Majestic
August 19, 2008 Misc. 4 Comments
End of summer update
July 29, 2008 Misc. 19 Comments… Or “What I did this summer”
For the first month of summer, I was tutored by one of my professors on Java (and much thanks to her, should she stumble across my blog ever) and wrote a program to tag parts of speech. It’s not quite complete and deals with ambiguities in a not-too-clever way, by just spitting out all the possible syntaxes it could be. I’m still pretty proud of it. I wish I could get some sort of research funding to keep working on it, but better qualified people have written similar programs before me.
I’ve gone on two vacations this summer. I went to Collin’s family reunion in June and just recently got back from a trip with him to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for a week. I return much tanner.
I’ve worked a fair bit too. Projectionist at the theatre here. I designed their site and the UMM Mock Trial’s site (in progress). Computing Services sucks, so that’s still not online. I also just did some random junk.
Books I bought
Yes, yes. I bought more books this summer.
Contemporary Linguistics
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Warped Passages
Semantic Antics
Cien años de soledad
Plans
School will start in less than a month now. I’ll finally escape into a world of bad cafeteria food and roommates. I’ll be taking…
- Programming Languages
- Intermediate Spanish
- Data Structures
- Seminar I (for comp. sci.)
- Probability and Stochastic Processes
In a little over a month, I’ll be turning 18. Just in time for election. I’m also going to finally get a drivers’ permit. Stay off the road for the couple weeks following that.
I’m getting pretty into web design stuff these days. Now that Ros has given me a bunch of Adobe programs, I can do some serious graphic design too. I’m planning on redoing the site a bit. Taking the blog off the front page, put up some of my little side projects, etc. I also want to create my own wordpress theme. I’m also going to switch domain names (skatje.com will just forward to it). I just think skatje.com is kinda egotistical and less… professional. Even though my site isn’t exactly professional. Eh. http://lacrimae-rerum.org is now the official address. Woot.
That’s all.
:O
July 29, 2008 Misc. 18 CommentsMy site’s back up. Finally.
Have I mentioned how much I hate Computing Services?
Pascal’s Wager
April 30, 2008 Atheism, Essays 18 CommentsP1: If God exists, then the utility of believing that God exists is infinite, whereas the utility of disbelief is at most finite.
P2: If God doesn’t exist, then the utility of belief is at most finitely negative and the utility of non-belief is at most finite.
P3: Therefore, the expected utility of belief in God is infinite and the expected utility of disbelief is at most finite.
C: Therefore, rationality demands that we believe in God.
One has two options: to believe in God or to not believe in God. Additionally, there are two possible outcomes: God exists or God does not exist. If one believes and he exists, then payoff is infinite. If you believe and God does not exist, then at most, the amount you lose is finite. On the other hand, if you don’t believe and God exists, then you may gain at most a finite amount. If you don’t believe and God doesn’t exist, then you may gain at most a finite amount.
Because of the possibility of gaining infinite reward, with the consequence being a merely finite loss, it is more rational and beneficial to believe in God.
| Outcomes | God exists | God does not exist |
| Wager for God | ∞ | f1 |
| Wager against God | f2 | f3 |
Should someone be convinced by Pascal’s Wager that belief in God is a better choice, their belief would not constitute “true” belief. They would believe based on their own personal wants, not because they truly have faith that God exists. If true belief in God is the criteria one is judged by, then the person would not be meeting it.
Next one must question if that is indeed the criteria one would be judged by. A god might choose to reward someone for just leading a morally good life, or may choose to reward only those who do that as well as believe. For example, the Abrahamic gods require belief in God as well as to follow the tenets of the religion, such as the Ten Commandments.
Further, there are infinite possible outcomes. There could exist a God who rewards skepticism, or there could exist a God who rewards you if you eat oranges every Tuesday, or there could be a God who requires both in order to reward you. With so many possibilities, the chances that you’re doing everything right to gain your reward is basically equal whether or not you choose to believe in God.
Pascal left out a negative infinity consequence (colloquially: hell), which also has implications. If we looked at Pascal’s original, simple wager, this would dramatically decrease the utility of disbelief, adding to Pascal’s case. But as discussed, God (or gods) could reward for as many different bizarre things as they’d like, and equally, they could punish you for any possible thing. The best thing you could wish for at that point is that there is no God at all, otherwise you’re playing Russian roulette with half the chambers loaded.
