On 06 Mar 2017, at 23:45, John Clark wrote:
On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 5:10 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
>> Yes it's possible that a majority of those fluent in the
English language could have decided that the ASCII sequence "God"
means the unknown ultimate/absolute reality, BUT THEY DID NOT;
instead they decided that sequence means a intelligent conscious
omniscient omnipotent PERSON who created the universe.
> The majority are not doing science, simply.
As I've said before, the meaning a ASCII string is not
determined by science, it is determined by the majority vote of
those who have a opinion on the subject. Always.
You missed my explanation on "axiomatics". Hilbert took some times to
explain it in lay terms. You might remember him telling that his
geometry would not have its content change in case you change the
vocabulary, like calling a point "a glass of beer" ...
>> In any language the majority is always always always the
final authority on what a word means.
> Not when we do science.
No ALWAYS! Most people have no opinion on what "2-
acetoxybenzoic acid" means but those who know enough on the matter
to vote have decided that the ASCII string means "aspirin".
Those names are descriptive. In mathematics, we use more or less
descriptive name, but only for pedagogical purpose. It is explicitly
not part of the theory.
Can you name one short word used in everyday common speech that
means something completely different if not downright contradictory
when used in a scientific context? I can't.
the word "theory" and "model" are used already in opposite sense by
logicians and physicists. Well, I see you have not understand the
notion of axiomatics.
But of course theology is not science, it's not much of anything.
You can approach *any* domain with the scientific method or attitude.
To make theology into a non-science, people have used terror and
torture, and you are not cured of that happening. you side with the
charlatans of the (political) institituionalisation of the religion.
You make popes and ayatollas happy.
> Read any book in comparative theology.
Why on Earth would I want to do that??
Because you participate to a thread on theology.
Exactly what is the author of a book on theology a expert on?
Gods, goddesses, god, after-life, pre-life, parallel life, origin of
souls, consciousness, matter or matter appearances. Originally,
theology is the "theory of everything". It studies the relations
between what possibly is, and the many appearances, etc. usually,
people interested in the fundamentals, and asserting that they do not
theology, take for granted some notion of reality, like materialism.
They impose in that way their religion to others, which is not part of
the scientfic method.
In the last thousand thousand years theology has made precisely
ZERO discoveries.
It made all discoveries, including the discovery that mathematics is a
science. It discovers physics and, as I have understood only recently,
also mathematical logic. I gave references on this.
I know that's the correct number because I counted twice and got the
same figure both times.
> The reasoning does not depend on the choice of words at all.
Of course it does. Even if your reasoning proved that "God" exists
all you would have really proven is that "stuff" exists.
You miss the first discovery made by the greeks, and proved in the
computationalist theory of mind. Nobody can prove anything about
Reality. We can prove only in the context of a theory, which we can
only hope that it fits with some reality. That is the insight which
forces us to be open minded about Reality, as we can not even prove
that there is one. Now with computationalism, I have explained that,
altough we cannot prove the existence of the numbers and machines, we
cannot use anything more to explain the appearances, and it works
until now.
> Your seem to work for the fundamentalists against any come
back to reason in the field,
I'm not the one who determines what a word means nor are you, that
is determined by the collective activity of all English speakers.
Not in the scientific endeavor. You confuse science and mundane
conversation.
And I don't know what the "field" is you're referring to.
Theology, fundamental science, metaphysics, TOEs, ...call it how you
like. The only obligation is to not change the vocabulary, nor the
name of the variable, in the course of an explanation or (relative)
proof.
Bruno
John K Clark
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