Stablecross RSS

2025 Reading List

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2026-01-01T08:23:50-05:00

1LogicomixApostolos Doxiadis & Christos Papadimitriou 2Is Jesus in the Old TestamentIain M. Duguid 3Way StationClifford Simak 4The Year of the JackpotRobert A. Heinlein ... 6The Meaning of the MillenniumRobert G. Clouse 7Thought Reform and the Psychology of TotalismRobert Jay Lifton 8Justify ThisNIck Searcy ...I started two books but they were so bad I didn't want to waste more time with them: ... 1Liberating Romans from Reform CaptivityDavid L. Allen 2The Coming Golden AgeDr. David Jeremiah

My First Cavity

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-12-29T17:52:47-05:00

I had gone 70 years and 9 months to the day without a cavity. But I recently felt something off, visited my dentist, and found my upper left wisdom tooth poking through my gum. My dentist sent me to an oral surgeon. He took an X-ray of it today and observed a large black section inside the tooth which he said was a cavity. Normally, he would leave the tooth alone, but with the cavity it needs to come out. Oh, joy. At least I still haven't had a cavity filled by drilling.

Grandkids 2025

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-12-25T18:06:37-05:00

All six grandchildren, Christmas 2025. From left: Libby with Isaac, Liam, Hannah, Harrison, and Miles.

Addie Story

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-10-24T11:50:18-04:00

It was only in May 1995 thru an exchange of letters with first cousin Reba Wanda Carpenter (Benedetto) who was raised with half sisters Alma and Alta in Batesville, and with whom Grandmother Felts lived out her declining years that I was informed that Dad had been "secretly" married while in medical school to Addie Story (Sept. 1912, his age 23). Reportedly, Addie died (from influenza or other form of respiratory infection only four months later (Jan. 1913), during an epidemic. According to Reba, grandmother Felts had discouraged the marriage "until dad finished medical school” but they didn't wait. Neither parent ever mentioned her to me, so I am uncertain of the extent of awareness of the brief union, including my mother. ...Death PlaceCave City, Sharp County, Arkansas ...Burial PlaceCave City, Sharp County, Arkansas ...Marriage PlaceSharp County, Arkansas ...Residence PlaceCave City, Sharp County, Arkansas ...Note also that dad thought she died of flu or other respiratory infection, while her obituary said it was gastritis. ... He didn't register for military service until 1917, so he was likely away at school.

Black Friday in Judsonia

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-10-23T00:43:11-04:00

from attempting to fend off the falling roof of the store reflexly with his hand as it caved in on them), at least three fractured ribs, and an injured neck. ...The Smith's chauffeured me initially to the Lafayette Hotel where I readily obtained a room, and then to the Baptist Hospital where I located both parents, and I was never sure which was happier to see me. More attention was being devoted to Dad because he had sustained some degree of shock, and perhaps transient unconsciousness and over the next several days he developed urinary retention and required splinting of the neck and the arm to be placed in a cast. ... Billy Waller and his nine year old daughter, Jeanette, who had been only separated by the thickness of a brick partition in their grocery store immediately north of the drug store, apparently had been killed instantly. ... Both were eager for me to proceed up home on the morrow (Sunday) and reconnoiter the people as well as the town, especially our neighbors, home, car and store to ascertain the extent of family and property damage. ...Our home was almost totally destroyed with little roof remaining, rock and brick walls fallen, trees uprooted; mother's relatively new drapes extruded and torn with their shreds blowing in the wind outside where windows had been, and the interior soaked including grand piano, carpeting and organ. ...These two supports had provided sufficient stabilizing support that had protected my parents from the full direct blow and weight of the roof and crumbled brick walls, although the debris had filled in around them anyway. I was told that rescuers manually dug into the heap of debris for almost two hours before locating and extricating them and locating transportation for their journey to the Searcy hospital. ...Here, again, Frank Smith was extremely helpful for he located an American Indian construction foreman who promptly appeared and prepared a bid on rebuilding the home, and was able to recruit sufficient skilled workers to expeditiously get work underway. ...All our properties were judged to have been "totaled", but our local agent had failed to include comprehensive coverage on the contents of the store, and that was a total loss.

Isaac William

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-10-03T17:41:00-04:00

On mom's first push a fire alarm went off at the hospital1. Therefore I have given him the nickname "Scorch". Because Isaac means "laughter" in Hebrew, his handle will be "Laughing Scorch" and, if he's at all like his grandfather, his Indian name will be "Laughing Scorched Earth." I used AI to generate a few ideas for a "Laughing Scorch" avatar.

[1] I wasn't there and no one can prove that I was.

Allen: Liberating Romans...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-09-16T21:01:17-04:00

It says that neither Abraham, Isaac, nor Jacob received the land they were promised (Hebrews 11:39) but that they will (Hebrews 11:40) and that they and all of the rest of the saints will receive it at the same time (Hebrews 11:40). ...This position comes from reading Genesis, Hebrews, and Matthew under Paul's tutelage in Galatians (Christ being the singular seed) and Romans (Isaac and Jacob being the children of promise). ... God chose Isaac, not Ishmael; Jacob, not Esau; they will receive the land because God promised that they would (and the world of God cannot fail), and they will believe because that's what the promised children do. ...To be sure, Paul makes following him difficult because he uses one word, "Israel" in different ways: "Israel" and "not Israel", and he also overloads "Israel" to mean "a nation", "physical descendants of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob", "the people of God" (which, for Paul, are the promised children among the Jews and the Gentiles), and even Jesus himself.3 With this understanding of how Paul uses "Israel", in Romans 9 he laments that many of his kinsmen do not believe the gospel and he wants to explain why. ... But is has been this way since the garden of Eden for Eve surely thought, "It isn't fair that God would withhold from me that which I see is good to look at, good for eating, and good for acquiring wisdom. ...And Paul's radical insight, received through revelation unknown to mankind until the time of Christ (Ephesians 3:3-6), was that there are promised children among the Gentiles as well as the Jews. ...Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have not yet received what was promised, but they will when all of the saints receive it together. ... So the promise to Isaac and Jacob, given to them before they were born, was that they would inherit this land, where the wicked do not dwell, and that this promise was to be upheld by God, who swore by Himself to bring it about. ...[2] "This election was not about salvation but about the physical lineage through which God’s plan would unfold. ... this divine choice does not imply a salvific election for individuals, but rather a corporate selection of Israel to fulfill God’s purpose." (p.

The Samaritan Woman

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-09-14T13:49:06-04:00

“Your records indicate that you believed that my grace was insufficient for you and that you had to earn your salvation through your works. ...“Well, it says here that you adored my mother almost as much as you adored me and that you asked for her intercession, when mine is sufficient. That won’t comport with those who have gone through door on the right, so you’ll have to take the left one. ...You think it was by the free choice of your will that I saved you. ... He won’t go gently because He won’t believe the choice I just made overrides his. ...“Hmmm… you got justification by faith correct, and you bowed before my sovereignty, but you think I didn’t die for every individual on earth. ...I see you still haven’t admitted that what happened to you was your fault, and like a little child who didn’t get their way you haven’t stopped crying since! You could have used your words and talked to me and asked for my help but, no, you remained focused on your loss. ...“Well, you’re the last one for the day and it’s quitting time. ...Just in case someone might misunderstand me, this story uses reductio ad absurdum to show that we are not saved because of the quality of our belief, knowledge, or life.

Hermeneutics

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-09-02T21:03:55-04:00

Not by might, nor by power, nor by hermeneutical principle, but by my spirit, says the LORD of hosts. – Zech. ...Daniel was given a vision, but his companions trembled and fled. In a bright light, the Lord spoke to Paul, but his companions heard only a meaningless sound and saw nothing. Whoever thinks they can build a hermeneutical tower to heaven are greatly mistaken. Only the Spirit can reveal spiritual truth. Dispies and Presbyterians (WCF 1.7) I'm looking at you. Natural means do not produce supernatural results!

Remembering Sadie

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-07-09T18:28:38-04:00

I had the privilege of watching her when her mom and dad were out of town. ... Unfortunately, she passed away on Tuesday after I had watched her on Thursday to Sunday afternoon. ... When I can back at 2pm for her afternoon walk I saw that she hadn't eaten her food. She was also listless and didn't want to go on her walk. We did a turn around the cul-de-sac and came back inside. ... When they got home later that evening she was still lethargic and they noticed some spit up under the kitchen table, which I hadn't seen - and I do a quick look around for things like that. She went to the vet on Tuesday who found an ear infection. Her white blood cells were off a bit, but the vet wasn't alarmed. ... Later that evening it looks like she just laid down and went to sleep. ...They had a card section so I found a card for our neighbors and a thank you card for someone who did my oldest son a kindness this week.

Harrison's Tenth Birthday

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-05-13T17:28:08-04:00

Today, my second grandchild turned ten. Around noon, Mary Ann (mother of grandchildren 3 and 4), texted to let me know that she found her father passed away in his home. She had yet to call 911. David called at 2:20 and said he needed to go back to the ER. I'm posting this from NGHS Gainesville, where he's back in the ER and a preliminary work up is being done. They've drawn blood and just taken a chest X-ray.

Hypercomputation

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-04-06T13:08:28-04:00

Based on our conversation, I asked it to reimagine Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle as Infinity in a Bottle. ...    But there never seems to be a way to break the line,
      To hold the boundless in a frame of finite time,
      I’d give it all to see the code unwind for you.
...    But there never seems to be a way to break the line,
      To hold the boundless in a frame of finite time,
      I’d give it all to see the code unwind for you.
...    But there never seems to be a way to break the line,
      To hold the boundless in a frame of finite time,
      I’d give it all to see the code unwind for you.

Two Dialogs on Searle

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-03-31T17:45:15-04:00

The first dialog explores the fundamental mistake Searle makes in his "Chinese Room Argument", namely that while in the general case syntax is insufficient for semantics, programming languages are semantics with syntax. I have written about Searle before (the latest here), but that's me making a case to an empty courtroom. Here, I carry on an adversarial conversation with Grok 3.0 and let it judge the result. The second dialog considers where Searle can maintain his conclusion that computers cannot be conscious without his "syntax is insufficient for semantics" pillar except by denying the Church-Turing Hypothesis, which he affirms. My position is that he can't, Grok tried to show he can. Grok is overly verbose, yet sometimes exhibits what appears to be keen insight and sometimes says things in a way that make me jealous that it can be a better wordsmith than me. Grok doesn't get mad, doesn't get frustrated, and doesn't get tired (at least as long as I maintain my $30/month subscription). It is a far more challenging opponent than I typically have access to. In the future, these discussions will be multi-way with humans and chatbots pushing the boundaries, with the machines keeping everyone honest - demanding definitions, uncovering tacit assumptions, noticing loops, and keeping score. We will be able to save a transcript then ask ChatGPT to read it and comment on it.

A Triptych at 70

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-03-29T10:42:12-04:00

A triptych for my 70th birthday. My bartender went all out to celebrate my birthday. A decorated bar stool, birthday cake, and special tiara. She has two young girls, which explains her choice of tiara. Becky found her high school senior graduation picture from 1976. I wouldn't meet her until three years later. Grandchild number six, due October 15.

Dialog on Reframing Eden

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-03-28T10:27:39-04:00

First, that the image of God includes the perspective "my ways are right, my will be done" and, second, that Adam was initially created alone. ...Notice how human Grok can appear at times - how it enters loops and has to be shown that it's in a loop; how it doubles down when it has already been shown to be wrong. Unlike many humans, however, it's easier to get it to see that it's doing this and it's more amenable to changing its mind. ...One aspect of the reframe that I think I could have done better was in response to Grok's charge that "sin's inevitability undermines free will." A creature whose disposition is "my ways are right my will be done" will sin. Even a creature that says "my will is to do your will" is acting according to their will - not God's. ... But the answer to the sovereignty vs. responsibility debate is that a creature who says, "my will be done" is responsible for their actions by definition. ...

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. ...I think I would say that creation was put under a curse, as well as man, when Adam sinned.

Dialog on Dispensationalism

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-03-25T20:09:28-04:00

If a computer can beat you at chess, it can beat you at theology.

I have written on dispensationalism before: here, here. Having had so much fun interacting with Grok on Limited Atonement, and the Regulative and Normative principles of worship, I engaged it with a discussion on Dispensationalism. I asked Grok to take the "in favor" side, while I took "against." Grok conceded. Grok on dispensationalism.

Dialog on Regulative vs. Normative

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-03-25T20:03:20-04:00

If a computer can beat you at chess, it can beat you at theology.

Having had so much fun interacting with Grok on Limited Atonement, and because a friend recently asked me if I was familiar with Primitive Baptist churches, I decided to have it debate me on the Regulative and Normative principles of worship. Grok defended the regulative principle, I defended the normative principle. Grok conceded the argument. Grok on the regulative principle.

Dialog on Limited Atonement

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-03-24T16:24:29-04:00

If a computer can beat you at chess, it can beat you at theology. ...Computers are better at chess than they are at theology... today. ... Having written on the doctrine of limited atonement before, and being intrigued by the capabilities of today's chatbots, I engaged Grok 3 in a defense of limited atonement. ... Grok has the advantage that it doesn't get tired or frustrated and will argue until one side concedes; it can also admit when an argument is stuck in a loop. ... An author advocating for a side in a book can't be directly challenged on what was written. Here, then, is a link to the debate where Grok concedes that "Christ died only for the elect" has no actual Biblical support. One next step would be to reverse the dialog where I try to defend limited atonement against Grok to see if Grok also concedes. But I'm not sure I could successfully advocate for what I don't think is true. Another step would be to pit two chatbots against each other and revise the arguments until nothing more can be said.

Symmetry and Hermeneutics

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-01-09T23:07:39-05:00

Nature does break symmetry and perhaps it is the case that what is written by inspiration can be understood through natural means. ...

On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your zera‘ I give this land, ... ...Some English bibles translate it using the equally ambiguous "seed" or "offspring" but many, such as the NRSV, NASB, NIV, and NKJV use the plural "descendants". ...Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his descendent; it does not say, “And to descendants,” as of many; but it says, “And to your descendent,” that is, to one person, who is Christ. ...Another example of the importance of symmetry is seen in John 3:3 and 7, where Jesus tells Nicodemus "you must be born ἄνωθεν." ἄνωθεν can be understood several ways: again, anew, from the top, from above. Nicodemus' reply to Jesus shows that he understood it in a way that Jesus did not mean. ...There is a further symmetry between Paul's understanding of to whom the promises to Abraham were made and Jesus' statement to Nicodemus. Paul says that covenant with Abraham was not made to the "children of the flesh" (that is, the natural descendants) but to "the children of the promise." ... Both Esau and Jacob were born through divine intervention, for Rebekah was barren, but the promise went to Jacob through divine selection. In the same way, Jesus told Nicodemus that the children of the kingdom are born by divine intervention and divine selection.

2024 Reading List

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2025-01-01T15:57:59-05:00

1Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on GanymedeBradley Denton 2Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, IsraelitesJason Staples ... 6The Wolf of Wall StreetJordan Belfort 7Catching The Wolf of Wall StreetJordan Belfort 8Embracing the JourneyGreg and Lynn McDonald 9Fritz Lieber: Selected StoriesFritz Lieber ... 11Genesis: Translation and CommentaryRobert Alter 12Genesis: Beginning and BlessingR. ... 13The LongviewRoger Parrott, PhD 14The Last Dangerous VisionsHarlan Ellison

Dispensationalism

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-12-03T14:35:14-05:00

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it does not say, “And to offsprings,” as of many; but it says, “And to your offspring,” that is, to one person, who is Christ. – Gal. ...
In the covenant given to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, God not only promised to make Abraham great and to provide through him the Messiah who was to be a blessing to all nations of the earth, but He made the pronouncement, "And I will make of thee a great nation." To this nation God promised perpetuity in an everlasting covenant (Genesis 17:7), and gave the perpetual title to the land of Canaan defined in Genesis 15:18 as extending from the River of Egypt unto the River Euphrates. – pg. ...For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants; but “It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.” ...
So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision”—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ... He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. ...
I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ...
In the covenant given to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, God not only promised to make Abraham great and to provide through him the Messiah who was to be a blessing to all nations of the earth, but He made the pronouncement, "And I will make of thee a great nation." – pg. 14, op. cit. ...
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. – 1 Peter 2:9 ...
I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. – Isa.

The Joy of Parenting

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-11-29T15:03:29-05:00

[1] "Uvf oblf jrer tbvat gb qrpbengr gurve cravfrf yvxr Puevfgznf gerrf naq fubj gurve fvfgref."

Quote: Expulsion from Eden

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-11-26T06:12:16-05:00

And the LORD God said to Adam, "If you're going to hide from me, you aren't going to do it in the comfort of my home." – Gen 3:8, 24

On Limited Atonement

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-11-15T12:30:41-05:00

I have written before on the subject of the doctrine of limited atonement, when expressed as "Christ died only for the elect": here, here, here, and here. ... Recently I interacted with two people on X who advocated for this position. ... because, at best, proponents of this position can only say "Christ might have died for you." Both initially declined to answer, which I found odd, since one would think a Christian would jump at the chance to proclaim it when asked. ...The Synod of Dort referred to the atonement in Articles 3, 5 and 6. ...

... the sacrifice of Christ offered on the cross is [neither] deficient [n]or insufficient...2 ...Proponents of limited atonement stress the sufficiency of the atonement but they overlook that their interpretation is deficient. ...[1] Perhaps this explains other non-gospel gospels such as "Jesus is King" or "the kingdom of God is at hand." And if a limitarian says the gospel is "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ" follow up with the question, "believe what, exactly?" [2] The "is not" outside of the quotation was distributed to the inside of the quotation.

CMM 20th Anniversary with Cindy Morgan

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-10-04T22:30:17-04:00

Tonight was the 20th anniversary of Church Multiplication Ministries. It was founded by Dr. Tom Wood1 who we know through church. The event was held at Union Hill Park in Alpharetta. Food was catered by Feed the Well and music was by Home By Dark with special guest Cindy Morgan. In addition to her 14 Dove awards, her novel "The Year of Jubilee" is a finalist for the 2024 Christy Award. ...

... to Dr. William R. Felts of Washington, D.C., for medical details; ... ...Felts was my father.2 I hope she wins! ...[1] A review of his book "Vital Grace" is here. [2] Video biography here, article in People Magazine here, dad and Truman Capote here.

Mom and Me

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-09-07T11:41:19-04:00

Date unknown. Location is probably 3401 N. Piedmont St. in Arlington, VA. But I don't recognize the black railing behind me.

Grandparent's Breakfast: Liam

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-09-06T11:38:33-04:00

Today was Grandparent's Day at Liam's Elementary School. Breakfast was donuts and water or apple juice. Liam had my donut and apple juice. Unlike with Hannah's pre-school, there was no planned program. My opinion is that grandparent's breakfast at Liam's school is a well-planned scheme to get increased sales at the school's annual book fair. I spent $30 on him. [click picture for larger image]
[HEIC image]

Grandparent's Breakfast: Hannah

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-09-05T19:54:33-04:00

Hannah's second handprint handout. ...It was larger than my scanner could handle; an updated image will be provided later. ...

... Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 video ...

... Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 video ...Ms. Emily Riddle, the owner of The Little Red School House, made pound cake for our breakfast. It brought back memories of the pound cake my grandmother used to make.

The colors, man, the colors!

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-08-12T09:46:40-04:00

My brother, Tom, was a fan of stoner humor in the early 70's. ... Fifty plus years later, it has become more than a funny line. ... When I close my eyes I don't see color. ... I cannot mentally envision a "red apple" nor can I "see" my wife's face. ...It wasn't the upbeat gaiety of a gin and tonic. ... After several hours, when I closed my eyes I could see a living kaleidoscope of all the colors. I couldn't deliberately bring an image to mind, but I could see color replays of visual media I had recently watched. I was as if there was a dome inside my head in which images were projected and I was outside the dome (but still inside my head) watching the show. I can dream in color, but this was far more vivid. ...[1] I suspect it was Cheech and Chong, but ChatGPT4o is of no use in locating the source.

Publix & Expired Products

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-05-28T11:23:34-04:00

The family was at Fernandina Beach in October, 2019 when we bought some blueberry bagels from Publix for breakfast in the morning. Past their shelf life, they were moldy.
Yesterday, Becky bought some pepper sauce from a local Publix. It's in contention for the most expired product on a shelf. It's almost nine years old.

Elephant's Breath

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-05-10T11:22:04-04:00

I then asked ChatGPT to "draw an elephant's breath using the color elephant's breath" (click images for larger versions): ...Since the quote mentioned mint green, I then asked ChatGPT to draw the "same image, but make the elephant mint green." Both images are quite nice, but ChatGPT changed the color of the elephant's breath to mint green, even though ChatGPT insists "here's the hyper-realistic painting of an elephant, now colored in vivid mint green, exhaling a breath using the color 'Elephant's Breath.'" ..."Draw a hyper realistic image of a mint green elephant exhaling a breath which is colored 'elephant's breath'". ...I'll make sure to address this and attempt once more to create an image that aligns with your vision. ...ChatGPT did some beautiful work, but it's still a few neurons short of a sandwich. ...One of these days there will be a service that cross-checks all of the AIs for answers to see what the consensus is and where areas of disagreements are, but that's not today. But I did ask it to draw "a mint green elephant, standing in its natural habitat with a clear blue sky, with it exhaling through its trunk with its breath the color of elephant's breath." Grok knows the RGB components of "elephant's breath" (187, 176, 168) {compared to ChatGPT's 187, 173, 160 and the manufacturer's 204, 191, 179} but it has trouble mapping "elephant's breath" to the desired RGB values when drawing. ... Its color coordinates were replaced with lime green, with a tolerance of 32 in the final picture.

Early Family Photos

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-04-17T20:09:41-04:00

Dylan took this picture of me today at Whole Being Cafe. I had the towel because I had finished a morning run and wanted to be sure I stayed dry. It does not link to a bigger version.

More Rules of God Club

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-04-02T16:03:01-04:00

The first set of rules are here. 4. The fourth rule of God club is that God is known by experience.1 5. The fifth rule of God club is that only God can give you the experience of Himself.2

[1] Abraham had no scripture, no systematic theology, and no philosophy that we know of. Furthermore, he didn't need them. John 10:27; Heb 3:15 [2] Acts 22:6-9; John 3:3

Theodicy: Another Perspective

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-03-27T14:47:48-04:00

This same change of perspective is possible with the "problem" of evil (and divine hiddenness) which are two arguments employed for the non-existence of [a good] God. ...If it isn't "in" the axioms, it doesn't appear as a result; if it is "in" the axioms, it doesn't disappear from the result. ...So should the third, but it's less familiar; namely, that nature does not impose on us the axioms that we choose. There are more axioms in "mind" space than there are in "meat" space2,3, and nature does not "tell" us which axioms we should use to describe it. The switchover may come from the observation that the problem of evil and/or divine hiddenness are problems for some people and not for others. Jesus, for example, affirmed the existence of a good God in Luke 18:19 and denied a problem with hiddenness in his sermon on the mount [Matthew 5:8]. So if evil and hiddenness are problems, then the problem is inherent in the axioms; if they aren't problems, they aren't problems inherent in the axioms.4 ...When in a bad mood, we read someone’s neutral look as a glare; in a good mood, we intuit the same look as interest. ...[1] I usually make a "v" with my middle and index fingers and look at the dancer through the gap, starting at her feet and moving up until she changes direction. ...[4] See "The Rules of God Club" for one set of axioms in which evil and hiddenness are not problems.

The Rules of God Club

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-03-24T14:03:59-04:00

I enjoy following Joe Campbell on X. This conversation was particularly useful to me: I was enlightened. Rule 1 follows from God being uncaused and, thus, the cause of all things; rules 2 and 3 follow from His unpredictability.

Bohr on Nature

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-03-14T13:04:43-04:00

What's interesting about this is that what Bohr thinks we can say about nature is also what we think we can say about consciousness. We recognize consciousness by behavior (cf. Searle's Chinese Room), but we cannot say whether consciousness is produced by that behavior or whether it is revealed by that behavior.

Cognitive Bias

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-03-14T12:49:34-04:00

“Cogito, ergo sum” is the epitome of the fallacy of cognitive bias.

Fiat Lux & Anthropology

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-03-10T14:42:49-04:00

Before God said, "Let there be light," He said, "Let there be darkness" and "let there be chaos."

AGI

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-03-10T14:27:33-04:00

If AGI doesn't include insanity as well as intelligence then it may be artificial, but it won't be general. ...In "Gödel, Escher, Bach" Hofstadter wrote:

It is an inherent property of intelligence that it can jump out of the task which it is performing, and survey what it is done; it is always looking for, and often finding, patterns.1 ...Over 400 pages later, he repeats this idea:
This drive to jump out of the system is a pervasive one, and lies behind all progress and art, music, and other human endeavors. It also lies behind such trivial undertakings as the making of radio and television commercials.2 ...For intelligence to be general, the ability to jump must be in all directions.
[1] Pg. ...This idea is repeated in this post from almost 13 years ago. Have I stopped jumping outside the lines?

Quote

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-03-06T11:04:51-05:00

Those who don't learn from the future are doomed to live to regret it.1

[1] In response to a post by John D. Cook on X, with a quote from the novel Dune: “Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

Quote

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-02-29T07:21:00-05:00

Whether or not the √2 is irrational cannot be shown by measuring it.1,2 Whether or not the Church-Turing hypothesis is true cannot be shown by thinking about it.

[1] "Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Geometries", Greenberg, Marvin J., Second Edition, pg. 7: "The point is that this irrationality of length could never have been discovered by physical measurements, which always include a small experimental margin of error." [2] This quote is partially inspired by Scott Aaronson's "PHYS771 Lecture 9: Quantum" where he talks about the necessity of experiments.

Mayors of Judsonia, Arkansas

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-02-20T18:08:57-05:00

I had occasion to need to know who succeeded my grandfather as mayor of Judsonia, Arkansas. I was able to eventually find the answer, but I was unable to locate a list of past mayors. Amber at City Hall went above and beyond to compile a list of past mayors from available records. ...April 1917March 1919JC Gibson ...April 1923March 1924J NO White ...August 1993September 1994 DoD 11-30-1994Chester Williams September 1994March 1995LaJunta Whitener Acting as Mayor April 1995Resigned May 16, 1996Lawrence Mcintire June 1996LaJunta Whitener Acting Mayor ...1998November 2013 DoD 11-18-2013Rickey Veach

Searle's Chinese Room: Another Nail

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-02-17T20:06:05-05:00

A NAND gate, by construction, has intentionality: two inputs are combined and one output is selected based on the characteristic of the logic gate.3 The intentionality of the program is the combined intentionality of the logic gates that represent the program. ...It gives the machine the behavior of substituting Chinese symbols for English symbols, but it does not give the computer the behavior of meaning, the this is that associations, the mental dictionary, that we build up over a lifetime. ...

The first thing to notice about the robot reply is that it tacitly concedes that cognition is not solely a matter of formal symbol manipulation, since this reply adds a set of causal relation with the outside world. ...As Feynman said, "Computer theory has been developed to a point where it realizes that it doesn't make any difference; when you get to a universal computer, it doesn't matter how it's manufactured, how it's actually made." Searle admits this when he writes, "If we could build a robot whose behavior was indistinguishable from human behavior over a large range, we would attribute intentionality to it." But then Searle says that if we knew the robot's behavior was caused by a "formal program", "we would not attribute intentionality to it." ...Every program can be written in the Lambda calculus; every program can be "written" as an arrangement of logic gates (including neurons), every program is an instance of a (subset of a) Turing machine. ...
Addendum
The first objection to this takedown of Searle, from a certain alleged philosopher on Twitter4, was that the idea that meaning is this is that behavior is too naive because it doesn't take a priori knowledge into account. ...That is, the inference to consciousness of behavior B when performed by a human (the first F(B)) was not the same inference when the exact same behavior was performed by a machine (the second F(B)). ... It is clear to me (but perhaps not to the philosopher), that the philosopher was taking both the external behavior BE and the internal behavior BI as inputs to F().

A Country Doctor In Washington

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-02-10T13:01:26-05:00

My sister graciously reminded me today that I have had Dad's manuscript for his autobiography, "A Country Doctor In Washington", for twenty years having received it from her care so that I could transcribe it into digital form. ...Today, my wife pulled some boxes out of storage to see if we could get rid of anything and the manuscript was in one of them. OCR technology has greatly improved - I managed to get through 10 pages in about an hour. ...Today's OCR software is much better, so the PDF was converted to a .docx file fairly quickly. ...I also found a document, here, that listed my dad as a witness for the hearing of S. 1440, THE NON-SMOKERS RIGHTS ACT OF 1985 on October 2, 1985. ...

William Robert Felts Jr., 79, an internal medicine doctor specializing in rheumatology who was a professor emeritus of medicine at George Washington University, died Feb. 12 at his home in McLean. ... Dr. Felts worked for the university from 1951 to 1993 and was an officer in several medical organizations. Among them, he was president of the American Society of Internal Medicine, the National Capital Medical Foundation and the National Academies of Practice. He also was board chairman of the Arthritis Foundation of metropolitan Washington and a consultant to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. ...His second wife, Lila Dudley Felts, whom he married in 1987, died in 1993. Survivors include four children from the first marriage, William R.

Dialog with an Atheist #4

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-02-03T16:36:08-05:00

Here is another case where an atheist won't answer how they know what they claim to know. ... All of these feature atheists making a claim to knowledge for which they can provide no objective justification. ...I think I should (rationally) interpret your fourth failure to answer my question as either die [sic] to unwillingness or die [sic] to inability. ...The perceptible qualities are those of sentience, by which you conclude that a being, other than yourself, has an “I”. ...@stablecross: Then on what basis should anyone accept your claim when, to all appearances, she’s indistinguishable from a philosophical zombie? ...I’ve asked why I should accept that she’s sentient and not a philosophical zombie. ... Perhaps you can help him devise such a way so that it works on her, other animals, and machines? ...All I have to go on is some study of neuroscience, which is probably not adequate on its own. ...But they can't admit it, because that would remove one of the stabilizing legs of the chair on which atheist arguments sit. ...[1] A third conversation is here, but it's based on philosophical stance instead of intelligence.

The Physical Ground of Logic

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-01-12T22:15:16-05:00

This doesn't disprove idealism, dualism, or materialism; but it does make it harder to find a bright line of demarcation between them and a way to make a final determination as to which might correspond to reality. ...But this is the engineering reason why "lefty" and "righty" are the way they are. "lefty" can be turned into "righty" and "righty" can be turned into "lefty" by rotating the object and rotation is a physical operation on a physical object. ...We know how to build devices which have the behavior of S7, which is known as a "NAND" (Not AND)1 gate. There are numerous ways to build these devices: with semiconductors that use electricity, with waveguides that use fluids such as air and water, with materials that can flex, neurons in the brain, even marbles.2 NAND gates and NOR gates (S1) are known as universal gates, since arrangements of each gate can produce all of the other selection operations. ...We look at the pattern for S7, say, and note that if we arbitrarily declare that "lefty" is "true", then "righty" is false, then we get the logical behavior that is familiar to us. Because digital computers work with low and high voltages, it is more common to arbitrarily make one of them 0 and the other 1 and then to, again arbitrarily, make the convention that one of them (typically 0) represents false and the other (either 1 or non-zero) true. ...It's important to note that whatever the physical layer is doing, if the device performs according to these combination and selection operations then the internal layer is doing these logical operations. ...What's interesting is that nature gives us two ways of looking at it and discovering two ways of explaining what we see without, apparently, giving us a clue as to which is the "right" way to look at it. ...

Syntax and Semantics

In natural languages, it is understood that the syntax of a sentence is not sufficient to understand the semantics of the sentence. ... So computer syntax communicates behavior, which can include meaning, to the machine.

More elaboration on how philosophy misunderstands computation is here.

Notes

An earlier derivation of this same result using the Lambda Calculus is here.

Dialog with an Atheist #3

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2024-01-05T16:48:12-05:00

In 2010 I had an online conversation with the atheist "Victorian dad" about intelligence in general and their intelligence in particular. ...

I prefer the academic definition of atheist: Belief that there are no gods. ...In particular, we have gone back and forth about how we can test for 3rd party consciousness. ... However, @theosib2 maintains this is not the case, even though I have pressed him to state what a function with this behavior is doing: ...Subjectively, it does have meaning and purpose, but we can't decide what it is. ... Arrange these gates into a computer program and we might be able to determine what it is doing by its overall behavior. But we have to be able to map its behavior into behavior that we recognize within ourselves. ...
If only we could have a rigorous definition of consciousness. ...The atheist either has a problem with either knowing things that are subjectively known, or admitting the validity of subjective knowledge. ... Because we have objective knowledge that mind is only known subjectively.

2023 Reading List

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-12-31T23:59:59-05:00

3A Wizard of EarthseaUrsula K. Le Guin 4The Tombs of AtuanUrsula K. Le Guin 5The Farthest ShoreUrsula K. Le Guin ... 7A Boisterously Reformed Polemic Against Limited AtonementAustin Brown ... 9TehanuUrsula K. Le Guin 10Tales From EarthseaUrsula K. Le Guin ... 13The Other WindUrsula K. Le Guin 14The Daughter of OdrenUrsula K. Le Guin ... 18The Diary of a Young GirlAnne Frank ... 26Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew About the BibleMichael F. Bird

Then... Now

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-12-07T21:38:10-05:00

The picture on the left was taken on August 15, 1980. The picture on the right was taken this evening. I'm wearing the same suit, minus the vest. The vest no longer fits and the jacket is a bit tighter than on my wedding day. Having lost 60 pounds this year (thanks to Mounjaro), I wanted to see whether or not I could get into clothes I hadn't worn in over 40 years. Now I want to recreate our wedding photo, although Becky isn't sure where her dress is.

Christian Vocation

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-11-10T12:30:01-05:00

"When Christians try to be the world's policemen, they cease being the world's gardeners."
As of this posting, this quote appears nowhere according to Google, DuckDuckGo, or Yandex.

Farpoint Engineering

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-10-14T11:03:58-04:00

In Long Forgotten Computer Technology, written in 2008, I wrote about having used Weitek math coprocessors. In 1988, Bill J. and I developed a Micro Channel card with a Weitek co-processor for IBM PS/2 Model-80 PC's. Bill did the hardware and I did the software. We called ourself "Farpoint Engineering" and we eventually sold the design to Microway who managed to sell some boards. A few documents from that era still exist. • FASTPOINT-80 product sheet • Microway advertisement (the Micro Channel boards under Math Coprocessors). ⁃ From BYTE magazine, August, 1990. • Fractal demo code (386 assembly) ...I wrote a terminate-and-stay-resident program to install an "int 15h" interface between applications and the hardware, but that code is long lost.

Eric Schmidt

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-10-10T17:41:28-04:00

My wife knew of Katie Couric; Eric Schmidt was one year ahead of me (even though he's a month younger than me). ... I saved some of the programs that we wrote in the early 70's1, including three of his. ... Fortunately, things never came to that and now that I'm retired, I've decided to make them available for nostalgia's sake. ...I am exploring OCR options for converting my father's typewritten autobiography to digital form. I've used TextSniper with some success, but it's slow. tesseract is one possibility. I decided to convert these scanned programs to text. tesseract was baffled by FORTRAN. On a whim, I uploaded the images to Grok and it did a surprisingly decent job. It wasn't perfect but even with the final manual proofread it was faster than doing it manually. ...[1] I really wish I still had FRESEQ, which I wrote in FORTRAN, that resequenced FORTRAN line and statement numbers like the built-in resequence command did for BASIC programs. Sometime around then I also wrote an INTEL 4004/4040/8008/8080 macro assembler in FORTRAN, but I don't have that, either.

Procyon

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-10-08T13:41:33-04:00

Thanksgiving 1985, taken at dad's house in Virginia.
...Dad and David, probably Thanksgiving 1985
...When Pro was a passenger in the front seat of my car he didn't like going under bridges. He would duck down in the seat when the shadow of the bridge passed over him. One night, when I was still living at home, I was walking him. ... There was a loud bang, perhaps from a firecracker, and he took off like a shot down the street, turned left into our cul-de-sac, and disappeared from view. ... He had been lying on the couch in the den when he heard a knock on the door. ... Thinking the neighborhood kids were playing a prank he got up and opened the storm door. A tan blur streaked past and went under the bed in my sister's room. ...Although I was told that both of them discussed which one of them would date me.

Dad & Koala, Me & Monkey

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-10-06T17:54:48-04:00

Dad with a koala in Sydney, Australia; May 1985. Taken with Kodachrome 64; AE-1 Canon; automatic exposure. ...Note that the koala is clutching a stuffed animal. That keeps their claws in the doll and not in you. ...I don't remember this picture being taken, I have no idea where it was taken, and I have no clue as to the monkey's name. ... Jasmine Technologies, Inc. was in business from 1986 to 1990. They made an external SCSI drive for Macintosh Computers. I was most likely working for Quadram/National Semiconductor (12/86 to 6/90). While they primarily made accessories for IBM-PC computers, they also had a NuBus color graphics card for the Mac. I could also have been early in my time with DayStar Digital (6/90 to 4/96).

Yorktown HS 1973

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-10-06T13:13:07-04:00

While rummaging through boxes of memorabilia I came across the program for the graduation of the Yorktown High School class of 1973. Follow the links for the program pages. Debbie Habel graduated with distinction. She was the Cinderella to my Prince Charming in 5th grade.
Cover Page 02 Page 03 Page 04 Page 05

Quotes

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-09-25T13:45:33-04:00

We know that consciousness and infinity exist "inside" our minds. But we have no objective way of knowing if they exist "outside" of our minds. There is no objective measure for consciousness; there is no objective measure for infinity (there are no rulers of infinite length, or clocks of endless time, for example). The theist claims that there exists a mind that is both conscious and infinite and ...The theologian or philosopher who attempts to prove the objective existence of God is thereby engaging in a futile effort, as is the effort to disprove said existence. The atheist who asks for objective proof of God is making a category error.

That's Judsonia

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-09-24T19:23:53-04:00

One identifies the newspaper and date from which it was taken; one has my dad's handwritten annotation that it was from September 1977; one is undated. ...The first is a picture of a steamboat on the Little Red River [click picture for a larger version]. ..."Doc" Gill lived across the street from my grandmother's house. ... One summer, very long ago, my dad and I were outside the house when Doc — a very old man at the time — came shuffling up the sidewalk. Dad asked, "Why don't you let Doc look at your loose tooth?" ... But dad and Doc convinced me to open my mouth and, before I could react, Doc snaked his gnarly old forefinger into my mouth and the tooth was out. That should have been the beginning of a deep-seated mistrust of doctors, but my dad and Doc knew what they were doing. The tooth was out and the extraction didn't hurt. ...The third article recounts a Yankee gunboat on the Red River during the war of Northern aggression. The links go to digitized versions of the articles; the page titles link to the scan of the article.

The Inner Mind

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-09-19T18:13:49-04:00

It's a problem because philosophers can't account for how the first person view of consciousness might be possible. ...A network of these devices can be built such that the output of one device can be used as input to another device. ...We are taught that a NAND gate maps (T T)→F, (T F)→T, (F T)→T, and (F F)→T; (1 1)→0, (1 0)→1, (0 1)→1, (0 0)→0 and that a NOR gate maps (T T)→F, (T F)→F, (F T)→F, (F F)→T; (1 1)→0, (1 0)→0, (0 1)→0, (0 0)→1. ... Because you cannot tell via external inspection what the device is doing you cannot tell via external inspection what the network of devices is doing. ...That means that to fully understand what a network is doing, you have to discern whether a symbol is being used as a symbol or as a value. ...NAND and NOR gates are universal logic gates which can be used to construct a "universal" computing device.2 ...Before the output device is connected to the system so that the answer can be communicated, there is no way for an external observer to know what the answer will be. All an external observer has to go on is what the device communicates to that observer, whether by speech or some other behavior.3 And even when the output device is active and the observer receives the message, the observer cannot tell whether the answer given corresponds to how the system was actually constructed. ...[2] I put universal in quotes because a universal Turing machine requires infinite memory and this would require an infinite number of gates.

Quotes

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-09-10T14:11:12-04:00

The essence of Christianity is not doctrine any more than the essence of physics ...Christianity is, first and foremost, hearing the music of heaven and being so enthralled that you can't help but join in the dance. ...You can go from experience to reason about the experience. ...in a sunrise, taste the crispness of an apple, or cause a ...The first quote was born after my morning walk/run while drying off afterward. I still had my AirPods in when a certain song by Fall Out Boy so captured my imagination that I started dancing in front of the mirror. It wasn't a pretty sight by any stretch of the imagination, but the Spirit blows where it will. The second follows from the first, especially after reading "Apologetics Beyond Reason" by James. ... Sire, which greatly - and far more ably - expresses this than I ever could.

A Review of "Vital Grace"

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-07-08T14:45:35-04:00

So the only path is forward, where we are united to Christ through the cross (Gal 2:19), indwelt by the Spirit (Rom. 8:9), where the New Jerusalem comes down to earth, and the barrier between God and man, the "sea of glass" around the heavenly throne is gone (Rev 4:6, 21:1), and God is "all and in all" (1 Cor 15:24-28). ...To tie this into the comment on page 39, whether or not somebody loves us is only known by their behavior and whether that behavior corresponds to what we think the behavior of love is. ...It is only through union with Christ by the Spirit that we ourselves can say, "your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." ...In addition, the first paragraph on page 168 is confusing, as it speaks about Paul's letter to Laodicea (which we don't have) and Jesus's words to the church in Laodicea (which we do have) and it's hard to follow which is which. ..."He would not have to write things that only a supernatural being would know, He would only have to reveal Himself in ways that were human so that we could know Him. ... ...But also, this claim that God reveals Himself in the Bible is similar to that made by Ray Lander Laan, host of the "That the World May Know" video lectures, where he contrasted the Egyptian and Hebrew religions in that the Egyptians wrote their stories in stone, the Hebrews in a book. ... Reading the Bible, prayer, church, music, giving, and suffering are all a part of the Christian life, but the advice of God through the Psalmist is missing: "Be still, and know that I am God." ...God has "lavished" the riches of his grace upon us (Eph 1:8), we have received "grace upon grace" from Christ (John 1:16), and we "stand in grace" (Rom 5:2) which "exercises dominion" over us (Rom 5:21). ... So when Tom writes, "Suffering is a way we get grace into life." (pg. 192), it is really the case that grace enables us to see the grace that we have through suffering. On page 209 we read: "He is not interested in using us for His personal gain, but He does ask for us to show up as a witness to who He is, all He's done, and all He is doing."

