We were at the pub last night, the usual EMS Monday night crowd at The Corkman, chatting away. An inoffensively bland mix of music was wafting amongst the patrons, and one song ended and another one started.

It started with a minor chord. And upon hearing this, my brain leapt into action and proudly identified it as The Cat Empire’s The Wine Song. The problem was that it wasn’t The Wine Song, it was a different song about which I knew nothing.

Naturally, I immediately wondered why it was that my brain leapt to such an erroneous conclusion, and, in particular, such a specifically erroneous conclusion. Of all the songs in the world that start with a minor chord on the piano, why did my mind pick that one? Perhaps it’s in the same key I mused to myself. I sauntered over to the pub’s piano, conveniently located a matter of a few metres away, and discovered that just like The Wine Song, it started with a D minor chord.

So there’s my story of how I have the vaguest smatterings of perfect pitch.

I don’t really want to bore you with thoughts about a television programme, so I hope you don’t find the following boring.

I watched qanda on monday night and found it interesting.

As above, George Pell is a ignorant fool, his idea that humans are descended from Neanderthals just capped off the huge pile of nonsense that had been splurting out of his mouth the entire show. And to think that, as a Cardinal, he is one of the 120 or so top guys in the entire worldwide Catholic Church. You would only have to assume that he is indicative of the general level of academic erudition within the upper echelons of the church.

As for Dawkins, he made a great deal of sense of course, but the fact that he was even more irritable than usual on account of his jet-lag, did little to improve his public perception as a grumpy old man.

One point I would like to make on the subject matter is this:

At one point Dawkins was probed on his use of the terms ‘atheist’ and ‘agnostic’, regarding the fact that he calls himself an atheist despite not claiming to know for certain whether or not a God exists.

I think it’s important to make the distinction between being uncertain about the existence of something ‘beyond’ the universe having a creational role in its origins, and being utterly convinced that the claims made by some major religions are not true, because of the fact that they make no fucking sense.

It’s impossible to have any real idea about extrauniversal truths when all the information coming to us originates entirely from within the universal.

But when it comes to things like the belief that bread and wine literally can become a 2000 year old Jewish man’s flesh and blood. That is totally fucking absurd.

Getting up to turn the television on to watch the news, I noticed out of the corner of my eye our cat Trieste playing with something on the floor. Upon closer inspection I noticed a poor defenceless paralysed dragonfly clinging to a jumper of Leon’s lying on the floor.

Feeling sorry for it, I decided to try and rescue it: I picked it up and despite its struggling once it had awoken from its paralysis, I managed to successfully escort it outside. Once there, I opened my hands, only to watch the dragonfly plummet to the concrete paving, where it flailed around, failing to get off the ground. Disheartened, I decided to give it one more chance, so I picked it up again, and holding it over the garden where it could fall and die in peace if it once again didn’t manage to fly away, I opened my hands and saw the dragonfly triumphantly take off into the sky.

After about 1 second of feeling joyous for it, I watched as all its hopes and dreams for the future were tragically dashed - after flying about 5 metres, the dragonfly was summarily grabbed by a swooping Willie Wagtail. Alas.

catpolitics:

Politics is far more than just abortion and homosexual rights. Whilst both are incredibly important to take into consideration when deciding for which party to vote for, politics in itself exceeds those two areas. 

Don’t get me wrong, discrimination of marriage between same sex couples is disturbing to say the least, and needs to be rectified. And in regards to abortion, there really shouldn’t be a debate, a woman is in charge of her own body, she has the right to do with it as she will, including abortion, but to base an entire political opinion upon these two areas is wrong. When you do so, you completely shut off other important areas of politics, including global warming, economic decisions, asylum seeker/refugee rights, and foreign occupation (military spending) - the list goes on and on. 

On a daily basis, I hear/see some people speaking about how much they hate Julia Gillard for her stance on gay marriage, which immediately forces (for lack of a better word) them to move preference to either the Greens, Liberals, Independents, etc. But what they fail to notice is the many many many other political stances of ANY party. It is dangerous to place a vote on a particular party based solely around any one or two policies. You may find differences within these few policies in the future, but you may also find many unreasonable changes in policies that could have horrific repercussions on the economy, for example. 

Also, I have heard of many people who are completely opposed to Julia Gillard’s homophobic policies, and they instead decide they approve of Tony Abbott, not by choice, but because well, lets be honest, there’s practically only two parties in Australian politics, Liberal and Labor. So these people move from Labor to Liberal based only around homosexual rights without even attempting to research Liberal’s stance on same sex couples and marriage. They just assume that because one is called the government and the other is called the Opposition, the Opposition will oppose every single thing the government may say. Whilst this may be true in many cases, it is not true when it comes to gay marriage. In fact, Tony Abbott is very much opposed to gay marriage, also. But these people do not know this, because they only hear of the government in the media. 

Homosexual rights are pretty damn important, I completely agree, and I am astounded by the lack of effort from political leaders in Australia to attempt to bring equal marital rights to all those who wish to join in marriage (regardless of genders). I just believe that when it comes to election time, one needs to take into consideration many, if not all areas of politics, and then weigh up which party they believe will represent them better.

