451. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214406 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 11:58 am

221. Comment #214402 by hawt4dawk


I think that cheap, dumb, lame, and obvious puns and plays on words are the bread and butter of the media. I just roll my eyes and continue reading.

452. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214363 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 10:18 am

215. Comment #214361 by mordacious1

It's trade mark. You don't need to stroke my ego, I do that myself quite regularly...hope it's not a sin. Sometimes it does feel nice to have someone else give it a rub though.

453. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214362 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 10:15 am

I should mention that I don't think such all encompassing rationalism exists. Or an "ideal rationalist". Surely we all hold plenty of irrational beliefs. This could be due to a lapse in reason, ignorance, or more likely, the fact that most knowledge is 3rd,4th,5th,6th, or in the case of something like the bible, 10,000th-hand information. Errors are always present, and often plentiful.

What I think matters, is the willingness to be rational when it comes to everything. The willingness to change your mind, and drop a belief if you fail to be able to rationally justify it when challenged. This is what supernaturalists (of any kind) fail to do, so I do not consider them rational.

454. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214360 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 10:04 am

211. Comment #214355 by Styrer-

I think you are conflating intelligent, skillful, knowledgable, and good at one's job with rationalism.

I don't know of such people. Some people may even be quite rational when it comes to some things, but they are not rational when it comes to all things, so they are not rational.

Hume obliterated any justification for accepting a supernatural explanation for anything. Completely annihilated it with his problem of induction.

Knowing about this, not being able to solve his problem, and continuing to do what he showed unjustified. That cannot be a rational person, in my opinion.

455. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214357 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 9:58 am

209. Comment #214351 by mordacious1

Hey, now here is a response I can give in both english and japanese.

Boku wa sugoi desu, ne?

I am great, aren't I?

456. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214349 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 9:36 am

207. Comment #214348 by mordacious1

What'chu talkin' 'bout Modacious1? Wasting my mind? Didn't you see my tenticle-beast metaphor? That took some heavily intellectual lifting.

457. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214346 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 9:29 am

204. Comment #214345 by mordacious1

That's correct. There is no sense continually going for the regenerating limbs of the tentical-beast. You gots to go for the heart! At best you only attack the limbs to get them temporarily out of the way, to make the heart vulnerable.

458. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214336 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 9:00 am

198. Comment #214334 by Steve Zara

From the strength of your language it seems you would prevent people even writing fairy stories, and would ban Tolkien.

459. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214333 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 8:57 am

189. Comment #214320 by Styrer-

If one were rational, then they would reject supernatural explanations. If one rejected supernatural explanations, how does this necessitate that they are rational? They could reject them because their parents told them they are wrong, and harbour a multitude of irrational political, economic, environmental, and societal irrational beliefs.

Also, saying something is a subset of something hardly is saying they are "seperate entities". Drama shows are a subset of genres of television programming, that hardly makes them a "seperate entity" from television programming. The former could not exist without the latter, but the latter could do just fine without the former.

I don't remember if I added that later, though I fiddle with all of my posts after posting them for like ten minutes, so it is probable. If it is the case then I apologize. Though, it was not meant as an insult. It was meant as a clear point, that what you said was clearly misrepresenting what I said, which would have had to have been on purpose. Though it seems that I was wrong in thinking that was the case.

460. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214313 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 8:03 am

Well, not all of us are totalitarians.

I'm an intellectual anarchist, I will fight tooth and nail against any form of goverance of ideas.

You also appear to be falling into I mindset I would advice against. That supernaturalism is the problem, instead of irrationality. Supernaturalism is only a subset, or class of irrational modes of thought. Stifling it will not make people rational. Making people rational will stifle supernaturalism.

I also specifically said "I am however unsure if they can be kept seperate, or to themselves, but to the extent that they can be, I have no desire to interfere." I find ignoring the fact that I specified a condition telling.


If you want to ring the horn of the thought police, then count me out.

461. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214310 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 7:44 am

182. Comment #214309 by Styrer-

After reading the wiki page on them, I think I had a wholly wrong impression of them. They appear to be entirely political, and even attempt to actively convert people to their brand of buddhism. I wasn't aware that any buddhists did that...

(edit) no, I don't agree with you sentiments about religion, and I don't think that Hitchens does either. I only care when they have economic and political agendas. If they keep it to themselves, then I don't care what they believe.

If they bring it up to me, I definitely won't hold back my opinion, but I'm not interested in bothering people that aren't trying to bother me. They are free to believe silly things.

I am however unsure if they can be kept seperate, or to themselves, but to the extent that they can be, I have no desire to interfere.

462. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214308 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 7:28 am

180. Comment #214307 by Steve Zara

Besides the problem of speeds, is there a maximum distance light can travel before it degrades or something?

463. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214306 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 7:22 am

177. Comment #214297 by Styrer-

I know a little bit about it as a religious/economic/political movement (what religion doesn't dabble in the latter two?) that has moved further and further away from the latter two in past decades.

They promote a rather moderate, and liberal version of buddhism, that was in opposition with some of the forms that were used to justify violence and kamikaze tactics, such as Zen buddhism.

I'm not aware of what they believe specifically (other than their view that everyone has a inborn buddha nature, and is capable of reaching enlightenment), but, more importantly, I am also unaware of any great amount of involvement in any political or economic movements within the past few decades, so I don't really care.

I've yet to read any buddhist or confucion texts, I've put off delving into eastern philosophy until I'm proficient in Japanese. I would like to at least read them in an eastern language, to get a more genuine, and accurate understanding of the original intent of the writers.

464. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214295 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 6:34 am

Who would win in a fight? Son Goku, or God?


Trick question, Son Goku IS God.

465. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214291 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 6:01 am

172. Comment #214285 by Steve Zara

I hope he comes back and tells me. I'd hate to actually have to look into it. -_-;

466. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214283 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 5:27 am

170. Comment #214281 by Steve Zara

But what reason is there to assume it will slow? Also, unless what I say in my above post is wrong, why does it matter?

467. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214274 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 5:05 am

Wait, I'm confused.

Say we have object A and object B. The space between these objects is expanding at a speed greater than light. If object A only begins to emite light at time C (being a time after the expansion between the objects has exceeded the speed of light) then how can the light from object A ever reach object B?

Or wait. Does the speed at which the objects are moving away from each other need to be double the speed of light for this to be? Kind of like car A moving away from car B at 60 kilometers and car B moving away at 60 kilometers would create a difference in distance growing at 120 kilometers, but light moving from car A to B would still only require moving at a speed slightly greater than 60 kilometers per hour to reach car B. Is something like this why?

If what I say in my second paragraph is true, then I understand why there is no event horizon in a matter dominated universe. In order for there to be objects themselves would need to be exceeding the speed of light, and this is not possible in normal space (perhaps in distorted space it is, but that would only be faster than light moves in normal space, light would still move faster in the same distorted space).

468. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214236 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 3:20 am

153. Comment #214222 by Paine

...our universe...

469. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214235 by Mitchell Gilks on July 20, 2008 at 3:17 am

154. Comment #214224 by Steve Zara

I see my mistake already, it is an obvious one. Since the universe is 13.7 billion years old, I assumed that the expansion of the universe was always at least the speed of light, and it has increased from that point. Clearly this must not be the case, the universe's expansion for quite away must not have reached the speed of light.

Like my new hat?

470. VOICES OF SCIENCE - Available Now on DVD

Comment #214144 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 5:38 pm

171. Comment #214141 by non_scientist

As my post indicates above, I prefer "our lord and master Prof. Dawkins-dono, praise be to Him".

Though I'm considering whether not writing out "professor" is too forward, and disrespectful.

