1. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #238929 by macros_man on August 28, 2008 at 6:42 pm

Just to be clear... I don't think Obama should be elected _because_ of his race ... rather, I'm saying that given his apparent chances of becoming president (which depended on various factors), I think that we can get excited that the American population may well have embraced inclusiveness to the point that his race would not _preclude_ him from being elected.

So I'm saying that by him becoming president _in_spite_ of his race, I think that symbolizes a step towards greater inclusiveness...

And yeah ... I understand that there are many factors beyond racism which can explain why all U.S. presidents to-date have been white males ... but in an age where minorities are at least _suppose_ to have all the advantages that non-minorities have ... it is a little more than a statistical aberration that there should be so few minorities holding high political positions.

2. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #238907 by macros_man on August 28, 2008 at 5:54 pm

theonlybap - once we can say that racism is a thing of the past, maybe then we can get all indignant when someone else makes an issue about race (such as highlighting the fact that Obama would be the first non-white-male president).

Unfortunately, racism is still a problem - especially in the U.S., where so many different races come together.

Personally, I don't think a person's race means anything - except possibly as an indication of the culture a person's been exposed to... but that's only a generality, and shouldn't be applied to specific people. And once people of all races mix more freely, even this distinction should eventually fade away.

So maybe in several more decades, a U.S. presidents race or gender won't mean anything. But whether we like it or not, race is still an issue in the U.S. and much of the world - and many black people still feel discriminated against. And after more than 200 years and 42 presidents - every one of which has been a white male - I think it's reasonable to recognize that Obama being elected president would be significant, and would express a step towards greater inclusiveness.

3. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #238766 by macros_man on August 28, 2008 at 2:47 pm

Oh... and let's not forget that if Obama is elected president, he will be the first [half] black president the U.S. has ever had.

Wouldn't that make you feel good? To know you voted for the first U.S. president in history to break the race barrier?

As secularists, I think that we are all for eliminating discrimination of a person's race and gender.

Electing Obama seems like it would be a great symbolic step in that regard.

4. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #238755 by macros_man on August 28, 2008 at 2:37 pm

Manson - have you ever seen this video?:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4824085103245427405&ei=PBe3SNmGMYzYqwOR8-TJDA&q=obama church religion&vt=lf&hl=en

(if the link doesn't work, just go to google video and search for "obama church religion" - and it should be the first video that shows up)


I think this speech was given some time before Obama was running for president - or at least before he was very popular.

In it, he very eloquently champions secular ideals, and secular reasoning. He has also expressed that any faith-based funds should not endorse a particular religion.

I'm not crazy about faith-based programs either... but there's a chance they may do some good for people - especially if some selfless people are a part of it. And if it just squanders money on religious indoctrination, then this will only be a drop in the bucket compared to how we waste money on other things.

If you renounce Obama for this relatively minor transgression, and choose not to vote for him, you are PUNISHING YOURSELF AND EVERYONE ELSE.

If nothing else, THINK ABOUT THE DAMN SUPREME COURT JUSTICE APPOINTMENTS. WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!

Even for all his religious misgivings, Obama is light-years ahead of McCain in terms of secular ideals.

It just blows my mind that you could think you are somehow doing everyone a favor by not electing Obama, and thereby encouraging McCain to become elected.

As secularists, I think our ONLY practical option at this time is to do everything we can to ensure Obama is elected. To do otherwise would simply be masochistic.

5. Free Will vs. the Programmed Brain

Comment #235107 by macros_man on August 22, 2008 at 12:28 pm

Steve Zara said: "The Many-Worlds interpretation doesn't really lock the universe into a perfectly deterministic existence, at least not for conscious beings. Just because all possible histories have been experienced by copies of you, does not mean you could have predicted your own history."

My understanding of the many-worlds interpretation is that it is deterministic because _all_ realities are realized - they _all_ exist. The fact that "we" can only find ourselves in _one_ of all of those realities is immaterial, since that is only a subjective perspective. In the objective perspective - _all_ of the possible worlds do in fact exist, so there is no indeterminism to the universe as a whole.

The only way for indeterminism to be a reality is if the possible realities were somehow "pruned" so that at least some, or possibly all but one path were "pruned" out of existence - then if that "pruning" of the possible paths of existence were to be "random", it would therefore mean the universe was non-deterministic.

But yes - from the subjective perspective of conscious beings, the world would apparently be non-deterministic in the many-words scenario, since there's no way that beings in a single path of reality could determine what next path they will "find themselves in" - but they could still be assured that of all possible paths, their cousins in the other paths will inevitably experience all possible realities... so in the larger sense of the universe as a whole, it is still deterministic.


Also - I should like to point out that the ability to "predict" the future is partly independent from whether or not reality is fundamentally deterministic.

For example - even if the universe was fundamentally deterministic - this doesn't necessarily imply there is any theoretical means to actually predict the future - and indeed, it is probably impossible for subsets of reality (such as conscious beings) to be able to predict the future for their reality in all but the most trivial configurations of physical universes.

On the other hand... if the universe was fundamentally non-deterministic (ie - if fundamental "randomness" were a reality) - then predicting the future would be theoretically impossible for all configurations of physical reality - except, possibly, for those of such trivial configurations whereby the possible realities were so constrained that only a single path of existence were possible.

6. Free Will vs. the Programmed Brain

Comment #234596 by macros_man on August 21, 2008 at 5:50 pm

In an attempt to restore this thread along a more 'constructive' path...


Imagine a scenario where we had a machine that could scan the current state of a single human's entire nervous system, decode it, and recreate a kind of "virtual image" of the person, which could then be run through various simulations, and thereby tell us how the person would react to various scenarios.

Now, for both practical and even theoretical reasons, it would be impossible for such a machine to create a _perfect_ virtual image of the person - and it would also be impossible to have 100% accuracy in predicting the person's behavior - even if it could duplicate an identical copy of the simulation - with all the environmental objects in it.

