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A “didactic little story” about perception and the supernatural: [0] There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One o

by adolph 3y ago

A “didactic little story” about perception and the supernatural: [0] There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was fifty below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.'" And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. "Well then you must believe now," he says, "After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp." 0. https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWKenyonAddress2005.pdf https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWKenyonAddress2005.pdf

gwern 3y ago
Bacon did it better centuries before with his idols: "And where are the testimonies from the sailors who prayed to the gods but did not return safely?"
- adolph 3y ago
  Is your reference to New Atlantis? In reading the below article [0] I'm not certain if Wallace was going for a similar point as Bacon. But maybe you have a different interpretation. Wallace develops his point after the story ". . . we also never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from. Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys. As if a person's most basic orientation toward the world, and the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired, like height or shoe-size; or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language. As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentional choice." 0. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/francis-bacons-god https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/francis-bacons-g...

by adolph 3y ago

gwern 3y ago

Bacon did it better centuries before with his idols: "And where are the testimonies from the sailors who prayed to the gods but did not return safely?"

adolph 3y ago
Is your reference to New Atlantis? In reading the below article [0] I'm not certain if Wallace was going for a similar point as Bacon. But maybe you have a different interpretation. Wallace develops his point after the story ". . . we also never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from. Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys. As if a person's most basic orientation toward the world, and the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired, like height or shoe-size; or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language. As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentional choice." 0. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/francis-bacons-god https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/francis-bacons-g...