The Ten Commandments, updated for a modern age

My 14 year old son sent this to me today. I feel justified now that sending him to a church based school would not overly influence his ability think critically.

�Thou shalt shut thy mouth when politely asked, and not drone on endlessly.
�Thou shalt not use circular arguments, such as "God exists, because the Bible says so, and the Bible is True because it is God's Word."
�Thou shalt notice when thy audience is bored rigid. See Commandment 1.
�Thou shalt not use a cop-out such as "God works in mysterious ways" when backed into a corner by thine own twisted logic.
�Thou shalt use thine own imagination, and not just quote from the Bible all the time.
�Thou shalt not tell atheists what they believe, nor that thy God loveth them.
�Thou shalt not get upset by jokes about thy God. He is big enough and old enough to looketh after himself.
�Thou shalt not define how thy God worketh. Thou canst not know.
�Thou shalt not state that the Bible is consistent and hath no contradictions. Thou wouldst be a fool to do so.
�Thou shalt not say Grace without also thanking the farmers, truck-drivers and shopkeepers that actually did the work required to get your food to the table.

Reality is like a piece of cloth, it seems


I am currently reading �The Fabric of Reality� by theoretical physicist from Oxford University David Deutsch. As an exercise, I will try and provide a comprehensive review of it, probably through this blog, in several editions, then put it together as a single document. This time, though, I give some first impressions.

David Deutsch is a strong proponent of the �many worlds� interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, as opposed to the �Copenhagen� interpretation. He also works in the field of quantum computation - researching the development of quantum computers.

In this book, first published in 1997, he argues for a kind of �Theory of Everything� - but not in the usual sense of an all encompassing unification of nuclear forces, electromagnetism, gravity and how it all may have got started in the big bang. He has a broader vision of weaving the four �strands� of quantum physics, epistemology, the theory of computation and the theory of evolution into a �fabric of reality�.

The overall impression I have formed of the book is in agreement with the back-cover reviews:

�A tremendously exciting book� - Douglas Adams
�One of Britain�s most original thinkers. In this major work David Deutsch confronts the deepest questions of existence head on ... I haven�t been so inspired since I read Douglas Hofstadtler�s G�del, Escher Bach� - Paul Davies.

As I continue to read, I can see that he is very good at explaining the science. One of the best I�ve seen, in fact. I am much more dubious, however, when he starts to draw philosophical conclusions from the science. He seems to hold a �realist� position (there really are many universes out there, and we call the whole thing a �multiverse�; there really are such things as electrons and bosons etc...). This might be contrasted with Stephen Hawking�s philosophical position as a self confessed �positivist� (I don�t care if its really like this, I don�t even think it makes sense to ask, but the maths works).

Examples of this are(p48): �The key fact is that a real, tangible photon behaves differently according to what paths are open, elswhere in the apparatus, for something to travel along and eventually intercept the tangible photon. Something does travel along those paths, and to refuse to call it �real� is merely to play with words.� And a bit later �it is only what really happens that can cause other things to really happen�.

He wants to draw a distinction between a scientific theory as an �explanation� versus a scientific theory as merely a useful tool for prediction. He thinks a good theory is one that provides a �good� explanation. It seems to me he is just blowing smoke, as I cannot see any interesting difference between the word �theory� and �explanation� in the context he is using. You replace the word �explanation� with the word �theory� throughout the book, and you wouldn�t notice any change in meaning. So what is a good theory? - well one that provides a good explanation! And how do we distinguish a good one from a bad one? Well accurate prediction is helpful here, apparently!

This is just the sort of thinking that leads to the arrogance of science - a kind of belief that the knowledge gained through scientific methods is somehow �real�, and thus has higher status than knowledge gained through �non-scientific�methods. Well that�s my theory explanation, anyway.

More later.

Some collective nouns I like

a lie of politicians
a whistle of modems
a mass of catholics (obvious, really)
a slice of circumcisions
a number of mathematicians (a kind of bland, but subtle one, to my way of thinking)
a prevarication of consultants
a spread of nymphomaniacs
a tedium of cricketers
a whored of prostitutes
a lechery of priests


and one I made up myself ....

a Liberal Party of mental midgets

How to declare war

Ari Fleischer, Bush's minister for preventing Bush from saying incomprehensible things, was reported today as saying that the USA would not be insisting that Iraq has made a material breach of the UN resolution 1441 just yet. He was reported as saying that the USA would not be declaring a material breach until they had declared war on Iraq. Hmmm ... Ari is falling down on the job, I think. I would have thought that he should have said that he would not declare war until there had been a material breach. Of course, he may have been reported incorrectly, but then that would spoil my chance to criticise this USA government who seems bent making war at all costs.

Fighting Terrorism with Democracy

Philosopher Richard Rorty makes uncommonly good sense in his comments about Bush's approach to dealing with terrorism in Fighting Terrorism with Democracy, in an article from The Nation

Battle of the Morons

Prime Minister John Howard does his best to be even more of a moron than Dubya by explaining to our neighbours that good prime ministers would carry out a "pre-emptive strike". According to the ABC news today, "Mr Howard defended his remarks that pre-emptive action might be warranted if there was no other option to stop terrorist attacks on Australian soil". He wants to appear as if he is a tough, responsible leader; but he does this by playing on our fear, leveraging our emotions about Bali and acting in the same stupid arrogant way that Bush acts. He he so keen to crawl up Bush's bum he is willing to talk nonsense - to publicly say that if he can't think of anything else, or if in his opinion our neighbours aren't behaving to the standard he has set, he'll just go ahead and attack anyway. Just like Bush's pronouncements about Iraq. What an arrogant priq.




A pre-emptive strike is the same thing as starting a war. Its the same thing as saying bugger international law, different rules should apply to us because we are, well, Western; we are "Civilisation Itself" and anyway, Dubya will protect us, won't he?

We don't want war, Mr Howard. Don't be a moron. Figure out how to do some real leadership. Work for peace, work for justice.