However - it is likely that a human's responses are within tolerances whereby these technical obstacles could be overcome to the point that we could have a very high degree of accuracy in predicting how a person will respond to a given scenario - let's say we could maybe acheive a 99.999% accuracy.

So assuming this could one day be possible - allowing for some considerable technological advances in sensing devices and computing power - then this would basically render human intelligence and consciousness to that of a software program.

A software program's behaviour - provided we can detect any random environmental inputs - can essentially be perfectly predicted, because we can obtain a perfect image of its data and instructions, and are able to execute it within virtual environments - such as re-executing it in the computer, or even running through the code in our minds. Also, the software programs are sufficiently insulted from fundamental physics - with sufficient tolerances - so that the random/unpredictability of quantum mechanics is canceled from the equation. If we were to somehow incorporate quantum effects themselves into the computations - then we would be limited to predicting the probabilities of executions - and this probably applies to the decoding of human consciousness - at least to some degree - depending on to what extent human thought processes are influenced by quantum mechanical effects.

It could be that neuronal processes are sufficiently insulted from QM effects, similar to a computer program, so that they could be essentially ignored in terms of predicting human behavior... and of course, this would make it much easier to do decoding and predictions of human or other animal behavior.


So what would all of this mean for free will? If quantum mechanics does indeed play a considerable role in neuronal activity - then would we be forced to reconsider whether quantum outcomes are indeed normally distributed over their probability frequences? If, indeed, there were some 'purposeful' force behind the random machinations of QM, then statistical analysis should be able to bear this out.

Or what if QM plays almost no role in behavior... then certainly, "free will" as a so-called "non-material" process or artifact is utterly disproven. The same applies if something like the 'many-worlds' interpretation applies.

For myself - my biggest question is whether it is even possible, or sensical, for fundamental randomness to exist - as required by certain interpretations of QM. Personally - I hold out for a TOE which binds out indeterminism altogether - and which locks the universe into a perfectly deterministic existence.

7. Free Will vs. the Programmed Brain

Comment #234091 by macros_man on August 20, 2008 at 9:17 pm

I'm impressed by how much more intelligent the comments are here, compared to those posted on the original article's on sciam's website.

I'm also disappointed that the article either failed to mention, or perhaps even failed to recognize the point that J Mac made about the results possibly being more an artifact of the test subjects' disillusionment than with the mere idea of determinism.

I'm a "hard determinist", myself, and my sense of "responsibility for my actions", and "ability to be an agent of change" couldn't be stronger. You just have to be able to separate your low-level objective sense of physical reality from your higher-level sense of reasonably autonomous entities that emerge from that low-level reality.

Even though a human may be causally inextricable from it's environment - and indeed, the entire universe as a whole - we do not experience and interpret information at the level of physical interactions. Rather, we perceive the world through very high-level objects, which take on characteristics and behaviors that are unfathomably complex on the low-level deterministic level of physics, but which become comprehensible to us on the high-level on which we perceive them. The incredible complexity which bridges the gap between low-level physical events, and high-level emergent properties and entities are what allow us to maintain a sense of freedom in amongst reasonably autonomous entities - that is, those entities which are sufficiently insulated from other entities and their environment, so that the behaviors they exhibit cannot reasonably be ascertained via a preponderance of the perceptible variables.

In other words... we recognize that we cannot practically make accurate predictions as to the thoughts or behaviors of other beings - nor even ourselves - and this inability to predict is what allows us to maintain a sense of free will.

Whether the effects on our environment should be taken into account when deciding things such as personal responsibility is independent of the question of free will - and generally, the results of those effects are incapable of being predicted to any high degree. There are, of course, certain circumstances where things in our environment can highly affect our behaviors - and that is why we need a sliding scale when we consider to what extent a "reasonably autonomous entity" had any reasonable choice in the matter. This will probably always be a fairly subjective endeavor - until such time as we can reverse-engineer entire nervous systems.

So I think it's a very interesting topic, and there are still many areas to explore... but
in my experience, so many people are incapable of intelligently discussing freewill, because they simply don't understand the definitions well enough, and they end up having knee-jerk reactions to what are nothing more than mixed up concepts.

I think that most people could feel quite content with determinism once they had a deeper understanding of the terms. It can take a lot of deep thought, at first, to grapple with and come to terms with ideas of "connectedness", and "identity", which are fundamental to determinism.

As Janus pointed out - "people" seem to have this investment in something like duality or the 'homunculous', and it prevents them from even understanding what determinism is, or how it relates to identity, and offshoot topics such as responsibility and punishment.

Considering it requires a somewhat profound comprehension of what the "self" means, it's not surprising that so many people should have problems with determinism. And if you are a theist, to boot, you will probably be almost incapable of even comprehending determinism - nevermind coming to terms with it.

8. Bill Maher hates your (fill in the blank) religion

Comment #226798 by macros_man on August 8, 2008 at 5:16 pm

Given that this movie is suppose to be a COMEDY - I don't have a big problem problem with Bill using deception to get the content for his film.

However - to be fair and honest and "take the high road", I think that after the release, the movie's creators should provide the FULL UNEDITED INTERVIEWS freely available on the internet - and even post a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie indicating that some editing and deception took place.

Doing this will likely do little to diminish the power of the content - since I'm sure he's got stuff that can stand its ground in _any_ context (such as the senators comments about IQ tests).


Expelled, on the other hand, was not a comedy, but was intended to put forth a convincing argument - and its purpose rested on the truthfulness of its claims and its content. So to use deception and editing to prove their point in that context is considerably worse than what Bill Maher is doing.

