From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Subject: Re: Faith
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 02:09:07 GMT

In article <BvD9Dp.Gw3@inews.Intel.COM> pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey) writes:
>>I don't understand what "true from your perspective" means.  I only use the
>>word "true" or "false" for things which are phrased in such a manner as to
>>apply to all perspectives.
>True from all perspectives is called absolute truth. Do you have any examples
>of absolute truth? Like the speed of light in a vacume? Clearly 1+1=2 is
>not an absolute truth, because in mod2, it is false. In mod2, 1+1=0.

The meaning of "absolute truth" to me is such that if a statement X is only
true under condition Y, then the combined statement "statement X is true under
condition Y" is absolutely true.

For instance, the statement "1+1=0" is not absolutely true, but it is true for
mod2 arithmetic.  This means, however, that the combined statement "1+1=0
under mod2 arithmetic" is _absolutely_ true, under my definition.

Since you imply that I cannot produce examples of absolute truth, you must
obviously be using some different definition, one which I do not know.

>>As for "is that faith", isn't everything faith, by this definition?  It's not
>>obvious how your definition is useful.
>OK, here is how I use the word faith:
>I have faith that my car will start tonight, even though I know from experience
>that this is not always the case. But I think it's fixed this time and will 
>start. I have faith, I'm not calling the tow truck, yet!

You seem to think I don't understand your definition.  I do.  I don't
understand the _usefulness_ of the definition.

>>I don't know what you mean by "valid" and "invalid".  (I know what I mean by
>>those words, but you appear to not be using them the same way.)
>OK, what do you mean?

I mean something is valid if you can get the conclusions from the premises.
Otherwise, it's not.  You do not appear to mean this.

>>I do not experience every uncertainty as emotionally disturbing, only some of
>>them.  The possibility that the laws of physics will change so as to break my
>>alarm clock is not one of those.
>There's degrees, right? I mean, come one, if your alarm clock failed you'd be
>late to work and then you'd get behind on t.r.m and then you'd be disturbed,
>dontcha think?

You just did it again.

As I pointed out, to say that I would be disturbed when something changes is
not the same as saying that I would be disturbed ahead of time because it might
change later on.  Of course a clock failure would disturb me--_after_ it fails.

>>What you say is that you would be disturbed _when_ physics changes.  This is
>>not the same as saying that the _possibility_ that it might change will
>>disturb you _now_.  It would probably bother me, too--after it happens, not
>>before.
>Well, of course, if it happened, that would be very disturbing. But isn't the
>possibility slightly disturbing? Granted, it is unlikely and hardly something
>to lose sleep over, assuming the alarm clock works.

Why should the possibility be slightly disturbing?  Is there some kind of law
of disturbingness which requires that it must disturb me unless there's some
special reason otherwise?
--
"the bogosity in a field equals the bogosity imported from related areas, plus
the bogosity generated internally, minus the bogosity expelled or otherwise
disposed of."  -- K. Eric Drexler

Ken Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
     INTERNET: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc