Holly & Whatzhisname ... Two Lovers In Love

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Smirky? No, But ...

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The Two Hundred Fourteenth Person To Comment On This Blog Is A Big Dork

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A Particularly Stunning Sunset (Photo Essay)

This afternoon I was outside, doing some woodworking. (I'm building a large set of shelves for my big CD collection.) At one point I looked up and noticed that as the day was ending, the sky was covered by a sheet of some interesting looking clouds. I also noticed that to the west, the sun was beginning to peek out, and the sky was getting a little yellow-pinkish over that way. I thought to myself that perhaps a nice sunset was forming up, so I took a break from my woodworking project, got the camera, and sat down in a chair on the porch, resting and watching the sky.

The sunset I was hoping for began to wuss out as the sun passed behind some clouds and the color in the sky turned to shades of grey. I shrugged, put the camera away, and went back to work, wanting to get as much time in as I could before it got dark. After a few minutes I happened to look up from my work to the west again, and saw that the sun had once again come out from behind whatever clouds had hidden it over on the horizon, and a spectacular sunset had formed.

I've taken quite a bit of sunset photos before, so I know that time is of the essence. When that sunset begins to form up, you can't waste time because as it reaches it's climax, a good sunsest is changing moment to moment, and deteriorates quickly. I dashed back inside and grabbed the camera, and began snapping away. I only had perhaps two or three minutes before the show was over. Here's the result:

Hey Lucy?

Hey Lucy?

The Autumn Colors Of Turnbull Vineyards (Photo Essay)

The other day I had an errand to run in St. Helena, a small town about a half hour north of where I live. On my return, I stopped outside the small town of Oakville, and as the sun dropped lower in the late afternoon sky, and shadows lengthened, I took some pictures of a particularly colorful vineyard.

Atheism And Agnosticism And Certainty And Uncertainty

Preface

This is my third attempt to satisfactorily express my thoughts on this subject. The previous two …

A POMPOUS ESSAY ON “RUSSELL’S TEAPOT” AND HOW I SEE THINGS (A BLOG FOR GEOFF) (posted 16 March, 2010)
http://www.wireclub.com/Blogs/StuckInTheSixties/159784

In A Nutshell … (posted 21 May, 2010)
http://www.wireclub.com/Blogs/StuckInTheSixties/182282

… left me rather unsatisfied. I shall now try again.



Atheism And Agnosticism And Certainty And Uncertainty

I have a semi-obsession with the words “atheism” and “agnosticism,” and the meaning, the definitions of those two words … and the way that those two words relate to each other conceptually, the differences and similarities between them. I’ve blogged about these words several times. I’ve written in various Forums about them. It’s been an evolving process. And this obsession has, at times, been compelling, aggravating, frustrating, illuminating, and other things. I found that a lot of people couldn’t care less about any of this, while others are capable of great passion in this discussion. I’ve spent a great deal of time and effort considering atheism and agnosticism, and I found the collective results very complex. I’ve come to the conclusion that these words, and their definitions, are flawed, and logically, should be modified. And I’ve come to the conclusion that the English language needs at least one new word added to it to address this issue, maybe two. I’m also very interested, compelled, by the issues that these words are associated with, but that’s a separate (albeit related) topic.

These two words, of course, have to do with the question of whether a god exists, or doesn’t. And because this is an issue that involves the concept of God, a third word, less troublesome in concept and definition for me, comes into play. That word is “theism,” the belief that God(s) exist.

And there is a concept that lies at the heart of all of this:

Certainty, and uncertainty.

Those two states of mind are exclusive. You simply can’t be certain of something, yet uncertain of it, at the same time. You can be certain, become uncertain, and become certain again, and of course, you can be uncertain, become certain, and return to uncertainty. You can slip back and forth between those two states. You can change your mind. Repeatedly. Quickly or slowly. You can possibly never change your mind, or change it many times rapidly.

But the SIMULTANEOUS condition of certainty and uncertainty is impossible.

Let’s leave the idea of God behind for the time being, and replace that with the idea of “guilt and innocence.” You can consider a person as “certainly guilty” or “certainly innocent,” but you can’t consider a person as “certainly and uncertainly guilty” or “certainly and uncertainly innocent.” Either of those two words have absolute values. You can consider a person certainly guilty, or certainly innocent … or … you can be uncertain.

Okay. Back to the God thing. Let me describe a common concept, one which I subscribe to. As I see it, there is a sort of spectrum of beliefs, a spectrum with three parts to it. This spectrum has the total, absolute certainty of the existence God at one end, the total, absolute certainty of the non-existence of God at the other, and everything else in the space between those two.

And as I see it, there are razor-sharp divides between those three beliefs. They nudge up against one another, but they’re separate. Though they are clearly all related, conceptual membranes divide them. If you are absolutely certain that God exists, you can’t simultaneously be uncertain. You can change your mind, flip back and forth from one to the other, but you can’t be certain and uncertain in the same moment. It’s the same with an absolute certainty that God doesn’t exist. You can’t be certain and uncertain at the same time, although you can change your mind, rapidly, repeatedly even. But you can’t be in both conceptual places simultaneously.

Theoretically, I suppose it would be possible to be absolutely certain that God exists, and suddenly, in the next instant, be absolutely certain that God doesn’t exist, and vice-versa. But it’s far more likely that if a person wavers in their beliefs, they are going to shift from certainty to uncertainty, or vice-versa.

I think what I’ve said here about the concept of certainty and uncertainty is a reasonably logical point of view. I think most people would, in practical terms, agree with this. Of course, there are plenty of people here in Wireclub (me included) that love an abstruse argument about anything, but basically, I’m fairly confident that the concepts I’ve presented here are pretty straightforward and not much of a basis for argument.

That may change now. Let’s take this discussion into the realm of semantics.

Words, of course, have meanings. Sometimes words have highly technical, very specific meanings. Sometimes words have loose, colloquial, common non-specific meanings quite vague and varying. Sometimes words have commonly used meanings that are quite different from the more specific, technical meanings. This can make certain words very slippery in usage. Someone says something like “I want to kill you” when they really don’t have homicide on their mind at all. It’s just a figurative usage, or misusage, of that word. The words “atheism” and “agnosticism” have all of these troublesome qualities.

Let’s tackle “atheism” first. The straightforward dictionary definition is “disbelief in the existence of God or deity.” This is how most people think of the word. Simply said, an atheist doesn’t believe in God.

And there is also another academic, more scholarly usage of the word. There are words, not uncommon, where a word has the letter “A” attached to the front of it to essentially reverse the meaning of the word. Asexual (not sexual). Atonal (not tonal).

Atheism. (not theism)

When defined this way, the meaning of the word becomes much broader. It essentially means any belief other than theism. It basically covers any philosophical position other than a specific belief in the existence of God. This definition isn’t found in my dictionary, but it certainly can be found in the Wikipedia article “Atheism”:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

It’s this meaning that gives rise to the idea of “strong atheism,” “weak atheism,” and all kinds of other forms of supposed “atheism.”

Let’s also look at the word “agnosticism.” The dictionary defines that as “the belief that it is impossible to know whether or not God exists.” More loosely, quite a few people, maybe most people, define agnosticism as “not knowing if God exists or not.” And again, there is that first syllable, “a,” meaning without, in this case, “without Gnosticism,” a Greek word essentially meaning “knowledge” (in this case, knowledge of whether God exists or not). And again, there is a more academic, scholarly usage of the word. Again there is a Wiki article that defines the word in great detail.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism

And of course, there is the word “theist,” which, for most people, is interchangeable with the word “religious.” We all pretty much know what we mean with that word. There are some arcane, academic variations on this definition, but that word is clearly not confused with the other two. It’s atheism and agnosticism, it’s those two words, that seem to be conceptually and semantically tangled.

