If Intelligent Design Were a Scientific Theory

(revision 1)

A short screenplay written by Ramin Honary

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Copyright © December 23, 2008.
The author has released the full text of this document to the public domain in the hopes that it will be useful as an educational aid. As such, this text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Please be sure you understand the terms of the license before you copy this document in any way to any medium. The license text is available at: <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html>.

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News Anchor:	And now, some "good news" for the scientific community, a recent breakthrough by the Discovery Institutes's research and development team has discovered the force field that occurs naturally as a result of the presence of God. This research has led to the invention of the worlds first working Theometer, a device that can predict when and where God will appear. Dr. John Priestley is the leader of the research team which made this breakthrough scientific discovery, he is here with us in the studio, Dr. Priestly, thank you for joining us!
Dr. Priestley:	(smiles and nods acknowledging to the anchor person) Thank you for having me!
News Anchor:	Dr. Priestley, would you mind giving us a brief history of the work which led to this remarkable discovery?
Dr. Priestley:	Certainly. Well, it all started as part an initiative to publish more useful scientific data to verify Intelligent Design theory...
News Anchor:	...which of course is the theory that all living things are designed by an Intelligent Agent such as Jesus.
Dr. Priestley:	Exactly. The problem was that Intelligent Design theory posits the existence of an Intelligent Agent -- as you said, Jesus -- which, until recently, was completely without any scientific definition. Then, last year Bruce Chapman, president of the Discovery Institute, approached us and basically said, "hey, we need a mathematical model for Jesus or no one will ever take our theory seriously. After all, Darwin's theory of Evolution can be expressed mathematically to perform computer simulations."
News Anchor:	(Surprised) There are computer simulations of Darwin's Theory of Evolution? (makes a disgusted face when saying "Darwin")
Dr. Priestley:	There have been some simulations that they call Evolutionary Computation Algorithms.
News Anchor:	Uh, huh.
Dr. Priestley:	...So we figure, how hard could it be to do the same for Intelligent Design?" So we consulted The Bible, specifically Numbers, Genesis, Exodus, and Acts I and II, and discovered that God had already explained exactly how to define the Christ as a math formula, thus defining what exactly Intelligent Agent really means in concrete scientific terms.
News Anchor:	Well wait a minute, I've read those books as well and I never saw any math formulas.
Dr. Priestley:	Well of course, you need to pray to Jesus for knowledge as well, it wouldn't give you the answer to just read the Bible because it helps everyone differently.
News Anchor:	Oh, of course.
Dr. Priestley:	So, after praying diligently every day for, oh I would say a good 40 days and 40 nights, the mathematical formulas miraculously appeared to me and several of my grad students in a dream.
News Anchor:	Wow, that must have been really exciting!
Dr. Priestley:	Yes it was! It was, without question, the most wonderful moment in my career! We were all crying and praising the lord, but of course we were still humble. We knew all of our work was still ahead of us. After a great deal of work, we were finally able to develop a method to test these math formulas.
News Anchor:	Test? But didn't you already know the formulas were correct? They did come from Jesus, after all.
Dr. Priestley:	They did come from Jesus, so we were completely certain the formulas were correct. But in science, a math formula alone is only a model. You absolutely must verify your model with experimental data before you can consider it a valid scientific theory.
News Anchor:	Which is why Intelligent Design theory had been so controversial?
Dr. Priestley:	That's exactly right. Without a mathematical model and falsifiable data to verify it, the scientific community would never accept any such theory, no matter how convenient it is to Christians. That the term Intelligent Agent was undefined was precisely why, until now, no scientist in his right mind would have ever accepted the theory of Intelligent Design. In fact, it was often the case that professors who would try to publish a paper in intelligent design would loose their tenure, or even possibly be fired for incompetence.
News Anchor:	Right, which is what that documentary "Expelled" by Ben Stein was about, right?
Dr. Priestley:	Yes, Ben Stein had made a movie about that. So anyway, now that we had a working formula that mathematically defined the Intelligent Agent of Intelligent Design theory, we simply had to design some experiments to test it, which led to the development of the Theometer.
News Anchor:	OK, so could you explain more about the Theometer? ...In like really easy, non-scientific terms?
Dr. Priestley:	Sure. Well basically, God moves throughout the universe much like how clouds move across the sky on a cloudy, windy day. He is always present, but is always changing shape; God is always in a state of flux. At any given time, some places have a higher concentration of God, and some places have a lower concentration.
News Anchor:	Whoa! Brain overload!
Dr. Priestley:	Well, the important thing to remember is that in any given place in the universe, like in this very room for example, there may be a positive amount of God, or a negative amount.
News Anchor:	A negative amount? Like if the room temperature goes below zero?
Dr. Priestley:	Exactly, like sometimes the temperature can go below zero, that would be a "negative temperature." Likewise, a below zero amount of God, would indicate a "negative amount" of God, and of course a negative amount of God would indicate the presence of Satan.