9. Workers' Religious Freedom vs. Patients' Rights

Comment #222683 by macros_man on July 31, 2008 at 5:36 pm

And to reiterate... I think that such compromise should only ever be available in situations where a single facility is able to have alternative staff on hand, who do not have such conflicts, and thereby present no practical difficulties to patients in getting non-discriminatory care.

So in drug stores, for example where there is a single pharmacologist on duty... then I don't think any such compromise should be made - and the pharmacologist should in no situation ever be able to apply discriminatory practices.

10. Workers' Religious Freedom vs. Patients' Rights

Comment #222682 by macros_man on July 31, 2008 at 5:29 pm

This is precisely why Macros_Man's "comprimise" [sic] won't/can't work. It requires more and more bureaucracy to monitor and punish bad human behavior, when much simpler measures can completely simplify the issue.

Thanks BeyondBelief... I was worried that no one would catch my mistake, which I intentionally made to just test everyone's spelling ability.

...

In an ideal world, I agree with you completely, and think that any compromise on this front is going to cause a lot of issues. But in specific areas, where there already aren't enough people to fill positions, then I think comprimises :) like this might be the only solution - where the alternative is simply to have no doctors or other staff.

But for areas and locations where we don't have critical staffing shortages - such as in most nursing and pharmacologist positions - then I certainly think that we shouldn't compromise - or at least not mandate compromise.

There still might be some situations where compromise is feasible - for example, if you have a nursing staff of 50, and 5 people don't want to be involved in abortions... then maybe these nurses can work it out amongst themselves, whether they will let the 5 off the hook.

But in terms of the law, I think that all 50 nurses must at least "in theory" be willing to do the same work which is justified under their job description, and within secular norms. And if there ever arises a situation where these people will not do their job for discriminatory reasons, then they should be fired and have their licences or certifications revoked, since they would be incapable of fulfilling their duties.

11. Workers' Religious Freedom vs. Patients' Rights

Comment #222502 by macros_man on July 31, 2008 at 1:31 pm

I would like to know whether this bill balances non-discrimination of patients with that of health-care professionals.

If the bill also dictated that no medical facility could discriminate against a patient's desire for a particular kind of treatment, then I think this is workable.

For example - if you had a clinic where some doctors refused to hand out birth control, then that same clinic would also need doctors who _did_ hand out birth control - and whenever a patient came in who needed birth control, or who even potentially needed birth control - then the religiously-inclined doctors should be mandated to defer to the other doctors who are not so conflicted.

If they are going to make comprimises to respect the non-discrimination of healthcare workers, then they absolutely need to gaurantee non-discrimination of patients as well.

And a well-publicized and anonymous complaint system should be set up to punish doctors or clinics/hospitals which do not conform to this.


It would be nice if we could just turn away all healthcare workers who might ever discriminate against patients - but in a country where there is a great shortage of said workers, I think that comprimises like this could be workable.

It's probably better, in most cases, to have a sometimes-discriminating doctor, than to have no doctor at all. We just need to have safeguards in place to ensure that patients cannot be discriminated against - and should punish such discrimination to the furthest extent of the law.

12. Obama Should Re-Think His Faith-Based Agenda

Comment #220607 by macros_man on July 28, 2008 at 4:51 pm

I agree... I think the biggest thing at stake in this election is the supreme court nominations.

If you value the constitution your civil liberties, then it seems the only practical option is to back Obama with all your might... to do otherwise would be to bury your head in the sand.

Also, for those who are worried about Obama's religious interference, there's a really good video where Obama was addressing a church group, and he stressed that people always need to provide secular reasons as justification for their causes - even when those causes may be motivated by religion.

Despite his apparent proclivity for religion, he really seems to understand and sympathize with the secularists.

According to journalists, both his mother and primary father figure were atheists... so I think he has had a good deal of influence in this regard ... don't let his political pandering blind you to his underlying influences... he's by and far the best candidate we have right now, and when you take everything into consideration, he isn't even that much of a comprimise for secularists.

13. Texas State Board of Education approves Bible course for high schools

Comment #214018 by macros_man on July 19, 2008 at 11:32 am

After perusing the Texas state's board of education web-site... I get the feeling that this really is an attempt to have "bible study" in schools - where the students and teachers confer religious teachings - and not just a class that examines the bible from an objective standpoint.

One really interesting document on the school board's website was about sex education. Read from page 127 of the document below... or really, the whole thing is a good read.

http://www.tea.state.tx.us/textbooks/adoptprocess/2004adopt/testimonyjuly2004.pdf

Apparently, in their sex education material, they were teaching the students to be afraid and ashamed of their sexuality - and are preaching "abstinence" and "morals" in the face of STD's and other sexual issues.

This document is dated 2004 ... I wonder if anything has changed since then.

14. Children Are Naturally Prone To Be Empathic And Moral

Comment #209625 by macros_man on July 12, 2008 at 9:31 pm

If our brains were so simple to understand, we would be so simple we couldn't understand them!

Good saying, Hobbit.

It reminded me of the short story "The Last Question", by Isaac Asimov, where the human race builds a massively complex computer, which no one single person is capable of comprehending anymore.

Or it's even similar with some of today's complex micro-processor architectures, and software.

If we are ever going to understand the human brain, we will no doubt require a lot of assistance from computers, which will process the information, and feed it to us humans in chunks of a reasonable level of detail which we can comprehend.

My guess is that we can reasonably comprehend some of the higher level processes or algorithms which generate things like thoughts and images in the mind, or how we store and retrieve memories, for example - but to understand something as complex as the human brain appreciating a piece of literary artwork, or how the brain ponders complex ethical dilemmas ... I'm guessing that even the smartest among us would have trouble comprehending how the brain does these things at a functional or algorithmic level.

15. Children Are Naturally Prone To Be Empathic And Moral

Comment #209507 by macros_man on July 12, 2008 at 1:10 pm

Unfortunately, or fortunately, our ethics prevent us from doing controlled versions of these tests, so that it still leaves a lot of questions of whether the subject's brains are adapting to purely evolved characteristics, or whether they are adapting to conditioning from their environment (parents, interactions with peers, etc).

