New public blogsite

*UPDATE* I'm going to have to leave the new site private for a few weeks as I go through and ensure that I didn't miss anything in making it anonymous. I expect to do little to no posting in the interim. You can bookmark the new page though for the future and subscribe to its RSS feed.

Reason for blogging

It's good for your health!

Or wait...is it? (yes, the article in the NYT is all about people who write for a living and get very little sleep and inadequate rest/exercise, plus it provides anecdotal evidence, no studies)

My blog writing reasons are...complex and change from time to time.

Thoughts on writing

Wow. 800 posts. Two and a half years of blogging (since 11/05). That's a lot of writing.

Lots of quantity, but as for quality, I must suck. I've submitted entries to three contests, but won none (from oldest to newest):

1. FFRF 7/1/06 -- here was the entry
2. AA 1/23/07 -- here was the entry
3. Seed Magazine 6/25/07 -- here was the entry
   

Perhaps of more importance to me than the contests themselves is the act of writing, even if I'm not sure why I do it. I have tried and failed to stop blogging here, although I was successful at extricating myself from a site where I previously blogged. I've been blogging less since taking my new job, but I still write a lot on the weekends and in the mornings (sometimes saving drafts to be finished later). I've felt one way or another about blog privacy, but for now, it's staying private. I can't afford to lose my job, not with a kid on the way.

In the meanwhile, it seems clear that from my contest failures I'm not a spectacular writer. But it's something I enjoy. And it's something I see myself doing for the rest of my life. I love documenting my thoughts and seeing how I've evolved as a person over the last few years. It's almost like something you can pass down to your kids -- to show them how you grew and changed over the years.

To everyone who does actually read my ramblings from time to time, thanks for letting me share my thoughts and my life with you.

Less writing

Posting has been slow and probably boring. Here's an update on the personal side.

I always hesitate to say that I am going to stop writing entirely for some period of time, because that never seems to pan out, but it just seems that I have naturally written less as a result of my new job, and that it doesn't have to be a mandate for me. So, we'll see what happens, but I'm pretty sure that I won't be posting as much as time goes on. One nice thing is that, with my contract up for renewal in a few months, I can then consider (afterwards) making my site public again. That is certainly preferable, albeit risky, to me on several levels, given the nature of private schools, parents with huge endowments/influences, and my penchant for offensive rants on here.

We'll see...

"Intelligent Design not a true science"

As I recently mentioned, the Alligator's archives are screwed up and a great many links are broken from publications that I or Gator Freethought have gotten in the newspaper. As a result, I'm reposting as many of these as I have the time and ability to, just to preserve and provide an electronic copy of the documents. Below is the first thing I ever submitted to a newspaper in my life, and it got in. After that, I guess it got a little addictive.

Intelligent Design not a true science
by Daniel Morgan
http://www.alligator.org/pt2/050826column2.php
published 8/26/2005

In response to Eric Wang's well-written, but somewhat shortsighted column, he cries foul that, "...there is not a marketplace of competing ideas in our public schools today, but only a monopoly of evolutionary theory." Today is the result of 2000+ years of competing ideas. Aristotle and Plato argued that nature, especially living things, showed "final causes" in their apparent design. Today, ID activists claim the same—that nature shows “the evidence of design”. Empedocles, among others, argued that change could occur in organisms to allow adaptation, giving the appearance of design. Darwin argued 150 years ago the same.

The crux of the issue is whether or not a force or "Designer" moves us towards a presumed goal, teleologically. The error in Wang's thinking is that science has, or can, reject or accept this philosophical notion. How? It can, and does, subject the premise of change and adaptation, both of which are natural phenomena, to its method of inquiry. Science is by definition methodological naturalism, and as such posits, tests, and questions only physical and natural phenomena. Science is limited in scope (and "on purpose") to questions of natural philosophy, not whether or not a "Designer" had it all in mind, or whether or not this "Designer" exists. It ignores the question because science is constrained to natural explanation of natural phenomena.

So now the question remains—can science empirically detect God’s fingerprints? Is it possible, without arguing from incredulity, to know scientifically, rather than “by faith” if “designed”? What is the a priori, natural evidence of supernatural creation/design? How does one distinguish ignorance of natural phenomena from knowledge of supernatural phenomena? Is it possible to scientifically argue for Design without arguing from incredulity? For hundreds of years, gaps in knowledge were filled with “God did it”. Now they are being filled with “Designer did it”. Has science proven either one philosophically wrong, or simply shown us that the mechanism by which posited Designers work is inextricable from the natural universe, and that the this universe and its natural laws is all that science can and will comment upon?

So in short, science describes a natural process, known as "descent with modification". If we want to teach science, we teach natural mechanisms and processes, without invoking supernatural causes. If we want to teach anything else, Wang and others had better realize we may no longer honestly call it “science”, but must admit we have moved into metaphysics, philosophy, or theology. Is there a “monopoly” of thought, or is science the one way of rationally, and objectively, viewing our natural universe? Why did the Kansas board consider redefining science itself into one of these latter three? Is it the job of our state, or of families, to lay the foundation for those?

If I get a new link for the Alligator's archive of this, I'll update it.

Seed Magazine: You Stink

Well, I didn't win, but check out the winners of the writing contest. I think mine was better...ok, fine, no it wasn't.

A new way of stating the PoE

I was browsing an old e-buddy's blog a few moments ago (one who promised he was going to stop blogging, but like so many of us, failed to do so) and found an interesting way to approach the problem of evil:

1) Events have happened in the world that are such that any person able to prevent them would be morally obligated to do so.
2) Premise (1) is logically incompatible with God defined as an all-powerful, morally perfect being.
3) Therefore, God does not exist.

Premise (2) I take it, is simply a fact of logic: to be all-powerful is to be able to prevent the sort of events described in (1), and to be morally perfect is to fulfill all of one's moral obligations, so if there were a God so defined, there would be no such events as described in (1).

As for (1), it appears to be almost universally agreed upon. A few decades ago it was reported that a woman named Kitty Genovese had been murdered and no one had done anything to stop it even though dozens of people had heard her screams. The story provoked some deep-soul searching and discussions about human psychology, all of which took for granted that the right thing to do had been to stop the murder. The international community has been harshly criticized for failing to do more to stop the Rwanda genocide. The current administration had been harshly criticized for failing to do more to rescue people from Hurricane Katrina.

