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Sunday, Jan 31, 2010 - 19:26 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

A Knight of Infinite Resignation

"The knights of infinity are dancers and possess elevation. They make the movements upward, and fall down again; and this too is no mean pastime, nor ungraceful to behold. But whenever they fall down they are not able at once to assume the posture, they vacillate an instant, and this vacillation shows that after all they are strangers in the world."
- Kierkegaard, as Johannes de Silentio

"It is almost every night now, where my bugger of a human guardian doesn't pop over with a noodle strand or breadcrumb or something. Why should a hamster have to diet when his human does? It...wait, did you mean to say 'night' or 'knight'?"
- Mr Ham G. Bacon, as Mr Ham G. Bacon


Obituary of the week - J.D. Salinger, caught the rye.

Arsenal somehow conspired to field a mishmash of a team against Stoke, setting me back to $1164/$1700 in my virtual punting. Tasty odds on tonight's game at the Emirates, and United looked good against City, so:

$100 on Man United to beat Arsenal (at 2.70)


I Wonder Who Did It

So then the question arises - whodunnit?

The solution professed here is: no one. Or more strictly, no one who lays down Laws, or gives Commands, or indeed does anything that cannot be explained by "natural" processes - i.e., someone supernatural.

I was about to articulate my reasoning, when more research showed that someone far more knowledgeable than me had already done it far more convincingly than I could. In Breaking The Spell - Religion As A Natural Phenomenon, Daniel Dennett puts forth an explanation why, as is so succinctly stated by Voltaire (who is of course quoted), "If God did not exist, it would be necessary for us to invent Him."

At the risk of oversimplifying matters, I attempt to convey the gist of the argument, borrowing freely from the book where it suits me, inserting my own thoughts when it does not, and leaving out whole sections for brevity's sake; So please do not take the following as a faithful rendering of Dennett's work. Also, where errors in fact, flow or understanding occur, they are mine and mine alone.

The first (and necessary) issue is whether science can, or should, study religion. If not, or as Gould puts it, they are non-overlapping magisteria, then the rest of the book is meaningless, and so we have Dennett's answer.

My observation is that science has generally been far superior in answering the "how" questions. The material world just works for everyone, regardless of the type or strength of conviction of each person. One celebrated example is that of lightning - recognized by many, from ancient Greek Zeus-worshippers to modern Chinese swearing 天打雷劈 oaths, to be a classic manifestation of divine wrath.

The question is why, all things considered, does God smite His own churches so much more regularly than taverns or other houses of ill repute? One plausible explanation is that, according to Matthew 6:6, Jesus said to pray alone and not in public, and God is simply pissed at people yet again not following his clear dictates. Another is that the church steeples were often the tallest objects around, and lightning tends to strike the tallest things, without undue discrimination (this of course applies for minarets, shrines, and all other religious structures that stick out).


If you are sincere enough, God saves your car too
(Source: Tesladownunder)


Here, one might remark that God, if He exists, is perfectly impartial and just. I would expect that no amount of fervent prayer would significantly change the average number of places of worship being struck, and religious leaders appear to have caught on to that. What the Almighty is appeased by, it seems, is not a sincere profession of faith by the entire congregation, but the permanent offering of a $100 lightning rod.

This led me to much the same conclusion that Dennett reached: that religion is basically evolved behaviour, a meme, if you would like. [N.B. The term was invented by Dawkins, who as a biologist by training, appears to have a disposition towards computer simulations to justify theories; I am of the same mould - give me a model and a sufficient supply of random numbers, and I can bypass a ton of sticky math. Reality is simply the ultimate simulation, anyhow]

Dennett also makes the observation that the largest religions today are precocious. Some form of language has existed for at least forty thousand years, agriculture for ten thousand (interestingly, roughly four thousand years before the Creation of All Existence), and writing for five thousand, while Judaism and the Dharmic religions have existed (and possibly changed quite a bit since) for perhaps four thousand, with Christianity's age (without even speaking of younger individual denominations) being around two thousand years, and Islam about 1400 years.

But some form of religion has almost certainly existed, before Man put pen to paper, or stylus to clay. These were the tribal or folk religions, replete with shamans and witch doctors, and Dennett attributes their appearance, and that of gods, very simply: "At the root of human belief in gods lies an instinct on a hair trigger: the disposition to attribute agency - beliefs and desires and other mental states - to anything complicated that moves." Or: if a durian fell on Mwaba's head and injured him, it wasn't a result of bad luck and standing under a durian tree. Mwaba must have provoked the durian tree spirit somehow.

It is then noted that belief can be useful, even if the belief is not correct. The author recalls an episode in which his five year-old daughter accidentally crushed a couple of her fingertips, and he told her to push her pain into his hand with her mind, in a flash of inspiration - and it worked, at least for a while.

This endearing trust that children have in their parents, while usually justified, can sadly be misused - Dawkins gave the example of a survey of a thousand Israeli kids on the battle of Jericho, where Joshua committed genocide on the Caananites. 66% of the kids totally approved of the act while 26% totally disapproved, and even when they disapproved, they did so on religious grounds (e.g. the Arabs [Caananites?] were impure and if one enters their impure land to slaughter them, one would become impure too!).

However, when Joshua's name was replaced by a General Lin, and the story set in China, only 7% of the kids approved while 75% disapproved of the slaughter, which is probably closer to the expected response according to Lewis' universal Moral Law, and supports Steven Weinberg's insistence that "With or without religion, you have good people doing good things, and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."

Another justification Dennett gives for gods, is that it allows divination and relieves people of the burden of deciding for themselves - and as cleverly noted, just flipping a coin might seem too flippant. It is instructive to note that great leaders often put little stock in this, or indeed gods, and even if they do, tend to make their own fate (consider Nobunaga's use of a two-headed coin to inspire his army to victory)

Dennett then makes the point that these early believers (a few of whom still exist) don't think of their beliefs as a religion at all, as they never reassure each other on this, just as we do not seek reaffirmation that atoms exist. It is just their reality.


And when they butt heads directly...
(Source: Home of the Fumbler)


Some faith, in some things, is likely useful - if a witch doctor supplies some herbs that have been tried and tested for generations, they should help in remitting disease; But if he insists that the sufferer hammer his head against a rock for a hundred times as the second part of the ritual, one suspects that this is unnecessary. However, religions usually evolve a way of dealing with dicey questions: forbid them to be asked.

I will now state "my" hypothesis (which is far from original), slightly less cautiously than Dennett has, for he has a far larger name to consider than mine:

  • Religions began from systems of belief that went largely undoubted

  • As time went on, religions accrued numerous self-perpetuating characteristics:

    • Offers explanations to the unknown (often resisting the new kid on the block, the scientific method, but losing ground here)
    • Holds comforting spectacles and rituals (congregations, processions etc, with some competition from interest groups such as sports [e.g. MUFC the religion] and music), and tells comforting stories
    • Provides strong social cohesion far beyond what blood ties alone could achieve, extending to seemingly irrational self-sacrificial behaviour (i.e. martyrdom), thus allowing larger and stronger power structures than had been possible
    • Offers unverifiable future benefits and threatens unverifiable future punishment (and since they are unverifiable, the benefits and punishments have to be correspondingly huge to make up for it - one raisin will not do it, but seventy-two will)
    • Panders to the primal human fear of death, and dangles some sort of immortality, through heaven or reincarnation (though the Dharmic religions do strive to go beyond the cycle of reincarnation)
    • Demands investment - it is a longstanding psychological trick that the more a person invests heavily in some belief (by attending religious meetings, singing religious songs, giving up money, etc), the more he is reluctant to abandon that belief
    • Indoctrination of children - it is noted that one does not seriously speak of a politically-liberal baby, or a financially-conservative baby, or even a Manchester United baby, even though these might be the parents' wishes; But we accept a Catholic or Hindu or Muslim child!
    • Encouragement of children - traditionally, religions have taken a rather dim (and at best patronizing) view of women, who were generally expected to obey their menfolk and have lots of babies, who would of course be of the faith. One example is the rigidly "pro-life, and to hell with the consequences" Catholic doctrine
    • Exercise of social power - views world through lens of in-group (of same religion) and out-group (others), and if critical mass is reached in a society, makes it extremely hard for out-groupers to survive, through persecution (tendency displayed throughout history). Leaving the in-group is often made to be an extreme form of betrayal, and might be punished by death. See also megachurches
    • Evangelism - this is a rather new adaptation, as traditionally religions were passed down through bloodlines, and conversion was not actively sought or encouraged; However, Christianity in particular has rode this bright new idea and extended its reach far further than could have been done through traditional means, and become the market leader, though not without causing friction with older religions
    • Evangelism by power and conquest - would the natives of strange lands been convinced by missionaries had they not come bearing marvels? One would suppose no, and expect a reasoning along the lines that "they are stronger than us, thus their god must be stronger too"

      Gods have always risen and fallen with their originating cultures, and the current dominance of the American and European polities, which has extended for some centuries, might explain some of the popularity of the Judeo-Christian God (and possibly also breeds resentment among followers of other gods, who may understandably reason that, if their god is the true one [as it surely is], why is the Great Satan so powerful?)
    • And of course, it must be remembered that religions do good works too, and it is not impossible to see why the kind-hearted might be drawn to them

  • The above each have at least one of these three effects: to bring more new believers into the faith (as a percentage of the total number of humans), to keep believers from leaving the faith, or to reduce the number of people who are not of the faith.

In summary, organized religion is evolved behaviour.

I do not deny that humans have a conscience, or that there may be something (indeed, many things) we do not understand. But while conscience may say, "do not torture" or "aid the needy", or perhaps even "there is something wonderful, and it is God", I find it hard to believe that it says "God exists and He is exactly as described by this interpretation of this subset of this religion, all fifty thousand words of it". Or even if it does, then it is either hardly universal, or most of the faithful are spectacularly wrong.

And even if God has not changed, it is evident that His worship has - and the believer of a millenium ago might well refuse to admit that a modern believer is even of the same faith. I therefore have little confidence that the practices that are preached, where they collide with my own conscience, actually have a divine mandate behind them.

Returning at the last to Kierkegaard, who wrote against the Hegelianism which appears to be manifest in the idea of religious evolution (but as with much of philosophy, it is hard to be sure). He wrote of the Knight of Faith, who transcends through absolute belief. He gives the example of Abraham, who believed that he would have his son alive and well, despite plunging a dagger into his heart.

But these knights do exist, and in our time we term them mad.

We praise a man if he says God led him to build an orphanage; But we condemn a man if he says God told him to kill a baby, lest it grow up to the next Hitler. The sincerity of both men may be equal, but most would call the first sane, but the second insane. I recognize the unshakeable faith of those who devote their lives to helping the poorest of the poor, as well as those who fly airplanes into buildings, and readily admit that I have neither.

So, one hopes, that one might learn to hoist the banner of Infinite Resignation, and muddle on through the world.



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Tuesday, Jan 26, 2010 - 19:54 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

- -
One Score And Six

Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin,
would I go to hell?"
Priest: "No, not if you did not know."
Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"
 - Annie Dillard


I'm twenty-six and an old man, and over the hill. And I realised that I can't quite bear sunsets.

I now carry on from the previous post, and note that the subheading may seem... obscure; Some reason for it could be revealed by the end, as a reward for those readers who manage to get there. Then again, perhaps not.


I'm Pregnant

Here, I return to Dawkins, whose works I have recently covered in more detail. That is not to say that I completely agree with all of his opinions, however. Take this extract from the preface of The Blind Watchmaker:

"A lawyer or a politician is paid to exercise his passion and his persuasion on behalf of a client or a cause in which he may not privately believe. I have never done this and I never shall. I may not always be right, but I care passionately about what is true and I never say anything that I do not believe to be right."

So far so good, but...

"I was placed next to a young woman who had made a relatively powerful speech in favour of creationism. She clearly couldn't be a creationist, so I asked her to tell me honestly why she had done it. She freely admitted that she was simply practising her debating skills, and found it more challenging to advocate a position in which she did not believe.

Apparently it is common practice in university debating societies for speakers simply to be told on which side they are to speak. Their own beliefs don't come into it. I had come a long way to perform the disagreeable task of public speaking, because I believed in the truth of the motion that I had been asked to propose. When I discovered that members of the society were using the motion as a vehicle for playing arguing games, I resolved to decline future invitations from debating societies that encourage insincere advocacy on issues where scientific truth is at stake."

 I may not be a huge fan of formal debate, but in this I think that it is almost always useful to understand where both sides are coming from. It might be said that one cannot not seriously argue for, say, alchemy versus chemistry, but the thing is that there is nothing is particularly wrong with taking the side of medieval alchemy - any reasonable audience would presumably be convinced that alchemy does not have a leg to stand on, through no fault of its proponent; And if the audience is not reasonable, why hold a debate at all?

And of course, that young woman might very well be a lawyer-in-training, in which case it is her job after all.

