The Japan air incident 20+ years back was something I hadn’t heard about recently and I was startled by the witnesses and concurring radar evidence. I dug deeper into some of the higher evidence quality cases like the recent mass sightings in Israel and the startling possibility started to dawn on me that we may be being watched by ETs or the military has some pretty serious shit they aren’t telling us about.
My mistake was having this conversation in the lunch room at work with various co-workers overhearing. I had one person who was bothered enough to go on the years dated “the only place to research is a library” rant. Interestingly all this evidence is sitting there I went and looked. —Do Research and Decide For Yourself
This article appears in Jul 26 – Aug 1, 2012.
*puts on tinfoil hat*
you beat me to it, scooter!
yes o.p., we are the watchers. and we are waiting for you humans to realize your mistakes in having wars and battles going on everyday on your planet. we have given your leaders til the end of your 12th. month, to stop all hostilities, or be wiped from the galaxy forever.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Oh, and did you hear? Nibiru has now entered the Solar System! Everyone say, ‘Hello Nibiru’.
Fact: G-4 Security, at the London Olympics is a subsidiary of Halliburton in whom The House of Saud are major shareholders.
Fact: 6 Months before the Royal Wedding last year, William & Kate were supposedly on holiday in Kenya. Actually, they were spirited across the border to an Al Qaeda training camp in Somalia, where their voluntary conversion to Islam was conducted by the personal Imam of Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, former Saudi Ambassador to Washington.
Fact: The Royal Wedding was attended by no less than 6 top level members of the Bilderberg Group, all of whom were,not coincidentally, 33rd dgree Scottish Rite Masons
Fact: Recently leaked N.S.A. decrypts reveal that, for the first time in 2 centuries, the Masons chose to invoke the Right of Primae Noctae. This was in fact A cover operation which concealed the impLanting of an ex-Khazakhstani Special Nuclear Demolition, or “Snuke” in Kate’s sniz. Time and place of detonation to be determined by The Council on Foreign Relations, but mostly likely to forestall a repeat of Canada’s record breaking medal haul at the Vancouver Olympics.
NOW, GET THE FUCK BACK TO WORK YOU LAZY SOD.
I for one welcome our new ant overlords.
There is a wealth of evidence but if there is anything to it I’m going to have to say it’s definitely experimental military flares or decoys and so on.
Don’t look at me. I voted for Kodos.
yah, and a lot of the stuff that’s ‘out there’ really is OUT THERE.
This is one of the most infuriating books I’ve ever read:
http://www.amazon.ca/Area-51-Uncensored-Am…
90% of it is an adequate, albeit superficial look at some of the nuts and bolts aerospace projects that have gone on in that part of the desert since the end of WW2. Interesting details about the developement of the U-2 and A-12 spyplanes. But for reasons only known to herself, the author utterly destroys her credibility with the most risible explanation for Roswell yet. Whoever her “anonymous government source” was, he has a great sense of humour.Suffice to say it involves: Stalin, Orson Welles, Josef Mengele and the Horten brothers prototype flying wing. Even Jesse Ventura would roll his eyes and guffaw “Jesus, What A Rube!”
It’s all an Illuminati Conspiracy, Ivan! The more incredible the rumours sound, the safer their plans are from public scrutiny
Of course – how could I have forgotten them.
As far as the J.A.L. incident, we’ll let this former governor and ex-Navy SEAL have the last word >; )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk5TCRQOxcY
haha, he was funny in this movie, big chin hole he’s got http://www.issuesandalibis.org/JesseVentur…
some people have nothing better to do than make up conspiracies. There is even a conspiracy now that the colorado shooter is not the guy they say he is but some foreign national hired by the government. Come on people….
William and Kate visited Obama’s home country? Awesome!
Hello nutjob, how are you? is your dunce cap propeller spinning counter clockwise?
I once believed in democracy, then Dexter happened….
