Skeptic's Circle #66
Ook.
Ook! Eek ook-ook OOK!
Showing posts with label Random Pratchett references. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Random Pratchett references. Show all posts
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
I feel left out
Recently, it seems the trolls have been infesting all the skeptical blogs around here, but there's one big notable exception: Me (oh yeah, and JanieBelle too, though the adult content on her blog could explain it). So I'm asking you: What am I doing wrong (or right, depending on your perspective)? Do I not post frequently enough? Am I too nice? Do they not get my Terry Pratchett references?
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Pseudodebate
Continuing on the theme of "pseudoskepticism" over the past few weeks (see here and here), I've come upon some of Marcello Truzzi's original comments on the subject and have decided to give some specific responses. You can read the article, originally published in his Skeptical Inquirer, here.
After a brief introduction, Truzzi starts out with discussing the burden of proof of evidence. Most of his article follows on this theme, so I'll just quote this to give the summary. (All italics is his original emphasis.)In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded. The true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved. He asserts that the claimant has not borne the burden of proof and that science must continue to build its cognitive map of reality without incorporating the extraordinary claim as a new "fact." Since the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes on using the established theories of "conventional science" as usual. But if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis --saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact--he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof.
So here's the situation: Some experiment somewhere did a test for the presence of psi. They came back with results and claimed that these constituted evidence for psi. What is a skeptic to do? Truzzi's strawman of a skeptic would immediately say that the result must have been an artifact or due to some explanation other than psi, and then give no justification for this. But just because no justification is given doesn't mean no justification exists.
Let me illustrate this, once again with the example of "slood," a postulated substance with ill-defined properties. In our world, we can explain almost everything without appealing to slood. Any events that people have attempted to explain with slood are just as easily - if not more easily - explained by known phenomena. There are many models of the underworkings of the universe, and not one of them predicts the existence of slood. In fact, fitting it in to any of these models would require a drastic reworking. Simply put, there's absolutely no reason to believe that slood exists.
Now, let's say one group of never-say-die scientists designs an experiment to test for the presence of slood. If slood exists, this experiment would be expected to give Result A (which is generally a statistically significant deviation from what we would expect in a sloodless universe). The experiment is performed, and Result A is found. The scientists then claim this is evidence of slood.
So what's a skeptic to do here? Accepting slood would require a drastic reworking of known science, and up to now there's been no reason to believe it exists. On the other hand, there are many other possibilities to explain why the experiment resulted in the way it did:
Adding these four possibilities in, we've got a total of five ways this result could have occurred, only one of which implies the existence of slood. Now, the number of ways it could have occurred alone doesn't give us the chances that it's any one way. To get this, we have to look at the likelihood. From the beginning, we know that accepting slood would require a drastic reworking of science and we've seen very little prior reason to believe it exists. This makes this possibility very unlikely, so it's much more likely that instead one of the other possibilities came into play.
So even despite this experiment's results, it's still most likely that slood doesn't exist. Many amateur skeptics will stop there and simply say the evidence isn't convincing enough. However, some skeptics will then go a step further and analyze the experimental protocols to judge the plausibility of alternatives 2 and 4. Some scientists might even see if they can come up with a theory for a new phenomenon to meet alternative 3.
Generally, the result of these will be the skeptics coming up with ways the experimental controls can be tightened and the scientists with ways to change it to rule out alternative theories. If the original experimenters are serious, they'll then take these changes to heart and perform another, better-designed experiment with a few checks against fraud. If they aren't serious, they'll whine about "pseudoskeptics" and make no progress towards a better experiment.
Sometimes, in the real world, investigators do indeed take recommendations to heart. For instance, this happened in the case of the Ganzfeld experiments. What's happened in every one of these cases I've come across is that the results take a sudden plunge back towards the expected results. Sometimes the significance fades away completely, while other times it remains. In either case, this gives evidence that the skeptics were right in that there were some problems with the experiment.
The next step of inquiry will generally have skeptics and scientists looking over the experimental controls again to see if there are any remaining flaws. If some are found, the process is repeated. If none are, slood proponents will then dance on the rooftops claiming slood is proved to exist, but one important step is still left. This step is replication. What is done here is that a completely independent group should recreate the experiment from scratch, and see if they get the same results. Preferably, no one involved with the first experiment should be involved in the replications, and if possible, those involved in the replications should be neutral on the matter or even negatively biased.
The point of replication is to provide another level of checking against design flaws and fraud. The replicators can start off with all the recommendations over how to keep it tight, and shouldn't have any bias which would lead them to consciously or subconsciously influence the results. It also provides another check against statistical flukes, as it's less likely the same fluke would occur twice. Only once the experiment has been independently replicated do we truly have a reason to believe that slood exists - though we can never rule out alternative explanations. Further experiments should likely be performed to test other proposed properties of slood and to see if alternatives can be ruled out. After a long time has gone on with many tests of slood, none of which it fails, it will eventually become accepted science.
A single experimental result is never enough to change scientific consensus, and considering it most likely that an unusual result is due to an artifact, poor experimental design, or fraud is simply the default position. It takes work to overturn the current scientific consensus, and paranormal enthusiasts rarely want to put in this work. When they actually do, it tends not to work out for them. Skeptics are there to make sure they follow proper procedure and don't try to short-circuit the system, not to bar the way to new findings. If some claim has truth behind it, it can make its way in through the standard system. Accusations of skeptics being pseudoskeptics really just amount to giving up and fighting the wrong the battle.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Strange searches, June edition
I recently installed Google Analytics into this blog, so I'm now able to see some of the strange searches that lead people here without resorting to checking the sitemeter every three days. Unfortunately, I don't tend to get as many completely sick ones, but I do get my own subsection of weird. Anyways, onto the show!
reverse mmorpg english - How do you reverse an MMORPG?
quiddle - I can't even make up words properly anymore. At least I'm on the front page for this one, so it's not too common.
religion "double slit" - No, saying God decides which way the particle goes doesn't actually explain anything (and it doesn't even work).
what good chiropractors do - Become massage therapists.
ridiculous commandments - All of them (Okay, maybe thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not steal have some merit. Maybe).
past tense of relief - Nouns have no past tense; they exist only in the present. If you buy into Zeno's crap, this means they can't exist at all.
answer 43 ultimate - Subtract 1.
reasons why not to believe in christianity - Have you read the Bible? It gives a ton of good ones.
