h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

65 posts in the 2 hrs I've been away. Hmnm, feelings of arsedness and can't be spring to mind. I'll prob browse it whilst bored instead of doing work tomorrow.

the guy obviously doesn't work for a living.


oh. I'm still here too.

ah, work from home tomorrow - can get up late as laptop is only 10seconds from bed!
Unfortunately new job doesn't allow such luxories!
Oh well, had to hit the real world and work for a living some time.

You either inspired or tempted me, anhaga...

My post is sure to be ignored, but it did feel wickedly pleasurable... or pleasurably wicked

anhaga is simply staying completely away from that thread.

They're everywhere! They're everywhere!

I think I'm going to be violently

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_gngEUCMTw

I am very much enjoying reading about Descartes *secret* notebook which has led to his *proof* of gods existence. Very roughly (and I'm cutting and pasting here), he stated:

1- I exist.
2- I have in my mind the notion of a perfect being.
3- An non-perfect being, like myself cannot think up the notion of a perfect being.
4- Therefore the notion of a perfect being must have originated from the perfect being himself.
5- A perfect being would not be perfect if it did not exist.
6- Therefore a perfect being must exist.

I exist but everything outside me is unknowable? I can define perfection? I see the ambiguity in saying we can't perceive a perfect being but in fact we have. What is our purpose then, and what is the purpose of the unknowable being we can / can't know the existence of?

This is the man who unified mathematics and geometry and virtually created calculus? Am I missing something?

No, you are not.

Descartes was simply a product of his environment, good at maths and untalented at philosophy.

You would really enjoy Damasio's 'Descartes Error'

Here's a brief review by Dennett: http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/damasio.htm

I had just expected something better if I read the unabridged version.... but no such luck.
(off to search some more)

btw, the book is *Descartes' Secret Notebook* by Amir D. Aczel, it's a short read but very entertaining. I picked it up because I found his *Fermat's Last Theorem* and *Pendulum* to be good reads. All highly recommended, IMO. I'm going to pick up *Entanglement* and *The Mystery of the Aleph* next.