Talk about bugs in the computer.

reminder

just a reminder - both Nicole and Kristen took CS 115 and did very well - like, I can't tell you their grade lol but they are both really SMART, so if you have any questions and can't find me online try asking (IMing) either of them.

here's a link to that pdf on Parallel Universes again for discussion friday morning.

CS 115 Lab

Use class to familiarize yourself with this week's lab Designing an experiment. Try to leave class with a plan, i.e. your hypothesis written up and your experiment designed. You'll need to actually finish the experiment and write it up outside of class.

Don't forget we have an exam in CS 115 friday; ask me SPECIFIC questions in class, if you have any.

Kate asks:

hey are there questions for tomorrow's movie?

Absolutely Brilliant! I see you see. Thanks.

Yes - here are the questions for Parallel Universes:

• Would the average viewer think this is science?
  
• List three hypotheses M-theory makes which are falsifiable.
  
• Do you think this is science?

Debate I Assignments

Oct 9th, our class will debate the following proposition:

Intelligent design should be taught alongside evolutionary theory because it raises valid scientific criticisms of evolution and presents a viable alternative supernatural explanation."

10 AM FOR

1. Kate Shaughnessy
2. Jennifer Turney
3. Matthew Griffith
4. Darla Sharp
5. Rachel Tretiak
6. Victoria Chestnut

10 AM AGAINST

1. Jessica Sowinski
2. Amy Umerich
3. Amanda Tilly
4. Gina Stefanelli
5. Steven Kheloussi
6. Preston Nelson

11 AM FOR

1. Maureen Iskra
2. Danielle Lawler
3. Casey Thomas
4. Michelle Davis

11 AM AGAINST

1. Daniel Matz
2. Michael Fasulka
3. Andrew Bartlow
4. Rickey Tang

How do you think it will turn out?

Supplemental Reading

Here is some more stuff to read. All this is interesting, but optional.

• More on Easter Island
  
• Hagen's article on the medieval quadriga.
  
• More Creation Stories
  
• A pdf on Parallel Universes (topic of wednesday's film)
  

Good news: your instructor is not creepy.

When I said in Friday's CS 115 class that I was embarassed by some of my old usenet posts; I was talking about posts like this where I post personal data and make fan-obsessed comments which fifteen years later still appear on the internet.

I was not expecting to see the posts I found and I was unwilling to click on them in class - I apologize if they startled anyone. I knew they were spam, but I did not know how offensive the content might be. Since then, I have checked them out and they are nonsensical - like this:


I really can't prove their origin, but I have actually found the likely source. (Look at the dates.)

The truth sometimes is strange indeed. LOL

To Do List

• Monday morning, class will meet in the BASEMENT classroom of the LIBRARY.
• Sign up for the trip by giving me $3.
• Sign up for the debate.
• Get caught up with the reading (see syllabus)
• Pick a topic in Unexplained Phenomena that looks interesting to you for Wednesday's lab.
• Admire this stylish Danger Zone video game cabinet.

Assignment: Of God and Men

The Pope is having a party monday.

A link to a recording of friday's lecture will appear here eventually.

In the meantime, here's a link to the full Popol Vuh, the Mayan Creation story. Here is an alternative translation. Or maybe this version is easiest to read.

One writer abstracted it as follows:

There were four gods in heaven and each of them sat on his chair, observing the world below. Then the yellow lord suggested that they make a man to enjoy the earth and offer praise to the gods. The other three agreed.

So the yellow god took a lump of yellow clay and made a man from it. But his creation was weak; it dissolved in water and could not stand upright.

Then the red god suggested that they make a man out of wood, and the others agreed. So the red god took a branch from a tree and carved it into a human shape. When they tested it in water, it floated; it stood upright without any problem whatsoever. However, when they tested it with fire, it burned.

The four lords decided to try again. This time the black god suggested making a man out of gold. The gold man was beautiful and shone like the sun. He survived the tests of fire and water, looking even more handsome after these tests. However, the gold man was cold to the touch; he was unable to speak, feel, move, or worship the gods. But they left him on earth anyway.

The fourth god, the colorless lord, decided to make humans out of his own flesh. He cut the fingers off his left hand and they jumped and fell to earth. The four gods could hardly see what the men of flesh looked like as they were so far away. From the seat of the four lords, they looked like busy little ants.