News Anchor:	OK, that's a bit too much math for me, but I think I get it. Your saying you can predict Jesus or Satan like how the weather guy can predict the temperature?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, sort of. It would be like a "Jesus thermometer", if we were to use the temperature analogy.
News Anchor:	OK, this is still way over my head, but I think I get the basic idea now. So, what could this Theometer be useful for?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, all sorts of things. In a recent double-blind experiment, we found we could predict with better than 70% accuracy exactly when a person would be overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit and start speaking in tongues.
News Anchor:	Wow! That would be very handy, especially to me as a news anchor.
Dr. Priestley:	Me too. Just the other day I was at a conference hosted by the National Science Foundation, and I started speaking in tongues right as I started to give my presentation. It was wonderful, but it also put us behind schedule by about twenty minutes. With this new Jesus-predictive technology, that will hopefully be less of a concern.
News Anchor:	Very handy! And you also mentioned you can predict the Devil, so does that mean you can also predict demonic possession?
Dr. Priestley:	Indeed we can, but its accuracy is just a little bit less than 60%.
News Anchor:	Still, that's pretty good.
Dr. Priestley:	Well, it will get better as our technology improves. The most important thing is that our technology will make Satan a bit easier to predict.
News Anchor:	That's great! It is always so scary when one of my kids or myself becomes possessed by a demon, and then someone has to call the priest, and he has to do an exorcism, and ugh! It's just no fun.
Dr. Priestley:	Yes, it is a big problem. In fact, the the Discovery Institute estimates that up to 11% of all prayer services are interrupted by demonic possession, and that number has been increasingly slowly but steadily ever since the year 2000.
News Anchor:	That's a lot, isn't it? Well, it looks like now there is something more we can do other than beating up liberals to maybe reduce the number of demonic possessions in our Churches?
Dr. Priestley:	Fortunately yes, although I wouldn't stop beating up liberals if I were you.
News Anchor:	Obviously. So it's not only useful at home, but it can improve our Church life as well, it seems.
Dr. Priestley:	Almost any new technology can improve the quality of life. But probably more importantly, its a safe bet that this research will improve national security as well. We may be able to, for example, predict who is a terrorist -- or anyone who is permanently possessed by the devil for that matter: gays, Mormons... Or we could, say, determine whether or not the president has made a decision while he is under the influence of Lucifer, these kind of things.
News Anchor:	You think the president is at risk of being possessed?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, George W. Bush was completely safe, that much is certain. But the Discovery Institute scientists estimates that Barrack Obama has, so far as president, been possessed by Satan at least once every five days.
News Anchor:	That's much worse than president Bush!
Dr. Priestley:	Well, we can only hope Obama makes use of our Theometer technology, as he claims to be such a technology lover all the time. However, given the chief science adviser and chief technology adviser he has appointed to his cabinet, Obama probably won't even touch a Theometer, that stupid little... But I digress.
News Anchor:	Now, you mentioned earlier that Darwin's Theory of Evolution (makes a disgusted face when saying "Darwin") had been converted to a computer simulation? Will you release your Theometer as computer software?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, the Theometer requires special technology that can't be created using only software. The computer simulations of Darwin's Theory of Evolution (makes a disgusted face when saying "Darwin") simulate the theory of Evolution. One example of this is called evolutionary computation. Likewise we can program our Intelligent Agent equations -- the Jesus equations -- into a computer to simulate the theory of Intelligent Design.
News Anchor:	So will you create your Intelligent Design software based on these Intelligent Agent equations?
Dr. Priestley:	We already have actually, it's a fantastic teaching tool. You can download a demo from the Discover Institute's website; the full version is $199. It's so easy to use, anyone can use it! The best thing about it is it's simplicity. I saw some of these Evolutionary Computation programs, you had to be a math genius to use them! They demanded that every parameter be defined; they had these overly-complicated random number generators to simulate "random genetic mutations", and they had what you called these "fitness functions" and "cost functions" which were super-complex math equations that simulated the natural selection of Evolution theory.
News Anchor:	(Staring blankly) ...uhh, sounds complicated!
Dr. Priestley:	It was incredibly complicated. Any great scientists knows that the best and most beautiful math and science theories are beautiful because they are simple. The Intelligent Design software is so simple, it is profoundly beautiful! Of course, that is to be expected as the Intelligent Agent equation was taught to us by Jesus.
News Anchor:	So what does your software do?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, like I said, it simulates Intelligent Design in the same way Evolutionary Computation simulates Darwin's Theory of Evolution (makes a disgusted face when saying "Darwin"), except it is much more simple and beautiful. So basically, you double-click the icon to run the software and the first thing you see a world that has already been created by God up to the fifth day of creation according to the book of Genesis. You may then create all living creatures on this virtual earth. So for example, if you want to create a dog, you would select "dog" from the animals menu and then click the mouse to place the dog on the earth. The simulation then makes a male and female dog appear on the earth, and they can have cute little puppies and everything. And that's it! There is nothing more to it!
