HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

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John Clark

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Jan 8, 2013, 12:14:16 PM1/8/13
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On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 9:52 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

>GOD means the reality in which you believe.

Friends, are you tired of your old job, it's time to change your occupation and make big bucks, amaze your friends, be a hit at parties and become a professional pundit on cable news shows! You too can become a liberal theologian by using the patented John Clark method and it only takes 4 simple steps!

STEP 1) Find something that everybody believes exists, it doesn't matter what it is.

STEP 2) Define the word "God" as meaning that thing whatever it may be.

STEP 3) Declare that you have proven the existence of God.

STEP 4) There is no step 4 because step 3 leads nowhere.

  John K Clark

 

Platonist Guitar Cowboy

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Jan 8, 2013, 12:30:14 PM1/8/13
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Well ok, I'll do it.

Where's the contract and where's my money? PGC

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meekerdb

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Jan 8, 2013, 1:01:16 PM1/8/13
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Didn't Tillich already copyright that method, John?

Brent

Bruno Marchal

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Jan 9, 2013, 5:15:53 AM1/9/13
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Indeed. By the most common definition, there is no proof of existence of God, like there is no proof of existence of primary matter, etc.
To define God is just an invitation to the devil to imitate God. Hell is paved with good intentions. It is a theorem of arithmetic with large but non trivial definition of Good, bad, god, evil, etc.

Bruno





  John K Clark

 


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Roger Clough

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Jan 9, 2013, 6:07:11 AM1/9/13
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Hi meekerdb

Sheldrake's morphisms would be what John Clark or bruno theorized as God.


[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
1/9/2013
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen
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Time: 2013-01-08, 13:01:16
Subject: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.


On 1/8/2013 9:14 AM, John Clark wrote:

Alberto G. Corona

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Jan 9, 2013, 7:21:03 AM1/9/13
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To summarize, reality is the own beliefs. the rest is religion. There is no elaborated worldview that can not be laughed at by the next wave of self sanctified self-determined idiots. Specially now in this paroxistic times where  revolution finally came to be something personal and start every morning.

 "Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new." Henry David Thoreau 


2013/1/9 Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>



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Bruno Marchal

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Jan 9, 2013, 9:48:03 AM1/9/13
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On 09 Jan 2013, at 12:07, Roger Clough wrote:

> Hi meekerdb
>
> Sheldrake's morphisms would be what John Clark or bruno theorized as
> God.

I don't think so. I have never understood what Sheldrake's morphism
are, but they seem physical, from what I can understand.
God is not physical, and by definition, the physical needs God, or
truth, to exist or make sense.

Bruno

Kim Jones

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Jan 9, 2013, 9:10:23 PM1/9/13
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Not in the dictionary. try again.
On 09/01/2013, at 11:21 PM, Alberto G. Corona <agoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

paroxistic

Roger Clough

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Jan 10, 2013, 7:07:47 AM1/10/13
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Hi Bruno Marchal

Sheldrake's morphisms might be thought of as life fields.

But I don't think fields themselves are physical, rather they are
monadic, descriptions of physical things.


[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
1/10/2013
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen
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Alberto G. Corona

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Jan 10, 2013, 7:38:25 AM1/10/13
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par·ox·ysm (prk-szm)
n.
1. A sudden outburst of emotion or action: a paroxysm of laughter.
2.
a. A sudden attack, recurrence, or intensification of a disease.
b. A spasm or fit; a convulsion.


According whith the entry, the adjective is "paroximal" instead of paroxistic. 
-- 
Alberto.

Bruno Marchal

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Jan 10, 2013, 11:51:49 AM1/10/13
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On 10 Jan 2013, at 13:07, Roger Clough wrote:

> Hi Bruno Marchal
>
> Sheldrake's morphisms might be thought of as life fields.

What is that supposed to explain?


>
> But I don't think fields themselves are physical, rather they are
> monadic, descriptions of physical things.

I am not sure that I understand what you mean by physical.

Keep in mind that in the comp theory, the physical is epistemological.
(Unless there is a flaw in UDA, etc.)

The physical is the content of shared dreams, shared between us with
us = all the Löbian entities (machines and divinities (non machines,
oracles, etc.)).

We belong to a continuum of matrices, consistent with the overall
arithmetical truth (which appears to be something quite transcendental
with comp).

This might be false, and my point is only that this is a testable
consequence of comp (and QM rather succeeds well the test up to now).

Then I illustrate that the computationalist "big picture" is closer to
Plato (and many others, perhaps Descartes, Kant and Leibniz) than to
naturalism, physicalism, or any (weak) materialist doctrine which
reifies matter.
>> To post to this group, send email to everything-
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Jason Resch

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Jan 11, 2013, 2:27:30 AM1/11/13
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Coming soon, John's 4 step program to become an atheist:

1) Choose some religion, it doesn't matter which
2) Find an idea some adherents of that religion put forward but almost no one seriously believes in or is easily shown to be inconsistent
3) Assume that because you have disproved one idea of one religion that all ideas found in all religions are false and/or unscientific
4) Bask in the feeling of superiority over those who are not so enlightened

Jason

Roger Clough

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Jan 11, 2013, 3:21:15 AM1/11/13
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Hi Bruno Marchal

A life form is a soul of some type.


[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
1/11/2013
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen
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From: Bruno Marchal
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Time: 2013-01-10, 11:51:49
Subject: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.


On 10 Jan 2013, at 13:07, Roger Clough wrote:

> Hi Bruno Marchal
>
> Sheldrake's morphisms might be thought of as life fields.

What is that supposed to explain?


>
> But I don't think fields themselves are physical, rather they are
> monadic, descriptions of physical things.

I am not sure that I understand what you mean by physical.

Keep in mind that in the comp theory, the physical is epistemological.
(Unless there is a flaw in UDA, etc.)

The physical is the content of shared dreams, shared between us with
us = all the L?ian entities (machines and divinities (non machines,

Roger Clough

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Jan 11, 2013, 3:26:31 AM1/11/13
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Hi Bruno Marchal

A life field is similar to Sheldrake's morphisms,
Leibniz's substances or L's monads or L's souls.

The physical is that which is extended in space.
Dreams, like mind or ideas, are not extended in space, so not physical.

The rest I agree with you on.


[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
1/11/2013
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen
----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Bruno Marchal
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2013-01-10, 11:51:49
Subject: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.


On 10 Jan 2013, at 13:07, Roger Clough wrote:

> Hi Bruno Marchal
>
> Sheldrake's morphisms might be thought of as life fields.

What is that supposed to explain?


>
> But I don't think fields themselves are physical, rather they are
> monadic, descriptions of physical things.

I am not sure that I understand what you mean by physical.

Keep in mind that in the comp theory, the physical is epistemological.
(Unless there is a flaw in UDA, etc.)

The physical is the content of shared dreams, shared between us with
us = all the L?ian entities (machines and divinities (non machines,

Alberto G. Corona

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Jan 11, 2013, 5:52:32 AM1/11/13
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Space and time may be only on the mind in the Kantian sense. I don´t find that space must be independent of the mind.  space and time may be the way  we perceive a space-time manifold which is pure mathematic and nothing else. Maybe we can see space out there and we can think on geometry  in a spatial way (not algebraically)  because we have space-mode rasoning on the mind, not because space is pre-existent to the mind neither because space is something in mathematics.

And may be that computation for autopiesis, in the form of natural selection, life and mind are space-time trajectories, which, when looked closely form outside space-time,  they are nothing but fortunate caramboles of particles, molecules or electrical signals.


2013/1/11 Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net>



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Spudb...@aol.com

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Jan 11, 2013, 12:25:32 PM1/11/13
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In a message dated 1/11/2013 2:27:33 AM Eastern Standard Time, jason...@gmail.com writes:
1) Choose some religion, it doesn't matter which
2) Find an idea some adherents of that religion put forward but almost no one seriously believes in or is easily shown to be inconsistent
3) Assume that because you have disproved one idea of one religion that all ideas found in all religions are false and/or unscientific
4) Bask in the feeling of superiority over those who are not so enlightened

Jason
Ok, so in Darwinian fashion you sort through hundreds of faiths, so what happens when you cannot dissprove a religion? You sort them down till you hit a toughie, does that make it automatically correct, or is it the intellectual limitation of the sorter? Your Basking, is angering many non-believers, even. Witness Higg's criticism of Dawkins. Believers, Jason, I suppose will merely, pray for your soul (poor lad!).
 
Perhaps if you decided to create your own religion, that couldn't be disproved, based on physics, or math, you would be coming up with the best faith? Then we could all be converted to being Jasonites. Or Reschers-whichever you prefer?

Jason Resch

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Jan 11, 2013, 5:17:24 PM1/11/13
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I'm nor sure I understand your point.  My point was only that John's adherence to atheism, which he defines as belief in no Gods, is less rational than someone following his 4-step program to become a liberal theologian.

In particular, it is the above step 3, rejecting all religious ideas as false without giving the idea a fair scientific evaluation, which is especially problematic.  John is perhaps being prescient in turning a blind eye to these other ideas, as otherwise we might have the specter of a self-proclaimed atheist who finds scientific justification for after lives, reincarnation, karma, beings who exercise complete control over worlds of their design and creation, as well as a self-existent changeless infinite object responsible for the existence of all reality.

He would rather avoid those topics altogether and take solace in denying specific instances of inconsistent or silly definitions of God.

Jason

meekerdb

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Jan 11, 2013, 5:42:15 PM1/11/13
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But your parody fails as a serious argument because the ideas put forward by *almost all theists* include a very powerful, beneficent, all knowing superbeing who will judge and reward and punish souls in an after life and who answers prayers.  Now some, far from powerful, humans with far from complete information, eliminated smallpox from the world.  God therefore must have had that power and simply chose not to do it.  So if any very powerful, very knowledgeable superbeing exists, it is not beneficent and not an acceptable judge of good and evil.  These are not just a peripheral idea of theisms and it's falsehood is not a minor point because all theism insist that these ideas are definitive of their religion.

John didn't say that all religions are false or unscientific.  His point was that you can avoid those attributes by becoming a *liberal theologian* - and incidentally that nothing follows from liberal theology.

Brent

Jason Resch

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Jan 12, 2013, 12:41:45 AM1/12/13
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On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 4:42 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/11/2013 2:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 11:25 AM, <Spudb...@aol.com> wrote:
In a message dated 1/11/2013 2:27:33 AM Eastern Standard Time, jason...@gmail.com writes:
1) Choose some religion, it doesn't matter which
2) Find an idea some adherents of that religion put forward but almost no one seriously believes in or is easily shown to be inconsistent
3) Assume that because you have disproved one idea of one religion that all ideas found in all religions are false and/or unscientific
4) Bask in the feeling of superiority over those who are not so enlightened

Jason
Ok, so in Darwinian fashion you sort through hundreds of faiths, so what happens when you cannot dissprove a religion? You sort them down till you hit a toughie, does that make it automatically correct, or is it the intellectual limitation of the sorter? Your Basking, is angering many non-believers, even. Witness Higg's criticism of Dawkins. Believers, Jason, I suppose will merely, pray for your soul (poor lad!).
 
Perhaps if you decided to create your own religion, that couldn't be disproved, based on physics, or math, you would be coming up with the best faith? Then we could all be converted to being Jasonites. Or Reschers-whichever you prefer?

I'm nor sure I understand your point.  My point was only that John's adherence to atheism, which he defines as belief in no Gods, is less rational than someone following his 4-step program to become a liberal theologian.

In particular, it is the above step 3, rejecting all religious ideas as false without giving the idea a fair scientific evaluation, which is especially problematic.  John is perhaps being prescient in turning a blind eye to these other ideas, as otherwise we might have the specter of a self-proclaimed atheist who finds scientific justification for after lives, reincarnation, karma, beings who exercise complete control over worlds of their design and creation, as well as a self-existent changeless infinite object responsible for the existence of all reality.

He would rather avoid those topics altogether and take solace in denying specific instances of inconsistent or silly definitions of God.

But your parody fails as a serious argument because the ideas put forward by *almost all theists* include a very powerful, beneficent, all knowing superbeing who will judge and reward and punish souls in an after life and who answers prayers. 

Please provide some reference showing almost all theists use that definition of God.  I find it unlikely that most theists would incorporate every facet of that definition.  Even between various sects of Christianity and Islam, views differ regarding whether or not God is all knowing.  An all-knowing God implies predestination, which is contested between various groups.
 
Now some, far from powerful, humans with far from complete information, eliminated smallpox from the world.  God therefore must have had that power and simply chose not to do it.  So if any very powerful, very knowledgeable superbeing exists, it is not beneficent and not an acceptable judge of good and evil.  These are not just a peripheral idea of theisms and it's falsehood is not a minor point because all theism insist that these ideas are definitive of their religion.

It doesn't matter if 95% of theisms are ones you find fault with; it only takes one correct theism to make atheism wrong, which is why I think it is an untenable and illogical position.
 

John didn't say that all religions are false or unscientific.  His point was that you can avoid those attributes by becoming a *liberal theologian* - and incidentally that nothing follows from liberal theology.


It was in another thread that John said that he "just believes in one less god" than I do, but he refused to say what that one God was that I believed in but he doesn't.

Jason

John Clark

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Jan 12, 2013, 1:00:04 AM1/12/13
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On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 5:17 PM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> He [me] would rather avoid those topics altogether and take solace in denying specific instances of inconsistent or silly definitions of God.

All I ask is a definition of God that has 2 attributes:

1) It is not silly or inconsistent.
2) There is no other word except  G-O-D that works as well.

And when 99.9% of the religious use the word "God" they mean a omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe, and when non-religious people say they believe in God they mean they believe in the word G-O-D and that's it.

  John K Clark



meekerdb

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Jan 12, 2013, 1:30:10 AM1/12/13
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On 1/11/2013 9:41 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 4:42 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/11/2013 2:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 11:25 AM, <Spudb...@aol.com> wrote:
In a message dated 1/11/2013 2:27:33 AM Eastern Standard Time, jason...@gmail.com writes:
1) Choose some religion, it doesn't matter which
2) Find an idea some adherents of that religion put forward but almost no one seriously believes in or is easily shown to be inconsistent
3) Assume that because you have disproved one idea of one religion that all ideas found in all religions are false and/or unscientific
4) Bask in the feeling of superiority over those who are not so enlightened

Jason
Ok, so in Darwinian fashion you sort through hundreds of faiths, so what happens when you cannot dissprove a religion? You sort them down till you hit a toughie, does that make it automatically correct, or is it the intellectual limitation of the sorter? Your Basking, is angering many non-believers, even. Witness Higg's criticism of Dawkins. Believers, Jason, I suppose will merely, pray for your soul (poor lad!).
 
Perhaps if you decided to create your own religion, that couldn't be disproved, based on physics, or math, you would be coming up with the best faith? Then we could all be converted to being Jasonites. Or Reschers-whichever you prefer?

I'm nor sure I understand your point.  My point was only that John's adherence to atheism, which he defines as belief in no Gods, is less rational than someone following his 4-step program to become a liberal theologian.

In particular, it is the above step 3, rejecting all religious ideas as false without giving the idea a fair scientific evaluation, which is especially problematic.  John is perhaps being prescient in turning a blind eye to these other ideas, as otherwise we might have the specter of a self-proclaimed atheist who finds scientific justification for after lives, reincarnation, karma, beings who exercise complete control over worlds of their design and creation, as well as a self-existent changeless infinite object responsible for the existence of all reality.

He would rather avoid those topics altogether and take solace in denying specific instances of inconsistent or silly definitions of God.

But your parody fails as a serious argument because the ideas put forward by *almost all theists* include a very powerful, beneficent, all knowing superbeing who will judge and reward and punish souls in an after life and who answers prayers. 

Please provide some reference showing almost all theists use that definition of God.  I find it unlikely that most theists would incorporate every facet of that definition. 

"Every facet"??  It's only the standard, three omni's of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam except I left the requirements even weaker, plus answering prayers.  You're just being obtuse.  You know perfectly well that's what theism means.


Even between various sects of Christianity and Islam, views differ regarding whether or not God is all knowing.  An all-knowing God implies predestination, which is contested between various groups.
 
Now some, far from powerful, humans with far from complete information, eliminated smallpox from the world.  God therefore must have had that power and simply chose not to do it.  So if any very powerful, very knowledgeable superbeing exists, it is not beneficent and not an acceptable judge of good and evil.  These are not just a peripheral idea of theisms and it's falsehood is not a minor point because all theism insist that these ideas are definitive of their religion.

It doesn't matter if 95% of theisms are ones you find fault with; it only takes one correct theism to make atheism wrong, which is why I think it is an untenable and illogical position.

But there can't be even 'one correct theism' as I pointed out above, the very definition of theism allows it to be empirically falsified by the appearance of unnecessary evil, in my example evil that mere human beings had the power to eliminate and did eliminate.  What can you say about a superbeing who can eliminate an evil but chooses not to.  You can't say he's the beneficent God of theism.

Brent

Jason Resch

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Jan 12, 2013, 2:54:20 AM1/12/13
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On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 12:30 AM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/11/2013 9:41 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 4:42 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/11/2013 2:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 11:25 AM, <Spudb...@aol.com> wrote:
In a message dated 1/11/2013 2:27:33 AM Eastern Standard Time, jason...@gmail.com writes:
1) Choose some religion, it doesn't matter which
2) Find an idea some adherents of that religion put forward but almost no one seriously believes in or is easily shown to be inconsistent
3) Assume that because you have disproved one idea of one religion that all ideas found in all religions are false and/or unscientific
4) Bask in the feeling of superiority over those who are not so enlightened

Jason
Ok, so in Darwinian fashion you sort through hundreds of faiths, so what happens when you cannot dissprove a religion? You sort them down till you hit a toughie, does that make it automatically correct, or is it the intellectual limitation of the sorter? Your Basking, is angering many non-believers, even. Witness Higg's criticism of Dawkins. Believers, Jason, I suppose will merely, pray for your soul (poor lad!).
 
Perhaps if you decided to create your own religion, that couldn't be disproved, based on physics, or math, you would be coming up with the best faith? Then we could all be converted to being Jasonites. Or Reschers-whichever you prefer?

I'm nor sure I understand your point.  My point was only that John's adherence to atheism, which he defines as belief in no Gods, is less rational than someone following his 4-step program to become a liberal theologian.

In particular, it is the above step 3, rejecting all religious ideas as false without giving the idea a fair scientific evaluation, which is especially problematic.  John is perhaps being prescient in turning a blind eye to these other ideas, as otherwise we might have the specter of a self-proclaimed atheist who finds scientific justification for after lives, reincarnation, karma, beings who exercise complete control over worlds of their design and creation, as well as a self-existent changeless infinite object responsible for the existence of all reality.

He would rather avoid those topics altogether and take solace in denying specific instances of inconsistent or silly definitions of God.

But your parody fails as a serious argument because the ideas put forward by *almost all theists* include a very powerful, beneficent, all knowing superbeing who will judge and reward and punish souls in an after life and who answers prayers. 

Please provide some reference showing almost all theists use that definition of God.  I find it unlikely that most theists would incorporate every facet of that definition. 

"Every facet"??  It's only the standard, three omni's of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam except I left the requirements even weaker, plus answering prayers.

To fit your definition God must: be very powerful and be beneficent and be all knowing and be a super being and judge souls and give an afterlife to souls and reward some and punish others and answer prayers.

Many of these attributes may be commonly mentioned, but few will have all of them.  Many Jews don't believe in an after life, as the Torah says next to nothing about one.  Many Christians reject the idea of a punishing God.  And of course, this says nothing of the concepts of God in Sikhism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, or Bahá'í Faith.


