Flawless TV?

Would not a society based on strict logic provide a less passions-based mechanism for the female to release herself from the primitive mating bond?

Oh yeah definitely! But then it wouldn't be such good TV would it? I think T'Prings "flawless logic" was based on a number of simple criteria for the bout in her mind, something like the following (translated into English):

1. The bout has to happen
2. I must end up with Stonn
3. Stonn must not take part in it, he might get get killed
4. Whoever wins must not want me, but as I am such a babe all Vulcans want me so Spock must fight a non-Vulcan
5. If Spock wins he must not want me, so I'll get him to fight someone that he loves more than me, if he kills that person then he'll hate me

But as you say, she (like humans) ignored the "X factor" - the things that could go wrong.

Trusting that something bad will happen is an interesting concept. It shows no fear. Could the words "trust", "hope" and "fear" be replaced with "I expect" -- taking all the emotions out of the words? From your treatise the words "trust" and "hope" imply a "running towards" an event, where the word "fear" implies a "running away" from an event (a flight). Attributes of "running towards" and "running away" could be characteristics of any organism that resulted from a survival-of-the-fittest selection process, but they would need to be in balance. If a creature always ran towards its food source it would not survive as well as the creature that also ran towards its food source but had a good look around for traps whilst it was doing so, and ran away if necessary. Survive and breed more.

I enjoyed your assessment of the Spock/Bones splits, although Chekov ended up with more than 100 !

Sheesh, of course dilithium crystals control the matter/anti-matter mix used to power a Cochran warp engine, what did they teach kids in school back then ! "Dateless Geek" lol, Jesus would have approved.

The planet killer was made out of inpenetrable neutronium dear boy ! I guess the science folks were suggesting that as neutrons have no charge then "neutronium" must have been held together by a force stronger than the attraction of unlike charges (which is an electro-magnetic effect). If the neutrons in neutronium were bound by either the weak or strong nuclear forces (which were known in the 1960's as "the nuclear force") then it would have been a lot tougher than ordinary matter.

Poq quiz 2: which two Star Trek things were named "Masada"? (One is connected to the Doomsday episode)

According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia, Masada "was probably named for the hilltop fortress where Jews defied Roman legions, eventually committing suicide en masse rather than surrender." (p.291) Based on this reference, some fans have speculated that Masada was an Israeli Jew.

Flawless Logic?

From the web ... perhaps not entirely correct, but close to correct if my memory serves.

T'Paul: "I grieve with thee."

Spock to T'Pring: "Why did you choose my Captain as your champion?"

T'Pring: "You have become almost a legend among our people. In time, I learned I did not want to be the consort of a legend. I had Stonn who wanted me, and I wanted him."

Spock: "I see no logic in preferring Stonn over me."

T'Pring: "By choosing Kirk, he would not want me if he won -- so I would have Stonn. If you won, you would reject me for choosing the Challenge, and again I would have Stonn. But even if you didn't reject me, you would go back to Star Fleet and Stonn would still be here."

Spock: "Logical. Flawlessly logical."

T'Pring: "I am honored."

Spock to Stonn. "She is yours. After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. I know it is not logical -- but it is frequently so."

Let's analyze her logic:

1. If Kirk won, he would not want her
2. If Spock won, he would divorce her for choosing the Challenge
3. If Spock won and didn't divorce her, she would simply have Stonn in his absence

The dialog was spoken as if they were statements of certainty. But in fact they were not.

Number 1 -- She could be reasonably assured Captain Kirk would not want her, but she could not be certain of it. Who knows ... some kind of honor-bound way of remembering Spock? Also, T'Pring had to know she was an attractive female. Kirk's reputation as a womanizer surely preceeded him.

Number 2 -- Again, an assertion she can't make with certainty. Actually, two and three are really co-joined as conditional. "If Spock won, then one of two possible outcomes would ensue ... one, you would divorce me; or two, you would not."

Number 3 -- This is the one that really gets me. So she was willing to risk the death of a man for the possibility of continuing in an adulterous affair? Then why bother with the challenge at all ... why not just marry Spock and then have Stonn in Spock's absence? I'm sure the answer to this is: The state of "marriage" between T'Pring and Spock before his arrival on Vulcan was something more akin to "engagement." For her to "marry" Spock and continue with Stonn would be the difference between cheating on a fiance' and cheating on a spouse.

