NaClhv

Theology, philosophy, math, science, and random other things
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

How the two parties should now each move forward

I generally do not like politics. Although I don't consider myself uninformed, I am not a partisan. I take pride in being independent and convincible, and have in fact voted for Republican, Democratic, and neither candidates in recent election cycles. In other words, I am the quintessential swing voter. If either of the two parties […]

The unstated job requirements of being a data scientist

This is the Triforce. In the Legend of Zelda franchise, these three triangular artifacts represent the virtues of courage, wisdom, and power. They are the ultimate force in their in-game universe, as they represent the essence of the creator goddesses and can grant any wish to those who wield it. This is the threefold office: […]

What do we want? Reflections on AI and morality

Essentially, these AIs solve all kinds of "how" problems for us. We now know how to play a good game of chess or go, how to reply to any text prompt, and how to create an image from just a text description. This leaves us with the "what" problem. What do we want? What do we value? This is a hard question. Can an AI answer it for us? No, I don't think so. At least not any of the AIs as we have them today. Remember, the fundamental function of all the AIs we've discussed is to take in data, and give us what we said we wanted. So it seems that there's some kind of bootstrapping step missing, in that we have to give the AI "what we want" as an input, but expect "what we REALLY want" as an output.

Easter, perfect play, and the best of all possible histories

Some have said that if a perfect God exists, then we must live in the best of all possible worlds. Others have said that since this is clearly not the case, God cannot exist. Others still have said that we must actually live in the worst of all possible worlds, since if it were any worse it could not continue to exist. What should we make of these observations, and how are they related to games?

How to handle the Delta variant

The vaccine may be only 39% effective against infections by the Delta variant.

Granted, this is just in one study from Israel, for just certain kinds of vaccines. But still, I've spent a great deal of time over the last week thinking about this number. Why is this such a big deal? Because, if this is true, and if that 39% holds constants across a variety of circumstances, then we're in a lot of trouble. This would mean that the Delta variant would be unstoppable, EVEN WITH THE VACCINE.

Evidence for a historical Adam and Eve

Here is my claim: the scientific contents of my interpretation is a major piece of evidence for the veracity of the biblical account of Adam and Eve, and for Christianity as a whole. In other words, I’m not settling for mere “compatibility” with the known sciences; what we have here is actual, strong, positive evidence, and everyone needs to adjust their beliefs accordingly.

A record of the total solar eclipse on 2020-12-14

The covid pandemic added a new layer of difficulty to everything. Combined with the other challenges intrinsic to such an endeavor, I felt like everything was fighting me every step of the way. In fact, I initially conceptualized this trip as a sequence overcoming these difficulties: I was going to impose my will upon the world in the face of these challenges, and bring about my intended results. We'll see how that turned out.

Presenting my argument for the resurrection to the McLean Bible Church

Last week, I presented my argument for Jesus's resurrection, in an hour-and-a-half talk given to MCB Apologetics - a ministry of the McLean Bible Church. And it went really, really well! The organizer (who's a high school friend of mine) told me that he thought the talk went incredibly well, that it was really fantastic. […]

Bayesian evaluation for the likelihood of Christ's resurrection (Easter 2020)

This was the state of the "Bayesian evaluation for the likelihood of Christ's resurrection" post, as of Easter 2020. This post will remain unchanged, while the linked post above will have further edits. I also put up a Facebook post on that date, which is essentially the same as the 2019 Facebook post. The offer […]

Interpreting the Genesis creation story

So we (and many others) all independently arrived at this new interpretation of the Genesis creation story - which I believe to be absolutely groundbreaking. It compromises nothing, either on the inerrancy of the Scriptures, or on the data on evolution. It harmonizes all the relevant scientific, historical, and biblical facts. In fact, I now consider the whole creation/evolution debate to be a "solved problem" at the highest levels.
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