April 2006

Today at church we had our normal children’s slot down the front which started off talking about trees, roots and fertilizer. And the person doing the talk made the standard sorts of links about feeding the plant and having good roots. He was doing this with a Rewarewa seedling he had and the kids were all paying really close attention.

Then he said that he had a seedling like this planted in his garden and it was his “prayer tree”. Every time he saw it it reminded him to pray and remember God. And then he said he had a seedling there today for any child who wanted one to plant in their garden. So we have one, and it’s planted in a pot until it gets a bit bigger. We’ll water it, feed it and it’ll be there, by the car port, reminding us of God as we leave each day. Excellent.

Dave Zimmerman reflects upon the nature of “cool” over at Strangely Dim: Cooler Than Thou.

From this morning’s email a Damaris article on cyborgs. See Culture Watch - Downloads and upgrades: The Cyborg Future by Philippa Taylor (The Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy). This is a reprint of an article from the CBPP Newsletter (Issue 7, Winter 2005/6).

Received a copy of the Families Commission summary report for What Makes Your Family Tick? today in the mail. Opened up the little booklet and saw this,

If that isn’t a vision of what the kingdom of God is, with the wholeness of shalom, then I don’t know what is. That all our communities, families and others, would be like that.

PDF files of the summary and the full report can be downloaded from the link above.

Also the Families Commission have set up The Couch

The Couch offers a new way for your voice to be heard on issues relating to families. Knowing more about your views will help us in our role to advocate for improved services and support for families. It will also help us to develop well-informed advice on proposed government policies. Couch polls and questionnaires will cover topical subjects such as work-life balance, parenting skills and education, family living standards and more.

So if you have something you’d like to say about families in NZ (and everyone seems to have an opinion) why not give it a go. No use whinging about the state of the family and not being prepared to contribute in some way. You could get ideas and questions from the site, thrash them around with friends, and then submit you thoughts back in.

An article from a few months back by Umberto Eco on the “need” for God in the secular world (with spill over effects like the “Da Vinci Code”). See Telegraph | Opinion | God isn’t big enough for some people.

Even today, I frequently meet scientists who, outside their own narrow discipline, are superstitious - to such an extent that it sometimes seems to me that to be a rigorous unbeliever today, you have to be a philosopher. Or perhaps a priest.

Via : Ernesto Burden | Umberto Eco on The Da Vinci Code’s and the Culture That Idolizes (literally) It.

The title says it all. Go have a look at TechToolBlog » 195 Free Online Programming Books.

Karl, Kim’s cousin and web developer, makes it onto one of Wired.com’s tech blogs at Monkey Bites : Charles the Debugger with his incredibly useful web proxy debugger and testing tool : Charles : Web Debugging Proxy | HTTP Monitor | HTTP Proxy | HTTPS/SSL Proxy | Reverse Proxy.

One of its features is to allow you to set the web proxy to simulate different network speeds, e.g. 56K modem or 256K DSL, so see how your web site works at those speeds. That’s pretty neat and I would have thought essential for testing the usability of web sites (along with things like testing cross-browser and operating system performance).

I’d imagine it would be extremely useful for testing e-learning system where distance students don’t always have the latest and greatest internet connections.

Karl blogs here at XK72 Spacelab - blog of Karl von Randow and you can find out more about the other stuff they do at Cactuslab > Standards-Compliant Web Site Design > Content Management > Auckland NZ.

Continuing their gathering together of related material into mini-portals Science and Theology News have a new section on the concept of emergence and emergent systems. See Science & Theology News - Emergence.

Emergence theorists are not all of one mind, but they do agree that nature’s complex structures — from proteins to cells to brains — are more than simple combinations of their parts. Rather, they “emerged” from lower to higher levels of reality. This means that each level of reality is in some way “richer” than what came before.

This fits in nicely with the previous posting (Greenflame: Emergent systems & the church (revisited)) and might provide some background to the paper linked to there.

Back in 2004 I posted about a paper I’d read called “Complexity Theory as Model and Metaphor for the Church” (See Greenflame: Emergent systems & the church). Finally it’s available online at http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2004/PSCF3-04Wollert.pdf (PDF).

