So this is my last post. Sad day. This means the class is over. What would you do different if you fell into a worm whole that transported you through time and brought you back to the beginning of this semester?

Speaker for the Dead is the second book in the Ender’s Saga. In this book Ender has already destroyed the bugger race and is trying to find a new home for the buggers so they may live again once more. Ender travels the universe until one day the humans are able to find another species that is as intelligent as humans. Is it possible to look at a creature that resembles a pig and find intelligence within its mind?

If you could remove your memories or at least a certain person from your memory, would you do this? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind is a beautiful show, but how do you think it would change your life for the better and worse?

So I saw "The Land of Woman" tonight. And one of the trailers before the film was Nike Cage's new film "Next" In the movie he sees the future, and in the preview he has line that goes something like "I see all the possible outcomes." My question for you is if you could see all the possible outcomes to any situation which outcome would you choose? Think about the morality and how that decision would effect your future. For instance, if I chose the outcomes that always put me on top, aren't I hurting my growth as a person? And happens to those people that I pushed below me?

I like this image. I thought it said, "Hey, I'm a cool science fiction looking photo." It also reminded me of the story about the shadows and the cave. Our world is the computer. We're complex and small and occupied only with our screen, when there's whole another world going on around us. A world that's wide, but we're so occupied with our screen that we only take up the one little tile. There are several tiles waiting for us to grow. To be used. But we don't grow. To occupied with what we have. So that's saying more than the Shadow story. Anyway. I still like the photo.

So personal identity...I've been really curious about this one. I think it's the topic that sticks in my mind the most. Anyone else have that? Perhaps it's because of how serious knowing oneself is, yet if you think about it we don't ever find ourselves. We learn about what we like and dislike...and who really chooses that for us? Is it in our design or does society tell us what we like? I'd like to believe that I'm me because I am me, I like this because of this... because I honestly I like it.... but I don't think anyone can truly be who they are...and that saddens me. God made us unique and we're suppose to hon that, but how when we're in this messed up world

Robots. AI. What defines something as being alive? If you build a robot that can make chioces is it alive? And morality issues. A robot might not value human life, they'd probably feel more compassionate towards nuts and bolts. Or what if they did value human life? I smell a sit-com!

I was having a conversation with my boss at Mr. Movies. We were talking about time. She mentioned time was just an idea. That the past and future our just ideas that we've stored in our mind. There was more to the conversation but I don't quite remember. So this is all you get for now. Sorry.

Why are we so drawn to the vigilante type of hero? Graphic novel characters like The Punisher and Batman are favorites for many people, but what makes them so appealing? Perhaps it is because deep down we secretly want to take part in this type of justice, or maybe we just want to see justice done on the bad guys. It seems like Bruce Wayne and Frank Castle are somewhat justified in their actions, but are they acting morally when they go outside of the law to punish villains? Maybe we just like the action that comes with their thrilling crusades for justice and good.

Humans tend to have a natural inclination towards violence and vengeful actions when they feel wronged or threatened. It could be argued that one aspect of morality is fighting these natural urges and not acting with force against those around us. I know very few people who would argue that killing someone is acceptable, however under the right circumstances most people would not object to taking the life of an individual. Self defense for example, most people would not disagree that if fatal force is necessary to preserve ones own life, then the use of that force is acceptable in that situation. To take this a step further, many people do not see lethal force as an objectionable thing when used to defend someone else either. In fact there are many, many cases in which the use of lethal force has been desired as a response to the events that took place. I think that people who are forced to kill, whether in war or self defense, live with the psychological effects of it, so while it is not something that should be punished, those people do suffer because of it anyway.

Further posting on immortality:

One such example from Permutation City is a man who named his digital self Peer. This man’s scan was installed as a background noise coded into the Permutation City architecture, so he was invisible to the programmers and the people living there. He was one such person who, in order to remain satisfied and happy, set up a defined series of enjoyments for himself, such as turning table legs out of wood on a lathe. He created the code so he would thoroughly enjoy this pursuit alone for around 60 or 70 years, making literally hundreds of thousands of table legs. Then, a change began to happen, which shifted his love for table legs to something else, and he abandoned his warehouse full of them to find the new single dream he had. In a world where everything from appearances to emotions and environments is changeable, immortality seems to be superbly gratifying (one pursuit at a time, using a created gratification).
This idea of tailoring emotions and situations at will to love one thing, then drastically changing and loving another thing for certain amounts of time ad infinum really jarred my idea of a Christian heaven. Revelation 2:15-17 sheds light on the image of heaven: 15 Therefore, "they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. 16 Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. 17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." (Rev. 2:15-17 NIV)
Right off, this seems like it could get monotonous. The people in heaven will never hunger or thirst, or get hot in the sun? These sensations are what tell a person its time to eat or get inside for the day—I don’t typically think of them as bad. At the same time, the extremes of these conditions are what many in poverty face, and that is most likely what these verses are getting at. There are also claims of no one crying, and everyone serving God, day and night. I’m not about to claim serving or praising God will get boring after awhile, but certainly from human experience doing anything for even extended periods of time lend one to believe that doing any singular thing for an infinite amount of time would get incredibly dull and lifeless. As a rule, people claim to dislike change, but if there were none, the same people would be just as upset.

