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T-Stone has written in defense of Dawkin’s idea that theists proposing Intelligent Design would need to have a God who was more complex than the universe is. Important to this discussion is the following point T-Stone raises:

A 1,000 x 1,000 pixel grid of random pixels, on the other hand, isn’t as pretty to look at as a rendering of the Mandelbrot set, but it is much more complex — maximally complex, as it turns out (which is part of why it’s not as appealing aesthetically as a fractal image!). It’s counterintuitive to people who don’t work with information theory and algorithmic complexity, but its a fact of the domain: randomness is the theoretical maximum for measured complexity. You can’t get any more complex than purely random. In a random grid of pixels, we cannot guess anything about any pixels at all. In a rendering of Sierpinski triangles, or the Mandelbrot or Julia set, as soon as we see one level of rendering, prior to any recursion, we no everything about the rest of image, and can reproduce the fractal to any depth of detail without the original program.

Unfortunately for T-Stone, if he paid attention to what he has written here he’d see that he’s soundly refuted Dawkins. After all, if maximal randomness is equivalent to maximal complexity, then it is easy for me to write a program that will generate completely random output. In other words, it is easy for me—a person who is not maximally complex—to produce a program with output that is maximally complex. Thus, if we want to play T-Stone’s game and use complexity in this sense, then Dawkin’s argument must be surrendered.

If I can make a program that is more complex than I am, then God can create a universe that is more complex than He is.

FWIW, I disagree with T-Stone’s version of information and complexity. And despite what his post would lead you to believe, the idea that “maximal randomness = maximal complexity” is not true for all information theories. And in fact, if I were to use T-Stone’s definition of complexity then I would ask him to explain not why there is so much complexity in the universe, but rather why there is so little complexity. If complexity = randomness, then it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that there’s a lot of the universe that is not random, and therefore there is a lot of this universe that is not complex. Under his information theory, randomness is the default. We do not need to explain random data. We do need to explain structured and ordered data. Therefore, we do not need to explain complexity; we need to explain non-complexity.

T-Stone is just giving a sleight of hand here. It would be like a mathematician saying “a > b” and having T-Stone say, “The greater than sign is inverted with the less than sign, therefore ‘a > b’ means ‘a is less than b’.”

But as soon as he engages in his sleight of hand, we respond: “If the greater than sign is inverted with the less than sign, then ‘a > b’ is no longer true, rather ‘a < b’ is.”

Inverting the operator without inverting the operands does not refute the original expression.

I sent off a “Please Reject Me” request today, otherwise known as submitting a story for publication. Any author who’s anyone can paper their wall with rejection slips. A lot of this has to do with the fact that authors tend to think they’re better authors before they actually get better.

As with anything, writing involves practice. I remember when I first wrote The Outlaw I thought it was the best thing I’ve ever written. When I wrote Public Transit, that novel blew The Outlaw away. Why? Because two and a half years passed between when I thought I finished The Outlaw and when I finished Public Tranist. During that time, I got better. In fact, when I reread the “final” draft for The Outlaw it embarrasses me because of how poorly written it is.

But that’s more of a digression than relevant to this post. I sent off a story today and decided that I might as well aim as high as possible, so I picked The New Yorker to submit it to. Consequently, my chances of being published there are quite small. On the other hand, I have the audacity of hope (to steal a phrase from some charlatan in a cheap suit) so I think, “If they read it, they won’t reject it.”

We shall see what comes of it. In many ways submitting a manuscript is much like asking a girl out. You have the same nervousness as you present a request. “Will you go out with me?” is not that much different from “Will you publish this work?” Both put you out there and you risk rejection. Of course, if you ask a girl out there’s a slight difference: you’ll know a whole lot quicker whether she rejects you than you’ll know if The New Yorker rejects you!

