The Facile Eclectic

Cool Religion Blog

2007-12-19T19:21:16Z

Just ran across a cool blog for those interested in religion and how it's reported in the media. It's run by a number of professional religion journalists and has lots of interesting articles. One looked at a recent article saying that Fred Thompson was endorsed by 40 million US conservative Methodists. 40 million? Lets see the US population is roughly 300 million, 1/3 of whom(100 million) are conservative Christians, of whom roughly 1/2 are evangelical(50 million). Wow the Methodists are kicking the Babtists butts! In fact there are about 14 million Methodists in the US and that includes the liberal ones. It's an informative site and the commenters are usually intelligent and not prone to the normal ranting and raving. I recomend it to thinking relgious folks(of all stripes, Wiccans too!) and non-beleivers alike.

GetReligion.org

Thinking From The Gut

2007-12-18T19:33:28Z

Being the musing sort that I am I tend to think a lot. Sometimes I even think about thinking. Lately I've been musing about the difference between rational systems or logic and the more limbic mode of thought people often refer to as "thinking from the gut". People, especially here in the states, place a very high trust in their instincts. Americans a very good at responding to their emotions and very poor at using reason to make decisions. A good example is the abstinence only sex education policy promoted by our current, frontal lobe challenged, president and widely accepted by the public. The argument for "abstinence only" is based on an ethical belief about sex and an assumption that children will do as they are taught. Both of these are what's called an a priori argument and therefore logically flawed. A priori is a term used in philosophy and has a number of meanings but in this case I'm using it to refer to an argument or assumption that is not supported by evidence from the real world. "Abstinence only" relies on the assumption that sex is a behavior that exists within an ethical framework. For a behavior to be ethical(or unethical) it shouldn't occur outside of a system of ethics. Charity would be a good example of such a behavior. Animals* aren't normally charitable but most human cultures value charity as an ethical act and it always exists within an ethical framework. Sex on the other hand occurs all over the natural world in the total absence of any ethics. In humans, other than the prohibition against pedophilia(pre pubescent children), sexual morays have varied widely over time and culture and aren't ethically systematized. Therefore sex is technically not an ethical(or unethical) act. The second assumption of "abstinence only" is that teenagers can be taught not to have sex. There is no evidence from the real world that this is possible. While it is possible to modify some behaviors in animals and people, certain behaviors are wired so deeply into our brains that they're practically impossible to subvert. These are the basic drives such the need for food, shelter and of course the drive to reproduce. A human being may choose to starve himself but it's pretty hard to teach him that food is something he can do without and to ignore his hunger as his body slowly dies. One can deduce from this that some teenagers are going to have sex. In fact a recent survey showed about half of teenagers reported having had sex. The same numbers reported before "abstinence only". So in fact a lot of teenagers have sex. Some numbers have changed however. Now that kids don't have easy access birth control as they once did the rates of pregnancy and STD's have risen sharply among teens. So how do we end up with such foolish policies? Whenever policy is guided by faith or any other a priori assumptions about the world we will be doomed to bad governance. The founding fathers were very aware of this fact and designed our system to promote reason and reign in governance based on "passion". But the system only works when leaders are motivated and capable of exercising reason. Thomas Jefferson also knew that education was critical. But his notion of education was very different from the schools we now have. He included philosophy, especially epistemology, ethics, and logic, as a cornerstone to any good education. He was right. It's time we started teaching children how to think for a change instead of teaching them what to think.

* Of course higher primates and dolphins seem to display charitable behavior but one can also argue that they posses a primitive ethical culture similar to human beings.

