Penn & Teller

There wasn't anything on TV last night, so I went looking for something to entertain me. Google has a video site http://video.google.com/ that has a lot of free and well as pay per view videos. I typed in Penn & Teller into the video search and a list of their "R" rated TV shows was displayed.
I watched the one on the environment.
This was very funny and insightful to me. I really like the petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide.

What was alluded to ,but not said about the protestors is , like in Casa Blanca, the usual suspects are at the rally. It doesn't matter what the protest is about, the same ones show up to down capitalism in any form.

The ex leader of Green Peace ,who left the organisation, even says that the main threat to the "rain forrest" is not the loggers, but the poor try to feed themselves by clearing land for food production. Who would have thunk it.

[w4rot]

Penn & Teller are hilarous.
Crack me up.
Enjoy,
rot

[WA5VQM]

Quote[/b] (wb5hqh @ Aug. 06 2006,05:55)]There wasn't anything on TV last night, so I went looking for something to entertain me. Google has a video site http://video.google.com/ that has a lot of free and well as pay per view videos. I typed in Penn & Teller into the video search and a list of their "R" rated TV shows was displayed.
I watched the one on the environment.
This was very funny and insightful to me. I really like the petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide.

What was alluded to ,but not said about the protestors is , like in Casa Blanca, the usual suspects are at the rally. It doesn't matter what the protest is about, the same ones show up to down capitalism in any form.

The ex leader of Green Peace ,who left the organisation, even says that the main threat to the "rain forrest" is not the loggers, but the poor try to feed themselves by clearing land for food production. Who would have thunk it.
C'mon, dihydrogen monoxide is dangerous! You can drown in it, it weakens alcoholic beverages, the list goes on...

[W2ILP]

Penn Jillete is the big guy. He is highy intelligent and is also known to be a computer guru. Teller is the little guy. I dunno how intelligent he is. He takes all the risks and doesn't say much.

I have seen Penn and Teller perform live several times and I admit that I don't know how they do many of their illusions. As a sceptic, I can't believe in magic.

w2ilp (I Like Penn)

[w4rot]

Quote[/b] ]As a sceptic, I can't believe in magic.

You just gotta figure it all out don't cha OM #http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Probablynotmirrors,NC
rot

[n2nh]

Quote[/b] (W2ILP @ Aug. 06 2006,15:00)]As a sceptic, I can't believe in magic.

w2ilp (I Like Penn)
I'm an anti-sceptic. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[wa6ccw]

Quote[/b] (W2ILP @ Aug. 07 2006,02:00)]w2ilp (I Like Penn)
I bet you'll LIKE (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557) this, ILP (I did).

[K0RGR]

My problem with Penn is that he seems to be unwilling to deal with anything that does not exist in his physical reality.

To some extent, creativity depends on the ability to imagine things that never existed, and ask why not. As Mythbuster Adam Savage says: "I reject your reality and substitute my own".

I am suspicious of self-made men because they tend to worship their makers too much. I believe Penn would respond that "there ain't no other".

[W2ILP]

k0rgr

huh?

Penn is an imaginative creator of illusions contrived to seem magical....but privately he is a religious agnostic.

Penn does not reject reality...but he makes a living by making his audience do exactly that.

w2ilp (Intelligent Logical Penn) fools the fools who want to be fooled.

[wa9cwx]

RGR,
I feel your pain... http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif ,

He is one of those 'skeptics' that has an open mind, that accepts all logic, as LONG as it can reside comfortably within the very real limits of measurable phenomena.
(Or WHATEVER the hidden limits the particular skeptic has)
From their position, they are open minded, unbiased and willing to listen to all sides.

The problem is, they, like all of us, have 'hidden Gods'.

In the case of most modern western skeptics, the "gods" are usually science, or measurable reality.

They selectivly pick and choose the foundation for their open mindedness.
If someone happens to have the SAME Gods, then they ARE seen as open minded, creative, fair, etc.
If your basic assumptions do not fall into the same roots of belief, they are as biased and selectivly prejudiced as any other limited human.

I LIKE Penn and Teller, but they most certainly ARE of the same ilk as the CSICOP, or WHATEVER that silly group with mister 'Amazing' and Michael Sherman, Joe Nickel, and whoever are in.

If you don't know what I am talking about. you ain't missing much, just bigotry and prejudice with a tie and calculator, if you DO know what I am talking about, they are the NEW inquisiters, just substitute 'Western Civilizations' VERSION of science" for 'Mother Church' and you get the picture.

[W2ILP]

Million to one odds happen eight times a day in New York.
--Penn Jillette---

Maybe that is why I love New York.

w2ilp (Inquiry Likes Probability)...but there are some things that are impossible in Iowa....and maybe very unlikely in Texas.

[AE6IP]

Quote[/b] (wa9cwx @ Aug. 06 2006,18:02)]

The problem is, they, like all of us, have 'hidden Gods'.


The Laughing Ghod in the Corner asks me to tell you that not all have hidden gods. The Laughing Ghod, for example has none.

Quote[/b] ]
In the case of most modern western skeptics, the "gods" are usually science, or measurable reality.


