On 18 Jan 2015, at 00:56, meekerdb wrote:
On 1/17/2015 3:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:29 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 1/17/2015 2:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote:
Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least
having an idea of, what God is.
I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God without
knowing, or at least having an idea of what reality is, for unless
one claims to know the extent of reality, how can one suppose to
know what it does or doesn't contain?
You can easily know that things with self contradictory properties
are not in reality.
I agree with that.
If something has properties that are inconsistent with observation
that is fairly strong evidence it doesn't exist.
"Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can, but
does not want to; or he cannot, and does not want to. If he
wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not
want to, he is wicked. If he neither can, nor wants to, he is
both powerless and wicked. But if God can abolish evil, and wants
to, then how comes evil in the world?'"
--- Epicurus
That's a nice example of an application of rational thought towards
the advancement of theology. You've proven that an omnipotent God
with the power and desire to prevent any bad thing from happening
does not exist.
What else might we have been able to prove or disprove if theology
had remained open to free inquiry over the past several millennia?
And then there are things that are consistent with both logic and
observation, but are very unlikely on our best theories of how the
world works, e.g. teapots orbiting Jupiter. Are you "agnostic"
about the teapot orbiting Jupiter?
To disbelieve in a particular thing orbiting Jupiter requires a
working theory of our solar system.
To disbelieve in a particular thing existing at all (neither in
this universe, nor in any other place in reality) requires a
working theory of reality. What is yours?
Does "agnostic" just mean "I don't know for certain" or does it
mean "I'm equally disposed to believe or disbelieve." or "I think
it's impossible to decide the question."
That's a good question. I think a definitive answer can be drawn
from one's working theory of reality, but I don't know if an answer
to that question is decidable or not, though perhaps it's possible
to accumulate evidence towards one. So far I think man has made
little progress in this endeavor, but Bruno and Tegmark seem to be
farther ahead than most towards developing one. Working under those
theories, I might say I am more of a "rational theist" in the sense
that I can identify at least three things one might call god within
those ontologies. However, as to which theory of reality is
correct, I might call myself agnostic (even though I might be in
the high 90's percentage wise leaning towards it, I could never be
certain).
Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea
highly unlikely
Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception you are
assuming here?),
When I write "God" with caps, I mean a god who is a superpowerful
person and who wants to be worshipped; not some abstract organizing
principle or the set of true propositions.
Subtract "and who wants to be worshiped" then re-answer that
question. Why should we suppose that super-powerful minds are not
likely to exist in reality?
There's a difference between "super-powerful minds" and "a
superpowerful person". By superpowerful person I meant one who
could transcend physical laws, i.e. perform miracles. By the very
definition of miracles these are not reliably observed and so the
empirical evidence makes their existence very unlikely. A
superpowerful mind might just be a human mind implemented in an
electronic medium so that it was millions of times faster - but was
still a Turing machine. It couldn't do miracles.
also, to what degree do you hold the main idea the everything list
is meant to discuss, to be true (or likely)?
I'm evenly divided on that question.
So then would you not also be evenly divided on the existence of
"superpoweful people who want to be worshipped"
No, see above on "superpowerful people".
(assuming the two are not mutually exclusive properties and hence
not logically impossible) then if every possible universe exists,
some are sure to contain "superpoweful people who want to be
worshipped".
and don't find that it contributes anything to discussions such as
"why is there something rather than nothing?"
But "god" is the supposed answer to that very question.
"God" is also supposed to answer the question, "How should humans
behave?"
Yes, and the conception of God as the one mind to which we are all
a part does provide a foundation for an ethical framework (not
unlike the golden rule or karma).
Yes, and the conception of God as a tyrannical patriarch dictating
behavior also provides a framework for ethics - one that has been
widely employed. Does that prove that both concepts of God are
realized?
and "Who will save me from death or disaster?"
The conception of God-like entities with the power to
computationally simulate worlds and galaxies can "save you" by
providing you a computational afterlife.
And providing they exist and that "I" can experience it.
This is not correct. Once you accept the notion of "computation", it
is a theorem that the sigma_1 truth is realized, and you can avoid the
"after-life/other-lives" only by inventing a notion of primary matter,
or other "miraculous beings", and attaching your mind to it/them in a
non Turing emulable way (which comes to negating computationalism).
People can dislike computationalism, but mortality is not an option.
It is unclear how much "miracle" we have to put explicitly in a
universe and in the mind to avoid it.
The question is not is there an answer or isn't there (of course
there is since we are here),
That doesn't follow. Conceivably there is no "reason".
Only in an fundamentally non-deterministic universe, which I
personally have great difficulty conceiving.
I don't. The current, best theory of this universe is non-
deterministic.
I guess jason will answer this, but if QM is correct, the physics is
deterministic. It is only first-person plural indeterministic, but in
the 3p reality, everything is deterministic. Everett already shows
this, except that it still put some magic in the universal waves, like
Tegmark, which contradicts his computationalist assumption (but we
have progressed on this).
In the major religions the "reason" is that a supernatural
immortal person willed or caused it. "Reason" referred to what
humans mean when they ask one another for a reason. Physical
causes are not reasons in that sense (although Aristotle thought
they were).
the question is what is the nature, and what are the properties,
of that thing,
Now you assume it's a thing or object. Are the equations of
quantum field theory a thing?
Yes, but are they the ultimate explanation for their own existence
or not?
I don't think existence needs an explanation.
That is like the creationists who believe that God's existence does
not need explanation.
What part do those equations play in the relation to everything
else that may exist?
They are constraining descriptions we invented.
that object, that answer to the question of why reality exists.
That's easy. If it didn't exist it wouldn't be reality, would it?
That might be true, but it's not an answer to the question of why
this reality exists.
Why not? Because it's not elaborate enough?
Because it put the problem of origin under the rug. You might as well
say that you are interested in physics, and not in theology (in the
sense: theory of everything including consciousness, go and gods, etc.).
There is no problem with being not interested in a subject (theology),
but it is another thing to choose a theology, and pretend not to be
interested in theology, like when people says that 1) a physical
universe exists and 2) that it explains in principle everything. We
*know* it does not work, when we assume computationalism.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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