Destination Unknown

I am fond of finding, or creating, Thought Experiments as a way to focus attention on a particular problem. I created this one during a recent family discussion on how to balance life's competing values. Try your hand at how you would "resolve" it:

... You wake up and find yourself in some kind of vehicle, a bit like a black London taxicab. You try, but cannot find a way to converse with the driver, who is positioned in front of some kind of translucent, but foggy screen. You notice in front of you a computer touch-screen, labeled clearly: "Next Stop". Below the heading you see the following list of buttons:

   _ Visit Job Center
   _ Visit Family
   _ Visit Entertainment Hall
   _ Visit Museum on Brain Functioning
   _ End Trip

You have no idea if you are permitted to select more than one destination. You also do not know what "End Trip" means.

Question: What is your thought process before touching the screen?

[Note: I could simply have asked which destination do you touch first ... but I felt the more detailed "how do you analyze your thought process" question was more appropriate for this blog].

Cheerio.

***
Image Credits

- London Black Cab, photo by DAVID ILIFF (CC-BY-SA 3.0, 2007), from Wikipedia at http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackney_carriage, image cropped for height by c emerson
- The Passing of the Growler, published in Punch Magazine (Public Domain, 1907), Wikipedia, ibid

 

Gettin' Jiggy Wit It

So what could you say, if someone else were to say, a string of words along the trail somewhere, where such words include a variety of thoughts, kind of like the variety of thoughts, which are magically included, among those very words, which were penned, and then voiced so sweetly by the Beatles, so (relatively) long ago:

When I get older, losing my hair,
many years from now
Will you still be sending me a valentine,
birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I'd been out 'til quarter to three,
would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
when I'm sixty-four?

So what could you say, what would you say, to that?  Maybe you could say, maybe you would say, let's just get 'jiggy wit it' ... If so, then all right then.


***
Credits:


          

- When I'm Sixty-Four, by the Beatles (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band -1967)


          

- "Bring it, Whoo, Uhh, uhh, uhh, uhh, (Hoo cah cah), Hah hah, hah hah, Bicka bicka bow bow bow ... Gotta get jiggy wit it"

- Gettin' Jiggy Wit It, by Will Smith (1998)

- Images of sheet music, from Sheet Music Plus at http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/

- Earlier post, It's All in the Music

- This post was updated (last paragraph), 7:30 pm, same day

 

Death Valley ... a place to stop, look and listen

Death Valley Nat'l Park:  a place to stop, look and listen.

Especially nice on a Harley at 70 mph.




Or on foot ... as the sun is falling

                 





Now to find a quiet place to read.




Some place more elevated, say 4500 feet, but not at Telescope's rocking 11,331 feet. Snow in Death Valley in late March? Absolutely. 91 degrees on the floor; 40 degrees at 5 am where I'm camping.





                 

The flora seem not to mind. Barrel cacti and saltbrush alike.


Heading home for the night.

           


I love shadows and windscreens.




     

See you on the road one day.


***

Credits

- photos courtesy c emerson (March 2013)
- Death Valley Nat'l Park
- Furnace Creek, California (91 degrees)
- Wild Rose Canyon (60 degrees)
- Telescope Peak (35 degrees)
- Mt. Charleston, NV (through the windscreen)
- A warm shower and soft bed (gorgeous)

While you're at it, check out my latest post, "Self: What it is like to be you" on Ideas are Physical.

Household Wealth Back ... For Whom?

USA Today says: "Surging stock prices and steady home-price increases have finally allowed Americans to regain the $16 trillion in wealth they lost to the Great Recession ... [but] ... The regained wealth - most of it from higher stock prices - has been flowing to richer Americans."

That sure sounds like some Americans are more American than other Americans.

Both CBS Nightly News and PBS News Hour, while reporting the recovery, failed to mention which group has directly benefited the most (at least so far). I couldn't find any online American news sources that seemed to cover this point. (They may be there but I didn't find any on my google search of "household wealth recovers").

I had to go to the New Zealand Herald to get this detail:

The rebound in wealth has benefited mostly wealthier Americans. The Dow Jones industrial average has just set a record high, and roughly 80 per cent of stocks are held by the richest 10 per cent of households.

