Finally, after weeks of procrastination and excuses, I am going to attempt to assemble the strange behemoth of jumbled parts which claims, according to the box, to be a new vacuum cleaner.
Later edit: Many thanks go to my dear friend Jessica Bang, who, unfettered by the cumbersome and erroneous printed instructions, and unafraid to experiment, succeeded where I had failed, and defeated the monster's efforts to avoid being fitted together into a functioning appliance.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Dawkins, Schweinshaxe, and Ann Patrick Green
So my lovely fiancee and I attended the Atheist Alliance International convention in Los Angeles this past weekend. We showed up around 5:30. We started the night with PZ Myers, whose talk was in a small room, which was a mistake on the part of the organizers. People were crammed in, standing in the aisles, and sitting on the floor. Then we watched a live stream of Bill Maher taping his show, then Dawkins and Maher showed up at the convention, and the former presented the latter with an award.
Laurence Krauss' talk, Saturday morning, was my favorite. It was mostly cosmology. I talked to Michael Shermer a bit. It was cool to see him there; as he identifies himself as agnostic, I didn't really think he would show up. I briefly met Laurence Krauss and Richard Dawkins. I'm sure they get buttonholed a hundred times a day each at these things, so, lacking anything earthshattering to say, I just greeted them and shook their hands. Dawkins asked a question after another scientist's talk, and I was impressed at his concise delivery and how he immediately returned to his seat when he finished speaking, so when I asked a question I did my best to emulate him. Dawkins' book signing had several hundred in line, so I passed, although I picked up a copy of his new book, which I am now working on.
Dennett talked about the silliness of theology and how seminary works. It was a fascinating and memorable talk. I briefly interrupted him while he was having lunch to tell him that I enjoyed Breaking the Spell. After his talk in the evening, I wanted to get a chance to talk to him, but I wasn't that interested in his current book, so I passed on the book signing.
Sunday morning, we missed Eugenie Scott to rush back to Orange County to see an incredibly disappointing piano recital by local teacher Ann Patrick Green at the Richard Nixon Library, then for some reason we had dinner at Jägerhaus in Anaheim. To summarize the weekend:
Dawkins and co. versus God: The atheists won, but it was hardly a fair fight, with the loser not actually existing, thereby unable to speak for himself.
Ann Patrick Green versus Chopin: APG lost.
Carol versus pork knuckles: this was a heroic battle; I think we can call it a draw.
Laurence Krauss' talk, Saturday morning, was my favorite. It was mostly cosmology. I talked to Michael Shermer a bit. It was cool to see him there; as he identifies himself as agnostic, I didn't really think he would show up. I briefly met Laurence Krauss and Richard Dawkins. I'm sure they get buttonholed a hundred times a day each at these things, so, lacking anything earthshattering to say, I just greeted them and shook their hands. Dawkins asked a question after another scientist's talk, and I was impressed at his concise delivery and how he immediately returned to his seat when he finished speaking, so when I asked a question I did my best to emulate him. Dawkins' book signing had several hundred in line, so I passed, although I picked up a copy of his new book, which I am now working on.
Dennett talked about the silliness of theology and how seminary works. It was a fascinating and memorable talk. I briefly interrupted him while he was having lunch to tell him that I enjoyed Breaking the Spell. After his talk in the evening, I wanted to get a chance to talk to him, but I wasn't that interested in his current book, so I passed on the book signing.
Sunday morning, we missed Eugenie Scott to rush back to Orange County to see an incredibly disappointing piano recital by local teacher Ann Patrick Green at the Richard Nixon Library, then for some reason we had dinner at Jägerhaus in Anaheim. To summarize the weekend:
Dawkins and co. versus God: The atheists won, but it was hardly a fair fight, with the loser not actually existing, thereby unable to speak for himself.
Ann Patrick Green versus Chopin: APG lost.