Okay, I'll accept that.

In all of this is implied the notion that T'Pring had no method of getting out of the marriage other than to issue the challenge. So I ask: how logical is that? Would not a society based on strict logic provide a less passions-based mechanism for the female to release herself from the primitive mating bond?

Oh My Stars and Garters

That's a phrase here that means: "I can't hardly believe this." Wikipedia has a bunch of very serious write-ups on "Amok Time" and "T'Pau."

As for the latter ...



I'm burning ... I'm just burning. :-)

Clean Definitions

Oh, you bet ... those definitions for "fear" and "hope" were a bit loose. Frankly, after having written them, I wondered if I'd short-changed the concept of "trust" in that equation. But then I got to thinking whether "trust" is really just a fancy word for "high expectation that good" -- whatever that may be, given the person and the circumstances -- "will occur."

Trust is always always associated with good, right? Does anyone trust that bad will happen to them? Many fear bad will happen to them. If they're certain of it, is that the same as trusting? I suppose it is. Certainly if they make plans based on that.

Uh oh ... there's our insurance analogy again. :-)

* * *
Spock / Bones Numbers

Kirk -- 40 Spock / 60 Bones ... I don't agree he's the balance. The Enterprise herself was the 60 Spock / 40 Bones that made it balance.

Spock -- 100 Spock / 0 Bones ... but that's only because we agreed he had to be by definition. But in truth there's a shred of Bones in him.

McCoy -- 0 Spock / 100 Bones ... again, I think there's a shred of Spock in him.

Question: how many Bones points would Bones have at that point in the episode "City on the Edge of Forever" where he'd been accidentally shot up with some neural agent and he went nuts after jumping through the time portal? "Assasins! Murderers!" That was a great episode. But what blatant use of the blurring filter whenever Edith Keeler's face was shown as she went goo-goo over Kirk.

Scotty -- 80 Spock / 20 Bones. But get some scotch in him and stand back.

Sulu -- 70 Spock / 30 Bones ... the only episode I can recall where he got really emotional was the one where he took his shirt off and threatened to kill everyone with his Samurai sword. That was the episode with the little spinning special effect up near the ceiling that was supposed to represent some kind of energy-based alien. If memory serves, Kirk came up with the notion to drive out the alien by laughing at it. Kirk even got the Klingon to laugh. I didn't think that was possible, but with Kirk all things are possible.

Note: I wonder if Roddenberry was making a veiled allusion to Satan with that episode. A long-time notion of Satan is that what he can't stand is being mocked.

Chekov -- 20 Spock / 100 Bones ... I view Chekov as being quite emotional. Any pretense of him being cool and collected at the helm was just that: a pretense. He's a seething cauldron of Russian passion.

Uhura -- 30 Spock / 70 Bones ... cool as a cucumber at the communications station, but an emotional mess otherwise. Plus, she'd always trip and fall down whenever they were being chased.

Nurse Chapel -- two states: 60 Spock / 40 Bones around everyone else; 0 Spock / 100 Bones around Spock himself. They were the human equivalent of matter / anti-matter. But the question is, who served as the dilithium crystal?

Note: I was at a college trivia contest where someone in the audience -- it was probably me; I was such a dateless geek -- got all hot and bothered because the master of ceremonies thought that "Dilithium Crystals" was the answer to the question, "What fuel did the Enterprise use." "No! They served as a controlling agent! The fuel was matter / anti-matter." Oh hell, no wonder girls didn't pay me no never-mind back then. :-)

Yoeman Rand -- who cares ... she was hot. But talk about "high-maintenance." How long do you suppose it took her to get that hair all stacked up and braided like that? Hours.

Commodore Decker ("The Doomsday Machine") -- I love this episode. He was 99 Bones with the a one-point veneer of Spock that comes with commanding the ship.

Pop Quiz: what material comprised the exterior shell of the Doomsday Machine?

