Tuesday 17 September 2019

The self-refuting paradox of materialism - a 4 minute comic vid


An amusing and virtuoso bit of philosophy from the animator and author of the Brief Outlines vlog (dedicated to expounding Owen Barfield) is a video about the sad fate of a materialist philosopher called Zarathustra (with a luxuriant moustache suspiciously reminiscent of Nietzsche!).

It also forms a preliminary to Rudolf Steiner's (excellent) PhD thesis Truth and Knowledge.

3 comments:

Stephen Macdonald said...

Wonderful, Bruce! So handy to share with my many family and friends who remain immersed in the default scientistic world view, yet remain somewhat amenable to such clear and concise refutations.

Also: not only the mustache, but also the clever reference to The Parable of the Madman.

Michael Dyer said...

Poor little mustache fella...

Just as a related aside, I’ve often wondered why it is supposed that life would want to continue or reproduce itself at all. Why the impulse to life, especially in tiny organisms that can’t even feel pain?

Bruce Charlton said...

@MD - My understanding of Life is that beings are eternal and indestrctible - although tiny organisms may be parts of Beings, not whole ones. There isn't really an impulse for life; rather Beings are intrinsically self-regenerating - in various ways. I think the rapid reproduction of parts of Beings is mainly about overcoming 'entropy' under mortal earthly conditions, where it is impossible to maintain form, so forms need replacing.