Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> Le 26-déc.-06, à 19:54, Tom Caylor a écrit :
>
>>
>> On Dec 26, 9:51 am, Bruno Marchal <marc....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>>> Le 25-déc.-06, à 01:13, Tom Caylor a écrit :
>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> If you are not sure of any clear meaning of the personal God being
>> the source of everything, including of course truth, this entails
>> not knowing the other things too.
>
>
> Is that not an authoritative argument? What if I ask to my student an
> exam question like give me an argument why the square root of 3 is
> irrationnal. Suppose he gives me the correct and convincing usual
> (mathematical) proof. I could give him a bad note for not adding:
> "and I know that is the truth because truth is a gift by God". Cute,
> I can directly give bad notes to all my students, and this will give
> me more time to find a falsity in your way to reason ...
>
>
>
>> For a personal God, taking on our form (incarnation), especially if
>> we were made in the image of God in the first place, and showing
>> through miracles, and rising from the dead..., his dual nature
>> (God&man, celestial&terrestial, G*&G) seems to make a lot more
>> sense than something like a cross in earth orbit. For example,
>> giving a hug is a more personal (and thus a more appropriate) way
>> of expressing love, than giving a card, even though a card is more
>> verifiable in a third person sense, especially after the hug is
>> finished. But we do have the "card" too: God's written Word, even
>> though this is not sufficient, the incarnate hug was the primary
>> proof, the "card" was just the historical record of it.
>
> The card records facts. To judge them historical is already beyond my
> competence. Why the bible? Why not "the question of king Milinda" ?
>
>
>>
>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>
>> I agree with the use of stories. Jesus used stories almost
>> exclusively to communicate. Either the hearers "got it" or not.
>> But this does not imply that stories are the only form of downward
>> emanation.
>
> Of course not. Real stories and personal experiences, and collective
> experiences and experiments ... All this can help the downward
> emanation.
>
>
>> The incarnation was the primary means. Otherwise, who would have
>> been the story-teller? What good are stories if the story is not
>> teaching you truth?
>
> Look, I cannot take for granted even most mathematical theories
> although their relation with a notion of truth is much more easy than
> any text in natural language. Stories can be good in giving example
> of behavior in some situation, or they can help anxious children to
> sleep. Stories are not written with the idea of "truth". The bibles
> contains many contradiction. And, if really you want take a sacred
> text as a theory of everything, there is a definite lack of
> precision.
>
>
>
>
>> How do we know that the ultimate source of stories is a good
>> source. Jef and Brent and others seem to be basing their truth on
>> really nothing more than pragmatism.
>
>
> Jef perhaps. I am not sure for Brent which seems to admit some form
> of realism (even physical realism).
I do infer from experience that there is some reality. Sometime ago, Bruno wrote:
"Hence a Reality, yes. But not necessarily a physical reality. Here is the logical dependence:
NUMBERS -> "MACHINE DREAMS" -> PHYSICAL -> HUMANS -> PHYSICS -> NUMBERS."
Maybe my interpretation of this is different than Bruno's, but I take it to mean our explanations can start anywhere in this loop and work all the way around. So numbers can be explained in terms of physics (c.f. William S. Cooper) and physical reality can be explained in terms of numbers (c.f. Bruno Marchal?). These explanations are all models, representations we create. They are tested against experience, so they are not arbitrary. They must be logical since otherwise self-contradiction will render them ambiguous. Whether any these, or which one, is "really real" is, I think, a meaningless question.
Brent Meeker
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Received on Wed Dec 27 2006 - 13:39:38 PST