The ideal situation would be to come upon children which have somehow grown up in isolation of society. But if we were to find such children, it would be adding insult to injury to then perform tests on them... although if the tests were sufficiently non-invasive, then I think this could be ethically acceptable... similar to how we perform tests on the brains of people who have incurred brain damage.

The next best thing might be to do these kinds of tests on children from a variety of cultures. For example - it would be interesting to contrast the responses from a child living in America to that of a child who is living in a war-torn part of Africa, and who would therefore be exposed to very different moral conditioning.

Or, of course... once we get a better grasp on the actual functioning of the brain, we might be able to develop abstract models to help us settle the "nature versus nurture" question for specific scenarios.

I think we'd all agree that both nature _and_ nurture play a part in virtually all of our behaviors - but for very specific scenarios, it should be possible to determine in what measure each is having an effect.

16. PLEASE WRITE IN SUPPORT OF PZ MYERS

Comment #208192 by macros_man on July 10, 2008 at 5:25 pm

I did a brief search on google to see if I could find anything related to President Bruininks religious affiliations.

I found the following link, which doesn't have much detail, but which identifies Bruininks as a defendant against the Freedom From Religion Foundation, in a lawsuit against the use of public funds for religious purposes:

http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/2005/may/minnesota.php

I know that this doesn't necessarily mean that Bruininks is an apologist or anything... but when writing your letters to him, please keep in mind that he may very well be quite religious himself.

17. Fire the starting gun! The Darwin year begins...NOW!

Comment #202698 by macros_man on July 1, 2008 at 8:17 pm

Wow - that's a great little animation you've got there, twilleyj.

18. Is the Universe Actually Made of Math?

Comment #196395 by macros_man on June 19, 2008 at 9:16 pm

Yeah... we're definitely talking about the non-scientific version of the word "theory", here - but even if it is just speculation - it's pretty interesting speculation.

Unfortunately, I think most people here are missing the point of the idea.

The idea isn't that reality emerges from any particular formulation or conceptualization of mathematics. In other words - it doesn't come from "mathematics" as a branch of study. "Mathematics" is even probably the wrong word to be using.

The idea is that reality emerges from universal patterns and rules which are inherent in abstract relationships - "mathematics" is just our window into this universe of abstract relationships.

Euler's Identity, for example, is an abstract relationship - it transcends subjectivity. It's also a striking fact which necessarily emerges from logical consistency.

Or take the numerical content of computing the ratio of a circle's radius to it's circumference - we have mathematical tools which allow us to visualize the structure of PI, but PI can be thought of as existing independently of those tools. And there's no way of recombining our tools in order to give PI a different content - unless we change the geometry, or some such thing - but that's not relevant to the core idea that there are fundamental relationships which naturally and necessarily emerge directly from logical consistency.

They exist "platonistically", if you'll excuse the phrase. And the exciting part - the part which makes this speculation plausible - is that we've already observed complex patterns which naturally emerge - and we don't even understand why or how they emerge... not yet.

So I'm guessing that in Tegmark's conceptualization of the theory, or idea - it is those relationships which he supposes to underly reality - not our contingent formulations of them.

It's true that our current formulations of math, such as set theory, seem to have some leeway in how we conceive of them, but the idea is that underlying all of this, there may be a wholly interconnected set of patterns which encapsulate all mathematical rules and possibilities - and the physical universe, as we know it, would simply be a part of this interconnected and continuous pattern.

19. Is the Universe Actually Made of Math?

Comment #195786 by macros_man on June 18, 2008 at 7:41 pm

Wow... it's incredible to know that someone out there actually shares my beliefs about the fundamental nature of reality.

I used to rant about a theory of my own - strikingly similar to Tegmark's - over at skepticforum.com a few years ago. I got similar reactions, of people either thinking I'm crazy, or simply not understanding what I was saying.

The beauty of the theory is that you don't need anything "concrete" to explain why reality exists.

All you need to do is understand how the rules that govern our universe could possibly emerge from the relationships which are intrinsic to mathematics. And as an added bonus, you would try to localize the specific subset of relationships which would define our own particular universe (since there are likely countless other universes, with different rules).

But even just being able to realize how our physics can directly emerge from mathematics should be enough to make us realize the power of this theory.

It would mean that we could even learn things about our own physics without the need for experimentation. We could actually discover deeper truths of physics merely by operating with equations. We already do this to a great extent (ie - string theory) - but it would mean that we could explain our heretofore arbitrary "constants" - such as the speed of light - from first principles.

It would also no doubt turn our ideas of reality upside down - and would utterly blur our concepts of what is "abstract" and "concrete".

But no doubt, after coming to grips with the idea that our reality is as "abstract" as mathematics, we would delve deeper and deeper into the nuance of why the relationships (ie. PI, fractals, etc) themselves emerge from mathematics.

20. Group wants Wi-Fi banned from public buildings

Comment #186181 by macros_man on May 29, 2008 at 8:44 pm

Don't satellites and even newer cellphone technologies output a similar frequency to that of Wi-Fi devices? If so, then I would think that these people would be affected by these types of transmissions, which are virtually inescapable outdoors.

Perhaps their intensity is generally less than that of the Wi-Fi devices... but I doubt it.

21. Creation vs. Reality

Comment #98955 by macros_man on December 15, 2007 at 2:45 am

IF it were somehow possible for the 'physical' universe to not exist - or for nothing to exist at all... would things like logic and PI still not exist?

For me, the fact that completely abstract mathematics has relationships with inherent information content (such as PI), I think it is obvious that it would be impossible for nothing to exist.

