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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?
This was really the point made by Matrix on the Plantinga thread and it raised the validity of human knowledge.
I sometimes say that we don't have any alternative. The assumption that things are as we find them is neccessary otherwise anything could be true and we couldn't rely on anything. That is, of course, absurd as (as atheists say) 'science made the computer you're using', or (as theists say) 'you have faith that your car will start.' (though they are talking rubbish since it isn't BLIND Faith - we know WHY we assume the car will start and are also aware that sometimes it won't).
In a sort of short -cut it gives the answer. Repeated experience validates the experience. It is logically valid to assume that everyone will die because everyone has. As the Swami says that is no guarantee that someone will not die but in any world where any validated evidence counts for anything we have no logically valid reason to suppose that anyone will.
That is logical and one can always disagree. However, as I argued on the Matrix/Plantinga thread, though human perception is unreliable (we see the world as flat with a dome over it and was at the centre of the universe) science developed methods of showing that we were mistaken, and they have stood up to test. Newton and Einstein even in the face of Quantum are still relatively valid. Even if we are part of a computer simulation and even if that could be proved, they would still work.
Thus scientifically validated evidence must be given credence though there is always this nagging idea that just because we have no workable alternative method doesn't mean that it is right. If I can re-cap, I think I showed that, if there were doubts, it was to be aimed at the suggestion that things were NOT as validated science showed them to be. The burden of proof was on the claim that it was a hologram or mind of god or a figment of our imagination.
As I showed in the Startrek spoof, there is also reason and evidence to suppose that things are as they are and not what we would expect in a cosmic computer game, cosmic mind or our own imagination (I think of that as the principle of unexpectedness).
This is only to say that the world which we can test and validate is, pretty much, as we find it. If it does exist as a molecule in a blob of fat in the milkshake of a cosmos - sized kid having a school snack, it is an interesting speculation but our world still works.
That is also not to say that science knows it all. Of course there is much more to find out, and I welcome anyone with ideas even if they are those I don't much care for, such as the idea that we are part of a computer game which the Controller could alter at any time. But then we look for the support of such a claim and it really does, I think, need to make a case which would stand up under scientific scrutiny and it is unacceptable to insist on validity by belief, argument that science doesn't know everything or dismissing it as closed - minded orthodoxy if it doesn't acept the claim on poor or non - existent evidence.
Really, no -one who deserves intellectual respect should try to make cases that way, which is why I am distressed to hear intelligent posters use the argument and concerned when scientists who happen to have religion use such arguments for it.
You are not talking religion, of course, but this is why I see atheism as just part of a wider rational, logical and science - based worldview, which is what I see as a needful one, despite Thom R's gasps of appalled horror.
...and the only reason I consider myself agnostic instead of atheistic.
In Stephen Hawking's latest book: The Grand Design , Hawking conceeds that if an advanced alien civilization with sufficient computing power created a simulated world that was programed to function based on scientific principles, any residents of that virtual world would have no way of knowing they were in a simulation instead of a real world.
Now before you slap your forehead and say: "Oh no, not The Matrix thing again?!", stop for a second and think about this.
First. What IS reality? Everything we know and understand about our world is filtered through our sensory organs and brain. That information is used by our brains to create a virtual model in our heads, which we use to make sense of the data input and use it to navigate our environment. So in effect, we aren't directly seeing the world around us, we are seeing a simulation of the world around us as created by our brains. We already verifiably understand the world through a simulation, in other words.
Second, Science itself works under two basic schools of thought regarding the subject of reality: the realists and the anti-realists. The realists make the assumption everything actually physically exists in space and time, down to the last subatomic particle. But, quantum physics shoots this understanding down. According to Quantum Physics, a subatomic particle can be in two places at once, can take any possible route all at the same time and can even not exist until it is observed.
So in reality, we can't truly say reality is in fact, real. Instead, scientists base their works on models, where phenomena holds true constantly and consistently, not to mention making the information practical, understandable and otherwise usable.
So if our reality is really only an assumed one, it would be completely possible for our world, or even universe to be a simulated one. And if we were living in a simulation, that means someone (or something) created the simulation and is living outside the simulation. Such a being could easily overrule the directives of the simulation and create what we would call miracles. A simulation could be programmed to make a world with all the characteristics of a 4.5 billion year old planet but really be far younger (ACK! even 6000 years!).
And yes Rifleman, a simulation could even theoretically flood the world with water that didn't otherwise exist and fit 2 of every kind of animal in a big wooden boat, and then erase any evidence of a flood (or simply have a small group of AI programs experience "the deluge") all sans magic.
It also begs the question, if our world is simulated, is the simulator's world simulated too? Could the multiverse be a neverending line of simulations, a la "Inception"?
Finally, being in a simulation is not necessarily inferior to being in a "real world"; a incredible program that could reproduce the universe from the subatomic to the universal scale would function exactly as the real deal. All observations would jive with the real thing, plus you would not be held back by physical distances or time when making your observations. It would be the only way an intelligent being could possibly see everything in an area encompassing billions of light years.
