Author Topic: Letting Your Fears In  (Read 15841 times)

The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #15 on: September 08, 2003, 05:05:13 PM »
You forget, spiders are psychic. They can read your mind and know what you're doing.

Mistress of Darkness

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #16 on: September 10, 2003, 04:28:05 PM »
Only if you believe they're psychic
" If i ever need a pen-name I'd choose EUOL, just to confuse everyone. " --Entropy

The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #17 on: September 10, 2003, 05:02:03 PM »
Is that like how gravity only works if you believe it works?

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #18 on: September 11, 2003, 01:50:45 PM »
exactly

But . . . I believe in gravity

Do you?
" If i ever need a pen-name I'd choose EUOL, just to confuse everyone. " --Entropy

The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #19 on: September 11, 2003, 05:08:06 PM »
Yes, but for centuries many peole didn't, and we have no record of any of them floating off somewhere. Belief != truth.

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #20 on: September 11, 2003, 05:56:28 PM »
Do you have any record of these alledged "people" not believing in gravity?
" If i ever need a pen-name I'd choose EUOL, just to confuse everyone. " --Entropy

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #21 on: September 11, 2003, 07:24:59 PM »
Actually, we do. Not they they believed specifically that it didn't exist, but that they didn't believe in something at all.

Mistress of Darkness

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #22 on: September 11, 2003, 07:33:56 PM »
And you believe these reports?
" If i ever need a pen-name I'd choose EUOL, just to confuse everyone. " --Entropy

The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #23 on: September 11, 2003, 07:37:47 PM »
are you trying to build a logical argument? So if I believe in the reports they exist and therefore the people exist? I gues I don't know where that will go, so I'm going to bite.

Yeah, I believe 'em.

Fellfrosch

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #24 on: September 11, 2003, 08:12:45 PM »
Just because they didn't believe in the concept of gravity as we know it doesn't mean that they lacked belief in the principle behind it. Throughout history, mankind has held a firm belief that they will not go flying off into space for no good reason. Their belief made it true, whether or not they referred to it as gravity.

A better argument for SE's side would be babies--they don't believe in anything yet because they're not mentally capable of it, and yet they seem just as bound by gravity as everybody else. If your personal laws of physics were governed by your own beliefs then babies would be weightless for several hours after birth (and, technically, wouldn't ever learn from experience that gravity existed and, therefore, would never be affected by it).
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die." --Mel Brooks

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #25 on: September 11, 2003, 08:22:44 PM »
Yeah! Babies! Babies are the answer!
(Make love, not war!)

I admit that I had thought of that, but I admit that I hoped MoD wouldn't. Gee, thanks for ruining it, Fell.

Mistress of Darkness

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #26 on: September 11, 2003, 08:34:24 PM »
Babies are bound by gravity because they don't have the ability to believe in gravity or to believe gravity a false theory. Their parents, however, believe that their babies will not go floating off into space for no good reason. This is why babies are not weightless after they are born. Then the babies learn by example. If their parents don't go floating off into space for no good reason, then why should they?

No, the way to defy gravity, as told by Arthur Dent, is to simply forget to fall.

But that has nothing to do with spiders or their alledged psychic abilities.

As you can see by Saint's blind belief in the fact that there used to be people who didn't believe in gravity, reality is based on belief. Therefore, spiders are not psychic because I do not believe it.
« Last Edit: September 11, 2003, 08:35:40 PM by Treyva »
" If i ever need a pen-name I'd choose EUOL, just to confuse everyone. " --Entropy

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #27 on: September 11, 2003, 09:02:15 PM »
That's foolish talk. They don't have to DISBELIEVE, according to your earlier statement. I daresay you had never had an opinion on the psychic nature of spiders until I brought it up, there for you neither believed nor disbelieved. Ergo, if they have psychic abilities, then your failure to believe in them was inconsequential; whereas if they did not have psychic abilities, it could not have been due to an active disbelief on your part, as none existed.
And that doesn't even BEGIN to approach the problems of opposing beliefs, and doesn't even touch the arguments about whether you actually can DISbelieve something or simply believe in an opposite worldview. It also doesn't bring up the complication of kids who jump off roofs getting injured by hitting the ground despite their very real belief that a cape will enable to fly (note that it is the injury that ends the belief, not the end of the belief that causes the injury).

Therefore, the "if I believe in it than it is real" theory is false.

Therefore, Spiders are psychic and are probably plotting to suck your brains from your head as we speak.

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #28 on: September 11, 2003, 09:06:11 PM »
Incidentally, this is exactly the sort of spurious logic conversation you'd have with the Computer in a game of Paranoia. Except instead of arguing spider neuro-biology, you'd be arguing about whether you were  commie-mutant-traitor who deserved death.

Doesn't that make it just that much more fun?

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Re: Letting Your Fears In
« Reply #29 on: September 11, 2003, 10:29:29 PM »
Ah, consentual reality.  What a fun theory.   If only it were true.

(For fun times with consentual reality, I recommend a good game of Mage)