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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  3353 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Lecture 17: Fun With the Anthropic Principle

I am not thinking of Scott Adams. I used to have a high opinion of Scott Adams and now I don't.

I like the roulette take, and the concept of an immortal making a bet with each person who enters the doomsday room. There are many fascinating ways to think about this.





acyclicks  ·  3352 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's strange to me that God's Debris would have lowered your opinion of Scott. Much of the criticism in that thread seemed based around flaws in Avatar's assertions/logic, which I thought was sort of the point.

    The central character states a number of scientific “facts.” Some of his weirdest statements are consistent with what scientists generally believe. Some of what he says is creative baloney designed to sound true. See if you can tell the difference.

I'm only a third of the way through, but he seems to just be giving a brief introduction to a philosophical concept he finds interesting, and then providing a simple "answer" to seed thought. My main complaint so far is that I'm already familiar with most of the concepts he brings up, and I'm not finding many of the seed answers novel or compelling.

However, I would have loved this 5-10 years ago. I've enjoyed thinking about these concepts as I've come across them. It doesn't really seem like Scott's fault that I'm no longer in the target audience.

user-inactivated  ·  3352 days ago  ·  link  ·  

From what I remember, it just wasn't well-written or particularly interesting. The fictional format was pointless. Just a strange little book.

acyclicks  ·  3352 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah, agreed. Would much prefer to just read his outline.