Monthly Archives: October 2011
The Cat & the Critter: Halloween Humor
Image via Wikipedia
One of my interests is the mythology and folklore of one of my favorite countries, the PI, and I’ve got a story to tell about a sort of ghoul-like creature called buso, which only eat dead people, but have no problems with making live ones into dead ones. Cats can serve as protection from them, says the lore, as you’ll see…
One night, a buso wandered from the forest into a rural village, a little hungrier than usual, since few people had died lately of the usual causes. Spying a nipa-hut large enough to house a family, in a village housing several, the buso approached, thinking it would have an easy meal, but noticed the family cat sitting before the entrance, checking it out with inquisitive kitty eyes as it approached.
“Let me in, cat, since I’m feeling a bit peckish tonight, and there’s food within.”
Now, cats are prone to f*cking with people, even creepy undead ghoulish ones, and this cat was no exception, so he said to the buso,
“Well, I could let you in…but you’ve got to do something for me first. I want you to count every hair on my tail, and if you count all of them, down to the last one, I’ll let you go inside…Deal?”
This undead critter, being particularly dim, nodded its head, said “Deal,” and began to count…1, 2, 3, 4,.. and so on, but just as it was approaching the last few strands of fur on the cat’s amply fluffy tail, the cat, true to form, flicked his tail, forcing the buso to begin again, and again, and again, to its increasing frustration, for its tummy was beginning to growl with emptiness.
“Stop that!” The undead thingy said, as the cat did his best to look mockingly apologetic, and it began counting again, but it was several hours since it had begun, once again beginning count. As the buso got to the last few strands of fur, the morning sun began to rise about the horizon, causing it to run off screaming into the forest, never to trouble the locals again.
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MNQ | Monday’s Noontide Query: The Name’s The Thing
In a lot of fiction genres delving into the fantastic and in allegedly real claims involving fantastic things, there’s a tendency to use equally fantastic names for the beings that populate these accounts of the astounding, from aliens, to demonic creatures from the abyss, Lovecraftian horrors from the stars and the Outer Void, to superhero fiction often profuse with monikers and code-names.
Even technothrillers like the James Bond movies use colorful and sometimes tastelessly comical names for both bad guys and protagonists alike – Odd-Job? Jaws? Hugo Drax? And as offensive and sexist as it seems…Pussy Galore? ( I kid you not, that last was actually used in one of the films…).
And what about the names of entire species of beings in science-fiction and science-fantasy, like the brilliantly imagined aliens (despite the limits of the costume technology and budget constraints of the time) and worlds of the original Doctor Who series and the more recent Dr Who reboot starting in 2005? Daleks? Gallifrey, the planet of the Time Lords?
What about the equally brilliant aliens of Douglas Adams‘ Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, with their, to my ears, odd sounding but poetic names. Slartibartfast? The Jartravartid people of Vertvoodle VI? Humma Kavula?
Awesome.
Regardless, it takes a creative and flexible mind to come up with alien creatures whose names don’t sound like a detergent brand or drain-cleaning product, much less like something out of a Star Wars prequel (Oops! Did I say that?…), and it’s no easy task for me to come up with names for my own aliens and worlds for the novella I’m working on, though googling them to see whether they’ve been already used is a big help in winnowing out the ones that don’t really get me anywhere creatively…
True euphony in names that’s also truly original in an interconnected world of billions of names real and imagined is getting increasingly difficult…
…and so I ask…
What sort of names in the obvious fiction and the alleged reality of unusual beings sound really cool to your ears?
What’s in a name?
MNQ is a question that I pose to you, my readers, and is posted each Monday at 12:00 PM. Do feel free to comment, and don’t worry yerselves overmuch… I’m not an ogre and I don’t bite…much.
Doctor Madblood: The Goodbye Button
A complete episode from 1980. Local television horror host and benevolent mad scientist Max Madblood works on a new invention…
Fractal of the Month: Medallionette
All images in this post are original works by the author, and are copyright 2011 Troy Loy
On Dismissing Claims: My Rules [Repost]
(This has been reposted, updated, and heavily revised from the clumsily written original posted on May 6, 2010)
I think it a bad idea to casually dismiss claims out of hand, so I try to give each a fair assessment to see if it is worth looking into, to see if peering deeper into it can actually tell me something new.
