Has David Birnbaum solved the mystery of existence?

The Guardian ^ | 19 October 2013 | Oliver Burkeman

[Berlin_Freeper]

In the summer of 2012, a number of philosophers at British and American universities received a bulky, unmarked package in the post. It contained a 560-page book, written in English but with the Latin title Summa Metaphysica, by an amateur whose name they didn't recognise: David Birnbaum. It isn't unusual for philosophy departments to get mail from cranks, convinced they have solved the riddle of existence, but they usually send stapled print-outs, or handwritten letters; Summa Metaphysica stood out "for its size and its glossiness", says Tim Crane, a professor of philosophy at Cambridge. The book was professionally typeset. It even included endorsements from Claude Lévi-Strauss, the legendary French anthropologist, who described it as "remarkable and profound", and from the Princeton physicist John Wheeler, who once collaborated with Einstein. It would later transpire that 40,000 copies were in circulation, a print run any academic philosopher might kill for. The book claimed to have sliced through countless fundamental problems in philosophy, physics and theology, and there on the spine, where the publisher's name appears, was one deeply reassuring word: "Harvard".

Then the story grew stranger. In May this year, the US-based Chronicle of Higher Education reported that prominent scholars – scientists, philosophers and theologians – had been persuaded to attend an expenses-paid "international academic conference" at Bard College, a respected institution in upstate New York, devoted to Birnbaum's work.

[Utilizer]

Ah, yes; the great “Cloister”, avowed to be the Creator of The Cat People. Still love that episode...

[TigersEye]

Rising from the Barbadian sand, Birnbaum saw the world in a new light: everything and everyone around him was an expression of cosmic potential, working itself out.

Known as 'Buddha Mind' in Buddhism.

Why? Because that's what potential does. Birnbaum calls this process "extraordinariation".

Known as 'karma' in Buddhism.

Congratulations, genius, you just wrote a several hundred volume half-assed rehash of a 2,500 hundred year old view of reality that can be expressed in a couple of paragraphs. And you left out the key explanations of 'how' and 'what.'

[wally_bert]

I know plenty of brain dead lemming liberals who would gladly support the wun as dictator for life. I do my best to keep contact with them to a minimum.

[wally_bert]

Lister and Frankenstein?

[wally_bert]

It’s Lister, Lister the stupid (I think - been years since I watched any).

[Lonely Bull]

It is an exhausting read, partly thanks to its length – volume two alone has 90 appendices – but also because much of it is written in a kind of rapturous, mystical prose, liberally peppered with capitals. A typical sentence reads: "The cosmic trajectory is from the bottomless VOID to the limitless EXTRAORDINARY."

What his WRITING needs is a lot of EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!

[kabumpo]

I told everyone I knew that this would happen before the 2008 election.

[blueunicorn6]

I forgot my deodorant this morning. Whew!!!

I stink, therefore I am.

[Prospero]

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

John 1:1 (NAS)

[bert]

Cogito, ergo FReepum

[Lancey Howard]

Prot: “I wanna tell you something Mark, something you do not yet know, that we K-PAXians have been around long enough to have discovered. The universe will expand, then it will collapse back on itself, then will expand again. It will repeat this process forever. What you don’t know is that when the universe expands again, everything will be as it is now. Whatever mistakes you make this time around, you will live through on your next pass. Every mistake you make, you will live through again, & again, forever. So my advice to you is to get it right this time around. Because this time is all you have.”

[Utilizer]

It's Lister in actuality, but they misnamed him Cloister. I have the nine-dvd set and truly enjoy that episode, and if you are truly interested in the series I think I have a reference somewhere where you might be able to download that episode.

And before anyone jumps up and asks the continually-asked question of if that is 'legal';

It's Broadcast Television. Which means it was broadcast for free over the open airwaves. For years, including reruns.

I still have cassette tapes of old AM and FM radio broadcasts of songs I liked and no one seems to have a problem with that for some reason, but sadly lost the 4-track and 8-track tapes at about the same time I lost the Quadrophonic recordings.

I must admit I miss the VHS recordings of 'The Muppet Show' reruns most of all, truth be told.

Come to think of it I just might have two or three VHS tapes of Red Dwarf still in storage. I think I will take some time this weekend and do a bit of looking about now that I think about it...

[GJones2]

> Cogito, ergo FReepum <

:-)

[Islander7]

I think, therefore I am.

I stink, therefore I shower.

[null and void]

Frankenstein, yeah! I remember that stuff from kitty school. The Holy Mother, saved by Cloister the Stupid, who was frozen in time, and who gaveth of his life that we might live.

[wally_bert]

I’ve got all the DVDs around and probably need to dig them out.

I may make them lunchtime viewing at my lunch half hour. I get 30 minutes and am in my cube.

Recently I have run the classic bw Dragnet, taxi season 1 and now SOAP season is now lunchtime entertainment.

[noinfringers2]

When I was a freshman in college many years ago before going off to WWII and across the Pacific I had an assignment in a Psychology elective class to write a ‘free’ expression paper. I chose as my subject ‘Why Nothing is Something’. My paper rambled on for a couple of pages with double speaks. The lady prof. told me, as I recall, that my paper was interesting but it made no sense and besides my construction was poor. She did give me a ‘B’ for the paper. Today I still believe that with many things people make nothing into something.

[Utilizer]

I owe, I owe

-so off to work I go!

[tophat9000]

Bump

[blueunicorn6]

What if all of the rest of you are just here for my entertainment?