Monday, October 14, 2013

Sci-Tech watch, 5: Extinct Judaean date palm grow again -- from 2,000 year old seeds

3,000 years ago, the Judaean date palm was so famed for the sweetness of its fruit that King David named his daughter Tamar in its honour. But, after the Roman suppression of Jewish uprisings, it dwindled out into extinction c AD 500. 

 However, it seems in 2005 someone tried the experiment of planting 2,000 year old seeds found in the 1960's. 

Sweet success:

Tree-hugger comments:
During excavations at the site of Herod the Great's palace in Israel in the early 1960's, archeologists unearthed a small stockpile of seeds stowed in a clay jar dating back 2,000 years. For the next four decades, the ancient seeds were kept in a drawer at Tel Aviv's Bar-Ilan University. But then, in 2005, botanical researcher Elaine Solowey decided to plant one and see what, if anything, would sprout.
"I assumed the food in the seed would be no good after all that time. How could it be?" said Solowey. She was soon proven wrong . . . . 

 Today, the living archeological treasure continues to grow and thrive; In 2011, it even produced its first flower -- a heartening sign that the ancient survivor was eager to reproduce. It has been proposed that the tree be cross-bred with closely related palm types, but it would likely take years for it to begin producing any of its famed fruits. [HT: UD News]
Nothing beats a try but a fail, it seems. And with luck, maybe some cloning and pollination, we may yet see this crop restored. I wonder if this can be done to the straight-growing varieties of the once famous Jamaican mahogany tree, harvested out over the centuries to make fine furniture. (Reportedly, only the crookedly growing ones are left.) END
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Saturday, October 12, 2013

Sci-Tech watch, 4: Android Operating System dips a toe in laptop -- and desktop -- waters (with remarks on Google's Chrome OS)

A couple of days back, I ran across a discussion of the new Google-HP Chromebook 11, for US$279.  I thought, well that is a "cloud based" netbook, locked into Google's browser Chrome extended into an operating system. 

Not interested. 

But, what about, an Android OS notebook or netbook PC?

 Bingo!

 It seems that Lenovo of China (which bought out IBM's PC line of products) "accidentally" leaked -- take that for what it's worth, it has sure got them a lot of free publicity -- a manual for its upcoming IdeaPad A10:
Lenovo's IdeaPad A10 Android 10.1" screen, netbook size PC, shown folded back to the 300 degree "reader" display position

Front view of the A10, showing Touch-Pad interface
Yes, it uses both a touch-screen with gestures and has a touch-pad as can be seen from the more conventional front view. 

That means it can use a mouse too.  Mix in that we already have Kingsoft Office free, the rumour that the long anticipated porting of the Libre Office productivity suite --a fork of Open Office -- to Android is nearing completion, the accessibility of apps for all sorts of things for about US$ 1 - 10, and with the capability to be an E-book reader and this device is looking quite interesting.

PC World comments:
. . . the laptop has a 10.1 inch HD screen and is listed as an Android device, according to the manuals uploaded on Lenovo's site. 

The laptop's 10-inch display also functions as a touchscreen. It can be opened up to 300 degrees, supporting the screen for reading or touching while the keyboard rests face down. In addition, the keyboard has signature Android buttons for "home screen", "previous" and "apps screen", found on the bottom of many phones and tablets running the Google OS . . . . 


The laptop's specs show that it could be a budget product. It has an Arm quad-core 1.6GHz processor from Chinese firm Rockchip, 1GB or 2GB of RAM, and 16GB or 32GB of storage. There is also a 0.3 megapixel camera, a microSD card slot and an HDMI port. 

 Tech vendors are increasingly experimenting with Android at a time when demand for traditional Windows PCs has been waning. Earlier this year, Acer and Hewlett-Packard showed all-in-one desktops using the Google operating system. HP's product, called the Slate 21, has a price of $399.

