Do-It-Yourself Deity

The Philosophers' Magazine ^ | Julian Baggini & Jeremy Stangroom

[guitarist]

Not sure I follow. The philosophers are so into philosophy that they eschew a chance to clearly see if something is true? Can you explain, please?

[beavus]

Funny!

[Radix]

Gould's point, I think was that certain things are so completely obvious, that persons holding contrary opinion (to his own) simply refuse to acknowledge observable facts.

Gould was a pretty cool guy in a lot of ways, but that does not mean one (me) must agree with him in all ways. I sort of appreciated (for example) his way of connecting baseball stats with his view of natural selection. (from that same interview)

“…”that .400 hitting once existed and went away, so something bad has affected hitting. Maybe it's that pitching's gotten better, faster, but something bad has happened, either absolutely or relatively. And yet everybody knows that doesn't make sense because everything gets better in sports.”                                                                                                                      S.J. Gould

[guitarist]

His view of natural selection--and Dawkins', and Hitchens'--is that you are an idiot if you think God directed it, and an absolute wretched one of the Earth if you think we were supernaturally created. I don't really care for their point of view, to put it mildly...

[RightWhale]

This one is impossible on any grounds imaginable.

However, there is supposedly a way to add causality to a model, which is ludicrous since there is no causality in reality.

[beavus]

However, there is supposedly a way to add causality to a model, which is ludicrous since there is no causality in reality.

Maybe it is better to first ask, "What do we mean by 'causality'?". It's nature may have to be different than we expect.

[RightWhale]

We at least know we can model. That was proven or at least it was proven to be not impossible.

[beavus]

We at least know we can model. That was proven or at least it was proven to be not impossible.

Models, being false representations of the truth, should always be possible. The question with any model is, "How good is it?"

[RightWhale]

No, it's been mathematically proved. Goedel gave his blessings and now there are both model theory and recursion theory

[Radix]

I do not believe that I could have phrased my impression of Gould's opinions more succinctly. Nicely done!

Still, the man was interesting and intelligent. His arrogance is something to be properly measured and judged in other realms I would think.

[null and void]

In this case, not only are the people not engineers, but their job seems to involve being full of crap all day everyday.

That makes them Metaphysical Engineering Managers!

[Ladysmith]

~ 42 ~