Re: Re: VMs: Epibrating Cerebrating

["jan" <hurychj@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Dennis, 
  
  
=======  You wrote:  
>   How does one prove a negative?  Can anyone answer that?   That is
>(maybe) the question with gibberish.

It is easy: we have to find the true solution of the VM first :-), that is if there is the sensical text. 
Right you  are, we cannot fight Gord in  that point (yet),  but we can prove our point by other 
ways. For instance, simply pressing Gord for  proofs would be accepted by public's sense  of 
fairness reasonably well.


>    Finally, a hoax might contain a text that is somehow meaningful and
>valid but vacuous.  

As I said, the hoax theory itself is not so dangerous for us, people would be still interested in the 
solution, the mystery remains.  The problem is that Rugg fused the hoax with gibberish. It is the
"gibberish" which does us more harm, people really believe that - and it makes us into as bunch
of weirdoes looking for something which is not there.  If we get down from  our ivory tower, we
may see that many  people now  believe  his genius did more than our many years of efforts. 
And frankly enough, if we read his  interviews, they may easily reach  that conclusion since while
the idea was put there apparently only by newsmen, but he  is not distancing from it at all. 


>    Is it worth our time to get into a controversy over Rugg's thesis?
>I have been  considering writing a letter to Sci Am, but I wonder about
>that.  We have quite enough to handle as it is.

Sci Am is a bad place - they are not going to eat their words and one letter from the reader would 
not do too much for our case.  And yes, we were attacked, the whole  purpose  of our work was 
attacked, it is not the question of "wasting" our time only. We are not in isolation, we do need  
public support and instead, we are losing it. I remember somebody here once suggested we 
should get some financing for promotion, publication or what not.  Today, we may forget about 
that already: nobody in sane mind would put money in the project  of digging for gibberish :-). 

The problem is  that it is very difficult to get positive public attention and it is very easy to lose it.
Never before had the VM such publicity - the bad  publicity, to be  correct. But we can turn the 
wave in our benefit. I was asked recently by Prager Tagblatt for interview about the VM ( it is not 
published yet and I do not know when or if they will publish it),  so the healthy interest is still there. 
Today, all the news are show business, and therefore we are not considered just as "being quiet", but rather 
"being stunned by that stroke of genius" or even that we agree with the "brilliant" solution of the Gord's 
knot, pardon the pun. 

>    We could conceivably find the author(s) first, but I think Bruce
>really meant we need to find a valid solution for the VMs to really
>disprove the hoax hypothesis itself.

 The public already accepted Kelley as an author and nothing less than mind quake is going to
 change their mind :-). Besides,  we cannot fight show  business with scientific discussion only, 
especially just on one  net list with limited number of members. We underestimated the power of show business and we  lost the momentum. True, I  have no  doubt that in  long run, Rugg will be as easily
 forgotten  since he cannot bring in any  more "surprises" or even some proofs, but in the meantime, the
 time is against us.  It  is just an  old  "fight or flight".   
>
Jan
>
>
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