A revolution in thought

[LadyShea]

It's not woo at all. It's what allows the transference of DNA or the material that allows the next generation to be procreated. How can you say that this substance (albeit ephemeral sounding) is not necessary? How could sperm meet egg otherwise? Sperm just doesn't hop around looking for a sweeheart to impregnate. It needs a vehicle to get to her. In all seriousness, I truly don't know how to express this aspect without you telling me it's immaterial, and therefore nonsense.

Sperm travels in semen. Semen comes out thick, then thins considerably when it enters the vagina... and in the right conditions cervical mucus is present to help move it to the uterus and ultimately the fallopian tube that contains an egg.

So is the germinal substance the semen? The cervical mucus?

It sounds like woo because we know what all these fluids and substances actually are, and none of them seems to match the germinal substance you are describing, nor is an additional (extraneous) substance required for any of these things to happen.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

[

It's not woo at all. It's what allows the transference of DNA, or the germinal fluid [aka substance] that allows the next generation to be born. How can you say that this substance (which is not immaterial) is not necessary? How could sperm meet egg otherwise? Sperm just doesn't hop around looking for a sweeheart to impregnate. It needs a vehicle to get to her. In all seriousness, I truly don't know how to express this aspect without you telling me it's immaterial, and therefore nonsense.

A little biology? The egg moves down the Fallopian tubes due to the action of cilia lining the tubes and propelling the egg. The sperm swim thru the vaginal fluid to reach the egg. There is no need for some nebulous substance, or ether, to carry the egg and sperm to be together. The biology is well understood, as is the biology of the eye. 'Germinal substance' fall into the same category as 'efferent vision', pure woo.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Actually, you spent pages insisting that while we see things immediately, a camera must wait for the light to arrive, and so does not "see" things as they happen. You were most insistent on that point, up to and including insisting that we would be able to see distant events that we could not yet photograph, since the light had not yet reached us and so the camera could not function (but the eyes could, somehow).

You spent pages insisting on that. All the while ignoring the fact that it's easily demonstrated that this is not the case.

Until you realized that this wasn't what Lessans had said. At which point you immediately switched positions.

But people were asking her all kinds of questions that she was not prepared for. It confused her. You really can't hold her responsible for things that she wrote while she was confused. Oh, wait, that pretty much includes everything she has posted in this thread.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I said I came here because I needed people who had the intellectual capacity to understand this work.

The problem, for you, is that you found those people. You need to start aiming a little lower if you want to get any traction.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Sperm just doesn't hop around looking for a sweeheart to impregnate. It needs a vehicle to get to her.

That '52 Studebaker worked just fine for my parents. They didn't need no stinkin' germinal substance.

Originally Posted by peacegirl (quoting Lessans)

From a superficial observation this is all very true, but the
reasoning as to what actually happens after your death is an inference
based upon your observations during your life.

It is a problem when we make inferences based on our observations, but when Lessans does it it becomes an undeniable truth. Could he be any more arrogant and condescending?

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I have to trust some sources and take my chances.

Just not any of the ones that flatly contradict Lessans' claims. Those are clearly unreliable and are probably based on biased experiments and skewed data.

[Doctor X]

So, peacegirl, what does this "germinal substance" taste like?







What?

--J.D.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Aren't there internet checkers who make sure these definitions are correct, or remove them altogether if they are no longer used?

Holy shit. Wow, just wow.



peacegirl probably thinks that's why her daddy's book is still online, because it got the Internet Checkers' Seal of Approval.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by davidm

peacegirl probably thinks that's why her daddy's books is still online, because it got the Internet Checkers' Seal of Approval.

Would that be a Fur, Harp, Lepord, or just a baby?

[davidm]

We do not have a seal smilie.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by davidm

Holy shit. Wow, just wow.
peacegirl probably thinks that's why her daddy's books is still online, because it got the Internet Checkers' Seal of Approval.

Isn't that a game played on a board with 64 squares and a bunch of round things?