 
  You're just being obtuse.  You know perfectly well that's what theism means.


I don't.  There is no universally agreed upon definition.

Webster:
: belief in the existence of a god or gods; specifically : belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of the human race and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world

The Free Dictionary:
Belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in a personal God as creator and ruler of the world.

Dictionary.com:
1. the belief in one God as the creator and ruler of the universe, without rejection of revelation ( distinguished from deism ).
2. belief in the existence of a god or gods ( opposed to atheism ).

Wikipedia:
Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.

You seem to be a fan of a hyper-specific definition of which all but defines it as inconsistent.  I noticed that none of the above definitions requires omniscience, omnipotence, omni-benevolence, answering prayers, punishing souls, etc.
 

Even between various sects of Christianity and Islam, views differ regarding whether or not God is all knowing.  An all-knowing God implies predestination, which is contested between various groups.
 
Now some, far from powerful, humans with far from complete information, eliminated smallpox from the world.  God therefore must have had that power and simply chose not to do it.  So if any very powerful, very knowledgeable superbeing exists, it is not beneficent and not an acceptable judge of good and evil.  These are not just a peripheral idea of theisms and it's falsehood is not a minor point because all theism insist that these ideas are definitive of their religion.

It doesn't matter if 95% of theisms are ones you find fault with; it only takes one correct theism to make atheism wrong, which is why I think it is an untenable and illogical position.

But there can't be even 'one correct theism' as I pointed out above, the very definition of theism

I think you mean *your* very definition of theism, not *the* definition.

 
allows it to be empirically falsified by the appearance of unnecessary evil, in my example evil that mere human beings had the power to eliminate and did eliminate.

How have you proven it is unnecessary?  If you require that God be omniscient, then all universes and all outcomes necessarily exist in that omniscient mind.  Further, if God knows everything, he knows what it is like to experience every possible conscious sensation, including that of a human living in a world where evil things happen.
 
  What can you say about a superbeing who can eliminate an evil but chooses not to.  You can't say he's the beneficent God of theism.

Here you validate my point: picking something no one believes exists and calling it God is common for atheists.  It is essentially the reflection of what John said liberal theologians do: pick something everyone believes exists and call it God.

There is nothing to gain from such black and white word games: either we narrow the definition of God until it cannot point to anything that exists, or expanding the definition until it is self evidently extant.  What good is that?

I suggest we do something a little more challenging: see how narrow a definition of God we can use without running contrary to our models of reality.  You might find that your perfectly rational and scientific model of reality permits or suggests an eternal, uncreated, immutable, transcendent, immanent, infinite, entity that is responsible for all our existence.  This definition is pretty much identical to that found in some schools of Hinduism.  We might also envision an omega-point civilization creating simulated words containing life forms over which it is omnipotent and omniscient.  In fact, if reality is hugely or infinitely varied, e.g., many worlds, eternal inflation, string theory landscapes, then it becomes highly probable if not guaranteed that there are many explanations for your current moment of awareness.  You simultaneously exist in many versions of this universe, and some proportion of which may be created by superbeings as part of their exploration of reality.  What would the atheist who believes in a plentitude say then?  Perhaps something like: "I believe God(s) rule(s) over the universe I am in, but only with a relatively small measure across all the universes I am in".  What does the statement even mean at that point?

Jason

Roger Clough

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Jan 12, 2013, 6:03:00 AM1/12/13
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Hi meekerdb

As you observe, beliefs can be slippery, because reason is the devil's whore.
That's why we Lutherans rely first on faith (trust in God).
Second on the Bible.


[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
1/12/2013
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen
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From: meekerdb
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Time: 2013-01-11, 17:42:15
Subject: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.


On 1/11/2013 2:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



Bruno Marchal

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Jan 12, 2013, 6:44:33 AM1/12/13
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On 12 Jan 2013, at 07:00, John Clark wrote:


On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 5:17 PM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> He [me] would rather avoid those topics altogether and take solace in denying specific instances of inconsistent or silly definitions of God.

All I ask is a definition of God that has 2 attributes:

1) It is not silly or inconsistent.

You ask already a lot.



2) There is no other word except  G-O-D that works as well.

And when 99.9% of the religious use the word "God" they mean a omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe,

I am not sure of that. Even restricting ourself to Abramanic religion. The beliefs are quite variate on this.

Bruno



and when non-religious people say they believe in God they mean they believe in the word G-O-D and that's it.

  John K Clark




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Bruno Marchal

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Jan 12, 2013, 6:50:24 AM1/12/13
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Even the Christian Thomists were aware that God cannot be both omnipotent and omniscient (unless inconsistent).  Anyway, I don't use the term "god" and "religion" or "theology" in the occidental conventional religion sense. Like I don't use the term "genetics" in the USSR Lyssenko sense.
It is irrational to fight against a field from the fact that the curent proponents are a bit delirious about it, which can be explained by the human emotion of some, and the willing of power of others. Today I disbelieve in the politics of health of most countries, but this is because I do believe in some notion of health.

Bruno



spudb...@aol.com

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Jan 12, 2013, 10:56:04 AM1/12/13
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Ok, Jason, sorry for my misunderstanding. I was being too literal. Perhaps substitute the word God for Mind, and maybe we'd reduce the friction slightly. Silliness as a model would probably be the Flying Spaghetti as diety. Though it  does make me hungry to think upon.


-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com>
To: everything-list <everyth...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Fri, Jan 11, 2013 5:17 pm
Subject: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

John Clark

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Jan 12, 2013, 11:32:17 AM1/12/13
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On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 12:41 AM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Please provide some reference showing almost all theists use that definition of God [ a omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe] .  I find it unlikely that most theists would incorporate every facet of that definition. 

That's true. Many theists, the more intelligent ones anyway, reject the idea of God but they become so in love with a word they play a silly and rather cowardly game. If, as so many have, you redefine the word "God"  to mean "a power greater than myself" then I am a theist who firmly believes in God because I believe that bulldozers exist. But if by "God" you mean a being with super-human abilities then God is just a comic book superhero (or supervillan) and I am a agnostic about something like that actually existing somewhere in the universe. 

> It doesn't matter if 95% of theisms are ones you find fault with; it only takes one correct theism to make atheism wrong, which is why I think it is an untenable and illogical position.

Obviously I can't refute every one of the tens of thousands of Gods that humans have invented over the eons, but your statement assumes that if there is no hard evidence for or against a theory then there is a 50% chance that it is correct and thus worthy of serious consideration. And that is idiotic.    
 
> John said that he "just believes in one less god" than I do, but he refused to say what that one God was that I believed in but he doesn't.

I don't believe in a omnipotent omniscient being that created the universe and I think you do.

  John K Clark 

Richard Ruquist

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Jan 12, 2013, 11:36:30 AM1/12/13
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An MWI block universe in which the past and future are computed once
and for all would be something like an all-knowing god.

But such a universe lacks consciousness and the need for a god as well.

Perhaps that is why many physicists like MWI
Richard


>>
>> Now some, far from powerful, humans with far from complete information,
>> eliminated smallpox from the world. God therefore must have had that power
>> and simply chose not to do it. So if any very powerful, very knowledgeable
>> superbeing exists, it is not beneficent and not an acceptable judge of good
>> and evil. These are not just a peripheral idea of theisms and it's
>> falsehood is not a minor point because all theism insist that these ideas
>> are definitive of their religion.
>
>
> It doesn't matter if 95% of theisms are ones you find fault with; it only
> takes one correct theism to make atheism wrong, which is why I think it is
> an untenable and illogical position.
>
>>
>>
>> John didn't say that all religions are false or unscientific. His point
>> was that you can avoid those attributes by becoming a *liberal theologian* -
>> and incidentally that nothing follows from liberal theology.
>>
>
> It was in another thread that John said that he "just believes in one less
> god" than I do, but he refused to say what that one God was that I believed
> in but he doesn't.
>
> Jason
>

Jason Resch

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Jan 12, 2013, 12:21:03 PM1/12/13
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On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 10:32 AM, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 12:41 AM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Please provide some reference showing almost all theists use that definition of God [ a omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe] .  I find it unlikely that most theists would incorporate every facet of that definition. 

That's true. Many theists, the more intelligent ones anyway, reject the idea of God but they become so in love with a word they play a silly and rather cowardly game. If, as so many have, you redefine the word "God"  to mean "a power greater than myself" then I am a theist who firmly believes in God because I believe that bulldozers exist. But if by "God" you mean a being with super-human abilities then God is just a comic book superhero (or supervillan) and I am a agnostic about something like that actually existing somewhere in the universe. 

> It doesn't matter if 95% of theisms are ones you find fault with; it only takes one correct theism to make atheism wrong, which is why I think it is an untenable and illogical position.

Obviously I can't refute every one of the tens of thousands of Gods that humans have invented over the eons,

It is not about refuting all of them.  It is that maybe there are some you would do believe in, if you knew more about them.  Even one who has spent years studying all known human religions lacks knowledge about religions unknown to history, or any of the individually developed privately known religions, or religions of other species or civilizations on other planets.  How can anyone presume to know enough to know that they are all false?
 
but your statement assumes that if there is no hard evidence for or against a theory then there is a 50% chance that it is correct and thus worthy of serious consideration. And that is idiotic.    

I never said there was a 50% probability, or that all theories are worthy of serious consideration.  I do find it absurd, however, to reject all theories when one has no evidence for or against them.  Why not remain neutral until you have a reason otherwise?  Also, if you don't think 50% is a valid starting point, what do you suggest is a good prior probability to use in Bayesian inference when one lacks any evidence for or against a proposition?
 
 
> John said that he "just believes in one less god" than I do, but he refused to say what that one God was that I believed in but he doesn't.

I don't believe in a omnipotent omniscient being that created the universe and I think you do.

No you don't.  I've said before an omniscient being does not have the power to forget, and hence cannot be considered omnipotent.  However, if you limit those words to refer to something else, like a universe (rather than to itself, where the contradiction is created), then it may be possible to be both omniscient and omnipotent in reference to that other thing.

Since you and I are both platonists, we agree that anything not ruled out by its definition exists.   So you should agree there are instances in the plentitude where beings create vast simulations of entire universes.  We humans have already played this role in creating relatively simple GoL universes.  In the context of the simulation, a being can know everything about it and simultaneously exercise complete control over it, even changing the laws or altering its natural progression of the simulation.

If you believe everything with a consistent definition exists, then there exists a universe just like ours that was created by a being who knows everything that happens in it and has complete control to alter it in any way that being sees fit.  There is nothing inconsistent or impossible about this.  So you have a choice: either abandon platonism or abandon atheism.  The two are incompatible.  This is more easily demonstrable when you use other definitions of God, such as when you identify the platonic plenitude with the Hindu's Brahman.  You and Brent seem hell-bent on using a definition where God is an omniscient and omnipotent person, so I offer the above example of the simulation hypothesis as an example more fitting to your definition.

While on this subject, I have another question for you and Brent: Do you believe in an afterlife or immortality?  Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?

Thanks,

Jason

John Clark

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Jan 12, 2013, 1:54:15 PM1/12/13
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On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 12:21 PM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?

Strangely enough there is, the soul is the essential must have part of consciousness, therefore I think that Information is as close as you can get to the traditional concept of the soul and still remain within the scientific method.

Consider the similarities:

The soul is non material and so is information. It's difficult to pin down a unique physical location for the soul, and the same is true for information. The soul is the essential, must have, part of consciousness, exactly the same situation is true for information. The soul is immortal and so, potentially, is information.                

 But there are also important differences.

 A soul is unique but information can be duplicated. The soul is and will always remain unfathomable, but information is understandable, in fact, information is the ONLY thing that is understandable. Information unambiguously exists, I don't think anyone would deny that, but if the soul exists (as distinct from information) it will never be proven scientifically.

  John K Clark


Richard Ruquist

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Jan 12, 2013, 2:28:28 PM1/12/13
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I recall that Martin Buber based on some Midrash commentary suggested
that I-Thou experiences will stay with the soul but I-It will not.
Richard

meekerdb

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Jan 12, 2013, 7:15:13 PM1/12/13
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But that's exactly what John was mocking: Let's see if there's *anything* we can find that we can stick the appellation "God" on, any crack we can caulk with the tube of divinity.  That may be fine if you you're intent on inventing a religion that has a "God"; it's worked in the past.  But "God" either has a meaning or not.  The meaning assigned by the majority of theisms, e.g. Catholicism, Baptists, Islam includes those I gave above.  That Judaism doesn't include the idea of justice in the afterlife, doesn't let it escape the problem of theodicy.


This definition is pretty much identical to that found in some schools of Hinduism. 

Right.  Hinduism isn't theism.


We might also envision an omega-point civilization creating simulated words containing life forms over which it is omnipotent and omniscient.  In fact, if reality is hugely or infinitely varied, e.g., many worlds, eternal inflation, string theory landscapes, then it becomes highly probable if not guaranteed that there are many explanations for your current moment of awareness.  You simultaneously exist in many versions of this universe, and some proportion of which may be created by superbeings as part of their exploration of reality. 

That doesn't mean they are beneficient.  Theism =/= deism.  Deism is logically and empirically possible - but so it Pastafarianism.  And there's no reason to believe either one of them.


What would the atheist who believes in a plentitude say then? 

If he wanted to be a liberal theologian he'd say, "The Plentitude is God."


Perhaps something like: "I believe God(s) rule(s) over the universe I am in, but only with a relatively small measure across all the universes I am in".  What does the statement even mean at that point?


Brent
Peter: What would you say if I told you that the universe is
the creation of an all powerful, all knowing being, who commands
our obedience and worship.
Curls: I'd say you were about to take up a collection.
      --- Johnny Hart, in B.C.

meekerdb

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Jan 12, 2013, 7:34:35 PM1/12/13
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On 1/12/2013 3:03 AM, Roger Clough wrote:
Hi meekerdb  

As you observe, beliefs can be slippery, because reason is the devil's whore. 

Can you give any reason to believe that?


That's why we Lutherans rely first on faith (trust in God). 
Second on the Bible. 

So did Martin Luther rely on faith or the bible when he wrote, ""What shall we do with...the Jews?...set fire to their synagogues or schools and bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them."

Brent
"We are at fault for not slaying them [the Jews]."
         ---Martin Luther, "On the Jews and Their Lies"

meekerdb

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Jan 12, 2013, 8:41:05 PM1/12/13
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On 1/12/2013 3:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 12 Jan 2013, at 07:00, John Clark wrote:


On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 5:17 PM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> He [me] would rather avoid those topics altogether and take solace in denying specific instances of inconsistent or silly definitions of God.

All I ask is a definition of God that has 2 attributes:

1) It is not silly or inconsistent.

You ask already a lot.



2) There is no other word except  G-O-D that works as well.

And when 99.9% of the religious use the word "God" they mean a omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe,

I am not sure of that. Even restricting ourself to Abramanic religion. The beliefs are quite variate on this.

Here's the statement of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest protestant sect in the U.S.

-------------
There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and all wise. God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.
---------------

Or see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attributes_of_God_in_Christianity

and

http://preceptaustin.org/notes_for_attributes_of_god_%28ii%29.htm

Brent
"Those who object to the punishment of heresy are like dogs
and swine,"
      --- John Calvin




Bruno



and when non-religious people say they believe in God they mean they believe in the word G-O-D and that's it.

  John K Clark




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meekerdb

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Jan 12, 2013, 8:53:02 PM1/12/13
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Which is why I was careful in my example to require only that God be very powerful and very knowledgeable and beneficent - not that he be perfect or 'omni' in any of these virtues, only that He be much better than we expect people to be.


Anyway, I don't use the term "god" and "religion" or "theology" in the occidental conventional religion sense. Like I don't use the term "genetics" in the USSR Lyssenko sense.
It is irrational to fight against a field from the fact that the curent proponents are a bit delirious about it, which can be explained by the human emotion of some, and the willing of power of others.

On the contrary, it is important to fight against it when it's delirious adherents want to use the machinery of government to impose their theology.


Today I disbelieve in the politics of health of most countries, but this is because I do believe in some notion of health.

And I don't believe in the god of theism because I believe in some notion reality.

Brent
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do
it from religious conviction.
         --- Pascal, Pens'ees

Bruno Marchal

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Jan 12, 2013, 6:31:13 AM1/12/13
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Science follows from it. Unless you define science by instrumentalism, but even this used "unconscious" religion. Without *some* religion, there is no science at all.
Scientist who pretend not having religion, are either technician uninterested in knowledge, or people taking for granted the religion of their parents.

Bruno



Brent

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Bruno Marchal

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Jan 12, 2013, 5:41:09 PM1/12/13
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On 12 Jan 2013, at 12:03, Roger Clough wrote:

> Hi meekerdb
>
> As you observe, beliefs can be slippery, because reason is the
> devil's whore.

That's a rumor propelled by the Devil :)

Reason is bad only for those of bad faith. Religion does not oppose
with reason.
It extends it.
Reason is the best ally to honest religion.
Reason is the enemy of those who want to manipulate you in religion's
name.

From your post, I am sure you agree on this at some level. The more
you trust God, the less you fear the use of reason, even if not
especially in theology.

To oppose science and faith perverts ... science and faith. I think.

Bruno

meekerdb

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Jan 13, 2013, 1:50:03 AM1/13/13
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On 1/12/2013 9:21 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 10:32 AM, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 12:41 AM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Please provide some reference showing almost all theists use that definition of God [ a omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe] .  I find it unlikely that most theists would incorporate every facet of that definition. 

That's true. Many theists, the more intelligent ones anyway, reject the idea of God but they become so in love with a word they play a silly and rather cowardly game. If, as so many have, you redefine the word "God"  to mean "a power greater than myself" then I am a theist who firmly believes in God because I believe that bulldozers exist. But if by "God" you mean a being with super-human abilities then God is just a comic book superhero (or supervillan) and I am a agnostic about something like that actually existing somewhere in the universe. 

> It doesn't matter if 95% of theisms are ones you find fault with; it only takes one correct theism to make atheism wrong, which is why I think it is an untenable and illogical position.

Obviously I can't refute every one of the tens of thousands of Gods that humans have invented over the eons,

It is not about refuting all of them.  It is that maybe there are some you would do believe in, if you knew more about them.  Even one who has spent years studying all known human religions lacks knowledge about religions unknown to history, or any of the individually developed privately known religions, or religions of other species or civilizations on other planets.  How can anyone presume to know enough to know that they are all false?
 
but your statement assumes that if there is no hard evidence for or against a theory then there is a 50% chance that it is correct and thus worthy of serious consideration. And that is idiotic.    

I never said there was a 50% probability, or that all theories are worthy of serious consideration.  I do find it absurd, however, to reject all theories when one has no evidence for or against them.  Why not remain neutral until you have a reason otherwise?  Also, if you don't think 50% is a valid starting point, what do you suggest is a good prior probability to use in Bayesian inference when one lacks any evidence for or against a proposition?
 
 
> John said that he "just believes in one less god" than I do, but he refused to say what that one God was that I believed in but he doesn't.

I don't believe in a omnipotent omniscient being that created the universe and I think you do.

No you don't.  I've said before an omniscient being does not have the power to forget, and hence cannot be considered omnipotent.  However, if you limit those words to refer to something else, like a universe (rather than to itself, where the contradiction is created), then it may be possible to be both omniscient and omnipotent in reference to that other thing.

