Catch My Fire

1·7·09
So if time were moving backwards, how would you know?

I've got a story idea, inspired by this comic. First I was thinking, imagine that there were time travelers, and they did kill Hitler-like figures, but every time they kill one, they fast forward back to the future they came from, and history appears even worse. Eventually they gave up, out of concern of making things worse. What a great explanation for Hitler! But that gave me a better idea. Imagine they kept coming back and trying to improve the world, but there was always one more big problem. And eventually, out of shear luck, the problem became so big, and influential, that finally, it influenced the likelihood of time travel existing in it's future so much that it finally didn't!

Wait, could seemingly defective, recessive genes, be more beneficial than we suspect, adding to the reason that genetics continues to keep them around? Like, is there a benefit to weak genes in certain environmental changes? I think so.

Is the idea of 'guided' or 'forced' evolution viable? My idea is, select a species that is similar to what you would like to combat/create/whatever. The greater the species' rate of variation, the better, so bacteria would usually be decent candidates. (Rate of variation that is dependent on at least rate of reproduction, mutation rate, hermaphroditic sexual characteristics, and similar.) By increasing the aspect you want to develop (say, resistance to, or dependence on some environmental character), you can kill off the weaker individuals and promote evolution towards your goal. I believe this could really benefit the drug industry enormously. I imagine combating the drug resistant drugs by developing drugs in bugs that we force to do something detrimental to the bug that is now resistant.

Circumvented intellect.

Reading the negative reviews of Religulous makes me want to create a sequel, or followup, where we collect together all the criticism pertaining to cheap tricks, and poor interviews and poor interviewees, and we methodically follow them to conclusion. I so confidently think that they will still look stupid, that there are no good answers to Bill's questions, that the whole of the religious industry is very transparent bologna.


1·10·09
Chemical constraints

"I am insane, and you are my insanity."
"Is this real or is this just one of my delusions?" "This is definitely real."

I just realized, the paradox of the heap is really about emergent phenomena that are found in the limit of great numbers. At what point is it a pile is the same as at what point does it behave classically.
Also, it seems that consciousness as an emergent phenomena fits well with the paradox of the heap, and also those paradoxes involving the greek ship and the rich man paying the poor man.


1·11·09
"Either can't leave or can't stay."

Bee, at Backre(action) said "And that brings me to why, in its current form, religion will continue to dominate over science. Because scientists don’t have traditions, because science is all about competition and not about belonging, because you are not accepted simply by declaring your willingness of being part, because we don’t take care of our group members, because we offer no advice in hard times and no guidance for those in trouble. Because the scientific enterprise as it is today does not take care of these most human needs. And as long as we don’t make the scientific enterprise a more welcoming place, people will continue instead to turn to religion for comfort and a place of belonging."

"It's all gravy in the navy"

Isn't it strange that on a macroscopic level, perpetual motion is (rationally) impossible, but on an atomic scale, matter and energy are required to move perpetually? Nothing can stand still, and even the concept of 'standing still' will dissolve when relativity is accounted.
Can I weave this into research exploring the fine line between the simple and the complex? (Entropy, phase transitions CS problem instances, one way functions, arrow of time.) Am I just going nuts?

Physics can answer the how, and the when, and the what, but scientific methods fail at any true why, because why doesn't appear to have any objective application.

I've read this before, and maybe even said this comment before:
Steven Weinberg: "I have to admit that, even when physicists will have gone as far as they can go, when we have a final theory, we will not have a completely satisfying picture of the world, because we will still be left with the question 'why?' Why this theory, rather than some other theory?"


Would he feel the same way if the 'final theory' seemed to emerge from say elementary number theory?


1·12·09
On the flow of "what" clocks measure.
Let's start by thinking about the spacetime interval. The interval is basically the "true distance" between things, and the role time plays is to "restrict causality". Time provides the defining line between causality and coincidence. Everything slower than light is causal, everything faster is coincidence.

How would you even recognize is there were causal events occurring backwards in time to you?

