Date: Thu, 08 Apr 99 08:12:04 -0500 From: Internet Oracle Subject: Internet Oracularity #1087-01 Selected-By: Kirsten Chevalier The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was: > What is dielectric materialism? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } Dielectric materialism is, as those of us in the know like to say, the } bastard child of quantitative metathesis and corroborative nuclear } scaling theory. Ha ha ha! Get it? } } } } I see. Well, supplicant, perhaps I ought to explain it this way: } } Pretend you have an egg. The egg represents Truth and Value. Now, } pretend you have a Teflon-coated frying pan. The pan represents } reality, the Teflon represents self-recognition, and the handle } represents the possibility of God. Admittedly, the handle is } simultaneously extant and non-extant, which creates problems when } flipping Truth out of Reality and frying Value, but we'll get to that } when we do. } } Now we put Reality onto the Furnace of the Universe, and apply Truth to } it. Separated by Self-recognition and Reality from the Universe, Truth } bubbles only slightly, signifying an indirect and presently } indeterminate change in its capacity to exist. Now, using God we } remove Reality briefly from the Universe, and flip Truth into Value, } which will now begin bubbling more loudly. As Self-recognition has } probably worn away by this point (as Reality was quite cheap, having } been bought at Wal-Mart for $4.85), Value is applied diectly to } Reality, resulting in flames and loud spurts of Value and Truth out of } Reality and directly onto the Universe, which loud fizzing begins, } spurting flaming droplets of Truth and Reality onto God, and causing } the Unmoved Mover wielding Reality (by way of God) to shriek in } unbelieveable pain while the reast of Truth and Value burns into the } Charcoal of Damnation in the middle of a Reality devoid of } Self-recognition. } } Now the Unmoved Mover will probably lose his or her grip on God and } drop Him on the floor, splattering Truth, etc., everywhere, coating the } Kitchen of Redemption in Damnation, and restoring the Universe and its } vicinity to its original state of Chaos. } } This process, which you can see demonstrated nearly daily in the rooms } of Bachelors of Clumsiness everywhere in the world, is often referred } to as dielectric materialism. } } You owe the Oracle some scrambled Truth, or perhaps some Value } sunny-side up. ------------------------------