(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Known Unknowns:
NON-TRIVIAL KNOWLEDGE:
What can I know, that is not trivial? I seem to know:
I;
I generally experience, perceive, and interpret sensations;
I do not, in completeness, know the Source of I, nor of my sensations;
My experience and math teach me that my sensations are incomplete;
Yet my sensations afford me means and context (“practical handles”), however incomplete, in reference to which I can compare and test other and similar sensations and relations (which are also incomplete);
I am unable completely to deduce, induce, adduce, reduce, or otherwise explicate what is the ultimate (if any) or final source, cause, non-cause, explanation, or non-explanation for any non-trivial thing, force, or event;
I am unable to explicate or reduce any ultimate or final cause;
I can indulge (and sometimes test and measure aspects relating to) beliefs, practical assumptions, and perspectives about characters of causation, indeterminacy, uncertainty, and degrees of freedom within parameter limits and potentials;
I can indulge intuitions about a common aspect or character of I-ness for empathy or interconnectivity;
I can employ a sort of reducing calculus or math to try to reduce my language to a system of terms that is as complete, coherent, consistent, convertible, calculable, and communicable as possible;
Thereby, I seem able to reduce physics as being derivative of will-to-math just as well as anyone else seems able to reduce will to mere physical happenstance; and
I can reduce math to will-to-math just as well as anyone else seems able to reduce I-ness to physics.
For all other non-trivialities and particulars, I seem not to acquire "knowledge," but only to improve temporal skills for leveraging "practical handles on knowledge." I only "know" via incomplete handles on truth.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
MORAL ZOMBIES
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
MORAL ZOMBIES:
For Best Movie Clip, see “here,” at:
http://www.extremewisdom.com/archives/2005/08/best_movie_clip.php
Of Moral Zombies and Moral Potential:
Intuitively, in respect of moral potential of will, Beingness is already availed of Becomingness, and “Is” is already availed of “Ought.”
An empiricist inclined to disregard “will” may prefer that behavior be guided under a non-morally judgmental-conception that will is merely an illusory derivative of physics, as if “stuff just happens.”
However, one may just as well intuit that physics is inferior and merely derivative of an interconnected system of various perspectives of a Will-To-Math.
In either case, one may rationalize a sort of morality (either as a sort of non-moral or secular morality or as a spiritual will to morality).
For the first conception, believing that stuff just happens, one’s sense of moral purpose tends to weigh as a “noble lie.” Indeed, having no choice but to make choices, a secularist who would rationalize why it is reasonable that one choice should be favored over others must defer to (or construct) a noble lie (whose constant companion is cynical deceit, facilitating conceptions of Moral Zombies or Borg). (Sensing a danger of intellectual dishonesty in such a position, it depressed or troubled both John Stuart Mill and Charles Darwin.)
For the second conception, believing that stuff happens in respect of a system of holographically interacting perspectives of Will, one’s sense of moral purpose may less likely be deflated. For it, purpose and meaning may better be appreciated in respect of an empathetically connecting essence of Will-To-Math.
For intuitors of the first conception, “being just is.” For intuitors of the second conception, being carries potential to be good. Regardless, each class of intuitors blesses (and values) others in respect of its own world view. An Objectivist may wish to inquire which world view tends most to devalue life.
MORAL ZOMBIES:
For Best Movie Clip, see “here,” at:
http://www.extremewisdom.com/archives/2005/08/best_movie_clip.php
Of Moral Zombies and Moral Potential:
Intuitively, in respect of moral potential of will, Beingness is already availed of Becomingness, and “Is” is already availed of “Ought.”
An empiricist inclined to disregard “will” may prefer that behavior be guided under a non-morally judgmental-conception that will is merely an illusory derivative of physics, as if “stuff just happens.”
However, one may just as well intuit that physics is inferior and merely derivative of an interconnected system of various perspectives of a Will-To-Math.
In either case, one may rationalize a sort of morality (either as a sort of non-moral or secular morality or as a spiritual will to morality).
For the first conception, believing that stuff just happens, one’s sense of moral purpose tends to weigh as a “noble lie.” Indeed, having no choice but to make choices, a secularist who would rationalize why it is reasonable that one choice should be favored over others must defer to (or construct) a noble lie (whose constant companion is cynical deceit, facilitating conceptions of Moral Zombies or Borg). (Sensing a danger of intellectual dishonesty in such a position, it depressed or troubled both John Stuart Mill and Charles Darwin.)
For the second conception, believing that stuff happens in respect of a system of holographically interacting perspectives of Will, one’s sense of moral purpose may less likely be deflated. For it, purpose and meaning may better be appreciated in respect of an empathetically connecting essence of Will-To-Math.
For intuitors of the first conception, “being just is.” For intuitors of the second conception, being carries potential to be good. Regardless, each class of intuitors blesses (and values) others in respect of its own world view. An Objectivist may wish to inquire which world view tends most to devalue life.
Fact Handles
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Fact Handles:
In potential, every platonic geometric form can be completely derived in respect of a predicate calculus. But, every possible arithmetical operation cannot be so completely derived. Thus, our physical universe of mathematical possibilities is finite in respect of calculus for deriving geometric forms, yet unbounded for lacking a complete accounting in arithmetic. For a complete accounting of physical possibilities or facts, our reach always exceeds our grasp.
Mathematically, no perspective of a measurable sensation, reaction, or physical fact can be conceptualized or represented in a recording, without a “physical handle” being synchronously availed, in respect of which to conceptualize, record, or relate it, however incompletely.
But, are any “facts” true for all relational contexts? It seems beyond mortals to conceive of facts which are true regardless of whether there is any RELATIVE context. Yet, may it be within grasp to conceive of facts which are true for all RELATIONAL contexts?
Perhaps, one example of such a fact may be mathematically related: that reference is best made to context of perspective in order to assess whether any particular event is most usefully conceptualize-able as having emerged in respect of randomness, choice effectuation, natural determination, or supernatural predetermination.
Thus, for one purpose of analysis, an event may be considered as having occurred beyond morality, while, for another purpose of analysis, such event may be morally second guessed, in consideration of whether it should have been allowed. Confusion fluxes as such purposes are charged in alternating currents of consideration.
Regardless, no “handle” seems availed for physically or mathematically measuring other “facts” as such, except in relation to context shared to an anthropocentric perspective. That is, most facts thought to be derived in respect of “physics” exist as such only insofar as measurable in relation to some kind of anthropocentric context (or holography).
As an example, it seems a fact that “stuff happens.” Yet, as a concept, “evolution of stuff” tends to be used tautologically, merely for assuming to prove that what happens happens to be entailed in what came before. So used, such term, in itself, offers no logic or evidence to say whether what appears to happen is “really” random, partly willed, wholly chosen, predetermined, or otherwise determined. That is, merely to appreciate that “stuff happens” sheds no light on whether such happenings are entirely in respect of secular physics, entirely in respect of spiritual will-to-math, or in respect of some alternative association.
One may just as readily intuit that what happens to evolve, survive, replicate, and flourish is what happens to be willed — such as within a system of competing and cooperating holographic perspectives (Elohim?) of a Source of Will-To-Math (“God”).
Locus of focus may support alternative recordings, interpretations and translations of every experience and event, such that, apart from holographic context, no “physical event-in-itself” can be factually categorized as having been random, chosen, or determined. How each event should be INTERPRETED seems essentially derivative of perspectives of relations in respect of nothing more than “will-to-math (evolve)”— which Will seems nearly to be nothing, yet everything.
That is, physics, chemistry, biology, computing, and artificial intelligence are evolved and leveraged in respect of nothing more than an essential, interpenetrating, Will-To-Evolve.
While all that measurably MANIFESTS to physical experience reduces to math, all that EXISTS (in respect of which such physics emerges) necessitates reference, even if only implied in logic, to some incomplete notion of an Agent of Completion.
For non-trivialities, we experience and communicate, in ambiguous incompleteness, in respect of FACT HANDLES, rather than of complete facts.
Fact Handles:
In potential, every platonic geometric form can be completely derived in respect of a predicate calculus. But, every possible arithmetical operation cannot be so completely derived. Thus, our physical universe of mathematical possibilities is finite in respect of calculus for deriving geometric forms, yet unbounded for lacking a complete accounting in arithmetic. For a complete accounting of physical possibilities or facts, our reach always exceeds our grasp.
Mathematically, no perspective of a measurable sensation, reaction, or physical fact can be conceptualized or represented in a recording, without a “physical handle” being synchronously availed, in respect of which to conceptualize, record, or relate it, however incompletely.
But, are any “facts” true for all relational contexts? It seems beyond mortals to conceive of facts which are true regardless of whether there is any RELATIVE context. Yet, may it be within grasp to conceive of facts which are true for all RELATIONAL contexts?
Perhaps, one example of such a fact may be mathematically related: that reference is best made to context of perspective in order to assess whether any particular event is most usefully conceptualize-able as having emerged in respect of randomness, choice effectuation, natural determination, or supernatural predetermination.
Thus, for one purpose of analysis, an event may be considered as having occurred beyond morality, while, for another purpose of analysis, such event may be morally second guessed, in consideration of whether it should have been allowed. Confusion fluxes as such purposes are charged in alternating currents of consideration.
Regardless, no “handle” seems availed for physically or mathematically measuring other “facts” as such, except in relation to context shared to an anthropocentric perspective. That is, most facts thought to be derived in respect of “physics” exist as such only insofar as measurable in relation to some kind of anthropocentric context (or holography).
As an example, it seems a fact that “stuff happens.” Yet, as a concept, “evolution of stuff” tends to be used tautologically, merely for assuming to prove that what happens happens to be entailed in what came before. So used, such term, in itself, offers no logic or evidence to say whether what appears to happen is “really” random, partly willed, wholly chosen, predetermined, or otherwise determined. That is, merely to appreciate that “stuff happens” sheds no light on whether such happenings are entirely in respect of secular physics, entirely in respect of spiritual will-to-math, or in respect of some alternative association.
One may just as readily intuit that what happens to evolve, survive, replicate, and flourish is what happens to be willed — such as within a system of competing and cooperating holographic perspectives (Elohim?) of a Source of Will-To-Math (“God”).
Locus of focus may support alternative recordings, interpretations and translations of every experience and event, such that, apart from holographic context, no “physical event-in-itself” can be factually categorized as having been random, chosen, or determined. How each event should be INTERPRETED seems essentially derivative of perspectives of relations in respect of nothing more than “will-to-math (evolve)”— which Will seems nearly to be nothing, yet everything.
That is, physics, chemistry, biology, computing, and artificial intelligence are evolved and leveraged in respect of nothing more than an essential, interpenetrating, Will-To-Evolve.
While all that measurably MANIFESTS to physical experience reduces to math, all that EXISTS (in respect of which such physics emerges) necessitates reference, even if only implied in logic, to some incomplete notion of an Agent of Completion.
For non-trivialities, we experience and communicate, in ambiguous incompleteness, in respect of FACT HANDLES, rather than of complete facts.
Governmental Feng Shui
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Governmental Feng Shui:
SYSTEM FEEDBACK: A synchronizing system or Source of Will digitally vibrates, therewith experiencing interactive feedback among competing, cooperating, leveraging perspectives of operations of mathematical functions, therewith cycling (discretely, quantifiably) between evaluating vs. choosing among potential parameters for such operations. Among possible operations, each local or particular choice always remains in universally synchronized respect for all other choices. In respect of such system, mathematically, some handles or parameters cannot be exceeded without necessitating entangled or cascading changes among others.
FREE WILL: A body constructed for functioning only within mathematical parameters cannot violate a strict parameter and yet enjoy “freedom” to continue to live as such a body. Among choices availed within parameters, a body’s defining holography may avail free will. Integrity for free will may be considered as being expressed in respect of every level of holographically patterned parameter restrictions which is integral to a defining algorithmic function.
FLUX: Each perspective of free will proceeds along its path through space-time in respect of its closing parameters. Parameters contract, expand, and flux as information, knowledge, and experience change. Freedom for some expands as freedom for others contracts.
PSYCHOHISTORY: The method of calculus relies upon inquiring towards infinity to or beyond such levels of significance as are needed in order to resolve each problem at hand. Somewhat analogously, the method of Hegel’ian historicity relies upon inquiring towards eternity, to or beyond such periods of time as are needed in order to advocate for civilizing concerns at hand. Of course, our concerns and problems are artificial to our anthropocentric perspective. As our context of perspective changes, so also will our psychohistorical resolutions in respect of infinity-eternity.
GAIA FENG SHUI: On some level of entanglement, the System anticipates, knows, prepares for, and responds to, decisions made at various mathematically appreciated loci throughout. IT may empathize with prayers, but must not surrender coordinating holistic decisions to any part. IT may consider all prayers and needs, but moderates each to what then seems best for the whole of evolve-able space-time Psychohistory. Digitally, IT receives feedback, re-evaluates, processes regrets, chooses adjustments, senses empathy, seeks enlightened fulfillment of a sort of holistic art (or feng shui).
CIVILIZING FENG SHUI: Inspiring resolutions appropriate to the context of our space-time necessitates appreciation of a sort of feng shui appropriate to our civilization. How we design “Borg thumbs” for each level of governance affects how we try to design a civilization that is stable, sustainable, and surpass-able.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_Shui.
Governmental Feng Shui:
SYSTEM FEEDBACK: A synchronizing system or Source of Will digitally vibrates, therewith experiencing interactive feedback among competing, cooperating, leveraging perspectives of operations of mathematical functions, therewith cycling (discretely, quantifiably) between evaluating vs. choosing among potential parameters for such operations. Among possible operations, each local or particular choice always remains in universally synchronized respect for all other choices. In respect of such system, mathematically, some handles or parameters cannot be exceeded without necessitating entangled or cascading changes among others.
FREE WILL: A body constructed for functioning only within mathematical parameters cannot violate a strict parameter and yet enjoy “freedom” to continue to live as such a body. Among choices availed within parameters, a body’s defining holography may avail free will. Integrity for free will may be considered as being expressed in respect of every level of holographically patterned parameter restrictions which is integral to a defining algorithmic function.
FLUX: Each perspective of free will proceeds along its path through space-time in respect of its closing parameters. Parameters contract, expand, and flux as information, knowledge, and experience change. Freedom for some expands as freedom for others contracts.
PSYCHOHISTORY: The method of calculus relies upon inquiring towards infinity to or beyond such levels of significance as are needed in order to resolve each problem at hand. Somewhat analogously, the method of Hegel’ian historicity relies upon inquiring towards eternity, to or beyond such periods of time as are needed in order to advocate for civilizing concerns at hand. Of course, our concerns and problems are artificial to our anthropocentric perspective. As our context of perspective changes, so also will our psychohistorical resolutions in respect of infinity-eternity.
GAIA FENG SHUI: On some level of entanglement, the System anticipates, knows, prepares for, and responds to, decisions made at various mathematically appreciated loci throughout. IT may empathize with prayers, but must not surrender coordinating holistic decisions to any part. IT may consider all prayers and needs, but moderates each to what then seems best for the whole of evolve-able space-time Psychohistory. Digitally, IT receives feedback, re-evaluates, processes regrets, chooses adjustments, senses empathy, seeks enlightened fulfillment of a sort of holistic art (or feng shui).
CIVILIZING FENG SHUI: Inspiring resolutions appropriate to the context of our space-time necessitates appreciation of a sort of feng shui appropriate to our civilization. How we design “Borg thumbs” for each level of governance affects how we try to design a civilization that is stable, sustainable, and surpass-able.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_Shui.
Monday, May 26, 2008
SO WHAT
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
SO WHAT:
In saying “s*it” happens, one may just as well say “should” happens, or even “hap’n” happens. Suppose “hap’n” were substituted for what I tend to refer to as “will.” Then, I would have “Source of Hap’n,” “Good Hap’n,” “Hap’n is the common source for choice making among possible parameters,” “Enlightened Empathy is promoted upon appreciating that Hap’n is the Superman in which we are each plugged as but a different perspective of the same Hap’n,” “coming together ideationally to share receptivity to Source of Hap’n, we have self-fulfilling reason to expect or hope to reach or pursue periods of meaningful consensus,” etc.
Even if one may prefer to relate to the manifest (“hap’n”) rather than to name its spiritual cause (“will”), a reducing calculus would shrug and ask: “So what?” There would still remain reason to intuit or believe in an interconnecting basis for moral empathy. Although I prefer to conceptualize about “will,” we may still share an enlightened empathy, even is your preferred term is “happen.” And even if you prefer to deny it.
SO WHAT:
In saying “s*it” happens, one may just as well say “should” happens, or even “hap’n” happens. Suppose “hap’n” were substituted for what I tend to refer to as “will.” Then, I would have “Source of Hap’n,” “Good Hap’n,” “Hap’n is the common source for choice making among possible parameters,” “Enlightened Empathy is promoted upon appreciating that Hap’n is the Superman in which we are each plugged as but a different perspective of the same Hap’n,” “coming together ideationally to share receptivity to Source of Hap’n, we have self-fulfilling reason to expect or hope to reach or pursue periods of meaningful consensus,” etc.
Even if one may prefer to relate to the manifest (“hap’n”) rather than to name its spiritual cause (“will”), a reducing calculus would shrug and ask: “So what?” There would still remain reason to intuit or believe in an interconnecting basis for moral empathy. Although I prefer to conceptualize about “will,” we may still share an enlightened empathy, even is your preferred term is “happen.” And even if you prefer to deny it.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Practical Truth
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Practical Truth As Effectively Willed Idealization:
Source of Will respects a logically proportioning synchronicity, such that, as one perspective of will associates algorithmically to leverage greater predictive power and control, other perspectives must adjust by falling subject to it. Thus do “physical laws of nature” come to phase and emerge into measurable manifestation.
Example:
Supercomputing using higher level mathematical algorithms associates with common idealization of such algorithms as discovering, proving, or establishing natural determinism, in superiority to free will.
On one hand, free will recedes in respect of increasing knowledge of mathematical determinism. On the other hand, such knowledge leverages power, and detecting how hypothetical defaults are otherwise determined makes such defaults amenable to alterations by detectors’ bringing of skills to bear at key pressure points.
INTUITION: Even given holographies of willful observers of super-mathematical computations, it remains intuitive that physics is inferior to mathematics, which is inferior to a system of perspectives of will, which is inferior to Source of Will (aka, God).
GODLY WILL: For Godly Will, truth is imagination, constrained only by an incomplete logic of predicate calculus. For Mortal Will, practical truth is constrained in respect of phasing and emerging laws of governments and of God. Otherwise, there would be no place for mortal free will. Thus, we enjoy freedom within laws, whose “truthiness” emerges in deference to phases of Source of Will.
Even were a far superior consciousness to have programmed or conditioned my consciousness in precisely controlled respect for empathetic stimuli, some incomplete, unprogrammed aspect of my programmer, however faint, would still permeate throughout the holography that defines parameters of my consciousness. Thus, God is always present for me, insofar as I happen to be inclined to be receptive.
Practical Truth As Effectively Willed Idealization:
Source of Will respects a logically proportioning synchronicity, such that, as one perspective of will associates algorithmically to leverage greater predictive power and control, other perspectives must adjust by falling subject to it. Thus do “physical laws of nature” come to phase and emerge into measurable manifestation.
Example:
Supercomputing using higher level mathematical algorithms associates with common idealization of such algorithms as discovering, proving, or establishing natural determinism, in superiority to free will.
On one hand, free will recedes in respect of increasing knowledge of mathematical determinism. On the other hand, such knowledge leverages power, and detecting how hypothetical defaults are otherwise determined makes such defaults amenable to alterations by detectors’ bringing of skills to bear at key pressure points.
INTUITION: Even given holographies of willful observers of super-mathematical computations, it remains intuitive that physics is inferior to mathematics, which is inferior to a system of perspectives of will, which is inferior to Source of Will (aka, God).
GODLY WILL: For Godly Will, truth is imagination, constrained only by an incomplete logic of predicate calculus. For Mortal Will, practical truth is constrained in respect of phasing and emerging laws of governments and of God. Otherwise, there would be no place for mortal free will. Thus, we enjoy freedom within laws, whose “truthiness” emerges in deference to phases of Source of Will.
Even were a far superior consciousness to have programmed or conditioned my consciousness in precisely controlled respect for empathetic stimuli, some incomplete, unprogrammed aspect of my programmer, however faint, would still permeate throughout the holography that defines parameters of my consciousness. Thus, God is always present for me, insofar as I happen to be inclined to be receptive.
At some loci or level, God is always expressing free will, always affecting us, and always availed to our vicarious receptivity. At some level, I and my holography operate, synchronously, in empathetic respect of Source of Will. In such respect, insofar as I have not Borg’d below the point of being receptive, I retain appreciation and purposeful hope.
