The Song Fight Bulletin Board

here's my QOTD:

Does anybody like Mr. Bungle more than me? I think it might be impossible, because they are nigh-on perfect.

I know this is a dead horse at this point but:

starfinger wrote:Why did I start looking at the roll call threads. Blargh!

fluffy wrote: Obviously nobody can ever have the complete picture (it's impossible to have a system which contains itself) but the point to science is to asymptotically move closer to an understanding. Faith and superstition move you AWAY from that understanding.

See, you're making assumptions about where to find that "understanding."

Science is great for improving the understanding of domains that behave scientifically -- that's true by definition. My faith gives me understanding in unquantifiable dimensions.

Does that understanding of the non-real domain help you in the real domain?

Religious teachings seem to basically start out with "here is a moral code. Follow it if you want to get into heaven." Atheism isn't necessarily immorality; personally I try to do good for others because it's good for ME as well. Network effects etc. I don't need threats of fire and brimstone to not behave in line with what someone else believes to be the ultimate moral code.

Also, everything aside from "be nice to others" basically grew out of the same sorts of things that B F Skinner demonstrated. Someone ate some [undercooked] pork and then got sick and died? Hm, we shouldn't eat pork. Someone ate some shellfish and had an allergic reaction and died? Hm, we shouldn't eat shellfish. The fact that people ascribed those rules to some deity rather than trichinosis or histamine response doesn't mean that the deity is real. The deity is a MODEL for things which are real, but when understanding gets beyond what the model can really handle, it's time for a new model.

No present-day physicist believes that electrons orbit an atom's nucleus like a little tiny planet around a star, even though that was the dominant model until VERY recently. (Even when quantum-level effects were understood, there was still a while when physicists believed that they still were in a Newtonian orbit, just that the orbit only fit into specific energy quanta. Now we know better, due to experimentation and science. Of course the main thing we know is that we can't really know what it 'looks' like, but that's more to do with the fact that things 'looking' like things make implicit assumptions about how looking occurs to begin with.)

Science is able to discard its models when evidence contradicts it, whereas religion gets a tapestry of patchwork and denial, often with real-world violent consequences.

Please don't interpret my silence re: your view of religious teachings as a punt. I just don't want to relive that old 'religion' thread.

I will respond to this and then stop:

fluffy wrote:Does that understanding of the non-real domain help you in the real domain?

Absolutely, without a doubt.
Though I wouldn't call it the non-real domain

Are you fundamentally happy?

Yes!

-craig

see, fluffy, the language you use in these discussions is very inflammatory. i think i dinged you on this before. have some respect for others' beliefs, eh?
-bill

I'm not sure we're required to come back and catch up, but, what the heck...

QotD: I'd like to ask this: when I book the cross-country coffeehouse tour, who's got a couch I can crash on?

Guest room and/or couch available in Phoenix.

Does anyone know where my sunglasses are? I haven't seen them since Sunday.

No, sorry CR.

QotD: I've thought about asking where everybody stands in regard to God / religion.

I guess I should have known that asking the religion question would result in the religion discussion, but at least it's been pretty civil... I started out in the Foursquare church (Aimee Semple McPherson) when I was about ten, and have, over the years, backslidden my way through the Southern Baptists, the Baptists, and the Methodists. I don't really think of myself as one of those "born again Christians," but I guess religion and music have been the two things in my life that I've never really been able to turn my back on, either.

QotD: What ways can I find to help my wife market her incredibly great artistic abilities (hand drawn psuedo-anime)?

If I knew anything at all about how to market art, I'd probably be doing something with my own music... (i.e., I don't know)

QOTD - Who's got the nudie pics?

Nope.

How do you get your gigs set-up? Do you approach clubs and say I wanna play here and they say sure? Or is there more to it?

See the question about marketing your art.

what computer specs would you get on a new computer recording/playing live laptop? Today, I mean.

I don't, and don't want to record "on a computer." I don't want to have to fight with the computer, I just want to turn on my digital recorder and record music.

qotd: How much?

An enitre mini-chimichanga sampler plate and four cups of coffee.

Are you fundamentally happy?

No.

What's the worst band you've ever heard?

Suzanne Kale, "Prayer Songs" is the worst CD I have ever heard (maybe she'll be googling her name someday and find this: please, don't do anything like this again. ever).

What's your favorite food to eat?

Little Debbie's Nutty Bars

Do you have a cute sister?

No

Oh and QOTD: Do you think I'm sexy and/or do you like my body?

Sorry, you're not my type.

ok, lets see

QotD: I'd like to ask this: when I book the cross-country coffeehouse tour, who's got a couch I can crash on?

