Quote:
Mark Murray wrote:
Just thought these were great questions and wanted to repost them.  |
Great questions -- they are called "rhetorical questions" for a reason. -- they are great examples of a rhetorical trick and the logical fallacy called "ad populum." Rhetoric is not argument.
Dan seems to persuade people he meets, whether he does so with real points of substantive difference from the aiki in aikido training that we know, a gifted insight into that training that many have simply missed, or merely with charisma, charm and a talent with magician's arts, none of it is proved by that.
The fact that he has persuaded others should not persuade you, as it is not objective evidence, but a logical fallacy to believe that because other people believe it -- it must therefore be true. I was taught that the earth goes round the sun, but I believe it -- not because those who taught me believed it -- but because it conforms in all points to the objective reality of its effects, which I can see for myself.
People are believing the earth is overheating -- when it hasn't warmed for 11 years and the oceans haven't warmed at all. Yet people believe it because other people believe it -- and for no other reason.
We are entering a new age of superstition -- perversely, a technological age of superstition, so I cannot idly let things like that pass by without comment.
Which is not meant to offend Dan in the least. I have reason no doubt that he is talented, just that one should not accept THAT rhetoric being offered as valid argument for any points of his program -- because it isn't.