Nerd42

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This is an unfinished work in progress!

[edit] The Gospel According to Nerd42

Alternately, every section could be entitled, "God" since every section contains information about God and also every section could be entitled "How to Understand All the Other Sections."

[edit] Intro

[edit] "Who are you?"

I am a pretty weird guy.

Quite often, I will say some pretty crazy stuff, and people not only wonder what on Earth I'm talking about, but more specifically, which planet I am from. Recently, someone on an Internet Relay Chat server said to me, (paraphrasing) "It seems that you have fundamental disagreements with the underlying assumptions and values of modern civillization."

The reason for this is very simple: it is because I have fundamental disagreements with the underlying assumptions and values of modern civillization.

I might mention at this point, that if you don't want to know or don't care, then just don't read this. The purposes of this document are 1. to help me become better able to understand and articulate my own worldview, 2. to help other people who read it gain a better understanding of my worldview and 3. to help other people help me reach a better understanding of their worldview.

[edit] "Why should I care?"

Because my beliefs and opinions are very interesting, and may help you find more of the truth, whether or not they are true in themselves.

[edit] "What is your worldview?"

To people who come from different cultures from mine, (a description that fits people who live across the street from me here in the USA just as well as it does people I talk to on the Internet from Canada, Europe or places even further away) my beliefs may seem to be somewhat of an enigma. I don't claim to believe in extremism, but I am more of a political conservative (both socially and fiscally) than George W. Bush is. I claim to be a Christian who believes in God, yet I will often agree common critisms directed towards major Christian doctrines. I agree with the statement, "The Bible is the word of God," yet I say that the Bible has errors in it. I say that I am not a Mormon, but that I believe in the Book of Mormon. I say that I believe in Hell, but that I don't think non-Christians will nessicarily go there.

In short, I have a very unique worldview - one that only I believe in. Anyone who is an independent thinker has a unique worldview, and I think everyone should be an independent thinker, but I think mine is more unique than most.

By the way, I am not dancing around the question, but the answer is so lengthy that it takes up most of the rest of this essay.

In this essay, I am trying to communicate my worldview as accurately, completely, concisely and logically as I can.

[edit] Language

[edit] "How are you going to communicate your worldview?"

For communication to take place, several things have to happen. There has to be a sender (me), there has to be a message, (my worldview) there has to be a reciever (you) and these all have to be using the same protocol. (a word which here means, "speaking the same language")

I will have to use words - written words.

Language can be a very confusing thing. When discussing language, there are two slogans I use: the first one is "Words Mean Things." This is because they do.

However, they usually mean completely different things to different people. For example, take a word like "Love"

What do I mean by "love"? When I tell you, "I love you" do I mean I like being around you or that I want to sleep with you or that I have a general concern for your well-being that may or may not be more important to me than my concern for my own or that I admire some ability you have ("I love you guys" to musicians or athletes) or am I talking to an inanimate object ("I love you, car") or does it just mean that I have warm fuzzy feelings to do with you that I don't really understand and/or can't define?

An inability to agree on protocol (define terms) results in a total failure to communicate. Anyone who knows much about computer networks will agree with me on this point. Hence, saying, "I love you" is completely meaningless without an explaination of exactly what that means to you, personally.

Looking back over what I just wrote, though I had no intention of this being useful for more than the purpose I originally wrote it for, (to explain something about language) I think any geeks looking for advice on relationships should write that bit down. That was a good bit.

[edit] "How do you define terms?"

One way could be to use a dictionary. There are many problems with dictionaries however. One is that a dictionary, by it's very nature, defines a word using other words - which are also defined different ways by different people. If you look up the definitions of the definitions - and then their definitions, and so on, you would eventually start going in circles as words define each other, and we'd never be able to agree on protocol.

Another problem is that there are hundreds, or even thousands of English dictionaries in existance, both in and out of print - none of which agree with one another. There are an infinity of subtle differences in the meanings of words from dictionary to dictionary and from year to year. The language, and the meanings of individual words are changing all of the time, with no objective way to measure them.

Since I study the Bible and other old documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, I have to have a standard to measure what the words in those documents meant at the time they were written, because of how the language has changed since that time. I have to use a dictionary that is from that time period.

So, I often quote from Noah Webster's 1828 English Dictionary: the first ever American dictionary of the English language, as the final authority on what an English word is "supposed" to mean. As the fictional character Professor Henry Higgins from the Broadway musical "My Fair Lady" said about the Engilsh language, "In America, they haven't used it for years."

