Second try at talking to Bearded Spock

In response to a comment from Bearded Spock:

Am I to understand that you are claiming that there is insufficient evidence for free will, but that you accept its existence only because the truth was divinely revealed?

No. I reject the concept that free will separate from a creator God is axiomatic. Stephan's whole idea is that human beings are rational entities with free will, and who don't need the concept of a creator God to define "universal morality".

I believe that either there is "something else" (a soul, if you wish) involved with the mechanism of the mind, or there isn't. If there isn't a soul, then the mind is the biological computer.

I don't think you have a computer science background, because you don't understand how computer programs work. If I am the programmer, yes I can work around a bug in an old Pentium chip, but I am an independent agent from the program. A computer program can do no more and no less than what it was originally programmed to d o. Even current Artificial Intelligence study requires that the original program be written by someone. It then is given learning tools that allow them to "grow". Some people use deterministic tools (i.e. no randomness), and some use some non-deterministic approaches (i.e. some random "yes/no" factors are included).

If the mind is just a really sophisticated biological computer, then it either is deterministic or non-deterministic as well. Either there is something within our brains that sparks just a bit of randomness in our decisions ("I think I'll have mustard instead of mayo"), or there isn't. The only way we could know this at our current understanding of the mind is with a time machine which would let us "replay" someone's decisions multiple times.

From a moral point of view, this isn't a useless question. If we might make decisions based on randomness (even if just a little randomness), then we aren't rational, just rationalizing. There was an interesting study se veral years back that claimed that people are much more random than first thought, going back later to rationalize an essentially random decision.

On the other hand, if there is no randomness, then the entire mind is just one big steady state machine. If you go back to my birth, and somehow replay my life with no changes, I'll make the exact same choices. You don't accuse a Coke machine of moral failing when it doesn't give you a Sprite. You just call the bottler and ask them to fix their stupid machine. If you or I are just a biological machine, there's nothing interesting in our moral choices; they're just a result in our programming. Again with the technical CS terms: Garbage in, garbage out. Perhaps "better" programming is better for our neighbors, but that's just preferences again.

To go back to your point, I reject Stephan's axiom because it's not an axiom. I believe in Christianity's version of free will, because it fits with, and is derived from, the rest of the system. It's not axiomatic there; it's a consequence of my view the system. (Some Christians reject free will, and their system still works too.) Since the rest of Christianity conflicts with Stephan's system, he can't use it to "prove" his axioms.

Stephan can't say "You're a Christian, so you believe X too" as a proof; that's philosophical freeloading. If Stephan wants me to believe in UPB as why we don't need God to be moral, he has to have a system that doesn't use Christianity to "prove" his axioms first. Like Dawkins et. al., Stephan doesn't know the "big battles" of philosophy, and as such thinks things are "inherently self-evident" that the philosophers have been rightly arguing over for centuries.

One aside: from what I've read so far about UPB, it's just retelling the first part of Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, with a different conclusion.

Dawn's conversion

away from gun-hater, at least:

I was so surprised about how calming shooting was. I always imagined guns to be weapons of furious anger. It’s how they’re portrayed in all the shoot em up movies, anyway. Someone pisses you off, you get your gun and you give them what for. But the real life thing is just the opposite. You’ve got to be perfectly still, your eye trained on your single spot in the distance, and you’ve somehow got to squeeze the trigger without moving an inch. Anger could never shoot straight.

One time, New York cops shot into a small truck 50+ times after a "bad guy", and never hit him. Since car doors are like tissue paper for the 9mm and/or .40 calibre pistols NY's finest carry (I forget which), this is telling. Most "hot-rage" killings occur with knives, because knives are close-up weapons.

I am a mediocre shot. Most guns don't fit these big hand s well, so I shoot erratically with them. I expect to get worse with age, and not better. That's why I've already switched from the 9mm as the home defense gun to the short-barreled Winchester 12 gauge.

Responding to Bearded Spock

One of the joys to owning a blog: I can post when answering comments. :)

For the most part, I was acting as "devil's advocate" on my "axiom busting" in the last post. I do want to make a second pass on two items.

If good just means preferable, then you're open to "you may prefer truth, but I prefer not to tell the truth sometimes".

untrue. All things being equal, you always prefer to tell the truth. So do I. So does everybody. It's when things aren't otherwise equal that our preferences diverge. This is observedly true. Pathological liars are acting irrationally. That's why it's a pathology and not a preference.

This is very close to a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. "Everyone prefers to tell the truth." "Liars don't." "They don't count, they're pathological." If morals are universal, then they have to apply to people who would be "pathological". If they're based on universal preferences, then why not include their preferences too?

First, it assumes free will. It is entirely possible for me to posit this argument without free will. My biological computer program, faced with an input set that drives it through a super-complex steady state tree, drives my hands to type out this post. I am no more "responsible" than the first Intel Pentium was "responsible" for rounding errors in the floating point unit.

Is a bacterium inanimate because it is composed of inanimate chemichals? Of course not. Is free will nonexistant because your mind might be a biological computer program, faced with an input set that drives it through a super-complex steady state tree? Of course not. UPB doesn't "assume" free will. It acknowledges free will, free will that is observed the same way the animation of of a bacterium is observed.

You are the one confusing the Pentium with the program it processes, a program that to some small but vitally important degree, writes (or at least alters) itself.

I disagree that free will is self-evident. Even Wikipedia has a decent summary of the philosophical debate on free will. It is not axiomatic that people act rationally or that they act via free will. Even Calvinists reject the concept of free will as it's commonly defined.

One more thought experiment: (axiom) humans are simply the result of undirected biological evolution. (axiom) The "mind" is nothing more than the results of the biological actions of the brain (i.e. no spirit). If there is a source of randomness within the brain, then the decision you make may be the result of randomness, not "rationality". If there is no randomness, then the brain is just a biological steady state machine of incredible complexity and there's no free will.

An aside: I believe most of Stephan's axioms, but I reject that they're axioms. Instead, I believe then as a consequence of my Christian theology. That's why I'll reject the concept of free will separate from Christian theology, since I think the only way free will can occur is if there is more to us humans than just this bag of salty water.

An argument against Universally Preferable Behavior

Over at Vox Popoli, "Bearded Spock" keeps answering questions about the logical provability of his morals with "Read Universally Preferable Behavior by Stephan Molyneux". Being a glutton for punishment, I did, at least to page 34. When the author got to his axioms, I had to quit.

Most of his 8 axioms ("Premises") are fallacies, or at very least are parasitic off of the very religious moral systems the author claims to reject. Let's go through them.