Since you and I are both platonists, we agree that anything not ruled out by its definition exists.   So you should agree there are instances in the plentitude where beings create vast simulations of entire universes.  We humans have already played this role in creating relatively simple GoL universes.  In the context of the simulation, a being can know everything about it and simultaneously exercise complete control over it, even changing the laws or altering its natural progression of the simulation.

As one who often writes simulations, I note that I *don't* know everything about them and the reason I create them is to find out something I don't know.  Of course you may say that I could find it out, after the simulation has run - but that does seem to be what the religious mean by omniscient since they include knowing things before they happen.



If you believe everything with a consistent definition exists, then there exists a universe just like ours that was created by a being who knows everything that happens in it and has complete control to alter it in any way that being sees fit.  There is nothing inconsistent or impossible about this.  So you have a choice: either abandon platonism or abandon atheism.  The two are incompatible. 

If it's possible we live in a simulation, it's also possible we don't.  So I don't see the incompatibility.


This is more easily demonstrable when you use other definitions of God, such as when you identify the platonic plenitude with the Hindu's Brahman.  You and Brent seem hell-bent on using a definition where God is an omniscient and omnipotent person,

And beneficent and answers prayers.  Other gods who may have created the universe for amusement and who are not beneficent are possible.  Gods who created this universe as a simulation to see how it turns out and who therefore never meddle in it, deist gods are possible.

But many things are possible.  I don't go around believing them just because they are possible.  A-theism doesn't mean believing there are no gods, it just means failing to believe there are gods (at least theist ones).


so I offer the above example of the simulation hypothesis as an example more fitting to your definition.

While on this subject, I have another question for you and Brent: Do you believe in an afterlife or immortality? 

I think the evidence is against it.


Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?

That's a liberal theologians question: There's a word "soul" I'd like to use.  Please think of something it applies to so we can agree that it exists. 

I'd be happy to agree with any definition that captures common usage and is definite.  I think common usage equates soul with the basic character and expressed values of a person or other agent.

Brent

Jason Resch

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Jan 13, 2013, 2:37:17 AM1/13/13
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On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 12:50 AM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/12/2013 9:21 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 10:32 AM, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 12:41 AM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Please provide some reference showing almost all theists use that definition of God [ a omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe] .  I find it unlikely that most theists would incorporate every facet of that definition. 

That's true. Many theists, the more intelligent ones anyway, reject the idea of God but they become so in love with a word they play a silly and rather cowardly game. If, as so many have, you redefine the word "God"  to mean "a power greater than myself" then I am a theist who firmly believes in God because I believe that bulldozers exist. But if by "God" you mean a being with super-human abilities then God is just a comic book superhero (or supervillan) and I am a agnostic about something like that actually existing somewhere in the universe. 

> It doesn't matter if 95% of theisms are ones you find fault with; it only takes one correct theism to make atheism wrong, which is why I think it is an untenable and illogical position.

Obviously I can't refute every one of the tens of thousands of Gods that humans have invented over the eons,

It is not about refuting all of them.  It is that maybe there are some you would do believe in, if you knew more about them.  Even one who has spent years studying all known human religions lacks knowledge about religions unknown to history, or any of the individually developed privately known religions, or religions of other species or civilizations on other planets.  How can anyone presume to know enough to know that they are all false?
 
but your statement assumes that if there is no hard evidence for or against a theory then there is a 50% chance that it is correct and thus worthy of serious consideration. And that is idiotic.    

I never said there was a 50% probability, or that all theories are worthy of serious consideration.  I do find it absurd, however, to reject all theories when one has no evidence for or against them.  Why not remain neutral until you have a reason otherwise?  Also, if you don't think 50% is a valid starting point, what do you suggest is a good prior probability to use in Bayesian inference when one lacks any evidence for or against a proposition?
 
 
> John said that he "just believes in one less god" than I do, but he refused to say what that one God was that I believed in but he doesn't.

I don't believe in a omnipotent omniscient being that created the universe and I think you do.

No you don't.  I've said before an omniscient being does not have the power to forget, and hence cannot be considered omnipotent.  However, if you limit those words to refer to something else, like a universe (rather than to itself, where the contradiction is created), then it may be possible to be both omniscient and omnipotent in reference to that other thing.

Since you and I are both platonists, we agree that anything not ruled out by its definition exists.   So you should agree there are instances in the plentitude where beings create vast simulations of entire universes.  We humans have already played this role in creating relatively simple GoL universes.  In the context of the simulation, a being can know everything about it and simultaneously exercise complete control over it, even changing the laws or altering its natural progression of the simulation.

As one who often writes simulations, I note that I *don't* know everything about them and the reason I create them is to find out something I don't know.  Of course you may say that I could find it out, after the simulation has run - but that does seem to be what the religious mean by omniscient since they include knowing things before they happen.


Time doesn't translate between universes.  Consider two independent universes A, and B each with inhabitants.  For those inhabitants in universe A, you cannot say what time is it in universe B, whether universe B even started or is it already over.  Time only has meaning in the context of existing within some universe.  The same is true of the full trace of your simulations execution.  From our perspective there is no time, it is a timeless object which we can inspect and one can know the beginning and end and all the details in between.
 


If you believe everything with a consistent definition exists, then there exists a universe just like ours that was created by a being who knows everything that happens in it and has complete control to alter it in any way that being sees fit.  There is nothing inconsistent or impossible about this.  So you have a choice: either abandon platonism or abandon atheism.  The two are incompatible. 

If it's possible we live in a simulation, it's also possible we don't.  So I don't see the incompatibility.

It doesn't matter which one we are in.  If you accept Platonism then you by extension accept these semi-omniscient, semi-omnipotent beings exist.  When Atheism says they do not.

Also the question of which one we are in is ambiguous if you consider that multiple instances of ourselves (with identical mind states) exist in such simulations.  In what sense are we not in them?
 


This is more easily demonstrable when you use other definitions of God, such as when you identify the platonic plenitude with the Hindu's Brahman.  You and Brent seem hell-bent on using a definition where God is an omniscient and omnipotent person,

And beneficent and answers prayers.  Other gods who may have created the universe for amusement and who are not beneficent are possible.  Gods who created this universe as a simulation to see how it turns out and who therefore never meddle in it, deist gods are possible.

But many things are possible.  I don't go around believing them just because they are possible.

Then you are not a Platonist.
 
  A-theism doesn't mean believing there are no gods, it just means failing to believe there are gods (at least theist ones).

Do you agree or disagree with the stronger form of Atheism that rejects deist gods?
 


so I offer the above example of the simulation hypothesis as an example more fitting to your definition.

While on this subject, I have another question for you and Brent: Do you believe in an afterlife or immortality? 

I think the evidence is against it.

What evidence is there against it?

I see the following evidence for it:
Nearly all scientists would agree that the material identity is not important to continuity of consciousness.  Therefore any time the appropriate instantiation arises, consciousness can continue.  In an infinitely large and varied reality (Platonism, QM, infinite hubble volume, or eternal inflation), our patterns continually reappear.  Just as you might find a certain string of digits appear infinitely often in the digits of Pi.  If consciousness is informational/computational, and no special properties are required by the matter of the substrate, then we may even be resurrected or reincarnated in entirely different universes.  We can therefore survive even the heat death of this universe.

Immortality is given if consciousness is mechanistic and that reality is infinite in time, extent, or variety.  There are plenty of scientific theories suggesting both of these requirements exist.
 


Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?

That's a liberal theologians question: There's a word "soul" I'd like to use.  Please think of something it applies to so we can agree that it exists. 

The word "energy" has existed for thousands of years, yet with each generation its actual meaning has evolved through our greater understanding of the mechanics behind it.  It is the nature of progress for the meanings of words to change while the particular words remain and survive through the newly evolved understanding.  If we had to change our vocabulary each time we learned something new about a concept we would find reading past texts impossible.
 

I'd be happy to agree with any definition that captures common usage and is definite.  I think common usage equates soul with the basic character and expressed values of a person or other agent.

John provided a number of good elements to in his definition which both largely fits with the existing usage and is scientifically justified.

Jason

meekerdb

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Jan 13, 2013, 3:13:29 AM1/13/13
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People don't remember previous lives (and don't tell me about Bridey Murphy). Consciousness is interrupted by a blow to the head or too much Jack Daniels - so it's not likely it survives decay of the brain.



I see the following evidence for it:
Nearly all scientists would agree that the material identity is not important to continuity of consciousness.  Therefore any time the appropriate instantiation arises, consciousness can continue.  In an infinitely large and varied reality (Platonism, QM, infinite hubble volume, or eternal inflation), our patterns continually reappear. 

That would imply that copies of one's soul exist.  But John defined souls as being impossible to copy.


Just as you might find a certain string of digits appear infinitely often in the digits of Pi.  If consciousness is informational/computational, and no special properties are required by the matter of the substrate,

But John contrasted soul with information.  What definition are you using?  You ask for definitions and then you start making assertions apparently based on some definition you invented.


then we may even be resurrected or reincarnated in entirely different universes.  We can therefore survive even the heat death of this universe.

And how will we know it is us?  Will we remember this life?  If not, I'd say it's not us.



Immortality is given if consciousness is mechanistic and that reality is infinite in time, extent, or variety.  There are plenty of scientific theories suggesting both of these requirements exist.
 


Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?

That's a liberal theologians question: There's a word "soul" I'd like to use.  Please think of something it applies to so we can agree that it exists. 

The word "energy" has existed for thousands of years, yet with each generation its actual meaning has evolved through our greater understanding of the mechanics behind it. 

Whereas "soul" has evolved to have no definite meaning at all  - which is not doubt why you wanted John and I to define it rather than defining it yourself or simply referring to its (non-existent) common meaning.


It is the nature of progress for the meanings of words to change while the particular words remain and survive through the newly evolved understanding.  If we had to change our vocabulary each time we learned something new about a concept we would find reading past texts impossible.
 

I'd be happy to agree with any definition that captures common usage and is definite.  I think common usage equates soul with the basic character and expressed values of a person or other agent.

John provided a number of good elements to in his definition which both largely fits with the existing usage and is scientifically justified.

It's a confusion of categories to say a definition is scientifically justified. And John didn't define "soul" he just listed some attributes that he thought it should have.

Brent
"Only through ignorance and delusion do men indulge in the
dream that their souls are separate and self-existing
entities. Their heart still clings to Self. They are anxious
about heaven and they seek the pleasure of Self in heaven.
Thus they cannot see the bliss of righteousness of the
immortality of truth.' Selfish ideas appear in man's mind
due to his conception of Self and craving for existence."
      --- Siddhartha Gautama

Bruno Marchal

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Jan 13, 2013, 3:38:18 AM1/13/13
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On 12 Jan 2013, at 17:32, John Clark wrote:

On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 12:41 AM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Please provide some reference showing almost all theists use that definition of God [ a omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe] .  I find it unlikely that most theists would incorporate every facet of that definition. 

That's true. Many theists, the more intelligent ones anyway, reject the idea of God but they become so in love with a word they play a silly and rather cowardly game. If, as so many have, you redefine the word "God"  to mean "a power greater than myself"

... and responsible for your existence.



then I am a theist who firmly believes in God because I believe that bulldozers exist.

Bulldozers are not responsible for your existence. But you might believe in a God if you believe that there is a primary physical world from which you would have emerged. It is part of Aristotle theology. I tend to be "atheist" with respect to that God.
With comp, the "ONE" is very simple, as it is the "ultimate 3p truth" from we originate. You can take arithmetical truth.



But if by "God" you mean a being with super-human abilities then God is just a comic book superhero (or supervillan) and I am a agnostic about something like that actually existing somewhere in the universe. 

OK. me too.



> It doesn't matter if 95% of theisms are ones you find fault with; it only takes one correct theism to make atheism wrong, which is why I think it is an untenable and illogical position.

Obviously I can't refute every one of the tens of thousands of Gods that humans have invented over the eons, but your statement assumes that if there is no hard evidence for or against a theory then there is a 50% chance that it is correct and thus worthy of serious consideration. And that is idiotic.    

I think that Telmo did not say that. He just said that one consistent notion of God is enough to make atheism into a dogmatic (non rational) belief (as opposed to the natural scientific attitude: cautiousness and agnosticism).


 
> John said that he "just believes in one less god" than I do, but he refused to say what that one God was that I believed in but he doesn't.

I don't believe in a omnipotent omniscient being that created the universe and I think you do.

I have never met a theologian genuinely believing in both omnipotence and omniscience. Since Thomas, christian theologians knows that it is inconsistent. 

Bruno




Roger Clough

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Jan 13, 2013, 5:37:10 AM1/13/13
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Hi Bruno Marchal

No, the Devil would never disparage reason. For reason, as
we can see on this list, is the father of doubt.

Reason, for example through Aquinas' 5 proofs of God, can get you
no closer to God than plausibility. You have to take the blind
leap of faith to actually reach God.

See how clever Satan is, using perfectly reasonable questions and
common sense to deceive Eve into eating the apple:

"The Fall

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,
3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you
must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that
when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye,
and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to
her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened,
and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for
themselves."


[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
1/13/2013
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen
----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Bruno Marchal
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2013-01-12, 17:41:09
Subject: Re: WHY YOU SHOULDN'T BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN

Roger Clough

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Jan 13, 2013, 7:48:01 AM1/13/13
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Hi meekerdb

Just because you can prove something, doesn't mean that it's true.
It's only true if it corresponds to reality.

Yes, Luther hated the jews. It's always a bit of an embarassment.
He was smart, but he wasn't holy. Lutherans don't believe that
men can become saints anyway.

Romans 3:10 "As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one."

And I am a prime example of that.


[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
1/13/2013
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen
----- Receiving the following content -----
From: meekerdb
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2013-01-12, 19:34:35
Subject: Re: WHY YOU SHOULDN'T BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN


Richard Ruquist

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Jan 13, 2013, 8:52:51 AM1/13/13
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On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 7:48 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
> Romans 3:10 "As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one."

This statement could be broadened to include god and therefore account
for misery in this world.
Richard

John Clark

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Jan 13, 2013, 12:56:11 PM1/13/13
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On Sun, Jan 13, 2013  Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
 
>> If, as so many have, you redefine the word "God"  to mean "a power greater than myself" then I am a theist who firmly believes in God because I believe that bulldozers exist.

> Bulldozers are not responsible for your existence.

Both my parents were bulldozer drivers who first met at a bulldozer convention. So a bulldozer is God.

> one consistent notion of God is enough to make atheism into a dogmatic (non rational) belief

There is no way to make sense out of the notion of God, but you can redefine the word "God" so radically that it becomes virtually unrecognizable to the billions of religious on this planet, and then and only then does the word "God" correspond with something that actually exists, even if there is already plenty of perfectly good words for that thing. People just want to say they believe in G-O-D, what the word actually means is unimportant.  

> I have never met a theologian genuinely believing in both omnipotence and omniscience.

I've had 13 years of formal religious training and I never met a theologian who didn't preach that God was omnipotent and omniscient. I don't know how many genuinely believed in the bullshit they were spouting but I'd guess most of them did, certainly the vast majority of those listening to the crap swallowed every word  of it, in fact I think I was the only one who did not. 

  John K Clark

 

John Clark

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Jan 13, 2013, 1:43:15 PM1/13/13
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On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 6:03 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:

> reason is the devil's whore.

I'll bet if it supported their beliefs the religious would like reason just fine.
 
> That's why we Lutherans rely first on faith

So God gave us a brain but doesn't want us to use it and He thinks the very highest virtue is stupidity. It's very hard to figure out why a omniscient would want us to be dumb, but it's very very easy to figure out why human charlatans would push this idea, stupid people are easier to control.

> Second on the Bible.

I don't think anybody on this list has ever mentioned Grimm's Fairy Tales or quoted from that book, but the Bible is constantly talked about. Why the difference? Why is it that even in the 21'th century people still organize expeditions to find Noah's arc but not to find the giant shoe that the old lady lived in who had so many children she didn't know what to do? The shoe story is far more reasonable and intelligent than the Noah story and yet people look for the arc but not the giant shoe. Why?

There can only be one answer, because when they were infants Mommy and Daddy told them the Bible was true and Grimm's Fairy Tales was not and the very young are genetically disposed to believe everything adults tell them even into adulthood; that is also the only reason that strongly held religious beliefs and geography have such a enormously strong relationship.

  John K Clark




 

Stephen P. King

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Jan 13, 2013, 1:58:34 PM1/13/13
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On 1/13/2013 3:13 AM, meekerdb wrote:
>> Nearly all scientists would agree that the material identity is not
>> important to continuity of consciousness. Therefore any time the
>> appropriate instantiation arises, consciousness can continue. In an
>> infinitely large and varied reality (Platonism, QM, infinite hubble
>> volume, or eternal inflation), our patterns continually reappear.
>
> That would imply that copies of one's soul exist. But John defined
> souls as being impossible to copy.
Hi,

I disagree, if we bet on comp there is only one soul, just
infinitely many 'versions' or 'projections' of it. Consciousness is the
1p associated with the local version, IMHO, unless we allow for 1p that
contain experiences that are mutually contradictory.


--
Onward!

Stephen


Stephen P. King

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Jan 13, 2013, 2:00:59 PM1/13/13
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On 1/13/2013 3:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> I have never met a theologian genuinely believing in both omnipotence
> and omniscience. Since Thomas, christian theologians knows that it is
> inconsistent.
>
Dear Bruno,

I have yet to find a modern Christian apologists that is troubled
by this. Most of them reject symbolic logic as applicable to 'God'.
Frankly, IMHO discussing the beliefs of those that reject reason is a
fools errand.

--
Onward!

Stephen


Bruno Marchal

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Jan 13, 2013, 2:05:53 PM1/13/13
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And I disagree with them, but you are right.
If I remember well Belinfante wrote a book concluding that with QM the
choice is between a GOD or MWI. The idea is simple, as it would be
the consciousness of a God selecting one universe among the multiverse.

The MWI is like the comp "Noùs", the "infinite intellect or
intelligible realm": Simply the collection of all provable (by the
universal machine) (arithmetical) truth. (The UD, the sigma_1 truth).
If the machine is universal, this contains all computations, and by
comp, all subjective experiences, even if the consciousness is not
really attached to any computations in particular, but to all of them,
enough similar (with respect to the comp subst level) simultaneously.

But this does not make disappearing the outer God (arithmetical truth,
beyond the computable, the union of all the sigma_i), nor the Inner
God associated to the machine, due to the undoubtable yet accessible
truth (Bp & p) when the machine looks inward. Actually you need those
notions before defining what is an observable for a machine.

The problem of the comp "God", and apparently of the Plotinian God, is
that it acts like an attractor to the souls, but also as a repulser.
A picture might go like this: God, perhaps by some excess of love, let
the complete creation or emanation to deploy, but then God lost
control on the bottom or the border, and lost itself there in
multiplying into many souls, lost on that bottom. Yet the souls can
only come back to God by using that bottom as a sort of springboard.
They have to be careful because the bottom, matter, is really where
God loses control and can't help. This can be related with the fact
that matter is the result of your 1-indeterminacy, which is an
indeterminacy for both the inner God ("you"), and the outer God (with
comp: arithmetical truth). God attracts the souls, but by his
inability to control matter, it can't attract a soul too much lost in
matter, in particular, the wanting of the coming back as to come from
the soul, and from nothing else publicly communicable.



Bruno
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Bruno Marchal

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Jan 13, 2013, 3:02:24 PM1/13/13
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On 12 Jan 2013, at 19:54, John Clark wrote:


On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 12:21 PM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?

Strangely enough there is, the soul is the essential must have part of consciousness, therefore I think that Information is as close as you can get to the traditional concept of the soul and still remain within the scientific method.

