"The Moment of Truth"

by sophlightning305 on Friday, August 29, 2008 comments (10)

For those of you who are like me and don't watch much TV anymore, there is a FOX gameshow now that has a new twist how contestants can make money and how to get people to spill their darkest secrets on national television (which inevitably draws viewer attention). So the idea is that half a million dollars can easily be achieved since all of the gameshow's questions...are about you! Essentially "The Moment of Truth" hooks possible contestants up to a polygraph before the show and asks them about 50-60 questions that absolutely train wreck their image, marriage and lives...all for the possibility of winning 500k. The candidates with the juiciest secrets are then put in front of national television, their friends and families and asked to repeat the answers again while strapped to a polygraph again. Questions about feelings towards ex's, family members, past deeds are all fair game and your job is to tell the truth...according to the polygraph. It seems like one of the most uncomfortable and stupid things to put yourself through especially if you're not going to go all the way (which nobody has ever gotten to before). The host himself says that:

When Walberg talked to Access Hollywood about it tonight, he made mention of the fact that the contestants know the questions before they get onto the stage, so it’s not like they’re surprised by the questions. But he seemed to have a hard time understanding why Lauren went forward with the questions, saying, “I don’t have any problem of the fairness aspect of it. I have a problem with her judgment of then choosing to do it.” Walberg went on to say, “I know people are going to think I was BS-ing but the truth is, I was begging her to stop.”
link

Now, my thing is, after answering questions that have already thrown your image, your family's image and your marriage out the window...why do people stop? Did they plan to go in there for just 100k pricing their worth in the world for that and a few minutes of national shame? I seriously don't understand how people who value any of the aforementioned things can do this show...and for those who don't actually care...how can they not reach 500k? Nobody has gotten past the 100k mark and I just wonder if they just did not realize that it's either money+a lonely but wealthy life or just continue living happily albeit under a false image. If you're dumb enough to sell out your family and pride for money, at least be smart enough not to put it out on sale.

So besides for thinking of how foolish the contestants must be, I was wondering if lie detectors are really that useful. Everybody has heard about the technical things: heart rate, body heat...but the general idea is if you know you're lying and react...it will know. However, imagine this: have two simple questions in your head, one designed for true and one for false.

Ex:
Is your name Joey? (yes)
Are you really the Batman? (no)

Now if somebody asks you a question such as: (real question on show) do you like your mother in law.

Just calm down, and ask yourself the question "Is your name Joey?" of course not out loud...and then with that question in mind, answer out loud. You can even convince yourself that you have answered the last question already. Imagine the show's surprise when every single one of your answers are different from the audition (you're allowed to change as long as lie detector validates it...and this step needed to get on show). Of course this means that during the audition, every question from the most simple of questions must also be answered in this fashion. So now that I know how to beat the game, all i need is somebody to pretend to be my newlywed and let's go chop that money.

Puzzle

by sophlightning305 on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 comments (8)

Read this somewhere and dunno the answer...

How do you have a fair coin toss over the phone?


Don't read comments till you've tried!!! Also try using anything...not just coins. Maybe guessing the number in your head, or which of your hands has a stone, who's going to hang up first...

Response to "Qwerty Keyboard" Part 1

by sophlightning305 on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 comments (0)

I thought that Tim "GnawMit" did a great job writing that reflection. I definitely can't match his way with words and being an econ major...using more words often leads to diminishing returns =P. But the way Tim went about it reminded me a lot about "The Giver", something that most of us read in middle school. That book, too, paints the "condensing" of our past: history, literature, grammer, in a dark light and even pushes it to an extreme, forcing one "Giver" to bear all of the memories of color, heat, and emotions . Most of us, me included, don't bother to learn latin or what happened in countries that are far far away in times long long ago. Obviously when these topics come up in conversation, we tend to feel a little stupid and wonder if we should know these events. Tim called latin "useless" in a light-mannered tone in response to other people's belief that it was a "dead language".

