Spelunking the Universe
Posts tagged Rico Examines
Rico Examines “Intuitive Law”
1 year ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
I’ve been pondering over the idea that anything is black and white. There are various things that folks mention like life and death, the idea that there is a definitive point when anything becomes concrete. I think that there are very few, if any, things that are as such. I’ll throw out some examples and then carry into what I call “Intuitive Law”.
It was originally inspired by the paradox of the grain of sand and the mound of dirt (or sand). The idea that if you take a mound of sand/dirt and remove a single particle that it will still be a mound of sand/dirt. If you do this again you will still have a mound. So you then ask the question, at what point does a mound of sand/dirt stop being a mound? Could you state that a single grain of sand is just as much a mound as a large collective of them?
The idea that if you look at anything critically and try to take just a little bit away from it, a negligible amount even and it remains the same. That by that logic if you continue to do so you will never see the change when it happens you’ll just at some point intuitively feel that it is no longer the same. Evolution carries on by this principle, as no species looks very different from the last itineration of itself and the next. They are grains of sand being removed from a mound (or added to it) in an endless change that looks unchanging.
How about Murder? That’s a pretty shocking charge that can end the life of those accused and tried. Imagine you punch someone in the chest and they die a second later. You’d be charged with Murder (feel free to replace this with shooting someone). But what if they died a second later than that? Would it still be murder? How about a second after that? What if we continue this up to 40 years worth of seconds or 1,261,440,000 instances of seconds? At what point do we no longer look at that punch or the puncher as the murderer? At what point does the natural biological failure become the cause of death? Sure in natural law there is an obvious cause that is the cause and there is no question. However natural law, the actual cause for events, is rarely the deciding factor in Human Law.
If you can’t appreciate that, when does a hobby become suicide? If you drink rat poison and die in an hour you will be ruled as a suicide. How about if you eat paint chips and die from brain decay 10 years later? Or if you smoke and end up shortening your life X amount of years? What about eating fast food to the point of morbid obesity and having heart failure? At what point do your poor choices become suicide? Since Suicide is a crime at what point do these other actions become criminal? What speed of self destruction is deemed unacceptable, what is the exact point that this mark is met? This could be shrugged off but the idea of “exact actions resulting in exact consequences” is the foundation of the entire US law system, most of our nonsense comes from laws that are read word for word, so we need to set down exact points.
We work by the system of intuitive laws. We choose what time intuitively feels right, the large problem with this is that it is easily molded by dickery. Dickery being a term I wish would become common enough to be a real word.
Dickery (V), 1. The act of abusing anything otherwise well intentioned because the actor is a complete dick.
Dickery is the reason that religion in an organized fashion doesn’t really pan out, or why Politics has so many issues in so many countries, it is why communism, socialism, and capitalism all don’t work. Dickery is how you can take a character like Jesus (who, other than being a Fig Tree murderer, is generally pretty nice) and use him as your figurehead for hating homosexuals. But I could write a whole post on Dickery, so we’ll save that rant for another day. It’s fairly similar to my feelings on douchebags.
This might all just be jibberish but I hope it is thoughtful jibberish. The hope is that people will examine anything they feel is concrete and see if it falls apart under the “one bit less or one bit more.” The legal age for smoking, for drinking, for driving, for recreational (or serious) sex, running for president, working in certain industries, all these things have strict limitations that make them appear to be solid and natural in their design but their foundation is based upon intuitive law.
It makes much of it seem very silly, as if the folks who design our infrastructure aren’t much more creative or aware of the world around them than Elementary kids. Which I feel might be unfair to Elementary kids as there are some very intelligent kids who could probably run any office better than the current “vintage” models. That’s a dead horse that’s been beaten into obscurity at this point. Though it will be the foundation for a topic of discussion I hope to make later this week (the dead horse phenomenon, not the vintage politicians being fairly poor at their job).
Note: I suspect the reason that we won’t set exact times is the same reason DRM works so poorly. Folks will learn how to circumvent the system once you stop making it abuse able, so the question becomes which side is better? Having the legal system with a large power of abuse ability, or the people with a large power of abuse ability? I’m hard pressed to see a system where neither (or both) would have this option. Although Lawyers and Lobbyists sure make that possibility seem less unlikely every year.
Rico Examines “The Advantage in Debate of Faith over Science.”
1 year ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
I will begin with an immediate disclaimer of sorts: These two entities which find themselves often at odds are built for entirely different reasons. Science exists to understand the universe, to explain everything from the smallest particle to the largest star cluster. It provides the foundation for every consumer electronic, ever shred of medical advance, and both positive and negative nearly every facet of our modern lives is shaped by science.
Faith conversely is a system of guidance, it is designed to control the masses and to theoretically lead them down a path of subservience. Is this a positive thing? In theory it would seem to be, it is an evolutionary inevitability that stems from the theoretical necessity of guidance in order to minimize the negative destructive forces of the whole. Few people want to be murdered by one another and so faith was spawned to give an extra layer of protection to that, in order to hopefully place those who did not mind such a fate in a state that would leave them at least neutrally existent instead of negatively.
I have stated before that a system of optimism would work just as well, but this is not the place for me to decompile the framework of faith. It is instead to explain, when debating issues of both, where faith has the infinitely higher position.
Science is not a system of faith, things do not become true merely because humans believe them to be. It is a system of discovery, we unlock realities that have been around since long before we existed. There is no room for faith in science as far as the field itself is concerned, stopping at any point during research to pawn a mechanic off on “because” is infinitely hurtful to the field. However this also means that an entity must have some level of understanding about the field in order to educate or defend it. Not that it should ever require defending (as again it is merely examining things that are true, not changing the truth).