Chris has emphasized here the concept of moral duties or moral obligations; I think this approach to the PoE is very important, and highlights a basic starting presupposition that some Christians may subconsciously hold: that God has no obligations or duties towards its creation(s). Kant's formulation of the categorical imperative was focused here, on what we are obligated to bring about by the nature of moral normativity. He argued that we must always act in such a way that our behavior is compatible with a sort of absolutism; or, that we can only justify our moral behaviors if they are universally true and correct.

This is where the disconnect occurs for believers in God.

While they will heartily agree that they are morally obligated to care for and protect their children from harm, they hold no such absolutism about this moral issue towards God. God can do whatever it feels like doing -- arbitrarily deciding to protect this or that prophet while at the same time neglecting a massive proportion of the earth's population. When they claim that God has to give us free will, they commit petitio principii: they are claiming that God's first obligation is to allow its creation to be free, rather than acting on behalf of the creation's best interests.

This logic certainly would not apply to the parent-child relationship, and most believers would agree to this. They would almost certainly agree that any parent who allowed his toddler to run through the house with scissors was not a moral, good parent, despite the justification offered by said parent that, "I just wanted to maximize little Johnny's freedom!"

We've trodden this ground before, of course. But it is helpful to frame the argument in terms of moral duties, because the immediate presupposition of God's lack of moral obligations, on the part of many theists, renders this God's "goodness" fatally flawed and illogical.

My submission to Seed Magazine's writing contest

I just submitted my entry to the Seed writing contest.

Read it here.

(or, R-click and "Save As" [Word 97-03 document (.doc, 1.3MB)])

"Analyzing Scientific Literacy in the 21st Century: Approaches and Considerations"

You'll need the password to open it: 0opeyx88888

Again: You have to open it read-only. I will put up a .PDF if and when it gets published.

Contest details:

Seed is pleased to announce the Second Annual Seed Science Writing Contest, presented by Honeywell.

Throughout the 20th century, science changed our perspective on the world. It altered our sense of individual identity, compelled us to environmental consciousness, and shaped our view of the cosmos. Its legacy is apparent in what we learned: the three Rs, our As, Ts, Cs, and Gs, the consequences of splitting the atom, that the solar system is 4.6 billion years old...

Today, the mantra of competitiveness has gained new momentum in the US, reinvigorating a discussion about education and the public's understanding of science. Science is high on the agenda of the European Union. And China and Africa have identified science literacy as a cornerstone of their respective development strategies. This begs the question:

What does it mean to be scientifically literate in the 21st century?

How do we measure the scientific literacy of a society? How do we boost it? What is the value of this literacy? Who is responsible for fostering it?

Essay submissions will be judged by a panel of Seed editors and special guests. Winning entries will be published in Seed magazine.

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Technorati tags: Philosophy

Some Books for Sale

I have some books for sale (35 to be exact). Almost all of them are Christian, or generally religion-focused, books I either bought or was given a few years back. A few notable exceptions include Brian Greene's books on string theory and a recent bio of Robert Ingersoll published by the FFRF (a prize for an essay I submitted to them).

The details can be found HERE (.htm) or HERE (.pdf). Email me if you're interested.

American Atheists Scholarship Runner-up

I didn't win, but I got runner-up...I guess I don't get $2000, but I should still be happy about having some recognition, right? I'm going to go drink a few beers and mope.

You can view the essay and materials I sent in for the contest here.

This was the 2nd atheist org I've tried to win a prize from, and failed.
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Technorati tags: Atheism *UPDATE (1/26/13): I just saw this old post on this topic -- http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2007/03/10/american-atheists-scholarship-winners/ **

Another One Bites the Dust

Chris Hallquist is taking a blogging break. Seeing another good one go down reminds me of the depressing analysis that we cannot deny the mathematical inevitability of -- the demise of good writers in the blogosphere from the progression of the power law:

However, though the inequality is mostly fair now, the system is still young. Once a power law distribution exists, it can take on a certain amount of homeostasis, the tendency of a system to retain its form even against external pressures. Is the weblog world such a system? Are there people who are as talented or deserving as the current stars, but who are not getting anything like the traffic? Doubtless. Will this problem get worse in the future? Yes.

Though there are more new bloggers and more new readers every day, most of the new readers are adding to the traffic of the top few blogs, while most new blogs are getting below average traffic, a gap that will grow as the weblog world does. It's not impossible to launch a good new blog and become widely read, but it's harder than it was last year, and it will be harder still next year. At some point (probably one we've already passed), weblog technology will be seen as a platform for so many forms of publishing, filtering, aggregation, and syndication that blogging will stop referring to any particularly coherent activity. The term 'blog' will fall into the middle distance, as 'home page' and 'portal' have, words that used to mean some concrete thing, but which were stretched by use past the point of meaning. This will happen when head and tail of the power law distribution become so different that we can't think of J. Random Blogger and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit as doing the same thing.

At the head will be webloggers who join the mainstream media (a phrase which seems to mean "media we've gotten used to.") The transformation here is simple - as a blogger's audience grows large, more people read her work than she can possibly read, she can't link to everyone who wants her attention, and she can't answer all her incoming mail or follow up to the comments on her site. The result of these pressures is that she becomes a broadcast outlet, distributing material without participating in conversations about it.

Meanwhile, the long tail of weblogs with few readers will become conversational. In a world where most bloggers get below average traffic, audience size can't be the only metric for success. LiveJournal had this figured out years ago, by assuming that people would be writing for their friends, rather than some impersonal audience. Publishing an essay and having 3 random people read it is a recipe for disappointment, but publishing an account of your Saturday night and having your 3 closest friends read it feels like a conversation, especially if they follow up with their own accounts. LiveJournal has an edge on most other blogging platforms because it can keep far better track of friend and group relationships, but the rise of general blog tools like Trackback may enable this conversational mode for most blogs.

In between blogs-as-mainstream-media and blogs-as-dinner-conversation will be Blogging Classic, blogs published by one or a few people, for a moderately-sized audience, with whom the authors have a relatively engaged relationship. Because of the continuing growth of the weblog world, more blogs in the future will follow this pattern than today. However, these blogs will be in the minority for both traffic (dwarfed by the mainstream media blogs) and overall number of blogs (outnumbered by the conversational blogs.)

Inequality occurs in large and unconstrained social systems for the same reasons stop-and-go traffic occurs on busy roads, not because it is anyone's goal, but because it is a reliable property that emerges from the normal functioning of the system. The relatively egalitarian distribution of readers in the early years had nothing to do with the nature of weblogs or webloggers. There just weren't enough blogs to have really unequal distributions. Now there are.