Mulder!!! =) How the fuck are ya? I thought Cancer Man got you.
Is this the incident you refer to OP?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lin…
It’s hard to believe that any intelligence capable of travelling the cosmos and arriving on this planet would spend their time seeking out poor photographers and buzzing aircraft. The energy and cost of such an undertaking (on behalf of the aliens) would make it pointless. If they were here we’d know it.
The military does have some serious shit and a lot of it classified no doubt. Still not flying saucer serious, too much budget slashing going on in defense departments.
The romantic side of me likes the idea of time travellers. Whether they be probes or beings from the future of Planet Earth, the craft would have to have some stealth so as not to interfere with past events and influence the future. Certainly they could not contact us again because of that pesky time paradox thing. (You know if you could back in time and shoot your grandfather, would you cease to be and how could you shoot your grandfather if you never were). They would appear and disappear in thin air because, well, they are here but just at a different time.
However, time travel is theoretically impossible. To us. At this time.
So the mundane and probably correct answer is mistaken identity, exaggeration and/or flat out lying for the attention. Not as interesting to talk about though is it OP.
It’s military, you twit, and surprise it’s fucking secret. Give your head a shake. Remember the sighting of the “V” UFOs? Yup that’s right sonny, the F-117 and B-2 Stealth aircraft.
An alien race that has the technology to cross the cosmos to “spy” on us, leaves their fucking lights on so we can see them. Shit, if they had that technology they would take us over.
Private Ivan, the men in black will be contacting you shortly.
If these things flying around are ET they probably just stop to pick up supplies and leave on route to somewhere else. ETs don’t care or even know what we are. ETs just pick up water, absorb energy from certain areas of the magnetic field(who knows) and leave. I don’t think they are ET but then again anything is possible. Not ruling it out.
The Japan air incident was most likely ball lightning that was reacting to the charge of the metal plane and being pushed along ahead of it. The ball lightning looked like a solid object because it was dusk and there was light cloud blocking part of the intensity of the light of the ball lightning.
This from the evidence is my theory.
One time during a NATO War Game, we disguised a 366ft warship to look like a fishing trawler (at night) just by rearranging the navigational lighting.
So I say, that if ET is flying around, we wouldn’t know it, because they would be disguised as planes, satellites, or just be to stealthy to detect.
Cool Hugo. In both World Wars the Germans outfitted merchant ships with concealed guns and sent them out on long duration voyages to raid Allied shipping. The captains would frequently alter their vessels’ appearance with changing paint schemes and dummy funnels and superstructures made of wood and canvas.
Duly warned Ossifer Tim. Good to see you back on the beat.
“Be careful out there”
The scientists have recently discovered a parallel solar system, somewhere out in space there is a lineup of planets just like ours. There’s 2 with rings like Jupiter & saturn, there’s one planet that looks just like Earth! Maybe there is water and oxygen on it and people on it just like us! You never know, there might be another me or you somewhere on another planet. Anyway, I better stop this before I sound like more of a nutjob than you. You’re coworkers are gonna think your crazy if you keep voicing your pie in the sky ideas.
KLAATU BARADA NIKTO
I used to believe in Law and Order, then someone mentioned North Preston…..
http://www.sadanduseless.com/2012/08/ruine…
Brilliant Baz.
U.F.O. Sighted Over London, Wednesday. Seen by Thousands.
http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/polo…
I like Boris. The English Gary Busey.
Fucking Rob Ford can only dream to be that cool. And wanks tearfully into his pillow every night, because he’s not.
“Once man has ceased to believe in God he will then not believe in nothing. He will believe in anything.” (Montrealman)
By his nature man is “homo credens,” man the believer. Replacement beliefs for a lapsed belief in God include, among others, a belief in a Benevolent (or Indifferent) Nature, a belief in the Power of Love, a belief in the Primacy of the Nation-State, the Brotherhood of Man, the Triumph of the Proletariat, the Ineluctable Forces of History, in the Absurdity of Belief (which, of course, is just another belief), the Sanctity of the Family, the Existential Predicament or in the present case, Extra-terrestial Beings. But why must we believe? What is it about belief which demands, um, belief?
