The funniest and possibly the canniest member of a Feldenkrais Method e-mail group I subscribe to is a practitioner of the Method named Bob Schulenburg. His goofy sense of the absurd fails to completely conceal a deep sense of the humane. A vehement ad hominem brawl over Intelligent Design recently broke out on the forum, and this was Bob's way of pouring laughs on troubled waters. (I reprint it here with his permission.)
As elaborate and well articulated as [this discussion] has become a number of fundamental issues have yet to be addressed, such as who is funding evolution?Is science capable of reproducing itself?
If a scientist formulates a hypothesis and everyone ignores him does that mean they do not like him? What if they actually like him a great deal but simply believe he is full of crap? What if he is full of crap but really cares about people? He still could teach some valuable things to our children.....
If you took physics text books from 1920, 1950, 1970, 1990...and studied them closely would you not be witnessing evolution?
If there is a Supreme Architect then obviously the ability to deny, doubt, question and wonder without invincible resolution is part of the package.....what a clever bastard...is he infinitely merciful and committed to giving us everything or does he just get a big kick out of watching us stomp around and argue about whose personal microcosm is a more accurate and profound partial representation of what appears to be going on...
Historically it has been far easier to punish and execute people for refusing to claim they believe something than to verify the actual dynamics of their cognition which begs the essential question, are they being destroyed for honoring their own intelligence or for being too stupid to play ball?
The problem with both sides honoring and respecting each other's legitimacy in arriving at their own conclusions is nobody gets to win....
Regardless of the care and precision engaged in formulating terminology words are a representational substitution for whatever it is under discussion and hence a potential barrier to genuine understanding. Would it make any more sense if we spoke of the "pseudonatural" or the "superscientific"?
We take for granted a conceptual structure accounting for the behavior of bits of "actual matter" within an atom and yet are no closer to defining the source or reason for existence of those supposed things we are referring [to] as "bits". All evidence indicates the perceptible universe will continue doing what it does completely independently of our ability to meaningfully discuss it. This fact, however, does not diminish the fun and challenge of attempting to do so. Taking our attempts too seriously leads to the construction of special places to put certain people.
"Reality is what is left over when you get through explaining things"
-- Bob Schulenburg
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