[Zelandakh]

 Trinidad, on 2013-October-23, 06:21, said:

What makes you so sure (sure enough to call it a fact) that we are pieces in Someone's game, rather than leave the possibility open that we ourselves are the players (and that there is nobody else at buttons somewhere)?

believe it or not there is a perfectly good logical argument for this Rik. Take our reality. In the future it is very highly likely that computing power and advances in graphics will allow us to create a virtual world that is practically indistinguishable from our world. It is also highly likely that there will be such simulations created, perhaps millions. Given that there are so many realities, the probability of our reality being the true one are small. This is in essence the same argument as Mike put forward regarding which of many religions should be seen as true.

Of course this logical argument is simply a distraction and pointless. Nonetheless, it is one that has been discussed in intellectual circles.

[helene_t]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-October-23, 07:11, said:

Of course this logical argument is simply a distraction and pointless. NonethelessUnsurprisingly, it is one that has been discussed in intellectual circles.

FYP

[Winstonm]

 Fluffy, on 2013-October-23, 05:14, said:

[/size]
Thinking of our world as a computer simulated one makes this questions trivial: God could be a girl playing sims on a 4 dimensional world, it really makes no sense to try to meassure her in our terms.

I would suggest that had the details of what to expect not been so crisply defined my belief in Santa Claus would not have waned. The cause of cognitive dissonance for a large part is a conflict between expectations and outcomes. In the case of god or gods, when we ascribe supernatural power we are removing details - god can will into being a universe - but we don't have to explain that to do so he flies in a sleigh pulled by 8 reindeer. If that were the case, we would eventually see that reality does not produce flying reindeer or weightless sleds.

I find religion very much like the technique of cold reading that is used to give the appearance of talking to the dead - in cold reading the host or hostess suggests broad categories - I see and M or N, does that mean anything to you? - and the believer, the person who wants to contact the dead, will answer, I had a Aunt Mary, thus providing the detail for the host.

I see almost all biblical prophecies in this way: they are quite vague and lacking in details, making it easy to apply details to fill in the holes.

To my knowledge, the only biblical prophecies that are specific have produced much doubt as to when they were written - specific prophecies written after-the-fact hold no mystery.

[mikeh]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-October-23, 07:11, said:

believe it or not there is a perfectly good logical argument for this Rik. Take our reality. In the future it is very highly likely that computing power and advances in graphics will allow us to create a virtual world that is practically indistinguishable from our world. It is also highly likely that there will be such simulations created, perhaps millions. Given that there are so many realities, the probability of our reality being the true one are small. This is in essence the same argument as Mike put forward regarding which of many religions should be seen as true.

Of course this logical argument is simply a distraction and pointless. Nonetheless, it is one that has been discussed in intellectual circles.

Actually, I think the arguments about us being in a simulation are quite different from the argument that the odds of a specific religion 'getting it right' are remote.

The simulation argument is purely regressive, in that having accepted that 'we' are software running on a giant computer, we have to ask: who designed the computer? What attributes do they have, and how do we explain their existence.

IOW, we have to ask of them all of the questions that we were asking about ourselves, until we took the easy way out and posited that we were created as software.

We can see the regression if we entertain the possibility that those who created 'our' computer are themselves merely software running on another computer. As someone once famously said: it's turtles all the way down.

Note that the 'god did it' creation myths have precisely the same failing. While superficially the god myth purports to 'explain' us, it does so only by pushing the questions over to the issue of the god entity.

That is why no god explanation and no simulation explanation can ever actually explain anything in any meaningful way. Religions brainwash their followers into stopping any tendency to critical thinking at the 'god did it stage': religions make it forbidden to think critically about god, one is conditioned into unthinking acceptance, and they call it 'faith' and make it a virtue rather than the profound failure of intellect that it is. This notion is arguably the most successful marketing approach ever. Orwell may have had it in mind when he wrote 1984.

The problem with identifying the 'right' religion, out of the multitude so far invented by humans, is not regressive. In principle, if one accepts that a god desirous of worship exists (iow one has chosen to ignore the regressive nature of that belief), the question is one of probabilities. What are the odds that ANY human religion has got it right, given that it is central to all religions that virtually every one of them got it wrong?

