sudo life

As the war between PZ and the folks at the Intersection heats up again, I can’t help but throw my own voice into the cacophony.  The argument is age-old and tries to answer the question: “Why are people so gosh darn ignorant?”  On one side, the answer is because they cling to superstition and ritual.  On the other side, it’s because scientists aren’t good enough educators.  To be fair, the previous two sentences were gross over-simplifications of the respective positions.

To a certain extent, both sides are correct, but it’s not a debate I’m really interested in.  As an educator, the reach of my influence is greater than the common person, but not that great, and I’m personally satisfied with what I’m doing.  I can’t do anything about the rest.

The question I have seems to be the one that the accomodationalists (that is, the people who think scientists should focus only on the science) have yet to answer.  What should be done about those people who are not merely ignorant, but ignorant and proud of it, and actively work against known truth.

I don’t have a problem with people believing evolution is wrong and the earth is only 6000 years old, until those beliefs start influencing public policy.  How should those demonstrably harmful beliefs be handled then?

I don’t have a problem with people taking homeopathic medicine and other alternative medical treatments, but how should those beliefs be treated when they’re foisted upon children and others who are unable to protect themselves?

How should the psychic who preys on the weak and hurt be treated?

How should the faith healers who use honest belief as instrument for personal profit be treated?

The popularization of science is not going to make the young-earth creationist change their mind.  When they come to the schools and attempt to gut science curriculum, what should be done?

Education will work in the long term.  We see it working already.  But it will take decades before we get the kind of literacy society really needs.  What are we supposed to do in the meantime?  Sit silently and hope we don’t destroy ourselves out of ignorance?  What can we do right now beyond education?

These are the questions I’d like answered by the accomodationalists.

Philosophy education, Science

For part of my vacation this year, I visited my friend Tara, who lives in San Antonio.  It was a beautiful trip, and San Antonio was very nice.  Maybe I will write more about that later.  There was one quick thing I wanted to post about, however.  When I visited the Alamo, there was a short sentence that really jumped out at me.  There is a picture on the right.

The first sentence reads: “Republicanism, a new idea about government, became popular in the late 1700s.”

I realize this may be over pedantic, but I just couldn’t let this drop.  Republicanism was a new idea about government?  Perhaps the author of this short blurb should have read Plato.

That’s all for now.  I need to get back to catching up on email.

Philosophy, education government, Philosophy, politics

Yes it was violent.  Yes there was a sex scene.  Yes, there was a big blue penis.  And yes, it was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time.  You see, the movie wasn’t about the violence, the sex, the penis, or anything else like that.  It was about the story, and the story is what carries this movie to being one of the best ever.  And if you haven’t yet seen the movie, but are planning to, you’ll get much more out of it if you read the book first.

The story isn’t simple.  If you want simple, I recommend something like “National Treasure.”  The story  makes you think.  If you don’t want to think, I recommend watching Jerry Springer.  The story is a commentary on society, and it is a commentary on ourselves.

Here’s a few of the questions explored:

• What are the implications of having a true superman with godlike powers?  (hint: perhaps clothes aren’t really important, and neither is humanity)
• Does humanity require a Watchman (God?) to keep us from destroying ourselves?
• What do we require protection from?
• What is the importance of the rule of law?
• What are the implications of having a moral philosophy that you never compromise, and are there any possible compromises to your moral philosophy?
• What is the meaning of miracles?

I could probably think of a few more questions, but there’s more to the story than just these explorations.  There’s depth. There are repeated visual themes and commentary occurring over contrasting scenes, but amazingly applicable to both.  The nuances of life are present, and this is what sets it apart from other comic book stories.  I really enjoyed watching Iron Man, but was that story very nuanced?  The only other comic book based movie that comes close in recent years that I can think of is The Dark Knight.   More than anything, Watchmen isn’t an escape from reality, but instead presents a mirror of ourselves.  The best and worse of us are presented along with everything in between.  If that’s the sort of thing that you enjoy, then you would definitely enjoy this movie, especially after you read the book.

Philosophy humanity, movies

This story gets under my nerves.  A professor asked his students to write an essay critical of U.S. VP Candidate Sarah Palin.  The article doesn’t provide any details of the assignment directly, but off the top of my head, I can’t think of any reason why such an assignment would be wrong, especially at the college level.

