Is J. Neil Schulman justified (logically) in believing in God?

[Xray]

From all of these made-up post-hoc justifications for spiritist beliefs, I conclude that Neil really believes he is pretty dang special. If he didn't hammer on about a crappy Twilight Zone episode, and a blacklist that kept him from achieving his due as a fine screenwriter, and if he didn't bang on about his specialness in every other endeavor he has attempted, I would be more inclined to accept his unique special connection with pixie world.

But his entire identity and self-concept is at stake in every challenge to any aspect, so he resists to the point of delusion.

Just dropping in, don't mind me but it seems you arent just a dick to me-you spread the wealth around. Let's hear an original idea from you, aw maybe if you formulated one and posted it here you might get , i dont know, shredded to bits?

Coward.

You could never hold a candle to MSK or Selene or any of the other real thinkers on this forum - they are precise and clear in their posts-yours are muddled and nasty with alot of large words and obscure phrases that basically say a whole bunch of nothing.

signed,

Pippi and her magic crayon

What on earth are you talking about, Pippi? It looks like you have not read the thread; it was WSS who asked Neil S. Schulman a couple of excellent, probing questions of crucial importance.

As to your comparison of WSS to MSK and Selene: these are completely different types of posters, with totally different writing styles and differing approaches to various subjects.

You also have to be careful not to let your subjective tastes cloud your objectivity.

So while you may not, for whatever reasons, like what WSS wrote (or how he writes it), your impression that you are not dealing with a "real thinker" is false.

WSS is a very sharp thinker actually, and if you want me to provide supporting evidence to back up my statement, let me know and I'll direct you to some of his posts.

As to the question of who invited Neil Schulman to this discussion, why is it of importance at all? I did not follow the exchange on that closely, only recall Neil said he was invited, and that he also got a Google message informing him that his work was being discussed here. So whether it was Starbuckle or WSS or Ghs or whoever else that invited him over here - why would that make any difference?

So unless Neil claimed he got an email from God inviting him to OL (one never knows with Neil ;)), why does it matter who here invited him?

Edited January 15, 2011 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

From all of these made-up post-hoc justifications for spiritist beliefs, I conclude that Neil really believes he is pretty dang special. If he didn't hammer on about a crappy Twilight Zone episode, and a blacklist that kept him from achieving his due as a fine screenwriter, and if he didn't bang on about his specialness in every other endeavor he has attempted, I would be more inclined to accept his unique special connection with pixie world.

But his entire identity and self-concept is at stake in every challenge to any aspect, so he resists to the point of delusion.

Just dropping in, don't mind me but it seems you arent just a dick to me-you spread the wealth around. Let's hear an original idea from you, aw maybe if you formulated one and posted it here you might get , i dont know, shredded to bits?

Coward.

You could never hold a candle to MSK or Selene or any of the other real thinkers on this forum - they are precise and clear in their posts-yours are muddled and nasty with alot of large words and obscure phrases that basically say a whole bunch of nothing.

signed,

Pippi and her magic crayon

Easy does it. You don't have to read his posts and you don't have to drive people away--not WSS; he's not going away except as he wants and then will come back as he wants: not my wants or yours. The problem is when some readers read your kind of dismissive missives they choose not to post themselves perceiving a hostile environment in which a predator might jump up and eat them alive. This of course is speculation on my part for no one knows these folk except themselves and then only atomistically.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

As a point of reference, if the supernatural is real it ceases to be supernatural and can be investigated in detail "with many instruments." The question will then remain whether there is any supernatural left over for Neil, et al. to playground around in seeking God and Jesus? (Why can't God be a subatomic particle? Because subatomic particles don't know American English.)

--Brant

I hope so; it usually keeps them off the streets

[Jonathan]

I do think this, for what it's worth -- I think you are talented, quite talented, and well-married to your pen. In my heart of hearts I think you would be happier writing the fiction that you so obviously love, and that you thrive on.

I haven't read any of Neil's fiction yet, or watched his film, and I'm reserving judgment until I do, but, so far, from his appearance here, and from the look and feel of his website, I'm getting the strong impression that he's a libertarian thinking man's Ed Wood.

J

[Starbuckle]

JNS quotes Robert Heinlein:

"On the other hand, Neil, there are many things--practically all of the important questions of philosophy--are not subject to final answers purely by reason. In my opinion, they are not subject to final answers simply by reason. This has been gone into a considerable extent by philosophers in the past, and there's even a term--a technical term--for that called 'noumena' as opposed to 'phenomena.' Phenomena are things that you can grasp through your physical senses or through measurements made with your physical senses through instruments and so forth and so in other words, phenomena are things that we can know about the physical universe. Noumena translates as the unknowable things. The unknowable things: What is the purpose of the universe?..."

Neil's lengthy interview with Heinlein is very effective and interesting. Neil knew how to draw out Heinlein about very fundamental issues. So Heinlein had Kantian leanings. And apparently these provide retroactive moral support for Neil's own going off the epistemological rails.

But Heinlein supports his claim about our alleged inability to determine what things are "in themselves" (because our means of knowing things, our senses, allegedly distort the "true" nature of things by committing the sin of being a specific means of awareness) by reference to our inability to determine the merely (and wrongly) imputed purposes of non-choosing entities (like "the universe") and to the fact that we're not omniscient, including about the wherefores of things. I would counter: if we can't find "final" answers to a particular question by means of reason, we can't find them by any other means either.

But so what? In order to get along in life and function effectively, we don't need final answers of the sort that would be distributed by an omniscient being incapable of learning anything further about anything. We just need good-enough answers, and answers that we have a means of refining, amending or scuttling as necessary.

