And the lame shall walk.

[transward (imported)]

A bit of background. For fourteen years I cooked for homeless shelters and the subsidized housing for the Catholic Community Services' Drug and Alcohol program, until we lost the contract last year, leaving me rather useless.

A few days ago I got off the freeway near my home here in Seattle during rush hour traffic. At the end of the freeway exit there were three people panhandling the cars that stopped at the traffic light there, one big Native American guy sitting in a wheelchair holding a "Handicapped Veteran, Please Help" sign, with his partner working the cars and a girlfriend sitting behind. I recognized them immediately as three (able bodied) residents of the Drug and Alcohol Program I cooked for, and that they were already pretty well lubricated. Traffic was heavy and they were doing a brisk business. A couple of light cycles later I reached the head of the line and contributed a buck to their beer fund. The guy working the cars recognized me, and told his partner in the wheelchair, who promptly hopped up, much to the shock and annoyance of a woman pedestrian who had just given him a dollar, and leaned over my window complaining about the food of the provider who took over the food service. They were threatening to go on a rent strike to demand we be brought back to cook. (Being alcoholics and druggies, of course they will never get beyond talking about it, but it was good for my ego to hear it) I wished them well and left.

More than one person has commented that in certain circles, (homeless, alcoholic. addicted and/or psychotic circles mostly) I am considered something of a secular saint (or World-class sucker; sometimes the two are hard to tell apart), but this is the first time I have ever been able to make the lame walk.

Transward

[Riverwind (imported)]

No good deeds will go unpunished.

Thanks, it does put things in prospective and anybody that comes to my door will be fed.

River

[transward (imported)]

Thanks, it does put things in prospective and anybody that comes to my door will be fed.

River

Seems to be a lot of good people around here, I've noticed.

Transward.

[janekane (imported)]

I have been reading a book, a brief quote from which is:

"Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain't so. -Mark Twain (1835-1910), Notebook (1898)

Thomas Szasz is a professor emeritus of psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse. The author of more than six hundred articles and thirty-two books, he is widely recognized as the leading critic of the coercive interventions employed by the psychiatric establishment."

from Thomas Stephen Szasz. Psychiatry: The Science of Lies (pp. v-vi). Kindle Edition.

Parts of "Psychiatry: The Science of Lies" can be found on the "Look Inside" feature of the amazon.com web page for said book, and I am particularly thinking of pages 18 and 19, which, at least a few minutes ago, could easily be read on amazon.com. Because of copyright, please go to amazon.com to read the opening pages of the Malingering chapter, if you want the reference in said book for what follows:

The first chapter of said book is titled "Malingering,' and malingering is supposedly about "simulated" or "feigned" illness and or disease. Is malingering therefore simply a "character defect"? If so, to what extent are "character defects," at their core, merely aspects of "real mental illness," the form and function of which are mistakenly ruled out by definition through purported cultural consensus?

I believe (am I delusional in this belief?) that I earned both bachelors and doctoral degrees in bioengineering, and I believe (delusionally?) that I wrote a bioengineering doctoral dissertation wherein, in the manner of the Daubert standard for expert witness testimony in federal courts, whereby the Opinion of the Court held that the falsifiability of a theory is an indicator of the scientific validity of the theory.

While I do not yet have ready access to the Restatement of Torts, Second, or Third, I do have the somewhat obsolete Prosser and Keeton, Torts, 5th Edition close at hand.

From Prosser and Keeton, page 264:

"Proximate cause"---in itself an unfortunate term---is merely the limitation which the courts have placed upon the actor's responsibility for the consequences of the actor's conduct. In a philosophical sense, the consequences of an act go forward to eternity, and the causes of an event go back to the dawn of human events and beyond. But any attempt to impose responsibility upon such a basis would result in infinite liability for all wrongful acts, and would "set society on edge and fill he courts with endless litigation." - Mitchell, J. in North v.Johnson, 1894, 58 Minn. 242, 59 N.W. 1012

Well, that decision of "Mitchell, J." bothers me. I wonder if "Mitchell, J." got a passing grade in third grade arithmetic...