But to play you need efferent vision and a lot of woo.

[davidm]

We do not have a "checkers" smilie.

[thedoc]

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there are no Internet Checkers.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; are there Internet Checkers?

"Peacegirl."

PEACEGIRL, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Peacegirl, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Peacegirl, there are Internet Checkers. They exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the Internet if there were no Internet Checkers. It would be as dreary as if there were no PEACEGIRLS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Internet Checkers! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the internet forums on every site to catch Internet Checkers, but even if they did not see Internet Checkers posting, what would that prove? Nobody sees Internet Checkers, but that is no sign that there are no Internet Checkers. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, PEACEGIRL, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Internet Checkers! Thank God! they live, and they live forever. A thousand years from now, Peacegirl, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, they will continue to make glad the heart


PS, My sincerest apologies to anyone concerned.

[davidm]

Ooh! I found a good smilie for Internet Checker, surfing the Web to wipeout WRONG material!

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Sperm and ovum can't get to each other without a medium.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

The medium is semen. Is semen the germinal substance?

This is what he said, and I'm going to leave it at that. I can't believe I'm giving you all this on a silver platter and no one appreciates it.

I’m going to clarify this difficult relation a little more.
Let us go back to the time just before you were conceived. We shall
let A represent all the sperm pertaining to mankind, B all the ova, and
the combination of one with the other will be designated C which is
you, your potential consciousness of existence. Your parents have
decided to create a child. This is you, but you don’t know this yet,
nor do they know whether you will be a boy or girl or what other
characteristics you may have. You might be the first child, second,
third, fourth, fifth, and so on.

Now remember, you are not born yet
so you cannot possibly be conscious of your existence, but you are a
potential candidate for this consciousness. As luck would have it, you
die during your uterine journey when your mother has a miscarriage
which means that the conditions are exactly as they were before.
Consequently, you are not conscious of your existence because your
body was never born to give you this and therefore the relation
expressed in these words — ‘he died, she died, or it died,’ would have
no meaning where you are concerned (only those who are living),
because you just died, and your existence is absolutely necessary for
the relation.

Now this potential mother and father still want their
first baby — they want YOU — which word symbolizes human living
substance, so they try again, but this time you are born only to die
one month later of a heart problem. Still persistent and having a lot
of fun they try again with viable success but 18 years later you end up
in a car accident where you die. Much older now, but still capable of
propagating, mom and dad are not satisfied to lose YOU, so they try
once more to bring YOU into existence. In actual reality, though
heredity differences exist between the three C’s, the word YOU is a
designation only for the viable substance that comes into the world
and is identified with a name to establish these differences which mom
and dad grow to love.

But what is the difference between the potential
YOU who died during the uterine journey, the YOU who died one
month after birth, or the YOU who died 18 years later? Because you
are conscious of your existence and individuality during those years in
the present, write a book, build a home, make a lot of friends who cry
when you die, doesn’t take away from the fact that you are a
combination of A and B which continues in existence even while you
are alive, and regardless of what happens to C.

Consequently, the
consciousness of your individuality without understanding that you
are not only C, which represents the hereditary differences that die,
but the germinal substance A and B which never die because they are
carried along from generation to generation and when united develop
into your existence, makes you perceive an improper relation. Simply
because the entelechy of A and B develops into the consciousness of
C, which permits the recognition of individuality, does not negate the
substance from which C is derived.

Even if all the individual
characteristics lie potential in the germinal substance, this still has
nothing to do with consciousness which is not an individual
characteristic like your face. The word ‘I’ or ‘you’ not only reveals this
individual difference between yourself and others, but your
consciousness of this. There is no actual difference between the
potential YOU who died one month after birth, the YOU who will die
in a relatively short period of time, or the YOU who lived for many
years. If you had died a hundred thousand times in the uterus of
somebody, eventually YOU, which is a word describing the
consciousness of differences about yourself after your parents create
you, would have been born.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

It is the testes that keeps the sperm alive and the ovary that creates mature eggs during ovulation. This material where A and B are kept to form C (the individual) is what Lessans has coined "the germinal substance." It's what holds the DNA of all mankind so that the next generation can continue the circle of life.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

What do you mean "the material where A and B are kept"? Why are you being so cryptic? The "material" that comprises ovaries and testes is just regular human tissue, like any other organ. What "material" keeps or holds the blood? What "material" keeps and holds brain cells?

