How can a grown man be an atheist ?

[Roger Clough]

How can a grown man be an atheist ?

 

An atheist is a person who believes that the universe can

function without some form of government. 

 

How silly.

 

 

Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000]

See my Leibniz site at

http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough

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[Roger Clough]

[LizR]

Because there are no obvious signs of government in the universe, I would say.

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[Telmo Menezes]

On Sun, Dec 1, 2013 at 10:37 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

Because there are no obvious signs of government in the universe, I would say.

I agree. People underestimate the complexity that can arise from multiplying simple behaviours by many entities. Here's a beautiful example:

http://vimeo.com/16256894

Everything here is the outcome of the behaviours of simple agents following simple rules in reaction to their local environment. This example has two types of agents: preys and predators. If we consider the fantastic number of ways in which molecules can aggregate and interact, it's possible to imagine how something like this can scale up to the complexity of the human body.

Under some such environment, when replicators emerge, evolutionary processes take over and thus begins the climb up mount improbable.

I never found a proponent of interventionist gods who seemed to grasp what's possible with simple rules and building blocks.

This does not explain consciousness, of course. There are enough deep mysteries to existence as is.

Telmo.

[LizR]

Nice video!

Yes even Fred Hoyle fell down on understanding what's possible with simple rules and a large number of iterations.

[Alberto G. Corona]

Government by the Rule of Law (of physics) I would say. 

There is much much in the relation between the republican idea of society,  and pragmatical atheism of the contractualists Hobbes, rousseau, Locke (let the state work without religion), that later became ideological (atheism is the religion of the state). 

The idea of ruling society by laws was probably inspired by newtonian phisics (but not by newtonian theology) and the market economy. what is initially science or experience can become a myth that organize a society.

But this gobernment by rules is a hopeful ideal. In other words, a myth. But a myth necessary for the state religion. Whenever there are laws there is a sovereingh lawyers. "The people" in "democracy" is such lawyer say the modern wishfulthinker. That is nothing but another two myths. hypostases, something that does not exist bu in the mind by an effort of faith for the purpose of social cooperation.

So to summarize, the human mind can not live withouth myths. If he reject the given ones, he invent its own.

2013/12/1 LizR <liz...@gmail.com>

--
Alberto.

[LizR]

Agnosticism should be the "religion" of the state.

[Jesse Mazer]

Most theistic philosophers and theologians who have considered the issue agree that God did not create the laws of math and logic, and does not have the power to alter them (or any other "necessary" truths, which for theists might include things like moral rules, or qualities of God such as omnipotence). Do you think the Mandelbrot set, or any other piece of pure mathematics, functions without a government, or are mathematical rules themselves a form of government even if God didn't create them? Certainly most atheists now think the universe follows mathematical laws, and one could even adopt Max Tegmark's idea and speculate that our universe is just another part of the uncreated Platonic realm of mathematical forms.

[Telmo Menezes]

On Sun, Dec 1, 2013 at 11:33 PM, Alberto G. Corona <agoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Government by the Rule of Law (of physics) I would say. 

Ok, but here I think "government" is meant as some pre-existing complexity. While the laws of physics are simpler than their outcome, the christian god is more complex that its outcome. And, rephrasing what Liz said, we never found any evidence of higher complexity downstream.

 

There is much much in the relation between the republican idea of society,  and pragmatical atheism of the contractualists Hobbes, rousseau, Locke (let the state work without religion), that later became ideological (atheism is the religion of the state). 

The idea of ruling society by laws was probably inspired by newtonian phisics (but not by newtonian theology) and the market economy. what is initially science or experience can become a myth that organize a society.

But this gobernment by rules is a hopeful ideal. In other words, a myth. But a myth necessary for the state religion. Whenever there are laws there is a sovereingh lawyers. "The people" in "democracy" is such lawyer say the modern wishfulthinker. That is nothing but another two myths. hypostases, something that does not exist bu in the mind by an effort of faith for the purpose of social cooperation.

So to summarize, the human mind can not live withouth myths. If he reject the given ones, he invent its own.

I would say that it's society that can't live without myths, and we can't live without society. Since we have no agency over society but we depend on it for survival, we must be part of a super-organism. Some of our behaviour has to be molecule-like, but our human minds want to feel they are in control. So we post-rationalise. We haven't found a way for society to work without dominance, so we rationalise this dominance in increasingly sophisticated ways. In democracy, the dominated are accomplices in keeping the illusion, because they want to reap the benefits of being subservient without having to signal subservience. The voting ritual makes this possible. Breaking such illusions is a very dangerous proposition, as we've seen in Europe in the first half or the 20th century (early republicanism broke the monarchy illusion but quickly degrading into fascism -- fascism had more powerful binding myths to offer, and a lesson had to be learned). Of course, as you point out, republics come with a myth set of their own.

Modern law is a very sophisticated, if perverse system. Many laws are not meant to be followed. They are used to post-rationalise punishment for breaking unwritten rules that nobody wants to acknowledge but all want to enforce.

Telmo. 

[Jesse Mazer]

To add to my last comment, the article at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-modal/ mentions that Leibniz was among those philosophers who distinguished between necessary and contingent truths, and only granted God the power to change contingent ones. Here's a relevant bit from the article:

Consider the way Leibniz distinguishes necessary and contingent truths in §13 of the Discourse on Metaphysics.

The one whose contrary implies a contradiction is absolutely necessary; this deduction occurs in the eternal truths, for example, the truths of geometry. The other is necessary only ex hypothesi and, so to speak, accidentally, but it is contingent in itself, since its contrary does not imply a contradiction. And this connection is based not purely on ideas and God's simple understanding, but on his free decrees and on the sequence of the universe. (A VI iv 1547/AG 45)

So, what's wrong with adopting Tegmark's solution which takes our universe as a Platonic mathematical structure, so that all truths about it are necessary ones too? Then there would be no need for a creator God, though one might still talk about a sort of Spinoza-esque pantheist God (especially if one also prefers panpsychism as a solution to the metaphysical problem of the relation between consciousness and third-person objective reality)

[LizR]

On 2 December 2013 12:51, Jesse Mazer <laser...@gmail.com> wrote:

To add to my last comment, the article at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-modal/ mentions that Leibniz was among those philosophers who distinguished between necessary and contingent truths, and only granted God the power to change contingent ones. Here's a relevant bit from the article:

Consider the way Leibniz distinguishes necessary and contingent truths in §13 of the Discourse on Metaphysics.

The one whose contrary implies a contradiction is absolutely necessary; this deduction occurs in the eternal truths, for example, the truths of geometry. The other is necessary only ex hypothesi and, so to speak, accidentally, but it is contingent in itself, since its contrary does not imply a contradiction. And this connection is based not purely on ideas and God's simple understanding, but on his free decrees and on the sequence of the universe. (A VI iv 1547/AG 45)

So, what's wrong with adopting Tegmark's solution which takes our universe as a Platonic mathematical structure, so that all truths about it are necessary ones too? Then there would be no need for a creator God, though one might still talk about a sort of Spinoza-esque pantheist God (especially if one also prefers panpsychism as a solution to the metaphysical problem of the relation between consciousness and third-person objective reality)

I am of the same opinion, that reality is probably in some sense emergent from logically necessary truths - however, possible objections include:

The Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (MUH) doesn't make testable predictions (Tegmark claims it does, about the gerenicity of the universe we should expect to find ourselves in, but there have been objections that this isn't quantifiable, etc).

Various objections by materialists - for example, they have been known to object that there aren't resources available in the universe to "do the maths" and similar level confusions. This tends to come down to "I don't believe it!" (usually expressed as something like "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" etc, but that's what they mean). These need not concern us too much, because they are basically religious objetions - they don't like their metaphysical premises being questioned.

The MUH doesn't address the nature of consciousness. Tegmark describes consciousness as (somethnig like) "what data feels like when it's being processed" but this bit of hand-waving fails to explain qualia etc. Bruno will perhaps have more to say on this.

[Samiya Illias]

This is strange! What 'theism' it is if it limits God? We believe that God is the Reality, the Prime Originator, the Sustainer, and the Final Goal. Everything is as God wills and allows it to be. 

Sent from my iPhone

[meekerdb]

On 12/1/2013 9:11 PM, Samiya Illias wrote:

This is strange! What 'theism' it is if it limits God? We believe that God is the Reality, the Prime Originator, the Sustainer, and the Final Goal. Everything is as God wills and allows it to be.

That's what you say you believe.  But is there any reason I should believe it?

Brent

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Dec 2013, at 00:13, Jesse Mazer wrote:

Most theistic philosophers and theologians who have considered the issue agree that God did not create the laws of math and logic,

Yes. After St-Thomas, most catholic theologian agree that God cannot make 17 into a composite number. God obeys to logic, and nobody is interested in an inconsistent God.

This does not really limit his "power", in fact without being consistent, God would become trivial. For the same reason, everythingers can believe only in all possible *consistent* things, and "consistency" is the modal possibility in provability logic.

The cul-de-sac world still make "inconsistency" consistent, without introducing an "inconsistent reality". That's part of the explanation of the mind in comp, and an explanation of why a travel "near inconsistency" is possible, and that's probably part of the computationalist job. You don't have world satisfying false (which would be an inconsistent reality", stretching a little bit the vocabulary), but we do have world (for G), in which we have provable("false"), indeed that the syntactical way to say we are in a cul-de-sac world.

and does not have the power to alter them (or any other "necessary" truths, which for theists might include things like moral rules, or qualities of God such as omnipotence). Do you think the Mandelbrot set, or any other piece of pure mathematics, functions without a government, or are mathematical rules themselves a form of government even if God didn't create them? Certainly most atheists now think the universe follows mathematical laws, and one could even adopt Max Tegmark's idea and speculate that our universe is just another part of the uncreated Platonic realm of mathematical forms.