And for the past five years, middle-class Americans have sold stocks and missed out on much of the rebound. In the October-December quarter, Americans dumped nearly $466 billion in stocks and bought $229 billion in bonds, the Fed's report showed.

For most middle-class Americans, home equity is their largest source of wealth. National home values remain about 30 per cent below their peak.

Any thoughts?

 

Is Space = God?

Over on Robert Oerter's blog (remember my God is Possible series a few months back?), the professor has continued his posts about the possible scientific Fine Tuning of the universe. The idea is that certain physical parameters are both highly improbable and extremely critical for the emergence of life in this universe.

I have supplied various comments on that subject on the professor's blog, since it relates to the possibility of God's existence.

The following thought occurred to me: If space is something that can expand, then space is a "thing" with describable properties. If so, then this changes the question about Fine Tuning of parameters to a question about what space itself is. It also raises the interesting question of what space is "in"?  In Aristotelian terms, this would put space back into the category of having (or being) substance, and as such, space itself could be the ground of all being. This we are accustomed to calling "God", to put this into a form that St. Thomas Aquinas might have used.

A thought worth thinking about, I think, in commemoration of my grandmother, who was born this same day, in 1897, in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.

This is also a thought I will want to explore further on my new blog, Ideas are Physical, but feel free to comment on this here.

 

Sequestration

Congress ... really? You can agree on giving AIG $85 billion in an emergency situation, but you can't agree on how to cut $85 billion during a non-emergency situation?

Don't get me wrong. I'm okay with cutting costs; even deep cuts, when necessary; but I would just prefer we did it the old fashioned way -- through smoke-filled, back-room politics.  Btw, did you think to cut your own pay before you headed home?

This from an Auburn.edu site entitled, A Glossary of Political Economy Terms: 

Sequestration

Originally a legal term referring generally to the act of valuable property being taken into custody by an agent of the court and locked away for safekeeping, usually to prevent the property from being disposed of or abused before a dispute over its ownership can be resolved.

But the term has been adapted by Congress in more recent years to describe a new fiscal policy procedure originally provided for in the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Act of 1985 -- an effort to reform Congressional voting procedures so as to make the size of the Federal government's budget deficit a matter of conscious choice rather than simply the arithmetical outcome of a decentralized appropriations process in which no one ever looked at the cumulative results until it was too late to change them.

If the dozen or so appropriation bills passed separately by Congress provide for total government spending in excess of the limits Congress earlier laid down for itself in the annual Budget Resolution, and if Congress cannot agree on ways to cut back the total (or does not pass a new, higher Budget Resolution), then an "automatic" form of spending cutback takes place. This automatic spending cut is what is called "sequestration."

AA (that is, the Academy Awards) is a Great Program

Yes, AA is a great program. TODAY I am referring to one of our family favorites: the precious, the spectacular, the truly Hollywood-based

   --- Academy Awards ! ---

Get out your ballots, call your family, and debate, debate, debate ... who will win, who should win, who acts the funniest, who is the strangest, who looks the best ... who IS the best.

Reserved.2

Blog post coming - simple end of the year salutation - a difficult year with hope for 2013. Surprisingly, 20 and 13 are lucky numbers for me, although superstitions are only about one in three for me. Peace.

[-reserved-]

[reserved]

[xxxx]

No. 1

No. 1
6 stops inside the 2
Notre Dame 22
   USC 13
No. 1

Howling for you

Credits:
- University of Notre Dame
- University is Southern California
- photograph from howlingforjustice.com






 

Eastern Thoughts and Vegas Bull Riders

It doesn't always make sense at first.


***

Credits:

- pictures courtesy c emerson (Oct 2012)
- post dedicated to families and single social units everywhere
- no turkeys were harmed in making this blogpost
- happy t-day, or as a Brahmin friend of mine might say:
टी खुश दिन

When You're Hot, You're Hot

Hmmm .... a Notre Dame grad
just might be thinking
about old Jerry Reed
and what he'd been drinking

When he and Homer Jones
and Big John Talley
had that crap game goin'
back in the alley.