• Axiom 1: WE BOTH EXIST.
• Axiom 2: THE SENSES HAVE THE CAPACITY FOR ACCURACY.
All he forgot was "I think, therefore I am". A Platonic philosopher would reject 2 out-of-hand, as would a Hindu. The concept of a rational universe fought over in pre-Christian philosophy, and became axiomatic only because of Christianity. Post-Christian philosophy is still lacking a good examination of this axiom.
• Axiom 3: LANGUAGE HAS THE CAPACITY FOR MEANING.
If the author could quit using "better" in his axioms, I might be tempted to agree here. Seriously, this is an open problem in philosophy, but one I'll concede for expediency as well.
• Axiom 4: CORRECTION REQUIRES UNIVERSAL PREFERENCES
"If you correct me on an error that I have made, you are implicitly accepting the fact that it would be better for me to correct my error. Your preference for me to correct my error is not subjective, but objective, and universal." Essentially, the author is appealing to the reader for agreement. This is dangerous, since all an opponent has to do to reject your entire argument is say "In my belief system, I don't care if you're in error." Also, what is "better"? (I'll raise that again in a second.)
• Axion 5: AN OBJECTIVE METHODOLOGY EXISTS FOR SEPARATING TRUTH FROM FALSEHOOD
In the end, th is is just a restatement of axiom 2, with an addition of the concept of "Truth". To quote Pilate, "Quid est veritas?" Again, I have to accept axiom 5, but much philosophical debate of the last 5 millennia has been about trying to prove 5, and it's still up for debate.
• Axion 6: TRUTH IS BETTER THAN FALSEHOOD.
• Axiom 7: PEACEFUL DEBATING IS THE BEST WAY TO RESOLVE DISPUTES
There is a subtle fallacy of definition here. Better and best are just degrees of "good". What does the author mean by good/better/best? If it's moral, then you've begged the question again. If it's useful, then UPB is just another utilitarian system. If good just means preferable, then you're open to "you may prefer truth, but I prefer not to tell the truth sometimes".
• Axiom 8: INDIVIDUALS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS.
This is a fallacy of definition, with two different meanings of "responsible" mashed together. First, it assumes free will. It is entirely possible for me to posit this argument without free will. My biological computer program, faced with an input set that drives it through a super-complex steady state tree, drives my hands to type out this post. I am no more "responsible" than the first Intel Pentium was "responsible" for rounding errors in the floating point unit.

The second meaning is "morally liable". Again, why? I thought that this was what was to be proven...

The author is unconsciously talking to Christian moralists. Christians or atheists who have consciously or unconsciously accepted Judeo-Christian morals will accept all 8 axioms because they believe them already. People who reject Judeo-Christian morals will reject many, if not most, of these axioms. Fundamentally, axiom 0 is "there are morals", and that's what he's trying to prove.

And no, I'm not being a hypocrite at stopping at the axioms. Without the axioms, the rest of the argument can't hold, and I can s top now.

I am NOT impressed.

A public apology

Since I made the statement publically, I should also make the apology publically.

During this thread over at Little Green Footballs, I took exception to the way Charles has been presenting Intellegent Design and Creationism during several of the last posts. While I will stand by the principle that Charles was being unnecessarily bitter, it was not appropriate for me to use the language I did, and especially not in a public forum. If I didn't have a nice way of saying my thoughts, I should not have said so at all.

Comments will be slow

I've got most comments, and all trackbacks, on moderate due to the spam. If you leave a comment, don't worry if it takes a while to show up.

In solidarity with the Dutch

The Captain has called upon all bloggers to express solidarity with the Dutch newspaper publishers targeted for assassination. This Packrat is more than happy to do so.

(Nothing follows)

Why should I vote Republican?

A comment from The Anchoress's post about Republicans:

I am a non-Republican conservative libertarian. While I am too young to be a Reagan Republican, I have grown attracted to Reagan’s philosophy that the government doesn’t hold the solutions to our problem, the government IS our problem.

I have a simple (open) request: tell me how your Republican of choice believes in smaller government.

Mitt Romney wants to spend Federal dollars to revitalize Michigan’s economy. McCain wrote the biggest and most useless infringement on free speech since the Alien and Sedition Acts. Huckabee has a spending list longer than his arm, and wants to dip the government’s hand even deeper into health care. Even if you can get past the fact that Guiliani is a serial adulterer, he is in no way a “conservative” (the Federal government has little business in the health care industry or school choice).

The comptroller of the US currently estimates that, if the goverment worked under business accounting rules, the federal deficit wouldn’t be $9 trillion (the official number), but $58 trillion. By failing to put back cash to pay for Social Security and Medicare’s expected outflow, by 2040 the current government will be bankrupt. My children will have to spend the entire Gross National Product of the US paying for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicade.

I want a Supreme Court that includes strict constructionists. I am strictly anti-abortion. However, a strict constructionist SCOTUS doesn’t help if we’re broke. At most, we have the next 10-15 years to fix the problems, yet none of this crew has any desire to think that there is a problem. We are past the “cutting 50 million in taxes” stage. Our government is functionally bankrupt, and we need REAL fixes, not “portable health care” or small tax cuts that won†™t be backed by spending cuts.

