The Warfare Is Mental

Banned From VoxWorld!

September 26, 2011

Big surprise, right? From the Queen of VoxWorld herself:

Now Taking Suggestions For A Credible Debate Scoring System

September 25, 2011

Well this whole PZ Myers Memorial Debate sure sparked quite the fiasco, but it’s really got me thinking. A few commenters both here and at VoxWorld have tossed out some pretty decent ideas as far as judging debates are concerned. If you were to judge a debate, what would you look for? What sort of things would you award or penalize? Have you seen any successful debate scoring systems before? What sort of scoring do you think would be fair? Based on what we’ve seen in the recent judging, what sort of things would you advise for or against? Where did the judges do well? Where could we have done better? Was there anything you wanted to see, but didn’t? Let’s see what we can come up with.

The PZ Myers Memorial Debate: I Resign

September 23, 2011

In what will surely be joyous news to many at VoxWorld, I officially resign my role of honorary judge in the PZ Myers Memorial Debate [with a caveat I’ll explain at the end of the post].

The PZ Myers Memorial Debate, Round Two: And The Winner Is…

September 22, 2011

The interlocutors submitted their second round of arguments and this time, they limited themselves to one piece each. You can read both pieces in their entirety over at VoxWorld. If you don’t read their arguments first, my judgment won’t make as much sense.

The PZ Myers Memorial Debate, Round One: And The Winner Is…

September 12, 2011

You can download the four letters that comprise Round One as a single PDF file, here [131KB]. If you don’t want to download it, simply copy the URL and paste it into your address bar. Or go check it out at VoxWorld. Be forewarned: Dominic’s piece is a bit sloppy grammatically, making comprehension a challenging at times. Vox, on the other hand, is at least articulate enough that intelligibility is not an issue.

The PZ Myers Memorial Debate

September 5, 2011

In honor of Paul Zachary Myers publicly declaring that he won’t debate creationists anymore, Vox Day has offered the PZ Myers Memorial Challenge. Long story short: PZ wussed out, said a bunch of mean-spirited personal crap about Vox’s dad, and qualified himself as a “coward” by his own definition. PZ, always the friendly and gentle atheist, wrote:

Who is Vox Day? He’s a recipient of wingnut welfare, a pretentious nobody who had a rich and rotten crook for a father and who writes cheesy fantasy novels in between penning cheesy political discourse.

Now that’s weird. Does anybody remember what PZ said when J.J. Ramsey insulted his daughter before being censored into Darwinian oblivion?

A Message To The Uber-Rationalist

September 2, 2011

I’ve noticed this thing where uber-rational people judge others as “irrational” based exclusively on whether or not the belief in question has **unassailable scientific evidence. When the uber-rationalist makes that move, they misapply a legitimate but isolated truth-criterion without consideration for the full context in which the “irrational” person holds their belief. I say “misapply” because I generally disfavor a myopic approach to reality and I believe truth is best demonstrated through multiple criteria.

For Your Perusal

August 29, 2011

I added three new documents to the Papers page. If you don’t wish to download them, simply copy the URL and paste it into your browser’s address bar.

The Evidential Problem Of Evil

August 28, 2011

An evidential POE argument from Peter Hurford of Greatplay.net:

1. Needless suffering, by definition, is any suffering that doesn’t exist because of a higher good.

2. Needless suffering, by definition, could be eliminated with no consequences.

3. Any all-good entity desires to eliminate all needless suffering.

4. Any all-knowing entity would know of all needless suffering, if any needless suffering exists.

5. Any all-powerful entity would be capable of eliminating all needless suffering.

6. Our world contains needless suffering.

7. Therefore from 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and 6, an all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing entity cannot exist.

8. God, as described by the major religions is all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing.

9. Therefore from 7 and 8, God as described by the major religions does not exist.

I recently said that all the POE arguments I’ve heard reduce to arguments from incredulity, and this argument is no different. Inability to conceive of a higher good is the only thing grounding the claim that any given instance of suffering is needless. 6 is a naked assertion sustained only by incredulity. That alone invalidates the argument in my opinion, but I can make a stronger case.

The Quest For Superintelligent AI: What Can We Infer?

August 26, 2011

It’s no secret that people like Luke Muehlhauser endorse the creation of superintelligent AI as a means of saving the world. For me, a few questions arise.

1) Isn’t this a direct concession that human intelligence alone is incapable of creating a “perfect” world?

2) Per 1, mustn’t people like Luke Muehlhauser agree with me that a “perfect” world must follow given obedience to an all-knowing God Who has our best interests in mind?

3) What do you think people like Luke Muehlhauser would do if superintelligent AI came to conclusions that conflicted with their own moral preferences? For example, how do you think they would respond were AI to condemn homosexuality?

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