Again, as with other partisans of what Kelley calls a "diaphanous" requirement for knowing, we have a demand for means of knowing that is somehow external and superior to any actual and limited (and because actual and limited, presumably inadequate) means of knowing. To know anything about anything "truly," we would allegedly have to step "outside" our limited percepts and cognition and become non-existent (like the Neil-God); for all merely existing things, including all conscious entities, are inherently limited. Heinlein, like other Kantians, is willing to accept that we can know certain things by perceptual and rational means, but cannot know others. But what is his means of differentiating between them? I think his acceptance of the segregation of entities into noumenal and phenomenal parts must have a far more blanketing and corrosive (if self-contradictory) effect on the possibility of knowledge than Heinlein suspects.

Contra Heinlein, I'd say we can go pretty far in explaining the whys and wherefores of certain subjective preferences, even if we can't explain them exhaustively. Doesn't growing up in one cultural environment or another, including disproportionate exposure to certain menus, have something to do with the subjective preferences one develops, for example? How about the objectively identifiable chemistry of various foods, the savviness of experienced chefs, and so forth?

How did Heinlein know Neil would especially like chocolate? Unless I miss my guess, prior to the taping of the interview they hadn't discussed Neil's tastes in ice cream or malted milks.

Answer: almost everybody likes chocolate. And everybody knows everybody likes chocolate. That's something to do with the intrinsic nature of chocolate and how it (and sugar in general) interacts with normal human taste buds. In other words--even if we aren't inclined to devote the time and resources to figure out or simply can't figure out the causes of particular subject preferences, including those of someone who hates chocolate--we can know that there is something about chocolate itself, objectively, that tends to make it tasty to human beings.

So I wouldn't say that the wherefores of subjective preferences are a flat unknowable, even if we don't know much about the wherefores of many of the preferences we become acquainted with. And I wouldn't say that the fact that we can't know everything about everything means that there's some fundamentally "alternative" viable means of knowing to perception and reason, with all the complexities that perceiving and reasoning may entail.

Edited January 15, 2011 by Starbuckle

[pippi]

Easy does it. You don't have to read his posts and you don't have to drive people away--not WSS; he's not going away except as he wants and then will come back as he wants: not my wants or yours. The problem is when some readers read your kind of dismissive missives they choose not to post themselves perceiving a hostile environment in which a predator might jump up and eat them alive. This of course is speculation on my part for no one knows these folk except themselves and then only atomistically.

--Brant

I dont agree-I made a few sincere first posts, actually all my posts are sincere and he slammed on me like a mallet personally attacking me. He has called me stupid more than once. Also see his hateful posts in the AZ mourning service thread-I didnt start this and didnt ask for it. He comes into any thread I start or comment I make and insults me for his own amusement.

If anyone deters people here it is mr shirk and his like not me but I understand alot of you are fond of him like an old sofa, he is quite the fixture here.

I am sorry I came into this thread-apologies, if anyone wants to reply please start a new thread.

BTW my dismissive missives are simply self defense - why should I take his nasty behavior and be silent over it?

Edited January 15, 2011 by pippi

[Greybird]

I haven't read any of Neil's fiction yet, or watched his film, and I'm reserving judgment until I do, but, so far, from his appearance here, and from the look and feel of his website, I'm getting the strong impression that he's a libertarian thinking man's Ed Wood.

That is an extraordinary, outrageous, unfair calumny, and utterly absurd. Are we to have no end of Objectivist types — since Rand herself started it with John Rawls — who comment on others' work without reading or viewing it? God's teeth, this has gone on for 35 years now, and I am sick of it.

You have no excuse for making such a comment and not actually sampling his work by now. At his site for his eerily prescient first novel, Alongside Night, you can download a free copy as a PDF file.

His second novel, The Rainbow Cadenza, is an extraordinarily multi-layered exploration of power, sex, religion, and artistic abilities.

His third novel, Escape from Heaven, is an entertaining and Swiftian exploration of a paradigm for an intriguing God — complete with the baddest-ass CD collection and wickedest daughter-in-law in history. It contrasts favorably with the recounted and interpreted personal experiences that are the subject of this thread.

His movie, "Lady Magdalene's," is — given the limited budget — an adept piece of storytelling, in several genres, that had no right to come off as well as it does. And he got Nichelle Nichols to sing again. ($2.99 to view on Amazon.)

Start getting informed before you even attempt to cast such aspersions on him.

Edited January 15, 2011 by Greybird

[J Neil Schulman]

Xray: the trial took too long and the prosecutors were getting schooled way too badly.

Thank you PDS for your assessment. I have not researched the OJ Simpson case in as much detail as I have other criminal cases via the net (where there exist some very good true crime forums), but it looks like ALL evidence points in one direction only: to OJ Simpson as the perpetrator of the crimes.

Also, the prosection failed to introduce some very incriminating evidence against the defendant, with their explanation for deciding not to present this evidence being downright absurd. The sad irony is that who finally profited from the prosecution's wrong tactic was the one they wanted to bring to justice for the murders: OJ Simpson.

Barry Scheck systematically dismantled the chain of custody leading to that conclusion.

Since it is the defense's job trying to poke holes into the prosecution's case, and since some blunders happen in all criminal cases, one virtually always finds complaints by the defense about police blunders, botched crime scenes, possible lab errors, and so on.

But what the defense team of an obviously guilty client does not want to be seen is the complete picture the totality of the incriminating evidence against their client.

The quantities of blood are too small to conclude O.J. committed the murders.

They were not too small to conclude the blood was Simpson's, were they.

