Agreed. I never said they were.

The word "meaning" has come up in two contexts - "If the universe had no meaning" and "meaning for otherwise inexplicable disasters".

In both cases the only way to decide whether a statement accurately specifies the "meaning" of "the universe" or the "disaster" is by the emotional reaction of the listener to the statement - the feeling the statement evokes in the listener.

Part of my job is a compiler writer and I have a B.Sc(Hons) in mathematics, including a major component in symbolic logic. I fully understand the concepts of syntax, semantics, and noise -and the fundamental point in these disciplines is to have an system, a model of that system, and to compare the system and the model in a rigorous non-emotional manner. Concepts such as "the meaning of the universe" do not have a non-emotional comparitor.



Earlier, you wrote...




These are also lists of qualitatively different things. I did not misconstrue these constructs as your being careless with your categories.

My list of "emotional-pleasantness, purpose/meaning, being part of an elite social group" was deliberately supplying differing dimensions, and I am surprised you misconstrued it as my being careless with categories.



It was also self-evident that the Earth was the center of the universe.

Furthermore, it is possible to have a worldview that can support categorizing things in several different ways : measurable/immeasurable, real/imaginary, logical/illogical, pretty/ugly, big/small, hot/cold, ...

/Bevin

I got it, I read it, its the usual rubbish combined with some high-brow cosmology and the usual bogus philosophy arguments

I will just waste my time pointing out a couple of his obvious flaws

(a) He quotes the evidence for the Big Bang as proving there must be a Creator. It doesn't - all it shows is that there was probably a Big Bang and we don't know why. There are lots of possibilities other than an Intelligent Omnipotent being.

(b) He talks about the Right Star/Planet/Moon for life. In fact we don't know what conditions are essential for life - we only know what is essential for the range of life forms we find on Earth, and that range is huge - from Antarctic to thermal pools to the edges of volcanic rifts in the deep ocean - Earth is only one of many possible worlds that could sustain life as we know it

(c) His attacks on Darwin et al are the usual nonsense that has been addressed in many places already

Fortunately the book only cost me ten cents plus $6 shipping and handling.

Unfortunately it wasn't worth it.

/Bevin