Maps of Meaning, discussion – Part 2b aside, Hero Worship and Populism

In the last blog there was a part that I thought worthy of its own little aside. Peterson talked of admiration of elders and celebrities, to the point we worship them and mimic them. Who these worshipped people are is going to depend on the worshippers’ values and whether the worshipped person appears to have…

Maps of Meaning, discussion – Part 2a, The Meaning of Meaning and Value of Value

Maps of Meaning is quite a dense book, and perhaps I was overly optimistic in thinking I could take it all in how I thought I could. Since my last writing, I have been listening on walks across slick mud, on two 5k runs and while negotiating footpaths that should not be quite so full…

Maps of Meaning, discussion – Part 1, Meaning and navigation

I am writing now because I can’t sleep, although everyone else in the house is asleep. I have parts of Maps of Meaning echoing around, and I want to get them down before I forget them. I have listened to chapter 1 in its entirety and a part of chapter 2. A good night sleep…

Maps of Meaning, discussion – the preface

I have decided to listen to Jordan B Peterson’s Maps of Meaning as an audiobook and give a brief summary and discussion of what I pick up. Peterson fans will probably notice that I don’t pick all of the book up, and I may miss parts. That’s not intentional, be patient with me. But, I…

Are theism and science incompatible?

It’s a long standing argument: can theism be justified within scientific thinking? There have been attempts to bypass the argument, by calling the two concepts “non-overlapping magisteria”: the claim that the two concepts simply answer different questions and therefore are never justified by each other and never in conflict (Gould, 2011). However, that is not…

No way!? Is that ‘Possible’?

Introduction There is an argument for the existence of God called ‘The Modal Ontological Argument for the existence of God’ (MOAG). A major part of MOAG is the idea that something is ‘possible’. The “something” is a ‘maximally great being’, or something similar depending on which version you read. The vagueness of the “something” ―…

Sherlock Holmes, ‘inference to the best explanation’, false dichotomies and God

There’s a way of thinking called abductive reasoning, commonly referred to as “the inference to the best explanation”. Sherlock Holmes famously uses it, and his use is fallacious. There are many structures of argument that would fall under abductive reasoning, which this post will look at, briefly, focussing on their errors. It will then focus…

The Ontological Argument for God – and why it’s nonsense

There is an argument for God called the ‘Ontological argument’ and it received an ambivalent welcome whenever it is trotted out, which seems increasingly rarely. It isn’t at all compelling, and yet that appears to be irrational because it’s rare to see someone actually attack the premises or the structure. However, that, today, is what…

Is there a supernatural realm?

Watching a debate between Matt Dillahunty and Mike Licona on whether Jesus was raised from the dead was a weird experience. Licona’s approach relied heavily on the supernatural is real therefore literally anything could have happened. And his defence for the supernatural also helped a lot in defining the supernatural. And it is to that…

Many Worlds or a Straight Jacket? The pseudointellectual tantrum of Evolution News

This is part 2 of looking at how a blogger, Michael Egnor, has assessed the mental competence of the Caltech physicist, Sean Carroll. Last time we assessed the claim that Carroll’s ideas on Boltzman brains make him illogical. This time, we are looking at whether finding a multiverse more believable than a God makes Carroll…