Massimo Watch 03.18.10

Massimo Creates Fluffy Thinking.

Thinking that is both uncritical and not subject to empirical testing is “fluffy” in Massimo-speak.

As I am wont to point out, “uncritical” is left undefined here as in most Atheist presumptions, but it can be taken to mean “non-materialist” in the admittedly materialist room which Massimo inhabits. Materialism eliminates a large portion of what many people consider reality. For the Materialist, any non-physical claims to reality do not make sense, because these have been declared non-existent – declared as by fiat, not by any rational or empirical confirmation. Because the Materialist can't make sense of such claims, those claims are declared "fluffy". They are therefore, irrational, incomprehensible, and unworthy of consideration. Only Materialist, empirical concepts are worthy.

Massimo is definitely in this state of mind. He declares at one point,

” …since god is a human made construct, and therefore it is rather silly to ask what he was doing “before.”

Somewhere along the line Massimo proved conclusively that there is no god, that god is a human construct, and the door is closed on that subject. Any such discussion, then is ‘”fluffy thinking”, since it is outside the closed door, out in the intellectual cold. This constitutes “critical thinking” in the Atheist camp: shut the door, deny any rationality outside the small room one has made for oneself.

So the statements that Massimo decries are actually trivial nonsense in his mind. The deep, deep question that Massimo et al. will tackle on their podcast is,

”…the much more difficult issue of why it is that smart individuals, who make their living thinking and writing about science and philosophy, are attracted by fluffy thinking. And moreover, why is it that this sort of thing appeals to so many listeners and readers on the grounds that it seems to strike a “balance” between obvious bunk and “cold” reason?”

No presupposition there, right? Except of course the massive, inescapable Atheist Truth that is Philosophical Materialism, having previously been declared as the limit to all reality. Having also declared all non-Materialist thought as “fluffy”, Massimo takes himself out of the philosopher category and nails himself into the mental coffin of dogmatic Materialism. He has spoken; it is so.

Materialism is so unworthy of someone pretending to philosophy. Materialism boils down to almost nothing: mass. Presently tickled with a little energy, but ultimately cooling to just … mass. Presumably all mental regurgitations are just mass, tickled with a little energy. What is the value of such a thing? It has no value of course, in Massimo’s ghastly empty universe. If there could be anything else, it is denied by declaration, defined away, shut out: again, denied value by fiat.

Undoubtedly Massimo considers his own mental regurgitations to have value. How he might value them is unknown, at least to me. But it would be interesting to see his valuation scale and how he values that which can have no value on a Materialist scale. Perhaps he thinks of short term vs. long term; long term: no value. Short term, humans must listen to him: because long term there is no value within his reality. His value is to convince the race of that. And that is a high value, right? It’s the high value of a “public intellectual”.

But this is probably fluffy thinking. So I’ll quit here.