It seems to me that this problem is akin to the problem of proving that god doesn't exist.

Atheists, generally speaking, don't waste any effort on that topic because the terms of the discussion are such that we recognize that it is impossible, in principle, to prove the negative. We conclude that on the available evidence the odds that 'god did it' are remote, and we get on with things that actually matter. So too we can look at religions from the outside and conclude that IF a god does exist, the chances that some humans on a small rocky planet orbiting an ordinary star in an ordinary galaxy in an immense universe 'got it right' are not worth worrying about.

I think it was Dawkins, but I am sure it has been said by many others, who suggested to a religious heckler that once the heckler understood why he, the heckler, rejected so many gods other than the one in which he professed belief, he'd know why atheists reject all of them.

That was witty, but of course untrue. As we see with the Fluffys of the world, they don't reject other gods because those gods are unlikely to exist but because they 'know' as 'fact' that their god is real. As I said: this idea of faith is truly brilliant, altho I truly wish we lacked that inherent weakness.

[blackshoe]

 Trinidad, on 2013-October-23, 00:53, said:

No one will argue with you that religion is very often associated with a god or gods. The three Abrahamic religions are pretty big together, and there are about a billion or so Hindus. But your assertion that there can be no religion without gods is simply untrue and doesn't follow from the definition in the dictionary that you revere.

Thank you for your help. I did miss the significance of "esp." Sue me.

As for "revere", you have no clue what I revere, so just stop, okay?

[blackshoe]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-October-23, 07:11, said:

believe it or not there is a perfectly good logical argument for this Rik. Take our reality. In the future it is very highly likely that computing power and advances in graphics will allow us to create a virtual world that is practically indistinguishable from our world. It is also highly likely that there will be such simulations created, perhaps millions. Given that there are so many realities, the probability of our reality being the true one are small. This is in essence the same argument as Mike put forward regarding which of many religions should be seen as true.

Of course this logical argument is simply a distraction and pointless. Nonetheless, it is one that has been discussed in intellectual circles.

Reminds me of Heinlein's "pantheistic multiple solipsism" and his "infinite worlds" hypothesis. Basically, the idea is that any universe that someone can think of exists - and that since we can all think up universes, we are all God. To steal another line from him "this is no sillier than any other theology, and it might even be true".

[Winstonm]

In my experience I have encountered two basic types of humans: one who knows based on intellectual exercise and one who knows based on personal emotional response. IMO, the latter type outnumbers the former primarily due to the notion that emotions and psychology are so interconnected, while pure intellectualism to a degree renounces the trustworthiness of the emotional approach. It surely takes more effort to analyze than to feel, so maybe that is why fewer take that approach to problem-solving.

[Fluffy]

 mikeh, on 2013-October-23, 09:33, said:

That was witty, but of course untrue. As we see with the Fluffys of the world, they don't reject other gods because those gods are unlikely to exist but because they 'know' as 'fact' that their god is real. As I said: this idea of faith is truly brilliant, altho I truly wish we lacked that inherent weakness.

First, please try to not be offensive, stereotyping me is offensive, and then saying something completely wrong about how I think doesn't make me happy either. Seems like me using the word fact has triggered some hate inside the atheists, I don't understand why, but I regret having used that word. What I refer as wrong is that I don't reject existence of other gods at all, I reject nothing.

You seem to have problems with regression, but I don't have them that much, I think its a matter of perspective.

Instead of an infinite universe think of a small one, something like an intelligent being that is born and raised inside a box somehow, with no outside contact. The universe for it would be the box. That intelligent being would wonder why is he locked on a box?, no because he doesn't know what a box is, he would think that his universe is small, and wonder what is the purpose of his existence.

The reality is that someone outside the box is locking him on the box and could break it anytime, but he doesn't want to. Why? There is really no way the being inside the box can ever know, he lacks perspective.

BTW My definition of god is that: something able to reak the physic laws we know.

