Meenie7's invisible friend

The BBQ Pit
521

[QUOTE=Muttrox]
OP: How are you feeling?
Meenie: Sort of cold. I don’t know why, it’s pretty warm out.
Others comment.
DtC: You shouldn’t humor Meenie. She isn’t cold. There’s no way she can be cold, it’s 150 degrees out! It’s sick that anyone would even pretend she could be cold, she’s a dirty filthy goddamn liar or a whackjob!
Meenie: Er… Ok, fine, whatever.
DtC: No, not whatever, get some help quick you poor ignorant psychopath!!
Begbert2: Really, who can say if she feels warm or cold… this is an epistemological conundrum of the first order.
Random poster: Meenie, what does the thermometer say, are you inside or outside.
DtC: Epistemology my ass! She can’t be cold and that’s a fact and if you don’t think so you’re ignorant!
Olive: Man it’s hot here. I wish I were cold.
Meenie: I can’t find a thermometer.
DtC: Olive, you should thrown in the hoosegow until you realize what a retard you are. And I’m not pitting Meenie, and I’m not being mean!
Meenie: Seriously, calm down. What’s the big deal? I don’t care if you believe I was cold or not. I’m not making a scientific claim.
Muttrox: Yeah!
DtC: Yes you are! And you are solely responsible for the death of Western civilization and the cancellation of Arrested Development!
Meenie: The thermometer said it’s 135 degrees out. It’s red. I like puppies.
[/QUOTE]

I laughed 'til I cried.

522

[QUOTE=muttrox]
Captain Amazing gave an example of a subjective claim, “I like the taste of garlic.” cmyk, I assume you agree with that. As you pointed out, it depends on the existence of garlic. This is exactly analogous to a claim about your experiences with ghosts. It’s a subjective claim, dependent on the existence of ghosts. If you disagree, please point out how one is subjective and one is not.
[/QUOTE]
“I like the taste of garlic” is “subjective” because it is difficult (or impossible), with our current state of knowledge, to measure exactly how garlic molecules will affect your taste buds. And that’s assuming you like the taste. What do you mean by like anyway? The way it looks, the way it smells, the way it tastes, the memories it evokes in you?
“I see a clove of garlic” can be tested (using our current state of knowledge) with a camera. I would call this objective.
“I hear the sound of someone smashing cloves of garlic” can be tested (using our current state of knowledge) with a recording device. I would call this objective.
“This tastes like garlic” can be tested by another group of persons who knows what garlic tastes like. Or maybe by a chemist who would know what chemicals to look for. I would call this objective.
“A clove of garlic is beautiful” is something that is too complex for science to be able to measure yet. (What neural pathways make you decide that something is beautiful? Unknown.) I would call this subjective.

Regarding the OP: a ghost speaks to me. Objective. Use a voice recorder. etc.
Other tests were proposed in the original thread.

523

meenie7:

I read (one of) your novel(s) and i think you are quite talented, it was an enjoyable read! I also noticed that you let a somewhat different, but also not quite material, “Marcus” play a role.

Now I am really curious about the lowdown on all of this? Are your posts here tying in with your writing & art (which I understand is your prospective career) – or are you experiencing these abnormalities for real and then writing about them?

Either way is totally fine by me, but I am dying to know and I think you in some small way owe it since you got this whole ball rolling…

524

[QUOTE=muttrox]
Captain Amazing gave an example of a subjective claim, “I like the taste of garlic.” cmyk, I assume you agree with that. As you pointed out, it depends on the existence of garlic. This is exactly analogous to a claim about your experiences with ghosts. It’s a subjective claim, dependent on the existence of ghosts. If you disagree, please point out how one is subjective and one is not.

[/QUOTE]

Well, like you said, it’s dependent on the existance of the subject. If garlic, in fact, does not exist, it’s impossible to like the taste of garlic (because this nonexistant “garlic” lacks qualities, including tastiness). If garlic doesn’t exist, the statement “I like the taste of garlic” is nonsensical. It’s only because garlic exists, and has a taste, that we can like or dislike it. Likewise, if ghosts don’t exist, the statement, “I saw a ghost” is nonsensical.

