There’s an interesting passage of Julian Jaynes-ish speculation near the end.
In the Bible, God does not talk counterfactually, only man talks counterfactually. God asks Adam, in the Garden of Eden, “Did you eat from the tree that I told you not to eat from?” He did not ask for why did you do it. He asked for the facts. It’s only later—Abraham was the first person in the Bible who talks counterfactually, when he comes to God and says “You are going to destroy the city of Sodom and Gomorrah? Are you are going to wipe out the righteous together with the wicked? You can’t do that! What if there were fifty righteous people in the city?”. So here is the first time that the Bible has used the counterfactual.
What if there were fifty righteous people in the city? Now, this is a dilemma. What is Abraham trying to ask God? Whether he can count properly? He doubts God’s ability to distinguish between the wicked and the righteous or he doubts God’s ability to count people? No, I think the idea is that Abraham was after a generic rule: when would a city be destroyed despite the fact that it has X number of righteous people. This generic rule is the rule of collective punishment, which is applicable not only to the particular city under consideration but to every other city, to every other community. So in this way, Abraham was the first scientist. (1:31:15)
This could definitely use transcription.
There’s an interesting passage of Julian Jaynes-ish speculation near the end.
I paid for a transcription by CastingWords. It is now available at http://www.stephenibaraki.com/interviews_general/v0412/judea_pearl_interview_text.pdf . Sorry, that it took me so long.
Great, thank you!
Note: I always use CastingWords for affordable transcription. (The cool thing about money is that it’s fungible.)
Is a transcript of this something the SI would find worth while to pay for?
No, I don’t think so.