Metaphysic Storm

Post by PZ Myers a member of the out cAmpain.

That smart guy, Carl Zimmer, has written an article on those smart molluscs, the octopus. I like that his conclusion is that we can’t really judge their intelligence, because it is different than our own.

That’s the same answer I give to questions about the existence of intelligent life in the universe. I suspect that it’s there (but rarer than most astronomers seem to think — intelligence is an extremely uncommon adaptive strategy here on Earth, as is probably likewise elsewhere), but that it will be radically different in intent and action than our own, as different as we are from a squid, or a dolphin, or an elephant, to name a few forms that have evolved large brains. Often, the question of alien intelligence is more like, “Are there people like us out there?”, and I think the answer to that one is clearly no, almost certainly not. There are too many alternative pathways.

I think that life is far rarer than most science enthusiasts assume. I know the numbers are big and there most certainly are many planets with water and the proper temperatures in this enormous universe. But the actual conditions that are required for replication to begin is in my guess very, very rare. However, once replication does begin convergence seems highly probable. Heads with sight, sound and smell detectors are going to be vital in any environment. Legs for locomotion and arms with hands are essential for environment manipulation. We’re so close in abstract terms to all the vertebrate mammals. Nearly identical when you use relativity as a judgment.

I also believe in an infinitely cycling universe because of the conservation of energy. Therefor, I think that life emerging from non life is inevitable when limited time isn’t a consideration. So even though I’m an atheist and don’t give any credence to personal reincarnation, I believe that there are indeed “people like us” out there, a “divine” natural design. The real question is when.

Stephen Wells said, Why would a head be vital to the gas giant airbags of zebulon-B, whose senses operate at radio wavelengths and whose intellect is dispersed among the swarm? Or to the megaclams of Gwflhrx, whose perimeter is studded with a thousand eyes and whose nerve ganglia are safely protected deep within their mighty shells?

J said, Sorry PZ, but that’s way too broad to actually mean anything substantial. What are you talking about when you say “people”? Bipedal and two-eyed, with penises and vaginas? Nobody subscribes to that notion of extraterrestrial life.

On the other hand, some traits of human life which are special on Earth (e.g. language) might conceivably have evolved many times in the observable Universe. Maybe they’re what Dan Dennett calls “Good Tricks”, which are prone to being converged upon independently.

Even within the swarm there are individuals and the head is a most efficient way to give the body the ability to navigate. I’ll have to give the megaclams of Gwfhrx more thought but I don’t know how far they would get manipulating their environment. Environment manipulation, I think, is a fair way to judge intelligence. Too much manipulation by the highly intelligent might be a good sign of idiocity.

J said, Sorry PZ, but, “Often, the question of alien intelligence is more like, “Are there people like us out there?”, and I think the answer to that one is clearly no, almost certainly not. There are too many alternative pathways.” [is] way too broad to actually mean anything substantial. What are you talking about when you say “people”? Bipedal and two-eyed, with penises and vaginas? Nobody subscribes to that notion of extraterrestrial life.

On the other hand, some traits of human life which are special on Earth (e.g. language) might conceivably have evolved many times in the observable Universe. Maybe they’re what Dan Dennett calls “Good Tricks”, which are prone to being converged upon independently.

Even within the swarm there are individuals and the head is a most efficient way to give the body the ability to navigate. I’ll have to give the megaclams of Gwfhrx more thought but I don’t know how far they would get manipulating their environment. Environment manipulation, I think, is a fair way to judge intelligence. Too much manipulation by the highly intelligent might be a good sign of idiocity.

@J “Nobody subscribes to that notion of extraterrestrial life.”

I do. Continue Reading »

Louisiana legislatures have just passed a bill which allows science teachers to supplement their 7 year old science books with material that the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education deem appropriate. Opponents to the bill claim that this is a covert way to incorporate Intelligent Design in the public schools science classes. Biologists and the New Atheists across the Nation have since looked at Louisiana in befuddlement at our desire to keep our children as dumb as they can be. The designers of the bill state that it’s purpose is to encourage free thought in the science lab. Hopefully similar bills will be passed for the History curriculum, the one place that questioning the facts is really appropriate. The record of history, after all, is selected out by the men whores sexes the most with the biggest and bestist gun. Three days latter the same legislation voted for their %300 pay raise.

I admit that I don’t know that much about evolutionary biology. I do understand the basic facts and implications. Random mutations occur in the copying process of DNA. If that mutation is detrimental the individual will have less favorable odds of succeeding in life, which objectively is reproduction. If that mutation is beneficial to the current environment, even in the most insignificant amount, that lineage will have more favorable odds of succeeding. I have no problem letting the abstract parts of my mind witness the development of the eye from pond scum, but I have a difficult time seeing current birds as little dinosaurs. I have relatively high confidence in the professional evolutionary biologists determination that the birds are little saurs. The abstract parts of my mind is also able to see quite easily that the fossil record is never going to give enough physical evidence of where everything came from. But I never needed that, all I needed was the fact of random mutation and statistics.