The question is, is learning about our past and languages such as "latin" useless as suggested by popular opinion? Like Tim said, learning our past is important for our society to move forward. If we see Latin/History as our roots, people like Tim are the stem. By understanding how we as a culture developed, we move closer and closer to understanding the amazingly complex system that we call "human interaction". It's just like when you're building a tower of cards and looking to put the next shaky piece onto the already fragile base. As you're putting on the next card, each previous top-layer is a new base, a new beginning. In the case of progress, to find the path of greatest probability of success, one looks for information. This information of how to move from the present to the future is found in the ways in which society has made her moves in the past. Scientists today look to how nature created eyes, ears and hearts millions of years ago so that they can apply the information to mechanical progress. Similarly, the ways of government, culture and hierarchy of Japan were studied by business administrators for more effective ways of using employees. Basically, it is possible to learn from the past...and from our mistakes.

But then what about the rest of us?...Are we the ones that ought to join Tim as stems?

1 Corinthians 13:1-7, 13

by gnawmit on Tuesday, August 26, 2008 comments (0)

This prefaces George Orwell's novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying. However, it is not the verse that people know. It is instead adapted to his novel, so it's been changed.

I thought it was hilarious.

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not money, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not money, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not money, it profiteth me nothing. Money suffereth long, and is kind; money envieth not; money vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.... And now abideth faith, hope, money, these three; but the greatest of these is money."

-I Corinthians xiii (adapted)

Hope you found it funny as well.

Tell me what you think about my website

by Kevin, NeuEve Team on Monday, August 25, 2008 comments (0)

Check out www.TheDukeEntrepreneur.com and tell me what you think! I made the website!

Starcraft and Information Warfare

by Kevin, NeuEve Team on Monday, August 25, 2008 comments (1)

As most of you all remember, in the 1930s and 1940s the menace of Hitler and Japanese Imperialism was threatening the safety of the world. Although much credit is given to our troops on the ground and in the air, I feel like not enough credit is given to our geniuses and their chalkboards. Thanks to the ingenuity of America's smart people, we were able to crack the codes of both the Germans and the Japanese, and intercept all radio communications. This information at the same time screwed up all of the Axis's sneaky maneuvers and also allowed the Allies to pull off one sneaky maneuver after another.

In StarCraft and war, information is everything. That's why I like poker and starcraft: both are games of incomplete information. You want to gather as much information as possible, while limiting your opponent's information. If you can do that, you've won half the battle.

It's a common mistake for newer players to forget to scout their opponent. This is huge error, because they will not know what to expect if they don't scout. If the opponent is fast-expanding, you can counter with a quick push or a fast expand of your own. If the opponent is militarizing, you need to prepare your defenses. If the opponent is teching, you can either go for a push, or you better have detection/anti-air/whatever else.

All three races have unique ways to gather information, which fits their playing styles.

The Terran are the best at peering deep inside the enemy base. The Comsat Scanner is unstoppable. However, it has limited energy, so it can only be used sparingly.

The Zerg have the burrow ability. This allows them to place zerglings around the map in order to see enemy movements. Zerglings are extremely cheap, so this is extremely cost effective for Zerg. They can also set up traps and ambushes, such as burrowing a dozen hydralisks under an overlord, and waiting for a corsair to arrive. The downside is that you cannot follow the movement of enemies, so you will have to fill in the blanks yourself. The Zerg also have the innocuous-looking Overlord. It plays a key role in the beginning, essentially acting as a free scout. This enables the zerg to very quickly know where the enemy is on a 4-player map, by sending a drone clockwise, the overlord counterclockwise, and if the enemy is not at one of these bases, then the enemy is across.

The Protoss have observers, which are arguably better than both Comsat and burrowed units. They are cloaked and have detection, which makes them great for following armies around the map as they move. This is something neither Terrans nor Zerg can do. However, observers are pretty darn expensive for a non-combat unit and they can't be everywhere at once. They're also slow and weak, so they're very vulnerable to any unit once they're detected.

StarCraft

by eohcnrk on Monday, August 25, 2008 comments (5)

Okay, before I start out with this article. I am not a nerd.