But that speculation cannot make sense if we assume that we are machine. Indeed if we are machine, our first person experience are distributed in the mathematical (actually arithmetical is enough) structure, and the physical reality is not a mathematical structure among others, but a mathematical (biological, psychological, theological) phenomenon, which makes us (us = the universal machine) believe in some big "universal machine". This predicts that below our level of substitution, we must see the trace of "parallel universe", and this is confirmed by (Everett) theory, as as far as it works which seems to be the case until now.

Tegmark still use an Aristotelian identity theory (mind-body) which is incoherent with computationalism. That is why he must "speculate". Once we assume comp, there is no need to speculate on a mathematical universe, as the "universe" does not exist per se, but has to be a persistent and invariant mind construct of all universal machine/number, and this in a completely testable way, as the beliefs in laws of physics should all be extracted from (Robinson) Arithmetic. The mathematical "hypothesis" was already a theorem in the comp theory. Tegmark missed the FPI, which breaks the Aristotelian identity thesis, and eventually breaks the whole Aristotelian theological paradigm of the (weak) materialists (the materialism of the believer in primitive matter).

It is a bit weird, as Tegmark interprets correctly QM (with respect to comp) and Everett QM already break the aristotelian identity thesis, imo.

Bruno

On Sunday, December 1, 2013, Roger Clough wrote:

How can a grown man be an atheist ?

 

An atheist is a person who believes that the universe can

function without some form of government. 

 

How silly.

 

 

Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000]

See my Leibniz site at

http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Dec 2013, at 00:51, Jesse Mazer wrote:

To add to my last comment, the article at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-modal/ mentions that Leibniz was among those philosophers who distinguished between necessary and contingent truths, and only granted God the power to change contingent ones. Here's a relevant bit from the article:

Consider the way Leibniz distinguishes necessary and contingent truths in §13 of the Discourse on Metaphysics.

The one whose contrary implies a contradiction is absolutely necessary; this deduction occurs in the eternal truths, for example, the truths of geometry. The other is necessary only ex hypothesi and, so to speak, accidentally, but it is contingent in itself, since its contrary does not imply a contradiction. And this connection is based not purely on ideas and God's simple understanding, but on his free decrees and on the sequence of the universe. (A VI iv 1547/AG 45)

I think that this is about the same error as believing that free will needs indeterminacy.

So, what's wrong with adopting Tegmark's solution which takes our universe as a Platonic mathematical structure, so that all truths about it are necessary ones too?

But if it is one mathematical structure, and not another, that would make it contingent. I think the laws of physics are mathematical necessities, because the "physical illusion" is an arithmetical process involving all universal machines, which is a well defined notions (assuming Church Thesis).

Then there would be no need for a creator God, though one might still talk about a sort of Spinoza-esque pantheist God (especially if one also prefers panpsychism as a solution to the metaphysical problem of the relation between consciousness and third-person objective reality)

But that would make a brain or a computer unnecessary for being conscious relatively to some stories. That would work, as indeed, by negating comp, we can still imagine some infinite mathematical structure linking brain and mind, in a way avoiding the FPI and the reversal consequence of the comp assumption. But then we can't survive with a brain-computer, and we can't use computer science in philosophy of mind and theology.

Bruno

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

[Samiya Illias]

No reason at all. I'm just sharing my understanding on the topic, so that 

1) if I'm wrong, someone will point out the flaw in my understanding 

2) if my understanding is generally pointing towards the correct theory / belief, perhaps it'll be of use to someone. 

Samiya 

Sent from my iPhone

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Dec 2013, at 06:11, Samiya Illias wrote:

This is strange! What 'theism' it is if it limits God?

Making It consistent is not really limiting it.

Accepting the idea that God can be inconsistent quickly leads to inconsistent theology, which is the fuel of atheism.

(that is why atheists defends all the time the most inconsistent notion of God, and deter people to search by themselves in the field).

We believe that God is the Reality, the Prime Originator, the Sustainer, and the Final Goal.

OK.

Everything is as God wills and allows it to be. 

I don't know.

Bruno

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

[spudb...@aol.com]

By the way, Tegmark has a new book coming out Jan 14, I do recall.

[spudb...@aol.com]

We're just guessing on this Samiya, or our ancestors, really. What God may be, is may not exactly fit the Omni,characterizations. Moreover, being a practical, American, we have to know, in a self-interested way, what good/benefit does knowing about God do for us. A ridiculous statement, and yet, We the Who in Whoville, to quote Dr. Suess-Geisel, need to know.

[Samiya Illias]

I agree that God is consistent. In my understanding, God is perfect in every possible meaning of the word. 

I was objecting to the assertion below that 'Most theistic philosophers and theologians who have considered the issue agree that God did not create the laws of math and logic, and does not have the power to alter them (or any other "necessary" truths, ...'  

Samiya 

Sent from my iPhone

[Samiya Illias]

Maybe. I'm a Muslim and the more I learn of science, the more convinced I get of the authenticity of the Quran. Hence, when I read about the purpose of this life and the hereafter, I do take it very seriously. 

Samiya 

Sent from my iPhone

[Alberto G. Corona]

What I say is that atheism is NOT an option.  

Not only because Chesterton said that anyone who does nor believe in God will en up believing in anything, but also because that is in the structure of the human mind as is know by personal introspection (the greek philosophers), historical experiience (any religion-less community that lasted?)  and by game theoretical+ evolutionary  reasons that i tried to explain here.

At the moment that you reject a deity, you accept other. The religion of atheists is quite similar to a primitive religion because religion emerges in its primitive form when you reject your own.

But the human mind can not work with impersonal myths. Whenever impersonal myths are created, exist also personal entities that  become myts. Normally the ones that created these myths of fighted for them.

The most primitive form is the cult to the personality, that is the cult to a living god-man. Who was the leader of the tribu, whose actions are mtified and celebrated. Of course this is the worst of all kinds of religions. That happens ever when a society tried to establish itself in abstract principles, being them comunism, equality, progress, rule of law, evolution etc.

As an example, after the cult to Hitler, Marx, Stalin, Mao,  Kim Jon II, Castro.. and many others.. the modern cult to Darwin

http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/ep055269.pdf

Incidentally the reason why the cult to Lincoln, Jefferson etc is so weak is because the American constitution IS a constitution under a personal God.

2013/12/2 Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com>

--
Alberto.

[Jesse Mazer]

But consistency is itself a logical notion. If you think God can change the laws of logic, can God make it so that he is both perfect and not-perfect, with "perfect" having exactly the same meaning in both cases? 

Note that believing God cannot change logic need not imply logic is "independent" of God for theists, they may say that logic is grounded in God's eternal "understanding", to use the same word as Leibniz. So perfect understanding of logic and math can be seen as necessary attributes of God, along with other more specifically theistic attributes like perfection, omnipotence, omniscience etc. Do you believe that God has necessary attributes that God cannot change, so for example God cannot make a new being more powerful than Himself since this would violate omnipotence?

[Jesse Mazer]

The Muslim philosophers and theologians I have found addressing the issue seem to agree that there are "necessary" truths that God cannot change, which include logical necessity. Examples:

From http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/K057 on Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, who rejected causal necessity but seems to have accepted logical necessity-- "Unlike the Ash'arites, however, al-Ghazali presents a philosophical argument for this position. The only form of necessity he recognizes is logical necessity, and he has little difficulty in showing that causes do not logically necessitate their effects." Also see http://www.betsymccall.net/edu/philo/blackbox.pdf "causality's black box" which suggests al-Ghazali accepts geometric necessity.

 Another Muslim thinker who discussed the issue is Ibn Rushd or Averroes, quoted on p. 85 of "An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy" by Leaman (Averroes had great influence on Maimonides and Aquinas as discussed at http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-11-08-malik-en.html ): "Those evil events which inevitably affect the individual cannot be said not to have come from God...he cannot do absolutely anything at all, for the corruptible cannot be eternal, nor can the eternal be corruptible. In the same way that the angles of a triangle cannot be equal to four right angles, and in the same way that colour cannot be heard, so it is an offence against human reason to reject such propositions." 

On Monday, December 2, 2013, Samiya Illias wrote:

[Samiya Illias]

I agree that perfect knowledge and command of logic and math and et al are necessary attributes of God. 

When I say God is consistent, I mean that God is so perfect in His plan that He doesn't even have any need to change His decree or methods. However, God reserves the power and the right to do what He wills, when He wills, and that may appear imperfect to us mortals within our limited senses and knowledge. 

However, Jesse, I won't try to answer the following questions, as that would be pure speculation. I'm not even sure if I understand the first question properly. 

Samiya 

Sent from my iPhone

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Dec 2013, at 13:39, Samiya Illias wrote:

> I agree that God is consistent. In my understanding, God is perfect
> in every possible meaning of the word.

Is God perfect for the children in Syria? (Easy question on an hard
subject)

Here, you might hope that God will succeed in consolating them and
that everything is OK. But that state of mind might make us accept
more easily the tragedies, and that fatalism ... might be fatal for
the incarnation of the good.

The question, put in a another way, who are you to judge God's
perfection?

You might, like Gödel, assume that God has all positive attributes and
as such is perfect, and one day we will understand the tragedies, but
I am not sure such a God makes sense for the universal machines.

If it makes sense, then I am willing to bet it is a truth belonging to
G*, and not G. That would mean that God was perfect ... until you said
so.

