Leibniz, quanta and fuzzy logic
Leibniz, quanta, and fuzzy logic Leibniz believed that there are two types of truth: truths of necessary reason, which are always either true or false, and facts, or truths of contingent logic, which are only sometimes true. The world of QM introduces a new form of being, and hence logic, quanta, which are only actual in a probabilitic sense. These might be consigned to a subcategory of contingency termed fuzzy being. Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
John, On 08 Jul 2013, at 23:03, John Mikes wrote: After some million years of 'mental' development this animal arrived at the 'mental' fear. Usurpers exploited it by creating superpowers to target it with assigned intent to help, or destroy. The details were subject to the 'founders' benefit of enslaving the rest of the people into their rule. Such unquestionable tyranny lasted over the past millennia and it takes a long, hard, dangerous work to get out of it. The USA Constitution (18th c.) stepped ahead in SOME little political and economical ways, yet only a tiny little in liberating the people from the religious slavery: a so called 'separation' of state and church (not clearly identified to this day). The problem is that once we separate religion from state, people still continue to be religious (authoritative) on something else. But it was a progress. Now we know that we have to separate also health from the state. Th French revolution similarly targetted the religion, yet today - after numerous vocal enlightened minds - the country is still divided between Christian and Islamic fundamentalist trends. Yes (even more clearly when including atheists in the christians). In my view an 'atheist requires a god to disbelieve (deny?). Indeed. Many atheists seems to take more seriously the Christian Gods than most christians theologians, who can seriously debate on the Aristotle/Plato difference. Matter is figmentous and the 'origins' are beyond our reach. It is certainly beyond any form of certainty, but simple theories (conjecture, ides, hypotheses) might exist. In particular the idea that we are machine can explain the origin of mind and matter appearances, in a testable way, except for the origin of the natural numbers which have to remain a complete mystery beyond reach of all machines. Physical is a level of human development and there is infinite unknown - unknowable - we don't even guess. OK. Just musing Thanks for that, Bruno John M On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 4:03 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 08 Jul 2013, at 19:53, meekerdb wrote: On 7/8/2013 1:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 08 Jul 2013, at 02:45, meekerdb wrote: On 7/7/2013 6:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 07 Jul 2013, at 07:28, meekerdb wrote: http://www.salon.com/2013/07/06/god_is_not_great_christopher_hitchens_is_not_a_liar/ I love Christopher Hitchens. I agree with many points. He is more an anticlerical than an atheist to me ... Everybody called him an atheist. He called himself an atheist. I think you just don't like the term. atheism is different in America and in Europa, although I have realized now that some atheists in America might be similar, but not Hitchens. Many people confuse agnosticism and atheism. Some atheists maintains the confusion to hide that they are believers (in matter and in the non existence of God). I don't know any atheists who are shy about their belief that matter exists and God doesn't. That is the problem. Many people, and dictionaries, confuse agnosticism=that whether or not God exists is unknown That's the usual mundane sense of the word. with agnosticism=that whether or not God exists is impossible to know. That's a technical view by some philosophers. I agree with Sam Harris that atheist is not a very useful appellation because it only describes someone in contrast to theist. It just means they fail to believe in a God who is a person and whose approval one should seek. Pebbles and chimpanzees fails too, but are not atheists in any reasonable sense. Most vindicative atheists really believe that god does not exist, and then they believe in a primitively material universe, even a Boolean one (without being aware of this in particular). Also, many religions and theologies have other notion of Gods. As Harris points out we don't invent words like awarmist to describe one who fails to believe there is global warming or anummerist to describe someone