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Old 07-20-2012, 10:04 PM   #17
lbb
Location: Massachusetts
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 3,202
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Re: Why do we do it?

Quote:
Dave Gallagher wrote: View Post
I consider his question valid and it is only the answers that could be "clown answers". The guy asking me the question is a long term karate man who seeks the practical use of an art. I did not take his question lightly and did the best I could to answer it. I just felt that my answer was not enough.
Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "valid". If you mean that he meant the question sincerely and really believed that his stated premise was true, OK, I accept that -- he's your friend and not mine, you know his character and I don't. But a more sensible definition of "valid" would surely depend on whether the question's premise had any truth to it. Hence, my parallel question which takes as its premise that your mother has wheels instead of legs. If she did, it might indeed be valid to call her a bicycle. But the premise needs to stand the test; otherwise, you end up in all sorts of silly places. Validate the premise, then question away; otherwise, it's a waste of time. As Watts Humphries said, "If you don't know where you are, a map won't help."
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