If you happen to be in South Australia, you can crash in the pink bed I played in my Let Me In entry.

Does anyone know where my sunglasses are? I haven't seen them since Sunday.

Go back to the strip club and ask the lass who gave you the lap dance

QotD: I've thought about asking where everybody stands in regard to God / religion.

I like God. But I don't bother him and he doesn't bother me. Apparently I live in sin, but I am cool with that. It just means when I die, I go to where the lesbians go. Ace.

QotD: What ways can I find to help my wife market her incredibly great artistic abilities (hand drawn psuedo-anime)?

Manga/Anime conventions may be the go. Get a small stall among the 'independent artists'. Starting a webcomic seems popular, too.

QOTD - Who's got the nudie pics?

Of myself? I can take some, if you really want.

How do you get your gigs set-up? Do you approach clubs and say I wanna play here and they say sure? Or is there more to it?

The very few gigs that I had done with previous bands, we mostly did places that encouraged new talent. As in, you just signed up and they put you on some weekend with the rest of the shit bands from your hell hole of a suburb.

what computer specs would you get on a new computer recording/playing live laptop? Today, I mean.

Anything as long as it had some kind of a sound filter to make me sound like I can play. Maybe something that redubs everything I do with Sonofsupercar songs?

qotd: How much?

Depends if you want the nudie pics or not

Are you fundamentally happy?

Can you be unfundamentally happy? What about just mental happy?

What's the worst band you've ever heard?

Booster.

What's your favorite food to eat?

Anything that won't kill me

Do you have a cute sister?

I have a sister. I suppose she's cute in this emo punk rock eye shadow and loud music kind of way.

Oh and QOTD: Do you think I'm sexy and/or do you like my body?

Lets see the nudie pics to make a definate answer.

starfinger wrote:Why did I start looking at the roll call threads. Blargh!

fluffy wrote: Obviously nobody can ever have the complete picture (it's impossible to have a system which contains itself) but the point to science is to asymptotically move closer to an understanding. Faith and superstition move you AWAY from that understanding.

See, you're making assumptions about where to find that "understanding."

Science is great for improving the understanding of domains that behave scientifically -- that's true by definition. My faith gives me understanding in unquantifiable dimensions.

If two conclusions differ only in how they regard the unobservable, then they cannot be debated without involving some faith -- whether that be faith in something beyond science or faith in the unobservable applicability of science.

(EDIT.. ok the gist of that last paragraph has been repeated elsewhere. pardon the redundancy!)

-craig

That pretty much hits the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned

fluffy wrote:I know this is a dead horse at this point but:

starfinger wrote:Why did I start looking at the roll call threads. Blargh!

fluffy wrote: Obviously nobody can ever have the complete picture (it's impossible to have a system which contains itself) but the point to science is to asymptotically move closer to an understanding. Faith and superstition move you AWAY from that understanding.

See, you're making assumptions about where to find that "understanding."

Science is great for improving the understanding of domains that behave scientifically -- that's true by definition. My faith gives me understanding in unquantifiable dimensions.

Does that understanding of the non-real domain help you in the real domain?

Religious teachings seem to basically start out with "here is a moral code. Follow it if you want to get into heaven." Atheism isn't necessarily immorality; personally I try to do good for others because it's good for ME as well. Network effects etc. I don't need threats of fire and brimstone to not behave in line with what someone else believes to be the ultimate moral code.

I think you are confusing god/religion with Judeo-Christian tradition

I don't really see how my words were inflammatory. Uncomfortable to believers, maybe, but not inflammatory. I also don't feel that I was ever getting offensive or hostile or whatever. I'm sorry to tread on peoples' toes. (However, being essentially called an idiot for "thinking they have all the answers" - I know, nobody ever said that about me directly but it was STRONGLY IMPLIED and what started this whole thread to begin with - is certainly also not respecting <em>my</em> beliefs.)

(Also, the Judeo-Christian examples were EXAMPLES. Not indicative of all religion.)

Having had religion shoved down my throat all my life from evangelists I feel that what I do in trying to explain my scientific views on things is very, very mild. I also take a very similar view to Dawkins in that religion and superstition are dangerous for society as a whole.

I respect peoples' rights to have beliefs other than mine, but that doesn't mean I have to respect the beliefs themselves. If I did then I'd have to also respect Scientology, Otherkin, Otakukin, and all sorts of other wacky things which, really, aren't all that different from the mainstream religions at their core.

But, whatever. This isn't GodFight.

