Correction: Abraham Vs. Aristotle

May 18, 2012

In reading my last post I noticed I made a subtle but fatal error. I said that atheists and skeptics have an epistemological apparatus that can apprehend supernatural things. While I think this is true it is only acceptable—according to the state of philosophy as I know it—if the actor is a supernaturalist to begin with. So the acceptability of Hebrew/Middle-Eastern epistemology rests on the acceptance of the supernatural.

I’m of the mind that the existence of this apparatus is acceptable by skeptics as well, because it seems necessary to make any propositions about the supernatural at all, not just the properties of supernatural things that theists propose. To illustrate this, think of the apparatus like we do eyes. Atheists “see” darkness and call it such, theists “see” something illuminated in front of them and can form propositions about it*, but both actors need eyes and functioning vision to make these determinations, else “darkness” or “I see something” are incoherencies.

I’m not very formally educated in philosophy and I don’t know if this has been proposed at all. The idea needs a huge huge huge huge amount of exploration and frameworking in order to make it an acceptable proposition regardless of what religious framework we believe in.

So, someone should do that.

Photo by withassociates.

*Please ignore the unfair comparison between atheism/darkness and religious belief/enlightenment in this analogy.

Abraham Vs. Aristotle

Fight of the centuries.
May 15, 2012

Just pretend the other guy isn't Plato and that they're arguing. Like, the angry arguing.

I’ve been reading one guy here and another guy here and here. They talk about Hebrew/Middle Eastern (H/ME) epistemology, the existence of which I and most other Christians are aware and utilize under different names and applications. H/ME relies heavily on revelatory knowledge—our radar aimed at the metaphysical or supernatural—as a legitimate form of knowing things. Contrast this with Aristotelian epistemology that Western Civ is based on, where knowledge is acquired solely through human faculties.

Naturally, some say that these two ways of knowledge gathering are incompatible, but I think the rejections of one for the other is too hasty. They simply need proper application. We use Aristotle to apprehend the physical world, and we use H/ME to apprehend supernatural things. Someone who is wholly given to one or the other framework can just slip the other one in if they’re not cowed by their own fundamentalism. I’m making it sound like it’s buttering a slice of bread but accepting a different way of knowing things can be life-shattering in extreme cases.

Most people, without knowing it, use both already—the religious zealot “uses science” even though it’s hedged in some by his religious belief structure. Anyone who has watched more than 20 minutes of American TV programming is already aware of this type of person. But even skeptics and atheists use their sense of the divine. Coming to the conclusion that the supernatural doesn’t exist does not come about through Aristotelian ways. It comes through the skeptic’s sensus divinatus, however damaged (unrepared, really) the theist considers the skeptic’s apparatus to be, that nothing is “out there”. Logic, the senses, memories, et al., are fundamentally unable to answer questions about things outside of the universe(s). Determining anything about it, I believe, is read on the output tape spat out by the H/ME apparatus.

Even the smart Aristotelian skeptic of religion, if he isn’t hobbled by his own pride, can believe that the conclusions of theists the world over can be legitimately arrived at through the H/ME method. The theist comes to conclusions, through revelatory knowledge, about the supernatural (namely that it exists, for starters) and has not encountered real defeaters for his theistic belief. He has done his duty in just the same way the skeptic has done his, by using his sensus. The state of post-Sagan skepticism, though, is too mired in its own back-patting that admitting that theism, even if completely dead wrong, isn’t a result of neurosis or conspiracy. The generous skeptic scenario is mostly out of the picture.

New Testament Manuscript Reliability Doesn’t Matter

In a sense.
May 10, 2012

A possible personification of New Testament manuscript reliability*.

There’s info online you can Giggle regarding the reliability of New Testament manuscripts compared to similar documents of antiquity. Here’s a good summary, but I saw an image on Facebook (see note way below) that diagramed the comparisons.

It’s an interesting phenomenon to note, but in most cases it won’t do much to convince skeptics. There’s a good reason for this. If, say, historians found out that Aristotle’s Poetics was written by someone else, or a group of someone elses. His (or their) ideas on ethics, metaphysics, and logic would not be diminished. That is to say that the value of the text doesn’t depend much on who wrote it. What was said is what matters.

Similarly, if it was found out that an historian like Tacitus was really a composite of other writers, it may cast some doubt on what was written in The Histories, but it won’t be much skin of the nose of most people today. Many of the events recorded may still be verifiable, but even if the author was inaccurate the consequences to everyday life are minor.

But the standards for the New Testament are different, because even if the manuscripts are reliable it doesn’t answer the question as to whether the New Testament events occurred. It proves, for example, that the copies agree with themselves but not that the recorded events described, specifically the supernatural events, had actually passed. Textual reliability is irrelevant if someone believes the supernatural is outright nonexistent. A skeptic would have to first have to believe that supernatural events, like the resurrection, are at least possible imprimus. The text doesn’t have a bearing on whether they are possible. They merely claim they occurred some time in the past.

The fact of manuscript reliability may have some effect on the skeptic if it removes a defeater for belief—as in, part of the disbelief is held in false information, particularly that New Testament documents are not reliable. But as far as “making believers” out of atheists, a lot more needs to occur, cognitively and a-cognitively, that an historical factoid.

*I originally had a diagram of New Testament manuscript reliability created by Mark Barry. I had emailed him about using the image but he had since taken it down because, in light of recent conversations, he needed to do more research before officially confirming the info in the diagram. He didn’t mention Bootsy Collins.

It Doesn’t Matter What Business You Spend Your Money On

Rigged system.
May 5, 2012

At least it saves thinky time.

I’ve seen this image appear in my facebook feed at least a few times every week. The idea is that it’s best (according to some) to spend our money on local businesses because the business owners will extract more practical or “moral” utility, where the CEO will just squander it. The only problem is that in the situation the image describes, where you spend your money is irrelevant.

If the CEO does squander his salary foolishly, people benefit in the same way the small business would—he would be injecting it back into the economy by buying the expensive car or by building another house. That’s more factories and more construction work for the providers of working class* families, and more business for smaller companies he patronizes. In some situations, more people would be better off if more business went to the CEO’s corporation than the small family business.

But let’s assume you spend your money patronizing the small business, and that somehow you know they will use the revenue in ways the image proposes. The catch-22 comes because the small business pays taxes (sooner or later—the government has a way of getting money from you). These taxes paid can be used by the government at all levels to benefit the small business’ larger, corporate competitors. Essentially, you would help funding small- and mid-sized businesses pay the government to keep their business from growing.

It’s not your fault, though, nor is it the business’. A company can only get so big the “right” way, by filling consumer demand and creating wealth, before it has to cajole non-market forces into working in their favor. This non-market force is the state, which is able to build walls against the competition coming from smaller companies through legislation and taxation. Thus, CEOs can afford themselves things like exhorbitant bonuses instead of growing their business (creating jobs) because there’s more incentive to rent-seek, which benefits a corporation’s owners primarily and the business secondarily, and less incentive to fill demand, which benefits consumers and the corporation as a whole, from the CEO down to factory janitors.

The best solution, naturally, is to remove the state from the market process by extracting its coercive power and expansive tax levying, and let consumers decide how big or small business will get, through consumption and investment. That way the economic climate reflects demand more accurately and resources are aligned with less recklessness. That’s a tough cookie to bite because the politicians have no incentive to shrink the power of the organization they work for.

*I normally don’t use Marx-inspired class warfare language like this but it fits given the context.

Neil Degrasse Tyson Doesn’t Know What Science Is

In a way.
April 28, 2012

"Do the one about black holes!"

I don’t mean, of course, that he doesn’t really know what science is. If someone were to prod him to unpack what he thinks I’m sure he could make a coherent case, but the quote is nonsensical.

Science is a method and a process that’s neither true nor false. There’s nothing about it to “believe” in, unless maybe you’re talking about what a subset of a subset of Christianity thinks of the scientific conclusions concerning evolution, or what an academic with a chip on his shoulder thinks of a colleague’s methodology.

Science isn’t, by itself, a proposition that can be labelled true or false, but it does yield propositions which have been determined to be true, i.e., the freezing point of water is 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Substitute the word “fact” in this quote and now we’re cooking with gasoline.

Epistemically, science is not a category of basic knowledge by itself (I don’t think, at least), but a combination of inductive logic and sense perception, two basic building blocks of knowledge-gathering. There’s no way one could not believe in science because by doing so one will end up using induction and sense perception to get there. We all do “science” in little spats every day in this sense, but most of what we call “scientific knowledge” cannot be taken as such by 99% of us. It’s taken on reliable authority since we do not conduct the experiments ourselves. And, unless you have a scientist you can talk to directly, you’re getting this knowledge 3rd or 4th hand.

But arriving at true propositions—”facts”—are not the sole domain of science, or this one-two punch of induction and the senses. We know things legitimately through memory, deduction, reliable authority, sympathy (pdf link). These things aren’t scientific ways of knowing things but they are very rational. The fact that I ate bacon this morning is true whether you accept it or not (for me it’s memory, for my wife it’s sense perception, for everyone else it’s reliable authority), but we would hardly call it “scientific”.

Tyson, for all his good qualities, fast approaches the Saganite trap of making statements outside of his expertise (Sagan’s grasp of religious history wasn’t strong). In Tyson’s case it’s epistemology, but most anything a pop scientist will say outside of their profession will get a free pass by uncritical “freethinkers”.

