Alabama Municipal Judge Carlton Teel is packing more than legal principles under his robe. When a defendant Brian (Bryant) Keith Ford reacted badly to a sentence and started swinging his crutches at the judge, Teel whipped out a gun and then a deputy shot Ford in the side.
Accounts differ on how much danger the man posed — with some witnesses saying that he was not attacking the judge when he was shot. Others say he tried to grab the gun.
Ford was in the courtroom on a harassment charge from a neighbor who said Ford had cursed at her in December after accusing her of talking about him to police.
Teel reportedly fined him $800 — a rather modest sum when one considers he now faces serious criminal charges and remains in critical condition.
The most disturbing account was:
Sara Williams said she was sitting in the front row when the man, whom she knew, got agitated after the judge fined him $800. He waved one of his crutches in the air.
“The police were hollering for him to get down” when an officer opened fire, she said.
Williams said she yelled “Don’t shoot him no more!” right before the officer fired again.
If that is true, it is hard to see why potentially lethal force was used. However, others describe Ford as attacking the judge.
Do you believe judges should be allowed to pack heat in a courtroom?
Source: ABA Journal
@Brian: Fortunately, I only have to read your first sentence. So, just in case you find this entertaining:
I understand you as completely as is necessary: You are a liar, you are a poseur, you are putting up a pretense of wisdom and trying desperately to preserve the illusion of it. What else need I understand? That you resort to calls for sympathy when you have no argument? That you want others to feel sorry for you? That you cannot help but respond in retaliation for a slight while constantly claiming you are not doing what you obviously are doing?
And are you retaliating? You betcha, your post is full of insinuations that I am too ignorant to know what I am talking about; full of insults to my intelligence, and full of retaliatory comments. I don’t even have to read this entire post to see it is another pack of lies and circular arguments that mean nothing and lead nowhere.
You cannot even be honest with yourself, I guess there is no hope of you being honest with me or anybody else. Liar.
As I aware of someone stating that I am not as I say I am, I will continue to state that those who do not know nor understand me do not know or understand me.
If a person does not understand a technical term, it is commonplace for a person to imagine what the technical term means.
From George E. Vaillant, “Adaptation to Life,” Little, Brown and Co., 1977, some psychological defenses as technical terms from Table 2, on page 80:
Psychotic Mechanisms:
Denial, Distortion, Delusional Projection.
Immature Mechanisms:
Fantasy, Projection, Hypochrondriasis, Passive-Aggressive.Behavior, Acting Out.
Neurotic Mechanisms:
Intellectualization, Repression, Reaction Formation, Displacement, Dissociation.
Mature Mechanisms:
Sublimation, Altrusim, Suppression, Anticipation, Humor.
A few words read via the Internet are not sufficient to learn very much about anyone; yet, though the data I have is massively too little for a useful hint of accuracy, the words I have read of those who throw words like, “fraud” at me begin to suggest a possible delusional disorder, as I am not, and am not being, fraudulent.
As I am not, and am not being, fraudulent, the notion cannot be coming from me, therefore it may be of projection.
Alas, it concerns me that delusional projection would be plausibly classifiable as a form of psychotic disorder, at least as I read my copy of the DSM-IV-TR.
For those sufficiently astute, it may be noted, on reading Vaillant, that his list of psychological defenses is sequenced from the most mentally healthy, denial, to the most healthy, humor.
Humor can be very subtle, especially in the straight man role. Because I can find no other way to reply to abusive words such as being labeled a “liar,” except through humor, and because, being autistic and without the ability to think in words, I went to work early in my life to snare all the words possible, so that, in time of need, I might be able to find a few useful ones among the gaggle.
Finding myself having dreadful difficulty making sense of word patterns before I learned to talk in words, I may have put a hundred times more effort into figuring out words than someone would who had fifty times my word ability, and so may have ended up with double the average word ability because I was able to make an absurdly great effort to figure words out.
So, since kindergarten, whenever someone has done to me what I classify as bullying, I haul out more words than my peers probably thought possible, the better to minimize my being hurt while not actually returning any sort of real hurt in return. I have yet to find a more effective, yet ridiculously subtle, way of plausibly reducing my likelihood of further “bashing.”
