Mike Raiford wrote:
> We can't prove there is something outside our own 
> universe because it's beyond what we can observe about our own universe.

There's a fair amount of sci-fi that does just this sort of thing. I 
wouldn't say it's logically impossible to prove there's something outside 
our own universe.

See, for example, Greg Egan's "Permutation City", or Robert Sawyer's 
"Calculating God".  And of course if something from outside simply modified 
the simulation to tell us of its existence...

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Mike Raiford wrote:
> > We can't prove there is something outside our own
> > universe because it's beyond what we can observe about our own universe.
>
> There's a fair amount of sci-fi that does just this sort of thing. I
> wouldn't say it's logically impossible to prove there's something outside
> our own universe.
>
> See, for example, Greg Egan's "Permutation City", or Robert Sawyer's
> "Calculating God".  And of course if something from outside simply modified
> the simulation to tell us of its existence...

Exactly the footnote to Carl Sagan's "Contact" - the novel, at least.

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On 10/20/2010 11:04 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> On 10/20/2010 8:58 AM, Darren New wrote:
>>>> Sadly, this is not uncommon. However, many, including myself, have
>>>> argued that you cannot have such a drastic error in thinking, and not
>>>> have it spill over into your own discipline,
>>>
>>> Huh. Odd. Some of the smartest people I know doing computers are
>>> devoutly religious. I can't imagine why you'd think that belief that
>>> Jesus sacrificed himself to save you would interfere with your ability
>>> to design computer software, for example.
>>>
>> Right.. Because there isn't, for example, a very weird association
>> between either engineers *or* computer science, and the tendency of
>> both to think ID makes more sense than Evolution. Its invariably one
>> or the other, which ends up being the discipline someone belongs to,
>> when they claim to advocate ID.
>
> You know, I don't know where you grew up or anything, but I have the
> hardest time in the world understanding WTF you're going on about. That
> entire sentence makes no sense. It's like a written version of the G-Man
> speaking.
>

Its not about where I grew up. I read several blobs that deal with 
science, and invariably, every time the question of evolution comes up, 
you get *two* types of people claiming it doesn't work. 1. People that 
have no degrees **at all**, or understanding of anything related to it, 
and are religious. 2. People claiming that their vast experience in 
computers or engineering has "proven to them" that it can't work, oh, 
and.. also happen to be religious.

That is the point I am making. In my experience, even being *very good* 
at your discipline, seemingly, doesn't mean that your belief in certain 
religious concepts won't "bleed over" into that discipline, and 
undermine your ability to do you job. Like the religious guy I 
mentioned, who claimed to be a) religious, b) a programmer, and c) 
working on projects that use genetic algorithms, yet also d) they are 
useless and the whole theory behind them is wrong. That doesn't happen 
**unless** your gibberish from religion is informing your conclusions.

At best, the only argument that *is* valid, with regard to the idea that 
it may not have an effect, would be, "Depending on whether or not the 
goofy shit you believe directly addresses some subject you are studying, 
you may escape having your thinking muddled *in* your studies." The 
question then becomes, "How sure are you that what ever those goofy 
things are, you will *never* run across something that contradicts it, 
in your field?"

A lot of fields already have issues with failing to, for example, 
account for fluid dynamics, in biology, because the person is an expert 
in some specialty of biology, which doesn't require knowing fluid 
dynamics, at least until they ran into something that depended on it to 
work out what was going on. We like to think that ever discipline is so 
specialized that there is no overlaps. This is wrong. There are lots of 
overlaps, though they happen in the fringes of the discipline. The more 
specialized you get, the less you deal with those fringes, but the more 
likely you are to run into some case where you **need** one of those 
cross overs to explain something. Its one thing to be unaware of the 
answer, and have to, if you know who to ask, garner outside information 
from someone that *does* know. But, what happens when you a) don't know 
it, and b) don't believe you need to ask, because your "belief" about 
the subject implies that the answer lies in a church, instead of someone 
else's lab?

That is what I see happening with some of these people. If you want an 
example, just look at William Dembski. By all grounds, he seemed to be 
an adequate, at the least, mathematician, yet, the moment his 
creationism became an issue, he suddenly, and inexplicably, started 
doing math that would make almost anyone else embarrassed. Nothing he 
has done on the subject is more than superficially believable, and it 
contains so many errors, one has a hard time understanding how he 
managed to get his original degree. The only thing that explains this is 
that, the moment he had to deal with a situation where the math went 
against belief, he **had to** mangle the math, to support the belief, 
and, worse, actually can't understand why the result is invalid, 
defective, and mathematically unsound.

I have seen too many of these things to simply *accept* the assertion 
that someone isn't being influenced in their work, by things they, and 
others, claim our "outside of it", and therefor never effect it. It can 
and does happen. And, my basic argument is, unless you only stick to 
things that never come into conflict (which may, itself, mean you are 
not exploring the full range of possibilities in the discipline), you 
will **inevitably** run into a situation where one or the other needs to 
give. Which one does depends on both professional integrity, and how 
invested you are in what ever is in conflict. But, the conflict *will* 
happen.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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On 10/21/2010 12:38 AM, scott wrote:
>>> Sadly, this is not uncommon. However, many, including myself, have
>>> argued that you cannot have such a drastic error in thinking, and not
>>> have it spill over into your own discipline,
>>
>> Huh. Odd. Some of the smartest people I know doing computers are
>> devoutly religious. I can't imagine why you'd think that belief that
>> Jesus sacrificed himself to save you would interfere with your ability
>> to design computer software, for example.
>
> Ditto here, I know several of the Engineers I work with are very
> religious, and it doesn't affect their work at all, why would it?
>
>
Just to be clear, it doesn't always, necessarily effect their own 
discipline, but it may undermine understanding of others. And, as I said 
in the other post I just made, it **highly** depends on whether or not 
you ever run into a situation where a conflict "does" appear. Given 
enough time, some sort of conflict will. Its just that, for the most 
part, people don't live long enough for it to be a statistical certainty.

But, just for the sake of argument. Would someone asking them to build 
something that conflicts with their belief be considered "having an 
effect on their work"? Or is refusing to work (or the category I named 
previously, which is "refusing to look at things that conflict"), 
somehow not the same thing? I think they are. Though, the nature of that 
problem is **far** more obvious when you consider the sort of, 
"conscientious objector refuses to give X person Y medicine, even though 
they are the only pharmacy for 200 miles that carries it."

Engineers are less likely to run into such situations, admittedly, but 
they instead have a very bad habit of showing up in someone "else's" 
work shop, to tell them that their expertise as an engineer **backs** 
their religion, which in turn undermines the other guys entire 
discipline. A problem that wouldn't be so annoying, except that, as I 
stated in the other post, sometimes you can't *make* progress in other 
disciplines without referencing things in others, and.. well.. What 
happens when you consult an engineer on something in biology, and the 
engineer does 100% perfect work in engineering, but rejects the 
underlying principles *of* the biology they are being asked to lend 
their own expertise on?

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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On 10/20/2010 11:15 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> This is just a naturalist version of the supernatural. Its no more
>> useful, profound, or meaningful than the theist version, and makes
>> just as much sense to propose, which is "none".
>
> I think he was just defining what "supernatural" could possibly mean.
> It's not meaningless to talk about the supernatural, even if it doesn't
> exist. Just like it's less meaningless to talk about unicorns than about
> flimbrusters.
>
Depends on your definition of "meaningful". When applied to sciences, 
some concepts involve much stricter limits, on what is being implied. 
Its perfectly meaningful to talk about such things in the context of 
pure imagination. Its utterly useless, if your intent is to understand 
things that have tangible realities (and, no I don't mean you get to 
stretch that definition to include, "But, people draw them, so they are 
"tangible"). lol

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 10/20/2010 11:04 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> On 10/20/2010 8:58 AM, Darren New wrote:
>>>>> Sadly, this is not uncommon. However, many, including myself, have
>>>>> argued that you cannot have such a drastic error in thinking, and not
>>>>> have it spill over into your own discipline,
>>>>
>>>> Huh. Odd. Some of the smartest people I know doing computers are
>>>> devoutly religious. I can't imagine why you'd think that belief that
>>>> Jesus sacrificed himself to save you would interfere with your ability
>>>> to design computer software, for example.
>>>>
>>> Right.. Because there isn't, for example, a very weird association
>>> between either engineers *or* computer science, and the tendency of
>>> both to think ID makes more sense than Evolution. Its invariably one
>>> or the other, which ends up being the discipline someone belongs to,
>>> when they claim to advocate ID.
>>
>> You know, I don't know where you grew up or anything, but I have the
>> hardest time in the world understanding WTF you're going on about. That
>> entire sentence makes no sense. It's like a written version of the G-Man
>> speaking.
>>
> 
> Its not about where I grew up. 

