HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: cekstrom@plains.NoDak.edu (Camille Ekstrom)
Newsgroups: alt.mcdonalds
Subject: blown gaskets and exploding yoghurt machines
Keywords: Q-ing, work ethics
Date: 19 Nov 92 03:24:27 GMT
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network

In article <Bxn2I7.4MF@chinet.chi.il.us> koziarz@chinet.chi.il.us (Louis Koziarz) writes:
>in my high school days.  I have nightmares about assembling shake machines
>and watching the gaskets blow...

Actually, I think this is kinda funny myself....I remember the time the
vanilla half--well OK, vanilla third--of the yoghurt machine decided that
it had had enough of sitting quietly waiting for somebody to pull the handle
and shot vanilla yoghurt all out the top and sides.  

This was about.....3 or 4 months ago, when I worked at Main Avenue
McDonald's here in Fargo.  

Oh well.

Camille
Newsgroups: alt.mcdonalds
From: grady@world.std.com (Dick Grady)
Subject: Re: Kangaroo:"it's in there"
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 06:15:02 GMT

In article <92322.121328IO21145@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> IO21145@MAINE.MAINE.EDU writes:
>
>Can any one verify the claim that kangaroo "meat" is
>to be found in Mc'donalds products. An Australian associate
>of mine hinted itwas quite true, but in a joking manner -
>Any info. would be helpfull.. and don't be shy, I've restrained
>my diet to anything but Mc'ds - after a bone lodged itself into
>my cheek ! - thanks

Maybe it was a kangaroo bone.  :-)
-- 
Dick Grady               grady@world.std.com
Newsgroups: alt.mcdonalds
From: koziarz@chinet.chi.il.us (Louis Koziarz)
Subject: Re: blown gaskets and exploding yoghurt machines
Keywords: Q-ing, work ethics
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 14:32:12 GMT

>>in my high school days.  I have nightmares about assembling shake machines
>>and watching the gaskets blow...
>
>Actually, I think this is kinda funny myself....I remember the time the
>vanilla half--well OK, vanilla third--of the yoghurt machine decided that
>it had had enough of sitting quietly waiting for somebody to pull the handle
>and shot vanilla yoghurt all out the top and sides.  

It _is_ kind of funny to watch, unless you've just spent half your morning
greasing the parts and placing everything together being careful not to
cut your finger on the blades or mismatch the o-rings, then standing there
as the sanitizer runs through ok but when the mix is put in it just starts
squirting out all over the place because you got a little tiny ring all the way
inside the thing.  ARRRRGH!


-- 
Louis Koziarz
koziarz@chinet.chi.il.us
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
From: leslie@cgrg.ohio-state.edu (Leslie Bishko)
Subject: Re: I like consciousness
Organization: OSU Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 18:00:53 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.175526.1@hamp.hampshire.edu> akhanna@hamp.hampshire.edu writes:
>I like consciousness.  It's nice ...
>
>...Know what I mean?  

When I first read about Zen I was puzzled by the seemingly riddled
way of describing the state of "no mind."  I thought: what is this
no mind thing - I have a complex mind full of intricate ways of
manifesting itself - how can I clear my mind to nothingness/all-ness?

I am slowly doing more and more meditation through Kundalini Yoga.
I'm into the mind/body connection this practice brings me.  Meditation 
is never focused for me, though.  My thoughts fly all over the place!
So, I like to go flying with them, and I try to follow thoughts while
meditating, instead of ridding myself of them.

I'm reading Memories, Dreams and Reflections by Jung - he describes
the same desire: to experience himself fully.  Perhaps this issue,
characterizing an East/West dichotomy, is simultaneously an inner
conflict of the duality of consciousness?

Your thoughts?

