[ExI] Belief in maths

Sat Jul 10 00:02:01 UTC 2010

> 
> But the arguments are not irrelevant if those arguments are successful
> in getting people to stop holding certain beliefs. There are people who
> ran the Inquisition because of their beliefs. There are people who fly
> planes into buildings because of their beliefs. There are people who
> deny full civil rights to LGBT people because of their beliefs. The
> roles of arguments is to help refine our cognitive space by rejecting
> and/or correcting ideas which can not stand up to rational criticism.

I agree with you that in today's world the bahaviour of certain groups and individuals is dangerous enough to warrant trying to change their beliefs, or at least question them. At first blush anyway. I was referring to a futuristic world, and the hope that one day we will stop looking for deep-seated meaning outside of what is actually knowable -- ie, an irrational belief in a six-thousand year-old earth that was created by a bored, morally prescriptive creator who got bored one day and decided to "do something." There is a kind of morality explained by descriptive ethics called "territorial morality," which allows individuals and groups to hold whatever beliefs they please, and to practise whatever morals arise based on those beliefs, as long as they don't interfere with the freedom and lifestyles of others choosing to practise different morals based on different beliefs. I like this, and hope that human beings evolve some version of it in a universal social mileau. In the meantime, I guess trying to change the beliefs of others is as good a method an any at containing the fanatics. Though personally, I have never been successful using logic and reason to argue someone out of an illogical and irrational belief system.

Per Ardua Ad Astra
For more info on author Darren Greer visit 
http://darrenshawngreer.blogspot.com

From: dgreer_68 at hotmail.com
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2010 01:10:18 -0400
Subject: Re: [ExI] Belief in maths

> And there is a helpful heuristic to use when considering statements
> which contain references to gods or creators; replace the term in
> question with "the footrest at home which is a pink invisible elephant
> wearing a yellow tutu and having a mass of 100 suns". Thus the
> statement "You can not disprove the existence of some undefined and
> vague creator" becomes "You can not disprove the existence of the
> footrest at home which is a pink invisible elephant wearing a yellow
> tutu and having a mass of 100 suns". Since it is a heuristic it might
> not be applicable in every circumstance however it is often useful in
> demonstrating the level of BS of which much of the talk about gods and
> creators consists. 

Sure. Why not? It started with Hyercubical Golden Dragons. It could just as easily end with that. The point of that post was my belief that human beings might be better off if we collectively abandon such arguments altogether as irrelevant, unwinnable and ultimately unknowable. Not to mention that they often deteriorate into derision and sarcasm. 

Per Ardua Ad Astra
For more info on author Darren Greer visit 
http://darrenshawngreer.blogspot.com

From: jonkc at bellsouth.net
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2010 00:09:06 -0400
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: Re: [ExI] Belief in maths (was mind body dualism).

On Jul 7, 2010, at 7:51 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote:
Of course a fair coin is 50/50.  How did we learn this?

>From it's history. If I knew nothing about the coin except that it just produced 99 heads in a row I would say the probability it is a fair coin is greater than zero but very very small. I certainly wouldn't trust it for anything important.

 John K Clark

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