1. Charlie Brooker's screen burn

Comment #223877 by raptur on August 3, 2008 at 3:22 pm

wait did nemo sing?

2. Aliens need Christ's redemption, too

Comment #201494 by raptur on June 29, 2008 at 6:37 pm

Layla

are you thinking of C.S. Lewis' space trilogy about the planet perelandra?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Trilogy

3. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don't Add Up

Comment #109840 by raptur on January 9, 2008 at 10:31 pm

RE: Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem

Both posts have been a little off. Do people mind if I take a break from lurking for a bit? ;)

When working in a symbolic logic, there are two major systems. One is the _semantics_, which tells you how to determine whether a particular sentence is _entailed_ (i.e. must be true) by a given set of sentences you are presuming to be true called axioms. This set may consist only of tautologies like: "if P is true then P is true". For example, you may accept as true:

(1) All Men Are Mortal
(2) Socrates Is A Man

and then you might consider:

(3) Socrates Is Mortal

The semantics of first order logic, which is the simplest logic needed to capture this argument, consists of set-theoretic machinery to demonstrate that it is not possible for (3) to be false if (1) and (2) are true. So we say that (1) and (2) _entail_ (3).

The other is the _derivational system_, which tells you what sorts of transformations you are allowed to perform on sentences to get new sentences. So (1) and (2), in quasi-formal terms, would look like:

(1') (forall x)(if Man(x) then Mortal(x))
(2') Man(socrates)

One of the derivational rules of first-order logic says that you can chop off a (forall x) and substitute every occurrence of 'x' (a _variable_) with some _name_. If we do this to (1') and substitute 'x' with 'socrates,' we get:

(4) if Man(socrates) then Mortal(socrates)

Another derivational rule says that if you have an 'if-then' statement, and you also have the beginning of the 'if-then' statement, then you get the end of the 'if-then' statement. (2') provides the beginning of (4), giving us:

(5) Mortal(socrates)

Which is just the quasi-formal way of saying "Socrates Is Mortal." So we say that (1') and (2') _prove_ (5).

Notice, however, that it is not immediately obvious that these two systems have anything to do with each other. The semantics just tells you whether groups of sentences are logically consistent, but does not say anything about obtaining a larger group of logically consistent sentences. The derivational system, on the other hand, just tells you how to move around symbols in certain sorts of ways to get new sentences, without regard to what they actually mean. So how do we know that if something is _provable_ from a (finite) set of sentences, then it is _entailed_ from that set? Likewise, how do we know that if something is _entailed_ from a set of sentences, then it is _provable_?

The first question is answered by doing soundness proofs. If a particular logic is not sound, it is basically worthless because it is possible to prove things that are false using that logic. Whenever people propose new kinds of logics, soundness proofs are the first things they do. The second question is answered by doing completeness proofs: given a finite set of axioms, is it possible to mechanically derive every statement that is necessarily true? Sentential logic and first-order predicate logic are, in fact, complete. What Goedel demonstrated is that higher-order predicate logic is _not_ complete. So he did not prove logic wrong or anything like that: higher-order logic is still sound, so everything that you do manage to derive will be true (presuming your axioms are true). You just are not guaranteed to derive everything that's true. If we were, it should be possible in principle to write a computer program that would just run day and night solving all of mathematics automatically through a brute-force breadth-first search.

Does this make sense?

4. 'Friends of God' Documentary

Comment #19942 by raptur on January 30, 2007 at 7:30 pm

Comment #19917 by denoir on January 30, 2007 at 4:27 pm
"Is it the one that is based on a distributed system of thousands of experiments or one based on a book written around the first century AD?"

Actually, if you say this evangelicals will likely respond that the Bible was written over the course of two thousand years which is actually correct. However, if they're from the Wheaton sort of camp, they will also probably attempt to tell you that it has all sorts of confirmed prophecies and extra-biblical corroboration, and also that apparent contradictions resolve themselves on further examination. These claims fail in the critical places, but it takes some degree of familiarity with the texts to counter them.

What astonishes me is that I learned about all these claims and their supposed justification over the course of a private evangelical christian education from 7th through 12th grade (in the states). As a high-schooler I was able to connect the dots to the conclusion that the Bible is simply a very complicated and interesting cultural text. They have all this information as well (considering I got it from them), and the fact that they maintain their position in the face of it just shows that this is all dogma and not evidence-based science.

Although this conclusion is hardly news. Especially to this crowd.

5. No religion and an end to war: how thinkers see the future

Comment #15912 by raptur on January 3, 2007 at 7:11 pm

actually, there are 10 types of people in the world. those who understand binary, and those who don't.

*waits for groans*

:D:D:D:D:D

6. The Blasphemy Challenge

Comment #13131 by raptur on December 15, 2006 at 6:41 pm

The point of this is to show that atheists are not all disgruntled professors in ivory towers that are out of touch with reality. It is to overhaul the public image of Atheists until we are perceived as a viable social category. We already have them on the intellectual front. Now we need only remove the social stigma that prompts the ridiculous intellectual contortions that thoughtful theists go through.

On a somewhat related note, what is the demographic make-up of the commentors here? I'm a 20-year old white male majroing in linguistics and philosophy at the Ohio State University.