Re: God
On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Only fundamentalist aristotelians have a problem with Plato's notion of God And according to your Humpty-Dumpty dictionary a fundamentalist aristotelian is somebody who thinks that Aristotle was by far the WORST physicist who ever lived and even in the field of philosophy was vastly overrated, just like all Greek philosophers So why do you defend implicitly all the time his theology, and seems to deny or even not being aware of the theology of the Platonist. I'm not denying anything and I'm not talking about science or philosophy or theology, I just want to know the meaning of a particular word in your strange non-standard vocabulary. It would be silly of me to argue over definitions so I'll accept any meaning of the word God you give me as long as it's clear and you use it consistently. Please buy the book by Proclus: element of theology. Buy a book written by somebody almost as ignorant of modern science as a Republican presidential candidate? I don't think so. OK you can clear this up right now right here by answering just one question: By the English word God do you mean a intelligent conscious being who created the universe and knows everything including what our prayers are or do you not? So it is NO. Thank you, that was clear. So when I previously said that for you the word God means a unintelligent non-conscious amorphous impersonal blob and you responded with You attribute me things that I have never said you now admit that your response was incorrect and for you the word God really does mean a unintelligent non-conscious amorphous impersonal blob. In science, it is never a question of vocabulary I agree, but in philosophic and theologic debates it usually is just a question of vocabulary. Definitions of words are arbitrary but both parties in a debate must agree on those meanings or they literally don't know what they're arguing about. A debate on if God exists would be pretty silly if nobody can agree on what the word means, but on this day you've cleared that up so I can now unequivocally and boldly shout to the world I BELIEVE GOD EXISTS because I believe that unintelligent non-conscious amorphous impersonal blobs that didn't create the universe exist. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Liminal space
On 22 Apr 2015, at 11:21, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 22 April 2015 at 10:49, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: In an evolving block universe how do we know that we are now standing in the present anticipating the evolving future rather than in the past anticipating an already set, but later, past? On a mailing list that puts so much weight on consciousness I think it would be obvious that We're conscious of the present. I may have misunderstood the idea of an evolving block universe. I thought it meant that the past is, as it were, existent in the block, but the future is not - until it becomes the present. But if the past is existent in the block, how do we know that we are conscious in the present and not in the past? May be Brent can add some explanations. I have also some difficulties about what could be an evolving (in time?) block-universe. If that make sense, I would suggest to work with the block-block- universe. Bruno -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
Hi Alberto, On 22 Apr 2015, at 11:36, Alberto G. Corona wrote: Bruno, I´m convinced that you are a larouchist: http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Cult.PlatoAristotle I agree in that there are two sides depending on if they value the mind or the matter as the primary thing. I also line up with the mind side, but Aristotle has little to do in this battle. Really the battle was initiated in the XII century with the nominalists. It is not so important, but I think the battle was already present in Athene academy. Your link seems to agree. It was renewed with the nominalist in the XII century, or the eleventh I think. That opposition is present in both Chinese and Indian schools. It is an important opposition. To be clear, I am more on a neutral side, à-la-Spinoza, somehow. I am OK that mind is more fundamental than matter, but mind is not yet fundamental, as it relies on the numbers, a position which is not so far from the neoplatonists, and of course Pythagorus, who influenced a lot Plato. Larouche says that nominalism is a extreme Aristotelism. It is not. Hmm... I might side with Larouche, if you take aristotelian in the sense of the followers of Aristotle. Aristotle himself is still quite Platonists, but the bad tongues said that this was only to not make Plato (his master) too much angry. It is the negation of platonism and aristotelism both of them. And I agree that it is the methaphisics behind the modern science and the modern world in general. OK. Bruno 2015-04-21 17:37 GMT+02:00 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: On 16 Apr 2015, at 19:48, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 10:23 PM, Bruce Kellett bhkell...@optusnet.com.au wrote: We are entering the realm of the Humpty-Dumpty dictionary -- words no longer have their ordinary, everyday meaning. Yes. According to Bruno the words atheist and Christian mean almost the same thing with atheism being just a very minor variation of Christianity. They have the same notion of the creator, and the same notion of creation. And they have the same belief in creation. And the word God means a unintelligent non-conscious amorphous impersonal blob You attribute me things that I have never said. that doesn't answer prayers and in fact doesn't do much of anything at all, nevertheless according to Bruno God exists and is very important for reasons never made clear. I use God in the sense of Parmenides, Plato (who introduced the term theology), Plotinus, Proclus and many others, even the wiki. Only fundamentalist aristotelians have a problem with Plato's notion of God. See the previous posts on this, by me and Jason Resch, and answer them instead, of making distracting rhetorics and false insinuations. You would have mocked the greek sciences just by saying that they are ridiculous because they use the word number (= numerous) for one and two. The advantage of defining God by the true reason of your consciousness here and now, is that it helps to see that physics is not a theology, and that a theory of truth is not a theology, but that physicalism is a theology, and that the theory God = (Arithmetical) Truth is a theology. It helps also to remind us that what most call God today has been imposed through violence, exil, torture, etc. For the greeks, theology is the theory of everything, which seeks to justify and unify all branches of knowledge. Is God a blob or an intelligent person? Open problem with computationalism. Open problem too with Plotinus, actually. Bruno And free will means... well it means noise shaped air as near as I can tell. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at
Re: God
On 22 Apr 2015, at 18:30, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Only fundamentalist aristotelians have a problem with Plato's notion of God And according to your Humpty-Dumpty dictionary a fundamentalist aristotelian is somebody who thinks that Aristotle was by far the WORST physicist who ever lived and even in the field of philosophy was vastly overrated, just like all Greek philosophers So why do you defend implicitly all the time his theology, and seems to deny or even not being aware of the theology of the Platonist. I'm not denying anything and I'm not talking about science or philosophy or theology, I just want to know the meaning of a particular word in your strange non-standard vocabulary. It would be silly of me to argue over definitions so I'll accept any meaning of the word God you give me as long as it's clear and you use it consistently. God is by definition the ultimate reality or the ultimate truth which explains why you are here and now, and conscious,. Please buy the book by Proclus: element of theology. Buy a book written by somebody almost as ignorant of modern science as a Republican presidential candidate? I don't think so. Modern science hides theology under the rug. The debate God or Not God hides the real question asked by the platonists: (primitive) Universe or not (primitive) Universe? Is the physical reality the ontological reality, or is the physical reality the shadow of the fundamental reality? OK you can clear this up right now right here by answering just one question: By the English word God do you mean a intelligent conscious being who created the universe and knows everything including what our prayers are or do you not? So it is NO. Thank you, that was clear. So when I previously said that for you the word God means a unintelligent non-conscious amorphous impersonal blob and you responded with You attribute me things that I have never said you now admit that your response was incorrect and for you the word God really does mean a unintelligent non-conscious amorphous impersonal blob. You confuse ~[]A with [] ~A. I do not believe that god is an unintelligent blob, nor do I believe it is not an unintelligent blob. As I said it is an open problem with computationalism. We just don't know yet if the reason of your existence is an intelligent blob or not. With computationalism, God is approximated by the concept of arithmetical truth, and it is an open problem for us if that arithmetical truth/reality can be see as a knower itself. There are very subtle difficulties on that point, and the neoplatonist where aware of them. In science, it is never a question of vocabulary I agree, but in philosophic and theologic debates it usually is just a question of vocabulary. That is why I do science, and not debate, which are infinite, in that domain. You should read my paper on Plotinus, which gives a lexicon of the machine's theology, or phenomenological theology, and its translation in arithmetic, and why that is possible and necessary. Even for neoplatonist, god is not part of the being, but is a simple first principle at the origin of the beings or the appearance of beings. Definitions of words are arbitrary but both parties in a debate must agree on those meanings or they literally don't know what they're arguing about. You talk like if some person have problem with all this. Only fundamentalist believers have problems here, not scientists (as far as I know). A debate on if God exists would be pretty silly if nobody can agree on what the word means, but on this day you've cleared that up so I can now unequivocally and boldly shout to the world I BELIEVE GOD EXISTS because I believe that unintelligent non-conscious amorphous impersonal blobs that didn't create the universe exist. See above. I never said that I believe that God is such a blob. Bruno John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Origin of mathematics
Is mathematics neither invented nor discovered, but evoked? https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/smolin-on-mathematics/ Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
On 4/22/2015 12:26 AM, Dennis Ochei wrote: Certainly we could scan a nematode, don't you think? 302 neurons. Nematodes should say yes doctor. If I had a brain tumor, rescinsion of which would involve damaging the 1000 neurons and there was a brain prothesis that would simulate a their function I should say yes doctor. Since modelling 1000 neurons at sufficient detail is possible, I leave it as an excercise for the reader to demonstrate that simulating a whole brain is possible. The complete neural structure of planaria has been mapped. But that doesn't capture the consciounsness of the individual planaria. You can't tell from the wiring diagram whether a particular planaria has learned to take the illuminated fork in the test maze. So you might determine the generic brain structure of homo sapiens, but you would not thereby capture the consciousness of some particular person. For that, presumably you would need to know the relative strength of all the synapses at a particular moment. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
Yes, I know it hasn't been done, but i think most people would agree that c elegans could be scanned or that a small neuroprothesis is possible, which is enough of a foothold to say uploading thought experiments are relevant to human experience. Of course none of this is deeply relevant to comp. On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 4/22/2015 12:26 AM, Dennis Ochei wrote: Certainly we could scan a nematode, don't you think? 302 neurons. Nematodes should say yes doctor. If I had a brain tumor, rescinsion of which would involve damaging the 1000 neurons and there was a brain prothesis that would simulate a their function I should say yes doctor. Since modelling 1000 neurons at sufficient detail is possible, I leave it as an excercise for the reader to demonstrate that simulating a whole brain is possible. The complete neural structure of planaria has been mapped. But that doesn't capture the consciounsness of the individual planaria. You can't tell from the wiring diagram whether a particular planaria has learned to take the illuminated fork in the test maze. So you might determine the generic brain structure of homo sapiens, but you would not thereby capture the consciousness of some particular person. For that, presumably you would need to know the relative strength of all the synapses at a particular moment. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/everything-list/Lp5_VIb6ddY/unsubscribe. To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','everything-list%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com'); . To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','everything-list@googlegroups.com');. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Sent from Gmail Mobile -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Liminal space
On Thursday, April 23, 2015, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 4/22/2015 2:21 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 22 April 2015 at 10:49, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: In an evolving block universe how do we know that we are now standing in the present anticipating the evolving future rather than in the past anticipating an already set, but later, past? On a mailing list that puts so much weight on consciousness I think it would be obvious that We're conscious of the present. I may have misunderstood the idea of an evolving block universe. I thought it meant that the past is, as it were, existent in the block, but the future is not - until it becomes the present. Yes, that's Ellis'es concept. But if the past is existent in the block, how do we know that we are conscious in the present and not in the past? Isn't whatever time of which we're conscious the present, by definition? Yes, in a block universe, but in an evolving block universe there is also a special present. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
On 4/22/2015 3:13 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On Thursday, April 23, 2015, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','meeke...@verizon.net'); wrote: On 4/22/2015 12:26 AM, Dennis Ochei wrote: Certainly we could scan a nematode, don't you think? 302 neurons. Nematodes should say yes doctor. If I had a brain tumor, rescinsion of which would involve damaging the 1000 neurons and there was a brain prothesis that would simulate a their function I should say yes doctor. Since modelling 1000 neurons at sufficient detail is possible, I leave it as an excercise for the reader to demonstrate that simulating a whole brain is possible. The complete neural structure of planaria has been mapped. But that doesn't capture the consciounsness of the individual planaria. You can't tell from the wiring diagram whether a particular planaria has learned to take the illuminated fork in the test maze. So you might determine the generic brain structure of homo sapiens, but you would not thereby capture the consciousness of some particular person. For that, presumably you would need to know the relative strength of all the synapses at a particular moment. Yes, and you could possibly do that using a technique resolving detail down to the size of macromolecules. But not without destroying the brain and producing a gap in consciousness (assuming you could produce a working replica). I don't see that a gap is particularly significant; a concussion also causes a gap. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