Carol versus pork knuckles: this was a heroic battle; I think we can call it a draw.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
carcinogenic fumes, litter, and fire hazards
As I was leaving the campus yesterday, I saw a girl finish smoking her cigarette and drop the smoldering butt in front of the music building (smoking is expressly verboten on campus). In a flash of inspiration, I grabbed it and ran up behind her at the stoplight as she was talking on her cell phone. As I handed it back to her, I said with a smile, in a low-key friendly sort of way, "Hi, can you do me a favor? Take this with you, don't leave it on campus? Thanks." I didn't know what to expect, but she took it from me, I guess to avoid having to interact with me; she dropped it again as soon as my back was turned. Another guy was standing at the stoplight with us and thought it was pretty funny. I'm not sure what I got out of it, but I guess that when someone behaves in a way that is an appalling combination of stupid and inconsiderate, it's nice to be able to point it out to them without having to use those precise words. I guess it has a nonzero chance of altering their future behavior.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Laws and Sausages
A well-known chestnut is "People who like laws and sausages should probably not watch them being made." These two things are associated in another way: My German class on Monday is immediately followed by my political science class.
~~
It's long been a puzzling phenomenon to teachers that the results of their informal polls which are conducted by show of hands do not add up to 100% of the students. And these aspiring pollsters sometimes comment on what they see as a logical absurdity, with quips such as "so I guess of the fifty of you, thirty were born inside the United States, ten were born outside the United States, and the other ten... were not born?" (Example made up.)
They're just lacking a good control question. Not everyone present has agreed to participate in a show of hands survey. Not everyone might be paying attention. I think that if you want to poll your audience this way, you're better off if you start with a test question: "Raise your hand if you're willing to participate in a show of hands survey."
~~
It's long been a puzzling phenomenon to teachers that the results of their informal polls which are conducted by show of hands do not add up to 100% of the students. And these aspiring pollsters sometimes comment on what they see as a logical absurdity, with quips such as "so I guess of the fifty of you, thirty were born inside the United States, ten were born outside the United States, and the other ten... were not born?" (Example made up.)
They're just lacking a good control question. Not everyone present has agreed to participate in a show of hands survey. Not everyone might be paying attention. I think that if you want to poll your audience this way, you're better off if you start with a test question: "Raise your hand if you're willing to participate in a show of hands survey."
Saturday, September 19, 2009
war of attrition
This morning I gave my apartment's resident feline, codename Evie, a flea bath. Invasion began abruptly with the shock and awe of fully immersing a cat in water. There were few casualties on either side during this phase; regardless, Evie remained much aggrieved by the strategy employed in her liberation from the tyrannical fleas.
After coalition forces' application of shampoo and the deaths of many hostiles, my first declaration of "I think that's the last one," aka, "Mission Accomplished," turned out to be premature. As the situation deteriorated, I think that if there had been any other cats nearby, whether they actually liked fleas or not, it would not have been difficult to recruit them into joining the fleas' cause in their war against me with an appeal to moral outrage over Evie's plight.
As we were able to avoid this complication, and despite the fact that the fleas had an unfair advantage in that they were all willing to fight to the death, and I believed that our efforts would be in vain unless we removed them all, the final results were:
flea deaths from poisoning by shampoo, drowning, or bisection with tweezers:
Approximately 30.
Significant scratches inflicted on humans: 2.
Wounded feline dignities, exacerbated by ensuing shivers: 1.
Overall, the fleas sustained the most casualties, but I don't think anyone really won.
After coalition forces' application of shampoo and the deaths of many hostiles, my first declaration of "I think that's the last one," aka, "Mission Accomplished," turned out to be premature. As the situation deteriorated, I think that if there had been any other cats nearby, whether they actually liked fleas or not, it would not have been difficult to recruit them into joining the fleas' cause in their war against me with an appeal to moral outrage over Evie's plight.
