Quote of the Post: "Words easy to be understood do often hit the mark; when high and learned ones do only pierce the air." - John Bunyan

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Dilbert Strip

Dilbert: Why can't I find a girlfriend?

Dogbert: You have two problems: your looks and your personality.

Dilbert: Hmm... Two isn't bad.

Dilbert: I can fix my looks by getting an extreme makeover.

Dogbert: You'll still need to improve your M.T.T.S.F.

Dilbert: What?

Dogbert: Mean Time To Story Failure: It's a measure of how long you can be fascinating to a new person.

Dogbert: I've been counting, and you only have nine good stories. After you use them up, you're a social liability.

Dilbert: I saw a horse kick a woodchuck over a fence.

Dogbert: Still only nine.

***

Do-It-Yourself Deity

In an attempt to resolve any disagreement surrounding the meaning of the word "God", TPM [Ed: The Philosophers' Magazine] has assembled a crack team of "metaphysical engineers" who have devised a new computer-modelling virtual environment in which to test the plausibility of different conceptions of God.

Here's how it works. You are invited to select from the list below the attributes which you believe God must have (or the attributes that a being deserving of the name God must have). Metaphysical engineers will then model this conception of God to check out its plausibility.

So I plugged in the attributes that most people would associate with a monotheistic god and I got:

"Plausibility Quotient = 0.3

The metaphysical engineers have determined that your conception of God has a plausibility quotient (PQ) of 0.3. A PQ of 1.0 means that as far as the metaphysical engineers can determine your conception of God is internally consistent and consistent with the universe that we live in. A PQ of 0.0 means that it is neither internally consistent nor consistent with our universe.

The problem of suffering

Your God is omnipotent (all-powerful, able to do anything), omnibenevolent (all-loving) and omniscient (all-knowing).

The metaphysical engineers have found it hard to model this God in a universe like our own. The problem is this: our universe contains vast amounts of suffering, much of which seems either entirely unnecessary or unnecessarily severe. Although some of this is the result of human action, and thus may be seen as an inevitable consequence of human free will, much is not. Plagues, floods and famines are not all the result of human action. Even the idea that human free will explains the existence of much suffering is hard to accept, since God, if all-powerful, could surely limit our capacity to harm others or suffer at their hands (after all, there are many other limits on what we are able to do).

So why is there all this suffering? If God cannot prevent it, it would seem she is not all-powerful. If God doesn't want to stop it, it would seem she is not all-loving. If God doesn't know about it, she can't be all-knowing.

The problem of loving too much

Your God is omnipotent (all-powerful, able to do anything), omnibenevolent (all-loving) and a perfectly free agent.

The metaphysical engineers have confronted a difficulty modelling this God. If perfectly free, then God could choose whatever she wants. Nothing could stop this because God is omnipotent. But this God is also all-loving. It seems to the engineers that such a God could never choose to do something which is unloving. It is not that God just chooses not to do such things, rather that God's nature as omnibenevolent constrains what she can do. In other words, God does not have the freedom and/or the power to do something unloving.

One possible response is that God isn't necessarily omnibenevolent, but, as a matter of fact, since she never chooses to do something which is unloving, is omnibenevolent. However, if this is true, then the metaphysical engineers can't see how omnibenevolence can be a necessary characteristic of a God.

Not so personal after all?

The metaphysical engineers are finding it hard to understand how, on your conception of God, one can have a personal relationship with her.

Personal relationships appear to depend on a number of things. Sufficient similarity between the persons in the relationship is one. Another is that both are persons, or are, at least, person-like, as some higher primates, for example, appear to be. The problem is that in our universe there seem to be no genuine personal relationships between things of great difference. And God, as you have described her, is vastly different from human beings.

People can have feelings for things which are similar to those they have towards people. Affection or love for places or objects, for example, is common. But this is not the same as having a personal relationship with them. In a similar way, people have relationships with animals, maybe a cat. But this does not seem to be the same as a personal relationship, because of the great difference in the way the person relates to the animal and the way the animal relates to the person. Perhaps this is the kind of relationship which you envisaged?

