subject:"Re\: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults\?"



On 20 Jan 2015, at 02:31, John Clark wrote:



On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 10:17 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:

 The question is not if God exists or not. But if
God = the physical universe?
God = a mathematical structure? Which one?
God = a dream by a universal machine?
God = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
God = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
God = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
God = the universal person?
God = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
God = Allah?
God = Jesus?
God = Krishna?
God = my tax collector?
God = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then made the  
humans to gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag of  
catnip?

etc.

 If you're correct about that, and I think you are, and it could  
mean a tax collector or the mathematical universe or anything in  
between then the word God has exactly ZERO information content  
and writing about God accomplishes nothing except cause excessive  
wear and tear on the O D and G keys on your computer.

And yet some people still insist on using the word. Go figure.


 That would be the case if God was defined by the disjunction above.

You wrote that disjunction not me.

 But God was defined by roots of the physical, psychological and  
spiritual reality.


That certainly is NOT the definition of God used by people who carve  
statues, or perform sacrifices or say prayers or built churches or  
mosques or temples. I very much doubt that the person who carved the  
Venus of Willendorf in 3 BC or the Venus of Hohle Fels in 4  
BC was thinking about the roots of the physical, psychological and  
spiritual reality; I believe all these people were thinking about a  
*PERSON* who is vastly more powerful than themselves who can get  
things done for them it you ask that *PERSON* in just the right way.


I use God in the sense of the platonist, who introduced the field of  
inquiry theology. It is explained in Plato's Parmenides, and is the  
base of the so called Neoplatonism. It can be related with the god of  
the philosophers. it generalize the sense of the fairy tales God, with  
the fairy tale and superstition threw away, as we do when we do  
science. In all case God is by definition the origin of things.

Science always simplifies maximally the notion, to ease the proof.





And I still don't understand what you mean by spiritual reality  
and physical reality and the examples you gave don't have any  
logical consistency as far as I can tell.


?




It is not clear if mathematics is the root of physics or physics is  
the root of mathematics.


Because you stop at step 3. You would be able to understand that  
computationalism makes physical reality an aspect of the arithmetical  
reality. That is the point of the UDA, which you pretend having  
refutated, but nobody has been able to understand your argument.





I know for a fact that the idea of the sun exists and I can tell you  
lots of specific things about the idea of the sun, and use those  
ideas to generate yet more ideas about the sun, that seems pretty  
down to earth concrete and physical to me.


Concrete? You said abstract the other day. You describe the  
aristotelian intuition, but with computationalism and quantum  
mechanics, we are lead to question this intuition.



All I know about is ideas and ideas are information and I would say  
that information is physical, but you would call it abstract and non- 
physical, in contrast I can say virtually nothing about the sun  
itself but you would say that was physical and non-abstract.


I use the terms in the common sense. Physics is about predicting  
measurable numbers, in a 3p or 1p-plural way. It involves sharable  
measuring apparatus. Mathematics is about mathematical objects, like  
numbers and functions, with or without applications a priori to the  
physical reality or the observable.


The theory of everything is Robinson Arithmetic (RA). It does not  
assume any physical things, and explains exactly what physics is.


Bruno

PS I have to go, and will answer other posts this evening, or tomorrow.





   John K Clark

l

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 19 Jan 2015, at 19:41, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/19/2015 6:35 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
A super powerful mind (or person) simulating some reality could  
of course cause the simulation to deviate from its physical laws.


But in a simulation, not in reality.


So you do (bad) theology. You talk like if we knew already what  
reality is. But with comp reality is anything Turing complete. So  
here you do an implicit metaphysical assumption, which is  
inconsistent with mechanism. No problem ... as long as you are  
aware of this.


I was being sarcastic, since Jason other places assumes simulation  
and reality are indistinguishable.


It is indistinguishable is the first person direct apprehension. But  
for someone able to test the statistics on its experiment outcomes, it  
is testable relatively to comp. If the physics does not conforms to  
the computationalist logic of the observable, it means that either  
classical computationalism is false, or that we are in an emulation à- 
la-Boström (to distinguish it from the infinite UD emulations). The  
already done quantum testings confirm a posteriori that we might live  
at the base emulation (by the UD or the whole of arithmetic). That  
base is not really emulable in the usual sense, as it is a sum on  
infinities of emulations in the UD.


Bruno








Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 19 Jan 2015, at 19:52, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/19/2015 6:53 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
My belief in God is trivial. All machine introspecting are  
confronted to it, and from outside, in the metatheory, we can see  
that they can confused it (correctly, or not) with truth.


The problem of the aristotelians is that they often take for  
granted the physical reality, which is comprehensible when doing  
physics, but when doing theology, the physical universe is an  
hypothesis, and as such, there are no evidences for it.


That's fine, but it has no bearing on the relation of atheism to  
Christianity.


Then you should have no problem with using god for definition of  
god larger than the abramanic god.


The only problem with using god for definition of god (large or  
small) is that it's circular.  You repeatedly write things like  
above, My belief in God is trivial. All machine introspecting are  
confronted to it, and from outside, in the metatheory, we can see  
that they can confused it (correctly, or not) with truth.  Where  
God is it, but there is no definition.  The closest I've seen to  
you defining yourgod is the unprovable truths of an axiomatic  
system or the fundamental basis of all being.  The former is  
former is fairly clear and I can see how a self-referential system  
could confront it.  The latter may be a description without a  
referent and I don't see why a self-referential system would  
necessarily confront it.


This is explained by the fact that, as Gödel already knew, machines  
can prove their own incompleteness. Thay can intuit and infer a notion  
of truth from the fact that they can prove t - ~[]t, and actually  
inferred, from their tries here and now that they can't prove their  
consistency, and thus bet on ~[]t, and eventually bet on t as the  
simplest explanation of why they cannot prove t. So they can develop  
an intuition of truth, and undersatnd that they cannot define it, and  
that there are many true propositions that they cannot justify  
rationally, etc.


Bruno





Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 19 Jan 2015, at 19:58, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/19/2015 7:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 19 Jan 2015, at 01:11, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/18/2015 10:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 16 Jan 2015, at 10:32, LizR wrote:

Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at  
least having an idea of, what God is. Personally I don't  
disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea highly unlikely and  
don't find that it contributes anything to discussions such as  
why is there something rather than nothing? So I am agnostic,  
as I am about all the other gods, not to mention Santa, who I  
recently saw on Doctor Who.


(Of course I do believe in Daleks...)


If you believe in Daleks, you believe enough to believe in the  
God of the machine. We need it, to use the theory of machine's  
dream as an explanation why we see physical universes and  
sometimes pink elephants,  despite nothing like  
that really exists.


I give the math to see if we get right the number of pink  
elephants in the many-dreams (by number) interpretation of  
elementary arithmetic (0 I guess, and hope).


Keep in mind that God is defined by being the object of the  
theory of everything, or, by definition, the answer we look for  
with the question why is there something instead of nothing?.


The question is not if God exists or not. But if


But that's silly.  You presume God exists, but with no description,


With no name or description in the sense of the logicians. But I  
gave an informal and general meaning for the term: it is what we  
search, the origin of reality, or the explanation of reality, or  
the better explanation that we can find for reality, etc.




so the only task is to find a description to go with the word  
God.  If you're going to ask whether something exists that  
cannot be defined ostensively, then you need to define it by  
description.  Otherwise it's just wordplay.  Compare:


The question isn't whether Paul Bunyan exists or not.  But if

Paul Bunyan = the physical universe?
Paul Bunyan = a mathematical structure? Which one?
Paul Bunyan = a dream by a universal machine?
Paul Bunyan = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
Paul Bunyan = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
Paul Bunyan = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
Paul Bunyan = the universal person?
Paul Bunyan = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
Paul Bunyan = Allah?
Paul Bunyan = Jesus?
Paul Bunyan = Krishna?
Paul Bunyan = my tax collector?
Paul Bunyan = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then  
made the humans to gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad  
bag of catnip?

etc.



Except that with God, people understand the questions, but with  
Paul Bunyan, it looks like funny, unless you have a reason to think  
that Paul Bunyan is at the origin of reality. But then you must  
provide some supplementary explanations. In that case Paul Bunyan  
would be another name of God,in the general sense, but it looks too  
much like a precise name, which does not fit with most axioms  
accepted for God.

I'm afraid you continue playing with words.


On the contrary, you are playing with words.  God is too much like a  
precise name.


Since 523. In our region of the world. When the subject has been made  
into dogma, and used to control people, so tehere is no point in even  
mentioning such theories, except that we don't have to infer from this  
that they are completely wrong on all aspects.


I use God in the precise vague mening of the Parmenides, plotinus. At  
the start, we are neutral if that god is just the physical universe,  
or a mathematical reality, or a cuttlefish.




It is the name theist pray to and expect miracles from and  
capitalize as a proper noun and kill for.


That is the current theory, but it is certainly defectuous at many  
level, if only for its lack of clarity, contradictions, etc.




Yet you use it instead of nous or aperion or other less loaded terms.


Because the term god describes often the three platonic god= the One,  
the Nous, and the Universal Soul; or the aristotelian two gods: the  
creator and the creation.


Scientific attitude invites to use the terms in the most general  
sense. Then we can add precision, revised our notions with the facts,  
etc.


I use a definition of God which is understandable by everyone. The  
reason, or the cause (in a large sense) of the observable and  
feelable in both its conscious and material aspects. For example, in  
that case, materialism can be described by the equation God =  
Primitive Matter. Idealism by God = primitive consciousness. Neutral  
monism by God is neither matter, nor ideas or consciousness, but  
something else, etc.  The term reality would be OK, except it has  
already a more refined meaning in the literature, which could lead to  
misleading.


Bruno






Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:20 AM, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote:

 stop using that ridiculous and meaningless art term abstract. [...]
 Nothing is abstract.


So you're saying that the word abstract should be removed from the
English language because it will never be needed?!

 John K Clark

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-20 Thread 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List



On 19 Jan 2015, at 20:36, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/19/2015 7:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 19 Jan 2015, at 04:51, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/18/2015 7:24 PM, LizR wrote:

On 19 January 2015 at 07:14, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 1/18/2015 12:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


Because 2+2=4, and there's nothing you (or anyone/anything) can  
do to change that.


Sure there is.  2+2=0 in mod 4 arithmetic - which is good for  
describing some things.


I hope you are being flippant and don't really think that  
disproves what Jason has said!


If in doubt consider whether the phrase in mod 4 arithmetic was  
necessary to what you wrote. If it is, then arithmetic remains  
necessarily so until you can come up with something that is self- 
contradictory without any such qualifiers being required.


As you must know from my other posts, I don't consider self- 
consistency to entail existence.  So the fact that 2+2=4 is true  
doesn't imply anything about existence.



We suppose that you agree with elementary arithmetic, and notably  
with the use of existential quantification.


From 2+2= 4 it is valid to deduce Ex(x + x = 4).

And as we have chosen arithmetic to define the basic ontology, it  
means that we have the existence of 2 in the basic ontology. The  
rest is playing with words.



You know very well that the E of symbolic logic is not the same as  
exists in English.  There are different meanings of existence  
determined by context.


That is my point, so each time we use exist we must give the  
context. Now, in the TOE, one notion of existence can be more  
fundamental than another. With computationalism, we can take the E  
of the logicians doing arithmetic, and all other notion of existence  
are recovered by the modal variant of it, like the physical existence  
is sum up in
[]Ex[]P(x), which is itself well defined in arithmetic (without  
modal operator) but by a much longer sentences, or collections of  
sentences.






Ex(x+x=4) just means there is number


OK.




as defined by Peano's axioms that provably satisfies the expression.



Not at all. That means that PA believes Ex(x+x=4).

Ex(x+x=4) means that N satisfies the idea that there is some number n  
having the property that n + n = 4.


The meaning is in the semantics, not in the theory.




It no more proves that 2 exists in the general sense than  
Ex(x=Holmes sidekick) proves that Dr. Watson exists.


OK, but with computationalism we use the result that we don't need to  
assume anything more than 0, 1, 2, (together with the addition and  
multiplication laws).


So, once and for all, we accept that our most primitive object, which  
really exist are 0, 1, 2, ... and nothing else.


We would use string theory as fundamental theory, we would assume the  
strings. But with comp any theory will do, and the less physical it  
looks, the more we can explain the physical without assuming it, which  
is the goal. (and the necessity for solving the mind-body problem).


Now, we could us S and K, and (K,K), ((K,K),S), etc.  instead of 0,  
and s(0) ..., as physics and consciousness have been shown to not  
depend on the particular ontology used.














That you consider mod 4 to be a qualifier is just a convention  
of language.  If we were talking about time what's six hours after  
1900: answer 0100, because there the convention is mod 24.  But my  
serious point is that arithmetic is a model of countable things we  
invented and it's not some magic that controls what exists.


OK, but then computationalism is false. What is the magic thing you  
believe in making a brain non Turing emulable?


I think a brain is Turing emulable by a physical device.


First a brain is provably emulable by many non physical device, using  
the original definition of emulable, by the mathematicians who  
discovered the concept. Second, even physucally emulable relies on  
this mathematical definition, and if that definition leads to many  
problems (already discussed a lot here, like Putnama-Mallah  
implementation problems, the mind-body problem itself, etc.).





  You purport to show that numbers alone are sufficient, but I find  
this doubtful.  I think your numbers must also instantiate physics  
to emulate thought.


Then UDA is wrong somewhere, or you reify magical matter, and a  
magical mind, and a magical identity thesis.





  In which case it a physical as well as mental theory.  That's a  
good thing, but I think it's a theory of reality - not necessarily a  
proof that reality must be that.


It has to be like that, or you ascribe to universal machine an ability  
to distinguish, in direct introspective way, physical from  
arithmetical. How? The MGA shows that you *can* do that, only by  
adding non Turing emulable magic to both mind and matter.


Bruno







Brent



Bruno



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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

  From: John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com
 To: everything-list@googlegroups.com 
 Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2015 9:56 AM
 Subject: Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how 
the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:20 AM, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote:

 stop using that ridiculous and meaningless art term abstract. [...] Nothing 
 is abstract. 

So you're saying that the word abstract should be removed from the English 
language because it will never be needed?! 

Except when an abstraction needs to be expressed and talked about abstractly, 
without abstractions and being able to speak of abstract entities modern 
information science and templatizable data structures would not exist. -Chris

 John K Clark

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-20 Thread Kim Jones





 On 21 Jan 2015, at 4:56 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:20 AM, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote:
 
  stop using that ridiculous and meaningless art term abstract. [...] 
  Nothing is abstract.
 
 So you're saying that the word abstract should be removed from the English 
 language because it will never be needed?! 
 
  John K Clark

It's not a word that should be used, no. It implies that something is taking a 
quick holiday in the Platonic realm, merely for the benefit of the researcher 
who will fairly soon remove those parentheses and pluck said object out of 
abstraction land and back into the real world. It's another example of how 
embedded in our culture is the idea that the non-physical exists, yet this word 
seems to sanctify such an anomaly for a physicalist, momentarily allowing him 
to use it with impunity. Platonists have no need for such a term because 
everything is abstract already. The problem of needing such a word to make it 
possible for a physicalist to talk about the immaterial without being 
kneecapped by other physicalists occurs only in a material universe.

I believe there exist words that are dangerously misleading and this is one of 
them. I equally believe there are great many more words which should exist but 
which don't, except as a need.

There are only needs. Needs are proof of the existence of persons. These needs 
get expressed as beliefs which are frozen as words. Needs, however, evolve 
along with the environment they relate to and some needs can even or should 
even evaporate as our knowledge increases. Language continually lugs around 
ancient needs frozen solid. This is a very great problem in communication. 

K


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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-20 Thread meekerdb


On 1/20/2015 9:59 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Ex(x+x=4) just means there is number


OK.




as defined by Peano's axioms that provably satisfies the expression.



Not at all. That means that PA believes Ex(x+x=4).


?? But you use []p to equally mean provable p and believes p, so what does it mean PA 
believes Ex(x+x=4) other than it is provable?


Brent



Ex(x+x=4) means that N satisfies the idea that there is some number n having the 
property that n + n = 4.


The meaning is in the semantics, not in the theory.


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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-20 Thread meekerdb


On 1/20/2015 9:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
The only problem with using god for definition of god (large or small) is that it's 
circular. You repeatedly write things like above, My belief in God is trivial. All 
machine introspecting are confronted to it, and from outside, in the metatheory, we can 
see that they can confused it (correctly, or not) with truth.  Where God is it, but 
there is no definition.  The closest I've seen to you defining your god is the 
unprovable truths of an axiomatic system or the fundamental basis of all being. The 
former is former is fairly clear and I can see how a self-referential system could 
confront it.  The latter may be a description without a referent and I don't see why 
a self-referential system would necessarily confront it.


This is explained by the fact that, as Gödel already knew, machines can prove their own 
incompleteness. Thay can intuit and infer a notion of truth from the fact that they can 
prove t - ~[]t, and actually inferred, from their tries here and now that they 
can't prove their consistency, and thus bet on ~[]t, and eventually bet on t as the 
simplest explanation of why they cannot prove t. So they can develop an intuition of 
truth, and undersatnd that they cannot define it, and that there are many true 
propositions that they cannot justify rationally, etc.


Suppose they prove (which is likely true of all humans) that they are inconsistent, on 
some point, but avoid ex falso quodlibet?


Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-20 Thread 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List

Then it is a good thing that computer science did not listen to you Kim, 
regarding the concept of abstraction and abstract classes {e.g. templates 
for concrete entities fully implementing the abstracted methods and properties} 
being -- in your opinion -- useless.Abstraction is one of the guiding 
principles of good software design; without abstraction and the ability to 
design abstract partially implemented classes, building good extensible 
software would become much harder to do.In an informatic sense an entity is 
abstract when it cannot be instantiated (until the abstract bits are given a 
concrete implementation by a derived concrete class.The ultimate abstraction, 
in computer science is the interface, which defines a pure contract and is 
without implementation. Interfaces can never e instantiated into real objects; 
only the concrete implementation of the interface can ever exist in reality. 
However, the interface does provide the guiding contract; it is the template 
which the implementing concrete instance must implement or fulfill. Interfaces 
and abstract base classes are both exceedingly important and useful in modern 
software design.Layers of abstraction are of central importance to the 
architecture and building of non trivial software. If you value software and 
all the products and services software makes possible then you too value 
abstraction and the ability to think and interact in terms of abstractions 
whether or not you are aware of them. -Chris
  From: Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au
 To: everything-list@googlegroups.com everything-list@googlegroups.com 
 Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2015 1:32 PM
 Subject: Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how 
the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?
   




On 21 Jan 2015, at 4:56 am, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote:


On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:20 AM, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote:


 stop using that ridiculous and meaningless art term abstract. [...] Nothing 
 is abstract. 

So you're saying that the word abstract should be removed from the English 
language because it will never be needed?! 

 John K Clark

It's not a word that should be used, no. It implies that something is taking a 
quick holiday in the Platonic realm, merely for the benefit of the researcher 
who will fairly soon remove those parentheses and pluck said object out of 
abstraction land and back into the real world. It's another example of how 
embedded in our culture is the idea that the non-physical exists, yet this word 
seems to sanctify such an anomaly for a physicalist, momentarily allowing him 
to use it with impunity. Platonists have no need for such a term because 
everything is abstract already. The problem of needing such a word to make it 
possible for a physicalist to talk about the immaterial without being 
kneecapped by other physicalists occurs only in a material universe.
I believe there exist words that are dangerously misleading and this is one of 
them. I equally believe there are great many more words which should exist but 
which don't, except as a need.
There are only needs. Needs are proof of the existence of persons. These needs 
get expressed as beliefs which are frozen as words. Needs, however, evolve 
along with the environment they relate to and some needs can even or should 
even evaporate as our knowledge increases. Language continually lugs around 
ancient needs frozen solid. This is a very great problem in communication. 
K

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 I use God in the sense of the platonist, who introduced the field of
 inquiry theology.


Not that it matters much what some guy who lived 2500 years ago thought but
Plato didn't believe in God he believed in The Gods, more specifically he
believed in something he called Forms, like Gods they were perfect and
eternal, but unlike Gods they were not alive and didn't move or think.

 In all case God is by definition the origin of things.


Then God could be stupider than the stupidest person you ever met, be
less conscious than a earthworm, and have less effect on your day to day
life than your pet hamster. Kind of a pathetic thing to confer the lofty
title of God on don't you think.

 It can be related with the god of the philosophers.


The God of the philosophers has had no effect on world history or on
current events and is so flabby fuzzy and general as to be utterly useless.
The God as a person idea has had a enormous and enormously destructive
impact on world history and current events

  And I still don't understand what you mean by spiritual reality and
 physical reality and the examples you gave  don't have any logical
 consistency as far as I can tell.



 ?


!

  It is not clear if mathematics is the root of physics or physics is the
 root of mathematics.



 Because you stop at step 3


Because you make blunder at step 3.

 You would be able to understand that computationalism makes physical
 reality an aspect of the arithmetical reality. That is the point of the UDA,


You forget IHA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uda

 The theory of everything is Robinson Arithmetic (RA).


That cannot be because induction is something and unlike Peano Arithmetic
Robinson has nothing to say about induction.

  John K Clark

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015  Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 I use God in the sense of the platonist, who introduced the field of
 inquiry theology.


Not that it matters much what some guy who lived 2500 years ago thought but
Plato didn't believe in God he believed in The Gods, more specifically he
believed in something he called Forms, like Gods they were perfect and
eternal, but unlike Gods they were not alive and didn't move or think.

 In all case God is by definition the origin of things.


Then God could be stupider than the stupidest person you ever met, be
less conscious than a earthworm, and have less effect on your day to day
life than your pet hamster. Kind of a pathetic thing to confer the lofty
title of God on don't you think.

 It can be related with the god of the philosophers.


The God of the philosophers has had no effect on world history or on
current events and is so flabby fuzzy and general as to be utterly useless.
The God as a person idea has had a enormous and enormously destructive
impact on world history or on current events

  And I still don't understand what you mean by spiritual reality and
 physical reality and the examples you gave  don't have any logical
 consistency as far as I can tell.



 ?


!

  It is not clear if mathematics is the root of physics or physics is the
 root of mathematics.



 Because you stop at step 3


Because you make blunder at step 3.

 You would be able to understand that computationalism makes physical
 reality an aspect of the arithmetical reality. That is the point of the UDA,


You forget IHA:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uda

 The theory of everything is Robinson Arithmetic (RA).


That cannot be because induction is something and unlike Peano Arithmetic
Robinson has nothing to say about induction.

  John K Clark

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015   Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote:

  So you're saying that the word abstract should be removed from the
 English language because it will never be needed?!



 It's not a word that should be used, no. [...]. Platonists have no need
 for such a term  [...] I believe there exist words that are dangerously
 misleading and this is one of them.


It sound to me like you could get a job in the Ministry Of Truth in George
Orwell's 1984, they were developing a new language called Newspeak, this
is what one of the ministry's experts on that language has to say about it
as he explains it to the book's hero Winston Smith:

Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller
every year. It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the
great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of
nouns that can be got rid of as well. [...] We're destroying words --
scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting the language
down to the bone.

Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of
thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible,
because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that
can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning
rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten [.
. . . ] The process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead.
Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a
little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse  r
committing thought-crime. It's merely a question of self-discipline,
reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that.

  John K Clark

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-19 Thread John Clark

On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 10:17 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

  The question is not if God exists or not. But if
 God = the physical universe?
 God = a mathematical structure? Which one?
 God = a dream by a universal machine?
 God = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
 God = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
 God = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
 God = the universal person?
 God = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
 God = Allah?
 God = Jesus?
 God = Krishna?
 God = my tax collector?
 God = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then made the humans
 to gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag of catnip?
 etc.


  If you're correct about that, and I think you are, and it could mean a
 tax collector or the mathematical universe or anything in between then the
 word God has exactly ZERO information content and writing about God
 accomplishes nothing except cause excessive wear and tear on the O D and G
 keys on your computer.
 And yet some people still insist on using the word. Go figure.


  That would be the case if God was defined by the disjunction above.


You wrote that disjunction not me.

 But God was defined by roots of the physical, psychological and
spiritual reality.

That certainly is NOT the definition of God used by people who carve
statues, or perform sacrifices or say prayers or built churches or mosques
or temples. I very much doubt that the person who carved the Venus of
Willendorf in 3 BC or the Venus of Hohle Fels in 4 BC was thinking
about the roots of the physical, psychological and spiritual reality; I
believe all these people were thinking about a *PERSON* who is vastly more
powerful than themselves who can get things done for them it you ask that
*PERSON* in just the right way.

And I still don't understand what you mean by spiritual reality and
physical reality and the examples you gave don't have any logical
consistency as far as I can tell. It is not clear if mathematics is the
root of physics or physics is the root of mathematics. I know for a fact
that the idea of the sun exists and I can tell you lots of specific things
about the idea of the sun, and use those ideas to generate yet more ideas
about the sun, that seems pretty down to earth concrete and physical to me.
All I know about is ideas and ideas are information and I would say that
information is physical, but you would call it abstract and non-physical,
in contrast I can say virtually nothing about the sun itself but you would
say that was physical and non-abstract.

   John K Clark

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 18 Jan 2015, at 00:56, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/17/2015 3:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net  
wrote:

On 1/17/2015 2:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:
Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least  
having an idea of, what God is.


I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God without  
knowing, or at least having an idea of what reality is, for unless  
one claims to know the extent of reality, how can one suppose to  
know what it does or doesn't contain?


You can easily know that things with self contradictory properties  
are not in reality.


I agree with that.

If something has properties that are inconsistent with observation  
that is fairly strong evidence it doesn't exist.


Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can, but
does not want to; or he cannot, and does not want to.  If he
wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not
want to, he is wicked.  If he neither can, nor wants to, he is
both powerless and wicked. But if God can abolish evil, and wants
to, then how comes evil in the world?'
  --- Epicurus

That's a nice example of an application of rational thought towards  
the advancement of theology. You've proven that an omnipotent God  
with the power and desire to prevent any bad thing from happening  
does not exist.


What else might we have been able to prove or disprove if theology  
had remained open to free inquiry over the past several millennia?



And then there are things that are consistent with both logic and  
observation, but are very unlikely on our best theories of how the  
world works, e.g. teapots orbiting Jupiter.  Are you agnostic  
about the teapot orbiting Jupiter?


To disbelieve in a particular thing orbiting Jupiter requires a  
working theory of our solar system.


To disbelieve in a particular thing existing at all (neither in  
this universe, nor in any other place in reality) requires a  
working theory of reality. What is yours?


Does agnostic just mean I don't know for certain or does it  
mean I'm equally disposed to believe or disbelieve. or I think  
it's impossible to decide the question.


That's a good question. I think a definitive answer can be drawn  
from one's working theory of reality, but I don't know if an answer  
to that question is decidable or not, though perhaps it's possible  
to accumulate evidence towards one. So far I think man has made  
little progress in this endeavor, but Bruno and Tegmark seem to be  
farther ahead than most towards developing one. Working under those  
theories, I might say I am more of a rational theist in the sense  
that I can identify at least three things one might call god within  
those ontologies. However, as to which theory of reality is  
correct, I might call myself agnostic (even though I might be in  
the high 90's percentage wise leaning towards it, I could never be  
certain).







Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea  
highly unlikely


Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception you are  
assuming here?),


When I write God with caps, I mean a god who is a superpowerful  
person and who wants to be worshipped; not some abstract organizing  
principle or the set of true propositions.


Subtract and who wants to be worshiped then re-answer that  
question.  Why should we suppose that super-powerful minds are not  
likely to exist in reality?


There's a difference between super-powerful minds and a  
superpowerful person.  By superpowerful person I meant one who  
could transcend physical laws, i.e. perform miracles.  By the very  
definition of miracles these are not reliably observed and so the  
empirical evidence makes their existence very unlikely.  A  
superpowerful mind might just be a human mind implemented in an  
electronic medium so that it was millions of times faster - but was  
still a Turing machine.  It couldn't do miracles.





also, to what degree do you hold the main idea the everything list  
is meant to discuss, to be true (or likely)?


I'm evenly divided on that question.

So then would you not also be evenly divided on the existence of  
superpoweful people who want to be worshipped


No, see above on superpowerful people.

(assuming the two are not mutually exclusive properties and hence  
not logically impossible) then if every possible universe exists,  
some are sure to contain superpoweful people who want to be  
worshipped.






and don't find that it contributes anything to discussions such as  
why is there something rather than nothing?


But god is the supposed answer to that very question.


God is also supposed to answer the question, How should humans  
behave?


Yes, and the conception of God as the one mind to which we are all  
a part does provide a foundation for an ethical framework (not  
unlike the golden rule or karma).


Yes, and

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 18 Jan 2015, at 08:10, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/17/2015 9:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 5:56 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net  
wrote:

On 1/17/2015 3:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net  
wrote:

On 1/17/2015 2:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:
Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least  
having an idea of, what God is.


I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God without  
knowing, or at least having an idea of what reality is, for  
unless one claims to know the extent of reality, how can one  
suppose to know what it does or doesn't contain?


You can easily know that things with self contradictory properties  
are not in reality.


I agree with that.

If something has properties that are inconsistent with observation  
that is fairly strong evidence it doesn't exist.


Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can, but
does not want to; or he cannot, and does not want to.  If he
wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not
want to, he is wicked.  If he neither can, nor wants to, he is
both powerless and wicked. But if God can abolish evil, and wants
to, then how comes evil in the world?'
  --- Epicurus

That's a nice example of an application of rational thought  
towards the advancement of theology. You've proven that an  
omnipotent God with the power and desire to prevent any bad thing  
from happening does not exist.


What else might we have been able to prove or disprove if theology  
had remained open to free inquiry over the past several millennia?



And then there are things that are consistent with both logic and  
observation, but are very unlikely on our best theories of how the  
world works, e.g. teapots orbiting Jupiter.  Are you agnostic  
about the teapot orbiting Jupiter?


To disbelieve in a particular thing orbiting Jupiter requires a  
working theory of our solar system.


To disbelieve in a particular thing existing at all (neither in  
this universe, nor in any other place in reality) requires a  
working theory of reality. What is yours?


Does agnostic just mean I don't know for certain or does it  
mean I'm equally disposed to believe or disbelieve. or I think  
it's impossible to decide the question.


That's a good question. I think a definitive answer can be drawn  
from one's working theory of reality, but I don't know if an  
answer to that question is decidable or not, though perhaps it's  
possible to accumulate evidence towards one. So far I think man  
has made little progress in this endeavor, but Bruno and Tegmark  
seem to be farther ahead than most towards developing one. Working  
under those theories, I might say I am more of a rational theist  
in the sense that I can identify at least three things one might  
call god within those ontologies. However, as to which theory of  
reality is correct, I might call myself agnostic (even though I  
might be in the high 90's percentage wise leaning towards it, I  
could never be certain).







Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea  
highly unlikely


Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception you  
are assuming here?),


When I write God with caps, I mean a god who is a superpowerful  
person and who wants to be worshipped; not some abstract  
organizing principle or the set of true propositions.


Subtract and who wants to be worshiped then re-answer that  
question.  Why should we suppose that super-powerful minds are not  
likely to exist in reality?


There's a difference between super-powerful minds and a  
superpowerful person.  By superpowerful person I meant one who  
could transcend physical laws, i.e. perform miracles.



A super powerful mind (or person) simulating some reality could of  
course cause the simulation to deviate from its physical laws.


But in a simulation, not in reality.


So you do (bad) theology. You talk like if we knew already what  
reality is. But with comp reality is anything Turing complete. So here  
you do an implicit metaphysical assumption, which is inconsistent with  
mechanism. No problem ... as long as you are aware of this.









  By the very definition of miracles these are not reliably  
observed and so the empirical evidence makes their existence very  
unlikely.


You could only draw this conclusion if you believed it highly  
likely that should any miracle have occurred in this universe,  
humankind would have observed it.


No, I only have to assume that human observations are a fair sample  
of the world I'm trying to draw conclusions about.  Since this is  
the world that humans experience, that condition is fulfilled.


This alone would be highly dubious given how small an extent in  
time and space (compared to the universe as a whole) humanity has  
kept reliable records.


You seem to think one needs to have

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 19 Jan 2015, at 01:11, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/18/2015 10:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 16 Jan 2015, at 10:32, LizR wrote:

Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least  
having an idea of, what God is. Personally I don't disbelieve in  
God, I merely find the idea highly unlikely and don't find that it  
contributes anything to discussions such as why is there  
something rather than nothing? So I am agnostic, as I am about  
all the other gods, not to mention Santa, who I recently saw on  
Doctor Who.


(Of course I do believe in Daleks...)


If you believe in Daleks, you believe enough to believe in the God  
of the machine. We need it, to use the theory of machine's dream as  
an explanation why we see physical universes and sometimes pink  
elephants, despite nothing like that really exists.


I give the math to see if we get right the number of pink elephants  
in the many-dreams (by number) interpretation of elementary  
arithmetic (0 I guess, and hope).


Keep in mind that God is defined by being the object of the theory  
of everything, or, by definition, the answer we look for with the  
question why is there something instead of nothing?.


The question is not if God exists or not. But if


But that's silly.  You presume God exists, but with no description,  
so the only task is to find a description to go with the word  
God.  If you're going to ask whether something exists that cannot  
be defined ostensively, then you need to define it by description.   
Otherwise it's just wordplay.  Compare:


The question isn't whether Paul Bunyan exists or not.  But if

Paul Bunyan = the physical universe?
Paul Bunyan = a mathematical structure? Which one?
Paul Bunyan = a dream by a universal machine?
Paul Bunyan = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
Paul Bunyan = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
Paul Bunyan = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
Paul Bunyan = the universal person?
Paul Bunyan = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
Paul Bunyan = Allah?
Paul Bunyan = Jesus?
Paul Bunyan = Krishna?
Paul Bunyan = my tax collector?
Paul Bunyan = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then  
made the humans to gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag  
of catnip?

etc.

Brent



God = the physical universe?
God = a mathematical structure? Which one?
God = a dream by a universal machine?
God = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
God = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
God = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
God = the universal person?
God = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
God = Allah?
God = Jesus?
God = Krishna?
God = my tax collector?
God = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then made the  
humans to gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag of  
catnip?

etc.

Theo in greek run around the idea of contemplation, examination  
and speculation. A religion is only an as large as possible  
conception of reality, and God is a nickname for what is real,


That's disingenuous.  Reality is a common word, so we don't need a  
nickname.  You seem to be just making up excuses to use God.


I missed that paragraph.

The problem is that reality is easily confused with physical  
reality, because we are (still) in the aristotelian era. The best  
general term for reality (or source of reality) is God, with a  
paragraph reminding us that those who invented the concept God, One,  
were already asking themselves if it is a person or a thing. Using  
God reminds us that we don't know. Even with comp, a personal god is  
not entirely excluded. Open problem. That was an open problem for  
Plotinus too, although he contradicts himself a little bit on that  
(difficult) question.


We might try to refocus on the points, as those vocabulary problem are  
only distracting us.


Bruno







Brent



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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 19 Jan 2015, at 04:44, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/18/2015 7:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 12:14 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net  
wrote:

On 1/18/2015 12:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 1:10 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net  
wrote:

On 1/17/2015 9:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 5:56 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net  
wrote:

On 1/17/2015 3:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net  
wrote:

On 1/17/2015 2:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:
Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at  
least having an idea of, what God is.


I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God without  
knowing, or at least having an idea of what reality is, for  
unless one claims to know the extent of reality, how can one  
suppose to know what it does or doesn't contain?


You can easily know that things with self contradictory  
properties are not in reality.


I agree with that.

If something has properties that are inconsistent with  
observation that is fairly strong evidence it doesn't exist.


Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can, but
does not want to; or he cannot, and does not want to.  If he
wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not
want to, he is wicked.  If he neither can, nor wants to, he is
both powerless and wicked. But if God can abolish evil, and wants
to, then how comes evil in the world?'
  --- Epicurus

That's a nice example of an application of rational thought  
towards the advancement of theology. You've proven that an  
omnipotent God with the power and desire to prevent any bad  
thing from happening does not exist.


What else might we have been able to prove or disprove if  
theology had remained open to free inquiry over the past several  
millennia?



And then there are things that are consistent with both logic  
and observation, but are very unlikely on our best theories of  
how the world works, e.g. teapots orbiting Jupiter.  Are you  
agnostic about the teapot orbiting Jupiter?


To disbelieve in a particular thing orbiting Jupiter requires a  
working theory of our solar system.


To disbelieve in a particular thing existing at all (neither in  
this universe, nor in any other place in reality) requires a  
working theory of reality. What is yours?


Does agnostic just mean I don't know for certain or does it  
mean I'm equally disposed to believe or disbelieve. or I  
think it's impossible to decide the question.


That's a good question. I think a definitive answer can be drawn  
from one's working theory  
of   
reality, but I don't know if an answer to that question is  
decidable or not, though perhaps it's possible to accumulate  
evidence towards one. So far I think man has made little  
progress in this endeavor, but Bruno and Tegmark seem to be  
farther ahead than most towards developing one. Working under  
those theories, I might say I am more of a rational theist in  
the sense that I can identify at least three things one might  
call god within those ontologies. However, as to which theory of  
reality is correct, I might call myself agnostic (even though I  
might be in the high 90's percentage wise leaning towards it, I  
could never be certain).







Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea  
highly unlikely


Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception you  
are assuming here?),


When I write God with caps, I mean a god who is a  
superpowerful person and who wants to be worshipped; not some  
abstract organizing principle or the set of true propositions.


Subtract and who wants to be worshiped then re-answer that  
question.  Why should we suppose that super-powerful minds are  
not likely to exist in reality?


There's a difference between super-powerful minds and a  
superpowerful person.  By superpowerful person I meant one who  
could transcend physical laws, i.e. perform miracles.



A super powerful mind (or person) simulating some reality could  
of course cause the simulation to deviate from its physical laws.


But in a simulation, not in reality.


The simulation is as much reality to those in the simulation as  
our reality is to us, to the point where it's impossible for  
anyone to know whether they're in a simulation or not.




  By the very definition of miracles these are not reliably  
observed and so the empirical evidence makes their existence very  
unlikely.


You could only draw this conclusion if you believed it highly  
likely that should any miracle have occurred in this universe,  
humankind would have observed it.


No, I only have to assume that human observations are a fair  
sample of the world I'm trying to draw conclusions about.  Since  
this is the world that humans experience, that condition is

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 19 Jan 2015, at 07:41, Kim Jones wrote:





On 19 Jan 2015, at 4:40 pm, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote:

That you consider mod 4 to be a qualifier is just a convention of  
language.  If we were talking about time what's six hours after  
1900: answer 0100, because there the convention is mod 24.  But my  
serious point is that arithmetic is a model of countable things we  
invented and it's not some magic that controls what exists.


What leads you to say relations between numbers are invented rather  
than discovered? Will the person who proves (or disproves) the  
Goldbach conjecture invent that truth (or falsehood), or will he  
discover it?


Jason


This is indeed the core issue. It seems that whether you believe in  
this or not is really a matter of personal taste because it actually  
cannot be proven either way.


I merely simplify it by saying (via comp) that number alone is real.  
Mathematics is the means by which we are learning to understand the  
way reality is encoded, so naturally enough, we should suppose that  
Mathematics shares some of the transcendental qualities of number.  
Did we invent Math or did Math invent us? That's now better put as  
we invented our altogether reasonable belief that we invented Math  
and there is a line of reasoning that explains why we universal  
machines would suppose that, something that means that we  
continually fail to see that the much longed-for ToE has been hiding  
all along in plain sight. It's very annoying, I agree.



In much the same way, a composer writing a piece of music feels that  
the object in sound he is creating is actually more like something  
discovered than created, the work involved in composing the notes  
and rhythms etc. more like the effort required to polish the muck  
off something to reveal its true nature.


Mathematics is just the infinity of relations between numbers. Your  
realisation of that perhaps entails that you worry less about the  
nature of Math - that's not the issue.


The real issue is (wait for it) what is number? Here, only taste  
and acts of faith can have any currency. We all kind of need to get  
over ourselves regarding this, I think.


 As I said:  the world is divided into two tribes, in all cultures  
and at all times.


These are: the Gay Platonist Mystics who believe number cannot be  
accounted for (even by God) and are annoyingly happy with that, and  
the Tough Guy Aristotelian SWAT team who shoot mystics on sight  
because they don't serve their type around here.


I also believe I am the first human to draw attention to this  
fundamental syzygy of human belief types. I don't think you can  
reduce Platonist and Aristotelian to something else. Humans confront  
the ultimate questions wearing one or the other of these two masks.  
I think.


Yes, simply because either the physical universe is real (exists in  
some ontological basic sense), or it is not, and must be explained  
from something else.






We simply cannot know certain things, boys and girls. There is a  
limitation to knowledge. Deutsch is wrong. Get over it already.  
Incompleteness. There is always more - mathematical reality:  
uncountably infinite. And expanding. And accelerating.


So, it's a simulation - who cares. I gotta tell ya it's a fucking  
great simulation and I reckon VR still has a long way to go to beat  
it. I love it.


Well, with computationalism, the physical, psychological and spiritual  
realities are not simulation. Only our immaterial bodies and mind are,  
but this is why, by the FPI, we are confronted to a sum of all  
emulations, and that sum is a priori not emulable, although some  
chunks of it might be.


Bruno








Don't ask what is being simulated, please!

Kim

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 19 Jan 2015, at 04:51, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/18/2015 7:24 PM, LizR wrote:

On 19 January 2015 at 07:14, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 1/18/2015 12:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


Because 2+2=4, and there's nothing you (or anyone/anything) can do  
to change that.


Sure there is.  2+2=0 in mod 4 arithmetic - which is good for  
describing some things.


I hope you are being flippant and don't really think that disproves  
what Jason has said!


If in doubt consider whether the phrase in mod 4 arithmetic was  
necessary to what you wrote. If it is, then arithmetic remains  
necessarily so until you can come up with something that is self- 
contradictory without any such qualifiers being required.


As you must know from my other posts, I don't consider self- 
consistency to entail existence.  So the fact that 2+2=4 is true  
doesn't imply anything about existence.



We suppose that you agree with elementary arithmetic, and notably with  
the use of existential quantification.


From 2+2= 4 it is valid to deduce Ex(x + x = 4).

And as we have chosen arithmetic to define the basic ontology, it  
means that we have the existence of 2 in the basic ontology. The rest  
is playing with words.







That you consider mod 4 to be a qualifier is just a convention of  
language.  If we were talking about time what's six hours after  
1900: answer 0100, because there the convention is mod 24.  But my  
serious point is that arithmetic is a model of countable things we  
invented and it's not some magic that controls what exists.


OK, but then computationalism is false. What is the magic thing you  
believe in making a brain non Turing emulable?


Bruno






Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 19 Jan 2015, at 08:21, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/18/2015 9:40 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 9:51 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net  
wrote:

On 1/18/2015 7:24 PM, LizR wrote:

On 19 January 2015 at 07:14, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 1/18/2015 12:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


Because 2+2=4, and there's nothing you (or anyone/anything) can  
do to change that.


Sure there is.  2+2=0 in mod 4 arithmetic - which is good for  
describing some things.


I hope you are being flippant and don't really think that  
disproves what Jason has said!


If in doubt consider whether the phrase in mod 4 arithmetic was  
necessary to what you wrote. If it is, then arithmetic remains  
necessarily so until you can come up with something that is self- 
contradictory without any such qualifiers being required.


As you must know from my other posts, I don't consider self- 
consistency to entail existence.  So the fact that 2+2=4 is true  
doesn't imply anything about existence.


It implies the existence of an equality relation between (2+2) and  
4. Other facts, such as the Nth state of the execution of the UD  
contains a subject who believes his name is Brent Meeker is a fact  
that implies the existence of other things,


You continually assume that the truth of some mathematical relations  
imply the existence of things (like a running UD), which begs the  
question.


This is not assumed. the existence of the UD, and of all computations,  
is proved from the usual (RA) axioms, using the existential quantifier  
inference rules (admitted by all mathematicians, and physicians).


You are the one begging the question by assuming some other form of  
existence, but then you must give the theory.







such as Brent Meeker's conscious state in which he doubts in the  
significance of mathematical truths in relation to existence and  
reality.


That you consider mod 4 to be a qualifier is just a convention of  
language.  If we were talking about time what's six hours after  
1900: answer 0100, because there the convention is mod 24.  But my  
serious point is that arithmetic is a model of countable things we  
invented and it's not some magic that controls what exists.



What leads you to say relations between numbers are invented rather  
than discovered?


Some are discovered, from the properties we invented (like every  
number has a successor).


Will the person who proves (or disproves) the Goldbach conjecture  
invent that truth (or falsehood), or will he discover it?


He will discover a sequence of inferences from Peano's axioms to  
Goldbach's conjecture.


OK, but this will, usually, convince him, about a reality independent  
of himself.


Bruno





Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 19 Jan 2015, at 02:17, John Clark wrote:



On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 1:38 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be  
wrote:


 The question is not if God exists or not. But if
God = the physical universe?
God = a mathematical structure? Which one?
God = a dream by a universal machine?
God = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
God = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
God = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
God = the universal person?
God = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
God = Allah?
God = Jesus?
God = Krishna?
God = my tax collector?
God = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then made the  
humans to gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag of catnip?

etc.

If you're correct about that, and I think you are, and it could mean  
a tax collector or the mathematical universe or anything in between  
then the word God has exactly ZERO information content and writing  
about God accomplishes nothing except cause excessive wear and  
tear on the O D and G keys on your computer.

And yet some people still insist on using the word. Go figure.


That would be the case if God was defined by the disjunction above.  
But God was defined by roots of the physical, psychological and  
spiritual reality. So each individual question makes sense. is the  
physical universe the roots of the physical, and psychological or  
spiritual reality? If yes, you are materialist. You can define  
materialist by saying God = Matter. If not, you are not materialist,  
and so can look to the other questions. Etc.


Bruno





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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 18 Jan 2015, at 19:14, meekerdb wrote:


  But why should I assume arithmetical realism,

Because 2+2=4, and there's nothing you (or anyone/anything) can do  
to change that.


Sure there is.  2+2=0 in mod 4 arithmetic - which is good for  
describing some things.


But this works only because you already agree that 2+2=4 in  
arithmetic. This is why 2+2=0 in mod 4 arithmetic.


Bruno





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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 18 Jan 2015, at 22:56, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/18/2015 9:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 15 Jan 2015, at 19:18, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/15/2015 3:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
It is the reason why I stopped, a long time ago, to qualify  
myself as an atheist. I realized that atheists believe to much in  
the christian God, paradoxically enough.


By your logic one cannot disbelieve in anything


?

I disbelieve in a number P which would be prime and such that all y  
with x  P would be composite numbers.


I disbelieve in triangular square. I can't conceive them.

I can conceive a personal god, but if it is literally the one of  
this or that text, I am skeptical, especially if endowed with  
positive attributes and even more so if it is claimed he gave  
normative rules.





because to do so you have to conceive of what it is your are  
failing to believe



Yes, a contradiction. I can conceive that I *was* wrong or  
inconsistent. Or that I am or will be.




(otherwise you don't know what you're talking about); and  
therefore you believe in it because you conceive it.


Not really, because even if I can conceive it, I can conceive also  
that it might not exist.


Then you need to stop saying atheist who conceive that the God of  
theism is unlikely to exist are really supporting the Christian god.


You are the one saying that the God of theism is well defined, and  
used by the christians.




My belief in God is trivial. All machine introspecting are  
confronted to it, and from outside, in the metatheory, we can see  
that they can confused it (correctly, or not) with truth.


The problem of the aristotelians is that they often take for  
granted the physical reality, which is comprehensible when doing  
physics, but when doing theology, the physical universe is an  
hypothesis, and as such, there are no evidences for it.


That's fine, but it has no bearing on the relation of atheism to  
Christianity.


Then you should have no problem with using god for definition of god  
larger than the abramanic god.





And it's not at all clear what Aristotle meant by physical reality  
(I doubt he even used that term).


it uses the word fusis (greek), which means nature. I have at last  
find the passage where Aristotle refutes Plato, but it is already  
only mockery.




Aristotle postulated the existence of substances which filled all  
space and had certain teleological tendencies.  The latter fit well  
with Christian eschatology and so his ideas were taught in the  
ecclesiastical schools.  Aristotle didn't engage in experimental  
science; he was as much driven by pure thought as Plato.  As JKC  
says he was a very bad physicist - and not just for his time; he  
could have followed the Ionian school which did measure as well as  
reason.


I am not sure. If your read his zoology and botany, Aristotle did  
observation, with bad protocol, but it was a beginning. Theatetus, by  
Plato, already look at the problem between observation and truth, and  
eventually leads to the beginning of modern epistemology. yes, They  
were Platonist, and search for the first theoretical principles. They  
were just trying to understand, and the big theological split is  
between Plato and Aristotle, not  existence of God or not existence of  
God, which was always trivial for them, as God was defined by the  
reason of reality. No greek theologian took seriously the greek fairy  
tales, or any fairy tales. Plotinus diod even resist to theurgy,  
unlike his students who were impressed by the success of the  
christians. It is really sad that we lost Porphyry's book Against the  
Christians.


Bruno


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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 19 Jan 2015, at 01:11, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/18/2015 10:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 16 Jan 2015, at 10:32, LizR wrote:

Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least  
having an idea of, what God is. Personally I don't disbelieve in  
God, I merely find the idea highly unlikely and don't find that it  
contributes anything to discussions such as why is there  
something rather than nothing? So I am agnostic, as I am about  
all the other gods, not to mention Santa, who I recently saw on  
Doctor Who.


(Of course I do believe in Daleks...)


If you believe in Daleks, you believe enough to believe in the God  
of the machine. We need it, to use the theory of machine's dream as  
an explanation why we see physical universes and sometimes pink  
elephants, despite nothing like that really exists.


I give the math to see if we get right the number of pink elephants  
in the many-dreams (by number) interpretation of elementary  
arithmetic (0 I guess, and hope).


Keep in mind that God is defined by being the object of the theory  
of everything, or, by definition, the answer we look for with the  
question why is there something instead of nothing?.


The question is not if God exists or not. But if


But that's silly.  You presume God exists, but with no description,


With no name or description in the sense of the logicians. But I gave  
an informal and general meaning for the term: it is what we search,  
the origin of reality, or the explanation of reality, or the better  
explanation that we can find for reality, etc.




so the only task is to find a description to go with the word  
God.  If you're going to ask whether something exists that cannot  
be defined ostensively, then you need to define it by description.   
Otherwise it's just wordplay.  Compare:


The question isn't whether Paul Bunyan exists or not.  But if

Paul Bunyan = the physical universe?
Paul Bunyan = a mathematical structure? Which one?
Paul Bunyan = a dream by a universal machine?
Paul Bunyan = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
Paul Bunyan = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
Paul Bunyan = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
Paul Bunyan = the universal person?
Paul Bunyan = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
Paul Bunyan = Allah?
Paul Bunyan = Jesus?
Paul Bunyan = Krishna?
Paul Bunyan = my tax collector?
Paul Bunyan = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then  
made the humans to gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag  
of catnip?

etc.



Except that with God, people understand the questions, but with Paul  
Bunyan, it looks like funny, unless you have a reason to think that  
Paul Bunyan is at the origin of reality. But then you must provide  
some supplementary explanations. In that case Paul Bunyan would be  
another name of God,in the general sense, but it looks too much like a  
precise name, which does not fit with most axioms accepted for God.

I'm afraid you continue playing with words.

Bruno







Brent



God = the physical universe?
God = a mathematical structure? Which one?
God = a dream by a universal machine?
God = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
God = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
God = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
God = the universal person?
God = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
God = Allah?
God = Jesus?
God = Krishna?
God = my tax collector?
God = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then made the  
humans to gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag of  
catnip?

etc.

Theo in greek run around the idea of contemplation, examination  
and speculation. A religion is only an as large as possible  
conception of reality, and God is a nickname for what is real,


That's disingenuous.  Reality is a common word, so we don't need a  
nickname.  You seem to be just making up excuses to use God.


Brent



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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-19 Thread Quentin Anciaux

2015-01-19 16:06 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be:


 On 19 Jan 2015, at 01:11, meekerdb wrote:

  On 1/18/2015 10:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


  On 16 Jan 2015, at 10:32, LizR wrote:

  Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least having
 an idea of, what God is. Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely
 find the idea highly unlikely and don't find that it contributes anything
 to discussions such as why is there something rather than nothing? So I
 am agnostic, as I am about all the other gods, not to mention Santa, who I
 recently saw on Doctor Who.

  (Of course I do believe in Daleks
 https://mayaofauckland.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/rub-vigorously-with-nuns-preparation/
 ...)


  If you believe in Daleks, you believe enough to believe in the God of
 the machine. We need it, to use the theory of machine's dream as an
 explanation why we see physical universes and sometimes pink elephants,
 despite nothing like that really exists.

  I give the math to see if we get right the number of pink elephants in
 the many-dreams (by number) interpretation of elementary arithmetic (0 I
 guess, and hope).

  Keep in mind that God is defined by being the object of the theory of
 everything, or, by definition, the answer we look for with the question
 why is there something instead of nothing?.

  The question is not if God exists or not. But if


 But that's silly.  You presume God exists, but with no description, so the
 only task is to find a description to go with the word God.  If you're
 going to ask whether something exists that cannot be defined ostensively,
 then you need to define it by description.  Otherwise it's just wordplay.
 Compare:

 The question isn't whether Paul Bunyan exists or not.  But if

 Paul Bunyan = the physical universe?
 Paul Bunyan = a mathematical structure? Which one?
 Paul Bunyan = a dream by a universal machine?
 Paul Bunyan = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
 Paul Bunyan = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
 Paul Bunyan = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
 Paul Bunyan = the universal person?
 Paul Bunyan = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
 Paul Bunyan = Allah?
 Paul Bunyan = Jesus?
 Paul Bunyan = Krishna?
 Paul Bunyan = my tax collector?
 Paul Bunyan = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then made the
 humans to gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag of catnip?
 etc.

 Brent


  God = the physical universe?
 God = a mathematical structure? Which one?
 God = a dream by a universal machine?
 God = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
 God = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
 God = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
 God = the universal person?
 God = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
 God = Allah?
 God = Jesus?
 God = Krishna?
 God = my tax collector?
 God = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then made the humans
 to gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag of catnip?
 etc.

  Theo in greek run around the idea of contemplation, examination and
 speculation. A religion is only an as large as possible conception of
 reality, and God is a nickname for what is real,


 That's disingenuous.  Reality is a common word, so we don't need a
 nickname.  You seem to be just making up excuses to use God.


 I missed that paragraph.

 The problem is that reality is easily confused with physical reality,
 because we are (still) in the aristotelian era. The best general term for
 reality (or source of reality) is


 snip ...

 The best general term for reality (or source of reality) is reality (or
source of reality).

Quentin



 Bruno






 Brent



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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?



On 19 Jan 2015, at 16:37, Quentin Anciaux wrote:




2015-01-19 16:06 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be:

On 19 Jan 2015, at 01:11, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/18/2015 10:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 16 Jan 2015, at 10:32, LizR wrote:

Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least  
having an idea of, what God is. Personally I don't disbelieve in  
God, I merely find the idea highly unlikely and don't find that  
it contributes anything to discussions such as why is there  
something rather than nothing? So I am agnostic, as I am about  
all the other gods, not to mention Santa, who I recently saw on  
Doctor Who.


(Of course I do believe in Daleks...)


If you believe in Daleks, you believe enough to believe in the God  
of the machine. We need it, to use the theory of machine's dream  
as an explanation why we see physical universes and sometimes pink  
elephants, despite nothing like that really exists.


I give the math to see if we get right the number of pink  
elephants in the many-dreams (by number) interpretation of  
elementary arithmetic (0 I guess, and hope).


Keep in mind that God is defined by being the object of the theory  
of everything, or, by definition, the answer we look for with the  
question why is there something instead of nothing?.


The question is not if God exists or not. But if


But that's silly.  You presume God exists, but with no description,  
so the only task is to find a description to go with the word  
God.  If you're going to ask whether something exists that cannot  
be defined ostensively, then you need to define it by description.   
Otherwise it's just wordplay.  Compare:


The question isn't whether Paul Bunyan exists or not.  But if

Paul Bunyan = the physical universe?
Paul Bunyan = a mathematical structure? Which one?
Paul Bunyan = a dream by a universal machine?
Paul Bunyan = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
Paul Bunyan = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
Paul Bunyan = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
Paul Bunyan = the universal person?
Paul Bunyan = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
Paul Bunyan = Allah?
Paul Bunyan = Jesus?
Paul Bunyan = Krishna?
Paul Bunyan = my tax collector?
Paul Bunyan = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then  
made the humans to gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad  
bag of catnip?

etc.

Brent



God = the physical universe?
God = a mathematical structure? Which one?
God = a dream by a universal machine?
God = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
God = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
God = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
God = the universal person?
God = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
God = Allah?
God = Jesus?
God = Krishna?
God = my tax collector?
God = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then made the  
humans to gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag of  
catnip?

etc.

Theo in greek run around the idea of contemplation, examination  
and speculation. A religion is only an as large as possible  
conception of reality, and God is a nickname for what is real,


That's disingenuous.  Reality is a common word, so we don't need  
a nickname.  You seem to be just making up excuses to use God.


I missed that paragraph.

The problem is that reality is easily confused with physical  
reality, because we are (still) in the aristotelian era. The best  
general term for reality (or source of reality) is



 snip ...

 The best general term for reality (or source of reality) is reality  
(or source of reality).



Only for people mature enough to doubt reality, like Descartes, and  
understand that they need some faith, like any machine wanting to  
believe in a bigger machine. Then the roots of reality, when that  
transcendental aspect is noticed, is usually called God, or Good  
Lord or any nickname for what we hope and trust and can have some  
intuition yet non describable, etc.


But you can call it Tao. Or the One. The non-multi one!.
Most people call it god in the comparative theologies.

Using god makes the relation between machine's theology, and  
neoplatonist theology much more readable, and it helps to intuit what  
is correct (with respect to machine's theory) in the abramanic  
religions too.


Computationalism is super-atheistic, when seen in the Aristotelian  
frame, as there is no creation, and no creator, just a swarm of numbers.
But computationalism, from the inside view, when seen in the  
Platonician conception of reality, is a theology in the original sense  
of the word: that is a theory which unifies all theories in some way.  
Physics does unify chemistry and biology, but it fails on  
consciousness, where computer science provides a better base. Still  
very different notions of God, discussed by students of Plotinus, can  
be provided, and lead to open problems.



Bruno






Quentin


Bruno







Brent



--
You

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On 1/19/2015 7:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 19 Jan 2015, at 04:51, meekerdb wrote:

On 1/18/2015 7:24 PM, LizR wrote:
On 19 January 2015 at 07:14, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 1/18/2015 12:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

Because 2+2=4, and there's nothing you (or anyone/anything) can do to
change that.

Sure there is. 2+2=0 in mod 4 arithmetic - which is good for describing
some things.

I hope you are being flippant and don't really think that disproves what Jason
has said!

If in doubt consider whether the phrase in mod 4 arithmetic was necessary to what
you wrote. If it is, then arithmetic remains necessarily so until you can come up with
something that is self-contradictory /without/ any such qualifiers being required.

As you must know from my other posts, I don't consider self-consistency to entail
existence. So the fact that 2+2=4 is true doesn't imply anything about existence.

We suppose that you agree with elementary arithmetic, and notably with the use of
existential quantification.

From 2+2= 4 it is valid to deduce Ex(x + x = 4).

And as we have chosen arithmetic to define the basic ontology, it means that we have the
existence of 2 in the basic ontology. The rest is playing with words.

You know very well that the E of symbolic logic is not the same as exists in English.
There are different meanings of existence determined by context. Ex(x+x=4) just means
there is number as defined by Peano's axioms that provably satisfies the expression. It no
more proves that 2 exists in the general sense than Ex(x=Holmes sidekick) proves that Dr.
Watson exists.

That you consider mod 4 to be a qualifier is just a convention of language. If we
were talking about time what's six hours after 1900: answer 0100, because there the
convention is mod 24. But my serious point is that arithmetic is a model of countable
things we invented and it's not some magic that controls what exists.

OK, but then computationalism is false. What is the magic thing you believe in making a
brain non Turing emulable?

I think a brain is Turing emulable by a physical device. You purport to show that numbers
alone are sufficient, but I find this doubtful. I think your numbers must also
instantiate physics to emulate thought. In which case it a physical as well as mental
theory. That's a good thing, but I think it's a theory of reality - not necessarily a
proof that reality must be that.

Brent

Bruno

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?


On 1/19/2015 6:35 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
A super powerful mind (or person) simulating some reality could of course cause the 
simulation to deviate from its physical laws.


But in a simulation, not in reality.


So you do (bad) theology. You talk like if we knew already what reality is. But with 
comp reality is anything Turing complete. So here you do an implicit metaphysical 
assumption, which is inconsistent with mechanism. No problem ... as long as you are 
aware of this.


I was being sarcastic, since Jason other places assumes simulation and reality are 
indistinguishable.


Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?


On 1/19/2015 6:53 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
My belief in God is trivial. All machine introspecting are confronted to it, and from 
outside, in the metatheory, we can see that they can confused it (correctly, or not) 
with truth.


The problem of the aristotelians is that they often take for granted the physical 
reality, which is comprehensible when doing physics, but when doing theology, the 
physical universe is an hypothesis, and as such, there are no evidences for it.


That's fine, but it has no bearing on the relation of atheism to Christianity.


Then you should have no problem with using god for definition of god larger than the 
abramanic god.


The only problem with using god for definition of god (large or small) is that it's 
circular.  You repeatedly write things like above, My belief in God is trivial. All 
machine introspecting are confronted to it, and from outside, in the metatheory, we can 
see that they can confused it (correctly, or not) with truth.  Where God is it, but 
there is no definition.  The closest I've seen to you defining your god is the unprovable 
truths of an axiomatic system or the fundamental basis of all being.  The former is 
former is fairly clear and I can see how a self-referential system could confront it.  
The latter may be a description without a referent and I don't see why a self-referential 
system would necessarily confront it.


Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?


On 1/19/2015 7:01 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 19 Jan 2015, at 01:11, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/18/2015 10:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 16 Jan 2015, at 10:32, LizR wrote:

Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least having an idea of, 
what God is. Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea highly 
unlikely and don't find that it contributes anything to discussions such as why is 
there something rather than nothing? So I am agnostic, as I am about all the other 
gods, not to mention Santa, who I recently saw on Doctor Who.


(Of courseI do believe in Daleks 
https://mayaofauckland.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/rub-vigorously-with-nuns-preparation/...)


If you believe in Daleks, you believe enough to believe in the God of the machine. We 
need it, to use the theory of machine's dream as an explanation why we see physical 
universes and sometimes pink elephants, despite nothing like that really exists.


I give the math to see if we get right the number of pink elephants in the many-dreams 
(by number) interpretation of elementary arithmetic (0 I guess, and hope).


Keep in mind that God is defined by being the object of the theory of everything, or, 
by definition, the answer we look for with the question why is there something 
instead of nothing?.


The question is not if God exists or not. But if


But that's silly.  You presume God exists, but with no description,


With no name or description in the sense of the logicians. But I gave an informal and 
general meaning for the term: it is what we search, the origin of reality, or the 
explanation of reality, or the better explanation that we can find for reality, etc.




so the only task is to find a description to go with the word God.  If you're going 
to ask whether something exists that cannot be defined ostensively, then you need to 
define it by description. Otherwise it's just wordplay.  Compare:


The question isn't whether Paul Bunyan exists or not.  But if

Paul Bunyan = the physical universe?
Paul Bunyan = a mathematical structure? Which one?
Paul Bunyan = a dream by a universal machine?
Paul Bunyan = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
Paul Bunyan = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
Paul Bunyan = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
Paul Bunyan = the universal person?
Paul Bunyan = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
Paul Bunyan = Allah?
Paul Bunyan = Jesus?
Paul Bunyan = Krishna?
Paul Bunyan = my tax collector?
Paul Bunyan = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then made the humans to 
gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag of catnip?

etc.



Except that with God, people understand the questions, but with Paul Bunyan, it looks 
like funny, unless you have a reason to think that Paul Bunyan is at the origin of 
reality. But then you must provide some supplementary explanations. In that case Paul 
Bunyan would be another name of God,in the general sense, but it looks too much like a 
precise name, which does not fit with most axioms accepted for God.

I'm afraid you continue playing with words.


On the contrary, you are playing with words. /*God*/ is too much like a precise name.  It 
is the name theist pray to and expect miracles from and capitalize as a proper noun and 
kill for. Yet you use it instead of nous or aperion or other less loaded terms.


Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?


On 1/18/2015 7:24 PM, LizR wrote:
On 19 January 2015 at 07:14, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net 
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:


On 1/18/2015 12:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


Because 2+2=4, and there's nothing you (or anyone/anything) can do to 
change that.


Sure there is.  2+2=0 in mod 4 arithmetic - which is good for describing 
some things.


I hope you are being flippant and don't really think that disproves what Jason 
has said!

If in doubt consider whether the phrase in mod 4 arithmetic was necessary to what you 
wrote. If it is, then arithmetic remains necessarily so until you can come up with 
something that is self-contradictory /without/ any such qualifiers being required.


As you must know from my other posts, I don't consider self-consistency to entail 
existence.  So the fact that 2+2=4 is true doesn't imply anything about existence.  That 
you consider mod 4 to be a qualifier is just a convention of language.  If we were 
talking about time what's six hours after 1900: answer 0100, because there the convention 
is mod 24.  But my serious point is that arithmetic is a model of countable things we 
invented and it's not some magic that controls what exists.


Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-18 Thread Kim Jones

 
 On 19 Jan 2015, at 2:51 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
 
 But my serious point is that arithmetic is a model of countable things we 
 invented and it's not some magic that controls what exists.
 
 Brent

Magic? Hmmyou wish..still having trouble with the comp reversal, 
you are, sir.

I observe there are many Turing Universal systems - they are all equivalent in 
terms of their ability to encode information and arithmetic is merely a choice 
of convenience because we cannot reduce arithmetic to anything else. We could 
even use music as our system if we wanted to as music encodes arithmetical 
values and in addition provides complete structures which are physically 
encoded as sound and therefore exist in a perfectly real sense. I guess you can 
say that Man invented music but the system that man chose to base music on is a 
Turing Universal system which is mathematical to the core.

Which is the Turing Universal system that doesn't show some kind of 
relationship with arithmetic? Why do you feel that that reality would have to 
be magical if we notice important relations with arithmetical values? What 
does it feel like to be living in a magical universe, Brent? 

Kim 


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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?


On 1/18/2015 10:55 PM, Kim Jones wrote:

at 5:45 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:


Kim: Which is the Turing Universal system that doesn't show some kind of relationship 
with arithmetic? Why do you feel that that reality would have to be magical 
if we notice important relations with arithmetical values?

You can notice important relations between Hamlet and Josephine. Does that make 
Hamlet and Joesphine real?  Perhaps if you're a magician.

Brent


You are the magician here. You say it is possible to notice the not-real. 
It's not possible to notice something that doesn't exist. The not-real therefore cannot 
be noticed. Hamlet and Josephine exist, I assure you.


I know, you have a flexible meaning of exist so Hamlet and Josephine exist and so do 
Bill and Hilary.


Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 9:51 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/18/2015 7:24 PM, LizR wrote:

  On 19 January 2015 at 07:14, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

   On 1/18/2015 12:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


  Because 2+2=4, and there's nothing you (or anyone/anything) can do to
 change that.


  Sure there is.  2+2=0 in mod 4 arithmetic - which is good for
 describing some things.


  I hope you are being flippant and don't really think that disproves what
 Jason has said!

  If in doubt consider whether the phrase in mod 4 arithmetic was
 necessary to what you wrote. If it is, then arithmetic remains necessarily
 so until you can come up with something that is self-contradictory
 *without* any such qualifiers being required.


 As you must know from my other posts, I don't consider self-consistency to
 entail existence.  So the fact that 2+2=4 is true doesn't imply anything
 about existence.


It implies the existence of an equality relation between (2+2) and 4. Other
facts, such as the Nth state of the execution of the UD contains a subject
who believes his name is Brent Meeker is a fact that implies the existence
of other things, such as Brent Meeker's conscious state in which he doubts
in the significance of mathematical truths in relation to existence and
reality.


 That you consider mod 4 to be a qualifier is just a convention of
 language.  If we were talking about time what's six hours after 1900:
 answer 0100, because there the convention is mod 24.  But my serious point
 is that arithmetic is a model of countable things we invented and it's not
 some magic that controls what exists.


What leads you to say relations between numbers are invented rather than
discovered? Will the person who proves (or disproves) the Goldbach
conjecture invent that truth (or falsehood), or will he discover it?

Jason

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-18 Thread Kim Jones




On 19 Jan 2015, at 4:40 pm, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote:

 That you consider mod 4 to be a qualifier is just a convention of 
 language.  If we were talking about time what's six hours after 1900: answer 
 0100, because there the convention is mod 24.  But my serious point is that 
 arithmetic is a model of countable things we invented and it's not some 
 magic that controls what exists.
 
 What leads you to say relations between numbers are invented rather than 
 discovered? Will the person who proves (or disproves) the Goldbach conjecture 
 invent that truth (or falsehood), or will he discover it?
 
 Jason

This is indeed the core issue. It seems that whether you believe in this or not 
is really a matter of personal taste because it actually cannot be proven 
either way. 

I merely simplify it by saying (via comp) that number alone is real. 
Mathematics is the means by which we are learning to understand the way reality 
is encoded, so naturally enough, we should suppose that Mathematics shares some 
of the transcendental qualities of number. Did we invent Math or did Math 
invent us? That's now better put as we invented our altogether reasonable 
belief that we invented Math and there is a line of reasoning that explains 
why we universal machines would suppose that, something that means that we 
continually fail to see that the much longed-for ToE has been hiding all along 
in plain sight. It's very annoying, I agree. 


In much the same way, a composer writing a piece of music feels that the object 
in sound he is creating is actually more like something discovered than 
created, the work involved in composing the notes and rhythms etc. more like 
the effort required to polish the muck off something to reveal its true nature. 

Mathematics is just the infinity of relations between numbers. Your realisation 
of that perhaps entails that you worry less about the nature of Math - that's 
not the issue.

The real issue is (wait for it) what is number? Here, only taste and acts of 
faith can have any currency. We all kind of need to get over ourselves 
regarding this, I think.

 As I said:  the world is divided into two tribes, in all cultures and at all 
times. 

These are: the Gay Platonist Mystics who believe number cannot be accounted for 
(even by God) and are annoyingly happy with that, and the Tough Guy 
Aristotelian SWAT team who shoot mystics on sight because they don't serve 
their type around here. 

I also believe I am the first human to draw attention to this fundamental 
syzygy of human belief types. I don't think you can reduce Platonist and 
Aristotelian to something else. Humans confront the ultimate questions wearing 
one or the other of these two masks. I think.

We simply cannot know certain things, boys and girls. There is a limitation to 
knowledge. Deutsch is wrong. Get over it already. Incompleteness. There is 
always more - mathematical reality: uncountably infinite. And expanding. And 
accelerating.

So, it's a simulation - who cares. I gotta tell ya it's a fucking great 
simulation and I reckon VR still has a long way to go to beat it. I love it.


Don't ask what is being simulated, please!

Kim

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-18 Thread Kim Jones

at 5:45 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

 Kim: Which is the Turing Universal system that doesn't show some kind of 
 relationship with arithmetic? Why do you feel that that reality would have 
 to be magical if we notice important relations with arithmetical values?
 
 You can notice important relations between Hamlet and Josephine. Does that 
 make Hamlet and Joesphine real?  Perhaps if you're a magician.
 
 Brent


You are the magician here. You say it is possible to notice the not-real. 
It's not possible to notice something that doesn't exist. The not-real 
therefore cannot be noticed. Hamlet and Josephine exist, I assure you. 

Somewhere. Out there. 

K

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?


On 1/18/2015 7:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 12:14 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net 
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:


On 1/18/2015 12:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 1:10 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 1/17/2015 9:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 5:56 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 1/17/2015 3:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 1/17/2015 2:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com
mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at
least having an idea of, what God is.


I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God without
knowing, or at least having an idea of what reality is, for 
unless
one claims to know the extent of reality, how can one suppose to
know what it does or doesn't contain?


You can easily know that things with self contradictory 
properties
are not in reality.


I agree with that.

If something has properties that are inconsistent with 
observation
that is fairly strong evidence it doesn't exist.

Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can, but
does not want to; or he cannot, and does not want to.  If he
wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not
want to, he is wicked.  If he neither can, nor wants to, he is
both powerless and wicked. But if God can abolish evil, and 
wants
to, then how comes evil in the world?'
  --- Epicurus


That's a nice example of an application of rational thought towards 
the
advancement of theology. You've proven that an omnipotent God with 
the
power and desire to prevent any bad thing from happening does not 
exist.

What else might we have been able to prove or disprove if theology 
had
remained open to free inquiry over the past several millennia?


And then there are things that are consistent with both logic 
and
observation, but are very unlikely on our best theories of how 
the
world works, e.g. teapots orbiting Jupiter.  Are you agnostic 
about
the teapot orbiting Jupiter?


To disbelieve in a particular thing orbiting Jupiter requires a 
working
theory of our solar system.

To disbelieve in a particular thing existing at all (neither in this
universe, nor in any other place in reality) requires a working 
theory of
reality. What is yours?

Does agnostic just mean I don't know for certain or does it 
mean
I'm equally disposed to believe or disbelieve. or I think 
it's
impossible to decide the question.


That's a good question. I think a definitive answer can be drawn 
from
one's working theory of reality, but I don't know if an answer to 
that
question is decidable or not, though perhaps it's possible to 
accumulate
evidence towards one. So far I think man has made little progress 
in this
endeavor, but Bruno and Tegmark seem to be farther ahead than most
towards developing one. Working under those theories, I might say I 
am
more of a rational theist in the sense that I can identify at 
least
three things one might call god within those ontologies. However, 
as to
which theory of reality is correct, I might call myself agnostic 
(even
though I might be in the high 90's percentage wise leaning towards 
it, I
could never be certain).





Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea
highly unlikely


Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception you 
are
assuming here?),


When I write God with caps, I mean a god who is a 
superpowerful
person and who wants to be worshipped; not some abstract 
organizing
principle or the set of true propositions.


Subtract and who wants to be worshiped then re-answer that question. 
Why should we suppose that super-powerful minds are not likely to exist

in reality?


There's a difference between super-powerful minds and a 
superpowerful
person. By superpowerful person I meant

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 12:14 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/18/2015 12:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 1:10 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

   On 1/17/2015 9:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 5:56 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

   On 1/17/2015 3:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/17/2015 2:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

 Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least
 having an idea of, what God is.


  I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God without
 knowing, or at least having an idea of what reality is, for unless one
 claims to know the extent of reality, how can one suppose to know what it
 does or doesn't contain?


  You can easily know that things with self contradictory properties are
 not in reality.


  I agree with that.


 If something has properties that are inconsistent with observation that
 is fairly strong evidence it doesn't exist.

 Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can, but
 does not want to; or he cannot, and does not want to.  If he
 wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not
 want to, he is wicked.  If he neither can, nor wants to, he is
 both powerless and wicked. But if God can abolish evil, and wants
 to, then how comes evil in the world?'
   --- Epicurus


  That's a nice example of an application of rational thought towards
 the advancement of theology. You've proven that an omnipotent God with the
 power and desire to prevent any bad thing from happening does not exist.

  What else might we have been able to prove or disprove if theology had
 remained open to free inquiry over the past several millennia?



 And then there are things that are consistent with both logic and
 observation, but are very unlikely on our best theories of how the world
 works, e.g. teapots orbiting Jupiter.  Are you agnostic about the teapot
 orbiting Jupiter?


  To disbelieve in a particular thing orbiting Jupiter requires a
 working theory of our solar system.

  To disbelieve in a particular thing existing at all (neither in this
 universe, nor in any other place in reality) requires a working theory of
 reality. What is yours?


  Does agnostic just mean I don't know for certain or does it mean
 I'm equally disposed to believe or disbelieve. or I think it's
 impossible to decide the question.


  That's a good question. I think a definitive answer can be drawn from
 one's working theory of reality, but I don't know if an answer to that
 question is decidable or not, though perhaps it's possible to accumulate
 evidence towards one. So far I think man has made little progress in this
 endeavor, but Bruno and Tegmark seem to be farther ahead than most towards
 developing one. Working under those theories, I might say I am more of a
 rational theist in the sense that I can identify at least three things
 one might call god within those ontologies. However, as to which theory of
 reality is correct, I might call myself agnostic (even though I might be in
 the high 90's percentage wise leaning towards it, I could never be certain).






  Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea highly
 unlikely


  Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception you are
 assuming here?),


  When I write God with caps, I mean a god who is a superpowerful
 person and who wants to be worshipped; not some abstract organizing
 principle or the set of true propositions.


  Subtract and who wants to be worshiped then re-answer that
 question.  Why should we suppose that super-powerful minds are not likely
 to exist in reality?


  There's a difference between super-powerful minds and a
 superpowerful person.  By superpowerful person I meant one who could
 transcend physical laws, i.e. perform miracles.



  A super powerful mind (or person) simulating some reality could of
 course cause the simulation to deviate from its physical laws.


  But in a simulation, not in reality.


  The simulation is as much reality to those in the simulation as our
 reality is to us, to the point where it's impossible for anyone to know
 whether they're in a simulation or not.




   By the very definition of miracles these are not reliably observed and
 so the empirical evidence makes their existence very unlikely.


  You could only draw this conclusion if you believed it highly likely
 that should any miracle have occurred in this universe, humankind would
 have observed it.


  No, I only have to assume that human observations are a fair sample of
 the world I'm trying to draw conclusions about.  Since this is the world
 that humans experience, that condition is fulfilled.

   This alone would be highly dubious given how small an extent in time
 and space (compared to the universe as a whole) humanity has kept

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-18 Thread LizR

On 19 January 2015 at 07:14, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/18/2015 12:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


  Because 2+2=4, and there's nothing you (or anyone/anything) can do to
 change that.


 Sure there is.  2+2=0 in mod 4 arithmetic - which is good for describing
 some things.


I hope you are being flippant and don't really think that disproves what
Jason has said!

If in doubt consider whether the phrase in mod 4 arithmetic was necessary
to what you wrote. If it is, then arithmetic remains necessarily so until
you can come up with something that is self-contradictory *without* any
such qualifiers being required.

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On 1/18/2015 9:28 PM, Kim Jones wrote:

On 19 Jan 2015, at 2:51 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

But my serious point is that arithmetic is a model of countable things we
invented and it's not some magic that controls what exists.

Brent

Magic? Hmmyou wish..still having trouble with the comp reversal,
you are, sir.

I observe there are many Turing Universal systems - they are all equivalent in
terms of their ability to encode information and arithmetic is merely a choice
of convenience because we cannot reduce arithmetic to anything else. We could
even use music as our system if we wanted to as music encodes arithmetical
values and in addition provides complete structures which are physically
encoded as sound and therefore exist in a perfectly real sense. I guess you can
say that Man invented music but the system that man chose to base music on is a
Turing Universal system which is mathematical to the core.

Which is the Turing Universal system that doesn't show some kind of relationship with
arithmetic? Why do you feel that that reality would have to be magical if we
notice important relations with arithmetical values?

You can notice important relations between Hamlet and Josephine. Does that make Hamlet and
Joesphine real? Perhaps if you're a magician.

Brent

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-18 Thread LizR

Thank you for those kind words! :-)

On 17 January 2015 at 13:21, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote:



 On 17 Jan 2015, at 6:59 am, LizR via Everything List 
 everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote:

 Of course I do believe in Daleks
 https://mayaofauckland.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/rub-vigorously-with-nuns-preparation/
 ...)


 Jesus, you design a difficult bloody crossword! I thought I knew my Dr
 WHO...

 Kim

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 9:44 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/18/2015 7:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 12:14 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

   On 1/18/2015 12:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 1:10 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

   On 1/17/2015 9:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 5:56 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

   On 1/17/2015 3:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/17/2015 2:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

 Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least
 having an idea of, what God is.


  I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God without
 knowing, or at least having an idea of what reality is, for unless one
 claims to know the extent of reality, how can one suppose to know what it
 does or doesn't contain?


  You can easily know that things with self contradictory properties
 are not in reality.


  I agree with that.


 If something has properties that are inconsistent with observation
 that is fairly strong evidence it doesn't exist.

 Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can, but
 does not want to; or he cannot, and does not want to.  If he
 wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not
 want to, he is wicked.  If he neither can, nor wants to, he is
 both powerless and wicked. But if God can abolish evil, and wants
 to, then how comes evil in the world?'
   --- Epicurus


  That's a nice example of an application of rational thought towards
 the advancement of theology. You've proven that an omnipotent God with the
 power and desire to prevent any bad thing from happening does not exist.

  What else might we have been able to prove or disprove if theology
 had remained open to free inquiry over the past several millennia?



 And then there are things that are consistent with both logic and
 observation, but are very unlikely on our best theories of how the world
 works, e.g. teapots orbiting Jupiter.  Are you agnostic about the teapot
 orbiting Jupiter?


  To disbelieve in a particular thing orbiting Jupiter requires a
 working theory of our solar system.

  To disbelieve in a particular thing existing at all (neither in this
 universe, nor in any other place in reality) requires a working theory of
 reality. What is yours?


  Does agnostic just mean I don't know for certain or does it mean
 I'm equally disposed to believe or disbelieve. or I think it's
 impossible to decide the question.


  That's a good question. I think a definitive answer can be drawn from
 one's working theory of reality, but I don't know if an answer to that
 question is decidable or not, though perhaps it's possible to accumulate
 evidence towards one. So far I think man has made little progress in this
 endeavor, but Bruno and Tegmark seem to be farther ahead than most towards
 developing one. Working under those theories, I might say I am more of a
 rational theist in the sense that I can identify at least three things
 one might call god within those ontologies. However, as to which theory of
 reality is correct, I might call myself agnostic (even though I might be in
 the high 90's percentage wise leaning towards it, I could never be 
 certain).






  Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea highly
 unlikely


  Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception you are
 assuming here?),


  When I write God with caps, I mean a god who is a superpowerful
 person and who wants to be worshipped; not some abstract organizing
 principle or the set of true propositions.


  Subtract and who wants to be worshiped then re-answer that
 question.  Why should we suppose that super-powerful minds are not likely
 to exist in reality?


  There's a difference between super-powerful minds and a
 superpowerful person.  By superpowerful person I meant one who could
 transcend physical laws, i.e. perform miracles.



  A super powerful mind (or person) simulating some reality could of
 course cause the simulation to deviate from its physical laws.


  But in a simulation, not in reality.


  The simulation is as much reality to those in the simulation as our
 reality is to us, to the point where it's impossible for anyone to know
 whether they're in a simulation or not.




   By the very definition of miracles these are not reliably observed
 and so the empirical evidence makes their existence very unlikely.


  You could only draw this conclusion if you believed it highly likely
 that should any miracle have occurred in this universe, humankind would
 have observed it.


  No, I only have to assume that human observations are a fair sample of
 the world I'm trying to draw conclusions about.  Since this is the world
 that humans experience, that condition is fulfilled.

   This alone would be

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?


On 1/18/2015 9:35 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 9:44 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net 
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:


On 1/18/2015 7:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 12:14 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 1/18/2015 12:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 1:10 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 1/17/2015 9:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 5:56 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 1/17/2015 3:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 1/17/2015 2:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com
mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, 
or at
least having an idea of, what God is.


I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God 
without
knowing, or at least having an idea of what reality is, for
unless one claims to know the extent of reality, how can one
suppose to know what it does or doesn't contain?


You can easily know that things with self contradictory
properties are not in reality.


I agree with that.

If something has properties that are inconsistent with
observation that is fairly strong evidence it doesn't exist.

Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can, but
does not want to; or he cannot, and does not want to.  If he
wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does 
not
want to, he is wicked.  If he neither can, nor wants to, he 
is
both powerless and wicked. But if God can abolish evil, and 
wants
to, then how comes evil in the world?'
  --- Epicurus


That's a nice example of an application of rational thought 
towards
the advancement of theology. You've proven that an omnipotent 
God
with the power and desire to prevent any bad thing from 
happening
does not exist.

What else might we have been able to prove or disprove if 
theology
had remained open to free inquiry over the past several 
millennia?


And then there are things that are consistent with both 
logic
and observation, but are very unlikely on our best theories 
of
how the world works, e.g. teapots orbiting Jupiter.  Are you
agnostic about the teapot orbiting Jupiter?


To disbelieve in a particular thing orbiting Jupiter requires a
working theory of our solar system.

To disbelieve in a particular thing existing at all (neither in 
this
universe, nor in any other place in reality) requires a working
theory of reality. What is yours?

Does agnostic just mean I don't know for certain or 
does it
mean I'm equally disposed to believe or disbelieve. or I
think it's impossible to decide the question.


That's a good question. I think a definitive answer can be drawn
from one's working theory of reality, but I don't know if an 
answer
to that question is decidable or not, though perhaps it's 
possible
to accumulate evidence towards one. So far I think man has made
little progress in this endeavor, but Bruno and Tegmark seem to 
be
farther ahead than most towards developing one. Working under 
those
theories, I might say I am more of a rational theist in the 
sense
that I can identify at least three things one might call god 
within
those ontologies. However, as to which theory of reality is 
correct,
I might call myself agnostic (even though I might be in the high
90's percentage wise leaning towards it, I could never be 
certain).





Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the
idea highly unlikely


Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception 
you
are assuming here?),


When I write God with caps, I mean a god who is a
superpowerful person and who wants to be

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?


On 1/18/2015 9:40 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 9:51 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net 
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:


On 1/18/2015 7:24 PM, LizR wrote:

On 19 January 2015 at 07:14, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 1/18/2015 12:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:


Because 2+2=4, and there's nothing you (or anyone/anything) can do to 
change that.


Sure there is.  2+2=0 in mod 4 arithmetic - which is good for 
describing some
things.


I hope you are being flippant and don't really think that disproves what 
Jason has
said!

If in doubt consider whether the phrase in mod 4 arithmetic was necessary 
to what
you wrote. If it is, then arithmetic remains necessarily so until you can 
come up
with something that is self-contradictory /without/ any such qualifiers 
being required.


As you must know from my other posts, I don't consider self-consistency to 
entail
existence.  So the fact that 2+2=4 is true doesn't imply anything about 
existence.


It implies the existence of an equality relation between (2+2) and 4. Other facts, such 
as the Nth state of the execution of the UD contains a subject who believes his name is 
Brent Meeker is a fact that implies the existence of other things,


You continually assume that the truth of some mathematical relations imply the existence 
of things (like a running UD), which begs the question.


such as Brent Meeker's conscious state in which he doubts in the significance of 
mathematical truths in relation to existence and reality.


That you consider mod 4 to be a qualifier is just a convention of 
language.  If we
were talking about time what's six hours after 1900: answer 0100, because 
there the
convention is mod 24.  But my serious point is that arithmetic is a model of
countable things we invented and it's not some magic that controls what 
exists.


What leads you to say relations between numbers are invented rather than 
discovered?


Some are discovered, from the properties we invented (like every number has a 
successor).

Will the person who proves (or disproves) the Goldbach conjecture invent that truth (or 
falsehood), or will he discover it?


He will discover a sequence of inferences from Peano's axioms to Goldbach's 
conjecture.

Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 1:10 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/17/2015 9:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 5:56 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

   On 1/17/2015 3:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/17/2015 2:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

 Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least
 having an idea of, what God is.


  I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God without
 knowing, or at least having an idea of what reality is, for unless one
 claims to know the extent of reality, how can one suppose to know what it
 does or doesn't contain?


  You can easily know that things with self contradictory properties are
 not in reality.


  I agree with that.


 If something has properties that are inconsistent with observation that
 is fairly strong evidence it doesn't exist.

 Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can, but
 does not want to; or he cannot, and does not want to.  If he
 wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not
 want to, he is wicked.  If he neither can, nor wants to, he is
 both powerless and wicked. But if God can abolish evil, and wants
 to, then how comes evil in the world?'
   --- Epicurus


  That's a nice example of an application of rational thought towards the
 advancement of theology. You've proven that an omnipotent God with the
 power and desire to prevent any bad thing from happening does not exist.

  What else might we have been able to prove or disprove if theology had
 remained open to free inquiry over the past several millennia?



 And then there are things that are consistent with both logic and
 observation, but are very unlikely on our best theories of how the world
 works, e.g. teapots orbiting Jupiter.  Are you agnostic about the teapot
 orbiting Jupiter?


  To disbelieve in a particular thing orbiting Jupiter requires a working
 theory of our solar system.

  To disbelieve in a particular thing existing at all (neither in this
 universe, nor in any other place in reality) requires a working theory of
 reality. What is yours?


  Does agnostic just mean I don't know for certain or does it mean
 I'm equally disposed to believe or disbelieve. or I think it's
 impossible to decide the question.


  That's a good question. I think a definitive answer can be drawn from
 one's working theory of reality, but I don't know if an answer to that
 question is decidable or not, though perhaps it's possible to accumulate
 evidence towards one. So far I think man has made little progress in this
 endeavor, but Bruno and Tegmark seem to be farther ahead than most towards
 developing one. Working under those theories, I might say I am more of a
 rational theist in the sense that I can identify at least three things
 one might call god within those ontologies. However, as to which theory of
 reality is correct, I might call myself agnostic (even though I might be in
 the high 90's percentage wise leaning towards it, I could never be certain).






  Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea highly
 unlikely


  Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception you are
 assuming here?),


  When I write God with caps, I mean a god who is a superpowerful
 person and who wants to be worshipped; not some abstract organizing
 principle or the set of true propositions.


  Subtract and who wants to be worshiped then re-answer that question.
 Why should we suppose that super-powerful minds are not likely to exist in
 reality?


  There's a difference between super-powerful minds and a
 superpowerful person.  By superpowerful person I meant one who could
 transcend physical laws, i.e. perform miracles.



  A super powerful mind (or person) simulating some reality could of
 course cause the simulation to deviate from its physical laws.


 But in a simulation, not in reality.


The simulation is as much reality to those in the simulation as our
reality is to us, to the point where it's impossible for anyone to know
whether they're in a simulation or not.




   By the very definition of miracles these are not reliably observed and
 so the empirical evidence makes their existence very unlikely.


  You could only draw this conclusion if you believed it highly likely
 that should any miracle have occurred in this universe, humankind would
 have observed it.


 No, I only have to assume that human observations are a fair sample of the
 world I'm trying to draw conclusions about.  Since this is the world that
 humans experience, that condition is fulfilled.

   This alone would be highly dubious given how small an extent in time
 and space (compared to the universe as a whole) humanity has kept reliable
 records.


 You seem to think one needs to have positive evidence against every
 alternative theory in order to believe one

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-18 Thread John Clark

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 1:38 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote:

 The question is not if God exists or not. But if
 God = the physical universe?
 God = a mathematical structure? Which one?
 God = a dream by a universal machine?
 God = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
 God = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
 God = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
 God = the universal person?
 God = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
 God = Allah?
 God = Jesus?
 God = Krishna?
 God = my tax collector?
 God = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then made the humans
 to gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag of catnip?
 etc.


If you're correct about that, and I think you are, and it could mean a tax
collector or the mathematical universe or anything in between then the word
God has exactly ZERO information content and writing about God
accomplishes nothing except cause excessive wear and tear on the O D and G
keys on your computer.
And yet some people still insist on using the word. Go figure.

  John K Clark

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-18 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 16 Jan 2015, at 10:32, LizR wrote:

Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least  
having an idea of, what God is. Personally I don't disbelieve in  
God, I merely find the idea highly unlikely and don't find that it  
contributes anything to discussions such as why is there something  
rather than nothing? So I am agnostic, as I am about all the other  
gods, not to mention Santa, who I recently saw on Doctor Who.


(Of course I do believe in Daleks...)


If you believe in Daleks, you believe enough to believe in the God of  
the machine. We need it, to use the theory of machine's dream as an  
explanation why we see physical universes and sometimes pink  
elephants, despite nothing like that really exists.


I give the math to see if we get right the number of pink elephants in  
the many-dreams (by number) interpretation of elementary arithmetic (0  
I guess, and hope).


Keep in mind that God is defined by being the object of the theory of  
everything, or, by definition, the answer we look for with the  
question why is there something instead of nothing?.


The question is not if God exists or not. But if

God = the physical universe?
God = a mathematical structure? Which one?
God = a dream by a universal machine?
God = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
God = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
God = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
God = the universal person?
God = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
God = Allah?
God = Jesus?
God = Krishna?
God = my tax collector?
God = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then made the  
humans to gives the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag of catnip?

etc.

Theo in greek run around the idea of contemplation, examination and  
speculation. A religion is only an as large as possible conception of  
reality, and God is a nickname for what is real, or for what we are  
confronted with. No need to believe literally in any theory proposed  
by any human on this subject, but we can make clear what we assume and  
how we reason and test the theories.


Bruno

I have to go. Will answer other posts probably tomorrow.







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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?


On 1/18/2015 12:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 1:10 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net 
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:


On 1/17/2015 9:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 5:56 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 1/17/2015 3:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 1/17/2015 2:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com
mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at 
least
having an idea of, what God is.


I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God without 
knowing,
or at least having an idea of what reality is, for unless one 
claims to
know the extent of reality, how can one suppose to know what it 
does or
doesn't contain?


You can easily know that things with self contradictory properties 
are not
in reality.


I agree with that.

If something has properties that are inconsistent with observation 
that is
fairly strong evidence it doesn't exist.

Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can, but
does not want to; or he cannot, and does not want to.  If he
wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not
want to, he is wicked. If he neither can, nor wants to, he is
both powerless and wicked. But if God can abolish evil, and wants
to, then how comes evil in the world?'
  --- Epicurus


That's a nice example of an application of rational thought towards the
advancement of theology. You've proven that an omnipotent God with the 
power
and desire to prevent any bad thing from happening does not exist.

What else might we have been able to prove or disprove if theology had
remained open to free inquiry over the past several millennia?


And then there are things that are consistent with both logic and
observation, but are very unlikely on our best theories of how the 
world
works, e.g. teapots orbiting Jupiter.  Are you agnostic about the 
teapot
orbiting Jupiter?


To disbelieve in a particular thing orbiting Jupiter requires a working 
theory
of our solar system.

To disbelieve in a particular thing existing at all (neither in this 
universe,
nor in any other place in reality) requires a working theory of 
reality. What
is yours?

Does agnostic just mean I don't know for certain or does it mean 
I'm
equally disposed to believe or disbelieve. or I think it's 
impossible to
decide the question.


That's a good question. I think a definitive answer can be drawn from 
one's
working theory of reality, but I don't know if an answer to that 
question is
decidable or not, though perhaps it's possible to accumulate evidence 
towards
one. So far I think man has made little progress in this endeavor, but 
Bruno
and Tegmark seem to be farther ahead than most towards developing one. 
Working
under those theories, I might say I am more of a rational theist in 
the
sense that I can identify at least three things one might call god 
within
those ontologies. However, as to which theory of reality is correct, I 
might
call myself agnostic (even though I might be in the high 90's 
percentage wise
leaning towards it, I could never be certain).





Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea 
highly
unlikely


Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception you are
assuming here?),


When I write God with caps, I mean a god who is a superpowerful 
person
and who wants to be worshipped; not some abstract organizing 
principle or
the set of true propositions.


Subtract and who wants to be worshiped then re-answer that question. 
Why
should we suppose that super-powerful minds are not likely to exist in 
reality?


There's a difference between super-powerful minds and a superpowerful
person.  By superpowerful person I meant one who could transcend 
physical
laws, i.e. perform miracles.



A super powerful mind (or person) simulating some reality could of course 
cause the
simulation to deviate from its physical laws.


But in a simulation, not in reality.


The simulation is as much reality to those in the simulation as our reality is to us, 
to the point where it's impossible for anyone to know whether they're in a simulation or 
not.

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-18 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 17 Jan 2015, at 02:46, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/15/2015 8:31 PM, Kim Jones wrote:




On 16 Jan 2015, at 5:18 am, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:


On 1/15/2015 3:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
It is the reason why I stopped, a long time ago, to qualify  
myself as an atheist. I realized that atheists believe to much in  
the christian God, paradoxically enough.


By your logic one cannot disbelieve in anything because to do so  
you have to conceive of what it is your are failing to believe  
(otherwise you don't know what you're talking about);



Well, yes. Of course you have to be able to conceive of what you  
are going to make a choice to believe in or not! Implying that you  
have the right to disbelieve in something you cannot conceive of  
is the height of sophistry. You are merely testifying to the  
limitation of your own, or of human imagination but that is  
precisely the terrain we are treading here: the interface of human  
ignorance with what is really real.


Of course the human imagination cannot conceive of God the way God  
is. This is because WE ARE ALL THE EYES AND EARS OF GOD. The eye  
cannot see itself. The hammer cannot hit itself. It can only infer  
it's true nature using the imagination and HOPE that the  
description adopted is exact. It never is. We cannot know what or  
who we are. It's a pretty miserable state of affairs, particularly  
if you are a hard-nosed scientist, I gather.


Hard-nosed scientists are inured to not knowing things.  It's  
mystics who insist on making up an answer because they are  
uncomfortable with uncertainty.


It is false mystics. True mystics (if I can say) just learn to be  
comfortable with uncertainty, indeed up to the point of seeing it as  
even more incomprehensible, and getting mute on it. Alan watts  
explains this well in the the wisdom of insecurity.
Those who makes up public answer are the people who repeat without  
understanding what possible true mystic says, and this with the  
purpose of controlling its fellow, instead of liberating it.


Religion, science, and technics should be distinguished from the many  
peculiar human use of those things.


Bruno






Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-18 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 15 Jan 2015, at 19:18, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/15/2015 3:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
It is the reason why I stopped, a long time ago, to qualify myself  
as an atheist. I realized that atheists believe to much in the  
christian God, paradoxically enough.


By your logic one cannot disbelieve in anything


?

I disbelieve in a number P which would be prime and such that all y  
with x  P would be composite numbers.


I disbelieve in triangular square. I can't conceive them.

I can conceive a personal god, but if it is literally the one of this  
or that text, I am skeptical, especially if endowed with positive  
attributes and even more so if it is claimed he gave normative rules.





because to do so you have to conceive of what it is your are failing  
to believe



Yes, a contradiction. I can conceive that I *was* wrong or  
inconsistent. Or that I am or will be.




(otherwise you don't know what you're talking about); and therefore  
you believe in it because you conceive it.


Not really, because even if I can conceive it, I can conceive also  
that it might not exist.


My belief in God is trivial. All machine introspecting are confronted  
to it, and from outside, in the metatheory, we can see that they can  
confused it (correctly, or not) with truth.


The problem of the aristotelians is that they often take for granted  
the physical reality, which is comprehensible when doing physics, but  
when doing theology, the physical universe is an hypothesis, and as  
such, there are no evidences for it. Then with comp, we get an  
explanation of the physical reality, without the need of a physical  
universe.
A testable/refutable explanation (but for this you need a good  
understanding of, say, Boolos 79).


Bruno






Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-18 Thread John Clark

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 11:49 PM, 'Roger' via Everything List 
everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote:


 Krauss kind of irritates me, too.  His book title A universe from
 nothing: Why there is something rather than nothing is basically false
 advertising, IMHO.


Considering the fact that Krauss talks about the title on the very first
page of the book and spends several chapters discussing the difference
between *NOTHING *NOTHING  nothing and* nothing  *I very much doubt you
have even read the book, you just read the title.

 John K Clark

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On 1/18/2015 10:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 16 Jan 2015, at 10:32, LizR wrote:

Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least having an idea of,
what God is. Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea highly
unlikely and don't find that it contributes anything to discussions such as why is
there something rather than nothing? So I am agnostic, as I am about all the other
gods, not to mention Santa, who I recently saw on Doctor Who.

(Of courseI do believe in Daleks
https://mayaofauckland.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/rub-vigorously-with-nuns-preparation/...)

If you believe in Daleks, you believe enough to believe in the God of the machine. We
need it, to use the theory of machine's dream as an explanation why we see physical
universes and sometimes pink elephants, despite nothing like that really exists.

I give the math to see if we get right the number of pink elephants in the many-dreams
(by number) interpretation of elementary arithmetic (0 I guess, and hope).

Keep in mind that God is defined by being the object of the theory of everything, or, by
definition, the answer we look for with the question why is there something instead of
nothing?.

The question is not if God exists or not. But if

But that's silly. You presume God exists, but with no description, so the only task is to
find a description to go with the word God. If you're going to ask whether something
exists that cannot be defined ostensively, then you need to define it by description.
Otherwise it's just wordplay. Compare:

The question isn't whether Paul Bunyan exists or not. But if

Paul Bunyan = the physical universe?
Paul Bunyan = a mathematical structure? Which one?
Paul Bunyan = a dream by a universal machine?
Paul Bunyan = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
Paul Bunyan = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
Paul Bunyan = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
Paul Bunyan = the universal person?
Paul Bunyan = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
Paul Bunyan = Allah?
Paul Bunyan = Jesus?
Paul Bunyan = Krishna?
Paul Bunyan = my tax collector?
Paul Bunyan = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then made the humans to gives
the vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag of catnip?

etc.

Brent

God = the physical universe?
God = a mathematical structure? Which one?
God = a dream by a universal machine?
God = a sum on all dreams by all universal machines?
God = the one who lost itself in a labyrinth of dreams?
God = the one who plays hide and seek with Itself?
God = the universal person?
God = the universal person completions? (if that exists)
God = Allah?
God = Jesus?
God = Krishna?
God = my tax collector?
God = the one who made the cat in its own image, and then made the humans to gives the
vat the modern comfort, with TV nad bag of catnip?

etc.

Theo in greek run around the idea of contemplation, examination and speculation. A
religion is only an as large as possible conception of reality, and God is a nickname
for what is real,

That's disingenuous. Reality is a common word, so we don't need a nickname. You seem
to be just making up excuses to use God.

Brent

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?


On 1/18/2015 9:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 15 Jan 2015, at 19:18, meekerdb wrote:


On 1/15/2015 3:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
It is the reason why I stopped, a long time ago, to qualify myself as an atheist. I 
realized that atheists believe to much in the christian God, paradoxically enough.


By your logic one cannot disbelieve in anything


?

I disbelieve in a number P which would be prime and such that all y with x  P would be 
composite numbers.


I disbelieve in triangular square. I can't conceive them.

I can conceive a personal god, but if it is literally the one of this or that text, I am 
skeptical, especially if endowed with positive attributes and even more so if it is 
claimed he gave normative rules.






because to do so you have to conceive of what it is your are failing to believe



Yes, a contradiction. I can conceive that I *was* wrong or inconsistent. Or that I am or 
will be.




(otherwise you don't know what you're talking about); and therefore you believe in it 
because you conceive it.


Not really, because even if I can conceive it, I can conceive also that it 
might not exist.


Then you need to stop saying atheist who conceive that the God of theism is unlikely to 
exist are really supporting the Christian god.


Brent



My belief in God is trivial. All machine introspecting are confronted to it, and from 
outside, in the metatheory, we can see that they can confused it (correctly, or not) 
with truth.


The problem of the aristotelians is that they often take for granted the physical 
reality, which is comprehensible when doing physics, but when doing theology, the 
physical universe is an hypothesis, and as such, there are no evidences for it.


That's fine, but it has no bearing on the relation of atheism to Christianity.  And it's 
not at all clear what Aristotle meant by physical reality (I doubt he even used that 
term).  Aristotle postulated the existence of substances which filled all space and had 
certain teleological tendencies.  The latter fit well with Christian eschatology and so 
his ideas were taught in the ecclesiastical schools.  Aristotle didn't engage in 
experimental science; he was as much driven by pure thought as Plato.  As JKC says he 
was a very bad physicist - and not just for his time; he could have followed the Ionian 
school which did measure as well as reason.


Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 7:46 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/15/2015 8:31 PM, Kim Jones wrote:




  On 16 Jan 2015, at 5:18 am, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

   On 1/15/2015 3:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 It is the reason why I stopped, a long time ago, to qualify myself as an
 atheist. I realized that atheists believe to much in the christian God,
 paradoxically enough.


 By your logic one cannot disbelieve in anything because to do so you have
 to conceive of what it is your are failing to believe (otherwise you don't
 know what you're talking about);



  Well, yes. Of course you have to be able to conceive of what you are
 going to make a choice to believe in or not! Implying that you have the
 right to disbelieve in something you cannot conceive of is the height of
 sophistry. You are merely testifying to the limitation of your own, or of
 human imagination but that is precisely the terrain we are treading here:
 the interface of human ignorance with what is really real.

  Of course the human imagination cannot conceive of God the way God is.
 This is because WE ARE ALL THE EYES AND EARS OF GOD. The eye cannot see
 itself. The hammer cannot hit itself. It can only infer it's true nature
 using the imagination and HOPE that the description adopted is exact. It
 never is. We cannot know what or who we are. It's a pretty miserable state
 of affairs, particularly if you are a hard-nosed scientist, I gather.


 Hard-nosed scientists are inured to not knowing things.  It's mystics who
 insist on making up an answer because they are uncomfortable with
 uncertainty.


Not knowing

a- (not)
-gnostic (know)

If scientists are inured to not knowing, why not consider yourself agnostic?

Jason

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

 Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least having
 an idea of, what God is.


I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or
at least having an idea of what reality is, for unless one claims to know
the extent of reality, how can one suppose to know what it does or doesn't
contain?


 Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea highly
 unlikely


Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception you are assuming
here?), also, to what degree do you hold the main idea the everything list
is meant to discuss, to be true (or likely)?


 and don't find that it contributes anything to discussions such as why is
 there something rather than nothing?


But god is the supposed answer to that very question. The question is not
is there an answer or isn't there (of course there is since we are here),
the question is what is the nature, and what are the properties, of that
thing, that object, that answer to the question of why reality exists.

Jason

So I am agnostic, as I am about all the other gods, not to mention Santa,
 who I recently saw on Doctor Who.

 (Of course I do believe in Daleks
 https://mayaofauckland.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/rub-vigorously-with-nuns-preparation/
 ...)


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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-17 Thread spudboy100 via Everything List

The only thing about Larry Krauss that I like is his sketching out a conjecture 
for faster than light travel. 

-Original Message-
From: 'Roger' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com
To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sat, Jan 17, 2015 12:17 am
Subject: Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the 
universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

Liz,

Hi.  I totally agree that if we're talking about the S vs. N question (I 
like your shortening of it), we can't assume that pre-quantum fields, the laws 
of mathematics, etc. are there.  That's what Lawrence Krauss did in his latest 
book and was criticized for by philosophers.  But, I also think that we can't 
assume that all possible information, arithmetical propositions, etc. are  
there without explanation.  It has to start with what we consider to be the 
absolute lack-of-all.  My view, though, is that even if we have what we think 
is the absolute lack-of-all, that absolute lack-of-all is itself an 
existent entity.  I say this because I think an existent entity is a grouping 
defining what is contained within.  Then, if there is the supposed absolute 
lack-of-all, that would be the entirety of all that is present; there are no 
existent entities hidden somewhere else; that's it.  Entirety and all are 
groupings defining what is contained within, and so it seems like the supposed 
absolute lack-of-all is itself, then, an existent entity.  Of course, because 
we wouldn't be there in the case of the supposed absolute lack-of-all, I 
can't prove this, but I can try to use the idea to build a model from it and 
see it it fits with what we know about the universe and then try to make some 
testable predictions.   I'm nowhere near that stage, but by doing this, it 
seems like metaphysics can kind of be  like science (observe or think about the 
S vs. N question, make a hypothesis, and test it to try and get evidence).

On a different note, I have a hard time navigating through all these 
different threads and posts.  I wish it were somehow a little easier to follow. 
 But, it could just be me.  

Thanks!

Roger 

On Monday, January 12, 2015 at 5:13:45 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote:

On 12 January 2015 at 17:23, 'Roger' via Everything List 
everyth...@googlegroups.com wrote:

Everyone,

I'd like to propose that we get back to the subject of discussing our ideas 
on how the universe works, why it's here, etc., and stop talking about religion 
so much.  It'd be nice if we could all also provide constructive criticism if 
we disagree, instead of insults.  If this turns into a religion, hatred, 
insults type forum, for me at least, it will have lost the value it had.

To start, I'd like to propose the following:  We all have different views 
on the question Why there is something rather than nothing?, if that question 
even has value, how the universe works, etc.  I think it's safe to say that, 
unless you're an academic, our ideas are also routinely ignored, criticized and 
made fun of by academics.  The only way for amateurs to ever get more traction 
is if we can take our ideas on the universe, build them up, and make models and 
testable predictions.  That's pretty much the scientific method.  Also, if 
we're discussing metaphysics, metaphysics is the study of being and existence.  
Because the universe bes and exists, and physics is the study of how the 
universe works, the laws of physics and the universe should be derivable from 
the principles of metaphysics.  I think many of us are trying to work out the 
principles of metaphysics that apply to how the universe works.  I call this a 
metaphysics-to-physics or philosophical engineering approach. I'd like to 
challenge all of us to build models and make predictions based on our ideas.  
That's what I'm trying to do in my own thinking.  I've got a very basic 
beginning model based on my thinking at my website at:

https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/filecabinet/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing

in the section called Use of the proposed solution to build a model of the 
universe.  I look forward to reading about others' models on this list in the 
future. 

   Anyways, even if no one is interested, I'd still vote to get away from 
religion.  Live and let live, let everyone have their say, and move on.  That's 
my two cents.  Thanks.

OK. I have many times dismissed the God hypothesis (on this forum) as having no 
explanatory value, as have others. But it keeps coming back.

But anyway...

I don't think there is necessarily something rather than nothing. There may 
only appear to be - the something of a material universe may be somehow 
derived from the nothing of all possible information, as suggested by Russell 
and others.

I think any serious attempt to explain the S vs N (on this list, given what's 
already been said) should start from the basis that

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On 1/17/2015 2:02 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 7:46 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 1/15/2015 8:31 PM, Kim Jones wrote:

On 16 Jan 2015, at 5:18 am, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 1/15/2015 3:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

It is the reason why I stopped, a long time ago, to qualify myself as an
atheist.
I realized that atheists believe to much in the christian God,
paradoxically enough.

By your logic one cannot disbelieve in anything because to do so you have to
conceive of what it is your are failing to believe (otherwise you don't
know what
you're talking about);

Well, yes. Of course you have to be able to conceive of what you are going
to make
a choice to believe in or not! Implying that you have the right to
disbelieve in
something you cannot conceive of is the height of sophistry. You are merely
testifying to the limitation of your own, or of human imagination but that
is
precisely the terrain we are treading here: the interface of human
ignorance with
what is really real.

Of course the human imagination cannot conceive of God the way God is. This
is
because WE ARE ALL THE EYES AND EARS OF GOD. The eye cannot see itself. The
hammer
cannot hit itself. It can only infer it's true nature using the imagination
and
HOPE that the description adopted is exact. It never is. We cannot know
what or who
we are. It's a pretty miserable state of affairs, particularly if you are a
hard-nosed scientist, I gather.

Hard-nosed scientists are inured to not knowing things. It's mystics who
insist on
making up an answer because they are uncomfortable with uncertainty.

Not knowing

a- (not)
-gnostic (know)
If scientists are inured to not knowing, why not consider yourself agnostic?

Agnostic is a broad term. You can be agnostic about almost any question. People mean
so many different things by God to say one is agnostic about the existence of God is
virtually meaningless. But to say you are an atheist is fairly specific, one who doesn't
believe the theist god exists. So, if asked, I could say I'm agnostic, but what would I
be agnostic about. I wouldn't be agnostic about the god of Abraham (which is how it's
likely to be understood in the U.S.). What would you mean if you said you were an agnostic?

Brent

RE: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-17 Thread John Ross

Roger,

 

If you focus a speed-of-light Coulomb force wave to a point, you produce a 
point particle that has no property except charge.  If you have a charge, you 
have a source of Coulomb force.  This is the tronnie.  Its charge is either 
plus or minus e.  Three tronnies can combine to make a positron (plus e) or an 
electron (-e).  Tronnies have no mass so individual tronnies are unable to 
resist Coulomb forces.  They just float on the net Coulomb forces they are 
exposed to, including their own Coulomb forces which are always repelling each 
tronnie at the speed of light or greater.  When they are traveling in a circle 
(which they usually or always are) they are repelled by their own Coulomb 
forces at a speed of π/2 times the speed of light.  By traveling in a perfect 
circle at π/2 times the speed of light, each tronnie is always at the focus of 
its own Coulomb force coming diametrically across the circle at the speed of 
light.

 

One plus tronnie and one  minus tronnie will attract each other and each will 
repel themselves.  This results in both of them traveling in a perfect circle 
at π/2 times the speed of light.  The diameter of the circle can be any value 
from 0.9339 X 10-18 meters to a few centimeters.  The attractive and repulsive 
integrated forces exactly cancel in the diametrical direction.  Integrating the 
forces converts newtons  into joules and kilograms. This particle is the 
“entron”.  It does have a physical dimension defined by its diameter and its 
circumference.  It also has a mass since the two opposite tronnies are now able 
to resist outside forces.  And it has a zero net charge.  Entrons have masses 
that vary from 1.65 X 10-27 kg to 1.78 X 10-42 kg.  There is one entron in each 
photon.  In the photon the entron travels at two times the speed of light in a 
circle with a diameter equal to 911 times the diameter of the entron.  The 
entron also travels forward at the speed of light giving the photon a 
wavelength equal to πd/2.  (λ = πd/2 = 1.5708d, where d is the diameter of the 
photon circle).  The reason for this is that each tronnie is repelling itself 
at the speed of light and the two tronnies of the entron are circling each 
other, so the entron must travel at a speed of 2c so that each tronnies can 
stay even with its Coulomb force that is traveling at the speed of light.  The 
entron must also travel at the speed of light for if it didn’t (and traveled in 
a straight line at 2c) the photon would quickly run away from its two Coulomb 
forces.  So the entron in the photon has its cake and also eats it.  It travels 
at a  circle at a speed of 2c and forward at a speed of c.  (If this seems a 
little complicated to you, I am not surprised.  It took me about three years to 
figure it out.)

 

Entrons provide all of the mass of our Universe except for the masses of 
electrons and positrons.  The most energetic entrons are entrons that I have 
named “neutrino entrons”.  I have named their corresponding photons, “neutrino 
photons”.  Both the neutrino entron and the neutrino photon have a mass of 1.65 
X 10-27 kg.  The diameter of the neutrino entron is 0.9339 X 10-18 m.  A naked 
proton is comprised of two positrons and a single electron that has captured 
one neutrino entron.  So the neutrino entron provides more than 99% of the mass 
of each proton.  The naked proton is self-propelled by its own Coulomb forces 
at a speed of about 4.02 X 107 m/s, about 13 percent of the speed of light, but 
it but it slows down by capturing gamma ray entrons so that the proton can 
become a nucleus of a hydrogen atom.  These gamma ray entrons are released when 
hydrogen atoms are combined in fusion processes in stars that light and heat 
solar systems, including ours.

 

Neutrino photons are currently unknown to science, except for the very few 
people that have read my book or otherwise learned of my recognition 
(discovery) of them.  This is because they are so small and energetic they can 
penetrate stars, planets and moons (also us) at the speed of light.  These 
neutrino entron (and their corresponding neutrino photons) provide the gravity 
of galaxies.  As they pass through stars, planets and moons, they each apply a 
reverse Coulomb force to these objects directed back to the source of the 
neutrino photons.  A small percentage are trapped and later released at random 
giving stars, planets and moons their gravity.  The Black Hole at the center of 
each galaxy creates anti-protons which combine with protons to annihilate each 
of them releasing two neutrino entrons which spread out from the Black Hole to 
provide the gravity of the galaxy.  In  Chapter XX of my book I prove that, if 
the Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way consumes on the average one earth 
size planet per day, the Black Hole will produce a  flux of neutrino photons at 
our solar system (including our earth) equal to about 68,000 neutrino 
photons/m2-second.  Assuming your body has a

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On 1/17/2015 2:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com
mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least having an
idea of,
what God is.

I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least
having an idea of what reality is, for unless one claims to know the extent of reality,
how can one suppose to know what it does or doesn't contain?

You can easily know that things with self contradictory properties are not in reality. If
something has properties that are inconsistent with observation that is fairly strong
evidence it doesn't exist.

Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can, but
does not want to; or he cannot, and does not want to. If he
wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not
want to, he is wicked. If he neither can, nor wants to, he is
both powerless and wicked. But if God can abolish evil, and wants
to, then how comes evil in the world?'
--- Epicurus

And then there are things that are consistent with both logic and observation, but are
very unlikely on our best theories of how the world works, e.g. teapots orbiting Jupiter.
Are you agnostic about the teapot orbiting Jupiter? Does agnostic just mean I don't
know for certain or does it mean I'm equally disposed to believe or disbelieve. or I
think it's impossible to decide the question.

Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea highly unlikely

Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception you are assuming
here?),

When I write God with caps, I mean a god who is a superpowerful person and who wants to
be worshipped; not some abstract organizing principle or the set of true propositions.

also, to what degree do you hold the main idea the everything list is meant to discuss,
to be true (or likely)?

I'm evenly divided on that question.

and don't find that it contributes anything to discussions such as why is
there
something rather than nothing?

But god is the supposed answer to that very question.

God is also supposed to answer the question, How should humans behave? and Who will
save me from death or disaster?

The question is not is there an answer or isn't there (of course there is since we are
here),

That doesn't follow. Conceivably there is no reason. In the major religions the
reason is that a supernatural immortal person willed or caused it. Reason referred to
what humans mean when they ask one another for a reason. Physical causes are not reasons
in that sense (although Aristotle thought they were).

the question is what is the nature, and what are the properties, of that thing,

Now you assume it's a thing or object. Are the equations of quantum field
theory a thing?

that object, that answer to the question of why reality exists.

That's easy. If it didn't exist it wouldn't be reality, would it?

Brent

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?


On 1/17/2015 3:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net 
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:


On 1/17/2015 2:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com
mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least 
having an
idea of, what God is.


I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or 
at
least having an idea of what reality is, for unless one claims to know the 
extent
of reality, how can one suppose to know what it does or doesn't contain?


You can easily know that things with self contradictory properties are not 
in reality.


I agree with that.

If something has properties that are inconsistent with observation that is 
fairly
strong evidence it doesn't exist.

Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can, but
does not want to; or he cannot, and does not want to. If he
wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not
want to, he is wicked.  If he neither can, nor wants to, he is
both powerless and wicked. But if God can abolish evil, and wants
to, then how comes evil in the world?'
  --- Epicurus


That's a nice example of an application of rational thought towards the advancement of 
theology. You've proven that an omnipotent God with the power and desire to prevent any 
bad thing from happening does not exist.


What else might we have been able to prove or disprove if theology had remained open to 
free inquiry over the past several millennia?



And then there are things that are consistent with both logic and 
observation, but
are very unlikely on our best theories of how the world works, e.g. teapots 
orbiting
Jupiter.  Are you agnostic about the teapot orbiting Jupiter?


To disbelieve in a particular thing orbiting Jupiter requires a working theory of our 
solar system.


To disbelieve in a particular thing existing at all (neither in this universe, nor in 
any other place in reality) requires a working theory of reality. What is yours?


Does agnostic just mean I don't know for certain or does it mean I'm 
equally
disposed to believe or disbelieve. or I think it's impossible to decide the 
question.


That's a good question. I think a definitive answer can be drawn from one's working 
theory of reality, but I don't know if an answer to that question is decidable or not, 
though perhaps it's possible to accumulate evidence towards one. So far I think man has 
made little progress in this endeavor, but Bruno and Tegmark seem to be farther ahead 
than most towards developing one. Working under those theories, I might say I am more of 
a rational theist in the sense that I can identify at least three things one might 
call god within those ontologies. However, as to which theory of reality is correct, I 
might call myself agnostic (even though I might be in the high 90's percentage wise 
leaning towards it, I could never be certain).






Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea highly 
unlikely


Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception you are assuming 
here?),


When I write God with caps, I mean a god who is a superpowerful person 
and who
wants to be worshipped; not some abstract organizing principle or the set 
of true
propositions.


Subtract and who wants to be worshiped then re-answer that question.  Why should we 
suppose that super-powerful minds are not likely to exist in reality?


There's a difference between super-powerful minds and a superpowerful person.  By 
superpowerful person I meant one who could transcend physical laws, i.e. perform 
miracles.  By the very definition of miracles these are not reliably observed and so the 
empirical evidence makes their existence very unlikely.  A superpowerful mind might just 
be a human mind implemented in an electronic medium so that it was millions of times 
faster - but was still a Turing machine.  It couldn't do miracles.





also, to what degree do you hold the main idea the everything list is meant 
to
discuss, to be true (or likely)?


I'm evenly divided on that question.


So then would you not also be evenly divided on the existence of superpoweful people 
who want to be worshipped


No, see above on superpowerful people.

(assuming the two are not mutually exclusive properties and hence not logically 
impossible) then if every possible universe exists, some are sure to contain 
superpoweful people who want to be worshipped.




and don't find that it contributes anything to discussions such as why 
is
there something rather than nothing?


But god is the supposed answer to that very question.


God is also supposed to answer the question, How should humans behave?


Yes, and the conception of God as the one mind to which we are all a part

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/17/2015 2:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

 Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least having
 an idea of, what God is.


  I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing,
 or at least having an idea of what reality is, for unless one claims to
 know the extent of reality, how can one suppose to know what it does or
 doesn't contain?


 You can easily know that things with self contradictory properties are not
 in reality.


I agree with that.


 If something has properties that are inconsistent with observation that is
 fairly strong evidence it doesn't exist.

 Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can, but
 does not want to; or he cannot, and does not want to.  If he
 wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not
 want to, he is wicked.  If he neither can, nor wants to, he is
 both powerless and wicked. But if God can abolish evil, and wants
 to, then how comes evil in the world?'
   --- Epicurus


That's a nice example of an application of rational thought towards the
advancement of theology. You've proven that an omnipotent God with the
power and desire to prevent any bad thing from happening does not exist.

What else might we have been able to prove or disprove if theology had
remained open to free inquiry over the past several millennia?



 And then there are things that are consistent with both logic and
 observation, but are very unlikely on our best theories of how the world
 works, e.g. teapots orbiting Jupiter.  Are you agnostic about the teapot
 orbiting Jupiter?


To disbelieve in a particular thing orbiting Jupiter requires a working
theory of our solar system.

To disbelieve in a particular thing existing at all (neither in this
universe, nor in any other place in reality) requires a working theory of
reality. What is yours?


 Does agnostic just mean I don't know for certain or does it mean I'm
 equally disposed to believe or disbelieve. or I think it's impossible to
 decide the question.


That's a good question. I think a definitive answer can be drawn from one's
working theory of reality, but I don't know if an answer to that question
is decidable or not, though perhaps it's possible to accumulate evidence
towards one. So far I think man has made little progress in this endeavor,
but Bruno and Tegmark seem to be farther ahead than most towards developing
one. Working under those theories, I might say I am more of a rational
theist in the sense that I can identify at least three things one might
call god within those ontologies. However, as to which theory of reality is
correct, I might call myself agnostic (even though I might be in the high
90's percentage wise leaning towards it, I could never be certain).






  Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea highly
 unlikely


  Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception you are
 assuming here?),


 When I write God with caps, I mean a god who is a superpowerful person
 and who wants to be worshipped; not some abstract organizing principle or
 the set of true propositions.


Subtract and who wants to be worshiped then re-answer that question.  Why
should we suppose that super-powerful minds are not likely to exist in
reality?



   also, to what degree do you hold the main idea the everything list is
 meant to discuss, to be true (or likely)?


 I'm evenly divided on that question.


So then would you not also be evenly divided on the existence of
superpoweful people who want to be worshipped (assuming the two are not
mutually exclusive properties and hence not logically impossible) then if
every possible universe exists, some are sure to contain superpoweful
people who want to be worshipped.






  and don't find that it contributes anything to discussions such as why
 is there something rather than nothing?


  But god is the supposed answer to that very question.


 God is also supposed to answer the question, How should humans behave?


Yes, and the conception of God as the one mind to which we are all a part
does provide a foundation for an ethical framework (not unlike the golden
rule or karma).


 and Who will save me from death or disaster?


The conception of God-like entities with the power to computationally
simulate worlds and galaxies can save you by providing you a
computational afterlife.



   The question is not is there an answer or isn't there (of course there
 is since we are here),


 That doesn't follow.  Conceivably there is no reason.


Only in an fundamentally non-deterministic universe, which I personally
have great difficulty conceiving.


   In the major religions the reason is that a supernatural immortal
 person willed or caused it.  Reason referred to what humans mean when
 they ask one another for a reason.  Physical causes are not reasons in that

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?


On 1/17/2015 2:35 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:12 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net 
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:


On 1/17/2015 2:02 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 7:46 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

On 1/15/2015 8:31 PM, Kim Jones wrote:




On 16 Jan 2015, at 5:18 am, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net
mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote:


On 1/15/2015 3:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

It is the reason why I stopped, a long time ago, to qualify myself as an
atheist. I realized that atheists believe to much in the christian God,
paradoxically enough.


By your logic one cannot disbelieve in anything because to do so you 
have to
conceive of what it is your are failing to believe (otherwise you don't 
know
what you're talking about);



Well, yes. Of course you have to be able to conceive of what you are 
going to
make a choice to believe in or not! Implying that you have the right 
to
disbelieve in something you cannot conceive of is the height of 
sophistry. You
are merely testifying to the limitation of your own, or of human 
imagination
but that is precisely the terrain we are treading here: the interface 
of human
ignorance with what is really real.

Of course the human imagination cannot conceive of God the way God is. 
This is
because WE ARE ALL THE EYES AND EARS OF GOD. The eye cannot see itself. 
The
hammer cannot hit itself. It can only infer it's true nature using the
imagination and HOPE that the description adopted is exact. It never 
is. We
cannot know what or who we are. It's a pretty miserable state of 
affairs,
particularly if you are a hard-nosed scientist, I gather.


Hard-nosed scientists are inured to not knowing things.  It's mystics 
who
insist on making up an answer because they are uncomfortable with 
uncertainty.


Not knowing

a- (not)
-gnostic (know)
If scientists are inured to not knowing, why not consider yourself agnostic?


Agnostic is a broad term.  You can be agnostic about almost any question. 
 People
mean so many different things by God to say one is agnostic about the 
existence of
God is virtually meaningless.


I agree, but I also think the same applies to atheism, (which god exactly is it you 
believe does not exist?)


  But to say you are an atheist is fairly specific, one who doesn't believe 
the
theist god exists.


I think you are perhaps in the minority to take definition of the term, though I respect 
it for its enhanced specificity.


So, if asked, I could say I'm agnostic, but what would I be agnostic about. 
 I
wouldn't be agnostic about the god of Abraham (which is how it's likely to 
be
understood in the U.S.).  What would you mean if you said you were an 
agnostic?


By saying I was agnostic, I would mean that I don't proclaim to have reached any final 
truths concerning the nature of reality.


So you're assuming that the object of unqualified agnostic is the final nature of 
reality.  You don't mean you're agnostic about everything, such as Zeus or the teapot 
orbiting Jupiter.  But the person to whom you say I'm AN agnostic. is likely to assume 
the object about which you are agnostic is the God of Abraham.  Which is fine if you want 
to dissemble.


Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:12 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/17/2015 2:02 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 7:46 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/15/2015 8:31 PM, Kim Jones wrote:




  On 16 Jan 2015, at 5:18 am, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

   On 1/15/2015 3:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 It is the reason why I stopped, a long time ago, to qualify myself as an
 atheist. I realized that atheists believe to much in the christian God,
 paradoxically enough.


 By your logic one cannot disbelieve in anything because to do so you have
 to conceive of what it is your are failing to believe (otherwise you don't
 know what you're talking about);



  Well, yes. Of course you have to be able to conceive of what you are
 going to make a choice to believe in or not! Implying that you have the
 right to disbelieve in something you cannot conceive of is the height of
 sophistry. You are merely testifying to the limitation of your own, or of
 human imagination but that is precisely the terrain we are treading here:
 the interface of human ignorance with what is really real.

  Of course the human imagination cannot conceive of God the way God is.
 This is because WE ARE ALL THE EYES AND EARS OF GOD. The eye cannot see
 itself. The hammer cannot hit itself. It can only infer it's true nature
 using the imagination and HOPE that the description adopted is exact. It
 never is. We cannot know what or who we are. It's a pretty miserable state
 of affairs, particularly if you are a hard-nosed scientist, I gather.


  Hard-nosed scientists are inured to not knowing things.  It's mystics
 who insist on making up an answer because they are uncomfortable with
 uncertainty.


  Not knowing

  a- (not)
 -gnostic (know)

 If scientists are inured to not knowing, why not consider yourself
 agnostic?


 Agnostic is a broad term.  You can be agnostic about almost any
 question.  People mean so many different things by God to say one is
 agnostic about the existence of God is virtually meaningless.


I agree, but I also think the same applies to atheism, (which god exactly
is it you believe does not exist?)


   But to say you are an atheist is fairly specific, one who doesn't
 believe the theist god exists.


I think you are perhaps in the minority to take definition of the term,
though I respect it for its enhanced specificity.


 So, if asked, I could say I'm agnostic, but what would I be agnostic
 about.  I wouldn't be agnostic about the god of Abraham (which is how it's
 likely to be understood in the U.S.).  What would you mean if you said you
 were an agnostic?


By saying I was agnostic, I would mean that I don't proclaim to have
reached any final truths concerning the nature of reality.

Jason

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?


On 1/17/2015 4:08 PM, John Clark wrote:
On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 2:13 AM, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au 
mailto:kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote:


 In Russell's Theory of Nothing he says that the informational content of 
the
universe was entirely present at whatever juncture we call the BB.


And early in Big Bang when the cosmic fireball was at the Planck Temperature of 
1.41*10^32 degrees Kelvin how does Russell propose the information was encoded?


High temperature means there are lots of states energetically available, so it doesn't 
preclude high information content.  If quantum mechanics is right then the physical 
evolution of states has always been unitary and reversible and information has been preserved.


Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-17 Thread Bruce Kellett


meekerdb wrote:


On 1/17/2015 4:08 PM, John Clark wrote:
On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 2:13 AM, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au 
mailto:kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote:


 In Russell's Theory of Nothing he says that the informational
content of the universe was entirely present at whatever juncture
we call the BB.


And early in Big Bang when the cosmic fireball was at the Planck 
Temperature of 1.41*10^32 degrees Kelvin how does Russell propose the 
information was encoded?


High temperature means there are lots of states energetically available, 
so it doesn't preclude high information content.  If quantum mechanics 
is right then the physical evolution of states has always been unitary 
and reversible and information has been preserved.


That still leaves the coding problem -- just think Hawking radiation. 
But information is preserved only in the multiverse. It most certainly 
is not preserved in the universe we observe.


Bruce




Brent


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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?


On 1/17/2015 9:03 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


Which is fine if you want to dissemble.


Why do you take the Abrahamic God to be the canonical definition?


Not canonical.  There's no one with the authority to issue canon law on the meaning of 
English.


There are 7 billion people on this Earth and most of them are not Christian, Jewish or 
Muslim.


According to wikipedia 54.7% are.  And if you add folk religions which mostly posit 
personal gods, you're up to 60.6%.  And I'm guessing you don't live in India or China, so 
among people you speak to it maybe higher still.


Brent

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-17 Thread John Clark

On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 2:13 AM, Kim Jones kimjo...@ozemail.com.au wrote:

 In Russell's Theory of Nothing he says that the informational content of
 the universe was entirely present at whatever juncture we call the BB.


And early in Big Bang when the cosmic fireball was at the Planck
Temperature of 1.41*10^32 degrees Kelvin how does Russell propose the
information was encoded?

  John K Clark

.

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 5:56 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/17/2015 3:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:29 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/17/2015 2:12 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 3:32 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote:

 Clearly one cannot disbelieve in God without knowing, or at least having
 an idea of, what God is.


  I would go further and say one cannot disbelieve in God without
 knowing, or at least having an idea of what reality is, for unless one
 claims to know the extent of reality, how can one suppose to know what it
 does or doesn't contain?


  You can easily know that things with self contradictory properties are
 not in reality.


  I agree with that.


 If something has properties that are inconsistent with observation that
 is fairly strong evidence it doesn't exist.

 Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot; or he can, but
 does not want to; or he cannot, and does not want to.  If he
 wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not
 want to, he is wicked.  If he neither can, nor wants to, he is
 both powerless and wicked. But if God can abolish evil, and wants
 to, then how comes evil in the world?'
   --- Epicurus


  That's a nice example of an application of rational thought towards the
 advancement of theology. You've proven that an omnipotent God with the
 power and desire to prevent any bad thing from happening does not exist.

  What else might we have been able to prove or disprove if theology had
 remained open to free inquiry over the past several millennia?



 And then there are things that are consistent with both logic and
 observation, but are very unlikely on our best theories of how the world
 works, e.g. teapots orbiting Jupiter.  Are you agnostic about the teapot
 orbiting Jupiter?


  To disbelieve in a particular thing orbiting Jupiter requires a working
 theory of our solar system.

  To disbelieve in a particular thing existing at all (neither in this
 universe, nor in any other place in reality) requires a working theory of
 reality. What is yours?


  Does agnostic just mean I don't know for certain or does it mean
 I'm equally disposed to believe or disbelieve. or I think it's
 impossible to decide the question.


  That's a good question. I think a definitive answer can be drawn from
 one's working theory of reality, but I don't know if an answer to that
 question is decidable or not, though perhaps it's possible to accumulate
 evidence towards one. So far I think man has made little progress in this
 endeavor, but Bruno and Tegmark seem to be farther ahead than most towards
 developing one. Working under those theories, I might say I am more of a
 rational theist in the sense that I can identify at least three things
 one might call god within those ontologies. However, as to which theory of
 reality is correct, I might call myself agnostic (even though I might be in
 the high 90's percentage wise leaning towards it, I could never be certain).






  Personally I don't disbelieve in God, I merely find the idea highly
 unlikely


  Why do you find it highly unlikely (what is the conception you are
 assuming here?),


  When I write God with caps, I mean a god who is a superpowerful person
 and who wants to be worshipped; not some abstract organizing principle or
 the set of true propositions.


  Subtract and who wants to be worshiped then re-answer that question.
 Why should we suppose that super-powerful minds are not likely to exist in
 reality?


 There's a difference between super-powerful minds and a superpowerful
 person.  By superpowerful person I meant one who could transcend physical
 laws, i.e. perform miracles.



A super powerful mind (or person) simulating some reality could of course
cause the simulation to deviate from its physical laws.


   By the very definition of miracles these are not reliably observed and
 so the empirical evidence makes their existence very unlikely.


You could only draw this conclusion if you believed it highly likely that
should any miracle have occurred in this universe, humankind would have
observed it. This alone would be highly dubious given how small an extent
in time and space (compared to the universe as a whole) humanity has kept
reliable records.


   A superpowerful mind might just be a human mind implemented in an
 electronic medium so that it was millions of times faster - but was still a
 Turing machine.  It couldn't do miracles.


It could for the beings within the realities it simulates / instantiates.





   also, to what degree do you hold the main idea the everything list is
 meant to discuss, to be true (or likely)?


  I'm evenly divided on that question.


  So then would you not also be evenly divided on the existence of
 superpoweful people who want to be worshipped


 No, see above on superpowerful people.


See above on realities simulated by super-powerful people.



   (assuming the two

Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-17 Thread 'Roger' via Everything List



On Saturday, January 17, 2015 at 1:12:20 PM UTC-5, spudb...@aol.com wrote:

 The only thing about Larry Krauss that I like is his sketching out a 
 conjecture for faster than light travel. 
  

Agreed.  Krauss kind of irritates me, too.  His book title A universe from 
nothing: Why there is something rather than nothing is basically false 
advertising, IMHO.

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

2015-01-17 Thread John Clark

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 7:50 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:


   early in Big Bang when the cosmic fireball was at the Planck
 Temperature of 1.41*10^32 degrees Kelvin how does Russell propose the
 information was encoded?


  High temperature means there are lots of states energetically available,
 so it doesn't preclude high information content.  If quantum mechanics is
 right then the physical evolution of states has always been unitary and
 reversible and information has been preserved.


But I'd really REALLY like to know how that information is encoded!  It
makes no difference if quantum mechanics says things are unitary because
the blackbody radiation given off by things when they are at 1.41*10^32
degrees Kelvin have a wavelength equal to the Planck Length, the distance
light can move in the Planck Time of 10^-44 seconds; and when things become
that small and that energetic a gravitational singularity forms. At that
point both Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity break down.

  John K Clark

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 5:32 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/17/2015 2:35 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:12 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

   On 1/17/2015 2:02 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



 On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 7:46 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

  On 1/15/2015 8:31 PM, Kim Jones wrote:




  On 16 Jan 2015, at 5:18 am, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:

   On 1/15/2015 3:04 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

 It is the reason why I stopped, a long time ago, to qualify myself as an
 atheist. I realized that atheists believe to much in the christian God,
 paradoxically enough.


 By your logic one cannot disbelieve in anything because to do so you
 have to conceive of what it is your are failing to believe (otherwise you
 don't know what you're talking about);



  Well, yes. Of course you have to be able to conceive of what you are
 going to make a choice to believe in or not! Implying that you have the
 right to disbelieve in something you cannot conceive of is the height of
 sophistry. You are merely testifying to the limitation of your own, or of
 human imagination but that is precisely the terrain we are treading here:
 the interface of human ignorance with what is really real.

  Of course the human imagination cannot conceive of God the way God is.
 This is because WE ARE ALL THE EYES AND EARS OF GOD. The eye cannot see
 itself. The hammer cannot hit itself. It can only infer it's true nature
 using the imagination and HOPE that the description adopted is exact. It
 never is. We cannot know what or who we are. It's a pretty miserable state
 of affairs, particularly if you are a hard-nosed scientist, I gather.


  Hard-nosed scientists are inured to not knowing things.  It's mystics
 who insist on making up an answer because they are uncomfortable with
 uncertainty.


  Not knowing

  a- (not)
 -gnostic (know)

 If scientists are inured to not knowing, why not consider yourself
 agnostic?


  Agnostic is a broad term.  You can be agnostic about almost any
 question.  People mean so many different things by God to say one is
 agnostic about the existence of God is virtually meaningless.


  I agree, but I also think the same applies to atheism, (which god
 exactly is it you believe does not exist?)


   But to say you are an atheist is fairly specific, one who doesn't
 believe the theist god exists.


  I think you are perhaps in the minority to take definition of the term,
 though I respect it for its enhanced specificity.


  So, if asked, I could say I'm agnostic, but what would I be agnostic
 about.  I wouldn't be agnostic about the god of Abraham (which is how it's
 likely to be understood in the U.S.).  What would you mean if you said you
 were an agnostic?


  By saying I was agnostic, I would mean that I don't proclaim to have
 reached any final truths concerning the nature of reality.


 So you're assuming that the object of unqualified agnostic is the final
 nature of reality.


Yes.

You don't mean you're agnostic about everything, such as Zeus or the teapot
 orbiting Jupiter.


But the existence (or non existence) of those things depends on the assumed
theory regarding the nature of reality.


 But the person to whom you say I'm AN agnostic. is likely to assume the
 object about which you are agnostic is the God of Abraham.


Why?


 Which is fine if you want to dissemble.


Why do you take the Abrahamic God to be the canonical definition? There are
7 billion people on this Earth and most of them are not Christian, Jewish
or Muslim.

Jason

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Re: Isn't this group supposed to be about trying to figure out how the universe works and not so much about religion and insults?