Atheism

This will pretty much be the only, or one of very few posts on why I am an atheist. It is deeply personal and probably the first time I spelled it out clearly.

There was a point in my life where I was trapped somewhere, physically. Details aren't terribly important, the point was it involved the government and contracts signed thereof. At they time I was physically very ill, having pneumonia that went untreated until it went away on its own. I was also, at the time, undiagnosed with my bipolar disorder. I had no contact with the outside world aside from the incredibly slow postal service and had made a very sudden, impulsive life change. Now at first I did not regret the change, but due to my illness I would up isolated from my one friend who was with me and stuck in a 16 hour a day rut.

And each night, I prayed. For six weeks I prayed to personal and impersonal deities for comfort, for an end, for any grasp of reality. The whole time I was having vivid dreams that I was home, and when I woke up each morning it was to abject misery. I didn't necessarily want to go home, at least not all the time, but I certainly didn't want to be stuck where I was. I wanted some sort of action, but waiting on the government is like waiting on the continents to move. Some time in it wasn't just at night I became unhinged from reality. I would start to think my days were dreams and the other world, the one where I was home, was real. I even started having layered dreams, dreaming within my dream that I was one place or the other. During the days I barely interacted with the world aside from the required movements to and from place to place, to the restroom, through the cold showers and the rough, dry shaves.

I prayed each night, saying my good little Anglican Lord's Prayer, the English Pater Nostre, desperately searching for some clue, some sign of reality. At this point, during the day, I read the entire KJV bible and searched for something that made sense within it. I was very disappointed in the whole affair, feeling no relief, no connection to any higher power, and upon reading the bible I felt no connection to brutal gods and rapist heroes, to evil men glorified and vague myths. The notion of some benevolent being appealed to me, someone to "rescue" me, but I grew increasingly detached from such rescue.

There was nothing to do but wait. Prayer was useless, any action I took was useless. I had never before or ever since felt so powerless, but even powerless I had no god to turn to, no comfort from something that did not exist. As I grew increasingly detached from reality, less and less sure of which world was real, I began to despair. At the same time a sort of grim determination took hold of me. There was no god, no one but humans around me, and no action I could take to end my misery. There was nothing anyone or anything could do to anchor me to reality, or to end my situation. One day I hid in the showers and sliced open an arm, not to hurt or kill myself but just to feel the pain. I needed some sensation to try to show me what was real, but my senses were to dulled, to detached for it to help. I was sent to a mental health professional but too many years of passing meant that I hid any issues, ensuring them that I was merely upset or stressed, calling for some attention.

I spent the remaining weeks in near total silence. No more prayers, no turning to the various religious texts I had scrounged, just silence. Inaction was my only course of action, but still I dreamed. I dreamed I was in many places, no longer just home or trapped, but all over my life, in alternate lives, and I lost touch with which was real. I made sure I took no action in any reality that could upset the others, hedging my bets on faking sanity. Eventually I really did go home, my bodily illness proving too much for the ones holding me to handle. I spent days on buses, waiting for hours at stations with no phone, no money and one boxed lunch. I slept when I could, but then I would dream again.

In none of my dreams, now, did a deity exist. I had, in the period many turn to some god or another, rejected such imaginary comforts. Thought was all I had to myself at that time, and the thoughts of someone out of touch with reality rejected something above reality. I had determined to find out what was real and no omnipotent yet impotent deity, no beneficial or malevolent supernatural force would stop me. Before I had casually ignored god and religion, now I actively hated it. I did not hate god, but the mere notion that something like him could be worshipped. Every aspect of it disgusted me. Helpless prayer, beseeching for hope when there was none to be had. Rejection of reality by those who could see what was real. In my quest, my mission to determine reality I came down only to logic and evidence. If that was all that really was, why should I look "beyond" for vague and nebulous answers.

In time, months after returning home and trying to reestablish a life, I settled on reality. Months of nightmares made me doubt I was home, but no longer did I seek answers without evidence. No more prayers, no stories, only fact. Only evidence. I rejected the imaginary because I could not tell what was real otherwise. The bigger the fictional scaffolding I built up the worse my delusions became. Ever since that day, no matter what happens or has happened, I refuse to do anything but calmly asses a situation. I have not been stressed enough to go that manic since, but in part because I anchor myself to reality. We cannot know everything, but there is too much danger in declaring a reality that is out of step with our own. You do not need to be bipolar or schizophrenic to lose touch, to make bad decisions when you convince yourself of something dangerous.

