The drunken logician: a tribute to dammit sammi

“Also I was drunk when I left the first comment – surprise! – so excuse the typos”

Finals start tomorrow, and I find myself looking for a new way to procrastinate. What do I end up doing? Well, I translated into predicate logic an argument posted on a comment on this blog by one dammit sammi (see here for the original comment):

Paris Hilton is a skanky whore. She is in terrible sex tapes and on idiotic TV shows. She is a useless moron and if a useless moron is in terrible sex tapes then either that useless moron is a skanky whore or that useless moron is a failing porn star. But if that useles moron is on idiotic TV shows, that useless moron is not a failing porn star. This, Paris Hilton is not a failing porn star.

Sammi, I can safely say my logic professor would be proud to see an argument like this. I checked it out and it’s actually logically valid, meaning if the premises are true, the conclusion cannot be false (as far as I know, the premises are obviously true).

So for those of you that care, or actually know what the fuck I’m talking about, here is the symbollized argument in predicate logic, along with the interpretation:

UD: People

Wx: x is a skanky whore.
Sx: x is on terrible sex tapes.
Ix: x is on idiotic tv shows.
Mx: x is a useless moron.
Fx: x is a failing porn star.

p: Paris Hilton

Aufgang oder Untergang

Nenn ich dich Aufgang oder Untergang?
Denn manchmal bin ich vor dem Morgen bang
und greife scheu nach seiner Rosen Röte.
Und ahne eine Angst in seiner Flöte
vor Tagen, welche Liedlos sind und lang.

Aber die Abende sind mild und mein,
von meinem Schauen sind sie still beschienen.
In meinen Armen schlafen Wälder ein,
und ich bin selbst das Klingen über ihnen
und mit dem Dunkel in den Violinen
verwandt durch all mein Dunkelsein.

Guillermo revisited

When I started college at [University of Puerto Rico] it surprised me that a lot of the people in my department had such a strong spirituality to merely be called Christians. I thought most of the students and scientists would have my line of thought as to what God is. When I learned about intelligent design, not knowing much about it, I thought it was a “subtheory” of evolution.  Of course the creationists tried to convince me, but I wasn’t swayed. This is their chance to say that a supreme being (god) exists in order to counter the effects of the feared topic of evolution. The thing going on here is that the creationists look for an excuse to be able to bring God back to this world so full of sin and to be able to control society once again. This is an excellent idea for them because that’s the goal of everyone that has power (“government”). It’s also difficult on experiments alone to determine how the first amino acid was formed before life emerged. This kind of biology is speculative, that being its weak point against creationism. Still, it is concluded, according to evolutionists, that intelligent design is not based on the scientific method, unlike evolution. In science an observation is needed in order to conduct an experiment. When the experiment has been run several times and you always get a conclusive answer, then it passes on to being a theory. Therefore, ID doesn’t even come close to what ideal research would be. It’s a religio-philosophical analysis to explain why we’re here. It bothers me that they use science as a means to justify their cause. Maybe in this paragraph we’ll find ourselves in a sort of midpoint in which creation by a higher being is incomprehensible to me, or on the other hand, it would be absurd to them to think that such a “perfect” universe had not been created by that higher being. Maybe ID would be more tenable as a science fiction story. That intelligent being would be part of the race of the sdioesieh (that’s what it would sound like to us in order to understand) with technology advanced enough to control and recreate space-time, create matter/energy, specially hydrogen, my favorite element, and then control our stars’ nuclear reactions to form the atoms necessary to generate carbon based life. I should pitch this idea to the scientologists to see what they say… overall I agree with the religious world in the sense of promoting a society with fraternity as its purpose. Yeah, it sounds like a Miss Universe speech, and I like it like that. I like being able to read that professor’s opinion. I’m going to see if a discussion of these topics is possible at UPR.

Changing the subject, it’s good that we’re still alive. I hope this semester has started well for you and that you’re ok, even if “ok” is relative. Take care.

-guillermo

This is the translated version. The original is here.

Guillermo, miralo por encima y me dices si lo traduje bien.

