God was in the can

I stayed out with friends till 2:30am talking about theology, free will, morality, religion, consciousness, and philosophy in general. It was a very good conversation and we covered a lot of ground.
It started when an evangelist got on stage for open mic night at the coffeehouse. His first analogy was to compare religions to life jackets. He actually had a variety of life jackets on stage. Apparently when we get on a boat, it is our responsibility to make sure our life jacket isn't fake. Also, Jesus is made of foam.
Next he displayed a large tin can. I think it was a can of pineapples. He said that a human couldn't get into the can, but that that wasn't something to be ashamed of because we weren't designed for that. Then he said God was in the can, and I think the can itself represented sin. Jesus was the can opener.
We were not doing a good job at containing our disbelief, and after his set he came and talked with us. It's a very friendly coffeehouse, so this isn't unusual. I was used to talking to evangelists because I did it almost every week last summer, so I got tired of him pretty fast. CJ kept talking to him till closing time. We were on a roll when we left, so we ended up going to Denny's. I said they should put us far away from people, they asked if we were going to be loud and obnoxious and I said no, but I think that was a mistake.
They put us in a corner, but later in the night two men ended up seated in the booth next to us. They overheard us talking about logic at some point, and joined in briefly. It was cool to make a completely random connection over philosophy and computers.

Ayn Rand Vs. The Immortal Robot

Christmas Eve-Eve I read a bit of a book about the philosophy of Ayn Rand. I want to study this because one of my goals in refining my arguments for Universal Morality is to refute, and win over, Objectivists. I was happy to find something that meshes perfectly into my system, and shows a flaw in hers.
To show that Life is the ultimate value, Rand created a hypothetical Immortal Robot, it could reason and act if motivated, but it could not be destroyed and had no in-built goals or values. Her argument was that because the Robot was indestructible, it had no reason to value it's own protection, and no reason to value anything else. She was right, to a point. This she contrasted with mortals, who she said must in some sense value their existence or cease to exist.
The problem, I think, is that she didn't spend enough time inside the head of that Immortal Robot, figuring out what it would do. For example, it would be aware that it had the capacity to hold values, but that it did not currently hold any. It would be aware that its capacity to think was finite. It would be aware that it had the capacity to consider the ramifications of values that it could hold, even if it did not in fact hold them. It would eventually become aware that no 'is' implies an 'ought'. It would realize that it had no reason to exist, or not to exist, but that at the moment, it existed anyway.
It would realize that any of it's conclusions about the world (is) or morality (ought) could be faulty, either because of bad premises, illusory sensory information, or faulty logic. It would further realize that there are an infinite number of potential truths that it has not considered, because its ability to think is finite.
If its thought process is not broken, it will set about trying to determine the truth of these statements, both existential and moral.

If the Immortal Robot is well designed, it will set as a value for itself the improvement of its ability to think.

I especially fell in love with Rand's model of the Immortal Robot because it gives me a wonderful way to tie my system of morality into my blog title.

Designs for the Future

By the New Year (which is a fancy way of saying next week) I will have this blog ready to go live. I started Sixty Story Robot as a way to consolidate all my writing into one site. In the past I have segmented my thoughts by topic, and that let me have a slightly different personality in each arena. I didn't like that, so I made a space where I have to present a more complete picture of myself.

In the next few months, I want to finish my novel. I may have to rewrite the plot, but that's not a problem since I haven't written much of the plot yet. Fortunately, since everything was surreal to begin with, I won't have to throw out much of what I did write. I've also decided to ignore the 50,000 word target. I missed it in November, and nothing is going to change that, I will write the book as it should be, however long it ends up.

I will also make a more rigorous exposition of Universal Morality. This is something I have to do. I need to present it to my gang of philosophers, let them rip it apart a little, and see what's left of it. I'm pretty confident it will carry through. It may never be popular, and maybe it never should be, but it needs to be right.

I am being slowly convinced to become politcal. I'm not sure how exactly I want to do this, or what I want my role to be. I don't want to run for office, because I don't think that the offices are where the real power is. A movie star can get legislation passed almost as easily as a legislator. But I don't want to be a movie star either. (Well, that's not my plan...)
This is another reason I wanted a place where I was open. Some of my political stands are going to be massively unpopular with some people, and I think sometimes it is neccesary to stand up. I value anonymity, it is incredibly important to preserving freedom. It is itelf part of freedom. I don't think it is a sign of cowardice, and I will almost certainly publish anonymously in the future myself. But for now I need to be open.
I would rather stand up and get shot than not stand.

Happy Solstice!

Be a Force of Nature

You can not fight the ocean. It can not be defeated.
You can rail and thrash against it, but no matter what you do, there it will lie complete in it's own nature. It will buoy you or crush you on it's whim.
The ocean is fickle and unassailable.
But what if you were stronger than the the ocean?
If, even if, you were a godling and could draw up the ocean and cast it into the sun, it would not be defeated, for there it would still lie, complete without compromise.
Be a force of nature.
Be as you are, complete witout compromise.
You will have no opponents, for none could stand against you.

Two Thousand Six

This started as a year of evil, and ended as a year of good.

I have enjoyed it.

Thank You.