T'Pau ("Amok Time") -- Spock was a blubbering wreck compared to T'Pau. 400 Spock points. I want that woman. But she scares me. That must be what fuels my passion for her.

T'Pring ("Amok Time") -- 90 Spock / 10 Bones. Why not 100 Spock? Because what she did to Spock was heartless and calculating. Spock may have characterized her logic as "flawless," but in truth I didn't find it so. (Actually, it would be fun to find that dialog where she outlines her logical reasoning and then tear it apart.)

Stonn ("Amok Time") -- Who knows? He didn't say a word. :-)

* * *
You know, as I look back on the original Star Trek series, I view it as a pretty emotions-based show. The show as a whole was only 40 Spock and 60 Bones. But that was in keeping with the times. The late 1960's was all about the awakening of our "feelings".

Sunshine and rain

I like your definitions of "hope" and "fear" - although perhaps they are a little too clean for me as "good outcome" and "bad outcome" should be linked to the person doing the hoping. One persons "good outcome" might be another persons "bad outcome" if you get my drift - they're relative terms.

When does hope become assurance? An assessment of possibility pegged at 100%? Or is a critical mass reached at some lower point which allows the mind to ratchet up to complete assurance even though certainty is not guaranteed?

I think the latter, the human mind will say "Point Y has been reached therefore Z will most likely happen, phew". The human mind is notorious at not considering "the X factor", ie. "what if something goes wrong?" This is how gambling establishments make their billions of dollars in punter revenue, they understand and exploit this aspect of human nature to the fullest. Taking the gambling analogy for this conundrum - in a game of 21 (Blackjack is it called?) at what point will the punter not say "twist"? I guess I would say "twist" at 16 and "stick" at 18, so 17 (for me) is the magic point. 17/21 = 81%. So I guess that at odds greater than 80% certainty I am starting to feel assured.

What's dominant ... hope or fear?

We both agreed, some six years ago now, that fear was the more dominant. I think that's still the case in my mind. What about your good self?

PS. What are your Spock/Bones numbers, both for you and the cast? I haven't forgotten you know !

Possibility Assessment

Very interesting question -- "What is the definition of 'Hope'?" As I thought about this, it strikes me that "hope" and "fear" really are two sides of the same coin, and both have to do with expectations about outcomes. An expectation is an assessment of possibilities.

Hope -- the expectation of a good outcome
Fear -- the expectation of a bad outcome

If I assess the possibility of being hit by a falling satellite as essentially zero, I have no real fear of it happening. But the assessment of the possibility of being hit by lightning in the middle of a thunderstorm is much greater than zero, and the fear -- the expectation of a very bad outcome -- is present.

If I had absolutely no expectation of winning the lottery, then I'd have no hope. Even if I buy a lot of tickets, the chances of winning are slight, so my hope of winning is present but low.

So this suggests to me that there are degrees of hope. There are clearly degrees of fear.

When does hope become assurance? An assessment of possibility pegged at 100%? Or is a critical mass reached at some lower point which allows the mind to ratchet up to complete assurance even though certainty is not guaranteed?

What's dominant ... hope or fear?

Hope

You write very well indeed kind sir, I was back there in time - with you as a 9 year old ! Perhaps you should write occasionally in such fashion and publish a book from your blog posts? Let's hear some recollections from the perfect age thought out by your 10 year old please.

+++

In the absence of hope, fear prevails. Fear eats at a man's soul, which is why for all history man has sought a place to pin their hopes.

Question to you: What is hope?

It must be connected in some way to probability. For example, there is no point in hoping against a certain outcome, only a point in hoping against an uncertain outcome, or an outcome that is not 100% guaranteed. But then again, no outcome is 100% guaranteed is it? Still, I think we tend to "hope" in a probabilistic fashion.

In fact, I believe that dictionary.com has a tenth definition of hope that implies that "hope" itself is probability.

10. hope against hope, to continue to hope, although the outlook does not warrant it: We are hoping against hope for a change in her condition.

I'll have a go at defining hope, this is "Hope" according to deep.thought, the best I can do on the spur of the moment that is:

In a system in which the result is indeterminate, "hope" is a conditioning which allows an individual homo sapiens to focus on the outcome that that individual has some positive attachment to.