There are certainly such people. On Usenet, they can often be found on talk.origins, among other places, and the Laughing Ghod calls them "scientician".

However, "measurable reality", is an appropriate basis for the epistemology known as "pragmatic empiricism". Pragmatic empiricists have no hidden gods.

The difference is that a scientician says "I believe only that I can measure", while a pragmatic empiricist says "I understand only that I can measure".

Pragmatic empiricism doesn't deny the existance of the non-empirical, it merely recognizes that it doesn't provide the tools to understand it.

I believe in quantum mechanics, because it works very well. When it stops working, I'll stop believing.

Oh, by the way, the Laughing Ghod asks me to tell you that some gods want to stay hidden. Gods, like the men who create them, tend to have inexplicable senses of humor.

But what would I know? At the behast of the Laughing Ghod, I founded the Schism of Last Tuesdayism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Thursdayism)

[KC2PBJ]

Quote[/b] (K0RGR @ Aug. 06 2006,17:19)]My problem with Penn is that he seems to be unwilling to deal with anything that does not exist in his physical reality.

To some extent, creativity depends on the ability to imagine things that never existed, and ask why not. As Mythbuster Adam Savage says: "I reject your reality and substitute my own".

I am suspicious of self-made men because they tend to worship their makers too much. I believe Penn would respond that "there ain't no other".
Maybe that's why Jamie often sends Adam Savage to "go get a cookie". Reality is the tangible universe and is kind of like duct tape:

It Has A Dark Side; It Has a Light Side; and It Holds the Universe Together

[W2ILP]

After their magic shows Penn and Teller go out in the street in front of the theaters where the shows were performed in their underwear and paint each other with red paint, that is supposed to simulate blood. How intelligent can they be if they must go to these extremes just to mingle with the crowd and get some final laughs?http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif Actually the wet paint makes the fans keerp a distance, so as not to get splashed. Those fans who are wearing their best clothes don't try for autographs.

I saw P & T perform in Florida and on Long Island, NY doing the same schtic. I dunno if they still do the same thing or if they ran out of red paint by now.

w2ilp (Illusionary Loony Paint)...is not blood in reality but it seems to come from nowhere. A few thousand years ago such "miracles" might have made P & T into Gods....but nobody worships them today. We are all sKeptical about magic although psychologists say that we don't really want to see the wires that hold up levitated ladies ...or Teller. There is something about humans that makes them want to "believe in magic", as well as believe that P & T are 'virtual reality' cut ups!

[wa9cwx]

AE6IP.
Nice point about the differences in approach to the measurment problem.

The more subtle levels of reality are not 'really' measurable at less subtle levels.

Their effects can be experienced, but not understood in any meaningful sense.

Eddington said that reality is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we CAN imagine.

There is nothing at all wrong with a limited view of 'reality'. Things get done that way, things WORK that way, and imagination is not a rewarded comodity in the normal day to day interchange in our part of the world!
BTW, I have not gone back and checked it, but Amit Gaswamis' 'The Self Aware Universe' dealt with a similar explanation about beliefs in Pragmatic Empericism, as I recall. If you have NOT read it, I think you may enjoy it. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[W2ILP]

As an atheist neither science or measurement is my God. #Science IS because it IS and measurements were devised by mortal men, to just comparitively quantify by placing numbers on lengths, areas, volumes, volts, etc. #
I have no Gods...but the nearest thing to what you might think of as a guiding force is for me, my own humble limited curious conciousness...because it IS.

Reality is real for me when I think it is real for me to sense it....but to be honest I'm not so sure if anything is real. # I am only real when I conciously am aware of my existance...but life could be a dream or a nightmare or nothng but perpetual mental masterbation. #It is relative to an almost spacial but dynamic void and built on the waves of separated sub atomic particles in thermal agitation, which no man can visualize with his own brain.....unless he is copying from the wise guy in front of him on a physics test....that has no multiple choice clues.

w2ilp (I Like People)...Let their Gods go with them.

[AE6IP]

Amit Goswami? (http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~sai/goswam1.htm)

Haven't read the book, but the interview above is interesting. Free will has been a stumbling block for scienticians since that silly Newton fella sat under that apple tree. Even Sir Roger Penrose, who should know better, got all mystical and Bohr-like in The Emperor's New Mind.

I definitely stick with the Einstein/Hawking team over the Bohr/Penrose mysticism when it comes to empiricism.

The Laughing Ghod in the Corner takes a different view, and believes that we humans collectively invented reality out of a shared hallucination. It wishes we'd stop, because it thinks we've got a sick sense of humour, and it would much rather be invented by redwoods, which, it tells me, have a much longer view of the universe.

[al2i]

Quote[/b] (AE6IP @ Aug. 09 2006,01:20)]Even Sir Roger Penrose, who should know better, got all mystical and Bohr-like in The Emperor's New Mind.
I read a little over half of that book, but the sophomoric philosophical errors were a drag. A man as smart as Penrose should have some philosophical education. Actually, everybody should have some philosophical schooling. Without it, so many start chasing ghosts or drawing twisted crosses.