tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82019019261548286312024-03-20T15:09:31.934+00:00annotations blogmusings & marginaliaSteve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-49877710900330616082015-11-26T08:54:00.000+00:002018-08-26T15:17:25.079+01:00Testing Chess.com game embedding<style>.chessCOMgame{
-moz-transform: scale(0.80, 0.80);
-webkit-transform: scale(0.80, 0.80);
-o-transform: scale(0.80, 0.80);
-ms-transform: scale(0.80, 0.80);
transform: scale(0.80, 0.80);
-moz-transform-origin: top left;
-webkit-transform-origin: top left;
-o-transform-origin: top left;
-ms-transform-origin: top left;
transform-origin: top left;
}
</style>
<iframe class="chessCOMgame" border="0" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" width="574" height="519" src="https://www.chess.com/emboard?id=2775092"></iframe>Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-30580748387678780352015-09-21T21:17:00.002+01:002015-09-21T21:17:35.064+01:00Daughter's Questions: Life Before Birth ?For reasons I'm not aware of, this evening my daughter was asking the question, "Where was I before I was born?" which quickly became "Where was I before I was concieved?". As Christians we said that she existed in the mind of God, but aside from that that she had no "further existence" until conception. This she found a rather distressing thought. Talking it through, this all became more rather than less confusing, at least initially. Many people express anxiety about the possibility of going out of existence, but here our daughter was seemingly equally anxious about at some point not having existed.<br />
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After discussions of pre-existence and reincarnation, we went on to talk about the concept of existence, about it not being a "predicate" (although we didn't use those words), and about the impossibility of imagining one's own funeral except from the vantage point of another pair of eyes. I thought the first part was essential as she seemed to think of "non-existence" as a state of being in utter darkness unable to sense or interact with anything outside herself. For her part, she seemed to find the discussion of funerals more helpful, especially once she realised that we agreed that we couldn't fully imagine our own non-existence ... but that we didn't think that meant it couldn't be (or have been).<br />
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How would you have approached this?Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-63805591944167245562015-08-29T15:14:00.001+01:002015-08-29T15:14:53.924+01:00IFTTT: If This Then ThatIf you spend much of your life online, and haven't discovered <a href="http://www.ifttt.com/">IFTTT</a>, you may want to check it out. IFTTT, "If This Then That" is a way of connecting up various online services, and allows basic automation to make things easier. If I've done things correctly, this post which started on my blog will soon be appearing automagically on my facebook page.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDyz-u5P68m-SxfSshMDDQpmQYLBN0KnKTd-pO8c0DM8HlunsE1QXOLr-fIhOwBaMm73K6r6ZMrGLOTUHr9yHMXQfZktTOhCzwiJ-nfAxZqaIqcEu0X1Fkip2VgRyx900A6aqj18ZXkXM/s1600/Capture.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="82" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDyz-u5P68m-SxfSshMDDQpmQYLBN0KnKTd-pO8c0DM8HlunsE1QXOLr-fIhOwBaMm73K6r6ZMrGLOTUHr9yHMXQfZktTOhCzwiJ-nfAxZqaIqcEu0X1Fkip2VgRyx900A6aqj18ZXkXM/s320/Capture.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Did it work?Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-34485942238839651172014-02-21T12:25:00.000+00:002014-02-21T12:25:05.185+00:00The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy - Free on Android<span style="float:left;"><img alt="The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy (Book Cover)" border="0" src="https://encrypted.google.com/books/images/frontcover/hn1gaNlri1cC?fife=w300-rw" title="The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy" /></span><span style="float:left;">Been meaning to point out this freebie. Android users should get it while you can on <a href="https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Gregory_Bassham_The_Chronicles_of_Narnia_and_Philo?id=hn1gaNlri1cC">Google Play</a>.</span>Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-42601928722654673832013-11-10T11:06:00.001+00:002013-11-10T11:06:40.694+00:00Android App: Bloggeroid<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Found this app and thought I'd try it out. Let's hit 'Publish' and see what happens!</div>Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-83613556043021486132012-11-18T13:44:00.000+00:002012-11-18T13:44:04.658+00:00Daughter's Questions: Eating MeatAround her birthday, our daughter asked us whether it's cruel to eat meat.<br />
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I think a lot of children at some point ask this one, and it's a difficult question. Partly because it is so morally unsettling and makes we non-vegetarians question ourselves. What is the best answer we can provide? Or perhaps we should all go vegetarian?<br />
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<br />Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-11116185521210182432012-11-18T12:55:00.001+00:002012-11-18T12:55:22.369+00:00Daughter's Questions: Why is the sky blue (or red)?A few months ago my daughter asked another of her perceptive
questions. After asking why the sky is blue, and recieving an
explanation, she quickly followed up with a questions about why sunrises
and sunsets are red.<br />
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I'd been ready with an answer for
the first, but not the second and then it quickly turned out that my
answer to the first wasn't sufficiently thorough. The answers related to
the wavelengths of red and blue light being at opposite ends of the
visible spectrum, and the way that light of shorter wavelengths gets
more easily diffused as it travels through the atmosphere.<br />
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However,
blue isn't at the end of the spectrum, violet is. So that should be
diffused more in the sky. The sky shouldn't be blue during the day ...
it should be violet. Why isn't it?Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-31783351272620419752012-10-06T20:31:00.001+01:002012-10-06T20:31:23.016+01:00Daughter's Questions: Frankenstein's Monster?Our daughter continues to ask difficult questions. One recent query was whether (in principle) if you assembled all the atoms and molecules correctly, you could make a person. Would they be a real person? Would they be alive?<br />
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I think this is an awkward question for those of us who, like me, don't believe that we are merely material machines. Does my view commit me to saying that such a thing wouldn't be alive? That if it was alive, it wouldn't be a person? Or are there other ways for non-materialists to go here? I think so, but I'd be keen to hear your thoughts.<br />
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For the record, my basic answer was "I don't know ... and I'm not sure anyone else knows for sure either."Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-59482998476939680602012-09-30T20:51:00.002+01:002012-09-30T20:51:58.335+01:00Daughter's Questions: Creation Ex NihiloIn our experience, everything that is made, is made from something, or by some means. This leads quickly to a difficult question which my daughter asked recently: when God made the universe, how did He make it? what did He make it from?<br />
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An interesting but (due to my daughter's age) difficult discussion followed about the distinction between "made from nothing" and "not made out of anything".<br />
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How would you answer this one?Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-80026152166581817632012-09-21T22:32:00.001+01:002012-09-21T22:32:52.519+01:00Daughter's Questions: On EyesPhilosophers are aware that "emergent" properties are philosophically puzzling. Similar puzzlement seems to have prompted something like the following from my daughter:<br />
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Atoms can't see, but if you bung a whole load together to make an eye, how can that eye see ?<br />
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How would you approach this question? I think whatever I said, I'd want to begin by saying that eyes can't see. People see, using their eyes. In many ways this may be mere pedantry, but I think it's fairly clear that as remarkable as eyes are, the wonder of sight happens somewhere "behind the eyes".Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-48762015366719719012012-09-08T23:10:00.000+01:002012-09-08T23:10:05.233+01:00Daughter's Questions: How does lightning make thunder?The heading of this one says it all. It's a good question. Intuitively, it's very hard to see how a bright flash can cause a loud noise.<br />
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I had to confirm my hunch on this via the magic of the internet. You might like to look it up yourself and/or post your own answer in the comments.Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-90457709211690706542012-09-08T23:01:00.000+01:002012-09-08T23:01:24.141+01:00Two "Liberal" Stances: Abortion and Obligations to Future GenerationsI've recently been musing about the relationship between the ethics of abortion and our obligations to future generations.<br />
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It's often supposed that our responsibility to look after the environment comes from our duties towards future generations. However, according to liberal stances on abortion, we don't have obligations to a fetus that (who) is not yet a person; the person simply doesn't exist at that stage, so there is no question of them having a right to life or any such thing.<br /><br />So, can we have duties towards people who don't exist (yet)? If not, is there some other way to understand environmental ethics? If so, can we really justify abortion on the grounds that the relevant person simply doesn't (yet) exist?<br /><br />I can see various ways in which the tension here can be reduced, but I'm not convinced it can be eliminated without serious revision of one of the two stances.Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-2805935959308135642012-09-04T21:34:00.000+01:002012-09-04T21:34:32.403+01:00Daughter's Questions: Other ReligionsHere's another of my daughters recent questions. As you may have gathered from other material on this blog and the associated website, my wife and I are Christians, and are raising our daughter accordingly, but with complete freedom to ask any awkward questions she cares to raise.<br />
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The words here aren't hers, but the question very much is:<br />
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<b>People in other countries believe in different religions, and think we're wrong. Do we know we aren't wrong? If we do, how do we know?</b>Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-2376819353831296382012-09-03T21:20:00.000+01:002012-09-03T22:07:04.797+01:00Daughter's Questions: RainbowsThis is the first post in a series.<br />
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Our young daughter asks lots of difficult questions, and while I think we do quite well answering them, I'd be interested to know how others would have answered the same questions. To stop answers getting muddled up together, I'll just put one question in each post.<br />
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Our daughter is currently six years old, and recently asked something along the following lines:<br />
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<b>If a raindrop is like a prism and can make a mini-rainbow all on its own, how come we see one big rainbow in the sky and not lots of little ones?
</b>Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-4245387746894482802010-10-10T17:14:00.001+01:002010-10-10T17:20:09.670+01:00Ask a QuestionIf you'd like to ask me something, then this is the place to do it.<br />
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Similarly, if you'd like me to open up a discussion on a topic addressed on my <a href="http://www.annotations.co.uk/">main site</a> (or related to something there) then just let me know in a comment here.Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com53tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-76195394205926301902010-10-10T16:57:00.000+01:002010-10-10T16:57:29.234+01:00C.S. Lewis and Philosophy OnlineThis thread exists to collect a set of links to articles on Lewis's philosophical and apologetic writings. Please contribute any which you rate highly.Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8201901926154828631.post-28076681404816968222010-10-10T15:31:00.000+01:002010-10-10T15:31:04.629+01:00Uxbridge English Dictionary<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41KXX1HBFPL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41KXX1HBFPL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" /></a></div>The BBC Radio 4 panel show <i>Sorry I Haven't A Clue</i> is one of my personal favourites. And within the show, the highlight, for me is the round titled 'The Uxbridge English Dictionary' where panelists offer new definitions. This thread is a homage to the wonderful game.<br />
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Please offer any definitions you have come across yourself and enjoy the submissions of others.Steve Lovellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04707435716956109694noreply@blogger.com2