just nate – code is poetry, life is code

In the conversations below, I am zm1th.

naked

zm1th: currently coding naked, can see my breath and I am not cold. All my clothes are in the laundry

dandorman: @zm1th Hmmm. I am going to have to find a way to filter tweets containing the word “naked.”

zm1th: @dandorman it is my natural state. And yours. But I’ll try not to mention it too often.

kittygutz: @zm1th Heh. Your avatar appeared in my head… nude.

zm1th: @kittygutz um. This is an awkward twitter moment. But no, the avatar stays.

I included the naked conversation because I thought it was funny.

7

eliteeternity: About to watch Seven Pounds. Is it worth it?

zm1th: @eliteeternity Not worth it, if you value life on this earth. It is the portrayal of an impossible moral code made heroic.

eliteeternity: @zm1th hmmmmmmmm….I shall watch it.

zm1th: If you would not give your life for a stranger, why treat as a hero he who would?

zm1th: If you would give your life for a stranger, what is the moral basis for your decision? How does it supersede its brother, suicide?

zm1th: “The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.” -Ayn …all I can’t understand is the why!

dandorman: @eliteeternity Yeah, it’s worth watching. @zm1th’s points are well taken, but don’t directly apply.

eliteeternity: Crying in movies FTW! Seven Pounds was an excellent film. @zm1th @Jordanbrown @dandorman

eliteeternity: @Jordanbrown Definitely see Seven Pounds, man. Business is alright dude. Could be better, could definitely be worse. For you?

I included the conversation about seven pounds because I think it’s important.

I’m listening to Richard Dawkins’s “The God Delusion.” I transcribed the following from my listening.

There is nothing special about the moment when an old man dies. The child that he once was died long ago, not by suddenly ceasing to exist, but by growing up. Each of Shakespeare’s seven ages of man dies by slowly morphing into the next. From this point of view, the moment when the old man finally expires is no different from the slow deaths throughout his life.

Mark Twain’s dismissal of the fear of death: I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

Robust intellects may be ready for the strong meat of Bertram Russel’s declaration in his 1925 essay, “What I believe”: I believe that when I die, I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young, and I love life, but I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is none the less true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they’re not everlasting. Many a man has born himself proudly on the scaffolding. Surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man’s place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy, indoor warmth of traditional, humanizing myths, in the end, the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own.

There is more than just grandeur in this view of life, bleak and cold though it can seem from under the security blanket of ignorance. There is deep refreshment to be had from standing up and facing straight into the strong keen wind of understanding.

I’ll probably have to write more about this book some other day, but this short section really just hit the nail on the head.

On April 5, 2009, as a part of the LDS General Conference which I referenced in my last post, Elder Neil L. Andersen, a newly ordained member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the LDS church, spoke in the Sunday morning session in his first address as an apostle.

Before I say any more about this, let me first explain a little bit to you about the LDS church. The church was founded by a young man named Joseph Smith. Joseph had been seeking truth, and claimed that in his search he had received a vision of God the Father and the risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Joseph says that Jesus told him none of the churches on the earth at the time were true, and he (Joseph) become a prophet and the Lord’s instrument for the true church’s “restoration” to the earth. Following in that vein, the church has since had a prophet and twelve apostles. The church claims that the main calling of an apostle is to stand as a “special witness of Christ.” Digging deeper, one comes to understand that what this actually means is that the church claims that the apostles are like the apostles of old: they can be a witness of Christ because they have actually seen him and actually spoken with him face to face.

I do not mean to question the sincerity of these men. My purpose is to analyze what they said and see if it is in keeping with reason.

From Elder Andersen’s address (I am transcribing from a video [see it - he spoke Sunday AM] of the proceedings, any transcription errors are my own):

Just after my call as a general authority sixteen years ago, in a stake conference where I accompanied President Packer, he said something I have not forgotten. As he addressed the congregation, he said: “I know who I am.” Then after a pause he added, “I’m a nobody.” He then turned to me, sitting on the stand behind him, and he said, “and Brother Andersen, you are a nobody, too.” Then he added these words: “If you ever forget it, the Lord will remind you of it instantly, and it won’t be pleasant.”

These are stunning words. I can’t believe they came from a man who claims to be inspirational and enlightened. They reek of a barbaric, ugly, medieval thinking. It seems to me that any intelligent person, on reading these words, should feel a strong sense of indignation and outrage.

From my last post you should be able to tell that I had no plans to watch conference. However, a friend of mine was watching conference with his family, and was sending me occasional texts about what he was hearing, and so I went back to see parts of it that I had missed. When I met with this and other mystical, revolting concepts, I was surprised to know that so many of my peers and family members are so very taken with such an egregious doctrine. I was even more surprised to know that I once was caught in the trap myself.

