Posted by bill on October 31, 2000 at 18:12:41:
In Reply to: Re: God is a metaphor? posted by Laurence on October 31, 2000 at 02:40:37:
I think Feynman was correct. The lesson here was humility, not a put down.
I think that we mere humans should admit that when we have a discussion (heated or
otherwise) on *anything*, we probably don't know enough about the topic to
convincingly make our point, whether its a subjective or objective issue.
That shouldn't stop us from having the discussion, it should just give us
a different point of reference as to what we are engaged in during our
discussion: people with tunnel vision probing the elephant and telling what
we "see". None of the participants in such an exercise should take his/her
observations too seriously, because no one sees the whole clearly. If they
did, it would change from a discussion to a lecture, as Feynman said.
However, discussions can lead to the truth just as surely as a good lecture
can, so long as participants stay humble.