But can the utility of salvation even be infinite? Such a concept is hard to conceive of. Many say that in heaven (the presumed source of infinite reward), there is no evil and you are perfectly happy. Some say that life without something to complain about would be very boring. It’s the occasional unhappiness that makes the rest of the time enjoyable. In this way, always being happy is an impossibility. Although someone in favour of Pascal’s argument may counter that if the reward cannot logically be infinite, it would still be the greatest utility possible.
Taken too far, Pascal’s Wager may result in an argumentum ad consequentiam, or appeal to consequences. Pascal’s Wager can only tell you what will be more beneficial to your well-being/happiness, but cannot make any truth claims. No matter how desirable certain consequences are, this does not add to the likelihood of God actually existing.
Book meme and summer project
April 26, 2008 Misc. 24 CommentsBold means I’ve read it. Italicised means I am planning to get around to it. Underline means I’ve partially read it, though this by no means says that I won’t finish it. Most likely I started it, got distracted by homework or something, then ended up picking up something else when I got back freetime. So if it’s underlined and italicised, I’m going to get back to it.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina (I’m currently reading it.)
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote (Reading it in Spanish, so it’ll be in “partially read” limbo for a long time.)
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New world
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables (Can’t remember if I finished this, actually. I might’ve.)
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune (Been meaning to re-read it, too.)
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita (Need to re-read this too.)
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
Man, I suck. Lots of books I keep meaning to read, lots of books I don’t finish. It’s hard to get back into reading as much as I did when I was a kid. TV and intertubes have destroyed my attention span. I wonder what a realistic estimate for number of books I can read over the summer is. Well, I’m going to make it my goal to read all of these over summer break*:
Ancestor’s Tale
Wuthering Heights
Persuasion
Picture of Dorian Grey
War and Peace
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Emma
Ape and Essence
Some of those are pretty long, so I don’t know. Too many, too few? What do you think? Any other “classics” I need to read?
*Subject to change.
I quit philosophy
April 20, 2008 Misc. 6 CommentsIs there a Godwin-esque law that says as discussions by amateur philosophers progress, likelihood of mentioning quantum mechanics increases? There needs to be one.
Anselm’s Ontological Argument
April 15, 2008 Atheism, Essays 13 CommentsP1: God is a being than which nothing greater can be conceived.
P2: Everyone can understand P1.
P3: Whatever is understood is in the mind.
C1: A being than which nothing greater can be conceived exists in the mind.
P4: Either said being exists in the mind alone or exists in both mind and reality.
P5: A being which exists in both mind and reality is greater than a being which exists in mind alone.
C2: The greatest being that can be conceived, God, exists in reality and mind.
God, by definition, is the greatest thing that can be conceived. What is conceived can be said to exist in the mind. Existence in reality and mind is greater than existence in mind alone, so the greatest thing that can be conceived must also exist in reality.
A significant problem with P1 is that Anselm never defines “great.” Is the greatest thing the biggest thing, because enormity is impressive, or does the saying “good things come in small packages” hold true? Without a clear definition, P2 can not work because no one (at least not me) can understand what Anselm means by “God is a being than which nothing greater can be conceived.” Some people may not even define God is the greatest being in the first place. Anselm’s definition is not understood to all because not all define God as he has.
An objection to P5 also stems from the unclear definition of great. In order for this premise to be true, existence in reality must somehow be great, but we still don’t know what great is. Additionally, this premise is assuming that existence is a property: changing it from not-existing to existing adds perfection, or greatness. According to Kant, to think of an apple which exists and to think of an apple which does not exist is essentially thinking of the same idea, the apple, and that existence does not alter that idea because it is not a property. A reply would be that the knowledge of something’s existence can change the way we think about it. For instance, the way we think about Julius Caesar if we thought him a fictional character would be different than how we think of him after knowing that he actually did walk this earth. Norman Malcolm avoids using existence as a property in his revision of Anselm’s argument by changing “existence” to “necessary existence,” which is undisputedly a property.
Douglas Gasking came up with a parody argument invoking existence as a quality, as Anselm did, in order to point out the problems with . His argument stated:
P1: The creation of the world is the most marvelous achievement imaginable.
P2: The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator.
P3: The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.
P4: The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence.
P5: If we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator we can conceive of a greater being–one who created the universe while not existing.
