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From: laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.sci,net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Contempt prior to Investication (was Parapsychology and sloppiness)
Message-ID: <564@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Thu, 27-Feb-86 23:38:30 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.564
Posted: Thu Feb 27 23:38:30 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Mar-86 22:33:39 EST
References: <899@decwrl.DEC.COM> <402@aoa.UUCP> <192@ulowell.UUCP> <954@lanl.ARPA> <208@ulowell.UUCP> <435@ccivax.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@hoptoad.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 26
Xref: watmath net.sci:551 net.philosophy:4315

In article <435@ccivax.UUCP> rb@ccivax.UUCP (What's in a name ?) writes:
>
>Maybe if we called it "plasma field" research instead of "metaphysics",
>some serious research would be acceptable.

NO!  NO!  NO!  for heaven's sake DON'T CALL IT METAPHYSICS!! DON'T. DON'T.
DON'T.  DON'T.  DON'T.  The word IS ALREADY TAKEN. What philosophers
mean by ``metaphysics'' is *not* ``parapsychology''.  While I am in full
agreement that ``metaphysics'' would be a fairly good name for it, the
word is gone.  And not enough people know what metaphysics *is* so that
it would be clear from context...

The first use of ``metaphysics'' to mean ``parapsychology'' i have found
is in 1951 by Robert Heinlein -- but I only started looking last month.

It is bad enough that when people ask me what I did at university and I
answer ``metaphysics'' that I get blank stares....now I find myself getting
asked questions about parapsychology...grrr.

GO AWAY!  FIND ANOTHER WORD!  LIFE IS HARD ENOUGH FOR METAPHYSICIANS AS
IT IS!!!

-- 
Laura Creighton		
ihnp4!hoptoad!laura  utzoo!hoptoad!laura  sun!hoptoad!laura
toad@lll-crg.arpa