As we were able to avoid this complication, and despite the fact that the fleas had an unfair advantage in that they were all willing to fight to the death, and I believed that our efforts would be in vain unless we removed them all, the final results were:
flea deaths from poisoning by shampoo, drowning, or bisection with tweezers:
Approximately 30.
Significant scratches inflicted on humans: 2.
Wounded feline dignities, exacerbated by ensuing shivers: 1.
Overall, the fleas sustained the most casualties, but I don't think anyone really won.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Pascal's Wager
My younger brother, whose bicycling blog you can read here, has sent me an email drawing my attention to Pascal's Wager. I am familiar with this argument, and I went to write an email concerning my thoughts on it, and it turned into a blog post. Here goes.
Pascal's Wager, in short, analyzes four possibilities, which come about from flipping the switches on the on/off possibilities of a person believing in a god (presumeably the Christian one), and this god actually existing.
If you do not believe and you are right, you're fine.
If you do not believe and you are wrong, you're toast.
If you believe, you stand to lose nothing or gain everything. It doesn't matter if you're wrong, and if you're right, you've hit the jackpot.
Therefore it is better to believe.
The argument appears to have the following fatal flaws.
1) It supposes that it is possible to choose to believe something, as if belief were a matter of trifling convenience, like deciding what flavor of icing you'd like on your birthday cake.
2) Pascal's wager is an injunction to those who do not believe. He says, shouldn't you believe, just in case? In other words, even if you don't believe, pretend that you do. If the universe had an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, infallible, perfect Creator, don't you suppose such an entity would fail to be deceived by such a feeble attempt at intellectual charlatanism?
3) Pretending for a moment that the above insurmountable obstacles were somehow of no consequence, let's go along with this egregious intellectual and moral cowardice for a moment. Believe just in case. Believe what? Believe Christianity? What if Islam is true? Then you burn just the same. What if Bahai is true? What if Zoroaster got it right? And so forth. The wager does not actually recommend any particular faith, and it cannot. If the universe has a creator who desires worship, and organized religion is its multiple choice question for you: A) Islam, B) Christianity, C) Hinduism, D) Scientology, and so on, then every believer should expect damnation by sheer probability. (I plagiarized this point from Sam Harris, neuroscientist and polemic author of "The End of Faith" and "Letters to a Christian Nation".)
4) What if there is a creator, but he rewards rationality, and punishes belief without evidence (aka faith)? You had better be rational, just in case, for if you believe, you have gained everything, and if you are wrong, you have lost nothing. This inversion of the argument shows how ridiculous it truly is.
I wonder, since the argument is so silly, whether or not the brilliant mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal was actually joking, and perhaps suggesting why he was a secret atheist, when to admit such a thing would have been to be tortured to death by those meek and mild Christians with their Biblical teachings.
reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager
Pascal's Wager, in short, analyzes four possibilities, which come about from flipping the switches on the on/off possibilities of a person believing in a god (presumeably the Christian one), and this god actually existing.
If you do not believe and you are right, you're fine.
If you do not believe and you are wrong, you're toast.
If you believe, you stand to lose nothing or gain everything. It doesn't matter if you're wrong, and if you're right, you've hit the jackpot.
Therefore it is better to believe.
The argument appears to have the following fatal flaws.
1) It supposes that it is possible to choose to believe something, as if belief were a matter of trifling convenience, like deciding what flavor of icing you'd like on your birthday cake.
2) Pascal's wager is an injunction to those who do not believe. He says, shouldn't you believe, just in case? In other words, even if you don't believe, pretend that you do. If the universe had an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, infallible, perfect Creator, don't you suppose such an entity would fail to be deceived by such a feeble attempt at intellectual charlatanism?
