The argument from design

    Many people want to prove that God exists. A common argument (or proof) is to point to something designed and made by humans, such as a watch. These are obviously designed. So anything that looks like it's designed must have been designed, which means there's a designer. Natural objects such as flowers and bees, etc look like they've been designed, so there must be a designer. That designer is God.

 This is the "argument from  design", and it doesn't work. Actually, there is no proof of God's existence. And there is no proof of God's non-existence, either.

If you want to prove God's existence, then the general form of the proof will be:
1) If some statement about XYZ is true, then God exists.
2) The statement about XYZ is true.
3) Therefore God exists.

   There are at least three problems with this.

   ONE. The premise "The statement about XYZ is true" is either an axiom (an assumption), or else it is a theorem (a statement proven by reason). Either way, the argument makes God's existence logically dependent on or derived from some statement about XYZ. But for a statement about XYZ to be true (or false), XYZ must exist. So God's existence logically depends on or derives from the existence of XYZ. But that's absurd, since by definition, God's existence cannot depend on or derive from the existence of anything else. Hence, you cannot prove God's existence. QED.

   TWO: If the premise is an assumption, then the argument from design is circular. It assumes what it is designed to prove.The assumption is: "If something looks like it's designed, then it is designed; and if it is designed, there must be a designer." But if there is a designer, then things will look like they're designed. Therefore there is a designer. Therefore things will look like they're designed. Therefore there is a designer. Therefore... See?

   THREE: So you've proved God is the Designer of the Universe. Now what? What kind of God is this Designer? Did he design parasites, which can cause their hosts to die horrible and painful deaths? What about diseases that have wiped out millions of people, like the bubonic plague? Where will the claim that only God can design living things go when humans design and make them? Actually, humans have already done that.

   In other words, conclusions raise as many questions as they answer. Once you've proven something or other, it becomes a premise for further proofs. It becomes a basis for further questions. Some of those questions will not be the kind you wanted when you set out to prove your point. That's the way logic works.

   A local pastor once asked me to participate in a "debate" about the existence of God. I refused. I said than any true Christian will not worry about such arguments, since for a Christian "God exists" is a given. It's an axiom. It's one of those statements you use to prove things you want to prove. The pastor understood my point, but I don't know what he told his youth group.

   Of course, you need other axioms in order to get anywhere. And that's where the trouble starts. You can prove anything you want if you select axioms that produce your conclusion. Religious people of a certain kind just love proofs. Proofs mean that they are right and everybody else is wrong. And once you've proved that to your satisfaction, you can do whatever you want to those evil people who disagree with what you have proved is God's will.

   You don't have to start this process with God. You can go with Historical Necessity. Or the Supremacy of the Aryan Race. Or that Capitalism equals Democracy. Or whatever.

   Ideology is simply a religion without a god.

