Are you a bright?

[CraigD]

Read all about brights at The Brights' Net - Home Page, if you wish, search for hypography discussions on the subject, such as this thread, then answer the poll. If you aren’t sure what a bright or a super is, discuss it here before voting.

[Thunderbird]

Originally Posted by CraigD

Read all about brights at The Brights' Net - Home Page, if you wish, search for hypography discussions on the subject, such as this thread, then answer the poll. If you aren’t sure what a bright or a super is, discuss it here before voting.

I would like to poll but I cannot find a link.

[sanctus]

Thunderbird you need no link it is just at the top of this page

[Pyrotex]

Woopsies!!!!!!!!!

I just screwed up the poll stats. After entering myself as a "bright", I visited the Brights Home Page, and registered myself. Now, I am a "Bright"!!

Hurrah! Now I am somebody!

[Moontanman]

I'm bright and shiny

[REASON]

[Thunderbird]

Originally Posted by sanctus

Thunderbird you need no link it is just at the top of this page

I guess I'm not to bright.

[DougF]

Bright No unicorns in my closet.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

I'm bright and shiny

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

I guess I'm not to bright.

Looks like there’s a need to trot out some basic bright principles, as, in a manner typical of the movement, we seem to be violating them from the get-go!

Bright in this context must be used as a noun, not an adjective. I am a bright (or, if I chose to explicitly identify myself with the website-supported movement, a Bright, with a capital B). I do not profess to be a bright person, as in smarter than the average person.

A person with tested intelligence so low as to be considered legally handicapped can be a bright, while a person with genius-level tested intelligence can be a super.

Being a bright means I have a world view devoid of the supernatural – in everyday terms, I don’t believe in God, gods, ghosts, etc. If I were to encounter a god or a ghost, this world view would lead me to attempt to explain it in natural terms – for example, as a psychological effect, such as a dream or hallucination, or a natural phenomenon external to my body.

Someone who is not a bright is a super. Being a super means that one has a world view including the supernatural – he believes in God, gods, and/or ghosts, etc. Belief in the supernatural implies the belief that some experiences or phenomena cannot be explained in natural terms – for example, miracles which are caused by an entity able to affect, but not be affected, by the physical universe.

As the current 20% in the poll indicates, some people reject the bright/super classification scheme, accepting neither noun as applicable to them, or objecting to the making of such a distinction.

Approached very analytically, who is and who is not a bright can be a very difficult question. For example, one can argue that a person who believe in the Genesis creation account literally, but feels that science will eventually reveal the truth of it, might be considered a bright, while someone who believes that quantum uncertainty makes certain data unknowable might be considered a super. However, kept on an intuitive level, to borrow the form of a famous quote, I can’t tell you exactly what a bright or a super is, but I know one if I see (well, actually, have an honest conversation with) one.

[coldcreation]

Is your world-view really free of supernatural or mystical forces, and entities? What about forces or entities such as spacetime wormholes, black holes, magnetic monopoles, domain walls, cosmic string-like defects, quintessence, false vacuums, Higgs particles (the God particle), supersymmetric point-like and surface-like defects imagined to be extremely stable and extremely massive, strings, superstrings, extra dimensions (in addition to the known four), non-baryonic dark matter, dark energy. Did I forget anybody?

Oh yes, the big bang (how could anyone forget the Mother of all events) on whom modern cosmology has pined all its hopes, renounces the explanation of its own origin. Like a new-god, this creature was of human invention, issue of human madness; like all gods. They are always looking back to the bright ages, when illusion and faith were a different question; raving of the reason was akin to god, and doubt was a sin. In the gruesome cosmological big bang singularity (or whatever it was, or wasn't) the exception has become the rule. The unattainable became reality!

If you believe in any of the above forces or entities, then you are, by definition, NOT a bright!


CC