Some homework: an interesting thing about modern science. We use instruments created by others who have used the scientific method to create them, who used other instruments used by others to create them. Modern science utilizes a many-generational result of the scientific process, and if this isn’t circular reasoning it comes very close to it. How can something like this reconciled, epistemically?

Edit for crowdsourcing: was trying find the origin of this quote. Was it from one of Tyson’s books?

Edit two: it was said on Bill Maher’s show. Can’t find another source. Eh.

Cops Shut Down Criminal Drummer Playing in Public

Caught.
April 23, 2012

Halper, who plays in the band Periphery, is sponsored by Mapex and had the neat idea of setting up his set out in the busy streets during the music industry gathering SXSW. Thank God the police were there to stop this immoral act from continuing. The look of horror on everyone’s faces is heart-wrenching.

This really isn’t a sarcastic rant against law enforcement. I just love watching drummers play, especially good ones like Halpern (notice how “big” he makes a stripped-down kit sound). It’s also a great way, in this case, to nudge the more drunkward of us into realms of mild embarrassment.

In Which I Bloviate About Melt-Banana

An earth-sized trash can.
April 8, 2012

I first heard Melt-Banana when a fellow grocery store warm body lent me their Scratch or Stitch release. It held my interest for a few listens: an album full of layered ray gun guitar effects, fuzz bass pounding, ADHD drumming, insane cat-bark yipyap vocals, song titles bordering on Engrish hilarity. Something that was experimental but not boring or self-indulgent. Even if that sort of thing repulses you, you just kind of have to listen for a little bit to experience the trainwreck.

But there were some fatal flaws to keep me from really enjoying it. It was lo-fi and I was in the midst of an obsession with metalcore, a genre that tends to enjoy higher production values. Additionally I was going through an irritating yet mild “Christian-only music” cloistering phase—a fever that neophytes to the scene can easily catch.

I forgot about them until recently, when for some reason I listened to “Cracked Plaster Cast” from Bambi’s Dilemma once, and the once turned into listening to the whole holocaust of an album about a few dozen times and counting. And this turned into exploring their back discography. They had changed into a more accessible rock sound while retaining the weirdness aesthetic.

Please bear in mind, though, that this is a relative change. They are no more traditional than they were in their loopy years. It’s more accurate to say that their songs can be slightly longer and have more structure. That’s about it. Yasuko’s vocals have more diversity but are still not quite punk, not quite rock, not quite grindcore, not quite rap. It’s like she just said, “You know what? F— it. I’ll keep doing it but someone else figure it out.”

Below is a short documentary and live set from a recent tour. Hit play and fall in love with the time-traveling plasma rifle rainbow.

The Great Gatsby and A Farewell To Arms, Redux

A gun and hair.
March 24, 2012


I just bought these used but brand new at Half Price Books. There were other editions that were a dollar less but I bought these because I liked their covers. This is what “splurging” means when you have a mortgage and two kids.

Now Offering Beta Reading Services Alongside Half-Witted Blog Posts

March 20, 2012

Click here or up in the menu if you have a manuscript that needs the once-over.

If you have no interest or need for a beta reader, please enjoy some music timed to the video of the Fraggle Rock theme song, performed by your friends in The Locust.

The First Paragraph of Chapter Thirteen of Someone Else’s Book

Something something copyright.
March 14, 2012

From Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye.

Reading this paragraph put me in another place. I was sitting under a tree, naked, in 140 degree weather, with a large block of ice resting on my belly. The recent warm turn of local weather didn’t hurt, either.

At eleven o’clock I was sitting in the third booth on the right-hand side as you go in from the dining-room annex. I had my back against the wall and I could see anyone who came in or went out. It was a clear morning, no smog, no high fog even, and the sun dazzled the surface of the swimming pool which began just outside the plateglass wall of the bar and stretched to the far end of the dining room. A girl in a white sharkskin suit and a luscious figure was climbing the ladder to the high board. I watched the band of white that showed between the tan of her thighs and the suit. I watched it carnally. Then she was out of sight, cut off by the deep overhang of the roof. A moment later I saw her flash down in a one and a half. Spray came high enough to catch the sun and make rainbows that were almost as pretty as the girl. Then she came up the ladder and unstrapped her white helmet and shook her bleach job loose. She wobbled her bottom over to a small white table and sat down beside a lumberjack in white drill pants and dark glasses and a tan so evenly dark that he couldn’t have been anything other than the hired man around the pool. He reached over and patted her thigh. She opened her mouth like a firebucket and laughed. That terminated my interest in her. I couldn’t hear the laugh but the hole in her face when she unzippered her teeth was all I needed.