3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375 10582097494459230781640628620899862

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

A guru? If and when you seek God then you will find the guru. In the meantime seek to place faith in even the least of people. A guru? Wow that was revealing.

Placing faith in anyone can be a difficult choice dependent on the circumstances and importance of the reason behind it. Its a scaler thing. Putting faith in a mystical notion for which I have more realistic set of explanations to me seems foolish.

In the imagination of math within any range of numbers: (# of irrational numbers / # of rational numbers) = Infinity

In the real world, for any collection of numbers: (# of irrational numbers / # of rational numbers) = 0

I see assertions that make no sense to me. Perhaps you should try framing a question I can understand ?

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Placing faith in anyone can be a difficult choice dependent on the circumstances and importance of the reason behind it. Its a scaler thing. Putting faith in a mystical notion for which I have more realistic set of explanations to me seems foolish.

I am entertaining and responding here to what I view are unrealistic sets of explanations. If God were merely a mystical notion or just an explanation then I'd disown it the way I disown the explanations with irrational numbers.

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

I see assertions that make no sense to me. Perhaps you should try framing a question I can understand ?

I was trying to obey a former request to not ask you questions. I apologize if I slipped... won't happen again.

[Tao_Equus]

Cyberpi,

I have never requested that you ask no questions...only that I did not have any patience for you replying to my every post with a set of rhetorical statements framed as questions. If you ever want to hear my answer to any question feel free to ask, if I have an answer i'l certainly give it to you.

Tao

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Cyberpi,

I have never requested that you ask no questions...only that I did not have any patience for you replying to my every post with a set of rhetorical statements framed as questions. If you ever want to hear my answer to any question feel free to ask, if I have an answer i'l certainly give it to you.

Tao

Well on a former thread where I had said, "I ask questions instead of placing statements because until you answer the questions for yourself and resolve the conflict you will not see anything other than what you want to see." To this you responded:

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Nonsense. Such a method is a device of trickery. These questions framed specifically to try and lure someone into agreeing with you. You understand the scientific method, postulate an opinion and wait for commentary on it. That is not what you do. As others state, and I too thought of using in my last post, your dialogue is most akin to a travelling salesman or a politician. Slippery, deflective, deliberately trying to control the direction to your own agenda. Which, as far as I can see, is to prop up your own ego.
I on the other hand am unambiguous in my words. I never had an education other than that I gave myself and so I do not always use language perfectly...

Since I enjoyed a rich education by people who stimulated me with questions, I am uncertain how to contend with someone like yourself who insists that a person like me is somehow manipulative by asking you questions. Perhaps this will be the safest question for me to ask you, and I did ask but perhaps I misread your answer: What questions (if any) would you like me to ask you?

[Tao_Equus]

You are not a dumb man. You know exactly what I meant and mean. But let me say that if I wanted to play chess, I'd play chess. This is not yahoo chess.

Tao

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

You are not a dumb man. You know exactly what I meant and mean. But let me say that if I wanted to play chess, I'd play chess. This is not yahoo chess.

If chess is viewed as a game where one person wins and the other is thus the loser, then I agree with you. No verbal exchange ever results in a loss except for the opportunity cost. If chess is viewed as a game where everyone wins for merely exercising their mind and exchanging thoughts with others, then I disagree with you. Like the game of chess a verbal exchange might reveal a person with a different form of education and style and I see the mutual benefit in that.

I don't really know exactly what you mean, but I do know what you've said. I do not possess your concern over someone asking me questions wherein I think they have already assumed an answer... that was college and I loved college. That is life and I love life. I like being questioned. I like looking for answers and I like finding them. If I were playing chess with God then I am sure to always lose, and I am sure to always win. It really depends on how I view the game.

So if you think I am conversing with you to win then you are absolutely correct, but if you think that I am conversing with you so that you will lose then you are absolutely wrong. It is simply not the way that I wish to view any verbal exchange and neither is it the way that I view a game of chess.

