On 01 Jul 2014, at 21:26, meekerdb wrote:
On 7/1/2014 10:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 30 Jun 2014, at 07:41, meekerdb wrote:
On 6/29/2014 10:20 PM, LizR wrote:
On 30 June 2014 17:02, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:
On 6/29/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote:
On 30 June 2014 04:43, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 9:44 PM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote:
> agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the
scientific method, so we really need the concept in order to
understand the status of scientific theories.
I like what Isaac Asimov, a fellow who knew a thing or two about
science, had to say on this subject:
"I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it.
I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it
was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist,
because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it
was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally
decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason.
Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove
that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't
that I don't want to waste my time."
So he knows that he only has enough evidence to be agnostic, but
he is emotionally convinced to be an atheist nonetheless. OK, so
that puts him on a par with religious believers who are also
emotionally convinced, though not of the same thing.
No more so that being an aSanta-Clausist.
Well there you go then. I rest my case.
Actually I think there is enough evidence to prove (in the
'beyond reasonable doubt' sense) that the God of the bible does
not exist. But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist
to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof
that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make
me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there
is one.
Atheists don't just believe that the biblical god doesn't exist,
they believe that there are no supernatural forces involved in
the operation of the universe.
Where is this written? Do you speak for all atheists, or just
ones in NZ?
While I consider this likely, I don't consider it 100% proven,
because as Arthur C Clark said, any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic, and it's at least
conceivable that there are sufficiently advanced beings out there
that they can act outside what we call nature.
That seems to really waffle. If we knew these beings could so act
wouldn't we just readjust "what we call nature". In fact that's a
general problem with saying what it would mean for some events to
be supernatural. In the past many events were thought to be
supernatural, acts of God, e.g. sickness, lightning, drought,
earthquakes,...but are now thought to be natural. So it some new
phenomena is observed why wouldn't we just assume it was natural
even if we didn't have an explanation.
I agree with you. I think we can relate this to Occam. If we have a
theory which explains a lot, and fail to explain a new phenomena,
we should not abandon the theory, unless the new phenomena does
violate the theory.
I think that "supernatural" has no meaning at all. No more than the
incompatibilist theory of free will which I think does not make
sense (I agree with John Clark on this).
Supernatural would mean violating the laws of physics, and that
makes no sense because physics, by quasi-definition, changes itself
each time she is violated.
(But comp + materialism do introduce something close to magic:
primitive matter capable of selecting consciousness, but without
any role in the computations).
For example I am not 100% sure that the universe wasn't created
by some intelligent beings with sufficiently advanced technology
to create big bangs (they may of course have evolved naturally in
another universe). I don't think it's likely, but that's my
emotional prejudices at work. I can't see that I can claim with
certainty that it's impossible, and since these being would fit
with some definitions of god (creator of the unvierse) then I
can't say it is 100% proven that god doesn't exist.
Didn't you slip from "something or someone beyond our current
explanation" to "god". You speak for atheists, what do you have
to say for religionists? Are they just worshiping some unknown
possibility. What is the god they believe in - that's the god I
don't believe in. I think you have muddled the word "god" in
order make it seem unreasonable to assert definitively that "god"
doesn't exist. But in the process you've made "god" into
something quite different from the god of religion. A mere shadow
of the once powerful Yaweh, Baal, Zeus, Thor,...
Earth was thought to be a tortoise, then we learn better.
Similarly the notion of God is the notion of an all encompassing
one unifying all things. It was thought to be a sort of father in
the sky, but we might learn better here too.
Then, the God of the materialist is the physical universe. Here
too, we might learn better.
Materialism might be right, but with comp, we get a problem of how
that physical universe can select a consciousness in a stream of
consciousness in arithmetic.
The materialist religion has a tendency to abstract from the
existence of consciousness. That's OK as a fertile methodological
strategy, but in my opinion it misses the most important things:
persons. It fails also to explain the nature of matter and where it
comes from.
No problem, computer science and machine's computer science, and
the difference between, unravel a different theology than the
materialist one, which seems promising on those questions. To put
is roughly: matter looks like the derivative of mind. Or mind is
the primitive of matter (pun included).
If you are going to narrowly define atheism as not believing in
the god of the bible, then of course I will agree with you (I
will even throw in the Norse and Egyptian gods and a few others,
if you like). But that isn't what I am talking about when I say
Atheism, and I doubt it's what Asimov meant either.
You seem to be equating atheism with asserting that nothing beyond
our knowledge of nature exists. Not just failing to believe that
such exists, but having 100% confidence that it doesn't. I don't
know anyone who calls himself an atheist and who makes such a
strong statement. Dawkins has explicity said he is not absolutely
certain there is no god of any kind. Vic Stenger explicitly says
he cannot rule out a deist god.
Well, they still ignore machine's theology, isn't it? With the
original Platonist notion of God (the truth we search inward, about
which the first thing we know is that it is above us, ineffable,
etc).
They don't ignore it. They seek 3p models to explain how the world
works, but they start with subjective observations. Stenger
explicitly says that "objective" just means "intersubjective
agreement". The source of knowledge is personal, but it can still
lead to an impersonal model, like particles or arithmetic.
But they used implicitly a mind-brain link which makes no sense with
comp, and they ignore machine's theology, that is G, G*, and its use
to dismantle the measure problem we are confronted when we understand
that the identity mind-brain simply does not work.
It is very good physics. But saying that the God hypothesis fails *in
that stetting* is like defebnding an aristotelian God incompatible
with mechanism.
If atheism is the disbelief in the literal Christian god, then all
taoist, jewish, muslims, hinduists, etc. are atheists.
Taoists and Hindus are, but jews and muslims worship a theist god, a
creator person who answers prayers and judges. In fact the muslims
claim it is the same god as the jews and christians and the
christians claim they worship the same god as the jews.
It might still have something important in common with some taoist or
hinduist principle. And if you look close, the jewish, the christians,
and the muslims contained tradition which are more platonist and
mystic than the mainstream.
Why did Cantor wrote to the pope, and develop long correspondences
with a bishop, to discuss about the possible blaspheme of his
naming of the higher infinities?
Because of what his parents told him, "It's blasphemous to name God."
What makes you so sure he did not understand why, and that indeed by
naming high infinite he was anxious to get close to have some problem
with the good Lady.
Bruno
Brent
Cantor was aware that his set theory was already a sort of theology.
The belief in God is a bit like the belief in some infinite. In
math it can simplifies the proofs, despite for many proofs, its use
can be eliminated.
There are two main reasons for people to believe in God.
1) because their parents told so.
2) because they look inward and get "personal evidence" (mystical
experience)
And there are many intermediates, where people believes in God
because their parents told so, and they look inward and get
evidences that they interpret as confirmation of what their parents
said. Some might look inward enough to understand that what their
parents said should be interpreted less literally, for example.
But once a religion becomes a political tool, then "looking inward"
is badly seen, and the free research is banished. Logic get quickly
abandoned too.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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