Final

REAL NAME: Nathaniel Fu

USER NAME: Nathaniel_fu

Website address: http://thoughtsbynate.blogspot.com/

Name of your movie and some details concerning how you made it:
N/A

Attendance: how many classes missed? how many classes tardy?
I have missed zero classes and been tardy to zero classes. Yay!

MIDTERM GRADE: what grade did you finally get on the midterm? C

POSTS: list all of your posts.

Tuesday Feb 12th 2008 Post

Random thoughts on lecture
With much talk about string theory/M theory as well as Quantum theory, there was very little mentioned during the lectures of how String theory effects the study of quantum electrodynamics and quantum theory in general. Granted observation of String theory would be even more impossible, but the theoretical understanding of strings would open many doors to understand the quantum world in ways we would never have dreamed. To what extent will the understanding of String theory open up the mystery in QED (quantum electrodynamics)? Thoughts? anyone?

-Nate

Tuesday Feb 19th 2008 Post

Big Bang

Big Bang..So how did it start?
There seems to lots of talk about the femtoseconds right after it started where all physics that we know today goes down the drain but what about 1 seconds before? Personally I don't really buy the 2 different vibrating dimensions of M-theory collided each other and blew up. I haven't really had the time to fully research it but it seems like pure guesswork to me. Anyone else know some good theories or wants to contribute a new theory of their own?
-Nate

Tuesday Feb 26th 2008 Post

Behe and hand out

Anyone else read the handout in class? Personally I didnt really find it to destory irrduceible compelxity. Would the example cited in the handout be considered an evolutionay stepping stone for the flagellum? With the mention of a most likely paraelle or post evolution it wouldnt seem so.

Ok time to sleep. it's like 9am i need to go to bed. I dont know if what i just wrote made any sense as it is very late and the sun is already up. sleeeeeeep
-Nate

Tuesday March 11th 2008 post

Hybrid theory anyone?

Here's a random what if..
It seems that every time something that was once perceived as "could only be made by God" is explained by science, then God no longer had a part in it. What if God was explainable though science. What if every action that God did was explainable though science? Would the explanation God's works or God take away God's existence? It would seem that depends on the perception of the viewer. Maybe I'm just sleep deprived. Thoughts? anyone out there?
-Nate

Monday Apr 7th 2008 post
Re: Midterm Exam - Utilizing the Message Board for Open Discussion

umm when is it due? the paper says the 11th. i thought it was due
tmw.. confused.. i think i'm going to go with the paper says.. cant go
wrong with that. the 11th it is!
-Nate

Satuarday April 12th 2008

I cant remember but there was a part 2 of something that i wanted to
watch but I'm not sure what it was... Does anyone remember what we
talked about in class about part 2 of some video? cant remember..!
-Nate

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1. Did you read all of the required books for this class? Be
specific about how many pages for each book, etc.
I bought all the books and I've been jumping around different books reading parts at a time. I pretty much have book ADD whenever I read but overall I've read a little over half of the overall content of all the books.

2. What was your favorite book and why?
My favorite book was The God Delusion because I've heard a lot about Dawkin's ideas but this was the first time reading them for myself.

3. What does Nietzsche mean by the transvaluation of values and what
does this idea have to do with our concept of morality?
3a. Why is Nietzsche so critical of Christianity?

When talking about the transvalution of values Nietzsche is referring to the way Christianity has both inverted and taken over morals in western part of the world. He is asking us to re-evualate everything we know about morality. Acts that are moral by Christian standards seem to be in opposition to human being's natural desire. Nietzsche argues that this flip that has taken place is not only unnatural but also a danger to life. Our concepts of morality growing up in a predominantly Christian nation have been in sense been brain washed by one perspective. It seems Nietzsche wants us to remove our own biases which we have been overwhelmed with since growing up and objectively view what we think morality really is. Nietzsche is critical of Christianity because he believes Christianity is danger to being human or rather experiencing being human to the fullest. He sees Christianity has a control system that oppresses who we really are.

4. Give one specific example of what some may regard as morally
right or good and then argue how Nietzsche may argue the opposite.
Be sure to pick an example that would correlate with Nietzsche's transvaluation of values.

Many people see having pity on the poor as a good virtue. But Nietzsche sees pity as one of the worst human emotions. He would argue that instead of being a kind act, pity elevates the person who is giving pity onto a petal stool as if they were looking down upon someone who is less of a person. It could be seen that pity is really just pride in disguise, thinking that our way of life is somehow better and if only they too could have what we have.