191f4e7bcac950618399a24eb37bbcbda4af1b8609995234 - This number does not appear once in my blog, and search engines I've tried with it return zero results. The strange part is how it showed up as a keyword for me.
when 2 neutral charges are put together - The Third Doctor comes in and tries to reverse the polarity of their flow.
is ghost hunting antichristian - Probably. These days, your average pen is antichristian.
satirist are - I can't imagine how far down the search results they must have gone to get to me.
intelligent"sound" - I think Douglas Adams came up with an intelligent shade of blue at one point, but that's the closest I can get.
key combination "shift key stuck" - Next time you search for that, do a favor and type in all caps. It's just funnier, 'kay?
ask god - Again, how far down in the search results are they looking to find me?
how to use somehow in a sentence - Somehow, it doesn't surprise me there are people out there who can't figure this out.
a glass of water has one ice cube floating in it. the ice melts. disregarding evaporation, the water level: - Do your homework yourself.
zealot render - Now, this one sounds like a good name for a weapon skeptics can use against religiosos. Might just have to keep it in mind in case they try to start a holy war.
measures to prevent melting of icecaps - Sorry, quantum observation effects don't work on a scale large enough that measuring icecaps will stop them from melting.
Not on the strange side, but I also got a ton of searches for "Quantum Mechanics for Dummies" and variants on it, plus some miscellaneous other physical stuff for dummies, so I know my posts on these subjects are hitting some people. Of course, the problem is that you just can't dumb down Quantum Mechanics past a certain level, so there's no way I'll be able to get everyone to understand it. Nevertheless, maybe it's helping some people.
You know what's also strange? Despite my liberal seasonings of Terry Pratchett references, I didn't get a single search for any of them. With that in mind, let's see what we can do for next month:
Tiffany Aching
Agatean Empire
Ankh-Morpork Assassins' Guild
Ankh-Morpork City Watch
Ankh-Morpork Post Office
Carrot Ironfoundersson
Dark Desert
Death's Domain
Detritus
Discworld
Djelibeybi
Cohen the Barbarian
Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler
Dungeon Dimensions
Ephebe
Gaspode
Genua
Granny Weatherwax
Greebo
Hex
History Monks
Igor
Bloody Stupid Johnson
Klatch
Lancre
Leonard of Quirm
The Librarian
L-Space
Lu-Tze
The Luggage
Magpyr family
Mort and Ysabell
Nanny Ogg
C.W. St J. "Nobby" Nobbs
Moist von Lipwig
Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip
Mustrum Ridcully
Nac Mac Feegle
The Great God Om
Parasite universe
Pseudopolis
Rincewind
Roundworld
Sto Lat
Susan Sto Helit
Ponder Stibbons
General Tacticus
Twoflower
Überwald
Unseen University
Verence II of Lancre
Havelock Vetinari
Samuel Vimes
Lady Sybil Vimes/Lady Sybil Ramkin
There we go, that should do it.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
A-slood-ism
I ran into this comment on Wikipedia this morning which I couldn't help ripping apart:
Atheism as pseudo-skeptic
This seems like a pretty obvious part of the subject - atheism (or a-supernatural, if you wish - Buddhists sometimes claim to be atheistic without the "skeptic" label) relies on claiming the negative, and when they commonly claim that they are skeptics, they are following this topic to the letter. Is there really no sources commenting on this, or is it just being removed every time it's mentioned?
I mean, I know that I can't put it in here myself, because no matter how obvious it is, it would be OR [Original Research]. But surely some scholar somewhere has noticed that this pretty much applies to any atheist, right?KrytenKoro 08:11, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
You know, it's been a long time since I mocked anyone's grammar. So before further ado, let's laugh at "Atheism as pseudo-skeptic." Anyways, I left a reply to it there, but I'll expand on it a bit in this post. First, what I said in reply:
In order to be a pseudoskeptic, you have to deny something even when there's significant evidence for it (and of course, claim to be a skeptic). This is different from simply assuming the null hypothesis until otherwise is shown to be true. Almost all atheistic skeptics fall into the latter category, as they haven't seen sufficient evidence for any religion, so they simply proceed on with their lives as if no god exists.
As a parallel, let's say I come up to you and talk about Slood, a miraculous substance on the importance level of fire or water, which has gone previously undiscovered by humanity. However, I never actually show you any slood or give you evidence that it exists, instead asking you to believe it on faith. If, after you're sufficiently frustrated with me, you give up on me ever showing you evidence for slood and go on with your life as if slood doesn't exist, are you any less of a skeptic? Replace "slood" with "God" and you have your typical atheist. --Infophile (Talk) (Contribs) 12:19, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Of course, that's a gross oversimplification of what it's like to be an atheist. To get that feeling, you'd have to add in years being brought up by parents telling you about the existence of slood, preachers claiming they see slood regularly but never showing it to you, and others promising to show you slood sometime in the future but never following through. If you express any doubt in the existance of slood, you'll either simply be executed as a slood-heretic or (if you're in a somewhat more civilized society) be read a random sampling of ten or so Doggerel.
If you ask people why you should believe in slood, you're told stories about all the great things slood is useful for, and why believing in slood makes you a better person. And then there are appeals to how bleak life would be if slood didn't exist. All this actually goes to show is that it might be nice if slood did exist, but it does nothing to show that this is actually the case.
You could try to get people to pin down what they believe slood actually does, but you'll end up with conflicting accounts. In the past, it seems that people believed slood was responsible for everything they didn't understand, from gravity to genetic transfer. When physical mechanisms for those were discovered, slood was no longer appealed to as an explanation for those, but was still used to fill in any other gaps in human knowledge. As more and more gaps closed, the definition of slood became fuzzier and fuzzier, until it was just some nice thing that helped out people somehow.
Almost by accident, a few testable claims about slood were actually made over the years. A few enterprising people then went and actually tested these claims to see if they would find evidence for slood. When tested, no evidence ever showed up. If slood existed one would have expected to find evidence for it, but since none showed up, isn't it logical to assume the non-existence of slood? Or at least, isn't it reasonable to go on with life as if slood doesn't exist?
Nope. If you assume slood doesn't exist, then you're a slood-denier. In the sloodist's world, there's no difference between not believing something and denying it. Especially since, to them, there actually is good "evidence" for the existence of slood (based on slood-faith, spurious "slood proofs," and poorly-controlled experiments). If you deny slood exists after all of that "proof," then there's just no helping you. And you claim to be skeptical on top of that? Oh, so you're a pseudoskeptic too.
* * * * *
You can see how crazy things get if you accept just any claim that's made without evidence for it. Go back up into that post and replace "slood" with virtually any ridiculous claim. It makes just as much sense to believe in the existence of slood without evidence for it as it does for God, fairies, or invisible pink unicorns. Just because you go on with your life as if they didn't exist doesn't make you a "pseudoskeptic."
Friday, June 22, 2007
Ask your god this!
It seems I've been tagged for this by TheBrummell. First, the rules:
1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog
However, simply eight facts about me seems a bit dull. How about eight facts and two lies about me, in no particular order? I'm still giving you eight facts, so it fits the bill. Your challenge is to figure out which eight are true and which two are lies. If you're the religious sort, this might be a good time to test out how well Divine Revelation works, so see if your god will give you the answers.
Here are the "facts," in no particular order:
1. On multiple occasions, I have used a knife to assist in drinking Coke.
2. I consider myself a "Secular Humanist."
3. I consumed more alcohol before I turned 21 than since then.
4. I've watched the movies of the new Star Wars trilogy more times than I've watched the movies of the old trilogy.
5. In real life, the only nickname I've had with any staying power whatsover was "The Beast" (though it still didn't have much).
6. I avoid writing with pencils and chalk at all costs. The sound/sensation of the lead or chalk being scraped off just grates my nerves somehow.
7. I once got a fundamentalist Jewish Creationist to admit to the possibility of a non-divine origin of the universe.
8. In early high school, I thought I'd disproven Special Relativity.
9. My fashion sense consists of judging whatever is on top of the pile or in the front of the closet at a given time to be most appropriate.
10. I once dressed up as a Terry Pratchett character for Halloween - and more than one person recognized who I was (though at UW, this isn't necessarily surprising).
Also, I'm opposed to pyramid-memes on principle, so I'll just let whoever wants to pick this up and run with it.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Quiddle Me Vis #2
Although I haven't yet exhausted the recommendations from my last appeal, I am running a bit short on short things to do. With that in mind, I'm bringing this up again. Here's how it works this time: Ask me any question. If it's a silly question, you'll likely get a silly answer. If it's a serious question, you'll get a serious answer.
Whether you're puzzled over the definition of a quasar or you want my recommendation of which Terry Pratchett book to read first, now's your chance to ask. So get to it!
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Why Blogism?
(Hey, it worked for Skepticism!)
Well I got tagged for this by TheBrummell (yes, it did get around to me), so here goes, a list of reasons why I blog:
- It's something to do. Honestly, this might actually have been the biggest reason for my starting this blog. I had a ton of free time at work (what can I say? I was so good at my job they couldn't find enough for me to do), and I needed something to do. So I blogged. I still have lots of free time around school, and I'm on a short vacation right now, so I still need something to do.
- Community. When I started this blog, I was just losing touch with all my friends from high school. I didn't plan on using this blog to make new friends online, but when it started to happen, it became a reason to keep going.
- Interacting with "famous" people. Sure, anyone can go and post on the blog of someone moderately famous in the blogosphere, but it's an entirely different feeling when they come and post a comment on your blog. (Yes, he was correcting a minor mistake I'd made, but I've corrected him on occasion too, and I maintain that I'd prefer to be corrected than leave a mistake up.)
- I can help grease the wheels of skepticism. I noticed early on that most of the big swaths of skepticism are already covered in various places by very good bloggers. I've found a few subjects that went unmentioned and covered them myself, but that's not my primary contribution to the cause. The most popular posts I've done have actually been what I call "Greasing" posts, where I talk more about the philosophical side of what we're doing. This includes my Why Skepticism? posts and the Distilled Wisdom series, which give explanations of why this is important and how you can argue better, respectively. While these posts aren't directly attacking woo, they serve the purpose of helping other bloggers attack it better. For instance, my second Why Skepticism? post showed how Godel's Incompleteness Theorem actually serves to help disprove faith rather than put a limit on science, as many woos are prone to claim.
- I can teach people about science. One thing I've noticed is that many people are genuinely interested in learning about the scientific picture of the world. The problem is that they see huge barriers such as having to be great at math and studying and getting an undergraduate degree before they can even be told qualitatively what's going on. With this blog, I can create a bridge out to them to teach them roughly what's going on without having to drown them in math. It's no coincidence that my Quantum Mechanics for Dummies post is the most frequent target of Google hits (beating out Faith no More lyrics and Bible quotes by a wide margin).
