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deviant conveniences (Free verse) by J.B. Manning

We had unprotected sex Knowing you’re infected Your cum-fungus blistered my flesh On contact Memories of you resonate in my mind Like water on windows Certainty fades like Daylight and looking back is easy…fore-site blinding Love is addictive and I’m broken I want to Tie your pubic hair in knots and hang you on your contemplation Every time You say goodbye.

-=Dark_Angel=-, P.I. 3-May-04/3:33 AM
No. They are 'entirely discrete', for two reasons.

1. Atoms are part of a model. They are not 'literally' taken to exist. They are only talked about as a useful part of a useful explanatory model.

Conversely, souls are not part of a model. They are believed to literally exist, independently of, in spite of, their explanatory power.

2. As atom-believers gather more data, they are liable to abandon atoms are part of their physical model. New observations causing a change in model happens all the time in science. The aim is to have a model which accounts for all the observations simply and completely; keeping atoms as part of the model is not a general aim, except inasmuch as the theory of atoms is well-developed and well-understood and therefore possibly practical to keep in some form.

Conversely, as soul-believers gather more data, they are not liable to abandon or revise their belief in souls. Instead, they are liable to come up with more and more exceptions and ad hoc reasons as to why souls explain the data. There is no possible observation a soul-believer could make that could cause him to stop believing in souls; he can only tack on special cases to his model, never change it. The one trick he has up his sleeve is to gradually change the definition of 'soul', so that if things get too bad, he can say 'soul' actually means something else, and has done all along.

These aren't the differences of two things in a continuum. Especially not a 'continuum of vagueness', which is bosh, if I know bosh.




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