Some politics

At this point in time I think that attack ads have become necessary. So here you go:

I hearby propose...

That followers of Feyerabend be labeled "Feyerabanditos."

Wherein I Immitate Richard Dawson

Survey question ahead...

One of the reasons my posts haven't been quite as substantive lately is that I'm spending a lot of time working on a paper that's got me wondering about a folk epistemological question. To get a rough idea of whether or not I'm right, I wanted to ask a survey question that I'll set up with a scenario:

Suppose that I am throwing a party and I run into my friend Adam earlier in the day. Adam tells me that he thinks I'm the coolest person he has ever met, and that he wouldn't miss my party for the world.

Later on in the day I run into Beth. (Neither of us are hurt). Beth, for unfathomable reasons, is much less enamored of me and would rather not spend the evening in my presence. But I tell her that Adam is going to be at the party, knowing that Beth wants to have Adam's babies (and lots of them), so she would love the chance to get him in a corner of a party and beguile him. She looks at me incredulously and asks, "Are you sure?" I respond, "I know that Adam will be there."

Question: Is my response to Beth true?

Don't over analyze it. It's not a trick question. I just want to know what your natural answer is. Leave a Yes or No in the comments, and feel free to give some explanation if you like.

Assuming I get enough responses to see a trend I'll post later about what that trend indicates.

Q: How do I make my own Turing machine?

A: Think one.

A Turing machine is the simplest possible computer, and can mimic any more complex computer. It works by having a tape (like a ticker tape) run across the head of the machine. The head reads the symbols on the tape one at a time, performs an operation on that symbol then gives an output. A more extensive informal definition can be found here.

Since a Turing machine is defined by the process above, if you can think a Turing machine (e.g. if you can visualize the symbols on the tape, think of the function to be applied, then visualize the output from that function) then the neurons in your brain that are performing these functions are an actual Turing machine and not just a representation of one.

(Of course, it seems that it would be difficult to maintain a working machine in your brain for a long time, but that makes it no less an actual Turing machine. A machine made of more standard materials would still have been a Turing machine even if it was destroyed after the first computation.)

Holocausts, torture, and Down syndrome

In preparation for a post about problem(s) of evil...



(I highly recommend all of the Mr. Deity episodes.)