Who knew that my stupid meta-question would lead to so much?

just to close out, these are the words i thought were most inflammatory:

fluffy wrote:demon

fluffy wrote:non-real domain

I didn't see anyone calling you an idiot, more the opposite with you calling religious people superstitious and comparing their beliefs to animal kneejerk reactions. I certainly support your right for respect, but if you weren't so obviously contemptuous, I'd feel better. We're friends here, aren't we?

There's no Scientologists here as far as I know, so feel free to look down on them if you want
-bill

I was explaining how animal kneejerk reactions could evolve into deeply-seated religious beliefs. It was purely a scientific explanation of how superstitions can form, and how specific religious beliefs can grow out of superstitions. It's very hard NOT to have superstitions, and I wasn't meaning to say that superstitions are necessarily bad - just that they are very easy to form. Hell, I'm pretty damn superstitious about lots of things, even though rationally I know they hold no water, just because that's how the brain is WIRED, because it's a huge evolutionary advantage to form superstitions.

Example: whenever I approach a traffic light I always imagine it turning red because when I first started driving, I had enough situations where I thought it'd turn red and visualizing it turning red correlated with it NOT turning red. Rationally I know it makes absolutely no sense but yet I keep doing it, pretty much reflexively, and of course this leads to confirmation bias because the lights continue to not turn red. When one does turn red, my subconscious is all, "you just weren't concentrating hard enough." And then I'm all "hey subconscious, you're dumb!" but my subconscious is all "FLUFFY U THINK 2 MUCH" and then dredges up some random and embarrassing memory to take my mind off of it.

I chose 'demon' instead of the more common 'invisible pink unicorn' example simply because IPU is so played-out and people tend to go 'well if it's invisible then how can it be pink? hurr hurr hurr.'

I suppose I could have used words better than 'non-real domain' but what would be a better description for the things which aren't in our everyday existence? It's sort of the definition of reality that it only comprises the things which actually happen. If these things DID happen in the real domain then they'd also be under the blanket of science.

Oh, and I am sorry if this offends anyone.

there are certain lights that always turn red just before i get to them! it's a pattern!

nah, i definitely wouldn't use real. because real doesn't really mean that which is provable, it's that which exists. use, perhaps, "physical vs. spiritual"?

I get your meaning on the historical context. It is very interesting to see how some of those laws have basis in science these days. However, there's nothing to say that God didn't go to Moses and say, "Hey, I know you didn't eat pork and die yet, but it might happen, so don't do it."

"Demon" can be inflammatory because that's exactly the opposite of God. In terms of the spiritual world, at least.
-bill

fluffy wrote: (However, being essentially called an idiot for "thinking they have all the answers" - I know, nobody ever said that about me directly but it was STRONGLY IMPLIED and what started this whole thread to begin with - is certainly also not respecting <em>my</em> beliefs.)

I think I wrote:
"I am 100% sure that anyone who thinks they have all the answers is an idiot" some 7 hours before you even entered the religous discussion Fluffy! Trust me - I wasn't aiming at you

(actually, I lie - that's the great thing about being 18 hours ahead of you all. I know what you are all going to say long before you all even think of it )

And some people do believe in and/or worship demons, and they're just as wrong-headed (in my mind) as those who worship the Judeo-Christian God. Meanwhile, those who worship one particular god tend to feel that people who worship demons are in the wrong, and sometimes they consider other peoples' gods to also be demons.

However, there's nothing to say that God didn't go to Moses and say, "Hey, I know you didn't eat pork and die yet, but it might happen, so don't do it.

Well, if by God you mean Moses' subconscious pattern-recognition skills, sure. ;)

I can see God as a metaphor for certain things, for example:

• the laws of physics and the various emergent properties which those lead to
• The nature of certain behaviors, at least on Earth (who knows, there could be some planet or gas cloud or whatever where chemical reactions sustain themselves based on purely symbiotic relationships rather than cyclic domination)
• Consciousness itself (which of course is very real - or at least mine is ;) - and yet very hard to scientifically quantify, which is where philosophy and religion even come from to begin with)

and as I said, God is a useful model for certain things, but that doesn't mean he/she/it is real in a literal sense. (A thought of a unicorn is a real thought, and other such clichés.)

I guess what I'm saying (in an extremely roundabout way) is that I do, in the end, respect peoples' beliefs <em>to an extent</em>, and such beliefs can, in certain respects, help us as a species to move forward, but in general, organized religion leads to some of the worst tragedies imaginable, and while superstitions and spiritual beliefs and so on can be respected, they shouldn't necessarily be embraced.

