Amazon has a damn good pre-release price ...

On Freedom of Religion and the Secular State.

Mind you, if you live in Australia and would like to avoid overseas postage, you can always try my pals at Embiggen Books or Readings, or via the Wiley site. And it will doubtless be in many fine bookshops.

The release date (!) is now only about five or six weeks away: currently set at 18 January 2012.


*"This is a must-read: Blackford has given us a forceful and persuasive book that will have a big impact on the debate it addresses." AC Grayling, Professor of Philosophy and Master of the New College of the Humanities, London

Slate on Michael Crichton's posthumous novel

An incomplete novel by Michael Crichton, Micro, has been completed by Richard Preston, and is now being published for our delectation.

I have ambivalent attitudes to Crichton's work. I actually enjoy his novels purely at the narrative level, taken as suspenseful techno-thrillers. However, there is often a Luddite tendency that I find downright annoying. His final book, before his death, Next, was quite an amusing satire, and it had some bright elements among all the anti-technological fog - though in many ways it was his weakest novel in plotting and characterisation. I haven't read the posthumously published Pirate Latitudes.

I'll probably read Micro, if only for the sake of completeness: I've read almost all of Crichton's famous novels (The Andromeda Strain, etc., through to Prey), as opposed to the pseudonymous work from his earlier career. Although it was more technophilic than technophobic, my own book, Kong Reborn, was intended to be somewhat in the style of a Michael Crichton techno-thriller.

Some of the new book sounds dire, though - what is going on with the misunderstanding of the nano scale that the Slate article refers to? That's not a matter of pedantry: for a novel like this, it would be pretty basic.

Some census data on religious affiliation in Australia

I don't have any complicated or brilliant thesis to demonstrate with these summary figures, though they are suggestive. They capture some important census data over time about religious affiliation in Australia. I give information from the first census in 1901 and then from the three most recent censuses - i.e., 1991, 2001, and 2006 - for which data has been released.

Data from the 2011 census will be available in mid-2012. Needless to say, I'll be fascinated to see the new figures.

I have used this historical data from the Yearbook Australia, 2006 (published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)) for pre-2006 figures.

For 2006 figures I have used this ABS media fact sheet.

In each case, I provide: the percentage of Anglicans; percentage of Catholics; total percentage of Christians; percentage of believers from non-Christian religions; percentage of "no religion" (atheist, etc.); and percentage who did not reply, refused to reply, or replied in a way that was considered inadequate to count.

There will be various reasons from year to year for the fluctuating "inadequately described" figure, and this will, I imagine, affect some other figures slightly. All the same, we can see some overall trends. Among them, we can see the steady decline of the Anglican Church and a strong rise in the "no religion" category over time. In 2006, these two categories were equal. We also see a very gradual rise in the "other religion" category.

1901

- ANGLICAN .......... 39.7
- CATHOLIC ........... 22.7
TOTAL XIAN .......... 96.1
OTHER REL. ............ 1.4
NO RELIG/N ............ 0.4
INAD DESCR ............ 2.0
===============


1996

- ANGLICAN .......... 22.0
- CATHOLIC ........... 27.0
TOTAL XIAN .......... 70.9
OTHER REL. ............ 3.5
NO RELIG/N .......... 16.6
INAD DESCR ............ 9.0
===============


2001

- ANGLICAN .......... 20.7
- CATHOLIC ........... 26.6
TOTAL XIAN .......... 68.0
OTHER REL. ............ 4.9
NO RELIG/N .......... 15.5
INAD DESCR .......... 11.7
===============


2006

- ANGLICAN .......... 18.7
- CATHOLIC ........... 25.8
TOTAL XIAN .......... 63.9
OTHER REL. ............ 5.6
NO RELIG/N .......... 18.7
INAD DESCR .......... 11.9

Currently reading - The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker

I won't be discussing this book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and its Causes, in any detail ... at least not today! That's mainly because I have so far to go before I finish. It's a huge book (800 large-format pages, counting notes, bibliography, and everything else), and I will need a week to read it.

What I can say, though, is that it confirms something I already knew: Pinker is an excellent stylist. He provides a splendid model for anyone who writes non-fiction books. The Better Angels of Our Nature is written in clear, finely polished prose that makes you want to keep reading, reading, and turning the pages. It's not dumbed down or patronising to the reader, yet the facts and thoughts are presented as simply as their inherent complexity and difficulty permit. The sentences are well-structured, with a sense of rhythm and voice. On a larger scale, the stucture of the book creates a desire to find out more and more about the overall thesis - how is it all going to fit together?

