Okay Jay, I agree some things are certain and no matter what I do, they are going to proceed as was ordained long before my tiny mind flickered into life and my small effects will not be big enough, certainly in my own lifetime, though I can't say that's the case given long enough with those following continuing the processes which I might initiate and which I have followed which were initiated by those before me.
For example, the galaxy will continue on its orbit, with the perturbations precipitated by me being as minuscule as me spitting in the ocean. Hmmm. Probably a lot smaller than that. The galaxy is quite large. Even if I do have a large effect, by contriving to persuade people that all nuclear weapons should be used to deflect Earth a little off course, said perturbation would not be even detectable on the other side of the galaxy until some 100,000 years from now, give or take whatever it is. They would need a microscope to detect the perturbation even then.
The galaxy won't be spinning in reverse any time soon as a result of my efforts. So yes, I agree that baying for the Moon is out of my realm.
But closer to home and in the realm of Earth, perturbations I might make might be quite significant. Because of the butterfly effect, and the chaos nature of non-linear functions, it's impossible to know whether one had an effect or not.
I'm used to having significant effects, having decided that something is a good thing to do and that effects will probably or might happen. If the cost is low and the non-linearity large, it's not at all difficult to have a catalytic effect, precipitating timely changes.
Of course I can't track the details or the trains of thought involved, but in 1983, a friend and I were sitting on the grass outside a hall where he and I played badminton at lunchtime. He was bemoaning Prime Minister Muldoon's clawback tax on kiwi-fruit investments. I suggested to him that rather than moan and argue inside the National Party, getting nowhere, he should start a new political party, calling it, say, The New Zealand Party, to split his vote and cause him to lose the election.
He went to see his lawyer buddy Bill Taylor. Bill Taylor knew Bob Jones [a well-known person in NZ with a popular following]. Bob, Bill and a few others started, yes indeed, "The New Zealand Party". Which got some 12% of the vote and Muldoon was out and Labour was in. fact-index.com
Labour adopted the nuclear free zone and a lot more besides, setting off the 1980s deregulatory and privatisation processes. Lange debated at Oxford Union and anti-nuclear activity built up a lot. Whether those ripples permeated Gorby's and Raygun's discussions I have no idea.
In 1995 I joined Act New Zealand, which was in some respects a continuation of the 'Bob Jones Party' as Muldoon disparagingly called it, which had become defunct, having served its purpose.
In 1996, in the Epsom seat, we [the little band of enthusiasts] got 23% of the vote for Act, and the national average was about 6%, which got a bunch of Act members into parliament and they have had an effect, more or less.
That's just a couple of little examples where not much effort can have quite a significant effect.
Another example is people voting. It takes them little effort, but added to the other catalytic effects of all the others, they can shift really big things around. If they are in harmony with what can be done of course. A loner voting won't have an effect at all.
You are quite right that we know the truth from the false truth by waiting. Even when we are quite sure of our ground, it can move due to a peculiar perturbation of which we were unaware and the false truth we believed is revealed as a sham.
Which isn't to say we can't have effects, sometimes of quite grand scale. Sometimes it seems to me that all that's needed is a gentle push and anything can happen - but it becomes a bit eerie when I think like that. Down that road lies obsession, megalomania, or something, where reality in the mind is far from reality in reality. Yet, on the other hand, without imagining and pushing, one is not alive.
I'm sure you believe you can change some otas or at least an I. You know you do more than just moving left and right in defensive posture, hoping to dodge an incoming.
When we allocat funds for something, for example to invent and build and sell CDMA, we change the world. Not the rotation of the cosmos, but we make significant changes as far as people are concerned. When we fund Eurotunnel, we lose our money but get a large hole through which swarms of people can go. That changes things.
Given enough effort by me and all descendants, we might yet make the cosmos run backwards [assuming we choose to do that]. We will have to wait and see.
Please don't put me on ignore. I've got enough already.
Mqurice
PS: <brian actually realizes the truth of the matter he speaks of, but he, not even by his free will, has concocted a more palatable but false truth, and after a while, the concoction becomes his truth, but just for him, and others that suffer the same delusions >
You don't know whether his expectation is delusion or truth until after we all wait. So far, his is the truth. Whether that will change, we will have to wait and see. So far, he wins, you lose. So does Yiwu the Mad. We are still waiting for The Rapture too [yes, yes, I know it's coming one of these days - the Great Financial Rapture = TeoTwawki, yawn...] |
