Story Ideas: How About Some Non-Evil Aliens?

Story Idea Smorgasbord: quick plots with no real fleshing out of the details.

An alien scout spaceship arrives in orbit in early July 1945 and observes the Trinity nuclear test. It begins to track movements of fissile materials on Earth and observes the atomic bomb's transfer to the air base on Tinian. The aliens, having lived through a nuclear war on their home world, respond by using an armed orbital re-entry vehicle to shoot down the Enola Gay on August 6.

Variation on this theme: A human deep space exploration vessel encounters a civilization on the verge of developing its first atomic weapons (in the middle of a war) and must decide whether to not interfere and allow it to be dropped on a city or to prevent it.

Same story, but told from different perspectives (1st version is told from the homeworld perspective, 2nd from the spacefarers' perspective).

Another variation: aliens arrive in orbit in late (December) 1944 by which time most of the German death camps have already been overrun by the USSR and destroyed. Thus, when they observe the world, they see Japanese internment (not to mention continued bombing of the home island cities) from the USA, Gulags in the USSR (and Red Army atrocities in Eastern Europe), and colonial oppression from Britain. They conclude that the Allies are the "bad guys" in the war, and intervene on the Axis' behalf.

That's all I got for now: pacifist aliens. I'll post more when I come up with them.

Causality: A Rigorous Examination

One of the most important concepts, one underlying science and any model one would use to predict outcomes in daily life, is that of causality. But what is causality, and what can we say about it?

As in any good rigorous examination of ideas, we begin with definitions:

The start state of a possible world is simply the precise arrangement of elements at the time we begin examining it (however, an imprecise version of the start state is also used (called, imaginatively, the "known start state" as opposed to the "true" start state), in which the start state is simply the totality of information we have on the actual start state). The outcome set of this possible world is the set of possible arrangements at the time we finish examining it, weighted by probability. The outcome is the actual arrangement at the time we finish examining.

Example: Suppose we consider a very simple universe consisting only of a number of x-dice (x is allowed to vary over the set of dice but is constrained to always be a natural number); each die has x+1 possible states: it can either be still and showing any of the numbers from 1 to x, or can be in the process of being rolled. This universe moves forward by discrete ticks, with rule that still dice do not change ever, and rolled x-die returns a random number, evenly weighted, from 1 to x. Now suppose we have the following start state: there are 3 indistinguishable 2-dice that are being rolled, a 3-die that is being rolled, and a 12-die that is still and showing 8. The outcome set of this world after one 'tick' is as follows (fractions in parentheses denote weight - these must add up to 1; other numbers are formatted in the following way (3*2[1], 1*3[3]) = "three 2-dice showing 1 and one 3-die showing 3"):

{

(1/24) (3*2[1], 1*3[1], 1*12[8]);

(1/24) (3*2[1], 1*3[2], 1*12[8]);

(1/24) (3*2[1], 1*3[3], 1*12[8]);

(1/8) (2*2[1], 1*2[2], 1*3[1], 1*12[8]);

(1/8) (2*2[2], 1*2[1], 1*3[1], 1*12[8]);

(1/8) (2*2[1], 1*2[2], 1*3[2], 1*12[8]);

(1/8) (2*2[2], 1*2[1], 1*3[2], 1*12[8]);

(1/8) (2*2[1], 1*2[2], 1*3[3], 1*12[8]);

(1/8) (2*2[2], 1*2[1], 1*3[3], 1*12[8]);

(1/24) (3*2[2], 1*3[1], 1*12[8]);

(1/24) (3*2[2], 1*3[2], 1*12[8]);

(1/24) (3*2[2], 1*3[3], 1*12[8])

}

I apologize for the overly complicated example, I seem to remember thinking it wouldn't look this bad. But you can see that (a) the fractions in parentheses do indeed add up to 1 and (b) every outcome (part after the weighting) is unique and it comprises the possibilities and probabilities that result from the scenario I described.

Now, what is a cause? A cause is simply an alteration in the start state of a universe. Its corresponding effect is a change in the outcome set of said universe.

Now let us examine what Free Will means in this context: Free Will states that outcomes can change independent of determinist and random factors. However, this terminology of cause and effect essentially covers determinist and random factors, leading me to conclude that in the real universe in which I (and thus Free Will) exist, there exist effects without causes. This is a baffling result to me. It means that with identical start states, we can have two different outcome sets. But using the traditional definition of probability, we see that two identical start states should necessarily have the same probabilistic outcomes, since the traditional definition of probability is "we run the experiment an infinite number of times; what is the density of result x? That density is the probability of result x".

Well, shit, it seems I have trapped myself in a logical contradiction and that some part of my theory will have to break. Let us go over my axiomatic system and see where I can change my system - I will either have to change my axioms or change my definitions, which are all basically axioms anyways.

Axiom of Axioms and Axiom of Logic: ...no, can't change those, because without those there are no other axioms, there is no logic, and there is no system.

Axiom of Utility: ...no, can't change that either in my system, since I quit philosophy if I become convinced that the Axiom of Utility is false.

Assumption that there always exists a start state... hmmm... it's true that by Heisenberg (Heisenberg to the rescue, as always) matter intrinsically has no location if its velocity is precisely known and vice versa (Heisenberg is NOT just a limit on our measurement capability) - this means that we are limited to start states with missing information...

In cases where a precise start state is not known, a change in start state can fly 'under the radar' of our knowledge and still have an effect. What about in cases where some information is physically nonexistent? Can we have changes in information that isn't there in the first place? It doesn't make sense, really, since this probability cloud ought to be the start state itself, but I am forced to conclude that either (a) this doesn't make sense and thus the Axiom of Utility is false, so I should quit philosophy, or (b) the probability cloud of a particle can change in physically immeasurable ways based on an unknown process ('process' = wrong word; can't really think of the right one now), thus changing the outcome set without changing our start state. I conclude (b) until I am forced into (a).

I know this doesn't make sense. It's like a free gift to my perennial opponent on the free will debate, since I just uncovered a serious weakness in my system and published it (the other option is intellectual dishonesty, good if you want to get something and are arguing for it but bad in philosophy where I want to strengthen my system - it's not going to patch up its own holes if I just shut my ears off and pretend I don't notice the holes). However, my logic that I should still believe in my own free will is rock solid, so I keep up my belief (hell, it's like Pascal's Wager, only without the bullshit theology, false dichotomy, or implication that I should automatically trust someone who promises infinite happiness). I'll study quantum mechanics and come back with an answer that makes sense later.

Utility Monsters

I doubt that any utilitarian sympathizer has managed to evade the question of the utility monster. As a complete utilitarian (when in the role of outside observer; when in the role of active player, I'm a self-acknowledged selfish altruist, i.e. I like other people to be happy but only because when people around me are happy, I tend to be happier, so basically I'm totally selfish), I've decided to simply tackle the question head on. However, first, I will need to explain my utilitarian ideas and the idea of the utility monster.