So I hoist a bushel of words and let the winds of whimsey scatter them wherever. And I am yet alive. I guess it works, and I know it works for me better than my not understanding myself insufficiently well that I would claim to know or understand something accurately about someone I have never met.
The way others interpret the words I am able to find and let the winds of whimsey scatter is totally outside my locus of control. If I were to say some utter nonsense, for example, “The potato peelings induced the picofarad,” someone might get upset because of sincerely believing that I thereby intentionally insulted their Aunt Matilda, though they never had an Aunt Matilda.
For the record, projection of self-image is never a form of lying, because, by definition, such projection is perfectly outside conscious awareness. If one is consciously aware of it, it simply is not, by definition, of the category, “psychological defense.”
What I find rather curious is my describing a general phenomenon, with neither explicit nor implicit reference to any particular person, and finding someone claiming that I had as though explicitly meant a particular person, when that was not what I was doing at all.
Yet this sort of exchange, if both people are intent on making the other person capitulate, is what, as I read Zimbardo’s “The Lucifer Effect” may be what drove those United States of America service personnel to their terrible abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison.
Tit for tat may be the most dangerous game of all.
And that is why the adversarial system concerns me.
I am not alone in such concern. Neurologist Robert Scaer, in “The Body Bears the Burden, Second Edition” Haworth Medical Press, 2007, on page 213,
“…Because our system of jurisprudence is by definition adversarial, the prescribed sequence of legal events in an MVA insurance claim predictably enhances symptoms of trauma, prolongs he patient’s illness, and jeopardizes the outcome. In virtually every case of delayed whiplash recovery due to this form of trauma, I eventually spend more time treating the patient for the effects of stress from the legal system than for the original accident.”
In 1987, during one of my earlier iatrogenic-blunder-driven psychiatric hospitalizations, my psychiatrist asked me about another of his patients on the same unit. I gave a short description of the patient and a concise diagnosis. The psychiatrist commented to me, “You are as good at diagnosis as I am, but you have a different system.” I responded, “The difference is, my system works.” The psychiatrist never said he disagreed with that.
How is my system different? All forms of what is usefully named “mental illness” are forms of life-saving-directed adaptation to trauma.
I have not come close to running out of words…
I ran out of actual retaliation before I was conceived.
@Brian: You invited reply by insult. I am not psychologically defending anything, but obviously you DO retaliate by accusing me “projection of self-image,” which is the equivalent of calling me a liar. And that is precisely “reciprocal retaliation.”
So now you have lied three times in three sentences, congratulations are in order, liar.
Projection of self-image is an interesting form of psychological defense.
I do not retaliate.
I do not engage in reciprocal retaliation because I do not engage.
I do inform people when I experience the possible presence of harm.
I forgive without limit.
I did not request that you reply; as you informed me, if I understood your written and posted words, that you would not reply.
A deception not protested is a deception validated.
I validate no deception of which I am aware.
I give no deception of which I am aware.
Mr. Harris,
Why yes. Please communicate with the email provided, for security reasons I cannot directly contact you. I hope you will look me up. I am Chis.
RE: WestboroMan, February 10, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Mr. Harris,
Will you be coming to the rally in Minnesota? We need your help.
###########################
Westboroman,
By “rally,” are you referring to the picketing scheduled for Feb. 13, in Hastings?
You may email me at:
affirmational@yahoo.com
Please advise…
@Brian: Will you now add lying to your repertoire? Isn’t impenetrable obfuscation and circularity enough for you?
You engaged me RIGHT HERE by calling me out by name, and accusing me of hypocrisy in my response to savaship.
Save your breath; no disability gives you the right to start lying. But of course next you will tell me it is impossible to lie, but there are lies, blah blah bullshit blah blah.
Mr. Harris,
Will you be coming to the rally in Minnesota? We need your help.
For those who know only the language of misunderstanding and confusion, the language of intelligible understanding is naturally incomprehensible.
Finally, you, Tony C., have described the difficulty you have been having:
“I’ve invested all the time I care to spend in trying to engage you, and I am done.”
