Archive - 2015

Date

January 3rd

Meta Theology of the Singularity - Uncertainty

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 01/03/2015 - 11:13

In my ongoing discussion with people of different belief structures online, an atheist friend shared this article: After Year Of Atheism, Former Pastor: 'I Don't Think God Exists'.

He’s quoted as saying,

I've looked at the majority of the arguments that I've been able to find for the existence of God, and on the question of God's existence or not, I have to say I don't find there to be a convincing case, in my view.

The article goes on to say

One of his biggest lessons from the year is "that people very much value certainty and knowing and are uncomfortable saying that they don't know."

Now he thinks certainty is a bit overrated.

In the Facebook discussion, I commented,

I find these observations very interesting. To me, religion and a belief in God is tied to much greater uncertainty than a rational atheists focus on science. To me, science is the realm of the known, of what is certain. Religion is the realm of the unknowable and what is uncertain.

Belief in God is tied to divine or sacred mysteries, to things that cannot be explained by rational or scientific methods, things that go beyond human knowing. The things that we cannot know about, we must be uncertain about. To me, this is related to a collection of different ideas.

Isaiah 29:16

You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, "You did not make me"? Can the pot say to the potter, "You know nothing"?

It makes me think of the final point of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” and leads me to Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

For my friends interested in the technological singularity, Wikipedia, referring to Joseph Carvalko’s The Techno-human Shell-A Jump in the Evolutionary Gap suggests,

“Because the capabilities of such an intelligence may be impossible for a human to comprehend, the technological singularity is an occurrence beyond which events may become unpredictable or even unfathomable”

It raises an interesting question of whether humans would even know if a singularity happened.

Yet one thing remains: Uncertainty. As we start 2015, we can look at our horoscopes or other predictions for the coming year in the hopes of getting some useful forecast of the coming year, but it all remains uncertain.

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January 2nd

"Unknown"

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 01/02/2015 - 21:11

As the needle punctures, a hole in my vein i get a momentary a shot of bliss. It warms your heart, it takes you away from the problems in your life it never fails to love and hold you. The needle is my god and the heroin is my gift, heroin is my kryptonite, it's my love.

My mind wanders go Ginsberg,

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,
starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking
for an angry fix,

It drifts to William Burroughs Naked Lunch. Over on Open Culture, I look at some Rare Footage of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac & Other Beats Hanging Out in the East Village.

It was over fifty years ago, about the time I was born, and things have changed a lot since then. Today, the headline is Teen missing from Naugatuck after going out with man she met on social media.

The responses were predictable.

You should NEVER meet anyone in person that you talk to on social media. But if you do decide to, ALWAYS meet somewhere in public and with someone else. Never go alone…
I just wonder how many rocks these teens live under ? With all the media attention to this situation, what does teens not understand about meeting up with total strangers they meet on the internet?!! Parents, please stress this dangerous behavior or choices they are making.

When I read stories like this, I often wonder what the backstory is. Was this an innocent naïve girl who made a bad choice? What else was going on? Trying to get a more complete story, I searched around and found Unknown, the first four chapters of a story by a person with the same name as the missing teen. It starts with the needle puncture quoted above, and gets more raw as you read more.

Perhaps the missing teen is much less naïve than the commenters on news article believed her to be. Perhaps, she is much less naïve than the commenters themselves. The updated news story reports that has been found safe and unharmed.

I queue up Neil Young.

I've seen the needle
and the damage done
A little part of it in everyone
But every junkie's
like a settin' sun.

Perhaps the true story will remain, unknown.

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January 1st

What I’m Thinking, 1/1/2015

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 01/01/2015 - 19:29

Yes, I have to take a moment to type 2015. I’m sure I’ll write the wrong date plenty of times over the next week or two.

Today has been a bit disjoint. Sleeping late. Picking up Fiona from one party. Going to another party. I’m tired and not very focused.

I continue to go through my standard set of online media. On Facebook, people are wishing one another Happy New Year. Some are remembering things that made 2014 such a challenging year for them. Over on Twitter, everyone seems to be talking about football games.

Glancing at Open Culture led me to spending some time looking at images from the Metropolitan Museum in New York. They have some nice fairly high resolution pictures of various paintings. For example Summer Day on Conesus Lake by John Frederick Kensett is 2691x1768 and Poppy Fields near Argenteuil by Claude Monet 3811x2819.

I’ve been reading a little bit about ultra high definition and 4K monitors. I watch very little television, and most of the stuff I view online is on a laptop, so 4K monitors haven’t really been all that interesting to me. Yet viewing some of the Met’s paintings on a large UHD or 4K monitor would be pretty impressive and the prices have been dropping. Maybe this year we’ll get around to upgrading the old analog television in the family room.

I skimmed the daily office and then glanced at various news sites. Nothing really jumped out at me on Google News, or Newstrust. Yet Hijacked Printers in Eastern Ukraine and Russia Print Pro-Ukraine Messages jumped out at me on Global Voices. I’ve wondered why we haven’t heard about this elsewhere. I suspect many printers are pretty easily accessed.

The article had one comment, “Russia is responsible for MH17 !!!!” MH17, or Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, was the passenger jet that was shot down near the Russian/Ukraine boarder back in July. A search on MH17, points to, among other sites, the #MH17 hashtag.

This got me thinking about the top hashtags of 2014. Of course the lists depend on the medium being used, the location the medium is being used in, and probably a bit of subjectivity of the author of the article about popular hashtags. From #EuroMaiden to #mh17. From #BlackLivesMatter to #ICantBreathe. From #BringBackOurGIrls to #WhyIStayed

I could go on with any of these topics for a while, but I’m pretty tired, so I’ll leave off here.

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Relief, Resolutions and Hope

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 01/01/2015 - 11:21

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit. Happy New Year! Another year over, a new one just begun. 2014 certainly didn’t turn like I expected. If you asked me a year ago if I was going to run again for office, I probably would have said no. If you asked me if various coworkers would have left, I probably would have said no. If you asked me if certain friends or relatives would have died, I probably would have said no. So, it is with a certain amount of relief that 2014 comes to an end.

Yet New Years is a social construct. January first for the western calendar, Rosh Hashanah for the Jewish calendar, the Lunar New Year in Asian countries, and I’m sure plenty others that I’m missing. In fact, every day can be a start of a new year.

Each new year starts with resolutions and hope. I was recently asked what I would do in the New Year by a friend and coworker who seemed to be expecting some large project. I had to admit, I don’t know. I have no idea what the New Year will bring.

I was tempted to say that this year, I will end racism, and if I have time left over, end the conflict in the Middle East and write the next Great American Novel. I probably have as much a chance of completing this as most people have of completing their New Years’ resolutions.

Yet these are good goal posts to aim for. No, I won’t end racism, but perhaps my words online can help people think a little more about systemic racism and how it gives certain people privileges over others. Perhaps my words can help people think about their biases and how it affects people around them.

Quick: You see a young black man cross the street in front of you one evening. What do you see? A future president? A future felon? A future victim of police brutality? Your neighbor?

Can my comments online lead towards greater inter-faith dialog? Greater understanding between different people? Sure, it won’t end the conflicts in the Middle East, but if my words affect your words and your words affect someone else’s words, maybe we can make a difference.

I guess, for me, I’m currently thinking about this year in terms of words. Perhaps I won’t write the Great American Novel, though I might take another crack at it. Perhaps writing more regularly in my blog, and reading from more diverse sources will help me in that direction.