Re: An invisible fuzzy amoral mindless blob, aka God

[Torgny Tholerus]

On 2016-12-28 23:56, John Mikes wrote:
I do not intend to participate in the discussion of this topic fpr 
more than one reason:

1. I am agnostic, so I just DO NOT KNOW what (who?) that "GOD" may be.


*You just have to ask God what she is.  Then she will answer.  But it 
may take two years to get the full answer.*



   1,A: is God a PERSON? (Or: many persons?)


*Yes, God is a person.  In the same way as your own personality is build 
up by trillions of brain cells, then Gods personality is build up by 
billions of human beeings.*


1,C Did He/She/It originate the World? (what draws the question: 
How was God originated?)


*No, she did not originate the world.  She is a result of the natural 
selection.*


3. A am also ignorant about my (or anyone else's) Subconscious. Have 
you ever M E T
yours? I figure it must be something limitless of which we fathom 
only a bit.
Or is all t his rather fitting the Superconscious? we have some 
idea about our 'conscious'?


*I have talked with my subconscious.  I do it every time I pray.  And 
sometimes my subconscious answer me.  And sometimes my subconscious 
talks directly to me, she reminds me when I have forgotten something.*



4. An immortal person? Cf. Wagner's Gotterdammerung.


*No, God is not immortal.  But God will live much longer than a human 
being.  God will *live *as long as the mankind exists.*


5. "Supernatural powers"? did you ever define the "natural ones" 
(beyond our ever changing concept of a system of our "physical" 
 explanations?


*No, God have no supernatural powers.  God can only do what a human 
being can do.*



John M


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Re: An invisible fuzzy amoral mindless blob, aka God

[John Mikes]

Brent I do not intend to participate in the discussion of this topic fpr
more than one reason:
1. I am agnostic, so I just DO NOT KNOW what (who?) that "GOD" may be.
   1,A: is God a PERSON? (Or: many persons?)
1.B a Force - a Complexity - a System (etc.) or the like?
1,C Did He/She/It originate the World? (what draws the question: How
was God originated?)
2. I am aware of many stories people believe in and repeat ad nauseam, they
do not impress me.
3. A am also ignorant about my (or anyone else's) Subconscious. Have you
ever M E T
yours? I figure it must be something limitless of which we fathom only
a bit.
Or is all t his rather fitting the Superconscious? we have some idea
about our 'conscious'?
4. An immortal person? Cf. Wagner's Gotterdammerung.
5. "Supernatural powers"? did you ever define the "natural ones" (beyond
our ever changing concept
of a system of our "physical"  explanations?
John M


On Sun, Dec 25, 2016 at 6:09 PM, Brent Meeker  wrote:

>
>
> On 12/25/2016 12:40 AM, Torgny Tholerus wrote:
>
>> 2016-12-25 03:07 skrev John Clark:
>>
>>> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 9:56 AM, Bruno Marchal 
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> ​>>​ usage says that "God" means an immortal person with
> supernatural power who wants, and deserves, to be worshipped.
>

>>>

>>> ​> ​That's the Christian use
 ​ ​. Why do atheists insist so much we use the christian notion,

>>>
>>> Well... at least atheists have some notation in mind when they use the
>>> word
>>> ​.​ It may not exist but at least "an immortal person with
>>> supernatural power who wants and deserves to be worshiped" means
>>> something.
>>> ​  Theists, at least most of those on this list, quite literally
>>> don't know what they're talking about when they talk about "God".
>>> ​ ​As near as I can tell to them the word "God"  means an
>>> invisible fuzzy amoral blob that does nothing and knows nothing and
>>> thinks about nothing
>>> ​ that we can not effect and that does not effect our lives​. Why
>>> even invent a word for a concept as useless as that?
>>>
>>
>> I have found that God is exactly the same as my subconscious.  And my
>> subconscious is connected to other peoples subconsciouses.
>>
>> When I pray, I talk to my own subconscious.  Then my subconscious talks
>> to other peoples subconsciouses.  Then one persons subconscious is
>> affecting this persons behavior, so that I get answer to my prayer.
>>
>>
> Psychiatrist:   "Look--how do you know you're God?"
> Lord Gurney: "Well, every time I pray, I find that I'm talking to myself."
> --- Peter Barnes, "The Ruling Class"
>
>
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Re: No gravity / no dark matter

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

sane04 paper? I will look it up. 88 was almost 29 years ago. Gad! How the time 
flies.



