Perceptions of Reality

You may be close to a self-revelation here, Rob. Before leaving your faux pas too quickly, consider the full implications of this comment.You say you were too 'caught in the drama'--too eager to award yourself an unearned last laugh and preachy exit line--to keep track of the comment's principal idea--even when it was clearly referenced at the top as a theme you introduced only hours before.This is an ongoing Rob problem. Too busy playing to those grandstands to focus even on the basics of the topic at hand. More often than not, the topic you abandon is one you raised.You've created a number of problems for yourself with this pattern. It's one reason you encounter growing lack of enthusiasm for promoting new topics you introduce. You can't frame a debate for toffee, to begin with, because of carelessness with detail. And everyone has learned by now that, as soon as any discussion you start gets at all interesting, you're likely to give up on it and start preaching to the peanut gallery.Focus. That's what you've been hearing from people. This recent mishap shows what good advice it is.Difficulty sustaining a conversation in a coherent, functional manner does not make one righteous, humble, persecuted, or any more likely to go to heaven than anyone else. That's just melodrama. What it makes you is a person who needs to pay more attention.As a great dramatist once put it:

More matter, please, with less art.

_____Edited by Archer Opterix, : to the barber's.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Overly restricted range of options.You could also treat it as a metaphor.In that case the pink elephant is real as a symbol. It is an image that stands for a factually real phenomenon regardless of whether or not the image shows us a creature that is factually real.(Leave it to scientists and fundies to keep overlooking this possibility. Jeez. :rolleyesAnd your choices do not end there. Symbolism is an entire category of possibilities. Within it you have a number of options open to you. You might treat the pink elephant as (1) a metaphor consciously employed as such by the speaker and meant to be taken as such by you, (2) a metaphor consciously employed as such by the speaker but meant to be taken literally by you, (3) a metaphor consciously employed as such by the speaker but meant to be taken either literally or metaphorically by you depending on your level of sophistication, (4) an image taken literally by the speaker and meant to be taken as such by you that retains validity as a metaphor apart from the question of its factuality, (5) an image generally taken as metaphorical by a given community but understood literally by the speaker, (6) an image generally taken literally by a given community but understood metaphorically by the speaker, and so on._____Edited by Archer Opterix, : html.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Where did I say quotes were useless?Quotes are a wonderful seasoning that enables certain tasks in writing. As wallpaper to cover one's incoherence, though, they are inadequate for the purpose and annoying.A capable writer like C S Lewis, for example, never acts this way. He accepts the obligation to make his own case and he makes it. Lewis refers now and then to statements made by other people. But he doesn't throw chunks of out-of-context prose at the reader like a gopher kicking up sand before vanishing down a hole. If that's how he did things, you never would have heard of Lewis.I think you do know the difference. I believe you. If I thought you were really trapped in self-defeating patterns (some people are) I wouldn't have bothered saying anything. To fathom anything is to evolve.

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that does fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I noticed that. You were speaking of ultimate reality--that which is, apart from how we interpret it. RAZD was talking about 'my' reality--the interpretation._____Edited by Archer Opterix, : corrected attribution.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.