Got my taxes done and mailed, helped the parents moving things to storage (which I’ll consider an upper-body workout), and am spending time with piano and guitar. Looking forward to Thursday.

The Wise Man’s Fear (2011)

The second book in the Kingkiller Chronicles. I drank up the book as soon as I got my hands on it from a friend.

It was as entertaining as the first book, maybe a little more. I was starting to complain about how all-over-the-place the plot was, but it’s nice to not have a direct arrow from beginning to end of the book. I have a feeling this sporadicity will be a way the author frames some interesting reveals at the end of the series.

Speaking of the plot, not much has been done to advance towards the “kingkiller” part. I can’t think of a way that this could be fit into the last book of a trilogy.

As for the Gary Stu complex the main character seems to have, it only gets “worse” in this book as in addition to his legendary skills with magic, the lute, engineering, schmoozing, and storytelling, he adds sexual skills to his repertoire.

Now begins the wait for book three. This might have gotten me into fantasy novels and I’ll look for some others to fill the void. Time for a look through the Hugo Awards.

The Norton Introduction to Philosophy

One thing I’ve been learning from this is the importance of names, for example “No Tolerance” as referring to the “no perfectly good being would allow suffering if they could prevent it” part of an argument. Later this short name can be used to discuss things more concisely.

Chapter 1: Does God Exist?

I decided to pick one more reading from the first chapter and then move onto the next. For no particular reason, Louise Antony was chosen. Probably since it’s a woman, and someone that’s still alive.

Louise Antony (1953-): No Good Reason - Exploring the Problem of Evil

Theism denotes the view that a singular omnipotent, omniscient, and all-good God exists. Atheists deny this.

The typical argument by Hume is the following:

1. No Tolerance: No perfectly good being would allow suffering if they could prevent it.
2. An omnipotent would always be able to prevent suffering
3. Therefore if there were a morally good and omnipotent being, there would be no suffering.
4. There is suffering.
5. Therefore there is no being which is both morally good and omnipotent

But the first premise is false, considering that evil might be good in the long run for certain scenarios. Think of a parent allowing their kid to touch a hot stove to learn the dangers of hot things.

Considering this, the resulting argument cannot prove there is no God.

Questions:

What’s the difference between the logical argument from suffering and the evidential argument from suffering?

• The logical argument from suffering is that suffering shows that there is no God. The characteristics of God are incompatible with the being tolerating suffering. The evidential argument is that it is very probably true (from the answers: Provides strong evidence that) God does not exist given the toleration of suffering.

Does Antony accept the logical argument from suffering?

• No, as the premise of no perfectly good being allowing suffering is not true since theists can soundly and logically find a way to rationalize God existing in a world with suffering.

According to Antony, what’s wrong with the following response to the problem of suffering? “Good parents sometimes allow their children to suffer in order to teach them important lessons. God allows us to suffer for the same reason.”

• God could conceivably create a reality where we would not need to suffer but still be taught these important lessons.

True or false: According to Antony, theists can be satisfied with the conclusion that there could be a reason for God to allow suffering.

• False, since Antony claims that theists need to find a good reason for God to allow suffering.
• I like the answer from the back of the book: “You can’t defend an abusive parent by insisting that there could be a morally sufficient reason for the abuse. If you can’t provide a plausible reason, the only rational conclusion is that the parent is not good.”

Things I’m Liking

• Richard D. James (Aphex Twin) speaks to Tatsuya Takahashi : A conversation between two very talented people from two very different cultures.
• Nanoloop: I bought this app for my ipod touch in high school and it’s been the only paid app I have installed on every handheld since. It’s really fun to play around with at a bus stop or when I want to get my creative juices flowing.

Misc

My debian testing laptop is stuck in China time and I can’t figure out how to fix it.