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by _doctor_love 29 days ago
Oh? So you're over there like super-rational-all-the-time life has no mystery in it?

> IOW, it's not an insult, it's a compliment.

Neither, just an indication that you're comfortable taking a completely dismissive attitude towards things you haven't actually taken the time to study and understand.

I found a great quote from the blog of someone who looks pretty smart:

The more you know, the more you realize you know nothing. --Socrates

Curiously from a blog post titled "Zen and the art of logging" - so clearly this person is open to mystical mumbo-jumbo? After all, does meditation work? Does zen work? Best not to have a strong opinion until you have "gone and seen for yourself."

But you do you.
1 comments
lelanthran 29 days ago
> Best not to have a strong opinion until you have "gone and seen for yourself."

I think this is the best part - the only way to know that voodoo is, indeed, voodoo, is to study it.

IOW, what makes you think I am unfamiliar with the various types of voodoo?

Is your mind that tiny that you cannot imagine that someone took a long look into something before dismissing it as voodoo?

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_doctor_love 29 days ago
Well friend, you sure didn't bring that up to start. Your initial statements gave me a strong sense that you had arbitrarily decided that astrology was bunk without making any intellectual effort.

But if you are now telling me that you have investigated astrology, and - after careful analysis and intellectual struggle - decided that it has nothing to offer? Then you have my respect. Because you actually did the work of going and investigating and making a judgment off your own conscience. If you've done that homework, then all I can do is say thank you for being a critical thinker.

Obviously, the follow-on is that we have a fundamental disagreement here because I have done the same work and concluded that there is signal with astrology. So I have found that it works for me, and pretty well at that. If the opposite is true for you, it is not right for me to try and coerce you to my point of view.

I was musing on your possible reply and remembered this wonderful video from Dr. Richard Hamming. Given our exchange so far, I think you will enjoy it.

How Do We Know What We Know? (If Indeed, We Know It) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEjt5PerpeY

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