But the men of flesh worshipped the gods and made offerings to them. They filled the hearts of the four lords with joy. One day the men of flesh found the man of gold. When they touched him, he was as cold as a stone. When they spoke to him, he was silent. But the kindness of the men of flesh warmed the heart of the man of gold and he came to life, offering praise to the gods for the kindness of the men of flesh.

The word of praise from the previously silent creature woke the four gods from their sleep and they looked down on earth in delight. They called the man of gold "rich" and the men of flesh "poor," ordaining that the rich should look after the poor. The rich man will be judged at his death on the basis of how he cared for the poor. From that day onward, no rich man can enter heaven unless he is brought there by a poor man.

ASSIGNMENT

In a group of two or three, do a game theory analysis of all or part of the Mayan Creation story following the approach taken in the Biblical Games reading. Your paper should include a decision (game) tree with outcomes; a preference ranking for those outcomes for each player; your reasons for these rankings; and an analysis of the decision tree with an indication of whether each actor acted rationally or irrationally.

If you missed class, you can use the comments to solicit partner(s). This is due wednesday morning.

Debate I

Oct 9th, our class will debate the following proposition:

Intelligent design should be taught alongside evolutionary theory because it raises valid scientific criticisms of evolution and presents a viable alternative supernatural explanation."

Please notice the emphasis:

• taught alongside
  
• valid scientific criticisms
  
• viable supernatural explanation

We will follow a debate format similar to this but with some timing changes to allow debaters to use visual aids (powerpoint). Details will follow.

Half the class needs to participate in the first debate. Think about whether you want to argue for or against this proposition and you may sign up below (list your class time 10 or 11 and whether you are arguing FOR or AGAINST.) If, after a short period, not enough students have signed up here, I will assign students to fill out the sides.

On ebay

ends today

I'm picking up good vibrations...

Here's an original news story about the Pokemon caused seizures; but, who can believe it - they describe Pikachu as a "rat-like creature".

Anyway, science says: it ain't so.

Muzak to follow.

Glowing Science, Creation Myths & Bible Math

A quick article for you to read on the history of radiation.

Some Movie Study questions (for Wednesday):

(Notice Campbell mentions Schopenhauer, like Edmundson!)

1. What did Campbell mean by defining myth as experience?
   
2. Does he view language as sufficient?
   
3. What does Campbell say about the center, the middle?
   
4. What is the purpose of a creation story, for Campbell?
   
5. Campbell says what about snakes?
   
6. What is the function of life?
   
7. Explain Campbell's distinction between reading a metaphor’s denotation vs. its connotation.
   
8. What does Campbell do to understand his computer?
   
9. Explain what he means when he says each religion is a software? Do you agree?

A complicated chapter for you to read for class discussion Friday. (You may want to refer to Genesis also as you review this material.)

CS 115 Monday

Monday we'll be using Excel.

Please read the lab and supporting background article on Easter Island before class.

(Click on the image to see the lab.)

Ask if you need help!

Bring your USB flash drive to class monday so you can save your work.

Enough explanation?

What the Pope was trying to do is becoming more clear. Apparently he wanted Muslims to agree that God is reasonable and that violence is not a basis for interaction. At least, one german Catholic who heard him speak understood this. She said:

"That was a very important start to dialogue with Muslims amid the terrorist threat," she said, calling Benedict's appeal to reason "a building block toward finding a way to argue with each other without using weapons."

"I think it's very important for him to bring these things up in society," she said. "Muslims aren't going to take us seriously until we become conscious of our own values. For example, they take the pope much more seriously than others in the West."

-----

Look at what one of the protesting Muslim leaders said:

"Of course as we know the meaning of jihad can only be understood by Muslims," Budianto told the crowd. "Only Muslims can understand what jihad is. It is impossible that jihad can be linked with violence, we Muslims have no violent character."

You don't have to be religious to see metaphysics is a real force in the world today - and the way people reason about it is worth knowing something about.

Class Notes

If you owe me notes, please submit them ASAP.

Here are the notes which have been submitted so far. I simply saved the word documents as HTML and have NOT proof read them for content.