This crew of Republicans differs from the Democrats at most by degrees. Where is the real difference?

Urgent request for prayer

My grandfather went into the hospital Monday to get a knee replaced. They had to put the surgery off until Wednesday

to check out a heart arythmia. Last night (Thursday night/Friday morning), he quit breating and his heart stopped for at least 13 minutes (I didn't find out it was that long or this severe until my mom called a few minutes ago). The doctors are pretty sure he has serious to severe brain damage, but they can't test to find out the extent of the damage until Monday.

I'd appreciate it if you and the class could pray for him, my grandmother, and my father. If you could also pray for our family, I'd appreciate it. As the saying goes, I trust God to not give us more than we can bear, but I just wish God didn't trust me quite so much....

A comment I left on Captain's Quarters

In this article about Ron Paul over at Captain's Quarters, I posted this as my comment. In case the good Captain doesn't see fit to approve it, here's the whole thing:

I grew up Democrat, but I haven't ever voted for a Democrat for President. My first vote was for Bob Dole against Bill Clinton, solely on moral grounds. I voted independant versus Gore and W, but then voted for Bush versus Kerry because I thought the latter was a slimeball. In return, we almost got Harriett Miers. Government hasn't shrunk a bit, and we have a Federal Reserve and Congress Hell-bent on trashing the dollar and leaving us with a Social Security & Medicare bill that in 2040 will be bigger than the country's GDP. All of the good talk towards conservative Christians evaporated before W raised his hand the second time. And let's not even talk about No Child Left Behind.

Now we have a "compassionate conservative" (Huckabee) telling us how to spend even more money. We have a serial adulterer (Rudy) who's more Democrat than Republican. To paraphrase JibJab, Romney has more waffles than a House of Pancakes. I'd like McCain if he hadn't supported the biggest infringement on the First Amendment since the Alien and Sedition Acts. I might be convinced for Thompson, if he wasn't a big supporter of McCain-Feingold the first time around (and if he acted like he really cared). Hunter might do, but he's got less support than Ron Paul.

Why should I care about these Republicans at all? At least Clinton or Obama can sell out to me. This generation of Republicans have talked abortion and marriage, but have been too busy spending money and growing the Federal government to care. And please don't mention the Supreme Court. Let's play name association: Reagan, Kennedy. Bush 1: Souter. Bush 2: Miers. The Republican presidents don't have a good track record here .

I'm done with "trust me". I want to see results. How will the Republicans handle the bankrupcy of Social Security and Medicare? How will the Republicans deal with a government that owes $58 Trillion in current and future liabilities? What are the Republicans going to do to reduce the Federal government? "I'm not Hillary Clinton" isn't good enough any more. I expect a Democrat to differ in degrees from HRC, not a Republican.

Until this Republican crew can come up with someone other than Ron Paul who acts something like a real Reagan Republican, then we deserve HRC or Mr. Obama.

My current thoughts on the Presidental race

(paraphrased from this thread over at Alarming News: )

This year's Republican candidates are exactly like the Democrats. They believe that government has the solution to all of our problems. They just disagree with the Democrats as to what are the problems.

(No, it's not the least bit original.)

I bombed the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker

I thought my pocket 8s had the other fellows pocket 10s beat. Of course they didn't....

It's really hard for me to care. UK beat LSU. :)

Update: I think the BCS rankings are probably closest to "right". They have LSU 4th, South Carolina 6th, and UK 7th. The AP poll is close, but the USA Today poll has UK at 13th, which is IMHO too low.

There is just too much parity out there. Any of the "top twenty" teams could beat any of the others on any given night.

Things are just plain wrong when UK's football team is ranked significantly higher than Tennessee.

