Laure

When I was a kid, I pictured Madeleine L'Engle as being really old, so I was surprised she just died recently. I read A Wrinkle in Time in grade school too, in the '60s in my case! I liked it because it was an "idea book". Reminds me of another favorite book from my childhood - it was called "The Swing in the Summerhouse". It was also sort of a science fiction/fantasy/idea book. Its author, Jane Langton, is apparently still alive & kicking, writes mysteries for adults. Maybe I'll see what the library has by her (in my ample spare time - HA HA).

2 thumbs down on Mrogi.

... just a comment from the Peanut Gallery...

Can anyone recap what the different O'ist groups are, the people associated with them, their origins, their relationships, and accomplishments (if any), without turning it into a slamfest?

... Robert Campbell can, MSK can't!!

I think this is a very interesting subject. I don't feel that I have a passion in life. I have pursued my interests, and am doing pretty much what I had wanted to do when I was in high school and college - programming. I have a PhD in computer science; I don't have any interest in being a manager, and I have been about as successful as you can be without going into management in my field. But, it's not the kind of interest that I'd happily work 12 or 15 hour days at. I've always wished I had that kind of drive for the things that interest me, but I think it's just not my nature.

This reminded me of the movie "Adaptation", which I highly recommend (the screenplay SO ingenious and quirky!). "Life's passion" is an important theme in that movie. The orchid thief character has the unusual ability to throw himself completely into a certain pursuit for a period of time, and then to completely abandon that interest for a new passion later. I think those of us who don't have a passion, wish we could be that way. But maybe it's a personality trait? I think the best we can do is to remain open to new experiences, and then we can at least remain interested in life, even if we're never consumed by an obsession as some are.

Double it, Phil, and it's exactly right.

Laure,

A most happy birthday! May you grow ever younger.

Michael & Kat

Oh, don't I wish.... ;)

But thanks, everyone, for remembering! (Got some Godiva Chocolates so I guess I'm doin OK. )

Well, I wanted to read Kant, to learn about his ideas firsthand, but I just couldn't seem to focus on it. As someone who's never had a philosophy course, I may just not have the background to understand Critique of Pure Reason. However, I had no trouble at all focusing on Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology; it all made sense and was logical to me. Maybe the intended audience was different. (Or maybe Objectivism just makes more sense! )

Baal, congratulations for getting to pg 118; I couldn't get past about pg 2. :cry:

I don't get why we should conclude that we are "epistemologically certain" the plane won't crash. What's wrong with the phrase "pretty sure" in this context?

I have a hunch it may be less of a "soap opera" than it's being made out to be. Ms. Hsieh likes drama.

I am skeptical about synesthesia. I suspect it may often be a learned association that comes about because the person played with colored alphabet blocks or magnets as a child. And, it could be that musical synesthetics who agree on the "colors" of different notes all played with the Fisher Price Xylophone (with the colored keys) as children!

I would grudgingly accept that musical notes might be felt to have a "color" in the sense that a certain color and a certain musical note might evoke a similar feeling in a person, but I can't accept that about letters. I don't see how there could be anything "inherently purple" about the letter X, for example.

It's awfully difficult to determine that a post is NOT plagiarism, particularly if he's used a source that's not yet available online. How do you prove that something wasn't written by someone else? We can't check every book ever written.

George, I don't get why Victor didn't just quote from your wonderful book! Then we all could have genuinely enjoyed our common admiration for your work, rather than I and possibly others being tricked into thinking that Victor wrote those things himself. Heck, I remember in the early '80s reading aloud from ACTAG to my college roommate those passages that I felt I couldn't possibly express better myself. Well, at least Victor had good taste sometimes!

Just wanted to say to you directly, thank you for "Atheism: The Case Against God", a book that's been a big influence on my life!

What will it take for this to end?

More than 2/3s of this forum's activity has to do with Victor.

I talk to Victor outside of this forum, and consider him a friend. I may disagree with him on some issues, but hey, his beliefs and values are his alone, and I cannot judge him for them.

Please people.

Shut the hell up about this.

I was all ready to shut up about this, but I can't let this one pass. You cannot judge him?? So whatever values anyone chooses cannot be challenged? Anything goes?

Heh. I thought maybe Victor had it removed! It was getting pretty embarrassing for him.

Maybe you should just change his user name to "Various Authors".

Yes, Dan, that's exactly it. I had suspicions about some of his better posts, and actually Googled some phrases, but didn't find anything at the time. I was starting to like the guy on this thread... but it was really George Smith & others that I was liking!

Well OK Bob. Let me be the first to say "you were right." (Hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day! )

The guy is such an unbelievable loser!

"Victor's Vandalisms: The Borrowed Thoughts of a Klepto-Plagiarist"

JEEZ!!! Well, just for the record, wherever I may have posted "good post, Victor", it should read, "well-stated, George H. Smith or Luke Setzer"!

Pross Klepto-Plagiarism Alert:

I Googled "Volition means that man is the initiator", from one of Victor's posts, and found it on another website that was quoting from George H. Smith's "Atheism: The Case Against God". My copy is packed away for my impending house move, but maybe somebody engaged in the "Pross-Hunt" can check their copy against Victor's post on this thread containing that phrase.

(Note from MSK: Thank you, Laure. Duly edited.)

ROTFL. I'd always suspected this, but now it has been confirmed. This is really pathological. Is there a psychiatrist in the room?

I have to admit I don't understand this. Even Peter Keating didn't go this far. Roark corrected his work, except for the housing project, he didn't create it. And Keating had a conscience which eventually ate him up. And Toohey wrote his own stuff, too. Does Victor have someone tied up in the basement doing his caricatures?

--Brant

It's really bewildering. Awhile back, Victor made a few posts that I thought were good, so I Googled some phrases from them to check if he lifted them from someplace! I didn't find them anywhere, but at this point, it seems a good bet to assume plagiarism.

... Along with the age differential, which grows more significant with passing years...

The age differential grows less significant with passing years. Both parties are aging. If Person A is 15 years old and Person B is 30 years old, B is two times as old as A. Fast forward 50 years, and Person A is 65, and Person B is 80. B is 1.23 times as old as A: LESS significant.

Here's what I posted on that other place regarding Potts:

"The main thing about the clip of Potts is that it was surprising, because the audience probably wasn't expecting any halfway decent noises out of him - he looked like such a putz! His rendition was OK for an amateur but nothing to write home about.

Here is MY favorite Nessun Dorma, in its entirety, for your listening pleasure: Jerry LoMonaco"

(This was my college roommate's voice teacher, so he sort of got me into opera. He was with the New York City Opera for a while, and quit to go into teaching because of his health -- I think that move was a bit premature on his part, because he still sounded pretty good to me!)

Oh, Judith - Turandot I believe.