Can God do the illogical?

The metaphysical engineers request clarification of what you mean when you say God is able to do anything.

In the model, God was asked to make 2 + 2 = 5 (where all the terms hold their common meanings). She could not do so and the model broke down. It seems that no being can ever do what is logically impossible. It is not just beyond the wit of humanity to make 2 + 2 = 5, such a thing is a contradiction in terms.

So the metaphysical engineers seek your permission to understand by all-powerful that God can do anything which is logically possible. Before accepting this, however, you should understand that by accepting the limits of logical possibility on God, you are leaving open the possibility that, if some characteristics you attribute to God turn out to entail logical contradictions, you must give these up. It means, in effect, accepting that rationality is a constraint on God (though it is a moot point exactly what the word constraint means in this regard).

Why this universe?

Your God is omnipotent (all-powerful, able to do anything), omnibenevolent (all-loving), omniscient (all-knowing) and the creator of all that exists.

The metaphysical engineers have run up against a problem. When your God created the universe, being all-knowing, she must have known about all the suffering there would be in this world. Yet God still created it, as it is. She did not create a more benign version of the universe, or simply choose not to create the universe. Why is this?

It could be that God did not know about all the suffering which would occur. But that would make God not all-knowing. It could be that God doesn't mind all the suffering, but that would make her less than all-loving. It could be that God could not have created a more benign world than this one. But that would seem to make God less than all-powerful. The only way we can resolve this problem is to conclude that God can only do what is possible and that this really is the best of all possible worlds. The metaphysical engineers find it hard to model this resolution as they think they can make a better world quite easily. For example, they are able to make human brains more hardy and thus reduce the incidence of psychopathology, resulting in an immediate decline, in their model, of crimes of sadistic murder. Are they mistaken in some way?

For eternity?

The metaphysical engineers request clarification of what you mean when you say God exists eternally.

You may mean that God exists through all space and time. But according to our best physics, space and time exist only within the confines of a universe. This would seem to constrain God's existence to within a universe.

You could mean that God exists "outside" space and time. But the metaphysical engineers find it hard to understand what you mean by "eternally", if that's the case. Doesn't the concept "eternally" require some notion of time to make sense? The metaphysical engineers are still puzzling over these issues.


Which is why conventional polytheism makes more sense than conventional monotheism.

***

Different Chinese Groups in Malaysia

Today, in Malaysia, there is no longer just the Chinese. Along the way, the Chinese people divided beyond dialects and religious faith. We now have denomination within the Chinese. The major three groups are Regular, Cina, and Ah Beng.

The Regular group is the minority, making up less than 20% of the Chinese people. This group has the following characteristics:

1. Speaks English as the first language.
2. Thinks the world owes them a living.
3. Uses the Internet more than the other two groups combined.
4. Loves the iPod and/or IKEA.
5. Watches one or more of the following TV series: "Sex And The City", "Friends", or "CSI."
6. Thinks that the Regular group is way larger than it is and makes fun of the other groups, particularly the Ah Beng group.

Why? Because it's fun.

Recent studies have also shown that there is a growing splinter group within the Regular group known as the CPWTTANC group. (CPWTTANC is short for Chinese People Who Think They Are Not Chinese.) This growing subgroup are considered elitist by some and are found making statements like "I wish I were in the U.S." or "This never happened when I was studying in Australia." They also tend to speak with an unidentifiable accent. The women may also prefer to date white men from foreign countries with the
excuse that local men just "don't understand me" and have the secret desire to be taken away to the U.S. to live in a sitcom.

The second Chinese group, Cina makes up approximately 55% of the Chinese community. (Cina is derived from the Malay word Cina which means Chinese and is pronounced "chee-na". And you will have to say it in a condescending tone for effect.) This group is considered mainstream and contribute to the numbers that reflect development in the country. They are the masses in context of the Chinese community. In other words, if you want to sell something to the masses of Chinese people, the Cina is it.

