Scott Adams - Gods Debris

[Senator]

This is a free pdf file book from Dilberts, Scott Adams. For those you might want to give it a whirl, it is supposed to be a mind twister. Would like to know what the thoughts are from the FOF community.

http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/godsdebris/

Imagine that you meet a very old man who—you eventually realize—knows literally everything. Imagine that he explains for you the great mysteries of life—quantum physics, evolution, God, gravity, light, psychic phenomenon, and probability—in a way so simple, so novel, and so compelling that it all fits together and makes perfect sense. What does it feel like to suddenly understand everything? God's Debris isn’t the final answer to the Big Questions. But it might be the most compelling vision of reality you will ever read. The thought experiment is this: Try to figure out what’s wrong with the old man’s explanation of reality. Share the book with your smart friends then discuss it later while enjoying a beverage.

[Marc Vaughan]

Very interesting read - I'd recommend it ...

[QuikSand]

I read about half of it last night. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone, exactly, but it seems pretty well constructed.

[QuikSand]

(yes, I know there was a more recent thread, but I'm a sucker for the original)

[DaddyTorgo]

I meant to read this book a long long time ago and even DL-ed it, but never got past like page 15 or so. Now i'm on page like...50 and I'm so totally-mindfucked by the talk about probability and gravity and all. Yowza

[Maple Leafs]

This is probably the best quasi-religious philosophy book ever written by a comic strip artist.

Yes, I said "ever"!

[Senator]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

(yes, I know there was a more recent thread, but I'm a sucker for the original)

That is why Quik is so loved in the community. No matter how far he goes on this crazy ride, he never forgets his roots.

As an aside, I got about the normal amount of replies I expected when I tried to engage this forum in some discussion. I learned. I learned.

example: HOT CHILD MOLESTOR = views/replies
God Debris = ghost town

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Senator

That is why Quik is so loved in the community. No matter how far he goes on this crazy ride, he never forgets his roots.

As an aside, I got about the normal amount of replies I expected when I tried to engage this forum in some discussion. I learned. I learned.

example: HOT CHILD MOLESTOR = views/replies
God Debris = ghost town

oh i'll discuss it with you senator

[QuikSand]

Finished it tonight. I think it's a bit of a false construct to essentially "demand" that the reader poke holes in the logic... but I suppose it makes for an interesting exercise. Seems to me the chapter about the penny might make for a decent and fairly well-confined discussion.

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Finished it tonight. I think it's a bit of a false construct to essentially "demand" that the reader poke holes in the logic... but I suppose it makes for an interesting exercise. Seems to me the chapter about the penny might make for a decent and fairly well-confined discussion.

It's been a year or two, but I seem to rememebr that my honest opinion is that this was a case of a somebody who was famous and successful enough that nobody would say "you're just diddling yourself all over your keyboard for 150 pages, Scott".

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by Maple Leafs

It's been a year or two, but I seem to rememebr that my honest opinion is that this was a case of a somebody who was famous and successful enough that nobody would say "you're just diddling yourself all over your keyboard for 150 pages, Scott".

That's probably 2/3 of my view on it.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Maple Leafs

This is probably the best quasi-religious philosophy book ever written by a comic strip artist.

Yes, I said "ever"!

Might depend on how you define "quasi-religious philosophy".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Contr...nement_Stories

(not that I've read either, mind you)

[Marc Vaughan]

I thought it was a very interesting book myself ...

With regards to the 'coin toss' and probability of the toss not having a answer/reason thats not true at all.

The reason is simply that its of equal chance when someone flips it generally speaking that the number of rotations etc. will result in a heads or tails because of the weighting of the coin itself. A person could in 'theory' at least train themselves to bias the percentage to heads or tails by trying to aim for a certain number of 'flips' of the coin in the air - but seeing as its not a vital skill I doubt many people do so.

IMHO in every situation involving probability there are similar levels of logic associated with them which create the apparent 'chance' involved in the situation, for instance 'random' number generated by a computer could be 'predicted' given enouogh information on how they were generated and the internal computer state (which is why gambling firms have to prove they have a 'black box' random number generator which cannot be monitored incidentally - I had an interesting chat with some chaps at a betting firm about this sort of thing a few years ago).

In some situation the probabilities may be beyond our comprehension - but that doesn't mean they're not present.

[Wolfpack]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

In some situation the probabilities may be beyond our comprehension - but that doesn't mean they're not present.

A computer chatted to itself in alarm as it noticed an airlock open and close itself for no apparent reason.

This was because Reason was in fact out to lunch.

A hole had just appeared in the Galaxy. It was exactly a nothingth of a second long, a nothingth of an inch wide, and quite a lot of millions of light years from end to end.

As it closed up, lots of paper hats and party balloons fell out of it and drifted off through the universe. A team of seven three-foot-high market analysts fell out of it and died, partly of asphyxiation, partly of surprise.

Two hundred and thirty-nine thousand lightly fried eggs fell out of it too, materializing in a large wobbly heap on the famine-struck land of Poghril in the Pansel system.

The whole Poghril tribe had died out from famine except for one last man who died of cholesterol poisoning some weeks later.

[Marc Vaughan]

Douglas Adams I presume?

[Wolfpack]

Of course.

[Noop]

I thought is was very interesting and worth considering.

[JetsIn06]

Half-way throught it right now. I'm liking it a lot, it's actually tough for me to stop reading it.