Tis The Season to buy Useless Crap

2007-12-14T21:55:59Z

When my wife left her job due to health reasons two years ago we made some major changes to our lifestyle. First we moved to the country on to a piece of land that my Father gave to me for the price of paying off the note, about a fifth of it's value. We cashed in our savings and payed off our mortgages and moved into a small cabin. We now live off a modest income from renting our old home and the small amounts my part time efforts bring in. We live on a fourth of what we used to. Our time these days is spent raising sheep, growing vegetables and working on our ongoing improvements to the property. We don't use credit cards, we don't go out to eat like we used to, we don't hire service folks much as I take care of most of the repairs, and we don't shop for things we don't need. We prepare and raise our own food. We get lots of exercise and full nights of sleep. We read more books. We get entertainment value watching new born animals play and watch a lot less TV. We're both thinner, healthier, and happier and we don't own an Ipod. In short we're gradually unplugging ourselves from the consumer culture. And the funny thing is, I don't miss it.

I notice the change in myself most at this time of year. When I go to the big box stores what used to be "must haves" look like superfluous junk and clutter. All the new electronics don't have any pull at all, I'll get a new TV when the old one dies, and I certainly don't need two. Why rush for that christmas DVD release and plunk down twenty dollars when next year I'll get it at a garage sale for $1. I can wait. I've become immune to the urgency that mass marketing instills in people. I've become immune to the advertisers siren song telling me I'm a failure as a human being if I don't have a new SUV like my neighbor. The value of a vehicle drops by half in the first year, buying a new car is insane. I buy used trucks without power widows and gadgets(just more stuff to break down) and drive them into the ground. A car is something that performs a function but it shouldn't be part of your identity. But that is the only identity most people have. They have nothing in their lives that identifies them as a unique human being other than their spending profile stored in a merchants computer database. The counter argument of course is consumerism keeps the economy growing and keeps people employed. Well at the rate that automation is progressing those jobs won't be around for long. In the near future machines will take care of most material production and soon most information jobs as well. These days most telemarketing calls and customer service are automated. Online shopping is largely automated and soon the shipping warehouse will be too. Eventually we'll be giving people unnecessary jobs just to keep them busy and keep the system going( I would argue that to some extent this is already true). In addition our current system wastes huge amounts of energy, material, and time(rush hour comes to mind) and it is rapidly degrading our environment. It can't go on forever. It's instructive to remember that money and economies are a human invention, and an ancient one at that. How many 6000 year old techniques for civilization do we still use? Clay tablets? no. Hamurabbis code? no. God incarnated rulers? no. Slaves? no. God forbid if we still used ships with oars. It's time to start moving to new more mature idea of civilization or risk the collapse of the one we have. It's time put consumerism in the dust bin of history. We'll all live a lot longer.

Why We Should Grow Old

2007-12-09T23:35:28Z

If your plugged in to the realms of super nerd-dom like I am then you might of heard of Ray Kurzweils singularity. Mr. Kurzweils contention is that the accelerated rate of technological progress is leading to a boundary point, or singularity, that will mark a fundamental change in human history. Sometime around 2050, by his reckoning, things will progress to the point where biological aging can be reversed and technological enhancements to our minds will enable us to evolve to a new level of human consciousness. I might go into how likely I think this scenario is in the future but suffice it to say that since Ray started making these predictions in the early eighties his track record has been quite prescient and his anticipation of trends in technology have made him a wealthy man. The proof is always in the pudding. My main interest is in one aspect of his prediction, the control of aging. I think most folks in their 70's or older would definitely opt for a younger more functional body but what about 18 year olds? Would they opt to never experience the process of aging? I think this would be a mistake for a number of reasons. At the heart of the problem I think is the mind body connection. Increasingly AI folks and philosophers who study consciousness have begun to realize that having a body is necessary for having a mind. We have all seen bodies without a mind, say a dead human being or a rock, but have you ever seen a mind without a body? The sensory experiences we have are fundamental in forming the patterns of our mind. I would argue that the wisdom that comes with time is not simply the acquisition of experience in general. It also must include the biological aspects of the aging process. For example when a man passes from young adult hood to middle age testosterone levels fall and physical strength diminishes slightly. This leads to a cooling off of the sex drive and the aggression of youth and opens one up to new possibilities in relationships with women, new possibilities of contemplative thought, etc. As one passes into old age and the loss of physical vitality one can attain a deeper appreciation of ones life, the lives of others, and a deeper empathy for the vulnerability of ones fellow beings. This is of course from a male perspective but there are correlaries for female aging. I think these types of experiences are necessary to form a fully mature human mind. I think a world populated by eternal 18 year olds that never experienced the physical slings and arrows of time might be a pretty scary place. In that not too distant possible future I think reaching a ripe old age should be a prerequisite for receiving the boon of eternal youth.