He kept rollin' them sevens,
and elevens
and winnin' them pots.
My luck, he said, is so good
I can do no wrong ...
He just kept on rollin'
and controllin'
all them bones.

Hmmm .... he thought
Alabama downed by A&M
24 - 29
KSU downed by Baylor
24 - 52
Oregon downed by Stanford
14 - 17, in overtime no less

So all their fans
just threw up their hands
and looked at that Notre Dame grad
and said, "When you hot, you hot"

And he looked back and said,
"Yeah"

***
Credit:

-When You're Hot, You're Hot, by Jerry Reed (1971)

I Like My Sugar Sweet

 
Posted by c emerson's Alter Ego:

Hear me now?  I tell ya, a cat's meow will follow a cow's moo; you know I can recite them all; if ya just tell me where it hurts you, honey, I'll tell you who to call. 

Well, I'm just like all the rest, I like my sugar sweet.          But did you ever feel already buried deep, you know like six feet under the screams, where nobody ever hears a thing?

Come on, now, just let your colors burst, just make 'em go oh, oh, oh.

Well, Mr. Jinx and Miss Lucy, they jumped in the lake. I'm not that eager to make that same mistake. Everyone tells me people are crazy and times are strange. So I'll stay locked in tight, just out of range. I used to care a whole lot more, but things have changed.

Yah, but my Mama told me when I was young, we were all born superstars. Yah, she told me that as she rolled my hair and put my lipstick on in the glass of her boudoir. 

No no no - in the pitch dark I can't just go walkin' in your landscape. Broken branches trip me when you speak. No no don't reach out. Just 'cause you feel it doesn't mean it's there.

No one cares, com'n, that boom boom boom, it's whipping my hair. To hell with the stares. The sweat is now dripping all over my face; and I'm the only one dancin' all over this place.

I'm in pieces, baby fix me. Just shake me 'til you wake me from this bad dream. I'm like baby, baby, baby no.

Com'n, Baby, let me put the fever on you, get you boilin' past one hundred and two. Uh-uhh. Ooh.  Fever!  Fever in the morning, fever all through the night.                                  Fever!

Okay, I got the fever. Yah, I got the fever off a man I knew. I feel it comin' on - comin' on - I know - I know - I know.  

Swear, I just heard that song on the radio.

Okay, okay, so where is he, I mean Quinn the Eskimo?  We all want to run to him.

------  ------

It's all in the music.

------  ------

***

Credits:

   (you can search by song titles or artist names, including the number of views, at YouTube here)
- Mighty Quinn, Bob Dylan - 35,675 views

- Firework, Katy Perry - 334,032,835 views (yes, 334 million+ views)

- Things Have Changed, Bob Dylan - 3,612,733 views
- Born This Way, Lady Gaga - 101,727,384 views (yes, 101 million+ views)

- There There, Radiohead - 1,796,101 views (combined 3,890,000)
- Me Against the Music, Britney Spears - 1,550,980 views (combined 3,150,000)
- Baby, Justin Bieber - 799,177,129 views (yes, approaching 800 million+ views)

- Fever, Beyonce Knowles - 3,557,321 views

- Fever, Little Willie John - 244,890 views (combined 382,700) (lyrics by Eddie Cooley, Otis Blackwell)(1956)

- Fever, Peggy Lee - 7,620,411 views (combined 10,857,145)

- (I Got) The Fever, Oasis - 49,725 views (combined 112,600)

- Mighty Quinn, Bob Dylan - (yes, twice)

- this article dedicated to r.g.e. (himself a mighty quinn) and to other young filmmakers, directors, producers, scriptwriters, lyricists, musicians, crews in Orange, California, and all creative talent everywhere

- this article also dedicated to all those who support all those who are those with all that creative talent, and their crews

Congratulations and Respect

I guess we can afford the
same guy ... four more years.

     So what is next,
          some kind of a cliff ?

     ... or just more gridlock ...

     Forward ?

Twisted Sister

Posted by c emerson's Alter Ego:

When I hear music, well it makes me wanna' dance.  Cynthie get up and dance to the music. Bobbie all we need is a drummer, but I'll add a little guitar to make it easy to move your feet. And some bottom so the dancers just won't hide. Disco and all; feelin' the city, not just some flower on the wall.