Suppose that the philosophical sense, as described, is accurate, in that the causes of an event begin with the beginning of existence and consequences of an event continue to the ending of existence? That would, methinks, necessarily mean that the causes of an particular event deemed to be "a wrongful act" form at least an approximation of an infinite sequence. Hence, in the arithmetic I learned as an engineering student, the portion of the "infinite sequence" of causality truthfully attributable to the final actor in the sequence of causes of an event deemed to be " wrongful act" is, at most, a miniscule infinitesimal portion of the totality of cause, and simple and honest decency would assign liability to the final actor in proportion to the contribution of the final actor's acts ti the entire sequence of contributing acts, going back (infinitely?) beyond the beginning of the dawn of human events.

Using my sense of third grade arithmetic, let us pretend that I commit a wrongful act the damages of which are appraised as $100.00. Now, let us determine my fair share of that $100, based on proportionate liability. Because the perfectly accurate measuring if my fair share is likely to be impossible (?), let us pretend that a mere 10^20 (ten raised to the twentieth power) events comprise the whole causal sequence, my fair share would be ($100/(10^20)), which I calculate to be ($(10^-18))!!!

Well, I can afford to be generous, I suppose, so I, in this pretend story, am willing to pay vastly more than my fair share of the $100 damages by paying a whole penny. Find ten thousand more people whose acts contributed to the alleged wrongful act, and you can collect $100.01, which is more than the damages as appraised. Why ought I be held accountable for that which I simply did not do because it was done by other people's acts which preceded my final act of the sequence that led to a total appraised liability of $100.00?

What is at the core of my being bothered by the arithmetic of "Mitchell, J."? It sometimes goes by a name, indeed a name that is the name of a book, "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences," John Allen Paulos, Hill and Wang, 2001.

From the Supreme Court of the United States:

No. 92–102

────────

WILLIAM DAUBERT, et ux., etc., et al., PETITIONERS v. MERRELL DOW PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.

on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit

[June 28, 1993]

Chief Justice Rehnquist, with whom Justice Stevens joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

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.

.

I defer to no one in my confidence in federal judges; but I am at a loss to know what is meant when it is said that the scientific status of a theory depends on its “falsifiability,” and I suspect some of them will be, too.

.

.

.

I am left with the surmise that Rehnquist never read and understood the published work of Karl Popper, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, Thomas Kuhn, or any other philosopher of science. "Mitchell, J." is off the hook because his decision pre-dated the published works of those people?

Perhaps the six questions of journalism are familiar to many people, the six questions being, "who? what? when? where? how? and, why?" As "how" is an anagram of "who," all six questions are, to me, "w" questions. However, methinks that the law profession predates the journalism profession. I find that the law has only five questions, to wit, "who? what? when? where? and, how?"

Alas, I am, or at least pretend to be, a research scientist, whose research focus is the development of aspects of theoretical biology and the use of bioengineering methodologies to design and develop practical applications of theoretical biology, such that the biological theory and its practical applications are necessarily subject to the scientific rigors of falsifiability, and therefore are, in principle, actually falsefiable if actually false.

Suppose you come to the 2013 MoM, and suppose I also come, and I come with a box of things more than sufficient for the making of a version of a David Grimes inverse duplex reflex receiver, doing so without informing anyone in advance of the MoM of my plan to being that box of things.

Suppose you have never before been at a MoM, and we meet in person for the very first time, and suppose that I am a terrible bully (not so, I hope and trust?) who commands you to use what is in that box of things to make a version of a David Grimes inverse duplex reflex receiver. Suppose you have never, never ever, heard of a David Grimes inverse duplex reflex receiver? Suppose, and please pardon my ridiculous supposition, you are so terrified of my bullying that you are determined to do as commanded (what a terrible notion, indeed).

