| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"J Seymour MacNicely" |
| Date: |
25 May 2007 02:58:16 PM |
| Object: |
Atheism: Even a Caveman Can Do It |
"brique" <briquenoir@freeuk.c0m> wrote in message news:
1180111440.52853.0@demeter.uk.clara.net...
Huhuh....well, this athiest would be content with the smallest visible,
percievable, recognisable manifestation of the physical presence of a die=
ty.
Not the second or third -hand hearsay of some-one who knew some-one who
heard a voice from a burning bush, or saw an angel, or met this guy who w=
as
rather convincing when he claimed to be a messiah or the messenger of a
diety.
There was, maybe still is, a 'theory' which placed religious beleif as a
convenient answer for the unknown. 'God is in the gaps'.
Yes, and had I been thinking just a bit more 'comprehensibly' in
Einstein's terms, I should have been able to save you the trouble of
bringing that up, by proceeding at more depth with our Caveman into
the jungles of the Amazon. In a recent issue of the New Yorker there
appeared a fascinating article . . .
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto
.. . . about a little known tribe, the Pirah=E3, whose language is based
on forms so primitive, that Noam Chomsky's prize-winning theory about
the 'hard-wired' linguistic capacity of the human mind appears to be
refuted by these people. This is due, for one thing, to an inability
(or a cultural refusal) to so much as conceive of a specific quantity
beyond the number "2". This fact goes further to show how any human
capacity to think mathematically is absolutely dependent upon
linguistics, the language of that people, how that rationality and
therefore reason is linguistic *and mathematical* at its foundation.
If you would be moved to read that article, and I can't stress enough
what sheer enjoyment any thinking person will receive by it, then I
would be able to proceed with my argument about how reason, a purely
linguistic mechanism, is by its very nature limited in its capacity to
perceive and interpret reality in the most, Einstein's term,
*comprehensible* fashion for which the human mind actually is
capable. You say . . .
Huhuh....well, this athiest would be content with the smallest visible,
percievable, recognisable manifestation of the physical presence of a die=
ty.
And in response to that I ask, Why does this 'manifestation' have to
be *physical*? And further, is the "E" side of the MC^2 equation
"physical" within the meaning of your definition for the term?
--
Mackie
http://whosenose.blogspot.com
http://doo-dads.blogspot.com
http://www.mackiemesser.zoomshare.com/0.html
http://vignettes-mackie.blogspot.com
.
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| User: "Michael" |
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| Title: Re: Atheism: Even a Caveman Can Do It |
25 May 2007 07:19:51 PM |
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Mackie wrote:
Yes, and had I been thinking just a bit more 'comprehensibly' in
Einstein's terms, I should have been able to save you the trouble of
bringing that up, by proceeding at more depth with our Caveman into
the jungles of the Amazon. In a recent issue of the New Yorker there
appeared a fascinating article . . .
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto
*************
Great article, Mackie. I almost didn't attempt the link because if I
recall correctly I've been unable to view New Yorker articles without
a subscription. I am not familiar with Chomsky's work on linguistics,
but his political commentary makes him out as an idiot.
Michael
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| User: "J Seymour MacNicely" |
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| Title: Re: Atheism: Even a Caveman Can Do It |
26 May 2007 03:39:43 PM |
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On May 25, 7:19 pm, Michael <zspi...@gte.net> wrote:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto
*************
Great article, Mackie.
I mighta known Michael would appreciate it.
I almost didn't attempt the link because if I
recall correctly I've been unable to view New Yorker articles without
a subscription. I am not familiar with Chomsky's work on linguistics . .=
=2E
Chomsky has never been loath to point out that there is no Nobel Prize
for linguistics. So he's had to live with the fact that his was Made
in Japan--the Kyoto Prize for Basic Sciences. It's probably worth
quite a bit less on eBay than Occupied Japan china. Even so, his has
been pretty much the last word in linguistic theory for years, as it
took its place in academe as the proto-cognitive neuro-science
"advance" it has been, till now, cracked up to be.
but his political commentary makes him out as an idiot.
