My epistemic beliefs

Existence vs Non-existence
Nothingness as non-existence is, strictly speaking, inconceivable. It's impossible to make any statements about something without assuming its existence. I have written much more about this point elsewhere, and I will not duplicate the effort here.

1) The universe exists. [Axiom]


Order vs Chaos
What is order? In simple terms, the ordered is that which follows a pattern, and a pattern is that which can be logically reduced or compressed to more (perhaps arbitrarily) basic propositions. Chaos is the inverse of order, meaning the chaotic does not follow a pattern and cannot be logically reduced or compressed. Is the universe ordered or chaotic? Does the universe follow patterns or not? Can the universe be logically reduced or compressed to basic propositions? If we assume that the universe is ordered, no amount of evidence or reasoning can be used to show the necessary veracity of that claim, for bits of order can be imagined or projected upon otherwise total chaos, and any evidence for order is not necessarily evidence against chaos. That's what Hume argued, at least. In this sense, the theory that the universe is ordered fails the Popperian falsibility test, and thus is not (necessarily) a proper scientific claim. If we cannot show that the universe is ordered beyond a shadow of a doubt, can we perhaps show that it is chaotic in some way? To do that we'd need to provide an instance of chaos with either logical reasoning or physical evidence. In the case of logical reasoning, it's highly problematic if not outright impossible to show something as being chaotic. How can you prove that something doesn't follow a pattern and can't be logically reduced? More importantly, how can you logically construct an object that follows no pattern? It seems that if you can use logic to construct an object, then it must necessarily follow a pattern and must therefore be ordered. Since it's seemingly impossible to use logic to construct something chaotic, the implication is that chaos must be illogical. But even though we can't provide an instance of chaos with reasoning, perhaps we can through physical evidence. Many people point to radiation as a sign of the fundamental existence of chaos. But our understanding of physics is incomplete, and it may just be that we haven't found the proper way to predict when a radioactive particle will decay. No amount of physical evidence could prove that the universe is chaotic and doesn't have some sort of underlying order. So as with the case of assuming order, we find that the theory the universe is chaotic fails the falsibility test, and is thus not a proper scientific claim. But the universe must be one way or the other. It can't both not be ordered and not be chaotic. Intuitively, the universe definitely seems to be ordered, and rationally we can't even produce an instance of chaos, thus it's safe to assume that the universe is in fact ordered even if proving that claim is problematic. (Pragmatically, it's useful to claim that the universe is both ordered and chaotic depending on the realm of inquiry, but by definition the universe as a whole could only logically be one way or the other).

2) The universe is ordered. [Axiom]


The Finite vs the Infinite
The finite is relatively easy to describe: it is that which is limited or bounded. The infinite is the inverse of the finite, meaning it is that which is without limit or boundary. In practical application for every-day use, this is a very easy definition to understand and apply. For instance, each unit of time is finite, but time itself is infinite (or so it seems). But philosophically we must ask what it could possibly mean to have or not have a limit. A limit is something that constrains or restricts an object or set. In this way, a limit explicitly defines characteristics of an object or set. You could say that to place a limit on an object is to narrow and refine its definition. For instance, when I say "Thomas John Reasoner" I'm referring to a very limited set of people, namely me (and possibly other accidents of history). If I merely say "Thomas", I'm referring to a much less limited set of people, the people named Thomas, but that set is still finite. I could go on and remove more and more limits to expand the set I'm referring to until I eventually refer to (nearly?) the entire universe. But what about something that is absolutely unlimited and infinite? Based on my current argument, such a thing would be undefined, since limits are needed to explicitly define something, and any statements or propositions about such a thing would also be undefined and meaningless. If no meaningful statements can be made about an infinite thing, can the thing even be conceived of? My answer is no. At this point, a clear objection can be made that modern mathematics is completely dependent on the existence and definition of the infinite, and an example of the set of all numbers could be given as an instance of the infinite. But that objection conflates two subtly different notions of the infinite. In practice, mathematical calculations using "the infinite" as an operand somewhere are done in finite time. The concept of infinity in mathematics is used like a finite entity: it has a definition and is itself limited by that definition. The example of the infinite set of numbers is a red herring, because in practice infinite sets of numbers can be and are described by finite algorithms, and thus are not truly "without limit". One last objection can be raised at this point that the set itself has an unlimited number of numbers in it, and is thus infinite. But how can the assertion of that objection be known? Can we explicitly enumerate all of the numbers in an infinite set even in theory? Of course not, because then it wouldn't be "infinite", in the sense framed by the objection. If we can't enumerate the entire set of elements, then how can we even conceive of it? Certainly we do use infinite sets in mathematics, but only in so much as we use the algorithms that imply them, such as the recursive algorithm that takes the previous number and adds 1 to it, which implies an infinite set of natural numbers. We do not and can not use the infinite set in itself for any calculations. Every algorithm used in mathematics is finite, and though they may imply infinite sets, they cannot enumerate them in finite time, and thus the idea of the infinite as absolutely without limit cannot be conceived of, even theoretically, unless to equate it with the undefined.

