(January 14, 2012 at 2:37 am)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: I apologize in advance if this doesn't come out coherently. I drink maybe one or two nights a month, and that night is tonight.
Pure reason is useful to explore thought experiments where empirical inquiry is (currently) of limited use. Yet, it's usefulness is limited - and if reason leads you to conclusions that can't pass the giggle test, then you shouldn't take your conclusions too seriously without something concrete to back them up. At that point, labeling them as "truth" is... overly ambitious.
I'm now being told (by a budding young apologist-regurgitor <I'm going to copyright that word>) that Hawking is open to scrutiny for stepping into the philosophical realm by saying [G]od is not necessary for the universe to be. And yet philosophy is based on reason. So for some reason, Hawking is not allowed to employ his life's work into his reasoning into philosophical issues. My fucking brain hurts from dealing with this lunacy.
Let your anger be as a monkey in a piñata; hiding with the candy, hoping the children do not break through with a stick.
