On 22 Jan 2013, at 22:10, meekerdb wrote:
On 1/22/2013 8:00 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 21 Jan 2013, at 22:20, meekerdb wrote:
On 1/21/2013 9:11 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
It is only recently, as the limitations of the narrow Western
approach are being revealed on a global scale, that science has
fallen into a fundamentalist pathology which makes an enemy of
teleology.
Yes, it is only the recently, since the Enlightenment, that
science has displaced theology as the main source of knowledge
about the world.
This is non sense. Science is not domain. It points only to an
attitude. Science cannot displace theology, like it cannot displace
genetics. It can give evidence that some theological theories are
wrong headed, or that some theories in genetics are not supported
by facts, but science cannot eliminate any field of inquiry, or it
becomes automatically a pseudo-religion itself (as it is the case
for some scientists).
Of course it can't displace a field of inquiry. But theology wasn't
a field of inquiry, it was apologetics for revelation and dogma.
Like genetics has been in the ex-USSR.
That's a reason to come back to the seriousness in the field. By
refusing this, you just perpetuate the dogma.
Coincidentally is only recently that the sin theory of disease was
replaced by the germ theory...that the geocentric model of the
solar system was replaced by the heliocentric...that insanity has
been due to bad brain chemistry instead of possession
by demons...that democracy has replaced the divine
right of kings...that lightning rods have protected us from the
wrath of God...that the suffering of women in childbirth has been
alleviated...
OK. This shows that religion provides answer, and then the
scientific attitude can lead to corrections, making those answers
into abandoned theories. This really illustrates my point. Now some
go farer and make "primary matter" the new God. that's OK in a
treatise of metaphysics, when physicalism is explicitly assumed or
discussed, but some scientists, notably when vindictive strong
atheists I met, just mock the questions and imposes the physicalist
answer like if that, an only that, was science. This is just deeply
not scientific.
Can you cite any physicists who use the term 'primary matter'.
Can you cite any physicist interested in the mind-body problem.
Physicists does not care about the distinction between primary matter
and matter, because they usually take Aristotle theology for granted.
It is comp and logic which forces us to realize that science has not
yet decide between Plato and Aristotle, making us obliged to be aware
that matter might not have a primitive existence and might need to be
derived from something else (like arithmetic).
I've never come across it except on this list. Of course almost all
physicists believe in some kind of matter which is the subject of
their study and they may hypothesize that it is primary, that there
is nothing more fundamental which explains the matter, but that's
just an hypothesis. John Wheeler was not criticized for talking
about "It from bit."
Indeed. Wheeler was aware that physics might be originating from
something non physical. he was well inspired by the bits, and even by
self-reference.
Max Tegmark is still highly respected after suggesting a
mathematical universe. I think you have just been unlucky in
running into some close minded atheists who probably suspected that
your use of "God" to mean "Truth"
And trapped, as they encouraged me to do so, in the name of the free-
exams. Some were sincere though, but others seem to have planned the
refusal in advance.
In "Conscience & Mécanisme" I define theology by "modal logic". Indeed
Aristotle invented logic and modal logic to handle tricky metaphysical
and theological question. Also, during my studies, when I suggested
that modal logic might help for the study of provability and
consistency (before Solovay), the atheists was used to dismiss the
whole thing as "theology". So it was a way to remind them of the free-
exam, and indeed that's why some encouraged me to do so: to prevent
easy dismissals.
(and I'm not sure what that means) was an attempt to slip Christian
dogma into science by the back door - it sounds very much like what,
as John K. Clark pointed out, liberal theologians do in order to
pretend that physics or mathematics supports their dogma.
I don't know what is a liberal theologian. In science we have no dogma
(ideally). Of course the existence of math and physics supports the
idea that there is a reality and so can be seen as evidence that some
transcendent truth might make sense. Then computer science explains
that if a machine posit a truth it will have transcendent aspect.
I use "theology" because I have read tuns of book in "theology" (from
East and West) and they helped me to find the right question to ask to
the universal machine.
I define the theology of a machine by its G*\G arithmetical content (G
and G* themselves are more "meta-theology). It works fine as it makes
possible to stay neutral on many approaches, and it helps to remind
that science has cease to be scientific on those questions.
Many people accept that once we talk on possible forms of after-life
we do theology, and not necessarily abramanic theology.
It helps some people to get the point that atheism (at least the non-
agnostic atheism) is a religion. It has a notion of God, and a
proposition of it (it does not exist), and it has another notion of
God (Primaty Matter, the third Aristotelian God) and a proposition
about it: it exists and is responsible for our existence. That might
be the correct theology, but for them it is undoubtable and that makes
it into a dogma. I don't know, and I show this does not work once we
assume mechanism.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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