Moreover, O.J.'s DNA would be hard to distinguish from his son Jason's if they weren't tested against each other, which they weren't.

Isn't everyone's DNA (identical twins excepted) unique?

I also discuss half a dozen different ways O.J.'s blood could have been brought or transferred to the Bundy crime scene, including multiple pairs of gloves identical to the ones found on the crime scenes which O.J. and Nicole had given out as Christmas gifts.

Any effort in constructing possible ways of transfer is unnecessary. For we have Simpson's own words where he admitted having bled at the crime scene. Haven't you read the police interview where he was questioned by Vannatter and Lange?

Simpson own words also shoot down any speculations according to which his blood had been "planted" by others to incriminate him.

I've always said there is a reasonable case to be made that O.J. came to the Bundy crime scene, even though the Bruno Magli shoes are not decisive evidence he was there; anyone with access to his shoe closet (like Jason) could have been wearing them.

Again, look at the whole picture and weigh probability against improbability.

The evidence of control wounds prior to her murder suggest that Nicole could have been forced at knife-point to call O.J. there by her murderer, and O.J. arrived right after the murderer left. Or, Simpson could have been called there afterward if the murderer were someone he knew intimately and would want to protect ... like his son Jason.

What "control wounds"?

As for the rest of your scenario - let's use the rationality you stress so often. A murderer forces the victim to call her husband, thus running the immense risk of being identified by the husband as a witness and possibly killed himself by the husband as he is trying to save his wife's life.

Or, Simpson could have been called there afterward if the murderer were someone he knew intimately and would want to protect ... like his son Jason.

And then Simpson "altruistically" cut himself, letting his blood drop down right next to the murder victims. Give me a break!

Bill Dear makes a better case than the one presented in either the criminal or civil trial of O.J. Simpson that Jason committed the murder, and that beyond not wanting to be sent to prison for the murders, O.J. Simpson has been willing to do almost anything to cover up for Jason, including repeatedly flirting with the press to make himself look guilty every time it looked as if the evidence would point to his son.

Bill Dear's absurd allegation that Simpson "could not have committed the murders" says all about his obvious lack of rationality.

Not only did Simpson have a history of domestic violence and a motive, he also had the opportunity to commit the murders in the time frame during which they happened. He was even seen at the crime scene, and his blood and shoeprint have been found in very incriminating locations; in addition, he had bought a disguise kit some weeks before the murders and that disguise kit he took with him in the car during the slow speed chase.

And Bill Dear says Simpson could not have done it. Yeah, right.

It is fascinating to observe what totally absurd theories some of those veteran detectives seeking the limelight can come up with. But I'm afraid that closing their eyes to the obvious does not magically establish its opposite, the absurd, as the real.

The cult of O.J. Simpson's guilt never ceases to amaze me, and it's particularly odd in a forum that supposedly rejects dogmatic faith.

I have not researched the OJ Simpson case in as much detail as I have other criminal cases

I have. Exhaustively.

What "control wounds"?

Knife pressure wound to Nicole's neck -- not the throat slash but a separate wound indicating someone was trying to force her to do something.

For we have Simpson's own words where he admitted having bled at the crime scene. Haven't you read the police interview where he was questioned by Vannatter and Lange?

Obviously you haven't, since Simpson was explaining how he'd bled on his own driveway, blocks away from where the murders took place on Bundy Drive. The only reason Simpson's home was considered a related crime scene was because of the second glove -- which, as I explained, would have matched any of the pairs of Aris gloves O.J. and Nicole gave out as Christmas presents.

It's the contamination of the tailing blood drops at Bundy that Scheck proved contained preservative -- in other words, contamination after the police arrived.

Isn't everyone's DNA (identical twins excepted) unique?

The DNA of a father and son would match on many points. You'd have to have samples of both and be actively looking for differences.

Not only did Simpson have a history of domestic violence and a motive, he also had the opportunity to commit the murders in the time frame during which they happened. He was even seen at the crime scene, and his blood and shoeprint have been found in very incriminating locations; in addition, he had bought a disguise kit some weeks before the murders and that disguise kit he took with him in the car during the slow speed chase.

Wrong on all counts.

First, O.J. Simpson was no longer romantically involved with Nicole at the time of the murders. Cell phone records show him phoning his own girlfriend, Paula Barbieri, at the time of the murders.

Second, a history of domestic violence is not evidence of murder. The author of the study on "batterer's syndrome" was on a defense witness list ready to be called to testify that based on her interviews, O.J. did not fit the pattern of batterers who later murder. She was not called because the case was running too long and the defense wanted to rest.

Third, O.J. had no motive. He was not paying Nicole alimony. Their marital dissolution agreement was a complete buy out -- including the condo Nicole was living in, which she wanted O.J. to still claim as his own commercial property so she could avoid an IRS tax. O.J. refused, so if anything she had a motive to murder him. O.J. had no further financial obligations to Nicole at the time of the murders. He was no longer romantically involved with her at the time of the murders. And he was video'd laughing and smiling with her parents just hours before the murders.

Fourth, O.J. was not seen at the Bundy crime scene, period. The closest anyone claimed was that a man matching his description was in his Bronco at an intersection nearby, driving away. As I've said, I believe O.J. could have been called to the crime scene by Nicole, herself, arriving right after the murderer left. Or, there are two other suspects who easily could have picked up the Bronco keys from O.J.'s kitchen counter and driven it to the Bundy crime scene -- one of them Jason Simpson. At night the identification of the driver would not have been definitive -- and someone recognizing the vehicle might have assumed the driver was O.J.

Fifth, as I said, anyone with access to O.J.'s closet (like Jason) could have been wearing the Bruno Maglis.

But, as I said, I've never eliminated that O.J., himself, was at the Bundy crime scene -- Bill Dear and I both think he was there after the murders took place, and my book explores the scenario that it was a deliberate set up. Bill Dear's investigation leads to a different conclusion -- that Simpson was part of a cover up for Jason, and that the Bundy crime scene was -- as forensic expert Dr. Henry Lee testified -- "played with."

Sixth, a "disguise" is irrelevant, since no witness testified to anyone looking like a disguised O.J. Simpson anywhere on that night. So what relevance does this have to the case? Zip. It's simply part of the dogmatic cult of O.J. Simpson's guilt -- the worship of a "Mountain of Evidence" in a prosecution that has no Moses coming down from that mountain.

Edited January 15, 2011 by J. Neil Schulman

[J Neil Schulman]

I do think this, for what it's worth -- I think you are talented, quite talented, and well-married to your pen. In my heart of hearts I think you would be happier writing the fiction that you so obviously love, and that you thrive on.

I haven't read any of Neil's fiction yet, or watched his film, and I'm reserving judgment until I do, but, so far, from his appearance here, and from the look and feel of his website, I'm getting the strong impression that he's a libertarian thinking man's Ed Wood.

J

In publicity I've described Lady Magdalene's as a Jerry Bruckheimer film made on an Ed Wood budget.

[Greybird]

In publicity I've described Lady Magdalene's as a Jerry Bruckheimer film made on an Ed Wood budget.

Dammit, Neil, he clearly didn't mean it as a compliment!

[J Neil Schulman]

So unless Neil claimed he got an email from God inviting him to OL (one never knows with Neil ;)), why does it matter who here invited him?

Hmmm. God and Google both start with the letter "G" ... :-)

[9thdoctor]

The cult of O.J. Simpson's guilt never ceases to amaze me, and it's particularly odd in a forum that supposedly rejects dogmatic faith.

I don't want to get into a debate about the OJ case, but I do have a reputation for posting funny videos that I must maintain:

Haven't seen this in ages.

[J Neil Schulman]

In publicity I've described Lady Magdalene's as a Jerry Bruckheimer film made on an Ed Wood budget.

Dammit, Neil, he clearly didn't mean it as a compliment!

But Steve, as Bill Scherk would be quick to point out, my ego is so big I accept even insults as compliments.

And while we're at it, an Objectivist Living forum in which people try to insult each other by accusing each other of being too confident, having egos too big, and being too arrogant?

Ayn Rand would be spinning in her grave if she weren't tossing back mojitos in Heaven.

Edited January 15, 2011 by J. Neil Schulman

[Brant Gaede]

His third novel, Escape from Heaven, is an entertaining and Swiftian exploration of a paradigm for an intriguing God — complete with the baddest-ass CD collection and wickedest daughter-in-law in history. It contrasts favorably with the recounted and interpreted personal experiences that are the subject of this thread.

I've read the first two. Now I'm going to read this one. "The wickedest daughter-in-law in history" (fictional history?) is simply sucking me in. I just love evil badass women! Everytime I try to get away from Neil--he pulls me back in!!!

--Brant

big ego too, for less reason I'm afraid

Edited January 15, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[caroljane]

His third novel, Escape from Heaven, is an entertaining and Swiftian exploration of a paradigm for an intriguing God — complete with the baddest-ass CD collection and wickedest daughter-in-law in history. It contrasts favorably with the recounted and interpreted personal experiences that are the subject of this thread.

I've read the first two. Now I'm going to read this one. "The wickedest daughter-in-law in history" (fictional history?) is simply sucking me in. I just love evil badass women! Everytime I try to get away from Neil--he pulls me back in!!!

--Brant

big ego too, for less reason I'm afraid

Sorry to butt in but "evilest daughter-in-law in history" is definitely my aunt shirley as has been proven definitively,and not whoever this whoever person says it is, and if somebody is plagiarizing about her we are all going to sue. This is serious, we know what we are talking about, we all used to work for conrad black.

[J Neil Schulman]

From all of these made-up post-hoc justifications for spiritist beliefs, I conclude that Neil really believes he is pretty dang special. If he didn't hammer on about a crappy Twilight Zone episode, and a blacklist that kept him from achieving his due as a fine screenwriter, and if he didn't bang on about his specialness in every other endeavor he has attempted, I would be more inclined to accept his unique special connection with pixie world.

But his entire identity and self-concept is at stake in every challenge to any aspect, so he resists to the point of delusion.

Wow, Bill, I didn't catch that the first time around. What was I thinking when I accepted you as a Facebook friend? :-)

Yeah. It sounds mean and overwrought, doesn't it? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound mean and overwrought, so I apologize for the tone and the temper -- especially for the personal swipes in the first paragraph above.

I frenzed you on Facebook to winnow out what Steve was responding to in the excerpts he posted up thread.

Anyhow, I don't know what remains to be said in this thread, Neil. I have read your complete book twice online, and I have reviewed your posts here several times. I have put the time in to try to figure you out, to try to figure out how you gained your 'beliefs,' how you came to accept the whole personal cosmology, how you constructed the world you live in, how you defend your 'beliefs' and your stances and yourself.

I strip away the unpleasant, ugly words in the bit you quote, and I can probably sum up my psychological findings. But, you know what? I don't have to share that (not that it's particularly dire).

I do think this, for what it's worth -- I think you are talented, quite talented, and well-married to your pen. In my heart of hearts I think you would be happier writing the fiction that you so obviously love, and that you thrive on.

