Athiest –> Theist Conversion

I’ve been reading the blog “Et tu, Jen?” for a few months since I discovered it. She is one of the few theists I have found that can articulate her beliefs in a cogent manner that doesn’t insult the intelligence of an atheist or agnostic. This is primarily because she is a former atheist, turned catholic. Her conversion story is interesting, but more interesting at the moment is an entry she posted today about someone else’s story – John C. Wright.

I identify with John in many ways – reason is important in the decision process, logic is a tool, there are some problems with defining what is supernatural since it is something of an oxymoron given a framework of naturalism. His conversion brought up a question that Jen addressed earlier on her blog, though I never had time to resolve some of the problems raised by it:

Is there any proof/event/circumstance that would allow a discerning, reasonable person to believe in a god?

This is an important question, since the fundamental assertion of most agnostics (and hopefully most atheists/freethinkers/etc.) is that they are open to the possibility of a god existing, but have not seen sufficient evidence to believe so. If there is a systemic bias in our process of reasoning/philosophy that cannot logically allow the possibility of discovering a god, then we run in to a quandary. God could then exist and would be undiscoverable to the reasoning person. This is a bias that is inexcusable if we are to consider reason to be important simultaneously and equally with being open to the possibility of theism.

At the same time, I think it is worth examining the question of how such a system would logically exclude god. Does this system exclude god because he is logically contradictory as a concept (e.g., excluded for a good reason), or simply because the logical structures/arguments themselves contain a bias introduced by someone who doesn’t want to believe in god?

This brings me to the scrutiny of John’s personal conversion experience: He claims various miraculous non-coincidences (providence?) which I can concede for the sake of the argument. God caused them. Would they be enough to convince me? Would I have to go through the same experience to be convinced myself? This is one problem I’ve been considering myself. Could someone else’s conversion story that measures up to the standard of what it would take to convince me personally if it happened to me be capable of convincing me vicariously through their experience? This story comes close, but there are a few things that leave me niggling with suspicion that perhaps his claim to rigorous thought and consideration is not as it seems:

• John characterizes atheism/agnosticism as shallow; christianity as mature, developed. This is something that happens when anyone sees a more enlightened or alternative view that also makes sense under a particular framework of thought – it’s a revelation of sorts, but I don’t know where he gets the idea it is more mature. I think the level and complexity of thought is fairly equal on both sides of the debate here, though there are immature thinkers on both sides as well. I think such characterizations are really irrelevant to the conversation: show me your proof, not your impressions.
• John places great importance on having arrived at a conclusion. He uses a lot of language about judgment, finding the truth (of atheism at one time, now disilliusioned of this into christianity), having found a conclusion, etc. – all of which I consider hogwash from my personally agnostic perspective. Though of course agnosticism is a position I take provisionally – e.g., it’s the best I can come up with right now, though I don’t consider it the ultimate solution or appropriate position once all is said and done. I have a long way to go in philosophy myself, but it seems to me that he reached a lot of conclusions early in his search, which raises suspicion that his search was not thorough/comprehensive/rigorous as he claims it.
• Primary reasons for conversion have to do with a question presented to him recently about whether his axioms could allow for the possibility of god in the first place. He seems to not have run into this question after “35 years of study” in philosophy. I’ve run into it after less than 3 years. While this is no claim to personal thoroughness, I think 3 decades is a long time to not run into the question of whether your framework of axioms allows for a god or not, since this is a fundamental test of the framework’s propositional flexibility.

But still, I come back to the test which he used: ask God for a sign, and have it granted. This is my test also, though he was convinced by a heart attack in close proximity to the prayer – I consider this to be a very natural and probable event considering that the number one killer in the U.S. is “diseases of the circulatory system” (read: heart attacks!) according to WHO mortality data.