What you've experienced isn't what I'm talking about. I'm saying that you're 
the only person on here that posts entire posts that are utterly 
incomprehensible to me. It's like you took a handful of clauses from some 
books and strung them together with no commas. It doesn't matter what you're 
talking about. Half the time you just don't make any sense, regardless of 
whether I'd agree or disagree were I able to understand.

It may be me. I'm not saying it's you. I'm just saying half your posts sound 
like disconnected babble to me, referring to things in your own head that 
you haven't actually written in the post or something.

My wife used to do that. She'd be telling me something that happened at work 
between her and Steve, and by the end of the story she's talking about six 
other people, all of whom I think are Steve, because she never mentioned 
someone came in. And wouldn't finish half her sentences before starting the 
next sentence.

> That is the point I am making. 

I agree entirely. But that's not what you said. You said "being deluded 
about creationism damages your ability to do anything else." That's what I'm 
disagreeing with.

> In my experience, even being *very good* 
> at your discipline, seemingly, doesn't mean that your belief in certain 
> religious concepts won't "bleed over" into that discipline, and 
> undermine your ability to do you job. 

I think you have to decide whether he's *very good* at his job, or whether 
his beliefs damage his ability to do his job. I don't think you can have it 
both ways.

> At best, the only argument that *is* valid, with regard to the idea that 
> it may not have an effect, would be, "Depending on whether or not the 
> goofy shit you believe directly addresses some subject you are studying, 
> you may escape having your thinking muddled *in* your studies." 

Well, yes. That's why I said creationism doesn't really affect computer 
programming much, but certainly affects biology.

> question then becomes, "How sure are you that what ever those goofy 
> things are, you will *never* run across something that contradicts it, 
> in your field?"

I'm pretty sure believing that Jesus saves your soul or that John Smith had 
magic golden plates isn't going to affect your ability to calculate 
someone's federal income tax or implement the bittorrent protocol.

> That is what I see happening with some of these people. 

Sure. But you implied it happens with all of these people. That's the 
assertion to which I'm objecting.

I think overgeneralization damages truth.  Pointing out that fixing a Mac's 
web cam requires taking the whole computer back to the store I think is much 
more effective than screaming "All Mac users are fags!"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On 10/20/2010 11:06 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> No, I find it implausible that someone can **only** believe in the
>> specific mythology of their religion, without taking on, at bare
>> minimum, Altie medicine, *or*, therapeutic touch, *or* astrology, *or*
>> at least **one**, of not far more, other goofy ideas.
>
> Well, I know a bunch of people like that. Sorry you find it implausible
> without any reason to back you up other than your general disdain for
> irrational beliefs.
>
My only argument is, "Its not my experience, even if it is yours", and, 
"Unless you have quizzed them on the whole range of stuff that might 
conflict, you can't say this is true." The later is hardly fair, even if 
accurate, the former, could be wrong, in that maybe I have simply never 
met any myself. But, my assertion is that I find it implausible. You are 
the one claiming certainties.

As for my disdain of irrational beliefs.. I disdain the effects of those 
beliefs, when people insist on applying them to the real world, and by 
extension, other people's lives, or medicine, or technology, etc., 
thereby halting, slowing, or sending on wild goose chases, any 
improvements we try to make. If, as you say, some people manage to 
**completely** avoid this error, I have no damn problem with them 
believing what ever the hell they want.

And, to be even clearer. It hardly matters if someone does perfect work 
on computers, keeping all wacky ideas out of the system, yet holds to 
some idea that, outside of work, results in them supporting things that 
result in those computers never getting *used* for some project, 
because, I don't know, maybe they freak out about genetic engineering, 
or stem cells.

No, you want to know what I truly disdain? Its the argument, presented 
by a lot of people, including some atheists, that you shouldn't call 
Glen Beck an frakking idiot, because it might offend someone among the 
nearest group of mostly rational religious, most of which probably call 
him worse things. Some ideas are worthy of disdain, and the US is just 
about the *only* Western country that hasn't been moving towards 
rationality, and away from the absurd and irrational. On the contrary, 
we keep inventing more stupid shit, then telling each other that its a 
"good thing", because it proves we are tolerant of other ideas (except 
the number of stupid things we defend, which are intolerant of 
everything else, including the rational ideas, which, apparently we 
would be intolerant, of we dared to call out for being intolerant).