I pay Steven Pinker the best compliment that I've ever received, myself, from a fellow professional author: This fucker knows how to write!

Sunday Supervillainystuff - Striker comes out to Lightspeed

Hmmm, not much villainy here, so we'll strike out (as it were) the reference to that in the title.

Striker, who can manipulate electricity, is one of the teenage heroes of Avengers Academy. He's among the students in an academy, run by the Avengers no less, for kids who are at risk of becoming supervillains. Avengers Academy is a relatively new book, with largely new characters, and it is building up its own mythos and ethos. If you ask me, Christos Gage is doing a great job in scripting the series, and, indeed, it's a fine example of what can be done with the (seemingly limiting) medium of mainstream superhero comics.

The not-so-shocking, but rather surprising, Avengers Academy news this week is that Striker is coming out, in issue #23, as gay. In the same conversation, Julie Power, a.k.a. Lightspeed, a character who has already shown lesbian tendencies in the past, is explicitly revealed as bisexual.

I'm linking to some discussion of all this on the gay-friendly fan site, Scans Daily (where the main emphasis is on Julie Power), and to an interview with Christos Gage. If you click on the links, you'll have a better chance to read the dialogue in the panels I've posted.

There have been some notes of caution about what Marvel is doing with Striker and Lightspeed, especially since Striker was abused as a child. The whole thing could play out in a way that merely reproduces some destructive myths. It looks, however, as if Gage is very aware of all the issues and will be approaching this with a lot of knowledge and sensitivity (see below for what he says in the interview).

A story scenario like this is always a risk, no matter how good everyone's intentions might be, but I get a good feeling from Gage. With luck, this story could be an example of very positive handling of LGBT issues in pop culture.

These paras from Gage's interview particularly impressed me:

I wasn't worried about a backlash for him being gay. I think it's pretty clear, if you go back and read issue #5, that this is something that's been part of his character all along, not something I did to draw attention to the book or pursue a political agenda or whatever. I think readers will realize that his shameless flirting, viewed in retrospect, was always intended to be revealed as a false front. It's been a lot of fun already to see fans on message boards look back to moments like those in issue #5, or issues #18 and 19, when the kids thought they were going to die and the others were kissing and saying goodbye while Striker's concern for Veil was much more that of a friend. So to my mind, anyone who is upset about him coming out would probably be upset about there being a gay character in the book at all, and there's not a heck of a lot I can do about that. I generally try to keep overt, agenda-driven politics (as opposed to political views expressed by a character that are a reflection of who that character is) out of my comics, and respect a wide range of different viewpoints, to me this is a human rights issue, not a political one. I think you see that feeling reflected in our country, in the generational shift that shows younger people, whether they lean left or right politically, overwhelmingly seeing homosexuality as something inherent in a person rather than a "lifestyle choice."

The thing I did have a little bit of concern about was that no one mistakenly think I was implying that being abused as a child somehow "made" Striker gay. Quite the opposite -- if he hadn't been abused, he may well have figured this out a long time ago. But making that clear is on my shoulders. Hopefully, I got it across in the story.

I did also have some trepidation tackling a teenager's coming out story when I'm not gay and I haven't been a teenager since the first Bush administration. But I'm not Asian or female or a mutant or a were-dinosaur, either. I did run the coming out scene in issue #23 past my pal Jim McCann, Eisner-Award-winning writer of "Return of the Dapper Men" and the Avengers Academy backup in "Avengers Solo," because I felt it was a key scene and I wanted to make sure it rang true and didn't take any unintended turns, and he was a tremendous help. Since straight kids don't have to "come out" as straight in a society where it's often just assumed, I did want the perspective of someone who's been there, and I really appreciate him providing it. But going forward, I'm going to approach Striker the same way I approach any of the other characters I write who aren't exactly like me -- in other words, most of them!

The discussion at Scans Daily is interesting in many ways, and I especially like seeing commenters feeling free to share observations like this:

Besides, from personal experience, I can say that what he has Julie say about being bi rings *perfectly* true for me. Sure, the world is more accepting of homosexuality now than it was, say, thirty years ago, but if you're bi, then people who're straight figure it's because you can't get any action with the *opposite* gender so you turn to same-sex partners to try and get your rocks off, while gay people tend to treat you as being a gay person who's still in partial denial. (Ironically, I think this is even more of an issue for bi *males* than bi females; look at how female bisexuality is semi-accepted in the mainstream and has been a staple of pornography since the 70s, yet bi males are almost never depicted in the mainstream, and porn featuring male bisexuality is relegated to the "fetish" section, along with the pregnancy, bondage, and "pick a fold and fuck it!" fat-fetish stuff.