Conveniently, the English language and the dictionary provide the definition for “atheism” that most people commonly use. It’s that simple definition, a person that doesn’t believe in the existence of God. And in general, pretty much anyone, with any personal view on what that word means, seems to be pretty comfortable with that usage of the word. It generally doesn’t cause problems. But when that word “agnosticism” gets used, it sometimes leads to some passionate and complex arguments. For whatever reason, quite a few people have an aversion to that word and concept.

In my perfect world, the English language would solve this difficulty with a single, new word that would define that common usage of the word “agnosticism,” a word that would express the concept of the intellectual state of uncertainty of the existence of God. The dictionary comes close with that definition “the belief that it is impossible to know whether or not God exists.” Those two concepts are almost interchangeable, but not quite. Logic would suggest that anyone believing that it’s impossible to know if God exists would also be uncertain about the existence of God. The phrase “impossible to know” starkly implies uncertainty. But it’s possible to be personally uncertain, and still entertain the notion that someone else might be able to know the answer to that question. It’s possible to acknowledge that one might be personally uninformed of that information, but that it might, indeed, exist. So those two concepts aren’t quite interchangeable. The common usage, actually a technical misusage of the word “agnosticism,” doesn’t have its own specific word.

Furthermore, in my humble opinion, the English language would make more conceptual sense, and be more orderly and consistent, if the word “atheist” had that one, single definition of someone that was certain that God didn’t exist. As I said before, it’s the concept of certainty versus uncertainty that lies at the heart of how people perceive these things.

Let’s look at five hypothetical people, with their five hypothetical differing perceptions of their worlds:

Person A: This person is certain that God doesn’t exist
Person B: This person thinks it’s likely that God doesn’t exist, but isn’t certain
Person C: This person simply thinks that it’s impossible to logically know one way or another, and they just don’t know.
Person D: This person thinks it’s likely that God exists, but isn’t certain
Person E: This person is certain that God exists.

Persons A and E are at opposite ends of this spectrum, but they share a common trait: certainty. Their positions are starkly defined, unambiguous. Their certainty is 100%.

Persons B, C and D share a common trait: uncertainty.

And the positions of Persons B, C and D are very ambiguous, and very difficult to define with exactitude. For instance, Person B might be just a little uncertain. For the ease of discussion, let’s say they have 99% certainty, and 1% uncertainty. They’re almost certain, but not quite. Another person might be just a tiny bit more uncertain than that. Let’s say they are 95% certain and 5% uncertain. But it’s still reasonable to describe them the same way, they’re “almost certain.” So at what percentage split do they stop being “almost certain,” and start being in the “just don’t know one way or the other” category? It’s completely ambiguous. One person might listen to them express their thoughts, and conclude that they’re practically like Person A, while another might listen to those same thoughts and think that they’re almost like Person C. It’s absolutely subjective, ambiguous. It’s impossible to define in any reasonable way. And of course, you can make a mirror image of this same argument with Persons D and E. And of course, Person C’s position in the spectrum is no better defined than his neighbors B and D.

So, to simplify: It’s easy to define what Persons A and E are. Both of them are conceptually isolated. What isolates them is the intellectual certainty of their beliefs. A thin membrane separates them from the others, who are uncertain. The membrane is microscopically thin, but nevertheless, it separates them. It isolates them.

But Persons B, C and D have conceptual locations on this spectrum that are impossible to define. You can be sure that C is between B and D, but that’s about as far as it goes. The rest is completely ambiguous.

Not only that, but it would be reasonable for Person A, Mr. Atheist, to suggest that B, C and D essentially all the same: They’re not in the “A” category like him, and they’re not religious like Person E. They’re all the same. And it would be reasonable for Person E to have the mirror image perception of that, as well. Logically, Persons B, C and D have far more in common with each other than with Person A. And they have more in common with each other than with Person E. Even if Person B is 99.9999 % sure, and nudging up against that membrane that separates him from Person A, he’s still in that group with C and D.

