Master Greydon Gilmore

It was brought to my attention late this afternoon that one of the performers on Magic Tonight, the handsomely dashing Greydon Gilmore, has awarded his Masters Degree in Neuroscience for his work on the effect of deep brain stimulation on spatiotemporal gait parameters in Parinkson patients. (I've read the thesis, it's pretty neat stuff.) He was quick to add that, going forward, I should be referring to him as "Master" whenever possible. Of course, I'm happy to do that, but fair is fair, so here to celebrate this day of academic triumph are two pictures he'd forgotten I had in my possession. Congratulations Master Greydon!

Greydon Gilmore - Master of Neuroscience

Greydon Gilmore and Gumballs

Last time on Magic Tonight

Here are some photos from the last instalment of Magic Tonight with my special guest the adorable and charming Ben Train. It was a sold out show with a wonderful audience and we had a blast. Take a look!

Magic Tonight continues at the Crimson Lounge inside The Cage 292 every Sunday night. Readers of this blog can use the code reality for a discount on the price of tickets and dinner when booking online.

This week on Magic Tonight

I'm starting to get excited. We're coming close to two years of doing weekly shows here in Toronto. This Sunday night at the Crimson Lounge, my dear friend, the adorably charming and lovable Ben Train will be joining me for an evening of mind reading, mystery and unusual socks. We're downtown at 292 College Street (2nd floor, less than a block from Spadina). We hope you can join us. Update: We're nearly sold out, so if you would like tickets rush over to www.MagicTonight.ca/tickets. Readers of this blog can use the code reality for a discount on the price of tickets and dinner when purchasing online.

I'm also incredibly excited to figure out who won the photoshop contest Ben posted earlier this month.

October 25 Ben Train
October 25 Ben Train

Last week on Magic Tonight

Ugh... it's starting to get cold out. But it's still warm inside at Magic Tonight. We had fun last week with comedy performers Chris Mayhew and Jason Palter. Take a peek at some of what we got up to:

Tickets to our upcoming shows are available at www.MagicTonight.ca. Readers of this blog can use the code reality for a discount on the price of tickets and dinner when purchasing online.

Real Estate

Master satirist DarkMatter2525 has created a wonderful short film contrasting buying a house and choosing a religion: 

The technique is similar to a common strategy used in math and physics. When a problem is too difficult to tackle directly (like this example of trying to evaluate claims about gods and the afterlife) it's useful to begin with a much simpler problem; epistemologically get your feet wet. Most will remember studying motion in high school physics. First you study examples of motion with no acceleration, then motion with acceleration. Or without friction then with friction.

When it comes to questions about god and the afterlife, these are extremely difficult questions which cut across nearly every human discipline including physics, biology, logic, ethics, even history; which makes most of us pathetically under qualified to even approach them, yet we're forced to try anyway. So whatever methodology you choose to adopt, you should give it a test drive in a much simpler environment to make sure it produces acceptable results.

DarkMatter2525 chose to transpose the methodology to real estate (and at this point you need to watch the video if you have not already). My preferred example is rainbow unicorns. When you're presented with an argument dealing with an extraordinary claim (it could be having to do with religious miracles, aliens, bigfoot, crystal healing, alternative medicine) try to imagine how that would play out if the topic were rainbow unicorns.

I'm not claiming that if God exists, rainbow unicorns must exist or that god must be a rainbow unicorn. But it's a productive intellectual exercise to run through the thought experiment and contemplate what forms of evidence, if they did appear on your doorstep tomorrow, you would find convincing or laughable.

Sample unicorn.
Sample unicorn.

So many of the arguments for God, when framed in unicorn terms, instantly lose their power. The popular "but you can't prove that there is no god, so how can you be so sure?" intuitively carries some weight. You'd be tempted to hem and haw and concede that maybe you're not as certain as you were a moment ago. But if you move it over, "but you can't prove that there are no rainbow unicorns, so how can you be so sure?" is equally true, but makes it obvious that the argument is fallacious and was really just a piece of rhetoric used for emotional appeal rather than any kind of rational value.

Another favourite example is Darth Vader. Since even if he existed, he existed in a galaxy far far away, so the evidence of his existence would be unavailable to us here for empirical analysis. So investigating the existence of Sith lords is a bit of a stepping stone towards being comfortable tackling the big theological questions.

Mystery Solved

On my second day at the University of Toronto in a course called Introduction to Proof (which really was a life-changing course that I heard they stopped offering) the Professor gave this question (actually a variation with 100 people and no aliens) and (owing to the fact that all math teachers are inherently creatures of pure evil) neglected to provide the answer.

In the dozen or so years it's been this is the first time I've seen that problem and so here's the answer. Now you don't have to wait quite as long as I did.