My utilitarian idea is simply that the optimal result for the whole is the optimal result for the parts; optimal results are calculated in units of "happiness*time*capacity to experience". Happiness ranges from -1 to 1, measuring "completely unhappy" (would prefer to not exist) to "completely happy" with 0 being defined as "indifferent about own existence". This is what that means: each entity in the universe has a utility function that assigns how much the entity "likes" any given outcome of the universe. For non-sentient entities, they don't actually care, so their utility is defined to be a constant 0 over all outcomes. For sentient ones, their utility functions are defined by them for themselves. A typical human utility function combines material wealth, emotional stability, social interactions, and a number of other factors. Utility functions increase in magnitude as "capacity to experience" increases - i.e. a snake may "like" a certain outcome that a human would not like, but the human overrides the snake since the human is more fully aware and thus able to appreciate his optimal utility better. I add the "*time" since I this happiness should last long.

More precisely, total utility from time t = a to b is (integral from a to b) ((summation over all entities) (happiness*capacity to experience)) (dt) - it's a fairly simple equation if you understand calculus.

A utility monster is a being that experiences a massive burst of optimality that is mutually exclusive with others' optimal results: for example, a typical utility monster is a man who experiences millions of times the happiness a normal human is capable of when he kills babies. The question: giving babies to this man to kill gruesomely will indeed increase total utility by my formula. Is it therefore the right thing to do?

Well, it depends on "right thing to do". I certainly wouldn't sacrifice myself to the utility monster - I'm selfish. And I wouldn't sacrifice others to it either - it's not my business, and I'd rather avoid it. But, I do believe that it is, from society's point of view, the "right thing to do". After all, we do it already. In fact, unless you're vegetarian, YOU are a utility monster (or at least you should hope you are - if you're not, it means eating meat is increasing total suffering in the world). I don't try to moralize meat-eating at all, really. I do it because I like it and I don't give a flying shit about what happens to animals, except for my friends' pets and the fish in my mother's pond. I accept that I am the utility monster, or worse, I'm pure selfishness propagating misery, and I eat meat. It's delicious. And I certainly wouldn't grudge meat to someone else. We all have the 'right' to do anything we can physically get away with (i.e. not be punished for or not be caught doing) and emotionally get away with (i.e. not feel guilty about afterwards), and I intend to exercise this right continuously. It's what rational living is all about.

Belief that feeding the utility monster is 'wrong' combined with meat-eating is a contradiction in terms. A side-effect conclusion is that if machines ever achieve greater sentience than humans, they are 100% justified in wiping out humanity to make room for their superior pleasure centers. If they try to wipe ME out, though, I'll fight back. Because it's what's good for ME.

Look out for yourself. Few others will.

The Angry Philosopher's Reading List

Continuing my long tradition of blatantly ripping off pretty much every single blogger ever, I've decided to put together a list of books and websites that I would highly recommend to anybody interested in philosophy and the science of sentience, and just interesting things in general:

Many thanks to my friend (I'm not sure I should post names on this blog, so I'll just say he knows I'm talking about him, and that's good enough for me) who introduced me to the first two materials on this list, and generally owns me at philosophy.

(1): Godel, Escher, Bach: hands down the most provocative, interesting, best written (I believe), and one of the funniest, things I've read in my life ever. If you are a human being with any interest in mathematics and logic and philosophy, please do yourself a favor and pick this gem up. You won't regret it.

(2): Eliezer Yudkowsky's website: a fantastic and clear introduction to modern rational thinking (though I do disagree with him on a few points, namely the idea that if I 'woke up with a blue tentacle instead of my left arm', there would be nothing for a rational person to do - if I do, clearly I'm dreaming and will wake up with my left arm back, so there's your 'useful prediction,' Yudkowsky). Also contains very interesting ideas about technology (singularity for the win) and some very interesting pieces of fiction (notably "Three Worlds Collide").

(3): Watchmen: interesting, entertaining, beautifully drawn, with real atmosphere and one of the best scenes of all time (in my opinion) - the funeral scene where each attendee has a flashback of the Comedian. This book proves that "super-heroes" and comic-book format are not just for little kids (Watchmen is NOT for kids - this stuff would just go over their heads), and proves it spectacularly. Props to it for having NO traditional "bad guy" figures, with the exception of really minor characters (the only one I can think of is "Big Figure" and his goons - even the other retired super-villains are clearly human and (especially Moloch) just want to be left alone).

(4): Macchiavelli's "The Prince" and (to a slightly lesser extent) "Discourses on Livy": the first clear-headed political thinker and godfather of realpolitik gives us a real insight into human nature and the nature of governments.

(5): Raymond Smullyan's "To Mock a Mockingbird": I admit I couldn't push my way through this incredibly dense exercise in logic, but it is well written and anybody interested in a crash course in logic written in an interesting way should check it out.

(6): The Number Devil: Finally, an introduction for kids and math illiterates to what really makes mathematics interesting. None of that boring number crunching crap here - only genuinely interesting (albeit well-known to any mathematician) ideas. Continuing on this theme, I can recommend many casual-mathematics books as introductions to what real mathematicians do with their time, as well as the (totally non-textbook-style) textbook Winning Ways (Conway, Berlekamp, Guy), for anyone who ever wanted to beat someone else at a game.

(7): Blade Runner: yes, it's a movie, but that doesn't make it any less interesting (not to mention it's huge entertainment value). Watch it. It's good. In the same vein, watch District 9. Despite the obviousness of "the fluid" as a plot device, the movie is damn good, and will make you think.

(8): The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: it's fucking hilarious. 'Nuff said.

(9): Logicomix. Deep, meaningful, insightful, and funny. Not an "intro to logic" (they tell you themselves in the opening pages), just the story of Bertrand Russell and the search for the foundations of logic.

The Levels of Sentience

Once my friend, who happens to be Thoughtful Phoenix on "Chasing Mists", commented to me that my ideas on Free Will seemed to him like reverse logic; I was, in essence, taking what I wanted to be true (Free Will) and forcing it onto a universe that was against it. Aside from my argument that science seems decidedly neutral on the question of Free Will, he was mistaking my intent. I don't WANT Free Will, it's just that any belief contrary to Free Will makes the entire exercise necessarily pointless and scripted. So what do I want?

Before answering this question, I would like to construct a (very rough and imprecise) sketch of something I believe without having any real reason to (this is why this post is not part of My System):

The Six Levels of Sentience:

Category 0 Sentience: Non-sentient. Includes almost everything in the universe, such as rocks, planets, stars, and man-made objects like cars and houses and such.

Category 1 Sentience: Replicating and data-storing systems. Category 1 sentience includes bacteria, prions, viruses, computer viruses, computers (to an extent), and even organisms as complex as plants, although plants should actually fall between categories 1 and 2. Category 1 Sentient entities have very primitive objective functions, i.e. they 'desire' to replicate, but these are not true objective functions since they are not self-aware.

Category 2 Sentience: Primitive self-aware systems. Includes animals (basically anything with a few sensory organs and a nervous system). These organisms have objective functions (i.e. "want food") and basic emotions, and can take direct action to get what they want. However, they lack true self-awareness, and cannot imagine (i.e. consider things that are not real and will never have a hope of being real).