News Anchor:	Wow, that is much simpler!
Dr. Priestley:	...And therefore much more profound, beautiful, and correct. And the puppies and kittens and other animals are so cute! It's much better than those vile, disgusting creatures in some other software programs, like "Spore" for example.
News Anchor:	I almost fainted when I saw my friend's children playing "Spore." So what do you see in the future as a result of this scientific breakthrough?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, undoubtedly, this will lead to a revolution even bigger than that of the invention of electricity by Benjamin Franklin in 1752. Now we have computers, the Internet -- which of course runs on electrical computers -- and all kinds of wonderful electrical things. I don't think anyone could imagine what wonders of technology will result from our research twenty, even ten years from now! I envision a galactic network of Theometers that could possibly predict the second coming of the Christ.
News Anchor:	So what is the immediate future of this research?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, our research lab is currently just trying to improve the accuracy of our predictions. We think eventually we may be able to predict who will be saved by prayer and who will die as a result of God's mysterious plan. After all, God's mysterious plan is bound to be much less mysterious with this technology.
News Anchor:	Oh, that sounds very interesting!
Dr. Priestley:	Yes, our current experiment has a shotgun triggered by a random number generator pointed at someones head. If they pray really hard, they may be able to convince Jesus to affect the random number generator and spare their own lives.
News Anchor:	Now wait a minute, that sound's unethical!
Dr. Priestley:	Ordinarily it would be very unethical. Science usually takes great care not to cause harm to any living person. But keep in mind, we are doing the lords work. The shotgun is triggered by a random number generator, so if it kills someone it is not our fault because God decided it was just their time to die.
News Anchor:	Still, I wouldn't volunteer for that experiment!
Dr. Priestley:	It sound's like you doubt Jesus's power to save!
News Anchor:	No, no!
Dr. Priestley:	(laughing) I'm just kidding!
News Anchor:	(starts laughing) Oh, OK!
Dr. Priestley:	No seriously though, we all checked the Bible very thoroughly to make sure this experiment was ethical, and of course it confirmed what we already knew: that using a shotgun to kill people of my own free will would be wrong, but a randomly triggered shotgun killing people is perfectly ethical because free will isn't involved. Still, for additional safety, we also have prayer services several times a day to check with Jesus to make sure our experiment is ethical. Take my word for it, every single time He says the same thing, which is basically that I just have to do the experiment, and He will decide who is saved and who is not.
News Anchor:	Do you ever sit in front of the randomly triggered shotgun?
Dr. Priestley:	No, Jesus told me not to do that, so I just do what He says.
News Anchor:	I see. But don't you worry that maybe you are getting the wrong message from God, or perhaps that the Devil is influencing you to do unethical things?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, no, first of all the Theometer tells us that we are in the presence of Jesus when we pray.
News Anchor:	But you said it was only 70% accurate, didn't you?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, yes, But it is a moot point anyway. It doesn't matter how ethical or unethical you are because we are all sinful no matter what we do. Jesus only saves people who believe in Him. So we can conduct these deadly experiments and still be confident knowing that our volunteers and ourselves will still go to heaven. It depends solely on whether or not we believe in Jesus when we die.
News Anchor:	Oh, I knew that! (chuckles, a bit embarrassed) Now I feel I've made a fool of myself.
Dr. Priestley:	(laughing) Don't worry, its a very common mistake to think that being good means going to heaven.
News Anchor:	So now we can tell if our prayers are good or bad?
Dr. Priestley:	With a little more research, I think so. Really, what we are doing is testing if Jesus approaches you when you pray, and if He does approach you, how quickly or urgently He is willing to answer your prayers.
News Anchor:	I've always wanted to know if the way I pray is the way that Jesus likes most.
Dr. Priestley:	Well, come on down to our laboratory and we'll test you out!
News Anchor:	I think I might! And so you can now test if God approaches you when you pray, this would be useful in Churches, Hospitals...
Dr. Priestley:	Yes, but think of the sociological implications! Once this technology improves, we will be able to predict with much greater accuracy things like, for example, which soldiers will return home from battle and which soldiers we should pray for more diligently. Not only that, we can also prove which religion's prayers are more effective -- in other words we can prove with scientific accuracy exactly who God loves more!
News Anchor:	Which would be great news for the Jews!
Dr. Priestley:	...and the Muslims, and atheists, and anyone who isn't a Christian! At first our plan was just to prove why we should stop teaching Darwinian Evolution in schools (makes a disgusted face when saying "Darwin"), but there are just all kinds of good things that will come of this research.
News Anchor:	It's hard to believe we could have ever got along without this technology!
Dr. Priestley:	I feel the same way!
News Anchor:	Well, I'm afraid that's all the time we have for now. Dr. Priestley, thanks so much for being with us, and good luck with your research.
Dr. Priestley:	Well, I won't be needing luck (chuckles).
News Anchor:	(laughing)
Dr. Priestley:	It was my pleasure, thanks for having me!
News Anchor:	(to the audience) ...and up next a little boy from Tennessee is able to speak with the spirit of Jerry Falwell -- and predicts disaster for President Obama! Don't go away!

