GENIUS FORUMS

I think "guest" has been more than interesting and relevant enough to stay, even if his arguments are deeply misguided.

Okay. I'm prepared to let it go for the time being and see what happens.

-

It certainly does not speak highly of Laird's character that he chose to sneak back on (again) rather than approach you directly like a man.

I'm disappointed, for whatever that is worth. Not a lot, I know.

Laird wrote:It's kind of ironic that on this forum I've been an opponent of male chauvinism and yet both times I've been anonymous I've been unmasked by women, who knew that it was likely that unmasking me would lead to my banning. Go figure. I gotta learn who to trust a bit better.

Man-oh-man...

I'll try to remember that the next time you ask me to meet up with you when you're in Melbourne.

Laird wrote:It's kind of ironic that on this forum I've been an opponent of male chauvinism and yet both times I've been anonymous I've been unmasked by women, who knew that it was likely that unmasking me would lead to my banning.

Femininity's a bitch, eh?

David, by now you were pretty close to the only one who didn't know. That may be one indication of how many people disagreed with your stance of permanently banning Laird. That along with a recollection of the period when he was originally banned might be worth considering whether or not permanently banning him was extreme.

Laird has shown a couple of examples of imprudent choices most recently in this thread, but we have other posters who go through periods of imprudence, and if they can not pull themselves together, a temporary vacation from the forum gets helpful.

Carl G wrote:It certainly does not speak highly of Laird's character that he chose to sneak back on (again) rather than approach you directly like a man.

As I recall, he did do that publicly on the forum, but to no avail. You could look at is as you currently do, or you could consider that this was all that important to him, and chose the only alternative he saw to achieve his goal. Single-mindedness of achieving a goal is considered on this forum to be a masculine trait, yes?

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:David, by now you were pretty close to the only one who didn't know. That may be one indication of how many people disagreed with your stance of permanently banning Laird. That along with a recollection of the period when he was originally banned might be worth considering whether or not permanently banning him was extreme.

He has been far more disciplined this time around, which would have been prompted by the original banning. My view that he was intolerable as "Laird" hasn't changed.

-

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:

Carl G wrote:It certainly does not speak highly of Laird's character that he chose to sneak back on (again) rather than approach you directly like a man.

As I recall, he did do that publicly on the forum, but to no avail. You could look at is as you currently do, or you could consider that this was all that important to him, and chose the only alternative he saw to achieve his goal. Single-mindedness of achieving a goal is considered on this forum to be a masculine trait, yes?

He appealed David's request that he take a leave of absence his original go round, when posting under the name Laird. That was early March '08. As I recall he refused to leave and so was banned.

He reappeared secretly as earnest_seeker at the end of June (after things didn't work out at another philosophical forum), posting around a hundred times until discovered (and, I believe, banned) in July ('08).

Instead of approaching David directly via p.m. or email (so far as I know) to work things out, Laird resorted to a second round of subterfuge, registering just a week later as guest_of_logic, and began posting immediately.

I do not regard persistence as an especially masculine trait. It is one of the great attributes of the most feminine people, in fact, to get what they want. I don't think Laird's use of it here is garnering any respect for him, even from himself. I think he would be farther along in his own work of gaining wisdom, too, if he could have ironed things out with David and then come back as himself -- or if not, then walked away, even for a time.

Obviously this place is pretty important to him. Question is, is it important as an unhealthy addiction or as part of a serious quest. The latter would have been served better by the direct approach, regardless of outcome, in my opinion.

Carl,

Thanks for the nice summary of Laird's participation here.

Question is, is it important as an unhealthy addiction or as part of a serious quest.

Considering that he doesn't like QRS philosophy, I would bet the former.

-

Leyla Shen wrote:I'll try to remember that the next time you ask me to meet up with you when you're in Melbourne.

No hard feelings Leyla - just pointing out an incidental irony. Obviously, though, I wouldn't have trusted you with the knowledge of who I was had I known that you would immediately have revealed it publicly. In other respects, I do trust you. I suspect from some of the things that you wrote publicly that you'd guessed who I was this time around and kept quiet about it, which I appreciate if it's the case.

As for my motivations and approach, I'm not interested in discussing them publicly. I doubt that anything that I said would change anyone's mind anyway. Plenty of people knew what I was doing, and had no problem with it.

David, I appreciate your willingness to see how things pan out.

To be candid, I find it somewhat amusing that people might not have known who "guest" was. I suppose it demonstrates the limited or selective attention they pay to posts and posters. Laird gave it all away when he posted an outline of his metaphysical and spiritual viewpoint in the Jed thread. Indeed, if you go back and read that long post, by the end if you're not slapping your forehead, you're still not paying attention:

Guests's Spiritual Battleground

Those views are fairly common, though. Just go to Maleny and you can hear all about them from the first people you meet.

-

That's somewhat true, but that post outlined the metaphysical view that we know to have been what Laird believes. But, yes, it's not entirely uncommon. But the real clue is just, well, sitting there at the end of the post.

