doesn't even know what "Je ne comprends pas" means.

Yes, it's very important to have a solid basis for communication, but in here the lightbulb is unplugged because there's no connection.

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

But since you brought up Lessans' dishonesty and hypocrisy.

It's fundamentally dishonest of him to redefine words to mean almost exactly the opposite of what they actually mean and then try to pretend that he hasn't redefined any terms at all. And it's hypocritical of him to insist that anyone else's failure to understand what he means is their fault when he is refusing to use standard, well-understood definitions -- and isn't even consistent in his own definitions.

He is very consistent with his own definitions. You're not being fair when you say he is pretending that he didn't redefine words. I guess he felt this knowledge fell in the category of being scientific in the sense that it is undeniable. What you seem to be saying is that observation, if it is accurate, isn't scientific and counts for nothing. Are you telling me that if this is a true discovery that will change the world, he can't use the term scientific discovery because he didn't use the right methodology? I don't get it.

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

For comparison, I could go around insisting that I'm 8 feet* tall. And while I could argue that it's a technically true statement, it would be very dishonest of me to continually go around insisting that I'm 8 feet tall. And it would be very hypocritical of me to get angry and start calling people names anytime they dared point out that I'm not 8 feet tall by the definition that everyone else in the world uses.

How can you make this kind of analogy? He did not change facts around to suit him. Again, there is a problem here because people are up in arms regarding his claim concerning the eyes. I don't know if I can get over this hurdle.

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

But this is pretty-much exactly what Lessans has done. He clearly wanted to try to ride the coattails of the hard-earned respect that science and mathematics have earned, so he insisted on calling his work "scientific" -- even though it's the exact opposite of scientific by the word's actual definition.

Hard earned respect that science and mathematics have earned? So what you're saying is that he didn't earn respect for making this discovery because he didn't come to these findings your way? You have no idea what you're saying. He studied and observed the real world for over 30 years, so please don't tell me about respect.

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

He wanted people to think of his work as actually being scientific, but he was too lazy and/or too incompetent to do the hard work of actual science. So he simply called his claims scientific and hoped that his readers would be too stupid to notice that he was lying.

Your interpretation of him is so wrong, it saddens me.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

Once again, I'll gladly converse with you on any topic except Lessans and the book. On that topic I'll only converse with others. Your admissions that the book is your Bible and that nothing could ever convince you that Lessans was wrong about anything therein establish your complete closed-mindedness, and life's too short to spend any of it on the closed-minded.

That's up to you but you're not going to misrepresent what he did by telling people that he used taxpayer money when he didn't. And even if he did it's a drop in the bucket. It was not a frivolous lawsuit if you understood his reasons and the desperate position he was in. It just shows me that all you want to do is to find a reason not to like him so that you don't have to try to understand his discovery. I'm not surprised. This thread is being used for entertainment. How can anyone take him seriously in a thread that bashes him repeatedly without any justification?

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Hard earned respect that science and mathematics have earned? So what you're saying is that he didn't earn respect for making this discovery because he didn't come to these findings your way? You have no idea what you're saying. He studied and observed the real world for over 30 years, so please don't tell me about respect.

.

The inside of a pool hall does not qualify as the real world, perhaps a tiny aspect of it but not the whole world. Billard balls careening around the surface of a pool table does not represent the real world.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

That's up to you but you're not going to misrepresent what he did by telling people that he used taxpayer money when he didn't.

That's not a misrepresentation. First, I didn't say that Lessans "used" taxpayer money. You should stop intentionally misstating what other people say.

What I did write was that taxpayer funds got the case dismissed, which is accurate. Frivolous lawsuits don't dismiss themselves. Who do you think was paying the salaries of the assistant U.S. attorney who filed the motion to dismiss, the law clerk who prepared the dismissal order and/or the judge who signed the order?

Originally Posted by peacegirl

it was not a frivolous lawsuit if you understood his reasons and the desperate position he was in.

Clearly, you haven't the first clue what "frivolous" means in this context. (Hint - it has nothing to do with motivations.)

[The Lone Ranger]

The only reason someone would insist on calling a notion "scientific" and "mathematical" when the only way to justify the claim is to redefine the words so that they mean almost exactly the opposite of their true meanings is because they're trying to deceive.


Sadly for Lessans, few people are as stupid as he needed them to be.




And you do the same thing. You constantly insist that his work was "scientific" and "mathematical," but you only grudgingly add in the "... by Lessans' self-serving, completely bogus, totally invented definitions of what those words mean" when you're forced to.

Like him, you're trying to deceive. Your problem is that people aren't as stupid as you need them to be.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I guess he felt this knowledge fell in the category of being scientific in the sense that it is undeniable.

Now see? Here's a perfect example of your sublime ignorance.

No one who understands anything at all about what science is and how it's done could have written that sentence.

[Stephen Maturin]

That's in the category of being round in the sense that it is square.

[LadyShea]

A frivolous lawsuit is one which lacks legal merit. Being granted an audience with the sitting President is not any kind of legal right, so suing for being refused an audience lacks legal merit. Therefore frivolous.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Are you telling me that if this is a true discovery that will change the world, he can't use the term scientific discovery because he didn't use the right methodology?

Yes, without scientific methodology being employed, or applicable, a claim cannot be said to be scientific. For example your math equation that .5 = .5 is not a scientific claim at all, it's not an observation, nor is it a testable or falsifiable proposition. The numbers are just symbols for quantity...so why do you keep using it as an analogy?

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

How can anyone take him seriously in a thread that bashes him repeatedly without any justification?

