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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion
Subject: Re: Pfui
Message-ID: <454@spar.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 05:03:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.454
Posted: Wed Aug  7 05:03:20 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Aug-85 03:51:22 EDT
References: <1276@pyuxd.UUCP> <2145@pucc-h> <1313@pyuxd.UUCP> <434@spar.UUCP> <1388@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Not Rich Rosen)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 44
Keywords: water, frog, splash
Xref: linus net.philosophy:1952 net.religion:6930

>>>I cannot decide to want to want to eat apricots, no more than you can 
>>>decide to want to like people if you don't.  New experiences might change 
>>>that, but it is not a matter of "will". [Rich]
>
>>     Speak for yourself, Rich. 
>>     
>>     It is becoming clear to me that difference of opinion on this issue
>>     ultimately derives from personal experience. [Not Rich]
>
>Can you give an example from your personal experience of something you
>didn't like that you chose to like.  Try it.  Take something you absolutely
>despise, and decide to like it.  Remember, no conditioning to change your
>behavior toward that thing will be allowed.  After all, you can do it
>without "new experiences"... [Rich]

    OK.
    
    I do not like Scientific Materialism at all, so I decided to like it. 
    
        And I spoke to Nihil, the God of Scientific Materialism:

	"Our Father, who art not
	 I ignore Thee!"
		
        And lo, I did not behold
	the Materialist God Nihil,
        Clothed in Ether and Phlogiston.
        And Nihil did not reveal unto me:
        "Like what thou dost not like"

    This may seem unnecessarily contrary, but is not logically inconsistent:
    It is tautologically easy to have/not have something which does not exist,
    like Free Will, when I do not exist either.
   
    Which is yet another example, Rich:
    
	I apparently used to wish for the existence of Something Supernatural,
	(as yet have pointed out so very many times)
	yet here I am blissfully nonexistent.

    "The real world truly exists
     But nothing actually happens there.."

-not Rich Rosen