[stjohnswarts]

Because they have worked over time, empirically as opposed to a lot woo woo stuff proposed by religion, spirituality, metaphysics, mentally ill, etc. which can never be disproved but which really don't have any value in those areas where we apply science like technology and attempting to understand natural processes

[ukj]

You seem to be speaking from a place of greatly diminished self-awareness.

Notice how you are constantly appealing to abstract unobservables to make your claims. No shame in that - all science does it. Quantities, numbers, fields, processes etc. etc. etc.

That is precisely the metaphysical woo woo you are busy criticising. Formalism is all about turning that woo-woo into well-defined concepts.

What's a "process"? Show me one.

Only way I know how is to give you more metaphysical woo woo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_calculus

You know all that religious woo-woo about omniscience? We are still talking about it and even using it...

https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/principle+of+omniscience

All this religious/devine woo-woo...

  The central dogma of computational trinitarianism holds that Logic, Languages, and Categories are but three manifestations of one divine notion of computation. There is no preferred route to enlightenment: each aspect provides insights that comprise the experience of computation in our lives.

https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/computational+trilogy

[stjohnswarts]

If you want to believe in fairy tales then enjoy them. I prefer materialism. We will never agree on this. You can't prove a God exists, so I simply don't care about the topic other than how it affects civilization negatively by promoting magical thinking and religious fanaticism/intolerance. I tolerate people who are religious, I don't wish them any harm; the opposite is quite untrue for a large proportion of the religious world for atheists/"infidels".

[ukj]

The deep irony in valuing matter more than valuing values is never wasted on me.

You still haven't figured out that "matter" is yet another man-made concept? An abstract idea. A collective noun. Itself a (very useful) "fairy tale".

A substance which posesses "rest mass" in a universe where nothing is ever at rest sure sounds like magical thinking (to me). And what do you even make of point-like particles in physics? They have no volume - so they are not matter. And what about anitmatter?

You haven't yet come to the self-realization that you are committing the reification fallacy by promoting a man-made concept to a totalizing/generalizing/all-encompassing ontological status.

Matter is your God. It's the abstraction you worship.

You are right in saying that we'll never agree; for if I were to agree with you I too would be wrong.