- I get to randomly reference Terry Pratchett, this note included.
Monday, April 23, 2007
The Nature of the Beast
Alright, I feel that enough time has past that people will be willing to explore what could lead someone to do something like the massacre at Virginia Tech, and yet it's still fresh enough of people's minds that they care. Of course, I suspect there are still people who won't be able handle any reality other than the shooter being possessed or inhuman. If you're one of those, then for your own piece of mind, I recommend you don't proceed below the fold.
It takes one to know one
What I'm going to talk about today is what could possibly lead an individual to the depths of insanity seen in the VAT shooter, Cho Seung-hui. But before I get into it, I should explain why I feel qualified to discuss this. Simply put, it takes a certain type of mind and a certain mental state to do what he did. I have that type of mind, and I've come closer to that mental state than is healthy.
My parents suspected me of being autistic for a while, but I didn't quite fit in with any form of it. I had some of the developmental disorders commonly associated with autistics, such as lacking normal social instincts and savant-like intelligence, but too much of the picture didn't fit. There's no real diagnosis for what I have; I've come to believe it's just some unique mental state. For brevity though, I call it pseudo-autism, as thinking of it being like autism makes a lot of things in my life make more sense.
Many people with disabilities like this nowadays are fortunate enough to get adequate help, and come through alright. In my case, since I was never diagnosed with anything in specific, I couldn't get the right type of help. I bounced from psychologist to psychologist and none could ever really do anything for me. On top of my other problems, I faced clinical depression (image manic-depression, except instead of bouncing up and down, you bounce down and down). They tried to medicate me for this, but they couldn't find anything that worked until just last year.
As such, I shared many of the experiences growing up that Cho did. I was a social outcast. I had trouble fitting in with others. I faced emotional crises of my own, and the ways in which I responded bear a striking similarity to how he did. I even reached a breaking point which I'm sure he did too, and it caused both of us to twist - and this is importantly where the similarity ends, as we twisted in different directions here. But I'll go into that in more detail later.
Life at the bottom
To set the stage, there are a few things you should know about his early life. He was at first seen as cold and uncommunicative by his family. When he arrived in the US at the age of 8, this was diagnosed as autism. However, despite this diagnosis, he apparently never received any instruction to help him overcome the drawbacks of it.
Imagine yourself in his position. You're eight years old, and your family has just moved to another continent where nobody speaks your language. On top of that, you've got a developmental disability which makes it seem like no one speaks your language even when they do. So he has tons of trouble communicating to others, and nobody is teaching him how to in a way he can understand.
So, go back to your own experiences in elementary school. What happens to the kid who can't speak English well, lacks normal social instincts, and has trouble learning? He's designated the official target of not only the normal bullies in the school, but all the other students who need someone to bully as well. This is, of course, what happened to young Cho.
No one responds well to being bullied. The ones who come out best are those able to pass the bullying on to someone with an even lower social status than them. But there has to be someone at the bottom, and what are they to do? Some withdraw into themselves and avoid social contact as much as they can. Some lash back, and are then usually penalized by an oblivious administration for it. Some of them find groups of people in the same situation, and stick together with them.
The latter group often comes out of the experience relatively alright, but the other types of kids aren't so lucky. Those who lash back get in trouble constantly, and take up a role of the outsider, the trouble-maker. These kids aren't to be confused with the popular "bad boys," who break the rules and either get away with it or are applauded for it. Instead, these kids are the criminals. They break rules and are caught and/or reviled for it.
Worlds inside
And then there are those who withdraw, which is where Cho fits in. Socialization is a big part of human life, and someone deprived of it will do whatever they can to fill the void. Sometimes these people will be picked up by cults and find their acceptance from them. Others will try to get involved in organized religion. Both of these types of groups are particularly attractive to a kid in this situation simply because they aren't going to refuse him. But the problem is that the ideals and beliefs of these organization often won't be compatible with the kid's, so it just won't work.
One other substitute that many drift to is a one-sided relationship. Generally, this tends become an obsession with a certain type of music, often from a single artist who the child feels some amount of empathy towards. The messages in the music tell the kid that there's someone that understands their situation (or something similar to it), and they aren't so alone. This doesn't completely fill the void from a lack of socialization as there's no give-and-take, just receiving the messages, so problems will still remain.
Some of them (particularly autistics) go into a maelstrom of creativity within their own minds. They imagine up worlds, and generally find a place for themselves within them. Many write this out, giving the world a window into their minds. Others keep it all within their heads. Sometimes these imagined worlds are obviously fantasy, but other times they're very closely tied to reality. In these cases, as the child spends more time interacting with their imagined world than the real one, the line between reality and fantasy can start to blur.
So where does Cho fit into this? His parents tried to bring him into religion so he could find acceptance there, but the cycle just repeated. Other members of his Christian youth group bullied him as well, so he had to withdraw from this as well. He didn't withdraw entirely from religion, though, but just the community within it.
He then went into a period of internally fantasizing. Being rejected by others of course caused him to be angry and feel persecuted, so this colored his fantasies. When he was asked to do creative writing in school, this anger came out and it scared the teachers involved.
One other potential development within him was the development of a new persona. It's quite possible that he also started to hate himself for being different, and as such wanted to distance himself from himself. The resolution to this would be to try to change himself into someone else. This alternate persona would have to differ from his old self in key ways. For instance, instead of withdrawing, it would be one to fight back. It seems quite possible to me that this persona was the "Ishmael Ax" found scratched on his arm.
