7 ms·

Is There An Artificial God?

58 points by detcader 17y ago

ErrantX 17y ago
DA was a genius comic writer but I think he is never remembered for real intelligence too. For example: Now that was a very, very silly, but fascinating, story and what it said to me was that this was the first time that we could reach back into the world. # That's the kind of thoughtful insight that just doesn't occur to many.
- unalone 17y ago
  This is the tragedy of a lot of science fiction writers, many of whom are incredibly bright and often better with nonfiction than they are with their writing. DA's fiction is good, but not particularly special. His style's a bit amateur. On the other hand, his nonfiction from Salmon of Doubt is surprisingly excellent.
  - detcader 17y ago
    The Salmon of Doubt pretty much changed my life when I read it at ~15. This speech was included in it. I find myself frequently referring to it in forum topics on the internet.
- bkj123 17y ago
  great point ErrantX. I also believe his simple, humble approach to communicating is genius! He gets his points across to a wide audience and lays a foundation to open-minded, constructive discussion.
username 17y ago
http://www.freebase.com/view/en/god/-/base/argumentmaps http://www.freebase.com/view/en/god/-/base/argumentmaps
- ErrantX 17y ago
  DA is not actually discussing the idea of an actual god - i.e. a deity. The thrust of the speech is about the idea that some of the crazy notions humans come up with might have sound basis in facts we are only subconsciously aware of (he has a couple of excellent examples). The point being that we should be careful to dismiss it as unscientific bunk without at least bearing it in mind in the future :)
Hexstream 17y ago
The best part is at the end: "But the fourth, the many-to-many, we didn't have at all before the coming of the Internet, which, of course, runs on fibre-optics. It's communication between us that forms the fourth age of sand. Take what I said earlier about the world not reacting to us when we react to it; I remember the first moment, a few years ago, at which I began to take the Internet seriously. It was a very, very silly thing. There was a guy, a computer research student at Carnegie Mellon, who liked to drink Dr Pepper Light. There was a drinks machine a couple of storeys away from him, where he used to regularly go and get his Dr Pepper, but the machine was often out of stock, so he had quite a few wasted journeys. Eventually he figured out, 'Hang on, there's a chip in there and I'm on a computer and there's a network running around the building, so why don't I just put the drinks machine on the network, then I can poll it from my terminal whenever I want and tell if I'm going to have a wasted journey or not?' So he connected the machine to the local network, but the local net was part of the Internet - so suddenly anyone in the world could see what was happening with this drinks machine. Now that may not be vital information but it turned out to be curiously fascinating; everyone started to know what was happening with the drinks machine. It began to develop, because in the chip in the machine didn't just say, 'The slot which has Dr Pepper Light is empty' but had all sorts of information; it said, 'There are 7 Cokes and 3 Diet Cokes, the temperature they are stored at is this and the last time they were loaded was that'. There was a lot of information in there, and there was one really fabulous piece of information: it turned out that if someone had put their 50 cents in and not pressed the button, i.e. if the machine was pregnant, then you could, from your computer terminal wherever you were in the world, log on to the drinks machine and drop that can! Somebody could be walking down the corridor when suddenly, 'bang!' - there was a Coca-Cola can! What caused that? - well obviously somebody 5,000 miles away! Now that was a very, very silly, but fascinating, story and what it said to me was that this was the first time that we could reach back into the world. It may not be terribly important that from 5,000 miles away you can reach into a University corridor and drop a Coca-Cola can but it's the first shot in the war of bringing to us a whole new way of communicating. So that, I think, is the fourth age of sand. "
cgs1019 17y ago
Thank you so much for posting this. I had heard bits and pieces of it quoted, but didn't know from whence. What an utterly astoundingly deeply brilliant mind. So nice that there is audio to go with it.
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'Fine, I respect that'. [...] I wouldn't have thought 'Maybe there's somebody from the left wing or somebody from the right wing or somebody who subscribes to this view or the other in economics' when I was making the other points. I just think 'Fine, we have different opinions'. But, the moment I say something that has something to do with somebody's ( [...] irrational) beliefs, then we all become terribly protective and terribly defensive and say 'No, we don't attack that; that's an irrational belief but no, we respect it'. In what way is it irrational? I think the author conflates apparent lack of support with irrationality - the reason one shouldn't do the switch is that it is a type of work, it requires effort that would otherwise not be expended, Jewish scripture does not allow work on Saturdays, Rabbi's confirm that this is work. Rabbi's are inspired by God, God created us and inspired scripture and knows what is best. Now we can pick all sorts of holes in that argument on lack of support. But it is a rational argument, it applies known (to the subject) facts in a logical manner to determine the true course to take. You might argue that the premises are wrong, fine, but that doesn't stop the reasoning from being logical - if I tell you I'm wearing a green hat, then I ask you what colour of hat I'm wearing, you say green; but I'm not wearing a hat, that doesn't make you irrational it just makes you wrong. The question of whether God exists is not a scientific question, so a better premise to attack would be that Rabbi's are inspired by God. "Rabbi's provide bad advice" might be a good first hypothesis - eventually we see that Rabbi's usually provide good advice, should we take that advice? Seems logical (within this limited discourse). Now that doesn't prove the premise we held true initially but it gives limited support to it and is of itself a good reason for listening to Rabbi's. So, then we might consider why we are protective of the Jews belief that they shouldn't switch the light on Saturday. Well do we have scientific data which somehow shows his premises to be wrong? Financial data is relatively simple - did the pundits shares go up, etc.? I warrant that the reason we protect beliefs that we ourselves consider wrong (or in the authors case irrational (which I think is wrong!)) is because we don't have clear data. We belive they are wrong but can't readily show they are objectively wrong. If one could flip to a "metaphysical indicators" page of the newspaper (! assuming we know its true) and look up "God: God is impersonal and does not require one to abide by any specific framework of laws except the Golden Rule" then we'd have a certain fact that we could rely on to demonstrate the falsehood of this Jews position.
known 17y ago
God != Religion
- theblackbox 17y ago
  I've always gone for the prescription that Faith and Religion are two separate but entwined beasts. Faith is the emotion that is shaped and controlled by the political/social/cultural construct of Religion. I find it insulting that this is so often disregarded by learned speakers such as Richard Dawkins. I'm looking forward to giving this a thorough read, I always loved DA and his method of communicating some deeply philosophical and scientific ideas with the right amount of scepticism and curiosity to make something uniquely human of it. As Boris Pasternak would say, DA incorporates his knowledge in Myth - a master storyteller.
- detcader 17y ago
  Adams is using "God" to encompass all supernatural beings and entities. The speech would have been twice as long if he had been completely politically correct throughout. You know what he means; saying simply "God != Religion" is a non-argument.

58 points by detcader 17y ago

DA was a genius comic writer but I think he is never remembered for real intelligence too. For example: Now that was a very, very silly, but fascinating, story and what it said to me was that this was the first time that we could reach back into the world. # That's the kind of thoughtful insight that just doesn't occur to many.

unalone 17y ago
This is the tragedy of a lot of science fiction writers, many of whom are incredibly bright and often better with nonfiction than they are with their writing. DA's fiction is good, but not particularly special. His style's a bit amateur. On the other hand, his nonfiction from Salmon of Doubt is surprisingly excellent.
- detcader 17y ago
  The Salmon of Doubt pretty much changed my life when I read it at ~15. This speech was included in it. I find myself frequently referring to it in forum topics on the internet.
bkj123 17y ago
great point ErrantX. I also believe his simple, humble approach to communicating is genius! He gets his points across to a wide audience and lays a foundation to open-minded, constructive discussion.

username 17y ago

http://www.freebase.com/view/en/god/-/base/argumentmaps http://www.freebase.com/view/en/god/-/base/argumentmaps

ErrantX 17y ago
DA is not actually discussing the idea of an actual god - i.e. a deity. The thrust of the speech is about the idea that some of the crazy notions humans come up with might have sound basis in facts we are only subconsciously aware of (he has a couple of excellent examples). The point being that we should be careful to dismiss it as unscientific bunk without at least bearing it in mind in the future :)

Hexstream 17y ago

The best part is at the end: "But the fourth, the many-to-many, we didn't have at all before the coming of the Internet, which, of course, runs on fibre-optics. It's communication between us that forms the fourth age of sand. Take what I said earlier about the world not reacting to us when we react to it; I remember the first moment, a few years ago, at which I began to take the Internet seriously. It was a very, very silly thing. There was a guy, a computer research student at Carnegie Mellon, who liked to drink Dr Pepper Light. There was a drinks machine a couple of storeys away from him, where he used to regularly go and get his Dr Pepper, but the machine was often out of stock, so he had quite a few wasted journeys. Eventually he figured out, 'Hang on, there's a chip in there and I'm on a computer and there's a network running around the building, so why don't I just put the drinks machine on the network, then I can poll it from my terminal whenever I want and tell if I'm going to have a wasted journey or not?' So he connected the machine to the local network, but the local net was part of the Internet - so suddenly anyone in the world could see what was happening with this drinks machine. Now that may not be vital information but it turned out to be curiously fascinating; everyone started to know what was happening with the drinks machine. It began to develop, because in the chip in the machine didn't just say, 'The slot which has Dr Pepper Light is empty' but had all sorts of information; it said, 'There are 7 Cokes and 3 Diet Cokes, the temperature they are stored at is this and the last time they were loaded was that'. There was a lot of information in there, and there was one really fabulous piece of information: it turned out that if someone had put their 50 cents in and not pressed the button, i.e. if the machine was pregnant, then you could, from your computer terminal wherever you were in the world, log on to the drinks machine and drop that can! Somebody could be walking down the corridor when suddenly, 'bang!' - there was a Coca-Cola can! What caused that? - well obviously somebody 5,000 miles away! Now that was a very, very silly, but fascinating, story and what it said to me was that this was the first time that we could reach back into the world. It may not be terribly important that from 5,000 miles away you can reach into a University corridor and drop a Coca-Cola can but it's the first shot in the war of bringing to us a whole new way of communicating. So that, I think, is the fourth age of sand. "

cgs1019 17y ago

Thank you so much for posting this. I had heard bits and pieces of it quoted, but didn't know from whence. What an utterly astoundingly deeply brilliant mind. So nice that there is audio to go with it.

pbhjpbhj 17y ago

'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'Fine, I respect that'. [...] I wouldn't have thought 'Maybe there's somebody from the left wing or somebody from the right wing or somebody who subscribes to this view or the other in economics' when I was making the other points. I just think 'Fine, we have different opinions'. But, the moment I say something that has something to do with somebody's ( [...] irrational) beliefs, then we all become terribly protective and terribly defensive and say 'No, we don't attack that; that's an irrational belief but no, we respect it'. In what way is it irrational? I think the author conflates apparent lack of support with irrationality - the reason one shouldn't do the switch is that it is a type of work, it requires effort that would otherwise not be expended, Jewish scripture does not allow work on Saturdays, Rabbi's confirm that this is work. Rabbi's are inspired by God, God created us and inspired scripture and knows what is best. Now we can pick all sorts of holes in that argument on lack of support. But it is a rational argument, it applies known (to the subject) facts in a logical manner to determine the true course to take. You might argue that the premises are wrong, fine, but that doesn't stop the reasoning from being logical - if I tell you I'm wearing a green hat, then I ask you what colour of hat I'm wearing, you say green; but I'm not wearing a hat, that doesn't make you irrational it just makes you wrong. The question of whether God exists is not a scientific question, so a better premise to attack would be that Rabbi's are inspired by God. "Rabbi's provide bad advice" might be a good first hypothesis - eventually we see that Rabbi's usually provide good advice, should we take that advice? Seems logical (within this limited discourse). Now that doesn't prove the premise we held true initially but it gives limited support to it and is of itself a good reason for listening to Rabbi's. So, then we might consider why we are protective of the Jews belief that they shouldn't switch the light on Saturday. Well do we have scientific data which somehow shows his premises to be wrong? Financial data is relatively simple - did the pundits shares go up, etc.? I warrant that the reason we protect beliefs that we ourselves consider wrong (or in the authors case irrational (which I think is wrong!)) is because we don't have clear data. We belive they are wrong but can't readily show they are objectively wrong. If one could flip to a "metaphysical indicators" page of the newspaper (! assuming we know its true) and look up "God: God is impersonal and does not require one to abide by any specific framework of laws except the Golden Rule" then we'd have a certain fact that we could rely on to demonstrate the falsehood of this Jews position.

known 17y ago

God != Religion

theblackbox 17y ago
I've always gone for the prescription that Faith and Religion are two separate but entwined beasts. Faith is the emotion that is shaped and controlled by the political/social/cultural construct of Religion. I find it insulting that this is so often disregarded by learned speakers such as Richard Dawkins. I'm looking forward to giving this a thorough read, I always loved DA and his method of communicating some deeply philosophical and scientific ideas with the right amount of scepticism and curiosity to make something uniquely human of it. As Boris Pasternak would say, DA incorporates his knowledge in Myth - a master storyteller.
detcader 17y ago
Adams is using "God" to encompass all supernatural beings and entities. The speech would have been twice as long if he had been completely politically correct throughout. You know what he means; saying simply "God != Religion" is a non-argument.