gordon@stats.ucl.ac.UK ("Gordon Joly, Statistics, UCL") (08/23/88)
To: AIList <@ESS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK:AIList@ai.ai.mit.edu>
cc: gordon%stats.ucl.ac.uk@ESS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK, YLIKOSKI%finfun.bitnet@ESS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK,
ALHQC <@ESS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK,@earn-relay.ac.uk:ALHQC@cunyvm.bitnet>, harvey <@ESS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK:harvey@acf4.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god (V8 #61)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 88 06:39 EDT
From: "Gordon Joly, Statistics, UCL" <gordon%stats.ucl.ac.uk@ESS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK>
> From: <YLIKOSKI%FINFUN.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
> I would say that a God needs not be unlawful. A counterexample of
> some kind could be a line by Einstein: I think he said that the
> regularity of the structure of the universe reflects an intellect. (I
> cannot remember the exact form of the quotation, but I think the idea
> was this.)
> --- Andy
If I may be permitted to attempt a second approximation, Einstein said:
"What really interests me, is the question of whether God had a *choice*
in the design of the universe". I guess this encompasses all "things",
including the human mind, no doubt.
Gordon Joly.cwp@otter.hple.hp.COM (Chris Preist) (08/23/88)
To: comp-ai-digest@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
Path: ucbvax!hplabs!otter!cwp
From: Chris Preist <cwp@otter.hple.hp.com>
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 88 05:10 EDT
References: <19880822015621.2.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK.
Lines: 15
Are you by any chance thinking of -
" God does not play dice. " - A.Einstein
In which case, he did not use it in the context you suggest. He actually
is using the existence of God to 'disprove' the validity of quantum
mechanics.
i.e. God exists & God is omnipotent
-> God isn't into probablistic structures over which
it/she/he has no control
-> Quantum mechanics is wrong
Chrissas@BBN.COM (08/25/88)
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 88 10:06 EDT From: sas@BBN.COM To: AIList@ai.ai.mit.edu cc: sas@BBN.COM In-reply-to: AIList Moderator Nick Papadakis's message of Mon 22 Aug 1988 22:21-EDT Subject: Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god I think people are getting a bit confused on this one. Religion is centered around the human soul which in many religions can be characterized as damned, saved, pure, untested, tainted and so on. In Western religions, which are largely guilt based, it is used to assign human thoughts and actions a place on a good/evil or moral/immoral scale. Science is centered around the testable world. Various statements about phenomena are assigned values on the true/false scale, in which truth is determined by testing the statements predictive value, the predictions being tested by active experiment or passive observation. To my knowledge there is no scientific litmus test which can determine the good or evil of a particular thought of action. Beeckman does not make a scale to weigh one's soul against a feather. (Actually, the popular American view of the afterlife is surprisingly NON-judgemental)! The story of Job can even be viewed as a tract denouncing the attempt to apply human reason to matters religious. One might expect, given the powers ascribed to the almighty(ies), that religious law would be more or less self enforcing. Notice the difference between the following two sets of taboos: - Don't eat amanitus bolitus. - Don't hit yourself with a stick. - Don't eat human flesh. - Don't hit other people with a stick. To keep people from eating human flesh and hitting other people with sticks, people need some form of government, which is ruled not by science, not by religion, but by politics. Will a big enough fire kill a man? Will the atom bomb explode? That's science. Did Bruno reach Nirvana? Is Truman rotting in hell? That's religion. Should we burn people at the stake for heresy? Should we drop the bomb on Japan? That's politics. Seth P.S. I can't help adding for you movie buffs, "When a ghost and a king meet and everyone ends up mincemeat. That's entertainment."
bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) (08/30/88)
To: novavax!uflorida!comp-ai-digest
Path: proxftl!bill
From: T. William Wells <proxftl!bill@bikini.cis.ufl.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 88 22:22 EDT
References: <19880822015621.2.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: T. William Wells <proxftl!bill@bikini.cis.ufl.edu>
Organization: Proximity Technology, Ft. Lauderdale
Lines: 77
Summary:
Expires:
Sender:
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In a previous article, YLIKOSKI@FINFUN.BITNET writes:
: In AIList Digest V8 #54, T. Michael O'Leary <HI.OLeary@MCC.COM>
: presents the following quotation (without mentioning who originally
: wrote it):
: > >Science, though not scientists (unfortunately), rejects the
: > >validity of religion: it requires that reality is in some sense
: > >utterly lawful, and that the unlawful, i.e. god, has no place.
I did.
: I would say that a God needs not be unlawful. A counterexample of
: some kind could be a line by Einstein: I think he said that the
: regularity of the structure of the universe reflects an intellect. (I
: cannot remember the exact form of the quotation, but I think the idea
: was this.)
"Lawful" does not mean "following, by choice, law", rather, it
means: "constrained by law". However, religion posits "god" or
"the absolute" or what have you as that which is beyond, above,
determines, flouts, or whatever adjective you like, natural law.
This is essential to religion.
And the "quotation" from Einstein does not serve as a
counterexample; it is just a restatement of the argument from
design. This argument goes: "the universe appears to have been
designed, therefore there was a designer. I shall call it god."
How silly! In its refined form, this argument posits god as a
"primary cause": this makes god "beyond" natural law, as an
explanation for natural law. It is trivially refuted by pointing
out that it begs the question. (If the universe requires a
cause, why shouldn't god require a cause? And if not, why
presume god anyway?)
---
While I am wasting bandwidth religion-trashing, I'll share some
E-mail I received the other day. I will include the text of it
here, but I am stripping out the identifying marks so as to not
further embarrass the author.
: You are offbase in your premise. Religion (for lack of a much better term)
: is *not* based on that which is unknowable. It is simply that it is based
: on revealed knowlede/information from God.
Note the confusion in this individual: he talks about "revealed
knowledge" as if it had some relationship to knowledge; however,
there is *no* relationship. By what means do I distinguish this
"revealed knowledge" from an LSD overdose? If I am to depend
wholly on divine revalation, then I know *nothing*. If not, then
I must reject "revealed knowledge" in favor of evidence. This is
all elementary philosophy, to which religion seems to have
blinded that author.
: This knowlede transcends human
: intellect and is not deducible via human intellect.
This translates to: "this knowledge is unknowable".
: This should not present a
: problem for you as Quantuum Mechanics has demonstrated that the Universe does
: not operate via a human understandable system of logic.
And this is simple ignorance. Not to mention self-contradictory.
---
This individual has managed to illustrate in one very short note
*exactly* why religion has *no* place in scientific discussion:
the use of religion perverts reasoning by substituting "revealed
knowledge" for evidence, requires the unknowable as part of
reasoning, and uses ignorance as its justification.
---
Bill
novavax!proxftl!billpluto%beowulf@UCSD.EDU (Mark E. P. Plutowski) (09/03/88)
To: comp-ai-digest@ucsd.edu Path: sdcsvax!beowulf!pluto From: Mark E. P. Plutowski <pluto%beowulf@ucsd.edu> Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god Summary: God didn't design the universe... Keywords: God, ai, Elvis Date: Tue, 30 Aug 88 18:37 EDT References: <19880830031753.2.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> Sender: nobody%sdcsvax@ucsd.edu Reply-To: Mark E. P. Plutowski <pluto%beowulf@ucsd.edu> Organization: EE/CS Dept. U.C. San Diego Lines: 40 Regarding this quote from a previous posting: > ...the "quotation" from Einstein ...is just a restatement of... > the argument... [that goes something like this:] > ..."the universe appears to have been > designed, therefore there was a designer. I shall call it god." > How silly! In its refined form, this argument posits god as a > "primary cause": this makes god "beyond" natural law, as an > explanation for natural law. It is trivially refuted by pointing > out that it begs the question. (If the universe requires a > cause, why shouldn't god require a cause? And if not, why > presume god anyway?) God didn't design the universe, God is the universe. Therefore, God is everywhere (just like Elvis ;-} ) and everything is God, including you and me. Very simple. If you accept this philosophy, then it is easier to accept the belief that AI is plausible, since by the same token, intelligence doesn't "cause" a being (or mechanism) to behave intelligently, intelligence is the behavior, and hence, the being (and/or mechanism) itself. Therefore, hope springs eternal that this "intelligence" is not some elusive spirit or ether; and can be studied rationally. At the same time, since intelligence is the whole behavior, decomposing the behavior into its parts is only a part of the solution to understanding it, just as separating God from the universe (creating a separate entity called God) can inhibit you from passing thru the proverbial "eye of the needle," and understanding your particular universe. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Plutowski INTERNET: pluto%cs@ucsd.edu Department of Computer Science, C-014 pluto@beowulf.ucsd.edu University of California, San Diego BITNET: pluto@ucsd.bitnet La Jolla, California 92093 UNIX:{...}!sdcsvax!beowulf!pluto ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Listen to your surroundings and your self, instead of Jimmy Swaggert.
