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dale: Does that God require sacrifices?

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[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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Sisyphus: I think I agree most with Rebecca West. Each of us lives in a universe largely of our own creation. The depth and richness and correspondence of "our" reality to any "objective reality" is limited ...

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And if these logical arguements for the existence of whatever were really all that valid, wouldn't the whole world be converted by now?

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ronb: Hwhwfr, are you related to Dr. Hfuhruhurr?

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It was Einstein's.

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I don't need to know how the complexities of bus scheduling are resolved in order to be able to stand in front of a bus stop and know that at time A, I will have a bus materialize in front of me to convey me to my destination.

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Sisyphus:But no a priori assertions about the existence or non-existence of a God or Gods can be allowed to interfere with a truly objective search, would you not agree?

Krishanmurti, Basso, Dogen... none of the Patriarchs will contaminate practice with such idle metaphysical speculations, no?

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The old teachers would not allow themselves to be drawn into making either-or statements. Eastern mysticism accepts contradictions: A and not-A. This is, in my opinion, the most reasonable way to apprehend nature as nature is presented. Science demands, for simplicity's sake, that there be a clear or definitive answer: yes or no, true or false, where accuracy would follow an answer such as "partially true" or "somewhat false". Two hundred years before Aristotle lived the Buddha would not let himself be drawn into making what some would call binary statements. He would keep what might be called a 'noble silence' in the face of such black-white questions. Zen monks train with koans for this purpose: to break through the black/white limits of our conditioned perception.

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Faith can be the bedrock of a truly productive spiritual search. I believe this has been shown in the context of every theistic tradition. But by those who have achieved spiritual knowledge, it is always recognized as being faith.

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Ken Wilber, who I am not entirely familiar with, but who I do often, but not always agree with, makes the important distinction between translation and transformation: where faith translates the world of mysterious nature in a way that is useful and meaningful to its adherents, mysticism (for want of a better word) seeks the transformation, the utter anhilation of the individual, in fact.

A very important distinction, I think.

[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: flotsom ]

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flotsom: Science demands, for simplicity's sake, that there be a clear or definitive answer: yes or no, true or false

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I know what you mean and agree with it on one level. Nature and life are incredibly complex, vibrant, dynamic processes, full of conflicting forces and many colours. The necessary simplification inherent in empirical science takes this apart into blocks of sterile and isolated subprocesses and usually ends up forgetting to put it back together. That is why I expect the most meaningful advances in human understanding come from future synthesis, rather than further analysis.

This being said, I think the human brain is structured such a way that it can not process clear-cut contradictions. It is one thing to say that the statement: “this colour is red” is ambiguous, it depends on our perception and definition of which of the millions of shades fall under the category of ‘red’. In this sense, the colour may be both ‘red’ and ‘not red’ at the same time.

However, statements like “I wrote this post” can not be both true and not true at the same time, at least not to my brain. Either I did or I didn’t. Symbolically it can, because a hell of a lot of people (I have learnt from through many decades) contributed to it, but in concrete terms it was I who pushed the “Add Reply” button. It could not be both ‘I’ and ‘not I’ at the same time.

That is why I usually say that “a well defined statement, as it stands, can not be both true and not true at the same time”. Or “a well defined statement and its exact opposite can not be both true at the same time”.

If we allowed it to be concretely and specifically possible, then I don't think we could even communicate with each other. The world around us would dissolve into a whirling kaleidoscope of multicoloured, indefinite, shapeless and amorphous particles, which, on the atomic level, is certainly true.

But, on the macro level where we live, we need some order and structure to be able to function and survive. And since, in a way, the human body (including the brain) is a biological survival machine, I don't think evolution would have permitted our brains to develop in a non-functional direction.

[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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clersal, the original intention of the thread was 'human arrogance', not religion. So far five examples of human arrogance were listed:

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TVO, Cosmic Oddesey.

I'm agnostic, and most likely on the same page as Zat.... however, God, or now God, I get a deep sense of comfort knowing that we are all interconnected with everything on the atomic level, so that when someone dies -even if they don't have a soul- the matter just gets recylced into the makeup of the cosmos anyway.

I have NEVER played a violent first person shooter game and I DO NOT play video games, except VERY RARELY.

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. It could not be both ‘I’ and ‘not I’ at the same time

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I see what you are saying, but then I think of Inuktitut and its innumerable words for snow for example. There is a word in that language - koviashuvik - that means 'a time and place of joy' - Aramaic is like that, too, I believe; where there are many, not a single tailored fit to articulate a thing, an impression, or an event.

There are also fluid ways of expression, music comes to mind.

But I know there's more to what you've raised - there's a good question in there and I'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts.

edited to add:

To Zatamon's post - This is why the proverbial 'enlightened one' only ever points.

[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: flotsom ]

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I get a deep sense of comfort knowing that we are all interconnected with everything on the atomic level, so that when someone dies -even if they don't have a soul- the matter just gets recylced into the makeup of the cosmos anyway.

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And even though I think Descartes was a big poopyhead, what Michelle posted sort of relates to both sides of the existence/non-existence of a god issue. If you think you know there's a god, there is. If you think know there isn't, for you there isn't. Neither is contradictory, even though they are seeming-opposite absolutes.

There are things I believe in without definitive proof. For instance, super string theory extrapolates a unified field theory that will be proven once we find a way to build powerful enough partical accelerators. I don't need proof that the universe was not created by a super-being because I can extrapolate from what we know of the creation of the universe and come to a reasonable and sound decision regarding the complete absence of a Creator. I understand that an individual who believes, who has faith in the existence of a god, does not require proof because they know what they know, just as surely as I know what I know.

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Michelle (on the original thread): Isn't that what 20th century atheist existentialism was all about? The idea being that you become an existentialist after what I would call a spiritual experience (although I guess a negative one) of realizing the emptiness of existence, and suddenly coming to the knowledge, deep down inside, that this is all there is, there is no soul, and that you are burdened with the ultimate choices for all of your actions.

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However, strange as it may seem, I do understand Rebecca’s atheist sense of life as well as your very well put suggestion in the quote above. All I object to is claim of certainty where no certainty can be possible.

To show how much I do understand, let me quote from a new thread I started yesterday (so far not responded to) in which I describe a feeling very similar to what you expressed in the quote above.

"My life is my property. I am ultimately and finally responsible for it. I am alone to face it, just as I will be alone to face death when it comes. Locked inside my own mind, I am as alone as it is possible to be...beyond a certain point nobody can follow me, nobody can participate, nobody can understand. In the room where I am writing this, where nobody can see or hear me, I look in the mirror and face the truth: I am ultimately alone when I make my decisions, and I am ultimately alone when I face the consequences."

See "On human existence" in Ideas

[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: flotsom ]

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flotsom: But I know there's more to what you've raised - there's a good question in there and I'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts.

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The brain is a survival machine. It needs logic and it can not handle clear-cut contradictions. The mind is the ‘I’, whatever that means, and it is capable of incredible leaps of imagination, totally discarding logic.

In Richard Feynman's biography, the author describes the difference between two kinds of 'geniuses': The first kind is the one whose thought process you understand and, if you were a lot smarter than you are, could duplicate. The other kind is the one who arrives at solutions with completely insufficient data and you have no idea how it was possible. Actually Feynman's answer to this question once was: "I imagined I was an electron and then it became obvious how I would behave under the circumstances".

To give you a ‘poetic’ indication about the difference, here is a short tribute I once paid to my wife (whom I think is of the second kind):

“Without sparks our world is a dead world without fire, without warmth, without life. The cavemen needed the spark of lightning for his first fire; later the farmer needed the spark of the flint to heat his home and cook his meal. Still later, it was the spark of the match doing the same, in our homes and in the furnaces of our industry. Throughout man's history we needed and depended on the sparks in the minds of our creative geniuses who turned darkness into light, cold into warmth and ignorance into understanding.

This rare and invaluable property of the human mind is the most important and the least understood in our Universe. We know about neurones in the brain and the electrical impulses jumping from one to the other when they fire, but we don't know what turns these sparks into creative human thought. We only see the result and sometimes it is spectacular; but often it is unrecognised for a long time - until the ground is prepared for the spark to start a fire.