C1: Therefore, God does not exist.
The basic intuition behind constructing this argument is that we are generally more impressed by a deaf person composing beautiful symphonies, like Beethoven, than by someone without handicaps composing similar works. Despite inherit silliness, Gasking’s point was that just as Anselm supposed that existence is a perfection, he assumed that non-existence is a perfection. Taking existence as a property which can be bestowed upon a creator looks absurd in the end because, of course, how could a non-existent creator do anything at all? It’s meaningless to say that he exists.
One of the most famous objections to Anselm’s Ontological Argument was raised by Gaunilo. The idea is that if Anselm’s argument is valid, then the structure can be applied to the greatest of anything, not just the greatest being, and this will lead to an absurdity. Gaunilo used “the greatest island”:
P2: Everyone can understand P1.
P3: Whatever is understood is in the mind.
C1: The greatest island exists in the mind.
P4: Either the greatest island exists in the mind alone or exists in both mind and reality.
P5: An island which exists in both mind and reality is greater than an island which exists in mind alone.
C2: The greatest island that can be conceived, exists in reality and mind.
Paul J. Glenn replied to Gaunilo’s objection by saying that it worked in Anselm’s case because nothing greater can be conceived than God, but Gaunilo’s argument has limited application: no greater island can be conceived, but greater things can be. Islands are by definition limited, they don’t need every greatness, but for God to be God, he must have every greatness because he is limitless.
Let’s assume that the perfect island has abundant green vegetation and many beautiful beaches. Our perfect island has a thousand lush palm trees and 30 miles of beautiful beaches. But wouldn’t an island that has two thousand palm trees and 40 miles of beautiful beaches be even greater? This can continue into infinity. God does not run into this problem because such things as power and knowledge have intrinsic maximums, whereas number of trees don’t.
C2 makes a large, and I think, impossible logical leap. Anselm makes a transition from concept to actuality in a semantic twist that’s difficult to untangle. Anselm uses “exists in reality” on something solely in the mind at this point, but then makes that same statement to refer to a non-concept to prove that God exists. This way he bypasses the conditional that all the premises have formed: The greatest being, by definition, if it exists, would have to exist in both mind and reality. To make things short, let’s just say: If the greatest being exists, it necessarily exists. Anselm uses the fact that the phrase “exists in reality” is found in both “I can imagine that God exists in reality” and “God exists in reality” to skip over the “if” part of the conditional, even though both these statements mean very different things. It’s this difference that he ignores.
So in summary, the main weak points of Anselm’s argument are his vagueness of the definition of greatness, his use of existence as a predicate or quality, and the abstract jump from conceptual to reality. Malcolm’s revision of the argument attempts to get around the problem of existence as a property by using the quality of having “necessary existence”. A revision by defining greatness may prove impossible because while many can agree that omnipotent and omniscient are the greatest of their categories, God must be great in all ways, and this begins to fall under subjectivity. Finally, the concept-to-reality jump should not be overlooked, but further scrutinisation of it may only result in a massive headache.
I suppose it’s due
March 21, 2008 Atheism 103 CommentsI’m expected to say something about the events that occurred last night at Expelled, but you all know the shenanigans involving my dad being expelled, but Dawkins getting in. Here’s my impression of the movie:
I’m trying very hard to be unbiased, but that’s pretty difficult in this situation. Regardless of content, the movie was surprisingly unpolished and cheap-looking. It might be due in part to being unfinished, but how far off can they be when it’s released in less than a month? The camera-work was shakey, obnoxious, and they seemed to like to zoom into ultra-close-ups. Ever wonder what’s up Dawkins’ nose? Here’s your chance to find out.
The entire movie was interspliced with stock footage and older movies. A comment from an interview about “Big Science” picking on the little guys would be followed by a 1940’s-looking clip of two guys slapping each other. A comment from someone who supposedly lost their job over ID would be followed by a clip from Planet of the Apes, with an ape water-hosing Heston and calling him a freak. While they were obviously trying to be funny, it just got so tiring and distracting.
It started out going one-by-one through the people who’ve had their jobs affected by their talking about ID. This was also pretty boring. You hear one, you basically hear them all. They asked Michael Shermer what he would say about people losing their jobs because of ID, and he said that as far as he knew, that’s never happened, and if it did, it probably involved other factors than just ID. This was basically ignored, and Stein continued to assert that ID was the only reason they were fired.
