2014

In this post I will be continuing my discussion of “meaning.”  In its entry on “meaning” Wikipedia lists the “big questions.”  Theists will necessarily answer these questions differently from materialists.  Below is my best estimate of how the questions will be answered by the two groups. Theist’s Answers Followers of different theistic traditions will answer the questions differently.  The following is from a traditional Christian perspective. 1.  What is the meaning of life?  In the Christian tradition this question is perhaps best answered by the Westminster Shorter Catechism:  Q1. What is the chief end of man? A1. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever. 2.  What’s it all about?  See 1. 3.  Who are we?  Read More ›

In a recent post, I was challenged to offer examples of computation of dFSCI for a list of 4 objects for which I had inferred design. One of the objects was a Shakespeare sonnet. My answer was the following: A Shakespeare sonnet. Alan’s comments about that are out of order. I don’t infer design because I know of Shakespeare, or because I am fascinated by the poetry (although I am). I infer design simply because this is a piece of language with perfect meaning in english (OK, ancient english). Now, a Shakespeare sonnet is about 600 characters long. That corresponds to a search space of about 3000 bits. Now, I cannot really compute the target space for language, but I Read More ›

Thank you to Aleta for taking up the opposing view of the nature of meaning in my Gotta Serve Somebody post.  I started to write a response to his comment 34 and quickly realized that any response would be OP-sized and decided to start a new OP. Some Definitions “disagreement is not an easy thing to reach.  Rather, we move into confusion.”  John Courtney Murray Part of the problem in the debate between Aleta and myself is that we use the word “meaning” in at least three different senses, (1) linguistic intention, (2) ultimate purpose, and (3) culturally-adapted belief system. In an effort to see if we can actually reach disagreement as opposed to confusion, I propose to dispense with Read More ›

It has been a very busy week digging out from under the pile of work that accumulated while I was on vacation (think of the Bride digging out of the grave in Kill Bill 2). Earlier I had time only to post a link to Mollie Hemingway’s take down of Frank Bruni’s genuflection before the alter of “science.” Today I want to revisit that topic. Before I do, a couple of definitions: Reify: to regard (something abstract) as a material or concrete thing Fealty: the obligation or the engagement to be faithful to a lord, usually sworn to by a vassal. The money quote from Bruni’s piece: And with the right fealty to science, this next Congress would be forced Read More ›