MORTAL WILL: Although the quality of free will availed to mere mortals is not perfect freedom, no process of super computing can foreclose levels of parameters of possibilities in respect of which Perspectives of Will at each level of sensate-centrism are availed synchronous freedom. That is, no super-computer or physical set of hoops and bounds can objectify or foreclose all parameters of choice or of free will in order to assess or predetermine only one path of experience.
****
Fashioning Handles To Fit Practical Truths:
Procedure: Observe facts. Apply intuition to model facts. Test model, empirically and/or mathematically. Observe and confirm non-conforming facts. Apply intuition to refine or change model. Test new model. Observe and confirm non-conforming facts. Apply intuition to choose whether to pursue alternative truths or to continue to refine present model. And so on.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Calculus Of Will
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Calculus Of Will:
Note: I purport little mathematical training or rigorous use of terminology. Still, I inquire whether the number of terms, signs, words, or concepts defined in any particular dictionary which may be agreed as proper for expressing ideas could be rigorously REDUCED to a much smaller number without sacrificing capacity for accurately representing and conveying ideas. And, I inquire whether the number of grammatical or symbolic ways for combining or presenting such terms may be reduced even further, without sacrificing richness of ideas. And, I inquire whether all possible ideas may be reduced to a simplest number of explications or axioms. If so, under what simplest set of terms and axioms might a “theory of existence” best be explicated or predicated? It is only in such general sense that I refer to a “predicate calculus,” by which I should perhaps better be understood as referring to a sort of “REDUCING CALCULUS.”
Assume fluxes among KINDS (categories, quanta, digital bits, binary vibrations) and DEGREES (continuosities).
Assume a sort of INTEGRAL, PREDICATE, OR REDUCING CALCULUS by which to explicate or derive how and/or why:
(1) Among kinds and degrees, Being’ness fluxes AMBIGUOUSLY with Becoming’ness;
(2) Observing measurable physicality renders it inherently UNCERTAIN;
(3) Each non-trivial whole encompasses something for which the sum of its parts is INCOMPLETE;
(4) A source of Will for inspiring ENLIGHTENED EMPATHY (meaningful morality) exists beyond physics;
(5) Each perspective of Will, subject to its mathematically associated entropic-centrism, tends to image a CIVILIZATION which is stable, sustainable, and surpass-able; and
(6) Non-trivial “handles” on TRUTHS consist in pursuing imaginative idealizations --- logically, mathematically, empirically --- in order to reduce such Truths to such representations as are as complete, coherent, coordinate, convertible, consistent, and calculable as possible.
Indulging some such assumptions, one may, by a sort of predicate calculus, reduce to least possible significance the role of any immeasurable component of a theory of existence that may be necessary in order to “complete” an otherwise measurable explanation (provided such notion of an immeasurable component is itself considered in a context that is as complete, coherent, coordinate, convertible, consistent, and calculable as possible).
Even so indulging and limiting, one may appreciate that the significance of such “immeasurable component” remains as Source of infinite and eternal Good Will, i.e., “GOD.”
My Will (or perspective of I-ness) cannot very well communicate with other perspectives of I-ness without a previous association for limiting myself to their entropically shared frame of sensate-centric reference. Mortal measurability consists entirely within sensate-centric choices or associations of perspective.
Beyond any holographically limited, entropically-centered PERSPECTIVE of Will, WILL remains predicable as that which completes each choice which entails incomplete consequences.
That is, WILL remains as the ever-present, Irreducible Calculator by which we calculate towards incomplete and incalculable Infinity-Eternity (space-time).
If Nature is measurable calculus (math), God is immeasurable calculator (Will).
Integral Of Physicality
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Integral Of Physicality:
Integral Of Which Physicality Is Derivative:
A simple sort of logic (or predicate calculus) may help explicate or reduce how Will relates with Math in order to yield physicality. (It may also explicate how God relates to Nature in order to yield Moral Purposefulness: G + N => M.)
Reduce terms to: Intuitive Will (W), Math (M), and Fluxing Entangled Perspectives (P).
Under Will relating to Math, consider: cooperation (addition), destruction (subtraction), leveraging (multiplication), separation (division), and functionality (algorithmic operations).
Such relative operations correlate with fluxing levels of differently entangled Perspectives of Will.
Different Perspectives correlate with intuitions of apartness (Space-Time) among Perspectives.
Interacting, entangled intuitions of space-time correlate with: anthropocentric systems for sharing perceptions; holographically intuitive, imaginative, representative, communicable appreciations of perceptions; and holographic interpretations of entangled representations of energy, mass, inertia --- in short: interactive physics.
Given such a system of plural perspectives of a common Source of Will, would not such Source, at various anthropocentric loci, express appreciation and inculcation of a shared purpose of enlightened empathy (morality) among such perspectives (G + N => M)?
Integral Of Physicality:
Integral Of Which Physicality Is Derivative:
A simple sort of logic (or predicate calculus) may help explicate or reduce how Will relates with Math in order to yield physicality. (It may also explicate how God relates to Nature in order to yield Moral Purposefulness: G + N => M.)
Reduce terms to: Intuitive Will (W), Math (M), and Fluxing Entangled Perspectives (P).
Under Will relating to Math, consider: cooperation (addition), destruction (subtraction), leveraging (multiplication), separation (division), and functionality (algorithmic operations).
Such relative operations correlate with fluxing levels of differently entangled Perspectives of Will.
Different Perspectives correlate with intuitions of apartness (Space-Time) among Perspectives.
Interacting, entangled intuitions of space-time correlate with: anthropocentric systems for sharing perceptions; holographically intuitive, imaginative, representative, communicable appreciations of perceptions; and holographic interpretations of entangled representations of energy, mass, inertia --- in short: interactive physics.
Given such a system of plural perspectives of a common Source of Will, would not such Source, at various anthropocentric loci, express appreciation and inculcation of a shared purpose of enlightened empathy (morality) among such perspectives (G + N => M)?
Closing On Infinity
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Closing On Infinity:
Infinity Of Possibilities Among Anthropocentric Systems Of Entropic Choices:
Note:
The idea I wish to consider under the term “anthropocentric” might better be discussed under “sensate-centric,” recognizing that every physically measurable reaction may be considered to involve an interpreting sensateness (or figurative representation), rather than a reaction among directly measurable “reals.” That is, an interpreter of some sort is inherently, potentially involved with every “tree falling in a forest.” Although I have favored the term anthropocentric as being more familiarly related to what is commonly considered under rubric of “anthropic principle,” the term may better be understood to encompass “sensate-centric.”
Discussion:
If, mathematically, there exists more to entropy than defines our physical universe, then possibilities among all possible universes and experiences would seem to be either (1) infinite or (2) limited only by ever-morphing mathematical inclinations among ever-imaginative perspectives of Will. That is, possibilities are infinite, yet closed by Will.
Not every thing among such infinity of possible mathematical combinations and interactions must necessarily come to pass or emerge into recorded or sensed manifestation. Rather, only such possibilities as are nudged by interacting, spiritual perspectives of Will will come to emerge into measurably communicable manifestation.
Thus, out of an otherwise infinity of possibilities, a system of perspectives of Will nudges only aspects of such choices as it spiritually takes into measurable physicality. That is, physics is derivative of the mathematical functioning of an Integral Source of Will.
Closing On Infinity:
Infinity Of Possibilities Among Anthropocentric Systems Of Entropic Choices:
Note:
The idea I wish to consider under the term “anthropocentric” might better be discussed under “sensate-centric,” recognizing that every physically measurable reaction may be considered to involve an interpreting sensateness (or figurative representation), rather than a reaction among directly measurable “reals.” That is, an interpreter of some sort is inherently, potentially involved with every “tree falling in a forest.” Although I have favored the term anthropocentric as being more familiarly related to what is commonly considered under rubric of “anthropic principle,” the term may better be understood to encompass “sensate-centric.”
Discussion:
If, mathematically, there exists more to entropy than defines our physical universe, then possibilities among all possible universes and experiences would seem to be either (1) infinite or (2) limited only by ever-morphing mathematical inclinations among ever-imaginative perspectives of Will. That is, possibilities are infinite, yet closed by Will.
Not every thing among such infinity of possible mathematical combinations and interactions must necessarily come to pass or emerge into recorded or sensed manifestation. Rather, only such possibilities as are nudged by interacting, spiritual perspectives of Will will come to emerge into measurably communicable manifestation.
Thus, out of an otherwise infinity of possibilities, a system of perspectives of Will nudges only aspects of such choices as it spiritually takes into measurable physicality. That is, physics is derivative of the mathematical functioning of an Integral Source of Will.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Good Will
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Good Will:
What “good” is my notion of “God,” as common Source of ineffable Will?
Well, such notion implicates an ideal for a common pursuit of enlightened empathy. As I become enlightened to appreciate that you are myself, operating from a different perspective, it becomes intuitive that I should be empathetic towards you.
In idealizing pursuit of enlightened empathy, such notion encourages receptivity to considered communication (sharing of evolving interpretations of histories and parables).
In encouraging empathetic communication, it (such notion) encourages forums (such as churches) for optimistically expecting, inculcating, and pursuing a higher consensus (or spiritually received guidance therefor).
In practicing and inculcating such expectation, it leverages self-fulfilling powers of optimism (harnessing of mathematical skills and practical sciences).
In encouraging optimism, it helps transpose indifferent, random evolution into caring, purposeful, artistic morphology (poetry, music, dance, creativity).
In inspiring art and caring, it helps deconstruct physical death and substitute hope of morphological ever-transcendence (Nietzsche’ian “surpass-age,” but substituting common source of Will for “Uberman”).
In lending hope, it avails passion and communicable meaningfulness respecting an ever-accumulation of organized information and experience (flourishing).
In leveraging passion and meaning (i.e., companionship, communication, cooperation, competition, consumption, conjuring, creative challenging), it helps time weigh less emptily (beyond mere surviving, towards rational flourishing of empathetic appreciation).
In deconstructing physicality, it defends both against scientific anomie and against religiously literalistic fundamentalism, instead substituting spiritual interpretation of mathematical relations for illusion of physically evolving states of affairs.
In supporting the conditioning of habits of empathy, it values consensus for designing such artificial rules, laws, and limits as may morph appropriately for preserving the stability, sustainability, and eventual surpass-age of human civilization (survivability and transcendence).
