[ExI] Belief in maths (was mind body dualism)

[darren shawn greer]

> Even after finding no hypercubical golden dragons there, I reserve the possibility that they may have only gone out for lunch while I was visiting.<

 

I'm a newcomer to this list, but I had to ask this question: how long are you willing to wait before drawing a conclusion, based on belief in the absence of phyisical evidence, that the HGD either don't exist, or take extremely long lunches? Even if they do come back, logic could dictate to you that they are a hallucination or simulated by an advanced species that live on Alpha Centuri and like playing with the minds of humans who have the gall to visit Titan. Logic is great stuff, but eventually we must close off our logical processess with conclusions and shut out the endless possibilities that human logic offers. As some writer said once, keep too open a mind and nothing will stay in it.

 

If I'm intruding in the conversation, I apologize.

 

Darren




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



 

> Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 08:27:56 -0400
> From: msd001 at gmail.com
> To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Belief in maths (was mind body dualism)
> 
> On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 2:56 AM, Ben Zaiboc <bbenzai at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > If I can assume that by 'pure maths', you mean logic, you seem to be saying that people who have absolute certainty (I'm making another assumption that this means "think that it's overwhelmingly likely") that there is no such thing as either a soul or psi, have come to this conclusion by logical reasoning, rather than, say, lack of evidence to the contrary.
> 
> I originally meant statistics and probability. I have to include
> logic because pure math is a broad category. I have a difficult time
> understanding absolute certainty no matter how it is reached. You can
> asymptotically approach certainty by way of reasoned arguments and
> scientific methods. I feel that even if you have seen a coin flip
> result in heads 99 times in a row, you cannot state with absolute
> certainty that the 100th toss will also be heads. (at least until you
> have shown both sides of the coin to be heads) In the case of the no
> soul or no psi argument, nobody is able to verify the other side of
> the coin. So we can observe many runs of the same result, but I don't
> rule out the possibility that there may may eventually be an
> unexpected result.
> 
> >
> > Don't forget that 'no soul' and 'no psi' are the null hypotheses.  Anyone who claims that either of these things exists needs to provide evidence or a  convincing logical argument.  Anyone who doesn't, doesn't.  No logic (or maths) needed.
> >
> 
> Agreed. Claiming that either or both are Bullshit by lack of
> existential evidence looks to me like a matter of personal belief (ie:
> faith) No logic needed.
> 
> > Or are you the type of person who, when told that there are no hypercubical golden dragons living underground on the far side of Titan, says "Ah, but you can't prove that, can you?!?!"
> 
> No. I am the type of person who stores that statement relative to how
> much I trust your ability to make truthful statements. I remain
> skeptical until I go underground on the far side of Titan. Even after
> finding no hypercubical golden dragons there, I reserve the
> possibility that they may have only gone out for lunch while I was
> visiting.
> 
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