The Universal Machine

Alan Turing is considered to be the father of modern computer science. An English mathematician, he made his mathematical debut during the second world war, when he discovered that German officers were either careless or lazy and had used the same cypher key in their infamous "Enigma" machine to code two different messages. The machine should be changed with every message you feed it but if you use the same key to encode two different messages, that is enough for a clever mathematician to guess the arrangement of gears within the machine, and therefore figure out exactly how the machine works so you can build your own to encrypt and decrypt any secret message.

But Alan Turing's most valuable contribution to the world was to create a mathematical description of the ideal computer, which we now call the "Universal Turing Machine". His work would inspire the American, and Manhattan Project designer, John Von Neuman, who actually constructed a working computer based on the mathematical design of Turing, for the purposes of performing bomb calculations. The computers we use today are actually based on the exact same design as Von Neuman's machine, except some ten or twenty orders of magnitude faster and smaller.

Turing's universal machine allowed for use to theorize about the limits of computation. In the early days, even before "transistor radios" became a household technological buzzword, much less the "167-million transistor Intel Pentium Dual Core", the mathematicians in Turing's crowd had discovered some of what was possible and impossible to compute. Other questions, for example the "P = NP" question, remain unanswered to this day. In so many words, the P = NP question has to do with whether or not some algorithms which solve very complex problems can be reduced to solve it in fewer steps. For an 'NP' algorithm which takes 100 steps to solve some problem be simplified to a more efficient 'P' algorithms that can solve the same problem in 10 steps? Answer that question and you will win numerous prestigious awards for mathematics.

Fast-forward 50 or 60 years, to present day Evolutionary Biology. A name like Craig Venter has the possibility of being the next "Alan Turing" for the future generation of computers. These futuristic computers will work not with transistors, but DNA -- that's right, Deoxyribonucleic acid. His institute is engaged in research which will take an ordinary cell and replace it's DNA so it will start acting differently. This process occurs naturally in a variety of micro-organisms, for example a bacteriophage that injects it's DNA into a bacteria to effectively hijack the bacteria cell to use it as a carrier. The difference is, we now have the ability to construct a DNA sequence so we can define the behavior of a cell, or an entire organism.