To do as I, in this pretend story, commanded you to do, you ask me what a David Grimes inverse duplex reflex receiver is? And, in response, I ask you, "Have you ever before heard the name, "David," and you answer that you have. Suppose I next ask you if you have ever heard heard the word, "grime" (meaning, dark dirt), and you say that you have. Next, I ask you if you are aware that multiplication and division are inverse mathematical functions, and you say, "Yes." Then I ask you if you have ever seen the form of housing known as a duplex, two homes in a single structure, typically side-by-side, and you have seen such. And then I ask if you have ever been under the care of a physician or some such health practitioner that tapped your knee to elicit a reflex,and you realize that you have. Finally, I ask if you ever watched, on TV or in person, the Green Bay Packers doing their football thing, if you know what, in American football, a pass receiver is, and you do. Then I point out that you know all the words I used, and, because you know all the words, you obviously know how to build a David Grimes inverse duplex reflex receiver...

The David Grimes inverse duplex reflex receiver circuit is described, with a schematic diagram, on page 131 of "Practical Radio: Including the Testing of Radio Receiving Sets," Moyer and Wostrel, McGraw-Hill Book Co, New York, 1924. Yes, I have that book in my electronics engineering library, it is a First Edition, though merely the Third Impression...

If you have not tuned out the above drivel before getting to this, what is this gaggle of words really about, at least in my autistic mind/brain? It is about the biology, especially the observable neurophysiology, of human belief and human belief systems, and especially is about the science of human beliefs with special focus on the falsifiability of actually false, albeit sincerely held, beliefs that drag people into the realm of doing harmful, and sometimes horribly terribly harmful, acts.

My being autistic (I find that I do not "have" autism, nor does it "have" me) and being transgendered and being a member of a family in which a disconcerting (to me) number of close relatives died from cancer which, quite plausibly, would have been prevented or significantly delayed with the sort of cancer-preventive surgeries I have undergone, has put me somewhat outside the frequentist-statistical realm of purported "normalcy" of no more than two standard deviations from the mean, if you get what I mean. I seem to never have been offered the opportunity to be what is commonly deemed to be "normal." For that, it happens that I am profoundly grateful, however it came about.

So, I have rejected cultural norms of macho masculinity ever since I became aware of them. Similarly, I have rejected the notion that it is better to die an honorable death from surgically-preventable cancer than to undergo "mutilating" surgeries to prevent such cancer.

And, I have always rejected the notion that anyone ever causes an actually-avoidable accident, have always rejected the notion that anyone ever makes an actually-avoidable mistake, and have always rejected the notion that, if something that actually happened had happened otherwise, it would have been better. I never went through the infant-child transition, I never went through the terrible twos, I never learned to blame anyone for anything, I never learned that anyone can truthfully be found to have been or to be actually guilty of anything, I have never learned that anyone is properly to be punished for alleged criminal behavior, I have never learned that the actual committing of any crime is ever actually possible, I have never learned that it is possible for anyone to actually violate an actually-valid law of any sort in any way whatsoever, I have never learned that whatever actually happens, as it actually happens is other than perfectly necessary and sufficient, and I have never learned that whatever does not happen, as it does not happen, is actually unnecessary and impossible.

What I have learned is that people who have been badly hurt and who are still badly hurting will seek ways to tell about their hurts, and when telling directly of their hurts is punished by heaping more and more hurts upon the seriously hurting, then people will express their hurts indirectly, this being simply because expressing their hurts directly in seeking healing of their hurts and hurting being "punished" by additional hurts and hurting leaves only indirect expression of hurts and hurting, and it is such indirect expression of actual hurts and hurting that generates the tragic notion of malingering.

Malingering is, alas, not a simulated condition nor a feigned condition, it is a way of telling of real hurts and real hurting when no more direct way of telling is achievable.