3) Pretending for a moment that the above insurmountable obstacles were somehow of no consequence, let's go along with this egregious intellectual and moral cowardice for a moment. Believe just in case. Believe what? Believe Christianity? What if Islam is true? Then you burn just the same. What if Bahai is true? What if Zoroaster got it right? And so forth. The wager does not actually recommend any particular faith, and it cannot. If the universe has a creator who desires worship, and organized religion is its multiple choice question for you: A) Islam, B) Christianity, C) Hinduism, D) Scientology, and so on, then every believer should expect damnation by sheer probability. (I plagiarized this point from Sam Harris, neuroscientist and polemic author of "The End of Faith" and "Letters to a Christian Nation".)
4) What if there is a creator, but he rewards rationality, and punishes belief without evidence (aka faith)? You had better be rational, just in case, for if you believe, you have gained everything, and if you are wrong, you have lost nothing. This inversion of the argument shows how ridiculous it truly is.
I wonder, since the argument is so silly, whether or not the brilliant mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal was actually joking, and perhaps suggesting why he was a secret atheist, when to admit such a thing would have been to be tortured to death by those meek and mild Christians with their Biblical teachings.
reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager
Saturday, January 3, 2009
xenophobia, door to door evangelists, and defining fundamentalism
12/26/08
Christmas eve I attended a medium size church down the street, Evangelical Lutheran Church and School in Brea. This congregation is a member of the Missouri Synod, which fits it under my current working definition of fundamentalism, which is a doctrine of the "infallible" or "inerrant" Bible, as opposed to merely "inspired". So far, most churches seem to hold to this idea. Further research is required before I determine whether it is so prevalent that I need to develop a different definition of "fundamentalism" in order to reflect what people actually mean by the word. I realize hundreds of millions of people can barely even agree what "Christian" means, but a working definition of fundamentalism would still be helpful for analyzing Christian issues.
I recognized a meme from the Christmas Eve sermon, that was familiar to me as a former fundamentalist, and I think that Christians in general will find familiar: an identification of the Christian perspective versus "the world's" perspective. This is essentially tribalism. In Christian circles, there is a certain usage of "the world" or "worldly" that is quite negative. I think all of us, believers and nonbelievers alike, tend to fail to recognize the harmful nature of this xenophobic Us and Them dichotomy.
This meme is so cherished, I think, that if you point it out to a Christian, most will defend it with the same kind of triangulations they tend to fall into when defending the core beliefs of their faith. I imagine a response along the lines of "Well, we're not pitting ourselves against the rest of the world, we're pitting ourselves against Satan." (They, of course, think no such thing; it is simply the world, vague and undefined.) I would find this inconsistent with another Christian idea, which is not that there are the people of Jesus and the people of Satan, but rather, the saved and the lost. The lost, Christians contend, can still become found, being neither the people of Satan nor the enemy. Surely, then, "the world" should not be something to teach people to be opposed to. It matters what words we use, and there are negative consequences of using "the world" to mean something negative.
Naturally, if Christians are wrong, and there is no Satan, then some unfortunate people are going to serve as a proxy for this imaginary enemy, and my contention is that this is exactly what happens. The burden falls on various groups, both real and imagined, some examples including the Jews, Islam, liberals, and the New World Order, depending on what circles you move in. This tribalism has real, detrimental, observable and measurable effects for millions, if not billions, of humans, Christian and otherwise.
~~
On a lighter note, I got a flash of inspiration recently about door to door evangelists. I have a new policy, and encourage all my fellow atheists to adopt it as well. Invite them in, and argue with them endlessly. I'll be polite and respectful in my discourse, and offer them a drink. I'll ask innocent and reasonable questions, and make polite objections on logical grounds. I'll be prepared to let this go on for six hours, and wait for them to take their leave.
If you have any experience with the religious, you know that evangelists never offer any new arguments. Employing circular argument (believe the Bible because it is from God, we know God exists because the Bible says so), appeal to emotion (Jesus will save you from your sins), and appeal to force (believe or burn forever), they clearly have no use for innovation, since they have such success with these. If you don't have much experience with their ideas, it doesn't take much to prepare yourself; intellectually, it is hardly heavy lifting.
