The Fertilization Argument

Some opponents of abortion (most, actually) argue that life begins at conception. But why conception? Why doesn’t life begin as soon as the egg is fully formed? proponents ask. Anti-abortionists respond, it is because an egg only has a half-set of DNA, and so doesn’t really count. So the question is, is this assertion a sound one?

The soundness of the assertion depends on where the opponent’s argument is coming from: what are his axioms? The opponent seems to be assuming that human life has intrinsic value, while non-human life does not. Is there any basis for this assumption? I think not. Although humans can cooperate with each other more effectively than with other animals, and we all happen to be human, there is nothing inherently special about human DNA. What makes humans special is their ability to reason and to think creatively; humans are better at this than any other animal. Just-fertilized eggs and unfertilized eggs, however, are both equally bad at reasoning and creative thinking. So the only real difference is in the DNA. Is the opponent of abortion then arguing that DNA is what defines human rights? This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. So, in effect, the division is arbitrary.

What about an egg’s “potential”? A fertilized egg has the potential to grow into a human being. It will grow into a fully formed baby after just nine months. Fertilized eggs certainly have potential to become fully human. They just need warmth, nourishment, and protection from the elements. Actually, that’s quite a lot. But anyway, let’s look at unfertilized eggs. What kind of potential do they have? They may only have half a set of DNA, but the difference between a fertilized egg and an unfertilized egg is a fairly simple one. The egg just needs to be fertilized. Fertilizing an egg is certainly a lot less work than raising one into a baby. An unfertilized egg has nearly as much “potential” as a fertilized egg does. So that argument is bogus.

Given these observations, what then is the difference between a fertilized egg and an unfertilized egg? Apparently, DNA is the only real difference. So can the opponent prove that DNA matters? To do so, he must prove that human DNA is superior to non-human DNA, and that this superiority is the most important factor. I have many times seen it implicitly asserted that human DNA is superior, but have never heard a legitimate reason why. Sure, I’ve heard “because God made humans to be special”, but never a reason that didn’t rely on assuming the existence of a deity that no one has ever seen.

Exercise in Readability

The following text is from a previous post of mine, with many of the words removed. See how well you can still understand what is being said. For bonus points, fill in the missing words and see how close you can get.

I watching Bones, about Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan, leader forensics. brilliant, lacks social skills. think she objective. show based real life, but must loosely based since so wrong.

Brennan think objective. But if she brilliant as seems, must realize is not humanly to be objective.

She talks terms few understand, says “normally” directly after. example, “He has cortoscopic endicular psychosis. . . a brain tumor.” understands people not know what she is talking when says first term. But, why saying term at all? The possible answer she wants to sound smart. is not as socially as would like think, but instead has some problems ego. But that might not be it; she talks to baby in baby-talk-voice, “you like spacial disorientation, don’t you?” while spinning baby. no reason to try to impress baby. why bother talking that? It’s not necessarily more than “normal” baby talk, but it no more descriptive “you like being dizzy” and longer more complicated. Occam’s Razor, she should “you like being dizzy” and if as smart as thinks she is, have realized that.

avoid emotions, illogical or something. not. frequently logical, just different perspective than think. Emotion evolutionary tool to accomplish certain, works rather well. So why deny it? Sure, emotion perfect; sometimes gets way. But why deny it all time? no real logical reason avoid all.

So in this episode, Brennan she wants a baby. She it will “fulfilling”. How is fulfilling? A baby a huge amount of time effort, not to mention personal sacrifice. not I call fulfilling. No, sense in baby is fulfilling is emotional sense. And example of case where emotions are evolutionarily useful: by logic alone, child is not a rational decision individual standpoint. maybe Brennan understands. But, why try to emotion in all other? children not only scenario in emotion is more rational individualistic logic.

conclusion, Brennon not only illogical and subjective but highly fallible, even with “objective” analyses. going to be a writer on every show like this ever written so they get right. You know what show gets it right? Numb3rs. They know what doing.

To Inspire the World

Lately, I’ve been feeling very inspired. I feel like I can change my life and the world. I can’t explain why I feel it, but it certainly does make me think. How can I — how can we — improve the world? That raises an even more fundamental question: what does an improved world look like?

This post, however, is not about that. This post is about why I am inspired. So here I will be posting some of the most inspiring things that I’ve found online. Inspiration cannot be completely found on the internet, but it’s a great place to start.

The Last Lecture is a lecture by terminal cancer patient Randy Pausch, filmed last year. It is about how to achieve your dreams. Randy talks about how, although he is terminal, he is a deeply happy person, and he shares his own happiness with the world.

The Five Things I’d Tell My 21-Year Old Entrepreneurial Self, not just for entrepreneurs! This page has five very useful bits of advice that I recommend that everyone read.

TED: David Logan on Tribal Leadership. This presentation speaks for itself.

Look at these presentations and get yourself inspired. Then go out there and do something.

Why Only 30?

As you may have noticed, my keyboard designs have been limited to only the central 30 characters — on a traditional QWERTY keyboard these keys include the alphabet, period, comma, semicolon and slash. Why have I not expanded my program to include other keys? It is certainly not because those keys are in optimal positions already. Many of the keys outside of the main 30 have the very worst placement. So why not try to optimize them as well?

