At 15:01 13/01/05 -0500, John Mikes wrote:
>Your Honored Divinity! (Name: God Bruno M):
>Semantics is a great thing. I agree.
>Since IMO "we all" (meaning as you said not only humans, or livings)
>interfere in all changes of the world (here restricted to our universe)
>multilaterally, your 'god' definition holds and so theology can be called
>part of the 'natural sciences' we try to handle.
I don't like to much the expression "natural". (So I like your 'quoteq')
I think it is an indexical expression, like "here", "now", etc. The separation
between natural/artificial is artificial (and thus natural!). But, above all, a
lot of people takes Nature as granted, and implicitly assume physicalism
(which you know is incompatible with mechanism).
As for being "god" I really mean the sense of Alan Watts. The other "unique"
one, has no name (like the first person btw), and like any Whole once you
accept
mathematical realism.
>(But as a fellow-god, please. don't deny the "s" from my last name.)
Oops. Please accept my modest loebian apologies.
>Divinely yours
You are welcome,
Bruno
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Bruno Marchal" <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
>To: "Danny Mayes" <dmayes.domain.name.hidden>
>Cc: "Stathis Papaioannou" <stathispapaioannou.domain.name.hidden>;
><amalcolm.domain.name.hidden>; <everything-list.domain.name.hidden.com>
>Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 10:49 AM
>Subject: Re: Belief Statements
>
>
> > At 09:16 13/01/05 -0500, Danny Mayes wrote:
> >
> > >Could you explain this last line?
> > >
> > >Bruno Marchal wrote:
> > >
> > >>At 10:24 13/01/05 +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>As for the "failure of induction" if all possible worlds exist, I
>prefer
> > >>>to simply bypass the problem.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>Mmm... I think you make the same mistake as David Lewis (In the
>plurality
> > >>of worlds, but in
> > >>"counterfactuals" it partially fix the mistake ...).
> > >>You bypass the most interesting problem which actually makes refutable
> > >>classes of mathematical "theologies".
> >
> >
> > I will try. I will also try to be short and you can consult
> > my URL for more explanations including posts to this list.
> > The starting point is the assumption that I (we, you) are turing emulable.
> > Now computations are mathematical objects, and with some amount
> > of arithmetical realism or platonism all computations exists in the
> > same sense that all constructive reals exists. But some thought
> > experiment show that if we are turing emulable then we cannot know
> > which computations support us. Both Stathis and David Lewis are aware
> > that with a many-worlds postulate, or even just with many
> > computations postulates, there is a "failure of induction"
> > problem. Indeed, a priori, if you make induction from all the
>computationnal
> > histories going through your states you get many "white rabbit stories" if
> > not just
> > "white noise", unless you discover that computations and observer relative
> > to them are highly non trivial mathematical object so that the "induction"
> > problem could perhaps be solved technically (and indeed progress has
> > been made and sometimes I make attempt to convey a little bit of it).
> > Solving the induction problem means in this context that we are able to
> > justify why the average observer can predict some normal (reversible,
>linear)
> > computation at the bottom and below.
> > 'The term "theology" could be justified because it reminds us that once
>you
> > accept the idea that your immediate most probable "future" consistent
> > extension is determined by a mean on all your 2^Aleph0 maximal
> > consistent extensions, and that you "survive" always on the most
>normal/near
> > comp history, then the "dying"notion seems to belong to the category
> > of wishful thinking (making us more ignorant). But "theology", in this
>context
> > can also just be defined by the study of what machines can correctly (or
>just
> > consistently) prove and infer about themselves and their most probable
> > computations, and here deep results in mathematical logic and in
>theoretical
> > computer science give huge lightning (but necessitate of course some
> > math work). (Now I am not sanguine about any words but I recall the term
> > "theology" had been used by Plato to mean the study of the Gods, and then
> > if you are willing to believe (with Alan Watts) that we are all Gods ...
> >
> > And, (this I add to John Mikes, if you permit Danny,) when I say we are
> > Gods, John, I don't see any reason to limit the understanding of "we" to
> > the humans. You know I talk on something far larger yet non trivial.
> >
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Received on Fri Jan 14 2005 - 08:44:34 PST