Key points on Religion

Here I hope to outline some basic arguments against the existence of an all powerful God, in particular, the mono-theistic Abrahamic religions. However, some arguments can be generalised

• Simplicity: we don't NEED a sentient uncreated creator. Currently we have no mechanism to explain how the universe started, however, that only means we need to invent the axiom "The universe was started by something". That doesn't mean we need the something, to take a sentient form, that merely poses more questions.
• Multiplicity: The number of religions means that one cannot simply be picked based on faith. They need to be tested and the decision needs to be based on evidence, just like everything else. Furthermore people who never get to hear about religion x because of religion y are at a disadvantage in religion x and at an unfair advantage in religion y.
• Justice: Infinite punishment for finite sin seems fundamentally unfair. God loves everyone, cares for his creation and it can be argued punishment can be for the purpose of discipline. Then why punish people for eternity, it serves no purpose.
• Inconsistently: most religious books contain inconsistencies in various different forms
• Evidence: many scholars would agree that many important bible characters and events did not exist or happen.
• Morality: religious books give moral guidance which is at odds with modern thinking (homosexuality, slavery, womens rights etc) If God is timeless and ultimately just, why didn't he for example tell the Jew's not to persecute homosexuals? We know and agree that the are right now, surely God would know that too. Furthermore, it is not just that he didn't tell them about these morals, he directly made statements opposed to them. To use an example: we would never contemplate stoning people for homosexuality in the civilised world, and you would be hard pressed without going back a few hundred years to find someone who would agree. Also, why allow homosexuals to be born? I understand the idea of a fallen creation, but to allow people to be born who's most powerful drive is fundamentally "evil" is nothing short of malevolent.
• The structures of religion appear not elegant and simple as would be expected from a being with ultimate creativity and computation, but overly complex and man made.
• God controls the rules, so why doom us by knowingly making them stringent? He could simply have not made those rules and saved everyone.
• Res ipsa loquitur: is an idea that irrespective of any evidence, someone can be guilty of negligence if he has a duty of care and failed. In this case and all powerful God has a duty of care toward us, and therefore guilty of not stopping sin and suffering. This contradicts either his perfection or power/existence.
• Divine hiddeness: why does god hide himself, it seems malevolent to do so. By providing evidence of himself it would allow people to properly decide whether or not to follow him. 
• There is nothing inherently righteous or moral about blind faith, in fact quite to the contrary.
• Our reason for creation seems narcissistic and proud

If you have any interesting additions/rebuttals, I encourage you to comment.

A few good quotes

 "This is an interesting world I find myself in—an interesting hole I find myself in—fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!"

 "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"
Douglas Adams

Where do I begin?

The question of who the burden of truth rests on is an important question. Humans often reach a conclusion then fill in the evidence, giving slant to the evidence so as to to align it with the conclusion. Religion actively encourages this behaviour, promoting faith and trust before evidence is received. This is a fundamentally flawed concept.

So where do I begin? As a Christian? As an atheist? As a Muslim? How about a Buddhist? Each have an equal right to claim me, and have my journey start there. However, as does any belief system you can conjure up, a Russell's teapot argument if you will. Furthermore, the potentially contradictory belief systems imply I can't satisfy all at once. So it cannot be a startpoint of belief then, it must be disbelief, disbelief in everything. It is 0: the null vector in the many dimensional space that is religion and belief. From here I can properly explore the space of belief, with evidence and logic.

Religion and Fiction

I regularly find myself engrossed in a novel, where strange worlds and exciting lives keep me entertained. Time goes at massively accelerated speeds and there's always an overarching feeling that either things are going to end happily ever after or I'll walk away from the book having had an adventure myself. The world of a novel is written by humans, for humans, to entertain and at the same time convey part of the belief system of the writer in a sort of proof by example. Communication coupled with the ability to convey a fictional story is a powerful and ancient tool, and is truly one of the most beautiful aspects of humanity. However much we would like to live many lives, we can't, but in our heads we can experience as much and as fanciful worlds as we or someone else can imagine.

And what a striking parallel we can draw with religion. All evidence would suggest we are unremarkable, but complex and beautiful pieces of machinery rotating an unremarkable sun in a normal galaxy. However, religion postulates that we are important and central. That there is something special about humans and something more out there, if not true it is certainly fanciful. Furthermore, the afterlife offers a kind of novel type experience, where our true selves will live on in happiness forever. The kind of doublethink which, if correctly applied can give us the same feeling that we are simply reading a novel. It appears to form the same structure as human written fiction. A good friend used to joke that eventually people might believe Harry Potter to be a factual account of reality, and I don't think he is far wrong.

Perhaps then religion is a more remarkable invention, a fiction so rich and fanciful that is can be believed, shielding us from the harsh realities of this cold nothingness.  

John Cleese on Creativity

It's Alive!

An unassuming packet arrived at my door this morning, I had been waiting for it, not knowing what it was. It was a mystery present apparently, from my family back home. Opening it up, my suspicions were correct, it was the best flavour Pi comes in. Who knew that the love-child of a mathematical constant and a rather tasty berry would get me so excited? Anyway, this low powered, credit card sized and unassuming board will hopefully propel me to Maurice Moss level 9001. My lofty goal aside, the Raspberry Pi is a cool but almost useless piece of equipment. It's value is not in its ability to chomp through numbers or rearrange files but in its ability to polarise a group of people and inspire them to do something. If Steve Jobs taught us anything its that selling a piece of fruit is easier than selling a FG8950HD-lt. Get the mix right and you have a grass-roots project that snowballs into a great success. The purpose of the raspberry pi is not to be objectively good (although it is for its price), it's to be something that is interesting for anyone, stimulates curiosity and in some circles at least, be cool.

