Barrett is an idiot

I spent 1.5 hours of my life last week listening to people talk about the "Seven Levels of Consciousness".

Richard Barrett, a man lacking wits but making up for it with entrepreneurial enthusiasm, has improved the old pyramid model of Maslow (the hierarchy of needs) by creating an hourglass model.

Old:

Improved:

One will instantly see the superiority of this new model. For one thing, it's symmetrical. And it has circles. If there is anything more scientific than pyramids, it's circles. And the number seven.

I have to say how impressed I am. Barrett has taken a relatively meaningless concept, the hierarchy of needs - wholly unproven and unprovable - and improved it by extension and inversion via the science of the Vedas. If it's science you're after, an ancient holy text is the best place to look. He's melded religious myth and pseudo-science and made a business out of it, selling it to morons world-wide.

Vedic science specifies seven levels of consciousness. These are waking, sleeping, dreaming, soul consciousness, cosmic consciousness, God consciousness and unity consciousness. It appeared to me that the descriptions of the last four of these levels of consciousness described the underlying features of self-actualisation. (From Maslow to Barrett)

One could wonder how this sort of garbage could become such a integral part of corporate consciousness, especially at the management level. But it's not an anomaly. Business is full of unproven ideas and myth. Modern myth may appear to be especially good targets of ridicule but old myths are no less absurd, merely more accepted because they've been around longer.

Flat Earth vs Climate Change

The following is an exchange between me and someone I'll call Matt. He has some interesting ideas about climate change... After his response, I didn't think I could take the discussion anywhere else. He's clearly a downer and therefore not amenable to reason.

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Well constructed and very much in line with what I think on the topic, particularly the part about The vested interests and the role of the big ball of burning gas above our heads in global warming.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/climate-change-science-is-a-load-of-hot-air-and-warmists-are-wrong-20120801-23fdv.html

Gee I’m glad I get to give an extra 500 per year to the government though.

Matt

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Matt, I think this debate is distracting you from a much more significant dispute. The real controversy is between those that believe in the Ice Wall and the downers – those believing in the Waterfall. They both have photographic evidence:

Ice Wall:
     







Waterfall:

But whose testimonial can we believe? Personally, I think a British Naval Officer’s account is very convincing:

It would be impossible to conceive a more solid-looking mass of ice; not the smallest appearance of any rent or fissure could we discover throughout its whole extent, and the intensely bright sky beyond it but too plainly indicated the great distance to which it reached southward.

This debate is not simply an Antarctic concern, it has global ramifications that also impacts on the “theory” of global warming. If warmists are correct, the implications of an ice wall is extremely concerning. I think downers are drawn towards their “theory” more because of alarmist fear-mongering than they are by empirical evidence.

It’s even possible that their photo could have been faked!

Patrick

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Hi Partick,

Agreed, global warming in all of its various extremist incarnations is distracting us all from much more significant debates and issues.

It is far more relevant deciding what to have for dinner tonight and we can all really make a difference here.

In light of my own experimentation and investigation it is just not possible for me to deny that the earth is warming. Just this morning I had to take about 2mil of ice off my car windows. This time last year, it was probably more like 3mil.

My position is more in line with that of the author of this article.

The question that seems to be supressed at every debate on the issue is:

How much is man kind contributing and how much is a natural cosmic or environmental cycle?

The very idea that man kind may not be directly responsible for global warming is considered heresy! In science! According to our politicians - the science of climate, the most chaotic system known to man, is decided, and we're all to blame.

In truth, what makes me most concerned is that people are tired of hearing about it and cannot fathom the thought that perhaps they have been misled to such a gargantuan degree the very world will never be the same.

It all just makes me so HAPppy!

This article was all about the global ramifications of warmist theories and the rampant misuse/misinterpretation of so called "empircal" data so I very much agree with you - individuals will use populist interpretations of statistics to prove whatever wacky theory pops into their heads.

84% of all people know that.

The Lello-Lea Hypothesis

The Ice-Wall of Antarctica

A report from the Society:

The standard flat-Earth model (SFEM) postulates an ice-wall beyond Antarctica. SFEM supersedes waterfall theories of other flat Earth models and replaces the controversial spherical-earth conjecture's (SEC) notion of Antarctica as an island continent.

The Lello Hypothesis states: "the universe is a series of flat earths stacked within a vast crystalline cylinder folded back on itself to form a never ending torus. I.e., a cosmic, hollow, ice-donut." The Lea Modification, sometimes known as the Lello-Lea Hypothesis, states that: "interspersed with crystalline water (H₂O), exists an abundance of naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particulates forming 'deserts' - similar to observable regions on Earth."

It should be noted that these hypotheses are not to be confused with the weaker and frankly implausible set of ideas that A. Hayes has expounded in which a series of flat earths are distributed across the inner surface of a torus of indeterminate extent. Hayes is also known for the infinite cylinder hypothesis (ICH). ICH is perhaps even more unlikely than his inside-out donut.

The Society for the Lello-Lea Toroid Flat Earths Hypothesis is searching for intelligent life on other flat earths. First contact will provide the empirical evidence, and hence proof, of the Lello-Lea Hypothesis. Meanwhile, scientists are formulating a mathematical proof for the minimum quantity of flat earths that must exist.

Chalmers' recent work (unpublished, in correspondence with the author) has yielded a breakthrough on the topic, establishing deep relationships with elliptic curve theory and the calculus of manifolds, while raising the lower bound on the number of flat earths that must exist to -4. We are assured that more revelatory findings are to follow.

It is not expected that the combined forces of the Society and scientists will be able to provide the actual number of flat earths in our toroidal universe. However, we believe that within the next ten years, we will be able to prove that:

1. We do indeed live in a multi-earth, toroidal universe (i.e., SEC is fallacy.)
2. There are at least 3 flat earths.

A. Hayes, and others, have proposed expeditions to the Ice-Wall to conduct experimental drilling. A small party would also test a radical SFEM speculation of going "beyond the Ice-Wall." Funding and applications for strategic and/or technical approaches is being sought.