You mean the signature he added today, which retroactively goes to all posts?

Well, yeah, Dan, I'm not exactly going to be selected for training as a secret agent based on this performance. I made no attempt to change my writing style or method of engagement, nor to present a different philosophical outlook. The one thing that I did try a little harder to avoid was revealing personal details, but I wasn't particularly successful at that anyway. It was obvious that I was an Australian male at the very least.

There was actually compelling proof of who I was for those who knew where to look. Nat (Unidian) accepted for publication under my real name on his Synthesis journal an article on omniscience that was an edited version of a thread-starter that I posted here under my pseudonym.

Oh, that just got added? There you go. That's speaks to my own selective attention (or maybe the fact of zero hours sleep)!

guest_of_logic wrote:Well, yeah, Dan, I'm not exactly going to be selected for training as a secret agent based on this performance. I made no attempt to change my writing style or method of engagement, nor to present a different philosophical outlook. The one thing that I did try a little harder to avoid was revealing personal details, but I wasn't particularly successful at that anyway. It was obvious that I was an Australian male at the very least.

What was interesting about that post [Jed thread] was the lack of attention it drew. Do you have a theory as to why it garnered hardly any response?

There was actually compelling proof of who I was for those who knew where to look. Nat (Unidian) accepted for publication under my real name on his Synthesis journal an article on omniscience that was an edited version of a thread-starter that I posted here under my pseudonym.

I don't think many people even know Nat's site exists.

Dan Rowden wrote:What was interesting about that post [Jed thread] was the lack of attention it drew.

Totally. I was very surprised that it was completely ignored, until, finally, David responded to it. It presented a completely different view of enlightenment than that being discussed to that point in the thread, and moreover, given the prevailing views on this forum, I expected it to be thoroughly and roundly ridiculed.

Dan Rowden wrote:Do you have a theory as to why it garnered hardly any response?

The best that I can come up with is that people thought "This is just so unbelievable and Christian-inspired that it doesn't even deserve a response." Or maybe because it came out of the blue and there was an existing conversation going on, they viewed it as an unwelcome distraction and preferred to continue the existing conversation. Dunno.

Dan Rowden wrote:I don't think many people even know Nat's site exists.

Trevor does at the very least. He may have even linked in one of his GF posts to his own article on that journal, but I seem to recall that he at least made reference to it.

Dan,

But the real clue is just, well, sitting there at the end of the post.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

You were right. David was not paying attention when he read that.

ETA: Never mind. I had not read Carl's post.

guest_of_logic wrote:

Dan Rowden wrote:What was interesting about that post [Jed thread] was the lack of attention it drew.

Totally. I was very surprised that it was completely ignored, until, finally, David responded to it. It presented a completely different view of enlightenment than that being discussed to that point in the thread, and moreover, given the prevailing views on this forum, I expected it to be thoroughly and roundly ridiculed.

I was likewise expecting it to receive general ridicule. Now that your identity as the author is known, it's going to get what it always deserved.

Dan Rowden wrote:Now that your identity as the author is known, it's going to get what it always deserved.

Fire away, but I don't plan on responding, as I indicated to David in that thread. I'm still undecided as to whether it was appropriate to post it publicly anyway, and there's really nothing that I can say to convince anyone who hasn't personally experienced anything that would justify such an outlook. I'll leave it as a standalone expression of my current position, which I will attempt to explain and justify no further.

That's all well and good, but you need to understand that your arguments against the views of others are weakened thereby, for the simple reason that it's not possible for anyone to critically examine (or even really understand) the basis from which your arguments are being derived.

My arguments against the views of others (which in this context is primarily QRS) are largely independent of the views that I expressed in that post. Those arguments are based on the internal consistency and plausibility of the views of those others. I'm not claiming in that post to have proved anything absolutely, I'm simply explaining my best understanding of what matches my experience of reality. You guys are claiming definitive proofs. That's a claim that can be investigated independently of my own metaphysics.

No it can't, because your understanding (or lack thereof) derives from your own metaphysic. Your belief that you can analyse the internal consistency of our worldview is based on the faulty presumption that you have an understanding of it, when all your really doing is filtering it through your own. That's what we're trying to get you to understand: your arguments don't touch our worldview at all, in reality.

No hard feelings Leyla -

Ug-h-h-h-h-h-h, Laird!

...just pointing out an incidental irony. Obviously, though, I wouldn't have trusted you with the knowledge of who I was had I known that you would immediately have revealed it publicly.

What about the irony in my knowing who you were despite your being incognito?

In other respects, I do trust you. I suspect from some of the things that you wrote publicly that you'd guessed who I was this time around and kept quiet about it, which I appreciate if it's the case.

I knew who you were last time before you said anything, and I knew who you were this time, too, darlin'. :)

As for my motivations and approach, I'm not interested in discussing them publicly.

It's interesting how you seem to get yourself into positions where you need to make such declarations, no?