Conn Terrace is under control

When I attended UK, my first apartment sat at 111 Conn Terrace Drive, near the UK Medical Center and Waller Avenue. It was a big student neighborhood then, and it's a bigger one now. (My old apartment is now under the new UK parking garage...) After UK's amazing win over LSU in football (I think I screamed for three minutes straight), Milady wanted to drive down and see if there was any roudiness.

After UK's win over Louisville, a bunch of partying students tossed around trash and burned furniture down on Elizabeth Street, which is behind Conn Terrace. The police didn't like this, and promised to stop it.

We got down to where Press Avenue turns into Elizabeth Street. We passed one drunk pedestrian, but everything else was quiet. And then we saw why.

In a three square block area, we passed 2 horse-mounted officers, 6 bike cops, 7 cruisers, and 5 cops on foot. Based on the side-street ac tivity, there had to be 50 officers in the area. Every student in the area was sitting on porches or the yards like the Culhanes. They wanted to throw a rip-roaring party, and they couldn't with at least three cops in view at all times. Poor students.... ;)

Turning down an honor

Several members of our church suggested that I consider standing as an elder or as a deacon for next year, since I had several suggestions on things that have been wrong at the church (see here). I was honored, but I told everyone who mentioned it that I considered myself too young for either position.

Someone wasn't listening: they went ahead and nominated me as deacon anyway. Whomever that was, thank you. :)

I am going to decline the honor. Even if we weren't having troubles at the church, I don't have time to do the job with the kids young. It is something I can see doing in 10 years, when they're in college and desperately trying to find ways to not come home and see Mom and Dad (unless they're broke, hungry, and/or out of laundry... ;) ). For now, I have to focus on being a husband and father, and try to work on a college ministry somewhere when there is room to spare.

Taking apart a laptop

I forgot pictures, but I've been doing surgery on our laptop today.

We bought a Toshiba P35-S6111 a couple of years ago. We needed a laptop that was more desktop-py, and it fit the need. It's certainly a luggable.

There are several known flaws with the P35s. They clog their CPU fans with dust bunnies pretty quickly. I've had to invest in air cans to clean the coils off. Then, a couple of weeks ago the laptop quit charging.

The Internet is so nice. The plug on Toshibas of the P35 era break under any pressure, leading to problems like ours. Of course, our two-year support deal was over, so I was either looking at paying a couple of hundred to get someone else to fix it or I fix it. Duh. ;)

As I mentioned, this problem is common, so there's a lot of plugs for sale on Ebay (and I buy one). I just have to unsoldier the old one, and soldier the new one in, without cooking the board.

It just took two Wal-Mart runs and three burns, but I did it. And then I gilded the lilly: I took the CPU fans and heat sink off and re-gunked the heat sink. The CPU is now wanting to stay hot, so I had to turn it down a notch (the games will LOVE that....).

When I get the new speakers in (did I mention I broke a speaker? oops...), I'll also have to redo the CPU heat sinks....

Playing Poker

As I've mentioned before here, I am a Christian who enjoys playing poker. I have been playing free tournaments and freerolls for a while now. Once again, I've applied to play in PokerStar's freeroll Blogger Tournament.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 8459745

Been worn out

My grandfather is recovering from the morphine-induced mania well, and you can hardly tell that he's had surgery. We're still trying to unwind from that fun.

Milady's brother-in-law has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. It still appears confined to the prostate itself, so they're very optimistic. He's talking with the specialists at Good Samaritan in Cincinatti about possibly having their robotic surgery team do his surgery. He would appreciate any and all prayers.

Politics bores me. I'm going to register Republican solely to vote for Ron Paul, even if a few of his answers concerning Islamic terrorists bother me. Otherwise, I refuse to think too much about the election until 2008.

I've also been typesetting a new book. More about that later in the month.

Finally, I haven't been blogging a lot because of problems at our church, Southern Acres Christian Church. We've had a lot of problems over the last several years. We fai led to execute a land-buying program (for very good, God-led reasons). We transitioned to three different worship services with three styles. We have a new, VERY young minister. Then the elders and that same minister saw that we were running our volunteers to death trying to do three services.