Cho was in pain, and he saw others who were enjoying life. This wasn't fair; it wasn't just. How is it that they were able to take enjoyment while he was forced to suffer? He hated those who were rich, who could afford the luxuries in life his family couldn't. He hated those who were in relationships and could find love (notably the physical side of it) from another. Hence, his railings against "rich kids" and "debauchery." As for the "deceitful charlatans," that's most likely rage against those who preached alternative religions. They were the ones who caused people to not get the message that what they were doing was wrong.
And then the dogma of Christianity, which he still believed in, started to color his fantasies. He saw himself as a Christ figure, being persecuted by the sinful. A lone good man in a world of sin, forced to suffer for it.
The breaking point
At some point, he must have faced severe stress from some source. Maybe he saw the girl he fantasized about from afar in a relationship with another man. Maybe it was a particularly nasty bout of the same bullying and persecution. Either way, something put tremendous pressure on his already-fragile psyche.
This breaking point is another fork in the paths of different people who have undergone this type of past. Some of them implode and take their own lives in suicide. Some of them explode back out at the world in a crazed attempt at revenge. Others twist, but I'll describe this last one later. For now, let's talk about what happened with Cho, one of those who exploded.
The crack that happened in his mind occured at the delineation between fantasy and reality. Religion itself had probably weakened this slightly, leading him to believe that the supernatural was possible, but eventually the line went further than that. In his mind, it wasn't just all possible, he was at the heart of it. In his mind, he became Jesus Christ reborn, with the mission to execute justice on the sinners.
Aside: No, I'm not blaming religion here, just describing what likely did happen in this case. If the religion were removed, I have no reason to believe things would necessarily have been better. He could just as well have gone on the same rampage if he were an atheist, if his mind found some other justification for taking this type of revenge.
Judging by the timeline, this probably happened a fair amount of time before the actual attack. He was clearly out of touch with reality for a fair bit before it, as he was planning it and falling deeper into insanity. He wrote up a "manifesto" to tell the world why he had done this. He made a DVD of various pictures of himself that the news would just love to show off, giving him even more fame. After all, as much of the world would have to know of the second coming as possible, right?
And then, at last, he executed his attack. He made an apparently targeted strike against a particular girl, Emily Hilscher. Perhaps she had inadvertently jilted him somehow. Then he went on to take out as many people as possible in the second shooting, ending with himself. After all, you can't be a martyr if you don't die.
Taming the Beast
Now, it wouldn't be fair to talk about how I went through much of that myself and not tell you how I've resolved it and gotten past it. Hopefully if anyone out there is facing a similar struggle, they might be able to learn something. Now, this isn't a full descriptor of what I've gone through, but there are some aspects that I might fill in later.
Not everyone who reaches a breaking point implodes or explodes. I reached that point myself, and I took a third option. In one of my severe attacks of depression, I fell down far, and came face-to-face with the beast within. This is the beast that leads to the uncontrollable rage seen in shooters like this. It's also the source of many primal urges within humanity that nowadays aren't compatible with our society and often are simply unjust (ie. instinctual racism).
Most people (so I believe) have this beast deep within them, and they spend their lives denying it. No, they aren't violent people, they aren't petty, they aren't xenophobic, they say to themselves. They're civilized. But this civilization is built in contradiction to the beast, and they have to deny it as being part of them in order to keep functioning in a civilized manner.
For those who reach the breaking point, the civilized persona has failed them in some way. Those who are capable of giving it up do so, and the beast is released. Those who can't break down and take their own lives. Some people retreat from it and go back to the person they were - often just leading them to face another breaking point in the future.
In my case, I faced the breaking point and retreated many times. I saw the beast within me, and I couldn't accept letting it loose (I was able to acknowledge that many other people were decent and didn't deserve an "explosion" from me). But the civilized persona I'd built up as I grew up wasn't working; it kept leading me back into bouts of depression, so something had to change.
What I chose to do in the end was to rebuild myself. I started out deep down, where I shackled up the beast securely. I wouldn't be able to deny it, but I would be able to build beyond it and create a persona better than what my instincts would have led me to be. This new persona would be based on logic and ration. It would be calm, intelligent, and it would be willing to correct itself when it was in the wrong.
The process wasn't easy; not by a long shot. It started back when I was in my second year of high school, and it hasn't finished yet. It probably never will end, just as most people never finish growing up. But it's only very recently (in the last year) that I've been able to accept myself and be proud of who I am.
The most recent step in this was accepting the mantle of the skeptic. It actually matched up with my goals very well - skeptics acknowledge the flaws in normal human reasoning and work beyond them. They've shackled up the beast of unreason, and built a system of logic and reasoning to operate in its place. I took this on myself, filling in one of the last big gaps in who I am.
On one last note, I have to recommend to anyone who wants a bit more of an idea of what the beast is like that they pick up a copy of the Discworld novel, Night Watch. One of the major themes in is exploring the inner struggles of Sam Vimes, Commander of the Watch. He too faces a constant struggle with the beast he sees within him. To keep it in control, he created the persona of "the Copper" (also called "the Watchman" in Thud!). He uses the symbol of his badge to keep himself in control, symbolizing the rule of law over anarchy. I'm much the same way, though with a slightly more intellectual bent to the struggle.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Skeptic's Circle #56
The latest Skeptic's Circle is now up, courtesy of Shalini at Scientia Natura. Go and check it out!
Open thread as usual, but pointing out continuity errors in the Discworld books is FORBIDDEN!
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Literary Geekery
Found via Orac, this list of the supposed most influential Sci-Fi/Fan books of the last 50 years has been making its way around the 'net. (Whether or not you like Richard Dawkins, you have to give him props for coming up with the concept of a meme.) So, I figured I'd give it a go myself. I'll note in advance that my Sci-Fi/Fan reading phase has been limited to maybe the last 5 years or so (yes, I'm that young), so obviously my list of what I've read won't be quite that grand.