For even in the intuitive conception of nothingness, the abstract relationships in mathematics persist independent of anything, and thereby side-step the physicalist imperative of existence vs non-existence.

The platonist ideal may be a bit dated... but it may also still have some life in it yet. While Plato may have had an inkling of transcendental mathematics, he had no conception of things like fractals, chaos and even string theory, which naturally emerge from the so-called 'elegance' of mathematics... and it is these things which lend ever more credence to the platonist ideal, and the emergence of physics and physical content from the abstract.

If this were true... then you no more need to explain the existence of our reality, and our universe, than you have to explain the existence of PI.

22. Creation vs. Reality

Comment #98535 by macros_man on December 13, 2007 at 8:50 pm

Yeah... I was awed by the visual beauty of this... this is just visually stunning... and the subject matter is sufficiently pertinent, as well.

23. Jury Awards Father $11M in Funeral Case

Comment #83963 by macros_man on October 31, 2007 at 11:19 pm

Rather than physically assaulting them, maybe we could just take shifts where we could perpetually follow all of them around and verbally assault them 24 hours a day.

I think that is the only way to break these people, and make them see the error of their ways, without overtly breaking the law.

24. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #82598 by macros_man on October 26, 2007 at 10:22 pm

It's been a long time since I heard Sam Harris speak, or read one of his books... I forgot how incredibly intelligent he is.

And listening to the first video... it's the first time in a long time that I've actually had some shift with respect to my ideas about atheism. And his comments about meditation and human happiness were very well expressed - and I'm certain he made a lot of people at the conference think in ways they they maybe don't think about so often.

I think that hands-down, Sam Harris is the most eloquent and well-rounded spokesperson for atheists today... at least that I've heard.

I find it silly that there has been such a combative response to his speech... I think that most people who are disagreeing with him didn't really take to heart the meaning or spirit in which he spoke.

25. War in Heaven: Hitchens Meets D'Souza on Home Turf

Comment #81004 by macros_man on October 23, 2007 at 10:08 pm

These challenges to atheistic "moralism" are so easily countered...

1. evolution guaranteed that we would have some degree of shared morals, because co-operation is ultimately advantageous to a species

2. even though we have developed self-reflective intelligence to the point that we can subvert our generally evolved behaviorisms, on some level we have already been programmed with these traits, and that is why we will continue to demonstrate them, on the whole, regardless. On another level, we can also appreciate moralism as intelligent beings, because we are able to calculate how our behaviors will lead to outcomes over the long-term, and our pre-programming is what encourages to exploit this foresight.

3. The difference between religious moralism, and atheistic moralism is that atheists are able to adjust their morals over time, in order to reflect a changing environment - both internal and external. Atheists can also better handle the vast gray areas of moralism, because we can unconditionally employ pragmatism.

4. Theists seem caught up with Platonistic ideals, and call foul whenever one of these ideals is brought to light. There is absolutely ZERO proof that morals cannot subsist on pragmatism, and continue, or even improve, via the application of contingent pragmatism. We (atheists) are all living, breathing proof of THIS.



I'm looking forward to watching this debate between Hitchens and D'souza... but won't keep my hopes up.

Hitchens is great guy... but he speaks a little slowly for my taste, and he says the same things over and over again. Maybe he should hire a writer :)

But seriously... we need someone speaking for atheists, who can cut right to the point on these topics - someone who is fast on their feet, concise, and who cuts right into the fallacies that are heavy in the minds of theists that watch these debates with abated breath.

26. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #80731 by macros_man on October 22, 2007 at 8:55 pm

Wasn't this suppose to be a Socratic debate? I saw virtually no Socratic method of debating being applied here... I'm sorry, but I don't think either Shermer or Dinesh are knowledgeable and well-spoken enough to really carry this format of debate. I wonder if they even realized that this was suppose to be a Socratic format.

It irritated me that Shermer was just reading his opening speech, without any improvisation with respect to Dinesh's speech. Dinesh said that only 19 people were killed in the "witch-hunts" - and during Shermer's speech, he referred to deaths from the witch-hunts several times - but then his point about this would have been nullified to those who believed Dinesh's previous point... and Shermer seemed to be completely unaware of this. Why didn't he articulate the fact that the 19 victims were ONLY with respect to the Salem Witch Trial, but that possibly thousands of people were killed over various episodes of witch-hunting.

Shermer also didn't at all address Dinesh's remarks that physics seems to "behave according to particular laws" and that they "have intentions", etc... how could Shermer not address this? You have only to explain that physics follows mathematical rules that exist because there is no other way for things to be - that physics only obeys so-called "laws", because to do otherwise would generate non-definable paradoxes, and so there appears to be no intentions in physics whatsoever, but merely that physics behaves the way it does, because it would be impossible to behave otherwise. And you could just go on and on about physics with regards to his remarks that physics on earth would be the same on mars, and how, again, this is necessary because physics behaves according to universal symmetries which are not arbitrary, but must behave in these particular ways, because basic logic dictates they must in order to avoid paradoxes. Not to mention the fact of empiricism, and how we have DISCOVERED these things through trial and error - and not that they are in any way implicit in christianity, nor any other religion... but that this is an exercise in "moving the bulls-eyes" of the first degree.

This debate was just so aimless, and spurious .... and didn't anyone else notice that the video ends abruptly, without any proper ending? It's obviously missing several minutes at the end... where is the rest?

I was also irritated by his repeated insistence about homosexuality only being mentioned once in the bible. While the leviticus scripture is certainly the most explicit remark about homosexuality, he must have known that christians would have many other more loosely-related scriptures in mind... so that it was silly of him to keep on this. Hasn't he ever read the Skeptic's Annotated Bible? You'd think it would be right up his alley... and something he'd want to read up on before a debate such as this.

I'm sorry to be so hard on Shermer... I enjoy his articles a great deal... but this debate was just an embarrassment.

