Bill's Notes

You know, it's been a really long time since I was convinced that the world is going to end unless people change some belief. I have to chalk this one up to my father — he pointed out, with saintly patience during my teenage years, that people have muddled through for the last 4000 years, and they're almost certainly going to do that for as long as the world lasts. Though he didn't phrase it this way, while the downside to people valuing results over theories is that they're not likely to have great theories, they're also not likely to succumb very badly to the bad theories.

I'm not phrasing it very well, but I was very lucky to have someone teach me early on that human nature trumps human philosophy almost always, and since human nature is basically good (if imperfect), this means that the world isn't bloodly likely to die next year because of any theory or lack of it.

Of course, everyone who does philosophy is perennially tempted to think that philosophy is the most important thing in existence, so bad philosophy will destroy the world. And indeed if you look at history, bad philosophy has resulted in a lot of suffering and human misery. But then so do lots of things, and people muddle through surprisingly well. I feel, often enough, what desperate shape the world is in. Thank God and my father, I don't often take these feelings too seriously.

It's probably a good thing that we don't live in a world where you can get away with burning heretics any more, or with the rather many strains of divergent, fervent and desperately important belief, quite a few of us would be roasted.