1. They are too hard to re-learn.

I have tried to learn a layout where the all of the keys were optimized, but it did not go well. I found myself completely unable to switch back and forth between it and QWERTY. The layout was simply too complicated, so I ended up just putting all the outlying keys back into their original positions.

2. Many of them rely on aesthetics that a computer program won’t notice.

Look at the number keys. They are neatly lined up in an easy-to-remember fashion. However, their order of frequency is not so simple. A computer algorithm would end up completely jumbling these numbers. It would also likely not put the open and close brackets next to each other, as well as numerous other aesthetic benefits. A computer program would simply miss these little nuances.

3. That program would be harder to write.

Yes, I admit it, I am somewhat driven by laziness. This new program would require modification of many parts of the program, and would make it harder to evaluate the keyboard’s score. The set of digraphs used to score the keyboards would be larger, causing both accuracy and program efficiency to suffer. Evaluating the score would require taking into account all four (or even five) rows, and the extra keys on the side. The score evaluation process would be much more complicated, and therefore harder to get right. Overall, I didn’t see the benefits as worth the effort.

Inevitability

As much as some people may not like it, gay marriage will eventually be nationally legalized simply because of how our society works. Let’s look at America’s recent history. African Americans were enslaved for hundreds of years, and continued to be prosecuted even a century after they had achieved freedom. But eventually they got their equal rights. Oppression of women is perhaps the longest-standing oppression of a single group of people: it lasted for over two thousand years (and many more thousands of years by some counts), but today women and men stand on the same ground.

And that is exactly why gay marriage will not stay illegal for much longer.

In America and throughout the Western world, minorities have been moving closer and closer towards equality. Simply because of the way our society is structured, it is inevitable that gay marriage will soon be legalized. In fact, look at the arguments used against gay marriage. They are the very same arguments that were used fifty years ago to oppress black people. “They’re different”, “it is unnatural”, “God hates them.” Sure, not all of the arguments are the same, but a surprising majority follow along the same lines. “Marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman” is not really so different from “black people do not have the mental capacity to survive on their own, and so are better off as slaves.”

Dumb Quote by Supposedly Smart Person

If you can conceive of morality without god, why can you not conceive of society without government?
~ Peter Saint-André

Let me answer that question with a question: If you can conceive of morality without god, why can you not conceive of peaches without apples?

(Both questions used the same logic.)

What Does Your Handwriting Say About You?

Did you know that you can tell a person’s personality by their handwriting?

If Your Writing Slants…

This sounds fascinating. . . .

To the left: You generally like to work alone or behind the scenes. If you are right-handed and your handwriting slants to the left, you may be expressing rebellion.

. . . or not.

To the right: You are open to the world around you and like to socialize with other people.

Or maybe it means you’re RIGHT HANDED.

Not at all: You tend to be logical and practical. You are guarded with your emotions.

Or maybe you just HAVE STRAIGHT WRITING. Sometimes things only mean what they mean.

If the Size of Your Letters Is…

Mmm, more delicious little pseudoscience.

Large: You have a big personality. Many celebrities have large handwriting. It may suggest that you are outgoing and like the limelight.

Or maybe you have unsteady hands, so you are unable to write very small and have it still be legible. Or maybe you’re a young child. Or something like that.

Small: You are focused and can concentrate easily. You tend to be introspective and shy.

I used to have average-sized handwriting. But then my handwriting got smaller. Why? Did I suddenly become “introspective and shy”? I think not. I simply decided that it would be fun to have small handwriting, and that it would save paper. And now people are all the time commenting on how oh so very small my handwriting is. How’s that for “liking the limelight”?

See, at this point you might be saying something like, “oh, these are only generalizations, they don’t apply to everyone.” Well, you’re right. They don’t apply to everyone. If I were to guess, I’d say they apply to, oh, 50% of people. (Can you possibly guess why I came up with that number?)

Pseudoscience is delicious.

New Keyboard Layout Project: Fast Typing Combinations

It’s been a while since I posted anything about the New Keyboard Layout Project. But I recently downloaded Amphetype and have been analyzing my typing patterns, using MTGAP 2.0. So I now have some results, and will probably get more in the future.

The fastest trigraphs to type almost all are either a type of one key on one hand followed by two keys on the other hand, or they are a roll on one hand in one direction. Most of the slowest trigraphs alternate hands every time, and a good number of them are all on one hand in awkward combinations. The fastest words have easy rolls on both hands: what is currently the fastest word, “should” with an average of 176 WPM (hint: my average typing speed is about 85 WPM), uses a combination of hand alternations and easy rolls. In QWERTY, “should” would be typed as “jeaior”. The “ul”/”io” combination is very fast; also, “od”/”ar” is very fast, and the difference between the finger strokes to type “o” and “d” are very brief because the two letters in between are typed too fast. (Does that make sense?)

I will report more fast combinations after the program gets enough data for some better results.

