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Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon

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William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
> Don wrote:
>> William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Don wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> OF NATURE IN MEN by Francis Bacon (1625) sets a stage, so to speak,
>>>> for gender fluidity:
>>>>
>>>>       He that seeketh victory over his nature, let him not set
>>>>       himself too great nor too small tasks; for the first will
>>>>       make him dejected by often failings,
>>>
>>> Physicist and AF author Robert Forward disagreed.  He said that he
>>> preferred to tackle problems deemed impossible,as even a tiny amount of
>>> progress was significant.
>>>
>>> It's a matter of attitude.  In chess tournaments I preferred to play
>>> people much stronger than I was.  I did not regard a loss against such a
>>> player as a disappointment, while even a draw against such was an
>>> achievement, and a win was fantastic.  By contrast, beating a dozen
>>> weaker players did not, in my view,add up to much.
>>>
>>> But some people prefer to play opponents very nearly their own strength,
>>> in agreement with Bacon's point. Soviet trainers, long the best, felt
>>> this was the best way to improve.
>>>
>>>
>>>   and the second will
>>>>       make him a small proceeder, though by often prevailings.
>>>
>>> The grant system rewards this kind of work, or as Tennyson said:
>>>
>>> "Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point"
>>>
>>> - though many of the best scientists I knew took Bacon's advice.
>>
>> Lk 4:24 And he said, "Amen, I say to you, no prophet (eg truth teller)
>> is accepted in his own native place."
>
> My take on this is that most prophets are merely layabouts trying to
> avoid real work, and the people who know them best are on to the con.
>
>>
>> In NOVUM ORGANUM, Book I, Aphorism 77, Bacon says it this way: "That men
>> should immediately examine what error or fault they have committed, when
>> the multitude concurs with and applauds them."
>
> This actually worked wonders for soviet chess.  They were self critical
> in the extreme, and this helped them. Fischer, one of the soviet
> school's greatest members, can be seen doing this in his "My 60
> memorable games". In one case he comments "Ironically, I wouldn't have
> won the brilliancy prize if I had chosen  the strongest move here".
>
>>
>> In Aphorism 79 Bacon grouses about how theological obsessions distract
>> men of wit to ultimately slow down scientific advancement.
>
> Bacon could have had in mind Dr Dee, who after doing good work in
> mathematics drifted into occultism.  From the perspective of a believer,
> I suppose it does make sense to summon an angel and ask it about the
> laws of physics, rather than spend your entire life making what seems to
> you a small amount of progress.  But if the angel never shows up you've
> wasted your life.
>
> The above is an oversimplification of a very complex man, of course.  He
> was writing Hermetic works from a fairly early age.
>>
>> EUREKA by Poe finds fault with both of Bacon's two speeds:
>>
>>      For many centuries, so great was the infatuation,
>>      about Hog (Bacon) especially, that a virtual stop was
>>      put to all thinking, properly so called. No man dared
>>      utter a truth for which he felt himself indebted to
>>      his soul alone.
>
> Newton and Lavoisier, Spinoza and Leibnitz, Linnaeus and Hutton, all
> postdated Bacon and predated Poe. I'd say they did a lot of thinking,
> properly so called.
>
> Poe hated chess.  If he tried to find the right moves by questioning his
> soul, that is understandable.

Another pertinent excerpt from EUREKA by Poe:

    Kepler admitted that these laws he guessed -- these
    laws whose investigation disclosed to the greatest of
    British astronomers that principle, the basis of all
    (existing) physical principle, in going behind which
    we enter at once the nebulous kingdom of Metaphysics.
    Yes! -- these vital laws Kepler guessed -- that it is
    to say, he imagined them. Had he been asked to point
    out either the deductive or inductive route by which
    he attained them, his reply might have been -- 'I
    know nothing about routes -- but I do know the
    machinery of the Universe. Here it is. I grasped it
    with my soul -- I reached it through mere dint of
    intuition. 'Alas, poor ignorant old man! Could not any
    metaphysician have told him that what he called
    'intuition' was but the conviction resulting from
    deductions or inductions of which the processes were
    so shadowy as to have escaped his consciousness,
    eluded his reason, or bidden defiance to his capacity
    of expression? How great a pity it is that some 'moral
    philosopher' had not enlightened him about all this!
    How it would have comforted him on his death-bed to
    know that, instead of having gone intuitively and
    thus unbecomingly, he had, in fact, proceeded
    decorously and legitimately -- that is to say
    Hog-ishly (Bacon), or at least Ram-ishly (Aristotle)
    -- into the vast halls where lay gleaming, untended,
    and hitherto untouched by mortal hand -- unseen by
    mortal eye -- the imperishable and priceless secrets
    of the Universe!

--
Don.......My cat's  )\._.,--....,'``.                     veritas    _|_
telltale tall tail /,   _.. \   _\  (`._ ,.               liberabit   |
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'              vos         |

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(tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) - 2026-09-06 12:27 +0000
  Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Charles Packer <mailbox@cpacker.org> - 2026-09-08 07:21 +0000
    Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Tony Nance <tnusenet17@gmail.com> - 2026-09-08 06:38 -0400
      Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) - 2026-09-08 11:42 +0000
        Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) - 2026-09-08 11:46 +0000
          Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-09 02:31 +0000
  Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon BobbieSellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.invalid> - 2026-09-08 08:27 -0700
    Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Charles Packer <mailbox@cpacker.org> - 2026-09-15 07:46 +0000
      Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Don <g@crcomp.net> - 2026-09-15 12:02 +0000
        Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon BobbieSellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.invalid> - 2026-09-15 08:01 -0700
          Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Don <g@crcomp.net> - 2026-09-16 11:16 +0000
        Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> - 2026-09-15 15:16 -0400
          Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Don <g@crcomp.net> - 2026-09-17 18:23 +0000
            Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> - 2026-09-17 15:56 -0400
              Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Don <g@crcomp.net> - 2026-09-18 02:00 +0000
                Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> - 2026-09-18 16:20 -0400
                Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Don <g@crcomp.net> - 2026-09-19 00:59 +0000
      Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon BobbieSellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.invalid> - 2026-09-15 07:40 -0700
        Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> - 2026-09-15 08:58 -0700
          Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Charles Packer <mailbox@cpacker.org> - 2026-09-16 07:42 +0000
            Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> - 2026-09-16 09:11 -0700
              Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon BobbieSellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.invalid> - 2026-09-16 10:33 -0700
                Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> - 2026-09-17 08:46 -0700
              Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Charles Packer <mailbox@cpacker.org> - 2026-09-17 07:53 +0000
                Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> - 2026-09-17 08:52 -0700
                Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Charles Packer <mailbox@cpacker.org> - 2026-09-18 08:00 +0000
                Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) - 2026-09-17 13:45 -0400
                Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2026-09-17 19:06 +0000
                Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> - 2026-09-18 08:52 -0700
                Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon The True Melissa <thetruemelissa@gmail.comNOSPAM> - 2026-09-18 13:02 -0400
                Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> - 2026-09-18 08:46 -0700
                Re: (tears) Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) - 2026-09-17 20:07 +0000

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