From owner-leri@daft.com Sat Jan 12 00:14:06 2002 Return-Path: Received: from perv.daft.com (perv.daft.com [204.122.30.2]) by mail2.thuntek.net (8.11.6/8.11.0) with ESMTP id g0C7E4b40005 for ; Sat, 12 Jan 2002 00:14:04 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from owner-leri@daft.com) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by (8.10.2/23) id g0C6REv24788 for leri-outgoing; Fri, 11 Jan 2002 22:27:14 -0800 X-Authentication-Warning: perv.daft.com: majordom set sender to owner-leri@daft.com using -f Received: from morphine.neuron.net (dark.slam.cc [216.254.9.108]) by perv.daft.com (8.10.2/23) with ESMTP id g0C6QlR24780 for ; Fri, 11 Jan 2002 22:26:55 -0800 X-Authentication-Warning: perv.daft.com: Host dark.slam.cc [216.254.9.108] claimed to be morphine.neuron.net Received: by morphine.neuron.net (Postfix, from userid 1094) id 6B9DA8D1E; Fri, 11 Jan 2002 22:29:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by morphine.neuron.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5BE0E551C; Fri, 11 Jan 2002 22:29:20 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 22:29:20 -0800 (PST) From: Mordechai X To: Cc: Fnord Bjornberger , Subject: Re: de-anthropomorphizing god In-Reply-To: <20020102143458.A30989@moe.cc.utexas.edu> Message-ID: <20020111221959.B45327-100000@morphine.neuron.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-leri@daft.com X-Loop: leri@daft.com Precedence: list Status: R On Wed, 2 Jan 2002 fing@uts.cc.utexas.edu wrote: > So I find it more helpful to have a number of overlapping belief > systems than committing to one over-arching one. That is, many of > my beliefs are circumstantial. I believe them part of the time, > when it is helpful, and believe other things at other times. > > Let me state this in terms of set theory, for the sake of precision. > Let R be our reality manifold, and let's say it can be partitioned > into sets A, B, C, and D. Furthermore, let's say that B and C are > very large sets, such that most of the points of R are contained in > B or C. So A and D are small sets. > > Now, we define some belief system X. Let's first (loosely) define > "belief system" as a rule or set of rules for selecting which points > or R are to be included and how the included points will be ordered > or organized. > > So let's now arbitrarily create some belief systems: > X = A + B > Y = A + D > Z = C + D > W = B + C > > Now, many people believe they should only have one system of beliefs. > Which one would you choose? Y seems like a bad choice, and W might > seem like the best choice, since it includes most of reality R. But > then Z knows things that W doesn't. > > My decision has been to abandon the belief that you should only > have one system of beliefs. Not only accept the fact that a lot of > different people who say different things might be right, learn to > think like the things they say are right. > Hmm. Let me define one more set: Aleph = R I don't recall anything in your rules which disallows this move... (this is what I mean when I say I'm a post-post-structuralist. Although I mostly just say it to annoy people). Presto chango! We have Taoism! Or is that Buddhism? Tantric Hinduism? Hermeticism? actually we need one more rule, and I'm afraid this one is axiomatic. First, we need a simple bit of nomenclature. the symbol "->", prepended to any set, refers to the set as referent, while the name of the set is the set itself. thus "fruit" is the set of all fruits, and "->fruit" is the word 'fruit' used to refer to that set. now for our axiom: ->Aleph is not Aleph. It may be old, but it's all we've got. I would say more, but ASCII fails. -@man.