The Westboro Baptist Church has decided to pay Fredericksburg a visit. It seems as if Mary Washington College and the Dance & Theatre Department’s showing of The Laramie Project is the catalyst, but they will also be paying a visit to our local churches as well.
It seems as if the tactic that the WBC employs is to protest the play’s performance, then head off to the local “lukewarm” churches to provoke fights. If some well-intentioned but hapless parishioner confronts these guys, they immediately slap a lawsuit on the parishioner and ultimately win. The money awarded in the civil suit is then used to travel to other sites across the nation.
Better to give these guys all of the attention they deserve. And that is none.
In other news, Google’s alt.philosophy.kant UseNet group is in the process of discussing not my paper, but the implications of quantum physics and relativity theory have on Kantian epistemology. Concerning my paper, it seems as if there are four flaws than need to be addressed.
(1) Determinism and Kant. In the very beginning of the paper, I make the statement that Newtonian determinism underlies all of Kantian epistemology, and therefore incurs the same faults. It is a bold statement to make, and perhaps it emerges too early in the paper. The claim is discussed and defended in the paper, but the first sentence is a bit strong and causes a bit of controversy with entrenched Kantians. Additionally, there seems to be some denial that Kant was in fact responding to Newton and Leibniz concerning their concepts of space, a discussion which has a tremendous impact in one’s understanding of the Critique. The statement concerning Newtonian determinism could use a bit more shoring up, although I defend it entirely.
(2) More emphasis needs to be made of modern physicist dislike (and in Weinberg’s case, hatred) of Kantian epistemology and its effects on relativity theory and quantum mechanics. Einstein lamented over the continuing denial of the objectivity of space, a denial attributed to Descartes and Kant. That problem – it seems – is not resolved and needs to be clearly demonstrated in the paper.
(3) Citations. Specifically concerning Kant, there is a demand that citations conform not to the edition of the work, but to the original citations provided (e.g. A23, B37).
(4) CHI vs. MWI. This is a rather lengthy topic to discuss, but it relates to the consequences of showing how far-reaching the quantum world effects are on mundane events. If chaos theory is the answer (and I believe it to be so), then MWI is given a boost concerning the ghost world’s theory, although the consequences of MWI is that there is very little room for a notion of God if consciousnesses are continuously validating existence. If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? In MWI, it only makes a sound if you are there to observe it it seems. That’s a pitfall that should be avoided, but then again I haven’t really explored the CHI vs. MWI debate other than its superficial implications.
Unfortunately I am being stalked by one individual concerning Kant and quantum physics, and the discussion has carried over to the Yahoo Groups Kant-I board as well. Seems to be nothing more than a bombthrower, but his critique has been marginally helpful. It would still seem that – with one exception – the paper is generally well received by those who read it.