A revolution in thought

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I already offered that as a suggestion. I said that if the only way to get you to read the book is to think of it as science fiction, then maybe that's a good way to approach it. At least you'll read it. Hopefully it will take the pressure off to critique this work (which is causing serious problems), and instead, enjoy it. If it's read the way the author intended it to be read, maybe an interesting discussion will follow. Otherwise, we're at a dead end.

I have rather stringent requirements when it comes to reading fiction. The writing should be competent and the story line should be interesting. Lessans' book fails on both counts.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Through photoreceptors, and through light that is a necessary condition. Doc, I really don't want to answer anymore sight questions at this time. I need a break from this discussion. I'm sure you can understand why.

Isn't it charming how she uses the yawn smilie -- she is so preposterous as to suppose she is stating an evident fact, and is bored with repeating it to us slow people.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by davidm

You want us to read the fucking thing twice??

But you don't understand, David. We're supposed to read it as a work of "science fiction." Doing that will "take the pressure off to critique this work," which is vitally important cuz all this pesky critiquing "is causing serious problems[.]"

Hell, if we read the book "the way the author intended" we'll even "enjoy it." Never mind the fact that Lessans' breathtakingly poor command of the English language renders reading that aggressively malodorous pile of shit as enjoyable as washing your eyeballs with lemon juice and a cheese grater. Simply read the book with the faith of a little child and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

[davidm]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

But you don't understand, David. We're supposed to read it as a work of "science fiction." Doing that will "take the pressure off to critique this work," which is vitally important cuz all this pesky critiquing "is causing serious problems[.]"

Hell, if we read the book "the way the author intended" we'll even "enjoy it." Never mind the fact that Lessans' breathtakingly poor command of the English language renders reading that aggressively malodorous pile of shit as enjoyable as washing your eyeballs with lemon juice and a cheese grater. Simply read the book with the faith of a little child and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

Actually, though, as I said early on, parts of it are very, VERY funny. The rumpy-pumpy on the dinner table, the letter to Nixon, the lawsuit against Carter, his descriptions of his earnest but failed interactions with the dreaded Men of Higher Learning, his lecturing of Will Durant, the dramatic way in which he revealed that in the future, husbands and wives would sleep in separate beds after sexual intercourse -- all this and much more very often provokes

Of course, none of it is intentionally funny, but you can't have everything.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

.
.
.
.






Does this make it easier for you to understand that information is somehow passing between two points when we see?

Seeing is the acquiring of information about the object being seen. The brain does other stuff with the information it acquires, but seeing is the act of acquiring. Information has been transferred.

You are purposefully making yourself look like the stupidest of morons by continuing to claim you don't understand or accept this simplest of facts.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by thedoc

I see with my little eye, - light!

??

[naturalist.atheist]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

I'm well aware of the hypothetical existence of tachyons, TYVM. I'm also aware that there's no known mechanism by which they could be used for FTL communication.

That may be the case but as far as SR is concerned information in imaginary mass space could be transmitted faster than light.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by naturalist.atheist

That may be the case but as far as SR is concerned information in imaginary mass space could be transmitted faster than light.

Is this 'imaginary mass space' anything like Lessans 'Imaginary discoveries' leading to his 'imaginary Golden Age', based on 'Imaginary efferent vision'?

[naturalist.atheist]

Originally Posted by thedoc

Is this 'imaginary mass space' anything like Lessans 'Imaginary discoveries' leading to his 'imaginary Golden Age', based on 'Imaginary efferent vision'?

I have no idea. But I suspect imaginary mass space is more likely to be real than Lessans imaginings. At least there is some physics involved with imaginary mass space.

[erimir]

Only 17 posts til 6000!

[Vivisectus]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

But you don't understand, David. We're supposed to read it as a work of "science fiction." Doing that will "take the pressure off to critique this work," which is vitally important cuz all this pesky critiquing "is causing serious problems[.]"