I'm not saying it IS, but I can find no scientific reason, nor religious text ("god(s)" never promises us reality is real, as near as I can tell) to disprove or shoot down this theory. Can you?
I think you are close to the truth....if ADAM and EVE were sent out of EDEN (possitive reality) into a (opposite reality) where death was a constant...then yes you seem to be following that conceptual idea out of the Bible.
How we move back to the positive reality where God intended us to be in...is by doing the opposite of what brought them...and then through birth us into this backwards place!
Sinlessly put back, what was taken in disobediance.....simple transferal...knowing what sin is, and not doing it...while sowing some seeds for God....now if we read the scriputures properly, and share all things like God shares everything with us....this world would change signs!
I think you are close to the truth....if ADAM and EVE were sent out of EDEN (possitive reality) into a (opposite reality) where death was a constant...then yes you seem to be following that conceptual idea out of the Bible.
How we move back to the positive reality where God intended us to be in...is by doing the opposite of what brought them...and then through birth us into this backwards place!
Sinlessly put back, what was taken in disobediance.....simple transferal...knowing what sin is, and not doing it...while sowing some seeds for God....now if we read the scriputures properly, and share all things like God shares everything with us....this world would change signs!
...and the only reason I consider myself agnostic instead of atheistic.
In Stephen Hawking's latest book: The Grand Design , Hawking conceeds that if an advanced alien civilization with sufficient computing power created a simulated world that was programed to function based on scientific principles, any residents of that virtual world would have no way of knowing they were in a simulation instead of a real world.
Now before you slap your forehead and say: "Oh no, not The Matrix thing again?!", stop for a second and think about this.
First. What IS reality? Everything we know and understand about our world is filtered through our sensory organs and brain. That information is used by our brains to create a virtual model in our heads, which we use to make sense of the data input and use it to navigate our environment. So in effect, we aren't directly seeing the world around us, we are seeing a simulation of the world around us as created by our brains. We already verifiably understand the world through a simulation, in other words.
You're conflating physical reality with perception. Generally, we perceive reality pretty well at our level of existence. Very small scale (atomic/molecular) and very large scale (cosmological) events are outside our ability to perceive directly, but we've managed to make devices that do the job for us, and they work pretty well.
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Second, Science itself works under two basic schools of thought regarding the subject of reality: the realists and the anti-realists. The realists make the assumption everything actually physically exists in space and time, down to the last subatomic particle. But, quantum physics shoots this understanding down. According to Quantum Physics, a subatomic particle can be in two places at once, can take any possible route all at the same time and can even not exist until it is observed.
You're just making stuff up here.
Quantum physics tells us the universe is probabilistic, not deterministic. There are vanishingly small chances that extremely unusual things can happen. Those things don't negate the norm.
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So in reality, we can't truly say reality is in fact, real. Instead, scientists base their works on models, where phenomena holds true constantly and consistently, not to mention making the information practical, understandable and otherwise usable.
Most of us regard reality as real.
If you don't, the treatments available currently aren't all that helpful.
Quote:
So if our reality is really only an assumed one, it would be completely possible for our world, or even universe to be a simulated one. And if we were living in a simulation, that means someone (or something) created the simulation and is living outside the simulation. Such a being could easily overrule the directives of the simulation and create what we would call miracles. A simulation could be programmed to make a world with all the characteristics of a 4.5 billion year old planet but really be far younger (ACK! even 6000 years!).
Quote:
And yes Rifleman, a simulation could even theoretically flood the world with water that didn't otherwise exist and fit 2 of every kind of animal in a big wooden boat, and then erase any evidence of a flood (or simply have a small group of AI programs experience "the deluge") all sans magic.
It also begs the question, if our world is simulated, is the simulator's world simulated too? Could the multiverse be a neverending line of simulations, a la "Inception"?
Finally, being in a simulation is not necessarily inferior to being in a "real world"; a incredible program that could reproduce the universe from the subatomic to the universal scale would function exactly as the real deal. All observations would jive with the real thing, plus you would not be held back by physical distances or time when making your observations. It would be the only way an intelligent being could possibly see everything in an area encompassing billions of light years.
I'm not saying it IS, but I can find no scientific reason, nor religious text ("god(s)" never promises us reality is real, as near as I can tell) to disprove or shoot down this theory. Can you?
Your post is FULL of the magic you claim it doesn't have.
These things only happen in your imaginary simworld. Like the one in ancient middle eastern myths.
...thinking some more about this, and I wonder, when could (and/or if) a simulation become more than just a simulation?
If a simulation was so complete, so perfectly evolving and so large that could actually simulate the entire universe from quantum scale up, would it even be fair to call it a "simulation"? It might as well be a "Universe", even if it was contained in a computer of some sorts.
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