Of course, this technology is only in the beginnings, and it may be quite some time before we can engineer DNA to grow our own versions of an organism as complex as humans. But this is probably a good thing because that means it is equally difficult to engineer the perfect human-killing virus, like in that movie "12 Monkeys." This nascent technology is excellent fodder for science-fiction writers. Imagine a war of the future where our weapons are horrible diseases which infiltrate the water, food, and air supply of our enemies which we use to control their minds, and the only way we can defend ourselves from such attacks is to engineer a new human-like organism which is immune to the virus, then grow these new humans and copy our own brains into them so we can continue to survive with our will intact. Victory goes to those who are most unaffected by the will of their enemies; enemies who wish to take over your will and control you to achieve their own purposes.

I am reminded yet again that our cells are our very essence, and therefore our very essence is controlled by an unchanging genetic program. Even our own mind, which is the only thing that defines what we truly are, is subject to the unchanging genetic program. Our will, ourselves, what it means to be human, everything we know and everything we do is simply a complex process of pre-determined behavior. We are a complex construction built from countless iterations of extraordinarily simple, mechanical actions.

Now to me, this thought is not depressing, nor is it setting me into some existential crisis, rather it is a very amusing thought. Especially considering how many people in the world actually believe "free will" exists. But I am thinking bigger ideas than just "humans are complex machines." What if the entire universe is actually made of cells? Some kind of super-cells that have a simple behavior but iterated over vast expanses of time which result in ourselves existing and the universe we know. The idea is actually not new. Several philosophers have posited that the universe is actually a fractal, and it doesn't matter which dimension or which property you isolate and observe, it will always exhibit the same behavior. A human acts like a cell, which acts like an atom, which acts like a solar-system, which acts like a galaxy which acts like the whole universe, and perhaps anything that exists "outside" of the observable universe will behave the same way.

In that humorous science fiction book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." An advanced alien civilization has already discovered the one and only answer to everything in the universe, which they discovered by running a vastly complex computer program. They discovered that the answer is 42, but were unable to understand the question which 42 answers, which is why they built an even bigger computer program. That complex program is the earth, and we humans are just one of the billions of complicated sub-programs that are behaving exactly according to our pre-determined instructions to develop this perfect question and help the aliens understand the universe.

Be this science fiction or a yet-undiscovered scientific fact, it is a very exciting prospect that perhaps any question can be answered by iterating a simple recursive pattern until the solution emerges. This gives new importance to those questions posed by Alan Turing, about whether or not a complex problem can be reduced to something more simple and efficient.

Desire for Love and Respect

Doesn't everyone like the prospect of being loved and respected in your community, amongst your peers and colleagues? Certainly as our mind and behavior is wholly influenced by the various flavors and mixes of hormones that permeate our brain, any desire for anything, including love and respect, is merely a product of chemistry. But it is a curious property of human nature that many of us have a desire not to compete, not for fame and fortune, but simply the desire to be recognized and, perhaps even revered, as a great person.

I suppose Freud and others would attribute this to the sex instinct, as if instinctive desire to reproduce is the sole impetus of any human behavior. I think it is more complicated than that. Say for example, you were given a unique opportunity to become recognized as a distinguished and innovative scholar in your community, or in your profession. Lets say for example, you discover one day that some work you did recently has a series of journalists requesting you for interviews to be published in many notable publications and media outlets. Who does not enjoy talking about their passions? Who would refuse the opportunity, unless perhaps they feared becoming the target of ridicule? I think even the meekest among us would prefer to be noticed in this way.

Those people who have become the archetypical example of evil, like Hitler or Stalin, or more recently Saddam Hussein or George W. Bush, are perhaps examples of this desire taken to an extreme, and succeeding in the short term, only to fail and to be amongst the most hated people of our time. Conversely, Albert Einstein or Martin Luther Kind Jr. are loved by nearly everyone who is aware of their work. I hope no one would suggest to me that all of these people are related by the same sex instinct. I think, to achieve fame or infamy is definitely the consequence of something more complex.

Whatever the cause of this desire for recognition, it seems to also be the cause of any change in society. Sometimes this desire leads to invention, discovery, and liberty. Sometimes it leads to oppression, destruction, and death. It would be nice if this mechanism of human nature were better understood so oppression and death could be avoided more often.

