Re: belief, faith, truth
Hi Russell and the list: I have been very distracted and am trying to catch up on the discussions. At 01:35 AM 2/1/2006, you wrote: I don't agree with equating the vacuum with Nothing, although I know a few people do. The vacuum still has a wealth of information associated with it. In the ensemble of all descriptions (sometimes known as Schmidhuber ensemble), all describable things correspond to subsets of cardinality c=2^\aleph_0. For example every finite bitstring is represented by the subset of descriptions having that bitstring as a prefix. The only describable thing having vaguely the properties of Nothing is the empty finite string, which is, in other words, the set of all possible descriptions. But this is just the Everything. The Everything and the Nothing are equivalent, just as a finite bitstring is equivalent with the subset of bitstrings sharing the finite string as a prefix. The number of descriptions - divisions of my list of properties - in my model [in the All part] is also c so long as my list of properties is countably infinite which seems uncontroversial. My Nothing being absent any bit strings [containing the empty finite bit string?] has at least this property so is in the All. The All also has properties and so is a member of itself. I do not see my Nothing and my All as equivalent since my Nothing is incomplete and my All - being complete - is therefore inconsistent. In a recent post [23 Feb] Bruno said: You can see G*, the divine intellect as an exhaustive catalog of true propositions, which, if added without caution to the entity's collection of beliefs, would make the entity inconsistent. At the moment I take this as a support for my position that my All is inconsistent since it could be considered an exhaustive catalog of divisions of my list each of which would have the same level of truthfulness as the list itself and each such division would establish a pair of propositions. Further I see my descriptions in my All as describing possible individual states of universes and not of being descriptions of a group of such states - sub string after sub string - that are somehow [by a computer?] given a brief and sequential distinction such as a degree of reality. In my system the isolated descriptions of states are given such a brief distinction by a dynamic resulting from the incompleteness of my Nothing and the inconsistency of my All. Avoiding any selection [information] requires this distinction to have any degree of overlapping duration during the progression of states which is my proposal for a flow of consciousness. The inconsistency of the All makes this dynamic random. This randomness is a noise in the succession of states which in some such sequences can look like an ever increasing information content of that series of states which if the informational density of the associated universe is fixed to me looks like dark energy. Some of the above is of course contained in my earlier posts. I note that Hal Ruhl was going around saying the Nothing was unstable before Wilczek, but using a rather different argument. I am not sure that I said the Nothing is unstable prior to Wilczek - I will have to check this - but my argument indeed appears to be different in that it is based on an apparent logical incompleteness of the Nothing that the Nothing must attempt to resolve and not on what I consider to be a local - i.e. relevant for our particular universe - mathematical description of the Nothing such as its being a vacuum or having some identical [or not] particular simultaneous value [such as zero] for all fields which themselves may be just a currently useful but ultimately incorrect representation of the physics of our particular universe. Hal Ruhl --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 25-févr.-06, à 21:03, uv wrote: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] said on February 25, 2006, amongst a lot of other things The practical, terrestrial act of faith consists to say yes to a surgeon which proposes you an artificial digital brain/body. It is a belief in a form or reincarnation. I really think there would be a lot to do before your theories are sufficiently polished to be acceptable to even say a semi-lay audience of Uni degree standing. Are you talking of the Universal Dovetailer Argument (one half of my work) or of the interview of the lobian machine (the second half)? In case you have still problem with the UDA don't hesitate to tell me which step of the reasoning makes a problem. In case you are talking on the lobian interview, then ... I don't know. Many people have problem with elementary logic, including sometimes mathematicians. Just logic is not well known and suffers from lasting prejudice in most civilsation. Probably logic is an hard subject. But the basic concepts may be there with Smullyan's and Godel's ideas, ... For the lobian interview the basic idea are all there. But it would not make sense in the TOE research without a good understanding of the mind body problem and the conceptual problem of Quantum Mechanics, at least for serious motivation issues. ... though I would spice it up with Chaitin, I like very much the work of Chaitin, but from Conscience et Mécanisme to the Lille thesis I have decided not to distracted the reader with the work of Chaitin, independently that our approach goes well all along together. Gadamer etc. I think it may be of more benefit to you than the readers. If only you could descend to the Betty Shine level (wonderful) without totally infuriating any academic readers, you could seriously have a best seller. The point is, Penrose was so wrong he just annoyed everyone, Not me. Penrose wrongness, as the older Lucas' wrongness can inspire important corrections. Lucas give rise indirectly to the very relevant work of Judson Webb (*), and Lucas' one give rise to the Benacerraf paper (**) and its sequel including my own work. Of course Penrose, which is a big mathematician and physician, has made physicists (if not mathematicians) still more timid on Godel's results. and got a knighthood. Can't you be totally awful, causing fury but not contempt? Perhaps you could be more precise? Why do you want me to cause fury? I mean, I know that my theory goes against the general naturalist (aristotelian) paradigm. But I don't propose it as a truth, just an approach which put both QM and the mind-body problem in a new light. I put new in quotes, because that light belongs to the Plato family kind of lightning. It is made even clearer by Plotinus. Just trying to help. I should not put it like this, but people like David Peat have convinced a few people (maybe such people could help you with the writing) but I see you as more as Betty Shine. Her books had a lot of (relevant) photos of calming things and it DID work for her marvellously. Best Luck anyway. Thanks. You remind me Bruno Poizat, one of the actual most brilliant french logician. He never succeeds to publish his french books (but by himself), even the one where he puts pictures of quasi-naked woman inside (!) (a book on advanced logic applied to algebra). Now his old Model Theory has been published in english by Springer and is the best book available on the subject today, imo. Bruno (*) WEBB J. C., 1980, Mechanism, Mentalism and Metamathematics : An essay on Finitism, D. Reidel Pub. Company, Dordrecht, Holland. (**) BENACERRAF P., 1967, God, the Devil, and Gödel, The monist, vol 51, n° 1, pp 9-32. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 25-févr.-06, à 12:22, uv a écrit : Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] said on February 23, 2006 The loebian machine knows that there are some truth which would be wrong once she takes it as axiom. comp belongs to that type, and that is why I insist that comp is more than just an hypothesis. It needs some act of faith. But if comp involves an act of faith, then surely this act of faith may need the sort of holistic and human properties of conventional religion, which you may claim to despise. If comp (or weaker) is correct then it would be astonishing conventional religion are very wrong, but this could depend by what you mean by conventional religion. Actually it may be that the lobian entity (and I recall that all Platonist self-referentially correct entities are lobian) is both more Christian and Buddhist than Plotinus and the neoplatonician (the reason being that the Christians will emphasize humility and self-finiteness and many Buddhist school will emphasize Ignorance. Plotinus is not entirely clear about the relation between the terrestrial intellect and the divine one. Of course he couldn't have find the precise G G* corona which provides a transparent consistent interpretation of that fundamental separation (which then propagates on all hypostases. (And the importance of that is that each hypostasis defines the class of its possible multiverses; physics should then to be expected as corresponding to Soul and Matter (intelligible, sensible) hypostases. And this is verifiable.) All in all, I would rather follow the 10 commandments than the outpourings of some machine. That is from my existing and present experience of many computer outputs and dud religions. In religious matter I think the better way is the one which resonates the better with you, as far as you don't use authoritative methods for imposing your beliefs. All what the lobian machine says is that you can belief comp but it is at your own risk and peril. But also that you can reason about its consequences and then some are already testable. Maybe that is not so in the future, but that is pure speculation not faith or theory. Perhaps Bruno could accurately define his 'act of faith' ? Maybe that is near the nub of it. I am sorry if he feels that he already has but I can't easily see that. The practical, terrestrial act of faith consists to say yes to a surgeon which proposes you an artificial digital brain/body. It is a belief in a form or reincarnation. Its theoretical counterpart, formalizable, that is translatable, in the language of a lobian entity, is the no cul-de-sac assumption, which by incompleteness is non trivial (it consists to add p, or Dp, or both, to the intellect Bp). This generates the 8 hypostases. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 23-févr.-06, à 07:32, Kim Jones a écrit : The Loebian machine only believes the truth, yes? Not a pack of Biblical lies, surely? Not necessarily, or ... Well, not so easy to describe in few words. The sound loebian machine believes the truth. True. But then the *sound* any-entity only believes the truth, by definition. And then the loebian machine is modest in the sense that she believes she is accurate (true, correct) with respect to some proposition only when she actually prove that proposition. Christians have to get their heads sorted out on what is real and what is not real. This is what the book deals with largely. But who are we to pretend being able to sort out what is real and what is not real? Certainly not a sound loebian machine, which can guess somehow how far the real can be from her ratiocination. Better, the sound loebian machine knows that if she takes the real from granted then she is provably going into the false. The loebian machine knows that there are some truth which would be wrong once she takes it as axiom. comp belongs to that type, and that is why I insist that comp is more than just an hypothesis. It needs some act of faith. There is nothing magical. The phenomenon results from the fact that the machine or the theory (or the entity) has some third person description. To take a trivial example, consider the theory which has as unique axiom: 1 + 1 = 2 Now that theory has only one axiom, OK? So it is true that that theory has only one axiom, OK? Let us add the true formula the theory has only one axiom to the theory. This gives a new theory saying: 1 + 1 = 2 The theory has only one axiom Now the second axiom is plainly false. You can see G*, the divine intellect as an exhaustive catalog of true propositions, which, if added without caution to the entity's collection of beliefs, would make the entity inconsistent. The loebian machine can learn to guess that not all truth can be taken freely as axiom. Some truth remains forever undecided. Those truth can be hoped for, but should never be taken as granted, because if they are, they become false. Self-consistency (~Bf), and soundness (Bp - p) are of that type. Those proposition are true ... as far as we doubt them. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Bruno: how does Mrs. Loeb (La Machine) distinguish between 'truth' and 'not truth'? What is truth for Paul is a lie for Peter and vice versa. Is 'she' Mrs Peter or Mrs. Paul? Truth is not better identifiable than reality. Or: 'quality', which aslo may be bad or good, depending on the special interests. Then again I would completely leave out the Christian, Muslim, Voodoo, or Peruvian religious connotations from such discussion. If there are (at least) two religions, (at least) one is false. I trust the L-ian 'monologue' only if it is included in continuous checking of 'other' 3rd person opinions, not imbibed in the earlier personal 1st pers. experience - which becomes quicklly obsolete. It may be a 'funny' monologue with asking always others' opinions to formulate a decision. Asking a god is better: I can always quote a response fitting my taste. In the scripts' there are ambiguous and controversially quotable passages, especially if no discussion is allowed. John --- Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le 20-févr.-06, à 21:00, uv a écrit : Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch (Hodder and Stoughton 1995) is a bloddy good read as we like to say here in Australia I think myself that one problem with such books is that they are very Christian oriented. This is perhaps already present in the title which dares to name the unnameable. But it could be a sort of joke. Normally a Lobian entity will not say she has a conversation with God, but with herself. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 21-févr.-06, à 05:50, danny mayes a écrit : Bruno, Going back to the discussion a few days ago, I agree with the value of the UDA as an idea worthy of development, as you are doing. In fact it seems to be the only idea on the table that I'm aware of that provides some explanation for the 1-indeterminacy of QM and also gives insight into why the most elegant or simplest explanations of observations in nature tend to be the correct explanations. My earlier suggestion regarding the popularity of your ideas was not intended to be a criticism. I didn't take it as a criticism, thanks. I just try to always point on the discrepancy so as no wasting time of the reader. Rereading myself I realize that it could look like I am liking too much the polemics, but it is just a e-mail side effect. To the extent I understand you I find myself in agreement with many of your ideas. Regarding the view of everything as mathematical object, it seems this has an element of truth to me, but it also seems to possibly miss something important. As Hawking said, what is it that breathes fire into the equations? I think that if you accept the comp hyp you could figure out why we don't need breathes firing into the equations. Psychological experiences are related to computational histories, living in Platonia, and then, from our points of views which are distributed on all histories, those experiences should glue in such a way that appearances of firing breathes can be predicted. Perhaps a better view is the reduction of everything to information, versus mathematical object, as some have suggested in recent publications? A quick search for a definition of information came up with this: 1) that which reduces uncertainty. (Claude Shannon); 2) that which changes us. (Gregory Bateson). Interesting in this context, maybe, to look at it that way. The view of everything in the context of information perhaps leaves open the role of intelligence/consciousness in a fundamental explanation. This is an interesting and very difficult question. I have a lost (but will search) the reference of a paper (in preparation) by Abramski, on that subject. Deith Devlin has also try to connect Shannon information, and the information in the sense of the logicians. Logicians used information in many sense, though., either as part of a construction, or as a way a notion of truth can classify sub-objects or substructures of a structure. I guess this can be related to consciousness, but the field of comparative information theory is not yet born! The use of Kolmogorov, Chaitin, Solovay notions of algorithmic complexity, and more genrally the book of Li and Vitaniy (which has been already discussed) can surely provide information (!) useful for building those bridges between domains. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 20-févr.-06, à 21:00, uv a écrit : Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch (Hodder and Stoughton 1995) is a bloddy good read as we like to say here in Australia I think myself that one problem with such books is that they are very Christian oriented. This is perhaps already present in the title which dares to name the unnameable. But it could be a sort of joke. Normally a Lobian entity will not say she has a conversation with God, but with herself. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
This is in fact the point of view of the book. The book teaches that humanity has no need of the concept of God because we are all God anyway so we must simply be describing ourselves when we mention God. Theology says that Man was created in God's image It is in fact the other way around - any fool can see that It's about self-introspection and working with the inner voice. It's good. It grabs all those dopey Christians out there in perhaps the few functioning brain cells they have left to them and it makes them look seriously at all the hoo-haa and balderdash that the Bible says is God's wish for Man, what God expects of Man, Man's indebtedness to God and having God on your side and suchlike damaging beliefs. The God thing, as Bruno correctly asserts - is almost a publisher's hook. The Loebian machine only believes the truth, yes? Not a pack of Biblical lies, surely? Christians have to get their heads sorted out on what is real and what is not real. This is what the book deals with largely. Kim Jones On 23/02/2006, at 2:26 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 20-févr.-06, à 21:00, uv a écrit : Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch (Hodder and Stoughton 1995) is a bloddy good read as we like to say here in Australia I think myself that one problem with such books is that they are very Christian oriented. This is perhaps already present in the title which dares to name the unnameable. But it could be a sort of joke. Normally a Lobian entity will not say she has a conversation with God, but with herself. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch (Hodder and Stoughton 1995) is a bloddy good read as we like to say here in Australia. It is, in some ways the *kind* of revisionist theological tome the modern world badly needs. For this reason, God speaks in a language that any idiot can understand (unlike the Bible, where God's utterances require interpretation) Bear with it as we say. This is revisionist theology with popular overtones. Don't look for hard scientific discourse in this book. Some might be put off by the central conceit, which is to talk to oneself (introspect) and get the truth via the notion that the person we are talking to is in fact God. The little voice in your head type God. Well - when you talk to yourself for whatever reason, who the hell ARE you talking to??? Science is where you pray to nature... The reason I recommend this book is that the author has managed to introspect himself into precisely the position I think Bruno is describing with his modal logics. Cheers, Kim Jones On 20/02/2006, at 8:44 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 18-févr.-06, à 01:05, Kim Jones a écrit : Which is very interesting, isn't it? People do seem want the kind of modelled structure for their existence that theology projects. Even though G means we can never know the truth of it, theology tells us it is nonetheless there. Like G*. Has anyone on this list read Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations with God? series of books? Bruno may well be interested to read at least Volume 1 if he hasn't yet encountered it. The whole book IS the interview with the self-referentially-correct Loebian machine! Gosh! I realised this yesterday after re-reading sections of it and comparing them to Bruno's thinking. I will try to take a look. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Kim Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] said Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch (Hodder and Stoughton 1995) is a bloddy good read as we like to say here in Australia I think myself that one problem with such books is that they are very Christian oriented. I recently heard a lecture by David Tacey (Latrobe U, Melbourne) which really sounded as if it had a lot of good ideas buried in it and was reasonably broad minded. Probably both his books and those of Walsch are well worth reading by anyone with the time. Then I read details of his stuff on the Web. It was simply Christian, little more. e.g. no Hinduism, which I actually prefer generally to Christianity at this time. I felt 'let down'. And Moslems, Buddhists, extreme agnostics and freethinkers might well feel 'let down' also, just as I did. No blame to Tacey, but Christianity is now a rather minor religion, relatively speaking. That is probably another good reason for Bruno to keep dogmatism out of any serious spiritual work if he contemplates writing it. But one only has to look at the current cartoon riots to see that these matters are important. Many people just do not see it. As for example the fact is that many honestly consider the prophet Mohammed to have been a pedophile That is a fact occurring in very many cartoons but NOT the Danish ones, e.g. the fact is referred to in http://www.homa.org/ , a cartoon-free URL, I think, incidentally. There is elsewhere on the web a picture of the prophet Mohammed with a large erection with a frightened small child who is going to be forced to submit etc. etc., the cartoon is enough to make a Christian to want to murder any Moslem or anyone who could support Islamic ideas and it could well be fair comment. Maybe the Moslems have guilty consciences and that is one reason for their protests. These matters are certainly unsavory but writing a book on theology without dogma is worth considering. Worse could be said about Christians. The gospel according to Mary Magdalene is becoming more popular nowadays, as well as the apparently common buggery by priests and bishops of one another and small boys.That is almost a clerical joke by now! One feels like saying after a service, 'Poor sermon today, weren't you buggered by the Bishop last night?'. All most unseemly, Sodom and Gomorrha definitely come to mind. And indeed so does global warming and the lack of Church efforts in that regard. Instead the fools trifle with frivolities. They want Sodom and Gomorrha, it seems, and that is probably what they will get.
Re: belief, faith, truth
Bruno, Going back to the discussion a few days ago, I agree with the value of the UDA as an idea worthy of development, as you are doing. In fact it seems to be the only idea on the table that I'm aware of that provides some explanation for the 1-indeterminacy of QM and also gives insight into why the most elegant or simplest explanations of observations in nature tend to be the correct explanations. My earlier suggestion regarding the popularity of your ideas was not intended to be a criticism. To the extent I understand you I find myself in agreement with many of your ideas. Regarding the view of everything as mathematical object, it seems this has an element of truth to me, but it also seems to possibly miss something important. As Hawking said, what is it that breathes fire into the equations? Perhaps a better view is the reduction of everything to information, versus mathematical object, as some have suggested in recent publications? A quick search for a definition of information came up with this: 1) that which reduces uncertainty. (Claude Shannon); 2) that which changes us. (Gregory Bateson). Interesting in this context, maybe, to look at it that way. The view of everything in the context of information perhaps leaves open the role of intelligence/consciousness in a fundamental explanation. Danny Bruno Marchal wrote: Hi John, If I remember correctly Robert Rosen does not accept Church Thesis. This explains some fundamental difference of what we mean respectively by "machine". I use the term for digitalizable machine, which, with Church thesis, is equivalent with "programs", or with anything a computer can imitate. With Church thesis all computer (universal machine) are equivalent and can emulate (simulate perfectly) each other. The machine I talk about are mathematical object in Platonia. I never use machine in the materialist sense of something having some body to act in a environment, because my goal is to find out why immaterial machine in Platonia are confronted with stable appearance of materiality. I hope this can help a little bit, Best, Bruno Le 17-fvr.-06, 21:27, John M a crit : snip Now a silly point: after so much back and forth about 'machines' and our best efforts to grasp what we should understand, would it be asking too much to re-include a BRIEF identification about the way YOU use the term? (Never mind Loeb). It would help me for sure. I could not decipher it from the quoted URLs (yours included), snip Lately on the Rosen-list Robert Rosen's 'machine' term got so mixed up that my understanding what I developed some 5-6 years ago got mixed up. It is different from yours, which just adds to the confusion. Yours is also going on over at least 2-3 years. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 14-févr.-06, à 05:19, danny mayes wrote (to Ben): I doubt Marchal's ideas will be made widely known or popularized in the foreseeable future. This looks like an encouraging statement :-) The problem isn't with the name of his theory, or with any problem with Bruno per se beyond this: There doesn't seem to be an easily reducible way to summarize the theory in a manner that is digestible to anyone beyond the highly specialized in similar fields. I doubt this. I would even say that highly specialized people have more difficulties due to the lack of a panoramic view of the subject, and the lack of knowledge in the adjacent fields. Logicians doesn't really know the conceptual problem of QM. And Physicist rarely know what a formal system is all about. Both are unaware of the mind-body problem, etc. Probably popularization is technically more easy (but professionally more dangerous). My theory, in a first approximation, is just Mechanism, the doctrine that we are machine, in the sense that we cannot see any difference once we are substituted at some level of description of ourselves. That theory already appears in some ancient Indian and chinese texts, and is often attributed to Descartes. Somehow my theory is already popularized in many science-fiction books and essays. Dennet and Hofstadter are quite close in the book Mind's I, which I recommend. They didn't see the first person comp indeterminacy though. And, given that Hofstadter wrote an impressive book on Godel's theorem, where he criticizes correctly the use of Godel's incompleteness against mechanism, I thought awhile that it was not even necessary I wrote my work. Almost like Judson Web, Hofstadter sees that Godel's theorem could be a good news for Mechanism/Comp. My work preceded those books for ten years, but has been trapped in a sort of typically european bureaucratic nightmare which will make me abandoning research for a while. Have you read the Mind's I book? I think you could follow the UDA argument easily if you have done that. The argument requires only some passive understanding of what a digital universal machine (computer) is. I keep saying I have no theory. I have just a theorem or an argument (informal and (hopefully) rigorous) according to which, if we take the comp hyp. seriously enough then eventually physics should be retrievable from [computer science + the amount of theological faith needed for saying yes purposefully to the doctor]. I certainly understand the basics of some of his ideas, If you understand the UDA, you get the point If not, you can always ask questions or make critics. but when it gets into all his logical analysis I just have never found myself willing to devote myself to the time required to really get into the detail of where he is coming from. ... because the logical analysis does not add anything. The UDA shows that comp entails that necessarily physics is a branch of computer science (in a large sense). The logical analysis is the beginning of an *actual* derivation of physics from computer science. This *illustrates* how such a derivation, which is made necessary by UDA, can *actually* be undertaken. The logical analysis also shows the relative consistency of the enterprise. Would Godel's theorem be false, i.e. would truth be equal to provability, all hypostases would collapse into classical logic. Thanks to Godel's theorem, they are all different. And I would consider myself highly interested in these topics and at least reasonably intelligent. Do you have the little book by Smullyan Forever Undecided? It is a very cute introduction to the logic G. Once you understand what is G, you can understand all the other arithmetical hypostases (effective and non effective person points of view, Theaetetical variants, see below). Even something as mundane as the MWI (to this group at least) runs into a brickwall when presented to the layperson. You should see the conversations I have with my wife. Tell people everything is made of strings. Or space and time can be warped and curved. They may not understand the science and math behind it at all, but at least you are speaking their language. I think you have too much imagination which make you think my work is technically difficult. It isn't. In Brussels my work has been criticized has being too much easy. Argument of the type: my two years old niece can do that! (*). The world is not ready for his ideas. From -500 to +500, the world has been ready for quite similar Platonist Questioning, I tend to think now. And actually Plotinus seem to have got the main points with almost all details (without comp!). After: just 1000 years of a sort of obscurity with respect to the fundamental questioning, and so much religious or ideological brainwashing that in some countries we can even
Re: belief, faith, truth
Which is very interesting, isn't it? People do seem want the kind of modelled structure for their existence that theology projects. Even though G means we can never know the truth of it, theology tells us it is nonetheless there. Has anyone on this list read Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations with God? series of books? Bruno may well be interested to read at least Volume 1 if he hasn't yet encountered it. The whole book IS the interview with the self-referentially-correct Loebian machine! I realised this yesterday after re-reading sections of it and comparing them to Bruno's thinking. regards Kim Jones On 18/02/2006, at 7:31 AM, uv wrote: Theology books tend to sell well.
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 14-févr.-06, à 16:20, uv a écrit : Bruno said For me, all questioning is amenable to science, or put in another way, we can kept a scientific attitude, in all fields, including those asking for faith. Fair enough, as long as we all know what a 'scientific attitude' is. Kuhn, Popper, Wittgenstein, Derrida ??? Popper. Or best (but compatible), the lobian machine, which is humble and modest. I have already argue that scientific attitude, after Godel, is the attitude of being able to conceive that we can be wrong, so that we are invited to listen to the other. popper says similar things, and in some text he based that metatheoretical issue on the incompletenbess phenomena. Correct machines can tapped into a truth that transcends machines reason, but not into a truth that contradicts machines reason. Unless the machine suffers from some bad faith. The same for humans; scientist or believer alike. In the (ex) Soviet Union, Lyssenko has defended a crazy biology contradicting more and more the evidences, leading to one of the worst famine. So basically machines are a 'good idea'. But a different idea this century to last century or the one before. Let us say that I consider that the discovery by Post and Turing (mainly) of the Universal Machine is an event which really force us to reconsider the very meaning of the word machine. Now we know some are universal, and that notion of univerality is very well founded empirically and conceptually. The problem is that as long as we discourage rationalist to study theology and doing research in theology, we are abandoning it to the irrationalists or to the dishonest people, like those who will use some natural human fears to manipulate people and get power. The most annoying example of this is creationism. I think USA has now been led to great clashes over 'creationism', which most scientists do not see as scientific at all..They see, probably correctly, creationism to be a threat, not part of a dialogue. I agree with this. Creationist does not build part of a dialogue. In fact to the point where they would rather creationism did not exist. Enthusiasm can thus bring problems. But Americans are basically at heart enthusiasts and Babbits, to generalise. The old Krio saying is dog na dog. (Americans or dogs will remain as Americans (or dogs)). I only use USA as an example, the Middle East is far worse. There is no contradiction in the existence of a 100% scientific theology, still letting the religious attitudes to any personal individual choice (example the yes/no doctor attitude in the comp framework). But scientists take the view that creationism and the like are not science. There are not so much contradictions but basic problems. Scientific theology would be a lot of fun. Good point :-) But a detailed theology (and by detailed I mean roughly 'at least one book') is always tainted with dogma or has been so far AFAIK. Read Plotinus, and if you find just one dogma, just tell me. Actually I think that the use of dogma in theology is a rather recent event (about 500 after C.). Read all the neoplatonist from Pythagoras tp Proclus, you will not see any dogma. You will see fundamental principles and things like that, but this is the case in all rational approaches in any subjects. OK, sometimes you will see talks on personal mystical experiences. This can be considered as going out of science, but the neoplatonist see them as personal tools to figure out by oneself some ideas, and none of what they conclude from them need to be taken as dogma. Latest Headlines: Two more die over cartoons in Lahore Paris Hilton to be Mother Teresa in new film. Tub thumping attitudes like this do not suggest that anyone will compromise effectively. You point on very difficult problems which does not admit simple solutions. Humans are complex. Intellect has weakness emotions can work upon, a little like democracies have weakness that fanaticism can used, a little like LIFE *is* fragile (nothing new here). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Bruno said For me, all questioning is amenable to science, or put in another way, we can kept a scientific attitude, in all fields, including those asking for faith. Fair enough, as long as we all know what a 'scientific attitude' is. Kuhn, Popper, Wittgenstein, Derrida ??? Correct machines can tapped into a truth that transcends machines reason, but not into a truth that contradicts machines reason. Unless the machine suffers from some bad faith. The same for humans; scientist or believer alike. In the (ex) Soviet Union, Lyssenko has defended a crazy biology contradicting more and more the evidences, leading to one of the worst famine. So basically machines are a 'good idea'. But a different idea this century to last century or the one before. The problem is that as long as we discourage rationalist to study theology and doing research in theology, we are abandoning it to the irrationalists or to the dishonest people, like those who will use some natural human fears to manipulate people and get power. The most annoying example of this is creationism. I think USA has now been led to great clashes over 'creationism', which most scientists do not see as scientific at all..They see, probably correctly, creationism to be a threat, not part of a dialogue. In fact to the point where they would rather creationism did not exist. Enthusiasm can thus bring problems. But Americans are basically at heart enthusiasts and Babbits, to generalise. The old Krio saying is dog na dog. (Americans or dogs will remain as Americans (or dogs)). I only use USA as an example, the Middle East is far worse. There is no contradiction in the existence of a 100% scientific theology, still letting the religious attitudes to any personal individual choice (example the yes/no doctor attitude in the comp framework). But scientists take the view that creationism and the like are not science. There are not so much contradictions but basic problems. Scientific theology would be a lot of fun. But a detailed theology (and by detailed I mean roughly 'at least one book') is always tainted with dogma or has been so far AFAIK. Latest Headlines: Two more die over cartoons in Lahore Paris Hilton to be Mother Teresa in new film. Tub thumping attitudes like this do not suggest that anyone will compromise effectively. .
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 30-janv.-06, à 22:07, Benjamin Udell wrote, in part, sometimes ago (30 January): Most people, however, do have some sort of views, which are or have been significant in their lives, about what are traditionally called metaphysical questions -- God, freedom, immortality, psycho-physical relationships, etc. Many have one or another kind of metaphysical faith. It seems increasingly clear to me that Bruno is doing a machine metaphysics, or a computer metaphysics, or a metaphysics of, by, and for computers or machines Yes. I am interested in what machines (and other entities) can prove about themselves. And also about what is true about themselves, but that those machines/entitities cannot prove, but can deliver as true in a way or another. The propositional parts of those discourse has been captured by the modal logical systems G and G* respectively (Solovay 1976). (I can't remember why Bruno opts for machines instead of computers.). I use computer for universal machine. Ordinateur in french. All loebian machines I talk about are universal machine. All universal machine believing in classical tautologies and in the laws of addition and multiplication, and in some induction formulas is lobian. It's a shame that the word metaphysics is ruled out by (if I remember correctly, it was in a post a while back) reaction of intellectuals in Belgium. In Belgium, in France and in other countries, I'm afraid, among most scientists, I mean. I rule out also metaphysics because I don't know what it means. Historically it concerns the books which were on the sides of the books on physics in the texts by Aristotle (but is this a legend?). In metaphysics, meta has not the same sense that meta in computer sciences and mathematical logics. Create confusions. Moreover, machine metaphysics is kind of catchy in its alliterative way. Sure. Look: digital machine metaphysics is a branch of metamathematics! Metaphysics is not religion but instead a philosophical study of questions which are among the important ones in religion. Philosophy, however, can be applied in living, so the distinction is not a barrier impenetrable in practice (or, therefore, in theory either) I don't even really believe in any precise frontiers between all those things. It is useful only for the curriculum vitae and for searching job and getting social profile, but any fundamental questioning is up to eventually move frontiers or suppress some. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
accepted meanings; you don't want people taking it as a representative sample of how you deal with ideas. And, as I said in some old post, the words themselves don't care about you or what you meant to do or meant to mean, and the words themselves will trap you if you give them an inch. Since you're talking not only about metaphysics but also about machines as metaphysicians, maybe there's some way to coin a word there. Metaphysicianology sounds looks awful. Metaphysicistics. Better, but not much better. Machine metaphysicisms. Metaphysicology. Metaphysicalistics. Those are, at least, pronounceable. I'm not doing too well. It's definitely easier to criticize your word choice than to supply you with a better word choice. Still, if plain old metaphysics is out of the question because of the reception which it gets, then theology would seem even more out of the question. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Benjamin Udell [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006 11:36 AM Subject: Re: belief, faith, truth Le 30-janv.-06, à 22:07, Benjamin Udell wrote, in part, sometimes ago (30 January): Most people, however, do have some sort of views, which are or have been significant in their lives, about what are traditionally called metaphysical questions -- God, freedom, immortality, psycho-physical relationships, etc. Many have one or another kind of metaphysical faith. It seems increasingly clear to me that Bruno is doing a machine metaphysics, or a computer metaphysics, or a metaphysics of, by, and for computers or machines Yes. I am interested in what machines (and other entities) can prove about themselves. And also about what is true about themselves, but that those machines/entitities cannot prove, but can deliver as true in a way or another. The propositional parts of those discourse has been captured by the modal logical systems G and G* respectively (Solovay 1976). (I can't remember why Bruno opts for machines instead of computers.). I use computer for universal machine. Ordinateur in french. All loebian machines I talk about are universal machine. All universal machine believing in classical tautologies and in the laws of addition and multiplication, and in some induction formulas is lobian. It's a shame that the word metaphysics is ruled out by (if I remember correctly, it was in a post a while back) reaction of intellectuals in Belgium. In Belgium, in France and in other countries, I'm afraid, among most scientists, I mean. I rule out also metaphysics because I don't know what it means. Historically it concerns the books which were on the sides of the books on physics in the texts by Aristotle (but is this a legend?). In metaphysics, meta has not the same sense that meta in computer sciences and mathematical logics. Create confusions. Moreover, machine metaphysics is kind of catchy in its alliterative way. Sure. Look: digital machine metaphysics is a branch of metamathematics! Metaphysics is not religion but instead a philosophical study of questions which are among the important ones in religion. Philosophy, however, can be applied in living, so the distinction is not a barrier impenetrable in practice (or, therefore, in theory either) I don't even really believe in any precise frontiers between all those things. It is useful only for the curriculum vitae and for searching job and getting social profile, but any fundamental questioning is up to eventually move frontiers or suppress some. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
to have your respect. Even in maths, words sometimes get fuzzy. The mathematically oriented person will, nevertheless, still feel the need to respect distinctions. There is a tendency among mathematically oriented people to disparage the vaguer distinctions made in other fields as being no real distinctions at all. This tends to create the impression that mathematically oriented people do not have strong or reliable understanding of issues in fields beyond their own. In fact, many intellectuals, mathematical non-mathematical alike, tend to exhibit a remarkable confidence even when they are far off their own turfs, as if things outside their own turfs were a holiday from serious, doubt-weighted thought. In fact, it's not just intellectuals, it's everybody! If I weren't that way myself to some extent, I could never muster the courage to post to t! his list. Okay, a certain boldness and cavalierness is part of what is needed in order for one to do things. Nevertheless, if you feel yourself licensed to use important words loosely, nobody will take seriously any self-defense by you on the basis of distinctions in meaning. Suggesting that a bunch of words are so blurry in their distinctions that you can use them interchangeably, just means that they and still other words all can be used interchangeably against you. And, basically, you don't want to sound willfully sloppy in your use of important words at variance with traditional accepted meanings; you don't want people taking it as a representative sample of how you deal with ideas. And, as I said in some old post, the words themselves don't care about you or what you meant to do or meant to mean, and the words themselves will trap you if you give them an inch. Since you're talking not only about metaphysics but also about machines as metaphysicians, maybe there's some way to coin a word there. "Metaphysicianology" sounds looks awful. "Metaphysicistics." Better, but not much better. "Machine metaphysicisms." "Metaphysicology." "Metaphysicalistics." Those are, at least, pronounceable. I'm not doing too well. It's definitely easier to criticize your word choice than to supply you with a better word choice. Still, if plain old "metaphysics" is out of the question because of the reception which it gets, then "theology" would seem even more out of the question. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: "Bruno Marchal" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Benjamin Udell" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006 11:36 AM Subject: Re: belief, faith, truth Le 30-janv.-06, 22:07, Benjamin Udell wrote, in part, sometimes ago (30 January): Most people, however, do have some sort of views, which are or have been significant in their lives, about what are traditionally called metaphysical questions -- God, freedom, immortality, psycho-physical relationships, etc. Many have one or another kind of metaphysical faith. It seems increasingly clear to me that Bruno is doing a machine metaphysics, or a computer metaphysics, or a metaphysics of, by, and for computers or machines Yes. I am interested in what machines (and other entities) can prove about themselves. And also about what is true about themselves, but that those machines/entitities cannot prove, but can deliver as true in a way or another. The propositional parts of those discourse has been captured by the modal logical systems G and G* respectively (Solovay 1976). (I can't remember why Bruno opts for "machines" instead of "computers."). I use "computer" for universal machine. "Ordinateur" in french. All loebian machines I talk about are universal machine. All universal machine "believing" in classical tautologies and in the laws of addition and multiplication, and in some induction formulas is lobian. It's a shame that the word "metaphysics" is ruled out by (if I remember correctly, it was in a post a while back) reaction of intellectuals in Belgium. In Belgium, in France and in other countries, I'm afraid, among most scientists, I mean. I rule out also "metaphysics" because I don't know what it means. Historically it concerns the books which were on the sides of the books on physics in the texts by Aristotle (but is this a legend?). In "metaphysics", "meta" has not the same sense that "meta" in computer sciences and mathematical logics. Create confusions. Moreover, "machine metaphysics" is kind of catchy in its alliterative way. Sure. Look: digital machine metaphysics is a branch of metamathematics! Metaphysics is not religion but instead a philosophical study of questions which are among the important ones in religion. Philosophy, however, can be applied in living, so the distinction is not a barrier impenetrable in practice (or, therefore, in theory either) I don't even really believe in any precise frontiers between all those things. It is useful only for the curriculum vitae and for searching job and getting social profile, but any fundamental questioning is up to eventually move frontiers or suppress some. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Tom Caylor writes: We can't JUST DO things (like AI). Whenever we DO things, we are THINKING ABOUT them. I'd venture to say that HOW WE THINK ABOUT THINGS (e.g. philosophy, epistemology, etc.) is even MORE important that DOING THINGS (engineering, sales, etc.). That is one way of looking at the advantage that we humans have over machines. We have the capability to not just do things, but to know why we are doing them. This runs counter to the whole PHILOSOPHY (mind you) of modern science, that we are simply machines, and that there is no WHY. This modern philosophy, if taken to its extreme, is the death of the humanness. We are definitely machines: machines made of meat. A negative answer to the question of whether a machine made of semiconductors and wire can ever be functionally equivalent to a brain, or whether the human mind is Turing-emulable, does not in itself imply that we are not simply machines. And if we have the capability to not just do things, but to know why we are doing them, then at least some machines are able to wonder why. Granted, common usage of the term machine generally excludes living organisms, but this distinction will be recognised as spurious when we develop nanotechnology that can copy and surpass any naturally evolved biological process. Stathis Papaioannou _ careerone.com.au http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fadsfac%2Enet%2Flink%2Easp%3Fcc%3DNWS014%2E19163%2E0%26clk%3D1%26creativeID%3D28927_t=752722611_m=EXT
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 09-févr.-06, à 07:22, Kim Jones a écrit : I was just about to ask what an angel was! You must have read my mind, Bruno. Non-machine-emulable is angel. OK. Why do they(?) have to be called angel? Can one liken them(?) to the theological description of an angel or is there some other reason? Actually Plotinus never use that word. Instead, he seems to use gods or in some partiicular case daemon. I use it because it is shorter than non-machine and less disturbing than Plotinus' Gods. I am open that they could be liken to any celestial object sincere theologian can discuss,. Sincere = they can discuss it in the open-to-doubt scientist way to talk about things. The advantage of angel is that it reminds us that they are not effective constructible objects. They exist in the intelligible world only (Plato's Heaven, Cantor Paradise, Plotinus Divine Intellect). Terrestrial angel could exist though, but this is an open problem (both for theoreticians using comp or weaker, and empiricists). I hope people are not too much disturbed by my vocabulary. For those who knows a bit about recursion theory, simple angels can be classified by being more or less canonically associated to the Turing degrees of insolubility. Most angels are just machine having added to them some divine ability (under the form of Turing's oracles, or being capable to do omega proofs in one strike, etc.). The interesting thing, for mathematician, is that they existence shows that the incompleteness results are extremely solid, all those angels are still under the Godel-Lob dicto, and, if I am correct, I mean if ma derivation of physics is correct (which remains to be seen I recall) they are under the quantum dicto too. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 06-févr.-06, à 18:54, Tom ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: My answer is probably too short, but I want to take the risk of being misinterpreted in order to be plain: OK, I will take the risk of misinterpreting you. We can't JUST DO things (like AI). Actually a Universal Dovetailer do nothing. It is a program without inputs and without outputs. Whenever we DO things, we are THINKING ABOUT them. Like a loebian machine, or a lobian angel (by definition an angel is any platonic entity which is not able to be emulated by a turing machine). I'd venture to say that HOW WE THINK ABOUT THINGS (e.g. philosophy, epistemology, etc.) is even MORE important that DOING THINGS (engineering, sales, etc.). I could have a similar opinion. Eventually what I find important is that what we DO reflects what we THINK. That is one way of looking at the advantage that we humans have over machines. Mmmh feel superior ? (I guess you are using the pregodelian sense of machine). We have the capability to not just do things, but to know why we are doing them. Are you sure we know why? Are you sure machines cannot know why? This runs counter to the whole PHILOSOPHY (mind you) of modern science, that we are simply machines, and that there is no WHY. This is due to the materialist who like to use the idea that we are simply machine just to put under the rug all the interesting open problem of (platonician) theology. Since Godel's discovery this position is untenable. Now we know that we don't know really what machines are. With the comp-or-weaker hyp, we already know that if we are machine then the physical laws emerges from in a totally precise and testable way. This modern philosophy, if taken to its extreme, is the death of the humanness. Since more than 3000 years, there are two competing theories, or just methodologies in front of the fundamental questions. In the occident, they have respectively take the shape of: 1) Aristotle. In summary: open your eyes and try to figure out what is 2) Plato. In summary: close your eyes and try to figure out what is. My work: an argument showing that the roots of truth including physics is indeed in our mind, together with a constructive version of that argument. This one shows how to program a universal machine (computer) to look deep inside itself and expresses the physical laws, so that we can test Plato. First tests has been done and confirms Plato, and still more Plotinus. This illustrates that some back and forth between the two methodologies, like in most scientific work, is not forbidden! Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
I was just about to ask what an angel was! You must have read my mind, Bruno. Non-machine-emulable is angel. OK. Why do they(?) have to be called angel? Can one liken them(?) to the theological description of an angel or is there some other reason? regards Kim Jones On 08/02/2006, at 8:42 PM, Bruno Marchal wrote: (by definition an angel is any platonic entity which is not able to be emulated by a turing machine).
Re: Belief, faith, truth
Norman, As far as I understand you, we agree (on this a t least). The explanation on the list that I was alluding toward, is here, so you could perhaps verify: http://www.mail-archive.com/everything-list@eskimo.com/msg05272.html Bruno Le 05-févr.-06, à 00:51, Norman Samish a écrit : Bruno, Thanks for your response. I don't understand why you say my argument is not valid. Granted, much of what you write is unintelligible to me because you are expert in fields of which I know little. Nevertheless, a cat can look at a king. Here is what we've said so far: (Norman ONE) My conjecture is that a perfect simulation by a limited-resource AI would not be possible. If this is correct, then self-aware simulations that are perpetually unaware that they are simulations would not be possible. (Bruno ONE) This could be a reasonable conjecture. I have explain on the list that if we are a simulation then indeed after a finite time we could have strong evidence that this is the case, for example by discoveries of discrepancies between the comp-physics and the observed physics. (Norman TWO) Humans have not made the discovery that they are simulations, therefore the most PROBABLE (emphasis added) situation is that we are not simulations. (Bruno TWO) This argument is not valid. The reason is that if we could be correct simulation (if that exists), then that would remain essentially undecidable. (Then I could argue the premise is false. Violation of bell's inequalities could be taken as an argument that we are in a simulation (indeed in the infinity of simulation already present in the mathematical running of a universal dovetailer, or arithmetical truth.) (Norman THREE) I don't understand the part of Bruno TWO in parentheses - I'm not asking you to explain it to me. Are you saying that a perfect simulation would not necessarily discover it was a simulation? If so, I agree. This is supported in Bruno ONE where you said it was reasonable that if we are a simulation we would, in finite time, discover that this is the case. Therefore it seems to me that my statement in Norman TWO is correct - note my inclusion of the word probable. Do you agree? Or am I missing your point? Norman http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 05-févr.-06, à 03:07, Russell Standish a écrit : On Sat, Feb 04, 2006 at 04:30:11PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: I agree. I guess in our local and sharable past, humans reached loebianity 200,000 years ago. I'm not sure why you say 200Kya, other than it being the origin of our species. That's the point. There is a fair bit of evidence that something significant happened to human brain function around 40,000 years ago (see Steven Mithen's Prehistory of the Mind). Once a universal machine appears relatively to another one, we can expect recurring surprises, actually in some spiral way once they get the memory of their experiences. There was an explosion of representational art that occurred around that time. Like that! And it is nothing compared to what written language will add, and that is nothing compared to what silicon universal machine will add, etc. On the other hand, there is also evidence that other apes (Chimpanzees, a Gorilla, the Gibbon and so on) are capable of self awareness so maybe Loebianity arose 7-8 Mya. I am very open to that idea. But it is hard to test. Elephants could be good candidate too for loebianity in the sense that it seems there are evidences that they can distinguish third person death and first person death, which is a key symptom of loebianity. I am not really a zoologist and find hard to have precise opinions on that. Note that loebianity is a little more than self-awareness. It is more like self-awareness awareness. Interesting degrees of self-awareness are described modal logically in the recreative book by Smullyan: Forever Undecided. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Jeanne Houston wrote: I am a layperson who reads these discussions out of avid interest, and I hope that someone will answer a question that I would like to ask in order to enhance my own understanding. There is an emphasis on AI running through these discussions, yet you seem to delve into very philosophical questions. Are the philosophical discussions applicable to the development of AI (i.e., trying to grasp all aspects of the mind of man if you are trying to develop a true copy), or are they only interesting diversions that pop-up from time to time. My thanks to anyone who wishes to respond. Jeanne Houston My answer is probably too short, but I want to take the risk of being misinterpreted in order to be plain: We can't JUST DO things (like AI). Whenever we DO things, we are THINKING ABOUT them. I'd venture to say that HOW WE THINK ABOUT THINGS (e.g. philosophy, epistemology, etc.) is even MORE important that DOING THINGS (engineering, sales, etc.). That is one way of looking at the advantage that we humans have over machines. We have the capability to not just do things, but to know why we are doing them. This runs counter to the whole PHILOSOPHY (mind you) of modern science, that we are simply machines, and that there is no WHY. This modern philosophy, if taken to its extreme, is the death of the humanness. Tom Caylor
Re: belief, faith, truth
To realize that we are just machines in a physical world, and that this validates and enhances--rather than diminishes--the romance, the meaning, and the mystery of human existence, is a very empowering conceptualization. To travel into the void, leaving behind myths and tradition, and then to emerge from the void, to see that all is as it was, but standing on physical law, both known and not yet known, is to gain the freedom to grow. - Jef http://www.jefallbright.net Increasing awareness for increasing morality On 2/6/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We can't JUST DO things (like AI). Whenever we DO things, we are THINKING ABOUT them. I'd venture to say that HOW WE THINK ABOUT THINGS (e.g. philosophy, epistemology, etc.) is even MORE important that DOING THINGS (engineering, sales, etc.). That is one way of looking at the advantage that we humans have over machines. We have the capability to not just do things, but to know why we are doing them. This runs counter to the whole PHILOSOPHY (mind you) of modern science, that we are simply machines, and that there is no WHY. This modern philosophy, if taken to its extreme, is the death of the humanness.
Re: belief, faith, truth
I am a layperson who reads these discussions out of avid interest, and I hope that someone will answer a question that I would like to ask in order to enhance my own understanding. There is an emphasis on AI running through these discussions, yet you seem to delve into very philosophical questions. Are the philosophical discussions applicable to the development of AI (i.e., trying to grasp all aspects of the mind of man if you are trying to develop a true copy), or are they only interesting diversions that pop-up from time to time. My thanks to anyone who wishes to respond. Jeanne Houston - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 2:02 PM Subject: Re: belief, faith, truth Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Danny Mayes writes: My belief is that in matters of faith, you can choose to believe or not believe based on whether it suits your personal preferences. Your example of the Nazis would not apply because there is overwhelming evidence that the Nazis existed. Perhaps it can be argued that there is meaningful evidence that the God described in Sunday school class exists as well, however I don't think anyone would argue that the evidence for that God is nearly as strong as evidence of the Nazis. As you say, religion, by necessity, is based on faith and therefore little to no objective evidence. I guess your point was that if you already have the faith in something without evidence, the fact that you are then taught as part of the belief system that there are some aspects not very appealing should not have any bearing on whether you still have your faith? I would disagree with that in that you can have faith in something because the concept is attractive to you, but then lose your faith when the concept is shown to be less attractive. (this was not really my situation as a child- I was never really presented the opportunity to examine the faith until presented with the teachings described in the original post). This is not entirely unrelated to the sciences. Science has pushed into many areas into realms that can only tangentially, at best, be proven with objective evidence. The MWI is a good example. I believe in it, because I think it provides the most explanatory power over competing ideas. However, it would be difficult to fault someone for demanding more in the way of direct evidence. In a sense, there is an element of faith in such theories. String theory is another example. I'm not saying these things are not science, just that they are theories beyond our reach to prove or disprove at the present time. Many scientists are quoted as endorsing string theory in part due to the elegance of the theory. This goes with what I was saying above about accepting something on faith as long as it appears to be the most attractive idea, even if it is not supported by much objective evidence. I doubt the beliefs of fundementalist Christianity will ever be absolutely proven or disproven, and as a faith belief I reserve the right to discard it at my choosing! I think you are referring to that aspect of belief which has little to do with whether or not the belief is in accordance with reality. This is very common in everyday life, but it is also probably common in science or other supposedly objective fields of enquiry. One could even speculate that having faith in a scientific theory in its nascent phase - that is, believing it to be true with greater certainty than the available evidence warrants - is important in motivating the theorist to do the experimental work which will ultimately validate the theory to the satisfaction of the rest of the scientific community. This is fine, as long as we are clear that there is a distinction between the utility of a belief and the truth value of that belief. An interesting illustration of this distinction in philosophy of religion is Pascal's Wager. Pascal aknowledged that it is not possible to decide with any certainty whether God exists, but continued to ask the question, should we believe that God exists? If we believe that he does and it turns out that we are right, we gain eternal life in Heaven, while if it turns out we are wrong, we gain or lose nothing as a result of our false belief. On the other hand, if we declare ourselves atheists and are right, we gain or lose nothing, but if we are wrong, we end up in Hell. Therefore, we are better off believing that God does exist. The problem with almost all people with fundamentalist-type religious convictions that I have met, however, is that they are not as honest as Pascal was. They claim that their belief is certainly or almost certainly correct, and that it is based on empirical evidence, such as the historical record contained in the Bible. Pressed
Re: belief, faith, truth
Jeanne, I can't speak for the others here, but, in my case what drew me here was the subject of multiverses/universes. My interest is in amateur one in philosophy. However, I think that there is a convergence of philosophical AI interests, to which many older philosophers seemed a bit blinkered or at least somewhat indifferent, possibly because of traditional classifications, largely Comtean and tree-like, of fields of research, which fail to attend to inter-family bands of common research interests. Maybe to some extent the linguistic-analytic school's views of philosophy did likewise by tending to place philosophy outside the normal system of research and by placing subjects like ontology metaphysics largely outside of philosophy or any serious research. It's a convergence which, in my case, dawned on me years ago, from a philosophical viewpoint, on the basis of issues of classification of research, at a time when I knew next to nothing about AI (I still know rather little). It simply occurred to me that ontology, whether in the sense of ontics (what things exist?) or of ontology (traditional philosophical sense -- philosophical structure of kinds of being) -- would be relevant to a sufficiently intelligent computer program, so I googled on ontology and lo and behold, found programming AI stuff involving ontologies all over the place. What Bruno is doing involves both ontology epistemology. Apparently it's been obvious to them for quite a while to computer scientists, is in sci-fi, too. In the 1974 movie _Dark Star_ (which I didn't see till many years later) one of the astronauts teaches phenomenology to the ship's computer in order to get it doubt itself. That scene is a bit silly and campy, but it's hard to watch it without considering the issues of philosophy FOR artificial intelligences. You didn't ask about this, but the convergence of both sets of interests with that of grand cosmologies or whatever they're called, seems to have some root in the fact that assertions about the ultimate nature of everything tend to lead us into reasoning on -- and about -- the basis of views about the nature and roles of knowledge, inference, observation, etc., themselves. It's already a broad subject; the sciences of reason -- of reason's crackups -- stretch from the maths of order and conditions of math induction's applicability, to deductive theory of logic, to philosophy, and to the studies of intelligent life as we've known it -- human social studies (which I suppose will recognize AI as a new housemate or roommate as it advances). That's a cross-family band marked by some degree of distinctive overall research interest. (I would be interested to know whether the disciplines which study order (including among the real numbers, among alephs, etc.), and deductive ! theory of logic, have anything like the reputation for dysfunctionality or pathology which philosophy the human social studies have among less abstract more empirical fields.) The Heisenberg uncertainty principle helps science by leveraging the limits of knowledge into producing lots of information, both practical theoretical, about physical events. One can discern nowadays an effort in something like a hope of leveraging the character limits of knowledge and inference and the kinds of systems or creatures which have them, into yielding information about the big questions. Anthropic principles, quantum immortality debates, etc., seem among examples of such efforts. Best, Ben Udell - Original Message - From: Jeanne Houston [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2006 11:38 AM Subject: Re: belief, faith, truth I am a layperson who reads these discussions out of avid interest, and I hope that someone will answer a question that I would like to ask in order to enhance my own understanding. There is an emphasis on AI running through these discussions, yet you seem to delve into very philosophical questions. Are the philosophical discussions applicable to the development of AI (i.e., trying to grasp all aspects of the mind of man if you are trying to develop a true copy), or are they only interesting diversions that pop-up from time to time. My thanks to anyone who wishes to respond. Jeanne Houston - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 2:02 PM Subject: Re: belief, faith, truth
Re: belief, faith, truth
John, Le 03-févr.-06, à 23:45, John M a écrit : --- Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just compare past systems of 'logic' - say back to 3000 years, about the same nature (world) and you can agree that ALL OF THEM cannot be true. I agree. I would say HALF of them are true. My point is that we can test it. The 'artifact' did not change. I do not believe that we reached the ultimate level in logic and mental capabilites as of Febr. 2006 I agree. I guess in our local and sharable past, humans reached loebianity 200,000 years ago. Here and there, but also beyond time in Platonia, loebian machines introspect herselves and discover sort of theory of everything, let us say. My point is that we can get that theory of everything by interviewing a universal( turing) machine introspecting herself (that's what leads to G, G*, ...) The machine's theory of everything is testable because it includes physics. Now I have discovered that Plotinus (200-300 after JC) is, accepting one correction, 100% loebian, and that its theory of matter (70% Plato, 30% Aristotle) is, relatively to the arithmetical interpretation, equivalent with mine (which is the loebian one, strictly speaking). If we can identify our ignorance. It is like agnosticism: Indeed. Although the modest machine is mute there. (sometimes I forget that!) ignorance about what? about ourselves and the rest. Already about numbers. We have to know about it to structure it. And it is very hard to do so, but in our west, there was an Old School discussing the point from Pythagoras to the late neoplatonist. I think the peak is Plotinus. But in the east: same discussions with different words. Today, we have the math for listening to machines and angels, belonging to vast lattices of angels (non-machines). Solipsism can be humiliating: I cannot be right.G #rd person is not denied in my position: it is just represented by MY 1st person interpretation of it, so while there is a 3rd person truth it emerges in us as our 1st person understanding. No problem with that. We can start from the first person as well. In some of its presentation Plotinus follows that path. Technically it is less simple. Albert Visser got the logic of intutionistic provability, and its corresponding version of the Loeb truth. But you know I am a Platonist , and then classical logic is more easy to handle. Anyway, we get all hypostases. Incompleteness leads naturally to many different points of view, even with Truth limited to the truth of proposition about numbers. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
--- Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: John, Le 03-févr.-06, à 23:45, John M a écrit : --- Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just compare past systems of 'logic' - say back to 3000 years, about the same nature (world) and you can agree that ALL OF THEM cannot be true. I agree. I would say HALF of them are true. My point is that we can test it. Bruno, You missed my point: whatever you want to test is still WITHIN the - I condone - HALF which you deem true. But it is perfectly circular: you test our human logic/understanding within human logic/understanding. The caveman 200,000 years ago used the same (?) for establishing our mental ways with a lot less empirical cognitive inventory for use. And we still don't know all (understatement). Ignorance without knowing what we don't know - unstructurably. SNIP ignorance about what? about ourselves and the rest. Already about numbers. We have to know about it to structure it. Could Columbus ever 'structure' the No-American West-Coast region when he thought he is in Asia? Bruno: And it is very hard to do so, but in our west, there was an Old School discussing the point from Pythagoras to the late neoplatonist. I think the peak is Plotinus. But in the east: same discussions with different words. Today, we have the math for listening to machines and angels, belonging to vast lattices of angels (non-machines). Beautiful. Solipsism can be humiliating: I cannot be right.G #rd person is not denied in my position: it is just represented by MY 1st person interpretation of it, so while there is a 3rd person truth it emerges in us as our 1st person understanding. No problem with that. We can start from the first person as well. In some of its presentation Plotinus follows that path. Technically it is less simple. Albert Visser got the logic of intutionistic provability, and its corresponding version of the Loeb truth. But you know I am a Platonist , and then classical logic is more easy to handle. Anyway, we get all hypostases. Incompleteness leads naturally to many different points of view, even with Truth limited to the truth of proposition about numbers. Bruno, I don't believe you are a Platonist. You may accept some (side?)lines of Platonistic ways, but you are ~3 millennia past Platonism, I think even past Loebianism. You are a BrunoMarchalist. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ John M
Re: belief, faith, truth
John, Le 04-févr.-06, à 17:20, John M a écrit : Bruno, You missed my point: whatever you want to test is still WITHIN the - I condone - HALF which you deem true. But it is perfectly circular: you test our human logic/understanding within human logic/understanding. I don't think so. I test human introspection and theorizing, with physical apparatus, or just by comparing with today's physics. I already got that the loebian physics cannot be boolean, and that it looks like a quantum logic (details need more advanced stuff, but that appears through the genuine hypostasis (person point of view in Plotinus). I say loebian physics instead of my usual machine physics because I take more and more into account that G and G* are correct for much more than machine, it concerns many angels too. The caveman 200,000 years ago used the same (?) for establishing our mental ways with a lot less empirical cognitive inventory for use. And we still don't know all (understatement). Ignorance without knowing what we don't know - unstructurably. It is here that the theorem of Godel, Lob and Solovay put a big light on the roots of the difficulties so that I invite people to take a look at it. Thanks to Solovay we can use simple modal logic to express the main point. I will say more when we go back to the hypostases ... At some point I should present some concrete lobian machine like Peano Arithmetic, Zermelo-Fraenkel theory, and some concrete angels like Anomega (Analysis + the divine (even Boolos uses the term page xxxiii) omega rule which permit you to infer universals from an infinity of proofs). Like Boolos and the logician I use Analysis for axiomatic second order arithmetic. All obeys G and G*. G and G*. Here the schrodinger equation of self-reference, if you want. Best, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: Belief, faith, truth
Bruno, Thanks for your response. I don't understand why you say my argument is not valid. Granted,much of what you write is unintelligible to me because you are expert in fields of which I know little. Nevertheless, a cat can look at a king. Here is what we've said so far: (Norman ONE) My conjecture is that a perfect simulation by a limited-resource AI would not be possible. If this is correct, then self-aware simulations that are perpetually unaware that they are simulations would not be possible. (Bruno ONE) This could be a reasonable conjecture. I have explain on the list that if we are a simulation then indeed after a finite time we could have strong evidence that this is the case, for example by discoveries of discrepancies between the "comp-physics" and the "observed physics". (Norman TWO) Humans have not made the discovery that they are simulations, therefore the mostPROBABLE (emphasis added)situation is that we are not simulations.(Bruno TWO) This argument is not valid. The reason is that if we could be "correct" simulation (if that exists), then that would remain essentially undecidable. (Then I could argue the premise is false. Violation of bell's inequalities could be taken as an argument that we are in a simulation (indeed in the infinity of simulation already "present" in the "mathematical running" of a universal dovetailer, or arithmetical truth.) (Norman THREE) I don't understand the part of "Bruno TWO" in parentheses - I'm not asking you to explain it to me. Are you saying that a perfect simulation would not necessarily discover it was a simulation? If so, I agree. This is supported in"Bruno ONE" where you said it was reasonable that if we are a simulation we would, in finite time,discover that this is the case. Therefore it seems to me that mystatement in "NormanTWO" is correct - note my inclusion of the word "probable."Do you agree? Or am I missing your point? Norman
Re: belief, faith, truth
On Sat, Feb 04, 2006 at 04:30:11PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: I agree. I guess in our local and sharable past, humans reached loebianity 200,000 years ago. I'm not sure why you say 200Kya, other than it being the origin of our species. There is a fair bit of evidence that something significant happened to human brain function around 40,000 years ago (see Steven Mithen's Prehistory of the Mind). There was an explosion of representational art that occurred around that time. On the other hand, there is also evidence that other apes (Chimpanzees, a Gorilla, the Gibbon and so on) are capable of self awareness so maybe Loebianity arose 7-8 Mya. Cheers -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpELqZL0VjDt.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 02-févr.-06, à 17:31, Norman Samish a écrit : My conjecture is that a perfect simulation by a limited-resource AI would not be possible. If this is correct, then self-aware simulations that are perpetually unaware that they are simulations would not be possible. This could be a reasonable conjecture. I have explain on the list that if we are a simulation then indeed after a finite time we could have strong evidence that this is the case, for exemple by discoveries of discrepancies between the comp-physics and the observed physics. Humans have not made the discovery that they are simulations, therefore the most probable situation is that we are not simulations. This argument is not valid. The reason is that if we could be correct simulation (if that exists), then that would remain essentially undecidable. Then I could argue the premise is false. Violation of bell's inequalities could be taken as an argument that we are in a simulation (indeed in the infinity of simulation already present in the mathematical running of a universal dovetailer, or arithmetical truth. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 03-févr.-06, à 00:56, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : I would like to think there is a qualitative difference between scientific belief and religious belief: scientific belief is adjusted in the light of contradictory evidence, while religious belief is not. The problem is that we are biased by about 1600 years of authoritative arguments in the theology field. We have been drilled for not questioning religious beliefs, and even Pope Jean-Paul II still presented doubt in the matter as a product of the Evil. And then the christians and atheists alike always present Aristotle naturalism, and the existence of a primitive physical universe as a truth only a foolish can doubt. For me, all questioning is amenable to science, or put in another way, we can kept a scientific attitude, in all fields, including those asking for faith. At the very least, there is a quantitative difference: religious belief is adhered to more obstinately in the light of contradictory evidence than is scientific belief. I agree, but I think this is just due to unfortunate historical circumstances. In addition, there is a difference in attitude: even the most obstinate scientist will claim that his position is consistent with the available evidence, while the religious believer holds that he has ultimately tapped into to a truth that transcends mere human reason. Correct machines can tapped into a truth that transcends machines reason, but not into a truth that contradicts machines reason. Unless the machine suffers from some bad faith. The same for humans; scientist or believer alike. In the (ex) Soviet Union, Lyssenko has defended a crazy biology contradicting more and more the evidences, leading to one of the worst famine. The problem is that as long as we discourage rationalist to study theology and doing research in theology, we are abandoning it to the irrationalists or to the dishonest people, like those who will use some natural human fears to manipulate people and get power. Some centuries ago, the question of the shape of Earth was belonging to theology, as many other question which we put today in science. From this some people tend to think that science will develop itself on the entire inquiry field. The comp. hyp (or weaker) + the incompleteness phenomena justify a place for a genuine theology which you can see as a study of a truth which extends properly reason (Cf G* minus G). The point is not that science can answer all question it can tackle, but on the contrary science can tackle, at least through some hypothesis or axioms (like comp) the structure of its own boundaries. Godel's incompleteness theorem, which is already provable by a simple machine like Peano-Arithmetic does at least illustrate that a machine can tackle the mathematical structure of its own incompleteness or of its own ignorance. There is no contradiction in the existence of a 100% scientific theology, still letting the religious attitudes to any personal individual choice (example the yes/no doctor attitude in the comp framework). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 02-févr.-06, à 08:43, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tom) wrote: Bruno: >To believe in something in spite of refutation is bad faith. >To believe in something in spite of contrary evidences ? It depends. I >can imagine situations where I would find that a remarkable attitude, >and I can imagine others where I would take it again as bad faith. I agree. I think part of this is a matter of preference of terms. Meeker et al want to use religious faith for what Bruno says is bad faith, and I agree that is bad faith. I'm content with leaving off the word religious, and just use faith to refer to holding to the possibility of the truth of a certain proposition until it is refuted. I agree that religious faith today is akin to bad faith. I already explained that this is due to the stealing of theology by political power since about 500 after jc. To infer that all religious faith is bad faith is like throwing the water with the baby. Note that by incompleteness there are some faith, that is holding the possibility of truth of certain proposition, which will never be refuted nor proved, like our own consistency, or like our own consciousness. Nobody can prove its own sanity, except the insane who can prove everything. cf: ~Bf -> ~B(~Bf) >> (Brent meeker:)That would be an unquestioning certitude that there is a reality >> independent of all opinion? > >Well, that is the bet, or hope, of the non solipsist scientist. Popper >said that faith in reason is faith in your own reason but above all >faith in the reason of the others. >And then Platonism is the faith in a reality independent of all >opinion, indeed, like the faith in the fact that 17 is prime >independently of us. > >Bruno And here we have a couple of things (reason and reality) whose existence we should all have faith in. So none of us should be scared by the word faith (in reason and reality). By this I mean simply that we should not abandon our pursuit of truth. If all there is is opinion, then we're all wasting our time. I agree. To believe that opinion can be separated from the search of some truth would lead to absolute relativism, which Descartes already showed to be inconsistent. And then, the very notion of truth, appears to be, from a machine (or stronger loebian entities) point of view, to be unnameable, unsophisticated, etc. It has all the negative characterizations of the one of the negative neoplatonist theologies. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Bruno: --- Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le 01-févr.-06, à 16:11, John M a écrit : Bruno and list: We are so sure about our infinite capabilities to understand the entirety (wholeness) and follow all existence (whatever you may call it) by our human mind and logic... Who can be sure of that? Just compare past systems of 'logic' - say back to 3000 years, about the same nature (world) and you can agree that ALL OF THEM cannot be true. The 'artifact' did not change. I do not believe that we reached the ultimate level in logic and mental capabilites as of Febr. 2006 I like to leave a 'slot' open (maybe WE are in the restricted slot?) which is not accessible by our idideationaleans. That's the relief with the loebian machine. She is forced to let a rather big slot open. Remember that the first sentences of the 3-personne are the humility principle and the modesty principle. It is just that for us to remain consistant we must accept that the so-called material world is the last emanation of our ignorance. Godel-Lob-Solovay: ignorance is structured. If we can identify our ignorance. It is like agnosticism: ignorance about what? We have to know about it to structure it. Reality - whatever it may be identified by - is not a human artifact. We are in complete agreement. But with the comp HYP (or weaker) Reality, whatever it is, is an artifact resulting from some mixing between lobian (not human) ignorancxe and arithmetical truth. This does not contradict what you say. As this list agreed (at least I did) it is better to talk about a '(1st person?) perception of reality' i.e. of the part we can muster and in ways we can handle. It may include the 'Subject' concepts. But if you refuse to bet on something thrid person describable operating at the roots of the first person perception, you take the risk of solipsism (the contrary of humility). Of course, any third person proposition (even theorem in arithmetic) is doubtful, and some amount of faith is asked upon. Solipsism can be humiliating: I cannot be right.G #rd person is not denied in my position: it is just represented by MY 1st person interpretation of it, so while there is a 3rd person truth it emerges in us as our 1st person understanding. Bon week-end, Bruno
Re: belief, faith, truth
I would like to think there is a qualitative difference between scientific belief and religious belief: scientific belief is adjusted in the light of contradictory evidence, while religious belief is not. At the very least, there is a quantitative difference: religious belief is adhered to more obstinately in the light of contradictory evidence than is scientific belief. In addition, there is a difference in attitude: even the most obstinate scientist will claim that his position is consistent with the available evidence, while the religious believer holds that he has ultimately tapped into to a truth that transcends mere human reason. Stathis Papaioannou Tom Caylor writes: Bruno wrote: I think everyone has religious faith... Amen, Bruno, and Ben also! This is of course a searing statement, which goes back to why the word theology is taboo. As it's commonly said, the two topics to stay away from in conversation are religion and politics. But, without using the word religion, we can safely say that we all have some basic belief that we hold to in order to make the decisions of our practical living, whether they are every-day decisions like holding a grudge against someone (or not), or bigger decisions about our course in life such as getting married (or not) etc. The modern (and leading up to the modern) reductionist philosophy has split these particulars apart from our musings about universals, so that people typically no longer see any connection between them. (Talk about going in the opposite direction from Everything!) In a way it is rather convenient because we can live out personal lives the way we want to. But the reality is that in being set totally free from universals, we become enslaved. The ultimate destination of rationalism in a totally closed system is something like pan-critical rationalism, where we end up in a swirl of confusion. Even then, we really are having faith that somehow the system is set up such that things will work out OK. If we didn't, then what are we left with? In order to have freedom we need at least some constraints. For example, take the axiomatic system. This applies also to the Mathematics: Is it really... thread. So there needs to be a faith that something is fixed, even if we don't yet know, or perhaps believe that we can never truly know, what is it. This something is what is called truth. _ Make your dream car a reality http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fcarpoint%2Eninemsn%2Ecom%2Eau_t=12345_r=emailtagline_m=EXT
Re: belief, faith, truth
That's very good, Tom! It's the conclusion I arrived at a few years ago, and I don't see why you describe it as an abandonning of truth. I think being upset at this conclusion is like reaching for the nearest nailed-down object when you first learn that the Earth is a sphere: if you didn't fall off before learning this, why should you fall off after? In any case, we return to the distinction between the utility of a belief and its truth value: if an idea will have negative consequences for all who come to understand it, you could argue that the idea should be kept secret, but you can't argue that the idea is therefore false. Stathis Papaioannou Tom wrote: what are we left with? To make my point more plain, I will give my own answer to this question. If we abandon a belief in truth, or if we totally separate truth from our lives, then what are we left with? We are left devoid of meaning in our lives. We would end up with something like, I as a person, do not exist, for putting such a label as person on me would be persumptuous of having a corner on truth, and I don't believe in truth. Instead, I just aimlessly float, like an undefined point, from one observer-moment to the next, and randomly bounce off my surroundings. Since I don't have any beliefs that I hold onto for more than one observer-moment at a time (since I am not a person), then anything can change my mind. In fact, this implies (for I wouldn't dare assume it) that my mind doesn't not exist. There are only particulars. Therefore, why am I even thinking or talking? I am lost. But this doesn't matter because I don't exist as a person and so I have nothing to lose. I am not making sense. Tom _ New year, new job there's more than 100,00 jobs at SEEK http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fninemsn%2Eseek%2Ecom%2Eau_t=752315885_r=Jan05_tagline_m=EXT
Re: belief, faith, truth
Brent, list,
I've edited my previous post, added some corrections notes, and pared down a
lot of the stuff from previous posts. At this point I'm sending it on a for
what it's worth basis -- I'm a little tired of it myself!
I've also thought to try to put this back in its original context but there
isn't much, it's become something of a longueur. The context had been a
discussion of theory practice, and how it is that we can't wait in practical
matters for the kind of theoretical near-certainty which theoretical
researchers seek multi-generationally, and must occasionally even act with
total conviction despite significant uncertainty, so let's not get scornful of
all practical action on sole account of the excesses of a portion of it. I had,
in a complicated way, said that all of us, just like the religious among us,
care and have values regarding the principles, strengths, powers, starting
points, etc., by which we move, act, and live, and that Bruno was right to
point to things which stand out in religious people but which are in all of us.
(I disagree for various reasons with Bruno that we're all religious but I do
think that most of us have views that can fairly be called metaphysical.)!
I pointed out that we could not have an applicational knowledge of such
things ('ruling arts' or 'governing arts') without valuing of such things, any
more than we can have know-how without care-how, or affective art without
gratificational valuings, or maths sciences without valuings of knowledge,
evidence, logic, etc.,, which, as abstract as it sounds, ultimately conjures up
an earthly picture of a common systematic set of fields which we're variously
tilling. think I knocked Rorty somewhere there. Anyway, there, as in other
places I seem to discern echoes of Tegmark's four Levels, though not so much as
in divisions of research fields into families.
Brent asked, But is the value of logic and evidence inherent or only
instrumental? and it took off from there. It's pretty much like asking whether
the value of truth is inherent or only instrumental. Now, I don't know how to
read it except as, is the value of logic and evidence an end value or only a
means value -- is it something at which we are satisfied, culmination and
climax, an end or ending, or is it a way of getting there? Is truth's value
that it's pleasing or that it's useful? My answer is that the value of logic
evidence ( truth) is neither one nor the other per se, though they can and
inevitably do take on such values as means and ends (as ends especially in
research disciplines!), and that the means-end dichotomy is kind of starved,
looks sounds starved, and a little knowledge of the ideas the words tends
to corroborate that. The basic value of evidence logic is not in production
or consumption but in assimiliation, rumination, integration; not in fa!
cilitation or satisfaction, but grounding support and making us know, and is
the value of the holding in completeness after a culmination; and their most
elementary relationship with means and ends is as checks in their supporting
and legitimizing or confirming an end or result as having been attained as
first seems, as the splashed headline claims, etc. You can see this in the
Helmholz-Poincare picture of the creative process: saturation is the beginning;
incubation the means; illumination the culminative end; and verification the
check. In fact, we don't need to ask whether something has value as a means,
value as an end, etc.; we could just as well ask whether it has legitimacy
or soundness as a means, legitimacy or soundness as an end, legitimacy
or soundness as a check. That extra layer of value, legitimacy, or
whatever, consists of essentially the same set of conceptions, merely with
different words, as in the first layer. It occurs to me that I !
don't know why Brent asked about intrinsic value versus instru!
mental v
alue of logic evidence in the first place.
Anyway, FWIW at this point, here's my previous post with some corrections
notes, and paring down of stuff from earlier posts.
[Ben] At this point I'm not talking about aspiring. I'm talking
straightforwardly about being in control, making decisions -- at least for
oneself. Some want more power than that. Some have more power than that and
don't want it. Some have all that and want still more. Parents reasonable
want control over their children. Most of us have had the opportunity to test
our self-control, resist destructive temptations in life, etc. There's
nothing any more or less dualist (I don't know what you're getting at)
about self-governance than about self-awareness or any other reflexive sort
of thing. Making one's own choices, being free to do that, having the
backbone to do it, etc., these are everyday issues.
[Brent] I guess I've lost the thread of this discussion. You're saying people
value/want self-control - but sometimes they don't. Sometimes they
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 30-janv.-06, à 18:49, Brent Meeker a écrit : Bruno Marchal wrote: Le 29-janv.-06, à 20:02, Brent Meeker a écrit : I largely agree with Stathis. I note a subtle difference in language between Danny and Stathis. Danny refers to believe in. I don't think a scientist ever believes in a theory. All right, you use believe in (quote included!) for the religious belief of the fundamentalist. Still I hope you agree that the scientist believes in its theory, if only to be able to acknowledge his theory is wrong when experiments refute it. Cf Belief = B with (Bp - p) NOT being a theorem! That implies taking the theory as the foundation of all further beliefs. In fact most scientists don't believe any theory, except in the provisional sense of thinking them likely, or worth entertaining, or suggestive. OK, but this is independent of the fact that, still, the scientist can believe in (in the scientist modest way of self-interrogation) in the *object* of his theory. Most naturalist believe in a physical universe, or a nature or whatever. We wouldn't discuss about a theory of everything if we were not believing in ... something. Religious faith differs from ordinary belief and scientific hypothesizing not only by the lack of evidence but even more in the assertion of certainity. I think everyone has religious faith. Do you believe that on faith ;-) Certainly everyone takes for granted things on very slim evidence (I heard it in the hall way). But I don't think they have religious faith which implies not just lack of evidence, but a determination to believe in spite of contrary evidence - certainity that any contrary evidence must be wrong just because it is contrary. To believe in something in spite of refutation is bad faith. To believe in something in spite of contrary evidences ? It depends. I can imagine situations where I would find that a remarkable attitude, and I can imagine others where I would take it again as bad faith. Today, a scientist who pretends no doing philosophy or theology, is just a scientist taking for granted Aristotle theology. No problem in case he is aware of the fact, so that, as a scientist, he can still be open to the idea that Aristotle theology can be falsified, but if he is not aware of the fact, then he will not been able to make sense of the data---a little like Roland Omnes who concludes his analysis of QM that there is a point where we need to abandon faith in ... reason. Personally, I consider that abandoning faith in reason in front of difficulties, is just worse that abandoning faith in truth (whatever it is). That would be an unquestioning certitude that there is a reality independent of all opinion? Well, that is the bet, or hope, of the non solipsist scientist. Popper said that faith in reason is faith in your own reason but above all faith in the reason of the others. And then Platonism is the faith in a reality independent of all opinion, indeed, like the faith in the fact that 17 is prime independently of us. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 30-janv.-06, à 17:25, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tom) wrote : Bruno wrote: I think everyone has religious faith... Amen, Bruno, and Ben also! This is of course a searing statement, Its consequences are no less searing I'm afraid. It means that an atheist is someone who has some religious faith, for example in Aristotle Nature or in a material universe, but has lost the ability to put it in doubt, making him/her unaware of the dogmatic character of what he/her has faith in. This prevent progress in research. I think. which goes back to why the word theology is taboo. As it's commonly said, the two topics to stay away from in conversation are religion and politics. I think theology is taboo because it has been appropriated by politic power about 1600 years ago (Emperor Constantine). But, without using the word religion, we can safely say that we all have some basic belief that we hold to in order to make the decisions of our practical living, whether they are every-day decisions like holding a grudge against someone (or not), or bigger decisions about our course in life such as getting married (or not) etc. The modern (and leading up to the modern) reductionist philosophy has split these particulars apart from our musings about universals, so that people typically no longer see any connection between them. (Talk about going in the opposite direction from Everything!) In a way it is rather convenient because we can live out personal lives the way we want to. But the reality is that in being set totally free from universals, we become enslaved. The ultimate destination of rationalism in a totally closed system is something like pan-critical rationalism, where we end up in a swirl of confusion. Even then, we really are having faith that somehow the system is set up such that things will work out OK. If we didn't, then what are we left with? In order to have freedom we need at least some constraints. For example, take the axiomatic system. This applies also to the Mathematics: Is it really... thread. So there needs to be a faith that something is fixed, even if we don't yet know, or perhaps believe that we can never truly know, what is it. This something is what is called truth. Yes. And Truth is the first primary hypostasis of the machine which looks inside herself. Now, what the machine really discovers is its own Abyssal Ignorance. Truth is what we are or feel to be ignorant of. We need it to be able to doubt our theories, as you say. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Re: belief, faith, truth
Le 01-févr.-06, à 16:11, John M a écrit : Bruno and list: We are so sure about our infinite capabilities to understand the entirety (wholeness) and follow all existence (whatever you may call it) by our human mind and logic... Who can be sure of that? I like to leave a 'slot' open (maybe WE are in the restricted slot?) which is not accessible by our idideationaleans. That's the relief with the loebian machine. She is forced to let a rather big slot open. Remember that the first sentences of the 3-personne are the humility principle and the modesty principle. It is just that for us to remain consistant we must accept that the so-called material world is the last emanation of our ignorance. Godel-Lob-Solovay: ignorance is structured. Reality - whatever it may be identified by - is not a human artifact. We are in complete agreement. But with the comp HYP (or weaker) Reality, whatever it is, is an artifact resulting from some mixing between lobian (not human) ignorancxe and arithmetical truth. This does not contradict what you say. As this list agreed (at least I did) it is better to talk about a '(1st person?) perception of reality' i.e. of the part we can muster and in ways we can handle. It may include the 'Subject' concepts. But if you refuse to bet on something thrid person describable operating at the roots of the first person perception, you take the risk of solipsism (the contrary of humility). Of course, any third person proposition (even theorem in arithmetic) is doubtful, and some amount of faith is asked upon. Bon week-end, Bruno
Re: belief, faith, truth
Brent, list, [Ben] At this point I'm not talking about aspiring. I'm talking straightforwardly about being in control, making decisions -- at least for oneself. Some want more power than that. Some have more power than that and don't want it. Some have all that and want still more. Parents reasonable want control over their children. Most of us have had the opportunity to test our self-control, resist destructive temptations in life, etc. There's nothing any more or less dualist (I don't know what you're getting at) about self-governance than about self-awareness or any other reflexive sort of thing. Making one's own choices, being free to do that, having the backbone to do it, etc., these are everyday issues. [Brent] I guess I've lost the thread of this discussion. You're saying people value/want self-control - but sometimes they don't. Sometimes they have self-control - but sometimes they don't. I gather that a non-trivial decision means one between choices that evoke negative emotions, i.e. no good choices. Really, I've been talking about means, ends, other such elements, and trying to place them into familiar contexts, such as that of wanting them and having them. You've been adding an unncessary conceptual layer by referring to them as values, general ends, as if this were some substrate or genus shared by them. If something is a means, then it has value as a means, but what have you added by saying this? And it's an arbitrary choice of complication. You could say that a given thing, as a means, also: 1. is a decision point of some consequence in its role as a means 2. is used in various ways in its role as a means 3. is an end in being a means (i.e., its being a means, its manner of being a means, gives it instrumental value), 4. is a check in being a means (i.e., its being a means, its manner of being a means, makes it telling and evidentiary). Now, if you say, you mean it can have evidentiary _value_?, I'll respond it can and very likely will have that, too, though it's not what I said or meant. Then when I talk about decidings, you want to conceive of deciding as a value too., etc. To say that something has value, is to say that it is an end (an end to some extent, the extent varying as the value). To say that something has value as a means is to say that that thing is an end, because it is a means to some further end. It's true and important but it's distracting you. It's as if there were four ice cream cones including a chocolate one, and you added a second scoop, chocolate, to each of all four. Chocolate is cool, chocolate is deep, yet, and yet, they're not all chocolate, though they're quite capable for chocolate. When you asked, But is the value of logic and evidence inherent or only instrumental? you were asking, are logic and evidence an end in themselves or are they a secondary end, an end whose achievement is mainly a means to a further end? You had said it response to my saying, Now, valuings and ideals are a side of the theoretical which tends to get minimized in the context of the practical-theoretical distinction, just as the difference in the practical between decision-making and performance tends to get sloughed over also in the context of practical-theoretical distinction. But there's no knowledge based on logic evidence without valuing of logic evidence... It may be that, in order to clarify my notion of 'end,' I should say culmination, a kind of ending -- not just 'telos' but 'teleiosis,' reaching the end, actualization. The check is the confirming it, a kind of solidification and holding in completeness. Now, when we pick or take something, sometimes it's so direct that we don't think of means as being saliently involved. But often enough there are these intermediate stages we go through, and intermediating things. If the decision is regarded as a kind of main cause, those middles appear, relative to the situation of interest, as intermediate causes, helpers, facilitating causes. Of course they're also intermediate effects. In any case we regard them as means. If the goal is achieved, effected, sometimes it's so directly obvious that we don't think of any checks as being involved. But often enough there are these collateral and at least a bit later things or events to which we look. If the goal is regarded as a kind of main effect, those things or events on the side or further in time appear, relative to the situation of interest, as side effects, after-effects, evidentiary effects. Just as in advance one may have desired hoped for the end, one may have imagined and anti! cipated the collateral effects, the evidences. One then also will have hoped for them, but only because one hopes for them as signs of the goal's having been achieved. They aren't means to the goal, they're beyond and in addition to the goal in a rather similar sense as the means are beyond and in addition to the beginning, the deciding
Re: belief, faith, truth
The easy answer for you, John, is that given an infinite afterlife, an intelligent being would probably experience everything that it is possible to experience. Heck, eventually I'd probably even get around to checking out what life as John M was all about. Danny Mayes John M wrote: Norman: just imagine a fraction of the infinite afterlife: to sing the pius chants for just 30,000 years by 'people' in heaven with Alzheimers, arthritis, in pain and senility? Or would you choose an earlier phase of terrestrial life for the introduction in heaven: let us say: the fetal age? or school-years with the mentality of a teenager? Would you love spouse No 1,2,or 3? Would you forget about the biggest blunder you did and regretted all your life? Or would you prefer the eternal brimstone-burning (what a waste in energy) without a painkiller? I did not ask about your math, how many are involved over the millennia? I asked a Muslim lately, what the huris are and what the female inhabitants of heaven get? An agnostic has to define what he does 'not' know, hasn't he? Just as an atheist requires a god 'not' to believe in. We are SOOO smart! Have a good day John M --- Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm agnostic, yet it strikes me that even if there is no God, those that decide to have faith, and have the ability to have faith, in a benign God have gained quite a bit. They have faith in an afterlife, in ultimate justice, in the triumph of good over evil, etc. Without this faith, life for many would be intolerable. If there is no God, there is no afterlife and they get a zero. If there is a God, there is an after life and they get infinity. So how can they lose? Maybe Pascal's Wager deserves more consideration. Norman Samish ~~ - Original Message - From: "Brent Meeker" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 5:25 PM Subject: Re: belief, faith, truth Even within the context that Pascal intended it is fallacious. If you worship the God of Abraham and there is no god, you have given up freedom of thought, you have given up responsibility for your own morals and ethics, you have denied yourself some pleasures of the mind as well as pleasures of the flesh. It's a bad bargain. Brent Meeker The Christian religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration- courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth. --- H. L. Mencken Stathis Papaioannou wrote: That's right: if you believe in the Christian God and are wrong, the real God (who may be worshipped by an obscure group numbering a few dozen people, or by aliens, or by nobody at all) may be angry and may punish you. An analogous situation arises when creationists demand that the Biblical version of events be taught alongside evolutionary theory in schools: if we are to be fair, the creation myths of every religious sect should be taught. - Stathis Papaioannou On Mon, Jan 30, 2006 at 12:36:46AM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: [Incidently, can you see the logical flaw in Pascal's Wager as described above?] I always wondered why it should be the Christian account of God and Heaven that was relevant.
Re: belief, faith, truth
Norman wrote: I'm agnostic, yet it strikes me that even if there is no God, those that decide to have faith, and have the ability to have faith,in a benign God have gained quite a bit. They have faith in an afterlife, in ultimate justice, in the triumph of good over evil, etc. Without this faith, life for many would be intolerable. If there is no God, there is no afterlife and they get a zero. If there is a God, there is an after life and they get infinity. So how can they lose?Maybe Pascal's Wagerdeserves more consideration. Norman Samish Myopinion about Pascal's Wager isthat we tryto comparethings that we can't quantify or measure, or at least that we don't know the relative measure of the things we are trying to compare. It involves betting on the existence of somethinginfinite based on a totallyundefined probability distribution. I think that it is indeterminate, like dividing zero by zero, or infinity by infinity. However, I think this same mistake is done in talking about multiverses, too, as I've brought up before. Tom Caylor
Re: belief, faith, truth
Bruno Marchal wrote:
Le 30-janv.-06, à 18:49, Brent Meeker a écrit : Bruno
Marchal wrote: Le 29-janv.-06, à 20:02, Brent Meeker a écrit
: I largely agree with Stathis. I note a subtle
difference in language between Danny and Stathis.
Danny refers to "believe in". I don't think a
scientist ever "believes in" a theory. All right, you use
"believe in" (quote included!) for the "religious belief of the
fundamentalist". Still I hope you agree that the scientist
believes in its theory, if only to be able to acknowledge his
theory is wrong when experiments refute it. Cf
Belief = B with (Bp - p) NOT being a theorem! That
implies taking the theory as the foundation of all further
beliefs. In fact most scientists don't "believe" any theory, except
in the provisional sense of thinking them likely, or worth
entertaining, or suggestive. OK, but this
is independent of the fact that, still, the scientist can
"believe in" (in the scientist modest way of self-interrogation)
in the *object* of his theory. Most naturalist "believe in" a
physical universe, or a nature or whatever. We
wouldn't discuss about a "theory of everything" if we were not
believing in ... something. Religious faith differs from
ordinary belief and scientific hypothesizing not only by
the lack of evidence but even more in the assertion of
certainity. I think everyone has religious
faith. Do you believe that on faith ;-) Certainly
everyone takes for granted things on very slim evidence ("I heard
it in the hall way"). But I don't think they have "religious
faith" which implies not just lack of evidence, but a determination
to believe in spite of contrary evidence - certainity that any
contrary evidence must be wrong just because it is contrary.
Bruno:To believe in something in spite of refutation is "bad
faith".To believe in something in spite of contrary evidences ? It
depends. I can imagine situations where I would find that a remarkable
attitude, and I can imagine others where I would take it again as bad
faith.
I agree. I thinkpart of this is a matter of preference of
terms. Meeker et al want to use "religious faith" for what Bruno says is
"bad faith", and I agree that is bad faith. I'm content with leaving off
the word "religious", and just use "faith" to refer to holding to the
possibility of the truth of a certain proposition until it is
refuted. Today, a scientist who pretends no
doing philosophy or theology, is just a scientist taking for
granted Aristotle theology. No problem in case he is aware of
the fact, so that, as a scientist, he can still be open to the
idea that Aristotle theology can be falsified, but if he is not
aware of the fact, then he will not been able to make sense of
the data---a little like Roland Omnes who concludes his analysis
of QM that there is a point where we need to abandon faith
in ... reason. Personally, I consider that abandoning
faith in reason in front of difficulties, is just worse that
abandoning faith in truth (whatever it
is). That would be an unquestioning certitude that there
is a reality independent of all opinion?Well, that
is the bet, or hope, of the non solipsist scientist. Popper said that
faith in reason is faith in your own reason but above all faith in the
reason of the others.And then Platonism is the faith in a reality
independent of all opinion, indeed, like the faith in the fact that 17
is prime independently of us.Bruno
And here we havea couple of things (reason and reality) whose
existencewe should all have faith in. So none of us shouldbe
scared by the word "faith" (in reason and reality). By this I mean simply
that we should not abandon our pursuit of truth. If all there is is
opinion, then we're all wasting our time.
Tom Caylor
Re: belief, faith, truth
Norman: just imagine a fraction of the infinite afterlife: to sing the pius chants for just 30,000 years by 'people' in heaven with Alzheimers, arthritis, in pain and senility? Or would you choose an earlier phase of terrestrial life for the introduction in heaven: let us say: the fetal age? or school-years with the mentality of a teenager? Would you love spouse No 1,2,or 3? Would you forget about the biggest blunder you did and regretted all your life? Or would you prefer the eternal brimstone-burning (what a waste in energy) without a painkiller? I did not ask about your math, how many are involved over the millennia? I asked a Muslim lately, what the huris are and what the female inhabitants of heaven get? An agnostic has to define what he does 'not' know, hasn't he? Just as an atheist requires a god 'not' to believe in. We are SOOO smart! Have a good day John M --- Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm agnostic, yet it strikes me that even if there is no God, those that decide to have faith, and have the ability to have faith, in a benign God have gained quite a bit. They have faith in an afterlife, in ultimate justice, in the triumph of good over evil, etc. Without this faith, life for many would be intolerable. If there is no God, there is no afterlife and they get a zero. If there is a God, there is an after life and they get infinity. So how can they lose? Maybe Pascal's Wager deserves more consideration. Norman Samish ~~ - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 5:25 PM Subject: Re: belief, faith, truth Even within the context that Pascal intended it is fallacious. If you worship the God of Abraham and there is no god, you have given up freedom of thought, you have given up responsibility for your own morals and ethics, you have denied yourself some pleasures of the mind as well as pleasures of the flesh. It's a bad bargain. Brent Meeker The Christian religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration- courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth. --- H. L. Mencken Stathis Papaioannou wrote: That's right: if you believe in the Christian God and are wrong, the real God (who may be worshipped by an obscure group numbering a few dozen people, or by aliens, or by nobody at all) may be angry and may punish you. An analogous situation arises when creationists demand that the Biblical version of events be taught alongside evolutionary theory in schools: if we are to be fair, the creation myths of every religious sect should be taught. - Stathis Papaioannou On Mon, Jan 30, 2006 at 12:36:46AM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: [Incidently, can you see the logical flaw in Pascal's Wager as described above?] I always wondered why it should be the Christian account of God and Heaven that was relevant.
Re: belief, faith, truth
John M wrote: Norman: just imagine a fraction of the infinite afterlife: to sing the pius chants for just 30,000 years by 'people' in heaven with Alzheimers, arthritis, in pain and senility? Or would you choose an earlier phase of terrestrial life for the introduction in heaven: let us say: the fetal age? or school-years with the mentality of a teenager? Would you love spouse No 1,2,or 3? Would you forget about the biggest blunder you did and regretted all your life? To say nothing of all those half-formed fetuses squirming around. No wonder the Church is against abortion. Brent Meeker Any eternal God would be so bored after one eternity that It would do Its best to commit suicide by creating an equally adept Opponent. Half of the time the Opponent would succeed and the process would repeat. It is impossible to know whether the current God is an even or odd term in the series. --- Roahn Wynar
Re: belief, faith, truth
Mr Meeker: That Wyanr idea of a bored god sounds a lot like the book Game of God, which postulates that an infinite god cannot experince finiteness, and so exploded himself into amnesiac particles to experience it and all the trials of evolution. The result is a universe trying to reclaim a unified conciousness. Very fun book. Mr Samish: If you believe in god and lose, you also lose a lifetime of finding your own place in the universe. I suspect that most of us are on this list because we are curious about fundamental questions. Religion is a tool for understanding your place in the universe. It is pasckaged and delivered to a church/mosque/temple near you. But if you swallow what you are offered than you miss out on the eureka of discovery. As an aethiest, I dont require a god not to believe in, but require confidence in my own powers of thought. An aethiest must find his own way, and for many this entails researching lots of questions across disciplines. I've done a lot of traveling and have observed that people are basically the same around the world. Same basic desire to be friendly, helpful, kind. these morals are universal behaviours. Infact, they are a survival strategy. Religion does create morality. It formaly encodes pre existing instincts. Likewise, we all live forever whether or not you believe in heaven. But some of us call it a law of conservation of energy and a law of conservation of social energy. We may not agree on a soul and the name of god, but we do on thermodynamics and continuity of culture. I'm sure we dissapate, but our actions reverberate. I'm very content to be an aethiest. I think I've discovered spiritual truths that would have lied dormant if I had simply believed some ancient doctrine. That's no fun. -Kevin From: John M [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED], everything-list@eskimo.com Subject: Re: belief, faith, truth Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 12:59:01 -0800 (PST) Norman: just imagine a fraction of the infinite afterlife: to sing the pius chants for just 30,000 years by 'people' in heaven with Alzheimers, arthritis, in pain and senility? Or would you choose an earlier phase of terrestrial life for the introduction in heaven: let us say: the fetal age? or school-years with the mentality of a teenager? Would you love spouse No 1,2,or 3? Would you forget about the biggest blunder you did and regretted all your life? Or would you prefer the eternal brimstone-burning (what a waste in energy) without a painkiller? I did not ask about your math, how many are involved over the millennia? I asked a Muslim lately, what the huris are and what the female inhabitants of heaven get? An agnostic has to define what he does 'not' know, hasn't he? Just as an atheist requires a god 'not' to believe in. We are SOOO smart! Have a good day John M --- Norman Samish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm agnostic, yet it strikes me that even if there is no God, those that decide to have faith, and have the ability to have faith, in a benign God have gained quite a bit. They have faith in an afterlife, in ultimate justice, in the triumph of good over evil, etc. Without this faith, life for many would be intolerable. If there is no God, there is no afterlife and they get a zero. If there is a God, there is an after life and they get infinity. So how can they lose? Maybe Pascal's Wager deserves more consideration. Norman Samish ~~ - Original Message - From: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 5:25 PM Subject: Re: belief, faith, truth Even within the context that Pascal intended it is fallacious. If you worship the God of Abraham and there is no god, you have given up freedom of thought, you have given up responsibility for your own morals and ethics, you have denied yourself some pleasures of the mind as well as pleasures of the flesh. It's a bad bargain. Brent Meeker The Christian religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration- courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth. --- H. L. Mencken Stathis Papaioannou wrote: That's right: if you believe in the Christian God and are wrong, the real God (who may be worshipped by an obscure group numbering a few dozen people, or by aliens, or by nobody at all) may be angry and may punish you. An analogous situation arises when creationists demand that the Biblical version of events be taught alongside evolutionary theory in schools: if we are to be fair, the creation myths of every religious sect should be taught. - Stathis Papaioannou On Mon, Jan 30, 2006 at 12:36:46AM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: [Incidently, can you see the logical flaw in Pascal's Wager as described above?] I always wondered why it should be the Christian account of God and Heaven
Re: belief, faith, truth
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ...even the statement 'I am not making sense' does not make sense because I don't believe in sense. I'll shut up... and be alone... and die... Tom Thats funny stuff. And true! Danny Mayes
Re: belief, faith, truth
Bruno, Bent, list, Sometimes I use the word opinion to refer to a theoretical belief, as opposed to a practical belief. In those terms, if I believe something, then I'm willing to act practically, on the basis of that belief under potentially discorroborative circumstances as they currently appear, at least as they appear, even if I'm not fully certain about them. If I have an opinion, I'm willing to act theoretically, modify a theory, etc., on the basis of that opinion under potentially discorroborative circumstances as they currently appear. This distinction between opinion and belief is only suggested by common usage and is not actually well established. For instance, a medical opinion may be the basis for grave practical steps. C.S. Peirce often discussed opinion or belief in terms of the willingness to act upon it and insisted on distinguishing between theoretical practical beliefs. This is a little more complicated in the case of researchers, since researchers tends to end up with practical matters and even the shapes of their lives dependent on theoretical issues and developments. Mendel believed strongly enough in his genetic theory to at least fudge his data somewhat, for a better fit. And even where it doesn't raise issues of integrity, the nexus of practicality and theory still arises for the researcher in terms of career choices, funding, etc. (not that I know a lot about this sort of thing, but it does seem to be there). So it does seem a bit of a juggling act for the serious researcher -- straining his/her mental sinews to give his/her theory the best possible shot, yet not persisting stubbornly in it when it is definitely disconfirmed, because the point, strictly speaking, is not to decide the truth but instead to be decided by the truth, and the real dedication must be to the quasi-leisurely, multi-generational project of seeking to be determ! ined by the truth, not some rushed conclusion. In practical matters we are justified in rushing sometimes, and in taking into account arguments that would be quite out of place in a theoretical context. And none of those researchers who scorn invariant personal solemnity in public forums means to convey a lack of seriousness as if their theoretical research were just a hobby. One probably could make the same distinction between theoretical practical knowledge (recognizing something as theoretically / practically confirmed enough that one would act theoretically / practically on its basis under even surprising potentially discorroborative circumstances, i.e., under the widest range reasonably imaginable), theoretical practical understanding (an interpretation on the basis of which one will likely be disposed to act in potentially discorroborative circumstances likely to arise), and theoretical practical assumptions (on the basis of which one has acted or been disposed to act, theoretically / practically, in potentially discorroborative circumstances that have arisen. In the chafing between science and religion, some of us recurrently scorn a religious tendency toward intense belief about matters of physical fact on insufficient bases of evidence and logic. However, in practical matters sometimes one must decide and act with total conviction on the basis of insufficient information. Occasionally it's in for a dime, in for a dollar, such that half-way or hesitant measures are far worse than decisive action or total inaction. We can't really mean to broad-brushingly scorn all that sort of thing on account of some portion's excesses, because, if we're true to such scorn, then we'll vitiate ourselves. Now, valuings and ideals are a side of the theoretical which tends to get minimized in the context of the practical-theoretical distinction, just as the difference in the practical between decision-making and performance tends to get sloughed over also in the context of practical-theoretical distinction. But there's no knowledge based on logic ! evidence without valuing of logic evidence, there's no artistic understanding of effects without gratificational valuings, there's no know-how without care-how, and there's no discipline of community planning, education of character, no ruling arts or governing arts as they've been called, without a certain thing found also at religion's core -- valuings and carings in regard to the sources, powers, principles whereby one moves and acts. Bruno tends to point to that which stands out in religious people but is common to all people and he has a good point, even if there are usually also differences. Best, Ben Udell - Original Message - From: Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED]; everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 9:06 AM Subject: Re: belief, faith, truth Le 29-janv.-06, à 20:02, Brent Meeker a écrit : I largely agree with Stathis. I note
Re: belief, faith, truth
Bruno wrote: I think everyone has religious faith... Amen, Bruno, and Ben also! This is of course a searing statement, which goes back to why the word theology is taboo. As it's commonly said, the two topics to stay away from in conversation are religion and politics. But, without using the word religion, we can safely say that we all have some basic belief that we hold to in order to make the decisions of our practical living, whether they are every-day decisions like holding a grudge against someone (or not), or bigger decisions about our course in life such as getting married (or not) etc. The modern (and leading up to the modern) reductionist philosophy has split these particulars apart from our musings about universals, so that people typically no longer see any connection between them. (Talk about going in the opposite direction from Everything!) In a way it is rather convenient because we can live out personal lives the way we want to. But the reality is that in being set totally free from universals, we become enslaved. The ultimate destination of rationalism in a totally closed system is something like pan-critical rationalism, where we end up in a swirl of confusion. Even then, we really are having faith that somehow the system is set up such that things will work out OK. If we didn't, then what are we left with? In order to have freedom we need at least some constraints. For example, take the axiomatic system. This applies also to the Mathematics: Is it really... thread. So there needs to be a faith that something is fixed, even if we don't yet know, or perhaps believe that we can never truly know, what is it. This something is what is called truth. Tom
Re: belief, faith, truth
Tom wrote: what are we left with? To make my point more plain, I will give my own answer to this question. If we abandon a belief in truth, or if we totally separate truth from our lives, then what are we left with? We are left devoid of meaning in our lives. We would end up with something like, I as a person, do not exist, for putting such a label as person on me would be persumptuous of having a corner on truth, and I don't believe in truth. Instead, I just aimlessly float, like an undefined point, from one observer-moment to the next, and randomly bounce off my surroundings. Since I don't have any beliefs that I hold onto for more than one observer-moment at a time (since I am not a person), then anything can change my mind. In fact, this implies (for I wouldn't dare assume it) that my mind doesn't not exist. There are only particulars. Therefore, why am I even thinking or talking? I am lost. But this doesn't matter because I don't exist as a person and so I have nothing to lose. I am not making sense. Tom
Re: belief, faith, truth
...even the statement 'I am not making sense' does not make sense because I don't believe in sense. I'll shut up... and be alone... and die... Tom
Re: belief, faith, truth
Tom, Brent, Bruno, list, Bruno wrote Brent agreed, I think everyone has religious faith... I don't think that I could go along with that, at least not in the strict sense of "religion" -- true enough, religion has, at its core, valuings with regard to power and submission, ruling and being ruled, and also self-governance. But in the strict sense of "religion," there's usually, at the core, some beliefs, some claims, of miracles, magical events, etc. Not everybody believes in that sort of thing. Then in another sense, but a less strict one, a "religion" can be a set of life-shaping beliefs immune to nontrivial revision despite all contrary experience. I don't think that absolutely everybody has a life-shaping set of such beliefs. Or maybe they all do, but it doesn't seem hands-down obvious that they all do. Most people, however, do have some sort of views, which are or have been significant in their lives, about what are traditionally called metaphysical questions -- God, freedom, immortality, psycho-physical relationships, etc. Many have one or another kind of metaphysical faith. It seems increasingly clear to me that Bruno is doing a machine metaphysics, or a computer metaphysics, or a metaphysics of, by, and for computers or machines (I can't remember why Bruno opts for "machines" instead of "computers."). It's a shame that the word "metaphysics" is ruled out by (if I remember correctly, it was in a post a while back) reaction of intellectuals in Belgium. Moreover, "machine metaphysics" is kind of catchy in its alliterative way. Metaphysics is not religion but instead a philosophical study of questions which are among the important ones in religion. Philosoophy, however, can be applied in living, so the distinction is not a barrier impenetrable in practice (or, therefore, in theory either). As to universals, as Brent says they're "ruled out" way too often. it's that old Saul Steinberg "View of the World From Ninth Avenue" thing again. Intellectual foreshortening. http://www.hwscience.com/HWJS/archives/friendrank/friendrank_files/image003.gif Some look at decision-making ( related "ruling arts" aka "governing arts") about lives living, and see the custom-tailored, the singular, as the goal and object(ive). This is true in the same sense as it is true that "know-how," practical/productive arts, strive not for the singular and one-time but the reliable repeatable, though still the somewhat specialized -- not the universal, theoretical, etc. -- and it is true in the same sense that affective arts tend to strive for totalities, universes, worlds in terms of which certain qualities take on special and vibrant values -- and it is true in the same sense that universals are the object of maths sciences. It's true in those senses, as far as they go, which is not unlimited. Instead, those senses are limited, and, for instance,it is patently obvious that, in _subject matters_, the research disciplines vary every which way in typical scope -- physical, chemical, and life sciences have concrete singulars in their unreduced, unabstracted-away idiosyncrasies as their _subject_, howsoever universal the _object_ of such sciences is. And what's more, the disciplines of research vary even in the scopes of their elementary objectives. - The goal of empirical research is to learn more particulars -- _is_ therea tenth planet, _is_ there an earth quake in store for some island,_are_ there more fossils ofintermediates stage between whales and land mammals, etc.-- and ona kind of higher level, to learn about universals as specially applicable to them. Those universals are no more interesting to such empirical research than the concreta which they help explain and predict, so economically. - The goal of statistical theory is to draw inductive conclusions from samples to _total populations_, not universals--yet, on a kind of higher level, to learn about the _universals_ which apply to them., across them, etc., in statistical study. I'm not sure how best to distinguish these "levels" and they don't seem divided by impenetrable barriers -- last I heard, there's evidence that lightspeed has changed relative to other fundamental quantities, and so lightspeed, though a universal,is seen as a big, developingevent -- a kind of universal event (which ina sense it always was). It's just a piece of intellectually unjustified but intellectually practiced foreshortening, to hold that all this diversity of typical scopes is unique to the disciplines of research. Much less are disciplines of research concerned only with universals, which is just a silly idea. In decision-makings and leadings, in performance and means, in ends and satisfactions, and in checks and knowledge, and in the respective disciplines ofthose things, there are or at least can be the full variety of scopes involved some way or otherin terms ofsubject matter, or some kind of objective, even though
Re: belief, faith, truth
Benjamin Udell wrote: Tom, Brent, Bruno, list, Bruno wrote Brent agreed, I think everyone has religious faith... I don't think that I could go along with that, at least not in the strict sense of religion -- true enough, religion has, at its core, valuings with regard to power and submission, ruling and being ruled, and also self-governance. But in the strict sense of religion, there's usually, at the core, some beliefs, some claims, of miracles, magical events, etc. Not everybody believes in that sort of thing. Then in another sense, but a less strict one, a religion can be a set of life-shaping beliefs immune to nontrivial revision despite all contrary experience. I don't think that absolutely everybody has a life-shaping set of such beliefs. Or maybe they all do, but it doesn't seem hands-down obvious that they all do. Most people, however, do have some sort of views, which are or have been significant in their lives, about what are traditionally called metaphysical questions -- God, freedom, immortality, psycho-physical relationships, etc. Many have one or another kind of metaphysical faith. It seems increasingly clear to me that Bruno is doing a machine metaphysics, or a computer metaphysics, or a metaphysics of, by, and for computers or machines (I can't remember why Bruno opts for machines instead of computers.). It's a shame that the word metaphysics is ruled out by (if I remember correctly, it was in a post a while back) reaction of intellectuals in Belgium. Moreover, machine metaphysics is kind of catchy in its alliterative way. Metaphysics is not religion but instead a philosophical study of questions which are among the important ones in religion. Philosoophy, however, can be applied in living, so the distinction is not a barrier impenetrable in practice (or, therefore, in theory either). As to universals, as Brent says they're ruled out way too often. it's that old Saul Steinberg View of the World From Ninth Avenue thing again. Intellectual foreshortening. http://www.hwscience.com/HWJS/archives/friendrank/friendrank_files/image003.gif Some look at decision-making ( related ruling arts aka governing arts) about lives living, and see the custom-tailored, the singular, as the goal and object(ive). This is true in the same sense as it is true that know-how, practical/productive arts, strive not for the singular and one-time but the reliable repeatable, though still the somewhat specialized -- not the universal, theoretical, etc. -- and it is true in the same sense that affective arts tend to strive for totalities, universes, worlds in terms of which certain qualities take on special and vibrant values -- and it is true in the same sense that universals are the object of maths sciences. It's true in those senses, as far as they go, which is not unlimited. Instead, those senses are limited, and, for instance, it is patently obvious that, in _/subject matters/_, the research disciplines vary every which way in typical scope -- physical, chemical, and life sciences have concrete singulars in their unreduced, unabstracted-away idiosyncrasies as their _/subject/_, howsoever universal the _/object/_ of such sciences is. And what's more, the disciplines of research vary even in the scopes of their elementary objectives. - The goal of empirical research is to learn more particulars -- _/is/_ there a tenth planet, _/is/_ there an earth quake in store for some island, _/are/_ there more fossils of intermediates stage between whales and land mammals, etc. -- and on a kind of higher level, to learn about universals as specially applicable to them. Those universals are no more interesting to such empirical research than the concreta which they help explain and predict, so economically. - The goal of statistical theory is to draw inductive conclusions from samples to _/total populations/_, not universals -- yet, on a kind of higher level, to learn about the _/universals/_ which apply to them., across them, etc., in statistical study. I'm not sure how best to distinguish these levels and they don't seem divided by impenetrable barriers -- last I heard, there's evidence that lightspeed has changed relative to other fundamental quantities, and so lightspeed, though a universal, is seen as a big, developing event -- a kind of universal event (which in a sense it always was). It's just a piece of intellectually unjustified but intellectually practiced foreshortening, to hold that all this diversity of typical scopes is unique to the disciplines of research. Much less are disciplines of research concerned only with universals, which is just a silly idea. In decision-makings and leadings, in performance and means, in ends and satisfactions, and in checks and knowledge, and in the respective disciplines of those things, there are or at least can be the full variety of scopes involved some way or other in terms of subject matter,
Re: belief, faith, truth
Brent, list Your explication seems to turn on a pun. End as something of value doesn't imply a beginning. To the contrary an end or goal or terminus generally entails a beginning. A person interested in this subject from a theoretical viewpoint does have to confront that. It may help to have some acquaintance with past thought on the matter. Sure, people care about (value) all kinds of things; even the words used to describe things - see recent debate over theology vs metaphysics - some inherently, some instrumentally, and some mixed. But I'm not sure I'd call those powers - I guess you mean something like motivations. I mean like power, control, force, things that make things happen or not happen, things that decide what happens. People want to decide and determine things, not just be means to things or to be the ends, Pygmalions or prey, of others. They care about their relationship, such as they believe it to be, their relationship to the power of the universe itself. The power of the universe itself? What would that be? Are you going all mystical on me? I'm talking about religious people and people who at least have religious tendencies. Religion is a common phenomenon with a lot of history to it. These are sources, beginnings, leaderships, principles, (Greek) _/arches/_. This is not mere instrumentality. Deciding and determining is not a mere means, the decider employs means to ends. The decider in that sense is the beginning, the leader. Not if no one follows. The leader of one's own process. As in, being in charge, in situations where being in charge is not a given. This situation includes basic aspects of one's life. _/Arches kai mesa/_, beginnings/leadings, and means. It's the difference between (a) **will character** and (b) **ability competence**. Aristotle wrote his ethical treatises about character in a broader sense than exclusively that of morality, and character in that broader sense is what it's about. It's a shame that Aristotle didn't also write treatises about ability and competence, _/hikanoteta/_. Now, a carpenter, for instance, is not simply a means to carpentry, a means for carpented things to actualize themselves. Has anyone every suggested such a thing? You have commited yourself to that view in dividing everything into means and ends (instrumental value and inherent value). Since you hold that view, you must say that the carpenter's decision to do a job is a means to that job or the end of that job. Yet it is plain that the carpenter's decision is the carpenter's means and it is plain that the job is not a means for the carpenter to decide to do the job. This shows the inadequacy of means-ends as a dichotomy, a division of a whole into two. The carpenter tries and deliberates, pursues, chooses or accepts (or rejects), and adheres to (or renounces) his/her underlying decisions even to do the work at all, throughout the process. Is all this volition a means? Somebody else's means, perhaps; the market's means perhaps, and so on. But it isn't the carpenter's means, it's the carpenter's leading, deciding, etc. which, by means, tools, resources, s/he carries out. This striving and deciding is most clearly seen as no mere means in contexts where control is truly at stake. I would suppose that a carpenter has pride of workmanship and so there is inherent pleasure in doing his job well. His choice of this tool or that is partly instrumental relative to that pleasure. But he also does carpentry as a means to food, shelter, etc. So what? You're confusing the decision-making with the goals and values and feelings, as if, given a set of goals, the decisions were already made, or get made automatically, and as if people's decision-making were a trivial process. But goals and values and feelings sometimes conflict, in multifarious ways. Sometimes there is no clear answer and one has to decide anyway. In the carpenter's sawing, hammering, etc., the exercise of skills and abilities, control is not really at stake. But in the carpenter's will and decision-making, control of the situation among various factors in the carpenter is at stake. I think I understand the words, but the sentence leaves me blank. The carpenter may be of more than one mind on what to do. I don't mean that the carpenter has a multiple personality. I mean that the carpenter may be of more than one mind in just the sense that more than one mind is commnly used. Some element in the carpenter's mind will have to gain the upper hand. This will embody certain interests and efforts rather than others by the carpenter in his/her life. Or maybe the carpenter will solve diverse problems together with creative solution. Now, one is free to devise an epicycle-filled anthropo-nomy in order to describe intelligent beings while classing volition and decision-making as mere means, but it's not particularly useful.
Re: belief, faith, truth
Benjamin Udell wrote: Brent, list Your explication seems to turn on a pun. End as something of value doesn't imply a beginning. To the contrary an end or goal or terminus generally entails a beginning. A person interested in this subject from a theoretical viewpoint does have to confront that. It may help to have some acquaintance with past thought on the matter. OK, I'll bite. I sometimes consider having something to eat a value. What beginning does that entail? Sure, people care about (value) all kinds of things; even the words used to describe things - see recent debate over theology vs metaphysics - some inherently, some instrumentally, and some mixed. But I'm not sure I'd call those powers - I guess you mean something like motivations. I mean like power, control, force, things that make things happen or not happen, things that decide what happens. People want to decide and determine things, not just be means to things or to be the ends, Pygmalions or prey, of others. OK, they value autonomy - I guess that's why some get so exercised over the compatibilist view of free will. They care about their relationship, such as they believe it to be, their relationship to the power of the universe itself. The power of the universe itself? What would that be? Are you going all mystical on me? I'm talking about religious people and people who at least have religious tendencies. Religion is a common phenomenon with a lot of history to it. These are sources, beginnings, leaderships, principles, (Greek) _/arches/_. This is not mere instrumentality. Deciding and determining is not a mere means, the decider employs means to ends. The decider in that sense is the beginning, the leader. Not if no one follows. The leader of one's own process. As in, being in charge, in situations where being in charge is not a given. This situation includes basic aspects of one's life. That seems to be a dualist position in which YOU are something apart from your processes. Or do you mean aspiring to power over others - which some find very gratifying? _/Arches kai mesa/_, beginnings/leadings, and means. It's the difference between (a) **will character** and (b) **ability competence**. Aristotle wrote his ethical treatises about character in a broader sense than exclusively that of morality, and character in that broader sense is what it's about. It's a shame that Aristotle didn't also write treatises about ability and competence, _/hikanoteta/_. Now, a carpenter, for instance, is not simply a means to carpentry, a means for carpented things to actualize themselves. Has anyone every suggested such a thing? You have commited yourself to that view in dividing everything into means and ends (instrumental value and inherent value). Since you hold that view, you must say that the carpenter's decision to do a job is a means to that job or the end of that job. No, that's not exactly my view. As I said, things can have both instrumental and inherent value. So a carpenter might decide to do a job because he needs the money and because he enjoys doing capentery. I didn't divide *everything* into ends and means. I noted that *values* can be of two kinds or have two dimensions: instrumental and inherent. Some things aren't values at all - a decision is not usually a value for example. Yet it is plain that the carpenter's decision is the carpenter's means and it is plain that the job is not a means for the carpenter to decide to do the job. This shows the inadequacy of means-ends as a dichotomy, a division of a whole into two. It is not plain to me that the carpenter's decision is the capenter's means. If his decision is make a doorway, then his means are a series of actions. Of course making a door is not a means to decide to make a door. But what are the means to decide? I'd say they are consideration of the consequences of making a door and how they comport with the carpenter's values. The carpenter tries and deliberates, pursues, chooses or accepts (or rejects), and adheres to (or renounces) his/her underlying decisions even to do the work at all, throughout the process. Is all this volition a means? No - I don't insist on *everything* being a means or an end. Somethings are neither, e.g. volition. My view is that volition is a feeling that the brain attaches to decisions to mark them as internal - as opposed to, for example, perceptions which are external and not voluntary. Somebody else's means, perhaps; the market's means perhaps, and so on. But it isn't the carpenter's means, it's the carpenter's leading, deciding, etc. which, by means, tools, resources, s/he carries out. This striving and deciding is most clearly seen as no mere means in contexts where control is truly at stake. I would suppose that a carpenter has pride of workmanship and so there is inherent pleasure in doing his job well. His choice of this tool or that is partly
Re: belief, faith, truth
Brent, list, Your explication seems to turn on a pun. End as something of value doesn't imply a beginning. To the contrary an end or goal or terminus generally entails a beginning. A person interested in this subject from a theoretical viewpoint does have to confront that. It may help to have some acquaintance with past thought on the matter. OK, I'll bite. I sometimes consider having something to eat a value. What beginning does that entail? Wondering whether to eat, how to go about it, whether it's worth it right now, etc. Weighing and deciding. A mini-contest in one's head, or perhaps in discussion or argument among a group about whether they shall eat now or later. To the extent that this decision-making sets precedents, has ramifications for the group's future decision-making, etc., it has political significance. Deciding who or what gets to decide, by what steps to decide, etc. This shows that the word political is less broad than the word economic since it's easy to conceive of economic issues for a man alone on a desert island. One can't do likewise with the word political, or even the phrase political-or-martial, one has to speak more broadly about power issues -- the man's control over things on the island, the man's self-control, capacity to govern and pace himself and exert himself to prepare for things, etc. There's no mot juste for all this. Sure, people care about (value) all kinds of things; even the words used to describe things - see recent debate over theology vs metaphysics - some inherently, some instrumentally, and some mixed. But I'm not sure I'd call those powers - I guess you mean something like motivations. I mean like power, control, force, things that make things happen or not happen, things that decide what happens. People want to decide and determine things, not just be means to things or to be the ends, Pygmalions or prey, of others. OK, they value autonomy - I guess that's why some get so exercised over the compatibilist view of free will. People value beginnings, means, ends, i.e, make general ends of all three. Actually it would be better and less complicated conceptually if we take off the value wrapping instead of straightway getting into multiple conceptual layers. I mentioned people wanting to decide determine things, just in order to place it in a familiar context. I'm not talking about something unfamiliar. There are all kinds of issues with power and freedom and independence. Power over others, avoidance of being under others' power, etc. Ruling, being ruled, ruling oneself. Well, there's ruling and then there's governing. Anyway, the politics of everyday life, some of it mild and minimizable, some of it not. They care about their relationship, such as they believe it to be, their relationship to the power of the universe itself. The power of the universe itself? What would that be? Are you going all mystical on me? I'm talking about religious people and people who at least have religious tendencies. Religion is a common phenomenon with a lot of history to it. These are sources, beginnings, leaderships, principles, (Greek) _/arches/_. This is not mere instrumentality. Deciding and determining is not a mere means, the decider employs means to ends. The decider in that sense is the beginning, the leader. Not if no one follows. The leader of one's own process. As in, being in charge, in situations where being in charge is not a given. This situation includes basic aspects of one's life. That seems to be a dualist position in which YOU are something apart from your processes. Or do you mean aspiring to power over others - which some find very gratifying? At this point I'm not talking about aspiring. I'm talking straightforwardly about being in control, making decisions -- at least for oneself. Some want more power than that. Some have more power than that and don't want it. Some have all that and want still more. Parents reasonable want control over their children. Most of us have had the opportunity to test our self-control, resist destructive temptations in life, etc. There's nothing any more or less dualist (I don't know what you're getting at) about self-governance than about self-awareness or any other reflexive sort of thing. Making one's own choices, being free to do that, having the backbone to do it, etc., these are everyday issues. _/Arches kai mesa/_, beginnings/leadings, and means. It's the difference between (a) **will character** and (b) **ability competence**. Aristotle wrote his ethical treatises about character in a broader sense than exclusively that of morality, and character in that broader sense is what it's about. It's a shame that Aristotle didn't also write treatises about ability and competence, _/hikanoteta/_. Now, a carpenter, for instance, is not simply a means to carpentry, a means for carpented things to
Re: belief, faith, truth
Benjamin Udell wrote: Brent, list, Your explication seems to turn on a pun. End as something of value doesn't imply a beginning. To the contrary an end or goal or terminus generally entails a beginning. A person interested in this subject from a theoretical viewpoint does have to confront that. It may help to have some acquaintance with past thought on the matter. OK, I'll bite. I sometimes consider having something to eat a value. What beginning does that entail? Wondering whether to eat, how to go about it, whether it's worth it right now, etc. Weighing and deciding. A mini-contest in one's head, or perhaps in discussion or argument among a group about whether they shall eat now or later. To the extent that this decision-making sets precedents, has ramifications for the group's future decision-making, etc., it has political significance. Deciding who or what gets to decide, by what steps to decide, etc. This shows that the word political is less broad than the word economic since it's easy to conceive of economic issues for a man alone on a desert island. One can't do likewise with the word political, or even the phrase political-or-martial, one has to speak more broadly about power issues -- the man's control over things on the island, the man's self-control, capacity to govern and pace himself and exert himself to prepare for things, etc. There's no mot juste for all this. Sure, people care about (value) all kinds of things; even the words used to describe things - see recent debate over theology vs metaphysics - some inherently, some instrumentally, and some mixed. But I'm not sure I'd call those powers - I guess you mean something like motivations. I mean like power, control, force, things that make things happen or not happen, things that decide what happens. People want to decide and determine things, not just be means to things or to be the ends, Pygmalions or prey, of others. OK, they value autonomy - I guess that's why some get so exercised over the compatibilist view of free will. People value beginnings, means, ends, i.e, make general ends of all three. Actually it would be better and less complicated conceptually if we take off the value wrapping instead of straightway getting into multiple conceptual layers. I mentioned people wanting to decide determine things, just in order to place it in a familiar context. I'm not talking about something unfamiliar. There are all kinds of issues with power and freedom and independence. Power over others, avoidance of being under others' power, etc. Ruling, being ruled, ruling oneself. Well, there's ruling and then there's governing. Anyway, the politics of everyday life, some of it mild and minimizable, some of it not. They care about their relationship, such as they believe it to be, their relationship to the power of the universe itself. The power of the universe itself? What would that be? Are you going all mystical on me? I'm talking about religious people and people who at least have religious tendencies. Religion is a common phenomenon with a lot of history to it. These are sources, beginnings, leaderships, principles, (Greek) _/arches/_. This is not mere instrumentality. Deciding and determining is not a mere means, the decider employs means to ends. The decider in that sense is the beginning, the leader. Not if no one follows. The leader of one's own process. As in, being in charge, in situations where being in charge is not a given. This situation includes basic aspects of one's life. That seems to be a dualist position in which YOU are something apart from your processes. Or do you mean aspiring to power over others - which some find very gratifying? At this point I'm not talking about aspiring. I'm talking straightforwardly about being in control, making decisions -- at least for oneself. Some want more power than that. Some have more power than that and don't want it. Some have all that and want still more. Parents reasonable want control over their children. Most of us have had the opportunity to test our self-control, resist destructive temptations in life, etc. There's nothing any more or less dualist (I don't know what you're getting at) about self-governance than about self-awareness or any other reflexive sort of thing. Making one's own choices, being free to do that, having the backbone to do it, etc., these are everyday issues. I guess I've lost the thread of this discussion. You're saying people value/want self-control - but sometimes they don't. Sometimes they have self-control - but sometimes they don't. I gather that a non-trivial decision means one between choices that evoke negative emotions, i.e. no good choices. I think you'd find the experiments of Libet and Grey Walter interesting. They are not definitive, but they both provide evidence that decisions are made in the brain before one becomes conscious of them. _/Arches kai mesa/_,
Re: belief, faith, truth
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Danny Mayes writes: My belief is that in matters of faith, you can choose to believe or not believe based on whether it suits your personal preferences. Your example of the Nazis would not apply because there is overwhelming evidence that the Nazis existed. Perhaps it can be argued that there is meaningful evidence that the God described in Sunday school class exists as well, however I don't think anyone would argue that the evidence for that God is nearly as strong as evidence of the Nazis. As you say, religion, by necessity, is based on faith and therefore little to no objective evidence. I guess your point was that if you already have the faith in something without evidence, the fact that you are then taught as part of the belief system that there are some aspects not very appealing should not have any bearing on whether you still have your faith? I would disagree with that in that you can have faith in something because the concept is attractive to you, but then lose your faith when the concept is shown to be less attractive. (this was not really my situation as a child- I was never really presented the opportunity to examine the faith until presented with the teachings described in the original post). This is not entirely unrelated to the sciences. Science has pushed into many areas into realms that can only tangentially, at best, be proven with objective evidence. The MWI is a good example. I believe in it, because I think it provides the most explanatory power over competing ideas. However, it would be difficult to fault someone for demanding more in the way of direct evidence. In a sense, there is an element of faith in such theories. String theory is another example. I'm not saying these things are not science, just that they are theories beyond our reach to prove or disprove at the present time. Many scientists are quoted as endorsing string theory in part due to the elegance of the theory. This goes with what I was saying above about accepting something on faith as long as it appears to be the most attractive idea, even if it is not supported by much objective evidence. I doubt the beliefs of fundementalist Christianity will ever be absolutely proven or disproven, and as a faith belief I reserve the right to discard it at my choosing! I think you are referring to that aspect of belief which has little to do with whether or not the belief is in accordance with reality. This is very common in everyday life, but it is also probably common in science or other supposedly objective fields of enquiry. One could even speculate that having faith in a scientific theory in its nascent phase - that is, believing it to be true with greater certainty than the available evidence warrants - is important in motivating the theorist to do the experimental work which will ultimately validate the theory to the satisfaction of the rest of the scientific community. This is fine, as long as we are clear that there is a distinction between the utility of a belief and the truth value of that belief. An interesting illustration of this distinction in philosophy of religion is Pascal's Wager. Pascal aknowledged that it is not possible to decide with any certainty whether God exists, but continued to ask the question, should we believe that God exists? If we believe that he does and it turns out that we are right, we gain eternal life in Heaven, while if it turns out we are wrong, we gain or lose nothing as a result of our false belief. On the other hand, if we declare ourselves atheists and are right, we gain or lose nothing, but if we are wrong, we end up in Hell. Therefore, we are better off believing that God does exist. The problem with almost all people with fundamentalist-type religious convictions that I have met, however, is that they are not as honest as Pascal was. They claim that their belief is certainly or almost certainly correct, and that it is based on empirical evidence, such as the historical record contained in the Bible. Pressed further, they might describe faith as a kind of religious experience which allows no more doubt about the existence of God than ordinary sensory experience allows doubt about the existence of the world - and if you had this experience, you would understand. If I suggest to them that they only believe because they were brought up that way, or because they want it to be true (and I think these two reasons account for the vast majority of people with religious belief in the world), they deny this vehemently. Returning to the point in my original post, I should have clarified it by saying that when it comes to the *truth* value of a belief, our attitude towards that belief is irrelevant. If some far future historian studying the legend of the Nazis in the 20th century decides that the legend is true simply because it would further his career if it were true, he
Re: belief, faith, truth
On Mon, Jan 30, 2006 at 12:36:46AM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: [Incidently, can you see the logical flaw in Pascal's Wager as described above?] I always wondered why it should be the Christian account of God and Heaven that was relevant. -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australiahttp://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 pgpk7os06WH9B.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: belief, faith, truth
That's right: if you believe in the Christian God and are wrong, the real God (who may be worshipped by an obscure group numbering a few dozen people, or by aliens, or by nobody at all) may be angry and may punish you. An analogous situation arises when creationists demand that the Biblical version of events be taught alongside evolutionary theory in schools: if we are to be fair, the creation myths of every religious sect should be taught. Stathis Papaioannou On Mon, Jan 30, 2006 at 12:36:46AM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: [Incidently, can you see the logical flaw in Pascal's Wager as described above?] I always wondered why it should be the Christian account of God and Heaven that was relevant. -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 attach3 _ realestate.com.au: the biggest address in property http://ninemsn.realestate.com.au
Re: belief, faith, truth
Even within the context that Pascal intended it is fallacious. If you worship the God of Abraham and there is no god, you have given up freedom of thought, you have given up responsibility for your own morals and ethics, you have denied yourself some pleasures of the mind as well as pleasures of the flesh. It's a bad bargain. Brent Meeker “The Christian religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration- courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth.” --- H. L. Mencken Stathis Papaioannou wrote: That's right: if you believe in the Christian God and are wrong, the real God (who may be worshipped by an obscure group numbering a few dozen people, or by aliens, or by nobody at all) may be angry and may punish you. An analogous situation arises when creationists demand that the Biblical version of events be taught alongside evolutionary theory in schools: if we are to be fair, the creation myths of every religious sect should be taught. Stathis Papaioannou On Mon, Jan 30, 2006 at 12:36:46AM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: [Incidently, can you see the logical flaw in Pascal's Wager as described above?] I always wondered why it should be the Christian account of God and Heaven that was relevant. -- *PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which is of type application/pgp-signature. Don't worry, it is not a virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you may safely ignore this attachment. A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile) Mathematics0425 253119 () UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 attach3 _ realestate.com.au: the biggest address in property http://ninemsn.realestate.com.au
Re: belief, faith, truth
I'm agnostic, yet it strikes me that even if there is no God, those that decide to have faith, and have the ability to have faith,in a benign Godhave gained quite a bit. They have faith in an afterlife, in ultimate justice, in the triumph of good over evil, etc. Without this faith, life for many would be intolerable. If there is no God, there is no afterlife and they get a zero. If there is a God, there is an after life and they get infinity. So how can they lose?Maybe Pascal's Wagerdeserves more consideration. Norman Samish ~~ - Original Message - From: "Brent Meeker" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: everything-list@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 5:25 PM Subject: Re: belief, faith, truth Even within the context that Pascal intended it is fallacious. If you worship the God of Abraham and there is no god, you have given up freedom of thought, you have given up responsibility for your own morals and ethics, you have denied yourself some pleasures of the mind as well as pleasures of the flesh.It's a bad bargain.Brent Meeker “The Christian religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration- courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth.” --- H. L. MenckenStathis Papaioannou wrote: That's right: if you believe in the Christian God and are wrong, thereal God (who may be worshipped by an obscure group numbering a fewdozen people, or by aliens, or by nobody at all) may be angry and maypunish you. An analogous situation arises when creationists demand thatthe Biblical version of events be taught alongside evolutionary theoryin schools: if we are to be fair, the creation myths of every religioussect should be taught. - Stathis Papaioannou On Mon, Jan 30, 2006 at 12:36:46AM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: [Incidently, can you see the logical flaw in Pascal's Wager as described above?] I always wondered why it should be the Christian account of God andHeaven that was relevant.