-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Wed, Dec 28, 2016 12:00 pm
Subject: Re: No gravity / no dark matter




On 27 Dec 2016, at 16:35, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:


Publish, please. 
 
OK. My view is that Digital Mechanism (an assumption in cognitive science, not 
physics)  is very plausible, even if the consequences are strange, given that 
the observations lead to the same kind of weirdness. I take QM-without-collapse 
as a confirmation of digital mechanism.
 





I did, since 1988, I have published some parts or some version of the main 
arguments and the math analysis in many journals or proceedings.


But I hope you will not take this as an argument of authority. Just ask 
question if you don't understand something. I got the UDA (without Church 
thesis) in the sixties, it does not need any technical expertise. Have you try 
to read the sane04 paper? I am not sure what you miss. Tha math parts needs 
familiarity in mathematical logic, but is not part of the main argument. 


My last papers (taken together you have the whole thesis)



Marchal B. The computationalist reformulation of the mind-body problem. Prog 
Biophys Mol Biol; 2013 Sep;113(1):127-40



Marchal B. The Universal Numbers. From Biology to Physics, Progress in 
Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 2015, Vol. 119, Issue 3, 368-381.



Bruno














 
 
 
-Original Message-
 From: Bruno Marchal 
 To: everything-list 
 Sent: Mon, Dec 26, 2016 7:18 am
 Subject: Re: No gravity / no dark matter
 
 
 

 
 
On 24 Dec 2016, at 14:30, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:
 

Well, not to intrude on your privacy, but at some point, it might be 
interesting to read on your own personal view. 
 

 
 

 
 
OK. My view is that Digital Mechanism (an assumption in cognitive science, not 
physics)  is very plausible, even if the consequences are strange, given that 
the observations lead to the same kind of weirdness. I take QM-without-collapse 
as a confirmation of digital mechanism.
 

 
 

 
 
 
Yes, the fellows on this list, will take an axe to your profound, musings, on 
all this. On the maths, as the British term it, I do believe that what makes 
someone great, or even good at math, maybe, inheritance of a gift for 
memorizing patterns, thus, while the rest of us fumble, you and your fellow 
math-heads, soar into the higher ends of human thought. It probably how your 
dendrites are wiring together, for effective, pattern memorization.  My 
distaste is not incepted, from from being emotional, rather I may be emotional 
by being incapable. ;=)
 
 

 
 
Math is for everybody, but not all teachers agree. Cuturally, we use math to 
select people and put insane pressure on it, but like Gauss said, math is the 
simplest domain. now, it is like cannabis and god, when people have been 
brainwashed with wrong assertion since long, they close their mind and keep up 
their prejudices.
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Er well. It is not my view, but the universal machine's one, I mean those 
knowing that they are universal. My view is private, and it would be confusing 
if I tried to describe. It is math, and standard definition in analytical 
philosophy.
 

 
 

 
 
 
 Like the speculation, earlier this year, that the cosmos is all a sim (naw!) 
 

 
 
This has been debunked. If we are in a simulation, we are in an infinity of 
simulations, and physics emerge from the computations statistics, which cannot 
be a simulation a priori.
 

 
 

 
 
 
it might be a great thing if we can contact the control program of your 
universal machine. 
 

 
 
We can do that partially. usually, we use operating systems, but with human 
universal machine, we use education and reflexion (in the best case), and 
insult, propaganda and terror (in the worst case). History of humanity is a 
sequence of fail attempts by humans to control humans. Today, we know or should 
know, assuming some reasonable theory, that this is impossible (and to me that 
is a relief).
 

 
 

 
 
 
Probably impossible, using the sense that I mean it. By the way, much of your 
commentaries and publications, a capitulated, in the writings of Stephen 
Wolfram, and Eric Steinhart, as you may already know.  Steinhart is a 
naturalist philosopher, also on Evo-Devo, who views darwinian evolution, 
evolving vast computers, which in turn, evolve smarter and smarter vast 
computers, of which you and I are a product of. 
 

 
 
They have missed the first person indeterminacy, and remains Aristotelian in 
their theology.
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
On another topic, how are you folks faring in Europe,. given the onslaught (my 
term) of Jihadists? 
 