In a fit of pique, I resolved to read some more religious apologists, among them Letter from a Christian Citizen, a riposte to Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation. The first thirty-odd pages are available as a free preview, and in them Douglas Wilson argues that:
  • Christians are ashamed of badly-behaved Christians
  • But being a (nihilist) atheist, why is there a reason to be "nice" at all? If atheism is true, nobody should care, but clearly Harris cares
  • What gives Harris the right to state that his secular values ought to be imposed over religious ones?
  • Why, despite secular authorities controlling most of education for over 150 years, does religion still exist?
  • Why does Harris claim that glue is so difficult that it had to be invented, while complicated stuff like the ankle and great white sharks did not need an inventor (i.e. God)?
  • The argument that the way Christians and Muslims view each other is not the same as how atheists view each of them - Wilson argues that if the three of them saw a trout in a bowl of punch, the Christian and Muslim would at least agree that someone put it there, and differ at most on who and why; while the atheist would say that it happened naturally, which is ridiculous as bumping ice cubes together for very long makes nothing of the sort happen.
  • Harris brings up "laws and customs involving cultures thousands of years away from us, and use(s) the outlandish aspects of these customs to frighten... the (Biblical) law actually represents... an amelioration of an existing custom..."
  • Atheism does not have any basis for consistently condemning slavery, or in fact anything - and in fact the U.S. Constitution reads "...Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted...", showing that modern-day slavery still exists anyhow, as the two millions prisoners in the U.S. are essentially slaves
The final point here is an interesting angle on things, and the first point is well-received, but most of the rest cut little ice - the atheist-nihilist connection is a bit tired, the imposition of secular vs religious values is wholly reasonable where backed up by facts (the last I know, calling church elders to pray over a desperately sick kid and anoint him with oil [James 5:14] instead of taking him to a [possibly atheist] medical doctor is a child neglect offence, and rightly so), it is evident that Wilson doesn't quite understand evolution, and the ancient laws and customs are still in a book that is held up as inerrant, so...


Affably modest (Source: Wikipedia)
Full text available as a PDF file


Mindful that a preview sample might not be complete enough to draw conclusions on, I turned to Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, by reputation one of the most popular contemporary contentions for the creed.

It is here that I have to apologize to any Christian readers, if it appears that I have been unfairly picking on their religion - it is simply that I have found relevant material on Christianity easiest to access online, and thus consider myself more well-acquainted with it, than other religions. It is also the case that I have found Christians, as a whole, reasonably fair-minded folk, who are usually happy to agree to disagree, or in the very worst event simply cast asperations on my immortal soul, and are not known to threaten actual physical violence, a sentiment which I greatly appreciate.

Thus, while I deal with Christian apologetics here, it often occurs that much of the same applies to other religions, the recognizance of which is left as an exercise to the dedicated reader.

Before reading the book, it is instructive to read the man; Lewis was born into the faith, but became an atheist at fifteen (his freedom to do so speaks well of the faith, by the way). After a number of experiences, he converted to theism at about thirty-one years of age, and thereupon back to Christianity proper, two years later.

An Anglican, to be specific, Lewis states from the outset that his work would not steer towards any one denomination; This is a little suspicious if one considers the strife that has often arisen between different factions (notably Catholics and Protestants in recent times), but it would be ungenerous not to let Lewis continue on to his main thesis which concerns, as far as I can understand, the essential part of Christianity.

On this point, Lewis anticipates the question of "who is a Christian", and (not very helpfully I suppose) defines it for now as someone who "accepts the Christian doctrine". He then likens his basic, "mere", Christianity as a waiting-hall, from which one should proceed to an actual denomination; But why he downplays his welcoming hall thus, free of unclaimed baggage as it is, I never did figure out.

The next section, Book I, then argues for theism as opposed to going straight to Christianity, mirroring his own journey. The major argument is that from morality, in which he claims that a universal Law of Human Nature (later referred to as the conscience) exists.

It is telling that the very first quote used to illustrate this law is "How'd you like it if anyone did the same to you?", which is just one of the many possible restatements of the Golden Rule, which as its Wikipedia article shows, is honoured by all major religions (and likely the minor ones too). Lewis himself acknowledges as much, and states that the morals of ancient cultures are without exception remarkably similar to our modern ones, giving the example that vices like cowardice and ungratefulness were never prized. Therefore, Lewis says, there is a perfect and timeless Moral Law.

I have discussed objective morality briefly in the previous post, but here I will respond specifically to the examples Lewis employed. For a drowning man, he says, while a basal herd instinct might prompt us to want to save the man, and a selfish self-preservative instinct to ignore him, the Moral Law would compel us to save him (presumably if we actually have the ability to do so).

Simple enough, maybe. Now, on to another example, that of a man who claims the right to a seat because he was there first. First come first seated is probably quite universal - but consider if there is a lady standing by. Should the man do the chivalrous thing and offer the seat, and risk the lady taking the gesture as detestably patronizing, given that the man did not offer the seat to several men before her?

As Lewis would later say, this then might be a matter of custom, and not of immutable Moral Law, so either act might or might not turn out to be appropriate. Very well. Then on to yet another example: "Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked."

Firstly, it seems that Lewis agrees that having multiple wives, depending on the circumstances, would fall well within Moral Law. But if four (which seems like a calculated sop to some other religion), why not four hundred? Potentates in many cultures throughout history have had large harems, with King Solomon clocking in at seven hundred (though it did him no good, and might pour doubt on his judgement, or simply go to show that even God-gifted wisdom [Kings 3:9-12] is no match for 700 assorted women; Still a 700-fold improvement over Adam, though) In many of these cases, I see no material difference between a stupidly large number and more or less having any desired woman.


And at least, in the underworld, they don't spend two hours on make-up for each dinner reservation (Poster source: Costumzee.com)


Secondly, as a longstanding member of the male species, I find it slightly hard to believe that a significant proportion of men would actually agree on not having any particular woman one liked (and was in a position to take it from there, of course). True, there are exceptions - doing a mate's wife or girlfriend is universally considered bad form - but other than that, I would seriously doubt that the majority of men, especially if unattached, would pass up the chance to get to know an enthusiastic and attractive girl in the sack, unless they had iron-clad convictions (like Lewis, undoubtedly), or were convincingly gay.

Note also that the Moral Law is in direct contradiction with Deu. 17:17 here, though in general the Bible can't be said to be too big on women's rights. Just one example, from Deu. 22:28 - although it might not be encouraged, it seems that one can lawfully take a virgin to wife by raping her and then paying her father fifty shekels of silver, which has been calculated to be about US$140 in today's money, and the unfortunate girl would have to suck it up whether she likes it or not. But who am I to question a holy book?

As one goes on, one suspects that Lewis is unconsciously extending his own brand of personal conscience, magnanimously and optimistically, to the entire world - going back to homosexuality, significant percentages of cultures either accepted or did not proscribe it, not least among the ancient Greeks and Romans, which Lewis was no doubt aware of (he had a First in Greats from Oxford). So then, is the act again possibly within the Moral Law?

Here lies an observation: If there is indeed a universal Moral Law, then it must by necessity be extremely watered-down and flexible to accommodate everybody, bar obvious psychopaths; We should then be left with something like the Golden Rule, despite the fact that it is obvious that humans have wildly differing preferences, many of which are somehow still strongly regarded as "immoral" to other peoples.

