Apologies for my absence!

I must apologise to my reader (singular intentional) for being absent from blogging for so long. And of course I've left a puzzle hanging, with my explanation of the impossible lottery puzzle.

I've been distracted by the acquisition of an iPad, a birthday, a trip abroad and various computer games (especially Supreme Commander 2 which I have recently discovered I quite like). The Steam Summer Sale has also been reminding me how much I love games.

I'm not sure my enthusiasm for this blog will ever quite get back to the levels it had before this hiatus, but I do intend to write at least a few more posts. Let's see how it goes!

Welcome to Disagreeable Me

Welcome to my new blog!

I've chosen this title for the blog because people who know me always complain that I'm always predisposed to disagree with any proposition put to me. I'm a contrarian who loves a good argument, even occasionally arguing against viewpoints I hold myself.

Rather than trying to get along with people a little better, I enjoy being who I am and believe that this annoying tendency to disagree is more than an irritating character quirk. For me, it is the essence of skepticism, which I think is the best approach we can take to forming rational conclusions about the world. I try to subject my own attitudes and beliefs to the same skeptical analysis as I do those of others.

Unfortunately debunking nonsense such as creationism and homeopathy is already being dealt with on a great number of other blogs and websites, so I may not have much to add on these subjects. Instead, let's get the discussion going on controversial points of view within the rational community.

As such, one theme I intend to explore in this blog is arguing against prominent atheists, philosophers and scientists who I admire and generally agree with on most topics. I intend to write posts disagreeing with such wonderful thinkers and writers as Sam Harris, Stephen Hawking and Dan Dennett.

To start with, I'm going to concentrate on disagreeing with Sam Harris's views on morality as published in The Moral Landscape. Over the next few posts, I'm going to write about my thoughts on the subject of morality, specifically whether there is any such thing as objective morality as well as the moral implications of atheism and the free will debate.

In future I'd also like to tackle topics such as the anthropic principle, whether we could in principle be living inside a simulated universe (matrix-style) and what would that mean, and how the universe could have come into existence without a creator.

Hope it provides food for thought and look forward to hearing from you!