3) The universe is finite. [Axiom]


Time and States
Since the universe is finite, there must necessarily be a finite (yet extremely vast) number of states the universe could possibly be in. Each state can be considered to be a single, smallest unit of time, thus implying that time is finite as well. Since time is finite, it must either have a beginning and ending or be periodic and cyclic. If the universe has a beginning and ending, that implies that it began from non-existence and will end in non-existence. But we know from the first axiom that non-existence is inconceivable, thus the universe could not have a beginning and ending, and must therefore be periodic and cyclic.

4) The universe is periodic and cyclic. [From 1 and 3]


More to follow...

A response to arguments for God

Someone from my old job, let's call him Joe Blow, wrote:
"It is absurd to believe that nothing created something."


Me:
Correct. "Nothing" as defined as the inverse of "something" is not conceptually coherent, i.e. it's inconceivable. Therefore, no coherent statements can be made about "nothing".


Joe:
"THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
MAJOR PREMISE: Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
MINOR PREMISE: The universe began to exist.
CONCLUSION: Therefore, the universe has a cause.

The major premise needs no defense since it meets the requirements of a properly basic assertion. That is to say, one does not give evidence for the obvious."


Me:
You earlier stated "It is absurd to believe that nothing created something." Your major premise asserts just that. How can something "begin to exist"? "Non-existence", as is with the case of "nothingness", is inconceivable. There is no inverse of "existence". Your major premise is incoherent.


Joe:
"The minor premise is supported by several facts:
1) The second law of thermodynamics (the universe is cooling off, which implies a finite amount of time [if the universe were eternal, why did it not cool off an infinite amount of time before now?])"


Me:
Thermodynamics states that the total energy of a system remains constant. Currently, the universe is observed to be "cooling", but that just means that the energy is being transfered from one metric to another, like a muscle transferring chemical energy to thermal, electrical, kinetic, and potential energies in varying quantities. Since the universe is "cooling", we can infer that it must have been "hotter" in the past, and since there is finite energy in the universe, there is a maximum "hotness" the universe could have been in the past, but there is also a maximum "coolness" or minimum "hotness" the universe could be in the future. The universe is periodic and cyclic on every single observable level (emphasis on observable), and it would be a fallacy of reason to tacitly assume that it isn't also periodic and cyclical on that grand a scale. It's true there is no "evidence" beyond what we see on a relatively small-scale level that the universe is cosmologically cyclical, but you can't discount the possibility without fierce argument.

Did time "begin"? Again you are claiming that at some point (in time?) that a thing (in this case, "time" itself) did not exist. This idea is still incoherent.


Joe:
"2) The red shift indicates that the universe is expanding (implying an initial point [read Big Bang] from which the expansion began),
3) The radiation echo (the sonic remnants of an initial explosion [again, read Big Bang])."


Me:
No problems here.


Joe:
"Assenting to the major and minor premises, one draws the obvious conclusion that the universe has a cause. One need not be a Christian to draw that conclusion; the pagan philosopher Aristotle also concluded that the universe has an uncaused cause (though he supported the minor premise with arguments from actuality and potentiality)."


Me:
An "uncaused cause" would lead to infinite energy, like a perpetual motion machine. Newton showed us that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so how can something produce an action through causation, and yet remain inert to any opposite causal reaction? If something is "uncaused", then it is not causal. If something causes something else, then it is causal. A thing can not be both causal and not causal, therefore, "uncaused cause" is self-contradictory.

The universe is causal, and since causality is reciprocal, and the term "universe" encompasses everything by definition, the universe must be self-causating. There is no "first" cause, just as there is no beginning to a periodic waveform.


Joe:
"To ask, 'Who created God?' is to commit a category mistake. The major premise states, 'Everything that begins to exist has a cause.' God did not begin to exist; he exists eternally. Atheists cannot complain about this claim of eternality since, prior to Hubble and Humason's discovery of the red shift, they gleefully declared the universe to be eternal. Nor can anyone complain that this is merely a Christian bias since Aristotle, a pagan, also claimed that the universe's cause had to be, itself, uncaused and eternal."


Me:
The universe exists, and it is eternal in that aspect, but it is also self-causing. This does not mean it created itself. It means that all of the internal physical forces and mechanisms are reciprocal and cyclic. The universe is a single vast mass of correlations. Why does it exist? As I like to put it, "a thing is justified by its own existence."


