PhiloPsycho Freedom

So this post isn't going to be entirely along the subject matter of my other posts, but I figure it falls into the area of philosophy. What doesn't really fall into some area of philosophy, at least in part? The topic is, as the name implies, about Gym Etiquette, or Etiquette at the Gym if you prefer.

What spurred such an occasion? Well, I was just at our school gym, and it was utterly packed. Not surprising, considering the top two new years resolutions are to get fit and to lose weight, respectively. So, I'm in there looking for a seated bike machine, and there is a lineup for most every cardio machine in the joint (this particular gym is cardio focused). So, I'm next in line to get a bike and I notice this girl, who has been there from the start, biking incessantly slowly and studying. She's not sweating, and the bike she's on is urging her to go faster because it can barely register any activity. I wait ten minutes, and decide my time is better spent doing a rowing machine until someone finishes. Five minutes later, someone gets off and I get a bike directly behind this girl. Any cardio machine in this place has a thirty-minute time limit. So here I am, behind her, reading my book while pedaling very hard and getting a good sweat on. She's continuing her nonchalant workout/studying, emphasis on the studying, causing me to start fuming behind her as I realize beyond a doubt that she's not only wasting a machine during a really busy time, she's also going over the time limit. So I finish up, get off the machine, and someone who was waiting takes mine. I was ready to walk away,  but this shit has got to stop here.

Over this Christmas break, I was in the mall and saw a decorative wall-block that had Only those who believe in miracles will find them inscribed into it. So, upon reading this I began thinking about the validity of such a claim. Ultimately, I broke it down to multiple psychological processes attempting to explain it, though I'm not entirely - though generally - against the idea of miracles.

For starters, such a claim is unfalsifiable - one of the requirements for any theory to have any value for it. It's in the same realm as one of Freud's defense mechanisms known as denial: If we think you have something wrong with you and you disagree.. Denial! Essentially, if you are labeled with something and you don't agree, well, you still have it (according to the diagnoser), you just don't want to admit that unpleasant little fact. Same goes for this little stone-inscribed gem: something good happens to someone who believes in miracles: Hey! It could be a miracle!; Something good happens to someone who doesn't: Hey! Something good happened! But, no miracle. The main problem with this is that it applies to everything, which makes it have no value. Seems kind of counter-intuitive that a theory which is so encompassing is worthless, but it's because it doesn't tell us anything new or of use. Everyone has undetectable parasites in their body? Great, nothing we could do about that, then. Right?