Arguing on the Internet: Another Naive Atheist

I just read Ricky Gervais' op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Why I'm an Atheist. It's well written, and it's nice in a lot of ways. I couldn't help agreeing with a lot of things he says. Gervais doesn't have the mesoraphobia and political ambitions of Dawkins' New Atheist crew. However, when Gervais starts talking about science and religion, he shows some naivete, in my arrogant opinion. So here's a platonic dialogue, where Gervais' lines are taken from the op-ed itself.

Ricky: Science seeks the truth. And it does not discriminate. For better or worse it finds things out.
Daniel: What do you mean, "science doesn't discriminate"? Do you mean that science isn't biased? Come on. Lots of scientists are biased. The scientific community has no shortage of biases.
Ricky: Science is humble.
Daniel: Oh, come on. I'm sure the scientific community could be more arrogant than it is, and of course many scientists are humble, but on the whole, the scientific community is not humble.
Ricky: It knows what it knows and it knows what it doesn’t know.
Daniel: Does it? Did 18th century science know what it didn't know? Scientists who think they know what they don't know are arrogant indeed.
Ricky: Whatever you “believe,” this is not as effective as medicine.
Daniel: What is that supposed to mean? Effective at what? According to statistics, religion seems to be pretty "effective" at making people happy. Religion may not be as effective at medicine in curing pneumonia, but neither is vector calculus. So what?
Ricky: From what I’ve heard the very definition [of God] is a logical impossibility in this known universe.
Daniel: Who told you that? That's not science. I think you've been reading too much Dawkins.
Ricky: You know, you're right. I should take the paragraph about science out of my WSJ op-ed.
Daniel: Wait a minute, you're only supposed to say things in this dialogue that you actually said in the op-ed.
Ricky: Why are you complaining to me? You're the one writing this blog!

keep on the shady side

MC Complete
Like a mana tzimhonit
Coming on fresher than a slice of whole wheat
After that, it’s rinse and repeat if desired
Why do I do hip-hop, you inquire?
Why don’t you ask Hashem? He’s the One Who inspires me
See ‘cause some Yiddin come with their emuna hard-wired
But my beliefs are acquired from the Yeshiva Boys Choir
I’m nerdy to the extreme, whiter than caesar dressing
But the sunny side is considered harmful like unit testing
It reminds me of a short story by Doris Lessing
One page and it’s already depressing
So keep on the shady side, steal the blessings
‘Cause the angel changed my name to MC Complete
I used to be continually discreet
Now I’m eating more beets on the shady side of the street

chorus:
Keep on the shady side, always on the shady side
Keep on the shady side of life
Find a cool and shady place
Far away from the ultraviolet rays
When you keep on the shady side of life

Hot sun beating down
Enough to put a frown on Jolly Solly the clown
It’s just a typical November in my home town
Sunshine everywhere like the cosmic microwave background
Oops! There was an error! File not found!
No plugin installed for that page that you crawled
Fortunately I have the antidote so I’m glad that you called
I’ll just shoot you a quick email with a really small attachment
It’s a safer, more secure implementation of Flash
So next time you’re watching punk videos by the Clash
My plugin will sell all your assets so you’ll have some extra cash
It’ll hack your Mac apart and make your Windows crash
Yo, I told you that the internet is a dangerous place
It’ll poison your mind like arsenic and old lace
Before you know it you’re friends with Ken Kaniff on MySpace
(OMG are you Slim Shady??) No, fool, I’m his replacement
Slim Shady is locked in the basement with Dr. Dre
If you really want them they’re on sale on E-Bay
‘Cause that savoy truffle is nothing but trouble and tooth decay
‘Cause it’s easy to be happy when the skies are gray
But it’s the shady side that saves your skin on sunny days

(chorus)

Yo brother where art thou?
We’re getting ready to start now
I got Imitation Vanilla in my shopping cart now
I guess it’s time to checkout
The Grand Design that Stephen Hawking is always talking about
Stephen Hawking an atheist? I seriously doubt it
These days the atheist chat rooms are too crowded
Endowed with nothing but loudmouths and shouting matches
Shuffling assumptions like dynamic dispatches
Hanging on every Babel fish that Douglas Adams catches
You atheists are more myopic than a cyclops with a eyepatch
So you can all just open my attachment

(chorus)

tipesh mode

My spirit is angelic

I got more beats than Tom Selleck

'Cause I'm not drunk, I'm just psychedelic

I'm a thug

Like Melissa & Doug

Tripping on toy ships

Sweeping trucks under the rug

'Cause when I play Duck Hunt

I hit the trees harder than James Blunt

So get behind me Satan

Cause I'm going in front

But the details always got the devil in them

That's why I'm crabbier than Crabtree & Evelyn

I'm a rebel without a spiritual level

Lately I've been having trouble with my treble clef

Or maybe I'm just tone deaf

But I still stone you like an Iron Chef

So let the nouveau riche eat quiche

I'm MC Complete and this is my pastiche

chorus:

I'm MC Complete and I'm in tipesh mode

Twisted like an operator overload

Turn off the lights and I'll glow

'Cause I'm a cross between Vanilla Ice and Sonny Bono

And I'm still waiting for your web page to load

'Cause I'm not drunk, I'm just in tipesh mode

I'm living on a prayer
Like A.J. Ayer
Like charismatic megafauna I'm not all there
So share this song with all your friends on twitter
'Cause facebook is my new babysitter
And you record labels might want to consider
My offer to sell my talents to the highest bidder
'Cause I rip off Eminem like I was a counterfeiter
In God we trust
But defraud we must
Until this body returns to the dust
Plus we must write server code in C++

So we can overload the comma operator

And change over less than to make it greater

'Cause I'm an innovator and an imitator

So in the future, come with me to Taba for my seder

I promise you'll be looping like a constant iterator

(chorus)

I bend you and I blend you like mixflakes

'Cause your crew is full of toucans that's sweeter than six cakes

Yo messing with Complete was your last mistake

'Cause I bang out battle raps till my wrists ache

Yo I better take a coffee break before I get carpel tunnel syndrome

Plus I better get a wikipedia entry of my own

Or at least the cover of the Rolling Stone

'Cause I'm 33 years old and I'm still unknown

I bought a prefab sukkah with a subprime loan

Now there's ushpizin everywhere like the attack of the clones

So take a stand like Shuli Rand

'Cause Torah and Hollywood go hand in hand

I'm complete like a breakfast with raisin bran

I just imitate MC Frontalot so I can leverage his brand

(chorus)

Re: Tuna

I posted a new song on my website today. It's a silly parody for kids. Let me know what you think:

https://sites.google.com/site/toofrum/Home/tuna

Prayer, a Timeless Need

Traditionally, Judaism recognizes three aspects of prayer: praise, request and thanks.

Why do we make requests of God? I ask people for things because otherwise they might not know what I want. But God already knows what I want before I ask. Giving me what I want is not always in His plans (it often is, of course), but He does know. He doesn’t need me to inform Him.

I think that asking God for things and asking people for things might be very different. Maybe asking God for things is really an act of gratitude, just like saying thank you. Maybe it’s like saying thank you in advance. Or you can look at it this way: as all parents know, there are nice and not nice ways to ask for things. Not asking at all and just expecting God to read your mind is not a nice way of asking.

The Cucumber Curse: A Platonic Dialogue by MC Complete

Daniel: What do you think about Frank Jackson’s Mary’s Room argument?

Bob: I don’t think Mary learns anything when she leaves the room.

Daniel: She learns what seeing colors is like, doesn’t she? She learns what seeing blue is like, she learns what seeing red is like...

Bob: What blue “is like” is not information.

Daniel: What do you mean?

Bob: Well, what is it like to see blue? Why don’t you tell me?

Daniel: You already know.

Bob: But if I didn’t, there wouldn’t be any way to communicate it to me.

Daniel: I could show you something blue.

Bob: I mean, if you couldn’t show me something blue, for whatever reason, there’s no way you could communicate to me what it’s like. What is it “like” to see blue? The answer to that question can’t be communicated, because it can’t be encoded. All the information about vision and experience is encodable, and it presumably is encoded, in our brains.

Daniel: That makes sense. I can see why you’re not convinced by Mary’s Room. I have another story, though. You could call it a variation on Mary’s Room.

Bob: Do you have a name for it?

Daniel: No. I guess you could call it The Cucumber Curse. The story is about Bob.

Bob: Bob? He sounds intelligent. Is he a neuroscientist like Mary?

Daniel: No, he’s a philosopher. A materialist, in fact.

Bob: Like most philosophers of our day.

Daniel: The trouble starts when he’s late for a lecture. On his way to the university, he cuts off another car, kind of accidentally, kind of not so accidentally. Unfortunately for Bob, the driver of the car that he cut off was The Wicked Witch of Western Philosophy. The witch goes into a fit of rage and puts a curse on Bob. Suddenly, all cucumbers start to look red.

Bob: That’s interesting. And celery is still green?

Daniel: Yes, everything green but cucumbers.

Bob: And for everyone else, the cucumbers are still green?

Daniel: Yes, for everyone else.

Bob: Well, apparently something in Bob’s brain is scrambling the color signals. Something sophisticated enough to know what is a cucumber and what isn’t.

Daniel: Well, that’s what Bob thinks at first, but then he looks over his brain logs and sees that his neurological state when looking at cucumbers is the same as his neurological state when looking at celery.

Bob: His brain logs?

Daniel: You see, Mary has invented a device which produces something like a debug log of the brain, capturing all its states and transformations.

Bob: Clearly, there’s something that these brain logs are missing. This calls for more research.

Daniel: Look, just assume that these brain logs are not missing anything, OK? The neurological state is the same, but cucumbers are red and celery is green.

Bob: So there’s a mismatch between the brain and the mind.

Daniel: Yes. The brain state of cucumber is the same as the brain state of celery, and different from the brain state of beets. However, the mind state of cucumber is the same as that of beets and different from that of celery. I agree, “green is greenish” is not information. However, “cucumbers look like beets” is information, and a description of the world that only takes matter into account loses this information.

Bob: So you’d like to draw the conclusion that, in the real world, the information “cucumbers are the same color as celery” and “cucumbers produce the same brain state as celery” are two different propositions, even though in the real world, a given brain state always corresponds to a single color.

Daniel: Yes. The information is not what green “is like”, but that green is like something. This is information that Mary knows before she leaves her room, even though she’s never experienced it. It is information that is missing from a materialist description of the world.

