so, let's build this up one story at a time...
- darwinian poolroom: i think asimov is presenting the contradiction of god creating us to destroy ourselves as a sardonic joke directed at creationists, but asimov was a classicist, and he would have realized that the gods of the greeks and romans (not to mention the jews...) were indeed sadistic enough to take pleasure in that kind of wanton destruction. only christians of the augistinian variety, who insisted god reveals himself through natural law, would have seen a contradiction in that. in the various western indo-european pantheons, it is only the interference of other gods that save us from the trouble making gods (whereas the hebrew/persian conception of darkness is as interfering in our lives, and leaves us with the individual responsibility to reject it), who are intent on destroying us as an act of recreational amusement. so, beyond the sardonic joke, the discussion is ultimately arbitrary, both in how it defines god (there's no reason to assign god any specific characteristics, or to assume god is rational, or to assume god is just or ...) and how it discusses evolution in such an empty, unfalsifiable manner. i can't really offer a critique of the idea of god setting things in motion, other than that it's utterly untestable speculation, through and through, and that it doesn't conform well to the randomness that is inherent in how we understand the world (there is a concept of probability assigned to how those billiard balls behave, in truth). for these reasons, i don't think that the existence or non-existence of god can be deduced implicitly in this manner, and you're not really getting anywhere in analyzing hypotheticals, or arranging them in a hierarchy of arbitrarily perceived likeliness. rather, i think you just need to start with a null hypothesis and determine if you can generate enough positive evidence to reject atheism, or not. but, asimov isn't doing any of this, really - all he's actually doing is building up a punchline, which is something he does frequently in his mid to later period, with varying but usually unsatisfactory results. so, i mean, enjoy the dialogue if you want, but i don't see much of anything substantive in it. and, i actually don't think the idea of a god creating us to destroy ourselves is any sort of contradiction at all, even if i think it's utterly unnecessary hubris.
god could very well be the most hysterical, flaky goof you've ever met, and there doesn't need to be any discernible reason why she does what she does at all.
i mean, i know that's not the hebrew god.
but, if we're to accept a first principle of a god (you know i'm not going with you on that, but suppose i did), there's no really good reason to assign any specific qualities to that god, as axioms, at all. you'd really have to try to determine the nature of that god by looking at it's actions. and, i think there's a pretty strong argument, based on the observation of empirical evidence, that any potential god out there isn't rational and isn't just and isn't even really very wise, either.
the empirical evidence would seem to suggest that if a god exists then she's kind of a stuck up, airheaded bitch.
so, where do you get in trying to work out the logical justifications for evolution in a creationist sense, if the idea of god being rational is empirically daft?
it's circular logic - if you assume god exists and is rational, then you can deduce virtually anything you want from it, given that there is some concept of logic in everything in nature.
but, that doesn't make the discourse valuable, it makes it useless - it's untestable. it's just mental masturbation.
but, like i say, that's not what asimov is doing; he's just starting with the perceived absurdity of divine creation juxtaposed with anthropomorphic self-destruction, and presenting the contradiction as comedic. and, i'm not going with him on that, because i really don't see the absurdity in it, because i don't accept the assumptions underlying his concept of god.
- day of the hunters: this is similar to the above story, but dispenses with the metaphysical nonsense; rather than discuss whether god might have created us to destroy ourselves, and decide whether that is absurd or not, asimov is presenting a fantastical story about the end of the dinosaurs as a parable of what might happen to us. i'm not sure i see the value in such a thing, given the scale of imminent destruction ahead of us due to climate change or nuclear war; that is, i don't see why a parable is necessary to get the point across, or see how it helps. i mean, he might as well be talking about noah's ark, right? the reality in front of us should be more convincing than some silly story about dinosaurs (or floods). but, i guess asimov felt the need to talk down to his readers a little, rather than discuss the actual matters at hand. and, i guess he's fundamentally correct - it is almost impossible to guess at dinosaur intelligence via the fossil record, although i think the intelligence of birds (or lack thereof) is some evidence that they probably were not particularly bright, in general. as an aside, i have to wonder if this influenced the flintstones.
- shah guidio g: asimov starts with a good idea with this - a projection of the united nations as evolving into a global feudal ruling class that should not be smeared as birchian as it is before it and, as an application of the class replacement component of historical materialism, is the literal opposite of it, hayekian language aside - and then gets so excited that he can't decide which mechanism to use. his atlantis (name taken from plato) is a cross between jonathan swift's laputa and the flying fortresses of sanskrit mythology, but seems to feature a circus rather similar to the hippodrome of constantinople. it's all built up on top of itself in a sort of clumsy mess, suggesting asimov got so excited by his idea that he couldn't form it well. and, then it ends with little point, beside the assertion of another punchline. but, what he's fundamentally exploring here is historical materialism - he has one class of people replace another as dominant, when the dominant class tries to enforce a division of labour. further, he explains that this is a historical process, by referring to various examples of it happening in the past.