Category 3 Sentience: Developed self-awareness. Can imagine and create. Basically, this category includes only humans. Have fully thought-out and self-aware objective functions and can take actions to fulfill objectives, but are sometimes thwarted by inability of conscious free will to subvert subconscious control (i.e. a fat person unable to diet).

Category 4 Sentience: Like Category 3 Sentience but can directly manipulate its own sentient structure to produce improved versions of itself. For example, if I were a Category 4 Sentience, I would manipulate my own intelligence levels to ever higher strengths, manipulate myself into liking foods and actions (like exercise) that are good for my body, and manipulate my objective functions to be perpetually happy (essentially, turn my body and part of my mind to preserving my existence, and the rest to expanding my pleasure capacity). Category 4 Sentience is the category that will undergo the Technological Singularity, if it ever happens.

Category 5 Sentience: Totally fictional. Possesses a perfect will and perfect knowledge of its own objective function, and so will always act the same way in the same situations (a.k.a. no Free Will). Possesses self-awareness and pleasure capacity equal to the physical limit. Will always take the optimum action in every situation.

So this is what I want. I don't want Free Will. I want to use Free Will to achieve a state where Free Will is replaced by optimum determinism, i.e. as close an approximation of Category 5 Sentience as is physically possible. I want to be optimally happy for as much time as is possible.

I want to go to heaven, but, since it doesn't exist after death, I wish to create it for life.

Story Plots: Judaea

The holiest site in Judaism is the Temple Mount, the place where the historic Second Temple (and probably the first one too - I'm not certain) was built. The Jewish faith says that when the Messiah comes to save the world, the Third Temple will be rebuilt.

Trouble is, the Temple Mount is now the site of one of Islam's top-five holy places, the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock (where Muhammad ascended to Heaven and blah blah blah).

There are some modern Israelis who say that since Israel possesses the Temple Mount, they should destroy Al-Aqsa and build the Third Temple, a move likely to cause war with every muslim nation on the planet. The Israeli government has a number of excuses to not do this, one of which is that only a perfectly red heifer can be sacrificed there - and they don't have a red heifer.

The story of Judaea (is mostly planned to be a flashback, but...) picks up when a team of Israeli genetics experts create a perfectly red heifer and declare the time of the Messiah to be nigh. The upcoming Israeli elections suddenly take a radical swing following mass euphoria amongst many religious and semi-religious Israelis and the newly convened Knesset votes to rebuild the temple. A distressed secular Israeli Air Force commander, the heads of Mossad and Shin Bet, and many secular Israeli army commanders stage a putsch to prevent this (re-basing the government to the more secular area of Tel-Aviv) and deploy paratrooper regiments and air defenses around the temple mount. Much of Israel is outraged by this and the West Bank and significant parts of Eretz Israel break off and form the Republic of Judaea. Jerusalem remains in army control, but a strong Jewish insurgency against the Israeli army builds up, and mortar attacks even begin on the Temple Mount in an attempt to destroy the Dome of the Rock. Palestinians stage a mass uprising in the West Bank but are beaten down by the gloves-off Judaean Army (composed of regiments of the Israeli Army that did not back the coup) and several massacres occur. In response, Syria and Iran attack Judaea. Judaea and Israel sign an accord and beat back the Syrians and Iranians (who distrust each other enough to seriously mess up their war effort), but a continuing battle over Jerusalem ensues. In the end, Judaean rockets fired from the Old City, where even the secular Israeli Army doesn't dare bomb, destroy Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. All Muslim nations attack Israel (all of it, since none recognize Judaea as a country) and most Western nations cut off aid and relations with Israel. Israel cuts a deal with the UN to forfeit the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with international control of the sacred sites. Despite inflicting massive casualties on the attacking Arab forces, Judaea is wiped out, and a Western/Israeli/Arab standoff ensues over Jerusalem. In the end, Israel reverts to a combo of the UN 1947 partition plan and the pre-1967 "Green Line" (with a few modifications like Ma'ale Adummim). Notably, Israel loses control of East and Old Jerusalem, which is to be governed by a UN-created interfaith council. The Israeli Junta resigns and Israel elects a new, secular Knesset.

Story Plots: Immortal

Given that I'm a math major and philosophy enthusiast, and only two or three people ever have gotten me to enjoy literature (shout-out here to my former English teacher in high-school, all-around nicest person ever to walk the Earth, who randomly gave me tea on cold days and made To the Lighthouse and Shakespeare (I would mention Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilych and the other one (can't remember the title) about a guy on a train talking about how he stabbed his wife (my favorite stories from that class), but I suspect I would enjoy Tolstoy even on my own) entertaining for even me, the most hard-headed and determined of Science and Math people - you can tell since I triple-nested parentheses in this shout-out) I tend to look for interesting plots in a book as opposed to writing, since I can't tell the difference between 'good' and 'great' writing (I can easily identify and discard boring stuff). I also tend to make up what I consider interesting plots (by the way, my all time winner for fantastic plot is Watchmen, with the exception of the Dr. Manhattan-is-God crap that never made any sense - 1984 is also quite good, as is Yudkowsky's Three Worlds Collide and the movie Blade Runner) and story-universes.

I will begin posting these up on my site. The first of these plots/universes is the universe of Immortal:

This is a story universe that takes place sometime in the 25th century. Space exploration and commercial development has largely been a flop, as has AI research. However, a massive and drawn-out biotech revolution has been going on since the mid-21st century. At the turn of the century (21st - 22nd) it was realized that every 20 years or so, medical technology expanded the average lifespan by 25 years - meaning everyone was expected to have remaining 5 years more than they started out with. This was hailed (rightfully) as a huge event - it meant effective immortality. This revolution reached a climax around 2200 (beginning of the 23rd century) with lifespan improvement of roughly 30 years for every 20 years of research.

During this time period, a huge number of political and demographic changes swept the world. For example, all the developed and most of the developing nations saw a massive burst in population since people were being born, but nobody was dying. By 2250, much of the world had declared birth outright illegal for economic reasons, with mandatory sterilization. Universities and schools closed down, with the occasional death being made up for by meager immigration from the Third World. Meanwhile, the third world continued to have normal birth and death rates since much of it was too mired in poverty to afford the expensive 'immortality' treatments. The obvious exceptions to this rule were the powerful families that dominated the third world. Realizing exactly how much the power gap between the oligarchs and the people had widened, and seeing the potential of immortality and ignorance to convince the people that the rulers were actual flesh-and-blood gods, bloody power struggles within these families produced a series of strongmen who ruled the third world. Each strongman was considered (because they were immortal) a god in his own country, and none allowed any other person, even family relations, to possess the modern western treatments. Thus the third world remained poor and underdeveloped, with the dictators trading raw materials to the increasingly flourishing and demanding 1st world economies in exchange for the immortality treatments.