This isn’t about your views.  This isn’t about whether you like or dislike Sarah Palin.  Reading the sentence on it’s own merits, it doesn’t even necessarily mean finding flaws in Ms. Palin:

criticize
1. To find fault with: criticized the decision as unrealistic.
2. To judge the merits and faults of; analyze and evaluate.

I would like to draw your attention to the second definition, as it is the one most commonly used in higher education.

But let us suppose that this wasn’t the case.  The assignment really was to write an essay that found fault with Sarah Palin.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with that either.  One thing any well balanced should be able to do is formulate an argument whether they agree with it or not.  It is a necessary part of being able to understand anything.

Where is the problem?

It drives me batty that anyone attending an institute of higher education would not recognize this.  It drives me batty that the press are even paying attention to this.  Isn’t the skill this lesson is aimed towards a fundamental part of being a journalist?

I’m planning on voting for Barack Obama this fall.  Here are a few faults he has:

• His recent FISA vote was so wrong, that to completely explain why would not be appropriate for this blog post.
• He appears to think it’s wrong to criticize other people’s religion.
• A few of his commercials have not been completely honest in their criticisms of his opponent.

Those are three things right off the top of my head.  If I sat down to think about it more, I’m sure I could come up with several more.

I fear the real issue here is avoidance of being self-critical.  If you agree with Sarah Palin, criticism of her is criticism of you.  We can’t have that in the classroom, obviously.

Dammit, grow some courage, people.

“We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers. -Carl Sagan”

Philosophy critical thinking, education, Philosophy

After the events of last night, I am sorry to inform everyone that the world did in fact end, and what we are currently experiencing is merely a figment of my massive imagination.

You read that correctly.  Every thought, every sensation, everything that exists is now just the rapid firing of the nuerons and synapses in my brain during the last few nanoseconds before it completely disintegrates.

Considering this possibility as fact is known to lead to madness unless you hit upon the phrase, “I think, therefore I am.”  Although, when you think about it, even your brains are a figment of my imagination, so while it might be a comforting thought to you, it doesn’t change reality…

Enjoy your existence!

Note:  If you start seeing an abnormally high number of references to the following things, have no worries, as this is just part of the normal functioning of my brain:

• Pickles
• Onomatopoeia
• An increased density of truly stupid puns.

Philosophy funny, Philosophy, physics

Recently, there have been a plethora comments coming from people who should know better concerning terms like ‘hacker,’ or more appropriately ‘hacking.’  I would link to some of the examples, but they have been removed. It is ironic that many of these comments came from atheists who should be sympathetic to being labeled as something that has different meanings depending on if it’s self-labeled or applied by someone else.  Atheists realize they are only ‘non-theists’ while many theists have the tendency to view atheists as something much more horrible, and very far from reality.

When the lay person uses the word ‘hacker’ or any of it’s forms, they are usually refering to some sort of illegal, or at the very least, annoying activity.  Things like breaking into someone’s computer, launching ddos attacks, stealing identities, and the like.  This is not how the term was originally meant to be used.  The proper word to describe these activities is ‘cracking.’  A person who cracks into computer systems is a cracker, not a hacker.

So what is a hacker? Here are a few definitions from the Jargon file:

1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. RFC1392, the Internet Users’ Glossary, usefully amplifies this as: A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular.
2. A person who is good at programming quickly.
3. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example.
4. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.

I don’t know about you, but I tend to view these as good things – as things to strive towards.

It is a big problem that the words can have such varying meanings.  Even though I know the difference, I’ve been known to use them inappropriately when talking to people who don’t know the difference and don’t want to know the difference.  It’s very frustrating when these people are atheists people who should know better.  I don’t know how to solve this problem, but I’m open to ideas.  I like the label of hacker, though I don’t think it can really apply to me.  I’m simply not good enough.  Never-the-less, I do hope that this post has raised some consciousness about the issues involved here.

Philosophy Atheism, pedantry, Programming, technology

I’m on vacation this week, and it’s been glorious!

I’m not watching the olympics this year.  Actually, it’s been several years since I last watched either the summer or the winter olympics.  I’ve just felt there is something wrong with them.  I wasn’t sure what until this year.

It started when I bought the awesome series off the iTunes store called “When We Left Earth.”  If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.  It chronicals NASA starting with the Mercury program to the current day.  While I watched this, there is something that repeatedly jumped out at me:  the difference between calling the achievements of the program ‘American’ achievments or ‘Humanity’s’ achievements.  I realized that don’t really view the moon landings, for example, as the fomer of those, but the latter.  When I think about those events, they don’t make me proud to be an American.  They make me proud to be a human.

There are those that go the other way.  At the time, NASA was a source for national pride, and that continues to this day for many.  We were better than those Commies, and we showed them.  I understand that’s important, but we would be better off without it.

From the perspective of space, you can’t see the borders of nations.  There is only one earth, and everything in it is connected to everything else by location.  All our quibles are meaningless from that perspective.  Carl Sagan said it much better than I ever could.  And so I get tired about hearing about all of it.  I get tired about hearing what comes down to idiotic squabbles like the Russian-Georgia fiasco, or our own country’s fiasco in Iraq.  Or China’s censorship and human rights violations.

I always thought the olympics were meant to be a place where we could set aside our differences and participate in sporting competition.  But when I hear the coverage, it continues to be portrayed as just another place for nations to duke it out.  “Hey, look!  China has the most Gold medals.”  “We Americans lead the medal count, HA!”

You know what I want to see?  I want to see an event that can bring everyone together, but in a way that doesn’t reflect nationalities.  We need a worldwide event dedicated to celebrating the abilities of humanity itself, not the ‘products’ of it’s nations.

And that’s why I don’t really care about the Olympics.  As long as it continues to be some way for a nation to exert it’s superiority over another nation, my reaction continues to be: meh.

Philosophy humanity, inspiration, nasa

A week or two ago I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. We were discussing a situation she found herself in, something she had been quite excited about for quite sometime, though I have been less sure about. During the course of our conversation I was surprised to hear that she seemed to have started to share some of my reservations. I don’t want to go into specifics, in order to protect the guilty, but the abstract situation is this: my friend is apathetic about her own feelings, and continues to be in her situation because it makes other people happy. I wasn’t sure what to think about this, except to feel a profound sadness, coupled with the shock that someone could actually feel apathetic towards their own happiness. It was this conversation that started me thinking about apathy, and I wanted to share some of those thoughts now.

There is this phenomena where one hears a new word, or they discover something new, and then they suddenly start noticing it everywhere. This is called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. While this isn’t exactly what I experienced, once I had ‘apathy’ on my mind, I started noticing it everywhere. I was stunned at times to see just how proud people can be of it. It’s the attitude that shows as ‘look at how much I don’t care about anything.’ Of course, at that level, there is some self-referential ‘caring’ going on. They care about showing other how much they don’t care. True and complete apathy would leave someone little more than an unmoving shell. But let’s leave that alone.

I started thinking about how this sort of attitude could come to be. I’m not a psychologist, or a sociologist, so this is my lay opinion. I’m sure that there are other factors involved, but the one I struck on is this: perhaps there is simply too much to care about.

In our new globalized world, we have global problems. We are inundated with problems we feel we should care about every day. Here’s a short, incomplete list that I came up with on the fly:

1. Global Warming – Not only is this a global problem, but it’s one that individuals can’t really do anything about. They can live as ‘green’ as they can, but until you have most people doing this, not much will change, and perhaps it wouldn’t change even then. Global warming makes us face a deadly problem coupled with our own individual hopelessness.
2. Overpopulation – The planet can only hold so many people, and our population is growing exponentially. We have limited resources, which are dwindling everyday. This problem is coupled by the moral and ethical dilemmas of controlling population growth. Is it acceptable to limit the number of children someone can have?
3. Energy Consumption – This problem is tightly coupled with the first two. We have billions of people who need to use energy, and the way we’ve been generating that energy is through the use of fossil fuels, which [probably] leads to global warming. The issues of alternative energy are not clear. What is the average person supposed to do?