Joe:
"THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
MAJOR PREMISE: Everything that shows specified complexity has a designer.
MINOR PREMISE: The universe shows specified complexity.
CONCLUSION: Therefore, the universe has a designer."


Me:
By a similar argument, the designer would have a designer, since it shows specified complexity, and that designer would have a designer, and so on. You would have quite a pantheon. The problem with this kind of argument is that "specified complexity" is already defined with a designer in mind. A thing cannot even show "specified complexity" except to a designer. Complexity is not a quality that is inherent to a thing, it is a relative category such as "bigness", and is merely perceived. A thing is only complex relative to something else and from a particular perspective (which requires an agent/designer to perceive it). Any particular pattern has no design except what an agent chooses to ascribe to it. Anything can be sat on and thus used as a chair, but that does not mean that everything was "designed" to be a chair. A thing only attains a design or a purpose when there's an agent to give it one. The ones and zeros inside a computer have no meaning except the meaning we choose to give to them. The fact that we can manipulate things for a purpose does not mean that things have an intrinsic purpose. Complexity, design, and purpose are not intrinsic characteristics. If the universe shows "specified complexity", it's because we're the designers who attribute that quality to it.


Joe:
"THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
This argument proceeds from the observation that man is everywhere a worshipper. The phenomenon of religion implies that worship is part of man's nature.

C. S. Lewis called this the argument from desire. He noted that the fact that we experience thirst is proof we are creatures for whom drinking water is natural. In the same way, the fact that we desire an object that our natural world cannot supply (God) suggests the existence of another, supernatural world. Our desire does not guarantee we will achieve that other world, but it strongly suggests that we are creatures who are capable of achieving it and who were in some sense made to achieve it.

Plugging these observations into Aristotle's hierarchy of causation (material, efficient, formal, and final), we find that this desire for God neatly fits the final cause category. Aristotle taught that nature does nothing pointlessly. Therefore, the inborn desire for God points infallibly to God's existence."


Me:
This argument is laden with brash assumption. What is the desire that drives a person to worship? Maybe it's the search for truth, maybe it's peer pressure, maybe it's fear, maybe it's habit, maybe it's the power of suggestion. To me it's fairly obvious that man is not everywhere a worshipper (of C. S. Lewis' notion of spirituality), so I dispute that claim outright. I also dispute the tacit implication that those who do "worship" all desire the same thing, or are worshipping the same thing. The "thirst" that C. S. Lewis is describing is actually a multitude of desires all crammed under the same label. Work is worship. Play is worship. Beauty is worship. Love is worship. Life is worship. Basically, everything that people desire is worship. You can call all of man's desire "God" if you want, but that definition of "God" should not be conflated with the very specific definition described in the bible and other dogmatic texts. The "inborn desire for God" is really just the inborn desire for things that man desires. After all, why do people want to join God in His heavenly kingdom? If you don't live a moral life for its own merits, then you're doing it because of coercion. If you live well for yourself and others, then God and Heaven are irrelevant.

A reponse to the distinction between a priori and a posteriori

My response to an argument about the distinction between a priori and a posteriori:
First of all, let's figure out exactly what "a priori representations" are. A representation is an extremely flexible thing. For instance, what does the number '1' represent? Well, it could represent the American Civil War, or it could represent the smell of curly fries, and in actuality, it doesn't represent anything in particular. If anything, the number '1' represents a contrast in quantity from the number '0' (or any other number, for that matter) through a functional relation or function space. But in simpler terms, the number '1' has an isomorphic representation in the physical world to a certain quantity of things in a class. It could have near-infinite, isomorphic representations in the physical world, but we don't really have the capacity to recognize them all. The main point to draw from this is that a priori objects, such as the number '1', have near-infinite, isomorphic representations in the physical world, and conversely, the physical world has near-infinite, isomorphic, a priori representations. None of that is really disputable, except for maybe the "near-infinite" part. But here's where the controversy starts. I claim that a priori objects are themselves part of the physical world, since physical minds are needed to conceive of them. The physical mind itself is an isomorphic representation of the reality around it. In fact, each sub-atomic particle in the universe, in the absurd case, can be considered to be an isomorphic representation of the universe. How is that possible? It's possible by the sheer fact that every sub-atomic particle is linked and communicates with each other through physical forces. We are all right now experiencing the forces exerted on us by particles on the other side of the universe. We even *know* of their existence by that fact. Knowing and consciousness wouldn't even be possible if it weren't for the power of isomorphism. What are "a priori representations"? They are merely the isomorphic representations of the physical world to the physical world, and in all cases they also represent things to themselves, as in an automorphism. If I were to be really daring, I might claim that the "self" is merely a specific class of automorphisms, but I haven't thought out all of the implications of that claim, so I won't make it just yet.