 

 
 
Not to well. But that is another topic. Imo, as long as we don't get rational 
on health and medication, we will fuel the 

Re: The Weirdening

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/27/2016 11:39 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Wed, Dec 28, 2016 at 1:09 AM, Brent Meeker  wrote:


On 12/27/2016 3:40 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 7:34 PM, Brent Meeker 
wrote:

Although your evolution may be statistically improbable, mostly at the
biochemical level, there's no reason that the rest of the world should
show
any statistical strangeness.  After all, your present existence is also
extremely improbable.

But the rest of the world does show statistical strangeness, for
example the apparent fine-tuning of the cosmological constant for life
to be possible.


Whether the CC is fine-tuned or not is far from established.  Vic Stenger
noted that the holographic principle drastically reduces the vacuum degrees
of freedom and produces a CC estimate that's in the ball park.

Thanks, didn't know that.


Of course
being consistent with life could just be a self-selection effect and it
should not cause other statistics, e.g. vital statistics, to be strange.

True, but assuming the MWI, being consistent with one life becomes
increasingly specific, no?


I'm not sure what you mean.  Telmo Menezes is already the result of many 
specific events and hence highly improbable in a sense; but it's the 
same sense in which Brent Meeker winning the lottery is highly 
improbable but the probably that someone wins is 0.999...  So if you 
find yourself to be 300yrs old while statistics show that almost 
everyone dies before reaching 110, you could take that as evidence for 
MWI.  But there's no reason the statistics would look strange to someone 
else.  They would say you look strange - an outlier.   It's really no 
different that observing that you are named "Telmo Menezes" and nobody 
else is - so it's statistically improbable to be named "Telmo Menezes".


Brent

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Re: The Weirdening

[Brent Meeker]

On 12/27/2016 11:34 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Wed, Dec 28, 2016 at 8:17 AM, Brent Meeker  wrote:

Exactly so.  Once we can engineer robots to act with human like
intelligence, questions about consciousness will be seen as either
meaningless or "the wrong question".

I think it is very unlikely that we will engineer human-level
intelligence directly. It seems more plausible that we will engineer
the process that will allow it to develop to that level of complexity.
Then we will be left with exactly the same questions, except that we
will have some super-complex process running on FPGAs and GPUs or
whatever it is, instead of just wet neurons.
I agree with that.  Already some of the most advanced AI's use neural 
nets that have to be trained.  So we won't know exactly how they think.  
But there is a difference.  First, we can make a copy of an AI.  Second, 
we can determine exactly what it's thinking process is.  So even if we 
can't directly program in more or less empathy, more of less humor, etc; 
we'll be able to learn how emotions and values are implemented.  Whether 
such AI's are conscious or not will be like asking whether your car is 
animated or not.



I'm not sure anything
will change in that regard, except perhaps the shattering of another
version of the illusion that there is something special about our
species.


The other thing that will change is that we will soon be the second 
smartest species on the planet - displacing chimpanzees to third.


Brent

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Re: An invisible fuzzy amoral mindless blob, aka God

[Bruno Marchal]

On 28 Dec 2016, at 08:08, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 12/27/2016 4:18 PM, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:
John, isn't there a Buddhist saying by the Buddha, "If the Buddha  
stands in your path (spiritual) strike him down"?







Brent





Yes, another koan zen or buddhist say that we have to kill all the  
buddhas, and is usually understood as a warning against argument per  
authority.


It is common among mystics that they encourage the *personal* inquiry,  
a bit like mathematicians who recommend the personal understanding of  
(most) theorems.


Platonist can go farer when taking argument from nature as treachery.  
We cab use nature to refute a theory, but we have to find the theory  
by reflexion and not copy nature ...


Bruno















-Original Message-
From: John Clark 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Tue, Dec 27, 2016 3:36 pm
Subject: Re: An invisible fuzzy amoral mindless blob, aka God

On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 1:42 PM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


​> ​ My God, as you call it, is a testable theory, since physics  
is derived from a internal modal variant of self-reference. I  
derived formally a quantum logic, and explained informally how we  
get the statistical interference.


​A derivation using dozens of pronouns that either have no clear  
referent or are logically contradictory. But I believe we may have  
been through this before.​


​> ​ the Aristotelian theology fails.