-- 
Leslie Bishko
leslie@cgrg.ohio-state.edu


Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
Subject: Re: there is no such thing
From: Stafford@Vax2.Winona.MSUS.EDU (John Stafford)
Date: 23 Nov 92 10:14:28 -0600
Followup-To: alt.consciousness
Distribution: world
Organization: MSUS

In article <1992Nov20.032201.8827@reed.edu>, pbray@sloth.Reed.Edu (Peter
Bray) wrote:
> 
> sorry folks i just found out that there is no such thing
> you can all go home now.  please stop reading this newsgroup.
> thankyou
> 
I'd agree that the Bray machine has no consciousness.
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
Subject: Re: I like consciousness
From: Stafford@Vax2.Winona.MSUS.EDU (John Stafford)
Date: 23 Nov 92 10:20:43 -0600
Followup-To: alt.consciousness
Distribution: world
Organization: MSUS

In article <1992Nov20.175526.1@hamp.hampshire.edu>,
akhanna@hamp.hampshire.edu wrote:
> 
> I like consciousness.  It's nice.  I like the infinity of ways in which I can
> perceive.  I like the mental stretchings that happen while I sit here. 

This reminds me of a breakthrough experience I shared with my SO's eight
year old daughter who felt diminished and overwhelmed by Carl Sagan's
COSMOS series.  Sagan seemed to represent 'big science' which belittled
the individual.  ("Billions and Billions of ...")

I asked her to imagine being in space and moving to the most distant
star she could see.  She did this.  I suggested that because we can
imagine such things we have embraced them and own them.  Nothing is
larger than our imagination.  This was an important symbolic experience
for her.  It was empowering and positive.
From: stafford@msus1.msus.edu
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
Subject: Re: views of consciousness
Date: 15 Nov 92 20:13:37 -0600
Organization: Minnesota State University System


This discussion so far seems to be considering consciousness as
transcendent.  In other words, a sense that we exist beyond this
complex carbon molecule arrangement called body and brain and that
this 'sense' is consciousness.

Assuming, as I do, that the universe is an entity which is an idea
having its own life that it by definition includes all things and
all things have consciousness,  one can suggest that consciousness is
the manifestation of all things to move closer to the idea of
the universe.  This movement is the manifest destiny of all things.

_One_ amusing aspect of the idea of the universe is _apparent_ order
which the idea proposes as symbolic language.  Crystal forms,
bifurcations, fractals can be considered symbolic language elements
in which common object communicate.  Newtonian physics is in this class.
for entities like human beings who have 'softer' facilities
such as brain processes, the universe presents language in terms of
challenges such as chaos, quantum mechanics, economics and the
opposite sex ;-).

The point is that through the language of the idea of the universe
we sense a larger idea, an incompleteness which is consciousness
and it persists without our carbon chemistry.

Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
From: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath)
Subject: Re: views on consciousness
Reply-To: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept of Computer Science
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 17:53:06 GMT

In article <robg.722057543@citr.uq.oz.au>, robg@citr.uq.oz.au (Rob Geraghty) writes:
|> serb@polisci.umn.edu (Scott Erb) writes:
|> 
|> >The discussion about physical vs. non-physical is interesting, but perhaps 
|> >we simply make the discussion based on our sensory abilities.  If we can see 
|> >or feel something, it's physical.  Or, to move on a bit, if our instruments 
|> >can measure it, it's physical.  What is beyond our senses (which capture 
|> >only a small band of energy anyway) or our instruments (which are improving, 
|> >but in a way limited by our present knowledge) is called non-physical, or 
|> >meta-physical or whatever.
|> 
|> So how about this suggestion - many (maybe not *all*) phenomena now
|> claimed to be meta-physical are *real* but not explicable with current
|> technology and theory.  What would people have thought 200 years ago if
|> you showed them a laptop PC? ("What? An IBM?" ;-P)  How about what Clarke
|> said - "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
|> magic" - perhaps "meta-physical" events are simply events that our
|> technology is not sufficiently advanced to explain.
|> (to look at Clarke's assertion another way...)

So how about this suggestion -- human perception and inference are
well known to be limited, biased, and prone to errors of many types.
Many normal cognitive/perceptual 'heuristics' may, in some situations, 
'yield' apparently impossible events.  In addition, emotionally laden
beliefs, such as specific religious beliefs, will color and influence
the interpretation of such 'impossible' events as may be experienced.

Perhaps "meta-physical" events are cognitive illusions, and
exist only in the "folk physics" each of us uses as an everyday
model of the world we operate in.

