The name in your profile may be false, a pseudonym, I don’t know. I am not grilling anyone. It is just a simple question gone haywire.
So are you telling me that you wouldn’t trust the name on my profile to be my actual name, but you would trust the same name as actual if I wrote it down in a post?
Hmmm, interesting!
BTW, why is a mere label so important to you in relation to our ongoing discussion? 
But that’s all we are, our labels. Your name may be the only thing that is real about you. The name may endure ten thousand years; the body has but a brief time here.
How can a name be real when it is imputed upon something unreal?
You mean for all those who think that the name is the actual thing?
Seeing as this issue has arisen here, and you have asked @fraggle to write his name, maybe you can briefly clarify something about your own name?
I haven’t been on Kinfonet for some time, so I missed this discussion, but apparently some people believe you to be Paul Dimmock?
I don’t think you are, because Paul Dimmock previously questioned people for using anonymous accounts. You sometimes seem to share something in common (rhetorically) with Paul, but I think you would admit it if you were. There is a former poster called @Maheshji who stopped posting around the same time that you began, so maybe your name is Mahesh?
Perhaps you simply want to remain anonymous? In which case, I don’t understand why you want @fraggle to be more explicit about his own name than you are willing to be about yours?
Look, we said anonymity is humility. That was where we finished it last time. Thinking is our salvation, nothing else - #82 by Anon
We also said that thinking is anonymous, yet thought is not. Thought has all our pride, ambition, fear and greed tied up in it. Therefore thinking together is real humility, if we can do it properly.
And are we here to think together or not?
With the thing called ‘fraggle’ it is simple. I am scared of him.
This is what I find a bit confusing. You told @fraggle that there is no shame in revealing/writing his name, and yet you refuse to even deny that you are Paul Dimmock!
(For the record, I don’t think you are Paul, but I think it’s odd that you are unwilling to address such a simple cause of misunderstanding on this forum, when you have been told repeatedly that some people think you are a former contributor to this forum, and this is perpetuating misunderstandings. You could say that you are not Paul and still remain one of the remaining 8 billion or so names out there).
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No, I did not. I asked him if he was shy. I don’t know why shyness is being linked with shame. If he is shy, it is the same with me. It has nothing to do with shame.
I won’t quibble with you about that, especially as this is a secondary consideration.
What I don’t understand is, if you really aren’t Paul Dimmock, why can’t you just say - without feeling any pressure to reveal your true name - that you aren’t someone many of us know from the forum? Withholding your name is your own prerogative, but by creating ambiguity around being someone known to the forum, it just perpetuates (imo) misunderstandings unnecessarily.
To repeat: I honestly don’t think you are Paul Dimmock (despite what others have said); but if I’m wrong and you really are Paul, why would you withhold such trivial information?
It is not a joking matter. I am scared of you. But also I am here because I love you. You can react to this however you wish.
If it is all so trivial, why won’t he just tell me his name? Finished.
Why is the thinking mechanism’s movement “one of continuity”? Must thought be continuous? If so, why? Can it not maintain itself without “constant activity”?
It never stops to observe its own nature
Can a mechanism observe its own nature?
A mechanism can monitor its operation to see that it is operating as it is designed to operate, and though you could call that “observing”, would that be the correct word to use in this conversation?
His given name is in his profile - Juan E - but he is not the one claiming anonymity (with respect to names) to be a sign of humility; nor is he the one refusing to disclose that he is not someone many of us know from previous years on Kinfonet. I used the word “trivial” because if you really were Paul Dimmock you would probably admit that hiding behind a mask of anonymity when you really are Paul Dimmock would be absurd at this point.
I don’t care about people being anonymous - many people posting here are anonymous - but when it becomes central to their identity, as seems to be happening here, I think it’s worth at least questioning. Being anonymous oughtn’t to be license for wanton misunderstanding, or to create some kind of mystique about being anonymous.
Btw, if you are Paul Dimmock (I still don’t believe you are, but if you are) then I understand there may be reasons why you wish to remain anonymous in spite of what has been said (perhaps for reasons of shyness, or because anonymity gives a certain freedom in inquiry).
If this is the case then, while I personally find it weird to maintain anonymity now it has been raised as an issue, I want you - Paul Dimmock (if this is who you are) - to know that I am absolutely not anti-Paul Dimmock. I have no antipathy towards him/you.
Anonymity is not the same as calling oneself anonymous or hiding behind a false name.
Anonymity is not a personal trait; the wish to remain anonymous is something different from anonymity. Shall we explore this? The wish to remain anonymous may be fear-based. And the ‘fraggle’ persona scares me. These things are all connected.
Maybe this is a generational thing, but having watched the children’s show Fraggle Rock growing up I know that Juan E’s profile picture is Boober Fraggle, who is a bit of a pessimist but not a bad character!
Puppet Wiki (there is such a thing!) has this to say about Boober Fraggle:
According to Boober Fraggle, there are only two things certain in this world: death and laundry. Boober is terrified by the former and fascinated by the latter…
According to Boober, anything that can go wrong surely will; when it does, it will inevitably happen to him… But Boober’s negative attitude has a big plus – he can see real trouble coming a mile away, a useful attribute in a land of eternal optimists.
Boober’s two joys in life are doing the Fraggle laundry and cooking.
I also know that Juan E has an interest in Nagarjuna and Madhyamaka Buddhism, and for Madhyamakas sharing criticism is part and parcel of thew way inquiry takes place. This may explain why he may come across as a little acerbic (though I’m probably projecting things based on my friendship with other Buddhists).
Btw, my favourite piece of Fraggle wisdom is from another Fraggle called Gobo:
Everything is important. Either that or nothing is
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It is real in the sense that it carries on long after death: Buddha, Jesus, Tutankhamun, Cleopatra, Cromwell, Gandhi, etc.
No, it has nothing to do with that. The moment he comes in, he immediately has strong images about me and we are then left spending hours on that nonsense. I have no image of him or her. But his images of me are hurting me. For I am nothing but the relationship I have with him.
It is just like with someone I met at Brockwood a few years ago. We had never met one another before and yet his first words to me were, ‘You are a serious person!’ What followed was a disaster! But, fortunately, when we met again a few months later, it was all forgotten. Now we have great fun together!
Maybe you are just being rhetorical, but how can a person who feels afraid and hurt by another be said not to have an image of that person? The hurt is an image, the fear is an image.
The ordinary explanation for this situation is that Fraggle has an image (or series of images) about Anon, and Anon has an image (or series of images) about Fraggle. Those images may be distorted (images are always subtle distortions), or they may contain an element of fact. But an image is still an image and not the truth.
So doesn’t it make better sense to think of this situation in terms of the images involved in relationship? We have images of each other, and we have images of ourselves, and these images are not truth. We have a relationship of images.