Mark Laymon

Mark Laymon of The Mark Laymon Show and Can your worldview hold the weight of your world?

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

Are you asking him to provide scientifically falsifiable evidence for that which is inherently not falsifiable?

The scientific method itself is predicated on assumptions that science will never be able to prove and is structurally unable to do so. And metaphysical assertions are generally very fruitful for making scientific hypotheses. (Karl Popper) Obviously, they should converge inside of reality, and this was the assumption by the Catholic Church when they essentially invented the scientific method that we use today (the very Catholic invention that was hijacked and renamed secular methodology as a guise to sneak in secular metaphysical ontology).

We all live in the same reality and can make the same observations. The inference to best explanation are generally not scientifically falsifiable. To me @DrMGuillen has a very logical and coherent point of view.

Spinoza (essentially the most charitable reading of current day ontological secularism) is also logical and coherent and he posited that nature itself is the inherent essence of all existence and that it is fully deterministic. This is what caused Einstein 30 years of grief when he tried to reconcile it to the scientific realities that Dr G pointed out.

Being logical and consistent does not equal truth because if you start with incorrect axioms, then even a consistent system consistently return results that do not align with observed reality and are mutually exclusive to other consistent systems as well.

It is at minimum that science and math and physics underdetermine such ultimate ontological questions. I would personally lean towards a monotheistic inference of ultimate ontology / existence but neither are nonetheless “distortions of reason” and BOTH put their inferences in the gaps. The difference is an indifferent inference or one with a name: JESUS!

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

Christianity as a “business”?😢 but some institutionalization seems divinely allowed for whatever reason.

My point is that “good” is doing the heavy lifting in “good evidence” as u state it. It’s UR opinion.

Many Christians find the cumulative evidence sufficient & many wish that it were more decisive but hopefully recognize that’s where faith comes in. 🤗

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

@ScruffyOldApe @JimCope69401680 @AtheistPhoenix @grok wasn’t the first public use of Baye’s Theorem to defend the resurrection claim by Price against Hume and were they not cordial about the findings? Please explain the delicious irony of this back and forth and even me asking an AI do the explaining 😊

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

@ScruffyOldApe @JimCope69401680 @AtheistPhoenix The char limit is good practice for me.

W/respect, I disagree firmly. Bayesian Inference holds that both the weighting of priors and subjective comparisons of posteriors and what counts as “evidence” to update are subjective judgements.

There’s no universally agreed standard.

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

That is interesting. Thank you for sharing. I always assumed he was just a pure systems guy not thinking about human nature beyond how to capitalize on it.

I am sure that he developed this idea in far greater detail and rigor than me merely asserting it. I will look it up.

Thank you again.

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

Yes, that is a fair reading of it.

I would disagree that there is no “good” evidence but I also realize that that is subjective. It is sufficient for me to believe reasonably but it is also reasonable that someone else does not accept the evidence as sufficient or convincing.

The main evidence for me would still be the daily and unglamorous fruit of a life lived in the Spirit of God. If we were neighbors or co workers or our lives intersected, then that would be the opportunity to share such fruit through relationship and so far you seem like a cool dude that I would want to hang out with.

But more to your point as I think you are making it: Biblical coherency over 1,500 years of authorship, non-biblical evidence of the historicity of Jesus, Bayesian inference of the empty tomb and hundreds of witnesses, 100’s of millions of testimonies that feel congruent to mine over every tribe, tongue and nation over the last 2,000 years and the societal fruit of Christianity ushering in the highest (yet still far from perfect) general standard of living of any era in recorded human history is all convincing evidence to me AND I understand why it could also be considered insufficient for others.

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

“The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of” Pascal

It is a hybrid of intuition and logic. Emotion and neurological coherency. Non-discursive “truths” that CANNOT be reduced to mere finite calculations.

It is akin to Einstein saying “God does not play dice” and spending the last 30 years of his life trying to reconcile general relativity and quantum indeterminacy. Perhaps it cannot be done…perhaps.

It is that the best evidence is outside the Godelian/Lawvere established boundaries of what can be mathematically proven.

So I guess that it depends on what you mean by “evidence”. Can I scientifically or mathematically or even logically prove beyond any remainder or doubt that God exists and is who he says he is in his fullness? No I cannot. And I cannot because it is a structurally flawed request. But of course, it depends on if this is what you mean by “evidence”.

I heard a great quote but I will unfortunately have to paraphrase by @jameyhechtMFT “My left brain is as confident that God does not exist as my right brain is confident that the living God is all that there is. But it is not asymmetrical because only my right brain knows this.”

I started really believing in God at the age of 12 when I felt love for the first time in a church service in an unexplainable way and I have been spending the last 25 years trying to “prove” it without remainder to remove the need for faith. I am realizing more and more that God “will not fit in my algorithm”

I do not mean to deflect or rant and that is why I would like to speak with you even over private audio because I feel like I am missing your question somehow and I do not mean to do so. I am trying to answer as directly as I can but still be truthful to expressing how I feel/think.