 On the convertible PC side, Asus has shown a hybrid device that can run both Windows and Android. Called the Transformer Book Trio, the product operates as a stand-alone Android tablet, but when attached to its keyboard it can also boot up Windows.
The point is, Windows 8 -- am I the only one who finds the blocky appearance of the start screen irretrievably ugly? --  has not taken off like a rocket, and with a growing base of Android Smartphones and  Tablets, a PC is the next logical step. Especially, when we consider that Android is actually built on the Linux Operating System Kernel, where in turn Linux is actually sufficiently compliant with Unix tests to be a valid Unix.  

 Already, there are "super-tablet" Desktop All In One PCs that use Android, such as the US$ 399 starting, HP Slate 21.

This video review from India -- pardon glitches -- is remarkably sincere and  gives a good idea of Android as a desktop experience:

What this opens up is another road to educational computing, the c. 10-inch screen netbook sized PC running Android OS, and using Libre Office or Kingsoft as main productivity Suite. That goes with the 7-inch tablet with a folio and keyboard that I have already discussed.

 I can speak from the experience of coming on four years of using an Asus Eee, that this is a valid computing platform, and has the distinct advantage of being truly transportable. the only complaint I have -- apart form the usual one that the small keyboard will take some adapting to -- is that it is a tad heavy for a go anywhere book reader. It fits in any reasonable sized pouch or bag, can accompany calculators and the like. (If you want a hardware calculator. A touchscreen calculator is easy to get, often free -- including my HP style RPN calculator. I even have a working HP 49 emulator on this Windows machine.)

One fly in the ointment.

Google's lock-in game is the App Store. If manufacturers want to access it, they have to come to Google, hat in hand. So far, there are a lot of other attempted walled gardens by various manufacturers. Not interested.

(A better bet so far is Amazon's Android App store that has some 50,000 apps, Yes Google Play is at 600,000, but 50,000 is quite good enough for our purposes, thank you. And of course, there's an App for that, too. [It is pre-loaded on Kindle Fire tablets, which use a modified Android.)

So, we have a workaround for that issue.

I therefore want to put on the table a cluster of such devices, for consideration as a new educational pattern:
a: 7" tablets living in folios with keyboards
b: 10" netbook PCs for students and many teachers (as in Australia and Trinidad and Tobago)
c: 10 - 12" transformer-type tablet/netbook PCs for those who want a step up
d: 21 - 27" All in One tablets for desktop work
e: 40 - 50+ inch screens based on TV's for display, with wireless keyboard and touch-pad
f: Multimedia projectors as needed, up to the high Powered Barco's for lecture theatres etc
g: For labs, a blend of thin client PCs, All in Ones and Windows workstations or the like as needed, backed up by servers
All of these would work together in the context of a distributed access web based education model that uses local micro-campus centres for class type work, backed up by a web based cybercampus.

 But also, I think the Android netbook is a valid and potentially revolutionary computing platform, having potential to break the hold of Windows on the desktop, save for specialist niches where special software and high powered machines are really needed. 

In short, Windows may well be heading for the sort of niche status that Apple's OS X already has. (Given the rise of the phone as the most common computing device used by people, that may already have happened. Just, we need to move beyond thinking, entertainment to seeing potential for education and even productivity.)  END
__________

PS:  It may be helpful to clip from the RH column, on the cyber campus edu initiative I have been pondering for a while under the capacity development theme for this blog:

Capacity Development -- the AACCS

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Thursday, October 10, 2013

Sci-Tech watch, 3: The "Rolltop" PC, a possible future for large tablets/notebooks, with a flexible OLED screen

Just to keep breaking our thoughts on the future of the PC out of the box, here is the original concept vid for a "Rolltop":

(There is an updated vid, but I find the emphasis on the jeans clad wiggle of a model a bit too much.)

 The blurb:
Rolltop is a portable computer development concept for designer, architect and everyone, who would like to have a gadget, which, from an aesthetic standpoint alone, certainly hits the mark. By virtue of the OLED-Display technology and a multitouchscreen the utility of a laptop computer with its weight of a mini-notebook and screen size of 13 inch easily transforms into the graphics tablet, which with its 17-inch flat screen can be also used as a primary monitor due to the support attached to the back of the screen.