Then the beat picks up, and yeah I wanna' rock. No, no, no, no, NO. I wanna' rock.  So Jack o' Hearts, what are you, anyway, some kind of man of the mountains, some manipulator of crowds? Just a dream twister. But I see you got blood on your face. Waving your banner all over the place. But we will we will Rock you.

Here's to state bar and the old soap bar, down in Deep Ellum, Dallas. Sorry the cowboy burned down. You can bet they'll fix it soon. And here's also to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to Staten Island.  So ... Perk, how 'bout saving the last dance for me?

***

Credits:

- When I Hear Music, Debbie Deb (1984)
   (you can search by song title at YouTube here)

- Dance to the Music, Sly & the Family Stone (1968)
- Stayin' Alive, Bee Gees (1977)
- Flowers on the Wall, The Statler Brothers (1965)
- I Wanna Rock, Twisted Sister (1984)
-Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts, Bob Dylan (1974)
- Jokerman, Bob Dylan (1983)
- We Will Rock You, Brian May and Queen (1977)
- Save the Last Dance For Me, The Drifters (1960)
- Deep Ellum, Dallas (and some special memories)
- friends in Austin, Bastrop, Phoenix, Dallas and Elkhart who know how to hear the music
- Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, settings for "Saturday Night Fever" (1977); an area I toured by motorcar (1969) and hiked (1993)
- Big Tex (1952-2012; 2nd life 2013- ), Texas State Fair Grounds, Dallas (Navy 20 Rice 7, 1958) (Rice 28 Alabama 6, 1954)
- Deep Ellum, Dallas (yes that's right twice)

III. Long-Legged Guitar Pickin' Man

Intro-   This is Part III of the overall argument: God is Possible. I titled this part A Preemptive Reply originally because I wished to make ... a preemptive reply ... to an objection I am likely to receive to the argument in Part II.  But, honestly, which of the two titles conveys more about string theory?  One about Johnny Cash picking on a sideways-turned guitar (...wait for it...), or one using language found in a legal brief?   zzzz

Here are some of Johnny and June's words:

Johnny:  Well, I'm gonna start out walkin' / just you wait and see
June:  Uh-uh guitar picker / you ain't leavin' without me
Johnny:  Oh, you big mouthed woman
June:  You long-legged guitar pickin' man
Both:  Well, we can work this out
Johnny:  Uh-huh, yes ma’am, I think we can

You can find several live performances of the song on the web. Here's one posted by YouTube: PeterRabbit59.

But just so's I don't mislead you by my use of this analogy, no, I do not think of God as being a long-legged guitar pickin' man.  String theory itself is what I think he is closer to being like, or yes, maybe the creator or sustainer of string theory.

Okay, on to Part III.

III.  Long-Legged Guitar Pickin' Man;  Alternate Title - A Preemptive Reply

To summarize, Professor Oerter analogized God to a Purple Elephant on Pluto, seeking material evidence for that. He bolstered his argument by analogizing to a complicated theory in particle physics called string theory. String theory postulates that the energy of the universe comes in teeny tiny little bits of vibrating activities (energy) which might occupy a variety of different dimensions and may combine in a variety of different ways.

By combining in different ways, these teeny tiny "strings" produce or become the mysterious little particles of particle physics. And those become atoms, molecules, stardust, rocks and humans.

We do not know that string theory works like that. We do not know if string theory works at all. Professor Oerter said that, and I agree with him, and feel comfortable relying on him for that. There is little if any evidence yet to support string theory. So we should not treat string theory as fact. Oerter argues, by analogy, God's existence should also not be treated as any kind of fact.

Analogy is a logical tool. It is a type of inductive logic, rather than deductive logic.

Inductive logic works like this: "Every willow tree I have ever seen has green leaves. I have been to a lot of places all over the planet and have seen a lot of willow trees. Therefore I conclude that all willow trees have green leaves."

Clearly I do not know that all willow trees actually do have green leaves. Maybe there is one out there I missed, and it has red leaves. But based on the evidence I have seen, I infer that they all have green leaves. As we gather more and more information about trees in general and willow trees in particular, we humans can refine, modify or reject my conclusion that all willow trees have green leaves.

