On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 8:22 PM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > > > On 2/6/2017 2:39 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 9:21 PM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: >>> >>> >>> On 2/5/2017 3:14 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Inconsistent? Would you have people who oppose fascism not have a >>>>> definition of fascism - so that they were just opposing some undefined, >>>>> amorphous ideology? >>>> >>>> It is interesting that you bring this up. Are you familiar with the >>>> essay "Ur-fascism" by Umberto Eco? He discusses precisely how hard it >>>> is to define fascism: >>>> >>>> http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf >>> >>> >>> Yet he defines "Ur-fascism", the eternal fascism, and is critical of it. >>> So >>> are you saying I should talk of ur-theism when I mean belief in the God >>> of >>> the Bible, Quran, and Torah? And leave "theism" to be used to mean the >>> truths of arithmetic; So Bruno and I will both be misunderstood? >> >> My point was simply that certain things are (perhaps) surprisingly >> hard to define. You mentioned fascism, and it turns out this is one of >> them. Pointing this out is not the same as muddying definitions. >> Further, I argue that basing an ideology or belief system on opposing >> an ill-defined concept can lead to terrible things. > > > Which is exactly why I'm explicit in defining what the theism is that I > consider preposterous and what other god ideas I'm merely agnostic about. > Then Bruno criticizes me for "supporting" the former; rather than help him > muddy the meaning of "God" so he can call the truths of arithmetic "God".
Ok. I think our disagreement is really just about how people use the word "God". In the end it seems to me that we are agnostic about the same class of thinks and find other things terribly unlikely (you just approximate to p=0, fair enough, I insist that p is infinitesimally small but never zero). >> Terrible things >> have been done in the name of god and religion, and in the name of >> fascist ideologies. It is also true that terrible thing have been done >> in the name of anti-religion and anti-fascism. >> >>>> I was born in the aftermath of the carnations revolution in Portugal, >>>> and was raised in a society that considered itself to be almost >>>> religiously anti-fascist, but without a clear definition of what >>>> fascism is. Some of these "anti-" people were as vicious, if not more, >>>> than what they claimed to oppose. My mother received a letter from the >>>> communist party saying that she should abandon her job, since my >>>> father also had one. She was also told to denounce anyone speaking >>>> against the communist party. She refused to do both, and was then >>>> included in a list of people that were to be hanged in public. All >>>> this was done under the label of "anti-fascism". Fortunately there was >>>> a counter-revolution before it came to that. I am grateful to the US >>>> for helping at that stage -- although this is an historic period that >>>> is still not openly discussed. >>> >>> >>> And so do you think of yourself as agnostic about the value of >>> fascism?...or >>> communism? >> >> Yes, I reject simplistic views of History where one side is 100% good >> and the other 100% evil. > > > But you seem to hold an extremist view of epistemology. You are agnostic > and can't judge anything because the only alternative is absolute certainty. > I don't believe you really think that way. Are there not a large class of > ideas that you evaluate as very likely true and which you would certainly > act on and another large class that you reject and would not act on - in > other words some you believe and some you fail to believe. But I told you, I hold certain things to be more likely than others, certain things to be extremely unlikely and so on. This is what Bruno calls "bets". It's how almost every member of our species operates. I love the scientific method. You observe reality and look for patterns. When you think you found a pattern, you test it to see it if it holds for new observations. If the patterns survives for long enough, you add it to the collection of "our best patterns". Then you remain open to the possibility that even your best patterns could still fail in the future. There's always the possibility of a better one! It is this last step that I am defending, that is all. I don't think that the scientific attitude is compatible with absolute belief (p=0). But that does not mean that I do not expect my corner supermarket to be in its usual place tonight. I will walk there and expect to find it. I'm not sure we disagree about anything more than the range of conceptions of "god" amongst the theists. >> Absolute belief leads to terrible ideas, such >> as trying to bomb countries into democracy. >> >>>>> They did. For example, the rejection of Mendelian genetics and the >>>>> insistence on Lamarkism for purely ideological reasons in the USSR. >>>>> Marxism-Leninism was based on a belief in a specific type of social >>>>> engineering, the idea that you could gradually improve society by >>>>> changing the way people act and then wait for these behaviour to be >>>>> transmitted and accumulated across generations. Scientific theories >>>>> that implied that you cannot transmit characteristics that you >>>>> acquired after birth through purely biological processes was verboten, >>>>> and overwhelming scientific evidence resisted (just like the >>>>> creationists do). >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> You make my point. They had scientific rational reasons they put forth >>>>> for >>>>> their policies. It was wrong science and it was enforced by violence >>>>> (as >>>>> other religions have done) - but it wasn't an appeal to supernatural >>>>> revelation and faith. >>>> >>>> That was true in the beginning, but once you put your beliefs above >>>> empirical evidence, like they did, I don't see where the difference to >>>> an appeal to supernatural revelation is. >>> >>> >>> It's only a difference of degree. Theists also try to make scientific >>> arguments (e.g. first-cause, fine-tuning,...), but they also explicitly >>> appeal to revelation and faith. >> >> If you go far enough down authoritarian rabbit holes you eventually >> get to "revelation". Example: North Korea and the Kim dynasty. >> >>>>> Then they built monuments to science and progress, made to inspire awe >>>>> and fear, just like cathedrals. An example is the Fernsehturm in >>>>> Berlin, made to resemble the Sputnik and the be seen from afar. It was >>>>> also a powerful TV signal transmitter, in an attempt to silence the >>>>> dangerous transmissions from the west. People who like facts and >>>>> reason are not afraid of debate. They don't try to silence the >>>>> opposition. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> They also don't use words to obfuscate meaning. >>>> >>>> I don't think any of us is doing that. We are debating definitions, >>>> which is arguably 90% of philosophy. >>>> >>>> >>>>> Then why do people feel the need to crate the word "agnostic"? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I think it's a cop out to avoid the question of whether the God of >>>>> theism >>>>> exists. Agnostics were originally people who were not just uncertain >>>>> about >>>>> God, they held that the question was impossible to know anything about, >>>>> a-gnostic. So it was not a "nuanced" position - epistemologically is >>>>> was >>>>> an extreme position and so deserved a name. >>>> >>>> Yes, I tend to agree with this epistemological extreme, because I >>>> think it is a necessary implication of Gödel's theorems. >>> >>> >>> ?? Godel's theorems are about what is entailed by axioms in a formal >>> logical system. As such it has nothing to do with facts in the world. >> >> Couldn't you make the same argument about differential equations? > > > Yes. The relation of mathematics to facts in the world is one of > description. That a dx/dt = -x has a decaying exponential as a solution is > not a fact about the world. As any engineer will tell you, it means that if > the differential equation is a good description of something about the world > then the decaying exponential will be a good description of something about > the world. The analogy with Godel's theorem is that if we create an AI > system to prove theorems, no matter how fast or long it runs it will not be > able to prove all true theorems. And, importantly, it will not be able to prove its own consistency. If we are machines ourselves, this also applies to us, right? >> >>> Do >>> you suppose juries should always vote "Innocent" because there are truths >>> that are unprovable from the prosecutions evidence? Do you avoid sailing >>> west from Portugal because we can't be sure the Earth isn't flat and has >>> an >>> edge you could fall off of? >> >> No. I do what I can with imperfect information like everyone else. >> Sometimes I'm wrong. So far I've survived. >> >> What does have to do with avoiding absolute belief? > > > It has a lot to do opposing nonsense. If someone says, "We should kill all > the Jews." are you going to say, "Well I must avoid an absolute belief that > you're wrong - so maybe we should." No! I am fairly certain that we should not and I will fight against it. I am a human being living in an imperfect world. I do what I can. The same applies to scientific research. I will not waste time testing the hypothesis that the earth is flat. I know there is massive evidence for the earth being quasi-spherical. But I think there is something wrong when people say things like "science proved that...". It is damaging because it propagates an incorrect view of what science is. I wonder if part of the stupidity we see nowadays comes from these pedagogical mistakes. People learned in the 70s that "science proves that dietary fat leads to high cholesterol". No this is coming into question, maybe it's refined sugar after all. Since people were taught a wrong conception of what science is from the beginning, they lose "faith" in it when a theory is falsified. Instead, they should be taught that what makes science great is precisely that it requires no faith, precisely because changing your mind when new data arrives is at the core of what science is. >> >>>>> When Dawkins, who is often castigated as >>>>> a radical atheist, was asked, on a scale of 1 to 7 how certain was he >>>>> that >>>>> there is no God, he said "6". And since you like to credence original >>>>> usage >>>>> of words over current usage you should know that agnosticism was >>>>> originally >>>>> just considered a form of atheism - since it implies not believing in >>>>> God. >>>> >>>> I don't have such a preference. I am trying to apply reductio ad >>>> absurdum to your argument. You accuse me of obfuscating meaning by >>>> going against the current use of a word. If that is not permissible, >>>> anyone who did it before me should also be denounced, so let's retreat >>>> to the original definition. >>> >>> >>> Why does it follow that someone should be criticized for using a word to >>> be >>> understood in his time and place. I'm only criticizing using in a way to >>> be >>> misunderstood in the time and place it is used. >> >> But how does usage evolve? > > > By a kind of Darwinian selection in usage. I highly recommend the slim book > by Craig A. James "The Religion Virus" which outlines the development of > religion from this standpoint. I know, but at a micro-level it's just people talking with each other, like we are now, >> >>>>> And even deists, like Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine, were considered >>>>> atheists because they didn't believe in the god of theism. >>>> >>>> I get that. I wouldn't be particularly offended to be labeled "atheist >>>> agnostic", in the sense that I do not believe in any of the gods >>>> described in abrahamic religious texts. But I know nothing about god >>>> in general. >>> >>> >>> Because "god in general" includes animist, deist, polytheist, and other >>> supernatural entities. But even such a broad category has its >>> boundaries. >>> They are all agents having wills and acting unpredictably as do people. >>> They are all inconsistent with the idea of ubiquitous, impersonal >>> deterministic laws; the Laplacian worldview. >> >> Ok, and for me the keyword here is "will". We don't know what that is, >> so why not admit some ignorance? > > > I have an open mind on some of those things - but not so open my brains fall > out on mention of the god of theism. I'm sure you realize that I do not waste time contemplating the idea that god appeared to some bronze age guy as a burning bush and commanded him to kill his own children (and that this is supposed to be a good god)*. I am perhaps more interested in understanding the continuous appeal of these stories, and the fundamental thing that people seem to be missing and that they look for in organised religion. Telmo. * I suspect I am not telling this story correctly, but you get the idea. > > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