At the root here I see a control issue and I view every control issue as an issue with faith. A game of chess can be viewed as a game of trying to gain control... the mere fact that you mention chess is yet more evidence to me. If I were playing a game of chess with you then my next move would be to ask you, "Where do you want me to move next?" You tell me where to move and I'll move there. What questions would you like me to ask? You decide and then I'll ask it. Viewed one way I am giving you control. Viewed another way I am seeking to control you. If it were a game of chess I recognize that I am responsible for what I do. Recognizing that division of responsibility I do not worry about being controlled by another person. I give up control all the time. My brain cells are yours... paint with them whatever picture that you'd like. Ask whatever question you'd like and say whatever you'd like. I place no restrictions. If I disagree with the picture then I'm probably going to speak up, but if you want me to not talk while you do all the painting then I can do that too. You have the remote. < Handing you the remote >.

The reason for my style there is that I recognize there are other exchanges than a verbal exchange. Reading about chess for example can be a waste of time... at some point you just have to just go experience it for yourself. So I recognize that hearing about someone else's method of playing chess can sound like finger nails scraping down a chalk board. Want an example? Brace yourself... "I know that God is real and I believe that God loves you." Ooooooh... geeeeze... I could see the shivers in your spine. Oh man... having a wisdom tooth extracted or inserted might have been less painful than that. That surely must have sounded awful. I can see your neurons kicking into overdrive.

So handing you the remote I am saying relax. Paint a picture with my neurons for a bit if you'd prefer. If you think that you can paint for me an infinitely decimated PI... I'd surely like to see it. Or not. Left to my own vices, I presently do not think any irrational numbers exist... ever. That you, or anyone else, or if everyone else thinks differently than me then that does not worry me. That does not concern me. I am not controlled by knowledge... only benefitted. If I am the loser then I have won something from it. If I am the winner then I have gained nothing but an ounce of satisfaction for helping someone else to win something from me. Kind of like chess, but kind of different. It really depends on how it is viewed.

[Tao_Equus]

Growing up here in Edinburgh we used to at one time have our own version of "speakers corner", situated at the Mound in the northern shadow of Edinburgh Castle. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons individuals with a point to preach would set up their soap boxes and rant at the mostly indifferent consumers on their march down the shops of Princess Street.

I mention this because back in 1984 I was involved in a student documentary chronicling some of the well known characters to be found there come hail, sleet or snow. My role was one somewhat of a plant, I was to ask difficult or contentious questions for the camera crew to film. This one bible thumper, genuinely foaming and spitting his way through his sermon, was talking of Jesus overturning the tables of the moneylenders. I heckled, "There is no institution richer than the Catholic Church, none in Scotland richer than the Church of Scotland.....isn't making money why the churches sell religion?" His answer, caught beautifully over my shoulder, his spit flying at me and his finger pointed in enraged accusation was " You shoot heroin".

Obviously his answer bears no relation to the question and often I feel that way discussing things with you. Of course you dont spit and foam, well not that I can see anyway, and dont convey anywhere near the 'enthusiasm' of that chap. But I do find your approach difficult. You claim that your method is one you learned at college and you are actually trying to do me a favour. But after re-reading some posts I still feel like you were just getting off on your own, not truly trying to 'enlighten' me through nudging me in the direction of self discovery. I may not be well educated, but I'm no fool either and over dressing the salad makes for unpalatable fare. Perhaps you might find a smidgen of education in that?

I do not own, or operate any remote controls and most certainly do not want one for you. You make it sound like I have attempted in some way to censor you. Not true, I have asked you to consider two things... not putting words in my mouth and to make some effort to make yourself understandable to my primitive, whiskey pickled, wee scots brain. I dont like it when my feet hurt. I cant compel you to anything and have no desire to but as you sometimes make interesting posts I like to comment on it would help if we could speak the same language. I appreciate this may be difficult for you, being an American, but I'm sure you are perfectly capable of engineering some way to reduce the entropy in our dialogue

Tao

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

False

...to you, true to me; but I was never expecting any agreement from you!

but I can say: I was asking you.

...and I responded. Do you have an answer to your question?


s.