Hell, if we read the book "the way the author intended" we'll even "enjoy it." Never mind the fact that Lessans' breathtakingly poor command of the English language renders reading that aggressively malodorous pile of shit as enjoyable as washing your eyeballs with lemon juice and a cheese grater. Simply read the book with the faith of a little child and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

It is true, though, Dear Doctor Maturin. Everyone knows it is MUCH more enjoyable if you just try to relax and enjoy it. Try having a drink first, and maybe give a good cough when trying to penetrate the more difficult subject matter.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

I have rather stringent requirements when it comes to reading fiction. The writing should be competent and the story line should be interesting. Lessans' book fails on both counts.

I can't blame you for what you desire to read or not to read. I said you can either read the book to see if it is a genuine discovery, and that was out because he didn't provide empirical data, which automatically makes his whole book nothing more than an opinion in your eyes. I then said read it as if it were science fiction in order to take the pressure off; and now you're saying that's out too. So I don't see any other options except not to read the book. You are obviously setting it up so you won't have to read the book, probably because you really don't think it's a worthwhile undertaking. That's up to you, my friend. But you will be missing out on a treasure.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

You want us to read the fucking thing twice??

Yes, the more you read it, the easier these concepts will become.

Foreword: Decline and Fall of All Evil: The Most Important Discovery of Our Times.

<snip>

In view of the fact that the first two chapters must be studied
thoroughly before any other reading is done not only because it is a
key that will unlock a door to the greatest treasure in the history of
mankind, but also because the rest of the book, though much easier,
will not make any sense otherwise, a table of contents has been
omitted to preclude as much as possible someone opening the book at
random or reading in a desultory manner. Should you jump ahead
and read other chapters this work could appear like a fairy tale,
otherwise, the statement that truth is stranger than fiction will be
amply verified by the scientific world, or by yourself, if you are able to
follow the reasoning of mathematical relations.

If you find the first
two chapters difficult, don’t be discouraged because what follows will
help you understand it much better the second time around. There
is some repetition for the purpose of reinforcing important points and
extending the principles in a more cohesive fashion, but despite all
efforts to make this work easier to understand it is still deep and will
require that you go at a snail’s pace reading many things over and over
again. When you have finally grasped the full significance and
magnitude of this work and further realize there has never been, and
will never be, another like it because of what is undeniably achieved,
you will cherish it throughout your entire life.

Well, would you like to see what happens when science, the
perception and extension of undeniable observations, takes over the
problems of human conflict as the result of a fantastic discovery?
Would you like to see that the mankind system has been obeying an
invariable law just as mathematically harmonious as that which
inheres in the solar system; a law that allowed a prophesy to be made
thousands of years ago and verified in the 20th century? Would you
like to learn, though this book has nothing whatever to do with
religion or philosophy, that your faith in God will finally be rewarded
with a virtual miracle, one that will shortly deliver us from all evil?

If
you are sincerely interested in seeing this fantastic transition to a new
way of life which must come about the moment this discovery is
thoroughly understood, all I ask is that you do not judge what you are
about to read in terms of your present knowledge but do everything in
your power to understand what is written by following the
mathematical relations implicitly expressed throughout. Please
remember that any truth revealed in a mathematical manner does not
require your approval for its validity, although it does necessitate your
understanding for recognition and development. And now my friends,
if you care to come along, let us embark; the hour is getting late.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

But you don't understand David. We're supposed to read it as a work of "science fiction." Doing that will "take the pressure off to critique this work," which is vitally important cuz all this pesky critiquing "is causing serious problems[.]"

That's not what I'm saying at all. You have to give this man a chance instead of pulling his book apart before it's even read. That's what I'm objecting to, not a genuine critique. My God, all he wanted was a thorough investigation, but you're not providing it the way you're going about it.

Originally Posted by David

Hell, if we read the book "the way the author intended" we'll even "enjoy it." Never mind the fact that Lessans' breathtakingly poor command of the English language renders reading that aggressively malodorous pile of shit as enjoyable as washing your eyeballs with lemon juice and a cheese grater. Simply read the book with the faith of a little child and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

Sometimes one's mind is so filled with information that they can't read without having that information intrude into an objective read. You've got to let go of your critiquing before the book is carefully read. You have not carefully read this book, so your judgment against it is based on nothing David. Nothing at all. You just don't like his discovery on efferent vision, so you highly resent him. That's really sad, especially that this doesn't contradict Einstein's theory of relativity.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

It is true, though, Dear Doctor Maturin. Everyone knows it is MUCH more enjoyable if you just try to relax and enjoy it. Try having a drink first, and maybe give a good cough when trying to penetrate the more difficult subject matter.