No free lunch in college

A few months ago I was reading a review of William Dembski’s book No Free Lunch. I thougt it was a fairly good debunking of Dembski’s nonsense, so I sent it to Guillermo, a friend of mine back home. His reply is one of the most insightful commentaries I’ve seen in my life, not specifically of the book, but of the whole concept of intelligent design. His reply was also significant because out of all my friends he’s the one whose ideas mirror mine the most. With his permission, I’m posting the email in its entirety, in Spanish (the original language), and with a few alterations to aid in intelligibility:

Cuando entré a la upi [Universidad de Puerto Rico] me sorprendió que muchas de las personas que estaban en mi facultad tenían y tienen la espiritualidad ferviente para no decir que son sólo cristianos. Pensaba que la mayoría de los estudiantes y científicos iban a tener mi línea de pensamiento con respecto a lo que es dios. Cuando me topé con lo del diseño inteligente y no conocer mucho al respecto creía que era una subteoria de la evolución. Claro los creacionistas me lo vendieron bien, pero no me lo creí. Para ellos esta es su oportunidad de decir que hay un ser superior (dios) y asi contrarrestar los efectos del gran temido tema de la evolución. Lo que pasa es que los creacionistas buscan su excusa para poder traer a dios nuevamente a este mundo taaaaaan pecaminoooooso y volver a estar en control de la sociedad, que es una excelente idea para ellos como grupo porque eso es la meta de toda persona con poder (gobierno). También es difícil determinar a base de experimentos cómo surgio el primer amino ácido antes de que se generase vida. Por eso es que esta biología es especulativa y es su parte débil ante el creacionismo, pero sí se concluye, según los evolucionistas, que “ID” no esta basada en el procedimiento científico como lo es la evolución. En las ciencias se necesita una observación para llevar a cabo un experimento y cuando ese experimento lo han corrido más de una vez y siempre se llega a una contestación pura, entonces es que pasa a ser una teoría. Por lo tanto “ID” ni se acerca a lo que se llama una investigación, eso un análisis filósofo-religioso para explicar por que estamos aquí. Me molesta que utilicen la ciencia como medio de justificación para su causa. Tal vez en este párrafo nos econtramos en un punto medio en el cual para mí es incomprensible la creación por un ser superior o si se vira la tortilla, para ellos es absurdo no pensar que alguien creó el universo tan “perfecto”. Como punto a favor de “ID” convertido en una historia de ciencia ficción es… que ese ser inteligente perteneciera a la raza de sdioesieh (asi sonaría para nosotros para poderlo entender) con tecnología para poder controlar y recrear tiempo-espacio, crear materia-energía, en especial a mi elemento favorito hidrógeno y luego regular las reacciones nucleares de nuestras estrellas para formar los átomos necesarios que fomenten la vida a base de carbono. Se lo debería de presentar a los de cienciología a ver que opinan… en fin estoy de acuerdo con el mundo religioso en el sentido de hacer promoción a una sociedad con el proposito de fraternidad. Sí suena miss universe y me gusta. Me agrada poder leer la opinión de ese profesor. Voy a ver si se puede tener una discusión de estos temas en la upi.

Ahora cambiando el tema y finalizando que bueno que seguimos vivos. Espero que este semestre te esté comenzando con poca ansiedad y que la estés pasando bien aunque bien sea relativo, cuidate mucho

-guillermo

I’m going to attempt to translate this in another post and comment on it a little bit.

Linguists “have different brains”

BBC News put out an interesting article three days ago titled Linguist ‘have different brains’. It says that a new study suggests that people that are good with languages have a difference in brain structure and shape:

Neuroscientists at University College London say they have more “white brain matter” in a part of the brain which processes sound.

Their brains could also be less symmetrical than others.

The assymetry they refer to above occurs in the transverse temporal gyri (Heschl’s gyri). It involves basically the left gyrus being significantly bigger in the faster learners than the slower learners.

In most people (at least most right-handed people), language is localized in the left hemisphere. So the fact that the left Heschl’s gyrus on the faster language learners looks almost twice the size of the one on the slower language learners seems to be a good cause for the enhanced ability to identify different sounds.

They should follow up this research with some sort of study comparing people that are more visually oriented. I know that sometimes in another language I can’t really identify a sound unless I can imagine how it would be written. But then again maybe that’s just me…

MoMA

El sábado pasado fui al Museo de Arte Moderno (MoMA) aquí en Nueva York con Kelly, una muchacha que conocí este semestre. En estos momentos tienen una exhibición bien interesante de varias pinturas de Edvard Munch. Aquellos que conocen el arte expresionista van a reconocer immediatemente el Grito:

Otras de las pinturas que estaban en la exhibición eran Madonna y el Beso:

El Beso me pareció interesante por las caras de la pareja que se esta besando. No sé si se ve muy bien en esa foto de baja calidad, pero las caras no tienen divisiones. Es una sola cara, como si se hubiesen derretido ambas caras al darse el beso.

La exhibición tenía retratos que había hecho Munch, incluyendo uno de Nietzsche. Desafortunadamente no lo pude encontrar por internet. Si alguien sabe donde pueda buscarlo, avisenme.