Bob: Very clever. However, I’m suspicious of thought experiments that resort to the supernatural. I mean, even a dualist would admit that this scenario goes against the laws of physics, as the dualist takes them to be.

Daniel: Well, in dualist physics, brain states cause mind states, but a given mind state can be influenced by a previous mind state as well as by the brain state. But you’re probably right that the cucumber story is pure fantasy even for a dualist.

Bob: In fact, it seems intuitively that such a story must break the laws of physics, even dualist physics.

Daniel: I don’t think so. I have another story.

Bob: Do tell.

Daniel: You’ll have to wait for my next blog post.

Bob: I can’t wait.

A Fishy Story

“David,” said Batsheva, “did you see Avshalom take the cookie from the cookie jar?”

“No,” said David.

The funny thing is, David did see Avshalom take the cookie. And he remembers seeing it. But when he told Batsheva that he didn’t see it, he wasn’t lying. You see, David saw Avshalom take the cookie, but he believes that Avshalom can do no wrong, so he believes that he did not see Avshalom take the cookie. Even though he did see it.

My Dear Readers will be quick to point out that, in this scenario, David is probably just doubting his memory. That is, he remembers seeing Avshalom take the cookie, but he believes this memory to be false. So, let’s modify the story. It’ll be a bit less realistic, but not much.

“David,” said Batsheva, “do you remember seeing Avshalom take the cookie from the cookie jar?”

“No,” said David.

A bit trickier here, if you think about it. False memories won’t save us. David believes that he has no memory of Avshalom taking the cookie. We know (we assume for the purposes of the story) that he does indeed remember it. David is not lying, he is mistaken.

Is there something fishy about this story? It sounds plausible, but is it really possible to be mistaken about a question of what you yourself remember? Is it possible that we are consistently mistaken when we reflect on our own memories? If a skeptic challenges our belief in the content of our own memory, can we answer him, or does the skeptic win here too? Can we doubt anything, even the present contents of our own minds? Or is there something different about the present content of my mind? Something special?

How do we know what we are thinking?

David Lewis once made fun of “internalist” philosophers, who claim that we have a special relationship with our own present state of mind. He said that they always end up telling “some fishy story” about how we can have direct knowledge of our own conscious states. Is Lewis right? Or is there One True Story of the World, in which our memories are truly self-evident? Is the fishyness in Lewis’ mind, or in everyone’s mind?

I have some thoughts on this matter, but they’re not fully baked. Meanwhile, Dear Readers, please let me know what you think.

Or what you think you think.

The Flotilla of the Haredim

I’m mad at Haaretz.

I mean, I’m mad at Yediot and Maariv too, but I thought Haaretz had a conscience, professionalism.

Every Haaretz article I read on Emanuel said that the parents who pulled their daughters out of the Bais Yaakov were fighting for their right to keep Sephardim out of their schools.

This is so misleading that it’s almost a lie.

The truth is that the litigants, or the prosecution, or whatever you call the lawyers who were trying to force the Emanuel parents to send their daughters back to the Bais Yaakov, claimed that the Emanuel parents intentions’ were to keep Sephardim out of their school (or, at an arm’s length in the same building). However, the Emanuel parents disputed this, and claimed that they were trying to institute a separate Bais Yaakov with higher religious standards than the original Bais Yaakov.

Who was telling the truth? I don’t know. I admit I’m a bit curious, but it’s irrelevant to my point in this blog post. My point is, that in reporting on Emanuel, Haaretz and the rest of the secular media grossly misrepresented the position of the Emanuel parents.

That was lie #1. Lie #1 was just to set the stage for Lie #2, which was much more appalling.

Having established that the Emanuel parents were fighting for their right to discriminate against Sephardim, the secular media “reported” that the huge Haredi demonstrations, staged with the support of the leaders of Ashkenazi Haredim, were in support of the right to discriminate against Sephardim.

Now, who was telling the truth, the Emanuel parents or the litigants? I don’t know. I do know one thing, though: the Haredi leaders and the Haredi demonstrators believed the parents. They were not demonstrating in support of ethnic/racial segregation -- they were demonstrating in support of the claim that the Emanuel parents were not practicing segregation. More specifically, they were demonstrating in support of the right to set religious standards for their schools.

(The policy of admitting students based on the religious standards of the parents is theoretically controversial, but it’s understandable IMAO.)

Emanuel was a trap set by the secular media, and the Haredim fell for it in the worst possible way. It was like the Tar Baby. The more the Haredim kicked and screamed and protested, the more the secular media could say, “Look how much they cherish their racism. All of them. From the leaders to the foot soldiers.” In my arrogant opinion, Emanuel did real, serious damage to the public image of the Haredim.

Why was Emanuel handled this way by the Haredim? Was it simple incompetence? I don’t think so. I think the Haredim have a PR problem. I know that the cry “Bad PR” is often an excuse, but I think in this case it’s true. The Haredim are so insular, so countercultural, so inwardly directed, that they can’t be bothered with PR. The basic attitude is, “Everyone hates us anyway.”

The Black Hole War: A Platonic Dialogue by MC Complete

Leonard:  That last post of yours was pretty wild.

Daniel:  Yeah, I thought you'd appreciate it.