The most important element of creative human thought is the ability to look at things out of context. It sounds so simple, but it is the most difficult of human achievements. Most of us learn to accept context through years and years of training from the earliest childhood. We have been told and told by our parents and our teachers and our siblings, peers and leaders that "this is the way the world is" and we ended up taking it for granted: inevitable, immutable, the nature of things. Very few of us managed to hang on to a shred of critical thinking and insist on questions that were consistently dismissed by everyone as childish, naïve, disruptive, even evil.

The second important element is the ability to free-associate ideas. To try unusual combinations of concepts never tried together before is the best way of finding new thoughts, new ways of making things work, of solving unsolvable problems. You need an element of playfulness bordering on the whimsical: to achieve this, you must be able to find delight in play for its own sake. We all remember those moments when hearing about a new and marvellously simple idea, we felt a pang of regret: "why didn't I think of that?" Like the paper clip and the yellow sticky note-pads and the ladder with the extendable legs (for staircases) and countless others.

The third element (without which the other two would languish unrealised) is the courage to be different. We are basically herd animals, with the instinct of cattle grazing together on a meadow. We are so terrified to stand outside the protective circle of our peers that very few of us risk the insecurity, doubt and fear that comes from standing alone. Never mind the scorn, ridicule and resentment that is an automatic reaction of the herd toward their troublemakers.

You need that invaluable quality that very few of us possess: being self-sufficient, knowing who we are, what we think and how we feel, completely independently from, and often in spite of, anyone else around us. Sculpted from a single piece of marble as it were (rather than a patchwork of roles, identities, opinions, attitudes that most of us picked up here and there over a lifetime) these self-sufficient, self-defined creators amongst us are like pieces of art: self-evident, self-consistent, immutable, beyond analysis and most of the time beyond understanding.

The rest of us have our places and roles and they are necessary functions, required to give life to the creative idea. We must understand, appreciate and support it. It needs engineers and organizers and craftsmen to give it shape and substance, but without the spark that started it, the fire would not come forth from the heap of dry leaves and twigs and branches that we gathered: you need the shaman with the lantern that guards and sustains the spark.

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All I object to is claim of certainty where no certainty can be possible.

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In Richard Feynman's biography, the author describes the difference between two kinds of 'geniuses': The first kind is the one whose thought process you understand and, if you were a lot smarter than you are, could duplicate. The other kind is the one who arrives at solutions with completely insufficient data and you have no idea how it was possible.

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Someone once said that intuition is throwing your spear into the darkness and reason was sending your army to retrieve it.

I think that there are two different kinds of genius as well as geniuses.

The first kind of 'genius', or Perception, or Insight, comes as a result, through meticulous tracking, trial and error, and great dilligence - a truly extraordinary effort - that penetrates and apprehends a 'piece of truth'. I would think that a lack of intellect would certainly preclude this, as would certain necessary environmental preconditions.

The second sort of genius I feel, is available to most anyone and involves meditation, or 'contemplation' if one prefers, and a tremendous stillness and sensitivity beyond measure.

Where in the first case, if we use the unfortunate analogy of the hunter, we see him familiar with his environment, the weather carries vital information which is interpreted, knowing something of his prey, tracks are located, and eventually his prey is apprehended. It goes without saying that if the hunter had no experience or foreknowledge of this prey and the outlying lands the hunt would have been, in all probability, unsuccessful.

In the second case, to continue the analogy, our friend would not fitfully be described as a hunter at all. She knows only that she is very hungry. Finding a calm, still place she allows this sense of hunger to wash over her and she remains with this sensation until her mind is entirely clear and still also. And the wind blows, gently, and before her a wide-eyed doe, the very picture of gentleness, steps trembling into the circle of her encampment.

edited to add:

It might seem like I have just restated you comprehensive and quite elegant post, into much cruder terms but you will see, I think, that I make an important distinction: that in the first case many are precluded from this awareness, and in the second it is freely available to all, and I do feel that it relates to the brain/mind distinction you alluded to earlier.

[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: flotsom ]

Explanation: in the main, I largely agree with what flotsom and Zatamon have had to say with regard to human experience and thought.

I recognize that there can be shades of grey in my life-experience and in the universe; however, the explanation I use to fit the facts before me is very simple and straightforward, and fits my scientific education, which I am most steeped in. Like tea. The explanation goes roughly thus: "All that I see, hear, touch, feel and taste was experienced by me. However, being told of the existence of something I cannot directly sense requires some sort of naturalistic, not supernatural, rationale for the existence of that thing." Such a filter, if you will, doesn't disallow Zatamon's experience of synchronicities, but does disallow the a priori demand for the acceptance of the existence of god or even another plane of existence besides the physical.