In any case, some of the things he later mentions I find more convincing – visions and religious experiences that I trust he is being honest in saying they were not hallucinations or dreams. If this is true, then he has a case on his hands for me. Still, as he mentioned before, there are things which force me to think that he is simply deluding himself in some way. As one of Hume’s principles goes, it is more likely that there is some rational explanation such as delusion or hallucination, than that a witness’s story of a divine miracle is really true in the ontological sense (i.e., it really happened that way, they perceived the event correctly as supernatural). I guess this answers one of my earlier questions: It is unlikely I will be convinced by a vicariously described conversion experience. I need my own.

Back to the more important question though: does my own framework of belief, basic set of axioms, logically preclude the possibility of god on grounds which are acceptable? By acceptable, I mean that the possibility is not precluded because of an inadvertant (or perhaps even purposeful) systemic bias in the logic/argument created by a human who is unsure of god’s existence?

I’m not entirely sure. I still have to answer the question of how I could be convinced. It is difficult to imagine since I really don’t have a conception of god that really makes logical sense to me, other than a deistic/benign one. Food for thought….

Insta-Grow Crystals!

Right now I’m taking CHEM 112 at Idaho State University. As part of the lab section, we’re given 6 periods (1 period a week, 3 hours) to prepare an interactive presentation/demonstration for a K-8 class. The long and short of the rules is that it has to be a “discovery” / interactive type presentation, and can’t include using toxic chemicals or flames. That takes most of the fun out of it, eh?

Not so fast! I was lucky enough to remember reading in my chemistry textbook about supersaturated solutions of sodium acetate. Dropping in a seed crystal of supersaturated solution will make it form a crystal from the seed that grows and slows in 30 seconds. I thought this would be really neat for a demonstration, so my lab group has been working on a presentation surrounding crystals and chemical structure.

A bit of advice / information on preparing a crystallization solution that I’ve gathered from the ‘net and personal experience

In order to get such a solution, it has to be heated to increase the solubility of water. Dissolve as much as possible at the elevated temperature. When it cools, it remains in a liquid supersaturated state, even though normally the sodium acetate should come out of solution / not stay dissolved at room temperature. Such a solution is called a “supercooled” chemical melt – that is, a chemical which was melted into a liquid state and allowed to cool undisturbed so that it remains a liquid. Such solutions are unstable – if you provide any nucleation sites for crystallization (the chemical coming out of solution) then a solid crystal will quickly form.

Sodium acetate and sodium thiosulfate are two common chemicals that can be used for such a demonstration. In the case of sodium thiosulfate, you can just melt the solid crystalline form (pentahydrate is the most common commercially available option) with a microwave or a heat source such as a bunsen burner or hot plate. Adding a little water helps it to stay in a liquid form while it cools. Once it is back to nearly room temperature, this solution is ready. You can speed the cooling process after melting thiosulfate by putting the container in a larger container of cool water from the tap. If you use ice in the water bath, it is not likely to work… the solution gets too cold and thiosulfate comes out of solution. I’ve tried this in the lab with thiosulfate before – it’s a bit finnicky, but once it works it will have been all worth it.

There’s a few gootube vidoes that show this crystallization in action. Check them out with this google video search for “sodium acetate”.

This website recommended using sodium thiosulfate over other solutions since it tends to be more stable in it’s supercooled state. My lab group decided to do the demonstration with this chemical based on the author’s recommendation, and we haven’t tried the alternative of sodium acetate. I can’t say whether it’s more stable or not, but regardless of this, I’ve looked online and it appears that acetate is more expensive than thiosulfate anyway.

Ways to Acquire Sodium Thiosulfate

• Chlorine Neutralizer (granular Na-thiosulfate)

http://www.waterwarehouse.com/products/sku-1095.html

Doheny’s Water Warehouse
2.25 lbs = $14
9 lbs = $52

$10 handling fee, free 2-day shipping

There isn’t any information on the website about whether this is pure Na-thiosulfate or if it has some proprietary mix of chemicals.