I have noted this before regarding Lord Russell's Teapot orbiting Jupiter. For the last 40 years or so we have had the science to orbit a teapot, as well as two probes around Jupiter--this should tell us something! We could insert a teapot in orbit nowadays, making word, flesh, and secondly, we need to view religion, cosmology, through a computationalist/digitalist' eyes. Because old man universe is appearing more as a great program than a great stopwatch, at its core. So sayeth, Tegmark, Lloydd, and Schmidhuber, amen! It also indicates that H. sapiens are a part of this all. Sent from AOL Mobile Mail -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Apr 22, 2015 05:40 PM Subject: Re: God div id=AOLMsgPart_2_f98a885f-2035-4f2a-8365-c428537df214 div dir=ltr div class=aolmail_gmail_extra div class=aolmail_gmail_quote On 23 April 2015 at 08:06, John Mikes span dir=ltra target=_blank href=mailto:jami...@gmail.com;jami...@gmail.com/a/span wrote: blockquote class=aolmail_gmail_quote style=margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex div dir=ltr Dennis: div span style=font-size:12.801907349pxibGod always means something just shy of disproven and always fills the gaps of understanding .../b/i/span span style=font-size:12.801907349pxib /b/i/span /div span style=font-size:12.801907349pxI don't need to disprove something that has not been proven - or at least described as possible. BTW: nothing can be 'proven' except for ignorance. /span /div /blockquote Yes, this makes God a Russell's teapot, and the burden of proof is with the theists (well, except if God is intended in Bruno's sense - as whatever is the fundamental cause of existence - but that's another matter, or possibly another equation). Mind you isome/i things can be proven, at least beyond reasonable doubt. For example the falisty of a load of previously accepted scientific theories - aether and phlogiston, humours and alchemy raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens /div /div /div p/p -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to a target=_blank href=mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com;everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com/a. To post to this group, send email to a target=_blank href=mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com;everything-list@googlegroups.com/a. Visit this group at a target=_blank href=http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list;http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/a. For more options, visit a target=_blank href=https://groups.google.com/d/optout;https://groups.google.com/d/optout/a. /div -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
On 23 April 2015 at 12:54, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: I have noted this before regarding Lord Russell's Teapot orbiting Jupiter. For the last 40 years or so we have had the science to orbit a teapot, as well as two probes around Jupiter--this should tell us something! Not sure what. Russell's teapot was posited before those things were possible, so the logic stands - at least until we invent time travel. And in any case, once the universe is full of orbiting teapots we can still just come up with something else very unlikely to make the same point. We could insert a teapot in orbit nowadays, making word, flesh, and secondly, we need to view religion, cosmology, through a computationalist/digitalist' eyes. Because old man universe is appearing more as a great program than a great stopwatch, at its core. So sayeth, Tegmark, Lloydd, and Schmidhuber, amen! It also indicates that H. sapiens are a part of this all. Yeah, maybe. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Origin of mathematics
On 4/22/2015 6:06 PM, LizR wrote: I can't see how his categorisation works. Existence is generally considered to be a property of kicking back - of something existing independently of us, and not conforming to whatever we'd like it to be. For example. a planet is generally considered to exist - we can observer it (or land things on it) and discover unexpected results - Mars is /not/ covered in H.G.Wells' Martian civilisation or Ray Bradbury's crystal cities, no matter how much we might want it to be. God (in the conventional sense of supreme being who created the universe) is sometimes considered not to exist because it's a concept that gets modified to account for new scientific discoveries - few Christians nowadays consider that God created the Earth 6000 years ago, or directly caused it to be entirely flooded, for example. Roberto Unger and Lee Smolin are trying to claim that something can exist (kick back - or as they put it, have rigid properties) yet not have existed prior to being thought of by human minds. It seems hard to reconcile these properties. Something thought up that describes something that exists could reasonably be called an accurate scientific theory; something thought up that describes something that doesn't exist could reasonably be called fictional (or a failed scientific theory). I can see no reason why a fiction should have rigid properties. Conversely, if the subject of some theory kicks back, it's reasonable to consider it a (possibly) accurate theory describing something that should be considered (at least provisionally) real. So is chess real? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
On 4/22/2015 6:14 PM, LizR wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 13:04, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I just want to know the meaning of a particular word in your strange non-standard vocabulary. It would be silly of me to argue over definitions so I'll accept any meaning of the word God you give me as long as it's clear and you use it consistently. God is by definition the ultimate reality or the ultimate truth which explains why you are here and now, and conscious,. That is 100% inconsistent with what you said in your post just a few hours ago, you said your definition of God was NOT a intelligent conscious being who created the universe and knows everything including what our prayers are. I think you've mis-parsed what Bruno is saying. He isn't saying that God is conscious, he's saying God is whatever explains why /we're/ conscious. Well I have at least a partial chain of explanation which is not very controversial: conscious-language-social-evolution-biology-chemistry-physics Now if Bruno can show: physics-arithmetic I'd be glad to also add: arithmetic-consciousness Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Origin of mathematics
On 23 April 2015 at 13:24, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 4/22/2015 6:06 PM, LizR wrote: I can't see how his categorisation works. Existence is generally considered to be a property of kicking back - of something existing independently of us, and not conforming to whatever we'd like it to be. For example. a planet is generally considered to exist - we can observer it (or land things on it) and discover unexpected results - Mars is *not* covered in H.G.Wells' Martian civilisation or Ray Bradbury's crystal cities, no matter how much we might want it to be. God (in the conventional sense of supreme being who created the universe) is sometimes considered not to exist because it's a concept that gets modified to account for new scientific discoveries - few Christians nowadays consider that God created the Earth 6000 years ago, or directly caused it to be entirely flooded, for example. Roberto Unger and Lee Smolin are trying to claim that something can exist (kick back - or as they put it, have rigid properties) yet not have existed prior to being thought of by human minds. It seems hard to reconcile these properties. Something thought up that describes something that exists could reasonably be called an accurate scientific theory; something thought up that describes something that doesn't exist could reasonably be called fictional (or a failed scientific theory). I can see no reason why a fiction should have rigid properties. Conversely, if the subject of some theory kicks back, it's reasonable to consider it a (possibly) accurate theory describing something that should be considered (at least provisionally) real. So is chess real? No, chess is an agreed-upon set of conventions invented by the human mind. It didn't exist before people, and it has rules which can be changed without it kicking back (Castling, the pawn's two-square starting move - and hence en passant - were introduced to speed up the game). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Origin of mathematics
On Thursday, April 23, 2015 at 3:24:22 AM UTC+2, Brent wrote: On 4/22/2015 6:06 PM, LizR wrote: I can't see how his categorisation works. Existence is generally considered to be a property of kicking back - of something existing independently of us, and not conforming to whatever we'd like it to be. For example. a planet is generally considered to exist - we can observer it (or land things on it) and discover unexpected results - Mars is *not* covered in H.G.Wells' Martian civilisation or Ray Bradbury's crystal cities, no matter how much we might want it to be. God (in the conventional sense of supreme being who created the universe) is sometimes considered not to exist because it's a concept that gets modified to account for new scientific discoveries - few Christians nowadays consider that God created the Earth 6000 years ago, or directly caused it to be entirely flooded, for example. Roberto Unger and Lee Smolin are trying to claim that something can exist (kick back - or as they put it, have rigid properties) yet not have existed prior to being thought of by human minds. It seems hard to reconcile these properties. Something thought up that describes something that exists could reasonably be called an accurate scientific theory; something thought up that describes something that doesn't exist could reasonably be called fictional (or a failed scientific theory). I can see no reason why a fiction should have rigid properties. Conversely, if the subject of some theory kicks back, it's reasonable to consider it a (possibly) accurate theory describing something that should be considered (at least provisionally) real. So is chess real? If we want to be that fuzzy, assuming something can have rigid, verifiable objective properties but not before humans can think of it, then the answer is yes, chess exists, but it's a different game from 3 days ago when Anand beat Wesley So with algorithm that started with Knight to B8 on the 10th move of a Spanish. As stated in the article, there's always the risk of confusing some set of rules with the implications of that set of rules. But this itself kicks back too with the claimed discovery of rigid/prior existence or not categories as well. Consequently, this classification was not true a moment before the authors thought of it, becoming true, when the authors did their magic. This would be consistent by giving single universe/time/human primacy, but also has the ring to it, of people trying to sell us the world revolves around the human and time but not before we thought of it. How convenient, one may smile plausibly. Quote: Both the records and the mathematical objects are human constructions which are brought into existence by exercises of human will; neither has any transcendental existence. Both are static, not in the sense of existing outside of time, but in the weak sense that, once they come to exist, they don’t change” (pp. 445-446). That's a statement of faith/dogma with pretensions of un-transcendental truth, which is as unclear and esoteric as how they appear to start their reasoning. We can't have it both ways unless we really, really will it... then it shall be evoked humans! Ok, I guess they're running out of time and I should by the book of un-transcendental truth to see the light that isn't lit before they thought of it? Uhm, no sale here at the moment, although it seems a nice try, even if perhaps a bit naive on theological subtleties, fictions and truth. PGC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 11:37, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 11:36, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But not without destroying the brain and producing a gap in consciousness (assuming you could produce a working replica). I don't see that a gap is particularly significant; a concussion also causes a gap. If comp is correct, gaps make no difference. (That would also be Frank Tipler's argument for immortality, in the absence of cosmic acceleration.) Even if comp is incorrect gaps make no difference, since they occur in the course of normal life. Gaps in consciousness, perhaps. But are there gaps in the ebb and flow of brain chemicals, hormones, cell deaths and divisions, ...? Or gaps in the flow of the unconscious? Bruce -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
On 23 April 2015 at 13:04, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I just want to know the meaning of a particular word in your strange non-standard vocabulary. It would be silly of me to argue over definitions so I'll accept any meaning of the word God you give me as long as it's clear and you use it consistently. God is by definition the ultimate reality or the ultimate truth which explains why you are here and now, and conscious,. That is 100% inconsistent with what you said in your post just a few hours ago, you said your definition of God was NOT a intelligent conscious being who created the universe and knows everything including what our prayers are. I think you've mis-parsed what Bruno is saying. He isn't saying that God is conscious, he's saying God is whatever explains why *we're* conscious. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: I was booted off when Natasha did her purge and went to Kurzweilai. I've been on the Extropian lost longer than you and I don't recall a purge by Natasha or by anybody else. And I know who Ray Kurzweil is but I don't know what went to Kurzweilai means. I was there for Tipler I though Tipler had some very interesting ideas, but unfortunately they were later proven to be dead wrong. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: I think you've mis-parsed what Bruno is saying. He isn't saying that God is conscious, he's saying God is whatever explains why *we're* conscious. Bruno also says that mathematics begat our physical world and he might or might not be right about that, but even assuming that he is do you really think that God would be the best name for the Peano Postulates? Call me old fashioned but I think something called God should be more intelligent than I am, or at least be more intelligent and more conscious than a sack full of doorknobs. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
On 23 April 2015 at 13:30, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Well I have at least a partial chain of explanation which is not very controversial: conscious-language-social-evolution-biology-chemistry-physics The last 6 items are fairly uncontroversial, although I'm not 100% sure about the language-social one. Still, that seems quite likely. What I'm less sure about is the first item: consciousness as - I assume - a linguistic construct. If I had to guess, I'd go for the explanatory chain making consciousness derive from evolution. My guess is that consciousness isn't uniquely human (as the linguistic case presumably argues, unless you're suggesting a few warning cries and suchlike can give rise to consciousness?) Now if Bruno can show: physics-arithmetic I'd be glad to also add: arithmetic-consciousness I'm sure you would, and I'm certainly keen to see the proof - an explanation of why something we've invented is so unreasonable effective will be fascinating. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Origin of mathematics
On 4/22/2015 7:38 PM, PGC wrote: On Thursday, April 23, 2015 at 3:24:22 AM UTC+2, Brent wrote: On 4/22/2015 6:06 PM, LizR wrote: I can't see how his categorisation works. Existence is generally considered to be a property of kicking back - of something existing independently of us, and not conforming to whatever we'd like it to be. For example. a planet is generally considered to exist - we can observer it (or land things on it) and discover unexpected results - Mars is /not/ covered in H.G.Wells' Martian civilisation or Ray Bradbury's crystal cities, no matter how much we might want it to be. God (in the conventional sense of supreme being who created the universe) is sometimes considered not to exist because it's a concept that gets modified to account for new scientific discoveries - few Christians nowadays consider that God created the Earth 6000 years ago, or directly caused it to be entirely flooded, for example. Roberto Unger and Lee Smolin are trying to claim that something can exist (kick back - or as they put it, have rigid properties) yet not have existed prior to being thought of by human minds. It seems hard to reconcile these properties. Something thought up that describes something that exists could reasonably be called an accurate scientific theory; something thought up that describes something that doesn't exist could reasonably be called fictional (or a failed scientific theory). I can see no reason why a fiction should have rigid properties. Conversely, if the subject of some theory kicks back, it's reasonable to consider it a (possibly) accurate theory describing something that should be considered (at least provisionally) real. So is chess real? If we want to be that fuzzy, assuming something can have rigid, verifiable objective properties but not before humans can think of it, then the answer is yes, chess exists, but it's a different game from 3 days ago when Anand beat Wesley So with algorithm that started with Knight to B8 on the 10th move of a Spanish. As stated in the article, there's always the risk of confusing some set of rules with the implications of that set of rules. But this itself kicks back too with the claimed discovery of rigid/prior existence or not categories as well. Consequently, this classification was not true a moment before the authors thought of it, becoming true, when the authors did their magic. This would be consistent by giving single universe/time/human primacy, but also has the ring to it, of people trying to sell us the world revolves around the human and time but not before we thought of it. How convenient, one may smile plausibly. Quote: Both the records and the mathematical objects are human constructions which are brought into existence by exercises of human will; neither has any transcendental existence. Both are static, not in the sense of existing outside of time, but in the weak sense that, once they come to exist, they don’t change” (pp. 445-446). That's a statement of faith/dogma with pretensions of un-transcendental truth, which is as unclear and esoteric as how they appear to start their reasoning. Why isn't is just their hypothetical explanation of how to look at the world - like Bruno's comp hypothesis? You seem to be holding them to some standard of axiomatic reasoning when their thesis is to explain the origin of axiomatic reasoning. Brent We can't have it both ways unless we really, really will it... then it shall be evoked humans! Ok, I guess they're running out of time and I should by the book of un-transcendental truth to see the light that isn't lit before they thought of it? Uhm, no sale here at the moment, although it seems a nice try, even if perhaps a bit naive on theological subtleties, fictions and truth. PGC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Origin of mathematics
On 23 April 2015 at 16:16, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 4/22/2015 7:38 PM, PGC wrote: Both the records and the mathematical objects are human constructions which are brought into existence by exercises of human will; neither has any transcendental existence. Both are static, not in the sense of existing outside of time, but in the weak sense that, once they come to exist, they don’t change” (pp. 445-446) The question they need to answer is *why* these things don't change. Humans can change other things they make up - as already mentioned, the rules of chess are one example. I haven't read the whole thing, so perhaps they do have an explanation for why made up things can't be changed? If so, I'd be interested to know what it is (not having time, sadly, to read every paper published on this list). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Origin of mathematics
meekerdb wrote: Is mathematics neither invented nor discovered, but evoked? https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/smolin-on-mathematics/ The review by Pigliucci is fascinating. It almost makes me want to buy Smolin's book -- he seems to be saying much of what I have always thought about the nature and origin of mathematics. Bruce -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I just want to know the meaning of a particular word in your strange non-standard vocabulary. It would be silly of me to argue over definitions so I'll accept any meaning of the word God you give me as long as it's clear and you use it consistently. God is by definition the ultimate reality or the ultimate truth which explains why you are here and now, and conscious,. That is 100% inconsistent with what you said in your post just a few hours ago, you said your definition of God was NOT a intelligent conscious being who created the universe and knows everything including what our prayers are. Make up your mind! How can I say if I believe in God or not if you keep changing the definition of the word every few hours? I do not believe that god is an unintelligent blob, nor do I believe it is not an unintelligent blob. Yes that's what I thought. Or to say the same thing with different words, what you believe is neither true nor false, what you believe is so worthless it's not even wrong, what you believe is gibberish. Definitions of words are arbitrary but both parties in a debate must agree on those meanings or they literally don't know what they're arguing about. You talk like if some person have problem with all this. Only fundamentalist believers have problems here, not scientists (as far as I know). So in your Humpty Dumpty dictionary a fundamentalist believer is somebody who believes that in having a debate maybe just maybe it might be a good idea to know what the hell the argument is about. And this should not be confused with a fundamentalist aristotelian which is somebody who thinks that Aristotle was by far the WORST physicist who ever lived and even in the field of philosophy was vastly overrated. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
On 23 April 2015 at 11:36, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But not without destroying the brain and producing a gap in consciousness (assuming you could produce a working replica). I don't see that a gap is particularly significant; a concussion also causes a gap. If comp is correct, gaps make no difference. (That would also be Frank Tipler's argument for immortality, in the absence of cosmic acceleration.) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
On 23 April 2015 at 14:04, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: I think you've mis-parsed what Bruno is saying. He isn't saying that God is conscious, he's saying God is whatever explains why *we're* conscious. Bruno also says that mathematics begat our physical world and he might or might not be right about that, but even assuming that he is do you really think that God would be the best name for the Peano Postulates? Call me old fashioned but I think something called God should be more intelligent than I am, or at least be more intelligent and more conscious than a sack full of doorknobs. I didn't argue for or against Bruno's usage. I just pointed out that I think you've misunderstood what Bruno claimed in the post you were replying to. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
On 4/22/2015 7:32 PM, LizR wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 13:30, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: Well I have at least a partial chain of explanation which is not very controversial: conscious-language-social-evolution-biology-chemistry-physics The last 6 items are fairly uncontroversial, although I'm not 100% sure about the language-social one. Still, that seems quite likely. What I'm less sure about is the first item: consciousness as - I assume - a linguistic construct. If I had to guess, I'd go for the explanatory chain making consciousness derive from evolution. My guess is that consciousness isn't uniquely human (as the linguistic case presumably argues, unless you're suggesting a few warning cries and suchlike can give rise to consciousness?) I agree that animals, without language, also have awareness and perception. I just left out a lot of steps in the above chain. I was thinking of consciousness as the inner narrative of humans which does depend on language (c.f. Julian Jaynes). Now if Bruno can show: physics-arithmetic I'd be glad to also add: arithmetic-consciousness I'm sure you would, and I'm certainly keen to see the proof - an explanation of why something we've invented is so unreasonable effective will be fascinating. I don't see why that should be so fascinating. If we invent it, it's not surprising that it's useful. Are you surprised at the unreasonable effectiveness of knives?...or writing?...or airplanes? And has anybody found an unreasonable effectiveness for octonions?...or Cantor's infinite cardinals? It seems to me that mathematics has just about the effectiveness that you would expect from human invention much of which is motivated by solving problems but some of which is just inventing games. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
On 23 April 2015 at 11:37, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 11:36, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But not without destroying the brain and producing a gap in consciousness (assuming you could produce a working replica). I don't see that a gap is particularly significant; a concussion also causes a gap. If comp is correct, gaps make no difference. (That would also be Frank Tipler's argument for immortality, in the absence of cosmic acceleration.) Even if comp is incorrect gaps make no difference, since they occur in the course of normal life. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Origin of mathematics
I can't see how his categorisation works. Existence is generally considered to be a property of kicking back - of something existing independently of us, and not conforming to whatever we'd like it to be. For example. a planet is generally considered to exist - we can observer it (or land things on it) and discover unexpected results - Mars is *not* covered in H.G.Wells' Martian civilisation or Ray Bradbury's crystal cities, no matter how much we might want it to be. God (in the conventional sense of supreme being who created the universe) is sometimes considered not to exist because it's a concept that gets modified to account for new scientific discoveries - few Christians nowadays consider that God created the Earth 6000 years ago, or directly caused it to be entirely flooded, for example. Roberto Unger and Lee Smolin are trying to claim that something can exist (kick back - or as they put it, have rigid properties) yet not have existed prior to being thought of by human minds. It seems hard to reconcile these properties. Something thought up that describes something that exists could reasonably be called an accurate scientific theory; something thought up that describes something that doesn't exist could reasonably be called fictional (or a failed scientific theory). I can see no reason why a fiction should have rigid properties. Conversely, if the subject of some theory kicks back, it's reasonable to consider it a (possibly) accurate theory describing something that should be considered (at least provisionally) real. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Liminal space
On 23 April 2015 at 10:58, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: Yes, in a block universe, but in an evolving block universe there is also a special present. I hope mine is a box of chocolates and a long-stemmed rose. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Origin of mathematics
LizR wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 13:24, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net So is chess real? No, chess is an agreed-upon set of conventions invented by the human mind. It didn't exist before people, and it has rules which can be changed without it kicking back (Castling, the pawn's two-square starting move - and hence en passant - were introduced to speed up the game). So how do you respond to this paragraph from Pigliucci: The obvious example that is most close to mathematics (and logic?) itself is provided by board games: “When a game like chess is invented a whole bundle of facts become demonstrable, some of which indeed are theorems that become provable through straightforward mathematical reasoning. As we do not believe in timeless Platonic realities, we do not want to say that chess always existed — in our view of the world, chess came into existence at the moment the rules were codified. This means we have to say that all the facts about it became not only demonstrable, but true, at that moment as well … Once evoked, the facts about chess are objective, in that if any one person can demonstrate one, anyone can. And they are independent of time or particular context: they will be the same facts no matter who considers them or when they are considered” (p. 423). And how does chess, once defined, differ from mathematics? Bruce -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Origin of mathematics
On 4/22/2015 6:46 PM, LizR wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 13:24, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 4/22/2015 6:06 PM, LizR wrote: I can't see how his categorisation works. Existence is generally considered to be a property of kicking back - of something existing independently of us, and not conforming to whatever we'd like it to be. For example. a planet is generally considered to exist - we can observer it (or land things on it) and discover unexpected results - Mars is /not/ covered in H.G.Wells' Martian civilisation or Ray Bradbury's crystal cities, no matter how much we might want it to be. God (in the conventional sense of supreme being who created the universe) is sometimes considered not to exist because it's a concept that gets modified to account for new scientific discoveries - few Christians nowadays consider that God created the Earth 6000 years ago, or directly caused it to be entirely flooded, for example. Roberto Unger and Lee Smolin are trying to claim that something can exist (kick back - or as they put it, have rigid properties) yet not have existed prior to being thought of by human minds. It seems hard to reconcile these properties. Something thought up that describes something that exists could reasonably be called an accurate scientific theory; something thought up that describes something that doesn't exist could reasonably be called fictional (or a failed scientific theory). I can see no reason why a fiction should have rigid properties. Conversely, if the subject of some theory kicks back, it's reasonable to consider it a (possibly) accurate theory describing something that should be considered (at least provisionally) real. So is chess real? No, chess is an agreed-upon set of conventions invented by the human mind. It didn't exist before people, and it has rules which can be changed without it kicking back (Castling, the pawn's two-square starting move - and hence en passant - were introduced to speed up the game). But isn't the fact that we call it chess with a change also a convention. If we'd called the game with castling etc, Chass then chass would be a new rigid invention...like arithmetic. I can imagine some Homo Neanderthalis saying,Look over there. There's Thog, Glug, and Drod. His companion says,That's sorta the same as me, you, and Crak. Let's call it 'three'. And so they invented arithmetic. Arithmetic depends on seeing similarities to group individuals and abstract away all the count. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Liminal space
I've spent the last few days walking and contemplating this, in an attempt to understand, how one could make use of the block universe. In essence I would like to construct a simple experiment that would allow me to travel if not physically then mentally in time. I have come to believe, that in contemplation one is aware of what we have concluded to be the present. That is to say, in the process of manifesting something, regardless of what it results in we are actually in the present. In the block universe model, the present cannot be an actual moment of concessions, for if it was then in that moment time would stop. In other words, I believe this would be (consciously speaking) death. And yet while we are manifesting our thoughts into conclusive ideas, by which we can then, use words to communicate to other's, we are acting on what was once the present. Upon our arrival at said conclusion to be expressed, we then move from the present, to the past, in search for words and phrases that we or others, have used to communicate similar conclusions, lastly we go on to predict the outcome of how our words will effect the other person will this be an effective method to communicate this conclusion? My original question, was pertaining to the process by which one is in contemplation, or to use an example in the physical/real world matter, is at rest. If one was to give matter consciousness or and ability to communicate with tools that we are able to understand or decipher, I believe we would be able to predict, the paths by which all matter would take at the quantum level. The question in my opinion (as crazy as it sounds) may not be how can we know the future and past of particles at the quantum level?, but how can we look for ways in which particles, at the quantum level, function as a separate ecosystem in which they, like us, contemplate their own existence and make choices based own their own individual and almost completely random choices? please critique this almost baseless assumption I look forward to your insight. On Wednesday, April 22, 2015 at 9:35:17 PM UTC-4, Liz R wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 10:58, Stathis Papaioannou stat...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: Yes, in a block universe, but in an evolving block universe there is also a special present. I hope mine is a box of chocolates and a long-stemmed rose. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