We may also note that very many "lesser" animals also almost never hurt or kill their own kind (especially when compared to humans), cooperate, and even sacrifice themselves for others, among a host of possible virtues. Does this then indicate that they all subscribe to a spiritual morality?

Otherwise, there is a need to draw boundaries and claim that the behaviours of some people are indisputably evil, and that they are either acting in defiance of their conscience, or have the wrong sort of conscience; But the more this is done, the harder it is to believe that the Moral Law is universal. One time-honoured solution is to define one's own tribe as the ones with the correct conscience, and regrettably set about eradicating other peoples with the wrong sort of conscience, which is straightforward but hardly too impressive.


There can be *no question at all* that the left is sinister
(Source: Bizarroartist)


And a few more objections to specific assertions:

"If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe..." - God was never especially shy about sending miraculous and material signals of fact, according to many religious traditions, including but hardly limited to parting seas, cloning food and levitation. N.B. One explanation is that God got tired of this, and now insists that only believing in things without solid proof makes for a sufficiently strong faith.

"And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We are on the wrong road. And if that is so, we must go back." - the part on humanity making a mistake is well understandable, given that the book was produced during the horror that was the Second World War.

But there are two objections. The first is that it is likely that very many of the soldiers and citizens on the Axis side sincerely thought that God was behind them, not much less than those on the Allied side did; It is clear that, as defined, war itself is not necessarily against Moral Law, and it is far from clear that a dearth of morality was what led to the war (and other ills of the time).

The second is, go back to where and what? The centuries immediately after the Protestant Reformation, which had its share of revolutions and internecine wars? The Dark Ages, when the Catholic church held sway over Western civilization instigating holy wars, and Lewis and his writings would have hardly been welcome? The time of Jesus, though it is well-documented in holy works and it is not as if many actually follow his deeds? The time of the Israelites, when Lewis and countless others would not even have been chosen, and which of course had war, war, war? All the way back to Eden?

Here I refer to a few more possible insights on Book I, and move on to Book II, which seeks to show that of all the known Gods, the Christian God is the only possible one. For my money, it is none too convincing and the book might well have been entitled Mere Divinity.

For instance, Lewis claims that the first big division between religions is between those that claim God is beyond good and evil (giving Hinduism as an example), and those that assert that God is definitely good (note no mention of godless Buddhists here). To show how ludicrous the Pantheist Hindu belief is, he poo-poohs their claim that a cancer, or a slum, is also part of God, as it is obviously ridiculous that things that are really bad can be a part of God, who must be really good.

I am torn whether to mention the countless Christian murmurs of "it's God's will" and "God's ways are mysterious" at the very same cancer, since I am not sure of the distinction between a cancer that is part of God, and a cancer that God could assuredly prevent or cure without any difficulty, but chose not to; In any case, going back to the universal Moral Law, I am certainly unsure that to see God in every facet of Creation is necessarily naturally immoral. Ascribing earthquakes to not-God (since God is perfectly good, remember?) is also pretty far from my personal conscience (alright, so that was a low blow, if not an entirely unwarranted one).

Some of Lewis' other arguments for Christianity could likewise as well be for any other religion: one of them essentially goes, reality is complicated and odd; Christianity is also complicated and odd. Therefore, Christianity is more likely to be true.

Yet another penchant of Lewis is for striking questionable dilemmas - one of them goes, the universe has a lot that is obviously bad and apparently meaningless, but somehow has self-aware humans. Therefore, (pulls bunny out of hat) either Christianity or Dualism must be the case. This is an enormous leap that somehow passes right over Deists and materialist philosophers, to name but two entirely plausible options.

The more famous example would be the celebrated "Lunatic, Liar or Lord" trilemma (which incidentally is rejected by at least some modern Christian apologetics like William Lane Craig). Just one possible alternative: intuitively, under Moral Law, there is nothing especially wrong with doing good acts under sincerely believed premises that turn out to be false, or lying for a (much) greater good - so would Jesus not remain a great human teacher if he sincerely believed that he was begotten of God (lunatic), or saw the decay of his society and figured this was the only way to improve it (liar)?

[N.B. It can be noted that sincerely believing that one is begotten of God is actually not that far off from sincerely believing that one receives individual instruction from God, which is far from uncommon among the religious.]

Book III covers particular virtues, beginning with the four Cardinal virtues of Prudence, Temperance, Justice and Fortitude. To me, this does not lend particular support to any religion either - One might say that Christians are prudent, but it is hard to recognize that Buddhists are less so; One might say that the Jewish are temperate, but it is hard to claim that Hindus are less so; One might say that Muslims are just, but it is hard to be certain that Jains are less so; One might say that Sikhs have fortitude, but it is hard to justify that Pastafarians are less so, and so on.

In short, Lewis at no time makes a convincing case that any virtue is exclusive or manifests itself in any religion to a significantly greater degree than others, and thus does not quite qualify his initial assertion that Christianity is right, and the others wrong to a certain extent.

It seems that he does at least recognize this quandary, and later he ingeniously claims that "there are people in other religions who are being led by God's secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it", using a merciful Buddhist for illustration. Wow.

Actually, this is an extremely enlightened realisation on Lewis' part, all the more pity that it is not emphasized more strongly by his supporters. (However, I would wonder what Lewis might think if a Buddhist apologist wrote kindly that there are people in other religions who happen to follow many of Buddha's precepts, and are therefore actually also Buddhists without realising it, and then cited Lewis as a shining example of a Buddhist)

A final curiosity on the book is the statement that "a man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line", used to refute atheism, since a straight line (i.e. a absolute and perfect Moral Law) does not exist, but men nevertheless can point out crooked lines (i.e. bad deeds). Then, such a perfect Law could only have been planted by a perfect Being.

This did not sound completely convincing to me, and after some thought I came up with this analogy: Consider girls. Now, it is true that some girls are more beautiful than others (which does not have any connection to their character, of course). It is not very hard to find two girls who, when placed side by side, nearly all men (and women) would agree that one was clearly more beautiful than the other.

However, from this observation, one does not claim that a girl who is universally the most beautiful, for all time and space, should necessarily exist, in either fact or fiction; Also, it is far from impossible to find two girls who, when placed side by side, have half of the people preferring one and half the other, or to find a girl whom half of the people would rate as beautiful, and the other half as not. Now let each girl represent a moral imperative, and you may see where I am going here. Okay, this borrows slightly from Plato's Theory of Forms.


So now for the overall summary: Lewis argues passionately that conscience is universal, and that it must lead to Christianity. Diplomatically, he does not try to settle the differences between different denominations of Christianity, and moreover posits that some of the faithful of other religions are, to all intents and purposes, Christians.

