The following message was first sent to the list ivy-subscribers, a private Internet list available to all who subscribe to the (on paper) clearing tech magazine, International Viewpoints. (see http://home8.inet.tele.dk/ivy/ or write the editor: ivy@post8.tele.dk) [ Excerpt from Encyclopedia Britannica: stochastic process: in probability theory, a family of random variables indexed by some other set and having the property that for each finite subset of the index set, the collection of random variables thus indexed has a joint probability distribution; it is one of the most general objects of study in probability.] From: PJSpickler@aol.com Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 22:59:11 EST Subject: IVySubs: Stochastic perturbations in the plasma flux, or, A silly theory To: ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com ** ivy-subscribers relaying ** Dear Anyone -- I'm pleased to report that the "Real or Imagined" series has gotten me so many pleasant communications, both on and off the IVy list, as well as from numerous unexpected quarters, that my head, which has always been unpleasantly swollen, has now reached the bursting point, and given that it's filled with a very bad-smelling green slime which differs from ordinary brain tissue, I sure hope my skull, which has become paper-thin in the last 5 or 10 lifetimes, doesn't give way. On the known side of the IVy list, I'd like to thank Mary Teitelbaum, Thomas Hoyt, and John Alexander for taking the time to acknowledge my fairly demented and unreliable prose (is that false modesty? Could be.). Anyhow, I'm also pleased to report, for the sake of harmony and balance and life, that I've received a fair number of what some might consider to be unpleasant responses to my writing. But I'm so vain that I think of any response as being better than no response at all, and love the attention, even if the ARC might be in the hostile range. What the heck, it's all ARC! Here's a sample of some of the "love letters" I've received in this vein: "Phil, you are full of malarkey, and always have been." And another: "So many of your facts are wrong that you ought to hire somebody as a fact-checker so that you stop spreading so much erroneous information while pretending to be a know-it-all." "You ought to be ashamed of yourself for being critical of some of L. Ron Hubbard's best efforts to salvage mankind." Here's one of my favorites, personally: "The IVy list would be a better place without you." And lastly, "Although I've never seen it in writing, I think the Church of Scientology would be correct in declaring you a Suppressive Person." The above are not necessarily from fellow-listers. Well, I could go on, but that's enough for now. Cyberspace is a big place, and isn't always necessarily friendly. Moving on to another topic, there's an author by the name of Douglas Adams, who wrote _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, and (thank goodness) a number of other wonderfully humorous and extremely illuminating books. Early on in one of his books, he mentioned something that went about like this: if you were to find all the answers to what the universe is and what it's doing here, it would vanish at once; and what would replace it would be much more complicated, much more unfathomable, and possibly more awful than the one we have now. And it's also possible that this has already happened. Well, I really liked that a lot, because I've had a theory somewhat similar to that, and it goes like this: if folks don't simply work in the direction of having all that is called "their case," but instead attempt to get rid of or as-is or cause to vanish all that is their case, if they are successful in doing that, and I believe it can be and has been done, what will replace it (and sometimes very quickly) will be more complex, more unfathomable, and much more awful. And this has probably already happened. If anyone has had any experiences that corroborate this theory (or not), please write, I beg of you. As never, Phil ** Home Page: http://home8.inet.tele.dk/ivy/ - with extensive links to FZ! **