Dinner at Bamboo

I finally went to dinner at Bamboo after a long hiatus. It was funny, when I was seated the waitress came over to give me a menu and said "long time no see"! It's kind of fun to eat somewhere enough that you know them and they know you. It was a good dinner, too. I tried the pad see ew this time. If you don't like soy sauce, though, you might want to avoid it. :-)

Philosophy

I've been reading a bit of philosophy recently - namely, Hume's Treatise Concerning Human Understanding, and A. J. Ayer's Language, Truth, and Logic. It's an interesting combination to read, especially since I'm still only halfway through Dawkins' book. Dawkins spends some time referring to Hume, and Ayer does, too. Meanwhile, some of the things Ayer writes about are so clearly antecedent to Chomky's way of doing linguistics, it's quite fascinating! It's times like these when I wish I was a little more of a linguist than I am; but it's also times like these when I'm glad to be a linguist. :-) It seems that one thing Chomsky can be credited for is the proof (if that's the right word) that philosophy in every language looks the same. Put another way, critical thinking is not under the jurisdiction of one or a handful of languages, but is open to all languages. Furthermore, this blows Sapir-Whorf right out of the water. (The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, named for Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Whorf, put simply, states that one's language affects the way one thinks. One of the paradigm examples (now rejected after further analysis) is the Hopi, who were thought to be unable to conceive of time because their language had no past or future verb tenses.) Aside from linguistics, I wonder what a Christian philosophy on a par with these guys would look like, especially in the biomedical world. Hmmmm........

Didn't know singers could do this sort of thing

I recently got a recording of Vivaldi's opera Bajazet, which is really quite good. It's a bit different structurally from later opera like Mozart or Beethoven, which makes it interesting. And there are some arias where the singers are doing stuff with their voices that I didn't know could be done! And I had no idea that anyone ever wrote music like that! If you're familiar with Vivaldi's violin concertos, you'll remember that there are lots of places where the violin part alternates between a high and a low string in 16th-note fashion. Well, in Bajazet the singers do the equivalent, alternating between high and low notes really quickly. Amazing...

Some Mid-Way Thoughts on Dawkins' Book

I am now about halfway through Dawkins' book The God Delusion, at the point where he summarizes the main conclusion of the book (this first half of the book argues why it is good to be atheist; the second half of the book argues why it is good to be militantly so, i.e. actively trying to end the game of religion rather than simply not participating in it). In his words (this is a relatively extended quote):

This chapter has contained the central argument of my book, and so, at the risk of sounding repetitive, I shall summarize it as a series of six numbered points.

1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect, over the centuries, has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises.

2. The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself. [It is natural to apply the analogy of a watch~watchmaker and posit the existence of a universe-maker such as God.]

3. The temptation is a false one, because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer. [...]

4. The most ingenious and powerful [mechanism for deriving complex objects from simple objects] so far discovered is Darwinian evolution by natural selection. [...] We can now safely say that the illusion of design in living creatures is just that - an illusion.

5. We don't yet have an equivalent [mechanism] for physics. Some kind of multiverse theory could in principle do for physics the same explanatory work as Darwinism does for biology. [...]

6. We should not give up hope of [such a mechanism] arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology. But even in the absence of [such a mechanism in physics] to match the biological one, the relatively weak [versions of such a mechanism, for instance the multiverse theory] are, when abetted by the anthropic principle, self-evidently better than the self-defeating skyhook hypothesis of an intelligent designer.

If the argument of this chapter is accepted, the factual premise of religion - the God Hypothesis - is untenable. God almost certainly does not exist.

What Dawkins means by a "skyhook" is something he takes from Daniel Dennet's book (which I have not yet read) Darwin's Dangerous Idea. It is meant as a "deus ex machina" hanging precariously out of thin air, to be contrasted with "cranes" (which I have replaced with "mechanisms" in the large quote above), which have their feet planted firmly on the ground. I'd like to express a few thoughts about this succession of points and their presumably inevitable conclusion.

First of all, I see nothing wrong with Dawkins' points (1) and (2), and although I don't think I know enough physics to really weigh in on the debate (I'm not convinced that Dawkins does, either), I can accept (5) for the sake of argument. I also agree with (4) and (6) as far as the first sentence (out of two) of each goes. I completely disagree with his point (3).