I tried to stop writing here once, but it didn't work out -- I feel the urge to write like a sort of building pressure to move my bowels: fear of terrible consequences from holding out. Perhaps my writing doesn't matter much to you, gentle reader, and perhaps I don't care. I'm not sure how to peg that quite yet. Do I only write to inform? Persuade? Do I think that I actually accomplish either? Am I just rambling or ranting for my own sake?

You'd never guess how fruitless I admit blogging is, given the amount of time I spend on it, with respect to "inform and persuade" motives. But I do think it's fruitless to be motivated solely by those two things; I think we all know that we listen to people who think like we do and who we consider intelligent: deserving of our time. And we humans have this awful prejudice to paint people as unintelligent whom we disagree with drastically. People with views diametrically opposed to our own may get our ear once in a while, but only if they write great stuff, and still, not nearly so often to learn as to argue/refute what they have to say.

However, I do write for myself, certainly more than for anyone else, given the paucity of feedback I receive on this particular forum, and I think it's undeniable. I get a few comments once in a while, and sometimes I even do something that the "power bloggers" think is worth linking to (check my crème de la crème in the sidebar for examples). But those rare instances account for the majority of my traffic over a given three month period, and 90% of my comments or more. It'simportant to realize how much of your writing is for an "audience" and how much is for you -- for expression, catharsis, improving your writing skills...whatever. And it's important to be realistic about it.

I certainly agree that my wife takes priority over everything else, that staying healthy is tied with my Ph.D. in close second, that running the AAFSA group is a distant third, but should still take huge precedence over blogging...but I spend more time than I mean to with the latter--despite even knowing that the former categories are suffering.

It's in my best interests to get out in the real world and do something. When I started devoting more time to GF, I got letters to the editor published in our campus paper and eventually a media spot: more attention than I would get blogging for 3 years, 3 posts a day of great material. So if I was driven by an audience, I have picked the poorest medium as my highest priority. If you notice, people who run large groups and companies don't tend to waste a lot of time blogging, except where it advances the group or the company -- not fluffy opinion pieces and diary-esque daily introspection. And they get money--so it's not "success" per se, either.

And so all I can conclude is that although the value of this blog is highly subjective, it is highly valued nonetheless. No matter the toll it takes on my free time, it overcompensates in emotional or psychological reward. Maybe I need some kind of echo chamber for my own thoughts, or, like Francis Bacon, perhaps I think reading makes broad men and writing makes them precise (i.e. logical), and so this blog helps me be and stay rational and think clearly. Or maybe I'm full of shit and I really just want an adoring flock of sycophants...

I'm not sure, but I am sure that writing is good for me, and that, despite my best efforts to curtail it, I can't. Not now. Maybe not ever.
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Technorati tags: Philosophy

My Posts at Debunking Christianity

The following are all of my contributions to Debunking Christianity thus far. Last rev. 4-23-08

[oldest to newest]

1. My Story (Sat, 3-18-06) -- introductory post, includes testimony and explanation for deconversion


2. "This is Your Brain...on God" (Wed, 4-12-06) -- reflection on studies in neuroscience that posit [and evidence] a physical basis for religious experiences


3. Atheism and Evangelism (Fri, 4-14-06) -- juxtaposes the "right" of theists to evangelize, based on their motives, against our right as atheists to "deconvert" and advocate the abandonment of faith


4. Question: Does Religiosity Correlate Strongly to Charity? (Sun, 4-23-06) -- response to question #1 posed by Kaffinator


5. Question: Does Faith or Religious Activity Improve Health? (Sun, 4-23-06) -- response to question #2 posed by Kaffinator


6. Probability of Cognitive Dissonance = 1/0 (Sun, 4-30-06) -- comment on Swinburne, and his calculation of the probability of God’s existence, incarnation, resurrection as Jesus, etc.


7. The Sad State of Science (Wed, 5-3-06) -- comment on the 2006 Science and Engineering Indicators, especially reflects the correlation between poor science education and superstitious thought/belief


8. There is no Jehovah-Rophi, no Covenant (Wed, 5-3-06) -- investigates the promises of the old and new covenants, particularly with respect to health/healing, and concludes that either God is a liar, or there is no Covenant (and never was)
   


9. Swine and Science (Thur, 5-11-06) -- A response to Steve at the Triablogue regarding ex nihilo creation and my relative silliness at attempting to "talk science" with those who incur miracles at any needed opportunity


10. Do the Ends Justify the Means? (Tue, 5-16-06) -- throws out two instances where Paul appears to imply that they ends justify the means, if the means include subtle deception. The major crux of this post was encountered in the comments section, as we discussed where Paul blurred ethics as he had Timothy circumcised and participated in a Nazarite vow


11. America and Christian Nationalism (Wed, 5-24-06) -- links to some recent articles on theonomy/theocracy and related topics, basically an open thread for comments and arguments


12. Paul Kurtz, "Why I Am A Skeptic About Religious Claims" (Thur, 5-25-06) -- Paul Kurtz, editor in chief of Free Inquiry, professor emeritus of philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and the chair of the Center for Inquiry, has a featured article in this month's issue, "Why I Am A Skeptic About Religious Claims". One of Paul's aims is to examine the reasons for skepticism, but another is to provide us with a new working label to use to avoid the stigma of "atheist" without falling into the overly-general "skeptic".


13. I Feel Jeebus (Tue, 6-27-06) A bunch of drama involving the Triablogue's defense of Frank Walton. Not worth your read, no atheological material here.


14. Ashamed of Their Ancestry (Wed, 7-05-06) Examining the oft-repeated claim [not much of an argument] that the process of evolution intrinsically undermines reason.


15. The Antithesis of Our Values (Tue, 7-18-06), A response to Steve Hays' post "Answer a Fool According to His Folly", in which he attempts to Biblically justify and defend his acerbic manner of dealing with unbelievers. Written while I was in Buffalo, NY.


16. Not "Answering A Fool According to His Folly" (Tue, 7-18-06) Steve tries to falsify my last post about mutual respect by quoting anonymous unbelievers on a public forum who insult Christians -- a pretty silly endeavor. Written while I was in Buffalo, NY.


17. More Chain Pulling for the Anti-Intellectualist Right (Fri, 8-18-06) My thoughts on an article in the American Family Association Journal, "Colleges Turn Left, Students Think That's Right," which concludes: "what students and parents don’t realize is that today’s campuses are functioning as an indoctrination into the realm of liberalism."