Here are some national issues for Americans:

1. The War on Terror – What does this even mean? It all seemed so simple 7 years ago.
2. Dwindling Rights – Coupled with #4. What are we supposed to do about our dwindling rights? It’s too surreal, why is this happening?
3. Guantanamo Bay – Human rights violations. Waterboarding. Torture. These words haven’t been associated with our country very much, at least not seriously. How can we take them seriously now?
4. Education Reform – Our educational system is far from perfect, but it’s too set in it’s ways to change. We’re stuck with it.
5. Value of the Dollar – What does it even mean to have the dollar valued at it’s lowest ever?

I have eight things on this list, and realistically, I could have spent the next month just adding to is. Is the average person capable of even caring about all these, let alone understanding the nuances involved with them? I care about all of them in some abstract sense, but I can feel pretty hopeless about most of these. Even if I spent all my time dedicated to one of these issues, it’s unlikely to change anything. But that isn’t even a possibility. I must work to make a wage so I can pay my bills and deal with my own personal life. I realize that’s a rather cynical attitude, but it’s also true. There isn’t much one person can do.

It reminds me of the prisoner’s dilemma, but on a much more massive scale. In the prisoner’s dilemma, you have a situation where a person can gain or lose something of value. Here’s wikipedia’s explanation, which is much better than what I could have come up with:

Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies (”defects”) for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?

So basically, if everyone looks out for themselves, everyone ‘loses.’ If everyone cooperates except one person, that person ‘wins’ and everyone else ‘loses.’ The optimal solution for everyone is to have everyone cooperate. The problem is that when everyone is cooperating, the individual can start to think, ‘well, if I just look out for myself a little bit more, I can gain much more.’ It’s a very tempting thing to do. And so easy to do, especially when it can be done without anyone else knowing.

Hell, a whole book could be written about how this ‘game’ can be applied to just one of those issues listed above. But applying it to all of them, I think the answer is clear. It is simply easier to not care, and by not caring, there is nothing to worry about, and there is nothing to fail at.

Does this explain the prevalence of so much apathy? Maybe, maybe not.

But in any case, it’s something to be concerned about. Better add that to the list.

Philosophy apathy, current events, game theory, Science

Americans have gained an unfortunate reputation for being terrible at geography, among other things. That was driven home recently in an episode I had with someone with a Ph.D. I won’t give out specifics, but the episode has stayed on my mind for a while.

This person had a mind map they were working on, and they were laying out some countries relative to the continents they reside in. What was this persons snafu? They had labeled Nicaragua and Cuba as belonging in South America.

Yikes!

I spotted their error immediately, and pointed out that this wasn’t actually correct. Then insisted it was right, though, and instead of arguing my point, I let the matter drop. After all, they have a Ph.D. What do I know with my lowly bachelors degree in music? Never-the-less, nearly two weeks have past, and it still bothers me. There were so many wrong things with this. The mind-map already had North America listed, which had Mexico, Canada, and the United States under it. Nothing wrong with that. I would have been ok if they had listed Nicaragua under ‘Central America’ even.

Actually, I’m not clear whether technically it should be North America, or Central America. But I do know it absolutely should not be listed under South America. Cuba is the same way. Should it be listed under ‘Caribbean,’ or ‘North America?’ Once again, though, ‘South America’ is just dead wrong.

The fact that these were wrong, though, isn’t what is truly bothering me. We all make little stupid mistakes like that. What really bothers me is that this person had absolutely no interest in what was actually true. They were set in their ways, and to hell with everyone else. They knew what was right, and any one who contradicted what they knew was wrong by default.

They did not have an empty cup:

A university professor went to visit a famous Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor’s cup to the brim, and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself. “It’s overfull! No more will go in!” the professor blurted. “You are like this cup,” the master replied, “How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup.”

This story has been on my mind lately.  There is so much one can learn from this.  The main point is that the professor had come to the zen master with a lot of preconceived notions.  He already knew what zen was, and came to the master, not in order to learn, but to demonstrate his own knowledge.  This is not necessarily bad, but the implication in the story is that he had come to the master in order to learn zen.  The lesson to draw from this story is that in order to learn, you need to be willing to learn.  You need to be able to leave what you know behind and absorb new knowledge.