The second sentence of (4) is stated in the form of a conclusion based on the first sentence. However, I think this juxtaposition makes for a non sequitor. I suppose that it is possible that design in the case of the universe should be conceived on a much broader and grander scale than that of living beings - a scale over which Darwinian evolution does not operate. Dawkins anticipates this by discussion the constants of the universe and the multiple multiverse theories on the table, and arrives at (6). Again, the second sentence of (6) is stated in the form of a conclusion based on the first sentence. However, it is again a non sequitor. How so, you ask? Well, it comes back to skyhooks.

Turn back 3 pages - same chapter, as Dawkins is wrapping up his main presentation of the argument for (6). He writes the following:

Time and again, my theologian friends returned to the point that there had to be a reason why there is something rather than nothing [this is Leibniz's famous question]. There must have been a first cause of everything, and we might as well give it the name God. Yes, I said, but it must have been simple and therefore, whatever else we call it, God is not an appropriate name (unless we very explicitly divest it of all the baggage that the word 'God' carries in the minds of most religious believers). The first cause that we seek must have been the simple basis for a self-bootstrapping crane which eventually raised the world as we know it into its present complex existence.

This is where Dawkins' argument begins to unravel. First, the appeal to a "self-bootstrapping crane" seems to be nothing more than a skyhook. Second, Dawkins' acquiescence that there must have been a first cause seems to run afoul of his earlier criticism of Aquinas' "proofs" of the existence of God. Granted, Dawkins protects himself in that chapter by pointing out that even if "God" is the thing we call the first cause, it does not necessarily follow that the qualities of this first cause are those attributed to God. But that is beside the point that I am making right now - the point is that Dawkins' notion of a first cause contradicts his earlier criticism of Aquinas. Indeed, his only really novel argument against "the God Hypothesis" is based on the notion that at the end of the almost-infinite regress of questions such as "What made X? What made the thing that made X? What made the thing that made the thing that made X? &c." must be an incredibly simple thing (since simple things can become complicated things, at least in some domains). How is this an argument against "the God Hypothesis?" God is not a simple thing. Since the beginning of all things must have been simple, it could not have been God. Therefore, God does not exist. Q.E.D.

But this brings us round to Dawkins' point (3). First, I don't think that the question "who designed the designer" comes up if we posit God as the designer. This seems to be a point where Dawkins either fails to understand the Christian notion of God, or loses all imagination, or both. But more on that later. Second, Dawkins himself cannot escape his own criticism, since he posits a simple "self-bootstrapping crane," of which the question is immediately raised (assuming we allow such a device, which we don't) what made this simple crane? Infinite regress.

Back to the self-bootstrapping crane. The only thing that allows Darwinian evolution to be a plausible crane is that it has ground underneath it on which to operate. One thing that Dawkins does not mention, and even seems to forget (he must be aware of it), is that natural selection (Dawkins' catch-all for making complex things out of simple things) operates on variation. Where the variation comes from is a different question. There's another recent book about this called The Plausibility of Life by Marc Kirshner and John Gerhart. Whether or not they succeed in explaining the origin of variations is beside the point (although based on the first couple of chapters I don't think they will, even though they do appear to be barking up a very interesting tree). But this is not what I want to talk about. The point for now is that a similar grounds for the self-bootstrapping crane is by definition non-existant.

But now let me ask, if Dawkins can imagine a very simple something without feeling a need to explain the existence of that something, why does he feel that people who think God created everything face a huge obligation to explain the existence of God? If anything can simply exist, why does it have to be an extremely simple thing? What does it matter how simple or complex the simply existing thing is? (This is accepting for the sake of argument Dawkins' notion of "complex", which I'm not sure I fully understand, nor am I convinced that it is appropriate to the Christian conception of God.)

Let's recap:

1) I haven't spent any time defining the notion of a "broader, grander scale" than the one evolution acts on, but I have asserted that the first and second sentences of (4) constitute a non sequitor.

2) Dawkins' point (3) is self-defeating at least and perhaps also irrelevant.

3) Point (6) is a non sequitor that leaves Dawkins with a skyhook, defeating his own most appealed-to criticism of Christianity.