18. Oh My Sweet...Lord! (Tue, 8-22-06) Humor. Highlighting the "Armor of God PJs".


19. There IS Reason to Hope (Mon, 8-28-06) A response to recent studies that show trends in secularism among youths in Australia and Spain.


20. Godlessness Rare Behind Bars (Sat, 9-2-06) I saw two articles on the relative proportion of atheists in prisons versus religious groups, and I thought the results worth sharing.


21. A Little Levity (Wed, 10-4-06) Top Ten Reasons Religion is Like Pornography [humor]


22. Journal Article Researching Deconversion (Wed, 10-11-06) I briefly review a journal article by Heinz Streib studying deconversion experiences.


23. Christian Presuppositionalism, a General Response (Wed, 10-11-06) On Sept. 26, I asked Prof. Witmer if he would talk to our group, and we discussed possible topics a bit before he decided to talk about CPS at our meeting 9. I have now made the abstract of the talk, and the full-text (.pdf) of his presentation available online. Please download and feel free to comment on his arguments and major points. I especially enjoyed his presentation of a "conditional PoE", wherein he argues that either there are moral facts or there aren't, but either way, the PoE shows that God does not exist.


24. Richard Dawkins Interviewed on the Colbert Report (Wed, 10-18-06)Best opening line, ever: "My guest tonight is a scientist who argues there is no God...and you know what? He'll have an eternity in hell to prove it!" Get the QuickTime .mov video from the RichardDawkins.net site or see the interview at YouTube.


25. Nice Resource on Debate re God's Existence (Sun, 10-22-06) Philoso?hy Talk has a nice episode centered on the God debate. They interview Prof. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Phil) of Dartmouth, then go out on the streets of Berkeley to talk to people about their beliefs. Here is the audio file (Real Player). [HT: Uberkuh]


26. Steve Hays Responds to Prof. Witmer re Presuppositionalism (Sat, 10-28-06) Steve Hays has weighed in on Prof. Witmer's response to PS. In a recent post entitled Machiavellian Atheology, Steve spends a great deal of time complaining that Prof. Witmer chooses to take a tactical perspective, focusing on debate, rather than addressing more of the substantive philosophical issues (in Steve's opinion).


27. Haggard Resigns Amidst Allegations of Gay Sex (Fri, 11-3-06) Following the story as it broke


28. Responding to ID -- A Review of Their Positive Arguments with Rebuttals (Fri, 11-17-06) I want to lay out a fair representation of the positive case for intelligent design (ID) in this article, and examine why the case has been ruled a failure by the greater scientific community.


29. Carnival of the Godless 53 (Fri, 11-17-06) I compiled 34 submissions and showcased 10 posts here at DC for the COTG.

Last rev. 4-23-08

Glut your Cranium

Yesterday, I submitted this 5-page essay to the FFRF for their student contest. Yesterday was the deadline, I wrote it in the space of 2 hours, submitted it at the post office just before the last pickup time, and I really should've spent more time on it. I couldn't resist trying for the $2000 prize, half-ass effort or not (I think it's a decent effort).

More stuff to feed your brain on:

1. Intelligent Designer Found: His name is Phineas J. Schwartzfeld [and see ID comic]
   
2. Dembski's UPB Dashed: Math whiz demolishes the use of probabilities by creationists
3. Obama Mentions Faith: Mistake, or good thing?
   
4. PZ Weighs in on Faith Issues: See scientists and faith -- #1, #2
5. Psalms 14:1: Are atheists "fools"?
6. Growth of Godlessness: Point of Inquiry interview with Tom Flynn
7. Smalkowski Verdict: Atheist family found not guilty
8. Jewish Family Flees: Christian community ostracizes for faith
9. Harris Poll: Breaks down faith by race, age, and education
10. Carnival of the Godless: New and Old
11. Ruckus in the Blogosphere: The Raving Atheist makes some serious waves, leading many to question if he has converted

Just thought you may want some reading material this Sunday. After all, we aren't in church, are we?
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Technorati tags: Atheism

Rewriting History

I made a mistake on February 8th. I decided to delete all of my posts from the blog that I didn't want family and friends reading, particularly those people I had been in church with as a congregant and/or worker. I took 100+ posts off the blog, nearly all of them, with the exception of those that I had presented to carnivals or that had been linked to a bit. I kept a hard copy of all of my old posts as .txt files in HTML, but I didn't date them [didn't keep the original posted date information]. I see those actions now as a mistake, and I want to correct them.

A major part of my decision to mothball this weblog had to do with the fact that I was a Christian, and an informal minister [youth pastor] at a couple of different churches. When I found out that those in my family were reading my site, I tried to rewrite history. My deconversion was something I didn't really know how to deal with at the time. I had, after all, been working as a youth pastor even during this transition, closeted as an agnostic/atheist.

I realize now that I should not have attempted to rewrite history. Those who are offended will be offended. Those who wish me well and respect intellectual and spiritual freedom [which entails complete lack of belief in a "spirit"] will do so regardless of what they read on here. Besides, I am not important enough to influence that many people. Deconversion experiences, particularly within a marriage, are quite gut-wrenching and often take quite a toll on one's social circle. Thankfully, the impact upon my own network is minimal, compared to what I had erstwhile predicted.

So, I thought (a LOT) about what I ought to do with this site. I've decided to undo my quasi-revisionism of this site's history. And, despite my efforts to the contrary, which were paltry and not well thought out, my hometown and former church communities have heard the gossip. I suppose I thought this site would somehow remain undiscovered for a longer amount of time, but I'm not really sure as to what I was thinking...or if I really was. I really didn't want to try to continue writing, feeling censored by the unintended audience. The realization has swept over me that then, as now, I should have written nothing to be ashamed of. And it is in this spirit that I will continue to post items here, doing my best to avoid self-censorship, or worse--pandering to people I know.