Holy shit, the interval couldn't explain the Dirac sea could it? Like, the way the interval places causal bubbles around everything that grow at the speed of light. Dammit, it's all hazy but there. The probabilistic nature of QM, couldn't that be interpreted the same? As bubbles of causality expanding until they interfere with one another?

In that case, what exactly is entanglement?

You were right.


1·13·09
Maybe smart could be defined as: good at collecting, storing, organizing, and recalling information". Then I guarantee computers will soon surpass us. They are already far beyond us at storing and recalling, and they are now collecting information in many similar ways that humans do, but they are not yet good at organizing and collecting as we are, because they only organize the way we tell them to, and they only collect what we set them up to collect. Humans however collect everything within reach of their senses, though not reliably.

The ratio of discomfort around other people to desire to be around other people is not unity. The two forces are not balanced, and I accelerated in the direction away from people, as the discomfort pushed greater than the desire pulled.

NO! Science does not have a dogma, it does not require faith, in it's purest form, it has no tradition, no culture and no loyalty. In it's purest form, science is a method for distilling probabilistically correct encodings of what is commonly referred to as reality. The 'method of science' is nothing more than, double check everything. EVERYTHING. Evidence, results, setup, hypothesis, 'facts', experimental methods, equipment, etc. Leave no stone unturned. Nothing is exempt from criticism. Nothing is above refinement, replacement, or removal. Nothing is sacred. Avoid having faith of any sort, it will only make you feel stupid when it inevitably fails you.
Turning now to the question eluded to in the video, "do you think science can understand everything?" As to whether or not science can understand everything, my opinion would be that yes, it can, and furthermore, it is the only thing that can, because it is the only method of validating (double checking) information (understanding). Whether or not it ever will understand everything is a different question, and much more debatable in my opinion. Feynman had a good description, could it be that nature is layered, and no matter how many layers we uncover, all we ever find is more layers? Alternatively, could we construct an understanding of the universe that encapsulates every aspect of it (understand everything)? The bit about having faith that nature is consistent, in the past I would have supported that stance, but I wouldn't any longer. At some point I had concluded that the two assumptions needed for science were, first, that there was some aspect of existence that was 'real' or 'true' or 'consistent', and second, that humans are able to perceive at least some part of that truth (i.e., reality). Shortly thereafter I stumbled upon this statement:

Asimov: "Yes, as an article of faith. I have articles of faith, too. I have an article of faith that says the universe makes sense. Now there's no way you can prove that the universe makes sense..."

I felt like he had said pretty much exactly what I had (albeit it much more eloquently). Since then however, I have tried very hard to imagine how something could possibly not follow make sense, and after much effort, and complete failure to make any progress, I have grown confident that things must fall in one of three categories: deterministic, probabilistic, and random. Now, can I imagine a universe in which everything was any one three of those things? Yes. Random is very boring, deterministic is the simplistic view we naturally develop, and probabilistic is the bizarre world that revealed itself in our investigations into the atomic world. What role do these three categories play in our own world? We seem to exist in a reality that is probabilistic in nature on the very small scale (perhaps even truly random in certain places? E.g. Dirac sea?), and very close to deterministic on the large scale. We still haven't worked out exactly how the transition occurs though... Sorry, I'm sick of writing about this now.

It's an old list, but still useful. I should try to expand it.
things that satisfy me:
untying knots
scraping dried paint off glass
stapling tyvek smoothly
writing the number four
wind strong enough to blow me over
fast moving clouds
people
complete silence (hard to come by)
looking up very tall objects nearby
feeling insignificant
looking at the trees
looking at most anything simple
looking at people
wide open sky
talking and thinking with people
taking off socks
new additions:
wrapping cords up neatly (following their natural curve)
music symbols

We are the people you were warned about.
We are the monsters in your closet.

I was thinking today that very intelligent people start to resemble robots. They become less concerned with the every day human activities.

Love is an invention of DNA to ensure successful reproduction.
Wishing never helps, wishing never solved a thing.