The theological truth must remain silent, or be justified from some
shared assumptions.

If you say God is perfect to those who lost people they care about, it
might be impolite, and you will again fuel atheism.

Hell is paved with the best intentions.

God might also not be perfect, and you might have the right to be
angry against She/Him/It.

> I was objecting to the assertion below that 'Most theistic
> philosophers and theologians who have considered the issue agree
> that God did not create the laws of math and logic, and does not
> have the power to alter them (or any other "necessary" truths,

God created logic and the integers, and arithmetic. Then he said
"Oops!".

Analysis, Topology, Algebra, Physics, History, Geography, archeology
and Theology are tools for the integers to understand themselves.

Truth already warns the numbers: the path is infinite and there are
surprises.

Bruno


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

[Jesse Mazer]

The first question involves a logical contradiction--the statement "God is perfect" being simultaneously true and false--so of course it is impossible for us to imagine what it might mean, and since I think the laws of logic are unchangeable I think it's a completely meaningless description. But if you believe God can change the laws of logic, you should believe God can change the logical rule known as the "law of noncontradiction" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction ) which says a proposition cannot be both true and false.

--

[Telmo Menezes]

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Alberto G. Corona <agoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

What I say is that atheism is NOT an option.  

Ok, you appear to be alluding to something deeper than the need to overcome prisoner dilemmas.

I recognise that there is a need to put something at the root of the ontology, and also a need for meaning. Without meaning life becomes very depressing -- unless one is so absorbed by some task that one doesn't even think about such things. That is a blissful feeling, that I can get from coding, sometimes. Which leads me to this question: do you figure that practitioners of Zen Buddhism still have a deity?

Telmo.

[Samiya Illias]

Below, I'm paraphrasing from memory a couple of passages:
On the subject of the persecution of the 'Bani Israel' Children of Israel by Pharoah, such that the male children were being killed and females kept alive, It reads that it was a great trial from God.
At another place, it reads that know that whatever happens to you, good or bad, it is all inscribed in a decree before we bring it into existence. This is so that you do not despair of whatever passes you by, nor exult over ...
There is a lot going on all over the world that one would like to wish away, but it helps to understand that all things / events / circumstances are trials, temporary and transient. In this life, nothing is a reward or punishment, rather everything is a trial, and an opportunity to do good deeds through helping those in need. Reward and Punishment are concepts associated with the Hereafter, and are of a permanent nature.
No, he didn't say "Oops!", God exhorts us to reflect and ponder!

Samiya

Sent from my iPhone

[Samiya Illias]

You explained it yourself: '

so of course it is impossible for us to imagine what it might mean, '. 

Trying to answer it would be just pretending to be 'all-wise' and consequently making a fool of myself :) 

Samiya 

Sent from my iPhone

[Telmo Menezes]

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 6:46 PM, Samiya Illias <samiya...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Below, I'm paraphrasing from memory a couple of passages:
> On the subject of the persecution of the 'Bani Israel' Children of Israel by Pharoah, such that the male children were being killed and females kept alive, It reads that it was a great trial from God.
> At another place, it reads that know that whatever happens to you, good or bad, it is all inscribed in a decree before we bring it into existence. This is so that you do not despair of whatever passes you by, nor exult over ...
> There is a lot going on all over the world that one would like to wish away, but it helps to understand that all things / events / circumstances are trials, temporary and transient. In this life, nothing is a reward or punishment, rather everything is a trial, and an opportunity to do good deeds through helping those in need. Reward and Punishment are concepts associated with the Hereafter, and are of a permanent nature.
> No, he didn't say "Oops!", God exhorts us to reflect and ponder!

Hi Samiya,

If whatever happens is inscribed in a decree before we bring it into
existence, so is the outcome of the trials. So why bother?

Telmo.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Dec 2013, at 14:58, Jesse Mazer wrote:

The Muslim philosophers and theologians I have found addressing the issue seem to agree that there are "necessary" truths that God cannot change, which include logical necessity. Examples:

From http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/K057 on Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, who rejected causal necessity but seems to have accepted logical necessity-- "Unlike the Ash'arites, however, al-Ghazali presents a philosophical argument for this position. The only form of necessity he recognizes is logical necessity, and he has little difficulty in showing that causes do not logically necessitate their effects." Also see http://www.betsymccall.net/edu/philo/blackbox.pdf "causality's black box" which suggests al-Ghazali accepts geometric necessity.

 Another Muslim thinker who discussed the issue is Ibn Rushd or Averroes, quoted on p. 85 of "An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy" by Leaman (Averroes had great influence on Maimonides and Aquinas as discussed at http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2011-11-08-malik-en.html ): "Those evil events which inevitably affect the individual cannot be said not to have come from God...he cannot do absolutely anything at all, for the corruptible cannot be eternal, nor can the eternal be corruptible. In the same way that the angles of a triangle cannot be equal to four right angles, and in the same way that colour cannot be heard, so it is an offence against human reason to reject such propositions." 

There has been a Muslim Neoplatonist branche, but like with the Christians, neoplatonism survived only partially, on the Sufi, like on the Cabbala. Ibn Arabi is also quite interesting. 

Averroes will influence Maimonides and Aquinas to diverge or deviate from Platonism (and from "comp", thus)

Where is my book on Muslim Neoplatonism? 

Bruno

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

[John Clark]

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 2:48 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

> Yes. After St-Thomas, most catholic theologian agree that God cannot make 17 into a composite number. God obeys to logic,

So the God theory has zero explanatory power and even if God does exist He is just as mystified as to why there is something rather than nothing as we are. 

> This does not really limit his "power"

Even for questions less deep the "God has power" theory still explains nothing unless it can explain exactly how that "power" works, and if you understand all about that "power" then God Himself becomes redundant, a useless fifth wheel. For example, if you say that God created the first living organism on the Earth 4 billion years ago that explains nothing unless you can explain how He did it, and if you know that you don't need God.

  John K Clark

[meekerdb]

On 12/2/2013 1:04 AM, Samiya Illias wrote:

No reason at all. I'm just sharing my understanding on the topic, so that

No, you are just asserting your position.  That's not "understanding".  Understanding something implies knowing reasons why it might be true, being able to infer consequences and test it.

Brent

[meekerdb]

On 12/2/2013 2:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 02 Dec 2013, at 06:11, Samiya Illias wrote:

This is strange! What 'theism' it is if it limits God?

Making It consistent is not really limiting it.

Accepting the idea that God can be inconsistent quickly leads to inconsistent theology, which is the fuel of atheism.

(that is why atheists defends all the time the most inconsistent notion of God, and deter people to search by themselves in the field).

I have read that this is the root of Islam falling behind the west and missing the Enlightenment: Because Islamic theologians believed that the existence of physical laws, e.g. Newtonian mechanics, was a limitation on Allah.

Brent

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Dec 2013, at 18:46, Samiya Illias wrote:

> Below, I'm paraphrasing from memory a couple of passages:
> On the subject of the persecution of the 'Bani Israel' Children of
> Israel by Pharoah, such that the male children were being killed and
> females kept alive, It reads that it was a great trial from God.
> At another place, it reads that know that whatever happens to you,
> good or bad, it is all inscribed in a decree before we bring it
> into existence. This is so that you do not despair of whatever
> passes you by, nor exult over ...
> There is a lot going on all over the world that one would like to
> wish away, but it helps to understand that all things / events /
> circumstances are trials, temporary and transient. In this life,
> nothing is a reward or punishment, rather everything is a trial, and
> an opportunity to do good deeds through helping those in need.
> Reward and Punishment are concepts associated with the Hereafter,
> and are of a permanent nature.

I can make sense, but in the machine's theory, some truth there need
to remain silent, as they will look like nonsense for some people. It
is of the type "only going without saying".

> No, he didn't say "Oops!", God exhorts us to reflect and ponder!

Are you open to doubt your theory? Or some points in your theory?

If not it means you stay connected to the incommunicable part, and you
take the risk of saying to much, and fuel disbelief, even and
especially when not wrong.

And, btw, what is your position on computationalism, because this is
an hypothesis shared by many here (if only for the sake of the
argument). Would you accept that you or some friend get an artificial
digital brain? Have you think about this question? Have you an idea of
the consequence for consciousness and physical realities, and for the
possible theologies?

I don't defend the idea that comp is true, but comp makes possible to
use computer science and mathematics to formulate the questions, and
put some light around.

> Sent from my iPhone

Well, for the Mandelbrot sets zooms, I hope you can access a bigger
computer with a larger screen.

Bruno



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

[Samiya Illias]

Good question, and one which is repeatedly asked by many within and outside the faith. God, in His complete knowledge, knows each and every soul and who is worthy of eternal bliss and who not. However, according to a decree, humans have been granted respite and an opportunity to believe and do good. Something like an exam for a degree or a quality-check and sorting of manufactured goods. This necessarily requires a belief in an event no longer in conscious human memory, but which nevertheless is the cause of this life, and the belief in Accountability for beliefs and actions in a life after this life. Either one reasons that outcomes are already known to God hence there really is no need to 'do' anything, or one intensifies one's effort to search for 'truth' and do as much good as may be possible, so as to take full advantage of this temporal life, using it for eternal bliss. My understanding may be wrong, for all we know this may be the only life, nothing before or after, but what if there is? And how difficult is it to believe in this age of technology that all is being recorded and will be replayed? Reasons enough to bother...

Samiya

Sent from my iPhone

[Bruno Marchal]

On 02 Dec 2013, at 18:52, John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 2:48 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

> Yes. After St-Thomas, most catholic theologian agree that God cannot make 17 into a composite number. God obeys to logic,

So the God theory has zero explanatory power

That does not follow. Newton's theory obeys to logic too.

and even if God does exist He is just as mystified as to why there is something rather than nothing as we are. 