I propose a machine which plugs into your brain and makes you think you have achieved fame, fortune, and the love and respect of all mankind. Anyone who feels like they don't receive the love and respect they deserve can be plugged into this machine, and save everyone else the trouble of having to deal with them. Maybe a machine is not neccessary; maybe a shot of heroine or LSD would do the trick, but that wouldn't be legal. What's worse is the effect would wear off eventually, and then you have a drug-addicted fool who desires more love and respect from their peers and colleagues. That would be incredibly annoying.

There are no concluding remarks, this is an abrupt end to my thought.

Ideas are Real Things

I was talking with some online acquaintances about the nature of what is "proof" and I found myself taking a stance that ideas are actually real things. Maybe that alone will make a good post on this blog, so here it is:

Most people I know would probably define ideas as things in a realm of abstract objects that are apart from things in the "real" world. The number zero is in a world apart from a book or a grain of sand. I also used to think this way.

But I am starting to think that ideas themselves are actual "objects" in the real world. I'm not the first to think this, but I'll explain it my own words. A real object is made of matter, which exists in the universe. An idea exists as energy floating around in your mind. Maybe the energy is active, like electrical and chemical signals floating around in your brain. Maybe the energy is static, like a chemical signature in the neurons that doesn't ever change. In any case, the "idea" is data, and data is energy.

But as Einstein said, energy has mass. So ideas are energy, which have mass, which means that ideas are real objects just like a grain of sand, but exist simply a different real state of existence than a grain of sand; an idea exists in the real universe as energy rather than matter. Therefore ideas are real.

If you want, you could also say that the realm of the abstract things is a subordinate realm of real things, i.e. everything that is abstract is also real because abstractions are real data in real human minds.

What is that "idea" made of? It depends on the medium of thought. If it is in a computer, the "zero" is made of electrons in a circuit. If it is in a human mind, it is made of lots of things in your brain. It could also be made of ink on paper.

How can a single idea exist in multiple minds at once? It doesn't exist in many minds at once. Rather, the structure of the data that symbolizes the idea can be copied into many different minds. If you and I both know what "zero" is, then we both have structured data in our mind that symbolizes the number zero.

Is your understanding of "zero" the same as my understanding? Not at all. No two energetic structures are alike any more than two snowflakes. Though functionally, the ideas are exactly the same. The data which constructs "zero" in your mind is different than the data that constructs "zero" in my mind, but when we start talking about the number "zero", our understandings of the idea (our data) are similar enough that we can perceive no difference between them. Just like we can't see the difference between two identical coffee mugs. Certainly, at an atomic level, the structure of the two coffee mugs are very different, but at a macro-level of human perception, they are the same.

I think it is especially interesting that ideas can be copied from one location to another. We can write our ideas down on paper, and have someone else read it. They will get a reconstruction of your idea in their mind. The reconstruction wont be perfect, but perhaps refining the idea with more information, through conversation and debate, can allow the idea to be understood (structured) more consistently between those who are talking about it.

But it is not only ideas that are able to copy and transfer themselves. Living cells can copy themselves and move to another location in an organism. If you think of society as an organism of ideas, then ideas can copy and transfer themselves just like cells in an organism. I think it was Richard Dawkins who popularized this idea, but he likened ideas to DNA, rather than actual cells.

Well, hopefully those who have read this blog post will have an accurate reconstruction of my idea in your mind. If not, please post a question or comment.

What is "Science"

I perceive that many people do not understand what the word "science" means, and that scares me. So I will explain "science" here, hopefully someone will benefit from what I have written.

Science is an ideal state of mind that is unattainable by humans. Science is the exact logical opposite of faith, in the same way that left and right are opposites. Faith means you take some things to be fact because you believe it without evidence, and science means you take nothing to be fact unless there is direct evidence of it. Science is the state of mind that is constant skepticism, and it is the most fundamental act of human intellect. Faith and science are the opposite sides of the same coin -- the coin of human intellect.

My interpretation of the scientific method is this:

1. Observe the world (universe) around you.


2. Observe a phenomenon: notice that there is a natural order to some aspect of the world.


3. Ask yourself why the world is like that.


4. Create a hypothesis: define a possible answer to your question.


5. Test your hypothesis: make an experiment to see if your hypothesis correctly describes the natural order of the world you observe.


6. Interpret results: if your experiment produced results that were predicted by your hypothesis, your hypothesis becomes a valid scientific theory.


7. Try to disprove your own established theory so you can discover new questions about the universe.


8. Repeat this process forever, as our knowledge of the universe must never be complete. We must always improve upon our scientific knowledge, we must always be working to make mankind's knowledge better and better.