Start:

I remember the Golden Days of IMSA, where all our fellow brethren would gather up their computers have enjoy a compelling game of StarCraft. The game was played just for kicks but I thought it really offered B-Wing bonding time; and as bad as it may have seemed, discussing StarCraft over the dinner table was a lot of fun. Note: I never discussed StarCraft as I ate, I just listened. It was mostly Ashwin and Steven talking about it.

So playing the game was fun; however, many would argue that we were wasting our time. Parents say games = wasting time -> becomming a garbage collector. For me, being a garbage collector wasn't so bad as you do get paid quite a bit. Anyways...

Back then, I saw the game as a menacing time guzzler. Everyday I'd be sleeping in Japanese class with my eyes open because I was up too late playing the retarded game. As time progressed, however, the game died. Eventually it would just be me, Seo, and Steven playing...Steven > Seo> me, cuz steven was being gay and using tanks, and seo was being homo and using storm- believe it or not, Seo does have a homo side to him.

So I left the game because it was no fun anymore, and years past...

AND THEN!!!!

I started playing again, thanks to ktao. However, this time the experience was much more different. This time I began to focus on strategic ideas in the game, and also improving multitasking skills. By all means, I still suck, but I find this game as certainly more 3D dimensional than any other game, despite its graphics.

Like poker and go, I think StarCraft possess a quality of strategic balance that relate to life so well, that many of the same applications applied in the game can be directly applied to real life situations.

To name a few ideas presented in the game:
nuance
psychology
precision
multitasking
micro/macro managing
economics
anticipating
Speed
planning
reacting
mouse clicking-yes this muscle will come handy some day, i'm sure
risk bearing
utilitarianism
and etc.

i have just named a few ideas that are well embedded in the game, while there are certainly more. If you looked at each of the items in the list, you'll notice that these ideas are not game specific, rather they are subjects clearly significant in real life situations. So even though I'm writing an article about a game, I'm really not. Hence, I'm not a nerd...

Qwerty Keyboard

by gnawmit on Sunday, August 24, 2008 comments (20)

Nonsensical title I know. I just wrote that to get your attention.

Joey invited me a while back but I didn't get around to joining up until now.

I finished the book Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, very recently. I like the book very much, though my brother and his girlfriend both say it sucks. If you don't know what the premise of the book is, I'll explain a little bit.

The book is set in mid-to-late 21st century America, where books are banned by the government. Not because America has become oppressive - but because the public no longer wants to read. Taking advantage of the trend, the government reduces all reading into five-, two-, one-minute vignettes that can be watched on TV. Devices that play music called Seashells are plugged into people's ears 24/7 (by their own choice...iPod anyone?). Firemen no longer put fires out - they start them. For example: "Established, 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the Colonies. First Fireman: Benjamin Franklin," part of a brief history of the Firemen of America in the novel. If a tip is called in, firemen storm into a house to search for books, douse the place in kerosene and FOOM the place goes up in flames. In the backdrop of this dystopian (well, I think it’s pretty dystopian) civilization, the threat of nuclear war is ever-present, though even to this the public is mostly apathetic. I only give background, no plot summary 'cause that'll take too long, but I can post one too if you want.

From here on out is purely my own personal exposition.

So what to say about this Dark Age of Fahrenheit 451? Well, for me, I can see where Bradbury got this idea. All science fiction starts with the question "What if...?" Indeed, what if a fireman's job was to start a fire not put it out? However, I think the question is more "What if people became so apathetic they refused to spend time on thought?" The book is not so much about book-burning as apathy of thought.

I read a lot. In terms of fiction, I prefer science/speculative fiction because many of the writers like to put in philosophy and history and other studies of humanities, essentially making the novel or short story into a commentary on the human condition. I love the question "What if...?" Such questions seem quite useless to those of us who are pragmatic and utilitarian and purposeful with their lives. I would like to be all those things, because then my life would have a clear direction - but for now, as a History major with a Classics minor and a possible double major in English, I prefer to keep thinking such useless thoughts. People ask me why I studied Latin - "It's useless," they say, "nobody speaks a dead language," "it's only good for the SAT." Well, I studied Latin because I'm curious as to how Western civilization came about. Where did our laws come from? Our lierature? The economy? The influence of Christianity? Philosophy and intellectualism? Many people argue that our archaic origins have no more relevance in an increasingly globalized, interconnected, and secular world. Well...if you forget where you are coming from, how are you going to know where you are going?

