On 06 Aug 2012, at 19:53, John Clark wrote:
On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 12:25 PM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
> You might also tell me what is your "theory of everything"
If I had one I'd be the greatest and most famous scientist who ever
lived. I'm not.
> or if you are even interested in that notion.
I would be very interested if a theory of everything exists, but
there is no reason ti think it must.
That is why we need a bit of faith in fundamental research. But with
comp, the question is easily settled. For the ontological realm, any
first order logical specification of a universal system will do. Both
physics and consciousness have to be derive from that, and the result
is independent of the choice of the initial universal system.
> Only an obtuse Christian can believe that only the christian God
gives the right meaning of the word God.
There is no one "right" meaning to a word but to communicate we must
agree on a meaning otherwise we very literally don't know what the
hell we're debating. Imagine if you and some of your friends
decided to collaborate to prove something about the real numbers,
but one of you thought "real numbers" meant a right triangle,
another thought the points on a line, another thought is meant a
oblate spheroid and still another a ice cream cone. You decide to
worry about what "real numbers" means until after the proof is
finished. Do you think the resulting proof would be any good?
All what is needed is to agree on some basic properties for the terms
of our theory.
> But the abramanic God is already *quite* different for the muslim
and the sufi, or for the israelite and the cabalist, or for the
christian clergy and the christian mystics.
They all are supposed to have made me and the entire universe and
they all know everything that can be known
Not for the mystics, nor even the Israelites. But you can take such
definition, and then be open to critics for some feature. We don't
need to believe in their theory on God, to accept partially some
definition. I did provide a semi-axiomatic of God.
and that's good enough to be called "God" in my book. But you said
there are thousands of definitions of "God", if so then the word is
totally useless especially in philosophy.
But not in science. It is frequent to have many definition/theories.
then we compare, reason, etc.
The entire point of words is communication and if nobody knows what
it means then it's not a word it's just a noise.
In math we never know the meaning of our terms, we just agree on some
partial semi-axiomatic definitions.
It's true that philosophers love the word "God", but then
philosophers haven't done any philosophy in centuries.
> For this I am atheist. There are no omniscient being(s).
Then have the guts to just say you don't believe in God
I don't believe in any literal definition, of God, universe, whole, etc.
and stop all this nambe pambe "depends on what you mean by God" crap!!
Why should the notion of God escape the usual technic in scientific
reasoning?
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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