And even prior to elections, people need to still take into consideration many, if not all areas of politics, as to make an informed preference. When you post anti-Labor or anti-Liberal or anti-any Australian party hate on Tumblr, people will believe it. We are all guilty of reblogging something that will ostracise a specific group of people, or a specific party, without even attempting to find a source for it, to make certain that the information is correct.  Does anyone else remember that period where all you saw on Tumblr were the links to an article from years ago about Gillard blocking gay marriage of Australian citizens in foreign countries? Not many bothered to follow it up, to search for substantial evidence, and as it turns out, that law was in fact a law well prior to Gillard’s government. 

My point is - if you make an informed decision, based not only around one or two areas of politics, but all, and if you back up your preferences with sufficient evidence, it is less likely we will have people believing only what they read on tumblr, facebook or twitter. 

Also: I am in no way saying that you cannot have an opinion or post these opinions on social media sites, because gosh, we all know that I post a helluva lot of complaints about Liberal and Labor, but there is a difference between posting hate based only around one or two areas of politics, and posting opinions based on substantial evidence. 

However a lot of people would find it incredibly overwhelming to synthesise huge amounts of information together on all the issues of the day and bring it all together into one informed position and one informed vote. As a result these people don’t do that, they simply shut it all out, close their eyes and block their ears, leading to a totally uninformed position on election day.

For these people, I think I good place to start is to say “Pick just one issue that you most care about, see which party you agree with most on this one issue, and vote for them”. This, while not ideal, is still much better than the way a lot of people do end up voting.

However what is unexcusable is the assumption that the opposition necessarily has an opposing stance to the government. I can’t say I have noticed much of this kind of thinking, but that is just foolish.

The editor of The Flugel, also known as me.

A thing I wrote because I had nothing sensible to say for the EMS newsletter (The Flugel) for our end of year “Beer and Freddos” celebrations, held, of course, in the Redmond Barry Courtyard.

I love Stephen Hawking and all, and despite a bit of googling I’m unaware what context he said this in, and what kind of point he was trying to make, but I’m just going to say this.

This quote pisses me off, I would say I’m a determinist, that is, theoretically one could observe the state of every particle in the universe, plug that data into a giga-computer, apply the laws of physics, and successfully predict the future. There’s nothing we can do to alter the future; it’s predetermined by the laws of physics acting on the current universe. It’s of course impossible to possibly do that many quintillions of calculations, but if we had a Deep Thought like computer, it could theoretically be done. At the very least there might be some uncertainty about the future due to quantum effects, but that still does not give us any sort of free will, it only adds a purely random element to the future.

The point is, I still wear a seatbelt, I still look before crossing the road, and other such sensible things. This quote is a nonsense because, it seems to imply that even if we live a deterministic universe, my decisions about what safety measures to take are still undetermined. Maybe the laws of the universe determined that I put my seatbelt on, maybe they determined that I looked before crossing the road.

As for the question of the sensation of free will that we all certainly experience, well, it’s a curly one. The way I think about it is that evolutionary selection pressures conferred an advantage to brains which provided an illusion of free-will, even if no such free-will exists. I live my life with the assumption of free-will because I don’t think I have any choice in the matter. It’s just part of being human, that we’re set up we experience this quirk of feeling like we have free-will. It’s obviously how humans function best. Despite the best efforts of rationality to tell me that the case is otherwise, I think it’s impossible to shake this illusion.

If anyone finds this stuff incredibly fascinating, as I do, I recommend you read some of Douglas Hofstadter’s work, in particular “I am a Strange Loop”.

(via ichbineinbelieber)

I’m convinced that none of the world’s religions are true. Anything that makes claims that are contrary to what the scientifically accepted physical laws of the universe says is possible I can’t accept. Science not only makes complete logical sense, but it has time and time again shown that it makes accurate predictions about our world. Science is what got us to where we are today as a species, what took us out of the dark ages, so it’s science that I have confidence over unverifiable scripture. 

However when it comes to the quite different question of whether or not there is an external creator to the universe, I think this is a question with an unknowable answer, but given it’s unknowable, it’s futile to try and determine one true answer on the lack of evidence we have. It may be an interesting intellectual activity to speculate about such things, but really it’s not going to lead to anywhere significant.

Therefore I don’t believe there is a god, in that I lack a belief in a god but I believe it’s theoretically possible there may be a creator, so I accept I might be wrong.

There are problems with labels, Just “atheist” and many peoples see me as someone who wants to 100% reject the possibility of any sort of creator on what I see as insufficient evidence, and “agnostic” makes me seem wimpy, undecided and perhaps almost half-convinced by some major religions. “Non-religious” makes it seem I don’t even engage in the issue. I just have a considered opinion that I don’t believe in anything until someone gives me good strong evidence to. Fallibilist (open to being wrong) atheist will have to do for now.