Saint Augustine once said, “Nisi crederitis, non intelligitis” (“Unless you shall believe, you shall not understand.”) What did he mean? He did not mean belief in any doctrinal sense, that one must accept and submit to the dogma of any church or sect but rather, perhaps paradoxically, that rationality itself is grounded in belief. It is a belief which, in the act of understanding, is not explicit or specifiable. It is rather an ever-present “background belief,” a belief that the world is comprehensible in some fashion or other, that it possesses meaning of whatever kind.
Take the preceding paragraph. While reading it you tacitly believe that you are correctly understanding the words, sentences and concepts it contains. Your belief, as it subsequently turns out, may be false but while reading it you believe in the accuracy of what you are reading. Not only that but you do not, in a separate but concurrent act of understanding, endorse your belief that your understanding of what you are reading is true. You just believe that it is so. After you have read it you might go back and reflect on whether your understanding of what you have read is true but, in the act of reading it this simultaneous reflection and endorsement is impossible. As the old saying goes, “You cannot scrutinize your spectacles while using them to scrutinize something else.” In other words, your conscious awareness of something cannot be, at that time, an explicit object of your conscious awareness. To attempt it is not to attain some higher level of conscious awareness but, rather, it is to invite intellectual paralysis.
“Nisi crederitis, non intelligitis.”
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
I believe yer full of the feces of a male bovine.
RSVP
: More (08/02, 6:00PM)
Well yes More, I understand what you believe. You believe my post was bullshit. That’s fair enough but it is not sufficient. I never suggested that simply uttering any belief, such as yours, was self-validating. There are those beliefs which are more or less defensible in the sense that reasons can be brought forward in their support and there are those beliefs for which no such reasons can be brought forward. They are called “false beliefs.” Your belief, until such reasons can be brought forward in its support, falls into the second category.
It is, as I’m sure you might have noticed, a very common logical failing on this site, that to simply assert a belief – such as yours – entails its validity, that its simple utterance endorses its truth. In effect More, your claim that my post is bullshit constitutes little more than an introduction to that claim. The content of that claim, of course, will determine its validity or not as the case might be. I, among others, await that content with anticipation.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Do you really believe that, MM? Or is that just your understanding of what you believe to be true?
I think the human condition is a relevant related topic to belief. Especially if knowledge of the external world can’t completely exist, that is, knowledge is in itself an absolute term that doesn’t correspond to the external physical world. All we know are numbers and geometry which we impose “logically” onto the world in a practical system that predicts the world to a practical end.
Yes there must be some order to the world but never underestimate how complex the factors and possibilities are.
This is the human condition. We can say that we don’t know and we can also imagine or hunch things up.
My hunch is that there is life out there. There are too many solar systems to say otherwise; and if there is a way to traverse unimaginable distances that we haven’t discovered yet than OF COURSE these beings would come and see us (if they know this travel method) we are as rare as them!
Whether or not that’s happening I won’t conclude until I wake up mid abduction on a space ship and get returned home in time for work.
If the ship sank and we ended up in a lifeboat with limited rations, the first fucker going over the side in the middle of the night would be Capt. Eyebrows.
“Custom of the Sea” Baz. We could always eat him.
“Eeeuuh! With a gammy leg?”
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O8OQEzyPg8s/T53O…
damn you captain, you beat me to it
Yes, I imagine there is life out there outside this planet, maybe even in our own solar system. In the atmosphere of Venus, underground in Mars, in the vast ocean of Jupiter’s moon Europa? Possibly.
As we send probes to the neighbouring planets looking for the possibility of life it might seem unlikely for these worlds seem inhospitable. That is for life as we know it. We only have one example of planetary life to study, our own.
