On 10 Sep 2012, at 21:14, John Clark wrote:
On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I think "God is a white man with a beard" is a more intelligent
statement than "God is truth" because its actually saying something,
it's something that happens not to be true but at least its saying
something, while "God is truth" is not saying anything, it's just
silly wordplay.
> No, it is not.
I already know what the word "truth" means so when you say "God
means truth" you aren't telling me anything of philosophical or
mathematical or scientific interest, you're just giving me a
synonym. But when you say "God has a beard" you're actually saying
something, you're saying something about God; it happens to be
something that is not true but at least its saying something. If I
believed in God I would feel that I knew a little more about the
being who created me and the universe, but no matter how deeply I
believed I couldn't do anything with "God is truth".
God = truth makes a bridge between two fields, and thus provide
information. You might as well criticize "1+1=2".
> If you are so worry about fairy tails notion of God, why are you
limiting the meaning of God to such fairy tale notion.
Because that's what the word "God" means, without those fairy tail
notions it would no longer be God, at least not in the English
language.
I know many people talking english and using the term God in a non
fairy tale sense, like Aldous Huxley who wrote a book on the subject.
Everybody on this list seems to want to mutate the meaning of the
word "God" into something more reasonable so you wouldn't have to be
a idiot to say the words "I believe in God".
One of the reason of doing this is that the term "God", and the notion
behind has a long tradition of being debated. In Occident, we have
also good reason to be suspect on the use of that term after the long
persecution of those who dare to think differently than a well know
political power.
Well that certainly can be done, make the word "God" mean "truth"
for example, but I don't see the point, we already have a perfectly
good word for that, truth. But if you should succeed in this
ridiculous quest then we're going to need to invent a new word to
replace the old meaning of the word "God", let me suggest
"Klogknee", then I'll be able to tell people I do believe in God but
I don't believe in Klogknee.
God is the truth that we search, but can't make public. Read Plato for
learning more on this.
> you are the one preventing theology to come back to seriousness
Come back? When was theology ever serious?
The question is more "when theology has derailled". And the answer is
simple: when God's name has been used for normative terrestrial
purpose, which is a blaspheme indeed, in a lot of traditions.
> some people have made the physical universe into a sort of
authoritative God
Unlike God physical reality can smack you right on the head, in fact
it seems to have habit of doing so, thus when physics says that
bridge is not strong enough to hold your weight it would be wise to
listen to what that authority is saying.
Nobody doubts physical reality here. but when you make into a God, you
block the attempt to understand where it comes from, as you block the
idea that it might be something emergent from something else, like
arithmetical truth in the comp theory. Here you confuse physical
reality and primitive physical reality.
> this not only does not explain where it comes from but prevent
progress both on the origin of the universe and on the mind-body
problem.
And the God theory does not help one teeny tiny bit in explaining
any of that.
It depends which one. yes, God has a beard is not helpful, but "God as
truth" has already provided light in the frame of the computationalist
theory. Read my paper on Plotinus for more.
> >You're saying that the Brahman is the truth and the truth is the
Brahman, well OK but other than being able to say that its Brahman
that 2+2=4 what have I gained from learning that?
> A foreseen of the fact that if "2+2=4" is a scientific statement,
the following is not: ""1+1=2" is true". This plays a key role in
the comp theory of consciousness.
Well duh! The fact that 2+2=4 plays a key role in EVERYTHING and
anybody with half a brain knew that long before being told that the
Brahman is truth and truth is the Brahman, this new information is
of zero utility to me.
You did not read what I wrote. I wrote "2+2=4" is a scientific
statement, but in the comp theory, literally, "2+2=4 is true" is NOT a
scientific statement. If we are machine, God = Truth is so true that
Truth also cannot be used in any scientific or public statement. of
course, like God, machine can use Truth as a pointer, and not as a
descripotive name. This is because they can approximate such concept
in the scientific way.
> It becomes clearer and clearer for me that your avoidance of
going from step 3 to step 4 might come from your religious atheistic
beliefs.
Maybe but I'm not sure because I've long since forgotten what step 3
or 4 is, or even step 2.
You can access it by just one click.
All I remember is you claimed to have discovered some new type of
indeterminacy that was fundamentally different from regular run of
the mill indeterminacy and it never made any sense to me.
I have shown you that you were confusing the 1-view and the 3-view, or
the 3-view on the 1-view (like in "I will feel myself in both
cities"), and the 1-view on the 1-views (I will feel myself being in
only one city and I can't know which one). This gives the only
indeterminacy phenomenologically equivalent with the quantum one, yet
explained entirely with assuming quantum physics.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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