As I never engage other people, so it also is impossible to engage me. You have made an effort at doing what is impossible, and all efforts made at doing the impossible invariably fail.
Instead of engaging people (a process I observe to be quite abusive to all involved in engagement), I merely describe what I find I have come to know and understand, for the sake of the possibility that someone else may find something I learned to know or understand of some use.
My wife and I were never engaged before we were married, nor have been engaged since being married.
Perhaps the following, from the King James Version of the Bible will be of some interest to someone:
Matthew 19:11-12, “But he said unto them, ‘All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.’ ”
That for which you are not ready is not yet for you, yet it may be for someone else.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxiMrvDbq3s&w=480&h=390]
As I do not engage people, neither do I disengage from people…
That which you find not written for you, accurately so you find.
Danke schön.
@Brian: Your writing is impossible to read, you string together phrases like a computer program.
“Have a nice life” is my polite way of saying, I am not reading your circular logic posts, I do not wish to converse with you because you are illogical, I do not wish to know anything of you from this moment forward, or in other words, for the rest of your life.
It is my way of saying “Goodbye, Brian!” Your inability to communicate anything of value, or to respond with anything more than bluster, is irritating and I am not reading any of it anymore. You have wasted your time on that response, and you are wasting your time with any future response.
So if you cannot process innuendo, let me be more direct: You don’t know what you are talking about; you are a poseur and a fraud, and I have no interest in conversing with you. I’ve invested all the time I care to spend in trying to engage you, and I am done. This is it for me. Adios. Goodbye. Au revoir; Auf Wiedersehen, Arrivederci; Adeus!
RE: Tony C., February 10, 2011 at 8:53 am
[begin excerpt]
Have a nice life.
[end excerpt]
I have never had nor would ever tolarate, my having a nice life.
Were I to be condemned to having a nice life, I would have a completely and absolutely intolerably impoverished life.
Sadly, I must needs be absolutely reject your suggestion, admonition, command, or whatever it is that “Have a nice life.” can ever actually mean in any way, manner or else.
Why would I ever consider allowing the of exchanging my actual life, one absolutely perfect in every detail as it is perfect also in every possible detail, for the utterly unfathomable tragedy, as a “nice life” would truly be for me, of a “nice life”?
My entire life on earth has been confined to the infinite freedom of actually happening in that promised and now actually real “heaven on earth.”
I was born where I have always lived, and, whenever asked to trade my life as it has been for the life as though known by “most people” (there is actually no “most people”) I invariably am given to continue my life in the actual, eternally perfect, heaven on earth.
I continue to use the best words I am able to find, yet I know and understand why the language available to me for sharing in words what my life is and why it is, is a language which virtually rules out that which my life gives me to do.
I am one to whom it was given to ask a child’s prayer, and to ask that said child’s prayer be my entire life, without exception and without possible exception.
That prayer, the meaning of which has never, ever changed, put in the best words I now can find is:
“Lord, God, Almighty: Give to me that which I need that I may best serve You. Nevertheless, not my will but Your will be done. For this I pray through Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. So be it. May my whole life be this prayer. Amen.”
As I have previously written, I pray this prayer every moment of my life, and with no aspect of my life withheld whatsoever.
“Ask and you shall receive.” Ask, I did. Receive, I have. And I am and am only an ordinary person, neither more nor less special or exceptional than is anyone else.
The communication difficulty we have encountered is not about you, nor is it about me. It is about the nature of existence as process.
I am not the first, nor the only, person to live as I live, for I know and understand one other, my mother. It is she who gave me my life as I live it.
The communication difficulty is told in the Book of Genesis. No, I am not among the “Back to Genesis” folks. I am an “Onward with Genesis” person, for I observe existence continually adding to itself.
“The Creation” was not six thousand years ago or sixteen billion years ago, “The Creation” is “The Eternal Now,” as told of by Paul Tillich and many others. The Creation is Existence Itself.
Thus, whatever is observed, wherever it is observed, in every way it is observed, is inextricably at the absolute limit of what existence has there been able to create and make observable.
(Please carefully note that I do not use “Bible verses” in the manner of proof-texting. I regard proof-texting {as a form of quoting out of context} as a form of abomination or worse. I am using Bible verses merely as illustrations, doing so because the Bible is among the more widely distributed and available of books. I am here using The King James Version because the text is public domain.)
