On 09 Feb 2016, at 03:25, John Clark wrote:
On Mon, Feb 8, 2016 Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
> In science we redefined the terms when we use them. God is
whatever you need to have a Reality.
Then you'd need to invent a new word for the old meaning of
"God" and then give the entire English speaking world a
vocabulary lesson. That seems like a lot of pointless work to me
because the only reason you want to do it is you're more
interested in the word "G-O-D" than you are in the idea behind the
word.
Not at all. See my papers, I don't use the word God very often. I
explain the theology of the Neoplatonist, and I use the word "One".
I use god in place where we compare theologies (I remind you of the
Post of Jason Resch), or where I explain that non-agnostic atheism is
a theological position.
The god of Plato is Truth. I can give a reference which explains this
well. This make sense in the discourse of the machine, because the
arithmetical truth, as seen/conceived by the machine appears to have
most attribute ascribed to "God", or to the Neoplatonist one:
- it is responsible for our existence and the appearance of the
physical reality
- it is not definable by the machine or relative number,
- it is quasi omniscient
- it is transcendent and escape all formal theories or third person
description
God, the good Lord, etc are just nicknames to pint toward It.
Then question like does the One have Will, is it a person, are open
problem.
Meanwhile it is just a question of taste if you think of it as a sort
of person knowing all the 3p arithmetical truth, or if you prefer to
look at it like a thing or a principle, like the Tao.
I use theology, because all other words I have used necessitate more
explanation, especially for the "star logics" as I have explained many
time. The theology if the science of the machine + the propositions
which are true about the machine, but which are not provable, but
still discoverable, by the machine.
"Theology" makes sense also because we have a notion of soul, because
we have the tools to study notions of afterlife, mortality/
immortality, etc.
> Christian, muslims, atheists, everyone can agree with that
definition,
Christians and Muslims would most certainly NOT agree,
That is simply false. They accept the definition because they do
believe God is responsible for the existence of reality, by
definition. Then they extend the definition in some way, but this mean
that they do agree with the definition given, even if they disagree
with some conclusion of computationalism, or with computationalism.
But then we can see the difference of theology. In fact, the
disagreement comes from the coming back to Aristotle which appear a
long time after christianism was born. Same with Jewish and Christian,
who departed from Plato at some times too. Only strong non agnostic
militant atheists have a problem with this definition, like if they
need a fairy tale notion, like the literalist fundamentalist, probably
because it is much simple to argue with mockery and insult. Usually,
they have no idea of the history of occidental and oriental theology.
they mean a conscious intelligent omniscient omnipotent being,
I have not find one christian at a catholic university nearby who
believe that god is omniscient and omnipotent. In fact St-Thomas
already explained well why omniscience + omnipotence is self-
contradictory, and most educated christians believe that god can't
change logic and mathematical truth.
and one that loves to get involved in the minutia of human affairs
too. Whatever is needed to have reality may be none of
those things.
Indeed, but that is their speciation of the definition. That just mean
that the theology of the machine might not been much christian, and
perhaps more buddhist but even this is not clear as my paper in a
journal of theology seems well appreciated by some of them. In fact
all christian mystics are used to have problem with the christian
dogma, and indeed most of the time they are banished if not burn
alive.But why would the strong atheists defend the dogma against the
christian researchers?
The choice of the word "theology" seem to annoy only the
fundamentalists, and especially the non-agnostic atheists, which use
all their energy to defend the dogma. They behave more like catholic
fundamentalist, which in some sense they are, as only them forbid to
the ideas to evolve. All ideas at first, and after the enlightenment
period, only in theology, but there is no reason to no complete the
Enlightenment, and accept the doubting method and modesty in all
science including theology.
Another reason to use the term "theology" is that before I use that
term (I have used "biology" and "psychology" before), some people just
said "that is theology" to condemn the work like if that was enough,
and well, that was right, with the general greek definition, but was
hardly a critic. using "theology" cut that non-argument directly.
Then, the agnostic atheists nearby encourage me to use that term, if
only for that very reason, mentioning that if they attack it for that
reason, they would publicly violate the free-exam principle (which
they promote). Well, they did just that, but not in public, as I have
never been able to met them, and since then, everyone suspect they
belong to a sect of fundamentalists, with christian-like rites, etc.
Yet another reason is that saying "yes" to the doctor implies already
a sort of belief in technological reincarnation/reimplementation, and
this demands a sort of act of faith: we cannot prove that we survive a
teleportation. Mechanism not only demands for an act of faith, it
justifies completely why it is necessary an act of faith, leading to
the ethics that all human have the right to say"no" to the doctor.
It confirms also that free-exam is a Protagorean Virtue. You can teach
it by example, by applying it yourself, but get killed once taught
with words.
Anyway, only sunday philosophers have problem with choice of words,
and only bigot atheists have problem with the words "god", "theology"
etc. But those same bigot atheists around me did have problem with
many words, like "mind", "quantum", "consciousness", "soul" etc. They
are materialist and they are willing to eliminate the notion of person
and soul, which explain well why they dislike the idea that machine,
and the study of machines, can make sense of all those words.
Bruno
John K Clark
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