Charles, I agree very much with the first paragraph of your below post, and generally with much of the rest of what it says.
I would add that there probably is something to the phenomenon that John Rose is referring to, i.e., that faith seems to be valuable to many people. Perhaps it is somewhat like owning a lottery ticket before its drawing. It can offer desired hope, even if the hope might be unrealistic. But whatever you think of the odds, it is relatively clear that religion does makes some people's lives seem more meaningful to them. Ed Porter -----Original Message----- From: Charles D Hixson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 4:01 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [agi] AGI and Deity I find Dawkins less offensive than most theologians. He commits many fewer logical fallacies. His main one is premature certainty. The evidence in favor of an external god of any traditional form is, frankly, a bit worse than unimpressive. It's lots worse. This doesn't mean that gods don't exist, merely that they (probably) don't exist in the hardware of the universe. I see them as a function of the software of the entities that use language. Possibly they exist in a muted form in most pack animals, or most animals that have protective adults when they are infants. To me it appears that people believe in gods for the same reasons that they believe in telepathy. I.e., evidence back before they could speak clearly indicated that the adults could transfer thoughts from one to another. This shaped a basic layer of beliefs that was later buried under later additions, but never refuted. When one learned language, one learned how to transfer thoughts ... but it was never tied back into the original belief, because what was learned didn't match closely enough to the original model of what was happening. Analogously, when one is an infant the adult that cares for one is seen as the all powerful protector. Pieces of this image become detached memories within the mind, and are not refuted when a more accurate and developed model of the actual parents is created. These hidden memories are the basis around which the idea of a god is created. Naturally, this is just my model of what is happening. Other possibilities exist. But if I am to consider them seriously, they need to match the way the world operates as I understand it. They don't need to predict the same mechanism, but they need to predict the same events. E.g., I consider Big Bang cosmology a failed explanation. It's got too many ad hoc pieces. But it successfully explains most things that are observed, and is consistent with relativity and quantum theory. (Naturally, as they were used in developing it...but nevertheless important.) And relativity and quantum theory themselves are failures, because both are needed to explain that which is observable, but they contradict each other in certain details. But they are successful failures! Similar commentary applies to string theory, but with differences. (Too many ad hoc parameters!) Any god that is proposed must be shown to be consistent with the observed phenomena. The Deists managed to come up with one that would do the job, but he never became very popular. Few others have even tried, except with absurdly evident special pleading. Generally I'd be more willing to accept "Chariots of the Gods" as a true account. And as for moral principles... I've READ the Bible. The basic moral principle that it pushes is "We are the chosen people. Kill the stranger, steal his property, and enslave his servants!" It requires selective reading to come up with anything else, though I admit that other messages are also in there, if you read selectively. Especially during the periods when the Jews were in one captivity or another. (I.e., if you are weak, preach mercy, but if you are strong show none.) During the later times the Jews were generally under the thumb of one foreign power or another, so they started preaching mercy. John G. Rose wrote: > > I don't know some of these guys come up with these almost sophomoric > views of this subject, especially Dawkins, that guy can be real > annoying with his Saganistic spewing of facts and his trivialization > of religion. > > The article does shed some interesting light though in typical NY > Times style. But the real subject matter is much deeper and > complex(complicated?). > > John > > *From:* Ed Porter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > *Sent:* Sunday, December 09, 2007 12:42 PM > *To:* agi@v2.listbox.com > *Subject:* RE: [agi] AGI and Deity > > Upon reviewing the below linked article I realized it would take you a > while to understand what it is about and why it is relevant. > > It is an article dated March 4, 2007, summarizing current scientific > thinking on why religion has been a part of virtually all known > cultures including thinking about what it is about the human mind and > human societies that has made religious beliefs so common. > > Ed Porter > > -----Original Message----- > *From:* Ed Porter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > *Sent:* Sunday, December 09, 2007 2:16 PM > *To:* agi@v2.listbox.com > *Subject:* RE: [agi] AGI and Deity > > Relevant to this thread is the following link: > > http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/magazine/04evolution.t.html?ref=magazine&p agewanted=print > <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/magazine/04evolution.t.html?ref=magazine&; pagewanted=print> > > Ed Porter > > -----Original Message----- > *From:* John G. Rose [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > *Sent:* Sunday, December 09, 2007 1:50 PM > *To:* agi@v2.listbox.com > *Subject:* RE: [agi] AGI and Deity > > This example is looking at it from a moment in time. The evolution of > intelligence in man has some relation to his view of deity. Before > government and science there was religion. Deity and knowledge and > perhaps human intelligence are entwined. For example some taboos > evolved as defenses against disease, burying the dead, not eating > certain foods, etc. science didn't exist at the time. Deity was a sort > of peer to peer lossily compressed semi-holographic knowledge base > hosted and built by human mobile agents and agent systems. Now it is > evolving into something else. But humans may readily swap out their > deities with AGIs and then uploading can replace heaven J > > An AGI, as it reads through text related to man's deities, could start > wondering about Pascal's wager. It depends on many factors... Still > though I think AGIs have to run into the same sort of issues. > > John > > *From:* J Marlow [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Here's the way I like to think of it; we have different methods of > thinking about systems in our environments, different sort of models. > One type of model that we humans have (with the possible exception of > autistics) is the ability to try to model another system as a person > like ourselves; its easier to predict what it will do if we attribute > it motives and goals. I think a lot of our ideas about > God/gods/goddesses come from a tendency to try to predict the behavior > of nature using agent models; so farmers attribute human emotions, > like spite or anger, to nature when the weather doesn't help the crops. > So, assuming that is a big factor in how/why we developed religions, > then it is possible that an AI could have a similar problem, if it > tried to describe too many events using its 'agency' models. But I > think an AI near or better than human level could probably see that > there are simpler (or more accurate) explanations, and so reject > predictions made based on those models. > Then again, a completely rational AI may believe in Pascal's wager... > Josh > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email > To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; <http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&;> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email > To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; <http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&;> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email > To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; <http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&;> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email > To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; > <http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&;> ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=74325615-e111bf
