Le 26-déc.-05, à 04:14, Russell Standish a écrit :
> On Wed, Dec 21, 2005 at 04:07:28PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> (*) Well, I'm certainly interested in that naming issue, and perhaps I
>> could ask you right now what expression do you find the less shocking:
>> "Physics is derivable from machine psychology", or
>> "Physics is derivable from machine theology" ?
>> 'course, you can put "computer science" or "number theory" instead of
>> machine psycho or theology, but then the reference to a soul or a
>> person is eliminated, and giving the current tendency of many
>> scientist
>> to just eliminate the person from the possible object of rational
>> inquiry, I prefer to avoid it. Note that in "conscience and mechanism"
>> I have used the expression "theology", and in "computability, physics
>> and cognition", I have been asked to use "psychology" instead. I find
>> "theology" much more correct and honest, but then I realise
>> (empirically) that it it could seem too much shocking for some people
>> (especially the atheist). What do you think?
>> I have already avoid "metaphysics" because it is confusing in the
>> metamathematical (Godelian) context, and also I'm in a country where
>> the word "metaphysics" already means "crackpot". Does the word
>> "theology" means "crackpot" in some country ? I don't think so, but
>> please tell me if you know about such practice.
>>
>> Bruno
>
> My preference is for machine psychology. This is shocking enough, but
> amerliorated by the prefix "machine". Theology, on the other hand does
> not seem justified. In my mind, and I suspect for most people,
> theology means the study of God. A study of atheism would probably be
> included in this also,
Thanks for giving me your feeling. I obviously agree with you that
atheism is a religion. Actually I see this as a reason to keep the word
"theology" , although I remain open to the possibility of changing my
mind on this issue. I have (G*) reason to consider that just the belief
in one Observer-Moment, or World, State, Situation, etc. is already
theological, like the hope in our own sanity or consistency. Physics is
already theological too; in particular most physicists endow implicitly
Aristotle "solution" of the mind-body problem, which is in part a sort
of bullet making impossible to really progress there.
> however, I fail to see what the study of the
> limits to machine intelligence has to do with something as nebulous as
> God.
It is, I think, as nebulous as any "everything" concept, except that it
makes clearer the necessity of distinguishing a sort of pure science,
captured by G and the "whole truth" about that captured by G*. I can
come back on this but I think I should attempt to say more in some non
technical way about the G G* gap.
Also, I think "God" is just a chapter in theology, and I don't even
address that chapter neither in "Conscience et Mecanisme", where I do
introduce the term theology, nor in "Calculabilité Physique et
Cognition", where I have been asked to use "machine psychology" instead
of "theology", and then I am beginning to think it is a sort of
"logical" error. Like I said to George, either I try to be as clear as
possible, but then it looks provocative; or I try to manage the ten
thousands human susceptibilities, but then the message will take more
that one millenium to be conveyed :(
Ah la la..
One of my current motivation for using the label "theology" is the fact
that my work can be framed into the Pythagorean, Platonist and
NeoPlatonist tradition.
People interested could read the very gentle introduction to "Plotinus"
by Dominic O'Meara:
Plotinus. An Introduction to the Enneads. Oxford, Clarendon
Press, 1992.
Note that "The Enneads" have been themselves published by Penguin, with
a readable translation.
The fact is that the arithmetical interpretation of Plato's Theaetetus
leads to a rather natural arithmetical interpretation of many questions
and answers by Plotinus around the mind-body problem, and apparently
this bounces back toward an arithmetical interpretation of the whole
Plato's Parmenides. But here I am not yet convinced and I am perhaps
just overoptimistic, for sure.
Late James Higgo would have perhaps added that many trends in the
Buddhist traditions have much in common with Platonism and Plotinism.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Received on Wed Jan 04 2006 - 09:04:33 PST