Hmm... Why just information. Then information is quite physical for some physicists (like Landauer, Deutsch, ...).





Consider the similarities:

The soul is non material and so is information.

And so are numbers.



It's difficult to pin down a unique physical location for the soul, and the same is true for information.


Like numbers, and digital machine (in the Church Turing sense).



The soul is the essential, must have, part of consciousness, exactly the same situation is true for information.

I am not entirely sure of this, and I don't even think this is an easy matter to decide.





The soul is immortal and so, potentially, is information.


Hmm... in some non interesting sense. 

I prefer to define information by what the soul get in a duplication experience. The soul is the knower. That is something obeying at least to S4 modal logic. We get one by applying the most standard definition of knowledge (true belief) when modeling belief by machine provability.

They might be better theory, but this illustrate that there are less flat notion of soul in computer science than just information (which is a mud term, with some precise technical definitions, very often abused, also). 


           

 But there are also important differences.

 A soul is unique but information can be duplicated.

Excellent point. That why the soul is more the point of you of the information receiver (1 or 0, W or M), than the information itself.
Your body is duplicable, but your first person pov does not duplicate in the process.




The soul is and will always remain unfathomable,

In which theory? In all theories. That looks like "Heavier than air will never fly".




but information is understandable, in fact, information is the ONLY thing that is understandable.

Hmm... You have a flattening conception of cognitive and computer science. Or you are just playing with the word, and jump from information to information content.




Information unambiguously exists,


Hmm... OK.



I don't think anyone would deny that, but if the soul exists (as distinct from information) it will never be proven scientifically.

Honestly, this will depend of the theory. With the Theaetetus' definition of the knower, and Plotinus/Brouwer definition of the soul: it is a theorem that all Löbian machine have a soul. Like they have intelligible matter around them, and sensible one too. 

Bruno




  John K Clark



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Jason Resch

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Jan 13, 2013, 3:34:45 PM1/13/13
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Maybe you will when you wake up from this one.  Consciousness will continue along any path it can, including those paths which may be less likely than normal (such as finding your entire life as Brent Meeker to be a dream, or the experience of a God-like mind who has infinite computing resources at its disposal, and chooses to explore reality first-hand, by becoming all the possible beings in it).

 
Consciousness is interrupted by a blow to the head or too much Jack Daniels - so it's not likely it survives decay of the brain.


Yes, if you ignored what I said about infinite other instantiations of your brain elsewhere.  Also, as brain states decline in complexity it becomes more likely that it will intersect that of another (perhaps developing) brain elsewhere, leading to reincarnation.

From a third-person view, consciousness can be interrupted.  But when have you ever lived that interruption first hand?
 


I see the following evidence for it:
Nearly all scientists would agree that the material identity is not important to continuity of consciousness.  Therefore any time the appropriate instantiation arises, consciousness can continue.  In an infinitely large and varied reality (Platonism, QM, infinite hubble volume, or eternal inflation), our patterns continually reappear. 

That would imply that copies of one's soul exist.  But John defined souls as being impossible to copy.

So you reject the possibility of what I said above on the basis that souls cannot be copied?
 


Just as you might find a certain string of digits appear infinitely often in the digits of Pi.  If consciousness is informational/computational, and no special properties are required by the matter of the substrate,

But John contrasted soul with information.  What definition are you using?  You ask for definitions and then you start making assertions apparently based on some definition you invented.

The only word I used in the above quote was "consciousness".  I refrained from using the less defined "soul".
 


then we may even be resurrected or reincarnated in entirely different universes.  We can therefore survive even the heat death of this universe.

And how will we know it is us? 

The same way you remember you are you from moment to moment.
 
Will we remember this life?  If not, I'd say it's not us.

Some continuation paths will.
 



Immortality is given if consciousness is mechanistic and that reality is infinite in time, extent, or variety.  There are plenty of scientific theories suggesting both of these requirements exist.
 


Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?

That's a liberal theologians question: There's a word "soul" I'd like to use.  Please think of something it applies to so we can agree that it exists. 

The word "energy" has existed for thousands of years, yet with each generation its actual meaning has evolved through our greater understanding of the mechanics behind it. 

Whereas "soul" has evolved to have no definite meaning at all  - which is not doubt why you wanted John and I to define it rather than defining it yourself or simply referring to its (non-existent) common meaning.

I am attempting to change that.  I think science is revealing reasons for a set of beliefs not unlike those found across many of the world's religions.  Ultimately, we may have a set of agreed upon definitions for words like "soul" as we now do for words like "energy".
 
Jason



It is the nature of progress for the meanings of words to change while the particular words remain and survive through the newly evolved understanding.  If we had to change our vocabulary each time we learned something new about a concept we would find reading past texts impossible.
 

I'd be happy to agree with any definition that captures common usage and is definite.  I think common usage equates soul with the basic character and expressed values of a person or other agent.

John provided a number of good elements to in his definition which both largely fits with the existing usage and is scientifically justified.

It's a confusion of categories to say a definition is scientifically justified. And John didn't define "soul" he just listed some attributes that he thought it should have.

Brent
"Only through ignorance and delusion do men indulge in the
dream that their souls are separate and self-existing
entities. Their heart still clings to Self. They are anxious
about heaven and they seek the pleasure of Self in heaven.
Thus they cannot see the bliss of righteousness of the
immortality of truth.' Selfish ideas appear in man's mind
due to his conception of Self and craving for existence."
      --- Siddhartha Gautama

--

meekerdb

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Jan 14, 2013, 2:23:28 AM1/14/13
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I thought you'd never notice.


 
  A-theism doesn't mean believing there are no gods, it just means failing to believe there are gods (at least theist ones).

Do you agree or disagree with the stronger form of Atheism that rejects deist gods?
 


so I offer the above example of the simulation hypothesis as an example more fitting to your definition.

While on this subject, I have another question for you and Brent: Do you believe in an afterlife or immortality? 

I think the evidence is against it.

What evidence is there against it?

People don't remember previous lives (and don't tell me about Bridey Murphy).

Maybe you will when you wake up from this one.  Consciousness will continue along any path it can,

And maybe not. How is that consistent with the idea that consciousness is a process and not a thing.  What capabilities do you imagine that it can employee so that it can continue?


including those paths which may be less likely than normal (such as finding your entire life as Brent Meeker to be a dream, or the experience of a God-like mind who has infinite computing resources at its disposal, and chooses to explore reality first-hand, by becoming all the possible beings in it).

Or as Saibal Mitra suggested, when my consciousness is reduced to that of a baby I'll be reincarnated as some baby.  But that runs into the identity sans memory question.  As Saibal said, "The person I was when I was 3 years old is dead. He died because
too much new information was added to his brain."


 
Consciousness is interrupted by a blow to the head or too much Jack Daniels - so it's not likely it survives decay of the brain.


Yes, if you ignored what I said about infinite other instantiations of your brain elsewhere.  Also, as brain states decline in complexity it becomes more likely that it will intersect that of another (perhaps developing) brain elsewhere, leading to reincarnation.

From a third-person view, consciousness can be interrupted.  But when have you ever lived that interruption first hand?
 


I see the following evidence for it:
Nearly all scientists would agree that the material identity is not important to continuity of consciousness.  Therefore any time the appropriate instantiation arises, consciousness can continue.  In an infinitely large and varied reality (Platonism, QM, infinite hubble volume, or eternal inflation), our patterns continually reappear. 

That would imply that copies of one's soul exist.  But John defined souls as being impossible to copy.

So you reject the possibility of what I said above on the basis that souls cannot be copied?

I don't accept it as likely if that's what you mean by 'reject'.  What's your definition of "soul"?  Can it be duplicated?  You seem to imply that your think your soul and the rest of you already exists in infinitely many copies - in which case I would wonder what you aren't all of them, like the Borg.  And if you're not all of them now, why would you suppose you would become one of them when you die?


 


Just as you might find a certain string of digits appear infinitely often in the digits of Pi.  If consciousness is informational/computational, and no special properties are required by the matter of the substrate,

But John contrasted soul with information.  What definition are you using?  You ask for definitions and then you start making assertions apparently based on some definition you invented.

The only word I used in the above quote was "consciousness".  I refrained from using the less defined "soul".
 


then we may even be resurrected or reincarnated in entirely different universes.  We can therefore survive even the heat death of this universe.

And how will we know it is us? 

The same way you remember you are you from moment to moment.

Then why aren't we surrounded by people who remember previous lives?  Why don't we remember them?


 
Will we remember this life?  If not, I'd say it's not us.

Some continuation paths will.
 



Immortality is given if consciousness is mechanistic and that reality is infinite in time, extent, or variety.  There are plenty of scientific theories suggesting both of these requirements exist.
 


Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?

That's a liberal theologians question: There's a word "soul" I'd like to use.  Please think of something it applies to so we can agree that it exists. 

The word "energy" has existed for thousands of years, yet with each generation its actual meaning has evolved through our greater understanding of the mechanics behind it. 

Whereas "soul" has evolved to have no definite meaning at all  - which is not doubt why you wanted John and I to define it rather than defining it yourself or simply referring to its (non-existent) common meaning.

I am attempting to change that.  I think science is revealing reasons for a set of beliefs not unlike those found across many of the world's religions.  Ultimately, we may have a set of agreed upon definitions for words like "soul" as we now do for words like "energy".

Maybe.  But why suppose they will bear any more resemblance to the religious concept than "energy" bears to the biblical "sweat of the brow".

Brent


 
Jason



It is the nature of progress for the meanings of words to change while the particular words remain and survive through the newly evolved understanding.  If we had to change our vocabulary each time we learned something new about a concept we would find reading past texts impossible.
 

I'd be happy to agree with any definition that captures common usage and is definite.  I think common usage equates soul with the basic character and expressed values of a person or other agent.

John provided a number of good elements to in his definition which both largely fits with the existing usage and is scientifically justified.

It's a confusion of categories to say a definition is scientifically justified. And John didn't define "soul" he just listed some attributes that he thought it should have.

Brent
"Only through ignorance and delusion do men indulge in the
dream that their souls are separate and self-existing
entities. Their heart still clings to Self. They are anxious
about heaven and they seek the pleasure of Self in heaven.
Thus they cannot see the bliss of righteousness of the
immortality of truth.' Selfish ideas appear in man's mind
due to his conception of Self and craving for existence."
      --- Siddhartha Gautama
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Roger Clough

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Hi Stephen P. King

I agree with meeker on the nonduplicates of soul, which are as individual
as DNA or fingerprints. And the identity of indescernibles.


[Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
1/14/2013
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Roger Clough

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Hi Stephen P. King

You can either be untroubled by the fact that innocent people die or suffer,
or you can try to find meaning for why this can be so.


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Roger Clough

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Hi Richard Ruquist

God is not righteous by what standards ? Yours?


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On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 7:48 AM, Roger Clough wrote:
> Romans 3:10 "As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one."

This statement could be broadened to include god and therefore account
for misery in this world.
Richard

Richard Ruquist

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Jan 14, 2013, 10:57:56 AM1/14/13
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Hi Roger Clough,

God is everything, including this list.

Richard David,
"complex variables and quantum theory go together"

Bruno Marchal

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Jan 14, 2013, 11:29:13 AM1/14/13
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On 13 Jan 2013, at 02:41, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/12/2013 3:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 12 Jan 2013, at 07:00, John Clark wrote:


On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 5:17 PM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> He [me] would rather avoid those topics altogether and take solace in denying specific instances of inconsistent or silly definitions of God.

All I ask is a definition of God that has 2 attributes:

1) It is not silly or inconsistent.

You ask already a lot.



2) There is no other word except  G-O-D that works as well.

And when 99.9% of the religious use the word "God" they mean a omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe,

I am not sure of that. Even restricting ourself to Abramanic religion. The beliefs are quite variate on this.

Here's the statement of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest protestant sect in the U.S.

-------------
There is one and only one living and true God.

We agree. By "we" I mean "me" and the classical computationalist Löbian Universal Machine. There is only ONE truth. I take "living" as a metaphor.



He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe.

Hmm.... Up to know the (physical) "universe" might be a failed attempt by God to solve a degree 4 Diophantine equation. 
Again "ruler" can be a (misleading) occidental metaphor only.





God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections.

Of course this is too much imprecise. How do we measure or scale holiness? What is holiness? What are perfections? This is akin to St Anselme definition of God, the one use by Gödel to "prove" the existence of God, by using the S5 modal logic. But I don't believe in S5.



God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures.

I don't know.



To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience.

I doubt this.



The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

This might be a simplification of a doctrine by St Augustin, itself a simplification of Plotinus three primary hypostases: the ONE (sometimes called "father" by Plotinus, and I think this was a way to attract some Christians), the Noùs (the intelligible reality that you can describe with words, but not necessarily prove), the Universal Soul.
To make this closer to some more primitive religion, and to comp, I like also, sometimes described this by the Mother, the Creation, and the (lost) Son. 




God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace.

Who know?


He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and all wise. God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.

With comp, and the "definition" of God I suggest, there is a tradeoff between power and knowledge. The more powerful he can be, the less knowledge he can access, and vice versa. Jesus might be a sort of shaman, but no human can be designate as having some special relationship to God. Either Jesus was metaphorical, or he was a con, all this assuming comp, and accepting the idea that God = (arithmetical) Truth, the 0-person point of view.

The baptists are not so bad (with respect to comp), but probably too much naïve, literal, and they still encourage the belief in authoritative arguments, which separate theology from science, and that is problematic (with or without comp, imo).

Bruno

Bruno Marchal

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Jan 14, 2013, 11:38:28 AM1/14/13
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OK.



Anyway, I don't use the term "god" and "religion" or "theology" in the occidental conventional religion sense. Like I don't use the term "genetics" in the USSR Lyssenko sense.
It is irrational to fight against a field from the fact that the curent proponents are a bit delirious about it, which can be explained by the human emotion of some, and the willing of power of others.

On the contrary, it is important to fight against it when it's delirious adherents want to use the machinery of government to impose their theology.

Like when they say that prohibition is good for the health. It is a mini-situation which mimic all the problem when we let people thinking at our place/ Once you accept that theology can use authoritative arguments, this spread on the whole of the human science, including medicine and we pay the strong price (I evaluate roughly the number of people dead by prohibition (since Nixon) close to at least the million).





Today I disbelieve in the politics of health of most countries, but this is because I do believe in some notion of health.

And I don't believe in the god of theism because I believe in some notion reality.

The point is that all God requires faith, and thus theism. I am agnostic on many religion, but sometimes you can still find the divine inspiration beyond the authoritarian politics.


Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do
it from religious conviction.
         --- Pascal, Pens'ees

Pascal is right. We cannot do anything by invoking God, as it becomes automatically an argument per authority. If someone want to do something "good", he can do it, and he can say in private that he believes in God. But even in private he cannot say "I believe in God, and so I will do this or that". With comp this is roughly equivalent with lying. No terrestrial action can be justified in his name, not one.

Bruno



Bruno Marchal

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Jan 14, 2013, 11:55:56 AM1/14/13
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On 13 Jan 2013, at 07:50, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/12/2013 9:21 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 10:32 AM, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 12:41 AM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Please provide some reference showing almost all theists use that definition of God [ a omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe] .  I find it unlikely that most theists would incorporate every facet of that definition. 

That's true. Many theists, the more intelligent ones anyway, reject the idea of God but they become so in love with a word they play a silly and rather cowardly game. If, as so many have, you redefine the word "God"  to mean "a power greater than myself" then I am a theist who firmly believes in God because I believe that bulldozers exist. But if by "God" you mean a being with super-human abilities then God is just a comic book superhero (or supervillan) and I am a agnostic about something like that actually existing somewhere in the universe. 

> It doesn't matter if 95% of theisms are ones you find fault with; it only takes one correct theism to make atheism wrong, which is why I think it is an untenable and illogical position.

Obviously I can't refute every one of the tens of thousands of Gods that humans have invented over the eons,

It is not about refuting all of them.  It is that maybe there are some you would do believe in, if you knew more about them.  Even one who has spent years studying all known human religions lacks knowledge about religions unknown to history, or any of the individually developed privately known religions, or religions of other species or civilizations on other planets.  How can anyone presume to know enough to know that they are all false?
 
but your statement assumes that if there is no hard evidence for or against a theory then there is a 50% chance that it is correct and thus worthy of serious consideration. And that is idiotic.    

I never said there was a 50% probability, or that all theories are worthy of serious consideration.  I do find it absurd, however, to reject all theories when one has no evidence for or against them.  Why not remain neutral until you have a reason otherwise?  Also, if you don't think 50% is a valid starting point, what do you suggest is a good prior probability to use in Bayesian inference when one lacks any evidence for or against a proposition?
 
 
> John said that he "just believes in one less god" than I do, but he refused to say what that one God was that I believed in but he doesn't.

I don't believe in a omnipotent omniscient being that created the universe and I think you do.

No you don't.  I've said before an omniscient being does not have the power to forget, and hence cannot be considered omnipotent.  However, if you limit those words to refer to something else, like a universe (rather than to itself, where the contradiction is created), then it may be possible to be both omniscient and omnipotent in reference to that other thing.

Since you and I are both platonists, we agree that anything not ruled out by its definition exists.   So you should agree there are instances in the plentitude where beings create vast simulations of entire universes.  We humans have already played this role in creating relatively simple GoL universes.  In the context of the simulation, a being can know everything about it and simultaneously exercise complete control over it, even changing the laws or altering its natural progression of the simulation.

As one who often writes simulations, I note that I *don't* know everything about them and the reason I create them is to find out something I don't know.  Of course you may say that I could find it out, after the simulation has run - but that does seem to be what the religious mean by omniscient since they include knowing things before they happen.


If you believe everything with a consistent definition exists, then there exists a universe just like ours that was created by a being who knows everything that happens in it and has complete control to alter it in any way that being sees fit.  There is nothing inconsistent or impossible about this.  So you have a choice: either abandon platonism or abandon atheism.  The two are incompatible. 

If it's possible we live in a simulation, it's also possible we don't.  So I don't see the incompatibility.


If we live in a simulation, we live in an infinity of simulation (and this is testable below our c-substitution level). It makes the physical reality non simulable, at least in all details.

If 3-we live in a simulation, the 1-we can't, literally speaking.





This is more easily demonstrable when you use other definitions of God, such as when you identify the platonic plenitude with the Hindu's Brahman.  You and Brent seem hell-bent on using a definition where God is an omniscient and omnipotent person,

And beneficent and answers prayers.  Other gods who may have created the universe for amusement and who are not beneficent are possible.  Gods who created this universe as a simulation to see how it turns out and who therefore never meddle in it, deist gods are possible.

Can you recall the definition of deism? I am not sure mine is the same as yours. If you have a reference ..?



But many things are possible.  I don't go around believing them just because they are possible.  A-theism doesn't mean believing there are no gods, it just means failing to believe there are gods (at least theist ones).

That is the quite opposite of most European atheism. They specifically attack me on this, and very violently. European atheist really believe that there is no God, and consider that agnostic are either nuts, or that they are coward atheist just wanting to be polite.




so I offer the above example of the simulation hypothesis as an example more fitting to your definition.

While on this subject, I have another question for you and Brent: Do you believe in an afterlife or immortality? 

I think the evidence is against it.

QM and comp provides variate evidence for variate form of after-life. Of course it is usually rather different than in the fairy tales. 




Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?

That's a liberal theologians question: There's a word "soul" I'd like to use.  Please think of something it applies to so we can agree that it exists. 

I'd be happy to agree with any definition that captures common usage and is definite.  I think common usage equates soul with the basic character and expressed values of a person or other agent.

