AUstralian Philosophers

Great fun !....but second in my opinion to the Summarize Proust Competition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwAOc4g3K-g

he must have been let down a bit on the hobbies, golf's not very popular around here

one of my favourite lines from the pythons

actually I studied Philosophy at the University of Sydney in the late 70's under a couple of well-known Aussie philosophers, chief amongst them the late David Stove, whom I grew to like and respect. He was an acerbic critic of what he regarded as idealist nonsense (which was interesting, as basically my position is very much like vijnavada Buddhism). He had a lot of admiration for Hume, but he was also critical of him also. I recently got his last work out of the library, Darwinian Fairytales, which is a collection of critical essays about...well, that is fairly clear from the title. But he wants no part of ID or anything religious, which makes his critique all the more compelling, in my view.

Anyway, RIP David Stove.

Interesting. I may well have to look at that.

You can study stamp collecting at Uni now ???

yeah that is what I thought I was enrolling in but all they did was sit around and talk....never did really get why....

I often wonder what careers people head into after Uni...Aircraft Engineers tend to design model aircraft (static and flying), dinosaurs and special effects. What careers do Philisdodgical people get into ?

well, good question. I am now a senior technical writer. Actually philosophy is directly relevant to that occupation. It is very good for abstract problem solving and analytical skills. But I was always drawn to philosophy for intellectual and spiritual reasons. It was not a very useful degree and I didn't do it for practical reasons (actually majored in Comparative Religion which is even less useful but, to me, more interesting than philosophy per se.)

I have a strong interest in the religions of the desert...Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The religion I probably go closest to in my day to day life would be Buddhism, although only the middle of the road parts . I have a deep interest in string theory...does your technical writing take you to those areas ?

Well as I said I studied Comparative Religion. I practice Buddhist meditation, and am generally what is called 'spiritual not religious'. I have become much more interested in spirituality as I get older. I read some popular science, Brian Greene, Paul Davies, that kind of thing. I am kind of interested in physics but I think it seriously has a bad case of not being able to see the wood for the trees. But none of it has any bearing on tech writing; it is more like an escape from tech writing. (Tech writing is a great occupation but by no stretch is it exciting:-)

Australia is culturally different to the US in religious outlook too. It is much more secular without a very strong religious lobby. There are still evangelicals on one side and evang-atheists on the other, but they are fewer in number and not as prominent as they are in the States.

Thats a pity about your opinion on science because it needs philosophers more now than ever. The energies will not be available to continue much further in physics and the maths need interpretating...like you hinted, the wood needs to be described from what we know of the trees, and the scientists are only interested in one tree at a time.

I should state that a different way. I think there are very brilliant scientists who have real vision and great insight. The first generation of physicists in the modern era (Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Pauli, Planck etc) were both scientifically brilliant and philosophically acute; and there is no need for conflict between the disciplines. But I have no time for scientific materialism of the likes of Dawkins, Dennett, Wilson, etc.

I worry about people like Dawkins...what is wrong with him that he cant tolerate religion ? Is his knowledge of psychology so limited that he has no compassion ? I hope he gets mudered by an aethist and finds out if there really is a life after death.

also I really like the science writing of Paul Davies. I don't know if you are familiar with him. He is a top-notch science writer in my view, but he does not have an ideological ax to grind in regard to relation of science and religion (unlike the aforementioned).

I started out in online forums after The God Delusion came out. I registered on the Dawkins forum. But at the time I was overly emotional about it. I am not a conventional religious believer but I really dislike this evangelical atheism - it has many of the bad points of fundamentalism and none of the good points of spirituality.

Hmm, this brings up a good point.

If I were to go shopping for a philosopher, to contract out some heavy thinking on my behalf, where would be the best places to look first?

I'm thinking not Wal-Mart on a Saturday? Or not?

I have read all his books. I can see them on my shelves as I write. Did you catch the shows he did for ABC where he was interviewed in the desert ? I particularly like his discussions on the likelihood of life occurring.
This forum has a lot of bullies who try to pick on religious people. I enjoy taking the religious side to show these fools just how little they know about science and God. I am ex-religious, but cant understand why science and religion can not harmonise more...

my general thesis is that we have all been dreadfully scarred by European religious authoritarianism, and we don't understand it, so it is repressed in the collective psyche. That is why it causes all these boilovers. Becoming liberated from Western religion without falling into antitheism, is, I believe, the challenge of the age.

I didn't see those interviews. But I have just finished Davies' Goldilocks Enigma for the first time (published elsewhere under a different title, I think.) Will need to read it again, but it is pretty far out. The conclusion, or should I say, main speculation, is mind-boggling. The thing which strikes me is that many of these modern speculative cosmologies are actually a lot more fanciful in than their traditional counterparts, even though the traditional models have been shown to be factually incorrect (and I have no doubt they are, I am not being starry-eyed about it. Although Hindu cosmology is another story, again.) Anyway I have now taken the Anthropic Cosmological Principle out of the library and am going through that; I don't understand any of the math, but the historical and philosophical content I have no trouble with at all.

I dont have that one...when did it come out ? Why wasnt I told ? Heads will role....
If anyone wants to know what a Godless society is like, look at the Romans and Greeks...that is civilisation without religion. The barbarians had more civilised societies.
Can you give me a quick 5 on what that is ?

Look for beards. Philosphers have a long tradition dating back thousands of years of wearing beards. It seems they are too busy thinking to shave.