On 02 Jun 2014, at 09:27, Samiya Illias wrote:
On 02-Jun-2014, at 12:05 am, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
On 01 Jun 2014, at 00:25, Samiya Illias wrote:
On 01-Jun-2014, at 12:14 am, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 30 May 2014, at 05:43, Samiya Illias wrote:
On 30-May-2014, at 7:35 am, LizR <[email protected]> wrote:
On 30 May 2014 14:26, Samiya Illias <[email protected]>
wrote:
These are people who are committing crimes in the name of
religion. You, on the outside, are horrified by such acts in
the name of Islam, and are terrified of it, rightly so. We, on
the other hand, live in midst of this blatant violation of the
guidance in the Quran! What these elements have not been able
to find or insert in the Quran, they have created
Some of the people involved are priests, and some are students
of Islam - do you think that these are people who are
committing crimes in the name of religion? Again this is a
straight question, I'm not drawing any conclusions at the moment.
What's wrong is wrong. They may think they're doing right and
may feel it to be their pious duty, however it is still wrong.
How God will judge them is another matter, let God do that.
However, it is important to speak up and point out that it's
incorrect and inhumane.
Please also bear in mind that all religions have suffered the
tragedy of deviation from the original message, misunderstood
and convoluted it into something terrible. Islam has also
suffered thus. However, the arabic Quran is preserved in written
form and in the minds of millions of people since it was
revealed. That is the criteria that I apply to evaluate whether
something is correct or not.
Hmm.... Because you take as axioms that those word are divine.
The Quran seems to contain threats for those departing of the
text, but that is an authoritative argument.
It can be true that departing from Truth is a problem, but I am
not sure that this can be said.
You may have noticed that I present Quranic verses to answer or
explain my point, which I believe is divinely revealed,
Is that not a problem?
No, because (a) the questions being asked are about the contrast
between core beliefs of Islam and the practical implementation (b)
to show that Quranic guidance is far from the ideas people have
developed about the religion
All right (although we might discuss the "responsibility" of a text
for his possible misinterpretation).
Fair enough. The Quran claims that there is it is clear guidance and
there is no crookedness in it, and that it is protected from changes.
Hmm... But this is circular. What if the real original Quran contained
a verse saying "and please add comments, criticize and correct the
text if needed as I have to simplified myself to be understood by you
in the short term"; but then, for special interest, a human changes it
into "... protected from changes"?
You ask that we read the Quran with scientific eyes, but for this we
have "test" it without prejudice. We have to be neutral on whatever
its source can be.
I think there are mainly two sources of misinterpretation:
1) insertion of words in translation which are not in the original
text
2) lack of knowledge of the translator of a particular subject,
mostly apparent in verses of scientific significance.
Yes. On the net, the first Quran appearing in Google proposes
translation in different languages, and often, there are different
nuance between relation the french, dutch and english translation.
Is that not a warning for anybody to not criticize any point in
the text.
No. I have not taken offence to the so many things said in this
and other threads, and politely tried to answer the points raised.
The reason I quote is so that people can verify for themselves,
instead of just accepting my words
Nice.
Most mystics text fall easily in the theological trap, where true
proposition becomes false, as they were unassertable. It is like
a machine picking up a proposition in its own G* \ G, and
asserting it. They are true about them, but cannot be asserted.
Let me ask you a question. Imagine we agree on some terms of
comparison, and decide to compare G* (the main root of machine's
theology) with the Quran, and imagine that the G* interpretation
of the Quran appears much closer to the Sufi interpretation than
the "mainstream" one, with more symbolics and less literalism,
would you conclude that computationalism is false or that the
Sufi are right?
You will have to explain comp in more detail in plain English, or
teach me how to interpret your mathematical notation. Also, I need
to understand your machine theology better before I can start
commenting on it. As far as Sufism is concerned, what I've read of
it and about it, I'm not convinced about their beliefs.
Fair enough.
So let me be straight and naive on this. And short. There has been
a big discovery: the discovery of the universal machine, or number.
It is an arithmetical notion.
We can compare the discourse of the religious people with the
discourse of an ideally correct universal number.
