Religious fundamentalist lays groundworks for faster-than-light travel!

[El_Machinae]

Illram (sry: Farm Boy, xpost) We might not be disagreeing, because I don't disagree. I think it's very likely that math would be invented by any conscious society. I obviously don't have other societies to compare to. All animals that seem to grasp numbers are Terran, and we're currently trying to program our computers to understand numbers while we're bootstrapping them to sentience.

My point was that the initial foundation was invented, and that the the rest of math naturally flows from that initial invention. Now, it's a remarkably useful invention, given how much math has contributed to fundamental physics. Math has been used to predict reality in ways that the Superman comic has never been able to predict reality ...

But, it goes back to the original philosophical question. Did 2+2 = 4 billions of years ago? Given that there is nothing that is identical, it seems a bit of a stretch. Was murder immoral billions of years before sapience evolved?

Both questions are 'well yes, and no, it depends'. The idea that the nature of the Universe changed, that sin 'became' sin once Adam ate a fruit is a convenient illusion that Ham falls for. He does this bait and switch, and doesn't realize that his 'insight' involves violating the law of Relativity. Our Universe was a 4D entity that contained sin as soon as it was created. The consequences of that sin can propagate in linear time, but that's a shallow understanding of the nature of reality.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Seems related. Is Sin just absence of God?

Link to video.

 

[bestrfcplayer]

Oh hey, I read about that. And.... Ken Ham is crazier than usual here. I myself believe that it's a high probability that aliens do exist, they wouldn't care at all about any religions here on Earth, and probably come for our resources (though be a lot smarter than the aliens in Signs).

 

[Arakhor]

There's no secular reason to assume that intelligent alien lifeforms have never and will never exist, but the chance that they exist now and that we will be able to interact with them is a lot less likely.

 

[El_Machinae]

Is there a religious reason to assume that intelligent life forms don't exist?

 

[Arakhor]

Is there a religious reason to assume that intelligent life forms don't exist?

If youread what he actually said on many occasions and not quote mine, you will realise that he doesn't believe in Alien life, but just what saying what would happen according to those who believe in Alien life, as unfortunately some Christians do. He was showing how absurd the situation is according to the Bible.

Apparently so, yes.

 

[El_Machinae]

That seems to be more of an argument that there're no ensouled extraterrestrial aliens. It's also a good reason for a 1491 cardinal to argue that there are no ensouled North Americans.

 

[Zelig]

That seems to be more of an argument that there're no ensouled extraterrestrial aliens.

Well that kind of implies that there's no point to converting extraterrestrial aliens to believe in Christianity.

 

[Tarquelne]

Well that kind of implies that there's no point to converting extraterrestrial aliens to believe in Christianity.

Anybody else here read James Blish's A Case of Conscience?

It is the story of a Jesuit who investigates an alien race that has no religion yet has a perfect, innate sense of morality,

The Wikipedia entry mentions that someone sent Blish a copy of the Church's actual guidelines for dealing with ETs.

 

[warpus]

But, it goes back to the original philosophical question. Did 2+2 = 4 billions of years ago? Given that there is nothing that is identical, it seems a bit of a stretch.

2 + 2 = 4 because of the way you have defined +. It has a very specific function and behaves in a very specific way.

2 + 2 = 4 was true 4 billion years ago and it will be true 4 billion years from now, unless you change the meaning of the symbols. If you don't, you'll always get 4 as a result.

There are actually vector spaces used in math, where some operations are defined differently. In those vector spaces a multiplication might give you a different answer than what you'd expect in "real life". You could redefine what + does in the same way.

But if you leave the definitions the way they are, you'll always get 4.

 

[timtofly]

That seems to be more of an argument that there're no ensouled extraterrestrial aliens. It's also a good reason for a 1491 cardinal to argue that there are no ensouled North Americans.

One could surmise that God is keeping other God's creations from making contact, but would they not have to come from outside of the universe/God? Humans left themselves get backed into a corner when they allowed evolution. There is no evidence that things can evolve any faster than they do.