Leonard:  Actually, I thought it was kind of misleading how you said that time goes slower near a gravitational collapse.  You know that time differences are relative.  If you were on the surface of a collapsing object, the collapse would not be slowing down at all.  The collapse is only slowing down relative to those far away from it.

Daniel:  Those far away from it, like you and me.  And everyone else.  I doubt there are any experimental physicists who are on location at a gravitational collapse.  And if there ever will be, they probably won't come back to tell the tale.  And if they do come back to tell the tale, then they definitely left before the collapse completed.  I could claim that just before a collapsing object reaches its own Schwarzschild event horizon, an angel appears out of nowhere, stops the collapse, and hands out Krembos.  Such a claim could never be disproven by any evidence.  Therefore, talk about what happens from the perspective of an observer near a collapsing object is totally unscientific.

Leonard:  Oh come on.  You know there's no angel handing out Krembos.

Daniel:  So maybe it's handing out Bambas.  Look, even if you claim, based on the theory alone, that gravitational collapse does complete from the perspective of an observer close to the collapse, any such observer would be living in a very different time frame than us.  We would have to put this time frame in our future, if not after the end of time.  When I say that black holes do not exist, I'm using the present tense.  In my present, and in the present of my audience, black holes do not exist.

Leonard:  You have a very interesting argument, but it doesn't square with the facts.  Black holes are not some speculative conjecture.  They're there.  We can see them.

Daniel:  By definition, we can't see them.  I mean, if they existed, which they don't.

Leonard:  Well, we can't see them with the naked eye, just like we can't see atoms with the naked eye.  But we have plenty of evidence that they're there.

Daniel:  Even wikipedia is careful enough to talk in terms of "black hole candidates", rather then "black holes", to discuss astronomical objects in the actual cosmic landscape.  Consider the following statement from wikipedia: "The evidence for stellar black holes strongly relies on the existence of an upper limit for the mass of a neutron star."  In other words, theoreticians have proven mathematically that, beyond a certain mass, an object must gravitationally collapse.  However, I am arguing that there are objects which are collapsing, that would become black holes if they had enough time to finish collapsing.  But there isn't enough time in the world.  So perhaps astronomy has evidence that there are objects that have exceeded this limit.  I argue that they have not shown that these objects are currently black holes, rather that these objects are in the process of collapsing.

Leonard:  Very clever Daniel.  Well, any day now we'll pick up some Hawking radiation, which will blow your argument clear out of the water.

Daniel:  Maybe, maybe not.  But I'm not holding my breath.

Some Things Really do Take Forever

The wikipedia article on black holes says, "It is now widely accepted that the center of every or at least nearly every galaxy contains a supermassive black hole."

Well, it's not accepted by me.

In fact, I don't think that any galaxy has any black holes of any mass.  I don't believe in black holes.  Here's why: black holes are created by gravitational collapse.  I think gravitational collapse takes forever.

Einstein taught us that gravity pulls time.  The stronger a gravitational field, the slower time moves.  And as an object gravitationally collapses toward being a black hole, its gravitational field is extremely strong.  Its strength approaches infinity.  Thus, the "speed" of time near the object approaches zero.  Which means that the collapse itself goes slower and slower.  And, I would argue, never actually "finishes" (finishes in the sense of creating a real black hole).

I've talked to some physicists about this.  There was a guy in the office who had a PhD in black hole studies.  So I asked him my question.  He couldn't really answer it, and eventually he got very annoyed with me.  (Then he transferred to the US.  I assume this had nothing to do with our conversation about black holes.)

I emailed Brian Greene about this, and he said, "Talk to me after you read Susskind's Intro to Black Holes."  So I put it on my reading list, but I haven't gotten around to it.  I guess I could have written back and told Greene that I'd already read Susskind's Black Hole War, but I didn't.

Ideas Matter: A Platonic Dialogue by MC Complete

David:  You know, you're beginning to sound a lot like George.  Are you becoming an idealist in your old age?

Daniel:  Yes and no.  Have you read Stewart Shapiro's book, "Thinking About Mathematics"?

David:  Of course I have.  That's an excellent book.  The only thing that I don't like about it is that there's no section about me.

Daniel:  Remember how Shapiro distinguishes between two kinds of mathematical realism?

David:  Yes, "ontological realism" and "truth-value realism".  An "ontological realist" believes that numbers exist as objects, whereas a "truth-value realist" believes that mathematical statements are true, but that the numbers and other mathematical things do not really exist as objects.

Daniel: I'm a truth-value realist.

David:  About what?  About math?

Daniel:  About life, the universe, and everything.  About matter, you could say.  That's why I wouldn't call myself an idealist, even though I strongly sympathize with the subjective idealist position.

David:  You're suggesting that matter is not ontologically real, but it's real in truth-value?  How could that be?  If matter is not ontologically real, how can it be anything?

Daniel:  I mean that atoms, molecules, stars, plants, animals, building blocks, tennis balls etc. may not be ontologically real, but statements made about them are true (or, sometimes false, according to the common-sense criteria for these things).  You just need to do a little bit of reinterpretation.

David:  Sure, that's what you were saying in your last blog post, that science can be philosophically justified if you reinterpret it.  But why is that not subjective idealism?

Daniel:  Can you stand on the pavement for a minute?

David:  Another experiment?

Daniel:  Now take this wooden block.