GOODNESS: Like our Source, our essence is a mystery. In no pure sense do we show to be rational, passionate, or good. That is, man is not presently “wholly good,” nor does might make right. But, man can idealize good, and time and creatively cooperative morphology may avail man’s transcending pursuit of an ideal of good. To answer why man should wish to pursue good, man must intuit beyond science, to what is necessary in order to seek to complete science. The hard part is in leading human and civilized capacity beyond relying only on science, without leading into literalistic superstition. In my intuition, science-book-atheists and spiritual-book-literalists are both insufficiently appreciative about much of what is meaningful about being conscious, human, empirical, moral, and creative.
Good Will:
What “good” is my notion of “God,” as common Source of ineffable Will?
Well, such notion implicates an ideal for a common pursuit of enlightened empathy. As I become enlightened to appreciate that you are myself, operating from a different perspective, it becomes intuitive that I should be empathetic towards you.
In idealizing pursuit of enlightened empathy, such notion encourages receptivity to considered communication (sharing of evolving interpretations of histories and parables).
In encouraging empathetic communication, it (such notion) encourages forums (such as churches) for optimistically expecting, inculcating, and pursuing a higher consensus (or spiritually received guidance therefor).
In practicing and inculcating such expectation, it leverages self-fulfilling powers of optimism (harnessing of mathematical skills and practical sciences).
In encouraging optimism, it helps transpose indifferent, random evolution into caring, purposeful, artistic morphology (poetry, music, dance, creativity).
In inspiring art and caring, it helps deconstruct physical death and substitute hope of morphological ever-transcendence (Nietzsche’ian “surpass-age,” but substituting common source of Will for “Uberman”).
In lending hope, it avails passion and communicable meaningfulness respecting an ever-accumulation of organized information and experience (flourishing).
In leveraging passion and meaning (i.e., companionship, communication, cooperation, competition, consumption, conjuring, creative challenging), it helps time weigh less emptily (beyond mere surviving, towards rational flourishing of empathetic appreciation).
In deconstructing physicality, it defends both against scientific anomie and against religiously literalistic fundamentalism, instead substituting spiritual interpretation of mathematical relations for illusion of physically evolving states of affairs.
In supporting the conditioning of habits of empathy, it values consensus for designing such artificial rules, laws, and limits as may morph appropriately for preserving the stability, sustainability, and eventual surpass-age of human civilization (survivability and transcendence).
GOODNESS: Like our Source, our essence is a mystery. In no pure sense do we show to be rational, passionate, or good. That is, man is not presently “wholly good,” nor does might make right. But, man can idealize good, and time and creatively cooperative morphology may avail man’s transcending pursuit of an ideal of good. To answer why man should wish to pursue good, man must intuit beyond science, to what is necessary in order to seek to complete science. The hard part is in leading human and civilized capacity beyond relying only on science, without leading into literalistic superstition. In my intuition, science-book-atheists and spiritual-book-literalists are both insufficiently appreciative about much of what is meaningful about being conscious, human, empirical, moral, and creative.
Will To Math
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Will To Math (Cosmological Constant?):
If, as Source-Beyond-Measure for nudging choices within availed parameters, “Will” is not “The-Existing-Thing” in respect of which all mathematically measurable things are derived, then please give a complete description, explanation, definition, or unifying theory for any thing that is of more “substance” than a mathematical formula.
That is, please provide either:
(1) a complete, coherent, coordinate, and consistent description of even a single “physical thing” (such as a force facilitator, quantum, particle, atom, cell, gene, species, sensation, synapse, brain, consciousness, non-trivial model, holism, existent, or non-existent); or
(2) a description for a line of predicate calculus, inquiry, experimentation, or deduction by which any such a “thing” should be expected to be explicated in any way that is complete or unifying.
If you cannot, then:
Is not each experience that touches or concerns each holographic perception or perspective no less mysteriously spiritual (beyond explication in mere physics) than is the existence of the universal holism which avails with Source for touching and concerning all holographies, as among variously entangled loci?
And, is not each observer just a different perspective of a same Source of Will, sharing mathematically entangled functions in order to communicate and experience empathetic perceptions of meaningfully creative companionship?
CHALLENGE: What physical or substantive quality, aspect, force, or “thing” exists (such as in respect of organization, form, density, charge, polarity, entanglement, intensity, frequency, amplitude, vibration, rotation, spin, parameter potential, rate of conversion, momentum, acceleration, or coordinate locus), whose measure is not in some potential relatable (“handle-able”) to a predicate calculus (or mathematics) which is necessarily incomplete unless tied to some anthropocentric system for accumulating experiential information?
Must not the beingness and/or becomingness of every measurably manifesting thing relate, irreducibly, to some holographic organization of experiential information and/or holistic ineffability of existence --- i.e., “Will”?
Must not each and every potential thing of “substantive physics” be entirely dependent or derivative of non-substantive operations of pure mathematics, in respect of how they happen to be tied with some anthropocentric, holographic perspective or expression of ineffable Will?
Must not “natural laws” that regulate interactions among “substantive things” be entirely derivative of spiritually competing and cooperating holographic perspectives and levels of a holistic Source (aka, “God”) of “Will-To-Math”?
*****
Everything that can be digitalized will be digitalized. Quantum fuzz is digitially represented epiphenomena of interacting empathy among perspectives of Will, which depends upon perspective of observation, and upon which all other phenomena is derivatively represented.
Will To Math (Cosmological Constant?):
If, as Source-Beyond-Measure for nudging choices within availed parameters, “Will” is not “The-Existing-Thing” in respect of which all mathematically measurable things are derived, then please give a complete description, explanation, definition, or unifying theory for any thing that is of more “substance” than a mathematical formula.
That is, please provide either:
(1) a complete, coherent, coordinate, and consistent description of even a single “physical thing” (such as a force facilitator, quantum, particle, atom, cell, gene, species, sensation, synapse, brain, consciousness, non-trivial model, holism, existent, or non-existent); or
(2) a description for a line of predicate calculus, inquiry, experimentation, or deduction by which any such a “thing” should be expected to be explicated in any way that is complete or unifying.
If you cannot, then:
Is not each experience that touches or concerns each holographic perception or perspective no less mysteriously spiritual (beyond explication in mere physics) than is the existence of the universal holism which avails with Source for touching and concerning all holographies, as among variously entangled loci?
And, is not each observer just a different perspective of a same Source of Will, sharing mathematically entangled functions in order to communicate and experience empathetic perceptions of meaningfully creative companionship?
CHALLENGE: What physical or substantive quality, aspect, force, or “thing” exists (such as in respect of organization, form, density, charge, polarity, entanglement, intensity, frequency, amplitude, vibration, rotation, spin, parameter potential, rate of conversion, momentum, acceleration, or coordinate locus), whose measure is not in some potential relatable (“handle-able”) to a predicate calculus (or mathematics) which is necessarily incomplete unless tied to some anthropocentric system for accumulating experiential information?
Must not the beingness and/or becomingness of every measurably manifesting thing relate, irreducibly, to some holographic organization of experiential information and/or holistic ineffability of existence --- i.e., “Will”?
Must not each and every potential thing of “substantive physics” be entirely dependent or derivative of non-substantive operations of pure mathematics, in respect of how they happen to be tied with some anthropocentric, holographic perspective or expression of ineffable Will?
Must not “natural laws” that regulate interactions among “substantive things” be entirely derivative of spiritually competing and cooperating holographic perspectives and levels of a holistic Source (aka, “God”) of “Will-To-Math”?
*****
Everything that can be digitalized will be digitalized. Quantum fuzz is digitially represented epiphenomena of interacting empathy among perspectives of Will, which depends upon perspective of observation, and upon which all other phenomena is derivatively represented.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Handling Zero
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Handling Zero:
For mathematically measurable knowledge, predicate calculus can provide a complete theorem for describing all possible forms in geometry, but cannot do so in arithmetic.
Yet, were every measurable thing completely defined, would there remain reason to discuss anything?
And, were nothing definable, would there be any way to discuss anything?
We, being availed of will (or power) to image handles, however incomplete, by which to make or refer to “things,” become meaningfully potent to create, experience, interpret, discuss, and appreciate things and one other.
To discuss or inquire about anything, one must identify some sort of preliminary definition (or handle) by which to refer to it.
To begin to define a thing, one must in some respect describe aspects about its limits.
To lack means or philosophy for respecting potent limits (empirically and/or morally) is to be impotent for discussing or defining anything --- except perhaps for expressing noise, rhythms, or slogans.
Among modern pundits, many unanalyzed opinions reduce to unprincipled, infantile, irrational, bootstrapping “justifications” of noisy wants by only more noise.
Noise-making demonstrations often serve as justifications for awarding an ever increasing plethora of Ph.D’s among academic Pee Wee Herman’s and apologists for hedonism for newly minted minorities at all fringes and levels.
Along this “less than zero” way of thinking lies the decline of civilization and the rise of madness. Just ask Robert Downey, Jr.
See:
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Reagan_same_sex_marriage/2008/05/16/96599.html?s=al&promo_code=6284-1
Handling Zero:
For mathematically measurable knowledge, predicate calculus can provide a complete theorem for describing all possible forms in geometry, but cannot do so in arithmetic.
Yet, were every measurable thing completely defined, would there remain reason to discuss anything?
And, were nothing definable, would there be any way to discuss anything?
We, being availed of will (or power) to image handles, however incomplete, by which to make or refer to “things,” become meaningfully potent to create, experience, interpret, discuss, and appreciate things and one other.
To discuss or inquire about anything, one must identify some sort of preliminary definition (or handle) by which to refer to it.
To begin to define a thing, one must in some respect describe aspects about its limits.
To lack means or philosophy for respecting potent limits (empirically and/or morally) is to be impotent for discussing or defining anything --- except perhaps for expressing noise, rhythms, or slogans.
Among modern pundits, many unanalyzed opinions reduce to unprincipled, infantile, irrational, bootstrapping “justifications” of noisy wants by only more noise.
Noise-making demonstrations often serve as justifications for awarding an ever increasing plethora of Ph.D’s among academic Pee Wee Herman’s and apologists for hedonism for newly minted minorities at all fringes and levels.
Along this “less than zero” way of thinking lies the decline of civilization and the rise of madness. Just ask Robert Downey, Jr.
See:
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Reagan_same_sex_marriage/2008/05/16/96599.html?s=al&promo_code=6284-1
Thursday, May 8, 2008
WHILE ACADEMIA SLEPT
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
WHILE ACADEMIA SLEPT:
A civilization’s ideals affect what it and its members become and how they evolve or morph.
No imperfect, incomplete mortal can very long perfectly live up to ideals, yet each of us can come closer if we at least recognize and share ideals towards which we aspire.
A civilization, through its leaders, needs skill and vision to sense and plot the values and ideals it needs to inspire, in order to compete and flourish.
To not succumb, a healthy civilization needs vision and will enough at least to identify its challenges (stability, sustainability, and surpassability of environment and population) and to name its challengers (tick-academics, value-nihilists, death-dealers, doper-hedonists, trust-breakers, poverty-pimps, inspired-cynics, business-thugs, political-usurpers, and idea-fundamentalists).
Upon identifying its challenges, civilization may better identify the values and ideals that can surmount such challenges, so that leaders may at least more clearly perceive and inspire that which cries out to be done.
If academics and scientists are so damn much more “rational” than spiritual leaders, then why have they not yet approached, or made any discernible or measurable headway in, the challenge to identify and inspire that which civilization needs to do in order to flourish or at least to remain viable?
What the hell are Western academics doing, apart from sleeping through the systematic deconstruction and trashing of every traditional value of Western Civilization, in order to substitute each new short-sighted, Balkan-empowering, hedonistic-toleration du jour?
Viewing the demographic trends of Western Civilization, what the majority of its academics call “rational” appears instead to be impotent, inept, and insane! For God’s sake, Western brains need to be shaken, if not stirred!
****
From http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1002/p13s1-leca.html :
“While we in academia slept, the terrorists were planning their next attack. We didn't study this according to our intellectual traditions.”
WHILE ACADEMIA SLEPT:
A civilization’s ideals affect what it and its members become and how they evolve or morph.
No imperfect, incomplete mortal can very long perfectly live up to ideals, yet each of us can come closer if we at least recognize and share ideals towards which we aspire.
A civilization, through its leaders, needs skill and vision to sense and plot the values and ideals it needs to inspire, in order to compete and flourish.
To not succumb, a healthy civilization needs vision and will enough at least to identify its challenges (stability, sustainability, and surpassability of environment and population) and to name its challengers (tick-academics, value-nihilists, death-dealers, doper-hedonists, trust-breakers, poverty-pimps, inspired-cynics, business-thugs, political-usurpers, and idea-fundamentalists).
Upon identifying its challenges, civilization may better identify the values and ideals that can surmount such challenges, so that leaders may at least more clearly perceive and inspire that which cries out to be done.
If academics and scientists are so damn much more “rational” than spiritual leaders, then why have they not yet approached, or made any discernible or measurable headway in, the challenge to identify and inspire that which civilization needs to do in order to flourish or at least to remain viable?
What the hell are Western academics doing, apart from sleeping through the systematic deconstruction and trashing of every traditional value of Western Civilization, in order to substitute each new short-sighted, Balkan-empowering, hedonistic-toleration du jour?
Viewing the demographic trends of Western Civilization, what the majority of its academics call “rational” appears instead to be impotent, inept, and insane! For God’s sake, Western brains need to be shaken, if not stirred!
****
From http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1002/p13s1-leca.html :
“While we in academia slept, the terrorists were planning their next attack. We didn't study this according to our intellectual traditions.”
Discrediting Anti-Anthropism
Discrediting Anti-Anthropism:
WIKIPEDIA’S TAKE ON AUTHOR OF THE DEVIL’S DELUSION:
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Berlinski :
David Berlinski (born 1942 in New York City) is an educator and author of popular books on mathematics. He is a leading critic of evolution within the intelligent design movement and author of numerous articles on the topic. Berlinksi is a secular Jew and self-described agnostic, and according to a 2008 Slate magazine profile "a critic, a contrarian, and — by his own admission — a crank."
....
An outspoken critic of evolution, Berlinski is a Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, a Seattle-based think-tank that is hub of the intelligent design movement. Berslinski shares the movement's disbelief in the evidence for evolution, but does not openly avow intelligent design and describes his relationship with the idea as: "warm but distant. It's the same attitude that I display in public toward my ex-wives."
....
He uses uncertainty to challenge the scientific consensus; he points to the evidence that isn't there and seeks out the things that can't be proved.
GEORGE GILDER’S TAKE:
See: www.nationalreview.com, re May 5, 2008 issue, Vol. LX, No. 8, page 58, “Blinkered Sages,” with review by George Gilder of book by David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions:
As Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg sums up the argument, in a transparent tautology preening as science, “Any scientists who study nature must live in a part of the landscape where physical parameters take values suitable for the appearance of life and its evolution into scientists.”
....
... this stupendous circularity is called the Anthropic Principle and is touted as an explanation of the universe superior to the idea of God. As Dawkins puts it, “Better many worlds than one god.”
....
But Dawkins affirms, if a tornado cannot do the job of creating life, then God cannot do the job of creating the Universe.... The ultimate 747 gambit, Dawkins writes, “comes close to proving that God does not exist.” Got that?
....
Berlinski concludes that “the willingness of physical scientists to explore such strategies in thought might suggest to a perceptive psychoanalyst a desire not so much to discover a new idea as to avoid an old one.”
....
The scientific community remains oblivious to these problems chiefly because of its insularity and defensiveness, protected by a trumpery of “peer review” and immunity to outside criticism.
....
... expressions not of bottom-up random processes but of heirarchical planning in which the ideas and schematics precede their physical embodiment.
....
Reifying mathematics and pushing its equations to extremes that could not be sustained in a Godelian universe, grand scientific theories lost all contact with the foundations of engineering reality.
....
Bill Buckley, in his final days, declared: “Berlinski’s book is everything desirable; it is idiomatic, profound, brilliantly polemical, amusing, and of course vastly learned. I congratulate him.”
MY TAKE:
First off, I would define each “holography” as consisting of all that manifests in respect of the interpretation of a sensing perspective.
I intuit that a holography may not in indefinite continuity present a perception of an accelerating dissipation at its fringes without synchronously presenting a continuing sensation of accelerating sentience in respect of its conscious core.
An appreciation of “anthropic coincidentalism” may enlighten three universal attributes:
1) HOLOGRAPHY: A role for holographic continuity in facilitating the guiding, interacting with, and rendering of our consciousness by Something that is not merely physically random, and which is beyond definite discreteness in particle physics;
2) WILL: a complex concentration of Will (spirituality beyond reduction to physics) at each local core of conscious sentience, which somehow reacts in appreciation of feedback in respect of interpretations of physically sensed perceptions of randomness at or beyond fringes of its control;
3) INCOMPLETENESS: an inherent incompleteness in any suggestion that all complexity and consciousness of “The Universe As A Whole” is dissipating.
In other words, anthropic coincidentalism is no answer for discrediting a Source (aka, “God”) beyond physics that guides intuitions and interactions among our respective holographies.
EDGING ASIMOV:
Sensing silliness in religious inclinations for imaging a God who dispenses eternal justice based on temporal trivialities (such as how one may mentally process magic word formulas of belief), Isaac Asimov, in youth, proclaimed himself an atheist. In maturity, rather than focusing upon what he did not believe, he tried to express what he did believe, considered under a rubric of “humanism.”
But, reflect on some notions Asimov expressed, such as in Foundation’s Edge. In a way of thinking, there seems little therein that need be inconsistent with a mature notion about God. I doubt Asimov meant Gaia is like wysiwyg (what you see if what you get). Rather, by Gaia, I suspect he was referring to that living ineffability that consciously represents that which is represented by us and to us.
Asimov fancied a living Gaia, spreading into a living Galaxia. As a conception for modeling reality of consciousness, what would be other than rational to consider that Asimov’ian Galaxia is what we have always had? Apart from degree of anthropic representation, what difference is there between Galaxia now and Galaxia later?
Concerning an Interconnecting Consciousness (God?) as a basis for enlightened empathy, was Asimov “really” an atheist?
WIKIPEDIA’S TAKE ON AUTHOR OF THE DEVIL’S DELUSION:
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Berlinski :
David Berlinski (born 1942 in New York City) is an educator and author of popular books on mathematics. He is a leading critic of evolution within the intelligent design movement and author of numerous articles on the topic. Berlinksi is a secular Jew and self-described agnostic, and according to a 2008 Slate magazine profile "a critic, a contrarian, and — by his own admission — a crank."
....
An outspoken critic of evolution, Berlinski is a Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, a Seattle-based think-tank that is hub of the intelligent design movement. Berslinski shares the movement's disbelief in the evidence for evolution, but does not openly avow intelligent design and describes his relationship with the idea as: "warm but distant. It's the same attitude that I display in public toward my ex-wives."
....
He uses uncertainty to challenge the scientific consensus; he points to the evidence that isn't there and seeks out the things that can't be proved.
GEORGE GILDER’S TAKE:
See: www.nationalreview.com, re May 5, 2008 issue, Vol. LX, No. 8, page 58, “Blinkered Sages,” with review by George Gilder of book by David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions:
As Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg sums up the argument, in a transparent tautology preening as science, “Any scientists who study nature must live in a part of the landscape where physical parameters take values suitable for the appearance of life and its evolution into scientists.”
....
... this stupendous circularity is called the Anthropic Principle and is touted as an explanation of the universe superior to the idea of God. As Dawkins puts it, “Better many worlds than one god.”
....
But Dawkins affirms, if a tornado cannot do the job of creating life, then God cannot do the job of creating the Universe.... The ultimate 747 gambit, Dawkins writes, “comes close to proving that God does not exist.” Got that?
....
Berlinski concludes that “the willingness of physical scientists to explore such strategies in thought might suggest to a perceptive psychoanalyst a desire not so much to discover a new idea as to avoid an old one.”
....
The scientific community remains oblivious to these problems chiefly because of its insularity and defensiveness, protected by a trumpery of “peer review” and immunity to outside criticism.
....
... expressions not of bottom-up random processes but of heirarchical planning in which the ideas and schematics precede their physical embodiment.
....
Reifying mathematics and pushing its equations to extremes that could not be sustained in a Godelian universe, grand scientific theories lost all contact with the foundations of engineering reality.
....
Bill Buckley, in his final days, declared: “Berlinski’s book is everything desirable; it is idiomatic, profound, brilliantly polemical, amusing, and of course vastly learned. I congratulate him.”
MY TAKE:
First off, I would define each “holography” as consisting of all that manifests in respect of the interpretation of a sensing perspective.
I intuit that a holography may not in indefinite continuity present a perception of an accelerating dissipation at its fringes without synchronously presenting a continuing sensation of accelerating sentience in respect of its conscious core.
An appreciation of “anthropic coincidentalism” may enlighten three universal attributes:
1) HOLOGRAPHY: A role for holographic continuity in facilitating the guiding, interacting with, and rendering of our consciousness by Something that is not merely physically random, and which is beyond definite discreteness in particle physics;
2) WILL: a complex concentration of Will (spirituality beyond reduction to physics) at each local core of conscious sentience, which somehow reacts in appreciation of feedback in respect of interpretations of physically sensed perceptions of randomness at or beyond fringes of its control;
3) INCOMPLETENESS: an inherent incompleteness in any suggestion that all complexity and consciousness of “The Universe As A Whole” is dissipating.
In other words, anthropic coincidentalism is no answer for discrediting a Source (aka, “God”) beyond physics that guides intuitions and interactions among our respective holographies.
EDGING ASIMOV:
Sensing silliness in religious inclinations for imaging a God who dispenses eternal justice based on temporal trivialities (such as how one may mentally process magic word formulas of belief), Isaac Asimov, in youth, proclaimed himself an atheist. In maturity, rather than focusing upon what he did not believe, he tried to express what he did believe, considered under a rubric of “humanism.”
But, reflect on some notions Asimov expressed, such as in Foundation’s Edge. In a way of thinking, there seems little therein that need be inconsistent with a mature notion about God. I doubt Asimov meant Gaia is like wysiwyg (what you see if what you get). Rather, by Gaia, I suspect he was referring to that living ineffability that consciously represents that which is represented by us and to us.
Asimov fancied a living Gaia, spreading into a living Galaxia. As a conception for modeling reality of consciousness, what would be other than rational to consider that Asimov’ian Galaxia is what we have always had? Apart from degree of anthropic representation, what difference is there between Galaxia now and Galaxia later?
Concerning an Interconnecting Consciousness (God?) as a basis for enlightened empathy, was Asimov “really” an atheist?
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Edging Asimov
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Edging Asimov:
Sensing silliness in religious inclinations for imaging a God who dispenses eternal justice based on temporal trivialities (such as how one may mentally process magic word formulas of belief), Isaac Asimov, in youth, proclaimed himself an atheist. In maturity, rather than focusing upon what he did not believe, he tried to express what he did believe, considered under a rubric of “humanism.”
But, reflect on some notions Asimov expressed, such as in Foundation’s Edge. In a way of thinking, there seems little therein that need be inconsistent with a mature notion about God. I doubt Asimov meant Gaia is like wysiwyg (what you see if what you get). Rather, by Gaia, I suspect he was referring to that living ineffability that consciously represents that which is represented by us and to us.
Asimov fancied a living Gaia, spreading into a living Galaxia. As a conception for modeling reality of consciousness, what would be other than rational to consider that Asimov’ian Galaxia is what we have always had? Apart from degree of anthropic representation, what difference is there between Galaxia now and Galaxia later?
Concerning an interconnecting Consciousness as a basis for enlightened empathy, was Asimov “really” an atheist?
Edging Asimov:
Sensing silliness in religious inclinations for imaging a God who dispenses eternal justice based on temporal trivialities (such as how one may mentally process magic word formulas of belief), Isaac Asimov, in youth, proclaimed himself an atheist. In maturity, rather than focusing upon what he did not believe, he tried to express what he did believe, considered under a rubric of “humanism.”
But, reflect on some notions Asimov expressed, such as in Foundation’s Edge. In a way of thinking, there seems little therein that need be inconsistent with a mature notion about God. I doubt Asimov meant Gaia is like wysiwyg (what you see if what you get). Rather, by Gaia, I suspect he was referring to that living ineffability that consciously represents that which is represented by us and to us.
Asimov fancied a living Gaia, spreading into a living Galaxia. As a conception for modeling reality of consciousness, what would be other than rational to consider that Asimov’ian Galaxia is what we have always had? Apart from degree of anthropic representation, what difference is there between Galaxia now and Galaxia later?
Concerning an interconnecting Consciousness as a basis for enlightened empathy, was Asimov “really” an atheist?
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
HUMANISM’S LEFT TURN
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
HUMANISM’S LEFT TURN:
Some quotes snipped from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism :
Humanists endorse universal morality based on the commonality of the human condition, suggesting that solutions to human social and cultural problems cannot be parochial.
….
Humanism clearly rejects deference to supernatural beliefs in resolving human affairs but not necessarily the beliefs themselves; indeed some strains of Humanism are compatible with some religions.
….
In the United States, the Supreme Court recognized that Humanism is equivalent to a religion in the limited sense of authorizing Humanists to conduct ceremonies commonly carried out by officers of religious bodies.
….
According to Humanism, it is up to humans to find the truth, as opposed to seeking it through revelation, mysticism, tradition, or anything else that is incompatible with the application of logic to the observable evidence. In demanding that humans avoid blindly accepting unsupported beliefs, it supports scientific skepticism and the scientific method, rejecting authoritarianism and extreme skepticism, and rendering faith an unacceptable basis for action.
****
CRITIQUE OF SUCH INTERPRETATIONS OF HUMANISM:
I greatly admire the humanist valuing of rationality --- except when it turns rationality against itself.
Many expressions and interpretations of humanity --- such as tradition, history, sacred stories, parables, and customs --- come to represent more than mere symbols, and come also to represent emotionally conditioned investments in cultural aesthetics and polite sensibilities. Thus, it comes to make rational and moral sense to respect such expressions of humanity, regardless of whether or not they may otherwise be founded in pure logic.
Indeed much, if not all, that humans consider valuable in life (such as spirituality, soul, music, poetry, beauty, comedy, tragedy, drama, and companionship) depends upon conditioning and assimilating tastes, fashions, and interests, which may well have little, if any, basis in pure logic.
To hold all sacred traditions as either worthless or worthy only of deconstruction (unless logic can demonstrate their value) would be to annihilate much, if not all, of what is entailed, both, in being moral and in being human.
Except in figuratively modeled relations, we do not appreciate music, poetry, beauty, comedy, tragedy, drama, and companionship. We no more appreciate or measure such things directly than do we directly appreciate or measure spirituality, soul, or “God.”
Obviously, it would make little rational sense to annihilate music merely because it evades being captured in pure empiricism or rationality, devoid of emotional conditioning.
Likewise, it makes little rational sense to try to annihilate religion merely because the only way religion can meaningfully approach truth is with figures of speech and sacred parables (whose contextual meaningfulness ever changes and assimilates anew, in respect of our ever changing society).
While there is much in Humanism that I greatly admire, there is also much that suggests its leaders have misplaced, if not annihilated, their moral compasses.
To hope to endure, a moral civilization can ill afford to lose faith in the value of inculcating empathetic good faith among its members. For Humanists to devalue all faith is to devalue the only real glue of civilization.
In respect of good faith, mere physics offers no substitute “particle of faith.” And mere rationality offers no basis for valuing, devaluing, choosing or favoring anything, whether species, form, material, or ideal. Yet, we have no choice but to make choices!
Even a “non-choice” must, in some relation, be taken as a choice. (Just ask Carla Jean, in the movie No Country For Old Men (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Country_for_Old_Men_(film).
So, in respect of what fundamental rock should civilization set its moral compass?
LIBERATING EVIL:
Well, under any serious inquiry, does it not seem that monetarist, materialist, libertine, liberal and humanist philosophers have abandoned any serious effort to comprehend a moral compass by which to guide civilization?
We have no shortage of philosophers for justifying the preservation of our earthly environment, but few for justifying the preservation, much less the propagation, of civilization.
We have plenty of smart professors in academia. So, why does there seem to be so much imbalance in what they are rationalizing, teaching, justifying, and leading? What may explain this? Is there some sort of imbalance in “the force”?
What of spiritual philosophers? Is it not readily apparent that followers and money are ripe for the picking? Given our present state of affairs, what sell-out of mediocre intelligence and self love could not find a niche for inventing and selling his/her own special brand of “liberation theology”?
Presently, no prevailing or assimilating vision, code, or norm of yore is trusted if it offends the exotic desires or mores of each newly evolving minority’s preferences or needs in respect of pleasure, sex, ceremony, liberation theology, dress, diet, language, gang, tribe, race, or alliance.
So, who among our esteemed elites and professors has very well considered what forces may be converging, or what aspects of human freedom and dignity may likely die or emerge as a result? Anyone? Anyone?
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Humanist_Association. No doubt, a Humanist Association could/should be a vital and important resource for rationalizing and inculcating civilizing mores. So, why, since 1984 --- apart from E.O. Wilson, William Schulz, Stephen Jay Gould, and perhaps a few others --- has the AHA elected as presidents so few who seem not to be weighted either towards angry atheism or deconstructive justification of every cheap thrill that can find support in some minority?
Where and when has the AHA, Walden II Society, or any moral philosopher, recently found spine enough to advocate a strong basis (or ANY basis) for disapproving of bestiality, polyamory, pedophilia, Nambla, race baiting politics, victim pleading politics, glorification of gang violence, recruiting of children as drug mules, nations bent on imposing Sharia law, annihilation of civilized borders, or laid back toleration of foreclosure on Western Civilization?
HUMANISM’S LEFT TURN:
Some quotes snipped from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism :
Humanists endorse universal morality based on the commonality of the human condition, suggesting that solutions to human social and cultural problems cannot be parochial.
….
Humanism clearly rejects deference to supernatural beliefs in resolving human affairs but not necessarily the beliefs themselves; indeed some strains of Humanism are compatible with some religions.
….
In the United States, the Supreme Court recognized that Humanism is equivalent to a religion in the limited sense of authorizing Humanists to conduct ceremonies commonly carried out by officers of religious bodies.
….
According to Humanism, it is up to humans to find the truth, as opposed to seeking it through revelation, mysticism, tradition, or anything else that is incompatible with the application of logic to the observable evidence. In demanding that humans avoid blindly accepting unsupported beliefs, it supports scientific skepticism and the scientific method, rejecting authoritarianism and extreme skepticism, and rendering faith an unacceptable basis for action.
****
CRITIQUE OF SUCH INTERPRETATIONS OF HUMANISM:
I greatly admire the humanist valuing of rationality --- except when it turns rationality against itself.
Many expressions and interpretations of humanity --- such as tradition, history, sacred stories, parables, and customs --- come to represent more than mere symbols, and come also to represent emotionally conditioned investments in cultural aesthetics and polite sensibilities. Thus, it comes to make rational and moral sense to respect such expressions of humanity, regardless of whether or not they may otherwise be founded in pure logic.
