Opinion

Can information theory prove the existence of God?

2007-12-30T12:08:00.000Z

I recently came across this website by Perry Marshall, which makes a really interesting proof of the existence of God.

The argument is basically that DNA constitutes information (a code), yet all information that we know of is the product of a mind. Randomness cannot create information. Therefore, God exists.

Lovely argument. Now let's pick some holes.

1) My first observation is that this argument is almost exactly the same as entropy. The argument is that DNA is a low entropy state. Yet randomness always increases entropy. Therefore DNA cannot be the product of random processes, therefore it must be the work of God (or Maxwell's Demon).

However this argument is invalid because localised decreases in entropy are perfectly possible, and expected, even though the entropy of the system as a whole increases.

Considering that the site claims to make use of information theory, it presumably is aware of information entropy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_entropy

It follows that DNA has a low information entropy, since the DNA sequence is not random. This is exactly the same as for physical entropy, so I think the low (information) entropy argument for God will fall for the same reasons. In fact, it has been proven that information is equivalent to thermodynamics, so the argument is essentially just thermodynamics, case closed. See also here.

2) The "information" in the whole system is ignored. You cannot look at isolated parts of the system and claim entropy reversal. You need to look at the (information) entropy of the entire system. Therefore you need to look at ALL of the random mutations, not just the successful ones. Whilst there may be lower (information) entropy in the successful DNA, there will be higher (information) entropy in the unsuccessful mutations. The overall positive (information) entropy (from useless information) outweighs the overall negative entropy from useful information.

This is entirely in keeping with the second law of thermodynamics.

3) Genetic algorithms "create information", yet they are not a "mind". Therefore it is untrue to state that information is always the product of the mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF011.html

Marshall is in denial that genetic algorithms actually work.

4) Infinite number sequences, such as the sequence of digits in the number pi, could be regarded as "truly random" sources. It is a fact that the digits of pi contain the complete works of Shakespeare (with probability=1). For a given sequence of N bits, you would expect to wait for approximately 2^N bits in the sequence to pass before you find it.

Therefore it is untrue that random sources cannot create information.

From a random source, if you wait a finite time, you will find the works of Shakespeare, your entire genome, and indeed the genomes of every organism on the planet, again with 100% probability. Of course, you would be waiting for a long, but finite, time.

The problem is that this time is much longer than the age of the universe. This is the equivalent of a cell popping out of mid-air, which is too unlikely to contemplate, even given the size and age of the universe. There is much more likely to be some kind of boot-strap process, whereby life started as very simple molecules, not complete cells.

The problem isn't creating the information, it is in deciding whether the information is any good. This is where natural selection comes in. The argument is then "only a mind can select good information". With natural selection, the point is that nature selects the best information. This is why I spell God n,a,t,u,r,e.

5) Computers regularly create information. For example they can calculate the numbers in a spreadsheet, forces in a bridge, digits of pi, weather forecasts etc. This information didn't come from a mind. There was no foreknowledge of the result of a calculation (otherwise, what would be the point in running the calculation?)

Therefore it is untrue that all useful information is the product of a mind.

(Note that even as the computer runs, the entropy of the system as a whole increases, even though there is a local decrease in information entropy produced by the computer).

6) Useful information isn't necessarily created or consumed by minds. The genetic information isn't consumed by the mind, it is read by messenger-RNA, and was working perfectly well before we observed it. Similarly computers also produce and consume vast quantities of useful information, the bulk of which is internal and isn't generated by, or seen by, human beings.

This again disproves the idea that only minds produce useful information.

7) There is an attempt to distinguish "codes" from "information." A code (by Marshall's definition) is created by an intelligence. This is an abuse of the word code. This is just a circular argument. If you define a code to be created by intelligence, then by tautology, intelligence creates codes. That proves nothing. Whether codes are traditionally man-made is irrelevant.

Maybe the definition of a code is "useful information", as opposed to "useless information". The problem is then "who distinguishes useful from useless information?" The question is incorrectly phrased: it should be "what distinguishes useful information from useless information". (Natural selection springs to mind).

Information is only useful if there is some means to decode it. In biology DNA is decoded by messenger RNA - it has nothing to do with the mind.

It is fully correct that the narrow definition of code (as the product of a mind) does not apply to DNA. It is only the broader definition (as useful information) which makes sense.

8) Evolution occurs in test tubes. We aren't talking about speciation here, we are talking about useful mutations creating stronger organisms. For example, you can make microbes more heat-resistant. According to Marshall, this would be impossible.

9) Why would God need a mind? I spell God "nature" and I also choose to not personify him (sorry, it). A brain is an evolved survival organ for an animal, what has that got to do with the creation of physics?

(Irrelevant, but half of this argument is about God after all.)

In fact, if we say "God created everything", then that works for your definition of God, and my definition of God. But this (like the definition of a code) is a tautology and doesn't gain us an iota of insight.

10) The brain is governed by physics. Some say it is governed entirely by physics (i.e. there is no soul playing puppet-master - in fact if there was then what would be the point of a brain?) Therefore physical processes are ultimately responsible for the output of our brains. Therefore physical processes create information.

11) This whole argument smells like "if it looks designed, then it is designed", or the "how else, but God" arguments. Information is being used as a synonym for design, not as a mathematical concept.

12) Remember, that intelligent design has never been observed - it is an unproven hypothesis. We ought to be able to catch it in a lab, and see entropy reversals before our eyes that are so unlikely that the more likely explanation is God. I really would be delighted if this was proven to be the case. It would be a valid experiment.

13) Marshall has a demo that mutation only destroys information. The flaw with this demonstration is that there is no natural selection. It isn't allowed to compete with the original mutation (or other mutations) to see which is better. That's like putting a frog in a blender. In nature, information is copied not destroyed, with a very low mutation rate.

If in nature, you never got any natural selection, then the progressive mutation of our genes would indeed destroy us. However natural selection is a negative entropy force which counteracts the positive entropy of random mutation.

If you increase the mutation rate or take away natural selection, then the power of mutation outweighs the power of natural selection, and the genome degrades. This is precisely what happens if you irradiate fruit flies.

14) I've put together my own demo that shows that useful information can be created using mutation. A tower of blocks is stacked, and the objective is to make the tower lean as far as possible without toppling the blocks.

In this demonstration, there are 10 "genes" which are 10 numbers representing the positions of each wooden block. The genes are mutated, resulting in some towers which lean further than others, and other towers falling over. The best tower is selected, and the process repeats.

How far out can the tower lean? Is it one block width? Two block-widths? 3/2 block widths? Infinite? What is the best design of the tower? I didn't know before the program was run, and the individual genes didn't know either. It was only by running the genetic algorithm that I was able to learn this, thereby gaining information.

So where did this information come from? It came from the fitness function, which supplies up to 1 bit of information to the genome per generation. In the demo, you can turn off the fitness function, and guess what, the information is lost due to mutation.

At the end of the simulation, the design is stable and the effects of mutation and natural selection are in balance.

15) Natural selection creates information. Mutation destroys information. The two effects are in equilibrium. If you only think about mutation, you are missing half of the argument.

For example, suppose animal A and animal B have a fight. Animal A has longer horns than animal B. Animal A kills animal B and impregnates the entire herd. We've just gained some information here: long horns are good. This information gets replicated throughout the herd.

The only reason animal A and B could fight in the first place is because they have energy in their metabolism, which, guess what, comes from the low entropy from sunlight. We see that low entropy from the sun is translated into low (information) entropy in the genome via natural selection.

So I think I've cracked it. The source of the information is natural selection, and not God after all.

Conclusion
The fundamental mistake that Marshall made was to ignore the information-creating properties of natural selection, which counteracts the information-destroying effects of mutation. In fact it took me a while to spot it.

I object to the claim that all useful information is the product of a mind. I think I have clearly demonstrated that information is created from loads of non-intelligent sources, such as random number sequences, genetic algorithms, and computer algorithms in general.

I also object to the claim that only a mind can select useful information. Again a perfectly good process, natural selection, explains this perfectly. Given a choice between a simple process (natural selection), and divine intervention, I favour the scientific explanation. But that's just me.

Thanks again Perry for a great idea, though I am still sceptical.

Pat Condell

2007-12-28T21:06:00.000Z

I've recently discovered Pat Condell's fine video collection. This is everything an atheist would like to say, but is far too polite to. Not Pat Condell. Stinging, delicious, and leaves you feeling very naughty.

Simulation independence

2007-11-18T21:26:00.000Z

I recently came across Nick Boström's article about the simulation argument, which goes that there is a non-zero chance that we are actually simulated individuals, and not actually made of carbon at all. It was spun out of The Matrix series of movies, though is a recurring theme right from Descartes and the Brain in a Vat.

Key to this idea is the argument of substrate independence, that is, carbon-based cells are not the only possible way of conjuring consciousness. Surely it isn't the carbon-based molecules per se that cause consciousness, but rather their configuration, and the kinds of computation (if that's the right word) being performed. Surely any "computer program" that reproduces the workings of the brain sufficiently well would suffice, since its operation and outputs would be essentially identical to the biological brain.

The simulation argument goes that we are not all that far from achieving that level of computation, so therefore there may well exist simulated minds in the near future. The problem is, how would you tell if you are real or not? The short answer is that you can't, as Descartes argued.

It occurs to me that there are two forms of simulation argument:

One where your brain is simulated, for purposes unknown. I'll call the first one brain simulation.
One where your entire universe is simulated (again for unknown purposes), and the cells in your brain are created within that simulation. Maybe this universe was allowed to evolve from a Big Bang. I'll call this one physics simulation.

