[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by Angela

Once again, you see things that aren't there in what I say. Boy, you do that a lot! I never "hailed ALG's inconsistency as a good thing" -- I didn't judge it and I never referred to it at all in terms of logic or argument.

What I did do was list as a technique in using the LoA ALG's ability to shift his perspective: to take on and let go of perspectives. You may call this inconsistency if you like; I don't mind.

Well I do and it is. You have even demonstrated in the above your own inconsistency by requiring that there is an absolute reality about what you did or did not say, and I have got it wrong. You prefer another, the relative, viewpoint, when the same is pointed out about your interpretation of my sentences. Then there is no absolute reality, and you're free to construe whatever you want.

Slipping from one perspective to another is inconsistency. To be consistent in one's logical flow, the same perspective must be maintained; those are not my rules, they are the rules of logic. One can, of course, start again from a different perspective and work things out again. It's called taking axioms and then constructing arguments, or seeing what those axioms imply. We could say that the LoA is a perspective, and my view, the objective-reality view, is another perspective. Each has axioms. I am on record here as saying that ultimately we cannot know which view is absolutely correct, and indeed I do not pretend to know the truth about the world. I work with hypotheses, perspectives, and see what they imply. However, there is a beauty to this position: it is the reasonable position. By its own definition, it will gladly submit to a superior view if one can be found that is rational. It is itself a hypothesis, and that view of itself is consistent with its axioms.

Now, in a sense, LoA or subjective reality, is self-sustaining: if you just keep asserting that it could be true and we can't detect otherwise, then that is perfectly logical and an end to the matter. That is the observation that Churchill made above, that the metaphysician will have the last word. However, it is a paradoxical last word, meaning that it is internally inconsistent in a most glaring way to anyone who bothers to examine the belief rationally.

Now, what I have tried to do is explore some of the internal inconsistencies, the irrationalities, the paradoxes, of LoA. If the believer can't see them when they are pointed out, that may be for various reasons, one of which is the fear of criticising or temporarily stepping out of one's own current belief system (a ubiquitous feature of human thinking including my own). One might then say that to remain faithful to the LoA system, or indeed mine, is 'consistency', but of the unhelpful kind, inflexibility.

The 'logic' of LoA leads to paradoxes. How can "thoughts create reality" fit together with "there are subatomic particles", or "there are truthful articles about these things that I can link to on the internet"? How can we use as evidence-that-we-create-our-reality the very evidence that we must be creating for the philosophy to be true? That method of demonstration is no more than pointing. Of course, there is a place to be that is just about faith, not evidence. That is the only rational position I can see for LoA to exist, at least in its stronger forms: I create reality with my thoughts is what I've chosen to believe, and I ain't budging. That's fair at least. That doesn't insult reason, it just ignores it.

We've been there, and we don't agree, and it probably is time for me to move on. I recognise that ultimately this space is for the believers, and I could be thought of as trespassing.

When I came to this forum, I was still a believer in mysticism, but I have since become an atheist and materialist. The interesting thing is that virtually all of the knowledge of this scientific viewpoint supports all other parts, i.e. it all fits together coherently and consistently. There are, of course, limits. An interesting thing about it - often misrepresented here badly - is that science is not a dogmatic single explanation, where everyone has to think and say the same thing. It is incredibly multifarious, since it is just constructed of hypotheses. People test these and continually assess which make more sense, and the whole of science is therefore a healthy and vigorous debate, and - often, if not always - a tentative and humble search for more understanding, rather than a belief that we have found the right answers. There are also paradoxes and great unknowns, but three requirements are that it is rational, consistent and demonstrable. A hypothesis isn't even allowed by definition if it isn't thought to be testable, since any hypothesis must be susceptible to disproof. Once again, from that perspective, we see a problem with the subjective reality worldview - it can't be disproved, so isn't a valid hypothesis. This is seen again and again when someone submits their psi abilities to scientific testing and then claims that it didn't work because their minds were disturbed by bad vibes, or the scientist-sceptic minds made it go wrong, or it was an off day, etc.

We can do experiments and demonstrate the properties of atoms. We cannot do experiments and demonstrate that they don't exist if we don't look, or that to exist God must be watching over them. There are an infinite number of fantasies we can have, and scientists choose to subjugate all of those to things that can be empirically tested and verified through repetition and peer review.

If there is no point in arguing, and if there is no point in saying anything at all to us lot, why do you keep at it? And with such fervor, too. I'm not saying you *shouldn't* keep at it, mind you. Just wondering why you exert yourself, when you believe there is no point.

I express different feelings at different times. I'm human. If someone is angry with you and says "There's no point talking to you!", do you actually expect that they will never talk to you again? Or is this just another time when meanings have suddenly become absolute for you? I'll tell you my hypothesis: it is a way of suggesting that my motives are skewed; that way, it is easier to also continue to believe that my reasoning is.

I think I will be gone from here soon. I don't want this to be a parting shot and if there are loose ends, I'm happy to discuss them, but I don't feel that I want to continue discussing our various philosophies here, where it seems there is one correct philosophy - LoA - and therefore those who come bearing other gifts, thought experiments and reasoning are less than welcome. I wish you all the best for the future, absolutely sincerely, and hope you think critically. Critical thinking is our best human attribute, perhaps our only human attribute. It led to our abilities to be arguing about it over these electrical connections we call the internet, which really really does exist, honest, it's not just something you imagined.