As for ET, a highly technologically advanced civilization travelling the cosmos looking for worlds to study/plunder. That sounds like us. We’re branding our own behavior on possible alien culture. ET may have no interest in travelling the cosmos, too much to do at home, can’t afford it.
The path that has led to humankind is very specific. This planet has suffered a number of extinction events where life and their ecosystems have been decimated by some terrestrial or extraterrestrial calamity. A reset button of sorts. The dinosaurs came to dominate the planet following the Permian extinction event which wiped 90% of life on Earth 260 milliom y.o. and ,of course, the dinosaurs met their end as the dominant species when an asteroid slammed into the planet 65 million y.o.
or so it is believed.
Mammals survived that extinction event and came to dominate the planet themselves, evolving into various branches including primates, a very social tree-dwelling group. Which, of course, led to us. This template is very specific, this journey that led to us. To think that any technologically advanced neighbouring ET took the same or nearly the same journey, to me, is unlikely. Again, we’re primates, we’re social. Our distant ancestors called to each other from the treetops because they couldn’t see each other, so they evolved specific voices. The need to speak to they could identify who’s where. We innately have that need so when we send messages to outer space hoping for a reply, well, the monkey may be calling to a porpoise.
Will the porpoise find a way to seek out the monkey? Does the porpoise care?
That in a nutshell is the problem with ET for me.
RSVP
: Stephen Harper (08/02, 8:58PM)
A interesting question Stephen. Let’s have a closer look. You ask whether I really believe what I wrote
(08/02, 4:09PM – The posts are out of order so my habit of posting times and dates has borne fruit) or was it just my understanding of what I believe to be true.
Unfortunately Stephen, your question is incoherent. It illegitimately separates what I “really believe” from “my understanding of what I believe to be true.” In other words, my understanding of what I believe to be true is inseparable – is an integral part of – what I really believe. So the short answer to both your questions is, “Yes.” This is just another example of the foundational role of belief in the act of understanding. Put differently still, one cannot genuinely assert what one really believes while, in that act, doubting the truth of one’s own assertion.
Of course, the concept of belief currently has a bad reputation. Belief is equated with gullibility but it need not be so. My secular concept of belief relates not to some extra-mental state of affairs such as the existence of extra-terrestials to which I made reference in my introductory comments but rather to the structure of consciousness itself. Those comments were simply the run-up to my real concern, the role of belief in that structure of consciousness. I would be very interested in hearing your views about the structure of consciousnes, Stephen. Don’t hesitate to write.
I – and perhaps a few others – are still waiting to hear from More (08/02, 7:51PM). My guess is that he is busy beavering away, crafting his response as we speak.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
i worship the sun http://i.imgur.com/44cYg.gif
Troodon
I hear what your saying about instincts and the Monkey calling but differ in the opinion that there is an aspect of curiosity along with awareness and rationality that makes the motivation for the call different.
To put it simply the analogy misses important characteristics. I do know what you mean though.
painy, you a sun worshipper,wow? are you truly an honest to badness one, i like that. i like being nekkid too, and hate having to wear clothes. but anyway, back to e.t.’s, they would not really come here at all. the reason is simple, there is no intelligent life on this planet.
but now maybe, just maybe, as i have also said in the past. maybe they are a class on a field trip from the very far future. come back to see what we were lie, and all our killing ways.and maybe they do experiments on some [people’s brains, to see how they work. hell, we are doing that now in hospital labs and such.
but it still leads me to the main question, if they are here, why don’t they try to conceal themselves better? seems kind of stupid to hide the technology, then to openly let their time ships be seen, by people, and lots are seeing them. or it could be that the governments are really working on new weapons of destruction, and they fuck up sometimes, by their stealth tech. fucking off.
there is an answer someplace, but we might never know it, in our lifetime.which brings another question to mind, where are all the new bitches? haven’t seen any in a couple days now. everyone must be at the cottage then. me too, next week.