Why Do We Proselytize?

2007-11-18T22:14:08Z

Why do people proselytize? The term in it's religious context means to convert someone from another belief to your own religion or creed. Outside of religion attempts to convert are also going on all the time. Conservatives try to convert liberals, feminists try to convert men and Coke wants to convert Pepsi drinkers. Indeed I would say the need to proselytize lies at the heart of every type of debate large or small. We always want the other person to see things our way. The motives for this seem blurry at times. Most religions say they want to convert their fellow beings to prevent eternal damnation, continuous reincarnation or some other cosmic calamity. Politicians of all stripes say their point of view is the only one that will prevent the destruction of society and therefore they must save the rest of us from ourselves. But given that proselytizing almost almost always includes some form of threat, veiled or otherwise, it seems unlikely to me that altruism is the motive. There are practical reasons for it. A church can't survive without enough members to pay the bills anymore than a corporation can survive without customer loyalty and shareholders. But if the practical needs are met for the group, why continue to convert new members? Indeed human groups are not satisfied unless everyone is "in" and no-one is "out" even if the out group is such a small minority as to pose no tangible threat. This speaks a lot to why intolerance is so prevalent among human beings. If another group is impotent why not simply ignore them and go about your business? There are plenty of theories on this from anthropology and behavioral psychology, mostly involving complicated ideas about group and individual identities and deep psychological needs carried over through evolution. I don't dispute any of this. I am not a scientist or a theologian, just a musing musician. I'm interested in the subjective need to convert others to one's point of view and I think it comes down to uncertainty. No matter how well we've examined our data and our reasoning. No matter how well we've argued our theology, philosophy, or politics. No matter how we have questioned the assumptions that form our personal view of ourselves. There is always doubt. Deep down we know we're always on thin ice. One new observation, fact, idea or revelation can bring the whole thing crashing down. It only takes a small stream of water to compromise the integrity of a dam and wash away all we once thought we knew. As long as there is one unbeliever, one holdout, one dissenter there is always the possibility that some flaw might be revealed that would shatter our sense of self and group into a thousand pieces. In this way those who hold differing points of view become an intolerable threat to us. A threat we must unconsciously always defend ourselves against. This also makes "if you can't beat em, join em" a sound strategy for survival. That is why I think we proselytize. Speaking of proselytizing. I think tonight I'll invite some vegetarians over for barbecued lamb.

Windows is the Ford Pinto of OS's

2007-11-18T20:54:40Z

Just today I finished recovering my wife's PC from a rather nasty bit of malware that had completely corrupted her hardrive My wife, I'm afraid, has always been a Mac user so she is unaware of the darker side of computing that haunts Windows users. She said "This window popped up and said I needed to download something, so I did". To quote Charlie Brown "AAAAARGH!". On to the always joyful task of reformatting the hardrive and installing the system from scratch. This took five hours. I've done this on my Macs recently and the process takes less than 2. In addition the recovery script was buggy and I had to massage it a number of times along the way. This has been my Windows experience in general in the two months since I got this machine. When the thing does an update the desktop flickers and icons flash in and out of existence for no apparent reason. It's like the machine is prone to epileptic seizures. Despite a 2ghz AMD dual core, the system is also painfully slow. And god forbid if you click the mouse too many times during one these arduous background processes. The thing will seize up like a reptile thrown into a bucket of ice water. It's clunky, slow, poorly designed, the graphics are cheesy, it blows up at the slightest provocation ...... And then it struck me. It's a Pinto. Windows is the Ford Pinto of computer OS's and Bill Gates must be the greatest huckster of all time. He's managed to convince most people in the world that a vehicle thats poorly designed, under powered, has a tendency to self destruct, and is just plain ugly, is the one to buy simply because it is cheaper. Imagine the world if he had worked at Ford instead. They could have just changed out some plastic wheel covers, added fuzzy dice and bolted on some curb feelers every five years, then call it a new car! And with Bill's PR campaign to play down the explosion issue, they could have sold the same vehicle for twenty years at an enormous profit. You know, you rarely see a Pinto on the road these days. It seems folks have more sense when it comes to cars.

