Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Theism and Atheism => Topic started by: Walt Zingmatilder on January 25, 2021, 01:12:34 PM
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Some Atheists on here have described themselves as Agnostic about God but also as people who act as if God doesn't exist. If you identify with that description, how do you know you are acting as if God does not exist? How do you feel you act as though God does not exist?
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Vlad,
Some Atheists on here have described themselves as Agnostic about God but also as people who act as if God doesn't exist. If you identify with that description, how do you know you are acting as if God does not exist? How do you feel you act as though God does not exist?
How do you know you are acting as if leprechauns do not exist? How do you feel you act as though leprechauns do not exist?
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Vlad,
How do you know you are acting as if leprechauns do not exist? How do you feel you act as though leprechauns do not exist?
I don't know I am acting as if Leprechauns do not exist. I am not ACTING as though they don't.
I am more apaleprechaunist on account that I couldn't give much of a shit whether abnormally tiny irish people exist and less so now we aren't part of the single market.
I understand though that some of you guys are actually ACTING as though God does not exist. So what then is the act?
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Some Atheists on here have described themselves as Agnostic about God but also as people who act as if God doesn't exist. If you identify with that description, how do you know you are acting as if God does not exist? How do you feel you act as though God does not exist?
Yet again(see Disproofs of God thread), I cannot disprove God but as I find no reason at all to believe there is a God and as the idea holds no particular meaning or significance for me, I quite naturally and sensibly act as if God does not exist. I don't 'feel' anything about it, I simply get on with my life without reference to any god. An example would be how I act/fail to act in relation to my own moral attitudes, without reference to this God at all.
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I think you might be misinterpreting 'act' in this sense - you're looking for 'behave' not 'pretend'.
I behave as though God doesn't exist in the sense that I don't work on the understanding there's another life after this one, that there's an absolute moral authority somewhere to be beholden to, or that I owe obeisance or gratitude to something or someone for my existence.
I operate for my own benefit, and the benefit of those that I personally deem to merit the effort.
O.
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When someone acts, they act on the basis of their own reasoning, ethics and feelings. These might be influenced by their belief in a religion or god with particular characteristics, but how would the actual existence or not of such a god or a lack of belief in one have any effect?
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Vlad,
I don't know I am acting as if Leprechauns do not exist. I am not ACTING as though they don't.
I am more apaleprechaunist on account that I couldn't give much of a shit whether abnormally tiny irish people exist and less so now we aren't part of the single market.
I understand though that some of you guys are actually ACTING as though God does not exist. So what then is the act?
Too stupid to bother with. Atheists don’t “ACT” in the sense that we/they think god(s) exist but pretend otherwise – rather we simply carry on our lives just as we would if there were no god(s). Equally, you cannot disprove leprechauns and nor do you behave as if you think they're real but pretend otherwise – rather you just go about your business as you would if leprechauns didn’t exist.
More to the point by the way is to ask what it is you do differently that you wouldn’t otherwise do because you do believe there to be a god.
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Vlad,
Too stupid to bother with. Atheists don’t “ACT” in the sense that we/they think god(s) exist but pretend otherwise – rather we simply carry on our lives just as we would if there were no god(s). Equally, you cannot disprove leprechauns and nor do you behave as if you think they're real but pretend otherwise – rather you just go about your business as you would if leprechauns didn’t exist.
More to the point by the way is to ask what it is you do differently that you wouldn’t otherwise do because you do believe there to be a god.
But the problem is if you don't know there is or isn't a God but you act as though there isn't. Hence the suspicion that someone like this IS acting.
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I simply get on with my life without reference to any god.
And yet you are on a religionethics board.
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Vlad,
But the problem is if you don't know there is or isn't a God but you act as though there isn't. Hence the suspicion that someone like this IS acting.
But the problem is if you don't know there are or at aren't leprechauns but you act as though there aren't. Hence the suspicion that someone like this IS acting.
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I think you might be misinterpreting 'act' in this sense - you're looking for 'behave' not 'pretend'.
I behave as though God doesn't exist in the sense that I don't work on the understanding there's another life after this one, that there's an absolute moral authority somewhere to be beholden to, or that I owe obeisance or gratitude to something or someone for my existence.
I operate for my own benefit, and the benefit of those that I personally deem to merit the effort.
O.
Wait a minute You are not knowing whether there is a God or not...But acting in a way different from what you know, if you are acting as if there wasn't a God.
I think atheists need to be more specific, particularly to avoid accusations of Goddodging or ''knowing deep down''.
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Vlad,
But the problem is if you don't know there are or at aren't leprechauns but you act as though there aren't. Hence the suspicion that someone like this IS acting.
How do you know? Am I acting as though Great Redwood trees exist?
No.
Would it be stupid not to explore the possibility of a God if one does not know whether or not there was a God.
Would it be stupid not to explore the possibility of Leprechauns or Great Redwood trees?
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Would it be stupid not to explore the possibility of a God if one does not know whether or not there was a God.
No. For a start there are thousands of god-ideas, none of which (in my experience to date) comes with anything remotely like a sensible reason to take it seriously.
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This thread is so typical of Vlad! ::)
There is no verifiable evidence any god actually exists, but no one can say for certain that one does or doesn't. If the god of the Bible does exist why does it stay hidden? That doesn't make any sense to me.
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Vlad,
How do you know? Am I acting as though Great Redwood trees exist?
No.
I merely framed your own question with reference to leprechauns rather than to god in the hope you’d then grasp its vapidity,
Seems you haven’t.
Would it be stupid not to explore the possibility of a God if one does not know whether or not there was a God.
It would be sensible to explore that possibility if there was any means of doing so. Problem is though, no-one can provide such a method – you included.
Would it be stupid not to explore the possibility of Leprechauns or Great Redwood trees?
Category error. There’s a method to investigate the claim “redwoods”; there’s no method to investigate the claims “leprechauns”/“god(s)”.
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No. For a start there are thousands of god-ideas, none of which (in my experience to date) comes with anything remotely like a sensible reason to take it seriously.
That's just propoganda. Perhaps I should have said explore your feelings about God. Are they really those of a person who merely intellectually does not accept God or is there more to it? Only YOU yourself can tell that.
From my own point of view. God has unashamedly been of interest to me and I might have remained an agnostic theist on an intellectual basis had other experiences not started happening.
I can't understand, to me, the stupidity of treating a concept such as God like Leprechauns. That seems a bit Childish and Churlish.
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Vlad,
That's just propoganda. Perhaps I should have said explore your feelings about God. Are they really those of a person who merely intellectually does not accept God or is there more to it? Only YOU yourself can tell that.
Perhaps I should have said explore your feelings about leprechauns. Are they really those of a person who merely intellectually does not accept leprechauns or is there more to it? Only YOU yourself can tell that.
From my own point of view. God has unashamedly been of interest to me and I might have remained an agnostic theist on an intellectual basis had other experiences not started happening.
How did you decide that "god" caused those experiences rather than the other possible explanations for them?
I can't understand, to me, the stupidity of treating a concept such as God like Leprechauns. That seems a bit Childish and Churlish.
And not true. No-one compares the concepts - what's actually compared is the arguments attempted to justify beliefs in them. You've had this explained many times before now, so I don't know what you hope to achieve by lying about that rather than by addressing your problem.
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Category error. There’s a method to investigate the claim “redwoods”; there’s no method to investigate the claims “leprechauns”/“god(s)”.
Even if that is so and I don't doubt it, How does that make me act as if they exist?
I have seen them and yet act as though they don't exist and so I expect, do you.
Leprechauns are small irishmen, that is investigable, They have been found not to be where they are reported and purported to be.
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Vlad,
Even if that is so and I don't doubt it, How does that make me act as if they exist?
Evasion - you committed a category error. I merely told you why it was a category error.
I have seen them and yet act as though they don't exist and so I expect, do you.
What are you even trying to say here?
Leprechauns are small irishmen, that is investigable, They have been found not to be where they are reported and purported to be.
Same as your god when he chose to appear in material form then. You've had this car crash in thinking explained many times before now. Why on earth have you returned to your same mistake?
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And yet you are on a religionethics board.
So?
Just because I respond to all sorts of ideas proposed on this noticeboard, doesn't mean I have to agree with them or find them particularly significant. I might find that sometimes interesting arguments and ideas are put forward which are worth absorbing. Sometimes I might simply wish to put forward a different point of view. In this case, my view is that I don't find the idea of God particularly meaningful and consequentially the idea of God has no purchase in my life.
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That's just propoganda.
No it isn't, it's my experience to date. I have yet to find a definition of a god that made coherent sense and an accompanying reason to take it seriously. You have singularly failed in this respect too.
Perhaps I should have said explore your feelings about God.
The unqualified word 'God' is devoid of meaning because it means so many different things to so many different people. It's particularly meaningless coming from you since you've personally tried to apply it to so many different concepts yourself.
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Some Atheists on here have described themselves as Agnostic about God but also as people who act as if God doesn't exist. If you identify with that description, how do you know you are acting as if God does not exist? How do you feel you act as though God does not exist?
Seriously, why do you bother. Why not just read a book or watch Netflix.
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Another pile of bollocks from Vlad taking the piss out of those who choose not to follow his religious beliefs and trying to disguise such bollocks as either wit or wisdom and succeeding in displaying neither.
As usual!
And NO, I am not insulting Vlad, I am insulting the bollocks he vomits in place of wisdom!
Owlswing
)O(
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The unqualified word 'God' is devoid of meaning because it means so many different things to so many different people. It's particularly meaningless coming from you since you've personally tried to apply it to so many different concepts yourself.
We are not talking about the meaning of words but the existence of things whether we understand their meaning or not. Your statement seems to me to be irrelevant to any questions posed.
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Vlad,
We are not talking about the meaning of words but the existence of things whether we understand their meaning or not. Your statement seems to me to be irrelevant to any questions posed.
If you can't define the thing you assert to exist, what is it whose existence you're expecting people to agree with?
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I think you might be misinterpreting 'act' in this sense - you're looking for 'behave' not 'pretend'.
If it's behaviour then that is perhaps best judged externally by someone else. And as you know I have already stated that I have detected God avoidance behaviour on the forum. Paradoxically being on a religion forum resembles 'tweaking the dragons tail' IMHO and certainly that doesn't comply with any definition of God being absent in my opinion. Of course the invitation is for you to put me straight on my suspicions.
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Vlad,
If you can't define the thing you assert to exist, what is it whose existence you're expecting people to agree with?
Er, that would be the God you are asserting you are acting as if it didn't exist.
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Vlad,
Er, that would be the God you are asserting you are acting as if it didn't exist.
Yes - if you can't tell me what you mean by the term "God" (let alone propose a method to verify its existence even if you could) what choice have I but to behave as if there's no such thing, regardless of what "it" might be?
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Vlad,
...And as you know I have already stated that I have detected God avoidance behaviour on the forum...
A mistake you've had corrected many times only to repeat it nonetheless, so it's now just another of your lies
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Er, that would be the God you are asserting you are acting as if it didn't exist.
Just as with Gtflkb, and jugdarg, and mbciaod
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Just as with Gtflkb, and jugdarg, and mbciaod
Whoosh.
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We are not talking about the meaning of words but the existence of things whether we understand their meaning or not. Your statement seems to me to be irrelevant to any questions posed.
You can't talk about the existence of something if we don't know what it is. Does kuquxujmol exist, do you think? Neither can we explore our feelings about things that aren't defined (which was the specific point I was answering).
I'm not attempting to answer the OP because it's not a claim I've ever made. Behaving as if "god" doesn't exist is simply not behaving as if any of the thousands of god do exist. It's a lack of certain behaviours much like atheism is a lack of belief.
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And as you know I have already stated that I have detected God avoidance behaviour on the forum.
Baseless assertion that you've never managed to back up.
Paradoxically being on a religion forum resembles 'tweaking the dragons tail' IMHO and certainly that doesn't comply with any definition of God being absent in my opinion. Of course the invitation is for you to put me straight on my suspicions.
The belief in god(s) definitely does exist - and that's what is being challenged.
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Whoosh.
Yes, that does seem to describe your current state.
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Yes, that does seem to describe your current state.
No it describes yours...and what state must that be when you are matching several thousand years of Global God talk with the 0.75 seconds it took to produce random letters on your keyboard.