Our older population had gotten very attached to their 8:30AM traditional service, but the elders and the minister said "No, we are going to have two services. Period.". Between the older people disgruntled at the changeover and those people who left with the old minister, we've gone down from 1200 people to around 700, and that includes the 110+ people we've added this year alone. Basically, our minister has replaced older rich people with younger, poorer people. As a result, our weekly offerings have dropped from $35k a week to $24k-$25k, and that's barely enough to make our payroll.

The blame here abounds. Our ministry staff often appears underworked, and are notorious for not b eing of use when people need help. The elders are executing changes without getting congregational buy-in, and are not willing to respond to concerns from the congregation. When people in the congregation bring up problems, they are told that the current way is the way things will happen, and to hush, but sometimes the item is then later quietly fixed.

The congregation has also not responded well. Complaints were lodged over trivial things. Anonymous, hateful letters have been sent to the minister and the elders. People have gotten mad and acted in un-Christlike ways. A committee of members was formed. Lifelong friends are refusing to speak. Many of the people I most respect in the church have had to leave.

I was also greatly upset by the appearance of Barry Cameron at our church. He is appearantly a financial guru in the Restoration Movement, having written a "Godly" finances book. (IMHO, he's not Dave Ramsey, but that's another discussion.) During his sermon, he mentio ned that the church wasn't smart about money, at least McDonalds and movie theatres got their money in advance! As one of my co-workers mentioned, "I thought that simony was an obsolete sin." We would have left SACC immediately, except that he was a guest speaker, and we had some leadings that made us think the Holy Spirit was against a move. (At this point, those leadings have failed, so I don't think they're from God.)

Dysfunctional social situations wear me out. I have a hard time dealing with social situations anyway. I can't deal well with people who only take and don't give, and now my church is taking too. It's finally got me to where I'm not wanting to go to church.

If you can pray for our church, that the egos get turned off and they turn on to the directing of the Holy Spirit, I would appreciate it. I just don't think we can stay to see how things work out.

---

(If you are from Southern Acres, or are upset t hat I'm responding in a pseudononymous fashion, Email me. I'll be happy to "pierce the veil" or say more in public. I have talked to at least one elder about most of the contents of this message, and nothing has happened.)

UK STILL has a football team

We are ranked eighth in the AP and USA Today polls, mostly because everyone other ranked (or formerly ranked) team in the country stinks (right, Jeff?).

Does UK have a serious chance at the BCS Championship game? Probably not. We shouldn't be outranking Florida, that's for sure. Not unless we beat them, at least.

The SEC is just murder on football teams. Florida, UK, and LSU could beat each other fairly consistently, but could take any other team in the country on any given night. UK could even have trouble with Tennessee at the end of the season (and boy, is that a turnaround). I don't think any SEC team will be able to go unbeaten to get to the BCS championship, and with things as squirrelly as they are this year, that could be the only thing that puts a team in.

It's just amazing that we've gone from the cellar of the SEC to a reasonable chance at a real bowl and an outside chance of BCS contention. Yes, it may have taken a weak year nationally to do it, but whatever it takes. :)

Did you know that UK has a football team?

Last night, they set themselves well on the path to top-25 excellence. Now if they can just keep marching that way....

My grandfather is in surgery now.

Yesterday, my grandfather went to the surgeon to find out when the surgery would occur. They ended up scheduling it for today.

He went into surgery at 12:50PM EDT. They expect that he'll be in ICU overnight, and longer if the surgery requires.

Please pray that he loses as little of his lung as is required for the cancer, and that it hasn't spread.

Update: 9/12 21:50: My grandfather is resting comfortably (albeit a bit groggy from the pain medicine). They removed the upper lobe of his right lung (about 40% of the lung), but as long as the lymph nodes are clear they will not recommend any chemotherapy.