I see this is going to be another case of me feeling like I fell asleep and woke up in a different galaxy. European cultures have historically never integrated science and philosophy as is common elsewhere. Cultures which do not derive from European ones are less inclined to enforce separation for, truth, the One God is wholly consistent with science. I was originally going to entitle a thread in this forum as God, Computers, and Math. That got postponed when I received email making me aware of the God Within video. Okay, as remarkable as it seems in the year 2012, apparently there are Americans who have never heard of Steven Hawking. He is a white guy, so I guess that renders him insignificant to some. However I have no doubt that SlickBeast has heard of him. Hawking has essentially worn Einstein's mantle in this generation. But, again, he is a white guy and we all know how inferior, oops I mean non-dominant, those people are due to their calcified pineal glands ... Steven Hawking speaks the language of math. Indeed, the language of science is math, particularly calculus. Computers fit in because I assume I am not the only computer programmer here and all programmers know that computers deal with math, specifically binary math. Scientist/programmers use computers to handle the deep math involved in building models of our universe. As I told a friend once who asked me what you do with computer programs I told him anything. Well, that is where God fits in. Anything infers both omnipotence and omniscience --- two of three attributes all philosophies associate with God. And one cannot speak of our universe [ a noun which includes all that is] without brushing up against the third attribute of God --- Omnipresence. Surely, I cannot be the only member of Destee who has recognized these things. So, why all the unease about a thread in a Computers thread which dares to mention the white elephant in the room?
istlota, I like you but seriously. In the medieval days, whiteys used to breathe religion and the little science they had were usually kept by monks. Before Lamarck and Darwin, in Europe every post-evolution theories were centered around god. You are making it sound as if integrating science with philosophy (or spirituality) is a revolutionary idea when in fact it reeks of medieval ideology. Science is what's left of philosophy after you've stripped the latter of all its meat. What's left is useful only for people who likes to argue themselves into a cul-de-sac, William Craig, for example. The point is Europe was no better than everyone else until they left behind the shackles of superstition. This is a lesson for all.
Andromeda is nice this time of year. The bolded part just simply isn't true. Science was actually born out of philosophy and it maintains a branch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science). Karl Popper and Bertrand Russell are pretty well known examples, but basically there's some giants lurking in the various schools of logic, epistemology, and existentialism. In Hawking's latest book (imho), Hawking sort of alludes to the idea that a lot of heritage from philosophy is being absorbed into science. I won't go so far as to say that science is the new home of philosophy, as he did, but I do believe there's merit in the idea itself. My problem isn't that Hawking is white. I just noticed what portions of the video I did watch they did not seem to do his views on the matter justice. It seemed mostly like a romantic fluff piece that hopefully tries to plug into the Einsteinian "religion" that's apart of the culture of physics, astronomy, and cosmology. This idea touches on the history of Turing, Church, Post, etc. and what spun out of the automata theory: finate state machines and UTMs. There's even a theorem about how universal computation is using only a few structures/abilities is capable of doing any computation given the appropriate resources. Conveniently, the proof that there are some problems that can be solved by no algorithm is usually left out of conversations like this. This also mingles with the idea of all things in the universe being states and information (everything is computational matter or everything is inside a computer simulation). The problem for me, leaving aside the above, is the huge chasm between this idea and the belief of a divine creator. It's sort of like those arguments that point to seemingly ordered rules of the physical world mean that they were the product of something intentional. It's also similar to arguments that because, supposedly, Jesus performed miracles he is the son of an all powerful being. Wait, what? How? Surgeons and medicine are capable of blowing bronze/iron age/contemporary minds. Treat leprosy? Check. Re-attaching limbs? Yep. Would they be considered triune gods too? How does the nature of computational possibilities actually bolster the extraordinary conclusion that there must be a god? There's a lot missing to jump from one idea to the other. Interestingly enough, the reason all the work is still ahead of anyone making these claims (including deist arguments) comes from some of that philosophy that gave birth to science and from the philosophy of science. There is no unease about the subject matter of the thread. The question for me was where it should go. Basically, you're arguing for belief in a god and trying to use science as a supporting point for that goal. To me, that means this thread isn't about science itself and there's a section for this sort of content. This also opens it up to more people who want to contribute philosophically.
That is an illuminating choice of words the relevance of which desires a closer look. Sophistic has come to mean deceptive. But it is wise to consider that it is derived from Sophia which literally means wisdom. Now why would wisdom be characterized as deceptive? The answer to that requires considering the historic context and by historic in this case I am talking of European history. The historic context of sophistic can be directly traced back to Plato. He made a distinction between the question and answer approach of Socrates (who was a philosopher) and the more answer than question approach of people such as Homer (who was a poet). He called the latter sophists. But, note, in both cases, we are talking about variations of intellectual thought in the womb of European culture --- Greece. I would add, in particular, that this historic context lies at the root of why/how the most European of modern day religions (Christianity) has so often distrusted science, considering it to be, in essence, sophistic. To quote Pontius Pilate, What Is Truth? That is what this thread is about --- disagreement as to what should be considered Truth and what should be considered sophistic/deceptive. My answer to that question is to to Question Everything, Holding Fast To That Which Proves To Be True. I do not reject, prejudiciously, anything. In particular, I am not intimidated by any idea. My approach is to weigh it against the Feather of Ma'at. Quantum entanglement is not pseudo-science. Now, the idea that calcified pineal glands makes whites stupid? Well, that is markedly pseudo-science. You might ask yourself why you feel more motivated to criticize quantum entanglement as sophistic than the 'science' of melanin oft preached here in what can accurately be described as sophistic pseudo-intellectualizing.
Yes, that is what I am told by my friend Prot from the planet K-Pax. Someone, something, had to create this nature you speak of --- unless you accept Hawking's conviction that everything came from nothing. And, by nothing, he does not mean NoThing aka Atum. He means no god. Accepting his belief requires the sort of blind faith I Left Behind when I escaped from the Matrix of Christianity.