Ok, so given all of that mess, why can't I prove instantiation with an a priori argument? Well, I can't because I'm not smart enough, and no one else can either as of yet, but that doesn't mean it's not technically possible. I believe it is possible, but that it may be computationally intractable (impossible for all intents and purposes).

So what's the distinction between a priori and a posteriori then if they are both physical? A posteriori is the physical universe in itself, whereas a priori is the representation of the physical universe to itself or parts of itself. The prior is empirical knowledge (based on instances), and the latter is relational knowledge (like language, math, logic, etc).

A response to a discussion of Free Will

This was my response to someone in regards to "free will":
I agree with the previous poster that "free will" is difficult to conceptualize, but we can still make the effort.

Assuming we're not talking about supernatural notions of "free will", any real agent, such as a person, is limited in the ways in which they can exercise their "free will"; for instance, it's just not possible for a person to "will" themselves into becoming a pumpkin; a person can't "will" what is physically or logically impossible. So then, how can a person exercise their "free will"? Well, we know that reality, for all intents and purposes, propagates at the speed of light (as shown by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity), so if someone wanted to effect a chance in their surroundings through a choice, they wouldn't be able to instantaneously effect a person living in China (any effect would take at least a fraction of a second). Thus, my first law of "free will" states that "free will" and all of its choices are limited by the speed of light. But there are other limitations besides that.

Let's say a person wants to buy toothpaste. This person really likes a perticular brand -- let's say it's Aquafresh -- and if they could choose so, they would buy this particular brand from their local grocery store. This store, however, does not carry Aquafresh, and so regardless of their "free will" or their ability to choose, they cannot buy Aquafresh from that store; they can "will" it to be all they want, but they just don't have the option to purchase Aquafresh from that store. This leads us to my second law of "free will", which states that "free will" (i.e. the ability to choose) is contingent upon choices being available and not the other way around; if it's not an option, you can't choose it.

Ok, my two previous points have dealt so far with "free will" as it applies to making external choices, but what about the myriad of internal choices we make every moment, the ones that determine the morality of our external decisions? For this instance, I like to use a thought experiment to help me out. Let's say we take a person and we put them in a sensory deprivation device, something that makes is impossible for them to experience any sensation of the physical world, including their own bodies. What sorts of choices will a person in such a state make? It's impossible for them to make any external decisions, so all of their decisions must be internal, such as choosing whether to daydream about Cindy Crawford or Brad Pitt. Now, it's true, at this point, that they still have "free will", because they can choose what sorts of things they want to think about, but can they choose anything to think about? Can they choose to think about the movies they haven't seen, or the books they haven't read? Can they choose to think about the people they haven't met, or the events they haven't experienced? No, a person's own internal choices are limited by the resources of their memory; when the memory fades, so does the ability for a person to choose to think about things that used to reside there. Memory itself is limited by a person's external experiences (and the internal reflections of those experiences). Thus we have my third law of "free will", that "free will" is limited by a person's ability to think and reflect.

Are there any other qualities to "free will", such as an essence or a soul? Well, even assuming that there are, that doesn't change the veracity of my first three laws; having a soul wouldn't make a person any more able to violate the laws of physics, or to think about movies she doesn't even know exist. No, my laws are pretty comprehensive. A person's "free will" is nothing like a first cause, and from a certain perspective, all of a person's decisions can be determined through a proper analysis of the choices available. So, if a person's choices are deterministic (which is what I'm arguing), then does that mean everything is predetermined, and that people don't actually have "free will"? From an omnipotent perspective, yes, that would be the case. However, none of us are omnipotent, and thus from our pragmatic perspective, "free will" is a very real thing. We all make choices, and we all realize that we make choices, but that doesn't mean we have the ability to choose anything, or that our choices can be random in any way. Our choices are determined by who we are, and being determined doesn't in any way minimize the fact that they are our choices, and representative of our "free will".

A response to a theory of Good and Evil

This is quoted text from someone at my previous job whom I will call Anon E. Mouse:
"Evil, as best defined as I have seen it, is a privation of good, i.e. the lack of goodness in a thing that was originally intended to have that goodness. All that God created was good. Therefore, evil is actually the privation of existence. Now, sin is an act of evil. To sin would be to choose to participate in non-existence in some way. This, if true, is at a point at the edge of our understanding. Of course, anyone can conceptualize how "a will" is constrained in determining one good over another. However, it is a different story altogether of how a person could not only knowingly choose something that is not good (Plato's stance opposed to Christianity), but also choose an act that somehow participates in non-existence. Any serious thoughts that apply to these two issues specifically? Hopefully, from a theist?"

