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Intelligent design doesn't jive with the Torah and Quran

matt@csbgroup.org (Matt M.) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 15:37:00 GMT

I spend a lot of my free time reading about religion. Most of that time is on the features that make one religion different from another. That's why G. Willow Wilson's article on why intelligent design doesn't work in Islam and Judaism riveted me.

"The God of the Bible is omniscient and all-powerful, but the God of the Torah and the Quran is omnipresent and omniparticipant. This essential difference has led some religious scholars to draw a distinction between monotheism, the belief in one God, and monism, the belief in One."

The crux of her article is that Islam and Judaism are monistic (believe in One essence), and Christianity is monotheistic (believe in one God). That is the God of Islam and Judaism is an omnipresent essence of the universe. The God of Christianity is omniscient but limited to one all-powerful being. This is why iconography is forbidden in Islam and Judaism (because God is not part of our world) but very present in Christianity (because a local God interacts directly with people's lives). These fundamental differences play a role in whether a religion endorses intelligent design (ID) or not.

I think Mormonism actually finesses this point a bit. They have a recursive notion of God that allows him to be one being that is a part of universe, but also omnipresent and apart from the universe. Perhaps that's why Mormons don't seem to be leading the charge for ID?

She goes into more detail about how these differences impact ID. There's some really good stuff in there. G. Willow Wilson is a woman of many talents. She's writing a new comic book series called Air that I really enjoyed.

David Byrne meets the High-5

matt@csbgroup.org (Matt M.) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:13:00 GMT

David Byrne's March visit to Dallas (via Unfair Park) makes a point of mentioning the awe-inspiring High Five interchange.

I turned north on Highway 75 on what might be the mightiest and most awe-inspiring interchange I've ever seen. At least five levels of roads are stacked up, all swooping over, under and around each other as if in some mighty concrete mating dance.

Other writers have described it in more medieval terms as a bridge between castle Dallas and the fiefdoms that surround it. Regardless of the metaphor, it's hard to convey how impressive the High Five interchange to people who haven't ridden it. Even harder is to make people understand how miraculous the transformation from dysfunctional eyesore to utilitarian wonder.

Absurd Numbers

matt@csbgroup.org (Matt M.) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:24:00 GMT

This is too long to fit on twitter but I like it too much to forget about it. The word absurd was actually first used to describe irrational numbers.

I'm working my way through a book on all the people that helped or solved problems on David Hilbert's famous list of 23 great math problems.

Many times a solution only presents itself after cultural change. One of the cultural norms that had to be updated to push math forward was the idea that irrational numbers are actually useful.

There was a time when irrational numbers were avoided by mathematicians. This disdain was so strong that the word "absurd" was created to describe how useless people believed irrationals to be. From Yandell's book:

An irrational square root was called a "surd," meaning deaf, silent (expressing the attitude toward it). The word "absurd" was first used in English in 1557, according to Oxford English Dictionary, for the purpose of pronouncing the number 8 - 12 (or -4) absurd.

It's clear to us now how important the absurd numbers are for solving real problems. But for a while math stood still while the culture had to catch up.

Why aren't you a superhero?

matt@csbgroup.org (Matt M.) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 12:17:00 GMT

As a kid I wanted my life to be different from the one I imagined ahead of me. I wanted to be a master jewel thief or president of a unified North and South America. As I got older the dreams got smaller. I wanted to monopolize America's garbage collection industry. Now they're more abstract. I wish I'd had a comic book like Kick-Ass to inspire me when I was younger.

It's about a high school student named Dave Lizewski who wonders why nobody wants to grow up to be a superhero. One day he decides to put on a scuba suit and fight crime. Mark Millar's writing comes across as authentic and a fresh take on what makes a superhero. The way he integrates ideas from his fans drives home the point that Kick-Ass is something that exists in our world. We should all ask ourselves why we didn't choose to be superheroes.

With every issue I've gotten a little choked up, or felt a rush of excitement. Nothing else, except All Star Superman, comes close to engaging me like this every month. Every issue so far has sold out. Issue 3 mentions that they've started hitting Spider-Man/X-Men numbers with 75,000 copies of the first issue sold. I think this could be big.

Peace for a Change

matt@csbgroup.org (Matt M.) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:11:00 GMT

"Think peace and and you'll get it. It's up to the people...If we really wanna change it, we can change it." -John Lennon

That quote is copied from the press kit for the Oscar nominated animated short film I Met the Walrus and hits upon a trifecta of my current interests.

The first being that reality is manufactured by the words in our pens and the thoughts in our head. Take responsibility.

Second, the Oscar nominated short films, live action and animated, are top notch. I continue to believe that the French, and French Canadians, are doing the most innovative animation work (Triplets of Belleville, Renaissance, Madame Tutli-Putli and Even Pigeons Go to Heaven all come to mind). Now if they just had the writing of Pixar.

The third is this nonsense about Barack Obama plagiarizing his speeches. Change, or at least the promise of change, has been a major theme of many political leaders. I don't know how Senator Obama could speak about change in a clear and direct way without building on the tradition of leaders before him. A far more dangerous idea is to demand that political leaders constantly dance around their ideas and relinquish any ability to speak plainly and directly.

Gifts and Social fabric

matt@csbgroup.org (Matt M.) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:37:00 GMT

From Lewis Hyde in The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. [link goes to the free preview page that has the quote on Amazon]

Where someone manages to commercialize a tribe's gift relationships the social fabric of the group is invariably destroyed.

I have yet to read Lewis Hyde's book but I'm already hooked from the free pages on Amazon. He starts off illustrating one of the fundamental differences between the Native Americans and the Europeans that invaded: a gift culture. Native American tribes would exchange gifts of equal or greater value. The purpose being to continually gift the item to others. It created social bonds between tribes. Europeans followed a capitalist model where they warehoused those gifts and used them for production to enrich themselves.

I wonder how this fits in with Robert Putnam's research in Bowling Alone. On the surface it makes Putnam's phrase "social capital" sound like an odd match. But I realize the term social capital could refer to the gifts we exchange to build our bonds.

Biblical Reality Hacking

matt@csbgroup.org (Matt M.) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 05:11:00 GMT

I really enjoy reading Grant Morrison. I can think of few writers who really grok the power of storytelling to change our reality like he does. I've learned a lot about the power of the written word from reading his comic books. What surprises me is when I come across those ideas in much older works, like the Bible.

Numbers 5:12-31 is about how husbands can force their wives to submit to an abortion if they merely suspect their wife has cheated on them. They go before a priest goes who has God curse some water before the wife drinks it. The cursed water causes her to miscarry and renders her barren if she cheated on him.

What fascinates me about this is the manner in which the priest creates the magic abortion potion.

The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. He shall have the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water will enter her and cause bitter suffering.

The priest is literally writing out what he wants to happen. Then the ink from those words is mixed with water that the wife is to drink. The written word has magical properties here. The priest is able to alter reality by writing a new story.

To further my point about the power of perception imagine a different story with the same facts. A woman is pregnant, but not by her husband. However, in this story she tells it as immaculate conception.

Sponsorhip and mediocrity

matt@csbgroup.org (Matt M.) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 03:56:00 GMT

Why are TV shows, network TV shows in particular, so mediocre? I think I've come across the answer in Vance Packards 1957 book The Hidden Persuaders. It's by design.

In 1955 I Love Lucy was the top-rated comedy show and Philip Morris was the money behind it. Philip Morris found their sales drop 17 percent and some believed a popular show doesn't sell products.

"...Is an advertiser better off with a less than top-rated show in order to get commercials across?" That observation was made in early 1955. [..] Were some of the resolutely mediocre shows on television that way by design, to increase the impact of the commercials?

Another TV show that was put together to sell Mogen David wine wasn't getting the job done.

[The show] was, admittedly, delighting the audience with its chilling, exciting who-dun-it mysteries. The show enjoyed a high rating but it wasn't selling wine.

The problem they decided was that audiences were too tense and that in their "emotional frenzy" they missed the wine message. It was replaced with a panel show. Wine sales increased 1000%.

Shows like The Wire on HBO obviously don't have the same problem.

Justice carries the day

matt@csbgroup.org (Matt M.) — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:21:00 GMT

I imagine Senator Dodd is feeling pretty great now. It's rare that politics provides an opportunity for one man to stand up and fight for a just cause, and win. Senator Dodd was able to filibuster retroactive immunity for the phone companies.

Despite retroactive immunity appearing to be a violation of the ex post facto clause in Article I of our Constitution most of the Senate was ready to pass it. Thanks to Senator Dodd's leadership on this we've won one battle in the war to preserve our nation's Constitution.

Pursuits of youth

matt@csbgroup.org (Matt M.) — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 12:43:00 GMT

Something I regret not doing when I was younger is chasing after the things that I thought mattered. I either let my interest wane, or listened to the tut-tutting of others that said it was a waste of time.

I'm reading a book that examines the Interactive Fiction (IF) medium called Twisty Little Passages. Interactive Fiction is the dressed up word for text adventures. I feel as though hours of my youth spent playing these has been vindicated. I should have pushed for it to be considered Summer Reading.

...works of acknowledged literary quality, such as Robert Pinksky's Mindwheel and Brian Moriarty's Trinity...

It's neat to see a classic Infocom text adventure right alongside work created by a former US poet laureate. Moriarty's Trinity was the first time I ever came across a Klein bottle and the word perambulator.