Paperdove - Partly about beer. All about me.

Okay, I'm testing out Blogger. To do so, I've created the blog Speaking Beerly. I'll be posting my beer reviews there.

Why? Because I can.

In case anyone's interested, here's a sneak peak at a little project I'm working on. This is essentially a script that creates an HTML-based music catalog, based on the ID3 tags in a collection of MP3 files.

The link above leads to the output from a very alpha version. Once I'm done, I'll like to a package, and tell you how to run it, and so on.

There's a lot left to do: make it so all the various collections show up as the same album, translate non-ASCII characters properly, create some nice-looking CSS, and so on. But for now, I'm pleased just to get these early results.

Enjoy.

In response to Obama's shout-out to atheists, a gentleperson with the handle "pmular" wrote,

Please verify your facts

Go back to Plymouth Rock. Tell me who they were and why they came. They were Christians fleeing a religiously biased country and looking to start a new life based on their Christian beliefs. Please do not revise history.

Uhm, one small group of religious assholes does not make a country. They neither formed our country, nor founded our country. They were the first wave in a long series of settlers. They arrived on a continent already occupied by non-Christians. Most of them died the very first winter. They were followed by non-Christians. Those who formed our country (our so-called "founding fathers") were not all Christians. The high-profile founders, such as Jefferson and Washington and Franklin, were in fact deists, which is atheism-lite.

My original rant still stands. This is not, nor ever has been, specifically a Christian nation. Part of the Constitution is dedicated to that very idea: that the nation has no business telling people what to believe. Secularism is the idea that religion has no place in government, and it is codified in our Constitution.

I appreciate your concern about historical revisionism, pmular, but really, it is the Christians who claim this is a Christian nation who are performing the worst and most blatant revisions.

A friend came over this weekend for a short time. We sat around the firepit (with no fire) and had a beer. He said, "Hey, I've been over to Paperdove. You haven't updated that shit in a while. What about the trash you wrote about the 360?"

Which is true. I haven't taken the time to update Paperdove. Aliesha and I are trying to organize our lives, to tame them a bit, or at least beat them into submission. Part of that is time management. I suspect I should set aside an hour or two a week to spew more garbage out onto the Intarwebs. I have to do my part to kill the signal in the noise, no?

In any case, for the sake of Zubin, I should say, "The XBox interface still sucks." But take heart, XBox fanboyz-n-girlz: Sony released a PS3 update recently, simply to add some suckage to the XMB. Now you have a link to the Playstation Store on every menu item! Well, not every menu item. But on many of them. Instead of containing the evil to one small menu item, the store now sprawls over all the media menu items, as well, with insidious suckers attached to every little bit of the menu.

Whereas Microsoft reduced by a the ubiquity of advertising on their interface (meaning only that you can still see advertisements from every menu item, but really they're another menu item in the channel), Sony has done everything they can to add adspace. For instance, instead of the easily-disabled "information channel" they introduced a year or so ago, they have added a scrolling adspace to the clock. There's no way to disable this chupacabra, either. Like the goatsucker, this thing gets its teeth into you and won't let go 'til you're drained of blood. Or the will to live, at least.

They also added sparklies t to the animated wave background. Why? It makes it look fuckin' ugly. Fortunately, they still have a "classic" view, which is the old non-sparkly version. Also, they have added hooks for other themes to include animated backgrounds; but, they charge cash money for the animated themes. What kind of stupidity is that?

I find I'm playing games less and less. I played Uncharted: Drake's Fortune for a bit on Saturday. And maybe I can time-manage a weekly slot for gaming. But lately, we use the PS3 to watch DVDs and BluRays, and the 360 to access Netflix's on-demand shows. Otherwise, the consoles hardly come on.

Zubin said a couple of years ago that this was his last generation of consoles. I thought he was nuts; but the older I get, the less time and inclination I have for games. So maybe I don't have a lot of base from which to criticize the sucky interfaces on both the game systems. Maybe this is the modern version of, "You kids get off my lawn!"

But really. Get off my lawn.

I'm becoming increasingly fascinated by the conflict of science and religion. As I watch this little epistemic battle going on, I realize that many people don't even know what it is they are fighting over. I thought I'd help clarify a little, if I can.

First, let's explore the epistemology of Christian Young Earth Creationists (CYEC). I basically outlined that in my recent post, Reality is a lying bitch. CYECs believe the Bible is the literal, infallible word of God. Let's take a closer look at that, shall we?

The CYEC must believe several things. First, the Bible was written (directly or indirectly) by god. Second, they must believe a literal interpretation is possible. Third, they must believe that the Bible was meant to be a literal representation of reality. Fourth, they must assume the Bible being interpreted is exactly the same as the Bible originally written by god. Fifth, they must assume their own interpretation is the correct interpretation.

A CYEC must assume all five things. If any of these five assumptions prove incorrect, their epistemic basis falls apart.

Proposition 1 is unprovable.

Proposition 2 is certainly debatable. There are internal inconsistencies in the Bible that reduce a purely-literal interpretation to impossibility, such as the two conflicting creation myths presented in Genesis. Then there is the problem of Jesus as the Messiah. The Messiah as literally predicted in the Old Testament does not match the story of Jesus.

Essentially, any CYEC, when presented with internal contradictions in the Bible, often resorts to non-literal interpretation. This brings into question whether or not a literal interpretation is even possible.

Proposition 3 is really the sticking point, and the one with which most CYECs have problems. Take the assertion reported in Reality is a lying bitch. One who assumes the Bible trumps observed reality denies the non-congruence of the Bible and reality by denying our own observations. We have a name for this. We call it delusion.

This is the biggest flaw with any literal Biblical epistemology, and the easiest one to verify.

Proposition 4 is also easy to disprove. There are many different versions of the Bible. Take the King James Version and the New International Version, two that are similar. Reading of the same passages can be subtly different, to the point that literal interpretations are different.

Also take the habit of CYECs and other Christian apologists of going back to the older Greek editions of the Bible to conciliate discrepancies. This rather proves that the versions of the Bible used today are at least subtly different than the original.

Proposition 5 is easily demonstrated to be false, as well. Simply observe the number of schisms with CYEC beliefs, and you will see there are many different personal interpretations.

Scientific epistemology

The assumptions of the epistemology of science are perhaps a little easier to examine, and a bit harder to disprove. These assumptions are based on collective observation of reality. These are:

1. The universe is observable.

This means both that the universe objectively exists, and that we can make objective observations about the universe. We can create units of length, and measure the size of a thing. We can create units of energy, and measure how much force a thing may apply. And so on.

2. The universe is consistent.

This assumption means that a measurement made by one person will be the same as measurements by another. This also assumes that if we see a process occur at one point, we may expect the same process to apply under identical circumstances.

3. The universe is coherent.

This is the most subtle of the assumptions, and the hardest to grasp. This assumption simply means that the universe works together as a whole. It means everything is inter-related in such a way that relationships make sense. Logic and math both arise from this assumption.

All three of those assumptions provide the epistemic foundation for science. If any one of those three turned out to be false, science would not work. Fortunately for us, all three appear to be solid assumptions.

I used to be close to reality. Really, I did. I'd tickle her a little, and she tell me something true -- insane, amazing things. A feather will drop just as quickly as a bowling ball, in a vacuum. We are all made up of tissue and bone, which is made up of molecules, which are comprised of atoms.

Deep down, we are all atoms.

Sure, reality is stingy with her secrets. We know that atoms are made up of protons and neutrons and electrons, and those are further comprised of quarks. Below that, things get a little hazy. We have a bestiary of fermions and bosons, all living in the realm of the quantum. And here, reality has said little.

Then there's information theory, which deals with relationships of matter and energy. Here, reality has said much about evolution, but she has revealed only tantalizing bits about the origins of the first self-replicating chemicals.

And the deep cosmos! Reality waxes poetic about the vastness of her bounds, containing 14 billion years of matter and energy and galaxies and suns and black holes and planets and the echoing whispers of her birth. It's all there, and she's told us many of its basic truths. But she's said nothing of life on other planets, and she's only given us the broad outlines of her birth. It's as if she's a little shy on the subject. As if she hasn't brazenly laid herself out across the universe, naked as the day she was born.

But now, it turns out that reality is a lying bitch.

I've read the wrong books. You know, the ones that describe the scientific process, the ones that demonstrate the way to learn about reality is to actually observe her, think about her, make predictions, and see if those predictions turn out to be true or not? The ones that claim that all modern progress, from germ theory to computers to the wonders of modern medicine, are based solely on application of the scientific method?

They're wrong.

I put way too much faith in the scientific method. Sure, it's good at getting reality to tell us a little bit about herself. But that doesn't work at all, because she's a lying bitch.

How do I know?

Allow me to quote from a proper textbook, "Biology for Christian Schools," published by Bob Jones University, and intended for homeschoolers:

revealed truth - that which is revealed in scripture, whether or not man has scientifically proved it. If it is in the bible, it is already true.

fallacy - that which contradicts god's revealed truth, no matter how scientific, how commonly believed, or how apparently workable or logical it may seem.


Fucking reality. She used to be a friend of mine.

Here's the deal. Aliesha's first-gen Mac Mini is an older machine, a 1.4 GHz PowerPC. We recently upgraded to 1GB of RAM, and a 250 GB hard drive. So, all is good, right? I should be able to start programing iPhone apps, right?

No.

The iPhone SDK requires OS X 10.5.5, at a minimum. The Mini only had 10.4. Another $120 later, and 10.5.6 is installed, and everything is just peachy.

Sort of.

I must say, 10.5 runs great on the Mini. Sure, it's slower than the newer x86-based Macs, but big deal. The fan starts winding up any time an app is opened, but that's not a problem, since OSHA isn't involved. The interface is responsive and beautiful, with all the fancy special effects necessary in today's operating environments.

I installed XCode, Apple's way-cool development environment. Hey, Microsoft! Why does your IDE suck so bad compared to XCode? It'd be nice to know. XCode is simple and slick. I hate the editor, but I hate pretty much any editor except Emacs and vi. Otherwise, it's really nice. As an added bonus, I get to program in Objective-C, my favorite all-around language, and the best of all the C-variant OO languages. Objective-C makes C++ look like it was designed by a bunch of advanced kindergarteners. It makes Java appear to be designed by a soulless corporation for the purpose of destroying coders' will to live.

So that's good.

When I went to create a new iPhone project, though, I didn't have that option. Bwah?

I hadn't paid much attention to the install process. I started up the XCode iPhone SDK installer, and lo and behold! The iPhone SDK portion was greyed-out. There was no chance to install it! "I bet Google can fix this for me," I thought. "Google can fix anything."

And so it was. I did a search, came up with a little patch to help me install the SDK on the PowerPC, and life was good.

At least, it was until last night. See, I'm writing an OpenGL game. It's a simple game, nothing big, but I really wanted to just write a game and be done with it. But the iPhone simulator is giving me fits. Oh, it runs all right. It's really quite spiffy. But: the OpenGL implementation has endian-ness problems! Yes, that's right. The call to glColor4f( red, green, blue, alpha ) screws up the colors because of platform endian-ness. Instead, you get glColor4f( green, red, alpha, blue ) which is not what I want at all. Not at all, I tell you!

So, the solution is to ignore the terrible colors on the iPhone emulator, and just program. But it sucks, because I can't see what it's going to look like. And next I'm going to implement textures. Will that have endian problems as well?

Grrrr. I really, really like the dev environment, and the emulator is damned near perfect. This one little glitch is very frustrating, though.

During President Obama's (I like saying that) inauguration, he mentioned non-believers on equal footing with Christians and Jews And Muslims. Evidently, this stuck in some people's craw (those with craws, anyway).

Let me say something once and for all: this is not a Christian nation, and never was!

That's right. Jefferson, the primary architect of our nation's principles (including liberty and whatnot), was a deist. He was not a Christian. In fact, he penned his own version of the Bible, in which he removed all the mythic nonsense about God, and Jesus being the son of God, and whatnot, leaving "the good bits," the bits about being a kind and generous person, the bits about performing good works, and so on.

George Washington was also a deist, rather than a practising Christian.

So, for all of you who think this nation was founded on Christianity: you're wrong. This is not a Christian nation. It is a nation containing a lot of Christians, but that doesn't make it a Christian nation. No: The United States of America is a secular nation, which means it's not a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or atheist nation; it is a nation that has no religion at all, and allows its citizens to pursue the belief of their choice.

This is important: if you believe in liberty, you must believe that the US is a secular nation, and that all people are allowed to pursue their own belief (or even lack of belief). If you believe the US is not a secular nation, then you forgo any claims to support of liberty!

(Also: you can't claim victimisation for Christianity when Christians make up 65% (or more) of the nation. Just so you know.)

Anyway, back to President Obama's mention of non-believers: as a non-believer, I am extremely grateful that the President gave me a nod, recognising that I too am part of this nation. Whether you like it or not: I am a part of this nation!

