Skeptical Sunday: A Universe From Nothing

A common claim made by theists of all stripes is that everything can’t have come from nothing, therefore God made it. In its purest form this is called the Cosmological Argument for God. It goes something like this:

-Everything has a cause.
-Nothing can cause itself.
-The causal chain cannot go back forever.
-Therefore there is a First Cause that is itself uncaused and started the causal chain.

The Cosmological Argument has some serious problems, namely that its conclusion directly contradicts its premise. (Everything has a cause >< There is something that does not have a cause.) It’s essentially a case of special pleading. “Everything has to follow the rules except this one thing which doesn’t and that’s God.”

Some apologists have tried to get around this by making the alternate version known as the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which goes like this:

-Whatever begins to exist had a cause.
-The Universe began to exist.
-Therefore the Universe had a cause.

They’ll argue these premises at great length (and when we get to Chapter 5 of CFAC we’ll find William Lane Craig doing exactly that), but ultimately the argument still boils down to a case of special pleading. It asserts two sets of items: things that have a beginning, and things that do not have a beginning. The set “things that do not have a beginning” holds exactly one item: God. So despite the rhetorical hand-waving that they can fill pages/hours going over, the Kalam argument is “Everything but God began to exist,” i.e. “Everything has to follow the rules except this one thing that doesn’t.” Special pleading.

Still, the argument seems potent. It’s absurd to think that something could have come from nothing, right?

…Right?

This video comes from a series of science lectures presented as part of the Atheist Alliance International convention that took place in Burbank, CA a couple of weeks ago (I wish I could have gone, but I couldn’t afford the registration this year. Next year I hope to attend this and The Amazing Meeting). Lawrence Krauss argues that, based on what we know about the universe and the laws of physics, the universe not only could have begun from nothing, but that if there had ever been “nothing,” it would have inevitably had to become “something.”

It’s a pretty dense lecture and it’s a full hour of info, I recommend it for background listening while working on other computer-based tasks.

Making of: Spy Games (Pre-Production)

Last summer, we participated in the 48 Hour Film Project. The film missed the competition deadline, for reasons I’ll discuss when we talk about production, but I was personally so happy with the way project had come together that I wanted to finish it as a short in its own right.

But before we get into that, here’s the final short as uploaded to YouTube (this is not the version that was entered into the actual 48 Hour Film Project):

Short Film: Ghost Story

Today, the first of two new short films that are finally finished and released upon the world. Blog content FTW!

Earlier in the spring, I was asked to be a panelist on the “Comic Con Film School,” a workshop discussion that takes place in the mornings of the Con. The reason was that this year the coordinator of the panel wanted to do a special focus on “visual effects on a shoestring.”

Instead of doing a couple of isolated effects tests, we decided to make a short film that we could use to showcase the various points we planned to make about the production and post-production process. Sean, the coordinator, wrote the script for me to direct.

Before I go on, the film:

(Also a disclaimer: Comic Con does not endorse the contents of this film and was not involved in its production.)

CS Open, Round 1: Scores and Comments

So we’ve gotten scores and feedback for our scenes. I can’t find anything in the rules that says I’m not allowed to share, so…

Undying Devotion

Structure Score: 21
Dialogue Score: 21
Style Score: 20
Originality Score: 22
Total Score: 84

Judge’s Comments: Imaginative scene that never really comes together for the reader.  The shift from ’spirit world’ to ‘human world’ is a bit disorienting early on and the dialogue seems a little heavy-handed and talky.  Lots of action makes for an exciting climax but overall, we’re fairly confused as to what exactly happens and who the characters all are.  Lots of cool stuff here – it just feels like it needs to be reined in a bit.  Good luck.

Hm. Well, I can agree with the reader that the dialogue is “heavy-handed and talky.” I wasn’t thrilled with it either — unfortunately, my feeling was that it was necessary to help the reader understand what the hell was going on (which it still, apparently, failed to do).

I don’t really agree with the rest of the note, as I think what’s happening and who the characters are is all pretty well laid-out in the talky-ass dialogue. Either way, you’d think we’d have gotten more points on style even if s/he found the substance questionable.