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listen, you know i'm a complete atheist. i have as little patience for religion as anybody else that has ever lived.
but, i think the greek concept of multiple gods fighting for control is a much better reflection of reality than the hebrew concept of this omnipotent entity that is pure logic and wants to get in your head and own you. while both religions are obviously ridiculous, it is the greek religion that has a stronger empirical basis and that i'm far more likely to take seriously.
so, no, i don't think it's obvious that a god ought to be rational, and i don't think it's axiomatic that there ought to only be one of them, if there are to be any at all. and, when i break from these axioms, i really change the discourse.
but, i think you have the burden of proof to tell me why i should take monotheism more seriously than polytheism, or why your conception of god as rational is more believable than some other conception of god as irrational, or arbitrarily driven by emotion. we don't have a centralized theological bureaucracy that enforces this kind of bullshit at the end of a sword, anymore. you have to make your argument if you want to be taken seriously, as none of it is at all obvious.
and, i think this is healthy, because if we're to return to some form of religion, we should be questioning whether the jewish or greek systems are actually really preferable. the bottom line is that we may actually succeed in getting people to behave more ethically if we adopt greek religious ideas in place of jewish ones, as they conform more closely to empirical reality.
regardless, you have to make your case - i won't accept your axioms. they're just simply not obvious.
- button, button: this was supposedly an attempt by asimov at explicit humour, as though his texts weren't all full of dry wit and bad puns. while i actually think that many of his other texts are more humourous, asimov's clarification that he's going for humour here is really an admission that the text has no point.
- monkey's finger: see previous, although also note that this one is fairly self-referential, right down to the infinite monkey theorem.
- everest: the unknown is a powerful arbiter of the imagination. at the time, we did not know what was on everest - as we did not (and still do not) know what's in the deepest parts of the ocean, or what was on the dark side of the moon. we could always guess, but you don't know until you can measure it. so, why couldn't there by something bizarre at the top of everest - martians, yeti, or even just a new species of ungulates? as asimov points out in his notes, we have now scaled everest and now know what's there. but, never forget that the point of this genre is to scale the unknown mentally, before we can actually observe.
- the pause: pointless nonsense.
- lets not: pointless nonsense
- each an explorer: interesting premise, but not much of a point. it's an idea that he also explored in green patches.
- blank: if they truly found themselves stuck in time, they would not be able to move, either. utter nonsense.
- does a bee care: well, a bee or a wasp couldn't care because it doesn't truly have a brain, it's simply a dumb terminal that is controlled by chemical stimuli. does this entity have a brain? you'd have to dissect it, i guess. he's making a valid observation in some sense, but if i'm getting the underlying implication that humans are in some ways like bees, i think he's failing to grasp the difference in biological complexity between a mammal (which has a brain that independently processes the world around it) and an insect (which does not), which is the mistake that collectivism/fascism is rooted within, this idea that we're all components of a larger body that needs to work together, like a machine. that's just not right - humans, by means of their independent processing facilities, are just simply biologically not much like bees and consequently can never be much like bees, whether a managerial class wishes it were true, or not. robots, on the other hand....
- silly asses: if the idea is an attempt at morality, suggesting it would be better to conduct nuclear research on somebody else's planet is a strange idea of morality.
- buy jupiter: pointless nonsense
- a statue for father: pointless nonsense
- rain, rain go away: pointless nonsense
- founding father: earth's early atmosphere is thought to have been full of ammonia, and that's no doubt where he's going with this story about humans crashing on the planet of an oxygenless atmosphere and being unable to remove the ammonia, yet succeeding in the process at the point of death.
- exile to hell: this is again merely an ironic twist hidden in a very short narrative. but, these places of exile tend to do fairly well, and i wouldn't mind being exiled from capitalism, myself - i'd consider that a way out, as many of the british (and scottish) in truth felt about australia.
- key item: it seems that, later on, and to my surprise. asimov wrote several silly stories about multivac taking on human characteristics, which mirrors his narrative about the humanization of robots. this story has no purpose at all, besides to demonstrate the strange human behaviour of being polite to a machine. and, i guess i should ask, because i'd never talk to a computer, myself - do you ask alexa poltely, and thank her when she gives you the answer?
- the proper study: this is an interesting introduction, but there is no story here.
- 2430 ad / the greatest asset: these are two different takes on the idea of humans completely eliminating all biodiversity on the planet, to the point where we're the only non-domesticated lifeform. in some sense, this would have to be unavoidable, unless we reach some kind of natural cyclic carrying capacity (it would need to be the result of increased viral activity, which makes sense in the context of exploding population growth), but it nonetheless strikes me as incomprehensible. something would go wrong, or we wouldn't let it happen. but, it is nonetheless an interesting exercise in contemplating the inevitable consequences of the unsustainability of infinite growth, which we're going to have to get a grasp of, eventually.
- take a match - pointless nonsense
- thiotimoline to the stars: pointless nonsense