• Sodium Thiosulfate pentahydrate – lab grade

http://secure.sciencecompany.com/Sodium-Thiosulfate-Pentahydrate-500g-P6376C0.aspx

Science Company
500g = $6.50

$7.21 shipping and handling ground (to zip code 83651)

I think the Science Company will be my preferred way to get this chemical. It’s lab-grade, cheap, and provided in 500 gram amounts which is plenty for a demonstration in a medium sized jar. They also provide a formal procedure for this lab demonstration on this page.

NDEs and g-LOC, Penn & Teller’s Bullshit

I just watched the “Near Death Experiences” (NDEs) episode of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit (S1 E12), and after seeing all those pilots and scientists in a centrifuge go into g-force induced loss of consciousness (g-LOC), it kind’ve made me want to try it myself. I wonder, where could one get a ticket to ride one of these to get the g-LOC experience?

According to the show, out of the total population about 18% will have an NDE when the blood supply gets cut off to the brain temporarily (they have to survive to tell about it at least). I think it’d be interesting to try – there wouldn’t seem to be any significant risks given that I’m a relatively healthy 19 year old kid.

In any case, I couldn’t find any companies online that will let you ride in a centrifuge for a price. Anyone know of some place where you can buy a ticket?

At least you’ve got your health…

Last Saturday night, I came down with something – I’m not sure of what the cause was. Whatever it was, I ended up throwing up about 7-8 times over the course of 8 hours – I didn’t get much sleep that night.

The next day was largely a blurry, dehydrated confusion. I slept most of the day, and didn’t eat anything. A little searching on the ‘net for my symptoms (nausea, vomiting, diahrrea, headache) turned up a lot of articles on stomach flu. I was curious what the medical jargon for this would be, and found gastroentiritis to be the closest fit. Don’t think that this is self-diagnosis though – gastroentiritis is purely a descriptive term for a collection of symptoms; it does not necessarily have a specific pathology. Causes can include bacteria (food poisoning), viral infection (noroviruses are the most common), and other pre-existing medical conditions.

While I was in a daze for those two days, I was constantly wishing for this dreadful sickness to be over. At this point I am able to hold food down again and am perfectly fine – life resumes to normal. However, I can’t help but think about how there are many people in the world at this time who live with chronic diahrrea, or are at constant risk of food or water poisoning because they live in the third world. My brief experience with discomfort is mild compared to theirs; I had a comfortable bed to sleep in, hygienic facilities, and running water. Others in third world countries likely have few or none of these. I cannot imagine what this hell would be like, but it scares me that it exists, and for so many people.

What can we do about it?

Stanford Prison Experiment: Now on GooTube

I happened across a headline from the Scientific American RSS Feed that said “Blog: Stanford Prison Experiment Videos on Youtube”. I’d read about this experiment before, and I find that generally a documentary video can be a good compliment to the “book knowledge” gained from reading about it.

It is on Youtube in 5 parts (due to the 10 min. length limitation), but is also on Google Video in one piece (50 minutes) since they don’t have a length limitation:

This video appears to have been put together sometime in the 80s. It is well edited, and contains a lot of interesting information that you may not necessarily notice as easily in the literature surrounding the experiment.

Warning: This video contains explicit content (cursing, degrading acts, disturbing situations). Watch at your own discretion.

Download the FLV from this link. Thanks a bunch Keepvid!

Good & Bad in the context of Adam’s Fall

In my PHIL101 class, our first reading is Plato’s “Meno”. The initial dialogue in Meno is about how to define what virtue is (or is not) – a difficult problem. An initial definition given by Meno for discussion:

Virtue: the desire of beauty and the power to attain it

Socrates, the other participant in the dialogue, brings up a good question that I’ve considered a few times before:

(S): “Does anyone wish to be miserable?”

This brings up a paradox. Some men think something that is, for the moment, considered ‘objectively’ as “bad” (e.g., would make them miserable) as something that is “good” (something that would make them happy). Essentially, some men desire things that they think will please, but in fact would cause pain.

