Our intrepid Seeker, who feels entirely justified in wondering why there’s Anything, continues his discussion with the Ghost of Stephen Hawking, who is not quite sure it merits any thinking time. But before things can wrap up, the situation is complicated by the sudden arrival of yet another spirit entity! Part 1 of this dialogue happened here.
Physicist, or perhaps more aptly ex-Physicist gadfly(?) Lawrence Krauss released what some tried to promote as a groundbreaking book in 2012 called “A Universe From Nothing”. It purported to clear up, once and for all, why there is Something rather than Nothing. It failed to make a dent in this age-old riddle, despite Richard Dawkins‘ (who isn’t even an ex-Physicist) half-cocked back cover blurb review declaring the now certain and indisputable removal of deities, religions, Creation, or Theism of any sort from any future human contemplation. Krauss’ main rhetorical maneuvers in his argument involved monkeying around with the definition of ‘nothing’ while relying upon Physics man-splaining to obfuscate the obvious. This story happens a few years later…
I don’t believe or disbelieve these things. Those kinds of stances towards such lofty happenings seem demeaning and facile and dismissive to me. Rather, I sense that there is truth in them. And accept the burden of working upon ‘self’ to evolve matters such that more is gradually illuminated. This feels like a personal responsibility to me. I wouldn’t call it religion; that obscures the reality.
“…for I have overcome the World.” — John 16:33
A recurring idea from Jaron Lanier (“You Are Not A Gadget” – 2010) goes like this: “It isn’t really a question of whether AI can get smarter than humans. It is more whether humans will collectively (unconsciously) agree to make themselves stupid enough to descend to the same level as artificial intelligence”. I’ve paraphrased but you get the idea. What does this have to do with the social debate over transgender athletes?
(This is a slight re-edit of one of the very first WP posts ever made on this blog about ten years ago, when I was transitioning from software-oriented technical writing to more creative things. The exercise exemplified is still of value, it seems to me)… There is a subtle distancing effect which our numerous online devices and other technologies foist upon our minds regarding the world of everyday objects. Left unchecked, we develop a disregard and disinterest in things and their nature, reflected in the disposable stance many ‘movers and shakers’ adopt towards articles of utility. But imagine if the surrounding world of objects could be reunited with their rightful depths of significance, qualities, and history! Suppose you had to think ONLY about a piece of chalk, to take a mundane example, for ten full minutes. How difficult would it be, and what could be recovered?
Some little boys grew up idolizing Capt. Kirk and Spock. All well and good. But some of them have since aged into their 50s and love science and technology and hold positions of serious influence and have retained about the same degree of social sophistication, compassion and insight as they had in 6th grade. That’s a problem.
||skirmishes|| ||with|| ||reality|| 