For what it's worth, I find the hard kernel of your spiritual cosmology appealing in its simplicity -- the god you describe sounds like the lovely man you want to be, a man who looks into other people's hearts and finds goodness, who is not responsible for other people's badness and failures and pains. The god you describe is especially poignant in his human weakness and his wonder at other humans. He doesn't always understand humans; he yearns to do so. In his humanity he wishes to see his creations (and his loved ones) live on forever, and he wishes only the best from this world and its peoples. He is not judgmental, punishing or wrathful, but kind and forgiving and seeking.

That's the kind of god you want to walk with you and incorporate and it is a wonderful thing.

I'd like to leave this thread now, and meet you on other threads of interest, and help make sure that you find within this community great arguments and fellowship and learning. I set aside from here on any considerations of your personal cosmology. It doesn't matter to me, the god business. I set all that to one side, incorporate what I have learned, and move on.

I hope we can have some great and rousing arguments in other places in the OL multiverse.

I leave you the last words in this thread and wish you well in all your ventures, come what may.

Bill that was very gracious, and I'll take you up on the "last words" offer.

I think the title of this thread asks the wrong question, or at least one which requires other subjects to be addressed long before we ask whether I'm logically justified in believing in God.

Here are questions that have been debated in this thread, but I think which have not been resolved to anyone's satisfaction. These are the premises upon which the question of my logic must rest.

Are there any axioms of existence or known scientific laws which preclude existence comprising multiple continua, some of which are designed, rather than the whole of existence being a single undesigned universe?

Is there any conclusive proof that human consciousness is solely a product of evolutionary biology, or could human consciousness precede evolutionary biology?

Is the human brain a generator of human consciousness, or merely a modulator of it?

Is human consciousness of an identity and nature that it can escape the termination of a human brain?

Could the "afterlife" be an actual physical destination for a human's conscious identity located in another continuum?

In the event where a phenomenal experience presents itself as paranormal or supernatural, is there anything other than an unproved assumption of impossibility that necessitates interpreting such an experience as unreal?

I repeat that I'm unable to present evidence of the reality of my paranormal experience of a person I've identified as God to anyone else.

Nonetheless, my experience has caused me to examine each of these questions and reach my own answers.

I suggest exploring each of these questions with epistemological and scientific rigor is no less of a requirement for anyone else who wishes to assert flat conclusions about the nature of existence and human consciousness.

Neil

Edited January 15, 2011 by J. Neil Schulman

[Brant Gaede]

His third novel, Escape from Heaven, is an entertaining and Swiftian exploration of a paradigm for an intriguing God — complete with the baddest-ass CD collection and wickedest daughter-in-law in history. It contrasts favorably with the recounted and interpreted personal experiences that are the subject of this thread.

I've read the first two. Now I'm going to read this one. "The wickedest daughter-in-law in history" (fictional history?) is simply sucking me in. I just love evil badass women! Everytime I try to get away from Neil--he pulls me back in!!!

--Brant

big ego too, for less reason I'm afraid

Sorry to butt in but "evilest daughter-in-law in history" is definitely my aunt shirley as has been proven definitively,and not whoever this whoever person says it is, and if somebody is plagiarizing about her we are all going to sue. This is serious, we know what we are talking about, we all used to work for conrad black.

(You're welcome.)

--Brant

Edited January 15, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[Jonathan]

I haven't read any of Neil's fiction yet, or watched his film, and I'm reserving judgment until I do, but, so far, from his appearance here, and from the look and feel of his website, I'm getting the strong impression that he's a libertarian thinking man's Ed Wood.

That is an extraordinary, outrageous, unfair calumny, and utterly absurd. Are we to have no end of Objectivist types — since Rand herself started it with John Rawls — who comment on others' work without reading or viewing it? God's teeth, this has gone on for 35 years now, and I am sick of it.

I didn't comment on Neil's work, and wasn't judging it. In fact, I specifically said that I was reserving judgment until I had read it. I made it clear that my impression of him, so far, is based on his appearance here, and on the look and feel of his website.

You have no excuse for making such a comment and not actually sampling his work by now.

Actually, I do have an excuse: I've been too busy and have higher priorities at the moment.

At his site for his eerily prescient first novel, Alongside Night, you can download a free copy as a PDF file.

His second novel, The Rainbow Cadenza, is an extraordinarily multi-layered exploration of power, sex, religion, and artistic abilities.

His third novel, Escape from Heaven, is an entertaining and Swiftian exploration of a paradigm for an intriguing God — complete with the baddest-ass CD collection and wickedest daughter-in-law in history. It contrasts favorably with the recounted and interpreted personal experiences that are the subject of this thread.

His movie, "Lady Magdalene's," is — given the limited budget — an adept piece of storytelling, in several genres, that had no right to come off as well as it does. And he got Nichelle Nichols to sing again. ($2.99 to view on Amazon.)

Thanks, Steve, but I'll judge his work for myself when I get around to reading and viewing it. I've seen you use some very romantic and impassioned language to describe a lot of student-grade art (and even some less-than-student-grade art), so, frankly, I don't find you to be a reliable source for arts criticism.

Start getting informed before you even attempt to cast such aspersions on him.

Why do you assume that my calling Neil a libertarian thinking man's Ed Wood is necessarily an insult?

J

Edited January 16, 2011 by Jonathan

[Jonathan]

In publicity I've described Lady Magdalene's as a Jerry Bruckheimer film made on an Ed Wood budget.

Dammit, Neil, he clearly didn't mean it as a compliment!

But Steve, as Bill Scherk would be quick to point out, my ego is so big I accept even insults as compliments.

And while we're at it, an Objectivist Living forum in which people try to insult each other by accusing each other of being too confident, having egos too big, and being too arrogant?

