Ah, more of that charity and noble grace. If you can't walk your talk, maybe you should hold the talk and listen more.

Sorry to say to Bill, no sale. I appreciate your trying, though.

Since this thread has been drug off into the swamp ...

a passing thought.

You do not have to be a mentalist
to dance with a child's eyes in glee,
or coax a smile from a stranger.
No need of Tarot to fly from lonely,
nor crystal orb to see compassion.
You need no read nor prediction
to nurture a grieving spirit
or install peace in a feuding heart.

but…

to bring life’s challenge to its knees in homage,
and stroke the heart strings of man's simple needs;
to drift with a presence of yearning Light,
to embrace a chorus of silent song,
and to tremble as an innocent child
in response to acts of awe and simple love --
this takes the patience of evertime,
and the faith of ancient mystic kiss --
and choice to dance with wizards.

or

you can always pretend,
and scarcely live at all
except in fear.

Then by that logic are you telling others your posts have no value?

Since you are offering up a big plate of judgement.

'Posted in fun with a smile'.

Best Wishes,

Jim

H.o.A-X

Right on Jim -- I question whether any opinions expressed on the Internet have value --
well, maybe a little humor if nothing else.

any worth of an idea must be relevant to the needs of the reader,
not the desires of the writer. So we each pick out what is of possible value to us,
and discard the rest. My ideas probably have less value that those of others
since I come from a different performance magic background than most.

The value for me is in the private mesages I receive - rarely the banter on a thread.

Thanks for jumping in

Actually, no. You were talking about performance and the artist. Then you attempted to mix in comments regarding self-actualization. It's either/or.



- entity

If a picture is shredded, mutilated or changed into something else, is it still a picture?

- entity

I don't think the Dadaist cares.

Personally, I think if you can tell the pipe is made from a picture of a pipe, the artistic comedy is told. Taking a picture of the resultant picture pipe might be gilding the urinal... if ya know your Dadaist history.

Da.

- entity

Ba Dum bum!

Interesting. I thought the entire thread came from the original post. A post in which the following shortcoming of communication is made.

The author wrote


when it appears he meant "Successful mentalism requires establishing oneself as being somewhat superior in a skill set, or a knowledge set, and thusly is more empowered than the population at large." [Alternately, Ken could have meant by "more empowered", that a mentalism performer must establish oneself as more anointed by a greater power than the general public.]

It appears to change subject until you, John, interject and restart the debate over what was actually written. By your logic it would seem, wouldn't it, that every post after yours is the cause of your post? If not, why not! If you submit that your post was "caused" by my post, then you must admit that my post was caused by the original post.

A lot of round about to point out that your logic is flawed.

I do not accept that more knowledge is better knowledge, just because it is more. More is just more, when it's only purpose is to have "more" it becomes functionally useless. Case in point torrent culture. They harbor knowledge, they hoard it and covet it, but most of it is useless to them. They have knowledge with absolutely no idea what it is capable of. Sometimes "more" is just more, not better.

[/quote]

1. I understood exactly what he meant. Your admitted misunderstanding did not, I concede an inexactitude on my part, cause the tyhread, merely the shape the thread has taken.

2. I'm not sure how a post whose ontos is situated in a relationship of temporal posteriority to another may be argued to be a source of efficiant causality for the temporally prior post. I've acknowledged my imprecision, but my error does not militate for a simply non-sensical reply. I suppose you were being facetious.

3. I welcome a refutation of my logic. You saw it is flawed. Where? Show me an unclear term, a false premise, or a marerial fallacy.

4. Since you seem to be making no effort to follow my argument, I'll rephrase it as a series of simple questions?

A. Can you teach something you yourself don't know?

B. Is something that exists better than something that does not exist? Again, better is not (NOT)...not...a value judgment, but a qualitative modifier specifically related to a thing's existence.

c. Would you deny a distinction between knowledge (in the sense of undifferentiated information, like unread books on a shelf) and knowledge (in the sense of information that is useable by the knower)? If you acknowledge a distinction, then you must also acknowledge that we are using the word in two different senses. I would posit that knowledge (as I use the term-data made useful) is better than knowledge (as you seem to use the term (undifferentiated information).

In the final analysis, I welcome your response, but I frankly question whether you've actually read, thoughtfully, either mine or Ken's responses.

Common Folk? I fear we are quite common ourselves, there are 45,624 registered members here on the Café alone, that's a lot of superiority, lol