Mindy, (in case you thought I was…) I was not implying that being lazy/busy were the only reasons not to look toward science for everything, just examples which I am familiar with. Certainly each situation/brain/person is different, and things like poverty, location, and cultural upbringing do indeed affect education and spirituality. Or simply choosing to investigate other areas of life like many athletes who seem convinced that God’s hand ultimately put the ball in the hoop/goal.

Erich and Grumpy, it crossed my mind what the term “leader” means. You guys represent the term leader in certain ways. Being brave. Being respectful. I imagine Erich is occasionally too respectful (if that is even possible). Grumpy reminds me of a soldier, hehe ironic, but really. He probably just chose or was handed books instead of guns at a young age.

Vicki, I get the feeling I am losing whatever battle we are/were having, if that is what I am calling it. It is hard to fight an enemy who offers roses. (see Lawrence of Arabia if you haven’t already, it is well worth it).
You are more convinced that you are correct than I am convinced that I am correct. My ideological position wavers like a sapling compared to your redwood. My intellect, experience, dwarfed. (Please strike that last line from the record, stenographer.) I refuse to give up yet though, I’m going down with the ship!

Dan Klarmann and Jason seem more like deities than anything else, pillars of knowledge perhaps? Do not mean to leave anyone out…

But this raises a new question, too: why do most people seem to fear the “becoming forgotten” part of death? Why do so many people feel a pull- and I have to admit that I do- to leave some kind of lasting imprint?

At my second home, Dangerous Intersection, I live with many people I’ve never seen face-to-face. I’ve never heard the most of their voices. I love spending time with these co-inhabitants based on the way they express themselves in their words and by the images they choose to post. Such a narrow range of interaction, yet somehow powerful!

We human animals have a tremendous capacity for imagination. We are capable of filling in the details we don’t really know about each other to the point where we think we know each other quite well. We might convince ourselves that we know each other well enough to share a commune in peace. After all, most of us have, at least a few times, disagreed with each other in a rather public way. But maybe we wouldn’t get along at all! How the DI writers would physically co-exist in a commune is something that could only be determined by throwing us into a bounded space and seeing what happens. We might be horribly disappointed!

I suspect that it’s much easier to let the imagination fill in details than to really deal with each other idiosyncrasies (aka annoying habits!). In fact, I’ve sometimes thought of inviting the DI writers to a retreat somewhere. “It would be so much fun!” I think at first. But then, I’m not really so sure, because the atmosphere would be much thicker than the atmosphere at the blog. There would be much more than written words being traded. The atmosphere of a real gathering wouldn’t be sterile like a blog.

As to how much we know each other, I would say very well, intellectually, but with numerous gaps to fill before I could say that I truly knew most of the writers well. Twenty years ago, if I told someone I was in a writers’ group, they would assume that I really knew each of the other people in the group. It would be assumed that we took walks and talked, that we knew each others’ families and that we brought each other soup when illness struck.

Fast forward 20 years and see how things have changed. I play music with Artemis; I know her well enough to debate whether a G major 7th is the correct chord. I’ve met Chris once in person and we’ve chatted over the phone a couple of times. I first met Dan in person about 5 months ago; we also chatted on the phone a couple of times; we have friends in common. Devi and I run in some of the same circles and I can actually say I know her well—well enough that we’ve given each other pep talks when the world is getting us down. Ebonmuse and I tried to have a cup of coffee once in New York on short notice, but that fell through. So there’s a camaraderie based solely on the written word. I’ve spoken to Erika once or twice on the phone, though we’ve traded plenty of email; we bumped into each other on Myspace. Grumpy and I go way back—we met when I was a lawyer representing his company. We’ve often spoken on the phone, though most of our communication has been in email. Jake? Where art thou? I assume he’s in London practicing law, though we’ve never spoken. Jason and I are long-time friends, though this blog has been a wonderful chance to remind myself of the many reasons I enjoy knowing him. Mindy’s (Monkey) family and my family are constant companions, as you can probably tell from our writings. TMOL and I communicate mostly by email, with an occasional phone chat; he is a truly remarkable fellow who has a difficult time accepting compliments—we only see each other in person once a year or so. Sarah and I have visited in person a couple of times, but ours mostly an email relationship. I met Sujay through email. We’ve traded email regularly, more recently expressing our hopes that someday we can meet in India, where he lives. Tim is a high school buddy; we were two guys who didn’t really fit in at a school that churned out lots of Republicans. I “met” Vicki through email only two months ago; we followed up soon thereafter with a delightful phone call. Already, I can’t imagine this blog without Vicki. Yana and I have traded email a few times, though we have never spoken. My current intention regarding Yana is to encourage her to spin her second post. I’ve been working on that plan only through ESP lately. I would be remiss if I failed to mention the recurring commenters such as mellowing and thoughtful Ben and the wise and patient gatomjp, honorary members of the family, though I’ve never spoken to either. There are a dozen other personas who have played major parts in this community. I don’t mean to slight them by failing to mention each and every one.

But there it is! Pretty amazing that that I have ongoing face-to-face contact with only three of the co-authors. Yet I feel that we have melded into an organic whole, at least somewhat. I suspect, too, that I know them much more than most of them know each other. How can that be, that we could form any sort of community with such meager personal contact? Meager, even though it consists of hundreds of emails that fly among us and hundreds of public posts and comments on this blog.

All I know is that it does seems to work. DI is a community. It’s a family that one can “leave” and return to (as Erika did). It is a place where people do develop bonds with each other, such that they can disagree with each other without disliking each other in the least. It is a place where many of us come to visit, sometimes in the wee hours, to be reminded that there are other people grappling with similar issues, sometimes in similar ways.

There’s no denying that our community bonds would be much stronger if only we knew each other like people traditionally knew each other. Given the difficult logistics, though, that isn’t likely to ever happen. That is not to say that our “community” is imaginary. No, it’s something, though it’s difficult to say exactly what it is in the lack of real traded smiles and frowns, pats on the back and hugs. You know . . . the sorts of things that real people do when they are part of the same physically community.

I’ll end by pointing to a post I wrote awhile back. It pertained to Andy Clark’s idea of the “extended self,” the idea that we are each “out there” beyond the physical limitations of our skin and skull. Our selves don’t reside solely in our bodies. It must also be out there (beyond skin and skull) where our community exists. And, to address Erika’s provocative point, it is there that any of us would remain, at least for awhile, were we to crash into our keyboards, suddenly dead of heart attacks.

Websites remind me of books, in that they can serve (among other functions) as a poor man’s version of heaven, of immortality.