​To hell with the ancient Greeks!​

​> ​ God is used in the philosophers sense: the primary cause,

The ​ ​ primary cause ​ may be attached to the word  "God",  
but we both know that is not the only attachment, ​so is "a being  
who can think".


​> ​ which is the god of the platonist.

​To hell with the ancient Greeks!​


​>​ You talk like if scientists have solved the problem, but it  
has not.


​You talk as if theologians have solved the problem, but they have  
not.​


​> ​ (either Plato's God, or even Pythagoras" God

​To hell with the ancient Greeks!​

​> ​ In theology, the greeks were

​To hell with the ancient Greeks!​

​> ​ Don't confuse the first god of Aristotle (usually called  
God), the second God of Aristotle ​. ​ (Primary Matter), the god  
of Plato (first principle) and the god of Pythagoras (the natural  
numbers).


​OK I won't confuse it, and I'll avoid confusion by ignoring  
both. ​   ​To hell with the ancient Greeks!​


​> ​ two beers in the fridge is not rsponsible for the numbers 2  
to exist physically, and here


​If there were nobody around to think about the number 2 and if  
there were not 2 of anything in the entire physical universe, then  
would the number 2 exist? And if it did, how would things be  
different if it didn't?​


​> ​ you beg the question by assuming the second god of  
Aristotle.


  To hell with the ancient Greeks!​

​> ​ It is the favorite gods of the catholics.

​I'll say this for the catholics, their view of God is clear,  
clearly wrong but clear nevertheless. Your view of God isn't even  
wrong.​


​> ​ The correct arithmetical relations implements all  
computations


​And all correct computations ​ ​need matter that obeys the  
laws of physics. ​For some reason I'm feeling Deja Vu right now, I  
can't imagine why.


​> ​  Nobody is interested in 2+2=5.

​Well you sure as hell better be interested in incorrect  
calculations if you want to avoid them! So I ask yet again , how  
can you, how can even God separate correct numerical relations from  
incorrect ones without the help of matter that obeys the laws of  
physics?​ You can't do it I can't do it and God can't do it.


​> ​ With mechanism, we have the good theory of consciousness,

​Everybody has a theory on consciousness and none of them are  
worth a damn, I'd be much more interested in a  
theory  of intelligence. ​


​>> ​ God must be able to think or the word becomes a joke.

​> ​ That shows only how much you take for granted the  
brainwashing of the clericals.


​Well, I may be brainwashed but according to you ​I'm smarter  
than God because I can think and God can't.​


​> ​ You Sir, are more catholic than the Pope,

Wow, calling a guy known for disliking religion religious, never  
heard that one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12.


​ John K Clark​





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Re: The Weirdening

[Bruno Marchal]

On 28 Dec 2016, at 00:54, Telmo Menezes wrote:

On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 7:59 PM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


On 27 Dec 2016, at 12:03, Telmo Menezes wrote:


I take a break from the god-wars to propose an idea that I have been
thinking about. This is probably both silly and unoriginal, but here
it goes...

If we assume the MWI, isn't it the case that we should expect the
world to become weirder as we get older? My reasoning is simple: the
older you are, the lower your measure, the more specific events have
to "conspire" to keep you alive. As this specificity accumulates, it
increasingly bias the possible worlds.

One could even use a chart like the one below to predict where "the
weirdening" would accelerate. Of course this is not something that  
can

be directly measured, but still fun to think about.



Yes, when we die, we survive in the closer normal world/ 
computations, and it
leads to an inflation of consistent continuations, but some can be  
very
dreamy, of type []f, where everything is necessary and nothing  
possible. The
question is: do the white rabbits come before a jump, or after a  
jump.


I remember a Japanase Anime that explored this idea at some point. A
group of people form a suicide pact, and while driving to the place
where they will kill themselves, the world starts gaining surreal
aspects. For example, they pass by themselves driving in the opposite
direction on the highway.


It looks like the computer with the instrcution "kill the user", which  
I explain in "Conscience & mécanisme" and which allow people or  
collection of people to improve their life, except if they asked for  
something impossible, in which case they succeed in killing themselves  
in all branches of the universal wave, or in all computations (going  
through the states where they design such a machine). Well, that is  
only for illustrating a logical point, and should not be taken  
literally, as we get eventually that things are more subtle.