Throughout history, men and women have argued what the best ways are to lead and to learn and to do all kinds of things. The reason the world of Fahrenheit 451 came about is because writers and intellectuals could not agree on one thing. This made people "unhappy".

aAn excerpt from Fahrenheit 451:

"Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with its horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests, tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending. Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume...But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet...was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: now at last you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbors...School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?"

Widespread Greek and Latin instruction in primary and secondary schools stopped in America a while back. Throughout my time in the K-12 system, I never had a single course in proper English grammar and language. I'm just saying.

It's so much easier to turn on an iPod or a laptop than to open a book. I'm definitely not saying that books are the answer to life (well, if you're a Christian, then the Bible would be). I love watching movies and TV. I follow the Cubs avidly as well as fanatically check my fantasy baseball teams. But I find that many people buy books only to never open them again after perusing it at the bookstore. I'm not condemning them. There are plenty of valid reasons not to open that book again, e.g. not enough time, etc. I definitely don't even read that much, compared to someone like Stephen King, who reads on average 70 to 80 books a year. And many people I know definitely think a lot. But I believe that Bradbury has a valid point about apathy of thought in modern day America. An ever increasingly consumer- and convenience-driven culture takes books out of many people's hands. Many of the college-educated people I meet don't see the point in studying the humanities, because it simply isn't practical. But I encourage all people I know to read books, to take the leisure time to digest what was read and wonder and ask questions.

I’ll leave with one more excerpt from Fahrenheit 451.

“Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores. It has features. This book can go under the microscope. You’d find life under the glass, streaming past in infinite profusion. The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the more ‘literary’ you are. That’s my definition, anyway. Telling detail. Fresh detail. The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.

“So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in at time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam. Even fireworks, for all their prettiness, come from the chemistry of the earth. Yet somehow we think we can grow, feeding on flowers and fireworks, without completing the cycle back to reality. Do you know the legend of Hercules and Antaeus, the giant wrestler, whose strength was incredible so long as he stood firmly on the earth? But when he was held, rootless, in midair, by Hercules, he perished easily. If there isn’t something in that legend for us today, in this city, in our time, then I am completely insane.”

This was a random reflection. I don't even know if I made sense. But please, feedback is important to me, so feel free to praise or bash this piece.

A New Food Plan?

by sophlightning305 on Thursday, August 21, 2008 comments (7)

Hello everybody, I don't know about other schools but Northwestern students need to eat...Unfortunately though, it not only costs a bunch (around 10 bucks per meal) it does not taste as good as meals that can be bought at local restaurants at a cheaper price. So, what if somebody were to organize a new meal plan with a few of the local restaurants. Essentially it would be a quarterly meal book for NU students that gave a certain amount of meals to each restaurant after you book the meal plan at the beginning of the year. For NU, this plan would be organized independent of the school (because for the school it is negative profit) and although most beneficial for people living in the dorms, because of rules that say if you room on campus you must get the meal plan, it would be aimed at off-campus people.

How it works:
So let's make it really simple, say there are McDonald's and Burger King on the meal plan, if the quarter had 100 days, each would probably get 100 coupons (since each day had lunch and dinner). Now, this seems like a pretty bad deal, but throw in about 7-8 more restaurants and replace McDonald's with quality healthy restaurants such as "Sabai" or filling food like "Clark's" and the deal seems a little better. Each time you eat there, use your ticket and receive perhaps an entree plus a drink plus appetizer.

However, this is not all. Because the restaurants who are on the list will have more business than those around it, they must give something in return...such as a discount. Most restaurants make about 20-30% in pure profit and if they could offer back 2/3 of that, it would drop a meal plan meal of $10 to $8, saving students a massive amount of money (20%, for those who need stats...) on a year of food. This gives students incentive to use this restaurant meal plan, which keep in mind, is now not only better tasting and has more options, but is cheaper. Restaurants also profit from the increased business, which is not all at a discount. People on the meal plan will naturally look for friends to accompany them, who may not be on the meal plan. So the restaurants will benefit in the long run.