Solid State got a better response, but still rather less than I would have hoped:

Structure Score: 21
Dialogue Score: 22
Style Score: 21
Originality Score: 24
Total Score: 88

Judge’s Comments: Very cute, original scene with a never-before-seen setting. The idea that an iPhone could contain a little ‘App City’ and have characters who are all applications and such is truly unique. The dialogue is cute with references to our current pop culture, but a clear story never really takes off. The deception thing never really comes out and the stakes of possibly being deleted in the end feel a little forced and convenient. The final note is exciting but overall, we crave something a little more developed. Good writing and good luck.

I don’t want to sound like sour grapes here, but I’m not sure this reader knows what s/he is talking about. The idea is admittedly less than “truly unique” — as I pointed out last time, it’s basically ReBoot and/or Tron. I really don’t see how we could have made the “deception thing” clearer without becoming “heavy-handed and talky.” I think it’s pretty clear: Shazam has been impersonating the Genius and Pandora has called him out. Even if you don’t understand what those things are, it’s A pretending to be B and confronted by C.

Never comes out? That’s the only thing that happens here.

The reader does make the point that several commenters made, and that I myself pointed out regarding the scene, which is that the deletion feels like it just swoops in at the end rather than being a driving force. The suggestion made to have this conversation take place while running through App City to escape a wave of destruction might have done better — then again, it might have been judged “disorienting.”

Apparently the highest score received by any entry is 97. I would be very interested in reading that scene, or another scene scoring in the mid-to-high 90s, to see what kind of work gets such high marks, because it seems difficult to satisfy these fellows.

Still, Solid State got a decent score, primarily in originality. If either one goes through, it’ll be that one.

If neither one goes through…well, I think from now on we’ll stick to competitions that judge an entire script instead of isolated proto-scenes.

CS Open, Round 1: Solid State

Today’s scene is the one that Anthony conceived. One more time, here’s the premise we’re trying to nail:

Your PROTAGONIST is in a jam. He (or she) had been relying on deception in order to further his objective, but his ENEMY has figured out the ruse. Write the scene in which your protagonist’s LOVE INTEREST confronts him with this information acquired from the enemy – while staging it in a tricky or dangerous situation.

And before I say anything about it, here’s the scene as we submitted it to the competition:

CS Open Entry: Solid State

CS Open, Round 1: Undying Devotion

Continuing off yesterday’s introduction of the CS Open competition, I’m going to start out with the scene for which I wrote the first draft.

Here’s the premise again:

Your PROTAGONIST is in a jam. He (or she) had been relying on deception in order to further his objective, but his ENEMY has figured out the ruse. Write the scene in which your protagonist’s LOVE INTEREST confronts him with this information acquired from the enemy – while staging it in a tricky or dangerous situation.

This scene actually comes from a movie idea I had a few years ago, in which a man moves into a haunted house and falls in love with one of the ghosts. I set that project aside when I began seeing advertisements for Just Like Heaven, although it turns out JLH is more similar to Ghost Dad than it is to my concept.

Before I explain the overall story of the project I working-titled “Undying Devotion,” I’m going to post the scene as submitted to the competition.

As a formatting note, we were told in the contest guidelines to treat the appearance of each character in the scene as we would their first appearance in the script. So even though we would have already met all of these characters previously in the hypothetical full script, they get the CAPITAL LETTER NAMES when they’re introduced here.

CS Open Entry: Undying Devotion

Screenwriting Expo’s CS Open, Round 1

As some readers have noted, it’s been a while since I actually wrote something movie-industry related, other than the 100 Year of VFX video a few weeks back. You know the drill — busy, working, blah-de-blah. But I have been writing a lot in the meantime, just not stuff here.

Anthony and I have been churning out screenplays and treatments, which unfortunately I can’t share here because we’re hoping to get them sold. So there hasn’t been much to report or post about in terms of filmmaking content…

UNTIL NOW!

I’ve finally got some stuff completed such that it’s ready to show and talk about. I’ve got a few actual shorts coming in the next week or so, but for now I want to talk about some recent writing.

Skeptical Sunday: Putting Faith in its Place

YouTube user QualiaSoup has produced a number of fantastic videos, which clearly explain — with entertaining visual aids — the scientific method and the skeptical perspective. I’ve previously posted his treatise on the concept of open-mindedness.

He’s been away, but he returned this week with a fantastic video titled “Putting Faith in its Place.” It actually answers a number of questions that come up on this blog about the subject, from the proper application of faith to “why do you need to prove God doesn’t exist?” It also addresses an overall issue with Case for a Creator.