We
might escalade theoretical computer science sort of complexity  
jumps. But we
have not yet derive the hydrogen atom so it is not before a long  
time we can

answer those question, except by using computer science to provide
counter-examples for theories trying to do so.

The G-G* theory assures the existence of some tension between the  
harmonic
hypostases, and the "material one", but quantum logic seems to be  
invariant.
The physics of heaven is basically the same as the terrestrial  
physics, it

seems.

To get that inflation of "afterlife" (and prelife, parallel life,  
etc.) we

don't have to assume the MWI, we have only to assume very elementary
arithmetic, and a digitalist version of Mechanism, made sensefull  
thanks to

Church's thesis.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_table#/media/ 
File:Data_from_National_Vital_Statistics_Report_tPx.png



My computer does not allow me to see this. Don't know why but she  
is more

and more picky with the net.


Your computer is not the Universal Machine Bruno.


What? Of course it is. the infinite tape is the environment. It is not  
part of the machine. Turing discover the universal number, that is, if  
phi_i is an enumaration of the computable function by a Turing  
machine, there is a (finite) number u such that phi_u (x, y) =  
phi_x(y), provided that u has enough memory given. A universal machine  
is a universal finite code only. I insist on this because Turing made  
a pedagogical error in placing the infinite tape as part as the  
definition of (any) Turing machine.


So I beg you  to recognize the universality of my computer, even if  
senile :)





It might need more
memory or a faster processor!


It surely needs that. But it needs mainly that the developpers do not  
change the program specification so that you have to buy a new  
computer. The application Firefox is quite clear about this for  
example: it literally told me that I need a new processor, that is, a  
new computer ...







(it's a curve of probability of dying x age)





Do you guys think this idea has any merit?



A lot. But today, we cannot still explain why the weirdness is not  
bigger,

even here and now,


Maybe it is big and we are used to it?


Like the infinities in quantum field theory? In science we are  
supposed to not accept such thing unless we find some explanation of  
how to get rid of the weirdness.


But computationalism seems to go toward Feyman's explanation of  
quantum physics. the weirdest  "path" are eliminated by the phase  
randomization, as we get already something close to the "phase" and  
the "randomization", but it is a hell of a difficulty to get their  
correct relations.


Bruno







but we can't be sure that we can renormalize all
infinities in arithmetic (seen from inside), so the inflation of
possibilities is a persistent threat of the universal machine sanity.





Regarding the season, my wishes for you all: live long and prosper!



Merry After-Christmas 

Re: An invisible fuzzy amoral mindless blob, aka God

[Bruno Marchal]

On 27 Dec 2016, at 20:31, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 12/27/2016 10:42 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 26 Dec 2016, at 20:18, John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Dec 26, 2016 at 7:39 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


​>> ​ Well... at least atheists have some notation in mind when  
they use the word ​ ​ [God]​ .​


​> ​ But why chosing the notion from a theory they claim to  
disbelieve.


​Because the meaning Christians and Jews and Muslims give to the  
word "God" is clear



Really?


It's certainly more definite than the set of all meanings, including  
yours, which are given to the word "God".  You can't make a word  
better defined by adding meanings.


i don't add meaning, I subtract only the meaning added by the politics  
for prower and control purpose, as opposed to the early free research.  
My definition is in most religious dictionnaries, even catholic one.  
God: primary cause of everything. Only gnostic atheists defend  
seriously the christian god. educated christian have evolved (perhaps  
more in Europa than America perhaps).










and if I had a switch that could make their God appear or  
disappear the universe would look very different depending on if  
that switch was on or off. Your God does nothing beyond the laws  
of physics so it would make no difference if He existed or  
not. ​



My God, as you call it, is a testable theory, since physics is  
derived from a internal modal variant of self-reference. I derived  
formally a quantum logic, and explained informally how we get the  
statistical interference. Well, up to now it fits the fact, and to  
my knowledge, is the only theory explaining the difference between  
qualias and quantas, where the Aristotelian theology fails.


It doesn't explain them.  It just takes two aspects of modal logic  
and says one corresponds to qualia and one to quanta.


yes, but with an explanation why.






But qualia and quanta don't actually appear.


?

What does that mean? They cerainly appears in the sense that the self- 
observing machine mention them, and understand the difference with the  
sharable quanta. Indeed they do experience the qualia, but realize  
that they cannot formalize them without reference to some notion of  
global truth that they are aware that they cannot prove nor even define.




It's as if you said here is arithmetic; the prime numbers are qualia  
and the composite numbers are quanta.


Come on. this illustration miss the main point. Qualia are measurable  
by the machine, but not expressible or definable. The qualia theory is  
X1* minus X1. It is what machine can know-for-sure yet cannot prove to  
others (and can prove that they cannot prove to others if they assumed  
to be sound or consistent). The miracle is that they are explainable  
conditionnaly to a self-correctness meta-assumption (yet not doable by  
the machine explicitly without becoming inconsistent).





  To explain them you would need to show their relation to  
perception and to objects in the world as well as internal  
narratives and imagination.


That is done in part, and I refer you to a paper by John Bell (the  
logician, not the physicist) showing the relation between perception  
and quantum logic.


Bell, 1986Bell, J. L. (1986). A new approach to quantum logic. Brit.  
J. Phil. Sci., 37:83-99.
















​>> ​ It may not exist but at least "an immortal person with  
supernatural power who wants and deserves to be worshiped" means  
something. ​


​> ​ Really?

​ Yes ​ really. "An​  immortal person ​exists ​ with  
supernatural power who wants and deserves to be worshiped ​"​  
means something ​, so the statement has the virtue of being  
either right or wrong.​ In this case wrong. But when you say  
"God"  it means nothing so it's rather like a burp,  it's just a  
noise ​ and is neither right nor wrong.​



God is used in the philosophers sense: the primary cause, which is  
the god of the platonist.


Aristotle also held that there must be a first cause.  Why call it  
"god" and why attribute the idea to Plato.  I don't think Plato even  
gave an argument for a first cause.


See his Parmenides. "cause" is not meant for "physical cause", it can  
be logical, theological, etc. The goal is to figure out what could be  
real.









Science is born from the doubt that reality is wysiwyg.


And from a desire to explain what you see and predict what you'll get.


Yes.

But the fondamental science search for a global picture, and try to  
avoid important aspect of all experiences, including consciousness  
states.








The original question is about the nature of the physical observable.

You talk like if scientists have solved the problem, but it has not.







  ​>> ​ Theists, at least most of those on this list, quite  
literally don't know what they're talking about when they talk  
about "God". ​


​>​ We use the greek notion.

​I'm begging you, please please please stop talking about the  
idiot ancient 

Re: An invisible fuzzy amoral mindless blob, aka God

[Bruno Marchal]

On 27 Dec 2016, at 20:11, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 12/27/2016 6:55 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 26 Dec 2016, at 18:08, Brent Meeker wrote:




On 12/26/2016 4:39 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I have made it clear in posts and papers that the God of the  
machine is Arithmetical Truth...

..
And speaking of a ​  sack full of doorknobs, how can one tell  
the difference between a serious theologian and a buffoon  
theologian?


The first one personified God metaphorically.


Then it's a ridiculously misleading metaphor.


It makes sense in arithmetic, because the set of true sentences is  
close for the modus ponens rule, and can be seen as a set of  
beliefs, so God is personified by saying that she is the knower or  
the believer in the true arithmetical sentences.


But in your formalized definition of belief those true but  
unprovable sentences are not believed.  In anycase, simply  
"believing" true propositions of arithmetic is not enough to make a  
person.  Otherwise my cel phone would be a person.


But the set of true sentences of arithmétic is not formalisable. That  
is why "God knows .." is a metaphor. for the formalized belief it is  
no more metaphorical at all.















Persons exist in space and time and interact with other persons.


No. This is true in Aristotle theology, but it has been shown  
logically incompatible with computationalism which requires  
platonist theology.


So you say.  But I think your argument is flawed.



You have not succeeded in showing where the flaw is, or I missed it.  
can you tell what the flaw is?











They have values and emotions and act on them.  The "truths of  
arithmetic" are not in spacetime,


OK.




don't change


OK.



or act,


deends how you define "act". Arithmetical truth can act in the  
absolute sense of being the roots of all acts and facts, and in the  
relative sense as defining the conditions which makes to some  
person to be acting relatively to universal numbers.


To act requires change.


Then general relativity would prevent acts to exist. of course not,  
but acting becomes relative indexicals.












have no emotions, values, or goals.


We don't know that.


How could they have goals when they don't change - as you agreed  
above.


You take the metaphor too much seriously, like you take the notion of  
God in a too much restricted sense.












  So to personify them is a dishonest move.



Not in the context of a theory, where it is natural, as I explained  
before. The person "god"


I notice you didn't capitalize "god", demoting it to a common noun.






An attempt to appropriate all the religious feelings of those  
raised as Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc.



They are the one having started with Platon theology,


I don't think Hindus, Taoist, Buddhists, Zoroastrians,...were  
Platonists.



Platonism comes from the east, were it developed well before  
Pythagoras and Plato. But the greeks tried to get a reasonable  
sharable theory from it.








and then (unfortunately) Aristotle theology.


You casually use "Aristotlean" as a pejorative.


Not at all. I take it as wrong with respect to the Mechanist theory.





What is your definition of Aristotlean?



In this context, I take it as the belief in some Primary Matter, or in  
the slightly weaker epistemological sense of physicalism. The idea  
that what we see is real, and not (with Plato) a symptom of a deeper  
and simpler reality.




Personally I find Democritus and Epicurus more interesting Greek  
philosophers than Plato and Aristotle.  The latter gained their  
predominance mainly through being subsumed into Christiianity by  
Aquinas and Augustine, and through accidental survival of their  
writings rather than those of others.


Democritus was atomist, and it is was an intersting idea, which cannot  
work with mechanism. yes, Plato, thanks to Augustine, has not been not  
totally forgotten, but eventually the three abramanic religion have  
chosen to rely on Aristotle, like the atheists. But the great divide  
is between Plato and Aristotle, that is between immaterialism and  
materialism. To be sure, Plato only discussed and never concluded.







But yes, yhe general idea is that all religious feeling comes from  
the same unique "One" and that that the discrepancies comes from  
human literalness and contingent histories. In fact, like Alsoud  
Huxley emphasized, the "true" theology is suspected to be at the  
intersection of all theologies, and that is the case for the  
theology of the universal numbers.







The second one take such personification literally.

The first one use reason, and verification. he changes the theory  
when it does not conform to facts.


Yes, he changes the theory to a completely different theory - but  
he insists on using the the same "metaphor".  That should make it  
clear he is using the "metaphor" to mislead.


Then Earth is also a metaphor, \


No, Earth is not a metaphor because it allows 

Re: No gravity / no dark matter

[Bruno Marchal]

On 27 Dec 2016, at 16:35, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:


Publish, please.
OK. My view is that Digital Mechanism (an assumption in cognitive  
science, not physics)  is very plausible, even if the consequences  
are strange, given that the observations lead to the same kind of  
weirdness. I take QM-without-collapse as a confirmation of digital  
mechanism.





I did, since 1988, I have published some parts or some version of the  
main arguments and the math analysis in many journals or proceedings.


But I hope you will not take this as an argument of authority. Just  
ask question if you don't understand something. I got the UDA (without  
Church thesis) in the sixties, it does not need any technical  
expertise. Have you try to read the sane04 paper? I am not sure what  
you miss. Tha math parts needs familiarity in mathematical logic, but  
is not part of the main argument.


My last papers (taken together you have the whole thesis)

Marchal B. The computationalist reformulation of the mind-body  
problem. Prog Biophys Mol Biol; 2013 Sep;113(1):127-40


Marchal B. The Universal Numbers. From Biology to Physics, Progress in  
Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 2015, Vol. 119, Issue 3, 368-381.


Bruno










-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Mon, Dec 26, 2016 7:18 am
Subject: Re: No gravity / no dark matter


On 24 Dec 2016, at 14:30, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:

Well, not to intrude on your privacy, but at some point, it might be  
interesting to read on your own personal view.



OK. My view is that Digital Mechanism (an assumption in cognitive  
science, not physics)  is very plausible, even if the consequences  
are strange, given that the observations lead to the same kind of  
weirdness. I take QM-without-collapse as a confirmation of digital  
mechanism.