David:  Wow!  That's beautiful!  Where did you get that?

Daniel:  At the toy store on Rothschild, if you can believe that.  Now put it down on the pavement and roll it.

David tries to roll the block.

Daniel:  How does it roll?

David:  Not very well.  It doesn't really roll at all.

Daniel:  Why not?

David:  I don't know.  Because it's a block, I guess.

Daniel:  Right, it's shaped like a cube.  Here's another one from the same set.  Stack it on top of the first one.

David:  These things are really spectacular.  How many of them do you have?

Daniel:  There were eleven in the set, but I only brought two of them.  Now give me back the blocks and come back to the sidewalk.

David:  Are we done with the experiment?

Daniel:  Here's the tennis ball from my last post.  Roll this.  And here's another tennis ball.  Can you stack it on top of the first one?

David:  No, these tennis balls don't stack...

Daniel:  Very good, I'll take back the balls.

David:  Anything else?  Pyramids?

Daniel:  No, that's it.  Now, let's talk about what just happened.  You were on the pavement for a few minutes, then you were on the sidewalk.

David:  I don't know, maybe I wasn't.

Daniel:  But you remember being on the pavement then on the sidewalk, and playing with blocks and tennis balls.

David:  Yes, I remember it well.

Daniel:  We could talk about two memory streams, one composed of ordered, contiguous remembered moments on the pavement, and one composed of moments on the sidewalk.

David:  That sounds like a good way of thinking about it.

Daniel:  What is the difference between those two memory streams?

David:   I don't know.  There are a lot of differences.  What are you getting at?

Daniel:  In each stream, you were playing with two objects, but on the pavement you couldn't roll the objects, they stacked well, and they had straight edges. All of those properties are properties of the memory stream, not a quality of any single moment of memory.

David:  Properties of the memory stream.  OK, that makes sense.

Daniel:  So you generalize over these disparate properties of the memory stream with a single property, and say that on the pavement you were playing with balls.

David:  But the balls would only be a property of the memory stream, not objects with a distinct ontological existence.

Daniel:  That's exactly what I'm saying.  Matter is a property of memory streams.  Or, any material object is a property of a memory stream.

David:  That kind of makes sense, but weren't you going to distance yourself from subjective idealism?  It still sounds like idealism to me.

Daniel:  I think that our common sense notions of matter are correct, they just need a little bit of reinterpretation.

David:  So you're saying that our common sense notions of matter are correct in the sense that they're incorrect.

Daniel:  No.  Our common sense notions of matter are correct in the particulars.  The necessary reinterpretation is in the realm of the extremely general.

David:  But you're not saying something that a subjective idealist would disagree with.  At best, you're providing better tools of analysis.

Daniel:  So call it analytical philosophy.  The bottom line is this: George always says that matter is a delusion.  I say that, when correctly viewed, matter is a property of a memory stream.  Matter isn't a delusion, it's an illusion.  It's the perfect illusion.  And the perfect illusion is equivalent to reality.

Ideas Matter: A Platonic Dialogue by MC Complete

David:  You know, you're beginning to sound a lot like George.  Are you becoming an idealist in your old age?

Daniel:  Yes and no.  Have you read Stewart Shapiro's book, "Thinking About Mathematics"?

David:  Of course I have.  That's an excellent book.  The only thing that I don't like about it is that there's no section about me.

Daniel:  Remember how Shapiro distinguishes between two kinds of mathematical realism?

David:  Yes, "ontological realism" and "truth-value realism".  An "ontological realist" believes that numbers exist as objects, whereas a "truth-value realist" believes that mathematical statements are true, but that the numbers and other mathematical things do not really exist as objects.

Daniel: I'm a truth-value realist.

David:  About what?  About math?

Daniel:  About life, the universe, and everything.  About matter, you could say.  That's why I wouldn't call myself an idealist, even though I strongly sympathize with the subjective idealist position.

David:  You're suggesting that matter is not ontologically real, but it's real in truth-value?  How could that be?  If matter is not ontologically real, how can it be anything?

Daniel:  I mean that atoms, molecules, stars, plants, animals, building blocks, tennis balls etc. may not be ontologically real, but statements made about them are true (or, sometimes false, according to the common-sense criteria for these things).  You just need to do a little bit of reinterpretation.

David:  Sure, that's what you were saying in your last blog post, that science can be philosophically justified if you reinterpret it.  But why is that not subjective idealism?

Daniel:  Can you stand on the pavement for a minute?

David:  Another experiment?

Daniel:  Now take this wooden block.

David:  Wow!  That's beautiful!  Where did you get that?

Daniel:  At the toy store on Rothschild, if you can believe that.  Now put it down on the pavement and roll it.

David tries to roll the block.

Daniel:  How does it roll?

David:  Not very well.  It doesn't really roll at all.

Daniel:  Why not?

David:  I don't know.  Because it's a block, I guess.

Daniel:  Right, it's shaped like a cube.  Here's another one from the same set.  Stack it on top of the first one.

David:  These things are really spectacular.  How many of them do you have?

Daniel:  There were eleven in the set, but I only brought two of them.  Now give me back the blocks and come back to the sidewalk.

David:  Are we done with the experiment?

Daniel:  Here's the tennis ball from my last post.  Roll this.  And here's another tennis ball.  Can you stack it on top of the first one?

