Re: So, *Are* We Alone?

Posted by Nick Thompson on Apr 05, 2012; 2:12am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/So-Are-We-Alone-tp7425235p7438629.html

Doug

 

You read me wrong.  I found it uninteresting, but assumed that if it interested you there MUST b e a reason, and that if I knew the reason, I, too, would find it interesting.

 

Where we seem to disagree is on one of my most fundatmental ideas:  if somebody finds something interesting, there must be an underlying question or issue to which the phenomenon has gotten attached in their mind that I WOULD  find interesting if I knew it.

 

I was asking you to expand my experience. 

 

Or not.

 

Nick

 

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Douglas Roberts
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2012 5:09 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] So, *Are* We Alone?

 

<Lilke>

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 5:06 PM, Bruce Sherwood <[hidden email]> wrote:

Uh, does there have to be a reason? I'm interested just because I am
-- a portion of trying to understand as much about the Universe we
inhabit as is possible.

To put it another way: Why are you interested in the details of the
definition or use of induction? I found that discussion massively
uninteresting and irrelevant to the actual practice of science. There
are many variants of philistinism, and of engagement.

Bruce

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 2:55 PM, Nicholas  Thompson
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> I go back to the original question I asked Owen.  Why are these fantasies
> INTERESTING?.  Now, quickly, I have to admit, they don’t capture my
> imagination that well.  But I also have to admit that I firmly believe that
> NOBODY is interested in anything for nothing.  IE, wherever there is an
> interest in something, there is a cognitive quandary, a seam in our thinking
> that needs to be respected.  So I assume that there IS a reason these
> fantasies are interesting [to others] and that that REASON is interesting.
>  The reason is always more pragmantic and immediate than our fighting off
> being absorbed into a black hole.  Speaking of which:  Weren’t the
> Kardashians some race on some planet on StarTrek.  What color where THEIR
> noses?  And how did the writers of StarTrek know they were coming
>
>
>
> Nick

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Doug Roberts
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org