   2013-08-08

R. Sekuler & R. Blake. Star Trek on the Brain: Alien Minds, Human Minds (1998)

     R. Sekuler & R. Blake. Star Trek on the Brain: Alien Minds, Human Minds (1998) I found a marginal note by me, so I have read this book before. Perhaps I can’t remember as well as I could, or perhaps the book is forgettable. I lean towards the latter, because yesterday I found I could remember most of a book that I’d read a couple of years ago, merely from reading the back cover blurb.
     This book ranks lowest of the Star Trek spinoffs that aped The Physics of Star Trek. Its authors are no doubt nice people and decent fellows, to judge from their jacket photos. Professors at a couple of minor liberal arts colleges, they no doubt enjoy a good reputation among students. If this book constitutes evidence, their courses don’t demand much, and offer a deal of mild entertainment. But as a discourse on the nature of mind and behaviour, this book falls short.
     The defects show up most strongly in the section on memory, in which the two authors waffle around the concepts of memory as storage and memory as a process, without ever making clear what either conceptualisation entails, and how, if at all, Star Trek illustrates or exemplifies them. In particular, they use the notion of “procedural memory” for what are clearly behaviours shaped by operant conditioning. That people can “learn new skills” supposedly shows that procedural memory can remain intact even while trauma has damaged or destroyed “declarative memory”. The authors imply that this is a mystery, which it isn’t. Our behaviours are shaped by operant conditioning, so it should be obvious that damage to one part of the brain shouldn’t affect the shaping of behaviours mediated by other parts of the brain. If it were otherwise, it would be a mystery that some strokes impair the ability to walk but not to talk, and vice versa. Actually, the fact that “procedural memory” can remain intact when other kinds of remembering are impaired supports the concept of memory as behaviour. Similar muddles show up in other sections.
     The authors are best when they deal with interactions between people, at which level questions of how to conceptualise the way the brain actually functions are irrelevant. Although they don’t use the word “conditioning”, much of their talk about phobias, for example, makes it clear that phobias are glitches in behaviour, and can be fixed by working with sufferers to change their responses to the triggers of phobic behaviours.
     The central question, whether we can in fact imagine truly alien minds, is dealt with briefly. We can to some extent imagine the sensorium of other creatures. Technical advances in making visible details that can be seen only in UV light show that we can get a vague sense of what it would be like to see like a bee. In some circumstances, a human can actually do so, sort of: the authors cite the experience of a man whose cataract operation permitted UV to enter his eyes, which resulted in unusual responses in the retina, and affected his sense of colour. But all aliens that we imagine will share human traits with us. Those are the only traits we can imagine. We can imagine aliens that resemble the more exotic terrestrial creatures in looks or actions (think of the alien in Alien, for example), but again, our imaginings are based on what we know. It cannot be otherwise. The truly alien is unimaginable by definition. Thus, the authors very sensibly draw attention to how both human and non-human characters in Star Trek exemplify human traits, and so help us understand ourselves.
     All in all, this is a lightweight and forgettable work. But I already said that, didn’t I? ** (2007)

Edna O’Brien. Mrs Reinhardt (1978)

 

    Edna O’Brien. Mrs Reinhardt and Other Stories (1978) I see by the flyleaf note that I bought this book in 1980: I can’t recall reading it. Reading it now, it seems dated in its themes and above all its tone. The stories deal almost entirely with broken relationships, and usually with domestic violence, sometimes physical but always psychological. Gloomy and depressing for the most part. A few are milder, perhaps O’Brien wrote them for women’s magazines, which wouldn’t tolerate the franker and more brutal language of the stories she wrote for literary journals. Some are quite self-consciously Irish, which doesn’t help: their aim seems to be to epater les curés, and perhaps shocked the naiver sort of priest; but the religious that I’ve met are not as easily shocked as their parishioners.

    O'Brien writes well, which makes for a pleasurable read. But I don’t have much sympathy for her characters. Either I’ve become callous, or the time for this sort of story is past, and I’m as much a creature of my time as anyone else.  Which makes this collection a witness to its time, and my reaction a witness to mine. ** to *** (2007)

Dorothy Sayers. Keines Natürlichen Todes Translated by Otto Bayer.

     Dorothy Sayers. Keines Natürlichen Todes Translated by Otto Bayer. I can’t judge the quality of this translation, except indirectly. It looks like Bayer had difficulties with Sayers’ style. It’s allusive, and accurately reproduces the class as well as regional dialects. Difficult to do in German. Most difficult is Wimsey’s constant (and quite self-conscious) shifting of register. To reproduce this in German takes a good ear for this sort of thing in both languages. Bayer struggles, but succeeds only intermittently. What this translation shows is that Sayers was above all a great stylist. I also found it tough sledding to read German, perhaps because Bayer’s colloquialisms are German and not Austrian. Oddly enough, the brief bio and commentary in the afterword was easier to read, more academic, therefore more impersonal. ** (2007)

Iain Rice. Mid-sized and Manageable Track Plans (2003)