I saw religion for what it was, a mass delusion. Not in a merely philosophical sense, but in a genuinely dangerous sense. The more who share the delusion the worse it is. Humanity needs to separate itself from delusions, especially since most do not have any excuse, any reason to fall for such falsities. I hate religion because it causes pain, suffering and the wrong actions in place of the obvious right actions. It is not harmless. It is not a right. Religion is a collective sickness of the mind, stretching across the centuries and among billions of people. It is not personal because our decisions, our actions affect others and when we base those actions on delusions, on the rejection of reality we are a danger to each other and humanity itself. For six weeks of my life I turned to delusion, and for several months I lived delusions. But only in those six weeks was I a danger. Only when I chose delusion over reality did I hurt myself. After I rejected an artificial delusion I was left to rediscover reality, and that is why I am an atheist. That is why I reject religion in others. That is why it hurts me so much to watch religious family and friends act on imaginary commands and stories.

Logic Priest

A Step in the Right Direction

Jen's followup to the other post I linked to. Not a bad idea, although for me overly centered on the atheism. But rebranding to cause a nice self selected schism from the misogynists and assholes in the greater whole of atheism and skepticism is definitely the right beginning. Branding, however, is an easy change. The main purpose is to separate, to get away from the supposed allies with only one, tangential relation to those of us who wish to apply skeptical thought to ourselves as much as to deities and psychic healers.

For my part I think next wave atheism shouldn't just include feminism et al, but should rebrand to something where even the name is non negative in its definition. Atheism is literally just not-theism. A+ is better, but for me still not proactive enough. A new identity centered on reason, skeptical thought and science applied to all aspects of life, with a purpose of helping humanity as a whole would be fantastic, but everything takes steps in between.

Logic Priest

New Wave Atheism

Jen at Freethoughtblogs spells it out wonderfully:

I don’t want good causes like secularism and skepticism to die because they’re infested with people who see issues of equality as mission drift. I want Deep Rifts. I want to be able to truthfully say that I feel safe in this movement. I want the misogynists, racists, homophobes, transphobes, and downright trolls out of the movement for the same reason I wouldn’t invite them over for dinner or to play Mario Kart: because they’re not good people. We throw up billboards claiming we’re Good Without God, but how are we proving that as a movement? Litter clean-ups and blood drives can only say so much when you’re simultaneously threatening your fellow activists with rape and death.

 I arrived at this conclusion, and so have many over at FTB, many among the atheistic feminists, many among atheists who happen to not be white males. It is inevitible, really. We started with philosophers, then strong but reactionary public faces like Dawkins and Hitchens, now we need to define a movement not as what it differs from, theism, but what it is. We need a movement that is defined by what it stands for, what it hopes to gain. Holding one correct belief, there is no god, is not enough to move us into the future. We need not just correct beliefs, but justifiable ones. We need a construction, similar to science, to correct and form beliefs and causes.

Logic Priest

Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand

Mitt Romney has cemented his position as a Koch/Murdoch puppet. He wants power at any cost, up to and including picking Paul Ryan, a man known for Objectivist and severe budget plans, to suck up to Fox News and the Teabaggers. Aside from his complete lack of moral compass, obvious by one of the most dishonest campaigns in the history of television ads, Romney is sucking up to the people who were going to vote for him anyways. Hopefully this alienates him even further from the "moderates" in swing states.

The Republican Party has sold the same old trickle down bullshit for decades now, and the choice of Ryan only confirms their commitment to a known bad economic policy. Unfortunately they have been really good at convincing middle and working class people to vote against their own interests by either appealing to racist and sexist ideologies for the Christian Right or by lying about entitlement programs. America, as I have mentioned before, has bought into a nearly Objectivist philosophy of self reliance and selfishness, as can be seen by the blind backlash against Obama simply saying we build things within a community. A short three years since trickle down policies combined with war mongering collapsed our economy, and that of the world, the Republicans are trying to blame Obama for "socialist" programs and entitlement programs. They go on about the impending collapse of Social Security, which is actually where much of the debt has been borrowed from rather than for, and Ryan wanted to end medicare as it currently exists, something politifact actually got wrong for once. Ryan is even an admitted Objectivist, praising Ayn Rand almost religiously.

This new, openly elitist party, run by Fox rather than running Fox, is hilariously inept at economics. They are simply thinking short term, running the country into the ground to keep a bit more of their tax money and to pay off their friends in the military industrial complex, but at the cost of long term economic health. They fail to realize that consistent degradation of the middle class, the increased concentration of wealth is a good way to devalue their own holdings, and possibly even collapse the money they think they have. While many will survive, just as many will lose it all in the crisis, eventually. Ryan is one of the worst short term thinkers, working against the tide of social progress in his moral views while trying to implement the largest takedown of the New Deal in decades. He and his ilk demonize the working class, not just the imaginary welfare queens of Reagan's era, but the working and middle classes. They keep citing mangled statistics about less than half pay taxes, which is great when you only talk about federal income tax and ignore the unemployment problem caused by his type of policies. Ignoring social security, payroll, state and property taxes while blaming those hurt the worst by the recession for the recession and debt is not just immoral but stupid. These unemployed have plenty of time to vote, and while most American voters are easily led, enough will, this time at least, see through the charade when it is so thinly veiled.

I am glad Romney chose Paul Ryan. They are out in the open now, rich white men who only care about other rich white men. Millionaires bloated on shitty policy and corruption so openly pushing for more corruption that the most fearful of unaffiliated voters will realize the danger of voting for them. Ryan appeals only to the authoritarian Republican base that was going to vote for anybody opposing Obama no matter what. They hate Obama because he is on the other team. They believe any bullshit about the recession, even when the Republican commercials blatantly lie about the order of events and the causes. This season's blatant lies are beyond the normal mudslinging and truth massaging of the past , this election has gone into full blown insanity. Demonizing the voters you hope to win, appealing only to the ones who would always vote for you, lying so obviously even the mainstream media notices. This is going to be a painful and annoying season, but barring full scale economic collapse in the next few months, Obama will win and the Republicans will continue to blame him for everything that ever went wrong.

I really wish the voting public would learn how to separate cause and effect, as well as truth and fiction.  Until they do, until our education and culture push for rational thought and empirical analysis, we will continue to be lied to by politicians. Obama is nothing the Republicans say, but he is still in bed with corporations. He still caters to "intellectual property" owners over creators and consumers. He still expands the federal power to unreasonable levels with spying on US citizens and drug wars and assassinations, but he did not magically cause an economic collapse from before he was in office or start two massive wars that created our debt. If we could hold all politicians accountable for their actual ills, we wouldn't need to invent any. If we could watch and remember past policies, we could stop repeating failed ones. If people could actually pay attention to Romney's lies, even conservatives couldn't vote for him.

Logic Priest

A New Identity for Rational Empiricism

In my mind there seems only one basic, moral conclusion from skepticism and rational empiricism or even atheism. As a human, I should care about humanity's well being. The best way to do this, from the evidence and from the logic that there is no good reason not to, is to allow the best spread of privilege and equality possible at a given time.

This is not to say communism or some such, this is about rights and opportunities. One of the biggest holes in various "rational" movements, or even civil rights movements, is an inherent selfishness and blindness from privilege. The defensive nature of people like DJ Grothe when confronted with a sexual harassment issue, or when certain feminists are confronted by trans people, among others (many, many others), is a betrayal of rationalism. This isn't a No True Scotsman thing, either, but about the principles these people claim to hold and then immediately fail to live out.

A current, horrifying example is over at Freethought blogs where a short lived member invited from youtube, thunderfoot, is running amok. He was expelled after showing himself to be sexist, petty and abusive of his fellow bloggers, and has not gotten over it sense. Apparently he is now threatening to reveal personal emails and identities of bloggers over there, many of whom write under pseudonyms like me, but for their protection. People like Natalie Reed and Zinnia Jones and Taslima, who could be genuinely hurt if their identities or addresses were revealed. Thunderfoot is being a petty asshole, and he is part of an increasing number of awful people associated with the skeptical and atheist "communities." I am increasingly uneasy associating with those terms now, although I am an atheist and skeptic, I really don't want to be mixed up with a bunch of petty, selfish and defensive people in the same type of denial that theists always are.

These people only embrace skepticism as a way to feel smarter than theists, but they really have far more in common with the religious than they do with genuinely rationalist people. At its heart, rationalism is based around the idea that you can be wrong. Passionate defense of your ideas is great, and certain things are foregone conclusions (no god, etc) but if your only defense is accusations that your opponent is radical or playing victim, fuck you. No punches to be held back, if a woman says she felt unsafe and someone's response is to accuse them of being dramatic, fuck them. If a trans says they identify with being X gender and some self identified feminist claims they don't mean it because blah blah gender isn't real, fuck them. I don't care what movement someone claims to be in, if they are wrong, if they are supporting irrational beliefs and refuse to even think they could be wrong, they can fuck off and go hang out with the god botherers.

We need a new group, a new movement that is there to make humanity better. Atheism is a label merely saying you don't believe in god. Good for us, we don't believe an obvious fairy tale. Skepticism is vague, not really describing any sort of goal. Great for them, but why bother if you don't care about results? Feminism is a bit better, at least subscribing to some goal, but I know of too many who are transphobic and the same goes for many LGB rights people, ignoring the trans, gender fluid, and even the bisexuals sometimes. We need something new, something with these elements but a clearer goal. We need a movement whose goal is to accept being wrong, a movement that strives for the best results for humanity as a whole. It needs to expel cultural artifacts that cannot be defended with logic and evidence, it needs to finally unroot itself from a history of religious thinking and patriarchy. We need something for the new generation, with its sights set higher than merely getting slightly better for a specific group.

We need a movement where atheism is just a fact, not a purpose, and where rational thought is applied to all things, not just pet issues. The only real focus is on humanity, and making it better. Science makes it better, equality makes it better, knowing about the world makes it better, and admitting you are wrong makes it better. Anyone can be wrong, though as a side note this doesn't mean repeated arguments sans proof should be considered. Any good argument (by the definition of good in logic, not personal preference) must be considered.

We need this movement because it is too easy to identify and claim membership to broad labels with no meaning beyond a coincidental conclusion that obvious things are wrong, like god or magic tricks or alternative meds. One that Objectivists and libertarians would shy from, one that would make MRAs angry to think about, one that makes those whose rights are threatened feel welcome and one that is willing to be wrong and correct itself. One that argues passionately within itself and can then move on with the correct, or at least better conclusions. One where pettiness is a disqualified. One where a violation of trust is grounds for expulsion and one where we can rely on each other to have the same broad goals, not the same random conclusion about life.

We, not the atheists and skeptics but we, humanity need this group to help push us forward. Humanity won't last without these elements of thought being combined.

Logic Priest

Violent Country

America is a violent country. So much that we only notice when someone kills a half dozen or more. In all the tens of thousands of "normal" murders each year we see nothing out of the ordinary. We as a country constantly resort to violent rhetoric in politics, we believe in a "right" to own weapons and we look the other way when people kill each other. The only time Americans seem to notice is when a brown person kills good, white, Christian Americans. Then they are terrorists, and we invade a country they may or may not have some relation to.

A Sikh temple was shot up, but still the news is cautious to call it terrorism. White supremacist shoots a group often confused with Muslims, our mortal enemies, and they wait on the FBI to call him a terrorist. It isn't just racism that is an issue here, it is the fact that Americans don't see it as an attack. Unless we can otherize the violence, it is just par for the course here.

Americans don't just kill each other, either. Our response to the deaths of three thousand was to invade an entire country, and then a second one on top of that. Hundreds of thousands dead in those countries, and no one bats an eyelash. People complain about the money it costs, which is an issue, or the soldiers on our side who die, which again IS a big deal, but they fail to mention or notice the thousands of civilians we murder in the name of patriotism. Americans don't see war as bad, they just hope for "just" war and cheap wars. Everyone looks to World War 2 as a "just" war because it is easy to otherize the Nazis, it is easy to play the good guys. They ignore the atrocities we as a nation committed and romanticize the war itself. In Europe, the world wars left a bitter taste that lasts to this day, making the vast majority of European nations hesitant to commit to any violent action, whether we call it a war or peacekeeping mission. They let go of their colonies for fear of military action, they dismantled their militaries, while the US immediately looked for more wars to fight. We are involved in major actions at least twice a generation now.

We kill each other with guns, we execute those people in retaliation. We kill nations of people who are different, and we glorify weaponry itself. We allowed, even encouraged a massive military industrial complex to be built up because we sat in anticipation of another world war, secretly hoping for it. American culture is very violent. We demonize war protestors as unamerican and unpatriotic, and dismiss them as radicals, hippies, and idealists. Talking about gun laws is tantamount to treason in our culture.

American culture may be consumed by our dark side, our lust for violence, or at least our acceptance of it. We are desensitized to death, showing temporary outrage at murder only to demand more murder to "fix" it. This may be in part from cultural manipulation by those with their profits on the line, namely the military industrial complex built by the second world war and the Cold War, but we are part of it too. We have bigger issues than "control" of guns. We need to find out how to fix our culture itself.

Logic Priest

I'm Not a Cynic

In both my personal life and on this shiny new blog, I complain a lot. I bitch about problems in both everyday life and on the national and global scales. I occasionally snark about it, I love the Colbert Report and Daily Show, who snark about it, and I don't go down very often to protects like #Occupy and such, although I follow the events around them longer than the media does. But I am not a cynic. A cynic looks out, expecting such disappointment and instead of rationalizing it, they just feel smug that they expected it. They get some measure of satisfaction that they, alone in this world, realize how shitty the world is. This is a bit funny, considering most of America at this point is at least cynical about our democracy. We all know our elected officials don't care about what we want unless we threaten revolution. They only cater to their main financial backers, and most political arguments are from this or that ideological point that we know won't ever make it to legislation, even while the politicians plaster said points on like badges.

But I am not a cynic. I see the general, inherent problems with a capitalistic democracy, or with most other systems. I see the same politicians, their same lies, the same general chaos world wide that the cynics see, I do expect it, but I don't feel superior by pointing it out. I point it out because it makes me angry. I don't feel smug, I feel rage. I hate how things are, from the poorest country with its small time warlords to our bloated military industrial complex and corporate interests running the country into oblivion. I am trying to speak out against it, and trying to discuss, or get involved in discussions, on what to do. Revolution must be planned. Revolution must be an evolution towards something better. There is a place between Lenin's revolution bloodbath and cynicism. Cynicism is another form of not caring. It is no better than the rationalizing masses the cynics love to feel better than. Cynics know that we are lied to, they know something is wrong, but they, like the "masses" rationalize and shy away from actual analysis. They enjoy the wrongness, and sit back and don't talk about it, or do anything about it.

A lovely quote from one of my favorite bloggers over at Freethoughtblogs, Crommunist, is:

We have been told that the shitty options we have are the only options, without any real explanation of         why that is. Communist or capitalist. Progressive liberal or reactionary conservative. Democracy or  n       fascism. These are definitely among the list of socioeconomic models, but they aren’t the sum total of things that we can do. And expressing the tired cynicism that accompanies any and all of the above options doesn’t move us anywhere, because they all accept the premise that we don’t have any alternatives.

Cynics rationalize just as hard as everyone else, they just get to feel smarter about it. Skeptics are often called cynics for pointing out what is wrong, but they are as far different as possible. Skeptics analyze and explore not just what but why are things wrong. Cynics notice a generalized wrongness and stop there.

So ya, I am not a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic. While I don't have a concrete solution to fix the insanely complex and widespread issues we as a species have, I am open to exploring what we can do. I spend a lot of energy trying to figure out why things are fucked. I hope to convert cynics to skepticism, even if they don't immediately become full on atheists, rationalists and progressives.

Logic Priest

Democracy

Democracy is a singularly unimpressive system. It tends to be just as oppressive for those who don't represent the ethnic, religious and cultural majority, especially women and children, and it tends to be built around a strong upper class. Democracies or republics, whichever you prefer for terminology (they are one in the same, regardless of what your grade school teacher claims) support the status quo just as much as any given monarchy or military run country.

Our democracy, in the US, is just a facade on top of an oligarchy. There always arises a class of wealthy, powerful people who overwhelmingly control policy, and sometimes it isn't even a bad thing. Sometimes the influence of the wealthy, as in the United States, can bring a measure of equality to marginalized groups who otherwise would remain marginalized forever. Usually this is for their own benefit, as well, but still some good can come from the oligarchy. For example, slavery only ended because the industrialized businesses of the Union preferred the cheaper, lower liability labor of poorly paid employees to the hassle and, in the long run, uneconomical slavery. The civil rights movement had some, if not much, success in part because it was beneficial for America to look less hypocritical when fighting for "freedom." International business was growing, and cooperation was difficult when at home the people you tried to deal with were less than human in your society. Civil rights was not well supported by the public, who preferred the status quo of women and non whites serving them.

The public, on the other hand, is even more attached to the status quo than the wealthy it helps. Change is hard, and it is frightening, and if a minimum level of comfort is maintained, the masses prefer to avoid change. The majority oppose civil rights and abortions and efforts to demarginalize non majority religions and the irreligious. The majority opposes acceptance of the "strange" such as transexuals and homosexuals or anything outside of the easy to understand social constructs of sexuality. The majority wants prayer in school, they dislike the idea of critical thought and changes, even ones which would help them, are opposed. And this is what makes them easily manipulated, easily led, easily lied to and what makes them follow the obvious oligarchy into oblivion.

This oligarchy is also incredibly bad for the majority, when it becomes overly short sighted. Of course policy will reflect some way to increase or maintain their power and wealth, but sometimes at the cost of their own long term health. Much of the changes in the industrial age were brought about by those better fit to think long term, who built up regulations and protected industries to avoid the crippling losses of the Great Depression. Many of the wealthy survived the crash in 1929, but many of them banded together and supported FDR in creating regulations, in spending government monies in order to rehabilitate the economy, and it positioned the US as the largest economy on earth. This long term thinking is rare, though. For the last several decades policy, against both self interest and majority opinions and interests, has been all about deregulation and moving away from a progressive tax structure. The wealthy have made themselves into victims, tried to convince the populous they are somehow blessed, as with the "divine right" of monarchs to rule.

These wealthy are only going to destroy themselves in the long run. Even a stupid majority will eventually notice, and even if they never revolt, a wrecked economy from the over concentration of wealth is no good for those who run it, either. If I have all of the money, it becomes worthless, and if I destroy industry to make money for myself, once more the currency becomes worthless and the economic collapse from stagnation and destruction don't help even the wealthiest. This kind of short sighted money making led to the Great Depression and will again, where many of the wealthy lost it all, too.

But aside from policy favoring the wealthy, aside from the gullibility and easily led nature of humanity, democracy makes little sense to begin with. It is however, ever so slightly better than monarchies, where one selfish monarch can destroy a nation, in democracies it takes many wealthy to do so.

Logic Priest

Funny Ends to Arguments

Human beings suck at being wrong. We have a lot of psychological baggage preventing us from gracefully accepting defeat in an argument, probably due to the negative consequences, socially in our distant past. We have built many forms of proper debate and argument to supposedly work around this, and all of science is really built specifically to alleviate this. But even scientists can become attached, and can become petty in their defense of wrong hypothesis. This all leads to rather sad, pathetic attempts to recoup a loss. What follows are the funniest.

1: "I'm done with you/this" or "I'm going to be the bigger man and (last wordism)" etc-
      This one would be fine if the argument had no clear answer, such as a topic with no evidence on either side yet, or one based purely on opinion. The problem is that it is often used to get the last word, where someone will say it a dozen times, failing to actually stop responding.

2: Ad hominems in general. They often take roundabout forms like "I make money/have a girlfriend" or "go get a life/real job/girlfriend" (financial and sexual assumptions abound).

3: My personal favorite, always make me laugh my ass off "I can do what I want/free country/freedom of speech/etc". This one is a really childish way of admitting you are wrong. If you cannot argue or leave peacefully (actually stopping is fine if it becomes annoying or stupid) but must withdraw to "I am allowed to be wrong" then you lose. End of story. I run into it constantly on Facebook and internet forums. One person keeps making points, good or bad, until the other, failing to have a counter argument says they are free to keep saying or doing or believing whatever, which was never the argument in the first place. They believe they have some freedom from critique, rather than the basic freedom to be stupid. Common in religious arguments or in anything with high emotional content, but it appears in other places. A good example from today, personally:

 I criticized someone for typing an illegible comment on a friends Facebook post. They replied claiming I had no life or money or something (it really was very hard to read). I pointed out that no one speaks the way he writes and that it isn't a matter of grammar or misspelled words, but deliberate obfuscation of his writing. Communication is about passing ideas, and erecting artificial barriers (such as uncommon spellings of words, randomly dropped vowels and word substitution) was just stupid. He then responded that he is a grown up (ok odd) and was allowed to type how he wanted.

The point obviously was some minor irritant of mine, nothing of real importance, but the fact that he retreated into being "allowed" because he was a grown up to type any way he pleased didn't really mean much. He had exactly zero points in his defense, he only threw ad hominems and retreated into his right to be wrong. Fine. Be wrong, but don't expect the rest of us to be silent about it.

Logic Priest

Poor Singularians

As an interested party in computer science, I love the idea of artificial intelligence. I know enough computational theory to know that AI is technically possible, there are many physical barriers to creating something we would recognize as 'intelligent.' I am, at heart, a materialist, and as such buy into emergence theory and such, but a theoretical possibility is not guaranteed to ever be invented. Our own bodies have nearly four billion years on us, although we could take a shorter path, since we have a deliberate goal in mind.

Alan Turing's hypothetical machine could emulate any system if you give it enough complexity, but that right there is where physical limits start to slow us down. Any computer you find lying around works on the same strict principles. Microscopic transistors store information simply by combining large patterns of on and off, 1 and 0. On is designated by an electron charge, off by a lack of one. While these transistors have become smaller and smaller over the decades, there is a physical limit on their size. Electrons do have a size themselves, and any material used to store them as a charge would in turn need to be a minimum size to not begin having quantum uncertainty issues, assuming the material itself doesn't do weird stuff that small. Many other complexities get in the way, such as bus speed, processor complexity, etc. In fact the binary nature of things, the 0s and 1s, increases complexity by a large magnitude compared to biological computers, with multi-state neurons in place of transistors (and other parts, as well. Neurons are multi-function.)

Assuming someone puts together a complex enough computer, we then come down to the software. In fact some have theorized we do in fact have the computing power, in the form of distributed computing (think large networks like the internet). This massive, distributed computing could, perhaps cooperate well enough towards a common set of goals or commands, so let us allow it for our hypotheticals. Now you have a mass of goo. Insane processing power, able to run millions of commands at once, approaching the complexity of organic computers. But now, unlike those organic computers, you need programs as a separate component. Within the structure of organic computers are certain instincts and drives, emotions and reactions. These are physically and chemically ingrained into the brain, which causes another issue we can examine later. Once more let us gloss over the issue of integration and use complex programs to emulate these biological impulses and structures. Ok, who codes this? Billions of years of admittedly messy code is still quite a project to emulate. Already the issue begins to become very, very clear.  Many, especially in computer science, assume it is just a matter of adaptive programming, where the programs can self modify, but they are the very people who should know better. An operating system, such as Windows XP (an old OS), has tens of millions of lines of code. The linux kernel alone has some 15 million plus lines of code.

So far we have a massive coding project, an insane network of computers, and we are still stuck with some issues of complexity. It really does keep coming back to complexity. To go back to biology, which has us beat so badly in the game of computing, PZ Myers at Phyrangula has a great post on the complexity of the brain. In his post:

You need to measure the epigenetic state of every nucleus, the distribution of highly specific, low copy number molecules in every dendritic spine, the state of molecules in flux along transport pathways, and the precise concentration of all ions in every single compartment. Does anyone have a fixation method that preserves the chemical state of the tissue?

The programs can, as Turing showed mathematically, emulate many of these functions, so let us pretend we managed to reach the requirements and have a working AI, most likely in some manner an emulation of a human. This AI now has whatever we thought would best model our own thought, but without the hormones, senses, or the entire rest of our nervous and limbic systems. This entity we have created now has in common with us only what we were able to emulate of ourselves. Perhaps it shows some form of our emotion, but the only thing emotional theories agree on in psychology is that they have a strong physiological component. I already mentioned the integration of the 'programs' and 'hardware' in biological brains, and despite program emulations of such, this self modifying entity will not cling very strongly to human biological urges, emotions, instincts or morals. 

I don't automatically assume the new intelligence is going to kill us all, because that requires a very human anger or hate. But with only logical backings and likely flawed programming, this AI will be very, very different from us. It won't have an extended body, it will probably skip much of our built in abstractions and it really won't have common ground for us to communicate with, aside from purely technical instructions. 

To really build an AI that we would recognize as such, we would need to emulate much of ourselves in it. We would need some pretend body and environment, some emulated limbic and nervous system (the brain is only PART of the nervous system, something most futurists forget). We would also need to build a completely different type of computer, one where the architecture is structurally tied to certain actions. Basically we would need to build a human body, but far more expensive. It would need DNA instructions, separate abstracted layers like our 'reptile' brain to work it's normal, computer functions and higher order processors for complex thought. 

None of this is to say AI is at all impossible. For one thing, this assumes we use transistor based computers, which may the only ones you or I can buy, but are not the only ones being researched and made. But this is to say AI is not some accidental programming error that could happen secretly on the internet, or in some military lab deep underground. And it is also to point out the philosophical differences between us and any AI. It probably won't like us, but it won't hate us either. Both of those require some measure of survival instinct, which an artificial construct won't really have. 

On the flip side, the point of the PZ Myers post I linked earlier makes is that due to this, as well as the scanning issue he discusses, we are not very close to 'uploading' our brains. We are more than memories in slide show presentations, we are more than our brain. We are our entire bodies, every cell and nerve and sensation. AI is possible because any system of enough complexity can emerge into intelligence, but we may have very little to say to it.

Logic Priest

Genealogy of Morals, Part 1

One of my favorite philosophical books is Frederich Nietzsche's "Genealogy of Morals" (Zur Genealogie der Moral). The basic purpose of the treatise is to outline the development of morality throughout history. Now, having been written in the 19th century, it makes a few historical errors, due to the poor state of archaeology in that time. Most historical sciences in that era were heavily distorted in order to 'prove' the notion that European culture and races were the best in some way or another, creating a void in Nietzsche's knowledge of other regions of the world. The basic premise, however, seems to have gained some amount of support from more modern archaeology and anthropology, but the book offers more of a description of morality throughout history rather than any provable hypothesis.  


From here we will deal with pure hypotheticals and descriptivist ideas. The next version of this post will attempt to put more links to scholarly articles, because I need a bit of time to find ones readily accessible without $50,000 dollar subscriptions.


There have been several anthropological hypothesis relating to how civilization formed. Most revolve around various forms of 'tribal alliances', describing how male tribal leaders would form hierarchical bonds with other tribal leaders. Basically a male who took charge of the tribe through strength or force of personality would recognize some benefit to being subservient to a stronger tribe, up through an advanced enough organizational structure to form early city states with kings of some form. This basic hypothesis existed back in Nietzsche's time, and he described the morality then, mostly from backwards extrapolation of known morals and philosophies of later city states, as a 'master' morality. Not as in some race or ethnicity, but as a class of people. Someone, by some nature of strength, took charge of these early societies, and as such they became the lines of nobility and royalty. 


The societies would then in a sense have been built by the strong, using the labor of the 'weak'. Any philosophy or moral system would represent this, with the nobility in this case having literally moved the majority into a safer arrangement than before, protecting them from roaming predators and tribes. From sources as ancient as these, you see a general praise for strength and all that was 'good' was associated with strength. Not necessarily a physical strength, so much as a strength of will. Evil was not so much even a concept, rather than good being described as the strong, who protected and took what they wanted, and the bad merely being the pitiable, the weak. Heroes from epic around this era were not good by modern standards, often being rather vicious and merciless. Odysseus for example, was represented as a good man in his epics, but by modern standards he would be considered a tyrant and a barbarian. Hercules, a staple hero, in his original incarnation would be counted among psychotics and serial killers.


Even through the classical empires, like Alexander's and the Roman's, strength was good and weakness was bad. This moral system is obviously in contrast to today's, where most power is considered evil if not derived from some agreement or constitution. Taking power is the mark of 'evil' men and while there was a minor burst of strength equals good morality in the 1980s business world, that only applied to a small, rich class while the rest of the world looked on in horror. Today, 'good' is the humble, the meek. Humility and faith are the highest virtues while wrath and ambition the worst sins. 


In the next post, I will expand on the 'master' morality, what it meant and what it means, and of course Nietzsche's take on it. I will also attempt to offer some links related to it. Following that, a post on the evolution of morals, then another on the 'slave' morality described as modern morals.