Any thoughts about this? Heaven's a tough cookie to crack.

This post comes from my final paper on Immortality; I think it is very interesting stuff!

So, what do we do then with immortality? Is it a good thing? Would it be good if it were possible on earth? Certainly not if you were one of the very few people who were granted it. This is the Highlander formula; the ‘there can be only one’ case. This limited case immortality is explored in various Japanese Anime stories as well, such as Vampire Hunter D, the title character of a book series by Hideyuki Kikuchi (two movies have been made as well). D is half vampire/half human, so mostly everybody hates him, and his business is ridding the world of vampires. In the first book, D encounters a vampire named Magnus Lee, who gives a monologue about being a vampire in an early scene, after abducting a young girl:
"I've lived for almost ten thousand years. Believe me you have no idea what that means: boredom. Everlasting and hideous boredom. A never ending search for ways to pass the time... and mating with a human female is one of the few I enjoy. Eventually they become tiresome. For in spite of their vitality, they are fundamentally stupid creatures who couldn't survive without the nobility [vampires] to rule them. Perhaps now you'll understand my wanting to have some fun every thousand years or so?"
(from the IMDb database, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090248/quotes)

This really hits home with the boredom argument. From Count Lee’s view, a life on earth with the humans is unendingly boring, which is pretty easy to believe. This doesn’t seem like a good reason to want immortality on the earth; even if everyone were able to live forever, I believe everyone would eventually end up bored. The timeline of life that we all work against keeps us moving, ever looking for a noble pursuit.

What do you guys think?

It seems to me that most of the time when we think about AI the big question at hand is "is it ok for me to kill this thing?"

Thoughts about Star Wars have led me to think about the issue of redemption. Darth Vader was portrayed as evil through out the entire first three movies, yet through the beliefs of Luke, there was always the hope that Vader still had some good left inside of him. Vader proved that to be true by saving Luke and killing the Emperor, thus redeeming himself in his final moments of life. This kind of story is one that is very popular and personally one that I really enjoy. Any story that involves the redemption of a main character or villain is one that usually sticks with me. A reason that I think stories about redemption are so popular is that our faith revolves around it. Even those without Christian beliefs can find hope in the belief of being saved from evil and guilt. This is about as "preachy" as I get. I'll end on the account of my contacts blurring beyond all capacity for proper vision, thus making me unable to see most of the monitor. What other stories of redemption do any of you enjoy?

I have been up past sunrise this entire week. I just got done writting my final paper, and I only got four hours of sleep last night. This healthy combination of choices as made me think of my most "stonerific" blog post thus far. I was looking at the sun starting to rise and the different colors made me think about lightsabers...yeah...anyway, I wrote alot of stuff about good and evil in my paper so I was sort of in the mood. I have always wondered why the Sith only use a red lightsaber (there are exceptions as always) and why the Jedi use mainly blue and green. Do these colors represent a deeper meaning behind good and evil, or are they simply an artistic touch by Lucas. Red is often thought of as the color of passion and anger, thus it makes sense that the followers of the dark side of the force, who get their power through passion and anger, wield a red lightsaber. I dont know many meanings behind the colors of blue and green, so why do you think that the Jedi use those colors?

So the other day I was having lunch with a couple of friends and we began talking about dreams we had as children. I shared a couple of my dreams which I will share with you.

The first dream: I'm sitting on a seesaw with E.T. He goes up and I go down, I go up and he goes down. This happens several times. Then the seesaw goes level. My feet can't reach the floor. I look at E.T. who is glaring at me. Glaring deep into my soul. He then moves toward me. Closer and closer until he is right in my face. His hand then turns into a screw driver and he begins to jab it into my eye. I wake up.

The second dream: I'm on a roller coaster with my family. There are two carts. One cart contains my mom, my dad, and my sister. The second cart holds me and my uncle. The carts ride along a pair of tracks. The walls of the roller coaster are blue, and purple, and red. It's the universe. But then the track begins to split. On direction leads to the rest of the roller coaster, but the other direction the track is broke and a cart would fall thousands of feet. The first cart comes to the fork. It continues the roller coaster. But my cart takes the broken track.