There are a few good reasons I plan to do this, aside from the simple fact that it will amuse me to no end. Primarily, I'll be performing a vital service to my community. As long as they're in my house, they won't be knocking on anyone else's door. This could prevent dozens or even hundreds of my neighbors from being exposed to the evangelist's poisonous, backward, and immoral ideas. Additionally, to use a gambler's language, it is a total freeroll. I have nothing to lose from this, but I have a nonzero chance to gain, if I can plant a small seed of doubt that could shake their faith.
Christmas eve I attended a medium size church down the street, Evangelical Lutheran Church and School in Brea. This congregation is a member of the Missouri Synod, which fits it under my current working definition of fundamentalism, which is a doctrine of the "infallible" or "inerrant" Bible, as opposed to merely "inspired". So far, most churches seem to hold to this idea. Further research is required before I determine whether it is so prevalent that I need to develop a different definition of "fundamentalism" in order to reflect what people actually mean by the word. I realize hundreds of millions of people can barely even agree what "Christian" means, but a working definition of fundamentalism would still be helpful for analyzing Christian issues.
I recognized a meme from the Christmas Eve sermon, that was familiar to me as a former fundamentalist, and I think that Christians in general will find familiar: an identification of the Christian perspective versus "the world's" perspective. This is essentially tribalism. In Christian circles, there is a certain usage of "the world" or "worldly" that is quite negative. I think all of us, believers and nonbelievers alike, tend to fail to recognize the harmful nature of this xenophobic Us and Them dichotomy.
This meme is so cherished, I think, that if you point it out to a Christian, most will defend it with the same kind of triangulations they tend to fall into when defending the core beliefs of their faith. I imagine a response along the lines of "Well, we're not pitting ourselves against the rest of the world, we're pitting ourselves against Satan." (They, of course, think no such thing; it is simply the world, vague and undefined.) I would find this inconsistent with another Christian idea, which is not that there are the people of Jesus and the people of Satan, but rather, the saved and the lost. The lost, Christians contend, can still become found, being neither the people of Satan nor the enemy. Surely, then, "the world" should not be something to teach people to be opposed to. It matters what words we use, and there are negative consequences of using "the world" to mean something negative.
Naturally, if Christians are wrong, and there is no Satan, then some unfortunate people are going to serve as a proxy for this imaginary enemy, and my contention is that this is exactly what happens. The burden falls on various groups, both real and imagined, some examples including the Jews, Islam, liberals, and the New World Order, depending on what circles you move in. This tribalism has real, detrimental, observable and measurable effects for millions, if not billions, of humans, Christian and otherwise.
~~
On a lighter note, I got a flash of inspiration recently about door to door evangelists. I have a new policy, and encourage all my fellow atheists to adopt it as well. Invite them in, and argue with them endlessly. I'll be polite and respectful in my discourse, and offer them a drink. I'll ask innocent and reasonable questions, and make polite objections on logical grounds. I'll be prepared to let this go on for six hours, and wait for them to take their leave.
If you have any experience with the religious, you know that evangelists never offer any new arguments. Employing circular argument (believe the Bible because it is from God, we know God exists because the Bible says so), appeal to emotion (Jesus will save you from your sins), and appeal to force (believe or burn forever), they clearly have no use for innovation, since they have such success with these. If you don't have much experience with their ideas, it doesn't take much to prepare yourself; intellectually, it is hardly heavy lifting.
There are a few good reasons I plan to do this, aside from the simple fact that it will amuse me to no end. Primarily, I'll be performing a vital service to my community. As long as they're in my house, they won't be knocking on anyone else's door. This could prevent dozens or even hundreds of my neighbors from being exposed to the evangelist's poisonous, backward, and immoral ideas. Additionally, to use a gambler's language, it is a total freeroll. I have nothing to lose from this, but I have a nonzero chance to gain, if I can plant a small seed of doubt that could shake their faith.
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