While I see the universe as inmense, I think it is really very tiny compared to something else, which could have more dimensions and would make anything I think of it just nonsense. If I was outside the universe perhaps I could see why things are different, and with a 4+ dimensional brain, perhaps find out a way for all to make sense.

In mathematical terms... sorry I don't knwo the english terms for this, there are rules where An+1 = f(An), which is true for every element except the first one which must be given for granted, well I think there is a first element where everything makes sense.

[Vampyr]

 Fluffy, on 2013-October-23, 12:29, said:

While I see the universe as inmense, I think it is really very tiny compared to something else, which could have more dimensions and would make anything I think of it just nonsense. If I was outside the universe perhaps I could see why things are different, and with a 4+ dimensional brain, perhaps find out a way for all to make sense.

Your comments about dimensions and outside the universe bring to mind some thoughts I have had.

String theory posits several more dimensions than the ones we know, and that they are folded up. I think that it is very possible that these dimensions are there, but that we are unable to experience them -- much like an ant walking along a table experiences a world in two spacial dimensions.

Perhaps those unseen dimensions contain the kid playing on her computer or with her chemistry/physics experiment set. Maybe we come into rare contact with these dimensions, and these experiences fuel our tendency to believe in the supernatural. Maybe these dimensions even have a connection with dark matter and dark energy.

I realise that these thoughts are fanciful, but I like to think that maybe there is truth to them, because I find it fun to think that way.

[kenberg]

This thread is really on a trip.

Vampyr's fantasy reminded me of a far less erudite version I had when young. If faced with a decision, I imagined that the universe then split into two copies, each going forward in the manner determined by the choice that I made. A rather self-centered view, but I was ten or so and I was entitled. in retrospect, I can't really recall what sort of decisions a ten year old was called upon to make, but they all seemed crucial at the time. Bike to the zoo or play softball with friends? Ah, the stress of it all.

I seem to still wish for the possibility of magic. And why not?

[Fluffy]

 kenberg, on 2013-October-23, 14:55, said:

This thread is really on a trip.

Vampyr's fantasy reminded me of a far less erudite version I had when young. If faced with a decision, I imagined that the universe then split into two copies, each going forward in the manner determined by the choice that I made. A rather self-centered view, but I was ten or so and I was entitled. in retrospect, I can't really recall what sort of decisions a ten year old was called upon to make, but they all seemed crucial at the time. Bike to the zoo or play softball with friends? Ah, the stress of it all.

I seem to still wish for the possibility of magic. And why not?

I've had similar thoughs, and many times.

[helene_t]

 kenberg, on 2013-October-23, 14:55, said:

If faced with a decision, I imagined that the universe then split into two copies, each going forward in the manner determined by the choice that I made.

In the version I heard, it is the collapse of the wave function that creates the fork in the road. One universe with a dead Schoedinger cat, one with a cat that is alive.

[kenberg]

 helene_t, on 2013-October-23, 15:39, said:

In the version I heard, it is the collapse of the wave function that creates the fork in the road. One universe with a dead Schoedinger cat, one with a cat that is alive.

Dead cats are way too gruesome for a ten year old.

[gwnn]

 Fluffy, on 2013-October-23, 12:29, said:

First, please try to not be offensive, stereotyping me is offensive, and then saying something completely wrong about how I think doesn't make me happy either.

As opposed to you saying that there is a hoard of atheists who mindlessly give upvotes to mikeh (or each other) and attack 32519 and you unfairly?

[gwnn]

 helene_t, on 2013-October-23, 15:39, said:

In the version I heard, it is the collapse of the wave function that creates the fork in the road. One universe with a dead Schoedinger cat, one with a cat that is alive.

Another one of these 'seven colours of the rainbows' fallacies. There are a lot of systems where there is a continuous spectrum of eigenstates, what exactly is supposed to happen to the universe then? Split into an infinite number of infinitisemally small possible states?

[mikeh]

 Fluffy, on 2013-October-23, 12:29, said:

Instead of an infinite universe think of a small one, something like an intelligent being that is born and raised inside a box somehow, with no outside contact. The universe for it would be the box. That intelligent being would wonder why is he locked on a box?, no because he doesn't know what a box is, he would think that his universe is small, and wonder what is the purpose of his existence.

