Thursday 6 January 2005

Pic of the day: Rats in Dark Age of Camelot. Logic dictates that I can get prettier rats by paying more. Right?

Rat-hunting & faulty logic

For the last week or so, I have led a long debate with Al Schroeder (formerly author of the online journal Nova Notes, now creator of the superhero webcomic MindMistress). For some reason, on the forum for his comic he has imported a quarrel about the mixture of religion and science that is usually referred to as the "Intelligent Design" hypothesis in cosmology. Or should I say meta-cosmology, for it is not so much about our universe as the origin of that universe.

It has come to many people's attention that the laws of nature are very exactly those that allow life as we know it. Even small alterations in the cosmic constants would provide a universe much harder to survive in. (And ours is probably not exactly teeming with life either.) In the past, this was not given much thought because, after all, the laws of nature were fixed, immutable. But now we know that they depend on certain balances which could have been different, and probably are in other universes, if these exist. Even a slight difference in the initial conditions could have given a vastly different universe, so it seems now. From this some have concluded that our universe must be designed rather than just happened. After all, it is highly unlikely that it should just happen to have the right values for life. Others say: Of course it has the right values for life, or we would not been here to talk about it. If there are millions, billions, trillions of other universes, then one of them was bound to have life and in the others nobody mentions the matter since nobody is there.

Schroeder claims that it is more logical to have one creator than billions of universes. As good old Occam said: Don't multiply entities beyond necessity.

To this I averred, a creator or designer is not a solution. Such a being is even less unlikely than the universe itself, and so we have a bigger explanation problem than before. From where did the Designer(s) come? Who made the maker? My theory is that people forget to ask this question because they silently assume that the Intelligent Designer is actually God, and God doesn't do explanations. God just is, forever. But if you assume a religious explanation for your cosmology, then you must accept that it be treated as religion, not as science. If you want to pass it off as science, you need to accept that it be met with the critical questions of science, where faith has little room. And then you can't get away with faulty logic.

***

In daily life, of course, you CAN get away with faulty logic. It is the default. And it is most assuredly not limited to religion. No, it is virtually everywhere. Only people with a lengthy education in maths or statistics will believe deep down in their heart of hearts that a coin toss has a 50-50 chance after you tossed 9 heads in a row. Either the coin is somehow biased, and it will be heads again; or justice demands that tails get a chance! But of course, there is nothing to stop a coin from having 9 or 10 heads without any tampering, and it most assuredly does not keep a list of its prior tosses and consider fairness.

If logic ruled, we would fear flying less, as it is one of the safest modes of transportation. Instead we would cringe in fear of fatty sausages which threaten to clog our arteries, and flee screaming from butter, chips and cakes.

If logic ruled, we would not assign great importance to national borders, which are after all just lines on a map. We would be no more inclined to share our riches with some random person born on our side of the border than, say, someone of our own height, who at least must have some genes in common with us. Most likely, we would consider each human our close relative, because we are. The genetic diversity of our species is so low, that in other mammals it would be named inbreeding and a cause for worry.

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If logic ruled, I would most definitely not be tempted to buy EverQuest II. But the logic of my confused brain goes something like this: Since I don't have time to play City of Heroes and Dark Age of Camelot, I should instead spend money on another multiplayer game. Time is money, right? So if I don't have time to spend, I should spend money and then I would have fun.

This logic is so faulty that even when looking straight at the game box, I can still see the madness of it. Thus, I have so far refrained from buying the supposedly prettiest rat hunting game available. Because even if I bought it, I would have no more time for games than I have already. I would just waste money, which I at some point have worked for or will be working for, spending the very time that is already too scarce.

If even I have a hard time seeing through the disguise of wishful thinking, how can I expect more from those less fortunate than myself? After all, I was born with a good brain and raised from early childhood to think for myself. And it is still a daily struggle.