I do think we would be better off without religion in general, and that 
"weak" religion is almost worse, since you a) can't pin down what it is, 
and b) it tends to defend the ones you can pin down, while claiming 
those ideas are "not so bad", even when they are. I don't think we are 
going to get rid of it soon. I would rather your friends than most of 
the rest of them, but, the simple reality is, its pretty hard to have 
"any" sort of religion, in any non-vague sense, and not have it do 
things to your thinking.

The only "good" thing about the whole mess is that there "seems" to be 
groups like Christian atheists, the "spiritual, but not religious", 
types, and the sort of, "We leave the Bible on the shelf, and act like 
agnostics/atheists, except when someone asks us which church we attend", 
seem to be growing. Those sorts, I would be happy to believe are 
"unlikely" to be effected by religion. They practically don't have one...

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> writes:

> On 10/21/2010 12:38 AM, scott wrote:
> But, just for the sake of argument. Would someone asking them to build
> something that conflicts with their belief be considered "having an
> effect on their work"? Or is refusing to work (or the category I named
> previously, which is "refusing to look at things that conflict"),
> somehow not the same thing? I think they are. Though, the nature of that
> problem is **far** more obvious when you consider the sort of,
> "conscientious objector refuses to give X person Y medicine, even though
> they are the only pharmacy for 200 miles that carries it."
>
> Engineers are less likely to run into such situations, admittedly, but
> they instead have a very bad habit of showing up in someone "else's"
> work shop, to tell them that their expertise as an engineer **backs**
> their religion, which in turn undermines the other guys entire
> discipline. A problem that wouldn't be so annoying, except that, as I
> stated in the other post, sometimes you can't *make* progress in other
> disciplines without referencing things in others, and.. well.. What
> happens when you consult an engineer on something in biology, and the
> engineer does 100% perfect work in engineering, but rejects the
> underlying principles *of* the biology they are being asked to lend
> their own expertise on?

Hard lesson learned from years in grad school: Data > logic any day.

And to quote Sherlock Holmes:

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the
evidence. It biases the judgment."

So I ask you: Do you have actual statistics on what you speak of?

1. How many pharmacists refused to provide a drug (hard to call it
medicine - it's not a disease being treated, if I think I know what
you're talking about) on religious grounds? And of those, what
percentage of the cases did not have another pharmacist at the same
site, or within a reasonable driving distance? And of those, how many
were not reprimanded or lose their job (at least in the US)?

2. What percentage of religious engineers claim their expertise backs
their belief in religion, and of those, what percentage of those events
have been demonstrated to be damaging due to their beliefs?

3. What percentage of religious engineers/scientists, when being asked
to apply their expertise on a problem involving biology, have had their
work on that project been subpar compared to, say, an atheist engineer?

Until you present such data, what you keep stating is without merit.

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> But, just for the sake of argument. Would someone asking them to build 
> something that conflicts with their belief be considered "having an effect 
> on their work"?

Of course, and in that case they shouldn't be in that job, but people who 
have strong beliefs about one thing or another usually don't take jobs where 
there could be a conflict.  I can't imagine many technical jobs where 
believing in Jesus would cause a conflict.  However I can imagine lots of 
technical jobs where being anti-war or anti-animal-cloning would cause a 
conflict.  In these cases people simply don't apply for jobs where that 
would be involved (or even for a company that does stuff like that).

> Engineers are less likely to run into such situations, admittedly, but 
> they instead have a very bad habit of showing up in someone "else's" work 
> shop, to tell them that their expertise as an engineer **backs** their 
> religion, which in turn undermines the other guys entire discipline.

Huh, sorry I have no idea what you mean by that, and also I don't know any 
engineers that work in a workshop, nor any that preach their religious 
beliefs in the workplace.

> A problem that wouldn't be so annoying, except that, as I stated in the 
> other post, sometimes you can't *make* progress in other disciplines 
> without referencing things in others, and.. well.. What happens when you 
> consult an engineer on something in biology, and the engineer does 100% 
> perfect work in engineering, but rejects the underlying principles *of* 
> the biology they are being asked to lend their own expertise on?

