Wes:

I believe you are putting words in my mouth.

There are (as far as I know) objective facts, demonstrable and measurable. Gravity, on average, will accelerate an object downward at 9.81 meters per second squared even if you invoke all the Gods ever knwon to man or beast to intercede against it. I don't have to re-invent the historic legend of the Dane's King Canute, surely. The big key in this set of phenomena is demonstrability as Mrrz points out -- they are part of the agreed-upon apparency of things. People see them the same way.

Any individual, of course, is free to use the power of denial to obscure any fact. This is what breeds Flat Earth societies.

But totally aside from that there are infinitely wide ranges of individual realities, subjective perceptions and certainties, which bring about some interesting side effects in perception and CNS response, and glandular corrections too. This is a very under-researched area, IMHO.

And there is an intersecting set, or overlapping, wherein phenomena which are subjective induce agreement and possibly measurable physical impact. This is a really poorly understood zone. One example is where "psychics" bring back messages from "beyond" to people in an audience about whom they presumably know nothing, and yet deliver details that only the questioner could know. Obviously there is all kinds of argy-bargy possible on this front. Reports of spoon bending and changing the course of history by thought alone I tend to take with several grains of salt, and I have not myself done a research project collecting hard data in this region -- I am but an amateur student.

The important thing is not to mix things up and insist that, for example, all subjectivity is physical, or all objectivity is opinion. Neither of these is the case.

Bill, you certainly have a prehensile nose there!! Are you sure you're not a Republican?


A