If it can be helped, I try to avoid a priori rejection of claims merely on the basis that they may seem superficially silly, counterintuitive, bat-sh*t insane, or merely on the basis of who makes the claim.
Sometimes, though, it is necessary to dismiss a claim once it has had its fair hearing and been found wanting. Just because a claim deserves to be appraised doesn’t mean it’s valid.
I have a set of rules I use to help me decide what claims to take seriously and which to reject, especially when the claim in question is merely another account of the same purported incident..
First, any claim I look at must be somehow testable. There must be some sort of evidence obtainable that will meaningfully demonstrate the true nature of the claim.
If not, which is usually the case with anecdotal accounts, those which I have no way of conceivably looking into due to a lack of independent access to or objective records of the events recounted, I can only say about these that they are unproven.
Such claims can tell me nothing of value, so there is no point in taking a closer look at those particular claims, especially when the same issue is raised again merely using the same reasoning and evidence as before. Some claims have already been deconstructed repeatedly by others more skilled than myself and shown false, mistaken, and/or adequately explained.
My time is better spent not reinventing the proverbial wheel…
A different case of a similar specific claim would be worth looking into, since there is no ‘one true explanation’ for all cases of even a limited sort of claim.
At the very least, it’s important to find out from the beginning if anything worth explaining actually happened to begin with.
Once that’s done, the rest can follow naturally. Who knows, some of these claims actually turn out to be true, though not literally as claimed, and finding the explanations that follow are what drives science.
I also consider the degree and kind of possibility of the claim, and claims that are incoherent or logically impossible I also reject as inconsequential.
I’m less quick to decide that something is physically or contingently impossible unless I can know just which physical law or contingency is violated and how.
Claims entailing obvious violations of consistently reliable fundamental physics (such as any of the Laws of Thermodynamics…)may also be summarily dismissed, as may those that are dangerous and unethical to test, especially when lending foolish credence to them radically and needlessly violates our understanding of the world and doing so could lead to the injury or death of the claimant.
For example, it is unethical to test the claim of someone who says that they can fly by flapping their arms, but only after making an unaided nosedive off of a skyscraper, or to test a claimant who says they can live on hard radiation with no other sustenance needed.
I think that it is much more reasonable to think that a claimant might most likely be deceived and/or deceiving than it is to suppose that we must rewrite everything we know about the universe to take far too seriously someone’s claims of magic.
Fractal of the Day: The Mirrored Portal
All images in this post are original works by the author, and are copyright 2011 Troy Loy
APW | Astronomy Pix of the Week for October 23 – 29, 2011
Image via Wikipedia
APW is a weekly installment, published each Saturday between 7:31 and 8:30 am EDT, of links to each daily entry on NASA’s website Astronomy Picture of the Day. I hope you enjoy looking at these often breathtaking images as much as I do.
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- Saturn’s moons (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
- That Cassini Smartypants Spacecraft Is One Amazing Photographer [Astronomy] (gizmodo.com)
Fractal of the Week: Lattice of Dusk
All images in this post are original works by the author, and are copyright 2011 Troy Loy
xkcd: Prairie
Quantum humor without the woo…
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
This means you’re free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). More details.
Fractal of the Day: Permeation
All images in this post are original works by the author, and are copyright 2011 Troy Loy
Fractal of the Day: It’s Hungry and Must Feed
All images in this post are original works by the author, and are copyright 2011 Troy Loy
MNQ | Monday’s Noontide Query: Boundaries
Image via Wikipedia
In person, I’m fairly argumentative, but there are certain conditions I try to abide by when I’m not feeling pissy at the time.
Oh, I can lay on the snarkitude when pressed, but there are certain things I try to avoid doing and making an ass of myself, such as gratuitous cruelty toward the object of my ire and projecting myself upon my hapless victim.
