Pattern-chaser

I was happy to leave off there, but this response deserves a reply. My core concerns are: What is a mystic?How does anything I have said lead you to t...

Infinity is an idea, not a physical thing. Just like seven is an idea, not a physical thing. Neither infinity nor seven exist, unless we count ideas a...

'Dishing it out' adds what, exactly, to the discussion? I don't know if you saw this?

You have stopped responding constructively; we have nothing further to exchange, usefully, I don't think.

Your ad hominem approach - even if it is pretty mild, as these things go - achieves nothing*. I do not claim any special knowledge, other than that wh...

Yes, and we should also remember that the audience are willing to immerse themselves in the fiction. They aren't cynical skeptics, they want to experi...

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Why do you think God gave us cognitive dissonance? :smile:

No? The arena here is the human mind; normal rules don't apply. :wink: Did you think doublethink was fictional? :chin:

The problem here, I think, is your over-riding need for precision, exactitude and certainty. We are discussing belief here. Not as the simple term tha...

For all practical purposes, we do believe. If the detailed psychology seems to differ, what does it matter? The thing we're discussing is an informal ...

If you come upon someone meditating, or even asleep, and you jar them from that state, they are distracted, and lose it. The state they were in was ge...

It might be, yes, that's surely one possibility. I'm not sure how common it is, though. :chin: Oh, then no, if that's what you meant.

Because suspension of belief is what it says. Although I believe the story, there are limits. So I remain aware, in your example, that the Green Slime...

When I read a story - a good story; a poor one simply doesn't captivate as a good one does - I immerse myself in it. I accept its 'reality' and its ma...

You mentioned a sticking point. I wondered if it was that the belief I describe is temporary? :chin:

No, I can't see a sticking point, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's actually believing something ... and then setting it aside. Temporary belief is ...

I said what I said because he said this: Quite why he said that, I don't know. :chin:

Oh no, I believe in practice that magic and elves exist. For the duration of the story.

Consider the difference between "less" and "fewer": There are fewer cows in the field, so there is less milk. The concept of countability is this basi...

Straw man. No, of course they don't. Straw man. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: You could be right, but I don't think so. Instead of creating nonsense to counter...

Not all the ideas resulting from a creative excursion are good ideas. :wink:

If you truly immerse yourself in a story, and its world, you might start to think in terms of the story and its environment being real, and what the c...

Then you may be getting less from your reading (watching too?) than others do? :chin:

No, I can't be bothered. You know as as I well how such inquiries are carried out. I will not carry on clarifying my clarifications beyond the point w...

To believe something is to accept it as true. This might be time-constrained, or otherwise constrained, but the basic core is acceptance.

The causal link can be observed empirically, but it's vague. We need to apply sociology and statistics to clarify that hate speech often leads to viol...

Of course it's belief. It's acceptance of the story, and the world wherein it takes place, for the duration of that story. This is NOT worth disputing...

I think that question carries its own answer. "There is no objective criterion for deciding which system is better". :smile:

No, not "stressing". That's what "passive belief" is intended to communicate. Something that happens in the background. Something that makes no signif...

If you don't know how to 'suspend disbelief' and enjoy a good story, this is not the place to find out about it. Too often you retreat from the topic ...

In this context, rather than as a bold and universal (objective? :gasp: ) statement, I would say that passive belief remains in the background, largel...

We of the present day nearly always consider that we do everything better, and in a more sophisticated and enlightened way, than our historical predec...

The fact that we (i.e. our society) did it makes it "right". There is no external ('objective') Law that covers such decisions. "Right" is what we say...

Was it, really? I think in this sense that all religions are the same. I believe in God, and I'm as happy to call Him Jupiter or Jesus as any other na...

Good questions. Here is one thought-train, offered as another example: unconstrained freedom of speech gives us the freedom to insult and provoke. The...

Because the aim here is to enjoy the story, our belief is passive. We even express it as "suspending disbelief" to emphasise this. So our belief in th...

Nazi leaders embraced, encouraged and recommended hate, using the communications medium of (hate) speech, and violent acts of hate were subsequently e...

First, this point is worth pursuing because it doesn't only apply to the appreciation of fiction. Whenever we think with the aims of discovery and exp...

Causal? :chin:

So, to paraphrase, philosophy is crap because it isn't science, and only science can be not-crap? Is that about it? You're really serious about his, a...

If the sun carries on rising every day, the snake oil is working, isn't it? :wink: And if everybody takes the snake oil, every day, no-one will be abl...

Perhaps the intention is to suggest that there are things that we can experience, but not describe? In this case we wouldn't be implying that there is...

Sorry, I stopped reading after that. Not out of disinterest, but because I need you to clarify this before I can continue understanding what you wrote...

I suppose you could. But let's remember, we're talking about human-world artifacts being imported into a gaming environment (or the environment of fan...

Or should we be travelling a different route altogether? Should we observe that: OR is a thing. One thing. Nothing else except that one thing exists. ...

I'm not sure. I think I see that Objective Reality exists. That's a starting point. If something has actual existence, it exists within OR. We have no...

Yes. :smile:

You don't buy influence? Too vague? Instead of free will - I will do this, without influence from anyone or anything - the real world is more about ma...

Have you never heard someone, describing a good story, say "you have to suspend your disbelief"? That's what you do when you're experiencing a story: ...