How can anyone take him seriously at all when he wrote the things he wrote and did the things he did (like suing the POTUS)?

His being not taken seriously has nothing to do with bashing, and everything to do with his book.

You ignored my several questions regarding Lessans expectation of being granted an audience with people, that's one reason people will find it hard to take him seriously, it's an unreasonable expectation to have.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

You're going to have to accept the way Lessans used the terms "scientific", "undeniable", and "mathematical" or you're going to use this against him forever.

I most-definitely don't have to accept such transparent attempts at deception. And I won't. You and Lessans can claim that what he did was "scientific," "undeniable," and "mathematical" until you're blue in the face.


It's still a lie, though.

[Vivisectus]

That's not what I said. I said that the way to knowledge epistemologically speaking is not necessarily through the scientific method of starting with a hypothesis and testing it. That is not the only way Vivisectus.

And you take that to mean that you can just claim something and leave it at that? Because right now, all we have is your fathers word that it is so, and nothing else.

What matters in any scientific endeavor is finding out what is true. The round earth theory is much more compelling than the flat earth theory. You don't know enough about my father's claims to understand why he came to the conclusions he did, yet you're so sure he's just another flat earther. That's just not the case so stop making this comparison.

You don't know enough about how flat-earth theory to understand how they came to their conclusions, yet you are so sure they are just another Lessans! That just not the case, so stop making the comparison.

And indeed - we should find out of sight is efferent. Let us do a test: let us take a picture of the night sky with a camera and then look at it. If we see the same constellations on both, then that means it is not: it is an observation that is not compatible with efferent sight, and that proves sight is afferent. Job done!

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

Talk about getting old! I have read the book several times. That is how I know it contains no evidence. You know it too: that is why you can STILL not produce it.

I don't believe you for a second. You know nothing about this book except your ridiculous analogy: blame doesn't cause crime just as firemen don't cause fires. What's the two-sided equation Vivisectus? You really don't understand anything because you won't let yourself.

Believe what you want: it really does not matter. I did indeed read the wretched book, and now look at the thanks I get for putting myself through that eyebleedingly bad and clumsy prose.

By the way, do you remember how, if you use that standard, your own opinions on a wide range of subjects become worthless?

I know enough about the book to know that he promises, in chapter 4, to prove once and for all that sight is efferent. However, I am unable to find any such proof. Or any reason to assume it is so at all. The same is true for the book's stance on conscience: there is just as strong a case made for blame being what ultimately allows people to do bad things because it allows them to justify it, as there is for firemen being the root cause of fires.

He demonstrated why he believed the eyes are not a sense organ. Can you repeat what he was trying to explain?

First off: you are bullshitting again. He did no such thing. He just claimed that sight works a certain way and left it at that. Worse: he promised to prove sight works like he said, beyond a shadow of a doubt, but he never does.

Secondly, explaining what he tries to say about sight is hard to do because it makes so little sense and is poorly written, even by the standards of the book. There are many words and phrases which have idiosyncratic meanings, and he never establishes his definitions. At one stage he seems to be saying that when we first start to look at things as infant, we are reacting to other stimuli first, almost as if the brain needs to be alerted to the presence of something first in order to look at it. There is also a part where he feels we project words outward, like slides in a slide-machine, onto "A screen of undeniable essense", another of those wonderful phrases with absolutely no meaning. What is that screen of undeniable essence supposed to be?

And all this to come to the conclusion that what we do is project words on to reality, and that this is what sight is. A tortuous and rather silly excercise.

To get to that, he invokes the example of the sun being turned on, and explaining that we would see the sun immediately, but we would have to wait for the little molecules of light to reach the earth before we can see one another, because light is just a condition for sight, but not the cause of it. How and why this is so? Not a clue. It is once again not explained, just claimed and left at that.

Not true. You don't know what you're talking about. You're a liar when you say you read the book. Tell me how the new economic system will work.

I am not going to re-hash the whole book, as it is tedious in the extreme. the new economic system considers raising prices a hurtful action. There will be a baseline income for all that will allow people to live: if they want more they can work.

Now, about this evidence in favout of conscience? Why don't you get your copy out and find this evidence that you say is in there? But you cannot, can you?

Do you think I am going to be the only person to realize that this seems to have been forgotten?

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

So - why don't you produce the evidence you keep alluding to? The answer, as we both know, is that there is none, or you would have produced it a long time ago.

He provided evidence by correctly describing what he observed.

But I have described to you, in great detail, how the earth is flat! How it falls upward through space at a steady acceleration of 32 feet per second, creating the effect we call gravity. How the moon and the sun hover over it, and are much smaller and much closer than we think.

As in the analogy I gave, I am describing in great detail this animal to you that you have never seen. You keep telling me prove it. Show me the evidence. I can't show you anymore evidence until you see this animal for yourself. Then you will say my description was spot on.

Indeed. And until you produce your winged unicorn, I have no reason to assume it exists other than your belief that it exists. Only in this case, you have heard about the winged flying unicorn from someone else: your father. He said he saw a strange, far away country, and that this unicorn was in it. You like the story, and you want to believe him. Personally I take it with a grain of salt big enough to cause immediate dietary concerns. Afterall: all we have is his word on it. He could be hallucinating or lying.

By the same token, there's no other way to prove to you that what Lessans has described regarding conscience (and the eyes) is accurate until you see the validity of his observations for yourself. He also said that his observations regarding the eyes could be scientifically tested.

At least you have admitted there is no evidence. Are you sorry for lying?