And you know what? Non-believers make better citizens. Yeah, you heard me right. Non-believers are better people. How do I know? Well, you know those "family values" Christian ideologues are always whinging on about? Atheists have fewer divorces than Christians. Let me say that again: atheists tend to have more stable families. Also, although atheists make up anywhere from 15% to 20% of the nation, they only make up about 3% of the prison population. Yes, it's true: atheists are less likely to commit crimes (or get caught, at least).

So stop your whining about how amoral all us atheists are. The facts refute this argument. Atheists are at least as moral as Christians, and probably more so.

Also, as atheism is merely the lack of belief in God, we are less likely to try to push our political agenda. Yes, I've heard the conspiracy theories about how all us atheists with our science are trying to disprove God by teaching evil evolution. That doesn't hold water: science is the process of testing our ideas against reality, so if science supports evolution, it's only because reality supports evolution. And if you don't believe that reality supports evolution, how about you stop taking just about any drug more recent than aspirin. Pretty much all modern medicine is based on the concept that evolution is true. And considering that prayer doesn't heal, good luck. (Prayer doesn't heal. Sorry. Don't believe me? Check out the girl who recently died because her parents prayed for her recovery, rather than taking her to a hospital.)

If I sound angry here, it's because I am. I'm angry at the people who believe that they have the only True Belief, and therefore should be the ones forcing their True Belief on others. I'm angry at those who believe that this nation belongs to only them and their select few Christian friends (all 65% of you). I'm angry that Christianity interferes with proper understanding of reality, pushing creationist bullshit under the guise of "academic freedom." (How about I start teaching every single fucking thought that races through my brain as the gospel truth? How's that for academic freedom? Academic Freedom entails academic responsibility to teach that which best fits our current scientific ontology, because that's our best understanding of the world as it is. Teach your fantasies in Sunday school. Or better yet, don't.)

Listen: I am part of this nation. Atheists (and this includes a lot of folks who call themselves "agnostic;" if you're not sure whether or not god exists, but think he doesn't, you're an atheist) make up 15% to 20% of the population. That number is growing. Get used to it. We are a strong and vital part of this nation, so stop getting your panties in a twist every time we're mentioned in public.

You want us to treat you with respect? Then start treating us with respect. Complaining that we are mentioned in a Presidential speech is not respect. In fact, it's disrespect. I'm generally a turn-the-other-cheek kind of person, but when you are intentionally being disrespectful, I'm more an eye-for-an-eye kind of person. If you want my respect, show me that you respect me as well.

Oh, and if I am disrespectful of particular bits of your belief (such as intelligent design), it's because you are holding that belief contrary to observable reality. I respect reality more than I respect others' beliefs. It's part of what makes me an atheist, I guess.

I would like to address why an infinite, omniscient, omnipotent God is a philosophically bankrupt concept.

It's simple, really, and can be summed up in a single sentence: This God presents an unworkable epistemology.

First, let me state that I think philosophy has served its purpose, by creating (or discovering) the single effective epistemology: science. Science obsoleted all other epistemologies, as it is the only one that demonstrably and provably produces correct results. There is no other known epistemology that is effective at all, let alone as effective as science.

Now, this isn't to say that science is perfect. Science doesn't really prove things, per se. It's very good at disproving things, though. Once an hypothesis or theory has been disproven, that concept is no longer valid nor accepted. This is important when many ideas compete to explain a set of data. If you can disprove all but one, you have a good candidate for the correct idea.

It's also good at increasing confidence in hypotheses and theories that appear to be correct. Even though our confidence in a concept may never quite reach 100%, we can converge on absolute certainty to within acceptable bounds, to where our confidence and absolute certainty are indistinguishable. (Take, for example, the theory of evolution through natural selection.) The ontology derived from application of the scientific method has many theories that are so close to certain that they are indistinguishable from certain; there are many more theories that are accepted, but not necessarily unassailable; and there are quite a few that are still heavily debated (I'm looking at you, string theory). Further, there are huge areas of ignorance or near-ignorance, such as we have with the origins of the universe.

The demonstrable success of science as an epistemology gives me hope that we will be able to illuminate these dark swaths of ignorance. As I try to base my beliefs on evidence, I point to the historical success of science to not only fill in our ignorance, but to point to hitherto unknown areas of ignorance.