You might be true, especially when he lost himself in the Garden of its Mother. But frankly we are a long way to really just address such question in arithmetic.

> This does not really limit his "power"

Even for questions less deep the "God has power" theory still explains nothing unless it can explain exactly how that "power" works, and if you understand all about that "power" then God Himself becomes redundant, a useless fifth wheel. For example, if you say that God created the first living organism on the Earth 4 billion years ago that explains nothing unless you can explain how He did it, and if you know that you don't need God.

I have already insist that God cannot be part of the explanation. We agree on this.

Bruno

  John K Clark

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

[Jesse Mazer]

But you do make the definite claim that God can change the laws of logic, which would include the power to get rid of the law of noncontradiction, no? Or has this discussion made you less certain about whether this would be within God's power or not?

--

[Samiya Illias]

On 02-Dec-2013, at 11:45 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

>
> On 02 Dec 2013, at 18:46, Samiya Illias wrote:
>
>> Below, I'm paraphrasing from memory a couple of passages:
>> On the subject of the persecution of the 'Bani Israel' Children of Israel by Pharoah, such that the male children were being killed and females kept alive, It reads that it was a great trial from God.
>> At another place, it reads that know that whatever happens to you, good or bad, it is all inscribed in a decree before we bring it into existence. This is so that you do not despair of whatever passes you by, nor exult over ...
>> There is a lot going on all over the world that one would like to wish away, but it helps to understand that all things / events / circumstances are trials, temporary and transient. In this life, nothing is a reward or punishment, rather everything is a trial, and an opportunity to do good deeds through helping those in need. Reward and Punishment are concepts associated with the Hereafter, and are of a permanent nature.
>
> I can make sense, but in the machine's theory, some truth there need to remain silent, as they will look like nonsense for some people. It is of the type "only going without saying".

Okay

>
>> No, he didn't say "Oops!", God exhorts us to reflect and ponder!
>
> Are you open to doubt your theory? Or some points in your theory?
>

There was a time when I doubted. I read and discussed with many theists of other faiths and atheists. I also studied the Quran more objectively, questioning the translations and my interpretations. I am still open to new ideas and do accept what convinces me. However, I find that I am more convinced now than before.

> If not it means you stay connected to the incommunicable part, and you take the risk of saying to much, and fuel disbelief, even and especially when not wrong.

If I do not honestly give my input, its not fair to others. Choices come with consequences, and when seeking truth, one must take risks... I hope my honesty is of help to someone.

>
> And, btw, what is your position on computationalism, because this is an hypothesis shared by many here (if only for the sake of the argument).

I believe we are all in a giant software and everything, including us, are computed. So, your deductions from your work do fascinate me.

> Would you accept that you or some friend get an artificial digital brain?

Like Ganesh? :)

> Have you think about this question? Have you an idea of the consequence for consciousness and physical realities, and for the possible theologies?

Or you're suggesting 'soulless' clones?

>
> I don't defend the idea that comp is true, but comp makes possible to use computer science and mathematics to formulate the questions, and put some light around.
>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>
> Well, for the Mandelbrot sets zooms, I hope you can access a bigger computer with a larger screen.

Thanks. Just am very busy and mostly away from my laptop these days, yet this is an interesting discussion, and I want to participate. I should go to my phone's setting and remove this msg.

Samiya

[Samiya Illias]

No, I just do not want to speculate about something I really have not given much thought to or can contribute by 'thinking' on it. The little that I've read of philosophers and theologians, discourages me as they only seem to go round and round in their efforts to make sense of it. 

Samiya  

[Jesse Mazer]

but priginally you responded to my comment about God and logic by saying "This is strange! What 'theism' it is if it limits God?" which I took to mean you were expressing a definite disagreement with the idea that God was "limited" to acts consistent with the laws of logic. Did I misunderstand, and you actually did not mean to suggest any speculations about whether God can change the laws of logic?

--

[meekerdb]

On 12/2/2013 9:09 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 02 Dec 2013, at 13:39, Samiya Illias wrote:

I agree that God is consistent. In my understanding, God is perfect in every possible meaning of the word.

Is God perfect for the children in Syria?  (Easy question on an hard subject)

Here, you might hope that God will succeed in consolating them and that everything is OK.  But that state of mind might make us accept more easily the tragedies, and that fatalism ... might be fatal for the incarnation of the good.

The question, put in a another way, who are you to judge God's perfection?

I doubt that perfection is even a coherent concept.

Brent

[LizR]

I believe "perfection" is used as an "attribute" in the ontological argument for the existence of God. (Which looks suspiciously like a circular argument, imho.)

[Telmo Menezes]

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 7:59 PM, Samiya Illias <samiya...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Good question, and one which is repeatedly asked by many within and outside the faith. God, in His complete knowledge, knows each and every soul and who is worthy of eternal bliss and who not. However, according to a decree, humans have been granted respite and an opportunity to believe and do good. Something like an exam for a degree or a quality-check and sorting of manufactured goods. This necessarily requires a belief in an event no longer in conscious human memory, but which nevertheless is the cause of this life, and the belief in Accountability for beliefs and actions in a life after this life. Either one reasons that outcomes are already known to God hence there really is no need to 'do' anything, or one intensifies one's effort to search for 'truth' and do as much good as may be possible, so as to take full advantage of this temporal life, using it for eternal bliss.

But the problem is that either I reason that the outcome is already
known or not, it is indeed already known, according to what you said
before. So we're just watching as it unfolds.

> My understanding may be wrong, for all we know this may be the only life, nothing before or after, but what if there is?

If there is, and my life is predetermined and I'm still going to be
punished or rewarded, then it's just a matter of waiting and seeing if
I win the cosmic lottery no? You still didn't address the problem that
you cannot have predetermination and free-will at the same time.

> And how difficult is it to believe in this age of technology that all is being recorded and will be replayed? Reasons enough to bother...

What do you mean by replayed? If the same moment is perfectly
replayed, then it's indistinguishable from all other instances of the
same moment. There's still just one moment. Otherwise they are
different moments, and it's not a replay.

[Samiya Illias]

God, to me, means an All-Powerful, Able to Do All, deity. That is my belief. What I'm saying is that I do not have an answer to the question you pose, and if I try, I'll simply be speculating about what I really do not know or have a way of knowing. There may be a very good explanation for this contradiction, I do not know. 

Samiya 

[Samiya Illias]

On 03-Dec-2013, at 5:42 AM, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 7:59 PM, Samiya Illias <samiya...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Good question, and one which is repeatedly asked by many within and outside the faith. God, in His complete knowledge, knows each and every soul and who is worthy of eternal bliss and who not. However, according to a decree, humans have been granted respite and an opportunity to believe and do good. Something like an exam for a degree or a quality-check and sorting of manufactured goods. This necessarily requires a belief in an event no longer in conscious human memory, but which nevertheless is the cause of this life, and the belief in Accountability for beliefs and actions in a life after this life. Either one reasons that outcomes are already known to God hence there really is no need to 'do' anything, or one intensifies one's effort to search for 'truth' and do as much good as may be possible, so as to take full advantage of this temporal life, using it for eternal bliss.
>
> But the problem is that either I reason that the outcome is already
> known or not, it is indeed already known, according to what you said
> before. So we're just watching as it unfolds.

From our vantage point, one could argue that. Yet, all it does is paralyse action. There is a strong emphasis placed on hope and forgiveness. Believers are not allowed to be 'sit and watch it out'. Belief without good deeds is no good.

>
>> My understanding may be wrong, for all we know this may be the only life, nothing before or after, but what if there is?
>
> If there is, and my life is predetermined and I'm still going to be
> punished or rewarded, then it's just a matter of waiting and seeing if
> I win the cosmic lottery no? You still didn't address the problem that
> you cannot have predetermination and free-will at the same time.

It is attributed to Caliph Ali that when someone asked him about this, he asked the person to stand on one foot, with the other foot folded behind him. Next he asked the person to stand with both feet folded up. Obviously the latter is not humanly possible. That, he said, is the difference between what we can choose to do and what we have no choice about.

>
>> And how difficult is it to believe in this age of technology that all is being recorded and will be replayed? Reasons enough to bother...
>
> What do you mean by replayed? If the same moment is perfectly
> replayed, then it's indistinguishable from all other instances of the
> same moment. There's still just one moment. Otherwise they are
> different moments, and it's not a replay.

How about a 3D video playback?
Well, it is said that our eyes, ears and skins will bear witness to what we used to do in this life, as God will give them the power of speech. So that will be different.

Samiya

[Telmo Menezes]

On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 2:18 AM, Samiya Illias <samiya...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 03-Dec-2013, at 5:42 AM, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 7:59 PM, Samiya Illias <samiya...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Good question, and one which is repeatedly asked by many within and outside the faith. God, in His complete knowledge, knows each and every soul and who is worthy of eternal bliss and who not. However, according to a decree, humans have been granted respite and an opportunity to believe and do good. Something like an exam for a degree or a quality-check and sorting of manufactured goods. This necessarily requires a belief in an event no longer in conscious human memory, but which nevertheless is the cause of this life, and the belief in Accountability for beliefs and actions in a life after this life. Either one reasons that outcomes are already known to God hence there really is no need to 'do' anything, or one intensifies one's effort to search for 'truth' and do as much good as may be possible, so as to take full advantage of this temporal life, using it for eternal bliss.
>>
>> But the problem is that either I reason that the outcome is already
>> known or not, it is indeed already known, according to what you said
>> before. So we're just watching as it unfolds.
>
> From our vantage point, one could argue that. Yet, all it does is paralyse action. There is a strong emphasis placed on hope and forgiveness. Believers are not allowed to be 'sit and watch it out'. Belief without good deeds is no good.
>
>>
>>> My understanding may be wrong, for all we know this may be the only life, nothing before or after, but what if there is?
>>
>> If there is, and my life is predetermined and I'm still going to be
>> punished or rewarded, then it's just a matter of waiting and seeing if
>> I win the cosmic lottery no? You still didn't address the problem that
>> you cannot have predetermination and free-will at the same time.
>
>
> It is attributed to Caliph Ali that when someone asked him about this, he asked the person to stand on one foot, with the other foot folded behind him. Next he asked the person to stand with both feet folded up. Obviously the latter is not humanly possible. That, he said, is the difference between what we can choose to do and what we have no choice about.

