Isocracy and Bushfires, Impossibility and Philosophy, Gaming and Reviews

[tcpip]

The first real action of the Isocracy network (inspired by brock_ulfsen has been to generate practical ideas on prevention of bushfires for the impending Royal Commission. So, if you have any great (or even not so great) ideas on the subject (cause, prevention, cure), please feel free to contribute. The network itself is growing at the rate I expected and would want it to do so (i.e., roughly one person a day). I will this opportunity to highlight 17catherines's efforts with the vicbushfirefund.

Next Sunday at the Unitarian Philosophy forum I will be presenting on "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast", which discusses the (mis)use of metaphysics (logic, ontology and theology) in philosophy and modern criticisms of metaphysics from Hume, through to Kant and to Ayer and Popper. I will be concluding with the rise of epistemology, the need to separate theology from philosophy, and a universal pragmatism towards verification. Apropos a University of Hawaii lecturer in philosophy tries to explain what metaphysics is not (such things are actually possible in transcendent metaphysics because it doesn't rely on verification); hat-tip to erudito.

My review of the Zin Letters (a Finnish Glorantha 'zine) has been put up on rpg.net, and a review of Greg Saunders' Summerland should be there soon. Have just started a new PBeM based on the old Chaosium product Questworld but using Steve Perrin's Quest Rules. Karl B. ran a session of Gulliver's Trading Company on Sunday with good setting and character interaction; the FUDGE/FATE based system is slowly being bashed into some shape.

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

To be fair, the one thing which Pascal's wager did introduce (and perhaps this is in the realm of 3-card monte) was game theory and probability involving infinity.

Dawkins and Carrier have proposed an interesting version where they postulate a deity which rewards honest reasoning which leads to atheism, as opposed to superficial and blind faith - leading to the result that a reasoned disbelief in god ensures a place in heaven, and blind faith leads to hell. :)

The logic of game theory aside, the theological component does however rest on the unverifiable assertion of the existence of God.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_zombiemonkey/]

The logic of game theory aside, the theological component does however rest on the unverifiable assertion of the existence of God.

Hence the 3 card monte bit. To be fair as well, Pascal's Wager was never meant to prove God's existence, it was an example of why 'proofs' of God's existence are facile.

I've read Dawkins' take and thought it was pretty funny, but still victim to the pleasing of an arbitrary daddy with arbitrary criteria. Why pick one trait like earnest belief or reasoned disbelief? Why not pick something stupid while you're at it - 'God rewards those with the ability to faithfully explain the Dark Phoenix Saga' or 'God rewards those with the most complete collection of BP petrol station Smurfs'. Trying to bend philosophical thought to this sort of arbitrary criteria is kind of an exercise in futility.