@farmerman,
I disagree with your signature motto, Farmer:
"
YOU CANNOT REASON WITH ANYONE
WHOS BELIEFS ARE NOT INITIALLY ARRIVED AT BY REASON. "
I have done it.
My mind goes back to a sad story maybe ten years ago.
I knew a fellow in his later middle age.
In his affect, he was a quiet soul with a pleasant personality
and a fairly decent mind. He taught school (driver 's ed.),
was a part-time fire dept. volunteer, part-time deputy sheriff
and a few other things. I knew him for several years b4
he told of getting a massive heart attack.
He agreed with that fact.
He subsequently became afflicted with a hallucination.
Presumably, this resulted either from anoxia,
or from the chemistry that was post-surgically Rxed for him.
He thought that he can see small animals that no one else can see.
I reasoned that he was built from the same DNA as the rest of us humans.
He agreed. That meant that his eyes were structurally the same
as other humans' eyes: he agreed. I reasoned that in human history,
many men have had heart attacks and we know from that,
that a man 's vision does not improve by his getting a heart attack.
I reasoned that therefore, logically this
MUST BE
a hallucination of his, presumably resulting either from
mental oxygen starvation during the heart atttack,
or from mental disturbances caused by the interaction
of his many medications. He coud see the logic of that,
tho he also saw the subject matter of his hallucination.
I believe a movie was made some years ago on this subject:
A Beautiful Mind about a brilliant Nobel Prize winning
mathematician who fell into hallucinations and used reason
to distinguish reality from illusion.
