Here is the best non-testimonial argument IMHO for Something Else - which I call God, and you can call whatever you want. My contention is that the hypothesis of God is supportable from science alone.

Proposition #1: "What exists can be observed, and what is observed exists; not otherwise specified." This is the most basic law of science, without which science does not function as anything different than magical thinking. See also the "mechanical and chemical philosophy", "mathematical systemization" and especially "empiricism" on this page: (click).

Partial conclusion: something exists - all around us, including us, because we observe it so. Denying this is equivalent to denying the basis of all science.


Proposition #2: Known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics (click) says that "everything is constantly running down". This is why - for instance - your TV works (stipulating for the argument that you have an older one): because the electrons run down the charge gradient and hit the phosphorescent lining of your screen. It is also why your biological cells work, because the protons inside your mitochondria form a charge gradient - and run down that charge gradient - driving a molecular motor called the ATP-Synthase (click), which in turn supplies the trapped chemical energy that the rest of your body uses as currency (ATP), by acting as a iterative molding machine - alternately pressing ADP+P together, forming and releasing ATP. This process also produces heat, which is dissipated energy, and the heat is why the process runs by itself. Dissipation acts as a pull on the whole network.

Further conclusion: something not only exists, it has been winding down since the dawn of time -whenever that was- making everything happen. Denying this leads to magical thinking, as you can make anything you want happen without a cause by using energy from nowhere; denying it also removes the basis for understanding all electronics and biologics.


Proposition #3: Known as the First Law of Thermodynamics (click) states that "something doesn't come from nothing". This is why perpetual motion machines CANNOT work, and therefore DON'T work. It is also why nuclear energy costs a little bit of mass to release the pent up nuclear energy. And it is why various biological cell membrane proteins use up nutrition to form chemical gradients. All because One Thing is made from Another Thing. NEVER is an unspecified One Thing made from No Thing... The most recent evidence of this is political: energy - electricity in this case - doesn't come from no where; it comes from Oil, Nuclear sources, Coal, Hydroelectric, Wind, etc. If it COULD come from nowhere, then there would be no argument with regard to renewable resources ... and there would be an endless supply - the ultimate renewable resource.

Final conclusion: something exists, it has been running down, and it came from somewhere fully formed ... wound up. Denying this makes creation ex nihilo (click) literally possible, where it is currently only figuratively applied to the bible's Genesis account; denying this makes possible NOT the "let there be light" of the bible - where something is created by something (Everything Else is created by God) - BUT literally makes possible the creation of something from nothing at all (The Big Bang is created by Absolute Void).


Now the bit presupposed by all of this - including the scientific philosophical revolution - is that once you are presented with a sensible argument and no sensible way out, you succumb to the argument: the assumption of Intellectual Honesty (click).

If 1) something exists, 2) it has run down, 3) it came fully wound from something else ... what is Something Else?

i don't have daily news thats ... newsworthy. pretty much ever. so i'm going to retire this, and stop checking. it'll still be here - and so will i - but i'll probably just stick to facebook for now. i waste enough time as it is; too much really. contact me in real life if you know how. i like coffee.

    If you can keep your head when all about you
√  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
    If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
√  But make allowance for their doubting too;
√  If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
√  Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
√  Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
√  And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

√  If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
√  If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
    If you can meet with triumph and disaster
√  And treat those two imposters just the same;
    If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
√  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
    Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
√  And stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools;

    If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
√  And lose, and start again at your beginnings
√  And never breath a word about your loss;
    If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
√  To serve your turn long after they are gone,
    And so hold on when there is nothing in you
√  Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

√  If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
√  Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
√  If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
√  If all men count with you, but none too much;
    If you can fill the unforgiving minute
√  With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
    Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
    And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

√√


Yeah! Finally.

My girl-interface gene is broken. But I've been lowering my expectations of life for the past few years; so finding this out isn't totally unexpected. I think it's the gene located right next to "social skills". And since I like who I am, I'll just stick with it.

My sister - Lana - is moving out of my house; and into her boyfriend's - Psy's - house. (I don't know how to spell his name...) Something about economical necessity (my words, her meaning); he lost his job, I think. And they're having a baby together so really ... what's the difference? I haven't tried very hard to dissuade her; no point really. I couldn't even get her to go to church with me while she lived here. Never had one bible study...