There are then three categories of people according to Socrates/Meno:

1. Those who know what is “good”, and desire good

2. Those who don’t know what is good, but desire good

3. Those who know what is good, but desire bad (e.g., they are aware that bad things would make them miserable.)

Socrates and Meno agree that no one wishes to be miserable, and therefore the third category of men does not exist. This leaves only two categories then: those who have an accurate ability to predict what will please them, and those who are inaccurate/misguided in this ability. Meno and Socrates determine then that it is not the desire of good things that makes a man virtuous by Meno’s given definition, but rather the second condition of it: the ability to acquire good things. While discussion of this second condition leads to a further paradox of the definition itself, that is not what I wish to discuss in this post.

Adam’s Fall

As I said before, I have thought about Socrates’s question before, but in a different context – the fall of Adam/Eve in the Genesis story. It would seem at first that Eve made a bad decision with the full knowledge of its consequences when she ate the fruit of the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”.

However, if we are to take this english phrase at face value in the context of the story, it would imply that Adam and Eve had no previous conception of what “good” and “evil” are. I think the definition of “evil” could be stretched to the implied definition in the dialogue of Meno:

bad/evil: to harm, to make miserable or unhappy

Adam and Eve in fact had no concept of how to distinguish good and evil (as defined here) – using a literal interpretation of this phrase “knowledge of good and evil”, they would fall into the second category of people – those who are misguided, or otherwise unable to make judgments for themselves of what course of action would maximize their pleasure.

From this, it would seem that Adam/Eve were given a rather unfair test of whether to follow God’s or Satan’s advice.

Consider what Eve was told by God and Satan:

God: If you eat from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”, you will die.

Satan: If you eat from the tree, you will not surely die. God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Given the choice of certain death, or possible death with the gain of knowledge, what would you choose? Well, given that Eve had no way of predicting which would please more, but obviously knowledge is something she wanted for some reason, it is apparent what choice she should make. Despite Eve’s complete lack of a frontal lobe (which is our mental predictor of pain or pleasure), there is one other thing to consider in regards to the advice given. Who should Eve have trusted more? While it is easy to say “God”, since He created her, there is still a dilemma given that most likely she had no conception of what a lie is either, and therefore likely had to trust any information given to her equally.

It is then interesting to contemplate the truth of both God and Satan’s advice – did either of them really lie?

In the absolute sense, God was truthful in this storyline – if Eve ate of the tree, it would lead to a deterministic, causal chain of events where she would be kicked out of the Garden of Eden, unable to eat from the Tree of Life that can sustain eternal life, and eventually wither away.

However, I would posit that God did not reveal the *whole* truth in this matter, and that in fact Satan was more honest: The determining factor of whether Eve would eventually live or die was dependent upon eating from the Tree of Life. God kicked them out of Eden because they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but the knowledge of good and evil did not in and of itself kill Eve or Adam.

On the other hand, Satan told Eve what the direct effect of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil would be. Also, he was correct in that given a pluralistic universe in which the future is not determined, it is possible for Eve to not die – all it would take is for God to allow Eve to stay in Eden. This is do-able, but God made the decision to kick them out. Why? Well, that’s not explained. Is there something just horribly terrible about having the knowledge of good and evil? Something corrosive? Or was it just the fact that they disobeyed God’s order not to eat from the tree? In any of these cases, it seems a rather harsh punishment for such a minor infraction.

This interpretation of Adam’s Fall does not put God in a very flattering light as a moderate and just ruler. Undoubtedly, it is an unacceptable portrayal if you are a christian. If God is just, there must be a good alternate explanation of the situation in which Adam and Eve make the decision with the full knowledge of the potential consequences of eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

But wait one second – what category would that put Adam and Eve under? Ah, yes, – category 3, those who know good from bad, but sitll desire the bad – they in fact, desire to be miserable. This comes full circle to Socrates’s original question:

(S): “Does anyone wish to be miserable?”

Well, I would say no. I honestly don’t think anyone would disagree with the assertion that people desire to be happy. Therefore, either Adam and Eve were entirely unhuman in this aspect, and did desire misery, or they were human and there was a compounding factor such as pure stupidity (another human quality that is in abundance!). In the case of stupidity, you would think God might have some mercy?!

So, really, Adam and Eve must have not known what was coming. Fundamentally then, this was an unfair test of judgment given that Adam and Eve had none. Since God was the designer of this entire situation, I would further posit that he did not directly desire us to be happy, since he put us into the very situation in which we could not have possibly made the right choice other than by shear chance (a 50/50 shot) of choosing or not choosing to eat that apple. It would seem we are rats in a maze with poisoned cheese.

I think this leaves us with a God with one of two kinds of character:

1. Apathetic – God puts two humans into a situation in which they must use nonexistent judgmental powers to decide whether or not to follow orders. Given that we make the wrong choice, we are destined for a lot of suffering.

2. Vindictive – God puts two humans into a deterministic universe in which He already knows that they will make the wrong choice, and be destined for a lot of suffering.

Neither of these gods appeal to me. What about you?

Response to Shermer, Why Smart People Believe Weird Things

I recently read (most of) the last edition of Michael Shermer’s Book “Why People Believe Weird Things”, which has an appendix titled “Why Smart People Believe Weird Things” (emphasis mine). I skipped over most of the section on pseudohistory/holocaust denial because I didn’t find that topic to be of interest to me, though it does appear to be comprehensive. Since I’ve read quite a bit of literature on skepticism/agnosticism/science v. religion/etc., there’s a lot of this book that I could skip over. However, there is still a considerable amount of information that was new to me, was insightful, and thought-provoking. I enjoyed his appendix on smart people the most.

I had some thoughts regarding some of this section that have affected some of my own thoughs in the “quest for truth” as it were, but before I talk about it I have to give some context. So first, a few choice quotes from the book:

Shermer has a nice tag line summary of his theory on how/why smart people can go wrong:

“Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.”
- pg.283

He goes on to explain more things regarding several studies/surveys that deal with our idea of what makes a smart person smart (various measures), problems with relating demographic factors to various forms/types of weird belief, and then restates this thesis with a few more explicit factors of how everyone can go wrong:

“There is a wealth of scientific evidence in support of this thesis, but none more so than two extremely powerful cognitive biases that make it difficult for any of us to objectively evaluate a claim. These biases, in fact, are especially well manipulated by smart people: the Intellectual Attribution Bias and the Confirmation Bias.”
pg. 297

 

Intellectual Attribution Bias: “…we consider our own actions as being rationally motived, whereas we see those of others as more emotionally driven. Our commitment to a belief is attributed to a rational decision and intellectual choice (“I’m against gun control because statistics show that crime decreases when gun ownership increases”); whereas the other person’s belief is attributed to need and emotion (“He’s for gun control because he’s a bleeding-heart-liberal who needs to identify with the victim”).”
pg. 298

 

Confirmation Bias: “…the tendency to seek or interpret evidence favorable to already existing beliefs, and to ignore or reinterpret evidence unfavorable to already existing beliefs.”
pg. 299

I also liked this paragraph:

“Smart people, because they are more intelligent and better educated, are better able to give intellectual reasons justifying their beliefs that they arrived at for nonintellectual reasons. Yet smart people, like everyone else, recognize that emotional needs and being raised to believe something are how most of us most of the time come to our beliefs. The intellectual attribution bias then kicks in, especially in smart people, to justify those beliefs, no matter how weird they may be.”
pg. ??? – I returned the book to the library before I noted the page here… probably somewhere near 300 though.

I think this quote is especially poignant – smart people realize that most people decide/pursue belief of something because of emotional motivations, and not by a process of rational thought that is free of any biased default position. Somehow, though, they forget this when considering their own beliefs (intellectual attribution bias). It prompted me to think about my approach to one of the big questions: does a god exist, and if god exists, what is god’s character?