However, by 2300, the immortality trend has begun to reverse - for every 25 years of medical research, only 20 years of expanded lifespan are achieved. The world is optimistic that a new technology can bring the world back into immortality, though, and things continue as they are. The medical revolution grinds to a halt around 2350, and all attention and resources are turned to the new technology. Then, in 2430, the new technology demonstrably and violently fails, just a few decades before the scheduled expiration of most of the 1st world's lifespan. Predictably, panic ensues, and people try to make denials, etc. The story picks up in 2450, with the major headline of the first natural deaths in the 1st world in 2 centuries. Shortly after, one of the strongmen dies, and rebellions and confusion sweep the third world. The story was to feature philosophical ideas about life and death (how would someone who for much of his life was convinced he would be immortal face death?) and a stonking great scene where a first world military force (employing hastily-created young mercenaries (created when immortality failed as a fail-safe for civilization), since all the real citizens are too old and frail) launches a military intervention in a collapsed third-world regime.

The Parable of Ken and the Pig

I like working in parables. It makes me sound like Jesus, only less wrong about everything, and it's much more fun than the dryness of conventional argument. Of course, you can't base a rigorous logical statement on a parable, but for getting your point across it's fantastic. Apologies for my lack of writing talent; when I write my big Magnum Opus (I actually have several great book plots written down, but my miserable writing means I can't make them into any sort of actual work) I'll try harder.

The Parable of Ken and the Pig:

In the city of New York, once, there lived a happy family - John, the father, Mary, the mother, and Ken, their teenaged son. They lived, they ate, they drank, they were merry. Then one sad day, Ken was hit by a bus - immediately the family rushed him to the hospital where they learned that, though he would survive, Ken would be a vegetable for the rest of his life. They had tested his brain's response to outside stimuli and ran a diagnostic on the extent of the damage, and the sad but very clear conclusion was that Ken was incapable of thought on a human or even on an animal level. He could breathe, but he couldn't eat food, talk, make any but the slightest movements, or even remember anything of his past life (as the tests clearly showed massive damage to those parts of his brain). The family kept him, using their government health insurance, in a bed at the hospital, receiving intravenous nutrients. Total cost to the government per year: $10,000.

Outside of the city lived a man named Gary, who had a pet pig he loved very much. One day, shortly after Ken's misadventure, Gary's pig wandered into the road and was struck by a speeding car. Gary rushed his pig to the same hospital, where they ran a few tests that showed that Gary's pig was, like Ken, a vegetable. Gary wished to use his health insurance to keep his beloved pig in the hospital on an IV drip. Total cost of his request: $10,000/year.

The hospital refused, and Gary's pig passed away.

Most people would consider the hospital's response to Ken's case (i.e. keeping him alive on an IV drip) the correct one, or at least a reasonable one. I highly doubt many people would advise the hospital to do the same for Gary's pig. However, Ken and Gary's pig are in identical mental conditions, i.e. they really don't have any. Furthermore, as the pig was Gary's only company, he loved that pig as much as Ken's parents loved Ken, so one cannot say that Ken had been more loved when he was alive by way of explanation. So why do people have differing opinions of what to do with Ken and Gary's pig? I attribute it to a bias towards one's own species, or at least towards one's own intelligence level (I wonder what people would say if I used a sentient alien in place of Gary's pig?).

My point here is that people often hold opinions without very good reasons to back them up. I used to be like most people in this case; now I consider the hospital very much in the wrong for using perfectly good money (i.e. material wealth) that could be used to better the lives of those who are still actually alive to essentially keep a plant alive in their building. Since Ken is already for all intents and purposes dead and gone, let the empty shell that used to be his body expire with him, and spend the $10k a year on patients who have a hope of getting better. When people use subjectivity and emotions to make life-or-death decisions, the results are increased suffering. Perhaps cold, hard, emotionless logic doesn't sound good as a way to determine lives, but the end result is greater happiness and decreased suffering. Sounds good enough to make up for the loss of poetic Hollywood "heart is what counts" crap to me.

Pascal's Wager is Bullshit

First, an apology for the fonts of the last post. Copying and pasting into Blogspot isn't really all that smooth, and I'm too lazy to actually fix it.

Now: Pascal's Wager:

Quick summary of Pascal's Wager:

Either the Christian God is true or He is not true. Also, total payoff of any action = payoff in this life + payoff in the next. Payoff in this life is finite - let payoff of belief be a, and payoff of non-belief by b in this life. Now suppose He is true with probability x and not true with probability 1-x. This means that belief will have an expected payoff of x*(infinity) + b, while non-belief will have a payoff of a - (x)(infinity). Clearly, no matter x, the expected payoff is infinitely high for belief and infinitely low for non-belief - thus belief is the logical choice.

There are several problems with this argument. The first (and already fatal) error is that x could easily be 0 (very common in probability functions with infinite possible outcomes), in which case payoff for non-belief is a and payoff for belief is b, and it's easy to see that it's possible that a > b. The second is that the Christian God would probably not take kindly to belief based on "cowardly bet-hedging" (a Richard Dawkins quote) and probably still send you to hell if this was your basis of belief. The third, and, I believe, most fundamental is that it is assumed that belief is neutral if God doesn't exist - but I counter that this is false since there is the possibility of the anti-Christian God who does everything the Bible says except He sends only Christians to Hell and only non-Christians to Heaven. In this case, non-belief will pay off infinitely and belief will cost you infinitely. In reality, religion is based on non-logic, so there's no solid 'evidence' for any religion, so the anti-religions must be weighted the same as the religions of the world. This means that it's a toss-up whether any belief will cost you or pay off - so there is no indication whatsoever about next-life payoff, so it cannot be accounted for in our strategy considerations.

Also, I have an offer for any and all who are convinced by Pascal's Wager. You send me $10,000 today and when I receive it I'll send you infinitely much money. Not only that, I'll guarantee that you go to heaven when you die.

Now, obviously I could be lying about the infinite money and the guaranteed heaven thing, but hey, if there is the slightest chance that I'm right then probability theory says you should send me my check. I'll be looking forward to receiving yours.

Essentially, Pascal's Wager rests on (a) bullshit ideas about probability, (b) the idea that God likes it when people believe in Him for selfish and conniving reasons, and (c) the idea that either the Christian God exists or no God exists - a false dichotomy.

The Parable of Joe and Ahmed

Whatever else may be said about Christianity, this much is true:

In Christianity, belief in Jesus and repentance means eventual salvation, no matter the sins committed before the repentance. Lack of belief in Jesus means eternal damnation, no matter how moral and upright you are in every other aspect of life.

Now we consider the following hypothetical:

Suppose Christianity is true, and suppose two twin brothers are born - they are identical in every way, so much so that given identical situations they will respond in identical ways (yes I know this goes against my ideas of free will, but we already assumed Christianity is true so we're clearly not operating in my philosophical system). Now suppose they are separated at birth and are taken to live in very different places: one is taken to Arkansas, named Joe, and baptized. The other is taken to Riyadh, named Ahmed, and made a Muslim. Given the religious statistics of Arkansas and Riyadh, it is quite likely that when Joe dies he will be a Christian and go to heaven, while Ahmed, being Muslim, will go to hell (if you wish to argue that Christianity saves moral Muslims, (a) it doesn't, and (b) then replace Riyadh with Chennai and Ahmed the Muslim with Vikram the Hindu - Christianity certainly doesn't save ANY Hindus).