On the Erroneous Belief that Machines Will Never be as Intelligent as Humans

It has been said that computers will never be able to replace humans. There have been various arguments: that human intelligence is transcendental; that computers can never feel emotion; et cetera. These arguments, however, are flawed.

First of all, as much as people would like to believe the contrary, there is no evidence that there is anything transcendental about the human intellect. None. People do like the belief that we are special, but we simply are not. And that is not such a bad thing, really. So we are not so special. What then? Nothing ends. Accepting our place in the universe does nothing but make life easier, since denying the truth is no longer necessary.

Then there is the fact that human intelligence is currently being replicated by computers. At this point, computers are not nearly as smart as people are. But they are certainly a lot closer to reflecting human intelligence then they were thirty years ago. Allow me to demonstrate. Have you ever played a video game? Many games involve other characters. These characters are not played by people, but are actually controlled by the computer. You may have noticed that these characters do not always act entirely realistically. But at the same time, they do not act very unrealistically either. It could be a lot worse. The task of actually writing an intelligent non-player character is a very difficult one. But we are getting better at it. Before too much longer, we will have computer programs capable of acting completely human.

One major objection, though, is emotion. It has been said that computers cannot feel emotion. So far, they do not. But really, emotion is only the release of certain chemicals in the brain. Computers could be built with these same chemicals. Or they could possibly perceive emotions in a different way. Currently, there is no reason for computers to have emotions. It would be inconvenient (and also very difficult to implement). But other than that it would be hard to implement, there is no reason why computers would not be able to feel emotions. In their own way, emotions are very logical. When something happens that is beneficial, you feel happy. When something happens that is detrimental, you feel sad. When something happens that you wish had gone differently, you get angry. Computers could be programmed to behave in all of these ways.

For all of these reasons and more, it is possible — even achievable in the relatively near future — for computing machines to become as intelligent as humans. But what then? Would they take over the world? Hopefully not. We could live in harmony. Maybe they would destroy us because of our destructive capabilities. Who knows? Whatever happens, it will be something, and it will be exciting.

Straw Man Argument: the Most Powerful Fallacy Known to Man

The Straw Man Argument is a very commonly used fallacy in the world of debating. And no wonder: it’s incredibly powerful. If used correctly, it can be highly deceptive and very difficult to notice. If done poorly, of course, it doesn’t work at all. But what matters not is the tools that you possess; what matters is that you can effectively utilize them to achieve your goals.-

So what exactly is this infamous Straw Man Argument? This sort of argument occurs when your opponent misinterprets or misrepresents your position in order to construct a false argument that is easier to refute than your actual one. And then your opponent refutes this false argument which you never actually proposed.

Let us look at a common example. One common objection to the theory of evolution — perhaps the most common — is that “I don’t like the idea that humans evolved from monkeys.” This is a straw man argument, and is fairly well-known as such. No one is saying that humans evolved from monkeys. Humans and monkeys do, however, share a common ancestor. The concept is considerably different. I see it as no more pleasant, but then again, I do not see the straw proposition (that humans evolved from monkeys) as especially unpleasant.

So, you ask, how can I recognize and defeat these types of arguments? The first step, obviously, is recognizing them. Sometimes it is easy, as with the above example, but other times it is very difficult. It requires you to understand exactly what it is that your opponent is saying, and notice if his interpretation of your argument differs from your actual argument. One of the best things to do here is to listen acutely and apprehend your opponent’s rebuttals as well as possible. And if you’re serious about winning an argument, you should be doing those things anyway.

So after you’ve recognized a straw man argument, then what? There are two basic strategies. You can either point it out, or you can play along.

Probably the easier course of action is to point out the straw man argument. Tell your audience that your opponent has misrepresented your argument. Restate your argument in clearer terms; perhaps restate your opponent’s argument as well, to make the differences between arguments more pronounced. Then you can make clear to your audience that your opponent’s rebuttal was mistaken. If done effectively, this is a great way to waste a lot of your opponent’s time and to gain a lot of headway.

The second course of action is to just play along. This is tricky, and you might back yourself into a corner, but sometimes it is necessary. In this case, you continue as though your opponent accurately represented your argument. This can make life a lot harder for you, but it doesn’t require the interruption that is necessary for the former strategy. It can keep things a lot smoother. Unfortunately, they may become smoother in your opponent’s favor. Be careful with this one, and try to only use it with minor misrepresentations.

Let us play out a scenario. You are trying to prove that abortion is morally permissible. You argue that a mother should be able to choose whether to keep her fetus or not. You argue that a fetus does not have emotions, and so does not deserve the same respect as a born person.

My counter-argument:
Why would you be so heartless as to want to murder a living fetus? A fetus is alive just as much as you or me. If you support the killing of living human beings, then the next thing I know you’ll be wanting to commit infanticide. But no, it won’t stop there. You’ll think to yourself, if I can kill fetuses, and I can kill babies, then why can’t I kill children? This is what you want for the world? No. It stops now. You have to understand that a fetus is a living human being with blood in its veins, and it has the exact same right to life as you or me.

Besides the numerous other fallacies in my argument, can you find the straw man?