Poor nominalists... Ever what you call science and reason has claimed prevalence over religion has been to produce massacres, since 1789 and even before. the religion of the ones that wave the flags of science and reason, that is, thae ones that claim knowledge without conscience that what they have is some kind of faith based on a particular metaphysics. are the most dangerous ones. These people like you are the ones that the world must fear 2015-04-22 22:50 GMT+02:00 Dennis Ochei do.infinit...@gmail.com: I think you interpretted my words in a different way than I intended. My point was merely that theists use motte and bailey tactics, modifying their definition of God as soon as you start tightening the screws. If you cut off one head the theist will confabulate a new one for their religious belief. People say science cannot kill religion. But I say that science has killed religion countless times, and continues to do so. But religion rises again from its ashes, generally more benign than before. Once we have dispelled illusions, the religion that emerges then will be beautiful. But until that time most instances of religion are things that reason and empiricism must put down to perfect. On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Dennis: *God always means something just shy of disproven and always fills the gaps of understanding ...* I don't need to disprove something that has not been proven - or at least described as possible. BTW: nothing can be 'proven' except for ignorance. To keep pace with the unfathomable Everything (not the restricted physical topic-content of this list) the flexibility of the human (ignorant) mind requires a 'creator', a 'sustainer' a BOSS like a king for a country. That is called 'GOD'. You may believe (in) it. Know you cannot. So there is no way to disprove. Sometimes 'God' fills the gaps of misunderstanding (ignorance) as well. I don't believe that going back to more primitive times (less facts included into our worldview) even the smartest(?) minds could LEAD our ignorance to better wisdom. Aristotle's 'total' (in my pun: the Aris - Total) was MORE than the sum of HIS counted ingredients, which included only the listable material parts. Then we have learned about functions, attributes, connections, variants, variations etc. and added lots of includable 'parts' to the total. Plato did not even pretend to visualize the 'world': he imagined a SHADOW of it on the wall as our percept of reality(?), situated BEHIND us (=invisibly). I esteem Bruno's ideas - am no mathematician - can rarely follow them, yet I never got a reply to my question about what are the NUMBERS from him. I consider 'computation' as (Lat) com (cum) - putare (thinking), mind's work, to add 2 and 2 together, definitely not restricted to the numberical terms. It may be also to add an animal, or plant to an environment. Real, or fake. Since the early 90s I participated on more than a dozen discussion lists, this one has exciting and lesser exciting posts and posters. Best regards John Mikes On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 8:29 PM, Dennis Ochei do.infinit...@gmail.com wrote: I'm not gonna lie, i find this exchange rather entertaining. I dont know what side I'd pick, but I will say I've never been 100% clear on what Bruno meant by Aristotelian or Platonist before now. What does Bruno do with personal pronouns? I have to agree that at least some of Bruno's written correspondence is hard to follow, but esotericism is par for the course in philosophy anyway... God always means something just shy of disproven and always fills the gaps of understanding On Tuesday, April 21, 2015, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 , LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: In order to participate in a forum like this you need to accept that certain shorthands are commonly used. None of Bruno's shorthands or acronyms are commonly used, they are used on this list and nowhere else. And even here they are not used with any rational consistency. And then Bruno uses common words in very uncommon ways; I still don't know what the word God means in Brunospeak. And don't get me started on personal pronouns! For example Aristotelian just means anyone who assumes primary materialism OK so now I know that in Bruno's Humpty-Dumpty dictionary a materialist is someone who doesn't even pretend to know if mathematics begat physics or physics begat mathematics. Bruno shouldn't need to have to constantly explain what he means by these terms. No, he needs to do exactly that. Bruno insists on using the Humpty-Dumpty dictionary and he has the only copy, so he needs to constantly explain what the hell he means; either that or throw away the Humpty-Dumpty dictionary. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from
Re: God
On 23 April 2015 at 08:06, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Dennis: *God always means something just shy of disproven and always fills the gaps of understanding ...* I don't need to disprove something that has not been proven - or at least described as possible. BTW: nothing can be 'proven' except for ignorance. Yes, this makes God a Russell's teapot, and the burden of proof is with the theists (well, except if God is intended in Bruno's sense - as whatever is the fundamental cause of existence - but that's another matter, or possibly another equation). Mind you *some* things can be proven, at least beyond reasonable doubt. For example the falisty of a load of previously accepted scientific theories - aether and phlogiston, humours and alchemy raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Liminal space
On 23 April 2015 at 08:08, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 4/22/2015 2:21 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 22 April 2015 at 10:49, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: In an evolving block universe how do we know that we are now standing in the present anticipating the evolving future rather than in the past anticipating an already set, but later, past? On a mailing list that puts so much weight on consciousness I think it would be obvious that We're conscious of the present. I may have misunderstood the idea of an evolving block universe. I thought it meant that the past is, as it were, existent in the block, but the future is not - until it becomes the present. Yes, that's Ellis'es concept. But if the past is existent in the block, how do we know that we are conscious in the present and not in the past? Isn't whatever time of which we're conscious the present, by definition? Exactly. The original question is badly phrased, it assumes some (hard-to-imagine) evolving block universe - but in fact the present is just where your consciousness is. King Harold's presents were in and before 1066, (so to speak) - I have to use were in that statement because of the indexical nature of our perception of time. A block-universe version might phrase it more neutrally so as not to assume some folk idea of an evolving present. Of course, our language is structured around the folk notion of time passing (sorry about all the quotes but I have to distinguish that these are special and/or invalid usages). Saying something like World War 2 is still, and always will be, being declared - 1939 is still there in the space-time continuum sounds odd. However if one had a time machine and used it to visit 1939, and saw Neville Chamberlain with his piece of paper (and tried and failed to assassinate Hitler, which is of course mandatory for all time travellers), one would automatically start treating that as the present. (SF has already explored the linguistic changes necessary for time travel, and in doing so has incidentally pointed out why it's hard to talk about the space-time continuum as a block universe.) PS Why is it that we can see that the past is a block universe, and relativity (and common sense) tell us the present and future must be the same, yet we - or some of us - kick against the idea so much? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Liminal space
On 4/22/2015 2:59 PM, LizR wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 08:08, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 4/22/2015 2:21 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 22 April 2015 at 10:49, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: In an evolving block universe how do we know that we are now standing in the present anticipating the evolving future rather than in the past anticipating an already set, but later, past? On a mailing list that puts so much weight on consciousness I think it would be obvious that We're conscious of the present. I may have misunderstood the idea of an evolving block universe. I thought it meant that the past is, as it were, existent in the block, but the future is not - until it becomes the present. Yes, that's Ellis'es concept. But if the past is existent in the block, how do we know that we are conscious in the present and not in the past? Isn't whatever time of which we're conscious the present, by definition? Exactly. The original question is badly phrased, it assumes some (hard-to-imagine) evolving block universe - but in fact the present is just where your consciousness is. King Harold's presents were in and before 1066, (so to speak) - I have to use were in that statement because of the indexical nature of our perception of time. A block-universe version might phrase it more neutrally so as not to assume some folk idea of an evolving present. Of course, our language is structured around the folk notion of time passing (sorry about all the quotes but I have to distinguish that these are special and/or invalid usages). Saying something like World War 2 is still, and always will be, being declared - 1939 is still there in the space-time continuum sounds odd. However if one had a time machine and used it to visit 1939, and saw Neville Chamberlain with his piece of paper (and tried and failed to assassinate Hitler, which is of course mandatory for all time travellers), one would automatically start treating that as the present. (SF has already explored the linguistic changes necessary for time travel, and in doing so has incidentally pointed out why it's hard to talk about the space-time continuum as a block universe.) PS Why is it that we can see that the past is a block universe, and relativity (and common sense) tell us the present and future must be the same, yet we - or some of us - kick against the idea so much? Well, for one thing, if it's a */block multiverse/* then is the past as uncertain as the future? That's part of Ellis'es point, that both the past and future are uncertain, even if the past is fixed. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Interesting speculation: Could an advanced industrial civilization emerge again from a post-collapse earth?
On 23 April 2015 at 08:23, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Capitalism is the ability to pass wealth on to one's descendants. I'm sure there must be more to it than that. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
God
Yes, ignorance and fanaticism under any banner, including that of science and reason, will leave a trail of bodies in their wake. But unless you have an alternative to using reason and science to understand the world around and within us (divine revelation?) i don't see your point. Religion gives people bad reasons to be good, when good reasons abound. Also, im not a nominalist. These people like you are the ones that the world must fear Yes! Tremble! Mwhahahahaha! haha, there is nothing fear from me. My hands are tied, since I know harming others is equivalent to harming myself On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','agocor...@gmail.com'); wrote: Poor nominalists... Ever what you call science and reason has claimed prevalence over religion has been to produce massacres, since 1789 and even before. the religion of the ones that wave the flags of science and reason, that is, thae ones that claim knowledge without conscience that what they have is some kind of faith based on a particular metaphysics. are the most dangerous ones. These people like you are the ones that the world must fear 2015-04-22 22:50 GMT+02:00 Dennis Ochei do.infinit...@gmail.com: I think you interpretted my words in a different way than I intended. My point was merely that theists use motte and bailey tactics, modifying their definition of God as soon as you start tightening the screws. If you cut off one head the theist will confabulate a new one for their religious belief. People say science cannot kill religion. But I say that science has killed religion countless times, and continues to do so. But religion rises again from its ashes, generally more benign than before. Once we have dispelled illusions, the religion that emerges then will be beautiful. But until that time most instances of religion are things that reason and empiricism must put down to perfect. On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Dennis: *God always means something just shy of disproven and always fills the gaps of understanding ...* I don't need to disprove something that has not been proven - or at least described as possible. BTW: nothing can be 'proven' except for ignorance. To keep pace with the unfathomable Everything (not the restricted physical topic-content of this list) the flexibility of the human (ignorant) mind requires a 'creator', a 'sustainer' a BOSS like a king for a country. That is called 'GOD'. You may believe (in) it. Know you cannot. So there is no way to disprove. Sometimes 'God' fills the gaps of misunderstanding (ignorance) as well. I don't believe that going back to more primitive times (less facts included into our worldview) even the smartest(?) minds could LEAD our ignorance to better wisdom. Aristotle's 'total' (in my pun: the Aris - Total) was MORE than the sum of HIS counted ingredients, which included only the listable material parts. Then we have learned about functions, attributes, connections, variants, variations etc. and added lots of includable 'parts' to the total. Plato did not even pretend to visualize the 'world': he imagined a SHADOW of it on the wall as our percept of reality(?), situated BEHIND us (=invisibly). I esteem Bruno's ideas - am no mathematician - can rarely follow them, yet I never got a reply to my question about what are the NUMBERS from him. I consider 'computation' as (Lat) com (cum) - putare (thinking), mind's work, to add 2 and 2 together, definitely not restricted to the numberical terms. It may be also to add an animal, or plant to an environment. Real, or fake. Since the early 90s I participated on more than a dozen discussion lists, this one has exciting and lesser exciting posts and posters. Best regards John Mikes On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 8:29 PM, Dennis Ochei do.infinit...@gmail.com wrote: I'm not gonna lie, i find this exchange rather entertaining. I dont know what side I'd pick, but I will say I've never been 100% clear on what Bruno meant by Aristotelian or Platonist before now. What does Bruno do with personal pronouns? I have to agree that at least some of Bruno's written correspondence is hard to follow, but esotericism is par for the course in philosophy anyway... God always means something just shy of disproven and always fills the gaps of understanding On Tuesday, April 21, 2015, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 , LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: In order to participate in a forum like this you need to accept that certain shorthands are commonly used. None of Bruno's shorthands or acronyms are commonly used, they are used on this list and nowhere else. And even here they are not used with any rational consistency. And then Bruno uses common words in very uncommon ways; I still don't know what the word God means in Brunospeak. And don't get me started on personal pronouns!