?

+++

New Scientist this week published their magazine and the cover refers to an article in the magazine which talks about the laws of nature being different over time in different parts of the Universe. I find this humourous as this was exactly the discussion we were having about a month ago or so. Melvyn Bragg did that to us also with his "In Our Time" radio program, but I can't recall what the subject was in that case, just that it happened. A comment to the Bragg coincidence is in the ascendnextlevel archives somewhere. Sometimes I wonder if there is some kind of una-mind connecting the whole world together, so that thoughts resonate around the collective -- like The Borg! (Not the tennis player).

+++

T60 !! You mega power house. I think that's an Intel Core Duo (2 cpu's), maybe even an Intel Core 2 Duo - the next iteration of Core Duo that is taking the world by storm, well at least taking AMD by storm as Intel regain their crown as Chipzilla. Do you realize that you now have more power in your lap than a late 80's/early 1990's multimillion pound machine room? And no lap-dancing jokes please !

The Perfect Business Trip

Congratulations on your perfectly executed business trip! And a TV celebrity to boot!

* * *
I'm finally getting a new work PC! My current T30 was acquired in 2002, so it's now four years old! By technology standards, that's ancient. The new one is a T60 professional with every imaginable fancy do-dad. Unfortunately, getting a new PC means having to install all the non-standard software.

* * *
The weather here in Tucson has turned glorious: highs in the low 90's, bright and sunny. There's a hint of autumn in the air ... in a sort of hot desert sort of way.

* * *
It is for reasons you allude that we are instructed by the Lord to place our hope in things above. I'm sure I've mentioned before what I was once told: there are two primary emotions -- hope and fear. In the absence of hope, fear prevails. Fear eats at a man's soul, which is why for all history man has sought a place to pin their hopes.

* * *
The Detroit Tigers baseball team has clinched a spot in the playoffs ... the first time in 18 years. I recall vividly their victory in the 1968 World Series when I was but a young lad of just 9 years old.

The Tigers were playing the St. Louis Cardinals. The Tigers Denny McLain, a pitcher who won 31 games in the regular season -- something that has not been repeated since. The Cardinals' ace pitcher was Bob Gibson, who had won 22 games with 13 "shut-outs," which were games in which the opponents scored no runs.

The series meant a lot to the city of Detroit because the year before was the infamous race riots of 1967. With little else to unite around, the city focused on their baseball team.

Denny McLain did not fare well early in the series, and the Tigers found themselves down 3 games to 1 in a 7 game series. That meant the Tigers had to win three straight to take the series; something that had never been done before.

The tension was more than this 9 year old boy could stand.

Then an unlikely hero stepped foward -- Mickey Lolich, a left-handed pitcher known for having a bit of a belly. He pitched and won games 5 and 7, with McLain pitching a victory in game 6. The Tigers won the seventh and deciding game in St. Louis.

I couldn't watch the final game ... it was too much for me. So I went to the local playground and nervously killed time, hoping against hope that the Tigers would win. Then I heard someone run out of their house, yelling "The Tigers won! The Tigers won!"

The city of Detroit went crazy.

But peacefully -- no fires, no riots ... just a million people joyously celebrating their team's victory.

That's my childhood memory of the Detroit Tigers.

* * *
I also vividly recall being 10, and thinking that was the perfect age to be.

Twain

Every man is in his own person the whole human race, with not a detail lacking. I am the whole human race without a detail lacking; I have studied the human race with diligence and strong interest all these years in my own person; in myself I find in big or little proportion every quality and every defect that is findable in the mass of the race. I knew I should not find in any philosophy a single thought which had not passed through my own head, nor a single thought which had not passed through the heads of millions and millions of men before I was born; I knew I should not find a single original thought in any philosophy, and I knew I could not furnish one to the world myself, if I had five centuries to invent it in. Nietzsche published his book, and was at once pronounced crazy by the world-by a world which included tens of thousands of bright, sane men who believed exactly as Nietzsche believed but concealed the fact and scoffed at Nietzsche. What a coward every man is! and how surely he will find it out if he will just let other people alone and sit down and examine himself. The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.