So I’ll wait with baited anticipation for a response. But that won’t stop me from writing new things. I figure it’s time for me to create my “platform” of published works, something that I could attract an agent to. My goal is to submit one short story every month (not all to The New Yorker of course, especially since they request no more than two submissions per year per author and a good way to not get published is to piss off the publisher!). Perhaps I’ll go a year. I don’t know. I’ll test various genres. And of course in the meantime I’ll also continue to edit my novels. Novels tend to come easily enough to me, so I don’t mind spending a lot of time on short stories instead of working on them. Besides, the payoff once I do get my foot in the door will be well worth it. After all, even if half of my stories are rejected, I’ll still have a “platform” with the other half. And I’ll be able to submit those that were rejected to other magazines, after I look over the story to make sure there’s no way I could improve it.

Anyway, that’s the goal. Here’s hoping that in five years I’ll be on the NYT Best Sellers list. :-)

On December 6, 2006, I responded to comments Charles had made responding to a particular person who was responding to a post Steve had written. My response included the following:

I have more reason to believe he is an atheist pretending to be a Christian. He spouts atheist arguments on every single issue, and thus far has demonstrated no ability to grasp basic Christian concepts.Sorry if I don’t buy the whole: If it looks like a goat, sounds like a goat, eats trash like a goat, but says it’s a sheep, then we must believe it’s a sheep. So until [this person] can show me evidence that he actually believes the Gospel (a good way to start demonstrating this would be if he stopped attacking it), I’m going to label him as a non-Christian.

Nor was my judgment unique. Indeed, even before I penned the above, Steve had written of this person (November 22, 2006):

You’re a professing Christian on Sundays, but an honorary atheist on Mondays.

Who is this individual? Why, none other than Touchstone.

So imagine my shock when Jason Engwer informed me that the latest contributor to Debunking Christianity was…you guessed it: Touchstone.

Apparently, we at Triablogue knew Touchstone was an atheist almost two years before he did. Assuming we believe everything in Touchstone’s deconversion story. (Given his loose handling of the truth when he was commenting over here, my bias is to not believe anything he says.)

It is ironic that now Touchstone wishes to make it sound like he was a very strong Christian before defecting. Now he states:

In cases like mine, inevitably, there are questions raised and suspicions launched about the actuality or sincerity of my faith in the first place. For what it’s worth, I claim to be an atheist who was a deeply committed, “sold out” believer for decades.

… I was an avid student of theology, a circumstance which had faith-building and faith-destroying ramifications for me over the years. In any case, I was not a “lukewarm Christian”, one of those who slowly drifted out of the faith. My faith did not fade away, it came crashing down, quite unexpectedly, and frankly not of my own choosing (at least at the start). I was a cradle Evangelical fully immersed, well-read and fully on board. As a poster on a forum for (Christian) homeschoolers commented recent in a large “discussion” over my atheism: it’s the “worst case scenario”. Such is the dissonance for many who have known me, a good share of them have decided I’ve just been lying or faking it all these years, or I somehow just was never saved, never a Christian that “took”.

For those interested, in August of 2007 I wrote The Case Against Touchstone which goes into more detail as to why I never believed Touchstone’s profession of faith. Apparently, this “sold out” believer was so transparent that we had no problems spotting exactly who he really was, and we knew it for two years.

Perhaps Touchstone’s psychology is such that he really thought he was a Christian until recently…but I don’t buy it. You simply don’t make the arguments that T-Stone made, you don’t support the atheist argument in every discussion, you don’t actively attack Christians and promote atheist views if you’re a Christian. The signs were there for years. There’s nothing “recent” about his deconversion, except for his admission of it.

Confession time: I’ve seen The Dark Knight four times at the movie theater. This is the most I’ve ever watched a movie at the theater. In fact, I’ve seen it more times than I’ve seen some DVDs I own.

What makes The Dark Knight so good isn’t just the great acting that Heath Ledger did. It’s the strength of the story that the Nolan brothers wrote. The Dark Knight works well because it’s such a well crafted story that it transcends the superhero genre.