All he meant by germinal substance is the substance that holds the potential for human life.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

What do you mean it "holds" the DNA? DNA is found in every cell of every living thing. Does this germinal substance exist in every cell?

He was specifically talking about birth and death in relation to consciousness.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

All materials in the body have a name used by science and medicine to refer to them. Does the "germinal substance" have a name used by doctors and researchers to refer to it? If so, what is it. If not, then how can you continue to claim it is a discrete physical substance?

I hope you got something from the text I just posted. I can't explain it better than he did.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

This germinal substance has mass. It's not beyond the physical.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Then tell me its name and where it can be found.

He was making a distinction between A (the sperm) and B (the ovum) as the potential consciousness that is everpresent, from C (the individual consciousness that is derived from A and B). He was explaining a concept more than a physical thing.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

The ovary holds the immature egg, doesn't it?

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Yes. So the ovary is the germinal substance? Why make up a fluffy and imprecise new name for an organ instead of using the common terminology?

Because he is trying explain a very difficult concept.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

This is not woo woo.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Then quit using woo woo terms to describe and define it

The sperm and egg each contain 23 chromosomes which are strands of DNA. So the germinal substance is the chromosomes?

You are missing the point LadyShea. He was using this term to symbolize the difference between potential and actuality. That's all.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

No, it just means you're too close to the issue to see it in total perspective. It's like looking at parts of an elephant but not being able to identify it because you can't see it in total.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

You can't explain what else there is to see. Germinal substance remains undefined in anything but woo terms "the stuff that holds the egg"? What kind of a description is that?

You are doing the same thing here that you did in Chapter One. You are not grasping what he's trying to explain because you are too myopic. You are scrutinizing the meaning of this phrase to such an extent, that you are losing the entire gist of what he's trying to express.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

And consciousness is the product of an individual living brain, for he says that we can only see this world through our very own eyes (or brain), so how could you say that this is what he said?

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Then who or what is born again and again if consciousness emerges and ceases with an individual's brain tissue?

A human being is born. You're getting mixed up because you're still trying to connect the person who died with the person who is born. You can't do that.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

It doesn't sound like woo to me.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Well then you don't understand the difference between woo and scientifically valid explanations of physical substances and processes.

You're trying to fit a circle into a square, and that's why you're having trouble.

[LadyShea]

You claimed it was a physical substance that had mass. You claimed it physically held the sperm and the egg. You claimed it was the vehicle for sperm. Now you are backpedaling and saying it's "potential consciousness" which is meaningless woo and has no business trying to call itself science or math. Then you resort to blaming me for your inability to define or explain it.

Insolitology - the Woo-Woo Credo

Originally Posted by WooWooCredo

12. Always claim that the other guy is "closed-minded" and that you're as free-thinking as a newborn baby. Other woo-woos love the concept of "open-mindedness" and will take you into their inner circle without question. They have no tolerance for those "mean old nasty" types who demand evidence for everything.

22. Refer to anyone who does not immediately agree with you as being uneducated on the matter, lacking in important information, or just plain too stupid to understand your magnificent statements.

27. When questioned, be sure to exclaim "They laughed at Galileo, too!"

36. Quote Einstein, and do so often. Quote things he said if possible, but Einstein has been dead for ages now and so it's permissible to bring him up to date. Change the odd word here and there to make it clear that Einstein would have supported your argument if only he knew what you know. Act as if any arbitrary Einstein quote supports your position.

