From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed 12 Feb 2003 - 03:16:28 GMT
>From: Vincent Campbell <VCampbell@dmu.ac.uk>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Subject: RE: Hello !?
>Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2003 11:54:59 -0000
>
> Some responses, all IMHO
>
> <What meme would you use to make the believers change their minds?>
>
> Well, without being too flippant, perhaps the axe meme accompanied
>by some comment like 'may god strike me down before I hack this holy
>fencepost to bits'.
>
> <If the beleivers thought the Virgin Mary wanted this man to shut
>up, and they took
> > action to make him do so, where would right and wrong come into it?>
> >
> Well, true believers could kill him and still feel righteous as
>nothing can come in the way of revealed truth, which they presumably would
>believer the face in the fence to be.
>
> <Was he rational in preaching to them against their beliefs?>
>
> Yes. Always rational, if not always good for your health, to
>
> <Would they be rational in trying to stop him?>
>
> It would be understandable for them to try and stop him, or rather
>internally consistent with their beliefs. I'm not sure that makes ir
>rational though.
>
> <When two sides are both doing what they believe is
> > right, it's very difficult to reason with either side.>
> >
> Yes, except that here the dispute is between reason and delusion.
>(Nobody ever really sees the face of the virgin mary in anything, because
>nobody knows what she looked like- they might see what looks like various
>iconic images of her but that's not the same thing at all- now Jimmy Hill's
>face on the side of a cow, now that I've seen!).
>
>
Many years ago there was a small tree (probably more like a shrub) which at
night under the proper lighting (from the street lamps of course) looked
like Freddy Krueger from the movie "Nightmare on Elm Street". It was uncanny
and when we drove by we'd all say something like "There's Freddy!" or
"Freddy Krueger!". To anyboby not familar with the infamous "Nightmare"
movie it would have looked like a small tree. Maybe we were stretching our
imagination a little to forcefit Freddy-esque features onto the overall form
of the tree. In a small way, isn't this what people who see the Virgin Mary
in a foggy window or anything else are doing? I've seen cloud patterns that
look like certain objects too and maybe there's an inkblot thingy going on
here where people might be predisposed to see false patterns, given
familiarity with the true patterns. I'm not saying inkblot tests work for
whatver purpose they are purported to, but that it's not unreasonable that
people will see stuff in inkblots (or other relatively random
configurations) that aren't really there.
It's possible that somebody had cropped that tree to make it resemble Freddy
Krueger, but more likely that a couple kids with overactive imaginations all
agreed that a tree kinda looked like Freddy, even if it just naturally grew
that way.
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