Further options:
Each day bagels and drinks can be provided in your local dorms by the door for those on this meal plan provided at a cheap price of perhaps $2 or so. Again, present a breakfast ticket and receive a convenient meal that is much cheaper than dorm food and much more convenient perhaps as well.

Any further suggestions?

Who's good looking?

by sophlightning305 on Sunday, August 17, 2008 comments (6)

Asians believe that the whiter, the prettier and spend huge amounts of money each year on skin products that whiten the skin. Despite the sometimes 95-100 degree weather, Taiwanese women will wear gloves, long-sleeve shirts and the face-masks to keep their skin white. Then they see the Americans on TV lying out on the beaches and have no idea why they would do such a thing. American's with their white skin spend time and money doing the exact opposite thing from most people from Asia: Getting tan.

Hypothetical situation:

A girl who has beautiful skin in Taiwan is suddenly moved to the US. Is her skin still beautiful because it's white? Why should it change, after all she is the same girl...is it evolutionary forces that are forcing humans in two different directions? Now, what about if she moved to Africa, which also favors light skin? Is everybody looking for a perfect color then? Or is it a spectrum thing where you try and just go towards one side? Because the "beautiful" white skinned Asian was born probably lighter than any native African can become, does that count? Is she more beautiful because she's whiter than those around her...or less? Finally...what about guys? If this scenario were girls looking for a guy, what would happen...do girls even care bout skin color in a guy haha?

-jh

1st Invention- Yummy Tongue Coverer

by sophlightning305 on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 comments (3)

Dunno why, but I try and think of inventions that will make millions and I keep coming up with these things...so for fun I will put them up in the hopes that one day if somebody does invent them, I can say...that shoulda been me.

Background:
So obviously to spite humans, the healthier the food, the nastier tasting it seems to be. Because of diabetes, I've been the forefront taster of all the reputed healthy foods. To name a few:

1.) the white part of the watermelon...no red part (supposedly cures diabetes)
2.) bittermelon (yuck...also cures diabetes)
3.) Guavas...not the big green juicy one...but ones specially for diabetics... about walnut sized, walnut colored, no juice at all and bitter. If you chew slowly and eat 3 after every meal, it too is supposed to cure diabetes.

Soooo...introduce

The Yummy Tongue Coverer
A special soft plastic that is shaped in the form of your tongue. It is covered with a good tasting/edible layer that your tongue can taste while your yucky food remains safely separated from your taste sensors. Special tongue coverers that are made to look like your actual tongue can be bought separately that will allow you to eat your loved ones' nasty creations and actually give them a smile instead of a grimace.

Copyright sophlightning305

What is Sanity: A Response

by Martias on Monday, August 11, 2008 comments (1)

This is a response to the initial question.

Firstly, let me define sanity as the ability to perceive that which is true.


There are (at least) two possibilities in the ordering of the universe:
1. There exists an abstract quality called "truth" to which everything can be compared.
2. There is no quality of "truth" and everything is subjective.

If the first is true, then we may say that sanity is based on how close we are to that abstract quality of "truth." The problem lies in determining what is "true."

The other option is that there is no way to know if you are sane. This makes everyone's individual beliefs more powerful than any declaration of "truth."

Of course, the inability to determine truth makes outcome 1 basically the same as outcome 2. Enter science.

Science is a system that is focused on knowledge, namely that which we may know. If we accept that the method of science may eventually (and when I use eventually, I use it like one uses "limit as t goes to infinity" in calculus) allow us to understand this abstract quality "truth" then we can use science as our measuring stick. Therefore, we can use science to judge the sanity of a person.

However, there is a pitfall in this method of determining sanity. Enter Kansas person. Kansas person says that God is working behind the scenes. Lottery ticket is not chance but divine intervention. Enter science. Science says.....? Science says that religion falls outside its parameters. It cannot judge whether a religion is “true” or not. There is no basis on which it can make this statement. It can say with relative certainty that there is a mechanism that drives tornadoes, or that there is no voice that is detectable on any current device speaking to you, or that the lottery is certainly based on luck. But it cannot disprove a declaration of faith. And if it cannot disprove it, it has no standard on which to judge it.

So however much one does not believe in a deity, one cannot truly cast aspirations on the sanity of those that do without compromising the method with which they do so.

So in conclusion, neither you nor the Kansas people can be shown to be crazy (unless they are really schizophrenic) using the method above. It is, unfortunately, an unsatisfactory answer. :(

What is Sanity (Part 2)

by sophlightning305 on Sunday, August 10, 2008 comments (5)

Copied from HotLikeaToaster's note:

But I think we're straying from the original point. There's no need to argue over minutiae like the mythology of Santa. A true believer would definitely come up with indestructible counterarguments to all attempts to disprove it. All you have to say is "metaphorical" and "interdimensional." If u wanna know what I'm talking about, Christians, just tell me, "where" is Heaven, and "where" is Hell? Can we ever send astronauts to Heaven? Can we ever dig deep enough to reach Hell?

I understand Joey's comment to imply that something probably caused or created the universe and the formation of galaxies and life. But to then attribute human-like qualities to this mysterious something, such as emotions (anger, love, vengeance, forgiveness), and to claim that it listens to our "thoughts" and "prayers" and makes a decision to either grant or reject our wishes, is a great stretch. It's totally possible that a non-thinking, emotionless force caused the creation of what we see today.

So it seems to me there is a double standard. When a person "sees and hears" ghosts talking to them about why they are haunting a mansion, society labels that individual as "insane" or "seriously needs help." But when a person "is in a dialogue with" the Christian God of the Bible, and He tells them which lottery ticket to buy or reminds them about their spouse's anniversary, no one thinks it's strange or unusual. That person is considered perfectly normal. Why is that? (and please don't say "Obviously, because the Christian God of the Bible exists and ghosts do not exist") Both of these people believe in supernatural hocus-pocus, but one of them is labeled insane and the other is labeled as normal.


-HotlikeaToaster

Dear HotlikeaToaster,

I understand your concern about my being in this world. I am glad that you are searching for me. However, please understand that I wish most for the promotion of love and goodness. Essential to love is human freewill; as the Creator of the world, I could easily send an unexplainable booming voice across the world every so often so that everybody would know of my existence and power. Yet, people would come to me with the sense that they had no choice. It is love that is forced, and therefore not love at all. Similarly, if you found the Holy Gates of Heaven on the planet which man calls Mars, you would have no choice but to believe in me. Therefore, no, you may not send astronauts to heaven and dig to Hell. Now, about the fact that I have human emotions. Don't you think it's odd for you to have something that the thing that created you doesn't have? Are you, Kevin Tao, claiming that something can come from nothing?

Now, about what you call the double standard. There are people around the world that believe in ghosts and spirits, and their ability to do wicked things. Have you seen the Disney motion picture Mulan? Yup, Buddhists believe in ghosts and spirits of their ancestors. In fact, according to the calendar, this is the month where the gate to their world is most wide open. Yet, these people are not believed to be crazy. Where is the difference between the Buddhists and the insane? The difference does not lie in the numbers, a few insane vs. millions of Buddhists, so it's not a game of popularity. Rather, it is because the Buddhists function regularly apart from their belief in ghosts. If a person believed in the same system of spirits and ghosts but could not process the stimuli (ie: sounds, sights and basic logic) then he/she would be classified as crazy. It is this inability to function regularly apart from one's beliefs that classifies a person as crazy. Otherwise it is just a belief, even if it is far-fetched and erroneous.

I hope that this has been an insightful blog post (It's my first one, but being all-powerful and knowledgable, it really isn't that hard).


Sincerely,
The Word of God (using lovejkoff as a typist)

What is Sanity

by sophlightning305 on Saturday, August 09, 2008 comments (0)

This was originally a facebook note by HotLikeaToaster:


Hey guys, I was just thinking about this, and I wanted to know what you think about the question of what Sanity is.

