From: Steele, Kirk A (SteeleKA@nafm.misawa.af.mil)
Date: Wed Jan 16 2002 - 17:54:27 MST
I had intended this to Carbon Copy to the open forum as well. My Bad.
-----Original Message-----
From: Steele, Kirk A
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 12:26 PM
To: 'ben'
Subject: RE: virus: A Gentle Parable of Biology, Aqua-keets and Miracles
Read what you said, carefully, then consider what I say.
-----Original Message-----
From: ben [mailto:ben@machinegod.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 10:48 AM
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: Re: virus: A Gentle Parable of Biology, Aqua-keets and Miracles
[ben 0] Whether or not the Vedics specifically did it is outside the scope
of
my point
[Hermit 0] But that is the crux of my point.
[ben 1] Granted, my question is more about the nature of your point and its
delivery than the content therein. I don't know enough about ancient math to
have a qualified opinion on the matter, so I choose to have none at all.
What's more, I find myself less and less concerned as this drags on. What
does interest me is the impression I get that just as a believer will cloud
their vision subconciously to avoid confronting that which threatens to
disprove his comfy worldview, a disbeliever will also do in order to avoid
having to give credit to a believer. There have been pious scientists the
world over...
[kirk] we can just stop right here. the crux, the precedant, the substrate
from which objection herein lies is contained in Ben's very reasonble
admission
"I don't know enough about ancient math to have a qualified opinion on the
matter, so I choose to have none at all."
What Hermit and I have been forwarding all along is just that,
QUALIFICATION. Without peer reviewable, verifiable, and repeatable evidence,
then what ONE self ASSERTS is done on the basis of PERSONAL BELIEF. And when
same assertions are couched in COMPLETELY informal language, usage and
association; anyone that is being asked to examine said assertions should,
under the conventions of formal discourse regard such assertions as highly
suspect. Which, we have been.
Perception of proximity is a valid cause for suspicion. A brief historical
perspective can attest to that: "The earth is the center of the universe.",
"The earth is flat.", "Women are to serve man.", "Abortion is against the
will of god, unnatural and therefore immoral." ad nauseum, ad
infinitum......
An observer is asserting a personally held ideation as knowledge, without
external reference and therefore verifiablity, without concrete proof. This
is belief. And when it is used to forward science, vis a vis any formal
system of externally verifiable ideation and cognitions about repeatable
perceived events, then alarm bells start going off. LOUD alarm bells.
Hermit and myself are very rigorous in our application of formal
methodology. We are not closed from ideas that are not our own. We are,
however ardantly opposed to the misrepresentation of personal (within the
self only) ideations and cognitions as external (open to review and
verification) knowledge.
Now, Hermit summarily disected someone elses assertion of personal ideations
and cognitions about self proclaimed 'esoteric' knowledge. Hermit used an
ablative tunneling electron miscroscope to do so, for a scalpel would be as
dull to him as a stick would be to others. That tact is known as RIGOROUS
SCRUTINY. He has several decades more experience at it than I owing to my
educational hiatus. Is he flippant at times? Is he acerbic? Can he be
vitriolic? Is he the most fastidious deconstructionist of critical
argumentation that this forum has to offer? Is he fair in his application of
these rigors de guerre? The answer to the previous five questions is YES to
all of them. It is borne in the record of the archives. Study them as he
studies the missives of others. Apply to him the same rigor he applies to
everyone else. You will not find him wanting. This is not about personal
adulation or mental masturbatory miopia. This is simply asserting a standard
of critical discourse as being in the person of El Hermitano.
Granted, to be told that you, and your "scientifically proven" esoterisms
are a load of shiite does incur not so pleasant emotive responses.
Especially when one has gone to the extensive trouble of ignoring critical
methods of formal discourse for so long. (By the way, there can be social
scripting of such avoidant dismissals of information that contradicts mass
belief systems.) The personal maintenance of a belief systems involves a
considerable amount of cognitive and emotive resources. So much so in fact
that it is fairly common to see borderline personality disorders;
dysfunctional cognitive schema and scaffolding; and avoidant cognitive
coping coupled with aggressive emotive responses.
Courage and zealotry may be easily confused by the inneffectual or
inexperienced observor. Both seek the same basic tact in the relentless
pursuit of a goal. Both will endure great personal sacrifice towards this
end. Both recognize that their convictions are likely to place them in
sanctionable regard with their community. But one one does so out of EXTREME
EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT (which was the bigger picture I was hinting at a couple
of days ago by asking the question WHICH WAS NEVER ATTRIBUTED BY ME to be
associated with the mating habit/marriage question; merely assumed by
others) to ones convictions. The other is done as a result of extensive
reasonable, publically verifiable, perceptually repeatable knowledge, NOT
BELIEF!
Have the courage of your convictions, have the courage to allow them to be
reviewed; but foremost, have the integrity to avail your ideas and
cognitions to public scrutiny and possible subsequent revision. Without
these, you are in Kleig lit land of fluffy bunnies and gator bait.
Mon Ami
Tchus
Kirk Steele
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