Feb 12
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Richard Dawkins Speaking at Duke University, Oct 3, 2010

25 Comments


Note that Todd Stiefel’s last name is pronounced to rhyme with “gleeful”

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Posted in Uncategorized by cheyingtan 25 Comments

25 Responses to "Richard Dawkins Speaking at Duke University, Oct 3, 2010"

  • classISsick says:
    February 3, 2012 at 4:42 pm
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    You can always tell how smart someone is by how ugly their tie is. Damn it Richard, that is one ugly tie.

  • TomFynn says:
    February 3, 2012 at 5:24 pm
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    @blackmichael75 “an analogy, a metaphor, a symbol. And also, waffle. ” Make up your mind.

  • blackmichael75 says:
    February 3, 2012 at 5:34 pm
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    @TomFynn I mis-typed, what I meant was “ambiguous in that we don’t have certainty”. You software simulation thing is an analogy, a metaphor, a symbol. And also, waffle.

  • TomFynn says:
    February 3, 2012 at 6:00 pm
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    @blackmichael75 “ambiguous in that we don’t know have certainty” Yes, known in the real world as waffle.

    Software: The sum of thresholds levels for the firing imprinted in the neurons of our brains over time.

    Simulation: The mapping of complex, multi-variate data onto a simple model.

  • blackmichael75 says:
    February 3, 2012 at 6:49 pm
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    @TomFynn What’s waffly about that statement? It is ambiguous in that we don’t know have certainty and don’t know everything about it. And you never explained the simulation software thing, which is not so much a fact as a metaphor, ie, a symbol.

  • TomFynn says:
    February 3, 2012 at 6:56 pm
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    @blackmichael75 “the universe itself is ambiguous. ” I’m running out of syrup here.

  • blackmichael75 says:
    February 3, 2012 at 7:27 pm
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    @TomFynn “Simulation software running on a neural network” is a fact, is it? Maybe the neural network,bit, but what constitutes the “simulation software” business?
    And no, symbols aren’t just interpreted arbitrarily. They can be multi-layered but they sometimes symbolise specific things. Their ambiguous nature is part of their richness, because the universe itself is ambiguous.

  • TomFynn says:
    February 3, 2012 at 7:58 pm
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    @blackmichael75 That’s not an interpretation. It’s a fact. Like it or leave it.

    The point of the quote is that anything is/and/or can be symbolic of anything. That’s why this symbolic talk is all waffle.

  • blackmichael75 says:
    February 3, 2012 at 8:51 pm
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    @TomFynn That’s your daft interpretation of what our brain is. As for the Monty Python quote, I’m not sure how that’s relevant or what it’s meant to prove.

  • TomFynn says:
    February 3, 2012 at 9:25 pm
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    @blackmichael75 Sorry, but *do* have a simulation software running on a neural network, That’s not waffling. That’s what our brain *is*

    As for “symbolic”:

    Francis: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
    Reg: It’s symbolic of his struggle against reality. .

  • blackmichael75 says:
    February 3, 2012 at 9:52 pm
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    @TomFynn “simulation software”, now who’s waffling? It IS symbolic, obviously. The creation myth, the flood myth, the dying and rising god myth, just as symbolic as the stories about the Olympian gods of ancient Greece.

  • TomFynn says:
    February 3, 2012 at 10:28 pm
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    @blackmichael75 The “universal yearning for meaning” is an interesting human feat based on a highly evolved simulation software. It might be of historical interest to see how that software misfired with the semi-illiterate goat herders from 2000 years ago who had to work on extremely limited information about the world, but that’s about it. Nothing symbolic about it.

  • blackmichael75 says:
    February 3, 2012 at 10:29 pm
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    @TomFynn How is it waffle? Do humans not universally yearns for meaning? Do we not have a cycle of seasons? Can you not see that, by being this reductionist, you’re just mirroring the approach of the religious people?

  • TomFynn says:
    February 3, 2012 at 10:46 pm
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    @blackmichael75 “Something about the cycle of the seasons, or the universal human yearning for meaning” You want some syrup with that waffle?

  • blackmichael75 says:
    February 3, 2012 at 11:21 pm
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    @TomFynn Nah. Symbols can represent something true, some idea which might be otherwise hard to express. Something about the cycle of the seasons, or the universal human yearning for meaning. It is to literalise them which is to render them absurd. And to be a crude reductionist in the name of science is to make yourself just as bad as the religious literalist.

  • HiredForLife24 says:
    February 3, 2012 at 11:29 pm
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    @Lleanlleawrg Thank you :D

  • TomFynn says:
    February 3, 2012 at 11:39 pm
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    @blackmichael75 Now it’s symbolic? WTF? It used to be the be all and end all, the true Word Of God. Now it’s only symbolic? Ah yes, of course. Science has shown us how all these miracles are so much bunkum, so that no one can still believe them to be fact and still be respected by any thinking person.

    So now it’s “symbolic”. Bah, still humbug. Symbolic or not.

  • fivequotes says:
    February 4, 2012 at 12:31 am
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    nice clip .. i like it .. thanks for sharing

    

  • Diosukekun says:
    February 4, 2012 at 1:03 am
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    74:40 wow, i had no idea he was a closet anti-semite as well

  • mrgejwaites says:
    February 4, 2012 at 1:56 am
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    @7j8i9m Most definitely, the problem is there are so many different breeds of Buddhism It’s pretty misunderstood in our part of the world.

    But let’s be honest most atheists, secularists and intellectuals would sooner stomach soft beliefs like that as opposed to beliefs like blowing yourself up in a train station will get you fast tracked to a heavenly whore house with exactly 72 virgins.

  • blackmichael75 says:
    February 4, 2012 at 2:52 am
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    @7j8i9m Have you ever heard of symbolism, mythology, metaphor? If the fundamentalists are making the literalist fallacy, and the atheists are arguing against their literalist model, and not the fallacy itself, then you are both two idiots arguing about a misconception.
    Reading a symbolic text literally is no less futile if you do it scientifically. It is fatuous and silly to disprove factually that which is not stated as fact.

  • TheDrewManXD says:
    February 4, 2012 at 3:45 am
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    37 people went to UNC

  • fettkatt87 says:
    February 4, 2012 at 4:34 am
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    Have you seen the moonhoax?

  • Clifton100 says:
    February 4, 2012 at 5:03 am
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    I have such a small penis:-(

    any suggestions?

  • TomFynn says:
    February 4, 2012 at 5:31 am
    Reply

    @PhillipChristoph “I hope all the Christians drive you into the sea you fucks!” How very Christian of you.

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