Hypothetical scenario:

Imagine that you wake up one day, and everyone around you believes in Santa Claus, and the existence of invisible unicorns, UFO's and sees ghosts. And they believe everything the fortune teller tells them about what's in store for Aquarius's next week.

What if you were the last sane person on Earth?

Would that make you the sane one or the insane one? If everyone else saw the flowing beautiful robes of the Emperor's New Clothes (or at least claims they do) and all you see is a naked guy, and you sane or insane? I really do not know the answer to this.


Now let me give you a twist on this hypothetical situation. Let's say you're an atheist. Let's say you're an atheist living in Kansas. Everyone around you can't help but bring up this deity, whenever they talk about anything. They believe that they are speaking to this deity, and the deity speaks to them, too. They know that the deity is Pure Good, and is all powerful. And there's an Evil Deity who corrupts people and buys their souls by selling witchcraft and sorcery. And they say when good things happen, it's because the deity is showing approval. And when bad things happen, it's part of the deity's Plan. And all this would be wonderful, except you don't hear the deity speaking to you. And you don't see the deity's actions in your life. When a tornado comes, your explanation is the convergence of a warm front and cold front, but they attribute the tornado to the deity. When someone wins the lottery, you see probability and chance, whereas they see a divine intervention or a miracle.

Being alone in your views, does that make you sane or insane? If no one backs you up when you talk about something you see, did you actually see it? Or were you just imagining it? What if you were imagining it, but so was everybody else? How could you confirm whether it's actually there?

If I said, "Religion could just be made up stories, and the voices you hear in your head could be from schizophrenia or hallucinations," to a bunch of pious Kansans, does that make me crazy? Or are they the crazy ones?

-HotlikeaToaster

Response from lovejkoff:

wow...umm i stopped reading the responses and responses to responses very early on so sorry if i'm repeating somebody's statements:

insanity does not deal with your agreement with majority of people although when people use that term loosely it seems to imply that. Instead, people should be thought of as computers. The sane ones take the input 2+2 and spit out 4 as they are supposed to. The "insane" ones spit out the color blue.

Now, the difference between this and Kevin's scenario is that math is supposedly a "universal truth", in that it doesn't matter where you are, or if there is a higher power or not...the definition of 4 is the sum of 2 and 2. You can call it "five", but it's still the sum of 2 plus 2.

So, Kevin's scenario is a scenario in which there is no "logical" answer. Both views considering the facts right now are possible. So, therefore, neither side is "insane" as both sides could be right. Defined and explained in this way, it doesn't matter if you're in a community where the inhabitants just escaped from Arkum (batman reference) and believe that 2+2 = blue or at Harvard...you're not insane in either case...which makes sense.

Now, the problem with this is that a person who continues to believe in Santa Clause has also been lumped into this group of Theists. So now one separates the naive from the "sane". Being naive means that you continue in your beliefs regardless of information in your environment to the contrary. Santa Clause does not have a lair in the North Pole...and if he did, relocation might be necessary because of Global Warming. Nobody has ever seen him, nor has he ever brought the faithful person presents. Rather, you see fake santa clauses everywhere and no candy canes on the north pole. This contrary evidence should tell the person that probability says that there is no Santa Clause.

Turning to God, one argues, ok, in order to have life one has to have reproduction and the ability to gather resources come together in an inanimate object that before this perfect combination of low probability comes together, will continuously fall apart. Imagine trying to build the Sear's Tower by throwing the building materials at the ground (from high up of course). You cannot build it from the base because in the biological case, if you don't complete it when you start it, it has no reason to stay together. Both cases are probably (no research) the same probability.

So atheists believe that given enough tries this would happen (and that Big Bang came from nothing). Theists believe that somebody was holding the structure together so it could be built (and that Big Bang came from something...namely someone). Is anybody insane here? No...but somebody might be naive.
-Sincerely yours,
Joey =P

Interesting Article on Poker. NY Times

by Kevin, NeuEve Team on Friday, August 01, 2008 comments (1)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/magazine/11poker.html?pagewanted=1