The communication difficulty? It has long been told. Genesis 11:7 — “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
James? My Hebrew name is James. My Christian name is Brian. My surname is Harris, and my name is who I am and is what I do.
James, brother of Yeshua, is a synonym of Jacob, both mean “the supplanter” or one who continues the work of those who came before.
Brian, is the name of one of strength, courage, and virtue; I was named as memorial to King Brian of Ireland.
Harris is “son of Harry” and Harry means “army man.” My dad’s dad was named Harry R. Harris, or “army man, son of an army man.” I am of that army which marches as to war without marching to war.
I am who I say I am.
That I may survive in a world as though in which my possible existence may bring to many people fear and terror, I bring neither fear nor terror (and what, in this world could generate more fear and terror than that?), I was given an amazing-to-me gift before being born, of being able to psychoanalyze people to their very core, doing so without actually doing any harm.
To so psychoanalyze people would be perfectly unethical and immoral save for one minute detail. I avoid and evade every form and aspect of deception. I simply am so relentlessly truthful that people are absolutely unable to not be truthful with me.
The eye cannot see itself without a mirror.
The I cannot see itself without a mirror.
The Aye cannot see itself without a mirror.
The mirror for the eye is an optical mirror, for the eye is an optical organ.
The mirror for the I is another self, for the I is itself a self.
The mirror for the Aye is another Aye, for the I is an affirmation.
Go to a circus side show and look in the trick mirrors. If all the mirrors in a circus side show essentially the same in how they distort what they reflect, the eye will never see other than a distorted image of itself.
Go to other people and look at how other people reflect you. If every person has essentially the same distortions of self (psychological defenses which distort reality to preserve the distortions of reality which are both what psychological defenses are and what psychological defenses do), the mirror neuron system of the human brain will mindlessly replicate the distortions of realty which construct the deceptions of socially-defined-consensus pseudo-reality, and the distortions of psychological defenses hide within themselves.
Go to the realm of truthfulness, and, if one has been terrifyingly coerced, through what has been named, “the terrible twos,” into exchanging falsehood for truthfulness to avoid even worse terror, and if all he truthfulness to be seen is similarly an interchange of falsehood for truthfulness, the Aye is denied any way to see itself, and we are as blinded to actual truthfulness.
Those distortions have been denied to me, denied to my life, for the path of my life only leads away from all such distortions aforementioned.
I am of no more nor less importance than is anyone else. I am an ordinary person.
And also, it is not given for me to say, as in Matthew 7:23, “And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
It is given to me to say, as to live, “Come to me that we may share what we have learned and understood, for you have given me a way to know and understand you, and to know and understand how and why it was given to you to do such work of seeming iniquity as has been necessary that we, together, working collaboratively, may learn what iniquity is and does, and how to avoid it.
Why would “a loving God” (aka existence) give to humanity language confounded so that we may not understand one another’s speech?
That is where my expertise as a bioengineer comes to the fore. Facts can be learned nearly instantaneously, for they are of the declarative brain function. Understanding, however, is learned only though the doing of what generates understanding, and that can take vast amounts of time.
Had human language not been made of confusion, it may be worthwhile to ponder the meaning of that “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” clock. Is it possible to demonstrate that, absent confounded language, we may not have known of atomic energy before we understood that it is not for the vaporizing of people supposedly enemies? Is it not likely that, without the delays of knowledge our knowledge would have so outpaced our understanding that humanity would have destroyed itself long before humanity had been given the necessary understanding of how to avoid its total self-destruction?
Consider the epithets flung toward me. Imagine that I had the power of pushing that final humanity-extinguishing button, and had internalized even one of those epithet and vaporized myself and everyone else because I had not understood how and why retaliation is its own destruction?
John 5:31, “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.”
I bear no witness of myself, I bear witness only of that which I have learned and understood. My life is not of me nor about me; yet, as also for everyone else, I alone among humanity as the sole witness to, and of, what I have been given to learn and to understand.
Matthew 10:26, “Fear the not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and nothing hid that shall not be known.”
