[Don Salmon]

I do hope you’ll tolerate one final note for me, as I promise never to write another comment on this forum. This way you won’t need to recontact Mary Attwood or anybody else about this.

I’m afraid we’ve misunderstood each other one more (and obviously one last) time. I had assumed it would be enough if I didn’t respond to you directly (ie keeping silent in relationship to you). I hadn’t *planned* to write either, but when Mark H mentioned my name, I had – evidently incorrectly – assumed if I don’t respond to you directly (ie keeping silent) it would be enough.

Obviously it wasn’t, therefore I won’t write *anything* in this particular topic area again. I’m so sorry, as I ascertained immediately you were an intelligent, thoughtful and (quite unusual these days) culturally literate person it would be fun to engage in a dialog with. I cited Hart in what I thought would be a friendly suggestion to consider an aspect of philosophy perhaps you hadn’t considered, and didn’t mean it to be anything critical. I apologize for failing to write clearly enough to get this across.

I also thought perhaps my reference to Iain’s medical experience was taken incorrectly as a direct reference to you, when I meant it to be an amusing story about left hemisphere overemphasis and perhaps lead to a shared smile between us. I apologize for what in retrospect I should have recognized could have been misunderstood.

And my reference to Alan Wallace’s contemplative experiment was not intended to be preachy or involve “telling” *anyone* what to do, and I’m sorry – and again apologize – that I didn’t contextualize it well enough to make this clear.

So this is my last comment in this particular topic area.

If we meet in another group, and you have a comment about something I wish to reply to, I’ll try to wait and respond to someone else so you don’t feel that I’ve acted inappropriately, contrary to my promise to be silent to you. I still hope that perhaps one day we may have a conversation on different terms and in a different spirit, and if I may, I will apologize once again, broadly, for these misunderstandings and my failure to communicate clearly.