throopw@rtp47.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (06/04/85)
[ original posting, discussing astral projection, which led to: ] >>> ... I have seen ... what is called a soft break. ... >>> a light tap breaks the block. >> Sure. ... [just like] Uri Geller ... Fraudulently. > Here's another person who has seen a soft break performed. I'd like to discuss the nature of fraud. I have disposed of net.nlang.india and net.religion on the "Newsgroups:" line, since I am primarily raising a philosophical issue. (I also hope nobody feels I've *perpetrated* a fraud by changing the "Subject:" line!) It seems that there are many levels of fraud in the examples given here. Let me try to lay them out as I perceive them: - Uri Geller grand fraud - astral projectionists petit fraud - martial arts (for show) pico fraud - martial arts no discernable fraud (for sport or pleasure) My assumptions are: - Uri Geller has no psychic power, produces the effects he produces by misdirection, and knows what he is doing. - The astral projectionists have no psychic power, produces the effects they produce in thier own minds only, and (for the most part) beleive in the objective reality of their experiences. - Martial artists in a show are akin to magicians, in that they are "fooling the audience", and they know it, and the audience knows it. - Martial arts for sport or pleasure normally make no pretensions about the mystical nature of things, (though there are near-religious forms that make much of "Chi", and so on... I'd clas them with the astral projectionists). So, the philosophical question is this: Is there any practical way to distinguish a purposefull fraud from a well-meaning fraud, and is it usefull to do so? (I think it is normally accepted that telling the first two cases from the second two cases and the last two cases from each other is normally a possible and usefull thing to do). My position on Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and holidays is that it isn't possible to tell, and it isn't usefull to do so. My position on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays is that it should be possible to tell, and usefull to tell, but I can't come up with practical methods of telling these two forms of "fraud" apart, nor any particular benefit in doing so. I suppose if I were sending this to Ann Landers, I'd sign it Undecided (Dear Undecided: Wake up and smell the coffee! :-) PS: I have some familiarity with the martial arts, have done some of the simpler breaking tricks myself, and would like to reenforce William Ingogly's statement that > (3) It's not as difficult to break blocks, bricks, and > boards as it might appear on the surface. and I re-emphasize that there is not (normally) any fraud involved. -- Wayne Throop at Data General, RTP, NC <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!rtp47!throopw