Holy Matrix! I am in a Computer!

2007-11-10T14:10:49Z

There's fairly recent theory in physics called quantum loop gravity. It doesn't have a lot of traction yet in the physics community and is by no means close to being proven. It does however make one prediction that caught my attention. It implies that below the level of the quantum flux, which is thought to give rise to all forms of matter and energy, there might be nothing but pure information. In other words, the universe might be a giant quantum computer with no real physicality. This brought to mind an essay I read 20 years ago in Douglas R. Hofstadter's, "The Minds Eye". The essay begins with the premise of a powerful enough computer to run a simulation program that would create a universe like our own. To the inhabitants of this simulation everything would appear as it does to us and therefore they would not be aware of existing inside a computer program. I've been wondering lately what a physicist inside the program might see. You might see simulated atoms, made of simulated particles, made of simulated quarks, etc. until finely the software code itself. This would be limit of what you could learn about your simulated universe from the inside. In other words it would look like what quantum loop theory predicts. Maybe the Buddhists where right all a long. A computer also implies a maker but not necessarily the one we usually think of. If human beings can conceive of a way to make universes in a bottle then the maker of ours may be no more divine than us. And what is the purpose of a computer universe? Perhaps we live in somebody else's version of a video game. I think a lot of us have suspected the universe is a bit out of whack all along. It brings to mind the last message of God to his creation before he left in Doug Adams "Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy". "So long, and sorry for all the mess!"

Free CD's, Sign of Times Past part 3

2007-11-09T15:46:35Z

In the late eighties I was fortunate to witness a digital revolution in the making. As a kid I'd been dabbling with recording technology since middle school and I was always attracted to the idea of being able to create a professional recording at home. By the early eighties the standard in pro studios was the 24 track DASH digital recorder. It was capable of 20 bit resolution and automated editing but the cost of such a machine was about $500,000 or more. At this time a 3 bedroom home cost around $60,000, obviously access to this type of equipment was only available to a few. By the late eighties we did have access to some semi-pro analog gear that was good but not up to pro audio standards. The piece of gear we most needed at the time was a good reverb unit. Professional digital models cost several thousand dollars and analog units really hadn't changed much since the sixties. The cost of digital reverb had to do the complexity of converting analog sound to digital data and applying the sophisticated algorythms required to simulate a convincing reverb pattern. With processor power low a reverb unit was a collection of multiple computers, one to convert analog to digital, one to process the algorythm, and one to convert digital back to analog. Each computer stage had a seperate processor, ram memory, rom memory, and other associated components. In a stereo unit this entire architecture was duplicated. This made these devices very expensive to build. What changed in the late eighties was the invention of two new electronic components. The first was analog to digital converters that were completely contained on a single chip. But the really important device was the DSP(digital signal processor) which performed the complicated task of simulating a complex reverb pattern on a single chip. The result of all of this was the Alesis Microverb. It was a good quality digital reverb and at $100 it cost only 5% of the price of previous units of its quality. It was quickly followed by many other effects units of various types and other manufacturers quickly joined in. Within a few years a musician could have a reasonable facsimile of a $500,000 effects rack for about $3000. The major sea change was the result of another Alesis product, the black face ADAT. ADATs used digital VHS technology to record 8 tracks of 16bit audio on an inexpensive cassette. These units could be linked together to record as many tracks as needed. The resolution was not as good as DASH machines but since CD's are made at 16bit resolution, the end consumer really couldn't tell the difference. For $3000 you could have 24 tracks of digital recording capacity. Compare that to the $500,000 price tag of a DASH machine and you get the idea. When Eddie Brickel and the new Bohemians recorded there first album on ADATs the cat was out of the bag. What followed was an explosion of home studios. For the first time in the record business the means of production was no longer the exclusive domain of the folks with deep pockets.