Rolltop 2.0 is a further development of Rolltop with some visible and mostly invisible improvements (e.g. internal design, placement of certain components etc.)
OLED 55-inch display by LG  (HT: Wiki)
Just to open our minds up to other possibilities. A Rolltop would certainly be convenient for education, and if the OLED can be made big enough, that would be a valid presentation-size screen technology.

 And, a 55-incher (as in the picture from a Consumer Electronics Show), is quite good enough for classrooms, conference rooms and church halls. Wiki:
An OLED (organic light-emitting diode) is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound which emits light in response to an electric current. This layer of organic semiconductor is situated between two electrodes. Generally, at least one of these electrodes is transparent. OLEDs are used to create digital displays in devices such as television screens, computer monitors, portable systems such as mobile phones, handheld games consoles and PDAs. A major area of research is the development of white OLED devices for use in solid-state lighting applications . . . .
[Long term economics/cost implications:] OLEDs can be printed onto any suitable substrate by an inkjet printer or even by screen printing,[58] theoretically making them cheaper to produce than LCD or plasma displays. However, fabrication of the OLED substrate is more costly than that of a TFT LCD, until mass production methods lower cost through scalability. Roll-to-roll vapour-deposition methods for organic devices do allow mass production of thousands of devices per minute for minimal cost, although this technique also induces problems in that multi-layer devices can be challenging to make due to registration issues, lining up the different printed layers to the required degree of accuracy.
Flexible OLED touchscreen technology has a lot of possibilities. END
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Wednesday, October 09, 2013

Sci-Tech watch, 2: The America's Cup AC 72 and AC 45 -- the revolution of winged, hydrofoil catamarans capable of 40+ knots and sailing up to 20 degrees off the wind

AC 72 Team New Zealand's Aotearoa
in San Francisco Bay, 2013, showing
hydrofoils in action. The mainsail,
at back, is a wing. [HT: Wiki]
For years, I have hardly watched television, so I missed the catamaran revolution in the America's Cup in 2010 and now 2013. But then one afternoon I visited some friends in an office where ESPN was on on a small office TV. 

Sailing races.

 I soon realised this was the America's Cup finals (a replay) 2013.

 I was amazed to see wing sail catamarans, a revolution since the days of the classic monohulls with the familiar Bermuda Rigs.

Then, I noticed: they are hydrofoils too -- and of course the dominance of black told me these were carbon fibre matrix composite multi-hulls. Light, strong but running close to the limits of materials and structures, very fast. No wonder the crew were wearing hard protective helmets.

 I decided to follow up, and found this Wiki article helpful (this is not a very political topic, Wiki tends to do much better on such). Clipping:
Following the 2010 America's Cup, where the Golden Gate Yacht Club's USA 17 trimaran defeated the catamaran Alinghi 5, it was decided by the winners that the next America's Cup competition would be sailed in catamarans in the hope of making the sport more attractive to television audiences.[2] At the same time a smaller sister class, the AC45, was developed to allow teams to practice and adjust to the new formula as well as create a greater exposure of sailing to the general public with the America's Cup World Series . . . . 

 [The AC 72] was expected to sail faster than the wind: upwind at 1.2 times the speed of the true wind, and downwind at 1.6 times the speed of the true wind.[4][5] But in fact it proved faster, averaging about 1.8 times the speed of the wind with peaks slightly over 2.3.[6] Emirates Team New Zealand sailed at 44.15 knots (81 km/h, 50 mph) in 15.8 knots of wind (2.79 times the wind speed) on July 18, 2013. [7]

Typical racing speeds are over 30 knots (55 km/h, 34 mph) with the boats capable of sailing well over 40 knots (74 km/h, 46 mph) in the right conditions. The fastest race speed recorded was on Emirates Team New Zealand which was 47.57 knots (88 km/h, 55 mph) in 21.8 knots of wind (2.2 times the wind speed) on September 24, 2013.[8]
Such numbers are very impressive, but do not come without a price. The Swedish entry capsized and was "[d]eemed a "complete loss" in 9 May 2013 capsize resulting in the death of crew member Andrew Simpson."

