RE: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2014 2:25 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On 05 Jul 2014, at 10:00, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2014 12:05 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On 04 Jul 2014, at 20:43, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal On 04 Jul 2014, at 10:36, LizR wrote: On 4 July 2014 18:16, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: This kind of classification is fine as far as distinguishing believing god doesn't exist from failing to believe that god does exist. But it is still ambiguous because it assumes that God(s) is definite. I don't believe that personal agent type gods exist; but I'm on the fence about some creative principle or unnamable truths that some people would like to call God. I believe that theist (e.g. Abrahamic) gods do not exist. I comment Brent first, here. OK. fair enough, but even if the God of the theists does not exist, he might still have important relationships with the Plotinus ONE, or even with the notion of arithmetical truth as pointed too by a machine. But doesn't God imply an Identity, which cannot by its very nature be all things, Yes. That is why the neoplatonist will add the notion of the ONE (god) to the Platonist Noùs, which is the world of ideas and represent the all intelligible things (justifiable or not). The One has to be simple for Plotinus. I find searching for abstract unifying mystic potential far more rewarding spiritually than Theist patriarch preacher pronouncements. I believe I have a better understanding now how you intend the term. It is, I am certain you know, a term so fraught with historical baggage that triggers all manner of individual responses in various different peoples brains. I am not sure what makes you think I defined God by all thing. It is more the truth about all things. This can be shown to be non definable, and as such might not have an identity in the sense you are using that term here. The point I was trying to make was about the common conception of God as of some all-powerful, all-knowing deity. Even in faiths that prohibit, any explicit depiction of God this external identifiable conceptualized being exists - at least in so far as the believers are concerned. Neoplatonists solves that difficulty by justifying that the being realm does not contain neither God (the One), nor matter. God is not part of what exists, which means created or emanating from the One. God meta-exist like the arithmetical truth can be shown to be a non arithmetical notion. The notion of meta-existence is one I like, it skirts around the origin problem quite neatly, but then doesn't this imply that God is an emergent phenomena, along with all that exists? Likewize, the set of all sets is not a set in Cantorian set theory. Sure, otherwise you would have an infinite regression problem, but, on the other hand isn't this another way of saying that all sets must be contained within some larger encompassing context/environment. If we speak of some formless ineffable truth or force perhaps existing in all things, Which all things? That is what we are trying to put some light at. then I agree with your sense of it (and seek to experience moments of flow of as well), but often, the word symbol God - at least for me perhaps - conjures up a theist god of one brand or another - doesn't really matter. OK. God is not a name (in the logician sense of finite 3p description). It is a substantive use as a nickname to point on what we are searching (and can, with comp, only be searched, not find in any 3p ways, which makes machine's theology already immune to normative interpretations. Of course, in our culture, the god term, without further ado, refers to fairy tales. That was not the case for the early greek theologians, despite the (natural?) tendency of some to (re)introduce superstition and wishful thinking. because Identity always is - and must be - defined in terms of a larger set; i.e. good is defined in terms of evil both within some larger set that encompasses both. The ineffable, indescribable essence is without Identity. You might elaborate, as I am not even sure identity applies here. I would say it is not without identity, nor with identity. I suspect a category error.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 5 July 2014 05:51, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/4/2014 1:36 AM, LizR wrote: On 4 July 2014 18:16, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: This kind of classification is fine as far as distinguishing believing god doesn't exist from failing to believe that god does exist. But it is still ambiguous because it assumes that God(s) is definite. I don't believe that personal agent type gods exist; but I'm on the fence about some creative principle or unnamable truths that some people would like to call God. I believe that theist (e.g. Abrahamic) gods do not exist. OK. Although string theory almost certainly predicts that they exist somewhere (but not in our corner of the multiverse). Define they. Is it a person who created our universe? I don't think string theory predicts that. Not our universe, but universes. -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 05 Jul 2014, at 10:00, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2014 12:05 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non- boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On 04 Jul 2014, at 20:43, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal On 04 Jul 2014, at 10:36, LizR wrote: On 4 July 2014 18:16, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: This kind of classification is fine as far as distinguishing believing god doesn't exist from failing to believe that god does exist. But it is still ambiguous because it assumes that God(s) is definite. I don't believe that personal agent type gods exist; but I'm on the fence about some creative principle or unnamable truths that some people would like to call God. I believe that theist (e.g. Abrahamic) gods do not exist. I comment Brent first, here. OK. fair enough, but even if the God of the theists does not exist, he might still have important relationships with the Plotinus ONE, or even with the notion of arithmetical truth as pointed too by a machine. But doesn't God imply an Identity, which cannot by its very nature be all things, Yes. That is why the neoplatonist will add the notion of the ONE (god) to the Platonist Noùs, which is the world of ideas and represent the all intelligible things (justifiable or not). The One has to be simple for Plotinus. I am not sure what makes you think I defined God by all thing. It is more the truth about all things. This can be shown to be non definable, and as such might not have an identity in the sense you are using that term here. The point I was trying to make was about the common conception of God as of some all-powerful, all-knowing deity. Even in faiths that prohibit, any explicit depiction of God this external identifiable conceptualized being exists - at least in so far as the believers are concerned. Neoplatonists solves that difficulty by justifying that the being realm does not contain neither God (the One), nor matter. God is not part of what exists, which means created or emanating from the One. God meta-exist like the arithmetical truth can be shown to be a non arithmetical notion. Likewize, the set of all sets is not a set in Cantorian set theory. If we speak of some formless ineffable truth or force perhaps existing in all things, Which all things? That is what we are trying to put some light at. then I agree with your sense of it (and seek to experience moments of flow of as well), but often, the word symbol God - at least for me perhaps - conjures up a theist god of one brand or another - doesn't really matter. OK. God is not a name (in the logician sense of finite 3p description). It is a substantive use as a nickname to point on what we are searching (and can, with comp, only be searched, not find in any 3p ways, which makes machine's theology already immune to normative interpretations. Of course, in our culture, the god term, without further ado, refers to fairy tales. That was not the case for the early greek theologians, despite the (natural?) tendency of some to (re)introduce superstition and wishful thinking. because Identity always is - and must be - defined in terms of a larger set; i.e. good is defined in terms of evil both within some larger set that encompasses both. The ineffable, indescribable essence is without Identity. You might elaborate, as I am not even sure identity applies here. I would say it is not without identity, nor with identity. I suspect a category error. Words are symbols, and symbolic meaning can only exist within a context. OK. But the whole is not a symbol. This is provable even for little whole associated tpo machine. They cannot define by words neither the whole (the outer 3p god), nor the soul or inner god. Those are non symbolic entities, which does not admit any symbolic description. When we give something Identity - even a supreme being we are implicitly conceptualizing this supreme being within some even larger context. Not really. There is no larger context available to the entity who conceive it. That is why they will be logically not 3p describable by the entities. Being needs context in order to be. The One is supposed to be what generates all possible contexts. Definition requires contrast. Exactly. That is why the outer god will not have any definition. It is a very hard habit to escape and set aside... our minds are always defining things for us and we naturally tend to hang some kind of identity on our various deities. I would say outside of the
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 04 Jul 2014, at 20:41, meekerdb wrote: On 7/4/2014 9:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: I define theology by the study of the truth about you and not-you, if you want. Science is the subpart concerned with what is 3p communicable, or relatively communicable, and the proper theology contains also the true statements, but that you cannot justify rationally. This should not offend nobody. It offends people who are fighting against what everyone but Bruno Marchal calls theology, I gave reference, and this shows you did not made the research. Like John you confirm that you consider only Christian theology, and not the many many many others, to begin with Pythagorus up to the neoplatonists. This includes the Platonists who created the science, including the theological field. the doctrines of theistic religions which are used to oppress women, denigrate learning, and politically control large populations. The USSR has illustrated that we can oppress humans with the materialist religion too, and again, I insist of separating a filed with the humans possible political use of it. Bruno 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 04 Jul 2014, at 20:43, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal On 04 Jul 2014, at 10:36, LizR wrote: On 4 July 2014 18:16, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: This kind of classification is fine as far as distinguishing believing god doesn't exist from failing to believe that god does exist. But it is still ambiguous because it assumes that God(s) is definite. I don't believe that personal agent type gods exist; but I'm on the fence about some creative principle or unnamable truths that some people would like to call God. I believe that theist (e.g. Abrahamic) gods do not exist. I comment Brent first, here. OK. fair enough, but even if the God of the theists does not exist, he might still have important relationships with the Plotinus ONE, or even with the notion of arithmetical truth as pointed too by a machine. But doesn't God imply an Identity, which cannot by its very nature be all things, I am not sure what makes you think I defined God by all thing. It is more the truth about all things. This can be shown to be non definable, and as such might not have an identity in the sense you are using that term here. because Identity always is - and must be - defined in terms of a larger set; i.e. good is defined in terms of evil both within some larger set that encompasses both. The ineffable, indescribable essence is without Identity. You might elaborate, as I am not even sure identity applies here. I would say it is not without identity, nor with identity. I suspect a category error. Bruno Chris In all texts, I take what is convincing, and let what I don't understand for further reflexion. And here I comment Liz: OK. Although string theory almost certainly predicts that they exist somewhere (but not in our corner of the multiverse). Really? I doubt this. Daemon capable of imitating God might be prove to exist, in both some QM-GR theory, and in arithmetic, but for God itself, I am afraid it is more transcendent than any seemingly being in any realm. In the terrestrial (effective) realm, you can't distinguish God from the Devil. The most which can make (G*- non communicable) sense is that you eventually remember who you are, being God, or the Devil. It is the only way you might be able to differentiate them. Bruno -- 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 04 Jul 2014, at 20:51, meekerdb wrote: On 7/4/2014 11:05 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: ...but even if the God of the theists does not exist, he might still have important relationships with the Plotinus ONE, or even with the notion of arithmetical truth as pointed too by a machine. Which agrees with my point that the truth of arithmetical relations doesn't imply that the ontology of arithmetic exists. We don't need an ontology for arithmetic. We need only *some* ontology for the machine or numbers (or programs, etc.). We get it from the axioms and inference rules. From universal-machine(k) we can drive Ex(universal-machine(x)). Bruno 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
RE: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2014 12:05 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On 04 Jul 2014, at 20:43, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal On 04 Jul 2014, at 10:36, LizR wrote: On 4 July 2014 18:16, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: This kind of classification is fine as far as distinguishing believing god doesn't exist from failing to believe that god does exist. But it is still ambiguous because it assumes that God(s) is definite. I don't believe that personal agent type gods exist; but I'm on the fence about some creative principle or unnamable truths that some people would like to call God. I believe that theist (e.g. Abrahamic) gods do not exist. I comment Brent first, here. OK. fair enough, but even if the God of the theists does not exist, he might still have important relationships with the Plotinus ONE, or even with the notion of arithmetical truth as pointed too by a machine. But doesn't God imply an Identity, which cannot by its very nature be all things, I am not sure what makes you think I defined God by all thing. It is more the truth about all things. This can be shown to be non definable, and as such might not have an identity in the sense you are using that term here. The point I was trying to make was about the common conception of God as of some all-powerful, all-knowing deity. Even in faiths that prohibit, any explicit depiction of God this external identifiable conceptualized being exists - at least in so far as the believers are concerned. If we speak of some formless ineffable truth or force perhaps existing in all things, then I agree with your sense of it (and seek to experience moments of flow of as well), but often, the word symbol God - at least for me perhaps - conjures up a theist god of one brand or another - doesn't really matter. because Identity always is - and must be - defined in terms of a larger set; i.e. good is defined in terms of evil both within some larger set that encompasses both. The ineffable, indescribable essence is without Identity. You might elaborate, as I am not even sure identity applies here. I would say it is not without identity, nor with identity. I suspect a category error. Words are symbols, and symbolic meaning can only exist within a context. When we give something Identity - even a supreme being we are implicitly conceptualizing this supreme being within some even larger context. Being needs context in order to be. Definition requires contrast. It is a very hard habit to escape and set aside. our minds are always defining things for us and we naturally tend to hang some kind of identity on our various deities. I would say outside of the identifiable. Bruno Chris In all texts, I take what is convincing, and let what I don't understand for further reflexion. And here I comment Liz: OK. Although string theory almost certainly predicts that they exist somewhere (but not in our corner of the multiverse). Really? I doubt this. Daemon capable of imitating God might be prove to exist, in both some QM-GR theory, and in arithmetic, but for God itself, I am afraid it is more transcendent than any seemingly being in any realm. In the terrestrial (effective) realm, you can't distinguish God from the Devil. The most which can make (G*- non communicable) sense is that you eventually remember who you are, being God, or the Devil. It is the only way you might be able to differentiate them. Bruno -- 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/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
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Sat, Jul 5, 2014 at 2:51 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: tell me if you believe in a primitively existing physical reality, or if you are open to the possibility that the fundamental reality is arithmetic If I were religious I'd give you an answer to that question because religious people think they know the answers to all of life's mysteries, but I'm not so I won't. I don't know if the laws of logic demand that the physical world exist, maybe yes maybe no, but I do know that if you keep insisting on equating the ASCII sequence God with the ASCII sequence Arithmetic you're never going to be able to communicate with your fellow Human beings because people will refuse to learn a new language just so they can talk to you. You just confirm that atheism is unable to conceive a theology different from the Christian one, and that atheists defends the same Dogma than the Christians. Wow, calling a guy known for disliking religion religious, never heard that one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 7/3/2014 7:53 PM, LizR wrote: OK, that isn't the definition of atheist I have come across but if you are only using it in the weak sense of I don't positively believe in any god or gods then that's fine. Here for comparison purposes are the definitions from Wiktionary. I generally assume that definitions 1 or 3 are the most usual ones, for example I would assume Richard Dawkins generally subscribes to definition 1. (I'm not sure I even understand definition 2.) I guess you are adding a 5th definition, Someone who doesn't have a definite belief that deities do exist - which can include what I would generally think of as agnostic, in fact it's half the definition of an agnostic, which is someone who doesn't have a strong belief either way. 1. (narrowly)A person who believes that nodeities http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/deityexist(especially,one who has no other religious belief). [quotations ▼] 2. (broadly)A person who rejects belief that any deities exist (whether or not that person believes that deities do not exist). [quotations ▼] 3. (loosely http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/loosely#Adverb)A person who has no belief in any deities, such as a person who has no concept of deities. [quotations ▼] 4. (loosely http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/loosely#Adverb,uncommon)A person who does not believe in a particular deity (or any deity in a particularpantheon http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pantheon), notwithstanding that they may believe in another deity. I guess there is a sort of truth table involved here. Believe In God(s) existing = Theist Believe that no God(s) exist = (Strong) Atheist Don't believe or disbelieve In God(s) existing = Agnostic Don't believe in God(s) existing, and don't want to say whether or not they believe that God(s) don't exist = (Brent) Atheist This kind of classification is fine as far as distinguishing believing god doesn't exist from failing to believe that god does exist. But it is still ambiguous because it assumes that God(s) is definite. I don't believe that personal agent type gods exist; but I'm on the fence about some creative principle or unnamable truths that some people would like to call God. I believe that theist (e.g. Abrahamic) gods do not exist. Brent I will try to bear that in mind in any future discussions. -- 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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 4 July 2014 18:16, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: This kind of classification is fine as far as distinguishing believing god doesn't exist from failing to believe that god does exist. But it is still ambiguous because it assumes that God(s) is definite. I don't believe that personal agent type gods exist; but I'm on the fence about some creative principle or unnamable truths that some people would like to call God. I believe that theist (e.g. Abrahamic) gods do not exist. OK. Although string theory almost certainly predicts that they exist somewhere (but not in our corner of the multiverse). -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 03 Jul 2014, at 20:05, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 1:40 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I think that the presence of such teapot is highly implausible. But I can't be sure. I don't believe that for one second, I think you are sure there is not a china teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus; That is your problem, if you think for other people. although please note that being sure is not the same thing as having a proof, nor is being sure the same thing as being correct. Ad then god is not quite the same thing than a tea-pot. So this is just distracting. In science we very often enlarge the sense of a term, to allow a more homogenous treatment. I define theology by the study of the truth about you and not-you, if you want. Science is the subpart concerned with what is 3p communicable, or relatively communicable, and the proper theology contains also the true statements, but that you cannot justify rationally. This should not offend nobody. Fundamental theories asserting that there is only a physical world, become theologies, and so we can reason in comp in a neutral way with respect to Plato and Aristotle since the start. Plato adopts that neutrality in his dialogs. You criticize a lot Aristotle, but you seems to behave like if you are unable to doubt its theology. omnipotence is self-contradictory. I know, but a little thing like being self-contradictory would never stop a good theologian Lol. Good humor. I wish it were a joke, just last month in a HBO documentary Pastor Peter LaRuffa educated the world with these words of wisdom: If somewhere within the Bible, I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I'm reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and then do my best to work it out and understand it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysecinv367w You cannot infer from a theologian says bs to theology is bs. You really talk like a priest, unable to doubt its religious belief Wow, calling a guy known for disliking religion religious, never heard that one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12. You did not answer my question. What is your 'religion'. Don't tell in which Gods you don't believe. Tell me the one in which you do believe. Tell me if you believe in a primitively existing physical reality, or if you are open to the possibility that the fundamental reality is arithmetic (there are reason independent of comp to believe this). Bruno John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 12:25 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: god is not quite the same thing than a tea-pot. Very true, a teapot may not exist in orbit around the planet Uranus but at least teapots do exist in other places, but God doesn't exist anywhere. In science we very often enlarge the sense of a term, Enlarging the sense of a term is OK until the term becomes so enormous that it embraces everything and then it becomes utterly useless; contrast is needed for meaning so the term everything is a religion is equivalent to nothing is a religion. In fact everything is X is equivalent to nothing is X. I define theology by the study of the truth about you and not-you, Being that you are the only one on the planet who defines theology in that way it makes communication difficult; and that's the trouble with inventing your own personal language, just look at all the confusion that comp, free will, all your silly acronyms and God has caused. You criticize a lot Aristotle, but you seems to behave like if you are unable to doubt its theology. Wow, calling a guy known for disliking religion religious, never heard that one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12. You did not answer my question. What is your 'religion'. As you would have known if you had been paying attention, I have no religion. Don't tell in which Gods you don't believe. Tell me the one in which you do believe. I believe in no Gods. tell me if you believe in a primitively existing physical reality, or if you are open to the possibility that the fundamental reality is arithmetic If I were religious I'd give you an answer to that question because religious people think they know the answers to all of life's mysteries, but I'm not so I won't. I don't know if the laws of logic demand that the physical world exist, maybe yes maybe no, but I do know that if you keep insisting on equating the ASCII sequence God with the ASCII sequence Arithmetic you're never going to be able to communicate with your fellow Human beings because people will refuse to learn a new language just so they can talk to you. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 04 Jul 2014, at 04:35, meekerdb wrote: On 7/3/2014 7:19 PM, LizR wrote: On 3 July 2014 05:16, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 01 Jul 2014, at 21:16, meekerdb wrote: On 7/1/2014 9:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Careful as I don't believe there is a teapot is different from I believe there is no teapot. Personally, I don't believe that there is teapot orbiting Jupiter, but why would I believe that there is no teapot? I have no real evidences for that too. I have only a speculation extrapolated from my limited knowledge of teapot and Jupiter. I might *bet* that there is no teapot, but then I can easily conceive losing the bet, by the usual bad luck. How you would bet and at what odds is the real measure of belief. I think you believe there is no teapot. I think that the presence of such teapot is highly implausible. But I can't be sure. I think the presence of my own teapot at home is highly plausible, but I can't be completely sure about that either. For all we know the solar system may be littered with teapots left by visiting aliens. I wouldn't give the idea house room if designing the shielding on a space craft, and if pressed I would work out the chances of it being true using the Drake equation (with the Arthur Dent modification) and no doubt end up with the probability being exceedingly low. But I don't believe there is no teapot. I do believe it is highly unlikely that there is one (or more). I was careful. I wrote, I don't believe there is one. In exactly the same sense, I don't believe there is a theist god and hence am an a-theist. Then you are agnostic in the common sense of the word. I know that atheists dispute on this. That is why, respecting that fuzziness, I use the mabel strong atheists for those who vindicate the strong sense of believing that the theist God does not exist. But even the Theist god is a quite fuzzy notion, and I prefer to start from a problem, like the mind-body problem, and then choose name for concepts by name which fits the best literature. I think that scientist should be agnostic on everything, and just make their theories and deduce in them. Even theologians. Bruno 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 7/4/2014 1:36 AM, LizR wrote: On 4 July 2014 18:16, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: This kind of classification is fine as far as distinguishing believing god doesn't exist from failing to believe that god does exist. But it is still ambiguous because it assumes that God(s) is definite. I don't believe that personal agent type gods exist; but I'm on the fence about some creative principle or unnamable truths that some people would like to call God. I believe that theist (e.g. Abrahamic) gods do not exist. OK. Although string theory almost certainly predicts that they exist somewhere (but not in our corner of the multiverse). Define they. Is it a person who created our universe? I don't think string theory predicts that. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 04 Jul 2014, at 10:36, LizR wrote: On 4 July 2014 18:16, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: This kind of classification is fine as far as distinguishing believing god doesn't exist from failing to believe that god does exist. But it is still ambiguous because it assumes that God(s) is definite. I don't believe that personal agent type gods exist; but I'm on the fence about some creative principle or unnamable truths that some people would like to call God. I believe that theist (e.g. Abrahamic) gods do not exist. I comment Brent first, here. OK. fair enough, but even if the God of the theists does not exist, he might still have important relationships with the Plotinus ONE, or even with the notion of arithmetical truth as pointed too by a machine. In all texts, I take what is convincing, and let what I don't understand for further reflexion. And here I comment Liz: OK. Although string theory almost certainly predicts that they exist somewhere (but not in our corner of the multiverse). Really? I doubt this. Daemon capable of imitating God might be prove to exist, in both some QM-GR theory, and in arithmetic, but for God itself, I am afraid it is more transcendent than any seemingly being in any realm. In the terrestrial (effective) realm, you can't distinguish God from the Devil. The most which can make (G*- non communicable) sense is that you eventually remember who you are, being God, or the Devil. It is the only way you might be able to differentiate them. Bruno -- 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 7/4/2014 9:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: I define theology by the study of the truth about you and not-you, if you want. Science is the subpart concerned with what is 3p communicable, or relatively communicable, and the proper theology contains also the true statements, but that you cannot justify rationally. This should not offend nobody. It offends people who are fighting against what everyone but Bruno Marchal calls theology, the doctrines of theistic religions which are used to oppress women, denigrate learning, and politically control large populations. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal On 04 Jul 2014, at 10:36, LizR wrote: On 4 July 2014 18:16, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: This kind of classification is fine as far as distinguishing believing god doesn't exist from failing to believe that god does exist. But it is still ambiguous because it assumes that God(s) is definite. I don't believe that personal agent type gods exist; but I'm on the fence about some creative principle or unnamable truths that some people would like to call God. I believe that theist (e.g. Abrahamic) gods do not exist. I comment Brent first, here. OK. fair enough, but even if the God of the theists does not exist, he might still have important relationships with the Plotinus ONE, or even with the notion of arithmetical truth as pointed too by a machine. But doesn't God imply an Identity, which cannot by its very nature be all things, because Identity always is - and must be - defined in terms of a larger set; i.e. good is defined in terms of evil both within some larger set that encompasses both. The ineffable, indescribable essence is without Identity. Chris In all texts, I take what is convincing, and let what I don't understand for further reflexion. And here I comment Liz: OK. Although string theory almost certainly predicts that they exist somewhere (but not in our corner of the multiverse). Really? I doubt this. Daemon capable of imitating God might be prove to exist, in both some QM-GR theory, and in arithmetic, but for God itself, I am afraid it is more transcendent than any seemingly being in any realm. In the terrestrial (effective) realm, you can't distinguish God from the Devil. The most which can make (G*- non communicable) sense is that you eventually remember who you are, being God, or the Devil. It is the only way you might be able to differentiate them. Bruno -- 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 7/4/2014 11:05 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: ...but even if the God of the theists does not exist, he might still have important relationships with the Plotinus ONE, or even with the notion of arithmetical truth as pointed too by a machine. Which agrees with my point that the truth of arithmetical relations doesn't imply that the ontology of arithmetic exists. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 3 Jul 2014, at 10:49 am, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: So I think having convenient shorthands for various stances on these matters is a handy convention, which I would hope everyone who contributes to the forum recognises. (Although personally I'm still not sure who Plotinus was or what he had to say about these matters :( hH: I already dealt with that. You should be using de Bono's Hats systematically in all threads. The idea is that you select which neurotransmitter you are going to perform optimally under when you open your mouth and that the person listening to you unleashes that same neurotransmitter by metaphorically selecting the same-coloured Hat. This is new. There is nothing like this in the conventional attack/defence adversarial default mode of thinking/listening. Under that system, you seek to hide your self-selecting neurotransmitters under rhetoric and fact and colourful use of language. Sophistry IOW. That someone knows in advance that they will look for the benefits in your idea or will try to use your idea as a stepping stone to a better idea are aspects of Parallel Thinking. This is the first truly creative updating of our thinking system since Socrates Plato and Aristotle. You say in advance what part of your mind you are using and then you confine yourself to using only that part of your mnd. If you are like Clark and only have one part to your mind then practising the Hats will grow new neural pathways literally in terms of axions and dendrites as the brain is a machine that physically adapts to the challenges of survival. I reiterate that there is no inbuilt 'humility' or 'modesty' lever available to thinking without the necessary level of honesty that imposing a 'thinking framework' such as the Six Thinking Hats provides. People would post less and each post would be of a higher quality and consistently on topic yet remorselessly exploratory in all aspects of the thinking. Ad hominem is only ever an amusing trantrum someone throws because they are bad at one or a couple of the 6 modes of thinking. Trouble is you cannot teach a bunch of old dogs some new tricks. I think we have a people problem here. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
I also like Baker, who stared in a couple of fantasy flicks like Sinbad, and whatever, Pertwee was always a serious guy, and it was great, as a yank, to watch UNIFIL (Uk soldiers) fight with FN_FAL rifles, Sterling sten guns, and such. I remember reading that the writers were going for a sort of James Bond action. Bakers stuff was more, hey, there's really weird people out there. Pertwee was always fighting The Master. John Delgado, who was a great character actor, Prepare for time-ram. They're definitely trying to go for a Pertwee vibe, which is fine by me (Pert is my 4th favourite Doctor from classic Who) -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Jul 2, 2014 8:37 pm Subject: Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture They're definitely trying to go for a Pertwee vibe, which is fine by me (Pert is my 4th favourite Doctor from classic Who) On 2 July 2014 11:17, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: What about the newest guy? Reminds me of Jon Pertwee, minus the fluff heads. But anyone married to an actor from Doctor Who is good in my book (well, apart from David Tennant...) -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 1:40 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I think that the presence of such teapot is highly implausible. But I can't be sure. I don't believe that for one second, I think you are sure there is not a china teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus; although please note that being sure is not the same thing as having a proof, nor is being sure the same thing as being correct. omnipotence is self-contradictory. I know, but a little thing like being self-contradictory would never stop a good theologian Lol. Good humor. I wish it were a joke, just last month in a HBO documentary Pastor Peter LaRuffa educated the world with these words of wisdom: If somewhere within the Bible, I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I'm reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and then do my best to work it out and understand it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysecinv367w You really talk like a priest, unable to doubt its religious belief Wow, calling a guy known for disliking religion religious, never heard that one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 7/3/2014 11:05 AM, John Clark wrote: I know, but a little thing like being self-contradictory would never stop a good theologian Lol. Good humor. I wish it were a joke, just last month in a HBO documentary Pastor Peter LaRuffa educated the world with these words of wisdom: If somewhere within the Bible, I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I'm reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and then do my best to work it out and understand it. You're just stuck on that literal reading, John. On a non-literal reading I'm sure it's true, e.g. for very large values of 2. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
I am waiting to read in the bible that the sum of positive integers from one to infinity is a negative fraction of the first integer. In other words, the bible is more believable than mathematics. Richard On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 2:44 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 7/3/2014 11:05 AM, John Clark wrote: I know, but a little thing like being self-contradictory would never stop a good theologian Lol. Good humor. I wish it were a joke, just last month in a HBO documentary Pastor Peter LaRuffa educated the world with these words of wisdom: If somewhere within the Bible, I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I'm reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and then do my best to work it out and understand it. You're just stuck on that literal reading, John. On a non-literal reading I'm sure it's true, e.g. for very large values of 2. 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. -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 3 July 2014 05:16, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 01 Jul 2014, at 21:16, meekerdb wrote: On 7/1/2014 9:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Careful as I don't believe there is a teapot is different from I believe there is no teapot. Personally, I don't believe that there is teapot orbiting Jupiter, but why would I believe that there is no teapot? I have no real evidences for that too. I have only a speculation extrapolated from my limited knowledge of teapot and Jupiter. I might *bet* that there is no teapot, but then I can easily conceive losing the bet, by the usual bad luck. How you would bet and at what odds is the real measure of belief. I think you believe there is no teapot. I think that the presence of such teapot is highly implausible. But I can't be sure. I think the presence of my own teapot at home is highly plausible, but I can't be completely sure about that either. For all we know the solar system may be littered with teapots left by visiting aliens. I wouldn't give the idea house room if designing the shielding on a space craft, and if pressed I would work out the chances of it being true using the Drake equation (with the Arthur Dent modification) and no doubt end up with the probability being exceedingly low. But I don't believe there is no teapot. I do believe it is highly unlikely that there is one (or more). -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 3 July 2014 23:32, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: I also like Baker, Tom I assume rather than Colin (who played Dr Who number 6 - and is a very nice guy, by the way). who starred in a couple of fantasy flicks like Sinbad, and whatever, Pertwee was always a serious guy, Actually Pert was in The Navy Lark - a radio comedy - for years, and also played the lead role in the children's comedy show Worzel Gummidge (in New Zealand some of the time, by the way) ... However it happens you are correct (in a real- life example of The Gettier Problem !) because a friend of mine who knew both Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker says Jon had no sense of humour whatsoever, despite starring in comedies, while Tom Baker was (and hopefully still is) a natural comedian. and it was great, as a yank, to watch UNIFIL (Uk soldiers) fight with FN_FAL rifles, Sterling sten guns, and such. I remember reading that the writers were going for a sort of James Bond action. Yes, Pertwee's era was rather more dominated by action stuff. He spent quite a bit of time zooming around in hovercraft and that antique car. Apparently that's how he liked to play the character. Bakers stuff was more, hey, there's really weird people out there. Yes indeed, especially once Douglas Adams beame script editor. Unfortunately Tom was in the part for about 7 years and ended up sleep-walking through most stories. Also a heavy vein of self-parody crept in (as it did with Bond around the same time) which is IMHO ridiculous, because the whole thing is so silly anyway that everyone else and his tin dog will be parodying it, so there is really no point. Dr Who always worked best when it was taken seriously by the actors, writers etc (they managed to have plenty of humour without self-parody, in any case). Pertwee was always fighting The Master. John Delgado, who was a great character actor, Prepare for time-ram. Delgado is easily my favourite actor to play the Master. (Derek Jacobi might have come first if he'd been allowed to play the part for more than 5 minutes, and hadn't been succeeded by scary as a marshmallow John Simm.) PS At last, a serious topic for disussion! :-D -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 7/3/2014 7:19 PM, LizR wrote: On 3 July 2014 05:16, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 01 Jul 2014, at 21:16, meekerdb wrote: On 7/1/2014 9:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Careful as I don't believe there is a teapot is different from I believe there is no teapot. Personally, I don't believe that there is teapot orbiting Jupiter, but why would I believe that there is no teapot? I have no real evidences for that too. I have only a speculation extrapolated from my limited knowledge of teapot and Jupiter. I might *bet* that there is no teapot, but then I can easily conceive losing the bet, by the usual bad luck. How you would bet and at what odds is the real measure of belief. I think you believe there is no teapot. I think that the presence of such teapot is highly implausible. But I can't be sure. I think the presence of my own teapot at home is highly plausible, but I can't be completely sure about that either. For all we know the solar system may be littered with teapots left by visiting aliens. I wouldn't give the idea house room if designing the shielding on a space craft, and if pressed I would work out the chances of it being true using the Drake equation (with the Arthur Dent modification) and no doubt end up with the probability being exceedingly low. But I don't believe there is no teapot. I do believe it is highly unlikely that there is one (or more). I was careful. I wrote, I don't believe there is one. In exactly the same sense, I don't believe there is a theist god and hence am an a-theist. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
OK, that isn't the definition of atheist I have come across but if you are only using it in the weak sense of I don't positively believe in any god or gods then that's fine. Here for comparison purposes are the definitions from Wiktionary. I generally assume that definitions 1 or 3 are the most usual ones, for example I would assume Richard Dawkins generally subscribes to definition 1. (I'm not sure I even understand definition 2.) I guess you are adding a 5th definition, Someone who doesn't have a definite belief that deities do exist - which can include what I would generally think of as agnostic, in fact it's half the definition of an agnostic, which is someone who doesn't have a strong belief either way. 1. (narrowly) A person who believes that no deities http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/deity exist (especially, one who has no other religious belief). [quotations ▼] 2. (broadly) A person who rejects belief that any deities exist (whether or not that person believes that deities do not exist). [quotations ▼] 3. (loosely http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/loosely#Adverb) A person who has no belief in any deities, such as a person who has no concept of deities. [quotations ▼] 4. (loosely http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/loosely#Adverb, uncommon) A person who does not believe in a particular deity (or any deity in a particular pantheon http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pantheon), notwithstanding that they may believe in another deity. I guess there is a sort of truth table involved here. Believe In God(s) existing = Theist Believe that no God(s) exist = (Strong) Atheist Don't believe or disbelieve In God(s) existing = Agnostic Don't believe in God(s) existing, and don't want to say whether or not they believe that God(s) don't exist = (Brent) Atheist I will try to bear that in mind in any future discussions. -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 1:34 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Atheism, as I know it, is a slight variant of christianism. Therefore I repeat what I said before, at least one of the following two statements must be true: 1) If ET exists then ET is a christian. 2) Bruno Marchal is not a logician. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
2014-07-02 17:08 GMT+02:00 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com: On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 1:34 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Atheism, as I know it, is a slight variant of christianism. Therefore I repeat what I said before, at least one of the following two statements must be true: 1) If ET exists then ET is a christian. 2) Bruno Marchal is not a logician. Or John Clark is an asshole... hmm no, excuse me, that one is true. Quentin 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. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 12:42 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: Why in hell do we keep talking about ancient ignoramuses like Plotinus and the worst physicist who ever lived, Aristotle? Likewise why mention Galileo or Newton or Maxwell, when they've been shown to be wrong? Because unlike Aristotle Newton and Maxwell could not be easily proven wrong even in their own time, and even today they are not wrong within their area of applicability, Maxwell's work is still valid provided things don't get too small, and things work fine for Newton if things don't move too fast or gravity gets too strong. And that is why we teach and will always continue to teach those theories in schools. But Aristotle's physical theories are and have always been completely worthless and the only place they should be taught is a course on the history of bad ideas. Or Einstein or Heisenberg, since we know relativity and quantum mechanics are only approximations to some as yet unknown TOE? The trouble is that Aristotle's shallow ideas are not even approximately correct, they're just flat out wrong. the Ancient Greeks were *very *limited by the available technology, That is no excuse! The technology at the time was good enough to demonstrate that a heavy rock does not fall faster than a slightly lighter rock, and Aristotle was supposed to be a master of logic and should have realized from pure logic alone that contradictions followed from that idea. And I must say I think this ancestor worship for the ancient Greeks is downright unhealthy and the idea that they (or even some 18th century philosopher) could help us solve today's cutting edge scientific mysteries is just ridiculous. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 01 Jul 2014, at 21:16, meekerdb wrote: On 7/1/2014 9:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Careful as I don't believe there is a teapot is different from I believe there is no teapot. Personally, I don't believe that there is teapot orbiting Jupiter, but why would I believe that there is no teapot? I have no real evidences for that too. I have only a speculation extrapolated from my limited knowledge of teapot and Jupiter. I might *bet* that there is no teapot, but then I can easily conceive losing the bet, by the usual bad luck. How you would bet and at what odds is the real measure of belief. I think you believe there is no teapot. I think that the presence of such teapot is highly implausible. But I can't be sure. But the god notion of the neoplatonist makes sense with comp, and it allows us to study canonical number theology (G*, Z*, X*, G1*,Z1*, X1*) I prefer to use God for reality (or semantics, truth conditions), because if I use reality, I have to first explain that science has not yet decide if reality is material and immaterial. To study the mind body problem, it is preferable to not start from a theology (like *assuming* in the theory that there is a physical universe). Of course it exists in the meta-theory, but we can decide to note define its status before proceeding. Machine's theology is really just computer science, with some emphasis on the difference between computer science and computer's computer science (G* \ G, X* \ X, etc.). Bruno 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 11:25 AM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: Atheism, as I know it, is a slight variant of christianism. Therefore I repeat what I said before, at least one of the following two statements must be true: 1) If ET exists then ET is a christian. 2) Bruno Marchal is not a logician. Or John Clark is an asshole. I see, Quentin Anciaux also thinks that atheism is a slight variant of Christianity. Therefore logically at least one of the following statements must be true: 1) If ET exists then ET is a christian AND John Clark is an asshole 2) Quentin Anciaux is not very bright. QED 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 01 Jul 2014, at 21:26, meekerdb wrote: On 7/1/2014 10:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 30 Jun 2014, at 07:41, meekerdb wrote: On 6/29/2014 10:20 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 17:02, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/29/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 04:43, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 9:44 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the scientific method, so we really need the concept in order to understand the status of scientific theories. I like what Isaac Asimov, a fellow who knew a thing or two about science, had to say on this subject: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. So he knows that he only has enough evidence to be agnostic, but he is emotionally convinced to be an atheist nonetheless. OK, so that puts him on a par with religious believers who are also emotionally convinced, though not of the same thing. No more so that being an aSanta-Clausist. Well there you go then. I rest my case. Actually I think there is enough evidence to prove (in the 'beyond reasonable doubt' sense) that the God of the bible does not exist. But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Atheists don't just believe that the biblical god doesn't exist, they believe that there are no supernatural forces involved in the operation of the universe. Where is this written? Do you speak for all atheists, or just ones in NZ? While I consider this likely, I don't consider it 100% proven, because as Arthur C Clark said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and it's at least conceivable that there are sufficiently advanced beings out there that they can act outside what we call nature. That seems to really waffle. If we knew these beings could so act wouldn't we just readjust what we call nature. In fact that's a general problem with saying what it would mean for some events to be supernatural. In the past many events were thought to be supernatural, acts of God, e.g. sickness, lightning, drought, earthquakes,...but are now thought to be natural. So it some new phenomena is observed why wouldn't we just assume it was natural even if we didn't have an explanation. I agree with you. I think we can relate this to Occam. If we have a theory which explains a lot, and fail to explain a new phenomena, we should not abandon the theory, unless the new phenomena does violate the theory. I think that supernatural has no meaning at all. No more than the incompatibilist theory of free will which I think does not make sense (I agree with John Clark on this). Supernatural would mean violating the laws of physics, and that makes no sense because physics, by quasi-definition, changes itself each time she is violated. (But comp + materialism do introduce something close to magic: primitive matter capable of selecting consciousness, but without any role in the computations). For example I am not 100% sure that the universe wasn't created by some intelligent beings with sufficiently advanced technology to create big bangs (they may of course have evolved naturally in another universe). I don't think it's likely, but that's my emotional prejudices at work. I can't see that I can claim with certainty that it's impossible, and since these being would fit with some definitions of god (creator of the unvierse) then I can't say it is 100% proven that god doesn't exist. Didn't you slip from something or someone beyond our current explanation to god. You speak for atheists, what do you have to say for religionists? Are they just worshiping some unknown possibility. What is the god they believe in - that's the god I don't believe in. I think you have muddled the word god in order make it seem unreasonable to assert definitively that god doesn't exist. But in the process you've made god into something quite different from the god of religion. A mere shadow of the once powerful Yaweh, Baal, Zeus, Thor,... Earth was thought to be a tortoise, then we learn better. Similarly the notion of God is the notion of an all encompassing one unifying all things. It was
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 01 Jul 2014, at 19:56, John Clark wrote: omnipotence is self-contradictory. I know, but a little thing like being self-contradictory would never stop a good theologian. Lol. Good humor. Or we have a big vocabulary problem. Let me make something clear. By a good theologian, I mean one which abandon his theory if shown contradictory. (Unlike you in step 3, btw) Let me limit theologian by either the academic theologians (which disappeared at 523 after J in our country, or only survive well hidden), and the good scholar on them (although most would not accept this). You really talk like a priest, unable to doubt its religious belief in what is not yet clear (I guess a primary physical universe). According to you what exists? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
2014-07-02 19:23 GMT+02:00 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com: On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 11:25 AM, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: Atheism, as I know it, is a slight variant of christianism. Therefore I repeat what I said before, at least one of the following two statements must be true: 1) If ET exists then ET is a christian. 2) Bruno Marchal is not a logician. Or John Clark is an asshole. I see, Quentin Anciaux also thinks that atheism is a slight variant of Christianity. No I see that Bruno's point is valid if atheism is equated with physicalism and the negation of the Abrahamic god (as he does here)... But it is a narrow view... most atheist would agree that they are agnostic on first cause and about what is the reality (those who do not have really in fact a religious attitude made of beliefs). He even point in the sentence you quote Atheism, ***as I know it***, is. On the fact you're an asshole... again my mistake, it's simply a true fact and cannot be part of your list... I even wonder if a fact could be truer than that. Quentin Therefore logically at least one of the following statements must be true: 1) If ET exists then ET is a christian AND John Clark is an asshole 2) Quentin Anciaux is not very bright. QED 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. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 7/2/2014 10:16 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 01 Jul 2014, at 21:16, meekerdb wrote: On 7/1/2014 9:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Careful as I don't believe there is a teapot is different from I believe there is no teapot. Personally, I don't believe that there is teapot orbiting Jupiter, but why would I believe that there is no teapot? I have no real evidences for that too. I have only a speculation extrapolated from my limited knowledge of teapot and Jupiter. I might *bet* that there is no teapot, but then I can easily conceive losing the bet, by the usual bad luck. How you would bet and at what odds is the real measure of belief. I think you believe there is no teapot. I think that the presence of such teapot is highly implausible. But I can't be sure. Then doesn't this illustrate the difference between belief and your logical mode []p. But the god notion of the neoplatonist makes sense with comp, and it allows us to study canonical number theology (G*, Z*, X*, G1*,Z1*, X1*) I prefer to use God for reality (or semantics, truth conditions), because if I use reality, I have to first explain that science has not yet decide if reality is material and immaterial. And science /has/ decided whether God is material or immaterial?? To study the mind body problem, it is preferable to not start from a theology (like *assuming* in the theory that there is a physical universe). How that any different than starting from arithmetic and a UD exist? Brent Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it. --- Lily Tomlin -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
They're definitely trying to go for a Pertwee vibe, which is fine by me (Pert is my 4th favourite Doctor from classic Who) On 2 July 2014 11:17, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: What about the newest guy? Reminds me of Jon Pertwee, minus the fluff heads. But anyone married to an actor from Doctor Who is good in my book (well, apart from David Tennant...) -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 3 July 2014 04:46, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: That is no excuse! The technology at the time was good enough to demonstrate that a heavy rock does not fall faster than a slightly lighter rock, and Aristotle was supposed to be a master of logic and should have realized from pure logic alone that contradictions followed from that idea. And I must say I think this ancestor worship for the ancient Greeks is downright unhealthy and the idea that they (or even some 18th century philosopher) could help us solve today's cutting edge scientific mysteries is just ridiculous. You have some good points, especially about the rocks. I don't think anyone is suggesting that we use Aristotle's ideas on physics (or Plato's ideas on philosopher kings) - as I understand it we use their names just as convenient shorthand for primary materialism and what I believe is called neutral monism. (As someone pointed out, Democritus might be a better person for the former in any case.) However, it *does* appear that a mindset introduced around the time of Aristotle is seen as the only answer to religious views - that to oppose the supernatural you can ONLY use primary materialism. At least that is the impression I have got from discussions with and reading things by many self-styled atheists, and it's certainly implicit in a lot of posts on this forum which say such and such is obvious / common sense / etc - what is obvious is always what we're calling primary materialism, and generally this is a view I would adhere to as the default common sense view of things myself (as for example when looking for problems with a DIY theory like tronnies or Edgar Owenism, I would certainly start by asking how it stacks up on a primary materialist front - and indeed these theories are both examples of the assumption that the world is only made of space-time and mass-energy). However this is a forum for discussing the possibility that the world isn't necessarily as common sense would dictate, with comp being the main contender for a relatively counter-intuitive view but several others floating around. So I think having convenient shorthands for various stances on these matters is a handy convention, which I would hope everyone who contributes to the forum recognises. (Although personally I'm still not sure who Plotinus was or what he had to say about these matters :( -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 3 July 2014 05:51, Quentin Anciaux allco...@gmail.com wrote: No I see that Bruno's point is valid if atheism is equated with physicalism and the negation of the Abrahamic god (as he does here)... But it is a narrow view... most atheist would agree that they are agnostic on first cause and about what is the reality (those who do not have really in fact a religious attitude made of beliefs). He even point in the sentence you quote Atheism, ***as I know it***, is. Yes, I was trying to make that point earlier. Or I thought I was. On the fact you're an asshole... again my mistake, it's simply a true fact and cannot be part of your list... I even wonder if a fact could be truer than that. Can't we leave these poor donkeys out of the discussion? -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 30 Jun 2014, at 07:02, meekerdb wrote: On 6/29/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 04:43, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 9:44 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the scientific method, so we really need the concept in order to understand the status of scientific theories. I like what Isaac Asimov, a fellow who knew a thing or two about science, had to say on this subject: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. So he knows that he only has enough evidence to be agnostic, but he is emotionally convinced to be an atheist nonetheless. OK, so that puts him on a par with religious believers who are also emotionally convinced, though not of the same thing. No more so that being an aSanta-Clausist. Actually I think there is enough evidence to prove (in the 'beyond reasonable doubt' sense) that the God of the bible does not exist. Already the number PI of the bible does not exist. But that does not per se prevent the number PI to exist (at least in some sense, clear for mathematicians). If by God, you mean the God of the bible + the assumption that the bible is 100% correct, then I agree with you: that God does not plausibly exist. But for some believers, even Christians, the bible is not assumed to be 100% correct. Only some sects (like Jehovah's Witnesses (the french naming) insist on literal interpretations. Most Christians in Europa adheres to Christianity for what they take as its moral value, and consider with varying degrees that there is some partial historicity in the story. But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Careful as I don't believe there is a teapot is different from I believe there is no teapot. Personally, I don't believe that there is teapot orbiting Jupiter, but why would I believe that there is no teapot? I have no real evidences for that too. I have only a speculation extrapolated from my limited knowledge of teapot and Jupiter. I might *bet* that there is no teapot, but then I can easily conceive losing the bet, by the usual bad luck. I can conceive that a teapot might be part of a debris or trashed out from some space station, and that one or two asteroid(s) give(s) it the right impulsion to go around Jupiter. You know we pollute the whole Solar System, not just our planet and oceans. Bruno 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 30 Jun 2014, at 07:41, meekerdb wrote: On 6/29/2014 10:20 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 17:02, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/29/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 04:43, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 9:44 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the scientific method, so we really need the concept in order to understand the status of scientific theories. I like what Isaac Asimov, a fellow who knew a thing or two about science, had to say on this subject: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. So he knows that he only has enough evidence to be agnostic, but he is emotionally convinced to be an atheist nonetheless. OK, so that puts him on a par with religious believers who are also emotionally convinced, though not of the same thing. No more so that being an aSanta-Clausist. Well there you go then. I rest my case. Actually I think there is enough evidence to prove (in the 'beyond reasonable doubt' sense) that the God of the bible does not exist. But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Atheists don't just believe that the biblical god doesn't exist, they believe that there are no supernatural forces involved in the operation of the universe. Where is this written? Do you speak for all atheists, or just ones in NZ? While I consider this likely, I don't consider it 100% proven, because as Arthur C Clark said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and it's at least conceivable that there are sufficiently advanced beings out there that they can act outside what we call nature. That seems to really waffle. If we knew these beings could so act wouldn't we just readjust what we call nature. In fact that's a general problem with saying what it would mean for some events to be supernatural. In the past many events were thought to be supernatural, acts of God, e.g. sickness, lightning, drought, earthquakes,...but are now thought to be natural. So it some new phenomena is observed why wouldn't we just assume it was natural even if we didn't have an explanation. I agree with you. I think we can relate this to Occam. If we have a theory which explains a lot, and fail to explain a new phenomena, we should not abandon the theory, unless the new phenomena does violate the theory. I think that supernatural has no meaning at all. No more than the incompatibilist theory of free will which I think does not make sense (I agree with John Clark on this). Supernatural would mean violating the laws of physics, and that makes no sense because physics, by quasi-definition, changes itself each time she is violated. (But comp + materialism do introduce something close to magic: primitive matter capable of selecting consciousness, but without any role in the computations). For example I am not 100% sure that the universe wasn't created by some intelligent beings with sufficiently advanced technology to create big bangs (they may of course have evolved naturally in another universe). I don't think it's likely, but that's my emotional prejudices at work. I can't see that I can claim with certainty that it's impossible, and since these being would fit with some definitions of god (creator of the unvierse) then I can't say it is 100% proven that god doesn't exist. Didn't you slip from something or someone beyond our current explanation to god. You speak for atheists, what do you have to say for religionists? Are they just worshiping some unknown possibility. What is the god they believe in - that's the god I don't believe in. I think you have muddled the word god in order make it seem unreasonable to assert definitively that god doesn't exist. But in the process you've made god into something quite different from the god of religion. A mere shadow of the once powerful Yaweh, Baal, Zeus, Thor,... Earth was thought to be a tortoise, then we learn better. Similarly the notion of God is the notion of an all encompassing one unifying all things. It was thought to be a sort of father in the sky, but we
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 30 Jun 2014, at 20:53, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote: Thinking that atheism could be bad, is like believing that red hair is a sign of the devil. The problem of atheism, is that it is - either scientifically trivial (santa klaus does not exist), - or a religion in disguise (a primitive physical universe exists and is exclusively what explains all the rest). Red hair, like atheism, is a difference without a distinction. Not, on the other hand is it axiomatically, the sign of a great mind. If Tyson is, it's of little concern, unless one is in it for gossip. Then it becomes compelling. Was it the writer, Truman Capote who said, there are three great things in the world, religion, science, and gossip. As for me, I am often quite envious of people who are atheists, not for the brilliance of their thoughts, but for the cocksure, self- confidence, and their apparent ability to be matter of fact in how they deal with the great turbulence of the Human Condition. By the way,.this is the first time I have use the phrase, cocksure, in a sentence. Anyway,.it's something.I admire, unlike when they.chose to egg on the Jesus people, when the Islamistand roll red with blood and severed body parts. This, I find objectionable, even though I am not a Christian. But I still admire the Atheists sureity. Atheism, as I know it, is a slight variant of christianism. They share basically the same creation (matter), and the same God (even if the atheist defends that God just to deny its existence). That hides the real deep question: is reality WYSIWYG? or is it that what we see is only the border of a much vaster volume? Bruno -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: 30-Jun-2014 14:01:14 + Subject: Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non- boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On 29 Jun 2014, at 23:19, Kim Jones wrote: On 29 Jun 2014, at 7:19 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I think it is more related with ego-psychological issue than with the matter subject. Bruno Precisely. Which is why you will understand that to respond any further to the belligerence of his posts is merely an invitation to do battle with his ego rather than to seriously explore the subject? Each post is a trap that he has laid, a bait. Do not take the hameçon. I appreciate John Clark effort. he is probably the only detractor of the UDA that I know doing this openly and publicly. It is far more respectable than any others, which I got only reports by some wutness that they said something negative, always behind the back. I have never met detractors. Academically, I met only enthusiasm, except form those people who told me that there Gödel's theorem was not interesting and who like to mock computer scientists (those guys too much stupid to do pure mathematics), and which demolished me before I could even met them. Then Clark is more and more clear, making his mistakes more and more clear too. And I progress on this somehow delicate point. I think John Clark is not completely hopeless .He understood all the points but still go out of the body in the duplication, and refuse to consider the (many) copies *first person experience*. It is still a bit of a mystery why he seems to avoid that. Bruno 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 12:31 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Why in hell do we keep talking about ancient ignoramuses like Plotinus and the worst physicist who ever lived, Aristotle? Aristotle was a brilliant physicist. WHAT?! Indeed, his word initiates physics. If Aristotle had never been born physics would have advanced more quickly than it has, for over a thousand years it had the dead weight of Aristotle holding it back. That his theories were all refuted has nothing to do with that. Aristotle's theories could have been easily refuted even in his own day, like his theory that women have fewer teeth than men. Or take his theory that heavy things fall faster than lighter ones, even if he was too lazy to perform the experiment he should have been able to figure out from pure logic that this can't be right. If you take a big rock and tie it to a slightly smaller rock with a rope with some slack in it and drop them then both rocks would fall slower than the big rock alone because the slower moving smaller rock would bog it down, but the tied together object would fall faster than the big rock because the new object is heavier than the big rock alone. you treat current theology as bullshit No it's worse than that, farmers can tell you that fields of bullshit exists without a doubt, but theology has no field of study, that is to say an expert on theology doesn't know anymore about how the universe operates than a non-expert. 1) God does not answer prayers. How do you know that? You told me, you said that's not what you mean by God. By the way, it might be possible that with comp Well good for comp. 2) God is not omnipotent. omnipotence is self-contradictory. I know, but a little thing like being self-contradictory would never stop a good theologian. 3) God is not omniscient. With comp God is 3p Well good for comp and good for pee. 4) God is not intelligent. How do you know that? You told me, you said that's not what you mean by God. 5) God is not conscious. With comp (+ classical epistemology), this is subtle. God, the ONE, arithmetical truth splits into the 3p outer realm Well good for comp and good for those peepee outer realms. 6) God has nothing to do with morality. I think it has to do. That is probablmy the act of faith of the Platonist Faith sucks. Why is passionately believing in something without a good reason a virtue? 7) God is not a being at all just some sort of vague undefined principle. It is responsible for the whole being Then perhaps I should pray to the Higgs Field. you have already your religion on this. Wow, calling a guy known for disliking religion religious, never heard that one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 7/1/2014 9:40 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Careful as I don't believe there is a teapot is different from I believe there is no teapot. Personally, I don't believe that there is teapot orbiting Jupiter, but why would I believe that there is no teapot? I have no real evidences for that too. I have only a speculation extrapolated from my limited knowledge of teapot and Jupiter. I might *bet* that there is no teapot, but then I can easily conceive losing the bet, by the usual bad luck. How you would bet and at what odds is the real measure of belief. I think you believe there is no teapot. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 7/1/2014 10:22 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 30 Jun 2014, at 07:41, meekerdb wrote: On 6/29/2014 10:20 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 17:02, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/29/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 04:43, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 9:44 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote: agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the scientific method, so we really need the concept in order to understand the status of scientific theories. I like what Isaac Asimov, a fellow who knew a thing or two about science, had to say on this subject: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. So he knows that he only has enough evidence to be agnostic, but he is emotionally convinced to be an atheist nonetheless. OK, so that puts him on a par with religious believers who are also emotionally convinced, though not of the same thing. No more so that being an aSanta-Clausist. Well there you go then. I rest my case. Actually I think there is enough evidence to prove (in the 'beyond reasonable doubt' sense) that the God of the bible does not exist. But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Atheists don't just believe that the biblical god doesn't exist, they believe that there are no supernatural forces involved in the operation of the universe. Where is this written? Do you speak for all atheists, or just ones in NZ? While I consider this likely, I don't consider it 100% proven, because as Arthur C Clark said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and it's at least conceivable that there are sufficiently advanced beings out there that they can act outside what we call nature. That seems to really waffle. If we knew these beings could so act wouldn't we just readjust what we call nature. In fact that's a general problem with saying what it would mean for some events to be supernatural. In the past many events were thought to be supernatural, acts of God, e.g. sickness, lightning, drought, earthquakes,...but are now thought to be natural. So it some new phenomena is observed why wouldn't we just assume it was natural even if we didn't have an explanation. I agree with you. I think we can relate this to Occam. If we have a theory which explains a lot, and fail to explain a new phenomena, we should not abandon the theory, unless the new phenomena does violate the theory. I think that supernatural has no meaning at all. No more than the incompatibilist theory of free will which I think does not make sense (I agree with John Clark on this). Supernatural would mean violating the laws of physics, and that makes no sense because physics, by quasi-definition, changes itself each time she is violated. (But comp + materialism do introduce something close to magic: primitive matter capable of selecting consciousness, but without any role in the computations). For example I am not 100% sure that the universe wasn't created by some intelligent beings with sufficiently advanced technology to create big bangs (they may of course have evolved naturally in another universe). I don't think it's likely, but that's my emotional prejudices at work. I can't see that I can claim with certainty that it's impossible, and since these being would fit with some definitions of god (creator of the unvierse) then I can't say it is 100% proven that god doesn't exist. Didn't you slip from something or someone beyond our current explanation to god. You speak for atheists, what do you have to say for religionists? Are they just worshiping some unknown possibility. What is the god they believe in - that's the god I don't believe in. I think you have muddled the word god in order make it seem unreasonable to assert definitively that god doesn't exist. But in the process you've made god into something quite different from the god of religion. A mere shadow of the once powerful Yaweh, Baal, Zeus, Thor,... Earth was thought
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
What about the newest guy? Reminds me of Jon Pertwee, minus the fluff heads. But anyone married to an actor from Doctor Who is good in my book (well, apart from David Tennant...) -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, Jul 1, 2014 12:46 am Subject: Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On 1 July 2014 06:53, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Thinking that atheism could be bad, is like believing that red hair is a sign of the devil. Red hair, like atheism, is a difference without a distinction. Not, on the other hand is it axiomatically, the sign of a great mind. If Tyson is, it's of little concern, unless one is in it for gossip. Then it becomes compelling. Was it the writer, Truman Capote who said, there are three great things in the world, religion, science, and gossip. As for me, I am often quite envious of people who are atheists, not for the brilliance of their thoughts, but for the cocksure, self-confidence, and their apparent ability to be matter of fact in how they deal with the great turbulence of the Human Condition. By the way,.this is the first time I have use the phrase, cocksure, in a sentence. Anyway,.it's something.I admire, unlike when they.chose to egg on the Jesus people, when the Islamistand roll red with blood and severed body parts. This, I find objectionable, even though I am not a Christian. But I still admire the Atheists sureity. Hmm, I'm not sure I admire complete certainty about non-trivial matters myself. But as Brent has explained elsewhere it's all down to semantics anyway, apparently Richard Dawkins believes there may be gods, and hence is in my terminology agnostic even as he loudly proclaims himself an atheist. But anyone married to an actor from Doctor Who is good in my book (well, apart from David Tennant...) -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
Dear Bruno, Hear Hear! Well said! On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 1:22 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 30 Jun 2014, at 07:41, meekerdb wrote: On 6/29/2014 10:20 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 17:02, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/29/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 04:43, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 9:44 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the scientific method, so we really need the concept in order to understand the status of scientific theories. I like what Isaac Asimov, a fellow who knew a thing or two about science, had to say on this subject: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. So he knows that he only has enough evidence to be agnostic, but he is emotionally convinced to be an atheist nonetheless. OK, so that puts him on a par with religious believers who are also emotionally convinced, though not of the same thing. No more so that being an aSanta-Clausist. Well there you go then. I rest my case. Actually I think there is enough evidence to prove (in the 'beyond reasonable doubt' sense) that the God of the bible does not exist. But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Atheists don't just believe that the biblical god doesn't exist, they believe that there are no supernatural forces involved in the operation of the universe. Where is this written? Do you speak for all atheists, or just ones in NZ? While I consider this likely, I don't consider it 100% proven, because as Arthur C Clark said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and it's at least conceivable that there are sufficiently advanced beings out there that they can act outside what we call nature. That seems to really waffle. If we knew these beings could so act wouldn't we just readjust what we call nature. In fact that's a general problem with saying what it would mean for some events to be supernatural. In the past many events were thought to be supernatural, acts of God, e.g. sickness, lightning, drought, earthquakes,...but are now thought to be natural. So it some new phenomena is observed why wouldn't we just assume it was natural even if we didn't have an explanation. I agree with you. I think we can relate this to Occam. If we have a theory which explains a lot, and fail to explain a new phenomena, we should not abandon the theory, unless the new phenomena does violate the theory. I think that supernatural has no meaning at all. No more than the incompatibilist theory of free will which I think does not make sense (I agree with John Clark on this). Supernatural would mean violating the laws of physics, and that makes no sense because physics, by quasi-definition, changes itself each time she is violated. (But comp + materialism do introduce something close to magic: primitive matter capable of selecting consciousness, but without any role in the computations). For example I am not 100% sure that the universe wasn't created by some intelligent beings with sufficiently advanced technology to create big bangs (they may of course have evolved naturally in another universe). I don't think it's likely, but that's my emotional prejudices at work. I can't see that I can claim with certainty that it's impossible, and since these being would fit with some definitions of god (creator of the unvierse) then I can't say it is 100% proven that god doesn't exist. Didn't you slip from something or someone beyond our current explanation to god. You speak for atheists, what do you have to say for religionists? Are they just worshiping some unknown possibility. What is the god they believe in - that's the god I don't believe in. I think you have muddled the word god in order make it seem unreasonable to assert definitively that god doesn't exist. But in the process you've made god into something quite different from the god of religion. A mere shadow of the once powerful Yaweh, Baal, Zeus, Thor,... Earth was thought to be a tortoise, then we learn better. Similarly the notion of God is the notion of an all encompassing one unifying all things. It was thought to
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 6/29/2014 10:47 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 17:41, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/29/2014 10:20 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 17:02, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/29/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 04:43, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 9:44 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote: agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the scientific method, so we really need the concept in order to understand the status of scientific theories. I like what Isaac Asimov, a fellow who knew a thing or two about science, had to say on this subject: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. So he knows that he only has enough evidence to be agnostic, but he is emotionally convinced to be an atheist nonetheless. OK, so that puts him on a par with religious believers who are also emotionally convinced, though not of the same thing. No more so that being an aSanta-Clausist. Well there you go then. I rest my case. Actually I think there is enough evidence to prove (in the 'beyond reasonable doubt' sense) that the God of the bible does not exist. But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Atheists don't just believe that the biblical god doesn't exist, they believe that there are no supernatural forces involved in the operation of the universe. Where is this written? Do you speak for all atheists, or just ones in NZ? No just the ones I've come across, like Richard Dawkins. While I consider this likely, I don't consider it 100% proven, because as Arthur C Clark said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and it's at least conceivable that there are sufficiently advanced beings out there that they can act outside what we call nature. That seems to really waffle. If we knew these beings could so act wouldn't we just readjust what we call nature. In fact that's a general problem with saying what it would mean for some events to be supernatural. In the past many events were thought to be supernatural, acts of God, e.g. sickness, lightning, drought, earthquakes,...but are now thought to be natural. So it some new phenomena is observed why wouldn't we just assume it was natural even if we didn't have an explanation. Hmm, well that's all-inclusive. I guess if whatever happens, you will call it natural - Biblical god appears, that's naturalOK, you've got me there. Exactly. When people talk about god being supernatural, they don't just mean beyond our current conception of the natural. They mean in accordance with our myths and having special significance for human values. When pulsar signals were first observed they were outside our current conception of the natural. But nobody called them supernatural. They were just no understood. Yet when some water condenses under the eye of a statue of the virgin Mary nobody says, An interesting natural phenomenon. They say Miracle. So the question then is, do you believe (in the positive sense) in the supernatural? Or do you fail to believe in the supernatural? Given a new phenomenon, what would it have to be like for you to say it was definitely supernatural? And do you think there are such phenomenon? For example I am not 100% sure that the universe wasn't created by some intelligent beings with sufficiently advanced technology to create big bangs (they may of course have evolved naturally in another universe). I don't think it's likely, but that's my emotional prejudices at work. I can't see that I can claim with certainty that it's impossible, and since these being would fit with some definitions of god (creator of the unvierse) then I can't say it is 100% proven that god doesn't exist. Didn't you slip
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 29 Jun 2014, at 12:22, David Nyman wrote: On 29 June 2014 05:47, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: t's the materialist hat (I'm not sure which colour it is). Calling bullshit! on comp and similar ideas without stopping to understand them seems to stem from a religious belief in materialism (Bill Taylor on the FOAR forum is another example of this). There is endless spluttering and shouting and often even (gasp) capital letters, but never any sign that the person concerned has stopped and thought it through, in the spirit of what if he's got a point? Yeah, occasionally I find myself re-reading conversations I had with Bruno years ago (usually as a result of googling for some reference). It reminds me that in the beginning I was pretty certain he must be wrong, but his patience and persistence forced me repeatedly to refine and reconsider my arguments, to the point that eventually I started to see the holes in my own logic. This is the value of really sticking to a line of thought in discussion (as opposed to point scoring). It helps us, if we are willing to make the effort, to expose the contradictory assumptions in our own thinking. So encouraging. Thanks for telling. Honey for the heart and I think humanity's one. Bruno David -- 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 29 Jun 2014, at 19:24, John Clark wrote:
On Sat, Jun 28, 2014 at 2:13 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be
wrote:
I care about the notion behind. Call it the ONE
Let's call it the BULLSHIT.
Why not. But it can be confusing.
I don't see how THE BULLSHIT is more confusing than THE ONE.
By the common sense of the world, the term the one fits better the
intended *monism* of the theory proposed.
Theological monotheism is a cousin of of the metaphysical monism.
Bullshit invokes only insult.
It looks like according to you we just have no right to raise
doubts on the Aristotelian Primary Matter notion.
Why in hell do we keep talking about ancient ignoramuses like
Plotinus and the worst physicist who ever lived, Aristotle?
Aristotle was a brilliant physicist. Indeed, his word initiates physics.
That his theories were all refuted has nothing to do with that.
Then, as we have not solved the mind-body problem, we have to be open
to many possibilities and changes of mind.
Also, Aristotle conception of his primary matter is actually the one
that Plotinus used, and that we recover from computationalism. But I
don't expect you to get this at this stage. Aristotle is the first to
define matter by what is indeterminate, notably. Platon understand
the need of a bastard calculus, as Plotinus grasped too.
In neoplatonism, we can say, roughly, that God did not create matter,
but matter is God's limitation, or limit. It is where God loses control.
Look, you treat current theology as bullshit, but you keep defending
the one of today, when it is lcear, when you study history, that the
freedom of though (the minimum needed to do science) in theology has
been repressed more or less since 523 after J. So it is not so
astonishing that we can find a lot of interesting debate among the
theologians before the 'madness/fairy-tales get imposed to us.
PS I think I will come back to the term god as it is less
confusing than bullshit, to refer to the unknown cause or reason
of why we are here.
So these are the properties of God:
1) God does not answer prayers.
How do you know that?
By the way, it might be possible that with comp, you can't pray God.
It could already be a blaspheme. God gives only if you don't ask,
apparently.
2) God is not omnipotent.
Well, omnipotence is self-contradictory.
3) God is not omniscient.
With comp, God is 3p first order omniscient, and he knows a lot of the
higher order, but can't be omniscient. I agree with Grim that
omniscience is also self-contradictory.
4) God is not intelligent.
How do you know that?
5) God is not conscious.
With comp (+ classical epistemology), this is subtle. God, the ONE,
arithmetical truth splits into the 3p outer realm, for which the
conscious adjective might not make sense. But then through all
universal numbers, filtered by the truth, that one defines the first
person, the you which has no name, and which seems to play the role
of the third God of the greeks: the universal soul.
That is the inner god that, according to the mystic, you can awaken
through variate technics.
6) God has nothing to do with morality.
I think it has to do. That is probablmy the act of faith of the
Platonist, that God is Good, and that it makes it possible for us to
be attracted by the good and detracted by the bad.
Anyway, this depend on the theology. With comp, truth is good, because
falsity leads to your non existence, in many ways.
But morality and all Protagorean virtue can only be taught by you
examples, and can only be perverted when being patronized.
7) God is not a being at all just some sort of vague undefined
principle.
It is responsible for the whole being, and usually, does not belong to
its created realm. It is not nameable, and has quite fuzzy border,
when known from the inner god views.
God is a bit of the standard model (in the logician sense). No (rich)
theory at all can prove the existence of a model of itself, as this
would be a proof of self-consistency, and that is forbidden by the
second theorem of completeness. This does not prevent such theories to
get some good approximation, and even to prove theorems about that
thing (depsite being unnameable. Peano Arithmetic cannot define V,
the set of arithmetical true propositions, but still can define
somehow the singleton {V}. Askanas showed that PA can prove its own
Tarski theorem, with naming the truth that, by that theorem, it cannot
ascribe a name.
That sure doesn't leave much stuff for God to do,
Here you are infinitely to much quick, I'm afraid.
so it shouldn't bother us very much that even that wimpy anemic low
rent sort of God may not exist; there may be no cause for the
universe, there may be no reason there is something rather than
nothing, there may be no ultimate reason we exist.
You are right. May be. But also,
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 28 Jun 2014, at 14:00, Kim Jones wrote: On 28 Jun 2014, at 5:39 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: Given that your average 6th grader knows far more about the universe than he ever did why in hell should I read Plotinus?? Yes, kids have the ability to understand a lot more than we give them credit for, don't they? I walked into a class of 8th graders at a school last week and explained to them the concept of First Person Indeterminacy and they all understood from it that there is a very strong indeterminism at the heart of reality which is usually decribed as deterministic. Amazing; 8th graders (and Plotinus) can understand it, yet you can't. Actually, I believe you do understand it, but you just don't like it. Congrats! Without attenuating your merit, I think that the FPI is plausibly easier to explain to kids than to adults, I am afraid. LOL Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 29 Jun 2014, at 23:19, Kim Jones wrote: On 29 Jun 2014, at 7:19 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I think it is more related with ego-psychological issue than with the matter subject. Bruno Precisely. Which is why you will understand that to respond any further to the belligerence of his posts is merely an invitation to do battle with his ego rather than to seriously explore the subject? Each post is a trap that he has laid, a bait. Do not take the hameçon. I appreciate John Clark effort. he is probably the only detractor of the UDA that I know doing this openly and publicly. It is far more respectable than any others, which I got only reports by some wutness that they said something negative, always behind the back. I have never met detractors. Academically, I met only enthusiasm, except form those people who told me that there Gödel's theorem was not interesting and who like to mock computer scientists (those guys too much stupid to do pure mathematics), and which demolished me before I could even met them. Then Clark is more and more clear, making his mistakes more and more clear too. And I progress on this somehow delicate point. I think John Clark is not completely hopeless .He understood all the points but still go out of the body in the duplication, and refuse to consider the (many) copies *first person experience*. It is still a bit of a mystery why he seems to avoid that. Bruno 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
-- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 29 Jun 2014, at 19:24, John Clark wrote: Why in hell do we keep talking about ancient ignoramuses like Plotinus and the worst physicist who ever lived, Aristotle? Likewise why mention Galileo or Newton or Maxwell, when they've been shown to be wrong? Or Einstein or Heisenberg, since we know relativity and quantum mechanics are only approximations to some as yet unknown TOE? I think the answer is that you should give credit to whoever originated an idea, even if s/he only came up with an approximate version that was later refined (after all, the Ancient Greeks were *very *limited by the available technology, so merely having these ideas, with essentially no empirical support, wasn't bad going!). So atoms and the void (Democritus?) is a reasonable approximation to primitive materialism even now, and the reflection of perfect forms is a reasonable approximation to It from Bit. -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 1 July 2014 06:53, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Thinking that atheism could be bad, is like believing that red hair is a sign of the devil. Red hair, like atheism, is a difference without a distinction. Not, on the other hand is it axiomatically, the sign of a great mind. If Tyson is, it's of little concern, unless one is in it for gossip. Then it becomes compelling. Was it the writer, Truman Capote who said, there are three great things in the world, religion, science, and gossip. As for me, I am often quite envious of people who are atheists, not for the brilliance of their thoughts, but for the cocksure, self-confidence, and their apparent ability to be matter of fact in how they deal with the great turbulence of the Human Condition. By the way,.this is the first time I have use the phrase, cocksure, in a sentence. Anyway,.it's something.I admire, unlike when they.chose to egg on the Jesus people, when the Islamistand roll red with blood and severed body parts. This, I find objectionable, even though I am not a Christian. But I still admire the Atheists sureity. Hmm, I'm not sure I admire complete certainty about non-trivial matters myself. But as Brent has explained elsewhere it's all down to semantics anyway, apparently Richard Dawkins believes there may be gods, and hence is in my terminology agnostic even as he loudly proclaims himself an atheist. But anyone married to an actor from Doctor Who is good in my book (well, apart from David Tennant...) -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 29 June 2014 05:47, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: t's the materialist hat (I'm not sure which colour it is). Calling bullshit! on comp and similar ideas without stopping to understand them seems to stem from a religious belief in materialism (Bill Taylor on the FOAR forum is another example of this). There is endless spluttering and shouting and often even (gasp) capital letters, but never any sign that the person concerned has stopped and thought it through, in the spirit of what if he's got a point? Yeah, occasionally I find myself re-reading conversations I had with Bruno years ago (usually as a result of googling for some reference). It reminds me that in the beginning I was pretty certain he must be wrong, but his patience and persistence forced me repeatedly to refine and reconsider my arguments, to the point that eventually I started to see the holes in my own logic. This is the value of really sticking to a line of thought in discussion (as opposed to point scoring). It helps us, if we are willing to make the effort, to expose the contradictory assumptions in our own thinking. David -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 29 Jun 2014, at 04:26, Kim Jones wrote: On 29 Jun 2014, at 4:13 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: As long as quasi-rationalists like you mock the theological field, and prevent any seriousness there, it will remain in the province of the bullshit vendors. The trouble with thinkers like Clark is that they are really liars to themselves. Clark is a classic example of someone who has great knowledge of a field but remains a lousy thinker due to his dishonesty and his selective perception. Because it is actually kind of impossible to lie to oneself, the only way to work the magic trick is to utter the lie in public (under the guise of rational thinking) in the hope that clever use of selective perception and bullying tactics, vulgar language, colourful metsphors and analogies etc. will rally a bunch of sheeple behind him as some form of support. In other words, he believes that the more he persists by denying what he has understood all too well but would prefer wasn't within the scope of the possible (because it doesn't suit his personal taste) - the more vulgar his use of language, the more bully-boy his style, the more tortured and affected the use of analogy (often borrowed from Dawkins who often borrows from Bertrand Russell) the more he feels he has won some kind of intellectual point-scoring match. Clark is the kind of individual that believes progress is always a kind of battle against an opponent or an opposition. He is great at physics and related fields and in those posts we stand back in awe of his command of detail. Knowledge of a particular field or fields, however - I will never tire of saying - does not make you the Supreme Commander Of All Thinking. Such individuals have a well- known behavioural pattern: an intense emotional need to be seen to be right about everything but probably have never had an original idea in their life because they never risk anything; they only ever go to the safe havens. The fact that Clark keeps showing up in discussions where he is clearly out of his depth merely reinforces this impression. These guys over here are talking about something I understand but hate because it's not something that an instrumentalist Aristotelian physicalist mainstream scientific thinker like me should have to put with. I never miss reading posts by John K Clark. He is the perfect model of everything that is ineffectual with the thinking system that humans use. But he does know an awful lot about physics, to be fair. You might be right. It is difficult to evaluate the degree of self- lie awareness. My feeling is that Clark has ego-issue. It might be the usual jealousy or something of that kind. Once he made a post where he explained that he was open to arithmeticalism, so he might not be that much Aristotelian. I think it is more related with ego- psychological issue than with the matter subject. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 9:44 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the scientific method, so we really need the concept in order to understand the status of scientific theories. I like what Isaac Asimov, a fellow who knew a thing or two about science, had to say on this subject: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Sat, Jun 28, 2014 at 2:13 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I care about the notion behind. Call it the ONE Let's call it the BULLSHIT. Why not. But it can be confusing. I don't see how THE BULLSHIT is more confusing than THE ONE. It looks like according to you we just have no right to raise doubts on the Aristotelian Primary Matter notion. Why in hell do we keep talking about ancient ignoramuses like Plotinus and the worst physicist who ever lived, Aristotle? PS I think I will come back to the term god as it is less confusing than bullshit, to refer to the unknown cause or reason of why we are here. So these are the properties of God: 1) God does not answer prayers. 2) God is not omnipotent. 3) God is not omniscient. 4) God is not intelligent. 5) God is not conscious. 6) God has nothing to do with morality. 7) God is not a being at all just some sort of vague undefined principle. That sure doesn't leave much stuff for God to do, so it shouldn't bother us very much that even that wimpy anemic low rent sort of God may not exist; there may be no cause for the universe, there may be no reason there is something rather than nothing, there may be no ultimate reason we exist. John K Clark 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 29 Jun 2014, at 7:19 pm, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I think it is more related with ego-psychological issue than with the matter subject. Bruno Precisely. Which is why you will understand that to respond any further to the belligerence of his posts is merely an invitation to do battle with his ego rather than to seriously explore the subject? Each post is a trap that he has laid, a bait. Do not take the hameçon. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 30 June 2014 04:43, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 9:44 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the scientific method, so we really need the concept in order to understand the status of scientific theories. I like what Isaac Asimov, a fellow who knew a thing or two about science, had to say on this subject: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. So he knows that he only has enough evidence to be agnostic, but he is emotionally convinced to be an atheist nonetheless. OK, so that puts him on a par with religious believers who are also emotionally convinced, though not of the same thing. -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 6/29/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 04:43, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 9:44 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote: agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the scientific method, so we really need the concept in order to understand the status of scientific theories. I like what Isaac Asimov, a fellow who knew a thing or two about science, had to say on this subject: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. So he knows that he only has enough evidence to be agnostic, but he is emotionally convinced to be an atheist nonetheless. OK, so that puts him on a par with religious believers who are also emotionally convinced, though not of the same thing. No more so that being an aSanta-Clausist. Actually I think there is enough evidence to prove (in the 'beyond reasonable doubt' sense) that the God of the bible does not exist. But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 30 June 2014 17:02, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/29/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 04:43, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 9:44 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the scientific method, so we really need the concept in order to understand the status of scientific theories. I like what Isaac Asimov, a fellow who knew a thing or two about science, had to say on this subject: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. So he knows that he only has enough evidence to be agnostic, but he is emotionally convinced to be an atheist nonetheless. OK, so that puts him on a par with religious believers who are also emotionally convinced, though not of the same thing. No more so that being an aSanta-Clausist. Well there you go then. I rest my case. Actually I think there is enough evidence to prove (in the 'beyond reasonable doubt' sense) that the God of the bible does not exist. But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Atheists don't just believe that the biblical god doesn't exist, they believe that there are no supernatural forces involved in the operation of the universe. While I consider this likely, I don't consider it 100% proven, because as Arthur C Clark said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and it's at least conceivable that there are sufficiently advanced beings out there that they can act outside what we call nature. For example I am not 100% sure that the universe wasn't created by some intelligent beings with sufficiently advanced technology to create big bangs (they may of course have evolved naturally in another universe). I don't think it's likely, but that's my emotional prejudices at work. I can't see that I can claim with certainty that it's impossible, and since these being would fit with some definitions of god (creator of the unvierse) then I can't say it is 100% proven that god doesn't exist. If you are going to narrowly define atheism as not believing in the god of the bible, then of course I will agree with you (I will even throw in the Norse and Egyptian gods and a few others, if you like). But that isn't what I am talking about when I say Atheism, and I doubt it's what Asimov meant either. -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 6/29/2014 10:20 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 17:02, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/29/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 04:43, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 9:44 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote: agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the scientific method, so we really need the concept in order to understand the status of scientific theories. I like what Isaac Asimov, a fellow who knew a thing or two about science, had to say on this subject: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. So he knows that he only has enough evidence to be agnostic, but he is emotionally convinced to be an atheist nonetheless. OK, so that puts him on a par with religious believers who are also emotionally convinced, though not of the same thing. No more so that being an aSanta-Clausist. Well there you go then. I rest my case. Actually I think there is enough evidence to prove (in the 'beyond reasonable doubt' sense) that the God of the bible does not exist. But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Atheists don't just believe that the biblical god doesn't exist, they believe that there are no supernatural forces involved in the operation of the universe. Where is this written? Do you speak for all atheists, or just ones in NZ? While I consider this likely, I don't consider it 100% proven, because as Arthur C Clark said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and it's at least conceivable that there are sufficiently advanced beings out there that they can act outside what we call nature. That seems to really waffle. If we knew these beings could so act wouldn't we just readjust what we call nature. In fact that's a general problem with saying what it would mean for some events to be supernatural. In the past many events were thought to be supernatural, acts of God, e.g. sickness, lightning, drought, earthquakes,...but are now thought to be natural. So it some new phenomena is observed why wouldn't we just assume it was natural even if we didn't have an explanation. For example I am not 100% sure that the universe wasn't created by some intelligent beings with sufficiently advanced technology to create big bangs (they may of course have evolved naturally in another universe). I don't think it's likely, but that's my emotional prejudices at work. I can't see that I can claim with certainty that it's impossible, and since these being would fit with some definitions of god (creator of the unvierse) then I can't say it is 100% proven that god doesn't exist. Didn't you slip from something or someone beyond our current explanation to god. You speak for atheists, what do you have to say for religionists? Are they just worshiping some unknown possibility. What is the god they believe in - that's the god I don't believe in. I think you have muddled the word god in order make it seem unreasonable to assert definitively that god doesn't exist. But in the process you've made god into something quite different from the god of religion. A mere shadow of the once powerful Yaweh, Baal, Zeus, Thor,... If you are going to narrowly define atheism as not believing in the god of the bible, then of course I will agree with you (I will even throw in the Norse and Egyptian gods and a few others, if you like). But that isn't what I am talking about when I say Atheism, and I doubt it's what Asimov meant either. You seem to be equating atheism with asserting that nothing beyond our knowledge of nature exists. Not just failing to believe that such exists, but having 100% confidence that it doesn't. I don't know anyone who calls himself an atheist and who makes such a strong statement. Dawkins has explicity said he is not absolutely certain there is no god of any kind. Vic Stenger explicitly says he cannot rule out a deist god. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 30 June 2014 17:41, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/29/2014 10:20 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 17:02, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/29/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote: On 30 June 2014 04:43, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 9:44 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the scientific method, so we really need the concept in order to understand the status of scientific theories. I like what Isaac Asimov, a fellow who knew a thing or two about science, had to say on this subject: I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. So he knows that he only has enough evidence to be agnostic, but he is emotionally convinced to be an atheist nonetheless. OK, so that puts him on a par with religious believers who are also emotionally convinced, though not of the same thing. No more so that being an aSanta-Clausist. Well there you go then. I rest my case. Actually I think there is enough evidence to prove (in the 'beyond reasonable doubt' sense) that the God of the bible does not exist. But you don't have to prove something doesn't exist to reasonably fail to believe that it does. I don't have proof that there is no teapot orbiting Jupiter, but that doesn't make me epitemologically irresponsible to assert I don't believe there is one. Atheists don't just believe that the biblical god doesn't exist, they believe that there are no supernatural forces involved in the operation of the universe. Where is this written? Do you speak for all atheists, or just ones in NZ? No just the ones I've come across, like Richard Dawkins. While I consider this likely, I don't consider it 100% proven, because as Arthur C Clark said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and it's at least conceivable that there are sufficiently advanced beings out there that they can act outside what we call nature. That seems to really waffle. If we knew these beings could so act wouldn't we just readjust what we call nature. In fact that's a general problem with saying what it would mean for some events to be supernatural. In the past many events were thought to be supernatural, acts of God, e.g. sickness, lightning, drought, earthquakes,...but are now thought to be natural. So it some new phenomena is observed why wouldn't we just assume it was natural even if we didn't have an explanation. Hmm, well that's all-inclusive. I guess if whatever happens, you will call it natural - Biblical god appears, that's naturalOK, you've got me there. For example I am not 100% sure that the universe wasn't created by some intelligent beings with sufficiently advanced technology to create big bangs (they may of course have evolved naturally in another universe). I don't think it's likely, but that's my emotional prejudices at work. I can't see that I can claim with certainty that it's impossible, and since these being would fit with some definitions of god (creator of the unvierse) then I can't say it is 100% proven that god doesn't exist. Didn't you slip from something or someone beyond our current explanation to god. You speak for atheists, what do you have to say for religionists? Are they just worshiping some unknown possibility. What is the god they believe in - that's the god I don't believe in. I think you have muddled the word god in order make it seem unreasonable to assert definitively that god doesn't exist. But in the process you've made god into something quite different from the god of religion. A mere shadow of the once powerful Yaweh, Baal, Zeus, Thor,... No I was just talking about atheists. If you are going to narrowly define atheism as not believing in the god of the bible, then of course I will agree with you (I will even throw in the Norse and Egyptian gods and a few others, if you like). But that isn't what I am talking about when I say Atheism, and I doubt it's what Asimov meant either. You seem to be equating atheism with asserting that nothing beyond our knowledge of nature exists. Not just failing to believe that such exists, but having 100% confidence that it doesn't. I don't know anyone who calls himself an atheist and who makes such a strong statement. I didn't say that. You can see what I said above. Dawkins has explicity said he is not absolutely certain there is no god of any kind. Vic
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 28 Jun 2014, John Clark wrote: Most intelligent educated people long ago abandoned the notion of God, That's truly funny. You really did go to bed and dreamt that one. Now you are outdoing me in insulting Americans by calling most of the human race, including the majority of people in the United States unintelligent and uneducated. Go for it! 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 28 Jun 2014, at 5:39 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: Given that your average 6th grader knows far more about the universe than he ever did why in hell should I read Plotinus?? Yes, kids have the ability to understand a lot more than we give them credit for, don't they? I walked into a class of 8th graders at a school last week and explained to them the concept of First Person Indeterminacy and they all understood from it that there is a very strong indeterminism at the heart of reality which is usually decribed as deterministic. Amazing; 8th graders (and Plotinus) can understand it, yet you can't. Actually, I believe you do understand it, but you just don't like it. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 7:36 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 6/27/2014 3:29 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 5:34 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 6/26/2014 4:19 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
But []~g in contrast... that's not even rational
If you read it as In every possible world g is false and g=Some God,
it's irrational (unless g entails a contradiction). But that isn't
atheism. An atheist says g doesn't exist and that's prefectly rational
if g=Yaweh or g=Zeus or g=Baal or... Which is why I said it depends on g.
If g is some mystic unifying principle then I'm agnostic about g. If g
is some vain despotic theist god, then I'm an atheist about g.
But then you are willing, in principle at least, to fight everybody with
bullshit notion of god from your point of view.
Why? People who believe in the despotic personal god are willing to fight
to spread the religion because their god commands it. They are also
willing to commit atrocious acts to suppress heresy and unbelief because if
one of their children fell away from belief they would suffer eternal
torment. The Holy Inquisition was quite rationally justified give their
beliefs.
Yes on the inquisition, if you can reason strongly on something that we
can't grasp, resulting in deaths and suffering of people then we're capable
of horrible stuff, I agree. But same is true with certainty in negation.
So religious war becomes justifiable, in principle.
I'm not sure how justifiable goes with in principle. Justifiable,
to me, implies balancing competing values. In principle implies some
absolute extreme.
Justifiable: account/derive usage.
In principle: the appropriate ontology.
For me, no such nonsense is justifiable when invoking something
not-justifiable. To pretend such is to fuel these irrational disputes.
That's why this confusion between ~[]g and []~g is not fancy semantic
splitting hairs.
It doesn't matter whether your god is a teapot or Zeus. Tells me nothing
about whether you're relationship is weakly questioning or you're prepared
to impose it upon others. ~{}g at least prevents, makes nonsensical any
authoritative/manipulative/political move to impose it on others. Do you
fight/work against Yaweh, Baal and the entire list you keep posting?
Because that's quite a lot of deities to fight, where do you find the time?
;-) PGC
No, in fact I agree with Sam Harris that atheist and agnostic are not
very useful terms. We don't call someone who thinks fascism is a bad form
of society an afascist. We don't call people who don't believe in Santa
Claus, aClausists.
Atheist doesn't make sense indeed.
But I guess you could find something better than agnostic: Suggest a more
fitting term, for set of people who don't know but will consider
assumptions, reasoning and evidence, without necessarily ceding to
reductionisms or unquestionable faiths concerning them.
How about openly insecure people, not ashamed to give a fuck when they
agree and not when they don't? PGC
Brent
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.
--
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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 27 Jun 2014, at 21:39, John Clark wrote: On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 2:26 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I care about the notion behind. Call it the ONE Let's call it the BULLSHIT. Why not. But it can be confusing. read Plotinus, Given that your average 6th grader knows far more about the universe than he ever did why in hell should I read Plotinus?? You betray that you take the universe for bullshit. I made clear that God is not nameable But you just did. You actually did, but I guess you will not grasp this. Anyway by bullshit I mean (using your term) the fundamental reality, and you betray that you believe in the bullshit the physical universe, without being aware that it is a theological (bullshitical, if you insist) assumption. You seem to confuse physics and physicalism. It looks like according to you we just have no right to raise doubts on the Aristotelian Primary Matter notion. Terms like God, Universe, Everything, ... are fuzzy and refer to not easy notions. But assuming comp, we get definitions, and metadefinitions which can point openly toward an object or a person without naming it, and we get notably an arithmetical interpretation of Plotinus' theology, which you might appreciate if really, until now, you thought that God meant only the christian one. In occident (free scientific) theology has stopped at the 6th century, and at the 11th century in the Middle east (stopped in the mainstream, by political pseudo-religion). (by free here I mean non confessional). As long as quasi rationalist like you mock the theological field, and prevent seriousness there, it will remains in the end of the bullshit vendors. Bruno PS I think I will come back to the term god as it is less confusing than bullshit, to refer to the unknown cause or reason of why we are here. 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 29 Jun 2014, at 4:13 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: As long as quasi-rationalists like you mock the theological field, and prevent any seriousness there, it will remain in the province of the bullshit vendors. The trouble with thinkers like Clark is that they are really liars to themselves. Clark is a classic example of someone who has great knowledge of a field but remains a lousy thinker due to his dishonesty and his selective perception. Because it is actually kind of impossible to lie to oneself, the only way to work the magic trick is to utter the lie in public (under the guise of rational thinking) in the hope that clever use of selective perception and bullying tactics, vulgar language, colourful metsphors and analogies etc. will rally a bunch of sheeple behind him as some form of support. In other words, he believes that the more he persists by denying what he has understood all too well but would prefer wasn't within the scope of the possible (because it doesn't suit his personal taste) - the more vulgar his use of language, the more bully-boy his style, the more tortured and affected the use of analogy (often borrowed from Dawkins who often borrows from Bertrand Russell) the more he feels he has won some kind of intellectual point-scoring match. Clark is the kind of individual that believes progress is always a kind of battle against an opponent or an opposition. He is great at physics and related fields and in those posts we stand back in awe of his command of detail. Knowledge of a particular field or fields, however - I will never tire of saying - does not make you the Supreme Commander Of All Thinking. Such individuals have a well-known behavioural pattern: an intense emotional need to be seen to be right about everything but probably have never had an original idea in their life because they never risk anything; they only ever go to the safe havens. The fact that Clark keeps showing up in discussions where he is clearly out of his depth merely reinforces this impression. These guys over here are talking about something I understand but hate because it's not something that an instrumentalist Aristotelian physicalist mainstream scientific thinker like me should have to put with. I never miss reading posts by John K Clark. He is the perfect model of everything that is ineffectual with the thinking system that humans use. But he does know an awful lot about physics, to be fair. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 29 June 2014 14:26, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote: On 29 Jun 2014, at 4:13 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: As long as quasi-rationalists like you mock the theological field, and prevent any seriousness there, it will remain in the province of the bullshit vendors. The trouble with thinkers like Clark is that they are really liars to themselves. Clark is a classic example of someone who has great knowledge of a field but remains a lousy thinker due to his dishonesty and his selective perception. Without agreeing with the specific example (though I do wonder sometimes if it's faux naivete about comp), this is very common. I'm sure we have all done it at times, especially when we havent had that vital first coffee... the only answer is to be humble, no matter how much you think you know. Because it is actually kind of impossible to lie to oneself, the only way to work the magic trick is to utter the lie in public (under the guise of rational thinking) in the hope that clever use of selective perception and bullying tactics, Hmm. I'm not sure it's impossible to lie to yourself. I know that consciously trying to hold conflicting views causes cognitive dissonance but if you can hide the fact from yourself that your views don't gel ... a lot of deconstructionists would say that a lot of people hold self-contradictory views, but they hide the fact. You can generally find some point when someone is inconsistent if you are motivated enough to try, imho. vulgar language, colourful metsphors and analogies etc. will rally a bunch of sheeple behind him as some form of support. In other words, he believes that the more he persists by denying what he has understood all too well but would prefer wasn't within the scope of the possible (because it doesn't suit his personal taste) - the more vulgar his use of language, the more bully-boy his style, the more tortured and affected the use of analogy (often borrowed from Dawkins who often borrows from Bertrand Russell) the more he feels he has won some kind of intellectual point-scoring match. I only need two things. Your submission and your obedience to MY WILL! * I really do hate point scoring matches. The winner usually prostitutes him/herself to get the most points, bending his/her views around to make a snappy comeback. (Also, I'm no good at it :-) Clark is the kind of individual that believes progress is always a kind of battle against an opponent or an opposition. That's very macho. The war on terror - the war on drugs - the war on war? They're all the war on the people, by the powerful. He is great at physics and related fields and in those posts we stand back in awe of his command of detail. Yes, and Brent and a few other posters also have an impressive knowledge of this field. Knowledge of a particular field or fields, however - I will never tire of saying - does not make you the Supreme Commander Of All Thinking. Such individuals have a well-known behavioural pattern: an intense emotional need to be seen to be right about everything but probably have never had an original idea in their life because they never risk anything; they only ever go to the safe havens. Well, score one point for Mr Ross on that front! The fact that Clark keeps showing up in discussions where he is clearly out of his depth merely reinforces this impression. These guys over here are talking about something I understand but hate because it's not something that an instrumentalist Aristotelian physicalist mainstream scientific thinker like me should have to put with. It's the materialist hat (I'm not sure which colour it is). Calling bullshit! on comp and similar ideas without stopping to understand them seems to stem from a religious belief in materialism (Bill Taylor on the FOAR forum is another example of this). There is endless spluttering and shouting and often even (gasp) capital letters, but never any sign that the person concerned has stopped and thought it through, in the spirit of what if he's got a point? - I guess I read too much science fiction in my youth because I am always at least trying to what-if, I even did it on Tronnies, although sadly my suspension of disbelief has rather collapsed on that front. I never miss reading posts by John K Clark. He is the perfect model of everything that is ineffectual with the thinking system that humans use. But he does know an awful lot about physics, to be fair. And they was grateful for him patronage, And they thanked him very much... *quote from the Master in Dr Who, The Daemons (1971) -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
Yes, indeed. Let me know next time one phones in, and I'll listen in. Should be interesting. On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 09:01:06PM -0400, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote: Indeed, Professor, like Hercules, but gods are a higher paygrade, and have tenure. Still, it would be interesting to have a chat with the purported mind that created or altered all this region. Advice would be nice, perhaps a tweet now and then? Technically, those are demigods, of course. -Original Message- From: Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Jun 26, 2014 8:46 pm Subject: Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 03:05:55PM -0400, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote: For me, your analogy (which has been heard before of course) is simple to satisfy. The Peoples Republic of China, upon hearing John Clark's philosophical challenge, and diverts its lunar rover to the planet Uranus. All this to the chagrin of Mr. Clark, who yell's Not fair! Never the less, the space probe deposits a Ming dynasty teapot into lagrangian orbit. Clark's screams, and condition satisfied. Here's another way looking at things, to Mr. Aquinas's displeasure. There are many minds in the Hubble Volume, one of them is God, and it is the smartest and oldest mind. In fact this mind, developed the universe into a place that is occasionally fit for types of life, one of them carbon-water life. Say hello to God, Mr. Clark. Or to quote, Richard Dawkins, Yes, I can imagine there are god-like intelligences in the universe. Atheist, Agnostic, Believer? Sure. All three. Technically, those are demigods, of course. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- 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. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 5:34 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 6/26/2014 4:19 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
But []~g in contrast... that's not even rational
If you read it as In every possible world g is false and g=Some God,
it's irrational (unless g entails a contradiction). But that isn't
atheism. An atheist says g doesn't exist and that's prefectly rational
if g=Yaweh or g=Zeus or g=Baal or... Which is why I said it depends on g.
If g is some mystic unifying principle then I'm agnostic about g. If g
is some vain despotic theist god, then I'm an atheist about g.
But then you are willing, in principle at least, to fight everybody with
bullshit notion of god from your point of view. So religious war becomes
justifiable, in principle. For me, no such nonsense is justifiable when
invoking something not-justifiable. To pretend such is to fuel these
irrational disputes. That's why this confusion between ~[]g and []~g is not
fancy semantic splitting hairs.
It doesn't matter whether your god is a teapot or Zeus. Tells me nothing
about whether you're relationship is weakly questioning or you're prepared
to impose it upon others. ~{}g at least prevents, makes nonsensical any
authoritative/manipulative/political move to impose it on others. Do you
fight/work against Yaweh, Baal and the entire list you keep posting?
Because that's quite a lot of deities to fight, where do you find the time?
;-) PGC
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.
--
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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 6/27/2014 3:29 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 5:34 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 6/26/2014 4:19 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
But []~g in contrast... that's not even rational
If you read it as In every possible world g is false and g=Some God, it's
irrational (unless g entails a contradiction). But that isn't atheism. An
atheist
says g doesn't exist and that's prefectly rational if g=Yaweh or g=Zeus
or g=Baal
or... Which is why I said it depends on g. If g is some mystic unifying
principle then I'm agnostic about g. If g is some vain despotic theist
god, then
I'm an atheist about g.
But then you are willing, in principle at least, to fight everybody with bullshit notion
of god from your point of view.
Why? People who believe in the despotic personal god are willing to fight to spread the
religion because their god commands it. They are also willing to commit atrocious acts to
suppress heresy and unbelief because if one of their children fell away from belief they
would suffer eternal torment. The Holy Inquisition was quite rationally justified give
their beliefs.
So religious war becomes justifiable, in principle.
I'm not sure how justifiable goes with in principle. Justifiable, to me, implies
balancing competing values. In principle implies some absolute extreme.
For me, no such nonsense is justifiable when invoking something not-justifiable. To
pretend such is to fuel these irrational disputes. That's why this confusion between
~[]g and []~g is not fancy semantic splitting hairs.
It doesn't matter whether your god is a teapot or Zeus. Tells me nothing about whether
you're relationship is weakly questioning or you're prepared to impose it upon others.
~{}g at least prevents, makes nonsensical any authoritative/manipulative/political move
to impose it on others. Do you fight/work against Yaweh, Baal and the entire list you
keep posting? Because that's quite a lot of deities to fight, where do you find the
time? ;-) PGC
No, in fact I agree with Sam Harris that atheist and agnostic are not very useful
terms. We don't call someone who thinks fascism is a bad form of society an afascist.
We don't call people who don't believe in Santa Claus, aClausists.
Brent
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
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 http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 25 Jun 2014, at 19:11, meekerdb wrote: On 6/25/2014 7:36 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Some claim that my problem in Brussels was that in the introduction to Conscience Mécanisme I make clear what I mean by agnostic (~[] g) and atheists ([]~g). Natural language confuse easily ~[] and []~. Modal logic is useful if only to explain that difference. It's more complicated than that. It depends on what you mean by g. Is it the god of theism, who is a person who created the world, answers prayers, and judges humans in an afterlife. Or is it the god of deism who created the world but doesn't act in it. Or is it one of the gods of mystics who is a principle or nature or an unnameable and unknowable something. Good questions. Given the vast apparent spectrum of the meaning of god, I will be agnostic (~Bg), that I is I do not believe in god, just because I am not aware of the sense of the term. Then someone tells me that god refers to the one who made the creation in six days. I ask him/she literally or in the legend?. If she/he answers me in the legend, then I can believe in *that God*, as it is the one of Plato, just disguised a little bit, I think. If he/she answers me no, in reality, then, well I run away. Then a universal machine cannot distinguish a machine more complex than itself from a god, among a hierarchy of gods (that is entities believing in some sense, in set of arithmetical truth not computably generable), nor that with the whole arithmetical truth, the analytical truth. Now, about god, or the god, I made often clear what I meant by that, and it is in the large sense of anything responsible for your consciousness here and now. From this, + comp, you can derive it is unnameable, transcendental, escaping all third person descriptions, not-(not-accessible) from the first person perspective, ... well the whole G* minus G mathematics including the intensional variants (this gives also the testable logic of the observable). I am sure that Mechanism would have seemed like a blaspheme for some antic Platonist, but the chapter on Numbers, by Plotinus, illustrates that what the antic lacked to avoid the blaspheme with comp is the Church-Turing thesis. The genuine corresponding blaspheme with comp, will consist in confusing the machines's soul ([]p p) with the machine's body ([]p, []p t) or 3p description (and 1p-plural). I see the thread is long, I might answer some posts soon or later, probably. Bruno Literally atheist is one who is not a theist, one who fails to believe in the god of theism. Thomas Jefferson was called an atheist because he believed in the god of deism. 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 26 Jun 2014, at 20:51, John Clark wrote: On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Concerning the existence of a china teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus, are you a teapot atheist or agnostic? Agnostic. Is the possibility of such a orbiting teapot large enough that it would alter your behavior in any way? If not then you're a teapot atheist. Well both the absence and presence of that teapot might not alter my behavior, especially without pictures by cosmic bots like Voyager and Cassandra. Why would I deny the existence of the teapot around Uranus. I can only find this quite unplausible, but as I want you to listen to machines, I have to train you to reason on large semi-axiomatic definition. So I will still say that I am agnostic on the teapot, may be here because I am not even interested in debating such existence (although I get the point for its use as a (bad) analogy of god). You never know. Are you sure about that? Are you a never know atheist or a never know agnostic? your analogy does not work, because the notion of god is not that clear-cut. That's not important. Most intelligent educated people long ago abandoned the notion of God, Lol the important thing is not the idea the important thing is the English word G-O-D; ? even though it no longer means anything people such as yourself just refuse to abandon those 3 letters if they are in that sequence. On the contrary, I don't care at all about the word G-O-D, I care about the notion behind. Call it the ONE, and read Plotinus, if you want to understand a different conception of God and Matter. God is more neutral than matter. With the term god you can do theology in a open way toward both Plato and Aristotle. With Matter you start in the theology of Aristotle. You are the one who seem to care a lot about the word God. I made clear that God is not nameable (in the machine's theology, with the lexicon provided in the Plotinus paper). So you are the one having a vocabulary problem on something for which we know *any* vocabulary is not suitable. So I keep the most common name, used in most book on comparative theology. Bruno John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 26 Jun 2014, at 22:19, John Mikes wrote: PGC, Brent, et all (Liz? with Dawkins quoted) - the word is GOD-LIKE what I object to. Like WHAT god of the past 20,000 years? the one imagined as the Big Baer, or the 'author' behind the Abrahamic Scripture, or Bruno's Univ. Machine? Blaspheme! Blaspheme! (grin) The universal machine is a finite terrestrial entity, or sigma_1 arithmetical. Examples are cells, brains, computers, computer language interpreter, your laptop, etc. With comp, God can be Arithmetical truth (there will be noway we can do the distinction. In fact we cannot even distinguish a more complex machine than ourself with an arithmetic god). John, keep in mind Gödel's theorem: we know that the arithmetical reality (God) is inexhaustible. Löbian universal machine can only scratch its surface, especially for the 3p sharable statement about it. Universal machine plays the role of man in Plotinus (it means human). Arithmetical truth plays the role of God. Machines, and thus us with comp, can only build lanterns (theories) to explore something which is vastly more complex than us. That confusion might explains why you seem sometimes not much agnostic with respect to computationalism. Thank to Church thesis and incompleteness, mechanism is the least reductionist soul theory possible. Computationalism is not normative, it is more a mean toward the unconceivable freedom. The Greek socials, or the Nordish brutes? I missed Bruno's definition of atheist and agnostic and my own is poorly formulated. I THINK (my) atheist (I) is not to include a human-like person as a factor for the 'creation' etc., with human attributes and deficiencies, rather leaving it to Nature(?) to evolve as it goes. Agnostic, however, is a person (me) who BELIEVES that the Everything includes lots of unknown and still unknowable items in unknowable qualia and relations beyond any inventory we so far ever assembled about Her. That agnosticism is a theorem in machine's theology. I explained this often with the diagonalization. It is the beauty and grandeur of machine's reason: they can understand their limitations, in fact, if honest with themselves, they can't miss it. Now, with comp, Arithmetical truth is restricted ontologically on the computable/dovetailable truth, but the identity possible between the universal machine and God remains in the G* minus G domain. That's why it is a comp blaspheme. It is true (for the correct machine), but non- justifiable, and even unassertable. Bruno On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 9:25 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy multiplecit...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 7:11 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/25/2014 7:36 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Some claim that my problem in Brussels was that in the introduction to Conscience Mécanisme I make clear what I mean by agnostic (~[] g) and atheists ([]~g). Natural language confuse easily ~[] and []~. Modal logic is useful if only to explain that difference. It's more complicated than that. It depends on what you mean by g. Is it the god of theism, who is a person who created the world, answers prayers, and judges humans in an afterlife. Or is it the god of deism who created the world but doesn't act in it. Or is it one of the gods of mystics who is a principle or nature or an unnameable and unknowable something. Literally atheist is one who is not a theist, one who fails to believe in the god of theism. Thomas Jefferson was called an atheist because he believed in the god of deism. This use with Jefferson as example is particular. Atheism in most contexts is more broad, roughly the sense belief in non-existence of god/deities; where the kind of god matters less. Unless of course, this is some kind of US linguistic use/habbit or domain bound jargon. But if this is how you've always understood the term, then this explains why we've disagreed here before. ~[]g and []~g is independent of the kind of g. PGC 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. -- 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
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 5:06 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: Surely Atheist means 100% sure, so 99.9% is still agnostic The existence or nonexistence of God is just one fact about the world, there are lots more, so I guess we need to invent hairsplitting distinctions for them all. We need to invent 2 new words concerning your level of disbelief that this is Thursday, one if you're 100% certain that this is not Thursday (Aththursdayist) and another word (Agthursdayic) if you're only 99.9% certain it's not Thursday. Or maybe we don't need different words for things that are that ridiculously similar. The real reason people call themselves agnostic and not atheist has nothing to do with ideas, it's because of a sound, they like to make the God noise with their mouth. And by the way, mathematically 99.99 is exactly equal to 100. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 2:26 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I care about the notion behind. Call it the ONE Let's call it the BULLSHIT. read Plotinus, Given that your average 6th grader knows far more about the universe than he ever did why in hell should I read Plotinus?? I made clear that God is not nameable But you just did. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 28 June 2014 07:25, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 5:06 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: Surely Atheist means 100% sure, so 99.9% is still agnostic The existence or nonexistence of God is just one fact about the world, there are lots more, so I guess we need to invent hairsplitting distinctions for them all. We need to invent 2 new words concerning your level of disbelief that this is Thursday, one if you're 100% certain that this is not Thursday (Aththursdayist) and another word (Agthursdayic) if you're only 99.9% certain it's not Thursday. If that came up often in debate then we would of course invent a word for it. It's because belief in the G word gets debated so often that we bother to give names to different categories of belief and disbelief. (Although agnosticism is of course the defining principle of the scientific method, so we really need the concept in order to understand the status of scientific theories.) Or maybe we don't need different words for things that are that ridiculously similar. The real reason people call themselves agnostic and not atheist has nothing to do with ideas, it's because of a sound, they like to make the God noise with their mouth. I'm glad you know why I do things, I must remember to ask you next time I have any doubt about my motives. Just for the record, in my (no doubt wrong) opinion, the reason I call myself agnostic about certain things is because I don't have enough knowledge about them to have what I consider an informed opinion. And by the way, mathematically 99.99 is exactly equal to 100. Oops, my mistake, I meant to say something slightly different, appropriately enough. A corrected version reads: Surely Atheist means 100% sure, so 99.99% is still agnostic, where the ... represents any finite number of 9s -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 25 Jun 2014, at 17:55, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote: Dr. Marchal, do you ever get in conversations with your fellow academician, Clement Vidal? He's a philosopher at your University? Do you ever get into the Evo-Devo view? I don't know him. I don't know Evo-Devo view. You might say more on this perhaps. Bruno -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Jun 25, 2014 10:36 am Subject: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non- boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On 27 May 2014, at 01:37, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 12:53 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of LizR Sent: Monday, May 26, 2014 2:51 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On 26 May 2014 23:31, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 1:12 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 25 May 2014 23:32, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens... Unless, of course life had already spread throughout our galaxy billions of years before our star was born and we are just the local Sol branch off the same galactic (or who knows perhaps even larger scale) tree of life. A plausible hypothesis - actually saw it a few nights ago on the Cosmos reboot is that when stars transit through interstellar gas clouds (the nurseries of new stars and planets) their attendant comet clouds become gravitationally perturbed, initiating an era of cometary bombardment. I think they're doing a fine job with that reboot, although probably not up to Bruno's standards, lol. Recently found a video where the host chats for 3 minutes on his take regarding atheism and agnosticism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rWvos Very nice. I am not astonished that Tyson is systematically renamed atheist on the wiki page on him (that he did not create, but try to correct, unsuccessfully!). In Brussels, the atheists claims that agnostics are atheists, but this can only create a confusion. Some claim that my problem in Brussels was that in the introduction to Conscience Mécanisme I make clear what I mean by agnostic (~[] g) and atheists ([]~g). Natural language confuse easily ~[] and []~. Modal logic is useful if only to explain that difference. Bruno PGC If a planet orbiting a star that is transiting one of these immense clouds get a good whack some of its life bearing rock can be hurled from the system and every once in a great while find its way to another water bearing planet orbiting some other star. This actually sounds plausible to me... that interstellar nurseries are also the cosmic engines for spreading advanced microbial life forms from planets of one star to other planets orbiting other stars Over the eons. Perhaps star systems have been exchanging DNA and microbial life since life first began somewhere in our galaxy and that this kind of emergent process is occurring in every galaxy in every universe with laws consonant with stable wet organic chemistry. Chris Makes sense, of course, but I'm not so sure. I don't think we know enough at this point to estimate the diversity of the solution space for biologically evolved entities with human-level intelligence or above. It could be that something very similar to us is the only viable solution, or the most likely solution. Functionally similar (perhaps), but certainly not genetically similar. We aren't even gentically similar enough to interbreed with any other species that evolved on the same planet under very similar conditions to us - for example, we are very closely related to chimps, but we still can't interbreed with them. Ok, but now you're making the requirements more stringent. We were talking about outer-space fetishists, not necessarily interbreeding. So functional similarity might be enough, as alluded in sheep are nervous. :) Well if you're just talking about something you can put your dick in (or an alien can put their proboscis in), that's a (ahem) broad range of items, depending on your tastes (See A melon for ecstasy and The unrepentant necrophile for some suggestions for things one can have sex with in this sense, should one be so inclined). However your original reply (in blue above) certainly appeared to be talking about interbreeding. (Or did you mean humanoid forms are the only viable solution for fetishists who happen to get
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
Its a good point. Dawkins was just suggesting a hypothesis. Humans look for limits and somehow beat them, given enough time effort. Hypercomputing looks plausible to me. Theres a fair amount of papers at ARXIV that write about this kind of thing. I don't know if god-like intelligences are possible in our universe, it's possible the laws of physics don't allow it. There are a lot of known / suspected limitations on computation for example, and a god that couldn't at least perform hypercomputations isn't really godlike IMHO. -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Jun 25, 2014 6:43 pm Subject: Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On 26 June 2014 07:05, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Or to quote, Richard Dawkins, Yes, I can imagine there are god-like intelligences in the universe. Atheist, Agnostic, Believer? Sure. All three. (Or in other universes, or branches of the level 1 or level 3 mulitverse, or...) I don't know if god-like intelligences are possible in our universe, it's possible the laws of physics don't allow it. There are a lot of known / suspected limitations on computation for example, and a god that couldn't at least perform hypercomputations isn't really godlike IMHO. -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 25 Jun 2014, at 18:23, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 10:36 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: In Brussels, the atheists claims that agnostics are atheists, but this can only create a confusion. Concerning the existence of a china teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus, are you a teapot atheist or agnostic? Agnostic. You never know. I agree that with such a teapot, and what I believe, I would say that it highly non plausible. Yet your analogy does not work, because the notion of god is not that clear-cut. Bruno Technically I guess I'd have to say I'm a teapot agnostic but in this case the difference between the 2 words is so small it's not worth talking about. And I found another short video by Tyson that I like better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5dSyT50Cs8 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. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Concerning the existence of a china teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus, are you a teapot atheist or agnostic? Agnostic. Is the possibility of such a orbiting teapot large enough that it would alter your behavior in any way? If not then you're a teapot atheist. You never know. Are you sure about that? Are you a never know atheist or a never know agnostic? your analogy does not work, because the notion of god is not that clear-cut. That's not important. Most intelligent educated people long ago abandoned the notion of God, the important thing is not the idea the important thing is the English word G-O-D; even though it no longer means anything people such as yourself just refuse to abandon those 3 letters if they are in that sequence. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 6/26/2014 7:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 25 Jun 2014, at 18:23, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 10:36 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: In Brussels, the atheists claims that agnostics are atheists, but this can only create a confusion. Concerning the existence of a china teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus, are you a teapot atheist or agnostic? Agnostic. You never know. I agree that with such a teapot, and what I believe, I would say that it highly non plausible. Yet your analogy does not work, because the notion of god is not that clear-cut. Exactly what I said, that your distinction between atheist and agnostic, /I make clear what I mean by agnostic (~[] g) and atheists ([]~g). Natural language confuse easily ~[] and []~. Modal logic is useful if only to explain that difference./ was to simplistic, because it depends on the meaning of g. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
PGC, Brent, et all (Liz? with Dawkins quoted) - the word is *GOD-LIKE * what I object to. Like WHAT god of the past 20,000 years? the one imagined as the Big Baer, or the 'author' behind the Abrahamic Scripture, or Bruno's Univ. Machine? The Greek socials, or the Nordish brutes? I missed Bruno's definition of atheist and agnostic and my own is poorly formulated. I THINK (my) *atheist* (I) is *not to include* a human-like person as a factor for the 'creation' etc., *with *human attributes and deficiencies, rather leaving it to *Nature(?*) to evolve as it goes. *Agnostic*, however, is a person (me) who BELIEVES that the Everything includes lots of unknown and still unknowable items in unknowable qualia and relations beyond any inventory we so far ever assembled about *Her*. On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 9:25 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy multiplecit...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 7:11 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/25/2014 7:36 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Some claim that my problem in Brussels was that in the introduction to Conscience Mécanisme I make clear what I mean by agnostic (~[] g) and atheists ([]~g). Natural language confuse easily ~[] and []~. Modal logic is useful if only to explain that difference. It's more complicated than that. It depends on what you mean by g. Is it the god of theism, who is a person who created the world, answers prayers, and judges humans in an afterlife. Or is it the god of deism who created the world but doesn't act in it. Or is it one of the gods of mystics who is a principle or nature or an unnameable and unknowable something. Literally atheist is one who is not a theist, one who fails to believe in the god of theism. Thomas Jefferson was called an atheist because he believed in the god of deism. This use with Jefferson as example is particular. Atheism in most contexts is more broad, roughly the sense belief in non-existence of god/deities; where the kind of god matters less. Unless of course, this is some kind of US linguistic use/habbit or domain bound jargon. But if this is how you've always understood the term, then this explains why we've disagreed here before. ~[]g and []~g is independent of the kind of g. PGC 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. -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 27 June 2014 06:51, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Concerning the existence of a china teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus, are you a teapot atheist or agnostic? Agnostic. Is the possibility of such a orbiting teapot large enough that it would alter your behavior in any way? If not then you're a teapot atheist. Surely Atheist means 100% sure, so 99.9% is still agnostic? As long as you've stated that you are only very slightly uncertain, you've stated your position anyway so the label's (kind of) irrelevant. You never know. Are you sure about that? Are you a never know atheist or a never know agnostic? Never know is agnosticism. Sure that X is untrue is atheism. your analogy does not work, because the notion of god is not that clear-cut. That's not important. Most intelligent educated people long ago abandoned the notion of God, the important thing is not the idea the important thing is the English word G-O-D; even though it no longer means anything people such as yourself just refuse to abandon those 3 letters if they are in that sequence. Could still be a useful concept, e.g. in godlike intelligence (see above). -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 9:45 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/26/2014 7:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 25 Jun 2014, at 18:23, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 10:36 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: In Brussels, the atheists claims that agnostics are atheists, but this can only create a confusion. Concerning the existence of a china teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus, are you a teapot atheist or agnostic? Agnostic. You never know. I agree that with such a teapot, and what I believe, I would say that it highly non plausible. Yet your analogy does not work, because the notion of god is not that clear-cut. Exactly what I said, that your distinction between atheist and agnostic, *I make clear what I mean by agnostic (~[] g) and atheists ([]~g). Natural language confuse easily ~[] and []~. Modal logic is useful if only to explain that difference.* was to simplistic, because it depends on the meaning of g. One property of g here, independent of cultural/spiritual background, is transcendence. If your g is not at least transcendent, then why are we even employing the category or talking this way? So g is not justifiable, which is why this is not overly simplistic/bound to modal logic exclusively, but appropriate to describe even the confusion that leads to this discussion. Most agnostics I suppose, would even weaken ~[]g, and admit we don't even know that. But that some transcendent principle g is provably negated (note my post on the Greek root; just inversion of θεότης with negating prefix ἀ) with no partial tricks; is what makes []~g unconvincing. Like how can you negate the existence of something that by definition, you don't understand? So sure, you can take ~[]g too literally, not decide anything and die of thirst/starvation ;-) But []~g in contrast... that's not even rational, and I think Neil Degrasse Tyson, based on his reasoning and terms in the Atheist/Agnostic video linked above, would agree. PGC 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. -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 09:51:51AM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 25 Jun 2014, at 17:55, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote: Dr. Marchal, do you ever get in conversations with your fellow academician, Clement Vidal? He's a philosopher at your University? Do you ever get into the Evo-Devo view? I don't know him. I don't know Evo-Devo view. You might say more on this perhaps. He's an ALife guy. I've seen him at some of the conferences. Other than that, I don't know much about him. He's googlable, of course. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 03:05:55PM -0400, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote: For me, your analogy (which has been heard before of course) is simple to satisfy. The Peoples Republic of China, upon hearing John Clark's philosophical challenge, and diverts its lunar rover to the planet Uranus. All this to the chagrin of Mr. Clark, who yell's Not fair! Never the less, the space probe deposits a Ming dynasty teapot into lagrangian orbit. Clark's screams, and condition satisfied. Here's another way looking at things, to Mr. Aquinas's displeasure. There are many minds in the Hubble Volume, one of them is God, and it is the smartest and oldest mind. In fact this mind, developed the universe into a place that is occasionally fit for types of life, one of them carbon-water life. Say hello to God, Mr. Clark. Or to quote, Richard Dawkins, Yes, I can imagine there are god-like intelligences in the universe. Atheist, Agnostic, Believer? Sure. All three. Technically, those are demigods, of course. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
Indeed, Professor, like Hercules, but gods are a higher paygrade, and have tenure. Still, it would be interesting to have a chat with the purported mind that created or altered all this region. Advice would be nice, perhaps a tweet now and then? Technically, those are demigods, of course. -Original Message- From: Russell Standish li...@hpcoders.com.au To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Jun 26, 2014 8:46 pm Subject: Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 03:05:55PM -0400, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote: For me, your analogy (which has been heard before of course) is simple to satisfy. The Peoples Republic of China, upon hearing John Clark's philosophical challenge, and diverts its lunar rover to the planet Uranus. All this to the chagrin of Mr. Clark, who yell's Not fair! Never the less, the space probe deposits a Ming dynasty teapot into lagrangian orbit. Clark's screams, and condition satisfied. Here's another way looking at things, to Mr. Aquinas's displeasure. There are many minds in the Hubble Volume, one of them is God, and it is the smartest and oldest mind. In fact this mind, developed the universe into a place that is occasionally fit for types of life, one of them carbon-water life. Say hello to God, Mr. Clark. Or to quote, Richard Dawkins, Yes, I can imagine there are god-like intelligences in the universe. Atheist, Agnostic, Believer? Sure. All three. Technically, those are demigods, of course. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 6/26/2014 4:19 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: But []~g in contrast... that's not even rational If you read it as In every possible world g is false and g=Some God, it's irrational (unless g entails a contradiction). But that isn't atheism. An atheist says g doesn't exist and that's prefectly rational if g=Yaweh or g=Zeus or g=Baal or... Which is why I said it depends on g. If g is some mystic unifying principle then I'm agnostic about g. If g is some vain despotic theist god, then I'm an atheist about g. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2014 8:34 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On 6/26/2014 4:19 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: But []~g in contrast... that's not even rational If you read it as In every possible world g is false and g=Some God, it's irrational (unless g entails a contradiction). But that isn't atheism. An atheist says g doesn't exist and that's prefectly rational if g=Yaweh or g=Zeus or g=Baal or... Which is why I said it depends on g. If g is some mystic unifying principle then I'm agnostic about g. If g is some vain despotic theist god, then I'm an atheist about g. Nicely put distinction between… degrees of ‘g’s Chris 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. -- 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.
Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 27 May 2014, at 01:37, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 12:53 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of LizR Sent: Monday, May 26, 2014 2:51 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On 26 May 2014 23:31, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 1:12 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 25 May 2014 23:32, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens... Unless, of course life had already spread throughout our galaxy billions of years before our star was born and we are just the local Sol branch off the same galactic (or who knows perhaps even larger scale) tree of life. A plausible hypothesis - actually saw it a few nights ago on the Cosmos reboot is that when stars transit through interstellar gas clouds (the nurseries of new stars and planets) their attendant comet clouds become gravitationally perturbed, initiating an era of cometary bombardment. I think they're doing a fine job with that reboot, although probably not up to Bruno's standards, lol. Recently found a video where the host chats for 3 minutes on his take regarding atheism and agnosticism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rWvos Very nice. I am not astonished that Tyson is systematically renamed atheist on the wiki page on him (that he did not create, but try to correct, unsuccessfully!). In Brussels, the atheists claims that agnostics are atheists, but this can only create a confusion. Some claim that my problem in Brussels was that in the introduction to Conscience Mécanisme I make clear what I mean by agnostic (~[] g) and atheists ([]~g). Natural language confuse easily ~[] and []~. Modal logic is useful if only to explain that difference. Bruno PGC If a planet orbiting a star that is transiting one of these immense clouds get a good whack some of its life bearing rock can be hurled from the system and every once in a great while find its way to another water bearing planet orbiting some other star. This actually sounds plausible to me... that interstellar nurseries are also the cosmic engines for spreading advanced microbial life forms from planets of one star to other planets orbiting other stars Over the eons. Perhaps star systems have been exchanging DNA and microbial life since life first began somewhere in our galaxy and that this kind of emergent process is occurring in every galaxy in every universe with laws consonant with stable wet organic chemistry. Chris Makes sense, of course, but I'm not so sure. I don't think we know enough at this point to estimate the diversity of the solution space for biologically evolved entities with human-level intelligence or above. It could be that something very similar to us is the only viable solution, or the most likely solution. Functionally similar (perhaps), but certainly not genetically similar. We aren't even gentically similar enough to interbreed with any other species that evolved on the same planet under very similar conditions to us - for example, we are very closely related to chimps, but we still can't interbreed with them. Ok, but now you're making the requirements more stringent. We were talking about outer-space fetishists, not necessarily interbreeding. So functional similarity might be enough, as alluded in sheep are nervous. :) Well if you're just talking about something you can put your dick in (or an alien can put their proboscis in), that's a (ahem) broad range of items, depending on your tastes (See A melon for ecstasy and The unrepentant necrophile for some suggestions for things one can have sex with in this sense, should one be so inclined). However your original reply (in blue above) certainly appeared to be talking about interbreeding. (Or did you mean humanoid forms are the only viable solution for fetishists who happen to get their kicks from anally probing members of other species ?) But anyway OK, aliens may want to have sex with humans, just as a human may want to have sex with orangutans - but generally they won't, because sexual attraction is fairly fine tuned, both by evolution and social norms (indeed it's so fine tuned that species that could in theory interbreed often don't) - and, at least in my experience, most humans don't even want to have sex with most other humans . never mind fancying members of a different species who will almost certainly give out
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
Dr. Marchal, do you ever get in conversations with your fellow academician, Clement Vidal? He's a philosopher at your University? Do you ever get into the Evo-Devo view? -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Jun 25, 2014 10:36 am Subject: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On 27 May 2014, at 01:37, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 12:53 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR Sent: Monday, May 26, 2014 2:51 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On 26 May 2014 23:31, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 1:12 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 25 May 2014 23:32, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens... Unless, of course life had already spread throughout our galaxy billions of years before our star was born and we are just the local Sol branch off the same galactic (or who knows perhaps even larger scale) tree of life. A plausible hypothesis – actually saw it a few nights ago on the Cosmos reboot is that when stars transit through interstellar gas clouds (the nurseries of new stars and planets) their attendant comet clouds become gravitationally perturbed, initiating an era of cometary bombardment. I think they're doing a fine job with that reboot, although probably not up to Bruno's standards, lol. Recently found a video where the host chats for 3 minutes on his take regarding atheism and agnosticism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rWvos Very nice. I am not astonished that Tyson is systematically renamed atheist on the wiki page on him (that he did not create, but try to correct, unsuccessfully!). In Brussels, the atheists claims that agnostics are atheists, but this can only create a confusion. Some claim that my problem in Brussels was that in the introduction to Conscience Mécanisme I make clear what I mean by agnostic (~[] g) and atheists ([]~g). Natural language confuse easily ~[] and []~. Modal logic is useful if only to explain that difference. Bruno PGC If a planet orbiting a star that is transiting one of these immense clouds get a good whack some of its life bearing rock can be hurled from the system and every once in a great while find its way to another water bearing planet orbiting some other star. This actually sounds plausible to me… that interstellar nurseries are also the cosmic engines for spreading advanced microbial life forms from planets of one star to other planets orbiting other stars…. Over the eons. Perhaps star systems have been exchanging DNA and microbial life since life first began somewhere in our galaxy and that this kind of emergent process is occurring in every galaxy in every universe with laws consonant with stable wet organic chemistry. Chris Makes sense, of course, but I'm not so sure. I don't think we know enough at this point to estimate the diversity of the solution space for biologically evolved entities with human-level intelligence or above. It could be that something very similar to us is the only viable solution, or the most likely solution. Functionally similar (perhaps), but certainly not genetically similar. We aren't even gentically similar enough to interbreed with any other species that evolved on the same planet under very similar conditions to us - for example, we are very closely related to chimps, but we still can't interbreed with them. Ok, but now you're making the requirements more stringent. We were talking about outer-space fetishists, not necessarily interbreeding. So functional similarity might be enough, as alluded in sheep are nervous. :) Well if you're just talking about something you can put your dick in (or an alien can put their proboscis in), that's a (ahem) broad range of items, depending on your tastes (See A melon for ecstasy and The unrepentant necrophile for some suggestions for things one can have sex with in this sense, should one be so inclined). However your original reply (in blue above) certainly appeared to be talking about interbreeding. (Or did you mean humanoid forms are the only viable solution for fetishists who happen to get their kicks from anally probing members of other species ?) But anyway OK, aliens may want to have sex with humans, just
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 6/25/2014 7:36 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Some claim that my problem in Brussels was that in the introduction to Conscience Mécanisme I make clear what I mean by agnostic (~[] g) and atheists ([]~g). Natural language confuse easily ~[] and []~. Modal logic is useful if only to explain that difference. It's more complicated than that. It depends on what you mean by g. Is it the god of theism, who is a person who created the world, answers prayers, and judges humans in an afterlife. Or is it the god of deism who created the world but doesn't act in it. Or is it one of the gods of mystics who is a principle or nature or an unnameable and unknowable something. Literally atheist is one who is not a theist, one who fails to believe in the god of theism. Thomas Jefferson was called an atheist because he believed in the god of deism. 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
For me, your analogy (which has been heard before of course) is simple to satisfy. The Peoples Republic of China, upon hearing John Clark's philosophical challenge, and diverts its lunar rover to the planet Uranus. All this to the chagrin of Mr. Clark, who yell's Not fair! Never the less, the space probe deposits a Ming dynasty teapot into lagrangian orbit. Clark's screams, and condition satisfied. Here's another way looking at things, to Mr. Aquinas's displeasure. There are many minds in the Hubble Volume, one of them is God, and it is the smartest and oldest mind. In fact this mind, developed the universe into a place that is occasionally fit for types of life, one of them carbon-water life. Say hello to God, Mr. Clark. Or to quote, Richard Dawkins, Yes, I can imagine there are god-like intelligences in the universe. Atheist, Agnostic, Believer? Sure. All three. Keaton always said, I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him. Well I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze. -Verbal Kint Concerning the existence of a china teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus, are you a teapot atheist or agnostic? Technically I guess I'd have to say I'm a teapot agnostic but in this case the difference between the 2 words is so small it's not worth talking about. And I found another short video by Tyson that I like better: -Original Message- From: John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Jun 25, 2014 12:23 pm Subject: Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 10:36 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: In Brussels, the atheists claims that agnostics are atheists, but this can only create a confusion. Concerning the existence of a china teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus, are you a teapot atheist or agnostic? Technically I guess I'd have to say I'm a teapot agnostic but in this case the difference between the 2 words is so small it's not worth talking about. And I found another short video by Tyson that I like better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5dSyT50Cs8 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.
Re: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On 26 June 2014 07:05, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Or to quote, Richard Dawkins, Yes, I can imagine there are god-like intelligences in the universe. Atheist, Agnostic, Believer? Sure. All three. (Or in other universes, or branches of the level 1 or level 3 mulitverse, or...) I don't know if god-like intelligences are possible in our universe, it's possible the laws of physics don't allow it. There are a lot of known / suspected limitations on computation for example, and a god that couldn't at least perform hypercomputations isn't really godlike IMHO. -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 7:11 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 6/25/2014 7:36 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Some claim that my problem in Brussels was that in the introduction to Conscience Mécanisme I make clear what I mean by agnostic (~[] g) and atheists ([]~g). Natural language confuse easily ~[] and []~. Modal logic is useful if only to explain that difference. It's more complicated than that. It depends on what you mean by g. Is it the god of theism, who is a person who created the world, answers prayers, and judges humans in an afterlife. Or is it the god of deism who created the world but doesn't act in it. Or is it one of the gods of mystics who is a principle or nature or an unnameable and unknowable something. Literally atheist is one who is not a theist, one who fails to believe in the god of theism. Thomas Jefferson was called an atheist because he believed in the god of deism. This use with Jefferson as example is particular. Atheism in most contexts is more broad, roughly the sense belief in non-existence of god/deities; where the kind of god matters less. Unless of course, this is some kind of US linguistic use/habbit or domain bound jargon. But if this is how you've always understood the term, then this explains why we've disagreed here before. ~[]g and []~g is independent of the kind of g. PGC 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. -- 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: Tyson is not atheist (was Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture
I think the term has broadened out since it was first introduced. Nowadays it appears to mean believing there are no supernatural forces of any kind. It also seems to (often implicitly) mean believing that the primitive materialist view of the physical world is correct, too. -- 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.
