On 01 Jan 2014, at 22:45, Chris de Morsella wrote:
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com
] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal
Sent: Wednesday, January 01, 2014 3:50 AM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Another shot at how spacetime emerges from
computational reality
On 31 Dec 2013, at 22:16, LizR wrote:
My 15 year old son asked me "Why do people believe in God?"
Because all correct machine, cognitively rich enough (= believing in
numbers and induction, or being Löbian, ...) when they look inward,
discover the gap between G and G*, or the gap between truth about
them and proof about them.
Then some machine try to communicate that experience---which is
impossible, and so they will use image and parables, which are not
understood, and parrots repeat, politician exploits, and little
children believe they parroting parents, teachers, etc.
We all believe, consciously or unconsciously, in God, in that large
sense of a transcendental reason of our existence, but we are always
wrong when we project attributes to It/Her/Him, and much more wrong
when invoking them for direct terrestrial purposes, where "God" is
only an authoritative argument (always invalid, especially in the
religion field, where it used the most).
>>Adults believing literally in fairy tales are just infants
refusing to grow spiritually. They are governed by people who want
steal the responsibility and the maturity, and which have no
interest at all in spiritual research. The goal is to steal more
easily the money and power.
Religion – IMO -- can be distilled down to politics by other means;
it harnesses the deepest urges and powerful impulses within us and
systemizes these, providing channelized modalities of expression
that provides the worshipper with internal validation and preset
answers, while corralling them into a protean mass whose collective
energy and “will” can be directed towards achieving whatever
political goals is profitable for the individuals controlling the
belief establishment.
Something I find fascinating is how so many religions and pseudo-
religions seek to establish a monopoly on belief….
I tend to think that only pseudo-religions do that. Some people can be
genuinely half-enlightened, though, and be sincere in the attempt to
communicate what is strictly incommunicable.
Computationalism will not be an exception. Some people will believe
literally that G* minus G applies normatively to them, and this will
make them inconsistent. That is why I insist it is only modest science
and that we must make the hypotheses explicit (comp + some amount of
cautious hope in meta-self-correctness).
on what can be believed and what cannot be believed. If belief is
the currency of religion;
Belief is the currency of science, if not of everything.
it stands to reason that established faiths seek to maintain a
stranglehold on the entire psychological apparatus of belief within
the populations of individuals that are born into the regions (or
communities) where these organized belief systems prevail.
If you can control the beliefs, you can control the people. But if
theology is conceived as a science, then you get the means to
interrogate the beliefs, criticize the theories, single out the
contradiction and progress toward possible truth (Dt). That should
help to avoid the "monopoly".
This asks for some amount of courage or "spiritual maturity". Maturity
here is the ability/courage to realize and admit that we don't know.
This has no sex-appeal, as we are programmed to fake having the
answer, especially on the fundamentals, to reassure the kids or the
member of the party ...
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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