Aug30 Preston | Michelle
Sept 8 Jessica | Daniel
Sept 11 Adam | Rickey

Look at how your notes compare to the other students - try to do better! As you look at them, feel free to post any comments/corrections.

Remember: how to take notes is discussed here!

God is...

The Pope has been saying interesting things lately.

{The Pope's] discourse Tuesday sought to delineate what he sees as a fundamental difference between Christianity's view that God is intrinsically linked to reason (the Greek concept of logos) and Islam´s view that "God is absolutely transcendent." Benedict said that Islam teaches that God's "will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality." The risk he sees implicit in this concept of the divine is that the irrationality of violence can potentially be justified if someone believes it is God's will. "As far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we find ourselves faced with a dilemma which nowadays challenges us directly. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true?"

The full article is here.

Can you identify any of the Pope's presuppositions/assumptions in the paragraph above? Do you agree with him?

CS 115 Reading

Applications: pp. 146-150

Images: pp. 223-227
Fonts: p 180
Video: pp 238-241
Compression: pp. 242-3

The 8 bit RGB model uses 3 bits for red, 3 bits for green and only 2 bits for blue (not green as I thought in class). If you want, read about the biological basis for this (scroll halfway down the page.)

Below are examples of 8, 16, and 24 bit color (taken from here). (Of course, the last two may look the same to you. Why is that? I leave that for your discussion. Hint: click on them to see a bigger image.)

Scientific Method

Scientific Method Lecture

Ha!

Well, I was sure wrong about student attendance. Good lecture! Listen for 10 minutes, and then see if you can stop!

See, you guys can ignore posts like this, and it won't affect your grade. But it just might affect your life!

Calvin and Hobbes

Lecture Audio


Calvin was named after John Calvin.

Hobbes was named after Thomas Hobbes.


This is a restatement of Pascal's Wager. Read with attention to the decision matricies. We'll see these soon in the semester.

Oh, and this guy probably invented the printing press. (got unicode? lol)

For FYF Monday

Please read Chapters 1-3 of The Beginners Guide to Scientific Method.

do exercises (to discuss and hand in monday morning)

A. From Chapter Two choose and answer two from #11-15 (p. 25); Answer question #16.

B. From Chapter Three choose and answer either #2 or #13 and then either #20 or #25 (pp. 44-50).

C. Galileo's observation of tides (see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/galileo/mistake.html suggest that tides are caused by the motion of the earth. Consider this (more correct) explaination instead (http://www.clupeid.demon.co.uk/tides/simple.html.

After reading both use of Ockham's razor to choose between these theories. Write a short paragraph explaining your decision.

CS 115 Reading

In a computer, memory can thought of as holding computer instructions or data.

The basic unit of memory in a computer is the bit (read p. 75-79)

Programs (the software, the language of the computer) are executed by the CPU (read p. 143-6.)

Data can be characters (reread p. 80) or even audio or video information (look at p. 110-111; but I'll talk again about digitizing when I discuss images.)

Galileo study questions

the answers to these questions can be found in Wednesday's film.

0. When and where did Galileo live?

1. What did Galileo need as scientific proof? (Anything less, he deemed conjecture or opinion.)

2. What did observing the phases of Venus prove?

3. How did Galileo address the apparent conflict between Copernicus’ sun centeric universe and the book of Joshua in the Bible?

4. Cardinal Bellarmine delivered what edict to Galileo? What happened to Galileo’s book?

5. What did Galileo’s observations of the tides prove?

6. What thought-experiment did Galileo propose to explain why we cannot feel the motion of the earth?

Campbell's model

You guys can discuss Joseph Campbell's model amongst yourself in the comments.

Here is that elephant story I mentioned (click to enlarge):

CS 115 Models

READ: optical disks are discussed on p. 122-123 of our CS 115 text.

In class I showed you three main models (click on them to enlarge):




Can you find anything similar in our text book? Please comment and suggest a figure/page number. Or, post any questions you have about these figures and I'll answer them here.

Lecture Next Friday!

You are encouraged to attend Professor Mark Edmundson's lecture, "Why Read?," which will be presented at 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 8, 2006 in the lower level of the Farley Library. A reception and book signing will follow the lecture. Professor Edmundson's lecture is based on his 2004 best selling book of the same title.

He is also the author of that essay on the dumbing down of college classes I had you write about.