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ikos9lives
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The title for this thread is from an article by David P. Goldman in the August issue of First Things. It's about the religious beliefs of Kurt Godel, the most famous and probably the greatest mathematician of the 20th century, whose "incompleteness theorem" showed that algorithms will never replace intuition, i.e. it will be impossible to construct thinking machines from hardware/software. Here's a link to the article:
http://www.faqs.org/periodicals/201008/2080027241.html"
I'll quote from the article: "But Gödel's God is not the well-behaved deity of the old natural theology, or the happy harmonizer of the intelligent-design subculture. Gödel's God hides his countenance and can be glimpsed only in paradox and intuition. God is not an abstraction but "can act as a person," as Gödel once wrote, confronting those who seek him with paradox, uplifting man through glorious insights while guarding his infinitude from human grasp. Gödel's investigations in number theory and general relativity suggest a similar theological result: that God cannot be reduced to a mere principle of the natural world." How great!
Godel was also working on a revision of Anselm's ontological proof for God. He phrased his revision of Leibniz's version of the ontological proof in logical notation. To quote again from the article: "I (Goldman) doubt Godel believed he had found the ultimate and irrefutable proof of the existence of God. His deep interest in the ontological proof, rather was one facet of his commitment to defend Leibniz' theism against the new Spinozans of mathematics and physics." (emphasis added).
Worth reading, particularly for those open-minded agnostics/atheists with a mathematical background/interest.
http://www.faqs.org/periodicals/201008/2080027241.html"
I'll quote from the article: "But Gödel's God is not the well-behaved deity of the old natural theology, or the happy harmonizer of the intelligent-design subculture. Gödel's God hides his countenance and can be glimpsed only in paradox and intuition. God is not an abstraction but "can act as a person," as Gödel once wrote, confronting those who seek him with paradox, uplifting man through glorious insights while guarding his infinitude from human grasp. Gödel's investigations in number theory and general relativity suggest a similar theological result: that God cannot be reduced to a mere principle of the natural world." How great!
Godel was also working on a revision of Anselm's ontological proof for God. He phrased his revision of Leibniz's version of the ontological proof in logical notation. To quote again from the article: "I (Goldman) doubt Godel believed he had found the ultimate and irrefutable proof of the existence of God. His deep interest in the ontological proof, rather was one facet of his commitment to defend Leibniz' theism against the new Spinozans of mathematics and physics." (emphasis added).
Worth reading, particularly for those open-minded agnostics/atheists with a mathematical background/interest.
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