haha, yeah i worship the sun by staying in the shade^^without the sun we would all be dead…maybe not a bad idea for some humans http://sharetv.org/images/life_after_peopl…
Here you go Painey – A Ghrian – Hymn to the Sun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6aLGjuPpRQ
Rita Connolly from the Lorient Festival
thanks, gives me chills…good thing, it’s a sweaty shop today. beer countdown
Testify. When the pipes kick in – Hooo-AH!. I bailed from the Gulag at noon, got in some splashy-splashy at the lake and am knocking back a cold bevvy while grilling some sausages. Perfect summer repast.
As incoherent as this little gem! “Once man has ceased to believe in God he will then not believe in nothing. He will believe in anything.” (Montrealman). Better get to emailing Readers Digest, you may have a career at being a “Quotable Quotes” quotesmith. It’s a long road to success at 25 bucks a quote, but I’m betting you have enough self agrandizing bullshit stuffed into that swollen head of yours to keep you rolling in the dough for some time. I’ll start your creative juices flowing with this gem of my own. “He who believes in God, will believe in anything.”
(SHITTY-D).
I believe in a higher power, as in a higher power rate if Muskoil Falls gets the green light from the NDP, with their oh so astute Finance Minster/Social Worker – who in all that’s fucking wankish, has a fucking social worker as a Finance Minister???
I wish Graham Steele would form a party, at least he understands money and it’s responsibilities, unlike his former boos and our Dear Leader Ding Dong Dexter.
The pic of the 4 Musketeers signing the paper says it all – Huskilson is smiling and saying “well done, you fucking rubes”
I’m doing an Ivan and storming the deck, beer in hand and Johnsonville artery cloggers on the BBQ.
I’ll see you on the beach, Bazzer >: ) Otoberfests, poppy seed buns and a big carton of Tancook. Later I’ll listen to some nostalgic old Marches
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za5JbSHTo00
RSVP
: Stephen Harper (08/03, 6:02PM)
“He who believes in God will believe in anything.”
Well Stephen, I see that you have confounded “belief” with “credulity,” a fundamental error against which I cautioned in my previous post. My point Stephen, had nothing to do with any supernatural entity but rather everything to do with our everyday acts of simple cognition. My point Stephen, was to indicate that there is a “fiduciary component” in all our noetic acts, a component embodied in the structure of consciousness itself. It is not optional Stephen, something in which we may or may not choose to indulge. Epistemological belief Stephen, if you want to use that expression, is a structural necessity at the root of all our knowledge claims.
Write again when you have reflected on this Stephen. By the way, we’re still waiting to hear from More regarding his claim that all of this is bullshit. Come in More, come in. You mustn’t be shy.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Not since the advent of science.
Montrealman
Sorry to intrude on the conversation Mr Harper is the Devil but I don’t suppose you’re trying to tell MM that every person is subject to themselves and thus can’t escape this condition no matter how abstract one gets are you?….. leaving what is only faith or BELIEF in some sort of understanding at least??….. inevitably?
Stephen
He’ll just simply respond that he is talking philosophy not science. As he is.
Daniel
My basic point was that we as a species are hard-wired to seek out and communicate. This involves millions of years of evolution. A very unique situation that may not have played out elsewhere in the cosmos very often.
Back to time travel, I think I’ll take out an ad in advance in the August 11, 2015
edition of the local paper for a soiree at the Community Centre, free food and free booze. Except the date of the soiree will be August 11 2012 (next Saturday) see if anybody shows up. If they do, I’ll say “Aha! Time Traveller!”
Would that be conclusive proof?
Troodon
I’m not asking for proof I’m just saying that our call is more complicated and different. I like the whole (I place the theory into evolutionary psychology as you most likely do) behavioral thing we ARE primates. Anyways i don’t rule out our species acting out what is basically an instinct but wouldn’t it be cool if we received an answer!
