One of the Basic Questions of Philosophy?

[PairTheBoard]

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"But say you know your chances are 5% and you believe that to be the best estimate. You might still Choose to believe that You are going to survive. In other words you say, I believe I'm going to be in that 5% category. I believe I'm going to beat the odds. I don't see that as deceiving yourself as to the truth. You accept the truth of the situation but you Choose Optimism."

Although I am not sure you can "believe" you will be one of the survivors, if you simultaneously "know" that your chances are 5%, I'd like to point out that a similar attitude toward specific religious beliefs would not arouse my ire. I also think most religious people actually have such an attitude. But they won't admit it.

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You've never worked in Sales have you David?

PairTheBoard

[PairTheBoard]

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What about the debate over whether to spend fifty billion to build a super collider that would tell us secrets about subatomic particles that can't conceivably help us for many generations at the least? Is kmowing those secrets an end in itself?

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Yes, it is an end in itself. Is it worth $50 billion? What do you think? There's a lot of ends the money could be spent on, some of them just ends in themselves. Why so much on that particular one? Would it be worth doing if it could be done for $50? Maybe 20 years from now it could be done for $1 billion. What does any of this have to do with philosophy?

PairTheBoard

[David Sklansky]

"Yes, it is an end in itself."

That's the answer to the original question then because that end will sometimes have a greater value than the upside of ignorance, whatever that upside might happen to be.

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
"Yes, it is an end in itself."

That's the answer to the original question then because that end will sometimes have a greater value than the upside of ignorance, whatever that upside might happen to be.

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And you complain about me being vauge.

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