See below for responses to posts made since then.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: DrConway ]

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flotsom: Science demands, for simplicity's sake, that there be a clear or definitive answer: yes or no, true or false

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Rebecca: I still don't understand why you find that objectionable, and I'm not being argumentative.....The absolute certainty of the existence of a god is based upon an individual's personal experience of the universe as created by a god, just as my atheistic certainty is based upon my personal experience of the universe as being without a god....Why would that offend you?

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What prompted me to start this thread, in the first place, was my frustration in the “Irritable Babblers” thread over the communication gap I seemed to have with Dr. Conway. Not only I could not get him respond to my many times repeated argument (the possible geometric-series type progression of human knowledge that might not exceed a finite limit even in infinite time) but he lectured me in a kind of impatient and condescending way that I found quite arrogant.

That put me into a foul mood and my reaction to other seemingly high handed and arrogant statements were probably sharper than I should have allowed it to be. I don’t want to rehash the whole thread, I think I made my position very clear in all the posts I made.

By the time I responded to Michelle’s suggestion about ‘existential experience’, it became quite clear that I didn’t have any serious disagreement with you.

There are two levels to consider: personal and objective (if there is such a thing).

On the personal level we seem to have total agreement: respect for each other’s right to hold whatever views we hold dear.

On the objective level, I can’t help my scientist’s instinct: follow basic epistemological rules to clearly demarcate what I know as a fact as opposed to what I hypothesize about, as yet unproven. So whenever I meet a statement that seems to state categorically that in the ‘objective reality’ of mind-boggling dimensions such and such a thing does not exist, I can’t help but challenge it.

So far nothing to be offended about. However, when I read things like ‘bunk’, ‘superstition’, ‘delusion’, etc., etc. – suggesting a mental deficiency in what I consider an intelligent, honest, openly inquiring mind – then I do get offended. I am not implying that this is your attitude, only that this is something I am quite sensitive about.

I am quite willing to treat anyone’s personal convictions with respect, as long as it is reciprocated.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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Quantum physics is based on uncertainty. Can remember what exactly it is, but there are certain changes that occur that are necessarily unpredictable.

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You defended yourself against accusations no one made.

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No doubt, those accusations have been made against you by someone(s) somewhere in the past because it is obvious you are quite sensitive to the possible implications

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[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

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Quantum physics is based on uncertainty. Can remember what exactly it is, but there are certain changes that occur that are necessarily unpredictable

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Pogo, it's the Heisenberg Principle of Uncertainty you are refering to.

There is definitely uncertainty in science.
Uncertainty over the direct verification of an occurrence - the null hypothesis - and at a higher level to the fragility of human observation - the Heisenburg principle of uncertainty - and to the relativity of observation as elaborated by Albert Einstein.

Kurt Godel, a Czechoslovakian mathematician, demonstrated that within any rigidly logical mathematical system there are propositions that cannot be proved or disproved on the basis of the axioms within the system, and that, therefore, it is uncertain that basic axioms of arithmetic will not give rise to contradictions.

I'll leave it to one of those trained in the art to forward meaningful summaries.

[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: flotsom ]

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flotsom: you will see, I think, that I make an important distinction: that in the first case many are precluded from this awareness, and in the second it is freely available to all, and I do feel that it relates to the brain/mind distinction you alluded to earlier.

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I am far from being as familiar as you are with meditation theory and techniques, but I do believe that truth is freely available to all of us if only we could free ourselves from the many, many distractions of everyday life. My best insights I remember came to me in solitude, isolation, even dreams.

I never thought that intelligence, intuition and insights had much to do with education or extensive knowledge. I have known a few uneducated and extremely intelligent people who had a wiser outlook on life than I have yet achieved for myself. I greatly admire and often envy these people who seem to have an ability to connect with the Universe on a subliminal level that gives them access to universal truths that I have to wrest out of my experience with hard work, study, analysis and logic.

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Rebecca: What accusations? What possible implications? What on earth have you been smoking?

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Rebecca (from original thread, second page): What really pisses me off is the assumption that because I'm atheist, I'm arrogant, narrow-minded, judgemental, and living in a cold, frightening spiritual vacuum that will fail me at my moment of death. To those who have suggested such, directly or indirectly, I invite them to blow it out their intolerant asses

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I am far from being as familiar as you are with meditation theory and techniques

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I regret having given anyone the impression that I know anything meaningful of this subject, it's just not true, but nevertheless I think it is important so...

Maybe some day I will tell you Zorba's story -- I am a bit tired now to write long posts.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

Quantum mechanics shows us that there is a fundamental lower limit to the accuracy of our measurement of anything in the universe due to, in effect, an inherent uncertainty in those measurements that is due to the ability of the observer to affect the thing he or she measures.

A rather poor phrasing, I think, but I can't think of a better way to say it.

On "bunk".

Please take note that my usage of this word was in characterizing the overgeneralizations some people make about science and how it is not useful for tackling the very real problems that affect people in the here and now.

On claims of certainty.

Related to the above, in a sense.

I claim only the solipsistic certain knowledge that I, myself, exist in this world that I have been informed is called "Earth". Thus what my senses tell me, I must interpret and process. As I said before an "objective reality" is, as I see it, a broad mutual agreement of numerous subjective realities.

It is therefore clear that "objective reality" is something like "the sky is generally blue when no cloud cover blocks the view and the sun is visible", whereas subjective reality, not part of something I have to incorporate into my general knowledge of what is "objective", is something along the lines of an a priori demand that there is a Great Potato Chip in the heavens and that if I don't stop eating potato chips I will be struck by lightning. Empirically, I can demonstrate the lack of truth to the assertion by eating potato chips and not being struck by lightning.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: flotsom ]

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Doc: I'll tackle Zatamon's other points on the other thread where he says I irritated him so.

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Apart from that, I am happy you mostly agree with me. I am pleased to have had the privilege of informing you that you live on a planet called “Earth”. Any time.

I am also pleased that no lightning struck you for eating potato chips. I am sure you could exist without potato chips, but not without lightning. You keep talking about it. Sometime with Zeus, sometime without.

However, I wish you’d learn to live without mentioning broadswords – I get easily frightened.

Maybe, if I live long enough, you will respond to my arguments (instead of arguments I never made) -- you keep ignoring them with awesome tenacity.

I don’t bet on it.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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Sorry for the double post, but also lost during this time was an absolute foolproof a priori proof for the existence of God (acid assisted).

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Rebecca (from original thread, second page): What really pisses me off is the assumption that because I'm atheist, I'm arrogant, narrow-minded, judgemental, and living in a cold, frightening spiritual vacuum that will fail me at my moment of death. To those who have suggested such, directly or indirectly, I invite them to blow it out their intolerant asses
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I hope the second quote answers the first one. And I am now done with discussing anyone's offenses. It's obviously counter productive.

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Now, will you please STOP PERSECUTING ME??

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

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However, statements like “I wrote this post” can not be both true and not true at the same time, at least not to my brain. Either I did or I didn’t.

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It could be not true if people are not the same from one moment to the next. Our bodies are constantly changing with cells dying and new cells being produced. Our minds are constantly changing as well, retaining some information, losing other information. In other words, maybe there is no "I" that continues on.

So if you're literally not the same person now as the one who wrote that post, then yes, that statement COULD be untrue.

In fact, a person who doesn't believe in souls might be more likely to believe that than someone who has a religious belief in "souls".

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Rebecca: Now, will you please STOP PERSECUTING ME??

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[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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Michelle: So maybe it WASN'T you who wrote that post

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Michele
how could it be possible for the world to be so ordered and minutely detailed if it was just some random occurrence and not intelligently planned? If you look at a watch, it's pretty close to impossible that a watch could just somehow grow at random into physical being - there has to be a watchmaker who created it.

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I think that life is part of the causality that creates sentience. For example, the ant builds an anthill and the anteater's tounge evolves to eat ants inside it. It's complicated but explainable. In other words conciousness is a logical result of determinism, it preserves the universe from absolute order and establishes the entropic balance. It doesn't mean there is a God necessarily.

(Edited to give Michelle some credit)

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Sisyphus
I know this should be on "Irritable Babblers", but doesn't anyone read my posts except for skdadl?

