Comments on “No meaning without proof”
Comments are for the page: No meaning without proof
Peter Unger
Yes, he’s changed his mind several times.
This is from Daniel Kolak’s I Am You: The Metaphysical Foundations for Global Ethics, according to which there is only one person, and we are all it:
Unger has since modified his view; he now believes we exist for a while—a few years, for instance. See his Identity, Consciousness and Value, and his comments therein to my APQ article “Personal Identity and Causality: Becoming Unglued.” When I once remarked to Unger (in a conversation with him and Steve Stich) that it seemed to me ironic that he went from a view in which he believed he was no one and did not exist, to a view in which he exists for a while, he said, “Well, Dan, I was rather an impetuous young man when I had that radical thesis; you are now young and believe we are all the same person. When you get to be my age you too will mellow with your views and then probably you will believe you are only a few other people.” Stich almost fell off his chair laughing.
Atoms
“ANANURIST: It’s just a bunch of atoms.”
Bah. Atoms don’t exist either. (Cf.Nagajuna) :-)
[OT comment] new look page
I think the new layout makes the page harder to read (at least, it does for me) and stay focussed.
If you’re now committed to having the contents as a sidebar, perhaps try it on the right? (Isn’t it a research-based thing that we tend to look left on webpages?) Though I still think the old layout was more legible.
Yeah, it's not great
On the right would be better, but then there’s trouble with extra-wide things that stick out, like on this page: https://meaningness.com/modes-chart
Maybe I should just not have things stick out.
Or maybe the sidebar needs to come and go using a hamburger menu.
I’ve put a box around it just now. I think that helps a little, although it’s not a good long-term solution.
Hamburger
That’s what I was trying to remember the name of - a hamburger menu. And it can be made to float down as the page is scrolled, can’t it? If so, leaving a decent sized space at the side (so that the menu doesn’t distract from the body text) and a menu floating down would (IMHO) work much better. ?
37 grams of frog
Thanks, that was funny!
I’ve looked up Peter Unger. He’s probably still alive and published a book in 2005 arguing for the existence of immaterial souls. So, he’s not a nihilist, or at least not anymore (maybe lorazepam helped).
I must observe that in real life he wouldn’t be injected with a benzodiazepine, but with an antipsychotic, probably haloperidol. That’s what they do with delusional people.