This prompted me to ask myself “What is my motivation for questioning the existence of god?”, or more specifically, “Do I question god’s existence in order to justify an emotional dislike for how the god paradigm works?”. During my teenage years I have come to realize there are many more ways of viewing the world than the judeo-christian framework put before me. This led to a deep-seated feeling of dissatisfaction with how the christian paradigm answers some of the big questions – why humans are here, what it is to have a meaningful life, what morality is. Ultimately, it comes down to this *feeling* that those answers are really overly simple, and such simplicity without explanatory power or elegance is not appealing to me. Science / rationalism may also be comparatively simple at times, but provides that explanatory elegance that I appreciate. However, feelings are… well, generally not a “good” way of guiding a quest for knowledge/truth.

When it comes down to admitting the feelings at the bottom of this endless thought process in my head, it makes me feel a bit weak at the knees. Why isn’t the christian story satisfying for me? While it does seem a bit too simplistic to be a satisfying explanation of what is probably reality (the Bible does read like a fariy tale at times), there is that nagging question: What if the answer really is that simple?

Is that so illogical? Improbable? There’s really nothing wrong with the answer of theism itself. Though it creates problems of how to shape theories of genesis (creation of the universe and mankind) in a scientific framework, there isn’t anything that is inherently wrong with the storyline itself. Even if we are to accept theism is the answer though, ultimately we are left with other nagging questions of why god did things the way he did that can significantly alter our perception of god’s character. There are plenty of questions out there that I think can shape a theoretical god’s character in very specific ways, and I consider these investigations generally more interesting than christian theology by itself.

I heart System Restore

System Problem

Yesterday night the sound card for my Tecra M7 mysteriously stopped working. I am not sure what happened. My initial guess is that it was a software/driver problem, since I could still change the volume with the button/slider on the front, yet the usual display of the volume going up/down did not display in the center of the screen.

I tried several things, including flashing the BIOS (it wouldn’t do this since it’s up to date), and re-installing the drivers (which failed, since they are installed and for some reason the processes that needed to be re-installed were being used or something, and therefore the files couldn’t be overwritten). I was just about at my wit’s end, and contemplating re-installing the OS since I *really* need the sound to work for recording classes w/ the built in mic.

Then I thought, “Why not use System Restore?”. And lo, there was a restore point from yesterday. And I chose it, and it worked. Mind you, it did not work off the bat after the restore – but the volume display slider would come up when I changed the volume. So whatever had gone wrong with the drivers was solved. But the sound didn’t work still. However, I started playing an audio file nonetheless, then muted and unmuted the sound, and it worked! The sound was back! Music to my ears!

I did a few quick searches on this mysterious sound disappearance issue while I was trying to fix it, and found a brief paragraph somewhere that mentioned the internal amp is actually turned off by the mute/unmute switch when you mute it in XP, and that in Vista it actually just goes to zero volume instead. I think what happened with the M7 is that the internal amp was muted at some point by me, and then the drivers screwed up for some reason… which isn’t surprising since I’m experimenting with software and drivers all the time.

Resolution

So, lesson learned: If your sound disappears for an unknown reason and the drivers appear to malfunction, do a system restore and mute-unmute the computer.

Update: Re-installing the Tablet OS

After a few days of trial and error with various installs, I have finally gotten it to work correctly and install the files that give the tablet pen functionality. Since school is next Monday and I have a lot of things to do to prepare for next semester’s classes, I won’t be able to get down much documenation of what I did for a while. If you’re interested in re-installing the Windows XP Tablet Edition 2005 OS of your Tecra M7, check back in a week or two. I hope to have the documentation up before then, but I make no promises.

I have to say that there is quite an improvement after re-installing the OS – my machine can do a full-boot to the desktop (auto-logon enabled) in under a minute, usually around 30-40 seconds. This is a vast improvement compared to the 5+ minutes for a factory fresh install, or the 3+ minutes after I tweaked it some. It also runs considerably smoother once it is booted up – 42 processses running at the moment, and I’m sure there were probably 70+ from a factory OEM install. If you know your way around Windows XP and aren’t afraid of tweaking your OS, then I definitely recommend that you re-install the OS as I did.

Just as a pointer to resources that I used as reference material:

• Reinstalling Windows XP Tablet Edition at Tangled Up in Purple
• Lenovo: How to: Clean Install of Windows XP Tablet Edition at Gottabemobile

There are a lot of links that jump off from these articles, and there isn’t any clear one way to resolve a lot of the problems with installing on a Toshiba machine, but if you’re willing to spend the time to figure it out, it’s worth it. I hope to provide a more coherent, simplified guide once I have the time.

[update 2007-03-12]

If you haven’t noticed already, at the top of this page is about “Installing WinXP TE: 2005 on the M7″. This the official page I’ve put together for documentation of this process, so there won’t be any more blog posts about this particular topic other than maybe brief mentions of changes or updates to the page itself. At the time of this update, it is still in a very basic stage – just a verbatim copy of an e-mail I sent to someone who asked for help with re-installing XP on their tablet. It can be improved, and hopefully will be at some point. I hope that it can be of some help in the form it is right now. Feel free to send questions or comments to my e-mail (anonym2.71828@gmail.com).

[/update]

Full & Hi-Speed USB 2.0

Today, I loaded up Ubuntu Dapper Drake with a LiveCD on my Tecra M7, connected the external HDD, and deleted the 40GB Linux partition in order that I regain this for backup purposes of the M7’s data. I then resized NTFS (windows) partition to the full 160 GB afterwards in the LiveCD Ubuntu environment.

When I restarted to Windows, however, it treated the external HDD rather oddly. I did a My Computer right click > Manage > Disk Managment in order to see how it viewed the HDD. It said the full capacity was 120 GB (the size before I resized the NTFS partition) in the top window section, however in the graphical layout below, acknowledged a capacity of 160GB in the NTFS partition. Strange.

I figured at that point that Linux had kind’ve screwed up the partition table on the drive, so it’s better to just copy the data somewhere else, and format/repartition the whole drive. This lead me to copying external HDD -> external HDD through the M7. I needed to copy about 80GB of data, so I left it alone for about an hour. When I come back, I find that it’s only copied 6GB, or at a rate of about 1.5 MB/sec. This is pathetically slow, and not what I expected. I know that when copying this amount on my my dad’s desktop from drive to drive, it takes much less time.

So, off to research on Wikipedia about this, I find that the three main transfer speeds for USB are:

• Low Speed – 187.5 KB/sec
• Full Speed – 1.5 MB/sec
• Hi-Speed – 60 MB/sec

The article notes that most Hi-speed devices typically go 30 MB/sec in the real world. So, at this point it is apparent that my transfer from HDD to HDD was going at Full Speed rather than Hi, for some reason.

This leads me to ask the question: what’s the bottleneck? The Tecra M7 has USB 2.0 Hi-speed ports (not all USB 2.0 devices are necessarily capable of Hi-speed), and both HDDs are USB 2.0 Hi-speed as well. There is no apparent reason for why it would throttle down to Full speed. I also noticed that when connecting two external USB HDDs to my laptop or my dad’s desktop, the second one may come up as an unrecognized device. Fiddling with the cables seems to get it to work eventually. I’m not sure why this is either.

The following are my hypotheses/observations for why this operation is going slow:

• The OS is a little screwed up. Things tend to not do what they’re supposed to do in general.
• The USB device icon w/ arrows that pops up in the task bar told me that I need to do something to get them to go their full speed (though gives no clear direction as to what to do)
• I’m using stock USB drivers from the factory install of this computer’s OS.
• I probably need to update the drivers, and maybe the BIOS too.

For now, I am just using a desktop computer to copy the files at Hi-speed, since it can already do this. I’ll have to check for updates for the BIOS/USB drivers while I’m waiting for the files to copy. Toshiba actually has a half-decent support site.