5. Why isn't Bertrand Russell a Chrisitian? Substantiate your
argument.

Bertrand Russell wrote a book called Why I am not a Christian, where he critiques different Christian arguments and responds. He is not a Christian because he looked at the major ideas and arguments of Christianity and finds fault in each one. He finds fault in the First Cause argument. First if everything must have a cause then God should also have a cause. Second if there was no cause for God, being that he has always existed then why couldn't the world or some cause for the world beside God always existed. He continues and responds to everything from the natural law argument for morality. He claims that natural law can be explained though probability and that Paley's watchmaker argument can be explained by enough time and evolution. He claims morality cannot come from God because then how would God define right and wrong. This seems be an evolution of the argument from the "Euthyphro dilemma" in which Socrates tries to find out if something is pious because the gods love it or is it loved by the gods because it is pious. Russell especially has a problem with Hell and the nature of God in the Old Testament. He cannot see how a benevolent God could possibility be reconciled with what is written in the Bible.

6. How would C.S. Lewis answer those who argue that there is no
evidence for a God, particularly a Christian one?

In his book Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis uses the morality argument that humans are born with a knowledge of right and wrong that is consistently throughout different cultures and that this kind of universal morality can only come from God. I believe he sees this referring to the Christian God because Christianity encompasses morality from the major religions of the world.

7. How does evolution help us to better understand WHY science arose in the first place? And why religion arose in the first place?
Evolution helps us better understand how science came to be though the idea of survival of the fittest. Any slight advantageous modification or in this case better understanding of how things work is an advantage in the real world. Advantages lead to higher rate for survival and therefore an understanding of science (being an advantage) is carried on and developed in slow progressive steps.
There are two ways to look at religion and why evolution may help us understand how religion arose. On one side there is the Dawkin's view of religion being a virus of the mind. Where religion came to be as simply a good replicating idea, and slowly though time evolved to adapt and become stronger. Another way to look at it is that religion gives purpose in life and purpose is better than no purpose. Therefore it serves an evolutionary advantage. In this theory, it would be possibly that religion simply a result of the benefits of having purpose in life.

9. What is science according to Feynman? How does his definition differ from more normative explanations?

Science according to Feynman is about skepticism and though rechecking, we do not just accept the past as right but rather experience that is it right for ourselves. This idea is different than normal definitions where we see science more in the light of an understanding of the world though observation and testing. Feynman believes we should doubt research instead and continue to doubt and though this rechecking process we doing science.

10. How would Feynman critique the current "intelligent design" movement? Be specific and see if you can relate Feynman's notion of science in your critique.

Feynman might first like "intelligent design" due to that Behe's arguments started out as rechecking. However soon Feynman may start to disagree because there seemed to only be one initial rechecking process. Feynman would not call "intelligent design" science because it stopped rechecking in light of new evidence. A good example of this is Behe's decade gap between Darwin's Black Box and The Edge of Evolution where the supporters of ID stood behind their position despite new evidence that may be able to explain irreducible complexity. Feynman would also have a problem with the ID's God of the gaps argument because of the assumptions that it makes. Feynman's view of science is practically the antithesis of assumption.

11. Why is agnosticism or even atheism so appealing to authors like Dawkins, Russell, and Nietzsche? What is the lure of non belief?

Dawkins was interviewed about how he would respond if one day died and meet God. Dawkins responds with something along the lines of "If God was real and I meet him, I would ask him why he tried so hard to hide himself" For Dawkins, Russell and Nietzsche I believe they find atheism so appealing because they have search for God and found no evidence. In their quest for truth they believe that the "lies" of religion are harmful to our society and life is better without religion. Though wars, social movements and moral influence religion has indeed had a great impact on our world and in eyes of Dawkins, Russell and Nietzsche it has had an impact for the worse.
The lure of non belief for me seems to be freedom to experience a world in a new way. The bounds of ethical codes and rituals fade away and many feelings of guilt are alleviated. Pressure to act and fit into the mold of religion are diminished and a system of control is gone.

12. How can religion, according to your teacher (and the lecture that dealt with this), survive the onslaught of reason? What does religion have to do to "win" the science-religion battle?