This was my response:
I will accept all of the assumptions. If God is good, and all of God's creation is good, and if we assume that God is also outside of time, then we can assume there exists a sort of "conservation of good" principle similar to the "conservation of energy" in thermodynamics. If a sin is committed (assuming it can be committed), which privates the overall goodness in the universe, then there must be a good created to counterbalance that act. This is similar to the idea of matter and anti-matter pairs in the space between particles. The short version is that when matter is created in the universe, anti-matter is also created to counterbalance that fact, thus the total amount of energy in the universe remains constant. If we apply this theory to good and evil, then for every evil act, there must be an act of good. This, however, does not answer Plato's question.

"If a person is determined to do what appears to be good for [herself], how can [she] purposefully do bad, and commit a 'sin'?" (Sorry, I like to use female pronouns.) We know that people are created by God, and thus they are fundamentally good. If that's the case. then their actions according to their nature will be good. If they purposefully commit a sin, then they are going against their nature (sort of like a violation of physics for souls). The question is not whether they can commit a sin, but whether they can purposefully commit a sin, which this line of reasoning seems to suggest is not possible. If they can't purposefully commit a sin, then they can't truly have "free will", since "free will ... [is] the ability to choose between good and evil". Hence, Anon's quandary.

It seems to me that what we have here is a logical contradiction, which means that one of more of the assumptions are incorrect. Personally, I think it would be a good idea to challenge all of the assumptions, but I'm not going to that because I promised not to. Instead, I'm going to challenge Plato's assertion that "a person only does what [she] thingks will be good for [herself]". If we allow that even a good person will commit acts of evil occasionally, then the whole issue is solved. Someone might raise the objection that it is impossible for a thing to go against its nature, and for the most part, I agree. But in this case, "free will" allows a person to decide on their own what their nature will be, and that ability to decide is good in itself, because it is god-given. Thus, if a sin is committed, it is still within the nature of something God created, even though God did not create the sin itself.

Coercion

Is coercion, for example torture, good for getting information, and if so, is it even desirable? I make a distinction between 4 kinds of people: the ignorant innocent, the ignorant guilty, the knowledgeable innocent, and the knowledgeable guilty.

The ignorant innocent is the trivial case. The vast majority of people fall into this category, and it is clear that coercion in this case is both futile and ethically undesirable.

The ignorant guilty are those who have committed a crime or atrocity, and yet they possess no knowledge of the information that is being sought after. Criminals and villains know most of the details of their own actions, but most likely don't know anything about the details of unrelated actions and their perpetrators. Coercion in this case will at best yield information about a subject that is unrelated to the subject in question, and that information itself will be totally useless without further context. Coercion is this case is futile and undesirable.

The knowledgeable innocent are those that have done nothing wrong, and yet they possess knowledge of the information that is being sought after. Family members and associates of criminals and villains may know the details of the actions and perpetrators in question without otherwise having any connection to them. Coercion in this case may yield all the information about the subject in question. It's interesting to note that in the US it is not legal to coerce the accused to incriminate themselves, but it is legal to coerce in a limited manner a material witness to testify against the accused. However, with regards to interrogation techniques, it is clearly unethical to use the more severe interrogation techniques against the innocent, and a case can be made that all attempts at coercion in this case are undesirable.

The knowledgeable guilty are those that have committed or aided the action in question. They presumably know most of the information that is being sought after. Coercion in this case may yield all of the information in question. For the moment, we'll assume that all types of coercion are ethically acceptable in this case (that's a pretty big assumption).

The first task when detaining and interrogating people should be determining which of the 4 categories the detainee falls under. That's a difficult task in itself. In the US criminal justice system, all criminal detainees are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law by a jury of peers due to a preponderance of evidence indicating guilt. And because of that fact, coercion of the accused is strictly prohibited. With regards to non-US citizens detained in a foreign country, normally international law, specifically the Geneva conventions, sets the standards of how detainees should be treated. However, for the moment we'll assume that the detainees in question don't fall under the protections of the Geneva conventions due to some technicality or other (another big assumption). So barring any rule of law to dictate how detainees are placed into one of the 4 categories, it must be done on a case-by-case basis by the captors, without specific training or infrastructure and without broad oversight.

Let's make another large assumption that the captors are able to completely determine which of the 4 categories each detainee falls under, that they're able to tell when a detainee is innocent or guilty and whether or not they possess specific desirable knowledge. Let's also assume that they play it ethically safe and just interrogate those that are both guilty and knowledgeable. Now, there is a chance that they could get all of the information they hope to get from this filtered-down subset of detainees, but there's also a chance that they don't get any information at all, and still another chance that they get information that is either completely useless or full of deception. When considering these possibilities, it is instructive to remember other historical instances of extreme coercion, such as during the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition used extreme coercive techniques usually resulting in death to get the information they wanted, but in the end, it was really irrelevant what the accused knew/believed or what they related to their captors. Given the intractability of determining the veracity of information acquired through coercion, it is ethically difficult to justify coercion in this case.

Let's make one more enormous assumption that all information gathered through coercion is correct and useful, and let's also assume that the information in question is so important that it could mean the difference between the destruction of the Human race and its survival. Is coercion, extreme or otherwise, ethically and morally justified in this case? In this fantastical case, it might very well be justified, but look at the assumptions it took to get here: the detainees don't fall under US-national law, international law, or international treaties; the detainees are perfectly categorized; only the guilty and knowledgeable are interrogated using coercive techniques; all the information gathered through coercion is correct and useful; the information is not only life-or-death vital, it is vital on a catastrophic level; and the biggest assumption of them all, that coercion, extreme or otherwise, is ethically and morally justified at all. If any of these assumptions are wrong, then there are serious ethical problems with using coercion to gain information. To me, that's enough to say with confidence that all forms of coercion to gain information are at base unethical and undesirable.

Regarding Christian Salvation

I have discussed this issue on numerous occasions with Christian friends and foes to help me enumerate the basic principles of the religion and the criteria necessary for salvation and eternal bliss in the afterlife. Yet, not in any of my discussions has a satisfactory answer been given for the question of salvation for those unfortunate enough to die without ever hearing or knowing God's word through the teachings of and belief in Jesus Christ, namely the newly born, the lost tribes, and those that predate the New Covenant formed through Christ's sacrifice on the cross. There are many unresolved issues regarding salvation, and much disagreement among the different sects of Christianity as to the interpretations and implications of various scripture passages. I am not a theologian, and so I will not offer any of my own analysis of strictly biblical matters, but there is sufficient room to attack the issue from an angle that is purely theoretical and logically based.

First let's ask some questions. Do babies go to heaven? Are babies saved? We know that the New Testament teaches salvation through Christ, but a baby cannot know Christ through his teachings, being unable to grasp much of anything until years later. Catholics believe in baptizing babies to wash away Original Sin, and to anoint the child as a follower of Christ before the child is old enough to choose Christ for itself. According to earlier Catholic doctrine, those that died before a certain age went to Limbo, but the church has since reversed its position on the matter, and now declares that all young children go to Heaven regardless of circumstance. If this new position is true, then in effect, the only way for a person to go to Hell is to grow old, learn about Christ, and reject Christ's teachings. If that's the case, then Hell can be avoided simply by dying early. It can be imagined that a person suffering from delusion could take it upon himself to murder hundreds of babies with the hopes of guaranteeing their salvation, and in effect becoming a martyr himself by sacrificing his very soul in the process by committing these acts of evil. However, there are other methods of avoiding Hell and achieving salvation other than dying while in infancy (thankfully). It has been suggested that lost tribes, people that have no exposure to the teachings of Christ, are also implicitly forgiven for their sins, because they have not been given the opportunity to accept or reject Christ. In this case it is ignorance of Christ that ensures salvation, which is ironically defeated by the Christian doctrine encouraging the spreading of the Word to ignorant peoples. If salvation is the goal, it would make more sense to not spread the Word, than otherwise. But there's a third way to avoid eternal damnation and that is by living in a time when Christ and His teachings didn't even exist to be accepted or rejected. All of those born before Christ are beneficiaries of this salvation loop-hole. It seems that if God truly wanted to save as many of His children as possible, He would have sent His son to Earth at the end of days to cleans our sins through His sacrifice, thereby saving all of humanity up until the very end. All told, you can avoid damnation and ensure salvation through early death, ignorance, and living in ancient times, all of which can be achieved without Christ and His sacrifice and without following His teachings. This seems to me to be an untenable position for Christians to hold. Are there any other positions on the matter?

Calvanists believe in predestination, and it has been suggested that people are predetermined for salvation and damnation. In this scenario, a baby that dies was already bound for Heaven or Hell, and same goes for lost tribes, and ancient peoples. This position seems to make any acts irrelevant for salvation. God's whim (which is manifest to us as luck) would be the determining factor. This position seems less tenable than the previous one. Surely there are other positions to consider?

