A wild theist platonist appears, to ask about the path

Hang

I recognize the title could be more informative. At the same time I believe it says what is important.
I believe in a deity, I believe in mathematical entities in the same way.

The community of LessWrong (from whenceforth: LessWrong) is deeply interesting to me, appearing as a semi-organized atheist, reductionist community.
LessWrong seems very interested in promoting rationality, which I applaud. The effort does seem scattered, though, and this is the reason I post.

One has Eliezer's website with some interesting posts. The same of this community. The community links to some posts when you are coming for the first time into it, and you also have a filter for top posts. One has the blog. And recently, the center for modern rationality (in the same page as harrypoter fanfiction about rationality).

The point being there is no defined roadmap to go from AIC (average irrational chump to make an analogy to Game - which also seems to come up around quite a bit) to RA (again, rationality artist).

I write this post as to maybe generate a discussion on how the efforts could be concentrated and a new direction taken.

Should the creation of the Center for Modern Rationality envision this same concentration, this post may and should be disregard.
If it does not, then I leave it to your consideration.

Hang.

I believe in a deity, I believe in mathematical entities in the same way.

I don't understand what this means. Do you?

What does it mean to "believe in" the number 2, for example? And even among mathematical realists one does not usually find the belief that the number 2 is going to do anything; it won't reach into your life and provide you with greater two-ness, as it were. So if you believe in a god in the same way that you believe in the number 2, whatever that may be, what is the purpose of this entity? The number 2 has its uses; you can add it to itself and get 4. What similar operation can you perform on your god, such that the belief is a useful one?

Dear Mr. RolfAndreassen.

Maybe I should have said that I believe in a deity in the same way I believe in mathematical entities. Natural language is tricky.

I question the assumption that something needs to do something else in order to exist. Take, for example, mathematical facts. They just "are" if you want. Some of them (but not all) are accessible trough our formal systems of mathematics. Some are not (certainly you are familiar with Godel's proof).

You may assert that the number two has its uses and thus assert the existence of number two. Bu... (read more)

4gRR14y

What a great question! Traditionally, the operations performed on a god are: * asking for goods and services * grounding morality on * ascribing mysterious feelings and special mind states to the influence of * giving thanks for blessings of existence * basing the feelings of security and purpose in life on * invoking as a semantic stopsign for metaphysical questions None of these, except the last one, could be performed on a god-as-a-mathematical-like-entity, I think.

0A1987dM14y

He (she?) believes that a deity exists, where “exists” is meant in the same sense in which mathematical entities exist, rather than in the sense in which physical objects exist?