Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id HAA03291 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 25 Aug 2001 07:59:02 +0100 From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 02:03:13 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: The Assumption of Omniscience by the True Believer Message-ID: <3B870761.26075.7B792F@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Dace:
<It's for these reasons that Sheldrake doesn't offer this sort of
testimony
> as conclusive evidence for MR. It should be noted, however, that
the
> trainers and ranchers who wrote to him usually stated that they
just
> didn't
> see how any factors outside the animals themselves could
explain their
> amazing improvements.>
>
Vincent:
That's the argument from ignorance again. You see it in Ufology
too, when pilots see weird lights that they say was not like any
plane
they've ever seen, as though their field of experience and
knowledge is
complete enough. That's not evidence of anything except
something we're all
subject to, and that is incomplete knowledge.
Joe (me):
This points out another attribute of true believers; they travel from
the premise that they cannot see a way other than their pet just-so
story that an observed phenomenon can happen/exist to the
conclusion that that particular phenomenon must be an example of
the occurence or instantiation of the consequences of their just-so
story demonstrated in the empirical world. The unmentioned and
hidden fallacious premise is, of course, the assumed omnicient (all-
knowing) perspective of the true believer and/or his/her particular
guru, so that if they can't grok or wrap their minds around other
ways besides the ones their memetic filters permit them to see by
which the phenomenon might be explained (in some cases even
when others are proffered), then such other ways cannot (for them)
exist.
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