"Energies" and epiphenomenalism

[nessus@twitch.mit.edu (Douglas Alan)]

> In article <CIDAp8.64s@freenet.carleton.ca> ag869@FreeNet.Carleton.CA
> (Rick Pali) writes: 

   Jorn>   [Anyone who wants to tell *me* i'm being a jerk, *can*.
   Jorn>   please *do*, if that's what you feel.  but convince me it's
   Jorn>   not just you want me to go-away-and-die because you're in
   Jorn>   denial about all this... which is all i feel i've been
   Jorn>   getting...]

   Rick>   Yes, you're being a jerk. The topic of this area is
   Rick>   *music*. A whole message about energy is off-topic. What
   Rick>   makes you think that any of us want to read about energy?

Although I completely disagree with any assertions that there is some
mysterious supernatural "energy" that effects our lives, the true Kate
Bush fan must acknowledge that Kate herself *does* believe in such
"energies" and that such beliefs have affected her songs, both
implicitly and explicitly.  Accordingly, some talk of such
supernatural "energies" is not out of place here.  In fact, it is
beneficial to a Deeper Understanding of Ms. Bush's work.

|>oug
   <nessus@mit.edu>

P.S. Despite the utter falsehood of the concept of supernatural
     "energies", there is a true phenomenon wherein the material world
     is shadowed in a phenomenal world, and this phenomenal world
     contains what many would call the "soul".  The existance of this
     phenomenal world causes many people, in a misguided attempt to
     explain it, to come up with nonexistant and often nonsensical
     theoretical constructs such as "energies" or "God".  In fact, the
     phenomenal world follows rigid scientific laws, just as the
     material world does.  Unfortunately, even though the phenomenal
     world is the *only* world that is really important to us--for
     without this phenomenal world we would be merely soulless
     consciousnessless automatons--the scientific laws of the
     phenomenal world are forever beyond our grasp because the
     phenomenal world has no effect on the material world; the
     relationship only goes the other way.  What does not affect the
     material world cannot be measured, and what cannot be measured
     cannot be answered by the scientific method.  Some things Man was
     just not meant to know.

     Of course, any discussion of *this* issue *is* completely out of
     place here.
--
"We are living in an epiphenomenal world, and I am an epiphenomenal guy"