If Caliph Ali told me to stand on one of my feet, I could choose left
or right. But god already knows which one I'm going to choose right?
So if god knows I'm going to choose to stand on my right foot, then
I'm going to stand on my right foot. I might think that I could have
chosen to stand on the left foot, but this would clearly be an
illusion.

>>
>>> And how difficult is it to believe in this age of technology that all is being recorded and will be replayed? Reasons enough to bother...
>>
>> What do you mean by replayed? If the same moment is perfectly
>> replayed, then it's indistinguishable from all other instances of the
>> same moment. There's still just one moment. Otherwise they are
>> different moments, and it's not a replay.
>
> How about a 3D video playback?

Suppose we take this moment we are in right now and replay it N times.
In each one of these replays, we cannot be aware that it is a replay,
otherwise it's not the same moment. The exact state of our must be
repeated, so it cannot contain the information that we're in a replay.
Then the concept of replay becomes absurd. It's like replacing one
hydrogen atom with another hydrogen atom and claim that something
changed.

Replay implies time, and time is already inside our experiences. What
would a replay mean from outside of our experience? Do you see my
problem?

> Well, it is said that our eyes, ears and skins will bear witness to what we used to do in this life, as God will give them the power of speech. So that will be different.

It is possible to find many interesting thoughts in religious texts.
Clearly some were written by people doing deep introspection, probably
with the aid of some plants. I don't think they were meant to be taken
literally. It's like looking at a painting by Dali and then deciding
to look for the location of the landscape he painted. It's not
outside.

Telmo.

[Samiya Illias]

Yes.
Consider another example: when a software is designed which accepts user inputs, all possible inputs are considered and responses coded accordingly. So, when the software is bring used, the user provides whatever input he wills, but his possible choices are already known.
And another example: a teacher teaches his students for a whole year, sets the paper and then the students take the exam. The teacher knows the students well enough to know what to expect from which student, yet they are given the opportunity to take the exam. It's not the teacher's fault if some students fail while others make it through and some excel. All are being graded according to the amount of effort and interest they put in throughout the year and in preparation of the exam, and how seriously they took the exam.
The above are but human-human interactions. With God as the software designer and the teacher, how much more exact His estimation of the outcomes would be.
Moreover, in the software example, the result of a user input is already pre-coded (predetermined), yet the user uses the software (actions / deeds), and the outcomes (judgement) reflect user-input.

Samiya

[Richard Ruquist]

The best example I know of along these lines is photosynthesis. 

Allow me to quote from the most recent Journal of Neuroquantology:

"The superposition of a particle, enabling it to exist in a number of different states or locations simultaneously, is an idea that has been used to study how photosynthesis operates. Photosynthesis is an exceptionally efficient process, and it seems that this efficiency is made possible by the fact that superpositioning and coherence allow photons striking light absorbing molecules such as chlorophyll to try all possible routes through to the reaction center simultaneously, before settling for the optimal path."

http://www.neuroquantology.com/index.php/journal/announcement/view/68

What I find most interesting is that a single "optimal path" is chosen from all possibly routes,

kind of the opposite of an MWI reality where over time in a single world, 

all of the non-optimal routes would also have been chosen.

Could this be evidence for falsification of MWI?

Richard

[John Clark]

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 2:00 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrot

>>> Yes. After St-Thomas, most catholic theologian agree that God cannot make 17 into a composite number. God obeys to logic,

>> So the God theory has zero explanatory power

> That does not follow.

I think it does.

 

> Newton's theory obeys to logic too.

Yes, neither Newton's theory nor the God theory can explain why there is something rather than nothing, so why pick the theory that just inserts pointless wheels within wheels?  

 

>> Even for questions less deep the "God has power" theory still explains nothing unless it can explain exactly how that "power" works, and if you understand all about that "power" then God Himself becomes redundant, a useless fifth wheel. For example, if you say that God created the first living organism on the Earth 4 billion years ago that explains nothing unless you can explain how He did it, and if you know that you don't need God.

> I have already insist that God cannot be part of the explanation. We agree on this.

Then I repeat my question, why add useless wheels within wheels that explain nothing to otherwise nice theories?

  John K Clark

[Bruno Marchal]

Careful not to confuse first person conviction, which sometimes are
founded, and what you can communicate to others, which should be
interrogative, if only to avoid a feeling of being not understood when
the matter was only a vocabulary issue.

>
>> If not it means you stay connected to the incommunicable part, and
>> you take the risk of saying to much, and fuel disbelief, even and
>> especially when not wrong.
>
> If I do not honestly give my input, its not fair to others. Choices
> come with consequences, and when seeking truth, one must take
> risks... I hope my honesty is of help to someone.

I suspect, a bit by theory, a bit by experience, that you lose all
battles, in the long run, if you present yourself as someone knowing
the truth, especially inn front of platonist of buddhist, or
mechanist, who suspect that *all* experience (but one or two) can fail
us. The one on which we cannot be failed are private, not communicable.

>>
>> And, btw, what is your position on computationalism, because this
>> is an hypothesis shared by many here (if only for the sake of the
>> argument).
>
> I believe we are all in a giant software and everything, including
> us, are computed. So, your deductions from your work do fascinate me.

Nice.

>
>> Would you accept that you or some friend get an artificial digital
>> brain?
>
> Like Ganesh? :)

That's hyper-advanced computationalism :)

With a copy of your brain at the right substitution level is simpler
to begin with ...

>
>> Have you think about this question? Have you an idea of the
>> consequence for consciousness and physical realities, and for the
>> possible theologies?
>
> Or you're suggesting 'soulless' clones?

I was thinking to the fact that the physical reality might be
deducible from what any universal machine can discover looking inward.
That pythagorus and Plato might more correct than the Aristotelian on
that matter.
Machines, or numbers, discover more than that in the process, in fact
more than the mathematical reality, in a sense.


Bruno

> Samiya
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>
>>
>>
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[John Mikes]

How can a grown (wo)man be NOT atheist? 

Answer: by cutting out logics and to BELIEVE what religious enslavers want him/her to believe and by subjecting himself to the rules of (that particular) religion and/or te RULER behind it. If a 'grown person' does not 'believe' in the religious fables about a "God" it does not mean Roger's conclusion (i.e. that the universe functions WITHOUT some form of government) - beware of the "SOME FORM OF" - it is not restricted to the corrupt authoritarian, or elected politicians ruining a country in their interest. It may be the right PLAY of relations in a wider sense. 

The universe (in my narrative: the Plenitude, of which 'universes' pop out whenever concentration of effects violate the ultimate symmetry, ruling the Plenitude - for immediately returning (smoothened in) into it in the Plenitude's timeless view (yet allowing immense time- and space latitudes from the inside of such pop-out universe) and the 'government' of such phenomenon is the unlimited complexity it lives by. 

We have no knowledge of how it works, but we are continually gathering knowledge and - maybe - know more today than yesterday (meaning 1000 - 3000 - etc. years ago --- all looked of course from and into the inside of OUR universe).  

John Mikes

On Sun, Dec 1, 2013 at 4:28 PM, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:

How can a grown man be an atheist ?

 

An atheist is a person who believes that the universe can

function without some form of government. 

 

How silly.

 

 

Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000]

See my Leibniz site at

http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough

---

This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.

[Alberto G. Corona]

Two more remarks: 

I´m astonished  contemplating how people can contemplate with horror the belief in a god that they thing that it does not exist and accept the belief in worldly lies and praise completely invented myths about their favorite heroes Even if they know that are false. That Kim Jon Il wrote a mean of tree books a day is incredible for them but there are equally fantastic histories and Myths widely believed that would make Chesterton crap up.

 

The wishfulthinker fall in tears when pronouncing his sacred capitalized worlds: People, Democracy, Equalty Human Rights and so on. In the past, Socialism, Worker Class and such craps motivated the same heart lifts. Today even the Terrorists invoke what they call Democracy with passion.

But in his country, like in any other, the same families alternate in government, with a few exceptions, no matter the kind or regime and the political party. All are equals except that some are more equal than others. Perhaps things are closer to the Ancient Regime rather than to the myths of his utopic society.  The more the utopics are in power, the more the ancient regime (that they had in the imagination) returns.  Perhaps all such elevated concepts are not part of the reality but ideological constructions and their most known advocates, just power seekers that may deserve the worship of the wishfulthinkers?

I repeat the cult of men to men is the most primitive and dangerous religion. And RELIGION CAN NOT BE AVOIDED: you can not live without a form of religion or religions like you can not live alone.

2013/12/1 Alberto G. Corona <agoc...@gmail.com>

Government by the Rule of Law (of physics) I would say. 

There is much much in the relation between the republican idea of society,  and pragmatical atheism of the contractualists Hobbes, rousseau, Locke (let the state work without religion), that later became ideological (atheism is the religion of the state). 

The idea of ruling society by laws was probably inspired by newtonian phisics (but not by newtonian theology) and the market economy. what is initially science or experience can become a myth that organize a society.

But this gobernment by rules is a hopeful ideal. In other words, a myth. But a myth necessary for the state religion. Whenever there are laws there is a sovereingh lawyers. "The people" in "democracy" is such lawyer say the modern wishfulthinker. That is nothing but another two myths. hypostases, something that does not exist bu in the mind by an effort of faith for the purpose of social cooperation.

So to summarize, the human mind can not live withouth myths. If he reject the given ones, he invent its own.

2013/12/1 LizR <liz...@gmail.com>

Because there are no obvious signs of government in the universe, I would say.

On 2 December 2013 10:29, Roger Clough <rcl...@verizon.net> wrote:

How can a grown man be an atheist ?

 

An atheist is a person who believes that the universe can

function without some form of government. 

 

How silly.

 

 

Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000]

See my Leibniz site at

http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough

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Alberto.

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Alberto.

[Telmo Menezes]

Hi Alberto,

I agree with you that religion cannot be avoided in this sense.

Here's a funny example:

The Leipzig secular solstice celebration:

http://lesswrong.com/meetups/u6

Here's a video of some guy who's trying to become a priest for atheists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vIFloLATxo

(I still have some hope that the guy is a comedian, in which case he's a genius)

One of the most perverse "tricks" that the system played on us, in my opinion, was in convincing people to accept that the state should raise the kids. Sure, people spend a couple of hours with them between days spent working mostly unnecessary jobs, but the bulk of modern education is provided by institutionalised school and TV. I agree with the importance of teaching kids math, reading comprehension, etc, but school is just terrible. It also teaches us to tolerate absurd levels of boredom, to replace thinking with accepting authority and it creates an artificial reward system, where one can get addicted to a feeling of accomplishment without accomplishing anything. Of course, all these things make us more compliant in later on accepting lives without meaning.

Democracy is almost funny. People believe in this myth that it enforces the "will of the people", but if you ask anyone individually you will find that you cannot easily find a person whose opinion ever influenced anything whatsoever. It's even hard to have an opinion. The better part of their days people are slaves, and when tired they are spoon fed badly disguised world views sprinkled over mindless entertainment.

Everyone should have at least one psychedelic experience. This would change the world faster and better than any ideology.

Telmo.

[LizR]

On 5 December 2013 04:24, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

Hi Alberto,

Everyone should have at least one psychedelic experience. This would change the world faster and better than any ideology.

It was saying that sort of thing that got Doctor Timothy Leary locked up, bless him. At about my age he was dangling from a rope making his escape over the wall at some penitentiary, rather than sitting around the fire with his kids smoking dope.

[LizR]

On 5 December 2013 04:24, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

One of the most perverse "tricks" that the system played on us, in my opinion, was in convincing people to accept that the state should raise the kids. Sure, people spend a couple of hours with them between days spent working mostly unnecessary jobs, but the bulk of modern education is provided by institutionalised school and TV. I agree with the importance of teaching kids math, reading comprehension, etc, but school is just terrible. It also teaches us to tolerate absurd levels of boredom, to replace thinking with accepting authority and it creates an artificial reward system, where one can get addicted to a feeling of accomplishment without accomplishing anything. Of course, all these things make us more compliant in later on accepting lives without meaning.

The purpose of school is to raise the next generation of wage slaves, so it's geared to whatever that requires.

Democracy is almost funny. People believe in this myth that it enforces the "will of the people", but if you ask anyone individually you will find that you cannot easily find a person whose opinion ever influenced anything whatsoever. It's even hard to have an opinion. The better part of their days people are slaves, and when tired they are spoon fed badly disguised world views sprinkled over mindless entertainment.

I think I love you. I've been saying this sort of thing for years, but rarely have I managed to do it so articulately.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 03 Dec 2013, at 19:29, John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 2:00 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrot

> I have already insist that God cannot be part of the explanation. We agree on this.

Then I repeat my question, why add useless wheels within wheels that explain nothing to otherwise nice theories?

To take into account the discovery already made by arithmetical machine that there is a transcendental truth responsible for their beliefs, which is beyond their beliefs. The space of such true but non rationally communicable truth is axiomatized, at the propositional level, by G* minus G, and this permits a transparent interpretation of Plotinus theology in arithmetic, and this illustrates already the fact that computationalism leads to a Platonist theology, and contradicts the common Aristotelian metaphysics/theology implicit among many scientists.

The experience of "God", in the large sense I have given is part of the data in the puzzle. You might read my paper "La machine Mystic", or the second part of the sane04 paper for more on this, if you are interested. This shows also that arithmetic explains not only the apparent existence of matter (constructively, and thus making comp testable), but it gives some light on altered consciousness and other brain perturbation experience, and "mystical" type of knowledge/beliefs/comprehension, making some other aspect of comp testable in some first person sense.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

But this is something that we have already discussed a lot. Some (like
me) agreed on compatibilist theory of free will. In fact we don't see
how indeterminacy could help in the free will ability. Why should the
fact that some super-machine, or god, can predict my behavior prevent
it of being free? Free will is *self*-indetermination, not absolute
indetermination. When we feel free to do something we want to do, we
often say that we are determined to do it ...

Bruno

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 04 Dec 2013, at 16:24, Telmo Menezes wrote:

Hi Alberto,

I agree with you that religion cannot be avoided in this sense.

Here's a funny example:

The Leipzig secular solstice celebration:

http://lesswrong.com/meetups/u6

Here's a video of some guy who's trying to become a priest for atheists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vIFloLATxo

(I still have some hope that the guy is a comedian, in which case he's a genius)

One of the most perverse "tricks" that the system played on us, in my opinion, was in convincing people to accept that the state should raise the kids. Sure, people spend a couple of hours with them between days spent working mostly unnecessary jobs, but the bulk of modern education is provided by institutionalised school and TV. I agree with the importance of teaching kids math, reading comprehension, etc, but school is just terrible. It also teaches us to tolerate absurd levels of boredom, to replace thinking with accepting authority and it creates an artificial reward system, where one can get addicted to a feeling of accomplishment without accomplishing anything. Of course, all these things make us more compliant in later on accepting lives without meaning.

Democracy is almost funny. People believe in this myth that it enforces the "will of the people", but if you ask anyone individually you will find that you cannot easily find a person whose opinion ever influenced anything whatsoever. It's even hard to have an opinion. The better part of their days people are slaves, and when tired they are spoon fed badly disguised world views sprinkled over mindless entertainment.

Everyone should have at least one psychedelic experience. This would change the world faster and better than any ideology.

All religions have their psychedelic substances. Christianism is mainly wine (Christ blood!), although some pretended that Jesus took magic shrooms. Cannabis would already change a lot, and salvia, often called a medication to cure atheism (!) could bring much more change. Quite possibly.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 04 Dec 2013, at 13:13, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

I repeat the cult of men to men is the most primitive and dangerous religion. And RELIGION CAN NOT BE AVOIDED: you can not live without a form of religion or religions like you can not live alone.

OK.

Bruno

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

[John Clark]

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 3:43 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

> I repeat my question, why add useless wheels within wheels that explain nothing to otherwise nice theories?

> To take into account the discovery already made by arithmetical machine that there is a transcendental truth responsible for their beliefs

And what is responsible for that "transcendental truth"? Like I said, useless wheels within wheels that explain nothing.

> You might read my paper "La machine Mystic", or the second part of the sane04 paper for more on this, if you are interested. [...] it gives some light on altered consciousness and other brain perturbation experience

In those papers are you as sloppy in your use of pronouns as on this list?

  John K Clark

 

[John Clark]

On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 7:13 AM, Alberto G. Corona <agoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

> you can not live without a form of religion

Speak for yourself,  I've been living without religion since i was 12.

  John K Clark

[Richard Ruquist]

I believe in science.

That is my religion.

[Quentin Anciaux]

A religion is based on dogma, science is not, hence science is not a religion.

2013/12/5 Richard Ruquist <yan...@gmail.com>

--

All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer)

[Telmo Menezes]

Awww.. thanks Liz! :)

[Jason Resch]

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 11:38 AM, Quentin Anciaux <allc...@gmail.com> wrote:

A religion is based on dogma, science is not, hence science is not a religion.

Some religions may be, that doesn't mean they all are, however.

How do you relate science to beliefs about the world and reality? Would you say science the collection of those beliefs, or the method for developing the beliefs?

Jason

[Telmo Menezes]

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 10:15 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 04 Dec 2013, at 16:24, Telmo Menezes wrote:

Hi Alberto,

I agree with you that religion cannot be avoided in this sense.

Here's a funny example:

The Leipzig secular solstice celebration:

http://lesswrong.com/meetups/u6

Here's a video of some guy who's trying to become a priest for atheists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vIFloLATxo

(I still have some hope that the guy is a comedian, in which case he's a genius)

One of the most perverse "tricks" that the system played on us, in my opinion, was in convincing people to accept that the state should raise the kids. Sure, people spend a couple of hours with them between days spent working mostly unnecessary jobs, but the bulk of modern education is provided by institutionalised school and TV. I agree with the importance of teaching kids math, reading comprehension, etc, but school is just terrible. It also teaches us to tolerate absurd levels of boredom, to replace thinking with accepting authority and it creates an artificial reward system, where one can get addicted to a feeling of accomplishment without accomplishing anything. Of course, all these things make us more compliant in later on accepting lives without meaning.

Democracy is almost funny. People believe in this myth that it enforces the "will of the people", but if you ask anyone individually you will find that you cannot easily find a person whose opinion ever influenced anything whatsoever. It's even hard to have an opinion. The better part of their days people are slaves, and when tired they are spoon fed badly disguised world views sprinkled over mindless entertainment.

Everyone should have at least one psychedelic experience. This would change the world faster and better than any ideology.

All religions have their psychedelic substances. Christianism is mainly wine (Christ blood!), although some pretended that Jesus took magic shrooms. Cannabis would already change a lot, and salvia, often called a medication to cure atheism (!) could bring much more change. Quite possibly.

I heard a guy who researches compared religions make an interesting case that colourfully wrapped gifts under the christmas tree represent magic mushrooms -- stemming from a pagan tradition from cold European countries were magic mushrooms will, indeed, grow under pine trees in winter. Of course this is just a case where Christianism assimilated a pagan ritual.

Telmo.

[Quentin Anciaux]

2013/12/5 Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com>

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 11:38 AM, Quentin Anciaux <allc...@gmail.com> wrote:

A religion is based on dogma, science is not, hence science is not a religion.

Some religions may be, that doesn't mean they all are, however.

Could you give an example of a religion without dogma ?

Quentin

 

How do you relate science to beliefs about the world and reality? Would you say science the collection of those beliefs, or the method for developing the beliefs?

Jason

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[Quentin Anciaux]

2013/12/5 Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com>

Science is a way to discover the world, nothing is certain, what you believe now may be shown wrong tomorrow... that's not the case with religion...

Quentin

 

Jason

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[meekerdb]

On 12/5/2013 1:43 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 04 Dec 2013, at 13:13, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

I repeat the cult of men to men is the most primitive and dangerous religion. And RELIGION CAN NOT BE AVOIDED: you can not live without a form of religion or religions like you can not live alone.

This is just Paul Tilllich trick to convert everyone to religion by redefining religion. People cannot live without trust - they can live just fine without faith in religion.

Brent

[meekerdb]

On 12/5/2013 12:43 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 03 Dec 2013, at 19:29, John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 2:00 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrot

> I have already insist that God cannot be part of the explanation. We agree on this.

Then I repeat my question, why add useless wheels within wheels that explain nothing to otherwise nice theories?

To take into account the discovery already made by arithmetical machine that there is a transcendental truth responsible for their beliefs, which is beyond their beliefs.

For the arithmetical machine that would be Peano's axioms and the rules of inference.  I don't see that they are either transcendental or true?

The space of such true but non rationally communicable truth is axiomatized, at the propositional level, by G* minus G, and this permits a transparent interpretation of Plotinus theology in arithmetic, and this illustrates already the fact that computationalism leads to a Platonist theology, and contradicts the common Aristotelian metaphysics/theology implicit among many scientists.

But these transcendental, i.e. unprovable, truths are rather trivial: "This sentence cannot be proven."  They are not TRANSCENDENTAL the way theologians mean - beyond the natural world and edifying of human experience.

Brent

The experience of "God", in the large sense I have given is part of the data in the puzzle. You might read my paper "La machine Mystic", or the second part of the sane04 paper for more on this, if you are interested. This shows also that arithmetic explains not only the apparent existence of matter (constructively, and thus making comp testable), but it gives some light on altered consciousness and other brain perturbation experience, and "mystical" type of knowledge/beliefs/comprehension, making some other aspect of comp testable in some first person sense.

Bruno

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

[Richard Ruquist]

Who can tell me that quantum immortality is not religion.

BTW it is not dogma that I believe in.

Richard

[Quentin Anciaux]

It isn't... QI is not worshipped, it is not a belief per se (you can entertain the idea for an argument or a theory that's all) and QI could in principle be proven false... A religion by being based on faith cannot.

Quentin

2013/12/5 Richard Ruquist <yan...@gmail.com>

[John Clark]

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 12:36 PM, Richard Ruquist <yan...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I believe in science. That is my religion.

Yes, but only if the meaning of the sequential ASCII characters "r-e-l-i-g-i-o-n" is "anything you think is important. Some people are far more interested in the sound of words than what the words mean, that's why so many atheists say "I believe in God" when what they really mean is "I like the sound my mouth makes when it pronounces the word G-O-D".  Nothing intelligent or profound in any of this, just more silly word games.

  John K Clark

[spudb...@aol.com]

They are proven false. People leave religions all the time. Often for another one.

[John Clark]

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Richard Ruquist <yan...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Who can tell me that quantum immortality is not religion.

I can. The defining characteristic of religious people is being seldom correct but always certain, and so quantum immortality is not a religion because I'm far from certain, I don't know that it's true and I don't know that it's untrue. Technically I'd have to say the same about the existence of God, but the probability that the Christian or Muslim God exists is, although nonzero, too low to worry about. I would guess that the probability quantum immortality exists is low, although vastly greater than the probability of God's existence. I don't know what the probability that my probability estimate is correct, probably pretty low.

  John K Clark

 

[Richard Ruquist]

Well John not you nor I are believers in QI

but there seem to be plenty on this list.

[John Mikes]

Quentin wrote:

A religion is based on dogma, science is not, hence science is not a religion.

(addressed to Richard's:I believe in science.That is my religion.)

It is a questionable semantic situation what one can call an 'axiom', or even 

a math-groundrule (like: primes are primes ) what (I think) Bruno would deem

so funamental that it cannot be justified into more fundamentals. 

Richard: you learned your (scientific) dogma-librARY in grade school, or earlier,

Quentin - you fell for  a philosophical (logistical?) argument that is fictitious. 

IMO a religion is not based on (a) dogma, it is based on a 'story' what people 

are willing to accept as a dogma. Then they kill the infidel. Or the gays. Or both.

There are diverse gods: some are vain (require adoration and praise plus full 

obedience from their 'creatures') some are vicious and jealous, some cheat on 

their spouses, some kill for such. 

John M

[Richard Ruquist]

John,

I learned my physics dogma at Harvard Grad School.

Before that I was a mechanical engineer.

Richard

[Quentin Anciaux]

2013/12/5 <spudb...@aol.com>

They are proven false. People leave religions all the time. Often for another one.

If they were proven false, what's your explanation of why the catholic church still exists and has followers ? (or take your pick at any current religion here on earth)

Quentin

[meekerdb]

On 12/5/2013 1:33 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

2013/12/5 <spudb...@aol.com>

They are proven false. People leave religions all the time. Often for another one.

If they were proven false, what's your explanation of why the catholic church still exists and has followers ? (or take your pick at any current religion here on earth)

But as I pointed out by quoting H. L. Mencken's "Graveyard of the Gods", there are hundreds, if not thousands, of religions that have come and gone.  I wouldn't say that they vanished because they were disproven.  Often they have been deprived of adherents by conquest.  Some have been displaced by newer or modified religions.

Brent

[Richard Ruquist]

But despite fundamentalism, like what killed Islamic science,

it is here for good. (Any interpretation of the ambiguity will do)

Rich

--

[Telmo Menezes]

I think I agree. My view is that "free will" is a 1p experience that
makes no sense as a 3p concept.

But here I was arguing against a religious claim. Proposing that there
is a God that is testing us, and that the meaning of or lives is to
pass this test is a strong claim, one that can deeply affect people's
behaviours. From an omniscient God's perspective, everything already
happened. Trying to recover possible wishes of an entity at this God's
level and introducing them at the level of our experience seems
nonsensical. On the other hand, this type of claim sounds suspiciously
convenient for some very human purposes...

Telmo.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Dec 2013, at 18:30, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 3:43 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

> I repeat my question, why add useless wheels within wheels that explain nothing to otherwise nice theories?

> To take into account the discovery already made by arithmetical machine that there is a transcendental truth responsible for their beliefs

And what is responsible for that "transcendental truth"? Like I said, useless wheels within wheels that explain nothing.

If "arithmetical truth" makes sense for you, and if you are a machine, you are assuming, apparently without knowing, a transcendental truth. Thatis: a notion of truth which is far beyond your computability and provability ability.

What is responsible for our belief in it is an interesting question, but we know that without that belief/assumption, we cannot get it at all.

> You might read my paper "La machine Mystic", or the second part of the sane04 paper for more on this, if you are interested. [...] it gives some light on altered consciousness and other brain perturbation experience

In those papers are you as sloppy in your use of pronouns as on this list?

You are the one confusing the 1p and 3p use of the pronoun, as you have illustrated repeatedly.

Bruno

  John K Clark

 

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

[Bruno Marchal]

Without fairy tales. Nice for you. But religion and theology are used in the large greek general sense.

Thanks to take this into account in future response.

Bruno

  John K Clark

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Dec 2013, at 18:36, Richard Ruquist wrote:

I believe in science.

That is my religion.

Yes. Religion is no more than the idea that science put some light on *something* beyond ourself.

As Einstein said : religion without science is blind, science without religion is lame.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Dec 2013, at 18:38, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

A religion is based on dogma,

That is your dogma. Religion is based on experience and dialog for the founder of science and "modern theology", which is forbidden since about 1500 years.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Dec 2013, at 19:11, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 10:15 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 04 Dec 2013, at 16:24, Telmo Menezes wrote:

Hi Alberto,

I agree with you that religion cannot be avoided in this sense.

Here's a funny example:

The Leipzig secular solstice celebration:

http://lesswrong.com/meetups/u6

Here's a video of some guy who's trying to become a priest for atheists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vIFloLATxo

(I still have some hope that the guy is a comedian, in which case he's a genius)

One of the most perverse "tricks" that the system played on us, in my opinion, was in convincing people to accept that the state should raise the kids. Sure, people spend a couple of hours with them between days spent working mostly unnecessary jobs, but the bulk of modern education is provided by institutionalised school and TV. I agree with the importance of teaching kids math, reading comprehension, etc, but school is just terrible. It also teaches us to tolerate absurd levels of boredom, to replace thinking with accepting authority and it creates an artificial reward system, where one can get addicted to a feeling of accomplishment without accomplishing anything. Of course, all these things make us more compliant in later on accepting lives without meaning.

Democracy is almost funny. People believe in this myth that it enforces the "will of the people", but if you ask anyone individually you will find that you cannot easily find a person whose opinion ever influenced anything whatsoever. It's even hard to have an opinion. The better part of their days people are slaves, and when tired they are spoon fed badly disguised world views sprinkled over mindless entertainment.

Everyone should have at least one psychedelic experience. This would change the world faster and better than any ideology.

All religions have their psychedelic substances. Christianism is mainly wine (Christ blood!), although some pretended that Jesus took magic shrooms. Cannabis would already change a lot, and salvia, often called a medication to cure atheism (!) could bring much more change. Quite possibly.

I heard a guy who researches compared religions make an interesting case that colourfully wrapped gifts under the christmas tree represent magic mushrooms -- stemming from a pagan tradition from cold European countries were magic mushrooms will, indeed, grow under pine trees in winter. Of course this is just a case where Christianism assimilated a pagan ritual.

Interesting,

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Dec 2013, at 19:13, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

2013/12/5 Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com>

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 11:38 AM, Quentin Anciaux <allc...@gmail.com> wrote:

A religion is based on dogma, science is not, hence science is not a religion.

Some religions may be, that doesn't mean they all are, however.

Could you give an example of a religion without dogma ?

Platonism, buddhism branches, taoism, neoplatonism, the individual religion of all mystics, and ... the theology of numbers.

In general, platonism has been the victim of the Aristotelian dogma, and has never been dogmatic, although if you serach, you might find exceptions, I guess.

Bruno

Quentin

 

How do you relate science to beliefs about the world and reality? Would you say science the collection of those beliefs, or the method for developing the beliefs?

Jason

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Dec 2013, at 19:15, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

2013/12/5 Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com>

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 11:38 AM, Quentin Anciaux <allc...@gmail.com> wrote:

A religion is based on dogma, science is not, hence science is not a religion.

Some religions may be, that doesn't mean they all are, however.

How do you relate science to beliefs about the world and reality? Would you say science the collection of those beliefs, or the method for developing the beliefs?

Science is a way to discover the world, nothing is certain, what you believe now may be shown wrong tomorrow... that's not the case with religion...

That's not the case for health either today. 

You confuse a branch of knowledge with the same when used by bandits and special interest.

That's attitude helps the bandits to keep the branch in their dogmatic perverse forms.

Bruno

Quentin

 

Jason

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[Quentin Anciaux]

2013/12/6 Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>

On 05 Dec 2013, at 19:13, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

2013/12/5 Jason Resch <jason...@gmail.com>

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 11:38 AM, Quentin Anciaux <allc...@gmail.com> wrote:

A religion is based on dogma, science is not, hence science is not a religion.

Some religions may be, that doesn't mean they all are, however.

Could you give an example of a religion without dogma ?

Platonism, buddhism branches, taoism, neoplatonism, the individual religion of all mystics, and ... the theology of numbers.

Are you saying buddhism/taoism have no dogma ?  that's wrong, they have, plenty...  they have no god, sure, but really there is a set of thing that qualify as dogma... if you reject everything buddhism tell you (as they fake you can), how can you qualify yourself as buddhist ?

As soon as you qualify yourself as belonging to one "religious" group, then that means you follow a set of principle defining such religious group and so following some dogma. If not, why qualifying you in the first place, you could as well belongs to the other group.

Quentin

[Bruno Marchal]

Then why all that fuss by atheists when we show they need faith in something beyond what they can prove. Why atheists act so much like the pseudo-religious fellow?

If atheists were a bit more agnostic on matter and possible persons, they would applaud at the use of the religious terms in science. Why do they defend the peculiar authoritative use made by the institutions?

Bruno

Brent

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[Quentin Anciaux]

2013/12/6 Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>

On 05 Dec 2013, at 19:29, meekerdb wrote:

On 12/5/2013 1:43 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 04 Dec 2013, at 13:13, Alberto G. Corona wrote:

I repeat the cult of men to men is the most primitive and dangerous religion. And RELIGION CAN NOT BE AVOIDED: you can not live without a form of religion or religions like you can not live alone.

This is just Paul Tilllich trick to convert everyone to religion by redefining religion. People cannot live without trust - they can live just fine without faith in religion.

Then why all that fuss by atheists when we show they need faith in something beyond what they can prove. Why atheists act so much like the pseudo-religious fellow?

If atheists were a bit more agnostic on matter and possible persons, they would applaud at the use of the religious terms in science. Why do they defend the peculiar authoritative use made by the institutions?

Because if atheist had done what you advocate, church would still burn them in 2013...

 

Bruno

Brent

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Dec 2013, at 19:36, meekerdb wrote:

On 12/5/2013 12:43 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 03 Dec 2013, at 19:29, John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 2:00 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrot

> I have already insist that God cannot be part of the explanation. We agree on this.

Then I repeat my question, why add useless wheels within wheels that explain nothing to otherwise nice theories?

To take into account the discovery already made by arithmetical machine that there is a transcendental truth responsible for their beliefs, which is beyond their beliefs.

For the arithmetical machine that would be Peano's axioms and the rules of inference. 

No, it is the standard model of those axioms.

I don't see that they are either transcendental or true?

If we are machine, we cannot define that standard model.

We can do it, because we believe in more than arithmetical truth; but with comp, this is just a differentiation between ontology and epistemology, which needs the non effective transcendental higher order logic and set theories. 

Peano axioms are not transcendental, but their intended meaning is.

The space of such true but non rationally communicable truth is axiomatized, at the propositional level, by G* minus G, and this permits a transparent interpretation of Plotinus theology in arithmetic, and this illustrates already the fact that computationalism leads to a Platonist theology, and contradicts the common Aristotelian metaphysics/theology implicit among many scientists.

But these transcendental, i.e. unprovable, truths are rather trivial: "This sentence cannot be proven." 

equivalent to "I am consistent". That is not trivial.

They are not TRANSCENDENTAL the way theologians mean

How can you know that?

- beyond the natural world and edifying of human experience.

Yes.

bruno

Brent

The experience of "God", in the large sense I have given is part of the data in the puzzle. You might read my paper "La machine Mystic", or the second part of the sane04 paper for more on this, if you are interested. This shows also that arithmetic explains not only the apparent existence of matter (constructively, and thus making comp testable), but it gives some light on altered consciousness and other brain perturbation experience, and "mystical" type of knowledge/beliefs/comprehension, making some other aspect of comp testable in some first person sense.

Bruno

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Dec 2013, at 19:45, Richard Ruquist wrote:

Who can tell me that quantum immortality is not religion.

Well, it is a consequence of QM without collapse, or more simply, elementary arithmetic (and comp). But you need faith to believe in them and their meaning/models.

BTW it is not dogma that I believe in.

Me neither, but if comp is true, there is not much choice, and the shape of the immortalities possible is complex and amenable to mathematical studies.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Dec 2013, at 20:23, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

It isn't... QI is not worshipped, it is not a belief per se (you can entertain the idea for an argument or a theory that's all) and QI could in principle be proven false... A religion by being based on faith cannot.

It is true that there might be a part of "religion" which is not corrigible, but consciousness is like that too. Those incorrigible thing exist, and that is why people *can* easily be manipulated by religious institutions. True believers feel alone, and are glad when other fake similar beliefs. But that means they are half awaken, as the most incorrigible assertion on God, is that it cannot be used in *any* terrestrial matter.

Again, you confuse a field of inquiry, and its human institutionalisation.

Spiritual persons have no public dogma.

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Dec 2013, at 21:56, Richard Ruquist wrote:

Well John not you nor I are believers in QI

but there seem to be plenty on this list.

Can you refute comp-I? 

I can't, even without the step 8.

Bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

On 05 Dec 2013, at 22:33, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

2013/12/5 <spudb...@aol.com>

They are proven false. People leave religions all the time. Often for another one.

If they were proven false, what's your explanation of why the catholic church still exists and has followers ? (or take your pick at any current religion here on earth)

Cannabis danger have been debinked at the start, and since then, its medical applications have been verified hundred thousand of times (I can give the references), and yet most people and the states continue the same "religion" with the dogma that cannabis is a dangerous drug.

The explanation is that professional liars are good at their job, and for some reason, this is easier on the fundamental matter, than on technical matter. But it is the same human weakness---to find comfort in local lies.

bruno

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

[Bruno Marchal]

OK. (This is slightly nuanceable, but is not important)

>
> But here I was arguing against a religious claim. Proposing that there
> is a God that is testing us, and that the meaning of or lives is to
> pass this test is a strong claim,

Indeed.

> one that can deeply affect people's
> behaviours.

That might be the reason of its existence.

> From an omniscient God's perspective, everything already
> happened.

Like with comp, all the arithmetical truth are already "decided", from
outside, but it looks different from inside.

> Trying to recover possible wishes of an entity at this God's
> level and introducing them at the level of our experience seems
> nonsensical.

Yes. like it is nonsensical to justify some behavior by saying "I was
just obeying to the SWE".

> On the other hand, this type of claim sounds suspiciously
> convenient for some very human purposes...

Alas, yes.

bruno

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