Full reference is:

Wollert, David A. “Complexity Theory as Model and Metaphor for the Church,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 56:1 55-59, M 2004.

The 2006 Human Rights Film Festival is on during May in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch. Picked up a promotional booklet from a local newsagent yesterday and had a skim though. All of it looks interesting. Of particular interest to me is the following,

FROZEN ANGELS
Germany/USA 2005, 91 mins, Directors: Eric Black & Frauke Sandig

No holds are barred in California’s reproduction dream world. The perfect child comes with the promise of a college degree, manners, healthy genes, athletic body, correct gender and skin colour, all chosen from a catalogue. It’s a designer’s creation. Man plays God.

(More details here at Sandig’s website)

Also playing in the festival is,

NGATAHI: KNOW THE LINKS (FESTIVAL CUT ONE)
Aotearoa/New Zealand 2004, 55 mins, Director: Dean Hapeta, Subtitles

Dean Hapeta (Upper Hutt Posse) traces the links between minority cultures, exploring the rich diversity of music, politics and society in his self-billed ‘rapumentary.’ A truly international documentary, with a strong New Zealand flavour, Hapeta creates a mosaic of compelling sounds, visuals and ideas.

Back in early 2004 I posted about it at Greenflame: It’s raining again and the links there are still active.

Stumbled across this online Green Lantern game the other day at DC Kids. Sure it’s Kyle Rayner and not Hal Jordan. And he’s in his original outfit (not enough green and too much “metal”) but it’s the only online Green Lantern game that I know of.

See : DC Kids : Green Lantern Game.

Just read Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys at high speed. Loved it. Couldn’t put it down. (Unlike his “American Gods” which I never finished). Will be trying to get the audio book read by Lenny Henry. This, of course, might be the result of fond childhood memories of Anansi stories - though I have no idea at all where I would have heard them.

I read “Wolves in the Walls” for the first time to my two older boys last night. By the end of the story the three other adults here were listening intently too. They were gripped with tension and laughing at the same time. I wish I could get to the stage show.

Also just finished Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga (Pandora’s Star / Judas Unchained). Hamilton’s picture of the future is in essence transhumanist with longevity and the practical elimination of death. Having said that it’s a fairly uniform picture of posthuman existance - unlike the work of Alastair Reynolds, whose work has included the tensions and interrelations between a post-humanity fragmented by the ways different groups applied technology to augment the human person. I found Hamilton’s work quite readable, while the ideas in Reynold’s are more interesting (though harder to read, I found).

Somewhere along the way I also read J.D. Frazer’s “Money For Content and Your Clicks For Free : Turning Web Sites, Blogs, and Podcasts Into Cash” - which had some good material in it - especially about building online communities.

And I finished Richard’s Burridge’s “Faith Odyssey: A Journey Through Lent”. (Greenflame: Star Lent) It was okay - though I found that the same sources (e.g. 2001, Narnia (SF?), Harry Potter (SF?)) tended to get used repeatedly. I really wanted the science fiction net cast wider (and I was probably grumpy that my favourite books, shows and films weren’t used often (or at all)) - but the weekly themes worked reasonably well to tie the science fiction references, biblical texts and reflections together.

And finally I had a quick skim through the list of 200 “top” science fiction books looked for in academic libraries to see how many I’d read. Quite a few it turns out. See Kevin P. Mulcahy, “Science Fiction Collections in ARL Academic Libraries”, College and Research Libraries. January 2006, Vol. 67, No. 1. Abstract below,

This study assesses the extent to which ARL academic libraries collect science fiction novels. A core list of 200 novels, published between 1950 and 2000, that have either won science fiction awards or been cited on “best” lists were checked against the holdings of 112 ARL libraries. Findings suggest that science fiction is not extensively collected at most libraries studied. The study also assesses differences in how novels are collected by date and by nationality and gender of author. To support in-depth and serious research in a field of increasing scholarly interest, libraries may need to reconsider their collecting practices.

Oh, and I read Arthur C. Clark’s “3001″ because Burridge kept referring to it and the other 2001 books - but it wasn’t really worth the effort.

Anyway, the bedside table is now looking a little bare.

