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Post by gillianren on Jan 26, 2011 14:21:19 GMT -4
I believe that we all do have an inkling of what it feels like: even fully healthy people seem to experience something very much like schizophrenia every time we sleep and dream. I was talking this over with my therapist the other day. (The clinic apparently thinks I'll get better and wants her to steer my therapy accordingly.) Yes. You can dream things. (Though I very much disagree that a dream is a psychotic episode.) But you don't know what it's like not to be able to wake up. You can be sad, but you don't know what it's like to be sad all the time for no good reason. And (grumble grumble) to be told it's all in your head. Which I freely admit it is; that's where I keep my brain.
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Post by banjomd on Jan 26, 2011 18:23:54 GMT -4
...it's also very common to hallucinate sounds just as you're falling asleep. ... Yes, these hypnagogic hallucinations and the hypnopompic ones (which occur during awakening) are common and normal.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jan 26, 2011 20:11:38 GMT -4
Just ask Kermit. "Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices? I've heard them calling my name. Is this the sweet sound that called the young sailors. The voice might be one and the same. I've heard it too many times to ignore it. It's something that I'm supposed to be. Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection. The lovers, the dreamers and me."
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Post by laurel on Jan 26, 2011 21:09:49 GMT -4
Or Dylan Thomas. "...now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep..."
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Post by ka9q on Jan 27, 2011 5:33:04 GMT -4
So we don't have to believe the (US) government because we - in principle at least - can educate ourselves and thus bring the facts to test. Exactly the point I keep trying to make -- apparently without much success. I don't know if that's because people are lazy, or if they really lack the ability to learn, or what. Certainly there are certain events I can't actually verify for myself. But I can look at Apollo systems, components, procedures, etc, and assure myself that there were no glaring reasons why they couldn't work as advertised. I can check to see if the documented historical record is plausible, i.e., consistent with the capabilities of these designs. And I can check to see that all these records are consistent with themselves. Every time and every place and every thing I've ever checked has always checked out, except for the occasional discovery of a fairly obvious typographical or documentation error. The bottom line is that I've looked at Apollo a lot and I've never found any reason to doubt that it happened pretty much as it was recorded as happening.
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Post by ka9q on Jan 27, 2011 5:51:11 GMT -4
(Though I very much disagree that a dream is a psychotic episode.) But you don't know what it's like not to be able to wake up. You can be sad, but you don't know what it's like to be sad all the time for no good reason. I do not mean to denigrate or minimize the suffering of anyone with a mental illness. I've seen some, including three suicides among people I've known. My point is simply that there's more overlap between the experiences of the healthy and the mentally ill than many people realize. Often the distinction is not in the kinds or degrees of the mental states you experience but when and how often you reach them. As I said, healthy people often experience auditory hallucinations ("hearing voices") when half asleep -- but not when wide awake. And for many people with depression, their "down" days are no worse than anyone else's. They don't sit around and think about suicide. It's just that one "down" day is followed by another and another and another. There's a continuum between "healthy" and "ill" that can help healthy people gain insights into those illnesses. That has to be a Good Thing.
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Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
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Post by Bob B. on Jan 27, 2011 11:00:20 GMT -4
Certainly there are certain events I can't actually verify for myself. But I can look at Apollo systems, components, procedures, etc, and assure myself that there were no glaring reasons why they couldn't work as advertised. I can check to see if the documented historical record is plausible, i.e., consistent with the capabilities of these designs. And I can check to see that all these records are consistent with themselves. Every time and every place and every thing I've ever checked has always checked out, except for the occasional discovery of a fairly obvious typographical or documentation error. The bottom line is that I've looked at Apollo a lot and I've never found any reason to doubt that it happened pretty much as it was recorded as happening. Ditto. I have a civil engineering degree, which isn't directly applicable to Apollo, but the fundamentals are the same for all engineers. The fundamentals are usually enough to verify to one's satisfaction whether or not a design will work. Furthermore, having been taught the core curriculum allows one to self-educate beyond the formal discipline. For instance, I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about rocketry even though I'm not classroom educated in it. However, I did study physics, dynamics, thermodynamics, etc. Self-educating about rocketry is simply applying the fundamentals to a problem not previously studied. Learning how to apply the fundamentals to new problems is what we're taught to do. The self-education process, therefore, is just a natural continuation of what I went to five years of engineering school for. My case is much different than a layperson, who has never learned the fundamentals, trying to self-teach about a complex subject. Not having the necessary foundation leads to all sorts of boneheaded mistakes. One can't learn the complexities without first learning the fundamentals. Learning the engineering fundamentals is the hard part; applying them to a new problem can be and interesting and even fun. Learning engineering fundamentals takes years and most people can't cut it. The drop out rate is high among those that get accepted to engineering school in the first place, and that is no easy task. The hoax theorists I've encountered would never ever cut in an engineering curriculum. Yet, as they wallow in their ignorance, they denigrate the engineering profession with outrageous claims of incompetence and fraud. So I guess that's why I'm interested in the hoax theory. It's personal to me because my profession is under attack by a band of ignorant and arrogant individuals. The engineers who worked on Apollo were brilliant and worthy of admiration. Their achievements are worth defending. The hoax theorists, in my view, are beneath contempt.