I am way too shy, and self-aware, to admit that I like someone without anything but the safest criteria about it being okay to admit. So if a girl 'tests my love', by giving me the silent treatment, I'll just assume she has made up her mind. Thats how good I am at thinking about things (or is it bad?). The behavior I have received from girls is to me unambiguously: leave me alone. It is even accompanied by such a strong ignoring of me that the message seems clear: leave her alone. But fuck you, okay? If there is one thing I really don't understand, it is people, and at this point, anyone who knows me knows that. I'm confident that humans make sense in terms of quantum field theory, as they are applied to systems with very large numbers of particles, in the limit. But I don't expect I will understand that any time soon.


Wait for my conscious to break.

The Universe Conspires

12·11·08
We never had a choice, you and I.

Fuck this place. (Not the comic, the world it describes.)

Hitler had a mother.
How would you justify taking pride in your boy?
Do you know how many people die every day of starvation? Do you even know where to look to find out? According to the wikipedia article, Starvation, more than 25,000 people died of starvation every day in 2003. According to WHO, malnutrition is by far the biggest contributor to child mortality, present in half of all cases. Maybe you could help me, because I have some other questions: how many people die per day from religious warfare? From preventable disease? (Preventable meaning, those diseases that have been defeated by those of us who happen to be born in societies with the wealth to defeat such diseases for the entire general public.) How many people die from political conflict? How righteous can we really claim to be? We bicker over bullshit like stem cell research, gay marriage, right, left, abortion, taxes, guns, Love, hate, education, sex, drugs, religion, morals, beliefs... and 25,000 people die a day from no food? Nine million, one hundred twenty-five thousand people per year. Something like 237 million people in my reasonably short, 26 year lifetime, assuming it were constant. Something along the lines of 77 out of every 100 Americans, assuming it were constant.

Since the
80+ female population is much larger than the 80+ male population, I am going to start aiming for 80+ women, to increase my likelihood of success.

Don't let your cereal rust?

Robonography

"There's a strong possibility that I'm losing my mind."
"Maybe we even fall in love."


12·12·08
Kiss the ceiling.

Could our problem be trying to compare the time required to verify solutions versus the time required to solve problems?
Are there other complexity classes that are defined in terms entirely due to their verification or solution time alone? (And not things like FNP, that are basically NP already.)
Is there a clear meaning to the idea of having multiple time dimensions? Could there be a clear meaning to it?

I suspect that an 'ultimate theory', if ever discovered, will almost be difficult to imagine as being any other way. Unlike the current state of physics, in which there are many unknown parameters (the fundamental constants), a true ultimate theory would emerge from a single underlying principle (or set of principles), much the way special relativity emerges from two underlying ideas, or general from a third.


12·13·08
Ha ha ha, "Among other things, kids can tailor problems to stuff they're already interested in. Like gambling."

I just realized, that the Francis Bacon quote I am fond of, "[i]t is true that that may hold in these things, which is the general root of superstition; namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other", (which I usually apply to the ease with which we humans note coincidence in our lives), explains gambling very well (whether lottery, or craps, or blackjack, or whatever). Logically, these games are all obviously a losing battle (why else would casinos be so rich?), but all it takes is one small win, or even knowing someone else has won, to keep most people playing.

I want you to know.
Nontransitive dice

12·15·08
On the one hand, this is hilarious, on the other hand, how the hell does the cop not know better? Isn't this a man whom we have put faith in to "protect the public"? How can he do that when he is so uninformed and unaware of what is dangerous? (Granted, he can't do that anymore anyway.) This sort of superstition about things like drugs must end, we cannot afford it's costs.

It hurts me so much.

12·16·08
Lets be the radical center.

The only offer.
Am I still living vile?
Slowly tearing out her heart.
Steal me a dream.

This man, Jack Conte, and his girlfriend, Nataly, are both really cool. And so is their music. Andthis one too.

"You're doing it wrong!"