Free CD's, Sign of Times Past part 2

2007-11-07T19:05:10Z

In my last post I covered the history of the record industry up to the 1960's. At the beginning of the sixties recordings where still a way of capturing a live performance. Basically you got the band or orchestra in a room along wih the the vocalist(s), miked everything up, and mixed directly to a stereo tape recorder. After the development of multitrack recorders it became possible to do more. You could for instance sing a second vocal part with yourself after you recorded the first. This meant recordings could be made that could not be duplicated live. In this way records evolved into a more complex artform. A few early examples are Brian Wilson's "Pet Sounds" and the Beatles "Sergent Pepper". In addition new technoligies like synthesisers gave muscicians an increasing range of sonic possibilties. By the seventies artists like Stevie Wonder where producing recordings where a single artist performed all the various parts of the piece. This trend led to the conclusion by industry people that sales could be grown by increasingly perfecting and improving recording thechnology and audio quality. This drove up production costs and increased sales where needed to offset those costs. As a result, starting in the seventies, more money was put into promotion. Concert touring took on new dimensions. Even when the tour lost money it was considered a good investment to sell the product, records. When MTV came along it added another expensive layer to the industry business model. This is when sales hit their peak. It all culminated with Michael Jacksons "Thriller". It had all the ingredients, high production values due to Quincy Jones expert hand in the studio, a massive world tour, an award winning video, and even a high profile product endorsment. We will never see it's kind again which in my opnion is not a bad thing. The reasons for this, as most young folks know, is digital technology. If you think I'm talking about CD's you are wrong.

CD's where a big improvement in audio quality and industry folks thought that people would be willing to pay more for that improvement. They anounced the death of the LP record was iminent and would soon go the way of the 8-track. For engineers like myself they where great. For eus the holy grail has always been acoustic accuracy and CD's made that possible for the first time. Now you can hear on your home system exactly what I hear when I'm mixing a project. Other media like LP's and analog tape always lose some acoustic quality in reproduction and aren't faithful to the orginal master recording. The problem is that this sublety is lost on most music lisenters. They really care about a good song or a piece of music that moves them. LP's already sounded "good" and CD's sounded different but not necessarily better. In addition CD's where more expensive than records. The only reason people bought them is because the major record labels stopped making vinyl. CD's became the only game in town. And with the costs of recording, promoting, and production so high, no independent could play the game. The only source for music was the major labels. Thats what really changed and it didn't start with the internet. It really started with musicians. Tune in next time for the conclusion.

Free CD's, Sign of Times Past part 1

2007-11-06T17:50:07Z

With bands opting to sell their recordings themselves for next to nothing, and rampant piracy everywhere, its no wonder record companies are in a panic. The old business model of selling an album as the principle product is rapidly disappearing. Many artists have begun to realize that their principle income is derived from the performance of their material and not from CD sales. In any case, whats to lose, since the labels always got the larger share of the pie? I would contend that this state of affairs was inevitable and record labels have fundamentally misunderstood what the principal product they are selling is for a very long time.