Faith however is a system of…well faith. You could call it religion but I do think on the smaller scale most people are not religious they are merely faithful. Semantics aside it is a system that requires little to no research. This provides it with a very powerful foundation in terms of defense or education. You needn’t be consistent because all the texts are a matter of interpretation, stories that no longer jive with the modern society can merely be ignored. “Facts” of life provided by the texts that are debunked can be pointed to as translation errors or irrelevant data scribed in a moment of weakness.
Again, these systems should never be at odds with one another. There is never a time where faith should come into play as an alternative for science. This is because at no time is there ever a reason that science would take the place of faith and never a time when faith should take the place of science. Faith should never be taught in the classrooms and there is no reason for science to be taught in the churches (unless that church is also a school I suppose). However anytime the two do clash the power will always be on the side of Faith, because it requires no research.
Whereas a scientist will require knowledge of the field they are discussing in order to talk about it, a person of faith will merely need to say “God did it.” or point out that if we do not already know then we will never know. Since neither of these things can be disproven (nor should they ever need to be) they end up becoming the end of the discussion. The discussion could only earnestly take place if both parties understood to the full extent the material of the other side, since this is rarely the case (you will not find many anti-evolutionists who are using talking points that are younger than I am) we are left in a point of stagnation in terms of discussion.
But why? Why does faith feel the necessity to impose upon science? It returns to a previous point about control, there is an illusion that the advancement of science and reason in society will weaken the grasp of faith and the larger institutions. Erroneously this is also said to lead to chaos and war, ignoring the fact that much of that could not exist if the average person believed that they didn’t have a better gig on the other side of life. But again I digress. There is a belief that science is coming for the churches, as if it would want to. Since science has no place in the guidance of morality or philosophy there can never be a time when the structure would find itself storming like the Galactic Empire into the hallowed walls of faith.
The problem I feel is that science is treated as a belief system by those who oppose it. This is fundamentally untrue, there is no belief structure within science. An idea is presented, it is tested, if it succeeds it is tested further, if it fails it is shelved for future theories. This process never ends, all information is further refined over generations with the ultimate goal of fully understanding the universe. Through science inevitably we find tools that will ease our lives and tools that will make them worse, but this is not because of science itself, it is from the entities that attempt to govern it from the outside. Militaries and corporations whose leadership (statistically) know much of faith but little to nothing about science. They feel that a neutron bomb or genetically altered animals are the path to their greatest desires and unfortunately those hired by them do the job they are paid to do.
This has nothing to do with science as a thing. All entities, even faith, become dark and dirty when they are run by the dark and dirty.
However I think, that until this becomes a more well known thing we will forever be in an unnecessary struggle between two entities that should never be at odds, nor should these entities even be in discussion. There are no topics which they each need to be present for so I can see little to no reason why they’d both be presently debating.
Faith does not need any of it’s empirical beliefs to remain existent for the overall structure to survive. Many many times over the last 2 thousand yeas they have been routinely debunked and yet remain as strong as ever. It would seem wise to let science do the science, and let faith do the faith. I can assure anyone on the latter side that the former has less than no interest in their domain.
Indeed a negative interest, if such a thing is possible. In all debates that will come until that point is made we will see Faith infinitely more effective than science, because as a quote that caused me to chuckle for a bit said “Science is Hard :X.” In relative terms to it’s “competition” that is true in a nearly astronomical way.
I will end with a quote from a recent infatuation of mine (Civilization V):
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
Greek philosopher in Athens (469 BC – 399 BC)
Rico Examines “People, Politics, and Pretense.”
1 year ago
by Rico Penguin
in General
Basically anyone who has read an article about politics has seen an astounding statement of just how “Out of Touch” the politicians involved are. When people talk about the efficiency of businesses versus government run operations there is a distinct separation of the two. As if there is some magical race of beings that are running one versus the other.
Lets first establish what people run, people run everything, they run businesses, they run families, they run schools, they run hospitals, they run governments, and they run religions. There is absolutely nothing different about this between them all, each is run by people and each has people picked in some manner of fashion for that position. Perhaps they established kin through procreation, or established quality of talent through election or hiring, or they’ve established belief through convincing parable. Which by the way is a word everyone should use today, try it.
There is no reason why one should assume that a government cannot run something as well or better than a corporation. Likewise there is no reason to assume that a corporation cannot run something as well or better than the government. Mix and match any of the above examples and the statement is the same. It is not that these organizations cannot do it, it is that they do not do it.
The fault of course, as it must, falls upon people as a whole. People decide what is an acceptable level of accomplishment for each organization and that acceptance is what decides the level of success the organization performs to. If you accept your neighbors being terrible parents you have set a precedent that that level of parenting is all that is necessary. If you accept that your government cannot run anything properly they will then achieve that level of success. The same for schools, faiths, and hospitals.
Absolutely everything in this world run by humans will run at a level that is accepted by the people. Because absolutely everything in this world run by humans is (tautology time) run by humans. So they function under the same rules, the same psychological triggers, and will all rise or fall because of the same variables.
Don’t ever accept anything because of what organization it is a part of if the outcome is not to the standards you feel fair. There is no inherent static wall that an organization cannot rise above, everything is limited only by the expectations of global society. It is, in its entirely, no more complicated than that.
Coming this Week on TheIOS:
Rico Examines “Video Games: Graphics Vs. Gameplay.”
Rico Examines “The Beauty of Mathematics.”
ADIOS: The King of Spes: Votum.
IIWP (If I was President): Taxation