So in this hypothetical illustration, there are really only three groups, not five:
Person A (certain)
Persons B, C and D (uncertain)
Person E (certain)

Okay. Now here is where it gets interesting. I have expressed this argument of mine numerous times with various people here in Wireclub. And what I’ve found is that the entanglement of those two words, “atheism and agnosticism,” can lead to some very passionate, very emotionally wrought arguments about what those words mean, and how people define themselves, and others. Not having any psychological studies of this phenomenon at my disposal, I have to go with my own anecdotal experiences about why this is. (A psychological study of such a thing might not impress me anyway, but that’s an entirely different discussion.) So the question arises:

When it comes to these passionate, sometimes heated disputes, about what those two words mean, and whether a person is an atheist or an agnostic, it leads me to ask …

Why?

Why are the arguments sometimes passionate and heated? And more specifically, why are some people comfortable in describing themselves as uncertain, but often reluctant to describe themselves with the term “agnostic”? And why does it seem that quite few of those who are absolutely certain atheists are anxious to want to include those who are uncertain as fellow atheists?

I have often come across the person that refers to themselves as an “atheist,” but then hedges a bit, and admits uncertainty. But still, without referring to any of the complex semantic variations of the word, they seem to really want to be “atheist,” and not “agnostic,” like it’s not cool or something to be an agnostic, like there’s more status or worth in being an atheist.

I think there is a sort of stigma that many attach to the idea of agnosticism. After all, that position is based on uncertainty, on not knowing. Compared to the certainty of the religious or atheist positions, it almost seems ignorant to be an agnostic, or perhaps the agnostic lacks the intelligence to be an atheist. And I’ve even seen an atheist write that the position of an agnostic is the position of a coward, someone not brave enough to look straight into the face of the idea of after-life punishment for being an infidel, someone who is philosophically hedging his bet, so to speak.

I reject all of that. I go with that dictionary definition. I say that it’s simply impossible to know if God exists … or not. There’s no proof either way. I say that there should be no stigma attached to this uncertainty. It makes no sense to me that a stigma should be attached to uncertainty in something for which there is no objective, tangible proof, yet no stigma attached to certainty in something for which there is no objective, tangible proof. That seems backwards to me. Yet it exists.

Consider this, which I find interesting, and telling:

Theists – I’ll call them Certain Theists now – don’t seem to be very eager to argue that those who are uncertain are actually a form of fellow theists. But quite often, Certain Atheists seem to be very eager to co-opt the uncertain and define them as also being atheists. They’re sort of “inclusionary atheists.” I think at the heart of it is the desire to have a bigger constituency. They’re not consciously thinking, “Yes, our Atheist Army is growing!” It’s a more of a “birds of a feather” kind of thing. It’s the knowledge that the “lesser atheist” is at least somewhat like them compared to the theist. They are fellow “infidels,” and there’s a sense of kinship.

Semantically, these inclusionary atheists have a point. The dictionary backs up their point of view ( a-theist – “not theist” ). However, conceptually, it makes no sense to group the certain with the uncertain, as my “Persons A-E” argument illustrated.

In my perfect world, the English Language would be re-tooled to take the idea of certainty, and uncertainty into account when describing a person’s beliefs about the existence, or non-existence, of God, and the three basic conceptual places a person’s beliefs place them in.

The first part seems to be already in order. The Certain Theist, or religious person, seems to be defined adequately. There isn’t too much argument about that definition.

However, in my perfect world, there would a word to define what I would phrase “the Certain Atheist,” and another word to define what I would phrase “the uncertain.” As the English language exists, those two words are tangled, and the language is untidy, unorderly.

In my perfect world, those three conceptual positions would be defined by three simple elegant, efficient words. Here’s a suggestion, albeit, completely lacking in elegance:

Certheist (it works now … why change it?)
Uncertaintist
Ceroppotheist ( certain, and the conceptual opposite of a theist – Jeezus, that’s an UGLY word, but I think you get the idea … )

(Actually, that stupid made-up word “Ceroppotheist” would be better replaced with a different word altogether, one that isn’t derived from “theist.” That philosophical position deserves to have its own word altogether.)