This whole thread has been worth it though, for Internet Checkers. That's a keeper


Oh look the WooWooCredo addresses that too

31 Whenever you read something on the Internet, re-post it as fact. Never bother to do even basic research into the matter.

[LadyShea]

A human being is born. You're getting mixed up because you're still trying to connect the person who died with the person who is born. You can't do that.

You are positing that "we" are born again and again without "us" being born again and again. You can't do that.

[Vivisectus]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Huh? It's obvious that time is based on measurable units, but that doesn't mean that time exists outside of our subjective experience. In other words, without you feeling time moving on, there would be no objective time.

So the clock would not record time without an observer? The atoms would not vibrate at a fixed rate anymore?

[Vivisectus]

It's not woo at all. It's what allows the transference of DNA, or the germinal fluid [aka substance] that allows the next generation to be born. How can you say that this substance (which is not immaterial) is not necessary? How could sperm meet egg otherwise? Sperm just doesn't hop around looking for a sweeheart to impregnate. It needs a vehicle to get to her. In all seriousness, I truly don't know how to express this aspect without you telling me it's immaterial, and therefore nonsense.

So "Where babies come from" is another subject on which you lack basic knowledge, but nevertheless feel you and your dad can speak about with authority.

The next step in these matters, if you follow standard Woo procedure, is to describe it as a spiritual concept rather than something material. That means absolutely nothing, but sounds a lot better than "We don't really know what we were talking about".

[davidm]

Al Gore








Internet Checkers (actual size)


Internet Checkers to Check Internet for Wrong Stuff

FREETHOUGHT-FORUM.COM (Internet News Service) — Internet Checkers will roam the Internet, checking for wrong stuff and deleting it when found, it was announced Saturday.

The announcement was made by Al Gore, the inventor and owner of the Internet, during an online news conference.

“I personally spend 18 hours a day surfing the Net checking for wrong stuff,” Gore said. “But the task has grown too big for me. When I invented the Internet it was just a few Mom and Pop pages. Now it has grown to billions and billions and billions of pages, just like the stars in the sky. I don’t have time for this shit anymore.”

The Checkers, little bandy-legged robots less than half an inch tall, will be deployed by the billions into the tubes that hold the Internet together. Roaming from page to page via the tubes, they will quickly scan each page and delete wrong stuff when found.

“Wrong stuff is bad, and bad stuff is wrong,” Gore said.

Gore said the first target of the Internet Checkers will be an online book entitled, “Decline and Fall of All Evil: The Most Important Discovery of Our Time.”

“The Checkers have scanned the book and determined that every word on every page is wrong,” Gore said. “So it will be removed from the Internet immediately.”

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

We already had to consign Einstein's special relativity to the large heap of things that cannot be right at the same time as this book. Along with neurology and optics.

Not true. There's only one thing that changes, and that is the direction we see. It does not change optics. And where does neurology come into play? As far as SR, I'm still not sure if it's a contradiction.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

They just all miraculously work while being completely wrong, just like camera's are nothing but light detectors, but magically and mysteriously do not need to wait for light to reach them to take a picture

That's not true either. The fact that light has reached the camera indicates that the object that is reflecting said light is close enough and bright enough for a picture to be taken. You still don't get it, do you?

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

on account of us designing them as light-detectors, but accidentally making efferent machines in stead, without noticing. These machines furthermore work exactly as if they were not efferent through some amazing coincidence.

Cameras are not efferent or afferent because there's no incoming stimuli. There's only light being reflected off of an image or object that the camera uses to take a picture.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

Simply ignoring the problems of presentism vs eternalism is small potatoes by comparison.

Don't you know it.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

That's not true either. The fact that light has reached the camera indicates that the object that is reflecting said light is close enough and bright enough for a picture to be taken. You still don't get it, do you?

Aww, isn't that precious? Vivisectus, you still don't get it, do you? Your little chimpanzee mind is no match for the titanic intellect of Her Royal Highness, I guess.

