Dear Bruno, As a former and recovering fundamentalist Christian, I am 100% in agreement with your words above. I merely wish that I could communicate better with you.
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 11:53 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 29 Apr 2013, at 11:32, Telmo Menezes wrote: > > On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 10:42 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > You might take a look at my Plotinus paper which suggest a lexicon between > > Plotinus and Arithmetic. Plotinus might have appreciated it as Neoplatonism > > announces a coming back to Pythagorean ontology. One of the Enneads of > > Plotinus, "On Numbers" is a crazily deep analysis of the role of numbers > in > > theology. > > > This one? > Marchal B., 2007, A Purely Arithmetical, yet Empirically Falsifiable, > Interpretation of Plotinus' Theory of Matter > > > Yes. > > > > Theology is just the science of "everything", which by definition includes > > God and Santa Klaus. A statement saying that such or such God does not > exist > > is a theological statement. > > > It is just my agnosticism which make me use the term in the most general > > sense. Then, in the frame of this or that hypothesis, we can get such or > > such precisions. > > > I like how you explain it. From a pure "marketing" standpoint, you > might avoid a lot of unnecessary intellectual resistance by using a > different term. On the other hand, some of your colourful personality > would not come through, so who am I to say... > > > Lol ... I can understand. But the resistance is both more superficial (and > boring), but has some deep aspect, and using the word "theology" has helped > me to make that clear. > > In fact I have been encouraged to use the word "theology" because it makes > things clearer, and it was well seen in my university (based on free-exam). > I got problem, unrelated to this, and I have been proposed to defend the > work in France, and there, I have been asked to remove anything referring > to theology. In particular I have used the term "psychology" in place of > theology, but this has led to other confusion, and an even greater > resistance, making me realize the existence of a fundamentalist atheism. > > The main advantage of using the term "theology" is to prevent the > reductionist interpretation of mechanism, and it is a way to recall that > science has not yet decide between Plato and Aristotle, which proposes > deeply different view on everything, including the type of God rationally > possible. Eventually it made me realize that atheism is really a slight > variant of christianism, when you compare to Plato. Of course some atheists > can be uneasy with this, but then it means that they are not aware of the > mind-body problem. > > I thought, perhaps naively, that most scientist where aware that science > was deeply agnostic, and that if we do research on the mind-body problem, > such agnosticism was the key to make progress. Eventually I understood that > the Platonist conception of reality is deeply hidden in our culture, and > that atheists are much more opposed to it than most intellectual having has > some confessional religious background (something which has astonished me, > but confirmed everyday since). This made atheism *theologically* more > flawed than christianism. > > Now, from a computer science view, "theology" is just what is true about > machine. We know that this is bigger than what the machine can prove, and > that is enough from a clear definition standpoint. The original term was > biology, but this led to confusion too. > > Since a long time, I read hundred of theologians from different confession > and religion, and well, it fits remarkably with the subject, and with what > I am talking about. And it is quite interesting to compare machine's > theology (and machine's science) with the different existing religions. > > I tend to believe that most non natural human suffering comes from that > sad fact: the withdrawal of theology as a science, and its political > institutionalization. Many fundamentalism would not exist, especially the > atheist one, with which I have been confronted even without knowing that. > Of course this doe not concern the "agnostic atheism" as the word can > sometimes have a larger (but confusing) meaning. > > In fact I call that theology, because it *is* theology. It concerns > afterlife, the soul, the origin of realities, the existence of divine (non > Turing emulable) entities, gods and goddesses, etc... and I am all against > introducing new words when older words already exist, because that create > big and unnecessary confusions. It helps also to refer to the theology of > the Platonists and Neoplatonists. I read quite remarkable book on that > subject. > > I am aware some resistance can come from the use of that word, but it > seems to me the advantages, notably clarity, are more numerous than the > disandvantages. I might be wrong, but I am not yet convinced. > > > > > > > > > There is not scientific evidence whatsoever of this. Nor do I think it > > can be. People like António Damásio (my compatriot) and other > > neuroscientists confuse a machine's ability to recognise itself with > > consciousness. This makes me wonder if some people are zombies. > > > > > Careful! > > Some people don't think, but are still conscious, most plausibly. I guess > > you were joking. > > > > I meant the opposite: people who think but are not conscious. I'm > > half-joking. > > > > OK (I was half serious) :) > > > > > > > You are right about Damásio. he confuses [] p and (([] p & p). > > > > Not sure I understand. Doesn't []p => p ? > > > > Yes, but only God knows that. > > > Precisely (but I will give the detail on FOAR): if B is Gödel's provability > > we have that G* proves []p => p, but G does not prove it. You can guess it > > as if G prove [] f => f (with f = the propositional constant false, and > "=>" > > the logical implication), then it would mean that the machine proves ~[] f, > > and so the machine would proves its own consistency, contradicting Gödel's > > second incompleteness theorem. But G* proves it, and proves that the > machine > > is correct: []p => p. > > > This is capital. It is Gödel's incompleteness which makes provability > > obeying the logic of believability, and which gives sense to the > Theaetetus' > > definition of knowledge for machine. > > > Ok, I need to read more. > > > If interested, you might subscribe to Russell Standish's FOAR group, where > I intend to come back on this. > > > > > > > > > > > I agree on intelligence, but I don't feel less conscious when I'm > > > sleepy. Just differently conscious. I'm a bit sleepy right now. > > > > > That's something amazing with consciousness. It exists in different > > modes. > > We are not trained to develop vigilance during sleep, but sleep produces > > a > > lot of intriguing altered state of consciousness. > > > > Yes, it's so frustrating to not be able to come back with the full > > memories. > > > > > For REM dreams and non-REM conscious episode, it is a question of a (lot > of) > > training, but some plants can help. > > For example calea zacatechichi (legal everywhere except in Belgium), > > > I've seen that once mentioned before in the context of lucid dreaming. > > > I am a bit skeptical about Calea zacatechichi. Studies on mice have shown > that it perturbs only the non REM dreams, and I have not found any > convincing report that it might lead to lucidity. It can be part of a > ritual helping some placebo effect making higher the probability to develop > lucidity in dream, though. Coffee is more efficacious, but careful as it > can lead easily to insomnia. > Calea zacatechichi is also incredibly bitter. Calea tea is almost non > swallowable at all, and the bitterness stays in the month for weeks. If you > want get rid of some friends, just offer them a cup of calea zacatechichi ! > :) > > Bruno > > > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the > Google Groups "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this topic, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/topic/everything-list/K7E-Vfwj4QU/unsubscribe?hl=en > . > To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to > [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- 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 [email protected]. 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