I digress, the Raspberry Pi did get me excited like a small child, as I hunted around for the right keyboard and hdmi lead. The reality is that its a slow computer with a tiny SD card, in my head though, its a Pandora's box of nerdy things to do. Here's a few:

• Turn it into a web server
• Run Quake 3
• Run Quake 3 in a LAN with other similarly nerdy friends
• Turn it into a sensor station
• Turn it into a sensor station with an ability to interact with things (like turn on my radiator remotely)
• Turn it into a sensor station with a full artificial intelligence then put it outside to get struck by lightning and become self aware, calling itself Jonny 5 and going on many adventures with its socially inept master/friend. 

Sorry got a little carried away there... (although I think that's the point)

The Reluctant Atheist

What do you think of when I say Christian? If you're from America you will probably imagine a bigoted and hypocritical person from the bible belt. If you're from the UK you'll probably imagine an old, stuffy and irrelevant vicar, a dying breed because only our grannies go to church now. But that's not the whole picture. I come from a Christian family, active Christians, the ones that are a bit funny: always talking about being born again and how they have a personal relationship with Jesus. You'd be quick to mock, but that would be unwise because they have it good. My personal experience of Christianity is good, while I believed, it was great. I felt truly complete, content and often euphoric. I felt security, it was truly comforting. Here I wish to outline the reasons why it is so great and why I wish I had never doubted.

Key to Christianity is doublethink, not quite as Orwell described it but as with most religions Christianity is vastly complex. It is filled with grey areas and vague answers. This sounds like it should be detrimental but it is most certainly not. There's an answer for every question and situation, that although may not stand up to complete logical scrutiny, does allow people a large degree of freedom. Contradictory statements and ideas tend only to help this, as several opinions about an issue can be held simultaneously. The amount of content in the bible means it is difficult to use all of it as material at the same time to extract ideas which work completely and conclusively. Understanding the entire standard model is easier than creating a belief system from such a large and vague book. The standard model is essentially quite simple, a few particles interacting in elegant ways, can explain even complex phenomenom by having lots of the such simple particles intereacting. Religious books (ie the bible) have many ideas with unclear logic linking them. For example there is no universal law of morality starting at a few axioms, its a list of many special cases drawn from situations. Pair this with metaphorical language and you have a flexible uncertain ideology that is always correct. I will explore a few.

Humans like safety, and Christianity has a solution. A big all powerful God, who can be seen as both a father and a friend provides all the security you need. If you truly believed that there was a giant robot behind you at all times you would be fearless. Likewise a strong belief in an all powerful friendly deity who is interested in you gives you an ability to be not only unafraid but empowered. At the same time the fact that an all powerful deity thinks you are special does amazing things for self-worth and I don't think I need to explain the importance of that. Almost conversely it can be argued that the father figure God likes to test and discipline you, while still looking out for your best interests. This also gives a sense of security and happiness even at the worst of times. Without the second idea, doubt would creep in when the all powerful deity fails to protect. With it though when times are bad you can feel confident and optimistic, which will in turn give you the best chance out of the problem. But this is still not complete enough, when something really horrible happens it is hard to see it as just a test. However, comfort can be drawn from the idea that God has a large overarching plan which is beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. It is therefore impossible to say whether an action is good or bad, as it was God's plan, and could lead to a greater good. With enough of the all important faith in God one can still be happy, to quote a hymn:

"Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul."

The God of the old testament is a vengeful and angry God, demanding purity and utmost holiness. God has not changed and therefore the Christian faith is still built on these principles. Striving for these good works whether in fear or love for God releases endorphins, an effect which is recognised by psychologists and philanthropists alike. In general, socially positive actions (being patient, kind etc) also provides people with happier and more stable relationships and therefore lives. However, the high level of purity required is impossible as we all make mistakes. Therefore the grace and mercy of Jesus allows us to discount these actions. although not without a price; the idea of adding sin to Jesus' burden provides an adequate punishment to deter future bad actions. Also the idea that the holy God is watching you and judges you provides a semi-tangible punishment by amplifying guilt.

As I have mentioned general altruism is rewarded in our mind (evolution favoured the socially able groups), however Christianity goes further, cementing the idea in peoples minds "do to others what you would have them do to you". This stops people thinking about how to be a minimum level of "niceness" or how to appear nice to people that matter. As I have stated before in "fallacy of your own way", often it is better for ourselves to do the will of others. However, it doesn't always feel that way, so doublethink rears again it's surprisingly helpful head. In the beatitudes Jesus extols those who are persecuted in Jesus name, along with several other verses, this allows people not to become bitter about wrong done to themselves, even when they themselves see it as unfair. It can even allow people to feel encouraged when someone wrongs them, after all those who are persecuted will be rewarded.

In addition to this, the absolute Christian morality is, although to unbelievers is seen as restrictive and no fun, actually provide a positive framework. One such example is the idea of not judging. Matthew 7:1 says do not judge (pass sentence) on others. I'm sure many people can identify with me that judgement is one of the main causes of human conflict. In some circle of friends I see gossiping and backbiting as routine, which causes conflict on a regular basis and is in general just a negative view. It goes on to say do not tear down or diminish, instead to build up and encourage. Although this does not always work, it is a route to happiness. People in general like kind people. Even the coldest and harshest people can find it hard to be consciously unkind to those who would just repay it with good.

One really important aspect of happiness is purpose, to feel like we achieve important things is a powerful idea. Admittedly I find myself lacking purpose, early on in secondary school I discovered that much of my depression was due to lack of purpose. Christianity provides it with the idea of another aspect of reality where things are eternal. Our actions will be forever remembered and actions that would otherwise be seen as pointless are given weight. For example, I find myself frequently questioning why I do anything, I will rearrange atoms and then one day lose consciousness. Leading to the inevitable depression. Not so with Christianity, our internal thoughts and by extension all our actions have meaning, humans and their feelings are sacred and therefore our interactions are important and worthwhile. This is a powerful idea which brings with it a content happiness.

“Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for.” ― Ambrose Bierce

The glue to Christianity is unsurprisingly faith. Faith is a funny thing, and the ability to trust someone that you do not see, hear or touch is truly powerful. Faith in God is routinely compared with believing in the wind, you see what it does but you never see the wind itself. This not only allows for double-think but for whatever-you-want-think, blind faith in a person means that they always get the benefit of the doubt. Once you start believing you can start to apply the Texan sharpshooter fallacy. "Moving the goalposts" or using post-hoc hypotheses to fit their data (or life experiences). Confirmation bias ensures that information is cherry picked, especially when events are ambiguous and vague. If the person has "stepped out in faith" then their faith is rewarded, further growing it. This is an example of a highly stable ideology.

As I have previously discussed, ideas or philosophies which require lower order will survive. Religions which reward people or require little effort will survive better as people will have no reason to leave and also be drawn to it. Therefore it seems easy to understand that in the freer parts of the world, a very nice religion would have survived well. Religion is not something we will evolve or grow out of, it IS our final stage of evolution. It's not even as if its something to complain about, with true Christianity you get highly functional groups of people who are happy and content. Real Christianity has the power to change nations for the better if the people really believe it. You can tell people all day every day to pay their taxes to help the poor and marginalised but how much more will you get from those who are not only reluctant givers but cheerful ones. You know it's a shame I can't evolve, I'd sure as hell rather be happy than correct.

PS. I'm not entirely sure of why I write this, partially it is to rationalise why I for so long believed it, because I wanted to. It is by no means to demean or to portray Christianity as a method of control, because its not. If anything Christianity can cause dissent when sacred morals are broken and can be a valuable safeguard. Furthermore religion tends to internalise, so even by manipulating Christian leadership, Christians would tend to stay as freethinkers. Certainly not any more susceptible to control than your average person.

Breaking Linearity

Recently I have begun playing the large social black hole known as world of warcraft. So far the reasons for its popularity have alluded me. As far as I can tell the three elements of traditional RPGs are story, combat and leveling. Together RPGs are both addictive and fun. Furthermore due to the amount of content, the experience is never over, as a result MMORPG players are some of the most hardcore you will ever meet. One such player I know has played wow for over 8,000 hours, that's an unreal amount of time. Likewise I was shocked to find out I'd spent about 2000 hours on Runescape. They are second lives, a lot of your waking hours are spent playing and when your not, your thinking about it.

In real life we can derive pleasure from achieving things. For example my current long term goal is go to uni and be an accomplished academic. In a game, an objective is invented and we strive to achieve it. Thinking about it, it sounds really stupid but while you're playing its tangible, the buzz from achieving aims is the same as real life. You might be quick to call it sad, but actually how arbitrary are my academic goals. Will they bring me happiness? Most definitely not intrinsically but the achievement itself will; how arbitrary is that? This isn't the only device however, adventure is a very strong aspect of RPGs in general. There's a similarly tangible buzz and excitement from discovering a new place or thing. Again, you may be quick to call it sad but how different is that to travelling the world. It's just innate human curiosity, which in a world where you have already invested so much, feels real.

It is however the aims of the game which are important, and their interestingness determines how easily you are drawn in. Think about a game where you press a button and a number goes up. It's not very exciting but you do have an aim, to get a high score, it's far too arbitrary and uninteresting. And this is why I struggle to see the allure of wow, ask any high level player: leveling and questing are merely devices to get to max level, where you will spent your time either PvPing or raiding for better gear. Despite all things just being pushing a button, the easier it is to see this, the harder it is to do the task with joy. Furthermore, there should also be tangible goals, for example, in the button pressing game, there could be something telling you that at 1000 presses, you can have a treat of an achievement (again arbitrary). Likewise the goal in wow is to have the best gear. However once achieved, the goal appears somewhat pointless. Which is how I come to the main point of this, what makes a good RPG? In my opinion its one where there is so much exploring, discovering, questing, leveling and gearing to do that you forget how arbitrary it all is and just play, enjoying yourself in a perfectly arbitrary way.

Binomial Politics

Let's imagine politics boiled down to yes or no answers or opinions to questions. Now the chance of a politician holding the same view as you would be simplistically 50%. Using my A level statistics (they said I never would) and imagining there is only 10 issues in politics (gross under exaggeration) the chance of any politician agreeing with everything we think is one over two to the power 10 or around 0.1%. Let's say there are 4 main parties that you should even bother voting for with our flawed system (over exaggeration) then the chances of finding a politician that agrees with you is extremely slim. This means compromise, let's say compromise on what you believe about small issues like abortion, capital punishment or opinions on marriage. I'm not sure of you agree but that strikes me as quite flawed, what's the point in a party? To do politics for you? I guess it is in a way but there's no need to leave all the power in their hands.
One solution is to allow people to vote on many issues in referendums. We have the tech for cheap and regular votes, why not use it? The benefits would be threefold. Firstly politicians would be reminded on a regular basis who's boss, everyone would be drawn to politics and compromises would be limited. I'd say I'm using my A level statistics to great effect.

Coolness, the selection of Social Evolution

Get a group of people, cut contact with the outside world and give them lives to lead and you would notice (among other things) several profound things about coolness. Firstly several people would vie for dominance, it would essentially be a democracy, people would give attention and think more highly of those they deem to be good. By good I mean the person to have the most and best admirable qualities. Perhaps they would be attractive, strong, witty, intelligent and confident. They would be the successful ones. Their behaviour, dress sense and lifestyle would become the local cool and therefore people would want to emulate them. This is social selection at its finest, judging which qualities make someone cool then encouraging and feeling the need to conform to it. The reason I say all this is an interesting (at least I think so) idea that society works like a giant computer. Each person and each interaction is like a decision, each one refining what it means to be cool. Weaning out uncool qualities in yourself and putting pressure on others to do the same is evolution in the social sphere.

First World Problems

Today I finished reading the last book in the Hunger Games Trilogy. It may not be considered a literary classic or particularly sophisticated but it most certainly raises some interesting questions. Something which struck me early on was the disgust I felt for the people of the capitol. For the first few chapters the book describes abject poverty and some amount of injustice. When Peeta and Katniss visit the capitol, their evaluations of the people of the capitol struck me as familiar. Whether intended or not the comparison is very easy to apply to our world. If you look at the graph of inequality in a previous post, it becomes obvious that its the same as the world we live in. Although not any more through military might but by economic, developing countries are suppressed  as the developed nations thrash around to stay at the top. Katniss frequently speaks as the capitol people as weak and with high standards of living. Reminding me only of the first world problems meme. We live in a pretty tame part of the world, using our iPhones from District 3 where that particular factory's suicide rate, although shockingly high, is considered average. Furthermore wearing our Primark clothes from district 8 and having stockpiles of food so huge, that it rots rather than feeding the needy. Worst of all, I feel impotent, it seems no action I can take will help. If you don't buy from developing countries you starve them of all income movement in selfish nationalism and if you do you are lining the pockets of frankly horrible multinational corporations. Even aid or Fairtrade is often seen as counter-productive, catching the poor in cycles of dependence. Perhaps that's the real and only First World Problem.

Am I my Brothers Keeper?

With the healthcare bill on course to be rejected in America, I can't help but see the majority of the American public as primitive and foolish. How ironic that Britain, the country that they shook off as oppressive and uncaring, would have a progressive and perfectly equal system of healthcare. I have absolutely no worries at all if I'm injured, there's no tiers of care depending on what you've paid and no worries of sorting out insurance documents. As a country we like to moan about the NHS but seriously, its a life saver. IT's literally something we take completely for granted, it has saved my life with surgery that there is no chance my parents would have been able to afford. How is one of the most advanced countries in the world struggling with this? A common argument is that people shouldn't be forced to have healthcare and contribute to healthcare for the poor. I'm not getting into the ins and outs of the actual bill and how it works but the consensus is that basically, rich Americans don't want to pay for the poor Americans to have life saving healthcare. But that's when my laughing stopped because we are no different...

Despite wide reaching and hugely successful results from the introduction of a welfare state, it still receives bad press. I know it isn't perfect but its hard to argue it isn't progress from the literally Dickensian days of the Victorian era, we still find it hugely satisfying to blame benefit cheats and "scroungers". We enjoy condemning the system without realising the horrible place it brought us from. To what degree are we willing to help the needy, especially those who don't want to be helped. Imagine overnight you lost your whole support structure, your family friends, your house and your job. What would you do? Quite probably sit on the street in a helpless and drunken stupor in utter desperation and sadness. Just as the "rich you" would walk past, condemning you as a hopeless scrounger who isn't helping themselves.

Gross Inequality

I'm a mathematician, as most people know in maths there are symbols called inequalities, these compare the values telling us which is larger. There's some more closely related symbols, I'm not sure what they are called but they mean simply "loads bigger" or "loads smaller", usually denoted like this ">>". To say the incomes of the developed nations is > the incomes of the developing nations, is not only obvious by definition but almost a gross crime. Even to use >> doesn't sum it up. Perhaps I'm just a naive mathematician but there's something wrong with that graph. The 60-95% range isn't even worth mentioning compared to the stark contrast in the 0% and 100% areas. Even those 4 dots don't do it justice, there are those who earn enough to punch a hole through your screen and through your ceiling. Perhaps a quote from Wikipedia will help.

"As of May 2005, the three richest people in the world have assets that exceed the combined gross domestic product of the 47 countries with the least GDP"

It was hypothesised that this would decrease, it was said in Victorian times that the gross inequality then would level out. But it hasn't, the trend is that it is increasing, as liquidity of money increases, the more inequality there is. I'm seriously not decrying the internet or Facebook, but when a random undergrad stumbles upon a $70Billion gold mind, you've got to start asking questions. I only have to own about £1500 and I'm in the top half of the asset owning game. That's peanuts. When we have enough why do we continue to need? What do we think we are going to gain? On a moment to moment basis we are driven by happiness, we want more because of the promise of happiness and yet we all know having more than enough gives us nothing of the sort. Why do we keep running on the treadmill? I say this as a runner, I find it impossible to denounce possessions even in the light of reason. What good would it achieve anyway? To have power and give it away without doing anything with it is irresponsible and needlessly self-righteous. If anyone's got any suggestions...

Step II

And so the first of my ordeals begin. I'm surprisingly chilled, although that's no indication of how I will be when I open the paper. Why does a maths paper threaten to illicit a responce which should probably be reserved to fighting large mythical beasts? It can in no way physically harm me and the outcome determines only which institution I study at. I'm not being sarcastic either, we attach massive prices and consequences to tests and other such assessments. It's like I'm telling myself that if I don't go to Cambridge I will be an utter failure. In reality if I get only a level 2 I'll go to Warwick. Terrible fate. If I fail that ill end up at rubbish unis like Manchester or imperial. Perhaps I should see step as an opportunity, very few people even get Cambridge offers. It's a great privilege to sit this paper. Yeah right...

Why do we want the world to end?

It wasn't long ago that the BBC had an article on their site about Zombies, and why we seem to love them. I'm an avid Left 4 Dead 2 player, and personally think it contends for the greatest game made ever (ever). But it's not just my fanatical fanboyish ways, there are myriads of films in various flavours about the apocolypse, even a plant induced apocalypse (Day of the Triffids). I also heard about a "Zombie experience" where one is locked in an abandoned shopping centre or creepy manor house and has to fight off hoards of zombies with airsoft guns. So we've gathered we love the idea of an apocalypse, Zombie or not. But why is it so enticing?

It's now more than ever, at the height of my A Levels, with the STEP papers casting a monstrous shadow over me I can understand why. Day to day we invest massive amounts of effort to achieve goals that appear useless. Our ultimate escape is to be rid of them, all worries and responsibilities. Everything we dislike about the way the world works would disappear "the system" as some extremely cool people like to say. It's a little in vain, an apocalypse would be a pain anyway. All those mindless people mooching about, would be a bit like the Internet...

