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hey Chango i'll play.
re: the question of racial origins has never been satisfactorily satisfied for me....perhaps this knowledge is outside of the programme. or perhaps these remnant races (some real/some hybrid)were left races are left over from a previous simulation.
thinking back on childhood time of playing with ant farms. they were contained in their own little plexy-glass worlds with sand and a few ammenities but i felt somehow they were conscious of me as they went about their milling; they had to be i was flipping their world upside-down and side to side...i was a god to them. -sure wouldn't want that scenario to happen to me.
Which means it could be "deniable" and/or "testable". Hmmm... interesting.
An easy proof that it exists, but that perhaps one of it's key elements (that god entity thingy..) may not.
That's correct. For example, If a man insists there is a pink elephant with five legs following him around, he can be examined by a psychiatrist. His delusion exists (unless he's lying) but the pink elephant doesn't exist.
gabfest is on the road to self-actualization. gabfest has witness others boast they have already achieved self-actualization. gabfest observes their behaviors and realises they have only achieved self- actualization with their mouths.
Last edited by gabfest; 01-13-2011 at 08:59 AM..
Reason: changed that to they=msp.
gabfest is on the road to self-actualization. gabfest has witness others boast they have already achieved self-actualization. gabfest observes their behaviors and realises they have only achieved self- actualization with their mouths.
Chango believes self-actualization is an endless wide road, not an endpoint. Anyone who claimes to have found it is either mistaken or is a liar.
I guess that's why I think about stuff like this... I find pure denial at a claim's "face value" to be too constricting in my search for truth. ANYTHING experienced by humans is a potential clue to the true nature of existence, but there is just so much B.S. to wade through on the way that it's very difficult to make any headway...
Yes, I did say 'The Matrix thing again' But yes it is possible. A lot of things are possible. However, given that nature is repeatable and shown no sign of being anything but the mechanical workings of predictable effect, then that reality is real, even if it is made out of nothing but energy, is part of a huge computer game or a Holographic game and not withstanding chaos theory and Indeterminacy.
There is thus no logical nor evidential reason to suppose that reality has no reality, or that sudden inexplicables can happen. True, there are unexplained events but there always have been and many are now explained. The rest simply remain unexplained.
There is no example of a planet suddenly stopping in orbit and reversing or a volcano spewing lemon squash instead of lava. We don't get any sign or anything other than the workings of nature and evidence of a material universe. Attempts to explain ice ages or dinosaur extinctions as some sort of computer reset is good for a laugh but not much else.
It seems that the idea of a computer program is an interesting mental idea based mostly on we can't disprove it, like deist - god. If one has any regard for logic used correctly, we won't believe any of those interesting speculations without some persuasive proofs and that is all the justification needed to regard that materialist and naturalistic worldview as the only rational one to hold.
If there is or are any elements of doubt, these apply much more to speculations about eveything being an image either in a huge invisible computer or the mind of a huge invisible being.
This is the best logical refute I've seen so far, but how do you make this train of though work when we cannot arrive at a true knowledge of reality itself? Like I say, we observe and understand the world through a modeled simulation created by our brain and sensory organs, and our brain is easily tricked into accepting somethign is real when it isn't. We are tricked every night when we dream, after all, not to mention with drugs and even certain odd environmental stimuli...
I've read some interesting things by some thinkers that argue certain phenomenon in Quantum Mechanics, like observer effect suggests we are in a simulation. Anybody with more Physics knowedge than me care to tear them apart?
No, it isn't. The Omphalos Hypothesis is easly disproven with various age measuring methods that work on the sound priciple that certain elements decay at a constant rate. Any writer of our theoretical simulation would have to be cruel liar to purposely fake the age of the planet and then tell his "chosen" his truth, then hold it against those who didn't believe the "chose" which doesn't. That doesn't jive (or jibe, if you prefer ) with most religion's claims of the nature of god.
Thinking more about this...there would be no need to "fake" age. A simulation starting at the "big bang" would naturally grow it's own way in the preset parameters (which would would be the laws of physics to us). It would be far more simple for the simulation to evolve on it's own than it would be to try and replicate a universe with fake age, not to mention far less problematic (problems would resolve themselves; what didn't work very well would not stay around, as the theory of evolution shows). And I suppose building such a simulation could take far less time than the 12 billion years it took from our perspective; even on RPG video games today time is almost always compressed in the game's simulated world...
So I guess I'm back where I started with regard to science and religion. Real or simulated universe; for a god to exist, he/she/it would not likely do things as conventional religion claims.
Chango believes self-actualization is an endless wide road, not an endpoint. Anyone who claimes to have found it is either mistaken or is a liar.
I guess that's why I think about stuff like this... I find pure denial at a claim's "face value" to be too constricting in my search for truth. ANYTHING experienced by humans is a potential clue to the true nature of existence, but there is just so much B.S. to wade through on the way that it's very difficult to make any headway...
I agree. Thom R's complain that science claims to be the be- all and e
nd all or that we atheist posters act as though it is is incorrect - science needs speculation, hypotheses and inspiration to suggest new ideas but the merit of science is that it is the only reliable method of testing and validating such ideas. Doing it of 'Faith' is irrational.
Puer denial of claims without testing is 'constricting', but it is never just believe or not (as theists never tire of saying) one had to bear in mind the state of verified knowledge and anything which cuts across that has to be rejected until it can prove itself. This is what science does.
This is of course regarded as closed mindedness by the science orthodoxy but the method is the only reasonable one. Persons making the claim have to make the case and the more extraordinary the claim the more extraordinary ( or compelling) the proof has to be.
Thus you should welcome that method because it cuts through the BS. True, one might want to trawl through the BS in search of a nugget of silver that was tossed out with the garbage (the baby/bathwater idea) but perhaps the better idea is to let those who push the BS produce a good case for it.
Our pal C34 did this all the time and I welcomed his efforts to make a case, but I certainly don't see it as MY business to go looking for the Ark or for mummified hadrosaurs in Tucume.
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A completely logic-free idea...
But yes it is possible. A lot of things are possible. However, given that nature is repeatable and shown no sign of being anything but the mechanical workings of predictable effect, then that reality is real, even if it is made out of nothing but energy, is part of a huge computer game or a Holographic game and not withstanding chaos theory and Indeterminacy.
) with most religion's claims of the nature of god. 