As what is covered that is now being revealed is of understanding, or procedural learning, also that which is being unhidden is of knowing, or declarative learning.
Matthew 12:5-7, “Or have ye not read in the law, how that n the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple (“the temple of adversarial law” — jbh). But if ye had known (“and also understood” –jbh) what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.”
Matthew 20:21, “Jesus said unto him, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me.”
Durinng my last psychiatric hospitalization in response to the second time major sugery to prevent cancer led to pain control with morphine and my second morphine-induced psychosis, at the same University of Illinois Hospital 8-East psychiatric unit where was my first psychiatric hospitalization, in a group therapy session, the staff leader asked each patient to individually write an answer to a question. That question was, “What is your favorite material possession?”
I wrote, and subsequently read, what I have known and understood for the whole of my entire life.
I wrote, and, when my turn came, read, “In truth, I have no material possessions. Yet there are many material things over which I have been given stewardship. Of all these, my favorite is my body, for, without it, I would have no stewardship of anything else material.”
As I have never been given actual ownership of anything, there is nothing I can sell, the proceeds from which sale, I can give to the poor. All that remains for me that I can do is to give my life to the rich.
Matthew 20:23-26, “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, ‘Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter the kingdom of heaven.
And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.’
When his disciples herd it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, ‘Who then can be saved?’
But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, ‘With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.’ ”
Who am I, really? I am one ordinary person, who, for man, is impossible, as those who hurl epithets toward me correctly know and understand. And I am one ordinary person, who, for God, is demonstrated absolutely possible.
There is another way to get to the other side of that needle; it is through knowing and understanding that, save as a delusion of deception, there is no needle whatsoever.
Thus, the rich may actually as easily pass into heaven as may the poor, for to be rich in one way is to be poor in another and to be poor in one way is to be rich in another.
As you come to know and to understand this, you will know why engineering is the only profession given the tools to design and build the proper repair of the footing-to-bedrock interface upon which the entire now-in-brittle-failure structure of humanity is inevitably built.
For myself, even I know and understand the blatant impossibility of my life, I observe that, for me, as an ordinary person, my life is perfectly impossible.
What is the actual reality of perfect impossibility?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGqY_2B9_G4&w=480&h=390]
@Brian: I refuse online anonymity, doing so because I am unafraid to be known as who I really am.
I am not afraid to be known, I remain anonymous because I believe arguments and reason should stand on their own, without reference to who makes them.
I am an egalitarian. I am a meritocratist. My degrees, my college, my businesses, my wealth, my position in society are all immaterial; and if anybody agrees with an argument of mine because of who I am then they agree for the wrong reason. I want them to agree or disagree with the logic. Who I am and the positions I hold cannot turn bad logic into good, and I freely admit I am capable of bad logic, so I want my arguments examined by people unswayed by any prestige or standing of the author.
As an egalitarian, the same logic applies to you. I am unswayed by your degree, or your advisors. Either you have a logical argument or you do not. If you cannot elucidate that argument in a post, or a series of posts, you don’t have an argument.
Did you personally meet with Kuhn and Parkinson? No. Yet you seem to have understood their arguments from their writing.
You say, no two of my committee members agreed on some essential philosophical principles of the thesis.
REALLY? Your committee could not even agree on the fundamental axioms you put forth in your dissertation, yet they let you escape with a Ph.D. anyway?
A logical argument is founded on axioms; the definition of an axiom is something we take as self-evident, i.e. an axiom does not require proof. For example, in standard Euclidean geometry, we say the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. We say a point has no dimension; no width, height or depth. Axioms like this do not require proof.
If your “fundamental philosophical points” were not agreed upon by your committee, your work was not based on any accepted axioms.
If you cannot provide an axiomatic discussion of your work, and I suspect you cannot, it is not a logical work. You are wrong; it is not the person that determines the difficulty of understanding, it is your responsibility in writing a dissertation to make a contribution to the field that the average practitioner in the field can follow and comprehend and even implement. If you have not done that, you have gained a Ph.D. under false colors. In other words, it is your responsibility to make your work accessible to others, not my responsibility to work to understand you.
