On 11 Jul 2014, at 21:58, John Mikes wrote:
Liz, you missed my words about 'atheist' and 'agnostic'. Fighting
AGAINST something reqires SOME concept of the enemy, so an atheist
'requires' SOME concept of 'a' (any) god as a target.
This is very well said.
- MY - agnostic, however, does not find any such 'target' reasonble
so the totality has to be built on some different basis. Who knows
on what kind of?
I call it an infinite complexity, not on arithmetical basis as Bruno
advised, since arithmetic ways of thinking are HUMAN logic and the
totality is much much wider than what such restrictive boundaries
would allow.
But this, I don't really follow.
This might mean that you are not aware of the discovery of Gödel and
Tarski which show the transcendence and independence of the
arithmetical reality with respect to us (and provably so with the
computationalist hypothesis). Or that you confuse the arithmetical
reality with Peano Arithmetic. I can understand that Peano Arithmetic
is "Human Logic", and it fails indeed to capture the whole truth, as
any theory does. But it is exactly because we know today that all
theories fail to capture the arithmetical reality that we have an
incentive to be *agnostic* on the question if there is anything else
beyond the arithmetical reality which we should postulate/assume to
explain consciousness and matter.
Then the sigma_1 (computable) fragment of that reality is the same for
all entities, human of not, as those propositions can be put in the
form: "This or that machine stops or does not stop", and it would make
no sense that a machine stop for some alien and not for some others.
Then with comp, we can restrict the ontological reality to the sigma_1
truth.
If you have a reason to believe that there might be more in the
ontological reality (more than the sigma_1 truth), then you have a
reason to believe that we are not supported by digital machine, making
you NOT agnostic on the comp theory.
Since 'a' god does not fit into my agnosticism, no bible could have
been written by it. Scripture etc. is a nice remnant of times when
people had too much time on their hand and a fantasy-world with very
few restrictive items.
Then power usurped the general belief of the public and exploited
it. We are still living within such.
Yes, unfortunately, and this will be with us for still a long time.
Please add to every one of my sentences in ( - ) "I dunno".
That is wise, but by asking more than arithmetic (the reality, not the
theories), you seem to miss a "I dunno". Keep in mind that before
Gödel, we thought that arithmetic was computable, but now, we know
that only a tiny part is computable. That part is enough (when we
postulate comp), but for the internal epistemologies, we need the
"complete" arithmetical reality which is probably beyond all theories,
made by humans or aliens, or even a vast variety of divine entities
(divine here means "non-machine emulable"). The arithmetical truth is
inexhaustible. It is far beyond us.
Best,
Bruno
JM
On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 7:27 PM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote:
It sounds like you are describing an agnostic. An atheist seems to
be against (often some specific collection of) gods. An agnostic
just says I don't know anything about that, and until some evidence
comes up I won't consider the possibility worth discussing.
Hence
Agnostic - there could be a teapot orbiting the Sun, although I
consider it highly unlikely
Atheist - there definitely isn't a teapot orbiting the Sun.
Sorry to re-re-re-repeat myself, as you say it's a well worn subject.
PS could it be Brent quoting Bruno?
PPS their initials are suspiciously similar. I remain agnostic on
whether they are really the same person (but consider it highly
unlikely).
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