On 01 Jan 2015, at 17:31, John Clark wrote:
On Thu, Jan 1, 2015 Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
> It cannot happen, because if it happens you will say that it is no
more "parapsy".
I most certainly will not say that! I'm not talking about finding
evidence to explain how the paranormal works I'm talking about
something more basic, finding evidence that there is something that
needs explaining. So in that spirit let me offer you a little bet,
if Science or Nature or Physical Review Letters reports evidence
that telepathy or telekinesis or clairvoyance or remote-viewing
exists before January 1 2016, and I don't care if they have a
explanation for why this strange physical phenomenon exists or not,
I will give you $1000, if they don't print anything like that you
only have to give me $100. Come on it's easy money, OK maybe
scientists aren't as smart as Joe Blow the bartender who does
parapsychology research in his spare time but their bound to catch
on eventually that it's real and I'm giving you 10 to 1 odds, so put
your money where your mouth is. So do we have a bet?
Define telepathy, telekinesis, and remote viewing. Some insist that
telepathy is instantaneous: in which case I agree with you, the
probability that we find non-local action is very low.
Telekinesis exists trivially. I use it each morning, just to put my
clothe on and make coffee. We still don't have an explanation, given
the UDA reasoning, we can't use the identity thesis.
So we don't have a bet, because you might formulate your bet in a way
making it like para-psy is equivalent with finding a square with three
sides.
> A bit like when you say that intelligence is when it is done by
human, and is no more when done by machine (which makes the
prediction of intelligent machine virtually senseless.
I don't say that, the anti-AI/human-apologists do.
That is what I meant. I alluded to what you quoted to be more precise.
> Well perhaps you did not do that prediction for enough time).
Exactly 2 years ago somebody on this list said almost exactly the
same thing, this is what I said back then:
"Nothing gets their [physicists] blood moving like a experimental
result they can't explain. If psi was real physicists would love it,
if psi was real it would have been proven to everybody's
satisfaction in the 17th century, if psi was real high school kids
would be repeating the 300 year old experiments in their science
fair projects, if psi was real I personally would love it too, in
fact it's hard to imagine anyone not loving something as cool as
psi. But unfortunately psi is not real. [...] you don't need a 10
billion dollar particle accelerator to investigate this stuff, if
these simple easy experiments were valid then today the paranormal
would not be controversial because its existence would have been
proven to everyone's satisfaction way back in the time of Newton if
not earlier."
Well, then we are OK, and I don't take the bet.
BTW, why sending this to the list. I have never heard people defending
para-psy.
And you don't comment about lucid dreaming made scientific by parapsy,
but accepted when redone by psy, which illustrated that most
scienstist practice argument of authority, given that they believe or
not a paper just by the title of a journal (which I can understand as
there are many paper to review, and we must make choice: but that is
not serious).
> Hmm... I predict that you will not move to the step 4 of the UDA(*)
(*) UDA = Universal Dovetailer Argument, in case you forgot.
Thank you I had forgotten, I was about to ask if the Universal Dance
Association said that step 4 was a pirouette or a sissonne.
That is not an argument, and the same joke repeated a lot is not more
much funny, to be honest. Look like 2015 is already similar to 2014.
> I am not astonished. Only the pseudo-religious people can't doubt
their own conviction
Wow, calling a guy known for disliking religion religious, never
heard that one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12.
I have already answered this too.
> I think you are bigot atheists
And happy new year to you too.
Well, I discuss this on facebook in different groups. I got
confirmation that strong-atheists always use insult, joke, mockery
instead of arguing. Not just on me, but on any people just presenting
the difficulties of making atheism scientific and not bigot (pseudo-
religious).
Many atheists understood that they were not bigot atheists, but just
agnostic. As atheism is sometimes defined as agnostic I add that there
is no problem with that larger definition (but it is just a trick to
make them in their camp, I think).
It took time but eventually mathematician have accepted 0 as a number,
and it simplifies to accept the general definition asserting that God
is the thing at the origin of consciousness and matter or appearance
of matter. That definition has the advantage of being acceptable by
religious people, of quite different traditions, together with the non
religious too.
Then the interesting question is what is the nature of God: a thing, a
person, a mathematical reality, etc.
Many atheists believe in a primary universe. In that case they believe
God = Primary Universe, and conceive it usually as a thing. this *is*
theology. It claims something on the personal God: there are 0
personal god, and they say something about God: it is non-personal,
and it is a physical thing.
This way of talking is usual in science, and all what you say is
that ... theology must be confined in the irrational, and confirms
that atheists are ally to the institutionalized religion.
Strong atheism is "religious" beliefs:
1) the belief that there is no personal God
2) the belief in metaphysical naturalism: the universe is a god
(personal or not, but usually not personal). that was Einstein's
position, although he might change his mind near the end of his life,
thanks to Gödel. But Gödel was closer to me in defending the (trivial)
fact that we can do theology with the scientific attitude. he provided
a proof of the existence of God to illustrate that fact.
I guess you know it: what is your opinion of Gödel's proof of the
existence of God. Note that little error have been found, and
corrected (by Scott, I think). Of course this does not proof the
existence of God, because he used the modal logic S5 in a context
where mechanism would imposed S4Grz1. Can we do the proof in S4Grz1?
Open problem (at least to me).
You really seem to act that a bishop of religious atheism, although
your position on the ontological status of the physical universe
remains unclear. Do you believe in a PRIMARY physical universe? Or are
you agnostic on this?
Bruno
John K Clark
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