See?  Everybody is a logician.  Logic, correctly understood, does seem to be possible. I recently wrote some comments about that, and back in 2008 I wrote a piece about sound judgment.

Moving on.

Deductive logic works differently. It works like this:
"- All willow trees have green leaves.
- This tree is a willow tree.
- Therefore this tree must have green leaves."

Of course you can look at this tree and see that, but humor me. Pretend you are looking at the trunk of the tree and can't see any of the leaves above you. Nonetheless, you deduce that the leaves are in fact green without looking.

Although it is not really relevant here, but as an aside - please note: deductive logic often sounds more conclusive, more accurate somehow, than inductive logic ... because it is usually written in such strong positive terms. But, frankly, deductive logic is often just inductive logic in disguise, as in our example here. The "must have green leaves" clause rests on the primary premise's assertion that "All" willow trees have green leaves. So ... deductive logic can sound more accurate because that primary premise ("All x is y") is stated as if it is true. But as you can see, at least as to our willow tree example, we do not actually know if our primary premise is true or false. Remember, our primary premise was originally derived by inductive logic, which is inherently open to dispute.

Now back to our chain of thought.

Analogy works like this: "An acorn is to an oak tree, as a kitten is to a ... what? Answer: As a kitten is to a cat."

In other words, there is something similar in the relationship between acorns, which grow into oak trees, and kittens, which grow into cats.  We can all see that, even though the concept of growing was not openly referred to anywhere in the analogy.

Okay, so as to Professor Oerter's use of string theory as an analogy, he is saying that, since it is reasonable to not count on string theory as fact in the absence of evidence, it is likewise reasonable to not count on the existence of God when the "existence of God" suffers from a similar absence of evidence. (My quotes).

I agreed with the professor as to this specific use of his analogy as it applies to statements of fact about both God and string theory. I then tried to turn the use of the professor's analogy around.

I tried to do so essentially by expressing this thought: (i) string theory provides a complicated explanation for the operation of the known universe; (ii) God is like string theory in that he, too, provides a complicated explanation for the operation of the known universe; (iii) string theory is possible; (iv) therefore, by analogy, since the theory of God 's existence is like the theory of vibrating strings of energy, God, too, is possible.

I know that bit of logic is not as easy to follow as acorns, kitty cats, and growth of same.  So take a moment, reread it, and tell me what my conclusion depends on? I'm just trying to be scrupulously and intellectually honest here.

Yes ... the conclusion depends on whether "the theory of God 's existence is like the theory of vibrating strings of energy" in sufficiently relevant ways.

I think it is.

But analogy is a form of inductive logic, which, as said earlier, is inherently open to dispute. Perhaps the possible existence of God is nothing like the possible existence of vibrating strings of energy. After all, how do we settle on  what types of existence are possible?

I repeat, that I think the analogy is a good one. But further discussion about that needs to wait for another day.  Or for the comments.

It's Halloween, and children will soon be knocking on the door for candy.

And I'm still tired from watching much of the conclusion last night, live, of the World Series of Poker 2012 at the Rio.

------  ------
Ed. Note: Aristotle liked to use acorns and oak trees, as well as horses, and animals (including at least one tiger), in his writings. He is one of the first to work out analogical logic. For those interested, here is a link to an article in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy related to the subject.
------  ------

[space reserved here for two pictures to be included in an update]

------  ------
***
Credits:
- Long-Legged Guitar Pickin' Man; Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Marshall Grant (author of this song) (1971), later with Carl Perkins (author of Blue Suede Shoes).
- wsop.com
- youtube.com
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at plato.stanford.edu

Shout outs:
- to three Indiana lawyer friends of mine, who helped me in 2009, one of whom who put away his motorcycle before I could properly thank him; and to a fine former worker and friend of mine, who will soon be one of those Indiana lawyers; here's to clear logic and interesting questions of fact

Deep Thoughts and Reflections:
- for all who have been harmed by Hurricane Sandy; death toll now 74 and damages now reaching ....