Dinesh is a nutjob - it should have been easy to make him look like an idiot - ESPECIALLY with a socractic format in mind.... but it's like Shermer didn't even take notice that this was suppose to be a socratic debate... and did not have any lines of questioning in mind which would have forced Dinesh into contradicting himself. THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE DEBATE! And Dinesh's arguments are very easy to determine... and he didn't even show anything new in this debate - so it would have merely been an academic exercise.

If we are going to refuse to lower ourselves to debating with creationists, that's one thing... but if we actually agree to debate them, then let's at least take the time and the effort to prepare for these debates.


I know someone is going to chew me out for complaining... and claim that I have no right to complain... that I should do one of these debates myself, if I think it is so easy... and maybe they'll be right... but I'm sorry... I was just so annoyed after watching this. The fact is that some people have been given an opportunity to be in the public eye on these religious debates... and it's incumbent upon them to put forth the effort to make these debates successful... otherwise, don't even bother.

27. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #77300 by macros_man on October 9, 2007 at 1:44 am

242. Comment #77206 by Styrer- on October 8, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Comment #76150 by macros_man on

Why, my friend, will you not step up to the mark yourself here?

You seem eminently qualified to make contributions of some value.

... [some emotional stuff]...

Hi Styrer... I would gladly speak out against religion... and I do every chance I get... but Richard Dawkins has the eminent position of having access to public forums - where people invite him to speak to large crowds of people. And that is why I only made the FRIENDLY suggestion that Richard take some time to speak with some cosmologists... and "bone-up" in that area, so that he can better counter religious appeals to cosmology. It shouldn't take more than a couple of days to get a layman's understanding of the arguments and counter-arguments regarding creationism and questions of cosmology... it would just be another tool in his already-well-stocked arsenal.

From your raucous tone, you sound like you are trying to protect RD from any criticism... or suggestion, for that matter. But I don't think he needs anyone to protect him in this way.

I was making a SUGGESTION in the most kind way I could... and a suggestion which I really think could prove useful. Would you rather everyone just praise Dawkins, and never dare to offer any advice?

28. CBC Atheism and Humanism Documentary

Comment #77247 by macros_man on October 8, 2007 at 8:45 pm

Bonzai - I know exactly what you mean.

There's lots of different cultures in toronto - and lots of religions... but there doesn't seem to be much tension, like there is in the US - not in equal measure to the response of atheism in Canada.

However... problems might very well be burgeoning with things like the re-hashing of the right for catholic schools to get public money... and with people vying for public schools of all religious denominations...

We also have a problem with the Conservative government fueling the flames of religious intolerance, a bit... but of course - it's nothing like in the US... and in Toronto, we don't seem in nearly bad shape as they are in the West... with respect to religion issues.

But while most torontonians seem "too polite" to really discuss the issue... I think that we could be headed for troubles down the road unless our government champions secularism, and ensures it pushes out things like religious schools and catholic statehood.

We have a lot of foreign people coming to Canada, and bringing their dogma with them... and you'd probably be amazed at how many people hold really, really strange beliefs here... but I think the religion will largely fizzle out in a few generations of good ol' canadian indifference.

29. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76150 by macros_man on October 4, 2007 at 11:00 pm

I realize that Richard Dawkins is an incredibly busy guy... and that it's not his area of expertise... but I wish that he would bone-up on his physics and cosmology a bit.

As the idiots at the end of the program illustrate, creationists cannot easily distinguish between "evolution" and "origins of the universe". Didn't anyone else catch, at the end, how they were so incredibly shocked that Dawkins, an "evolutionist" claimed that "we do not understand the origins of the universe", or something to that effect? As if the entire theory of evolution hinged on a full understanding of the origins of the universe... which it simply does not... but creationists seem fixed on this point - and it's fodder for religious apologists to pick on.

So it's like Richard is fighting with one arm behind his back in these debates... because while he has a mastery of evolution, his knowledge of cosmology seems cursory, at best.

There are many retorts to the creationist cosmological arguments of which Richard does not seem aware of. With "fine tuning", for example, there is the point that we only call these constants "finely tuned" because we do not yet understand why they have the values that they do - but this in no way implies that these values could have been anything different - it may well be that these values are constrained by other physical laws, which are themselves constrained by axioms of probability, consistency, symmetry - or some hitherto unknown constraints. And it is only as a last resort, that we should attribute any such apparent serendipity to continuously variable parameters (aka 'multi-verse' hypotheses)

I understand debates are extremely difficult ordeals... and that it's impossible to have all hits, and no misses... but over and over, I'm seeing the same opportunities missed, to aptly address creationist claims in the area of physics and cosmology.

If Richard simply does not have the time or the inclination to research this area, then I think we should really start encouraging more cosmologists and physicists to join the debate, and become more vocal against the ludicrous claims repeatedly made by creationists regarding cosmology.


That said... I really do appreciate everything Richard and his foundation is doing... and I'm not complaining or anything... but it's just a friendly suggestion... :)

30. Larry King Interviews Kathy Griffin

Comment #71903 by macros_man on September 19, 2007 at 11:38 pm

Why do most people here seem to think that Kathy Griffin is an atheist?

Judging from her video on Larry King... she doesn't really sound like an atheist to me. In this interview, she seemed to be softening her remarks, but saying things like "oh, jesus has better things to do with his time"... which is implying she was more mocking of people misusing religion... rather than mocking religion itself.

Has she been quoted as saying she's an atheist, or something?

31. Enemies of Reason

Comment #65207 by macros_man on August 23, 2007 at 7:28 am

I wonder if Deepak has ever had a discussion with a real quantum physicist.

For Richard's documentary, it would have been nice to have a relatively prominent (or at least knowledgeable) quantum physicist respond to Deepak's comments - or even for them to have had a discussion.

