Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA18776 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 17 Mar 2002 21:40:16 GMT X-Originating-IP: [62.31.29.83] User-Agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.0.3 Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 21:32:12 +0000 Subject: Re: FW: MD Dawkins on quantum/mysticism convergence From: Steve Drew <srdrew_1@hotmail.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: <B8BABBDB.343%srdrew_1@hotmail.com> In-Reply-To: <200203171959.TAA18210@alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk> Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-OriginalArrivalTime: 17 Mar 2002 21:34:17.0633 (UTC) FILETIME=[7DEE2910:01C1CDFB] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
on 3/17/02 7:59 PM, memetics-digest at fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk wrote:
> Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 11:21:36 -0500
> From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
> Subject: Re: FW: MD Dawkins on quantum/mysticism convergence
>
> On Sunday, March 17, 2002, at 10:38 , Grant Callaghan wrote:
>
>> To attack such usages for a lack of narrowness is to misunderstand the
>> why and how of what the author was doing with his words. For subjects
>> like mysticism or religion, we have to resort to metaphor in an attempt
>> to explain ideas that are too abstract to be understood through
>> language.
Agree with you Grant, but shouldn't the 'we' be they?
>
> I think you're looking at this from the wrong perspective-
>
> What is resorted to in these instances by the con men of mysticism is
> obfuscation and charlatanism, in an attempt to extort monies from marks
> by fabricating ideas that are too abstract to be either understood or
> explained through common language and thus are elucidated with jargon
> undecipherable by either party, but that sounds damn impressive, and
> might even, from time to time, touch upon some real sense.
>
> The inane prattle of such quacks as Andrew Weil and Deepak Chopra come
> to mind.
>
> - - Wade
The point that you have missed here Wade is that quite often the people
propagating some of the alternative views do not make much from it, if at
all. They actually believe it, which is the scary part. I agree that ppeople
will take advantage of anything to fleece a mark.
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Mar 17 2002 - 22:08:57 GMT