If we assume that the teachings of Christ are entirely correct, that He died for our sins, and that we our forgiven through His sacrifice, then the implication to me is that everyone is forgiven and everyone is saved regardless of circumstance. Even the most vile villains in the history of man shall find a place in Heaven beside God. But how shall we account for their atrocities in life? Surely they don't deserve God's eternal Grace? Jesus claimed that salvation is a choice. People choose to be saved or not through acceptance or denial of Jesus Himself. It is the same in Heaven as it is on Earth. The hearts of Evil men will wither in the presence of God and make their stay in Heaven as if they were in Hell instead, and it is not due to God but through their own choice that they are eternally damned and in torment. If I were a Christian, this to me would be the only position worth holding, and yet I can find no Christian anywhere who actually does hold it. It is perplexing to me how people would rather quibble about technicalities to maintain their popular mantras when a simple and elegant solution is readily at hand. No matter. I have often thought that I follow Christ's teachings more than most Christians, even though it's incidental and I don't actually believe in Christ's divinity.

Improving Education

I came across this discussion while browsing one of my favorite news sources, and it certainly is a great topic worthy of debate. I have to say, I've been critical of the Republican party during this administration, but the Democrats deserve almost all of the blame for the dreadful state of public education in this country. Ironically, most Democrats agree that our public schools suck, and yet all they want to do is put bandaids on the problems and throw more money into the system. You know what? America spends a ton of money on public education as it is. Here's a link comparing international education expeditures. Money quote:

"In 2000, the United States and Korea spent the highest percentage of their GDP on total education expenditures (6.6 percent) among the OECD countries. Looking at education expenditures by level, the United States spent 3.9 percent of its GDP on elementary/secondary education, while the average for all OECD countries reporting data was 3.6 percent. At the postsecondary level, 2.7 percent of the U.S. GDP was spent on education expenditures, while the corresponding OECD average was 1.3 percent."

Funding has never been and never will be the problem. Could we spend more? Sure. Will that fix anything? Not a chance. It's the same bad philosophy used in the military. Got a problem? Spend more money. You don't fix any problems that way, you just waste a lot of money. What other solutions are there? Standardized tests? Standardized curriculum? Better teachers? More homework? More "seat time"? These are the sort of solutions peddled by people who are most likely pretty smart, but I don't care how smart you are, or how much better your idea is than the status quo, you are not as smart as the free market. Period. The free market operates on the principles of evolution: tons of competing ideas are tried, and only the best survive the test of time. The problem with public education is not in the superficial details of teachers, standards, curriculum, homework, and attendance. No, the problem with public education is that it's "public". Of course the system is going to be extremely sub-optimal: it's founded entirely on bureaucracy, and the bad ideas of a limited subset of "smart" people.

I get the feeling that people are afraid to let kids fail in life. But they fail to realize that failure is part of the learning process. In a private school system, kids will fail, teachers will fail, administrators will fail, and schools will fail. But they won't all fail. some of them are going to succeed with flying colors, surpassing anything that any school today is doing. "But what about all of the kids who can't go to those schools? What's going to happen to them? Doesn't the constitution guarantee everyone an education?" That's right, it does. Every child will get a subsidy from the government for education. So, if all of the bad schools failed, and there's only a few great ones left, and we have all of these kids with money specifically for education, what's going to happen? Is the free market going to say, "oh well, them's the breaks", or is it going to create new and better schools that can compete with the great ones? Heck, wouldn't the great schools, seeing all the potential for profit, decide to franchise their methods, styles, curriculum, etc? If Wal-bucks High School is producing a great product for a low cost, wouldn't it make sense for Wal-bucks High Schools to spring up all over the country? I mean, this is common-sense economics here.

America has, in recent history, had a phobia of communism and socialism, yet the most important institutions in this country (educational and military) operate on similar principles. Those principles are just plain sub-optimal. Until we free our education system from the shackles of public bureaucracy, no cookie-cutter, bandaid solutions are going to fix anything. That has to be the first step in any constructive solution. Until that happens, all other efforts are wasted.

Primacy

Primacy is an interesting concept. According to the dictionary, it is "the state of being first or foremost". Implicit in this definition is the idea of time; being first does not make sense within the context of singular moments. But what is time? The dictionary says time is "a nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future". This definition is, of course, circular, for five words within it -- events, occur, past, present, and future -- are either based on or refer to time. Obviously, that definition is lacking in clarity. If I may, I will present my own definition of time: time is the succession of states. Primacy thus describes the first state in a succession of states. Since nothing comes before the first state, the first state must be purely existant. What I mean is that if there exists no state which succeeds to the state of primacy, then the state of primacy is necessarily temporally inert. What does it mean to be temporally inert? It means the state of primacy does not depend on the succession of states; it exists outside of time. Since the state of primacy is temporally inert, it either must be non-succeeding or eternally succeeding (as if at every possible instant it is spawning the universe again). If states are going to succeed at all, the state of primacy must succeed; it can't be non-succeeding, because then it would be prime to nothing. If it's eternally succeeding, then that implies that there are infinitely many instantiations across time, or in other words, that all states exist at all points in time.