ejs@orawest.SRI.COM (e john sebes) (09/03/88)
To: pyramid!decwrl!comp-ai-digest@decwrl.dec.com Path: sri-unix!orawest!sri-unix!ejs From: e john sebes <sri-unix!orawest.SRI.COM!ejs@decwrl.dec.com> Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god Summary: T. William Wells on religion and science Date: Wed, 31 Aug 88 14:41 EDT References: <19880830031753.2.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> Organization: Odyssey Research Assoc, Menlo Park, CA Lines: 94 I'd like to respond to a few of things that T. William Wells has been writing lately about that good ole hobby-horse "science and religion". In a previous article, T. William Wells writes: >: > >Science, though not scientists (unfortunately), rejects the >: > >validity of religion: it requires that reality is in some sense >: > >utterly lawful, and that the unlawful, i.e. god, has no place. >"Lawful" does not mean "following, by choice, law", rather, it >means: "constrained by law". However, religion posits "god" or >"the absolute" or what have you as that which is beyond, above, >determines, flouts, or whatever adjective you like, natural law. >This is essential to religion. It is erroneous to say that "religion" requires belief any particular idea. *Some* religions require belief in *some* particular ideas. Specifically, the western, theistic religions Mr. Wells is familiar with (to the exclusion of all others, apparently) does include belief in God, with those attributes Mr. Wells mentioned. But this is *absolutely not* essential to religion in general, or to all particular religions. A further point is that there are several theistic religious attitudes which in no way entail any notion about a God acting in the physical universe which scientists take as their puview. The "watchmaker" God of late 18th century European thought is probably the best known example to netters; God made the universe, set it going, and enjoys the show. Ah, Mr. Wells will say, but God *could* then act in the universe, but just doesn't. A response then might be that perhaps He created the universe so that He couldn't interfere after creation. Does this make sense? Can God constrain Himself? Can he create an unmovable stone and an irresistable force? Honestly, there is no point to such freshman philosophy hairsplitting. Even R.C. Church theologians got over that stuff centuries ago. Get this: it doesn't have anything to do with science!!! After all, what is it that is so repugnant to Mr. Wells and his ilk about a theistic scientist who also beleives that God (or whatever) doesn't act in the physical universe? Perhaps I am missing something here, but we went over a lot of the same ground in my 6th grade science class. I will also try to clarify the notion of "revealed knowledge". You call something knowledge because you beleive it is true. Current usage of terms like "knowledge" and "fact" tend to be in the context of "physically or objectively verifiable", but of course that is because we believe in such verification. Revealed knowledge is simply what people call fact, but do not claim to be verifiable. In common usage, it is therfore a misnomer. But saying that >This translates to: "this knowledge is unknowable". just plays on this fact, and doesn't refute the fact that some people have beliefs to which they choose to apply this term. I think Mr. Wells' strong concern over the fact that even today many "rational" people are not logical positivists, really stems from a kind of hysteria over "creationism" and similar things. He says that > >This individual has managed to illustrate in one very short note >*exactly* why religion has *no* place in scientific discussion: >the use of religion perverts reasoning by substituting "revealed >knowledge" for evidence, requires the unknowable as part of >reasoning, and uses ignorance as its justification. >--- >Bill >novavax!proxftl!bill > Well, I hate to let the cat out the bag, but "religion" does no such thing. This perversion (if you want to call it that) is done by individuals who try to compel people who want evidence to believe in things that will not admit of evidence. And some of these people even try to hoke up some evidence as well! Despicable, I admit, but also more pitiable that anything else. And equally so is Mr. Wells religion-bashing. Try to make this connection: yes, religion has no place in scientific discussion, but that it because it is *irrelevant*, not evil (the only "evil" in this context is masking religion as science); therefore it is of little concern in scientific discussions, and in little need of being bashed. Rest from your intellectual imperialism, and concentrate on whether someone's science is good work, regardless of whatever other thoughts there might be lurking in his or her mind, thoughts which you say are "wrong" or "silly", but are in fact merely irrelevant. After all, isn't that what we are supposed to be about, in these scientific discussion groups? --John Sebes As a postscript, I beleive that all this came about not because someone opined "I know God exists, and you AI types leave God out of your theories" but because someone had the temerity to ask if others might be missing ideas for interesting models of mind because of wholehearted indulgence in total reductionism. Unfortunately, this question was stated in a way that mentioned that fateful word "God". Oh well.
bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) (09/06/88)
To: novavax!uflorida!comp-ai-digest Path: proxftl!bill From: T. William Wells <proxftl!bill@bikini.cis.ufl.edu> Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god Date: Sat, 3 Sep 88 18:43 EDT Reply-To: T. William Wells <proxftl!bill@bikini.cis.ufl.edu> Organization: Proximity Technology, Ft. Lauderdale Lines: 144 Summary: Expires: References: Sender: Followup-To: Distribution: Keywords: As expected, my messages generated something of a heated response. Also as expected, some of the response completely missed the point. It is flatly not arguable that religions (and quasi-religions like Marxism) have caused some of the greatest evils in the world. And, in spite of what those who would condemn science in order to defend religion say, science has never been the *cause* (only the means) of evil. Nor could it, since it does not propose an ethical system, and thus does not provide a cause for action. (And to forestall an almost certain response: yes, there have been great evils done *in the name of* science, but closer examination shows one thing: the purposes were unrelated to the scientific.) But those observations, however true, are irrelevant to the point. No matter how evil religion might be (and I hold that faith of all kinds, including the religious, is one of the greatest evils), this fails to invalidate it as a means of knowing. What *does* invalidate it is its assumptions of an unlawful reality and of an unknowable universe. There were also several responses which oozed various kinds of epistemological relativism to attempt to defend the notion that science and religion are compatible. I had originally written contemptuous and sarcastic replies to these idiocies, but I have had second thoughts: such fuzzy-mindedness does not deserve the attention that specific responses would create. That this kind of relativism invalidates science is not a matter for debate; I shall not waste time on it. Following are a number of messages about which I have some specific comments. --- T. Michael O'Leary <HI.OLeary@MCC.COM> writes: : >Science, though not scientists (unfortunately), rejects the : >validity of religion: it requires that reality is in some sense : >utterly lawful, and that the unlawful, i.e. god, has no place. : : To me this requirement is unnecessarily strict. Science does not : require that reality be utterly lawful, but merely that it be possible : for scientists to observe patterns in nature. The mere assertion that there are patterns, without reason to believe that they might be projected into the future, does not constitute science. However, the existence of the unlawful invalidates prediction. Of any kind. Consider what it means to say that something is unlawful: it means that there are *no* constraints on its actions. The proper answer to "Can the unlawful do X?" is *yes*. Given such a thing, there is no reason to believe that the patterns that we perceive, the predictions that come true, or even our mere existence, are not entirely accident, devoid of meaning. And the "partly lawful" does not provide an escape either: where would you draw the line? No, if we wish to accept that science be valid, we must accept that there is *nothing* unlawful. And since religion accepts that there is that which is unlawful, it undercuts the necessary ground for science. So, to reiterate: science and religion are incompatible. There is no reconciliation. --- "William E. Hamilton, Jr.", on Mon, 22 Aug 88 11:00 EDT writes: : ...religion and reason entail diametrically opposed views of : reality: religion requires the unconstrained and unknowable as : its base... : : ...religion rejects the ultimate validity : of reason; ... years of attempting to reconcile the : differing metaphysics and epistemology of the two has utterly : failed to accomplish anything other than the gradual destruction : of religion. : : Science ... rejects the : validity of religion: it requires that reality is in some sense : utterly lawful, and that the unlawful, i.e. god, has no place. : : The first two above paragraphs make assertions which are certainly not true : of all religions. I disagree; all religions I have heard of, and certainly all major religions, are based on a metaphysics that makes science invalid. : The third makes statements I would have to : regard as religious, since it makes assertions (reality is lawful, God is : not) about phenomena outside the scope of science. You missed the point: I did not say that reality was lawful (though that is *in fact* correct), what I said was that reality must be lawful in order that science be valid. : Granted, religion is outside the scope of science, but that does not make it : wrong. Art and music are outside the scope of science, too, and yet : they teach us important aspects of being human. I disagree. Art and music are *not* outside the scope of science. And, to mention AI at least once in this message, it is necessary, in order that AI be more than programming tricks and mental masturbation, that the presumption behind that statement (that that which pertains to consciousness is necessarily outside the knowable) be false. --- Richard A. O'Keefe <quintus!ok@Sun.COM>, writes: : This topic really hasn't much to do with AI. : Perhaps it could be moved somewhere else? Actually it does. Of the sciences, AI is easily the most philosophical; debates on the nature of reality (which AI researchers will have to figure out how to represent somehow) and on the validity of knowledge are both inevitable and necessary. And has anyone considered that ethics, too, also is relevant? --- ALFONSEC%EMDCCI11.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU writes: : In a previous article, sas@BBN.COM says: : : > To my knowledge there is no scientific litmus test which can determine : > the good or evil of a particular thought of action. : : True. From premises in the indicative mode ("this is so") you can never : deduce a conclusion in the imperative ("you shall do so"). You need at : least a premise in the imperative (i.e. a moral axiom). I disagree. Moreover, I hold that ethics is a central, if perhaps unrecognized, problem for AI. I would suggest that the answer to the questions of ethics are intimately related to the problem of goal-directed activity in AI systems. --- Bill novavax!proxftl!bill