Save the Earth

You can't save the Earth unless you're willing to make other people sacrifice.

- Dogbert

Uhh....

Having sex with your neighbor's goat is a lot like violating a copyright. It's totally victimless, right?

- Scott Adams

(oh, Scott Adams...)

Free Will?

If you follow the Dilbert Blog at all, you'll know that Scott Adams has consistently denied the concept of free will. Here's the latest blog entry where he claims it's a superstition. See, this is where Carl Sagan's famous, and *very* subjective, statement "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" really shows its problems. To me, the claim that there is no free will is the extraordinary claim. (I will explain this later) However, to Scott Adams, obviously the claim that there is free will is the extraordinary claim.

Now see, I don't follow the strong form of free will as believed by, say libertarians, where an agent can always make a rational choice, any time, any where. (which would be an extraordinary claim indeed!) While I am a realist and believe that the number of choices can be constrained by prior conditions, I still do believe that there are choices to be made. To show me that free will doesn't exist will involve showing proof that no choices can be made, anywhere, any time, over the entire course of the universe. I believe that is the extraordinary claim. :)

Wow... This is interesting...

In yesterday's Scott Adams blog, in the "A philosophical question" post, he seems to be saying something under that silly allegory of his: Basically, "Muslims are irrational and violent." Hmm... interesting.

Churches in the West Bank

Well, in today's blog from Scott Adams, he asks the question "what the hell are churches doing in the West Bank?" Since I don't believe he's *that* ignorant, it must be another of his "yank people's chains" thing.

And of course, he accuses the Pope of calling Islam "evil and inhuman" indirectly through the East Roman Emperor's comments, even though the Pope was referring specifically to the practice of spreading religion by violence. Sometimes I think Scott Adams is just intentionally doing this stuff to see what kind of comments he gets.