>From Jed: ...
> It does make me wonder how I would respond if I discovered that > cold fusion is not real, and all those researchers were mistaken > or fraudulent. I cannot deny I have an emotional investment. > That event would surely bother me a lot more than, say, > learning that special relativity is incorrect in important ways, > or learning that evolution is partly caused by something > other than Darwinian natural selection. That would be > interesting but it wouldn't bother me. If "in the unlikely event..." (...as airline attendants are so fond of saying) Rossi's Wunder-Cats turn out to be a complete fraud I suspect it would be a really tough weekend for you, Jed. I can tell you with absolute certainty it would be a tough weekend for me. It would be tough for me because I would have to take a long hard look at my discrimination skills, or more precisely the apparent lack of them. If I willingly allowed Rossi and his trickery to get past my BS filters it would throw into question WHY I allowed it to happen. I would be forced to ask disquieting questions like: Was my desire to simply believe in Rossi's claims so incredibly out of balance that my naivety completely overruled any sense of rationality or skepticism I might have still possessed? I suspect many within the Vort Collective pride themselves in believing they possess pretty decent BS filters, this despite the fact that most here are also willing to explore unproven technology and the controversial theories that might accompany them. While many of us occasionally bicker amongst each other as to the veracity of certain claims, in the end most here I suspect do not care to spend much time prodding hard-core skeptics - unless it is done as an intellectual exercise, or perhaps just for amusement. I suspect many of us tend to look down on hard-core skeptics, i.e. individuals like J. Cude, as unfortunately flawed in some profoundly intellectual way. But, horror of horrors, if Rossi turns out to be a sophisticated scam artist, and we didn't catch that fact before the hard-core skeptics expose the truth, we would be forced to assess whether our harsh opinion of hard-core skeptics is really deserving. For some here, to face such a revelation might be the equivalent of having to confront the possibility that the world was indeed created in seven days - and any day now, Yahweh is about to smite all of us sinners into a shouldering slag pile as His Holy-Laserness teleports the chosen to the promised Land of Eternal Rationality. We are unworthy! Perhaps it is suppressed nightmares like this that help explain why certain eastern religions like Buddhism and Zen suggest it might be a useful trait to cultivate a sense of the transient objectivity of one's surroundings, this despite the fact that these philosophies seem paradoxically subjective at their core. The point being: The less attached we allow ourselves to become to our unique collection of personal vices, the easier it will be to ride out the ensuing storms. I hasten to add, I'm certainly no Zen-master at this. It's a day-by-day process. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
