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nanikore in philosophy

The (non-)Problem of (robotic) Evil

Feb 03, 2006 13:42

-Reasoning is based upon internal and external observations, and any "reasons" would be those that humans think up based upon their perceptions ( Read more... )

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empirical_logic February 3 2006, 22:50:17 UTC

7. By 2, God is omniscient and therefore his mind is infinite.

What if there are only finitely many knowable propositions? Why would a mind have to be infinite in order to know only finitely many knowable proposions? If you think that there are infinitely many knowable propositions, why do you think so? However, even if it is provably the case that there are infinitely many knowable propositions, if the Christian god can act outside of human reason, why couldn't there still be only finitely many knowable things, thus making the Christian god's omniscient mind finite?

Re: Again, please see the big picture. nanikore February 5 2006, 03:22:30 UTC

Look around and ask around. Did He do that? Aren't you an empiricist?

More importantly, did He make me or you omniscient?

It's like saying "well there could be a pink elephant behind me"

...but is there?

Re: Again, please see the big picture. empirical_logic February 5 2006, 03:26:49 UTC

I'm a logical empiricist.

You're apparently presuming that I believe in a Christian notion of a creator god; I do not. The closest I get is something approaching core Hinduism, but I do not think it's idealistic, as Hinduism apparently does. Spinoza, however, gets pretty close to what I believe, but if you interpret it apart from strict determinism, you get even closer to what I sometimes believe.

Re: Again, please see the big picture. nanikore February 5 2006, 03:32:38 UTC

You're apparently presuming that I believe in a Christian notion of a creator god; I do not.

I presume absolutely nothing, except I thought you were i_am_lane (who is a logical positivist and does not believe in God) Really sorry for the mix-up.... you guys sound like twins. I don't mean that in a demeaning way, because he's one of my LJ buds.

I was a Pantheist before my conversion.

(The comment has been removed)

Re: Again, please see the big picture. nanikore February 5 2006, 06:38:57 UTC

Why can't I have fans like yours?

nanikore February 4 2006, 18:12:55 UTC

Infinitely in sheer number of limited classes, but how about an infinite number of classes?

Away from the fancy language, it would be "something that is beyond your wildest imagination"

airstrip February 4 2006, 01:05:34 UTC

I think that would actually require as many elements or more than those that are present in the system. So if the system you want to understand is all things, it would take a system greater than all things to know. Clearly, there is a problem.

empirical_logic February 4 2006, 04:31:27 UTC

Would it? Why couldn't the system simply be capable of self-reference, as we apparently are?

airstrip February 4 2006, 12:39:30 UTC

Are you implying that we have some sort of personal omniscience now?

empirical_logic February 4 2006, 21:15:58 UTC

I'm not sure that we should rule such out analytically. I will grant that in any system capable of self-reference (second- or higher-order with identity), that there is an unbounded number of truths not derivable from any set of them (finite or non-finite). However, if we conceive of the mind as an emergent result of a finite number of electro-chemical interactions of neural nets, I don't see how there is a principled way to limit those abstract emergent properties; if you take the powersets of the first-order mental properties that emerge from the neural substrate, such continues on unboundedly. Basically, what I'm saying, is that there is apparently no principled reason to think that the human mind is necessary finite.

We are, after all, created in the image of god, according to Christian theists; it would stand to reason that if god is primarly a mental being, that our minds would be that part of us which shares attributes with god.

nanikore February 4 2006, 21:26:24 UTC

there is apparently no principled reason to think that the human mind is necessary finite.

How is it going to cross over the barrier of absolute informational destruction of a white-hole event? Also known as a "big bang event?"

No means.

it would stand to reason that if god is primarly a mental being

Then you're still constructing God, with reason.

It's just another bottled-up God.

Also, non-Christian misinterpret the meaning of "in His image." We do have the goodness, just falling far short.

airstrip February 4 2006, 23:53:24 UTC

I thought it referred to the ability to shape the world at will, thus the importance of the story of Adam naming all the animals.

nanikore February 5 2006, 01:47:48 UTC

I have not heard of that interpretation before. The ones I have heard are those of character.

empirical_logic February 5 2006, 02:35:41 UTC

How is something that's crossed over the barrier of a while-hole event not knowable-in-principle? Unless you're going to deny that your god gets to preserve information across white-hole events, the informational destruction is not absolute.

I see no utility in any conception of deity that is alogical. This is nothing but a discussion of religion; it is not academic philosophy and I have no desire to take part in a debate about the dogma of some human institution or another.

nanikore February 5 2006, 03:05:41 UTC

Knowable to God

Not knowable to humans unless we can reconstruct info out of nothing

I see no utility in a conception of God that makes him either a giant robot in the sky or a giant candy machine in the sky

Humans are plenty arational also, news at eleven

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