Finishing off some introductory material which includes a (brief) survey of ways technology is viewed or defined. One thing that has struck me in this process is the number of books written about technology and technological issues that never explicitly say what the author thinks technology is. Even a footnote would be useful.

For example, I was sure I was clearly missing the section where Neil Postman explicitly defined technology in his book “Technopoly : The Surrender of Culture to Technology” It was something of a relief to discover I was not the only one (see here and scroll down). (Of course, if there is such a section and I have missed it then please leave a comment below.)

Anyway it’s been serving as a useful reminder in my own writing. Always state clearly somewhere (and hopefully early on) what your own assumptions and definitions are before launching into the discussion.

It was also a relief to discover that John Macquarrie in his book “Heidegger and Christianity: The Hensley Henson Lectures 1993-94” comments that Heidegger’s ideas about technology were somewhat obscure and ambiguous, and that that confusion had spread to his commentators too. Certainly my own notes on his understanding were confusing when I came back to them.

Working through ideas about apprehension about technology (and thinking parallel thoughts about religion). I wonder if this cartoon from gapingvoid captures something. That people don’t necessarily want a nice reason or answer to technology or religion primarily - for starters they’ll settle for peace from concern, apprehension and fear that allows them to move on in life. See gapingvoid: i wasn’t looking for answers.

Related to Good Friday - did the disciples (and others) want answers first or rather reassurance in the face of fear, uncertainty and doubt?

Couple of things of interest this week.

Firstly, Four Door Films have released the rough cut of their 90 minute documentary file “Building Gods” on Google Video. (See Building Gods Rough Cut - Google Video). Haven’t looked at it beyond the first few minutes but it looks like an interesting survey of perspectives on transhumanism. Includes interviews/engagement with Nick Bostrom (philosopher), Kevin Warwick (cyborg), Hugo De Garis (computer scientist), and Anne Foerst (theologian). I downloaded the iPod version and it came in at just over 300MB (ouch!). In the next few days I hope to work my way through it.

Also, I’ve been writing up stuff on different perceptions of technology (and definitions of technology) and in the course of that came back to the following paper. It’s one of the few I’ve seen which goes beyond identifying the gap between the ‘lay’ public’s attitude to technology (here biotechnology) and that of those who make the decisions about the technology. It includes the description of and engagement with some of the concerns raised by ordinary people that came out of individual and group interviews and discussion groups. See

Deane-Drummond, Celia, Robin Grove-White, and Bronislaw Szerszynski. “Genetically Modified Theology: The Religious Dimensions of Public Concerns About Agricultural Biotechnology.” Studies in Christian Ethics 14, no. 2 (2001): 23-41. (There’s a version online here (though with the footnotes removed).

The questions raised and unease expressed by the public

touch on deep issues concerning the nature of human personhood – indeed of human nature itself. It seems conceivable that the intensity of current controversies around genetically modified crops and foods arises in part from the fact that, in their regulation in the public domain, conflicting ontologies of the person are making themselves felt in the politics of every day life. If this is the case, then Christian theological understandings of the person may be of central analytical significance for helping throw light on what has been going on.

Feeling deluged by the thesis and the effort to get it finished (before it finishes me off )

Blog posts will therefore be few and far between for the forseeable future.

A posting on possible future audiences for comic books (and the genre) at Wired 14.04: Posts: The Gamines Love Gaiman. Coincidentally this fits with the section I’m currently reading out of “Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers (Studies in Popular Culture)” (Matthew Pustz) which is on the bedside table.

Actually, I’m not just reading for interest. I have a couple of ideas about comic books as vehicles for exploring attitudes towards technology that would fit quite nicely in the introductory material in the thesis. Just searching for that elusive footnote to add support to my excursis.

More at gapingvoid: selling more stormhoek.

From Rudi Volti’s book on technological society that I was skimming through today,

Distrust flourishes when people have no ability to participate in decisions that shape their lives, and the inability to affect the course of technological change can produce a mixture of naïve hope and paranoid reaction. A realistic sense of control, including a sense of having some control over technology, is essential for an individual’s mental health. No less important, widespread participation in the shaping of technology is essential for democracy. Technology’s benefits cannot be separated from its costs, and thus it becomes necessary to determine if the former justify the latter. If a society is truly democratic, such decisions will be made with as much citizen participation as possible. Moreover, the benefits and costs of technology are not shared equally, and once again the apportioning of costs and benefits should be done in as participatory a manner as possible.