Reach up

Hey buddy how are you doing?

I'm not sure of the origin of that quote about loving people rather than things, it was part of someone's email closing on a chess forum, I did a search for it - one site said it was of "unknown origin".

It's difficult to follow the sentiment expoused, I look around and I see so much pain in the world and it's all caused by people. I'd like to somehow take my daughter to some other planet and live with a bunch of aliens who are further down the track than us. Look at us, we forms groups and then argue over who is right and then we try to kill eachother. Ridiculous. And we are so weak and dependent on one another for things - we're just like children, we have the opportunity to look at the stars and we just look in the gutter.

What was it Oscar Wilde said?

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

I don't want to be in the gutter anymore, but I'm stuck here for now.

Sorry slightly depressed about people tonight.

+++

Croatia was great ! I got interviewed on national TV (like BBC1 or ABC) and by a business magazine. My presentation was well received and my customer meetings were 100% successful. So now I can die knowing that I had the perfect business trip :-)

I'm around this week and then off to New York next week, ho hum, dreaming of retirement.

"Balkanization of Britian"

From the Sunday Times there in Britain comes this:

Police to brief Muslims before terror raids
Abul Taher
POLICE have agreed to consult a panel of Muslim leaders before mounting counter-terrorist raids or arrests. Members of the panel will offer their assessment of whether information police have on a suspect is too flimsy and will also consider the consequences on community relations of a raid.

Members will be security vetted and will have to promise not to reveal any intelligence they are shown. They will not have to sign the Official Secrets Act.

Andrew Stuttaford writes in National Review Online:

From a security point of view this move looks foolish, to say the least, but, worse than that, it appears to be conceding some sort of special status to Muslim Britons. The Balkanization of Britain continues rapidly apace, it appears, and with the Blair government’s approval. How sad. [Emphasis added]

The world is being held hostage ... willingly, it appears. As Stuttaford writes, "How sad."

Interesting Op-Ed

I offer without further comment:

The Pope Was Right
In his controversial speech last week, Benedict set forth a bold agenda for the civilized world.
By George Weigel
GEORGE WEIGEL, a senior fellow of Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center, is the author of "God's Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church."

September 20, 2006

IN A BRILLIANT lecture at the University of Regensburg last week, Pope Benedict XVI made three crucial points that are now in danger of being lost in the polemics about his supposedly offensive comments about Islam.

The pope's first point was that all the great questions of life, including social and political questions, are ultimately theological. How we think (or don't think) about God has much to do with how we judge what is good and what is wicked, and with how we think about the appropriate methods for advancing the truth in a world in which there are profound disagreements about the truth of things.

If, for example, we imagine that God is pure will, a remote majesty with whom our only possible relationship is one of unthinking submission, then we have imagined a God who can even command what seems to be irrational — like the murder of innocents. Pope Benedict reminds us, however, that mainstream Christian tradition, following its Jewish parent, has a different concept of God. The God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus is a God of reason, compassion and love, a God who comes searching for man in history, appeals to the human mind as well as the human heart and invites human beings into a dialogue of salvation.

This God cannot demand the unreasonable or the irrational. This God's revelation of himself, in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, does not cancel out or abrogate human reason. That is why mainstream Christianity has always taught that human beings can build decent societies by attending to reason.

The pope's second point, which flows from the first, was that irrational violence aimed at innocent men, women and children "is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the [human] soul." If adherents of certain currents of thought in contemporary Islam insist that the suicide bombing of innocents is an act pleasing to God, then they must be told that they are mistaken: about God, about God's purposes and about the nature of moral obligation.

Responsibility for challenging these distorted views of God and the distorted understanding of moral duty that flows from them rests, first, with Islamic leaders. But too few Islamic leaders, the pope seemed to suggest, have been willing to undertake a cleansing of Islam's conscience — as Pope John Paul II taught the Catholic Church to cleanse its historical conscience.

We know that, in the past, Christians used violence to advance Christian purposes. The Catholic Church has publicly repented of such distortions of the Gospel and has developed a deep theological critique of the misunderstandings that led to such episodes. Can the church, therefore, be of some help to those brave Islamic reformers who, at the risk of their own lives, are trying to develop a parallel Islamic critique of the distorted and lethal ideas of some of their co-religionists?