And finally, I will not have a discussion with somebody egotistical or delusional enough to claim they are working on a “unified field theory” starting with neurology.. You are as much a fraud as the “quantum crystal” scammers, trying to appropriate a little glory from the physics world to inflate your own importance.
Have a nice life.
RE: Tony C., February 9, 2011 at 7:18 pm
@Brian: If understanding your work is such a simple task, why must I read it several times? Why must I read it “carefully?” Why must I read it at all?
Either your dissertation is difficult to understand or simple to understand, it cannot be both.
####################################
Connotation cannot be denotation nor denotation connotation, for their definitions are, by philosophical design, dichotomous.
My dissertation is anything but easy reading. I had to write it to simultaneously fully satisfy all of my committee members individually while not being granted any opportunity to meet together after writing the final version, and no two of my committee members agreed on some essential philosophical principles of the thesis. I have never been able to imagine a more inherently difficult writing task. No, the dissertation was written to only be understood properly by my five committee members, and by no one else. That absurd condition was imposed on me and my committee through the (in my view, severe violations of the Illinois Human Rights Act of Dr. James Drummond, said violations having been overcome with difficulty) decisions of Dr. James Dummond and others.
It is a logical absurdity to claim that my dissertation cannot be both easy to understand and concurrently be difficult to understand, because understanding is not a property of my inanimate dissertation and is only a property of the animate human beings who read it, and the background of the reader is the determinant of whether the dissertation is easy or difficult to understand. Of course, I allow that, for some people, their background may make even that difficult to understand.
I grant to you all the points in the universe. The universe being, so they say, finite and unbounded, all the points in the universe amount to exactly nothing. I bother not with pointless points.
I find (a personal opinion) that it is a contrasting philosophical paradigm that divides us. You, as best I can discern, went through the infant-child transition, as I surmise do most people, while I definitely did not do that.
Until you can show that you understand the neurological issues, can demonstrate the ability to do verifiable sorts of neurological modeling, show that you well understand the contrast between extensional and intensional meanings, we do not share the same world.
In my world, much as described by Philip Zimbardo, situational factors control conduct. Such situational factors include biology, physics, evolution, and, ultimately, a way of actually understanding first causes.
Every major scientific revolution I have been able to identify and study takes the form my work is taking…
Dr. Phyllis Bowen, for one, said my work was of the nature of a scientific revolution.
And Dr. Cwiertniak, when I was doing guest lectures in some of his classes, brought to the attention of his classes that I was working on a genuine unified field theory, or theory of everything.
There have been, and are, people who have understood my work, but, not being Registered Professional Engineers, have no standing as expert witnesses within the present system of law, because, also, my work is not their core research focus.
The subtle distinction is my work not being concerned with the mistakes which are avoided, but only with the ones which are not avoided. One can recite millions of examples to refute my work which have no actual connection with my work.
Time confusion and/or time-corrupted learning are yet subtle in scientific psychology, most of the papers I read in my APS journals either ignore time-corrupted learning, or embrace it unwittingly. (pardon my anthormorphizing scientific papers)
I refuse online anonymity, doing so because I am unafraid to be known as who I really am.
In engineering, work done anonymously is absolutely and totally unethical. I cannot seal an engineering design drawing anonymously.
I do not mind people needing to be anonymous, I have no such need, nor would I allow myself to be anonymous except as not being anonymous is mandated by someone other than myself.
Anonymous people can be hypothetical people and hypothetical people can hypothetically swallow the whole universe without noticing the swallowing of it. Hypothetical people can swim across the universe instantly. I am real, not hypothetical.
Your functioning in the manner of an anonymous, hypothetical person precludes your being able to comment usefully about my work, which I designed to be applicable only to people who are neither anonymous nor hypothetical.
So, I will continue to comment on Professor Turley’s blawg as befits my circumstances until he asks me to stop. I prefer that he not so ask.
I trust existence, I trust all of existence; while I experience transient fear as a reminder of the need to exercise reasonable care, I cannot be made to be afraid in a sustained way.
Another point for Tony C. So far, the score is Tony C is at 21 wins, the rest is at a total of zero. Way to go Tony C. 🙂
@Brian: If understanding your work is such a simple task, why must I read it several times? Why must I read it “carefully?” Why must I read it at all?