The application of this lesson can go far beyond zen and buddhism itself.  As a music major, I had lessons every week with my euphonium professor.  What would have gotten accomplished if I had gone into the lessons under the impression that I already knew everything about playing euphonium?  I learned the most in these lessons when I had dropped my preconceived notions about music and playing.

It can apply in the classroom as well.  What’s the point in taking a history class when you already assume that you know it all?  We’ve all seen students like this in class.  They’re smart, they know what’s going on, they’ve studied on their own, outside of the classroom.  I’ve probably been that guy once or twice as well.  If I could go back to that time, I would tell myself to ‘empty my cup.’

I hear someone ask, ‘Doesn’t this attitude cause some epistemological issues?’  It certainly seems so, doesn’t it?  If we forsake all our knowledge when we go in to learn something new, we’ll never actually learn anything.  It becomes a useless philosophy.  As with most things, moderation and wisdom is the key.

Should I have an empty cup when talking to an young earth creationist, for example?  Or someone who believes that meditation will give you supernatural powers?  You might think that my answer to this is ‘no way,’ but this is not the case.  In situations like these, the important thing is listening, and that is how you apply the idea of ‘empty cup.’  If I was talking to a young earth creationist, for example, and assumed that what they were saying was just like every other young earth creationist I’ve ever heard, those are preconceived notions that interfere with communication.  I need to empty my cup of those notions and listen to what the person is saying.

And perhaps that is the real lesson here: a willingness to listen to what is being said instead of forcing our own notions on someone else.  Perhaps it doesn’t have anything at all to do with our own beliefs, but our willingness to actually listen to what someone else is saying rather than being interested in only giving our own perspectives.

Philosophy Buddhism, education, koan

Spiritual: concerned with or affecting the spirit or soul; “a spiritual approach to life”; “spiritual fulfillment”; “spiritual values”; “unearthly love”

I think we need to new word that describes ’spiritual.’ ‘Spiritual’ simply has too much baggage, not to mention steeped in the assumption of superstitious ideals like the ’spirit’ or ’soul’ of which there is no evidence for.  I chose the definition above for ’spiritual’ as being the closest out of a list of them that described what I’m talking about when I use the word.  Yet, this definition is not close to the concept I am trying to describe.

Even though we have no soul or immaterial part of ourselves, there is part of us – our brains – that seek an understanding of the world we live in.  It drives us to take what we know and create new things – things that have never been done before, and perhaps in some cases, never even been imagined before.  It’s this drive to learn and create that I refer to when I say ’spiritual.’  It is spiritual, because as we do these things, we gain an understanding of the transcendental – a world that isn’t so much beyond matter, but beyond ourselves.  We have the humbling realization that we are just one person on a world full of many, on a planet that is around an ordinary star in an ordinary galaxy, in an ordinary cluster, et cettera.  There is nothing inherently special about us, yet we are here, and that is an extraordinary event in and of itself.

Our existence, as insignificant as it is, is something to be cherished.  While there is nothing necessarily divine about it, the word holy can almost be applied.

I am an agnostic atheist, which means I don’t believe in god, and I don’t think it’s possible to be absolutely sure one way or another if god exists.  But that fact about me doesn’t diminish that drive I mentioned before.  In fact, just the opposite is true.  I am a much more ’spiritual’ person as an atheist than I ever was as a Christian.  Perhaps that’s merely a product of my maturity however.

Never-the-less, the fact remains that I can’t really just call myself ’spiritual.’  Most people won’t understand it, or will get the wrong impression.  I can’t use words like ‘holy,’ as it implies a dogmatic devotion to some ideal that’s not to be question, instead of a description of a bigger perspective.  I can’t use the word ‘transcendental’ to describe an idea that transcends our own individual existence, because it implies something non-material.  These words simply have too much baggage.

There is much more that can be said.  One possible solution is to find new words, but there are problems with that idea.  Another possibility is to just get people to use these words in different ways, and force the definitions to expand, but there are obvious problems with that as well.  I have no doubt that with disbelief on the rise, we’ll figure this out one way or another, and I’ll be very interested to see just what happens.

Philosophy Atheism, pedantry, spirituality