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Open thread on TAE 749 / NPR 11.3 February 20, 2012 at 3:38 pm  Kazim This weekend…
Somewhat off-topic: Evolutionary arms race of spam February 15, 2012 at 2:03 pm Kazim Just wanted to mention that we get a lot more attempted spam here at Freethought Blogs than I ever remember getting at the old blogspot address. Luckily, the spam filters are pretty good and I usually don’t have to lift a finger to mess with it. I do, however, see a few posts a week that slip through the cracks as “uncertain” and drop into the moderation bucket to be checked. To give you an example of what spam looks like these days, here’s a post from last night by “Nicolette Snith”
That’s a pretty common variety. It’s lavishly complimentary, totally unspecific, and almost written in a reasonable style of English. It only looks weird if you take the time to actually read it carefully. Obviously the goal of spam is to drive traffic to commercial sites, and this seems to be accomplished by adding a URL in the user identity, which you can click from the person’s post. It used to be the case that most such URL’s were in the form of obviously suspicious locations, i.e., “http://hotgirls.ru” or something like that. (I just made that up, but I checked and it’s a real site. I do not take responsibility for you surfing there or wasting any money.) These days, however, the address is more often in the form of an IP address (such as 123.123.1.2) which redirects you to a site that wants to sell you viagra or mortgages or whatever. The behavior of spammers and spam filter writers very closely resembles the evolution of predators and prey in nature. Each side has a survival motive to improve. The spammers are obviously in it for the money. Design the perfect spam filter, and you cut off their income. In the worst case scenario, they might even have to give it up and find an alternate career that doesn’t require them to be goddamned parasites. The anti-spammers are fighting for survival of their content. I’ve seen quite a few abandoned blogs and forums become completely choked with spam, to the point where it’s impossible to engage in a meaningful conversation. So each one evolves competitively, and both need to be automated to an extent. The spammers are busy trying to post millions of junk messages to sites all over the world, while non-spammers are busy trying to clean up hundreds or thousands of messages without employing an army of human moderators to babysit their sites. What’s interesting is that there does seem to be an upper limit on the effectiveness of spam filters. If a human reader can’t tell them difference between spam and a legitimate post, how is a computer supposed to do it? Even now, I have gotten to the point where I look at a brief, harmless compliment with deep suspicion. If I see a new poster write “Well said” or something of the kind, I have to stare at the email address, the name, and any suspicious links for a non-trivial amount of time before I decide it’s safe to pass through. Much as I hate this omnipresent intrusion into our lives in a digital age, I find it kind of fascinating to see how the race keeps shifting. Arguing for the other team February 13, 2012 at 9:00 pm Kazim An atheist viewer needs to argue for religion in his college philosophy class. Message and response below the fold. Open thread on episode TAE #748 February 13, 2012 at 5:45 pm Kazim Russell and Don, “The Failure of the Second Coming.” By the way, I should have put up an open thread on last week’s episodes of TAE and GB as well, but I forgot for a few days. Then somebody posted “WHY is there no open thread on the latest TAE? Is it a conspiracy to keep us from talking about what Matt said?” So first I was like “I should really put up an open thread for the show.” But then I was all, “Screw that, I’m not gonna do it because I was taunted! Nyah!” So anyway, if you want to discuss #747 or the previous Godless Bitches too, feel free. Another, “I just can’t believe what my brain can do” February 12, 2012 at 1:11 pm heicart Kind of the same stuff. If consciousness, then afterlife. But this person wants to know what atheists think, and asserts nobody has offered a satisfactory answer. I will fully admit I may be pleasantly surprised, but up to now what this usually translates to is “I don’t understand/accept the findings of neuro scientists, and potentially have some misconceptions regarding things I’ve read about popular physics.” Genuinely hoping I’m wrong, I leave you with this…
