The Mystery of Evangelical Atheists

[Keble]

All I'm asking for is a formal language that is decidable by humans but not by a Turing Machine. Is that really asking so much?

Let's go back to what I said:

(Y)ou are assuming what needs to be proven: that what the brain does is a calculation.

...or to put it in other words, first you need to show that what the human brain does IS decide a formal language. There's no reason to even be interested in the question if what the human brain does cannot be so represented. And really the bigger problem at the moment is that nobody is anywhere near such a description.

Claiming that you can produce a model is uninteresting if you cannot produce a model. You can say that you can make a Turing-equivalent model of human mentality; but really, you can't, at least not yet.

[GiC]

All I'm asking for is a formal language that is decidable by humans but not by a Turing Machine. Is that really asking so much?

Let's go back to what I said:

(Y)ou are assuming what needs to be proven: that what the brain does is a calculation.

...or to put it in other words, first you need to show that what the human brain does IS decide a formal language. There's no reason to even be interested in the question if what the human brain does cannot be so represented. And really the bigger problem at the moment is that nobody is anywhere near such a description.

[/quote]

You're joking, right? You couldn't talk or write if you couldn't decide a formal language, heck, you couldn't BREATH if you couldn't decide a formal language. EVERY thought and EVERY action is 'deciding a formal language', I'm really starting to wonder if you even comprehend the mathematical implications.

The computational class of your brain is MATHEMATICALLY DEFINED by the problems it can decide. So, I really don't care about artificially inflated ideas you have about yourself. I know for a fact that EVERY THEORETICALLY POSSIBLE question can be defined within the arithmetical hierarchy. And the set of those questions you can actually answer defines your computational class. That's how the real world works, end of story.

Please, let me know where you got your education, so I can avoid the place lest my IQ drop by 40 points.

Claiming that you can produce a model is uninteresting if you cannot produce a model. You can say that you can make a Turing-equivalent model of human mentality; but really, you can't, at least not yet.

I haven't once said I can create a model, in fact, if you'd actually READ my posts (is that a new concept, reading something you haven't written, personally?) you would see that I EXPLICITLY said I cannot create a model. But that's irrelevant since I can define the languages the human brain can decide and, therefore, I can define a complexity class...and I need no concept or understanding of how the human brain works to do that since I can define a complexity class with 100% mathematical certainty based on NOTHING more than what languages can be decided.

Honestly, at this point, I have assume you're just screwing with me, no one can actually be this stupid. So would you please stop already so we can have a serious discussion?

[Keble]

I'm not really interested in claims that the behavior of the universe is bound by the constraints of mathematics until someone comes up with a mathematical model that describes the behavior of the universe adequately. And it's irrelevant to make claims about the rigor of such testing having to be expressed mathematically because, at the moment, there's no danger of having to go to that level of detail.

Likewise, there's no point in talking about how one can model the universe without having to resort to God because, in reality, one cannot, because one cannot model the universe. All there is to go on is a faith that the models will continue to look like those of low-level physics, and that faith is pretty much a faith in atheism.

[zoarthegleaner]

All I'm asking for is a formal language that is decidable by humans but not by a Turing Machine. Is that really asking so much?

Let's go back to what I said:

(Y)ou are assuming what needs to be proven: that what the brain does is a calculation.

...or to put it in other words, first you need to show that what the human brain does IS decide a formal language. There's no reason to even be interested in the question if what the human brain does cannot be so represented. And really the bigger problem at the moment is that nobody is anywhere near such a description.

You're joking, right? You couldn't talk or write if you couldn't decide a formal language, heck, you couldn't BREATH if you couldn't decide a formal language. EVERY thought and EVERY action is 'deciding a formal language', I'm really starting to wonder if you even comprehend the mathematical implications.

The computational class of your brain is MATHEMATICALLY DEFINED by the problems it can decide. So, I really don't care about artificially inflated ideas you have about yourself. I know for a fact that EVERY THEORETICALLY POSSIBLE question can be defined within the arithmetical hierarchy. And the set of those questions you can actually answer defines your computational class. That's how the real world works, end of story.

Please, let me know where you got your education, so I can avoid the place lest my IQ drop by 40 points.

Claiming that you can produce a model is uninteresting if you cannot produce a model. You can say that you can make a Turing-equivalent model of human mentality; but really, you can't, at least not yet.

I haven't once said I can create a model, in fact, if you'd actually READ my posts (is that a new concept, reading something you haven't written, personally?) you would see that I EXPLICITLY said I cannot create a model. But that's irrelevant since I can define the languages the human brain can decide and, therefore, I can define a complexity class...and I need no concept or understanding of how the human brain works to do that since I can define a complexity class with 100% mathematical certainty based on NOTHING more than what languages can be decided.

Honestly, at this point, I have assume you're just screwing with me, no one can actually be this stupid. So would you please stop already so we can have a serious discussion?
[/quote]

Your funny,  especially that part about that You know for a fact....and that part about your 100% certainty...swatting at gnats and swallowing camels can become a full time occupation and no doubt requires a formal language wherin those who enjoy swatting ganats and swallowing camels are able to communicate with each other about which part of the camel should enter into the mouth first.  Its great theory, but to swallow a camel you have to take it in whole, otherwise its just as the 80's Wendy's commercial said, parts are parts.   Yea, we might call a chicken sandwich a chicken sadwich, but it aint a chicken.  And putting the parts back together doesn't make it a chicken, though it might appear very chicken like.

I readily admit that I am well below your 40% loss of IQ  but I don"t feel it is necessary to know how the process within my brain enables me to swat at gnats.  Neither do I need to know whether the gnat wanted to be swatted at...and just because I missed the gnat with my swat, doesn't make me less intelligent than the gnat.

john

[Tzimis]

Likewise, there's no point in talking about how one can model the universe without having to resort to God because, in reality, one cannot, because one cannot model the universe.

Technically that isn't true. One doesn't need to have all the information to determine cause. Just like when we see a bird fling we don't have to count all of it's feathers to know that it can fly. We see it flying. Some things just roll into an assumption naturally and evolution and the cosmos can be theorized about without automatically giving up on God or making it a god verse evolution debate which is what the west does. I'm not here arguing against physical attributes that are already a given. As GIC has stated you can't look at it subjectively and not come to this conclusion. It's natural in the form of thinking we posses. What I'm debating with GIC is the person of man and whether it is the person that controls his nature or is it the nature that controls the person. Whether the person of man needs the person of Christ to become one with the living. Which is the root foundation in what Christianity really is.

[NorthernPines]

In fact, a lot of people say things about Dawkins that are in fact not really true either, and I used to be one of those, until I began reading his stuff. He is not nearly as vitriolic as most Christian anti-Dawkins folks are.

He is outspoken, but I hardly believe he garners some of the attacks he gets.  If you ever get the pleasure of meeting him in person, he is incredibly pleasant and even soft-spoken.

While I've never met him, I have listened to enough of his lectures, talks, and interviews to come to this realization as well. It was a slow process because I just bought into the whole, (saying in the Church Lady voice) "Richard Dawkins is....SATAN!" bit that many Christians, including some Orthodox Christians I know tout him as being. Without the benefit of course of having ever read anything he's actually written. I've become a Dawkins fan, even though I don't agree with some of his conclusions of course, or his methods at all times, but in the end he is just another human being doing the best he can in a confusing world. He is not evil or Satan incarnate out to destroy people's faiths. He just really cannot understand how some Christians can believe certain things....he is in fact dumbfounded by it. An interesting debate he had with John Lennox in fact shows this quite well. At one point he even admitted Lennox almost had him convinced that Deism might be true, and then Lennox started talking about the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection for the last 5 minutes of the debate and Dawkins just could not understand how one could get from such a sound scientific and rational argument for the existence of a God of some sort that began the universe for 90 minutes, and then make the leap from that to a man rising from the dead. He sincerely is lost when believers go from Deism to weeping statues and Mary appearing in a cheese sandwich. And I can understand that NOW after hearing him talk and speak for the last year...not that I agree with his points necessarily, but I now see him as just a human being like the rest of us.

I think believers of most faiths have tended to demonize atheists over the centuries, as I said, because we are afraid of our own deep seeded doubts within us. And so it's easier to lash out than to look within ourselves.

[Keble]

Likewise, there's no point in talking about how one can model the universe without having to resort to God because, in reality, one cannot, because one cannot model the universe.

Technically that isn't true. One doesn't need to have all the information to determine cause.

That's not what I said. If you can determine cause, then you can model the universe to that degree.

Just like when we see a bird fling we don't have to count all of it's feathers to know that it can fly.

See, that's not about modelling. We know it can fly by observation alone. And as far as modelling its flight, in general we do not need to go to that level fo detail (but in some cases we do).

[ialmisry]

Even in Hell Lucifer did not stop his attempts to overthrow God. For this purpose he organized the philosophers of Enlightment (who in reality are Illuminati-masons). Those learned folks spoke of bringing Enlightment into masses. In truth this meant that they want to substitute God with the Light one, that is with Luminous, that is with Lucifer.

  We also provide the world with holy martyrs like Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya; look at our evil plans...   Wooooooo *spooky, cliche ghost noise*

I'm going to have to report back to the Rothschilds, you are onto us and our connection to the Dark Lord of Terror, Diablo.  

I was reminded of all the (locked) threads we have on Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya by the most recent post on the bizarre Voices from Upstate New York blog.
http://02varvara.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/sarah-or-zoya-whom-do-you-emulate/
as always, a fasicinating place that parennially demonstrates how the Bolsheviks seduced the Russian Orthodox.

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