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No it describes yours...and what state must that be when you are matching several thousand years of Global God talk with the 0.75 seconds it took to produce random letters on your keyboard.
Because in the absence of a logically consistent coherent definition, there is no difference. Do you have one?
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Because in the absence of a logically consistent coherent definition, there is no difference. Do you have one?
Of course there is a distinction. You know your random letters have no logical coherent definition.
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Of course there is a distinction. You know your random letters have no logical coherent definition.
And i haven't seen a logically coherent consistent definition of god. Again do you have one?
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Of course there is a distinction. You know your random letters have no logical coherent definition.
Your posts are rarely logical or coherent. ::)
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Vlad,
Of course there is a distinction. You know your random letters have no logical coherent definition.
And nor has your "God", unless that is you do have a coherent definition that you've hitherto chosen to keep secret?
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Wait a minute You are not knowing whether there is a God or not...But acting in a way different from what you know, if you are acting as if there wasn't a God.
I think atheists need to be more specific, particularly to avoid accusations of Goddodging or ''knowing deep down''.
I'm not sure I know what you're trying to say there, but here goes.
For clarity, I'm technically agnostic, inasmuch as I can't definitively prove that there isn't a god; I see absolutely no valid basis for the claim that there is, nor for any particular interpretation of what one might or might not want of humanity or anyone else. I operate regardless of religious claims because I have no personal regard for them. I don't 'act in a way different from what I know', I act in accordance with a combination of what I can reasonably claim that I do know, and some things that I think I can accept are likely; 'gods' are in neither of those categories.
If it's behaviour then that is perhaps best judged externally by someone else.
Perhaps, but the question implied an interest in motivation and intent to which I'm best qualified to speak.
And as you know I have already stated that I have detected God avoidance behaviour on the forum.
You think you have, perhaps, but you can't definitively speak to the motivations of someone else's behaviour.
Paradoxically being on a religion forum resembles 'tweaking the dragons tail' IMHO and certainly that doesn't comply with any definition of God being absent in my opinion.
Except that we aren't tweaking any gods' tails; if we're tweaking anything, its the tails of believers - the existence of believers doesn't validate the claim.
Of course the invitation is for you to put me straight on my suspicions.
No, as ever the burden of proof is on the claimant - if you're claiming 'god avoiding behaviour' then you need to support the claim or it can be dismissed without credence.
O.
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You think you have, perhaps, but you can't definitively speak to the motivations of someone else's behaviour.
But scientifically we cannot trust in what people give as the reason they are doing what they are doing. Hillside has made that clear.
We can only judge on stimulus and response.
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We can only judge on stimulus and response.
Is that your contention?
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Vlad,
But scientifically we cannot trust in what people give as the reason they are doing what they are doing. Hillside has made that clear.
We can only judge on stimulus and response.
Yes Hillside has – when you post a mistake, have it corrected, repeat exactly the same mistake without addressing the falsification and then keep on doing the same thing over and over again there are two options: either you’re lying, or you’re so cognitively impaired that you can’t grasp what’s happening. Your reasoning abilities are poor, but they’re just about good enough to recognise a rebuttal when you see one so the former seems the more likely to me.
You want an example? You recently complained about the offensiveness (to you) of comparing the concepts “god” and “leprechauns”. No-one here has compared those concepts though – neither me nor so far as I’m aware anyone else. What has been compared though is the arguments used to justify either belief, the point being that when the same argument leads to either conclusion then it’s likely a bad argument. You’ve had this explained what, 100 times? 1,000 maybe? Yet never once have you engaged with the problem this gives you, preferring over and over again to disappear down irrelevant rabbit holes about the different characteristics of each belief.
Why is that if not for lying?
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Outy,
For clarity, I'm technically agnostic, inasmuch as I can't definitively prove that there isn't a god;…
Actually that’s all atheism requires: I’m an atheist because I can see no good reason to think there to be god(s), and I don’t have to demonstrate their non-existence for that to be a cogent position. Agnosticism on the other hand is the position that the existence or non-existence of “god” is unknowable. Thus it’s quite possible to be an agnostic atheist.
Technically the response to Vlad’s god is ignosticism – essentially, “I have no idea what you mean by “god” (and nor have you), so the question is incoherent”. I’m an ignostic, but as no discussion of theistic beliefs would be possible if we stopped there there’s a sort of unspoken concordat that both parties pretend we know enough of what the term is intended to mean to have a conversation about the in/validity of the arguments tried to justify it.
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But scientifically we cannot trust in what people give as the reason they are doing what they are doing. Hillside has made that clear.
You can't only assume that they're correct or honest, but they're still your best source of information.
We can only judge on stimulus and response.
But then you have to determine, having removed their biases from the equation, how you're going to remove yours.
I note a lack of any justification for the claims of 'god avoiding behaviour'... shall we consider it a dismissed assertion?
O.
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Actually that’s all atheism requires: I’m an atheist because I can see no good reason to think there to be god(s), and I don’t have to demonstrate their non-existence for that to be a cogent position. Agnosticism on the other hand is the position that the existence or non-existence of “god” is unknowable. Thus it’s quite possible to be an agnostic atheist.
Oh, yeah, within the range of agnostic outlooks, I'm an agnostic atheist.
Technically the response to Vlad’s god is ignosticism – essentially, “I have no idea what you mean by “god” (and nor have you), so the question is incoherent”.
I get the argument, I'm not sure that we don't have a conception of what the claim of god is, even if our language isn't necessarily sufficient to adequately convey it. I could argue ignosticism, but I'm not sure (certainly here) that it adds anything to the discussion.
I’m an ignostic, but as no discussion of theistic beliefs would be possible if we stopped there there’s a sort of unspoken concordat that both parties pretend we know enough of what the term is intended to mean to have a conversation about the in/validity of the arguments tried to justify it.
Exactly.
O.
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Vlad,
Yes Hillside has – when you post a mistake, have it corrected, repeat exactly the same mistake without addressing the falsification and then keep on doing the same thing over and over again there are two options: either you’re lying, or you’re so cognitively impaired that you can’t grasp what’s happening. Your reasoning abilities are poor, but they’re just about good enough to recognise a rebuttal when you see one so the former seems the more likely to me.
You want an example? You recently complained about the offensiveness (to you) of comparing the concepts “god” and “leprechauns”. No-one here has compared those concepts though – neither me nor so far as I’m aware anyone else. What has been compared though is the arguments used to justify either belief, the point being that when the same argument leads to either conclusion then it’s likely a bad argument. You’ve had this explained what, 100 times? 1,000 maybe? Yet never once have you engaged with the problem this gives you, preferring over and over again to disappear down irrelevant rabbit holes about the different characteristics of each belief.
Why is that if not for lying?
Gaslighting of monumental proportions.
Consider yourself dumped, Love.
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You can't only assume that they're correct or honest, but they're still your best source of information.
But that is the very opposite of what Hillside and others assume when in conversation with the religiousBut then you have to determine, having removed their biases from the equation, how you're going to remove yours.
I note a lack of any justification for the claims of 'god avoiding behaviour'... shall we consider it a dismissed assertion?
No Ihave outlined in the past where I there have been examples of God dodging behaviour and no doubt will do in the future.
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I’m an ignostic, but as no discussion of theistic beliefs would be possible if we stopped there there’s a sort of unspoken concordat that both parties pretend we know enough of what the term is intended to mean to have a conversation about the in/validity of the arguments tried to justify it.
Exactly.
O.
I disagree here. I think you need a definition of what the individual means by 'God' to engage in anything more than a discussion of the validity of arguments that would apply if you substituted 'Bnatiop' for 'God'.
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No Ihave outlined in the past where I there have been examples of God dodging behaviour and no doubt will do in the future.
Such as where? It's also impossible to dodge something that doesn't have a coherent or fixed definition, which is the case for the word 'God' without further explanation. Your claim of "God dodging" is a baseless and all but meaningless assertion.
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But that is the very opposite of what Hillside and others assume when in conversation with the religious.
Ok. You'll need to take that up with them, then.
No I have outlined in the past where I there have been examples of God dodging behaviour and no doubt will do in the future.
Really - any idea where?
O.
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Vlad,
But that is the very opposite of what Hillside and others assume when in conversation with the religious
Flatly not true. I don’t just “assume” that you tell lies at all – I conclude that for reasons, some of which I set out in my last reply to you.
No Ihave outlined in the past where I there have been examples of God dodging behaviour and no doubt will do in the future.
Also flatly not true, What you have done is to assert it – when it’s explained to you that you cannot “dodge” something you find no reason to exist in the first place you ignore the explanation and just repeat the same assertion. Over and over and over again. What would you call that if not lying?
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NS,
I disagree here. I think you need a definition of what the individual means by 'God' to engage in anything more than a discussion of the validity of arguments that would apply if you substituted 'Bnatiop' for 'God'.
Except the proof of the pudding is the countless post here that do discuss religious beliefs with no firm ground established a priori about what the theists actually mean by “God”. The closest any of them seem to get to it is a CV – ie, claims of what their various gods did/do rather than what they are. And when that fails, we’re given sub-Hallmark cards platitudes like “the ground of all being” and such like. Many a discussion has though been had nonetheless.
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NS,
Except the proof of the pudding is the countless post here that do discuss religious beliefs with no firm ground established a priori about what the theists actually mean by “God”. The closest any of them seem to get to it is a CV – ie, claims of what their various gods did/do rather than what they are. And when that fails, we’re given sub-Hallmark cards platitudes like “the ground of all being” and such like. Many a discussion has though been had nonetheless.
The claims of what a 'god' does can be debated separately from needing a definition. So if someone says 'Bnatiop' saved me from getting a parking ticket, you can ask how.
If someone says you are 'Bnatiop dodging' though, without a definition of Bnatiop, you are engaging with empty language.
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Oh dear, DePfeffelred the Ovenready is rapidly becomeing a Nicholas Marks clone in his attempts to deny the truths about religion and why it is unacceptable to the disbeliever.
You cannot equate belief with fact when you can show no proof of the fact!
Owlswing
)O(
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NS,
The claims of what a 'god' does can be debated separately from needing a definition. So if someone says 'Bnatiop' saved me from getting a parking ticket, you can ask how.
But as soon as you do, then the answer has to say something definitional too about this “god”/” Bnatiop” – that it can assume material form to point the traffic warden away from your car for example. Sure that’s not a complete definition, but definitionally it’s significantly more than the white noise of “god”/”Bnatiop”. There’s no escape from that – how something acts tells you something too about what it is, necessarily so.
If someone says you are 'Bnatiop dodging' though, without a definition of Bnatiop, you are engaging with empty language.
And the same with “God”. So let’s ask a “how?” question then: how does this “god”/” Bnatiop” make itself “dodgeable” rather than unavoidably obvious? Could that be answered without telling us something about what this supposed “god”/” Bnatiop” is as well as how it operates? I don't think it could.
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NS,
But as soon as you do, then the answer has to say something definitional too about this “god”/” Bnatiop” – that it can assume material form to point the traffic warden away from your car for example. Sure that’s not a complete definition, but definitionally it’s significantly more than the white noise of “god”/”Bnatiop”. There’s no escape from that – how something acts tells you something too about what it is, necessarily so.
And the same with “God”. So let’s ask a “how?” question then: how does this “god”/” Bnatiop” make itself “dodgeable” rather than unavoidably obvious? Could that be answered without telling us something about what this supposed “god”/” Bnatiop” is as well as how it operates? I don't think it could.
But the assumption of 'Bnatiop dodging' by an individual clearly implies that the individual is already working with a definition that they accept else how could they dodge Bnatiop. Given that it's an incorrect implication the entire statement is worthless. Indulging someone by asking questions beyond what is Bnatiop is a rhetorical and logical dead end.
It should be noted that if someone were to say I call Covid 19, Bnatiop, then I would have to admit to Bnatiop dodging but it would be an uninteresting word game.
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NS,
But the assumption of 'Bnatiop dodging' by an individual clearly implies that the individual is already working with a definition that they accept else how could they dodge Bnatiop.
Exactly! Now explain that to Vlad – he can’t tell us in any coherent manner what he means by “God”, so without that definition his assumption of “goddodging” by others fails.
Given that it's an incorrect implication the entire statement is worthless. Indulging someone by asking questions beyond what is Bnatiop is a rhetorical and logical dead end.
Yep – so maybe all theological discussion should cease immediately too. That’s the thing with ignosticism – there’s no next step: “I have no idea what you mean by “God” (and nor have you) – shall we have a game of Scrabble instead then?” Thing is though, discussions can be had as if the theist had managed to define his god. It’s a sort of fiction – the concept is incoherent to begin with, but believing in it nonetheless has real world implications that are interesting.
It should be noted that if someone were to say I call Covid 19, Bnatiop, then I would have to admit to Bnatiop dodging but it would be an uninteresting word game.
Yes – that would be just a (re)labelling exercise.
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Ok. You'll need to take that up with them, then.
Really - any idea where?
O.
Generally, anything that is so constructed in a way that says ''we don't know why there is such a thing as existence but we know it isn't God or but there's more likely to be a natural answer is Goddodgery.
More specifically an extreme case of God dodging came from Hillside and NTS who claimed that the idea of an independent creator independent of the universe who created it as proposed in simulated universe theory was not at all similar to the idea of an independent creator independent of the universe as proposed by theologians for the past however many centuries.
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Generally, anything that is so constructed in a way that says ''we don't know why there is such a thing as existence but we know it isn't God or but there's more likely to be a natural answer is Goddodgery.
I see, so nothing that anyone's actually said, then, just your selective interpretation of people pointing out claims based upon a false dichotomy are logically invalid.
More specifically an extreme case of God dodging came from Hillside and NTS who claimed that the idea of an independent creator independent of the universe who created it as proposed in simulated universe theory was not at all similar to the idea of an independent creator independent of the universe as proposed by theologians for the past however many centuries.
It isn't. Simulated universe theory doesn't specify a supernatural origin for the creator of our reality - indeed, it's almost predicated on the idea that the simulated life (us) would be broadly similar to the creator. It certainly doesn't allege any sort of absolute moral authority or make allegations of spiritual existence and judgement over afterlife destinations.
O.
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I see, so nothing that anyone's actually said, then, just your selective interpretation of people pointing out claims based upon a false dichotomy are logically invalid.
It isn't. Simulated universe theory doesn't specify a supernatural origin for the creator of our reality - indeed, it's almost predicated on the idea that the simulated life (us) would be broadly similar to the creator. It certainly doesn't allege any sort of absolute moral authority or make allegations of spiritual existence and judgement over afterlife destinations.
O.
This seems to me a prime example of the problem of engaging in such arguments without getting a definition of god from the individual believer. It isn't clear what is being referred to, and you are saying an argument is incorrect because of your assumption of definition.
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Vlad,
Generally, anything that is so constructed in a way that says ''we don't know why there is such a thing as existence but we know it isn't God or but there's more likely to be a natural answer is Goddodgery.
Except:
1. No-one here does say ”we know it isn't God” – that’s just your favourite straw man making its perennial return;
2. “…there's more likely to be a natural answer” is mis-phrased. It should be, “naturalistic answers are the only type we know of that are reliably investigable and verifiable, and when that happens we call those answers “true”. “God”, “leprechauns” etc on the other hand have no means of investigation and verification, so there’s no basis on which to call them true”; and
3. Still you can’t have “Goddodgery” in any case until you finally tell us what you mean by “God” and find a means to demonstrate that it exist at all.
Apart from all that though…
More specifically an extreme case of God dodging came from Hillside and NTS who claimed that the idea of an independent creator independent of the universe who created it as proposed in simulated universe theory was not at all similar to the idea of an independent creator independent of the universe as proposed by theologians for the past however many centuries.
Neither I nor so far as I’m aware NTS has said any such thing, and in any case simulated universe theory says nothing at all about the likelihood of something divine.
Why do you think it’s ok to misrepresent people so egregiously?
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Generally, anything that is so constructed in a way that says ''we don't know why there is such a thing as existence but we know it isn't God or but there's more likely to be a natural answer is Goddodgery.
Firstly, I'm not aware that anybody has ever said this; care to point to a single example? Secondly, it's meaningless anyway until you define 'God'.
More specifically an extreme case of God dodging came from Hillside and NTS who claimed that the idea of an independent creator independent of the universe who created it as proposed in simulated universe theory was not at all similar to the idea of an independent creator independent of the universe as proposed by theologians for the past however many centuries.
More dishonest misrepresentation and another example of how 'God' is undefined, and therefore meaningless, because you apply it to any "universe simulator(s)", no matter what their other attributes might be, and on other occasions you insist on things like 'necessity' or refer to Feser's 'base of hierarchy', which are totally different concepts.
This isn't god dodging, this is you trying to slap the label 'God' on anything and everything you think you can get away with, no matter how patently absurd.
If you can't make up your own mind what exactly 'God' refers to, how the fuck can we have a sensible discussion, let alone talk about people dodging it?
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NS,
This seems to me a prime example of the problem of engaging in such arguments without getting a definition of god from the individual believer. It isn't clear what is being referred to, and you are saying an argument is incorrect because of your assumption of definition.
That’s not right though I think. An argument stands alone and on its merits regardless of its conclusion – the post hoc ergo propter hoc for example is still a wrong argument regardless of whether it’s being attempted to justify ritual sacrifice to ensure good crop yields or Vlad’s “god”.
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I see, so nothing that anyone's actually said, then, just your selective interpretation of people pointing out claims based upon a false dichotomy are logically invalid.
It isn't. Simulated universe theory doesn't specify a supernatural origin for the creator of our reality - indeed, it's almost predicated on the idea that the simulated life (us) would be broadly similar to the creator. It certainly doesn't allege any sort of absolute moral authority or make allegations of spiritual existence and judgement over afterlife destinations.
O.
The idea is that the creator is independent of it's creation and that the universe is created by a personal entity. As Chalmers has said this is a creation narrative and as PZ Myers has further pointed out, it is intelligent design which is commonly held as a cover for religion.
The theory immediately proposes the supernatural namely something without the
nature of the universe, in fact in this respect it cannot fail to.
The fact that the only thing that is ruled out of this ,by you , is God. So we now know what it is you are running from. It can't be the supernatural because the creative agent is outside of the universe. So this is a specific case of the supernatural which is being avoided.
When Dawkins was confronted by the simulated universe concept his reaction was interesting ''I wouldn't worship it''. He knew the parameters of a God he wasn't prepared to worship'' so that makes pleas of ''we don't know what you mean by God'' are IMHO misplaced.
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...so that makes pleas of ''we don't know what you mean by God'' are IMHO misplaced.
Then you've got even less of a grasp of logic than I thought (and I didn't think that was even possible). If you apply the same label to any old universe simulator, and to something that is necessary rather than contingent and Feser's base of hierarchy, then you're actually telling us that the term is worthless nonsense devoid of any specific meaning.
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Vlad,
The idea is that the creator is independent of it's creation and that the universe is created by a personal entity. As Chalmers has said this is a creation narrative and as PZ Myers has further pointed out, it is intelligent design which is commonly held as a cover for religion.
Yes, there have been countless creation myths over the millennia – yours is just one such from a crowded field.
The theory immediately proposes the supernatural namely something without the
nature of the universe, in fact in this respect it cannot fail to.
What “theory”? It’s just a speculation entirely unsupported by evidence to justify it.
The fact that the only thing that is ruled out of this ,by you , is God. So we now know what it is you are running from. It can't be the supernatural because the creative agent is outside of the universe. So this is a specific case of the supernatural which is being avoided.
That’s not a fact, it’s just you telling a lie again. Ruling something out and finding no sound reason to rule it in are not the same thing. Why is this so difficult to grasp, or are you so invested in the lie that you cannot back out of it? I cannot rule out the possibility of the Tooth Fairy; I see no good reason to think it exists. Can you really not see the difference between these two positions?
When Dawkins was confronted by the simulated universe concept his reaction was interesting ''I wouldn't worship it''. He knew the parameters of a God he wasn't prepared to worship'' so that makes pleas of ''we don't know what you mean by God'' are IMHO misplaced.
Wrong again. If that’s an accurate representation, it would not imply that he thought there was a god involved at all – just a “creator” of some kind that could just as well have been non-divine.
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NS,
That’s not right though I think. An argument stands alone and on its merits regardless of its conclusion – the post hoc ergo propter hoc for example is still a wrong argument regardless of whether it’s being attempted to justify ritual sacrifice to ensure good crop yields or Vlad’s “god”.
But the conclusion here is necessarily based around the definition of 'god'. If you have a conversation with 2 different definitions it's worthless.
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NS,
But the conclusion here is necessarily based around the definition of 'god'. If you have a conversation with 2 different definitions it's worthless.
That’s not the point though – regardless of the nature of what’s being claimed (ie, defined or not) the arguments attempted to justify the claim can be examined on their own terms and found to be sound or not. Whether the claim is germs causing disease, Vlad’s god or !87o87ty makes no difference to that.
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Then you've got even less of a grasp of logic than I thought (and I didn't think that was even possible). If you apply the same label to any old universe simulator, and to something that is necessary rather than contingent and Feser's base of hierarchy, then you're actually telling us that the term is worthless nonsense devoid of any specific meaning.
As I pointed out. Once you propose a creative agent outside of the universe you have no real sanction on how ''supernatural'' this is. You cannot specify therefore if it is necessary or contingent. In fact to say oh,oh,oh I'm only talking about the contingent here not the necessary a)it's special pleading b)You've no actual warrant c)You are actually involved in dodging God.
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NS,
That’s not the point though – regardless of the nature of what’s being claimed (ie, defined or not) the arguments attempted to justify the claim can be examined on their own terms and found to be sound or not. Whether the claim is germs causing disease, Vlad’s god or !87o87ty makes no difference to that.
Which doesn't apply to an argument that states there is a probability of an outside creator and Vlad choosing to say that this would be equivalent to a 'god' and Outrider saying 'Oh no, it isn't' if both of them are using different definitions.
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NS,
Which doesn't apply to an argument that states there is a probability of an outside creator and Vlad choosing to say that this would be equivalent to a 'god' and Outrider saying 'Oh no, it isn't' if both of them are using different definitions.
Yes it does. The cosmological argument for there being a non-material god for example fails because of its inherent weakness, not because of different understandings of what’s intended by “god”.
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As I pointed out. Once you propose a creative agent outside of the universe you have no real sanction on how ''supernatural'' this is.
'Supernatural' is another meaningless word without a proper definition.
You cannot specify therefore if it is necessary or contingent.
Indeed. So defining any universe simulator(s) as 'god', means that you have excluded any questions of contingency versus necessity and the question of the basis of existence (Feser) from the definition; not to mention any moral element, any afterlife, any of the omnis, any connection to any 'holy book', and so on, and so on. A universe simulator might have any of those characteristics but by applying the label to any simulators, specifically excludes all those things from the definition. As and aside you also never answered the question of how much of a universe has to be simulated before the simulator becomes 'god' - which makes the term even less meaningful.
The label 'God' has become far too vague to have a meaningful discussion about it; it's just rather comical nonsense. Unless you have a specific definition, then any discussion is impossible, as is any idea that anybody is doing any 'dodging'.
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NS,
Yes it does. The cosmological argument for there being a non-material god for example fails because of its inherent weakness, not because of different understandings of what’s intended by “god”.
Vlad hasn't made an argument for a non material god here. He can't have since he hasn't provided a definition
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'Supernatural' is another meaningless word without a proper definition.
So when are you going to show a bit of impartiality and criticise atheists for using it?
Indeed. So defining any universe simulator(s) as 'god', means that you have excluded any questions of contingency versus necessity and the question of the basis of existence (Feser) from the definition; not to mention any moral element, any afterlife, any of the omnis, any connection to any 'holy book', and so on, and so on. A universe simulator might have any of those characteristics but by applying the label to any simulators, specifically excludes all those things from the definition. As and aside you also never answered the question of how much of a universe has to be simulated before the simulator becomes 'god' - which makes the term even less meaningful.
The label 'God' has become far too vague to have a meaningful discussion about it; it's just rather comical nonsense. Unless you have a specific definition, then any discussion is impossible, as is any idea that anybody is doing any 'dodging'.
