Welcome to Quantum psychology 101 (with basic E-Prime)
E-Prime is a language used by many discordians (oops, slipped up there) which is (shit, did it again) identical to English but without ever using the Verb “to be” (get it now?)
The reasoning for this is as follows. (The following contains horrible science)
Light is transmitted as photons. A photon is a particle is a wave. By this nonsense I mean in some situations it is a particle and in others as a wave. This is an apparent contradiction, and is one of the main reasons that people get confused about quantum mechanics.
1) The photon is a wave
2) The photon is a particle
3) The photon behaves as a wave when constrained by certain instruments, and appears as a particle when constrained by other instruments.
Notice how (3) neatly removes the contradiction in (1) and (2) and yet is just as true. Notice also that this is nearly impossible to acheive using the word “is”
some more examples:
John is unhappy and grouchy
John appears unhappy and grouchy in the office
John is bright and cheerful.
John appears bright and cheerful on holiday at the beach.
Beethoven is better than Mozart.
In my present mixed state of musical education and ignorance Beethoven seems better than Mozart to me.
Lady Chatterly’s lover is a pornographic novel.
Lady Chatterly’s lover seems like a pornographic novel to me.
The car involved in the hit-and-run accident was a blue Ford.
In memory, I think I recall the car involved in the hit-and-run accident as a blue Ford.
Taking John’s example. If we remain constrained in aristotelian logic, The only conclusion we can draw is that John has multiple personalities. Unless we remove ourselves from the “isness” and “what ness” of thinking.
Taking the Ford example, If the witness states the first sentence, believing it to be true, and later in court it turns out to be a green Toyota in the accident, is he lying? Has he commited perjury? If he states the first sentence then, logically, yes he is. However, if he uses the E-prime alternative, he is not.
Let us now consider the Transsubstantiation, a great miracle whice millions of people believe turns a piece of bread into a piece of the body of a man who died 2000 years ago.
To your eyes or taste buds or electron microscopes the bread has undergone no change at all. It doesn’t even weigh as much as a human body, but retains the weight of a small piece of bread. Nonetheless, to Catholics, after the Miracle (which any priest can perform) the bread “is” the body of the aforesaid dead man, one Yeshua ben Yusef, who the priests of the Vatican call Jesus Christ. In other words, the “essence” of the bread “is” the dead man.
It appears obvious that, within this framework, the “essence” of the bread can “be” anything, or can “be” asserted to “be” anything. It could “be” the essence of the Easter Bunny, or it could “be” Jesus and the Easter Bunny both, or it could “be” the Five Original Marx Brothers, or it could “be” a million other spooks happily co-existing in the realm outside spacetime where such metaphysical entities appear to reside.
Even more astounding, this Miracle can only happen if the priest has a Willy. Protestants, Jews, Zen Buddhists etc. have ordained many female clergy-persons in recent decades, but the Vatican remains firm in the principle that only a male – a human with a Willy – can transform the “essence” of bread into the “essence” of a dead body.
See how things change with perception? Now, onto the point. Are you Leo, or Pangloss? Or both? Or is it that in real life you are Leo, and on this board you are Pangloss? I am HVD, Hiren Desai, Beta (Gujarati for darling) to my parents, and Herring to Mike Peel’s mum; all depending on the circumstances. None of these lablels explain me completely, none exclude any part of me. They just are, as I just am, all and none of them.
What year is it? 2002AD christian, 81 psU wilsonian, 1423aH islamic, 2525 Buddhist?<P