Like she says there, I'm not confused whether I'm straight or gay, it's not a fetish, and I'd really like to have people stop thinking it's either a paraphilia (I've got enough of *those* already, thank you!) or confusion on a binary issue. (For the record, I'd say it's 60% hetero/40% homosexual; I'm pretty even on who I'm attracted to, but that's more mental than physical; when it comes to random dirty pictures, I generally find women more attractive than men.)

These sorts of issues and experiences deserve an airing, and if Marvel can provoke some positive discussion about them ... more strength to its arm.

Why is it worse to slaughter horses (for food) than to slaughter cows (for food)?

I can totally understand why many people are vegetarian or vegan. In particular, I can understand why they might not want to give their financial support to factory farming by eating the meat of animals raised under factory farm conditions. Similar considerations can apply to eating eggs and drinking milk - if the product was gained only at the expense of animal suffering, that seems, to me, to be a problem. Irrespective of whether we are somehow objectively bound to care about the suffering of non-human animals, I actually do care (this sentence can be ignored by everybody ... except for those few people who might want to pounce, and object, by asking me, "But, dude, aren't you some kind of moral sceptic?").

I "get" all of that, and I've read much of Peter Singer's work (for example) on animal ethics (or, rather, human ethics relating to the treatment of non-human animals). This post is, therefore, not actually about justifying the slaughter of non-human animals for food. Whether or not that can be justified in some or all circumstances is a much bigger, more general question than I'm raising here. Instead, I want to focus on a rather narrow point.

Over the last few days, I've seen quite a lot of people on Facebook sharing this article, which decries new legislation in the US that, supposedly, relaxes or ends a ban on slaughtering horses for food for human beings.

What I don't "get" is how such a species-defined ban could have been justified in the first place. If we don't ban the slaughter of bulls and cows for food, what is the justification for a ban on slaughtering horses for the same purpose ... assuming that the horses are treated no worse than the bulls or cows (which could be ensured by appropriate regulations)? Unless it's being suggested that horses are somehow more sensitive, and therefore suffer more (perhaps their greater intelligence makes them more aware of what is happening to them?), what is the relevant distinction here? No argument relating to different vulnerabilities or sensitivities is developed in the article.

It appears that the justification for treating horses and cattle differently is not based on the inherent cognitive and physiological properties (and associated vulnerabilities or sensitivities) of horses, compared to cattle. Instead, it seems to be based on the thought that the respective kinds of animals have different cultural significances in the US. But of course, the US is supposed to be a society marked by social pluralism, so why should that distinction be a factor for the law to take into account? The law should not be imposing a particular set of cultural significances merely for its own sake - at least not by means of outright prohibitions.

(As an aside, there might sometimes be justification for promoting certain cultural values through government programs that ultimately depend on taxes to underwrite them. Even if that's so, using outright bans, which leaves citizens no room to dissent in their own lives, is another matter. As with much else, I devote some discussion to this in Freedom of Religion and the Secular State.)

I confess that my stomach turns at the thought of eating horsemeat. That is simply because of the way I've been socialised. I recoiled in horror the one time I was actually offered horsemeat in a restaurant (this happened in Padua, Italy). But I don't expect the law to impose my socialised tastes on everyone else who lives in the same pluralistic society as I do (in my case, Australia, but the same would apply to the US). It's clear, moreover, that Western societies don't need laws that, in effect, ban eating horsemeat (Italy, for example, seems to get along just fine without such laws). Nor is this a situation where horses are an endangered species that we can continue to enjoy only if we take special protective measures.

So how are such laws (as opposed, say, to regulations requiring that horses which are slaughtered for food to be treated at least as humanely as cattle) to be justified?

Every time I read the article in question, it simply makes me question the rationality of the organisation concerned: the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Or if not its rationality, its intellectual honesty. The piece reads like blatant emotionally-manipulative propaganda. It could only have the effect of making me think of the organisation as less credible than I might otherwise.

By all means tell me what you think I'm missing here.

A new biography of Kurt Vonnegut

According to this story in The Guardian, a new biography of Kurt Vonnegut plays up an unpleasant side of his personality. I wonder whether it does, or whether that is journalistic spin. I wouldn't assume that any biographical subject is going to come out of an in-depth study seeming "nice" all the time. Even I am said to have my grumpy moments.