As an artist, I might not be a master of biology but I am a specialist of design. That’s my job. I take Carbon, TiO2, cadmium, cobalt and others, mix them up on a surface and design images for viewers to enjoy. If you were walking in the desert and came upon one of my paintings you would look at it and intuitively know that there was a designer behind it. That is called a truism. It’s obvious that the desert didn’t weave a canvas, refine pigment and arrange it is such a way as to make an illusion of an island sunset. So, as an expert on design, I thought that I could propose a supplement for the science classes of Louisiana. That is the only “legitimate” argument against evolution so far proposed. Just look at your opposable thumbs. Isn’t it a truism that, that couldn’t have happened, by the awesome power of Natural Selection?

The smartest person on television, Ben Stein, stated that evolution doesn’t explain why the laws of thermodynamics are what they are. I agree with him completely, they certainty do not. However, I think he’s implying that the entity that designed thermodynamics also designed the Bonobo. I’ve studied the design structure of thermodynamics which can be summed up as, ——-. I would like to quote someone now. Arnold Sommerfeld: “Thermodynamics is a funny subject. The first time you go through it, you don’t understand it at all. The second time you go through it, you think you understand it, except for one or two small points. The third time you go through it, you know you don’t understand it, but by that time you are so used to it, it doesn’t bother you any more.” Cheers and this foreign bud is for you. I would, and obviously will, like to incorporate into this paragraph that I think the the +1 of Zeroth law of thermodynamics was realized before the heat sink. I abstract an ancient dude watching a camp fire thinking, “That wood turned into heat, sound, light, gas and dust. But nothing was lost.”

I’m tired of countering the religious with logic and facts. It just seems entirely pointless to say that we, the naturalists, need more reason than, “Duhhhh, don’t you see?”. Therefor, I thought that I would capitalize on duhhh. Duhh is awesome. Duhh is better than a mathematical proof. Duhh is, I think therefor I am. After studying the “design” of the boring laws of established physics and math, 1=1, and the intricacies of the human brain, one brain is more complex than the entire known universe, I have concluded that there could not be one individual designer. I’m sure you may ask how I know that. My answer is duhhh. As a designer myself, I have made everything from complete non representational vomit to photo realistic graphite drawings. But throughout all of my work, no matter how diverse it may be, there is a fingerprint, a signature which reveals who the author was. Ahhh, duhhhh, it’s Robert Sutton’s work. What more Pollock proof do you need?

In conclusion: I would like this work to be included in the supplemental work for young Louisianan scientists. If you look at the design of a rock and the design of an animal part, you must instantly conclude that there were multiple designers. Or the highly improbable possibility that a single designer of everything is currently suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder. However, claiming that the Almighty is suffering from a mental disorder, which might send you strait to hell, is not a good odds option to consider. Thus logically concluding that it’s highly improbable that a supreme being is mentally deficient, we must except that there are a multitude of designers leads us to determine that if any faith is correct it is the polytheists. Will the real Shiva please stand up! Intelligent designers: when Sutton’s mind meets the far right. The mantra is: “Sutton Sutton, he tastes like mutton.”

Soon South Carolinians are to be offered a license plate with the phrase “I Believe”, a symbol of torture surrounded by stained glass and their original god, the sun. Opponents to the plate have threatened to sue (probably noddles and two meat balls covered with spaghetti sauce topped with kosher salt), declaring that the license plate is a State endorsement of religion. The bill passed the State House and Senate unanimously on May 22. A similar plate for Florida failed in April.

A Republican chairman for the Senate Transportation Committee said, “I didn’t see a constitutional problem with it… We have other plates with religious symbols on them and phrases like ‘In God We Trust.’ Just because it’s a cross, some very closed-minded people don’t believe it should be on a plate.” Burn them at the stake, they don’t believe!

In South Carolina there are around 200 specialty plates which endorse everything from Square Dancing to the Homophobic Boy Scouts of Gaymerica. The state charges up to $70 dollars for the plates, with the profit benefiting the sponsor. Since no “organization” is sponsoring the Christian plate, the State plans on placing only a surcharge of $5 to counter the cost of making it.

New Orleans is one of the most religious cities in the Nation. I drive in a sea of metallic Jesus fish and see more rosaries dangling from the rear view than any person with a repugnance to religion should have to endure. Jesus fish and crosses have even started showing up on business signs. As if anyone needs any more of a reminder of how many people believe, than the gazillion churches saturating the city.