But why was Joe saved when Ahmed wasn't, when, if their circumstances were switched, it would be the other way around? It follows that circumstances have influence over salvation, so that a person in Arkansas is much more likely to be saved than a person in Riyadh. This means that not all people are equal before God since God allows some to live in Riyadh (decreasing their chances of heaven regardless of will) and others to live in Arkansas (increasing their chances). This is not only an injustice of an unimaginable scale (since some people will be eternally tortured merely for having been the victims of baseless prejudice of God), it is also a self-contradiction of the notion that all men are equal in God's eyes and all have equal chance at salvation (which incidentally is in the Bible).

The only ways I can see around this contradiction are (a) to deny parts of the New Testament, something Christians can't really do, or (b) say that God knows who is more worthy and more likely to believe in Him and places them purposefully in Christian households - but again this goes against the logic of the parable of Joe and Ahmed (which is Christian logic, if I can call that logic) and implies that Arabs, Hindus, Jews, etc. are evil in general since God has seen fit to place them in positions where they will not be saved, i.e. it inherently implies racism. If you are indeed a Christian racist, I have nothing more to talk to you about and hope you get yourself shot or run over by a bus as soon as possible. If you are Christian and not a racist, I'm interested to hear your response to this - I'm always open to sharpening my arguments and fixing my logic (I really doubt anyone can convince me that the logic here has a fundamental flaw in it, but if you can, then props to you).

Any thoughts?

A Word on Intellectual Honesty

Now given the foam-at-the-mouth anger I displayed in my post entitled "Religious Hate-Fest", some of you readers (all none of you who I haven't talked to personally) might be thinking that I'm another crazy anonymous person on the internet who feels that anonymity is a license to go batshit - another one of the millions of unknown haters on the internet hiding behind the fact that no one knows their identity. I would like to rebut this view. While it is true that I'm another crazy anonymous person blah blah blah etc. I would like to state that I actually hold and freely discuss these extreme views even when my identity is known. I've shown "Religious Hate-Fest" and my argument against Jesus in my Doubting Thomas post to friends I knew were deeply Christian and they are (to the best of my knowledge) still my friends and not plotting to stab me for heresy. The reasoning is simple: if Christianity is not true, then I'm right and they shouldn't be offended by my stating of the truth; if Christianity is true, then they're going to heaven and I'm going to hell, so they should feel sorry for me, not angry. They all agree to this, and some actually do feel sorry for me. I feel sorry for them too.

Religious Hate-Fest!

1: Christianity

Christianity is the largest religion on Earth, with ~2 billion adherents worldwide. This effectively makes it the largest reactionary force and hindrance to science in the world. I also hate its self-contradictory and faux-righteous position on stem cell research. It’s also the #1 big social problem plaguing America, which pisses me off because America rules. For example, it put that dolt Bush in office for two fucking terms. And I hate the Pope, the old fart, with his big money and his billion reactionary adherents.

Redeeming Features: It’s adaptable. I can respect that. It adopted multiple pagan rituals, and gifts and chocolate eggs rule. Also, I like the Christian Scientists because they don’t take medicine, and hence die off a lot faster.

2: Islam

Islam is the second largest religion on Earth, and the fastest growing. Also, although most Muslims aren’t international terrorists, most international terrorists are Muslim. Eat shit, you politically correct assholes. It also happens to be the #2 threat to both America and Israel (after Christianity and Judaism respectively). I hate the Ayatollah. I hate the fact that its adherents tend to be among the most reactionary in the world. I hate almost everything about it.

Redeeming Features: None. The whole religion is inflexible bullshit.

3: Judaism

Judaism is the ‘parent’ religion of both Christianity and Islam and happens to be the #1 threat to Israel’s survival, because the religious right wing in Israel is full of fascists who want to massacre every Arab within 1000 km. It also bans pork, shrimp, and cheese-steaks, which is bullshit as all three are delicious. And it’s ‘holy’ book is about the most vitriolic, vile, racist (the Chosen People? come on, you assholes!), classist (except for Hinduism) thing around (this article may be vitriolic, but it ain’t racist – religion is not race, motherfuckers).

Redeeming Features: Hanukkah (latkes!), Purim (Hamantashen!), Woody Allen, Jon Stewart, and Albert Einstein – although I attribute these features more to the ethnic side of Judaism (which I love – it’s why I love Israel) than the religion.

4: Confucianism

Confucianism is the main reason China went from superpower of the medieval world to scared, pathetic giant being crushed by Japan during WWII. It’s focus on family and being close to home meant that China never expanded its economy and never developed the colonies that made Britain the uberpower it eventually became. Also, most of my mom’s bullshit ideas about how I should live come from here.

Redeeming Features: “If we cannot understand men, how can you expect us to understand ghosts and gods? For me, I respect them and I stay away from them.”

5: Lamaism

The most retarded religion in history. And actively trying to ruin its own country. ‘Nuff said.

Redeeming Features: Funny hats

6: Hinduism

One of the biggest religions of all time, thus one of the most damaging. Also is to this day inherently classist and racist, with the caste system one of the main reasons the Indian mathematical super-genius Ramanujan was not able to achieve the entirety of his enormous potential. Also, it says cows are sacred, which is stupid.

Redeeming Features: The Kama Sutra, baby.

7: Buddhism

Deliberately made up of contradictions. “Buddha is Mind and Buddha is not Mind”. If you assume a contradiction any statement is provably true (logic, motherfuckers!), so guess what, jackass, your pants are now officially and provably on fire.

Redeeming Features: The original version as laid down by Siddhartha Gautama seems quite reasonable and moderated (more a philosophy than a religion), but I don’t know enough. If it did start out well, it sure didn’t end so well. Also, not violent enough to be hyper-destructive like the Western religions.

8: Scientology

These people are dumb enough to believe some shit some guy made up – and to pay him for the privilege of hearing more. I mean, it has both “science” and “ology” in it as well – it must be true! All this happened while he (the founder) was alive. At least the authors of the Qu’ran and the Bible and the Torah are all dead, so it doesn’t feel as much like shit some guy made up last night while reading bad fanfiction. The adherents of this religion are the dumbest people on Earth.

Redeeming Features: Aside from being hilarious, it was started for the profit motive and worked damn well. L Ron Hubbard, I salute you for your sheer balls and the way you suckered thousands of people out of their money. Also, it’s one of the few religions to actively and directly make its members poorer.

Free Will

Free Will is one of the central questions in philosophy. The question is simple: can sentient beings 'choose' outcomes somehow independently of random variables and causality? I remain neutral (while still leaning towards 'yes' on the question, thanks to Heisenberg Uncertainty, the Free Will Theorem, and the existence of consciousness) on the question "is Free Will true?". I have no actual idea whether it is, with only vague evidence that it is. In fact, since the evidence that it is true is mostly my own conscious experience, if I were an observer outside the system looking at the universe from a wholly objective viewpoint, it's more than likely that I would believe the opposite.