P.S. Even if there is a god, that doesn’t mean there’s any sort of afterlife, to me, the concept of a “heaven” doesn’t make any sense. In order for it to be logically consistent within itself even, it would have to be quite different to the normal descriptions of it. There are all sorts of questions, like do you have a body? If not, how can you experience pleasure? How can you enjoy a good meal, a good wine, a good fuck, or a good fugue? If you do have something of a body, which version of you goes to heaven? The decrepit old version of you just before you die? Do you get some sort of enhanced super body? If so how is it still you? Which other version of you might make the cut? If some sort of 4-dimensional conglomerate of you through time makes it up there, how does one exist as a 4-dimensional conglomerate? Surely such an existence would be so fundamentally different to our current experience as to mean we couldn’t possibly see it as a continuation of our current existence. And then, even if the concept of such a place is a theoretical possibility, there’s the whole problem of how such a place would link to our own world - I see no reason for any hypothetical creator to want to suck us up into his realm of existence once we die down here. How can one possibly even fill up a fucking eternity with stuff to do? You’ve got to get bored at some point.

(I’m on the committee of the Engineering Music Society, and we have a roster of hours to mind our office so people can leave instruments there without them being pilfered. So here’s an email you might like to read that I just sent, asking to change my office-hour for this week)

My Dear Fellow Committiers,

Unfortunately due the presence of our AGM, I am unable to attend to business that I would normally attend to on a Thursday, and as such, I intend to attend to such matters on this Tuesday afternoon instead of my regular Thursday. However I have an office-hour on Tuesday at 3.15 as I alluded to in the email subject line, which interferes with this plan somewhat.
Now, I have, without fail, loyally and dutifully guarded the office from nasty thieving scoundrels on every office-hour I have been assigned, throughout the whole life of this committee until this point. As such, I hope it is not too much of an imposition, for me to ask just this once, that my office hour be covered by one of you kind-hearted souls.
Naturally, I would be most happy to do a different hour in return, providing of course that I am able to attend whichever hour that may be.
Gracious thanks in advance,John William Rice-Whetton.

All sorts of things happened yesterday, but I’ll tell you about only the things that happened relevant to my life, because, well, I’m a lot more familiar with those things.

After doing a spot of shopping in the morning, and being the victim of some heavy drizzle on my way to and from the shops, I went out to the University. I made sure to bring my raincoat on this second outing, because I naturally wanted to avoid a second instance of being besieged by inclement weather. Naturally, it didn’t rain on me again…

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honeytonguedghosts asked me that. I said:

Hi there!

Religion, a very interesting and one of my favourite topics. I don’t really have questions I want answered, I’m quite comfortable believing what I currently believe. However I’m quite happy for you to ask me questions to challenge and push me where you think I might be wrong.

I do have to admit I have read hardly any scripture; but of anything, I think I’ve read more of the Bible than anything else, with Christianity being the predominant religion here. I have picked it up on occasion and read a few passages, but never any great swathes of it. I don’t think this delegitimises my position at all. I presume you haven’t read the scriptures of Zoroastrianism and yet you probably have no qualms about dismissing them as works of some kind of divine truth.

I think in assessing a religion’s truth, we need to look at it objectively and use sources external to the scriptures of a particular religion. If all scripture were a reliable source of knowledge, then by reading the Koran I’d be Islamic, by reading the New Testament, I’d be Christian, by reading the Old Testament I’d be Jewish, by reading the works of Zoroaster I’d be a Zoroastrian, by listening to the stories of Indigenous Australians I’d be a believer in their religious ideas, and so on and so forth. Obviously this is incompatible, I can’t be all of that, so evidently we need some kind of assessment that is external to religious texts in order to make an informed decision.

Since we can’t assess the external truth of a whole belief system using means internal to that system, we need to use a means of arriving at truth that is external to religion. The only means of arriving at a truth that I can see that is external to religions is rational thought, and what directly rises from rational thought, namely science. So that’s what I use to make my mind up about anything.

I think this is reasonable, science demonstrably works as a successful way at arriving at knowledge. Scientists put forward hypothetical models to try to explain and to make predictions about the world, and only the models that time and time again make accurate predictions become accepted as scientific knowledge. Science obviously works because that’s how the whole process works: by eliminating all the bad ideas, only the stuff that works makes it into the body of scientific knowledge.

So we come to why I’m an atheist; I am an atheist because, to my rational way of thinking, everything is either already explained by science or still a mystery. And the way I see it, the concept of a supernatural creator does not serve at all to lessen the amount of mystery. It just shifts the mystery, if we use God to explain some of the mystery here in our universe, we end up with the unexplainable mystery of God. Why invent a God to explain mysteries here on earth, when we just end up just as many, if not more, mysteries about this God character.

I am not a gnostic atheist, I don’t know for certain that there is no creator. I think it’s a theoretical possibility that this world is created by a supernatural being, but I see no evidence for one. So, by virtue of Occam’s Razor - that all else being equal, the simplest explanation is probably the best one - I see no reason to introduce a God element to my view of the world, when I don’t think it reduces the mystery to our existence one iota.