[From Bruce Gregory (2004.0905.1540)]
Rick Marken (2004.09.05.1225)
Martin Taylor (2004.09.05.14.50) --
Bill put into plain statements what I put in the form of rhetorical
questions. We said the same thing. Now Rick also says the same thing.
Perhaps there might be something to it?
I agree, Martin. We're all on the same page on this one.
On this harmonious note, I hereby declare this thread to be closed. Go
in peace and sin no more.
Bruce Gregory
"Great Doubt: great awakening. Little Doubt: little awakening. No
Doubt: no awakening."
[From Bill Powers (2004.09.05.1411 MDT)]
Bruce Gregory (2004.0905.1403)--
Bill's solution may work reasonably well when it comes to preventing
future transgressions. I am less sanguine about its effectiveness for
eliminating guilt with regard to past transgressions. I thought
conflict involved bringing the same perception to different reference
levels _at the same time_. What am I missing here?
The original conflict that you brought up -- not the one about stealing/not
stealing, which I think we're all pretty much agreed about, but the one
about changing/not changing the past. Your comment about the futility of
saying it is unproductive to want to change the past is quite correct, but
why is it futile? Because you don't want to delude yourself that something
didn't happen when it did happen -- yet you would be much happier if you
could just erase it from your memory. One resolution here is to stop trying
to correct errors that no longer exist except in memory. This entails
getting a better picture of the reality of past, present, and future. Of
course you could go the other way and suppress the memory, but that is not
very reliable -- you can still get reminded of it, as Freud told us.
I think people often get into multiple interlocked conflicts like these, so
it takes a lot of untangling to get out of them.
Best,
Bill P.