On 20 Oct 2014, at 21:42, meekerdb wrote:
On 10/20/2014 9:52 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 19 Oct 2014, at 22:13, meekerdb wrote:
On 10/19/2014 8:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
I don't recall Bruno ever csaying if you don't believe in
something then you believe in it.
What he's said is that atheists defend/support/reinforce the same
idea/conception of god that the literalist or fundamentalist
abrahamic religions use.
Atheists can't say there is no God without defining what they
mean by God,
Yeah, they tend to be rational like that.
and invariably they choose some variant of an omniscient
omnipotent creator who answers prayers and judges us, rather than
any of the myriad of other conceptions of god.
Maybe it's because they speak the same language and that's what
"theism" means.
In this way, atheists pretend there is only one acceptable
definition and will usually fight to say that it is only
definition, or the one everyone means, or believe the one all
believers believe in.
That's a perfect case of defending the idea of what God is or can
be, even if it is only to then attack the idea. Honest theistic
reasoning would use logic to say, "okay perhaps God cannot be
this, but we have not ruled out these other possibilities which
are as far as we know not inconsistent",
Other possibilities for *what*? What is the thing? What are its
essential properties? What is its definition? They start with a
word, a few attributes, and an emotional attitude and they seek a
definition they can attach them to. Which would be OK, except
they insist that the word "God", which already has millenia of
baggage, must apply. That's my complaint with Bruno. He
explicitly renounces all that baggage, but he still wants to use
the word "God".
I do not renounce all that baggage. I believe in the God of
Einstein, and in the theology of Gödel, that is the idea that we
can make precise some notion,
Some notion of *what*?
Some notion of the religious field, like God, heaven, afterlife,
incarnation, reincarnation, etc.
and reason on them (Einstein was neutral on this, yet seems to get
the Gödel point that mathematics can be used for very fundamental
inquiry, as I discovered in the book of Yourgreau.
You might read the nice book by Jammer on "Einstein and religion".
All his life Einstein will insist that he is not an atheist, yet
that he disbelieve, with variours degree along his life, the
traditation which can get attacehd with such beliefs).
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious
convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do
not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but
have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be
called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the
structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
---Albert Einstein, 1954, "Albert Einstein: The Human Side"
You quote of the context/ In the full context, or in similar
explanation, Einstein insist that he believes in God. And yes, he did
not believe in a personal god, meaning a god who would be a person.
Actually I tend to think that Einstein believed that God is the
primitive physical universe. Unlike physicalist, he knew that was
enough for not being an atheist. To believe in a primitive physical
universe is a theological belief, and evidences existed until QM
developed. Now we have evidence this makes no sense. Note that Gödel
succeeded in mlaking Einstein accepting that may be the universe was
not primitive. Gödel was clar on this: I do not believe in the natural
science, he said once.
Read the book by Jammer, it makes clear why Einstein insisted all his
life of not being an atheist. The reply you quote came Einstein being
nervous with those who tried to use that for attributing to him a
support in a *personal* god (meaning a god which is a person).
And Gödel proved the existence of God, using Anselmus definition,
in the alethic philosophy, that is in the Leibnizian modal logic S5
(S4 + <>p -> []<>p) (Kripke: R is reflexive, transitive and
symmetrical, which is about equivalent with no accessibility
relations at all).
That proves nothing, of course, but about reality, nothing proves
anything.
But some things provide evidence.
The existence of the universe is (for many) an evidence. Again, not
for a personal god, or a fairy tale god, or any god used by
politicians. But for a god in the platonist sense, which is at the
origin of science. That god is either the universe (Aristotle) or
something else (Plato).
To distinguish the terms reality = universe = god = truth = etc.
are, when we start from zero, is a sort of 1004 fallacy.
Or also reality = illusion = hope = ignorance = falsity = delusion =
etc. Fortunately we don't start from zero. We start from 350yrs of
science and a billion years of evolution.
But we have failed until now on consciousness, and so must be open to
change our mind.
I suspect that you keep wanting using the notion of God of the
politicians, instead of using the original definition, but then
theology will remains irrational for that reason.
The abstract definition of the (unique) god is the creator of the
universe, or the reason of the universe, etc. but in a large sense
of creation.
A very large and very flexible sense, so that we can keep the word
"creation" (in order to keep the baggage implying a Creator).
In science we use terms in large sense until we get precision. People
who say I don't believe in God, means always I don't believe in this
or that god from this or that community.
I use god in the original sense of whatever is responsible for the
creation or its appearance. Then comp and the classical definition of
the greeks leads to a Plotinus conception of reality, explaining both
the qualia, the quanta.
It is the (apparently) transcendental "reason" of your conscience,
and perhaps some stable neighborhoods.
Einstein insisted that it was not a personal God, meaning a God-
person. But with comp, like with Plotinus, a non personal
fundamental truth can take personal aspects when filtered by
persons and their (infinities) of brain (bot in QM and arithmetic).
I think Dan Dennett would call that a deepity.
Why?
By the way, John Clark said that I love the term "God", but you will
not see it in any of my papers, or posts, except in this forum.
probably someone uses it, and I have continue. But I do defend the
term "theology", because when we don't use it, people believe we talk
on the physical universe. It prevent a form of reductionism also, by
people who believe that mechanism is a materialist theory, and stop
reading without understanding that materialism and mechanism are
epistemologically incompatible.
rather than "we have ruled out this definition of god, and it is
the only definition, therefore there is no god"
Yes, that's exactly the approach taken by theologians.
I am not sure of that. I mean no more than in biology and health,
when health is politicized. I have tuns on book on ancient
philosophy and religions.
I mean, as long as theology does not come back in academy, you have
to guess the meaning of the text hidden from the presentation of
the local coersive institution(s). That was the case for all
science + theologies before the Light period. Why is it that we
continue the argument of authority in that field?
Yes, that it a point on which we agree. Let theologians publish or
perish, in the Physical Review.
Why in the "physical review"? I can understand in case god is the
physical universe, but that is exactly what today is less sure. What
we need is a theological review, not based on revelation or
confessional dogma, but on research and verification. Today it is an
open problem if the ultimate reality is physical, mathematical,
arithmetical, etc.
First they take a word "God" and then they see if they can give it
some meaning that makes them feel good.
It might not be good. usually the idea that God is good is
advertizing for a church or a tradition.
It's part of that baggage you don't renounce.
I certainly hope that god, if it can have personal aspect, (like the
comp first person, or Plotinus "universal soul" is good), but it is an
open question.
We just don't know, and as scientist we must be able to say: we are
still searching.
Physics is a science.
But physicalism is only a science when he put the axiom on the
table: God = the physical universe.
I've never heard that said nor seen it written.
yet, it is close to Einstein God, although he begun to doubt on this
when discussing with Gödel, where God is closer to Xeusippes
"mathematical universe". In his youth, Einstein, like Gödel, tended to
believe in Leibniz notion of God.
I've seen, "God is love." Which is a better definition from which
to prove God exists.
Or don't exist. The idea that God is love is the one leading to
theodicy. How could a loving God let innocent children suffers for no
apparent reason. Many lost faith on this.
That is not physics, that is a theology, and rather unprecise
because the "universe" is not so easy to define in physics, per se.
It's not precise because physics depends on operational and
ostensive definitions - not semantic ones.
To do physics, yes. But to do metaphysics/theology, you need to be
more precise on such notion.
Is that God a person? Even this is not an easy question.
But it has an easy answer for Christians, Muslims, Jews and their
theologians.
Read them, and you will see that this has always been much discussed.
But christians and muslims have dark ages where they bannish or killed
the theologians.
Is that god coherent with mechanism? Not without adding magical non
Turing emulable actual properties of the "primary matter".
?? Persons are not "coherent" with mechanism? What's that mean?
The idea that the outer god, the one, is a person is not coherent with
mechanism. But the outer god is the one having a "universal soul"
points of view, and that one is coherent, and indeed implied, by
mechanism.
So what? With comp, whatever Reality is, we can't distinguish it in
the immediate first person ways from the arithmetical truth, but on
the long run it is another matter, and we can make a distinction.
I'm never sure how to take pronouncements that start "with comp..."
I don't know whether you mean what follows directly from "yes doctor"
The UDA theorem: that is the reversal between physics and machine's
psycho-bio-theo-whatever-logy. the quasi Drawinian explanation of the
origin of consciousness and of the physical laws. The fact that the
physical reality is a universal machine appearance coming from the
statistics of machines dreams (computation + a point of view).
or what you claim must be the case if the world is the computation
of a UD,
That is digital physics, and is inconsistent, with or without assuming
comp. Comp implies that physics (the observable) cannot be entirely
computable (like most of the (full) arithmetical reality is already
not computable).
Hmm, may be you meant "the world is an appearance emerging from the
computation of the whole UD? OK, then.
even if you haven't worked out the details.
Saying that there is no theology is like saying that we do have the
theory of everything.
Don't you have a theory of everything, i.e. CTM + UD?
CTM implies the UD (CTM + UD is redundant).
And CTM is a principles, which asks more question than it solves. But
yes, CTM implies that arithmetic is a theory of everything, but we
must test it, and verified that it gives the physics we observe before
saying that we get a theory of everything. It is only a proposal, and
my work shows how to verify it. Thanks to QM we can just say that it
is not yet refuted.
But we don't, and the "physical" one are still concentrating on the
measurable and communicable aspects on it.
In the fundamental, physics and computer science are ally, and can
be competitors for the primary character.
Is God a person? In some tradition,if someone come up with the idea
that he is God, the other burned him alive or sent him in an
asylum. In other tradition, if someone come up with the idea that
he is God, the other says "at last! It was about time" ...
"In some tradition"!? In some tradition blacks are subhuman, the
Earth is flat, disease is caused by sin, heretics are burned,
apostates are beheaded,... You can find almost any idiocy in some
tradition.
Sure. That is why we have to think, instead of taking literally the
tradition. But I was pointing on the idea that some tardition and thus
of use of the term god, allow people to awake the god within. Put
differently, some religion hides their mystic (even if recuperating
them after trhey die). Other tradition encourages the personal
religious experiences. Mystics usually get a better view of the person/
non-person subtlety of god, well analysed among the neoplatonists.
But notice that they capitalize it already, implying it is a
person. "Honest theistic reasoning" is like "faith based evidence".
You have to study neoplatonism, to have a monotheist religion as an
attempt to get a theory of everything, independent of "revelation",
which are authoritative at the start.
Brent
The political discourse matters, and explains a good deal. But
there's something beneath it, something we don't want to look in
the face: namely, that in India, as elsewhere in our darkening
world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion
intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating
around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable
language of "respect". What is there to respect in any of this,
or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around
the world in religion's dreaded name? How well, with what fatal
results, religion erects totems, and how willing we are to kill
for them! And when we've done it often enough, the deadening of
affect that results makes it easier to do it again. So India's
problem turns out to be the world's problem. What happened in
India has happened in God's name. The problem's name is God.
--- Salman Rushdie 2002
No. the problem is not God. The problem is when God is abandonned
to politics which will use it to exploit supersitition,credulity
and fears.
The problem is not God, it is our lack of seriousness around that
notion.
The christian stolen the legend to the jews, and the theory to the
greeks, among two.
If computationalism is correct, it might be that they choose the
wrong one.
But that is not the bigger problem for religion. The problem are
the possible literalism, the dogma, the use of violence, the lack
of listening the community of believer, the lack of democracy in
some community, and the lack of seriousness due to the discarding
of the role of the academical research on the subject (at least
explicit research).
In other words, no true religion would do those bad things and no
true theologian would accept revelation as evidence.
Like no true genetician would sent geneticians to the goulag, yes. We
know some "marxist geneticians" did this, and indeed they used the
book "Capital" by Marx in a manner similar to the violent religionists.
And no honest theologian scientist would ever base a proposition from
an account of experiences, still less a "revelation". They might take
into account many experiences though, but they will build a theory,
and never hide the fact that a theory is an hypothesis (independently
of their personal beliefs, which will never been expressed in their
argument. Only after retirement, or in footnotes or philosophical
reflexion, not in the science part.
Bruno
Brent
Only bad faith fears reason, experiments and experiences.
Bruno
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