A brief history of the record biz. In the early days of Edison recordings the machines where expensive and the drums were difficult to make. They were viewed as a pricey novelty. Things got better with the introduction of flat disks but they were still pricey. At that time most artists made their living from live performances. Records where a promotional tool, something to give away at concerts in hopes of luring ticket buyers who might get an expensive souvenir in a drawing. It wasn't until later, as disk sales increased, that people realised records could make money. These were the golden days when selling a few thousand copies could net you substantial profits. In a time before radio and television many people would pay the substantial price of a recording in order to hear a popular artist who they probably would never hear in person. The performance was still the product, the record was just a means of delivering it to a wider audience. Then came radio and things changed. People now heard their favorite artists for free no matter where they happened to live. However recordings still offered the convenience opf hearing your favorite performer any time you like without depending on the whims of the programmers. The technology was getting cheaper and more widespread as well. As a result record sales continued to grow as did the profits. The record companies continued to inovate their product into the television age. They increased the length of time that could be placed on a single disk while simultaneously making them cheaper. More bang for your buck! Then came stereo Hi-Fi and improved audio quality making it seem more like you where really there in person. Then came the 45rpm single. They we're extremily cheap and the phonographs that played them where inexpensive enough for parents to buy them for their kids. They really where the I-Pod of their day. Bubble Gum Babylon(term for the teenage market) was born. Sales of these singles reached volumes that we're never seen till then. They became the standard by which artist success was measured and gave birth to the Billboard charts. At this point we've arrived at the early sixties. Up till now the record industry had stayed profitable, despite competition by other media, by contniously innovating their product and finding new markets to exploit. Sales levels continued to grow and would for sometime more. In my next post I'll take you to the industries peak and explain why I think it went wrong.

Of Facts and Fictions

2007-11-05T16:01:39Z

Recently I got involved in an in-promptu discussion with my doctor about the current debate over health care. During the course of this my doctor asked where I had gotten the information I was using to support my argument. My facts did not agree with what he thought he knew about the issue. I responded that if I had known we were going to have a debate I would of prepared a bibliography. The sources I access are too numerous to recall off the top of ones head. I've found over the course of my life growing up in the information age that this has become a serious problem. It seems that what we think we know to be true is increasingly nothing but a fiction. The internet has given us access to huge volumes of information but as yet we do not have the tools to gauge the quality of that information. Previous generations where able to do this more easily when all information was in the form of the printed word. Even the traditional method of using reputable sources is becoming less effective in determining truth. As an example, if I want medical information I might go to a well established medical journal as a source to inform me on the best diet to eat. What I find is thousands of studies from molecular nutrient interactions on up to population studies showing various links between diet and disease, nutrients and disease, etc. Many of these make conclusions that may or may not be causal which means thousands more studies are required to understand the various mechanisms involved just to prove carrots are actually good for you. You could sift for a lifetime and not find a definitive answer to any question you pose.

Another disturbing phenomenon is how incorrect information spreads so quickly that it lodges in our group mind before any correction can hope to root it out. A recent example was the "Jena six" story which I started following a full week before it bubbled up to the national level. In early local reporting teachers and students said that students of both races had gathered under the what was later dubbed "the whites only tree" for many years before the noose incident. The nooses where probably not hung there because it was a "whites only" tree, they where more likely hung there because it was in fact the only tree on campus. This small fact does not signifacantly alter the overall story of the "Jena six" whatever your opinion of the situation. But it amazed me how quickly once the story broke how many times I saw "whites only tree" repeated in hundreds of reports and blogs. In all the reports I read from across the world it was repeated and no-one backtracked the story to correct it. It would be pointless now anyway. It is an established fact that Saddam Hussein had no part in the 9-11 attacks but to this day, like most americans, my wife thinks that fiction is true. The ancient Greeks discovered the earth is round but most continued to think it was flat for another 2000 years. The information was never lost, it just took that long to change the old point of view. How many flat earth fictions are we carrying around in our heads now that the internet makes disseminating them so easy and rapid? More importantly, how long will it take for us to root them out?