12·18·08
Must emphasize, not like extortion, more like seduction. "Hey baby, those are some sexy potatoes you got there, what say I buy them at above market value? Wanna buy some CD players that 'fell off the truck', big boy?"
Plus, even if we did pay them outright, it wouldn't be extortion, we would be choosing to do so. Though similar to our oil relationships, it would be different; our oil relationships are like a drug addict: we will pay whatever it costs for our next hit. Paying off nations to do what we want is more like telling them, listen, it's cheaper for us to buy you than to invade you, as long as you cooperate. Remember though, prices are dynamic.

Are there any truly one way functions? Maybe quantum cryptography could count?


I need to say that I.

Wait, whether they got good grades because they enjoyed learning, or because they worked hard to earn good grades, how is either one of those detrimental to a person's notoriety? Aren't both of those people somewhat non-typical in their ability to accomplish things? Isn't that what we want in government? People who either work hard, or find hard work easy? And how can academia be a racket if it doesn't have those sweet fruits like mercedes and million dollar apartments? I agree, it is a racket for those of us who enjoy learning, but the word 'racket', in this context, generally implies financial benefit, which most academics would probably agree doesn't really exist.


12·24·08
There is a comfort to the ambiguity.

This evidence, is everywhere.

When people ask, "why do you have faith in science, and reject the notion that it is reasonable to have faith in god?", an appropriate response ought to be, "I do not have faith in science, just like I do not have faith in gravity, or the big bang or evolutionary theory. I have empirical evidence that fits logical and mathematical theory (science), and I have empirical evidence that the very methods used to establish


12·27·08
Ah ha, maybe now we have found the heart of the matter. Scruton (is it?) says that "...we seek for the causes of things, but we also seek for their meaning. We have moral values, aesthetic tastes, yearnings and aspirations, which for the want for a better word we call spiritual. Such things are not irrational even if we find it difficult to provide a scientific foundation for them." I for one have had no trouble finding a scientific foundation for aesthetic tastes (my own or others), moral values, yearnings, or aspirations, but meaning I believe must be understood as a relative word. What does the moon mean? What is the meaning of a specific bacterium's life? What is the meaning of a specific molecules' role in the universe? The word 'meaning' only makes sense with respect to some lifeform, and even then only really to the higher life forms. It does not make sense to talk about the meaning of some causally disconnected galaxy with respect to humanity, because it literally makes no difference. I do not find it difficult to find scientific explanation for this, nor would I consider topics that find scientific explanation elusive to be evidence that non-scientific descriptions are adequate. I am now entirely convinced that science is the only method which can resolve any approximation to truth, and that when implemented correctly, it will always produce the most accurate representation of what we would all agree to understand is truth.

Science, in it's most abstract form, has no flaws. This follows from the fact that any flaw that appears provable is more than sufficient enough to revise science to accommodate for the oversight. Science might be described as an abstract process of observing and interpreting the world, with the trait of allowing revision of method upon new evidence. Basically, science is the memetic evolution of ideas, independent of the bias provided by tradition, rites, rituals, belief, desire, etc. IT MUST BE UNDERSTOOD that SCIENCE has NO QUALMS about abandoning it's current methods in exchange for improved results. Humans have such a problem, and that is the only thing that retards the ability for science to do that.

We need ask them, how would you explain the obvious fact that children are not identical to their parents? And what would you expect the extreme long term effect of this would be on a species?

Remember that, the crusades, the inquisition, and the current conflicts in Kashmir, Israel, and many other places in the world, are in the name of religion. Stalin did not commit crimes in the name of antitheism, or atheism, but in the name of another dogmatic belief system (communism). An atheistic stance can be derived from strong skepticism, an informed understanding of science, or equivocally Occam's razor, if one has accepted the notion that no belief is more valuable than any other, and receives even a small dose of science, or an intelligent inference from the world that surrounds them.

When people claim science is a religion, is an appropriate answer: but it has no true dogma?
I dreamt we were all beautiful and strong.

No matter how close two people are, an infinite distance still separates them.
Never underestimate the capacity for other people to let you down.

Isn't it beautiful?

We all end up old and in the way.
I can't go home. There's too much silence.