I highly recommend taking the time to watch all his videos. They are well-thought-out, easy to follow, and will clarify a lot of questions you may have about reality-based worldviews.

Enjoy.

What the hell is wrong with people

The very first sign of the seriousness of the question I’m asking is the fact that I bet at least three things popped into your head as candidates for what I could be referring to.

I’m not going to be talking about any of the things you probably just thought of, though. I’ve got the chupacabra on my mind.

The chupacabra, if you happen not to know (international readers will probably be unfamiliar) is a cryptid, a legendary creature the existence of which is entirely unconfirmed and the evidence for which is wholly anecdotal (see also: Loch Ness Monster, Sasquatch, Compassionate Conservative).^[1]

Its name literally means “goat sucker” because, apparently, it sucks on goats. It’s supposedly an animal vampire that bites into its prey — usually goats, natch — and drains its prey’s blood, typically without tearing into the flesh other than one or two puncture wounds in the neck. It’s a Latin America thing, although over the years tales of the chupacabra have started to sprout up around our borderlands, particularly in the Texan outback.

Has anyone actually seen the thing? Well, no. What they’ve seen is the remains of dead animals drained of their blood and gone, “huh, that’s fuckin’ weird. I have no idea what would have done that.”

The problem is that, of course, they don’t stop there even though they should. The full thought process becomes “I have no idea what would have done that. It must have been a dog-like reptilian creature with a pronounced spinal ridge that hops like a kangaroo.”

It’s an all-too-common absurdity to assert the properties of something you admittedly know nothing about — not just in spite of the fact that you admittedly know nothing about it, but somehow following from your lack of knowledge — but that’s also not what the post subject is referring to.

What caught my attention is this news item, in which the appearance of a weird-ass animal carcass has people declaring that it’s a dead chupacabra.^[2] What it is (a dead coyote or coyote-dog hybrid, most likely) is, to me, beside the point. What makes me sit up in my chair is this excerpt:

“I don’t believe in the chupacabra,” Ayer said, adding that he’s been in the midst of a “media blitz” — receiving 50 phone calls from media outlets and citizens, as well as death threats late at night — since word got out about the strange beast.

What the fuck? Death threats? How does that even make sense? It’s not like the guy birthed this thing. It’s not like this is going to make people pay for healthcare or accept gay marriage. This isn’t a political or moral issue. There’s nothing you could possibly be outraged about. What about this situation of a taxidermist receiving a dead carcass could even make someone angry, let alone lead to “death threats late at night?”

What the hell is wrong with people?

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1. When I was in middle school, and early into high school, I considered a career in cryptozoology. Over time I became a little jaded with the fact that these guys never seemed to find anything that they were looking for, just stories about them and maybe a vague and inconclusive picture of something kinda sorta. Although I still picked up a career of making shit up as I go along, at least I know that’s what I’m doing. If we lived in a world where these things had a reasonable rate of actually existing, though, chasing ‘em down would be my next choice of career.↩
2. It’s actually previous carcass finds like this, in addition to sightings of “strange” animals, that have given the chupacabra its particular properties. In other words, the stories started with a very off-the-wall description that was slowly altered to match the description of things that people think they have seen. Eventually the chupacabra may actually exist, simply by virtue of people applying that moniker to some other animal entirely.↩

Skeptical Sunday: Less Than a Speck

No time for a big long post today, so a couple of YouTube videos showing essentially the same thing: the comparative sizes of objects in space.

I like this first one because it’s animated and so you get a sense of relative scale that doesn’t require too much imagination.

This second one is not animated, just a simple slideshow in which the previous slide’s contents shift up to the left-hand corner for scale reference with the new objects. This one requires a little bit more work on the part of the viewer to keep our relative scale in mind, and at a certain point even the broadest imagination will probably fail to fully comprehend (mine certainly does — what’s smaller than “infinitesimal?”).

But what I like about this one is that it’s updated for 2009 with new findings (the one I’d seen before was the 2008 version), and he goes beyond the largest known star and starts comparing nebulae and galaxies.

Religious folk occasionally say that a “materialist” viewpoint leaves no room for a sense of awe and wonder. This, to me, betrays a serious lack of imagination, and understanding. Religious or not, I think the sight of VY Canis Majoris compared to our planet would take any thoughtful person’s breath away. Speaking for myself, it’s dizzying.

Both videos are available in YouTube HD — click through to the actual YouTube pages if you want to blow your mind just a little more.