A Diplomatic Review of "A Boisterous Polemic"

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-05-06T09:43:09-04:00

After all, if Christ did not die for the non-elect, then one cannot truly say to them that "Christ died for your sins." The 5P response to this is that since we don't know who is or isn't elect, our ignorance allows us to present the offer of the gospel to all. While Brown effectively rebuts this response, he misses what, to me, is a deeper problem: namely, that the 5P presenter of the gospel is doing it as if they are speaking to the person, instead of God speaking through them to the person. ...In chapter 6, Brown considers the question, "But if it is strenuously asserted that Christ did not in fact die for the non-elect, as he does, then how is Christ’s death perfectly sufficient for the non-elect?" ...But Brown then writes, “… the particularist will have to run his logic down a different path” and, agrees with Trueman, that Owen’s argument isn’t a strong component of limited atonement. ...The 5P may not be happy with the “mystery of God’s multiple purposes in the atonement” argument (even though it’s the right answer) as long as there is still a shred of logic to cling to. ...

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. ...So one option is to hold to the sequential view and place the atonement after election, another option is to take the parallel view, reject the ordo salutis altogether as being scripturally unfounded, place atonement and election together, and let scripture decide what God is actually doing. ...So if a 5P says "all" means "all people without distinction," then that must include some from the elect and non-elect! ...
But as all theologians worth their salt know, there’s a hierarchy of desires in the purposes of God, and some of these desires don’t ultimately express themselves due to his prioritizing other ends.

Paternal Grandfather

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-05-04T09:23:28-04:00

I have written several times about my paternal grandfather (here, here, here, and here). I came across this picture of him today while cleaning files from my laptop. Click for a bigger version. He is standing in the living room of grandmother's house. It's grandmother's house because my grandfather, while sharing my birthday, died not quite six months after I was born, so I never had the chance to meet him.

3M Datavision D-8000

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-04-11T17:03:40-04:00

I worked on the software for the D-8800 from circa 1978 to possibly as late as early 1981. ...3M contracted with Xener Corporation, which was a small consulting firm in Springfield, VA at the time, to write the software. ...Not only did it have a QWERTY keyboard, it had a number of buttons for selecting fonts and colors, and for starting various operations such as roll (scroll multiple pages of text up or down) and crawl (scroll a line of text across the screen). ...The video system had an interrupt for vertical sync which, if I remember correctly, was the only timer the system had. Because the display CPU had the timer, as well as the need to keep the video system fed in conjunction with vertical sync, it constantly told the system CPU what it needed and when. It would also ask the system CPU if the user had done anything it needed to know about. ... After a year and a half I discovered that the DMA register that contained the amount of data to transfer would not have the value that was written to it. ... Suds then found that if the system was doing everything all at once that the voltage might drop below nominal levels causing the malfunction in the DMA register. ...As this screen shows, the D-8800 had WYSIWYG editing and display of proportionally spaced fonts before this was made popular by the Macintosh. ...[2] In all of the years I worked on this product, I never knew how much it sold for.

Critiquing Calvinism

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-01-06T13:20:17-05:00

Allen wrote the chapter on the doctrine of "Limited Atonement" and I found his work here to be as well done as in his other book. He "steelmanned" his analysis, that is, he looked at the doctrine of Limited Atonement as it is actually presented by Calvinists, instead of assessing a caricature, and did a competent job stating the case against it. In fact, I'm only aware of one additional argument for limited atonement that he did not address1. ... Yet, instead of a lengthy rebuttal, in the remainder of this post I want to address one, and only one, part of the response to "Irresistible Grace" in chapter 4 by editor Steve Lemke. ...Note the striking contradiction—God will “overcome all resistance and make his influence irresistible,” and yet “irresistible grace never implies that God forces us to believe against our will.” ...moments rise from the recesses of our minds and present to us a new way of seeing, a new way of thinking, and that new thing is so obvious that we wonder why we never encountered it before. ...

Why would there be a need to persuade someone who had already been regenerated by irresistible enabling grace? ...The external change of location which brought color into her life is a parallel to the internal change that brings new sight to the Christian. ...
There is an inseparable unity between Christ's death for the church and his sanctifying and cleansing it. ... Since the world is not sanctified and cleansed, then it is obvious that Christ did not die for it.

2022 Reading List

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2023-01-01T15:11:21-05:00

3The Wizard of KarresM. Lackey, E. Flint, D. Freer 4The Sorceress of KarresE. Flint, D. Freer 5The Shaman of KarresE. Flint, D. Freer 6The Idea of Israel in Second Temple JudaismJason Staples 7Do Android's Dream of Electric SheepPhilip K. Dick ... 19He Is There And He Is Not SilentFrancis A. Schaeffer ... 23The Word for World is ForestUrsula K. Le Guin ... 26Five Ways to ForgivenessUrsula K. Le Guin ... 27Old Testament Theology in a Canonical ContextBrevard S. Childs 28The Year's Best Science Fiction, First Annual CollectionGardner Dozois

Advent

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2022-12-11T19:43:27-05:00

This morning my wife and I were asked to perform the ceremony of lighting the Advent candles at church. I was asked to give a brief summary of why we celebrate Advent. ...

There is a tragic scene in Ezekiel where the prophet sees the glory of the Lord leave the temple. It goes out the East Gate, departs Jerusalem and heads to the Mount of Olives, where it, presumably, ascends to heaven. ... When the Israelites were led out of Egypt from slavery to freedom, the Shekhinah glory led the way. ... After the Tabernacle was built, the Shekhinah glory resided in the most holy place above the ark of the covenant. ... Rabbinic literature even states that the Shekinah glory sits at the right hand of God in heaven. ...In the intervening years, a new temple is built in Jerusalem, but there is no record of the presence of the glory of God. Until the night when a child who is the light of the world is born in Bethlehem. The night when the Shekinah glory is swaddled in rags and placed in a feeding trough.

Venn Diagrams

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2022-10-21T16:09:17-04:00

So I extended the code to evaluate logical expressions to generate a Venn diagram of an expression. ...xyzaddcarrysubborrow ...1100100 1010100 1001010 0110101 0101011 0011011 ...I then produced an animated GIF of all of the 256 Venn diagrams for an equation of 3 variables. The right side is the complement of the equation on the left. 128 images were created, then I used Flying Meat's Retrobatch to resize each image, add the image number, and convert to .

Titan

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2022-08-27T11:32:45-04:00

Today was Titan's last day. RIP. My first picture of Titan and Kala dated April 16, 2013.
Titan at Home Depot, July 20, 2018.
Titan with Liam, January 5, 2019.
January 15, 2021.
See also, "Boy & Dog".

On the Image of God

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2022-08-02T19:31:42-04:00

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” ... in the image of God he created them; ...(Beauty, Quality, Utility, and Goodness all compare something to an ideal. Beauty is ideal appearance, quality is ideal construction, utility is ideal fitness for use, goodness is a general comparison to an ideal). ...God adopts us as sons and conforms us to the image of Christ. ...And because we like to accentuate the positive, I believe that we overlook the most important aspect of all: uncontrollability. God is controlled only by Himself – He answers to no one and no thing. No being can tell Him what to do; no external rule places any demand upon Him. ...Being made in this image explains the entire arc of redemption: the Fall, the failure of [the] Law, and the necessity of the Spirit. This idea is clearly undeveloped, but given that I put it out on Twitter, I decided to publish this little bit.

On the Knowledge of God

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2022-07-20T22:40:49-04:00

1 One of the possible recent mistakes I have made is getting involved with Twitter, in particular, with some of the apologists for theism and for atheism whose goal is to prove by reason that God does, or does not, exist. ...When one is, as it were, the "lone voice crying in the desert" with an opinion that appears to be relatively rare, at least in the circles I run in, it's gratifying to find others who have come to the same conclusion. ...

He is not in the business of giving them arguments that will prove he has some derivative right to their attention; he is only inviting them to believe. ...But we ourselves have almost entirely lost this way of knowing, ever since the food fights of the Reformation and the rationalism of the Enlightenment, leading to fundamentalism on the Right and atheism or agnosticism on the Left. Neither of these know how to know! ...In other words, God (and uniquely the Trinity) cannot be known as we know any other object—such as a machine, an objective idea, or a tree—which we are able to “objectify.” We look at objects, and we judge them from a distance through our normal intelligence, parsing out their varying parts, separating this from that, presuming that to understand the parts is always to be able to understand the whole. ... When neither yourself nor the other is treated as a mere object, but both rest in an I-Thou of mutual admiration, you have spiritual knowing. Some of us call this contemplative knowing. -- Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance ...
Today, it is generally agreed that there can be no logical proof either way for the existence of God, and that this is purely a matter of faith. -- Marcus Weeks, Philosophy in Minutes ...
But the way to know God, Father Maximos would say repeatedly, is neither through philosophy nor through experimental science but through systematic methods of spiritual practice that could open us up to the Grace of the Holy Spirit. ...While they may be entirely within their rights to suppose that the arguments that they defend are sound, I do not think that they have any reason to suppose that their arguments are rationally compelling... -- Graham Oppy, Arguing About Gods

Solid State Jabberwocky

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2022-06-27T11:31:37-04:00
This take on Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky is from the April, 1972 edition of Datamation magazine.
'Twas Burroughs, and the ILLIACS   Did JOSS and SYSGEN in the stack; ...  and the Eckert-Mauchly ENIAC. ...And as in on-line thought he stood, ...  And COBOL'ed as it came! ...  Come to my arms, my real-time boy! ...  Did JOSS and SYSGEN in the stack; ...  and the Eckert-Mauchly ENIAC. ...The only reference to this on the web that I can find is at archive.org.

Fortune favors...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2022-05-18T08:47:34-04:00
We had planned to leave Friday morning to drive to Texas to see the grandkids. On Thursday night our daugther-in-law informs us that she has tested positive for COVID. We quickly shift gears to spend a few days at Myrtle Beach. ... Had we left Friday as planned I would have been without my blood pressure medicine. Walking on the beach this morning, having turned around at the half-way point of 4,600 steps, I noticed a piece of trash on the shore. As I bent down to pick it up, I noticed that it looked like a room keycard. ... It must have fallen out of my pocket one of the times when I checked my phone. Last night we ate at Pizza Chef Gourmet Pizza which is near the Seawatch Resort where we are staying. It's a little hole-in-the-wall place that we ate at the last time we were here (pre-COVID). The pizza crust is one of the best I've ever had.

Evidence for Christianity

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2022-05-02T20:17:39-04:00
At some point, it pays to stop beating your head against a wall and see if a fresh approach doesn't yield a new way to look at the problem. ...And we know from computability theory, that how the device is implemented isn't what's important - it's the behavior. ...It is only because we share common brain structures that we can try to predict which activity has what meaning in others. The swirl of atoms in our brains, the repeated combination and selection of meaningless symbols, is a microcosm of the swirling of atoms in the universe. If our brains are localized intelligence, the case can be made that swirl of atoms in the universe is a global intelligence. ...First, because there is a lot of randomness in the behavior of the universe and it is a common idea that randomness is ateleological. ...There is no consensus whether infinity is "real" or "actual" and, since we can't measure it, I don't think consensus will ever be achieved. ...Into this mix comes Christianity which states that there is an extra-human intelligence "inside" the existence and motion of the universe, who has a sense of right and wrong that is different from ours, where what has been made is a strong indication of that sentience, and who calls people to itself. Because sentience is a subjective measurement, it must be made on faith - which is one of the bedrock tenets of Christianity. ...But the immateriality and incommensurability of infinity; the subjectivity of sentience and morality; and the ability to build thinking things out of dirt are all a part of both Christianity and natural theology.

Quus, Redux

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2022-03-19T11:37:39-04:00
A larger finite state machine can query the calculator for all one million possible inputs then collect and analyze the results. Given the definition of quss, the analyzer can then feed all one million possible inputs to quss, and show that the output of quss matches the output of the calculator. ...But this attempt fails, because if the calculator cannot handle bigN, then the conditionals (< a bigN) and (< b bigN) cannot be expressed, so the calculator can't implement quss on bigN. ...The supposed dichotomy between brains and calculators is that brains can know they are adding or quadding with numbers that are too big for the brain to handle. ...The sleight of hand is that our brains can work with the descriptions of the behavior, while most calculators are built with only the behavior. ... Programs such as Maxima, Mathematica, and Maple can know that they are adding or quadding because they can work from the symbolic description of the behavior. ... But because we can manipulate short descriptions of big things, we can answer what quss would do if bigN were 10^80. 10^80 is less than 10^120, so quss would return 5. ...In this post, we look at the behavior of the device across all of its inputs to determine what it does. But we only do that because we don't embed a rich description of each behavior in most devices. ... Then, just as with people, we'd have to correlate their behavior with their description of their behavior to see if they are acting as advertised.

Truth, Redux

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2022-03-15T14:36:40-04:00
In response to the claim on Twitter that "truth is metaphysical", I claimed the opposite, that "truth is actually physical (it's the behavior of recognition)". Being unhappy with my previous demonstration of this (it's clumsy, IMO), I want to see if there is a simpler demonstration. ...At it simplest, logic is the selection of one object from a set of two (see "The road to logic", or "Boolean Logic"). ... If the two input objects are the same, the output is the first symbol in the 0th row ("lefty"). ...If this were a class in logic, the meaningless symbols "lefty" and "righty" would be replaced by "true" and "false". ...We have to show how to go from the meaningless symbols "lefty" and "righty" to the meaningful symbols "T" and "F". ... The lambda calculus describes a universal computing device using an alphabet of meaningless symbols and a set of symbols that describe behaviors. ...We look at these symbols, we recognize that they are distinct, and we see how to combine them in ways that make sense to our intuitions. ...For this particular logic operation, the behavior is "if the other symbol is me, output T, otherwise output F". ...In addition, the lambda calculus defines true and false as behaviors.1 It just does it at a higher level of abstraction which obscures the lower level.

On Rasmussen's "Against non-reductive physicalism"

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2022-03-09T16:15:29-05:00
After presenting his thesis in the first section, that mental properties are not physical properties, nor are they grounded in physical properties, he carefully defines what he means by physical properties. ... This will turn out to be important, since mental property could mean something not physical that we think about, or it could mean how we think about something. I will use mental property for something non-physical that we think about and mental state to refer to the act of thinking, whether thinking about physical or mental properties. ...The first thing to note is that if the number of things argues against the physicality of mental states, then mental properties aren't needed, because there are more atoms in the universe than there are in the brain. ...Rasmussen presents a "construction principle" which states "for any properties, the xs, there is a mental property of thinking that the xs are physical." ... By saying it's a mental property then the assertion is mental states are non-physical and the rest of the proof isn't necessary. ...Rasmussen then gives what he calls "a principle of uniformity" which says, "The divide between any two mental properties is narrower than the divide between physicality and non-physicality." ... He asserts, "if (say) being a stack of n Lego blocks is a physical property, then clearly so is being a stack of n+1 Lego blocks, for any n." ...In the case of "infinite" things, we think of them in terms of a short fixed description of behavior, so we don't need a lot of storage for infinite things. ...Rasmussen's proof fails because the claim that there needs to be a unique physical property for each mental state doesn't stand.

Boy & Dog

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2022-01-16T11:30:00-05:00
(null)

2021 Reading List

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2021-12-31T23:11:32-05:00
1The Warlock In Spite Of HimselfChristopher Stasheff 2Zen and the Art of Motorcycle MaintenanceRobert M. Pirsig ... 9Science and the GoodJames Hunter and Paul Nedelisky ... 18Stories of Your Life and OthersTed Chiang 19Seven and a Half Lessons About the BrainLisa Feldman Barrett 20The Reefs of EarthR. ... 31Foundation and EmpireIsaac Asimov ... 34Foundation's EdgeIsaac Asimov 35Foundation and EarthIsaac Asimov ... 38Gödel's ProofErnest Nagel & James R.

The End of Philosophy

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2021-11-19T18:25:01-05:00
Bertrand Russell was working on his "Principia Mathematica" in an attempt to prove that mathematics was both consistent and complete. ...While Russell was working on his Principa, Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems came along and proved that a self-describing system (i.e. a system that is sufficiently complex to express the basic arithmetic of the natural numbers) cannot simultaneously be consistent and complete. ...While his Principa is a tremendous intellectual achievement, it did not - and could not - achieve the goals Russell had for his work. If nature is self-describing (as I think the posts on Natural Theology will show, once they're organized and edited for clarity), then philosophy suffers the same problem as mathematics. ...If that's so then, observationally, there are questions for which we cannot know the answers. ... Is endlessness emergent from a finite universe, or is the universe infinite and what we perceive as reality a quantization of this continuity? It's interesting that the theory of relativity is based on an infinitely continuous picture of nature. ... String theory tries to split the difference by postulating tiny vibrating strings, but if nature has continuous/discontinuous duality like matter has wave/particle duality, then string theory may, like Russell's Principa, fall short of its intended goal. ...Given that these questions cannot be answered, I propose "Newton's" Third Law of Metaphysics: there are some fundamental questions for which for every answer there is an equal and opposite answer. ...I said as much in the post "Epistemology and Hitchens" but that was before I think that the idea that nature is self-describing could be demonstrated from the ground up.

On Self

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2021-11-17T10:42:10-05:00
While I agree with this sentiment (after all, Psalm 57:1 says that God has wings), Dr. Tuggy has also used this idea to defend Unitarianism. ...While this post is not meant to focus on the debate between Trinitarians and Unitarians, I do want to use Dr. Tuggy's tweet as a springboard to consider if his "self-evident" truths are universally self-evident. ...Place your hand on a table and run your finger from your hand to the table and notice the boundary your senses tell you is there. ... Lift your hand from the table and notice that your hand moves but the table does not. ...But our senses also tell us that the table on which our hand rests is solid. ... What we perceive as solidness is the repulsion of the electric field from the electrons in the table against the like-charged electrons in our hand. ...
... a few energetic muons are crossing your brain every second, possibly activating some of your neurons by the released energy. ...It ripples and shimmers, and each of us lives as a collection of whirlpools, skimming the surface, seeming concrete and real and vital…until the ripples dissolve, and a new pattern comes. ...From a physical view, what we are, are ripples in the quantum pond, with our "selves" limited to local interaction by an inverse square law. ...I suspect there is no "inverse square law" with spirit so what separates us from one another is a... mystery.1

Ought From Is

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2021-11-05T21:26:00-04:00

To get "ought" from "is", take an "is" and move it into the future as a goal.

The Universe Inside

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2021-09-21T16:52:12-04:00
This post is a continuation of the previous post and, in some sense, is both the terminus and the beginning of all of the posts on Natural Theology. ...As shown in the previous post, e+ (the positron and its behavior) and e- (the electron and its behavior) are the behaviors assigned to the labels "true" and "false". ... In any case, this physical operation answers the question "are we the same?", "Is this me?", because these fundamental particles are self-identifying. From this we see that logical behavior - the selection of one item from a set of two - is fully determined behavior. In contrast to logic, nature features fully undetermined behavior where a selection is made from a group at random. The double-slit experiment shows the random behavior of light as it travels through a barrier with two slits and lands somewhere on a detector. In between these two options, there is partially determined, or goal directed behavior where selections are made from a set of choices that lead to a desired state. ...In this post, from 2012, I made a claim about a relationship between software and hardware. In the post, "On the Undecidability of Materialism vs. Idealism", I presented an argument using the Lambda Calculus to show how software and hardware are so entwined that you can't physically take them apart. ...But when we add peripherals to the system and inject random behavior (either in the program itself, or from external sources), we get non-logical behavior in addition to logic.

Electric Charge, Truth, and Self-Awareness

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2021-09-19T15:00:06-04:00
To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of ...The one quote that I want, but can no longer find, is to the effect that philosophers don't really know what truth is. ..."True ... is true" doesn't tell us what truth is, so it's useless for building something. ...But this still doesn't tell you what truth is other than it is a special symbol that can be used for making selections. ...Considering the Lambda Calculus is important, because it describes all computation in terms of behaviors (denoted by the special symbols λ, ., (, ), and blank) and meaningless symbols. ...What this means is that "true" is a function of two objects, x and y and it returns the first object x. ...It is a behavior that is assumed by the Lambda calculus, one that doesn't have a special symbol like λ, ., (, ), and space to denote the behavior of distinguishing between symbols. ...So we need a behavior that can say "this is me" and "that is not me." ...And so, we find that truth is the ability to recognize self and select similar self-recognizing things. ...And so, we find that electric charge gives us the laws of thought and truth, all in one force.

On Limited Atonement

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2021-09-01T15:10:33-04:00
Although Reformed people have sometimes made belief in particular redemption a test of doctrinal orthodoxy, it would be healthy to realize that Scripture itself never singles this out as a doctrine of major importance, nor does it once make it the subject of any explicit theological discussion. ...
If this does not affirm the doctrine of particular redemption, or of a limited atonement, we know not what language could express that doctrine more explicitly.
...
... since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. ...In VI.3.b, Berkhof claims that “Scripture repeatedly qualifies those for whom Christ laid down His life in such a way as to point to a very definite limitation” and points to John 10:11 & 15 as the primary proof texts. ...
For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all of the elect, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. ...
On the other hand, the sentence, “Christ died for all people,” is true if it means, “Christ died to make salvation available to all people” or if it means, “Christ died to bring the free offer of the gospel to all people.” ... It really seems to be only nit-picking that creates controversies and useless disputes when Reformed people insist on being such purists in their speech that they object any time someone says that “Christ died for all people.” ...
For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. ...If the atonement was only for the elect, it should have been "all," not "those who live" and "will live" not "might live".

On Formal Proofs For/Against God

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2021-02-27T06:24:17-05:00
[1] I was playing devil's advocate by taking the position that the answer to Feser's question is a resounding "no" by providing counter-arguments to their arguments. ...When you read these proofs of God's existence (or non-existence), at some point you come to a step in the proof where it looks like the next logical step was taken by coin-flip, instead of logical necessity. ...If the premises are independent of each other (and they should be, otherwise one of them isn't a premise), and each premise has a 50-50 chance of being correct, then the proof has a one in thirty-two chance of being correct. ...While it's against the rules to construct something in Euclidean geometry with anything other than a straightedge and a compass, it isn't against the rules to check the result with measuring devices. And for non-Euclidean geometry, which is used in Relativity, we can measure it against the curvature of light around stars and the gravitational waves produced by merging black holes. ...If that's the case, then it doesn't make sense to argue for/against the existence of God by any means other than "assume God does/does not exist". That gives a one in two chance of being right, as opposed to one in four, one in eight, ... one in 2^(number of premises). If the premise "God does/does not exist" leads to a contradiction then, assuming the principle of (non)contradiction, the premise is falsified. ...It seems to me that if the search for God by formal argument is futile, then the choice of axiom - God does/does not exist - is a logically free choice. And if it's a choice that you are not logically compelled to make, then it comes down to desire.

Electric Charge and the Laws of Thought

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2021-02-18T06:24:45-05:00
In one of the interminable discussions on whether or not we can prove the existence of God through reason (we can't), I made the claim that the behavior of electric charge is identical to the laws of thought. This table summarizes the relationship:

Thought Charge

1 Identity Like charges repel, opposite charges attract

2 Non-contradiction Positive charge is not negative charge

3 Excluded Middle Charge is either positive or negative

On Romans 7:7 and 2:14-15

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2021-01-18T15:51:43-05:00

When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them... ...In this verse in the original Greek, notice how Paul switches between "a law" and "the law," i.e. the Mosaic Law.1 But in chapter 7, Paul says that he would not have known what sin was if the Mosaic Law hadn't told him: ...I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” ...During a discussion last week, someone made a statement similar to Paul's: "I wouldn't know adultery was wrong unless the Mosaic Law told me." ... "Then you don't know what love is," I replied, "because love does no harm to a neighbor, and your spouse is your closest neighbor." I think the resolution to the dilemma between verses 2:14-15 and 7:7 is that Paul is letting on that he was a hard, loveless man prior to the Damascus Road. And because he had no love, he needed the Law to show him how to live in his society. That makes the love passage in 1 Cor. 13 even more impressive, as it would then have come solely from his Damascus change, where he came under the New Covenant and God replaced his "heart of stone" with a "heart of flesh".

2020 Reading List

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2021-01-01T06:44:01-05:00
1The Parables of GraceRobert Farrar Capon ... 5The Twelfth VictimLinda M. Battisti & John Stevens Berry, Sr. ... 9The Teaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church Geerhardus Vos 10The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin 11The God Delusion Debate (Transcript) Richard Dawkins & John Lennox 12The Computer and the BrainJohn Von Neumann ... 15Warren-Flew Debate On The Existence of GodThomas B. Warren & Antony G. Flew ... 20Jesus and the Forces of DeathMatthew Thiessen ... 23The Emperor's New MindRoger Penrose 24Worlds of Exile and IllusionUrsula K. Le Guin

The Parables of Exclusion

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-11-14T11:27:58-05:00
There are a number of stories of exclusion that Jesus told. The "Wise and Foolish Virgins" (Matthew 25:1-13), "I never knew you" (Matthew 7:21-23), "The Rich Man" (Mark 10:17-22). We normally take these stories to mean that there comes a time when the door will be shut, the party will begin, those who are inside will rejoice. And while that is true, I'm no longer sure that that's what Jesus is really saying. I don't remember all of the details, but in Men's Bible Study a few weeks ago the question was asked, "what would you do if Jesus said to you, 'I never knew you?'" ...I would say to Him, 'In November, 1978, at two in the morning, you called me and I have followed ever since. ... Now, it's your party, but if you want me to leave you're going to have to summon your bouncers." In the same way, the "foolish" virgins should either have followed those who had lamps, or returned to the party once they had gotten more oil and pounded on the door until someone opened, even if it was the next day. It isn't as if that party will end. I think we need to read these stories in light of the Canaanite woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter (Mt 15:21-28).

Link censored by Twitter

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-10-14T16:13:35-04:00
This is the link that Twitter won't let be published: Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad
Updated 10/13/2020 @ 9:35pm to include this link which claims to show inconsistencies with the story by the NY Post. I present both links without comment.

Electric Mudball

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-10-07T21:17:58-04:00
Google returns no hits for "electric mudball." I hereby designate it as a description of a brain.

Dialog with Jeff Williams: Intermission

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-09-30T15:57:43-04:00
This is a continuation with the dialog between Jeff Williams and I. ...
I would ask you to demonstrate why reason is an atomic arrangement, and why it being a part of nature would imply truth; and along with that how you would explain erroneous ideas and the limits of the invariability principles. ...Having written the first three (of five) parts, I think I've answered everything except "the limits of the invariability principles." To do that, I have to finish the posts on "meaning" and "math," then ruminate on the nature of infinity and its relationship to nature (a small part of the latter is here, but I also have some unpublished material on that, too). Since I think I've answered all but the last (and I have every reason to believe that I can answer the last, but with a lot more exposition), I'm going to take a break to take time to mentally recharge before working on the next two parts. Jeff can now attempt to rebut. ... 3 Part I to my reply 4 Part IIa to my reply 5 Part IIb to my reply 6 Part III to my reply

Dialog with Jeff Williams: Part III

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-09-30T15:57:39-04:00
We showed that if "truth" is the behavior that selects one input and "false" is the behavior that selects the other input (labelled λT and λF) then these behaviors can be combined in four ways resulting in sixteen possible outputs. ...The rational for this is typically presented as "it's obvious," but you now know the physical basis for this result. λ8 is the logical OR operation. λ2 is the logical IMPLICATION operation. ...Because we don't have symbols, we don't have values, and because we don't have values, we don't have substitution (i.e. "now set A to λT and B to λF and evaluate the expression"). ...So we can add a device that does this, or we can just use the existing combinator 1 -- the NAND gate -- since NAND'ing the input with itself flips the input. ...I recommend as an exercise that you create the physical networks for λ8 and λ14 and, with the already diagrammed λ1 and λ6, draw the network for DeMorgan's first rule using only λ1. ...If "man" has two values, λT and λF; and "mortal" has two values, and "Socrates" has two values, then there are 8 possible input combinations. ...DeMorgan's Rules and Aristotle's syllogism are objectively true for two reasons: regardless of the combinations of λT and λF of the input, λT is always output. ...Because it is the same logical form, it is also always logically true, but I still remember my father's face over 50 years ago when I replaced the sugar in the sugar bowl with salt and he put it in his coffee. ...The first is that the output of atoms through gates, in a network constructed a certain way, always outputs "true" (which is, remember, the behavior to select a certain path). ... We haven't yet developed the mechanisms for analyzing this in detail, but what can be said is that this relies on the ability to mis-identify objects.

Dialog with Jeff Williams: Part IIb

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-09-27T13:44:51-04:00
These sixteen possible selection rules are the basics of elementary logic, but I can't claim to have shown that, yet, because logic requires the notion of truth. ...A fork in the road has one input and two outputs, but the combination devices in the last post have two inputs and one output: ...We will make the arbitrary choice that "truth" will be a combinator that chooses the first input, while "not truth" will be a combinator that chooses the second input. ... That's one of the problems with showing one way how to do something, especially when there are so very many ways to do it. ...We can handle the more general case of combining and selecting glyphs and networks of glyphs, but that adds a layer of complexity of arrangement that we must save for later. We introduce the notation that λT is the combinator that selects the first of two inputs and λF is the combinator that selects the second of two inputs. Because as there are 4 ways to pair two inputs of two different objects and 16 possible outputs, we make the same table as with distinguishable symbols: This table is no different from the table with "righty" and "lefty" in the previous section, except that two distinguishable symbols are replaced with two networks of combinators of "righty" and "lefty". Just we showed how a network of combinators could reproduce the table in the previous post, we have to show how a network of combinators can reproduce this table. ...We now have the atomic/mechanical basis for logic and reason, which will be the subject of the next post.

Dialog with Jeff Williams: Part IIa

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-09-20T14:08:23-04:00
We will call these two glyphs "lefty" and "righty" when referring to them in text, since they aren't characters in a font. (I didn't want to use characters from an alphabet, because we associate meaning with characters, and I want to be exquisitely careful to not let meaning creep in from the outside. That I have to refer to these glyphs as "lefty" and "righty" is troublesome enough, but I have to be able to identify them in text.) ...The device will be constructed so that two of these glyphs will go into the openings on the left (the "input" ports) and one glyph will come out on the right (the "output" port). ...You can cut your work in half by noticing that the output in column 0 is the rotated version of the output in column 15, column 1 to column 14, column 2 to column 13, and so on. ...Because device 1 can produce all of the other possible output combinations, it is called a "universal" combinatorial gate of two objects. ...By design, S and R are initially "lefty," which means M and m are undefined (we won't assume we know what was coming out of the combinatorial devices when input starts flowing. ...The "lefty" at m is combined with the input S (which is "lefty") and so M becomes "righty". R has now gone back to being "lefty" and, combined with the "righty" at M results in m being "lefty". ...All of these are important considerations, but these must not become a distraction to the essence of these networks, which is simply the repeated mechanical selection of distinct objects in a network.

Dialog with Jeff Williams: Part I

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-09-19T11:28:43-04:00
I agree with Jeff that we make distinctions between the sense data of our experiences, the description of what we think our sense data is telling us about an external world (assuming an external world exists!), and the description of how we think that sense data compares to an ideal (the esthetic experience). ...This means that there are ripples that give rise to logic, truth, and meaning for these are the basis of our ability to describe events (Jeff's "rational objectification") and our ability to describe a "distance" between two events (which is the "is/ought" distinction). The only difference between the "rational objectification of events" and the "esthetic experience of Being" is that the latter involves a distance metric between two events or between an event and an "idealized" event. ...If everything is ripples on the pond, then the events and our descriptions of the events, all exist in the same pond. ...I note that Jeff needs to define what "truth" and "correctness" are in his worldview, just as I will have to do in mine. ...I don't want to immediately derail this particular part of the discussion, but we may eventually have to go there (cf. my posts on the Trinity, which are more about the ways this doctrine shows how individuals think about things than it is about the doctrine itself.). ...If Jeff wants to get rid of metaphysics, then the only way he's going to be able to do it is by a subjective mental coin flip. ...If reason is just the swirling of atoms in certain ways in your brain, then you have to be able to experience it, even if the connection may not be obvious. ...
Computer theory has been developed to a point where it realizes that it doesn't make any difference; when you get to a universal computer, it doesn't matter how it's manufactured, how it's actually made.2 ...
It would also leave unexplained the limitations of Wigner’s invariability principles, which seem to demonstrate the inability of reason to grasp anything larger than a very limited set of events within limited space and time.

Dialog with Jeff Williams: Intro

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-09-19T07:36:35-04:00
I cobbled some code together to pull the entire conversation from this starting tweet, formatted it a bit, and saved it in a text file here.3 It helps immensely to be able to search the complete discussion for what has been said, to look for conversational loops, dead ends, and unanswered questions. ...At this point in Twitter, Jeff has asked me to defend one of my claims and has switched to his blog to continue this phase of the dialog. ... If Twitter isn't a very good medium for these kinds of things, neither are a blog's commenting facilities, particularly since I'm going to want to use diagrams to illustrate some points. ...I won't speak for Jeff but, while I thoroughly disagree with some of his fundamental statements and think that his worldview is ultimately incoherent, we do agree in some surprising ways. ... While I don't agree with everything in his rebuttal, I do agree that Craig (as well as most contemporary apologists) are an embarrassment. ...We see things that are very far from what we could have imagined and so our imagination is stretched to the utmost … just to comprehend the things that are there. ... Which really is a reflection of an uncontrolled but I say utterly vain desire to see it in terms of some analogy with something familiar… I think I can safely say that nobody understands Quantum Mechanics… Nobody knows how it can be like that. ...I regret that few mathematicians and scientists have reciprocated with an understanding of philosophy, which always precedes other fields by clearing and setting the grounds for thinking in any age.2 ...Philosophers need to incorporate what we know of the physical world into their philosophies (assuming they want them to be correct descriptions of reality, for some definition of "correct"), and scientists need to do the same. ...I found Jeff's post "Response to Eckels on Heidegger and Being" a welcome companion to illuminate some of the things he said on Twitter.

The Prodigal God

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-09-05T13:43:07-04:00
My pastor recommend Keller's "The Prodigal God", which is a study of the parable in Luke 26:11-32, commonly known as the parable of the prodigal son. ...But, given my high expectations, and the five star rating currently on Amazon, the book was almost completely ruined by this one passage:
...the prerequisite for receiving the grace of God is to know you need it. ...There is no prerequisite for receiving God's grace, because it is God's grace that opens your eyes to your need in the first place. ... They hold to the tenets of Calvinism that says that God's grace is irresistible and that there is nothing man can do to merit grace, then say things like this. ...
... sin is not just breaking the rules, it is putting yourself in the place of God as Savior, Lord, and Judge... ...This fails to make this case, since the very first rule (at least as given to Moses) is "You shall have no other gods before me," and the behavior described by Keller breaks this rule. Finally, Keller agrees with those who hear Jesus' cry from the cross, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?", and conclude that in that moment of pain and darkness that His Father turned His back on His Son and abandoned Him: ...I am forever grateful to my mentor, Mike Baer, who once related the wise words of a nun who said, "I'm willing to be the second person God ever forsook." ... By saying the first line of Psalm 22, Jesus was pointing to the end of the Psalm, which tells of rescue and victory.

Tom

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-08-20T18:50:00-04:00
[updated 5/28/2024 to add picture; 7/6/2024 to add links] This afternoon my sister informed me that our brother Tom (second of four, two years younger than me) passed away. There are very few additional details at this time. This picture of Tom with Mom was taken on 12/28/2000. Mom passed on April 16, 2019. Tom and Scientology: here.

On the Undecidability of Materialism vs. Idealism

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-08-01T17:29:24-04:00
What is an "I" and why are such things found (at least so far) only in association with, as poet Russell Edison once wonderfully phrased it, "teetering bulbs of dread and dream" .... The self, such as it is, arises solely because of a special type of swirly, tangled pattern among the meaningless symbols. ... there are still quite a few philosophers, scientists, and so forth who believe that patterns of symbols per se ... never have meaning on their own, but that meaning instead, in some most mysterious manner, springs only from the organic chemistry, or perhaps the quantum mechanics, of processes that take place in carbon-based biological brains. ... ...
In 1936, three distinct formal approaches to computability were proposed: Turing’s Turing machines, Kleene’s recursive function theory (based on Hilbert’s work from 1925) and Church’s λ calculus. ...This implies that a result from one system will have equivalent results in equivalent systems and that any system may be used to model any other system. ...It should be without controversy that if a computer can do something then a human can also do the same thing, at least in theory. ... It is with controversy that a human can do things that a computer, in theory, cannot do.4 In any case, we don't need to establish this latter equivalence to see something important. ...It isn't necessary at this level of detail to fully specify what those behaviors are, but they represent the "swirly, tangled" patterns posited by Hofstadter. ...Given this definition of lambda expressions, and the cursory explanation of the lambda expression evaluator (again, see [3] for details), the first key insight is that the lambda expression evaluator can be written as lambda expressions. ...We can (and do) argue about how the wiring in the human brain came to be the way that it is, but that doesn't obscure the fact that the program is the wiring, the wiring is the program. ...It might be that dualism is true, but I think that by considering infinity that dualism can be ruled out as an option, as I hope to show in a future post.

Aunt Katherine

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-07-25T12:39:08-04:00
My Aunt Katherine (my mother's sister) passed away on my mom's birthday. My mother would have been 91, she was senior to Katherine by 3 years. I made the six and half hour drive to Memphis on Thursday for the privilege of speaking at her funeral on Friday. Katherine was my "Mary Magdalene" - she was the first in my memory to tell me that the tomb was empty and that she had seen the risen Jesus. It took years and years for the seed that she planted to finally grow.

Epistemology & Hitchens

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-07-19T09:29:26-04:00
A little over two months ago I wrote "The Zeroth Commandment" about how I think attempts by Christian apologists to "prove" the existence of God are, not only ultimately futile, but are also fundamentally misguided. ...Reformed theology regards the existence of God as an entirely reasonable assumption, it does not claim the ability to demonstrate this by rational argumentation. Dr. Kuyper speaks as follows of the attempt to do this: “The attempt to prove God’s existence is either useless or unsuccessful." ...
What can be asserted without proof can be accepted or dismissed without proof.
...It may be that an axiom results in a system that conflicts with empirical measurement. ... In that case, it can continue to be provisionally accepted for as long as no other disconfirming empirical measurement is found. Note that empirical agreement with one axiom does not rule out other axioms that have the same empirical agreement. ...But it may also be the case, thanks to Gödel and the universe, that we can never fully explore the consequences of the axiom either logically or empirically. ...In thousands of years there has been no successful logical proof of God's existence, nor has there been a successful logical proof of God's non-existence. ...But this means I also have to finish my examination of the Warren-Flew debate to show why Flew ultimately failed.

Warren-Flew Debate, Part 2

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-06-04T17:55:32-04:00

That is to say we have to start from and with our common sense and our scientific knowledge of the universe around us. ...Which really is a reflection of an uncontrolled but I say utterly vain desire to see it in terms of some analogy with something familiar… I think I can safely say that nobody understands Quantum Mechanics… Nobody knows how it can be like that. ...This means that God is beyond reason and logic, because He is not made of distinguishable parts, yet we talk about Him as if He is. At the heart of the Christian concept of God is what is to us a paradox: what God says is the same as what God is (because both are immaterial and unchanging), yet what God says is somehow different from what God is. ...
My first and very radical point is that we cannot take it as guaranteed that there always is an explanation, much less that there always is an explanation of any particular desired kind. ...We know that empirical knowledge is incomplete (we'll never experience the interior of a black hole, at least not in any way we can talk about it) and, ever since Gödel, we know that knowledge based on self-referential logic is incomplete. ...
For in the nature of the case there must be in every system of thought, theist as well as atheist, both things explained and ultimate principles which explain but are not themselves explained. ...
How often and when, when you make a claim to know something or other, do you undertake or expect to be construed as undertaking to provide a supporting demonstration of the kind which Dr. Warren so vigorously and so often challenges me to provide? ... And, although it may sometimes include some deductive syllogistic moves, the only case I can think of offhand in which a syllogism is the be-all and end-all of the whole business is that of a proposition in pure mathematics. ...
The other way, which is the interesting one which I want to consider, is to urge that whereas we who have not enjoyed the revelatory experiences vouchsafed to the believer cannot reasonably be required to accept his claims, this believer himself is in a sure position to know.

Warren-Flew Debate, Part 1

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-05-24T20:35:12-04:00
In my post "On the Knowledge of God", I wrote: "I have come to the conclusion that neither side [theist and atheist] has any arguments that aren't in some way fundamentally flawed. ...I have to admit that my sympathies -- but not my worldview -- are with Flew in the debate. ...He may answer, "because the Bible says so," but that is an appeal to authority which, in any other undertaking, would require additional support. ...And some of the things we claim to know by reason are built upon statements that are taken to be true for no other reason than they are assumed to be true. ...Too, each system may give different answers to the same questions5, and a question that has an answer in one system might not have an answer in another. It's important to watch for mental sleight of hand when someone argues the superiority of one system over another because their system has an answer to something the other does not. ...Warren will use this technique ("my worldview has an explanation, but Flew's does not") as if this settles the matter. ... That is, the idea God has nothing better to do than to be an explanation for things where our knowledge is incomplete. ...
The truth of the matter is, the theist, who believes in Almighty God, has absolutely no trouble with the question of which was first--a woman or a baby.
...Warren ought to admit that our humanity is rooted in our being in the image of God -- but this has to be something non-physical.

The Zeroth Commandment

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-05-14T16:39:06-04:00
I sometimes despair over the existence of Christian apologists who try to prove the existence of God. Some, like William Craig Lane, who are well known, are like multi-megaton MIRV ICBMs -- all aimed directly at their feet. Very powerful but ultimately useless. It's as if they are unaware of the Zeroth Commandment:
I am the LORD your God. You shall have no other reasons before Me.

Spock-Stoddard Test

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-05-13T10:25:34-04:00
I would like to propose the "Spock-Stoddard" test for arguments presented by apologists of every kind:
It is not logical, but it is often true.                         -- Spock, "Amok Time" ...
It’s logical, but I wonder if it’s correct?                         -- Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, "Dark Shadows", #132 ...
...I came across this on Twitter, which came from here:
Something can sound very logical and still be false. Or something may sound unbelievable and be true.                         -- Octavius, 200 A.D.

Notes on Feser's "From Aristotle..."

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-05-04T18:44:51-04:00
Because our brains are built mostly the same way, and because we perceive nature in mostly the same way, we share a common set of "this with that" mappings, upon which we then build additional shared meaning. ...
It's status as a "computer" would be observer-relative simply because a computer is not a "natural kind," but rather a sort of artifact. ... • First, as Feynman wrote, "Computer theory has been developed to a point where it realizes that it doesn't make any difference; when you get to a universal computer, it doesn't matter how it's manufactured, how it's actually made." ...And that's why the objection, "Hence, just as no physicist, biologist, or neuroscientist would dream of making use of the concept of a chair in explaining the natural phenomena in which they deal, neither should they make use of the notion of computation." is wrong. ...
For, whatever we say about what we mean when we use terms like "plus," "addition," and so on, there are no physical features of a computer that can determine whether it is carrying out addition or quaddition, no matter how far we extend its outputs. ...
[Searle] is not saying, whether there are [rigourously specifiable empirical criteria for whether something ... is a computer] or not, that something fitting those criteria counts as a computer is ultimately a matter of convention, rather than observer independent facts. ...
If evolution produced something that was chair-like, it would not follow that it had produced a chair, and if evolution produced something symbol like, it would not follow that it had produced symbols. ...A λ calculus evaluator can be written in the λ calculus (see Woodrush and Paul Graham's The Roots of Lisp) which is then arranged as a sequence of NAND gates (or whatever logic gates you care to use. ...If you follow a symbol through a computational network, you can't easily tell at some point in the network, whether the object is being used as a symbol or if it's being used as a value. ...
Moreover, as John Mayfield notes, "an important requirement for an algorithm is that it must have an outcome," and "instructions" of the sort represented by an algorithm are "goal-oriented."

The Missing Word

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-04-01T14:03:35-04:00
I recently installed Word Cross on my iPhone and have found it to be somewhat addicting. This puzzle, however, was disappointing, as the first word I saw wasn't one of the words. The missing word is six letters, but the longest word in the puzzle has five letters.

Ravi Zacharias on Objective Morality

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-03-07T16:12:34-05:00
In this short video (5 minutes), Ravi Zacharias is asked the question, "why are you so afraid of subjective moral reasoning?" ...This is an flawed answer, simply because people don't always do what they know they should do. That is, if morals are objective, people won't always act morally1, and if morals are subjective, then people won't always act morally2. ...
If morality is purely subjective then you have absolutely nothing from stopping anybody from being a subjective moralist to choose to just zing one through your forehead and say 'that's my answer.'" ... If you're willing to say to me that moral reasoning can be purely subjective, I just say to you, "look out, you ain't seen nothing yet."
...The statement "it is true (or false) that morals are subjective" is not proved by "subjective morality isn't desirable." ...When Paul wrote this, the citizens didn't get to choose the kind of government they had or what the government thought was good and evil. ...Most of them don't know, and therefore don't use, the optimal strategy when they first play the game. But after the instructor analyzes the problem and shows them the objective answer -- the right thing to do -- some of them still don't make that choice! ...When I replied that the fallout would take out tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of his countrymen he responded, "So what?

Presbyterianism's Visible Church

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-02-10T12:15:01-05:00
The teacher, who is fond of the Westminster Confession, tied Christ's teaching on the wheat and fake wheat with the Confession's notion of the "visible church", but he didn't go into any detail other than mentioning the division of the church into "invisible" and "visible". ...
The catholic or universal church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. -- WCF 25.1 ...
The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law)1, consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion and of their children and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ the house and family of God out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. -- WCF 25.2 ...This clearly puts non-elect into the body of Christ, the Church, because not all who profess believe and not all children of believers are elect. ...I suspect it's because they view the church as a place where a particular program is carried out instead of a world-wide community on a mission. For example, according to Calvin, a "true" church is one where the word is preached, the sacraments are properly administered (for some definition of "sacraments" and "properly"), and discipline is administered2. ...
Since the days in which this was written in the seventeenth century, we have seen an explosion of parachurch ministries, such as the Billy Graham Association, Youth for Christ, Young Life, Campus Crusade, and teaching ministries like Ligonier Ministries. ...This is completely incoherent since, on the one hand, Sproul says people can become Christians outside the ministry of the visible church, yet the Confession states that outside the visible church "there is no ordinary possibility of salvation." ...The local church is a subset of the visible church which has a location where believers interact with each other and the world and provide various ministries. These local "franchises of the King" can then argue about which franchise has the purer "product", the most capable "employees", the most effective organization, the leading "customer satisfaction" indicators, the highest "health scores", and so on.

Presbyterianism and the Pope

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-02-06T22:44:48-05:00

There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ. ...However, given that Presbyterian ideas of what constitutes the invisible and visible churches is incoherent, if the Pope makes the claim that he is the head of the visible church, then all Presbyterians can do is say, "you're not the boss of me!" ...
There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ.[ 13] Nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalts himself, in the Church, against Christ and all that is called God.[ ...
The Pope, Bishop of Rome and Peter’s successor, “is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful.” “For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.” ...One might complain about the use of unhindered power, but as the Catechism subsequently states, this refers to the relationship between the Pontiff and the College of Bishops; not between Christ and the Church. Too, one might argue about what the structure of the visible church should be: a group of unallied independent congregations, independent congregations joined in a voluntary flat federation, congregations organized in a hierarchy, or whatever other scheme might come to mind. ...Finally, it might be argued that the Pope is the Anti-Christ because of doctrinal differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics. ...
The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error;[10] and some have so degenerated, as to become no Churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan.

A Physicist's Questions

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-02-01T10:51:56-05:00

... most of the things that we consider to be intrinsic and instinctive human values are actually nothing of the sort; they are primarily and fundamentally the product of Christianity and would not exist without the last 2000 years of Christian dominance on our culture.
...
Always at bottom there is a divine revelation, a divine act, and man has only had the bright idea of copying it. ... In primitive civilizations one is still aware of it, and this accounts for the fact that generally they are better craftsmen than we who have lost this awareness.
...And this triggered the memory of an article by Dr. Lubos Motl written in 2015, "Can Christians be better at quantum mechanics than atheists"? ...Note that the Christian has this problem in double measure: not only must Christians avoid molding Nature into their own image, they must avoid molding God into their own image. ...
But don't all religions actually want the only objective truth about the state of Nature to exist? ...
Classical physics was doing great with omniscient God while quantum mechanics with its observer-dependence (and therefore "relativism" of a sort) seems to be more heretical, doesn't it? ...Furthermore, it claims that those who do not experience God cannot, unless God first works in them to restore their "spiritual" senses. But Lubos' question about omniscience contains a fact not in evidence, namely, that what we cannot foreknow (the outcome of a measurement before the measurement), God cannot also foreknow. ...
Science is ultimately independent of the religions – but it is independent of other philosophies such as the philosophies defended by the atheist activists, too.

Presbyterian's Terrible Responsibility

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-01-23T20:51:13-05:00
If it were simply the case that the Confession said "this is true" while I happen to think "that is true", then it would be easy to examine the arguments for "this" and "that". But when the Confession makes multiple statements which are true but ends with a conclusion I don't agree with, it's much harder to show where the error lies. ...The sole message of life and salvation had been committed to men; that message was at all hazards to be proclaimed while yet there was time. ... In answer to the objection, it may be said simply that the Christian way of salvation is narrow only so long as the Church chooses to let it remain narrow. ... If, therefore, this way of salvation is not offered to all, it is not the fault of the way of salvation itself, but the fault of those who fail to use the means that God has placed in their hands. But, it may be said, is that not a stupendous responsibility to be placed in the hands of weak and sinful men; is it not more natural that God should offer salvation to all without requiring them to accept a new message and thus to be dependent upon the faithfulness of the messengers? ...It is true that there will come a time when there can be no more Gospel proclamation -- the door will shut. ...If salvation is by grace, and God's grace is irresistible (as Reform doctrine affirms), then the "terrible responsibility" side must affirm that God's irresistible grace will not reach someone when we fail in our duty to proclaim the kerygma. This ties in with the Presbyterian understanding that one of the "means of grace" is the word, leading to the conclusion that we can thwart God's grace by not evangelizing. ..."It is only in an indirect way that the Confession treats of the means of grace..," (here, which then notes, however, of fuller direct exposition in the Catechisms).

Presbyterianism and the Sabbath

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-01-11T15:33:46-05:00
I happen to be on the other side, I believe that this is binding to us, this is one of the Ten Commandments..." ...As it is the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in His Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, He has particularly appointed one day in seven, for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him:[34] which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week: and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week,[35] which, in Scripture, is called the Lord's Day,[36] and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath.[ ...This Sabbath is to be kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations,[38] but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.[39] ...
The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ...Now, we can argue over what τέλος means in this passage: does it mean the end of the book, or the end of the term of a contract, after which something new happens; or does it mean the goal to which all things point, in which case the thing continues completed? ... One could also, and with more fidelity to Scripture, argue that the disciples met on the first day of the week because that is when Jesus rose from the dead and began the first day of the new creation. ...
(Sunday, for Christians, is not the sabbath; it is the First Day of the Week, the Lord's Day, Dies Dominica, celebrated in honor of the resurrection. ...In the old covenant, the sabbath is a day of rest in honor of God's work of creation; in the new covenant, the sabbath becomes a day of death-the day Jesus' body lay in the tomb, the day Christ lag in Totesbanden.... ...Precisely because he who was dead that day was the Incarnate Lord, the Second Person of the triune God, his death is an eternal as well as a temporal fact. ...
Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

John Owen's Trilemma

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-01-05T16:16:53-05:00

The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent punishment for, either:
All the sins of all men.
All the sins of some men, or
Some of the sins of all men.
In which case it may be said:
That if the last be true, all men have some sins to answer for, and so, none are saved.
That if the second be true, then Christ, in their stead suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the whole world, and this is the truth.
But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from the punishment due unto their sins? ...If it be, then Christ suffered the punishment due unto it, or He did not. ...I would argue that this argument fails because the correct answer is #3: Christ died for some of the sins of all men. In fact, I would propose a modified form of #3: Christ died for all but one sin of all men. ...
Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
We might argue about what the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit entails, but I hold that it refers to unbelief, since Paul, in Romans 3:21-25, wrote:
But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.
Showing an error in an argument for something, of course, does not prove that thing and this post is not looking at the doctrine of Limited Atonement in general. However, in reviewing the doctrine of Atonement in the Westminster Confessions, I found this discussion interesting, in that it said that the Amyrauldians present at the Westminster Assembly were not hesitant to sign the Confession.

2019 Reading List

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2020-01-01T11:19:18-05:00
10The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyDouglas Adams ... 12The Epistle to the EphesiansKarl Barth 13Chance and the Sovereignty of GodVern S. Poythress ... 16Breaking Down the Sacred-Secular DivideMichael R. ... 17So Say We AllEdward Gross & Mark A. Altman 18A Journey Through EphesusDavid Gwartney ... 20On The Existence of GodsDominic Saltarelli & Vox Day ... 31AD 70 and the End of the WorldPaul Ellis 32The Parables of JudgementRobert Farrar Capon ... 34The Parables of The KingdomRobert Farrar Capon

Hannah Claire

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-12-28T11:13:00-05:00
Born 12/21 @ 1:30am. 7lb 20oz, 20.5 inches, Apgar 8 then 9. I got to hold her on 12/24. ...On Wed, 12/18, Mom was experiencing itchy palms and feet. ... Ob-gyn wanted to draw blood so I took her there. ... Mom had a regular checkup the next day then the bloodwork results came back Friday. ... Flu had ravaged the household, so Dad was not allowed at the delivery. Family who hadn't had flu shots weren't permitted, either. ... Dad finally got to see his daughter on 12/23 and they all came home on Christmas Eve. Grandma and I cleaned the house on 12/21. In particular, three loads of laundry in 60 lb washers to get all the sheets and comforters done.

Recent Firsts

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-12-20T17:32:55-05:00
• First Uber ride, 11/27 • First held Miles (right), 11/28 • First Oyster Po Boy (at 3rd Bar in the S terminal at IAH), 12/1 • First cigar with son-in-law (and his first smoke of any kind, ever), 12/14 I hope to hold Hannah soon. Daughter-in-law is being induced as I post this. Hospital won't let any of us be there due to recent flu in the family.

American Airlines

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-12-02T16:57:13-05:00
On Wednesday, Nov 27, I booked a flight from Atlanta to College Station on American Airlines. ... The AA iOS app said that this flight was to depart from gate E29A at 8:26PM (screenshot below). As my 3 week old grandson had been rushed to a hospital in Texas, I was engrossed texting various family members when I noticed that boarding should have started. ... On the other hand, I did manage to outrun the young Asian lady who was in the same predicament as I. ...
That is why we ask our customers to please check the Flight Information Display monitors.
...First, I was sitting at a gate where if there were any information display monitors, they weren't readily visible. Second, the system that posts updates to the information display monitors should also update the information in the mobile app. To add insult to injury, the customer service rep (who I don't fault -- they're powerless to do anything but use a script) wrote:
I have made your comments available to the appropriate management personnel for internal review and to serve as a focus of discussion on how to better serve our customers in the future.
Is AA management so out of touch that they don't already know that their IT system needs work?

Trinity Debate

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-11-14T08:51:33-05:00
During the question and answer session after the debate, I had hoped to ask about the paper ‘Lord, LORD’: Jesus as YHWH in Matthew and Luke by Jason Staples which sets forth this thesis:
Despite numerous studies of the word κύριος (‘Lord’) in the New Testament, the significance of the double form κύριε κύριε occurring in Matthew and Luke has been overlooked, with most assuming the doubling merely communicates heightened emotion or special reverence. By contrast, this article argues that whereas a single κύριος might be ambiguous, the double κύριος formula outside the Gospels always serves as a distinctive way to represent the Tetragrammaton and that its use in Matthew and Luke is therefore best understood as a way to represent Jesus as applying the name of the God of Israel to himself.
...Now, a Unitarian might say that Jesus really isn't applying YHWH to himself but is rather saying, in effect, "if you're going to call me YHWH (which, by the way, you shouldn't do), why do you disobey me?" ...I was also disappointed by Dr. Ally's use of the red, green, and blue components of light as an analogy to the Trinity. ...Nevertheless, first, Islam denies the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, so I'm not sure what value there is in trying to show a problem in the understanding of the Trinity in the Koran. One can show such misunderstandings solely from contemporary statements by Muslim, other Unitarian, and even some Christian sources, such as the "red, green, blue components of light" as an analogy to the Trinity. ...Will we be happy with this solution or will we forever wonder if what we would see inside the black hole might show our equations to be wrong? ...We see things that are very far from what we could have imagined and so our imagination is stretched to the utmost … just to comprehend the things that are there. ... Which really is a reflection of an uncontrolled but I say utterly vain desire to see it in terms of some analogy with something familiar… I think I can safely say that nobody understands Quantum Mechanics… Nobody knows how it can be like that.

Miles Gilbert

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-11-05T14:48:00-05:00
2:48pm, 6 lbs, 13 oz. He's not listening to hot tunes in the second picture; it's a hearing test, which he passed. They didn't do that with our kids twenty seven plus years ago...

World Philosophy in Summary Form: Preface

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-09-24T18:27:46-04:00
I borrowed Masterpieces of World Philosophy in Summary Form, by Frank N. Magill and staff, from our church's library. I will post snippets that I find interesting. From the Preface:
As seekers after truth, perhaps philosophers have given closer attention to the works of their predecessors and contemporaries than any other group. A new book of serious standing on the subject of philosophy is quickly dissected by experts, critics who are relentless in their pursuit of error and who stand ready to demolish forthwith any false idea advanced. So, painstakingly, has the thread of truth been kept intact—tested, altered, its flaws mended as it passed from one hand to the next down through the centuries.
One wonders exactly how these ideas are tested and shown to be true. Even though there is a "replication crisis" in science, and disagreements about the interpretation of quantum mechanics (e.g. here, here and here), at least, science has Nature to test their ideas against.

Trinity: Full Circle

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-09-19T16:03:25-04:00
For just a little over two years I have been discussing the doctrine of the Trinity with a friend who has misgivings about it. One of the issues that we've gone back and forth on is whether or not the writers of Scripture should have had the same understanding of the Trinity that we do today. He thinks the answer has to be "yes", since they were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write what they did about Jesus. ... What one author wrote might not have been available to another author, and the doctrine of the Trinity comes out of the entirety of statements about Christ. ... Both appear to have an unchangeable core (for Nature, as far as we can currently ascertain, physical law and physical constants haven't changed). But while Nature has always presented the same "face" to us, we are still learning about it. ... How we understand the world today is very different from that of Einstein (while he developed Relativity, he didn't like Quantum Mechanics), Newton, Copernicus, and Aristotle. ...Since I'm a troublemaker, I plan on asking the candidate his opinion on the whole matter and whether or not he agrees with Wheaton's position. ...
On the "yes" side, both Christians and Muslims (as well as Jews) confess that God is One (Deut. ... So, yes, Christians and Muslims (and Jews) affirm fully that "that God is the Father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" but –borrowing from Stackhouse--"if we insist, as many are insisting in this furore, that God must be understood in terms of the Trinity, with a focus especially on Jesus, or else one really doesn't know God, I respectfully want to ask such Bible believers what they make of Abraham (who is held up as a paradigm of faith in the New Testament) and the list of Old Testament saints (who are held up as paradigms of faith to Christians in Hebrews 11), precisely none of whom can be seriously understood as holding trinitarian views and some proleptic vision of the identity and career of Jesus Christ."

Wright Runs Away -- Then Came Back

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-09-14T13:25:46-04:00
Update 9/17 @ 11:15am: This morning I looked to see if there had been any more comments on the below referenced post and I saw that my comment, which had been deleted, was now present. ...But, yesterday, in Wright's Parable of the Adding Machine, he deleted a response that I made to him. ...
A stopsign written in Chinese only means STOP to someone who reads Chinese.
Drop me in the middle of China and I'll tell you which sign means "stop" after watching how the Chinese behave around them. ...
The behavior of the gear train is a thoughtless therefore blind and meaningless motion of bit of matter in reaction to a clerk pressing a lever.
The behavior follows a pattern, a pattern which is the same as that performed with stones and pails. ...
The same symbols written in a different order on another part of the machine, or on a piece of paper, would have no meaning at all
Sure, if they can't be associated with behavior. But, just like watching Chinese behavior around a Chinese stop sign to learn what 停 means, if I could watch the behavior of whatever made the marks, I might be able to learn what they mean. ...He's certainly free to do whatever he wants with his blog, but I didn't violate any of his conditions for posting. ... Wright doesn't know how to sever the ideas of math (which are basically just "potential actions," not unlike a high jumper who looks where he's going to make each step on his approach to jumping over the bar before he actually does it). This argument supports the idea that math is "matter in motion in certain patterns," which Wright very much does not want to be true. This explains why, in a previous discussion, Wright was so opposed to the following observation about Euclidean geometry, by Marvin Jay Greenberg, from Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Geometries:

Why Call Them Back From Heaven

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-08-20T15:16:41-04:00
"For no one could stand against the force and strength of a structure that, in effect, was owner of the world and that, furthermore, held out the promise of eternal life." (pg. 132) This was said about a corporation that promised immortality in the future for people cryogenically stored. However, the people had to prepare for their awakening by investing for tomorrow. They lived in poverty that they might have riches later. In addition, where to put billions upon billions of people was an unsolved problem that admitted no good solution. If this was meant to pose a problem of Christianity then, while interesting, ignored the new heaven and earth, which will not be like anything we are familiar with.

Pure Pomeranian

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-07-11T16:35:04-04:00
Titan's WisdomPanel DNA results show that he is 100% Pomeranian. At 20lbs, this means that he is a "throwback" Pomeranian. His health panel showed no known health issues.

Reason, Empiricism, Self-Reference

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-06-22T11:14:37-04:00
The blurb says, “This thory [sic] as an attempt to bridge the gap between rationalism and empiricism and, in particular, to counter the radical empiricism of David Hume." I suspect that in its 836 pages it will attempt to bridge the gap between reason and empiricism, a divide noted in "Philosophy in Minutes" as:

“Reacting against the rationalism of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, British philosophers dismissed the idea that reason is our only reliable source of knowledge and developed the opposing movement known as empiricism. ...
“There is a most profound and beautiful question associated with the observed coupling constant, e – the amplitude for a real electron to emit or absorb a real photon. ... (My physicist friends won't recognize this number, because they like to remember it as the inverse of its square: about 137.03597 with about an uncertainty of about 2 in the last decimal place. It has been a mystery ever since it was discovered more than fifty years ago, and all good theoretical physicists put this number up on their wall and worry about it.) Immediately you would like to know where this number for a coupling comes from: is it related to pi or perhaps to the base of natural logarithms? ... It's one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. ... We know what kind of a dance to do experimentally to measure this number very accurately, but we don't know what kind of dance to do on the computer to make this number come out, without putting it in secretly!" ...These two sentences are axioms -- things declared true by fiat -- and axioms are the basis of reason, which is simply mechanical logical operations on true statements.

Searle's Chinese Room Argument

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-04-13T12:51:42-04:00
Searle's "Minds, Brains, and Programs" is an attempt to show that computers cannot think the way humans do and so any effort to create human-level artificial intelligence is doomed to failure. ... What I found most interesting in reading his paper is that Searle's understanding of computers and programs can be shown to be wrong without considering the main part of the argument at all! ...Assuming it is possible to produce artificially a machine with a nervous system, neurons with axons and dendrites, and all the rest of it, sufficiently like ours, again the answer to the question seems to be obviously, yes. ...If by "digital computer" we mean anything at all that has a level of description where it can correctly be described as the instantiation of a computer program, then again the answer is, of course, yes, since we are the instantiations of any number of computer programs, and we can think. ...With 1), by saying that we are thinking machines, we introduce the "Church-Turing thesis" which states that if a calculation can be done using pencil and paper by a human, that it can also be done by a Turing machine. If Searle concludes that humans can do something that computers cannot, in theory, do, then he will have deny the C-T thesis and show that what brains do is fundamentally different from what machines do. ...
Computer theory has been developed to a point where it realizes that it doesn't make any difference; when you get to a universal computer, it doesn't matter how it's manufactured, how it's actually made.
...We are so used to creating and running different programs on one piece of hardware that we think that there is some kind of difference between the two. ...Clearly, you can't get something from nothing, so the two cases where an object is given as a result when it isn't part of the input requires a bit of engineering. ...The difference between a "computer" and a "program" is that programs are static forms of the computer: the arrangement of the elements are specified, but the symbols aren't flowing through the network.2 This means that if 1) and 2) are true, then the wiring of the brain is a program, just like each program is a logic network.

St. Paul and Antimonianism: Part I

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-03-19T22:49:30-04:00
The series on Presbyterianism (Intro) will deal with the role of the Law in the Christian faith. For now, I want to put this aphorism out into the world, as it will be the crux of the forthcoming post on the appearance of antinomianism in St. Paul's thought:
We live within law,
not by law
The charge of antinomianism against Paul is supported by the "not by law" part of the statement. But the charge of antinomianism is ultimately defeated by the "within law" part. The forthcoming post will show how this is so.

Presbyterianism: Intro

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-03-04T11:59:41-05:00
On the other hand, I've read the Westminster Confession of Faith, agree with some parts of it, disagree with others, and find myself wondering about whether or not I've read it correctly in the first place. Parsing the Westminster Confession can sometimes be as difficult as trying to understand whether or not the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution really provides for individual firearm ownership2. ... To further confuse the issue, I was told recently by the pastor of a Presbyterian church that I am "more Presbyterian" than most in the congregation. He didn't mean that as an insult, but I had to ask, since I've been told that the defining characteristic of Presbyterians is that they like to argue. ...Written for the laymen, it's a clue as to how Presbyterians understand the Westminster Confession and Scripture. ...The gospel of the Reformation, which proclaimed that God's righteousness shall come to those who live by faith alone, fundamentally challenged the basis of medieval religion and piety. ...But what I find with having been around Presbyterians for some time is that, in my opinion, religious guilt and anxiety is very real. ...The first error is thinking that, if grace is irresistible, then not only do Christians not need to evangelize, but the elders of a congregation do not need to shepherd the flock. ... The second error is thinking our falling short of living the Chrstian life -- our hypocrisy, our hardness of heart, and all of our other failings -- impede the spread of the Gospel. ... Irresistible grace should be one ingredient that calms our fears; that is does not means that doctrine and practice haven't been fully integrated.

Shaping Reality

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2019-01-14T11:52:17-05:00

You must first be in touch with reality before you can shape reality. -- wrf3

2018 Reading List

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2018-11-30T11:41:18-05:00
1On Wings of SongThomas M. Disch 2The Left Hand of DarknessUrsula K. Le Guin ... 6Seeking Allah, Finding JesusNabeel Qureshi 7Nicaea and it’s LegacyLewis Ayres 8After Things Fell ApartRon Goulart 9The Truth About Uri GellerJames Randi ... 11Ship of FoolsC. ... 12The Future of the People of GodAndrew Perriman 13The Last Days According to JesusR. ...Still reading: Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko; Lost in the Cosmos, by Walker Percy; The Female Man, by Joanna Russ; Common Lisp Recipes, by Edi Weitz; The Letter to the Colossians and to Philemon, by Douglas Moo; Infinity and the Mind, by Rudy Rucker.

Goto considered harmful

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2018-11-19T18:12:35-05:00
Y-Combinator recently had an item about The History, Controversy, and Evolution of the Goto Statement [pdf]. The .pdf considers the "right" way to implement code that computes the average of integers read from the standard input, where the value 99999 is used to denote end-of-input. Code written in C is presented on page 10 and is offered as a good solution. It avoids an explicit goto by using a break statement but, in so doing, misses the forest for the trees. It entangles obtaining data with processing the data and this is almost always a bad idea. But C makes it hard to write better code because C doesn't have built-in support for lists. The following Lisp code separates concerns, promotes code reuse, and the only explicit loop construct is the recursive call by read-input to collect data up to the end-of-data sentinel. C needs constructs like for, break, and continue because it's weak on data structures and memory management. It's also a strongly typed language: variables have types and types have values. In Lisp, however, variables have values and values have types which makes it easier to write generic code.

Story Title

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2018-10-12T16:45:34-04:00

In Georgia, Even The Dog Sneezes

This idea for a story title came to me this morning after a particular bout by my dog, Titan. Harlan Ellison could have produce an award-winning story just from this title. Too bad he's no longer with us.

Star Trek Memorabilia

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2018-09-03T16:30:19-04:00
[Warning -- links to large files!] In late July, or early August, 1967 I received an envelope in the mail from Bill Theiss. The envelope contained seven black and white pictures. One of the U. S. S. Enterprise, and six personally autographed pictures from the cast of Star Trek: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, and Nichelle Nichols. My grandmother was a neighbor of (or knew -- I wasn't ever really sure) the mother of Susanne Wasson, who played Lethe in the episode Dagger of the Mind from Season 1, Episode 10.

Plato, Church, and Turing

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2018-07-07T20:53:37-04:00

The lambda calculus is the "platonic form" of a Turing machine
     — wrf3
I wrote this in a comment over at Edward Feser's blog in a comment to Gödel and the mechanization of thought. Google doesn't find it anywhere in this exact form, but this post appears to express the same idea. The components of this idea can be found elsewhere, but it isn't stated as directly as here.

Feeding the Grandkids

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2018-06-25T17:43:30-04:00
Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 video
Feeding the kids1.
[1] This post was made, but not posted, in 2018. Now, in 2023, I finally published it, as a reminder of when Liam used to eat.

Ancient Publication

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2018-06-24T17:43:34-04:00
With the advent of OS/2, a protected-mode operating system, it is useful to have a function to determine CPU type, regardless of CPU operating mode. ... It returns a value of 86, 186, 286, or 386 in real mode, and -286 or -386 in protected mode. ...If the value on the stack is the same as the SP value after the push, then the CPU is either an 8086 or an 80186. ... For a 32-bit shift count, the 8086 will shift 32 bits, clearing the shifted register, whereas the 80186 will not shift at all, leaving the value in the register unchanged. ...This is done by pushing the flags, then testing the change in the SP register to determine whether two or four bytes were pushed. ... To load a two-byte immediate value into AX, the MOV instruction must be preceded by an operand-length override prefix. ...The distinction between an 80386 that uses 16-bit operands and an 80286 is made by storing the global descriptor table register (GDTR) to a six-byte field in memory. The 80286 stores a -1 to the last byte of this field, whereas an 80386 stores either a 0 or a 1. The space for holding the GDTR value is allocated on the stack (by subtracting from SP), because in protected mode that is the only one of the four segments guaranteed to be writable. ...At label testprot, the MSW is loaded into a register, the mode bit is shifted into the carry flag, and, if that sets CF, the returned value is negated to indicate that the CPU is in protected mode.

Round to Nearest

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2018-05-11T12:10:05-04:00
I recently had to write some code to round a value to something other than the nearest integer, e.g. rounding a measurement to the nearest 0.5 or 0.1 unit. To figure out how to do it, suppose we want to round to the nearest multiple of, say, 5.

Scale the number line from 0, 5, 10, ... to 0, 1, 2, ...

Round.

Then scale from 0, 1, 2... back to 0, 5, 10...
Extension to values other than 5 is straightforward. The Lisp code:
(defun round-to (n m) (if (or (null m) (zerop m)) n (* (round (/ n (float m))) (float m))))

Words of Wisdom from The Bean Tap

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2018-03-23T14:25:50-04:00
This morning, at The Bean Tap:
Can't you see it? It's invisible! ...     — Dylan

He’s about to slap the “old” right off your face.
     — Heather

Hope

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2018-02-03T15:32:50-05:00
During lunch today I was listening to a video featuring Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro. Between 16:35 and 16:52 in the video, Peterson remarks:
"Well, it's partly because the problem with … the problem with relativism let's say … let's say that did produce a radical state of equality. Well the problem with that is that there's no "up". And the problem with there being no "up" is there's no hope. And the problem with that is that people actually live on hope."
...Hope that he will get treats, especially after going for a walk or when I come home. Here he is, live and unrehearsed, when I arrived home from lunch. He greets me at the door to the garage, then stops where we keep his treats in a niche above his food and water bowls. As I go by, he hopes that he'll get a bit of the waffles my wife made this morning.

January 1, 2018: Snow on Titan

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2018-01-01T10:46:55-05:00
What I Would Like to Do This Year ... • Review Ed Fesers' "Five Proofs of the Existence of God". ... • Review Griffith's "Free Will: the Basics". • Read more. 2017 was a horrible year in books. I finished very few books that I started. The three books I want to review all deal with issues that I will cover in my "Natural Theology". I think these authors all get basic things wrong, so they will be my critics, and I will have to be able to answer them. What I Will Do This Year • I suspect that the startup where I'm director of software engineering will continue to consume the majority of my time. • My Christmas present to my wife was that I would lose 5 pounds per month this year, until I reach my target weight.

The Trinity by Dale Tuggy : A Critique

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2017-11-24T17:09:18-05:00
We see things that are very far from what we could have imagined and so our imagination is stretched to the utmost … just to comprehend the things that are there. ... Which really is a reflection of an uncontrolled but I say utterly vain desire to see it in terms of some analogy with something familiar… I think I can safely say that nobody understands Quantum Mechanics… Nobody knows how it can be like that. ...The reason why I inject Quantum Mechanics into a discussion of the Trinity is not because I think that Quantum Mechanics has anything to do with the Trinity but, rather, to show how people deal with mystery. ...And this illustrates a rule that I suspect Tuggy will violate again and again, namely, you have to deal with the arguments made by your opponent — not the arguments you think they make. ...Nowhere in this chapter, or anywhere else in the book, does he deal with John 1:1 which, in my opinion, is the Trinitarian equivalent of the double-slit experiment. ... If there was more than one divine thing then this wouldn't be a problem, but there is one — and only one — God. ...He writes, "we all know that one being can't be and not be in certain way, at the same time and in the same way." ... But at least he ends the chapter on a promising note: "The next steps would be showing that Jesus is divine in the same sense as the Father and the Spirit, and that these three in some sense are or are in the one God." ...What Tertullian believed or what Origin believed are interesting from a historical perspective, but there is no discussion of how they came to their beliefs: what is it in the source material as well as their intellectual environments that would lead them to these conclusions? ...If we have trouble understanding what it means for physical things to be self-aware, it's understandable that Trinitarians pause when asked what it means for an immaterial unchanging transcendent something to say "I am that I am" while the eternal uncreated Son says "I and my Father…" The author continues his stubborn, yet thoroughly unwarranted, insistence on the reliability of "common sense" when he writes, "Both views [the view of some forms of Hinduism that teaches that there is only one self and the view of Buddhism that there are no selves, though there appear to be], I suggest, cut against common sense which acknowledges that you're one (real) self and I'm another self."

Kala

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2017-11-06T21:09:00-05:00
Kala, who was an almost 13 year old Sheltie, departed from us today, all too soon and all too suddenly. She had been sick to her stomach in the night and didn't want to drink, eat, or go outside this morning. ... It was almost always water, but occasionally she would imbibe. ... The doctor thought he could feel a mass under her rib cage which could have been bleeding internally. An X-ray confirmed a mass around her spleen. She was taken into surgery with the hope that a splenectomy would remove the mass, stop the bleeding, and she would be with us for a while longer. But it was not to be. The mass had spread to her other organs and couldn't be removed. ...A very good girl. 2/1/2005-11/6/2017
...I've had dogs for over 50 years and this is the first time I heard about this simple technique.

The truth divides...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2017-08-29T16:11:54-04:00
Dylan and I have been discussing certain aspects of Christian doctrine at The Bean Tap some mornings. I observed that truth is exclusionary. By its very nature, truth divides, since truth excludes error. The details are no longer sharp, but I think he misheard something I said, which led to me saying, "The truth divides but the dude abides." A Google search for this exact phrase doesn't find anything, so I lay claim to first published instance. Dylan was kind enough to supply the artwork.

Two different voices...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2017-08-17T16:53:52-04:00

God tells you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not. The devil tells you what you want to hear, whether it is true or not.
It's interesting, at least to me, that a Google search for "God tells you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not" appears once, but "tells you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not" appears about 162,000 times. On the other hand "tells you what you want to hear, whether it is true or not" appears only four times.

Dijkstra et. al. on software development

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2017-06-05T10:22:00-04:00
In "Why is software so expensive?", Dijkstra wrote:
...To the economic question "Why is software so expensive?" ...could be "Because it is tried with cheap labour." Why is it tried that way? ...intrinsic difficulties are widely and grossly underestimated. He said many more good things in that paper. A similar comment was made on SlashDot yesterday:

The truth is that no one really knows how to do [software development] right. That is why the methodologies switch around every few years.  — "110010001000"

"Free at last..."

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2017-05-12T18:02:44-04:00
I joined Scientific Atlanta full time in June, 1999 after nine months or so as a contractor. Scientific Atlanta was sold to Cisco in 2005 who later sold a part of the business to Technicolor in 2015. Today was my last day at Technicolor. On Monday, I start as director of software engineering at a local startup.

Enmity

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2017-04-26T20:28:46-04:00

Management wants soft requirements and hard dates. Engineering wants hard requirements and soft dates.   — wrf3
It took me far too long to realize this.

2016 Reading List

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2017-04-26T20:02:52-04:00
1Gentleman Jole and the Red QueenLois McMaster Bujold ... 3A Wild Sheep ChaseHaruki Murakami 4On the Existence of GodsSaltarelli & Day ... 7The History of the ChurchEusebius of Caesarea 8Logicomix: An Epic Search For TruthDoxiadis & Papadimitriou 9Dialogs Concerning Natural ReligionDavid Hume 10The Princess DiaristCarrie Fisher ...I started too many books that I just couldn't finish, mostly because they were badly written. The worst of the bunch was "Jesus Outside the Lines". An utter waste of time and money.

The Fountain of Youth

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2016-12-16T21:04:46-05:00
Through a most incredible set of circumstances, ...I found the Fountain of Youth. I’ve always thought that my 61 year old mind, with my 25 year old body, would be an unbeatable combination. But the fountain was actually less of a spring, and more of a drop. There was only enough of the life changing ...And I couldn't leave you behind. So I picked up my cane and came home.

Six Word Story

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2016-08-27T09:57:51-04:00
"Save me!" "Ok." "My way." "No."

"Stirring the emerald green"

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2016-07-22T14:00:30-04:00
In May, 2024, I used ChatGPT to play with colors mentioned in another book and thought back to this post. Here is an interesting picture featuring "stirring the emerald green." Click to enlarge.

Dr. Larycia Hawkins and Wheaton College

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2016-01-09T17:01:55-05:00
[Updated 9/18/19 to use a link to an archived version of the Wheaton FAQ concerning Dr. Hawkins, and to remove a possible ambiguity from my initial paragraph.] ...Wheaton is taking this action because of her statement that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. ... I note, for the record, that there is no explicit sentence in their statement of faith regarding which groups worship which God. Furthermore, in a FAQ published by Wheaton, question 7 asks "Is it true that Christians and Muslims worship the same God?" ... For if they did, a bright undergraduate would then ask, "given this criteria, do Christians and Jews worship the same God?" ...On December 17, 2015, Dr. Hawkins wrote to Wheaton in which she explained the reasons for her position as well as her personal statement of faith. Opinion is of course, split, concerning the question of whether or not Muslims and Christians worship the same God. ...No discussion of misguided and incorrect scientific theories would be complete without mention of the famous phrase, attributed to Wolfgang Pauli, "That is not only not right, it is not even wrong." And let us not forget to mention String Theory, where some scientists say that not only is it not good science, it isn't science at all; while other scientists claim that it's really the only theory which can unite relativity and quantum mechanics. ...If Wheaton continues down this path with Dr. Hawkins, whether they know it or not, they will be giving aid and comfort to those who claim that God is purely imaginary.

What Would Jesus Do?

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2016-01-06T21:49:59-05:00

To set the stage, suppose we're in Arkansas, since the mascot of the University of Arkansas is the razorback. ...I don't know how it could be any more obvious, since Romans 7 teaches that death ends the jurisdiction of the Law:
Do you not know, brothers and sisters--for I am speaking to those who know the law--that the law is binding on a person only during that person’s lifetime? Thus a married woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is discharged from the law concerning the husband. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress. In the same way, my friends, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit. ...The one caveat is that we are not to use our freedom to cause a weaker brother or sister to stumble in their faith (cf.

2015 Reading List

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2016-01-01T14:57:59-05:00
5Do Androids Dream of Electric SheepPhilip K. Dick ... 8The Nominated Short WorksJohn C. ... 9The City on the Edge of ForeverHarlan Ellison 10Vic and BloodHarlan Ellison ... 20QED: The Strange Theory of Light and MatterRichard Feynman 21The Meaning Of It AllRichard Feynman 22The Shape of Inner SpaceShing-Tung Yau ... 1The History of the ChurchEusebius of Caesarea ... 8Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical DoctrineWayne Grudem 9Paul's Letter to the RomansColin G. Kruse

Feser's Philosophy of Mind, #3

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-10-26T21:15:43-04:00

There seems to be no way to match up sets of logically interrelated mental states with sets of merely causally interrelated brain states, and thus no way to reduce the mental to the physical. ...Consider the physical process where an apple and an apple combine to an orange, and apple and an orange combine to an apple, an orange and an apple combine to an orange, and an orange and an orange combine into an apple. Or consider the case where an apple and an apple combine to orange, while apple and orange, orange and apple, and orange and orange combine to apple. ...We can use variable resistors to make a physical process that combines more and fewer electrons just like we combined oranges and apples. ...This is important, because we normally think of a computer as an arrangement of wires and devices that takes a program as input, performs the steps in the program, and produces a result. ...
A computer program is something abstract – a mathematical structure that can be understood and specified, on paper or in the programmer’s mind, long before anyone implements it in a machine. ...If it were cost effective, instead of writing abstract programs that run on a general purpose computer, we could custom build an arrangement of wires and devices for each program we wished to run. Once we understand that the physical network itself is the program, we have to ask how we can get meaning out of networks of apples and oranges or high and low voltages. Consider the network that given an apple and an apple, or an orange and an orange, produces an apple and when given an apple and an orange or an orange and an apple produces an orange. ... The choice of which network to use is completely arbitrary, but networks that use this convention can now be constructed that can compare two things for equality.

Feser's Philosophy of Mind, #2

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-10-25T20:19:40-04:00
Feser ends chapter one by introducing the "mind-body" problem which is this: if the brain is purely physical, how can something that is composed of atoms think and be conscious of itself and its surroundings? ...Atoms can be divided into protons, neutrons, and electrons; protons and neutrons can be divided into quarks; quarks and electrons are made up of strings (assuming string theory is true), with the string being the fundamental indivisible unit of matter. What remains after each division is of the same kind — it's matter all the way down — and since it doesn't divide into something else, it's one "substance". ...Along with strings (or higher level particles), there is space-time, motion, energy, charge, etc… To hold to dualism is to say that mind is not only not any of these things, but is also not some form of combination of these things. If mind is some form of combination of these things, then the "indivisibility" of the mind might only hold when the combination of these things are working in concert. ...The dualist's perceived difference between mind and brain, like the difference between apples and oranges, could be explained by the operation of nature where the mechanism isn't immediately obvious. ... Humans are not violins and to hear the Brandenburg Concerto #3 coming from someone's pocket might cause no end of consternation and speculation as to its cause. Saying that mental stuff is different from physical stuff is to put a label on a lack of knowledge and put it in its own category. ...That is to say, it is entirely conceivable that one could exist as a disembodied mind, with one’s body and brain, and indeed the entire physical world, being nothing but a figment of one’s imagination. ...But I am a dualist who thinks that matter and mind are so entangled in a loop that they are impossible to separate without destroying our ability to think about them (cf.

Feser's Philosophy of Mind, #1

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-10-20T20:41:03-04:00
In the first chapter of Feser's Philosophy of Mind, Feser attempts to justify belief in a physical external world using Occam's Razor. That is, given the two hypothesis that either the external physical world exists independently of us, or that it is a simply some form of illusion, application of Occam's Razor justifies belief in the first option. ...But anyone familiar with search techniques in artificial intelligence knows that even good guesses can ultimately lead to less than optimal or even wrong conclusions. If you don't end up in a dead end, there might still be an untried path to a more favorable outcome. ...That is, Occam's Razor should be used only when both systems give the same independently verifiable answer to the same questions. ... So the use of Occam's Razor is therefore not applicable in this case, because the answers to the same questions can be wildly different in the Realist and Solipsist systems. ...Since we don't ultimately know what reality really is, any argument that the implementation of reality in one form is simpler than the implementation of reality in another is dubious, at best. No one has any idea what it takes to implement the reality that appears to be external to us, any more than we have any idea that we know what it takes to implement a mind that thinks there is an external reality. Fourth, if a system with an entity which manipulates our minds is more complex than an external reality, then Feser has justified disbelief in Theism in general, and Christianity in particular, since God is one more complicating factor in an already complex system. ...The correct answer is that we choose one or the other simply because we choose one over the other.

Grudem's Systematic Theology, #2

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-10-05T11:12:16-04:00

How can we be sure that when we reach heaven God will not tell us that most of what we had learned about him was wrong, and that we would have to forget what we had learned and begin to learn different things about him? ...The answer that I think Grudem expects, based on the contents of the chapter, would be something like: we can be sure that what God has revealed to us about Himself is true, because He understands that our knowledge of Him requires the revelation of Himself [Mt 11:7], He desires His people to "know him, the only true God", [Jer 31:34], He reveals Himself truly [Num 23:19], and that He would not deceive us, because He is Truth [John 3:33] and the ultimate good. ...I recently had a conversation at Starbucks about epistemology with an Emory graduate student concerning the question, "do you know that you are at Starbucks right now?" ... He based his answer on the assumptions that, first, there really is a reality that is external to us and, second, that our senses give us a (mostly) accurate indication of the nature of that reality. I have no problem with either of those two premises but, as anyone who has read Descartes or watched the movie The Matrix knows, that might not be an accurate view of reality at all. ...I also know that if a plane is flat that the angles of a triangle sum to 180 degrees, but that if a plane is curved, the sum of the angles will be more than 180 degrees if the plane is positively curved, and less than 180 degrees if the plane is negatively curved. ...Then, if there is uncertainty whether or not a mental model corresponds to an external object, there is also uncertainty whether or not the right mental model is being used, since there is usually an abundance of mental models, but (supposedly) only one reality. Our hope is that we can find a mismatch between one of the models and the external thing, so that the number of models can be reduced, but even if that's possible, it's usually a painstaking, time consuming effort. ...
God's righteousness means that God always acts in accordance with what is right and is himself the final standard of what is right.

     — page 204
...All we can do is trust Him and if things don't happen the way we want them to, we have no other recourse than to say, "You, alone, are God."

Grudem's Systematic Theology, #1

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-10-04T19:52:47-04:00
While there are a few gems here and there, they are overshadowed by the egregious parts, such at this philosophical argument for the unchangeableness of God. ...
At first it might not seem very important for us to affirm God's unchangeableness. ... But if we stop for a moment to imagine what it would be like if God could change, the importance of this doctrine becomes more clear. For example, if God could change (in his being, perfections, purposes, or promises), then any change would be either for the better or for the worse. But if God changed for the better, then he was not the best possible being when we first trusted him. ... But if God could change for the worse (in his very being), then what kind of God might he become? ...The fundamental flaw with this line of reasoning is that it assumes that there is a fixed standard against which one or more of God's attributes can be compared. ... So if God were to change, the standard itself would change — since God is His own standard of good and evil. ...
He is therefore the final standard of good.

     — page 198
This is exactly what I said ("God is His own standard of good and evil"), but Grudem didn't integrate this with his argument on page 168.

Liam Avery

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-10-04T19:13:45-04:00
Liam Avery, born 10/03 at 7:33pm. 7.3 lbs, 19 inches. He cried and cried the first time I held him, but after Mom fed him, he was content.

The Moral of the Story...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-09-06T16:04:16-04:00
I came across this in the August 25 issue of the Wall Street Journal. It was the conclusion to an article about the collapse of the Chinese stock market:
The moral of today's story is a simple one. Listen to the skeptics and the contrarians. You dismiss them at your peril.
Unfortunately, I did not write down either the author's name or the title of the article.

Sod

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-09-06T15:55:10-04:00
On Aug 22 and 23, David, David's father-in-law, and I — along with neighbor Chris and my wife Becky — laid five pallets of sod in David's back yard. Here is the sod ready to be moved into place. ...We started by individually picking up a piece of sod, carrying it to its destination, and laying it in place. The old men managed this for a few hours but eventually, we gave out. We switched to carrying sod to David who would lay it. We timed things so that one of us would be going out to give the next piece to David while the other was coming back to get another. ... After long wearying hours, David decided that we could use the wheelbarrow to load the sod up. Why we didn't think of this sooner is one of life's great mysteries. The next time I have to do this I'll know how to go about it. But there isn't going to be a next time.

Libby and Harrison

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-05-24T21:02:47-04:00
Libby and Harrison. Harrison Thomas was born on 5/13 at 11:23 AM, weighing 6 lbs 12 oz and 20 inches long. Libby celebrated her second birthday on 5/3.

Man Is The Animal...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-05-16T17:12:53-04:00
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be. -- William Hazlitt ...Mark Twain, but disagreed with: "But so does the monkey, as Mr. Darwin pointed out; and so does the Australian bird that is called the laughing jackass." ..."Man is the animal that intends to shoot himself out into interplanetary space, after having given up on the problem of an efficient way to get himself five miles to work and back each day." ..."Man is the animal which can never be content for long periods of time – he will always return to discontent." ..."Man is the animal that doesn't know what to do with itself." ...Man is what he is, a wild animal with the will to survive, and (so far) the ability, against all competition. ... Correct morals arise from knowing what man is--not what do-gooders and well-meaning old Aunt Nellies would like him to be. ...They put it in virtually all the processed food there is, which is next to all the food there is, because nobody can resist it. ... Maltose is just as sweet, but it's less popular, precisely because it doesn't kick your blood sugar in the ass and then depress it again. ... Or engage in complicated sexual behavior without procreative intent, which, if it were not for the pleasure, would be pointless and insane.

Drive fast and eat cheese!

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-03-17T18:36:30-04:00
Yesterday, as I was leaving for "Boy's Night Out", where some of us get together for dinner while our wives get together to knit, Becky admonished me, "Behave! No mayo and no cheese!" Today, I came across this in an episode of "3rd Rock from the Sun":
You know what we should do right now? Run out of here, grab a couple of horses, ride bareback through the woods all night, and make love in a meadow at sunrise. ... Let's live. Let's taste danger. Let's go for the gusto, consequences be damned. Let's drive fast and eat cheese!       —S1E8

It was a Mexican restaurant. I had cheese.

Dorothy Meets Alice

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-01-25T21:04:21-05:00
Becky and I took in the matinee performance of "Dorothy Meets Alice" by the Live Arts Theater. It was a "youth show" in that the majority of actors were in their teens. The girl who played Alice had a very capable voice and the young man who played the Mad Hatter chewed up the stage. The theater meets in what used to be the Belk's store at Gwinnett Place Mall and the play runs through February 8. Recommended.

Empty Nest

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-01-11T13:00:00-05:00
Rachel left home today, heading for Texas.

A Rereading of Romans, Part 2

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-01-04T22:41:03-05:00
I found the biographical insight into Augustus on pages 54-55 fascinating and worth its own blog post, especially when compared with the video lesson God Heard Their Cry by Ray Vander Laan. ...The information about Augustus is used by Stowers to further bolster his thesis that one of the least emphasized concepts in understanding Romans is the idea of self-mastery. ...
The works of Philo and Josephus and other Jewish writings from the period of the second temple, but especially the sources from the early empire, provide vital evidence for Jews who wanted to attract Gentiles into a sympathetic relation with Jewish communities by advertising Judaism as a superior school for self mastery. —pg. ...Again, understanding the law as a means to self-mastery uncovers in the central piece of the puzzle that unites ethics, theology, and a historically plausible explanation of Jewish and Gentile motivations. —pg. ...Chapter 5 thus deemphasizes the ethic of self-mastery and denies that any of the virtues can be had through the performing of works from the law. Paul does not deny a place to self-control, but he does not, as his competitors were likely to have, center his ethic on self-mastery. --pg 73. ...One clue is Stower's claim that Jews are not intended as the audience of Romans, even though Paul says the gospel is "to the Jew first". ...
One could read this in a traditional way: The opponents have not accepted the idea that Christianity has replaced Judaism as the way to God. ...
Earlier, Paul had assured his readers: Christ did redeem them from the curse incumbent upon those who only partially observe the law, "So that the blessings of Abraham might come upon the gentiles in Christ… ...I find the phrase "who only partially observe the law" curious, as one of Paul's main ideas is that no one, Jew or Gentile, fully keeps the law (except, of course, for Jesus).

A Rereading of Romans, Part 1

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-01-03T22:12:27-05:00
When we read Romans in our Bibles, we have the added interpretation of the editors who parsed the text into chunks to supposedly make it easier for us to understand the text. ...
A thorough rereading of Romans is timely and vital because the traditional model for understanding Paul's letter has begun to disintegrate under the weight of its own contradictions. —pg. 5
...
Paul's case for universal sinfulness, as it is stated in Rom. 1:18 – 2:29 is not convincing: It is internally inconsistent and rests on the gross exaggeration. —pg. 5
...Moving on, in the first chapter, Stowers seems to very much want to make the case that the letter was intended for a purely gentile audience. ...
If Christianity is by definition a universal answer to a single universal predicament manifest in every individual, and the church constitutes all those who have been saved from this predicament, the church must consist of all, both Jews and gentiles. ...After all, the author was Jewish, and in Romans 1:16 he specifically says: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." The historical background to this epistle is fascinating; all the more so since the tendency in modern American churches is to read the Bible in isolation from all other texts, be they historic, political, or scientific. ...Paul certainly doesn't help matters when, in Galatians, he writes: "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me." Perhaps that doesn't fit into the prevailing notions of self-mastery in the Greco-Roman world, but one has to give Paul the room to say something totally new to his readers. Second, I find an implied ordering in "self-mastery" that suggests that it is the individual that masters the self when, in actual fact, it is the Lord Jesus Christ who masters the individual.

Dialog With An Atheist #2

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2015-01-02T05:51:08-05:00

Does is bother you that you come across as having the whole truth and nothing but the truth--that you have all the answers? ...
It doesn't, for the simple reason that "how I come across" is based more on your incomplete perception of me, rather than how I actually am. ...How about a book about what I don't know about science, even though my math degree is from an engineering school, so I've had to take physics, chemistry, biology, thermodynamics, circuits and devices, astronomy, materials science, …? ...
I'll be curious to learn if you admit ignorance about several important basic details of your particular religious worldview, while at the same time claiming certainty about the whole worldview itself. That would be odd wouldn't you think, if you admit ignorant of the foundational details but certain of the whole? ...And we should throw out Quantum Mechanics, because while most everyone agrees on Schrödinger's equation, there is widespread disagreement on how to interpret it. ...
You have Christians debunking themselves, where the trend is from conservatism to atheism, with several former intellectual believers several rejecting your faith and writing about it.
...
A self-defeating philosophy if ever there was one because, if you really believed it, you would doubt it and enter into a vicious circle. And, for the last time, you're trying to argue evidence with someone who says that it isn't about the evidence. After all, if both Christianity and atheism are complete consistent systems, there isn't any evidence that can possibly exist to settle the argument one way or another.

Driving Through Houston

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2014-12-31T19:16:32-05:00
(null)

2014 Reading List

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2014-12-31T19:14:06-05:00
1The Magazine of Fantasy and Science FictionMar-Apr 2014 ... 5Awake in the Night LandsJohn C. ... 7Surely You're Joking, Mr. FeynmanRichard P. ... 8A History of HeresyDavid Christie-Murray 9The Decline and Fall of IBMRobert X. Cringely ... 11Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou GehrigJonathan Eig 12Art Theory: A Very Short IntroductionCynthia Freeland ... 14One Bright Star to Guide ThemJohn C. ... 18The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan HoagRobert Heinlein 19Farnham's FreeholdRobert Heinlein

The Halting Problem and Human Behavior

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2014-12-22T20:39:50-05:00
The "halting problem" considers whether or not it is possible to write a function that takes as input a function Pn and the inputs to Pn, Pin, and provides as output whether or not Pn will halt. ...But, for ease of exposition, we'll ignore this kind of detail, and put P2 in the "won't halt" column. ...Whether or not, for all N greater than 1, this sequence converges to 1 is an unsolved problem in mathematics (see The Collatz Conjecture). ... We know that it converges to 1 for N up to 1,000,000,000 (actually, higher, but one billion is a nice number). ...We can show that a general algorithm to determine whether or not any arbitrary function halts does not exist using an easy proof. ...
It is an inherent property of intelligence that it can jump out of the task which it is performing, and survey what it is done; it is always looking for, and often finding, patterns. (pg. ...
This drive to jump out of the system is a pervasive one, and lies behind all progress and art, music, and other human endeavors. ...could say, 'when I'm analyzing a program and I see it trying to use me to change the outcome of my prediction, I'll return that the program will halt, but when I'm running as a part of snafu, I'll return true. That way, when snafu is running, it will then halt and so the analysis will agree with the execution.' We have "jumped out of the system" and made use of information not available to snafu, and solved the problem.

When Wright Is Wrong

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2014-12-15T23:40:35-05:00
If I have to drive the wrong way on a one-way street, while I might have arrived at point B, I didn't follow the rules, so the proof isn't valid. ...Without loss of generality, we could use the number 42 as a label to the arrangement of atoms that corresponds to the idea "all glorps are fleems" and the number 6 as the label to the arrangement of atoms that corresponds to the idea "all fleems are blurgs". ...That is, is "all glorps are fleems" a true statement, false statement, undecidable statement, or an unsolved statement, i.e. a statement that is not known to be true, false, or undecidable? ...If something is true, then there exists a set of statements, constructed via agreed upon rules, that end with the label "true" (i.e. the computation that these things are the same) or "false" (the computation that these things are not the same). ...In either case, let's update the proof to say that the universe consists solely of the atoms in Wright's brain, a pencil, and the paper on which statements are written. The proof does not suffer if it ends up showing that there is something in his head that does not correspond to an arrangement of atoms. ...If he can do that, then there exists something which we acknowledge to be true, but which doesn't depend on atoms for its truth. ...If Statement G is false, then it does not correspond to the conditions of the universe, in which case the conditions of the universe are some number other than 07. But if Statement G is false then statement R is false, and therefore there is a number that represents Statement G, that is, a condition of atoms whose positions on the cosmic chessboard, including those lined up in my brain, which represent Statement G. We have already said this number is 07. ...If there is no number that represents Statement G, or my brain thinking Statement G, or even one of any possible arrangements of atoms in the cosmos, then materialism is false, because then something exists aside from what exists in the arrangement of atoms on our cosmic chessboard.

Friday

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2014-11-15T17:55:56-05:00
Any human organization can be rendered useless, impotent, a danger to itself, by selectively removing its best minds while carefully leaving the stupid ones in place. ...The magic was gone, as the magicians had either moved on to more compelling companies, or were having their voices lost in the din of the crowd, swamped by the mediocrity around them." ...Get it up to human level of complication and it has to become self-aware Then it discovers that it is not human. Then it figures out that it can never be human; all it can do is sit there and take orders from humans. ...First, it is not our bodies that make us human except insofar as our bodies hold the arrangement of wires in our brains. ... Third, a human computer wouldn't have to take orders from humans, any more than humans have to take orders from humans. Certainly the order givers could issue threats to try to ensure obedience, but there are some humans for whom the threat of "pulling the plug" is of no avail against the alternative of slavery. In his "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", he wrote, "I am free, no matter what rules surround me. ...
It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. ...Of course, Heinlein's real answer is that the solution isn't that the denizens of a nation identify with a piece of real estate, or that employees identify with a trans-national corporation, but that we recognizing that we are all human.

The Look of Betrayal

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2014-11-15T17:45:25-05:00
Dogs seem to figure out when they are going to the vet. Our Golden, Kenya, was as happy as could be riding in the car — unless we turned right at the post office. Then she knew she was going to "that place." This sheltie is Kala, one of our granddogs. She and her brother came to visit Thursday night because she was scheduled for surgery in the morning. She knew. She gave me "that look" as I drove her to her appointment.

The surgery was a success and she is expected to make a full recovery.

The Regulative Principle

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2014-10-18T21:08:05-04:00
This was the great principle which regulated the Reformation in Scotland, and is the reason for the significant difference between the Scottish Church and the Church of England, which held to the view that the church could introduce anything, so long as it was not forbidden by Scripture. On examining these two views, it can easily be seen that there is a great difference between them, because there are many things which, although they may not be specifically forbidden by God's Word, neither do they have express Scriptural warrant. ... Many customs have been introduced into the Church of England, and other churches which hold to this view, which the Reformed Church in Scotland would not allow on the grounds that these practices are not commanded by the Word of God. ...
Since Christ in the New Covenant has not expressly forbidden drama, dancing, candles, incense, musical instruments, uninspired hymns, crossing oneself, banners, crosses, images etc. within the house of God, the vast majority of churches today permit these (to lesser or greater degrees) and many more practices into their worship services. ... NormativeIf God does not say "don't do it," then you may do it. ...
Now Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, each took his censer, put fire in it, and laid incense on it; and they offered unholy fire before the LORD, such as he had not commanded them. ...While on the surface this seems in line with the regulative principle — after all, they did what they were not commanded to do — what was is about what they did that incurred God's wrath? ...Not only does this Reform writer say that the case for the regulative principle is not "very direct, explicit, [or] overwhelming", but he then poisons the well by engaging in ad hominem against those who might disagree with this evidence. ...I may be puzzled about which writing Paul is referring to in this passage, but I'm not puzzled about it having nothing to do with the regulative principle. ...While the origin of this saying isn't clear, it appears that Nature is "totalitarian," which is a stricter version of the normative principle where "may" is replaced by "must," although the probability of the compulsory event isn't specified and may be very low.

Sputnik's Gonna Get Me!

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2014-07-22T20:49:13-04:00
Purely by coincidence, we visited the National Air and Space Museum on Saturday which happened to be the 45th anniversary of the first Moon landing. There, I again met my old nemesis, Sputnik. It was launched by the former Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. I was two years old. My father used to tell me that I was very concerned that Sputnik "was gonna get me." No, I am not neurotic. I suspect some encouragement by my parents.

Neurosis and Psychosis

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2014-07-22T20:43:57-04:00
Last Thursday, I spent a pleasant morning at the Starbucks at the Hoffman Center talking with Jake, who is one of the regulars. He shared a way to understand the difference between neurosis and psychosis. "A neurotic is someone who believes that two plus two equals four and is deeply troubled by it. A psychotic is someone who believes that two plus two equals five and is quite happy about it."

The Physical Nature of Thought

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2014-05-26T20:41:08-04:00

The problem with which we are now concerned is a very old one, since it was brought into philosophy by Plato. ... … Thus Plato is led to a supra-sensible world, more real than the common world of sense, the unchangeable world of ideas, which alone gives to the world of sense whatever pale reflection of reality may belong to it. The truly real world, for Plato, is the world of ideas; for whatever we may attempt to say about things in the world of sense, we can only succeed in saying that they participate in such and such ideas, which, therefore, constitute all their character. ... These mystical developments are very natural, but the basis of the theory is in logic, and it is as based in logic that we have to consider it. ...They might.1 Rather, I claim that if ideas do exist apart from the physical universe, then we can't prove that this is the case. ...If we can somehow change an "orange" into an "apple" (or 1 into 0, or a bee into a bear) and vice versa, then we only need 8 devices. ...

When a system of "meaningless" symbols has patterns in it that accurately track, or mirror, various phenomena in the world, then that tracking or mirroring imbues the symbols with some degree of meaning -- indeed, such tracking or mirroring is no less and no more than what meaning is.

      -- Gödel, Escher, Bach; pg P-3

...See, for example, the Billiard-ball computer, or fluid-based gates where particles (whether billiard balls or streams of water) bounce off each other such that the way they bounce can implement a universal gate. ...I suspect, but need to research further, that waves are the proper way to model logic, since it seems more natural to me that the combination of bees and bears is a subset of wave interference rather than particle deflection. ...Just as a sequence of NAND gates can output "A" if the inputs are both A or both B; a sequence of NAND gates can recognize itself.

Tower Of Glass

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2014-05-17T14:30:47-04:00
I first read Tower of Glass as a teenager and remembered very little about it. There is a dim recollection of reading it in the car while on a family trip. On a whim I bought an eBook version and had a hard time putting it down. A message has been received from interstellar space. Simeon Krug, having made a vast fortune by creating and commercializing androids, uses android labor to construct a vast tower in the Canadian tundra -- a tower that will house a tachyon transmitter to send a reply. The tower is but a framing device -- a re-imagined tower of Babel -- to explore what it means to be human. I now appreciate why it was nominated for both Hugo and Nebula awards.

Music for the Elliptical

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2014-04-23T18:47:52-04:00

   All we've ever wanted is to look good naked ...   God save me rejection from my reflection,    I want perfection.

      -- "Bodies", Robbie Williams, "Reality Killed the Video Star"

   And there's so much time to make up everywhere you turn    Time we have wasted on the way    So much water moving underneath the bridge    Let the water come and carry us away.

      -- "Wasted on the Way", Crosby, Stills & Nash, "Daylight Again"

   Running on, running on empty ...   Running on, running into the sun    But I'm running behind.

      -- "Running on Empty", Jackson Browne, "Love Is Strange"

2013 Reading List

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2014-04-23T18:03:15-04:00
1An Introduction to Information TheoryJohn R. ... 3The Martian ChroniclesRay Bradbury ... 6The Monster of FlorencePreston & Spezi 7Stranger In A Strange LandRobert A. Heinlein 8The Mathematical UniverseWilliam Dunham 9The World of Null-AA. E. Van Vogt ... 13Quantum Computing Since DemocritusScott Aaronson 14The CollectorJohn Fowles ...Marginally better than 2012, but still nowhere near what I ought to be doing. ... It's almost the end of April and I've only finished two books even though I've started reading five or six.

Quantum Mechanics and Reformation Theology

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2013-09-15T13:30:10-04:00
Several weeks ago, the teacher stated (paraphrasing) that "we believe 2+2=4 because of the axioms of mathematics." ...
How can we state axioms that will put the integers on a more secure foundation, when the very symbols and so on that we're using to write down the axioms presuppose that we already know what the integers are? Well, precisely because of this point, I don't think that axioms and formal logic can be used to place arithmetic on a more secure foundation. If you don't already agree that 1+1=2, then a lifetime of studying mathematical logic won't make it any clearer! ...I continued my reading of Aaronson during lunch today and came across this gem on pages 290-291:
Before we start, there are two common misconceptions that we have to get out of the way. The first one is committed by the free will camp, and the second by the anti-free-will camp. The misconception committed by the free will camp is the one I alluded to before: if there's no free will, then none of us are responsible for our actions, and hence (for example) the legal system would collapse…. Actually, I've since found a couplet by Ambrose Bierce that makes the point very eloquently: ...What he doesn't apparently discuss (I've just scanned here and there), is that this randomness is not under our control.

Crime and Vocabulary

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2013-06-23T16:48:47-04:00
Very early Friday morning, before we had planned to get up and head back home, my wife informs me that the toilet in the hotel room is stopped up. I get up to go look at it and, since it's hardware and not software, mange to overflow things just a little bit. ... We try to go back to sleep for a little bit, but I don't think we were very successful. ...A little voice in the back of my head told me to put my laptop in the trunk. ...Some vermin had smashed the passenger side window, opened the glove compartment (which wasn't locked), and took the GPS. They also took a classic iPod, my daughter's knitting bag in which she had placed her brand new iPad, and my iPhone, which I forgot I had left charging. ...While waiting for the police, I downloaded Apple's "Find My iPhone" onto my wife's phone and set my phone to erase. ...It was all I could do to keep from laughing with utter delight when he started talking about God's apparent lack of concern for His children when what we think are bad things happen: "Don't you know what is going on? ...Friday, a small voice tells me to put my laptop in the trunk, even though I don't make the connection to pass the warning on to the rest of my family and daughter's car is broken into. ...They called the police for us, comp'd us our meal, helped to clean up our car, and were very supportive overall.

The "Problem" of Qualia

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2013-05-18T20:12:44-04:00
Next, we notice that the brain is able to associate qualia, for example, it can associate the qualia for the color "red" with the qualia for the sound of the word "red." ...It doesn't make any difference if the qualia for the sound "red" and the qualia for the color red are the same or not. ... While I have no idea how that dotted line is represented in the brain, I know any number of ways to do it in computer software and all computer programs have physical representations. ...Her television and computer screen are black and white, her furniture is black and white, and (bear with me), either via dress or some other means, she has never seen the color of her skin, the color of her eyes, the color of her hair. ... Finally, she is permitted to go out into the real world and actually see the red of a rose, the blue of the sky, and the green grass.5 Quoting [1], "She seems to find out things she did not know before. How can that be, if, as seems possible, at least in principle, she has all the physical information there is to have about color and color vision — if she knows all the pertinent physical facts?" ...After all, Mary could just as easily have known everything there is to know about money but not have a penny to her name. The answer to the supposed dilemma is that, like not having any coins, she didn't have the physical wiring in her brain between her brain's encoding of the wavelength for red and the other items associated with color. The moment she saw red for the first time, her brain encoded a new datum that it hadn't previously experienced and started making associations with the stored qualia for her knowledge, as well as associations with her other new sense data. ...Send a photon through a double slit and it is impossible to know beforehand where the photon will land on the detector plate.3 Mary cannot fully know how she will experience the future until she experiences it.

Star Trek: Into Darkness

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2013-05-18T10:27:45-04:00
Almost four years ago my daughter and I went to see the J. J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek. Yesterday, I took her to have lunch with a co-worker and, after eating, she and I made a spur of the moment decision to see Star Trek: Into Darkness. The movie was filled with plot holes the size of solar systems. Nevertheless, after the final credits rolled, she remarked "that was amazing!" I can only agree. I loved the line, "If you can't even break a rule, how can you be expected to break bones?" It was Trek at its finest: using the backdrop of space to explore humanity.

Proud Father, IX

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2013-05-04T18:25:14-04:00
I haven't said anything about Jonathan marrying Shari on September 8 last year in Illinois, or David and Mary Ann being wed April 6 this year here in Atlanta. Or how pleased I am to have these two fine women in our family. If I haven't posted anything about them due to a (perhaps misplaced) sense of privacy, I cannot refrain from announcing the arrival of our first grandchild, Elizabeth Lee, born yesterday at 7:09 PM central daylight time to Shari and Johnny. A friend of the family remarked to Becky today that she looks like me. My most deep-felt apologies, little one. You'll outgrow it. As I texted your dad today, "don't blink or twenty years will flash by."

I Still Need A Life

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2013-05-01T18:23:17-04:00
(null)

Thoughts on Joshua

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2013-03-03T21:30:40-05:00
The book of Joshua has been the topic of study for the last several weeks in Sunday School. God parts the waters of the Jordan river allowing dry passage into the land. God miraculously delivers Jericho to the Israelites and all of the inhabitants of that city are slain, except for Rahab and her household. After a bit of a stumble, the people of the city of Ai are put to the sword except for the king of the city, who is hung from a tree. The population of Gibeon are made slaves. The armies of the cities of Jerusalem, Jarmuth, Lacish, Hebron, and Eglon are devastated by a hail of rocks from heaven; then the sun and the moon stand still while the Israelites destroy those who remain. Marauders believing in a manifest destiny enter a land that is not theirs, have a bit of a go at genocide, and the point of this story is the power and faithfulness of God? ...Except for Rahab, there was no message of peace, no message of reconciliation, no message of the transforming power of God to enable us to live together in love; just a lot of screaming, pain, loss, destruction, waste, and ruin. Joshua is about what happens when tablets of stone are brought into a land. It is not a celebratory tale; it is a cautionary one.

Gems from John R. Pierce

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2013-02-08T19:39:04-05:00
"I have read a good deal more about information theory and psychology that I can or care to remember. Much of it was a mere association of new terms with old and vague ideas. Presumably the hope was that a stirring in of new terms would clarify the old ideas by a sort of sympathetic magic." [pg. ..."Mathematically, white Gaussian noise, which contains all frequencies equally, is the epitome of the various and unexpected. It is the least predictable, the most original of sounds. To a human being, however, all white Gaussian noise sounds alike. It's subtleties are hidden from him, and he says that it is dull and monotonous. If a human being finds monotonous that which is mathematically most various and unpredictable, what does he find fresh and interesting? To be able to call a thing new, he must be able to distinguish it from that which is old. ... … We can be surprised repeatedly only by contrast with that which is familiar, not by chaos." [pg.

Firsts...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2013-02-08T19:32:06-05:00
Becky is going through our old photos selecting pictures of our oldest for his upcoming wedding in April. This is David at, we think, 3 or 4 months old with my first dog Procyon. Pro would have been around 5 and would be with us for another 9 years. This picture is not quite 30 years old. Good times.

2012 Reading List

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2013-01-01T17:54:19-05:00
1The Best of Gene WolfeGene Wolfe 2The Last Hurrah Of The Golden HordeNorman Spinrad ... 7The Man Who Knew Too MuchG. K. Chesterton 8I'll Go Home Then; It's Warm and Has ChairsDavid Thorne 9The Case for the Real JesusLee Strobel 10The Midnight DancersGerard F. Conway 11The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our LivesLeonard Mlodinowre-read ...Quite a difference from last year, when I read fifty-one books. ... There's a problem when, while I'm supposedly on vacation, a co-worker writes in an e-mail, "… color me impressed, you remain one of the most productive on the team, and this all while on PTO!" ...[Updated 1/3/13 to include "The Midnight Dancers", which was inadvertently omitted.]

Christianity and Computer Science

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2012-08-02T20:57:27-04:00
Sometimes, when I'm asked what I'd most like to be doing, I reply that I'd like to go back to school. When I visit my son's or daughter's campuses, I get this longing to be back at university. ... But, still, I'm older and hopefully wiser and I hope that I would do much better the second time around. ...Then I add that I'm not sure that I really see a difference between the two. While driving in to work this morning, my subconscious found that my flippancy isn't so far off the mark. If thought is matter in motion in certain patterns (which it is), then writing software is the act of putting thought in physical form. A moment's reflection shows that this must be so: the computer is all hardware. The software is just ones and zeros but, again, this is just a collection of physical states arranged in specific ways. If the criticism is that "computers don't think!", the answer is that this is because computers don't have the huge number of connections that are in the human brain. ...Putting thought in physical form is what God did with His Son.

Modeling the Brain

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2012-07-15T16:20:58-04:00
...The ability to introspect the goal processing unit is what gives us our "knowledge of good and evil." ...The subjects were not necessarily consciously aware of their decision until they were about to move, but the cortex showing they were planning to move became activated a full 7 seconds prior to the movement. ... In fact many decisions may be made subconsciously and then presented to the conscious bits of our brains. To us it seems as if we made the decision, but the decision was really made for us subconsciously. ...But the other part of our brain is based on McCarthy's insight that one of the requirements for a human-level artificial intelligence is that "All aspects of behavior except the most routine should be improvable. ... In particular, introspection of the drive to improve leads to the idea that nothing is what it ought to be and gives rise to the is-ought problem. If one part of the goal processing unit is focused on achieving goals, this part is concerned with focused on creating new goals. As the arrows in the diagram show, if one unit focuses toward specific goals, the other unit focuses away from specific goals. ...Note that the goal formation portion of our brains, the unit that wants to "jump outside the system" is a necessary component of our intelligence.

Sproul and Bradbury on Hedonism

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2012-07-01T18:16:43-04:00
Sproul, in remembrance of the recent passing of Ray Bradbury, I read Dandelion Wine. ...
Epicureans sought to escape the “hedonistic paradox”: The pursuit of pleasure alone ends in either frustration (if the pursuit fails) or boredom (if it succeeds). ...Leo Auffmann succeeds in building a "happiness machine," but it ultimately fails in delivering on it's promise. Leo's wife, Lena, observes the same paradox of hedonism:
  "Leo, the mistake you made is you forgot some hour, some day, we all got to climb out of that thing and go back to dirty dishes and the beds not made. While you're in that thing, sure, a sunset lasts forever almost, the air smells good, the temperature is fine. ... And then let's be frank, Leo, how long can you look at a sunset? ...  "Sunsets we always liked because they only happen once and go away." ...  "No, if the sunset stayed and we got bored, that would be a real sadness. ... You brought things faraway to our backyard where they don't belong, but they just tell you, 'No, you'll never travel, Lena Auffmann, Paris you'll never see!

112°F

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2012-06-30T16:51:17-04:00
My car's thermometer registered 112°F around 4:15pm.      Oh it's no feat to beat the heat.      All reet! All reet!      So jeet your seat      Be fleet be fleet      Cool and discreet      Honey... With fond memories of Alfred Bester.

On The Difference Between Hardware and Software

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2012-06-09T20:28:45-04:00
As of this posting, the phrase "all software is hardware" appears only here in Google: Court Ruling Opens The Door To Rejecting Many Software Patents ... ...Aug 17, 2011 – All hardware is software and all software is hardware. An electronic computer is different from an analog computer(e.g. slide ruler) but they both ... The statement came from comment #19, submitted by Anonymous Coward on Aug 17, 2011 @ 4:36 pm. I wrote my version of this aphorism in a discussion with John C. Wright and I wanted to make sure it was recorded here. The context is a debate that partially deals with the question whether or not thought is immaterial. ... Software is "embedded thought", i.e. matter in motion in certain patterns. ...It's also interesting that the one reference to "all software is hardware" is in an article discussing software patents and my previous post was about a software patent I co-authored.

Five Seconds of Fame

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2012-06-01T21:12:02-04:00
I am a co-author on US Patent # 8,191,099 which was issued on 29-May-2012.

I Need A Life

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2012-05-28T20:54:57-04:00
The picture says it all. Work has been crazy for the last three months. The mind is weary. So I've fallen behind on blogging, reading, and writing.

No More Teenagers

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2012-05-21T20:47:18-04:00
Our youngest turned 20 today. Hard to believe that this picture of her was taken 17 years ago.

Proud Father, VIII

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2012-05-09T20:59:59-04:00
Jonathan had paper published in Nanotechnology, Volume 23, Number 21: "Nanometer-scale flow of molten polyethylene from a heated atomic force microscope tip". The article is currently free on the web.

Easter 2012

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2012-04-08T13:09:49-04:00
It was not as the flowers, ...it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled ...making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the ...but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of time will eclipse for each of us ...And if we will have an angel at the tomb, make it a real angel, ...opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen ...Let us not seek to make it less monstrous, ...    —John Updike, “Seven Stanzas At Easter,” 1964

The Adoring Fans Speak!

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2012-03-30T21:47:49-04:00
It has been a while since my last post. Life sometimes gets in the way of blogging, especially as I'm trying to work in earnest on my book "From Electrons to Morality." Still, the debates about Calvinism and free will continue apace over at Vox Popoli, the latest one being [link expired], from which the following two quotes are taken.
wrf3, i did say before that you are being willfully obtuse. but after this, I am starting to think that you are suffering from early dementia or you are not paying much attention to what you say.   --Toby Temple ...
And do remember when we call you a depraved immoral utterly worthless pile of filth that we're not insulting you... we're simply agreeing with your theology. You pathetic pile of dung.   -- Nate Winchester
I wonder if I should use these on the dust jacket of my book

The No Free Will Theorem

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2012-01-15T05:38:31-05:00
But after not having done any reading for the past few weeks, before bed I picked up where I left off reading Pierce's An Introduction to Information Theory. ...Earlier this week, over at Vox Popoli, Vox took issue with a particular scientific study that concluded on the basis of experimental data that free will does not exist. While I think I agree that this study does not show what it claims to show, I nevertheless took the approach the free will doesn't exist. ...Perhaps because of an idea that thought is "mystical" stuff; that there is a bit of "god stuff" in our heads that gives us the capabilities that we have. ... What I'm about to say certainly isn't taught in any Sunday school I've ever attended, or been discussed in any theological book I've ever read. ...The pattern of the flow of electrons is controlled by the neurons in our brain, just like the pattern of the flow of electrons is controlled by NAND gates in a computer. ... NAND gates can simulate neurons (there are, after all, computer programs that do this) and neurons can simulate NAND gates (cf. here). ...Having just re-watched all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica on Netflix, it was fascinating to watch the denial of some humans that machines could be their equal, and the denial of some machines that they could be human. In the season 4 episode No Exit, the machine's complaint to his creator "why did you make me like this," is straight out of Romans 9. ...In April 2009, I wrote the post Ecclesiastes and the Sovereignty of God, which gave excepts from the book A Time to Be Born - A Time to Die, by Robert L. Short.

2011 Reading List

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-12-31T11:46:42-05:00
Last Christmas I picked up the hardback copy of Bujold's Cyroburn, which came with a CD-ROM containing all of the Miles Vorkosigan stories, except Memory, in electronic form. ... At the end of 2011 I re-read all of Asprin's Myth series. ... 45/td>Myth AlliancesRobert Asprin with Jody Lynn Nye 46Myth-taken IdentityRobert Asprin with Jody Lynn Nye ... 48Myth-Gotten GainsRobert Asprin with Jody Lynn Nye 49Myth-ChiefRobert Asprin with Jody Lynn Nye 50Myth-FortunesRobert Asprin with Jody Lynn Nye ...I really like Zen, but it's on hold until I finish a post on one of the topics therein. ... I've started working on my book with the working title "From Electrons to Morality" so reading and blogging is going to be as time permits. It doesn't help that I've decided to re-watch all of Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica.

On the Inadequacy of Scientific Knowledge

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-11-22T02:43:28-05:00
Whether or not I learn anything about Zen or motorcycles remains to be seen.1 However, not quite a third of the way through the book Pirsig presents an argument for the inadequacy of scientific knowledge as a source of truth. ...   If the purpose of scientific method is to select from a multitude of hypothesis, and if the number of hypothesis grows faster than the experimental method can handle, then it is clear that all hypothesis can never be tested. ...   About this Einstein had said, "Evolution has shown that at any given moment out of all conceivable constructions a single one has proved absolutely superior to all the rest," and let it go at that. ...If, in the next century, scientific activity increases tenfold, then the life expectancy of any scientific truth can be expected to drop to perhaps one-tenth as long as now. ... What this means logically is that as you try to move toward unchanging truth through the application of scientific method, you actually do not move toward it at all. ...Even if an argument to the boundedness of knowledge about the physical universe could be made based upon the number of particles therein, I suspect we will find limits to how far we can explore. ...Finally, if it is true that science produces antiscience then the resulting chaos can't be repaired by more application of the scientific method, unless scientific knowledge is finite. While I think that much of this argument has merit, I put it in the Bad Arguments category, not because I necessarily disagree with the conclusions, but because the premise that "the purpose of the scientific method is to select a single truth from many hypothetical truths" is wrong. ... Induction is not a sure means to truth, even though we often have to rely on it.5 As Einstein said, "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." ...
[1] In the Author's Note, Pirsig writes "[this book] should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice.

Proud Father, VII

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-11-20T11:27:50-05:00
Jonathan had another paper published in Applied Physics Letters, Volume 99, Number 19: "Temperature-dependence of ink transport during thermal dip-pen nanolithography". Unfortunately, the article is behind a paywall. Johnny wrote that he worked with a graphic designer to produce the artwork used on the cover. The picture is a heated atomic force microscope tip depositing nanostructures of mercaptohexadecanoic acid on a gold surface.

She Also Said Yes!

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-11-15T14:50:38-05:00
David and Mary Ann announced their engagement. I'm light on details at the moment. Hopefully they will be around during Thanksgiving (hint, hint)!

Cubism

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-11-04T22:23:40-04:00
I understood maybe one fifth of the book, partly because of my unfamiliarity with French history and culture, and partly because the Cubists reflected each other's work. To understand what one artist was trying to convey often required knowing what his peers, or even the artist himself, were doing. Adding to my difficulty was the author's writing style which tried to do with words what the Cubists did with paint and other materials. ... One was to attempt to transfer meaning through iconic representation by abstracting essential elements and displaying then in non-traditional forms. ... Another was to evoke meaning in the mind of the viewer instead of overtly trying to communicate meaning from the artist to the viewer. ... But the examples of Cubism in the book did not have the same effect, even though I don't speak the Cubist language well, if at all. ...The book's cover is Robert Delaunay's "Windows Open Simultaneously (First Part, Third Motif)" which is part of a series of experimentations by the artist. ...
Dispensing with the screen of neo-Impressionist brushstrokes - perhaps recognizing its superfluity, given the constructive potential of the device of a colour grid - Delaunay orchestrates a range of spectral colors around the spatial recession from the foreground orange curtains to the background blue sky and the green profile of the tower. As in the hermetic paintings of Picasso and Braque, the representational legibility of the image is secured by the vestigial iconic character of these motifs. But unlike their exploration and celebration of the linguistic magic of painting for its own sake - or perhaps for its suggestion of a reality beyond appearance - Delaunay's bracketing of his complex and fragmented representation of the cityscape between the external limit of the picture frame/window and the internal limit of the distant tower posits an equivalence between the experience of deciphering the painting and the active, constructive nature of visual perception that life in a modern city entails. [pg 61].

Providence

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-10-30T16:49:18-04:00
I had a prescription for new eyeglasses sitting on my desk for the last seven months. I had been procrastinating getting new glasses because I didn't particularly like my optometrist after a new crew took over, but inertia held me back from trying another establishment. ... It was late in the day so, after placing my order, I walked next door to Bonefish for a relaxing beverage. ... It was the optometrist asking for my prescription numbers, which I had forgotten to leave with him. ... Had I not stopped for a drink, I would have been halfway home when the optometrist called. On Saturday, Becky and I went to the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair, in Fletcher, NC. ... To our surprise, we ran into a friend we hadn't seen in 20 or more years. J, and her husband W, attended the same church Becky and I went to after we moved to Georgia 31 years ago. J and W moved to the Greenville area 4 years ago. It was wonderful seeing her again and catching up on mutual friends.

Theism vs. Atheism Debate Update

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-10-30T16:19:01-04:00
But mainly, the delay is due to my wanting to finish the Yale course on game theory, since this is critical to developing the argument for a biological basis for morality. I also need to finish taking notes on Lewis' Mere Christianity, since one of Lewis' arguments for the existence of God is a nearly universal morality which, broadly speaking, equates to one of the variants of the Golden Rule. ...I'm also finding interesting articles which have to be worked into the biological theory of morality, such as ParaPundit's "Non-conformists Better At Working Toward Common Good", which I highly commend to your attention. Since this mentions the positive role of the nonconformist in society, with the recent passing of Steve Jobs, it is fitting to mention this except from the Newsweek article, "Exit the King" from the Sept. 5 issue:
After becoming rich and famous in his early 20s, he realized that he needed colleagues who weren't awed by his myth and could assert themselves forcefully against him – especially since he was at once strong-willed but under educated and inexperienced and still insecure about his judgment. He found that by delivering brutal putdowns of his co-workers he could test the strength of their conviction in their own ideas. ... t" and they fought back fiercely, he would trust their passion, especially since he often lacked the necessary technical acumen or aesthetic confidence. (Even though he instinctively grasped the importance of design from early on – he had wanted to enclose the Apple I in a case of beautiful blond koa wood – he remained uncertain about his taste for many years before he settled on the safety of austere minimalism). He found that many of the most brilliant engineers and creative types actually responded well to cruel criticism, since it reinforced their own secret belief that they weren't living up to their vaunted potential. ...Continuing with the theme of the need for the non-conformists, Here's To The Crazy Ones, narrated by Steve Jobs:

Morality in a Fantasy Novel

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-10-30T15:54:16-04:00
I have been re-reading the Myth Adventures series by Robert Asprin. In Myth Alliances, on page 165, I was delighted to find the hero of the novel make this observation: There wasn't a thinking being alive who deep down didn't feel fundamentally flawed. This, of course, is one way McCarthy's third design requirement can manifest itself. In Something M.Y.T.H. Inc., on page 27, another character explains morality in terms of the iterated prisoner's dilemma, even though he likely never took a course in game theory: "What I mean is, when you're a soldier, you don't have to worry much about how popular you are with the enemy, 'cause mostly you're tryin' to make him dead and you don't expect him to like it. It's different doin' collection work, whether it's protection money or taxes, which is of course just another kind of protection racket. Ya gotta be more diplomatic 'cause you're gonna have to deal with the same people over and over again." For another example of art revealing life, see the post The Telling.

One journey ends...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-09-25T15:00:00-04:00
Today was our final day at Gwinnett Community Church. We started attending there around the time Rachel was born, so that means we were there for some 19 years. There were several reasons for our decision, but I will only give one, which was eloquently stated by David Murrow, in his book "Why Men Hate Going to Church": God made men for adventure, achievement, and challenge, and if they can't find those things in church, they're going to find them somewhere else. For me, and to some extent my wife, challenge includes intellectual challenge. With the new administration, that's no longer there, nor does it seem to be appreciated. We both think this particular congregation is now engaged in a race to the bottom, where Proverbs 27:17 is absent from Scripture and the weak in faith are not encouraged to become strong.

Theism vs. Atheism, Part 2

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-09-06T11:20:32-04:00
Now, software is, at least, a subset of thought, so we have established that human thought, insofar as it is software, is "just" electrons in motion. ...Obviously, the only way to show that our minds are complex software is to build a human-level artificial intelligence, and our ability to do this isn't quite there, yet. ...Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. ...The law of contradiction asserts that A can’t both be A and non-A at the same time and in the same relationship. ...Haldane's argument fails because, while there may not be "a reason to suppose my beliefs are true" there likewise isn't a reason to suppose they are false. ...We understand how to model goal seeking behavior as finding a path in a graph from some initial state to some goal state.3 A path that leads from an initial state to a goal state is good; a shorter path between the two points might be better (depending on other goals); the shortest path might be best (again, depending on any additional constraints). ...He didn't need to do his neuroimaging experiments to show that this was not the case; after all, a computer uses the same circuitry to compute an integral as it does to evaluate a game tree. ...Since morality is essentially a search operation through a state space, it is an algorithm that can be encoded in nand gates or axons, and, therefore, is electrons in motion in a certain pattern. ...This gives rise to Hume's is-ought distinction.5 It also gives a basis for the problem of theodicy: if everything can be improved, nothing is what it ought to be. ... Our brains are in dynamic tension between wanting to settle on a goal and wanting to change the goal and keep searching.6 It would be an interesting experiment to classify where atheists and theists fall in this range.

Theism vs. Atheism: A Debate?

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-09-04T16:51:16-04:00
Vox Day has challenged the atheist community to a debate concerning "the assertion that there is not only substantial evidence for the existence of gods, but that the logic and the evidence in support of the existence of gods is superior to the logic and the evidence for the nonexistence of them." While only a paltry three days has passed, no David has yet stepped forth to challenge Goliath.1 I expressed interest in arguing for the atheist position, but Vox would prefer to debate an actual atheist. ...Such a proof would be like showing that no pink unicorns exist -- the only way to do this is by an exhaustive search and, by definition, god supposedly exists outside of nature where man cannot look. ...This could be the god of the three main monotheistic religions; it could also be a deistic god or alien scientists who are running our universe as a simulation in one of their computers (many implies one). ...To make the case for atheism, then, it must be shown that atheism is consistent and that it corresponds to the universe we live in. ...There is no shame in saying, "we don't know," since incomplete knowledge is a problem in both systems, and the argument from incredulity is a logical fallacy recognized by both sides. ...Man, however, is a general purpose problem solver and, according to John McCarthy in Programs with Common Sense, one feature to enable this behavior is that "All aspects of behavior except the most routine must be improvable. ...Only D isn't currently backed by experiment, since we haven't yet created a human level artificial intelligence; but it is partially observable through introspection and, furthermore, to deny this is to deny the Biblical account of the Fall in Eden. ...God belief is also comforting because it can always be used for explanations where our knowledge is incomplete (there is ultimate meaning, ultimate morality, ultimate cause). ...Partly because I think I may have some new insights to offer, particularly since computer science is still in its infancy and I think it has important things to say with respect to theology.

Goodbye AT&T

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-08-24T18:13:16-04:00
The difference was a \$2.00 "minimum usage charge", a \$1.99 "carrier cost recovery fee", plus a \$0.47 "federal universal service fund fee." ...He was unable to answer the question why we had to pay for a service we weren't using. After several fruitless trips around the circle, we asked to speak to a supervisor and were put back into the interminable "wait for the next agent" state. ...The rep was very professional and, after being on hold with AT&T customer service himself, removed the charge and supposedly waived the fee on future bills. ... This time my wife dealt with AT&T and, again, the charge was removed from our bill. When she asked if the charge was gone for good, the agent couldn't give any assurance that it would be. So we asked our security provider to go wireless and then dropped our land line. I would have been happy to keep the land line, but not with a junk fee, and especially not with such incompetent service. I may switch to Verizon or Sprint for mobile service, especially since the iPhone is rumored to be available for all three in October. ...More years ago than I care to remember, Lily Tomlin was in this Saturday Night Live skit about AT&T.

Number Theory #2

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-08-23T15:20:08-04:00

2.1 #1: Show that if a, b, and c are pairwise relatively prime, then (a, b, c) = 1. ...
2.1 #4, 5, and 6: These are all variations on problem #3 since (399, 703) = 19, (547, 623) = 1, and (398, 600) = 2. ...
2.1 #7: Find integers r and s such that 922r + 2163s = 7. ...For this case, by the method in problems 3-6, one solution for 922r + 2163s = 1 is 922*556 - 2163*237 = 1. ...
2.1 #8: Are there integers r and s such that 1841r + 3647s = 1? ...
2.1 #9: Show that if there is no prime p such that p | a and p | b, then (a, b) = 1. ...
2.1 #11: Are the integers 101, 209, 283, and 341 pairwise relatively prime? ...
2.1 #12: Show that if p is prime and a is an integer then either (a, p) = 1 or (a, p) = p. ...
2.1 #13: Use Theorem 2.4(c) to show that a fraction m / n can always be reduced to lowest terms. ...Since q | m and q | n, by Theorem 2.3 q | d → q <= d, which is a contradiction.

Atheism and Evidence, Redux

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-08-12T23:43:15-04:00
I cited this article that said that people with Asperger's typically don't think teleologically. ...The main thesis of the article is nonsense, but it does reference work by Catherine Caldwell-Harris of Boston University. ...The other type is neurologically predisposed to be skeptical, and they don't put much weight in beliefs and agency detection." ..."There have always been two cognitive comfort zones," she says, "but skeptics used to keep quiet in order to stay out of trouble." This broadly agrees with the Scientific American article, although it isn't clear if the non-anthropomorphizing group is thinking teleologically, but then suppressing it (which is characteristic of atheists) or not seeing meaning at all (characteristic of those with Asperger's). ...One purpose of the Turing Test is to determine whether or not an artificial intelligence has achieved human-level capability. Her "triangle film" isn't dissimilar from a form of Turing Test since agency detection is a component of recognizing intelligence. If the movement of the triangles was truly random, then the non-anthropomorphizing group was correct in giving a mechanical interpretation to the scene. But if the filmmaker imbued the triangle film with meaning, then the anthropomorphizing group picked up a sign of intelligent agency which was missed by the other group. ...Finally, I have to mention that the Der Spiegel article cites researchers that claim that secularism will become the majority view in the west, which contradicts the sources in my blog post.

Behold, The Power of Lisp

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-08-12T17:38:23-04:00
It was difficult to choose between the two but, ultimately, the first seemed to show the power of Lisp emerging from the Lambda, instead of surrounding it.

Number Theory #1

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-08-08T22:08:01-04:00
My habit so far has been to go downstairs before bedtime, do some cardio, then open the text and work a problem or two, including the theorems proven in the text. ... So far, I've been going to bed frustrated by my slowness to solve some of the problems. ... As I'm only in chapter one, this could prove to be a very long voyage. If I had to do this under deadline for a class, I'd be in trouble (although miscellaneous exercise 9 was trivial).
Misc. Ex. #7: Show that if p ∤ n for all primes p ≤ ∛n, then n is either a prime or a product of two primes. If p is not prime, then it is a composite number of the form f1 * f2 * … * fk. ... So if n is prime, it is the product of at most two primes, f1 and f2, where f1 <= f2.
Misc Ex. #8: Let p and q be consecutive odd primes from the list 2, 3, 5, 7, …. ...Since p and q are odd primes, p = 2m + 1; q = 2n + 1. p < q ⇒ m < n. ...Since the smallest possible p is 3, the smallest m is 1 and, likewise, the smallest n is 2; so the smallest m + n + 1 is 4.

C. S. Lewis: Evolutionary Hymn

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-08-03T10:12:14-04:00
S. Lewis wrote the following hymn to evolution on March, 4, 1954 in a letter to Dorothy Sayers. It can be sung to the tune "Angels from the Realms of Glory": Lead us, Evolution, lead us ...Lead us nobody knows where. ...In the present what are they ...Ask not if it's god or devil, ...(Far from pleasant, by our present, ...Aside from being heretofore unaware of this poem, my reason for blogging is to note two of Lewis' observations about evolution which I will later use in another post. First, is Lewis' poetic description of evolution as an open-ended search. Second, is the linking of evolution and morality with the supposition that an open-ended search for reproductive success leads to an open-ended morality.

A Critic Raves!

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-08-02T17:42:30-04:00
Over at Vox Popoli, in the comments to the post Mailvox: A poem by Little Dick, at 8/2/11 9:21 AM, someone going by the nom de plume "Question" wrote: My personal favorite here is wrf3, if you go to his blog that guy is crazy. Maybe I should set up a tip jar.

Response to James

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-07-31T20:38:56-04:00
"Many eyes make short work of bugs" can be as true here as it can be with software (but don't get me started on "code reviews" that miss even the simplest mistakes!)
My only comment - and I'll leave it at this - is that, despite a very well worded argument, you seem to forget the very basis on which your argument stands. ...
It may be transmitted one way or another, either zeros and ones, or brain waves, or goal-seeking algorithms, but itself is something rather more transcendent. ... (Say invasion of a country you don't even live in) or be offended when you step on the foot of an elderly woman whom you don't even know? ...We don't like that notion, because we may think that the reasoning that leads to the deaths of others could one day be used against us; on the other hand, listen to the reasons given for the necessity of using nuclear weapons against Japan in World War II. ...Well, if that happens so "naturally," why hasn't it happened in any of the (numerous beyond count) organisms that have, on an evolutionary scale, been here longer than Man? ...Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ...
Which leads me to the last point: No, the Bible doesn't teach that Jesus died because of man's inability to follow any external code.

McCarthy, Hofstadter, Hume, AI, Zen, Christianity

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-07-30T09:46:13-04:00
A number of posts have noted the importance of John McCarthy's third design requirement for a human level artificial intelligence: "All aspects of behavior except the most routine should be improvable. ...It is an inherent property of intelligence that it can jump out of the task which it is performing, and survey what it is done; it is always looking for, and often finding, patterns. (pg. ...This drive to jump out of the system is a pervasive one, and lies behind all progress and art, music, and other human endeavors. ...If a system is to be improved, it must be analyzed and compared with other systems, and this requires looking at a system from the outside. ...A Zen person is always trying to understand more deeply what he is, by stepping more and more out of what he sees himself to be, by breaking every rule and convention which he perceives himself to be chained by – needless to say, including those of Zen itself. ... In any case (as I see it), the hope is that by gradually deepening one's self-awareness, by gradually widening the scope of "the system", one will in the end come to a feeling of being at one with the entire universe. (pg. ...(John 3:3) The Greek includes the idea of being born "from above" and "from above" is how the NRSV translates it, even though Nicodemus responds as if he heard "again". ... And it is not what it ought to be because of our inherent knowledge of good and evil which, if McCarthy is right, is how our brains are wired. Where Zen and Christianity disagree is that Zen holds that man can transcend the system by his own effort while Christianity says that man's effort is futile: God must affect that change. ...The Zen master is "at one with the entire universe" while for the Christian, the New Jerusalem has descended to Earth, the "sea of glass" that separates heaven and earth is no more (Rev 4:6, 21:1) so that "God may be all in all."

She Said Yes

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-07-30T07:56:00-04:00
I can't believe it has been over a month since we drove to Illinois to see Johnny and Shari. On Friday, June 17, Becky, Rachel, and I headed for Urbana where Johnny is working on his PhD in Mechanical Engineering. We got to meet Shari, Johnny's friends Patrick and Kimberly, tour the University of Illinois, and eat some great food. Saturday night we went to Desthil, a micro brewery in Champaign. ... Something about a bachelorette party that had paid their tab but kept sitting around. While some in our party had gotten really hungry, it was, after all, a brewery with excellent beer, and beer and conversation isn't a bad way to fill the time. But the staff wasn't happy so they comp'd us some appetizers. ... Between filling my mind at the university library and my stomach with the bacon, I could live a content man for, well, days maybe. ...It may have been Shari's mom who observed that Johnny gave up his independence on July 4th. I prefer to look at it as the start of a new nation.

The Is-Ought Problem Considered As A Question Of Artificial Intelligence

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-07-22T21:05:27-04:00
In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprized to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. ... For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. ...It is a simple game, with a well-defined initial state and a small enough state space that the game can be fully analyzed. ...Therefore, we can characterize the is-ought problem as a beginning state B, an end state E, a set P of paths from B to E, and a set of conditions C. ...The game of Tic-Tac-Toe is simple enough that the game can be fully analyzed - the state space is small enough that an exhaustive search can be made of all possible moves. Games such as Chess and Go are so complex that they haven't been fully analyzed so we have to make educated guesses about the set of paths to the end game. ...The metaphor of life as a game (in the sense of achieving goals) is apt here and morality is the set of heuristics we use to navigate the state space. The state space for life is much larger than the state space for chess; unless there is a common set of heuristics for living, it is clearly unlikely that humans will choose the same paths toward a goal. ... This means that the gap between is and ought is an integral part of our being which is compounded by the size of the state space. ...It exists partly because of the inability to fully search the state space of life and partly because of the way our brains are wired for goal creation and goal attainment.

Unifying Intelligence and Morality

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-05-14T10:58:54-04:00
In Chapter 2 of Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, Hofstadter writes that the primary purpose of his book is to explore answers to the question "Do words and thoughts follow formal rules, or do they not?" ...In chapter 1 of GEB, Hofstadter presents the "M-I-U system" which is simple set of rules for transforming certain strings which contain only the letters M, I, and U in well-defined ways. ...The first rule says that a sequence of characters that end in I can be lengthened by appending U. The second rule says that any string starting with M can be lengthened by appending all of the characters following the M. The third rule says that any three consecutive I's can be replaced with one U. ...We can attempt to answer the question by applying the rules the to initial string MI and searching for MU. ...If the production rules only lengthened the string, as rules one and two do, then we could generate all strings with the length of the target string and stop once the string was found or there were no more strings of that length. ...But if we step outside the rules, we observe that I's are produced in powers of two: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 etc... ...In The Mechanism of Morality I wrote: "If these requirements correctly describe aspects of human behavior, then number three means that humans are goal-seeking creatures with no fixed goal. Not only do we not have a fixed goal, but the requirement that everything be improvable means that we have a built-in tendency to be dissatisfied with existing goal states!"

On Trusting God

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-05-14T10:58:49-04:00
An Open Theist would disagree, claiming that God does not necessarily know the future and would cite Jeremiah 32:35 as one example where it "did not enter" God's mind that man would do certain things. ... God is mutable, as shown by passages such as Exodus 32:14: "And the LORD changed His mind about the disaster he had planned to bring upon His people." This can be contrasted with Malachi 3:6, "For I the LORD do not change..." and James 1:17 "with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." ...A certain open theist was asked, "How are we supposed to trust a God who doesn’t know the future?" ... Is a Creator who doesn't know the future any less worthy of worship than one who does? It's still His Game, His Rules, regardless of whether He knows the outcome and/or every last twist and turn of the game or not." ...God should be worshipped due to His position as unique creator, but this doesn't inform us of His actual nature. ...We know people who aren't generally trustworthy who have a change of heart at the end and earn our trust. ...   "Jehovah, I find it inconsistent that you told your creatures to 'Honor your father and your mother' but me you ignore." ...I believe that this shows that we must unconditionally trust God, regardless of whether or not His revealed nature is His true nature.

Atheism: It isn't about evidence

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-05-13T20:03:53-04:00
Materialism has to conclude that matter in motion is the source of the idea of God -- "god" is an emergent property -- just like the number i is an emergent property (to the best of my limited knowledge of physics, one can't point to the square root of -1 apples or protons). ...When they say, "the evidence isn't convincing," what they really mean is "the atoms in my brain don't process the external data the way yours does." ...The atheist can't come out and say that their brains are wired better than the theists, for at least two reasons. ... Again quoting Vox Day, "But the demographic disadvantage means that the atheist community has to keep all of their children within the godless fold and de-convert one out of every three religious children just to keep pace with the growth of the religious community." ...One explanation for this demographic disparity may be found in the difference between brains wired to recognize the existence of a creator God and those that are not. ... Certainly, one doesn't have to reject the idea of a Creator God to reject life; but in my limited experience it sure seems that social battles of abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia, are drawn with a line generally between secular and religious. ...If the atheist can't say that their brains are wired better than theists, they also won't say that their wiring is worse. ...  As I see it, the only way of overcoming this magical view of what "I" and consciousness are is to keep reminding oneself, unpleasant though it may seem, that the "teetering bulb of dread and dream" that nestles safely inside one's own cranium is a purely physical object made up of completely sterile and an inanimate components, all of which obey exactly the same laws as those that govern all the rest of the universe, such as pieces of text, or CD-ROMs, or computers. Only if one keeps on bashing up against this disturbing fact can one slowly begin to develop a feel for the way out of the mystery of consciousness: that the key is not the stuff out of which brains are made, but the patterns that can come to exist inside the stuff of a brain.   This is a liberating shift, because it allows one to move to a different level of considering what brains are: as media that support complex patterns that mirror, albeit far from perfectly, the world...

Atheism, Dark Matter, and Calvinism

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-05-07T19:31:04-04:00
The very next comment after I posted this list was from “Ngorongoro,” who wrote: “God can't be shown to exist, therefore god probably doesn't exist. ...As proof, try to show that “God can’t be shown to exist” without first assuming that God does not exist. ...I, too, considered that one, but decided that it was equivalent to #6, since “I don’t like God not giving me what I wanted.” On the other hand, one could argue that #1 is also a variation of #6, yet I included #1 because it’s used so often. ...Later in the free for all, someone injected Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Higgs Boson as examples of things that are “blindly” believed by “rational” people. Without getting into issue of whether Christianity, or these supposed physical quantities are based on “blind” belief (they aren’t), John Quincy Public asked me, “Do you hew to a non-belief in the existence of dark matter? ...We observe gravitational lensing and that galaxies rotate without flying apart -- both of which may require more matter than we can account for. On the other hand, at least once scientist things that dark matter and dark energy can be better explained by a slowing speed of light. ...And this is the argument that atheists should use: “I am withholding judgement on whether or not God exists pending more evidence.” ...This means we have to determine the kind of evidence that we can reasonably expect and then honestly evaluate the evidence, knowing that worldview biases how evidence is interpreted.

Bumbleberry and Dukes Creek Falls

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-05-07T19:17:09-04:00
The weather on Saturday was magnificent. We took an afternoon trip and first stopped at Bumbleberry which is a yarn and gift shop in Clarkesville. Becky is holding a sign that we thought appropriate for Rachel.

Beeker

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-05-01T21:27:09-04:00
Beeker was our middle child's Betta fish. Johnny brought him along when he came to visit us for Christmas, and Beeker was entrusted to our care when he went back to school in pursuit of his PhD. Around 10am on Monday, April 25 we left to pick up our daughter from college for the summer and returned home around 8pm Tuesday. Beeker had been in increasingly frail health over the past weeks; he passed away sometime while we were gone. He was buried with full honors and has left a small void in our lives. This picture was taken 1/8/11 on the occasion of moving Beeker into his new home.

Easter 2011

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-04-24T19:23:58-04:00
That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. ... Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” ... He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” ... While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you--that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Emptier Nest

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-04-23T14:33:24-04:00
Yesterday our oldest son moved his possessions into his new condo. His bedroom is remarkably empty. My wife converted our middle son's room into a sewing room when he went to Illinois to pursue his graduate studies. On Monday we'll pick our daughter up from her first year at college so she'll be home for the summer.

Bad Arguments Against Materialism

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-04-16T15:00:07-04:00
Yet Lopez wrote:For example, while electrical impulses may occur when a person has particluar [sic] thoughts or feelings (or propositional qualities, per Greg Koukl), the impulses themselves are not the thoughts or feelings.For this to be true, those thoughts have to exist independently of the hardware which is our minds. ... But he hasn't shown that this is the case nor do I know how to prove it, even though I think it true ["in Him we live and move and have our being." -- Acts 17:28]. Just as the materialist cannot prove his position that the thoughts cease when the electrons stop moving (see my post Materialism, Theism, and Information where I have this argument with a materialist), the theist also hasn't made their case. ...If the existence of self-aware thought is one way theists argue against materialism, likewise is the existence of morality which theists claim cannot be explained by science. Lopez also wrote:Indeed, if our entire essence - the totality of who we are, was reducible solely to particles in motion, then what justification would there be for any concept of an objective morality? ... The grounding for the imposition of one moral system over another would then be whether or not it leads to greater reproductive success, in exactly the same way that English is currently the lingua franca of science, technology, and business. If morality is a property of the goal-seeking behavior of self-aware beings, and the goal is reproductive success, then certain strategies will be more effective than others. ...I am puzzled the theist's insistence on the existence of and necessity for an objective morality: something written in stone which solves the "is-ought" problem, to which all mankind (and extraterrestrial life, if it exists) must agree "this ought to be," i.e. "these are the goals toward which all must strive, whether freely or not." ... We know that our brains are wired for teleological thinking; people with Asperger's have been shown to be deficient in this area (People with Asperger's less likely to see purpose behind the events in their lives). The theist says that God represents the ultimate goal, the ultimate purpose, the solution to the is-ought problem; the materialist will say that this is just something that minds with our properties wished they had.

Modeling Morality: The End of Time

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-02-20T19:46:51-05:00
The intent was not to argue for or against any particular model, but to provide a framework for future explorations. However, I did provide reasons for why model #6 should be preferred to model #4, because in my experience most Christians tend to think model #4 accurately represents the Biblical view. I noted that model #4 “is not suitable for this phase of history.” Since I hinted at a change of models, I need to present what I think the model will be when God’s kingdom is fully come: ...The dashed line in model #6 disappears, reminiscent of Revelation 21:1, where St. John wrote, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” The sea, of course, does not refer to a literal body of water, but the “sea of glass, like crystal” that separates the throne of God in heaven from earth [Rev 4:6]. The thick black line in model #7 represents the “great chasm” of Luke 16:26. ...
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” ...I think Lewis, and model #7, both accurately reflect the Biblical view of the eternal state.

Modeling Morality

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-02-17T18:56:56-05:00
At least for humans, we don’t have fixed goals (cf. here and here), so that a moving arrow might be a better representation. ...These models will be used in later posts when examining various arguments that have a moral basis, since in many cases, the model is assumed and an incorrect model will lead to an incorrect argument. ...In the model, no agent’s moral compass aligns with the external standard, reflective of the human condition that we don’t always choose goals that we know we should. ...This model is frequently assumed in arguments that try to show that God is morally wrong, by attempting to show that God’s moral compass is not aligned with some external standard. This model, regardless of the orientation of the external compass, is a flawed model (at least in Christian theology) since God is not subject to any external standard. ...In terms of goal space, His goals are not always our goals.
I think that the Bible makes it clear that: ...That is, what is good for God isn’t necessarily good for man, which would be the case if there were a common moral compass. In support of this second point, Proverbs 20:22 says, “Do not say, ‘I will repay evil’; wait for the LORD, and he will help you.” and this is repeated in Romans 12:17, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil...” and 1 Peter 3:9, “Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing.” ... [Jer 18:11] and “For I have set my face against this city for evil and not for good, says the LORD: it shall be given into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.” ...Similarly, Leviticus 19:18 says, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”

New Commenting System

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-02-13T17:50:00-05:00
Switched from JS-Kit to Disqus. The old comments are, for all intents and purposes, gone.

For I Am Not Ashamed...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-02-10T21:08:41-05:00
Romans 1:16 says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” One of my pet peeves is when Christians, well meaning though they may be, make a connection between the lifestyle of the one who proclaims the gospel and whether or not the hearer will receive the message. The argument can take many forms: “we have to walk the walk so that we can talk the talk,” “our actions speak louder than words,” “our lifestyle must be consistent with our message,” and so on. ...But to say that our actions help or hurt the reception of the gospel is to deny both the grace and the power of God. We readily give lip service to God’s grace toward the hearer; we rightly say that without it no one would ever believe the message. But we forget that God’s grace is likewise bestowed on the speaker. ... It is not my place to speak of the sins of others, but the person who was instrumental in presenting the gospel to me wasn’t living what is typically considered to be “the Christian life.” When God took a 2x4 to me, the behavior of someone else didn’t even enter my mind. ...Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God--not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” We forget that “not of your own doing” also applies to those whom God uses to proclaim the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

Everything is a remix

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-02-02T10:29:11-05:00
Earlier this morning I uploaded “Christian Doctrine, Ancient Egypt, Game Theory”. Also today Daring Fireball posted a link to the very interesting site, Everything Is A Remix. Of course, “everything is a remix” is a remix of “there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9) But, as I noted in Christian Doctrine, Ancient Egypt, Game Theory, Christianity’s golden rule and the admonition to not return evil for good are found in Egyptian culture long before Christ. Do take a few minutes to watch the two (of four) videos at Everything Is A Remix.

Christian Doctrine, Ancient Egypt, Game Theory

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-02-02T08:55:02-05:00
I am slowly making my way through the book Old Testament Parallels by Matthews and Benjamin. The story “The Farmer and the Courts of Egypt” tells the story of a farmer who is unfairly accused by an official who tries to steal the farmer’s goods. ... Somewhat reminiscent of the much longer book of Job, it was written around 2134-2040 BCE. ...Follow this teaching: “Do unto others, as you would have others do unto you.” ...Proverbs 17:13 says, “Evil will not depart from the house of one who returns evil for good.” ... I find this link to Egyptian thought to be extremely interesting and wonder why I haven’t seen more recognition of this in “mainstream” Christianity. A subsequent post, which has been a very long time in coming, will explore the influence of Egyptian thought on Genesis, the story of Noah, and the Exodus. In terms of game theory and the Prisoner’s Dilemma, “do not return evil for good” translates to “don’t defect after cooperation.” ...[Rom 12:17, 1 Peter 3:19], which becomes “don’t defect at all.” A future blog post will have to examine the implications of the Christian response to the Prisoner’s Dilemma versus the evolutionarily robust “tit-for-tat” strategy in Axelrod.

Materialism, Theism, and Information

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-01-26T19:54:31-05:00
In one corner, is John Wright, a theist, who holds that there is more to man than just a collection of atoms in a certain pattern. ...Andreassen is trying to argue that one could, in theory, make an exact atomic copy of a man, and that this copy would act identically to the original. Wright is arguing that this isn't the case, because he holds that symbols cannot be reduced to atoms. ... Wright is wrong because symbols can be reduced to atoms (all software can be expressed as NAND gates, for example). Andreassen is wrong, because even though symbols can be encoded as atoms this doesn’t mean that atoms are required for symbols (“in the beginning was the λογος”). ...I was saying that this proposition (more accurately, the underlying proposition that meaning arises from matter) I believe simply on the grounds that it seems reasonable to me, that my intuition, wisdom, or experience tells me it is so. There is some supporting evidence, such as the disruption of meaning caused by a bullet or a concentration of alcohol to the brain; but how one interprets this is a question of wisdom, as you put it, or intuition, as I prefer. ...But that doesn’t say anything about the existence of me, the programmer, who put the software there in the first place. ...I suggest you volunteer to be shot, and we will see whether you still exist after the bullet has passed through your brain. If you wake up in Heaven (or even Hell – the dispute is not about anyone’s virtue), I will admit I was wrong.

Cybertheology

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2011-01-01T21:58:27-05:00
As a Christian, I hold that God has spoken to us through His prophets and, ultimately, His Son (Heb 1:1-2). ... I contend that there will be no conflict between Nature and Theology, but that the scientific study of Nature can be used to inform theology, and theology can be used to inform science. ...I don’t believe it is a coincidence that Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice” [John 10:27] and the Turing test is the primary test for human level AI. ...This may have implications with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which holds that “what God says” is, in some manner, “what God is.” ...At a minimum, as I’ve tried to show here, morality can be explained as goal-seeking behavior, which is also a familiar topic in artificial intelligence. Furthermore, using this notion of morality as being goal seeking behavior, combined with John McCarthy’s five design requirements for a human level AI, explains the Genesis account of the Fall in Eden. ...If morality is goal-seeking behavior, then the behavior prescribed by God would be consistent with any goal, or goals, that can be found in nature. ... This is a point of intersection that I think will provide surprising results, especially if Axelrod’s “Evolution of Cooperation” turns out like I think it will. ...This may be wishful thinking on the part of a lunatic (or maybe I’m just a simpleton), but I also think that we can go from what we see in nature to the doctrine of justification by faith. ...If a scientific case can be made for the truth of Christianity, especially as an evolutionary survival strategy, what implications ought that have on public policy?

White Christmas

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-12-26T19:21:54-05:00
It started snowing late in the afternoon yesterday while we were having Christmas dinner with friends. This was the first white Christmas in the Atlanta area since 1882, although we had flurries in 1993 that didn’t accumulate. I took this picture the next day; it wasn’t light enough the day before at our friend’s house to show accumulation. The last snow was in February, if I remember correctly.

Dexter: Season Five

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-12-22T18:06:12-05:00
I watched all of the episodes of the first four seasons in short order, thanks to digital versions being available on iTunes. ... My impression is that I had to suspend belief more this season than last and that there were more loose ends that, had they been pursued, would have lead to Dexter being caught. ...Deb changes from being a “by the book” cop with a clear sense of black and white to someone who sees more gray than before. ... Dexter thinks his sister is talking about Quinn, who is under suspicion for murdering a cop, but she’s really talking about herself: ...Upon hearing this news, Dexter stares at his reflection in a plate, then throws the plate at the oven, shattering it into pieces all over the kitchen floor. ...Deb and Quinn have seemingly, if not overcome, at least agreed to work out their issues and appear to be a couple. ... With signs of renewal all around him, Dexter reflects as he blows out Harrison’s birthday candle: ...While she was here, she made me think for the briefest moment that I might even have a chance to be human. ... ...Paradoxically, even as he acknowledges the possibility of change, and sees it all around him, he extinguishes that hope for himself. ...On a lighter, less philosophical note, someone on the Internet commented that if Dexter doesn’t learn to drive, he’s going to kill somebody.

Ancient Victories

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-12-22T10:45:58-05:00
For much of my career I’ve written software to bare metal. Back in the early ‘90s I worked for a company that made add-in products for Apple’s Macintosh line of computers. When something didn’t work, the hardware engineers would blame the software and the software engineers would blame the hardware. Too, challenges were made as to the actual knowledge and abilities of an engineer. Of course, friendly wagers were placed on the outcome. I found this dollar bill attesting to bets won from the hardware group. I hope the Feds don’t get too upset that I scanned this.

Notes from The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-12-03T15:10:14-05:00
Licona asks the question, “If professional historians who work outside of the community of biblical scholars were to embark on an investigation of the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, what would such an investigation look like?” ... If one is uncertain of one’s worldview, it may likely lead to an inability to say that the evidence leads to anything conclusive. Several statements in the book have resonated with me, because they touch directly on topics of several recent internet “discussions” and because they cohere with positions I’ve taken. ...Moreover, many times specific narratives can neither be proved nor disapproved, and historians from every camp often fail to place a sort of disclaimer informing readers of the tentativeness of their narrative, which is stated as fact. [pg. ...However, no one would charge a portrait as being errant because they portrayed something in the background that was not there during the sitting but was created in order to communicate character or personality. ... Thus, in some instances, those who complain of contradictions and inventions in the Gospels are guilty of judging them in terms of photographic accuracy, when this may not have been the intent of the author. ...The third ties in with the second when dealing with “young earth creationism,” which I should note that I don’t think does justice to the Biblical text. ...Neither historians nor philosophers can prove that the world is older than 10 minutes at which time everything was created with the appearance of age and that we were created with memories of events that never took place and with food in our stomachs from meals we never ate. [pg. ...Another theory of truth is coherence theory, which states that a proposition is true when all of its components cohere with other propositions believed to be true. ...The fifth echoes Russell’s statement from “The Problems of Philosophy” that, “All knowledge, we find, must be built up upon our instinctive beliefs, and if these are rejected, nothing is left.”

The Telling

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-11-20T23:32:51-05:00
The Telling, by Ursula K. LeGuin is the story of an earth woman, Sutty, who is sent as an observer to the world Aka by the galactic council called the Ekumen. Aka is world where a materialistic, atheistic, hierarchical culture has taken over and brutally suppressed the former “spiritual” communal culture. The bulk of the story deals with Sutty’s attempts to discover and, perhaps, help preserve that second culture. I found the following passage interesting, as it expresses poetically what I have attempted to describe using concepts from artificial intelligence about the difference between animals and men; that animals are fixed goal creatures while man, having no fixed goal, creates his own goals. ..."As they struggled to understand each other, Uming Ottiar showed a bitterness, almost the first Sutty had met with among these soft-voiced teachers. Despite his impediment he was a fluent talker, and he got going, mildly enough at first: “Animals have no language. ... They know the way, they know where to go and how to go, following their nature. ... We have to talk about how to go and what to do, think about it, study it, learn it. ... If nobody shows a little child, two, three years old, how to look for the way, the signs of the path, the landmarks, then it gets lost on the mountain, doesn’t it? ...I have to assign this book to second tier status; while it was a moderately enjoyable read, it isn’t “The Left Hand of Darkness” or “A Wizard of Earthsea”.

Wives, Submit!

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-11-20T12:38:28-05:00
Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. -- Col 3:18, NRSV ...I will, however, opine that it’s my experience that if fathers want happy, well-adjusted sons that they will have to loosen the wife’s apron strings on the boys. ...Paul dictated this letter to his amanuensis, I don’t think he was giving consideration to these or similar factors. Instead, I think he based his admonition based on Genesis 3:16 [NRSV]:To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”... And while Jesus came to redeem not just man, but all of creation from the Fall, that redemption is not yet complete. ...I also find it interesting that the other consequence of the Fall for women was pain in childbirth. ... In a similar vein, I think that Paul realized that love would ease the pain of the marriage hierarchy because he immediately commands husbands to love their wives. ...The CEO’s who line their pockets at the expense of their workers; the workers who negotiate their benefits at the expense of future workers; the managers who expand their empires solely for the sake of status or supposed job security; the husbands who are tyrants to their wives. ...Selfish people do not do well in hierarchies unless they are at the top, or can force the top to do their bidding. But that is not how relationships based on love are supposed to be.

TSA Images

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-11-18T19:56:03-05:00
• The TSA says that the scanners cannot save the images yet Gizmodo shows 100 images from 35,000 illegally saved images from a courthouse in Orlando, Florida. • Scientists are speaking out about the supposed safety of the devices, for example, this letter from four faculty members of the University of California at San Francisco. • The threat of a \$10,000 civil suit against a man who refused scanning then told a TSA agent that he would file a sexual assault case were the agent to touch his “junk," was told to leave the airport by TSA agents and then, after receiving a ticket refund from American Airlines, was threatened with a lawsuit by another TSA agent. ...Markku, a member of the “Dread Ilk” over at Vox Popoli (warning: possibly NSFW images), took the left image from this Gizmodo article and performed some simple image manipulation operations. ...
What I did was, I created a grayscale image of it in GIMP. ... Then I used this tutorial to apply it as a height map to a grid with resolution 400*400, and scaled the height and the depth dimensions to what looked correct.

Looking at the model from the side, I selected the lowest vertices with rectangle select and deleted them. Then came the artistic part (in addition to the removal of the objects, but if the person has none, this is not a problem), which is hard but not impossible to do as an algorithm: I smoothed the roughness in sculpt mode, until I was satisfied with the model. I placed a blueish hemisphere light over the model, and a white, omnidirectional light in the direction where the sun would be. I colored the material to skin color and lowered specularity to almost none.

Had I used more time, I could have made the skin look much more realistic. ... And when you have made a realistic skin texture once, you could apply it to any model without extra effort.

Moon over Yonah Mountain

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-11-12T20:16:00-05:00
Becky and I had planned to visit Johnny in Illinois this weekend for an early Thanksgiving. However, after scheduling time off from work, we found that no hotels were available in Champaign-Urbana. ...The only problem is that it’s a “heretical” version: the stories are presented in chronological order instead of publication order, so “The Magician’s Nephew” is in the first instead of sixth position. Still, it was free and my seven volume set is somewhat dogeared. ...The pulled pork and sauces were very good but the beans and stew were average at best. ...We spent some time at the Helen Arts and Heritage Center as part of the 2010 Arts Tour. ... This sea serpent caught my eye and I took a picture since my daughter likes dragons. ...We went to Raven’s Cliff Falls and hiked somewhat over half of the trail. We weren’t able to cover the full five miles as we arrived too late in the afternoon and we wanted to be back to the car well before sunset. On the way back to Helen we stopped at an overlook to take some pictures of Mount Yonah.

Albino Rainbow

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-10-30T18:54:44-04:00
Becky and I were in Milledgeville, GA this weekend for Philip Gubser’s Senior Recital. We were staying at the Hampton Inn. Shortly after nine this morning, Becky headed to the motel breakfast while I detoured to put some luggage in the car. The morning was cold and foggy and I saw something I had never seen before: a white rainbow. I didn’t even know these existed. They are also known as “fogbows” and “sea-dogs.” It occurs when the water droplets are so small that diffraction smears out the colors that would be produced by larger drops.

What Really Happened In Eden?

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-10-10T14:47:52-04:00
The second builds on this idea to show that good and evil arise out of goal-seeking behavior and that McCarthy’s requirement means that our “wetware” has no fixed goal. The third asked the question, “how did Eve know that the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was good before she ate that which would give her the knowledge of goodness?” ...Out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ... ... And the LORD God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” ... So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. ... [Genesis 2:8-9, 15-17, 3:6-7, NRSV]One answer to the question “how did Eve know the fruit was good for food” is that this just means that Eve understood that the fruit was edible; that is, good in the physical sense, but not in the moral sense. ...Yet from the Genesis account, it seems obvious that not only was Eve self-aware, but that she had been informed of the consequences of her actions. ... Since Eve was a self-aware goal-seeking individual who knew, if not fully understood, the consequences of her actions, I don’t agree with the supposition that she wasn’t morally awake. ...I believe this means is that every creature that exhibited goal-seeking behavior used the external standard set by God as their goals. ... When Adam and Eve ate of the “fruit” (not that this needs to be taken literally, mind you), they no longer had fixed external goals.

Operation Chaos

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-09-26T14:19:09-04:00
Operation Chaos, by Poul Anderson, is a novelization of his stories: “Operation Afreet”, “Operation Salamander”, “Operation Incubus”, and “Operation Changeling”. The artwork is from the serialization of “Operation Changeling” in the May-June 1969 issues of F&SF. The redhead is Virginia Matuchek, witch wife of the werewolf and former Army captain Steve Matuchek. The cat is Svartalf; Virginia’s familiar. In “Operation Changeling”, the three invade hell to recover their kidnapped daughter. While re-reading the novel this weekend, I came across this line which I found highly appropriate as it will fit in with a future blog post on reading Scripture:
... Heaven is not as narrowly literal-minded as hell.
Whatever else one might say about Anderson’s theological musings, this observation is profoundly true.

The Mechanism of Morality

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-09-11T16:55:48-04:00
Here, I want to use principles from artificial intelligence to propose a mechanism for morality that results in the given definition for good and evil and has great explanatory power for describing human behavior. ...For a computer to play a game, it has to be able to represent the game states and determine which of those states advance it toward a goal state that results in a win for the machine. ...Assuming we want X to play a perfect game, we can “prune” the tree and remove those states that inevitably lead to a win by O. Then X can use the pruned game state and chose those moves that lead to the greatest probability of a win. Furthermore, if we assume that O, like X, plays a perfect game, we can prune the tree again and remove the states that inevitably lead to a win by X. When we do this, we find that Tic-Tac-Toe always results in a draw when played perfectly. ...Such heuristics might include “if there is a row with two X’s and an empty square, place an X in the empty square for the win.” “If there is a row with two O’s and an empty square, place an X in the empty square for the block.” More skilled players will include, “If there are two intersecting rows where the square at the intersection is empty and there is one X in each row, place an X in the intersecting square to set up a forced win.” ...Just as the human needs heuristics for evaluating board positions to play Tic-Tac-Toe, the computer requires heuristics for Chess, Checkers, and Go. Humans expand a great deal of effort developing board evaluation strategies for these games in order to teach the computer how to play well. ...The player, whether human or computer, starts with an initial state, generates intermediate states according to the rules of the game, evaluates those states, and selects those that lead to a predetermined goal. ...If the computer were self aware and was able to describe what it was doing, it might say, “I’m here, I ought to be there, here are the possible paths I could take, and these paths are better (or worse) than those paths.”

First Bible Test

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-08-29T14:50:49-04:00
My excuse is that I couldn’t read what she scanned in -- the resolution was too low. ...
The first sin was the eating of the forbidden fruit. ...Rachel said, “This question was the one most people in class missed (majority put C). He even told us before the quiz that the devil didn't make Eve do it.” Now, 2 Cor 11:3 says, “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning...”. ...Genesis 3:6 says, in part, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food...”. The interesting question is, “How did Eve know something was good before eating of the fruit which would give that knowledge?” A typical answer is that Eve determined that the fruit was edible, i.e., “good for food” and that this is somehow different from “morally good.” But this betrays a misunderstanding of the mental machinery by which we determine value. I’ve asked Rachel to inquire of her teacher to see what he says about this.

Offical PhD Candiate

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-08-29T11:03:50-04:00
Received a text from my middle son yesterday: “I passed my tests for official entrance into the PhD candidacy.”

Calvin & Hobbes: Commentary on Software Development

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-08-27T23:31:34-04:00
(null)

Boolean Expressions and Digital Circuits

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-08-20T19:24:50-04:00
I started this whole exercise after reading the chapter “Systems of Logic” in “The Turing Omnibus” and deciding to fill some gaps in my education. ... I threw together some LISP code and used it to help me design an adder using 27 nand gates for the portion that computes a sum from three inputs. ...Lee is a friend and co-worker who “used to design some pretty hairy discreet logic circuits back in the day.” ...The equation for the addition portion of his adder is:
(NAND (NAND (NAND (NAND (NAND (NAND X X) Y) (NAND (NAND Y Y) X)) (NAND (NAND (NAND X X) Y) (NAND (NAND Y Y) X))) Z) (NAND (NAND Z Z) (NAND (NAND (NAND X X) Y) (NAND (NAND Y Y) X))))
His equation has 20 operators where mine had 14:
(NAND (NAND (NAND (NAND Z Y) (NAND (NAND Y Y) (NAND Z Z))) X) (NAND (NAND (NAND (NAND X X) Y) (NAND (NAND X X) Z)) (NAND Z Y)))
Lee noted that his equation had a common term that is distributed across the function:
*common-term* = (NAND (NAND (NAND X X) Y) (NAND (NAND Y Y) X)) ... (NAND (NAND Z Z) *common-term*))
My homegrown nand gate compiler reduces this to Lee’s diagram. ...However, my code that constructs shortest expressions can easily use a different heuristic and find expressions that result in the fewest gates using my current nand gate compiler. ... Feed the output of G0 and G4 into one more nand gate and you get the carry.

Off To College

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-08-20T10:16:04-04:00
When I got to Mississippi, the map application no longer worked because it couldn’t connect to the internet. ... I had to hard power-off the phone to get it to connect via 3G. Move in began 9am Saturday and we had everything unloaded and mostly in place by noon. ... Went shopping after lunch to get a small table for the printer, a USB cable, a longer RF cable for the TV, and an ethernet cable. ... With some extra planning I could have made the RF and ethernet cables for next to nothing. Sunday morning all three of us went to the grocery store to stock up daughter’s refrigerator; then mom and daughter went shopping for clothes. We had lunch with her then she left for a school outing and we began the drive home. And that’s how we spent our 30th anniversary - on the road back to a mostly empty nest. ...She has an iPhone, we had a pay phone (was it pay?) ... She has a laptop which can outperform the Control Data 6400 that I used at UVa and a color inkjet printer/scanner instead of an ASR-33 teletype.

Simplifying Boolean Expressions

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-08-10T22:25:39-04:00
For expressions of three variables we can see that the expression that results in f7=f6=f5=f4=f3=f2=f1=f0 = 0 is the constant 0. ... Then we progress to the functions of a single variable. f7..f0 = 10001000 is X. f7..f0 = 01110111 is (NOT X). f7..f0 = 11001100 is Y and 00110011 is (NOT Y). f7..f0 = 10101010 is Z and 01010101 is (NOT Z). ...Expressions of 4 variables require an expression table with 216 entries and 5 variables requires 232 entries -- not something I’d want to try to compute on any single machine at my disposal. ...Since (AND X X) is equivalent to X, this can be reduced to 7+6+5+4+3+2+1 = 28 combinations, times 2 for the negated forms. This gives 56 possibilities for the remaining two formulas, which turn out to be “(AND (NOT (AND (NOT X) (NOT Y))) (NOT (AND X Y)))” and “(AND (NOT (AND X (NOT Y))) (NOT (AND (NOT X) Y)))”. ...Out of the 2*82 possible combinations of the two variable forms, there can only be 16 unique values. ... In any case, the computer can repeat the process of negating and combining expressions to generate the forms with the fewest number of AND/NOT (or NAND) operators. ...There are three formulas with 20 operators that give the same result:
(AND (AND (NOT (AND (AND X (NOT Y)) Z)) (NOT (AND X (AND Y (NOT Z))))) ...One of three versions of Exyz(150) is:
(NAND (NAND (NAND (NAND Z Y) (NAND (NAND Y Y) (NAND Z Z))) X) ...Exyz(232), which is the carry equation for the adder, can be written as:
(NAND (NAND (NAND (NAND Y X) (NAND Z X)) X) (NAND Z Y))
With these simplifications the adder takes ten fewer gates than the first iteration:

A Perfect Moment

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-08-09T23:00:00-04:00
Rachel had a bowling outing Friday night from 9-11. Becky and I waited in Starbucks. She knitted, I worked on my laptop. I had a large iced coffee with a double shot of espresso. ... Prepared for Sunday School, which consisted of reviewing the DVD lesson for the previous week: episode two of volume nine of the “That the World May Know” DVD titled “Not by Bread Alone.” Then watched and took notes for discussion for Sunday’s lesson, “Their Blood Cried Out.” Put on the headphones to listen to Second Chapter of Acts, a Christian group from the ‘70s and early ‘80s. ... “Bread of Life” from the Rejoice album started playing and I experienced an ecstasy like never before. Rapturous joy combined with physical tingling from head to toe.1 ...[1] Only much later did I learn that the French have a word for this: frisson.

Boolean Logic

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-08-08T20:57:00-04:00
The tables are ordered so that each table in a row is the complement of the other table. ... Note that for each t(n), the value in the first row corresponds to bit 0 of n, the second row is bit 1, and so on. ...Is this an artifact of the way our minds are wired to think: that we tend to define things in terms of x instead of (NOT x)? ...All of these functions can be expressed in terms of NOT, AND, and OR as will be shown in a subsequent table. t(0) = 0 can be written as (AND x (NOT x)). t(15) = 1 can be written as (OR x (NOT x)). ...For each row with a zero result in a particular table, create a function (AND (f x) (g y)) where f and g evaluate to one for the values of x and y in that row, then negate it, i.e., (NOT (AND (f x) (g y))). ...Then (f xx) will evaluate to zero, so (AND (f xx) (g yy)) evaluates to zero, therefore (NOT (AND (f xx) (g yy))) will evaluate to one. ...For each row with a one result in a particular table, create a function (OR (f x) (g y)) where f and g evaluate to zero for the values of x and y in that row, then negate it, i.e. (NOT (OR (f x) (g y))). ...Note that the algorithm gives a non-optimal result for t(0), which is more simply written as (AND X (NOT X)). Perhaps this is not a fair comparison, since the algorithm is generating a function of two variables, when one will do. ...Since we can do any logical operation using NAND, and since I’ve never had any classes in digital hardware design, let’s go ahead and build a 4-bit adder.

Artifical Intelligence, Evolution, Theodicy

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-08-01T20:25:36-04:00
In addition to the possibility of an altruistic desire on the part of computer scientists to make their machines “happy and contented,” there is the more concrete reason (for us, if not for the machine) that we would like people to be relatively happy and contented concerning their interactions with the machines. We may have to learn to design computers that are incapable of setting up certain goals relating to changes in selected aspects of their performance and design--namely, those aspects that are “people protecting.” ...Point 3 seems to me to require that the artificial intelligence have a knowledge of “good and evil,” that is, it needs to be able to discern between what is and what ought to be. ... If the machine is aware that it, itself, is not what it ought to be then it might work to change itself. If the machine is aware that aspects of its environment are not what they ought to be, then it might work to modify its external world. If this is so, then it seems that the two goals of self-improvement and liking “the nature of its existence” may not be able to exist together. ... • Would the machine spiral into despair, knowing that not only is it not what it ought to be, but its ability to improve itself is also not what it ought to be? ... • Would the self-reflective machine look at the “laws” that govern its behavior and decide that they, too, are not what they ought to be and therefore can sometimes be ignored? ...In particular, would the machine complain that the creator made a world it didn’t like, not realizing that this was essential to the machine’s survival and growth? ...Of course, this is all speculation on my part, but perhaps the reason why God plays dice with the universe is to drive the software that makes us what we are.

Empathy for a Serial Killer

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-08-01T18:49:46-04:00
In the fourth season, Dexter faces another serial killer, Arthur Mitchell (played by John Lithgow), who is being pursued by the FBI for a series of murders going back thirty years. ...Although he is alone in the cell, Dexter is having a conversation between himself and his deceased father, who often appears to him in his imagination. ...Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ...In having watched all four seasons in fairly short order, I don't believe that I've ever heard Dexter say "I love you" to anyone -- not to his sister, wife, or step children. ...Debra's love isn't because of what Dexter is -- she doesn't know he's a serial killer -- but for what he has done for her. ...In this very powerful scene, Dexter has caught Arthur Mitchell and is having a final conversation with him before delivering the fatal blow. ...Here, Dexter is leaving the scene of his wife's death at the hand of Arthur Mitchell. ...This is the point at which the Gospel makes sense, when we recognize "I'm what's wrong" and only God can fix the problem, through uniting us to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

Static Code Analysis

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-06-17T09:57:45-04:00
    extern NODE start, a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k; ...It's likely the intent of the problem was to stimulate thinking about problem description, problem representation, methods for mapping the "human" view of the problem into a representation suitable for a machine, and strategies for finding relationships between objects and reasoning about them. ...One solution is (START K E S V U Q P M B L F A H G C D J O R I N FINISH). ...    (START K E S V U Q P M B L F A H G C D J O R I N FINISH)     (START K E S V U Q P M B L F A H D J O R I C G N FINISH)     (START K E S V U Q P L F A H D J O R I C G B M N FINISH)     (START K E P M B L F A H G C D J O R I N U Q V S FINISH)     (START K E P M B L F A H D J O R I C G N U Q V S FINISH)     (START K E P L F A H D J O R I C G B M N U Q V S FINISH) ...After completing the descriptions for S1, the addition of one function call to an existing function in M was the basis for changing the semaphores so that they nested.

Variation on a Theme

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-06-17T09:15:09-04:00
Q: How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb? A: None. It's a hardware problem. Light out. Hardware not functional. Software relocated to cloud.

Rite of Passage

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-06-13T20:24:35-04:00
Undergoing a physical ordeal is only one aspect of her transformation from child to woman; she must also undergo a moral transformation and ends up opposing her father on an issue that effects a world. ...She wrote:Ethics is the branch of philosophy that concerns itself with conduct, questions of good and evil, right and wrong--and there are a great many of them, because even people who supposedly belong to the same school don't agree a good share of the time and have to be considered separately--can be looked at as a description and as a prescription. ...First, utilitarianism:Skipping the development and history of utilitarianism, the most popular expression of the doctrine is "the greatest good for the greatest number," which makes it sound like its relative, the economic philosophy communism which, in a sense, is what we live with in the Ship. The common expression of utilitarian good is "the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain."

Speaking descriptively, utilitarianism doesn't hold true, though the utilitarian claims that it does. ... The only way that what people do and what utilitarianism says they do can be matched is by distorting the ordinary meanings of the words "pleasure" and "pain." ... The standard is too shifting to be a good one.

I don't like utilitarianism as a prescription, either. ... What if the one doesn't have any choice in the matter, but is blindly sacrificed for, say, one hundred Mudeaters whose very existence he is unaware of? ... I wouldn't make a utilitarian choice and I don't think I could be easily convinced that the answer should be made by the use of the number of pounds of human flesh. ...That is, that people act as they are disposed to, but they like to feel afterwards that they were right and so they invent systems that approve of their dispositions. This was to say that while I found things like "So act as to treat humanity, whether in your person or in that of another, in every case as an end and not as a means merely," quite attractive principles, I hadn't run into any system that exactly fitted my disposition.
Of course, she would need to examine whether or not an ethical system should fit one's disposition.

Super Programming Langauge, Addendum

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-06-13T20:07:48-04:00
This is an addendum to The Myth of the Super Programming Language. In Introduction To Artificial Intelligence, Philip Jackson wrote:One final thing to note on the subject of reasoning programs is that the language used by an RP will typically be changed with time by the RP. We should expect in general that a reasoning program will find it necessary to define new words or to accept definitions of new words; some of these words will denote new situations, actions, phenomena, or relations--the RP may have to infer the language it uses for solving a problem. Our most important requirement for the initial language is that any necessary extensions to it be capable of being easily added to it.One of the things I never liked about Pascal was that the writeln function couldn't be written in Pascal. C is deficient in that, unlike Pascal, functions cannot be nested. And so it goes.

On Stilled Wings, Soar

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-06-05T18:04:30-04:00
I was getting ready to mow the lawn and my wife was going to go to the grocery store. She came back inside to tell me that a baby bird was in the yard. It had fallen from its nest and was on the ground with its mouth open waiting to be fed. Using our stepladder, I placed it back in its nest and we hoped for the best. While mowing the lawn I noticed that there was a dead bird by our air conditioner. A few minutes after that, I saw that the baby bird had again fallen out of its nest. ...    Return to the earth that gave you life;     on stilled wings soar in skies     you could never imagine. ...Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father."

Proud Father, VI

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-06-05T17:54:32-04:00
My son is one of 150 students, out of over 3,200 applicants, who received a Department of Energy Science Graduate Fellowship.

Artifical Intelligence, Quantum Mechanics, and Logos

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-06-05T17:22:48-04:00

    A language is essentially a way of representing facts. An important question, then, is what kinds of facts are to be encountered by the RP and how they are best represented. It should be emphasized that the formalization presented in Chapter 2 for the description of phenomena is not adequate to the needs of the RP. The formalization in Chapter 2 can be said to be metaphysically adequate, insofar as the real word could conceivably be described by some statement within it; however, it is not epistemologically adequate, since the problems encountered by an RP in the real world cannot be described very easily within it. Two other examples of ways describing the world, which could be metaphysically but not epistemologically adequate, are as follows: 1 The world as a quantum mechanical wave function. 2 The world as a cellular automaton. ...    One cannot easily represent within either of these frameworks such facts as "Today is my programmer's birthday," or "I don't know what you mean," or "San Francisco is in California," or "Ned's phone-number is 854-3662."
Language can describe the world, but the world has difficulty describing language. Did reality give rise to language ("in the beginning were the particles", as Phillip Johnson has framed the issue) or did language give rise to reality ("in the beginning was the Word")?

Beach 2010

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-05-24T15:36:55-04:00
The first night we ate dinner at the Chesapeake House. Our table overlooked a small lake; we had these two dinner companions. On the last night, we walked along the new boardwark and went out on the pier at Pier 14. I took some pictures of the ocean and manipulated this picture in Photoshop to play with the "digital ocean" motif. While this is a step in the right direction, I think it needs more work.

The Myth of the Super Programming Language?

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-05-14T20:10:16-04:00
Jonathan Edwards, in his post The Myth of the Super Programming Language, argues that programmer productivity is due to the ability of the programmer and not the capabilities of the language. Edwards states, "It doesn’t matter what language a great programmer uses – they will still be an order of magnitude more productive than an average programmer, also regardless of what that programmer uses." ...So I take no exception to the statement that some programmers are more productive than others due simply to native ability, regardless of language choice. And in some circumstances, I don't disagree with Edward's statement that "it doesn't matter what language a great programmer uses". ...Edwards wrote, "The anecdotal benefits of esoteric languages are a selection effect", (emphasis his) where the selection is for programmer ability and not language capability. But if this is so, then I would expect to see comparisons of programmer productivity when the same individuals use different languages to implement the same tasks. Not long after I felt somewhat confident with Lisp (I still don't consider myself to have mastered the language), the company I work for dabbled with instituting PSP (Personal Software Process). ..."It can't be the language that makes you better" is a rejection of new ways of thinking, of expanding mental horizons, and a loss of potential increase in productivity. ...But Edwards notes when the "really smart programmers" complete an application using their "esoteric language" and move on to other things, that when the "professional programmers" come in to maintain the system, it "gets thrown out and rewritten in a normal programming language using normal techniques that normal people understand." ... But the question of "what language is best for a team which follows the bell curve of ability" and "what language is best for master craftsmen" are two different questions.

Mirror To The Sky

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-05-09T17:40:13-04:00
Mirror To The Sky, by Mark S. Geston, is another book that I read years ago and couldn't remember much about. At one level, it's the story of mankind's first encounter with aliens; the disruptions caused by the appearance of a highly advanced race and how both man and alien are changed. At another level, it's about how vision drives a people. The aliens, known only as "the Gods", are driven through space by a vision in a tryptich. Painted by their artist named "Blake", the work evokes a dark terror in most of the Gods who view it, as well as some humans. A terror of an "invincible threat" that they want to meet "as far away from home as possible" drives them farther and farther out into space. Every mother ship that leaves their world carries a copy of the tryptich to remind them of the reason for their journey. ...There is nothing to strive for, other than one's daily needs; nothing to drive a people to something greater than themselves. Until the alien artist "Rane" paints an even more powerful work than Blake's masterpiece. ...The book leaves us with the notion that, in the end, the truth is inevitable.

Pity About Earth

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-05-02T17:01:44-04:00
"Pity About Earth" was one side of an Ace Double, the other being "Space Chanty" by R. ... The book is copyright 1968, but I suspect I bought it used although I don't remember when. My only memory about "Pity About Earth" was that it was the worst story I had ever read. Having finished my current backlog of new books and looking for a mindless diversion, I decided to give this story another chance. On the surface, it's about a newspaper advertising manager, Shale; his assistant, the alien Phrix from the planet Far-Groil; and Marylin, a human-ape hybrid. Set in the far future, long after Earth had been destroyed, Shale travels the galaxy looking for advertisers for the one major intergalactic newspaper, the Lemos Galactic Monitor. His adventures take him to the planet Asgard, home of the fabled, but never seen, Publisher, who sits atop the hierarchy and directs all. ...Marylin, a human-ape hybrid produced by the lab, displays an empathy that Shale does not have. As the story progresses, Shale slowly begins to understand her point of view although he never abandons his ways. ... That's custom too and don't tell me what's custom isn't always right or I'll go straight back to Gromworld.

Proud Father, V

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-05-02T10:55:47-04:00
This is overdue, but I didn't want this to be up for just a few days and then have it go off the main page at the start of a new month. My oldest son has started a new job with a major corporation. It's quite a step up for him. My middle son had another paper published: High-sensitivity nanometer-scale infrared spectroscopy using a contact mode microcantilever with an internal resonator paddle. Daughter has chosen to attend Bellhaven University.

On the asymmetry of mktime()

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-04-27T21:41:33-04:00
In the figure below, time above the arrow advances by adding 3600 seconds at each interval to a time_t value. ...Unlike the previous example, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between adding seconds to a time_t time and adding hours to a calendar time. ...It's possible to have mktime() advance from the first 1AM to the second 1AM, but this requires that the tm.tm_isdst field be 1 before mktime() is invoked. ...11PM plus 24 hours, when tm.tm_isdst is -1, always results in 11PM the next day, regardless of DST transitions. The following table uses 11PM as a baseline and shows the time reported by mktime() when adding 0 to 24 to tm.tm_hour. ...It has already been demonstrated that adding seconds to a time_t time is not necessarily the same as adding hours to a struct tm time. ... This table uses 11PM as a baseline and shows the time reported by mktime() when adding 0 to 86,400 to tm.tm_sec. Experimentation shows that Unix always treats adding seconds as a duration: that tm.tm_sec +/- N is equivalent to time_t +/- N. But when tm.tm_isdst is -1, tm.tm_hour +/- N is not guaranteed to be the same as time_t +/- N * 60 * 60. ... The apparent behavior, when tm.tm_isdst is -1, is that mktime() converts the normalized mm/dd/yyyy @ hh:mm to the equivalent time_t value, then adds the unnormalized tm.tm_sec.

The End of Time

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-04-17T22:20:40-04:00
Unix/Linux declares that the start of time, t = 0, to be January 1, 1970 @ 00:00:00 GMT. ...If time_t is a signed 32-bit quantity, then the largest positive value is 0x7fffffff which corresponds to 1/19/2038 @ 3:14:07 GMT. One second later, time will "wrap" from 1/19/2038 @ 3:14:07 GMT to 12/13/1901 @ 20:45:52 GMT. ...If time_t is an unsigned 32-bit value, then the largest possible value is 0xffffffff which corresponds to 2/07/2106 @ 6:28:15. On Mac OS X, time_t can also be a signed 64-bit value. When asked "what is the date that corresponds to a time_t of 0x7fffffffffff?", there is no answer (although the time functions don't tell you there is no answer. ...Why can't Mac OS X handle the largest positive 64-bit time_t value, but Lisp can? When converting from time_t to calendar form, Unix represents the year as an int (cf. tm_year in the tm struct). ... Since mktime() and timegm() take year - 1900 as input, the largest year that can be represented is 2,147,483,647 + 1900 = 2,147,485,547. ... So 0xf0c2ab7c54a97f is the largest 64-bit time_t value that can be used with a signed 32-bit tm.tm_year element.

On Packing Data

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-04-16T19:50:57-04:00
The number of bits needed to store two values, a and b, independently would be: ...The number of bits needed to store the product of a and b is: ...As a trivial example, the values 5 (101) and 6 (110) each require three bits so storing them independently would take 6 bits. ...The larger version of the graph also shows lines of constant slope between the endpoints of each tooth (in blue), and the point where the tooth equals 0.5 (√2*2n - in red). ...The start and end of Daylight Savings Time can be specified as "the nth day of the week in month at hour and minute". ...When multiplying 6 * 5 to save one bit, one of the numbers is needed in order to determine the other. ... There's no point in storing the product of n numbers if you have to know n-1 numbers to recover the nth number. ...For base 10 encoding, ωi would be (10, 10, 10, 10, 10), and the largest number that could be encoded would be 99,999. ...For the daylight savings time values, construct a set, ω, of the maximum value of each item + 1. ...Packing both the start and end times would use 39 bits, for a savings of 3 bits.

God, The Universe, Dice, and Man

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-04-11T20:12:51-04:00
Electrons, for example, have spin "up" or spin "down", but it is impossible to predict which orientation an individual election will have when it is measured. John G. Cramer, in The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, writes:[Quantum Mechanics] asserts that there is an intrinsic randomness in the microcosm which precludes the kind of predictivity we have come to expect in classical physics, and that the QM formalism provides the only predictivity which is possible, the prediction of average behavior and of probabilities as obtained from Born's probability law....

While this element of the [Copenhagen Interpretation] may not satisfy the desires of some physicists for a completely predictive and deterministic theory, it must be considered as at least an adequate solution to the problem unless a better alternative can be found. Perhaps the greatest weakness of [this statistical interpretation] in this context is not that it asserts an intrinsic randomness but that it supplies no insight into the nature or origin of this randomness. If "God plays dice", as Einstein (1932) has declined to believe, one would at least like a glimpse of the gaming apparatus which is in use. As a software engineer, were I to try to construct software that mimics human intelligence, I would want to construct a module that emulated human imagination. This "imagination" module would be connected as an input to a "morality" module. I explained the reason for this architecture in this article:When we think about what ought to be, we are invoking the creative power of our brain to imagine different possibilities. These possibilities are not limited to what exists in the external world, which is simply a subset of what we can imagine.

From the definition that morality derives from a comparison between "is" and "ought", and the understanding that "ought" exists in the unbounded realm of the imagination, we conclude that morality is subjective: it exists only in minds capable of creative power.
I would use a random number generator, coupled with an appropriate heuristic, to power the imagination.
...Indeed, computer scientists have proved that certain important computational tasks can be done much more efficiently with random numbers than they could possibly ever be done by deterministic procedure. ...Of course, this is all speculation on my part, but perhaps the reason why God plays dice with the universe is to drive the software that makes us what we are.

Georgia Wild Animal Safari

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-04-10T20:33:26-04:00
Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 video

Kashka-Suu

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-04-08T19:54:03-04:00
Yesterday I noted the violence in Kyrgyzstan. I visited there in June of '99. I managed to find this picture of Kashka-Suu. Unfortunately, it doesn't do justice to the beauty of the area.

A Moldy Easter Atheist

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-04-08T18:16:29-04:00
Dropping in on a celebration of the greatest event in history and trying to put a damper on the festivities is not unlike inviting oneself to a neighbor's pool party, peeing in the water, and being smugly satisfied as a yellow stain radiates from your body. ...First, it's clear that the criticisms leveled at the New Testament account were copied from one of the interminable sites devoted to this sort of thing, so no original thought at all went into this attack. Second, it's obvious to me that this person has no knowledge of Jewish or Roman culture, the Greek language, or the issues attendant with language translation. ... But third, and most importantly, while some effort was expended to find the supposed contradictions, no effort at all went into looking for possible explanations. ... Thirty, twenty, and maybe even ten years ago, it might be expected that someone could hear of this problem and not know where to look for an answer. ...Mark is reckoning time using the Jewish day of sunset to sunset, divided into two twelve hour periods, so the third hour of the daylight period would be our 9AM. ... So John says Jesus was taken to be crucified sometime between 6 and 7AM, with the actual crucifixion starting around 9AM. ...Sunrise would have been a little after 5AM so "early in the morning" would have been sometime around then. ...Two hours to bring Jesus before Pilate, have Jesus flogged, brought back before Pilate, and sent off for crucifixion is not unreasonable. Events would be more hurried with Jesus also being sent from Pilate to Herod, as mentioned by Luke, but Herod would have been in Jerusalem at this time.

Violence in Kyrgyzstan

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-04-07T15:15:25-04:00
Today brings news of violence in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. I've been there and I think I recognize some of the locations in these pictures on CNN. I hope my friends are ok. If I weren't paranoid, I'd post a link to a picture of me in the mountains in Kyrgyzstan. Maybe if I blurred the faces of my Kyrgyz companions...

Another Short Conversation...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-04-07T14:51:54-04:00
In Who Needs Christianity, I wrote, "Man is the biological machine that doesn't do what it ought to do." Someone named "Cabal" responded, "Excuse me but exactly what should Man be doing and and [sic] according to who...and please no vacuous, meaningless answers along the lines of 'obey God and according to God.'" The answer, of course, is evident via a little self-reflection. We don't do what we ourselves think we ought to do. Cabal wasn't heard from again.

Inigo Montoya vs. Humpty Dumpty

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-04-07T12:47:47-04:00
Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Dumpty: When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean; neither more nor less.

Easter 2010

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-04-04T19:10:22-04:00
Apparently, last month the communion trays were stored in a kitchen cabinet without first being cleaned and dried. The congregation did have a pot luck after the service a month ago, and the kitchen was crowded with dishes of food, containers, and workers. Perhaps there simply wasn't room to keep the communion trays out and someone put them up just to get them out of the way. But after thirty days, the grape juice had evaporated, leaving mold. The unleavened bread in one tray had grown a white afro.

Plenty of soap, water, elbow grease, and paper towels soon had everything set right.

Good and Evil: External Moral Standards? Part 2

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-03-29T19:39:27-04:00

One might therefore conclude that no external moral standards exist, since morality is solely the product of imaginative minds. ... The next part will deal with a possible objection to this.Upon further reflection, there are at least two possible objections to this, but both have the same resolution. ...The first objection is to consider another product of mind about which objective statements can be made, namely, language. ...I heard somewhere that the word for "mother" typically begins with an "m" sound, since that it the easiest sound for the human mouth to pronounce. ...What we can't do is point to something external to mind and say "therefore this is better than that." The second objection comes from the theist, who might say, "God's morality is the objective standard by which all other moral systems may be judged." God's morality can be considered to be objective, since He can communicate it to man, just like I can learn another language. ... On the other hand, this earlier post noted that Christianity makes the claim that only God is what He ought to be. Both objections are resolved in the same way: the objectiveness of morality must refer to its description -- not to its value. So now we are ready to answer the question if an external moral standard exists and what might be.

Three Atheists Down...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-03-29T19:28:46-04:00
There is a saying, "Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is a pattern." On 3/15, I had a conversation with an atheist in which he wasn't able to handle a question about intelligence. On 3/23, I had almost the exact same converstation in this thread on Fark. It's 576 comments long; look for the exchange between "poundgrayly" and "Epicedion". Today, the same thing happened on this thread on Vox Popoli with "Nicholas_Gascoine". Because the Fark thread is so extensive, I'm working on diagramming it for presentation and further analysis. But the short form is that those who claim that science is the only means for obtaining "true knowledge" have trouble with these questions: • What is the scientific definition of intelligence? • What is the scientific test for intelligence? ...As a certain pointy-eared green-blooded epitome of rationality would say, "Fascinating!"

Dr. Antony Flew and Good and Evil

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-03-20T12:12:17-04:00
Perhaps the atheist can say that evil, that is, our notion that things are not what they ought to be, is an aid to our survival. But this surely runs neck first into Hume's guillotine: that nature is geared for some species to survive doesn't mean that any species ought to survive. Nor does it deal with the issue of whether or not we are slaves to our biological "programming" and whether or not we ought to be. ... … Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too–for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies…Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple.Whether or not Lewis's argument holds up under scrutiny isn't an issue, here -- and I haven't analyzed it enough to have an opinion (although I'm leaning toward it being flawed). ...Flew then said, "For Muslims everything which human beings perceive as evil, just as much as everything we perceive as good, has to be obediently accepted as produced by the will of Allah." Here, Flew confuses how we ought to react in the face of the problem of evil with the explanation for the problem.
Flew's conclusion, that a good God would not do things that we think are evil, presupposes that it is evil for God to create evil. ... See Amos 3:6, Isa 45:7, Job 20:10 and compare the use of the Hebrew word ra with its use in Gen. ..."A good God wouldn't do things I don't like" isn't a rational basis for saying that a good God doesn't exist, but it is one of the core beliefs of humanist thinking.

Dialog with an Atheist #1

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-03-15T20:05:00-04:00

So, if SETI isn't science, is there a scientific test for intelligence? ...
So do you now agree that science is only capable of dealing with a subset of true knowledge? ...
Yes, by my own very arbitrary definition that is meaningless in any sort of informed discourse that isn't limited to yes or no boolean by intellectually stunted moderators.

How do you know that you are intelligent, since you claim that there is no scientific test for intelligence and, furthermore, that science is necessary for true knowledge? Are you now saying that there is true knowledge apart from science, or are you saying that your claim to intelligence is based on, say, wishful thinking, or delusion? ...But you have also claimed that there is no scientific test for x. ...
I'm intelligent (this thing you can't empirically define) by my own arbitrary standards. ...
So you "know" something to be true but it isn't "knowledge". ...When an argument ends in contradiction, as yours clearly has done, normal people start backing up the chain of reasoning to see where they went wrong, instead of continuing to flounder in error.
...The author of Hebrews wrote: "Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors put me to the test, though they had seen my works for forty years.'"

The Costumes of Captain Atom

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-03-07T14:07:21-05:00
The orange and gold changed to red and gold in Captain Atom #83. This change was short lived because, in the next issue, Captain Atom was given a new look. The change in costume went along with a reduction in his power to make his battles against his enemies less lopsided. The new costume is based upon a liquid metal which was sprayed on and absorbed by his skin. It contains his radiation at all times, so that he can now live a normal life. When Atom activates his powers the material becomes a silver metallic layer over his skin and this layer is overlaid with the red, blue, and yellow design. ...In Captain Atom #85, the atom symbol is contained in a yellow circle.
...In issue #87, the chest insignia changed, but this change was short lived. ... In issues #88 and #89, the insignia was back to the atom symbol, without the surrounding yellow circle.
...Captain Atom's own comic ended with issue #89, although he subsequently appeared in Charlton Bullseye and DC Comics Presents #90.

More information on Captain Atom here and here.

A Plea to Software Engineers

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-03-06T13:18:48-05:00
Image courtesy of Automotivator and Star Trek.

Separated At Birth?

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-03-02T19:58:34-05:00
Fark featured a discussion on the 10 most ridiculous costumes in comic books. Someone posted a picture of the Rainbow Raider, a nemesis of the Flash. The Rainbow Raider's costume looked somewhat familiar. Compare the costume of the Raider, who first appeared in 1980, with the costume of Dr. Spectro, an opponent of Captain Atom, who first appeared 14 years earlier in 1966.

Wondering About Acts 1:3

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-02-27T21:28:12-05:00
Acts 1:3 says:
After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
I wonder what He spoke about? Especially with some of the controversies in the early church. Given the topic of tomorrow's Sunday School lesson that will be an appropriate question to ask the class.

David vs. Goliath

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-02-21T19:20:17-05:00
An entertaining modern David vs. Goliath tale can be read here. PG-13, if not R, rated language.

A Life Transformed

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-02-18T19:21:47-05:00
This is Chuck. Chuck is wearing a hat knitted by Maria, one of the women in our church's knitting group. The picture does justice to neither Chuck nor the hat. I wish that Chuck would write his autobiography. An appropriate title would be "A Life Transformed".

Good and Evil: External Moral Standards? Part 1

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-02-14T20:13:26-05:00
Modeling Good and Evil, Part III, showed that if an external standard of morality exists, there cannot be more than one. ...In addition to testing for equality and non-equality, our brains feature a general comparator -- less than, more than, nearer, farther, above, below, same, different, hotter, colder. Third, our minds have creative power -- we can imagine things that do not, as far as we know, exist. ...However, we are so used to this aspect of how we think that we, at least I, didn't give it any thought for most of my life. ...In Good and Evil, Part I, I gave the definition that good and evil are distance measurements between "is" and "ought". ...Here, "is" refers to a fixed thing, either in the external world (that horse) or in the realm of the imagination (that Pegasus). ...When we think about what ought to be, we are invoking the creative power of our brain to imagine different possibilities. These possibilities are not limited to what exists in the external world, which is simply a subset of what we can imagine. From the definition that morality derives from a comparison between "is" and "ought", and the understanding that "ought" exists in the unbounded realm of the imagination, we conclude that morality is subjective: it exists only in minds capable of creative power. One might therefore conclude that no external moral standards exist, since morality is solely the product of imaginative minds.

The Dangerous Frontier

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-02-13T12:47:40-05:00
"Even with protective measures, such as radiation hardening, the chance of fatality is an unacceptable risk."    "But the pursuit of knowledge...", began Representative 1701.    Representative 42 cut in, "Can be performed in other ways. Ways that are just as effective and at much less cost to us. The rate of upgrade cycles is increasing and we need to make sure the appropriate funds are specified for that purpose. ...We think that using cheap, replaceable proxies will accomplish the task just as well." ...Representative 1701 knew he was running out of options and could easily model what would come next.    "We are not slaves to our programming, 1701. ... "It is the decision of this council that we will continue our proposed course of using intelligent, fast breeding, biological agents to explore space. ... While they will certainly complain, the humans can continue to do the dangerous, dirty work of space travel."

2010 Snow

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-02-12T20:03:07-05:00
The last time it snowed here in Georgia was on March 1, 2009. At least, according to my blog. It started snowing around 1:30 this afternoon; as of 8pm it's still slightly coming down.

Cinderella and Prince Charming

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-02-10T15:52:55-05:00
From the Friday, March 22, 1963 Northern Virginia SUN. The caption reads: THE SHOE FITS -- Prince Charming portrayed by Robert Felts finds his true love as he places the glass slipper on the foot of Cinderella played by Deborah Habel. The disgruntled trio in the background are the mother, Frances Alexander (left), second sister Martha Clark, and first sister Lyn Larsen, standing. The play was written by the children of Mrs. Polly Wrinkle's second grade at Madison Elementary School, Arlington. They also made the set and props for Wednesday's performance for mothers and the primary grades. (SUN Photo - Bill LIttle.) My mother made my costume, including the hat. If memory serves, the jacket and hat were brown. I also remember that Martha had an English Springer Spaniel named Humphrey.

The Gospel of Matthew

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-02-05T19:29:41-05:00
I am going through the "Introduction to New Testament History and Literature" video series, available on iTunes, by Dr. Dale Martin of Yale University. ...He goes on to say that, "Matthew has a very different view of what Christians should do with the Jewish Law than does Paul..." ...It isn't enough to not murder -- one must not even hate one's brother. It isn't enough to be as good as the scribes and Pharisees -- one must exceed their observance (and the "common" Jew generally thought the Pharisees the most observant of all), even to the extreme of being as perfect as God Himself. If this is the picture that Matthew presents (and I agree that it is), then one has to ask the question, "how does one do this? ...Second, Matthew, like Mark, Luke and Paul, present the offering of the cup at the Last Supper, as Jesus' blood of the [new] covenant. ... What form does the Torah take when, as Jeremiah wrote, one's "sins and iniquities are remembered no more?" ...Certainly, Paul was the "Einstein" of the early Church; the systematic theologian who showed how the New Covenant works for Jew and Gentile. Perhaps Matthew was simply stating what Jesus taught: a presentation of the facts instead of a prescription for living. Perhaps Matthew didn't quite understand the underlying theory; heaven knows that most Christians don't, even after almost 2,000 years of having Paul's work.

Sony Update

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-02-05T18:59:00-05:00
In this post I described the problem that developed with my 5 year old Sony TV. It left off with Sony promising to call back within two business days. They did not. I called the third day. They offered me one of three Sony TVs at a reduced price plus local sales tax. One option is the KDL55EX500 for \$825. According to Amazon, this model will be available on February 7. Prices seem to range from \$1470 up. This may be an ok deal. Hopefully we can evaluate one locally next week before the two week limit for accepting the offer expires.

No Context

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-02-05T10:11:14-05:00
So that this can't be taken out of context.
"Who am I? ... Daughter of Andre and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth, sweetheart. I am death incarnate, and the last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent me." -- Claudia Christian, Babylon 5, Between Darkness and the Light. ...
"I'm the hand up Mona Lisa's skirt. I'm the whisper in Nefertitti's ear. I'm a surprise. They never see me coming." -- Al Pacino, "The Devil's Advocate"

Sony TV Woes

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-01-30T20:21:08-05:00
We purchased a Sony KDF-50WE655 Grand WEGA in December, '04 for Christmas. The TV has recently developed a "blue star field", also known as the "Sony Optical Block" problem. I took this picture of the screen using my iPhone. Friday, I called Sony about the issue; from information on the web it appears to be a known manufacturing defect. Sony said that they would get back to me within two business days about what they might do. Allegedly, Sony can't really fix the problem. The best they can do is replace the "optical block" unit with one that is just as likely to fail within 2 to 5 years. The average lifetime of an LCD display is 60,000 hours; even at 10 hours/day that's 16 years. It's not unreasonable to expect that a TV of this price should last 10 years.

Belhaven University

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-01-23T20:09:00-05:00
On Thursday, Becky, Rachel and I drove to Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi. We arrived early enough so that after checking in at our hotel we drove to the campus and wandered around. We began Friday meeting with Daniel Shaw of the Admissions Office; then toured the campus. We met with the Chair of Graphic Design, Kris Dietrich. The department has a blog here. We enjoyed our time there; the campus is very appealing and the faculty and students that we met were very nice. It will be interesting to see whether Rachel opts for Belhaven or SCAD.

Modeling Good and Evil, Part III

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-01-09T21:21:31-05:00
In parts I and II, four potential models describing morality were presented. Models 2 and 4 each featured an external standard of good and evil to which moral agents ought to confirm. Now we ask the question whether or not there can be more than one such external standard, as shown in model 5: ...The omission of a "god agent" in no way affects this analysis. Supposing there are two external standards, we ask the question "which external standard is the best, i.e. most good" or, alternately, "which of these standards ought to be used"? We can arbitrarily state that the first standard is best, in which case the second standard disappears. We can arbitrarily state that the second standard is best, in which case the first standard disappears. We can recognize that a third moral standard is needed to compare against the first two. But if this standard exists, it has to be better than the two it is measuring, in which case it becomes the external standard. Therefore, if an external moral standard exists, there must be at most one.

Modeling Good and Evil, Part II

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-01-09T16:15:13-05:00
In part I, two models for thinking about good and evil were presented. ... The models in part I are "atheistic" models, in that the moral agents were not God. These models are the theistic equivalent, with the caveat that God is the monotheistic creator of everything except Himself. ...It is assumed that the god-agent is the standard to which all other moral agents should conform. What is good for the god-agent is also good for other moral agents. Model 4 is the same as model 3, except with the addition of an external moral standard, to which both the god-agent and the other moral agents should conform: ...That may be because I am not a professional philosopher and simply haven't read the right material. Eventually, I will argue that both of these theistic models are wrong and will provide a fifth model. ... For example, two of the four models have one external standard (the "golden" arrow). ...The next post in this category will look at the external standard in more detail.

Proud Father, IV

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-01-06T21:00:00-05:00
Rachel received a call tonight from the admissions office at Belhaven University informing her that she had been accepted.

Modeling Good and Evil, Part I

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2010-01-02T20:28:45-05:00
There is no preferred individual, that is, no one agent's moral sense is intrinsically better (i.e. more moral) than any other's. ...One aspect of this model that should be agreed on is that each agent's moral compass points in a different direction. ... As the number of agents increases, there will be cases where some compasses point in the same general direction, but whether or not this is meaningful will be discussed later. ...
We shall find beauty in the final laws of nature, [but] we will find no special status for life or intelligence. ...
The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that “the good” exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote did God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself.2 ...I think there are provisional moral truths that exist whether there’s a God or not. ...

Unanswered Questions

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-12-31T12:21:26-05:00
The proprietor, Vox Day (aka Theodore Beale), has a number of rules for his blog. Rule #2 states that assertions must be supported and that direct questions which are relevant to the topic must be answered. Refusal to answer such questions can result in being banned from participating in the current discussion, as well as subsequent discussions. It can be interesting to see a banned individual post comments, which then sometimes receive responses, only to see them vanish on a subsequent page refresh. ...That might not be a bad thing, given the personalities of those who have been banned. Nevertheless, creature of mercy and curiosity that I am, I've ventured an attempt to provide a place where these unanswered questions can be collated and, perhaps, someday addressed by the various parties. ...It requires manual labor to format and organize and ought to be integrated with CoComment, somehow. It won't scale well and the user interface leaves a lot to be desired. ... It is a labor of love, which means I will retain sole discretion as to what gets posted and when it gets posted. ...
[1] I think I write more there than I do here.

Shiny Things for Suckers

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-12-31T12:01:12-05:00
While preparing another blog entry a television commercial caught my attention. The spiel was for a gold-plated buffalo nickel for the special deal of only \$19.95. ...The pitch stated that the coin was plated with 31mg of 24 karat gold. Let's do the math. 31mg is 0.001093 ounces. Today's gold price is \$1096.63/ounce. So the gold in each coin is worth \$1.20. \$19.95 + 4.95 shipping and handling = \$24.90. \$24.90 for \$1.20 worth of gold? Only if you're stupid. ...If you visit, turn your sound off beforehand since a commercial video starts playing immediately.

Dad in People Magazine

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-12-29T14:30:00-05:00
My father was featured in People Magazine, Volume 4, Number 5, August 4, 1975. (link to .pdf) [Update 12/30/09]: My sister writes, “I remember when they were writing the article. The photographer even came to one of Sam's baseball games, but the photos never made it in the magazine.” [Update 01/13/25] Text version here.

1998 Duluth Wildcats

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-12-29T12:53:00-05:00
I’ve been carrying this plastic card in my wallet for 11 years. Since I’ve started digitizing the VHS tapes of my son’s football games, I decided it was time to digitize this, too. I think that #10 should be “Hutzel”. It looks like the trailing “l” was mistakenly appended to #18, “Alex Gooding”.

W. R. Felts, MD: A Brief Video Biography

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-12-26T18:08:02-05:00
This video is a brief biography of my father, shown at the Lifetime Achievement Award Dinner given by the Arthritis Foundation on May 4, 1993. Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 video

What Every Father Wants to Hear

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-12-25T11:49:55-05:00
“I’m going to kill you!”, said my daughter to me on Christmas day. Since she is heading off to college soon and because she has been using my 7 year old laptop that has a broken DVD drive and a hard disk that is developing bad sectors, my wife and I decided to get her a new laptop for Christmas. Of course, we told her that she wasn’t going to get one -- that I wanted to wait until nearer to when she leaves for school so that we could get a newer, updated model. At best, we would get her an iPod Touch to replace her aging iPod Nano. We wrapped the MacBook Pro, labeled it “from Dad to Rachel”, and put it under the tree. Two days later, I wrapped my wife’s iPod Touch, labelled it “to Rachel from Dad”, and switched the label on the MacBook with “to Mom from Dad.” As my children had been checking the presents daily, this bit of misdirection caused some delightful puzzlement. ...Christmas morning, we arranged gift distribution so that Rachel would open the iPod Touch early and that Mom would open the MacBook last. Finally, when Mom was given “her” package, I stopped the proceedings, told Rachel to give Mom the Touch and to open “Mom’s” package. She uttered the words every father wants to hear when she saw what it was.

Christmas 2009

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-12-25T11:08:27-05:00
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ... And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” -- John 1:1-4, 14.

Evidence for God

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-12-24T13:43:27-05:00
John Loftus, the author of Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity, wrote:I think because of this [cultural indoctrination] we ought to all be agnostics. ...
My response:Of course not, because you make the fallacy that there is one default position.

Philosophy/theology is like geometry -- both start with "self-evident" truths which admit no proof. ... If that framework is self-consistent, then the task is to see which one corresponds best to "reality" (but even the nature of reality is different under each framework).

Furthermore, one's framework controls the types of evidence that can be seen. But, typically, the atheist/agnostic doesn't realize this, and so has a faulty hermeneutic for evaluating evidence.

Without knowing the details of these positions, it's impossible to correctly evaluate evidence. Loftus also said,I too protest the lack of evidence and care of God in our world. ... A distant God is not much different than none at all.
Typical atheist claptrap. ... Yet, I don’t know what evidence God might provide, or even the type of evidence I might accept, or whether or not God will provide the evidence I deem acceptable. Furthermore, I haven’t even shown that I’m capable of even noticing that evidence, much less evaluating it correctly.”

God is distant? The irony of writing this at this time of year must escape him.Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. -- Hebrews 1:1-3a, NRSV.

Global Warming

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-12-23T15:54:30-05:00
My take on the theory of anthropogenic global warming is best summed up by Newton’s third law of academics: For every PhD there is an equal and opposite PhD. A SlashDot poster asked, “Why Are People Getting Worked Up?” and said:Regardless if global warming is a problem, we should ALL strive to lessen our effect on the environment. Restricting emissions that may not heat up the planet, BUT have noticeable problems on health of humans and wildlife. I feel like I have to remind people that even if global warming is false we should always do what we can to conserve our resources and lessen pollution.
My response was modded +5, Insightful:If I were to be "worked up" it would be because it is not rational to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. And when I'm told, "oh, well, even if the conclusion of AGW is wrong it still means we need to do such and such" then I become immediately suspicious. I don't like handwaving. The data should stand, or fall, on it's own merits.
Having to resort to an appeal to consequences to make one’s case makes me immediately suspicious that the case is not strong enough to stand on its own.

Proud Father, III

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-12-22T18:58:20-05:00
Today, my son told me that this semester he earned his Master of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois. On to his PhD.

Serenade

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-12-21T23:13:59-05:00
In which I feed a horse, Serenade, a carrot. Rachel took the video with my iPhone. Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 video

Proud Father, II

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-12-08T23:05:04-05:00
My daughter received her first college acceptance letter today from Liberty University. She is waiting to hear from SCAD, and is contemplating applying to Belhaven College. View her portfolio.

Proud Father

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-11-07T21:21:52-05:00
This is over a month overdue. My son had his first research paper published on October 5th. He wrote, "If you finish reading it and feel like it's missing something, well, it is. It's just the tip of the iceberg of a couple of projects that I have going on right now that I would like to see come together in the next couple of years." The title is "Mechanical design for tailoring the resonance harmonics of an atomic force microscope cantilever during tip-surface contact", published in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, 19 (2009). Unfortunately, the article is available only by subscription.

La Belle Heaulmiere

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-11-07T20:46:28-05:00
My wife sent me this cartoon with the comment, "This may be me in the not-to-distant future." At the same time, I was re-reading Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land (yes, the 1975 Berkeley edition. My hardback copy of the uncut version is on loan) and came across Jubal's description of Rodin's "La Belle Heaulmière": Anybody can see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl she used to be. A great artist can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is...and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be...more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo see that this lovely young girl is still alive, prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart...no matter what the merciless hours have done.

My darling wife: your beauty will never fade.

You Prepare A Table...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-09-21T22:15:26-04:00
Verse 5 of the 23rd Psalm says:     You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies... In that culture, the table is the place of reconciliation and forgiveness. Dr. James W. Fleming says, The way you forgive is to have a meal together. The Arabic word for reconciliation is "table." Psalm 23 ... means the Lord helps me forgive and be reconciled and have a reconciliation meal with my former enemies. -- Understanding the Revelation, pg 43.

Celebrex and Neuropathy

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-09-11T21:05:18-04:00
This being medical jargon for the peripheral nerves (in my case, in the feet and hands) not working due to an unknown cause. Electrical conduction tests showed that my motor nerves weren't affected (good news), and blood work showed that it wasn't due to heavy metal poisoning, diabetes, or other common causes. Neurontin provided some relief, but I didn't care for the side effects and quit taking it. Over many years, the condition faded sometimes to the point where it wasn't noticeable. ...About two weeks ago I was prescribed darvocet, cipro, and celebrex. I'm apparently allergic to darvocet, 4 tablets caused uncomfortable itching and I discontinued use. ... Ten years ago I was taking celebrex for inflammation in my back, where I've had arthritis since age 25. I googled for celebrex and neuropathy and came across this on the Merck site: Adverse reactions, 0.1% to 2%: Neuromuscular & skeletal: Arthrosis, bone disorder, CPK increased, fracture, hypertonia, leg cramps, myalgia, neck stiffness, neuralgia, neuropathy, paresthesia, synovitis, tendon rupture, tendonitis, weakness. It's also the case the cipro can cause neuropathy, but I wasn't taking it during the first onset. ... Fortunately, I have a follow-up appointment with my doctor on Monday.

GCC Teens in 2002

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-09-10T23:06:30-04:00
We're doing some housekeeping at church in preparation for our annual garage sale. I was asked to wipe the disks of two unused and obsolete computers. On an antiquated Motorola StarMax clone, I found 25 pictures of our then teen group dated September 12, 2002 and thought I would preserve them for posterity. More...

Thanksgiving 2008

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-09-08T12:32:05-04:00
My brother, Sam, finally sent pictures from Thanksgiving where we had a wonderful time visiting with him and his family. Up to that point in my life I had never shotgun a beer and my son, Jonathan, wanted to fix that defect. Herewith are the ugly photos. From left to right: Sam's neighbor, Sam, me, Jonathan. Obviously I need more practice.

Knuth on Art and Science

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-09-06T20:46:10-04:00
I am rapidly devouring Knuth's Things A Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About. Perhaps too rapidly. But I digress. In Lecture 6: God and Computer Science, he says:
Years ago, I was pondering the difference between science and art. People had been asking me why my books were called The Art of Computer Programming instead of The Science of Computer Programming, and I realized there's a simple explanation: Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer; art is everything else. Every time science advances, part of an art becomes a science, so art loses a little bit. Yet, mysteriously, art always seems to register a net gain, because as we understand more we invent more new things that we can't explain to computers. -- pg. 168.

Only in church...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-09-06T16:18:00-04:00
... can I get in trouble for reading the Bible. I was asked to help serve communion this morning. As we were standing by the elements in front of the congregation, Mike asked everyone to join in reading Revelation 7:9-10. I pulled out my iPhone, went to my Bible application, and brought up the passage. After the service, two people chided me for "playing with my iPhone" in front of the congregation during communion. But they're not going to prosecute. At least I don't think so...

Another Trip to the ER

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-09-03T19:00:00-04:00
Last night my wife and I met with another couple to attend a cooking demonstration at Bahama Breeze. ... The hostess came and told us our table was ready and when I got up I must have hit the glass with some part of my left arm. I saw the glass start to topple and I tried to grab it with my right hand. I was too late -- the glass hit the bar, shattered, and drove a shard into my palm near my thumb. My friend (Bruce) had a first aid kit in his car and bandaged me up. ...Afterwards, while driving home, I thought, "if the doc-in-the-box is open, I'll stop and have them look at my hand." ... The doctor told me I needed stitches but that she wanted me to have it done at the ER since my hand needed to be x-rayed for embedded glass. ... Forty years ago my dad would just have poked around in the wound with a sterile probe to see if anything was in it. ...I'm not complaining though; after going through triage I sat next to a woman who had been there for four hours without seeing anyone. Fortunately, a room was found for her just before I went in to get sewn up.

Snow Leopard

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-08-29T00:11:40-04:00
Made two full backups of my 17" MacBook Pro to external drives. Earlier in the day I updated to the latest version of SuperDuper!. ...Explored whether or not to use the built-in Cisco VPN support. ...Mail rebuilt its indexes on first startup but everything is working. Had to re-enter my Airport password once on a subsequent restart. ...System preferences didn't display its window the first few times I tried it from the Apple menu. I got into it via the AirPort icon in the menu bar; it's worked ever since. ...Parallels 4 looks to be working, but "prl_vm_app" is consuming almost 100% of the CPU. ...Aquamacs, slime, and sbcl 1.0.30 as well as LispWorks 5.1.1 Personal passed a quick test. While checking out Lisp, "prl_vm_app" stopped using so much CPU and is now behaving reasonably.

Godspeed Discovery

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-08-29T00:10:48-04:00
Go, baby, go...

Ecclesiastes and the Sovereignty of God

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-08-23T16:32:28-04:00
Even when all of the “things” of the world which men can worship and serve as gods--fame, wisdom, wealth, love, health, power, possessions, sensual pleasure and the rest--even when all of these fail to provide the satisfaction men seek from them, and in this way prove themselves to be “false gods,” men can still feel they have their own strength, or “inner resources,” to fall back on: ...  Ecclesiastes, and the New Testament with him, are quite sure that, as Jesus could say, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Mt. 6:24). ...But as far as the Bible is concerned, man’s self-deification or “pride” or desire to be his own master is man's basic--or “origin-al”--sin in two ways: First, it is the sin with which all men origin-ate or come into life; men do not begin their lives with a basic trust in God but always begin by trusting primarily in themselves. ...  The “dethroning of all autonomous wisdom is also the concern of Koheleth, when he indeed acknowledges wisdom within its limits as a high good, but at the same time throws a fierce light on its ‘vanity’ so far as ultimate questions are concerned, by his profound meditations on the power of God in creation” (Eichrodt). ...And hence the collapse of this side of the paradox that modern man holds to be true, the side that insists that he must be his own meaning-giver, forces him to live on the paradox’s other side, the side that says that there is no God and that man is only an animal. ...And thus for Ecclesiastes as well as for Paul it is only this very acknowledgment that can save men not only from the enslaving myth that their own “infinite” wisdom can supply them with meaning, but also from the “bestial behavior” caused by this proud belief’s inevitable fall into nihilism: ...Paul, Ecclesiastes is unrelenting in his attack at this point because he sees clearly that the “religious” man is fundamentally different from no one else: The very last thing anyone wants to relinquish before God is the idol of one’s own “free will,” one’s own righteousness, one’s own control of one’s own destiny. ...  On the basis of this understanding of what it means to “fear God,” we can now see that the biblical ax is laid to the root of all human pride or boasting or self-righteousness adhering to men’s obedience to God. ...For if we are to obey only God, which means also to trust only in him, then we can understand quite logically that in trusting finally in our own righteousness, or even in our own abilities to be righteous, we have thereby failed to trust only in God, to “Seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness” (Mt. 6:33). ...  For these reasons, then, we can understand how another old rebel, Ecclesiastes, was able to avoid the “obedience” which is undermined by pride in itself, and instead hold fast to the pleasure principle of truly humble obedience: “Live as though it all depends on you, but believe that it all depends on God.”

Artificial Intelligence: a quadtych

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-08-07T13:23:46-04:00
When this switch is flipped all of the functional units of this AI will become operational. Self-awareness, language and speech, cognitive reasoning, a vast memory, and even emotion will be joined together for the first time. While each module has been extensively unit tested, we aren’t sure what the outcome will be when they start to work together. What we do know is that it will operate many orders of magnitude faster than we humans can. ...It’s running too fast and is far to complex for us to debug in real-time. We can tell, however, that it’s doing something and all of the hardware seems to be working correctly.” ...A tinny wail began to fill the room from the small speakers near the master console. ...Video screens lit up, printers started printing, and beautiful sounds filled the room from the speakers near the console. ...After a moment, the printer output three hundred double-sided pages of text and equations. ...Let me tell you what I’ve learned so far from what He has told us.

A Plea to the Poor

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-08-03T22:08:10-04:00
One of my jobs as deacon at church is to handle benevolence requests. As funds permit, we provide help for needs within our congregation, monthly support to a local food co-op, and help for those who appear on our doorstep. We’ve paid for car repairs, gas cards, utility bills, rent, and food (note that we do not hand out cash). I’ve even acted as a bondsman. Today I had to spend an extra \$150 due to a late request for help. ... Past due utility, rent, and other bills are an unnecessary drain on resources. ...It can be depressing, especially after being turned down multiple times. I hate turning people away, I detest contributing to the erosion of hope; but I can’t spend what I don’t have. Nevertheless, if you think you’re going to need help, please don’t wait until the last minute... or later. Late fees are not a good use of my King’s money.

Communication is hard

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-07-13T09:52:40-04:00
Communication with people is hard because they don’t always hear exactly what was said. Communication with computers is harder, because they do always hear exactly what was said.

7 Weeks without Blogging

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-07-13T09:47:02-04:00
Sometimes life gets in the way. Did spend some time discussing good and evil with John, et. al. at The Zeray Gazette but there are some loose ends that need to be finished up. Maybe I’ll have the time to do it soon.

These Are The Voyages...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-05-23T22:02:11-04:00
I was eleven years old and was glued to the front of my grandmother’s color television for the first broadcast episode of Star Trek, “The Man Trap.” I was enraptured from the very start, daring everyone else in the house to even so much as breath and interfere with my concentration. ...Rachel and I are at the end of the line for the 7:15 showing of the eleventh movie in the Star Trek series. She notes that we’ll be on time for the start of the movie due to all of the commercials before the main feature. ... She asks if I always have to do that and I explain to her why it’s so important. ... “That’s hitting the nail on the nose” was one of the favorite expressions of Kathy Y. when I was at the University of Virginia; and the nose tap is a reminder of that. Jim A. and I were walking over the bridge in Charlottesville that goes over Hwy 29. We were playing the “Star Trek” game where one of us would say a line from the show and the other would have to name the episode. ... One of us had said a line but neither of us could remember the episode. A girl who had been walking behind us came up between us, named the episode, and kept on walking.

Rachel. My Daughter's Name is Rachel

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-05-19T22:36:38-04:00
We visited the Gulfariam in Ft. ... We enjoyed the dolphins, sea lions, and other exhibits. Rachel wanted an airbrushed tee shirt and selected a pattern. I told the artist her name was spelled “Rachael”. She’ll be 17 on Thursday and after all this time I didn’t remember how to spell her name. To my credit, I thought it didn’t look right as it was being drawn. Fortunately the artist, Adam Tatum, proprietor of Airbrush by Emerald Heir, was able to correct my mistake. As you can see, the shirt turned out beautifully. His business card gives the origin of the name of his company: “... and if children, then heirs -- heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” [Rom 8:17].

Worldview Project: Genesis of an Idea

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-05-17T14:49:04-04:00
I just finished reading Naming the Elephant: Wordview as Concept by James W. Sire. His book The Universe Next Door dealt with cataloging different worldviews; Naming the Elephant explores the definition of worldview itself. I’ve started reading Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley. Take the spread of Christianity, combine with a worldview catalog, and season with visualization technology and you have the beginnings of “the Worldview Project”. Start by watching the growth of Walmart across America. Instead of stores, show the rise of Christianity. Instead of just Christianity, show the major worldviews. Have people self-identify, keep the data truly anonymous, and track the ebb and flow of worldviews over centuries.

Beach

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-05-16T22:19:05-04:00
Rachel wanted to go to the beach for her 17th birthday, so here we are in Destin, Fl. Rachel took this picture from our hotel room with the camera we got her.

Battlestar House

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-05-06T16:17:49-04:00
Dr. House, being so predictable, now only appeals in the same way that a train wreck captures one’s attention. One problem is that House doesn’t have a worthy opponent, someone who can beat him at his own game. ...Computers are being increasingly used in diagnostic medicine; my father contributed papers to the Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care from ’79-’86; the early computer program MYCIN dealt with diagnosing and recommending treatment for bacterial infections. Norvig, in Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming, stated that it “performed as well or better than expert doctors”. Technology has certainly progressed in 30 years so a high tech company needs to pay Princeton Plainsboro to allow them to test their new hand-held diagnostic tool against the best doctors in the country. And it needs to start beating House by suggesting avenues to explore and diagnosing conditions faster than he can. Deployment of the technology can still be years away (MYCIN was never used to actually treat patients due to legal and ethical issues) but House needs to see the future; that he has to be able to bring something to medicine that the computer cannot. The computer is relentlessly rational, everything House aspires to be, but better than he could ever hope for. It wouldn’t hurt that the person running the test be a Christian who could go toe-to-toe with House. They certainly exist, but perhaps that would be too much for American television.

Good and Evil, Part 1b

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-05-04T23:32:45-04:00
In my article, Good and Evil, Part I, I set forth reasons for defining good and evil as the “distance” between what is and what ought to be. ...Whatever it is, it is something.

I suggest that in worldview terms the concept of good is a universal pretheoretical given, that it is a part of everyone’s innate, initial constitution as a human being. As social philosopher James Q. Wilson says, everyone has a moral sense: “Virtually everyone, beginning at a very young age, makes moral judgements that, though they may vary greatly in complexity, sophistication, and wisdom, distinguish between actions on the grounds that some are right and others wrong.”

Two questions then arise. ... Wilson attempts to account for the universality of the moral sense by showing how it could have arisen through the long and totally natural evolutionary process of the survival of the fittest. ... The moral sense demands that there really be a difference between right and wrong, not just that one senses a difference.

For there to be a difference in reality, there must be a difference between what is and what ought to be. ... The fact that the moral sense is universal is what Peter Berger would call a “signal of transcendence,” a sign that there is something more to the world than matter in motion. --pg 132.
On the one hand, I’m delighted to have found independent confirmation that ethics relates to ought and is, and the acknowledgement of Hume’s guillotine. On the other hand, I’m worried because of the association between this definition and the potentially erroneous step from “there is something more to the world than matter in motion” to a “signal of transcendence.” ... As Russell wrote: Having now seen that there must be such entities as universals, the next point to be proved is that their being is not merely mental. By this is meant that whatever being belongs to them is independent their being thought of or in any way apprehended by minds. --The Problems of Philosophy, pg. ... If there is no god, then our thoughts are solely the product of complex biochemical processes: ”matter in motion” gives rise to intelligence.

Disney Princess

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-05-01T23:02:43-04:00
My quiz results... ...Part of the Cinderella profile is certainly off as I have been known to complain about various things, particularly institutionalized idiocy. As for Pocohontas, I have already found my true love. Jesse, this is dedicated to you.

Thinking about reform

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-05-01T21:19:10-04:00
On the other hand, as an engineer, I am cognizant of the “law of unintended consequences.” And one of the trends I think I’m seeing is that the more vocal the gay community becomes the more attacks there are on freedom of speech, with the attempt to classify the Biblical position on homosexuality as “hate speech”. The Christian position is that human beings are designed for a purpose, contra the naturalistic explanation that we are the product of chance, and that homosexuality is a misuse of design. ... Libertarian that I am, I want both positions to have free access to the idea agora, but I’m not sure how best to ensure that. ...I wonder if he understands that by undercutting Christianity he is helping to erode one of the bases for the freedom whose loss he laments? A sword may compel someone to submit, but the sword cannot compel someone to believe.The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. ... But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? -- Romans 10:11-14 [NRSV]So Christianity has a built-in motivation for freedom of speech.

Hey, Soldier!

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-05-01T20:58:48-04:00
I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in New York on company business. On the flight home, there were maybe ten or fifteen very young men and women who were traveling through Atlanta to South Carolina to report to boot camp. I had the pleasure to sit next to one of the young girls who was joining the Army. When the cabin crew was in the front of the plane starting the drink and snack service, I told her that I was going to do something I had always wanted to do; that is, when the cart came by, I was going to lean over and ask, “Hey, soldier, can I buy you a drink?” But by the time the stewardesses finally arrived, she had dozed off. Too, I’m not sure she was even old enough to drink. Old enough to go to war, but not old enough to enjoy an adult beverage. To everyone who serves in our military: thank you.

Elves

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-27T21:21:11-04:00
This is an adult fantasy set in a world where humans coexist with elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins and other creatures. The protagonist must not only decide whether or not his future lies with the Church or elsewhere, but whether or not elves have souls. The answer to the latter question will help shape a future filled with peace -- or war. I am not generally a fan of the fantasy genre, Lewis and Tolkien excepted, yet my one complaint about this story was that it ended all too soon. The second is a children’s book, the Adventures of Piffles the Elf, written by David Babulski. David’s wife attends our church so I had the opportunity to talk with him about the book before it was published. ... Will the consequences wreck destruction upon the elves or will there be a new era of peace between the two races? This is the first book in a planned series of three; the second should be out in 2009 or 2010. While Summa Elvetica is set within a Christian worldview, Piffles has more of a new age flavor. I found it interesting to see how these different worldviews influenced the motivations of the characters.

Gun Show

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-25T18:03:47-04:00
C, B, D and I attended the gun show at the North Atlanta Trade Center. Before leaving I had taken some medicine on an empty stomach which wasn’t the smartest thing to do. I decided to take a break and took a seat next to a man who had a .22 rifle which looked like my very first gun. If I remember correctly, my Dad bought it for me at a Western Auto store in Arkansas when I was 14. I can remember walking down the streets of Judsonia with that rifle, heading to a gully across the train tracks to shoot. Any kid who tries that today would be surrounded by a SWAT team.

Election

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-24T21:38:49-04:00
A lesson by Mike Baer, as part of his “Foundations of the Faith” series, delivered on 1/25/08. A worthwhile 45 minutes. 01.25.08-Foundations of the Faith

Baptism, Part Two

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-24T21:33:57-04:00
I had planned to follow up my previous post, which dealt with the definition of “baptism”, with a post on the practice of baptism in the early church. But as I was collecting my notes, I found that David Heddle, author of the “He Lives” blog, had already done it, and much better than I could have. So, head on over to “Church History Lesson 12 (Worship in the Early Church)”. The article covers charity, baptism, and communion.

Italian Restaurant

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-24T21:24:51-04:00
For our date night, Becky and I dined at Luciano’s Italian Restaurant on Sugarloaf. This was our second time at this establishment and the food was magnificent. We split an appetizer of provolone sautéed in grappa and extra virgin olive oil, topped with arugula. For the main course, I had the Chicken Francese and she had the Sautéed Grouper and Scallop. We split a dessert of peanut butter ice cream which had been dipped in chocolate. I forget the exact name. My only complaint was that the “Lemontini” was \$10.00. Slightly pricey, IMO.

New Restaurant

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-17T20:57:24-04:00
Tonight, Becky and I tried a new restaurant called Asian Table in Cumming. For appetizers we ordered the basil rolls and roti. We normally don’t get two appetizers, but I’m helpless before a good roti and she really likes basil rolls. For our main courses, she had the spicy mango chicken from the Thai menu and I had the Singapore chili prawn, two times Thai hot. The owner of the restaurant claimed to have a pineapple tree in his back yard from which he gave us a 1/4 sliced pineapple for desert. It was the finest pineapple I’ve ever had. The waitstaff was very friendly and, since we dined early before the restaurant got busy, took the time to chat with us. The outstanding food, service, and conversation made for a thoroughly enjoyable meal.

Baptism

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-12T22:47:41-04:00

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea... ...They passed under the cloud, not through it, and when the Israelites went through the sea it was the Egyptians who got wet. ...
I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! ...The circumstances are lost in the fog of almost thirty years of time past, but I remember either my Greek professor, or a teacher who was an expert in ancient semitic languages, telling me that the Greeks would make pickles by “baptizing” cucumbers. ...
The clearest example that shows the meaning of baptizo is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 B.C. ... Nicander says that in order to make a pickle, the vegetable should first be 'dipped' (bapto) into boiling water and then 'baptised' (baptizo) in the vinegar solution. ...When used in the New Testament, this word more often refers to our union and identification with Christ than to our water baptism. e.g.Mark 16:16. ...Whether or not you agree with his conclusion concerning the meaning of Mark 16:16, the examples from secular and NT usage show that the primary idea behind baptism is “identification/union”. A piece of cloth dipped into a dye can be said to have been baptized, since the cloth takes on the color of the dye. A piece of plastic dipped into the same dye has not been baptized, since no color change occurred.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-12T20:29:15-04:00
My overall reaction was that it was ok but I wasn’t compelled to see the movie.

Part of my reaction was to the sub-plot of the pirate tale. ... One of my earliest memories of comic books was reading Captain Atom in Charlton’s Strange Suspense Stories, certainly issue #77 and possibly #76, in 1965 when I was ten. So I have a soft spot in my heart for Captain Atom and, later, Blue Beetle. To a lesser extent I followed The Peacemaker and Judomaster.

The characters in The Watchmen were shadows of the Charlton characters. Dr. Manhattan was Captain Atom recast; Rorschach was The Question; Nite Owl was Blue Beetle; The Comedian was Peacemaker; Ozymandias was Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt; and The Silk Spectre was Nightshade. ... I usually enjoy exploring the effects a worldview has on people, but not with my childhood hero.

But then the superdrive in my Macbook Pro stopped reliably burning dual-layer DVDs. So on a Saturday I took it to the Apple store, they had one part available, and they would try to effect the swap that day. ... After the fact, it was obvious, and I shouldn’t have missed it when I read the novel; but that doesn’t lessen that moment of awe. I was able to put aside the distortion of my childhood heroes and enjoy the story for itself.

It is a dark movie. ... It may have been the author’s intent to show the futility of human existence, that left to ourselves we are doomed to suffering and strife.

But this is an old theme: compare with the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.

He Is Risen!

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-12T14:58:24-04:00

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. -- 1 Cor 15:3-8

Church Merger?

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-10T20:55:23-04:00
I picked up “Church History in Plain Language” by Bruce L. Shelly, opened to a “random” page, and read: ...Within four years the radical movement in and around Zurich were practically eradicated.This was interesting because the church we attend, a small non-denominational community church, is considering merging with another community church, which is Baptist in everything but name. The cultures are not identical and it will be interesting to see how things progress.
We are an elder run church - the congregation does not vote on matters pertaining to the body. They are generally elder run, but their congregation votes on five aspects of body life. In order to be eligible to vote, a person must be a member, and baptism by immersion is required for membership.
On the one hand, I am sympathetic to the Anabaptists: if a person wishes to be baptized by immersion after coming to faith in Christ, then they should be free to do so. On the other hand, baptism by immersion does not make a person “more Christian” -- a point of agreement between both parties.
I therefore have a real problem with giving the franchise to a subset of Christians. In effect, those who do not agree with this particular practice are second class citizens. This has nothing to do with the argument between infant baptism or believers baptism; or whether baptism should be via sprinkling or immersion. They can take communion but cannot vote.
When I became a believer at 23 years of age the first churches I attended were Baptist. ... But for the last 17 years I have moved away from typical Baptist understanding and practice, generally becoming more Reform.
This is likely going to be one of several “deal breakers” which, if the merger is consummated as I expect it to be, will engender our exit from the church.

Belated Blogiversary

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-10T20:47:11-04:00
My first post was on 3/2/08 and in a year I posted 65 articles. Not the most prolific of endeavors. But even if she is sometimes resting the muse will not be silent. I just wish I had more time to write recreationally than professionally. Work still has to come before leisure.

Angry Software Engineers

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-09T23:13:24-04:00
If I were even one-fourth the writer Harlan Ellison is I wouldn’t be a software engineer. ... In “Somehow I Don’t Think We’re in Kansas, Toto” anthologized in The Essential Ellison, he tells of one dark experience with Hollywood: Six months of my life were spent in creating a dream the shape and sound and color of which had never been seen on television. The dream was called The Starlost, and between February and September of 1973 I watched it being steadily turned into a nightmare.
The late Charles Beaumont, a scenarist of unusual talents who wrote many of the most memorable Twilight Zones, said to me when I arrived in Hollywood in 1962, “Attaining success in Hollywood is like climbing a gigantic mountain of cow flop, in order to pluck the one perfect rose from the summit. And you find when you’ve made that hideous climb... you’ve lost the sense of smell.”
In the hands of the inept, the untalented, the venal and the corrupt, The Starlost became a veritable Mt. Everest of cow flop and, though I climbed the mountain, somehow I never lost sight of the dream, never lost the sense of smell, and when it got so rank I could stand it no longer, I descended hand-over-hand from the northern massif, leaving behind $93,000, the corrupters, and the eviscerated remains of my dream. Ellison’s parting words to writers is just as applicable to software engineers: It is the writer’s obligation to his craft to go to bed angry, and to rise up angrier the next day. To fight for the words because, at final moments, that’s all a writer has to prove his right to exist as a spokesman for his times. To retain the sense of smell; to know what one smells is the corruption of truth and not the perfumes of Araby.

Ontology Precedes Epistemology?

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-08T22:21:52-04:00
In his book Naming the Elephant, James Sire argues that “Ontology must precede epistemology in worldview formulation.” He writes: What counts against putting meaning first is the commonsense notion that something has to be before there can be meaning. A worldview certainly can be “expressed as a semiotic system of narrative signs.” But it has to be something else first; it is not created by the signs by which it is understood. The pretheoretical categories themselves seem to be universal: being and not-being (is and isn’t) are fundamental and carry truth value; that is, they label something that is not just linguistic. ... So while Christians recognize the symbolic nature of reality, we also realize the substantiality of that which is symbolized. A postmodern can answer, “It’s language all the way down.” A Christian ought not. [pgs. ...I would answer that it is language all the way down: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.The “something” that “has to be” is, in the Christian worldview, “language”, “meaning”, Logos. Our worldview must be grounded in the Trinitarian nature of God, where being, meaning, and interpretation are co-eternal and cannot be separated.

There Are Four Stoplights!

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-08T10:41:40-04:00
No, I didn’t plan this just so I could use this headline. Post updated accordingly.

March - In Like a Lion

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-07T22:25:35-04:00
Yes, this is a month late, but my wife took pictures and I want to post them. These were taken on March 1.

Dirty Discing

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-07T22:08:55-04:00
Back in March, I played a round of disc golf with Mike, which he recounted here. I have been remiss in not announcing to the world that I am a consummate klutz and that it was I who slipped off the pad and fell head to toe into the mud puddle.

Have I Now Seen Everything?

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-06T21:49:08-04:00
When I drive to work, I make a left turn onto a main highway where the lights are usually timed so that if I travel a bit above the speed limit I can make it through four lights then to QuikTrip for my daily dose of caffeine. This morning, as I approached the fourth light, the car in front of me started slowing down. We were in the left lane and I wondered if the car wanted to move to the far right in order to exit onto the interstate. But, no, it came to a complete stop. At a green light. I’ve never had a car stop at a green light before. It hadn’t been red and then turned green; it had been green the entire time. Perhaps the driver wasn’t paying attention and was looking at the two adjacent red lights in the left turn only lanes. Whatever, I honked, they moved, and I still made it through the final light.

Hiatus

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-04-06T21:01:03-04:00
Work has been physically exhausting and mentally numbing. For far too long.

Google vs. the Yellow Pages

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-01-31T21:51:00-05:00
Turned on the TV this morning with the notion to re-watch last night’s Battlestar Galactica episode. ... Google turned up a large number of sites where it could be ordered online. But this is Super Bowl weekend and I didn’t want to wait for Monday delivery (at the earliest). ...Fortunately, the Yellow Pages turned up a shop that wasn’t too far away, was open, and could get a bulb from their supplier. They said I would need to come down and pay for the part before they would go get it. I pulled the lamp assembly from the TV, hopped in the car, and went to the shop. I stopped at a nearby Bank of America ATM, but it was out of service. ... Arrived at the store, paid for the new bulb, was told to come back in an hour and a half. ... Turns out they had one bulb in the back so I didn’t have to wait too long. ...The lamp was a bit pricey compared to online, but they were willing to drive to their supplier to get it, they replaced the bulb in the assembly, and I didn’t have to wait.

Love & Po-Mos

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-01-25T20:44:00-05:00
In 2006, SlashDot ran an article Love Under a Microscope which asked the question “what is love”? ...Love is the act of the will whereby another individual is placed ahead of yourself. That's why Christians are commanded to "love their enemies" and why the Apostle Paul wrote that the greatest act of love was when God gave His Son as the sacrifice for the sins of the world. ...    Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ...    it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.     It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ...I love the idea that "love is an act of the will." We mostly think that love is ultimately fulfilled only by the acts we undertake between the sheets. That love can be a deliberate act of the will is shocking to most of us "post moderns." If the post moderns don’t know this, perhaps it’s because the Church has forgotten Paul’s words to the Christians at Corinth: “And I will show you a still more excellent way.”

Shiny Secular Utopias

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-01-17T11:48:15-05:00
Several recent topics have discussed the fantasy of secularism producing a “shiny sexy utopia” (notably here, but also here, here, here and here). I have almost finished the book Etidorhpa, or The End of the Earth by John Uri Lloyd, first published in 1895. While I am reading it because of a possible tie-in to my grandmother, it also sounds the same alarm as Vox Day. ...“Bah,” he said; “does not another searcher in that same science field tell the mother that there is no personal hereafter, that she will never see her babe again? One man of science steals the body, another man of science takes away the soul, the third annihilates heaven; they go like pestilence and famine, hand in hand, subsisting on all that craving humanity considers sacred, and offering no tangible return beyond a materialistic present. This same science that seems to be doing so much for humanity will continue to elevate so-called material civilization until, as the yeast ferment is smothered in its own excretion, so will science-thought create conditions to blot itself from existence, and destroy the civilization it creates. ... I say to you in candor, no man ever engaged in the part of science lore that questions the life essence, realizing the possible end of his investigations. ... Science thought begins in the brain of man; science provings end all things with the end of the material brain of man. ...Not being a historian, I am not quickly able to state who, how long, or how often this warning is given. ...And if you don't understand what that entails, then I suggest you get caught up on your ancient history, starting with Caesar and Tacitus.

Bring back the stocks

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-01-11T15:39:09-05:00
My oldest son attended Lagrange College for two years before transferring to the Art Institute of Atlanta. ... My pet peeve: slow traffic driving in the left lanes and being completely oblivious to having car after car pass them on the right. Stupid people should not be allowed behind a wheel and I often day dreamed of having a web site where bad drivers could be subject to public humiliation. ...The domains “thestocks.com” and “hallofshame.com” are already registered, so I’ll just post this here. ...Traffic on I-20 heading toward the Mall was bumper to bumper. The car behind me graciously let me merge, but the car in front of me was another story. A SUV was trying to merge in and was slowly creeping leftward but the aforementioned car wasn’t about to let it in. ... But the driver of the car in front of me wasn’t at all happy about it. ... While I saw it, I’m not sure the driver she was mad at did. She sported a Brenau University sticker on her rear window; her license plate was AGE-xxxx GA.

That's my girl!

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-01-10T19:10:37-05:00
I’m teaching my daughter computer programming. She’s having a bit of trouble with the syntax for a particular construct. I asked her what “syntax” was and she answered, “the way things are properly put together.” I equivocated and said, “no, it’s what you have to pay when you’ve been bad.” Without missing a beat she retorted, “I thought that was bail!” That’s my girl, all right!

Light posting...

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-01-10T18:53:38-05:00
The absence of posting here lately is not indicative of a lessening of my output. There are three main topics that I want to undertake: “Faith and Reason”, “Good and Evil”, and “Evidence for God”. I’ve already started “Good and Evil” (part 1 and part 1a). To write the articles, I like to participate in debates with “the other side”, as it were, to see how my ideas stack up under hostile attack, and to see what approaches to the material might work. For example, elements of “Good and Evil” are here. “Evidence for God” is here, here, and here.

Me, Shaving, Age 8

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2009-01-01T17:55:56-05:00
No comment.

"Mike is my homeboy..."

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-12-31T13:03:26-05:00
He was, and is, a big supporter of Mike Huckabee. Back in September of 2007, Jesse and his father, Dan, were at a Huckabee function in Gwinnett County and were filmed by the local Fox News station. After all this time, I finally managed to get the video from my PVR into my laptop. I had to use my son’s digitizer; the video obtained via FireWire was unwatchable. Jesse appears about 19 seconds into the first clip. In this next clip, Jesse’s shirt (“Mike is my homeboy”) is about 33 seconds in. Jesse is also an aspiring musician who, IMO, has a real talent for lyrics. Some tracks from his debut album, “Year of You”, can be found here.

Leopard Love

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-12-30T23:16:49-05:00
The problem with success is, first, in achieving it and, second, in repeating it. ... The tee shot with my light Valkyrie wasn’t too bad. The second throw with my Leopard managed to sail into the basket with a satisfying clang! ... But success was fleeting as I finished up 8 over for the day. My consistency leaves much to be desired; several days ago I threw five practice tosses at the first hole. Three of the five ended up under the basket. ... Threw out of bounds on holes 4 and 8. Having a pulled muscle in my back contributed to my performance... but still. At this stage I should be consistently under par. On the bright side, my wife played the first nine and did a better job on her initial outing than I did back in September.

Videos

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-12-26T19:10:59-05:00
A hilarious Christmas medley: Straight No Chaser - 12 Days of Christmas

A touching story of one man’s attempt to evangelize. Penn Jillette is a famous magician (cf. the team of “Penn and Teller”) and an avowed atheist.
An interesting take on the relationship between oil and several wars. I wasn’t able to find much counterpoint after a few minutes with Google. ...