Either your dissertation is difficult to understand or simple to understand, it cannot be both.
Blouise,
You are correct that many times people’s circumstances that change can lead to bad behavior. Substance abuse, gambling are two biggies that lead otherwise good people astray.
Tony C.
1, February 9, 2011 at 2:09 pm
@Blouise: The employee I hired was recommended to me by my best friend, who had been working with him at a civil service job for about six years, and vouched for his competence.
That said, the lesson I learned is one your friend hopefully learned; that trust is an emotion and relying on emotion in business can be a fatal mistake. I verify because I can’t help but trust some people. I’m not sure whether to call that a flaw in my personality, but being overly trusting can be a handicap in business and my corrective for it is to work by-the-book and double-check everything. If that offends people, well, they can blame me for being a terrible judge of character.
=========================================================
That is indeed what he learned … I forgot to mention that the bookkeeper was also his god-father. Complete betrayal.
Trust is always a risk and I do my best to take calculated risks. Also, people change or should I say, circumstances in people’s lives change that often force a change in behavior. So trust is an ongoing calculated risk. There are some people who I instinctively trust but I suspect that has something to do with my sub-conscious. (BTW … I was the one who convinced my friend to look a little closer at his bookkeeper. I found no joy in being right.)
@Brain: To pick one part: Because the state and process of the person’s brain are both altered by the making of the mistake and by its recognition, the state of the person’s brain needed to recognize the mistake did not exist before the mistake was made.
This is simply false. The state of the brain certainly changes upon recognition of the mistake, but it does not follow that the change was necessary in order to recognize the mistake.
In fact that is the whole difference between a mistake and misfortune. If I opened a shop in a building and it burned down the week I after I got all my inventory and equipment into it, that would be misfortune; not a mistake. There is no plausible means by which I could have anticipated a fire. If I did not have any fire insurance, that would be a mistake: There is a very plausible (and inexpensive) way I could have protected myself against the financial consequences of a fire, and I failed to do it.
Certainly the state of my brain right this minute understands that, it doesn’t actually take a fire for me to realize it would be a mistake to bet my business on a NO_FIRES future. The only state changed in my brain after a fire is the knowledge that a fire did indeed occur.
So I see this premise as false. I believe in free will, and a decision to forego fire insurance can be known beforehand to be a mistake, willingly chosen. Why would somebody purposely make such a mistake? Because they are in a hurry, or want to save money, or in general because like everybody they have two minds, an emotional one and a rational one, and the emotional mind wins out.
Alcoholics that fall off the wagon know, rationally, they are making a mistake, but their emotional mind wants a drink and wins control.
I won’t talk via Skype; I preserve my anonymity online. I have an autistic person in my family; I will tell you what I tell him: Translate. The only way to become adept at a foreign language is to practice it. The fact that you can understand me at all is evidence that our intelligences are not fundamentally different; so figure it out. Or, of course, you can stop answering my posts. Either way is fine by me.
RE: Tony C., February 9, 2011 at 4:34 pm
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It doesn’t sound to me like you have done any work at all.
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Perhaps you did not notice my suggestion that people carefully read my dissertation, which is, reformatted and with a few typos fixed, on the Internet.
When you have carefully read my dissertation until you understand it, then we may be able to have a very useful dialogue.
If you have not read my dissertation carefully enough times to understand it, that may be why you do not have enough understanding of my work as to be able to grasp its plausible significance as an effective refutation of the whole notion of the adversarial system being neurologically valid.
I wrote it, the late Dr. Boris Astrachan, Dr. Thomas Jobe, Dr. Phyllis Bowen, Dr. Earl Gose, and Dr. Robert Cwiertniak did read it and did understand it and did ask me very challenging questions about it, having first read it carefully. Their names are in the Dissertation. Call the UIC main library and ask a reference librarian to pull my dissertation off the shelf and confirm who my committee members were, and that the dissertation met with unanimous committee approval…
As with The Reality Based Community, you are fully entitled to your own facts, while no one, not me, not you, not anybody is entitled to his/her/xer own facts.
I like dialogue.