Scott Adams
Philosophical fiction from Scott Adams, the guy behind Dilbert. Real good stuff, and available for free.
I can’t really pull together any coherent thoughts right now, so here’s a dump of quotes.
A belief in god would demand one hundred obsessive devotion, influencing every waking moment of this brief life on earth. But your four billion so-called believers do not live their lives in this fashion, except for a few. The majority believe in the usefulness of their beliefs – an earthly and practical utility – but they do not believe in the underlying reality. 28
The best any human can do is to pick a delusion that helps to get him through the day. This is why people of different religions can generally live in peace. At some level, we all suspect that other people don’t believe their own religion any more then we believe ours. 29
The human brain is a delusion generator. The delusions are fueled by arrogance – the arrogance that humans are the center of the world, that we alone are endowed with the magical properties of souls and morality and free will and love. We assume that an omnipotent God has a unique interest in our progress and activities while providing all the rest of creation for our playground. We believe that god – because he thinks the same way we do – must be more interested in our lives then in the rocks and trees and plants and animals. 34
Eventually everything that is known by one person will be available to all. A decision can be made by the collective mind of humanity and instantly communicated to the body of society. 65
You can change only what people know, not what they do. 107
Conversation is more than the sum of the words. It is also a way of signaling the importance of another person by showing your willingness to give that person your rarest resource: time. It is a way of conveying respect. Conversation reminds us we are part of a greater whole, connected in some way that transcends duty or bloodline or commerce. Conversation can be many things, but it can never be useless. 114
Awareness is about unlearning. It is the recognition that you don’t know as much as you thought you knew. 124
The fifth level of awareness is the Avatar. The Avatar understands the mind is an illusion generator, not a window to reality. The avatar recognizes science as a belief system, albeit a useful one. An Avatar recognizes gods power as expressed in probability and the inevitable recombination of God’s consciousness. 137
Your shadow is not a physical thing; it is an impression, a perception, left by a physical things. It is a boundary, not an object. 88
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