You seem to be missing the point of a creator independent of the universe it creates. It is impossible to exclude the possibility the of ultimate necessity of the creator. Indeed It would be utterly necessary from our point of view for our universe. The word simulation suggests 'personal' intervention and intent. Are you deliberately or subconsciously avoiding these considerations? If so then IMHO that is evidence of Goddodging
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NS,
Vlad hasn't made an argument for a non material god here. He can't have since he hasn't provided a definition
But he thinks he has - that's the point.
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Vlad,
So when are you going to show a bit of impartiality and criticise atheists for using it?
Atheists don’t use it, unless by quoting theists’ use of it to demonstrate its incoherence.
You seem to be missing the point of a creator independent of the universe it creates. It is impossible to exclude the possibility the of ultimate necessity of the creator.
No it isn’t – there’s no sound argument to show that to be necessary rather than not impossible.
Indeed It would be utterly necessary from our point of view for our universe. The word simulation suggests 'personal' intervention and intent. Are you deliberately or subconsciously avoiding these considerations? If so then IMHO that is evidence of Goddodging
Jeez but you struggle – there is no good argument for necessity, and even if there was it’d just raise the same question about the reason for the existence of this supposed “god” a priori. It’s Fletcher’s tunnel again.
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You seem to be missing the point of a creator independent of the universe it creates.
And you seem to be missing the point about having a proper definition in order to have any sort of sensible discussion.
It is impossible to exclude the possibility the of ultimate necessity of the creator.
This really isn't difficult. You need to come up with a definition of 'god'. That will either have to include 'necessity' or not. If it does, then you can't apply it to any possible universe simulators. The same goes for any other part of the definition that goes at all beyond the mere act of making / simulating a universe - or some undefined part thereof, which is another question you keep dodging.
If you strip the definition down to the point that any possible universe simulators are included, it becomes too vague to be in any way meaningful as a basis for discussion.
Indeed It would be utterly necessary from our point of view for our universe.
Utterly irrelevant to your previous approach to 'necessity'.
The word simulation suggests 'personal' intervention and intent.
Also irrelevant.
Are you deliberately or subconsciously avoiding these considerations?
No.
If so then IMHO that is evidence of Goddodging
Nobody can dodge something that hasn't been defined. Define 'God' properly and consistently (and stop changing the definition to suit whatever argument you're having at the time) or STFU about it because it's totally meaningless.
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NS,
But he thinks he has - that's the point.
Again whether he thinks he has or not, and I'm not seeing that that's clear, it doesn't matter if there are two definitions being used - it's just more meaningless words.
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The idea is that the creator is independent of it's creation and that the universe is created by a personal entity. As Chalmers has said this is a creation narrative and as PZ Myers has further pointed out, it is intelligent design which is commonly held as a cover for religion.
The version of Intelligent Design that rested on 'specific complexity' was determined by a judge to be explicitly a cover for religion; intelligent design claims in generally are commonly a cover for religion; this one isn't.
The theory immediately proposes the supernatural namely something without the nature of the universe, in fact in this respect it cannot fail to.
That's not what supernatural means - supernatural means beyond natural laws and effects. The possibility that we are artefacts of a computer simulation inside a natural universe doesn't do that, whereas the possibility that we are the product of the whim of a self-creating magical entity does.
The fact that the only thing that is ruled out of this ,by you , is God.
Only two things have been posited, and I've rejected one of them on the basis expressed above. If you've other options then suggest them and they may or may not be accepted or rejected as well.
So we now know what it is you are running from.
Which 'we' is this?
It can't be the supernatural because the creative agent is outside of the universe. So this is a specific case of the supernatural which is being avoided.
As explained above, you are misconstruing the meaning of 'supernatural'.
When Dawkins was confronted by the simulated universe concept his reaction was interesting ''I wouldn't worship it''. He knew the parameters of a God he wasn't prepared to worship'' so that makes pleas of ''we don't know what you mean by God'' are IMHO misplaced.
No, the fact that Professor Dawkins was confident of one thing that wasn't a god doesn't mean that we have a useful definition of gods - I know that ducks aren't gods, I know that cheese isn't dark matter, I know that the smell of fish isn't dark energy, but none of those mean that I have meaningful definition for any of those.
O.
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NS,
Again whether he thinks he has or not, and I'm not seeing that that's clear, it doesn't matter if there are two definitions being used - it's just more meaningless words.
We seem to be going in circles here. He makes the accusation of “goddodging”. The primary rebutall is that when he can’t even tell us what he means by “god” the claim is incoherent ab initio. Inasmuch as he ever tries arguments to justify his belief “god” however (no matter what he may mean by that) those arguments can be tested on their inherent merits (when, so far at least, they always fail).
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NS,
We seem to be going in circles here. He makes the accusation of “goddodging”. The primary rebutall is that when he can’t even tell us what he means by “god” the claim is incoherent ab initio. Inasmuch as he ever tries arguments to justify his belief “god” however (no matter what he may mean by that) those arguments can be tested on their inherent merits (when, so far at least, they always fail).
How can the idea that the probability of an external creator based on simulation hypothesis fail without working to an agreed definition of 'god'?
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NS,
How can the idea that the probability of an external creator based on simulation hypothesis fail without working to an agreed definition of 'god'?
Easily – the simulated universe hypothesis does not suggest that a divine creator is probable at all (that’s just one of Vlad’s various misrepresentations). Thus the idea fails regardless of how he might one day define what he means by that term.
Moreover, what he actually does too is fundamentally to misrepresent the position against him: he turns “there’s no sound reason to think there to be “god”” into the claim (that no-one here makes) “there is no god”.
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NS,
Easily – the simulated universe hypothesis does not suggest that a divine creator is probable at all (that’s just one of Vlad’s various misrepresentations). Thus the idea fails regardless of how he might one day define what he means by that term.
Moreover, what he actually does too is fundamentally to misrepresent the position against him: he turns “there’s no sound reason to think there to be “god”” into the claim (that no-one here makes) “there is no god”.
Until you work with an agreed definition saying it doesn't imply a 'divine creator' is meaningless. Why did you move from 'god' to 'divine creator' - it doesn't help with definitions but rather introduces another undefined term.
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NS,
Until you work with an agreed definition saying it doesn't imply a 'divine creator' is meaningless. Why did you move from 'god' to 'divine creator' - it doesn't help with definitions but rather introduces another undefined term.
But what you asked was “How can the idea that the probability of an external creator based on simulation hypothesis fail without working to an agreed definition of 'god'?”
The simulated universe hypothesis implies nothing about the “probability” of an “external creator” also being a god. Its arguments for an external creator can be discussed perfectly well with or without a divine component added, no matter how you define that added component. Thus the idea that it does fails – the appended god part is simply irrelevant.
Second, there was no significance to using “divine creator” and “god” interchangeably – I was just picking up on the “external creator” in your question. The point here though remains that the hypothesis concerns itself only with a possible creator outwith “the universe” – it doesn’t require a divine/godly component so the (absence of a) definition for that unnecessary part is neither here nor there for its purposes.
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Jesus Christ - Vlad's even got you arguing among yourselves now!
Owlswing
)O(
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Jesus Christ - Vlad's even got you arguing among yourselves now!
Owlswing
)O(
You give him way too much credit. That I have a specific disagreement with bhs on the most logical approach to an argument here is nothing to do with Vlad. Bhs and I have been having this sort of argument for as long as I can remember being on boards at the same time.
There',s also no such thing as a group that you could refer to as 'yourselves'. That 2 atheists might disagree on some pretty arcane point of discussion is no surprise. Other than not having a belief in god(s), there is no guarantee or need for anything else in common.
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You give him way too much credit. That I have a specific disagreement with bhs on the most logical approach to an argument here is nothing to do with Vlad. Bhs and I have been having this sort of argument for as long as I can remember being on boards at the same time.
There',s also no such thing as a group that you could refer to as 'yourselves'. That 2 atheists might disagree on some pretty arcane point of discussion is no surprise. Other than not having a belief in god(s), there is no guarantee or need for anything else in common.
All right! Bollocking accepted!
Owlswing
)O(
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NS,
Easily – the simulated universe hypothesis does not suggest that a divine creator is probable at all
That must be the most deluded piece of Goddodging you have ever given. Indeed there are forms of the theory e.g. Bostroms which make it the most probable explanation for our universe and since it proposes a creator iexistentially independent of its creation that definition includes creator gods of a number of definitions.
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That must be the most deluded piece of Goddodging you have ever given. Indeed there are forms of the theory e.g. Bostroms which make it the most probable explanation for our universe and since it proposes a creator iexistentially independent of its creation that definition includes creator gods of a number of definitions.
More utter bollocks. A universe simulator has some of the characteristic of some definitions of god(s). It is therefore not an argument for any such gods because having some characteristics of something does not make it the thing. Having four legs does not make something a cat, it might be a giraffe or a coffee table.
The only way to make this an argument for god(s) is to loosen the definition so much as to make it meaningless. Unless you accept that a university department, Universes 'ᴙ' Us Inc., or some mad scientist might count as god(s), then the simulation conjecture is not about god(s). Get over it and provide a proper definition of what you mean by 'God', otherwise any discussion of it is a waste of time.
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NS,
Bhs and I have been having this sort of argument for as long as I can remember...
No we haven't... (tee hee).
And yes, the conversations you and I have have very little to do with Vlad's skip fire attempts at reasoning.
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Vlad,
That must be the most deluded piece of Goddodging you have ever given. Indeed there are forms of the theory e.g. Bostroms which make it the most probable explanation for our universe and since it proposes a creator iexistentially independent of its creation that definition includes creator gods of a number of definitions.
First, simulated universe is just a hypothesis – nothing more.
Second, you claimed that the hypothesis implies that a creator also being a god was “probable”. It does no such thing.
Third, even if the above weren’t true most of the characteristics you think to be necessary for your choice of god aren’t necessary at all for the hypothesis. You’ve done the equivalent of “there are vague images taken at Loch Ness, therefore the monster is real”. If you think the hypothesis would mean your god is “probable”, tell us where it relies on all the bits you thinks your god must have in order to be god rather than just (possibly, not probably) there being a “something”.
Fourth, as still you’ve given no sign of having any idea at all of how you’d define your god, your argument is entirely otiose in any case.
Apart from all that though, good effort little buddy…
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More utter bollocks. A universe simulator has some of the characteristic of some definitions of god(s). It is therefore not an argument for any such gods because having some characteristics of something does not make it the thing. Having four legs does not make something a cat, it might be a giraffe or a coffee table.
The only way to make this an argument for god(s) is to loosen the definition so much as to make it meaningless. Unless you accept that a university department, Universes 'ᴙ' Us Inc., or some mad scientist might count as god(s), then the simulation conjecture is not about god(s). Get over it and provide a proper definition of what you mean by 'God', otherwise any discussion of it is a waste of time.
My definition of "God" would be "intelligent entity that created the Universe". If the Universe is a simulation, then whoever created that simulation is God from our point of view.
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jeremy,
My definition of "God" would be "intelligent entity that created the Universe". If the Universe is a simulation, then whoever created that simulation is God from our point of view.
But that definition would barely scratch the surface of what Vlad thinks to be necessary for his god to be his god. He's doing the equivalent of making an hypothesis about the possibility of a four-legged galloping thing also therefore being an argument for unicorns being probable.
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That must be the most deluded piece of Goddodging you have ever given. Indeed there are forms of the theory e.g. Bostroms which make it the most probable explanation for our universe and since it proposes a creator iexistentially independent of its creation that definition includes creator gods of a number of definitions.
Bostrom doesn't suggest that it's the most probable explanation of our universe. Even within his hypothesis, he gives equal probability to other conclusions:
Personally, I assign less than 50% probability to the simulation hypothesis – rather something like in 20%-region, perhaps, maybe. However, this estimate is a subjective personal opinion and is not part of the simulation argument.
Furthermore he suggests that the simulation hypothesis:
has no direct connection with religious conceptions of a literally omniscient and omnipotent deity. The simulation-hypothesis does not imply the existence of such a deity, nor does it imply its non-existence.
Indeed, he goes on to say that, far from being outside natural laws
the simulators implied by the simulation-hypothesis would be naturalistic entities, subject to the laws of nature at their own level of reality
He is of the opinion that:
There is no known physical law or material constraint that would prevent a sufficiently technologically advanced civilisation from implementing human minds in computers.
https://www.simulation-argument.com/faq.html
Hence, if your 'creator god' idea is to be your yardstick then that must surely include any 'advanced civilization' capable of producing such a simulation, not necessarily one god at all, but potentially millions, all of whom are subject to natural laws. Interesting ideas of 'god' that you put forward, Vlad. :)
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My definition of "God" would be "intelligent entity that created the Universe". If the Universe is a simulation, then whoever created that simulation is God from our point of view.
Okay, but That excludes most of the characteristics of most of the religious conceptions of god(s). Personally I'd regard it as a rather bizarre and pointless relabelling of something that might be entirely flawed and mortal and even have what we might regard as morally questionable motives. It's also pretty much a dead end. There might be such an entity (or group of entities) but there isn't any particularly good reason to think so (the SU argument isn't all that convincing although it's somewhat better than the traditional arguments for god) and if there is, so what? It's too vague a definition to take any further.
Also, perhaps you could answer the question that Vlad's been studiously ignoring? Just how much of a universe, and to what degree of detail, does a simulation need to be and have before its creator earns the label 'God'? If we take the SU argument, then, on the way to a full-blown simulation of a full universe (even if that was ever the aim), it's likely that a simulator would start somewhat smaller, perhaps with just a planet, or even just a single brain (perhaps not even a human brain) simulated in any detail, while all the rest is only simulated well enough to support the object of interest. Or is this more general; if I write a Game of Life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life) implementation, am I the 'God' of that 'universe'?
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Bostrom doesn't suggest that it's the most probable explanation of our universe. Even within his hypothesis, he gives equal probability to other conclusions:
Furthermore he suggests that the simulation hypothesis:
Indeed, he goes on to say that, far from being outside natural laws
He is of the opinion that:
https://www.simulation-argument.com/faq.html
Hence, if your 'creator god' idea is to be your yardstick then that must surely include any 'advanced civilization' capable of producing such a simulation, not necessarily one god at all, but potentially millions, all of whom are subject to natural laws. Interesting ideas of 'god' that you put forward, Vlad. :)
There is no logical law that constrains the creator to the laws of nature of the universe it creates. Personally the ability to create an alternative universe would lead me to do so.
Your suggestion could be taken as ultra naturalistic.
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There is no logical law that constrains the creator to the laws of nature of the universe it creates.
Straw man. That was not what was suggested. ::)
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jeremy,
But that definition would barely scratch the surface of what Vlad thinks to be necessary for his god to be his god.
And there’s you pleading that definitions are not provided.
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And there’s you pleading that definitions are not provided.
The problem is that you keep on shifting the goalposts. Sometimes it's about necessity or Feser's base of hierarchy, sometimes it's the source of objective morality, and others it's any kind of entity at all that makes a universe (or some part thereof - a question you never address).
If you want a sensible discussion, want to propose some argument or accuse others of 'dodging', then the very first thing you need is a fixed definition of what you mean by 'God'. For some reason you seem to want to avoid giving one at all costs...
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There is no logical law that constrains the creator to the laws of nature of the universe it creates. Personally the ability to create an alternative universe would lead me to do so.
Your suggestion could be taken as ultra naturalistic.
Not my suggestion, Vlad, but one which Bostrom ( whom you obviously thought fit to bring into this conversation) himself suggested in accordance with his simulation hypothesis. :D
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Vlad,
And there’s you pleading that definitions are not provided.
Yes – you like to tell us what this supposed god of your does (answers prayers etc), but will never tell us what it is. The SU hypothesis doesn’t require any of the former, with the sole exception of the ability to create the universe we happen to perceive. Naturally you’ll ignore this rebuttal as you have all the others you’ve been given, but that it won’t make it any less true.
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Vlad,
Yes – you like to tell us what this supposed god of your does (answers prayers etc), but will never tell us what it is. The SU hypothesis doesn’t require any of the former, with the sole exception of the ability to create the universe we happen to perceive. Naturally you’ll ignore this rebuttal as you have all the others you’ve been given, but that it won’t make it any less true.
I don’t think we’ve been through your thesis on the meaning of the term answered prayer.
In terms of a rebuttal. Saying it’s ok that an entity with purpose can create a universe but on no account should we treat that like God or that it is impossible for some relationship is unreasonable.
Once we are into this kind of territory any limitation on what the creator is is unreasonable and indeed a case of special pleading.
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The problem is that you keep on shifting the goalposts. Sometimes it's about necessity or Feser's base of hierarchy, sometimes it's the source of objective morality, and others it's any kind of entity at all that makes a universe (or some part thereof - a question you never address).
How is discussing there aspects of Gods being and actions shifting the goalposts?
The Feser argument is greater than Kalam but Kalam still has mileage imho with regard to infinities being seemingly impossible in science.
The feser argument works imho just as well with or without infinities.
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How is discussing there aspects of Gods being and actions shifting the goalposts?
The Feser argument is greater than Kalam but Kalam still has mileage imho with regard to infinities being seemingly impossible in science.
The feser argument works imho just as well with or without infinities.
It is only in your humble opinion! ;D
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Vlad,
I don’t think we’ve been through your thesis on the meaning of the term answered prayer.
Bizarre reply. I don’t have a “thesis” on that – it’s just religious gibberish so far as I can tell. If you want to introduce it though (however irrelevantly) then it’s your job to tell us what you mean by it, not mine (the same problem you have with your claim “god”).
In terms of a rebuttal. Saying it’s ok that an entity with purpose can create a universe but on no account should we treat that like God or that it is impossible for some relationship is unreasonable.
And untrue. No-one does that and you’ve had this straw man detonated countless times before now. Why then return to exactly the same lie once again rather than deal with its falsification?
Once we are into this kind of territory any limitation on what the creator is is unreasonable and indeed a case of special pleading.
It could be, a but as no-one here claims that territory it’s irrelevant.
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jeremy,
But that definition would barely scratch the surface of what Vlad thinks to be necessary for his god to be his god.
So what? I wasn't claiming to give Vlad's definition of God. I don't know what Vlad's definition of God is because he won't tell us.
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jeremy,
So what? I wasn't claiming to give Vlad's definition of God. I don't know what Vlad's definition of God is because he won't tell us.
It wasn't a criticism of you - it was a criticism of Vlad's specious claim that a universe-creator would also therefore be his notion of "god".
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Also, perhaps you could answer the question that Vlad's been studiously ignoring? Just how much of a universe, and to what degree of detail, does a simulation need to be and have before its creator earns the label 'God'?
Under my definition, the fact that the creator of a simulation created it is enough to earn that creator the label of "God" to the inhabitants of the simulation. I agree it's quite a broad definition but I think anything that fulfils it is a good answer to the question "who created the Universe?" (provided we actually discover that such a being exists)
I do not believe, by the way, that the Universe we live in is a simulation. I find Sabine Hossenfelder's argument (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCSqogSPU_Q) persuasive. Essentially, she claims that the natural laws of the Universe would not look the same in a simulation.
if I write a Game of Life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life) implementation, am I the 'God' of that 'universe'?
Yes.
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And there’s you pleading that definitions are not provided.
But you understand that you have not provided a definition and my definition is a long way from the Christian god?
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jeremy,
It wasn't a criticism of you - it was a criticism of Vlad's specious claim that a universe-creator would also therefore be his notion of "god".
Yes, I understood that and it's a flaw that none of the Christians who bring up these specious "proofs" ever address. Also, in spite of being practically the lowest possible denominator god, it's still vulnerable to some of the other arguments used by non believers. In particular we still need to answer where did this god come from?
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jeremy,
Yes, I understood that and it's a flaw that none of the Christians who bring up these specious "proofs" ever address. Also, in spite of being practically the lowest possible denominator god, it's still vulnerable to some of the other arguments used by non believers. In particular we still need to answer where did this god come from?
Yes. Best guess (as he won’t or can’t tell us) is that Vlad believes in a personal god, whereas at best the SU conjecture could open a door to deism rather than to theism. As you say though, deism has its own problems that the deist would have to address before claiming the conjecture to indicate a deity.
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But you understand that you have not provided a definition and my definition is a long way from the Christian god?
Broadly, My definition is this. (I have emboldened the statement relevent to the point of your definition being a ''long way'' from the Christian god.)
Nicene Creed
We believe in one God,
the Father, the almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is,
seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
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Belief is not the same as providing any evidence to support that belief.
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Vlad,
Broadly, My definition is this. (I have emboldened the statement relevent to the point of your definition being a ''long way'' from the Christian god.)
Nicene Creed
We believe in one God,
the Father, the almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is,
seen and unseen etc...
Yes, we know the CV. That tells us what you think your god does. What you were asked though is what you think this "god" is.
Coda
By the way, aside from the first part you put in bold, the SU speculation wouldn't even get its trousers off even in principle as the beginning of a rationale for the rest of the claims.
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We believe in one God,
This creed is accepted by the majority of the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant faiths who then espouse a range of divine beings through the ranks of the angels (fallen and otherwise) and then three gods at the head (with some flim-flam three-in-one multi-pack offer justification)... if the opening line is contradicted by practice, in what way is any of this starting to clarify a definition of a god or a meaning of the word?
O.
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This creed is accepted by the majority of the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant faiths who then espouse a range of divine beings through the ranks of the angels (fallen and otherwise) and then three gods at the head (with some flim-flam three-in-one multi-pack offer justification)...
Wooah...let me stop you there. None of the denominations you mention consider angels or saints as divine. In terms of the trinity, that should more properly addressed on the Christianity board.
You never addressed the declaration of God as the maker of all things seen and unseen. The exact claim of those who propose that the universe might be a simulation by which I mean that that idea necessarily requires a maker with purpose.
Any further claim that this maker MUST be in the nature of a mere technician is I’m sure you agree, completely unwarranted.
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Vlad,
You never addressed the declaration of God as the maker of all things seen and unseen. The exact claim of those who propose that the universe might be a simulation by which I mean that that idea necessarily requires a maker with purpose.
That's not the same speculation (it's not a claim) of the SU conjecture at all.
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Vlad,
That's not the same speculation (it's not a claim) of the SU conjecture at all.
That is plainly wrong.
You seem to be conflating the idea of a maker of the universe which has purpose. With speculation on what it could be like or what its purpose is. I dont see how you can deny that theology was first with the maker idea and that the maker idea has resurfaced in SU. Any notion that the makerMUSTbe natural is special pleading.
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Wooah...let me stop you there. None of the denominations you mention consider angels or saints as divine.
Yeah, because these are some other 'rank' of not mortal, but still magical, but totally not the same magical 'obvs'...
In terms of the trinity, that should more properly addressed on the Christianity board.
No, it should be just chuckled at politely and left in the 'this is what happens when you try to make it up as you go along' meme-bin.
You never addressed the declaration of God as the maker of all things seen and unseen.
I didn't need to, I'd already pretty much given up on the attempt at a definition after the first line, as I pointed out. However, if you feel that needs addressing... why would I think there was a conscious architect to reality?
The exact claim of those who propose that the universe might be a simulation by which I mean that that idea necessarily requires a maker with purpose.[/qote]
The simulated universe, yes, but those creating the simulation? One of the problems with the 'simulation theory' is that those simulated universes will go on to produce their own simulations, which go on to produce their own, ad infinitum, and suddenly you have a geometric expansion of the processing power required to run the top-level simulation... infinite processing power?
Any further claim that this maker MUST be in the nature of a mere technician is I’m sure you agree, completely unwarranted.
This maker, yes... the 'ultimate' maker, the maker of (to quote) '... all things, seen and unseen...', not just this simulated universe.
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This maker, yes... the 'ultimate' maker, the maker of (to quote) '... all things, seen and unseen...', not just this simulated universe.
[/quote]
a)This universe could be the only universe there is. There is no logic that limits the maker of this universe to er, this universe or indeed all universes.
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Vlad,
That is plainly wrong.
Let’s see shall we?
You seem to be conflating the idea of a maker of the universe which has purpose.
And you’ve fallen at the first hurdle. Where does the SU speculation suggest that the “simulator” must have been purposive? Or even for the matter acted alone?
Not a good start…
With speculation on what it could be like or what its purpose is.
No, you’ve introduced the idea of purpose not me – the SU speculation doesn’t require it, and I haven’t proposed it.
You’re falling apart at the seams here.
I dont see how you can deny that theology was first with the maker idea…
Well if you call the earliest creation myths “theology” I’ll give you that, but I’ve made no claim to the contrary. Most ancient tribal peoples with surviving cultures seem to have creation stories of various types – I’m quite drawn to the Norse mythology version in which Ymir, a humanoid giant, was formed from melting ice. When Ymir sweated, more giants were born. The first man and woman emerged from the sweat of the giant's armpit. You though are free to take your pick from countless others if that’s your thing.
…and that the maker idea has resurfaced in SU.
Not really. The SU conjecture speculates only about a simulator that happens to have made only the universe that’s available to us. It says nothing about whether that simulator was itself part of some different dimension entirely (perhaps with creation myths of its own).
Religionists on the other hand as I understand generally go instead for (their choice of a) god being the beginning of everything, and then throw in some special pleading to fix the infinite regress problem that gives them.
Any notion that the makerMUSTbe natural is special pleading.
And your favouring straw man to finish. Have you ever, ever here seen anyone at all say that a (supposed) creator MUST (or even just must) be natural? No you haven’t have you so why keep straw manning about that?
Oh, and almost nothing in the Nicene Creed CV you posted for your god is any part of the SU speculation in any case, so you remain entirely unsupported about all that whacky stuff.
Even by your abysmal standards you’ve managed a pretty epic fail here old son.
Oh well.
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Vlad,
Let’s see shall we?
And you’ve fallen at the first hurdle. Where does the SU speculation suggest that the “simulator” must have been purposive? Or even for the matter acted alone?
Not a good start…
More projection than a Cinerama presentation.
It is you who have crashed.... ''Simulation'' is a purpose.
[/quote]
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Vlad,
More projection than a Cinerama presentation.
It is you who have crashed.... ''Simulation'' is a purpose.
Stop digging will you! Why would you think that the universe we seem to inhabit at an experiential level but that's actually a facsimile of that universe must necessarily therefore have been created purposively?
Try to answer that without collapsing into one or more of the various fallacies on which you routinely rely.
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Vlad,
Stop digging will you! Why would you think that the universe we seem to inhabit at an experiential level but that's actually a facsimile of that universe must necessarily therefore have been created purposively?
Not sure what you are trying to convey in this car crash post.
Simulated universe theory envisages purposeful creation. Purposeless simulation is never envisaged and looks as if the very idea isn't sensible.
A simulated universe which just is naturally and arose without purpose peddled as somehow a superior idea against which proposing a purposeful simulation is highly questionable is mere mindgaming and gaslighting on your part.
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Vlad,
Not sure what you are trying to convey in this car crash post.
You really should look up “irony” one day. Really – you should.
Simulated universe theory envisages purposeful creation.
It’s not a theory, and the SU conjecture does not require a purposive simulator. It’d help if you either found a citation to the contrary or just stopped lying about that. Any chance of either?
Purposeless simulation is never envisaged and looks as if the very idea isn't sensible.
Purposive creation isn’t required, and you have all your work ahead of you to explain why you think it isn’t sensible.
A simulated universe which just is naturally and arose without purpose peddled as somehow a superior idea against which proposing a purposeful simulation is highly questionable is mere mindgaming and gaslighting on your part.
Occam’s razor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
Try again, only perhaps attempt an argument next time.
PS Here’s a nice example of emergence for you by the way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix66tQ93bdU
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This maker, yes... the 'ultimate' maker, the maker of (to quote) '... all things, seen and unseen...', not just this simulated universe.
a)This universe could be the only universe there is. There is no logic that limits the maker of this universe to er, this universe or indeed all universes.
No. If you're looking at this universe as a simulation there has to be at least one other universe in which this simulation occurs, that's the foundation of the conceptualisation of a simulated universe.
That universe then is looking for an explanation of its own.
O.
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No. If you're looking at this universe as a simulation there has to be at least one other universe in which this simulation occurs, that's the foundation of the conceptualisation of a simulated universe.
That universe then is looking for an explanation of its own.
O.
So what? As I have pointed out elsewhere we are always directed back to something on which everything is dependent. Whether it is Russell’s the universe brute fact or God.
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So what? As I have pointed out elsewhere we are always directed back to something on which everything is dependent. Whether it is Russell’s the universe brute fact or God.
Because ultimately, whether our reality is simulated or not, you either have to try to explain the underpinnings, or you have to avoid explaining by falling back on magic, gods or other woo.
O.
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Because ultimately, whether our reality is simulated or not, you either have to try to explain the underpinnings, or you have to avoid explaining by falling back on magic, gods or other woo.
O.
And how does science describe the underpinnings? As I’ve said even you have been led back here to something on which all depends, namely the underpinnings as you call them.
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And how does science describe the underpinnings? As I’ve said even you have been led back here to something on which all depends, namely the underpinnings as you call them.
Science describes the underpinnings through various formulae that quantify the interactions of various forms of energy. They also describe, with evidentiary support, how that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, simply converted form one form to another; which suggests that reality is eternal, and the energy has always been there in one form or another, and we're simply one configuration of it.
O.
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Science describes the underpinnings through various formulae that quantify the interactions of various forms of energy. They also describe, with evidentiary support, how that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, simply converted form one form to another; which suggests that reality is eternal, and the energy has always been there in one form or another, and we're simply one configuration of it.
O.
Sorry you keep linking science to describing reality and that is just philosophical materialism since it is
A leap of faith from methodological materialism to ‘describing reality’
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Sorry you keep linking science to describing reality and that is just philosophical materialism since it is
A leap of faith from methodological materialism to ‘describing reality’
Science proves things to be factual or not after a lot of research. People of faith may believe god exists, but there has never been any been any actual evidence that justifies their belief.
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Science proves things to be factual or not after a lot of research. People of faith may believe god exists, but there has never been any been any actual evidence that justifies their belief.
Science is described as provisional. If by actual evidence you mean scientific evidence you merely make a circular argument since science doesn’t do God....or morality for that matter.
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Science is described as provisional. If by actual evidence you mean scientific evidence you merely make a circular argument since science doesn’t do God....or morality for that matter.
Evidence doesn’t do God either.
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Sorry you keep linking science to describing reality and that is just philosophical materialism since it is A leap of faith from methodological materialism to ‘describing reality’
No, it's a conclusion from available evidence. It's provisional, yes, but it's still overwhelmingly our best explanation for what's going on. That we can't philosophically demonstrate that it's an absolute truth in no way reduces it to the level of magic, religion and other woo.
I keep reverting to science because it has a proven track record. You keep dismissing it because it doesn't fit your preconception.
O.
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Science proves things to be factual or not after a lot of research. People of faith may believe god exists, but there has never been any been any actual evidence that justifies their belief.
Science does not prove things
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No, it's a conclusion from available evidence. It's provisional, yes, but it's still overwhelmingly our best explanation for what's going on. That we can't philosophically demonstrate that it's an absolute truth in no way reduces it to the level of magic, religion and other woo.
I keep reverting to science because it has a proven track record. You keep dismissing it because it doesn't fit your preconception.
O.
Your preconception is that the concept of cause necessarily implies that it is an effect. That deeply ingrained notion of yours is a derivation from your beliefs. I am just going by the plain concept of the term cause.
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Your preconception is that the concept of cause necessarily implies that it is an effect.
It's not my notion, it's the widely understood notion of cause and effect.
That deeply ingrained notion of yours is a derivation from your beliefs.
It's more likely the other way round, having had the notion of cause and effect explained to me, then demonstrated in absolutely every moment of every day of my waking life, it's become a reasonable proposition on which to base my understanding.
I am just going by the plain concept of the term cause.
But pretending like you have a special understanding of 'effect' as it's used in this context.
O.
[/quote]
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Vlad,
...science doesn’t do God....
And nor does anything else. That's your epic problem you always run way from though.
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Vlad,
And nor does anything else. That's your epic problem you always run way from though.
science does not do morality either. Philosophy frequently does God so any epic problems are probably in your head. Your post is pure philosophical empiricism imho.
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science does not do morality either. Philosophy frequently does God so any epic problems are probably in your head. Your post is pure philosophical empiricism imho.
The idea that philosophy 'does God' is begging the question.
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Vlad,
science does not do morality either.
“Science” doesn’t claim to “do” morality. Reason though (of which science is just one manifestation) does inasmuch as anything does. If not for reason, what else would you suggest for the job?
Philosophy frequently does God…
Not really – there’s no philosophy that establishes solid ground for the claim “god”.
…so any epic problems are probably in your head.
No, the epic problem of having no means to investigate and verify your religious claims is still all yours. That’s why whenever I ask you for a means to do that you always change the subject or just run away.
Your post is pure philosophical empiricism imho.
But your opinion is wrong for reasons that have been explained to you countless times and you always ignore.
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Vlad,
“Science” doesn’t claim to “do” morality. Reason though (of which science is just one manifestation) does inasmuch as anything does. If not for reason, what else would you suggest for the job?
Tarot - it does it inasmuch as anything does. Given the ought is gap, where does rationality do morality in any way other than being efficient about a non rational decision?
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NS
Tarot - it does it inasmuch as anything does. Given the ought is gap, where does rationality do morality in any way other than being efficient about a non rational decision?
Surely we’re not going to go around this again are we? Vlad has got it into his head that morality needs to be absolute and certain (and ideally written down in a book he considers “holy”) to be “real”. That’s clearly nonsense as morality (like aesthetics and language) need only be “real enough” to be functionally useful, which all we can expect of it. Yes of course morality quickly drills down to axiomatic principles (like wellbeing) that can be debated endlessly (ie the gap you refer to), but when there’s enough cohesion around once such then reason can be applied to the axiom for practical purposes. It’s the same with aesthetics: ultimately who can say what’s good art, and yet a painting can be said to be trite, derivative etc and therefore not good art.
It happens though that morality plays a key role in deciding how we should co-exist, and reason and argument have a critical role in that endeavour. It’s messy and it’s uncertain and you don’t have to dig very deep before your reach the reason-impermeable axiom layer for sure, but what else is there – competing religions that assert moral positions because in each case “that’s my faith”?
In short, in practice all we have to take us along the road is reason, always in the knowledge that the road could collapse beneath us. Remove reason and there's nothing left to replace it – the roads go in all directions.
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NS
Surely we’re not going to go around this again are we? Vlad has got it into his head that morality needs to be absolute and certain (and ideally written down in a book he considers “holy”) to be “real”. That’s clearly nonsense as morality (like aesthetics and language) need only be “real enough” to be functionally useful, which all we can expect of it. Yes of course morality quickly drills down to axiomatic principles (like wellbeing) that can be debated endlessly (ie the gap you refer to), but when there’s enough cohesion around once such then reason can be applied to the axiom for practical purposes. It’s the same with aesthetics: ultimately who can say what’s good art, and yet a painting can be said to be trite, derivative etc and therefore not good art.
It happens though that morality plays a key role in deciding how we should co-exist, and reason and argument have a critical role in that endeavour. It’s messy and it’s uncertain and you don’t have to dig very deep before your reach the reason-impermeable axiom layer for sure, but what else is there – competing religions that assert moral positions because in each case “that’s my faith”?
In short, in practice all we have to take us along the road is reason, always in the knowledge that the road could collapse beneath us. Remove reason and there's nothing left to replace it – the roads go in all directions.
We keep going round this because you keep wanting to link it my comments to Vlad's arguments. I'm not making his argument so your discussion of his argument here is pointless.
As you cover morality is the same as aesthetics, so in determining good art is the same as good morality is the same as good hummus.
What is the difference between tarot and rationality in determining morality?
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NS,
We keep going round this because you keep wanting to link it my comments to Vlad's arguments. I'm not making his argument so your discussion of his argument here is pointless.
But you weighed in on an exchange I was having with him, which was the context of my reply (to him).
As you cover morality is the same as aesthetics, so in determining good art is the same as good morality is the same as good hummus.
But nonetheless, we do make judgements about these matters – and in the case of morality we have to moreover if we’re to co-exist in any sort of organised and sustainable manner.
What is the difference between tarot and rationality in determining morality?
It’s the same difference as between a jig-saw with no pieces and a jig-saw with a handful of them. With the latter we might think the picture is a daffodil but it’s really a fire engine, but with the former it could be anything at all.
Take an example: say my neighbour buys a really nice car, and I need to decide whether or not it would be morally ok to murder him so as to steal it. If I apply reason to that situation I can arrive at a rationale that produces the answer “no” (his right not to be murdered, the potential effect on me if society thought murdering for cars was ok, that I might be caught and punished etc).
Now consider what would happen if I used the tarot instead – the answer would be determined by whatever card I happened to pick, and could well be the opposite answer if I tried it again. As a method it’s chaotic.
Does that mean that reason gives us morality on an objectively true basis? Of course not – for all I know there could be a better answer somewhere for why killing my neighbour for his car would be fine – but it does give us a functional, workable, good-enough steer on moral codes that we can apply in the real world. And that’s all I’m arguing.
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NS,
But you weighed in on an exchange I was having with him, which was the context of my reply (to him).
But nonetheless, we do make judgements about these matters – and in the case of morality we have to moreover if we’re to co-exist in any sort of organised and sustainable manner.
It’s the same difference as between a jig-saw with no pieces and a jig-saw with a handful of them. With the latter we might think the picture is a daffodil but it’s really a fire engine, but with the former it could be anything at all.
Take an example: say my neighbour buys a really nice car, and I need to decide whether or not it would be morally ok to murder him so as to steal it. If I apply reason to that situation I can arrive at a rationale that produces the answer “no” (his right not to be murdered, the potential effect on me if society thought murdering for cars was ok, that I might be caught and punished etc).
Now consider what would happen if I used the tarot instead – the answer would be determined by whatever card I happened to pick, and could well be the opposite answer if I tried it again. As a method it’s chaotic.
Does that mean that reason gives us morality on an objectively true basis? Of course not – for all I know there could be a better answer somewhere for why killing my neighbour for his car would be fine – but it does give us a functional, workable, good-enough steer on moral codes that we can apply in the real world. And that’s all I’m arguing.
I replied to you about a specific point in a public forum . It is idiotic to then expect me to believe the same as the other person even if this was the first exchange we had.
And no, the jump from is to ought isn't a jigsaw where you have more pieces. It's an absolute gap even if you don't want to face uo to that.
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NS,
I replied to you about a specific point in a public forum . It is idiotic to then expect me to believe the same as the other person even if this was the first exchange we had.
I said no such thing. To the contrary, I said expressly “Vlad has got it into his head that…” etc (Reply 145). I have no idea therefore why you’re complaining that I tried to ascribe Vlad’s position to you – I didn’t.
And no, the jump from is to ought isn't a jigsaw where you have more pieces. It's an absolute gap even if you don't want to face uo to that.
You’re still not getting it. It’s an absolute gap if you want to demonstrate absolute moral positions. Trying to bridge it is a fool’s errand – that’s why I said that even with some pieces of the jig-saw that suggest a daffodil, the picture could nonetheless be a fire engine. Having some of the jig-saw says nothing at all about bridging the gap, and it’d help the exchange if you’d stop straw manning me about that.
We do nonetheless need a workable morality if we’re to co-exist – if not by the application of reason to do that job, what would you propose instead?
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NS,
I said no such thing. To the contrary, I said expressly “Vlad has got it into his head that…” etc (Reply 145). I have no idea therefore why you’re complaining that I tried to ascribe Vlad’s position to you – I didn’t.
You’re still not getting it. It’s an absolute gap if you want to demonstrate absolute moral positions. Trying to bridge it is a fool’s errand – that’s why I said that even with some pieces of the jig-saw that suggest a daffodil, the picture could nonetheless be a fire engine. Having some of the jig-saw says nothing at all about bridging the gap, and it’d help the exchange if you’d stop straw manning me about this.
We do nonetheless need a workable morality if we’re to co-exist – if not by the application of reason to do that job, what would you propose instead?
Since it is an absolute gap, reason doesn't help. Morality is opinion. There is no difference between tarot and reason in the gap.
Whatever Vlad thinks is irrelevant to that point and our discussion.
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NS,
Since it is an absolute gap, reason doesn't help.
It doesn’t help bridge that gap. I just told you that, and I’ve said nothing different from that previously.
Morality is opinion. There is no difference between tarot and reason in the gap.
And bears do their business in the woods. You’re straw manning again.
The point though is that societies need functional moral codes and that not all opinions about what they should be are equal – for that purpose, my opinion that murdering my neighbour for his car is ok is less defensible than your opinion that it isn’t.
Whatever Vlad thinks is irrelevant to that point and our discussion.
Perhaps, but I still didn’t ascribe his position to you – which is what you accused me of.
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NS,
It doesn’t help bridge that gap. I just told you that, and I’ve said nothing different from that previously.
And bears do their business in the woods. You’re straw manning again.
The point though is that societies need functional moral codes and that not all opinions about what they should be are equal – for that purpose, my opinion that murdering my neighbour for his car is ok is less defensible than your opinion that it isn’t.
Perhaps, but I still didn’t ascribe his position to you – which is what you accused me of.
Why are not all opinions equal? Why is rationality better than the tarot?
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NS,
Why are not all opinions equal? Why is rationality better than the tarot?
Because, to take the example of a neighbour with a nice car, if we decided the moral rightness of killing him for it by drawing tarot cards societies would cease to function, or at least would function hugely less efficiently than they do with reason-justified moral principles. Bridging the ought/is gap that's required for moral certainty has nothing to do with that.
PS Are we agreed that I didn’t accuse you of holding Vlad’s position (idiotically or otherwise) by the way?
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NS,
Because, to take the example of a neighbour with a nice car, if we decided the moral rightness of killing him for it by drawing tarot cards societies would cease to function, or at least would function hugely less efficiently than they do with reason-justified moral principles. Bridging the ought/is gap that's required for moral certainty has nothing to do with that.
PS Are we agreed that I didn’t accuse you of holding Vlad’s position (idiotically or otherwise) by the way?
I confess to knowing near to nothing about tarot so it would interest me to hear your knowledge.
Secondly might it be possible for you to outline the path of reason to the conclusion say Slavery is a bad thing without any leaps of belief or appeal to emotions or anything else but reason.
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Vlad,
I confess to knowing near to nothing about tarot so it would interest me to hear your knowledge.
Very funny.
Secondly might it be possible for you to outline the path of reason to the conclusion say Slavery is a bad thing without any leaps of belief or appeal to emotions or anything else but reason.
Of course, but only if you’ll do something for me first: outline your path of reason that explains why you think people ought to consider Vermeer’s "View of Delft" to be great art and the poster of the girl on the tennis court scratching her backside to be not great art without any leaps of belief or appeal to emotions or anything else but reason.
Fair enough?
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Vlad,
Very funny.
Of course, but only if you’ll do something for me first: outline your path of reason that explains why you think people ought to consider Vermeer’s "View of Delft" to be great art and the poster of the girl on the tennis court scratching her backside to be not great art without any leaps of belief or appeal to emotions or anything else but reason.
Fair enough?
No you are comparing apples and oranges. I declare myself ignorant of the work involved and I am not promoting reason as a route through to the answer.
You though have declared that reason is very much part of morality so what I ask from you should be no problem.
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No you are comparing apples and oranges. I declare myself ignorant of the work involved and I am not promoting reason as a route through to the answer.
You though have declared that reason is very much part of morality so what I ask from you should be no problem.
So how do you determine your morality?
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Vlad,
No you are comparing apples and oranges.
I’m absolutely not – I’m comparing Granny Smiths with Golden Delicious. That’s the point – morality is, if not an off-shoot of aesthetics, then a first cousin (as are various other codified group opinions, like language). You look at a picture for example and, at an instinctive level, you find it to be appealing or not. When asked why you think one painting to be great art and another trite moreover you can make arguments that justify your gut feel (or sometimes that contradict it).
Now consider morality. You might find the sight of, say, someone being attacked in the street to be instinctively abhorrent – the “yuk” response – and that’s enough for a quick “that’s immoral” judgment. When asked why street attacks are immoral moreover you could produce various arguments to justify your instinct about that. Sometimes though there could be an argument that causes you to override your instinct – say because the attacker was a policeman rugby tackling someone heading toward a school with a loaded gun.
Can you see now that aesthetics and morality are functionally the same thing, albeit with different objects? They’re a mix of the instinctive and (sometimes) the reasoned to justify or override the instinct.
I declare myself ignorant of the work involved and I am not promoting reason as a route through to the answer.
And yet in practice you’re forced to do just that. You might for example think the late Beethoven Quartets to be great art – they move you instinctively in a profound way, and (assuming you know anything about them) if asked you could justify that judgement with arguments about their composition. On the other hand, you (presumably) wouldn’t feel the same way about the Birdie Song and, if asked why not, you could support that opinion too with arguments about the derivative and uninteresting composition etc.
As I assume you don’t think there’s a big book of deity-inspired rules about what is and isn’t good art or music to tell you what to dis/like, if you couldn’t support your instincts about these things with arguments then that’s all you’d have – instincts.
And the problem with that would be that would be that the only rational response from someone who didn’t happen to share those instincts would be a “so what”. When you have reason at your back though, then you can say “I think you ought to agree with me that murder is wrong/Beethoven was a great composer, and here’s why.” Note though that in neither case would there be an argument for objective truth, so there's no question of claiming to bridge the ought/is gap that such a claim would require.
You though have declared that reason is very much part of morality so what I ask from you should be no problem.
I have and it isn’t for the reasons I just set out. Nor though should it be a problem for you either if you think I ought to share your conviction that the Birdie Song is a magnificent work of art.
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NS,
So how do you determine your morality?
He thinks he can look it up in a book, which even leaving aside that idea’s basic bonkersness is weird for lots of reasons. Here are just a few right off the bat:
1. There are countless moral questions the book’s authors never thought of, so great swathes of moral debate are missing from his instruction manual.
2. In practice he follows some of the rules and ignores others (at least I hope he does as, say, killing your neighbour for gathering kindling on the sabbath is illegal in most countries). This means that he must exercise judgements on a case-by case-basis about all sorts of rules in his “holy” book. How does he do that I wonder except for thinking about them to reason his way through the menu?
3. If he had never had access to this book is he suggesting that he’d have gone about raping and pillaging for lack of a moral manual? I assume not, but then why wouldn’t he have done if ever the whim had taken his fancy, and why for that matter aren’t people who think different manuals with different moral rules are correct or that none are exhibiting horrendous levels of moral turpitude even though little old Vlad is doing the right thing?
It’s all very odd.
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So how do you determine your morality?
Situations and notions present themselves and I perceive them as having a moral dimension unlike our colleague BHS I see these as requiring a distinctive moral solution either in terms of thought or action. Sometimes I perceive the correct moral solution as going against my taste which I am forced to overcome or continue with my taste yet feeling uneasy with that because the moral equation has not as it were been made.
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Vlad,
Situations and notions present themselves and I perceive them as having a moral dimension unlike our colleague BHS I see these as requiring a distinctive moral solution either in terms of thought or action…
If your response is “in terms of thought” then there’s reasoning involved, and how in any case could you carry out an action with no thought to precede it? Are your thoughts and actions on moral questions random and inconsistent, or is there some underlying reasoning process to enable you to act at least somewhat consistently?
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Vlad,
If your response is “in terms of thought” then there’s reasoning involved, and how in any case could you carry out an action with no thought to precede it? Are your thoughts and actions on moral questions random and inconsistent, or is there some underlying reasoning process to enable you to act at least somewhat consistently?
There is thought in mathematics but any reasoning derives from the mathematical reasoning the same with morality. Moral reasoning not found in mathematical reasoning. I am a bit dubious about some all purpose tool called reasoning.
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Vlad,
There is thought in mathematics but any reasoning derives from the mathematical reasoning the same with morality. Moral reasoning not found in mathematical reasoning. I am a bit dubious about some all purpose tool called reasoning.
Complete gibberish. When urges, impulses, instinctual responses arise from your subconscious either you act merely according to which one happened first or you think about it. And unless you’ve had your prefrontal cortex removed, here’s what it does for you:
“This brain region has been implicated in executive functions, such as planning, decision making, short-term memory, personality expression, moderating social behavior and controlling certain aspects of speech and language.[3][4] The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals.[5]
Executive function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social "control" (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes).”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex)
When you say, “I do this” or “I do that” what you actually mean is that your prefrontal cortex is doing its job, and that job requires reasoning to “differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best” etc.