David:  No, these tennis balls don't stack...

Daniel:  Very good, I'll take back the balls.

David:  Anything else?  Pyramids?

Daniel:  No, that's it.  Now, let's talk about what just happened.  You were on the pavement for a few minutes, then you were on the sidewalk.

David:  I don't know, maybe I wasn't.

Daniel:  But you remember being on the pavement then on the sidewalk, and playing with blocks and tennis balls.

David:  Yes, I remember it well.

Daniel:  We could talk about two memory streams, one composed of ordered, contiguous remembered moments on the pavement, and one composed of moments on the sidewalk.

David:  That sounds like a good way of thinking about it.

Daniel:  What is the difference between those two memory streams?

David:   I don't know.  There are a lot of differences.  What are you getting at?

Daniel:  In each stream, you were playing with two objects, but on the pavement you couldn't roll the objects, they stacked well, and they had straight edges. All of those properties are properties of the memory stream, not a quality of any single moment of memory.

David:  Properties of the memory stream.  OK, that makes sense.

Daniel:  So you generalize over these disparate properties of the memory stream with a single property, and say that on the pavement you were playing with balls.

David:  But the balls would only be a property of the memory stream, not objects with a distinct ontological existence.

Daniel:  That's exactly what I'm saying.  Matter is a property of memory streams.  Or, any material object is a property of a memory stream.

David:  That kind of makes sense, but weren't you going to distance yourself from subjective idealism?  It still sounds like idealism to me.

Daniel:  I think that our common sense notions of matter are correct, they just need a little bit of reinterpretation.

David:  So you're saying that our common sense notions of matter are correct in the sense that they're incorrect.

Daniel:  No.  Our common sense notions of matter are correct in the particulars.  The necessary reinterpretation is in the realm of the extremely general.

David:  But you're not saying something that a subjective idealist would disagree with.  At best, you're providing better tools of analysis.

Daniel:  So call it analytical philosophy.  The bottom line is this: George always says that matter is a delusion.  I say that, when correctly viewed, matter is a property of a memory stream.  Matter isn't a delusion, it's an illusion.  It's the perfect illusion.  And the perfect illusion is equivalent to reality.

Thoughts on Avot 1:4

"Antigonus, leader of Socho, received the tradition from Shimon the Righteous.  He used to say: be not like servants who serve the master for the sake of receiving a reward; instead be like servants who serve their master not for the sake of receiving a reward.  And may the awe of Heaven be upon you."  (Artscroll translation of Chapters of the Fathers 1:4)

Antigonus is telling us that, in our relationship with God, we should be like forced laborers, not like paid laborers.  We should not see ourselves as God's employees but rather as God's slaves.  What the Artscroll translates as "the awe of Heaven" might be better translated as "the fear of Heaven."  Just as the slave's ultimate motivation for serving his master is fear, so too our ultimate motivation for serving our Master must be fear.  As the Artscroll comments on the phrase "awe of Heaven", "This reverence must be maintained even though one has great love for God, for awe will inhibit one from transgressing His laws, while love not complemented by fear may lead one to take excessive liberties."

If God can be compared to a slave master, He must be compared to a very benevolent slave master, though I would guess that most earthly masters have not been benevolent at all.  A benevolent slave master "gives" many things to his slaves: food, a place to live, clothes, etc.  However, none of these things are given as payment for the slave's labor.  They are given by the master out of his feeling of responsibility for his slaves, out of his personal relationship with his slaves, out of his generosity.  With an employee, on the other hand, no matter how good his relationship with his employer, the paycheck is always given in exchange for the labor.  It's nothing personal, it's a quid pro quo.  For the tzaddik, the blessings that he receives are never received in exchange for the tzaddik's mitzvot; rather, they flow from God's love and generosity.

Science does not Make Predictions: a Platonic Dialogue by MC Complete

Daniel:  What do you think about science?  Do you believe in it?

David:  I don't believe in science.  There is no philosophical justification for science.  Science is based on inductive reasoning, which is unjustifiable.  Science is also based on memory, that is, science assumes that our memories are a reliable record of the past.  Philosophically speaking, however, there's no justification for believing our memories.  The accepted theories of the scientific community are based on countless numbers of experiments, but how do we know that those experiments actually happened?

Daniel:  In other words, science makes predictions about the future based on the past, but you don't believe in the future or the past, and therefore you don't believe in science.

David:  Cute, but crude.

Daniel:  But maybe that's only according to the conventional interpretation of science.  Maybe science can be reinterpreted so that you wouldn't object it to it.

David:  Really?  I'd be surprised.  Well, let's hear it.

Daniel:  What if you understand science as being descriptive, not predictive.  In other words, interpret science as being a description of the past, with nothing to say about the future.

David:  Well, if you say that science is about the past, then you still have the memory problem.

Daniel:  What if you understand science as not being about the actual past, but the apparent past?  In other words, what appears to have happened may not be the same as what actually happened, but science is about what appears to have happened.

David:  I hadn't thought of that.

Daniel pulls a tennis ball out of his backpack.

Daniel:  Will you hold this for a minute?

David:  What is this, some kind of philosophy experiment?

Daniel:  You know me too well.  Throw it up in the air.

David throws the ball up in the air and it drops on the ground.  Daniel picks it up and gives it back to David.