Re: God
I think you interpretted my words in a different way than I intended. My point was merely that theists use motte and bailey tactics, modifying their definition of God as soon as you start tightening the screws. If you cut off one head the theist will confabulate a new one for their religious belief. People say science cannot kill religion. But I say that science has killed religion countless times, and continues to do so. But religion rises again from its ashes, generally more benign than before. Once we have dispelled illusions, the religion that emerges then will be beautiful. But until that time most instances of religion are things that reason and empiricism must put down to perfect. On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Dennis: *God always means something just shy of disproven and always fills the gaps of understanding ...* I don't need to disprove something that has not been proven - or at least described as possible. BTW: nothing can be 'proven' except for ignorance. To keep pace with the unfathomable Everything (not the restricted physical topic-content of this list) the flexibility of the human (ignorant) mind requires a 'creator', a 'sustainer' a BOSS like a king for a country. That is called 'GOD'. You may believe (in) it. Know you cannot. So there is no way to disprove. Sometimes 'God' fills the gaps of misunderstanding (ignorance) as well. I don't believe that going back to more primitive times (less facts included into our worldview) even the smartest(?) minds could LEAD our ignorance to better wisdom. Aristotle's 'total' (in my pun: the Aris - Total) was MORE than the sum of HIS counted ingredients, which included only the listable material parts. Then we have learned about functions, attributes, connections, variants, variations etc. and added lots of includable 'parts' to the total. Plato did not even pretend to visualize the 'world': he imagined a SHADOW of it on the wall as our percept of reality(?), situated BEHIND us (=invisibly). I esteem Bruno's ideas - am no mathematician - can rarely follow them, yet I never got a reply to my question about what are the NUMBERS from him. I consider 'computation' as (Lat) com (cum) - putare (thinking), mind's work, to add 2 and 2 together, definitely not restricted to the numberical terms. It may be also to add an animal, or plant to an environment. Real, or fake. Since the early 90s I participated on more than a dozen discussion lists, this one has exciting and lesser exciting posts and posters. Best regards John Mikes On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 8:29 PM, Dennis Ochei do.infinit...@gmail.com javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','do.infinit...@gmail.com'); wrote: I'm not gonna lie, i find this exchange rather entertaining. I dont know what side I'd pick, but I will say I've never been 100% clear on what Bruno meant by Aristotelian or Platonist before now. What does Bruno do with personal pronouns? I have to agree that at least some of Bruno's written correspondence is hard to follow, but esotericism is par for the course in philosophy anyway... God always means something just shy of disproven and always fills the gaps of understanding On Tuesday, April 21, 2015, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','johnkcl...@gmail.com'); wrote: On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 , LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: In order to participate in a forum like this you need to accept that certain shorthands are commonly used. None of Bruno's shorthands or acronyms are commonly used, they are used on this list and nowhere else. And even here they are not used with any rational consistency. And then Bruno uses common words in very uncommon ways; I still don't know what the word God means in Brunospeak. And don't get me started on personal pronouns! For example Aristotelian just means anyone who assumes primary materialism OK so now I know that in Bruno's Humpty-Dumpty dictionary a materialist is someone who doesn't even pretend to know if mathematics begat physics or physics begat mathematics. Bruno shouldn't need to have to constantly explain what he means by these terms. No, he needs to do exactly that. Bruno insists on using the Humpty-Dumpty dictionary and he has the only copy, so he needs to constantly explain what the hell he means; either that or throw away the Humpty-Dumpty dictionary. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/everything-list/Lp5_VIb6ddY/unsubscribe . To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. --
Re: God
On 23 April 2015 at 08:19, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: I was booted off when Natasha did her purge and went to Kurzweilai. I was almost booted from there for outing Nancy More as the list moderator who did the booting back in the day. I usually was not a troller and if people zinged me, I ignored it because I was there for Tipler - affirmative, stuff, not arguments. Kind of like here, except now if I fear that people will ally themselves with the elites, who now lean into some sort of neocommunism, that I do bitch back. I hope not! I mean about there being any of that so-called moderation that destroys forums (and stops them being forums too, of course, in the proper meaning of the word) - not about you bitching. Long may you bitch! (And me too, of course). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
RE: Origin of mathematics
Really interesting! Good to find someone that concurs with a one-at-a-time universe. I think this will emerge as being right, in the end. Thanks. Colin -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net Sent: 23/04/2015 5:36 AM To: EveryThing everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Origin of mathematics Is mathematics neither invented nor discovered, but evoked? https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/smolin-on-mathematics/ Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Liminal space
On 4/22/2015 3:58 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On Thursday, April 23, 2015, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 4/22/2015 2:21 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 22 April 2015 at 10:49, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: In an evolving block universe how do we know that we are now standing in the present anticipating the evolving future rather than in the past anticipating an already set, but later, past? On a mailing list that puts so much weight on consciousness I think it would be obvious that We're conscious of the present. I may have misunderstood the idea of an evolving block universe. I thought it meant that the past is, as it were, existent in the block, but the future is not - until it becomes the present. Yes, that's Ellis'es concept. But if the past is existent in the block, how do we know that we are conscious in the present and not in the past? Isn't whatever time of which we're conscious the present, by definition? Yes, in a block universe, but in an evolving block universe there is also a special present. There's a special present along each world-line and it's the one you're conscious of. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Step 3 - one step beyond?
On Thursday, April 23, 2015, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','meeke...@verizon.net'); wrote: On 4/22/2015 12:26 AM, Dennis Ochei wrote: Certainly we could scan a nematode, don't you think? 302 neurons. Nematodes should say yes doctor. If I had a brain tumor, rescinsion of which would involve damaging the 1000 neurons and there was a brain prothesis that would simulate a their function I should say yes doctor. Since modelling 1000 neurons at sufficient detail is possible, I leave it as an excercise for the reader to demonstrate that simulating a whole brain is possible. The complete neural structure of planaria has been mapped. But that doesn't capture the consciounsness of the individual planaria. You can't tell from the wiring diagram whether a particular planaria has learned to take the illuminated fork in the test maze. So you might determine the generic brain structure of homo sapiens, but you would not thereby capture the consciousness of some particular person. For that, presumably you would need to know the relative strength of all the synapses at a particular moment. Yes, and you could possibly do that using a technique resolving detail down to the size of macromolecules. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Origin of mathematics
On 4/22/2015 9:25 PM, LizR wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 16:16, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 4/22/2015 7:38 PM, PGC wrote: Both the records and the mathematical objects are human constructions which are brought into existence by exercises of human will; neither has any transcendental existence. Both are static, not in the sense of existing outside of time, but in the weak sense that, once they come to exist, they don’t change” (pp. 445-446) The question they need to answer is /why/ these things don't change. Humans can change other things they make up - as already mentioned, the rules of chess are one example. They can change things. Robinson arithmetic is a change of Peano's. But we give it a different name instead of saying we've changed arithmetic. It's just as if we'd kept the old version of chess around and given a different name to the new version. It's a nominal distinction whether it's changed or it's a new thing. Brent I haven't read the whole thing, so perhaps they do have an explanation for why made up things can't be changed? If so, I'd be interested to know what it is (not having time, sadly, to read every paper published on this list). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
On 23 April 2015 at 16:14, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 11:37, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 11:36, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But not without destroying the brain and producing a gap in consciousness (assuming you could produce a working replica). I don't see that a gap is particularly significant; a concussion also causes a gap. If comp is correct, gaps make no difference. (That would also be Frank Tipler's argument for immortality, in the absence of cosmic acceleration.) Even if comp is incorrect gaps make no difference, since they occur in the course of normal life. But they do have to be explained differently (For example by physical continuity). We're discussing whether scanning a brain and making a (hypothetically exact enough) duplicate later would affect the consciousness of the person involved. Comp says not, obviously in this case for other reasons than physical continuity. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Origin of mathematics
LizR wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 16:16, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 4/22/2015 7:38 PM, PGC wrote: Both the records and the mathematical objects are human constructions which are brought into existence by exercises of human will; neither has any transcendental existence. Both are static, not in the sense of existing outside of time, but in the weak sense that, once they come to exist, they don’t change” (pp. 445-446) The question they need to answer is /why/ these things don't change. Humans can change other things they make up - as already mentioned, the rules of chess are one example. I haven't read the whole thing, so perhaps they do have an explanation for why made up things can't be changed? If so, I'd be interested to know what it is (not having time, sadly, to read every paper published on this list). This is part of the excerpt I posted before: Once evoked, the facts about chess are objective, in that if any one person can demonstrate one, anyone can. And they are independent of time or particular context: they will be the same facts no matter who considers them or when they are considered. I think this answers your question. If you change the rules of chess, you create a new and different game -- you do not change things that were true of the old game. Bruce -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
meekerdb wrote: On 4/22/2015 9:22 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 11:37, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 11:36, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But not without destroying the brain and producing a gap in consciousness (assuming you could produce a working replica). I don't see that a gap is particularly significant; a concussion also causes a gap. If comp is correct, gaps make no difference. (That would also be Frank Tipler's argument for immortality, in the absence of cosmic acceleration.) Even if comp is incorrect gaps make no difference, since they occur in the course of normal life. Gaps in consciousness, perhaps. But are there gaps in the ebb and flow of brain chemicals, hormones, cell deaths and divisions, ...? Or gaps in the flow of the unconscious? I'm pretty sure there are gaps in all biological processes that correspond to any kind of thought/perception/awareness in the case of people who are cooled down for heart surgery. I doubt that. Is the point susceptible of proof either way? Not all brain processes stop under anaesthesia. Bruce -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Origin of mathematics
On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 6:16 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 4/22/2015 7:38 PM, PGC wrote: Quote: Both the records and the mathematical objects are human constructions which are brought into existence by exercises of human will; neither has any transcendental existence. Both are static, not in the sense of existing outside of time, but in the weak sense that, once they come to exist, they don’t change” (pp. 445-446). That's a statement of faith/dogma with pretensions of un-transcendental truth, which is as unclear and esoteric as how they appear to start their reasoning. Why isn't is just their hypothetical explanation of how to look at the world - like Bruno's comp hypothesis? Everybody can choose their own theology. How/to what degree this bears on truth is much more subtle. They seem to confuse this because they first state false dichotomy between Platonism and some humanism/nominalism implies their system. Then they reason and conclude, see above, that some humanist magic will is responsible for discoveries. So they do side with a flavor of nominalism and, in strong fashion, state abstract truth of their faith. This strongly, they leave realm of hypothesis + reasoning and do what seems to be closer to advertising, with self-reinforcing messages. Looks circular without much consequence, although I haven't read it and rely on the interpretation and quotes. How that's different from Bruno's hypothesis? He doesn't state in any paper or post (to my knowledge) that comp is true. You seem to be holding them to some standard of axiomatic reasoning when their thesis is to explain the origin of axiomatic reasoning. With fuzzy elements, humans, prior existence etc. which is not wrong, but this doesn't seem to clarify anything, nor do they advance with anything novel from their proposal of the stated flawed dichotomy. PGC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
On 23 April 2015 at 14:30, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 16:14, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 11:37, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 11:36, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But not without destroying the brain and producing a gap in consciousness (assuming you could produce a working replica). I don't see that a gap is particularly significant; a concussion also causes a gap. If comp is correct, gaps make no difference. (That would also be Frank Tipler's argument for immortality, in the absence of cosmic acceleration.) Even if comp is incorrect gaps make no difference, since they occur in the course of normal life. But they do have to be explained differently (For example by physical continuity). We're discussing whether scanning a brain and making a (hypothetically exact enough) duplicate later would affect the consciousness of the person involved. Comp says not, obviously in this case for other reasons than physical continuity. As I understand it, comp requires simulation of the brain on a digital computer. It could be that there are processes in the brain that are not Turing emulable, and therefore it would be impossible to make an artificial brain using a computer. However, it might still be possible to make a copy through some other means, such as making an exact biological copy using different matter. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Origin of mathematics
On 23 April 2015 at 16:31, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 4/22/2015 9:25 PM, LizR wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 16:16, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 4/22/2015 7:38 PM, PGC wrote: Both the records and the mathematical objects are human constructions which are brought into existence by exercises of human will; neither has any transcendental existence. Both are static, not in the sense of existing outside of time, but in the weak sense that, once they come to exist, they don’t change” (pp. 445-446) The question they need to answer is *why* these things don't change. Humans can change other things they make up - as already mentioned, the rules of chess are one example. They can change things. Robinson arithmetic is a change of Peano's. But we give it a different name instead of saying we've changed arithmetic. It's just as if we'd kept the old version of chess around and given a different name to the new version. It's a nominal distinction whether it's changed or it's a new thing. As far as I know, we keep the old version. Surely the new one is an addition? Or are you saying these changes could be made any which way, that there is no kicking back? That 2+2 can equal 5, as O'Brien claimed? That seems kind of unlikely, to be honest. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Liminal space
If you've spent the last few days walking and contemplating something that was only posted 2 days ago on the list, you either have access to precognition or time travel, either of which should tell you something about the nature of space and time. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
On 4/22/2015 9:22 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 11:37, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 11:36, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But not without destroying the brain and producing a gap in consciousness (assuming you could produce a working replica). I don't see that a gap is particularly significant; a concussion also causes a gap. If comp is correct, gaps make no difference. (That would also be Frank Tipler's argument for immortality, in the absence of cosmic acceleration.) Even if comp is incorrect gaps make no difference, since they occur in the course of normal life. Gaps in consciousness, perhaps. But are there gaps in the ebb and flow of brain chemicals, hormones, cell deaths and divisions, ...? Or gaps in the flow of the unconscious? I'm pretty sure there are gaps in all biological processes that correspond to any kind of thought/perception/awareness in the case of people who are cooled down for heart surgery. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
On 4/22/2015 9:30 PM, LizR wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 16:14, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com mailto:stath...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 11:37, LizR lizj...@gmail.com mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 April 2015 at 11:36, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: But not without destroying the brain and producing a gap in consciousness (assuming you could produce a working replica). I don't see that a gap is particularly significant; a concussion also causes a gap. If comp is correct, gaps make no difference. (That would also be Frank Tipler's argument for immortality, in the absence of cosmic acceleration.) Even if comp is incorrect gaps make no difference, since they occur in the course of normal life. But they do have to be explained differently (For example by physical continuity). We're discussing whether scanning a brain and making a (hypothetically exact enough) duplicate later would affect the consciousness of the person involved. Comp says not, obviously in this case for other reasons than physical continuity. Of course as Stathis says, How would you know if your consciousness changed? You could ask friends and look at documents and check your memories, but it's hard to say what it would mean to notice your consciousness changed. Even if you thought that, maybe it's not your consciousness that's different rather it's your memory of how your consciousness used to be. Motorcycle racers have a saying, The older I get, the faster I was. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
Dennis: *God always means something just shy of disproven and always fills the gaps of understanding ...* I don't need to disprove something that has not been proven - or at least described as possible. BTW: nothing can be 'proven' except for ignorance. To keep pace with the unfathomable Everything (not the restricted physical topic-content of this list) the flexibility of the human (ignorant) mind requires a 'creator', a 'sustainer' a BOSS like a king for a country. That is called 'GOD'. You may believe (in) it. Know you cannot. So there is no way to disprove. Sometimes 'God' fills the gaps of misunderstanding (ignorance) as well. I don't believe that going back to more primitive times (less facts included into our worldview) even the smartest(?) minds could LEAD our ignorance to better wisdom. Aristotle's 'total' (in my pun: the Aris - Total) was MORE than the sum of HIS counted ingredients, which included only the listable material parts. Then we have learned about functions, attributes, connections, variants, variations etc. and added lots of includable 'parts' to the total. Plato did not even pretend to visualize the 'world': he imagined a SHADOW of it on the wall as our percept of reality(?), situated BEHIND us (=invisibly). I esteem Bruno's ideas - am no mathematician - can rarely follow them, yet I never got a reply to my question about what are the NUMBERS from him. I consider 'computation' as (Lat) com (cum) - putare (thinking), mind's work, to add 2 and 2 together, definitely not restricted to the numberical terms. It may be also to add an animal, or plant to an environment. Real, or fake. Since the early 90s I participated on more than a dozen discussion lists, this one has exciting and lesser exciting posts and posters. Best regards John Mikes On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 8:29 PM, Dennis Ochei do.infinit...@gmail.com wrote: I'm not gonna lie, i find this exchange rather entertaining. I dont know what side I'd pick, but I will say I've never been 100% clear on what Bruno meant by Aristotelian or Platonist before now. What does Bruno do with personal pronouns? I have to agree that at least some of Bruno's written correspondence is hard to follow, but esotericism is par for the course in philosophy anyway... God always means something just shy of disproven and always fills the gaps of understanding On Tuesday, April 21, 2015, John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 , LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: In order to participate in a forum like this you need to accept that certain shorthands are commonly used. None of Bruno's shorthands or acronyms are commonly used, they are used on this list and nowhere else. And even here they are not used with any rational consistency. And then Bruno uses common words in very uncommon ways; I still don't know what the word God means in Brunospeak. And don't get me started on personal pronouns! For example Aristotelian just means anyone who assumes primary materialism OK so now I know that in Bruno's Humpty-Dumpty dictionary a materialist is someone who doesn't even pretend to know if mathematics begat physics or physics begat mathematics. Bruno shouldn't need to have to constantly explain what he means by these terms. No, he needs to do exactly that. Bruno insists on using the Humpty-Dumpty dictionary and he has the only copy, so he needs to constantly explain what the hell he means; either that or throw away the Humpty-Dumpty dictionary. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/everything-list/Lp5_VIb6ddY/unsubscribe . To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Sent from Gmail Mobile -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Liminal space
On 4/22/2015 2:21 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: On 22 April 2015 at 10:49, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: In an evolving block universe how do we know that we are now standing in the present anticipating the evolving future rather than in the past anticipating an already set, but later, past? On a mailing list that puts so much weight on consciousness I think it would be obvious that We're conscious of the present. I may have misunderstood the idea of an evolving block universe. I thought it meant that the past is, as it were, existent in the block, but the future is not - until it becomes the present. Yes, that's Ellis'es concept. But if the past is existent in the block, how do we know that we are conscious in the present and not in the past? Isn't whatever time of which we're conscious the present, by definition? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
I was booted off when Natasha did her purge and went to Kurzweilai. I was almost booted from there for outing Nancy More as the list moderator who did the booting back in the day. I usually was not a troller and if people zinged me, I ignored it because I was there for Tipler - affirmative, stuff, not arguments. Kind of like here, except now if I fear that people will ally themselves with the elites, who now lean into some sort of neocommunism, that I do bitch back. Of God, it is less important to me if He functions as promised, more, I am concerned is how we sapiens are doing? When we disintegrate, can we get put back together, faster, better, smarter? That kind of thing. But that is my neurosis. -Original Message- From: John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, Apr 21, 2015 11:25 pm Subject: Re: God On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 Dennis Ochei do.infinit...@gmail.com wrote: What are the other forums that people on everything list go to? How deep does the rabbit hole go? I've been posting to the Extropian List since the mid 1990s, at one time it was more active than this list, it's not as active as it once was but it's still my favorite because it still has a high signal to noise ratio. Over the years I've learned a lot there from some very smart people. http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Interesting speculation: Could an advanced industrial civilization emerge again from a post-collapse earth?
Capitalism is the ability to pass wealth on to one's descendants. Yes, a Darwinian-anthropological thing! One of the worst offenders was Ming China, which froze everything, which ruined Chinese civilization, and made it vulnerable to invasions by Mongols, Russians, and later the UK. -Original Message- From: Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Apr 22, 2015 3:04 am Subject: Re: Interesting speculation: Could an advanced industrial civilization emerge again from a post-collapse earth? I do not read this thread in detail but the people among you that do not understand that the reduction of workforce in agriculture to marginal levels while increasing many times the production has not been due to mechanical and crop engineering... you people have a serious problem understanding the reality, or merely, perceiving it. Maybe you have a problem in the synapstic connections form the senses to the brain interrupted by some kind of autonomous module that produces arbitrary histories. 2015-04-22 6:57 GMT+02:00 LizRlizj...@gmail.com: Technology has revolutionised farming in Africa in the last ten years, thanks to the advent of mobile phones. This means farmers can know what to take to market, when to take it, and so on. (But I 'm not sure what socialism has to do with any of this, especially not your version of it. There has always been a certain amount of socialism involved in peasant farming, but so what? It's natural for people to help people they are related to, and sometimes others as well.) On 22 April 2015 at 14:51, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: When I think of africa and farming, I think poverty. I think hunger, but maybe I am wrong? Therefore, I look to technology as the best answer to nearly all troubles, and perhaps this is wrong as well? So the 400 year old concept of hydroponics, and greenhouse farming seems a good bet, and a good bet that would fill bellies, while sparing the land, and allowing wild life to flourish. I don't view socialism as an answer since it cuts wealth from being developed, so the idea of distributing an ever shrinking pie becomes ever problematical, plus, socialism seems ever more corrupt. Look at the goings on by the Clintons, for a real world example. Anymore, crony capitalist oligarchs run everything, so what's a serf to do? Sent from AOL Mobile Mail -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, Apr 21, 2015 10:38 PM Subject: Re: Interesting speculation: Could an advanced industrial civilization emerge again from a post-collapse earth? I didn't say they didn't cut down forests, just that not being idiots, they kept the land viable (or at least tried to). And they did it without modern fertilisers, obviously - by crop rotation and so on. My point about Ridley's agenda is that it has caused him to espouse views that appear inaccurate. That is, there is obviously a hierarchy of needs, but it isn't as he's portraying it. Yes I don't buy the noble savage or steward of the land of captain of industry crap either, but that doesn't automagically make the guy with the right wing agenda right by default. Things are generally a bit more complex. You're getting lots of money from the police? :) On 22 April 2015 at 14:22, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Ridley has a political agenda? I have a political agenda! But that does not matter because I am just a serf. Just remember that the notion of the subsistence farmer being the noble steward of the land is false, and if you look at European history we see the practice of assarting used for centuries, which is extending one's land but cutting away the forests. If we are doing greenhouse cultivation, then we'd 99% less land use by the grower. Ridley must be correct in that money drives human behavior, and thus, psychology. My question would be, what needs to be developed before X crosses Y in greenhouse agriculture, in solar, in whatever??? Being a rather ignoble serf, me do not know and must leave the answers to the manor born. Now back to milking the pigs. Sent from AOL Mobile Mail -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To:
Re: God
On 4/22/2015 2:26 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 21 Apr 2015, at 19:39, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 Bruce Kellett bhkell...@optusnet.com.au mailto:bhkell...@optusnet.com.au wrote: We are entering the realm of the Humpty-Dumpty dictionary -- words no longer have their ordinary, everyday meaning. Yes. According to Bruno the words atheist and Christian mean almost the same thing with atheism being just a very minor variation of Christianity. They have the same notion of the creator, and the same notion of creation. And they have the same belief in creation. Yep Bruce was correct, we are entering the realm of the Humpty-Dumpty dictionary. Only fundamentalist aristotelians have a problem with Plato's notion of God And according to your Humpty-Dumpty dictionary a fundamentalist aristotelian is somebody who thinks that Aristotle was by far the WORST physicist who ever lived and even in the field of philosophy was vastly overrated, just like all Greek philosophers So why do you defend implicitly all the time his theology, and seems to deny or even not being aware of the theology of the Platonist. Jason Resh shows you that my definition of God is the same as the Chinese, Indian, Greeks, Are you claiming that all Chinese, Indians, and Greeks agree on a canonical definition for God? That would certainly be remarkable (especially as god is an English word). and it is even in the wiki. From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God /God is conceived as the Supreme Being and principal object of faith.[1] The concept of God as described by theologians commonly includes the attributes of omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence. In theism, God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, while in deism, God is the creator, but not the sustainer, of the universe. Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one God or in the oneness of God. In pantheism, God is the universe itself. In atheism, God is purported not to exist, while God is deemed unknown or unknowable within the context of agnosticism. God has also been conceived as being incorporeal (immaterial), a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the greatest conceivable existent.[1]/ It is widespread, and it is used even by most jewish, christian, and even muslims (but they have regressed since some century on that). Only creationist and fundamentalist use the literal notion of God, as a person intelligent and with a will, having done literally the world. So the Pope is a fundamentalist and creationist? I think your literal notion of God is a straw man. All jews, christians, and muslims believe in a god who is a person (or three) and is extremely powerful, knowledgeable, and morally perfect. Since they use the word to designate what they believe in who are you to tell them their word means something entirely different? Brent Please buy the book by Proclus: element of theology. It sums well the whole Plato theology, with the correction mae by Plotinus and other neo-platonist. Or read my paper on Plotinus, to see the lexicon Plato-Arithmetic, foreviewed by Plotinus in his chapter on Numbers. And the word God means a unintelligent non-conscious amorphous impersonal blob You attribute me things that I have never said. OK you can clear this up right now right here by answering just one question: By the English word God do you mean a intelligent conscious being who created the universe and knows everything including what our prayers are or do you not? I don't mean that. I mean the original greek-indian notion (accepted by many jewishes, muslims, and more marginally by many christians). Some masons accepted it too, with the label grand architect, although they add more from the timaeus, and less from the Parmenides. Only people calling hemselves atheists seems to forget that the christian God theory might be a bit naive for that notion. On the contrary, atheists remember that the theory is so naive that it's silly to believe it. I think this question is very clear and does not require a paragraph of bafflegab to answer, a simple yes or no will do. So it is NO. But of course, the math might show that this is less false than what we might think. We just don't know, Mathematical theology is in its infancy. Then it shouldn't presume to provide meaning to ancient terms that already have a common meaning. Is God a blob or an intelligent person? Open problem with computationalism. No this has nothing to do with computationalism or mathematics or logic or science or even theology, this has to do with the meaning of a English
Re: God
On 23 April 2015 at 08:50, Dennis Ochei do.infinit...@gmail.com wrote: I think you interpretted my words in a different way than I intended. My point was merely that theists use motte and bailey tactics, modifying their definition of God as soon as you start tightening the screws. If you cut off one head the theist will confabulate a new one for their religious belief. People say science cannot kill religion. But I say that science has killed religion countless times, and continues to do so. But religion rises again from its ashes, generally more benign than before. It's an almost exact parallel with how viruses that once killed their hosts gradually become less dangerous :-) (Richard Dawkins would agree that religion is a mind-virus, especially since he invented the word meme.) Once we have dispelled illusions, the religion that emerges then will be beautiful. But until that time most instances of religion are things that reason and empiricism must put down to perfect. Nice thought! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, Bruce Kellett bhkell...@optusnet.com.au wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 21 Apr 2015, at 00:43, Bruce Kellett wrote: What you are talking about has more to do with psychology and/or physics than mathematics, I call that theology, and this can be justified using Plato's notion of theology, as the lexicon Plotinus/arithmetic illustrates. The name of the field is another topic. Also, you are unclear. you argue that comp is false, but reason like it makes sense, and that the reasoning is non valid, without saying where is the error. It is hard to figure out what you mean. I think we are coming from entirely different starting points. From my (physicist's) point of view, what you are doing is proposing a model and reasoning about what happens in that model. Because it is your model, you are free to choose the starting point and the ancillary assumptions as you wish. All that matters for the model is that the logic of the development of the model is correct. What is happening in our exchanges is that I am examining what goes into your model and seeing whether it makes sense in the light of other knowledge. The actual logic of the development of your model is then of secondary importance. If your assumptions are unrealistic or too restrictive, then no matter how good your logic, the end result will not be of any great value. These wider issues cannot be simply dismissed as off topic. In summary, my objections start with step 0, the yes doctor argument. I do not think that it is physically possible to examine a living brain in sufficient detail to reproduce its conscious life in a Turing machine without actually destroying the brain before the process is complete. I would say No to the doctor. So even though I believe that AI is possible, in other words, that a computer-based intelligence that can function in all relevant respects like a normal human being is in principle possible, I do not believe that I can be replaced by such an AI. The necessary starting data are unobtainable in principle. Consequently, I think the reasoning in the first steps of your model could only apply to mature AIs, not to humans. The internal logic of the model is then not an issue -- but the relevance to human experience is. I don't see why you think it is impossible to scan a brain sufficiently to reproduce it. For example, you could fix a the brain, slice it up with a microtome and with microscopy establish all the synaptic connections. That is the crudest proposal for so-called mind uploading, but it may be necessary to go further to the molecular level and determine the types and numbers of membrane proteins in each neuron. The next step would be the at the level of small molecules and atoms, such as neurotransmitters and ions, but this may be able to be deduced from information about the type of neuron and macromolecules. It seems unlikely that you would need to determine things like ionic concentrations at a given moment, since ionic gradients collapse all the time and the person survives. In any case, with the yes doctor test you would not be the first volunteer. It is assumed that it will be well established, through a series of engineering refinements, that with the brain replacement the copies seem to behave normally and claim that they feel normal. The leap of faith (which, as I've said previously, I don't think is such a leap) is that not only will the copies say they feel the same, they will in fact feel the same. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Interesting speculation: Could an advanced industrial civilization emerge again from a post-collapse earth?
I do not read this thread in detail but the people among you that do not understand that the reduction of workforce in agriculture to marginal levels while increasing many times the production has not been due to mechanical and crop engineering... you people have a serious problem understanding the reality, or merely, perceiving it. Maybe you have a problem in the synapstic connections form the senses to the brain interrupted by some kind of autonomous module that produces arbitrary histories. 2015-04-22 6:57 GMT+02:00 LizR lizj...@gmail.com: Technology has revolutionised farming in Africa in the last ten years, thanks to the advent of mobile phones. This means farmers can know what to take to market, when to take it, and so on. (But I*'m n*ot sure what socialism has to do with any of this, especially not your version of it. There has always been a certain amount of socialism involved in peasant farming, but so what? It's natural for people to help people they are related to, and sometimes others as well.) On 22 April 2015 at 14:51, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: When I think of africa and farming, I think poverty. I think hunger, but maybe I am wrong? Therefore, I look to technology as the best answer to nearly all troubles, and perhaps this is wrong as well? So the 400 year old concept of hydroponics, and greenhouse farming seems a good bet, and a good bet that would fill bellies, while sparing the land, and allowing wild life to flourish. I don't view socialism as an answer since it cuts wealth from being developed, so the idea of distributing an ever shrinking pie becomes ever problematical, plus, socialism seems ever more corrupt. Look at the goings on by the Clintons, for a real world example. Anymore, crony capitalist oligarchs run everything, so what's a serf to do? Sent from AOL Mobile Mail -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, Apr 21, 2015 10:38 PM Subject: Re: Interesting speculation: Could an advanced industrial civilization emerge again from a post-collapse earth? I didn't say they didn't cut down forests, just that not being idiots, they kept the land viable (or at least tried to). And they did it without modern fertilisers, obviously - by crop rotation and so on. My point about Ridley's agenda is that it has caused him to espouse views that appear inaccurate. That is, there is obviously a hierarchy of needs, but it isn't as he's portraying it. Yes I don't buy the noble savage or steward of the land of captain of industry crap either, but that doesn't automagically make the guy with the right wing agenda right by default. Things are generally a bit more complex. You're getting lots of money from the police? :) On 22 April 2015 at 14:22, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Ridley has a political agenda? I have a political agenda! But that does not matter because I am just a serf. Just remember that the notion of the subsistence farmer being the noble steward of the land is false, and if you look at European history we see the practice of assarting used for centuries, which is extending one's land but cutting away the forests. If we are doing greenhouse cultivation, then we'd 99% less land use by the grower. Ridley must be correct in that money drives human behavior, and thus, psychology. My question would be, what needs to be developed before X crosses Y in greenhouse agriculture, in solar, in whatever??? Being a rather ignoble serf, me do not know and must leave the answers to the manor born. Now back to milking the pigs. Sent from AOL Mobile Mail -Original Message- From: LizR lizj...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, Apr 21, 2015 10:07 PM Subject: Re: Interesting speculation: Could an advanced industrial civilization emerge again from a post-collapse earth? On 22 April 2015 at 10:38, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Riddley is correct. When people have their lower rungs satisfied, as in abe maslow's hierarchy of needs, then environment use becomes important- but not if you need fire wood to live. Subsistence farmers will try to make sure they have food every year, and that means being environmentalists. If there's a free lunch invovled *then* you get the tragedy of the commons, but not beforehand. (PS I think you'll find Matt Ridley has a political agenda if I remember rightly, which comes across rather clearly here.) Also, do not ignore improvements in the knowledge we already know-rather than rely on breakthroughs.(I am paraphrasing Gerard O'Neil). Think of some collection of tech that makes greenhouse agriculture cheaper then out door agriculture-something like this. All of a sudden land use goes down 99% for agriculture. Or, as has been
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
Bruno Marchal wrote: On 21 Apr 2015, at 00:43, Bruce Kellett wrote: What you are talking about has more to do with psychology and/or physics than mathematics, I call that theology, and this can be justified using Plato's notion of theology, as the lexicon Plotinus/arithmetic illustrates. The name of the field is another topic. Also, you are unclear. you argue that comp is false, but reason like it makes sense, and that the reasoning is non valid, without saying where is the error. It is hard to figure out what you mean. I think we are coming from entirely different starting points. From my (physicist's) point of view, what you are doing is proposing a model and reasoning about what happens in that model. Because it is your model, you are free to choose the starting point and the ancillary assumptions as you wish. All that matters for the model is that the logic of the development of the model is correct. What is happening in our exchanges is that I am examining what goes into your model and seeing whether it makes sense in the light of other knowledge. The actual logic of the development of your model is then of secondary importance. If your assumptions are unrealistic or too restrictive, then no matter how good your logic, the end result will not be of any great value. These wider issues cannot be simply dismissed as off topic. In summary, my objections start with step 0, the yes doctor argument. I do not think that it is physically possible to examine a living brain in sufficient detail to reproduce its conscious life in a Turing machine without actually destroying the brain before the process is complete. I would say No to the doctor. So even though I believe that AI is possible, in other words, that a computer-based intelligence that can function in all relevant respects like a normal human being is in principle possible, I do not believe that I can be replaced by such an AI. The necessary starting data are unobtainable in principle. Consequently, I think the reasoning in the first steps of your model could only apply to mature AIs, not to humans. The internal logic of the model is then not an issue -- but the relevance to human experience is. Bruce -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
Certainly we could scan a nematode, don't you think? 302 neurons. Nematodes should say yes doctor. If I had a brain tumor, rescinsion of which would involve damaging the 1000 neurons and there was a brain prothesis that would simulate a their function I should say yes doctor. Since modelling 1000 neurons at sufficient detail is possible, I leave it as an excercise for the reader to demonstrate that simulating a whole brain is possible. On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, Bruce Kellett bhkell...@optusnet.com.au wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 21 Apr 2015, at 00:43, Bruce Kellett wrote: What you are talking about has more to do with psychology and/or physics than mathematics, I call that theology, and this can be justified using Plato's notion of theology, as the lexicon Plotinus/arithmetic illustrates. The name of the field is another topic. Also, you are unclear. you argue that comp is false, but reason like it makes sense, and that the reasoning is non valid, without saying where is the error. It is hard to figure out what you mean. I think we are coming from entirely different starting points. From my (physicist's) point of view, what you are doing is proposing a model and reasoning about what happens in that model. Because it is your model, you are free to choose the starting point and the ancillary assumptions as you wish. All that matters for the model is that the logic of the development of the model is correct. What is happening in our exchanges is that I am examining what goes into your model and seeing whether it makes sense in the light of other knowledge. The actual logic of the development of your model is then of secondary importance. If your assumptions are unrealistic or too restrictive, then no matter how good your logic, the end result will not be of any great value. These wider issues cannot be simply dismissed as off topic. In summary, my objections start with step 0, the yes doctor argument. I do not think that it is physically possible to examine a living brain in sufficient detail to reproduce its conscious life in a Turing machine without actually destroying the brain before the process is complete. I would say No to the doctor. So even though I believe that AI is possible, in other words, that a computer-based intelligence that can function in all relevant respects like a normal human being is in principle possible, I do not believe that I can be replaced by such an AI. The necessary starting data are unobtainable in principle. Consequently, I think the reasoning in the first steps of your model could only apply to mature AIs, not to humans. The internal logic of the model is then not an issue -- but the relevance to human experience is. Bruce -- You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/everything-list/Lp5_VIb6ddY/unsubscribe. To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Sent from Gmail Mobile -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
