From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Sep 12 5:11:49 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1F8AF37B400 for ; Thu, 12 Sep 2002 05:11:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from jive.SoftHome.net (jive.SoftHome.net [66.54.152.27]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 7F49C43E75 for ; Thu, 12 Sep 2002 05:11:46 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from yid@softhome.net) Received: (qmail 20518 invoked by uid 417); 12 Sep 2002 12:11:41 -0000 Received: from shunt-smtp-out-0 (HELO softhome.net) (172.16.3.12) by shunt-smtp-out-0 with SMTP; 12 Sep 2002 12:11:41 -0000 Received: from planb ([216.194.2.204]) (AUTH: LOGIN yid@softhome.net) by softhome.net with esmtp; Thu, 12 Sep 2002 06:11:38 -0600 Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 08:11:38 -0400 From: Joshua Lee To: Terry Lambert Cc: dave@jetcafe.org, nwestfal@directvinternet.com, keramida@ceid.upatras.gr, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-Id: <20020912081138.32b7505f.yid@softhome.net> In-Reply-To: <3D808065.4350244D@mindspring.com> References: <200209120405.g8C45u153131@hokkshideh2.jetcafe.org> <3D808065.4350244D@mindspring.com> Organization: Plan B Software Labs X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.8.2claws (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-portbld-freebsd4.7) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Thu, 12 Sep 2002 04:54:13 -0700 Terry Lambert wrote: > Dave, the person who can predictively describe the universe as > a derivation of the least number of assumptions wins. This is > because it's *simpler* to have fewer assumptions. > > Each assumption is a "deux ex machina", which you will not be > able to logically communicate to another person. You can only [...] > The larger your set of assumptions, the lower the probability > that all your assumptions will be shared by someone else, and > therefore the lower the probability that you will be able to > effectively communicate with them, and the smaller your This explains neatly why whenever I am stupid enough to get involved in a thread about religion or politics, I hit a brick wall. My assumptions, especially in the realm of religion unless one is an Orthodox Jewish mystic (and even then there will be differences of opinion, though probably not enough to halt rational intercourse), are different than the majority of people. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message