Rudi Volti, Society and Technological Change. 4th ed. New York: Worth Publishers, 2001. (pp.14-15)

Back last September I posted about the Nature comparative survey of Wikipedia and the Encyclopaedia Britannica (see Greenflame: Who’re you going to call (or rather, look up)?). Now it looks as if things are getting a bit nastier with Britannica taking out newspaper ads against Nature and its survey. See,

• The Times : Britannica hits back in Wikipedia row
• The Times : Britannica ’still rules’ over web rival
• Independent Online Edition > Media : Wikipedia under the microscope over accuracy.

Britannica’s defense is here (PDF). And the responses from Nature are here - Britannica attacks : Nature and Nature’s responses to Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Related link: Guardian : Reboot : Is Wikipedia a reliable source of information?

Today’s posting inspired by the UserFriendly cartoon here.

After various third-party claims of installing and running Windows XP on the new Apple Intel-based systems Apple come out with an official dual-boot solution. It’s not particularly graceful - Windows will need a separate disk partition and it won’t run Windows simultaneously with OS X (a la Virtual PC or similar) - but it’s officially supported and will tick the appropriate boxes for corporate buyers. And it will open the door to access to more PC games hopefully.

See Apple: Windows on a Mac is here | Tech News on ZDNet.

Also see Wired News: Intel Macs: Doublethink Different for why Intel are now the “good guys” after years of vilification.

Article on the Nature website about replacement bladder sacs grown externally from patients’ tissue and then reimplanted. See news @ nature.com - Scientists grow bladder replacement in lab - Trial points way to engineered organs using patients’ own cells.

Damaris’ Culture Watch have two new articles up online. The first is a brief study guide for the movie Serenity, and the second a more in depth reflection upon the anime film Ghost in the Shell 2 : Innocence.

See Culture Watch - Serenity and Culture Watch - Ghost in the Shell 2 : Innocence.

One of the comments last week at the conference was about where the Church’s voice was concerning climate change and environmental issues. In the wake of the international climate change conference here in NZ last month NZ and Pacific Anglican bishops are calling for more government action in this area. See NZ Herald - Bishops warn on global warming - 05 Apr 2006 - Religion and beliefs.

Doesn’t appear to be a press release on the NZ Anglican web site but the Auckland Diocese carries this about the climate change conference.

Picked up a couple of volumes from ATF Press last week that I had been meaning to get for a while. The one on determinism and reductionism has some essays that will intersect with my research. Being the collector that I am I had to restrain myself from picking up several other (but less immediately relevant) volumes in the same series. It was a shame that they didn’t have “Habitat of Grace” in the sale as I’d quite like to get hold of that to go with the two below and my copy of “God, Life, Intelligence and the Universe“.

IPM/ATF - Creation and Complexity : Interdisciplinary Issues in Science and Religion edited by Stephen Pickard and Christine Ledger.

IPM/ATF - Beyond Determinism and Reductionism : Genetic Science and the Person edited by Roland Chia and Mark Chan.

The entire ATF Science and Theology Series can be found here.

ASU picked up a half-million dollar grant from the Metanexus Institute to look at the “the challenges posed to humanity by new advances in the life sciences, technology, and the neurosciences” in a new project “Facing the Challenges of Transhumanism: Religion, Science, and Technology”. The project is based at the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict.

Full press release at - ASU News > Grant boosts science, religion dialogue.

Returned early Saturday morning from the Great Southern Land across the Tasman. The conference was good - the plenary talks were engaging and a couple of the papers were really helpful. Met all sorts of interesting people at the conference, though time was pushed for extended dialogue. Several highlights (among many) for me.

• enjoying the company of the people I was staying with in Canberra
• finding another person at the conference who had recently finished a PhD in theology and technology, including work on the imago Dei and technology (I spent a few hours reading the thesis in the library)
• having lunch with Paul in Melbourne and catching up with Darren briefly

However I picked up a nasty cold on the plane on the way over which was a little sapping. Spent today trying to knock it on the head by taking things a bit easier before back into the writing tomorrow.