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I'm sure God does (if she or he or it exists.)

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Zatamon
Now, as far as God is concerned: your assumption that I mean a god “outside of and above the objective forces and realities which drive the cosmos” – you are incorrect.

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Very confusing but I think Zatamon is saying that God is here now. But what does he mean?

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DrConway
Mathematics is an abstraction invented by human beings in order to develop ways to manipulate the physical world in their minds.

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Not according to some thinkers. Read Quantum Philosophy
Human beings may be little more than quantum calculators apparently - that is a figment of Mathematics.

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clersal
I think I belong to the don't care if there is a god or two or three or a hundred. It will not change my life.

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Really? Why?

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Rebecca West
What really pisses me off is the assumption that because I'm atheist, I'm arrogant, narrow-minded, judgemental, and living in a cold, frightening spiritual vacuum that will fail me at my moment of death. To those who have suggested such, directly or indirectly, I invite them to blow it out their intolerant asses.

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But how do you know you're an atheist? Some people say they believe in God and then act horribly and in an "ungodly way". Others say they don't believe and behave very piously and are "good" people.

Are we really able to escape our history, rife with religion so as to say we are absolute atheists?

This is the old "reverse doubt" argument.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Boinker ]

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Michele
Just because a god-like entity absolutely does not exist for me, does not mean it does not exist for someone else. For those who believe in god, god exists. For those who do not, god does not. Quantum mechanics supports this.

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oldgoat assumed that I define god as something “outside of and above the objective forces and realities which drive the cosmos”

I told him his assumption was incorrect.

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Michele
Just because a god-like entity absolutely does not exist for me, does not mean it does not exist for someone else. For those who believe in god, god exists. For those who do not, god does not. Quantum mechanics supports this.

I'd love to take credit for saying this, but actually Rebecca West said it.

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I am not accusing you of being confusing (this sounds like a good poem in the works). I am saying you ARE confusing -- to me.

If you are also looking for a "sorry" as well then I grant you one out of basic common courtesy and only so long as the arrogant do not misunderstand the gift.

If it is a sign of weakness to give apology and admit wrongness then so be it. But there is no inherent shame in weaknesss and may, in other circumstances mean, something else. ?

I have spoken ...

[ November 15, 2002: Message edited by: Boinker ]

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Rebecca: Now, will you please STOP PERSECUTING ME??
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I thought I made it clear that I am done with you for the time being.
[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Zatamon ]

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But how do you know you're an atheist? Some people say they believe in God and then act horribly and in an "ungodly way". Others say they don't believe and behave very piously and are "good" people.

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Boinker, I don't see how follows the other, so I'm not sure what your point is. Belief or non-belief in a god does not confer any virtue or lack thereof.

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I agree but I am throwing out for discussion the idea that believers, the zealots that tick you off, use. Simply put,they believe that all human goodness is derived from God. Whether God is objective or subjective does not matter. Good living and kindness derive from this belief, they argue or assert. And if it does then does this not "prove" if not God's material existence then his/her/its influence on human affairs, in fact, even on the affairs of atheists as well?

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A person's merits lie in their actions, not what they profess.

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I agree again in general but sometimes one's beliefs - that the world is round as Isabella believed for example - contributes to the discovery of new worlds (albeit this is an ecxcellent example of the perversity of religion in doing things horrible in the name of God as well).

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As for your first question, I know I'm atheist the same way I know I'm a woman, I know I'm 40 years old,

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But if our entire civilization is built on this notion of God and you are, as you say, defined by your behavior, which is a moral behavior consistent with basic human morality, then are you not influenced by God or the belief in God?

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I know I'm not really blond .

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What is the "old reverse doubt" argument? I've never heard of it.

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But I have enought experience with peroxide dyes to be a chemist

Now Michelle has seen, or perceived, shall we say, my Blondeness, therefore in Michelle's reality I am Blonde. Boinker, having never witnessed my Blondeness, having no definitive proof of my being Blonde, cannot be said to believe in Blonde except as a matter of faith. And of course those who exhibit faith in said Blondeness may also infer some proof of it via my behavior on babble. But this, again, is conceptual, and the non-believers will posit that behavior is not proof of Blonde.

[ November 16, 2002: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]