On Mutual Reproaches of Megalomania

Funny, (or actually sad, but so sad I can't properly cry over it and might as well laugh) some seem to think that I "think I am Jesus" or sth, because I think i know better than Astronomers (nota bene : in reality on some subjects they speak of, not all) - but I think simply they are the guys who (on some subjects, again) speak with too much assurance. Like when deducing impossible gravitational causes for orbits (and they have been demonstrated impossible by Don Pettit*) from supposed non-existence of voluntary causes on that large scale. Which in its turn is deduced from a misanalysis of consciousness as a byproduct of material things with sufficient complexity - brains and in the future computers - which complexities are not observed in the celestial objects. It's as if astronomers and likeminded had "verified" that R2D2 and C3PO could think and that Han Solo had been flying through space between inhabited planets which orbit stars. Newsflash, even if Star Wars is enjoyable, it's fiction, not fact. THe voyages of Han Solo, unlike those of Vasco da Gama, give neither any clue to Tellurian nor to any other geometry in the cosmos, except as to the film studio, of course.

What is a fact is that for instance simultaneous vision of wobble as observed from Earth in all celestial object either argues Earth is wobbling and hence rotating, or that all celestial objects are at same distance or a limited number of different distances from, that is above Earth.** In the latter case these must coordinate through good choreography, which means voluntary causes. This also does away with distances of several light years or even millions of them and therefore leaves us free to accept that God created stars and Sun and Moon on Day 4 some 7500 or 7200 years ago. And that Moses, unlike George Lucas, was getting factual information and accurate such from the Maker and Ruler of it all, even if the Jedi mystics might disagree here. Or will disagree.

Now, you may think (some of you) that Neurologists, Computer Engineers, Astronomers might be more likely to know what they talk about than either George Lucas or Moses, since Moses lived before them and George Lucas is relying on them. And since you (those of you I mean) rely on both progress making the experts of today wiser than those who had no access to them, and also rely on famous people today having a fair clue on who are the real experts. But what if these experts, without thinking about it, are really relying on George Lucas (and such predecessors of his who wrote Flash Gordon)?

This morning, I was, while writing the draft, sitting among homeless. I heard ABBA "The Winner Takes It All", I heard "Do The Locomotion", I heard "Oh Can't You See, You Belong To Me" (Aerosmith, I think) ... There are moods in which people enjoying these will, nevertheless, say about the lyrics: "c'mon, it's just a song, reality isn't like that". But if there were no moods in which they felt the opposite of that, the songs would simply not be popular, or not remain so, if every time one reflected on the lyrics of an otherwise fine tune, one felt queezy about it. To some, I presume, though fortunately not all, these songs are as meaningful in each line as Salve Regina or O Quanta Qualia are to this Catholic. Or used to be and should be again. To such, the triumphant refrain of "The Winner Takes It All" will convey a dream of being a winner, or of being with winners and enjoying their generosity and even being found enjoyable by them. They will hear the verse where Agneta (or is it Frida? or both?) looks back on when she was "playing by the rules" and then consider that pragmatism, bending the rules, is the way. And when it comes to hearing "Locomotion" or especially "Oh Can't You See", well, let us not get too deep into what love stories they might be dreaming of.*** At least from time to time besides and while enjoying the music.

And perhaps more than any specific inspiration from each song (fortunately, as to some songs) they will take the song as a celebration of the general pop culture they live in. As a celebration of the culture in which they also get George Lucas, C3PO and R2D2 acting as if they were talking, and as if they were understanding or at least misunderstanding situations, and in this general culture that is understood to happen due to electronics in their tin heads or tin bodies and on the electronics being wired the right way, and brains are also seen as working that way. Or, that culture will also give them Han Solo flying from star to star and landing on planets that orbit around these, and often on inhabited ones. And they will also loyally accept from this same culture a certain vision of "science" saying that though these things are not yet possible in practise, in theory they should be possible and one day they will be in practise too, provided progress is allowed to go on.

There are more intricate arguments, either for accepting artificial intelligence as being no misnomer or for accepting human intelligence as being a byproduct of mainly brain and neural biology, or again, for the astronomical world view of many galaxies and each galaxy containing many stars and each star being a sun, which has been prevailing since 1930. But to such intricate and theoretic arguments, there are also answers that are sometimes very simple.

And I seem to have, when debating, difficulties in making adherents of this culture and its "modern scientific world view" permanently understand one of these actually simple answers.

Hence my very strong suspicion that they are swayed by fictional works of art, like Star Wars, or Foundation Trilogy, never having realised at all these are less realistic than Lord of the Rings, and forgetting that they are as little real as the literal storyline of that work by Tolkien. I once had trouble making someone understand that Sherlock Holmes is exactly as invented and fantastic as Gandalf.

In such cases, they may be stumped momentarily, but they will return to an argument which I have already refuted. If not with me, on internet debates, at least with someone else - or otherwise why don't they come back and tell me they have changed their mind? Not all, no doubt, but a number which is worryingly great (unless same person poses under very many profiles) - either their early education will have included imbibing and never even later correcting the errors of these pop culture works of art, or some are definitely more than seventy, squatting, except for public vloggers, the atheistic debate sphere, or the part of it concerned with me. Or even people both senile and swayed unduly by works such as mentioned which unfortunately became pop culture along with better ones.

But I must not forget, there is also another group who couldn't care less if I have good and simple answers. People to whom questions of hierarchy totally take the upper hand over facts and logic, or if not totally, at least to a great part, when it comes to determine the difference between knowledge and nonsense. Or between reasonable speculation and complete nonsense. Or between hard fact and reasonable speculation too. Such people might think I "take myself for Jesus" just because I do not share their "heathen respect" (great thanks to German language for the concept!) for this or that subgroup of the present human society. For my part, I think it is they who misidentify if not Jesus and His Holy Church at least their bad version of the general concept with certain collective intellectual habits called Academic Disciplines. As to these, I think they are neither Jesus, nor His holy Church, nor in as good a shape as Academic Disciplines were (but they were never infallible, as such) back when clearly subordinate under Christ and under canonic bishops of His Church, such as Stephen II Tempier, bishop of Paris.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Day After Annunciation Day, 2015

* Science off the Sphere: Knitting Needle Experiment
ReelNASA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHrBhgwq__Q

** As I argued in more detail here: New blog on the kid : Implications of a Wobble
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2015/03/implications-of-wobble.html

*** A hint : without the song "Oh Can't You See", there might not have been the book and film "Fifty Shades of Grey".