Notes
[Sunday 13 July 2008 - Saturday 19 July 2008]
[Notebook: DB 64 Gravitation]
Sunday 13 July 2008
Monday 14 July 2008
[page 68]
Tuesday 15 July 2008
I guess that every religion contains statements equivalent to the Christian hypothesis: God is love. We must love God first and then our neighbour. Matthew 22:36-40
This is good as far s it goes, but it raises some questions such as what is God, what is love and who is my neighbour. Jesus answered the last two questions. Everybody is my neighbour and we must love them to death if necessary. As far as the Roman Catholic Church is concerned, both love and God are unfathomable mysteries to which it has been given the key by God himself.
The ship of state should be guided by feedback generated by observed deviations from some desired course. Such a system can only work if the desired course and deviations from it can be quantified.
[page 69]
What does religion do? Catholicism cannot be global because it is arbitrary. Reality is not arbitrary, and we must know it and track it to survive.
Eureka Street: Evidence based religion
To love is to communicate with as part of the system. The stronger and closer the love the more deep and meaningful the communication, ie the greater its entropy.
The physical definition of entropy: count states;
The metaphysical definition of entropy: count states defined by
ordered sets of states.
The heart of creation is the power of order. With a ten digit decimal number we can number 1010 distinct states.
At the simplest level, a good religion equilibrates the stresses in society so that all bear an equivalent load in good time as well as bad.
When it comes to making decisions that constrain our future, individually and collectively, we need all the information we can get. Once we start looking, we see that there is no shortage of information. But much of it is contradictory and so we must decide who to trust. In this way faith enters human decision making, and ultimately, human fitness.
There is no doubt that Christianity confers fitness on communities that embrace it.
[page 70]
World Youth Day is a magnificent application of the spin doctor's art aiming abstract platitudes at vulnerable youth, avoiding any real engagement with the older (and possibly wiser) community.
They believe in miracles. A miracle is simply an improbable event, and quantum mechanics says that there is no limit to improbabilities in our Universe. Paradoxically improbable events are to be expected and prove nothing.
The fundamental error of the Roman Catholic Church is to surround itself with secrecy and mystery while claiming at the same time infallibility. It demands belief without evidence, a most dangerous course for any animal with survival at heart.
Animal like ourselves.