Clearly it would take a whole load more computing horsepower to acheive the second, in fact, the second may only exist as a thought experiment, or in some higher-order universe where computations of our own universe would be much more straightforward. For example, we could simulate small "universes" in Conway's Game of Life, the principle is the same but the scale is different.

One of my pet theories is simulation independence, which I will explain.

A simulation is a model obeying mathematical rules.
The result of a simulation is a mathematical structure.
Mathematical structures exist independently of physical existence, or whether they are created or perceived by man. This is the Platonic world of ideals.
Therefore, simulations exist independently of observation, a phenomenon I call simulation independence.

This may seem like semantics, but I think it has some profound consequences:

When people run a simulation, they are discovering something that's already there. They are observing something that has already happened, and would have happened irrespective of whether they had run the simulation.
There is no theoretical limit to the size or complexity of simulations. Simulations exist in a Platonic world, that are bounded by the axioms of mathematics, not the physical limitations of computability in the universe you are in.
When you switch off a simulation, the simulation (in the Platonic world) keeps on running.
It makes no sense to ask whether you are part of a simulation, because the inhabitants of the simulation are in the Platonic world. You don't have to worry.
Anything that can exist, does exist, provided it makes coherent sense from a mathematical model.
There does not need to be a Modeller.
Everything that will happen, in a sense has already happened in the Platonic world. Time is an illusion.
Parallel universes exist (provided that they are mathematically valid).
We are very likely living in a mathematical structure conjured by the Platonic world of ideals.

The question of whether the mathematical world exists independently of the physical world is fundamental, but I don't think it can be denied. Our current understanding of the universe is that it is governed by mathematical laws, and mathematics describes pretty much everything. Therefore, this mathematics must have been applicable in the early universe before humans or any kind of consciousness arose. We also notice the unnerving consistency of mathematics, where calculations are reproducible. This is spooky, and in my mind, proof of the independent status of mathematics.

Plato's world of ideals wasn't really talking about mathematics, but was talking about the higher level concepts such as horses. Nevertheless, the concept of existence beyond the human mind, and beyond the physical world, was introduced.

Although there is no Modeller, where does the Platonic world of mathematics come from?

I wrote a short story exploring the idea of simulation independence. Be warned: its quality is on a par with Nick Boströms poetry.

No more secrets

2007-10-05T09:55:00.000+01:00

The UK government has recently introduced legislation that any citizen is required to provide decryption keys for any privately encrypted data, or face a 2 year jail term.

The excuse is that they need to "fight terrorism". This all sounds very Orwellian, where in George Orwell's book "1984", even a thought is a crime, and an invisible enemy is concocted in order to make the population more submissive. Sound familiar?

Encryption is a technology that is out of the bag. The authorities are technically powerless to break strong encryption schemes, although they do have some very large computers to try to crack encryption keys. The numbers are always on the side of the individual however - no matter how large a computer the police have, you can use a key that is too large for them.

The fundamental question is whether I should even be allowed to have secrets that aren't in my head? Is possession of information in itself a crime? Again, George Orwell's thoughtcrime. I personally think that all information should be free, though I can see the drawbacks of that. So what if someone has a deviant sexual fetish? - an image does no harm, and better to use images than to actually force yourself upon a child. As it happens, I would be quite interested in reading about cracking encryption schemes or bomb making - but purely out of intellectual curiosity! That should not be a crime. Expressing an "illegal opinion" (e.g. this religion is a load of nonsense, or yes, China really did invade Tibet) should never be a crime. There is a world of difference between learning, thinking and doing. Thought, and therefore information, should never be a crime.

Encryption is liberating, but unfortunately it is often used for shady purposes. There are many legitimate reasons for privacy, such as company secrets, medical, legal or financial information, data theft or identity theft, so the argument "you must have something to hide" doesn't hold water.

There are a number of other ways to get around this law. You could store your data off-shore, where the police have no powers over it. You could also plausibly claim that the data is "random bits", and the police couldn't prove it is data at all. You could claim to have forgotten your password (which in my case is quite likely.)

Ultimately this law is just an excuse to detain suspects without charge (any real charge, that is), whilst gathering evidence. The reason is because foreign terrorists are likely to flee the country.

I can see that fighting terrorism is important, but not at any cost. The problem is that I don't want to live in a police state where the police have excessive powers. Yes, you could invent lots of laws that would make the police's job a lot easier, including torture, detention without trial, drugging you, random strip searches, restrictions on movement etcetera.

I have nothing to hide, but I shouldn't need to prove that, and I have the right to remain silent. If I was required to hand over decryption keys for some data, I might seriously consider civil disobediance in order to highlight the flaw in this type of law. We are supposedly a free society, but that died a long time ago. Thanks Bush, thanks Blair.

2007-09-28T22:52:00.000+01:00

The true origins of Christianity:

http://www.sprword.com/videos/zeitgeist.html

2007-01-27T19:18:00.000Z

Big Brother racism?

There is a storm in a teacup about a contestant Jade Goody who made some remarks on the Big Brother TV series which could be construed as racist. I saw the program in question and she was certainly laying into Shilpa, and she certainly came across as a nasty bully.

Racism is such a sensitive issue, and I'm surprised that none of the other housemates had a word with Jade before ruining her reputation on national TV. However I am really concerned that there are taboo topics, and some things that you aren't allowed to say. Speech should be free. In spite of racism being a real problem, I actually think we should be confident enough to have racist banter, in the same way that we can have sexist banter. It's a shame that we are still too insecure, and too afraid of being labelled racist. We live in a politically correct society.

I have once or twice said things and immediately regretted them. For example I was once talking to a half-Indian whilst drunk, and he asked me what Birmingham was like. I said "I don't mean to sound racist, but there are a lot of asian communities". This was a really silly thing to say, even though this is actually one of the defining aspects of Birmingham. Anyhow the guy, who I was having a really interesting conversation with, walked away and didn't talk to me again.

Back to Jade: in spite of the fact that I don't really have anything in common with her, I think she's just the victim of political correctness gone mad. Of course she's not a racist.

2006-12-22T12:09:00.000Z

"Prayer helped Defoe bounce back" from the BBC today.

An article about a guy who used prayer to cheer himself up after being dropped from the world cup squad. This article really annoys me. Didn't Defoe remember that when he prayed to be a part of the world cup in the first place, and how his prayer wasn't answered. Didn't he get a clue that talking to yourself doesn't actually influence anything? How can people be so simple? It almost dismays me as much as people who are "miraculously" spared from a natural disaster believe it is God's work that they are saved. So God willed everyone else to die?

In other news, I wonder why God would put all of those fossils into the ground in order to make scientists believe the earth is more than 10000 years old. So God is deliberately deceiving us? Why make out that he isn't there? He is deliberately deceiving us in order to test our faith? So a perfect God is deceitful??? Why make us defective and then punish us for being defective? It makes no sense whatsover.

Must go now, I need to go and lift this thick fog with a prayer. I'm sure God will answer my prayer in a couple of days. If not, I am sure he is just testing my faith, and it'll come good in the end. Rant over.

2006-12-16T23:21:00.000Z

Another funny video from whywontgodhealamputees.com:

The delusion of Christianity

2006-12-09T18:10:00.001Z

I have always wondered what the evolutionary benefits are of any kind of ritual.

I could imagine that building social relationships, and identifying with a group, are beneficial for survival. I could also guess that a ritualistic killing of genes other than your own could reduce competition for resources.

In nature, animals often have complex rituals, particularly mating rituals. What is most fascinating is that human rituals are learned rather than instinctive.

I have always supposed that the rituals we see today are detrimental to society. I guess it can't always be so clear cut, since occasionally religious people do act altrustically, even outside their clique, and our ancestors MUST have derived some benefit from this kind of behaviour otherwise the behaviour would not have been selected.

Ultimately, it only matters to our genes THAT we behave in a certain way, not WHY we do it. Since we are intelligent, our genes must manipulate us via our beliefs rather than our instincts. I know I certainly have a lot of irrational beliefs, for example I love my parents more than other people, but at least I understand this process better, and am hopefully less likely to act absurdly.

2006-11-29T14:41:00.000Z

Life == Information

In this post I will challenge what we mean by the word "life". Biological things are "alive" by definition, and by this we mean complex biological entities which can reproduce themselves. Added to this are biological viruses, which are on a less firm footing, since they are essentially parasites which can only reproduce in a host.

Although we may die, our cells may not, for example our hair and fingernails carry on growing after our death. We can also think of ourselves as the sum our our genes, which live on in our relatives.

Since computing we also have other things which are life-like, though we may not immediately call them "alive". Artificial life is where various types of life (or pattern) are simulated in a computer, and are perhaps bred for fitness using genetic algorithms. We also have Conways "Game of life" where spontaneous patterns emerge (and potentially reproduce) in a computer.

There are other things which are life-like, yet are not considered alive. Computer viruses sponteneously copy themselves. You even have mutating computer viruses in order to defy detection by anti-virus programs. Computer virus kits can create variations on the same virus. Computer viruses are subject to the same pressures of natural selection which biological organisms are subject to. If a virus is "fit" and avoids detection by anti-virus software, is small, has good mechanisms to reproduce itself on a wide variety of platforms, it is a "fit" virus which will become more widespread.

Ordinary computer software can also be considered to be "life". There are long "genomes" (in this case machine code) which inhabit our hard disks and spread via marketing by their manufacturers, reviews and by word-of-mouth. I see that Firefox/Mac OSX/Picassa whatever is fantastic and I reproduce the software on my own computer. We also have aspects of software, such as the way a menu-system works, or a particular algorithm, language or database package which makes software more "fit" and causes it to be more successful.

