fruitful faith » technology

for all

Dale — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 20:35:31 +0000

James Chastek points out that the authors of Scripture were not constructing a body of ‘evidence’ for God, but rather relating their testimony of things they were witnesses to. He remarks, “Christ, for one, was chiefly interested in making sure that he would have continual witnesses on earth, not that there would be any careful documentation of what he did or incontrovertible evidence that he did it. [...] It is not obvious that founding everything on a monument, a DNA finding, a more meticulous Hebrew census-taking, etc. would be a better way to go.”

And it occurs to me that founding the faith on personal testimony instead of ‘evidence’ (i.e. “a monument, a DNA finding, a more meticulous Hebrew census-taking, etc.”) is more fitting of a God who wishes to be known to any and all persons and not only to archaeologists, geneticists, and historians.

technology

Dale — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 01:05:26 +0000

Listening today to the NewstalkZB discussion of youth vandalism (which relate to my recent post) and the Pike River mining incident (29 miners trapped in a complex and multi-faceted situation).

Yet again, we see that technology is neither good nor bad.

If it’s good things we’re aiming to do, technology aids and strengthens our efforts. If it is best to send in human rescuers (or sacrificial, courageous fathers), then what a blessing to have breathing apparatuses & other gear to help them. If it’s best to send in a robot instead (as was decided – controversially), then what a blessing to have such technology to even give us the choice (and even better if it is able to withstand watery conditions – which it unfortunately was not).

If it is bad things we’re aiming to do, technology aids and strengthens these efforts as well. If it is not good to send in a less-than-robust robot to do a human’s job, then what a distraction the whole idea turned out to be. If it is not good for every opinion to be broadcast, then what a pain to have a mechanism like talk-back radio.

One caller was grateful for the discretion of the police, who kept people from taking the situation into ‘their own hands’ – as if it wasn’t in human hands anyway? Humans are responsible for doing what they can. More technology gives us more ‘can do’ options (can-do doesn’t equal should-do.), but is there a point when we have too many options? More power, but too much power? Does it make us hesitate to act courageously, or make us too dependent on technology?

A parallel scenario was the months before and weeks after Thomas was born, two years ago. We found the ante-natal classes generally helpful, and were grateful that we live in a time/place where such things are freely available to all. But we also noted that the sheer amount of information can be at times suffocating. You are given so many options and told about so many scenarios to be prepared for. There is being prepared on one hand, and on the other being so aware of the 74,000 things that ‘could’ happen that you worry they ‘will’ happen. Other parents we talked to related to this. At some point, we all have to trust those that know – even if we don’t.

power, complexity & ethics

Dale — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:03:45 +0000

Two things (neither good/evil of themselves) which will not make humans more moral are technology & science.

Technology gives us ever-increasing levels of power; and this power can be used to do both good and evil. Spiderman, anyone¹?
Science gives us an ever-increasing amount of data/facts; which make ethical choices more complex/detailed/varied – but which do not help us in the slightest bit to either know or do the right thing.

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

causal chain

Dale — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 23:08:56 +0000

Think of causality as a chain. (Leaving aside Aristotle’s other varieties of causation [formal, efficient and final] we’ll just focus on material causation alone…)

Much of the chain we can see with our eyes…
Quite a bit more of the chain has been brought into view with modern technology and scientific methodology…
The rest of the chain (actually, even some/most of it seen with technology/science) we can only see with our intellect/imagination, using things like reason, logic, philosophy, etc.

As our technology and methods get better and stronger, we can be sure that more and more of the chain will come into view, so to speak… But now, as always, we cannot know how far down the causal chain we are looking. What we may think of as 95% down the chain may be only .0001%. (Or the chain may be infinite, if you believe that infinity is not just a mathematical concept, but has a real example – the physical [multi/uni]verse).

Enter Hawking and Mlodinow’s new book, ‘The Grand Design’ – or I should say, enter the internet flurry of talk over the new book (Ken has nicely collected the relevant links), as most people (myself included) have not read the book yet. I have only seen the claim that physics has answered the question of why there is something rather than nothing, as well as the idea that God wasn’t ‘needed’ for the Big Bang, etc.

What this is claiming is not only that we’ve seen the final link in the causal chain – we know there are no other links.

(note: what follows is not pretending to be interaction with the new book, but rather reflecting on the issues raised by it.)

I can imagine the atheist response, “Well, you think God is the final Link in the chain, so you are also claiming ‘there are no other links’.”

At one level, I don’t disagree. Indeed, what the atheist must (or at least tends to) claim for Nature, the theist claims for God. Both think they have identified the Thing beyond which no other ‘T[t]hings” lie. Based on the admittedly tiny quote I’ve seen from a NZ Herald story, Hawking seems to think that the law of gravity is the ‘Thing’ that is just simply there? I’d be interested to see if he deals to the obvious question that this begs – namely the question of the origin or cause of the Law of Gravity.

