Re: Iconoclasm (was: Chunking intelligence functions)

From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Fri May 11 2001 - 16:01:08 MDT


In a message dated 5/11/2001 7:19:46 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
ben@goertzel.org writes:

<< Indeed, I do think that, at its heart, Western science's quest for "one
true
 equation" underlying everything can be directly derived from Judeochristian
 religion with its "one true god." >>
Ben, there was no real "Judeo-Christian" way of thinking, if we direct our
attention to history and archeology. The was Jewish and there was Christian.
Both systems are hopelessly, flawed; one proselytizes and one doesn't.
Because Roman scholars took Greek Christian translation of the books of Moe
and so forth, and redact it into something useful to Constantine, does not
constitute a Judeo-Christian thesis, though many scholars used to pretend
there was such a genuine article. To your path to the one true equation, I
suspect that if one is a dedicated math head, as opposed to a meth head,
achieving the great equation is Endorphin City (buzz buzz buzzzz). For the
rest of us poor schmucks, we look for an enjoy practical, results.

<<Perhaps the universe is not actually structured such that there is one
compact pattern that explains everything, either in the domain of spiritual
experience or in the domain of physical law. Perhaps there are multiple
overlapping patterns.... This is how it seems right now in the physics
domain -- quantum theory and general relativity being examples of deep,
overlapping, difficult-to-unify patterns -- but we, our archetypal view
being the Judeochristian "one true law" approach, persist in believing there
MUST be an elegant underlying unifying equation.... Perhaps the one who>>

Lee Smolin at Tufts University, seems to agree with that conjecture, when he
responded to Freeman Dyson, on whether Life is digital or analog? He seemed
to think its a mistake claiming life to be either-or. He seems the essence of
theoretical physics, combined with pragmatism.

<<Real truth seems to be an interesting mix of absolutism and relativism;
either extreme attitude is an unproductive one.
I think that a mix of absolutism and relativism is best. Funnily enough,
this is what most humans have evolved to profess.>>

That seems to best describe the universe, doesn't it?

<<It's no individual's opinion, but it may be a mass nonlinear superposition
of many peoples' opinions.

The "physical world" itself may be this, actually. This is the direction in
which quantum gravity leads us.>>

Well, Junior scrapes his knee, he is cut and it bleeds, it stings! Fuck! Now
is this Junior holding onto his Ingrid knee, simply an illusion or a
projection of superposed mass minds, or is the world really an ouch-able
place and whether Junior must deal with stimuli as the self aware central
nervous systems that we are? I go with the world is as we detect it, unless
we have some evidence otherwise.

<<Eli, take a few hits of blotter acid...

     ben >>

Imagines E. Yudkowsky on windowpanes, screaming "Garl Coleman is the
antichrist!" in a supermarket checkout line

Mitch *',.;:* @¿@ ~;..,""**, wow! voob voob voob-buzz buzz-zzz



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