We also have memes: ideas which spread via human cooperation. The term was coined by Richard Dawkins. Ideas also compete for our favour. There is the flat-earth meme vs the spherical-earth meme. Heliocentric vs geocentric. Islam vs Christianity. Capitalism vs socialism. Black or silver hifi. Classical or modern. Hedge or fence. Picasso or Da Vinci. Iron or bronze.

All of these ideas are competing against one another in the minds of its hosts, namely us. Simple things like what is good to eat or wear compete on their effectiveness and benefit to us. An idea may be particularly appealing to a group of people, for example the church may be particularly attached to the common-sense idea of a flat earth, and there are several references in the Bible to a flat earth. A religious idea may bring with it a sense of identity, morals and purpose which makes it very appealing to its hosts even though it may in fact be totally false.

With modern technology we have the power not only to eradicate smallpox, but also to sequence it and store it on computer. One could then reconstruct smallpox from its sequence. Is smallpox really dead if it could still be reconstructed? Does it matter if its medium is silicon or paper instead of biological molecules for a while?

The problem I have is that biological, carbon-based life is given a special status. I would argue that there is nothing magical about carbon-based life. Yes, at the moment it certainly has the most interesting, but at the end of the day it is still a pattern in a medium. What about all of these other types of "life" which appear so life-like yet we overlook it? Is it because life is in fact so widespread that we never stop to question?

This leads me to my conclusion. All of these different types of life have one thing in common: they are information. Information is subject to exactly the same pressures as biological life: it is copied; it competes; it is subject to natural selection; it mutates; it requires a medium; it can die. When coming up with an umbrella term for all of these forms of "life" we see that it is exactly the same as information.

The nice thing about information is that it is an abstract term. It is subject to mathematical study in the form of information theory. We are not boxed in with worrying about philosophical questions like what does it mean to die? From an information-centric point of view, yes a whole load of information disappears as our bodies decompose, yet at the same time the information in our genome lives on in others. We have managed to discover the underlying concept.

Finally I urge you to see how much information is around you. I cannot cast my eye on anything without realising that it contains a huge amount of information. Each item you see is fit for purpose. The information that went into each design is the result of a long process of selection and refinement.

2006-11-18T19:07:00.000Z

Here is Richard Dawkins being grilled by Jeremy Paxman:

2006-11-09T09:57:00.000Z

Borat banned?

I've just seen one of the most hysterical films ever: Borat. Unfortunately this film appears to discriminate against minorities, such as homosexuals, Jews and Kazakhs. It certainly draws a fine line.

However the film really pokes fun at Americans, Christians, anti-Semites and homophobes. It uses the naivety of Borat's comments to show how ridiculous some of these positions are, and shows the minorities acting reasonable (e.g. the Jews). By showing a happy-clappy pentecostal church, (e.g. talking in tongues) makes Christianity appear utterly ridiculous. Also the "running of the Jew" shows the fundamental misunderstandings people have of each others' cultures.

2006-10-20T12:45:00.000+01:00

Basic freedoms

There is a news article at the moment about Aishah Azmi, a teaching assistant who insists on wearing a veil in school.

I am really torn on this issue. There are clearly practical and safety issues with letting people wear veils in school, and I don't think it is that good an idea. On the other hand, I am all for freedoms and clearly this veil is an important part of culture and it is doing no real harm. Then again, children are expected to adhere to a dress code, so why not the teachers?

What I find extremely infuriating is that Muslims demand civil liberties, but only when it works in their favour. Whilst we do have certain freedoms, for example to publish material that may offend others, Muslims still insist that we should not have that freedom. This is the essence of modern discourse, after all, if an idea cannot withstand criticism, then maybe it isn't such a good idea in the first place. Only by challenging ideas have we been able to ascend from the intellectual dark ages, and it is something so fundamental to Western culture.

Muslims also deny their women a lot of freedoms, which essentially makes them hypocrites, when they demand (say) the freedom to practise their religion at all. I would say that freedom should work both ways, for example we should be allowed to offend Mohammed, but that in return people should be allowed to dress more liberally.

I also think that religion should be kept out of certain institutions. A veil is clearly a religious statement. It makes a statement "I am better than you". I find this rather distasteful. The only way we are going to survive as a society is if we keep all religion out of schools, institutions, and government for our own sanity. (Don't get me started on faith schools - brainwashing children is outrageous).

If Muslims cannot accept our society, then the only solution for them is to find alternative employment, maybe in another country. I do not want this, since I find a mix of cultures to be tantalising, but only if we can treat each other as equals, and not to be despised as an infidel.

2006-10-06T10:27:00.000+01:00

Abolishing Limbo?