The Fallacy of Investment

Imagine you have some money in a bank account, every year the amount doubles and you have a chance to take some out. The question is when should you ever take the money out? Every time you think to take it out, you would be much better to take it out next year, where you could take out that same amount and leave the same amount in it in. However, that half could have been doubled the next year, you could have only taken out a quarter and on and on. The answer to the paradox lies only in the practical applications, there is no general solution to it. When dealing with money the answer appears simple, you just take out what you need, when you need, bearing in mind that you will never need the stupid amount that appears after a long time. But is that really how it works?

A wonderful Northernism (A saying that southerners probably won't understand (don't worry England banter (Argh nested brackets, are they allowed?))) anyway I digress. I heard a Northernism that says, "There isn't any pockets in shrouds" basically, whatever the ancient Egyptians would have you believe, when you die, you leave your money on the mere mortal plane. Accumulating money is not an end, it shouldn't be a way of life. We shore up to enjoy tomorrow sacrificing today, not remembering that tomorrow never truly comes. Damn consumerism tricking us (Perhaps a rant about that later).

But the paradox comes up in other situations, I may sound cynical but perhaps education is one such paradox. I find myself sacrificing doing things with friends just so that i can pass my Cambridge Admissions test. When college is finished, who is going to make an effort to keep up with the boy that abandoned his friends for his work. Perhaps the answer to this is a balance, perhaps I sound disillusioned but the purpose of education is to enrich your life, not to doom yourself to a cycle of stress in the vain hope of self improvement. You can never set a point where you say, then I will enjoy life, that's when I will stop working so hard. You have to develop a mindset from the start which produces both self improvement and enjoyment. It's obvious I know but much harder to achieve. Tell me if you find it...

On a related note from the Dalai Lama,
“Man sacrifices his health in order to make money.
Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.
And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present;
the result being that he does not live in the present or the future;
he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Run or Walk in the Rain?

It's an age old question, the most obvious answer is to run, it makes sense that you spend less time in the rain therefore less time getting wet. However, there's always that one person, who likes to be different who suggests it's otherwise. If maths is ever going to be useful its here, its a problem of massive importance. Or at least it is to me.

Okay as with all models we shall make assumptions, first of all, humans are full of squiggly lines and strange shapes so lets just say out test dummy is just a cuboid with the rough dimensions of a human. Secondly rain is all psuedo-random and complicated but I can say with relative surety that in any given metre cubed at any time there is a constant amount of water (law of large numbers). As this is the case, its only a small leap to say that the water is continuous, like a mist of droplets. Also, journeys are all windey and complicated (humans are so awkward) so lets just say its a straight line, as any journey can be split up reasonably into a series of straight lines.

Are you siting comfortably with my assumptions? Then we shall begin. The main body of this problem lies with the fact that however fast you go, you will cut the same amount of water mist stuff. So actually the main body of the water that hits you is independant of speed. However this cuboid human is 3D, and the amount of water that hits his head is directly proportionate to the amount of time he spends in the rain (as it is falling straight down). So as far as this model goes, with rain that drops straight down, youll be slightly dryer if you run. Now when you factor in slanted rain...

Natural Selection of Patterns

This may have been done before, but a while ago I realied that natural selection is not just limited to the realms of nature. It twigged with me from the stability of free protons and neutrons. Why is our world made up primarily of protons? Purely because they are more stable, with a half life much longer than the age of the universe. And thats what it is, things survive because they are more stable. The system they are in favours them. And its not even limited to physical phenonom, its linked to philosophical ideas too. Democracy survives because it can cope with more entropy, a totalitarian dictatorship requires more order, it is by definition less stable, therefore is less prevalent.

We can think of these compared to simple systems of a closed nature. Imagine a box of particles. We can define patterns of the movement of these particles. We could then assess the predicted prevelance of such patterns based on how stable or how little entropy they require. Alternatively the prevelance of a pattern could be predicted by how general its definition is. For example particles spread out in a well defined and non random pattern will be rare. For physical systems it is easy to imagine as this is what these things are, protons and neutrons are a collection of quarks on which various forces act. Ideas and the prevelance of ideas are just the interaction between people and what they cause the people to do. Natural selection is just the prevelance of very complex patterns or atoms, in the form of a rabbit or a bacteria. The patterns are very prevelant as they are so complex they can roughly reproduce themselves.

Think of democracy, the particles in the system can fly around as they wish, with rulers and rules changing at the will of all the particles. Not only that but the definition is more broad too. A totalitarian government is one government and one cabinet. Democracy comes in the form of many different governments with varying styles. You can imagine democracy as a system that is energetic, changable but still by definition democracy. A dictator requires everyone to keep in line, like all the particles need to be nearly still or in a very ordered way. One small collision could cause the system to lose its required order. Therefore, democracies are much more stable.

Maybe someone has made the point before, I care little, but it is interesting none the less. Natural selection should be a physical/philosophical law, the prevelance of a pattern is related to its stability. It's pretty obvious when you put it like that, although I guess natural selection is too.

The Fallacy of Porn

As I have said before, humans are entirely motivated by pleasure and satisfaction. The porn industry is in the business of providing satisfaction for desire. Good sex is a complex cocktail of different pleasures. There is the initial drive for sex, this in itself rewards us for each step closer to the act. During sex there is the obvious endophines, climaxing in an orgasm. Then this fades to leave a temporary satisfaction, which is strengthened by a more lasting satisfaction from the partner. What i'm trying to say is that sex is a two person thing. And for a few reasons.

Firstly, without the partner, post coitus is a bit lonely. We can all identify with this. Its a bit of a letdown when we realise we are left alone when the satisfaction fades. Without the other person we miss a whole layer of pleasure, the pleasure of pleasuring others and feeling loved (security). This prolongs the amount of time we feel satisfied for, and makes the act much more worthwhile. Secondly, rarity value makes the sex have more worth. Cake wouldnt taste as good if we ate it every mealtime, the fact that we can't have sex whenever we want it makes us want it even more, and makes all the pleasure worthwhile. Furthermore, masterbation to porn tends to make us rush for our own goal. I'm no expert but I can bet the majority of premature ejacualation problems stem from the watching of pornography. Its almost a paradox but many would agree that in order to get the most pleasure out of sex is to concentrate on giving pleasure. Its the fallacy of porn and desire, in order to best satisfy ourselves, is to work to satisfy others.

