Monday, April 27, 2020
Is materialism the ultimate in science denial?
But, more seriously, it seems to me that there have to be in existence unitary selves in existence in order for the rational and mathematical inferences necessary for science to take place. Some single entity has to entertain successive thoughts in order to, say, prove the Pythagorean Theorem, or infer natural selection from finch beaks on the Galapagos Islands. If there is no single, unitary being called Charles Darwin who observes the beaks, and then creates a theory to explain how the beaks turned out to be the way they are, then no one actually ever finds out that evolution is true. The materialism that is supposed to be based on the successes of the scientific enterprise is actually inconsistent with the possibility of science. It is as if science-lovers have forgotten that scientists have to exist in order to have science, and their materialism, taken to its logical conclusion, is the ultimate in science-denial. (Chesterton would love this).
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 211 of 211No asterisk. It was a combination of dumb luck and a clever strategy.
If you've ever played softball, you can't help but notice that everyone always swings for the fences, which means a heck of a lot of fly balls. But I made a conscious decision at the beginning of the season that I would aim for nothing better than a base hit. So I would swing downward, guaranteeing that the ball would bounce in the most difficult place for a fielder, which is about 8 to 10 feet behind the baseline - too far back for 2nd baseman or the shortstop to deal with. An outfielder would have to run up to throw it to 1st, but by that time I was already there.
Amazingly, no one caught on for the entire season. I never breathed a word of my strategy even to my teammates to preserve its efficacy. And in any case batting averages were not a big deal in the Intelligence Agencies League (composed of teams from NSA, the FBI, CIA, NRO, DIA, Energy, the Treasury Department, and the Army Security Agency). But the following year they were on to me, and my average plummeted.
Clever strategy. Take advantage of the Thunder-footed outfielders.
But it is rather disconcerting to realize that the Intelligence Agencies don't think excellence is a big deal :-)
The games were rigged. How else could the FBI win the championship year after year? (Other than, of course, they were buff, and we were not.)
Maybe they had more "intelligence"?
Perhaps they scouted the most dangerous players and you didn't show up on their radar till the second year, when they dealt with you.
Anyway, it's good to know that the FBI is the agency to fear the most!
I never breathed a word of my strategy even to my teammates to preserve its efficacy.
It just occurred to me that you couldn't trust fellow NSA mates to keep a secret? Now I'm worried.
This is an article that Hal might find interesting.
I wonder if he agrees with it as far as it goes, or if not, what he disagrees with.
bmiller,
I continued our discussion on the 'Chesterson's AFR' post.
Hal,
Thanks for the response. It helps me to understand your position better.
I suspected that it was closer to Feser's position than what I could gather from your terminology and that appears to be the case.
I also think I understand where you would have differences wrt to human mental powers.
One Brow,
I continued our discussion on the 'Chesterson's AFR' post.
I took a look at the response and I think you are telling me that the implications I've raised aren't worth dealing with seriously. Fair enough.
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