From: baruch@nynexst.com (Robert Baruch)
Subject: Re: GOD.
Reply-To: baruch@nynexst.com
Organization: NYNEX Science & Technology, Inc
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 15:25:25 GMT

In article 24118@crash, mdc@crash.cts.com (Milo D. Cooper) writes:
> 				I
> 			      -----
> 	The human mind is a passive system for the processing of
> information.

Of course, you begin by considering information processing as a passive
process.  So in other words, people can't help but make connections between
facts, because information processing (aka "thought") is passive.  So
everyone really is an Einstein, and they all knew the reasons for the
photoelectric effect simply because all the facts pointed to it.

> Intellect, personality, and ideas are formed through
> interaction with one's environment and no one can achieve active
> thought to allow perception beyond that dictated by experience.

Really?  I can't hypothesize about things beyond my experience?  I
can't come up with tests to determine whether my theory (which is
not in my experience) is right or wrong?

> Anything that any of us ever does is a reaction to established
> elements of the outer environment (the space beyond our bodies) or
> the inner environment (bodily functions).  Everything we do, we do
> for a reason.  Everything we do, we are moved to do, because we
> are creatures of reaction, and not of action.  Reasons for reaction
> are irrelevant at this point; they may be moral reasons or immoral
> reasons or good reasons or bad reasons or obvious reasons or incon-
> spicuous ones.
> 	Progress of any kind is due to a flaw of human information
> processing which distorts incoming information based on the way in
> which one's mind is shaped by his/her inner and outer environments.
> Our minds divide environments into attention areas based on our
> experience and personal biases.  Insight, the element common to all
> revered figures of history, is a chance defying of logical reasoning
> which reveals a novel and/or better method of information processing.
> Logic itself can only proceed along mental pathways already defined
> by experience.  The best way to innovate is not by engaging in lo-
> gical thought; the best way to innovate is by making a mistake, be-
> cause logic is simply a process involving one reaction after another
> which deliberately avoids any seemingly irrelevant or contradictory
> information.

That's right.  Einstein, Schroedinger, Heisenberrg, and the rest of
them didn't use logic, they used intuition.  But didn't they say
something like, "Wait -- this can't be right.  There has to be something
missing...", and they just guessed.  Logic can show not only whether
something is right, but also whether something is wrong.

The best way to innovate, you claim, is to ignore logic.  But innovation
requires thought to determine why something should be innovated.  If you
are improving a toaster, you don't innovate by adding a pencil sharpener
to it -- that wouldn't be logical.  You thing logically about the power
source, method of operation, and you THINK.  You connect various facts
ACTIVELY, and come up with an interesting idea no-one had ever thought
of before.  Why did no-one think of it before?  Because the mass of facts
is large.  You can't make every single connection.  So innovation is possible
because thinking something completely through would take more time than is
worth it, not because people don't use logic.


> 	One cannot conceive of God when one cannot conceive of a
> being which occurs beyond the limits of time.

Why?  Why can't you say time is limitless, and be done with it?  I need
some proof here.

> Because humans are
> unavoidably limited to existence within the confines of time, which
> happens to describe our terms of being, everything for many of
> us must have a beginning and, in most cases, an end.  Therefore,
> lots of us will be puzzled by the assertion that God was created by
> nothing and no one and "has always" existed and "always will" exist.
> These same people will balk at the idea that a "good" God exists
> when exposed to incidences described as "evil," because they can
> see no benefit coming of this evil, in much the same way a logically-
> inclined person avoids haphazard insight.

I fail to see how seeing no benefit coming from this evil leads to balking
at the idea that a "good" God exists.  I balk at the idea of _any_ god,
good or evil or morally neutral, simply because I see no evidence, nor can
I see such an object fitting into my logical framework.

>  My black ancestors were
> slaves.  You can be certain a slew of them saw no benefit coming of
> their forced subordinate status into an oppressive society; they all
> existed inside time.  And yet the immorality of slavery has yielded
> an enrichment of America and, due to America's global influence, the
> rest of the civilized world.  The most obvious proof of this enrich-
> ment is Rock music, a product of European and African established
> thought patterns.  This immoral event led to a haphazard amalgamation
> of cultures which produced insight.  Natural and logical thought
> would never have as readily introduced such an incredibly popular
> and bonding art form.

So what you are saying is that some good may come from evil.  I hope you
are not saying this to justify the existence of evil.  And by the way, it
was "natural and logical thought" which brought about slavery, and it was
natural and logical thought which brought about the Civil War.  And if music
isn't natural or logical, then I don't know what it is.  If music is
pleasing to people, isn't it natural and logical for people to attempt
to come up with pleasing sounds?

Once again, you confuse non-logical thought with logical thought applied to
a large mass of facts.  Just because _you_ can't think of something does not
mean that other people can't.  I have all the ideas of physics in my memory.
Why can't I derive all of physical chemistry right now?  Because it would
take a few hundred years to churn through all the relevent facts.  I can't
hope to make logical connections between everything -- I did not evolve with
that capacity.

When people make bad decisions, or err in calculations, 
it is because they are ignoring, deliberately or not, various facts.  Or
perhaps they don't have certain facts which are key in making the correct
decision.  People cannot make non-logical decisions.  All decisions are logical,
but all logic _operates_ on facts.  And if the system of facts is faulty, then
the final decision may be faulty.  But never say that decisions or thought is
not logical, because it must be.  The brain has evolved to perform logical
tasks.

So one flaw in your argument is assuming that thought is passive.  Thought requires
action.  Without actively seeking connections between facts, you will not find
those connections, even though they are logical connections.  So if all the
facts are at your command, you may not find the Grand Unified Theory.

Another flaw is assuming that mistakes are not logical.  They are perfectly
logical.  Logic operates on facts, and with faulty or missing facts, your
logical operations may result in non-consistent conclusions.

--Rob



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