Books I've read in bold (and since they are so few, with comments):
- The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien - First one on this list I actually read, and also notably the only "book" on this list that isn't a single book (technically it's six books in three volumes). It's a classic and did a lot to get people into the fantasy genre, but personally it seemed somewhat dull and cliche. Or maybe it just seems cliche because half the fantasy books since have copied it.
- The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
- Dune, Frank Herbert - Only ever got halfway through it on my first read-through, but it's waiting on my shelf for when I get around to it.
- Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
- A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
- Neuromancer, William Gibson
- Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
- The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
- Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
- The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
- A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
- The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
- Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
- Cities in Flight, James Blish
- The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett - Need I say more? Okay, I will. To be honest, though the first book was good, it's a far cry from the best in the Discworld series (okay, it's close to the bottom, even though that's a very high bottom). Pratchett varies a ton in the themes of his more recent books, so different ones will resonate best with different people. For me, my favorite was Night Watch, thanks to my kinship with the character of Sam Vimes and his struggles with "The Beast."
- Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
- Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
- The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
- Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
- Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
- Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card - The whole series is interesting, if only to see Card's descent into madness.
- The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
- The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
- Gateway, Frederik Pohl
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling - To me, the most notable thing about this series is that it proves that an outsider still has a shot to be a frakking huge success (word is, Rowling is now more rich than the Queen). The story is quite encouraging to novice writers, keeping many from giving up.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams - 4
- I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
- Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
- The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
- Little, Big, John Crowley
- Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
- The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
- Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
- More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
- The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
- On the Beach, Nevil Shute
- Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
- Ringworld, Larry Niven
- Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
- The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien - Yes, Tolkien's the only author with more than one book on here (as far as I've noticed, at least). Don't particularly know what this is doing on here, though; it's a pale shadow of The Lord of the Rings.
- Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
- Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
- Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
- The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
- Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
- Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
- The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
- Timescape, Gregory Benford
- To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer
- Calculating God, Robert J. Sawyer - Imagine proposing a book like this to a publisher: "Okay, a guy and an alien get together, and have a conversation. That's the book." Nevertheless, it works. For those who haven't read it, the novel is mostly about a debate over the existence of God, between a believer alien and an atheist human. The catch here is that God only intervenes on large scales: causing mass extinctions in order to push towards intelligent life. In the end, it's revealed that this "God" is just another big space alien, and the whole argument is turned on its head.
- Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - Unlike the metaphors both authors normally use, this book takes Christianity by the horns, from the Creation to the Apocalypse and beyond.
- Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman - Something of Neil Gaiman's deserves to be on here, and this is one of the best and most recent. (Though if you've got a better suggestion of what you think his most "significant" contribution is, feel free to drop a comment (I'm looking at you, Akusai).)
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Calculating God
Welcome one, welcome all, to my 100th post! I know it's been a bit slow here, but I've been spending the time working on this one, making it as good as possible. What I wanted to do was to take on the hardest piece of woo to argue with I could find and end up tearing it to shreds.
Oh, and speaking of important numbers, it seems that there's this blogger who goes by the name of "PZ Myers," on a blog called "Pharyngula," who recently turned 50. While the squid fascination is a bit worrying (last guy I knew who acted like that ended up fervently worshipping Bel-Shamharoth out of fear that if he didn't, he'd be sucked into the Octavo), the guy does seem to be something of a decent skeptic. In honor of this event, I am officially adding Pharyngula to my blogroll. You're welcome.
Anyways, onto the woo! In my last big post, I talked about the Principle of Charity. Today I'm going to put that into effect and take on one of the best arguments in existence against my personal worldview. This would the argument from fine-tuning used by the religious to argue for the existence of a (more commonly "their") god. To put it frankly, this is the best argument I've heard from them, though it's by no means sufficient.
Constructing the Argument
First, to be as charitable as possible, I'm going to go in with my knowledge of physics to construct and refine the best fine-tuning argument I can (taking apart some of their actual arguments would be too easy, as they rely on strawmen, misinterpretations, special pleading, and sloppy logic which are all easily debunked). Let's start this by simply listing all the possible degrees of freedom in the universe; we'll get to narrowing them down later. For the sake of sanity, we'll be keeping within the regime of universes with the same fundamental forces as ours, which exhibit quantum effects, and with same number and orientation of directions (3 spatial and 1 time-like. The time-like nature actually comes straight from the spacetime metric, where a time-like dimension will have a negative measure. Why? It's complicated, and I'll do it in a later post if you guys want. Note that this also implies relativity). The reason for making this limitation is that without it, the total number of degrees of freedom will be a degree of freedom itself, possibly extending to infinity.
Anyways, the list. The number in parentheses after each entry is the number of degrees of freedom it potentially has. Yes, some of these are tied together; we'll prune later.
- Speed of light (1)
- Planck's constant (1)
- Gravitational constant (1)
- Permittivity of free space (electric constant) (1)
- Permeability of free space (magnetic constant) (1)
- Strength of weak nuclear force (2)
- Strength of strong nuclear force (1)
- Mass of the Higgs particle (1)
- Fundamental charge (1)
- Fine structure constant (1)
- Curvature of space (1)
- Composition of the energy in the universe (3, for matter, radiation, and dark energy)
- Spacetime metric (4)
- Independent components of the CKM matrix (4)
- Independent components of the Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata matrix (4)
- Particle masses (up to 12, for the 6 leptons and 6 quarks, all the known elementary particles aside from photons, which are by definition massless)
Oddly enough, Creationists have only been able to come up with around 26 constants. They likely performed some pruning on it themselves, but as you'll see, I'll go further. The first problem is that a lot of these overlap and actually represent the same thing. The second problem is one of scaling. This means that with certain constants representing conversions between units, you could scale the whole unit system throughout the universe and have no change in behavior. In addition to that, you can throw on one more scaling factor to everything with no harm done.