The metaphysics derived from the scientific method is naturalism, a universe which is comprised solely of matter, energy, and the relationships between them. As this metaphysics is derived from the epistemology of science, it is the only metaphysics with a solid foundation.

Now that you know my bias, I will present the exact opposite epistemology:

God.

The problem with an infinite, omniscient, omnipotent God as creator of the universe is simple. Once you assume the universe was created by an omnipotent, omniscient God, you can no longer assume anything about reality. And by that, I mean anything. You can't even assume that reality itself exists.

Reality could be nothing more than a figment of God's imagination. Or, perhaps God created the universe ten seconds ago, with the appearance of antiquity (fossil light from distant galaxies lensed by gravity, for instance). Or perhaps God hasn't created the universe yet, but intends to Any Time Now, and all this that you think is happening at the moment is really just a memory of the "you" created in an hour, simply because God wanted you to have a history.

All of these options are equally valid. The metaphysics based on the epistemology of God is completely undefined, as all potential options of an infinite, omniscient, omnipotent God are limitless.

One might say that science works, and what we observe about the universe is true, including its great antiquity; but that God merely set things in motion. From an epistemological standpoint, that option is no more valid an any other potential option. Choosing any option is completely arbitrary.

If you choose to believe that God created this universe at the Big Bang, and that naturalism has essentially prevailed (with only minor meddling), you do so by corrupting the essence of the one epistemology which is known to work. You introduce the ultimate wild card: "God did it."

And by introducing "God did it," you throw out any claim to a known reality. The epistemology of God doesn't support a knowable, coherent metaphysics.

I'm going to beat up on libertarians by creating a straw-man version of them. But, I plan to have fun, and perhaps this little exercise will be cathartic.

Here's the straw-man: Libertarians believe that individuals should choose whether or not to participate in social good. That is, taxes are a form of theft, of the government stealing from you to support their power habits, and to give to the poor, who don't deserve it because they are fat and lazy and probably on drugs, and definitely on welfare.

This version of libertarianism isn't too far from the truth. They rant about this often enough.

Here's my problem with this:

You are part of society. You are gaining by participating in a cooperative society. Therefore, you have obligations to help keep that society as strong as possible. If you don't wish to participate in society, get the hell out. Go someplace where society supports ultimate liberty -- say, Rowanda, or Columbia, where you can do pretty much as you please, as long as you have the money. Granted, others might do unto you that which will benefit them most, but that's what liberty is about, isn't it?

Otherwise, if you are gaining by being a part of society, cowboy up. Stop bitching about how the government is stealing from you. Bullshit. The government is necessary, as are many of the functions the government oversees. These functions are not necessarily ones with which you agree, but I doubt society would be as good without most of them.

"But Tony!" you whine. "Why should I pay taxes to support someone who isn't contributing to society? Why should I help those who are unwilling to help themselves?"

Because, Mister, they don't necessarily have the freedoms you have.

Here's the deal: "freedom" is not equal for all. "Freedom" is another word for "allowed range of action or motion." Now, we wish to maximize freedom as much as possible (which is where the more-appropriate word "liberty" comes into play). However, some people are born with more potential choices in their lives. Some people have more freedom simply by their birthright. In America, this is worsened by simple things, like the terrible way in which we fund our schools (in which the poor neighborhoods have inferior education to the richer neighborhoods). This in turn decreases the range of options open to many, many people in the US.

Don't believe me? Do you think you are able to do all the things that Warren Buffett can do? Well, unless you're Warren Buffett. In which case, welcome to my blog. Oh, and would you like to fund a little independent movie?

So get off your high-horse, Jack. Society gave you the opportunities which you exploited to get where you are today. Society continues to support you. You didn't get your position by being better, or a harder worker, or anything else. You got to where you are because of society, and the freedoms to which you were born.

Now, none of this has to do with liberty. Liberty is the right to perform actions. While freedom can be restricted by a particular situation (such as being poor, or lacking limbs, or so on), liberty cannot. It is an intrinsic right. That doesn't matter, though, as everyone is restricted in some ways, and will not be able to exercise their liberty to the fullest extent.

So that's why libertarians are wrong. Providing the basic minimum comfortable quality of life for those with less opportunity is essential for the preservation of society. And since this is the same society that provides a much greater quality of life for those with greater opportunities, it is our responsibility to contribute.

On the issue of social programs, at least, libertarians, from what I've seen, wish to garner the benefits of our society, while shirking the responsibility of helping to preserve our society.