A Question About Memory Recall

I have not been silent about the utter cruciality of memory to the acquisition and preservation of human knowledge [1].  I truly wish more philosophers, scientists, and theologians publicly addressed the issue of how memory relates to epistemology.  If memory does not function, then knowledge of most things becomes impossible.  From this, it follows that the question can be asked: if something is stored in your mind but you do not recall it accurately or cannot recall it at all, do you truly know it?

Inability to recall information stored in the memory does not in any way signify a deficiency in the storage of memory, only in its retrieval.  By the way, the idea that my memory stores vast quantities of information about past events that I will never actually recall or become aware of during my life is not one to toss into the category of impossible ideas.  It is entirely possible that our memories keep a perfect record of our entire waking experiences and that we simply do not have the capacity to glimpse the entirety of our memories.  Perhaps my subconscious (any potential part of my mind I am not consciously aware of) remembers with perfect clarity everything I focused on from every day of my life from my birth until today.  I can neither prove or disprove such a hypothetical and so I place it alongside other unverifiable and unfalsifiable ideas like the simulation hypothesis or multiverse.  Thus, the distinction between a stored memory and one that a person can retrieve becomes clear--just because a person does not consciously remember a fact or event does not mean that it is not in that person's memory at all.

If someone has information stored that cannot be retrieved, the answer to the question as to whether or not he or she actually knows the information is nuanced but not very complex.  It depends on what is meant by the word know.  Such a person does not know the information in any way that will impact his or her life or conscious reflection, but it remains true that the information is objectively held within the subconscious.  It is as if the person knows and does not know the information--but not in a way that is logically contradictory.

If memory recall did not work almost all the time, I would be incapable of functioning.  Some things I recall on a continual basis.  Others, I may know, but not in any immediate sense.  If my memory holds recollection of events that my conscious mind is unaware of, it is as if I have no knowledge whatsoever about the matter, even though in another sense I do.  I placed the "perfect memory" hypothesis alongside the simulation hypothesis and multiverse not only because they all are unverifiable and unfalsifiable, but because their veracity or falsity does not affect my life and does not affect necessary truths in any way.  In this case, whether my perfect memory hypothesis is true or not, 1) I still have a memory, 2) my memory is still largely reliable, and 3) my conscious mind still has access to a great deal of information.  And that is all I need to have absolute certainty about those specific facets of my memory.


[1].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-reliability-of-memory.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/circular-reasoning-and-use-of-memory.html
C.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-cruciality-of-memory.html

Game Review--Metroid Prime: Federation Force (3DS)

"The destruction of Phazon and the corrupting world, Phaaze, was a monumental victory against the Space Pirates.  Despite this, the Galactic Federation also suffered from the loss of Phazon, and the Space Pirate threat remains."
--Mission briefing, Metroid Prime: Federation Force


I'll admit that I purchased, played, and reviewed Federation Force partly to sate my intense passion for Metroid while waiting for the imminent release of Metroid: Samus Returns for the 3DS on September 15.  I had hardly seen any of the gameplay and did not know what the experience would be like.  But I ended up actually enjoying the time I spent playing!  Yes, it is a spin-off game.  Yes, it has a different graphical style, forsaking the comparatively realistic aesthetics of its predecessors for a colorful chibi art style.  Level design is vastly different.  But all of this aside, it is not a bad game, despite its volatile controversy!  It is certainly unlike previous installments in the iconic series, but it is a game that can be quite enjoyable nonetheless.  I do not think this game is the failure that some perceive it as.

Production Values


The colorful graphics and art style are indubitably more "cartoonish" than those of other Metroid Prime games, but they are still distinctly Metroid.  The environments, creatures, and weapons do not look out of place; they truly do fit in the Metroid universe, it is merely the controversial aesthetic style that is so different.  Varied planet locations show a great visual variety that surprised me.  Levels involve everything from rain and darkness to a desert sun to acid storms.  The smooth framerate never dropped for me even when lots of enemies appeared onscreen (sometimes there's around seven or more) at once or when I played online coop.

Federation Force's lack of the verbal dialogue and voice acting featured in Other M and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is definitely notable, especially since the decision to omit it almost goes backwards in terms of franchise sound evolution.  The soundtrack also does not quite live up to the greatness of its predecessors.  Whereas all three of the main Metroid Prime games had powerful or haunting title themes, the one for Federation Force seems bland and unmemorable by comparison.  At least the other audio effects are great.


Gameplay

Federation Force plays and looks rather a lot like a marriage of Titanfall and a chibi stylized version of Metroid Prime.  Seriously, watching my Galactic Federation soldier leave and enter her Mech (I gave my character a female voice in the character editing section) really did remind me of Titanfall.  As far as comparisons to the spectacular trio of games in the main Metroid Prime series, the only similarities Federation Force shares with them is that they all are first-person shooters and they all take place in the Metroid universe.  Samus and metroids do show up and classic enemies like Shriekbats and Space Pirates make regular appearances, but they take a definite back seat to the spin-off side story.  Gone is the open-world-esque and somewhat nonlinear gameplay style, replaced by a series of approximately 5-20 minute objective-based levels that one can play solo or with up to three online or local coop partners.  However, the spin-off nature of the narrative does not minimize the importance of the events in the game.

In this game, Galactic Federation marines are learning how to harness the power of massive Mech suits.  Sharing similarities with the legendary Power Suit of Samus Aran, these Mechs have a power beam, AUX weapons, (missiles, super missiles, a freeze weapon, etc) a grapple slide feature, and hover thrusters.  Up to three devices called MODs can be installed and switched or removed at will, enhancing the abilities and powers of the Mech or adding new ones.  Progression in the game unlocks more paint jobs, slots for MODs, and AUX ammo capacity.  The campaign consists of 22 missions, and players are awarded medals that can unlock more MOD spaces and Mech paint jobs based upon quickness, point total, and completion of secondary objectives.  The primary objectives range from protecting carts from a storm to guiding balls into sockets, shooting down transports before they escape, capturing alien animals, defending a drill, or just killing creatures.  You even get outside the Mech for part of two missions!  Mission variety is certainly not something this game lacks.

As far as difficulty goes, online co-op really helps with hard missions.  An example from my own playthrough is how at first I was totally stuck on the seventh level and beat it only because I had a companion to help me overcome a tough boss.  Then I completed two levels I hadn't even played on solo yet alongside other players.  The collaborative efforts of a squad can be very rewarding, as a group can amass more points and defeat enemies quicker.  Partners can even revive downed Mechs--very helpful since in solo play there are no checkpoints and death means that the player must restart the entire mission and possibly lose certain equipped MODs (both frustrating design choices).

Then there's Blast Ball mode, shown in the screenshot (taken using the Miiverse app) below.

A Blast Ball match is like a very intense soccer game but with guns.  Players must shoot giant mobile balls into the goal of the opposing team.  Blast Ball can be played online or against bots in 3 vs. 3 matches, but it is a rather foreign multiplayer style to the Metroid franchise.  Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime Hunters both had a deathmatch style multiplayer that I would have preferred significantly to Blast Ball, but at least this adds more variety to the game.  By the way, one can merge a file from the Blast Ball demo on the eShop with the save data on the Federation Force cartridge.  Blast Ball exclusive paint jobs are unlocked by completion of various tasks.