Doff caps for a minute of silence, in memory to the price technological breakthroughs so often extract before they become routine -- and even after that.

 Then, let us watch a brief vid:


  
And, when you have time, enjoy the Final, race 19 -- observing how the various aspects of the technology and the underlying science of sailing based on the lift on what is in effect a wing (and sometimes of course simply a surface for wind to press against) as well as the way the hydrofoil wings provide life by flying though the water and thus lifting hulls out sharply reducing friction and enhancing speed potential dramatically all come into play -- here:

As we watch, let us reflect on the underlying science and technology on display, and what this says to us as a region about where we need to go to be up to world class speed for C21.
The points of sail. A. in irons (into the wind);
B. close hauled; C. beam reach;
D. broad reach; E. running;
Shaded: "no go zone" [Wiki]
To give an idea of the revolution involved, sailing at 20 degrees to the wind is sailing -- at 32 points to 360 degrees, or 11.25 degrees per "point" -- within two points of the wind direction. Sailing at 45 degrees to the wind is hard, indeed, old fashioned sailing boats had a hard time tacking upwind. In the days of  Paul's famed voyage to Rome of Ac 27, 6 points off the wind was probably an effective limit, 4 points being 45 degrees.

 "Tacking" of course describes the zig-zagging pattern of sailing on one side then the other side of the wind that allows boats to progress upwind. But this is inherently wasteful as the side to side components are wasted. 

While I am at it, yes, sail boats have been using wings since the days of the old Lateen rigged triangular sail, and since the Polynesian "crab's claw" sailed catamarans that allowed settlement of the Pacific.  

Indeed, the classic Genoa and Bermuda sailing rigs do just that. Bermuda Rig:
Bermuda rig (HT: Wiki)
But then, the old fashioned kite is a wing.

 What the C21 rigid wings do, is they enhance efficiency (how in 2010, the wing sailed trimaran beat the defending Catamaran Alhingi 5.)

 As Wiki discusses:
Sailboats cannot sail directly into the environmental wind, nor on a course that is too close to the direction from which the wind is blowing. The range of directions into which a boat cannot sail is called the no-go zone. Its width depends on the design of the boat, its rig, and its sails, as well as on the wind strength and the sea state. Depending on the boat and the conditions, the no-go zone may be from 30 to 50 degrees either side of the wind, a 60 to 100 degree area centered on the wind direction.
When attempting to sail into the no-go zone, the boat's sails do not produce enough drive to maintain way or forward momentum through the water. Therefore the boat will eventually coast to a stop, with the rudder becoming less and less effective at controlling the direction of travel.
A sailboat's ability to sail close to the wind is referred to as its "pointing" ability. A yacht designed primarily for racing can typically point within 30 or at worst 40 degrees from the wind direction, whereas one designed for cruising may only be able to point within 40 to 50 degrees of the wind direction. Working boats may not be able to point this well and square rigged vessels certainly cannot. The size of the no-go zone varies, but all sailboats have one.
"Within 30" degrees tells us all we need to realise.

We are now talking 20 degrees, almost straight into the (apparent) wind. (There is some interesting vector addition stuff at work when a yacht sails at various angles to the wind, of interest to students and fans of physics, cf. here. In effect, the vessel's speed and direction and that of the true wind combine to give an apparent wind speed and direction. Blend in lift and drag, and voila, boats that can sail up to twice as fast as the wind.)

Here is a discussion, with a CAD visualisation:




 Telegraph has a less nerdy discussion, and this vid is worth a look:

And so, we see here a lot of science and technology, and not a little art and strategy too. Well worth pondering, and expanding on in due course. END
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Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Sci-Tech watch, 1: Donkey-like robots running and climbing slopes

Here:

The technology to create these walkers is interesting indeed. 

