Upon hearing an Eric Clapton guitar solo

[fpb]

At times like this, I really do feel sorry for atheists. One has to be grateful for artistry so miraculous, but they have nobody to be grateful to. (And don't give me any crap about "the human spirit" - that is what we owe the Murdoch press and robotic dance noise to.)

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Clapton's work is not different from the work of the average untalented person, and the gratitude they deserve for working is the same in both cases. But the averate untalented person has not done, and is not likely to do, anything comparable to what Eric Clapton consistently does. You seem to me wholly incapable of seizing on this obvious difference. It is not even to do with success - David Olney, a greater musician even than Clapton, is almost unknown - but simply with unique, inborn, inexplicable genius. And you do not explain it with mathematics, because genius is not the top end of intelligence. There have been plenty of stupid geniuses (including a man who worked with mathematics, Niels Bohr). Genius simply is untypical, random, a thing apart. And that is what it has in common with existence itself. The fact that you exist is wholly random, and it separates you from a million million hypothetical other people and things that have never existed and never will. When people complain about life, one has to ask: "as compared to what?" There is no term of comparison. Non-existence is simply nothing; by definition, it does not exist. Existence itself is the highest term of comparison for everything that is random, unexpected, wonderful, and not to be explained away.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Genius simply is untypical, random, a thing apart.

I compiled a short list of things that fit this definition from the top of my head: 10 consecutive coin tosses that all came "heads" up; conjoined twins; the Bosavi giant woolly rat; the parrot that humped Fry's zoologist's head; Williams syndrome; Cor Triatriatum.

Would you wish to indicate to me for which of these one is ought to be grateful to the Creator, and to what extent in each case?

When people complain about life, one has to ask: "as compared to what?"

The sheer irrelevance of this observation notwithstanding, I will answer: "as compared to better life." Human unhappiness has much to do with the ability of the mind to imagine better possible scenarios and compare the present state to them.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You are incapable of philosophy.