Heres a question, expanding on the issues I already have with the whole story of Abraham and Isaac: if you were to walk in on me, with my child tied up, and a knife held high above their chest, and I told you to trust me, that you should not intervene because I have a plan and it will all work out in the end. Would you be willing to just go along with me? Maybe since I'm not god, it's easier to not trust me. But it seems like I should be more trustworthy than a very old book that was written by people you'll never know.

Make sure it doesn't boil over.
"That means she's got issues, so she's not out of my league."

We should have worn helmets.


1·04·09
Even if the universe conspires against us.
I don't mind you hanging out, and talking in your sleep. I think you're just what I needed.

One way functions, entropy, causality, free will, incompleteness, randomness; the fact that quantum mechanics seems to both preserve causality, but destroy determination? These things all seem to relate






Lunacy and destruction, couldn't you tell that I was always happy to see you?

How I Appear So impartial

12·5·08
Skeletal anomalies.

While you're running through my mind.

If you understand that the phrase, "I can't explain why", is almost heresy with respect to science, you will understand why when asked why I feel, believe, act, or am, a certain way—I either give an explanation or become stuck figuring out why until I can explain it. And on the occasions I cannot find a good explanation, I become the greatest force of opposition with respect to that specific behavior of mine.


12·6·08
Stay lady stay.

"Popo zow peanut butter jelly time, horse porn."
"Don't hurt me! I'll betray anyone!"
"I want to learn what pleases you. I want to learn everything about you."


12·7·08
I'm starting to think I should set my alarm for a half hour after I go to bed, because it seems like it is only after my alarm goes off that I can fall asleep.

Mean and meaningless.


12·8·08
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie%27s_Choice_(novel)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion#The_Violinist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violinist_(thought_experiment)
http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
http://www.expelledexposed.com/
http://arxiv.org/abs/0811.4484
http://web.mit.edu/physics/newsandevents/colloquia/fall2008.html
http://www.eecs.mit.edu/current/events/index.html
http://qis.mit.edu/seminars.php
http://www-math.mit.edu/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYjmiT422yQ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Universe
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2008/05/block-universe.html
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2008/12/ps-on-block-universe.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(roulette_system)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Wells_(gambler)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye
http://www.expelledexposed.com/index.php/background


We do our best, right?
With any luck.
Tremendous contempt.

At around 55 minutes, Daniel Dennett says something to the effect that, he must question the potential harm caused by his research before continuing or publishing. I want to say that, any time pure information about the natural world may be regarded as potentially harmful, one should simply preface the publishing of such information with an explanation of how humanity, though emergent from the natural world, and bound to the laws of physics, does appear to have some modicum of self control, whether as individuals, groups, or the whole of the species. Regardless of our understanding of free will and determinism, we have all experienced the guilt of doing something we feel is wrong, as well as the situations of doing something you don't want to, because you know you should, and doing something you do want to, despite knowing you shouldn't. These situations are sufficient for us to know that regardless of the conclusions we draw in our research, our behavior, whether justified through academia or through private self-deceit, as far as our personal experience is concerned, we have some amount of control over our actions, or at least we should be aware that our actions are not the direct consequences of what we consider to be optimal or desirable, without including a multitude of motivations when establishing the optimal criteria. I would argue that this conclusion alone should be sufficient to prevent us from changing our behavior simply because some research indicated what we previously thought to be true may in fact be false.
Oh, in the second part (24 minutes in or so), Dennett says outright that he takes seriously the proposition that there are things we should just not try to find out, that there is such a thing as knowing more than is good for us. I believe I wholeheartedly disagree. Furthermore I would argue that it is not something that can be stopped. Much like technology that appears to contain both positive and negative consequences, unless the bad outweigh the good so disproportionately that no one can bring themselves to investigate the matter, then the investigation of the matter is essentially inevitable. Eventually Hitchens and Harris vocally agree, using biological weapon information as an example. Again, I disagree. Investigation of biological weaponry is our best hope at understanding the dangers of biological threats, whether synthetic or NATURAL. I agree you do not always give everyone all the information you find, but that is not the same thing as deciding not to continue investigating an idea because it could result in such dangers.