Once a scientific theory is "proven" it is considered a fact until a new and better theory replaces it. Still, that doesn't mean the old theory is bad. Newton's physics were shown to be inaccurate (i.e. they were disproved) by Einstein, but we still teach Newtonian theory in schools because it is still accurate in every-day life situations.

Some people think believing in science requires faith. This is wrong. You do not "believe" in science. Look at the scientific method, never once is the word "believe" mentioned. Everything you do in science requires observation, everything relies on your own five senses. To believe in something means you understand something to be true without evidence of it. Not a single aspect of science entails believing.

You can even observe with your own mind, without the need for belief or faith, that you have the ability to observe and logically explain your universe using science. You do not need faith to know that you can observe and reason about the universe. You do not need faith to be a scientist.

Some people say, "Why is the world observable? Why is there a natural order in the universe? Surely God must have created that natural order." But people who say this clearly do not understand what science is. The very question, "why is the world observable?" can be reasoned over scientifically and without faith. Indeed, the answer that says "God made the universe" is a hypothesis, but there is no way to test that hypothesis, so this hypothesis is inherently unscientific.

While to this day, we do not have a scientific answer to the question of the origin of the universe, it is a scientist's duty to discover the answer through rigorous observation and reasoning. For example, two-thousand years ago we didn't know why the sun rises and sets, nor why it happens regularly. Now we know better. Today, we don't know why the universe exists, tomorrow we may know better. In short, there are two answers to the question "why does the universe exist?" -- the scientific answer is "we don't know yet," and the unscientific answer is "because a God put it there."

A scientists is a person who always asks why, and never accepts any answer to be absolutely true, even if there is evidence. In science, there are no absolute truths. In science, there are only well defined theories, which are different than absolute truths. All scientific theories are made to be broken by new and better ones. Our knowledge of the universe is never complete, and never will be, and a scientists expects that. That there are no absolute truths is the fundamental understanding of the scientific mind. Any theory is never proved to be true, it is only proved to be accurate. In the same way that Einstein's ideas replaced Newton's, any theory we know today can be disproved with counter-examples, and any theory can be improved upon with more accurate ones.

A scientist must only accept an answer to his or her questions knowing that the answer is temporary. A scientist only accepts an answer temporarily when there is evidence, and a scientist knows they may some day learn observe new evidence that changes their answers. A scientist must never be satisfied with the answers he or she knows, and always be ready to ask more questions and to learn more. And never, in any situation, must a scientist accept "magic," or "a miracle," or "God made it so" as any answer to any question because these answers imply that there is no proof and no evidence. Every scientific answer must lead to more questions.

If the answer "because God made it so" were an acceptable scientific answer, the very concept of science would be changed to something it is not. This is because "God made it so" answers all possible questions. With this answer, there is no reason to ask any more questions as every question is already answered. A scientist must ignore the "God made it so" answer as it does not lead to more questions. In other words, a scientist must ask "why did God make it so?"

Even if a scientist were to witness a miracle with his or her own eyes, they must deny it. If you are a scientist, you must say "that was not a miracle, there must be a reason for it." It is demanded of a scientist to deny magic and always seek an explanation. It is much like telling a young child not to be afraid of ghosts because there is no way they could exist. If a scientist accepts magic as an explanation, then one is not doing their job as a scientist.

I say that being a scientist is a state of mind; it is a state of constant skepticism towards everything, including yourself and your own beliefs. There are no ideal scientists as humans can't ignore their emotions or survival instincts. So I believe that people can be scientists and still have faith in some religion, as long as that person is willing to admit that the two mind-sets are mutually exclusive. When you are a scientist, you have no faith, when you are faithful, you are not being scientific. That is how the word "science" is defined.

Convincing

The other day I was reflecting upon a recent idea I had: how successful you are depends on your ability to convince other people to do what you want. If you expand the definition of "success" to include a wider variety of conditions, including success in daily life, to success in your career, to success in love. The word "success" could be broadly defined as "your ability to achieve happiness." Really, I think that we have a very strong, instinctive desire to convince other people to do what we want.