The controls actually are quite different from the touch screen aiming of the DS's Metroid Prime Hunters.  Gyroscope (motion sensor-based) controls are activated by holding the far right trigger button and holding L (the far left trigger button) locks onto a certain enemy or direction, just like in the original Prime games.  Overall, it seemed to work very well.


Story

Metroid chronology:
1. Metroid/Metroid: Zero Mission (NES/GBA)
2. Metroid Prime (GameCube)
3. Metroid Prime Hunters (DS)
4. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GameCube)
5. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
6. Metroid Prime: Federation Force (3DS)
7. Metroid II: Return of Samus/Metroid: Samus Returns (Game Boy/3DS)
8. Super Metroid (SNES)
9. Metroid: Other M (Wii)
10. Metroid Fusion (GBA)


After the events of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the Galactic Federation initiates a program utilizing "Mech" exo-suits for its soldiers.  Called Operation Golem, it is intended to exterminate Space Pirate resistance leftover after the destruction of Phaaze.  The Federation sends its newest members to the Bermuda System, which has three planets: Excelcion, Bion, and Talvania.  The players' silent characters complete a diverse range of missions on these three planets and encounter Space Pirates, discovering that the nefarious species is developing a new super weapon.

Samus Aran DOES investigate Space Pirate activity after the species is found active in the system.  She saves you from a giant beetle, performs background reconnaissance, and is mentioned by your commanding officer on multiple occasions.

(MAJOR SPOILERS)

The Pirates construct a battle station called the Doomseye and use it to overpower the Federation fleet in the area.  The player's trooper fights a hijacked Samus Aran on the Doomseye, as Pirates captured her and temporarily turned her into a weapon.  The Doomseye is eventually destroyed and the Space Pirate threat alleviated yet again.

Intellectual Content

Mild exploration yields MODs and mild puzzles allow progression to further levels, though neither amounts to much compared to past Metroid games.  This is by far the very least intellectual Metroid game in existence.  This is also probably among the smallest amount of words I have ever placed under the "Intellectual Content" section of one of my reviews.


Conclusion

Despite its untraditional (by franchise standards) graphical style and level design and the fact that one plays not as Samus but as a Federation marine, Federation Force is a game that Metroid fans may really enjoy.  Yes, I would have preferred a more traditional Metroid Prime game for the 3DS, but at least this September the 3DS will receive a classic-style Metroid game!  Federation Force still delivers excellent online coop action, standing out simply by being one of few first-person shooters on the system.  So if co-op, FPS games, or Metroid appeal to you, you may like this game more than the fan backlash might suggest.


Content
1. Violence:  Bloodless shooting kills enemies that disappear shortly after their deaths.  The minimal blood present in some of the other Metroid Prime games here is absent, possibly because of perceived incongruity with the aesthetics.

Philosophy And Theology

Just as all women are people but not all people are women, all murder is killing but not all killing is murder, and all mathematics is logic but not all logic is mathematics, so all theology is philosophy but not all philosophy is theology.  Philosophy as a discipline is the study of reason, reality, and belief systems; philosophy otherwise refers to someone's worldview.  Theology as a discipline is the study of God and his nature; theology otherwise refers to someone's worldview with respects to their claims about God.  See how these two still overlap significantly?

Some people seem to try to pit the two against each other, as if a person cannot learn and love one without ignoring and scorning the other.  This is a false dilemma.  One cannot be a theologian and not be a philosopher.  In this sense, all Christians who take their theology seriously are indeed philosophers of sorts, whether they would identify with such a label or not.  Indeed, everyone who has a worldview has a philosophy, and thus everyone who has a theology has a philosophy.

An anti-philosophy Christian might try to twist Colossians 2:8 into a projectile to be launched at those who indulge in philosophy either slightly or greatly.  To see if this verse truly does condemn philosophy, let us examine it:


Colossians 2:8--"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than Christ."


Does Paul here condemn all of philosophy?  Not at all!  He cautions against false, deceptive philosophy and cultural conditioning ("human tradition"), not against philosophy as a whole.  To reject philosophy he would have to reject Christianity, because, as I proved above, every religion and theology is a philosophy.  To argue against philosophy is a self-refuting absurdity.  It is impossible for a conscious and rational being to not have some kind of philosophy and it is illogical to pretend like Christianity is not one.  Any claim that rejects all of philosophy refutes itself and it totally incapable of being true.  Identifying if a philosophy is true or not is the real task.

Some Christians may fear philosophy as some foreign threat to Christianity, but if Christianity is true then rational philosophy in alignment with reality will not contradict Christianity.  This fallacious phobia also likely has its roots in a misunderstanding of what philosophy and theology actually are.  If the American church seeks to thrive in today's cultural environment, it needs to embrace what the Bible itself commands it to embrace.  Sheltering oneself from philosophy only deprives one of legitimate knowledge and in turn makes Christianity seem intellectually weak and vulnerable in the presence of the major worldviews of the current age (scientism, relativism, pluralism, etc).  May the church quickly awaken to the Biblical commands for it to engage in rigorous philosophical and theological study (Proverbs 19:2, 1 Thessalonians 5:21, 1 Peter 3:15).

Total Depravity

Christians sometimes use the phrase "total depravity" in descriptions of various parts of their worldviews.  But what one person means by it may differ extraordinarily from what another means by it.  Whether or not the phrase itself accurately describes humanity depends greatly on the intended meaning of the phrase.

In calling humanity totally depraved, a Christian is hopefully not meaning to convey the idea that each person is as evil as they could be.  It is impossible for me to even imagine what maximum sinfulness in human lives would look like, as if I envision any scenario in my mind I can always imagine a worse scenario.  Neither the Bible nor observation of everyday life even come close to teaching me that humans are as depraved as they can possibly be.  I can, for instance, think of multiple sins the Bible calls capital crimes that are not happening around me at this moment although I am in a building with others as I write this.  I can think of many sins I am neither committing in mind or in actuality.  It is clear that people are not maximumly sinful.

Total depravity, in and of itself, simply means that every aspect of human nature has been infected by sin in some way.  This is highly different from saying that all aspects of human nature are constantly being used in the most sinful way possible.  Agreeing with this meaning of the phrase is to acknowledge that the human mind, will, emotions, and desires can be misused, and nothing more.

Just because something has the capacity to be misused does not mean that it is incapable of being used rightly.  No one needs to be a Christian to do things that Christianity calls good.  No one even needs to believe in such a thing as right or wrong to by happenstance perform actions that are objectively right.  The human intellect may have been affected by sin so that it can ignore reason (as many do), but reason itself it no less infallibly reliable and humans are not incapable of disciplining themselves to use it correctly.  The human will may have been affected by sin so that it can voluntarily deviate from God, but volition itself can still be reoriented back to God.

