Hi John,
On 05 Aug 2012, at 22:33, John Mikes wrote:
Entertaining exchange on an 'existing' topic - that is denied.
My usual stance: I am not an atheist because an atheist needs (a -
more?) god(s) to deny. - "god" is a word still looking to be
identified. As we read most 'denyers' assign the ultimate origin to
such concept. Me, too: the infinite complexity (beyond our
capability to comprehend). Does it have 'free will'? or 'conscious
mind'? logical concluding capability? I am not sure 'it'(?) "has"
anything.
OK.
Not in our terms at least. The 'infinite' complexity is a mere
'everything' in relation to everything beyond our concepts.
Bruno had a 'cute' definition for theology (I could not repeat it
now) and called 'us' gods. Nobody can deny his right to do so.
It is frequent for the mystics. I usually distinguish the outer god (=
what is ultimately "really real") and the inner God, which is the
aspect of the outer God which might be living in each if us, and
perhaps be us.
Denigrating faith is a pastime for the mental elite, yet without
faith (and the rules ensured for the 'believers') humanity would not
have survived so far in it's wickedness, brutality, or simply by
selfishness.
I agree. In fact denying God is a way to impose some other God. I
don't think we can live more than one second without some belief in
some God. The Löbian machine, when doing inference induction on
themselves are bounded up to be "theological" as a simple consequence
of incompleteness. Such Löbian "bet-doing" machines are bounded up to
discover that truth is beyond their ability of justification. that
will drive a natural curiosity in them, and also will make them
forever unsatisfied, and growing on transfinite ladders of goals.
It was a small price paid for the priests and prophets to help
humanity survive. Did it slip out? you bet. Always.
Please remember: I take 'existing' in terms of anything, having
occurred in somebodies mind as a (rationale, or weird?) idea.
Impossibilities included.
What does not exist then?
(And so far nobody answered my question satisfactorily (for me) to
show a justification for the (religious?) god-concept from outside
the box (not induced by some hint to any faith-related momenta,
dream, etc.). So 'god' exists IMO, because it is set into many
minds (even if not identically).)
This assumes mind, persons, at the ontological level. It seems you
make things more complex by not delineating what is existing
ontologically (like numbers with comp) and epistemologically like
matter, dreams, consciousness, etc.
Bruno
It is a long winded topic, not likely to close with agreement.
John M
On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 3:50 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
John, I provide another answer to your last comment to me:
On 03 Aug 2012, at 17:34, John Clark wrote:
On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> Define "theology"
The study of something that does not exist.
Not so bad after, after all. In AUDA the machine "theology" can be
defined by something which is supposed to be responsible, willingly
or not, for my existence, and which I cannot prove to exist. I
remeber having already some times ago provided this definition.
Then, the logic of theology is given, at the propositional level, by
G* minus G. (if you have read my posts on those modal logics and
Solovay theorem). For example <> t (consistency, ~[]f) belongs to G*
minus G. Consistency is true for the machine, but it cannot prove
it. Yet the machine can guess it, hope it, find it or produce it as
true with some interrogation mark.
Theology is the study of the transcendent truth, which can be
defined, in a first approximation, by the non provable (by the
machine) truth.
> Define "God"
The God I don't believe in is a omniscient omnipotent being who
created the universe. If you define God, as so many fans of the
word but not the idea do,
I remain astonished why atheists defend a so particular conception
of God. This confirms what I have already explained. Atheism is a
variant of christianism. They defend the same conception of God than
the Christians, as you do all the time.
Note that philosophers use often the term "God" in the general and
original sense of theology: as being, by definition, the
transcendental cause of everything.
as "a force greater than myself" then I am a devout believer
because I believe in gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong
nuclear force. I believe in bulldozers too.
But I have already told you that God is supposed to be responsible
for our existence; which is not the case for the bulldozer. But
gravity and physical force/matter could have been a more serious
answer, as it describe the perhaps primary physical world, and that
can obey the definition of God I gave, for a physicalist, and is
indeed again a common belief of christians and atheists. I am
agnostic, and correct computationalist are "atheists" with respect
to such material God.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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