I don't think so, David. The (Level-3) point that Reed is making is that skeptics are blind to their own faith. Faith, as he says, in the knowability of the universe. Faith in inductive reasoning. Faith that pursuit of the truth does not conflict with the pursuit of happiness. So many times we act as if we would rather be right than happy.
I have described the levels in this forum several times; please search the archives for more information. Briefly, Level 1 is instinctive, animalistic behavior. Level 2 is educated, thoughtful behavior in accordance with a good, workable model of the world. Level 3 is the simultaneous grasp of multiple models, flexing your memespace on the fly to point you in direction with your life purpose.
Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/
Author, "Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme"
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/votm.htm
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-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
Of David McFadzean
Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 1999 8:55 AM
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: Re: virus: Scientists and Philosophers
At 11:22 AM 2/9/99 -0500, Reed Konsler wrote:
>I agree. One of the reasons that scientists ignore philosophers is
>that scientists are often made to feel like criminals violating some
>grand rules of "the Method". Experimentalists, especially, get
>uptight becuase they recognize intuitively that what they are doing
>is a social and faith based exercise.
I think I would be inclined to agree if you explain what you mean
by "faith" in this context. My feeling is that it differs from
the use of "faith" in a religious context in kind or in degree
or perhaps both kind and degree. I hope you can see that the fact
that the same word is being used in both cases is bound to cause a
(probably unnecessary) memetic immune reaction in people infected
with <skepticism>.
--
David McFadzean david@lucifer.com
Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/
Church of Virus http://www.lucifer.com/virus/