Believe me, I've read nearly every author, scholar, philosopher, researcher mentioned in this labyrinthine thread and, well, will spare it another adjective that got me into some hot water. I will say that I now understand Injun Joe's last desperate efforts to get out of that tortuously winding cave Tom and Becky successfully escaped. My overriding question is: where's the pleasure, the painful pleasure sometimes, that I get reading these researchers of consciousness? I mean, their actual books, where they write, yes, in a scholarly way, but in a clear way that makes the point and elicits goosepimples? Why can't the participants here abandon the tortured parsing of words and silly standing on "rules" of debate and get the pleasure? The writers constantly invoked don't write like this. A group of these researchers discussing the subject wouldn't have one of them announce portentously that he was "resetting" the discussion. And which of you is the, what was it, the esoteric occultist? And which has been told he was an alien, what was it, three times?
Mark Twain wrote an hilarious essay showing how a scene from Fenimore Cooper could have been excised of extraneous and redundant passages for a leaner yet still interesting and riveting narrative. He did it in good spirit and I really don't think Cooper would have been too insulted. I fear, however, that even Twain would quake at such an undertaking regarding this thread, because it is very largely unintelligible. Yes, I wish I could be kinder, but the whole thing is impenetrable, and any soul it may have hoped for at first is gone long ago. Truly a poor lost soul. We can only hope it finds a deserved and pacific rest at last, and a straight course after its convoluted journey trying to escape its prison here.
Yes, this is honest, and not "trolling," and meant to be constructive. How could this monster go on for so horrifically long with so very few participants without a brave knight emerging at last to slay it?
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