On these points I find it hard to find fault, some logical leaps of faith notwithstanding. If a Christian quits his job and flies to Haiti to help the needy, I would salute him. If he is fair and judicious in his dealings I would respect him. If he is generous and joyful I would admire him. If he is kind and forgiving I would emulate him.

If a Christian feels that all who do good by his fellow men are in a way, Christian, I would support him. If he sincerely thinks that his way is the best of all ways, I would humour him. If he insists that his way is the only possible way, I would doubt him. If he questions the worth of other ways, I would question him.

If a Christian asserts that there is only for him or against him, I would disagree with him. If he would seek to impose his faith upon others, I would oppose him. If he maintains that those who do not believe as he does will go to hell, I would pity him. For it might well be that God, if He exists, is far more merciful than he thinks.


In the final section to come, I explore an alternative.



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Saturday, Jan 23, 2010 - 21:53 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

To Wit

"My God," said the Queen,
"I'm pregnant! I wonder who did it?"
- Essay Brevity: Religion, Royalty, Sex, Mystery


The new semester's starting in earnest, and not without some small regrets, but one has to move on.

Speech Processing lectures on Friday nights, and flipping through the notes I managed to recognize components and methods (though regrettably not all the details) from, among other modules, Natural Language Processing, Uncertainty Modelling in AI and even Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, so presumably it won't be too heavy. It's not the best of times to begin breaking entirely new ground.

My planned schedule is then:
  • Weekdays: Whatever research project I can get my grubby mitts on...

  • Saturdays: Speech Processing. Alright, and blogging.

  • Sundays: Preparing for the quals.

Recap of past week: Sold A Course in Linear Algebra with Applications by Derek J.S. Robinson, Advanced Macroeconomics by David Romer and Modern Labor Economics (Tenth Ed) by Ehrenberg and Smith. All of which, on hindsight, I was unlikely to touch ever again - even where my work required some linear algebra knowledge last semester, I simply Googled and Wikipedia-ed everything. Collected the takings on Tuesday, swam after that.

Dropped in on the stargazing session that tpk has been assisting with for several years after the Friday lecture, and got a close-up of the craters of the moon. After a bit of craning my neck, I actually discovered that I could make out about a dozen stars in the night sky despite all the light pollution, putting paid to one of my unfounded prejudices.


My God

This has been covered at some length for some time, but only recently has it manifested itself overtly close to home, as mentioned last week. The issue flared up after a Catholic weekly publication won the legal right to use the word Allah to refer to God, which was offensive to some Muslims, who felt that it should refer exclusively to the god of their religion, and others could well use alternatives like Tuhan (lit. Lord) instead, lest the faithful be confused.

All and well if it remained a squabble and wrangle in the courts, but the matter devolved into a spate of attacks on churches in the country, though mercifully no deaths or major injuries. Hearteningly, this seems to be far from the general sentiment of the public, and many Muslim organizations have stepped in to help protect churches.

At this point, it is worth reiterating that I was, am, and for the foreseeable future will be, agnostic, for reasons sporadically spouted on this blog. It is also an opportune time to bring in Harris' argument from The End of Faith, in which he devotes an entire chapter to Islam. His writing is undoubtedly very provocative by local mass media standards, but as the book itself is not banned here, it should be reasonable to discuss, with proper discretion, some of his assertions.

Harris maintains that the Religion of Peace label is in fact a misnomer (shades of how the Ministry of Peace in 1984 actually deals with war), and that the vast preponderance of their holy book advocates struggle with the infidels, with a few cursory reconciliatory lines, and some concessions to "People of the Book", i.e. Jews and Christians, though even in this case they must recognize who's boss in the greater scheme of things (to be fair, this attitude of "I'm right, you're therefore wrong" is hardly unique to Islam).

Now, as Harris quotes from Russell to make his point, this behaviour is only to be expected from the pristinely faithful: Apparently, Spanish conquistadors had the practice of baptizing Indian infants before killing them, thus guaranteeing that the babies went straight to Heaven. Russell's observation was that this act was positively rational, even charitable, given sufficient faith. Simply put:

Proposition 1: Baptism has brought the child to God and salvation.

Proposition 2: The child has had no time to sin between baptism and death.

Conclusion: The child is saved and goes to Heaven to be with God for eternity, without wasting any time on Earth and risking being left out due to future sin. Good job!


If the first proposition is accepted, as it presumably still is among some Christians nowadays, and the second is also, then the conclusion must hold; if the conquistadors were men of sincere faith, it was no less than they could have done, and it is difficult to see how others of the faith could fault them. Yes, Thou shalt not kill, but only without just cause - and what cause can be more just than assuring a cute, adorable baby of paradise? And in the event that God, in his inscrutable wisdom, finds fault with that, surely he would only punish the killer, making the killer a self-sacrificial Buddha?

The key observation then, is that it is not that suicide bombers and terrorists are irrational. They might be invincibly rational (and indeed they are increasingly well-adjusted and well-educated by most measures), and their blowing themselves up at a busy intersection, or flying planes into buildings, simply follows naturally from their initial beliefs (such as the propositions above).

If one is dissatisfied with the conclusions, one might then turn to the propositions and complain that one could not possibly be rational and believe in such drivel... Oh wait.

But: the world is not so gloomy. Nobody does the baptize-whacktize routine nowadays, and it is considered bad form to invoke the Almighty, even if tangentially, on weapons of war; if people nowadays literally carry out the casting into the fire of men who abide not in Jesus (John 15:6) as in the old days, rather than reading it as just a metaphor (though doing so would still be a bit sad), they would be convicted of murder in the civilized world.

And it is also probably unfair to pigeonhole religious people. To illustrate, I refer to a survey that claims that just 39% of the members of the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States agree or strongly agree that "only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved", and perhaps even more surprisingly, the pastors were less likely to believe that than the average member; Just as incredibly, the majority did not disagree that "all the world's religions are equally good ways of helping a person find ultimate truth"!

I was gobsmacked by the findings, assuming that they are accurate, and frankly would not have guessed at their degree of tolerance, even if it still leaves out the god-doubters and godless (I wonder if they do acknowledge godless Buddhism and other such faiths as paths to the ultimate truth?).

Of course, other denominations and churches might well be horrified and/or contemptuous (who do they think they are to go against John 14:6 and Acts 4:12? The cheek!), which is one of the reasons why there are so many denominations in the first place - the presence of so much disagreement in the interpretation and practice of the same holy book, should at least raise some doubts; but as with politicians, indecisiveness and a honest admission of ignorance by teachers of the faith is seldom looked kindly upon.

Personally, I felt the survey results extremely heartwarming, and it raised my estimation of Presbyterians, and of God (if He exists).