The reality is that someone outside the box is locking him on the box and could break it anytime, but he doesn't want to. Why? There is really no way the being inside the box can ever know, he lacks perspective.

Your analogy is flawed, which is why you think you have no problem with regression.

To correct your analogy, to make it analogous to our thread, the person in the box is wondering who created what he perceives as his universe. Just as we do with ours.

Religious thinkers say that our universe was created by a god, and at least the vast majority of those who say they have thought about this, assert that the god stood outside the universe when he created it.

So our universe is analogous to your box.

Whether a box-dweller is thinking of this or it is just us, as outside observers who think this, answering the question of his existence by saying: 'somebody made a box and you are inside it' doesn't explain anything deep. Instead it begs the question: who made the somebody?

So you'd say, in your example: we made the box and we were made by god.

I then ask: who made the god?

That's where religion breaks down, because religion says that that question is meaningless, when what they really mean is that they can't allow the question to have meaning without admitting that their entire explanatory scheme is meaningless

Quote

BTW My definition of god is that: something able to reak the physic laws we know.

I don't understand this at all. I regard this as a complete abandonment of imagination.

The one thing about which we can, I think, all agree is that humans have not, as a species, been able to identify all or even the 'correct' laws of physics. What we have, and what we call 'laws' are rules that appear to work well, including laws that seem to work to an astounding degree of accuracy.

But we 'know' that we are missing some key insights. Nobody has yet been able to reconcile gravity with quantum mechanics, as one major issue in physics.

Euclid developed laws that included that summing the angles of an object with 3 straight sides would always yield 180 degrees. Einstein said that this wasn't true in a gravitational field because of the curvature of space...not the curvature of the physical object forming the triangle, but the curvature of space itself. This could not be demonstrated at the time, but has been once humanity started launching satellites. This curvature has now actually been measured.

Say somehow this measurement were done at a time when Newtonian physics still dominated: Einstein died early, before his insights.

The measurements would show that the laws of physics, as we knew them, were being broken.

You'd see that as an act of god. A new Einstein would see this as an illustration that our understanding was incomplete and would discover space-time and its curvature in a gravitational field and explain the measurements.

If I saw something that appeared to violate the laws of physics, my intellectual curiosity would be engaged and the first thing I'd think of, after making sure it wasn't a conjuring trick, was that we need to find the underlying laws. Of course, I wouldn't be capable of actually doing that, since Einstein I ain't But the principle is what counts. I certainly wouldn't get down on my knees and worship some 'god' simply for doing something I didn't understand. If I saw someone doing that, I'd see them as weak-minded idiots. In this day and age there is no reason to resort to superstition merely because we don't know the answers yet.

[Vampyr]

 kenberg, on 2013-October-23, 15:46, said:

Dead cats are way too gruesome for a ten year old.

Also their knowledge of quantum theory is, at best, spotty

[blackshoe]

 Vampyr, on 2013-October-23, 16:43, said:

Also their knowledge of quantum theory is, at best, spotty

Are you talking about cats or ten year olds?

[Fluffy]

mikeh: I explained in the end why with perspective it could be not neccesary to explain who created god.

and by breaking the laws of physics, I really meant breaking the laws of physics, not breaking the laws of physics as humans understand them.

You could actually argue that if god makes a click on her mouse to explode earth, in a sense she is not violating the laws of physics on his world, but I hope you get the point.

[Fluffy]

 gwnn, on 2013-October-23, 16:29, said:

As opposed to you saying that there is a hoard of atheists who mindlessly give upvotes to mikeh (or each other) and attack 32519 and you unfairly?

I don't recall defending the troll ever, in fact I ignored that guy way before you did when he started to make stupid threads about 2♦ openings. I am too polite to make a campaign of don't feed the troll into a newcommer, but that idea actually crossed my mind back then.

When I talked about upvotes it was on another thread about a year ago when we were in very bad terms already, and that was the beginning of that thread being locked (*****, just when I was about to WIN that argument )