I am aware that I have mixed subjects. Who knows how the aliens would respond????
RSVPs
: Stephen Harper (08/03/8:28PM)
Stephen, your reply was so cryptic that I wasn’t sure what it meant. However, your adulatory reference to science makes me believe that you subscribe to “scientism,” the view that science has the answers to all our questions and the the questions science doesn’t have the answers to just don’t matter. By pure coincidence I have just read a remarkable article by one Christopher Beha entitled “Reason for Living: The good life without God” (Harper’s Magazine, July 2012). He gives a wonderful refutation of “scientism” which I pass along for your scrutiny:
“It struck me that scientism’s complete inability to account for the central feature of human experience – consciousness – might be a failure more on the part of scientism than on the part of consciousness. If embracing scientism demands giving up the sole means we have for engaging with the world, it’s tough to see why one would believe in it, even if it’s true – particularly since the view itself eliminates any normative basis for treating truth as inherently better than falsehood.”
Beha points to a fundamental contradiction in scientism, that is, while it demands that only those questions amenable to scientific observation and experiment are “true” questions, scientism itself contains no “normative basis” to make such a claim. In other words, consistent scientism can make no judgements of value, can never claim that scientism is better than non-scientism because it is true rather than false. On the questions of truth and falsity, in other words, scientism must remain silent.
Today, of course, the vast majority of the population in in thrall to science as the panacea of all our ills. That is false. As Beha points out, not only must scientism be silent on questions of truth and falsity, its methods of observation and experiment are incapable of explaining consciousness, that by which such observation and experiment acquire their coherence in the first place.
Write back with your (expanded) thoughts.
: Daniel Abraham (9:52PM)
No.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
If any bitchers are watching the parade on Monday, I’ll be with the fine folks from Hal-Con. If you call out my name, I may give you a hug. ^^
if i see you i’ll shriek like a banshee^^
I don’t need to “believe” for “everyday acts of simple cognition”, so maybe thats why I misunderstood your previous post. Perhaps you could elaborate on why religion, and “believing” are better than science at explaining consciousness. As for Beha, it’s an opinion, like all things that have no definable scientific proof. People “believed” the earth was flat, until they were proven to be wrong. You don’t still believe the earth is flat, do you MM?
And yet many scientists believe in God. But to each their own. If I’m right, I get ressurected and you’re screwed. If you’re right then there is nothing but decaying meat. So I guess you’re saying that life on Earth (or elsewhere) is just an accident.
RSVP
: Stephen Harper (08/04, 3:14PM)
Three points Stephen:
1. Yes, you DO need to believe for everyday acts of cognition where by “belief,” as I have previously claimed, is not dogmatic religious belief but rather the simple fact that one necessarily affirms the truth of their own assertions. You believe – you affirm the truth of – the sentence you just wrote, don’t you Stephen?
2. You must distinguish between the objects of the natural world and those processes which, while they may depend upon the successful functioning of those objects, are not identical with them. So science may explain the functioning of my neurological components but it cannot explain their successful operation, i.e., the creative products of my MIND. For example, neurology may explain the operation of Shakespeare’s brain – his neurons and so on are functioning – but it cannot explain his “Hamlet” – the successful operation of his MIND which, of course, is not to be confused with his brain.
3. “As for Beha, it’s an opinion, like all things that have no definable scientific proof.”
Stephen, you ARE, as I suspected, a card-carrying scientist! Two points:
(1) Distinguish philosophy from science. Beha raised philosophical questions about the self-contradiction contained in the claims of the consistent scientist. While he (the scientist) maintained that science makes no value jusdements, he then claimed that science is better than anything else in providing explanations for human consciousness. “Better than,” Stephen. That is called a value judgement and, as a contradiction, undermines scientism’s entire position. Even scientism can’t rest upon a self-contradiction.