There was also a part where Stein wandered around Seattle saying “Where is it? Oh, I’ll just keep walking. Where is it?” He reaches a building and says “The Discovery Institute must be this entire building.” Soon after: “Oh, but it has to be at least one of these floors.” But no, it turns out it’s only half a floor out of a 20-story building. They also point out the half-dozen people at the office, clearly making the point that IDists are the underdogs when it comes to money. You have to be kidding.
They never actually explained what the evidence for ID is, they just tried to make the actual scientists look as silly as possible. One guy talked about abiogenesis, something about molecules on the back on crystals. Stein repeated this multiple times, and said, paraphrasing, “If they can accept life arising on the backs of crystals, what’s so improbable about God?” They also asked Dawkins about the possibility of ID, and he was talking about that the designer must have evolved themselves, so if we did find evidence for ID, then it would have to be something like an alien seeding life here rather than a god. Of course, Stein took this and ran with it. Dawkins himself believes ID to be possible, but only if it’s aliens! Why not God? Isn’t that more plausible?
Stein then asked Dawkins to put a number on how sure he is that ID didn’t happen. After saying he didn’t think it was appropriate to put a number on such a thing, he said 99%. Then conversation following went as such: “99, huh? Why not 97?” “Uh, well, you asked me to put a number on it…” “Why not 47, then?” “Well, I think it’s definitely in the higher range…” Dawkins looked more confused than anything in this part, and understandably so. The audience was laughing their asses off, but I can’t understand why. Dawkins was kind of stuttering, but it was because he was asked to quantify something that can’t be quantified.
Towards the end of the movie, it started gearing towards Darwinism causing Nazism, so the interspliced footage was of tanks rolling through Germany and piles of corpses and incinerators in concentration camps. Eventually, Ben Stein himself visited a camp in Germany and some sort of building where people were gassed and dissected. It was very slow-moving, with lots of shots of Ben Stein covering his face and trying his best to look melancholy (but does he ever not?) and emotionally disturbed. There was also a recurring theme of the Berlin wall, too. Big Science has put up this wall to destroy freedom and keep out ideas, y’know?
Before I’d seen this movie, I was of the opinion that it would be worthwhile to see, but I’d pay money for something else and walk into the “wrong” auditorium. Now I realise that it really wasn’t worth the hour-and-a-half of my time. I cannot emphasise how utterly boring this film was. Half of it was annoying clips of people knitting, people making toys, people laying bricks, tanks, Hitler, and people chipping at the Berlin wall. Half of the other half was different people saying the same things.
I love a good piece of stupid to laugh at, but I was even disappointed in that aspect. It was too boring to be amusing. Don’t bother. If you really must, just wait a while and find it on the internet where you can hit the stop button.
The Kalam Cosmological Argument
March 4, 2008 Misc. 80 CommentsP1: If the universe has no beginning, there have been an infinite number of events.
P2: An infinite number of events is an absurdity and is impossible.
C1: Therefore, the universe must have had a beginning.
P3: Everything which has a beginning must have been caused by something.
P4: If C1 and P3, then C2.
C2: The universe must have been caused by something.
P5: The cause of the universe is eternal.
P6: The only way an eternal cause could produce something bound by time is for it to freely choose to.
P7: If P5 and P6, then C3.
C3: The cause of the universe must be personal.
Craig’s argument is that the universe having no beginning would lead to an impossibility since infinite collections are an absurdity, thus we must conclude that it does indeed have a beginning. All beginnings must have a cause–they couldn’t have just popped into being–so the universe must have had a cause. The first cause must be an eternal thing, or else it would have to have been caused itself. The only way that the eternal cause of the universe could have produced something that is non-eternal is through a conscious choice. Therefore, the cause of the universe is personal.
This argument is valid, but its soundness can be attacked through several of its premises. In premise 2, Craig states that an infinite number of events is impossible. He uses the analogy of a bookshelf with infinite books on it. If you remove all the black books from it, there are still infinite books left. To him, this concept is absurd. If it was a finite bookshelf, we would expect the total number of books to change if any were removed. But infinity behaves differently. In one sense, there are fewer even numbers than counting numbers. But if you pair up each even number with a counting number, since there are infinite numbers, you will never have leftover numbers to show a difference in totals. It’s in this sense that infinite books can equal infinite books minus the black books. Every book in set #1 will have a pair in set #2.