It sounds like an interesting book, one way or the other. Vonnegut was one of the greats of the second half of the twentieth century. Books such as The Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, and Slaughterhouse-Five are satirical classics. Even though I am probably in the minority, I have a special fondness for Breakfast of Champions.

Jenny has a new poem in Midnight Echo magazine

Jenny Blackford keeps up the honour of the household with a new poem in Midnight Echo magazine.

Looks interesting - a symposium in France on enhancement technologies

Within the framework of the CNRS proj. named "EpistHOMME+", we are
pleased to host:

Enhancing Human Experience via Emerging Technologies -March 27-28, 2012

Ingenieurium & Laval Theatre, France

Young and old alike believe that the human experience could gain
something if better informed about up-coming technologies. Learning
about them at an early stage helps in making key decisions about one's
personal future. Although the approach is somewhat individual and
devoted to those concerned, collectively oriented health and
entertainment will gain from observing individual practices in the
matter. Government policy incorporating emergent technology progress
through monitoring will renew itself in a relevant way. However, in
the name of progress people are increasingly willing to accept risk;
the possible downfall of this movement is its ability to promote
taking risks. But then again, could we or would we want to stop it? If
we are to enhance the human experience, the pros and cons of each
situation must be considered. Modifying or augmenting humans surely
raises a certain number of issues. What are they? What aspect of life
should one proceed to enhance? Which sectors or issues should become
priority elements? Which academic disciplines are involved and why?
What limits technological change? Does one have an acceptance
threshold? If so, how would one express it? What are the long term
implications of enhancement? Establishing a typology of possible
applications and their contexts would be desirable for this symposium
on enhancing members of our society.

The following non-exhaustive list may be used to provoke thought on
this topic: Keywords & Topics:

Definitions of enhancement ▪ Robot companions for citizens ▪
Jungling multiple identities ▪ Advanced interfaces for increasing
social presence ▪ Augmented health ▪ Epistemology of tech.
innovation ▪ Care-giving robots ▪ Psychological analysis of
acceptance ▪ Augmented Well-being ▪ Ubiquitous internet or
computing ▪ Social roles in emerging tech. contexts ▪ Holistic,
pragmatic and systemic approaches to resolving well-being difficulties
▪ Augmented Context-Awareness ▪ Communication enabling and
enhancing tech. ▪ Incommunicability ▪ Human factors psychology and
needs assessment ▪ Mind/body problem ▪ New worlds and belief
revision ▪ Moral and ethical dimensions of enhancement ▪ Hybrid
engineering ▪ Progress and technological obsolescence ▪ Co-
constructed experiences ▪ Interventionism or Science policy issues
▪ The notions of Self or Identity in human experience ▪ Public
information points and communication devices ▪ Technological
Singularity success or failure ▪ Roles of otherhood in one's
experiences ▪ Cognitive enhancement ▪ Theoretical controversies ▪
Emergent intentional states ▪ The intersection of the Arts, design
and technology ▪ Transhumanistic stances ▪ Augmented emotion ▪
etc.

Chair: Colin T. SCHMIDT, Le Mans University & Arts et Metiers
ParisTech Lab, Laval France
Assistant to the Chair: Jayesh S. PILLAI : jayesh.spillai@gmail.com

Keynote Speakers:
AUBRY DE GREY. (Confirmed.) Biomedical Gerontologist SENS Foundation
(UK)
JAMES MOOR. (Confirmed.) Professor of Ethics and Philosophy, Dartmouth
College (USA)
KEVIN WARWICK. (Confirmed.) Professor of Cybernetics, Reading
University (UK)

Laval Virtual Gala Dinner, March 28, 20h (Exhibition Hall – Salle
Polyvalente)