If someone means by total depravity that everyone is as evil as possible by Biblical standards, he or she has leapt into an abyss of irrationality; if someone means by total depravity that every individual aspect of humanity--such as the mind, will, and emotions--have been tainted by sin, meaning that they have the capacity for misuse, then he or she is Biblically correct.  I hope people remember, though, that it does not follow from total depravity that humans cannot be or become reasonable or righteous.  It merely follows that they can abuse every aspect of their natures and that one can be quite lost without God indeed.

Frustration Over Being Misrepresented

I have noticed that most people do not seem to understand what I am claiming and what I am not.  Whether due to unintelligence, lack of attentiveness, or confusion caused by some other reason, people at large just don't seem to grasp my worldview.

I will list three specific examples.

1).  Someone at my college mistook me for a moral relativist this year, seemingly misunderstanding me when I told her that our perceptions of right and wrong, left to themselves, are totally subjective.  She had thought I was saying that morality itself is subjective when I said no such thing.  Of course, anyone who both listens well and has a working intellect can easily distinguish between when someone is talking about moral skepticism and moral relativism.  She also later told me that many of my claims "sound crazy" when they are nothing but rational, yet she refuses to admit the utter  illogicality of her beliefs that "existence is obviously better than nonexistence" (begging the question, circular reasoning, appeal to emotion, appeal to the stone), that "it is impossible to have absolute certainty about anything" [1], and that Plato/Socrates was a very rational philosopher (but things like his theory of forms, reincarnation hypothesis, and arbitrary moral system testify to his fallacies).  But no, I'm the crazy one.  Damn this nonsense.

2).  One of my parents told me that some of Alex Jones' claims about the universe, consciousness, and dimensions sound like things I would say.  I actually just wrote a post last night criticizing these very claims of Alex Jones, and readers of my blog can easily see that I do not sound anything like him.  As I've known for years, my parents don't often have any clue as to what I am actually claiming.

3).  Someone I have known for years totally straw manned something I said around the beginning of this summer about the behaviors of some complementarians, misrepresenting what I said by acting as if I was speaking about the tenets of complementarianism itself.  Then I got accused of committing the fallacy of composition and straw manning complementarians (which I did not do in either case), all just before this person straw manned rationalism while talking to me.  As I said before, damn this nonsense.

Being misrepresented can be very frustrating, and having to point out and refute straw man arguments against my worldview on a regular basis can be quite annoying.  I truly consider anyone who does not live for both truth and reason an enemy of mine, and I do not just mean in a detached sense.  I truly hate many such people already, and I could easily learn to hate the rest of them if I got to know them better [2].  A life lived for truth and reason is not something without a great possibility for deep frustration, sadness, and anger.  And when people in general consistently refuse to live for truth and reason and continue to both misunderstand and misrepresent my worldview, my fury arises.


[1].  Yes, absolutely certainty is inescapably possible, depending on the type of claim being made.  Logic and certain experiences enable absolute certainty about some things.  It is objectively impossible for sound deductive reasoning or certain infallible experiences to not be true.
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-nature-of-absolute-certainty.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-problem-of-criterion-reflection-on.html
C.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/06/first-principles.html
D.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-error-of-presuppositions.html

[2].  No, the Bible never says to not have enemies, only to love your enemies (Matthew 5:44).  No, hating someone does not logically exclude loving them, and even the Christian God hates certain people (https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/does-god-hate.html).  Please don't straw man my worldview by not doing exactly what I expressed frustration about in the first paragraph above--misunderstanding and misrepresenting my claims.

Examining Claims Of Alex Jones

"Now, there's like this subtransmission zone below the third dimension that's just turned over the most horrible things, it's what it resonates to, and it's trying to get up into the third dimension that's just a basic level of consciousness to launch into the next levels."
--Alex Jones


I recently developed a new habit, for laughs, of watching Alex Jones, the politically conservative mega-conspiracy theorist who runs infowars.com.  In one of my most lighthearted posts, I want to, for the sake of amusement and humor, point out some of the absurd claims and fallacies of Alex Jones.  Get out of the way New World Order, because humanity IS going interstellar!  Whoever is dropping gay bombs in tap water really needs to stop turning "the freaking frogs gay!"  And those flies landing on Obama really do seem to make the most compelling evidential case possible that he is indeed demonic.

I swear to Poseidon, this fool's proclivity for using logical fallacies is something that has provoked much laughter from me over the past few nights!  Fallacy overload!!


https://youtu.be/jgyhT56iF5A

This video of Jones is one of my favorites of him.  Conversing with podcast host Joe Rogan, Alex outlines his thoroughly unverifiable beliefs that humans inhabit the fifth or sixth of 12 dimensions, gravity bleeds in through the tension points our computers find in the false hologram that is our universe, there is a subtransmission zone that produces the "most horrible things", and pedophiles supplied with alien knowledge and technology are in control of a supercomputer that converts humanity into a hive mind.  It's a damn great video if you want some humor!  I'll write out some lengthier quotes (along with the times they appear in the video) that are particularly nonsensical, at least on an epistemological level.

"All the top scientists and billionaires are coming out and saying it is a false hologram, it is artificial.  The computers are scanning it and finding tension points where it's artificially projected and gravity is bleeding in to this universe; that's what they call dark matter."
(0:31-0:47)

Here Alex claims that the universe we experience is a hologram.  Holograms are immaterial projections, and if the universe is a hologram then the computers used to "detect" this are holograms too.  But material bodies and holograms are different substances and can't interact in the way that two physical substances do . . . meaning that because my hands don't phase through whatever I'm touching I have no reason to believe I am in a hologram.  Besides, practically any variation of the simulation hypothesis, however logically possible it might be, is totally beyond my ability to verify or falsify, and if Alex Jones is the same type of being that I am and shares my limitations then he has no ability to verify or falsify such claims either.  And yet Alex insists that "they're proving it all, it's all coming out."  Sure they are.

"Now, there's like this subtransmission zone below the third dimension that's just turned over the most horrible things, it's what it resonates to, and it's trying to get up into the third dimension that's just a basic level of consciousness to launch into the next levels."
(0:56-1:07)

What the fuck is he talking about?  I honestly am confused as to what his point even is in some places here.  Earlier in the video he says that there are at least 12 distinct dimensions, and shortly after this quote he says that humanity resides in either the fifth of sixth level of consciousness.  Unless Alex is a transdimensional being, how would he even be capable of knowing what lies under the "third dimension", if his 12 dimension idea is even correct to begin with?  How could he know that humans are in the fifth or sixth level of consciousness?  What "horrible things" is he referring to that the subtransmission zone under the third dimension produces?  And how could someone with the same human epistemic limitations as me ever prove any of this?  This video contains numerous instances of Alex Jones blatantly begging the question and then, in the cases where Joe Rogan presses him for evidence or proof of some kind, Alex just asserts that the evidence is obvious.  He does not even try to cite any actual demonstrable evidence, he merely attests that the evidence exists!  I've never laughed at a combination of begging the question and appealing to the stone like I have at Alex Jones!

He also claims that "they" are trying to construct an elaborate supercomputer connected to human minds for control purposes where human thoughts create neurons in the computer system.  Oh, and there is also a "human counter strike" aiming to stop the "pedophiles and psychic vampires that are in control of this AI system".  Because we all know that the pedophiles run important plans the "elites" have for us.  Regarding the source of their power, Alex says that an interdimensional being gives them "advanced offworld technology" and "advanced knowledge"--and he explicitly equates this being with Satan.  Alex really seems to enjoy asserting arbitrary propositions with absolutely no verifiability through reason or the senses.  As for what the Bible actually says about Satan (not as much as some think, actually), nowhere does any book of the Bible detail a plan by Satan to masquerade as some esoteric interdimensional force that provides sophisticated knowledge to pedophiles who want to plug us all in to the supercomputer they built in our false hologram universe.  I just wanted to emphasize that the Bible does not teach practically anything he rants about in the video.

Eventually Joe Rogan asks Alex "Where are you getting this from?", and he actually answers with "That's what it is."  As if that four word, circular reasoning sentence really amounts to any type of presentation of evidence, much less a logical proof of his claims.  He proceeds to explain how he knows all this from "looking at all the data", that every ancient culture has already predicted some of these things, and that things like Ridley Scott's movie Prometheus tell people about the plans of the "elite".

Wow.  Just for clarification, I did not say that everything Alex Jones claims in the video I provided a link to is false.  It is possible that the cosmos contains 12 dimensions, for example.  However, almost everything he says is totally unverifiable.

On a more serious note, rationalism and rationalism alone will create an environment that honors both truth and proper avenues of verifying and falsifying truth claims.  People like Alex Jones can only obtain influence over those who neglect critical thinking, ignore logic, and believe things that far exceed the scope of legitimate worldview formation.  Alex Jones does not represent either reason or Christianity.  Reason and Christianity represent themselves, not the fallacious rants of a biased, question-begging, paranoid radio host.

Sexual Self-Stimulation

Mosaic Law is quite specific when it comes to its condemnations of sexual immorality.  God specifically condemned certain sexual actions like adultery (Exodus 20:14, Deuteronomy 22:22), bestiality (Exodus 22:19, Leviticus 20:15-16), and rape (Deuteronomy 22:25-27).  But nowhere in the extensive moral codes and laws from Exodus to Deuteronomy does God even hint that it is sinful for a person to 1) use his or her hands to stimulate his or her genitals to sexual arousal or 2) to enjoy doing so.  And yet some Christians condemn this private act as if it were named among sexual sins listed in the Bible.  People touch their own genitals in totally nonsexual contexts, like changing clothes or taking a shower, which is not the same as what is called masturbation, which I described two sentences ago.  I will decimate the objections I've seen to this behavior and will show that Biblical ethics do not oppose intentional sexual self-stimulation in and of itself, meaning that if it is not a sinful act in itself, from which it follows that left to itself it is either an amoral or even a good act (I specify below where it might legitimately be called good).  No, not all Christians engage in this behavior and not everyone finds it subjectively appealing.  I know I don't find it appealing.  But I will oppose stupid claims made by irrational people.

And now I will address individual points and objections.

"Masturbation is homosexuality."

Stimulating one's own genitals is not an act of homosexuality, as I have heard some people argue.  Homosexual acts are sexual activities shared between two or more people of the same gender.  Both the Old Testament and New Testament condemn homosexual behaviors involving two or more people, but never does either condemn self-stimulation.  This is a laughable objection that someone has to assume in order to defend an assumed conclusion, thereby begging the question.

"Sexual activities that do not involve two people are wrong."

No, it does not follow from the fact that marital sex involves two people that God disapproves of all sexual self-stimulation.  This is a blatant use of the non sequitur fallacy.  Besides, where does the Bible say that a person touching his or her sex organs for the purpose of sexual pleasure is wrong?  Does the Bible prohibit all sexual behaviors that do not involve two parties?  No!  The Bible instead condemns a variety of sexual behaviors other than masturbation.

"No one can masturbate without lusting."

No, it does not have to involve the objectification of or lust for another person (they're different things too).  Lust is desiring to take someone's spouse from them and objectification is reducing someone to just one aspect of their personhood.  When Jesus uses the word lust in Matthew 5, he seems to be using the Greek version of the Hebrew word for covet in the Old Testament.  Coveting someone's spouse is not the same as having sexual desire, thinking a married or unmarried person is attractive or even sexy, or even having the desire to commit a sexual sin (which is itself different from lust and objectification by the definitions I have here).  Note that although objectification, lust, and desire to actively commit sexual sins are all sinful, they are distinct moral offenses.  One does not necessarily appear with the other.  Masturbation in itself involves none of these out of pure necessity.  Besides, it is objectively much better for someone to toy with his or her own genitals than to commit an act of actual sexual immorality which is condemned by name in the Bible.  In fact, when explaining why masturbation is not intrinsically sinful, it is absurd to not elaborate on how it can actually help release sexual urges.  This is where it can be good.  Why some Christians can't see this is baffling--but hey, Christians can be pretty damn ignorant, as I am not ever hesitant to point out.

"Masturbation will dominate the lives of those who do it."

No, masturbation does not have to become an addiction.  To say otherwise is to straw man a position to make it vulnerable to a criticism that has no basis in reality.  It is also totally untrue to claim as some do that "everyone does it" (and yes, it's asinine to claim that one gender does it more than the other)--some people like myself are apathetic towards this and have no desire to engage in it.

May I again remind others that Deuteronomy 4:2 condemns adding to God's moral revelation as if the information and principles he revealed were not sufficient for living a righteous life.  Legalism is when Christians champion extra-Biblical rules as necessary to living righteously (personal convictions for private lifestyles are not wrong, but imposing them on others is) or condemn things that the Bible does not.  The Bible, if true, contains moral commands that reflect the very character of God, and humans are utterly incapable of knowing moral truths apart from divine revelation.  Thus, any Christian who believes in extra-Biblical moral principles based on subjective preferences or societal beliefs lives as if God withheld important moral knowledge when the Bible itself says not to add foreign moral decrees to its laws (Deuteronomy 4:2).  To believe that is to believe in something totally contrary to Christian morality as found in the Bible.

The Necessity Of Cartesian Skepticism

A portrait of Descartes (Wikimedia Commons {{PD-1923}} ),
a rationalist, substance dualist, and Cartesian skeptic.

Years before I has ever read Descartes Meditations On First Philosophy, I was already engaging in Descartes' infamous Cartesian skepticism, a form of skepticism that subjects all beliefs to doubt until only what is self-evident and true by necessity remains.  With such truths identified, one now has a solid foundation of absolute certainty upon which to construct a correct worldview.  Cartesian skepticism can be very closely related to rationalism, although one can be a rationalist without adopting Cartesian skepticism.

This is the only legitimate pathway to knowledge, for all other methodologies rely on assumed beliefs and not proven ones.  Unless a person doubts everything and then acknowledges what must be true, one will inescapably have an arbitrary, untested, unverified starting point which he or she will be unable to defend, even as other people choose different starting points that are also arbitrary, untested, and unverified.

