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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (57277)	9/8/2002 4:56:47 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

"Corporeal existence is much deeper and richer and more multidimensional than that" It only becomes rich and deep through the process of interaction and sharing. The only interactions which may not take place by phone, letter, or e-mail are strictly physical ones such as touch and smell. It is good to smell people, but it is not always possible. Many people have lost the use of one or more physical senses so these are not relevent to how they apprehend the other. What is essential about people is not how many toes they have, but what their thoughts and their feelings are. If the human race was hit by a virus which removed the brains from every single human except myself and one other; I would gladly foego any physical contact with the mindless brutes in return for sharing thoughts and feelings with one human being far removed from my sense of sight. I cannot "know" somebody just by looking at them. "Knowing" is a learning process which takes place over time. Additionally, as I have said previously: Face-to-face experiences are often very inauthentic and artificial due to the realities of face-to-face risks. On the other hand I know a great deal about you unless you were lying consistently and over a lengthy period of time. You have said a great deal on SI about your beliefs and values. You have drawn a fairly detailed portrait of your essential characteristics as a human. Of course, you could have been lying, but this protective forum generally encourages open expression. Furthermore, I could write a report on say 10 SI members detailing their personalities, values, likes, dislikes, etc. and place copies in the hands of their most significant others, and they would be easily and immediately able to pick out the appropriate match. You may not understand this, but people can and do get to know one another by sharing their thoughts and feelings. It is a simple concept really.

To: epicure who wrote (57277)	9/8/2002 5:16:51 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Furthermore, there are inumerable examples of friendships which began on SI. It is one thing for you to claim yourself incapable of knowing people unless you smell them or touch them, or whatever senses you favour, but it is quite another for you to impose such a silly belief on others. You cannot know what another knows, so to contradict all the people on SI who have given testimony that they are real, and that they have met other real people is frankly a bit overbearing as well as quite silly. For you to insinuate that people (such as yourself, for instance) blindly meet others from SI, later to become friends is somewhat ludicrous and telling. Mature adults would not meet with total strangers whom they did not believe they understood and knew to be safe--and of a certain character, personality, and disposition. Your actions belie your words, and the actions of countless others show, that not only are they real--but they can make real judgements and asessments of one another with a degree of confidence and accuracy. The idea that one needs to follow a person to their home (which may not even BE their home) before you can "know" them is remarkably jejune. This whole discussion is so foolish as to invite the criticism that your "arguments" are contrived for some other purpose. I do not know what to make of such silly talk. You insult all the friendships that have been made on SI when you insinuate that they grew out of ignorance rather than assessment, evaluation, judgement, and knowledge. Does one have to touch or smell a person to "know" them. The idea is ludicrous.