Yes, the fellows on this list, will take an axe to your profound,  
musings, on all this. On the maths, as the British term it, I do  
believe that what makes someone great, or even good at math, maybe,  
inheritance of a gift for memorizing patterns, thus, while the rest  
of us fumble, you and your fellow math-heads, soar into the higher  
ends of human thought. It probably how your dendrites are wiring  
together, for effective, pattern memorization.  My distaste is not  
incepted, from from being emotional, rather I may be emotional by  
being incapable. ;=)


Math is for everybody, but not all teachers agree. Cuturally, we use  
math to select people and put insane pressure on it, but like Gauss  
said, math is the simplest domain. now, it is like cannabis and god,  
when people have been brainwashed with wrong assertion since long,  
they close their mind and keep up their prejudices.






Er well. It is not my view, but the universal machine's one, I mean  
those knowing that they are universal. My view is private, and it  
would be confusing if I tried to describe. It is math, and standard  
definition in analytical philosophy.



Like the speculation, earlier this year, that the cosmos is all a  
sim (naw!)


This has been debunked. If we are in a simulation, we are in an  
infinity of simulations, and physics emerge from the computations  
statistics, which cannot be a simulation a priori.




it might be a great thing if we can contact the control program of  
your universal machine.


We can do that partially. usually, we use operating systems, but  
with human universal machine, we use education and reflexion (in the  
best case), and insult, propaganda and terror (in the worst case).  
History of humanity is a sequence of fail attempts by humans to  
control humans. Today, we know or should know, assuming some  
reasonable theory, that this is impossible (and to me that is a  
relief).




Probably impossible, using the sense that I mean it. By the way,  
much of your commentaries and publications, a capitulated, in the  
writings of Stephen Wolfram, and Eric Steinhart, as you may already  
know.  Steinhart is a naturalist philosopher, also on Evo-Devo, who  
views darwinian evolution, evolving vast computers, which in turn,  
evolve smarter and smarter vast computers, of which you and I are a  
product of.


They have missed the first person indeterminacy, and remains  
Aristotelian in their theology.




On another topic, how are you folks faring in Europe,. given the  
onslaught (my term) of Jihadists?


Not to well. But that is another topic. Imo, as long as we don't get  
rational on health and medication, we will fuel the international  
crimes and terrorism.





My old point is that we need better theologies, not Religions,

by default, I take theology and religion as the same thing. But if  
by religion you mean a special theology + a theurgy, it is OK. Like  
the greek early neoplatonist theologians, I am skeptical on theurgy,  
but why not, as long as the priest can blink (cf Alan Watts).


We don't 

Re: An invisible fuzzy amoral mindless blob, aka God

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

Ah another Koan from Master, Handey!
""They say that a little piece of God dwells with everyone. Well, that true, I 
hope He likes enchiladas, because that's what he's getting tonight."


-Original Message-
From: John Clark 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Tue, Dec 27, 2016 10:39 pm
Subject: Re: An invisible fuzzy amoral mindless blob, aka God






On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 7:18 PM, spudboy100 via Everything List 
 wrote:



​> ​
John, isn't there a Buddhist saying by the Buddha, "If the Buddha stands in 
your path (spiritual) strike him down"? 




​I don't know about the Buddha but I do know ​
Jack Handy 
​said:​




​"​
We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them 
personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.
​"


 John K Clark


​




 


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Re: The Weirdening

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

Thanks, Professor!
Yeah, robot building comes first. Clamming up in academia, according to some, 
academics, seems a wise idea, from a peace of mind p.o.v. I am suspecting that 
A.I., Mr. and Mrs. Robot are the next phase in human evolution, in the sense of 
mitochondria and bacteria merged. A good idea then, a great idea, now. This, 
could come in the form of less palatable neurological implants, or even, more 
palatable, super suits (Iron Man, Batman). The great grand children of this age 
will like them. Me? I'd just smash into buildings-just like I do already.
Best Regards-


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis




-Original Message-
From: Hans Moravec 
To: 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List 
Sent: Tue, Dec 27, 2016 7:48 pm
Subject: Re: The Weirdening



I’m on the list.  Clammed up  around 2000 to get on with
robot building.  Someday they can answer for themselves.


Still a few decades to go, but I expect
some machines built to work around people will act as if
they have feelings, and awareness of others’ feelings.
For all practical purposes they’ll be conscious.





On 161227, at 7:15 PM, spudboy100 via Everything List 
 wrote:


Brent, can you please ask professor Moravec, if he has changed any of his views 
from the books of his, "Mind Children," and "Robot," regarding consciousness, 
and human "re-construction? (My weasel-word for it).





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