I finished the first five books in the Barsoom series on Librivox over the past several weeks during my drive to work. It was very entertaining, but now I'm having dreams about complicated Martian political scenarios, and it's off-putting, so I don't think I'll be listening to any more of Mr. Burroughs' work for a while (they only had the first five books completed anyway). I was going to hear the Moon Maid next, but I think I need a break. On the way to work this morning I picked up where I left off in the Bondage of the Will and found it to be engaging and relaxing.

I just listened to this video a few days ago...

One of the early questions prompts Dr. Penrose to describe Godel's theorem in a way which I thought was validating. It was that the understanding (or belief) that the formulas or rules of reason do produce true results, is itself unprovable by means of those rules. That's a pretty fine summary of what I wrote in my argument for God long ago, and it's an important point, relevant to my whole epistemic system.

Obviously that's just a tiny segment of the video; hardly worth mentioning below an embed of the whole thing.

Speaking of epistemic systems, however, I think I'm becoming more inclined toward the conclusion that the demarcation problem, "what is or isn't science", is wholely a semantic issue, and worthless to pursue. If I continue to lean this way, I shall soon adopt the following definition and philosophy of science: science is a method, not a set of information. There's no such thing as a scientific hypothesis except those for which scientific tests are constructed; there's no such thing as a scientific test except those which are direct, repeatable, and contemporary applications of the scientific method; there's no such thing as a scientific theory except those which should better, for uniformity and clarity's sake, be called scientific hypotheses. Calling evolution, "scientific", is like calling the Covid shot a "vaccine"; it co-opts the good reputation of vaccines, which was gained by actual vaccines creating immunity to, and eradicating diseases, while not actually creating immunity to any disease, and actually requiring us to change the whole definition of vaccine to accommodate it. 

And then, what is the value of a thing being called "scientific"? Only that someone has written down a means to repeatably test and confirm the information, which is to say that it can be confirmed empirically by a known procedure. Since I maintain that empirical observation is only one of many methods for arriving at true information (or of gaining epistemic confidence about a thing), my limiting science this way has no bearing on the hereby "unscientific" body of otherwise reasonably true data which most people do call "science". So, the question is, why do I stubbornly resist adopting a more common or popular definition for "science", for the sake of convention? It's because I hate the practice of fighting over what is and isn't science, and I think that the popular definition of science is so vague that it makes the demarcation problem impossible to grasp at. By adopting an unpopular, less generally useful, but nonetheless more clear and conversationally practical, definition for "science", I hope to force conversations into a place where the discussion about what "is" and "isn't" science becomes plainly a problem of semantics-only, so that hopefully we can agree to stop wasting time arguing about what is "science" (as if there were some magic truth-making power in the designation), and instead argue only about what is "true". I suspect that by doing this, I will cause some to simply dismiss me as one who knows nothing about what science really "is" or "should be", and I suppose that I don't want to talk with those people about science anyway, because they treat science like it's an entity on its own, a boogey man of sorts, whose name has power to delineate ideas with and without epistemic certainty, and I don't have any reason to agree with them about that. There are definitely scientific theories with more epistemic certainty than other scientific theories, and they vary so much that some of them are said to "have been legitimately scientific until they were disproved", meaning that science is allowed to asymptotically approach zero certainty while retaining its name.

In other news, this has actually been an outrageously crazy two weeks. Whereas two weeks ago we said we didn't want to move at all, this week we've visited at least seven apartments on different days, all on short notice. We've now picked out the place with the most unresponsive and difficult landlord, but we're committed enough to push them like fools in text messages and drive the place into our hands. All the while, I've had a bout with food poisoning, and both Chowon and I have had some pretty severe cold symptoms. I honestly thought mine were just related to the food poisoning and seasonal allergies, (and so I kept going to work), until Chowon seemed to catch it, too. I've joked with a few of my friends that I'm going to work sick, but I didn't know that I am actually sick. In any case, I'm feeling much better now, except for my lingering cough (I generally retain lingering coughs for several weeks after any sickness).

I've been all-business with my son lately, and I think it's bad for him. I'm under a lot of stress, though, and it really feels like I don't have the capacity to be fun like I should be. I want to wrestle and fight with him -- to toughen him up and build his confidence. (He's always telling me, "Dad, I want to wrestle and fight with you".) But I just haven't been doing it. Aaaaagh, I'm terrible. I really hate it. I'll pray, "God give me energy please.", but then I worry I'll just use the energy to pack my house, because that's what I have to do next! Can I make time for Isaac? God please help me do it.

God, give me energy please!

It's raining outside. I started typing this at about 10pm, and now it's about 11pm. I've been typing in the dark, with the porch light on, so I could see the raindrops hit the window while I type. Isaac and Chowon are asleep upstairs. The world is such a wonderful place.

Every time I post one of these videos, I see all my uploads listed, and I'm terribly embarrassed by all of them -- I hate the pictures I chose for the songs I mashed up. I hate all my speaking videos. Oooooh I hate it all so much. I keep it all up, though, because I feel like I wouldn't be true to myself if I deleted the old things that embarrass me, even if they're heretical and wrong; they're reflections of the ignoramus who I really was when I posted them. God is so good to me. I'm still an ignoramus, but God sustains me and gives me new life every day. God is good, and I'm happy to be on God's good earth.

"In America, you don't usually take responsibility by saying 'I'm sorry', right?"