Le 26-déc.-06, à 19:54, Tom Caylor a écrit :
On Dec 26, 9:51 am, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Le 25-déc.-06, à 01:13, Tom Caylor a écrit :
> The "crux" is that he is not symbolic...
I respect your belief or faith, but I want to be frank, I have no
evidences for the idea that "Jesus" is "truth", nor can I be sure of
any clear meaning such an assertion could have, or how such an
assertion could be made scientific, even dropping Popper falsification
criteria. I must say I have evidences on the contrary, if only the
fact
that humans succumb often to wishful thinking, and still more often to
their parents wishful thinking.
If you are not sure of any clear meaning of the personal God being the
source of everything, including of course truth, this entails not
knowing the other things too.
Is that not an authoritative argument?
What if I ask to my student an exam question like give me an argument
why the square root of 3 is irrationnal. Suppose he gives me the
correct and convincing usual (mathematical) proof. I could give him a
bad note for not adding: "and I know that is the truth because truth is
a gift by God".
Cute, I can directly give bad notes to all my students, and this will
give me more time to find a falsity in your way to reason ...
For a personal God, taking on our form
(incarnation), especially if we were made in the image of God in the
first place, and showing through miracles, and rising from the dead...,
his dual nature (God&man, celestial&terrestial, G*&G) seems to make a
lot more sense than something like a cross in earth orbit. For
example, giving a hug is a more personal (and thus a more appropriate)
way of expressing love, than giving a card, even though a card is more
verifiable in a third person sense, especially after the hug is
finished. But we do have the "card" too: God's written Word, even
though this is not sufficient, the incarnate hug was the primary proof,
the "card" was just the historical record of it.
The card records facts. To judge them historical is already beyond my
competence. Why the bible? Why not "the question of king Milinda" ?
> There can be no upward
> emanation unless/until a sufficient downward emanation is provided.
In
> Christianity, the downward emanation is "God loves us", and then the
> upward emanation is "We love God".
Plotinus insists a lot on the two ways: downward emanation and upward
emanation. The lobian machine theology is coherent with this, even if
negatively. It is coherent with Jef idea that pure "theological
imperatives" can only be addressed by adapted "story telling" and
examples, like jurisprudence in the application of laws. But then
there
is a proviso: none of the stories should be taken literally.
I agree with the use of stories. Jesus used stories almost exclusively
to communicate. Either the hearers "got it" or not. But this does not
imply that stories are the only form of downward emanation.
Of course not. Real stories and personal experiences, and collective
experiences and experiments ... All this can help the downward
emanation.
The
incarnation was the primary means. Otherwise, who would have been the
story-teller? What good are stories if the story is not teaching you
truth?
Look, I cannot take for granted even most mathematical theories
although their relation with a notion of truth is much more easy than
any text in natural language. Stories can be good in giving example of
behavior in some situation, or they can help anxious children to sleep.
Stories are not written with the idea of "truth". The bibles contains
many contradiction. And, if really you want take a sacred text as a
theory of everything, there is a definite lack of precision.
How do we know that the ultimate source of stories is a good
source. Jef and Brent and others seem to be basing their truth on
really nothing more than pragmatism.
Jef perhaps. I am not sure for Brent which seems to admit some form of
realism (even physical realism).
> This is not poetry. Heidegger said to listen to the poet, not to
the
> content, but just to the fact that there is a poet, which gives us
hope
> that there is meaning. However, unfulfilled hope does not provide
> meaning.
Hope is something purely first-personal, if I can say. So I have no
clue how hope does not provide meaning. Even little (and fortunately
locally fulfillable hope) like hope in a cup of coffee, can provide
meaning. Bigger (and hard to express) hopes can provide genuine bigger
meaning, it seems to me. I am not opposed to some idea of ultimate
meaning although both personal reasons and reflection on lobianity
make
me doubt that communicating such hopes can make any sense (worse, the
communication would most probably betrays the possible meaning of what
is attempted to be communicated, and could even lead to the contrary).
Even poetry must be based eventually on some meaning. Even minimalism
or the Theatre of the Absurd is based on some form to attempt to
communicate meaninglessness.
OK.
I am glad that your aren't opposed to some idea of ultimate meaning.
I am open to that idea indeed. But "ultimate" is a very fuzzy term ...
So I am also open that this might be "not even wrong"
My whole argument is that without it our hope eventually runs out and
we are left with despair, unless we lie to ourselves against the
absence of hope.
Here Stathis already give a genuine comment. You are just admitting
your argument is "wishful thinking".
> The content of these words speak of the *actual* fulfillment
> of the hopes of the Greeks expressed in their hypostases.? Are
you talking about mystical enlightening experiences. Like
losing any remaining doubts about immortality because you have already
seen the whole of the eternal tergiversations all at once ?
By "these words" I was referring to the John quote from the Bible. The
actual fulfillment was Jesus (the Word/Logos). He spanned the infinite
gap, like you said above, perhaps analogous to hypercomputation,...all
in one step.
Note that most notion of hypercomputation does not make it possible to
escape the G/G* logics, and when they do escape it, the price is the
abandon of personhood.
This is a general argument which is independent of the comp hypothesis:
to escape the G/G* (and the related hypostases) you have to "abandon"
your self or the person-hood (personal-ness I would like to say).
So apparently, accepting the personal God basis would mean that you
would have to reject comp.
Not at all. Just taking text literally about the unnameable "god" is
incompatible with comp.
It makes sense, even in that to accept the
personal God we have to put aside anything that we were putting in
place of Him. In fact, we put ourselves in the place of God, whether
we consider ourselves a machine or not.
?
This is why Jesus was the Word, the Logos. God simply shouting words
out of the sky or something would have this problem. This is why I
said that the incarnation was primary in God's communication to us.
OK, but why not Nagarjuna instead? What is so special about Jesus
(beside our culture) ?
For any belief I have I try to figure out if I would have had that
belief in completely different context. "Jesus" or "Nagarjuna" does not
survive such a test. For example I would not have believed in Jesus in
the case I would have born in the time of Plato, nor would I believed
in Euler would I have born on a different planet, but it make sense
that I would have believed in the content of their message. This forces
us to make the argument the most universal possible, the less
culturally influenced.
How do you know? Are you willing to assume this clearly and build some
axiomatization?
This follows from the acceptance of the personal God who is love (among
the three Persons I outlined using the hypostases) independently of
anyone/anything else.
In an axiomatization the meaning does not depend on the choice of the
words. Would your argument be palpable with axiomatic definition?
Do you know and accept Godel's axiomatisation of St-Anselme definition
of God?
> I agree that it is dangerous for a child to
> keep taking a father too literally when the father tells him/her
> something. At first, the child should take the father/mother's
words
> at face value, trusting that the parent is saying the right words
for
> the child to understand what the parent wants them to know. But to
> keep living with only those words, and not continue to try to learn
a
> deeper understanding and grow through more communication and
exchange
> of love.
I feel uneasy to be loved by someone because that someone has been
asked to love me. "Love" is essentially a "second" person construct.
Again "telling stories" will go here beyond the ten thousand
"treatises" . Love stories ok, love theories, why not. But normative
love = end of love.
I agree, words are not enough. Here again, the primary communication
of love was not words e.g. a command to love, but the actually
expression by the action of incarnation and giving his life and death.
In a story. I can appreciate symbolically.
If you want Jesus playing a personal role in our 3-person approach,
just pray Him to make a 3-person communicable sign.
> And this can be done only on the
> basis of the ultimate infinite Person.
Again I agree. I would say the arithmetical hypostases describes such
a
person. In a precise theoretical frame where any one can verify the
statements following from the axioms. Actually your "ultimate
inifinite
Person" is still very vague so that there are still many arithmetical
candidates for the "ultimate infinite person" related to a simpler
machine like Peano Arithmetic.
By "ultimate" I mean something that cannot be created, or generated by
upward emanation.
Nice. Like arithmetical truth. Nothing can generate it upward.
I am not sure, because we can bet. We can make act of faith. We can
learn from our mistakes, we can change our minds and still keeping
faith, faith corrected by reason and experiences can only grow. Only
"bad or wrong faith" (generally based on wishful or fearful thinking)
can fear to be "corrected".
A bit like it is more easy for a parent to "punish" his child when the
parent "truly" loves it.
But this hope is without an ultimate basis. Real hope has an ultimate
basis.
All the lobian point is that as far as the word "real" means something,
we cannot use it and still keep the scientific attitude (humility,
modesty).
> Our hope has become even
> more hopeless, not that the reductionist hope was well-founded
either.
Why should our hope become more hopeless? On the contrary, knowing
that
we know less, we can expect more. With comp we can hope for more (and
fear for more too, to be precise).
Knowledge is personal. Without an ultimate personal basis, we cannot
expect or hope for more, because we have nothing to begin with.
I make it plain that S4Grz1, alias the arithmetical first person (the
solipsist topos of "conscience & mécanisme), alias the third hypostase,
is a good candidate for the ultimate personal basis. Here you should
appreciate. In a way it vindicates both Nargarjuna and Jesus, with the
same proviso that their "stories" (Jesus resurection, Nagarjuna
reincarnation) should not be taken literally (by adults).
> But you are
> saying that we have not received ANY words from God.
I have never said that. (Unless by God you mean this one, or this one,
or this one, ...).
Without God putting words into a form which we can recognize as from
him (like the incarnation) where we can say "there he is", we have no
way of receiving ANY words from God, and knowing it.
Why?
...
> there remains an *infinite* gap to
> fulfill our aspirations, which will always remain unbridged.
It depends on what you mean by "fulfill". Comp could be consistent
with
some complete fulfilment in some limit. It is hard to work out, and
indeed it could be related with unpersonhood. (But the point is to
take
our theory seriously and see where we are led)
I agree.
> By
> working from nothing, one step at a time, we will never get there.
> "Forever Unfulfilled", there can be no true fulfillment, only
through
> deceiving ourselves, which also leads to death...
I am not sure your "pessimist" derivation is valid. One of the
arithmetical comp hypostase (Bp & p) is both divine and personal.
We could agree on everything except for the idea that "sacred text"
should not be taken literally. And we could differ on that just for
the
contingent reason we have been educated differently.
Note that I am not saying that Jesus is not the son of God, just that
I
have less evidence for that than for the *primitive* physical
universe,
in which I still don't believe either.
I know I am demanding, concerning evidence and conviction.
Again, the "sacred text" by itself is not sufficient. The proof is in
God's actual act of love toward us. For us, love is expressed in
meeting our need, which was our being lost and dead, separated (by
evil, by definition) from truth, meaning and life.
You refer to personal things. If you are lucky enough to be blessed by
Love, it is ok, especially if it inspire you to work toward a
communciable theory. But nobody can use such reference in a theory.
Even, and I would say especially in a "theological" theory.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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