Diálogos Transatlánticos, part II

“Tarde, pero seguro” is something I like to tell myself whenever I put off doing something for a long amount of time. No particular reason for waiting so long, just laziness. Anyways, in my first Diálogos Transatlánticos post I talked about the exchange between Felipe González and Álvaro Uribe. One thing I had forgotten to mention was that Uribe was accompanied by his own cheerleading squad: former Colombian presidents Andrés Pastrana and Ernesto Samper. But enough of the tangent…

Ernesto Zedillo didn’t really say much during the panel, but he did make a point about 2005 being remembered as the year that multilateralism failed miserably. He mentioned specifically the WTO Conference in Hong Kong and how the U.S., Japan, and Europe still refuse to lower their massive farm subsidies.

Henry Kissinger was at a clear linguistic disadvantage against his fellow panelists. At one point he acknowledged this by saying that they were speaking with such strength and eloquence that they were overriding the translators. That and the fact that he was interrupted three times by random protesters in the hall calling him a war criminal and a murderer stacked the odds against him, but he still came up with some good insights. When asked by the moderator,Baltasar Garzón, what his thoughts were on U.S. foreign policy, he started by saying that until World War II there had been no international strategy implemented by the U.S. Every strategy after that has been a temporary measure. It is only recently that the government has had to come up with a continuous foreign policy.

He also made the point that foreign policy has been formed around the idea of the nation-state. The U.S. still conducts foreign policy as a nation-state, but a “historical” evolution in foreign policy from nation-state interests to multilateralism has happened in Europe. Europe is trying to conduct its foreign policy in a multilateral way, thinking of everyone’s interests instead of just a single country.

Kissinger also made some comparisons on the foreign policy styles of China and the Middle East. He equated China’s style to Europe in the 19th century, as balances in power between nation-states. He then proceeded to equate foreign policy in the Middle East to Europe in the 17th century, characterized by religious warfare. This got a sort of matter-of-fact reaction from the crowd.

When asked about how the status of Latin America, Kissinger basically defended the U.S. in saying that there are some mismanagements in Latin America that must be dealt by its people. He said it was senseless to blame everything on the U.S. That produced mixed reactions in the audience. At that point it was clear a lot of people in the audience were thinking “Well, not all, but a substantial amount can definitely be blamed on the American government.”

The panel ended in a mildly humurous tone. Kissinger joked about how it must have been gutwrenching for Garzón to invite him to the panel (they’re not exactly on good terms. Click here for more details). Zedillo praised Garzón’s “poder de convocatoria”, summoning power, in being able to get so many important people to speak at NYU during his time here. It all ended quite nicely.

Reflections of a drunkard

About only half of the day has passed and I’m already semi-drunk on coquito I brought from home. With that disclaimer in hand, I’m going to talk about a few things on my mind.

First of all, I’ve seriously gotten into Franz Ferdinand lately. I’m even listening to it now. The song currently playing on my computer, This fire, is devoid of any meaningful lyrics, but it’s fucking catchy as hell. It’s a good song to get you pumped up for a night out on the town. The other song I like a lot is Auf Achse. The lyrics remind me of what I’d posted before about Abel Sánchez, the novel by Unamuno. The lyrics probably describe best what Joaquín was thinking when he realized he would never be able to get with Helena. There are other passages I want to post about, but I’ll have to do that some other day.

Carla was just here. She helped me with finishing the bottle of coquito. Carla, if you read this any time soon, I just want to say you shouldn’t give up on your blog. You just started this week. It takes a little getting used to when trying to find the time to write, and some stuff may seem like shit when you post it, but that doesn’t mean anything. Just write about ANYTHING. I don’t have any grand illusions that what I post here is good. My posts are probably shit for the majority of the blog reading world. But I write ’cause it entertains me. And if it entertains someone else, that’s good. If not, hell, they can go read something else on the internet.

On to the next topic.

English. Seriously, I don’t like this language much. It’s a bitch to be specific in, most morphology has disappeared in it, tenses are conjugated almost the same, as opposed to Spanish and Italian which have distinct forms for person and number.

Now that I’m started on languages, I’d like to talk a little bit about Spanish. I don’t have any complaints against the actual language, only against the organization that tries to control it, La Real Academia Española. It’s not a specific complaint what I have. I just want them to release the iron grip they have on the language. Lately they’ve loosened that grip by accepting a lot of really bad sounding anglicisms into the language, but I’d like to see more. I’m now going to exercise my mental power in making a hypothetical situation here. The component needed for my hypothetical to get started is, well, extreme national pride.