However, I am neither Noah Webster nor Henry Higgins. So, in order that my words will mean what I mean they mean, we're going to have to use my protocol. When I use words, especially powerful words like "Truth", "Faith, "Logic", "Science", "Evil", "Good", "Love" or "Antidisestablishmentarianism" I will often have to stop and define what that word means to me. What cerrtain English words mean to me and people with similar belief structures to mine, is completely different from what the rest of the world often means when they use the words. The reason for this is that I am right, and the rest of the world is wrong.

I call it "English42".

I have been asked, (heavily paraphrasing) "Since you are trying to communicate with the rest of the world, why don't you just invent new words to describe these concepts that don't have proper words for them instead of hijacking existing words to mean what you mean they mean?" If I did that, I would have no way to define the new words without completely inventing my own language, and because I am not an expert in linguistics, if I did that, nobody would understand me and I would sound very silly when I talk. Also, it is because when words mean things, they have power.

So, words are going to mean what I mean they mean, and I will try to explain what I mean they mean as best I can.

[edit] "What is the second slogan about language?"

The second slogan I use when talking about language is, "Don't make a man an offender for a word"

That is a concept that I get out of my religion (specifically, it comes from the RLDS Doctrine and Covenants Section 119:7d) but most people can find justification for the concept in their own religion (Search the Bible for "tongue" - it doesn't use the same words but it says the same thing) or at least somewhere in their own general sense of ... whatever you have when you don't have a religion. I am prone to make mistakes, therefore, whatever I say is not nessicarily true and also not nessicarily what I mean to say.

I may say some things that offend some people, but please do not be offended at my saying something I don't really mean by accident. Call me up, say "This doesn't seem right" and I will try to express it more clearly.

However, you are completely welcome to be offended at things that I really mean. That's your business - no fault of mine.

[edit] Philosophy

[edit] "Why are you going to talk about philosophy?"

To understand my worldview, you must first have an understanding of my underlying philosophy about what reality is.

[edit] "What is philosophy?"

Philosophy means abstract thoughts about life generally and/or about the whole Universe. Now, philosophy is very impractical. A wise person, (don't remember who) once said, "All philosophy is a waste of time."

It is - by itself. However, philosophy can be a catalyst to understanding other ideas, and that is how I am using it here.

[edit] "So, are you a realist or an idealist?"

"If a tree falls in the middle of the forest, and no one is around to hear it, did it still make a noise?"

Those two are essentially the same question expressed in different words. Realists think of things (events, for example, like the tree falling) as being objectively real - outside the human mind in a real universe where real things happen. Idealists believe that perception is reality - that the tree didn't really fall if the concept of it falling never entered a human mind. A realist would answer, "Yes" to that quesiton while an idealist would answer "No" or "Maybe" or would give some other nonsense answer. I've heard that traditional wisdom says that realists usually outnumber idealists by a factor of about 2 to 1 but there is no objective way to measure that, so I can't be sure of it.

I am a realist.

It is the foundation of my whole philosophical worldview that there exists in the Universe absolute truth that is true, always has been true, and always will be true whether you believe in it or not, whether you like it or not, and whether you even know about it or not.

If a tree falls in the middle of the forest, it makes a rather loud "Thud!" reguardless of who is listening and who isn't.

There are two essential ideas here that are very important to understand because they are the base of my entire philosophy: 1. Truth exists. 2. Truth is a constant.

The existance of truth is contraversial. People who do not believe that truth exists are called "Relativists" and disbelief in the existance of truth is called "Philosophical relativism." (Which is quite different from the physical relativism described by Einstein - that same word, "Relativism" is used to describe totally unrelated concepts here. I am talking about philisophical relativism)

Relativism is the belief that "Truth is relative" which is essentially the same thing as saying "There is no truth" or "Truth does not exist" depending on your definition of the word "Truth."

This is the point brought up by Pilate to Christ, "What is Truth?"

I define the word "Truth" several different ways, all of which are correct, applicable and do not contradict one another. I say, "Truth is constant" "Truth is objective" "Truth is universal" "Truth is eternal" "Truth is logical" "Truth is predictable" and "Truth is God" but I do NOT say "Truth is relative" or "Truth is non-existant" or "Truth can change"

Relativistic philosophies argue that the truth is relative to your point of view - that you remain a constant, and the truth changes based on your perception.

My philosophy is the exact opposite: I believe that Truth is Constant - therefore You are Relative! Truth stays the same, while you and your perceptions are what really change.

I was in a discussion with someone once who just couldn't get their head around this concept, or perhaps just thought it was "dumb" but they gave a very good example that was supposed to logically topple this point but actually is one of the strongest logical cases FOR it that I can think of in such simple terms.

He said to imagine taking a Kindergarden class who have just learned the difference between clockwise and counterclockwise to see a windmill. Put half the class in front of the windmill and have them look which way it is spinning (let's say it's spinning clockwise) and have half the class stand behind the windmill and look which way it is spinning from their point of view. Viewed from behind, it's spinning counter-clockwise.