I'm OK with this. Of course this is an open problem in arithmetic where the soul is define by the knower (Bp & p) recovered by Theaetetus's method. This fits quite well with Platonism and neoplatonism. Note that here the christians follows Plato: the soul is immortal, where for Aristotle this is untrue, unless for its intellectual part, as even for Aristotle, ideas are "eternal". 

Bruno




Brent

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Bruno Marchal

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This use a supervenience thesis which makes no sense in the computationalist theory of mind.





I see the following evidence for it:
Nearly all scientists would agree that the material identity is not important to continuity of consciousness.  Therefore any time the appropriate instantiation arises, consciousness can continue.  In an infinitely large and varied reality (Platonism, QM, infinite hubble volume, or eternal inflation), our patterns continually reappear. 

That would imply that copies of one's soul exist.  But John defined souls as being impossible to copy.

And he is right. When you duplicate the body at the correct level, you don't duplicate the soul, you duplicate only the manifestation of the soul. "I" is never duplicate as I cannot fell the split and actually never 1-split. 

Bruno





Just as you might find a certain string of digits appear infinitely often in the digits of Pi.  If consciousness is informational/computational, and no special properties are required by the matter of the substrate,

But John contrasted soul with information.  What definition are you using?  You ask for definitions and then you start making assertions apparently based on some definition you invented.

then we may even be resurrected or reincarnated in entirely different universes.  We can therefore survive even the heat death of this universe.

And how will we know it is us?  Will we remember this life?  If not, I'd say it's not us.


Immortality is given if consciousness is mechanistic and that reality is infinite in time, extent, or variety.  There are plenty of scientific theories suggesting both of these requirements exist.
 


Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?

That's a liberal theologians question: There's a word "soul" I'd like to use.  Please think of something it applies to so we can agree that it exists. 

The word "energy" has existed for thousands of years, yet with each generation its actual meaning has evolved through our greater understanding of the mechanics behind it. 

Whereas "soul" has evolved to have no definite meaning at all  - which is not doubt why you wanted John and I to define it rather than defining it yourself or simply referring to its (non-existent) common meaning.

It is the nature of progress for the meanings of words to change while the particular words remain and survive through the newly evolved understanding.  If we had to change our vocabulary each time we learned something new about a concept we would find reading past texts impossible.
 

I'd be happy to agree with any definition that captures common usage and is definite.  I think common usage equates soul with the basic character and expressed values of a person or other agent.

John provided a number of good elements to in his definition which both largely fits with the existing usage and is scientifically justified.

It's a confusion of categories to say a definition is scientifically justified. And John didn't define "soul" he just listed some attributes that he thought it should have.

Brent
"Only through ignorance and delusion do men indulge in the
dream that their souls are separate and self-existing
entities. Their heart still clings to Self. They are anxious
about heaven and they seek the pleasure of Self in heaven.
Thus they cannot see the bliss of righteousness of the
immortality of truth.' Selfish ideas appear in man's mind
due to his conception of Self and craving for existence."
      --- Siddhartha Gautama

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John Clark

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On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 1:58 PM, Stephen P. King <step...@charter.net> wrote:

On 1/13/2013 3:13 AM, meekerdb wrote:
 
>> Nearly all scientists would agree that the material identity is not important to continuity of consciousness. Therefore any time the appropriate instantiation arises, consciousness can continue.  In an infinitely large and varied reality (Platonism, QM, infinite hubble volume, or eternal inflation), our patterns continually reappear.

> That would imply that copies of one's soul exist.  But John defined souls as being impossible to copy.

Yes, and that's why I don't think that souls exist; but I do think that the most important part of consciousness, information, exists.

  John K Clark






 
Hi,

    I disagree, if we bet on comp there is only one soul, just infinitely many 'versions' or 'projections' of it. Consciousness is the 1p associated with the local version, IMHO, unless we allow for 1p that contain experiences that are mutually contradictory.


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Bruno Marchal

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Hi Roger Clough,


On 13 Jan 2013, at 11:37, Roger Clough wrote:

> Hi Bruno Marchal
>
> No, the Devil would never disparage reason. For reason, as
> we can see on this list, is the father of doubt.

We are on the domain where we might disagree a lot. I hope you don't
mind.
I think that:
doubt = sanity, and
absence of doubt = madness.


>
> Reason, for example through Aquinas' 5 proofs of God, can get you
> no closer to God than plausibility. You have to take the blind
> leap of faith to actually reach God.

I think you need only to look inward, and stop using words. You need
only to open the mind of your brain to the mind of your heart, or
perhaps just to have a good connection between your left and right
brain.

I think that if you ask a blind faith, you can only favor atheism.


>
> See how clever Satan is, using perfectly reasonable questions and
> common sense to deceive Eve into eating the apple:
>
> "The Fall
>
> 3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the
> Lord God had made.
> He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from
> any tree in the garden’?”
>
> 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in
> the garden,
> 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in
> the middle of the garden, and you
> must not touch it, or you will die.’”

And we know she will not, unless dying means "eyes opening and seeing
that we are naked, that is living on the terrestrial plane".
So either Eve lied, or God lied to Eve.

The serpent just told the truth.
How weird!



>
> 4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5
> “For God knows that
> when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like
> God, knowing good and evil.”

The first prohibition law.

That God looks like the incarnation of the authoritative argument.

Looks like the killer of the doubting reason, and the hesitating
democracy (when sane).


>
> 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food
> and pleasing to the eye,
> and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She
> also gave some to
> her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7
> Then the eyes of both of them were opened,

So the serpent was right. Unless again "dying" means (in paradise)
"living (on earth).

Are we dead?



> and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together
> and made coverings for
> themselves."

The end of innocence.

That text might be an echo of the "climate-change" passage where we
lived first in trees, and were eating and drinking in a generous
jungle, and probably naked, in an hot climate, to a more cold period,
with much less food and much difficulties to get it and keep it.

It might be an echo of a humanity nostalgia for its "childhood", and
an echo of the passage of childhood (with the father and the mother
providing food and warm) to adulthood where usually you have to find
those things by yourself.

It might be an echo for the penible truth that knowledge is not always
fun, it can hurt.

The one believing in the one (truth) fears mainly the hurting due to
the lies deposit on the truth, as when the truth win, the shock is
proportional to the thickness of the lies.

Truth is a queen which win all the wars, and this without any army.
But she is patient, as the Löbian number can make *quite* long detours.

Roger, that text is terribly hard to interpret. From comp it can still
describe a "genuine" meeting with God, but then it should have been
never written. Some truth are just non doubtable, but when asserted,
generates the infinitely many doubts. In that sense, the "fall" is
closer to the Plotinian and neoplatonic fall, with the birth of matter
as its main consequence.

I favor the second interpretation, but it inverts completely life and
death.

You are living when you are ignorant in the paradise, and you are dead
when you get the knowledge that you are naked on earth. Or God is a
liar.

But I insist. Such text are not easy to interpret.

Bruno
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Bruno Marchal

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Apparently God lied to Eve. He said that eating the fruit would kill
her, but she only got the illumination ("I am naked"), and then live
on earth.

Unless God calls "birth" what we call "death", and vice versa.

Hmm... I don't know. I am not sure we can judge God, nor even any
creatures. We can only evaluate contract unbalance, and possible
dangers, not moral values, or then just for ourselves.

(speculating a bit from comp and possible attempts to make sense of
the bible).

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



John Clark

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On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Richard Ruquist <yan...@gmail.com> wrote:

> God is everything, including this list.

Then "God" means nothing because meaning needs contrast. If everything that exists and everything that doesn't exist and everything you can imagine and everything that you can't imagine has the property of being Klogknee then the word "Klogknee" means nothing.

  John K Clark

Richard Ruquist

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On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>
> On 13 Jan 2013, at 14:52, Richard Ruquist wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 7:48 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Romans 3:10 "As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one."
>>
>>
>> This statement could be broadened to include god and therefore account
>> for misery in this world.
>
>
> Apparently God lied to Eve. He said that eating the fruit would kill her,
> but she only got the illumination ("I am naked"), and then live on earth.

Such illumination eventually led to nuclear weapons
by which we may eventually drive eve's race into extinction.
Richard

>
> Unless God calls "birth" what we call "death", and vice versa.
>
> Hmm... I don't know. I am not sure we can judge God, nor even any creatures.
> We can only evaluate contract unbalance, and possible dangers, not moral
> values, or then just for ourselves.
>
> (speculating a bit from comp and possible attempts to make sense of the
> bible).
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
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Bruno Marchal

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On 13 Jan 2013, at 18:56, John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013  Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
 
>> If, as so many have, you redefine the word "God"  to mean "a power greater than myself" then I am a theist who firmly believes in God because I believe that bulldozers exist.

> Bulldozers are not responsible for your existence.

Both my parents were bulldozer drivers who first met at a bulldozer convention. So a bulldozer is God.

I was using "responsible" in a less literal sense.




> one consistent notion of God is enough to make atheism into a dogmatic (non rational) belief

There is no way to make sense out of the notion of God,

?  (Note that you are not commenting me).



but you can redefine the word "God" so radically that it becomes virtually unrecognizable to the billions of religious on this planet, and then and only then does the word "God" correspond with something that actually exists, even if there is already plenty of perfectly good words for that thing. People just want to say they believe in G-O-D, what the word actually means is unimportant.  

Study the field, please. You might find help in Aldous Huxley's  "Philosophia Perrenis". 

In the greek sense you are a believer in God, and even close to Aristotle theology, once you believe in the existence of primary matter, or naturalism, physicalism, etc.
But you are also more christian than the pope as you want God be defined by the current common religion, which is nothing but using the same authoritative argument than the fundamentalist.

Yes, all creature believe in "God", but this does not make the notion trivial at all, as all creature can "see" God very differently. 





> I have never met a theologian genuinely believing in both omnipotence and omniscience.

I've had 13 years of formal religious training and I never met a theologian who didn't preach that God was omnipotent and omniscient.

Well. I am sorry for you. 



I don't know how many genuinely believed in the bullshit they were spouting but I'd guess most of them did, certainly the vast majority of those listening to the crap swallowed every word  of it, in fact I think I was the only one who did not. 

You can't know that, but of course, we live in different countries. I do have a feeling that in the US there might be more literalist indeed.

Again, we know that since the closure of Plato Academy (+500) the field has been betrayed, exactly like genetics in the USSR, but on a much larger historic-geographic scale.

It is normal as it touches very deep questions having relation with identity and culture.

But today we can't avoid coming back to those questions through computer science, with question like "can a machine think?", or "is the brain a machine?", etc. 
Note that I use computer science mainly to show how those questions become hard, .. with the "comp simplifying hypothesis".
This reminds us that the big divide (Plato/Aristotle) has not yet  been decided, if ever, in any scientific theories. Seriousness entails modesty.

Bruno



Richard Ruquist

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The universe provides sufficient contrasting objects,
some even consciousness.

However, one may identify various aspects of god
and thereby cover all the kinds of gods that people might want to have.

At the top level we want the most comprehensive god possible.
I say that omniscience is the most comprehensive aspect of a god.

Such a comprehensive god is consistent with Indra's Net of Jewels,
each reflecting the entire universe;

and certainly consistent with the monads of liebniz,
each having perception of the entire universe;

And perhaps the universal cubic lattice of string theory
Calabi-Yau Compact Manifold (CM) particles,
each conjectured to map the entire universe
is also a most comprehensive god..

In the next level down, omniscience is locally sacrificed for power,
a quantum dynamic duality between power and omniscience,
a kind of consciousness inverse uncertainty principle
in the quantum mechanics of consciousness
that even works on the human level.*

*In order to focus consciousness on a project,
you have to block out all other sources of information.

Richard,
complex variables go with quantum mechanics

meekerdb

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Jan 14, 2013, 6:10:30 PM1/14/13
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On 1/14/2013 8:55 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 13 Jan 2013, at 07:50, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/12/2013 9:21 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 10:32 AM, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 12:41 AM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Please provide some reference showing almost all theists use that definition of God [ a omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe] .  I find it unlikely that most theists would incorporate every facet of that definition. 

That's true. Many theists, the more intelligent ones anyway, reject the idea of God but they become so in love with a word they play a silly and rather cowardly game. If, as so many have, you redefine the word "God"  to mean "a power greater than myself" then I am a theist who firmly believes in God because I believe that bulldozers exist. But if by "God" you mean a being with super-human abilities then God is just a comic book superhero (or supervillan) and I am a agnostic about something like that actually existing somewhere in the universe. 

> It doesn't matter if 95% of theisms are ones you find fault with; it only takes one correct theism to make atheism wrong, which is why I think it is an untenable and illogical position.

Obviously I can't refute every one of the tens of thousands of Gods that humans have invented over the eons,

It is not about refuting all of them.  It is that maybe there are some you would do believe in, if you knew more about them.  Even one who has spent years studying all known human religions lacks knowledge about religions unknown to history, or any of the individually developed privately known religions, or religions of other species or civilizations on other planets.  How can anyone presume to know enough to know that they are all false?
 
but your statement assumes that if there is no hard evidence for or against a theory then there is a 50% chance that it is correct and thus worthy of serious consideration. And that is idiotic.    

I never said there was a 50% probability, or that all theories are worthy of serious consideration.  I do find it absurd, however, to reject all theories when one has no evidence for or against them.  Why not remain neutral until you have a reason otherwise?  Also, if you don't think 50% is a valid starting point, what do you suggest is a good prior probability to use in Bayesian inference when one lacks any evidence for or against a proposition?
 
 
> John said that he "just believes in one less god" than I do, but he refused to say what that one God was that I believed in but he doesn't.

I don't believe in a omnipotent omniscient being that created the universe and I think you do.

No you don't.  I've said before an omniscient being does not have the power to forget, and hence cannot be considered omnipotent.  However, if you limit those words to refer to something else, like a universe (rather than to itself, where the contradiction is created), then it may be possible to be both omniscient and omnipotent in reference to that other thing.

Since you and I are both platonists, we agree that anything not ruled out by its definition exists.   So you should agree there are instances in the plentitude where beings create vast simulations of entire universes.  We humans have already played this role in creating relatively simple GoL universes.  In the context of the simulation, a being can know everything about it and simultaneously exercise complete control over it, even changing the laws or altering its natural progression of the simulation.

As one who often writes simulations, I note that I *don't* know everything about them and the reason I create them is to find out something I don't know.  Of course you may say that I could find it out, after the simulation has run - but that does seem to be what the religious mean by omniscient since they include knowing things before they happen.


If you believe everything with a consistent definition exists, then there exists a universe just like ours that was created by a being who knows everything that happens in it and has complete control to alter it in any way that being sees fit.  There is nothing inconsistent or impossible about this.  So you have a choice: either abandon platonism or abandon atheism.  The two are incompatible. 

If it's possible we live in a simulation, it's also possible we don't.  So I don't see the incompatibility.


If we live in a simulation, we live in an infinity of simulation

Are you claiming that as a logical inference, or what?  Can you derive a contradiction from the negation?


(and this is testable below our c-substitution level). It makes the physical reality non simulable, at least in all details.

If 3-we live in a simulation, the 1-we can't, literally speaking.





This is more easily demonstrable when you use other definitions of God, such as when you identify the platonic plenitude with the Hindu's Brahman.  You and Brent seem hell-bent on using a definition where God is an omniscient and omnipotent person,

And beneficent and answers prayers.  Other gods who may have created the universe for amusement and who are not beneficent are possible.  Gods who created this universe as a simulation to see how it turns out and who therefore never meddle in it, deist gods are possible.

Can you recall the definition of deism? I am not sure mine is the same as yours. If you have a reference ..?






But many things are possible.  I don't go around believing them just because they are possible.  A-theism doesn't mean believing there are no gods, it just means failing to believe there are gods (at least theist ones).

That is the quite opposite of most European atheism. They specifically attack me on this, and very violently. European atheist really believe that there is no God, and consider that agnostic are either nuts, or that they are coward atheist just wanting to be polite.

Of course I think it is very unlikely that some gods exist, e.g. Yaweh of the bible or Allah of the Quran, and I don't base any of my decisions on their existence.  "Agnostic" has two very different meanings: One is just to think that there is no good evidence for or against the existence of the god under consideration.  The other is that it is impossible to have such evidence.  But whenever you use a term like theist, atheist, agnostic,... it is relative to some god(s) and to be precise you need to say what god(s).






so I offer the above example of the simulation hypothesis as an example more fitting to your definition.

While on this subject, I have another question for you and Brent: Do you believe in an afterlife or immortality? 

I think the evidence is against it.

QM and comp provides variate evidence for variate form of after-life. Of course it is usually rather different than in the fairy tales.

I see only speculation that QM and comp might allow some kind of after-life where 'after-life' is given different meanings.





Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?

That's a liberal theologians question: There's a word "soul" I'd like to use.  Please think of something it applies to so we can agree that it exists. 

I'd be happy to agree with any definition that captures common usage and is definite.  I think common usage equates soul with the basic character and expressed values of a person or other agent.

I'm OK with this. Of course this is an open problem in arithmetic where the soul is define by the knower (Bp & p) recovered by Theaetetus's method. This fits quite well with Platonism and neoplatonism. Note that here the christians follows Plato: the soul is immortal, where for Aristotle this is untrue, unless for its intellectual part, as even for Aristotle, ideas are "eternal". 

Bruno




Brent

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meekerdb

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On 1/14/2013 11:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Yes, all creature believe in "God", but this does not make the notion trivial at all, as all creature can "see" God very differently. 

It's the latter, not the former, that makes the notion trivial.

Brent

Jason Resch

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I didn't mean it in the sense of what you believe.  Rather it was regarding my argument that platonism and atheism are mutually incompatible.  Our exchange went as follows:

Jason: So you have a choice: either abandon platonism or abandon atheism.  The two are incompatible. 
Brent: If it's possible we live in a simulation, it's also possible we don't.  So I don't see the incompatibility.
Jason: It doesn't matter which one we are in.  If you accept Platonism then you by extension accept these semi-omniscient, semi-omnipotent beings exist.  When Atheism says they do not.
Brent: But many things are possible.  I don't go around believing them just because they are possible.
Jason: Then you are not a Platonist.

You are not a Platonist and an atheist.  There is no contradiction there.  However, others on this list claim to be both a Platonist and an atheist.
 


 
  A-theism doesn't mean believing there are no gods, it just means failing to believe there are gods (at least theist ones).

Do you agree or disagree with the stronger form of Atheism that rejects deist gods?
 


so I offer the above example of the simulation hypothesis as an example more fitting to your definition.

While on this subject, I have another question for you and Brent: Do you believe in an afterlife or immortality? 

I think the evidence is against it.

What evidence is there against it?

People don't remember previous lives (and don't tell me about Bridey Murphy).

Maybe you will when you wake up from this one.  Consciousness will continue along any path it can,

And maybe not. How is that consistent with the idea that consciousness is a process and not a thing.  What capabilities do you imagine that it can employee so that it can continue?


Consider the quantum suicide experiment, or the Shrodinger's cat experiment from the perspective of the cat.  From the first-person perspective consciousness cannot end, regardless of how low the third-person probability may be.
 

including those paths which may be less likely than normal (such as finding your entire life as Brent Meeker to be a dream, or the experience of a God-like mind who has infinite computing resources at its disposal, and chooses to explore reality first-hand, by becoming all the possible beings in it).

Or as Saibal Mitra suggested, when my consciousness is reduced to that of a baby I'll be reincarnated as some baby. 

Could you point me to where he said this?  I am interested in reading what he has to say.
 
But that runs into the identity sans memory question.  As Saibal said, "The person I was when I was 3 years old is dead. He died because
too much new information was added to his brain."

I think both reincarnation (to another being with a simple brain state), and resurrection (awaking as a more complex being where the current life is a memory) are both possible extensions.  MWI would suggest we not only get an infinite number of lives but an infinite number of afterlives too.
 


 
Consciousness is interrupted by a blow to the head or too much Jack Daniels - so it's not likely it survives decay of the brain.


Yes, if you ignored what I said about infinite other instantiations of your brain elsewhere.  Also, as brain states decline in complexity it becomes more likely that it will intersect that of another (perhaps developing) brain elsewhere, leading to reincarnation.

From a third-person view, consciousness can be interrupted.  But when have you ever lived that interruption first hand?
 


I see the following evidence for it:
Nearly all scientists would agree that the material identity is not important to continuity of consciousness.  Therefore any time the appropriate instantiation arises, consciousness can continue.  In an infinitely large and varied reality (Platonism, QM, infinite hubble volume, or eternal inflation), our patterns continually reappear. 

That would imply that copies of one's soul exist.  But John defined souls as being impossible to copy.

So you reject the possibility of what I said above on the basis that souls cannot be copied?

I don't accept it as likely if that's what you mean by 'reject'.  What's your definition of "soul"?  Can it be duplicated?  You seem to imply that your think your soul and the rest of you already exists in infinitely many copies - in which case I would wonder what you aren't all of them,

I believe I am all of them, and would go beyond that saying I believe I am everyone.
 
like the Borg. 

Unlike the Borg my disparate selves are not mind-linked.
 
And if you're not all of them now, why would you suppose you would become one of them when you die?


Consider a YouTube of the future that is full-immersion full-sense experience sharing.  If thousands of people share the same experience, who is its true owner?  When the clip ends, do you know who you will be?  Our lives might be like short clips or games to any sufficiently advanced civilization.  You might say billions of beings have experienced your life, and when your life is over you may wake up as any of them (indeed you wake up as all of them) but that experience bifurcates as with the Washington Moscow duplication.
 

 


Just as you might find a certain string of digits appear infinitely often in the digits of Pi.  If consciousness is informational/computational, and no special properties are required by the matter of the substrate,

But John contrasted soul with information.  What definition are you using?  You ask for definitions and then you start making assertions apparently based on some definition you invented.

The only word I used in the above quote was "consciousness".  I refrained from using the less defined "soul".
 


then we may even be resurrected or reincarnated in entirely different universes.  We can therefore survive even the heat death of this universe.

And how will we know it is us? 

The same way you remember you are you from moment to moment.

Then why aren't we surrounded by people who remember previous lives?  Why don't we remember them?


Why should we?  We are in this life on Earth at the moment.  A god-like mind or omega point civilization cannot know what it was like to be a human living on Earth if they still remember they are a God or an advanced alien.
 

 
Will we remember this life?  If not, I'd say it's not us.

Some continuation paths will.
 



Immortality is given if consciousness is mechanistic and that reality is infinite in time, extent, or variety.  There are plenty of scientific theories suggesting both of these requirements exist.
 


Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?

That's a liberal theologians question: There's a word "soul" I'd like to use.  Please think of something it applies to so we can agree that it exists. 

The word "energy" has existed for thousands of years, yet with each generation its actual meaning has evolved through our greater understanding of the mechanics behind it. 

Whereas "soul" has evolved to have no definite meaning at all  - which is not doubt why you wanted John and I to define it rather than defining it yourself or simply referring to its (non-existent) common meaning.

I am attempting to change that.  I think science is revealing reasons for a set of beliefs not unlike those found across many of the world's religions.  Ultimately, we may have a set of agreed upon definitions for words like "soul" as we now do for words like "energy".

Maybe.  But why suppose they will bear any more resemblance to the religious concept than "energy" bears to the biblical "sweat of the brow".


I think the concepts are rather close.  Already we can see parallels emerging: reincarnation, resurrection, becoming one with God, immortality, afterlives, identity of all minds, etc.  I can't think of a more fitting word than soul.

Jason

meekerdb

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But that's just a semantic trick.  The first-person perspective consciousness can still be finite.  Just because "the end" isn't part of the experience, it doesn't follow that the sequence of experiences continues indefinitely.  I've had my consciousness interrupted.  There was no mathematical/logical necessity that it resume.


 

including those paths which may be less likely than normal (such as finding your entire life as Brent Meeker to be a dream, or the experience of a God-like mind who has infinite computing resources at its disposal, and chooses to explore reality first-hand, by becoming all the possible beings in it).

Or as Saibal Mitra suggested, when my consciousness is reduced to that of a baby I'll be reincarnated as some baby. 

Could you point me to where he said this?  I am interested in reading what he has to say.

It was on this list, so you could search the archive.  I was a few years ago.


 
But that runs into the identity sans memory question.  As Saibal said, "The person I was when I was 3 years old is dead. He died because
too much new information was added to his brain."

I think both reincarnation (to another being with a simple brain state), and resurrection (awaking as a more complex being where the current life is a memory) are both possible extensions.  MWI would suggest we not only get an infinite number of lives but an infinite number of afterlives too.

Then why do we find ourselves in a world where everyone has only life from their childhood to now?


 


 
Consciousness is interrupted by a blow to the head or too much Jack Daniels - so it's not likely it survives decay of the brain.


Yes, if you ignored what I said about infinite other instantiations of your brain elsewhere.  Also, as brain states decline in complexity it becomes more likely that it will intersect that of another (perhaps developing) brain elsewhere, leading to reincarnation.

From a third-person view, consciousness can be interrupted.  But when have you ever lived that interruption first hand?
 


I see the following evidence for it:
Nearly all scientists would agree that the material identity is not important to continuity of consciousness.  Therefore any time the appropriate instantiation arises, consciousness can continue.  In an infinitely large and varied reality (Platonism, QM, infinite hubble volume, or eternal inflation), our patterns continually reappear. 

That would imply that copies of one's soul exist.  But John defined souls as being impossible to copy.

So you reject the possibility of what I said above on the basis that souls cannot be copied?

I don't accept it as likely if that's what you mean by 'reject'.  What's your definition of "soul"?  Can it be duplicated?  You seem to imply that your think your soul and the rest of you already exists in infinitely many copies - in which case I would wonder what you aren't all of them,

I believe I am all of them, and would go beyond that saying I believe I am everyone.

But you only remember being one, in fact unity is one of the characteristics of most people's consciousness (multiple-personalities are rare).


 
like the Borg. 

Unlike the Borg my disparate selves are not mind-linked.

Then why should your present being become linked to them when your brain decays.  It would seem to have *more* in common with them if you're both conscious.  And if your consciousness is not continuous and switches to a being with different memories - what is it that makes it *your* consciousness?


 
And if you're not all of them now, why would you suppose you would become one of them when you die?


Consider a YouTube of the future that is full-immersion full-sense experience sharing.  If thousands of people share the same experience, who is its true owner? 

Nobody, because (a) an experience is only experienced not owned and (b) no two the people had exactly the same experience, experience is modified by past memories and environment.


When the clip ends, do you know who you will be?  Our lives might be like short clips or games to any sufficiently advanced civilization.  You might say billions of beings have experienced your life, and when your life is over you may wake up as any of them (indeed you wake up as all of them) but that experience bifurcates as with the Washington Moscow duplication.

All that speculation just throws doubt on whether "you" exist.  It's like solipism, a speculation that is logically possible but which nobody believes.


 

 


Just as you might find a certain string of digits appear infinitely often in the digits of Pi.  If consciousness is informational/computational, and no special properties are required by the matter of the substrate,

But John contrasted soul with information.  What definition are you using?  You ask for definitions and then you start making assertions apparently based on some definition you invented.

The only word I used in the above quote was "consciousness".  I refrained from using the less defined "soul".
 


then we may even be resurrected or reincarnated in entirely different universes.  We can therefore survive even the heat death of this universe.

And how will we know it is us? 

The same way you remember you are you from moment to moment.

Then why aren't we surrounded by people who remember previous lives?  Why don't we remember them?


Why should we?  We are in this life on Earth at the moment.  A god-like mind or omega point civilization cannot know what it was like to be a human living on Earth if they still remember they are a God or an advanced alien.

But then they AREN'T a human living on Earth.  You can't have it both ways. I a person is just a stream of conscious events, then a different stream is a different person.  If there is something more that ties together a stream to make a person, then it can be finite


 

 
Will we remember this life?  If not, I'd say it's not us.

Some continuation paths will.
 



Immortality is given if consciousness is mechanistic and that reality is infinite in time, extent, or variety.  There are plenty of scientific theories suggesting both of these requirements exist.
 


Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?

That's a liberal theologians question: There's a word "soul" I'd like to use.  Please think of something it applies to so we can agree that it exists. 

The word "energy" has existed for thousands of years, yet with each generation its actual meaning has evolved through our greater understanding of the mechanics behind it. 

Whereas "soul" has evolved to have no definite meaning at all  - which is not doubt why you wanted John and I to define it rather than defining it yourself or simply referring to its (non-existent) common meaning.

I am attempting to change that.  I think science is revealing reasons for a set of beliefs not unlike those found across many of the world's religions.  Ultimately, we may have a set of agreed upon definitions for words like "soul" as we now do for words like "energy".

Maybe.  But why suppose they will bear any more resemblance to the religious concept than "energy" bears to the biblical "sweat of the brow".


I think the concepts are rather close.  Already we can see parallels emerging: reincarnation, resurrection, becoming one with God, immortality, afterlives, identity of all minds, etc.  I can't think of a more fitting word than soul.

On the contrary, you are inventing the speculations to fit the religious concepts.

Brent

Bruno Marchal

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On 14 Jan 2013, at 16:57, Richard Ruquist wrote:

> Hi Roger Clough,
>
> God is everything, including this list.

Hmm...


>
> Richard David,
> "complex variables and quantum theory go together"

Here I agree a lot. Unfortunately this remains a bit mysterious/open-
problem in comp. But if the material hypostases gives QM, then complex
variables will just comes from the fact that a finite number of result
of Stern Gerlach experience have to remain equal for some rotation in
3D space. the comp mystery is in the 3D.

Bruno

>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 8:42 AM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net>
> wrote:
>> Hi Richard Ruquist
>>
>> God is not righteous by what standards ? Yours?
>>
>>
>> [Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net]
>> 1/14/2013
>> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen
>> ----- Receiving the following content -----
>> From: Richard Ruquist
>> Receiver: everything-list
>> Time: 2013-01-13, 08:52:51
>> Subject: Re: Re: WHY YOU SHOULDN'T BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 7:48 AM, Roger Clough wrote:
>>> Romans 3:10 "As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not
>>> even one."
>>
>> This statement could be broadened to include god and therefore
>> account
>> for misery in this world.
>> Richard
>>
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Jason Resch

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It is not a semantic trick, it is the belief that you can be re-created and survive your own destruction, regardless of whether the same matter is used in that reconstruction or not.  Is this not an element of all currently leading scientific theories of consciousness?
 
I've had my consciousness interrupted.

What was it like not being conscious?
 
  There was no mathematical/logical necessity that it resume.


There is if reality is big enough and there is nothing magical/unreplicatable about consciousness.
 

 

including those paths which may be less likely than normal (such as finding your entire life as Brent Meeker to be a dream, or the experience of a God-like mind who has infinite computing resources at its disposal, and chooses to explore reality first-hand, by becoming all the possible beings in it).

Or as Saibal Mitra suggested, when my consciousness is reduced to that of a baby I'll be reincarnated as some baby. 

Could you point me to where he said this?  I am interested in reading what he has to say.

It was on this list, so you could search the archive.  I was a few years ago.


Thanks.
 

 
But that runs into the identity sans memory question.  As Saibal said, "The person I was when I was 3 years old is dead. He died because
too much new information was added to his brain."

I think both reincarnation (to another being with a simple brain state), and resurrection (awaking as a more complex being where the current life is a memory) are both possible extensions.  MWI would suggest we not only get an infinite number of lives but an infinite number of afterlives too.

Then why do we find ourselves in a world where everyone has only life from their childhood to now?


All conscious states are experienced, even if everyone is truly immortal it does't mean we always have access to or are experiencing all our memories all the time.  How much of your current life are you recalling at any given moment?

To answer your question, we are either original biological humans or someone else experiencing what it was like to be an original biological human.  When this life ends the consciousness original biological humans ends, but it continues as the someone else who experienced that original biological human's life.
 

 


 
Consciousness is interrupted by a blow to the head or too much Jack Daniels - so it's not likely it survives decay of the brain.


Yes, if you ignored what I said about infinite other instantiations of your brain elsewhere.  Also, as brain states decline in complexity it becomes more likely that it will intersect that of another (perhaps developing) brain elsewhere, leading to reincarnation.

From a third-person view, consciousness can be interrupted.  But when have you ever lived that interruption first hand?
 


I see the following evidence for it:
Nearly all scientists would agree that the material identity is not important to continuity of consciousness.  Therefore any time the appropriate instantiation arises, consciousness can continue.  In an infinitely large and varied reality (Platonism, QM, infinite hubble volume, or eternal inflation), our patterns continually reappear. 

That would imply that copies of one's soul exist.  But John defined souls as being impossible to copy.

So you reject the possibility of what I said above on the basis that souls cannot be copied?

I don't accept it as likely if that's what you mean by 'reject'.  What's your definition of "soul"?  Can it be duplicated?  You seem to imply that your think your soul and the rest of you already exists in infinitely many copies - in which case I would wonder what you aren't all of them,

I believe I am all of them, and would go beyond that saying I believe I am everyone.

But you only remember being one, in fact unity is one of the characteristics of most people's consciousness (multiple-personalities are rare).


Yes, intuition suggests we are only one, but logic and science suggest we are many.  Intuition suggests I am only in this present moment of time, but the physics of special relativity suggest I am in all points in time, the selection of some special unique present is an illusion. Likewise with many worlds and the selection of some special branch being granted reality, in truth I am all my branched copies.  Belief that some experiences belong to one person and other experience do not is the same type of illusion, which can be shown as false via several means:

Consider your own existence?  What did it require for you to be alive and experiencing something right now?  Did it depend on specific matter, or a specific sperm and egg, or a specific combination of genes for you to be alive right now?  If so, then the fact that you are conscious at all would be incredibly unlikely.  Therefore, we should adopt a theory that does not require some specific combination to result in you being alive and conscious, such as the theory that you are everyone.  Arnold Zuboff makes this same argument in "One Self: The Logic of Experience".

We can go a little further though.  There are two answers for why you are alive right now that don't depend on winning overwhelming odds.  The other answer is that it is incredibly unlikely, but we are in a reality where almost everything happens and all beings are born.  Yet this also recovers the identity of all minds, for omega-point minds serve as hubs connecting observers to each other, creating a vast interconnected set of experiences.  Given enough time, your consciousness will evolve to become anyone.  Another way to look at it is if there is any being in this universe that experiences all or most experiences, you are it, and it is everybody.

More thought experiments:

If you survive stepping into a transporter, do you survive if it has a small malfunction and you lose a small insignificant memory, such as what you had for breakfast two months ago?  After all, we lose memories all the time and consider ourselves to have survived.  What if the transporter added a few memories?  If a transporter created a million copies of you all on the spectrum of somewhere between you and some other random person, where do you draw the line on no longer surviving?

We can experience without remembering.  Imagine you step into a room, and are tortured horrendously for many hours, but afterwards all physical traces, including your memories are wiped and you are given the memory of having a relaxing day at a spa.  Who experienced the torture?  How is this any different from stepping into the room, being duplicated, one of you enjoying the spa, and the other being tortured and then destroyed?  True, the order and simultaneity of the events is different, but the experiences and experiencers are informationally and computationally identical.

Nagel's no physical facts, from Oneself:
"In a relevant passage from Thomas Nagel's paper, 'Physicalism', he asks us to consider everything that can be said about the world without employing any token reflexive expressions. This will include the description of all its physical contents and their states, activities and attributes. It will also include a description of all the persons in the world and their histories, memories, thoughts, sensations, perceptions, intentions, and so forth. I can thus describe without token-reflexives the entire world and everything that is happening in it - and this will include a description of Thomas Nagel and what he is thinking and feeling. But there seems to remain one thing which I cannot say in this fashion - namely, which of the various persons in the world / am. Even when everything that can be said in the specified manner has been said, and the world has in a sense been completely described, there seems to remain one fact which has not been expressed, and that is the fact that I am Thomas Nagel. This is not, of course, the fact ordinarily conveyed by those words, when they are used to inform someone else who the speaker is - for that could easily be expressed otherwise. It is rather the fact that / am the subject of these experiences; this body is my body; the subject or center of my world is this person, Thomas Nagel."

There is no physical fact or reason that explains why you are you and not someone else, just as there is no physical reason that explains why the present moment is now and not some other time.  We should therefore suspect, since there is no known reason that such ideas (that I am me and always have been and always will be) is similarly an illusion or failure of our intuition.

 


 
like the Borg. 

Unlike the Borg my disparate selves are not mind-linked.

Then why should your present being become linked to them when your brain decays.  It would seem to have *more* in common with them if you're both conscious.  And if your consciousness is not continuous and switches to a being with different memories - what is it that makes it *your* consciousness?

The subjective continuity, which could be formalized under Mechanism as the existence of some program which generates both by current conscious moment X1, and some other conscious moment X2.
 


 
And if you're not all of them now, why would you suppose you would become one of them when you die?


Consider a YouTube of the future that is full-immersion full-sense experience sharing.  If thousands of people share the same experience, who is its true owner? 

Nobody, because (a) an experience is only experienced not owned and

Ahh.  This is the line of reasoning that leads to the conclusion of a universal self. :-)
 
(b) no two the people had exactly the same experience, experience is modified by past memories and environment.

And what if it were a perfect reconstruction of the experience, not modified by past memories and environment?  (This might be possible with mind uploading.)
 


When the clip ends, do you know who you will be?  Our lives might be like short clips or games to any sufficiently advanced civilization.  You might say billions of beings have experienced your life, and when your life is over you may wake up as any of them (indeed you wake up as all of them) but that experience bifurcates as with the Washington Moscow duplication.

All that speculation just throws doubt on whether "you" exist.  It's like solipism, a speculation that is logically possible but which nobody believes.


The simple notion of you's and I's is in error, so in that sense you might say you can doubt you exist.  I think it is more accurate to say there is only one person.  This is distinct from solipsism, however, because you are in all the other people you interact with as well.  This is also related closely to the Hindu idea that God became the universe, and also leads to concepts like Karma (you experience all the good and bad you put into the world), and the Golden Rule (treat others how they wish to be treated), and should also lead to greater compassion and understanding: It's no longer just a hypothetical that you would do the same thing in someone else's shoes.
 

 

 


Just as you might find a certain string of digits appear infinitely often in the digits of Pi.  If consciousness is informational/computational, and no special properties are required by the matter of the substrate,

But John contrasted soul with information.  What definition are you using?  You ask for definitions and then you start making assertions apparently based on some definition you invented.

The only word I used in the above quote was "consciousness".  I refrained from using the less defined "soul".
 


then we may even be resurrected or reincarnated in entirely different universes.  We can therefore survive even the heat death of this universe.

And how will we know it is us? 

The same way you remember you are you from moment to moment.

Then why aren't we surrounded by people who remember previous lives?  Why don't we remember them?


Why should we?  We are in this life on Earth at the moment.  A god-like mind or omega point civilization cannot know what it was like to be a human living on Earth if they still remember they are a God or an advanced alien.

But then they AREN'T a human living on Earth.  You can't have it both ways. I a person is just a stream of conscious events, then a different stream is a different person.

You might define a person as a particular collection of conscious moments, but any one conscious moment, or even a collection of such moments does not necessarily belong to only one particular stream.  One person's stream might be only a subset of a much larger stream.
 
  If there is something more that ties together a stream to make a person, then it can be finite


 

 
Will we remember this life?  If not, I'd say it's not us.

Some continuation paths will.
 



Immortality is given if consciousness is mechanistic and that reality is infinite in time, extent, or variety.  There are plenty of scientific theories suggesting both of these requirements exist.
 


Is there any definition of "soul" you agree with?

That's a liberal theologians question: There's a word "soul" I'd like to use.  Please think of something it applies to so we can agree that it exists. 

The word "energy" has existed for thousands of years, yet with each generation its actual meaning has evolved through our greater understanding of the mechanics behind it. 

Whereas "soul" has evolved to have no definite meaning at all  - which is not doubt why you wanted John and I to define it rather than defining it yourself or simply referring to its (non-existent) common meaning.

I am attempting to change that.  I think science is revealing reasons for a set of beliefs not unlike those found across many of the world's religions.  Ultimately, we may have a set of agreed upon definitions for words like "soul" as we now do for words like "energy".

Maybe.  But why suppose they will bear any more resemblance to the religious concept than "energy" bears to the biblical "sweat of the brow".


I think the concepts are rather close.  Already we can see parallels emerging: reincarnation, resurrection, becoming one with God, immortality, afterlives, identity of all minds, etc.  I can't think of a more fitting word than soul.

On the contrary, you are inventing the speculations to fit the religious concepts.

I invented them?  Bruno, Tegmark, Moravec, and Everett talked about immortality years before I ever got into the subject.  Saibal Mitra mentioned reincarnation long before I joined the list.  Nick Bostrom and the simulation hypothesis and argument and Zuboff's paper regarding the illusion of self were also published well before I entered the subject.

You seem to not like these ideas merely because they resemble religious concepts.  I think if evidence and rationality lend credence to these concepts we should be open to them.

Jason

Richard Ruquist

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Jan 15, 2013, 10:52:09 AM1/15/13
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On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 10:22 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> But if the material hypostases gives QM

Yes, but indirectly. The creation/compactification of space&subspace
also released matter & energy.

In string theory it is the compactified subspace
that spawned arithmetic computations.

The matter& energy plus evolution
spawned biological complexity & physical consciousness.

Just as the Mind/Body duality is based on strings
connecting everybody fermion to a BEC mind membrane,

The Dreams/physical Consciousness Pratt Duality
is based on entanglement due to isomorphanisms
in BEC media to boot.

The compactified crystalline material subspace
contains a Platonia of geometric & mathematical levels
including of course complex variables on a membrane
as well as the laws and constants of physics.

My model is from a physicist perspective.
Richard

Platonist Guitar Cowboy

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Jan 15, 2013, 10:57:22 AM1/15/13
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Jason and Brent,

That resemblance between the two, that Jason points out in the last post, is pretty clear by now. You may want to take a step back from the grand ontologies, as you could for example pick out biology, or other more limited areas, as one level of description, where all of this becomes evident without too many metaphysical assertions and/or their denial.


It is old news that 20th century developments in scientific, medical, biological imaging systems and databases have shown that on the level of global ecology and your body's functioning, diversity of plants and other species of life for example, that we, whoever or whatever you ultimately need us to be, are among other things permeable membranes of cell colonies, continuously connected by breathing, feeding, interacting networks, and in this precise sense inseparable from a global ecology or cosmic or beyond ecology. If souls, we are cells of a huge simulation/organism. If not souls, we are cells of the same, or words in a huge book interacting.

So pounding on the "difference of persons" uhm... should be done with caution. This looks increasingly like just 19th century cultural-economic debris. In view of the above it might make more sense to recalibrate "individual/separate expression of identity" towards: "I am all people and indeed everything that "I" am connected too."

And no, this isn't some hippie variant of holism as oversimplified dogma, but a gradual increasing recognition on many levels in multiple domains of science that membranes are permeable boundaries. If you need the membrane to be an absolute boundary to preserve some national, ideological, egoic-individualist etc. identity in your mind... Then I don't even have to point to where I conjecture the ideology and where the flexibility to be situated. Far from the sedating holism, this image demands more precision and rigor in the handling and framing of boundaries or membranes.

Some mystics have no problem with this flexibility for thousands of years, some do. Some scientists seem to understand this and some don't.

And it is plausible that psychedelic plants yield a mystical experience that resonates in a non-reductive manner with this type of description: after all, it would be in plants' interests as a global force, to have this state of affairs, our intertwingular imbrication with context and thus the plants themselves, communicated to us in our monkey program funk. Perhaps survival and selection is bound in mystical experiences in this fashion. But of course, this is often, depending on who you talk to, like telling someone who has never seen a car, how it is to drive one.

PGC
------

Bruno Marchal

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Jan 15, 2013, 11:04:41 AM1/15/13
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On 15 Jan 2013, at 00:10, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/14/2013 8:55 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 13 Jan 2013, at 07:50, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/12/2013 9:21 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 10:32 AM, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 12:41 AM, Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Please provide some reference showing almost all theists use that definition of God [ a omnipotent omniscient being who created the universe] .  I find it unlikely that most theists would incorporate every facet of that definition. 

That's true. Many theists, the more intelligent ones anyway, reject the idea of God but they become so in love with a word they play a silly and rather cowardly game. If, as so many have, you redefine the word "God"  to mean "a power greater than myself" then I am a theist who firmly believes in God because I believe that bulldozers exist. But if by "God" you mean a being with super-human abilities then God is just a comic book superhero (or supervillan) and I am a agnostic about something like that actually existing somewhere in the universe. 

> It doesn't matter if 95% of theisms are ones you find fault with; it only takes one correct theism to make atheism wrong, which is why I think it is an untenable and illogical position.

Obviously I can't refute every one of the tens of thousands of Gods that humans have invented over the eons,

It is not about refuting all of them.  It is that maybe there are some you would do believe in, if you knew more about them.  Even one who has spent years studying all known human religions lacks knowledge about religions unknown to history, or any of the individually developed privately known religions, or religions of other species or civilizations on other planets.  How can anyone presume to know enough to know that they are all false?
 
but your statement assumes that if there is no hard evidence for or against a theory then there is a 50% chance that it is correct and thus worthy of serious consideration. And that is idiotic.    

I never said there was a 50% probability, or that all theories are worthy of serious consideration.  I do find it absurd, however, to reject all theories when one has no evidence for or against them.  Why not remain neutral until you have a reason otherwise?  Also, if you don't think 50% is a valid starting point, what do you suggest is a good prior probability to use in Bayesian inference when one lacks any evidence for or against a proposition?
 
 
> John said that he "just believes in one less god" than I do, but he refused to say what that one God was that I believed in but he doesn't.

I don't believe in a omnipotent omniscient being that created the universe and I think you do.

No you don't.  I've said before an omniscient being does not have the power to forget, and hence cannot be considered omnipotent.  However, if you limit those words to refer to something else, like a universe (rather than to itself, where the contradiction is created), then it may be possible to be both omniscient and omnipotent in reference to that other thing.

Since you and I are both platonists, we agree that anything not ruled out by its definition exists.   So you should agree there are instances in the plentitude where beings create vast simulations of entire universes.  We humans have already played this role in creating relatively simple GoL universes.  In the context of the simulation, a being can know everything about it and simultaneously exercise complete control over it, even changing the laws or altering its natural progression of the simulation.

As one who often writes simulations, I note that I *don't* know everything about them and the reason I create them is to find out something I don't know.  Of course you may say that I could find it out, after the simulation has run - but that does seem to be what the religious mean by omniscient since they include knowing things before they happen.


If you believe everything with a consistent definition exists, then there exists a universe just like ours that was created by a being who knows everything that happens in it and has complete control to alter it in any way that being sees fit.  There is nothing inconsistent or impossible about this.  So you have a choice: either abandon platonism or abandon atheism.  The two are incompatible. 

If it's possible we live in a simulation, it's also possible we don't.  So I don't see the incompatibility.


If we live in a simulation, we live in an infinity of simulation

Are you claiming that as a logical inference, or what? 

Do you see that this happens by the first person indeterminacy on a concrete robust universe running a UD?   (that's UDA1-7)


Can you derive a contradiction from the negation?

That's what UDA-8 shows. We don't get a contradiction, but the notion of primitive matter becomes a secondary emerging notion, as far as that matter has something to do with first person observation.



(and this is testable below our c-substitution level). It makes the physical reality non simulable, at least in all details.

If 3-we live in a simulation, the 1-we can't, literally speaking.





This is more easily demonstrable when you use other definitions of God, such as when you identify the platonic plenitude with the Hindu's Brahman.  You and Brent seem hell-bent on using a definition where God is an omniscient and omnipotent person,

And beneficent and answers prayers.  Other gods who may have created the universe for amusement and who are not beneficent are possible.  Gods who created this universe as a simulation to see how it turns out and who therefore never meddle in it, deist gods are possible.

Can you recall the definition of deism? I am not sure mine is the same as yours. If you have a reference ..?

http://www.theopedia.com/Deism

OK. Aristotle is close to deism, but of course not the 'aristotle of the christians".








But many things are possible.  I don't go around believing them just because they are possible.  A-theism doesn't mean believing there are no gods, it just means failing to believe there are gods (at least theist ones).

That is the quite opposite of most European atheism. They specifically attack me on this, and very violently. European atheist really believe that there is no God, and consider that agnostic are either nuts, or that they are coward atheist just wanting to be polite.

Of course I think it is very unlikely that some gods exist, e.g. Yaweh of the bible or Allah of the Quran, and I don't base any of my decisions on their existence.  "Agnostic" has two very different meanings: One is just to think that there is no good evidence for or against the existence of the god under consideration.  The other is that it is impossible to have such evidence.  But whenever you use a term like theist, atheist, agnostic,... it is relative to some god(s) and to be precise you need to say what god(s).

I use "god" in the sense of those who define the theological science. It is basically the 'transcendent source of everything", and with comp, arithmetic is enough, because mathematicaml logic explains why arithmetical truth, when inferred by machines, has many of the usual meta-properties of God (responsible for everything, non nameable, infinite, etc.).








so I offer the above example of the simulation hypothesis as an example more fitting to your definition.

While on this subject, I have another question for you and Brent: Do you believe in an afterlife or immortality? 

I think the evidence is against it.

QM and comp provides variate evidence for variate form of after-life. Of course it is usually rather different than in the fairy tales.

I see only speculation that QM and comp might allow some kind of after-life where 'after-life' is given different meanings.

It is not speculation. It is arithmetical consequence of our assumption. It is speculation in the large sense making all theories speculative.
If you can explain me how to first person die in QM or in comp, then you might try to explain this.

Bruno

Bruno Marchal

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Jan 15, 2013, 11:12:34 AM1/15/13
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I suggest you read Alan Watts, or Aldous Huxley. 

Seeing something differently does not make it genuinely different. the problem is that some have given a name to "God", and take the apparent difference literally, killing the "religare" aspect of religion.

Bruno




Brent

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John Clark

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Jan 15, 2013, 11:20:54 AM1/15/13
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On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 2:28 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

> Study the field, please.

I could study anthropology or I could study literature or I could study history but I can't study theology because there is nothing there to study. There is no field of inquiry called "theology", there is only glop.  

> In the greek sense you are a believer in God,

As I said before many people, such as yourself, are willing to abandon the idea of God but not the word"God".


> and even close to Aristotle theology, once you believe in the existence of primary matter,

I once asked you if they study primary matter at CERN and you emphatically said no, so I conclude that whatever "primary matter" is it's a colossal bore.

> you are also more christian than the pope as you want God be defined by the current common religion,

As I said before many people, such as yourself, are willing to abandon the idea of God but not the word"God".

> Yes, all creature believe in "God"

 As I said before many people, such as yourself. are willing to abandon the idea of God but not the word"God"

   John K Clark

Bruno Marchal

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Jan 15, 2013, 11:21:29 AM1/15/13
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On 15 Jan 2013, at 07:54, meekerdb wrote, to Jason:

Consider the quantum suicide experiment, or the Shrodinger's cat experiment from the perspective of the cat.  From the first-person perspective consciousness cannot end, regardless of how low the third-person probability may be.

But that's just a semantic trick.  The first-person perspective consciousness can still be finite.  Just because "the end" isn't part of the experience, it doesn't follow that the sequence of experiences continues indefinitely.  I've had my consciousness interrupted.  There was no mathematical/logical necessity that it resume.

Of course. But if you assume either QM, or comp, there are.

Bruno




Jason Resch

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Jan 15, 2013, 3:00:24 PM1/15/13
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Considering things one doesn't understand or know much about to be glop or a bore is a perfect way for one to never progress in understanding those things.

Jason

meekerdb

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Jan 15, 2013, 4:14:40 PM1/15/13
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On 1/15/2013 7:27 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

Then why do we find ourselves in a world where everyone has only life from their childhood to now?


All conscious states are experienced, even if everyone is truly immortal it does't mean we always have access to or are experiencing all our memories all the time.  How much of your current life are you recalling at any given moment?

To answer your question, we are either original biological humans or someone else experiencing what it was like to be an original biological human.  When this life ends the consciousness original biological humans ends, but it continues as the someone else who experienced that original biological human's life.

But as I understand your theory we are nothing but sequences of experiences - so if the sequence continues (and I don't know how you distinguish one continuation from a another) the we continue.  It is incoherent to say someone else experiences our continuation.

Brent

meekerdb

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Jan 15, 2013, 5:18:01 PM1/15/13
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Comp maybe. QM doesn't require that consciousness continue.

Brent

Jason Resch

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Jan 15, 2013, 8:15:50 PM1/15/13
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I don't bother trying as I've realized it is futile.  I've found only two workable definitions of "you" which don't lead to contradictions:

1) Each observer moment has its own unique experiencer.
2) All observer moments belong to the same experiencer.

The latter at least leads to useful decision theories (like why bother getting out of bed in the morning), while the former seems to lead to nihilism.  I prefer the second one.
 
the we continue.  It is incoherent to say someone else experiences our continuation.

 Right, there is no "someone else" who experiences something that you do not.

Jason

meekerdb

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Jan 15, 2013, 9:29:28 PM1/15/13
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On 1/15/2013 5:15 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 3:14 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/15/2013 7:27 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

Then why do we find ourselves in a world where everyone has only life from their childhood to now?


All conscious states are experienced, even if everyone is truly immortal it does't mean we always have access to or are experiencing all our memories all the time.  How much of your current life are you recalling at any given moment?

To answer your question, we are either original biological humans or someone else experiencing what it was like to be an original biological human.  When this life ends the consciousness original biological humans ends, but it continues as the someone else who experienced that original biological human's life.

But as I understand your theory we are nothing but sequences of experiences - so if the sequence continues (and I don't know how you distinguish one continuation from a another)

I don't bother trying as I've realized it is futile.  I've found only two workable definitions of "you" which don't lead to contradictions:

1) Each observer moment has its own unique experiencer.
2) All observer moments belong to the same experiencer.

The latter at least leads to useful decision theories (like why bother getting out of bed in the morning), while the former seems to lead to nihilism.  I prefer the second one.

I love it how empirical contradiction is so easily dismissed.

Brent

 
the we continue.  It is incoherent to say someone else experiences our continuation.

 Right, there is no "someone else" who experiences something that you do not.

Jason
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Jason Resch

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Jan 15, 2013, 11:12:00 PM1/15/13
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On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 8:29 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/15/2013 5:15 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 3:14 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/15/2013 7:27 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

Then why do we find ourselves in a world where everyone has only life from their childhood to now?


All conscious states are experienced, even if everyone is truly immortal it does't mean we always have access to or are experiencing all our memories all the time.  How much of your current life are you recalling at any given moment?

To answer your question, we are either original biological humans or someone else experiencing what it was like to be an original biological human.  When this life ends the consciousness original biological humans ends, but it continues as the someone else who experienced that original biological human's life.

But as I understand your theory we are nothing but sequences of experiences - so if the sequence continues (and I don't know how you distinguish one continuation from a another)

I don't bother trying as I've realized it is futile.  I've found only two workable definitions of "you" which don't lead to contradictions:

1) Each observer moment has its own unique experiencer.
2) All observer moments belong to the same experiencer.

The latter at least leads to useful decision theories (like why bother getting out of bed in the morning), while the former seems to lead to nihilism.  I prefer the second one.

I love it how empirical contradiction is so easily dismissed.
 

The theory that you are everyone is not falsified by our experience (the examples I gave above show that one don't need to remember experiencing something in order to have experienced it or to be experiencing it (as a duplicate)).  Further, this theory makes makes fewer assumptions than the single-life theories.  Those theories contain an additional assumption that there is some process of selection which led to you being born as you and no one else.

What is your justification for adding this additional assumption when the theory itself explains why we can't recall the perspectives of other people?  It is just like the collapse postulate, which you are also fond of.  It serves no useful purpose and needlessly complicates the theory.

Jason


meekerdb

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Jan 15, 2013, 11:23:09 PM1/15/13
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On 1/15/2013 8:12 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 8:29 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/15/2013 5:15 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 3:14 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/15/2013 7:27 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

Then why do we find ourselves in a world where everyone has only life from their childhood to now?


All conscious states are experienced, even if everyone is truly immortal it does't mean we always have access to or are experiencing all our memories all the time.  How much of your current life are you recalling at any given moment?

To answer your question, we are either original biological humans or someone else experiencing what it was like to be an original biological human.  When this life ends the consciousness original biological humans ends, but it continues as the someone else who experienced that original biological human's life.

But as I understand your theory we are nothing but sequences of experiences - so if the sequence continues (and I don't know how you distinguish one continuation from a another)

I don't bother trying as I've realized it is futile.  I've found only two workable definitions of "you" which don't lead to contradictions:

1) Each observer moment has its own unique experiencer.
2) All observer moments belong to the same experiencer.

The latter at least leads to useful decision theories (like why bother getting out of bed in the morning), while the former seems to lead to nihilism.  I prefer the second one.

I love it how empirical contradiction is so easily dismissed.
 

The theory that you are everyone is not falsified by our experience (the examples I gave above show that one don't need to remember experiencing something in order to have experienced it or to be experiencing it (as a duplicate)). 

"To be experiencing it as a duplicate (but not remember)" is just double-talk.  It just trashes the concept of person, which it pretends to explain.  Do you think you could be a person without memory (ever known someone with severe Alzheimer's?).


Further, this theory makes makes fewer assumptions than the single-life theories.  Those theories contain an additional assumption that there is some process of selection which led to you being born as you and no one else.

A sentence that made sense up until "as you...".



What is your justification for adding this additional assumption when the theory itself explains why we can't recall the perspectives of other people? 

It doesn't explain it.  In fact it denies there are other people (thus violating Bruno's religion).


It is just like the collapse postulate, which you are also fond of.  It serves no useful purpose and needlessly complicates the theory.

No useful purpose except making the theory useful.

Brent

Jason Resch

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Jan 16, 2013, 1:15:21 AM1/16/13
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On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 10:23 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/15/2013 8:12 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 8:29 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/15/2013 5:15 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 3:14 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/15/2013 7:27 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

Then why do we find ourselves in a world where everyone has only life from their childhood to now?


All conscious states are experienced, even if everyone is truly immortal it does't mean we always have access to or are experiencing all our memories all the time.  How much of your current life are you recalling at any given moment?

To answer your question, we are either original biological humans or someone else experiencing what it was like to be an original biological human.  When this life ends the consciousness original biological humans ends, but it continues as the someone else who experienced that original biological human's life.

But as I understand your theory we are nothing but sequences of experiences - so if the sequence continues (and I don't know how you distinguish one continuation from a another)

I don't bother trying as I've realized it is futile.  I've found only two workable definitions of "you" which don't lead to contradictions:

1) Each observer moment has its own unique experiencer.
2) All observer moments belong to the same experiencer.

The latter at least leads to useful decision theories (like why bother getting out of bed in the morning), while the former seems to lead to nihilism.  I prefer the second one.

I love it how empirical contradiction is so easily dismissed.
 

The theory that you are everyone is not falsified by our experience (the examples I gave above show that one don't need to remember experiencing something in order to have experienced it or to be experiencing it (as a duplicate)). 

"To be experiencing it as a duplicate (but not remember)" is just double-talk. 

Assume if MWI were true.  You would be experiencing those many other worlds, but you (the Brent Meeker in this branch) can't recall those experiences of those other worlds.
 
It just trashes the concept of person, which it pretends to explain.

Science has shown that the particular matter and material are not important for personal identity.  That leaves little else aside from memories, to serve as a marker to preserve personal identity.  Therefore many people people assume it must be the memories that are crucial to defining the person.  But there are flaws with this.  If you are concentrating very hard taking some test, it seems almost all your personal memories could be disconnected from you and you wouldn't notice.  Who then is it that is taking the test?  Also, consider that you were definitely alive and fully conscious when you were experiencing the 14th bite of your breakfast 296 days ago, but you probably have no memory of it.  Who was it that was conscious of that moment?
 
  Do you think you could be a person without memory (ever known someone with severe Alzheimer's?).


Yes I think so.  Anyone who is conscious is a person and I don't see memories as a requirement for awareness.  How do you define personhood?
 

Further, this theory makes makes fewer assumptions than the single-life theories.  Those theories contain an additional assumption that there is some process of selection which led to you being born as you and no one else.

A sentence that made sense up until "as you...".

I was going to say "as Brent Meeker" but wanted my message to be general to other readers of my post.
 



What is your justification for adding this additional assumption when the theory itself explains why we can't recall the perspectives of other people? 

It doesn't explain it. 

Your brain is not physically wired to other people's brains, so why, when I ask Brent Meeker if he recalls experiencing what it is like to be me, should Brent Meeker answer yes?  (Bear in mind from other examples memory is no guarantee of what one has or hasn't experienced.  If you think you can show that one must have a memory of something to have experienced it, please provide some argument or proof.)
 
In fact it denies there are other people (thus violating Bruno's religion).


I'll allow Bruno to comment on whether he thinks a universal self contradicts CTM.
 

It is just like the collapse postulate, which you are also fond of.  It serves no useful purpose and needlessly complicates the theory.

No useful purpose except making the theory useful.

Please explain how it does this.

Jason

Bruno Marchal

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Jan 16, 2013, 10:13:58 AM1/16/13
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On 15 Jan 2013, at 22:14, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/15/2013 7:27 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

Then why do we find ourselves in a world where everyone has only life from their childhood to now?


All conscious states are experienced, even if everyone is truly immortal it does't mean we always have access to or are experiencing all our memories all the time.  How much of your current life are you recalling at any given moment?

To answer your question, we are either original biological humans or someone else experiencing what it was like to be an original biological human.  When this life ends the consciousness original biological humans ends, but it continues as the someone else who experienced that original biological human's life.

But as I understand your theory we are nothing but sequences of experiences -

I would say that we are person. Probably the same universal person.
We have sequence of experiences, but they do not define us, globally; only locally.




so if the sequence continues (and I don't know how you distinguish one continuation from a another) the we continue.

We distinguish continuations when we live them, like John Clark in M knows that he is not John Clark in W. Of course this leads to the comp 1-indeterminacy, but this explain the MWI when we look below our comp subst level.



It is incoherent to say someone else experiences our continuation.

It makes local sense, like John Clark in M can agree that the John Clark in W is still a "John Clark". Then this can help to realize that we are the same person, but in different context.

Bruno




Brent

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Bruno Marchal

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What would it mean to observe anything if consciousness does not continue (locally)?

You lost me here,

Bruno



Bruno Marchal

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Jan 15, 2013, 12:49:23 PM1/15/13
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On 15 Jan 2013, at 17:20, John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 2:28 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

> Study the field, please.

I could study anthropology or I could study literature or I could study history but I can't study theology because there is nothing there to study. There is no field of inquiry called "theology", there is only glop.  

This shows that you have not studied the field, which seems indeed pretty obvious. 




> In the greek sense you are a believer in God,

As I said before many people, such as yourself, are willing to abandon the idea of God but not the word"God".

I did provide the axiomatic. The fact that you don't understand the technical point just means that you take the "physicalist religion" for granted.




> and even close to Aristotle theology, once you believe in the existence of primary matter,

I once asked you if they study primary matter at CERN and you emphatically said no, so I conclude that whatever "primary matter" is it's a colossal bore.

It is the natural ontology of the physicalism. It means notably that physics is the toold for studying what is. With comp physics studies something which emerges from something non physical. 




> you are also more christian than the pope as you want God be defined by the current common religion,

As I said before many people, such as yourself, are willing to abandon the idea of God but not the word"God".


The platonists do the contrary. They keep the scientific notion and question the particular interpretation. 

Bruno


> Yes, all creature believe in "God"

 As I said before many people, such as yourself. are willing to abandon the idea of God but not the word"God"

   John K Clark

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Bruno Marchal

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Jan 16, 2013, 10:27:43 AM1/16/13
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On 16 Jan 2013, at 07:15, Jason Resch wrote:



On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 10:23 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/15/2013 8:12 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 8:29 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/15/2013 5:15 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 3:14 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/15/2013 7:27 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

Then why do we find ourselves in a world where everyone has only life from their childhood to now?


All conscious states are experienced, even if everyone is truly immortal it does't mean we always have access to or are experiencing all our memories all the time.  How much of your current life are you recalling at any given moment?

To answer your question, we are either original biological humans or someone else experiencing what it was like to be an original biological human.  When this life ends the consciousness original biological humans ends, but it continues as the someone else who experienced that original biological human's life.

But as I understand your theory we are nothing but sequences of experiences - so if the sequence continues (and I don't know how you distinguish one continuation from a another)

I don't bother trying as I've realized it is futile.  I've found only two workable definitions of "you" which don't lead to contradictions:

1) Each observer moment has its own unique experiencer.
2) All observer moments belong to the same experiencer.

The latter at least leads to useful decision theories (like why bother getting out of bed in the morning), while the former seems to lead to nihilism.  I prefer the second one.

I love it how empirical contradiction is so easily dismissed.
 

The theory that you are everyone is not falsified by our experience (the examples I gave above show that one don't need to remember experiencing something in order to have experienced it or to be experiencing it (as a duplicate)). 

"To be experiencing it as a duplicate (but not remember)" is just double-talk. 

Assume if MWI were true.  You would be experiencing those many other worlds, but you (the Brent Meeker in this branch) can't recall those experiences of those other worlds.
 
It just trashes the concept of person, which it pretends to explain.

Science has shown that the particular matter and material are not important for personal identity. 

That's a too quick and strong statement. It is just that science provides evidence for comp, but we cannot know if it is true.  I guess you were just quick as I have no doubt you agree with this. OK? Comp might be false, and particular matter might play a role. 
I do agree with your point though.

Bruno




That leaves little else aside from memories, to serve as a marker to preserve personal identity.  Therefore many people people assume it must be the memories that are crucial to defining the person.  But there are flaws with this.  If you are concentrating very hard taking some test, it seems almost all your personal memories could be disconnected from you and you wouldn't notice.  Who then is it that is taking the test?  Also, consider that you were definitely alive and fully conscious when you were experiencing the 14th bite of your breakfast 296 days ago, but you probably have no memory of it.  Who was it that was conscious of that moment?
 
  Do you think you could be a person without memory (ever known someone with severe Alzheimer's?).


Yes I think so.  Anyone who is conscious is a person and I don't see memories as a requirement for awareness.  How do you define personhood?
 

Further, this theory makes makes fewer assumptions than the single-life theories.  Those theories contain an additional assumption that there is some process of selection which led to you being born as you and no one else.

A sentence that made sense up until "as you...".

I was going to say "as Brent Meeker" but wanted my message to be general to other readers of my post.
 



What is your justification for adding this additional assumption when the theory itself explains why we can't recall the perspectives of other people? 

It doesn't explain it. 

Your brain is not physically wired to other people's brains, so why, when I ask Brent Meeker if he recalls experiencing what it is like to be me, should Brent Meeker answer yes?  (Bear in mind from other examples memory is no guarantee of what one has or hasn't experienced.  If you think you can show that one must have a memory of something to have experienced it, please provide some argument or proof.)
 
In fact it denies there are other people (thus violating Bruno's religion).


I'll allow Bruno to comment on whether he thinks a universal self contradicts CTM.
 

It is just like the collapse postulate, which you are also fond of.  It serves no useful purpose and needlessly complicates the theory.

No useful purpose except making the theory useful.

Please explain how it does this.

Jason

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Jason Resch

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Jan 16, 2013, 10:34:07 AM1/16/13
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On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 9:27 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 16 Jan 2013, at 07:15, Jason Resch wrote:



On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 10:23 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/15/2013 8:12 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 8:29 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/15/2013 5:15 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 3:14 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 1/15/2013 7:27 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

Then why do we find ourselves in a world where everyone has only life from their childhood to now?


All conscious states are experienced, even if everyone is truly immortal it does't mean we always have access to or are experiencing all our memories all the time.  How much of your current life are you recalling at any given moment?

To answer your question, we are either original biological humans or someone else experiencing what it was like to be an original biological human.  When this life ends the consciousness original biological humans ends, but it continues as the someone else who experienced that original biological human's life.

But as I understand your theory we are nothing but sequences of experiences - so if the sequence continues (and I don't know how you distinguish one continuation from a another)

I don't bother trying as I've realized it is futile.  I've found only two workable definitions of "you" which don't lead to contradictions:

1) Each observer moment has its own unique experiencer.
2) All observer moments belong to the same experiencer.

The latter at least leads to useful decision theories (like why bother getting out of bed in the morning), while the former seems to lead to nihilism.  I prefer the second one.

I love it how empirical contradiction is so easily dismissed.
 

The theory that you are everyone is not falsified by our experience (the examples I gave above show that one don't need to remember experiencing something in order to have experienced it or to be experiencing it (as a duplicate)). 

"To be experiencing it as a duplicate (but not remember)" is just double-talk. 

Assume if MWI were true.  You would be experiencing those many other worlds, but you (the Brent Meeker in this branch) can't recall those experiences of those other worlds.
 
It just trashes the concept of person, which it pretends to explain.

Science has shown that the particular matter and material are not important for personal identity. 

That's a too quick and strong statement. It is just that science provides evidence for comp, but we cannot know if it is true.  I guess you were just quick as I have no doubt you agree with this. OK? Comp might be false, and particular matter might play a role. 
I do agree with your point though.


Yes it was worded too strongly.  What I meant is there is no currently no widely supported theory of mind where the identity of matter is important to the identity of a person.  Our understanding of cell metabolism is enough to show that we get a mostly new brain (new atoms) every few months.  And QM also shows the indistinguishability of particles and atoms of the same element.  So the evidence science has collected is quite strong on this point.

Jason

Bruno Marchal

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Jan 15, 2013, 8:33:38 AM1/15/13
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On 13 Jan 2013, at 20:00, Stephen P. King wrote:

> On 1/13/2013 3:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> I have never met a theologian genuinely believing in both
>> omnipotence and omniscience. Since Thomas, christian theologians
>> knows that it is inconsistent.
>>
> Dear Bruno,
>
> I have yet to find a modern Christian apologists that is troubled
> by this. Most of them reject symbolic logic as applicable to 'God'.

It is of course the most easy solution.



> Frankly, IMHO discussing the beliefs of those that reject reason is
> a fools errand.

I agree. That's why Iove the greeks. Because they love both reason and
the mystical insight. Like I said to Telmo, the separation is both
common and very awkward, especially when sustained as fundamental.
Only the jurist are aware of this, as the justice (right) field is
usually rather rigorous. It is philosophy and theology which suffer
the most (and then, by consequence, the people).

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



Bruno Marchal

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Jan 16, 2013, 1:00:46 PM1/16/13
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I agree. Even Hamerov would agree, despite the low and quantum level. Only Penrose, but probably also Searle, would disagree, I guess. Perhaps Craig, and most believer in non comp.



Our understanding of cell metabolism is enough to show that we get a mostly new brain (new atoms) every few months. 

Yes. It takes about seven years for the bones, I think. But the brain is the champion in metabolism, although quickly followed by stomach and liver, I guess.



And QM also shows the indistinguishability of particles and atoms of the same element. 

That's a subtle argument which might need to be developed. Everett QM usually assumes comp or some weakening of it.




So the evidence science has collected is quite strong on this point.

I agree. But in science we never know. Comp is extremely plausible from the evidences, but the evidences can always be deceiving and so we can only test (and pray :).

By some token, comp is hard to believe, but the advantage is that comp can explain why some part of comp, still machine's accessible in different senses, are just true, but unbelievable or unjustifiable by machines.

Bruno



Jason

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John Clark

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Jan 16, 2013, 1:56:17 PM1/16/13
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On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

>> I could study anthropology or I could study literature or I could study history but I can't study theology because there is nothing there to study. There is no field of inquiry called "theology", there is only glop.  
 
> This shows that you have not studied the field, which seems indeed pretty obvious. 

13 years of studying this useless bullshit is not enough? I'll bet I know more about the Bible than most Christians.

> you take the "physicalist religion" for granted.

Wow, calling a guy know for disliking religion religious, never heard that one before, at least I never head it before I was 12.

>> I once asked you if they study primary matter at CERN and you emphatically said no, so I conclude that whatever "primary matter" is it's a colossal bore.
 
> It is the natural ontology of the physicalism. It means notably that physics is the toold for studying what is.

Then the study of "primary matter" is the study of what isn't, or to put it another way a colossal bore.

  John K Clark

 


meekerdb

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Jan 16, 2013, 2:29:37 PM1/16/13
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An "observation" in QM is just instantiating the value of a projection operator in a quasi-classical form.  There is nothing prevent others people and instruments from observing things after I cease to.

Brent


You lost me here,

Bruno



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Craig Weinberg

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Jan 16, 2013, 4:17:25 PM1/16/13
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On Wednesday, January 16, 2013 1:00:46 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 16 Jan 2013, at 16:34, Jason Resch wrote:


Yes it was worded too strongly.  What I meant is there is no currently no widely supported theory of mind where the identity of matter is important to the identity of a person. 

I agree. Even Hamerov would agree, despite the low and quantum level. Only Penrose, but probably also Searle, would disagree, I guess. Perhaps Craig, and most believer in non comp.



We could ask one of the people who are made of a different kind of matter than human beings. While we are at it, we could ask them which arithmetic incantation will allow us to drink brine from the sea instead of fresh water. Shouldn't be a big deal... ;)

Stathis Papaioannou

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Jan 17, 2013, 6:46:59 AM1/17/13
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On 17/01/2013, at 8:17 AM, Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com> wrote:

I agree. Even Hamerov would agree, despite the low and quantum level. Only Penrose, but probably also Searle, would disagree, I guess. Perhaps Craig, and most believer in non comp.



We could ask one of the people who are made of a different kind of matter than human beings. While we are at it, we could ask them which arithmetic incantation will allow us to drink brine from the sea instead of fresh water. Shouldn't be a big deal... ;)

There are those who believe that the very atoms are necessary in order to preserve a consciousness: making an arbitrarily close copy won't do. From what you have said before, this is what you think, but it goes against any widely accepted biological or physical scientific theory. 


-- Stathis Papaioannou

Bruno Marchal

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Jan 17, 2013, 6:53:09 AM1/17/13
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On 16 Jan 2013, at 19:56, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

>> I could study anthropology or I could study literature or I could study history but I can't study theology because there is nothing there to study. There is no field of inquiry called "theology", there is only glop.  
 
> This shows that you have not studied the field, which seems indeed pretty obvious. 

13 years of studying this useless bullshit is not enough? I'll bet I know more about the Bible than most Christians.

It was not scientific studies. It was ideological-political brainwashing. I feel sorry for you as it is clear that you still believe they present theology to you, but they presented the usual perversion of it. A bishop said it once himself: atheists are our objective ally in the development of christianity.
My father too was strongly brainwashed by catholic schools, and became a vindictive atheist, until much later the doubt came back, that is the scientific attitude.




> you take the "physicalist religion" for granted.

Wow, calling a guy know for disliking religion religious, never heard that one before, at least I never head it before I was 12.

Well, if you can doubt about the existence of primary matter, and physicalism, then it is weird that you seem not to be open to a theory which attempt to explain the appearance of matter from non physical things (like numbers). 
There is a difference between "asserting I am not religious" and "being not religious". I did provide a general axiomatic of God, and you do seem quite religious in that sense. And take this as a compliment, because with comp, all sane machine are religious, in that sense, which is close to the original sense of the mystics and the greek rationalists.




>> I once asked you if they study primary matter at CERN and you emphatically said no, so I conclude that whatever "primary matter" is it's a colossal bore.
 
> It is the natural ontology of the physicalism. It means notably that physics is the toold for studying what is.

Then the study of "primary matter" is the study of what isn't, or to put it another way a colossal bore.

Absolutely. That's why my work does not shock most physicists who got the point or the idea. It annoys only the fundamentalists atheists, which unfortunately seems to have taken in hostage the university in which I have developed my work (and a part of the media in france). They are my old Marxist "friends". In Europa, the Berlin wall did not fall at the West of Berlin, at least in some large part of the academical institutions. It is weird because my university, which I like very much, is based on the fight against all dogma, but they did not succeed apparently. It gives me the feeling that free-exam might be a protegoran virtue: meaning that you kill it when defending it with words.

Bruno


Bruno Marchal

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Jan 17, 2013, 6:59:05 AM1/17/13
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On 16 Jan 2013, at 20:29, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/16/2013 7:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 15 Jan 2013, at 23:18, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/15/2013 8:21 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 15 Jan 2013, at 07:54, meekerdb wrote, to Jason:

Consider the quantum suicide experiment, or the Shrodinger's cat experiment from the perspective of the cat.  From the first-person perspective consciousness cannot end, regardless of how low the third-person probability may be.

But that's just a semantic trick.  The first-person perspective consciousness can still be finite.  Just because "the end" isn't part of the experience, it doesn't follow that the sequence of experiences continues indefinitely.  I've had my consciousness interrupted.  There was no mathematical/logical necessity that it resume.

Of course. But if you assume either QM, or comp, there are.

Comp maybe. QM doesn't require that consciousness continue.

What would it mean to observe anything if consciousness does not continue (locally)?

An "observation" in QM is just instantiating the value of a projection operator in a quasi-classical form.  There is nothing prevent others people and instruments from observing things after I cease to.

You are right. That's the main interest of QM without collapse. But you still need a notion of "consciousness continues" to get the phenomenological reduction of the wave packet. Everett assumes a form of psycho-brain link which works very well if you assume the SWE. But with comp, this does not work (cf UDA), and you have to extract a phenomenological SWE from the diophantine number relations.

Bruno



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