Table for One at the Philosophical Steak House

Well, what did you expect whist dining at a philosophical steak house? Lettuce? There are some things you just shouldn't ask me, or bring up whilst I'm anywhere in the vicinity. I'm sure Jodi would be happy to compile a list for you. Among them would be: "what's the chances of that happening?", "so, what are you studying again?" and "I just don't get evolution?". Something I'd like to share with you: for those of you who might worry about being rude to Mormons who tackle you at bus stops and the like: if you ever try to talk about your own existential dilemma's they are sure to bugger off quick smart (faster than if you told them to, outright). Rejected by Mormons and other religious nuts, it's a lonely life being someone who thinks too much.

I probably didn't make it clear in my previous blog, I'm not actually an atheist, even though I think evolution is a pretty powerful explaining tool. The truth is I'm all tangled up in the concept of "Truth". I was brought up a Christian, and although I have found it important to question such things, I still regard the pursuit of things spiritual as most important. I'm Agnostic, that is to say, I believe that nothing can be known of the existence of God. I believe that people who are blindly atheistic are, in many ways, as bad as religious fundamentalists. I'd like to share a satiric cartoon of the atheist by Jack Hamm. I'll let it speak for itself (Although, I will say that I think it makes my blog look smarter and also notice the absence of pants):


A story I'd like to relate: there was this one time I was reading a book about artificial intelligence on the train and these two girls asked me what I was reading. Happy to oblige, I recounted the entirety of the subject matter of PHIL101, "Mind and Machine", which I did during my first year, to them. Strutting my intellectual prowess, I talked of Searle's Chinese Room, The Turing Test and Descartes' Demon. After I'd finished bombarding them with this crap, I asked them if they thought it would ever be possible for a machine to think? One of the girls looked at me and said "Well, I think, there's so much space up there there is bound to be life somewhere out there..." Apparently, we'd started talking about extra-terrestrials. Now, I say that philosophising is like having a good tug. So, here I am, trying to strut my stuff, doing some weird philosopher mating ritual, and in actual fact all I'm doing is just jacking all over myself. I note that these rambling sessions are followed by a great feeling of elation, having got all this stuff off my chest, closely followed by a sharp pathetic feeling. A friend of mine recounted a joke by Daniel Kitson where he reflected on the elation of masturbation being followed by an awkward moment of clarity, where you realise that standing over the toilet bowl, pants around your ankles, is rather depressing.