October 30, 2009
Well, well! A post about trolling from he who's been labeled a troll! No, this isn't going to be another boring argument about why I think so-and-so is mistaken in labeling me a troll. Nope, not today.
I'm still waiting on something in the mail that relates to the next post I need to write. So, today's quick post is going to clarify that yes, I still think trolling is generally a disruptive activity that tends to obscure clear resolution of intelligent debate. However, this post will also clarify my position that – depending on the actual motives of the person labeled the troll – trolling can also be an effective strategy that can actually promote clear resolution of intelligent debate.
October 28, 2009
Well, I’ve run into some unexpected difficulty getting my hands on a certain article, so the article I wanted to post yesterday is going to have to wait some more. This afternoon I’d just like to offer the following to see how people of varying worldviews react, and if anybody can add anything or make any other valuable suggestions.
A few posts back I took a stab at defining consciousness:
While I hesitate to speculate on what consciousness is, I feel fairly confident in asserting what consciousness does, or what its characteristics are: consciousness affords the abilities to feel, to know, to create, to express intent and to choose. Consciousness also affords the ability to manipulate objective matter via choice…
Something elemental, like wind, can certainly manipulate objective matter, yet it presumably does so independent of any choice or consciousness. For what it’s worth, I’m currently unsure to what extent I’d claim that consciousness is analogous to soul / spirit, but I believe that regardless of the distinction, any demonstration that consciousness is anything else besides a mere product of neural transactions has [the conventional cerebro-centric view of consciousness] dead in the water.
October 26, 2009
Ingo Douglas Swan (Ingo Swann) is a Colorado-native and consciousness researcher who, along with laser experts Russell Targ and Harold ‘Hal’ Puthoff at Stanford Research Institute, pioneered the field of remote viewing (RV), an anomalous mental phenomenon where subjects appear to gain information by means outside the traditional senses.
Swann sees remote viewing as an innate human ability that can be activated and practiced like any other muscle, and not all parapsychologists or practitioners share this view. Swann claims to have had paranormal experiences since youth. In one experiment, conducted by Gertrude Schmeidler, a professor at City University in New York, Swann was apparently able to cause temperature fluctuations in sensitive equipment presumably by pure thought. Some of these thermometers were spread openly about the room, others were locked safely inside Thermos containers. The test went by sequence, in which Swann focused on a specific thermometer during each stage of the test. He was not allowed to move around the room and was given 45 seconds to rest between stages. Even amongst the sealed instruments, Swann was able to effect changes in temperature up to almost a full degree Celsius.1
October 24, 2009
A few months back we introduced what was referred to as the Masoretic-Greek Hypothesis (MGH), the purpose of which was,
..both to avoid the pitfalls of doctrinal quibbling and to cover all the ground DD has missed, [and] finally prove my case that DD's Evidence Against Christianity relates only peripherally to Christianity.
M represents the work of the Masoretes, Jewish scribes and scripture scholars living roughly 3,000 years ago in what today would be Jerusalem, Tiberius or even what we would consider modern-day Iraq (then Babylon, Babylonia). M represents the Hebrew rendition of the Tanakh, and many if not most Protestant and Catholic Bibles sample from M, as does the Septuagint (39 books of the OT + select Apocrypha) from which the New Testament writers sampled. G is the New Testament derived as described.
This way, we arguably start as close to the actual events and oral traditions as possible, then apply our collective powers of reason to ascertain the set of reasonably permissible predictions – thus hopefully avoiding doctrinal pitfalls like DD intended – but with the added bonus of a positive hypothesis we can have the courage to call Christianity.
For newer readers who might not have the full context, many of us were involved in an ongoing discussion at Deacon Duncan's blog, Evangelical Realism. This MGH of mine has a twofold purpose. The first is obviously to function as an adequate response to DD's so-called Evidence Against Christianity, a post-series based on the idea of crafting hypotheses entailing predictions of what the world might look like if either the "Gospel Hypothesis" or the "Myth Hypothesis" were true. I also intend the MGH to stand on its own as a structured set of systematic proofs for theism in general, some version of biblical Christianity in particular. This does not entail the idea that "all other religions are false," because the situation is quite simply more complex than that. Note that we're going to begin by throwing out all presumptions, theologies, dogmas, etc., starting (hopefully) from a shared set of premises eventually building to a crescendo.
So, where do we go from here?
October 23, 2009
Today's post is just a quick one for the physics and optics students out there, who are welcomed to freely speculate. Actually, everyone is freely welcomed to speculate! Also, I'd really appreciate any links to people, websites or books that can provide useful information, so if anything comes to mind, by all means share!
I'm trying to get some kind of consensus on a recurring question I've got. We perceive rainbows because of a neat little process called chromatic dispersion by which white light refracts through water droplets in the atmosphere. The white light actually refracts twice: once upon entrance which separates the light into its constituent colors, and again upon exit which amplifies this separation. When a terrestrial observer sees a rainbow in Earth's atmosphere, what they're really seeing is the separation of incoming white sunlight into the familiar colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
My question is: if Earth were enveloped by a "shell" of solid water, would this affect the rainbow-creating process? Would terrestrial observers on Earth still be able to see rainbows?
October 22, 2009
P1 Systems that are amenable to justice are superior to those that are not;
P2 Atheism is not amenable to justice;
P3 Christianity is amenable to justice;
C Christianity is superior to atheism.
October 21, 2009
Well. Friday night I went over to my buddy A's house. You might remember A and his house from The Video Game Incident. After the day's small-talk had come to an end, A proceeded to tell me about the latest set of strange occurrences at his house.
October 20, 2009
I know what I said yesterday about not wanting to bore anybody with my arguments with other bloggers, but lately I’ve been thinking about a concept a few of us came up with several months ago, the concept of power commenters. After Deacon Duncan declined to participate in the debate I invited him to have with me, we had one post where we actually attempted the format, then pretty much set the whole idea on the backburner. Yet, as I did then, I think it’s a valid idea that could function as a sort of “intellectual broom” for the blogosphere, especially if we can find a few more qualified participants.
October 19, 2009
I'm a semi-regular reader of Common Sense Atheism, maintained by Christian-turned-atheist philosophy student, Luke. If you've never checked out Luke's site, I suggest you do. The commentary is usually thoughtful, and the integrity of the debate more than you typically find in the blogosphere. He's got what might be the most thorough collection of William Lane Craig material besides Craig's blog, and also links to over 400 debates between atheists and believers. Luke's blog is a genuine resource to (a)theism.
What originally turned me on to Luke's style was his sharp dismissal of much of what the New Atheists have to say. Luke ##— like myself — has a very low tolerance for sloppy atheist arguments. He's usually apt to call them when he sees them, too, which is all the better, as I've noticed atheists can be quite fond of towing party lines and refusing to rebuke their own, even when such is clearly called for. The only real negative I'd noticed up until last night was that I've seen Luke threaten to ban commenters (no, not me) for what I'd call nothing more than "disagreeable disagreement." While I don't know that Luke's ever banned anybody, I have absolutely zero tolerance for those who resort to censorship and moderation, and this opinion would not relent even of my own mother. Hence the offensiveness of even the suggestion.
October 18, 2009
P1 Cessation of consciousness upon death entails zero ontological possibilities;
P2 Continuation of consciousness after death entails several ontological possibilities;
C Continuation of consciousness after death has a higher chance of ontological actuality than cessation of consciousness upon death.
