[Link] Scott Adam’s “God’s Debris”
God’s Debris is for people who “enjoy having their brain spun around in their skulls.” I think I can safely assume that this descriptive of a larger proportion of LessWrongians than the average population.
Without going too far into depth, I will say that it is one of the more enjoyable reads I’ve had lately, the philosophy the main character espouses is coherent and astoundingly seductive in it’s simplicity - even as it requires you to tilt your head and squint a little to see it.
I read this book seven years ago, and I have vague memory that Adams was purposefully controversial rather than truth-seeking and, while maybe not out-and-out wrong, relies on misleading connotations to make his point. Based on my memory alone, I would downvote this. I’m curious well this memory holds up, so I’m holding off judgment for the moment while I skim it.
ETA: Wow, that was absolutely horrible. Meant as “serious philosophy” or not, that really failed. Perhaps for someone with no exposure to philosophy, it might useful to nudge them towards getting them to “think.” Seems about as likely to be actively harmful, though. Adams is on the edge of clearing up some confusions, but then falls into worse ones himself.
Some gems:
It’s a home-made philosophy and cosmology. It may be “thought-provoking”, but by the end I was annoyed at having wasted my time on it and I predict others here would be too.
I’m honestly sorry that you feel that way and for your lost time.
You think?
It’s not meant to be “serious philosophy”. He’s not presenting the ideas in the book as being literally true, he’s just provoking the reader to look at the issues in the book in a different light. Forcing the reader to consider alternative hypotheses, if you will.
Except it’s a serious case of privileging the hypothesis. Pulling bullshit out of thin air != considering alternative hypotheses.
This seems like the holy book of the church of the mind projection fallacy
I recall this being mind-blowing when I was 16. I expect it to be less mind-blowing now, not so much because I’m older, but because I think each person only has so many times they can get their mind blown.
I think it was valuable to me at the time, less valuable to me having had my mind-subsequently blown by the Sequences, which are more coherent and with greater sense of purpose behind them.
Yeah this was super awesome in the seventh grade. Not so impressive these days.
Worth noting that my dad also thought it was pretty awesome (lending credence to that “how many times has your mind been blown and to what extent” metric of awesomeness, rather than “how old were you.”
One of the day’s lucky 10,000 I guess.
Given the almost universally negative response and the given quote it’s probably better to reduce easy access to the text.
Thank you all for your responses.
I read that a long while ago and thought it was very profound.
I read it recently and was appalled at my former self for falling for such gibberish.
The best I can say of God’s Debris is that Adams is at least asking the right questions. Unfortunately the book is too ready to offer its own completely bogus, hypothesis-privileging answers.
EDIT: On rereading my comment I feel that I haven’t emphasised the awfulness of God’s Debris enough. It’s probably actively harmful to read it.
It had too many factual inaccuracies used as analogies. I became too frustrated with being unable to correct the voice of the author and stopped reading it.
Many parts of it are charming. I’m not sure the book will be all that interesting to someone who has a settled impression of God, though.
[Edit] Another gem: