Compulsion, Heroism, Intelligent Design, Philosophy of Mind, State Rape

Alan Turing

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Alan Turing (June 23, 1912 – June 7, 1954)
War hero, mathematician, the father of computer science and State rape victim.

If you’ve done a Google search today, you probably noticed that it’s Alan Turing’s 100th birthday. Who was Alan Turing and why am I paying tribute to him?

Why I like Turing … from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Alan Turing (1912–1954) never described himself as a philosopher, but his 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” is one of the most frequently cited in modern philosophical literature. It gave a fresh approach to the traditional mind-body problem, by relating it to the mathematical concept of computability he himself had introduced in his 1936–7 paper “On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” His work can be regarded as the foundation of computer science and of the artificial intelligence program.

Here’s British Prime Minister (in 2009) Gordon Brown to tell you a few other things you need to know about Turing. (Thanks to Ian Watson for the transcript of Brown’s apology.)

This has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude that characterise the British experience. Earlier this year, I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against fascism and declared the outbreak of the Second World War.

So I am both pleased and proud that thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship: that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of the Second World War could have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely.

In 1952, he was convicted of “gross indecency” – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair, and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I am and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and so many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was convicted, under homophobic laws, were treated terribly. Over the years, millions more lived in fear of conviction. I am proud that those days are gone and that in the past 12 years this Government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality, and long overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for this contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices – that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out European civilisation for hundreds of years.

It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present. So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work, I am very proud to say: we’re sorry. You deserved so much better.

Turing was found dead on 7 June 1954, two weeks before his 42nd birthday, after biting into a cyanide-laced apple. Wikipedia notes that

The logo of Apple Computer is often erroneously referred to as a tribute to Alan Turing, with the bite mark a reference to his method of suicide. Both the designer of the logo and the company deny that there is any homage to Turing in the design of the logo. In Series I, Episode 13 of the British television quiz show QI presenter Stephen Fry recounted a conversation had with Steve Jobs, saying that Jobs’ response was, “It isn’t true, but God, we wish it were.”

Turing’s work is the foundation of computer science and of research into artificial intelligence. Turing is responsible for the Turing Test (the CAPTCHA‘s big brother), the Turing Machine and (jointly with Alonzo Church) the Church-Turing thesis.

Here’s a Turing Machine built of Lego. (Are you Lego or Logos?)

This simple machine can, given a long enough ticker tape, do anything your mind can do—and much more. It’s humbling for some to realise that the human mind is the biological equivalent of a read-write head, a binary internal state, a look-up table and a ticker tape. But that’s all anyone ever is—biological ticker tape. (In fact, we’re all world lines.)

Compulsion, Justice, Meta-ethics, National Party, Property, State Rape

Don’t crush state assets!

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From go …

… to woe.

19-year-old Daniel Briant’s car, a Nissan Laurel, was crushed yesterday. It became the first car to be crushed under National’s “boy racer” legislation—the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill, 2008.

Why crush? According to Judith “Crusher” Collins (via NZPA)

Cars could be confiscated under current law and courts could order them to be sold, she said, but they were bought by other boy racers and the problem was recycled.

Clive Matthew-Wilson, editor of the car review website dogandlemon.com, says the law is a waste of time.

“Yesterday, the owner of the first crushed car was just another boy racer with an attitude problem. Today he will be a hero to his fellow boy racers.”

“The idea that this car seizure will stop other youths offending is basically wishful thinking.

I love how he flat-out contradicts himself in the next two paragraphs (although what he’s trying to say is basically right, I think).

“Young females are attracted to young males who take risks. That’s one reason young males are so reckless. A young male would rather lose his car and be attractive to young females than obey the law and sleep alone.”

“The part of the male brain that links cause and effect doesn’t fully develop until the early 20s. That’s why young males often do silly things without thinking of the consequences.”

Stuff.co.nz has a photo of the boy-racer hero Briant, informs us that

A Facebook memorial site has been created for the souped-up car.

and helpfully links to Briant’s Facebook page, where we learn that Daniel’s interests include

Doing your mate’s ex to see what the problem was
Not dumping your girlfriend cause she’s a fucking hectic root
Being a cheeky cunt to everyone you know. Because, wtf else is there to do?
I wish I was on E as often as my gas tank
Never underestimate a guy’s ability to not give a shit
Going out for a Quiet One and Coming Home with a Court Date

While Daniel mourns the loss of his Nissan Laurel, we can mourn the misspent youth of today. Or mourn the misspent youth of yesteryear. (I don’t ever recall having that much fun! Well, not at that age, anyway. Oops, I think I’ve said enough. Time for a closing parenthesis.)

This is not a pretty picture. (It’s Minister of Police Anne Tolley, standing atop the crushed Laurel.)

The NZ Herald tells us

A grinning Police Minister Anne Tolley pressed the button to crush the Nissan Laurel at a Lower Hutt scrap metal yard.

Ms Tolley said it sent a “graphic” deterrent to illegal street racers.

But Stuff.co.nz reports

Tolley said less than three hours after receiving his third strike from the court Briant was back behind the wheel performing a burnout.

He lost control and crashed into a fence. It is understood he and a passenger fled the vehicle on foot.

There’s every sign that Briant is undeterred. (And, you know, I could have done with a souped up Nissan Laurel to replace my ground down Nissan Maxima.)

I’m against the whole idea of the government using cases like this to make “an example” and destroy property as “a deterrent to others”. It’s an unjust, utilitarian way of going about things. As philosopher Immanuel Kant rightly remarked

Juridical punishment can never be administered merely as a means for promoting another good either with regard to the criminal himself or to civil society, but must in all cases be imposed only because the individual on whom it is inflicted has committed a crime. For one man ought never to be dealt with merely as a means subservient to the purpose of another…

Jihad on Drugs™, Prohibition

Drug prohibition makes a mockery of criminal law

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This excellent article (excerpt below) is by Ben Mostyn and Helen Gibbon of the Australian Drug Law Reform Initiative (ADLaRI) based at the UNSW Faculty of Law.

Drug prohibition makes a mockery of criminal law

Recent reports into the criminalisation of drugs in Australia have all concluded that the criminal law is a counterproductive and harmful way to deal with the issue of drug use and addiction, and that prohibition has failed.

It is now time for the legal profession to add its voice to the community’s calls for reform.

Australia’s criminal law has developed over centuries, by legislation and through the courts as part of the common law. Out of this development came some basic concepts that all law students are taught early in their legal education: mens rea (guilty mind); actus reus (guilty act); the presumption of innocence; the right to silence; and the “golden thread” of the criminal law, that the prosecution bears the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Throughout history the common law has never developed criminal offences of drug possession or drug supply. Drug offences are mala prohibita (wrong because prohibited). That is, the drug laws have been created by parliaments over the past century or so. In this time, parliaments have severely eroded and ignored the basic concepts of criminal law that are deeply entrenched in the common law and that underlie legislation.

Due to the widespread popularity of illegal drugs and the fact that only a tiny proportion of drug transactions and drug use are caught by the authorities, parliaments around Australia and the world have continually created legal fictions and extended criminal liability to make it easier to prosecute drug offences.

Some of these legal fictions include: “deemed drug” provisions, where supplying a harmless substance (such as parsley or flour) will be considered supplying an illicit drug if you misrepresent it as such; “deemed supply” provisions, where if you are found to be in possession of a certain amount of drugs it is assumed you had it in your possession for the purpose of supplying it to other people; and “deemed possession”, so that if a drug is found in your house it is assumed you are the owner of it, unless you can convince a jury that you had no knowledge of its presence.

All of these creations fly in the face of traditional common law. They infringe the common law right to silence and the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Instead, the onus falls on the defendant to prove innocence. They also erode the concept that the criminal law should only punish acts where a criminal act coincides with criminal intention.

The drug laws have eroded some of the most important protections the common law has given us. …

Click here to read the rest of the article.

[Hat tip: David Peterson]

Consciousness, Faith, Laws of Nature, Materialism, Monism vs Dualism

Superstition?

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“When you believe in things that you don’t understand
Then you suffer
Superstition ain’t the way”

Lyrics from ‘Superstitious’ by Stevie Wonder.

Many People delude themselves about their grip on reality…esp many materialist Atheists… whom love to condemn *Faith*.
They agree with the lyrics of Stevie wonders Song, and pretend they only ‘believe’ in cold facts… things they ‘understand’… yet this is self delusion.

Stevie Wonder was blind within hours of his Birth.
This makes me Wonder if he understands what light, sight and colours really are?
If not, is he being superstitious in believing other people really do posess an extra sence that he himself does not?


The Hadron Collider.

Does Stevie Wonder Believe in Gravity?
How Many people… if any… understand Gravity?
Are we all being ‘Superstitous’ in believing it to be a characteristic of Mass without understanding how this is so?
Perhapse we are!
The Bible says of Christ that… For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. (Col 1:16,17)
It interests me to speculate that the quest by Particle Physicists to find the Graviton… is in fact a search for Christ!
(The Un-created Necessary Being… The final destination of the noble quest for ‘the theory of everything’)
What more I am amused by the reality that even if they discovery such a particle that this does not ‘eliminate’ Christ, for Christ then simply may be understood as what imparts the Gravitons nature. Contray to the delusions of folk like Dawkins, such descoveries dont eliminate any so-called ‘Gap for God’…. Theism is not ‘In Retreat’.

The same may be said about the science of the Mind/ Brain in that insights into it’s Electro-chemical processes do not prove the monist denial of the incorporeal inner being as postulated by dualism. Nor does it disprove freewill.
‘Free will’ participates in the formation of Neural pathways, and in the release of neuro-transmitters like Dopamine.
It is false to think that science is proving we are merely ‘Automations’.
That is an assumption. An interpretation of the facts baced upon pre-concieved materialist bias… nothing more.
The Brain is an ‘Interface’ between our incorporeal spirit and our bodies… by which we ‘feel’ our values as physical emotions.

So I laugh at the hypocritical naivety of Atheist Materialists… their vain belief that they don’t live by faith… that they ‘know’ Materialism is true…. that it has been proven!


Socrates about to drink Hemlock
Chærephon, put the question to the Oracle at Delphi, Whether any other man was wiser than Socrates? The answer given was that there was none wiser. Not being conscious of the possession of wisdom, Socrates was perplexed, till at last, after testing the supposed knowledge of many distinguished men, he interpreted the reply of the oracle as meaning that whereas other men thought they knew, he was one of the few conscious of their own ignorance.

The reality is We all believe in things which we don’t understand.
Thus those whom refuse to accept a particular tenet of the Bible *Until they understand it* …are kidding themselves as to the rationality of such a refusal. They are imposing an impossible standard, and as such are committing an act of self delusion.
They are not (as they claim) exercising a superior epistemology which trumps Bible believing faith… but via arbitrary whim they simply choose not to believe.
Dont be duped by the modern propaganda that Science has always been in conflict with Revealed religion!
To the contrary I argue thus: By all means continue the quest for knowledge, yet has not the scriptures proven true enough in what can and has already been weighed and measured… so that we ought to consider it trustworthy in those things which are currently beyond our scope of verification?
I believe this to be both a rational approach, and a wise one. It is the very Basis of science…*Faith!*
Faith that The Universe is intelligible because it was created orderly via Divine reason.

Jihad on Drugs™, Nanny State, Prohibition, Regulation, State Rape, Totalitarianism, Tyranny

Malum prohibitum

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Malum prohibitum (plural mala prohibita) is a Latin phrase used in law to refer to conduct that constitutes an unlawful act only by virtue of statute as opposed to conduct evil in and of itself, or malum in se (plural mala in se).

Wikipedia says

Conduct that is so clearly violative of society’s standards for allowable conduct that it is illegal under English common law is usually regarded as malum in se. An offense that is malum prohibitum may not appear on the face to directly violate moral standards. The distinction between these two cases is discussed in State of Washington v. Thaddius X. Anderson:

Criminal offenses can be broken down into two general categories malum in se and malum prohibitum. The distinction between malum in se and malum prohibitum offenses is best characterized as follows: a malum in se offense is “naturally evil as adjudged by the sense of a civilized community,” whereas a malum prohibitum offense is wrong only because a statute makes it so.

Check out Wikipedia’s list of mala prohibita offences and you’ll recognise many, perhaps most, as classic victimless crimes. Of course, all laws prohibiting victimless crimes now on our statute books should be repealed. As a libertarian, writing for a (mostly) libertarian audience, I take that as a given.

What concerns me in this post is not that victimless crimes are on our statute books, it’s the sheer number of mala prohibita offences on our statute books. It’s a number that keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Why is the number of such offences a concern? Because, as honest lawyer Scott DeSalvo points out

More and more things are being criminalized, so the number of otherwise law-abiding citizens who are technically guilty of a malum prohibitum crime rises.

This has the effect of causing everyone to be technically illegal, and thus in fear of a rightful imprisonment and seizure of property for what amounts to perfectly acceptable conduct. This shuts everyone up—no one wants to protest wrongdoing

We live in a society that I am sure all … can agree features too many malum prohibitum crimes (crimes that aren’t like murder, which are bad in themselves, but illegal because a politician said so). Witness the MASSIVE numbers of new such laws—seatbelts, helmets, cellphone use, smoking bans, foie gras bans, etc. that have been passed recently. And also consider innocuous use of marijuana at home—illegal, but not hurting anyone. Congratulations, we are all criminals in a society with too many laws that aren’t sensical or necessary. Now that we are all technically criminals, the government can snoop on us, right? Give me any person, let me snoop through their stuff—I promise, I’ll find some technical violation of some law.

So, you can see, we are on the way [to a totalitarian dictatorship.]

It’s time to call a moratorium on new legislation. Whoever’s driving the ban wagon, for pity’s sake, hit the brakes!

Christian Libertarianism, Justice, Mana Party, Religious Toleration

SkyCity worker disciplined over Bible

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If you think Christians are free from discrimination in this country, think again. (Note that the MSM doesn’t even have the courtesy—or the literacy—to capitalise ‘Bible’.)

SkyCity worker disciplined over bible

A SkyCity Casino worker has been threatened with dismissal for carrying a pocket bible with her when she works.

Last week Tuni Parata, who has been a SkyCity employee for more than a decade and is currently a tower host at the casino, received a letter to attend a disciplinary meeting on Thursday over alleged misconduct for breaching departmental policies.

The letter said that the possible outcome of the meeting was “a final written warning”.

Mike Treen, Unite union national director, said the action was “absurd”.

“Since when does carrying a bible in your pocket become unlawful in New Zealand workplaces. For some Christians carrying a bible on the person at all times is a vital part of their faith and relationship to God.

“We do not believe that ordering staff not to carry a pocket bible is a lawful or reasonable instruction in a workplace in the 21st Century.”

Treen said the union had tried to reason with the company. “We tried to explain that the image the company is getting for its unhealthy relationship with the government will not be assisted by this stupidity… However our efforts fell on deaf ears.

Calls to SkyCity were not returned.

It’s good to see Mike Treen doing something useful, though! Good luck with this one, Mike.

[Hat tip: Darryl Ward]

Faith, Heroism, Kingdom of Heaven, Love, Merciful Grace

‘Brave Boy’ Chace Topperwien.

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This beautiful little boy died on Friday (15-6-12)
He was 3 years old.

“And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them.
But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.”
Mark10vs13,14
May the Lord bring you peace Ryan and Keri.

Joy, Roman, and I donated to his fund.
Though I dont know his Family, nor ever met this little guy, I am filled with grief for them.
There is something terribly wrong with this world that such unjust things happen to the innocent.
It is a Paradise Lost.
The explaination for such a tragic condition is found in the Bible.
Hope is also found therein, through faith.
In God I Trust.

All invited to mourn brave little Chace

Give me Liberty, or give me Death!