[lit-ideas] Re: Stphen Hawking: "I was wrong"
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 15:36:37 +0100 (BST)
--- JulieReneB@xxxxxxx wrote: > I read this article a couple days ago and
puzzled at some length over the
> "from which information can be recovered at will" phrase. I still don't
> get it.
> Show me an encyclopedia from which information cannot be recovered at will,
>
> please.
> <<An encyclopaedia of his
> choice "from which information can be recovered at will".>>
Allow me to offer a fresh conjecture, uncluttered by definite knowledge, but
rigorous from a legal perspective: Hawking is famously disabled and would
find it hard to use any encyclopedia that required manual effort and so
really wants one that is operated by "pure will" in some Kantian sense, this
having the advantage that if he won the bet he could put the rival Professor
to the task of producing such an encyclopedia for him, or in default show him
up as having credulously agreed to bet on the impossible; but if he loses he
can say the prize is forfeit as being a physical impossibility, and therefore
the bet is not capable of being honoured, and walk - or more precisely,
motorise at low-speed - himself away with a broad snicker on his famously
tilted face.
Donal
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