Fed Up in the Promised Land

[From Rick Marken (930521.1100)]

Oded Maler (930521 - 1900-ET) --

I don't have now time for a substantial answer.

Will you have time later? I'll be holding my breath,
waiting for your description of the theory that explains
political phenomena better than PCT.

Just recall again that
I'm not another incarnation of the prototypical anonymous
social-science referee

Well, I hadn't thought of you this way. But now that you mention
it, what is the difference between you and the "prototypical
social science referee"? You make authoritative claims about
what PCT can and can't do and then present no evidence (exper-
imental, demonstrational or modelling) to support them. Now
how is it that I can tell that you're not one of those prototypical
social science reviewers?

On my way to the promised land

Oh, the one that God promised you. That kidder. He promised
me the south of France just the other day. You probaby don't
believe that but so it is written. In fact, here is a copy of his
e-mail message

Richard. I am the lord your God (930519.0730). Since you have
been such a good boychick for the last several months, I have
decided that you and your family shall have the South of France
as your home from now and until forever; and, since you have
such a nice figure I'm throwing in Monaco too, for good measure.

This is just an excerpt, of course. I'm leaving out the part where he
gave me the OK to evict the current residents if they had a problem
with his promise.

Joel Judd (930521) --

The bottom line is this--I find PCT the best explanation for human
behavior offered so far, but I don't think such a theory (ay least
as far as I understand [or want to understand?] it) necessarily
means human beings evolved in a Godless universe, any more than
it proves they were created in a Divine one.

I think that's certainly true. But I think the theory (like all success-
ful scientific theories) does put contraints on how one can honestly
conceptualize that divinity. The evidence for evolution, for example,
pretty much cabashes the account of creation given in Genesis. If
one's concept of divinity requires a belief that God created the
universe in the manner described in Genesis then you're going to
have to go out of your way to make the genesis model fit the
evolutionary facts. This can lead to some difficult conflicts.

On the conflict comment at the end of your post, I'm not sure what
the example was. Did you mean that someone who had a reference like
"be a missionary" might experience conflict if "not being an annoying
proselytizer" prevented control of such a reference?

Not quite. I was imagining that "be a mormon" requires one to "be a
missionary". If the same person also had goals like "don't be pushy"
which could not be achieved by any level of "be a missionary" then
there is a conflict -- you can't both be and not be a missionary.
Obviously, goals like "be a mormon" seem to rarely create intra-
personal conflict; people learn to perceive and control things so that
there is no conflict. But I have met people who were taught to adopt these
"religious" type goals and this has been the cause of huge intra-
personal conflict. There is nothing inherently conflict producing about
"religious" goals, I suppose. It's just that for some people these kinds
of goals have led to terrible intrapersonal problems. But I admit that,
statistically, religion doesn't seem to have created that much intra-
personal conflict -- mostly interpersonal conflict. People are far more
likely to fight with themselves or with others about beliefs than about
knowledge. When was the last time there was a war between physicists
(the War of the F =ma)? or a purge of chemists?

Best

Rick