[MD] Clouds

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[SA]
I was typing up a response to Micah wondering, again, what specifically he was
trying to say.  He liked your post ("I like the symmetry"), but then says the
post "smacks of smug 'superiority'".

[Arlo]
Micah was attempting to be sarcastic. These are the same people, mind you, who
prattle about how Mother Theresa or Gandhi were the most selfish people who
ever lived because their actions made them feel good about themselves. I
suppose they'd include their much ballyhooed King of Kings, after all can you
how relieved he must have felt knowing he saved us all from our sins. Selfish
prick.

As for the rest of his ideas, I think Case has it nailed as rather
straightforward solipsism. He is trying to cast this solipstic net over "all
men" rather than just "me", but this is logically impossible.

If nothing can be shown to exist independent of humans, then nothing can be
shown to exist independent of "me". After all, what proof do I have that if I
died "stuff" would continue? I've never died to test this hypothesis, so its
pure speculation on my part. Don't get me wrong, Micah has ample proof that the
world will continue if OTHERS die. He's seen that, likely, but what he's never
seen is proof that in HIS absence the world will continue.

In others words, the only way Micah can "prove" the world will continue after he
dies is to die. And even then he'll never know the outcome. Oh he can banter
about how he recognizes commonality between him and others, and this leads to
the conjecture he tauts. But a just as valid explanation is that everyone else
is figments of Micah's mind. Sure, when one of us dies stuff continues. We're
just ghostly thoughts in his head. But when HE dies, the balloon pops. Reality
ceases.

As John Cleese would say, "this parrot is no more".