Of course in your career, success depends on your ability to convince others to try your ideas, or to convince your superiors that you have done a good job. But convincing others could be as simple as telling a waiter to bring you food. In that case, there is an inherent understanding between you an the waiter that you have money and that you will pay the restaurant that employs him if he will do his job and serve you the food you order. Due to the circumstances, little convincing is needed, but of course you do need to at least follow the rules of society. Being excessively rude or obnoxious, or refusing to pay, will usually not convince the waiter to bring you anything at all. In this situation, being polite and having enough money is all that you need in order to convince the waiter to do your bidding.

Other people are good looking, and it is their physical attractiveness that does the convincing. Of course, physical attractiveness isn't necessarily a simple thing. Some people are born physically attractive, but without spending time on being masculine or feminine, according to the rules of your culture, it will be more difficult to convince other attractive partners to pay attention to you. Without spending some time to make your appearance more perfect, for example by buying stylish clothes, you will have difficult convincing potential partners to spend any time with you. Those who are attractive have control as they have the ability to convince people to do what they want, whether it be sex or anything else they may want. Those who are not attractive are powerless, and are forced to simply accept or reject potential suitors who approach them, if any.

My hypothesis is that this desire to convince other people to do what we want is connected with our social survival instincts -- strength in numbers. Lots of friends means more strength to survive. Its not so surprising then that we have regard for people with charisma, that we like to hear popular people agree with our point of view, or that we become offended when someone says something contrary to what we believe.

Further, if other people agree with us, then we know we need to work very little to convince them to be an ally. If they do not agree with us, they are competitors. They are members of an alternative group of people willing to destroy you and your ideas in order to achieve their own happiness. Perhaps even worse, they will convert you and your allies to their point of view using fancy methods of convincing -- after all the work you had put into your own way of life, now you must convert? How dare they!

Anyway, this inherent desire to convince other people to see your point of view seems to explain a lot about the world we live in, so it seems like an interesting hypothesis. Why can't we all just get along? Well, assuming everyone in the world thinks exactly the same things about every issue all the time, then I am sure we could.

Communicating Ideas is Too Hard!

I was reading Wikipedia today, and I wound up reading an article that I have read several times already, mostly because I want to understand the idea but I never do. It was about "Computational Complexity". Believe it or not, there is a mathematical way to measure how complicated a particular job or task is. Any task, not just computer tasks. Anything from washing clothes to building a rocket ship, long as the problem can be explained as a computer program (and anything the human mind is capable of understanding can be described as a program), then it can have it's complexity measured, and even classified into a paricular group of similar problems. And I was very frustrated to find that I didn't understand anything from this article.

I am not sure when it was that I first realized this, but I am certain there is not a single concept known to mankind that I could not also know, provided that I am wiling to spend the time trying to understand the idea. The problem is, even concepts that are fairly well known to other professionals in my field, like this computational complexity thing for instance, takes me such a very long time to understand when others seem to be able to understand it in half the time.

Once I spend like 90 minutes talking with one of my teachers about "bisimularity" (another computer related term) and didn't get anywhere. Yes, I live in Japan, and no it had nothing to do with the language barrier. Its just the guy couldn't answer the simplest questions -- why does anyone care about "bisimularity" at all, what is it used for, what kinds of problems does it solve, and how, and what do these equasions have to do with any of it? Sure, simple questions can have complex answers, but he could at least have given be an example. Now I know, but I had to read a couple of other text books and a few dozen other internet articles about the topic before I now am finally stating to understand what bismilarity is all about. If I could go back in time and explain it to myself I know exactly what I would say to myself to make myself understand. But I can't, and so far haven't been able to find a mentor who can expalin things to me in a way that I can understand.

I was thinking to myself today, really the reason I chose my line of research was because I am hoping to build some kind of companion -- maybe a database of facts, or a computer which can answer any question, anything to help me learn the answers to the hundreds of questions I have. I am kind of hoping to build a mechanical brain that knows more than humans just so I can ask it questions and have it explain the answers to me. I guess this is just because I have been a bit frustrated lately with how some of these questions I have, which are already well understood, where entire textbooks have been written on them explaining the concepts, I still don't know the answer to these questions. So I am hoping I can build a super-smart computer program that can read an entire textbook and immediately get it, and then exaplain it to me in a way that I understand. I am tired of asking people questions. It seems like the smarter someone is, the worse they are at explaining things. This is understandable. If you were to ask me a simple question about how a computer works, you would probably get a who bunch of unintelligible jargon and facts about computers without learning a thing about them. And it's like that with most smart people I know.