Reductio ad Hitlerum

Reductio ad Hitlerum is a term for a fallacy of irrelevance (aka association fallacy). It is when an opinion, entity, or person is challenged in a discussion merely based on the fact that they can be linked by association with a characteristic of Hitler or the Nazis. For examples, look at criticism of any world leader since about 1945. The term was coined by Leo Strauss as early as 1953.


Godwin's Law, coined in 1990 by Mike Godwin, was, as he stated "an expiriment in memetics" (memetics being a term referring to "meme", originally coined by Richard Dawkins to mean a unit of social evolution through information transfer (articles, songs, catch-phrases, videos, etc. ) from person to person. The idea of the meme being related to Dawkins' field of genetics is largely based on the way that these pieces of information (videos, etc.) survive through a process of natural selection whose criteria for selection are dependent on the current state of the culture (e.g. what the hell were we thinking back in the 80's?)
                       back to Godwin's Law. In 1990, Mike Godwin stated:


 "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."


 This is very helpful to me, as my original intent in venturing into Wikipedia for answers was that i did not understand this string of comments: 


Comment 1: "The mind of [a fully informed, yet dedicated] believer is a disgrace to the human species." 
                                                                                                       -R. Dawkins
Comment 2: Hitler was "fully informed and dedicated".


Comment 3: Wow, Godwin's Law on the second comment. Impressive.


Comment 4 was a refutation of comment 2, and stated that neither Hitler nor commenter 2 "knew dick about dick" . Then somebody (not the second commenter) said that the second comment was obviously a joke, and commenter 4 was an idiot. Commenter 4 said he was truly sorry, and had realized the error of his ways. The conversation continued, and eventually some late-comer said "Why is everything these days always about Hitler?"


This string of comments was left on this video, where Richard Dawkins refutes Creationism with what he considers the most compelling fact (or observation) that we have at our disposal. 

Slow, Futile Constructions

Due to the temperature outside, sometimes water will attempt great feats of collaboration, building upside down ladders to the ground, perhaps tired of merely throwing itself violently, hoping for an easier, softer and more pleasant route.
I sat and watched the icicles form for a little while. Beadlets of water, attempting to cling and freeze to the end would stretch, screaming, groping, then shuddering would fall, and break into little pieces of water on the concrete below. Then the next would try. Then the next, and on, bravely sacrificing themselves to build this city, or perhaps merely victims of a determined future who were hopeful that they would be one of the lucky ones, the ones who sit comfortably back, scaffolding and roadway for the great many who they watch plunge to their screaming, horrible deaths.

I must say, I am not entirely convinced that we are not all mere beads of water, running down the most logical path, success being merely a matter of luck and circumstance. I like to think that we are not, but I cannot say for sure.
I, for one, don't see anything wrong with this. Droplets of water forming into icicles is a perfectly beautiful thing.

Waking up

This morning my wife woke me up. I was naked, sitting up on the couch in the livingroom. It was still very very dark. I didn't remember getting there. I sleep naked, so that factor is not that odd. I do wonder, however, if I will find myself in these situations when my children are older, because I don't remember ever finding my dad naked anywhere. He pretty much slept in bed, fully clothed, as far as I knew.

When I got back to the bedroom, it was time to get up for work. I had to turn my alarms off before I went to take a shower. I still feel like this waking up experience is casting ripples across my consciousness. Waking up is important.

Perhaps waking up is the most important thing we do any given day.

Waking up is the only clear boundary between our bodily reality and our dream reality. I know that I don't get fully paralyzed by dopamine in my sleep, frequently blurring the lines between my dream experience and my physical experience. Perhaps some people don't stop dreaming when they wake up.

Perhaps waking up is the biggest mistake we make any given day.

Go ahead and tell me that quantam physics and string theory are not etherial and fanciful dreams: myths. Sure they may be true, accurate, provable, scientific. They are just as real to scientists as demonic posession is to an Orthodox Christian or a Catholic.

When I hit the ground after falling from a building, if only in my head, I feel the impact as my body spasms in reaction. I cry when I drop my 8 month old son and his neck breaks, if only in my dreams. I smile and laugh in my sleep. My wife tells me she loves me in her sleep. It's probably a matter of survival that we have these dividers, like dopamine. You don't want to wander off into the woods with no physical awareness, only to impale yourself on something or fall off of something.

But we have written dream off as false-reality. Just as the atheist has written off God. Just as the Christian has written off Nirvana. Just as the skeptic has written off global warming. Just as the homeless crazy man has written off work, has written off love, has written off sobriety, has written off society, and he, alone now, is real. You frequently hear him refer to the past, when other things were still real, before they all fell apart, before he slipped into his nightmare and lost the ability to wake up.

On Religion, post one of infinity

I recently wrote a letter to a friend who I still call a friend, but have spoken to so little in the last few years that-- how is he different from anybody else now, be they the really nice homeless person or the slightly less nice person who I used to talk to with my wife at coffee, who we are unsure has a home, but he says he does. He had a boat, but says it sank. He says he owns a doctor's office, and is very fond of children, but we don't know if he even has a home. We don't know if he sleeps at night underneath the tugboat company that sits out over the water of the Baltimore inner harbor because he hates his devout, Protestant wife, like he says, or if there is another reason-- something more sad. In the middle of the letter, I talk about religion:

My sense of spirituality only goes so far as what I know to be absolutely true. I do not know that the Bible or the Koran, or the Torah or the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or the Harry Potter novels are fact or fiction, whether we are watched by ghosts or by Greek Gods or by Jesus or by the god of the old testament. There are plenty of people who would love for me to believe one of these things, or one of the thousands of other things. They want me to because they are concerned about my soul, and worry about how shitty it’s gonna be for me in hell after I die. I don’t even know how many of these people are right. How the hell would I know? Everybody has proof, and everybody refutes everybody else’s. 
 What I do know is that I was born who I am. I could have been African, born into a tribe at war with other tribes, convinced that this was right. I would believe in the indigenous religion I was taught. Perhaps some missionaries: Mormon or Protestant most likely: would come and convert me. Then I would believe that my family was in danger of going to hell, for holding onto their religion and not accepting Jesus or Joseph Smith or whoever. My parents would be ashamed of me, for not holding onto the one true faith. 
But I was born Orthodox Christian. I left the church when I was 18, and am silently rebuked by the world I came from for letting myself be dragged away by demonic powers (I am sure my wife is blamed by many). I do not condemn religion. I do not think there is anything wrong with religion. Go ahead, it might make you a better person and give you a good life and explain your world and make you happy and convince you to help others. I do think that there is something wrong with nearly every religion though. Because somewhere in the massive list of details, there are almost always condemnations, there are almost always hurtful and derisive rules. No mother should think their son is going to hell for being a homosexual. No Catholic homosexual should feel like they might as well become a priest because they’re never going to know a happy marriage. No Catholic should ever feel devastated when their Protestant or Muslim friend dies because they’re going to hell for sure. Nobody should ever be afraid to talk to another person, to marry another person, to befriend another person, to listen (really listen) to another person, allow that person to sway them in their foundation, or to question their reality and their own religion. Everybody told me they were right. Everybody told me they had proof. The only logical conclusion I could come to was: there’s no way this really matters. I don’t believe in a god who thinks special words and special moves and special ropes and special food are our only salvation, or even a part of our salvation at all. I think god is better than that. My god is smarter than your god.

Note: I didn't tell my friend that I thought my god was smarter than his god. I thought it fit in the Blog format.