471. VOICES OF SCIENCE - Available Now on DVD

Comment #214143 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 5:35 pm

Hey, Styrer, your name is difficult to pronounce, which both offends me, and indicates to me that you must be a bad person.

472. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214140 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 5:22 pm

That's a good idea. That would need to be animated. I had to format my PC a couple weeks ago, so a lot of my animation and graphics programs I've yet to reinstall. I think I might get around to doing something like that.

I just put photoshop back on the other day, because I can't go very long without an avatar change.

473. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214138 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 5:10 pm

135. Comment #214137 by Radesq

I don't get it.

I was going to give Steve some nice flowing manga hair, but that shadow over his eyes proved difficult to deal with. I couldn't remove it without damaging his eyes. I would need to completely replace his eyes with new ones before I could even start with fitting him with his new due. If I had a larger picture it would be a snap, but I only took his avatar picture, so it isn't much to work with.

474. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214135 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 4:47 pm

128. Comment #214122 by fizhburn

That is an interesting point you raise. All of my examples did presuppose an anthropic vantage point, and observer. None of them were really unknowable by any and all observers, from any vantage point. Other animals have different visual range. It is likely unknowable what a platypus experiences with its electromagnetic location, or a bat with its sonar location.

I guess it is a whole other class of thing that is fundamentally and in principle unknowable by anything, from any location.

That is a shakier concept, that I would probably gain from other's takes on, and/or some time pondering. I think your point also invalidates RD's analogy.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

130. Comment #214126 by Radesq

Soifon is a ninja. She pilfered it off Steve's head so skillfully, that the untrained eye can't tell it's even gone.

475. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214111 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 3:01 pm

I never gave an example of a galaxy infinitely far away. I gave an example of one far enough away to be unobservable. Which would be about 13.8 billion light years away, at least.

You appear to be begging the question now. My entire point is that it was not incoherent. You appear to be suggestion that in order for it to be what you are talking about, it must be incoherent, and then saying that you are showing that it is incoherent. You are either begging the question or saying that an incoherent concept is incoherent.

476. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214099 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 2:26 pm

120. Comment #214097 by the_assayer

It's still invisible.

477. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214098 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 2:24 pm

119. Comment #214093 by the_assayer

Sorry, but nothing you said there is intelligible to me. Perhaps mainly because you seem to be under the impression that the universe is infinite, it is not. There are not infinite amounts of space between objects, there is merely an ever increasing in speed expansion of distance between objects in space.

As I've already said, using your imagination does not render a concept incoherent.

478. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214089 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 2:03 pm

116. Comment #214086 by the_assayer

No... those aspects of the visual spectrum are not visible, they are detectable. We will never know what they actually look like. We can only ever render them observable, or represent them by things that are visible. We are not actually seeing them. They are forever outside of our visual range.

479. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214087 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 2:00 pm

115. Comment #214084 by the_assayer

There is no fundamental difference between the unknown and the unknowable, other than its relation to us.

You are attacking the coherence of the concepts, not their status as potential knowledge.

A galaxy sufficiently far away is unobservable, and fundamentally unknowable.

The universe expands at a speed greater than light, the observable universe is a great deal smaller than the entirety of the universe.

480. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214080 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 1:40 pm

113. Comment #214079 by the_assayer

But unknowables aren't necessarily unthinkable or incoherent. That was not your claim, you said that it required the imagination to substitute knowns in certain places. Not that it was incoherent or unthinkable. I cite my examples to demonstrate that this is wrong. I can do plenty of coherent thought experiences about physics in other galaxies using what I know about physics in this one. This does not necessitate that it be unthinkable or incoherent, merely that I require my imagination to fill in the gaps.

I do not think of translucent when I think of invisible. I think of invisible. As in holding no visual information at all. There is also nothing at all incoherent about the concept of invisible. The vast majority of the visual spectrum is outside of my visual range.

481. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214076 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 1:22 pm

As I mentioned in 105. Comment #214066, it is any interesting fact, but it is equally true of all things we don't have experience with, and isn't its self relevant to any specific unknowns. It is merely an interesting fact about imagination.

482. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214072 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 1:11 pm

108. Comment #214071 by the_assayer

Well then why aren't you talking about the coherence of the concept itself? Not the fact that when they try to conceptualize it they use their imagination. I would think that they already know that, and it doesn't matter.

483. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214067 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 12:50 pm

104. Comment #214065 by Steve Zara

If they relate the same experiences, react the same ways, and talk about them in the same ways. Then what is the difference between not being a "zombie" and being one?

484. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214066 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 12:47 pm

Firstly, my criticizm was compound, in four parts. Only one was that you were mistaken to assume that your imagination is the most imaginative, or even analogous to everyone elses.

I still fail to see your point? Like if I think of atoms as blobs, or little balls, and then a scientist tells me that it's noting like that, or indeed anything we have experience with, so I'm "cheating" with my imagination (though if I had experience with it, my imagination would not be necessary). I would say, "oh, interesting."

Is that all you want them to say? Will that be your only point? It doesn't seem worth mention in that context. Why single out a particular instance of this? Why not just talk about how the imagination works. You must think it relevant somehow in that instance? Right?

485. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214057 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 12:30 pm

98. Comment #214055 by the_assayer

What is your point in bringing it up? If you mention that a christian can't conceptualize god, then why should they care? What is the relevance of the point? I thought that you were saying it followed that then it weighed negatively on the existence of such a thing.

486. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214054 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 12:23 pm

96. Comment #214052 by Radesq

I don't know, he tends to favor people with brains.

What is Sauron?

487. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214050 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 12:20 pm

94. Comment #214049 by the_assayer

Not holding an imagine of something that you have no experience with in your mind, that is different. That is trvilly true of anything we don't know, not just the unknowable. Our imagination can only stretch bend and swap, it can't fabricate from scratch.

It's equivolent to trying to think of a whole new colour. Colours are only lables our minds allot to certain wavelengths of light as a cognitive short cut (analogous to touch, taste and smell, to their respetive objective stimuli), so there is no reason why there couldn't be more. Try thinking of one.

488. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214044 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 12:11 pm

88. Comment #214028 by Steve Zara

Surely you don't agree that the unknowable necessarily cannot be conceptualized?

What would have happened if the allies lost world war II is unknowable, but it isn't hard to imagine. At least I don't think so.

489. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #214004 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 11:09 am

84. Comment #213997 by the_assayer

That suffers from several problems.

1) Speak for yourself, that is an argument from lack of imagination. My imagination actually isn't that limited, nor do I think of similar things with the examples that you mentioned.

2) I can't hold accurate imagines of subatomic particles in my mind either, that doesn't make them not real.

3) It assumes that reality is fundamentally intelligible, and anything that you can't conceptualize, or intellectualize, doesn't, or can't exist. I think this is clearly false, or else everyone could grasp advanced mathematics and astralphysics and so forth, when not everyone can.

4) Presumably the space beyond the event horizon is analagous to space witin obervable range. This is unkownable, yet quite easy to grasp.

490. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #213994 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 10:56 am

82. Comment #213992 by the_assayer

I think you're see by my post just above yours that we are on the same page here.

At first I thought he meant an interventionist god, that had speculated attributes that means to differentiate between a universe with such a god, and without such a god could be determined, at least a priori, even if not a posteriori.

If not, then I think that it is a correct point, but it is still a completely useless one.

491. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #213991 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 10:47 am

I have a video on youtube called "not even wrong" where I argued the complete waste of time and uselessness of talking about the fundamentally unknowable. Where I place the unknowable below wrong, because if something is demonstrably wrong, then at least that gets us somewhere. At the very least it narrows our search, even if by only a minute margine. The unknowable is completely useless in all regards, and is below the status of wrong. In my opinion.

492. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #213990 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 10:39 am

Despite being largely wrong the first time, I think I'll try again!

77. Comment #213978 by the_assayer


A difference that is beyond observation and varification is still a difference. Now I'm going to have to agree with you that I don't find (at least how I understand him) this point to be of much value.

His analogy was meant to demonstrate that there are things that are fundamentally unobservable, this does not render them non-existent, or even necessarily meaningless to talk about. Including the unobservatble parts of space in our statistical argument for life in the universe would greatly increase our end result (beyond the event horizon the universe is what? Estimated to be one hundred thousand times larger than observable space?).

You are making a mistake by conflating "observable difference" and "difference". As you do in your final criticizm. If we were in a universe with a deceitful god, as you propose, that designed the universe in such a way that we could not tell that it was designed, then that itself is a difference. That universe would have been designed by a deceitful god, while one that came about through natural processes would not have been. This might not be an obervable, or descernable difference, but it is a difference.

493. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #213954 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 9:12 am

69. Comment #213943 by MorituriMax

You misunderstand his point. His point is not that this can't be such a universe, his point is that it isn't true that the god question is not an empiricle question, at least in a large sense. This is because surely a universe with a god would be empirically different than one without one. He is also always sure to stress an interventionalist god.

He does not claim to know what those differences would be. That is a philosophical question, that can only be addressed a priori, and he is not a philosopher. It wouldn't suprize me if he has some ideas, but they would merely be his speculations, which might be interesting, but it would not be factually based in any sense, so it would be ripe for ridicule, and distortion.

I'm confident that someone like MPhil could list you off a number of books that address this question. I'm not well read in the field though.

494. Richard Dawkins slaps creationists into the primordial soup

Comment #213891 by Mitchell Gilks on July 19, 2008 at 7:31 am

I like BBC documentaries.

495. The Return of Religion

Comment #213665 by Mitchell Gilks on July 18, 2008 at 6:33 pm

567. Comment #213663 by Dhamma

Video games don't take a lot of concentation. At least not RPGs. Only when people are talking, or events are unfolding does it matter. Most of RPGs are grinding one thing or another. I also listen to lectures and audio books and such well gaming. I only have to pause them when I have to read something.

Mostly just world of warcraft, which is either doing repeatable quests, killing monsters, killing players, or flying around on my gryphon trying to find farmable materials like mineral veins. All of which takes very little concentration. That is why having music, lectures or audio books is preferable, otherwise you get bored.

496. The Return of Religion

Comment #213661 by Mitchell Gilks on July 18, 2008 at 6:22 pm

"video killed the radio star".

That was actually the very first song played on MTV when it aired.

497. The Return of Religion

Comment #213660 by Mitchell Gilks on July 18, 2008 at 6:21 pm

559. Comment #213655 by Dhamma

Well I told my brother, who assured me that I would like them, based on my preferences. He said "did you listen to them all"? Which I hadn't, but I did listen to a great deal.

I listen to music when I'm playing video games. When I was listening to them, I wasn't really noticing them at all. Nothing grabbed my attention.

Kind if funny like that though. I also positively didn't like limp pizkit when I liked korn, despite people assuming that they go hand-in-hand.

498. The Return of Religion

Comment #213658 by Mitchell Gilks on July 18, 2008 at 6:16 pm

560. Comment #213656 by Radesq

A singing due then. I'm sure they have a band.

499. The Return of Religion

Comment #213654 by Mitchell Gilks on July 18, 2008 at 6:12 pm

Nah, I only have anime/manga girls (usually lesbians) for my avatar. I like the idea of an openly lesbian band, just too bad they aren't really lesbians. Doesn't change the suitability of their songs to yuri content though.

500. The Return of Religion

Comment #213652 by Mitchell Gilks on July 18, 2008 at 6:07 pm

Ever hear of the band t.A.T.u?