Re: existence of stars

2001-06-02 Thread Saibal Mitra

You'll have to ask Bruno, because that's what he wrote.

 On 01-Jun-01, Saibal Mitra wrote:

  BTW, do you know that Godel wrote a formalisation in the modal logic
  system S5 of St. Anselm proof of the existence of God? (I'm not sure
  there is any evidence that Godel takes his proof seriously, but it is
  a nice little piece of exact and very modest theology. See Vol 3 of
  the complete work of Godel edited by Feferman  Al.).
  My opinion? Well I don't believe in S5 :-)´´

 Could you expand on I don't believe in S5?  Just curious.

 Brent Meeker
 El sueño de la razón produce monstruos.
   --Francisco de Goya






Re: existence of stars

2001-06-02 Thread Saibal Mitra



Bruno wrote:

 Saibal wrote:  (complete message below for the FORers)

 Can't we prove that stars (and for that matter anything we observe)
exist
 in at least some universes?

 But does some universes exists ? To tell you frankly I have a problem
with
 the word universe. I guess you take it as meaning the set (let us say)
of
 all what exists. But then I want to distinguish things which really
exists
 from things which are only distinguished from a relative observer point of
view.
 Tell me how you draw the line. Is there a line?

The Great Programmer can presumably compute certain correlations  between
our obserations of what we think is a star and the state of the observed
system itself.  As I see it the Great Programmer outputs descriptions,
including descriptions of an astronomer observing a star. Why can't the
Great Programmer check the description of the astronomer of a star against
his own description?




 Since we have identical copies in those
 universes, it really doesn't matter.

 Why ? Suppose I love Moscow and that I am duplicated from Brussels to both
 Washington and Moscow. And suppose that after that event I wake up in
Washington.
 I hope you understand I am not happy. From time to time I get consolating
 words by my doppelbrother phones from Moscow. But still ...

What I meant was that the observer should have an exactly identical copy in
a universe in which stars do exist. So the observer can't tell if stars do
or don't exist, but it doesn't matter because he is exactly identical to an
observer observing a real star.

 In your example you should replace Moscow by a virtual reality
representation of Moscow. One copy of you travels to the real Moscow, the
other copy is a digital version of you that is sent to the cyber-version
Moscow.  Suppose that we didn't tell you that we would make a digital copy
of you. In that case your digital copy would think he is in ``real´´ Moscow.

 It is important for the stellist and galaxies lovers that stars and
galaxies
 remains existing in the universes as seen by the really vast
majority of
 their vast number of doppelbrothers and sisters ... This gives the degree
of
 solidity. It makes worth acting following personal thought, respecting the
 ten thousand counterfactuals and apparent causalities.

 The moral I would draw from MW or comp (you know I think comp - MW), is
that
 if you are enthusiast (let us say) and if you want to *stay* enthusiast,
then
 you have no better means that trying to share that enthusiasm with the
most vast
 possible collection of doppelbrothersisters. No?

Yes but shouldn't all the ``oppelbrothersisters´´ be identified?

Saibal








Re: existence of stars

2001-06-01 Thread Marchal


Saibal wrote:  (complete message below for the FORers)

Can't we prove that stars (and for that matter anything we observe)  exist
in at least some universes?  

But does some universes exists ? To tell you frankly I have a problem with
the word universe. I guess you take it as meaning the set (let us say) of
all what exists. But then I want to distinguish things which really exists
from things which are only distinguished from a relative observer point of view.
Tell me how you draw the line. Is there a line?


Since we have identical copies in those
universes, it really doesn't matter.

Why ? Suppose I love Moscow and that I am duplicated from Brussels to both
Washington and Moscow. And suppose that after that event I wake up in Washington.
I hope you understand I am not happy. From time to time I get consolating
words by my doppelbrother phones from Moscow. But still ...

It is important for the stellist and galaxies lovers that stars and galaxies
remains existing in the universes as seen by the really vast majority of
their vast number of doppelbrothers and sisters ... This gives the degree of
solidity. It makes worth acting following personal thought, respecting the
ten thousand counterfactuals and apparent causalities.

The moral I would draw from MW or comp (you know I think comp - MW), is that
if you are enthusiast (let us say) and if you want to *stay* enthusiast, then
you have no better means that trying to share that enthusiasm with the most vast
possible collection of doppelbrothersisters. No?

Bruno

=== Saibal post:
Bruno wrote (on the FoR list):
``Lee Corbin wrote (answering Russell Standish):

 I can prove that God sees stars.  Clearly a God which can see
 stars is greater than a God that cannot see stars, and God is
 'that which nothing greater than' can be conceived, and since
 we can conceive of a God which can see stars, it follows that
 God can see stars.  Q.E.D.

I said (probably to quickly):

 You are using some implicite hypothesis here: mainly that stars
 exists, isnt it. Because if God see stars and if there is no stars
 poor little God is hallucinated.
 i'm afraid Russell Standish is right here.
 If God see stars and if God exists, then indeed stars exists, but
 nobody has ever give any evidence for stars or gods. Alas.
 (Independently of the question of the existence of Gods, or stars).

 You can only prove (following indeed St. Anselm) that if God exists
 and if stars exists, then God sees stars.

Charles Goodwin comments:

Who says there's no evidence for the existence of stars? I for one am a
convinced stellist and firmly believe that stars exist. (Including the
Sun -
it's bigger than me so I don't argue with it.)

I certainly agree we have strong evidence that stars and galaxies are
relatively stable heroin in the most probable stories we share.

But this means that we *bet* (inductively) on stars (as a part of a
world-view we are betting). St. Anselm was  trying to *prove*
(deductively)
the existence of God. You told me that
you can prove that God sees stars. For that purpose you must prove
the existence of stars (to bet on it is not enough). Or you just mean
that God can imagine stars, as seen by us in some story? Or do you think
God shares our story?

BTW, do you know that Godel wrote a formalisation in the modal logic
system S5 of St. Anselm proof of the existence of God? (I'm not sure
there is any evidence that Godel takes his proof seriously, but it is
a nice little piece of exact and very modest theology. See Vol 3 of
the complete work of Godel edited by Feferman  Al.).
My opinion? Well I don't believe in S5 :-)´´

Can't we prove that stars (and for that matter anything we observe)  exist
in at least some universes?  Since we have identical copies in those
universes, it really doesn't matter.

Saibal

 




Re: existence of stars

2001-06-01 Thread Brent Meeker

On 01-Jun-01, Saibal Mitra wrote:
 
 BTW, do you know that Godel wrote a formalisation in the modal logic
 system S5 of St. Anselm proof of the existence of God? (I'm not sure
 there is any evidence that Godel takes his proof seriously, but it is
 a nice little piece of exact and very modest theology. See Vol 3 of
 the complete work of Godel edited by Feferman  Al.).
 My opinion? Well I don't believe in S5 :-)´´

Could you expand on I don't believe in S5?  Just curious.

Brent Meeker
El sueño de la razón produce monstruos. 
  --Francisco de Goya