Worth keeping an eye on, even if for the moment these are military developments, within a decade these will have impact in the working world, e.g. a walking agricultural tractor or truck. END
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Monday, October 07, 2013

"It's Friday, but Sunday's coming!" -- the original sermon by SM Lockridge

I first heard Tony Campolo's citation back in the 1980's.

 This is the original by S M Lockridge, with snippets from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ:

(The full sermon is here. Youtube is amazing!)

 Now, let us ponder The Lord of Heaven willing to be so humbled to be our Saviour:
Phil 2:5 Have this mind among yourselves, 
which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 
 who, though he was in the form of God, 
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,  
7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[b] 
being born in the likeness of men. 8  

And being found in human form, 
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, 
even death on a cross.  
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him 
and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,  
10 so that at the name of Jesus 
every knee should bow, 
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  
11 and every tongue confess 
that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
to the glory of God the Father. [ESV]

 And, let us think again. END
SM Lockridge
SM Lockridge, with video snippets from The Passion of the Christ:


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Thursday, October 03, 2013

Matt 24 watch, 226: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's "Wolf in sheep's clothing" speech to the UN General Assembly, Tuesday October 1, 2013

Video:

Transcript.

Money clip:
. . . like everyone else, I wish we could believe [newly elected Iranian President] Rouhani’s words, but we must focus on Iran’s actions. And it’s the brazen contrast, this extraordinary contradiction, between Rouhani’s words and Iran’s actions that is so startling. Rouhani stood at this very podium last week and praised Iranian democracy — Iranian democracies. But the regime that he represents executes political dissidents by the hundreds and jails them by the thousands.
Rouhani spoke of, quote, “the human tragedy in Syria.” Yet, Iran directly participates in Assad’s murder and massacre of tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children in Syria. And that regime is propping up a Syrian regime that just used chemical weapons against its own people.
Rouhani condemned the, quote, “violent scourge of terrorism.” Yet, in the last three years alone, Iran has ordered, planned or perpetrated terrorist attacks in 25 cities in five continents.
Rouhani denounces, quote, “attempts to change the regional balance through proxies.” Yet, Iran is actively destabilizing Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain and many other Middle Eastern countries . . . .
Last Friday Rouhani assured us that in pursuit of its nuclear program, Iran — this is a quote — Iran has never chosen deceit and secrecy, never chosen deceit and secrecy. Well, in 2002 Iran was caught red-handed secretly building an underground centrifuge facility in Natanz. And then in 2009 Iran was again caught red-handed secretly building a huge underground nuclear facility for uranium enrichment in a mountain near Qom.
Rouhani tells us not to worry. He assures us that all of this is not intended for nuclear weapons. Any of you believe that? If you believe that, here’s a few questions you might want to ask. Why would a country that claims to only want peaceful nuclear energy, why would such a country build hidden underground enrichment facilities?
Why would a country with vast natural energy reserves invest billions in developing nuclear energy? Why would a country intent on merely civilian nuclear programs continue to defy multiple Security Council resolutions and incur the tremendous cost of crippling sanctions on its economy?
And why would a country with a peaceful nuclear program develop intercontinental ballistic missiles, whose sole purpose is to deliver nuclear warheads? You don’t build ICBMs to carry TNT thousands of miles away; you build them for one purpose, to carry nuclear warheads. And Iran is building now ICBMs that the United States says could reach this city in three or four years.
Why would they do all this? The answer is simple. Iran is not building a peaceful nuclear program; Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Last year alone, Iran enriched three tons of uranium to 3 1/2 percent, doubled it stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium and added thousands of new centrifuges, including advanced centrifuges. It also continued work on the heavy water reactor in Iraq; that’s in order to have another route to the bomb, a plutonium path. And since Rouhani’s election — and I stress this — this vast and feverish effort has continued unabated.
Ladies and gentlemen, underground nuclear facilities, heavy water reactors, advanced centrifuges, ICBMs. See, it’s not that it’s hard to find evidence that Iran has a nuclear program, a nuclear weapons program; it’s hard to find evidence that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapons program.
Last year when I spoke here at the UN I drew a red line. Now, Iran has been very careful not to cross that line but Iran is positioning itself to race across that line in the future at a time of its choosing. Iran wants to be in a position to rush forward to build nuclear bombs before the international community can detect it and much less prevent it.