I just rewatched Batman Begins, which was also directed by Christopher Nolan. I remember the several times I watched it before that I thought it was a great movie. Watching it today, I still think it’s a good movie but the growth between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight is astronomical. The Dark Knight makes Batman Begins look weak in comparison.

There is just something about a story that is well done, one that has all the pieces in place. It hits on many levels. My friend Travis is letting me borrow the third season of Lost (he’s let me borrow the first two before too, since I don’t watch much TV). Lost is also (usually) very well crafted. In this case, I think it’s because the creators knew the entire story arc before they began. They also made a conscious decision to have a definite end point to the series. They wanted a set number of episodes to tell the story in, and then they’d finish up.

Granted, there are times when you wish they’d get on with the story already, but by and large the tension is enough to keep you going. And when you watch it on DVD without commercial interruption and without having to wait a week between episodes, it works well. Even the episode that Travis said was the most wasted hour of television ever created (the explanation of Jack’s tattoos, for those wondering which one that was) wasn’t that bad in my opinion. I do agree that it’s one of the weaker episodes, but I’ve seen plenty worse on TV.

Having a well crafted story is difficult work. It’s not just the inspiration factor that you have to deal with, it’s communicating that message to everyone else in a way that is relevant and meaningful to them. The best stories are those that encompass more, that are not limited to one framework or one view. Because the more people who can relate to your story, and the more often they can do it, the better the story is.

What is the point of a story? Sometimes it’s simply to escape from reality and provide a measure of relief. But sometimes it’s to confront reality in a different way, a way that helps us learn from it. Escapism is great to relieve stress, and there is benefit to it. But when I think about those stories that are the best written, all my examples are in the latter category. They all depict reality (even those that occur in fantasy stories!) in a way that is more than escaping. They’re educational. They’re inspirational. They’re honest. They’re real. They’re true.

Perhaps life itself is just a well crafted story written by an Author who reveals Himself in His work…

Today coming in to work I saw two license plates. The first had the letters NDE on them. The second had RIP.

I’m thinking it’s Bush’s fault.

I know this one’s an oldie (and it’s also one I read before) but I have to praise the novel Red Dragon by Thomas Harris.

Put it this way. Yesterday evening, I finished reading Firestarter by Stephen King. It’s one I hadn’t read before, and that’s also a book I’d recommend. It reads a lot like The Dark Half (written about the same time period too). For one thing, it’s Stephen King condensed. I was reading scenes going, “If he wrote this now, it would be ten times longer.” Not necessarily a bad thing, but for Firestarter the fast paced writing was a better choice.

Anyway, this post is not about Firestarter! Because when I finished it around 7 o’clock or so, I was still in a reading mood and was thinking, What should I read now? And I saw Red Dragon and remembered that it was a good novel, so I decided Why not? The first chapter was a little clunky and I thought maybe I made a mistake, especially when the second chapter wasn’t that much better. But then the third chapter hit and suddenly I was at chapter 28.

Now I should point out that I don’t have a clock in my reading room/video game playing room/guitar playing room. I knew it had been dark outside for some time, so I thought, “Great, it’s after midnight and I have to work in the morning.” So I put the book down and went to my bedroom…and saw it was only 10:30! I tought, “Hey, I can read for another hour and a half!” So I went back to the R/VGP/GP room and picked up the book.

I finished it at 12:36 in the morning. Went a half hour over my “bedtime” but I couldn’t put it down when I was that close to the end.

In other words, I read the entire novel last night. It was literally a “you can’t put this down” book. Oh, there were a few slow spots, but by then the hook was in and you could plow through them. Even though I knew the ending (I read it about five or ten years ago), it was still suspenseful.

It’s a shame that Thomas Harris had to go and ruin his streak of great books by penning Hannible. :-( But if you like suspense (think James Patterson, only with longer chapters!), Red Dragon is awesome. So is Silence of the Lambs for that matter (and there are some minor repetitions between the two works).

