Impotent screaming....
Hello Bloglander....
Heaven knows how you ever found this page. My last posting on the Blogger site has received three comments.. all from people I can't get back to, to explain that the blog has moved to this Blogspot site (at least I think that's what's happened).
So as far as they, and any other reader of Blogger can see, I'm no longer writing my blog! AND I CAN'T ACCESS MY OLD BLOG TO SAY IT'S MOVED.
And the helpful notice to say that the blog has moved has itself moved to the new site. Bloody madness.
AND I CAN'T SPEAK TO ANYBODY TO SORT IT OUT.'SUPPORT' WON'T ANSWER MY EMAILS....
I've never come across anything so ridiculous.
No.. not true. Stupidity is remarkably common, I've discovered while writing my book, even in very high places.
I was editing the Grand Oeuvre yesterday, inserting a few quotes and epigraphs, and came across this lulu:
'Free will is a fictional construction. But it has applications in the real world.'
I hope you are laughing out loud at such paradoxical non-sense. It was said presumably by some sophisticated comedian?
Not so... it was said by Steven Pinker, a Harvard Professor of Psychology.
I find it quite bewildering that a Professor at Harvard could come up with such tripe in all seriousness. And I am utterly gobsmacked at the fact that nobody laughs out loud at it. Nobody.
Let's be clear: a Professor at a Top University claims that free will does not exist, but it is nevertheless useful 'in the real world'. Just roll that round your tongue for a moment. He is claiming that something that does not exist is useful in the 'real world'. This must, by elementary logic, mean that the decision that free will does not exist must have been refering to an unreal world... being a world in which such contradictory gook* is accepted as the peak of Scientific Rationality.
It is this sort of baloney that my book is out to get rid of, along with the numerous other paradoxes that are accepted as 'rational' by most of the scientific world. Just two examples: that DNA is accepted on the one hand as being a mere chemical, but on the other hand has been seriously referred to as 'Life Itself'; and then there's all that rubbish about a chemical gene being 'selfish'. And one more for luck: neuroscientists are quite certain that abiotic (unalive) chemicals and abiotic (unalive) electricity make your thoughts for you. The simple madness of such a claim (that things that are unalive can spontaneously create an original thought out of their unalive selves alone), is never considered.
And who is this 'you' that is aware of and uses the thoughts that the chemicals and electricity spontaneously create? The 'you' that can scan this page and take meaning from it? Presumably the chemicals and electricity must have fabricated that, too? And the abstract 'meaning' that these coded squiggles are conveying to you? Clever old chemicals.
That is what Materialists do claim, believe it or not.... although, to be fair, they prefer to avoid the issue whenever possible, as they do realise the bind they are in.. well, some of them, anyway. Others prefer bluster.
These are just three examples of the sort of rubbish you are 'obliged' to accept as reasonable and truthful if you accept the pseudo-philosophy of Materialism as dogmatic truth. Most scientists do accept this. Hence most scientists are lumbered with having to believe such irrational nonsense as above.
There is another way.... and no, it is not blinkered Bible-bashing.
My book will explain all.
The bad news is that I'll have a hell of a job finding a publisher. Maybe I'll have to just put it on the web. Any ideas and suggestions warmly accepted. But please make sure I can get back to you!
Have a lovely day Chas
* 'Gook' is a word I've invented to use in my book. It means 'an apparently rational but actually irrational statement, delivered as Truth', and derives from 'gobbledegook', meaning complete gibberish.
And thanks for your kind words, Moira, should you ever find this page. I'm glad 'Scenes' still entertains!
Sorry I can't reply personally.
Heaven knows how you ever found this page. My last posting on the Blogger site has received three comments.. all from people I can't get back to, to explain that the blog has moved to this Blogspot site (at least I think that's what's happened).
So as far as they, and any other reader of Blogger can see, I'm no longer writing my blog! AND I CAN'T ACCESS MY OLD BLOG TO SAY IT'S MOVED.
And the helpful notice to say that the blog has moved has itself moved to the new site. Bloody madness.
AND I CAN'T SPEAK TO ANYBODY TO SORT IT OUT.'SUPPORT' WON'T ANSWER MY EMAILS....
I've never come across anything so ridiculous.
No.. not true. Stupidity is remarkably common, I've discovered while writing my book, even in very high places.
I was editing the Grand Oeuvre yesterday, inserting a few quotes and epigraphs, and came across this lulu:
'Free will is a fictional construction. But it has applications in the real world.'
I hope you are laughing out loud at such paradoxical non-sense. It was said presumably by some sophisticated comedian?
Not so... it was said by Steven Pinker, a Harvard Professor of Psychology.
I find it quite bewildering that a Professor at Harvard could come up with such tripe in all seriousness. And I am utterly gobsmacked at the fact that nobody laughs out loud at it. Nobody.
Let's be clear: a Professor at a Top University claims that free will does not exist, but it is nevertheless useful 'in the real world'. Just roll that round your tongue for a moment. He is claiming that something that does not exist is useful in the 'real world'. This must, by elementary logic, mean that the decision that free will does not exist must have been refering to an unreal world... being a world in which such contradictory gook* is accepted as the peak of Scientific Rationality.
It is this sort of baloney that my book is out to get rid of, along with the numerous other paradoxes that are accepted as 'rational' by most of the scientific world. Just two examples: that DNA is accepted on the one hand as being a mere chemical, but on the other hand has been seriously referred to as 'Life Itself'; and then there's all that rubbish about a chemical gene being 'selfish'. And one more for luck: neuroscientists are quite certain that abiotic (unalive) chemicals and abiotic (unalive) electricity make your thoughts for you. The simple madness of such a claim (that things that are unalive can spontaneously create an original thought out of their unalive selves alone), is never considered.
And who is this 'you' that is aware of and uses the thoughts that the chemicals and electricity spontaneously create? The 'you' that can scan this page and take meaning from it? Presumably the chemicals and electricity must have fabricated that, too? And the abstract 'meaning' that these coded squiggles are conveying to you? Clever old chemicals.
That is what Materialists do claim, believe it or not.... although, to be fair, they prefer to avoid the issue whenever possible, as they do realise the bind they are in.. well, some of them, anyway. Others prefer bluster.
These are just three examples of the sort of rubbish you are 'obliged' to accept as reasonable and truthful if you accept the pseudo-philosophy of Materialism as dogmatic truth. Most scientists do accept this. Hence most scientists are lumbered with having to believe such irrational nonsense as above.
There is another way.... and no, it is not blinkered Bible-bashing.
My book will explain all.
The bad news is that I'll have a hell of a job finding a publisher. Maybe I'll have to just put it on the web. Any ideas and suggestions warmly accepted. But please make sure I can get back to you!
Have a lovely day Chas
* 'Gook' is a word I've invented to use in my book. It means 'an apparently rational but actually irrational statement, delivered as Truth', and derives from 'gobbledegook', meaning complete gibberish.
And thanks for your kind words, Moira, should you ever find this page. I'm glad 'Scenes' still entertains!
Sorry I can't reply personally.
posted by Chas Griffin at 10:06 am
2 comments
