Daniel Dennett, Lawrence Krauss and Massimo Pigliucci discuss The Limits of Science

[rug]

Published on Nov 5, 2013

00:00 Introduction
07:07 Limits of Science
19:40 God & the Supernatural
31:20 Science & Morality
50:11 Something out of Nothing
1:03:42 The Value of Philosophy
1:20:59 Cognitive Limits
1:35:43 Questions:
- 1:35:56 Science & Politics
- 1:43:33 The Status of Economics
- 1:48:17 Does Consciousness Exist?
1:55:00 Credits

http://www.hetdenkgelag.be/

[longship]

1. Will gladly Rec and kick.

In spite of the fact that I have monthly download limit that makes it impossible to view this.

These guys are all very good. Pigliucci and Dennett are philosophers, Krauss is a physicist. I really like Dennett and Krauss. Pigliucci is fine, too.

[rug]

2. I'm a half hour into it.

Had to stop for work. Very collegial, frank discussion.

[cbayer]

7. I knew I would find you in here!

How are you, longship?

I would love to watch this but don't have enough bandwidth to download it.

Perhaps in my next location.

[longship]

8. I guess there's no safe hiding place in DU, especially not in the Religion group.

I am doing very well. Been busy. My furnace broke down last weekend, not good here in rural Michigan. It's a very old oil furnace, but is fairly efficient. At least it wasn't January. Fixed it myself, but it was a huge, knuckle busting frustration. We've already had a trace of snow here.

Always nice to see you around, my friend.

[cbayer]

9. Snow? Oh, no.

I'm so done with snow.

Kudos for you for fixing your furnace.

Hope you have lots of down blankets and wooly sox.

[longship]

10. I'm not a big fan of snow myself.

Living in the woods makes it difficult. But my dirt road is a school bus route so it gets plowed quickly. Neighbors with tractors help with my driveway. I expect deep snow this winter after two mild winters in a row. You know, regression to the mean.

[DreamGypsy]

3. That was very interesting and entertaining.

Took me from 10am to 10pm to carve out enough minutes to watch the entire discussion, but the effort was well rewarded.


However, I do have one doubt about the authenticity of the presentation: How can three 'older' guys (certainly older than the moderator) sit around, talking, imbibing beer, wine, schnapps, whatever, for almost two hours, always on camera....and no one needed to urinate??? What? Is Het Denkgelag Danish slang for "being equipped with a catheter"?

Thanks for post, rug.

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

4. It was a miracle

Like the water to wine stuff.


The gods magickally evaporated the urine from their bladders! You just have to recite the special anti-urine prayer/spell/chant before you begin drinking for the night.

[rug]

5. Het Denkgelag is Danish for catheter.

[Jim__]

6. Krauss: "If you can't ever measure it, then ... anything else you say about it is not worth much ...

Krauss' statement is at about 10 minutes into the video. A little more of what he said:

... If you can't measure it, even in principle, I mean there's lots of things we can't measure that we can talk about, as a theoretical physicist I think about a lot of things we can't measure right now, but if you can't ever measure it in principle, then, then science really has nothing to say about it but I would argue that anything else you tend to say about it is not worth much either ...

I've been re-reading Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions and Krauss' statement made me think about a chapter in that book. An excerpt:

...

Cyprian Ukwende, the black physician from Nigeria, had a penis six and seven-eighths inches long and one and three-quarters inches in diameter.

Don Breedlove, the gas-conversion unit installer who raped Patty Keene, had a penis five and seven-eighths inches long and one and seven-eighths inches in diameter.

Patty Keene had thirty-four inch hips, a twenty-six inch waist, and a thirthy-four inch bosom.

Dwayne's late wife had thirty-six inch hips, a twenty-eight inch waist, and a thirty-eight inch bosom when he married her. She had thirty-nine inch hips, a thirty-one inch waist, and a thirty-eight inch bosom when she ate Drano.

...

Throughout this chapter, whenever Vonnegut describes people, he tends to give us such personal measurements. The "why" of that is clear to me now. Doubtless, he wanted us to know that there is something worthy that can be said about people.