For years I've wonder what these dreams meant, if there's any meaning at. So for fun I came up with a small interpretation. I've feared becoming like my uncle for a few years in high school because of the second dream. I saw traits of him in me, and avoided decisions he had made. So perhaps, my second dream is E.T. in my first dream. The second dream causes fear and has hindered my sight. I refuse to take certain decisions out of fear of the second dream. For about three hours my friends and I sat around interpreting our dreams and they all made sense. They either fit what we had become or what we feared we would become. So what do you guys think? Is it possible for our childhood dreams to be some sort of spooky fortune thing? I know this is far fetch and I really don't believe it to be true, but it's fun to just sit around and interpt. our dreams hoping they hold some deep meaning of who we are or who we are to come.

I just wanted everyone to see this because I thought it was cool.


http://www.tenthdimension.com/flash2.php

Check it out and see if it blows your mind or not. It is the 10 diminsions thing I talked about a long while ago

I'm reading a book right now (the third in the Wheel of Time series, if you know it. The third in the Wheel of Time series even if you don't know it, actually. And I'm not really reading it right now either, of course. Anyway...) where there are several different worlds, or dimensions might be a better word for it, where all the choices that you could have made at any point are carried out to their full effect. Like, right now, I have the choice to keep blogging, keep writing my paper, write a different paper, take a nap, go outside and enjoy the beautiful weather, etc etc. And there would be a world for each of those choices, where I did actually choose those things.

Is this a kind of anti-determinism? Is it related to determinism at all? I thought it was a really interesting concept. In the book, sometimes the characters are able to access these other worlds, and are often shocked by the consequences of their actions, or the sight of what they are capable of choosing. I wonder how that would change the choices we make now, if we had the same ability to see all the consequences of all of our options.

What is your philosophy on government? Are you an advocate for a powerful federal government, or a minimalistic government that leaves most decisions up to the individual?

How much of a role should the government have in determining individual rights?

How much of a role should the government have in the arts? For example, are there merits in censorship? Should the government subsidize the arts?

How much of a role should the government have in religious matters? Could a theocracy work? What separates civil customs from religious customs (i.e. marriage)?

I watched Full Metal Alchemist last semester and the main character, Ed, lost both his arm and leg as a kid. He replaced both limbs with artificial limbs called automail. Later he was faced with a choice of gaining his real limbs back or keeping the automail. I was wondering which would be better. I remembered this anime when we talked at the beginning of the semester about replacing pieces and are you really what you the same person. If you were faced with losing your limbs and 5 years later gaining them back or keeping your automail, which would you choose? You function like normal with the automail and the only benefit of gaining your limbs back is that you are all flesh again, would you still do it?

Everyone has there favorite universe in Science Fiction, which universe would you be in? When I say universe I mean story. I would be in the Marvel universe, I would love to live with mutants and be a super hero, even if I was the misunderstood ones. I've always been a big fan of Marvel because no one is perfect and life has problems like ours. So what would you choose?

So I have desided that Superman is Evil. Lex Luther is trying to establish his place in the world and Superman keeps getting in his way. Why must Superman interfer with another man's quest to be all he can be? I just thought I would throw this at you all and see how you would interpret things another way. If good and evil were looked at from opposite views. I thought about this a little when we studied good and evil. And how if you look at things differently, good and evil is flipped.

I watched the British Movie, Snatch last night...actually this morning around 3ish...but anyway it was a great movie. I would recommend it if not for the humor, the action, amazing cast, plot twists, and great music; then for the crazy array of different accents. The character of Brad Pitt (I know, but I think that Pitt is actually a very good actor) is a "pikey" (slang for Irish Gypsy) and he has one the best and craziest accents I have heard. This made me start thinking about all kinds of other crazy accents, which then led me to start thinking about other crazy languages, which ultimately led me to thinking about Science Fiction and all the crazy languages involved. I know that some Sci-Fi languages actually work, for example Klingon and in fantasty, Elvish. These languages are completly unecessary but there are people...devoted...enough to learn them. I then thought about how devoted to Science Fiction and other fictional things people can be and I even looked at myself and my odd Sci-Fi/fantasy addictions. What is it that makes so many people devote so much time to fiction and non-reality? What ever it is, I for one can't get enough of it.

Where do rights come from? Are rights contingent on worth? Are rights the same as priviledges? Who should be in charge of giving rights? Who should be in charge of protecting them? What causes are worth giving up rights? And what rights would you give up?

Can you make a whole blog post of questions?

I dealt with this a little in my novel paper, but thought I'd open up for you guys on the blog. Okay, for real, I'm not fooling anybody. I need posts. Anyway, we've talked a bit about the value of life. Randy's (are we allowed to call you Randy?) post on Bicentennial Man mentioned it a little bit, in that it questioned whether it was necessary to be human to be fully worthwhile. My question is, is that enough? Does humanity on its own impart worth? Why? How much worth? And is it equal for all humans?

My Christian perspective says our worth comes from God, that we have as much worth as He gives us. Our worth is worth His, in effect, since He chose to give Himself for us. Is that answer enough?