     Iain Rice. Mid-sized and Manageable Track Plans (2003) Rice is one of the worthy successors of John Armstrong. He designs layouts rather than track plans, but beginners and moderately experienced model railroaders, who are the intended audience of this book, either haven’t understood the difference or haven’t come to understand its importance. Every layout is based on an actual prototype (one of which is John Allen’s Gorre & Daphetid), and each displays Rice’s ability to think in terms of the layout as a whole. Close study reveals some typos and a couple optimistic grade calculations and other technical glitches. But these hardly detract from the book’s success. Rice wants us to imagine what we can do with our space, and in this he succeeds brilliantly. *** (2007)

Dick Hafer. Sometimes You Gotta Compromise (1995)

     Dick Hafer. Sometimes You Gotta Compromise (1995) Hafer’s cartoons in Model Railroader received enough compliments that Kalmbach risked a collection, which turned out to be successful enough to warrant both a 2nd printing and a second book in 1996. The cartoons range from pretty lame to sly and subtle, most with enough of a satiric edge to raise a smile if not a guffaw. However, like most themed humour, insiders will find the results more amusing than outsiders. The draughtsmanship is very good, and Hafer has the sense to make himself the object of much of the satire. **

    Dick  Hafer. This is Not the Honeymoon I had in Mind (1996) Same quality as the first book. ** (2007)

James G. Robins. World Steam Locomotives (1973)

     James G. Robins. World Steam Locomotives (1973) Robins’ artistic skill nicely complements his discussion of steam locomotives, which, though he admires them, he knows to be uneconomical and inefficient. Writing in the early 70s, he has a tad too much optimism about the longevity of steam in those parts of the world where labour is cheap and coal plentiful. Apart from that, hindsight can find no fault with his discussions, and his pictures are lovely. *** (2007)

D. A. Boreham. Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling (1978, 2nd edition)

     D. A. Boreham. Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling (1978, 2nd edition) Boreham has a sly sense of humour, and a nice comfortable direct style of writing. He addresses himself to people who are ingenious and skilled enough to be able to use both scrounged and professional materials and tools to make their models. He does say that there’s no point in making stuff, especially small parts, that are commercially available, but even 1978 narrow gauge modelling still required a lot of scratchbuilding. Boreham describes a number of tricks that are worth considering, such as how to make a doubly curved roof over a wooden form using tissue paper and glue. A charming book, which I’ve read before. I enjoyed rereading it. **1/2 (2006)

A. C. Kalmbach. Model Railroad Track and Layout (1952, 5th edition)

     A. C. Kalmbach. Model Railroad Track and Layout (1952, 5th edition). Apart from the dated technology, which reminds us of how much easier it is to build a layout these days, Kalmbach’s unarticulated assumptions about a layout are the most interesting. He recommends studying the prototype for examples of good track planning; and discusses several examples of “good” layouts in terms of their operation. But it was Frank Ellison that drew the what to us now seem the obvious conclusions: that a layout should be designed as whole, as a stage for the trains, whose operation should simulate that of the prototype as closely as possible. It was, I think, no accident, that Ellison’s articles were published Kalmbach's Model Railroader, since Ellison articulated what was in Kalmbach’s mind, and which his text in fact foreshadows and implies.
     The technical details of track building, layout construction, and electrical work have mostly historical interest. These matters have been refined and simplified so that most people nowadays will have little difficulty building a layout that works. *** (2006)

Kathryn Ivany. The C&E Railway Station Museum (2003)

C&E Station 1891

    Kathryn Ivany. The C&E Railway Station Museum (2003) Ivany tells a mix of social, economic, and railway history in this well done short book. A few plans would have been nice, but she wasn’t thinking of the needs of modellers. What’s most interesting is the rivalry between Strathcona (So. Edmonton) and Edmonton, a rivalry that wasn’t settled until the CPR built the High Level Bridge. Actually, the rivalry hasn’t quite died down: the revival of Whyte Avenue around 109th St was in part a (successful) attempt to move Edmonton’s cultural life to the South Side.
     The building that now stands about 3 blocks away from the original station’s site is a replica in outward appearance only. The original building's internal arrangements were altered several times to suit its owners, who used it as a residence. When it was to be moved, it fell apart, probably because too many odd cuts had been made in its bearing walls and beams to accommodate these changes. A new structure was built. Since the original plans have not been found, the present layout presents an educated guess about its appearance.
     Photos and other illustrations are as well reproduced as can be expected. A few too many typos mar the text, and occasionally Ivany’s grammar is confusing, but overall, the book rates **½. (2006)