Saith the Queen

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully
as when they do it from religious conviction."
- Blaise Pascal


Since the post is structured into quarters by my whim, I will now make the tenuous connection between royalty and authority, and the even more tenuous connection between objective and subjective morality, and continue.

I take morality to be the study of right and wrong, of good and evil. Then, an objective morality refers to the assertion that some acts are always and forever good, under some standard, while a subjective one claims that good and evil are not universal, and whether an act is good can change in different places and times. In either case, there might be difficult choices to make (what is the lesser of two evils?).

Objective morality, then, is heavily linked to religion, since it is often the case that holy books command that they be obeyed forever. So, if it is written that, say, homosexuality is abberant, then homosexuality is always abberant.



There are certain issues with this degree of objectivity, however, as is highlighted by the clip above, and elsewhere; Just one example:

"My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev. 24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)"

Now, Lev. 19:19 is abundantly clear, I would suppose. When God commands one not to plant fields with two kinds of seed, or wear clothes with mixed weaves, in such simple language, it should be reasonable to suppose that it is exactly what He means, in the same way as He means that a man should not lie with a man as he lies with a woman in Lev. 18:22.

I mean, what else could He mean? It is also not obvious from the text whether wearing cotton/polyester blend is less evil than homosexuality. Alright, perhaps the command against such clothes might actually be against vanity, or self-absorption, or somesuch, and the act is forgivable as long as it does not arise from such intentions; but in that case, should homosexuality not be likewise explained away when it happens?


Mixed Metaphors (Source: Russell's Teapot)


In practice, from observation, even the objectives are very often subjective. One argument derives from the "innate sense of right and wrong" - but to me it is a vast oversimplification.

There are, of course, good acts that are recognized as good, and bad acts as bad, by the overwhelming majority of humans. No mainstream culture claims that killing innocent newborn babies is good, for example (unless you're a devout Spanish conquistador or the like, I suppose; lest I appear too biased, godless regimes do sanction forced abortions to keep to population targets). Innately, one might feel that, say, stealing is bad. Giving alms good. Lying bad. Peace good.

But Robin Hood stealing from tyrannical landlords to give to the poor? Giving money to an aggressive homeless man who is almost certain to use it for booze and drugs? Lying about a person's location to a mob who seem not to have the best of intentions? Refuse to mount a surgical strike to overthrow a thoroughly repugnant dictatorship?

A counter would be that the reactions to these situations would also be reasonably innate - but I am certain that any arbitrary number of situations might be constructed, where the assumed-universal intuitions of humans would be split more or less down the middle; one example that occurs about every four years is the U.S. presidental election.

If one asks simple enough questions, the innate answer might - for almost all people - concur. But, as a whole, these very simple questions are not those that are debated and fought over. Back to the original topic: Is allowing Catholics to use the word Allah right or wrong, and why? To me at least, it is not innately clear why wearing clothes woven of two threads is wrong, or trimming my hair (Lev. 19:27), or eating shellfish (Lev. 11:10, Deu. 14:9), or touching pork (Lev. 11:6-8).

And if one travels the wide world, I would suspect that on very many matters, that gut feeling, that innate sense, that divine gift of right and wrong, might not be so universal after all.


I'll leave the second half of this for another time, and sign off with the weekly prediction. Portsmouth vs. Birmingham last week was, alas, snowed out too, and so we have:

$200 on Arsenal to beat Stoke City (at 1.70)



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Saturday, Jan 16, 2010 - 14:45 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

A Hamdle on Things

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something
when his salary depends upon him not understanding it."
- Upton Sinclair, today's nugget of wisdom


Not much time to lose, as I take a break from burning calories by poring over research papers that aren't fully understood (supposedly, thinking really hard requires almost a sixth of the energy expenditure of moderate exercise, which might explain why most of my profs are in okay shape - can't recall a seriously roly-poly one offhand!). There is the possible flip side too, of course.

So here's the brief update on the additional workouts (and lack of Polo mints and other snacks) for the past week, and the results are... nothing, quantitatively. On the other hand, the quadriceps ache has gone (removing shoes helped) and energy levels are slightly up. The thing about this getting into shape shtick is that it takes time; most sources advise gunning for half a kg a week, so very short-term evaluations can't tell too much.

Half a kg a week is still six kg (hopefully of mostly fat) in three months, so I'll keep this topic under wraps until end March or early April. I'm taking the view that my body obeys the First Law of Thermodynamics, so in this at least, if not in research, success is guaranteed!

As for the week: Sat in on a Cosmology module with tpk (not too much science yet, just the introduction, including creation myths), and went for a swim afterwards, only to experience once more how ravenous one can get from being in the water.

Insured myself up to the gills (well, it had to be done sometime), attempted to hock a few old textbooks under sufferance (apparent lack of space), attended the module I should be getting for this semester (Speech Processing), bar the unforeseen, and tracked a couple of pieces of news with some interest. No time to expound upon them now, though.

Quick comic recommendation from Mr. Ham:


Source: Shortpacked.com


And nearly forgot to mention this gem from the lab meeting:



Finally, with Wigan vs. Villa snowed out last week, the prediction is null and void. Score for the Virtual Challenge therefore remains unchanged, and for tonight:

$100 on Birmingham to beat Portsmouth (at 2.40)



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Saturday, Jan 09, 2010 - 15:30 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Quad Damage

Following on to what is empathically not a resolution, I hopped onto the old elliptical trainer only to find out that it had seen better days, if not due to overuse.


Ouch


In the flush of that worrying can-do spirit, I enlisted my cousin's company in picking out a new one. The store had maybe seven models of varying makes and prices, but some pedal-pounding whittled down the selection to two of the mid-priced ones, with the others being so obviously inferior that I suspected that they were there just to make those two look good. In any event, I signed away the next few months of my discretionary expenses on the dearer of the two.

The few days between purchase and delivery were divided between academics, DotA, some cursory weights work and an evaluation of my exercise history (definition of decent intensity being 3 or 4 sessions of about an hour a week that result in sweating, definition of sustained being maintained for at least a month):

Periods of sustained decent exercise intensity:
First year of JC, BMT... RT (not really)

Most recent voluntary run of over 3km: Single training session for half-marathon, late 2005. Perhaps somewhere within said half-marathon.

Periods of voluntary sustained decent exercise intensity:
Maybe first year of JC... oh who am I kidding. None.

Periods of voluntary sustained decent exercise intensity with proper nutrition:
None. Nada. Zero. Zilch.

And I always had this impression that I was pretty fit. Hmm.

Well, there's always today, and figuring that I might as well do it properly if I am going to do it at all, I scoured the Internet for information about fitness training, and discovered that opinions are like arseholes - everyone has one. Is egg yolk good for you, or should you eat the whites and discard the yellows? Should you do cardio before breakfast on an empty stomach? Is cardio even necessary? Six meals a day, or one? Carbohydrates, or fat? The list is endless.

