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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Free will - some new reading..
Message-ID: <1438@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 19:10:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1438
Posted: Wed Aug  7 19:10:40 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 20:20:35 EDT
References: <108@gargoyle.UUCP>
Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
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Excuse me, Mr. Carnes, but didn't you already post an obnoxious reply
to this article of mine you refer to?  Why do it twice?  All you had to
say the last time was that you preferred to sit like a sheep in a
philosophy class listening and nodding to the teacher rather than hearing
some truly awful disgusting person like me ask some questions and make
some points contrary (HORRORS!!!) to what was being said.  I'm sure even
the teacher of such a class would prefer such an awful disgusting person,
asking questions, to a roomful of sheep.

>> I hope you all get to read MY new book, "You Don't Know Your Ass From Your
>> Unicorn:  The Varieties of Unicorns Worth Wanting".  

> After you've finished that one, here's another book I would like to
> see from you:  PHILOSOPHY MADE SIMPLE, by Richard Rosen.

I don't remember writing this book, sorry.

> Synopsis:
> No longer will you have to spend long hours studying boring books or
> spend years at an expensive university in order to understand
> philosophy.

Which is of course the ONLY way one "should" learn philosophy...

> Just follow these quick 'n easy steps, and soon your
> friends will be listening to you with new respect:

.. and your adversaries will be talking about you in obnoxious ways like this:

> 1.  Select a concept that has been much discussed in the
> philosophical tradition.
> 2.  Look up this term in a dictionary.  Select one definition.

Especially the one that's commonly used and understood, rather than stringing
together four sets of secondary definitions to stretch the limits of a point
to infinity.

> 3.  With all the pig-headed intransigence you can command, defend
> this definition against all comers as The One True Definition of the
> concept.

Imagine that, defending the way a word is commonly used from people who
would twist its meaning to their own ends.  Freedom is slavery?  War is
peace?  Ignorance is strength?  Peacekeeper missiles?  How pigheaded and
intransigent of us not to accept these new modern definitions, choosing to
defend the understood meanings of the words instead.  DISSSSSSgusting!

> If necessary, claim that the definition was established by a
> committee of philosophers in the dim and distant past, and this
> definition has been preserved down through the ages in dictionaries.

Good thing that hasn't been necessary, which may be why I never bothered to
do it.  If I claimed anything, it was that words have had the aforementioned
definitions for a very long time and have been held by a very large number
of people.  That doesn't make their inner concepts "right", it merely means
that that is the word to be used IF you intend to communicate your
feelings and thoughts to another person about that thing.  Unless you intend
to provide your own dictionary in conjunction with any written thoughts you
might have, a Carnesian-English dictionary (free will:  not the concept
as used for thousands of years, but an incredible simulation... :-)

> 4.  Refuse to be sidetracked by any points anyone else makes about
> epistemology, ontology, logic, the nature of definitions, etc.  These
> people are only trying to confuse you, and you are inviting disaster
> if you once swerve from tireless repetition of The Definition.  If it
> occurs to you that definitions are made up of other concepts, and if
> in moments of weakness you doubt that all concepts are fixed in
> self-identity for all eternity from the Big Bang to the Final
> Whimper, resolutely dismiss these thoughts from your mind.

It is precisely because definitions ARE made up of other concepts (the
definitions of which seem to get ignored in the flurry of noise) that one
must examine them so carefully to make sure the whole concept hasn't
been actually obscured.  Good point, don't be "sidetracked" by such points,
answer them directly and to the point.  As I have done repeatedly.
For the n-th time, if people can make up their own definitions of words at
whim, then frog shoemaker dangle what from sending the honeycomb Fred George
toadflax runny isn't cheese plumage.  Mr. Carnes has never been able to
respond to this point.  I wonder why.

> 5.  Clog any seminars in which you participate (such as
> net.philosophy) with 500 lines/day of change-ringing on the same
> themes, so that everyone's n-finger will be worn down to a nub and
> everyone will be ready to give up on net.philosophy as a forum for
> enjoyable and enlightening discussion.

How awful.  What I should have done is to clear any postings *with* Mr.
Carnes before wasting everyone's time, him being an unbiased and nearly
perfect arbiter of such things, as evidenced here.  This as opposed to
sending multiple replies to the same article just to show how really
intensely you feel about certain people.

> Let me know when the book becomes available.

It's not exactly a book, it's a chapter in a book called "Intimidating
and Insulting Net Contributors Through Outlandish Fabrication and
Exaggeration" by a Mr. Crane, or something like that...  Whooping Crane??
-- 
"Wait a minute.  '*WE*' decided???   *MY* best interests????"
					Rich Rosen    ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr