SCN: Filtering (really: Rogaine Hands)

[Kurt Cockrum]

>From material posted by Steve:
>Conservatives had labeled the showdown as the "Lexington and 
>Concord" of the struggle over American libraries' Internet policies, 
>and Christian conservative groups outspent free-speech advocates 
>by 14 to 1. But residents voted 55 percent to 45 percent against the 
>proposal, [...]
>
>The ballot initiative here was led by Irvin Bos, a 59-year-old builder 
>and manager of apartment buildings who said he had dedicated 
>himself to fighting pornography because of an incident that occurred 
>when he was 12 years old. He found a sexually explicit book by the 
>roadside then and read it over and over again in the family's barn, 
>Mr. Bos said in an interview today. When lightning struck the barn 
>six months later, burning it down and killing the family's prize bull 
>and best cow, Mr. Bos felt responsible.  
>
>"I just knew I had caused that barn to burn down," Mr. Bos said.  

ROTFLMAO!!!  I'll bet he has to shave his hands 3 times a day!

Sounds like things kinda got out-of-hand, so to speak.  Must've been
quite a juggling act just before the flames started to spread :) :)
And he's probably been pining for the book ever since!

And it also sounds quite frankly like he started *believing* the bullshit
story he told his parents,  and it appears he's gotten incredible mileage
out of it.  Astonishing, the power of iterated autosuggestion!
Query: does the mathematical theory of Iterated Function Systems
have analogous applications in psychology? just a speculative thought
(or brainfart).

In a certain sense, I guess it's making lemonade out of a lemon: turning
a delusion or an otherwise disabling obsession into an asset.  Is that
one of the ways religions get started?

Another way of looking at it is that poor Mr. Bos got infected by an
incurable rogue meme that makes him do things he wouldn't ordinarily do,
as an aid in its reproduction, just the way certain fungi can invade
the brains of ants, who then alter their behavior in ways that aid the
reproductive cycle of the fungus.

In the latter case, the normally ground-hugging ants crawl to the tops of
grass-leaves, where they can be more easily seen by their predators and
eaten, whereupon the next stage in the life-cycle of the fungus commences.

Gives a new meaning to "food for thought", doesn't it?
or is that "thought as food"? :) :)
--kurt
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