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Post by lukepemberton on Jan 27, 2011 15:11:49 GMT -4
It's personal to me because my profession is under attack by a band of ignorant and arrogant individuals. The engineers who worked on Apollo were brilliant and worthy of admiration. Their achievements are worth defending. The hoax theorists, in my view, are beneath contempt. Ditto. I have a PhD in physics. I found the Apollo hoax and then Rene. I feel exactly the same way about Rene, he's below contempt. It is the work of Rene that I like to address, Apollo is my second interest. However, I am finding that I am reading more about Apollo now, and wish I had more time. I have no practical engineering experience, but marvel at the profession, whether it be chemical, civil, electrical, mechanical or aerospace. They are practical physicists and mathematicians in my view. That really is the next step up, to take theory and build something that works. No one can deny that the Saturn V flew, and that alone is worth admiration.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jan 27, 2011 16:17:11 GMT -4
However, I am finding that I am reading more about Apollo now, and wish I had more time. It would not surprise me if there was more information availible on Apollo that a single person could learn in their lifetime, sometimes the shear volume of it is really daunting. It thus amazes me that people can think that they are experts on the missions, and yet obviously know next to nothing about them. It never fails to stagger me about how ignorant the HBs are when you start to question them on their knowledge of Apollo. Honestly, if you don't even know how many missions there were, which ones landed, what the missions leading up to Apollo 11 were and did, then why and how do you think that you can authoratively speak on whether it was hoaxed or not.
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Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
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Post by Bob B. on Jan 27, 2011 16:29:28 GMT -4
Ditto. I have a PhD in physics. I found the Apollo hoax and then Rene. I feel exactly the same way about Rene, he's below contempt. It is the work of Rene that I like to address, Apollo is my second interest. However, I am finding that I am reading more about Apollo now, and wish I had more time. Rene was one of the worst. Anyone with real expertise can look at Rene and immediately see him as a laughingstock. Then there are people like Jarrah White whose own ignorance is such that, rather than seeing Rene as a buffoon, he actually idolizes him. The sycophants of Jack White are much the same. It's really rather pathetic that these people can be so clueless that they can be seduced by charlatans (and not very convincing charlatans at that).
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Feb 7, 2011 14:19:22 GMT -4
It's not hard to find Americans who are "anti-American government", or even "anti-Traditional American Values". Most American hoaxers seem to be anti-government types too.
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Post by ka9q on Feb 8, 2011 3:26:52 GMT -4
It's not hard to find Americans who are "anti-American government", or even "anti-Traditional American Values". Most American hoaxers seem to be anti-government types too. Yeah. But just try to tell them that they don't have any kind of monopoly on distrust of the US government. I certainly have tried. Like many of my contemporaries, my views of the US government were heavily shaped by having grown up during the Vietnam War, and by the string of scandals generally known as (but not limited to) "Watergate". It isn't hard to develop a skeptical view of at least the US military when you see a war that has been going on ever since you became aware of the outside world, with no end in sight. Every night you turn on the TV you see guys just like you, only just a few years older, forced to go halfway around the world to kill the natives -- with many losing their own limbs (or more) in the process. All for no reason other than the President being unable to admit a mistake. And knowing that in just a few years you'll quite probably have to follow them there. Before you're even 20. Before you've even had a chance to live a life. But I don't throw the baby out with the bath water. I also grew up during the Apollo program, and I could see that the US government was also capable of some amazing accomplishments even if they weren't always based on the purest of motives. I don't have to be told that my government occasionally does some pretty nasty bad things. Yet when I try to explain this, it becomes obvious that they haven't heard a word I've said. I'm still told that I must be so gullible that I believe everything the government has ever said on pure blind faith. The hoax believers see the US government as unremittingly evil. Landing humans on the moon to conduct scientific exploration and publishing all the results for the benefit of the world conflicts with that view so it couldn't possibly have actually happened. No matter what the evidence seems to say. And no matter that one doesn't have to take it all on blind faith. They seem utterly unable to fathom that you can actually check out some of that evidence for yourself. You can learn the physics, study the designs, do the calculations, and see for yourself that there's simply no reason that the Apollo systems couldn't have worked just as they were advertised to work.
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