Daniel:  No, no, throw it up in the air and catch it.

David: OK...

Daniel:  Do it ten times.

David:  OK, this better be good...

Daniel:  Thank you.  Well done, well done.  Now.  Did you just throw the ball and catch it 11 times?

David:  I don't know.  How should I know?

Daniel:  But you remember throwing it and catching it.

David:  Certainly I remember it, but I don't know if it actually happened.

Daniel:  According to your memories, though, did it come down every time?  Did it ever continue into the sky, or stop and hover in midair?

David:  Sure, according to my memories, it did come down every time.

Daniel:  So you would never say, "What goes up must come down."  But you might say, "What goes up seems to have come down."

David:  Crude, but cute.

Daniel:  So every time a scientist says something like, "What goes up must come down," you just need to interpret it as "What goes up seems to have come down."  When a scientist says something like "F = (Gm1m2)/r", you just need to interpret it as "In the past, F apparently = (Gm1m2)/r".

David:  Cute.  So this is a skeptical interpretation of science?

Daniel:  Yes and no.  I'd call it a conservative interpretation, not a skeptical interpretation in particular.  It's an interpretation that even a skeptic can love.  But even a hard-core realist like your friend John can accept this interpretation.  This interpretation simply frees science from its dependency on induction and memory.  These questions become orthogonal.  Everyone can accept my interpretation of science.  If you happen to believe in induction, for some reason, so much the better, you can then take science and apply it to the future.

David:  Everyone can accept your interpretation, you say.

Daniel:  IMAO.

David:  Cute, Daniel, very cute.  I'll have to sleep on it.

consumer ballad

It's Friday and we've got a lot to do

There's brisket to braise and cholent to stew

There's parsley to soak and tea essence to brew

There's humidifiers to fill and lightbulbs to unscrew

I knew I should have listened to my guru

When he told me to beware of Orthodox Jews

But now I'm signed sealed and delivered to my Tel Aviv yeshiva

And I gotta go get some chopped liver

'Cause Friday is Abba's day at the tzorchania

No women allowed north of Carlebach

To you it may be just a hole in the wall

But it's my Chasidic shopping mall

(chorus)

Tzorchania

I'm having such a good time, I'm having a ball

Tzorchania

I'm having such a good time, don't want to stop at all

Out shopping and I'm having a good time

Out shopping and I'm having a ball

At my Chasidic shopping mall

I'm a crazy diamond

Like Paul Simon

Always parsley sage and rosemary thyming

Just in time for the last call for hala rolls
Yes sir yi yi three bags full
I'm in a river of gold like I was Billy Joel
And I feel like I'm going to lose control
I've got a shopping cart ready to reload
I'm going to go whoa whoa like it was Trader Joe's

A bottle of Diet Sprite yeah
I like to eat frozen treats that's why they call me Mr. Fahrenheit
I'm shopping at the speed of light
I'm going to buy a tout-banana candy for you
I'm shopping, I'm shopping, oy yoy yoy
I'm shopping, I'm shopping, I like it

(chorus)

Navigating the tzorchania can be complex
Because these aisles are skinnier than Slim Shady's body mass index
I feel like a Tyrannosaurus Rex in Anne Frank's annex
And I just got a call on my Nexus
My wife wants me home for breakfast in six minutes
My shopping trip is finished, but didn't I just begin it?

(chorus)

Twitter

The ceilings in the Yeshivat Har Etzion bet midrash are very high, and the windows do not have screens, at least they didn't when I was there 15 years ago, so it was not uncommon (don't tell George Orwell I just used a double negative) to see birds flying in the bet midrash.  At the time, I thought that was really cool.

One Shabbat afternoon after the shiur klali, I walked up to ask Rav Lichtenstein a question, but on the way, I stepped on something.  I looked down and I saw that it was a dead bird.  Quickly, I got paper towels, picked up the bird, and deposited it in the trash somewhere.

I think this was a big zechus for me in shamayim.  So today, when I wonder what in the world I did to deserve all the wonderful things I've been blessed with, I sometimes think of that dead bird on that Shabbat afternoon 15 years ago in Yeshivat Har Etzion.

the settlements don't make me safer

Sometimes I feel like we don't have a partner
Stay up late rereading the Hamas charter
Maybe Kahane was smarter after all
Than Rav Lichtenstein and Rav Amital
And in my dreams I still hear that call
"If we give them the West Bank, you think they're going to thank us?
Send some suicide bombs and other harmless pranks?
Import tanks from Iran?
Turn the land of Canaan into Hamastan?
It's all part of the phased plan
Don't you understand, can't you see
It ain't about the land or the sea
It's about peace with security
We all want the Palestinians to be free
But democracy is too scary
Our circumstances are extraordinary
The occupation is necessary
Apartheid?  We abhor that metaphor
Relentless struggle for peace but we're forced to choose war"
Oh yeah?  Well, I got one last question for Rabbi Raphael Schorr
What the heck are all of those settlements for?