-- 
  Robert E. McGrath
  Urbana Illinois
  mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
From: rmr@acsu.buffalo.edu (Richard M. Romanowski)
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
Subject: alt.hypnosis -- has it been approved?
Date: 23 Nov 92 21:41:54 GMT
Organization: UB

I had heard that there was a group -- alt.hypnosis -- starting up.
Has it been cancelled, or does my newsreader just not carry it?
Thanks
Rick
From: farris@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Lorenzo Farris)
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
Subject: Re: physical vs nonphysical
Date: 21 Nov 92 03:13:13 GMT
Distribution: alt.consciousness
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

In article <!wnqpjl@lynx.unm.edu>, bennett@deepthought.unm.edu (Paul
Bennett) writes: ....

:apparently different when I dream. It is for this reason that I consider
:these things to be all in one realm of consciousness (begging the question
:of what consciousness really is... we haven't answered that one
yet... ;)).

Consciousness, I would venture to state, is awareness of onesself.
After that, you can start talking about what is one is aware of. ;)

:       One problem here is that "physical" and "nonphysical" are not well
:defined words. Moreover, we each have differing ideas regarding their
:apparent meanings. Curious, no?

My favorite definition for physical: we can measure it with physical
instruments. If you can't measure it, it ain't physical (yet ;)

:
:       In closing, please keep up the discussion, RE: views of Consciousness.
:

Request acknowledged and granted.

				-Lorenzo
-- 
"Once upon a time men were possessed    ******************************
by devils. Now they are not less        *  Lorenzo Farris            *
obsessed by ideas" -CG Jung             *  farris@ruhets.rutgers.edu *
					******************************
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
From: akhanna@hamp.hampshire.edu
Subject: I like consciousness
Organization: Hampshire College
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 21:55:26 GMT

I like consciousness.  It's nice.  I like the infinity of ways in which I can
perceive.  I like the mental stretchings that happen while I sit here.  I like
the sky tonight, orange.  I like imagining.  I like dreaming.  I like moving, I
like looking, listening.  Everything all together.  I like how tree branches
define the space around it.  I like how the bends in branches suggest things. 
I like warm lighting in houses.  I like city sounds and bird sounds.  I like
peace and ease with the universe.  I like other feelings, too, everything is so
usesful.  Anger, sadness, bliss.  My consciousness is a flow of energy.  My
consciousness is me moving through the world, through this life.  My
sensations, are like arrows, that say, "Look!"  In that way I am constantly
guided.  When I feel lost, all I have to do is look at what I'm feeling or
noticing around me, and follow those arrows to where I need to go.
Know what I mean?
From: ianr@muppet.bt.co.uk (Ian Robertson DND3)
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
Subject: Satisfaction
Date: 23 Nov 92 11:46:35 GMT
Reply-To: ianr@muppet.bt.co.uk
Organization: British Telecom


	Please help / advise. I am finding little in my life that gives 
satisfaction. I practice my yoga because I must but the nice feelings which it
used to give have gone. I am sensitive to the feelings of others but am shy for fear of doing harm. I crave affection but am also terrified of it. My work seems futile but the weekends are worse. I dont have the energy to to the things I want my meditations are filled with pessimism. Love and light have been replaced by the soft dark void. Its all very well saying get out meet people - I 've tried , It starts ok I get so far then nothing. Yes I know that life 
is suffering and that there are many worse off than myself, this however gives sadness rather than solace. I know my science and my mysticism  but that dosent help either. I need hugs etc desperately but but cant wont ask 
fears I suppose. Cash and come transactions dont help, neither dose crusing 
I ve tried !!! . I feel better at the time but worse overall. What to do who to trust ? I give up but I cant get out. 

Please excuse the .sig cant be bothered to get rid of that foolish bullshit.
Please email if you have any practicle advice.

	In fear of Madness
		Ian
---
*******************************************************************************

	Love Light and Joy to all life !!!!

	Ian that I am 

*******************************************************************************
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
From: robg@citr.uq.oz.au (Rob Geraghty)
Subject: Re: views on consciousness
Organization: Prentice Centre, University of Queensland
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1992 04:02:49 GMT

Stafford@Vax2.Winona.MSUS.EDU (John Stafford) writes:

>What this may indicate is that we have access to knowledge of the
>workings of the universe which we are not yet sophisticated enough to
>know directly -- that consciousness is at point in our evolution
>an animal sense of a 'relationship' with the universe which is
>sensed but unknowable.

John, I happen to agree with you, but consider this - perhaps the brain
is able to make unexpected associations with the data available to it at
a subconcious level which the concious thought accepts as an hypothesis?
Because this association is happening at a subconcious level we are
unaware of it - so we label it intuition?  I am looking at the issue
here from a purely physiological point of view - *not* assuming a soul
or universal consciousness.

Rob

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Geraghty               | 3 things are important to me 
robg@durian.citr.oz.au     | The gift of love, the joy of life
CITR                       | And the making of music in all its forms
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
From: pbray@sloth.Reed.Edu (Peter Bray)
Subject: there is no such thing
Organization: Reed College, Portland, OR
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 03:22:01 GMT




sorry folks i just found out that there is no such thing
you can all go home now.  please stop reading this newsgroup.
thankyou



stimulus-response
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
Subject: Re: views on consciousness
From: Stafford@Vax2.Winona.MSUS.EDU (John Stafford)
Date: 23 Nov 92 16:53:12 -0600
Followup-To: alt.consciousness
Distribution: world
Organization: MSUS

In article <1992Nov23.210858.2144@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
(Robert McGrath) wrote:
> 
[stafford's article omitted]

> Attributing this to "workings of the universe which we are not
> yet sophisticated enough to know directly" shows a definite lack
> of knowledge of how human mental activity actually works.  Perhaps
> you should learn something about how ordinary humans work before
> you speculate about things you suppose to be human abilities.
> 

Such a challenge ("learn something of how...") is rhetoric and you
know it.  We could go onto another thread to discuss this.  You
may _believe_ that you know more.  Perhaps you support the emerging
'agents' hypothesis of how mind works, but you still don't know how
it works.  You haven't enough 'knowledge' of this or proabably any
other physical account of mind to support anything but your _faith_
in your scientific methodology.

So we shall continue with the thread; the philosophy of the concept
of consciousness.  We can start a separate one to embrace your science
if you wish.

>   Robert E. McGrath


John Stafford
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
From: hughg@brutus.ee.su.oz.au (Hugh Garsden)
Subject: re: views on consciousness
Organization: University of Sydney, EE Dept.
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 06:00:53 GMT

In article <serb.157@polisci.umn.edu>, serb@polisci.umn.edu (Scott Erb) writes:
|> To that extent there may 
|> be a wholly unperceived world out there, which we arrogantly dismiss since 
|> we don't perceive it.  (well, maybe WE don't arrogantly dismiss it, but many 
|> in our society do).

As I read your words, I attribute to them a meaning. But this meaning, and my
understanding of it, can't be touched, heard, tasted, seen, or smelt.  You
can't point to it. There may be all sorts of things you could point to that
are happening in my brain, but they aren't the meaning any more than the
patterns of light and dark on my terminal are. The meaning has no physical
existence - only representations, as a photo of a dog represents a dog, but is
not a dog.

Human beings live in a world of meanings, represented by symbols. Many (all?)
of those meanings have no existence apart from human beings, and they have no
physical existence. Do you understand that sqrt(9) = 3? If so, prove it -
point to the understanding. I don't want secondary evidence such as "But
accepting that sqrt(9)=3 works when I use it in daily life." Show me the thing
that is your understanding, such that I can observe it with the five senses.

Nevertheless, meanings and understandings exist because I can observe them.
What with, who knows? But if I observe them and everybody else does to,
then they must exist, because that's how existence is defined. 

The world human beings live in is defined by what they accept as real; and
what they accept as real is purely relative - a majority view, which is never
static. What is today's fanaticism is tomorrow's heresy. Worldviews have come
and gone, and will for a long time yet.

To get back to your point - we live in a non-physical world of meanings which
transcends and includes their physical representations and other objects. 
Somehow the meanings "exist" in consciousness. That's my view (for the moment
:-) ).

|> Gee, I could ramble about this for hours

Looks like I could, too :-). 

