Whenever I go down to Portland State University, there's a fundamentalist preacher standing on a bench asserting that all the people walking around are morally in danger. He talks and talks, rails and rails. Yet the students discuss their classes or their social networks, study their books, talk on their phones, eat their lunch, etc.
No matter how loud the preacher yells about the behavior and moral degradation of the people around him, nobody listens. They continue to do what they do, sometimes listening in amusement to the preacher, or playing "Amen, brother" games with him, but mostly ignoring him. I have some ideas about why his protestations have no effect. But it would help, especially in a conversation like this, if the preacher, himself, were to give some practical hint as to _how_ the discussion could be taken in a new direction. Or even in what new direction the preacher would like us to take the discussion. (Aside from thumbing some bible or other.) Mostly, the preacher seems to want to preach, with no discussion being possible. Anytime anyone tries to approach the preacher and _discuss_ whatever, the preacher ends up ranting and railing about how that person just doesn't get it and always falls into the standard immorality they exhibited before they tried to start a discussion with the preacher. On 04/23/2013 08:16 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > Fuggit, work can wait, the first proposal is in final edit and the second > one is under control, so why delay my response. > > Re: your question of what do I find ridiculous: Not the subject of the > referenced paper, certainly. Rather our little group's pronounced tendency > to niggle and (dare I say it?) pontificate over the true, deep, and (dare I > say it?) philosophical meanings of words. Like, say, just to pick a random > sample: "emergence", "complex", "behaviors", "through", "causal", > "entropic", and "forces". > > And now to hijack my own thread: the referenced paper mentions cosmology as > one of the topic ares that the above terms are frequently used to describe. > Since cosmology is one of my favorite spare time reading focus areas, I > wanted to make an observation that the following reference makes very > clearly, which is that *nobody* has even the slightest glimmer of > understanding of our true cosmological origins. Even the events after that > instant of the big bang, where it is postulated that our universe expanded > from sub-atomic dimensions, through inflation (inflation? WTF caused that?) > are only sparsely understood. > > Classical physicists like to duck the subject of "What caused the big > bang?" by hiding behind the academic artifice of claiming that the question > is meaningless because space-time did not exist before the big bang. > > But, we do like to pontificate here on FRIAM, don't we? Deeply, and > philosophically. But rather than continuing in the usual vein of debating > (deeply, but with much pontification) the true meaning, of, say "emergence" > again, let's take the discussion in a new direction. Sorry for the > Facebook link, but the original article is buried behind a NewScientist > paywall. The article nicely addresses my thoughts on that other question > you asked me, i.e. where do I think life comes from. > > https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=501821756549668&set=a.477892902275887.114170.334816523250193&type=1&theater > > > --TrollBoi -- glen =><= Hail Eris! ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