525

[QUOTE=muttrox]
I think SCSimons said it pretty well in #502 above.

Here’s the way I see this thread, grossly exaggerated:

OP: How are you feeling?
Meenie: Sort of cold. I don’t know why, it’s pretty warm out.
Others comment.
DtC: You shouldn’t humor Meenie. She isn’t cold. There’s no way she can be cold, it’s 150 degrees out! It’s sick that anyone would even pretend she could be cold, she’s a dirty filthy goddamn liar or a whackjob!
Meenie: Er… Ok, fine, whatever.
DtC: No, not whatever, get some help quick you poor ignorant psychopath!!
Begbert2: Really, who can say if she feels warm or cold… this is an epistemological conundrum of the first order.
Random poster: Meenie, what does the thermometer say, are you inside or outside.
DtC: Epistemology my ass! She can’t be cold and that’s a fact and if you don’t think so you’re ignorant!
Olive: Man it’s hot here. I wish I were cold.
Meenie: I can’t find a thermometer.
DtC: Olive, you should thrown in the hoosegow until you realize what a retard you are. And I’m not pitting Meenie, and I’m not being mean!
Meenie: Seriously, calm down. What’s the big deal? I don’t care if you believe I was cold or not. I’m not making a scientific claim.
Muttrox: Yeah!
DtC: Yes you are! And you are solely responsible for the death of Western civilization and the cancellation of Arrested Development!
Meenie: The thermometer said it’s 135 degrees out. It’s red. I like puppies.

Etc, etc..
[/QUOTE]
Bolding mine…and here’s yet another person has no goddamned idea what I’ve been saying. Great cheese on a motherfucking popsicle stick.

Allow me to suggest replacement text.

begbert2: Would you atheism-is-a-religion types stop lying about science for a minute? And stop dogmatically assuming you’re right before the test results come in! No, it’s still wrong to turn science into a religion, even if Marcus failed the test! Dammit, what’s wrong with you people! (Why’s nobody listening to me?!?)

I swear it’s hardly worth bothering with anymore. Fine, you fucks! Make atheism a religion. Lie about how science works in order to support your conclusions that microscopically tiny bit more. Make a mockery of rational thought in the process - I don’t care anymore! (In this thread, anyway.) Chant your “beliefs that aren’t ours are automatically insane” mantra with your theist bretheren until the fucking cows come home. You’re beyond help anyway; the lekatts of the other side. Have fun with that, fuckers.

Oh, and meenie7 made a claim that she had the experience of a ghost friend, subjectively speaking. The only way to falsify that would be to prove she was a liar, because if she’d hallucinating him, she’s still experiencing it.

If she also made the definitive claim that she knew she wasn’t insane, then that would be equivalent to claiming that Marcus was real. I’m not sure if she made that claim or not, though.

526

Finally, I think we have something we can (almost) all agree on: muttrox may NEVER undertand the difference between “objective” and “subjective.”

527

[QUOTE=cmyk]
Meenie’s claim couldn’t be considered subjective because her account depends on an objective reality that ghosts exist. We know with a hugely acceptible degree of certainty that ghosts do not exist, so her account can only be explained by these things:

  1. She’s blatantly trolling/lying.

  2. She’s deceived herself somehow, and is merely relating her delusion.

  3. She’s mentally ill; neurologically, psychiatrically, or physiologically.

  4. This has been a fun, cute and “innocent” game of hers for a while now, has never been called on it from the people she knows, and has now made the mistake of bringing it here, and is too embarrassed about the assertion to back down from it now… so she’s just continuing the game rather than admit it was all a ruse in the first place.
    [/QUOTE]
    This goes right back to the OP.
    #1 = dishonest
    #2 = ill
    #3 = ill
    #4 = dishonest
    So, as DtC said, “There are only two choices here, either dishonesty or mental illness.”

