Sometimes there's no accounting ...

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I was having a conversation with someone about Sheldrake's telephone telepathy experiments. I pointed out that I think the callee could gain information about who is calling based on the difference in time on their respective clocks. The person responded:

I don't dismiss the leaks. I apply Occam's razor. It causes less damage to my understanding of the world to accept telephone telepathy than to believe people are capable of such a fine-tuned sense of time.

Sometimes there is just no accounting for the difference in people's perception of the world. I post this here because it is relavant to some of the philosophical conversations we have. Diversity is the spice of life, I guess.

~~ Paul

 

[Nucular]

The person is misapplying Occam's razor. It's not a device to cause less hassle to your world-view, it's a device to stop you inferring unnecessary entities. If we can understand something in terms of subtle cue-interpretation, which we already know takes place a lot, there's no need to infer the untold entities which would be necessary to account for telepathy.

I know you know that, I'm just saying

 

[Zep]

Any excuse, any excuse...

 

[elliotfc]

PAUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Miss you on the Fort list!

Nice to see a picture of you. I'd put up an avatar on myself but I am way too handsome and wouldn't want to incur anymore antipathic feelings towards myself.

Shez won't post my messages either.

I'm guessing he's on vacation or busy with some anime dealie. Either that or he hates us.

-Elliot

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Hey, Elliot! If Shez liked us, he wouldn't moderate us. We're nice guys, aren't we? I've asked him three times to take me off moderation.

~~ Paul

 

[elliotfc]

Hey, Elliot! If Shez liked us, he wouldn't moderate us. We're nice guys, aren't we? I've asked him three times to take me off moderation.

~~ Paul

Paul, this is just between you, me, AND THIS WHOLE FORUM.

I first joined the Fort list back in 1999, maybe 6 months after it started, that's just a guess.

The fort list was specifically designed by Shez to be different from the "forteana" list, which I have never been a part of, but from what I gather, forteana is very high volume, whatever that means.

The fort list was designed to be more...scholarly. Or professional. Or less conversational. See, the serious fortean would benefit more from the "fort" list than the "forteana" list.

Anyhow, the list was never moderated while I was living in Ann Arbor (until 2001). I joined the list or quit the list often, based on how busy I was or whatever, and then I would just be back, no moderation issues. Over the course of these two years, the list became busier and busier with chit-chat. Which could be expected as personalities emerged from the group. And you know what personalities I am talking about. When I moved to Long Island, and tried to get back in the group. I find that it was moderated.

So I e-mailed Shez and said "Hey it's Elliot, you know I was on the list for 2 years so let me back in thanks" and he did.

I quit the list last fall, joined it again earlier this year, and the same thing, but this time I think I assumed that Shez would "unmoderate" me on his own volition. He didn't. And I didn't feel like asking him the same question again, so I didn't.

I think Shez is (probably rightfully) tired with the tit-for-tats, be it on topics of evolution or what not. I think Shez would very much like to moderate several persons on the Fort list. I am not surprised that Shez won't un-moderate you.

Ideally I think he'd like the list to be maybe 5-10 message a day, and not to get into politics or religion or recurring debates. Sounds very reasonable to me, but not very fun obviously.

Eventually Shez will be back and someone will ask "what's up with Paul" (I don't think anyone misses me accept maybe George) and you'll get your answer. My prediction is that six months from now there'll be something perhaps fundamentally different with the Fort list. Either Shez will pass on moderating duties, cease moderating, or get hardcore about what he thinks should happen on the list.

For what it's worth Paul, and despite of what I might have said earlier, I actually and honestly miss your Fort messages. The list just seems dead now. And I quit that long personal reply thing we had because I was spent. I still disagree with the whole "magic" thing.

I admit I am not as scientific as you, but I'm not sorry about that. You're a smart guy who is difficult to talk to because it gets tiring to continually be on your toes.

-Elliot