But it’s far better to live in a world were people are free to express how willing they are to be indoctrinated, worship magic books, and believe in ancient super heroes than live in an oppressive state. I’m not going to not go to your business if you believe in Jebus. I’m going to go to the company with the best price and service. That’s the American way… er, I mean that’s the intelligent way, so maybe not exclusively American.

Why do these freaks need Jesus on their license plate? For that matter, why do people want to have Square dancing on their license plate? The issue is pretty sAmpl to me. A license plate is the property of the State. Consumers may buy it from the government, but it remains the State’s domain. It’s like a social security number for your car. There shouldn’t be anything but numbers, letters and perhaps a symbol of the State on a license plate. I hope the Christians ruin it for everyone, even the “Surfrider Foundation”. Then Americans will have to change their way of life and live with bumper stickers promoting their thing.

After completing my painting of Canal street with the billboard stating “Impossible is nothing”, I’ve been thinking about writing about the phrase. The ambiguous words have fascinated me because they can imply very different philosophies. “Nothing is Impossible” comes from the ADiDAS sports ads, which is simply a carpet motivational statement meaning next to nothing. A human being will never run as fast as a cheetah. The reason the statement caught my attention was because it’s very similar to where my philosophy originated from. My friend Jamie asked me what the opposite of a spoon was and the answer I deducted, no-spoon, was my first step down a path of thinking about zero. The opposite of anything is the lack of that thing (the empty set), noanything is pure zero and to ever have it is impossible. That, which at the time I didn’t recognize as the first law of thermodynamics, sent me thinking about nothing for quite some time. I was overwhelmed by the power the knowledge of zero had over me. I’ve yet to meet another atheist who made the switch to naturalism is such a manor.

After g00gling “nothing is impossible” for a quick briefing on the search returns, I ran into god. I wasn’t planing on writing about god but it seems as though his omnipresence is hard to escape. Nothing is impossible with god with quotes, returns 60 thousand results. I watched the first video which was from Facing the Giants, a Christian promotional movie who’s plot follows a boring but classic underdog story about American football. It earned an impressive 10 million for the minuscule budget is was made with. I believe the budget was due to the volunteer cast and the return must of been an act of god’s money managers. I watched the you-tube clip as the coach worked on convincing his team that it was god who helped them kick the giants asses because of all the petitioning they made to the lord. And that got me thinking about Reverend Hagee’s remarks about god sending Katrina to New Orleans because of the gay pride parade.

A few posts back I wrote, “god could not make a law that he could not brake.”, which is a refined version of the “could god make a mountain that he could not move?” question. It begs the argument about god as he is defined: the all powerful, all knowing, all loving creator of everything. I can completely understand why believers in god would think that he works through us and nature. There is a staggering amount of strange and mysterious things that happen down here on our little blue planet. And people who believe in an interactive god would naturally use their derivative skills to interpret the will of god. It’s frightening to watch Hagee as he condemns New Orleans, not directly for the fairly high percentage of homosexuals we have, but for the huge number of Christians that “allow” them to be here.

That got me thinking about a world in where god actually does work his intent. I’ve decided that if there is a god he has got to be a trickster. His personality is more akin to the definition of the devil. And I’m not only referring to “bad” things that happen in life. If we are to assume that we can derive gods will from acts on earth, than those acts should at least be somewhat clear. Otherwise he’s not communicating at all, he’s playing the fool. Hagee thinks that Hurricane Katrina was sent here on the day of the Gay pride parade as a sign that he disapproves of homosexuality. A completely rational stance for a person who derives there reason from nonsense. I think that the hurricane came because of warm gulf water and winds from western Africa.

The Christian writer Vox Populi recently asked atheists why they don’t believe in god. From his vast network of blogfoolafans he ascertained the following reasons: Argument from: Sub-optimal design, insufficient evidence, lack of scientific evidence, failure to be impressed by religion, inability to believe, unfamiliarity, material utility, post-trauma disorder, accident of circumstance, unconvincing arguments.

Apparently non of these anti-arguments are convincing to him. But to be fair he most likely doesn’t believe that hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans to punish the homosexuals. But why not? Why wouldn’t a living god punish those who he doesn’t like. Isn’t that why Jesus pleaded against his skillful persecuters, “They know not what they do”. Or is god so busy that he would rather let the devil do the work for him in the after world? That doesn’t sound like an all powerful or guiding god at all. This world would be much different if god were acting on it and that’s evidence based reason to believe that god does not exist or that he’s a trickster who likes fucking with our heads. Perhaps god doesn’t like the less intelligent because he makes his intent so difficult to deduct and his managers are trained to keep the flock from skeptical thought. If we lived in a world were he sent Hurricanes to San Fransisco and earth quakes to New Orleans when too many people get their gay on, I think far less people would find it impossible to have faith.

Nothing must be god’s MOA.