To anyone that even remotely grasps things like quantum mechanics, and cosmological constructs, like black holes... it's mind-numbingly obvious how meaningless his words are... but I think that most people haven't got a clue about these things, and the little that they do hear about them, from the popular media, are so mis-characterized, that it shouldn't surprise us in the least, that people actually buy into his nonsense.

I know it isn't the job of scientists or physicists to speak out against mischaracterizations of their areas of study - and that's why we have people like Richard Dawkins... whose job it is, truly, to promote an accurate understanding of science (thank you Charles Simonyi!).

But just as Richard speaks on behalf of evolution, I think we need someone who speaks on behalf of physics.

Far too long have we gone without eminent personalities in the areas of physics... (yes - Stephen Hawking is great... but aside from "A brief history...", he's been much too busy to dabble in public relations)

And of course there are many people working in the field - even in areas of active research - but there hasn't been anyone to rouse the public's interest in physics. It's sad that people can't just be interested in physics, for the sake of physics alone... but it's true.

If nothing else, I think we need someone to publicly dispel the myths about things like quantum mechanics... and to give the public a better understanding of the terms, so that they cannot so easily be misused by people like Deepak.

We need more films that actually attempt to explain physics (ie - "Elegant Universe"), rather than ones that only obfuscate it (ie - "What the bleep").

32. Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years

Comment #64508 by macros_man on August 20, 2007 at 10:13 am

The whole point (re: abiogenesis) is that if we can know what materials and conditions will lead to the emergence of carbon-based life, then if we can have an idea of what the early conditions were like on earth, then we can estimate what the probability was of life emerging on earth.

In the experiments, the 'design' is necessary, because specific steps are required to generate life - and we are relying on our intelligence to determine what those steps must be - and how to actualize them.

For abiogenesis, on the other hand, the emergence of life depends on the probability of the life-generating steps to occur, and on the sample size of the events taking place.

For these scientists attempting to generate life, they are perhaps generating thousands of samples - trying to ensure the correct steps occur.

In earth's past, however, there may have been trillions upon trillions of these 'samples' taking place. Of course - in this case, the 'samples' are completely random... since there is no intelligence guiding their unfolding... but the ability for this large sample of random events to generate life may indeed be just as fruitful, if not more-so, than our concentrated efforts applied to a relatively minuscule set of samples.

But if we can know the steps required, and how likely these conditions are to have existed in earth's past... then we can estimate a confidence interval of the emergence of life on earth. This confidence interval depends on our knowledge of the ways life could have emerged, and our knowledge of early-earth conditions. We may never know the exact specifics of how all life on earth emerged... but this retrospective estimation would be very valuable.

Aside from verifying abiogenesis, there are many present-day applications of this research - and in particular, is the ability to generate organisms that are not subject to the same limitations which are contingencies of the specific way(s) that carbon-based life happened to emerge on earth.

However - I don't think that our exploitation of the abilities of existing organism structures has really been out-stripped, so as to justify the ability to actually create new ones.

For example... we could probably just re-engineer existing organisms to find biological cures for things such as cancer... and that this would probably be much more practical than trying to design a whole new life-form from scratch.

33. Amnesty to defy Catholic church over rape victims' abortion rights

Comment #63144 by macros_man on August 13, 2007 at 8:28 am

PS... in the philosophy of human rights - I actually believe that the final choice of whether or not to abort rests ENTIRELY with the mother.

You can liken this to a situation where one person's life depends on the voluntary actions of another person.

For example - let's say that John is dying, and for him to live, he absolutely needs me to supply him with a blood transfusion.

Now, let's say that I don't want to give John my blood. I agree that giving blood is not even that big of a sacrifice - but for my own personal reasons, I have CHOSEN not to give him my blood.

So you, as an ethical entity, cannot FORCE me to give my blood to John to save his life - you cannot take away my right to choose what I do with my body, in order to save this other person's life.

You can do all you can to try to persuade me to give blood to John - but you cannot force me.

It is the same with the mother and child. You cannot force the mother to carry the baby to term. The mother, even practically speaking, could abort the baby at any time she chooses - she is fully within her technical ability to do so.

It is the same with trying to prevent suicide. We cannot say "suicide is forbidden" - because anyone can be an agent of choice in committing their own suicide - they are independent entities in the philosophy of ethics. So even though their suicide may negatively impact the lives of those around them... we cannot practically prevent their actions in this regard - and we cannot use force to prevent them from committing suicide, unless we have a calculable reason for believing that their ethical machinery is failing - such as via some mind-altering drug, or a mental defect.


There are, however, different levels to which we can associate people as belonging to a larger ethical entity. People are at least partially independent in regards to ethics - but for practical reasons, we also understand that we are part of a larger community - and we have ethical responsibilities to that community. So depending on how our society is structured - and what numerical value we associate with the 'greater ethical entity' (aka - our society, which includes all other individuals within that society) - the proper action concerning abortion, suicide, and even the situation with 'John' that I described above, actual changes.

If we associate a higher value on the ethical responsibility to the group, for example - we may indeed judge it to be ethical to force someone to give something of their selves, in order to save the life of another person.

And I think this "value" is not at all a constant - but changes depending on the configuration of the society. But in our current society, I think we place more emphasis on the individual ethics - rather than group ethics.

34. Amnesty to defy Catholic church over rape victims' abortion rights

Comment #63134 by macros_man on August 13, 2007 at 7:50 am

wendelin - maybe I'm thick... but I can't figure out what you're trying to say in your message above. Would you mind clarifying?

In the philosophy of minimizing suffering, we need to realize that not all solutions are "win-win" - sometimes you just need to choose the 'lesser evil' - and, of course, the hard work is trying to figure out what that lesser evil is, or will be.

