Le 25-déc.-06, à 01:13, Tom Caylor a écrit :
>
> It looks like I might have timed out. Hopefully this doesn't appear
> two times.
>
> On Dec 24, 8:55 am, Bruno Marchal <marc....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>> Le 24-déc.-06, à 09:48, Tom Caylor a écrit :
>>
>> > Bruno,
>> > ...
>> > I believe the answer to the question, "What is Truth?" which Pilate
>> asked
>> > Jesus, was standing right in front of Pilate: Jesus himself.
>
>> Hmmm.... Perhaps in some symbolical way.
>
> The "crux" is that he is not symbolic...
I respect your belief or faith, but I want to be frank, I have no
evidences for the idea that "Jesus" is "truth", nor can I be sure of
any clear meaning such an assertion could have, or how such an
assertion could be made scientific, even dropping Popper falsification
criteria. I must say I have evidences on the contrary, if only the fact
that humans succumb often to wishful thinking, and still more often to
their parents wishful thinking.
>
>> > The Christian definition of truth goes back to the core of
>> everything, who
>> > is personal. As I've said before, without a personal core, the word
>> > "personal" has lost its meaning. In the context nowadays of
>> > impersonal-based philosophy, "personal" has come to "mean" something
>> > like "without rational basis".
>
>> Of course that *is* a pity. It is bad, for human, to develop such
>> "self-eliminating" belief. It is not rational either.
>
> I agree. cf my examples (Skinner...) in response to Stathis. But how
> do *you* define rationality and persons?
A richer lobian machine (like ZF) can define those notions with respect
to a simpler lobian machine (like PA), and then lift the "theology" of
the simpler machine to themselves (a third lobian machine or entity,
richer than ZF, can justified such induction.
Then rationality can be defined by relative provability or
representability in some shared theories. This leaves open the
interpretations of those theories which ask for us implicit faith in
our own consistency or relative correctness.
The notion of persons are defined by each hypostases (third person =
Bp, first person = Bp & p, etc.).
> You also seem to reduce it,
> to numbers.
It is a reduction only if you already defend a reductionist conception
of numbers, and this can be considered as doubtful from the study of
numbers, especially from the "things" that can emerge from their
"collective behaviors" (arithmetical relations).
> I think the sophistication of incompleteness simply hides
> the fact that it is still a "castle in the sky".
Like any falsifiable but not yet falsified theory.
>
> By the "direction" of replacement I didn't mean chronologically, like
> Plato replaces Aristotle.
... in Plotinus, ok.
> I meant that the impersonal core replaced
> the real personal core, independent of Aristotle's views.
> You have said before that the Christians emphasize matter more than
> mind, as opposed to the Platonists and neo-Platonists. There may have
> been a few Christians who reclaimed a belief in nature, like Thomas
> Aquinas, when the mind/grace was being emphasized too much. But, as
> can be seen in the Christian "interpretation" of the Greek hypostases,
> the core of Christianity, being rooted in the Hebrew God who is the
> source of all things/persons, is really first of all a downward
> emanation, like the neo-Platonists thought. There can be no upward
> emanation unless/until a sufficient downward emanation is provided. In
> Christianity, the downward emanation is "God loves us", and then the
> upward emanation is "We love God".
Plotinus insists a lot on the two ways: downward emanation and upward
emanation. The lobian machine theology is coherent with this, even if
negatively. It is coherent with Jef idea that pure "theological
imperatives" can only be addressed by adapted "story telling" and
examples, like jurisprudence in the application of laws. But then there
is a proviso: none of the stories should be taken literally.
>
>
>> > He (the Holy Spirit) fills in
>> > the gaps when we cannot find words to talk to him.
>
>> Like G* minus G does for any self-referentially classical machine.
>> (The
>> lobian machine).
>
> Yes. By the way, you said to Brent that "you" know that you are lobian.
> How do you know?
OK, sorry, I was assuming (weaker-)comp. Any machine or even larger non
godlike entity believing in a sufficient amount of arithmetical truth
is lobian. Actually a lobian machine, as I have define it, is just a
universal machines knowing that she is universal (more precisely such a
machine/entity can prove that if p is "accessible by its own local
provability ability, then she can prove that fact.
>
>> I can take this as a poetical description of the relation between the
>> internal modalities or the hypostases.
>
> This is not poetry. Heidegger said to listen to the poet, not to the
> content, but just to the fact that there is a poet, which gives us hope
> that there is meaning. However, unfulfilled hope does not provide
> meaning.
Hope is something purely first-personal, if I can say. So I have no
clue how hope does not provide meaning. Even little (and fortunately
locally fulfillable hope) like hope in a cup of coffee, can provide
meaning. Bigger (and hard to express) hopes can provide genuine bigger
meaning, it seems to me. I am not opposed to some idea of ultimate
meaning although both personal reasons and reflection on lobianity make
me doubt that communicating such hopes can make any sense (worse, the
communication would most probably betrays the possible meaning of what
is attempted to be communicated, and could even lead to the contrary).
> The content of these words speak of the *actual* fulfillment
> of the hopes of the Greeks expressed in their hypostases.
? Are you talking about mystical enlightening experiences. Like
losing any remaining doubts about immortality because you have already
seen the whole of the eternal tergiversations all at once ?
>
>> > We have seen his
>> > glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father,
>> full of
>> > grace and truth." (John 3:1,2,3,14) So the particular finite form
>> that
>> > we have, God somehow took on that same form.
>
>> This, on the other way, could be a comp sort of blasphemes. Comp
>> "ethic" could even makes God eliminating any creature so arrogant that
>> they take they their realities and images of God for granted. With
>> comp, if we are divine, we can only be divine *hypotheses*. We can
>> hope
>> being God last word, but this is really something which depends on our
>> work and can never be taken for granted.
>
> It is the ultimate irony that Jesus was taken to be blaspheming when he
> said he was "one with the Father" and "before Abraham was, I AM", for
> "no one can say that they are God"..... the mistake is the missing
> phrase at the end: "...except God".
OK. I mean, here, that we can agree on an important disagreement,
making both of us quite coherent with respect to my "faith" in comp and
your faith in non-comp. Here the comp theology is simpler: "no one can
say that they are God". The comp would add (inferring on G*): "even, if
not especially, (a) God". No God can assert "I am (a) God", I mean,
not in public.
>
>> > In this way God showed us
>> > (who are in his image) true truth about himself in a way which we
>> can
>> > understand (just as a father tells truth to his children), without
>> > having to tell us infinite exhaustive truth.
>
>> Again this can have Plotinian sense. But there is a danger (for us
>> human) to take those assertions too much literally.
>
> Yes it is a mistake to say that we understand God fully, but it would
> also be a mistake (would it not?), if God were to tell us something
> true (but of course not exhaustive), for us to say that we do not know
> the thing that he told us.
But expressions and statements are always is need of interpretations,
be it God's or Nature's or Colleagues' statements.
As you know I am already skeptical about a "physical universe" if only
because of lack of evidences (that is besides its lack of explanation
power with comp), but then I am a realist so I do have faith in some
accessible reality, by observation, introspection, dialog ... But term
like "God" or "Universe" or "Reality" or "Truth" cannot been used in
any sense presupposing that the utterer has some special connection
with them (and this despite the most obviously probable existence of
such connections).
> It is like (in fact IT IS) the relationship
> between a father and a child. (In fact, the earthly father/mother and
> child relationship is a shadow/projection of the heavenly, rather than
> the other way around.)
How do you know? Are you willing to assume this clearly and build some
axiomatization?
> I agree that it is dangerous for a child to
> keep taking a father too literally when the father tells him/her
> something. At first, the child should take the father/mother's words
> at face value, trusting that the parent is saying the right words for
> the child to understand what the parent wants them to know. But to
> keep living with only those words, and not continue to try to learn a
> deeper understanding and grow through more communication and exchange
> of love,
I feel uneasy to be loved by someone because that someone has been
asked to love me. "Love" is essentially a "second" person construct.
Again "telling stories" will go here beyond the ten thousand
"treatises" . Love stories ok, love theories, why not. But normative
love = end of love.
> would be to deny the true nature of what it means to be a
> person.
I recognize many important idea though, but I'm afraid that a too
literal interpretation of many terms here could harm the principle.
> Any time we stop because we think we have attained all of the
> knowledge we need, that is when start to die. I know you are saying a
> similar thing.
Thanks for granting this.
> But I am saying that as a person, we are always able to
> look at any description or approximation, for instance described by G,
> and say, "I am more than that".
Exactly! This is the root of the inference of Dt.
> We are always able to change our
> paradigm to a higher understanding.
Exactly. Like any lobian entity. Provably so.
> This is the sense that I mean when
> I say that, "I am not a machine."
But this is the sense in which the machine itself says: "I am not a
machine".
> And this can be done only on the
> basis of the ultimate infinite Person.
Again I agree. I would say the arithmetical hypostases describes such a
person. In a precise theoretical frame where any one can verify the
statements following from the axioms. Actually your "ultimate inifinite
Person" is still very vague so that there are still many arithmetical
candidates for the "ultimate infinite person" related to a simpler
machine like Peano Arithmetic.
>
>> > This bridges the gap
>> > between the celestial/divine and the terrestial/human. Christ is
>> the
>> > fixed-point between heaven and earth, the axis of the universe for
>> us.
>> > In Christ, we all see in third-person the Way, the Truth and the
>> Life.
>
>> Again if "Christ" denotes a symbolic value I can make sense of what
>> you
>> are saying, but in my opinion the relation between Christians and the
>> Christ are extremely fuzzy. There has been a lasting confusion of
>> power
>> which makes me skeptical. Too much propositions has been deformed by
>> their authoritative institutionalization. Still today "theology" tends
>> to be separated from science (i.e. from accepting doubts and the
>> infinite number of attempts of clarity and rigor). This separation
>> resulted into the abandon of the fundamental questions to the fanatics
>> (who mocks clarity, rigor, and doubts).
>> Now I am aware of the last century "repentance" of the Catholic
>> Church,
>> including the necessity of restricting faith with rationality, like
>> many open minded school of Muslims already warned us in the eleven
>> century, but not for a very long time).
>
> This has been very unfortunate. This is a result of Christians
> thinking that they understand everything about God.
OK.
> This ironically
> results in the Church turning into a (pre-Godelian in your opinion)
> machine. When you think you understand everything about God, then your
> God turns into a machine and strangles you to death.
OK. This is almost my favorite axiom for "love", "heat" "God"
"Universe" :
When you think you understand everything about X, then X turns into a
(pregodelian, total) machine and strangles you to death.
(with X = "love", "heat" "God" "Universe" ...)
>
> But on the other hand, I think that our post-Godelian ignorance results
> in our being even more lost that before!
I can perhaps imagine, at least at first sight.
> The fact that now we CANNOT
> know, if we are a machine, which machine we are, makes us even more
> lost in a sea of meaninglessness than before.
I am not sure, because we can bet. We can make act of faith. We can
learn from our mistakes, we can change our minds and still keeping
faith, faith corrected by reason and experiences can only grow. Only
"bad or wrong faith" (generally based on wishful or fearful thinking)
can fear to be "corrected".
A bit like it is more easy for a parent to "punish" his child when the
parent "truly" loves it.
> Our hope has become even
> more hopeless, not that the reductionist hope was well-founded either.
Why should our hope become more hopeless? On the contrary, knowing that
we know less, we can expect more. With comp we can hope for more (and
fear for more too, to be precise).
> As you say, "We can hope being God last word, but this is really
> something which depends on our work and can never be taken for
> granted." I agree that we will never get God's last word (they are
> infinite), and as above it is deadly to assume we have.
OK.
> But you are
> saying that we have not received ANY words from God.
I have never said that. (Unless by God you mean this one, or this one,
or this one, ...).
> In this case, we
> have absolutely NO downward emanation, it is ALL upward.
As far as the arithmetical interpretation of Plotinus hypostases are
Plotinian, I reassure you that comp makes the "emanation" working in
the two ways: up and down (or left/right in the map of the 8
hypostases).
> If
> "Arithmetic Truth" is our God,
Actually it can't be! It is the God of "simpler lobian machine" than
us, like PA.
> there remains an *infinite* gap to
> fulfill our aspirations, which will always remain unbridged.
It depends on what you mean by "fulfill". Comp could be consistent with
some complete fulfilment in some limit. It is hard to work out, and
indeed it could be related with unpersonhood. (But the point is to take
our theory seriously and see where we are led)
> By
> working from nothing, one step at a time, we will never get there.
> "Forever Unfulfilled", there can be no true fulfillment, only through
> deceiving ourselves, which also leads to death...
I am not sure your "pessimist" derivation is valid. One of the
arithmetical comp hypostase (Bp & p) is both divine and personal.
We could agree on everything except for the idea that "sacred text"
should not be taken literally. And we could differ on that just for the
contingent reason we have been educated differently.
Note that I am not saying that Jesus is not the son of God, just that I
have less evidence for that than for the *primitive* physical universe,
in which I still don't believe either.
I know I am demanding, concerning evidence and conviction.
>
> Tom
>
> P.S. I am about to read Smullyan's "Who Knows?" about "religious
> consciousness".
I find it quite interesting.
> Sorry I am not yet committed to reading Forever
> Undecided,
I think that Church thesis gives a bridge from "Forever Undecided" and
all its technical "diagonalisation/self-reference" stuff to "Who knows"
or "Tao is silent".
> but I am halfway through Cutland's book on recursive
> functions.
So the best remains, I envy you ;)
Bruno
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Received on Tue Dec 26 2006 - 11:52:31 PST