Actualism's most humorous quotes

Actualism
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Hey y’all, how’s it going out there on the wide and wondrous path? Sometimes when I read the actual freedom website I’ll come across something that makes me chuckle. I thought we could share exchanges that we find funny, and, who knows maybe it could also be productive in some way.

Here’s the latest one from today, edited for brevity:

RESPONDENT: I’m the one who truly has no beliefs, for I state that I just don’t know.
RICHARD: Again you betray your own avowed ‘I just don’t know’ position by categorising the physical as ‘second best’. It is extremely difficult to maintain an ‘I just don’t know’ stance consistently … you would make yourself look very silly in your own eyes to maintain an ‘I’m the one who truly has no beliefs, for I state that I just don’t know if Santa Claus exists or not’ stance, eh?

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[Richard]: [N]o matter how many times a female of an infecundous same-sex sexual persuasion becomes “excited until orgasm” she never can have “ejaculation occur” in her penile substitute (e.g. dildo or a surgically-confected inflatable penial facsimile)—nor any gametic deposition inside her cohort’s vagina (let alone have any haploidic fusion potentiality) of course—and no matter how many times any male of an infecundous same-sex sexual persuasion becomes “excited until orgasm and ejaculation occurs”, complete with its gametic deposition inside his cohort’s vaginal substitute (e.g. rectum or rima oris), that surrogate depository cannot ever be a vulvouterine matrix (let alone have any haploidic fusion potentiality).
The Invention of Heterosexuality (Part 5)

It’s maybe more indicative of my juvenile sense of humor than anything else but I lost it at several points reading this, and then again when looking up this meaning on the internet:

  • rima oris (noun): the opening through which food is taken in and vocalizations emerge
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Very droll, Richard:

January 21 2006

RESPONDENT: It tells me a lot about Actualism that you cannot tolerate or put aside what you label as deficient thinking in another and still keep a dialogue going.

RICHARD: How on earth can I keep a dialogue going when the very evidence offered in response to requests for same is dismissed out of hand as being an expounding of theory?

RESPONDENT: You could realise that I deal with facts and believe them to exist as well … with the usual proviso that contradictions render previously accepted facts into falsehood.

RICHARD: Why would I keep a dialogue going when the very evidence offered in response to requests for same is treated as being (a) evidence believed to exist … and (b) potentially false evidence?

[Snipped]

RESPONDENT: Could you be so kind as to point out where I have ‘dismissed out of hand’?

RICHARD: Look, by your own reckoning[1] as soon as you open your mouth and say, for instance, that ‘the bus is bearing down on you’ you are unavoidably expounding theory – it may be a bus; it may be bearing down; it may be you the theoretical bus is theoretically bearing down upon – and, as a description cannot capture all the details of a situation, it is necessarily a distillation of experience … it is a theory which could be modified or disproved by further experience or a change in perspective (‘the bus’ is untrue at 10,000x magnification/ ‘the bus’ is untrue in a dark room) and the only way you can insist that it is a bus is to control the way you look at it.

Perhaps a fanciful conversation will throw some light:

• [Person ‘A’]: ‘I say, old chap, the bus is bearing down on you.
• [Person ‘B’]: ‘There you go again … expounding theory.
• [Person ‘A’]: ‘It’s a good theory, though.
• [Person ‘B’]: ‘By Jove, I do believe you might be right … and it may well be so good it approaches the status of fact.
• [Person ‘A’]: ‘It could be so close to the status of fact we might as well colloquially call it fact.
• [Person ‘B’]: ‘Only with the usual proviso, though, that a contrary observation may change that fact into falsehood at any time.
• [Person ‘A’]: ‘Of course, that goes without saying, else you make a mockery of my position and turn it into a parody.
• [Person ‘B’]: ‘I might just get out of the way of the jolly old thing, then.
• [Person ‘A’]: ‘Just a moment … it could be explained by other theories too, you know.
• [Person ‘B’]: ‘True enough. Or even by a change in perspective.
• [Person ‘A’]: ‘What do you mean by ‘change in perspective’?
• [Person ‘B’]: ‘What colour is a carrot in the ground?
• [Person ‘A’]: ‘Oh, that one … I see you’ve boned up on relativism!
• [Person ‘B’]: ‘Yes, all knowledge is relative; not absolute’. [end example].