Today the Pope is considering abolishing Limbo. This is where all the unbaptised children go if they die.

So the Pope can snap his fingers and suddenly Limbo will disappear? Or, they can use some experimental method to determine whether Limbo exists? When are these people going to realise that they don't know what they are talking about? When is the rest of the world going to realise?

2006-08-17T23:07:00.000+01:00

Whenever you use the Stumble! toolbar, you'll occasionally get something like this video. I love people who can articulate atheism better than I can.

2006-08-08T21:57:00.000+01:00

Here is a good video about heaven (and how you will never get there):

2006-08-06T18:43:00.000+01:00

Taking responsibility

I can't decide whether Lebanon deserves the treatment it is getting from Israel. On the one hand, Isreal is acting out of all proportion and causing widespread misery. On the other hand, Muslims have not really confronted their relationship with violence. They think (mistakenly) that they have a duty to fight, and that their culture should prevail over all others. Such eugenics has not been been seen since WW2. The moderate Muslims should reign them in, but have not acknowledged their responsibility to do so. By being passive they become complicit, and have only themselves to blame when eventually Isreal turns and gives them a taste of their own medicine.

2006-07-15T15:09:00.000+01:00

A bunch of idiots in Israel believe that the tooth fairy wears blue shoes. A bunch of idiots in Lebanon believe that the tooth fairy wears red shoes. Idiots who believe that the tooth fairy wears red shoes can't stand idiots who don't think that, and in particular think that all idiots who believe in the blue shoes should be wiped off the face of the planet.

The idiots who believe in blue shoes are getting pissed off with this, and have the moral superiority (not to mention the financial and military superiority) and want to put a stop to all of this red-shoe nonsense.

The blue-shoe idiots oppress and discriminate against the red-shoe idiots. The red-shoe idiots see it as their duty to kill blue-shoe idiots. The blue-shoe idiots unleash hell on the red-shoe idiots. Plenty of idiots who merely disapprove of the other idiots get hurt.

Theology is like arguing about whether the tooth fairy wears red shoes or blue shoes.

2006-07-12T21:54:00.000+01:00

I wonder if the future is fixed. Not quite the same as fate, since fate implies we can know our future, and nothing we can do can change it. We can't second-guess our fate, and deliberately change it, since then how do we know that what we changed it to wasn't our true fate all along? But are the future and the past as real as the present? Is time really an illusion, and we are really a bead on a 4-dimensional wire?

To me, it seems silly to give the "now" a greater reality than either the past or the present. That would mean that what is "real" is constantly changing. Absolutely, what we perceive is constantly changing, but that is because our brains are a part of that physics. Our brains have a physical state that changes with time, and only represents the "now". That does not mean that "now" is the only thing that exists, it is just an illusion that our minds play on us.

If we believe in an objective reality - a reality outside of our minds, and a reality independent of who is witnessing it, then reality is not dependent on perception. Therefore, a caveman's "reality" is no less real than our current or future reality, even though it happened at a different time to now, and was seen through different eyes.

There is also a fundamental problem with "now". "Now" doesn't exist, it really refers to a short, not even instantaneous, duration of what we are perceiving. According to special relativity, two events cannot happen simultaneously in an absolute sense - simultaneity is dependent on the observer.

We just have a small mind capable of only perceiving a limited number of things at a time. In the same way that we are limited temporally, we are also limited spacially. But we don't seriously doubt the existence of a house in the next street just because we are separated from it spacially. The "here" is no more real than the "there", analogously, the "now" is no more real than the "then". It is just a matter of perspective.

If "now" is as real as "then", then the future is also as real as now. The only difference is the apparent uncertainty that the future holds. The only difference is that we have knowledge of the past, and that information flows towards the future, never to the past. In the future, all of the past is fixed. But the past of the future includes our future, which is therefore fixed? When we reach the future, the only thing that changes is our knowledge of it. The future is perhaps there all along.

But is the future uncertain, or just unknown? Are there multiple possible futures, or is there just one? There is no way to tell the difference. Soon enough, we find ourselves in one future. Ockam's razor would suggest that having one future is a better hypothesis than having multiple futures. If we really did have multiple futures, are there then multiple versions of myself in the future? If we ended up in only one future, then were the other futures real possibilities, or not really possibilities at all?

Can we really influence our future? It may seem obvious that we can "cause" something to happen. But this is only true if our minds are external to physics, and are not subject to the same laws of cause and effect. As soon as our brains become a part of physics, then we have about as much free will as a falling rock. If we imagine for a moment that our brains are only subject to the laws of chemistry, and that our minds are conjured only by our brains, then there is no space for free will.

What is physics anyhow? It seems fundamentally governed by mathematics. Is that all there is to it - mathematics? In that case, what else needs to be real? Instead of being dynamic 3-dimensional objects, aren't we just static 4-dimensional objects with an attitude problem?

Our minds play a lot of tricks on us. We think we have free will even though we may just be powerlessly watching life unfold before us. We imagine it is incredibly important for us to behave in certain ways, even though it is not. We imagine the now is more real than the future or the past, even though is is not. We think the things around us are real, when they are merely a reconstruction of electrical nerve impulses. We think it matters.

2006-04-30T16:17:00.000+01:00

Thou shalt not lie?

Religious nuts claim to be the most moral and enlightened people. Isn't it ironic then that creationists are deliberately spreading lies and misinformation about evolution. This surely goes against their religion, and they should stop right now.

2006-04-28T23:59:00.000+01:00

Something good by Bertrand Russell.

2006-04-10T18:58:00.000+01:00

Accosted by Jehova's Witnesses

The old ring at the door. "Are we expecting anybody?" asks my dad. The answer is no. Instead it's Jehova's witnesses, which I answer. Let the sport begin!

Opening gambit: they ask what is the name of God? I answer Yawhe. They seem impressed, then correct me when I also say "God", which they say is only his title. Ok. Then they ask about morality. This is an excellent topic of debate. Where do morals come from? They say God, and he is a person. I argue that he is not human, or that he has thoughts and morals. They ask if I have thought about God seriously, I answer yes, and have rejected the idea, saying that it is a mistake to give God human characteristics.

Is society going downhill? They claim it is going downhill, I claim humans have always been fairly rotten to each other. I immediately lay my cards on the table. I say that psychology, and morals are evolved, and did not come from God. They claim morality comes from God as written in the bible. I ask why the bible has authority, and I suggest it was made up, and that people 2,3,4 thosand years ago did not have direction from God, and were indeed more ignorant than we are today. I baldly say that the Bible was made up. They don't really have an answer.

JW seem to be creationists. There seems to be a strong resistance to evolution, claiming that all animals and plants were placed here by God. I disagree. I think it's better to be blunt and tell someone when you think they are mistaken, since it moves the argument along. I also suggested that they were a closed community, who are merely talking to each other rather than finding out the facts about evolution. Also I say that all scientists believe in evolution, and that there is ample evidence, for example fossils and DNA. They claim there are unexplainable gaps in the fossil record.

They seem busy and want to move on. I conclude by trying to explain the meaning of scientific certainty, by arguing that although scientists don't have an absolute faith, the certainty of evolution is as certain that the earth is round, or that the earth revolves the sun, and that when scientists argue about evolution, they are only discussing its minor details, not the theory as a whole. They ask that life-on-earth nature programs always refer to the "theory" of evolution, I answer that theory does not imply wrong, and indeed David Attenburgh is a strong supporter of evolution. Her partner corrects her: indeed he is.

Finally to conclude, they say they believe God is coming, and that he will intervene to stop humanity from destroying the world. They also say he has intervened in the past. I say that he has not, nor will he. We shake hands and they leave.

I don't know what lasting impression I gave. They were probably a little perturbed that I had a well thought out world-view that did not include their god, and that I understood their position perfectly. They felt a little outmanoevered on science, however they probably put that down to their lack of reading, but that some scientific books produced by Watchtower would cover it. I declined. But I never felt that they could really argue a point: when we disagreed, it was always answered by some kind of anecdote, usually based on wrong facts. They are seriously misrepresenting science. I feel it a little dangerous to assume that God will stop us from destroying the planet, this is a seriously worrying development since it means it's ok continue to destroy with impunity.

I felt a bit cheated, since all they really told me in 20 minutes was that: (a) God is his title not his name, (b) morality comes from God, (c) God is a person (d), all life was placed here, there was no evolution, (e) God is coming. I don't see any reason to believe that, and the argument jumped around and did not run very deep. I think it is unfortunate that evolution is often prefixed with "theory". We also say the big bang theory, often it is just called "the big bang". I would instead urge people to not say "Christianity", but the "Theory of Christianty", and not "God", but the "Theory of God". I think that would be the perfect reposte to anybody who insists that evolution is just a theory. Even then, putting them on a quasi-equal footing is wrong.

It's pretty important to challenge people who come to your door, even if it's just for 20 minutes. The JWs left feeling uneasy, since they couldn't really counter my objections.

2006-03-16T23:03:00.000Z

Dear Andrew Smith MP,

I am writing to you concerning the education reforms that your government is steamrolling through.

I strongly disagree with faith-based selection. I think the whole idea of insulating people from other cultures, other peoples, and other ideas is actually quite abhorrent. Yet this is what faith-based schools do.

You can't mandate one hour a week for studying multiculturalism or religious education, that is simply not enough to integrate people. The only way to integrate, appreciate and respect one another's cultures is via contact with other people. My prejudices quickly melt away after spending just ten minutes with someone from a different background to myself.

