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(Remember folks, in a thought experiment you can do anything! To say, “That’s impossible!” is not allowed!) So I’ve been reading Hunger Games (which I highly recommend), and a devilishly conceived thought experiment presents itself. Aliens come to Earth with highly advanced technology and a sporting air. Continue reading Thought Experiment August: A ‘Hunger Games’ Style Death-match with Yourself BCC’s Ronan introduced me to the work of Nick Bostrom, an Oxford Philosopher. He writes and thinks on technology and ethics issues. He has a fascinating line of reasoning. He argues that quite possibly we are living in a simulation, like The Matrix. Continue reading Thought-experiment August: What if you are just a minor character in a computer game Alien beings have scanned your brain and determined you are the perfect person to conduct a little ethics experiment. They are immensely powerful trans-dimensional beings, but almost entirely void of ethical thinking. They relish doing ethics experiments, to see what all the fuss is about it in humans. Continue reading Thought-experiment August: Pick your alien invasion It is Thought Experiment August! Time to once again put on your thinking caps and ponder the dicey issues of modern thought. I’ve explored the issues related to allowing artificial life into your religious community here and what it might mean to be an artificial life here. But let’s back off and decide when, for the first time, an artificial life might deserve rights. Continue reading Thought-experiment August: Your new Z11 robot Hopefully, you are now convinced by the evidence in Part I, that I am not afraid of snakes. The point being, not that I am fearless and brave, but this: I am jogging along the banks of the Danube. I turn into Danau Park, with its green grasses, large old trees, strolling couples, and a smell and feel of wild things (even though it is quite tame). It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining. I am tired. I am glad to be almost done with a long (for me) run. Suddenly, and without any premonition that this was about to happen, I find my knees at eye level. This is quite shocking as you can imagine. In the next few milliseconds, I register absolute and utter surprise that I have leaped into the air. Continue reading Summer Classics: The Shrew in my Brain: Snakes and the Evolved Body—Part II Summer Classics: Some are born afraid of snakes, and others have snake-fear thrust upon them: Part IDue to the extreme busyness of this summer, I’ve decided to replay some of my earlier posts that were not seen by many (less than 10, according to the data). Don’t forget that ‘Thought Experiment August’ is coming up and I’ve got some real delights coming up. Until then enjoy. While spiders used to terrify me, I’ve never been afraid of snakes. Lots of things are. Especially mammals and birds. Especially mammals and birds eaten by snakes. And especially mammals and birds that snakes can bite with lethally poisonous fangs. Nothing sets a troop of monkeys howling like a snake slithering through their midst. Chimps despise the beasts and become agitated and upset when they find one hanging around the encampment and they will let everyone in the forest know that this dust-eating beast is not welcome. Apparently, even chimps raised without ever having seen a snake will become alarmed when one is introduced for the first time. I don’t know about elephants. Continue reading Summer Classics: Some are born afraid of snakes, and others have snake-fear thrust upon them: Part I Time’s short! If you’ve been thinking of getting something in for this, there is still plenty of time! ‘Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought,’ is planning an issue devoted to Mormonism and the Environment. For this issue, we would like to invite select papers related to this topic, including academic articles, personal essay, creative non-fiction, fiction, and . . . → Read More: Get those environmental papers into Dialogue! A friend asked me how I was going to feel when I discovered that anthropogenic climate change (ACC) was not real, when science was proved wrong. Continue reading The myth of global cooling Everything living depends on ecology. The planet’s hydrologic cycles provide the water that we use for agriculture and industry. Everything you’ve eaten today depended upon soil ecologies, the carbon cycle–driven largely by photosynthesis, insects, and countless other ecosystem processes. Consider, for example, the things made of wood around you right now. Continue reading Ecology and Economics: Betting against science Oceans are acidifying, due to an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, (for details see this site by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)). We can see this right now from multiple studies. This does not mean that the oceans are actually becoming acidic (which would mean that pH had fallen below 7), but rather that they are becoming less alkaline, moving from a pH of 8.2 to 8.1. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s huge if you are an ocean dwelling creature. Continue reading Bye, Bye Sponge Bob: Ocean Acidification |
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