Creationist Truth

A comment by Ruth MacGill on Bert B's article entitled “About Faith and Doubt“ put me in mind of another common place 'creationist' argument. The one that says “Clearly, God made this world for us. Look how beautiful it is and how well it provides for us !” The first thing that comes to mind when I hear that argument is “What colossal hubris!” The world is a fine place for fish and fowl and bear and elk, etc. But of course it was made for us, not them? On what ridiculous basis do we assume that it was made for us?

The real problem is that the argument is ridiculous. We evolved here. How could we not find the world beautiful and supportive. Would anything evolve into a situation it found ugly and non-supportive? Of course not! Whatever, if anything, evolved in the interior of the sun would surely find it a beautiful and hospitable place. And, quite possibly, thank its God for being so kind as to create it such a fine place to live.

Good Old 'Trickle Down'

"Trickle down economics stems from the early 1950's when we were the only Western country whose industrial infrastructure had not been smashed and it was accurate to say that whatever was good for General Motors was good for the United States. That was no longer true by the time Reagan came to power, money was being left in the hands of America's economic elite which was investing it overseas -- not in America."

The above is from a comment by George McNaughton on an article by Dan (open minded conservative) K called Dear Mr. President .

It illustrates a problem with the Republican approach to the 'cut taxes to stimulate the economy' idea. It never was accurate to say that 'whatever was good for General Motors was good for the United States." In the 1950's and now the accurate phrasing of the statement is "whatever is good for the United States is good for General Motors." ( though General Motors may have already been demollished by the decades of abuse of the real 'United States')

To put it in terms more in line with what most people think of as the 'trickle down' concept; "what's good for the rich is good for the rest" is, was, and always has been false! the proper statement is, was, and always has been "what's good for the rest is good for the rich!" You do not stimulate an economy by stimulating rich people. any more than you water a tree by spritzing its top leaves. Rich people get rich when a whole lot of 'not so rich' people have money to pay them for what they supply.

'Rich people' don't consume much more that poor people and whatever they can consume they already are consuming so giving them more money does nothing for the economy.

And an economy is not made more vigorous by upping the available funds to create things, it is made more vigorous by upping the available funds to consume things.

The ability to create a product will never make you rich, it is the ability (and willingness) of customers to buy your product that makes you rich. Stimulating an economy is all about stimulating the consumers not the producers. A ready and able consumer is all the stimulus any producer needs!

What Do You Know?

What Do You Know?

What a loaded question. It leads, however to some pretty profound insights. (Maybe!)

David Hume in his Treatise On Human Nature put forward a proposal that I find compelling because of its usefulness in illuminating human behavior. He postulated a three tier hierarchy of information in the human mind. Stage 1 is perception, Stage 2 is belief, Stage 3 is knowledge.

He then defined 'knowledge' as that information which is so deeply ingrained that we act upon it without any conscious awareness of it. An example of 'knowledge': How do you walk? How do you talk? You can not tell me because you are not conscious of what it takes. You 'know' how to do it.

By now you see the problem with the title question. Under Hume's theory, any answer to that question is bound to be false. If you are conscious of it you do not 'know' it and if you are unconscious of it you would not be putting it in your list.

So how do we get to be what we are? Hume postulates that we perceive things and that when perceptions are consistent, persistent, and vivid enough they become beliefs and should they reach even higher levels of consistency, persistence, and vividness the information content of those perceptions becomes 'knowledge'.

Now according to the theory, we are born with a bunch of methods of perception and one basic piece of knowledge. For the most part, we can hear, see, feel, taste, smell and perceive our own thoughts. And what we 'know' is “I AM”. Everything else we learn over time.

How do we learn? We perceive! And if the perceptions reach a certain level of “persistence, consistency, and vividness” the perceived information is established as belief and if they are even more “persistent, consistent, and vivid” it becomes established as “knowledge” and is acted upon without any conscious awareness.

Two very important things should now be obvious.

One: If this theory is more or less accurate, we cannot possibly believe in our own non-existence. One might theorize that at some point one's self did not exist and at some point in the future one's self will not exist. One might even hold that idea as 'likely', however; since 'non-existence' cannot possibly be perceived, the concept cannot even reach the stage of 'belief', much less 'knowledge'. Therefore , by our very nature, we are bound to try to 'rationalize' this conflict between what we eventually come to perceive about everybody else, ie. They end, and what we 'know' about ourselves, ie. We have always been and will always be. Hence Heaven, Hell, Karma, Reincarnation, Valhalla, you name it. A million and one attempts to rationalize a dichotomy forced upon us by our very nature. To be human is to be tempted to religion. And to live without that crutch will ever be the hard road.

Two: Much of what we 'know' must be false! Why? Because our tools for perceptions are extremely limited and not very reliable. We can only see a very limited range of the electro-magnetic spectrum. We are so blind we 'knew' it was dark at night! We can only hear a small spectrum of sound waves so we 'knew' that giraffes make no sounds and bats fly silently trough the night. We knew that most things don't have a smell. We knew that the sun and moon were just a little further away than the top of a high tree or hill or tree on a hill. We 'knew' it for thousands of years and we were wrong for thousands of years. And there is a source of perceptions even less reliable than our eyes, or ears or nose. And if we don't learn to watch it closely at all times and question it constantly, our load of 'false knowledge' can actually threaten to overwhelm us entirely. That is our mind. Remember that a major source of our 'perceptions' is our mind. Our memories, of perceptions real or imagined, produce information we perceive almost constantly. Our conscious minds and our unconscious minds constantly serve us up thoughts. Our perceptions of these thoughts are as 'good' as any other perceptions, in that, if they are 'consistent, persistent and vivid' enough, their information will become knowledge! The problem arises from the fact that memories of perceptions are often inaccurate, either as the result of inaccurate perceptions from the physical world or from the fact that they are completely imaginary to begin with. But our mind does not care about truth! It only cares about 'consistent, persistent, vivid'. Meet that criteria and 'knowledge' is born. Serve a mind the 'consistent, persistent, and vivid' perception that Brits are cold and aloof sort of people and that mind will 'know' this even though its owner never met an Englishman. In fact, isolation from Englishmen will enhance the 'knowledge' as the consistency of the perceptions will be secure. Only constant questioning of perceptions and beliefs can possibly keep our 'beliefs' and 'knowledge' near the truth.

What do you know? Not all that much I hope!

China Leads the Way Again

Finally someone has recognized the hazard! China, that bastion of progressive correct think, is leading the way again. There can be no doubt that internet addiction is a major human problem. Communication and curiosity are diseases. We are so blessed to have the land of the Little Red Book and the estimable Red Guard to show us the way.

Variations On a Theme

I bought a $10 digital camera. Can it do anything? Amazingly I think it can!

This is the Original Shot.

Not too bad. But..... Other Things are Possible..........

For example:

A Raku Fountain..

One of the things about digital photography that makes it so fun is the manipulation that can be done.

Here are some variations on the theme.

My Sister Is On Steroids

Do I qualify for Jerry Springer now? Well I suppose since it is just prescription shots of cortisone, maybe not. She probably won't bulk up like Barry Bond because I am pretty sure she won't be getting into any weight lifting regime and 'roid rage' is not a likely outcome. She has some sort of back problem or something and it is really very painful. She can not stand for more than 5 minutes at a time or walk for more about 200 feet.

That would be a bummer for anybody, but when one of your major entertainments is flea markets and estate sales and auctions and such, well it is a real bummer. I, for example, might not feel that put out by such a circumstance. A good chair, my wireless keyboard and mouse, a nice big monitor and I could computer geek it all day. Not good for me but reasonably satisfying.

Anyhow, now she has a 'Rascal', a red one, Ferrari racing colors I believe, though she did settle for the 5mph model instead of the 15mph model. Can you imagine that, 15mph on a Rascal. Like I told her thats fast enough to be a 'grab and go' shoplifter. I can see the headlines now; "Red Rascal Terrorizes Tuscon" or "Market Mesmerized by Marauding Madam".

With that kind of speed you could organize actually exciting races in the park. Book the skateboard facilities three afternoons a week or something. With sponsors and all it could develop into big money, ESPN, pay per view, who knows! We baby boomers are a really growing market these days! Any maker out there going for that 20mph baby? In British racing Green?

A Cross Post test

Cross posting

The Case For KISS

I was reading an article called “Murphy Laws of Computing” and came across this one:

9. A complex system that doesn't work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.

....and it struck me how well this applied to any structured procedure. And it has a corollary:

Any simple system that works just fine will almost inevitably be massaged into a complex system that does not work as well, if at all.