Ergo, I've decided to repost the deleted items, sans a few poor-quality, flame-oriented, and hastily-written articles, and try to retro-date them as well as memory allows. I really don't have the time I'd like to devote to continuing to write here, so I will basically just be cross-posting material here that I contribute to Debunking Christianity, Out of Christianity, AAFSA at UF, and on the CreationTalk forum. Therefore, I'm going to copy those articles here, along with the old ones, over the course of the next few days (maybe a week or two). Don't expect much in the way of new material, not for a long while.
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Technorati tags: Personal

Last Post

**EDIT** See Rewriting History above **

I deleted nearly all of my 115 posts last night. I left only those which had been linked to by carnivals or a lot of sources. Unlike Dembski, I am mothballing this webpage, and I have no drooling sycophants to beg me to stay. My acerbic style and frequent flaming didn't garner me any acolytes, I suppose. I will continue to host the carnivals I have committed myself to if the organizers still want me. Basically, I had begun to self-censor my writing because some family and friends found my site, and so I decided to pick up stakes and go anon elsewhere. More on why I'm mothballing beneath the flip.

Most of the decision is personal. I will continue to write elsewhere, on a site I've already got running, under a pseudonym. As tempted as I am to invite emails from (all two of you) those interested in the new URL, I will not. I think I will feel a freedom to begin to write on topics that matter more to me than creationism and religion on my new site. **I changed my mind, if you want the new URL, just email me. I reserve the right to exclude family and those close to them from the list.** I also want my writing to be independent of this identity for a few reasons.

For one, being a scientist gives a lot of people preconceived notions about what and how I think. I really started to see that I had fallen into a rut in my topic coverage and perspectives. Starting over without an identified line of work will help me not to do that again.

Another is my connection to a lot of people who I do not want to offend. Honestly, this last point tore me a lot. I certainly don't feel bad for writing the perspectives I had. Honesty is nothing to be ashamed of. However, I think I should have used more maturity at times and less emotion. Further, I don't feel responsible for people who choose to come here and read, then get offended and leave. I do want to grow as a person and as a writer, though, and I think a fresh start will help me immensely in both areas. Self-censorship is never a good thing, and that is what I had started to feel pressure to do.

There is also a professional component to my decision, albeit a small one at this point in time. More and more, employers look at prospective hires' webpages and blogs to gain an insight into their character. There is no more a demanding hire process than in academia. As such, I will definitely be deleting the blog a couple of months before applying for jobs, and googling my own name to follow up on links to this blog and inform people it is deleted, and asking them to break their hyperlinks.

I like to write, and I do it for myself, and not for those who read. That is the bottom line, I think. When I put all of these pieces together, this move made the most sense. I also was influenced by Daniel Drezner's post.

For those of you who have come around, and decided to read through this, thanks. If you like my writing, or used to read, and want the new URL, feel free to email me anytime.

**NOTE**
I will continue to host the carnivals I had committed myself to, pending confirmation from the organizer of each that this is still ok, though I won't be a regular blogger anymore. As they email me to confirm or tell me they'll look elsewhere, I'll amend the schedule. So, the only things that will be appearing on this website from here on out are:

• March 19 -- Carnival of the Godless
• March 30 -- Skeptics' Circle **not hosting
  
• April -- Circus of the Spineless
• June 7 -- Tangled Bank
• October 9 -- God or Not

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Technorati tags: Farewell

Shawshank Sunday VI: Identity

The post will examine Aristotle's Law of Identity, Rand's extrapolation to her heroes, and Andy's redemption.

Identity encapsulates characteristics. Every man, we know, has a beating heart and thinking brain. The details, or quality, of these characteristics is specific to individual representations of an identity. All men have brains, but the brains of all men are not identical. Thus, all men have character, but the character of all men is individual.

Heraclitus once penned the famous, "Character is destiny". I will take this as a presupposition which simply predicts that cause-effect relationships determine "destiny," or at least those things which happen to an individual, the combination of things they can control and things they cannot. I will also take character to be a combination of virtues, contextualized to each individual. I will take identity to thus relate to the form of character--virtuous, unvirtuous, these will constitute the identity of the individual for my purpose here.

Ayn Rand used Aristotle's Law of Identity to build a foundation for rational self-interest. Her minor heroes (Francisco, Rearden, Dagny) exemplify this trait, but only her major heroes (Roark, Galt) display a near perfection of her Objectivism. While the former characters were at times plagued with personal flaws, doubts, emotions, fears...the latter were Rand's "Romantic Realism"--ideal characters projected onto real life situations. Rand's work has received criticism for its attempt to purvey her philosophy due to her inability to make her major heroes human, in many respects. Much like the Vulcan Spock, Galt and Roark are perfect Stoics, with Reason as their only driving force and guiding principle. These never display humanity--self-doubt, self-image issues, the need for outside approval, largely emotion in general. Although in Rand's work, the minor hero characters redeemed themselves, with the assistance of the major characters, who needed no redemption, Andy Dufresne is not depicted as a robot. He is also not perfect, or else there would be no Shawshank Redemption.

Andy was redeemed. Andy's redemption was not being freed from wrongful conviction, after all, he escaped and his name was never cleared.

In the vein of my earlier post on Andy's Stoicism, I want to argue that Andy was redeemed from the loss of his integrity. As he admitted, it took coming to prison to make him a dishonest man. He had never engaged in fraud or falsehood as a banker, but after wrongful imprisonment willingly participated in the Warden's corruption. Read the post for more detail.

The interesting thing is that Andy redeemed himself. No one else could. No one else would. Unlike Rand's minor heroes, who needed Galt/Roark (an archetype of a Savior), and unlike the uncorrupted Savior-figures of Roark and Galt, Andy both was corrupted and redeemed himself.

This is a beautiful component of the story, something that runs deep and deserves serious contemplation. King takes the unrealistic Randian hero, corrupts it, and gives it the power to redeem itself. Andy, like Spock, shows emotion and feels pain, but by the force of his will follows virtue to its logical conclusion. While Galt's identity is "The Guiltless Man", Andy's is not.

Andy feels guilt, but is compelled, of his own accord, to acheive the destiny his character has determined: redemption. Andy is "The Self-Redeeming Man". This is his character, his identity, and his destiny.
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Technorati tags: Philosophy, Andy Dufresne, Shawshank, Identity

Shawshank Sunday V: Stoicism

The character of Andy Dufresne is depicted throughout as a Stoic. Not stoic in the colloquial (and often pejorative) sense of "unemotional, apathetic, cold", although it is reported that Andy is often perceived that way. For instance, it is implied in the story that Andy is found guilty largely due to the mechanical way which he related his testimony and reflected upon his wife's murder.

Aristotle observed that passions are a part of the human psyche, but insisted that reason rule the passions. Stoics simply put this observation as one of the highest priorities of their lives. One of the more interesting notes about Stoics was their relatively low regard for their own lives. That is, Stoics sought ataraxia, or inner peace, with the same interest, but not in the same way that Epicureans did: Stoics accepted reality as grim fatalists, while Epicureans sought pleasure and withdrew from society. Seneca committed suicide, and Stoics were not averse to the practice. The life of the self is held as but a speck of dust in the wind, an ember that burns in a breeze and slowly extinguishes and grows cold. The size of the universe gave Stoics a quite humble perspective upon the importance of their own lives. Most important out of these principles, whether you were consigned to live a life of slavery, as Epictetus was, or as an emperor, as Marcus Aurellius was...your life's value depended only upon your pursuit of virtue and inner peace.

Thus we come to Andy. Andy refuses to give in to the passions on many occasions. He is not a total ascetic, but we see when he wins the beers in his contest on the roof with Hadley, he chooses not to partake of them. Andy chooses, with a beatific smile, to reflect upon the ability he maintains to bring happiness to his friends, and the freedom that one can still feel despite prison walls. This same theme resurfaces with the playing of the Marriage of Figaro (Mozart)--the cost Andy will face in terms of punishment is more than compensated for by his own hope and freedom.

In retrospect, it is tempting to claim that Andy only was able to do these things because he was tunneling out of the prison. This claim is not supported by all the facts. In the book, more so than in the movie, Andy's vindication plays a huge role in his final desperate breakout. This comes much later in the story. The idea that his innocence, believed by no one, will finally be demonstrated, is enough to drive Andy to the brink of his sanity. We see his passions surface for the first real time, here. And we see that Andy values what he identifies as "my life" enough to elicit a passionate plea to the warden to help him get a new case. The warden, with much to risk, feels much safer with Andy behind bars.

Andy's life, he has shown us over and over, was never taken from him. He never lost his hope. He never lost his reason. He was still a man, albeit one who had been deeply scarred. So what life did he fear losing? Was Andy afraid? Was he angry? Both?

What was this passion elicited for? The hope that he maintained for his integrity to be vindicated. Andy was angry at injustice. It was not his own personal misfortune, no. He could not have held the hope, the freedom, that he held if he had not let go of the pathetic embrace of bitterness long ago over his misfortune, in true Stoic style.

Andy still maintained such a degree of character that he became enraged at the depth of the injustice and lack of moral fiber within the warden. The absolute lack of integrity within the icon of authority filled Andy with righteous indignation. Some would call it pride for an innocent man to hold so deeply to his own virtue, to not let it go, despite the perception of all those around him that he already had. I call it a noble philosophy--a love of wisdom.

Everything happens for the best, and you can usually expect the worst.

This is a Stoic ideal. The Stoics learned to roll with the punches of life, and Andy embodies this principle. Andy exemplifies redemption. He tells us that he was always "straight on the outside", before he came to prison. He tells us that he was a moral man. He implies that prison may have made him an immoral man, because he assisted the warden in his corrupt practices. But Andy took these lemons, drank their bitter nectar, pissed it out back into the pitcher, and saved it for a rainy day. It was raining on the day that Andy escaped from his prison--a place he was sent to for a crime he never committed. He threw that pitcher right in the face of the warden, and Hadley, on that rainy day.

Andy's love for justice, love of good for goodness' sake...they were redeemed.

He did not release wrath. He did not do what he did out of revenge. Andy Dufresne did so as his redemption. Andy was redeemed by exposing the corruption that he never allowed into himself. Andy was redeemed because he knew his virtue was never changed, and his innocence was never taken. The only way for Andy to purge himself of Shawshank entirely was to allow the light to mercilessly uncover darkness.

Andy's condemnation came from Shawshank, and his escape was a just redemption. Illegally escaping from a wrongful imprisonment is morally virtuous--to not do so is to abandon the will to live.

Andy Dufresne was a Stoic who redeemed himself. No one else would. No one else could.
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Technorati tags:
Stoicism, Shawshank, Philosophy

Shawshank Sunday IV: Jake's Anthro

Brooks Hatlen was an important part of the redemption story of Andy Dufresne. Brooks was, in many ways, Andy's antithesis. Brooks provided for us the contrast of what is was like to lose hope. It has been said that Brooks' crow, Jake, was meant to provide symbolism and possibly even link Hatlen to "the Birdman of Alcatraz." If one only watched the movie, and did not read the book, a deeper sort of symbolism would largely be lost on them.

When Brooks receives his parole, and tries to find a way to stay at Shawshank by threatening to kill Heywood, readers of Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption will have noted the departure from the King novella. A further departure from the source is found in the part that Jake plays in this movie.

While in the novella, Brooks finds the baby crow, nurses it back to health, releases it, and we find out what happened to Jake...this does not happen in the movie.

In both movie and novella, Jake could serve as an obvious symbol of freedom after captivity. But the consequence of captivity upon Jake can only be inferred from the book form of the story. In the book, Jake is found within the prison yard after his release...dead.

This is a realistic depiction of what would likely happen to a bird which was hand-fed and raised with no knowledge of predators or how to find food. It is also a realistic depiction of what happens to men who are institutionalized to the point that they do not know how to handle freedom. Prison can take away the ability to make a decision, to independently choose action without supervision or assistance.

The role that Brooks plays, as Andy's antithesis, is to show a man who lost his hope. Brooks does not believe that it can get better for him, and is "tired of being afraid".

Where Andy is the hero and Brooks his antithesis, Red's part falls between these two characters. Red will choose whether or not to hope, whether or not to go on after his institutionalization. But his choice is inextricably linked to our hero and to Brooks. The impact of both men is apparent in Red. Those familiar with the story know that Red chooses to hope largely due to a promise made to Andy--to go find the rock that he promised Andy he would find.

Red is almost the personification of Jake, but he "belongs to" Andy while Jake belonged to Brooks. While Brooks failed to instill the values Jake needed to survive before releasing him, Andy infused his own strength, character, and hope into Red. Just as what we nurture becomes dependent on us, Red came to a place where he realized the truth of Andy's words, and he needed to see his friend:

Red: I don't think you ought to be doing this to yourself, Andy. This is just shitty pipedreams. I mean, Mexico is way the hell down there and you're in here, and that's the way it is.

Andy: Yeah, right. That's the way it is. It's down there and I'm in here. I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'...Promise me, Red. If you ever get out, find that spot. In the base of that wall, you'll find a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield. A piece of black, volcanic glass. There's something buried under it I want you to have.