However, I have a very definite answer to a more important question: Should I believe in Free Will? The answer is "YES".

To demonstrate how I got to this conclusion let us analyze the possibilities:

(1) Suppose I believe in Free Will. Either Free Will is true or it is not true. If Free Will is true, then I am correct in my belief, which is important for helping me make the correct decisions (which is, as the Axiom of Utility says, what this whole exercise of philosophy is all about). If Free Will is false, then although I am wrong, it won't screw up any of my decisions since if Free Will is false I can't make decisions anyhow. So if I believe in Free Will, either I am right, or the point is moot.

(2) Suppose I don't believe in Free Will. Then, if Free Will is true, I am wrong and this error in my belief will screw up my decision-making. If Free Will is false, I am right (yippee for me) but this belief cannot help me make my decisions, so it's pointless anyways. Thus, if I don't believe in Free Will, I'm either wrong or the point is moot anyway.

Thus, the worst outcome in (1) is the same as the best outcome in (2), so it is better for me in EVERY CASE to believe in Free Will. So, I believe in Free Will.

(A cute way to sum up my argument that my father came up with was "Free Will is my choice because it is the only choice" - if I am allowed to choose, then Free Will must be true)

A note to those who think that scientific evidence favors determinism: yes, General Relativity and Newtonian Mechanics are deterministic sciences - but Quantum Mechanics says otherwise. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle makes exact measurements impossible, making the Free Will question scientifically unanswerable. The existence of consciousness proves that something unknown to science is taking place in our neurons - allowing a space for free will (unproven by science) to slip into. And thanks to scientific models and the Free Will theorem of the brilliant Princeton mathematics professors Conway and Kochen, we have seen that human Free Will implies particle Free Will - again pointing to the potential of Quantum Mechanics, which deals with particles, to be the source of a physical process that produces Free Will. Thus scientific evidence is actually, by my own sense, slightly (though by no means strongly) in favor of Free Will.

And even if all the evidence were against me, I would still believe in Free Will - because belief in Free Will is, as belief in my own existence is, a no-lose situation.

The Greatest Enemy

Sentience that desires its own destruction can never last long in this universe, for, as soon as it acquires the means, it ends its own existence. Therefore, as a general rule, sentience desires its own continual existence. Non-sentience has no desires, as it is non-sentient (gotta love the tautologies). Thus, when a non-sentient entity comes up against (i.e. becomes mutually exclusive with) a sentient entity, all morality and preferred outcomes lie with the latter.

It is for this reason that I wish to see sentience spread across the universe; from our launching point on a blue water planet orbiting Sol in the Milky Way, and from our other probable launching points throughout space and time, the goal is the projection and preservation of sentience throughout space and time. Even if individual sources are snuffed (like Earth would be in the event of a major nuclear showdown), given the enormity of the universe and the possibility of new wellsprings, sentience should eventually spread to every habitable corner and preserve itself there.

What stands in the way of the progress and growth of sentience throughout the universe? What is it that will, inevitably as it seems now, end the dream of everlasting life?

Our Great Enemy is what seems like a harmless physical construct - but one that stands ready to destroy any civilization no matter how strong and advanced and widespread.

The enemy is Entropy. Should entropy prevail over the universe, there will be no more energy, no more sentience, no more order in the chaos. To prevent this is the ultimate goal of science: the victory of sentience over entropy, of life over death. This is why science and free thought cannot, MUST NOT be hindered. The rewards of success are infinite, as are the consequences of failure. If there is the slightest chance of success, we must attack the problem with all the energy we possess.

Perhaps Entropy is unbeatable, a law with no exceptions. Perhaps all the time and effort will not pay off with infinite sentience and civilization. But, perhaps sentience can find a cure. Hell, perhaps sentience IS the cure (this is not as dumb as it sounds). And then we will not need to look to other lives for our eternal rewards that we crave. We'll have truly earned it - in this life.

A Quick Acknowledgement

Since I've been billing myself as a fresh start in philosophy (indeed, just like every other philosopher, I consider myself the first to get it completely right), I might as well take a moment to prove my own marketing wrong by acknowledging those philosophers to whom I owe a great deal of my ideas:

Hobbes and Descartes: I owe to them the idea of axiomatic philosophy inspired by mathematics

Bentham: I owe to him (one of the few I can really agree with) my utilitarianism

Hume: I owe to him the general direction of my system (passions expressed through reason)

Popper: I owe to him my analysis of scientific progress

Yudkowsky: I owe to him my views on scientific progress

Rand: I owe to her my individualistic and self-centered focus

Marx: I owe to him my general background (as I am a citizen of the People's Republic of Berkeley)

Yeah. I'm that unoriginal.

Eschew Obfuscation

To "deconstruct" philosophy [...] would be to think - in the most faithful, interior way - the structured genealogy of philosophy's concepts, but at the same time to determine - from a certain exterior [...] - what this history has been able to dissimulate or forbid [...] By means of this simultaneously faithful and violent circulation between the inside and the outside of philosophy [...a] putting into question the meaning of Being as presence.

- Jacques Derrida, taken from my favorite all-time source of truth, Wikipedia.

"In order to make myself recognized by the Other, I must risk my own life. To risk one's life, in fact, is to reveal oneself as not-bound to the objective form or to any determined existence--as not-bound to life", meaning the value of the Other's recognition of me depends on the value of my recognition of the Other In this sense to the extent that the Other apprehends me as bound to a body and immersed in life, I am myself only an Other as Ego.

- Jean-Paul Sartre (with explanation, which is even sadder, also from Wikipedia)

A student asked Master Yun-Men (949 C.E.) "Not even a thought has arisen; is there still a sin or not?" Master replied, "Mount Sumeru!"

A monk asked Dongshan Shouchu, "What is Buddha?" Dongshan said, "Three pounds of flax".

- Two Zen Koans. You have three guesses as to where I got it.

It is perhaps with extreme risk of ridicule for committing the same sins in my "My System" posts that I criticize what seems to be a staple of philosophical thought, especially starting with Existentialism and much of Eastern thought (i.e. Zen and Taoism - Confucianism I condemn as harmful and short-sighted, but it is at least comprehensible and makes some good points). This staple is what appears to be the deliberate use of confusing language in philosophy. This is not good philosophy! If a philosophy is so tangled and confused as to be completely incomprehensible, this means (a) nobody can check the underlying logic, so it probably has logical holes you could drive an aircraft carrier through, and (b) it actually probably is too vague and the terms it uses too ill-defined to be logical anyway, which is a much worse form of (a), since the good use of logic usually straightens out a system by default. And this makes the philosophy (a) probably wrong, as in its assertions are flat-out not true, or (b) almost definitely useless, as a car with unusable controls or a map with no relation to the territory is useless - any attempt to use it will either lead to a horrible accident (car analogy) or to getting completely lost (map analogy). That is all I have to say for Derrida and Sartre - I feel that is already enough to dismiss them as lost causes.

