Posted on 10/19/2013 2:08:00 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
In the summer of 2012, a number of philosophers at British and American universities received a bulky, unmarked package in the post. It contained a 560-page book, written in English but with the Latin title Summa Metaphysica, by an amateur whose name they didn't recognise: David Birnbaum. It isn't unusual for philosophy departments to get mail from cranks, convinced they have solved the riddle of existence, but they usually send stapled print-outs, or handwritten letters; Summa Metaphysica stood out "for its size and its glossiness", says Tim Crane, a professor of philosophy at Cambridge. The book was professionally typeset. It even included endorsements from Claude Lévi-Strauss, the legendary French anthropologist, who described it as "remarkable and profound", and from the Princeton physicist John Wheeler, who once collaborated with Einstein. It would later transpire that 40,000 copies were in circulation, a print run any academic philosopher might kill for. The book claimed to have sliced through countless fundamental problems in philosophy, physics and theology, and there on the spine, where the publisher's name appears, was one deeply reassuring word: "Harvard".
Then the story grew stranger. In May this year, the US-based Chronicle of Higher Education reported that prominent scholars scientists, philosophers and theologians had been persuaded to attend an expenses-paid "international academic conference" at Bard College, a respected institution in upstate New York, devoted to Birnbaum's work.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Amen.
1Co 1:18-25 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For it is written, “I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE.”
Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom;
but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NAS)
Just let us know where those of like mind should assemble
I thought it was 42.....
Cloister the Stupid
I’ve forgotten, what color were the hats ?
HOLLY: “`Yea, even individual sachets of mustard. And those who serve shall have hats of great majesty, yea, though they be made of coloured cardboard and have humorous arrows through the top.’”
LISTER: Does it say what happened to the rest of the Cats?
HOLLY: Holy wars. There were thousands of years of fighting, Dave, between the two factions.
LISTER: What two factions?
HOLLY: Well, the ones who believed the hats should be red, and the ones who believed the hats should be blue.
LISTER: Do you mean they had a war over whether the doughnut diner hats were red or blue?
HOLLY: Yeah. Most of them were killed fighting about that. It’s daft really, innit?
LISTER: You’re not kidding. They were supposed to be green.
Has David Birnbaum solved the mystery of existence?
In a word? NO.
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