The reclaiming of an ancestral language is a great way to assert the individuality of a nation or ethnic group. Obviously this situation would be slightly different. Instead of being a reclaiming of an ancestral language, it would be a reclaiming of the current language from outside control. Nationalists would make the claim that an outside organization shouldn’t have control of the language they speak. In turn, they would advocate for the immediate pullout from La Real Academia. This would be followed by the establishment of a Language Academy by the linguists and philologists among the ranks of the nationalists.

This is all extremely wishful thinking. Right now Spanish is the second most commonly learned second language in the world, after English. We hold great linguistic power, so to give that up would seem like a bad strategy, very counterintuitive. And it is. I make no assumption as to actually have a good reason to have this splintering of Latin American Spanish dialects into languages of their own. The only reason I have is my own fancy and wishful thinking. I would like to see this happen because I think it would be very interesting to watch.

Of course, this presents a paradox in my thinking. I’m strongly against any sort of strong nationalistic feelings because I see them as irrational. Would I be consistent in supporting nationalistic feelings if they could be used as means to my goals? Right now I can’t find any good reason to do something like that, so I guess I’m going to have to think more about that.

There’s no morality without God

I’ve heard the above line many times. It always raises a red flag in my mind because it’s a very disingenuous statement.

Some people seem to think that if some kind of god didn’t exist then we would have moral nihilism. But that is a ridiculous position to have as much as it is untenable. It had already been discredited in ancient times by Plato, in the Euthypro if I remember correctly.

The refutation is very simple: if the authority of the posited god over all moral standards is based only on his will, then he/she/it may decide at any moment that any act is moral, no matter how heinous. There’s good example in the bible of how immoral by today’s standards a particular conception of a god can be. In Genesis 22:1-2, God tells Abraham to kill his only son Isaac (portrayed here in lego, courtesy of The Brick Testament) as a sacrifice to him.

By today’s standards, killing one’s own child has to be hands down one of the most heinous acts one could commit. If morality depended on the whims of a god, things like that could indeed be considered moral. You would also have a kind of moral relativism since you can’t discount the fact that a god may change his mind.

Obviously someone would say that God would not allow such a possibility. If morality is not attached to the whims of a god, then it has to be something outside of it. There must be some way for this god to decide what is moral and what is not, some sort of objective system that can be used. If the god can make a decision using this system, there’s no reason to think that this system couldn’t be used by humans as well.

It also needs to be taken into account that if morality is the mere whim of a god then we would basically be taking orders from that god with no other justification than “this is what I say, so you must do it / not do it.” Most people would agree that there’s no moral value in merely taking orders.

Ethics and morality are well in the reach of the human mind. A god is not needed for us to be moral.

Diálogos Transatlánticos

Last night I went to the closing panel of the Transatlantic Dialogues seminar series organized by the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at New York University. The event had so many big names in international politics that security was really tight. I had to bring a copy of my R.S.V.P. confirmation along with my university ID. People had to pass through a metal detector while their bags were searched.

The panel’s moderator was Baltasar Garzón, judge magistrate in the Audiencia Nacional, Spain’s highest criminal court. The panel consisted of the following people:

Felipe González, former Spanish president
Álvaro Uribe, president of Colombia
Ernesto Zedillo, former Mexican president
Henry Kissinger, former U.S. secretary of state and national security advisor

Overall it was a great panel. Each one of the panelists expressed some great insights, but what made the debate really interesting was the exchange between Uribe and González. Uribe seemed like the more tactical of the two, using carefully measured words to show how well Colombia is doing because of his policies. Having had the first turn to speak, he more or less framed the debate by listing five elements he believes a modern democracy should have:

• democratic security
• respect for individual liberties
• social cohesion
• independence of governmental institutions
• transparency

These are all things, according to Uribe, that are being worked for in Colombia. He also made a comment about how it isn’t practical to divide Latin America in political rights and lefts. González responded to that saying that most of the time when he heard someone say such a thing, they most likely were from the political right. That sort of woke up the crowd and González received a round of applause for it.

González’s style was a nice contrast to Uribe’s. He seemed more spontaneous and better at sparking people’s emotions. He was definitely the more quotable of the two, saying things like (I’m paraphrasing, or course):

The people on the left know how to distribute wealth, but they don’t know how to create it. People on the right know how to create wealth, but don’t know how to distribute it.

and:

… A government should be just like those spectacular bodies we see in Ipanema (Brazil): not an ounce of excess fat, but no skeleton either.

In that last comment he was specifying what he meant by the need of big governments; not a huge bureaucratic government, but an agile government capable of swiftly meeting the needs of the country and the people.

I’m going to close this post with another one of González’s quotable moments, one that got a nice reaction from the crowd:

A leftist demagogue is a disaster, but a rightist demagogue is truly something to be feared.

I’ll post tomorrow about Zedillo and Kissinger.