On 09 Feb 2017, at 19:15, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 2/9/2017 6:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Many religious people believe that the idea that God cares more
on humans than on spiders (say) is just utter arrogance, vanity,
and delusional.
"Many"? That's the fallacy of the dangling comparison. Many
compared to what? Not compared to the number who believe the
contrary.
Read Aldous Huxley, or read the Platonists (before and after JC),
or read the texts of the mystics.
Then, also, science is not a question of the number of people
believing this or that.
But the meaning of words is defined by usage - and in usage numbers
count.
The meaning of words in the natural language is defined by usage, not
in science, where the local meaning of words is given in the textbooks
of the field concerned. here I have made clear at the start that I use
"theology" in a large sense (the original greek one) specialized
through the mechanist "faith" (the idea of surviving a form of digital
physical reincarnation/reimplementation).
When I did NOT use the term "theology" when explaining
computationalism 35 years ago, the attack was simply "that is
theology", and well, they meant only "that is hypothetical", but with
a pejorative tone.
It is perhaps the simpler way to get this: computationalism requires
some act of faith, toward its plausibility, toward the choice of level
in case we apply it in practice, toward the competence of the possible
doctors. Transhumanists usually are computationalists. But then the
theory shows that they might take a detour, and why not, it is open
today if life itself is not a sort of detour: that are complex
questions only on the verge to be formulated.
Then, with your number, you forget that the usage of most theological
term continue to have their platonist and aristotelian meaning in the
theological treatise (the good one as well as the bad one). The three
religions have kept their relations with platonism, notably the non
nameable (non 3p representability of God), which fits well with the
fact that machine cannot name too "big" predicate, like "true(p)".
It is up to the (weak) materialist to explain what *is* the primary
matter, and how it can interfere with the computations. If not, your
seemingly critical point look like an evocation of a god for hiding a
problem under the rug (a tradition since the institutionalization and
violent enforcement of pseudo-religions).
Bruno
Brent
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