Well, "idiot" would be a bit more generous an estimate of what's wrong
with his head than I'd be willing to accede. If indeed he were an
idiot, at least then he'd have his excuse.
Not in every case, but in more than a few, probably the most common
way to garner a tenured chair at M.I.T. is not by means of idiocy but
by a penchant for a certain strain of foxy ambition such as might be
observed in the personality of our current President of the United
States. Many, including myself are given to be mystified as to how
such a 'boy wonder' ever got through even so much a his first semester
at Yale.
Well, you have to be foxy. Chomsky is foxy. He knows what he hungers
for, academically speaking and he knows how to go out and get it,
despite every obstacle of bramble or boggy swale of a dialectical
antithesis to his thesis--there is every way to go sneaking around it,
out of sight on his way to that tasty fat prize of a finely feathered
thesis in the bush. It's now turning out that it's all been about a
lot of very fancy looking plumage with very little meat underneath.
As to that article, however, there is meat in there and plenty of it,
not so far as the advancement of linguistics alone, but all the more
comprehensively toward an understanding of as to the rudiments of
human thought, as such. You must have found it fascinating the
contrast between the Pirah=E3 and other Amazon tribes without any
conception of number beyond the integer "2", how it was that other
tribes could be taught to 'advance' in their rational understanding to
"3" and beyond--but not so with these people.
Insofar as there is nothing wrong with the cerebral apparatus inside
the heads of these people, and apparently there is not, then what's
going on here has not to do with an inability to think "rationally" as
it were, but with an absolute, stubborn refusal so to do. For these
people, the number three is absurd, laughable, or in their terms
"crooked headed."
To the Pirah=E3, the number "3" is irrational, just as it is to the
mathematicians of our 'advanced' society and culture. But what of
"2"? Ever take a look at the square root of that, or the algebraic
proofs which show "2" to be irrational also? Yet the Pirah=E3 will
accept, at least that much irrationality into the functions of their
thought. Why?
On the most fundamental level it is easy to see how the human mind
will distinguish between 'this' and 'that' or which is to say, "1" and
"1". But to say that 1 + 1 =3D 2? One wonders if the Pirah=E3 would go
so far as to say *that*. It is not clear from the article, whether a
sum of two singular things are being understood, or simply that there
is the presence of this thing and the other thing. Insofar as their
cognition will not register the presence of 3 things so as to be
distinguised from the presence of "many" things, it implies that
neither is there any function of summing going on with the Pirah=E3
designation for "2".
It's quite simple. That these people will acknowlege that there is the
presence strictly of 'this' thing beside 'that' other thing is the
same as to see that there is 'this thing' among the 'many' things.
But the presence of two things does not constitute the 'many' things.
There is one fish for the man and one for the woman. These are not
'two' fish, but one for each. There is no such thing as 'two fish'
because a fish is a fish, it is not a "two-fish".
Now, that is strictly as my understanding would interpret so much as
is revealed by the article, it is my hunch about a Pirah=E3
understanding of "two" leading me to the conclusion that there really
is no such abstraction as 'number' in their heads, but just 'this',
'that' and the 'many'. I suggest that what is being interpreted as
'two' is really just 'that' in the sense of "the other one".
There is only *one* among the Pirah=E3. There is one monkey leg for
you, one for me and a shoulder roast for junior. Monkey legs don't
come in threes, so there is no such thing as 'three'. Nothing can be
more 'rational' in the sense that the rational is the refusal of the
irrational.
And what might all this have to do with the notion of Western
'rationality' so-called, standing in the way of the kind of thought
that is able to comprehend an ever-present evidence and proof of God?
Oh-oh! Lightening and thunder on the way. Got to shut off the modem.
No time for spell checking or anything!
--
Mackie
http://whosenose.blogspot.com
http://doo-dads.blogspot.com/
http://www.mackiemesser.zoomshare.com/0.html
"Been walking forty miles of barbed-wire,
Got a cobra snake for a neck-tie,
Got a brand new house down by the roadside,
Made out o' rattlesnake hide,
Got a brand new chimney built up top,
Made out o' human skulls,
So come on baby, let's take a little walk,
And tell me, Who do you love?"
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
--E. McDaniels
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