(chorus)
This is my polemic
This is my bumper sticker
This is my attachment
Go on and double click it
This is my vanilla wafer
A treaty's just a piece of paper
But the settlements don't make me safer
They only make me sick

Now why do you look so nonplussed?
Does Israel inspire trust?
"Well, we're Jewish, so we must!"
Does Israel inspire confidence?
Is the occupation there for self-defense?
Or is it there for settlements?
'Cause the rent is too high in Jerusalem?
These are the facts on the ground and we're used to them
I just can't remember the excuse for them
I just don't understand what I read in the news
I got a bad case of the settlement blues

(chorus)

So come ride with me down Route 443
And I'll give you a lesson in political geography
Why are we occupying the West Bank, you ask?
So we can get to Modiin real real fast
But chas veshalom the Arabs should drive on their own road
If they want to get somewhere they can borrow my motor boat
I don't want to brag and I don't want to gloat
But who cares about them?  They can't even vote

I just want to end this song on a positive note
So if you feel the way I feel, I got the antidote

(chorus)

copt killer

Listen up Raboisai this is my pyramid scheme
Like something out of Bernie Madoff's wildest dreams
Stuff my message in a bottle and let it float downstream
Plague of boils and I think you'll need some vaseline
Time to garbage collect you like a virtual machine

'Cause it's survival of the fittest like the selfish gene

And even Sammy Harris knows exactly what I mean

So use your delusion like Richard Dawkins

You better read that Rashi before you start talking

'Cause tonight all the mummies in Memphis are going to walk

Here come the chorus, Pharaoh, let's rock

chorus:
Vanilla
This is my imitation
Vanilla
This is my flash animation
Vanilla
You put us on your plantation
But now I'm just in Taba for my Passover vacation

Every vilde chaya has its brain on hype
Every wild beast is a Copt killer tonight

Plague of the first born is your birthright

Plague of darkness suddenly you ain't so bright

And even at the Valley of the Kings we gon fight

'Cause denial ain't just a bloody river in Egypt

And the plague of locusts isn't a bug, it's a feature
And frogs and toads are my favorite creatures

'Cause I got more rhymes than there's modern Coptic speakers

Evil speech is my niche, good thing I don't usually practice what I preach

Or I'd wind up in a cell in a police spreadsheet

chorus:
Vanilla
This is virtual reality
Vanilla
This is poetic brutality
Vanilla
You put us on your plantation
But now I'm just in Taba for my Passover vacation

Everybody make the hieroglyphic sign
And please leave me your jewels, I'll return them in no time
Man, this Giza complex is a virtual gold mine
So take my plague of pestilence, please
Cause I think your goat's got mad cow disease
Cause tonight I'm colder than a settlement freeze
And I don't need PhD's to bury you like archaeology

Because Wikipedia is my epistemology

I ain't no Ice T, I won't make no apology
I won't wipe this song off my discography
I'll wipe Egypt off the geography

chorus:

Vanilla

This is new world order

Vanilla

Making history shorter

Vanilla

You put us on your plantation
But now I'm just in Taba for my Passover vacation

Am I too nice?  Plague of lice

Stone you with hail like I was Vanilla Ice
What you trying to be Potifar's wife?
Secretary General Ghali? Boutros twice
I do know one thing though, nations they come they go
Blood frogs lice animals pestilence
Boils hail locusts darkness yo

You lasted five thousand years but I think your time is up

I'll explicitly delete you like Bjarne Stroustrup

I don't mean to interrupt your long history

But the secret of your survival is too big of a mystery

You're like a story told by Dore Gold

After five thousand years it starts getting old

Real fast, you just ran out of gas

Your civilization is a thing of the past

Yo!  May I have the attention of the class?

chorus:
Vanilla
This is the ten plagues
Vanilla
However many it takes
Vanilla
You put us on your plantation
But now I'm just in Taba for my Passover vacation

Pesach hotel
All food Badatz Rav Landa
No matza balls
No internet
I'm just playing Egypt, you know I love you!

Clearly, the Cherubim are Cabbages

Whenever the Ark of the Covenant is depicted, the cherubim are depicted as babies with wings.  (Usually, they don't have diapers on.)  We know that cherubim have wings; the Torah talks about their wings.  But are cherubim really babies?  The Torah gives us almost no details or context about the cherubim, except for the wings.

The Rashbam says that they're birds, and he gives some proof or other.  I remember Rabbi Menachem Liebtag suggesting that cherubs are calves, although I didn't find this suggestion on his website.  I don't remember all his proofs for this, but it was part of an attempt to explain why the Jews in the desert made a golden calf, and especially why Yeravam ben Nevat made two golden calves, one on each end of his kingdom.  Rashi, for some reason, only says that the cherubim have faces of babies, but neglects to comment on their bodies; maybe because it was obvious to him that they have humanoid bodies?

Wikipedia, commenting on the "Jewish view of cherubim", notes the prophecy of Yehezkel describing "the cherubim as a tetrad of living creatures, each having four faces: of a lion, an ox, an eagle, and a man. They are said to have the stature and hands of a man, the feet of a calf, and four wings. Two of the wings extended upward, meeting above and sustaining the throne of God; while the other two stretched downward and covered the creatures themselves".  Wikipedia also notes that the modern academic Near East historians are convinced that cherubim have the body of a lion and the head of a man, like the mythical sphinx.

But let's be honest: we all know that cherubim are cabbages, just like seraphim are snakes and ofanim are chariot wheels.  The "wings" of the cherub are obviously leaves of the cabbage.  And cabbages certainly make fearful guardians of the Garden of Eden, at least when they are wielding a revolving sword.