C&E Railway Station Museum

Anonymous. Locomotive Plan Package Book 2 (1944)

     Anonymous. Locomotive Plan Package Book 2 (1944) Published by The Model Craftsman, one of several predecessors of Railroad Model Craftsman, this book reprints plans and articles from that magazine, along with what are (somewhat ambitiously) called instructions for building the locomotives depicted. I suspect Bill Schopp as the author of most of the articles, which display his characteristic vagueness and assumption of high skill levels in his readers, as well as his colloquial style.
      The plans are a mix of general arrangement drawings “simplified for the modeller”, shop cards with limited information, and elaborate drawings reproduced from the Locomotive Cyclopedia (Simmons Boardman.) Thus, they mostly provide too little information, and sometimes too much. The instructions are laughably incomplete, even I think for the kind of craftsman for which they were intended. Eg, “The drivers may be made up on the lathe, but some fellows may wish to buy castings”. The castings would have to be trued up on the lathe, too. The suggested materials range from wood to tinplate cut from cans, which reflects the dearth of modelling supplies during wartime. It’s left up to the modeller to glean what he can from the drawings and develop patterns for cutting parts. There is a brief description of how to make a pattern for casting drivers from Linotype metal, and how to progressively modify it for larger counterweights.
     Reproduction of the halftones is abysmal, even for the times. Model Craftsman used photo offset to copy the original pages. The line drawings also suffer from this process, with small details sometimes blurring together into almost indecipherable blobs of ink. The scale is usually 1/8" to the foot, which is too small to resolve smaller parts precisely enough for accurate modelling. The reader is often referred to photographs that weren’t reproduced, since they would not have fit into the layout of the book.
     The book does have historical interest, as an example of how awful the so-called good old days really were. Building models was not for the fainthearted. Modellers of all kinds had to contend with a lack of parts and materials that we just don’t tolerate anymore. Kits were few and far between, and consisted mostly of rough castings and chunks of unfinished materials. Modellers had to have a skill set that for the most part could only be acquired in an apprenticeship for tool and die maker or machinist. It’s amazing what these craftsmen accomplished. I have a series on building a “kitchen table locomotive,” which gives the kind of detailed help that the average person with average skills needs, but this series of articles wasn’t published until the mid-60s, by which time decent quality kits were available.
     The time it took to build the models almost completely from scratch of course reduced or eliminated the time available for building a layout. This suggests the main reasons for founding the clubs: pooling what little time they had enabled te modellers to build a layout they could share, as well as providing larger pikes than they could hope to build in their small and cramped homes. * (2006)

G. H. Deason. Simple Cardboard Models (1969)

     G. H. Deason. Simple Cardboard Models (1969) The title is an optimistic misnomer. Deason clearly has lots of experience building models in card and paper (with metal and wood bits added as needed), and his notion of what’s simple is not  what a beginner might think. He describes the construction of rather large traction engines and boats, as well as motor cars and trains. Simple these models are not: they are all motorised, working machines. Deason uses shellac and glue, as well as layering, to produce what are in effect high strength composite materials. Like Taylor (see How to Build 20 Railroad Models), he assumes rather more craft skills than most people possess, but I suppose that most buyers of his book would already have tried one of the “easy to build” cut-and-assemble card kits.
     In any case, the book shows what can be done when one is obsessed with building models on the cheap, and counts the cost of time as zero or even positive: after all, model building is a pleasant way to while away the hours between work and necessary business. Like Taylor, Deason writes in a plain, colloquial style. He  should explain his technical terms more than he does. This book, too, has merely adequate half tones, and pretty good drawings. From a few throw- away comments, it appears that Deason was one of the people behind the Micro-Models line of kits printed on post-card sized cards. I have one of those, and the smaller bits would take a magnifying glass to see clearly enough to make accurate cuts. **½ (2006)