Post #199,298
3/17/05 6:45:06 PM
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You may be ignoring negatives
People tend to remember coincidences or distinctive events but not nondescript ones. Are you sure your family members haven't dreamt your father's death before but instantly forgot about them as unpleasant dreams? Was your father's condition terminal and various subconscious minds were exploring the concept? Is it more probable that a few positives are really swamped by many, uncounted, false positives? Is it just a coincidence?
Matthew Greet
But we must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig, cow after cow, village after village, army after army. And they call me an assassin. What do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin? They lie. They lie and we must be merciful to those who lie.
- Colonol Kurtz, Apocalypse Now.
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Post #199,386
3/18/05 10:31:59 AM
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Sure, any of those could be true
Or not. We'll never know and that's what makes this all so interesting. Dont you wonder about the "what if's"?
It's like, "How much more black could this be?", and the answer is none. None more black.
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Post #199,390
3/18/05 11:07:37 AM
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I prefer 'what is likely and possible?'
If I pondered every 'what if?', I'd be considering every superstition, crackpot conspiracy, religious text and urban myth and I don't have a thousand lifetimes. Instead, I automatically filter based on credibility of source, detached style of argument, consideration of opposing evidence and arguments and explanation of how cause generates effect. I'm the kind of person that notices that explosions don't go 'boom' in space. Next, I apply Occam's Razor. Only then, will I wonder about something that is likely and possible.
In this case, the dream prediction fails at 'consideration of opposing evidence and arguments' and 'how cause generates effect'.
Matthew Greet
But we must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig, cow after cow, village after village, army after army. And they call me an assassin. What do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin? They lie. They lie and we must be merciful to those who lie.
- Colonol Kurtz, Apocalypse Now.
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Post #199,500
3/19/05 6:13:28 AM
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'how cause generates effect'
Heh.. the tacit presumption that "causality" is straightforward.
Volumes have been written on that glimmer of an idea - 'causality'. I tend to lump it with, "action at a distance", in ~~ philosophical 'class'.
(Spin of electrons separated at t=0, now an entire "finite but unbounded" cosmos away? Is spin conserved?? and the like.)
I do not think that word causality gets the scrutiny it deserves, in very many "obvious conclusions" we casually toss off (especially of the either/or kind).
But then, if it were all easy -
Maybe even Econ would work (for relaxed meanings of 'work')
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Post #199,414
3/18/05 2:12:35 PM
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Another possibility...
is that the fully awake mind may be restructuring memories of unstructured dreams to fit something it sees or has seen.
So in this situation, someone may have something on thier mind when they go to sleep; say they're looking for a new car. This person has a dream that they're driving a car down a familiar road; but as dreams go, the car they're driving is constantly in flux. The next day they go car shopping, and they come across a car that's similar to one they saw in the dream. In their mind, they latch on to the image they saw and adjust it to fit reality. Their mind in trying to structure the chaos of the dream make the dream seem to come true.
~~~)-Steven----
"I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.
He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country..."
General George S. Patton
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Post #199,417
3/18/05 2:42:47 PM
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OT - your picture
If you want a somewhat more visible version, it's here
[image|http://www.aaxnet.com/ajg/Stevenmini.jpg||||]
Of course, with Homeland Security and what all, you may not want it more visible.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #199,436
3/18/05 4:18:17 PM
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Re: OT - your picture
Think I'll just retake the picture in a better location. In the mean time I have lightened it with a bit more contrast.
~~~)-Steven----
"I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.
He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country..."
General George S. Patton
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Post #199,884
3/21/05 9:42:07 PM
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OT - twiddle the gamma.
I've found upping the gamma on that sort of shot gives excellent results.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
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Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
| -- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. |
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Post #199,431
3/18/05 4:01:46 PM
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This is how memory always works
We rehearse and reconstruct what we think happened into our final memory. In the process details get changed, eliminated, and added to fit the narrative that we have.
This is widely recognized as one of the biggest problems with eyewitness reports. In an extreme form, this is also the source of false memory syndrome.
Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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