Let us hope that Iran wakes up in time to turn back from the brink, and if not, that there will not be a worst case outcome. Not good. END
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Sunday, September 29, 2013

What happened at Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya? (The first coherent narrative I have seen . . .courtesy UK Telegraph )

I confess, I have not been obsessively following events in Kenya, no more than the bombings and attacks against Christians in Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and Egypt by similar Islamist extremists of various stripes. I just know that some awful things are going on that we had better be at least generally aware of.

 However, I did notice how disparate the equipment and apparent behaviours of the responders seemed to be from the various photos. 

That has turned out to be a clue to what happened -- it seems, a chaos of uncoordinated responses that led to a friendly fire incident that seems to have cost a senior police officer his life, then led to a withdrawal from the Mall as a result, when at least a major group of the terrorists had been cornered. This probably was a major cause of the prolonged siege.

 First, an overhead sat shot courtesy BBC:
Satellite overview of Westgate Mall, Kenya (BBC)

  The London Telegraph has a 10:00PM BST 28 Sep 2013 story that seems reasonably researched and coherent. The first such I have seen -- there is entirely too much human interest stuff in most reporting and it is hard to get an overall understanding from pictures. But, if we are to learn lessons we need a who, what, where, when, how timelined account.

Clipping:
It has emerged that:
- Armed private security agents and elite Kenyan police cornered the terrorists early on, but were forced to pull out in the confusion of a separate army assault
- Spies warned of a specific attack on the mall a year ago
- The attackers may have tried to flee via a services tunnel leading to a culvert in a nearby river . . . . 
[A year ago in Somalia] al-Shabaab, a Somali group linked to al-Qaeda, assembled a squad of international volunteers and provided them with detailed plans of the Westgate mall, possibly from blueprints acquired by colluders in Kenya. The team staged rehearsals and sourced weapons, while radical imams gave blessings for the attack. 

According to Kenyan security sources, the terrorists rented a nondescript apartment opposite Westgate and began a surveillance operation . . . .[Then on Sat. Sept 21 at lunch time] The attackers — between 10 and 15 of them — came in three waves. The first leapt from a silver saloon car and began spraying bullets along the front of the mall, where there is a smart outdoor café. The second group headed on foot for the basement car park. A third party drove a vehicle up the ramp at the side of the building, onto the rooftop car park, and right into the Junior Super Chef competition. 
When the attackers began separating out Muslims to spare them from the massacre that ensued, it was evident that this was not just armed robbery but terrorism. 

[NB: there are other reports of terrorists setting up a shop inside the Mall, so a group from inside is possible.]

The first armed responders to reach were "a small team of Kenyan-Indians from a local plain-clothes unit that acts as a kind of armed neighbourhood watch for the large local Asian community." 

They acted with armed Kenyan police, and helped hundreds escape before jointly cornering the terrorists into a corner on the ground floor near the supermarket. But unfortunately, after a four hour preparation . . . the delay being instructive, the Army launched an uncoordinated assault from top and ground floor, evidently not fully realising that there were other responders present in plain clothes. A friendly fire incident resulted and both groups of responders withdrew after a half hour. 

 The terrorists took advantage to resume attacks against unarmed civilians. 