Program Committee
Jean-Claude ANDRE. Scientific Advisor to the CNRS (Risk Assessment and
Nanotechnologies) & Institute of Engineering and Systems Sciences for
forecasting, Socially Responsible Research (FR)
Jean-Michel BESNIER. CNRS Research Director in Philosophy, Centre for
Applied Epistemology (CREA) Ecole Polytechnique & University of Paris
4 (FR)
Paul BOURGINE. CNRS Research Director in Complex Systems, Centre for
Applied Epistemology (CREA) Ecole Polytechnique Paris (FR)
Nicole D’ALMEIDA. Professor of Communication, CELSA University of
Paris 4 (FR)
Jérôme GOFFETTE, Philosophy of Science, University Lyon 1—Claude
Bernard & ENS, currently authoring "Human Enhancement - An
Interdisciplinary Inquiry" (Palgrave) (FR)
Aubry DE GREY. Biomedical Gerontologist and Chief Science Officer,
SENS Foundation & Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research, advisor to
Humanity+, Maximum Life, Alcor and the Singularity Institute for
Artificial Intelligence (USA, UK)
Edouard KLEINPETER. iscc-CNRS Scientific Officer, Specialist of
Utopias, Human Enhancement and Communication, Paris (FR)
Lorenzo MAGNANI. Professor and Director, Computational Philosophy Lab,
Pavia University & Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou (P.R.China, IT)
James MOOR. Professor of Ethics, Dartmouth College NH USA, Barwise
Prize 2006, Former Editor-in-chief of Minds and Machines, (USA)
Vincent MULLER. Professor of Philosophy, American College of
Thessaloniki & FHI University of Oxford (GR, UK)
Jacques PERRIAULT. Emeritus Professor of Social Informatics,
University Paris 10 (Nanterre-Défence), Senior advisor to the issc-
CNRS, Honorary President of the French Society for Information and
Communication Sciences -SFSIC- (FR)
Serge PROULX. Professor of Social Informatics, UQAM Montréal &
Télécom ParisTech (CA, FR)
Marc ROUX. President of the French Society for Transhumanism
(‘L'Association Française Transhumaniste : Technoprog)
Natasha VITA-MORE. University of Plymouth & Chair Humanity+ (UK)
Shunji YAMANAKA. Industrial Designer, President of Leading Edge Design
corp., Professor at the Faculty of Environment and Information
Studies, Keio University, (Awards: Good Design 1989; Germany’s iF
Product Design Awards 2001, 2005; Good Design Award 2004; Mainichi
Design Award, the Designer of the Year in Japan 2004; Good Design
Award Gold Prize 2006; Good Design Award Ecology Design Prize 2006) &
2009 Kokuyo Design Award Jury Chairman, Japan


DEADLINE to submit a paper: January 23rd, 2012 <<<<
Submission website: www.laval-virtual.org
- Submission deadline: 23 January 2012
- Notification to Authors: 7 February 2012
- Final Camera-Ready Submission: Until 29 February 2012
- The authors of the best publications will be invited to submit a
paper in the international journal IJODIR

Ingenieurium
4 rue de l’Ermitage
53000 Laval France
06 26 26 66 48
&
Le Théâtre de Laval,
34, rue de la Paix
53013 LAVAL FRANCE
Tél. : 02 43 49 19 55


A WORKSHOP SPONSORED BY ARTS ET METIERS PARISTECH and
ORGANISED IN COOPERATION WITH VIRTUAL REALITY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
2012
SUPPORTED BY THE FRENCH NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH CENTRE's
COMMUNICATION SCIENCES INSTITUTE, FRANCE
HTTP://WWW.ISCC.CNRS.FR

- - please circulate - - -


--

C.T.A. SCHMIDT . D.Phil. Sorbonne (B.Sc., MA, M.Phil.)

New issue of JET taking shape

The special minds/machines issue of The Journal of Evolution and Technology - mainly related to mind uploading and related topics - is now taking shape.

You can find my editorial here ... and you can click on the JET logo to go from there to our home page and see how much of the issue has been published so far. There's more to come, and there will be something for everyone (and probably something for everyone to hate).

When this issue is complete, over the coming weeks, it will be the size of a small book, and it will capture many viewpoints, including those of both enthusiasts and sceptics about mind uploading. As always, my role as an editor is finding good material and doing whatever I can, in working with authors, to make it even better ... it is not about publishing pieces that happen to reflect my own views.

I tend to be a bit of sceptic about uploading, myself, though not a dogmatic or especially enthusiastic one. And I've got to say that Mark Walker's pro-uploading article is very good. It may convince you, and it may be one of the most important pieces that we've published on my watch. I could say something similar about Nick Agar's sceptical piece. Really, the whole issue is going to be strong.

Hey, and it's free - you can read it all online without any requirement to subscribe or register.

Thanks to my guest co-editor, Linda MacDonald Glenn, and our Managing Editor, Marcelo Rinesi.

I'll doubtless have more to say as the issue nears its final form.

Edit: I have just a little bit more to say over at Talking Philosophy.