Across the Bilayer

Monday, July 13, 2009

Master of angels and algebra...

All things are linkified...

I've enjoyed reading the posts over at The Renaissance Mathematicus lately. The most recent being a brief article on the more conventional side of the notorious magician, John Dee.

[image commandeered from http://sigilhouse.net/]

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

You got no proof, mate!

News from Linkin' Park...

The Sensuous Curmudgeon has previously posted this excellent response to the creationist request for a mere slice of solid proof of evolution.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Comment: Ask Podblack: What Does Supernatural Mean?

Comment on Ask Podblack: What Does Supernatural Mean? over on the Podblack Cat blog. (edited for posting, here)

“Supernatural” is really a redundant term, because anything that manifests itself in our perceived reality is, by virtue of being experienced, a part of the natural order. If we discovered a genuine and fully bona fide vampire somewhere in the future, its existence would simply lead to a reassessment of the natural order, and that vampire would be realised as being a natural element within that order. It would not be “supernatural” but merely a piece of tangible evidence suggesting that we need to rethink certain conclusions that we’ve drawn about our reality.

A common error by non-scientific skeptics is to assume that something is only “real” or “natural” if it can be subjected to empirical investigation. Although this is hypothetically correct, it is often nonsense in practice. The actual extent of the natural world that is currently amenable to our current empirical methods is limited and only a portion is ever likely to be revealed, regardless of how sophisticated we become.

This caveat is compounded by the fact that the manner of “supernatural” hypotheses tend to render them almost impossible to falsify. How do you determine the non-existence of a hypothetically conscious agent like a God or a ghost? i.e. and agent that can ostensibly choose not to be observed? How does one test for the existence or non-existence of Descarte’s Demon or Edwin A. Abbott's "Sphere"? We simply can't without a fairly profound paradigm shift in how we do science.

The correct response towards such claims, then, is to simply say there is insufficient evidence to warrant our accommodation of them, and that there currently seems to be little practical benefit in pursuing them further. Anything else overstates the skeptics case and leaves materialism vulnerable to attack as being dogmatic and prone to similarly unsubstantiated claims, when it is neither.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Defining atheism

Link Factor 9, Mr. Sulu...

Evolving Thoughts ponders the evolution of the term "atheism", and explains why it defines a species wholly different from his own non-theistic type.

A while ago, my own similar journey culminated in my self-description as an Ignostic, which seems to me the best-defined (and easily explained) and most philosophically sound "on the fence" position for one to assume; i.e. there are arguably no strong, weak, positive or negative Ignostics.

This is in part the reason I abandoned my highly popular and world-renown blog, "The Agnostic Monk". I was afraid that, to the uneducated visitor, "The Ignostic Monk" might be taken to indicate the the author was a regular theologian with some kind of rare congenital disorder.

[edited to add: Jings, I've never seen that before. There an add for "Dianetics" in the post-posting page on blogger! Weirdness...]

[edite once more to add: Now it's gone. Bizarre. And another thing: I've been posting old comments of mine to the archives of this blog so that I can a) stop repeating myself, and b) remember my thoughts, which tend to roll around my head like marbles and are always threatening to fall out of my ears. I hoped that back-dating them would prevent them from spamming everybody's Google Readers and what not, but my Statcounter says otherwise, so sorry about that.