On 22 Apr 2015, at 09:05, Bruce Kellett wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 21 Apr 2015, at 00:43, Bruce Kellett wrote: What you are talking about has more to do with psychology and/or physics than mathematics, I call that theology, and this can be justified using Plato's notion of theology, as the lexicon Plotinus/arithmetic illustrates. The name of the field is another topic. Also, you are unclear. you argue that comp is false, but reason like it makes sense, and that the reasoning is non valid, without saying where is the error. It is hard to figure out what you mean. I think we are coming from entirely different starting points. From my (physicist's) point of view, what you are doing is proposing a model and reasoning about what happens in that model. Because it is your model, you are free to choose the starting point and the ancillary assumptions as you wish. All that matters for the model is that the logic of the development of the model is correct. OK. What you call model is what logician call theory. Logician use model for a mathematical object playing basically the role of a reality satisfying the axioms and theorems of the theory. (let us keep in mind this to avoid deaf dialog). What is happening in our exchanges is that I am examining what goes into your model and seeing whether it makes sense in the light of other knowledge. The actual logic of the development of your model is then of secondary importance. If your assumptions are unrealistic or too restrictive, then no matter how good your logic, the end result will not be of any great value. These wider issues cannot be simply dismissed as off topic. In summary, my objections start with step 0, the yes doctor argument. I do not think that it is physically possible to examine a living brain in sufficient detail to reproduce its conscious life in a Turing machine without actually destroying the brain before the process is complete. I would say No to the doctor. So even though I believe that AI is possible, in other words, that a computer-based intelligence that can function in all relevant respects like a normal human being is in principle possible, I do not believe that I can be replaced by such an AI. The necessary starting data are unobtainable in principle. Consequently, I think the reasoning in the first steps of your model could only apply to mature AIs, not to humans. The internal logic of the model is then not an issue -- but the relevance to human experience is. Hmm, step seven shows that the practilcaness of the duplication is not relevant. I come back on this below. Another point, given that you seem to accept the weaker thesis of strong AI (machine can be conscious), then the UDA works for them, they can understand it, and get the same conclusion. So such machine would prove correctly that either physics is a branch of arithmetic, or they are not machine. But we know that such AI are machine (in the comp sense), so that would be an even better proof than UDA, and indeed it is actually a good sketch of the mathematical translation of UDA in arithmetic. But we don't need to go in UDA. You are right that the first steps of the UDA might not be realist, (although I doubt that too: see Ochei's post), but normally you should understand that at step seven, that absence of realism is no more a trouble, as the UD generates all computations, even the simulation of the whole Milky at the level of strings and branes. The only thing which might perhaps prevent the reasoning to go through is if matter plays some non Turing emulable role for the presence of consciousness. But then we are no more postulating computationalism. A rather long time ago, I thought that UDA and alike could be used to show that computationalism lead to a contradiction. But I got only weirdness, and to test comp we need to compare the the comp weirdness and the empirical weirdness. And that is the point. I am not a defender of comp, or of any idea. I am a logician saying that IF we have such belief, and if we are rational enough, then we have to accept this or that consequence. And, to be sure, I do find comp elegant, as it leads to a simple theory of arithmetic: elementary arithmetic. I will try, (cf my promise to the Platonist Guitar Boy (PGC)) to make a summary of the math part (AUDA,, the machine interview), you might better appreciate, as it shows how complex the extraction of physics is, but how incompleteness leads already rather quickly to MWI and some quantum logic that we can compare to the empirical quantum logic. In fact we can already implement in the comp extracted physics some quantum gates, but may be some other could not, and once realized in nature that might lead to a refutation of comp or the classical theory of knowledge (or we are in a perverse simulation, to be complete). The main things is that the approach explains
Re: Liminal space
On 22 April 2015 at 21:21, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On 22 April 2015 at 10:49, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: In an evolving block universe how do we know that we are now standing in the present anticipating the evolving future rather than in the past anticipating an already set, but later, past? On a mailing list that puts so much weight on consciousness I think it would be obvious that We're conscious of the present. I may have misunderstood the idea of an evolving block universe. I thought it meant that the past is, as it were, existent in the block, but the future is not - until it becomes the present. But if the past is existent in the block, how do we know that we are conscious in the present and not in the past? An evolving block universe has an extra time dimension along which it evolves. This can be handily described as a 5D block universe. And so on, turtles all the way down (and entirely pointless ones, the 4D block universe works just fine). What gets me about those who don't like BUs is their view on the past. Apparently the past is a BU but the future isn't? Why? No obvious answerSeems more like BS, TBH. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: God
Bruno, I´m convinced that you are a larouchist: http://laroucheplanet.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Cult.PlatoAristotle I agree in that there are two sides depending on if they value the mind or the matter as the primary thing. I also line up with the mind side, but Aristotle has little to do in this battle. Really the battle was initiated in the XII century with the nominalists. Larouche says that nominalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalismis a extreme Aristotelism. It is not. It is the negation of platonism and aristotelism both of them. And I agree that it is the methaphisics behind the modern science and the modern world in general. 2015-04-21 17:37 GMT+02:00 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: On 16 Apr 2015, at 19:48, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 10:23 PM, Bruce Kellett bhkell...@optusnet.com.au wrote: We are entering the realm of the Humpty-Dumpty dictionary -- words no longer have their ordinary, everyday meaning. Yes. According to Bruno the words atheist and Christian mean almost the same thing with atheism being just a very minor variation of Christianity. They have the same notion of the creator, and the same notion of creation. And they have the same belief in creation. And the word God means a unintelligent non-conscious amorphous impersonal blob You attribute me things that I have never said. that doesn't answer prayers and in fact doesn't do much of anything at all, nevertheless according to Bruno God exists and is very important for reasons never made clear. I use God in the sense of Parmenides, Plato (who introduced the term theology), Plotinus, Proclus and many others, even the wiki. Only fundamentalist aristotelians have a problem with Plato's notion of God. See the previous posts on this, by me and Jason Resch, and answer them instead, of making distracting rhetorics and false insinuations. You would have mocked the greek sciences just by saying that they are ridiculous because they use the word number (= numerous) for one and two. The advantage of defining God by the true reason of your consciousness here and now, is that it helps to see that physics is not a theology, and that a theory of truth is not a theology, but that physicalism is a theology, and that the theory God = (Arithmetical) Truth is a theology. It helps also to remind us that what most call God today has been imposed through violence, exil, torture, etc. For the greeks, theology is the theory of everything, which seeks to justify and unify all branches of knowledge. Is God a blob or an intelligent person? Open problem with computationalism. Open problem too with Plotinus, actually. Bruno And free will means... well it means noise shaped air as near as I can tell. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Step 3 - one step beyond?
On 22 Apr 2015, at 09:26, Dennis Ochei wrote: Certainly we could scan a nematode, don't you think? 302 neurons. Nematodes should say yes doctor. If I had a brain tumor, rescinsion of which would involve damaging the 1000 neurons and there was a brain prothesis that would simulate a their function I should say yes doctor. Since modelling 1000 neurons at sufficient detail is possible, I leave it as an excercise for the reader to demonstrate that simulating a whole brain is possible. I don't think that this is relevant to grasp the consequence of computationalism, but I agree with you: emulating the brain might be technologically possible. But it is also quite complex, and the pioneers of digital, but physical, brain will probably feel quite stoned. In particular, we get more and more evidences that the glial cells plays important regulating roles in the brain, and even that they transmit information. They have no axons, but they communicate between themselves trough waves of chemical reactions, passing from membranes to membranes, and seems to be able to activate or inhibit the action of some neurons. So I would say yes to a doctor who emulates the neuron and the glial cells at the level of the concentration of the metabolites in the cells. That is not for tomorrow, but perhaps for after tomorrow. Then with comp, we survive anyway in the arithmetical reality, but here, the problem is that there is still an inflation of possibilities, going from backtracking in our life, to becoming a sort of god. Only the progress in mathematical theology can give more clues. Plato's proof of the immortality of the soul remains intact in the arithmetical theology, but in that case, the soul can become amnesic, and the survival can have a strong salvia divinorum experience look. (You can see the report of such experiences on Erowid).The little ego might not survive, in that case, but before vanishing, you can realize internally that you are not the little ego. That form of personal identity might be an illusion, which can be consciously stopped. Note that some dream can lead to similar experience. It impose you a form of selfish altruism, as you realize that the suffering of the others are yours, in some concrete sense. Bruno On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, Bruce Kellett bhkell...@optusnet.com.au wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: On 21 Apr 2015, at 00:43, Bruce Kellett wrote: What you are talking about has more to do with psychology and/or physics than mathematics, I call that theology, and this can be justified using Plato's notion of theology, as the lexicon Plotinus/arithmetic illustrates. The name of the field is another topic. Also, you are unclear. you argue that comp is false, but reason like it makes sense, and that the reasoning is non valid, without saying where is the error. It is hard to figure out what you mean. I think we are coming from entirely different starting points. From my (physicist's) point of view, what you are doing is proposing a model and reasoning about what happens in that model. Because it is your model, you are free to choose the starting point and the ancillary assumptions as you wish. All that matters for the model is that the logic of the development of the model is correct. What is happening in our exchanges is that I am examining what goes into your model and seeing whether it makes sense in the light of other knowledge. The actual logic of the development of your model is then of secondary importance. If your assumptions are unrealistic or too restrictive, then no matter how good your logic, the end result will not be of any great value. These wider issues cannot be simply dismissed as off topic. In summary, my objections start with step 0, the yes doctor argument. I do not think that it is physically possible to examine a living brain in sufficient detail to reproduce its conscious life in a Turing machine without actually destroying the brain before the process is complete. I would say No to the doctor. So even though I believe that AI is possible, in other words, that a computer-based intelligence that can function in all relevant respects like a normal human being is in principle possible, I do not believe that I can be replaced by such an AI. The necessary starting data are unobtainable in principle. Consequently, I think the reasoning in the first steps of your model could only apply to mature AIs, not to humans. The internal logic of the model is then not an issue -- but the relevance to human experience is. Bruce -- You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/everything-list/Lp5_VIb6ddY/unsubscribe . To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . To
Re: God
On 21 Apr 2015, at 19:39, John Clark wrote: On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 Bruce Kellett bhkell...@optusnet.com.au wrote: We are entering the realm of the Humpty-Dumpty dictionary -- words no longer have their ordinary, everyday meaning. Yes. According to Bruno the words atheist and Christian mean almost the same thing with atheism being just a very minor variation of Christianity. They have the same notion of the creator, and the same notion of creation. And they have the same belief in creation. Yep Bruce was correct, we are entering the realm of the Humpty- Dumpty dictionary. Only fundamentalist aristotelians have a problem with Plato's notion of God And according to your Humpty-Dumpty dictionary a fundamentalist aristotelian is somebody who thinks that Aristotle was by far the WORST physicist who ever lived and even in the field of philosophy was vastly overrated, just like all Greek philosophers So why do you defend implicitly all the time his theology, and seems to deny or even not being aware of the theology of the Platonist. Jason Resh shows you that my definition of God is the same as the Chinese, Indian, Greeks, and it is even in the wiki. It is widespread, and it is used even by most jewish, christian, and even muslims (but they have regressed since some century on that). Only creationist and fundamentalist use the literal notion of God, as a person intelligent and with a will, having done literally the world. Please buy the book by Proclus: element of theology. It sums well the whole Plato theology, with the correction mae by Plotinus and other neo-platonist. Or read my paper on Plotinus, to see the lexicon Plato- Arithmetic, foreviewed by Plotinus in his chapter on Numbers. And the word God means a unintelligent non-conscious amorphous impersonal blob You attribute me things that I have never said. OK you can clear this up right now right here by answering just one question: By the English word God do you mean a intelligent conscious being who created the universe and knows everything including what our prayers are or do you not? I don't mean that. I mean the original greek-indian notion (accepted by many jewishes, muslims, and more marginally by many christians). Some masons accepted it too, with the label grand architect, although they add more from the timaeus, and less from the Parmenides. Only people calling hemselves atheists seems to forget that the christian God theory might be a bit naive for that notion. I think this question is very clear and does not require a paragraph of bafflegab to answer, a simple yes or no will do. So it is NO. But of course, the math might show that this is less false than what we might think. We just don't know, Mathematical theology is in its infancy. Is God a blob or an intelligent person? Open problem with computationalism. No this has nothing to do with computationalism or mathematics or logic or science or even theology, this has to do with the meaning of a English word and nothing more. In science, it is never a question of vocabulary, but on agreeing with definition. Only integrists hides conceptual problems into vocabulary quarrel. I already know what most people on this planet mean by the word God No, you don't. Reread jason detailed post of last year please. but I don't know what you mean, Then it means that you have not read the posts, as I gave the very simple definition more that fifty times. See Jason resh post, which was excellent on that definition. so all I need you to do is look up the word God in your Humpty- Dumpty dictionary and tell me what it says; I'd do it myself but I seem to have misplaced my copy. You suffer from opportunistic lack of memory, all of the time. Why should I answer, given that I have already answered more than fifty times. Just look in the wiki, the last time I look, it contained my definition. Google on God, or on plato God or Proclus God, or Plotinus One, etc. Bruno John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at
Re: Liminal space
On 22 April 2015 at 10:49, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: In an evolving block universe how do we know that we are now standing in the present anticipating the evolving future rather than in the past anticipating an already set, but later, past? On a mailing list that puts so much weight on consciousness I think it would be obvious that We're conscious of the present. I may have misunderstood the idea of an evolving block universe. I thought it meant that the past is, as it were, existent in the block, but the future is not - until it becomes the present. But if the past is existent in the block, how do we know that we are conscious in the present and not in the past? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