By quoting from a robust exchange between a medieval Byzantine emperor and a learned Islamic scholar, Benedict XVI was not making a cheap rhetorical point; he was trying to illustrate the possibility of a tough-minded but rational dialogue between Christians and Muslims. That dialogue can only take place, however, on the basis of a shared commitment to reason and a mutual rejection of irrational violence in the name of God.

The pope's third point — which has been almost entirely ignored — was directed to the West. If the West's high culture keeps playing in the sandbox of postmodern irrationalism — in which there is "your truth" and "my truth" but nothing such as "the truth" — the West will be unable to defend itself. Why? Because the West won't be able to give reasons why its commitments to civility, tolerance, human rights and the rule of law are worth defending. A Western world stripped of convictions about the truths that make Western civilization possible cannot make a useful contribution to a genuine dialogue of civilizations, for any such dialogue must be based on a shared understanding that human beings can, however imperfectly, come to know the truth of things.

CAN ISLAM BE self-critical? Can its leaders condemn and marginalize its extremists, or are Muslims condemned to be held hostage to the passions of those who consider the murder of innocents to be pleasing to God? Can the West recover its commitment to reason and thus help support Islamic reformers? These are the large questions that Pope Benedict XVI has put on the world's agenda. Men and women of reason and goodwill should be very glad that he has done so.

Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times

Advice Redux

What most people need to learn in life is how to love people and use things instead of using people and loving things.

That sounds familiar ... but not Biblical in orgin. In concept, yes, but I don't recall seeing that in the Bible. Where did that come from?

First Things First!

So the question is was the Universe created? How do we ever find out if it was or not?

This to me is the fundamental question. If the Universe wasn't created ... it simply always has been ... then it throws the whole "God" question into a mighty mess. At a minimum it puts God and the Universe on equal footing vis a vis eternal existence. That, good friend, throws a mighty monkee wrench into the doctrine of sovereignty. Or it wipes God from the whiteboard entirely.

If, on the other hand, the Universe is indeed created, then something or someone created it. I can't see how it could be reasonably argued that something was created, but that nothing acted as the agent of creation. That seems to me a contradiction.

There is no way to find out. We're back to choosing what to believe.

Good Advice

What most people need to learn in life is how to love people and use things instead of using people and loving things.

I'll give it a go :-)

Action at a distance

Yeah, but they're not now.

Yeah but neither are the two halves of the coin in the same place now, yet still you can instantaneously know something about a point on the moon.

Perhaps particles are connected backwards and forwards in time? So if you jiggle particle A now, this jiggle returns along all points of the time line of particle A in this Universe and this affects particle B because it was connected to particle A at some point in it's history. This disturbance gets communicated forwards on particle B's time line so that particle B does something now when we wiggle particle A? That's entirely self consistent, Spock would like it. However it is pure speculation, but to my mind there must be a reason for this spooky behaviour, behaviour which Christians and Muslims can both measure for themselves. I think Spock would look for a reason for it rather than calling it illogical, wouldn't he? And yeah Bones is going "way cool!"

+++

Suggesting that God does not need a creator may or may not be illogical I agree. I think that you are suggesting by looking at the definition of the word "create" that everything except one thing (the first thing) needs a creator - this could be correct. So the question is was the Universe created? How do we ever find out if it was or not?

Good luck in Ohio and I'm glad your old team won !

Growth

So it will be difficult for a Church-goer to see any growth in my relationship with Him.

But that doesn't preclude growth in your relationship, merely that church-goers will see it. I'm sympathetic to your view of the ordinary church-goer. Really, I am. I'm fighting the desire to condemn because there's too much of them in me. "Judge not" and all that.

It made me sad because I'd hate to see either one of us be satisfied with where we are in our relationship with the Lord. I've seen precious few real Christians, but of the few I've seen the picture is truly and utterly compelling -- as if the glory that is God shines from them.

* * *
I am off to Columbus, Ohio myself. Good luck in Croatia; me in Columbus.