(2) Beha’s theory is not just “an opinion” because it has no definable scientific proof. For example, is your assertion quoted above just “an opinion” since it has no definable scientific proof and therefore having no claim to truth? You don’t believe that do you Stephen? In addition to being self-contradictory scientism also reduces all non-scientific explanation to matters of opinion, to matters of chocolate or vanilla either one of which or both of which can be dismissed out of hand. Which flavour is your sentence, Stephen? Which do you prefer?
Yes, of course I believe the earth is flat. Don’t you?
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
^^Chinese box analogy is good for part of what your saying.
RSVP
: Daniel Abraham (08/04, 4:41PM)
No it’s not.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
MM, please go back and reread your quote. Tell me if I’m wrong, but, it seems you base your hypothesis of belief around belief in God. My lack of belief in God has absolutely no bearing on what else I will or will not believe in. People who believe in god are limited to only their belief in God? Is it the freedom provided by the non belief in God that somehow triggers an unrelenting desire to believe in something? Anything? Does one have to cease believing in God, assuming that all mankind has a factory setting of “believe”, in order to reach your so called enlightenment?
I think you were expecting your usual handjob and taint tickle from Biscuit, or perhaps you were distracted by images of Lisacunt (or her cunt) and didn’t realize that your lame ass quote wasn’t as super intellectual as you thought it was.
MM
explain the “Chinese box” mind brain analogy.
I think a second opinion would be needed
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-21…
RSVP
: Stephen Hrper (08/04, 8:15PM)
Yes Stephen, you’re wrong. Read the first sentence of my last post (08/04, 438PM) over again. Answer your question? Your sentence about the freedom provided by man’s non-belief in God comes a bit closer but wins no cigar. Replace the word “feedom” by “absence” and “desire” by “necessity” and you’re getting even closer.
Belief and the affirmation that something is true are semantically equivalent. Take your assertion about my “lame ass quote.” (Sadly Stephen, you’re beginning to sound like Daniel Abraham.)
Stephen Harper: “I believe – I affirm as being true – that Montrealman’s lame ass quote is not as super-intellectual as he thought.”
Do you see it, Stephen? God is nowhere in sight.
Daniel Abraham (11:22PM)
Why don’t you?
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
OK
I’ll start with my own anti reductionist argument and go on to explain the Chinese box.
My main anti reductionist argument involves forms, or perfect circles lines and so on. The whole problem with reducing consciousness to neural firings for me is that I can know what a perfect circle is as so can you. By definition a perfect circle can only be precisely what it is. Other areas of cognition are relative but yet we both KNOW what a perfect circle is and that concept can’t be different in knowledge form.
So then I ask, how can we both have precisely the same concept in our minds when it is impossible for our neural firings to ever be precisely the same.
On the subject of the Chinese box (as you obviously are scared to admit that you haven’t heard) If we are the neural firings of our brains then we could assert that if our brain understood English and had a functioning switchboard operator as is required for “computation” (modelling the firings themselves as the operator) than switching the language to Chinese for the little man in our heads doing the switchboard would be just as unintelligible as the English version, he would just be sending the information to the “right” places. This relates to your neural firings not being able to explain Hamlet Mr condescending.
Oh and my anti reductionist argument is mailed to me by registered mail 8 years ago and I have it signed as a registered thesis so please don’t try to “steal” it. I mean you can’t own an idea but it would be nice to get recognition eh?
RSVP
: Daniel Abraham (08/05, 9:20AM)
What are you talking about?
(9:51AM)
What are you talking about?
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
“Once man has ceased to believe in God…”
I’m not arguing with your “belief” sentiment, I’m merely pointing out a major flaw in your quote. The way it reads, belief is somehow made contingent on mans standard belief, which according to your quote, is a belief in God. Does this count for those cultures to whom a belief in something other than God, such as Mohamad, Krishna, Bhuda, etc, is a loosely percieved standard? I think it’s a little short sighted and arrogant to think that all mankind has this standard belief in God. What about tribes yet untouched by modern society, do they fall under your one dimentional belief requirement? You, as a financially well off, educated, “white guy” seem to have this belief that the “man” conforms to some ill perceived standard, that you use as a constant when applying a formula. You’re not even close to being right, even using “Western” society as your base. What makes you think you’re right when it comes to all of mankind?