It looks like the discourse of the mystics, notably the rationalist
mystics like the Neoplatonists, and Plato itself (arguably), is
closer than the Aristotelian theologies.
At the start, I am not sure, but current of platonism were strong
among christians (like most students of Hypatia), and similarly
with the Jewish and the Muslims.
Unfortunately in 523 Plato's academy is closed, and "free pagan or
non confessional theology" judged heretic and banished (in the best
case).
So (neo)platonism will not survive in occident at that date, and it
will survive somehow up to the 11th century in the middle east.
To put it simply, there is a one, the many are the internal modes
of that one.
There is repeated emphasis in the Quran that there is only one
deity: The Deity, the word for which in Arabic is Al Ilah
concatenated and pronounced as Allah.
OK. That's good (with respect to comp). Allah really means the God. It
is better than a proper name, but it makes the statement "that text is
from God unlike the other texts" into a still crazily strong
authoritarian argument.
That is a problem with respect to the theology of the universal machine.
The opening passage of the Quran are seven verses which Muslims
repeat in prayer at least 17 times daily.
Hmm... I worry about this. It looks like a 1004 type of fallacy. I
trust God for helping people to make peace with their own conscience,
and I am skeptical of method circling this dialog into repetitive
practice.
I have no problem with people choosing their own way, and what can
be an obstacle for some, can help others. yet "reapeating" can become
close to brainwashing, as you can surely guess.
The second verse speaks of Rabb il Aalameen, mostly translated as
Lord / Sustainer of the Worlds. The root letters of aalameen are a-l-
m which is also the root for knowledge. Repeatedly across the Quran,
it is stated the God is the One with Complete Knowledge of
everything and everyone.
This touch very complex question in the theology of the machine.
There is clear "outer-god", but it is unclear if it makes sense to see
it has a person, although we can ascribe to it/him/she some beliefs
(like the arithmetically true proposition, which with comp gives
already all subjective events in the possible multiverses). Now that
outer-God is not omniscient, and its is somehow even small compared to
the machine's Noùs, Plato's realm of the intelligible ideas.
Then there is the Universal Soul, or the Inner-God. That is the one
you can awake in you. It is the one which makes the place for the
mystic experience, and it is the channel between you and heaven
(another fuzzy name encompassing probably the "one" and the "noùs".
This entails richer "theurgies", indeed from the use of Plant (Iboga,
cactus, mushrooms, hemp, tobacco, salvia, ...) to the use of the
available bio or theo technologies.
Of course the inner god and the Noùs are not different God than the
outer god, but are more internal modes of it.
If comp is true, we are locally finite, and it is absolutely
impossible for us to distinguish the outer god from arithmetical
truth. Note that no machine can really name or describe "arithmetical
truth", and since Gödel, there is an understanding that we can't
really either, except with non effective means (which we can accept,
but with comp, appears to be only useful fictions)
Considering the recent theories regarding everything being knowledge
or numbers, I'm really curious and would like to understand it in
greater depth. I suppose all these ideas will eventually lead
towards a single unified theory.
Yes, and no.
Things will not be simple.
With comp we can eventually agreed on some small number of axioms, to
describe what we need from the "outer God" (which itself as I said
cannot be described by a finite number of axioms, nor by a mechanical
set of axioms).
But the soul, by its very nature, will defeat all theories.
With comp, it is even unclear if we can unify the physical laws, but
it is clear that we cannot unify the psychological laws, nor the
theological. They got a solid common trunk (machine's theology,
machine's physics), but, a bit like life, can develop in many
directions and dimensions.
Personally, I like that, because it gives a role to liberty and
freedom. But it means also that as enlighten we can luckily be here or
there, we can still loss ourselves.
Normally, what happens is that the one, and the many are unstable. The
one gives rise to the many (Plotinus use the word "emanation" for that
process), and then the many explores and lives its many lives until he
remember (for some reason) and try to come back to the one, and
eventually come back to the one (plotinus called that the conversion).
But those processes are not physical processes, they are more type of
amnesia/remembering of the universal person. It is not easy to
describe. You might read the "popular" book on Plotinus by Brian Hines:
http://www.amazon.com/Return-The-One-Plotinuss-God-Realization/dp/0977735214/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401728819&sr=8-1&keywords=Plotinus+return+to+the+one
And you might take a look on my paper for a translation of Plotinus in
arithmetic.
Marchal B., 2007, A Purely Arithmetical, yet Empirically Falsifiable,
Interpretation of Plotinus' Theory of Matter, Contributed Talks in CiE
2007: Computation and Logic in the Real World, University of Siena,
June 2007.
If the link does not work:
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/CiE2007/SIENA.pdf
I have also analyzed closely the taoists, but my writing about that is
in french.
Suppose, or imagine if you can, that we find an error in the
Quran, would you abandon the idea that it is a literal text by
God, or would you abandon the idea that God is perfect?
I would abandon the idea that it is the protected literal text of
God. I believe that we can verify this by examining the verses
that can be examined in the light of scientific knowledge. I have
started a humble effort in a new blog:
signsandscience.blogspot.com It'll be helpful if you can have a
look at it from time to time and comment on the scientific content.
In my humble opinion, you can't nitpick with the sacred.
Agree. Based on my current beliefs, as I find in the Quran, all
scriptures were revealed by divine decree and it is an article of
faith for Muslims to believe in all prophets and scriptures.
We will have to discuss this. I am afraid of going too far with you
too quick.
With comp teher are not intermediate between god and the creature,
only direct channel (so to speak) between god and each creatures, and
this leads to asking us to be a priori skeptical of prophets and
scriptures, indeed even physical universes and events, when we dig
very deeply.
With Aristotle, reality is what you see.
With Plato, reality is what you see + what is hidden by what you see
(and which is the "real cause" of what you see).
We also believe that though the previous scriptures have suffered
human interpolation and may have errors, the Quran ( Arabic text) is
protected, and we cannot nitpick with the it.
But you did, when asking if the Quran is correct on insect genders.
Actually I would be pleased to find an error in the Quran, because, IF
it is divine, THEN, it would be a sign by God that we should not take
the Quran literally, nor any text literally, except perhaps elementary
arithmetic.
Hmm... It is delicate as I see you have some emotional attachment
to a literal reading of a sacred text,
Yes, I'm emotionally attached to the literal reading, as I think, if
it's revealed by the divine, it must be perfectly accurate, free
from any mistakes. Science is the only tool that can be employed to
check that and that's what I'm trying to do.
Science cannot check truth. It can only check inconsistencies
(internal in a theory, or "external" with finite set of repeatable
measurements).
Science is the best tool to search the truth, but the worse to tell one.
but well, buddhist thinks that we have to kill all buddhas at some
point (of course: not literally).
We believe there is no intermediary between us and God, so that each
one can and should pray only to God
OK. That would be a deep common point between comp and muslims (and
protestants, I think, but catholic are not happy).
Unfortunately it does not seem you act like that, because you use the
Book as an intermediate. Comp go farer. Chosing one book among all is
still a form of idolatry. A book can be good in a context, and bad in
another one, with respect of its link with the divine.
It can be problematical with the literalist of the other religion,
and with all the non literalists.
We think god cannot be named, which really implies that you can't
identify it with anything, and specifically invoke in the human
affair.
We read that God is not like anything we can imagine, and so we have
no form or image or idol.
OK. That is like what the universal machine can discover when looking
inward.
We are also told that all beautiful names belong to Allah, the
Deity, and we can call God by any name / attribute such as The
Compasionate, The Merciful, The Irresistable, The Loving, The All
Hearing, The All Seeing, and the list goes on. There are many such
names / attributes mentioned in the Quran.
We might need to dig on this, but of course it is very difficult. For
example it looks like the God of comp loves unconditionally all
creatures .... except those who believe or assert that God loves
unconditionally all creatures. The reason is that this would entail
"God loves me", which cannot be asserted publicly as it is an
infinitely big authoritarian statement. If "God loves me" is true it
can only belong to G* minus G.
For a neoplatonist the Quran can be a mean toward truth only if it
is well distinguished with the truth itself.
Would you develop the idea that such a text might be not that
easy to interpret?
If God has sent it for humanity's guidance, it has to be easy
enough for different intellects to understand it.
But here is a problem: the text is prose, in fact even a poem. It
is not a treatise in physics, nor even in theology (where notions
of god(s) are discussed and questioned).
The Quran is a guidance for those who believe in resurrection and an
accountability, and who wish to keep their duty to God. And it's a
warning to those who reject as this life is the time given to us to
prepare for the Day of Accountability.
The Quran is not a treatise in Physics, but wherever it refers to
physical phenomenon, it's very accurate on it.
OK. (the relation between science and theology is what I work hard
about: with comp there is a "scientific" theology, and it makes the
theological truth (G*, basically) extending the scientific or
justifiable truth (G).
This is very close to inconsistency, but the inconsistency is avoided
by the understanding that we cannot know our own correctness. We can
prove in some sense that theology for correct machines simpler than
us. We can understand that such theology is preserved for all correct
extensions of that simple machine, but we *cannot* lift that theology
to ourself "scientifically" losing our consistency and correctness,
and that is why it asks for faith when accepting a digital brain
suggested by some doctor.
Like it asks respect for those who says no to the doctor (with an
insoluble problem about the right of parent with respect to children
and doctor ..., out of topic here).
Of course, a child would read it differently than an adult, a non-
scientist would read it differently than a scientist, a
philosopher would evaluate it on a different criteria and so on.
Since it's for all humans, it should be able to satisfy all
branches of honest intellectual inquiry.
You show that you are open to reason, and I can't grant that the
Quran deserves respect, but only as long as we have the right to
doubt each verse OK? You can't use the argument "it is from God,
so it has to be true" OK?
Of course you have every right to doubt and question. Is that why
my simple statement that I wouldn't be surprised if a total of 11
or 12 planets were found in Solar System did not get a scientific
response of whether it is or not plausible and instead got flared
up into a debate about actions done by Muslims, Islamic law and
it's application around the world? The same thing happened with
the Crows have intelligence thread.
I can argue that in "Alice is Wonderland" you have everything: the
theory of relativity, Gödel, Löb, quantum mechanics, even the EPR-
bell experience (poor Alice!).
But is everything mentioned perfectly accurate or are some of the
ideas also falsifiable?
If they are scientifically accurate, they have to be falsifiable. It
is the point of science: to give falsifiable propositions.
All theories are falsifiable, either absolutely, or relatively to
something.
Now, Lewis Carroll "Bell's inequality" (missed by Martin Gardner), is
well, accurate enough to say, with a very slight stretch, that it has
been tested by Aspect (in 1984 I think), so well, it looks like we are
in Wonderland, you see :)
(That was my annexe thesis: Wonderland violate bells inequality!). It
is the passage where Alice cut the (circular) mushroom's hat in two.
Do I take this as an evidence that Lewis Carroll met God? Oh well,
most plausibly, but there is no need to make a fuss about that. It
is more common than you might think, especially with good artist
and poet, or with some technic (fasting, plants, sleep-yoga, body
yoga, etc.).
Truth is in yourself, not in any books. I think. Despite the
immense help books can provide, they are obstacle if you confuse
the book(s) with the truth.
Yes, faith is seated in us. Books are a means for guidance. Which
book we take for guidance? I would take the one which is not
falsifiable.
All books are, except those who put the label "fiction", but even some
of them might be wrong on this, as reality is beyond fiction.
But I understand the feeling, and that is why (personally) I start
from 1+1=2 (and things like that), which are usually considered very
hard to falsify, and which have appeared also very rich in surprising
consequences, .. . eventually it teaches a sort of humility which
reminds me some one.
Bruno
Samiya
Bruno
Samiya
Bruno
and not Hadith which I believe are human efforts at compiling
history and thus are replete with human shortcomings.
Samiya
On 30-May-2014, at 5:28 am, LizR <[email protected]> wrote:
So which lot is it who does this sort of thing? Honest question.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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