Caravan Ray wrote:I think I wrote:
"I am 100% sure that anyone who thinks they have all the answers is an idiot" some 7 hours before you even entered the religous discussion Fluffy! Trust me - I wasn't aiming at you

(actually, I lie - that's the great thing about being 18 hours ahead of you all. I know what you are all going to say long before you all even think of it :wink: )

Oh jeeze, you're right. I project way too easily.

fluffy: Why is Shaq so awesome?
jimtyrell: I have a pullout sofa. I don't know why anyone would stop in Muncie though.
caravanray: It's weird because I ate them on Saturday.
king arthur: I used to be worried about god and stuff, but that was just a fear of hell like maybe it's real sort of thing. I tried to believe for a while in high school, but I don't think I've ever felt spiritual. Sometimes I feel spiritual when I write, but in an I'm fucked this is beautiful kind of way. To answer your question, religion doesn't interest me. I just ignore it.
embers: Uh. Deviant Art? (kidding)
paco - Send them to me when you get them.
niveous: I haven't played gigs. I've read poetry at a reading in a bar. A friend set that up. It was a good time. There will be more of that this fall. Drinking and poetry are a good mix.
heuristics: I have no idea. The internet is good.
hoblit: Two forties.
leaf: To be fundamentally happy you need a set of beliefs by which to live. I don't have any solid beliefs. But I do enjoy a lot of my life. Other parts can suck it. I'm doing ok.
j. roger: Drowning Man. They were a metal band. Their singer said something stupid. I yelled, "That's a logical fallacy!" Everyone hated them and yelled things too. Their singer tried to show his dick to the audience, but the guitarist stopped him.
blt: Pad Thai
jefff: Yes.
lunkhead: I have been absent for a while. I would like to participate again. But I don't know what my future looks like. Participation in Songfight is totally based on living situation. In five years I'll be 27. I don't know what 27 looks like.
starfinger: I'm not really a fan of the Bungle.

fodroy wrote: lunkhead: I have been absent for a while. I would like to participate again. But I don't know what my future looks like. Participation in Songfight is totally based on living situation. In five years I'll be 27. I don't know what 27 looks like.

I vaguely remember being 27.

Five years ago I didn't even expect this site to still be <em>running</em> much less something I was interested in.

Oh, hey, that reminds me, to round out my DRC stuff: All the stuff I need available (and then some) is all packed up and ready to be loaded up in my car before the movers arrive at 7 AM or so to pack up and ship everything else. I am taking a rather large subset of my wardrobe, my laptop, just enough gear to work on music (my acoustic and good electric guitar, a field recording mic, and my Microcube, and of course my Logic key) and comics (my Wacom tablet and my sketchpad and some pencils and such... I guess if I draw anything on the latter I'll need to either find a scanner or jury-rig something with my digital camera), and I've got 24 hours' worth of music and a couple audiobooks loaded up on my iPod. As soon as the movers are done I'm taking off and having a (hopefully nice) drive on down to San Francisco.

I'll definitely miss Seattle, but of course I can always come up and visit, which I will have to do pretty often.

As far as the drive goes, I'm tempting fate in three ways:

• I haven't gotten an oil change for my car in a while, so maybe I'll stop at Jiffy Lube first
• It's been a long time since I've driven 12+ hours straight. I ain't a care-free recent college grad anymore.
• My cellphone is out of minutes for the month (I've already accumulated some heavy overages, ugh) so if I do run into trouble it'll be rather expensive. On the plus side, I still have unlimited email and web from my phone so that should be okay.

Oh, I also suppose I should get some cash so I can pay the toll on the bay bridge.

I'll probably stop after 8 hours and find a cheap motel. I'll also probably have several tins of penguin mints with me in the car.

I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep tonight, although all the beer I'm drinking should help a little.

27 is a good age. Have as much fun as you can, seriously. In 5 years I'll be 35, and I hope that I'm still somehow involved in SF! I hope I don't ever stop playing music, and I look at the SF! participants who are older/married/have kids/etc. who still manage to participate as inspiration and proof that it's possible. Seriously, if you fall into one of those categories and you're entering SF!, I salute you.

PS fluffy, drive safely, it's a long trip according to Ken and Jack. Also I have a FireWire scanner I'm not using that you can have/borrow in the very unlikely event that it would be useful to you.

Thanks, but I doubt I'll have a chance to draw anything anyway, what with starting the new job and everything.

Starfinger: I like Mr. Bungle a lot, but probably not as much as you. I've never even heard Disco Volante. California is a wonderful album though.

jimtyrrell wrote:Starfinger: I like Mr. Bungle a lot, but probably not as much as you. I've never even heard Disco Volante. California is a wonderful album though.

that's the best one!

also, check out the secret chiefs 3 -- that's basically the band without patton. awesome!

-craig