It is a difficult read if you've never thought in these terms. Stop making fun of it, and get down to brass tacks. You will be pleasantly surprised.

[peacegirl]

[quote=The Lone Ranger;952786]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I know this is off topic, but I found an interesting overview of the history of medicine, and I'd like to share it.

The History of Medicine:

2000 BC

Here, eat this root.

1000 BC

That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.

1805 AD

That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.

1940 AD

That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.

1985 AD

That pill is ineffective. Here, take this antibiotic.

2000 AD

That antibiotic doesn't work anymore. Here, eat this root...

Author Unknown

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

If that were accurate, you might have a point.

As it is, though, it's somewhere between slander and outright lying.

The Lone Ranger, lighten up. This was meant to be humorous. Maybe this discussion has gotten to you, and nothing seems funny.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Again, you're either lying outright or you're being idiotic.


"Seeing" is acquisition of information by definition. If you're seeing something, you're taking in information about it.

To take the hypothetical example Lessans used, when the Sun comes on, the information ("the Sun is now shining") originates with the Sun. You admitted this yourself. You even noted that it was obviously true.


When someone on Earth sees the light from the newly-ignited Sun, then just as obviously, his or her brain has acquired that information ("the Sun is now shining") -- by some means. It doesn't matter in the slightest how the information got from the Sun to his or her brain.


According to Lessans, the information ("the Sun is now shining") is acquired immediately.

According to Einstein, there is no way that the information can be acquired in less than 8.5 minutes.


They can't both be correct.

It is not about acquisition, which implies movement from one point to another. Yes, you're seeing the sun, but it's not being transmitted. If sight is efferent, and the sun is turned on and this event is within your visual field, it's automatically there on the screen. There is no travel time. Processing, or interpreting, the image of the sun involves other parts of the brain that is time related because it takes time to think, categorize, classify, put together, make sense out of, analyze, compare, create new ideas.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Boy, science sure is easy when one employs the Lessans Method.

Maybe I should have used that method. "I have observed 'X' and this proves 'Y'. No, I'm not going to bother to tell you about my methodology, nor am I going to share my data with you." I'll bet the evaluation committee would have been tremendously impressed.


My thesis and dissertation would have been a lot shorter, I can tell you that! Instead, I wasted all that time performing experiments, doing research, and gathering data. Silly me ...

Stop it right there. These observations took did not come out of thin air. He explained his reasons behind his observations, but you are totally dismissing them. That's not the way an investigator should be. You need to understand the origins of his findings which did not come from data collection. I feel a tremendous resentment in here, and that's unfortunate because it will prevent you from making an honest effort to understand his work.

[LadyShea]

Please lay out Lessan's argument for why man's will is not free, in some recognizable format (rather than imaginary dialog) without using fallacious reasoning.

Lessan's reasoning was not sound in my opinion. How is anyone to read the whole book uncritically when the very first chapter and principle is not even rationally presented.

Do you not see the problem with what you are asking us to do? Many teens read Atlas Shrugged and internalize and espouse the Objectivist/Libertarian philosophy of Ayn Rand. It's a fictional novel, yet a number of people find a worldview in it. Did you? Why not?

Many people read the Bible or the Koran and find truth in them. Did you? Why or why not?

Many people read the fictional story, The Celestine Prophecy, and again found truth and espoused a worldview because of it. Did you?

You have given us no reason to assume Lessans was more correct than anyone else. Lessans did not lay out his reasoning to give us any reason to assume he was correct.

