Paranoia, House, and Rogue

A few different thoughts:

First off, I’ve been feeling a little unhinged lately, and I’ve been reading a lot of Philip K. Dick on top of that, so the other night I turned my thoughts towards paranoia. What is paranoia? I posit that it is an extreme form of narcissism. It is a feeling that everyone, or most everyone, is against you. Why would they be against you? You must be special. Some knowledge, or some characteristic or mutation or difference or whatever. The paranoiac ultimately feels that they are in some way different from everyone else.. a worldview that centers on one’s self. Narcissism. Contrary to belief, narcissism is not just self-love. For examples of this, just look at any conspiracy writings. The theorist is paranoid because he believes he has some sort of knowledge no one else has.

Secondly, a little on music: I’ve been listening to a lot of house again the past few days, and it is again stirring my blood to want to actually go out and dance. I’m a withdrawn person; I don’t feel comfortable at parties or in crowds. But I feel like with the right music I would enjoy going out and dancing. And therein lies the problem.. this is something I couldn’t do alone, even if the opportunity were available. I would feel extremely uncomfortable and inhibited, even if I did have clothes that wouldn’t make me stick out like a sore thumb at a club. But maybe this is just another vain wish to be capable of being social in some way.

And finally, a completely different topic.. roguelike games. I’ve noticed a problem with the stealth skill. I’m primarily referring to Angband variants here, because that’s mainly what I’ve played, but it seems to be present in Crawl and a couple others as well. Stealth helps you avoid being noticed. But once you are noticed, it’s useless. Enemies can track you through walls and anywhere throughout the level, so long as you remain close enough to them. But shouldn’t a higher stealth skill help you escape for notice after you’ve aroused it? Shouldn’t you be able to sneak back up on the enemy, after some time has passed? I’m thinking about something like Metal Gear Solid here. I know nothing of coding, but it would be nice to see a reimplementation of stealth. Maybe it’s already been done, and I’m just not aware of the roguelike; if that’s the case, I’d like you to tell me.

Satan, Hell, and Other Thoughts

The case of Satan and Hell as it stands in Christian thought is interesting. I’m no expert on theology, but it seems to me most accept the story of Lucifer being one of God’s angels, perhaps the highest one, who was cast down to Hell after rebelling against God’s rule. I have two questions: first, why is Satan posited to be the embodiment of evil, and second, if Satan is devoted to opposing God’s will, why does he carry it out?

To explain the first: it seems to me that, beyond the dubious authenticity of the Book of Revelation, Satan is never directly responsible for evil in the Bible. He makes few appearances in the Old Testament, and none of them appear to be particularly “evil” as we might understand it. As he is shown in Job, and presuming he is in fact the serpent in Genesis, he is simply trying to contradict God’s edicts, without actually inflicting any harm. If God had not forbade the tree of knowledge, eating from it would not be wrong. It was an arbitrary law, created to test Adam and Eve’s obedience towards God. Their weakness was the evil, not any extraordinary action taken by the serpent, and there is no reason to think he controlled or hypnotized them in any way. In fact, the serpent can be seen as an instrument of God, intended on testing their devotion with a thought that would have been incomprehensible to their own minds. And, in Job, God allows Satan to inflict these harms upon Job. There is no evidence to suggest that Satan received some sort of glee in harming Job, but instead that he was again testing the devotion of God’s followers, to see if Job’s faith was based on God’s efficiency, going back to my post of the other day, rather than a sincere love of God. In the New Testament, Satan is trying to subjugate Jesus to his will – again, this seems to me more of an opposition to God than any sort of tangible evil. One might not say that opposing God’s will is evil by itself, but I don’t think that’s quite enough to draw the conclusion that Satan must be omnimalevolent, examining the religion from the point of view of an outsider rather than a true believer. I cannot recall any Biblical text wherein Satan actually violates one of God’s commandments, and, as per Job, it seems that Satan cannot directly touch the world unless God lets him.

Then comes the issue of the Christian Hell. Hell is the place mortal sinners are sent, to be punished for eternity. Judaism, of course, does not contain such damnation, so my question must be contained to Christianity. Presumably it is God who judges which souls go where. Hell is the punishment for those who do not follow his will. But Satan seems to be “in charge” of Hell. That being the case, why would Satan carry out these punishments as God wishes? Satan, as I have explained above, can be seen as the antithesis of God’s will. That being the case, it seems that the most effective way to get back at God, which is what seems to be Satan’s goal, would be to not punish sinners sent to his domain. Indeed, why not reward them? Of course, the above assumes that there is in fact some sort of physical punishment in Hell, and that the punishment isn’t simply a complete separation from God. Some of the more abstractly minded sects seem to hold that view. In that case, then perhaps Satan does try to make Hell some sort of paradise, as best he can, but the absence of God makes it unimaginable torture under any circumstances.

Another question relating to that: does Satan have free will? Satan was originally an angel, and nowhere is it said that men are not unique in their freedom of destiny. Angels do not seem to have free will. And if that’s the case, then blaming Satan for anything is ludicrous. But then, what do I know? Look at Calvinism; predestination doesn’t stop is from placing blame.

Finally, an entirely unrelated thought: what is a sport? An athletic competition doesn’t seem satisfactory, at least to those of us with pet intellectual sports. And then you have problems with things such as competitive cheerleading, which do not seem to be sports as popular conception views sports. I suggest this: that a sport is an event wherein a multiplicity of sides (teams, players, etc.) are directly and simultaneously competing against each other. This includes chess and boxing and leaves out competitive cheerleading or gymnastics. I believe the latter would be more accurately called competitive exhibitions. What the gymnast does has no bearing on what his opponent does; rather, they are competing for a “top score,” like a pinball competition or something of that sort. I’m not sure if golf would fit in under my definition; I’d like it to, and it is simultaneous, but the players are not directly competing with each other in the sense that what one does is in response to the other. Ah well, this was just a little thought I had.

Philosophy and Religion, East and West

Chinese philosophy class today. A couple of points I thought of during that:

First of all, some discussion was given regarding how one can distinguish between philosophy and religion, if there even is such a line. Some people mentioned things like the questions that are asked, the supernatural, God, etc. But for each of these a counterexample could be given. True theologians do ask strong questions, and use reason. This is what we call apologetics. And there is an entire field of philosophy that often refers to the supernatural, metaphysics, going all the way back to the Greeks. The question, then, evolves into whether there actually is a line that can be drawn that includes everything we commonly regard as philosophy in philosophy and everything we commonly regard as religion in religion. I believe there is such a line.

Mentioning the supernatural is close, but it doesn’t quite make it. I believe we can amend this by saying: religion begins and philosophy ends at the point at which the author appeals to something beyond the realm of ordinary human experience as a source of his ideas or the reasoning behind them. Philosophy, on the other hand, consists of thought processes that are explicitly natural, human intellect and reasoning and empirical experiences.

I believe that this is a satisfactory definition which requires very few adjustments of common ideas.  One problem that might be mentioned is the argument from design, but, when one thinks about it, the argument from design is, properly speaking, a philosophical idea. Of course, that’s not how most current users of this argument present it, but it is clear that fundamentalist Christians have not invented this justification for the existence of God. Philosophers have. Another example we can use is Pascal’s Wager; again, on close examination this is a philosophical bet. It makes no claim to any knowledge beyond natural experience, but instead takes a chance based on conjecture of what an afterlife might be.

One related note that would probably get me branded as a racist, or at least Eurocentric, in some circles. We watched a video on Chinese religious beliefs the first day of class, this part centering on the beliefs of the common people, and the unusual point was made that the Chinese replace their gods with others if the god in question is not efficacious enough. Contrast this with the Jewish tradition, as in the Book of Job, where readers are essentially told not to rely on God for wealth, etc. One must earn this himself, and no amount of praying or sacrificing can make God give it freely. Perhaps things like this are the reason for the not inconsiderably gap in economic acheivement between the European and Arabic civilizations on one side and the rest of the world on the other – the emphasis on a God who does not claim to be efficacious.