Here is a link to a funny Monty Python spoof of science fiction.

Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1sYgknWGSA
Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljCQeqFouVU
Part Three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMCNltgrs1U

From Levi

I have been running dry on ideas to post on the blog, so in a moment of brilliance I decided to look around on youtube. The first video that I clicked on looked interesting, and by some act of fate it contained some philosophy...sort of. It was also funny...sort of. I thought that I would share this video, and try and pull some issues from it. Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksKIq9mP5Tw

In this video there is a opening with a dog talking about Machinima, and then it gets into the deep stuff *cough* when the dog explains his new Machinima. It is the game pong, but with living paddles. The paddles talk about the meaninglessness of their lives, they can only move up and down, and every time they hit the "ball" it hurts them. They wonder if that is all there is to life, and are profoundly saddened by such a notion. This brought me to think about the point of view of an atheist. Some people live very hard lives, filled with sorrow and grief. They just can't catch a break, and with no god to turn to, life presents itself as sad and unbearable. One paddle even asks the other: "Is there a god?" Does he ask this question with hope or anger? If he starts to believe in a god, than he can have hope that a god who loves him will help him from his life of pain and restriction. The paddle like many people, may be looking for god and salvation when at the lowest point in his life. The pong paddle could also take the other well trodden path of anger agaisnt god. He could be asking in anger if there is a god so he can have someone to blame for his poor lot in life. When things don't go well in life, its easy to blame someone who claims to have control over all things.

Another interesting part of the video is the very end. The dog is back and he himself asks the question: "Is there a god?" He is then hit by a pong ball and it zooms out to show him in a computer looking grid/cubicle. I admit that I'm not sure what this part is trying to get at so I'll leave it up for the class to discuss.

I read Speaker for the Dead not too long ago and it dealt with another intelligent race. I wonder how we would react to them. In the book there is an AI that has gained a consciousness and it wants to reveal itself to the world; however, it is too afraid to do it. With all the aggressive ways we have acted in our movies and books toward new species she has become afraid to show herself. What do you think on this idea? That if you found new life, would you keep it private or would you make it public?

If you were a super hero / super heroin would you want to keep who you are a secret? Who you show yourself for who you are like the Fantastic 4 or would you keep your identity a secret like Spiderman? I have thought about it and I don't know what I would choose. I was thinking I might want to keep it a secret to protect everyone around me, plus myself, but I doubt I could keep it from everyone. With something that cool you would just have to shair it, so what would you do?

So like many at Northwestern I saw Spiderman 3 and it raised some questions. Especially in Spiderman 3 but in other movies also there has been a trend of villains who are not truly evil, simply the victims of circumstance. Take the Spiderman villians, the Green Goblin went crazy because of the liquid stuff he took, Doc Oc was possessed by his robotic arms, sandman needed money, Harry was crazy for a couple of reasons, and Eddie Brock was driven by the symbiot. Why no truly evil characters? Is there something wrong with having a bad guy simply out to rule the world and cause mayhem?

Heres the excerpt from my paper, it focuses on the the Scientology controversy surrounding the books release.

Upon Battlefield Earth’s release it immediately joined the best seller list and has sold over 800,000 copies in its first three years at press. Part of the controversy of this fact is that it seems that members of a particular religion, The Church of Scientology who L. Ron Hubbard helped found, seemed to be buying up copies to artificially keep the book on the list. It seems publishers were promised that the Church itself would buy a specific number of the books, and also bookstores told of Scientology members buying armfuls of books. In some extreme cases stores would receive shipments of books with their price tag already attached, meaning that the books were being sold and resold.

Despite L. Ron Hubbard’s claims that Battlefield Earth was not a Scientology propaganda piece, the book does present some Scientology themes. The Psychlo race is run by a group called the Catrists, which seems to be a shortened version of Psychiatrists. These Catrists are called “mental health experts” and are trying to fix what they see as wrong in the Psychlo society. This strongly parallels Hubbard’s view in real life that psychiatrists persecute anyone who disagrees with them, and uses such tactics to ensure their funding. The word Psychlo itself is revealed to have meant “mental patient” and that the Catrists came to power during a bloody revolution and placed modules in every Psychlo’s brain to govern their behavior. There is also a short reference to a resistance movement comprised of some sort of “church”. Scientology has a running theme of war between humans and other aliens, paralleling the war between Scientologists and Psychiatrists.

for Levi

Yesterday I watched Bicentenial Man. Although longer than I thought, the movie entertained without putting me to sleep. Anyway to the point. If any one has ever seen the movie, they know it is about a robot that has a small defect that allows the robot to think on its own. It demenstrates that it can be creative, develop friendships and even love. The robot becomes obsessed with being accepted by humanity. He desires to break down all of the barriers between himself and humans. He believes the best way for him to do this is to become human himself.
Eventually he develops a biological body and becomes human. He accepts the mortality that comes with biological body. In the end the humans accept him because he has accepted death. My question is why does he desire to be human? Is he not a special being dispite his mechanical composition? Something should not have to be human in order for it to be of value.