Okay, a piece-by-piece pruning of the unnecessary degrees of freedom:
- The speed of light, Planck's constant, and the strength of the electrostatic force all work as conversion factors, so we can set them to 1 without loss of generality.
- The time element of the spacetime metric is simply the speed of light squared, so we can get rid of that.
- Let's get rid of another spatial element of the spacetime metric with our freebee overall scaling factor.
- With only the other two components of the metric changed, it's just a scaling of Cartesian space (as if the universe were compressed or expanded along one axis). This wouldn't actually be noticeable to anyone within the universe, however, so these are out.
- The fundamental charge is part of the formula for the fine structure constant, so that's out.
- The magnetic constant can be determined solely from the electrostatic constant and the speed of light.
- The strong and weak nuclear forces have been pretty much combined (or at least, it's been shown to be likely they can be combined) into a force with electromagnetism, so those are likely dependant on the other factors.
- Of the elementary particles, only four actually play a role in the formation of life: The electron, electron neutrino, up quark, and down quark. The up and down quarks also have the same mass, so only 3 relevant degrees of freedom here. (Note that the electron neutrino is virtually massless and its mass plays little role, so it might seem like it should be out. But consider that if it were instead extremely massive, things might get screwed up. So, it is relevant.)
- Under the model of early exponential inflation, the curvature of space will be normalized to almost 1 very early on in the universe, so it's not relevant.
- The CKM and Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata matrices tie in with the electromagnetic force and the strong nuclear force (they describe oscillations between particles that exhibit these forces). It's likely a future theory will be able to predict them.
- We don't know that the Higgs particle actually exists at all, and if it does, it likely will have little effect on the formation of life.
- Gravitational constant (1)
- Fine structure constant (1)
- Composition of energy in the universe (3)
- Particle masses (3)
Okay, so with the best argument we can make, we have 8 relevant degrees of freedom for the universe which might need to be tuned quite precisely for life to evolve. It's not nearly as bad as the 26 Creationists usually claim, but it's sufficient that there's indeed some problem. It's at this point that the Creationist making the argument would argue that the fine-tuning necessary makes production of a universe that can support life like ours by random chance extremely unlikely. However, an omnipotent god could easily create this.
Problems with the Argument
The Scientific Model
The argument from fine-tuning rests on the assumption that the alternative model is one in which a single universe is created randomly. By relying only the choice between this model and the claim of a god, they're committing the fallacy of Bifurcation. While this is a possible model, science never claims this. In fact, modern science makes no claims as to what actually did happen. There are, however, possible models that would explain this (and yes, the existence of a god is one such model). However, none of these are (as yet) testable, so science can progress nowhere beyond the generation of these models. A few example models, aside from the aforementioned Goddidit and One Random Universe models:
The Flying Spaghetti Monster - Based on a parody religion, one model of the universe is that instead of being created by a god, it was created by a flying spaghetti monster. Yes, it seems ridiculous, but it's not falsifiable. Therefore, it's just as valid a model as the Goddidit model.
The Farting Raccoon - A parody of a strawman of evolution created by Ann Coulter. Despite those strikes against it, it does qualify as a valid creation model.
Okay, that's just joke models so far, but we can't rule them out. Most people do anyways, because they seem ridiculous. It's at this point that I'll point out that atheists see the Christian Goddidit model to be equally ridiculous.
Think about it: A Magical Sky Daddy poofs the universe into existence (twice, in different ways, if you believe the Bible). Then he creates man. Then he creates woman as company for man, and he declares sex between them - the only way to create more humans - a sin. He gives them no real intelligence or moral guidance, and then plants a tree with a big Neon sign saying "Don't Eat the Apples" and creates a snake saying "Eat the apples." His creations, which he had complete control over, then eat the apples, making them intelligent (obviously he didn't want us to be intelligent), and he punishes them. Yeah, that makes sense.
Onto more models:
The Deist Model - Some god or something (say, a godly kid for a science fair project) poofs this universe into existence, then sits back and does nothing with it. The whole noninterference part immunizes this to testing and being falsifiable.
Other Religious Models - Pretty much every religion has their own creation story, and most of them can be tweaked to be unfalsifiable, so these fit in here.
The Multiverse Model - This is the model used by many atheists. In it, there's not just one, but many (possibly infinitely many) universes, and different ones are created with different physical constants and initial conditions. This model is as yet unfalsifiable, but it does circumvent the problem of a universe like ours being unlikely - with many universes, it suddenly becomes likely or even a certainty that at least one will be like ours.
So, there we are with many alternative models. On the face of it, there's no evidentiary reason to believe in any of them over any of the others. At this point, the argument from fine-tuning has now failed to provide any reason why any of the models which involve a god is superior to the others, so there's no reason to accept it as proving anything.
There is one thing we can do, however, to prune down these models: Occam's Razor. Essentially, the more complicated and bizarre models are less likely to happen randomly at the beginning of everything, so they're less likely to be true. Almost all of these models assume something complicated preexisting, be it a Flying Spaghetti Monster, Farting Raccoon, or a god. Assuming something complicated like this at the beginning seems pretty odd.
However, the multiverse model doesn't necessarily have this problem. Sure, having an infinite number of universes is large and expansive, but it's not necessarily "complicated." In fact, you could argue for its simplicity by the fact that you can sum it up in a single word: "Everything." So, what seems to be more likely to simply exist at the beginning (or infinitely backwards if there is no beginning): An omniscient, omnipotent god capable of knowing precisely what parameters will result in human life and capable of creating a universe with precisely those parameters, or a maelstrom of possibility where everything that can happen does happen? To me, it's obviously the latter, which is why I prefer that explanation.