The Cina are identified by the following traits:

1. Speaks Mandarin or Cantonese as the first language.
2. Generally quiet, self-effacing, and obliging but are actually shrewd and calculative.
3. Sees Taiwan as the place to be.
4. More likely to forward chain email to people in their address book.
5. Goes to Halo Café or Wow Wow Café BY CHOICE at least three times a year.
6. Has Astro hardwired to Wah Lai Toi.
7. Calls a music video an MTV instead of music video.
8. Knows all the dim sum dishes by name.
9. Seventy percent of lighting at home generated by flourescent lights.

The last group are known as the Ah Bengs . This term was probably made up by the Regulars in the early 80s during the cultural invasion that saw the mass import of music and movies from countries like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and to some extent, Japan. This phenomenon saw the more open-minded and runaway members of the Cina group defect into Ah Bengs and its feminine equivalent, Ah Lian. They just took their Alan Tam and Anita Mui a little too seriously.

Perhaps the most made-fun-of group not only by its own Chinese people but by people of other races, the Ah Bengs are often seen as people living on the edge and have more flamboyant tastes.

One may identify the Ah Beng by these tell-tale signs:

1. Built-in visual self-defense mechanism that keeps people away from them.
2. Have enough amplifiers in their one car to power speakers for six cars.
3. Hair not in their original colour.
4. Volume of voice is automatically five decibels higher than everyone else.
5. Excessive use of the phrase "Kan Ni Na Bu Ciao Chee Bai". (Although, to be fair, some members of the Regular group have been reported to use the phrase on a daily basis as well.)
6. Once a fan of one of the following groups: Vengaboys, Dr Bombay, Aqua, or the Cheeky Girls.
7. Their Proton car does not look like a Proton car due to modifications.
8. For the Ah Lians, have at least one bag fashioned after a furry animal complete with the head.

***

"Some of the symptoms of psychosis:

Talking or smiling to yourself
Neglecting your appearance"

- Poster urging potential sufferers to get help.

Heh heh. Coincidentally, many of the other criteria (eg hearing voices others cannot hear and seeing things others cannot see) happen to fit religious prophets/leaders.


I saw a Chinese guy with an afro at Borders. I asked him how long it took for his hair to get that way, and he said about a year from crew cut length. He claimed that his hair was naturally curly, and he had just let it grow out to get the afro. Right. If I want an afro, I'll probably have to perm my hair like crazy.

My attempt at building an electroscope failed. Boo hoo. I shall try a Leyden Jar next.

Useful tip: To have an application window's size and position persist when you next open it, Control + Click on the "Close" button


When the Computer Opens the Closet - "Once women like Jennifer might have spent decades in the limbo of ignorance or denial, while their husbands explored their sexual orientation and lived furtive double lives. But in the age of the Internet, the blinders can be yanked off with the flick of a finger. Mental health professionals and matrimonial lawyers say that many marriages, involving both heterosexuals and homosexuals, are collapsing under the weight of documentary evidence left behind on computers, just as computer records are increasingly tripping up business leaders, employees and others who forget that these are communications not easily denied."

Tell these intolerant Singaporeans to go home - "In part two of the Seven Network submission to FIRB, Kerry Stokes explains the dangers of allowing these heavy-handed totalitarians control over any more key Australian assets... The Seven Network submits that the offer by Sing Tel for Optus be rejected on the grounds that it would be against the national interest. If the bid by Sing Tel were to be accepted, a very significant Australian asset would come under the control of a foreign Government which is widely acknowledged as running an extremely intrusive and repressive authoritarian state."
A mid-July 2001 opinion on why Singtel's attempt to purchase Opus should not be allowed to go ahead. Pleasantly, no events of the sort chronicled in the article have happened here since 1997, if I recall correctly.

PAPMan is damn hard once you read level 3. I wonder if there's a Level 4. At Level 3 you already have PM, MM and an anonymous MIW (Man In White) chasing you. So who might they add in Level 4?

Power ranger death! - This must rank up there with the sickest shit I have ever seen.