Yabby,
it may suit your purposes to label me a dreamer, but I most certainly am not. Perhaps before you get too cosy in your belief system you should familiarise yourself with the various contradictions that make a mockery of humanity's attempts to achieve a theory of everything.
Until we do achieve that, scepticism is the correct view to take. To which I add the rider that this material reality is indeed the one that ought to be our prima facie concern.
I don't care whether I'm taken seriously or not. I will continue to dig beneath the surfaces that appear to satisfy you.
I make no claims, btw. If you want to look at the new book, "The Waning of Materialism", limited previews are available through Google. You might then like to take issue with the authors--once you have a glimmering of the issues that is.

*It's our perception that rules our lives.*

It certainly does and those perceptions could well be flawed.
People read all sorts of strange meanings, into all sorts of
thngs. Some of us simply can't be bothered.

Squeers, spend your time navel gazing, if it makes you happy
and you feel that your time is well spent, millions have in the
past and millions have also jumped to the wrong conclusions.

Let me know when you discover something of substance, for which
there is solid evidence, for then it might matter.

I am one of those people who simply accept that when it comes
to some things, I know that I don't know, and given the lack of
evidence, it would be a waste of time to spend my life speculating.

So I get on with understanding what we do know and where we do have
some evidence. That mountain is so large, that I will never know
it all, but there is enough there to keep me busy for life
and to understand the world that we live in, a little better then
those who know little but speculation and navel gazing.

If you are going to be a skeptic, you should be skeptical of
philosophical dreaming as well.

have submitted this as a new topic

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/bang.php

the first few parragraphs
of...'THE "BIG BANG"
IS JUST RELIGION DISGUISED AS SCIENCE'

it pretty much figures in
with what the current astate of debate here/now..is
[but dont be destracted]

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was this guy named Aristotle. Pretty sharp fellow; he thought up a lot of good things. But, occasionally he made a mistake.

One mistake he made was to toss an orange up in the air and watch it come straight back down to his hand. Aristotle reasoned that if he was moving, the orange would have flown off to one side as soon as it left his hand.

Because the orange did not do so,
Aristotle concluded he was not moving.

*On the basis of this one observed fact, and the assumption that there was no other explanation for what he observed, Aristotle concluded that the Earth does not move and that therefore the rest of the universe had to move around it.

Aristotle was a very sharp guy, but the fact is that there was another explanation for why the orange fell back into his hand,

and it would wait about another 2000 years
before another smart man, Sir Isaac Newton,
explained just what it was Aristotle had overlooked,
and set forth in ...*Newton's laws of motion.

end quote
one must not judge too hastely
too much 'creativity'..and you could just get

a new tax
built on delusion
[but thats another topic]...too

im reminded of an advert i just saw on tv
for glen20 poisen-spray

the advert has astrong imagry
saying BACTERIA are everywhere

or something like 'everything is full of bacteria"

then in the next breath..
GLENSTWENTY kills 99.998%
of all *GERMS...!

from omnipresent/bacteria
to killing omnipotant/germs

that is the type of spin...that gets
under your concentrated attention span
generated by convoluted creative in-stinked

that's
the creative spin
*that gets in

I think I would have to acknowledge the probable truth in your wolf analogy david f, and progress report.

I was referring to our corralling, more than the nature of beast we are.

Civil liberties have been eroded in the last 100 yrs. I think this is counter progressive.
I think we would be a lot more advanced in our thinking, had we not done this, in the last 100 yrs.

And as for genes, you could use my own family as a case study on that one.

Thinker 2 and David f,

If it's a matter of following the herd - that's what people do.
It is very difficult, from a psychological perspective, to go against the tide of accepted practice.

For instance, when I decided to homeschool, I found that it took me considerable effort to come to terms with the fact that it was possible for me to do it. I was prepared for a barrage of criticism from friends and family (which didn't eventuate).

Who was it that said that humans can't handle the concept of freedom?

I think it was on The Matrix Ms Detective

Yabby,

Right on. Navel gazing should be banned. Or only done in private. navel gazers like squeers go on about the 'unexamined life' thinking, like 'thinker' that they are the only thinkers. They are more special than the masses. It's very narcisistic. Self absorbed people who cant get past their own mortality, and cant baaaare to aaccept they're common as mutton.

They poo too you know. But they need to look in the bowl, where you and I just know there's a load of turds in there. Or a computer simulation of turds. I lean towards the Matrix way of things. But the difference is I don't think it matters. Whatever makes one happy, just that I don't think I've ever seen a happy nave gazer.

There's nothing clever about being 'deep' and tortured', nomatter how it attracts teenaged girls or how much everyone loves Greg House.

Poirot,

'It is very difficult, from a psychological perspective, to go against the tide of accepted practice.'

It's more difficult from a practical perspective. I bet you would be very upset if peole started jumpin on someone else's train....

Don't say what you mean
You might spoil your face
If you walk in the crowd
You won't leave any trace
It's always the same
You're jumping someone else's train

It won't take you long
To learn the new smile
You'll have to adapt
Or you'll be out of style
It's always the same
You're jumping someone else's train

If you pick up on it quick
You can say you were there
Again and again and again
You're jumping someone else's train

It's the latest wave
That you've been craving for
The old ideal
Was getting such a bore
Now you're back in line
Going not quite quite as far
But in half the time
Everyone's happy
They're finally all the same
'cause everyone's jumping
Everyone else's train

Robert Smith.

Poirot secretly fears common people will home school and it will not be as impressive a dinner party topic:-)