Now how about a thought-experiment? This may help to clarify what I mean by a "broader, grander scale".

Suppose we find out that there is life out there on other planets. What will the anatomy and physiology of that life look like? What if it turns out to be more or less exactly what we have here on Earth? If we were committed to naturalism, that is if we were committed to a universe without God, how would we explain this? Since I only thought of this question today, I haven't had enough time to really think much about it. So I will leave you, Dear Reader, with the question.

When is a Lake a Mountain?

R. and I were talking yesterday about how, to us, Crater Lake is a mountain as much as it is a lake. :-} We were talking about our computer desktop picture theme - all stuff from around Central Oregon. Since I was in college, my computers have been South Sister (that's a mountain), Broken Top (that's another mountain), Mt. Hood, and Crater Lake. R.'s computer is now Crater Lake, and her old laptop was Suttle Lake (that's the right spelling). Ok, so we first began by observing that all of our computers are Central Oregon mountains. Then she pointed out that her laptop was the exception, it being a lake. It took us a while to figure out that Crater Lake is also a lake! If you want to talk about tall mountains in southern Oregon, you can talk about Mt. McLaughlin, Mt. Scott, Crater Lake, Mt. Thielson... Yep, Crater Lake is one of them. Actually it's Mt. Mazama, but that's neither here nor there. The simply amusing fact of the matter is that Crater Lake is as much a mountain as it is a lake. :-}

Words, on Good Friday

'Twas words that gave the heav'ns their light,
On Earth dispelled her darkened void;
The truth enlightened, unalloyed
With lies, fall'n speech's darker blight;
Commanded moon to rule the night
As sun the day, until the time
When majesty of God sublime
Shall be for us the only Light.
But in the fullness of the times
The Word that pierc'd the darkness through,
As He was pierced for our crimes,
All charges 'gainst ourselves withdrew.
Yet seven gentle words He spoke,
While with rude speech His heart we broke.

Ideas for Vibrating Cell Culture Surfaces at High Frequency

Since the vocal folds vibrate at frequencies upwards of 100 Hz, and since we know that cell and tissue mechanical properties depend on the frequency at which stresses are applied and relaxed, it makes sense to ask just how those properties look at high frequencies (most systems test frequencies much closer to 1 Hz). XT in my lab has a system where he can stretch cells on a flexible membrane at low frequency, and we are trying to figure out a way to modify the apparatus to work at higher frequencies. I have an idea...and I've just put a bid on a set of tuning forks on eBay (don't anybody out-bid me in the next 19 hours!!). There are three tuning forks and a mallet in this set. Two of the tuning forks are attached to wood resonating boxes, and seem to be the same size, hence probably the same frequency (they are listed as "used" and the owner doesn't seem to have checked what the frequencies are). The third tuning fork *might* also be of the same frequency. Anyway..... I wonder if we can't rig up a system where we can hit one of the tuning forks and bring it close the other one to induce sympathetic vibrations. The sympathetic tuning fork could be somehow connected to the system where the cells are growing (maybe simply placing it on the microscope stage next to the system would work?) and cause the membrane to vibrate. Now, we might have to get the membrane's resonant frequency close to that of the tuning fork, but perhaps we could do that by stretching it a certain amount. At the moment I have *no* idea what the resting resonant frequency of the membrane is. I may have to get a different set of tuning forks with different frequencies. But anyway, I'll enjoy having this set (if nobody out-bids me!!) even if it doesn't work for this experiment. We'll see. First things first: Win the auction, *then* play around to see what we can make work. :-)

Experiments Coming My Way (Hopefully)

Today I learned how to make gels of different stiffnesses that cells can be cultured on. I hope to put this technique to work for me within the next couple of weeks and see what effects on cell mechanics these different stiffnesses have. Today was a good day - finally am figuring out what experiments I want to do and why I want to do them. Now I just need to coax my cells into growing a bit better...

Whizzing Through Data

Today I spent several hours using my new program to run through a bunch of sound files and correct old measurements and make new ones. It has taken me several months to collect the first wave of data manually, but today I breezed through more than a third of it! My pitch estimator definitely needs some work, and the resulting pitch and harmonic data that I recorded (after throwing out a lot of it) is going to be rather noisy. We'll see if I can do a whole lot with it.