I can understand that some parents may want their children to grow up to be good Catholics or Muslims, but I would rather that the decision was taken by the child, not by the parents. I find the differences between the faiths to be largely artificial, and forcing it upon children at an early age will just divide society. The example of faith-based selection in Northern Ireland is proof that this just fosters prejudice, and denies children a balanced view in life. Surely the only way for multiculturalism to work is via integration, not division, and it is wrong to give in to parents' demands on this issue.

I would urge faith-based selection to be outlawed, in the same way that it is outlawed in the workplace. It is, to use Tony Blair's word, an anomaly (though he was not talking about education). Parents who want their children growing up in a vacuum have the evenings and the weekends to indoctrinate their children into their faith and culture.

On the other hand, I do favour selection based on ability. I went to a grammar school, and eventually came out as best scholar and went on to Cambridge where I got a first and a PhD. I am so grateful that I was able to receive a good education from the state, and I think that forcing me to go to a comprehensive school would have been to my detriment. To remain competitive, the UK must foster competence at all levels, not try to drag everyone down. It only takes one disruptive child to ruin a class.

I would instead urge greater provision for the brightest students. Whilst it is dangerous to label students and bright or mediocre at an early age (I was a very late starter but just about scraped into grammar school), it is important to challenge and develop the brightest students. The comprehensive system fails to do that. I would bet that money spent on brighter students would be fantastic value, and would be a more rewarding experience for teachers and students alike. Look at the examples of Sweden and Finland.

Why should quality of education be based on the wealth or faith of the parents? I would much rather it was based on the potential of the child.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Unfortunately I think your government has got it completely wrong on this issue, and I see a worrying trend that Tony Blair's faith-based agenda is once again taking him down the wrong route (Iraq being the first faith-based mistake). While his intentions may be good, the results may not be.

Yours sincerely,

Calum Grant

2006-03-15T16:08:00.000Z

Are atheists moral?

It is often claimed that atheists have no morality, that morality only makes sense through God, that a universal morality exists through God, or that God gave us morality.

All of this is nonsense. (Hey, it's my blog, I can be as blunt as I like!) Let us deal with the last point, that morality comes from God. This statement is meaningless, since God is "everything we don't understand", which says that we don't understand morality. This is factually false, evolutionary psychology does give us a reason for morality. Even if God for some reason wanted us to behave in certain ways (why exactly he would want that escapes me), then how would that be communicated to us? Through prayer? Through stones carted down from Mt Synae? Through the Bible?

The problem with appealing to God is that there are differing religions, each telling their flock different things. There is no reason to suppose that one religion has a connection to God, whilst other religions are simply misguided. I would argue that they are all misguided. What they have in common, apart from a perceived moral superiority over other groups, are to basically love one another and stop being so selfish.

Atheists of course have a sense of right and wrong. It is not just a utilitarian desire to not end up in jail, it is because I don't like to see other people suffer. Besides, I would gain far more by cooperating with people than by conniving against them. Generally, human relationships count far more than material possessions, even for atheists. What right do religions have to claim these values as their own?

These values do not come from God. Well, they come from God in the sense that everything comes from God, which is basically a meaningless statement. Behaviours are actually evolved. Since every human characteristic is subject to natural selection, then the same is also true of our behavioural characteristics. Community, love of our family, and a degree of selflessness are all good for our survival. Our characteristics weren't given to us by God at all!

I would even argue that religious people are less moral than atheists, since they spend their time worrying about unimportant things like in which direction to pray, which food to eat, building buildings for worship, subjugating women and despising other people to the point of violence, all of which are not of any benefit to anybody.

2006-03-11T22:55:00.000Z

Intelligent design?

Do things ever occur that are unexplainable by science? This is almost Godel's incompleteness theorem: some things cannot be proven using the laws in any sufficiently complex system. The fallacy is always the same: what cannot be readily explained, is "unexplainable", therefore must have been performed by an intelligent action. Both of those steps are logical fallacies.

Underlying intelligent design is the idea that some things could not have occurred naturally. Eyes, flagella, DNA, are deemed to be statistically impossible to have arisen. The problem is that for every specific case where such an example is given by the creationists, it is possible to refute it. For example, a small part of a flagellum is still extremely useful to a bacterium. Evolution is a great theory, not because it is necessarily true (although it is overwhelmingly likely that it is), but because it can withstand such criticism, and win every time.

Intelligent designers are ill-informed to genuinely believe that evolution does not stand up to such tests. Intelligent design gives people the illusion of knowledge, because real science is hard. People think they are getting one over the scientists, and that what they know is somehow equal to, or is in some sense genuine knowledge. All they are really doing is giving ignorance credibility.

Show me someone who believes in ID, and I'll show you a hypocrite. These people benefit hugely from the advances in science and technology, yet constantly strive to undermine science. Not one biologist or biochemist believes in ID, yet supporters of ID are not beyond taking life-saving medicines from these people when it suits them.