In premise 3, one can question if indeed everything finite must have a cause. This is an inductive a posteriori statement. We can’t know that everything finite must have a cause because we haven’t experienced every finite thing to discover if it had a cause or not. The beginning of the universe, of matter and time itself, is much different than anything we have witnessed. One can’t say for sure that the universe’s beginning has an outside cause: it could’ve caused itself. Someone who supports this premise might argue that it’s made abductively. We have no reason to believe that it wouldn’t have a cause, since every other finite thing we’ve seen does, and so it’s the best answer possible.
Premise 6 says that the cause of the universe must be personal because the only way for an eternal cause to cause something non-eternal is for it to choose to do so. This premise is completely unfounded. There is no evidence and we have no experience of how an eternal entity may behave. There is no reason to believe that something eternal can’t cause something which is bound by time without choosing to do so.
If we accept the argument without objection and the conclusion that the universe was caused by something eternal which can choose what it creates, we run into another issue. It’s established that there is a cause, but not that this is God. By classical theism’s definition of God, s/he is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. Proving that there is a personal cause says nothing of the cause’s powers (other than its ability to create universes), knowledge, or morals.
As a reply to this objection, Craig has said, “The simple syllogism lying at the heart of the Kalam cosmological argument should be supplemented by a conceptual analysis of what it is to be a cause of the universe, an exercise which serves to recover many of the traditional divine attributes.” He means, basically, that a cause of the universe would have to have the attributes which we traditionally give to God.
First of all, creating a universe does not imply omnipotence. As far as we can tell, God has never created a TV. He created the physical laws and matter, which then allowed us humans to create such a thing. But he has never actually poofed one into existence. We have no reason yet to believe he is capable of it.
Someone might propose that the creator must be omniscient–he must know everything about this universe because he was the one who created it. I can create a sculpture out of clay, but still not know every bump and ridge on it. This is the limitation of my eyesight and memory. There is no reason to believe the creator does not have limitations too, especially if he is not omnipotent as mentioned previously.
Support for the creator’s omnibenevolence is even weaker. We’ve all heard these arguments. Morality is subjective. By whose idea of “good” is the creator? The idea of omnibenevolence can also imply a contradiction. A wolf would think a god who created vast herds of deer benevolent, but at the same time, those deer would find that god malevolent to have put them in with wolves.
So contrary to Craig’s belief, causing a universe does not imply that that cause has any of the qualities of God according to classical theism. His argument can imply a deistic god, who simply created the universe and nothing more. That is, assuming the faults in his premises that an infinite series of events are impossible, that all finite things have a cause, and that eternal things can’t cause non-eternal things don’t already dissuade you from his argument.
English as an Official Language
February 22, 2008 Essays, Language 43 CommentsUnifying the country by a common language sounds like a noble goal. Over at the website ProEnglish, they state a number of problems of having a multilingual country: it’s causing a growing underclass of workers who can’t get good jobs and it’s creating “linguistic ghettos.” If English was an official language, it would “empower” immigrants (what?) and reinforce America’s historic message and assimilate immigrants. They just want to make sure all Americans get all the benefits of being American.
Interestingly enough, the site declares “official English doesn’t mean ‘English only.’” Yet also says that “no one has a right to demand government services in any other language.”
No matter how much they wrap it in the shiny paper of “but we’re trying to HELP the immigrants,” the tone of superiority peeks through. Anyone who wants to learn English should have the right to do so, not the responsibility. If they require English for the job they want, in order to go to college here, or whatever other reason, then they can learn it. Help should be provided. But if they decide that they don’t need it in their life, let them speak their native tongue. They are American, though, so it’s important that our American government provides them services too. It’s a monstrous thing to neglect citizens just because they don’t wish to pursue English. I want to make sure that all Americans get the benefit of being American by having people recognise that “American” doesn’t mean “English-speaking white.” They come in all colours and languages.
God forbid we true-born Americans ever have to be inconvenienced, though! Why don’t the natively English-speaking Americans learn multiple languages? It’s an equally reasonable idea. I can speak to all of the Spanish-speaking world and all of the Spanish-speaking immigrants here at home. The English-only nutjobs can only speak to those who choose to speak English.
Multilingualism is beautiful. But a choice.