"Europeans" in 1491 (especially religious ones) were so narrow minded it is a wonder they even thought China existed.

 

[Aroddo]

But if you leave the definitions the way they are, you'll always get 4.

Well, definitions are by definition definite.

 

[Kyriakos]

2 + 2 = 4 because of the way you have defined +. It has a very specific function and behaves in a very specific way.

2 + 2 = 4 was true 4 billion years ago and it will be true 4 billion years from now, unless you change the meaning of the symbols. If you don't, you'll always get 4 as a result.

There are actually vector spaces used in math, where some operations are defined differently. In those vector spaces a multiplication might give you a different answer than what you'd expect in "real life". You could redefine what + does in the same way.

But if you leave the definitions the way they are, you'll always get 4.

Which is also why (in my view) the math elements and axioms are tied primarily to the human mind, and not to anything external. While you can see two trees somewhere, and plant two more and now have four trees, the event is regarded mathematically as a translation to human thinking; the trees on the field do not need any naming as to their number nor a link of the previous two to the newer ones.

I think that math (an old idea, and older even that its iteration in Plato's Republic) is ultimately a self-reflection instrument, and something risen out of the progression of our mind through time including the vast prehistory of mankind- despite that not being conscious to most people.

(Maybe it can be paralleled to 'order', in the overall unconscious 'chaos' of the human mental realm).

 

[Berzerker]

brings to mind the South Park episode Starvin Marvin in Space where Pat Robertson sends a spaceship to convert aliens

sin seems inherent to life, so if life is "universal" then so is sin and it doesn't need to travel faster than light

 

[warpus]

Which is also why (in my view) the math elements and axioms are tied primarily to the human mind, and not to anything external.

The thing is that we've defined a bunch of mathematical axioms to correspond to our reality, in the common mathematical frameworks we use to solve problems. So our math sort of does correspond to reality, by our design. As a result though, the results of mathematical computations often correspond to reality as well, allowing us to use math to solve problems involving aspects of the Universe.

 

[El_Machinae]

Oh, don't think I'm making a dumb mistake. I think that the Hubble deepfield photo contains an image of thousands of galaxies, despite that photo being of something that existed in spacetime a few billion years ago.

And, I think it makes perfect sense to say "A few million years ago, there were fish in the ocean". The thing to remember is that the concept of fish is merely a human invention, so the concept doesn't exist until people exist.

The problem Ham has is, he thinks that we didn't live in a sinful universe before people sinned and were observed sinning. No, it makes colloquial sense to say such things. But, to build it into a scientific theory requires extrapolations and conclusions that the colloquial sense is useless. It's like saying we lived in a numberless universe before people started counting. It's fundamentally ridiculous

 

[DirtyFinger]

The thing is that we've defined a bunch of mathematical axioms to correspond to our reality, in the common mathematical frameworks we use to solve problems. So our math sort of does correspond to reality, by our design. As a result though, the results of mathematical computations often correspond to reality as well, allowing us to use math to solve problems involving aspects of the Universe.

Math doesn't need to correspond to reality.
For instance, imaginary numbers were invented centuries before there was any need for complex calculations.

It's a theoretical construct that merely represents reality for practical purposes.

 

[Tahuti]

2 + 2 = 4 because of the way you have defined +. It has a very specific function and behaves in a very specific way.

2 + 2 = 4 was true 4 billion years ago and it will be true 4 billion years from now, unless you change the meaning of the symbols. If you don't, you'll always get 4 as a result.

Well, you are basically pointing the crux of the issue. 2+2=4 will always be true. Always. Changing symbols won't change that, since you have merely given 2+2=4 a different expression than '2+2=4'.

 

[warpus]

Well, you are basically pointing the crux of the issue. 2+2=4 will always be true. Always. Changing symbols won't change that, since you have merely given 2+2=4 a different expression than '2+2=4'.

.. If the meaning of the + symbol changes, the result will change as well.

 

[El_Machinae]

Yes, the meaning of the '+' symbol changed awhile ago, and that certainly changed the results.