Ayn Rand would be spinning in her grave if she weren't tossing back mojitos in Heaven.

I don't think that Rand would be spinning in her grave about OLers accusing others of being too arrogant (and if she's drinking in Heaven, I doubt that it's mojitos; probably something more American and masculine, like straight Jack Daniels). I think that arrogance was something that she admired in herself, in her fictional characters, and in a few others who had really stood out and established themselves in reality. I think that in regard to the overwhelming majority of the population, though, she would have seen people as not having earned the right to display the confidence and arrogance that they do, that their self-assessments weren't accurate, and therefore not rational. She probably would have agreed with the accusations here of too much confidence and arrogance.

J

Edited January 16, 2011 by Jonathan

[Greybird]

I didn't comment on Neil's work, and wasn't judging it. In fact, I specifically said that I was reserving judgment until I had read it. I made it clear that my impression of him, so far, is based on his appearance here, and on the look and feel of his website.

That's still an unsupported judgment for which you've adduced no evidence but your own reaction.

Actually, I do have an excuse: I've been too busy and have higher priorities at the moment.

You have no excuse for not at least reading Alongside Night, marginal acquisition cost of zero (as has been linked more than once), before giving this much of a generalized smear of Neil as to his creations of fiction.

[...] Why do [you] assume that my calling Neil a libertarian thinking man's Ed Wood is necessarily an insult?

Because apart from a genuine filmmaker deciding that the Wood / Corman / Levine cheap-budget matrix of film creation has virtues outweighing those movies' limitations — as Neil has, and is entitled to do, by dint of an achievement you can't even shell out a lousy three bucks to see as yet on line — it is not just an insult, but another smear, as you very well know.

You're routinely disingenuous about everything else, though, so why should this be an exception?

... Jonathan's unsupported (and unsupportable) smears of both Neil and me, as to esthetic tastes, really aren't worth dignifying with any further discussion — I've had to say that last phrase more than once recently at this site, and it's saving me a lot of angst and stomach acid.

All I'll say is that he could simply acknowledge that such asides are reflective of his tastes in artworks and discussion tenor differing from mine or Neil's. That is, rather than taking on the futile task of trying to impugn my esthetic judgment more generally. Yet from past go-rounds, I'm not holding my breath waiting for that.

[J Neil Schulman]

I didn't comment on Neil's work, and wasn't judging it. In fact, I specifically said that I was reserving judgment until I had read it. I made it clear that my impression of him, so far, is based on his appearance here, and on the look and feel of his website.

That's still an unsupported judgment for which you've adduced no evidence but your own reaction.

Actually, I do have an excuse: I've been too busy and have higher priorities at the moment.

You have no excuse for not at least reading Alongside Night, marginal acquisition cost of zero (as has been linked more than once), before giving this much of a generalized smear of Neil as to his creations of fiction.

[...] Why do [you] assume that my calling Neil a libertarian thinking man's Ed Wood is necessarily an insult?

Because apart from a genuine filmmaker deciding that the Wood / Corman / Levine cheap-budget matrix of film creation has virtues outweighing those movies' limitations — as Neil has, and is entitled to do, by dint of an achievement you can't even shell out a lousy three bucks to see as yet on line — it is not just an insult, but another smear, as you very well know.

You're routinely disingenuous about everything else, though, so why should this be an exception?

... Jonathan's unsupported (and unsupportable) smears of both Neil and me, as to esthetic tastes, really aren't worth dignifying with any further discussion — I've had to say that last phrase more than once recently at this site, and it's saving me a lot of angst and stomach acid.

All I'll say is that he could simply acknowledge that such asides are reflective of his tastes in artworks and discussion tenor differing from mine or Neil's. That is, rather than taking on the futile task of trying to impugn my esthetic judgment more generally. Yet from past go-rounds, I'm not holding my breath waiting for that.

First, thanks to Steve Reed for sticking up for me. Even Ayn Rand had to acknowledge that while there are objective technical standards which can be applied to art, esthetics itself is not a science but itself an art. The problem with critics -- an analysis which Ayn Rand and C.S. Lewis converged on -- is when critics replace criticism of art with psychoanalysis of the artist what you get is not actual criticism but a dismissal of art through a variation of ad hominem attack.

I can't tell you how often I've seen the competency of an artist attacked by critics who disagree with the artist's viewpoint. These critics aren't honest enough to acknowledge that they have their own views which differ from the artist whose work they're reporting on so instead of being up front with their biases and writing an honest assessment of the work, they sneer at the work as a way of marginalizing the artist.

This is the common method of attack reviews today. It's Orwellian, which isn't surprising because this sort of lying was invented by professional political propagandists like Joseph Goebbels.

Me, I've never been one to take this sort of attack lying down, and even though often enough it's been defense of my own work, I'm not willing to be victimized by such lowlife scumsucking bottom-feeders without calling them out as the shitsellers that they are.

Apparently there is second-hand smoke from this gunfire, as one critic uses the method of the attack review in an attempt to marginalize another critic with whom he disagrees.

Let me stand up a second time for Steve Reed here. I've often enough been the target of his criticism -- the last time we spoke by phone I wished him a hasty good night and hung up on him - but I find Steve more willing to get as good as he gives than almost any other critic of my work I've run into.

Edited January 16, 2011 by J. Neil Schulman

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Eu não vejo o seu ponto, Michael.

Fofoqueiro!

Michael

[9thdoctor]

Ayn Rand would be spinning in her grave if she weren't tossing back mojitos in Heaven.

(and if she's drinking in Heaven, I doubt that it's mojitos; probably something more American and masculine, like straight Jack Daniels).