The only drawback is that now I need to find another book to read when I get home tonight…unless I’m in a writing mood instead of a reading mood :-)

On the radio this morning, the DJs were talking about how McDonalds was planning on removing the double cheeseburger from its dollar menu. This led to discussion of the increase in prices in general, and the DJs concluded that it was due to the cost of gas.

It is unfortunate that gas prices have increased recently, because it masks the real reason. Before giving the real reason, consider this. One of the DJs said (paraphrased, of course): “You gotta think that the profit for a double cheeseburger is like 80%.”

I think we can go with this for the moment, because if you consider just the cost of the beef and the hamburger buns and the cheese, it’s not that expensive. But just like when you pay $1.99 for a large drink you’re not really paying for the beverage, when you pay for your hamburger you’re not really paying for the burger either. What you’re paying for is the labor costs for the workers to make your food and to give you your drinks. The costs you pay don’t go much toward the actual cost of the materials, in other words; it’s almost all labor costs.

So, given that, let’s use some common sense.

What are most McDonald’s employes paid?

Answer: minimum wage.

What just increased?

Answer: minimum wage.

You wanna know why the dollar menu might be gone?

Answer: minimum wage.

This has a much larger impact on the cost of food (and everything else) than does $4.00 gasoline.

I wonder who would have predicted this?

I just have a quick miscellaneous thing about today. I’m sick of having to deal with computer problems at work! Yup, I’m the designated computer guy in my department since I have a decent understanding of them. But unfortuantely, we’re switching over to Windows Vista…and that’s just a downgrade no matter how you look at it.

Case in point: today I spent probably three hours of my eight hours at work trying to install a simple update to one of the programs that we use. Here’s the kicker. It installed perfectly on every single XP machine that we use. However, there are about eight people who use Vista and needed the update. The update worked on two of those eight computers, but not on the other six.

‘Splain me why.

And yes that’s a gratuitious Flowers For Algernon reference…

Anyway, moving on to better fields, I’m starting up a new novel (I told a bit of the plot to my friend Travis today in hopes that he will one day steal the plot and make millions of dollars on a movie script so that I can sue him and become rich myself). The important detail for this one is that it will have no action, no attributions, no descriptives in the text…nothing but dialogue. Yup, straight up dialogue.

Of course it’ll be difficult making this a full novel length (because face it, when you open up an average novel maybe 20% of it dialogue…and that’s if you’ve got an author who uses a lot of dialogue). Whether I will actually be able to publish this or not is not a concern of mine at the moment; I just want to be able to do it. Sort of like how I’m making sure there isn’t a single adverb in the current book I’m working on. Adverbs are completely unnecessary…just look at this sentence. :-P

It is fun, however, for me to set up little “rules” for my writing. It gives me a challenge. Language is my playground and I intend to have fun. So if I can write an entire novel (defined as 50,000 or more words) using only dialogue, I’m gonna do it. If I can write an entire novel without using a single adverb, I’m going to do it too (and by the way, that particular goal is very easy to accomplish). My natural style includes lots of adverbs, as you can tell from reading my blog. But I’ll just give you a quick example of how all the points remain the same without using an adverb.

The Secret Service Agent ran quickly down the hall after the fleeing assassin. The shooter had shot expertly, most likely killing the president. The Secret Service Agent gripped his pistol tightly in his hands, angrily vowing his vengeance. He had failed, he thought bitterly. But the killer would pay dearly.

The above paragraph is one I just made up on the spot, but it’s typical of writing the overuses adverbs. You can spot them by looking for the words that end in -ly. Now compare that above paragraph to the following revision:

The Secret Service Agent rushed down the hall after the fleeing assassin. The shooter had aimed well; it was probable the president was dead. The Secret Service Agent gripped his pistol and vowed vengeance. The bitter thought that he had failed came to mind, but he brushed it aside. The killer would still pay.

Even now I wouldn’t be finished editing this paragraph, but you can see that A) I used stronger verbs to explain the action (”ran quickly” becomes “rushed”) and, B) I got rid of extraneous words (”gripped” assumes the “tightly” and therefore “gripped tightly” is a redundancy, and furthermore what else is the agent going to grip a pistol with if not his hands?).