Some of my close associates at work were talking about conference on Monday morning, only 24 hours after these pernicious words had been delivered to the world for mass consumption. And, to my surprise, they were talking about this exact talk – and praising Elder Andersen for his humility and wisdom. I told them that I am a “somebody” and that nothing any of them ever says will ever make me believe that I am a nobody. That certainly didn’t stop them from trying!

“When you’re out in the middle of the ocean, doesn’t it make you feel small and insignificant?” I was asked. Of course not! It makes me feel triumphant. It makes me rejoice in the power of a man’s mind. Man, who has not evolved to exist at sea, can exist at sea nonetheless, by reason of his mind. “My son could pull out a small weed, but I could pull out an entire tree. Don’t you think that, by comparison, my son is nothing?” No! I think it is amazing that man can build a machine that can carry hundreds of trees and create wooden planks out of them to build our houses. I think that the age of brute force work is ending, all because of man’s capacity of thought. This surely doesn’t say to me that man is nothing, that I am a nobody, or anything of the sort. “In the scope of the entire galaxy, compared to all that space, and all the stuff we don’t even know about yet, don’t you think it makes man look pretty insignificant?” No, no, no, NO. It makes each one of us so much MORE significant and so much MORE of a somebody. We haven’t yet found any life as intelligent as we. Every human life is incredibly precious. The faculty of the human brain is astounding! Look around you! Look at your world and tell me I’m insignificant. I don’t believe it. Look at the formless void of space through my eyes, and you will not see an engulfing, dark abyss. You will see potential, development, prosperity, and the future. “God can move a mountain just by thinking about it. Don’t you think that by comparison to God we are all nothing?” First, prove that God can do that. Second, if you want to see how to move mountains, do some research on the Kennecott copper mine. Third, LDS doctrine states that we are supposed to become like God. If I am to be a god, when do I stop believing I’m a “nobody” and start to be “significant” like God? Or is God also a nobody? What did God do that is so great, according to you guys? Well, create the earth, create us, and put us on the earth. It’s an argument in my favor. Man creates and innovates, just like your God.

I am not a nobody. If you really believe that you are a nobody, well, I guess that probably makes it true.

“You’ve never felt how small you were when looking at the ocean.”
“Never. Nor looking at the planets. Nor at mountain peaks. Nor at the Grand Canyon. Why should I? When I look at the ocean, I feel the greatness of man. I think of man’s magnificent capacity that created this ship to conquer all that senseless space. When I look at mountain peaks, I think of tunnels and dynamite. When I look at the planets, I think of airplanes.” -Gail Wynand speaking to Dominique Francon in The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, written before the space program had been created.

“It’s interesting to speculate on the reasons that make men so anxious to debase themselves. As in that idea of feeling small before nature. It’s not a bromide, it’s practically an institution. Have you noticed how self-righteous a man sounds when he tells you about it? Look, he seems to say, I’m so glad to be a pygmy, that’s how virtuous I am. Have you heard with what delight people quote some great celebrity who’s proclaimed that he’s not so great when he looks at Niagara Falls? It’s as if they were smacking their lips in sheer glee that their best is dust before the brute force of an earthquake. As if they were sprawling on all fours, rubbing their foreheads in the mud to the majesty of a hurricane. But that’s not the spirit that leashed fire, steam, electricity, that crossed oceans in sailing sloops, that built airplanes and dams . . . and skyscrapers. What is it they fear? What is it they hate so much, those who love to crawl? And why?”

This weekend in my home town of Salt Lake City, Utah, a bi-annual curiosity known as general conference is taking place on its scheduled day, just as it has with few exceptions since the first time in New York, 1830.

General conference is a time for the LDS church to gather, sing, worship, and listen to guidance from church leaders. There are live streams on the internet, and it is a televised event. It’s also on the radio, and you can buy DVDs and audio CDs of the proceedings afterward.

The LDS church has constructed a giant, 21,000-seat auditorium known as the conference center, complete with a fancy organ and state-of-the-art audio, video, recording, and broadcasting equipment. It is the scene of a great deal of controversy every April and October when conference happens: people with anti-church signs, people shouting, and the massive body of “saints” (this is the way members of the church identify themselves) streaming in and out of five two-hour sessions spanning Saturday and Sunday.