For Zen, I have an even bigger problem. They use not confusing language - indeed that koan was absolutely crystal clear in the sense of the literal meaning of the words. But they deliberately cloud the ideas they attempt to transmit, as if trying to let only a select few in on the Big Secret. However, their Enlightenment simply doesn't hold up to even the most feeble analysis. For example, suppose you replaced the Student in the koan with a dreamy show-off eager to ask the Big Important Questions and the master with an eight-year-old with ADD that has just been given a big bowl of candy and shiny objects. Would the koan really run that much differently? The student asks a typical show-off question whose meaning is not easily understood - and being not easily understood is (I cannot stress this enough) NOT GOOD - and the master, being completely distracted, answers with a total non-sequitur. A good check of whether the philosophy can be said to make sense is whether the switching the answers to the questions would radically alter the result. For the two koans I present, the answer is a clear NO. The questions are immensely different, but the answers are both non-sequiturs. This attitude leads monks on 30-year quests for truth when any reasonable truth that this bullshit is hiding could be transmitted in around 3 seconds of plain, logical language.

The Axiom of Utility and the Non-Importance of Truth

My next axiom I hope to be somewhat justifiable on its own (as axioms should ideally be), and it is the basis for pretty much everything to come. It states simply that:

Any philosophy I choose to adopt must give me some direction as to how to make decisions. Otherwise, I have no reason to adopt said philosophy.

And that's it! I can start deducing immediately, and get some pretty nontrivial results too. Here's one:

Theorem 1 (yes, math has influenced me that much. So what? It's better than not justifying things): I exist.

Proof: If my philosophy has the clause "I don't exist", it logically cannot assign actions to me. Therefore, by the Axiom of Utility, it's worthless for me to adopt it.

Theorem 2: There must exist things I can do, collectively called my Action Set. The Action Set must have cardinality greater than 1, and must somehow determine the choosing of an element from the set of possible outcomes (the imaginatively-named Outcome Set) - i.e. there exist two distinct actions for which the probabilities (as in, how likely that outcome is to actually happen given that action) assigned to the members of the Outcome Set differ. Basically, this says that I can choose actions which will cause some change my real-world experiences.

Proof: If there weren't such actions and outcomes, no two actions would be at all distinguishable and so the philosophy would not help me decide between actions. Thus any philosophy I adopt must have such actions and outcomes.

And another:

Theorem 3: Some outcomes are are to be preferred over others (the mapping of the set of outcomes to the set of values they hold for me is called my Utility Function. I'll talk about that later on.)

Proof: If no outcome is preferred to any other outcome, no action is preferred since actions both partially determine and are part of the outcomes. Thus, no action can be logically prescribed by my philosophy. Thus, some outcomes must be preferred over others.

Note that none of these theorems have anything to do with truth! If reality really excludes me, it still doesn't help me to believe in my own non-existence - so of course I believe in my existence. By believing in my existence I allow two outcomes to happen: (a) I exist and I am right, or (b) I don't exist, so, although I seem wrong, I'm not since I don't exist and therefore can't hold this wrong opinion. Thus either I'm right, or I don't exist so it doesn't matter anyhow. This is provably superior to the belief that I don't exist, which is either wrong or moot.

These are the first theorems that can be deduced from the axiom of utility. Theorem 2 is essentially my statement on the loaded question of Free Will; however, I feel Free Will to be important enough to merit its own post, which I will write next time.

My First Axioms

In my last post ('Axiomatic Thought') I pointed out that all systems need one or more (usually many more than one) axiom from which to build. However, none of my reasoning during any of the previous posts was formal or complete; the reason is simply that I had not posted my own axioms, so I was working in an axiomatic vacuum. Indeed, while people are creating their own axioms, they work in a vacuum devoid of any logical justification whatsoever; the only alternative is emotional and psychological justification. From this perspective, it is easy to see the appeal of religion - and this appeal is exactly what I hope to counter.

As a cure to this axiomatic null, I introduce my first two, self-justifying axioms:

Axiom 1:

For every set of beliefs, there is an axiomatic set defined to be the minimal set of beliefs needed to be taken on faith before the remainder of the system can be logically (as defined by the system) deducted. Each axiom is a weakness - it is vulnerable to simply not being accepted by virtue of not having justification to back it up - so the smaller and more emotionally acceptable the axiomatic set, the stronger the system.

Axiom 2:

For my second axiom, I assume the rules of mathematical logic and set theory. I feel safe in this assumption since anyone who is reading this is probably operating (consciously or implicitly) by these rules anyhow (anyone who doesn't accept these rules probably isn't in a position to read this anyhow, being either a toddler or in a psych ward). This axiom (a) defines a few terms I used in axiom 1 and (b) gives me the tools to begin deduction. Note that this axiom is actually a small set of axioms (far smaller than any comparable religious axiom set, since (a) all of God's opinions are separate axioms, and (b) religious people probably use these axioms too).

With these minimal and necessary axioms in place, I am free now to begin building my system, as they lay the foundation for my system to be axiomatic and deductive in the first place.

Axiomatic Thought

It seems a very common occurrence amongst children of a certain age who are beginning to perceive the causal relationship to begin to ask the question 'why?' whenever they are presented with a fact of any sort. I know I was one. And I, like, I suspect, many children, took it further. Whenever I was presented with the answer to my question, I immediately asked again, 'why?'. As in, why was the answer really an answer that solved my query? And I would ask it again and again - an infinite regression of causalities. My father, who almost always bore the brunt of this, began to respond by simply saying 'because'. I thought that was a cop-out at the time, a way to gloss over the fact that he indeed had no justification. But now I realize that there was a deep (perhaps unintentional on his part - I can't tell) truth in that response. It is this: that all reasoning must start from some firm base whose justification is by fiat. If there is no such base, then there is no system. Each step must be justified by another, necessitating an infinite amount of reasoning for any logical step, no matter how small - and no mind can build and maintain such a system.

I can hear the response now in my head: if all reasoning must start from axioms, why do you attack religion so much? Why is the axiom: 'God is all powerful and this is what God says' inferior to your own axiomatic system? I maintain that my axiomatic system is so fundamental that few, if any, could dispute the premises. And by this axiomatic system, God is excluded and sent back to the dark irrational parts of the human psyche from which he emerged.

The key is that not all axiomatic systems are created equal. Critically, each axiom within a system represents a vulnerability, a weakness, of that system. It is a point that is self-justified, and self-justification is the weakest of all justifications, since self-justification means it is true only because it is assumed to be so. Nothing else supports it. Thus, an axiomatic system grows weaker and leakier as it grows in size - more axioms means more trouble spots that had to be patched up. A collection of axioms as large as the Bible, Torah, Koran, or Vedas is rife with problems. Their reasoning is so shaky that virtually every argument must introduce new axioms (every time God says another thing, it is another axiom) to help it stumble feebly from one conclusion to the next. By the time it's interpreted and argued, the whole mess is full of logical errors and sore spots, ready to collapse with the first insightful attack on it.