And Labrador, you were coming off there as frothing at the mouth, IMO. Even if what Ruby had been saying didn’t make any sense (which it totally did), I think I would have been siding with her based only on her calm, rational approach in contrast to your lack thereof.

Also, I haven’t found DtC to be at all out of line. He’s steadily and rationally maintained and defended his OP. I’d be hard pressed to find anything he’s posted in this thread to be hysterical, obnoxiously loud, mean, bullyish, nonsensical, etc. Sometimes bad news needs to be told bluntly (both to meenie and the enablers). Nothing wrong with that.

528

[QUOTE=dropzone]
Finally, I think we have something we can (almost) all agree on: muttrox may NEVER undertand the difference between “objective” and “subjective.”
[/QUOTE]

I like this post. If it objectively exists.

And I’m back to lurking on this ridiculous thread. Tip your waitress, they work hard.

529

(regretting I’m saying this, since it will woosh him as badly as the previous fifteen attempts)

But it doesn’t matter whether or not the post exists because the statement “I like (whatever)” is absolutely subjective. It cannot be tested.

(why did I bother?)

530

[QUOTE=flyboy]
This goes right back to the OP.
#1 = dishonest
#2 = ill
#3 = ill
#4 = dishonest
So, as DtC said, “There are only two choices here, either dishonesty or mental illness.”
[/QUOTE]

Right, but there are differing motives/causes behind them.

531

[QUOTE=cmyk]
Right, but there are differing motives/causes behind them.
[/QUOTE]

Sure, but humoring her is not of any value in any of those scenarios.

532

[QUOTE=dropzone]
(regretting etc…
[/QUOTE]
I have had it pointed out to me that in the post I replied to muttrox was attempting to inject some needed levity into this thread and I should’ve taken his comment in that spirit. I apologize.

533

[QUOTE=dropzone]
I have had it pointed out to me that in the post I replied to muttrox was attempting to inject some needed levity into this thread and I should’ve taken his comment in that spirit. I apologize.
[/QUOTE]

I apologize for not being funnier. :slight_smile:

534

Don’t do that or people will expect me to do it too and I’ll never stop apologizing.

535

[QUOTE=begbert2]
Why’s nobody listening to me?!?
[/QUOTE]

I’m not sure. It’s clearly an epistemological conundrum of the first order.

536

Perhaps if you typed in all caps? You know, for emphasis.

537

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Sure, but humoring her is not of any value in any of those scenarios.
[/QUOTE]

Define “humoring her”. Is it humoring her to have any conversation at all that does not IMMEDIATELY and FORCEFULLY begin with “Well, ghosts can’t possibly exist therefore you are crazy or a liar”? How many people were like “ooh, Meenie, you are so in touch with the cosmos, man. Can you ask your ghost friend to see if he can talk to my dead grandmother? I mean, like, whoa…”?

538

[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
Define “humoring her”. Is it humoring her to have any conversation at all that does not IMMEDIATELY and FORCEFULLY begin with “Well, ghosts can’t possibly exist therefore you are crazy or a liar”?
[/quote]

The conversation did not begin with “you are crazy or a liar.” The conversation went from IMHO to GD to MPSIMS for 7 pages, with all kinds of winding turns, until finally, close to the end of it, Diogenes Pitted the whole shebang. So it was pretty far into the conversation that Diogenes suggested that there were only two possibilities for meenie’s story about Marcus. I don’t think anyone has come close to refuting his assertion. What plenty of people have taken issue with is variations on how unkind he is, questioning his motives, how he doesn’t actually care about her mental state, misunderstandings about the laws of physics, what does the word “objective” mean, calling people who disagree with you a moron, etc. But the basic premise of the thread stands uncontested. It’s amazing to me that it’s gone on for 11 pages considering that.

There were a few in the original thread, actually. Plenty of less egregious examples of enabling and absurdly political correct excuse-making and subject-changing.

flyboy, thanks for the back-up.

539

[QUOTE=muttrox]
I apologize for not being funnier. :slight_smile:
[/QUOTE]

We’re all sorry you’re not funnier. :smiley:

540

Nevermind, it’s a hijack.