> On 16 Oct 2018, at 03:50, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On 10/15/2018 6:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >>> On 11 Oct 2018, at 19:26, John Clark <[email protected] >>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 12:15 PM Bruno Marchal <[email protected] >>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >>> >>> >>You can't do metaphysics with a scientific attitude, if you could it >>> >>wouldn't be metaphysics, it would just be physics. Metaphysics means >>> >>unscientific speculation about physics. >>> >>> >That is why I prefer the term theology. >>> >>> That's pretty silly, metaphysics is a vastly better word to use in >>> philosophical speculation. Both metaphysics and theology are unscientific >>> but theology necessarily implies God while metaphysics doesn't. >> >> >> That is an opinion of radical pseudo-religious people. There is no >> scientific domain. There is only a scientific attitude, and this can be >> applied in any domain. >> >> The separation of religion from science is an invention by people wanting to >> use religion to control people, and steal their money. > > That's silly. Religion existed long before science was developed. Religion > was invented, and believed, by people who wanted to understand and control > their fate in the world. They understood other people who had desires and > motives and got angry and loved and hated, so they inferred that the weather > and seas and the volcano were agents like people only bigger and more > powerful. So they sought to propitiate these gods and demons by offering > them what was precious; including the lives of their children. Shamans, > priests, and kings took advantage of this by pretending to be intermediaries > to the gods and experts in their propitiation. They invented prayers and > rituals and sacrifices. > > The "separation" of science from religion was the invention of science
Not at all. Science is born with Plato, who understood that for having a fundamental science, we must believe in a reality, and that this need an act of faith. That reality is GOD, the object of religion. Of course, the popular religion did have all sort of Gods, from turtles all the way down, to very personalised sort of reality. Now, when religion is done with the scientific attitude, which is what Plato did, it is named theology, and for one millenium it was a science. The Reality was mainly either Nature, or something else which would be deeper and non natural (“supernatural”). Plato called it the “world of ideas” (the Noùs). Plato’s world of idea was inspired by Pythagorus who taught it as being “only number”. That theology has progressed and gave birth to Mathematics, which was seen as the alternative of physics. The (Neo)pythagorean and the (Neo)platonist will pursue that line where the doubt was about the fundamental nature of reality was immaterial/mathematical. You might read Plotinus' ennead “On number”, to see how Plotinus foresaw Cantor, and the machine’s discourse. The term “mathematician” was used at that time to mean “rationalist sceptics about the fundamental nature of the physical reality”/ The original doubt was between mathematics and physics as fundamental science. Aristotle will side with Plato on this, but his interest in Nature will make him to influence people to opt the idea that physics might be directly about reality. For example, in the year 400 Hypatia was teaching both the Mathematics of Diophantus, and the theology of Plotinus. That was very common. But, the christians will separated into intellectual, disputing if Plato or Aristotle were right, and integrist or radicals which will use religion to get power, and the history is that, despite Constantin (Roman emperor converted to Christianity) was rather close to the platonist intellectual, eventually the radicals will get the power. After 529, when the emperor Justinian did close Plato’s Academy, the Church will, by its action separate theology (the fundamental science of the greek per definition) from science.The result is that science will be associated more and more with Aristotle: that is: the belief in physical primary universe. Science itself became a psedo-religion, with a sort of dogma: Matter, and this up to the point that today, most people have completely forget that the original debate was never on the existence of the ONE (god) but on the existence of a primary (“physicalist”) Nature. By separating religion-theology from science, religion will keep the popular superstition, and buried a millenium of science. Theology/religion will become more and more an instrument of politics (of the non democratic kind, of course). The first attempt to separate religion from the state and politics, cale from religious people wanting to save religion/theology from politics (not for saving politics from religion!: that will come later). Superstition was just popular, in all sciences before the greeks. A religion is only a conception of reality, and Plato understood that the belief in a reality cannot be rational (exactly what the universal machine explain all by themselves, by <>t -> ~[]<>t (<>t = consistency = a reality exist, by Gödel’s COMPLETENESS theorem). The first superstition were on the ONE thing responsible for all the others, and it became, with Plato, the thing which we need to unify all sciences. Theology gave quickly birth to mathematics and physics, seen as alternative. In the 19th century, mathematical logic will born from a dispute between unionists (mostly mathematicians) and trinitarians (mostly clergyman, but still intellectual knowing well Plato, to attack his immaterial and non personal conception of the fundamental reality). Todays science is superstitious or dogmatic (or both) in making physics into the fundamental science, despite there has never been a shadow of evidence for primary matter. Indeed, we don’t even try to seek such evidences, contrary to the ancient who tried at least to find one. After 529, all those doubting the materialist dogma were banished or killed. Neoplatonism (scientific theology will still continue up to 1258, where, unfortunately Islam will decide to submit Reason to the Text (the Quran, then) against Averroes, who defended the idea that the TEXT must be submitted (interpreted) to Reason (which will influence the Renaissance). > as a way of knowing what was fact and what was superstition. Read Plato. They discuss this in deep. Notably to explain that a fact, as lived as fact, can be dreamed, and thus cannot be a criteria for any ontology except a dreamer, but then what is that dreamer. Today at least we have a very good candidate (arithmetic). Church thesis rehabilitates completely Pythagorus idea that only numbers exists, and the physical universe is a superstition, unlike the physical reality, which was the thing to be explained. > Science was testing beliefs and holding them only provisionally. Exactly, and that attitude was the base of Plato’s theology, and even Aristotle theology. To be sure, in his “metaphysics” Aristotle mocks Plato, and clearly did not understood it, but eventually grasped the point to conclude in a very platonist way. So I insist on this: the institutionalisation of superstition has been the result of the separation of science and theology. Before this Plato already put the supersitituio away in the most fundamental science theology. Read all neoplatonist, you will not see anything supersititious in there. Bruno > > Brent > > >> >> >> >> >>> >>> > Of course I always mean “fundamental science”. >>> >>> Theology isn't science, fundamental or otherwise. >> >> >> As I said, I use the term theology in the original sense of those who coined >> that term, and explain it. The god of Plato is the truth that we search. >> >> Theology is the fundamental science for anyone ready to assume that there is >> a reality. >> Since Gödel, we know that for rational machine, if there is a reality >> satisfying their belief, then the proposition “there is a reality satisfying >> my belief” makes them inconsistent. >> >> For such machine “I am consistent” and “there isa reality satisfying my >> beliefs” are synonymous. What I just alluded too is Gödel incompleteness >> theorem: <>t, that is ~[]f is true IFF there is a model satisfying t (and, >> as all models satisfy t, this is equivalent with saying that such a model >> exist). >> >> >> >> >>> >>> > The original question of the greeks [......... >>> >>> Sorry, I didn't hear what you said after that, I fell asleep. >> >> >> I guess you do that very often. There is no people more deaf than those who >> does not want to listen. >> >> But thanks for the collection of evidence that the non-agnostic atheists are >> just radical christians in disguise. >> >> Bruno >> >> >> >>> >>> John K Clark >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "Everything List" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to [email protected] >>> <mailto:[email protected]>. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected] >>> <mailto:[email protected]>. >>> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list >>> <https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list>. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout >>> <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>. >> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list >> <https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout >> <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list > <https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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