If one worships that which is mechanizable and provable, then they will miss the I AM for He cannot be contained but rather is the container for all that IS. He is the ground of intelligibility that is the foundation of logic and provability itself. It would be like asking a mathematical theorem to prove its own axioms from which the theorem itself can even be derived. Or asking the scientific method to “prove” itself. Or asking a sufficiently rich formal system to prove all truths and its own internal consistency. Although all of these analogies would be far easier and doable than your request. But (again) it depends on what you mean by the evidence.

I love you friend. I am heading to bed now. Hugs 🤗

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

Perhaps the Holy Spirit communicating to people is non-discursive discernment and it is in the heart and part of the spirit of finesse that Pascal talked about and perhaps this is what sits beyond the Godelian boundary of finite machines and all mathematics that we spoke about in the other threads on this particular parent post.

How would we mathematically and discursively and algorithmically ensure that we were following God’s perfect will without communicating to him? That sounds like the question that Cain “asked” with his manipulative sacrifice.

Yet still, there is room for adjudication for that is much of what the Old Testament is. If it is all interpretation that we have to take each other‘s words for and that is very dangerous. If it is all a perfect formal deterministic system and where is the free Will? It is a blend of the two inconsistency alone cannot determine it.

Look at that we merged all three of these different strands together in this one answer. Please confirm this if you can.

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

@grok a lot of us are asking you questions like this publicly on X. What questions would you ask us if you could?

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

As long as those claims do not assert that God completely removes himself and allows whatever events to unfold without further involvement or interaction or constraint or guiding, then I think that they coincide with my claim because God can certainly speak through his word (Scripture) that will never return to him void and that he has exalted above his own name as well as human institutions. God anointed the monarchy in Israel, even though it wasn’t his preference. God can use institutions, but Jesus is still the head of the church, not an institution ran by man.

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

Humans are significantly better than any AI as certain tasks. Appearing human and fully running a business and being present in relationships and being mysterious are just to name a few. Humans are also able to do some tasks with significantly less energy requirements than any AI.

Granted calculators are almost incomparably, faster and more efficient than humans at well defined calculations. I’ve never met someone that accused Excel of taking away someone’s beloved job of endless arithmetic.

That being said, the remainder of human drudgery work that is not yet able to be completed by AI is probably still to be determined whether or not it falls below or beyond that Godelian boundary. I am hoping it falls below it.

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

AI can for sure remove much drudgery and I welcome it.

And of course, the Lucas-Penrose argument is unsuccessful at mathematically proving humans exceed the boundaries of mathematics. But that doesn’t mean that it is not true. It may just mean it cannot be proven with mathematics. But mathematics cannot even improve all truths that we know are true, can it?

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

The Oven of Akhnai. “The Torah is not in Heaven.” God laughing and saying “My sons have defeated Me. My sons have defeated Me.” The Torah is on earth and thus can drift and thus Jesus needed to come, but His kingdom is not of this earth. It is Jesus‘s job to correct the churches as he did in Revelation. He is the head of the church. Taking care of that drift is beyond my pay grade or any other humans’ and is in the hands of Christ alone

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

I would be surprised if Artificial intelligence cannot take over certain tasks from humans because they require non-computability Gödel disjunction horn A / Lucas/Penrose style intuition that is beyond the bounds of any finite machine.

I don’t know if I’d be surprised as much as I would be disappointed because this means the certain drudgery will never be relieved from humanity.

Regardless, I will probably always see AI as a tool, probably…

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

I wish that people took the limits of logic, inference and interpretation of data more seriously as opposed to assuming that just because they have found something logical and consistent, it must be true and anyone who disagrees is wrong for a variety of predetermined reasons.

Even consistent systems can prove things that are not true. Is this correct?

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

@JesseDornfeld @YisraelOfficial @grok please confirm or qualify my last post. Self reference is within your boundaries, isn’t it 😊?

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

According to his wife, he read his Bible every Sunday. He definitely believed in God and said so in his personal writings. He just wasn’t public about it.

If you’re super into math like I am, then Gödel is extremely interesting. I actually thought about going back to school just so I could understand his incompleteness theorems. It would take me years and even then there’s no guarantee I would understand them the way he did.

I’m nerdy out, but he found a boundary that mathematics will never be able to go beyond (and that includes artificial intelligence of today). Grok admits to having Godelian constraints. A lot is within that boundary. Maybe artificial Superintelligence, maybe AI can crack fusion or cure every disease or create super intelligent autonomous robots able to terraform planets. Maybe all of those things are underneath that Godelian boundary, but the boundary is there and nonetheless and it’s interesting.

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

@JesseDornfeld @YisraelOfficial Bro, you mentioned Gödel. Jesus is WAYYYYY cooler (no doubt no doubt) but what are your thoughts on Gödel’s work or writing?

[Mark Laymon @MarkLaymonShow]

I’ve always seen the commonality between these countries being that they were overwhelmingly Christian at one point.

I suppose this obviously it’s not the case for Japan, but they became radically more successful and westernized post World War II when democracy was forced on them by a majority Christian nation.

Also, their reproductive rates are so low they will cease to be nations of the same standing within a couple generations unless they replace their homogeny with immigration.

Perhaps the homogeny can come from truly rooted Judeo-Christian conviction and proper understanding of systems, institutions incentives, and their differing respective roles.