From: Reilly Jones (70544.1227@CompuServe.COM)
Date: Sat Sep 28 1996 - 11:48:56 MDT
Sarah Marrs wrote 9/28/96: <Congratulations. I think you've won a prize for the
most unpleasant and ad feminam comment I've ever read on this or the >H list.>
I couldn't find "ad feminam" in my dictionary. Is it a Latin derivative? You
called yourself a "gal," am I supposed to not pick on you? You want a break? I
don't take gender claims seriously on the Net. Maybe if I meet you, I'll be
more chivalrous.
SM: <My experience of this list is that people always speak out if the disagree
with something, but don't if they simply agree. So I would have interpreted a
lack of responses to my original mail as agreement by the list, not disagreement
(and hence disagreement with you).>
Thank you for sharing your experience. What a convenient and
self-congratulatory interpretation. I see that with a worldview of relative
truth and mythological history, that truth must be decided by a popularity
contest. Just pick the right mailing list with like-minded individuals, and
almost anything could be true. In my experience with the list, oftentimes posts
don't generate responses because nonsensical things are claimed in the post, and
many individuals know the proverb about not arguing with fools, because others
may not be able to tell the difference. Hmm...
SM: <Where did I, or you, mention contradicatory events? Where did I, or you,
mention the same place? What, in short, are you talking about?>
You invoked quantum physics at the Planck scales in the context of events
occurring in space-time.
SM: <I just tried to explain what toleration actually is: no judgement call.>
Nonsense, we judge all the time, some of us are more honest about it. To
tolerate someone's intentions or actions means we've judged them to be
unimportant. Beneath us.
SM: <I base the answers to these questions on feelings, so you wouldn't accept
them anyway.>
I don't "feel" that I would accept them, no. Now if you wanted to find some
ground underneath the feelings, something connected to rational thought, I would
be interested.
SM: <You're confusing the feelings which _are_ tolerance and intolerance with
feelings _about_ tolerance and intolerance.>
Feelings are confusing. That's why I prefer thinking, clarity and certainty are
more adaptive than mush.
SM: <An individual's feelings include tolerance and intolerance...>
Tolerance is not a "feeling," but a virtue.
SM: <Personally, however, I don't attach such value judgements to tolerance or
intolerance: i.e. I would not make a blanket statement that tolerance is
good. I choose to tolerate some things, and not tolerate others.>
Do you throw dice to choose? Spin arrows? Consult the Ouija board? Call the
Psychic Hot-Line?
SM: <But my balance would place diversity above being destroyed, so I
wouldn't be in that situation.>
You would rather be destroyed than dishonor diversity? What a funny "feeling."
SM: <So it is those listening who change human ideals, not those talking.>
Passivity is passivity, not change.
SM: <So what was the theory that Brown had when he observed Brownian motion for
the first time?>
How did Brown recognize what he was observing without theoretically categorizing
it?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reilly Jones | Philosophy of Technology:
70544.1227@compuserve.com | The rational, moral and political relations
| between 'How we create' and 'Why we create'
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:35:46 MST