Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> 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/
Theism is the belief that the world was created by a single omnipotent,
superhuman agent who cares about human behavoir and intervenes in worldly events.
Is that your theory??
Brent Meeker
Atheism is not a religion, just as a vacant lot is not a type of
building, and health is not a form of sickness. Atheism is not a
religion.
--- Jim Heldberg, San Francisco Atheist Coordinator
Received on Wed Jan 04 2006 - 14:34:22 PST