Red: [after Andy's escape and his own parole] All I do anymore is think of ways to break my parole so maybe they'd send me back. Terrible thing to live in fear. Brooks Hatlen knew it. Knew it all too well. All I want is to be back where things make sense. Where I won't have to be afraid all the time. Only one thing stops me. A promise I made to Andy...
Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'. That's god-damn right.

Red was able to choose to live because Andy gave him something that allowed it--hope.

Jake died because Brooks, codependent, made Jake just like himself--without the ability to make it on his own.

In that way, Red is like Andy's Jake. And when Andy released Red, he flew away free and lived.
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Technorati tags:
Hope, Faith, Shawshank

Master Painter?

a story about truth, God, and art

A man was kind enough to share with me the truth.

On a humid afternoon in July, I stepped inside the cool of the Harn Museum at the University of Florida. I had not come with the intent to learn a life lesson. I had no background in art. In fact, I had not taken a single course in art history or appreciation in my life...or read one serious article on the subject.

Yet there I was.

They have an ancient American exhibit at this museum. I was intrigued, and I've always loved South /North American culture. And I've always loved the idea of truth.

The piece was interesting.

As I studied the piece, I noted the face, especially the nose and mouth, appeared as that of a primate. I studied it for many minutes, forming my own opinions about the painting, and was preparing to move on to another piece, so that I could appreciate more of the art. Since I did not know much about the culture, I figured the best way to learn was to study all of their art, and not just one piece.

A man was staring at the piece, though. He did not seem interested in any other.

The man shared the truth with me. He told me what this painting was, who had done it, what it represented, where it was from, when it was done, what it was made of ... and what it was supposed to mean for me. He told me:

What this painting was -- Nazca art on pottery
Who had done it -- Early Nazca culture
What it represented -- Bridge-Spout Bottle of Cat God Wearing Trophy Head
Where it was from -- Ica Valley, South Coast, Peru
When it was done -- 100 B.C.E.- 300 C.E.; Early Intermediate Period
What it was made of -- Burnished polychrome ceramic

At this point, you may notice something interesting. This man had told me many facts, things that were supported by evidence. I asked him how he came to know all these wonderful facts. He replied that he relied upon the work of scholars and scientists who had amassed data for decades, if not centuries, to come to these conclusions. I asked if he had seen the evidence first-hand, analyzing the pieces from different strata and sites. This man had not participated in a single dig, nor had he ever been to South America. He told me, however, that these data were photographed and thoroughly documented and critiqued, and typically one piece was studied multiple times by multiple scholars. He told me if I wanted, I could go review these documents and check these scholars' work. I was satisfied with that. I accepted the evidence he presented, but reminded myself to check some other sources to ensure their accuracy before repeating what he had told me.

At this point, you may have noticed something: the man still hadn't told me the truth.

But he now proceeded to. He told me that these people wanted to convey a feeling of awe for the feline motif. He told me that the Cat God-style pottery was out of reverence to the deity. He told me that the god that they worshipped was not, though,

"...the true God."

He smiled when he said this last part, and I saw brimming confidence and happiness inside him.

I asked him how he knew this about what it ought to mean to me. I asked him if those people had written that somewhere. I asked him if those people had directly communicated it to him.

"No, but these people told some people, who told some people, and about 100 years later, some people from another time and place wrote it all down. And we know that word-of-mouth tradition was a vital part of their culture, and that they respected honesty and integrity."

"So, you don't have records directly from these people, or any proof of what they meant by this particular painting?" Interesting.

He asserted that he did not need to know someone personally to know what they wanted others to make of their work. Of course, this begs the question of whether or not these people did this work with anyone else in mind. Further, it begs a number of questions as to the historicity and reliability of the original sources. But he continued to tell me what it ought to mean to me, and what consequences the work had for me.

"Do you have the autographs in the native languages of the Nazcas?" I was intrigued now.

"Yes!" The man was beaming at this point.

"So, those are probably the oldest extant copies you have as to the intents of the people, right?" And now he shocked me...

"No," he was starting to look a little angry, "but some people from other cultures translated it into their languages, and many other translations and replications were made from there. And then it was back-translated into the original languages of the Nazcas."

I went on to ask the man a number of questions--how much later were the extant copies than the date of the pottery, what the autographs said, how loosely the language of the Nazcas could be construed to mean what he asserted it meant. He answered my questions with honesty--that the extant copies were hundreds of years older than the pottery's composition date, that the messages in the autographs were very subjective and cryptic, that the language of the Nazcas was notorious for its looseness in interpretation. As I cocked my eyebrows, skeptical now of his confidence in his interpretation, one of the most important questions I asked him was who actually made this particular piece. It seemed to confuse him.

"Why does it matter who made this piece," he asked, credulously, "if we know other pieces which are similar in style and content and are dated contemporary to it?"

I was a bit shocked that he regarded this question as meaningless.

"Well, sir, there are a good many people out there who have tried to convey an abstract idea before. Even some people who were trying to convey the very same abstract idea, though, by their own admission, in their own writings, had their works perceived as disparate in their intent and meaning and content. Many people have a concept, such as a concept of God, and they try to convey that concept through literature or art, but the people around them, to whom they attempt to convey it, may perceive it differently than the author or artist intended. If you don't know the exact person who did the work, if you don't know whether this person even meant something to be conveyed to other people, or just within their family, or just within their culture, or just within their lifetime, if the work is done in a subjective manner, and the original intent of the person was not recorded...by the person doing it, and if the original writings did not survive...how is it that you can tell me that this is what it ought to mean to me [that this is truth]?"

Well, needless to say, some of the light in his eyes flickered and died. He admitted that, by my reasoning, there was no way for him to have confidence in his interpretation of what the piece of pottery meant, to me, to him, or to the authors themselves. He admitted that his interpretation was no more authoritative than mine, and that both were mere speculation. He told me the truth.

I asked him if he had studied other pieces to help him form his interpretation. He told me that all the other pieces were inferior, and their makers were either weak, deluded, or just plain errant in their representations. I said nothing to this.

I had just one question left for him:

"Sir, you told me at the beginning, when we were discussing what this pottery ought to mean, that this people's god was not, in your words, the 'true God'. What did you mean by that? How did you come to that conclusion?"