I grew up in the LDS church. It was a great social framework, and most of the values taught therein are still a part of my life today. However, as I moved into adulthood, science, logic, reason, math, physics, and overall rationality have become my guides. I won’t go into too much detail about the reasons I left the church, or my personal moral code. It is sufficient to say that I believe that faith is the enemy of reason, and that, from an epistemological perspective, reason must be my only absolute.

And now to the purpose of this post. I have received several invitations, all cordial, from friends and family who are aware of my “fallen” and “wayward” state, to join them in their homes and watch a session of conference with them. I have thanked them and politely declined. Generally, that is sufficient. However, there is a militant subset of people who will not take “no” for an answer. They are on a mission to bring me back into the fold.

Sometimes they make an appeal to logic, which is commendable. They seem to understand that faith has never held much sway for me. However, the arguments they make are hardly founded in logic, and I think they are an interesting perspective into the patterns of thought inherent in religious abstractions. Since they are very bad at listening to my responses (mostly because of a lifetime of being conditioned to think in a way that is in direct contradiction to logic) I feel compelled to write them down and express them to the void we call “internet.”

• But don’t you remember how the church helped you when you were in it? Don’t you remember feeling inspired and happy?

  You’re going to make me admit that I was wrong then, or that I am wrong now. You know that I don’t like to admit that I was wrong, and that I make it a point to be “right” as often as possible. Well, I freely admit that I was wrong then. However, I think that being born into a family, a neighborhood, a culture, and in my case an entire state that has completely hegemonized a set of ideologies into a dogmatic compound with a very thick hide is a form of mental slavery. That’s right folks, I am calling child brainwashing mental slavery.

  Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
  -C.S. Lewis

  Yes, I quoted a great Christian writer to prove my point. But back to the discussion, if a child is born into slavery, who is to blame? The child, or its parents? Or the community? However, if a person figures out a way to escape slavery, I think that’s an admirable feat. More to the point of your actual question, the answer is yes. I do remember feeling inspired, happy, and included. I remember really liking it. Just because something helps you does not make it right though! Think about those mystical “paranormals” who pretend to be talking to your dead husband or whatever. Those guys are known charlatans! They’re just using little tricks to fool you into believing that they’re talking with your deceased friends. But it could make you feel very good to hear your loved ones say that everything is alright, even though it’s fake. Do you prefer that sort of ignorant inanity to concrete, scientific, deductive, discrete, reasonable epistemology?

• By saying that logic and reason are guiding you away from the church, you’re putting yourself on a higher plane of intelligence than all the people who are in the church. Professors, businessman, engineers, and your family are all included.

  So what? Do you really think that matters when we’re talking about objective truth?

  When you think of religion as a moral and intellectual slavery, what’s really happening is that I am just more free than they. I don’t doubt their convictions; indeed, I felt such great conviction that I gave away two years of my young life “enslaving” many Guatemalans into the LDS church (smirk). However, putting aside the fact that I am inherently on a different plane than anyone in any church only because I am free to use my brain, let us examine the actual nature of your assertion.

  Assume that I take your statement literally. I always do anyway. You are suggesting that, if the 12 or 13 million members of your church are all of one mind about some topic, and I alone disagree, I am at once insulting the mass of them with the insolent use of my brain. Are you then saying that Copernicus, in proposing a heliocentric model, was insulting the entire world and the hordes of scientists before him who believed in a geocentric universe? I say that Copernicus was lifting all the men around him, and continuing forward in the attitude of brilliance and scientific discovery that earlier scientists possessed. If you are asking me to step down out of deference to all those other people who believe differently, I will call you by your true name: liar, mystic, witch-doctor.

  Besides, the entire argument is outside of the scope of reason. If I agree with the masses, assuming they are right because of their numbers, I am giving away my logic. In fact, if I blindly agree with any other person for any reason other than logic, in that moment my personal epistemology has reverted to that of a caveman. The unabashed truth is that I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks. I don’t care at all if the whole world thinks I’m wrong. If you want to call that putting myself on a higher intellectual plane, aren’t you admitting that yours is the lower one?

• I know the church is true. I have a God-given conviction of it.

  That’s nice.

  Look, don’t you think I could say the same thing? I have a God-given conviction that you should give me money? [wait a second, where the hell is Billy Graham when I need him?] A higher power has told me that the earth really is flat? I can’t really say why, but I just believe, deep down in my soul, that 2 + 2 = 5 ?

  Just imagine if scientists used this argument. Would you take seriously any scientist who said he had a mystical conviction as his proof? Can you solve a math problem with this sort of conviction? I can promise you that I would not drive over any bridge or step foot inside any building built on such assumptions.

• I am worried for your immortal soul. I’m worried that you won’t be with us in the celestial kingdom. We really love you and we want you to be with us in heaven.