So let me present my conclusions, culled from numerous disparate sources, so far:

  • Getting the perfect programme is next to impossible
  • Doing almost anything is better than doing nothing
  • For losing fat, both exercise and reduction of food intake help, but the balance is preferably tilted more heavily towards exercise, since serious dieting (apparantly the usual female approach) damages the metabolism, while packing on muscles helps to burn calories even at rest (yay)
  • But the right nutrition is far more important, especially for rank beginners (i.e. "can't out-train a bad diet", or borrowing from CS, GIGO)
  • Protein is needed to build muscle, when it comes down to that
  • Train for intensity, not length of time
  • Fast food and fried food is bad, very bad
  • Supplements are not required
  • Remember to drink water
With all this in mind, I've cut the night-time/early-morning snacks completely for these few days, and am transiting to a six meal a day routine simply by leaving about half of each usual meal (scaled to 70% as per previous post) for three hours later (on reflection, my home fare has been quite healthy). This isn't even a sacrifice, since I don't particularly fear hunger, and would quite often skip a meal if the queue were moderately long (which is a negative example).

Switching from hot to cold showers was slightly harder, but it has to be said that it really wakes one up (especially in the mornings), and saves water on top of it all.

Finally, as for the spanking new elliptical machine, I discovered to my horror that I could only stand a few minutes before my thighs began to hurt horribly, before I noticed that it had been set to maximum incline by default. After some reconfiguration, I set off on a mission to hit 70% of my maximum heart rate (about 140, using various formulas and a resting heart rate of about 65) and hold it for 45 minutes to an hour... and failed miserably.

First problem: Breaking about 120 beats per second. Even reaching that was a chore, and even near-maximal effort for a couple of minutes couldn't push it much past that.

Second problem: Lower quadriceps began to get sore, despite not really being out of breath. Hopefully this is the good sort of acclimatization burn.

By the way, a minute on the trainer appears to burn only 10 calories, so even 45 minutes will take just 450, or a couple of donuts. Argh.

The big returns from the last session have pulled me up to $1164/$1500. Will it continue? Stay tuned.

$100 on Aston Villa to beat Wigan (at 2.15)



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Wednesday, Jan 06, 2010 - 01:44 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

- -
Out Of Resolution

Another new year, bringing with it the realisation that what one wants to type, one forgets when placed before a keyboard. It is a certainty that Mr. Ham is getting thinner, which is Not Good News for respectable hamsters, even if he seems more energetic nowadays. His butt has shrunken to the point of vanishing, but however it goes, at least the furball has seen four years (2007, 08, 09 and 10).


Not A Resolution About Work

Let us then begin with my work, which after another semester of taking (fewer) modules has finally caught up with me. [An aside: I only recently learnt that fewer is used with countable objects, and less with uncountables, in general; in fact, I often forget what a verb or an adjective is, but this has never bothered me too much since the answer is always just a Google away, and it has never stopped me from writing or speaking, so whatever]

For the uninformed, as I am currently a graduate student (or postgraduate, to the Brits), my main function should be research, or finding out things that absolutely nobody else in the world knows. Or, if they do know, have not yet bothered to claim that they do (racing to stake a claim is not unknown in academia, and for the romantic enough might be reminiscent of intrepid explorers striving to be the first to plant a flag on some new land in the Age of Discovery), or if they can know but do not yet, have not been bothered to try.

As what we do not know far surpasses what we do, for the former is infinite but the latter is finite, one supposes that academics are about the only people who are unaffected by scarcity. There is a catch, of course, in that while knowing something that nobody else knows is not at all hard, knowing something that nobody else knows that they would need or like to know is; I alone may know how many minutes it took to type this paragraph, but I suspect that no one else cares.

Now then, at least in the sciences, there are the huge problems that everybody would love to solve, but few can and do. Beneath them, there are problems of all sizes, a few of which might even contribute towards solving the huge ones.

From what I have read, a graduate student is supposed to find an unsolved problem (or perhaps be handed one by his advisor, which brings about its own considerations) that is difficult enough and general enough to be interesting, and solve it, or failing that explain why he could not solve it and reveal what valuable insights were gained by not solving it, before being allowed to move on.

[Of course, the difference between solving and not solving a problem can often be fixed with a small change in the definition (or presentation) of the problem, but since academics are not supposed to be vulnerable to these frivolous framing issues, it should be best to ignore them unless external grant committees which have a vocabulary of just two words - success and failure - enter the picture]

But after one has a problem (scope negotiable), what does one do? Usually, one reads papers about it, during which sufficiently overconfident students might groan and think that they could have written those papers. Most of them, anyway. Since it is likely that P != NP, this suggests that verifying proofs in a paper and discovering those proofs are two different things, not that some self-belief would be amiss.

I should be immersing myself more fully into this...


Not A Resolution About Fitness

This follows on from the above, and some self-analysis swiftly revealed that I could do with spending more time and energy on my work and studies, but as we all know, these are limited commodities. Scraping together a combination of adrenaline and willpower as deadlines approach is one thing, but a higher baseline level of energy appears to be the medicine I require.

There are at least two ways to acquire energy that I know of, and one of them is exercise, which might be one of the most ordinary (and commonly broken - 49%, according to Men's Health, Feb 2009) of resolutions, which thankfully this is not. It might be a bad reflection on my part, but not a few of the targets I have sporadically set when the mood struck me, have remained unmet - with the latest being the cessation of the Twenty Pull-ups Challenge soon after I broke ten again, most of which were in proper form.

Of course, one might try setting higher targets with the expectation of premature abandonment leading to fulfillment of the actual desired target, but as has been observed in bargaining, this approach shouldn't be advisable.

How to get about exercising is also no secret - set strict timetables, and realistic and measurable goals (alright, this applies for just about everything). While a brief scan of the online literature on exercise shows that overtraining might have a detrimental effect, my tendency is probably towards the opposite direction (and of reading too much and doing too little in this respect)

Then, what goal should I pursue? A honest twenty pulls is still on the cards, and I've always wanted (or at least thought I wanted) to complete a marathon. Touching a regulation basketball hoop (requiring roughly a 30-inch vertical leap) would also be nice, as would getting a gold on the IPPT (getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we?)


(Data obtained from: Grandma's Little Notebook of Useful Grandchildren Statistics #5, 2001-2009)


For all of these, getting rid of fat and putting on muscle should be a very useful first step, and the consensus on this is that aerobic exercise (i.e. running, swimming etc) is a must. Weight is a tricky measure since it does not distinguish between fat and muscle, thus the ambition to be at 10% body fat percentage or below by end-March, from the current near 19% (not that bad, but nearer flab than fab)

Credit must go to my cousin lwei for loaning me his stack of Men's Health and assorted gentlemen's magazines (it must be said that, eye candy aside, they are rewardingly informative - local censorship rules may well have robbed us of both aesthetics and erudition), and for sharing his during-NS weight loss regimen, which consisted mainly of eating next to nothing and exercising moderately for at least a week. Another cousin, currently serving in the infantry, provided additional motivation by hovering around the magical 10% body fat level, proving that it is indeed feasible.