II. God is Possible

Intro-  Good Morning, America, how are you?  Say, don't you know me?  I'm your native son.  I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans.  I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

Family heritage, a funny thing. Our fathers and mothers come from somewhere. As did their fathers and mothers before them. But who really knows much about their own actual heritage beyond that?  Backwards in time, I should say, beyond the names and home locations of our own grandparents? Surprising how little we do know ... given the nature of how values get passed through.

What's that thought got to do with the price of rice?  Not all that much, but here's to the City of New Orleans, to a grand old house sitting between St. Charles Avenue and the levees, and, oh yes, to Willie Nelson, Arlo Guthrie, Steve Goodman (1971) and anyone else who ever went to, sang or rode on the City of New Orleans.

Ok, on to Part II of the argument.

II:  God is Possible

When I left this subject late last night, the picture of the purple space elephant was just exactly where I had left it, about a third of the way down in Part I's post. Then I woke early in the morn and it was gone. Still I have not found it so I haven't been able to put it back in its spot. 

Yes, I do have a back-up copy on my phone, but for the life of me I cannot figure what went wrong with the HTML code for the pic ID. Maybe it's meant to be. Maybe not.

Sans one purple pic.

Now where are we?  Professor Oerter uses string theory (see footnote below)* as a logical analogy to support his argument -- that is to say, we should not accept an argument for the existence of God without evidence to support that argument.

What the professor is saying (I think) is that he is not looking at this time for a rational argument that proposes to show God's existence. Nor is he looking for a testimonial or spiritual approach to "find" God. (My quotes around "find" not Oerter's).  Instead, he is looking for an empirical approach, like the type used in developing scientific theories.

This is why (I suspect) he wants to use string theory as an analogy as part of his argument. Scientists look at complex data, and undertake a large number of experiments, to find out how things work. They then craft a theory which might be used to explain all the results. 

String theory is one such theory. But no scientist is going to "accept" string theory "as a fact" unless the evidence from scientific experiments is adequately explained by that theory. (Oerter's words in quotes).

Well, I agree with that completely.  In that sense I do not believe that God is a proven fact.  Nor do I believe, given what we empirically know in 2012, that God is going to become a proven fact in the near future (barring any miraculous events). 

But that is equally true for string theory. 

Yet, that does not stop scientists from investing a lot of intellectual capital into the exploration of string theory.

So ... Professor Oerter's analogy to string theory backfires, so to speak.  After all, it is certainly "accepted" that string theory, while not proven, is possible.  Professor Oerter's analogy to string theory reminds us that the theory for the existence of God, while also not proven, is also a reasoned case which provides an "explanation for the patterns of elementary particles, and so forth."  (Oerter's quotes about string theory). Thus God's existence, like string theory, must be accepted as possible.

Thus, God is Possible.

Next, Part III.

------ ------

*  It can be seen from the argument made that we don't need a detailed understanding of string theory to follow the argument.  In fact, all we need is an appreciation that physicists understand the theory and are sufficiently committed to it to test it out in the laboratory. 

For those interested, however, here is a link to a Wikipedia article:  "String theory is an active research framework in particle physics that attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. It is a contender for a theory of everything ... a self-contained mathematical model that describes all fundamental forces and forms of matter."  (My italics).  More sophisticated articles are also available on the 'net'.

------ ------

***

Credits:

- the City of New Orleans, in song, verse, and physical reality.

- my parents and grandparents, some of whom lived in New Orleans and some of whom lived in Philadelphia
- anyone harmed by Hurricane Sandy 

I. Oerter's Purple Pachyderm

Intro-  This is a three part argument which I shall refer to, overall, as The God is Possible Argument.

The three parts are:

I:  Oerter's Purple Pachyderm
II:  God is Possible
III:  A Preemptive Reply

I grew up in a world that constantly debated science versus religion, or religion versus science. Fundamental issues, for sure, yet somehow it always struck me that it was the wrong debate ... or the right debate, just incorrectly structured.

But I love philosophy (the unexamined life and all that). And I love spooky science, Stephen Hawking, big bangs, string theories, dark energy and the like.  I recently found Robert Oerter's blog which combines these topics. This put me in Hog heaven, as in Harley hog heaven.

