Predicting the present, and the "end of philosophy"

Interesting article here: Predicting the Present with Google Trends

Seems that thus far nothing new has happened with things Internet: it still takes human beings, not computers, to get beyond merely temporal and mathematical events, and to actually think and reason.

But David Brooks, just this morning, gleefully joined the non-thinkers: The End of Philosophy

In an article almost completely absent of serious thought, he utters these words:

Socrates talked. The assumption behind his approach to philosophy, and the approaches of millions of people since, is that moral thinking is mostly a matter of reason and deliberation: Think through moral problems. Find a just principle. Apply it.

....Today, many psychologists, cognitive scientists and even philosophers embrace a different view of morality. In this view, moral thinking is more like aesthetics. As we look around the world, we are constantly evaluating what we see. Seeing and evaluating are not two separate processes. They are linked and basically simultaneous.

Wow! If ever there were an excuse for immorality, this for sure is it. Screw reason and deliberation. Have no standards. The present is the future. What we see and think -and that which matters - is only a function of our immediate environment. And it's really comforting that Mr Brooks looks to psychologists and cognitive scientists for inspiration. Two of the least human professional occupations on earth.

This is Brooks at his most Republican (US definition = desperate). He's looking for straws, however few, to support some sort of willful denial of reality, and to replace it with the notion that 'emotions' (whatever they are) are central to morality. This is almost as horrible as 'thinking' can get....

I'll take Socrates any day.