Another character that I wrote about from my Watchmen paper was the character, Rorschach. He is somewhat akin to Batman in rough childhoods and his martial arts and detective skills, yet he is much more extreme than Batman, because he is willing to torture and kill and often does so without remorse. He believes that evil must be punished to matter what or how. I mentioned in my paper that he is one of my favorite characters, and this post isn't so much about the morals of Rorschach but a tribute to some of his amazing quotes and frightening ideas, enjoy:

"There is good and there is evil, and evil must be punished. Even in the face of Armageddon I shall not compromise in this.”

"Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else. Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world.”

"Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face.
The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown.:
The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save Us!"...:
...and I'll look down, and whisper, "No"

"Don't worry. Won't insult legendary underworld solidarity by suggesting you surrender name without torture."

"For my own part, regret nothing. Have lived life, free from compromise… and step into the shadow now without complaint"

I don't know how many of you have seen Spiderman 3 yet (or are even checking the blog) but this post is about the character of the Sandman. I'll try not to give my opinion of the movie, because I don't want to get started down that road, but I will say if you are a fan of the first two movies you should go see the 3rd, if not for the story *sigh*, then the great special effects. Any way back to the Sandman. There is of course a difference between the Sandman of the movies, and the Sandman of the comics. In the comics, Sandman using the name Flint Marko, lived the life of a criminal but still resisted extreme violence and killing, and he also went to great lengths to care for his sick mother. In the movie, Marko stole money to pay for medical treatement of his sick daughter, and after escaping from jail gets caught in a molecular experiment that changes him into "The Sandman." What makes Marko an interesting character is that, in both the comics, and even more so in the movie; he still has some likable qualitites. He is a villian that steals and fights the hero, Spiderman, but he is doing it for diffenerent reasons than just the fun of being evil/world domination/ultimate power/pure insanity. Marko uses the money to help those that he loves, and is willing to hurt those who don't matter to him to achieve his goal. I know that hurting others is wrong, but it makes you think about the question of how far would you go to help those you love? Is it noble to hurt others to save others, or is it just selfish to hurt others to save people that you love. This line of thought can lead into the reasoning of "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" and "the death of few to save millions." What do you do about such reasoning?

i have a question that get me to think why has God made us all different i mean why did He/She give us down falls i do not want us all to be the same that is boring but why can't we all have good knees or no sickness or why dose there have to be things happen that get people to turn away from God if God loves us so much? is it because of the devil, i think that this is a crap answer i think that it is that God dose not want us to be all the same but why is there immoral people out there there can be difference without having immaral people so there some stuff to think about

Linguistics makes philosophy interesting. I am in the midst of writing my final paper. I am focusing on Intelligence and AI. Trying to figure out what intelligence is hard enough without all definitions that I find needing to have other words in them defined as well. Now, I am a word nerd so I don't mind it all, I am having a lot of fun in fact, though my paper might be rambling a bit; noting that people used to talking to me will be surprised at, though I am sorry about that Randy, enjoy the read. Anyway, I cam e to the OED's definition of Intelligence and it said "The faculty of understanding; intellect." Now the definition on Wikipedia, yeah I know wiki, I don't care I like it, said that intelligence is sometimes viewed as distinct from knowledge and wisdom. I liked the quote, look it up if you want to see it, I also more or less agree with it. And that leads me to my question, is there a difference between Knowledge, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Understanding? Which are synonymous and which are simply synonyms? i.e. numerically identical and merely quantitatively identical.

The selection from my book review...

This is a section from my book review of Watchmen, dealing with free will and determinism:

The subject of free will and determinism are most apparent in the story of Dr. Manhattan. He is able to see, manipulate, and control all atomic matter; thus giving him god-like powers and even the ability to see the future. However this change causes Dr. Manhattan to lose touch with his humanity, and there is an entire chapter devoted to one of the character trying to convince Dr. Manhattan that human life is worth saving. He sums up his lengthy explanation of the meaninglessness of human life as such: “I read atoms, Laurie. I see the ancient spectacle that birthed the rubble. Beside this, human life is brief and mundane.”
Through out his debate with the character, Laurie, Dr. Manhattan also sees what “humans” call the “future” and says what is going to happen in the argument before either of them says it. This of course is rather frustrating to Laurie and she tells Dr. Manhattan in anger that she can’t see the future, where then he replies to her that: “There is no future. There is no past. Time is simultaneously an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet.” Determinism then pushes its way into the argument as Laurie asks Dr. Manhattan that if he can see the future, why is he sometime surprised and why can’t he do anything about the millions of deaths that he foresaw, he replies that everything is preordained, even his responses. In anger Laurie yells: “The most powerful thing in the universe and you’re just a puppet following a script?” Dr. Manhattan replies in chilling support of determinism: “We are all puppets, Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings.”