Of course, adverbs aren’t completely forbidden. However, as you can see, they’re not necessary at all. It therefore becomes an art as to when you would use them. And in the above circumstance, I would personally allow the use of them when it makes the final text shorter. (The first paragraph had 50 words; to avoid all the adverbs and still explain the same thing the second paragraph increased to 54 words). Therefore:

The Secret Service Agent rushed down the hall after the fleeing assassin. The shooter had aimed well, probably killing the president. The Secret Service Agent gripped his pistol and vowed vengeance. He had failed, he thought bitterly. But the killer would still pay.

This brings us down to 43 words. And, minimalistic writer that I am, I would probably continue to slash and burn and the last two sentences would become: “He had failed, but the killer would yet pay” (or something similar); and likewise I’d remove “down the hall” from the first sentence, as well as “aimed well”. And I’d name the Secret Service Agent too. In this case, John Doe. Thus, after some more cutting and reformatting:

Secret Service Agent John Doe rushed after the fleeing assassin knowing the shooter had probably killed the president. Doe gripped his pistol and swore vengeance. He had failed to protect the president, he thought bitterly, but the killer would yet pay.

This gives a total of 41 words for that paragraph. It started with 50, so I only saved 9 words. Of course it would have been a few more if I didn’t have to introduce John Doe as a Secret Service Agent. If we already knew that information we could just simply say “Doe rushed after…” and cut out another three words right there. Also, note that because I lost enough words I had no problem adding in some more clarifying remarks. Thus I explain what Doe had failed at (protecting the president). In this case, that phrase is probably redundant (after all, we should know what a Secret Service Agent’s jobt is), but it feels to me like it should be there. Finally, note that I changed the “vowed vengeance” from the repeated “v” (which in some circumstances is useful, but here I find distracting to the flow of the text–”swore vengeance” expresses the same thought without the drawback of being disruptive to the reading).

And even after all that, just to show how my mind works:

Secret Service Agent John Doe rushed after the fleeing assassin, certain the shooter had killed the president. Doe gripped his pistol and swore vengeance. The agent had failed to protect the president but the killer would yet pay.

Now it’s down to 38 words…and I managed to get rid of all the adverbs again.

I was tempted to start the last sentence with “Doe”, but the second sentence has to have the name “Doe” (to avoid the ambiguous “he” where you wouldn’t know if I was refering to Doe or the shooter, which is also why I couldn’t start the last sentence with “He” either). Furthermore, having two sentences in a row start with “Doe” is also disruptive to the text. So in this case, I think the best compromise is to use an abbreviated form of his title.

Likewise, you’ll see I made some comma choices there. When it comes to commas, I don’t pay as much attention to the rules of grammar as I do to the flow of text. Do I want the reader to have a pause there? Even if grammatically correct, if I don’t want the pause I’ll often leave out the comma.

Anyway, as you can see, there are some quick and easy ways to cut out some bloat from your writing as well as tightening it up to avoid the dreaded adverbs that editors tend to hate. Unless you’re editing J.K. Rawlings, in which case the motto is “Pile ‘em high!”

It’s been a while since I’ve had a day like today. NaNoWriMo-while, to be specific. But today I got a 5,000+ word day in writing. I finally got through a specific scene that’s been blocking me for some time in one of the novels I’m working on. This novel is now over 30,000 words long too, so it’s 60% of the way toward being a full-fledged novel (although 50,000 words is still a really SHORT novel).

Anyway, it’s been nice writing like this. Days like this are what really remind me that I am a writer. And I don’t mean that in the sense of “writing is what I do” but instead I mean that in the sense that “writing is what I am.” When a story clicks and it zooms out, it’s the greatest feeling in the world for me :-)

Now I just need to get paid (yeah, I’ve earned enough through self-publishing to buy myself a cup of coffee…but I need enough so I can write full time!).