I guess maybe we could call this the 'Peter Principle' of structured procedures. I am sure that you have seen it happen time and time again. I know I have.

For example: I work for a company that has occasion to end up with a fairly large quantity of odd sized but 'usable to somebody' pieces of material. So rather than throw them out they instituted a system that marked such 'culls' at the time they were created into one of five price categories and they were offered to customers as a service that also made a little extra money. The system worked fine and customers that only needed little odd sized pieces of stuff could get it and the check out system knew how to handle them and all was fine. Convenience on one side and a little extra money on the other. Then apparently someone decided that maybe lots of good stuff was being taken out of the store as 'cull' so a policy was put in place that required the checkout people to measure and describe, in detail, in writing, on a special form, each and every piece of cull material they checked through. This had to be done while the customer (and all the others waiting behind) waited the extra couple of minutes in the check out line. In other words, what had been a service for a small fee to customers now became a major annoyance to customers for a very nominal income to the company. (cull pieces ranged from .5 to 4 dollars a piece)
Well you say , maybe a lot of stuff that was not really 'cull' was going out under that guise! Then if stuff that should not be classified as cull was being classified as cull, monitor the cull bins and correct the procedures for classifying material as 'cull' as needed. Or if stuff that was not actually classified as cull was being checked through by cashiers as 'cull' (for friends or for a kick back or whatever) then monitor the suspect cashiers. Every minute of every day, of every cashiers station, is 'on camera' and every transaction of 'cull' material is pinpointed by the cash register system. (That is after all how they know if a cashiers checks through cull material and fails to fill out the dumb, time consuming form.)
I mean think about it! If a cashier wanted to do a favor for a friend it would be much simpler to not 'ring up' a piece of material at all, than it would be to ring it up as some relatively rare cheaper item.

The point is that experience shows that this 'complication to the point of uselessness' phenomenon is almost universal. It lead to the fall of Rome, the decline of aristocracy, and it will probably lead to the eventual fall of all current governments, democratic or otherwise. It appears to be ingrained in human nature to complicate all our social structures to the point that they collapse and we have to start all over again. I wonder how many Atlantis's there have been?

Ban The Gadgets

New York Senator Carl Kruger (D) wants to ban the use of any sort of portable information/entertainment device by pedestrians while crossing streets. I guess he compares it to seatbelt laws or helmet laws. But I wonder why it hasn't occurred to him to ban running over pedestrians while they are crossing the street? Maybe because that is already illegal? Or why not just ban crossing the street? That would really keep pedestrians safe! I know! Ban motor vehicles from entering intersections! Ah but then the jaywalkers might get hit by one of the vehicles buzzing back and forth from corner to corner. Ok Ok! now I have it ban vehicles from intersections and ban pedestrians using gadgets from jaywalking and fine anybody caught crossing the street without looking both right and left and fine anybody short enough not to see over the surrounding masses and fine the surrounding masses for blocking the vision of short people and ban thinking while you walk and ban getting hit by vehicles and ban having a headache because it is distracting and ban being alive because it leads to death and ban dying because it is the major cause of death and ............ Oh! Ban it all Ban it all!

Ya RIAA! Or How to Look Very Foolish With a Great Deal of Effort

The Grand and Glorious Protector of the Artiste has done it again. They have moved on from suing teenagers and grandmothers to suing Russian companies. Of course they sued the Russian company in a New York court because it is apparently acknowledged by all sides that the Russian company is in compliance with Russian law and therefore could not be successfully sued there. And such a nice realistic sum they sued for too! A mere $1.65 trillion in damages. Now according to a New York Times article annual music industry sales for the US are about $75 billion including concerts, merchandising and all other revenue streams. So I guess suing one Russian company for 22 years of music industry gross income is reasonable. Not!!!

And apparently the Russian site has deposited all the royalties with the Russian royalty collection body and the RIAA has not accepted the money, perhaps because it would weaken their claim of “not one penny paid” in royalties. I have no idea if the Russian company has actually deposited proper royalties and it may well be that they are not being “good industry citizens” but one thing I am sure of: For an organization that makes its money off the backs of artists to waste its money on lawsuits it can't win, for ridiculous sums of money, in the name of 'protecting' its clients is unconscionable.

The RIAA needs to reconstituted, but given the distressingly purchasable politician of this day and age I suspect that the best we can hope for is that it is soon relegated to irrelevancy by its own greed and stupidity as demonstrated by the above action.