In my paper I argue that Dr. Manhattan is "supporting" if you will, determinism over that of the alternative view of predistination saying:

Dr. Manhattan is in an effect proving the philosophical idea of determinism to be true. Determinism is the belief that everything that happens everywhere is caused, thus predetermined, and that belief is a direct enemy, so to speak, of free will. Some may argue that Dr. Manhattan is not proving determinism true, but instead proving its close relative, predestination to be true. Predestination differs from determinism in that it is the view that no matter what you do, the future is still going to be the same. While this may seem similar to determinism, the key difference lies in the phrase “what you do.” Predestination says that you are still able to make your own actions in the present, but they will inexorably lead to the same future, while determinism states that you’re actions and decisions in the past and present are inevitable, therefore giving you know true free will. The deterministic view fits best with Dr. Manhattan as he says that there is no past, present, or future, and due to human’s limited understanding of time we can not grasp the idea that all our actions and thoughts are already determined which is why he can say them before they actually occur.

What do you think?

So I'm still trying to decide how to write this paper and I was thinking about somehow finding a theme we've talked about and combining it with the Christian perspective. Kind of irrelevant to this post but that's where this question came from...
Do you think that as Christians we should also argue a certain view of Causal Determinism or the memory theory or any of the countless philosophical themes from a nonChristian perspective? I mean, I can see the value in being able to defend your position without the assumption that God exists (or other Christian views), especially when arguing with an atheist or someone with different beliefs. However, at the same time, since we are Christians, that IS our reason sometimes. God IS our response. We can't help it if it doesn't necessarily make sense to someone else or if we can't prove it. He just is our answer for some things. So what do we do then? Should we have a back-up arguement or just accept that we're not going to be able to convince that person of that certain point? Sorry if this doesn't make sense, it came out as I thought it. :)

Last one, I've been working on a paper for my History and Theory of Rhetoric class about Stan Lee and ethical issues that a comic book writer faces in his particular form of rhetoric. I consider a lot of comic books to fall into that Sci Fi category so I think that it fits here as well. Stan Lee worked for about twenty years writing junk at the then Timely Comics. His publisher just wanted him to write stuff that was popular, for example, if war stories were big he wrote about war, if detectives were in he would put out a detective series. Stan writes in his autobiography, "Martin(the publisher) never wavered from his insistence that the strips be done the way they had always been done, with very young children in mind. He wanted the most basic plots, utilizing a vocabulary that could be understood by a child of six or seven. No words of more than two syllables if possible, no attempts at irony or satire or philosophizing. I often felt we were writing stories just one level above 'See Dick and Jane. See Dick run.'" Stan changed this in the sixties with his creation of dynamic characters, starting with the Fantastic Four, that faced real problems and made the characters interesting. He created many of the most popular heroes in comicdom: X-men, Spider-man, the Hulk, Iron-man, Thor, Dare Devil, the list goes on and on. Stan writes that it was his personal pledge not to write about politics or religion, but to write about characters and how they deal with life and the troubles they face. Stan wrote that he only had one lesson in his books, "Be good to each other." To me this seems to be a good policy with a worthy goal. These books get into the hands of a multitude of people with different backgrounds, religions, and politics and to attack one or say that one was better than the rest seems wrong, not to mention pointless, but to encourage people to be good to one another seems to be a good goal and one that could have a major impact on a reader, I know that my love of superheroes has made me into the man that I am today. What do you think? Should authors focus on these simple ideas of being good to each other, or do they have a greater responsibility to spread a different message?

Another topic that I've been dealing with is morality. We discussed this in class, the idea of what makes us do good things. It would be so easy for us do evil, that's the selfish way of doing things, and I think that if we're honest with ourselves we'd have to admit that we really are selfish at heart, so what makes us do good? Comic books are what I know, so I find it helpful to look at them for inspiration. The answers that I find lead me to think about "Nature vs. Nurture" and I think that for me nurture wins out. I really like the show Smallville and in the first few seasons they did some really cool stuff with Clark Kent's early days. Those seasons insinuated that without out Clark's parents and their mid-western beliefs that Clark would have become a Weapon of Mass Destruction, so to speak. Clark becomes Superman because he was raised to be a giving, caring, compassionate person. Lex Luthor on the other hand has a terrible childhood. His father is overbearing who makes his life hell so that he can toughen him, make him strong enough to carry on the Luthor name. Because of this harsh upbringing Lex grows to become cynical, un-trusting, and ruthless. When we look at other comic characters we find this same situation. Spider-man had Uncle Ben to talk some sense into him, Bruce Wayne is the product of a mugging gone bad, etc. What do you think, does our up bringing have more effect on us or is it all genetic?