More in-depth web surfing on the subject brought up a host of opinions on how best to go about attaining that first step, with many of those being contradictory. But some approach has to eventually be taken, and my current plan for the next fortnight or so is:
  • Eat less (50%-70% of the usual)
  • No snacking right before bed
  • Drinking much more water (helps against hunger)
  • Light weights work/strength training every other day
  • Running/jogging at around 70-80% maximum heart rate for 45 minutes to an hour each day (how to determine the heart rate? more on this next time...)
And that's it. Of course, there are some possible objections, such as there being insufficient rest time, but then the focus at this stage is purely fat loss without ridiculous muscle loss; even if it doesn't work, that's just two weeks and some effort expended. Gogogo!


Not A Resolution About Attitude

"If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart,
if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain."
- Winston Churchill, who was anything but moderate


This is almost certainly the toughest of the three, since it entails shifting one's worldview. In two words, the changes I wish to embrace are positivity and hope.

Once, when I was back in primary school, I was a talkative and extroverted character (seriously!). Since then, I have indisputably become more cynical and withdrawn, for better or worse. I put it down to being too introspective, which unfortunately has promoted a negative vibe - better sad than incorrect, no? I'm not sure any longer.

On the second point: 随便, i.e. whatever, has been my favoured approach to life for some time. No need to push too hard - it doesn't matter - okay can already - if it comes, it comes, otherwise never mind - I don't need so much - let everybody be happy.

It turns out that such an attitude does not promote lasting happiness, if such a thing exists; contentment, maybe, for a while, before a nagging disquiet begins to crank up in the subconscious. Humans do seem to get acclimatized to happiness levels quickly. That is not to say that achieving and winning does, either, but it would at least be a change.

And: "...no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one." - George Bernard Shaw. What is happiness, anyway? Do I need it?

What's the point? Maybe there is no point. Maybe it all doesn't matter. But I am now a bit too bored, and tired of being bored. I may be true that limiting worldly desire is the way, as propounded by many religions, but I figure I'm still too young and unready for this. I have honestly (I think) tried to look for some answers, but did not find them. Perhaps later in life.

It may be stupid, but I'm going to start chasing again. Frankly, I can only recall getting a satisfying high from physical exertion several times - a couple from when I was still dragonboating like eight years ago, and again during the period when there were long runs twice a week back in the army, when somehow I just felt like keeping ahead of a random guy who was chasing me down, although there was absolutely no need to. Ditto for effort in other areas, even if it's not quite the same feeling.

Here goes. Let's see how long it lasts.

CHIONG AH! GOGOGO!


And Other Stuff

On New Year's Day, the ratio of people who appear on both MSN and Facebook Chat to people who appear on Facebook Chat only appears to diminish. More data is required on other holidays to test this hypothesis.

Next, the alleged hit and run incident by a Romanian diplomat. In brief, their embassy car ploughed into a few people, killing one, before zooming off and getting abandoned, with its loss reported only after the accidents. The charge d'affaires, Dr Silviu Ionescu, quickly returned to Romania for diabetes treatment, with witnesses describing a man of his appearance engaged in suspicious behaviour coming out of the woodwork.

All in all, I suspect that there was sufficient circumstantial evidence to hold Dr Ionescu to help in investigations, if he did not have diplomatic immunity, which basically means he can get away with virtually any offence, since Singapore has no legal right to try or even detain him.

This is not quite as lousy a deal as it sounds, since it is a reciprocal arrangement protecting Singaporean diplomats overseas. As the good doctor is now back home, the expected response from the Romanian government would be to request that the Singaporean police cooperate in their internal investigations and deal with the case under the Romanian justice system, or waive his immunity and hand him back to the Singaporean authorities.

The actual response would be in all probability rather different. For whatever reason, the citizens of a country are usually reluctant to condemn their countrymen - the Flor Contemplacion case strained Singaporean-Phillipines relations even though she was likely guilty (and had even confessed), and quite a lot of Indonesians took Widjaja's side against his professor in the recent NTU stabbing incident; if the situation were reversed, I would guess that some Singaporeans would not be eager to hand one of our own back to Romania either.

While Dr Ionescu has said that he will return later in January, in which case I applaud his honourable act, hit-and-run incidents carry relatively low sentences of anywhere from a month to perhaps a year or so anyway, and it is not impossible that some discreet and completely casual discussion between the relevant authorities may be taking place on the proper and mutually beneficial length of the sentence and possible medical exemptions in a similar case, an idle contemplation which of course has no bearing whatsoever on Dr Ionescu's predicament.

Alternatively, Dr Ionescu might for some reason or another become uncontactable, in which case I suppose the government can send a very strongly-worded missive to the Romanians and perhaps expel the few remaining staff members from their embassy, to which they would almost certainly do the same to the Singaporean ambassador in the usual tit-for-tat, and the case will be considered closed after the niceties, since neither country can do much to the other due to the lack of ties and dependencies.

An online petition calling upon the Romanian government to do the right thing has been set up, though I doubt it will have any impact on the decision taken. More interestingly, the first name on the petition is that of a professor I just took a module under (no idea if it's indeed him, however), and another of my old lecturers (probably Romanian) got on Page Four of the Sunday Times thanks to the case.

For the record, I didn't sign it because I felt that it would be a complete waste of time as almost all online petitions are, but it might be argued that some statement of intent is better than nothing. Not enough for me, still.

Tangentially, this led me to recall something I had read on diplomats blatantly disregarding parking rules and the resulting fines, since although they could legally be ticketed, the punishment could not be practically enforced. A quick search found a research paper, Cultures of Corruption: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets.

It turns out that we can be pretty proud of our representatives - Singapore's six New York-based diplomats chalked up just 3.5 unpaid violations per diplomat, and Romania coincidentally had exactly the same record! Fifty-three of the 146 nations were even better, however, with 22 having perfect records, among them the UK, Japan and Canada (Malaysia has just 1.4). Worst of all was surprisingly oil-rich Kuwait, with over 246 unpaid violations per diplomat.

More on Avatar, as posted on Facebook by psw: it reads like a complete ripoff of Pocahontas, except for the "resolve their differences" part.

Finally, Woods can't get a break, with peter's shaved pet dog humping his tiger soft toy during the JC class gathering at his place. Poor guy.



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Friday, Jan 01, 2010 - 22:56 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Twenty Ten Years Also Not Scared


In which Mr. Ham celebrates the New Year with his present




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