Satisfaction

I have previously talked about happiness and how it is linked to pleasure (or lack of negative-pleasure) but not satisfaction. If I had to define satisfaction it would be a lengthened state of pleasure, almost a synonym for happiness. We know what can give us pleasure, and most of these are temporary and usually quite short lived. An orgasm for example or being told your great. More useful for long lived satisfaction is a correct mindset. Again I touched on this before but I feel this actually simplifies it. Different mindsets allow us to interpret the world differently. I personally dislike buses, whereas I know several children who love them. The only difference is how we interpret the evidence. If I associate buses with other great things or convince myself I get something good out of riding a bus, I begin to like it.

What prompted this thought was that I was thinking of the almost unparalled way that religion can make us feel great. It's a mixture of security (Gods got everything sorted) and self praise (aren't I good and humble and moral etc). Its something that until now I havent been able to figure out. My secular version of this is to think etherially. Life is meaningless and irrelevant (so I can do what I like) and im awesome (aren't I so clever and able to do anything). Maybe its immoral or naive, probably both, but I don't care... I'm happy.

Community Spirit

Having Seen a little bit of "Making Bradford British", I was really drawn to the sense of community that a mosque provides for local muslims. I thought a traditional english parallel maybe a church, but in the majority of areas this doesnt hold true, with attendance so low and catchment areas huge. Perhaps then a more modern equivalent is the pub. But even this doesn't ring true, the majority of pubs are filled with more elderly people, whereas the younger flock further a field to the bigger and brighter city centre nightlife. The only sense of community I have is my college, here I feel part of a vibrant, friendly group of people; I know a large proportion of them and really feel at home. I've not been on this planet for long, but I can tell you it's a nice feeling that shouldn't just be swept under the carpet. Of course, we have the feeling of belonging to a group of close friends but there is also the wider sense of community that is woefully lacking.

I barely know anyone on my street, I've certainly never done anything with them. It's perverse and naive but maybe there's something to be said for living in 4 metre square tin shacks; at least then I'd know my neighbours, perhaps a little too well...

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

We watch TV programs for different reasons. Some are gritty and realistic, some are factual and interesting and some are plain bonkers and entertaining. Dirk Gently fits very snugly in the last category. It is an hour of running around the place doing random things and causing chaos. Eventually the random things are given meaning, and it turns out Dirk was always right (ish). Viewed realistically, it makes no sense, Dirk is armed with little more than charisma, confidence and a bucket load of bullshit. The fact is, we want the bumbling fool to be right because he smiles at the camera and does endearingly random things. Realistically again he must be God, or just the luckiest man in the world. No one else by doing random things gets the right answer. This just makes it even more entertaining when he debunks horoscopes. Here's a man that believes so much in himself that he does whatever tickles his bizarre sense of logic, like Zen navigation (watch it, it's hilarious). It's silly, but ridiculously entertaining.

To laud more praise on it, Dirk (Stephen Mangan) is played  brilliantly. His idiosyncrasies are endearing, his behaviour erratic and charm spot on. I'm not sure whether it's the writer or the actor I should thank for these but either way, it's great. Furthermore, the whole tone of the program is very dapper and tweed.... quite English in fact. He reminds you of the eccentric and carefree teacher with the crappy car, even if you didn't have that teacher, you can still imagine him. All in all (holistically) it is brilliant, 5 out of 5.

2012 - Picking up the Pieces

I was just browsing the BBC website and it struck me what early 2012 will be remembered for. It's like a building has just fallen down, and in the rubble and debris is all the shortcuts, flaws and dirty secrets from the bosses desk. Firstly the leveson enquiry, a long drawn out affair, in which slowly but surely almost every paper and high ranking police officer is being shown to be unethical and immoral. Furthermore, people are beginning to see the massive bonuses that the executives have always paid themselves. The failings don't stop there. Structural problems and wasted debt shows us that actually, despite years of brilliant growth, the building of society was slowly being ebbed away by careless caretakers. 2011 was when it all fell, 2012 is when we have to face up to it and recognise what an almighty mess we are in.
It can only get better, I think...

Oxy Laundry Balls - Miracle or Myth?

Recently, my mother was given some oxy laundry balls. Link to product. This particular product is a rigid plastic ball with holes in it, inside are around 70 hard, rough 1 centimeter diameter balls.
It promises wonderful things, namely the ability to wash clothes without soap, using just this reusable ball. I was initially dubious about these claims, after all it is a bold. Naturally I wanted to know the science behind it. A google search unfortunately revealed a tangled mess of pseudoscience and hype, I had to search further.

My mother was similarly curious so used the balls to clean a few loads. The washing was surprisingly good, didn't smell of much at all. There were a few problems however as things like socks and armpits still had a faint smell. However, they appeared to be doing something. A solid explanation was needed. Some websites talked about raising the pH or turning the water alkaline. This gave me a few possible ideas. These balls could be an alkali and may dissolve slowly in the water to increase the pH. However, after a long test, I discovered they are not soluble in water, or atleast not in a way to significantly change the pH by entering solution.

The most compelling evidence of their use came from the name, the idea of oxygen. However much I believe in 'oxygens natural power of cleaning' I still needed more evidence or at least a reasonable explanation. Another google search revealed an interesting academic article on the affects of oxygenation of water. Please read it yourself but I will sumarise. 'scrubbing action' (turbulence on the surface) allows a large area for diffusion of air into the water. Obviously this will mean some oxygen gets dissolved into it. Water with a high amount of dissolved oxygen has some interesting qualities. Some metals and organic volatile compounds will oxidise and precipitate out.

The 'natural power of oxygen' is severly limited. Ruling out the supernatural, more higly oxygenated water is not enough to provide a complete wash. I can see no mechanism for the removal of fats or proteins that have become attached to clothes.

