On 1/27/2014 12:21 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 10:51 AM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com <mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com>> wrote:On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com <mailto:jasonre...@gmail.com>> wrote: > I use the exact same definition of life that MILLIONS of people on this planet once used: the word "Life" refers to some organic matter filled with elan vital. Fine. Organic matter is matter that operates according to the laws of carbon chemistry, and future computers will almost certainly contain carbon nanotubes and 2D carbon Graphene sheets. And I have no idea what "elan vital" is and those who like the term have even less idea than I do, but whatever it is if meat can have it I see no reason why a computer can't have it too. So even by your definition a computer could be alive.To be sure there was no misunderstanding, I do not seriously subscribe to that definition of life. Rather, I was using your own phrasing to show how it can be ridiculous it is to hold the meanings of words cannot change and must remain absolutely static. For we find that the meanings of many words change and evolve along with our understanding of the world.But Jason I want to ask you a direct question, and this isn't rhetorical I'd really like an answer: If there is no all encompassing purpose or a goal to existence and if the unknown principle responsible for the existence of the universe is not intelligent and is not conscious and is not a being then do you think it adds to clarity to call that principle "God"?I consider this question equivalent to asking "If there is no elan vital found within organisms, does it still make sense to call those organisms life?" Asking this question illustrates the attitude of holding the word in higher esteem than the idea, which to me seems little different from a kind of "ancestor worship" (which you are also opposed to). I think there is a common kernel of idea behind the word God, which is common across many religions, though each religion also adds various additional things on top of and beyond what is contained in that kernel. If our theories lead us to conclude God has or doesn't have these attributes, that is progress, and our definitions ought to update accordingly, just as we did not throw out the word "life" when we discovered it is just matter arranged in certain ways. Similarly, even if we were to determine God is not "omnipotent", or not "conscious", should we abandon that word and come up with something else? Should we do this every time we learn some knew fact about some thing? If we did, it seems to me that any old text would have an incomprehensible vocabulary, as scientific progress forced us to adopt knew words each time we learned something new.
But that's a false analogy. "Life" was something we could point to, so it makes sense to say we discover it does or doesn't have some attribute. But "God", since we stopped looking on Olympus, has just been defined by some set of attributes: Creator of the universe. Definer of morality. Your ultimate value. Love. Omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. The necessary being. So it makes no sense to ask whether god has an attribute. The attributes are so varied and inconsistent that the word has become meaningless. It's then just a muddle to say, "I'm going back to the really real original meaning." The original meaning was one of many superhuman, immortal beings. To pick Plotinus'es meaning, or Kronecker's, is no different than just making up another set of attributes and saying they define god.
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