I have intruded into the convo but I’m going to have to go with Stephen here.
Perhaps it should read,
“Once man ceases his belief in OMNIPOTENCE, he will then not believe in nothing. He CAN believe in anything.” (SHITTY-D)
Meaning, when mankind is free of judgement, it is free to believe in anything. Religion is about power, judgement and higherarchy, perhaps without it, all of mankind will be truely free to think and act for themselves, and judge their peers based on what I like to call “true grit”. The ideals someone holds true to themselves. Not just following a book of common sense rules, based on a system of Religious Reward Points (RRP) redeemable at time of death, where depending on your accumulation you get a better seat in Heaven.
Ok
I believe I’ll have another beer.
RSVP
: Stephen Harper (08/05, 12:51PM)
You say, in respect to the “major flaw” in my quotation, that “The way it reads, belief is somehow made contingent on man’s standard belief, which, according to your quote, is a belief in God.”
Stephen, you should have added the way it reads “to me.” But this is precisely what I didn’t say. “Belief,” understood as the affirmation that something is the case, that it is true, is not contingent at all upon a belief in God. What I DID say that once that belief in God has gone, man must believe in something since meaning in life itself would collapse in the total absence of belief in anything. This is because belief, in the sense of the affirmation that something is true, is structured into his consciousness. In other words, one cannot consciously function without that “logic of affirmation” as it has been called. I believe that sentence I jut wrote, Stephen, because I affirm that it is true. I could not have written it while doubting its veracity or actually believing it was false. This is possible only in the case of the liar Stephen, which I am not.
Your reference to my “one domemnsional belief requirement” and my “ill-conceived standard” indicates that you are entering into the realm of personal vilification, of judgemental “ad hominem” attacs, into which realm I do not care to go.
Stephen, I think it’s best just to shake hands and say good-bye since we are going around in circles. Quite simply, you are incapable of conceiving belief in any other that its narrowly religious connotation of a belief in God (or soeother deity). This, by the way, is a very common phenomenon. It’s called “the stability of beliefs” and is found, in addition to religious fundamentalists, also among the primitive believers in witchcraft. I do not say this as a personal insult but simply as a matter of fact. See, for example, Evans-Pritchard’s account of the stability of beliefs among the Azande tribe in Africa.
(08/05, 2:13PM)
See my comments above.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
TYPOS
Sorry for the typos. I find that when you edit a piece it looks good until after you post it. Maybe others have found the same thing. I spotted four. I hope that is all.
“just” for “jut”
“dimensional” for “domnsional”
“attacks” for “attacs”
“some other” for “soerthor” (whew!)
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
*Chuckle* “the stability of beliefs” sounds suspiciously like “grading on a curve”.
MM Belief and meaning are too different things I’m sure Stephen understands this too.
I create my own meaning without the need for a God this is a well established existential position. I’m sure Stephen understands this too; it’s not too abstract an idea.
I’m pretty sure your wrongfully fusing meaning with purpose.
RSVPs
: Stephen Harper (08/05, 8:37PM)
Stephen, say goodbye.
: Daniel Abraham (08/06, 12:49AM)
“I create my own meaning without the need for a God. This is a well-established existentialist position.” (correct punctuation added)
Congratulations Daniel. That is what I’ve been saying all along. However, I think you’re mistaken in the case of Stephen.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
THE ALIENS HAVE ALREADY LANDED.
When I saw the headline I thought they meant the Acadians whining (again) about the boundary commission being told to smarten the fuck up, fly right and ban racism.