Dear atheists, I have a question for you on some of your world views that I cannot find good answer from any atheist. First I would introduce myself if its any matter of interest to you. Im 28 years old guy from Scandinavia, I used to be a believer to age 18 or something but never went to church or anything and constantly doubted my faith along the way because the lack of evidence. To some point I stopped believing when I realized there just isnt enough evidence to continue belief but still maintained some kind of agnostic view on world but I wont bore you to death on the matter why I became agnostic and not full atheist. I have academic, financial and technical background. I have always been somehow interested to find “truth” about this reality and spent alot of time in my freetime to find at least some answers. Last two years I have been really active in this matter and when I actually took true, dedicated dive in this world Ill have to say that everything is even more confusing to rational mind that I could have ever thought. Now I finally know truly that I know nothing. In this journey I have found a philosofical and mathematical problem on life ending after death. As some hardcore atheists claim to “know” or at least to some degree as certainty that life ends when our physical body dies I beg to differ solely based on probability. Ok, heres the problem that you have been waiting for if ever read it this far. 1. Lets say we have one life in this universe and our consciousness dies permanently, what is the probablity you living right at this moment in an universe that has sustained life at least last few billion years your appr. 75 year long lasting life? 1.1 Ill add more to this. When something is, the potential of it has to be and at least the potential of it cant be destroyd, so lets say matter comes quantum fluctuation, it has been always this way and will be so there have been infinite number of universes before this and still exists. In an infinite amount of time you living your only life at this very moment is practicly 0 when you divide 75/infinite. Ok, there is a probability this isnt true, but its the most likely theory that you cannot destroy a potential of what can be proven to exist. 2. You say you have no spirit or I would call this consciousness if you will since its something that is not our physical body. Spirit as a term can be misleading here because I understand you point of view but try to go beoynd it. You can prove to yourself that you exist at this very moment since you can experience, vision, smell, touch, thought etc.. You probably have no clue how you can even exist “to yourself” and still you are. So at least you have to exist as a potential in this infinite universe even if your consciousness stops experiencing or shuts down as your physical body dies. I dont think consciousness cannot be in a state of not experiencing but that would go extremely deep to philosofical matters so I wont bore you with that at this moment. 2.2. You might think you are “illusion” to yourself but that is the most ridiculous explanation I have heard by atheists (or theists doesnt matter what you believe if you can do this) and requires very cunning trick of mind to do that since you can only prove that you exist at some form this moment. You might not be anything more than just an observer but go figure it out. Just wanted to point this out that you dont give me lazy ass asnwer to this question but think it through. 2.3 Defining consciousness as your body is extremely hard since your body changes every single cell many times in its lifetime and still you dont cease to exist as an “observer”. If you go deep enough you would need to define yourself as electricity since you cannot find consciousness in matter. Electricity is movement of electrons so you are experiencing movement of electrons and nothing more. There are many, many problems theorising that you are the atoms and/or electricity in your body but wont go to details here. Basicly this theory would suggest that any electric movement would experience something, no matter if it can recognize itself or have any “intellect”, this doesnt matter. Intelligence is just subproduct of our physical manifestation, perhaps. 3. Nothing can exist outside consciousness. There cannot be anything without consciousness since it doesnt exist to anyone. This is a philosofical matter at least at this point but there is truth to it. You have universe that exists to no-one can we say it exists? If it even exists in our mind in any way we can already say it exists. This goes really deep in to philosofical thinking but is a sort of a conclusion I have come to. Everything is consciousness, nothing “real” can exist beoynd it and everything that exists to consciousness is in a way real. Theres no laws that govern what is real or not but the law of consciouss observer that defines it. I recognize I could be wrong in every single statement I have made above and this can be extremely hard to rationalize with our monkey brains but also there is deep logic to every single statement there is. Since Iv been watching your show for entertaining purposes mostly Iv seen that you are rather intelligent but step to the same traps as religious people do like in this matter, what happens after we die, making assumptions without going beoynd them. Im hoping to get feedback from you guys as these are matters that not many want to go in to or give only lazy thoughtless answers. Also I would like to hear more insightful arguments why you believe we cease to exist after physical death. Im always glad to hear opposing arguments. As last words I want to say these thought are anything but calming to me and are not wishfull thinking but more of a rationalizing with open mind and accepting the “truth” as it reveals itself. Consciousness