Re: Faith-based thought vs thinkers

From: Michael Vassar (michaelvassar@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Feb 13 2006 - 16:29:27 MST


>P.C. Hodgell said: "That which can be destroyed by the truth should
>be." I have never heard a declaration of rationality which is both
>simpler and better than this.

That quote seems to me to be an appealing one for people who are more able
to endure unpleasent truths than their contemporaries, but it is not a
humane preference. That people can be made unhappy by correct knowledge as
well as by incorrect is a classic literary theme, and obviously one with at
least some truth behind it. Even relatively rational people might want to
know neither their opponent's poler hand nor the time of their future
inevitable death, and for the bulk of humanity even a spouses's extramarital
attractions or the mythologized status of a historical hero can be painful
with little attendant benefit. I would be extremely reluctant to accept a
singularity that eliminated people's right to ignorance as "Friendly" or
that incautiously embraced the preferences of a person's extrapolated
informed self and forced that person to live with the choices implied by
those preferences.



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