From: Steve Nichols (steve@multisell.com)
Date: Sun Jun 08 2003 - 08:56:29 MDT
>
> Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2003 15:08:23 +1000
> From: "Brett Paatsch" <paatschb@optusnet.com.au>
> Subject: Re: extropians-digest V8 #158
>
> Steve Nichols writes:
>
> > > From: "Brett Paatsch" <paatschb@optusnet.com.au>
> > > > >
> > Sure, 1+1=2 and whole of maths relies on the identity statement
> > 1 = 1 ..... but maths says nothing about the world (if you take a
> > fictionalist view of it as I do).
>
> I agree maths "says" nothing about the world, in the sense that
> clocks don't usually "say" anything about the time. Interpretation of
> the symbols is an active process. But my point was that maths is
> useful. We are able to do maths and reason and use language and
> these capabilities generally confer an evolutionary advantage.
So you have shifted from defending supernatualism (God &c) as
being "True" to a position that it is (evolutionarily) "Useful" ..in the
same
way as fiction is useful in entertaining us ... but shouldn't be taken
literally.
I accept that wish-fulfilment and escapism has its place for some people ...
but to build your whole life on a fiction seems wasteful and not "adult" and
fully evolved in some ways. A child's imaginary friend might be comforting
but is still delusional.
>
> Arriving at the position of atheism however, if one lived in the time
> of Hume, looks to me, from what I imagine as the personal human
> standpoint of Hume to have been a little too much reasoning for his
> own subjective good. I find harder to explain *why* someone
> like Hume didn't rationalise away an unpleasant personal truth.
> Or maybe he did. I don't know Hume's personal story that well.
Sometimes the truth isn't what w want to hear. Tough.
>
> But I am assuming, possibly incorrectly, that being an atheist
> because that position made sense to Hume on intellectual grounds
> would still have come at a subjective cost for him because it would
> have meant (I am assuming) that he would have accepted that he
> personally would be annihilated at death. I don't think Hume could
> have put much stock in cryonics, uploading or radical life extension.
But as POSTHUMANS we do have these options and don't need the
obsoltete human-era religion industry ......
>
> > However, EXISTENCE truth claims require (preferably)
> > verification or proof ....
>
> If you mean to say that the assertion that A is true requires
> verification or proof, I agree, but only provisionally.
>
> Someone else's assertion of A being true has to be *important*
> enough to me for me to care whether it is true or not.
>
> Whether "God" exists fits into the category of being worth
> caring about, if one learns from one's childhood (as most in
> the judeo-christian tradition do), that personal annihilation is
> avoided at death because of a set of ideas of in which the
> existence of a particular type of God is central.
OK, so we need a better psychotherapeutics and rationale.
But anti-rational supernaturalism doesn't suit this modern
techno age. I am working on developing MVT into an
applied as well as evolutionary/ theoretic system, and
combining Connectionist psychology with new MVT hypnotherapy
techniques.
> >
> Sorry you lost me at MVT.
Most info on this at http://www.multi.co.uk/primal.htm
>
Steve Nichols
Posthuman
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