Verdict: there is insufficient evidence or even a plausible theory to suggest oxy balls could provide the same wash quality as soap/detergent, especially when dealing with fats and proteins. I suspect that normal water would acheive almost the same "oxygenated" results (tap water is naturally high in dissolved oxygen, even if it did make a difference). The burden of evidence is on the oxy balls to prove they work, rather than using fanciful scientific words which mean very little. IF water/balls for you achieves adequate results, perhaps the moral of the story is instead to use less washing powder.

Sources: myself (GCSE sciences, A level physics), Mountain Empire Community College

NB: if you notice a mistake, or can offer more information or expertise, please comment

The Fallacy of Your Own Way

We want our own way. Obviously this is not surprising, what is surprising is the fact that some people purposely put the needs of others infront of their own. Furthermore, it is surprising that some people push for their own needs so much that they make their lives difficult for themselves. The answer to these conundrums and a unification for this problem lies in the wise saying: 'there's no such thing as a selfless act'. Instead of selfless acts, there are just unwise acts.

Everything is ultimately motivated by happiness, we want our own way because it is the one that makes us happy. We serve others because there is a social responsability mechanism in us; it makes us happy. We only care for people if we see how it benefits us, even indirectly. This is why we feel patriotic, we reason that what's good for the country and its people is good for ourselves.

Equally, this reasoning can be applied to throwing tantrums: pushing too far for our own way. I started giving this thought when my niece once threw a tantrum for some trivial reason. I figured that the wisest thing for her to do was to compromise. This would have led to a more cohesive environment at home and she wouldn't have had to terrorise herself with fits of crying. Obviously I still think she's awesome, and I know she is only a child and incapable of complicated reasoning but such behaviour is also seen elsewhere. After writing all this it does strike me as an obvious deduction, although in my head at least, this behaviour makes a bit more sense.

Banksy - My Idea of Art

Art is a funny thing, it's just so hard to pin down and for a mathematician I find that quite difficult. However, if i stop bothering for a second about concrete definitions (God forbid), it becomes easy. Art is just something I can appreciate, maybe its elegance or beauty, maybe it can elicit an interesting symphony of feelings or perhaps even it tells me something profound. For me, the Mona Lisa doesn't cut it, connoisseurs of fine art may think me uncultured or juvenile but it doesn't elicit any of those responses. Something I would consider elegant and beautiful is maths, its predictability reminds me of a wind up toy, doing the same things over and over with a constant unchanging look on it's face. Like a dance of variables going on to infinity. Another example, Nineteen Eighty Four elicited an unparalleled symphony of feelings in my mind. The love story painted in childish but vivid colours against the dull world, with its faint odour of cabbage, is truly beautiful. As a love story on its own it was actually quite shallow, but like a candle in a dark room, it shone brightly.

I like a bit of street art, although not the rushed scribbles on railway bridges. I like the witty, jolly good side of graffiti, where there's talent and intelligence. Maybe it's the dry wit or the clandestine nature that appeals to me, or maybe it's just that it brightens up drab buildings. For me Banksy is sticking two fingers up to a depressed, efficiency driven culture that has chosen mediocrity. His choice of canvas is usually to find the most boring or ugly parts of the urban landscape and turn them into meaning. Adding beauty to the mundane is both a admirable and noble profession. Furthermore, his work courts controversy. Obviously this doesn't make the actual work better but it does provide a good comedy sound track. Ruthless art dealers grab at his work, grown men fight over it and rich people want it for their bedrooms. In all the rush, they appear to have forgotten the idea of it all, they are the exact people that Banksy is poking fun at. The horrible irony of paying half a million for what is essentially a picture of yourself, with the word "dick" printed underneath, actually makes for a funny mental image.

The Genius Myth

I'm sure we could all name a genius, how about Albert Einstein, Mozart or maybe that annoying kid that gets A*s with no effort. These people are the best at their games and we imbue them with mythical qualities, like gods of their fields. Tonight I was a student representative at a gifted and talented event talking to the geniuses, as a genius myself  (I'm not finished yet don't worry). We were top of our games, I coasted through GCSEs and to be honest I am coasting through my A levels. Contrary to expectations however, this isn't a ticket to academic stardom. If anything my ability makes me complacent and lazy. I have come to thrive on academic attention without any effort required. Everytime I talk to someone my academic acheivements almost inevitably come up. My ego may be huge but Shockingly, I am no genius.

Many clever people float through the education system and drop off the end, people with the potential but without the drive to prosper. Its to do with hard work and geniune enthusiasm. My coasting through academia actually means i'm anything but a genius. We tend to judge geniuses on their contributions to their field; being good and quick at soaking up teaching is anything but progressive. Advancing a field requires hard work, something I have yet to realise the value of. There are thousands of people like me, decent at maths, and with only a few spots on the genius stand, I've got to up my game.

My Nerdy Dream: Morality Systems

Morality systems in games are a new fad, and for the most part are frantically and badly implemented, for example Infamous or SWToR. Despite some of them being good games, the morality systems are usually one of the weaker aspects. The problem is that they make the childish assumtion that people are either good or evil. So bonus points for saving babies and puppies and evil points for wiping out people groups before breakfast. Even one of the most evil people in history wasn't that one dimensional. From a consequentialist point, what Hitler did is the same as killing random people in video games but actually he rationalised it to himself: he thought he was doing good. Anyone who knows they do evil is a psychopath, im fairly sure thats the definition. Added to this, you either have to be all good or all bad, you have to be either mother teresa or peter sutcliffe to get the fancy lightning or red lightsabre. I'm not a crazy conservative but that can't be encouraging good behaviour, most of all it really lets down the games' better aspects as it's shallow.