Now to some extent, to most people with a working ‘theory of mind‘ some measure of projection is unavoidable, even and especially when it’s misleading.
The trick is to be aware of what’s going on inside your head, a sensitivity to your own thoughts, feelings and motives, noting that others may not necessarily share them.
Of course, there are limits to how clear or reliable this is, but I think that it’s something that can do most of us more good than harm — as long as you aren’t so self-critical that you become self-loathing as well; that can be destructive.
Most of us are socialized as children, and learn to moderate our tone in a civil discussion, and others are not so well-adjusted with others or themselves — if they were, there would be fewer internet trolls to trouble the Web.
Which leads to this…
What do you think are the ideal conditions for discussions?
What (additional) boundaries do you have for what to discuss & how?
When have those boundaries been crossed by others?
MNQ is a question that I pose to you, my readers, and is posted each Monday at 12:00 PM. Do feel free to comment, and don’t worry yerselves overmuch… I’m not an ogre and I don’t bite…much.
Fractal of the Day: The Transfinite Surf
All images in this post are original works by the author, and are copyright 2011 Troy Loy
What is Evidence? [Repost]
In my experience, there are limits to what even most believers will believe. There are things that will strain the credulity of all but the most credulous, and this is entirely separate from the usual rejection by most believers of conventional explanations for their pet belief.
To reiterate the title of this post, what is evidence? At its broadest and most basic level, it is simply any form of information that gives you a reason to accept something as true, a ‘sign’ if you will. It doesn’t have to be Proof™, much less absolute or tangible for that matter.
People tend to have different heights for their personal bars for evidence, believers typically having a much looser concept of evidence than skeptics, each differing on how sound evidence must be before considering a claim to truth valid. There’s no finely divided line between, no clear dichotomy, of believers and skeptics.
The requirement for evidence as a condition of an acceptable statement of fact is far from closed-mindedness, it’s good science. Consider if this were not so, and only belief itself were a requirement for truth.
Imagine being in a court of law — say you were accused of a serious crime, serious enough that it would be very unpleasant if you were to be convicted. Imagine further that you are innocent, and that there is evidence for this. Now let’s just say for the sake of argument that juries are more likely than not to convict those defendants accused of particularly heinous crimes. Now, do you really want that jury to convict you on the grounds of their belief without evidence that you are guilty, or would you rather they examine the evidence that you are innocent, evidence which would exonerate you and allow you to go free?
Personally, my money’s riding on them looking at the evidence rather than the groundless (in this case) belief in the defendant’s guilt.
What is not evidence by the standards of science? Well, for one outstanding example, unsupported and unrepresentative anecdotes, for starters. Why? Because such accounts are sometimes second-hand and often further removed from the listener, and even if not, the listener has no direct, independent access to the events recounted, no matter how honest, intelligent or well-meaning the speaker is, there is always the possibility of omission, exaggeration, or other errors concerning key details in the account, becoming more so the further removed it is from the original source.
This is simply the result of the inherent flaws in memory and perception, and our interpretation of what we perceive, that we all have as humans.
At best, in science, anecdotes are only useful as a starting-point for the construction of a hypothesis, a beginning point for further inquiry, they are, unfortunately, not suitable as a means of testing a hypothesis, for if used that way, they can erroneously lead you to believe any conclusion you want to be true, especially if it isn’t.
Philosophers of science and logicians almost unanimously agree that evidence in the scientific usage of the word is always provisional, and that any hypothesis it is used to support must also conform to at least one or more criteria of adequacy to be valid, such as testability, fruitfulness, scope, simplicity, and conservatism.
Also, in science, the evidence for any claim must be obtained by sound methodology — the means and ways used to conduct any test of a hypothesis — and for the more probabilistic sciences, sound statistical protocols, and if not, the evidence gained, such as it is, is simply not valid. Sorry, but them’s the rules.
As you can see, not everyone has the same personal criteria for evidence, but modern science has very clear guidelines as to what constitutes evidence, and any data offered must pass the gauntlet of sufficiency, not just necessity, to be acceptable, and thus to expand our knowledge, for the time being, of the universe.
