Subject: Re: Music, religion, etc.
AntiUtopia@aol.com
Date: Sat Jan 08 2000 - 20:46:03 EST
In a message dated 1/8/00 6:11:09 PM Eastern Standard Time, shok@netcom.com
writes:
<< But the utilitarian argument isn't entirely useless. There is a
principle called Ockham's Razor. As anyone who has seen the move
Contact knows, the principle states that the easiest answer tends to be
the correct one. If god(s) is/are unnecessary, it/they are redundant
and serve only to add complexity to the system.
-robbie >>
I don't think there's much need for me to further argue with you about the
content of this post...
However, I will point out that William of Occam was a monk :) I had a copy
of his philosophical discourses once, loaned it out, and never got it back.
Eesh.
Contact, the movie, terribly butchered the use of Occam's razor. It's not
about the simplest answer being the best (how do we determine the simplest
answer?), but about not multiplying hypothesis.
To be honest, a simple belief that God Created the Universe is much less
complicated than a Big Bang theory that doesn't account for all the matter
in the universe (or the uneven distribution of background radiation) or the
more exotic forms of physics that probably no one on this list is capable of
being conversant in.
You really missed half the point of the movie, you know...Jodie Foster's
character had an experience incommunicable to those she spoke with after
returning from her trip. Almost all the evidence spoke against Jodie
Foster's experience...there was very little or no "proof" that she spoke to
alien life forms. And as a result she had to concede her empiricism was much
too shallow to account for Real Life...
Jim
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