Hey, pissgirl, did you forget about this post?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

It is sometimes called a binary trap - presenting something as an on-off state that cannot really be presented as such. It is something Lessans seems to have been particularly prone to, as he divided all actions into "Harmful" or "Not Harmful" while in reality acts can be harmful, not harmful or neutral from the relative points of view of different people.

Wrong again. He stated very clearly that a hurt is when somebody does something to another that they don't want done to themselves. If a person doesn't consider something hurtful, then the action is not a hurt.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

Consider the division between living and dead matter. It looks clear-cut, but it is not - there are micro-organisms and even chemicals that display some of the features of life, but not all. In the end, the term "life" is a sort of short-hand for a process that we can observe, often without fully understanding it. Many words and concepts are vague like that, and they can lead to misunderstandings such as these.

All I'm saying is that once the process is over, and all the micro-organisms, chemicals, and life processes cease to function, then we are pronounced dead. We are put in the ground because there is no more life. Until that time, we are alive. Can you agree with that at least?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

Aww, isn't that precious? Vivisectus, you still don't get it, do you? Your little chimpanzee mind is no match for the titanic intellect of Her Royal Highness, I guess.

Hey, pissgirl, did you forget about this post?

I never called anyone a chimpanzee davidm.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by davidm

“Wrong stuff is bad, and bad stuff is wrong,” Gore said.

.”

Will they also be eliminating tautologies?

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I never called anyone a chimpanzee davidm.

Hey, pissgirl, did you forget about this post?

[Vivisectus]

[quote]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Not true. There's only one thing that changes, and that is the direction we see. It does not change optics. And where does neurology come into play? As far as SR, I'm still not sure if it's a contradiction.

It has been explained to you many times that it does. You just ignore the evidence, stick your head in the sand and proclaim it wrong without explaining the why and how of it.

That's not true either. The fact that light has reached the camera indicates that the object that is reflecting said light is close enough and bright enough for a picture to be taken. You still don't get it, do you?

Your enormous willful ignorance on the subject is clear to everyone but you, peacegirl. The camera records light, and nothing else. This is how they were designed. Tiny little light-detectors receive light, and then translate this into a dot of a certain color and brightness on a screen or a photo or in a memory-bank. Look at a digital camera. It will say "10 MegaPixel" - meaning it has that many little dots to make up the image with. The more little dots - the sharper the image.

Each of those little dots is made by a tiny little light-receptor that records the color and brightness of the light focused on it.

So by definition they have to wait for the light to reach them. It is what they do. I really cannot believe that you could possibly fail to understand this - you must actually be ignoring it.

Cameras are not efferent or afferent because there's no incoming stimuli. There's only light being reflected off of an image or object that the camera uses to take a picture.

Ah yes I forgot. They work by magic.

Please see above for an explanation of how camera's actually work. For the hundredth time you will no doubt ignore it because this is easier than re-examining your dogma.

Don't you know it.

As you can see above, the amount of reality that must be ignored is much greater, because it is easier to understand and much plainer. Eternalism vs presentism is much more complex - much easier for you to ignore.

[Vivisectus]

[quote]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Wrong again. He stated very clearly that a hurt is when somebody does something to another that they don't want done to themselves. If a person doesn't consider something hurtful, then the action is not a hurt.

And yet actions can have an effect on more than once person. One may deem it harmful, a second beneficial, a third neutral. Thus the division between harmful and not harmful is a binary trap - it represents something as an on or off state that does not exist like that in reality.

All I'm saying is that once the process is over, and all the micro-organisms, chemicals, and life processes cease to function, then we are pronounced dead. We are put in the ground because there is no more life. Until that time, we are alive. Can you agree with that at least?

That is not the point - I was discussing the binary trap, not really discussing the difference between life and death. What I am saying is that we find it useful to make a division between stuff we call alive and stuff we call dead, but since our definition of the two states is vague, we have to be careful when trying to use the existence of this division which we invented to draw conclusions.

Humans have a knack for considering more or less arbitrary divisions they invented to organize the universe as universal truths.