who's not sure about the existence of numbers. Yes. I heard a catholic bishop, taking about a book written by a Belgian atheist, saying that the atheists are our allies, they keep advertising for us and (our) God Then, at least around here, Matter is such a dogma that you can get problem when you dare to doubt it, apparently --- because they don't practice dialog, and ignore the embarrassing questions. They don't practice science in the matter. For them you are just mad if you doubt ... basically the same theology of matter than the christians. Greek theology is allowed to be studied by historians, not by mathematicians. The atheists I know fight more the agnostic (in the mundane sense) than the radicals of any religion. Political correctness makes easy to defend 2+2=5, and impossible to defend 2+2=4. We are all believers, and when a machine pretend to be a non
Re: Hitch
On 08 Jul 2013, at 23:18, meekerdb wrote: On 7/8/2013 12:26 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 12:53 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/8/2013 1:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 08 Jul 2013, at 02:45, meekerdb wrote: On 7/7/2013 6:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 07 Jul 2013, at 07:28, meekerdb wrote: http://www.salon.com/2013/07/06/god_is_not_great_christopher_hitchens_is_not_a_liar/ I love Christopher Hitchens. I agree with many points. He is more an anticlerical than an atheist to me ... Everybody called him an atheist. He called himself an atheist. I think you just don't like the term. atheism is different in America and in Europa, although I have realized now that some atheists in America might be similar, but not Hitchens. Many people confuse agnosticism and atheism. Some atheists maintains the confusion to hide that they are believers (in matter and in the non existence of God). I don't know any atheists who are shy about their belief that matter exists and God doesn't. Many people, and dictionaries, confuse agnosticism=that whether or not God exists is unknown with agnosticism=that whether or not God exists is impossible to know. I agree with Sam Harris that atheist is not a very useful appellation because it only describes someone in contrast to theist. It just means they fail to believe in a God who is a person and whose approval one should seek. As Harris points out we don't invent words like awarmist to describe one who fails to believe there is global warming or anummerist to describe someone who's not sure about the existence of numbers. There is the term Bright, which perhaps better describes someone who seeks to include only naturalistic explanations in their world- view: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brights_movement But what would happen if naturalistic explanations lend credence to the existence of God or gods? Then people would have a greater degree of belief in gods; but they wouldn't have faith, i.e. unquestioning belief, in them. In fact that's the way it was at one time. The belief in storm gods, volcano gods, deer spirits, rain gods, plague's as punishment for impiety,...were all 'naturalistic' explanations at the time. It was just assumed that important, unpredictable events must be the work of a powerful being. It wasn't forbidden to doubt these models andtheir effectiveness as predictors was not supposed to depend on how pious or faithful you were. There was no distinction between natural and supernatural. Those were later developments as religion was split from science and subsumed into an instrument of social control. Exactly. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
On 08 Jul 2013, at 23:22, meekerdb wrote: On 7/8/2013 1:03 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: We are all believers, and when a machine pretend to be a non believer, it means I know, and she will impose her religion to you, by all means. ?? So when you say comp is just an hypothesis, to be tested like any other scientific theory, you're really saying you believe it and you will impose that belief on others?? ?? No I say the contrary. If the machine admit she is a believer, in comp, say, she does NOT say I know, and she will NOT impose that belief to you. I was saying that only those pretending to know will impose beliefs on others. Those who agree it is a mere belief are really saying that they are open to refutation and alternate theories. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Which one result in maths has surprised you the most?
On 08 Jul 2013, at 23:22, Johnathan Corgan wrote: On 07/08/2013 02:16 PM, Jason Resch wrote: This one is very interesting, but the fact that Pi was a poor choice for the constant makes the equation considerably more ugly than it should be. There is a growing movement to usurp the number Pi with the much more important constant 2*Pi (see: http://www.math.utah.edu/~palais/pi.html ). If we call that new number tau (t). Then Euler's identity becomes: e^(t * i) = 1 I think part of the appeal of the original formulation is realizing that the result of an exponentiation of a positive number can be a negative number. While this is unremarkable with complex exponents, many people are only used to seeing real (or even just integer) exponents. I like and often give the following exercise: compute i^i. Is it real or imaginary? Since sometimes my most amazing result in math is the Turing universality of the diophantine polynomials. My favorite simple result is the irrationality of sqr(2). A good exercise, using the fundamental theorem of arithmetic (existence and uniqueness of decomposition of numbers in prime factors) generalizes this for sqr(n) for any n not being a square. A result often attributed to Theaetetus. Of course the existence of universal numbers is also an amazing, stunning results, especially if you know how weak are the pretense of universality for mathematical notions. This needs Church thesis, which I consider as the most amazing thesis in cognitive science. Bruno Johnathan -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: computationalism as a form of magic
On 09 Jul 2013, at 00:44, Jason Resch wrote: From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz Computation[edit] Leibniz may have been the first computer scientist and information theorist.[65] Early in life, he documented the binary numeral system (base 2), then revisited that system throughout his career.[66] He anticipated Lagrangian interpolation and algorithmic information theory. His calculus ratiocinator anticipated aspects of the universal Turing machine. In 1934, Norbert Wienerclaimed to have found in Leibniz's writings a mention of the concept of feedback, central to Wiener's later cybernetic theory. In 1671, Leibniz began to invent a machine that could execute all four arithmetical operations, gradually improving it over a number of years. This Stepped Reckoner attracted fair attention and was the basis of his election to the Royal Society in 1673. A number of such machines were made during his years in Hanover, by a craftsman working under Leibniz's supervision. It was not an unambiguous success because it did not fully mechanize the operation of carrying. Couturat reported finding an unpublished note by Leibniz, dated 1674, describing a machine capable of performing some algebraic operations.[67] Leibniz also devised a (now reproduced) cipher machine, recovered by Nicholas Rescher in 2010.[68] Leibniz was groping towards hardware and software concepts worked out much later by Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace. In 1679, while mulling over his binary arithmetic, Leibniz imagined a machine in which binary numbers were represented by marbles, governed by a rudimentary sort of punched cards.[69] Modern electronic digital computers replace Leibniz's marbles moving by gravity with shift registers, voltage gradients, and pulses of electrons, but otherwise they run roughly as Leibniz envisioned in 1679. Leibniz seems to have been very close indeed. Thanks to a work by Jacques Lafitte(*), I tend to consider that Babbage made the full discovery of the universal computer. Full means that he discovered Church thesis. He discovered it when realizing that the functional language that he invented to just describe his machine was as much conceptually powerful than his machine. To understand/discover Church thesis you have to discover two (rather different) universal machines :) Bruno (*) Lafitte, J. Réflexion sur la science des machines, Vrin, 1931. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Leibniz's quantization of spacetime.
Leibniz's quantization of spacetime. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-physics/ Leibniz, the Idealist 17th century german philosopher, saw the world in suprisingly modern, even premoderm. In the field of electericity, the name of Tesla comes to mind. Leibniz's conceptualHis quantization of spacetime is only now being implemented by quantum cosmlogists such as Smolin.. a) Spacetime, since it is infinitely divisible, does not qualify as a substance, since one can always furether divide space (what one considers to be a substance) in two. b) Thus space is only dimensional and intuitive but not physical. It is thus not absolute, as Newton saw it, but only a relative measure of distance between bodies, this distance not being physical but only mathematical. It is an empty receptacle, sotospeak, filled entirely with monads (complete, real, mental concepts of physical objects). (c) Although Einstein in fact discovered the quantized notion of photons, he did not apply this quantized thinking to his theory of relativity, in which the speed of time was taken as relative to the speed of light, an asolute value. (d) Time similarly was taken by Leibniz to be quantized, for God constantly views and adjusts the universe only in discrete steps, at a very rapid sampling rate to accord with the hanging indirectly perceived perceptions? of each monad. To use a homely example, it is s if the succession of the universe were written on a deck of cards. Then as in movies of the early twentieth century, the illusion of continuous motion is perceived by fanning the deck with one's thumb. (e) Leibniz believed, as did Einstein much later, that space was a raceway of possible paths, these paths curved according to the mass of the object. f) That being so, we can consider a particle with mass and its possible paths of travel, as a particle-spacetime quantum, even through the particle might be the earth. g) Due to the holographic nature of Leibniz's monadic particles, the universe is completely entangled and one cannot change a part without changing the entire universe. Thus, for example, every action creates a reaction. The spacetime field of every particle being possible rather than actual paths, the particle and its spacetime field is a quantum. Thus the universe consists of a possible universe, which is a quantum probability field. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Leibniz's quantization of spacetime.
Smolin's quantization of spacetime has been falsified buy Fermi telescope observation of gamma rays of variable energies. Presumably that includes Leibniz. On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 7:12 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Leibniz's quantization of spacetime. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-physics/ Leibniz, the Idealist 17th century german philosopher, saw the world in suprisingly modern, even premoderm. In the field of electericity, the name of Tesla comes to mind. Leibniz's conceptualHis quantization of spacetime is only now being implemented by quantum cosmlogists such as Smolin.. a) Spacetime, since it is infinitely divisible, does not qualify as a substance, since one can always furether divide space (what one considers to be a substance) in two. b) Thus space is only dimensional and intuitive but not physical. It is thus not absolute, as Newton saw it, but only a relative measure of distance between bodies, this distance not being physical but only mathematical. It is an empty receptacle, sotospeak, filled entirely with monads (complete, real, mental concepts of physical objects). (c) Although Einstein in fact discovered the quantized notion of photons, he did not apply this quantized thinking to his theory of relativity, in which the speed of time was taken as relative to the speed of light, an asolute value. (d) Time similarly was taken by Leibniz to be quantized, for God constantly views and adjusts the universe only in discrete steps, at a very rapid sampling rate to accord with the hanging indirectly perceived perceptions? of each monad. To use a homely example, it is s if the succession of the universe were written on a deck of cards. Then as in movies of the early twentieth century, the illusion of continuous motion is perceived by fanning the deck with one's thumb. (e) Leibniz believed, as did Einstein much later, that space was a raceway of possible paths, these paths curved according to the mass of the object. f) That being so, we can consider a particle with mass and its possible paths of travel, as a particle-spacetime quantum, even through the particle might be the earth. g) Due to the holographic nature of Leibniz's monadic particles, the universe is completely entangled and one cannot change a part without changing the entire universe. Thus, for example, every action creates a reaction. The spacetime field of every particle being possible rather than actual paths, the particle and its spacetime field is a quantum. Thus the universe consists of a possible universe, which is a quantum probability field. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Re: computationalism as a form of magic
Hi Jason Resch Leibniz also wrote a book on jurisprudence and was a mining engineer. Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough - Receiving the following content - From: Jason Resch Receiver: Everything List Time: 2013-07-08, 18:44:36 Subject: Re: computationalism as a form of magic From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz Computation[edit ] Leibniz may have been the first computer scientist and information theorist. [65] Early in life, he documented the binary numeral system (base 2), then revisited that system throughout his career.[66] He anticipated Lagrangian interpolation and algorithmic information theory. His calculus ratiocinator anticipated aspects of the universal Turing machine. In 1934, Norbert Wiener claimed to have found in Leibniz's writings a mention of the concept of feedback, central to Wiener's later cybernetic theory. In 1671, Leibniz began to invent a machine that could execute all four arithmetical operations, gradually improving it over a number of years. This Stepped Reckoner attracted fair attention and was the basis of his election to the Royal Society in 1673. A number of such machines were made during his years in Hanover, by a craftsman working under Leibniz's supervision. It was not an unambiguous success because it did not fully mechanize the operation of carrying. Couturat reported finding an unpublished note by Leibniz, dated 1674, describing a machine capable of performing some algebraic operations. [67] Leibniz also devised a (now reproduced) cipher machine, recovered by Nicholas Rescher in 2010.[68] Leibniz was groping towards hardware and software concepts worked out much later by Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace . In 1679, while mulling over his binary arithmetic, Leibniz imagined a machine in which binary numbers were represented by marbles, governed by a rudimentary sort of punched cards.[69] Modern electronic digital computers replace Leibniz's marbles moving by gravity with shift registers, voltage gradients, and pulses of electrons, but otherwise they run roughly as Leibniz envisioned in 1679. On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 11:15 PM, Roger Clough wrote: Dear Prof. Tegmark, I have been trying to think of a way to make computationalism work but I can see no force that numbers might have on the physical world that might empower them. Instead I see computationalism as a form of magic. Serious magic if you will, but still magic, magic in the sense that saying the proper magic words or drawing certain figures or performing certain incantations or rituals will cause things to happen, presumably in imitation of those forms. But even though it is a form of magic, it may be that the numbers can be causal in some paranormal sense, if you can accept Leibniz's view that ideas seek perfection and physical realization is the highest perfection. If you can accept that, you might give some acceptance to the idea, and that actions can be preformed by intentions. Best, Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
On 7/9/2013 2:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: In my view an 'atheist requires a god to disbelieve (deny?). Indeed. Many atheists seems to take more seriously the Christian Gods than most christians theologians, who can seriously debate on the Aristotle/Plato difference. Of course. If the theologians took the Christian God seriously they couldn't believe He existed. So they twist and turn and obfuscate in order to hang the appellation God onto something: Ground of all being Whatever is most important to you Love Arithmetic. But the Church makes sure the minds of parishoners and contributors are not troubled by too much thinking. Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 12:59 AM, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote:
I love Christopher Hitchens. I agree with many points. He is more an
anticlerical than an atheist to me ...
Everybody called him an atheist. He called himself an atheist. I
think you just don't like the term.
Forgivable though, don't you think?
No I do not, I think it's unforgivable to value a word more than the
concept it represents.
IF you can handle the comp definition of atheism as a sibling public
religion of the Jesus cult [...]
Then the meanings of words change according to your whim and logical
contradictions do not bother you.
I mean - either you believe in Big Daddy, JC and Spooky or you do not.
I do not. Believing in God is stupid, believing in Big Daddy JC and Spooky
is the Power Set of stupid, 2 raised to the power of stupid.
Let me clarify: there is organised ('public' or 3-p) religion
And now religion enters the pee pee realm! Well maybe you have a point, it
is all a bunch of shit.
the only authentic definition of 'personal religion' is what you
believe.
As I said it's unforgivable to value a word more than the concept it
represents.
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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: atheism is different in America and in Europa, although I have realized now that some atheists in America might be similar, but not Hitchens. Many people confuse agnosticism and atheism. 1) A atheist is someone who dismisses the idea of God, although some don't have the courage to also dismiss the word G-O-D. 2) Christopher Hitchens said What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence 3) There is no evidence the idea of God is true. 4) Christopher Hitchens dismissed the idea of God (and he had the courage to do the same with the word G-O-D). Therefore Christopher Hitchens was a atheist. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Many people, and dictionaries, confuse agnosticism=that whether or not God exists is unknown with agnosticism=that whether or not God exists is impossible to know. If God created the universe that would be a fact about physics that would be very interesting to know, and I see no reason in principle we couldn't detect it; and if He was constantly tinkering with His creation as many think then He would be even easier to detect. But we see nothing. I agree with Sam Harris that atheist is not a very useful appellation because it only describes someone in contrast to theist. That makes no sense. The word nonfiction is useful but it only describes something in contrast to fiction. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Which one result in maths has surprised you the most?
On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 5:16 PM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: I think the fact that e^i*PI +1 = 0 surprises almost everyone when they first hear of it. This one is very interesting, but the fact that Pi was a poor choice for the constant makes the equation considerably more ugly than it should be. There is a growing movement to usurp the number Pi with the much more important constant 2*Pi (see: http://www.math.utah.edu/~palais/pi.html ). If we call that new number tau (t). Then Euler's identity becomes: e^(t * i) = 1 There is no disputing matters of taste but I think the original equation is more beautiful because it shows a relationship between 5 of the most important numbers in all of mathematics. Your new equation only has 4 important numbers, it doesn't include zero, it has the multiplicative identity but not the additive identity. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Which one result in maths has surprised you the most?
On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 2:20 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 5:16 PM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: I think the fact that e^i*PI +1 = 0 surprises almost everyone when they first hear of it. This one is very interesting, but the fact that Pi was a poor choice for the constant makes the equation considerably more ugly than it should be. There is a growing movement to usurp the number Pi with the much more important constant 2*Pi (see: http://www.math.utah.edu/~palais/pi.html ). If we call that new number tau (t). Then Euler's identity becomes: e^(t * i) = 1 There is no disputing matters of taste but I think the original equation is more beautiful because it shows a relationship between 5 of the most important numbers in all of mathematics. Your new equation only has 4 important numbers, it doesn't include zero, it has the multiplicative identity but not the additive identity. If you want to see all the constants at once there is an easy correction: e^(t*i) - 1 = 0 Circles are defined by their radius, not their diameter. The mistake of using Pi leads to circles being 2*Pi radians, rather than tau radians. The area formula for circles obscures the fact that an integration took place (1/2) tau r^2 makes it clearer that there was an integration. The period of sin and cosine are tau, cos(t) = 1 rather than -1, etc. Pi is simply a less elegant circle constant than tau. Jason -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
(See below): I do not fall for Brent's quip that you want to impose your extended (non-religious?) religion on us, so I continue. Whatever you call 'religious' is continuation of millenia-long habits, hard to break. The Hindus have different ones - yet it IS religion. Atheists? Atheism? comes within the package. I am agnostic, BUT not in the God-related sense - agnostic of anything all we can state as 'knowable'. Including proof, evidence, and - yes - appearance, (of course testability included) what you use FOR the mind-body fantasy. It appears to our human 'mind' (in our latest human logic). What I am agnostic about. * Now about my 'Steckenpferd': *natural numbers*. I asked you so many times to no avail. You hide behind it is *SSOOO* simple that you cannot explain it by even simpler cuts or something similar. In my 'narrative' I figured that pre-caveman looking at his HANDS, FEET, EYES, and found that PAIR makes sense. (2, not 1). Then (s)he detected that PAIR consists of - well, - a PAIR, meaning 2 similars of ONE. And (s)he counted: ONE, ONE, PAIR (=TWO.) The rest may not exceed the mental capabilities of conventional anthropologists. Here we go into the NATURAL numbers. Some other animals got similarly into 3, 5, maybe the elephant into even more. Then came the originators of the subsequent Roman (what I know of) numbering - looking at a HAND counting *fingers*. The group on a palm looks like a V, so it represented 5. With 2 drawn together at their pointed end for 10 (No decimal idea at this point). Four was too much, to count, so they took 1 off from the V:* IV, *(repeated later as IX etc.) and when it came to 4 X-s they got bored and drew only 2 lines recangulary together for 50, -- 40 similarly marked as XL (49 as IL). Remember: subtracting was different in ancient Rome, you also included the start-up figure and subtracted it like 9-3 = (9,8,7) = 7 as the original old Julian calendar counted the dates, e.g. today: July 9: ante diem septimum (7) Idus Julii (the 7th day before the Idus of July) because July is a MILMO month when the Idus is not on the 13th as usual, but on the 15th). And NO ZERO, please. So I doubt that the 'natural numbers' created the world. Humans created the natural numbers. Just like they created the not-so-naturals (irrationals, infinites, you name them). John M On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 5:25 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: John, On 08 Jul 2013, at 23:03, John Mikes wrote: After some million years of 'mental' development this animal arrived at the 'mental' fear. Usurpers exploited it by creating superpowers to target it with assigned intent to help, or destroy. The details were subject to the 'founders' benefit of enslaving the rest of the people into their rule. Such unquestionable tyranny lasted over the past millennia and it takes a long, hard, dangerous work to get out of it. The USA Constitution (18th c.) stepped ahead in SOME little political and economical ways, yet only a tiny little in liberating the people from the religious slavery: a so called 'separation' of state and church (not clearly identified to this day). The problem is that once we separate religion from state, people still continue to be religious (authoritative) on something else. But it was a progress. Now we know that we have to separate also health from the state. Th French revolution similarly targetted the religion, yet today - after numerous vocal enlightened minds - the country is still divided between Christian and Islamic fundamentalist trends. Yes (even more clearly when including atheists in the christians). In my view an 'atheist requires a god to disbelieve (deny?). Indeed. Many atheists seems to take more seriously the Christian Gods than most christians theologians, who can seriously debate on the Aristotle/Plato difference. Matter is figmentous and the 'origins' are beyond our reach. It is certainly beyond any form of certainty, but simple theories (conjecture, ides, hypotheses) might exist. In particular the idea that we are machine can explain the origin of mind and matter appearances, in a testable way, except for the origin of the natural numbers which have to remain a complete mystery beyond reach of all machines. Physical is a level of human development and there is infinite unknown - unknowable - we don't even guess. OK. Just musing Thanks for that, Bruno John M On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 4:03 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 08 Jul 2013, at 19:53, meekerdb wrote: On 7/8/2013 1:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 08 Jul 2013, at 02:45, meekerdb wrote: On 7/7/2013 6:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 07 Jul 2013, at 07:28, meekerdb wrote: http://www.salon.com/2013/07/**06/god_is_not_great_** christopher_hitchens_is_not_a_**liar/http://www.salon.com/2013/07/06/god_is_not_great_christopher_hitchens_is_not_a_liar/ I love Christopher Hitchens. I agree with many points. He is
Re: Hitch
On 7/9/2013 11:57 AM, John Clark wrote: I agree with Sam Harris that atheist is not a very useful appellation because it only describes someone in contrast to theist. That makes no sense. The word nonfiction is useful but it only describes something in contrast to fiction. I didn't say it was completely useless. But it's less useful than nonfiction because fiction exists. Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
Why does that make the word less usefull? I think its a very useful word. If someone tells me they are an atheist I then know that they do not belive in God. --- Original Message --- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net Sent: 10 July 2013 7:56 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Hitch On 7/9/2013 11:57 AM, John Clark wrote: I agree with Sam Harris that atheist is not a very useful appellation because it only describes someone in contrast to theist. That makes no sense. The word nonfiction is useful but it only describes something in contrast to fiction. I didn't say it was completely useless. But it's less useful than nonfiction because fiction exists. Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 5:33 PM, chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.comwrote: Why does that make the word less usefull? I think its a very useful word. If someone tells me they are an atheist I then know that they do not belive in God. But you don't know what God the atheist doesn't believe in. Jason -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
If some one says look, cat I don't know what kind of cat they are refering to. I nevertheless can be confident that they have seen something feline. --- Original Message --- From: Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com Sent: 10 July 2013 8:35 AM To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Hitch On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 5:33 PM, chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.comwrote: Why does that make the word less usefull? I think its a very useful word. If someone tells me they are an atheist I then know that they do not belive in God. But you don't know what God the atheist doesn't believe in. Jason -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Which one result in maths has surprised you the most?
The use of the radius instead of diameter is historic and constructive: the circumference was make by turning a rope or a compass a full turn instead of turning a rigid stick half a turn around his center. The former is easier. 2013/7/9 Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 2:20 PM, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 5:16 PM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: I think the fact that e^i*PI +1 = 0 surprises almost everyone when they first hear of it. This one is very interesting, but the fact that Pi was a poor choice for the constant makes the equation considerably more ugly than it should be. There is a growing movement to usurp the number Pi with the much more important constant 2*Pi (see: http://www.math.utah.edu/~palais/pi.html ). If we call that new number tau (t). Then Euler's identity becomes: e^(t * i) = 1 There is no disputing matters of taste but I think the original equation is more beautiful because it shows a relationship between 5 of the most important numbers in all of mathematics. Your new equation only has 4 important numbers, it doesn't include zero, it has the multiplicative identity but not the additive identity. If you want to see all the constants at once there is an easy correction: e^(t*i) - 1 = 0 Circles are defined by their radius, not their diameter. The mistake of using Pi leads to circles being 2*Pi radians, rather than tau radians. The area formula for circles obscures the fact that an integration took place (1/2) tau r^2 makes it clearer that there was an integration. The period of sin and cosine are tau, cos(t) = 1 rather than -1, etc. Pi is simply a less elegant circle constant than tau. Jason -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
Or at least they don't believe in the theist god - which isn't very well defined either. Harris'es point is just that we don't go around characterizing ourselves as not believing in other imaginary things. When someone proposed that there should be a study as to why 97% of the members of the National Academy of Science don't believe in God, Neil Degrasse Tyson said, We should study the 3%. They're the ones who're puzzling. Brent On 7/9/2013 3:33 PM, chris peck wrote: Why does that make the word less usefull? I think its a very useful word. If someone tells me they are an atheist I then know that they do not belive in God. --- Original Message --- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net Sent: 10 July 2013 7:56 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Hitch On 7/9/2013 11:57 AM, John Clark wrote: I agree with Sam Harris that atheist is not a very useful appellation because it only describes someone in contrast to theist. That makes no sense. The word nonfiction is useful but it only describes something in contrast to fiction. I didn't say it was completely useless. But it's less useful than nonfiction because fiction exists. Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com http://www.avg.com Version: 2013.0.3349 / Virus Database: 3204/6477 - Release Date: 07/09/13 -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
On Jul 9, 2013, at 5:56 PM, chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com wrote: If some one says look, cat I don't know what kind of cat they are refering to. I nevertheless can be confident that they have seen something feline. True, but cats are things people can see, and this the variety of possible meanings for the word cat is greatly constrained. When someone says god do they mean something that is (check any or all of the following): - immanent - transcendant - uncreated - eternal - intelligent - benevolent - creator - infinite - answerer of prayers - judge - designer - truth - love - universal mind - everything ? Because there are many types of possible and very different meanings for the word god, using the word atheist to describe someone who does not believe in some particular conception of god is much like using the word acatist to describe someone who does not believe in 6- legged bright-pink saber tooth tigers, but nonetheless believes in lions and house cats. Even if you reject the particular god of some particular religious sect, I am confident there are particular selections of the above words that you would admit to believing in. Jason --- Original Message --- From: Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com Sent: 10 July 2013 8:35 AM To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Hitch On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 5:33 PM, chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com wrote: Why does that make the word less usefull? I think its a very useful word. If someone tells me they are an atheist I then know that they do not belive in God. But you don't know what God the atheist doesn't believe in. Jason -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Hitch
there are many words like that which we use without any fuss. The word 'game' is a famous example where different games possess a myriad of properties which are shared by some and not others. In fact there doesn't seem to be a set of properties sufficient to capture the nature of all games. Nevertheless, we use the word without any fuss. And in a way the fact 'God' means different things to different people isn't a problem. If I say someone is an atheist, you can say that this person has some conception of God, whatever it is, and doesn't believe that thing exists. You can say that much at the very least. In the unlikely event that you are really confused about what he means by God you can ask for clarification. What I think has happened here is that a bunch of folk like Harris, unfamiliar with the philosophical territory, have stumbled over the fact that words don't quite get defined in as strict a manner as they thought. They think they have stumbled upon something of import but in reality the 'problem', such that there is one, generalizes easily to much of language and yet language remains as useful as it always was. From: jasonre...@gmail.com To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Hitch Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2013 19:33:43 -0500 On Jul 9, 2013, at 5:56 PM, chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com wrote: If some one says look, cat I don't know what kind of cat they are refering to. I nevertheless can be confident that they have seen something feline. True, but cats are things people can see, and this the variety of possible meanings for the word cat is greatly constrained. When someone says god do they mean something that is (check any or all of the following):- immanent- transcendant- uncreated- eternal- intelligent- benevolent- creator- infinite- answerer of prayers- judge- designer- truth- love- universal mind- everything ? Because there are many types of possible and very different meanings for the word god, using the word atheist to describe someone who does not believe in some particular conception of god is much like using the word acatist to describe someone who does not believe in 6-legged bright-pink saber tooth tigers, but nonetheless believes in lions and house cats. Even if you reject the particular god of some particular religious sect, I am confident there are particular selections of the above words that you would admit to believing in. Jason --- Original Message --- From: Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com Sent: 10 July 2013 8:35 AM To: Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Hitch On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 5:33 PM, chris peck chris_peck...@hotmail.com wrote: Why does that make the word less usefull? I think its a very useful word. If someone tells me they are an atheist I then know that they do not belive in God. But you don't know what God the atheist doesn't believe in. Jason -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