The next story he told me was one which eerily resembled what we had just walked through with the Nazca art, but these people were called Hebrews. As I walked him through the evidences, the subjectivity, the historicity, I saw none of the same dying flicker in his eyes. As I neared the same question for him that I had asked of the "truth" for the Nazca art, I saw him lose not one iota of confidence. Instead, a somewhat hard look came over his face. His eyes seemed to brighten in intensity, and not to dim. He told me, for one thing, that he knew this was the truth because it made him happier, and thus a better person. He told me he had personal experiences with the true God, and that the true God was not the Nazca's god, and these experiences he knew to be authentic and genuine.

Although his reasoning was specious, although his logic fallacious, although his "facts" subjective, although his personal experiences solely his own and not mine...the man told me what truth was. I nodded and walked to the door. As I left the exhibit, I looked back over my shoulder and saw his attention turning again to the piece. His smile slowly reappeared.

A man was kind enough to share with me the truth; only, he did not know it.
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George Bernard Shaw once wrote,

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.

For more on Nazca pottery, read here, or this Wiki for general stuff.
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Technorati tags:
Hope, Faith, God, Religion, Philosophy, Nazca, Art

Shawshank Sunday III: Psychogeolothermodynamics

Andy is depicted as an isotherm. I am usually an adiabat. Let me explain...

Long before Andy received his rock pick to shape the rocks that he was collecting from the ground of the Shawshank yard, he was an isotherm. Red commented on how Andy appeared to the others as he collected his rocks:

He had a quiet way about him, a walk and a talk that just wasn't normal around here. He strolled. like a man in a park without a care or worry. Like he had on an invisible coat that would shield him from this place.

Red narrated, after the escape:

In 1966, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub. I used to think it would take six-hundred years to tunnel under the wall with it. Old Andy did it in less than twenty. Oh, Andy loved Geology, I guess it appealed to his meticulous nature. An ice age here, million years of mountain building there. Geology is the study of pressure and time. That's all it takes really, pressure, and time. That, and a big god-damned poster.

Prison is like a pressure cooker. And from the ideal gas law, pV = nRT, we know that when pressure is increased, if the volume of the container does not change, and if the amount of substance inside the container does not change (n), the temperature must increase.

Under pressure, I suppose we can all learn to expand our minds a bit, or give our souls room to grow. That takes some of the pressure off. Some containers expand more easily than others. But inside a prison for a crime you didn't commit, being raped by grown men, abused by officials...those things cause the mind and soul to atrophy.

So how did poor Andy not just break, like the other men? How is it he didn't meltdown? How is it he retained hope? Well, it is evident from his "invisible coat," and his insistence upon retaining hope (see Shawshank Sunday I or II), and identifying with his previous life through chess and teaching others...that Andy did not melt down. Further, the "invisible coat" he had on long before he knew he planned to escape the pressure cooker. He wanted the rock hammer to make chess pieces with, and it was fortuitous for him that the walls of his prison were old and cheap, and fortuitous for him that he was on an end unit of a cell block, and that he was a "pet prisoner" who avoided surprise inspections, and got to keep his poster up to cover his escape. He wanted the rock hammer just to keep his mind sane, in other words, but he got a lot more, and a lot of luck.

Take an airtight container with some fixed moles of gas at a given pressure, volume, and temperature. Put this container in a hydraulic press. Push the button to begin increasing pressure. Put your hand on the side of the container. It is warmer than it was before. If the container is an adiabat, it will exchange no heat with the surroundings. If the container is an isotherm, it will exchange the maximum heat with the surroundings, and reachieve the pre-work temperature.

Andy is depicted as an isotherm. I am usually an adiabat. Put us both under pressure, and we both feel the heat immediately. It is whether or not the heat dissipates that determines whether we have isotherms or adiabats.

Andy is like a scuba tank, placed into the water beside the boat, to be refilled with gas. If you don't put scuba tanks in the water to refill them, they will not exchange as much heat with the air as they would with the water. If you don't allow a container to exchange heat with the surroundings, it will be limited by the pressure it can withstand, (like a scuba tank, which has a given psi rating and gauge) and will not be able to hold as much substance as a container under the same pressure which is losing heat to the surroundings. So, tanks filled while immersed in water end up giving divers more air, and more time to dive.

Andy was put under great stress at Shawshank. He never lost hope. He never lost his identity. They never broke him.

Andy is just as susceptible to the pressure as all the other men. He is supposed to be human, as they are. The human container is of a universal material, and its contents may change in quality, but not in quantity.

Andy was able to release the heat generated from the pressure of prison. Red surmised, later on, that if things had continued as they started for Andy, working in the laundry and fighting off "The Sisters" all the time, that Andy would have eventually broken. But the warden learned of Andy's prior occupation, and put him in the library to put his gifts to use. Andy then had some lucky things going for him. But if his state of mind was not one which was open, and willing to hope, and bold, he would never have escaped. It is not enough that the luck happened. He was already an isotherm.

We are all adiabats at times, and isotherms at others. A container which is covered in Styrofoam is naturally adiabatic. A thin-walled container (or a container with a low heat capacity) immersed in a fluid is isothermal. Andy is fictional. We are not. In reality, no isothermal system can be thought of that is both well-insulated and able to exchange maximum heat. At times we need our insulation to protect us from the influences of our environment. Containers put under pressure, and with a simultaneously-raised surroundings temperature, do not last very long at all. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics tells us that heat exchange always proceeds downhill--if the container is not warmer than its environment, it needs to be insulated when put under pressure, or it will likely explode.

An interesting property of adiabats and isotherms can be seen in the density state plot versus temperature (see here)--it is the actualization of what Nernst said about the 3rd Law in 1906:

The entropy change of a system during a reversible isothermal process tends towards zero when the thermodynamic temperature of the system tends towards zero [Nernst 'principle'].

The ability to perform an adiabatic, gas compression-type process approaches zero as temperature approaches absolute zero. All processes become isothermal near 0K. Why? The 2nd Law. Heat will flow from the system outward to the surroundings when the surroundings are near 0K. It is impossible to do work upon a cylinder of gas (compress it) without raising the surroundings temperature near 0K.

Sometimes we need to prevent the surroundings from cracking us. Times of solitude and quiet, meditation and rest. Sometimes we need to get away from the high temperature of the surroundings, and insulation is the only way to protect ourselves.

Sometimes we need to remove this insulation, remove the thick walls that separate us from one another, immerse ourselves in others, and allow energy to freely exchange. If the surroundings are so damn cold, without energy, and we have some to spare...let Nernst's principle rule.
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Technorati tags:
Hope, Faith, Shawshank, Philosophy