Indeed much, if not all, that humans consider valuable in life (such as spirituality, soul, music, poetry, beauty, comedy, tragedy, drama, and companionship) depends upon conditioning and assimilating tastes, fashions, and interests, which may well have little, if any, basis in pure logic.
To hold all sacred traditions as either worthless or worthy only of deconstruction (unless logic can demonstrate their value) would be to annihilate much, if not all, of what is entailed, both, in being moral and in being human.
Except in figuratively modeled relations, we do not appreciate music, poetry, beauty, comedy, tragedy, drama, and companionship. We no more appreciate or measure such things directly than do we directly appreciate or measure spirituality, soul, or “God.”
Obviously, it would make little rational sense to annihilate music merely because it evades being captured in pure empiricism or rationality, devoid of emotional conditioning.
Likewise, it makes little rational sense to try to annihilate religion merely because the only way religion can meaningfully approach truth is with figures of speech and sacred parables (whose contextual meaningfulness ever changes and assimilates anew, in respect of our ever changing society).
While there is much in Humanism that I greatly admire, there is also much that suggests its leaders have misplaced, if not annihilated, their moral compasses.
To hope to endure, a moral civilization can ill afford to lose faith in the value of inculcating empathetic good faith among its members. For Humanists to devalue all faith is to devalue the only real glue of civilization.
In respect of good faith, mere physics offers no substitute “particle of faith.” And mere rationality offers no basis for valuing, devaluing, choosing or favoring anything, whether species, form, material, or ideal. Yet, we have no choice but to make choices!
Even a “non-choice” must, in some relation, be taken as a choice. (Just ask Carla Jean, in the movie No Country For Old Men (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Country_for_Old_Men_(film).
So, in respect of what fundamental rock should civilization set its moral compass?
LIBERATING EVIL:
Well, under any serious inquiry, does it not seem that monetarist, materialist, libertine, liberal and humanist philosophers have abandoned any serious effort to comprehend a moral compass by which to guide civilization?
We have no shortage of philosophers for justifying the preservation of our earthly environment, but few for justifying the preservation, much less the propagation, of civilization.
We have plenty of smart professors in academia. So, why does there seem to be so much imbalance in what they are rationalizing, teaching, justifying, and leading? What may explain this? Is there some sort of imbalance in “the force”?
What of spiritual philosophers? Is it not readily apparent that followers and money are ripe for the picking? Given our present state of affairs, what sell-out of mediocre intelligence and self love could not find a niche for inventing and selling his/her own special brand of “liberation theology”?
Presently, no prevailing or assimilating vision, code, or norm of yore is trusted if it offends the exotic desires or mores of each newly evolving minority’s preferences or needs in respect of pleasure, sex, ceremony, liberation theology, dress, diet, language, gang, tribe, race, or alliance.
So, who among our esteemed elites and professors has very well considered what forces may be converging, or what aspects of human freedom and dignity may likely die or emerge as a result? Anyone? Anyone?
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Humanist_Association. No doubt, a Humanist Association could/should be a vital and important resource for rationalizing and inculcating civilizing mores. So, why, since 1984 --- apart from E.O. Wilson, William Schulz, Stephen Jay Gould, and perhaps a few others --- has the AHA elected as presidents so few who seem not to be weighted either towards angry atheism or deconstructive justification of every cheap thrill that can find support in some minority?
Where and when has the AHA, Walden II Society, or any moral philosopher, recently found spine enough to advocate a strong basis (or ANY basis) for disapproving of bestiality, polyamory, pedophilia, Nambla, race baiting politics, victim pleading politics, glorification of gang violence, recruiting of children as drug mules, nations bent on imposing Sharia law, annihilation of civilized borders, or laid back toleration of foreclosure on Western Civilization?
Dignity Within Indefiniteness
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Dignity Within Indefiniteness:
I suspect it is not “THE universe” whose entropy potential shows dissipation within a system that is finite yet unbounded.
Rather, it is only “A-universe-as-we-commonly-experience-and-interpret-it
-from-our-holographically-overlapping-perspective” whose entropy and/or organizational potential we experience as dissipating.
Of course, humanity’s shared interpretative experience of entropy is essential to our interpretative experience of a sequentially shared and communicable story line.
However, beyond our story line, perhaps enveloped within some sort of dark energy, mathematics may implicate the existence of other holographically interpretative experiences, wherein entropy may be experienced as proceeding at different (or even non-comparable) rates.
Within possibilities of existential expressiveness, perhaps it is only the quality and locus of one’s perspective of Will which govern that which should rationally be considered and distinguished as being purely random, partly random, partly willed, and wholly determined.
In other words, such words, i.e., “random, partly random, partly willed, and wholly determined,” do not necessarily say anything definite at all about THE universe. Rather, the usefulness of such words seems to be limited to our shared anthropic perspective. Now, that seems justly ironic, given the common admonition among scientists to avoid anthropic rationalizations!
I wonder whether a gifted mathematician may be able to demonstrate some such conjecture, as a sort of “Turing Corollary To Math Flesh And Free Will”?
Dignity Within Indefiniteness:
I suspect it is not “THE universe” whose entropy potential shows dissipation within a system that is finite yet unbounded.
Rather, it is only “A-universe-as-we-commonly-experience-and-interpret-it
-from-our-holographically-overlapping-perspective” whose entropy and/or organizational potential we experience as dissipating.
Of course, humanity’s shared interpretative experience of entropy is essential to our interpretative experience of a sequentially shared and communicable story line.
However, beyond our story line, perhaps enveloped within some sort of dark energy, mathematics may implicate the existence of other holographically interpretative experiences, wherein entropy may be experienced as proceeding at different (or even non-comparable) rates.
Within possibilities of existential expressiveness, perhaps it is only the quality and locus of one’s perspective of Will which govern that which should rationally be considered and distinguished as being purely random, partly random, partly willed, and wholly determined.
In other words, such words, i.e., “random, partly random, partly willed, and wholly determined,” do not necessarily say anything definite at all about THE universe. Rather, the usefulness of such words seems to be limited to our shared anthropic perspective. Now, that seems justly ironic, given the common admonition among scientists to avoid anthropic rationalizations!
I wonder whether a gifted mathematician may be able to demonstrate some such conjecture, as a sort of “Turing Corollary To Math Flesh And Free Will”?
Monday, May 5, 2008
Anthropic Ships Passing
(by Dlanorrenrag*)
Anthropic Ships Passing Indefinitely In The Darkness Of Space:
It is a good laugh to watch as physicists engage delusions for measuring the “changing heat and informational entropy of our universe as a whole,” qua universe (as if any mortal could measure anything as an independent whole). In good humor, then, taking our universe as a whole: are physicists suggesting the extent, degree, or level of organization of our universe as a whole is becoming greater or lesser? With a straight face, which physicists imagine they are really measuring apples against apples, as they seek to extrapolate generalizations as a whole about any aspect of our universe, in respect of extent, degree and/or level?
No matter how one conjures or labels, our universe becomes no less a universe, does it not? Within our universe, is not every interpretation and experience necessarily subjective to each holographically different point of view (regardless that many subjective interpretations will touch and concern various overlapping commonalities)?
In what “sense of objective definiteness,” then, are physicists saying “definite things” about our universe? Are not physicists’ attempts at definiteness necessarily limited to their respecting or assuming of anthropic points of view?
From my anthropic point of view, I appreciate that the entropy of my present form of perspective of consciousness changes. I appreciate that I am mortal, my time is limited, and my physical body must eventually undo into dust. So, in generalizing from my limited, trivial, anthropic perspective, what could justify me to assume that the universe (whatever that is)(or even existence) must itself be becoming less organized? What sort of “rationality” could justify me to assume that some aspect of consciousness in which my consciousness shares does not simply transition, in order to assume a different perspective within a different form of universe or existence?
Sure, I accept that “universe as I experience it” proceeds along a general sequence of heat dissipation, punctuated by locally increasing complexities in informational organization. But then, for spiritual purposes, I ask: So what? How or why, then, should any sensible being deduce that whatever authored our universe must Itself be becoming less organized (or less anything)?
Against scientists’ efforts to set scales in order to measure or say “definite things” about our universe, may not dark matter and/or energy simply express a shrug, as scales are reset anew for each conscious perspective’s assumption of a new form and/or point of view?
Punt anthropic!
Anthropic Ships Passing Indefinitely In The Darkness Of Space:
It is a good laugh to watch as physicists engage delusions for measuring the “changing heat and informational entropy of our universe as a whole,” qua universe (as if any mortal could measure anything as an independent whole). In good humor, then, taking our universe as a whole: are physicists suggesting the extent, degree, or level of organization of our universe as a whole is becoming greater or lesser? With a straight face, which physicists imagine they are really measuring apples against apples, as they seek to extrapolate generalizations as a whole about any aspect of our universe, in respect of extent, degree and/or level?
No matter how one conjures or labels, our universe becomes no less a universe, does it not? Within our universe, is not every interpretation and experience necessarily subjective to each holographically different point of view (regardless that many subjective interpretations will touch and concern various overlapping commonalities)?
In what “sense of objective definiteness,” then, are physicists saying “definite things” about our universe? Are not physicists’ attempts at definiteness necessarily limited to their respecting or assuming of anthropic points of view?
From my anthropic point of view, I appreciate that the entropy of my present form of perspective of consciousness changes. I appreciate that I am mortal, my time is limited, and my physical body must eventually undo into dust. So, in generalizing from my limited, trivial, anthropic perspective, what could justify me to assume that the universe (whatever that is)(or even existence) must itself be becoming less organized? What sort of “rationality” could justify me to assume that some aspect of consciousness in which my consciousness shares does not simply transition, in order to assume a different perspective within a different form of universe or existence?
Sure, I accept that “universe as I experience it” proceeds along a general sequence of heat dissipation, punctuated by locally increasing complexities in informational organization. But then, for spiritual purposes, I ask: So what? How or why, then, should any sensible being deduce that whatever authored our universe must Itself be becoming less organized (or less anything)?
Against scientists’ efforts to set scales in order to measure or say “definite things” about our universe, may not dark matter and/or energy simply express a shrug, as scales are reset anew for each conscious perspective’s assumption of a new form and/or point of view?
Punt anthropic!
Sunday, May 4, 2008
GETTING IT
GETTING IT:
Dave,
I came across an article by Steven Weinberg. I think it is interesting, not for its insight or logic, but for its demonstration of a constricted way of thinking --- which seems to be quite prevalent. (The Anthropic tendency seems to be weakness that confers opportunities equally, to believers and atheists alike.)
But, I may be wrong.
*****
See http://www.physlink.com/Education/essay_weinberg.cfm:
“So there seems to be an irreducible mystery that science will not eliminate.
But religious theories of design have the same problem. Either you mean something definite by a God, a designer, or you don't. If you don't, then what are we talking about?”
Regarding “what are we talking about:” I suspect Steven Weinberg may “get it,” but simply be too focused to deem it worthwhile in his narrow world to let on about it. To “get it,” just ask: What is “it” that seems always to have been most fundamental about God? Does it not relate to the need for each sentient perspective of consciousness to connect, communicate, and empathize with other such perspectives, and to inculcate in them a belief or respect that they should return the favor? Most fundamentally, is not “God” the believed source and shared basis for such interconnecting empathy (and associated sense of higher or poetic meaningfulness) in consciousness?
Regarding how such empathy should be expressed in specific terms, there is not so much need to prove it out. Indeed, were specifics dictated, we would be less than freely sentient beings. Mr. Weinberg seems jealous that spirituality might conceit to intrude into empirical specifics. However, for making specific moral choices, enlightened spiritual believers rely on faith, intuition, and judgment --- not on empirical, scientific proof. It is quite simple, actually, to “get it:” Simply review Stephen Gould’s notion of “NOMA.”
Regardless, absent some such respect or inculcation for common intuition of moral propriety or civilizing empathy, what would Mr. Weinberg offer, as an alternative, as basis for inspiring us to gather in good faith in order to seek and be receptive to moral guidance?
Regarding: “It seems a bit unfair to my relatives to be murdered in order to provide an opportunity for free will for Germans, but even putting that aside, how does free will account for cancer? Is it an opportunity of free will for tumors?”
Interesting: Is not Weinberg here resorting to a sort of reverse kind of anthropic reasoning or "selection effect," to promote himself as judge of the fairness of God?
Yet, not being God, we are only temporal perspectives of consciousness.
We phase in and out; we die; we evolve; we may even transcend.
Why on earth should anyone suppose that, for God to “be fair,” we should forever be sustained in Eden?
Regarding “free will for tumors:” For free will, consider beyond physics, tumors, and bodies. Instead, consider the perspective that is doing the considering. That perspective is what accompanies one’s entire holography; it is not confined to one’s brain, skull, or body. In other words, experiencing free will is an aspect of consciousness of holography; it is not reducible merely to an aspect of physics.
Regarding: “I know, I know, we are not supposed to judge God according to human standards, but you see the problem here: If we are not yet convinced of His existence, and are looking for signs of His benevolence, then what other standards can we use.”
No, I do not see the problem. A rational person does not look strictly to empirical signs to evidence God. A rational person looks to intuition of consciousness and empathy. A rational person does not mix magesteria that cannot be mixed. (Advice: Remedially reread NOMA above; repeat as needed.)
Regarding: “The prestige of religion seems today to derive from what people take to be its moral influence, rather than from what they may think has been its success in accounting for what we see in nature. Conversely, I have to admit that, although I really don't believe in a cosmic designer, the reason that I am taking the trouble to argue about it is that I think that on balance the moral influence of religion has been awful.”
Now, this again is interesting. Is Weinberg suggesting he would accept religion were its moral influence more benign? (I doubt it.) Even if so, how would he deign to measure “awful” vs. “benign” ---- holistically, I mean? Is Weinberg saying we cannot, in good faith, evolve in our appreciation of religion and sacred parables and histories? Is he saying we could better evolve in morality and good faith were we to jettison all notions of religion, God, and moral spirituality? If so, just what is the historical, empirical, scientific basis for such a grand presumption by such a narrowly focused person? Should we put progeny of B.F Skinner in charge and make Walden Two the model for our world? If so, please demonstrate why --- scientifically.
Regarding: “… it is hard to imagine Nazism taking the form it did without the foundation provided by centuries of Christian anti-Semitism.”
Well, not everyone finds it quite so hard to imagine. After WWI, Germany was looking for scapegoats, and it had them, and not just in Jews. What else have scientists done, eugenically and experimentally, with monkeys, dogs, frogs …. Does Weinberg just assume irreligious scientists would deal with everyone else under a sort of noblesse oblige? My goodness --- what of the Stalinists, Maoists, and organ harvesting Chinese?
Regarding: “One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious.”
Well, rational folks do not begrudge Weinberg his right to not be religious. But, if Weinberg does not quite mean to say that intelligent people cannot be religious, then his rather gratuitous insult seems close to a smoking gun for PRECISELY WHAT BEN STEIN WAS SAYING, in his recent movie, Expelled.
*****
BTW --- I enjoyed Asimov's Foundation's Edge. Asimov at one time called himself an atheist. Later, he called himself a Humanist, feeling it more appropriate to emphasize what he believed, rather than what he did not believe.
Regardless of what he called his conception of an interconnecting consciousness (Gaia/Galaxia) in Foundation's Edge, it seems not very far removed from what I would conceive to be "God." If consciousness has potential to interconnect, it seems relatively unimportant to try to imagine whether God learns or already knew everything at the time of an "original design." Makes me wonder whether Asimov would consider me an "atheist."
Dave,
I came across an article by Steven Weinberg. I think it is interesting, not for its insight or logic, but for its demonstration of a constricted way of thinking --- which seems to be quite prevalent. (The Anthropic tendency seems to be weakness that confers opportunities equally, to believers and atheists alike.)
But, I may be wrong.
*****
See http://www.physlink.com/Education/essay_weinberg.cfm:
“So there seems to be an irreducible mystery that science will not eliminate.
But religious theories of design have the same problem. Either you mean something definite by a God, a designer, or you don't. If you don't, then what are we talking about?”
Regarding “what are we talking about:” I suspect Steven Weinberg may “get it,” but simply be too focused to deem it worthwhile in his narrow world to let on about it. To “get it,” just ask: What is “it” that seems always to have been most fundamental about God? Does it not relate to the need for each sentient perspective of consciousness to connect, communicate, and empathize with other such perspectives, and to inculcate in them a belief or respect that they should return the favor? Most fundamentally, is not “God” the believed source and shared basis for such interconnecting empathy (and associated sense of higher or poetic meaningfulness) in consciousness?
Regarding how such empathy should be expressed in specific terms, there is not so much need to prove it out. Indeed, were specifics dictated, we would be less than freely sentient beings. Mr. Weinberg seems jealous that spirituality might conceit to intrude into empirical specifics. However, for making specific moral choices, enlightened spiritual believers rely on faith, intuition, and judgment --- not on empirical, scientific proof. It is quite simple, actually, to “get it:” Simply review Stephen Gould’s notion of “NOMA.”
Regardless, absent some such respect or inculcation for common intuition of moral propriety or civilizing empathy, what would Mr. Weinberg offer, as an alternative, as basis for inspiring us to gather in good faith in order to seek and be receptive to moral guidance?
Regarding: “It seems a bit unfair to my relatives to be murdered in order to provide an opportunity for free will for Germans, but even putting that aside, how does free will account for cancer? Is it an opportunity of free will for tumors?”
Interesting: Is not Weinberg here resorting to a sort of reverse kind of anthropic reasoning or "selection effect," to promote himself as judge of the fairness of God?
Yet, not being God, we are only temporal perspectives of consciousness.
We phase in and out; we die; we evolve; we may even transcend.
Why on earth should anyone suppose that, for God to “be fair,” we should forever be sustained in Eden?
Regarding “free will for tumors:” For free will, consider beyond physics, tumors, and bodies. Instead, consider the perspective that is doing the considering. That perspective is what accompanies one’s entire holography; it is not confined to one’s brain, skull, or body. In other words, experiencing free will is an aspect of consciousness of holography; it is not reducible merely to an aspect of physics.
Regarding: “I know, I know, we are not supposed to judge God according to human standards, but you see the problem here: If we are not yet convinced of His existence, and are looking for signs of His benevolence, then what other standards can we use.”
No, I do not see the problem. A rational person does not look strictly to empirical signs to evidence God. A rational person looks to intuition of consciousness and empathy. A rational person does not mix magesteria that cannot be mixed. (Advice: Remedially reread NOMA above; repeat as needed.)
Regarding: “The prestige of religion seems today to derive from what people take to be its moral influence, rather than from what they may think has been its success in accounting for what we see in nature. Conversely, I have to admit that, although I really don't believe in a cosmic designer, the reason that I am taking the trouble to argue about it is that I think that on balance the moral influence of religion has been awful.”
Now, this again is interesting. Is Weinberg suggesting he would accept religion were its moral influence more benign? (I doubt it.) Even if so, how would he deign to measure “awful” vs. “benign” ---- holistically, I mean? Is Weinberg saying we cannot, in good faith, evolve in our appreciation of religion and sacred parables and histories? Is he saying we could better evolve in morality and good faith were we to jettison all notions of religion, God, and moral spirituality? If so, just what is the historical, empirical, scientific basis for such a grand presumption by such a narrowly focused person? Should we put progeny of B.F Skinner in charge and make Walden Two the model for our world? If so, please demonstrate why --- scientifically.
Regarding: “… it is hard to imagine Nazism taking the form it did without the foundation provided by centuries of Christian anti-Semitism.”
Well, not everyone finds it quite so hard to imagine. After WWI, Germany was looking for scapegoats, and it had them, and not just in Jews. What else have scientists done, eugenically and experimentally, with monkeys, dogs, frogs …. Does Weinberg just assume irreligious scientists would deal with everyone else under a sort of noblesse oblige? My goodness --- what of the Stalinists, Maoists, and organ harvesting Chinese?
Regarding: “One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious.”
Well, rational folks do not begrudge Weinberg his right to not be religious. But, if Weinberg does not quite mean to say that intelligent people cannot be religious, then his rather gratuitous insult seems close to a smoking gun for PRECISELY WHAT BEN STEIN WAS SAYING, in his recent movie, Expelled.
*****
BTW --- I enjoyed Asimov's Foundation's Edge. Asimov at one time called himself an atheist. Later, he called himself a Humanist, feeling it more appropriate to emphasize what he believed, rather than what he did not believe.
Regardless of what he called his conception of an interconnecting consciousness (Gaia/Galaxia) in Foundation's Edge, it seems not very far removed from what I would conceive to be "God." If consciousness has potential to interconnect, it seems relatively unimportant to try to imagine whether God learns or already knew everything at the time of an "original design." Makes me wonder whether Asimov would consider me an "atheist."
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