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Fooling Myself?

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Posted by Alan on September 16, 2002 05:33:07 UTC

Hi Aurino,

Am curious to know what I am allegedly fooling myself about?

As for "mental health"; it is a metaphorical and dangerous way to use the term "health".

Today moral values have been hijacked and are now dictated by a new priesthood of thought-policeman called pyschiatrists. See www.szasz.com

George Orwell's book "1984" gives a good account of the kind of logic that one could do with being wary of.

Actually we have a storm in a teacup here: see my reply to Harv. He has simply misunderstood my use of language; and apparently forgotten it isn't that unusual in physics. (Note the "Mr. Tompkins" books too, as colourful depictions of physics; though I am proposing a literal negotiation theory, not just a pretty story).

Actually Dirac has reputedly said that "Anyone not shocked by quantum mechanics doesn't understand it".
Also at a meeting, when someone offered to put an idea to Dirac; if I recall right I read that he asked "But is it crazy enough?"

How about Everett's "many worlds" theory of quantum mechanics? Pretty crazy!

Also see Stephen Hawkings recent book: "The Universe In A Nutshell": he talks of a slight quantum fuzziness in people because their child might one day come back from the future and assasinate their parent before they the child were born! Is that nuts or.....?

I defend myself: I ask you: think.

I appreciate your sincere opinion and Harv's too.
But I think these opinions are not taking into account the context of among other things, the kind of history of radical interpretations in quantum mechanics that suggests innovative thinking goes with this subject.

If you still think I'm fooling myself: how and in what way?

If you do not believe I can recall when I was a newborn baby; that is understandable. Few people would be likely to accept that. But it is true nonetheless.

Technically by the way: you are accurate. If "mental health" means "submissive obedience to orthodox thinking as dictated by the pscho-pharisees (see "1984" by Orwell for excellent discussion of "orthodoxy" and how a party member must think the correct thoughts at all times (no secret writing "down with big brother"!); then as I have no desire to be restricted by such dictatorships; I may be regarded one day as wrong by the powers that be. And they might mask their moral judgement with a rhetoric of health.

But I am not fooling myself; they are fooling themselves. Truth is all there is; so I think it is best to bump into it with eyes open, than trip over it in the dark!

Thanks for wishing me luck. Like startrek, I am interested in going where few or none have gone before. It is interesting that early explorers who travelled across the oceans were sometimes regarded as dabbling in witchcraft, by townspeople fearful of the unknown; I seem to have read somewhere.

Regards,

Alan

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