12·9·08
I would like to say you should never trust someone who says something is impossible, but then you would have to distrust me! What I should say, more accurately, is that you should never trust someone who says something you have observed is impossible. You should always be open to the possibility that your observations are mistaken or convoluted, or simply illusionary, but to declare them impossible, or unnaturally possible (i.e. supernatural), is to display supreme ignorance, and such people should not be trusted, they are not authorities, and they do not understand the basic tenets of science.

These guys [that is, the religious defenders] like to make a lot of silly claims, like that we must have faith in reason, and I think I can finally resolve my discomfort between mathematics, science, and logic.
Mathematics, and logic, both require axioms, and those axioms are imaginary. Science seems to demand axioms as well, but the axioms are not ours to choose, but rather set out by the nature of the universe. We happened to choose logical axioms that made sense to us, cause and effect, true and false, syllogism, etc. Much in the same way, we chose what appeared to be the most reasonable mathematical axioms as well. In both mathematics and logic, we studied what appeared to most accurately model reality. On occasion, by thinking very critically, we have expanded our logic and mathematics into much more then required to explain reality.

Maybe the defining aspect of humanity is our information processing abilities. Our ability to accumulate, store, process, and communicate, information. And if you look at human history in those terms, you can see how our wellbeing (at least physically) has been largely influenced by our ability to increase the power of our information processing abilities. Language, written words, printing press, radio, television, computers, the internet, the last of which may prove to push us further than the rest combined. Information processing is the ultimate solution to the problem of persistent existence of a replicator (life).

I hate the anthropological argument of how the universe is fine tuned, if the universe were tuned differently, it would behave differently, true. For us to say that changing certain constants would result in our absence is fine, but to claim that it could not lead to other intelligent forms of life seems much less reliable.

Everything I know is determined by what is the more useful assumption. Any unnecessary assumptions will be discarded. The existence of a deity is not a useful assumption, and as such, I discard it.

"The suicide bomber community is entirely religious. The genital mutilation community is entirely religious. I wouldn't say that the child abuse community is entirely religious, not entirely, but it's bidding for it."
–Christopher Hitchens

Frank Turek was persistently asking Hithens where good came from, and Hitchens was not explaining it really, partially distracted by Turek implying that it must be molecular if one is a materialist (or physicalist, as I might prefer). Eventually Turek, desperate to get a response, asks where evil comes from, to which Hitchens immediately replies, 'religion'. He then says, and mortality comes from humanitarianism, prompting Turek to ask, 'who's humanitarianism? Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin?', and Hitchens asks, 'are you saying Hitler was a humanist?'. It was a funny exchange, but I want to point out, neither of them represented my world view; neither one of them seems to know about what I feel is the obvious answer. Humans are social creatures, as such we rely on one another to survive, let alone prosper. Stable societies can not be formed by individuals that do not have the basic morals that we virtually all agree on (murder, rape, theft...), because in a society that believes these principles are acceptable will simply destroy itself. This also explains why a small portion of society is amoral, and why as individuals we will on occasion perform immoral acts. These are side effects of the fact that beyond some threshold, a good society (with morals) will be marginally tolerant of negative events (these are the so called 'leechers').

Sociopathic and psychopathic.


To Mr. Turek (through http://townhall.com/columnists/FrankTurek):
Hello Mr. Turek, I recently watched your debate with Christopher Hitchens, and I felt obligated to ask you: when asking Hitchens for a materialist (or as I prefer, physicalist) foundation for moral views and what makes something good or not, what exactly did you mean by 'good' or 'moral'. You seem to presuppose that such concepts require a foundation such that they are universally agreed upon (undeniable to other humans). I am a moral relativist, and I contend that the most of our mainstream morals are the direct consequence of our reliance on societal cooperation (I am disappointed that Hitchens did not provide any similar answer, though his response that morals come from humanitarianism is similar). However, I see now that if one were to require that morals were absolute, than this would not suffice, and I know that when people debate absolute versus relative morals, both sides tend to view the opposing side as misunderstanding the concept of morals. So again, my question is, what exactly constitutes a 'good' or 'moral' act to you?

If you could please respond please, I would really like to understand your side of this issue better, because I think that the better we can understand one another, the happier we will all be.

Thank you very much for your time,
-Cody


Second letter (about gay marriage):
I hope I don't seem to be too forward, but after emailing you that last question, I read some of your articles opposing gay marriage, and I have recently stumbled across a question for opponents of gay marriage: who are intersexuals allowed to marry? (Intersexuals are the modern PC term for hermaphrodites, some of whom are born with functioning male and female genitals.) I have never heard this question asked, and such people are fairly rare (between 1.7% and 0.1% of humans, depending on defining criteria, are born with ambiguous sex characteristics). Personally, I don't really care about gay marriage, or even straight marriage. I would like to marry a nice girl some day, but only to let her know I am committed to her. Otherwise I couldn't care less, other than the discomfort caused me in denying intersexuals this same right.

So I was curious what a staunch opponent of gay marriage would think.

Thank you again,
-Cody


Intact D&X

List ALL of the sources you used to establish your world view:
Theist: holy book of my choice.
Atheist: Bill Nye, Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Beakmen, science textbooks from 1st to 11th grade, Mr. Carey (physics teacher in high school), physics textbooks, mathematics text books, astronomy books, chemistry text books, biology text books, and most of all, my mind. Because every one of those sources has made errors, and it takes time to find them, and discard them.


12·10·08
"Fade out again. This machine will not communicate these thoughts and strain I am under."

It is only through the communication with others that I can hope to understand anything.

"...religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality."
-John Stewart (to Mike Huckabee)

John had some really good points for Mike Huckabee, who opposes same sex marriage.
He also said, "...it feels like semantics is cold comfort, when it comes humanity..."

I think there is an important point to be illustrated in a theory's ability to explain it's competitors. For instance, if you were to grant that intelligent design is actually science, and actually competes in some way with evolutionary theory, you should still understand that evolutionary theory can explain the existence of intelligent design, whereas intelligent design has to sustain modifications to explain evolution. In the same way, heliocentric theory explains geocentric theory, but not the reverse. In these instances, the alternatives are such simple illusions, it is a small matter to explain their existence.

I think I want to write a book, about religion and science, and call it something like, "God's place in science", or "Science and God", or "Modern Science and God", or any other misrepresentative title. Then I would make each chapter a misrepresentative title, like, "How God explains Everything", or "The Role of Tradition within the Process of Discovery". Then I would begin each chapter by introducing the theist's view of reality, and slowly explaining it in excruciating detail, I would frequently consult actual theists for their own opinions, to ensure that I was representing their view. Then I would methodically deconstruct and invalidate their views, with each chapter ending in an explanation of why the atheistic view was preferable. Anyone want to fund or publish me? I think it is wonderful what Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins & Dennett have all done, but they have nevertheless aimed at borderline theists and atheists more so than hard-core fundamentalists. I agree that in general, fundamentalists will not be swayed, but I do believe that regardless of how many confederates we accumulate, we could still shake some foundations, and I believe that constitutes sufficient reason to do so. Every single fundamentalist whom hesitates before pushing their views on another person is worth at least one borderline theist who stops voting their pastor's wishes, or who stops accepting their pastor's belief without question.
The one difficulty would be, religious people would tend not to finish the book, or any single chapter. And intelligent non religious people would be reluctant to read any of the book at all, simply by judging by cover.

I wish I had words and phrases like 'jesus' and 'oh my god', because they are so useful (if chosen wisely) in expressing the full gamut of human emotion with respect to surprise, whether surprise in anger, disappointment, happiness, excitement,

"What if everything you had burned down around you?"
"One of yours you had to bury."
"He was getting away." So I shot him in the back.

"It'd be better to forget you, but I really don't want to."



I want to learn what pleases you, what turns you on, what captivates you, and drives you wild.
What gets you going and what stops you in your tracks.
What are your dreams and fears.
What happiness do you lack.
I want to satisfy you, until your needs lose all meaning.