An alternative ending might look something like this:

• [Person ‘A’]: ‘What do you mean by ‘change in perspective’?
• [Person ‘B’]: ‘I re-invented myself.
• [Person ‘A’]: ‘Oh, that one … I see you’ve boned up on subjectivism!.
• [Person ‘B’]: ‘Yes, all knowledge is merely subjective and relative; there is no objective truth’. [end example].
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 107

  1. • [Respondent]: ‘If I didn’t work with facts I would be dead by now (eg ‘the bus is bearing down on you’). (Saturday, 14/01/2006 7:36 PM AEDST).
    __
    • [Respondent]: ‘As soon as you open your mouth to describe the experiential you are expounding theory. It’s unavoidable’. (Tuesday, 10/01/2006 10:10 PM AEDST).
    __
    • [Respondent]: ‘Environmental conditioning may be the active factor that tips humans and animals into destructive behaviours later (or sooner!) in life. Some subsystems due to genetic coding may be present that are neutral until they encounter conditions which trigger destructive reactions. The instincts may well be hardwired. Richard may have dealt with the conditioning that triggers destructive reactions. He may well have dealt with the finger that pulls the trigger but the trigger may still be intact. (…) Watching your kids and animals *may * be explainable by your theory but it *could * [may/ might] be explained by other theories too’. [emphasises and bracketed insertion added]. (Thursday, 12/01/2006 1:17 PM AEDST).
    __
    • [Respondent]: ‘A description cannot capture all the details of a situation, so it is necessarily a distillation of experience – it’s a theory that could be modified or disproved by further experience or a change in perspective. ‘The chair is blue’ is untrue at 10,000X magnification’. (Tuesday, 10/01/2006 10:10 PM AEDST).
    __
    • [Respondent]: ‘… let’s put the chair in a dark room. Is it still blue? (Tuesday, 17/01/2006 11:01 PM AEDST).
    __
    • [Respondent]: ‘The only way we can insist that the chair is blue is to control the way we look at it’.
    (Wednesday, 11/01/2006 8:12 PM AEDST). ↩︎

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Richard-Oct1966
(The dimly-lit photograph shows me walking down the aisle of the church which my then-wife regularly attended; being both an atheist and an advocate of de facto consortiums (i.e., congenitally opposed to de jure nuptials) it was altogether quite an odd situation to have put myself into).

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I can totally relate :joy:

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story of my life, right?

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RICHARD (to Respondent No. 3): If thought can get such rigorous scrutiny as the Mailing List gives it … why not feelings? Are feelings sacrosanct?

RESPONDENT: Hum Richard, what does ‘sacrosanct’ mean?

RICHARD: Off-limits. (Oxford Dictionary: sacrosanct: exempt from criticism; inviolable, sacred; secured from violation or infringement (as) by religious sanction).

RESPONDENT: As long as you ‘show’ your knowledge your ‘Intelligence’ cannot show through (if there is any).

RICHARD: As you are on record as defining ‘Intelligence’ as being ‘love in action’ then am I to take it that you, too, are not going to put it under the microscope? I guess not … given that you have oft-times proudly explained how you are an ‘empty vessel’ for Love and/or Truth to come through, eh?

RESPONDENT: Feelings are not real, they are like knowledge, a lie! (No. 10, being non knowledgeable).

RICHARD: Aye … and to think that all this while you have been busily being an ‘empty vessel’ for something that is ‘not real’ to come through.

Is this because Love and/or Truth is sacrosanct?

RESPONDENT: Hum. Please tell me anew, what does sacrosanct mean to you, Richard, perhaps using one word? No. 10, an empty vessel, for something that is ‘not real’ (or real) to pass through, unencumbered!

RICHARD: Is it because ‘off-limits’ is hyphenated that it does not constitute one word for you? Why is it important that it be a single word? But, okay then … how about these: ‘unchallengeable’, ‘untouchable’, ‘unalterable’, ‘interdicted’, ‘exempt’, ‘precluded’, ‘taboo’, ‘forbidden’, ‘prohibited’, ‘banned’, ‘proscribed’, ‘vetoed’, ‘outlawed’, ‘embargoed’, ‘excluded’, and/or ‘inalienable’?

How about that, eh … not a hyphen in sight? Now, what about two words? Vis.: ‘sacred cows’, ‘ruled out’, ‘not permitted’, ‘not acceptable’, ‘frowned on’, ‘beyond the pale’ and/or ‘it is not the done thing’ (oops, more than two words).

So, to re-run the question: ‘Why will nobody put love and compassion and beauty under a microscope? If thought can get such rigorous scrutiny as the Mailing List gives it … why not feelings? Are feelings ‘off-limits’ as in being unchallengeable and untouchable and unalterable and interdicted and exempt and precluded and tabooed and forbidden and prohibited and banned and proscribed and vetoed and outlawed and embargoed and excluded and inalienable ‘sacred cows’? Are feelings ‘ruled out’ of scrutiny as in being not permitted and not acceptable and frowned on and beyond the pale to examine because it is not the done thing to be iconoclastic?’

In a word: are feelings sacrosanct?

“How about that, eh …not a hyphen in sight?” - - lol. I like the part where he makes a mistake where he uses a definition that is more than two words but he wrote it anyway and pretended it was a mistake.

Edit: I cut off the top few sentences when initial pasting. Fixed for context’s sake.

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