If I had my way (begins dreaming...) then I would overhaul the system. Completely get rid of the good-bad system, theres no need for such generalisations. Instead have several dimensions to a character, each with positive and negative directions. For example, generosity, all the way negative would be tight and all the way positive would be santa. Also it wouldn't just be determined by random gifts of kindness, perhaps a companion is dying and you give him food. Although not giving food to beggars wouldn't paint you as satans brother either. This would just be one dimension, others could be patient-short tempered, forgiving-unmerciful or strong-weak sense of right and wrong. This could then affect the way NPCs interacted with you, perhaps if you were seen as a pushover, characters would walk all over you or if the other extreme they may not confide in you useful facts. With this, players would be encouraged to engage strongly with issues of right and wrong, when is it right to lose your rag and when is it right to be calm.

Furthermore, the system could be on multiple levels. Firstly each mainish character would have an opinion of you based on all these characteristics, secondly each people group would have an opinion of you and lastly your worldwide legacy. Each of these added together for each character would make an interesting and complex world. After all in real life some people thing I'm a dick and others think I'm a saint. Different people and groups of people have had different experiences of me.

Finally, all that would be required is for lots of options during speech and lots of ethical moral dilemas. This would allow this complex and varied opinion of your character to be buit up. If games ever want to be considered as art, they must break away from the good-evil dimension and start modelling relationships as the complex things they are.

How much are you worth?

My Nerdy Dream

With much of my life wasted on runescape, it may come as little surprise that I love high fantasy, in particular MMORPGs. As with a lot of people that play games I was a constant critic, thinking I always knew better than the developer. Lauding criticism on every new update because of my protective nostalgia. Furthermore I have friends that did/still do play world of warcraft, it success always puzzled me, as I despise its shallow stories and weak attempt at gaming as an artform. Despite this bitterness and these shortcomings, I think I actually know a thing or two about rpgs.

Perhaps its childish I don't know but for a long time ive been writing plans and scribbling down ideas for my rpg. I had a little notepad with all my ideas on, actually that does sound pretty childish, although I can't really remember the last time I let such silly social conventions rule my life. I don't really know where i'm going with this, just wanted to get it out.

Hard Work

"Hard work: I don't like it"

That's what I've had written on this post for a long time, just that, in draft form. It's like I can see some vague prize in the distance for equally vague "hard work" but it isn't enough motivation to do anything. As a result I don't really like hard work. More logical analysis tells me I should think differently. If I take this blog for example, has required quite a large amount of work, more individual chunks of work, but overall hard work none the less. My vague prize hasn't been achieved in a conventional sense, I haven't received stardom as we as so often told. Not even money or recognition. Even so I think I've achieved something deeper, I've achieved some satisfaction. Satisfaction for just doing work? That seems silly, like hard work for the sake of hard work. Although perhaps that explains the addictiveness of simple games.

Take angry birds for an example, the reward for firing agitated birds is pretty meaningless stars (perhaps they are angry because they are jealous of their naturally flighted brethren, but that's an irrelevant side note, shut up brain). Where was I? Meaningless rewards are nevertheless something we want, for complex machines we are pretty easy to fool to be honest. Note to self, award myself gold stars...

My Cambridge Experience

Originally posted on the Guardian by me
 "I think the general criticism in these comments is inevitable but not wholly fair. My experience of Cambridge, visiting St Catherine's and being interviewed by Jesus, was mostly positive. I wasn't hit by prejudice from stiff upper lip middle Englishmen but instead by academic prejudice. The interviewers were scary and intense people because of their rigorous thinking, something that is quite easily mistaken for snobbery. Two out of three of my interviewers were warm friendly Eastern Europeans and the last one was a softly spoken man, a million miles away from the usual image that people conjure up. I'm sure somewhere I read about them complaining about someone's dress code. Well I turned up in Jeans and a faded polo neck, and frankly they didn't care what I was wearing.

I'm happy to have received an offer from them to do Maths (explains my grammar) with Physics but either way I would have still respected the university. Coming from a state school I was aware of the slim chances of getting in so I was under no illusions. On the other hand I knew that people from public schools weren't innately cleverer than me. If innate ability is uniformly distributed across the population then the cleverest in a state school of 2000 is as innately clever as the cleverest in Eton. All that is left then is to work on that and achieve potential, something which is sadly neglected in most normal schools. I've seen peers clever enough to go to Oxbridge but thanks to lack of passion or coaching, they have failed. Had they been in a public school both of these would have been commonplace. It's a sad fact of life that the natural flow is for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. Social mobility isn't a simple or new problem by any means."

Wasting Time

Why do I waste so much time? We all do it, come in, find the nearest internet connection and plug ourselves in. Every time I look at the clock it has jumped ahead, like its waiting for me to look away before changing itself. Now that would be impressive time travelling if it wasn't for the fact I was just wasting my time. I'd love to question the idea of wasting time and throw up a clever point that all time is wasted but I'd just be trying to save face. I find myself looking back and wondering where it all went, not being able to show anything for the time that's so magically disappeared. I find this endlessly frustrating but day after day I do it. And I know its irresponsible, but I even do it during exam periods (like now).

Note to self, do something useful tomorrow...

Why I don't care about money

Especially in these times of austerity, it can be a fashionable statement to claim you care little for the vice of money. In a strictly logical sense money is one of the most important things, it is the promise of goods or labour; money is literally power. So it would be irresponsable to dismiss money altogether. Despite this, I like to say im immaterialistic, even if I do frequently wish I had more money. This doesn't seem to make much sense but there are a few distinct types of mindset. Some people are "wanters", they constantly window shop, always looking towards the next item they want. Perhaps its due to my irresponsibility or childish mindset but I don't tend to want, The only thing I currently want is a raspberry pi, literally, I'm fine with my frankly poor phone and (most of the time) I couldn't care less what I wear. Instead I long for experiences, like spending money going out with a special friend or even just my regular ones. One such friend poked a hole in my (frankly awful) logic in saying that actually its the same as wanting objects because they too long for the experience of ownership. Despite this, I think (very modestly) that I do have the right end of the stick. As they do say up north, "there's no pockets in shrouds" so there's no point in hoarding money or possessions. Instead of objects and money, I'd rather live an experience filled life.

However, I guess inevitably only time will tell if I'm a raging consumer, just like I don't know if I'll be a heroin addict or not because I've never tried it.