You can't force people to work on things they don't want to.  If someone has 
chosen to be an engineer on PC monitors for example, you can't expect them 
to willingly give advice on how to design a missile or engineer a system to 
clone humans.  If you ask someone advice out of their field of work, you 
have to expect there might be a conflict, especially for sensitive subjects.

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On 10/21/2010 4:10 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> On 10/20/2010 11:04 PM, Darren New wrote:
>>> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>>> On 10/20/2010 8:58 AM, Darren New wrote:
>>>>>> Sadly, this is not uncommon. However, many, including myself, have
>>>>>> argued that you cannot have such a drastic error in thinking, and not
>>>>>> have it spill over into your own discipline,
>>>>>
>>>>> Huh. Odd. Some of the smartest people I know doing computers are
>>>>> devoutly religious. I can't imagine why you'd think that belief that
>>>>> Jesus sacrificed himself to save you would interfere with your ability
>>>>> to design computer software, for example.
>>>>>
>>>> Right.. Because there isn't, for example, a very weird association
>>>> between either engineers *or* computer science, and the tendency of
>>>> both to think ID makes more sense than Evolution. Its invariably one
>>>> or the other, which ends up being the discipline someone belongs to,
>>>> when they claim to advocate ID.
>>>
>>> You know, I don't know where you grew up or anything, but I have the
>>> hardest time in the world understanding WTF you're going on about. That
>>> entire sentence makes no sense. It's like a written version of the G-Man
>>> speaking.
>>>
>>
>> Its not about where I grew up.
>
> What you've experienced isn't what I'm talking about. I'm saying that
> you're the only person on here that posts entire posts that are utterly
> incomprehensible to me. It's like you took a handful of clauses from
> some books and strung them together with no commas. It doesn't matter
> what you're talking about. Half the time you just don't make any sense,
> regardless of whether I'd agree or disagree were I able to understand.
>
> It may be me. I'm not saying it's you. I'm just saying half your posts
> sound like disconnected babble to me, referring to things in your own
> head that you haven't actually written in the post or something.
>
> My wife used to do that. She'd be telling me something that happened at
> work between her and Steve, and by the end of the story she's talking
> about six other people, all of whom I think are Steve, because she never
> mentioned someone came in. And wouldn't finish half her sentences before
> starting the next sentence.
>
>> That is the point I am making.
>
> I agree entirely. But that's not what you said. You said "being deluded
> about creationism damages your ability to do anything else." That's what
> I'm disagreeing with.
>
>> In my experience, even being *very good* at your discipline,
>> seemingly, doesn't mean that your belief in certain religious concepts
>> won't "bleed over" into that discipline, and undermine your ability to
>> do you job.
>
> I think you have to decide whether he's *very good* at his job, or
> whether his beliefs damage his ability to do his job. I don't think you
> can have it both ways.
>
>> At best, the only argument that *is* valid, with regard to the idea
>> that it may not have an effect, would be, "Depending on whether or not
>> the goofy shit you believe directly addresses some subject you are
>> studying, you may escape having your thinking muddled *in* your studies."
>
> Well, yes. That's why I said creationism doesn't really affect computer
> programming much, but certainly affects biology.
>
>> question then becomes, "How sure are you that what ever those goofy
>> things are, you will *never* run across something that contradicts it,
>> in your field?"
>
> I'm pretty sure believing that Jesus saves your soul or that John Smith
> had magic golden plates isn't going to affect your ability to calculate
> someone's federal income tax or implement the bittorrent protocol.
>
Which, if that is all they do, isn't a problem. I am sure the goofballs 
at the Disco Institute have some top programmers trying to prove flood 
geology via simulation (or had, since I never heard anything since.. 
wonder why? lol), but being able to code something that simulates 
gibberish, and do it **really really well** is only considered a 
non-liability when applied to *video games*, usually. Though, I might be 
wrong, some of the gibberish that no doubt went into the financial 
accounting software everyone was using could call into question whether 
those people are really that brilliant at it either..

>> That is what I see happening with some of these people.
>
> Sure. But you implied it happens with all of these people. That's the
> assertion to which I'm objecting.
>
> I think overgeneralization damages truth. Pointing out that fixing a
> Mac's web cam requires taking the whole computer back to the store I
> think is much more effective than screaming "All Mac users are fags!"
>
Ok. I overgeneralized. I admit it.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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