Suppose a Cartesian skeptic talks to a naturalist, a fitheist, and an atheist who have each built their worldviews on assumptions--that nature is all that exists, that a deity exists although only blind faith grounds belief in him/her/it, and that no deity exists, respectively.  The Cartesian skeptic would appropriately rebuke all three for simply assuming their conclusions and then using confirmation bias to defend them.  And, if the Cartesian skeptic has progressed far enough into his or her rationalism, he or she could easily prove naturalism, fitheism, and atheism false by using reason.

Cartesian skepticism has the aim of discovering actual truth and avoids the self-refuting impossibility of total skepticism, which is logically incapable of being true.  It is a method that is used to obtain legitimate knowledge, not an end in and of itself.  This methodology pursues an extremely thorough, systematic, total but temporary suspension of beliefs in order to reach its goals.  This separates it from the forms of skepticism that people adopt as fads to make themselves produce the illusion of intelligence or that are not logically possible.

As I said before, though, it is impossible to secure actual knowledge without first starting with self-evident necessary truths, and Cartesian skepticism is one of the only ways to rapidly or easily discover what truths belong in that category.  This epistemology does not keep one in ignorance and doubt forever, as it alone can grant the kind of foundation necessary to truly have absolute certainty and a correct philosophical framework.  Any simpler "shortcut" to knowledge is simply a pathway to an untested assertion and not a verified truth.  It is this fact that I consistently inform those around me of--and the stakes of merely assuming a worldview are far too large to waste one's mind and rationality by living for assumptions instead of truths.

Game Review--Super Metroid (3DS Virtual Console)

"I first battled the metroids on planet Zebes.  It was there that I foiled the plans of the space pirate leader Mother Brain to use the creatures to attack galactic civilization..."
--Samus Aran, Super Metroid


Super Metroid is one of a handful of Metroid games available on the 3DS virtual console on the eShop, only a resident on the eShop for around a year as of yet.  Although I downloaded it in the spring of this year, I didn't get around to finishing it until a bout of Metroid fever recently gripped me and I had a strong urge to revisit the world of my favorite bounty hunter, Samus Aran.  How does this ported installment hold up?

Production Values

The quality of the game's aesthetics and audio struck me as quite impressive for a 1994 release from more than two decades ago!  This is a direct port to the eShop, not an actual remaster.  This is the old game on a new system.  Some minor slowdown occurred during particularly intense and chaotic sections like the escape from Mother Brain's lair, but the game runs very well other than this.  There is no spoken dialogue, unlike the Wii's The Other M (which chronologically follows the story in this game), but the soundtrack and audio effects are very competent.  Some of its tracks were even reused (even if altered somewhat) in later entries, so series fans may find some nostalgic tunes here.


Gameplay

This classic side-scrolling Metroid adventure sees Samus exploring Zebes yet again, beginning without equipment like the morph ball and missiles.  Bit by bit, players obtain new abilities and weapons that unlock more rooms and kill enemies more swiftly.  By the end of the game, Samus can be quite powerful--with more than 200 missiles and loads of other items!  Fights with enemies gradually become easier and easier and the progression system rewards players who diligently search obscure crevices and use Samus' abilities properly.

Though the map system is nowhere near as detailed or helpful as the one in Metroid Prime (for a review of that game, see here [1]), it certainly facilitates travel and exploration.  Sometimes the map frustrated me because it doesn't show doors, much less whether they have been unlocked or not, yet it can help remind players of unentered areas.  Checking the map can also instill confidence at just how much ground has been covered!

Per series tradition, different animations of Samus appear at the end of the game depending on the amount of time taken to complete the game, with one depicting her in her full power suit, one without her visor, and one with her in a black bikini-like undergarment.  Here, the different animations are triggered by finishing in over 10 hours, between 3-10 hours, and under three hours.  I achieved the latter two.  The ones I unlocked are below!

Story

Metroid chronology:
1. Metroid/Metroid: Zero Mission (NES/GBA)
2. Metroid Prime (GameCube)
3. Metroid Prime Hunters (DS)
4. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GameCube)
5. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
6. Metroid Prime: Federation Force (3DS)
7. Metroid II: Return of Samus/Metroid: Samus Returns (Game Boy/3DS)
8. Super Metroid (SNES)
9. Metroid: Other M (Wii)
10. Metroid Fusion (GBA)


There is not much of a structured plot in this game, but spoilers will follow.

At the beginning, Samus recounts a summarized version of the first two Metroid games.  She tells of how she defeated Mother Brain, the leader of the imperialistic space pirates, on the planet Zebes.  The space pirates sought to use a dangerous species called metroids as biological weaponry, yet Samus stopped them.  She also details how she later visited the metroid homeworld SR388 and then annihilated all of the infamous creatures except for one.  This single metroid hatched in her presence and mistook her for its mother.

Samus escorts the baby metroid to Galactic Federation scientists on a ship near Zebes--the scientists hope that they can harness the natural powers of the metroid to benefit the galaxy, the inverse of the goal of the space pirates.  After Samus departs the ship in her own vessel, she returns due to a distress signal aboard the Ceres station.  Samus finds the corpses of scientists aboard the ship and that the metroid is in the possession of the monstrous flying organism known as Ridley, who escapes with it and flees to Zebes.

Samus then travels to Zebes, where she eliminates Ridley, Kraid, and other creatures before confronting Mother Brain, where she is saved by the metroid that Ridley abducted, which is now enormous compared to its size as a baby.  It saves Samus from being killed by Mother Brain and dies protecting her, at which point Samus defeats Mother Brain and starts a chain reaction that destroys Zebes.


Intellectual Content

The intellectual challenge of Metroid games has always been something I have found attractive about the series.  And this game has plenty of hidden secrets that new players will quite likely miss altogether.  I myself was astonished at some of the concealed collectibles I learned of via a YouTube walkthrough after playing the game some by myself.  Yes, Super Metroid has little to ponder about thematically and has a very minimal story, but the maze of locations and the variety of hidden items can keep even sharp minds stimulated and occupied.


Conclusion

Super Metroid, like its fellow Nintendo classic Ocarina Of Time, has been honored as one of the greatest games of all time.  Its intelligent level design and concealment of collectibles testify to its competence in delivering exactly what the series is known for.  Players seeking a challenge will be glad to discover that the game does little to nothing to hint at where you need to travel to next, meaning it oozes an atmosphere that remains enigmatic until curiosity or chance leads to the next great discovery.

Metroid has seen an unfortunate hiatus over the past few years that has just recently ended with the release of 2016's Metroid Prime: Federation Force for the 3DS (I may play and review it sometime), but the two new installments announced this summer have definitely excited my enthusiasm for the franchise!  At least in September the 3DS will receive the welcome updated version of Metroid II called Metroid: Samus Returns.  I'm very pleased about that title's imminent release, and any 3DS owners who are Metroid fans who haven't tried Super Metroid may find great delight in it as they wait for September.  Expect a review of the upcoming game in September shortly after its debut!


Content
1. Violence:  Beam and missile weaponry bloodlessly vaporizes miscellaneous creatures.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/game-review-metroid-prime-gamecube.html

The Reliability Of Experience

I have not yet properly written in one place a fairly detailed explanation of the epistemology of experience, dissecting the role of experience in knowledge and the reliability of experience.  Experience itself is the process of learning from some observation or participating in some activity.  Before I continue, I need to clarify something vital.

I am a rationalist AND an empiricist because both rationalism and empiricism are true.

What I mean by empiricism is not the self-refuting position that all knowledge comes from sensory experience, which sensory experience fails to prove and which internal experience of my thoughts and mind indubitably refute.  I call that philosophy sensory empiricism, which is very different than the type of empiricism I just identified with.  Empiricism is just the position that all knowledge involves experience.  I am also, as the title of my blog broadcasts openly, a rationalist, with rationalism being the position that all of my knowledge involves reason and hinges on my ability to grasp logic.

To even know that "I think, therefore I am", I have to experience my thoughts.  To know what a particular passage of the Bible says, I have to experience the process of reading it.  To know if I desire to consume food, I have to experience the desire.  To know that I love a friend, I have to experience genuine affection for that person and concern for his or her wellbeing.  And yet apart from my grasp of logic I would not even have coherent, intelligible experiences, as without awareness of logic I would not even be able to realize that something is what it is and be able to contemplate my experiences at all!  It is objectively true that all knowledge is only possible because of both reason and experience.  Without either, knowledge is impossible.

Past this point, I distinguish between fallible and infallible experiences.  I divide the two to show that there are some experiences which simply cannot be illusions and some which are totally unreliable.


Fallible Experiences

Fallible experiences are experiences which involve perceptions that may be false.  For instance, if I have a feeling as if I am in a divine presence, the feeling alone does not mean that I am actually perceiving God's presence, as this does not follow logically.  For this reason, all arguments for general theism or particular religions based upon anecdotes and sentimentality do not prove anything except to the original experiencer that the experience occurred.  For another example, I will refer to the senses.  Just because I see a house in front of me doesn't mean the house is objectively real, as it could be a simulated stimuli in some artificial projection from the true external world.

In this case, while the perception itself is infallibly known to be a real perception and the fact that I have the perception is infallibly true, it is not necessarily true that the house objectively exists and thus a claim extending to anything more than "I perceive the house" is fallible and uncertain.  The perceptions are real perceptions and that cannot be an illusion, but beyond this the perceptions may not correspond to reality at all.


Infallible Experiences

Infallible experiences are experiences which involve perceptions that cannot be illusions.  Some examples?  I know for sure that I am conscious because I am perceiving and thinking.  I know for sure that my senses are actually perceiving stimuli (I did NOT say that my senses are perceiving the external world as it is) because I am perceiving them.  I know for sure that intimate non-romantic friendships between men and women are possible because romantic affection for my female friends is totally nonexistent in my heart and mind (though logic can prove this independent of actual friendship experience).  I know for sure that I like certain movies more than others simply because I enjoy some movies over others.  There is no way that I can be wrong about these things.  Through deductive reasoning and immediate introspection I have absolute certainty that I really am conscious, that I truly do have senses that are perceiving certain things, that I do not love my best friend, who is a woman, in a romantic way, and that I really do like some movies more than others.  To verify these things with the utmost certainty (absolute certainty), I merely need to experience my existence.

Where infallible experiences depart from fallible experiences often has to do with perception.  It is infallibly true that many things seem a certain way to me, but it is not infallibly true that these perceptions necessarily mean that reality must be as it appears to me.  That is why I know it is infallibly true that I have senses but not that the specific contents of my sensory perceptions necessarily conform to actual reality.  I hope that readers can clearly comprehend the difference between the two that I have articulated.


Conclusion

All knowledge inescapably involves experience of some sort, and yet the experience of a perception does not necessitate that the perception actually aligns with reality.  It is not difficult to distinguish between the two types of experience, fallible and infallible.  Is a perception you experience incapable of not conforming to reality?  Then it is an infallible experience.  Is a perception possibly illusory?  Then is fallible.  Perceptions themselves are not illusions, but things which seem true may not be.  Reason can infallibly identify an experience as one kind or the other.  While experience is a necessary component of all knowledge, it remains unintelligible without the illumination of logic.

A Refutation Of Naturalism

Only a very illogical person would ever believe in naturalism, the belief that nothing exists but the material world, i.e. nature.  I want to prove this by referring to four things which I have absolute certainty of that all incontrovertibly falsify naturalism.  If anything exists which is not purely material, then naturalism is objectively false.  I have selected these four things because of the ease of understanding the concepts and because knowledge of them is available to any conscious, rational being--there is no way that they are either illusory or material.


Truth

Truth is an immaterial thing that applies to the material world.  The concept, as one will recognize upon rational reflection, is immaterial.  Even if no material world ever existed, truth would still exist as an abstract concept.  There would still be a way reality is--reality would just not involve anything material.  Thus, naturalism is impossible because the very notion of truth does not require a material world for its veracity and transcends materiality.  The only necessary truths are immaterial (examples: "there is a way reality is", "deductive reasoning is reliable", "words can convey truth") and would exist and hold even if there never was any material world at all.  If truth does not exist, then naturalism cannot be true, but if truth does exist (and it is impossible for it not to), then strict naturalism cannot be true.


Logic

It is also worth noting that many naturalists are likely believers in scientism, a self-defeating bullshit methodology that says science alone can reveal truth about reality (self-defeating because science cannot prove that statement, much less almost anything else).  Of course, science cannot even demonstrate that the senses someone uses to conduct scientific experiments are perceiving reality the way it is, and thus science does not ultimately give us certain knowledge of objective reality.  Logical truths, not scientific observations, are true by necessity.  And of the two only logic deals with immaterial reality.  Logic is a series of universal, inviolable, necessary laws that govern all of reality and cannot be escaped.  Although the laws of logic apply to the material world by inescapable necessity--for instance, a rock cannot both exist and not exist at the same time--logic itself is not a material thing that one can tangibly grasp or physically observe, and yet it is necessarily real and true in contrast to how there did not have to be any material world at all.  As an aside, just as in denying the existence of truth one must make a truth claim that is either true or false, ironically, anyone who denies the existence or innate reliability of logic must use both to make his or her case.  It is not possible for logic to not exist or be unreliable, just as it is impossible for truth not to exist.  Logic is not a part of the natural world and transcends it.


Consciousness

The fact that I have consciousness is one of several things which I cannot be deceived about and which I can know with absolute certainty.  The very fact that I perceive or think anything at all proves this to me incontrovertibly.  Nothing about consciousness necessitates that I have a physical body in order to perceive.  However, I know with absolute certainty that I do have a body of some sort [1]; all I am saying is that it is objectively true that nothing about consciousness logically requires that I have actual corporeal being in order to experience it.  It could exist totally independent of the material body, whereas the body is not animated without consciousness.  Mere matter is incapable of consciousness, and consciousness is all that separates things which possess it from mindless substances.  Consciousness, the ability to perceive, has no physical substance, even if the biologically living and material brain produces it.  It exists within the mind, which is not comprised of matter regardless of whether or not the mind dies with the brain or body.  And yet there mere logical possibility that consciousness and the mind can survive the death of the biological body proves that the two are not identical substances, as otherwise such a thing would be logically impossible.  This position is called substance dualism.

See the following syllogism for a quick logical explanation of what I am claiming:


1. If it is possible for the mind (consciousness) to exist independently from the body, then the mind and body are not synonymous.
2. It is possible for the mind to exist independently from the body.
3. Therefore the mind and body are not synonymous.


One may cause the other, yet the very fact that it is possible at all for a mind to exist without a body and vice versa proves that the two are not of identical substances: the former is immaterial and the latter is material.  Whatever connection or interaction or causal relationship they have does not affect the truth of my conclusion in any way: consciousness is immaterial and a body is material.


The Uncaused Cause

Logic proves incontrovertibly that an infinite regress of moments in time or events is impossible.  Though I have proven this several times before on my blog [2], I will briefly explain this again: if an infinite number of moments of time or events had occurred in the past, then this present moment and any activities occurring in the present would never have been reached.  As an analogy, try counting down from infinity to 6.  You can't count down to a particular number unless you have a fixed and finite beginning number from which you started counting.  Since infinite regress is impossible, there cannot have been an infinite number of past events and moments (or hours or days, and so forth) of time.  Thus the material world cannot have existed for an infinite amount of time in the past, because an infinite past is impossible and because there cannot have been an infinite number of events that have occurred in the material world.  And so the material world had a beginning.  This means it either 1) created itself, 2) began to exist without a cause, or 3) had an external cause.  No other possible options exist.  Self-creation is impossible, because something cannot exist before it existed to create itself.  Beginning to exist without a cause is impossible, as nothing cannot produce anything at all (logic and truth exist without the material world, but they cannot cause anything to begin or change, they merely exist and describe reality).  The only remaining option is that something outside of the material world created it.  Now, because infinite regress is impossible, at some point there was a cause that existed without beginning or a prior cause.  Because time and matter had not began to exist (they cannot have existed for an infinite amount of time as I demonstrated), this uncaused cause exists outside of time and independent of matter.  Therefore the uncaused cause that exists by pure logical necessity is immaterial.


As you can hopefully see, I do not need to prove that something like moral values (it is impossible to fully verify if any values exist) or an afterlife exist to disprove naturalism.  I merely need to examine what truths must be true regardless of what else is, and the only ones that survive this examination are immaterial facts about reality that hold by pure necessity even if there were never a material world at all.  The very core of reality--truth, logic, consciousness, and the uncaused cause--is entirely immaterial.  I only need to prove one immaterial thing exists to falsify the entirety of naturalism; I have proven that four immaterial things exist and cannot possibly be illusions or false.  Naturalism is thus metaphysically and logically impossible, and anyone who says otherwise contradicts reality and is no ally to either reason or knowledge.


[1].  While I do not know if the body I seem to have is my actual body, the fact that I experience physical sensations at all proves that I have some sort of physical being and organ (or organs), or at least a single nerve.  I can logically prove this to myself as follows:

1. A purely immaterial being cannot experience physical sensations.
2. I experience physical sensations.
3. Therefore I am not a purely immaterial being.
4. A being that is not purely immaterial has a physical body of some sort.
5. Therefore I have a physical body of some sort.

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-uncaused-cause.html

An Introduction To Transhumanism

I first learned about transhumanism from reading a work of fiction, very much intrigued by the ideas it represented.  Transhumanism--not a word I would think many are familiar with.  It refers to an ideology that promotes scientific modifications to the human body of human origin, with the goal of artificially evolving and enhancing human capabilities.  Though I do not think that knowledge of it has enjoyed widespread immersion into pop culture and regular life, transhumanism has rich potential for revolutionizing human existence if it is taken seriously and pursued with authenticity.

(Photo credit: Neil. Moralee via Visualhunt /  CC BY-NC-ND)
Going far beyond mere artificial prosthetics for lost limbs,
transhumanism endorses intentional self-modification of
the body with the goal of improving human longevity,
comfort, health, and intelligence.

Recent entertainment has definitely acknowledged this philosophy, though not enough for many to be familiar with its name (I had meant above not that transhumanist concepts are not in pop culture but that the existence and specifics of transhumanism as a unified position are not commonly known or represented there).  For instance, in some Star Wars stories, Separatist leader General Grievous is said to have modified himself so extensively that he transformed from a purely biological life form to a cyborg almost entirely made of non-living materials.  Grievous isn't human; he is a Kaleesh, but he still stands as an example of self-modification in the Star Wars universe.  Dan Brown's novel Inferno features heavy exposition and plot points about transhumanist ideologies, although Ron Howard's cinematic take on the story (if I remember correctly) does not at all explain transhumanism with the depth that the book does.  I actually first learned of transhumanism by reading this book.  Make no mistake--transhumanism has appeared in fiction as of late.

Now, a transhumanist might do anything from just replacing his or her arm (or some other single body part) with the aim of abandoning a faulty limb or gradually turning himself or herself into a far more modified organism.  And, as both popular medicine and transhumanist modifications improve, one could truly transform into a very different being within far less than 100 years.  Some might be motivated by Darwinism, others by philanthropy, others by curiosity, and still others by some other desire or ideology.  If this philosophy becomes prominent, we could be on the precipice of a society that is undeniably post-human according to how we now scientifically define the word "human".  Of course, this would spark new issues.  What are the legal rights of ordinary androids as humans and machines become fused together?  How would we handle a new kind of racism between those with modifications and those without them?  How would theologians and people from various professions respond to these changes?

Transhumanism can be strongly associated with genuine optimism about progress towards a human existence artificially made objectively less painful, difficult, and limited.  The spirit of Christianity does not oppose such endeavors, but it certainly does contradict any ideology that would teach that humans can become their own saviors by looking to technology to resolve all human problems (a straw man of normal transhumanism).  However, participation in transhumanism does not intrinsically violate any tenet of Christianity.  Religiosity--more importantly, rational and Biblical Christianity--does not oppose transhumanism in and of itself.  One could be a devout theist, atheist, or agnostic and a devout transhumanist simultaneously.  It is only when one looks at the motives and methods of individual transhumanists that any conflict between Christianity and practice of transhumanism might appear.  So in and of itself, there is nothing anti-Christian about it.

One of the more unique and as of yet unknown philosophies to emerge from the past hundred years, transhumanism certainly has potential to grip the hearts and minds of people as human grasp of science and its products heightens.  Perhaps it will seize a greater share of the world's attention and familiarity as time elapses.  Truly, its goal of reducing human suffering and diminishing human limitations could prove extraordinarily beneficial to humanity.  It is certainly a development that I will watch with great interest!

Counterfactuals

I'm posting this at 7:42 at night.  I woke up this morning before 8:00.  Between these two times, thousands--even millions--of possible futures that could have happened have been rendered permanently impossible.  The word for one of these discarded futures is counterfactual--something that could have come about that did not, an alternate possible future that did not occur in actuality.  In just one 24 hour period, an incalculable number of counterfactuals will pass me by, as I constantly perform actions that exclude me from taking other courses of action and thus I displace millions of possible variations of the future.  Even slightly different futures are barred from existence with every action, event, and moment of time that elapses.

Imagine a game of chess.  In any given turn, a finite number of possible
moves are available to each player.  As each move is made, all of the
 other possible moves that were not selected become counterfactuals.

Counterfactuals serve as just one of many examples of how philosophical concepts interact with our everyday lives, whether we acknowledge them or not.  Christian theologians too toy with counterfactuals when they hypothesize about things like what life would be like had humans not fallen and Eden remained a terrestrial paradise, what would have happened if the Jews had collectively accepted Christ as their Messiah during his first advent, or if God could have redeemed humans through something other than Christ's death.  What if the people of Noah's day had repented and ceased to live in such extensive evil?  What if David had killed Saul when he had the chance?  Every time a Christian contemplates a question like these, he or she is dwelling on counterfactual realities.

Speculating about counterfactuals can be quite helpful for discovering the significance of events that did happen and thus avoided becoming counterfactuals themselves.  Counterfactuals about past events can never actually come about, but they can indeed provide clearer insight into actual events.  By thinking about what did not happen, we can have a greater understanding of what did.  We can apply this even by trying to glean information about ourselves by assessing our past decisions.

Every time you wonder about a future that did not come about or an option in a decision that you did not pursue, you are wondering about counterfactuals.  The very act of trying to decide between two or more courses of action involves weighing things that will become counterfactuals against one option that will become reality, although one does not necessarily know beforehand which option will become reality and which ones will remain hypothetical possibilities.  Every moment of our lives produces an incomprehensible quantity of counterfactuals--and this knowledge can drive us to make the best choices we can given our finite ability to predict and affect the future.

How many counterfactual choices do you pass by within a day?

The Impossibility Of Faith In Reason

No matter what protesters claim otherwise, it is impossible to have faith in reason.  If one means by the two words anything remotely similar to the definitions ascribed to their normal usage, to say that someone has or must have faith in reason is an oxymoron, a contradiction of terms, a complete misrepresentation of the concepts most people mean by them.

I'm going to highlight an example of the stupidity that results when one confuses logic/reason for faith:

"In fact, faith is a prerequisite for reason. In order to reason about anything we must have faith that there are laws of logic which correctly prescribe the correct chain of reasoning. Since laws of logic cannot be observed with the senses, our confidence in them is a type of faith [1]."

This excerpt from an article on the Answers In Genesis website is gravely erroneous.  The three laws of logic are grasped by the mind, not the senses, meaning that even if I were a disembodied mind with no corporeal substance or senses whatsoever I would still comprehend them.  If I were a disembodied mind, I would still know that a thing is what it is, for example (the law of identity).  There is no way that logic can be false, and logic and deductive reasoning are self-evident, self-verifying, and inescapable [2].  Logic proves what follows and does not follow from certain propositions and can verify or falsify many propositions merely through inward reflection, apart from any sense experience or knowledge of the external world.

Faith is trust in something beyond what can be proven.  Reason (logic) is the only way to prove something.  Therefore it is utterly impossible for someone to have faith in reason.  As someone who is committed to Christianity, I understand how controversial this may sound to other Christians.  But I'm not saying that something that can't be proven isn't true, or that Christianity isn't strongly supportable using external arguments, or that faith is not trust in what evidence points to [3], or any similar things which amount to fallacies and falsities; I am demonstrating that to know something through reason--to grasp logical proof of it--is something one cannot do while believing in it on faith.

Faith and reason are mutually exclusive in that no one has faith in what they know by logic, for the very concept of faith only makes sense when applied to something one trusts in beyond what can be established by reason.


[1].  https://answersingenesis.org/apologetics/faith-vs-reason/

[2].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-self-evidence-of-logic.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-error-of-presuppositions.html

[3].  Evidence is not proof.  Proof is only found in logic and its companion and extension mathematics, and thus trusting in something which has an extraordinary amount of evidence behind it still involves faith, whereas knowing something by reason does not.

The Blank Slate Theory

In his work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Christian empiricist philosopher John Locke argues against the concept of innate knowledge, innate knowledge referring to awareness of something that is implanted in us from birth.  Locke posits that widespread disagreement about what constitutes innate knowledge helps illustrate that there is no such thing.  The idea that humans are born devoid of any innate knowledge is called the blank slate theory.  According to this belief, human minds enter existence totally empty and obtain knowledge by experience, with that knowledge amassing over time as the number of experiences increase.

First, I need to address Locke's argument.  Competing claims of innate knowledge cannot all be simultaneously correct, but disagreement does not mean there is no such thing as innate knowledge.  One must commit the non sequitur fallacy ("it does not follow") to say otherwise.  A being with the same epistemological limitations as myself simply cannot falsify all claims about humans being born with certain types of innate knowledge.

I must also acknowledge the possible role instinct plays with regards to this issue.  Instinct is an innate internal urge or drive for something.  Many people acknowledge the presence of instinct in biological creatures, and some definitions of instinct might qualify as descriptions of innate knowledge.  Even if instinct is not defined as such, natural instincts could easily lead to discoveries of actual knowledge.  An experience of an appetite for food or sex could lead to or at least facility obtaining knowledge about those things, for instance.  I must clarify, though, that before an instinctual desire is fulfilled one could only have innate awareness that the instinctual desire exists, not that anything exists which might sate it.

An example of a Biblical passage that some hold teaches innate knowledge is Romans 2:14-15, a cluster of verses that describes how humans can sense an inward pull towards perceived moral obligations.  No, experiences of conscience do not prove either that one's conscience is calibrated properly or that right and wrong even exist; conscience does not truly grant objective moral knowledge, only a subjectively compelling sense of morality [1].  But the Bible still teaches that people (or at least a significant portion of humans) find conscience itself is "written on their hearts", with the perceived demands of objective morality truly seeming compelling and powerful.

This leads me to comment that innate perceptions may not necessarily correspond to objective reality.  But that does not affect the fact that innate perceptions, instincts, or knowledge is logically possible.  I simply do not remember my first days after I was born, so I receive no assistance from memory in investigating this matter.  The important thing, regardless of what adherents to the blank slate hypothesis claim, is that I do now have actual knowledge of things that are absolutely certain and things that truly seem probable to me, and thus, what concerns me most is the knowledge I have now and not whether or not I was born with certain ideas.


Summary of observations:
1. The blank slate hypothesis is not provable, as highlighting the impossibility of conflicting claims about innate knowledge being true does not demonstrate that not a single one of them is true.
2. Instincts can be considered examples of innate knowledge, although what specific instincts exist and the forms they take may be difficult to identify.
3. One can have innate awareness of certain perceptions (i.e. conscience as Romans 2 describes) without having innate awareness of whether those perceptions conform to reality.


[1].  You can read about this more here:
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-nature-of-conscience.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-error-of-presuppositions.html