Lot's of posts tonight, but I've got to get it done so here goes... I've recently been preparing for a Sunday school class I'm planning on leading this summer and I think that it fits into Science Fiction and Philosophy a little bit. The class is on looking at the world in way that is searching for Christ in everything that we see. My example is Superman, and yes I was working on this before all those theology classes stole the idea. I recently got into a debate as to whether Christians should listen to anything but Christian music. My adversary claimed that we shouldn't because it would corrupt the mind with all these secular thoughts, but I feel that this is wrong and that we should listen to all sorts of music and look for God in everything. Getting back to Superman, he was created Siegle and Siegel and Shuster, two Jewish guys, but when we look for God in something as simple as a comic book we can find a modern day parable for Christ. God has often used secular items to present his message to people. In theology we learned that God can take our most evil actions that are filled with the most malevolent of intent and make them work for his glory. My point is this: look for God in all that you do, watch, say, and think. You could learn some truth from Superman, some from U2, maybe even something from Keanu Reeves. What we need to do is remain open minded and faithful and God will reveal himself.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Doctor Who is my favorite show on television and lately I have been intrigued with how it handles Time travel. For those of you who don't know, Doctor Who is a British show about an alien being called the Doctor who travels through time and space and runs into trouble were ever he goes. He finds aliens who have distorted the time line by taking on human form and interacting with humans, or by introducing technology that we shouldn't have, among other things, and the Doctor sets things right wherever he goes. The place that I'm going is this idea of a being existing outside of time. We often say that God exists outside of time, but often I don't think that we can wrap our minds around this, I can't at least, but looking at time through the eyes of the Doctor it's almost as if for him going to the year 1599 is kind of like going to Sioux Falls or something. Instead of thinking of him as traveling through time, as if it were impossible, I find it easier to think of time more as a road map and the Doctor just goes from one town to another. For a being such as this it seems impossible to screw up the "Space Time Continuum" because that straight line view of time is blasted apart when thinking about it in this way. Just something kind of cool to think about.

In the diary he writes something that I found interesting, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” (81) Winston recognizes that he is not free, he has to work, he has to salute Big Brother, he has to smile and laugh when the time is right, if for any reason he seems to be a little off he will be taken by the thought police, but they can never reach what is in your head. As long as the world spins two plus two equals four, it’s a fact, a law like gravity and it is this ability to think for oneself that makes Winston free. By the end of the book Orwell tells us how the party reprograms Winston through beatings, electro shock therapy, starvation, and many other forms of torture. His torturer, a man by the name of O’Brien, sets about the task of making believe what the Party says. First he breaks his mind by holding up four fingers and asking Winston how many fingers he’s holding. Winston replies four and O’Brien sends electricity through him. This is repeated over and over again until Winston cries out from the pain that O’Brien is holding up five fingers, Obrien replies, “No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are four.” Eventually Winston is in so much pain and shock that he honestly cannot tell how many fingers he is seeing.

I think that it is at this point that the subject of reality enters into the story. You see O’Brien knows that two and two make four and that the only way to gain Winston’s loyalty is make it so that his mind accepts the reality that is presented to him by the party, and in that reality two and two are five because the party says so.

Permutation City post

First off as far as philosophy, this book really shatters my idea of personal identity. The people-copying that is done in the book creates a digital self in a digital environment that is so realistic the resulting pair must be told whether they are the real or the synthetic one. Also, the work that Paul does with his copies about changing the times of calculations and computer time led him to hypothesize that there were, in the end, 25 Paul Durhams, all with their own memories and ‘selves’, with pasts and memories in time and space. The book challenges the reader to think about what does make a person: experiences? Those can be simulated. Memories? Those too can be changed and modified. Emotions? In this book, even emotions are capable of being rerouted and changed for the digital people to maximize their well-being. One such individual puts himself on a perpetual rock wall climbing exhibition very much like Sisyphus and his stone, and his emotions are tailored to love every minute of it. When individuals can manipulate their surroundings, memories, body images, emotions, and everything else, I think personal identity deteriorates completely.

The book also deals with the ethical issues that can be raised when thinking about people making copies of themselves—what ramifications would be present in an age when digital copies are possible? The situation with Maria's mother made me think: can an individual decide for someone else that they should be copied? Maria wanted to save her mother from dying more than nearly anything, and she was doing everything she could to get funding to do so, even though her mother didn't want her to. Would this be like keeping a person who is very near-death on life support against their will? I think there is something inherently wrong about going against a person's will in regard to that person's well-being, even in death.

for Levi

The greatest concern we have of technology is will it be used morally. Movie trilogies such as the Matrix and the Terminator reveal our fears. In both stories humans create machines which become more powerful than themselves. The remaining humans face the threat of annihilation by the machines. The machines in these stories represent the fears humans have of themselves. In WWII, technology came in the form of a bomb. When the atomic bomb was used by humans to kill humans, the situation resembled that of the machines in the future. One group, the Allies, was trying to dominate the other, the Japanese. People fear other people becoming more technologically advanced then themselves and using the technology to harm, steal from, and control others. In these movies we also see examples of good robots or programs. Examples would be Arnold when he is protecting humans and the Oracle in the Matrix­. These characters embody the moral use of technology; the times when technology is used to benefit others. The fact that the moral issues involved with technological advances is pleasing to see.