Through our meager understanding of biology, and nervous system development, we can assign an approximate value to the amount of suffering a fetus endures in the process of an abortion - and we can likewise put a value on the amount of suffering the mother will endure, if she is forced to carry the baby to term. We can also assign a value to the suffering of both the lives of the mother and the baby after birth, if it was to be born.

In the instance of the rapes at Darfur - the children - once born, are likely to face terrible on-going suffering, because of the situation they are being born into. Their mothers will possibly resent the children, and they may be physically and mentally tortured by an unwelcoming family and community. Sure - it's also possible that some of the kids may go on to live great and meaningful lives... but we do need to make a judgment call here - and we can't let our hopes trump our objectivity.

We can also take the stance that in the absence of an obviously benign action, that we should take no action at all... that we should just leave them to their own devices, and not offer support at all - but in this situation, and many others... I don't think the outcomes are so hard to foresee, that we should take this policy. We can also guess as much, that many of the mothers will attempt to perform their own abortions... and it's not hard to tell that we are not acting for the greater good, by allowing this to happen.

So really - there are indeed cases where abortion actually is the humane thing to do.

There are also situations where abortion may simply be a selfish thing... but it's not as cut-and-dry that we can say - "oh - the sex was consensual - and therefore there's no excuse for abortion". We need to consider, in their entirety, the lives and the future suffering of both the mother and the child.

It doesn't make sense to withhold the relatively minor suffering of an aborted fetus, just so they can be born and live through the on-going suffering of an unwanted child - and to mature to where their minds can fully grasp and sustain the deeper suffering of a child that realizes just how horrible their lives truly are.

It's true that we can never predict what will happen in the future... and we can never be right 100% of the time... or probably not even close. But that doesn't mean we can't make judgments - including those that deem abortion to be the correct way to minimize the overall suffering in any given situation.

35. CNN Debate on Koran in Toilet

Comment #60602 by macros_man on August 2, 2007 at 11:42 am

I think this is a really complex and involved subject... and it's really hard to have a strong opinion either way, without considering the large set of ideas and consequences relating to 'hate crimes'.

But I think the comments here, so far, are quite well representing the different opinions.

On one side, we have people that are strongly opposed to punishing people above and beyond their outward actions - by assigning culpability even to their thoughts.

But on the other side - and even with some practicality - we recognize that people's actions are very well interdependent WITH their thoughts.

Let's consider a mentally retarded person, for example... If they were to kill someone - we actually hold them less responsible for their actions - sometimes even to the point of hardly punishing them at all.

In this instance, we are recognizing the strong connection between a person's actions and what goes on inside their head.

It is true that we presently cannot ever know what's going on inside someone's head - but practically speaking, we do make actionable assumptions all the time. It is even possible, for example, that a person might pretend to be mentally retarded for many years - and then kill someone... and get very little punishment as a result, even though their were fully cognizant of their actions and their consequences. This is an extreme example, no doubt - but it shows that despite our limitations in knowing someone's motives or mental processes - we nonetheless execute judgment based on them all the time.

I'm still somewhat torn as to whether 'hate crimes', in general, are a bad idea.

In order to really form a strong opinion, either way, I think we need to consider the idea at several levels...

1. its usefulness as a deterrent
2. its regard for abstract notions of "justice"
3. and its ability to be applied reliably.

The comments here, so far, seem to be mostly concerned with addressing point #3 above - and some of them appear to address certain aspects of #2. Practically speaking, I think that #1 is actually the most critical aspect... but many non-utilitarians would think otherwise.


Specifically with regard to its application towards religious affiliations... I think that the larger part of the evidence falls on the side of the fence that argues that this should NOT be a hate crime.

But I don't by any means believe this is a 'cut-and-dry' issue... and I think that I can come to the conclusion that this is not a 'hate crime' so readily, only because I am an atheist. For a religious person, on the other than, or someone who is an apologetic for religion... I believe their base assumptions about the nature and causality of religion can just as easily lead them in the entirely opposite conclusion.

36. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Edd Doerr

Comment #58807 by macros_man on July 26, 2007 at 7:35 am

Ideally, I would describe "science" as an algorithm that executes within a person's brain, rather than as a set of [static] data.

As that algorithm runs, it builds up data over time - things that we begin to take for granted. But given the susceptibility of this data, to invalidation by future bits of data, and the inherent incompleteness of it all - it is most important to stress the algorithm of science, rather than the data it collects.

Unfortunately, very few of us are able to actually perform science in our daily lives - and even those of us who are so lucky, they are generally sequestered to relatively narrow areas of study.

So what most of us end up doing, is deferring to other people's research - and trusting that they are applying the scientific method properly, and honestly - and that their methods of collecting data are likewise sound.

In certain fields, such as physics, we are fortunate to have the ability to run prototypes of the scientific method with our own brains, and to test out the theories, and even validate the data of real scientists and their research - but with the benefit of hindsight, of course, and a great deal of the hard work done for us already...


I think that too many people have the wrong impression that science is something that only goes on behind the closed doors of the laboratories. Certainly, that is where the vast majority of it takes place... but I don't think enough people realize that the processes and the rationalities of science are accessible to anyone and everyone who is patient enough to think through them.

Just like students solving math problems with pen and paper... we are [theoretically] able to use our own mental faculties to prove to ourselves that some particular scientific discovery is indeed valid.

In the past - a major hurdle to this would have been the inability to access the data that science operates on... but now, with the ubiquity of the internet, the data of science is also becoming increasingly accessible - and while this hurdle certainly still exists - it is slowly being whittled away.


So "science" doesn't nearly impress me so much for the results it generates, as its ability to generate results in the first place... and the ability to recreate and verify these results so strongly and convincingly, that we can so confidently assign its results to our collective knowledge, and to apply that data to our lives - and even derive deep and personal meanings from it, in the virtual landscape of our minds.

[ Yes... in case you're wondering, I was just "channeling" the late, great Carl Sagan :) ]