SAL RESTIVO'S BLOG: THE SOCIOLOGICAL COGITO

  BIG BRAINS GO BUST: HOW EXISTENCE MAKES SMART PEOPLE DUMB   The ultimate question, philosophers tell us, can be posed in two ways: Why is there anything at all? Why is there “something” rather than “nothing?”   Apparently some people think that if you string a bunch of words together and put a question mark at the end you have constructed a question. Not so fast. Here is a good example of why thinking should have stop signs. Already deluded by Mormonism, Jim Holt drives his delusion further by tackling a non-question. Something can come out of nothing in a specific quantum mechanical sense, but sometimes - notably in human discourse - nothing can come out of nothing. I don't mean to be rude, but surely you're joking Mr. Holt, and Mr. TED!!   https://lnkd.in/gpyn2Hb8 Don’t let it be said that those know-it-all physicists could ever turn their backs on the Big Questions of life, the universe, and everything.   So of course they have answers...

  Over the course of my career I've come up with a number of innovative concepts.  For example, I identified two phobias: subanimaphobia is the fear that there is a life after death.  Subsubanimaphobia is the fear that there is a life after death and it's just like the life you're living now forever.   The Recurrence Theorem helps explain the ease or difficulty we experience when traveling from one place to another locally, regionally, or internationally.  Each arena of behavior has a recurrence index which tells how similar or different it is from other arenas.  Basically, we are able to go from room to room, home to street, school, or work, and travel locally, regionally, and internationally because the structures we encounter tend to be roughly at least identifiable, accessible, and not obstructions to our actions.   Buildings, entrances and exits (doors), windows, stairs, escalators, elevators, stores, hospitals, public transportation, st...