-- 
Hugh Garsden	
University of Sydney 
hughg@ee.su.oz.au


Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
From: farris@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Lorenzo Farris)
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness
Subject: Re: I like consciousness
Date: 22 Nov 92 21:45:38 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

In article <1992Nov22.180053.3672@cgrg.ohio-state.edu>, leslie@cgrg.ohio-state.edu (Leslie Bishko) writes:
:When I first read about Zen I was puzzled by the seemingly riddled
:way of describing the state of "no mind."  I thought: what is this
:no mind thing - I have a complex mind full of intricate ways of
:manifesting itself - how can I clear my mind to nothingness/all-ness?
:
:I am slowly doing more and more meditation through Kundalini Yoga.
:I'm into the mind/body connection this practice brings me.  Meditation 
:is never focused for me, though.  My thoughts fly all over the place!
:So, I like to go flying with them, and I try to follow thoughts while
:meditating, instead of ridding myself of them.
:
:I'm reading Memories, Dreams and Reflections by Jung - he describes
:the same desire: to experience himself fully.  Perhaps this issue,
:characterizing an East/West dichotomy, is simultaneously an inner
:conflict of the duality of consciousness?
:
:Your thoughts?
:
:-- 
:Leslie Bishko
:leslie@cgrg.ohio-state.edu

Until you have experienced a stilling of the mind, even for a moment,
you cannot compare flying with your thoughts to silencing them. 

The 'goal' of Zen is intuitive understanding of existence. This is
beyond any conceptualization. The state of 'no-mind' is the state in
which you are not telling yourself, or showing yourself, anything
about how you think experience is. In the state of no-mind is the
fullness of awareness of experience with no mental modifications.

It is a principle of many schools of thought that you tell yourself
how the world ought to be through various scripts you replay in your
mind, given to you by your parents, society, TV, etc. So what you
experience is this conceptual world in your head. One way of cutting
through that 'cultural conditioning' is to stop your thoughts, a least
for a while.

This is not to imply that there is anything wrong with what you are
doing. It sounds like lots of fun. :-)

			Enjoy,
				Lorenzo
-- 
"Once upon a time men were possessed    ******************************
by devils. Now they are not less        *  Lorenzo Farris            *
obsessed by ideas" -CG Jung             *  farris@ruhets.rutgers.edu *
					******************************
From: serb@polisci.umn.edu (Scott Erb)
Subject: re: views on consciousness
Organization: Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 22:06:45 GMT

The discussion about physical vs. non-physical is interesting, but perhaps 
we simply make the discussion based on our sensory abilities.  If we can see 
or feel something, it's physical.  Or, to move on a bit, if our instruments 
can measure it, it's physical.  What is beyond our senses (which capture 
only a small band of energy anyway) or our instruments (which are improving, 
but in a way limited by our present knowledge) is called non-physical, or 
meta-physical or whatever.  If there is a real fundamental difference 
between such things beyond our senses or within them is obviously something 
we can't know for sure.  But just as the computer I'm printing on is really 
an illusion my senses perceive (the atoms, molecules, etc., comprise more 
empty space than matter, and if my perception was of a different nature, I 
might not even sense a structure at all), then our reality is created by our 
consciousness, by its choice (whether we can control it or not) to see some 
phenomena exclusively or in a particular manner.  To that extent there may 
be a wholly unperceived world out there, which we arrogantly dismiss since 
we don't perceive it.  (well, maybe WE don't arrogantly dismiss it, but many 
in our society do).  I think that intuition, dreams, feelings, etc., may be 
a very interesting way of alternative perception, where our consciousness 
stretches into other realms, but ones which our culture defines as outside 
the bounds of either physical reality or scientific logic.  In that sense, 
much modern science is sort of like a religion itself since it sets borders 
rather dogmatically on what is acceptable and what is not, based on the ways 
in which we are capable of perceiving.  Since those assumptions are tired 
directly to our capabilities, science has considerable practical value.  But 
if it can say anything about the nature of consciousness is unclear.
     Gee, I could ramble about this for hours but I'm afraid this might be 
getting boring.  Keep up the interesting discussion!
     -scott erb, university of minnesota
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness