[ExI] scary stuff

Jeff Davis jrd1415 at gmail.com
Sat Jul 14 08:39:38 UTC 2007


The second conversion episode, the one where the fellow was standing,
was quite interesting.  Watch it carefully.  The man's back is turned.
 He cannot see what is going on behind him.  Yet the motion of his
body in falling backward is remarkably well coordinated with the
gestural motion of the man behind him out of sight.

While it looks "convincing" it is nevertheless very easy to fake if
the two are working together.  The man in front controls the pace of
the action and the man behind actually cues off of him.  In which case
it would be logical to conclude that the entire piece is theatre.

Then there is the notion of some action-at-a-distance bio-energy phenomenon.

Then there is characterizing the phenomenon as god-associated, which
poses definitional problems.

If I were to attempt to distinguish between bio-energy and god, I
might propose that "bio-energy" is accessible to science (detectable,
measurable, subject to the rules of logic), and that "god" would prove
inaccessible (undetectable, unmeasurable, not repeatably subject to
the rules of logic).

Why scary, Damien?  For me it would be because it challenges my
non-faith.  But I just hold it as a truth of evolutionary psychology
that humans identify with a group through its meme set and feel
stressed/threatened when confronted by a competing meme set.  After
billions of generations of accumulated instincts, it's hard to live
comfortably with them, impossible to live without them.  I still feel
good about getting up in the morning.

Mostly.

Best, Jeff Davis

"We call someone insane who does not believe as we do
          to an outrageous extent."
                     Charles McCabe

On 7/13/07, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sq-YUdq1OI&NR=1
>
> http://youtube.com/watch?v=-DylNVUN_3I
>
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-- 
Best, Jeff Davis

               "Everything's hard till you
                     know how to do it."
                              Ray Charles



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