* * *
When I was a youngster, my favorite sports team was the University of Michigan football team. Yesterday they beat the "Fighting Irish" of Notre Dame 47-21. Thrashed 'em. :-)

Spooky Behavior

If the Big Bang Theory is correct then all matter was once at a single point, so could it be that the reason particles can affect eachother instanteously - Einsteins "Spooky action at a distance" is because all particles in the Universe were once together?

Yeah, but they're not now. That's what is spooky about this. If I recall some of the experiments about this phenomenon, they separated the particles and measured the time for A's actions to be reflected by B. And the time was quicker than the speed of light across that distance would permit. So the "communication" -- if in fact there is a protocol of some sort -- is faster than the speed of light.

That's spooky.

Really spooky.

Spock-mode: Illogical. Completely illogical.
Bones-mode: Cool!

Illogical? Or Merely Not Certain?

It's because all of their logical deductions are based on an initial illogical assumption. The illogical assumption is this:

"The Universe exists so must have been created. However we assume that the creator of the Universe did not need a creator himself".

* * *
I'm not certain I agree with your characterization of it as "illogical." I'll agree it's not necessarily entirely self-evident and may in fact be incorrect. But illogical?

Let me try to break this down:

1. The Universe exists
   
2. so must have been created
   
3. we assume that the creator of the Universe did not need a creator himself

Each in turn:

1. Yes, those who argue the point you make above take this as self-evident. It may be incorrect, though it's difficult to argue for the Universe's non-existence in a way that your average person would understand or agree with. That doesn't make it not possible, just difficult to comprehend.
   
2. This is probably the weakest leg of the whole argument for God. You've alluded to this. All that is may simply always have been. I think the assumption for creation stems from two things: a) the cretaion account in Genesis, and b) a layman's understanding of the "Big Bang" hypothesis. If incorrect -- that is, all that is has always been -- then "God as Creator" suffers a serious blow. However, if correct -- it was "created" -- then it follows that something pre-existent must have done the creating. It would be difficult to argue for the creation of the Universe truly ex nihilo without an agent of change behind it.
   
3. I think Lewis touched on this at one point in time ... I think he reasoned that if the creator of the universe needed a creator, then that creator is the self-existent God. What Lewis (and others) were doing is searching back and saying that if this is a created order, then something pre- and self-existent must have done the creation. Again, it would be hard to argue that "In the beginning was truly nothing at all, then into existence came one who then started creating things."

So, in full Spock mode, I see #2 as the chink in the armour of the "God/Creator" hypothesis. But if created, then creator required. Ultimately something pre-creation is required.

In Bones-mode I find the idea of a pre-existent and self-existent eternal God to be fully incomprehensible and therefore extraordinarily awesome. I'm reminded of one of my favorite hymns:

Oh Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds thy hands have made.

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder
Your power throughout the universe displayed

Then sings my soul, my Saviour God; to thee,
How great thou art, how great thou art!

Logical? Not entirely. Wonderful? To me, yes.

The Problem

I've finally worked out why my Spock-me fundamentally disagrees with all of the good folk (Lewis, Sproul, Willard etc) who argue for the existence of God (any flavour) on the grounds of reason.

It's because all of their logical deductions are based on an initial illogical assumption. The illogical assumption is this:

"The Universe exists so must have been created. However we assume that the creator of the Universe did not need a creator himself".

This illogical assumption is fine for Bones-me but Spock-me cannot build a theology on an illogical assumption, therefore Church is no place for Spock-me.

For Spock-me to accept the illogical assumption, as Bones-me does, would mean the death of Spock-me, Bones-me on the other hand is smart enough to know that an initial illogical assumption might actually be correct. Bones-me doesn't give a hoot about the argument for religion on the grounds of reason, because Bones-me doesn't need a reason to believe. So both my Spock-me and my Bones-me (all of me) reject any arguments for God on the grounds of reason.

Spock-me cannot subscribe to wondeful self-consistent theologies built upon an illogical assumption.

PS. I'm getting these posts in now as I'm off to Croatia next week, woefully underprepared as usual :-) My motivation for IT stuff is on the wane.