Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Is there a spiritual force etc.?
Message-ID: <1994Sep14.023845.20399@news.media.mit.edu>
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Cc: minsky
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
References: <JUH.105.779391202@stpc.wi.LeidenUniv.nl> <1994Sep13.030258.1803@news.media.mit.edu> <353lht$kh1@barros.cs.ucf.edu>
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 02:38:45 GMT
Lines: 62


In article <353lht$kh1@barros.cs.ucf.edu> gomez@barros.cs.ucf.edu (Fernando Gomez) writes:
>In article <1994Sep13.030258.1803@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>>In article <JUH.105.779391202@stpc.wi.LeidenUniv.nl> JUH@stpc.wi.LeidenUniv.nl (Marc) writes:
>>>In article <1994Sep11.164225.6753@news.media.mit.edu> 
>>>minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>
>(deleted passage)
>
>>While we're on the atheism subject, I was impressed by the following
>>argument extracted from 'The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins.  I
>>myself had long assumed that some of my heroes, such as Galileo, were
>>closet atheists and were merely afraid to express this in those
>>dangerous times.  I've changed my mind because of Dawkins' argument.
>
>(deleted passage)
>
>If one is looking for a pre-Darwian atheist, Spinoza is certainly
>the one to choose. His remarks in the introduction to his Ethics
>and his critique of Descartes are without paragon. And he was not
>certainly a closet atheist.

Can I quote you?  This is nice example of something because the reset
of that paragraph, which is your >(deleted passage), explains Dawkins'
point that there were no good ways to explain the evident complexity of
animals, hence, before there had been some working out of the
details of a theory of spontaneous evolution, there really was no
plausible alternative to propose, except for divine creation.

So I precisely not looking for a pre-Darwinian atheist like Spinoza.
On the contrary, I was agreeing with Dawkins that such people must
have been ignoring a very serious problem.   

So, if you're a Spinoza fan, could you look him up to see how he
explained the complexity and variety of the animals?  Maybe even a
hint that he might have been on the right track?

>And now that we are in the subject, I don't think that the extraordinary
>surge of obscurantism is due to the capacity of religious leaders to
>lie and deceive people, but rather to the social failure of humanism ...
>
>- Fernando Gomez

Well, I think it is due largely to the success of the excessive
intellectual tolerance that came with the liberalism of the 1960s.
"All ideas are equally good, they argued, and you should follow your
uncritical dispositions without regard to criticism or contrary
evidence."  I agree that there seems to be a rapid increase in
superstitious beliefs.  There are three different "psychic 900
numbers" here, on what's left of broadcast TV.  But do you think that
we've already matched the level of uncritical belief of the Dark Ages?
I don't.  I don't think we'll get there for at least another 15 or 20 years.

I suppose you were using the word "humanism" in the sense of "godless
atheism?"  I'd prefer to attribute the rise of gullibility to "the social
failure of stupidity."

-- marvin minsky