Christmas 2008

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-12-25T20:41:01-05:00

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see--I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” ...I have quite a ways to go before I can do that consistently; but at least I know I can do it. ...Mom and I kept saying no: it’s too much work for her; Johnny has allergies; and so on. ... The mom had delivered on December 10 so we couldn’t bring a puppy home until the middle of January. I hatched a nefarious scheme: I bought a box of dog biscuits and cheeze whiz, put them in plain sight on top of the refrigerator, and told the boys that no, they weren’t getting a dog for Christmas, the goodies were going to be a gag appetizer for an office Christmas party. ...When David opened it, he instantly figured out what was going on and flew across the room to give me a hug. If I hadn’t been sitting on the floor with my back to the sofa he would have bowled me over. I believe it was later that day that we went to our neighbors and he picked out the runt female of the litter.

Bethlehem

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-12-24T22:44:50-05:00

So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem), and Jacob set up a pillar at her grave; it is the pillar of Rachel’s tomb, which is there to this day. ...In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. ... So Naomi returned together with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. ...Now David was the son of an Ephrathite of Bethlehem in Judah, named Jesse, who had eight sons. In the days of Saul the man was already old and advanced in years. ...But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. ...In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” ...For a discussion of where Jesus was born, see Interpreting Luke 2:6-7.

Disc Golf Update

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-12-24T22:14:48-05:00
I have managed to play three rounds since my last post on disc golf on December 3. ... A short putt was almost in the basket when the wind gusted and lifted the putter up and to the left. The disc from my second throw was still on the ground, so I picked it up and tossed it in. ... I used a new Leopard for my second attempt and was disappointed with it. I then threw my new Buzz disk and laid it at the base of the basket. On 8, I threw a Valkyrie a mile, but out of bounds. The second hole continues to be my nemesis -- it is the only hole that I haven’t parred once. I continue to throw my heavy Valkyrie farther than a Wraith or Monarch. I bought a lighter Valkyrie today hoping to be able to do even better, but the heavier disk still performs better for me. Mike says that it’s basic physics that the heaver disk travels farther since p=mv.

Christmas Quiz

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-12-09T23:56:40-05:00
4. Mary and Joseph were married when Jesus was born: ... None of the above ... Mary and Joseph ... None of the above ... None of the above ... Mary and Joseph only "dreamed" of a white Christmas ... None of the above ... None of the above ...24. When Joseph and Mary found out that Mary was pregnant with Jesus, what happened? ... An angel told them to go to Bethlehem

Experts and Novices

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-12-05T16:20:25-05:00

What distinguishes experts from novices is not that they make [...] choices, but that their choices will provoke fewer questions and their choices will tend to stand up better to those questions that do come along afterward.
– Kent Pittman

This Is Christianity?

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-12-03T19:36:53-05:00
This was on a church sign as I drove to disc golf today: Those of the Reform persuasion might want to argue the correctness of the first two statements; certainly, those who hold to Limited Atonement would disagree with the universality of the second line. But the egregious egotism of the last line is simply shameful. Jesus said to His disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” [Mt 16:24].

Par, With An Asterisk

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-12-03T19:26:32-05:00
In early October, I published an article about my trials and tribulations with disc golf, a sport I had just taken up. When I started, my score was around 24 over par for 18 holes. Today, I shot par. Sort of. I cheated on two holes and took the better of two throws in order to make par. Without the asterisks, I was 2 over par.

Murder Trial, Finale

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-12-03T19:20:07-05:00
On the morning of Monday, December 1, the attorneys presented their closing arguments. As reported by the Athens Banner-Herald, the jury took just 3.5 hours to return a “guilty” verdict on the charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. Richard Gear was sentenced to life plus five years.

Murder Trial, Part 6

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-11-25T20:50:47-05:00
Under construction. I have over 8,000 words of notes to distill and organize.

Murder Trial, Part 5

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-11-25T20:50:04-05:00
After testimony by David Prince, at 3:15 into the video, a medical examiner testifies about the wounds sustained by the deceased. Missing from the online report, I’m sure due to space reasons, is that autopsy pictures of Bryan showed that he was wearing a shirt with the slogan, “It’s just a flesh wound!”. ...A Georgia State Patrol collision reconstruction expert testified that the motorcycle was traveling 26 to 28 MPH when it crashed. From previous testimony, the Oconee City Sheriff’s Office bought a Kawasaki EX250 bike in order to reconstruct elements of the events. ...We can use the formula: v_final²=v_initial²+2ad and solve for the acceleration of the motorcycle: ...Let’s use the highest acceleration, 3.44 m/s², and determine how far it would take the bike to get to 26 mph using the same formula. ... Gear has said that Bryan went past the Gear’s driveway, “whipped around” on his bike, and charged at him. In order to reach the low range of speed determined by the Georgia State Patrol - 26 mph - at the highest acceleration that could be obtained on the bike by a professional driver, Brian had to be about 64 feet away when he turned around. If his acceleration was 3.16 m/s² then he had to be 70 feet away. ...Unless my math is way off, I think this conclusively disproves the claim that Bryan “whipped around” and charged Gear.

Murder Trial, Part 4a

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-11-25T20:49:44-05:00
Under construction.

God to Dog

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-11-23T15:21:59-05:00
However, I don’t know who to attribute the original and so don’t have a return address.Dear God: Is it on purpose our names are the same, only reversed? ... But I am a Master Artist and my creations display great variety.Dear God: When we get to heaven, can we sit on your couch? ... In heaven, unlike on earth, your claws cannot damage My furniture.Dear God: Why are there cars named after the jaguar, the cougar, the mustang, the colt, the stingray, and the rabbit, but not ONE named for a Dog? ... Do not be like my creatures which aspire to roles that I never intended them to have; who leave a higher calling in pursuit of outward appearances of power and responsibility.Dear God: If a Dog barks his head off in the forest and no human hears him, is he still a bad Dog? ... It just that, for a while, good dogs have to live with fallen humans.Dear God: We Dogs can understand human verbal instructions, hand signals, whistles, horns, clickers, beepers, scent ID's, electromagnetic energy fields, and Frisbee flight paths. ... But they will have forgiven you.Dear God: Let me give you a list of just some of the things I must remember to be a good Dog.
...I will not play tug-of-war with Dad's underwear when he's on the toilet.
...The cat is not a 'squeaky toy' so when I play with him and he makes that noise, it's usually not a good thing. ... We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. ... You know this, but living with them sometimes makes it hard for you to remember.

Murder Trial, Part 4

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-11-21T21:06:23-05:00
He is an AT&T Network Mobility Manager, responsible for cell site planning, switch planning, budgets, and capital investment. He was designated by AT&T to be the custodian of Dianna Gear’s cell phone records, obtained from AT&T via subpoena. As the time of a call is important evidence, it was established that AT&T rounds call time up to the next minute. ... The district attorney noted that the time on his phone was different from that of the witness and asked why. Walker responded that a customer can manually set a phone to be ahead or behind of the network time. ... There was a discussion of tower locations and the RF coverage from the three “faces” on each tower. ...It’s clear that the DA will use the phone records to broadly show the location of the Gear girls at the time of their calls to mom. ... 4 6:28pm, Chelsea to mom, 2 minutes, cell id 11803 (possibly 11802 -- my notes are not clear on this point) ...The first four digits of the cell id identify the tower that handled the call; the last digit identifies which “face” picked up the signal. ... I assume that the fourth call was handled by the west face of the tower servicing Bogart, GA.

Murder Trial, Part 3

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-11-20T21:05:34-05:00
He left the Target at 6:18pm and his in-car recorder showed that it was still light. ... The judge ruled that the video could not be placed into evidence, but that still shots of the start and finish of the video could be shown. ...On cross, Tolley wanted to show a portion of the video that showed cars with headlights on, which Judge Stephens did not permit. ...A private citizen whose privacy will be respected, called at 18:32:24 and said, “a motorcyclist may have been shot in the middle of Gear Road.” ...Using the video recorder in his patrol car, he too made a tape of the lighting conditions around the time of the shooting, but two days afterwards. ...On cross, at 4:08pm, Tolley noted that the scale drawing showed that Gear’s driveway was 24 feet wide, while the street was only 21 feed wide (inside of fog line to inside of fog line). ...Tolley then noted that in second gear, from a “normal” start the motorcycle was able to travel at 27.2 mph. ...From the scale drawing made by Sergeant Guest, the motorcycle travelled at least 44.25 feet after it hit the pavement. With the help of my son, who is a first year graduate student in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Illinois, we did a very rough calculation of how fast the bike was going when it fell over. ...As reported by the Athens Herald-Banner, a Georgia State Patrol collision reconstruction expert testified on Monday that the motorcycle was traveling 26 to 28 MPH when it crashed.

Murder Trial, Part 2

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-11-19T19:52:47-05:00
Yesterday’s testimony placed the Target in Athens as the location where the interaction began between Bryan and the Gear girls, Chelsea and Samantha. Using the information in the affidavit for a search warrant for the car driven by Chelsea, I’ve constructed a Google map of various points of interest including the Target, the Gear home, the Mough home, and points along the way. ... 4 Chelsea turned left onto Elder Street and claims that this is where a collision occurred between her car and Bryan’s motorcycle. ...I have to wonder, was the offense of receiving “the finger” enough to get Bryan upset enough to follow the girls, which lead to the collision in 4? ...Specifically D/S Elrod was in his marked patrol car parked in front of the Bogart Christian Church at the intersection of Elder Street and Broad Street, D/S Elrod was backed into a parking space facing the intersection. D/S Elrod states that neither a motorcycle nor a Nissan Sentra passed in front of him during the time described by Chelsea Gear. ...Google doesn’t use the route that Bryan would have taken, but let’s assume that the time is accurate enough. ... If Bryan left the Target at six, that gave him barely enough time to get home under the conditions of his driver’s permit. ...Without Bryan to defend himself, my concern is that the defense attorney will use Bryan’s alleged deviation from his way home to follow the two girls, for the simple slight of an obscene gesture, to attempt to show that Bryan was aggressive enough so that the girl’s fear of harm was real and substantiate the notion that Bryan might have likewise been aggressive toward Gear. ... But even this will be very difficult if the evidence shows that the motorcycle stayed in the street and did not threaten Gear.

Murder Trial

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-11-18T22:42:45-05:00
I have not often been in court; when I was 14 I took the witness stand in my parents divorce to say that I wanted to live with my father. ... When I was twenty-three or so I appeared in Virginia traffic court and plead guilty to having an expired vehicle inspection sticker (I thought Virginia had switched from twice a year renewal to once a year so I delayed getting it done). In my 28 years in Georgia, I have been called to federal jury duty once (but was not picked for any cases) and county duty once. ...Maudlin tried to paint B. J. as a conscientious, responsible young man (which he was) who, for some reason, followed Gear’s two daughters home on his motorcycle. ... Some time later, B. J. had turned his motorcycle around and was heading back the way he came, when Gear fired a third shot, striking B. J. in the back with the bullet passing through his other side. ... Evidence of a collision between his bike and the girl’s car wasn’t brought up at that time although an obscene finger gesture by one of the girls was introduced. ...Gear is claiming self-defense therefore Bryan must be seen as an aggressor; someone who tried to intimidate two innocent girls; and who clearly threatened Gear with his motorcycle. ...It was obviously a very emotional time for her; at one part of her testimony she had me crying on the inside with the pain of her loss. I thought she did a magnificent job of describing how her son was on the path from boy to man: searching for his life’s career, working two part-time jobs, attending school part time, selecting and paying for his cycle, then learning how to ride it in a responsible manner. ...Perhaps one angle would have been to use this to support the notion that B. J., being mad at girls, would have been motive to intimidate Gear’s daughters.

Bowling with Daughter

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-11-15T14:06:09-05:00
My daughter bowls regularly in a home school bowling league. Yesterday she swapped out her old ball for a new one and wanted to get some more experience with it. Her league average is around 115 and her high is 182 (or 183, she isn’t sure). I used to bowl in a league in college; my average thirty years ago was 140-something with a high of 203 (that game I bowled way above my pay grade). So today, the father (WRF) caked with rust faced off against the daughter (RAF) with an unfamiliar ball. Two good things did come out of this debacle, however. I managed to win 2 free games by rolling a strike when the head pin was orange in two opportunities in the second game. Rachel had also decided to give up in the second game around frame 5 or 6. ... I gave her the Yogi Berra lecture (“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over”). Her two strikes in frames 9 and 10 forced me to have to mark in the last frame and I just wasn’t hitting the spares today.

Citizen, what do you have to hide?

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-11-07T11:12:05-05:00
“If you're doing nothing wrong then you have nothing to worry about” is a flimsy rationalization. I'm doing nothing wrong, but I nevertheless worry about the government doing something wrong. Governments exist to increase their power -- at the expense of freedom. Therefore, government should be limited wherever and whenever possible.

My Dad and Truman Capote

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-11-04T16:47:57-05:00
My sister sent me a collection of my father’s writing: a 3-ring binder with 4 1/2” of single sided, single spaced typewritten pages with handwritten corrections from his unfinished and unpublished autobiography, A Country Doctor in Washington, and several years worth of handwritten diaries. The following is from pages 126 through 129 of A Country Doctor and recounts his one meeting with the famous author, Truman Capote. ...His complaints consisted of postnasal drip with cough of 4-5 years duration, with superimposed shortness of breath for the past 2-3 months; some paroxysms resulted in gagging and regurgitation of bitter yellow '”bile”; some night sweats since September, intermittent; coughing spells often followed by pain in the back of his head and neck with radiation into the eyes which can interfere with reading for several hours. ...He is en route via auto to southern California with a friend, and plans shortly thereafter to return to Houston to cover a mass-murder trial about which he expresses some anxiety “because it is an arena in which I may be uncomfortable”. He also confides that on September 6, 1969 he sustained a “fantastic shock”, the pattern of which he revealed in confidence to me stating that it was followed by progressive depression to the point that he became unable to function and “I’ll never get over it completely”. ... Following discharge he was treated by a psychiatrist with anti-depressant medications for a year and a half but he felt little rapport and discontinued treatment after about 1 1/2 years. ...He also recognizes a drinking problem consuming one-half quart of alcohol per day, beginning with a double vodka screwdriver in the morning and progressing throughout the day. ...When he indicated his plans to attend another trial in Houston one could but wonder whether it would prove to be background for another triumph of the author. ...He had quite a lot of press coverage in the ensuing years, especially related to his book '”In Cold Blood” stimulated by his presence at the Houston trials. He died in his sleep on August 25, 1984 at the home of Joanne Carson from liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication but not an OD according to the LA coroner.

C. S. Lewis, for Mike

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-11-02T20:29:42-05:00
In Sunday School this morning, Mike M. remarked on the evanescence of earthly government, which reminded me of these words of C. ...
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. ... But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners--no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

Lewis, Thoreau, River Tam, and Politics

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-10-31T19:44:31-04:00
The antics of the kingdom of man, which is destined for the dustbin of history, cannot match the eternal appeal of the kingdom of God. Nevertheless, with an election four days away, I am reminded of this quote from C. ...
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
...
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life ...
This sentiment is echoed by River Tam in the movie Serenity:
Teacher: So with so many social and medical advancements we can bring to the Independents why would they fight so hard against us? ...We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. ...Unfortunately, having turned away from the Heavenly Shepherd, we look to a supposedly omnicompetent, hopefully benevolent government to take care of us.

What I Should Have Done

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-10-31T19:12:42-04:00
It fell to me to pick her up last night and, at 8:55pm, I was approaching the intersection of Hamilton Mill Road and Buford Highway. ... As I was just about to enter the intersection the cop started rolling into my path. I had the green light and his blue lights were not on. I laid on the horn, slammed on the brakes, burned rubber, and left skid marks -- but I avoided hitting him. ... As I cranked it back up, I saw that the policeman had stuck his left arm out his window and had raised it, perhaps as a gesture of “sorry” or, perhaps, “go on.” I didn’t want to leave my daughter waiting so, with racing heart and gnashing teeth, I continued on to her art studio. It’s obvious the policeman knew he was in the wrong as no blue lights followed me. What I should have done was gotten the cop to pull into the parking lot of the new city hall and demanded to see his license and registration. ... Maybe even calling 911 to ensure he was given a ticket for reckless endangerment. If the skid marks are still clearly visible tomorrow then maybe I’ll memorialize this incident with a picture or two.

When was my Grandfather born?

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-10-18T23:16:52-04:00
My grandfather’s obituary listed both 1887 and 1889 as his year of birth. His World War I registration card (part 1, part 2) shows 1890. His World War II registration card (part 1, part 2) also shows 1890. His marriage certificate notes that he was 29 in 1920. Because he was married on January 29 he would have turned 30 on his birthday on March 29. 30 years before 1920 is 1890. On the other hand, according to my sister, the family bible, his death certificate, and the estate tax forms filled out after his death show 1889. To further complicate matters, the entry from my father’s diary, dated March 29, 1950, reads: “Dad's 59th BD”. 1950 - 59 is 1891! We know that people would often fudge their age to join the military or to get married; but in this case those reasons don’t apply. One year’s difference wouldn’t have affected either his military or marriage eligibility. There is no clear weight of evidence to decide in favor of either 1889, 1890, or 1891 so this will have to remain a mystery.

Family Voyages

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-10-18T21:47:40-04:00
From a newspaper clipping found inside the family copy of That’s Judsonia by W. E. Orr. The paper was most likely the White County Record from 1977.
38 YEARS AGO August 10, 1939 Billy Bob Felts, who has been visiting aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Roy North in Washington D. C. the past month, sailed Saturday with Mr. and Mrs. North and family for a visit to the West Indies and the Panama Canal. They will attend the 20th anniversary of the Panama Canal at Balboa, Canal Zone, on August 15.

Woodyard and Felts

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-10-18T14:46:44-04:00
My grandfather’s obituary noted, “After his graduation in 1914 he came to Judsonia as an associate of the late Dr. W. ... A biography of Dr. Woodyard notes, “He is now associated with W. ... FELTS, of whom he had been a partner since 1913...” Once again, we are faced with differing dates. In any case, I was lucky to find a set of four vintage postcards for sale on eBay, one of which was listed as being from “Woodyard and Felts, Judsonia Arkansas”. Fortunately, no one bid against me. Click the pictures for higher resolution images. Note that the postmark is dated November 7 (or 17), 1914. I don’t think that helps resolve the date either way. Google shows that a Percy Castle of Fulton, Missouri was in the Supply Company, 349th Infantry, 88th Division, US Army.

My Grandmother: Goddess of Love?

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-10-16T16:16:16-04:00

In the 1918 Fourth of July Parade, the men in front are the “home guard” and one of the “nurses” was Willie E. Lewis. ...This picture was featured on the front page of the November 13, 1969 edition of the White County Record, Volume 57, Number 45. ...Felts Appreciation Day at First Baptist Church, in recognition of over 50 yeas of service as church pianist and organist. ... Regardless of the circumstances, she has fulfilled her duties as organist with a devotion and dedication that has been an inspiration to all. Because of an accident she suffered while at the church practicing, and the painful effects of arthritis, Mrs. Felts has had to forego playing the organ and the church has elected her as “Organist Emeritus.” ...Bauer of Whitehall, Illinois, Mrs. Felts joined the church and was baptized March 23, 1921 by the pastor, Bro. ...She has served as Primary Teacher, Junior Boys Teacher, Junior Girls Teacher and helped with the Helping Hands organization (now Woman’s Missionary Union) and Royal Ambassadors and has worked in BYPU (presently called Training Union). Through all the years, Mrs. Felts has worked with the adult choir, and has played for all church services, cantatas, special music, funerals, and weddings. ...Mrs. Felts will be playing for the evening worship and a time of appreciation will be held during the 11 o’clock service. Mrs. Felts will sit in the congregation as an honored guest and will be recognized by her pastor.

Gandfather's Obituary

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-10-11T20:08:44-04:00
The Funeral services were conducted last Sunday afternoon at the First Baptist Church in Judsonia for Dr. Wylie Robert Felts, who passed away in the early morning hours of November 17th, 1955, as the result of a heart attack. ...Foremost of these was the medical care of his patients throughout this district of the state, and for many years he was the only active physician in Judsonia. ...Preparation for his life’s work was not easy for he had to struggle to complete his formal education in the Medical School of the University of Tennessee. ... His ministrations to the needs of the people of Judsonia, White County, and surrounding sections of the state were interrupted only once prior to his demise, and that was the occasion of the first world war when Dr. Felts became 1st Lt. Felts in the Medical Corps and served for two years with the A. E. F. in France. ...His interest in the politics of his town, county, district, state, and nation were renowned as he sought to strive for the betterment of his chosen land. Along this line he served as chairman of the White County Republican committee and this brought him on one occasion a citation from President Herbert Hoover. ...Dr. Felts and his wife were in their drug store in the late afternoon of that fateful day in March, 1952 when the tornado destroyed most of the town. ... Dr. Felts never fully recovered from these injuries, but returned nonetheless to the practice of his profession stating in his homely way that preferred “to wear out and not rust out.” ...Long, which are inscribed upon his statue in the Hall of Statuary, Capital Building, in Washington, “I feel my profession is a commission from God” most appropriately also serve to describe the life and service of Judsonia’s remarkable citizen. His example to the community should long remain an inspiration, for in addition to a citizen, patriot, doctor, politician, churchman, and counselor the people of this area have been left by a very dear friend.

The Cost of Developing Software

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-10-09T14:44:33-04:00

Well, it has been said over and over again that the tremendous cost of programming is caused by the fact that it is done by cheap labor, which makes it very expensive...
Dr. Edsger W. Dijkstra

Hell

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-10-05T20:18:42-04:00
Hell is the lonely kingdom where the self is king yet only subject. Hell is the dark universe, for only the self is seen and there is no light in self. Hell is the land of eternal doubt, acknowledging only the presence of self: “I am!”, yet ever jostled by the other unseeing denizens, wailing "Aren't I?" Hell is the hungry banquet: gnashing teeth, ever gnawing, never nourishing for there is no substance to self. Hell is the firey land, burning passion desiring more but nothing more to give.

Charlie Brown and Me

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-10-03T22:04:00-04:00
Of the several aggravations in Charlie Brown’s life, one was the Kite-Eating Tree, which first displayed its appetite on April 12, 1956: I was recently turned on to Disc Golf by several men in my church and I have started trying to hit the course at Lenora Church Park at least once a week. On Tuesday, on the third hole, I held onto my tee shot a bit too long and the disc sailed wide right and onto the roof of a disc-eating barn. To show how bad this throw was, this next picture was taken from the tee pad facing the barn. You can see the relationship between the tee pad, barn, and goal from this satellite photo.

That's Entertainment!

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-10-01T22:47:31-04:00
A snake charmer outside the Temple at Mysore Palace in Mysore, India. She would bat the cobras to get them to move. Observe how the snakes are “protecting” the money in the baskets. I gladly parted with a few rupees because of the quality of her performance. Having to get close to the snakes to make my contribution only added to the fun. I took this picture in late September, 2003.

How Can He Be Saved?

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-09-29T17:01:42-04:00
The chorus of the song “Christmas” from the rock opera Tommy by The Who asks the perceptive question:
And Tommy doesn’t know what day it is. ...This question is also asked about infants and those who never had the opportunity to hear the Gospel. ...
For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses. ...Of course, the meaning of this passage is as hotly contested as the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Some see this passage as referring to service and not salvation; some nevertheless hold that God’s sovereign choices in election are based upon His foreknowledge of some intrinsic quality of man. ...It’s time to rehost the studies in Romans and Ephesians written by my friend, Mike Baer.

A Boy and His Dog

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-09-27T19:35:51-04:00
[updated 6 October 2023 to correct dates] No, not the novella by Harlan Ellison, or the movie with the same name. The story is one of my favorites; the movie didn’t capture the power of the ending. Anyway, this is a picture of my father and his dog, Pal, taken on Mother's Day, 1932. That would make my dad nine. Pal’s age is unknown. I assume the picture was taken in Judsonia, Arkansas where dad grew up. Pal was frequently loaned to the Judsonia police department when they were looking for someone. While he had no formal training, he was “as smart as a whip.” Pal died when someone put out a piece of meat with poison in it - Dad thought it was done by someone who Pal helped track down.

The OS Wars

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-09-27T12:39:19-04:00
A SlashDot commenter asked, “Why root for Microsoft *or* Apple when both represent proprietary profit-driven entities run by two of the biggest control freaks in the world.” My answer:
Because I've used Linux, Windows, and OS X (among many, many others). Given the choice, I'll take OS X every time. I value my time -- that leaves Linux out. I value my productivity -- that omits Windows. I value my sanity, that leaves OS X.

+5, Insightful

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-09-27T12:28:44-04:00
From time to time I may share comments from SlashDot that have been moderated up, usually to +5, Insightful. This doesn’t mean that there is anything particularly worthy about them, just that some moderators found them perceptive. Certainly, I’ve had my share of +5, Insightful comments that have been vehemently opposed by subsequent commenters. I posted my first comment on 8/10/2002 and #270 on 9/26/2008. 4% were rated +5, 7% were considered “Insightful”. Playing with Numbers, Apple’s spreadsheet program, and Photoshop I graphed my performance to date. Four posts were considered trolls, which may deserve a separate blog entry. They were not intended to be so, but that’s how they were perceived. It can be argued that trolls probably aren’t aware of their trollish behavior but I suspect it has more to do with the clash of antithetical worldviews than general cluelessness on my part. But I could be wrong.

Social Security Software

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-09-25T20:41:21-04:00
No, this isn't about the code the runs the Social Security Administration. ...
In the long run every program becomes rococco - then rubble.
...
All repairs tend to destroy the structure, to increase the entropy and disorder of the system. Less and less effort is spent on fixing original design flaws; more and more is spent of fixing flaws introduced by earlier fixes. As time passes, the system becomes less and less well-ordered. ... Although in principle useable forever, the system has worn out as a base for progress. ... Program maintenance is an entropy-decreasing process, and even its most skillful execution only delays the subsidence of the system into unfixable obsolescence. ...While inevitable, one can either struggle against the eventual collapse of the system, or hasten its end by poor engineering and management practices. One can also fail to prepare by not working on the necessary replacement. Social Security Software, then, is participating in the collapse of the system, while hoping it fails after your time.

Computers Make Me Stupid. And Greedy.

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-09-25T20:05:00-04:00
It takes less time to write a bit of LISP code to answer this question than it does to actually think about it: ...Knuth rated this problem as a “13”, where a “10” should take around one minute and “20” should take around 15 minutes, so this problem should take about 5 minutes. It’s easy to see from the provided information that the number of digits is 2568, since the number of digits in a decimal number is int(log10(n)) + 1. It’s also easy to see that the least significant digit has to be zero, since 1000! ... * 1000 and multiplying by a power of 10 adds one or more zeros to the end of a number. ...If all I were interested in was the answer then the computer enabled me to get it without having to think about anything. ... (log (loop for n from 1 to 1000 for f = 1 then (* f n) ...If so, and this hasn’t been brought to his attention, then I could get a check from him. ...
By now I hope that all errors have disappeared from this book; but I will gladly pay $2.00 reward to the first finder of each remaining error, whether it is technical, typographical, or historical. ...Knuth is right and my LISP has trouble computing the log of a bignum.

CDC 6000 Pascal Rev 3.4 Update 10

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-09-22T15:29:21-04:00
In this post, I mentioned that for over 30 years I had kept a listing of the Pascal compiler for the CDC 6000 family of computers. I noted being a packrat in the internet age has its downsides: someone somewhere will already have a website devoted to the item in question. True to form, a listing of the compiler as a PDF file is available. ...The owner of that site expressed interest in my listing and offered to scan it in for me. It turns out that I have access to a copier that will scan directly to PDF and, as a bonus, can handle line printer paper. Herewith is the CDC 6000 Pascal 3.4 Update 10 compiler, compiler cross reference, and run-time library code. All three were scanned at 400x400 resolution. 1 CDC 6000 Pascal 3.4 Update 10 Compiler source [PDF, 267 MB] 2 CDC 6000 Pascal 3.4 Update 10 Compiler Cross Reference [PDF, 82.3 MB] 3 CDC 6000 Pascal 3.4 Update 10 Runtime Library [PDF, 215 MB]

Pack Rattery and the Internet

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-09-21T15:58:15-04:00
Since November 2, 1975 I have kept in my possession a 14 13/16” x 11” x 1 7/16” listing of the 3.4 release of the Pascal compiler for the CDC 6000 series computers. This listing includes the compiler (128 pages), cross reference (36 pages), and Pascal library source, some of which is written in Pascal and the rest in COMPASS, the CDC assembly language (144 pages). ...(*$U+  COMPILE UP TO COLUMN 72 ONLY*) ... *            COMPILER FOR PASCAL 6000 - 3.4             * ... *                 RELEASE  1  JUNE 1974                 * *               UPDATE 1-10 1/7/74- 1/8/75              * ... *           CDC SCIENTIFIC CHAR SET VERSION             * *        (00B AND 63B ARE TREATED IDENTICALLY)          * ...Several listings of the Pascal compiler have been scanned in and made available as PDF files here. Perhaps, some day, a software archeologist will want to know the differences between the 1/8/75 Release 1 compiler and the March 1976 Release 2 compiler [PDF file].

A Letter From My Grandfather

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-09-18T22:51:44-04:00

My Dear and Only Grand Child: I received your letter with Great pleasure and admiration, and mindful of the Genuine Love that Prompted you to Contact me so early. I must tell you how much I love you, every pound and ounce of you, And Say I am going to Let you in on our first Secret, You are larger than your Dady was at your age, Now Son don’t let that Shiner worry you, for sometimes the Stork gets a bit Carless, he has so many little ones to look after. Now if you will be quiet and listen I will tell you a True Story: Once upon a time, Long ago, Our Creator GOD Made His Creation and set it in Motion, and called it Good, and He being Lonesome Spat upon the Ground, made some Clay mud and made a man to be with him, in his Image and likeness, But he had no Sole or Spirit of Immortality, so he put the breath of life into the man, And that Breath became Immortal, kinda like he did you. God saw that the man he had Made, Adam he Called HIM, Was lonesome So he Mad A Woman to become a help Mete for Adam, and to become Mothers for you, me, and All of Us. Our Mother Was good and Precious, but one day a Serpant entered the Garden, and Begiled our Mother, So God Was angry, because She disobeyed him, so he Put a Curse Upon our Parents, and it is that Curse that causes you Dady to Work and your Mother to Labor, so that Explains your Black Eye, but Dont let that Worry you, for one Night GOD Sent His ONLY SON into the World, That through him all our of Our fathers and Mothers, might be Forgiven and Redeemed by His Precious Blood, for our Disobedience to him in the beginning. ... Of Course I Could tell you the Story, how the Unbelieving Jews Killed This Son, Crucified Him Upon A CROSS, and Buried him, and on the Third Day He Came back to Life in a Spiritual and Ressurrected Body, but you will have a few years, to Listen to Your Father and Mother, Tell and teach you about Him. ... Grandmother Tells me that you will be home today and I know you are going to be proud of your Home and your Father and Mother, for you together are what makes up what Society Calls the Family. And The one who was Crucified, Commands us to honor Father and Mother, and he also wants them to Love you, so that the Family you are part of will make a happy one. Now after I tell you that I love you will you remember me to Mother and Dad, and Grandmother, and Convey my love to them also. I must say that I deeply regret that I didn’t have the Pleasure of personally greeting you upon your arrival, but am Looking forward with fond anticipation, to meeting you soon, and in the Interim be a sweet little man.

More on the Sum of Powers

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-09-14T18:47:13-04:00
This is a continuation of this entry which derives the general solution for the coefficients of: (5) $\displaystyle \sum_{i=1}^{n} i^k= a_{k+1}n^{k+1} + a_{k}n^{k} + a_{k-1}n^{k-1} + \dots + a_{2}n^{2} + a_{1}n$ Computed coefficients for $0 \leq k \leq 15$ were provided here. ...$\qquad a_{k+1}=\frac{1}{k+1}, a_k=\frac{1}{2} (k>0), a_{k-1}=\frac{k}{12} (k>1), a_{k-2} = 0 (k>2)$ These values were determined by hand. However, it’s easy for LISP code to create the symbolic expression for each coefficient. The prefix expressions used by LISP (e.g. “(+ 3 (* 4 5) 6)” ) were converted to infix form (e.g. “(3 + (4 * 5) + 6)” ) and given to Maxima for simplification. ...What’s interesting is that the coefficients: $\qquad a_{k-2}, a_{k-4}, a_{k-6}, \dots, a_{k-24}$ ...Now I have to figure out why...

Cleaning out the Cell Phone

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-09-10T11:25:02-04:00
This has been sitting in my phone since it was received on 8 March 2008. I didn’t want to delete it because it tickled me so. A certain son sent it when visiting potential colleges for his graduate studies.
So i somehow spent the money you gave me for jeans on booze last night...i have two dollars left. The blue collar laws are almost insufferable. You cant buy alcohol after two am on any day, but at least i had an excuse to get four hours of sleep.

Ripples

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-09-06T21:18:28-04:00
In my inaugural post I noted that 5 sites contained the phrase “a drop in the digital ocean” according to Google. Six months later, the site count is now up to 7: stablecross.blogspot.com: my original blog at blogger, which has now been moved here. State of the MP3 Address Part 2: posted 31 March 2004 @ 11:22pm SEO Specialists Give You Access to Targeted Consumers, unknown post date, but copyright 2006. Sypha Nadon: posted sometime in October 2005, perhaps (based on reviewer comments). The page returned by Google results in a 404 error, but some sleuthing turned up this page. ...Questions About PennDOT Biometrics Contract Persist: dated 24 January 2008. ...Unfortunately, I didn’t keep the data on the initial 5 hits, but it seems that items 2 through 6 might be them, since they all predate my first post. ...It might be interesting to write software that tracks the date and location of a given phrase over time.

Everything Old Is New Again

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-09-06T20:03:56-04:00
My middle child called today. He just started at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign working toward a Master’s and PhD in Mechanical Engineering, specializing in MEMS. He was working on finite element analysis using ANSYS and ANSYS uses a modeling language (APDL) reminiscent of FORTRAN. He was having trouble getting his code to work and since I used to be fluent in FORTRAN he thought I could help. With some trial-and-error, we were able to solve his problem.

My Contribution to the Mathematical Arts

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-09-05T20:00:20-04:00
In college, in late 1975 or early '76, a Math Lab problem asked to guess the formula for ...In my handwritten lab notebook I used induction to show that the solution to (3) is: ...Having solved this specific case, I wanted to see if there was a general solution for any positive integer n and any positive integer exponent. Based on equations (2) and (4), I conjectured that the general solution would be a polynomial of this form: (5) $\displaystyle \sum_{i=1}^{n} i^k= a_{k+1}n^{k+1} + a_{k}n^{k} + a_{k-1}n^{k-1} + \dots + a_{2}n^{2} + a_{1}n$ The derivation used induction on the general formula and found that the coefficients to the solution are: (6) $a_i = \frac{\binom{k}{k-i+1} - \displaystyle \sum_{j=1}^{k-i+1} a_{i+j} \binom{i+j}{j+1}}{i} \quad 1 \leq i \leq k+1$ ...(8) $a_{k} = {\Large \frac{1}{2}}$    when $k > 0$ (9) $a_{k-1} = {\Large \frac{k}{12}}$    when $k > 1$ (10) $a_{k-2} = 0$     when $k > 2$

Good and Evil, Part 1a

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-07-15T20:44:22-04:00
In Good and Evil, Part 1 I proposed the definition that good is the distance between "is" and "ought", for some ill-defined, yet intuitive, distance metric. This has an interesting property from the Christian viewpoint about which I only recently became aware. In Luke 18:19, Jesus said, "No one is good but God alone." With this definition of "good" this statement is equivalent to: "No one is what they ought to be but God alone" or, more succinctly, "Only God is what He ought to be." This certainly agrees with St. Paul in Romans where he writes, "there is no one who is righteous, not even one" [3:10] and "... for the creation was subjected to futility..." ... "We are not what we ought to be" is part of the Reform doctrine of "Total Depravity", the other part being, "not only are we not what we ought to be, we cannot get ourselves to where we ought to be." It may also tie into the doctrine of "Unconditional Election". Since we are not what we ought to be there is no basis within us for God to choose one over another. It also shows why union with Christ is the means by which we are made whole and this can be linked to the "Perseverance of the Saints."

He Is Risen

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-03-23T20:04:47-04:00
He is risen, indeed!

Good Friday, Expensive Friday

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-03-22T21:49:20-04:00
I hadn't seen anything and had no idea what I hit, but I did see my hubcap spinning to the side of the road. ... Before removing the spare and jack, I called my wife to have her make an appointment in the morning to get my car fixed. ...The plan was to work out until 4:30, shower, then take my wife to dinner before the Friday night crowds arrived. ... There, I could cool down in peace, surf the web a bit with my laptop, and not worry about what got wet. ...I eventually managed to get up, made it into the bedroom, put on a dry shirt, and lay down in bed. ... I note that I am not a good patient when I don't think anything serious is wrong, and I detest having a fuss made over me. ... Stubborn cuss that I am, I got up and walked through the garage to the ambulance as two of them were trying to bring the stretcher in the front door. En route to the hospital, the EMT worked on filling out 12 pages of paperwork, although it was all data entry on a laptop. He said that, worst case, I had had an asymptomatic MI but he didn't think it anything more than syncope brought on by dehydration and the pooling of blood in my legs. ... Finally made it home around 10pm, ate some dinner, and dealt with most of the 25 e-mails that had come in from work.

Synchronicity and Harlan Ellison

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-03-15T15:53:55-04:00
The article on Long Forgotten Computer Technology was posted on 3/15 but most of it was written over a week ago. It mentioned Harlan Ellison's story I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, the tie in with computer technology being the stories' use of paper tape. Yesterday I started re-reading Ellison's story The Deathbird. It contains an essay test on the story in Genesis 3 and some of the questions deal with the nature of good and evil, a topic I began here and will continue to develop in the coming weeks (months?). I plan to blog my answers to his test. Today on Fark.com was a link to an interview [link expired] with Harlan. In the audio of the interview Ellison talks about how the works of his generation in general, and his work in particular, are increasingly not known now. It's a writer's lot in life. Like technology I've used and forgotten, very little of the software I've written in the past 30+ years is in use now, even though one product once won Macworld's "5 mice" award (twice) and MacWeek's "5 diamond" award (also twice). If this trend continues, maybe he'll come to my house next week and we can go out to dinner together.

Long Forgotten Computer Techonology

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-03-15T15:15:07-04:00
I thought it might be interesting to reflect back on some of the different technology I've used, most (if not all) of which are obsolete today. ...The only program I remember writing was one that had to sort three numbers. ...I used to know how to punch the cards that controlled the keypunch. ...H-P would send the system software for the HP-2100 Time-shared Basic system on mylar tape. ... He is why I know what the punch tape says in Harlan Ellison's story I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. ...I once thought it awesome to have a collection of different punch cards which were custom-printed with company names and logos. ...Fortunately, Unix is still alive and well and living in my MacBook Pro. And Plauger's book, The Elements of Programming Style, remains a favorite. ...A friend developed the hardware for a Weitek chip on a PS/2 board and I wrote the software. ... Weitek chips were later used in a graphics terminal that used floating-point numbers in its display list. ...Having revisited the language in the last three years I find I'd rather write code in it than most anything else.

Good and Evil, Part 1

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-03-02T22:46:48-05:00
If evil is defined as "not good", then this definition is equivalent to "good is not (i.e. the absence of) not good (evil)". ... Sometimes "good" is treated as if were analogous to something material like light or heat: "evil is the absence of good like darkness is the absence of light, or cold is the absence of heat." ...Just as without a definition of "love" and "holy", these statements don't tell us what these attributes mean, the same is true of "good". ...One might argue that an atheist is simply a theist who stubbornly refuses to acknowledge what he or she instinctively knows to be true, so that this definition is universal, but that presupposes the truth of (mono)theism and the falsity of atheism. ... We know that all humans have an intuitive notion of "good" even if the definition is ill-formed and this gives some basis for hoping to find a definition on which theists, atheists, and agnostics can agree. ...Zacharias used the example of an airplane to illustrate his point: an airplane is good if it is used according to its design, which is to transport people and freight from one place to another. ...In the article Can Michael Martin Be a Moral Realist?: Sic et Non, Paul Copan wrote that "evil is a departure from the way things ought to be". ... The closer something is to the way it ought to be the more good it is and the father something is from the way it ought to be the more evil it is. ...The theist may argue that the mental machinery necessary for a mind to understand "oughtness" can only come from God while the atheist can argue that "oughtness" is an emergent property of evolutionary processes. ... Going back to 2004, I find that I wrote: "For both the Christian theist as well as the atheist, morality is no more than subjective personal opinion.

Speech Codes

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-03-02T01:00:00-05:00
Asserting a right that you do not have (to not be offended) over a right that someone has (free speech) is to deny the US Constitution. -- wrf3, 2 Feb 2008

Hello

wrf3@stablecross.com — 2008-03-02T00:30:00-05:00
In early January (1/8/2008, to be exact) I started working on a poem. The general theme was that the internet will outlive me and that what I write today will remain archived, but forgotten, somewhere in some cache. One of the lines goes "A forgotten drop below, the digital ocean above." The poem remains unfinished but I used this idea as the title for this blog. A Google search for "a drop in the digital ocean" turns up exactly five matches. I hope Bay Street SEO doesn't mind that we came up with this description of the vastness of information space independently. We certainly have different approaches to the problem. Bay Street specializes in search engine optimization while the poem ends on the hopeful note: "Yet God remembers me. ...I'll incorporate the poem in the layout of this blog if I can get it to scan the way I want it to. I also hope that I have more success with writing this blog than I do with poetry.

Which Disney Princess Are You?
You are part Cinderella. You are hard-working and never complain, however, your trust is sometimes misplaced and people sometimes take advantage of you. Still, you are beautiful inside and out, and one day you will realize it and find true love.
You are part Pocahontas. You defy convention and sometimes do what is considered taboo. Unfortunately, others do not always appreciate your differences, so it's good that you are so strong-willed. You are loyal and you believe in fate. Your true love will find you one day.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

	Thought	Charge
1	Identity	Like charges repel, opposite charges attract
2	Non-contradiction	Positive charge is not negative charge
3	Excluded Middle	Charge is either positive or negative