Somewhere or other you’ll find reference to Frank O’Connor’s exceptionally strong Martini’s, so, of course that’s what she’s currently drinking, mixed by the master himself.

This thread’s gone on and on, but what really has there been to add beyond what’s in the Dawkins video I posted here?

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9708&view=findpost&p=117006

It seems to cover it all pretty well. Neil has made his suggestions for how to repeat his experience, and they amount to: put yourself in a position where you might have a hallucination, and guess what? You might have a hallucination! It's like suggesting someone try LSD since you had such a great experience with it.

This is going to be a bit obscure, but it’s an association I’m having (I just referenced Pynchon on another thread), so I think I’ll share:

"Watch the picture," said Nefastis, "and concentrate on a cylinder. Don't worry. If you're a sensitive you'll know which one. Leave your mind open, receptive to the Demon's message. I'll be back." He returned to his TV set, which was now showing cartoons. Oedipa sat through two Yogi Bears, one Magilla Gorilla and a Peter Potamus, staring at Clerk Maxwell's enigmatic profile, waiting for the Demon to communicate.

Are you there, little fellow, Oedipa asked the Demon, or is Nefastis putting me on. Unless a piston moved, she'd never know. Clerk Maxwell's hands were cropped out of the photograph. He might have been holding a book. He gazed away, into some vista of Victorian England whose light had been lost forever. Oedipa's anxiety grew. It seemed, behind the beard, he'd begun, ever so faintly, to smile. Something in his eyes, certainly, had changed . . .

And there. At the top edge of what she could see: hadn't the right-hand piston moved, a fraction? She couldn't look directly, the instructions were to keep her eyes on Clerk Maxwell. Minutes passed, pistons remained frozen in place. High-pitched, comic voices issued from the TV set. She had seen only a retinal twitch, a misfired nerve cell. Did the true sensitive see more? In her colon now she was afraid, growing more so, that nothing would happen. Why worry, she worried; Nefastis is a nut, forget it, a sincere nut. The true sensitive is the one that can share in the man's hallucinations, that's all.

How wonderful they might be to share. For fifteen minutes more she tried; repeating, if you are there, whatever you are, show yourself to me, I need you, show yourself. But nothing happened.

"I'm sorry," she called in, surprisingly about to cry with frustration, her voice breaking, "It's no use." Nefastis came to her and put an arm around her shoulders.

"It's OK," he said. "Please don't cry. Come on in on the couch. The news will be on any minute. We can do it there."

"It?" said Oedipa. "Do it? What?"

"Have sexual intercourse," replied Nefastis. "Maybe there'll be something about China tonight. I like to do it while they talk about Viet Nam, but China is best of all. You think about all those Chinese. Teeming. That profusion of life. It makes it sexier, right?"

"Gah," Oedipa screamed, and fled, Nefastis snapping his fingers through the dark rooms behind her in a hippy-dippy, oh-go-ahead-then-chick fashion he had doubtless learned from watching the TV also.

Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, Chapter 5

Edited January 16, 2011 by Ninth Doctor

[Jonathan]

I didn't comment on Neil's work, and wasn't judging it. In fact, I specifically said that I was reserving judgment until I had read it. I made it clear that my impression of him, so far, is based on his appearance here, and on the look and feel of his website.

That's still an unsupported judgment for which you've adduced no evidence but your own reaction.

And what evidence would you accept? Anything I cite will be rejected as a maliciously disingenuous opinion, no? If I point to evidence of the impassioned but amateurish style of Neil's promotional efforts and the materials at his website, you, with your inability to recognize them as such, will tell me that they are not amateurish, that your opinion is objective, and that mine is subjective and mean-spirited, no?

Actually, I do have an excuse: I've been too busy and have higher priorities at the moment.

You have no excuse for not at least reading Alongside Night, marginal acquisition cost of zero (as has been linked more than once), before giving this much of a generalized smear of Neil as to his creations of fiction.

This is the third time now that I've said that I was not judging Neil's creations of fiction, which I haven't read or watched. I was judging his participation here, as well as the style and content of his promotional efforts at his website. Yet, once again, you say that I'm judging his fiction. Why? Do you have a reading comprehension problem, or are you intentionally lying?

[...] Why do [you] assume that my calling Neil a libertarian thinking man's Ed Wood is necessarily an insult?

Because apart from a genuine filmmaker deciding that the Wood / Corman / Levine cheap-budget matrix of film creation has virtues outweighing those movies' limitations — as Neil has, and is entitled to do, by dint of an achievement you can't even shell out a lousy three bucks to see as yet on line — it is not just an insult, but another smear, as you very well know.

My comment wasn't intended as a "smear," but as a simple observation/comparison. I think that Wood had admirable qualities along with his obvious failings, and my adding "libertarian thinking man's" to the mix obviously indicates that my estimation of Neil is higher than that of Wood.

You're routinely disingenuous about everything else, though, so why should this be an exception?

Tut-tut! Where are your objective examples and evidence that I'm disingenuous, let alone routinely? You've only offered "an unsupported judgment for which you've adduced no evidence but your own reaction." Smearer! Psychologizer!

... Jonathan's unsupported (and unsupportable) smears of both Neil and me, as to esthetic tastes, really aren't worth dignifying with any further discussion...

You say that my judgments of you are "unsupportable." That suggests to me that you've closed your mind to the possibility that you might have bad tastes, that you refuse to even consider the idea that you might lack the requisite knowledge and experience to make some of the judgments about the arts that you make. So, how would you suggest that I go about supporting my opinions of the aesthetic tastes of someone who is emotionally invested in believing that he has great tastes? Any examples that I give will be met with your denial of their poor artistry, and with assertions of your objectivity and of my subjectivity, no?

