[MD] Metaphysics

[John Carl]

Speaking of Cars on faith,

Ed Abbey talks about visiting Australia - the Outback, and seeing all these
burned up cars.

So a local tells him that at first, with native reparations moneys, these
Aboriginal people would buy new cars from the white man dealers and drive
off into the desert.  But nobody told them about gas, so  they'd abandon the
cars where some enterprising white would then redeem with a gas can and then
proceed to sell the cars as slightly used.

Well they figured  how to put gas in, but the general laws of mechanical
upkeep and repair were beyond them and so the process continued but over a
bit more extended time.  So when the cars wouldn't run, they'd burn 'em to
keep from getting sold the same bill of goods over and over.

Idiots.  But smart idiots.



On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 11:46 AM, Krimel <Krimel at krimel.com> wrote:

>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Arlo Bensinger [mailto:ajb102 at psu.edu]
> Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 2:36 PM
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] Metaphysics
>
> [Krimel]
> They accept on faith that their cars and TV and computers work for
> reasons. For those people, the majority in fact appealing to science
> as a "reason" is not much different from claiming God made it happen.
>
> [Arlo]
> But I do think there is a good deal of difference between saying "my
> Harley runs on an internal combustion engine, and I don't understand
> it, but I accept it" and saying "my Harley runs because angels push
> my bike". A primary difference is that should the engine stop
> working, and I became sufficiently motivated to do so, the theories
> of internal combustion (and mechanics, etc.) will allow me to get the
> machine working again. No amount of "praying to God" will fix a broken
> engine.
>
> [Krimel]
> No wonder you take such issue with Platt. All those dead angels could
> negatively impact your next road trip.
>
> [Arlo]
> Again, as I said to Ian earlier, there is a profound difference
> between accepting a provisional premise that is always checked
> against experience and accepting an absolute statement despite it
> being checked against experience.
>
> [Krimel]
> We went over all this about two years ago and I tend to side more with Ian.
> I do think faith is involved when we face the unknown. To me the question
> is
> how much. Angels pushing your bike requires a leap of faith, inventors
> tinkering with the laws of nature just a little faith. Having said that, I
> do find it distressing when Mark and Platt and to a certain extent Marsha
> use this distinction of degree to claim no difference at all.
>
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