Subject: RE: [hackers-il] Monkey Trial

From: Chen Shapira <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 18:02:47 +0200

> Hardly. You learned by trial and error to work around the bugs in your
> senses in common life situations, and you *know* they have bugs. Using
> it as a base in proving something about the world is hardly something
> you can justify logically. (You cannot say that from "good enough"
> premises follows "good enough" conclusions -- logic is not continuous)

If you feel like proving that logic isn't continuous - go ahead and do so,

Anyway, if from any other axiom comes a conclusion that contradicts my
common-sense perception of life - This philosophy is meaningless. What can I
do with it? I can't use it as a guide to life. Its too dangerous, it may
kill me.

---

From: Moshe Zadka <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 23:04:18 +0300 (IDT)

On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Chen Shapira wrote:

> common-sense perception of life - This philosophy is meaningless.

But your own senses contradict each other. (E.g., optical illusions -- you
see something you cannot touch. Decartes' explanation shows this is a
fluke, but like I said earlier, I cannot agree with his logic)

> What can I
> do with it?

Philosophy is not there so "you can do something with it". Contrast
idealism, materialism or dualism -- what can you "do" with them? Not much.
OTOH, moral systems do come from philosophy. 

> I can't use it as a guide to life. Its too dangerous, it may
> kill me.

A-priori, it's not clear that the conclusion of a philosophy won't be that
you should kill yourself. So? Philophy's goal is not to make your life
better (that's technology). It's to understand the world.

--
Moshe Zadka <[email-masked]>
There is no IGLU cabal.
http://advogato.org/person/moshez