,,,I've had to say that last phrase more than once recently at this site, and it's saving me a lot of angst and stomach acid.

Well, how dare anyone give an opinion which upsets Steve! Why, we've given him angst and stomach acid and maybe the vapors! Let's all agree to either agree with him or be silent so as not to upset his delicate tummy further!

All I'll say is that he could simply acknowledge that such asides are reflective of his tastes in artworks and discussion tenor differing from mine or Neil's. That is, rather than taking on the futile task of trying to impugn my esthetic judgment more generally. Yet from past go-rounds, I'm not holding my breath waiting for that.

I'm not trying to impugn your aesthetic tastes. Sometimes you write a great review of a great work of art. My problem with you is that you're not reliable because you also write glowing reviews of really low-grade stuff. I get the sense that thematic content or message is very important to you, and that artistry takes a back seat (Ed Wood-like, one might say). For example, in the visual arts, if a painter shows winged girls, it sets your heart aflutter, and you seem to be incapable of recognizing that the artist's skill level is at about that of the average junior high student. You speak of his work as if he is Caravaggio reincarnated.

J

Edited January 16, 2011 by Jonathan

[J Neil Schulman]

I didn't comment on Neil's work, and wasn't judging it. In fact, I specifically said that I was reserving judgment until I had read it. I made it clear that my impression of him, so far, is based on his appearance here, and on the look and feel of his website.

That's still an unsupported judgment for which you've adduced no evidence but your own reaction.

And what evidence would you accept? Anything I cite will be rejected as a maliciously disingenuous opinion, no? If I point to evidence of the impassioned but amateurish style of Neil's promotional efforts and the materials at his website, you, with your inability to recognize them as such, will tell me that they are not amateurish, that your opinion is objective, and that mine is subjective and mean-spirited, no?

Actually, I do have an excuse: I've been too busy and have higher priorities at the moment.

You have no excuse for not at least reading Alongside Night, marginal acquisition cost of zero (as has been linked more than once), before giving this much of a generalized smear of Neil as to his creations of fiction.

This is the third time now that I've said that I was not judging Neil's creations of fiction, which I haven't read or watched. I was judging his participation here, as well as the style and content of his promotional efforts at his website. Yet, once again, you say that I'm judging his fiction. Why? Do you have a reading comprehension problem, or are you intentionally lying?

[...] Why do [you] assume that my calling Neil a libertarian thinking man's Ed Wood is necessarily an insult?

Because apart from a genuine filmmaker deciding that the Wood / Corman / Levine cheap-budget matrix of film creation has virtues outweighing those movies' limitations — as Neil has, and is entitled to do, by dint of an achievement you can't even shell out a lousy three bucks to see as yet on line — it is not just an insult, but another smear, as you very well know.

My comment wasn't intended as a "smear," but as a simple observation/comparison. I think that Wood had admirable qualities along with his obvious failings, and my adding "libertarian thinking man's" to the mix obviously indicates that my estimation of Neil is higher than that of Wood.

You're routinely disingenuous about everything else, though, so why should this be an exception?

Tut-tut! Where are your objective examples and evidence that I'm disingenuous, let alone routinely? You've only offered "an unsupported judgment for which you've adduced no evidence but your own reaction." Smearer! Psychologizer!

... Jonathan's unsupported (and unsupportable) smears of both Neil and me, as to esthetic tastes, really aren't worth dignifying with any further discussion...

You say that my judgments of you are "unsupportable." That suggests to me that you've closed your mind to the possibility that you might have bad tastes, that you refuse to even consider the idea that you might lack the requisite knowledge and experience to make some of the judgments about the arts that you make. So, how would you suggest that I go about supporting my opinions of the aesthetic tastes of someone who is emotionally invested in believing that he has great tastes? Any examples that I give will be met with your denial of their poor artistry, and with assertions of your objectivity and of my subjectivity, no?

,,,I've had to say that last phrase more than once recently at this site, and it's saving me a lot of angst and stomach acid.

Well, how dare anyone give an opinion which upsets Steve! Why, we've given him angst and stomach acid and maybe the vapors! Let's all agree to either agree with him or be silent so as not to upset his delicate tummy further!

All I'll say is that he could simply acknowledge that such asides are reflective of his tastes in artworks and discussion tenor differing from mine or Neil's. That is, rather than taking on the futile task of trying to impugn my esthetic judgment more generally. Yet from past go-rounds, I'm not holding my breath waiting for that.

I'm not trying to impugn your aesthetic tastes. Sometimes you write a great review of a great work of art. My problem with you is that you're not reliable because you also write glowing reviews of really low-grade stuff. I get the sense that thematic content or message is very important to you, and that artistry takes a back seat (Ed Wood-like, one might say). For example, in the visual arts, if a painter shows winged girls, it sets your heart aflutter, and you seem to be incapable of recognizing that the artist's skill level is at about that of the average junior high student. You speak of his work as if he is Caravaggio reincarnated.

J

Steve Reed's general point is right. You can't judge how good a book is by its cover or whether a movie is worth watching by its trailer. That works both ways. I can't tell you how many lousy movies I've bought because the trailer made it look good by putting in the only three laughs in the entire movie; and J.D. Salinger eventually demanded his publishers remove all cover art and copy from his book covers because he found them so ludicrous. Of course he didn't do that until his books were on every school's suggested reading list and his books were permanently married to best-sellers' lists.

Hype is part of surviving as an artist ... or any self-employed entrepreneur or indie. Get over it.

Edited January 16, 2011 by J. Neil Schulman