Re: Quran Audio
Muslims are certain that the only path to heaven is in following the teachings of Muhammad Allah's messenger, but Christians are certain that is the path to being tortured fiendishly by a loving God for an infinite (and not just astronomical) number of years. Christians are certain that the only path to heaven is to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ God's son, but Muslims are certain that is the path to being tortured fiendishly by a loving God for an infinite (and not just astronomical) number of years. The Baha'i faith maintains that all religions are equally valid and I think the Baha'i people have got it about right, they're all crap. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: super intelligence and self-sampling
On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Yes, but there have been so much counter examples for the 1997 WMAP analysis that Tipler may end up correct. I don't know what you're talking about. In his 1993 book Tipler made a number of predictions and said that if even one of those predictions was wrong his entire theory could not work; and Tipler's predictions turned out to be wrong, some spectacularly wrong. Tipler predicted the expansion of the universe would slow down, then it would stop, then it would change direction and collapse in on itself; from the heat of that imploding fireball he thought a hyper-advanced civilization could theoretically extract an infinite amount of energy. But we now know that due to Dark Energy (which he did NOT predict) the expansion of the cosmos is accelerating not decelerating so that fireball will never happen. Tipler also predicted that the Higgs boson must be at 220GEV +- 20 but we now know it is 125.3GEV +- .5.And Tipler predicted that the Hubble constant must be less than or equal to 45, but we now know it's 67.8 +- .77 . It's clear we don't live in the sort of universe that Tipler thought we did. More than one of his predictions was wrong so if we take Tipler at his word then his theory must be wrong too. Tipler I am talking about the accelerated expansion reversing, I hold computer theory as over-taking most cosmo theories be it a saddle, a doughnut, flat as a pancake, whatever. And no, you need not agree, but for me it seems apparent. You? -Original Message- From: John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Jun 10, 2015 3:00 pm Subject: Re: super intelligence and self-sampling On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Now you are talking of Tipler's Omega Point. A usable theory when combined with MWI, which Tipler supports. Tipler's idea of the Omega Point was interesting in 1993 when he introduced the idea, but unfortunately in the last 22 years it has proven to be wrong. And no matter how beautiful a theory is if it doesn't fit the facts it must be abandoned. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: A (somewhat) different angle on the reversal
On 6/11/2015 6:58 AM, David Nyman wrote: Recent discussions on the purported 'reversal' of the relation between 'machine psychology' and physics seem to be running, as ever, into the sand over disagreements on the meaning and significance of rather complex arguments like the MGA. I'd like to try another tack. The computational theory of mind (CTM) asserts, in effect, that all experience is a simulation - i.e. is the net effect of some form of computational activity. Bruno's starting assumption, at the beginning of the UDA, is that a 'computation' be understood, conventionally, as any sequence of physical actions whose net effect adequately approximates that computation. This is essentially what I understand to be the standard physical notion of computation. One of its consequences, noted in step 7 of the UDA, is that a physical computer capable of instantiating the trace of a universal dovetailer (UD) would thereby simulate all possible experiences. If a computer running such a program were indeed to exist, it would be impossible to distinguish whether any given experience was a consequence of its activity or that of some other 'primitive' (i.e. non-simulated) physical system. Indeed, the quasi-fractal, super-redundancy of the trace of the UD would render it overwhelmingly improbable that the origin of any given experience lay outside of its domain. Of course, such a notion can be attacked by denying that any actual physical universe in which we are situated is sufficiently robust (i.e. extensive in space and time) to support the running of such a computer, or even if it were so robust, that any such device must necessarily be found in it. However, even at this point in the argument it may be a little disturbing to realise that we might escape the 'reversal' only by appealing to what might appear to be contingent, rather than essential, considerations. In order to torpedo these final objections, Bruno deploys the MGA, which is intended to show that any brute equivalence between net physical activity and computation, accepted previously, is in fact unsound. However, the issue of what the MGA does or does not demonstrate seems to open up a never-ending conversational can of worms. Perhaps there are simpler arguments that can be accepted, or at least that might lead to a clearer form of disagreement. My suggestion would be to re-examine the notion of computation itself as a foundation for a theory of mind. ISTM that as long as we restrict discussion to third-person (3p) notions, there is no unusual difficulty, in principle, in justifying an equivalence between some psychological state and the action of some physical system, understood as approximating a computation. This is the sort of thing we mean (or at least is implied) when we say that human psychology supervenes on the activity of the brain. According to the tried and tested principles of physical reduction (which essentially boil down to 'no strongly emergent phenomena') a psychological state supervening on the physical activity of the brain (at whatever level) should be understood as being nothing over and above the combined effects of more fundamental physical events and relations that underlie it. In other words, both 'psychology' and 'computation' should here be understood as composite terms that subsume a great mass of reducible sub-concepts, 'all the way down' to whatever level of physics we consider, for present purposes, as 'given'. None of this, as said before, occasions any special difficulty in explaining correlations between such concepts as psychology and computation, as long as it is realised that any new effects 'emerging' from the underlying physical sub-strata are ultimately to be understood as merely composites of more fundamental events and relations. If none of the foregoing presents any special theoretical difficulty so long as we restrict our arguments to the familiar 3p mode of discussion, the same can't be said of its application to first personal (1p) concepts. This is the point, I feel, where sheep and goats begin to shuffle apart (sheepishly or goatishly) in the matter of theories of mind. What too often gets lost in our discussions, ISTM, is the essential distinction between any third-person account of the first-person (e.g. as I am now doing in these paragraphs) and the 1p phenomenon itself. Whereas the former can be understood without special theoretical difficulties as a weakly emergent (i.e. composite) effect, the latter cannot, at least not without implicitly dismissing its status as an independently real phenomenon, in the manner of the Graziano theory recently discussed. It's perhaps not so surprising that this distinction is elusive, as there is no other circumstance, AFAIK, in which this consideration arises. Putatively parallel examples of emergence, such as the 'liquidity' of water, aren't directly comparable, because no other phenomenon demands that
Re: super intelligence and self-sampling
On 6/11/2015 10:47 AM, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Yes, but there have been so much counter examples for the 1997 WMAP analysis that Tipler may end up correct. I don't know what you're talking about. In his 1993 book Tipler made a number of predictions and said that if even one of those predictions was wrong his entire theory could not work; and Tipler's predictions turned out to be wrong, some spectacularly wrong. Tipler predicted the expansion of the universe would slow down, then it would stop, then it would change direction and collapse in on itself; from the heat of that imploding fireball he thought a hyper-advanced civilization could theoretically extract an infinite amount of energy. But we now know that due to Dark Energy (which he did NOT predict) the expansion of the cosmos is accelerating not decelerating so that fireball will never happen. We know the expansion of the universe is accelerating, and that is well modeled by a cosmological constant. But general relativity is only an effective approximation to some as yet unknown quantum theory of gravity; and in a quantum theory of gravity the cosmological constant may be a manifestation of some field that is subject to a phase change and would allow for an ultimate contraction of the universe. Not that I put in credence in Tipler's speculations. Brent Tipler also predicted that the Higgs boson must be at 220GEV +- 20 but we now know it is 125.3GEV +- .5.And Tipler predicted that the Hubble constant must be less than or equal to 45, but we now know it's 67.8 +- .77 . It's clear we don't live in the sort of universe that Tipler thought we did. More than one of his predictions was wrong so if we take Tipler at his word then his theory must be wrong too. Tipler I am talking about the accelerated expansion reversing, I hold computer theory as over-taking most cosmo theories be it a saddle, a doughnut, flat as a pancake, whatever. And no, you need not agree, but for me it seems apparent. You? -Original Message- From: John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Jun 10, 2015 3:00 pm Subject: Re: super intelligence and self-sampling On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Now youare talking of Tipler's Omega Point. A usable theory when combined with MWI, which Tipler supports. Tipler's idea of the Omega Point was interesting in 1993 when he introduced the idea, but unfortunately in the last 22 years it has proven to be wrong. And no matter how beautiful a theory is if it doesn't fit the facts it must be abandoned. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at
Re: Quran Audio
If this John is me: to keep my reply short (concentrate on Islam) Why should I study scripts the followers of which behead, flog, stone, dismember live humans and claim full credit for such cruelty in the afterlife? A reasonable person should run away from such inhumanity, especially after our centuries of enlightenment. Thanks for reflecting John M On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 11:22 PM, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: John, I wonder if you were studying the scriptures / ideologies as well? I get the impression that you were studying the human condition: the results of (mis)interpretations and (mis)applications of religions / ideologies and naturally being revolted by it! Throughout history, humans have pursued wealth, power, pleasures: desires which within moral limits are permissible and constructive for the evolution of society, yet humans have mostly transgressed all bounds and have caused much suffering. What humans don't seem to understand is that their actions are essentially self-destructive. According to my study of the scriptures, time and again, whenever human civilisations advanced to the point of self-destruction, the Most Compassionate, True God has intervened, first by sending His Messengers and His Scriptures to warn humans about their self-destructive actions, and then saving humanity by wiping out those criminals who were bent upon destroying the world. If, for a while, you can suspend the notion that we are the most advanced that humans have ever been, and the notion that God is a terrible, heartless person that people imagine; perhaps a (re)read of the scriptures will help you realise that God is indeed the Most Kind and Most Loving, and enable you to appreciate His Commandments as those which guide humans to protect themselves from harm, lead to better their condition and enable them to build a beautiful future! Our world is also advancing towards self-destruction, all in the name of progress, and we are setting humanity up for much harm and suffering. I believe that since the last Messenger (Mohammad) and the last Scripture (Quran) have arrived, now the time for humanity 'brief stay' on Earth is coming towards its end. People of many faiths, including Muslims, are awaiting the arrival of the Anti-Christ / Beast. It is stated in the Quran: And when (is) fulfilled the word against them, We will bring forth for them a creature from the earth speaking to them, that the people were, of Our Signs, not certain. [http://www.islamawakened.com/quran/27/82/ ] However, as each one of us is in pledge for our own beliefs and deeds, so there is still hope for salvation and eternal bliss! God promises to help and guide those who WILL faith and submit to God's guidance. Samiya On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 2:12 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Samiya: I was learning about Communism (30s and 50s) and I disliked it because of unjust cruelty against certain people. (Rakosi, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot etc.) I was learning about Nazism (40s) and I dislliked it because of unjust cruelty against certain people. (Hitler, Skin-Heads, Szalasi, etc.) I am learning about Islam (10s) and I dislike it because of unjust cruelty against certain people. (IS and Saudi beheadings, etc.) In my studies I also learned about Catholicism and I disliked it becuase the unjust (dogmatic?) cruelty against certain people in the Inquisition etc. I learned about Judaism and disliked it because unjust cruelty against women. It also invoked the cruelty of anti-semites against themselves. I did not learn enough about Hinduism and Buddhism to dislike them, too. I dislike the new slaverism (=capitalism) and new feudalism (= global misunderstanding of what may be a democracy). JM On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 10:40 AM, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: I suppose you can call it that :) People on this list have different assumptions, prejudices, misgivings, queries and (dis)interest level in Islam and the practice of Muslims. Just presenting the original document for any who might want to check for themselves. Actually I was a bit hesitant sharing but then I thought that some will object anyway. Samiya On 09-Jun-2015, at 6:56 pm, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Doing Dawa? Interesting. -Original Message- From: Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Mon, Jun 8, 2015 10:09 pm Subject: Quran Audio A good resource for listening to Quran Recitation in Arabic plus Translation for anyone interested in listening to he Quran: http://www.quranexplorer.com/quran/ Samiya -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to
A (somewhat) different angle on the reversal
Recent discussions on the purported 'reversal' of the relation between 'machine psychology' and physics seem to be running, as ever, into the sand over disagreements on the meaning and significance of rather complex arguments like the MGA. I'd like to try another tack. The computational theory of mind (CTM) asserts, in effect, that all experience is a simulation - i.e. is the net effect of some form of computational activity. Bruno's starting assumption, at the beginning of the UDA, is that a 'computation' be understood, conventionally, as any sequence of physical actions whose net effect adequately approximates that computation. This is essentially what I understand to be the standard physical notion of computation. One of its consequences, noted in step 7 of the UDA, is that a physical computer capable of instantiating the trace of a universal dovetailer (UD) would thereby simulate all possible experiences. If a computer running such a program were indeed to exist, it would be impossible to distinguish whether any given experience was a consequence of its activity or that of some other 'primitive' (i.e. non-simulated) physical system. Indeed, the quasi-fractal, super-redundancy of the trace of the UD would render it overwhelmingly improbable that the origin of any given experience lay outside of its domain. Of course, such a notion can be attacked by denying that any actual physical universe in which we are situated is sufficiently robust (i.e. extensive in space and time) to support the running of such a computer, or even if it were so robust, that any such device must necessarily be found in it. However, even at this point in the argument it may be a little disturbing to realise that we might escape the 'reversal' only by appealing to what might appear to be contingent, rather than essential, considerations. In order to torpedo these final objections, Bruno deploys the MGA, which is intended to show that any brute equivalence between net physical activity and computation, accepted previously, is in fact unsound. However, the issue of what the MGA does or does not demonstrate seems to open up a never-ending conversational can of worms. Perhaps there are simpler arguments that can be accepted, or at least that might lead to a clearer form of disagreement. My suggestion would be to re-examine the notion of computation itself as a foundation for a theory of mind. ISTM that as long as we restrict discussion to third-person (3p) notions, there is no unusual difficulty, in principle, in justifying an equivalence between some psychological state and the action of some physical system, understood as approximating a computation. This is the sort of thing we mean (or at least is implied) when we say that human psychology supervenes on the activity of the brain. According to the tried and tested principles of physical reduction (which essentially boil down to 'no strongly emergent phenomena') a psychological state supervening on the physical activity of the brain (at whatever level) should be understood as being nothing over and above the combined effects of more fundamental physical events and relations that underlie it. In other words, both 'psychology' and 'computation' should here be understood as composite terms that subsume a great mass of reducible sub-concepts, 'all the way down' to whatever level of physics we consider, for present purposes, as 'given'. None of this, as said before, occasions any special difficulty in explaining correlations between such concepts as psychology and computation, as long as it is realised that any new effects 'emerging' from the underlying physical sub-strata are ultimately to be understood as merely composites of more fundamental events and relations. If none of the foregoing presents any special theoretical difficulty so long as we restrict our arguments to the familiar 3p mode of discussion, the same can't be said of its application to first personal (1p) concepts. This is the point, I feel, where sheep and goats begin to shuffle apart (sheepishly or goatishly) in the matter of theories of mind. What too often gets lost in our discussions, ISTM, is the essential distinction between any third-person account of the first-person (e.g. as I am now doing in these paragraphs) and the 1p phenomenon itself. Whereas the former can be understood without special theoretical difficulties as a weakly emergent (i.e. composite) effect, the latter cannot, at least not without implicitly dismissing its status as an independently real phenomenon, in the manner of the Graziano theory recently discussed. It's perhaps not so surprising that this distinction is elusive, as there is no other circumstance, AFAIK, in which this consideration arises. Putatively parallel examples of emergence, such as the 'liquidity' of water, aren't directly comparable, because no other phenomenon demands that we 'stand in its place', as distinct from being characterised at second or third hand. Because our
Re: Quran Audio
On 12 Jun 2015, at 2:34 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: The Baha'i faith maintains that all religions are equally valid and I think the Baha'i people have got it about right, they're all crap. John K Clark The difference between the three Abrahamic religions (according to Bill Maher): Christianity = mumbling to the ceiling Judaism = mumbling to the wall Islam = mumbling to the floor Kim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Quran Audio
On 12 June 2015 at 04:34, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: The Baha'i faith maintains that all religions are equally valid and I think the Baha'i people have got it about right, they're all crap. My sister in law is a Baha'i and they certainly don't think they're all crap - their attitude is more that all religions see some aspects of the truth (Just for the record. I realist your comment was probably intended to be tongue in cheek.) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Quran Audio
On 12 June 2015 at 10:23, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote: On 12 Jun 2015, at 2:34 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: The Baha'i faith maintains that all religions are equally valid and I think the Baha'i people have got it about right, they're all crap. John K Clark The difference between the three Abrahamic religions (according to Bill Maher): Christianity = mumbling to the ceiling Judaism = mumbling to the wall Islam = mumbling to the floor I tend to mumble to myself. (Maybe I can start a new religion? Or is this just Solipsism? Is Solipsism a religion? A very exclusive religion - even more exclusive than Judism?!) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: A (somewhat) different angle on the reversal
Nice summary, though I'm not sure how it's (somewhat) different. Maybe I just missed the point. It looks like it's akin to Maudlin - along the lines of I can explain *your* conscious behaviour using a theory that boils down to what atoms do, but I can't explain *my* subjective experiences that way. I think in the last para you're saying there can't be a substitution level anywhere above the fundamental physics? That is, you say a computation cannot be accepted ... in the form of its physical approximations. If so, that is certainly something that worries me about this whole idea - I've never been happy with the idea that I would exist inside an AI that approximated my brain at (say) the level of cells, even if that could be shown to mimic the computations supposedly going on in my brain. I think at best it would be someone who thought she was me. (Although of course the same may be true of me!) You also say that 1p phenomena - in a physical theory - have to be eliminated (as per Dennett) or elevated to something we could call supernatural (for the sake of argument - in any case, something not covered by the underlying physics). But the alternative is apparently that subjective phenomena exist inside assumed-to-be-real arithmetic, and the (appearance of a) physical world somehow emerges from that. Both of these are problematic. The first seems plausible to me (in the elimiativist mode), but implausible in that it reifies matter and doesn't have an ontological status that could be called final, but merely one that is contingent (i.e. we're here because we're here because...) while arithmetical truth, if there is such a thing, does. Can you explain to a bear of little brain why your approach is somewhat different ? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: A (somewhat) different angle on the reversal
David Nyman wrote: Recent discussions on the purported 'reversal' of the relation between 'machine psychology' and physics seem to be running, as ever, into the sand over disagreements on the meaning and significance of rather complex arguments like the MGA. I'd like to try another tack. It is useful to have a different perspective. You have helped clarify some of the issues, for me at least. The computational theory of mind (CTM) asserts, in effect, that all experience is a simulation - i.e. is the net effect of some form of computational activity. Bruno's starting assumption, at the beginning of the UDA, is that a 'computation' be understood, conventionally, as any sequence of physical actions whose net effect adequately approximates that computation. This is essentially what I understand to be the standard physical notion of computation. One of its consequences, noted in step 7 of the UDA, is that a physical computer capable of instantiating the trace of a universal dovetailer (UD) would thereby simulate all possible experiences. If a computer running such a program were indeed to exist, it would be impossible to distinguish whether any given experience was a consequence of its activity or that of some other 'primitive' (i.e. non-simulated) physical system. Indeed, the quasi-fractal, super-redundancy of the trace of the UD would render it overwhelmingly improbable that the origin of any given experience lay outside of its domain. Of course, such a notion can be attacked by denying that any actual physical universe in which we are situated is sufficiently robust (i.e. extensive in space and time) to support the running of such a computer, or even if it were so robust, that any such device must necessarily be found in it. However, even at this point in the argument it may be a little disturbing to realise that we might escape the 'reversal' only by appealing to what might appear to be contingent, rather than essential, considerations. In order to torpedo these final objections, Bruno deploys the MGA, which is intended to show that any brute equivalence between net physical activity and computation, accepted previously, is in fact unsound. However, the issue of what the MGA does or does not demonstrate seems to open up a never-ending conversational can of worms. Perhaps there are simpler arguments that can be accepted, or at least that might lead to a clearer form of disagreement. The MGA fails because it is a thought experiment that seeks to establish a metaphysical result, namely, that there is no role for 'primitive' materialism. However, if the argument were valid, it would only establish some sort of dualism between consciousness and brain activity, whether the brain were physical or not. Because it is undoubtedly the case that consciousness does supervene on brain activity -- the experimental evidence for this is overwhelming. One can't remove the brain (or some substituted physical equivalent) and still have consciousness. My suggestion would be to re-examine the notion of computation itself as a foundation for a theory of mind. ISTM that as long as we restrict discussion to third-person (3p) notions, there is no unusual difficulty, in principle, in justifying an equivalence between some psychological state and the action of some physical system, understood as approximating a computation. This is the sort of thing we mean (or at least is implied) when we say that human psychology supervenes on the activity of the brain. According to the tried and tested principles of physical reduction (which essentially boil down to 'no strongly emergent phenomena') a psychological state supervening on the physical activity of the brain (at whatever level) should be understood as being nothing over and above the combined effects of more fundamental physical events and relations that underlie it. In other words, both 'psychology' and 'computation' should here be understood as composite terms that subsume a great mass of reducible sub-concepts, 'all the way down' to whatever level of physics we consider, for present purposes, as 'given'. None of this, as said before, occasions any special difficulty in explaining correlations between such concepts as psychology and computation, as long as it is realised that any new effects 'emerging' from the underlying physical sub-strata are ultimately to be understood as merely composites of more fundamental events and relations. This seems to be a reasonable account. If none of the foregoing presents any special theoretical difficulty so long as we restrict our arguments to the familiar 3p mode of discussion, the same can't be said of its application to first personal (1p) concepts. This is the point, I feel, where sheep and goats begin to shuffle apart (sheepishly or goatishly) in the matter of theories of mind. What too often gets lost in our discussions, ISTM, is the essential distinction between
Re: A (somewhat) different angle on the reversal
LizR wrote: You also say that 1p phenomena - in a physical theory - have to be eliminated (as per Dennett) or elevated to something we could call supernatural (for the sake of argument - in any case, something not covered by the underlying physics). But the alternative is apparently that subjective phenomena exist inside assumed-to-be-real arithmetic, and the (appearance of a) physical world somehow emerges from that. Both of these are problematic. The first seems plausible to me (in the elimiativist mode), but implausible in that it reifies matter and doesn't have an ontological status that could be called final, but merely one that is contingent (i.e. we're here because we're here because...) while arithmetical truth, if there is such a thing, does. This is a false distinction. Arithmetical 'truth' is no more fundamental or final than physical truth. Arithmetic is, after all, only an axiomatic system. We can make up an indefinite number of axiomatic systems whose theorems are every bit as 'independent of us' as those of arithmetic. Are these also to be accepted as 'really real!'? Standard arithmetic is only important to us because it is useful in the physical world. It is invented, not fundamental. Bruce -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Quran Audio
On 12 June 2015 at 15:17, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com mailto:samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 12:44 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com mailto:jami...@gmail.com wrote: If this John is me: to keep my reply short (concentrate on Islam) Why should I study scripts the followers of which behead, flog, stone, dismember live humans and claim full credit for such cruelty in the afterlife? briefly (concentrate on science) The same reason why people should study the sciences the followers (scientists / engineers / technicians / governments / military / businesses) of which experiment with, damage, kill live humans and animals, destroy ecosystems, etc. and claim full credit for being leaders of human civilisation! A reasonable person should run away from such inhumanity, especially after our centuries of enlightenment. 'our centuries of enlightenment'? really? creating deadly weapons of mass destruction and using them, poisoning the planet and creating imbalance in the ecosystem, rendering entire species extinct, toying with the weather, ... enlightenment??? and where can we run away from it all? except in trying to find meaning in this suffering and trial? We can't. We must solve the problems where they are. But remember that those deadly weapons of mass destruction have only been used once, and with reasonable justification to end mass destruction without the aid of such weapons. And the imbalances in the ecosystem and species extinction are consequences of having more people with more material security, more freedom and better healthcare. Your co-religionists do not propose to solve or even address these problems. Their attention is on theological and territorial squabbles, and superstitious eschatologies. A person's concern for their own future should be reason enough to urgently explore the scriptures! No, it's a reason to get rid of scriptures and pay attention to people and the world. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Quran Audio
On 12 Jun 2015, at 9:31 am, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: The difference between the three Abrahamic religions (according to Bill Maher): Christianity = mumbling to the ceiling Judaism = mumbling to the wall Islam = mumbling to the floor I tend to mumble to myself. (Maybe I can start a new religion? Or is this just Solipsism? Is Solipsism a religion? A very exclusive religion - even more exclusive than Judism?!) This is precisely what Neale Donald Walsch did (Conversations with God and associated website etc.) Well, he didn't so much start a religion as try to straighten peoples' heads out about religion generally. He did this by assuming that the 'voice within' is God. We are therefore all of us God. Every conversation you have with yourself is a conversation with God. So, God is the Great Lapsed Solipsist who needs up to 7 billion differing human perspectives to get a feel for himself. Every solipsist is a tile in a gigantic mosaic consisting of other solipsists. The net result of all these parallel inputs is presumably what God is plugged into. Solipsism the philosophical stance is not a philosophy at all because if real, it cannot be argued with. Solipsism is probably nothing more than the perception of that truth. If I can call myself a solipsist and find evidence for that then solipsism must be real and that settles it then. There is only one mind. A solipsistic person would be one who merely asserts a simple truth. I tend to think that solipsism is the opposite extreme to fascism. A personality type, therefore. N'est-ce pas? K -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: super intelligence and self-sampling
On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Dark energy and matter have predicted by some physicists and astronomers to call the expansion to reverse. I don't know what you're talking about. Dark Energy is causing the universe's expansion to accelerate not slow down No he did not predict dark matter or energy but it seems to be in the cards despite this. Tipler didn't predict Dark Energy but he did predict that the that the Higgs boson would have a mass of 220GEV +- 20 and that the Hubble constant must be less than or equal to 45, and Tipler's predictions have been proven to be DEAD WRONG. Some called Tipler a crackpot in 1993 when he wrote his book but I did not because he made clear predictions and said if any one of them was wrong then his entire theory was wrong. Well lots of his predictions were wrong and however much I may have personally wished it was true my preferences has nothing to do with the way things are. Tipler was right about one thing, if a theory does not fit the facts it must be abandoned. That's why Tipler wasn't a crackpot, he was just wrong. general relativity is only an effective approximation to some as yet unknown quantum theory of gravity; and in a quantum theory of gravity the cosmological constant may be a manifestation of some field that is subject to a phase change and would allow for an ultimate contraction of the universe You can ALWAYS say that if the fundamental laws of physics are not what we think they are then my theory could still be right, but that's not science, in science you say if X isn't Y then my ideas are wrong. To his credit Tipler gave himself no wiggle room, he insisted that ALL his predictions HAD to be true. They wen't. End of story. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: super intelligence and self-sampling
Meh! I have read that some theorists now predict that dark whatever will cause a new contraction and that this is already occuring. Its the sort of thing that gets mentioned in ARIXV, and physorg. Please note, I am not waiting up for the next x-billion years to see if this occurs or not? Sent from AOL Mobile Mail -Original Message- From: John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Jun 11, 2015 10:19 PM Subject: Re: super intelligence and self-sampling div id=AOLMsgPart_2_f85d573b-d2be-4711-b87d-af98203c96c1 div dir=ltr div class=aolmail_gmail_extra div class=aolmail_gmail_quote On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 spudboy100 via Everything List span dir=ltra target=_blank href=mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com;everything-list@googlegroups.com/a/span wrote: /div div class=aolmail_gmail_quote blockquote class=aolmail_gmail_quote style=margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex font color=black size=2 face=arial Dark energy and matter have predicted by some physicists and astronomers to call the expansion to reverse./font /blockquote I don't know what you're talking about. Dark Energy is causing the universe's expansion to accelerate not slow down blockquote class=aolmail_gmail_quote style=margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex font color=black size=2 face=arial No he did not predict dark matter or energy but it seems to be in the cards despite this./font /blockquote Tipler didn't predict Dark Energy but he did predict that the t font color=#00 face=arial, helveticaspan style=font-size:13.330154419pxhat the Higgs boson would have a mass of 220GEV +- 20 and that the Hubble constant must be less than or equal to 45, and Tipler's predictions have been proven to be DEAD WRONG. Some called Tipler a crackpot in 1993 when he wrote his book but I did not because he made clear predictions and said if any one of them was wrong then his entire theory was wrong. Well lots of his predictions were wrong and however much I may have personally wished it was true my preferences has nothing to do with the way things are. /span/font span style=color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:arial,helvetica;font-size:13.330154419pxTipler was right about one thing, if a theory does not fit the facts it must be abandoned. That's why Tipler wasn't a crackpot, he was just wrong./span font color=#00 face=arial, helveticaspan style=font-size:13.330154419px /span/font blockquote class=aolmail_gmail_quote style=margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex span style=color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:arial,helvetica;font-size:13.330154419px general relativity is only an effective approximation to some as yet unknown quantum theory of gravity; and in a quantum theory of gravity the cosmological constant may be a manifestation of some field that is subject to a phase change and would allow for an ultimate contraction of the universe/span /blockquote You can ALWAYS say that if the fundamental laws of physics are not what we think they are then my theory could still be right, but that's not science, in science you say if X isn't Y then my ideas are wrong. To his credit Tipler gave himself no wiggle room, he insisted that ALL his predictions HAD to be true. They wen't. End of story. John K Clark font color=#00 face=arial, helveticaspan style=font-size:13.330154419px /span/font blockquote class=aolmail_gmail_quote style=margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex font color=black size=2 face=arial div style=font-family:arial,helvetica;font-size:10pt;color:black div div blockquote div dir=ltr div class=aolmail_gmail_extra div class=aolmail_gmail_quote blockquote class=aolmail_gmail_quote style=margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex font color=black face=arial size=2 div /font /blockquote /div /div /div /blockquote /div /div /div /div/font /blockquote /div /div /div p/p -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from
Re: Quran Audio
I wouldn't go to Maher for insight anymore then I would go to him for humor. Let the bastard start writing his own jokes again, for once. Solipsism interests me, because we need to know who is thinking the Great Thought, and start asking for changes. If it is a Boltzmann Brain, then again we are back to religion. :-( div Sent from AOL Mobile Mail -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Jun 11, 2015 07:31 PM Subject: Re: Quran Audio div id=AOLMsgPart_2_575aa270-83f6-4cbf-bd6a-c5dd534e2e3d div dir=ltr div class=aolmail_gmail_extra div class=aolmail_gmail_quote On 12 June 2015 at 10:23, Kim Jones span dir=ltra target=_blank href=mailto:kimjo...@ozemail.com.au;kimjo...@ozemail.com.au/a/span wrote: blockquote class=aolmail_gmail_quote style=margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex div dir=auto span div div On 12 Jun 2015, at 2:34 am, John Clark a target=_blank href=mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com;johnkcl...@gmail.com/a wrote: /div blockquote div dir=ltr div class=aolmail_gmail_extra The Baha'i faith maintains that all religions are equally valid and I think the Baha'i people have got it about right, they're all crap. /div div class=aolmail_gmail_extra /div div class=aolmail_gmail_extra John K Clark /div /div p/p /blockquote The difference between the three Abrahamic religions (according to Bill Maher): /span Christianity = mumbling to the ceiling Judaism = mumbling to the wall Islam = mumbling to the floor span class=aolmail_HOEnZbfont color=#88 /font/span /div /blockquote I tend to mumble to myself. (Maybe I can start a new religion? Or is this just Solipsism? Is Solipsism a religion? A very exclusive religion - even more exclusive than Judism?!) /div /div /div p/p -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to a target=_blank href=mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com;everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com/a. To post to this group, send email to a target=_blank href=mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com;everything-list@googlegroups.com/a. Visit this group at a target=_blank href=http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list;http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/a. For more options, visit a target=_blank href=https://groups.google.com/d/optout;https://groups.google.com/d/optout/a. /div /div/div -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Quran Audio
On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 12:44 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: If this John is me: to keep my reply short (concentrate on Islam) Why should I study scripts the followers of which behead, flog, stone, dismember live humans and claim full credit for such cruelty in the afterlife? briefly (concentrate on science) The same reason why people should study the sciences the followers (scientists / engineers / technicians / governments / military / businesses) of which experiment with, damage, kill live humans and animals, destroy ecosystems, etc. and claim full credit for being leaders of human civilisation! A reasonable person should run away from such inhumanity, especially after our centuries of enlightenment. 'our centuries of enlightenment'? really? creating deadly weapons of mass destruction and using them, poisoning the planet and creating imbalance in the ecosystem, rendering entire species extinct, toying with the weather, ... enlightenment??? and where can we run away from it all? except in trying to find meaning in this suffering and trial? A person's concern for their own future should be reason enough to urgently explore the scriptures! Samiya Thanks for reflecting John M On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 11:22 PM, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: John, I wonder if you were studying the scriptures / ideologies as well? I get the impression that you were studying the human condition: the results of (mis)interpretations and (mis)applications of religions / ideologies and naturally being revolted by it! Throughout history, humans have pursued wealth, power, pleasures: desires which within moral limits are permissible and constructive for the evolution of society, yet humans have mostly transgressed all bounds and have caused much suffering. What humans don't seem to understand is that their actions are essentially self-destructive. According to my study of the scriptures, time and again, whenever human civilisations advanced to the point of self-destruction, the Most Compassionate, True God has intervened, first by sending His Messengers and His Scriptures to warn humans about their self-destructive actions, and then saving humanity by wiping out those criminals who were bent upon destroying the world. If, for a while, you can suspend the notion that we are the most advanced that humans have ever been, and the notion that God is a terrible, heartless person that people imagine; perhaps a (re)read of the scriptures will help you realise that God is indeed the Most Kind and Most Loving, and enable you to appreciate His Commandments as those which guide humans to protect themselves from harm, lead to better their condition and enable them to build a beautiful future! Our world is also advancing towards self-destruction, all in the name of progress, and we are setting humanity up for much harm and suffering. I believe that since the last Messenger (Mohammad) and the last Scripture (Quran) have arrived, now the time for humanity 'brief stay' on Earth is coming towards its end. People of many faiths, including Muslims, are awaiting the arrival of the Anti-Christ / Beast. It is stated in the Quran: And when (is) fulfilled the word against them, We will bring forth for them a creature from the earth speaking to them, that the people were, of Our Signs, not certain. [http://www.islamawakened.com/quran/27/82/ ] However, as each one of us is in pledge for our own beliefs and deeds, so there is still hope for salvation and eternal bliss! God promises to help and guide those who WILL faith and submit to God's guidance. Samiya On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 2:12 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Samiya: I was learning about Communism (30s and 50s) and I disliked it because of unjust cruelty against certain people. (Rakosi, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot etc.) I was learning about Nazism (40s) and I dislliked it because of unjust cruelty against certain people. (Hitler, Skin-Heads, Szalasi, etc.) I am learning about Islam (10s) and I dislike it because of unjust cruelty against certain people. (IS and Saudi beheadings, etc.) In my studies I also learned about Catholicism and I disliked it becuase the unjust (dogmatic?) cruelty against certain people in the Inquisition etc. I learned about Judaism and disliked it because unjust cruelty against women. It also invoked the cruelty of anti-semites against themselves. I did not learn enough about Hinduism and Buddhism to dislike them, too. I dislike the new slaverism (=capitalism) and new feudalism (= global misunderstanding of what may be a democracy). JM On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 10:40 AM, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: I suppose you can call it that :) People on this list have different assumptions, prejudices, misgivings, queries and (dis)interest level in Islam and the practice of Muslims. Just presenting the original document for any who might want to check for
Re: Quran Audio
On 12 June 2015 at 15:17, Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 12:44 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: If this John is me: to keep my reply short (concentrate on Islam) Why should I study scripts the followers of which behead, flog, stone, dismember live humans and claim full credit for such cruelty in the afterlife? briefly (concentrate on science) The same reason why people should study the sciences the followers (scientists / engineers / technicians / governments / military / businesses) of which experiment with, damage, kill live humans and animals, destroy ecosystems, etc. and claim full credit for being leaders of human civilisation! A reasonable person should run away from such inhumanity, especially after our centuries of enlightenment. 'our centuries of enlightenment'? really? creating deadly weapons of mass destruction and using them, poisoning the planet and creating imbalance in the ecosystem, rendering entire species extinct, toying with the weather, ... enlightenment??? and where can we run away from it all? except in trying to find meaning in this suffering and trial? A person's concern for their own future should be reason enough to urgently explore the scriptures! Two very good answers, even if I happen to disagree with them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: super intelligence and self-sampling
On 12 June 2015 at 14:19, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Dark energy and matter have predicted by some physicists and astronomers to call the expansion to reverse. I don't know what you're talking about. Dark Energy is causing the universe's expansion to accelerate not slow down Since we don't know it's nature, it's *possible* it will wear off after a while, or even go into reverse. But this is 100% speculation at present, of course - and will be until we devise a testable theory of what it actually is! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: super intelligence and self-sampling
Dark energy and matter have predicted by some physicists and astronomers to call the expansion to reverse. Whether this really occurs in out of my pudgy hands. No he did not predict dark matter or energy but it seems to be in the cards despite this. Agrees that there is physics that we have never seen before, awaiting the scientist. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Jun 11, 2015 3:10 pm Subject: Re: super intelligence and self-sampling On 6/11/2015 10:47 AM, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Yes, but there have been so much counter examples for the 1997 WMAP analysis that Tipler may end up correct. I don't know what you're talking about. In his 1993 book Tipler made a number of predictions and said that if even one of those predictions was wrong his entire theory could not work; and Tipler's predictions turned out to be wrong, some spectacularly wrong. Tipler predicted the expansion of the universe would slow down, then it would stop, then it would change direction and collapse in on itself; from the heat of that imploding fireball he thought a hyper-advanced civilization could theoretically extract an infinite amount of energy. But we now know that due to Dark Energy (which he did NOT predict) the expansion of the cosmos is accelerating not decelerating so that fireball will never happen. We know the expansion of the universe is accelerating, and that is well modeled by a cosmological constant. But general relativity is only an effective approximation to some as yet unknown quantum theory of gravity; and in a quantum theory of gravity the cosmological constant may be a manifestation of some field that is subject to a phase change and would allow for an ultimate contraction of the universe. Not that I put in credence in Tipler's speculations. Brent Tipler also predicted that the Higgs boson must be at 220GEV +- 20 but we now know it is 125.3GEV +- .5.And Tipler predicted that the Hubble constant must be less than or equal to 45, but we now know it's 67.8 +- .77 . It's clear we don't live in the sort of universe that Tipler thought we did. More than one of his predictions was wrong so if we take Tipler at his word then his theory must be wrong too. Tipler I am talking about the accelerated expansion reversing, I hold computer theory as over-taking most cosmo theories be it a saddle, a doughnut, flat as a pancake, whatever. And no, you need not agree, but for me it seems apparent. You? -Original Message- From: John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Jun 10, 2015 3:00 pm Subject: Re: super intelligence and self-sampling On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Now you are talking of Tipler's Omega Point. A usable theory when combined with MWI, which Tipler supports. Tipler's idea of the Omega Point was interesting in 1993 when he introduced the idea, but unfortunately in the last 22 years it has proven to be wrong. And no matter how beautiful a theory is if it doesn't fit the facts it must be abandoned. John K Clark
Re: Quran Audio
I do not know if God is helping us. I do suspect that the only thing that we can ask God for strength, one can receive a boost of sorts. BB's are so fantastical that this seems to be unreal, though a serious conjecture. The true God phrase reminds me of the battle between immigrant Irish and local native protestant locals that were depicted in the movie. Gangs of New York. In the film, curses were shouted as well as challenges. One of these was, Come meet the true God! You can see the same thing today with the conflict in Iraq, Syria, Saudi and Pakistan, between Sunni and Shia. Humbleness is always a nice aspect for people, but then so does musical talent. Welcome, but not essential. Monotheist doesn't always mean wise or kind, and Polytheist doesn't always mean crazy, of stupid, or even more bloodthirsty. It all depends on behavior.As far a God or no God, if there is a physical means for an afterlife, and that afterlife is good, then we may have the answer to 75 percent of human problems. -Original Message- From: Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Jun 11, 2015 12:19 am Subject: Re: Quran Audio On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 6:50 PM, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Yes I see. For me, it's a struggle to get the real world to conform, nicely, to religious texts My experience of such texts and of life is that there is a divergence between the world we inhabit and what the old guys of the past wrote. As far as i am concerned, human beings (as horribly flawed as we are) come first, because we are weak, we are foolish, we are unreasonable, we are unintelligent, and rage full. I have seen the deeply religious of this world and they are quite good at hiding their flaws to the world, out of not only fear of the almighty, but out or bringing shame, brought to themselves and their group. We are the one's that require help, not God, yet, for inscrutable reasons He decline help. According to my understanding, God is continuously offering to help, while most of us stubbornly decline help. God will not impose faith and good deeds on us, we have to WILL faith and choose to be guided to the right course of action. This indicates that this big mind, will not, or cannot involve himself, again, inscrutable. Rather than beat up Mr. God, I would say we adjust our views religiously. If you want to study a physics speculation as delirious as any mad, religion, I would direct you to the Boltzmann Brains, named after 19th century thermodynamist, Ludwig Boltzmann. Fear not, Boltzmann was not a Yahhoodi, but a German, german. Why would I fear a ' Yahhoodi'? Jews are monotheists like Muslims, and the Quran is full of examples from Jewish history, to remind them that this is a continuation of the same message, and to guide us, lest we make the same errors that they did. Moreover, the Quran also speaks highly of the Jews who truly believe. I suppose the same is true for Muslims and people of other religions. God knows the hearts of all, and is best able to appreciate. Anyway, he postulated that the cosmos needed an 'Observer' of some kind to operate. Moreover, that the observer(s) could be intelligent, and non-human, and having its own false memories of life, and also hyper-intelligent. Back in 2007, Lenny Susskind (yahoodi) came up with a paper called, The Census Taker's Hat, which revisited Boltzmann's thermodynamics, and more or less supported these contentions. Interesting. I'll try to look it up later today. Assuming that such things as boltzmann brains exist (some doubt) some have seen BB's as potentially, Jinn's, or Angels, or even God. Interesting speculation, and I ask, how does knowing this help us poor little humans? Ah! I suppose it helps us realise that there is much, much more to the larger picture than we humans can perceive, and thus we do need to seek guidance intelligently. Its humbling, and humbling before the One True God liberates us from humbling before all others. That is, I think, the most crucial role of the scriptures! Samiya For more madness- https://plus.maths.org/content/dreaming-dream -Original Message- From: Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, Jun 9, 2015 10:40 am Subject: Re: Quran Audio I suppose you can call it that :) People on this list have different assumptions, prejudices,
Re: super intelligence and self-sampling
On 12 June 2015 at 07:10, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Not that I put in credence in Tipler's speculations. They seem to be based on a comp1 style idea, namely that consciousness is generated by computation and that recreating the computation would effectively resurrect that person. I think he assumes that the recreation is an emulation at the level of the (as yet unknown) physics, which would run afoul of no-cloning (and probably lots of other things. As I said in replyto David's recent summary, I find it hard to believe that an emulated me will actually be me in the important sense that I experience becoming it). Didn't Tipler make some testable predictions? (including the Higgs mass???) If so did they pan out? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
