Flaws in the Transcendental Argument
Published by MaxBro on Tagged Atheism, FeaturesDoes the transcendental argument (TAG) satisfy the question of God’s existence?
- By arguing that logical concepts must therefore be the products of God’s mind due to their so-called transcendence of reality (i.e. they exist outside of space and time) you are essentially making the same argument about the nature of reality itself. That is, because things exist, God had to have created them in the same sense as a watch had to have been created by a watchmaker.
Firstly, this assertion does nothing to satisfy any real definition of God, nor answers the next logical step in this argument—who created God? You’ve essentially argued yourself into a circle by saying that any transcendent concept must have a transcendent creator because this creator must itself also have been created. Secondly, this argument does nothing but ultimately arrive at an ideological roadblock in which the theist then declares God must exist as a means to hurdle the blockage, whereas the atheist allows only that reality’s existence is merely evidence of reality’s existence, period.
Further, the transcendent argument fails in light of the planck time prior to the Big Bang. At the planck time, the laws of physics and logic did not exist or at least did not function according to their known means. Therefore, the laws of logic ARE dependent on space and time in order to function, because without space and time the laws of logic have nothing to act upon. They are like a cog in a watch spinning pointlessly in space without any other gears or mechanisms to move or act upon. While such a cog might be instrumental in the proper functioning of a watch, alone it is useless and would not by any definition be called a watch by itself.
Basically, the laws of logic do not matter when there is no matter for them to act upon. Saying that they exist independent of space and time would be like saying that the rules of soccer still apply to sports even though the game of soccer does not exist and has never existed. It could be argued that the laws of logic did not exist in any way whatsoever prior to the planck time.
- The transcendent argument is quite similar to the old saying “If a tree falls somewhere in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?” Obviously it still does, and with logic, whether or not there exist minds in the universe to comprehend them, such laws still exist as functions of reality. Similarly, somewhere in space right now, an asteroid is floating around on a collision course with another asteroid. At some point those asteroids will impact and their impact will act in accordance with the laws of physics and reality. Human observation or recognition of those two asteroids colliding is unnecessary for the laws of nature to occur at the point of impact.
However, if somehow the laws of logic DO indeed exist outside space and time, and did exist prior to the planck time, then you would have to conclude that they are eternal just like God, and are in fact laws God himself is subject to. If not, then at what point did He create them, and prior to that point, did the laws of logic simply not exist? If that is so, then what form of laws of logic did exist prior to the ones we know today? Did these other laws of logic apply to a whole other universe that existed before this one or that exists somewhere outside of this reality in a kind of multi-verse?
What possible other universe or world would exist under any other types of laws? Such an existence would probably be seen as a bizarro world compared to our own, even though to that universe and its inhabitants (if there were any) its own laws of logic and reality might be considered rational.
Further, if God did in fact create other universes before this one using other laws of logic that do not apply to our reality, then this raises all sorts of questions about the nature of God and his so-called divine plan. Does God create first, then upon seeing that his creation is illogical or does not fit his divine plan, then destroy his creation and begin again? Then he is not omniscient or perfect. Does God tinker with new universes just to see what will happen, and then start again with a new set of rules when he gets bored? Then why all the emphasis on sin and redemption and the necessity of sending his only son to suffer on the cross to save mankind? Wouldn’t it just be easier to push the ‘reset’ button so to speak? Or must God stick with his current creation (i.e. us and our universe) regardless of our imperfections due to some quirk in His nature? If that is so, then God is certainly not all-powerful because He is subject to laws that seemingly transcend even Himself.
- Whatever the reason or possibilities, we can probably safely conclude that thus far, God has proven incapable of creating a perfect universe. Therefore, why should we accept the idea that God has somehow created a perfect place called heaven that exists outside of our reality when our own universe is imperfect?
The transcendent argument does not satisfy the question “Does God exist?” in any way. On the contrary, it only raises a host of other questions that do nothing except create further confusion. For anyone to claim that this argument definitively answers a question or settles a mystery, when it in fact clearly does neither of those things, it is profoundly disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.
- We as humans collect bits and pieces of fragments of reality in our quest to understand the universe and ourselves. At this point in history after so many technological advances, it would still be naive to say that we’ve developed anything that gives a completely clear picture of our reality. It took thousands of years for mankind to develop a meaningful understanding of gravity, thousands of years for our brightest minds to comprehend the speed of light, the nature of disease, and the intricacies of the atom. Even the most profound mathematical principles only help us scratch the surface of a full understanding of the universe. Why then, should any theist propose that a simple-minded argument such as the one of transcendence, prove the existence of such a complex being as God?
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(This mini-essay sprung forth after watching Matt Slick of Carm.org and Matt Dillahunty debate TAG on The Atheist Experience. Part one of this debate can be viewed here on YouTube. It’s easy to be caught up in the supposed complex details of TAG, but in reality it’s just a verbose mechanism of confusion that aims to keep thinking minds in the dark. Hopefully, I’ve helped clarify and encapsulate the alarming meaninglessness of this argument, and how it not only does little to demonstrate the existence of a god or any gods, much less the existence of the god of the Bible.)
The Philosophy of Dr. Manhattan
Published by MaxBro on Tagged Random
For a story considered one of Time Magazine’s 100 best novels, Watchmen is filled with riveting plot lines and unique characters. Representing the most unusual personality is Jon Osterman, an atomic physicist who suffers the misfortune of becoming disintegrated inside an intrinsic field generator only to reincarnate several months later as a blue-tinted being capable of manipulating atomic structure itself.
Dubbed “Dr. Manhattan” by the US government for the ominous association with the atomic project during WWII, Jon gradually finds himself becoming detached from humanity, even while his profound abilities give him a keen insight into the complexities of life and the meaning of existence. Here are some of Dr. Manhattan’s coolest quotes from Alan Moore and David Gibbons’ Watchmen:
On directions: “‘Up’ is a relative concept. It has no intrinsic value.” (Chapter III)
On our celestial neighbors: “I am going to look at the stars. They are so far away and their lights takes so long to reach us. All we ever see of stars are their old photographs.” (Chapter IV)
On earth: “Who makes the world? Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. Perhaps it simply is, has been, will always be there. A clock without a craftsman.” (Chapter IV)
On fate and predestination: “We’re all puppets…I’m just a puppet who can see the strings.” (Chapter IX)
On time: “Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet.” (Chapter IX)
On human history and conflict: “All that pain and conflict done with? All that needless suffering over at last…All those generations of struggle, what purpose did they ever achieve?” (Chapter IX)
On the existence of life: “In my opinion, it’s a highly overrated phenomenon.” (Chapter IX)
On the miracle of conception: “The world is full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another’s vantage point, as if new, it may still take our breath away.” (Chapter IX)
On destiny: “Nothing ever ends.” (Chapter XII)
Look for Watchmen to premiere in theaters this coming March.
The Collapsing Stock Market: A Wormhole to the Bizarro World?
Published by MaxBro on Tagged Hardly HumorI can’t understand why everyone is paranoid about the state of the economy, in particular the declining stock market. If I understood that episode of Sesame Street correctly where Bert tries to teach Ernie about the Dow Jones, it would seem it’s a bad thing for it to keep getting lower and lower like it is.
But this is where I differ with the so-called experts like Nobel prize-winning Paul Krugman who say we stand on the precipice of economic disaster. Can you really trust a guy with a last name that reminds you of Freddy Krueger? I have an entirely different theory about why it’s a good thing for the stock market to implode. You ready? Here it is: By collapsing into itself like a black hole, the stock market will tear a fabric in space/time, thus causing our world to submerge into the bizarro world.
Think about it. The Dow Jones can only go so low, right? So what happens if it goes so low it heads into negative territory? I think it’s blatantly obvious. One day we’ll all wake up and see on the news the stock market at minus 100 points or so, (not to mention Ben Bernanke probably crying in a corner somewhere). Just imagine the possibilities!
Up will be down. Left will be right. Al Gore will be president. The Dark Knight will be considered a campy B movie while Beverly Hills Chihuahua will be showered with the accolades it so surely deserves.
Sound scary? Perhaps for many it might be. But I’ve had enough of this rational, non-Bizarro world to last me several lifetimes. In this world where it’s okay to launch a preemptive war against a country under false pretenses, work overtime for corporate overlords who parachute to safety off the top floor when your company explodes a la The Towering Inferno, and where it’s okay to spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on military weapons that outclass the Death Star while ignoring the plight of the world’s hungry. Call me wayward if you will, but that’s enough logic and order for me.
If we are to ever escape this disturbingly orderly reality, we must do our best to make sure the stock market collapses. This will not be easy, and it will require a coordinated effort on all our parts. But if we work together, I assure you it can be done. Call up your broker and sell all your stocks. No, sell them twice. Then buy them back at a lower rate and sell them again even lower. And again. And again!
Then, prepare yourselves for entry into the bizarro world once the stock market inevitably slides under zero. Begin speaking in bizarro language. Say hello to your friends when you leave, and goodbye when you arrive. Eat steak in the morning and scrambled eggs at night. Show up at the end of your shift to begin work. When your boss confronts you, give him a big hug and tell him how much you love him.
The bizarro world is ours if we want it, and for the sake of humanity we must have it. After all, it’ll probably be the only way I’ll ever convince myself to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua.
8 Cool Things about Robotics
Published by MaxBro on Tagged FeaturesRobots are perhaps the most polarizing subjects in pop culture. They are either great servants who seek to do us good like the friendly robot anomaly Andrew Martin in Bicentennial Man, or the hilariously provocative Number Five in Short Circuit. Or, they are malevolent, ingenuous beings bent on the total enslavement and/or destruction of the human race. See such films as I, Robot, the Terminator franchise, and The Matrix series for those types.
It’s possible that in the future mankind will foolishly equip robots with the proper circuitry to enable them to conquer the planet. But for now we are safe because robots are still dumb, slow, inefficient, and above all, NOT sentient.
Here are 8 cool things you didn’t know about robotics:
1. The Origin of the Word “Robot”
Surprisingly, the term “robot” was not coined by a white-coated scientist hunkered down in his laboratory. It was actually a playwright named Karel Capek who came up with the word for his 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). Think of R.U.R. as a 1920’s version of I, Robot mixed with Planet of the Apes.
R.U.R. centers on a world where artificial humans are created from biological material to become servants. When their human masters begin abusing them, the robots stage a rebellion and massacre everyone. Unable to reproduce, the robots seem destined to eventually die out themselves. But a lone scientist at last redeems humanity and offers the robots a chance to survive by constructing a male and female. Together, this pair wander off to become a sort of mechanical Adam and Eve.
2. The Fearsome, the Terrifying, the Golem
Hollywood producers have played on people’s fears of a global robot takeover for decades. However, the idea of something man-made suddenly taking on a will of its own and turning on its creator is a fear that has long plagued mankind. Today when people imagine a malevolent robot they might think of the T-800 from Terminator. But centuries ago people dreaded the golem, an inanimate clay model that could be brought to life by speaking the name of God, according to Jewish mystics.
One of the most famous stories about the golem came from Rabbi Judah Loew the Maharal of Prague, a rabbi in the 16th century. He was reported to have created a golem to defend the Prague ghetto from anti-Semitic attacks. But the golem soon became bigger and more violent until it started killing the very people it was supposed to protect. Rabbi Loew finally ended the golem’s reign of terror by inscribing the Hebrew word meaning “death” on its forehead.
As the legend goes, the body of the golem was later stolen and buried in a graveyard in Zizkov, where the Zikovska Tower now stands. It was there years later when a Nazi soldier ascended to try and stab the golem, but was mysteriously killed instead. The attic remains closed to the public to this day.
For a more recent, pop culture interpretation of the golem, check out the Annihilator from the DC Universe.
Invincible and fueled by aggression, the Annihilator is the product of both the golem myth and the Greek myth concerning Talos. Talos, as you’ll recall, made a famous appearance in the classic Jason and the Argonauts, and arguably could be considered the first fictional robot that defied mankind.
3. Degrees of Freedom
Writing with a pencil, shaking hands, and waving to a friend are all things humans take for granted when they use their hands and fingers. But when you do those things you are actually exercising up to 23 degrees of freedom. One degree of freedom can basically be represented by every independent mode of motion.
What does this have to do with robotics? Creating degrees of freedom has consistently been one of the most challenging assignments for engineers for decades. Say you wanted to make a robot that could move around. You would have to install hardware equipped with the proper moving parts. These moving parts, or “actuators” as they’re called, could be in the form of wheels, legs, wings, or fins. But whatever form of actuator you choose, for every degree of freedom you want to allow your robot, you have to construct a separate bit of equations for the software that will control your robot’s movements.
A robot that only moves back and forth on the carpet on a set of wheels independently does not require a great deal of computer power because there are only two degrees of freedom involved. But try making a robot that can walk up stairs, carry luggage, or anything else we humans can do, and you’ll find that it becomes increasingly complicated to factor in each degree of freedom.
To give you an idea of the scale of the problem, consider Honda’s Asimo. At 6-foot, 460 lbs, Honda spent over 10 years developing this humanoid at a cost of almost $100 million. It’s capabilities: walking gingerly, climbing a flight of stairs, and even conducting an orchestra.
When you factor the costs involved, and the limitations of computer power, it will probably be decades before scientists create robots that can perform actions even close to what humans can do with ease. And even then, artificial intelligence may not be a reality, in which case robots will still be controlled entirely by human-designed software. So, no need to fear Honda’s Asimo becoming a global dictator anytime soon.
4. Insect Inspiration
In their quest to make robots than can move around on legs, scientists have looked to the insect world for inspiration. Specifically, it is the movements of insects like the cockroach, with its “tripod gait,” that has given engineers a leg-up in their research.
If you’ve ever caught a cockroach scurrying around in your kitchen, your first instinct was probably to crush it before it got away. However, cockroaches, as do other six-legged creepy crawlies, exercise a profound method of walking known as the tripod gait. This gait allows them to lift three legs in the air when moving forward while leaving three legs on the ground for support (thus resembling a tripod if seen from overhead). Not only does this gait allow insects to support six legs, but it gives them greater speed to avoid predators, not to mention the sole of your shoe.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have designed hexapods that follow the tripod gait of insects. One researcher, a biologist named Robert Full at Berkley, has gone so far as to put roaches on treadmills to measure the electrical impulses in their muscles while recording them on video. Ever wonder how a roach can scurry away so fast despite its bulk? It’s because, as Full discovered, their muscles operate like a spring, allowing a roach to propel itself forward as though it were on auto pilot.
Is it worth it to create robots that can move around like insects? Consider that after the 9/11 attacks the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue orchestrated a number of robots for help in exploration and assessment of the ruins, as well as in the hunt for survivors.
A robot that could move around like an insect would certainly be invaluable for poking into places where wheels or tracks would not suffice. But again, it is the degrees of freedom and all the computations involved therein that limit this development.
5. Hopping bots, snakebots, and scuttlebots
Insects are not the only creatures that have given scientists inspiration for creating robots of myriad variety. Everything from grasshoppers, snakes to fish have offered researchers ideas on robotic movements and functions.
-Marc Raibert at the MIT Leg Laboratory created the famous hopping robot in the 1980s that bounced on one leg like a pogo stick and could even turn somersaults. In 2008, Christopher M. Schmidt-Wetekam won the Rudee Research Expo Aware for inventing a self-transforming reaction wheel-stabilized climbing rover.
-During the 1990s, NASA became interested in using snakebots for exploration on other planets. Its research lead to Snakebot I, which required complete outside control by a user. Snakebot II, however, gained some autonomous control via several microcontrollers that allowed the main computer to focus on more important decisions.
The German MAKRO Project in the late 90s yielded a snakebot with a more commercial application: searching through sewage drain pipes.
- Robot fish have been used to investigate Gray’s Paradox. In the 1930s, a researcher named Sir James Gray decided to investigate how much power was required for dolphins to swim as fast as they do. What he found was dolphins required ten times as much power to propel themselves through water than what it appeared their muscles produced when swimming. This paradox later bore his name, and has remained a mystery to scientists for many years.
Starting in 1995 with the robot tuna, MIT eventually came to develop a robot pike that duplicated the flesh and bone structure of a pike with plastic. While the robot pike can turn and swim underwater, it can’t travel nearly as fast as a real pike.
Finally, a US company called iRobot has developed a scuttlebot to hunt for mines on beaches and underwater. Resembling a crab, Aerial, as it is named, is completely autonomous, can walk sideways on six legs, can adapt its gait if one leg gets damaged, and can even adjust its walking if it gets turned upside down.
6. A Robot’s Nose Knows
It’s estimated that humans have anywhere between 5 million and 15 million smell receptors in their noses. Dogs have anywhere between 125 million and 250 million. Installing smell sensors in robots of that number is still far beyond anything that has yet been engineered. But scientists may one day build robots that can detect explosives, rotting meat, or gas-capabilities that would offer invaluable assistance to law enforcement, the military, or in food inspection.
-At the University of Portsmouth in England, researchers have created a robot dubbed Smelly. Smelly has smell receptors installed at the end of its two tubes, which draw in odors with the use of a small air pump.
-The University of Pisa in Italy has built a handheld device that can detect, of all things, the presence of olive oil aromas.
-A European Union project started in 2001 aims to build a fleet of artificial chemosensing moths for use in environmental monitoring.
7. Robocup
Imagine it’s the year 2050. You switch on the television, or whatever form of entertainment module is created by then. You surf between a soap opera, a reality TV show (which are inexplicably still popular), and then come upon a soccer game played entirely by humanoid robots. Impossible? Actually, it’s already somewhat a reality.
In 1997 the Japanese roboticist Hiroaki Kitano established RoboCup. His aim was to create a forum in which a variety of emerging technologies could be assessed and integrated within the broader field of robotics. His primary challenge: To create a team of humanoid robots capable of beating the human soccer championship team by the year 2050.
While Robocup may seem like just a place for scientists to play with their robot toys, it actually provides a perfect environment for engineers to exercise various problems related to making robots useful. Each robot must know where the ball is in play, where the goals are, where its position is in relation to the other players, and who its opponents are. Additionally, robots must work together on their on teams to function best. These are all problems that if remedied would make robots practical not just in a sports arena but in law enforcement, the military, as well as in a host of commercial applications.
8. Energy Problems
One thing that has made advances in robotics difficult is the energy issue. Even were it possible today to construct a robot that could function practically, have a high number of degrees of freedom, and act autonomously, how would you power it? Common household batteries barely supply adequate fuel for even the simplest of robots.
Fuel cells have become one good source of power for robots. But they tend to be bulky and can restrict a robot’s movements. They also require frequent refueling for the robot to operate properly. The University of Sherbrooke in Canada has built robots capable of reading red signs that indicate a batter refueling station. So it appears that for now robots will either have to stay plugged in or recharge themselves if they are function. At least until some more advanced form of energy technology comes along.
References
For more info on robotics, check out these sources:
Robots: Bringing Intelligent Machines to Life, by Ruth Aylett.
The Wiki page on Rossum’s Universal Robots