Ideally, axiomatic thought should work by Ockham's Razor: as few and as emotionally and psychologically acceptable axioms as possible, and reasoning from then on. With an axiomatic system like that, the weaknesses are fewer and firmer, and although attacks are still possible, they do not cause the immediate self-destruction of the system.

The Parable of Doubting Thomas

I just noticed that despite my blog's title, there are no rants on it. Just a long boring account of my failure by fiat to create a universal philosophy. Therefore, I figured I'd post a rant on a topic that's close to my heart, and thus by it's sheer stupidity occasionally gives me heartburn.

I speak of the story of Doubting Thomas.

To make a long and mostly nonsensical story (the story of the crucifixion of Christ) short, Christ goes up on the cross, dies because God is too much of an evil bastard to stop his suffering, and a few days later wakes up again with holes in his hands and feet. After appearing to Mary Magdalene and most of the disciples, except for Thomas:

²⁴Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. ²⁵So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

²⁶A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

²⁸Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"

²⁹Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

(from http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+20&version=NIV)

It's that last sentence that really does it for me, that brings my piss to a boil, that has skull-fucked the world for the last 2000-odd years. It might seem a natural thing for a religion to say - it is. But it's totally, completely, unspeakably evil. Let me paraphrase: that last sentence essentially says "'Tis a virtue to hold beliefs in total contradiction to any and all evidence encountered before - especially the beliefs I tell you to believe". Sound cultish? It is this attitude towards evidence-gathering and rational thought that has fostered the scientific decay of the Dark Ages, caused the most vile and cruel regimes to thrive (think of the treatment of the "science" of Marxism in the supposedly atheist USSR; they share more with God than they'd like to think) and in general has destroyed millions by the sword and billions by the delay of technical progress (think Galileo or Darwin). Now explain to me again why Christianity (or any other religion, for that matter, especially Hinduism, which disgusts me even more than Christianity - Christianity was at least theoretically egalitarian, while Hinduism is based upon discrimination and callousness towards the lower castes, especially the 'untouchables' who suffer to this day) has been a net positive towards humanity? It certainly didn't save or improve lives, given things like religious conquests and the hindering of scientific progress; it's debatable that religion caused the great artistic achievements, since most people in history lived in a religious context and thus produced religiously-influenced works - and anyway, it's a horribly elitist and callous idea that lives are worth sacrificing for the sake of 'high art' to appease the more 'civilized' people. So, for this one line, and for this whole attitude on rational thought (which a religion is by definition opposed to), I condemn Christianity and all other religions (including Marxism, though Marx himself is probably innocent; he worked with his own data and never insisted on belief without evidence) for the most inconceivably evil crime ever committed against the human species.

Blessed be Doubting Thomas, who insisted on proof and submitted to the evidence. His attitude would much improve the world, and we should all remember his example. That is the true moral of the parable of Doubting Thomas.

A note on historical perspective

As a student of philosophy in high school, I was often struck by the transience of the claims of all of the philosophers we studied. Each and every one of them made an attempt at what I considered the ultimate ambition of philosophy (by virtue of being attempted by all philosophers): the construction of a system that held true over all times and cultures, whose truth was inherent in this universe and not particular to their circumstances. And each and every one of them failed. Even if their views were accepted in their own time - by no means entirely common - they became outdated in time by shifting cultural emphases and values, as the culture they worked from (and thus the base assumptions and logic they worked from) was replaced. For example, Hobbes' logic of absolute monarchy, though seemingly axiomatic and rigorous, and Aristotle's arguments for slavery, though accepted for thousands of years, were made obsolete during the Enlightenment-era culture's shift towards republicanism and liberty. Because they worked from fixed cultural reference points, they ended up obsolete.

Were they 'right' nonetheless? In short, No (In long, No, you idiotic twat, of course not). Evidence has shown modern, free democracies to not only be more prosperous, happier, and more powerful, but even more stable than the despotic world powers (compare the USA, which, based on republicanism went from newly-freed colony to world hyperpower in 150 years or so and is still far and away the strongest country on Earth by any measure, and the USSR, an absolute despotism from 1924 onward, which rose to prominence very quickly but collapsed of its own accord after a mere 70 years). It seems clear that had Hobbes' or Aristotle's arguments prevailed, the world would be a worse place than it is now, and places that still follow their ideas are typically backwards and poor. That alone should be sufficient to consider their philosophies fatally flawed.

As a philosopher, I wish to escape this kind of trend - in theory, a good philosophy should ring true though time and cultures. In fact, my ambitions are even greater than that. I wish my philosophy to be truly universal, so that even cultures I have never heard of, alien cultures on distant planets, or even cultures living in a hyperbolic spatial environment, should be able to agree on its logic (given its premises). But already, cracks are appearing in my ambitions. First of all, to be truly universal, the philosophy must hold in cultures and environments I cannot begin to understand - and I of course cannot craft a philosophy that holds in a particular instance unless I know at least something, even the smallest thing, about that instance. Thus, I must restrict my philosophical ambitions to instances for which a series of axioms (which I will introduce in a later post) hold. Secondly, my ideas are already betraying signs of my culture and upbringing - bad news if I truly want to be universal. Because I come from a very self-conscious culture, my ambitions are patently self-conscious (the fact that I'm writing a post addressing this confirms that). Because I come from a capitalist republic (the good ol' US of A), my ideas are very individualistic, self-centered and libertarian. Because I come from a very left-wing area of said republic, my ideas on society end up being very common-good oriented (I will discuss the apparent contradiction here in a later post). And because I am a mathematics student in college, and the son of a mathematician, I tend to insist on axiomatic, rigorous logic in my attempt to be universal. Thus, by my very ambition to escape the mistakes of fixed cultural reference, I fail this ambition - a logical Catch-22 (see? another instance where my background influences my language and logic!).

So, we have already established that I have, by any reasonable measure, failed. But that's o.k. By aiming so high with my philosophy, I've made it so that even in failure, I might produce something not totally pointless. That's a good trick to know: if you aim high enough, even your failures might not be total shit. Or at least you can pretend they're not.

Why I'm Here

No, I don't mean why I exist or any deep shit like that. I mean literally why I'm here on Blogger posting my opinions about existence and the universe and everything in between as if anyone cared what yet another anonymous asshole on the internet has to say. Start with the easy questions, I say, because if you start with the hard stuff you're just going to come away empty handed.

So why am I here?

It's 4:30 in the morning, I'm bored, I just drank a can of Red Bull to finish some work up and I can't go back to sleep now that I've finished it. I'm sure that by now you're all salivating with excitement upon reading about the tidal wave of awesomeness that is my life. But stick with me here. I'm not here to bore you like all those other fucks with nice detailed descriptions of the massive dump I took today or the "omg best sandwich evar" I ate yesterday. Instead, I'm here to bore (or shock or offend or entertain) you with various angry rants on philosophical topics. Actually, that was a lie. I'm here because I like posting this shit up for people to read, whether or not they actually read it. And presumably you're here because you like to read this kind of shit, or else you wouldn't have made it this far. So we both know why we're here. At least that's a start.