I suspect this would probably be when much of the reported mutilation and torture of hostages occurred. Clipping the UK Independent:
A police doctor scouring Nairobi’s Westgate mall for bodies after a four-day siege by Islamist gunmen that claimed dozens of lives has said victims were tortured before they died, according to a Kenyan newspaper.
“Those are not allegations. Those are [censored . . . ] truths,” the doctor, a forensics expert, told The Star newspaper. “They removed balls, eyes, ears, nose. They get your hand and sharpen it like a pencil then they tell you to write your name with the blood. They drive knives inside a child’s body. Actually, if you look at all the bodies, unless those ones that were escaping, fingers are cut by pliers, the noses are ripped by pliers.”
Horrific, and sadly consistent with what happened to hostages in Mumbai, India.

By dawn on Sunday, a widened security perimeter was set up. Between Monday and Tuesday, repeated army attempts to break back in were frustrated by a terrorist sniper on a balcony. 

It seems international advisors were not heeded. 

 It seems that Monday evening, on the assumption that no hostages were left alive, an all up assault was launched. It seems the collapsed car park came from this as a support column was taken down with rocket propelled grenades.

 By Tuesday evening, it was effectively over.

 Though, it is feared that some attackers slipped out with escaping hostages.

So the first obvious lesson is inadequate security and the second is uncoordinated, late response.  We need to make sure coordinated command and communication are set up early on. Security groups should have a common frequency coordinated by mobile reserve police and hosted by Police High Command. The army should patch into that. And someone in the police unit should be tasked with an every five minutes update on a developing situation. If that worked for the Battle of Britain, it should still be valid.

 Lessons all around, which we had better all heed. END
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Saturday, September 28, 2013

Rom 1 reply, 41: J Warner Wallace puts forward six reasons for an immaterial mind -- food for thought

In a podcast, J Warner Wallace argues for an immaterial mind:

In an era where naturalism dominates the academy, this is quite controversial at that level.

 WK summarises the six main points in the context of an overarching case:
The case:
  • The law of identity says that if A = B’ if A and B have the exact same properties
  • If A = the mind and B = the brain, then is A identical to B?
  • Wallace will present 6 arguments [--> forming a cumulative case] to show that A is not identical to B because they have different properties
Expanding, in excerpted form:
1) First-person access to mental properties
  • Thought experiment: Imagine your dream car, and picture it clearly in your mind . . . .
2) Our experience of consciousness implies that we are not our bodies
  • Common sense notion of personhood is that we own our bodies, but we are not our bodies
3) Persistent self-identity through time
  • Thought experiment: replacing a new car with an old car one piece at a time [--> that is, a merely physical body does not endure such a change, but or selves are a distinct identity despite change. WK notes that it seems even brain cells continue to be replaced through adulthood] . . . . 
4) Mental properties [--> though a primary reality, e.g. consciousness without which you could neither read nor be aware that you understand this] cannot be measured like physical objects . . . . 
 
5) Intentionality or About-ness
  • Mental entities can refer to realities that are physical, something outside of themselves
  • A tree is not about anything, it just is a physical object
  • But you can have thoughts about the tree out there in the garden that needs water
6) Free will and personal responsibility
  • If humans are purely physical, then all our actions are determined by sensory inputs and genetic programming
  • Biological determinism is not compatible with free will, and free will is required for personal responsibility
  • Our experience of moral choices and moral responsibility requires free will, and free will requires minds/souls
To this, I would add the insight of the two-tier controller Smith cybernetic model :


Here, we see how the brain-body cybernetic loop interacts with and is supervised by a higher order controller. Perhaps through a process of quantum level influence and/or control, as has been suggested. That opens up conceptual space for thinking about a mind capable of interacting with matter.

 Similarly, I would point out that so long as it is possible that the observable physical, contingent world we inhabit is a creation by a necessary, eternal -- thus necessarily material -- being, we should not dismiss out of hand that matter can be influenced by mind.