So Proud Mary's wheel began to turn. Thank you, Robert Oerter, for pouring such good energy into your blog.  And thank you, John Fogerty, for cleaning a lot of plates in Memphis, and then writing songs about it.

Ok, on to Part I of the argument.

I:  Oerter's Purple Pachyderm

To restate the argument's name accurately it is The Purple Pachyderm Argument by Robert Oerter.  

Robert Oerter is a physics professor and the author of The Theory of Almost Everything (2006), an easy-to-read book which explains the Standard Model of quantum physics to ... well ... everyone.

Professor Oerter posted The Purple Pachyderm Argument on his blog, Somewhat Abnormal, on October 18, 2012, at this link:

somewhatabnormal.blogspot.com/2012/10/

I encourage you to go there now to read Oerter's argument, which is an argument against theism. Also, I encourage you to read the comments there ... to follow the action so to speak. It is Oerter's first comment (the 4th comment down in his comment section) which got my big wheel turning. I will quote some of Oerter's material below, but read it all there first. 

Here is a visual I found on photobucket.com to get your motor running.

Purple Space Elephant, by osbornebn
[Ed. Note: I'll put the pic back when I find out where it went! Sorry, editor]

Now from Oerter's blog, which sets out a fictitious dialogue between Pachydermist and Apachydermist, we read as follows:

"Pachydermist:  I believe there are purple space elephants living on the planet Pluto."

"Apachydermist:  Um, OK, what evidence do you have for that belief?"

... and so they argue on ... (my italics)

Apachydermist insists on material evidence before he is willing to accept the notion that purple elephants (God) exist. Every time Apachydermist presses a point about what it means to exist Pachydermist changes the description about what it means to be a purple space elephant, until Apachydermist finally leaves the scene "shaking his head sadly."

In the comments which followed the argument, Ben Yachov (a defender of theism) takes Professor Oerter to task. He does this primarily on the grounds that Oerter has not addressed the problem from the correct standpoint of classic philosophical theism. Yachov says, "You[r] argument is meaningless to anybody who believes in the God of TLS, Aquinas, Scotus & or the Historic Judeo-Christian God."

[TLS is short for The Last Superstitution (2008), a book by Edward Feser, which opposes modern atheism using classical arguments].

Yachov provides various useful links, including one discussing Bertrand Russell's "celestial teapot" argument (see William Vallicella's link in the credits below).  What I take Yachov's arguments to mean is that Oerter's thought experiment represents too shallow an understanding of the classical arguments for the existence of God.

Yachov says:  "Oh Prof Rob when are you going to pick fights with real Gods instead of wasting your time with bit players?"

The Professor comes back with this very interesting remark (quoting Vallicella's blogpost):

"Whether 'a reasoned case can be made for theism' is not the point of the analogy (Russell's or mine). The point is whether there is any EVIDENCE for theism... I can make out a reasoned case for string theory, as unifying the known forces, providing an explanation for the patterns of elementary particles, and so forth.  But until I have some actual EVIDENCE for string theory, I'm not going to accept it as fact."

I was troubled by this remark / argument for days.  Restless even.  Having been trained as a scientist ... accustomed to empirical research ... yet steeped in religion ... while conversant in logical arguments in philosophy and the law ... I had been fully prepared to view (and treat) the Purple Pachyderm Argument as heading to an inevitable draw.

Yet Oerter's argument by analogy had arrested my thought.  Not the general analogy he was making between purple elephants (or celestial teapots) and God. That analogy seemed straight forward enough.  It was the Professor's other analogy, the one between string theory and proof of God's existence, that had me stumped.

Then it occurred to me, perhaps the good professor has proven too much?

What I mean is this: whatever help the string theory analogy brings or does not bring to Oerter's main argument -- that theists lack evidence to support the existence of God -- the use of string theory, as an analogy, supports a different argument, namely the argument that God is Possible.

It is to that argument -- God is Possible -- to which I shall now turn, in Part II.

***
Credits:
- Somewhat Abnormal, blog by Robert Oerter, somewhatabnormal.blogspot.com/
- Photo, Purple Space Elephant, by osbornebn, photobucket.com
- John Fogerty, johnfogerty.com
- Maverick Philosopher, blog by Bill Vallicella,
maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher