[From Bill Williams 14 November 2001 8:20 CDT ]
[From Chris Cherpas (2001.11.13.1640)]
in some generous comments on my
Bill Williams (12 November 2001 8:00 CST) --
Chris said:
The "skepticism concerning all claims to knowledge" statement,
then, is not to be taken literally either.
Quite right. I my opinion the notion of taking _anything_ literally
is a kind of hocus pocus.
As far as I'm concerned, the same goes for the existence of gods...
I don't plan on being skeptical about the non-existence of gods unless
f-ing Jesus Christ walks up and shakes my hand. (The same goes for
Santa Claus and the easter bunny.)
I'll have to plead guilty to having at one time believed in 2 out of three
of the above. Not only having believed but actually perceived. I would advise
one and all to be skeptical even if your hand is shaken.
PCT, since it transforms their supposedly "objective"
gods from the most important things in all the universe to the
merely imagined and controlled perceptions of individual brains.
While I would aggree with you myself, the gods might non-the-less retain
their status as the most important things in the universe as far as many
are concerned. There's been more than a little speculation that matters of
belief and non-belief are in part genetic so changing or improving the
arguments against theism may not be of much use.
But for you, Bill Williams, to raise this kind of comment
to yet another cycle of argumentation strikes me as pedantic, if not
ingenuous. Worse, one wonders, how flaccid and dormant must
a brain become to perceive anything of relevance in such quibbling
with quotes?
If only it was only my brain that had gone flaccid and dormant!
the context in which the
quote about knowledge was raised had nothing to do with seriously
considering how knowledge claims are interpreted in PCT. If you
can find such a connection, please let me know.
Bruce Nevin's post that followed on the 13th seems to provide some or
many pertinent connections. I suspect, however, that Bruce took a few
too many steps on his way to a slam dunk.
Actually, another quote regarding knowledge is more germane
to this situation: "Temet Nosce" -- Know Thyself. While my
"axe grinding" motivation must be transparent to all, and may be
viewed as the blunt arguments of a "true believer" (in atheism),
I can, at best, only wonder why others post the nit-picking drivel
with which we are presently concerned. If you know why, do tell.
I am quite sure that the slide into "nit-picking drivel" takes
place because writing code is hard. Not even the participants in
the nutshell thread would be justified in skepticism regarding this
proposition.
However, in defence of the recent nutshell "nit-picking-drivel" it
might be said that that the nutshell thread has yet to reach the ultimate
destination, identified by Richard Kennaway, of any and all discussions
on the net { if only they are sufficiently extended } -- the issue of gun
control. I hope, however, no one resolves to test Kennay's hypothesis yet
again.
Obviously not the Best
Bill Williams
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