Religion can survive the onslaught of reason by not trying to play the science game. Religion cannot win by explaining itself though today's scientific theory because tomorrow it may change. Instead religion has to revert back to the core of what religion used to be. Religion needs to stop trying to reenact experiences though ritual and become experience. If this happens, religion will survive because people believe in their experiences over scientific theories. The best thing religion can do to win the science-religion battle is to leave and instead deal with the unobservable, the unprovable. Another way would be if somehow there was a proven miracle that completely defied the laws of nature. And yet another perspective, religion could "win" by mass ignorance and propaganda because religious people are very ready to believe anything that is shows as evidence for their religion despite other evidence that may contradict.

14. Why is evolution such a contentious issue among certain fundamentalist religious groups. More precisely, what is the core issue that upsets certain religious devotees?

Evolution upsets the denominations following the protestant reformation by Martin Luther. This is because the reformation set the Bible as the authority instead of the church. In doing so some dominations take all the of Bible literally and six days to make the world means six days. This is a problem because the theory of evolution requires a very long time to work. Millions of years. However many fundamentalist Christian groups still believe that the world was created six thousand years ago because of what the Bible says. The core issue is that the literal interpretation of the Bible, everything from Noah's Ark to the Tower of Bable contradicts evolution. There are other issues like the implications of our lives as mere accidents and the our existence as just random chance.

15. In your opinion, where can science help religion?

Science can help religion in a few different ways. If religion is true then science may eventually come up with evidence to support the claims of religion. In a different flipped perspective science is creating persecution within religions. In the past this kind of persecution (even to the point where proving religion wrong) has only caused believers to find it's core and band together even stronger than before. Science's attack on religion may actually make religion stronger.


16. In your opinion, where can religion help science?

Religion has helped science greatly in the past. Many great founders of science sought the truth of science as a way of seeing God's glory in making this world. Today religion is giving science a gambling table where the loser could end up in Hell. Finding the truth of all of this is just as important as ever and scientific research is the contemporary path to truth.

20. How would Stephen Wolfram critique William Paley's argument (derived from his famous watch analogy) about intelligent design ora creator of complexity? How would a believer in such a God or a Creator critique Wolfram's argument?

William Paley's argument claims that because of the immense complexity of our world today and us as humans, there must have been a creator. The original argument was, if you found a watch in the forest, a person would immediately assume there was a creator because of how complex the watch was. Stephen Wolfram would counter that there was no intelligent designer for the complicated watch. According to Wolfram complexity is not only possibly from simpler beginnings, mathematically it is inevitable. Wolfram had set up computer simulations that over time started out simple and became very complex. Evidence to Wolfram that led him to write the book A New Kind of Science
A believer might critique Wolfram's argument by using the second law of thermal dynamics where things naturally move to the lowest energy state over time. Wolfram claims that over time things become more complex however this would seem to contradict second law of thermal dynamics where things become more simple over time. A believer's critique may be that Wolfram's theories work on a computer simulation and in theory but not in this material world.


21. Taking Plato's apology as your key, how do you think Socrates would resolve the current impasse between science and religion?

Socrates is famous for his wisdom in unknowing and his speech in the Apology upholds thats view. Socrates might continually ask questions to a scientist and finally conclude that we don't even know what we are made out of. Then he might continually ask questions to a theologian until they have to say the special words: "I dont know" After realizing neither side really knows what they are talking about I think Socrates would instead look into the purpose for each one, Religion dealing the with questions of ultimate purpose and why vs the scientific search for observable truth. Then he may separate them into searches for for different kinds of truths that don't contradict because they are dealing with different things.

26. Is Francis Crick correct that we will never find the soul because it doesn't exist?

Francis Crick is wrong that we will never find the soul because it doesn't exist because we cannot prove it does not exist. Crick may be right in that we may never find the soul but it's also possible that we may one day find it, hanging out in another dimension floating like a graviton particle. Who knows?

29. In the future, how can we have a more fruitful and a more civil conversation on the subject of science and religion? What should be the guidelines, if any?

I think we can have much more civil and fruitful conversations about science and religion if we stop to give the other side's point of view a chance. Instead of trying to change people's beliefs and convert them, we should just give out other perspectives. If we don't approach the subject of science and religion as a conversion battle then we may finish the conversation and actually learn something.
The only guideline I can think of would be to listen as much time you talk. And actually listen, not just hearing.


31. What was the most intersting thing you learned this semester? What was your favorite film?

The most interesting thing I've learned this semester is the theory of different levels of consciousness and finding states of higher awareness. I also enjoyed the stories about India and your religious experiences.
My favorite film was on the atom. I think. Not sure. Thanks for a great class, I've learned a lot and now have many more questions.