Imagine asking the first half, in the front, which way the windmill is spinning. They'll answer "Clockwise" but if you ask the half in the back which way, they'd say "Counter-clockwise" His point was that reality was perception because they were both correct, yet logically contradictory.

My point is: What moved? Did the windmill move? No - the students moved! Therefore, the windmill (truth) is a constant, while the students (our perceptions) are relative - not the other way around. The windmill didn't move based on the student's perceptions. Furthermore, they are both correct because the contradiction is one of langauge, not of reality. (which is why I spend the whole first section talking about language) The truth, which is a constant, is that "The windmill is spinning clockwise in the front" no matter which side you are standing on.

Our perceptions change, the truth remains the same.

[edit] "How can the truth not change when we observe things changing all of the time?"

We observe things changing because our perceptions are not constant, but they are relative - they are moving not only in space, as in the windmill example, but also in time - presumably in the directly we reguard as "forward" or from the past into the future.

To illustrate how our perceptions move in time, I will now describe the infamous Pencil Example that many people who know me have heard multiple times.

Let's treat this like an experiment, and define a specific event happening at/during a specific space/time location/period. Let's say you're at your house, school, work or whatever and you take a pencil and put it on your desk so that it's on the desk at exactly 10:03 A.M. in your timezone.

Now, that pencil is on that desk. For the sake of argument, let's establish that as a fact, as far as there being universal-constant-truth is concerned.

That. Pencil. Is. On. The. Desk.

It's really really really there. So if truth is a constant, it must be there no matter what else happens: it must be there no matter what you think or do about it.

Have you tried knocking it off the desk yet?

It won't do you any good. Not that you can't knock it off the desk. If you can read faster than anyone I've ever heard of and have fast enough reflexes, you might be able to knock it off the desk before 10:03:01 A.M. has passed. (Exactly one second after 10:03) But you have not changed the truth.

Why?

Because, as we already established, no matter what you do AFTER 10:03, the TRUTH is that the pencil was on the desk at exactly 10:03, it always was going to be on the desk at exactly 10:03 and it always will have been on the desk at exactly 10:03 and there is nothing you can ever do to change that fact, because that fact is objective - it always has existed and will continue to exist whether you believe in it or not.

Go ahead and try it! Make up your own objective facts today!

[edit] "What does choice have to do with this?"

That is a very good question, but because I have not finished laying the groundwork for reality, I won't be able to answer it in a logical way until much later.

Now, the logic of the Pencil Example was based on the assumptions that truth exists and that the Universe exists and that the pencil exists and that the pencil was really on the desk at that specific time that we are assuming really did occur. Those assumptions, which I believe are justified, were accepted for the sake of argument; I only defined an objective fact. I did not prove it to you.

Saying that the sky is blue is not the same thing as actually showing it to someone who's always lived in a cave. (That was a reference to Plato, if anyone cares)

[edit] "How many assumptions did that argument require?"

42!

Finally, we have it, Douglas Adam's Ultimate Question must have been "How many assumptions did that argument require?" Or maybe not ...

But anyway, that is a question that I am still struggling to answer myself. I have been attempting to write down all of the assumptions that I am making in order to assess whether they are reasonable (and true) or not. This is the subject of the next section.

Truth has to exist in order for logic to apply. Logic cannot be used unless the existance of truth itself is taken as a given unarguable constant.

In short, you cannot win a logical argument with a true Relativist, because logic simply does not apply. You cannot agree on protocol to even communicate with a true Relativist because they cannot defiantely believe in using a specific protocol.

A true Relativist would be unable to move, think or even live. Needless to say, true Relativists must be very rare, and might not even exist at all. If you get up in the morning when you'd rather stay in bed, then deep down, you must know that there is objective reality.

[edit] "So, why are you called Nerd42?"

I like using the number 42 because it is a reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything" - the only objective fact in the entire series that all of the characters could be absolutely beyond-a-doubt sure of. The fact that ultimate truth was some meaningless answer like "42" was, if you read between the lines, somewhat of a parody of the idea that there is an ultimate truth that you can really be sure of.

Why have a screen name that is a parody of myself? Because, in many ways, I am a parody of myself, as many people have remarked. I appreciate a rare kind of humor which causes others to laugh at me and me to laugh at myself at the same time. It reminds me not to get angry at people and all worked up about things - a shortcoming I sometimes have had. It reminds me to just play along and laugh at myself instead.

I spend a lot of time in front of the computer - NERD! I believe in absolute objective universal truth - 42!

More sections coming soon.