 As far as the reality of consciousness -- a key "exhibit" -- goes, let us ponder:

This brings up a further point highlighted by Paul Copan in Part IV of a series of responses to Richard Dawkins, a cluster of significant challenges faced -- but often not acknowledged -- by evolutionary materialistic, naturalistic views:
Richard Dawkins is a four-point naturalist --> i.e. he believes a:  "nature" is all that exists, b:  reality is or is rooted in matter, c:  there is no supernatural, d:  "Science" is the only/unchallengeably "best"  means to  credible knowledge].  Such a position, however, defies our most basic intuitions and assumptions about human experience. Naturalism’s logically leads to:
  • the impossibility of knowledge;
  • the unreliability of reason;
  • the denial of free will and personal responsibility;
  • the undermining of human rights and dignity . . . .
[If] Dawkins is right—that we just dance to the music of our DNA—then he himself is dancing to his own DNA.  Dawkins has accidental true belief, but that’s not knowledge. If our beliefs are determined and we believe that determinism is true, then this is just a lucky coincidence—again, not knowledge.  Those who reject determinism are still determined to believe what they do . . . . If naturalistic evolution is interested in survival rather than truth, I may believe a lot of things that help me to survive—human dignity and worth, human rights. But these beliefs may be completely false.  On the other hand, if we are truth-seeking beings (a reflection of what the Bible calls “the image of God”), this makes a lot better sense if a rational, intelligent being created us to think or reason—to have genuine knowledge. Being made in the image of a rational God means we have good reason to trust our minds as generally reliable rather than malfunctioning or systematically misleading us . . . . 

 If matter is all the reality there is, how could free will emerge?  Our beliefs are the necessary result of certain physical inputs.  It’s like a prism of colors that is inevitably formed when sunlight is refracted through mist or rain.  Certain physical inputs lead necessarily to certain outputs.

On naturalism, there is no self that makes decisions, and no “decisions” really matter.  The buck doesn’t stop with the agent since “no one” is making those decisions.  “Choices” are not up to me.  They are the product of material forces that impose themselves on each of us—forces over which we have no control.
In short, it is not just mind but knowledge, rationality, right and wrong, rights, responsible freedom and more that are at stake. If naturalism rooted in evolutionary materialism is right, man is dead.

 But, the evidently absurd consequences -- e.g. the naturalist is in no position on his premises to reason and warrant the claim that he is correct and knows that naturalism is so -- allow us to see that maybe it is time to accept that the Emperor is leading the parade without a stitch of clothing on him, but stubbornly refuses to admit the fact.

 And down that road, there is hope. END
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"Enemies of humanity" -- a sobering sign of what we are up against, in the face of a radical secularist kulturkampf


Here.

Design thinkers, creationists and Christians have been slanderously branded: enemies of humanity. Some, primary as ringleaders, others secondary as dupes. and of course, the mere fact that we dare acknowledge living by faith ts the great proof of our utter, irretrievable irrationality, that cannot -- save by cowardice -- be trowelled over with arguments. So we are right wing bigots and theocratic totalitarian would be tyrants.

Bottomline, the slander game is again afoot: enemies of humanity.

Fire, Rome, 64 AD (Wiki)

 Shades of Nero's suspicion-shifting false accusation that blamed Christians for the fire of Rome of 64 AD.

(I have therefore had to respond -- as linked -- to some slanders hosted at a blog ostensibly set up as a civil forum for discussion regarding design issues. De facto, on fair comment, it serves as a front and its owner as a face card for some pretty radical and ruthless ideologues who hang out in web fever swamps such as After the Bar Closes, Anti Evolution and the like. One of those swamps is the reason comments have been suspended here.)

 Food for sobering thought.

 Then, a point for determined, undaunted but honourable action.

 This is an evil day, so let us stand. END
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Saturday, September 21, 2013

Matt 24 watch, 225: Sheriff Girgis at Campion College (Australia, not Jamaica!) on the core of marriage . . . a challenge to the "we're in/out of love" mentality

Sobering food for thought from the co-author of an important paper on marriage:

Note too the Q&A session (twice as long!):


 (HT: MercatorNet.)

 Let us ponder very carefully indeed where we are going with about the most fundamental institution in human society. END
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