[cyberpi]

Tao,
Most subjects here are similar to marriage, sex, and raising children. People can exchange viewpoints on the experience of marriage, sex, and raising children; however, none of that verbage is going to enlighten you and neither will you ever self-discover those experiences on your own. I am incapable nor interested in marriage with you, sex, or raising children with you... if you want to experience that you must go seek someone else. No books in the world and no amount of verbage from me is going to supplant the experience and no amount of self deliberation on your part is going to supplant the experience either. It is not necessarily my job to convince you to go experience marriage, sex, or raising children. If you come here saying that Faith is required in the absence of evidence or knowledge of the experience, then I am going to do everything I can to verbally say that Faith in someone is required to gain those experiences and all manner of real evidence about them.

You've expressed the belief several times that scientific method is verbal exchange and self deliberation. Scientists may do that just as we can talk and exchange viewpoints about marriage, sex, and raising children. However, the core of science is coming up with hypothesis, doing experiments, and coming up with models and theories that accurately describe the results of the experiments. No amount of verbal exchange or self deliberation is going to supplant the step of doing the experiment. I might talk about irrational numbers but I'm not offering a course in math here either.

It is not necessarily my goal to convince you to do any experiment. If you want to or not, or feel that you've done and experienced but I really haven't... that is your choice. The merits of doing so have absolutely NOTHING to do with any verbal exchange here. I did not experiment in life so that I could come here and describe or brag about the results. Having obtained different results in life, I like to probe and ask questions, and I like to describe my viewpoints and experiences.

If you come here describing conclusions that are different than mine then I'm probably going to respond, I'm going to respond without your permission, and I'm going to respond counter to your beliefs, and you are probably going to conclude that I'm egotistical or boring in doing so. I am probably going to describe some counter-culture that is entirely foreign to you in the same manner that you have. Is that ok with you? I am going to cause a lot of consternation by asking a ton of questions... if not to you directly then with other people. I see value in it. My closest family does it; however, without deriving the consternation from it. If you wish to decrease the entropy between people then asking questions and answering them is an important aspect of being connected. However, it is not the ONLY exchange. As I suggested in the first paragraph, no manner of verbal exchange is going to make a marriage, quantify sex, or gain the experience of raising children... and I submit that to do those things will also require an exchange of Faith and Love... with someone else.

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by Snoopy

...and I responded. Do you have an answer to your question?

Yes! I do! What were you saying about laziness? Does it apply here?

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

Yes! I do! What were you saying about laziness? Does it apply here?

Let's hear it then! No need to be coy.

See previously for what I was saying.

I don't think so. I said I didn't know.

s.

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by Snoopy

Let's hear it then! No need to be coy.

See previously for what I was saying.

I don't think so. I said I didn't know.

s.

Wouldn't providing you my answer be an enabler to some laziness on your part? I would much rather hear the answer that you come up with after you look long and hard for an answer all on your own. But that would require work... mental gymnastics. Tell you what, if you can come up with any answer whatsoever on your own (or the aid of others) that you think explains my question, then and only then will I tell you my answer. It won't necessarily mean that your answer or my answer is correct, but at least we will have equally considered and tried to answer the question.

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

Wouldn't providing you my answer be an enabler to some laziness on your part?

Not at all. It may simply signify insufficient interest in the question posed.

I would much rather hear the answer that you come up with after you look long and hard for an answer all on your own. But that would require work... mental gymnastics. Tell you what, if you can come up with any answer whatsoever on your own (or the aid of others) that you think explains my question, then and only then will I tell you my answer. It won't necessarily mean that your answer or my answer is correct, but at least we will have equally considered and tried to answer the question.

All on my very own, eh? While you’re being this overtly patronising, you’ll have to find someone else to assist in your ego gratification.

s.

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by Snoopy

Not at all. It may simply signify insufficient interest in the question posed.

Then neither would you be interested in an answer from me.

Originally Posted by Snoopy

All on my very own, eh? While you’re being this overtly patronising, you’ll have to find someone else to assist in your ego gratification.

Excuses. You raised the issue: Strive to never be lazy!

[Tao_Equus]

Cyberpi you old tart you!! Here i thought you were just after showing off your mighty intellect but really you just want to make babies!! Though we mite need some 'divine intervention' to make it possible. I am truly flattered though that out of all the noble minds that partake of an exchange or three here you see my genes as the worthiest!!

<3 Tao <3