If there is no first state, then what is the alternative? What if all states have a predecessor, and a successor? This implies that there is no beginning or end of time. If no states are the beginning, then what determines the point of succession, the point that is currently instantiated? Why is one state "now" as opposed to any other state? What is the state of reference that determines what time the "now" state is (whether or not "now" is before or after the state of reference)? The "now" state (or any other state, for that matter) might as well be considered the state of reference itself, acting as a/the state of primacy. Clearly, the universe is either non-succeeding or eternally succeeding again.

There is no difference between the implications of "the universe with a beginning" and "the universe without a beginning". In either case, whether there's a state of primacy or not, we reach a logical conundrum. But why is that? What assumption of ours is failing us in thinking about the nature of existence? We know that there can be no point (in time) where nothing existed, based on both a priori reasoning and a posteriori empiricism. So, we know that all energy in the universe is finite and eternally existent. We know that our perceptions are based on a linear interpretation of time (or succession of states). But, as pointed out earlier, a linear succession of states implies eternally succeeding states. So the problem must be with our perceptions of time, or rather, the limitations of our perceptions. We perceive a linear transistion of states, and so we assume that to be a fundamental law of the universe, that its states transistion linearly. But that assumption is wrong. It's true that we perceive time linearly, but that fact says more about our nature than the nature of the universe. We perceive time linearly not because time is linear but because our perceptions are.

All the states of the universe are eternally existant. We and our perceptions merely exist across one particular ordering of those states. Our perceptions determine an order to the universe, which we call physics. A different ordering of the universe would have different minds perceiving different physical laws. Physical laws are nothing but constructs to help us understand our own perceptions. The nature of the universe, as we perceive it to be, is determined by our perceptions; we perceive, thus the universe is as we perceive it to be.

Update

I haven't posted anything to this blog in a while because I feel that given the particular political atmosphere, patience and the passage of time will do more good than debate (especially when you're right *grin*). However, I think it's a good time to update what's going on in my life.

I recently got married to Nicolette Louise O'Neill at 5 PM on March 12th at the Augusta Canal in Augusta, Georgia. It was a little earlier than we had planned because we weren't sure when she was going to get deployed. We still plan on having a larger ceremony with many more guests on Orcas Island in Washington when she gets back from deployment, but there's no telling when that will be. I will be taking her last name when I can find the time to go to the social security office, mostly because I think it's a neat gesture that probably doesn't happen very often, but also because she already changed her name once and didn't want to go through it again (her father went to prison, so she took her mother's name).

I'm still an Arabic linguist for the US Army, and I recently got promoted to Sergeant on the 1st of February. I took a mandatory language refresher last month, and got near perfect scores on the Defense Language Aptitude Test for Arabic, so that was nice. When combining all of my pay bonuses from getting married, getting promoted, and scoring well on the DLPT, my monthly income nearly doubled, and now I don't know what to do with all of it. I might play the stocks and bonds market, or I might put more of it into my home equity; I haven't decided yet.

It's kind of disturbing that the military pays people more for being married and having children (the extra pay is called Basic Allowance for Housing or BAH). Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single other employer that pays its employees for being married or having kids. It seems kind of antithetical to capitalistic values, having pay depend on the needs of the employee rather than his/her skill. Don't get me wrong, I really like having my pay doubled, but a large part of me thinks this system at heart is ethically bankrupt. It seems noble to be so concerned for families, but on the other hand, it devalues single soldiers, or it encourages them to get into marriages and have children for the wrong reasons. In fact, when I was at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, it was a common practice for soldiers to get married for the convenience of being able to live off-post and get the extra pay, and then get divorced after they left Monterey. It's a disturbing practice, but what do you expect when such large fiscal incentives are involved?

When Nicole and I get out of the military in two years, we plan on moving to the Seattle area so Nicole can go to the University of Washington. Hopefully we'll find the time to live abroad somewhere. My preference is the Scandinavian peninsula, since they seem to have good, strong Libertarian values (which is my political ideology of choice). Nicole wants to live in East Asia in a country like Bhutan or Laos. I think either choice would offer a good experience with fun and interesting challenges. I'm sure our combined educations will be sufficient enough to obtain decent employment in any country of our choosing. We both joined the military for patriotic reasons following 9/11, but we've become disillusioned with the current state of American affairs; a fresh perspective living in another country would do us both some good. Besides having kids, it is the thing I currently look forward to most.