(urth) Pike's ghost

[James Wynn]

> James Wynn wrote:
>> It is a logical error that people fall into.
>
> António Pedro Marques wrote:
> Why do you believe enlightenment came to Patera Silk in the ball court?

Because the text says so.  But --guess what?-- that's NOT the only 
theory. Marc has posited that the whole event and Silk's communication 
with the Outsider was engineered by Pas and Kypris. I can bring up 
technical refutations ("Pas is dead.") but I fully know that I would 
like the story less if the enlightenment were a ruse. That's also the 
primary reason I don't believe Lee's "Grand Unified Theory" of 
aliens=gods or that the ultimate goals of the Hierodules is evil. 
Nietzsche said that the mind is the slave of the body. Well, often 
intricately conceived refutations are actually diplomats for our 
/preferences/. And that potential is always lurking in each of our 
discourses on both sides.

>
>> They argue from authority based
>> on what they consider is "most likely true" or "the consensus". This
>> liberates them from having to explain WHY what they believe is "most 
>> likely
>> true".  They have generously yielded to THEMSELVES the default position.
>>
>> [...]What I'm
>> really annoyed by is /smugness/. It makes me want to take the opposite
>> position just to see how it plays out. I think the smug aren't really
>> thinking because they have afforded themselves the right not to.
>
> And what in your view constitutes smugness?

I think I just described it.