The Morton's are moving in with me - to live up stairs. For the first few months of their stay I won't really even be here, though; I'll be starting Internal Medicine next (in a week) and then Surgery (two months after that). Both of them are NO-TIME rotations. Family Medicine has turned out pretty nicely in that regard.

I'm finishing the deck stair in the back. I had designed and built a stairwell because my home owner's association (HOA) said so. I've got it mostly up and functional; still needs slats below the handrails; and patching of the gaping hole where the old HOA-forbidden stairwell was. But I'll get to it. Eventually.

Other nagging stuff: taxes are due (and soon); I need to make some investments - O-Bomb-economy is a good time to buy; I need a new car (the transmission is dying on mine), or at least some time to fix this one up a little; I need to schedule my boards - a painful and expensive process that I loathe in advance; I have some research stuff I need to slip into my "spare" time - cognitive science goodness; there are a number of friends and family that would like to squeeze a few days out of me; I need to pay my bills tomorrow; I'm trying to get back onto Cambridge for a while (to lose a few fatty pounds), but my gumption is as dumpy as my poundage...

A good mix.

Church is always a light; even with that stupid dysfunctional gene of mine. School is almost finished FOREVER - less than a 1.5 years. I'll be sub-letting a space in my friend's apartment over in FW (near school), so that I can get reasonable sleep for the next couple rotations. I got a WARNING the other day about my car's tail light, and my inspection sticker was even out... (thank you God!). So:

A good mix indeed.

Yes, folks. I'm on my obstetrics / gynecology rotation. And I've delivered a baby; just one as yet, but I'll probably get more with a few more weeks. It's kinda fun. Mostly a lot of waiting on mom's-to-be who are just doped enough not to be in "travail". Discomfort yes, but very few of the women I see actually opt for O Naturale. Epidurals are the rule of the day - and thank GOODNESS for me The Student. Otherwise ... really ... who'd want *more than one* gynecological exam in less than 5 minutes? haha. And that's gotta happen *sometime* (1 for me and 1 for the teacher). Other than that: VERY LONG HOURS; lots of delivering placentas - 7 so far. One week of nights which entailed 13 hour days from 6pm to 7am - 7 days in a row. I only had to do 6 of the 7 and I was WIPED anyway. Then there's "call" at 6am EVERY weekday morning - you know, that dude(t) that comes in at the Terrible Hour of the morning and wakes you up to poke at you and ask irrelevant-seeming questions: me. But ... it's ok. If I weren't *ALSO SICK* (everybody PITY ME!) then the world would be a better place. Naw. Nobody pity me, just don't go to medical school.

And my sister, Lana, is pregnant... so I won't be keeping my house. I only had it to provide her a place and she's going to marry Mr.Papa-of-the-kiddo, so I won't be needing it. And it is a TERRIBLY long commute to school - 1.5h each way. I really don't have much reason to be in that part of the world anymore anyway. So there it is. THE STATE OF MY NOT TOO TERRIBLE LIFE. Not unhappy, not ecstatic; not dying, not perfectly healthy; not a doctor yet, not exactly an UN-doctor; not In The Money, not exactly a target of sue-happy grubbers either; not married, not dating, not playing, not working out, not enjoying life much, not disliking life much, not really feeling much, not really hurting much either. In any case, I've got a good constant grounding in God to keep me level (even though my circle of friends turns out to be - being a circle - a bit two dimensional; no I don't really care to explain that in public; enough just to say that it is so).

I've read a bunch of C.S. Lewis recently - all in my COPIOUS spare time - and I've found his stuff to be *just grand*. Of all the "denominational" persons I've known about or known personally, I would (in my relative naivete) most want *him* to present beside me before God at the judgment. What a guy - you should read "Miracles"; it is just amazing. I feel like his little brother, I agree with him so often; I find myself marveling and routing for him a lot of the time, as I read. My imagination is like his, my analyses are ... in the same vane though probably not as thorough, my sentiments and hopes are along the same line as his. Only on some points of doctrine do I differ with him; important points sometimes; but what a guy! I identify with him; maybe I'll end up an erudite bachelor semi-celebrity Christian apologist just like him... I could do without the semi-celebrity part maybe, but the others seem to be falling in line *already*.

EDIT: "The Problem of Pain" is - so far - the only of his works I don't really care for. He swallows the evolutionary line *whole* and takes a number of far-fetched measures to find an origin for sin t/f; he even admits at one point that he feels this *stretching* to be a weak point... alas.