Also related to the discussion seems to be Quantum Indeterminacy. I’ve never ever understood how this could even begin to contribute to the question of why something rather than nothing. Claims that matter is being spontaneously created at the quantum level go way beyond anything we can actually observe. This is where language needs to be precise. Rather than saying that matter flicks back and forth in/out of existence, we ought to say that it flicks in/out of observability – given our current technology and methodology.

And even if we were certain (which we cannot ever be) that we were looking at the final link in the quantum causal chain, how do you ever run an experiment to test for divine action? Most conceptions of God as Creator (well at least non-Deistic ones) hold that God is not just the Creator in terms of ex nihilo, but also in the sense of creatio continua; faithful, sustaining, moment-by-moment, on-going creative action. If we believe, as we do, that the Creator is to be credited (ultimately) for the lengthening of a single blade of grass, then we also believe that Quantum behaviour, however known/unknown, is also dependent (ultimately) on divine creative action.

But at another level, I do disagree. For God should not be thought of as just another link in a chain, let alone a chain of physical causation. God should be thought of as the Anchor at the end of the chain – which is not the chain itself, but nonetheless has a permanent, fundamental and foundational relationship to the chain.

All analogies eventually break down, so I’m under no illusion that this one has great lasting power. But nonetheless, imagine a person happening upon the end of a long chain that goes around a corner or out of sight. The chain is moving. It seems to me that the atheist claim is that nothing is moving the chain – it moves all by itself.

mather God?

Dale — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 03:59:02 +0000

Check out (and contribute to!?) the online, editable, book (‘Not Only A Father‘) by Tim Bulkeley about gender language and God.

Yes – editable.

This is a new kind of book. A book you discuss with others, and with the author, as you read. It may even be edited and rewritten as a result of your comments.

Pretty neat idea – hope he gets the meaningful interaction he’s looking for!

postflow

Dale — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 09:28:42 +0000

I incessantly think and type in footnotese.¹ I constantly use parentheses² to put thoughts within thoughts within thoughts.

Thanks to a funky plugin³, I can now make my nuances and additions viewable by hovering or clicking on the footnote number⁴ – all without breaking the flow of thought.⁵

this is probably just being lazy
and hyphens
http://elvery.net/drzax/wordpress-footnotes-plugin
that’s it!!!
sort of – except for when you pause to read the footnote, etc.??

contingency

Dale — Tue, 11 May 2010 23:38:37 +0000

To completely tell the story of something, you have to talk about something other than the thing itself.

To completely tell the story of a sub-atomic particle, you have to talk about the atom.

To completely tell the story of a living cell, you have to talk about the cellular organism it is a part of.

To completely tell the story of a tree, you have to talk about rain, soil, wind, sunlight, etc.

To completely tell the story of a human, you have to talk about their parents.

To completely tell the story of a website, you have to talk about the internet.

To completely tell the story of the scientific method, you have to talk about regularity and the desire to know.

To completely tell the story of the earth, you have to talk about (presumably) the sun.

To completely tell the story of the sun (and our solar system), you have to talk about the milky-way galaxy.

To completely tell the story of our galaxy, you halve to talk about the universe.

To completely tell the story of our universe, you have to talk about something other than our universe.

on publishing words

Dale — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:02:35 +0000

technology has changed the way we use words…

if we restrict a quick analysis to the major modes of communication used now (we could include ancient writing, but will not at the moment), we could make some brief observations about the different kinds…

journals, encyclopedias and textbooks – characterised by their scholarship, which (lest we forget) is basically interaction with the thought of others.
published book (with proper publisher) – a sustained statement (or argument or story), which was likely researched, drafted, revised etc.
magazine article (decently respected mag) – a shortened version of a larger argument or conversation – again, research and refinement, etc.
newspaper article – an even more condensed piece, yet still some research and refinement needed.
website or professional blog – considered statements for whatever purpose – the more refinement the better, etc.
personal blog – more off-the-cuff thoughts – “research” = (often) googling
Facebook status update – 99.3% of the time, time-wasting, boredom-prolonging nonsense (i.e. i had “this” for dinner, etc.)
twitter updates – humanity has gone too far nobody needs to know what you are up to that often

postman on technology – 1998

Dale — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:36:55 +0000

Quite interesting (I’m slowly working through them in spare time, which I’ve not got much of!)

gears

Dale — Mon, 18 May 2009 10:52:25 +0000

For mozzila firefox users, who blog with wordpress…

…I recommend installing the ‘Google Gears‘ plug-in (click ‘Turbo’ in your WordPress dashboard – sorry not available for wordpress.com users!), which (when enabled) stores all the little images and things that you otherwise have to download each time you change pages. This not only saves bandwith, but should considerably speed up your ‘dashboard time’ (even if you have a pretty fast internet connection?).

While I’m at it, I also recommend the AdBlock Plus (blocks many/most advertisements) plug-in and the Zotero (bibliography/referencing tool) plug-in.