-Levi Price

This post goes way back to the beginning of class and ties in to some of the other philosophy classes I've taken. I've been thinking about this almost all semester and still don't really have a good way of wording my question but I'll try anyway. I've been wondering about souls and what makes us individuals. Some might say it's the specific electrical patterns in our brains, the ways our neurons are intertwined. Most AI scifi stories that I've come across seem to rely on this idea for the positronic brain of their aindroids. Data is a good example as well as the librarian from The Time Machine. Both have a central computing center that is the "brain" of the entity. Both of these characters can also be turned off and on and they don't really know about the passage of time while they are turned off until they are turned back on again. My ultimate question here is whether or not you think that we are like that. The Bible seems to indicate in Revelations that we die and then come back at the resurrection. If that is how things work with being dead, then what do you supposed happens when we're dead? If we really aren't anything more than the electrical impulses in our brains do we realize when we are dead that we are dead? Or is it just like going to sleep and not dreaming and then waking up at the resurrection?

I don't expect us to agree on this, but if we do then great. Let me know what you think.

Sorry guys, this is part two from my book review, it seemed too good to not share. There are numerous points in the story at which a character is faced with a moral dilemma. The first comes when the scientists send the professor and the students back to 1357 AD. A moral issue arises when Doniger chooses to send them back without warning them of the transcription errors that happen every time a person is sent back and forth. Knowing that there are serious, potential problems with the travel process, is it right to make use of the technology? Doniger breaches the line of morality when he sends back the students without telling them of the dangers and also by trying to hide it from the one student that remained behind. Another major moral dilemma is faced by Marek, Chris, and Kate, the three students sent back to rescue the professor. When they are in the past, they face death numerous times at the hands of the British and French, who are in the middle of the Hundred Years War. All three of them defend themselves from attacks by armed soldiers and in the process; each of them kills at least one person. Marek easily steps into the role of soldier and takes the lives of many men. The big question here is: is it moral to kill, even in self defense? Chris and Kate may have stayed on the side of morality, but Marek is a tougher subject to evaluate. Before he even knew it was possible to go back in time, he was infatuated with the past. He was so in love with the age in which it was kill or be killed that he taught some archery students with the phrase: “In order to kill a man, aim for the neck and legs.” This is common sense and even historically proven, but what is the point of teaching high school archery students this concept? Is it wrong for Marek to kill on the fact that he feels no remorse for it? Granted, much of the killing was in self defense, but he did remain in the past and lived out the rest of his life there. I don’t think Marek was a moral degenerate, but he did come close to crossing the line. It is easy to forget sometimes all the moral questions an individual faces every day, which makes it all that much easier to cast blame when someone does cross the moral line.

The method of time travel the scientists discover in Timeline uses a machine that tears the subject down to his or her or its molecular level and sends the molecules through a wormhole in the quantum foam, which is the substance that the world is made of. However the way that it is explained in the book is more like multi-dimensional travel, rather than simple time travel. According to the scientists at ITC, our world is part of a multiverse, in which some of the dimensions exist in the past and some in the future and these dimensions are accessible through wormholes in the quantum foam. The multiverse is the result of the innumerous decisions made by people, and as each choice is made two, or more, other dimensions are created, thus making uncountable parallel dimensions to the present. It actually seems like a reasonable explanation of how time travel, or dimensional travel, is possible.
What are the ramifications of time travel? The most well known danger of time travel is the grandfather paradox which is: you travel back in time and kill your grandfather, thus preventing your own existence. This is part of a deeper issue that plays with the idea of changing history. In the book, it is apparently impossible to alter the past and change the future, because of the nature of the multiverse. Is there any justification for intentionally going back in time in order to change the events of the future? I don’t know of many people who would oppose going back to the 1930s in order to stop Hitler from rising to power, but if that were to happen who is to say that something worse might not happen instead? There are also a lot of smaller problems with time travel, including personal danger, introducing an object into the past that will not be invented until much later in time, and changing not only the things that happen, but also the way that they happen. As with much in life, there are no guarantees, so might it be better to refrain from time travel until there is a time at which one could be certain no problems would arise? This seems like the most reasonable response to the matter of time travel, as fun as it would be to go back in time and witness the conquests of Julius Caesar or the Boston Tea Party.