Start there.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

Actually, though, as I said early on, parts of it are very, VERY funny. The rumpy-pumpy on the dinner table, the letter to Nixon, the lawsuit against Carter, his descriptions of his earnest but failed interactions with the dreaded Men of Higher Learning, his lecturing of Will Durant, the dramatic way in which he revealed that in the future, husbands and wives would sleep in separate beds after sexual intercourse -- all this and much more very often provokes

Of course, none of it is intentionally funny, but you can't have everything.

Of course it's not intentionally funny, and it wouldn't be funny if you read the book the way it was supposed to be read. Because your only goal is to disprove this work at all costs, you will grab at anything, even if it's at the expense of the integrity of the work itself.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Please lay out Lessan's argument for why man's will is not free, in some recognizable format (rather than imaginary dialog) without using fallacious reasoning.

I will give you the page numbers, but you have to involve yourself in this process. It's very easy to put the responsibility on me, when you own half of that responsibility LadyShea.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Lessan's reasoning was not sound in my opinion. How is anyone to read the whole book uncritically when the very first chapter and principle is not even rationally presented.

Could it be that it is not rationally presented because you are seeing it that way? The fact that you are demanding something he never supported might make you an undesirable candidate because you are not seeing him in an authentic light. Answer me this: Why do they have to determine who the jury will be when the story becomes a national event? Because people are influenced, and that's what is happening here LadyShea. As smart as you are, you are being influenced by rhetoric.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Do you not see the problem with what you are asking us to do? Many teens read Atlas Shrugged and internalize and espouse the Objectivist/Libertarian philosophy of Ayn Rand. It's a fictional novel, yet a number of people find a worldview in it. Did you? Why not?

Many people read the Bible or the Koran and find truth in them. Did you? Why or why not?

Many people read the fictional story, The Celestine Prophecy, and again found truth and espoused a worldview because of it. Did you?

Yes I did, many years ago, and it didn't do that much for me.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

You have given us no reason to assume Lessans was more correct than anyone else. Lessans did not lay out his reasoning to give us any reason to assume he was correct.

Start there.

LadyShea, you really are spot on, and I so appreciate your analytical skills. In fact, without someone like you, this discovery may never be brought to light. I don't mean to put pressure on you personally, but it will take someone like you to really examine what this man has uncovered. The problem is, in order to do this, people have to meet me halfway, which no one is doing. I asked you to read the book step by step, which you obviously never did. And that is the crux of the problem. I will answer any questions people have after they have met this requirement, not before.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I will answer any questions people have after they have met this requirement, not before.

1. Fuck off.

2. Is noticing that God turned on the Goddamned sun, so that the sky goes from all black to having a huge fucking light in the sky, information acquisition, or not?

3. What does relativity say about the limits to information acquisition?

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Stop it right there. These observations took did not come out of thin air. He explained his reasons behind his observations...

He did? Where?

Post the passages.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by naturalist.atheist

That may be the case but as far as SR is concerned information in imaginary mass space could be transmitted faster than light.

Tachyons are irrelevant to peacegirl's claims. She claims that if God turned on the sun at time x, then observers on earth would see the sun at time x, without a delay of 8.5 minutes for photons to arrive.

If tachyons existed and could be detected, and if the sun gave off tachyons along with photons, then observers on earth would see the sun before it was turned on, which is inconsistent with peacegirl's idiotic "real time seeing" also.

[davidm]

Speaking of tachyons, there is a very fine novel by Gregory Benford about people in 1962 receiving tachyon telegrams from 1998: Timescape. In addition to be a suspensful and well-plotted, it was written by a scientist, so the physics involved is very plausible.

See? We can learn something even from this thread.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

Isn't it charming how she uses the yawn smilie -- she is so preposterous as to suppose she is stating an evident fact, and is bored with repeating it to us slow people.

I never implied that. That is in your head only.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

Speaking of tachyons, there is a very fine novel by Gregory Benford about people in 1962 receiving tachyon telegrams from 1998: Timescape. In addition to be a suspensful and well-plotted, it was written by a scientist, so the physics involved is very plausible.

See? We can learn something even from this thread.

You still seem to think there is a conflict with real time vision and the theory of relativity. There isn't, but I'm glad you are getting something from this thread even if it's not the intended purpose.