The objection most theists have to such a multiverse model is that the multiverse itself would have to be extraordinarily fine-tuned in order to create ton of other universes. They come up with an extensive list of mechanisms necessary for this universe production to go on. Despite the fact that these lists are generally loaded with assumptions of how this would have to work (why bother with extensive mechanisms at all, when we can just say the natural laws just let it spontaneously happen?), they don't seem to realize that all these mechanisms could just as easily be enforced on their god. If they don't have to be enforced on their god as well, then there's no good reason they should have to be forced on this model either.
Calculating God
Now, what happens once you apply the argument from fine-tuning to the hypothetical (well, let's pretend they don't have a specific god in mind) tuner? The same thing that happens with ID arguments from complexity, interestingly enough. We break down into three possibilities for the tuner:
- The tuner is more fine-tuned than our universe.
- The tuner is exactly as fine-tuned as our universe.
- The tuner is less fine-tuned than our universe.
(It's worth noting that different theologies put the complexity of their god at different levels, and there are indeed both gods more fine-tuned than us and gods less fine-tuned than us.)
If that sounds suspiciously like the same argument I've used against ID complexity arguments, that's because it essentially is. Oddly, these two Creationist arguments stem from different sources, but they both feature the problem of what happens when you apply them to their god. This is the point at which the Creationists just argue it away with special pleading: "Well, God is made of a material unknown to us, so we can't apply these arguments." However, the arguments are mathematical and independent of the structure of the universe, so whatever their god is made of, the arguments can still be applied. The only way out of it is if they postulate an illogical god (some do, but that's a whole other can of worms).
Alternate Life
There's one big assumption that underlies the fine-tuning argument: They say that the universe must be fine-tuned for life as we know it to exist. But what about some other bizarre form of life? Is there some society off in another universe with their version of IDiots claiming that the universe must be fine-tuned because without gravity being the strongest force and the fine structure constant precisely equaling 1/pi, life as they know it couldn't exist. There may be a myriad of islands of stability in the range of these constants that allow life to form. It might even be a continuum with a different version of life at almost every step along the way.
The common objection to this argument is that they're only comparing our universe to adjacent universes that differ only in small amounts from ours, and that these adjacent universes seem to be incapable of sustaining life. The problem with this argument is that we don't actually know that these universes are incapable of sustaining life.
For instance, let's take one example of how the universe would be different if we change one constant: Increasing the strong nuclear force by about 2%. Doing this, "diprotons" suddenly become stable (the residual strong nuclear force is enough to bind two protons together), and hydrogen would likely fuse into these instead of deuterium and helium. This then leads star formation off on a different path.
To this I respond, "Yes, and...?" What's to say this won't lead to some alternate form of life, which instead of using elements with nuclei made from a mixture of protons and neutrons, are made from multiple protons. There's no obvious way this will prevent life, so why assume it would? (Note: I'm using this as an example because it's the one they most often give. If someone reading this has a better example, please leave a comment.)
Conclusion
Although the fine-tuning argument does indeed raise some good points about the formation of the universe, and does force us to consider what led to it, where it really fails is in connecting this to the existence of any god, much less some particular god. The question is worth asking, though, is this argument why they believe in their god themselves? I doubt you'll find many who say that it is (though there are a few Deists who claim this, but no one who believes in a specific god and none of the big proponents of ID). If it isn't, why aren't they using the arguments that convinced them of God to convince us?
Unless... what convinced them of God were the biases and flaws in human reasoning (that are in fact expected results of evolution) which skeptics have recognized and work to overcome, and they're now trying to mold facts to fit their predetermined theories. It would seem a lot easier if they would just present some scientifically reproducible evidence of their god instead of conjecture based on scientific findings, but evidence seems to be beyond their means. I wonder why...
Friday, February 02, 2007
Oops, you're dead!
I'm reading through Terry Pratchett's The Last Continent right now, and I just had to repost a quote from it for your amusement. The rest of the book is also quite good, and it even includes an atheistic god of evolution (his big project: The cockroach). Note that this is in one of his "footnotes," which is why it references the real world, rather than Discworld.
In fact it's the view of more thoughtful historians, particularly those who have spent time in the same bar as the theoretical physicists, that the entirety of human history can be considered as a sort of blooper reel. All those wars, all those famines caused by malign stupidity, all that determined, mindless repetition of the same old errors, are in the great cosmic scheme of things only equivalent to Mr. Spock's ears falling off.
It would be easy to laugh at the idiocy of humanity if we were outside it, but it's harder from the inside. Still, it's worth trying. So, go to the news, find out whatever idiotic thing Bush just did, and regardless of how much it's going to screw things up for people, laugh at the blooper. It's a lot better than going insane.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Stop the Squid!
What is even more tenctacle-y than an octopus, yet not as smart?
What animal does C'thulu most resemble?
For that matter, what does Bel'Shamharoth resemble?
That's right, the squid! And the squid is winning. Will you lay back and let the Sender of Eight, the Soul Eater, the Soul Render, Pharyngula take over?
I thought not. So, here's what you have to do: At this point, there's only one man who has a chance of taking down the squid: Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer (the Rincewind of our story, if you will). Now, go out and cast your vote for Bad Astronomy. Vote every day from now until Friday. There are other blogs there that may tempt you, but that's just The Sender of Eight and his eight minions, so ignore them.
And if the Soul Eater decides to come after you in revenge, just remember: Running away may get you into more trouble, but you can run away from that as well.
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