Construction I

Month, Day: 168, Beauty, Honour (Independence)

We said that it would be constructive and slow. Looks like a good place to start might be Anselm of Canterbury and his ontological argument.

Paul Oppenheimer and Edward Zalta recently updated their 1991 thesis (A Computationally-Discovered Simplification of the Ontological Argument - pdf), using insights obtained through applying computational metaphysics.

There are several reviews available at the philpapers site.

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To believe or not, that's the issue. But even dis-belief is a type of belief. Hence, we get back to a choice that was described well by Pascal.

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Our artifacts are going to help us settle many things, yet we ought not dumb ourselves down (inverse of audacity) in order to prove them to be smarter than us.

Remarks:

08/08/2013 -- Perfection/Perfection.

03/29/2012 -- Interesting video on self-transcendence.

06/08/2011 -- Motivation.

06/02/2011 -- Construction II.

05/26/2011 -- A 'super' position can have merit.

05/17/2011 -- Stephen gets press.

05/16/2011 -- Makes it easy to see the either-or aspect. Believe or not, essentially. Though, if one takes the belief side, 'how to know what to believe?' is the question. Which, by the way, was not left to be an open issue. If one takes the non-belief side, 'how to live?' is the question. That is, is it imperative to push the non-belief agenda (as we see happening)? Ah, Questions either way. Now, of course, taking the belief side could culminate (as it does with the brights) with believing in reason and science (yet, 'from whence that?' is a question). One thing that is apparent from using the computational framework is this: language, system, semantics, and more (very much more, there have to be supporting resources - which are not easy to obtain, nor are they trivially developed, and definitely they do not run without power and maintenance). Now, to boot, there will be factors related to the capability of the one doing the believing or the disbelieving. 'Can a fully-capable person believe?' is a question. Or, we see 'is believing the attribute of the ignorant?' as another type of question (of course, the whole notion of delusion, or hallucinatory states, rests upon such implications -- thanks for bringing that to the fore, Richard D. [yet, you have not really cast out (can you?) the phenomena behind the experience]). This could go on, but here is a final point: is not it true that throughout the history of these issues, that those who are better able exploit, manipulate, and otherwise, just plain out-and-out, misuse those of lessor capability (and is not this the motivation behind a lot of the misbehavior on the part of believers which leads to people claiming that religion causes more problems than it solves?)? Smart religionists (universally offered - in any context in which it may apply) - you ought to understand that you are to not be the cause of this type of mischief.

Modified: 08/08/2013