  Look, if I die and find out you were right all along, I’ll be very excited and very happy. I would love to sit down with God and let him explain how the universe works. God is the master physicist.

  Also, assuming I die and find out you were right, do you really think God can condemn me for following the path of reason rather than the path of mysticism? That’s how God does things!!! God never operates by faith. It’s impossible to have faith when you’re omnipotent. If, as the LDS church teaches, our purpose is to some day become gods ourselves, in the true image of our Father, don’t you think we’re going to have to learn to make an appeal to reason at some point? To an earlier question, don’t you think that God acts based on his own reasoning mind rather than caring what anyone else says?

  If your God would condemn me for following the fullest form of truth that I could find, I don’t think I want any part with him anyway. And neither should you.

• But why not just listen? You’re shutting yourself off to another perspective. What if there is more truth for you there?

  Actually, I know as much about LDS doctrine as anyone else. I’ve read all the books, I’ve listened to the leaders. I get it, seriously. I can quote scriptures until I’m blue in the face, in English or Spanish, with word-for-word accuracy.

  I can offer counterpoints to most of those scriptures, too. And as for the rest (the scriptures for which no counterpart is needed), they only vindicate my position.

  Why don’t they teach the geocentric model in school? Why don’t they tell you the earth is flat? Faith was a good stepping stone, but I’ve graduated from your antiquated mystical notions. I am ready to move on, yes, into a much much higher plane than any faith-based epistemology can offer. I’m not looking back. There’s no time to look back.

• What about basic human intuition? What about scientists who make quantum leaps in ideas and in developing knowledge, who form hunches long before there is mathematical proof for them?

  It doesn’t always happen that way. Sometimes hunches are dead wrong.

  But, I agree. There is a place for human intuition. I have nothing against it. My only disclaimer is that human intuition, which is almost impossible to define and has no real rational foundation, can never preempt logic. If you are fully sure, rationally, about some point which is supposedly disproved by some intuitive conjecture, discard the intuitive conjecture and cling to reason if you value your life.

There is a whole lot more I could say, but I really need to stop typing and move on with my day.

I have never tried to convince any of you of my position. I have never called you to invite you to some sort of reason convention. Those of us who base our lives on reason don’t need to meet together every week and remind ourselves of what we believe in. But if we did have “knowledge fairs” like churches have weekly gatherings, I would not call you every month to invite you to one. I respect your right to believe whatever concept you want. However, I maintain that just because you’re allowed to have an opinion does not make that opinion right and does not mean I agree with it. As far as I can tell, it is not, and I do not.

If you hate email half as much as I, why are we all still sending emails to eachother? What gives?

I have many email accounts. I mean, LOTS. Like, maybe 50. They all forward or redirect into 5 addresses: two gmail addresses, a school address, and a yahoo address, and my work address. Between those 5 addresses, I currently have 1029 unread messages.

Not reading a message someone sent me several months ago is akin to just deleting it, but I have 1029 messages that I have never bothered to open. I get as many as 100 new messages per day!

Email has its place: collaboration, receipts, and the like. It’s a nice way to send a file out to a few people, and not allow the rest of the world to see it. Web clients like gmail even provide a cool way to real-time chat. But I am standing tall and proud on my soapbox declaring that we don’t need email for all the stuff we use it for.

You’ve got facebook, twitter, and (yuck) myspace for personal connections with friends, updates from companies, and even updates from online communities (like opensource communities, for example).

You’ve got yammer and google docs for collaboration. And don’t forget svn.

There are lots of other online apps that can replace various functions of email. All I’m saying is “COME ON PEOPLE!!! STOP SENDING ME EMAILS.” Is that so hard to understand?

p.s. I think voicemail is super crappy too. FYI.

Axiom number one: I believe in webcomics.

Axiom number two: not all webcomics are created equal.

Axiom number three: if you are unable to distinguish between a good webcomic and a bad one, you may be a troll, a moron, a communist, a leech, a teenager with a learning disability, or any combination of the above.

Here are my top five web comics.

• Dinosaur Comics – I love this comic because it is a good reflection of my internal conversations.
• xkcd – math, code, romance, science, and life all wrapped up in stick-figure goodness
• Dresden Codak – besides the obvious (that I am in love with Kimiko), this is an incredibly drawn comic with wonderful and constant references to philosophy, physics, transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and lots of other interesting stuff. Supreme!
• Toothpaste for Dinner – Ohio. What more do I need to say?
• indexed – I like the style of this daily math-based (and usually corny) “comic”

Your favorite webcomic didn’t make my list? Add a comment, my list is willing to grow.

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