seems to me seems to be indestructible and we have come infinite way to this point and continue to exist. There are lots of topics to be discussed in this matter but I dont expect them to discussed with you. I only want the answers to these few claims that you make and present in your show. Best regards, Another pseudorationalizing Stardust Space Monkey Horrible people don’t realize they’re horrible February 8, 2012 at 4:47 pm Kazim I’m developing a bit of a theoretical framework in my head about people who are used to making horrifying generalizations about groups of people and their behaviors. It’s sort of a Dunning-Kruger effect for bigotry. The theory is that the more horrible you are, the more you lose the capacity to understand your own horribleness. Let me lay this out in general terms before I get specific. Let’s say you’re “a little bit racist.” Over a long period of time where you casually drop slightly racist remarks into your conversations all the time, occasionally people will call you out on this behavior, i.e., “Hey man, that’s kind of racist.” Cognitive dissonance being what it is, you start building defense mechanisms against the people who call you out. “Geez, there sure are a lot of oversensitive people in the world,” you think to yourself. “They call things racist that aren’t even racist!” (Continued…) The Emperor’s New Clothes February 3, 2012 at 5:43 pm heicart In our viewer mail: Dear Sir/Madam: Saw a link to your show on Facebook, and found it quite interesting. Don’t know if you guys know much about Eastern thought. Here is what I posted about your show on Facebook: An interesting discussion. The two hosts are quite reasonable and logical. However, they assume Western ways of looking at religion and epistemology. For instance, the lady basically says, “Well, if there is a God, what sort of thing is this God, what category does it belong to?” But in the Orient, God is not seen as a thing belonging in a category, but universal awareness, underlying your and my awareness, and prior to all categories. Awareness can not see itself and put itself in an observed category and analyze itself. The fellow on the other hand says “What evidence do you have for the existence of God?” But he sees this evidence as consisting of abstract facts. An enlightened oriental would say “Your question of how I know I am enlightened is like asking me to doubt that my hand I hold in front of me is mine.My knowledge is direct, not abstract or logical.” He has directly and experientially transcended the idea that awareness is limited to a supposed separate self. Thanks for your consideration. After giving it my “consideration,” here is what I think: Why should anyone believe any of the claims in this letter about god? All he’s done is provide a lengthy statement that restates, “I can’t demonstrate anything I’m saying is remotely correct, but I assert, without evidence or reason that it is, obviously, correct. And asking for evidence, itself, is ridiculous; the enlightened individual will simply see it’s true.” I recall reading this same argument in “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” I encourage you to consider it as well. What do you think of it? Science interview with Dr. Alan Glasser on Transmit-Receive January 31, 2012 at 8:11 pm Kazim Casey Doran has done an outstanding interview with Dr. Alan Glasser, one of the most brilliant minds working in the field of computational nuclear physics today. …The fact that Dr. Glasser happens to be my father does not in any way prejudice me in making that claim. :) Go here to listen to the episode! In the interview, the two of them have a fascinating discussion about the state of nuclear fusion research, the future of energy, and the politics of support for the sciences in general. You may remember Casey as the former producer of the Tacoma-based show Ask An Atheist, who also interviewed me after I appeared on the show in 2010. He is apparently hard at work launching a new audio podcast which focuses on interviews and discussions about science and public policy. Show him some support, will you?
Open thread on AE #746 / GB 2.3 January 30, 2012 at 3:33 pm Kazim This week in ACA media:
History Channel Show about Newton and Bible Prophecy January 29, 2012 at 1:10 am heicart So, we have a guy posting to the list who really, really, REALLY wants to talk to someone about a show on History Channel that he says involves Isaac Newton and Bible Prophecy. Martin wrote back noting this is the same channel that airs Ancient Aliens, but the correspondent continues to write asking if someone will give up an hour of their life to watch this so he can discuss it with them. I’ve seen History Channel’s offerings in recent years go from very well cited war documentaries to programming that the Ghost Hunters would laugh at. So, that person–who will kill an hour of their life for this–is not me. However, out of a sense of helpfulness, if anyone reading this blog has seen this show and is willing to talk to someone about it, please help. I’ll send the writer a link to this post to let him know I’ve put out a call. Thanks. |
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