Thanks for your response, Bruno. Now, I ask the subjective question, which may not like the truth, or your truth. Does knowing this advance the human condition, in your opinion? Do you think knowing this moves our species in a better direction? This may be like me asking if knowing that Pluto is not technically a planet, reduce unemployment? The two may be unrelated, however, since this is your theology, I figured I better ask you then guess on my own.
Sincerely, Mitch -----Original Message----- From: Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> To: everything-list <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, Jul 10, 2014 10:31 am Subject: Re: What's the answer? What's the question? On 09 Jul 2014, at 21:52, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote: You may have written exhaustively on this before, but, one more time please. No problem. I'm always happy if I can clarify. How do you build a theology based on mathematics. I don't see Pythagoras as being a source of happiness for most earthlings. Of yourself, I have no doubt! The whole idea of doing science consists in trying hard to not be influenced in wishful thinking, which of course is part of many popular religion. I can understand that some philosophy search happiness, that is nice, but it might have nothing to do with the theological reality. So, how to study that theological reality, and why mathematics can help. First, please notice that I am using the term "theology" in his initial sense defined by Plato, and which means "ultimate truth" or "theory of everything including the visible, like proton and galaxies, and the invisible, like numbers, consciousness, math, and who knows which possible alien, perhaps divine, entities". At the start it is better to have the less prejudices and be the most open as possible, given that the field is rather sick very often (the most fundamental science is always under the threat of abuse of power (not just theology, biology and cosmology were often perverted too). Then as theological assumption, I use the computationalist hypothesis/theory, which basically assume that the brain operation are Turing emulable, up to preserve my life and identity in case I substitute my biological brain for an artificial (and Turing emulable) device. This is not a strong hypothesis for a materialist or naturalist, as we don't know in nature any non Turing emulable phenomena. But it *is* a strong hypothesis in theology, and it implies a form of reincarnation, both in rich physical universe and in arithmetic. This leads to the mathematical comp measure problem. The solution of that problem has already been given at the propositional logic level, and the result suggests that people like Plotinus, the neoplatonists and the mystics have a discourse which is easy to interpret in arithmetic. Indeed arithmetic contains all computations, and we can interview the machine in arithmetic about their first person expectancy. In particular, the arithmetical truth plays the role of (neoplatonist) God: it has no name, is transcendent, is responsible for all beliefs and knowledge (and realities); the 'theaetetical' knower/soul or inner God, already used by Plotinus, works very well in that setting too, as it happens non nameable too (cf Ramana Maharshi and the koan "who am I?"), it obeys Brouwer intuitionist logic, with an addition of a temporal nuance, which structure the space of accessible conscious states. Then Plotinus' matter (inspired from Aristotle, but corrected with respect to Plato) gives the skeleton of the space on which we can handle the measure problem, at the place where both Plato and Plotinus intuited the need of a "bastard calculus" (their term). How could Plotinus, and the mystics intuits what took many years to mathematicians to find out? Well, the mathematicians just describes what *any* entity can prove (and not prove) about itself, and this only suggests that Plotinus, by honesty and serious research inward, get close to that ideal machine self-referential correctness, so it is hardly a coincidence. I hope this helped. Ask any precision. Keep in mind that by theology, I mean the greek science, not the religious institutionalization which have followed it and have mixed with popular religious legends and ad hoc fairy tales, in place of assumption/theory, to prevent progresses and questions instead of promoting them. Also, maybe the God of the Bible all came from Lucid Dreaming. Lucid dreaming might have played a part, and is indeed a very interesting notion, and experience. The original long version of my PhD thesis contains a full chapter on "lucid dream" neurophysiology, including an appendice with a sample of my own lucid dream experiences. Of course, the content of the experiences are not used in the reasoning, but the reports illustrate well some psycho and theo-logical notions. Lucid dreams, and above all "contralucid dreams" (dreams in the narration of which the experiencer concludes that he is NOT dreaming) illustrates many points of the reasoning. But there are many other altered states of consciousness that you can explore during sleep. Sometimes drug can help, and coffee has been my favorite drug to enhance lucidity, and some other sleep states. Since then I have discovered salvia divinorum which is, imo, a champion to get quite altered and very interesting states. Bruno One US academic psychologist claimed as much with the writings of Ezekiel. Lucid dreams are where you become aware one is dreaming, but feel like normal life, sensorially. let us do theology seriously instead of referring to fairy tales. You confirm what I said to John Clark. Atheist defend the God of the bible. Read Plotinus, forget the bible, unless you find some passage you like and which inspire you, but that is private, don't make that public. -----Original Message----- From: Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> To: everything-list <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, Jul 6, 2014 6:29 am Subject: Re: What's the answer? What's the question? On 04 Jul 2014, at 20:33, meekerdb wrote: > On 7/4/2014 9:12 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >> On 03 Jul 2014, at 19:46, meekerdb wrote: >> >>> On 7/3/2014 8:08 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: >>>> Only a pseudo-scientist would say that the science progresses >>>> have put any threat on the non literal reading of any "sacred >>>> texts". >>> >>> Wouldn't that depend on what the non-literal reading is? I think >>> what you mean is that there is always some non-literal reading >>> that is not threatened by science...or by logic, or by empathy, or >>> by anything else you care to name, because "non-literal" is just >>> "not what it says". "Mein Kampf" is also consistent with good >>> race relations, on a non-literal reading. >> >> 'Mein Kampf' contains hate. Hate is always literal, > > Is that from the Marchal dictionary of the Engligh language? > > >> or you are in a Charlie Chaplin movie. > > Or in the Christian bible: > > Proverbs 6:16, 19 These six things doth the LORD hate ... A false > witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. > > Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and > mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and > his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. > > With sufficient non-literalism these become "God is love". let us do theology seriously instead of referring to fairy tales. You confirm what I said to John Clark. Atheist defend the God of the bible. Read Plotinus, forget the bible, unless you find some passage you like and which inspire you, but that is private, don't make that public. > >> >> You can study the deep non literal meaning in a book like Aldous >> Huxley "philosophia perennis". You can sum it by "Plato might be >> right", or "the laws of physics might have a deeper reason, perhaps >> even a purpose". > > When the meaning is "deeply non-literal" isn't is likely that it's > your own ideas you are imposing on the book. Understanding something is always a question of reducing or representing it to what you already understand. > >> The institutionalist religions are as far of religion than the >> today politics of health is from health. For basically the same >> reason (stealing people's money). >> >> A scientist interested in religion will always read a "sacred text" >> with the same equanimity than reading a "salvia divinorum" report. > > Equanamity is not the same thing as giving it a non-literal meaning. It consists in remaining open to all interpretations possible. > >> >> Religion, like nationalities, have also social identity role, >> indeed very often perverted, and we (the scientists) have to keep >> calm and try hard to not throw the unsolved questions when >> abstracting from the fairy tales and legends associated with some >> plausible, or not, contact between humans beliefs and truth. > > And to be careful not to insert our hopes and wishes in place of the > fairy tales. Yes. Nobody claims that it is easy. That is one reason more to encourage the reasoning and skeptical attitudes, especially in fundamental studies, like the theological one. By deciding that theology is automatically bullshit, we just perpetuate the institutional bullshit, a bit like making drug forbidden, we create and and make bigger the illicit drug markets which control and target the kids. Bruno > > Brent > > -- > 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]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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