In my perfect world, since all of the ambiguity resides with the uncertain, it would be with that new, hypothetical word “uncertaintist” that all of the various expressions of shading and qualifying would occur. You could have a “nearly-ceroppothist uncertaintism” or “slightly-ceroppothist uncertaintism,” but of course, while those terms are sensible conceptually, they’re about as non-poetic and verbally ugly as can be. While I like the idea of those ugly words, I don’t really like the sound of them. I’m just making a point. So I’ll leave it up to someone else to invent the new words for these logical concepts, because I don’t seem to be cut out for that particular talent.

But this isn’t my perfect world. I’m stuck with the same flaws in the language that you are. So I’ll probably just go along and loosely refer to people as religious, atheist, or agnostic. And if someone wants to hassle me about it, I’ll refer them to this essay.

Maybe I’ll begin referring to myself as an “Uncertain Agnostic.”

Yes, I Am An Idiot

Today, I decided to clean out the gutters on my house. So I took my ladder, an extension ladder, and propped it up there against the roof, and climbed on up with a water hose to hose out whatever dirt and debris might have accumulated in the gutter. As I was doing this, moving along the length of the roof, behind me, out of my view, the hose snagged on the ladder, and pulled the top of it sideways until it toppled over and fell. That left me stranded on my roof, the ladder lying on the ground below me.

I'm not completely stupid, though. The nozzle on the hose is one of those that vaguely resembles a pistol. You squeeze the two sections of the grip together, and the water squirts out. This gives the nozzle grip a vague sort of hook shape. So I thought, "Okay. Let's go fishing. This probably won't work, but let's give it a shot."

I lowered the nozzle down to the ladder, and after a few tries, actually managed to hook it. Slowly, carefully, I pulled it up until I could reach out and grab it, being careful, of course, to not fall off the roof in the process. The end of the ladder I had hooked, and now had in my hands, was the bottom part, so I'd have to turn it around. I began carefully pulling it up, and being an extension ladder, suddenly the top part of it slid away from the bottom part I was gripping, separating, and fell to the ground, landing under the eave of the roof where I could no longer even see it.

So there I was with a hose and half a ladder. I went fishing again, but this time without even being able to see the ladder I was attempting to hook. It had been tricky enough while being able to see what I was doing. Pretty quickly, I realized that trying to swing the hose under the eave and drop it, hoping to hook onto that ladder, was not going to be easy. And I was concerned because in order to do this exercise in futility, I was having to get very close to the edge of the roof, leaning over it, and putting myself in substantial risk of falling off the damn house and breaking my neck.

So my only real option at that point was clear. I waited for someone, either a jogger or a walker, to pass by on the road about a hundred yards/meters away, and finished cleaning out the gutter while I waited. It took about a half hour.

"Hey! Hey you! (laughs) I'm stuck up on my roof 'cause the ladder fell over! Can you help me out?" The jogger dude detoured, and came to my rescue. With a little coaching from me, he managed to put the two halves of the ladder back together, put the ladder back up, and hold it while I climbed down. Thank you, Mr. Jogger Dude.

So yes. Yes, I am an idiot.

Hundreds Of Thousands Turn Out For SF Giants Victory Parade And Rally (Photos)

The San Francisco Giants won the World Series on Monday against the Texas Rangers. A victory parade and rally were held today in downtown San Francisco, attended by hundreds of thousands of delirious fans. San Francisco hasn't seen a parade like this since the 1981 49ers won the Super Bowl. I scanned a number of local television and newspaper websites, and came up with this batch of photos that should give you an idea of the atmosphere.

Halloween Display At Michael Holmes Designs Gallery (Photo Essay)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. It's two days late. I only took these pictures on Halloween, and I wasn't able to finish processing them for posting here until today.

Michael Holmes Designs is an art gallery about a mile from where I live. They set up this cool Halloween display, including two HUGE pumpkins. Note that in pictures 12 and 13 you can see my car key, placed on that big pumpkin in order to give it some scale.