My work is, in principle, simple to falsify, if it be false. All that it would take is the actual (not merely hypothetical) tangible demonstration of the actual happening of one (or more) mistakes/accidents/wrongful-acts which, having happened, are demonstrated to have actually been avoidable through their actually having been avoided when they were not actually avoided. Methinks that the actually-tangible demonstration that would falsify my finding that no avoidable accident/mistake/wrongful-act can ever actually happen is of the form of an absolute existential impossibility, the falsification would require that the knowledge/familiarity/understanding only acquired during a learning process have been perfectly acquired before the learning process begins.

My approach to biology, as to the science of biology, is that of relational holism, of which analytical reductionism is a proper subset.

The seven questions of analytical reductionism science are, for me, "who? what? when? where? how? why? and, wherefore?"

The eight questions of relational holism science are, for me, "who? what? when? how? why" wherefore? and, "whenceforth?"

To sustain itself in its present form, the rule of law cannot afford to ask, "why? wherefore? and, "whenceforth?"

That which the rule of law in its present form cannot afford to ask, I cannot not afford to ask.

I have asked, in face to face meetings, thousands of people to demonstrate the actual happening of one (or more) actually avoidable mistakes/accidents/wrongful-acts, and have yet to find anyone who is able to do the demonstration. My best guess so far is that no one is doing the demonstration because the demonstration is actually impossible.

Who will prove that to be wrong? Hypotheticals do not constitute any semblance of proof.

Absent the proof of my research and research findings having been falsified, methinks that those folks who were in wheel chairs were telling truthfully in symbolic form of their socially/culturally imposed inability to walk into a social/cultural world which accepts their hurts and hurting as real and as in totally appropriate need of effective healing.

[transward (imported)]

Absent the proof of my research and research findings having been falsified, methinks that those folks who were in wheel chairs were telling truthfully in symbolic form of their socially/culturally imposed inability to walk into a social/cultural world which accepts their hurts and hurting as real and as in totally appropriate need of effective healing.

I agree with your conclusion, but I am not sure I would want to navigate the logic you went through to get there again.

A large percentage of my charges, including many of my favorites, were con artists to some degree. It is tough to survive on the streets without that ability.

Transward

[janekane (imported)]

The validity (or truth-value) of a conclusion is, alas, independent of the validity of the premises used and the validity of the logic used, in arriving at the conclusion of a "philosophical" argument.

So, what I wold like, if it is possible, is for someone to demonstrate a flaw in the stated premises and the structure of the logic used in my arduously presented philosophical "argument."

In my view, you, transward, have done enough, and I shall ask no more of you.

Nonetheless, as there are many bright and clever folks who read and contribute to the Eunuch Archive in diverse ways, I would be grateful if someone would demonstrate a "fatal" flaw in the observations and resulting philosophical premises in the notion I have that, common consensus notwithstanding, no avoidable event of any sort whatsoever apparently can ever happen; and therefore, the "feelings" of shame and guilt that may plague some fragments of human society may be the simple result of unwitting misunderstanding of directly observable objective reality?

My best hunch yet is of a form of human tragedy, in the sense of the plays of ancient Greek theater tragedies. Many thousands of years ago, perhaps many tens of thousands of years ago, a mistake was made regarding then nature of mistakes, and it was believed, by mistake, that mistakes made had been avoidable. Rules were made, eventually codified into laws and codes of law, based on said mistake about the nature of mistakes, and, finally, in the past few decades, enough research has been done in biology and in neurobiology as to allow recognizing that the traditional notion of a mistake is apparently itself a mistake. And therefore, was an unavoidable mistake when it was made because all mistakes made are necessarily unavoidable when they are made, else they would not have been made because they would have been avoided...

While that may not be a tongue-twister, is it a brain-twister or is it a brain untwister?

If a person's brain has been twisted for as long as the person can remember, would having one's brain untwisted not feel like having one's brain twisted?

Where is mercy to be found?

[A-1 (imported)]

...not only to the lame walk here at the E. A. but they make many, many LAME POSTS...