I should warn you that you’re about to look very silly very quickly here.
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Vlad,
Complete gibberish. When urges, impulses, instinctual responses arise from your subconscious either you act merely according to which one happened first or you think about it. And unless you’ve had your prefrontal cortex removed, here’s what it does for you:
“This brain region has been implicated in executive functions, such as planning, decision making, short-term memory, personality expression, moderating social behavior and controlling certain aspects of speech and language.[3][4] The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals.[5]
Executive function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social "control" (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes).”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex)
When you say, “I do this” or “I do that” what you actually mean is that your prefrontal cortex is doing its job, and that job requires reasoning to “differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best” etc.
I should warn you that you’re about to look very silly very quickly here.
It's no use presenting a scientific description to explain morality because as we know science does not do morality.
You are deriving your notion of an all purpose tool called reasoning, again making the term morality or moralising redundant, from a scientific anatomical and neurological description. It doesn't work.
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Vlad,
It's no use presenting a scientific description to explain morality because as we know science does not do morality.
Even by your standards that’s a pretty epic body swerve. I wasn’t trying to “explain morality because as we know science does not do morality” at all – I was just demolishing your pretty bizarre claim that you decide on moral issues apparently without thinking about your decisions.
You are deriving your notion of an all purpose tool called reasoning, again making the term morality or moralising redundant, from a scientific anatomical and neurological description. It doesn't work.
That’s because it’s not true. Either you think about which responses to moral questions to take or you don’t. And the only way it could be the latter would be if you didn’t have a prefrontal cortex.
As for your other mistake, of course I’m not making the term “moral” redundant, any more than lecturers on fine art course make the term “art” redundant. I set some of this out for you a few posts ago by the way when you made your apples and oranges mistake.
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Broadly, My definition is this. (I have emboldened the statement relevent to the point of your definition being a ''long way'' from the Christian god.)
Nicene Creed
We believe in one God,
the Father, the almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is,
seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
The bit you made bold is really the minimal definition of God. The Christian god is such more than that. In fact most religions seem to have a god that fits the bold part of your definition.
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Vlad,
Even by your standards that’s a pretty epic body swerve. I wasn’t trying to “explain morality because as we know science does not do morality” at all – I was just demolishing your pretty bizarre claim that you decide on moral issues apparently without thinking about your decisions.
That’s because it’s not true. Either you think about which responses to moral questions to take or you don’t. And the only way it could be the latter would be if you didn’t have a prefrontal cortex.
As for your other mistake, of course I’m not making the term “moral” redundant, any more than lecturers on fine art course make the term “art” redundant. I set some of this out for you a few posts ago by the way when you made your apples and oranges mistake.
Your scientific description of the neurology of the prefrontal cortex was very reminiscent of the description of the report of the injuries of Phineas Gage who presented a major leap in the understanding of the function of the Brain after a tamping rod used for explosives went through the front of the skull. It was reported that Gage went from being a humble peaceable man to being uncouth and a social embarrasment because of the lack of control of his behaviour.
Here is the rub though, one does not have to be injured to be uncouth and asocial embarrasment. Also any report of Gage in the strictly moral sense was not derived from the neuroscientific observations.
In other words to lump moralising, doing maths or percieving patterns, and working out say, what it is you are seeing is oversimplification. In other words, there is no all encompassing single tool of 'reasoning' going on. Such a view is also probably nearer to the science where the brain is divided into sections of specific activity handling differing categories of stimulus.
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The bit you made bold is really the minimal definition of God. The Christian god is such more than that. In fact most religions seem to have a god that fits the bold part of your definition.
Yes and simulated universe theory also has a maker of all that is seen and unseen in the universe too.
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Vlad,
Your scientific description of the neurology of the prefrontal cortex was very reminiscent of the description of the report of the injuries of Phineas Gage who presented a major leap in the understanding of the function of the Brain after a tamping rod used for explosives went through the front of the skull. It was reported that Gage went from being a humble peaceable man to being uncouth and a social embarrasment because of the lack of control of his behaviour.
Here is the rub though, one does not have to be injured to be uncouth and asocial embarrasment. Also any report of Gage in the strictly moral sense was not derived from the neuroscientific observations.
Leaving aside that irrelevance, which is it: do you think about the moral decisions you make, or don’t you? If it’s the latter your choices would be random and inconsistent; if it’s the former then you’re reasoning your way to moral positions. There is no third option.
In other words to lump moralising, doing maths or percieving patterns, and working out say, what it is you are seeing is oversimplification. In other words, there is no all encompassing single tool of 'reasoning' going on. Such a view is also probably nearer to the science where the brain is divided into sections of specific activity handling differing categories of stimulus.
Wrong again. Do you or do you not think about your moral choices? If the answer is that you do, then what is that thinking except the application of reason?
Note that I still make no comments about arriving at (supposed) objective moral truths. All I’m suggesting you do (as we all do) when confronted with a moral question is to reason your way to an answers to the best of your ability.
Oh, and funnily enough moral philosophy does that too when it addresses normative and practical ethics – and when it does do that guess what? Yep, “morality” conceptually doesn’t vanish a puff of smoke at all despite your somewhat bizarre claim that reason dispenses with the “moral” part.
Apart from that though…
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Vlad,
Yes and simulated universe theory also has a maker of all that is seen and unseen in the universe too.
But not necessarily an “uncaused” one, which is the central tenet of your conjecture “God”. It’d help if you stopped trying to ram that square peg into a round hole.
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Vlad,
But not necessarily an “uncaused” one, which is the central tenet of your conjecture “God”. It’d help if you stopped trying to ram that square peg into a round hole.
It could also be designed by a committee. Today is one of those days where it feels like it. Polytheism then, apparently.
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NS,
It could also be designed by a committee. Today is one of those days where it feels like it. Polytheism then.
Yes, that’s as good a speculation as any about what a designer/simulator could be. Vlad though is trying to force “therefore an uncaused cause” into the SU conjecture when it doesn’t require it. Mind you, an “uncaused committee” could be fun to think about ;)
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NS,
Yes, that’s as good a speculation as any about what a designer/simulator could be. Vlad though is trying to force “therefore an uncaused cause” into the SU conjecture when it doesn’t require it. Mind you, an “uncaused committee” could be fun to think about ;)
Oh, I've been on a few of those. Also uncaused effectless committees.
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Vlad,
But not necessarily an “uncaused” one, which is the central tenet of your conjecture “God”. It’d help if you stopped trying to ram that square peg into a round hole.
Your merely putting my argument but in another way.
Not necessarily an uncaused one but also not necessarily a caused one either.
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Not necessarily an uncaused one but also not necessarily a caused one either.
So - some kind of semi-caused cause then?
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Vlad,
Your merely putting my argument but in another way.
Not necessarily an uncaused one but also not necessarily a caused one either.
No I'm not. You wrongly claim the SU conjecture to give support to your notion of an "uncaused cause". The conjecture though takes you not one step closer to validating that idea as it would be equally in/valid with or without SU. You may as well claim that a conjectures about teeth disappearing from under pillows gives support to the claim "Tooth Fairy".
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Vlad,
No I'm not. You wrongly claim the SU conjecture to give support to your notion of an "uncaused cause". The conjecture though takes you not one step closer to validating that idea as it would be equally in/valid with or without SU. You may as well claim that a conjectures about teeth disappearing from under pillows gives support to the claim "Tooth Fairy".
No. My point is that from the premise that the universe has a maker it doesn't follow that this creator is necessarily caused by something else. Neither is that derived necessarily from the term cause.
That any creator has to be caused comes from philosophical naturalism which is neither confirmed nor denied by methodological naturalism.
In any case it doesn't matter since all the elements of Bostrom idea, a maker on whom we depend for our existence who is able to make itself known and make itself an avatar were there in Christianity.
As I keep saying. This is why SU is problematic for certain atheists like PZ Myers and scientists who see that SU may have a large eligious component.
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So - some kind of semi-caused cause then?
No....either one or the other...
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Vlad,
No. My point is that from the premise that the universe has a maker it doesn't follow that this creator is necessarily caused by something else. Neither is that derived necessarily from the term cause.
No-one says otherwise, though defining and setting out an argument for the “uncaused” bit you’re trying to insert would be a huge task regardless of the SU conjecture.
That any creator has to be caused comes from philosophical naturalism which is neither confirmed nor denied by methodological naturalism.
No-one says it has to be. You have the burden of proof backwards again.
In any case it doesn't matter since all the elements of Bostrom idea, a maker on whom we depend for our existence who is able to make itself known and make itself an avatar were there in Christianity.
The “who is able to make itself known and make itself an avatar” may be in Christianity (and in various other faiths) but the SU conjecture says nothing at all about that.
As I keep saying. This is why SU is problematic for certain atheists like PZ Myers and scientists who see that SU may have a large eligious component.
And as you keep being corrected, that’s just not true. If you want to make a religious claim that dumps most of your religion’s central tenets to be left with just “a simulator that may or may not have been caused by something else” and claim the SU conjecture for support for it that’s up to you, but in what sense then would your claim be religious?
Try this: you make a conjecture that teeth disappear from under pillows. I reply with, “that has a large Tooth Fairyist component”. Would you agree with me? Why not?
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Yes and simulated universe theory also has a maker of all that is seen and unseen in the universe too.
So?
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Vlad,
No-one says otherwise, though defining and setting out an argument for the “uncaused” bit you’re trying to insert would be a huge task regardless of the SU conjecture.
No-one says it has to be. You have the burden of proof backwards again.
The “who is able to make itself known and make itself an avatar” may be in Christianity (and in various other faiths) but the SU conjecture says nothing at all about that.
And as you keep being corrected, that’s just not true. If you want to make a religious claim that dumps most of your religion’s central tenets to be left with just “a simulator that may or may not have been caused by something else” and claim the SU conjecture for support for it that’s up to you, but in what sense then would your claim be religious?
Try this: you make a conjecture that teeth disappear from under pillows. I reply with, “that has a large Tooth Fairyist component”. Would you agree with me? Why not?
The inaccuracies here are. Denying elements existing in Bostroms theory of SU. MIsrepresentation of PZ Myers take on De Grasse Tyson. Charitably I'd accept ignorance of the response of scientist and philosopher present when De grasse Tyson elucidated his views on SU and to which PZ responded and ignorance of the views of other scientists including sabine hossenfelder? WhoJeremyP has flagged up before.
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No....either one or the other...
But that doesn't follow from what you said: you said "Not necessarily an uncaused one but also not necessarily a caused one either."
You mention two options and you say that neither option is 'necessary', and these two options (uncaused vs caused) do sound as if they are mutually exclusive, but you then imply that whatever one of these two options applies then that option isn't actually 'necessary' - what on earth do you actually mean here?
What you said sounds like a non sequitur to me, unless you can explain yourself more clearly.
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Vlad,
The inaccuracies here are. Denying elements existing in Bostroms theory of SU.
What elements do you think I’ve “denied”? You say this often, but you never manage to tell us what in the SU conjecture you think it is that points to an uncaused cause (let alone to one that makes itself known etc). Why not finally put up or shut up about that?
MIsrepresentation of PZ Myers take on De Grasse Tyson.
As I recall they had something of a spat that you then seized on as if it implied that the latter was in some way arguing for a religious explanation. You then repeated that misrepresentation over many posts despite being corrected on it.
Charitably I'd accept ignorance of the response of scientist and philosopher present when De grasse Tyson elucidated his views on SU and to which PZ responded and ignorance of the views of other scientists including sabine hossenfelder? WhoJeremyP has flagged up before.
Less charitably I’d accept that you’re just telling lies again.
Oh, and I see you’ve completely ignored the rebuttal you were just given. Why is that?
Again: say you make a conjecture that teeth disappear from under pillows. I reply with, “that has a large Tooth Fairyist component”. Does your conjecture provide support for my belief "Tooth Fairy"? Why not?
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Incidentally Vlad, as you keep referencing him for support I thought I’d take a look at what Bostrom actually hypothesised:
“Many works of science fiction as well as some forecasts by serious technologists and futurologists predict that enormous amounts of computing power will be available in the future. Let us suppose for a moment that these predictions are correct. One thing that later generations might do with their super-powerful computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of people like their forebears. Because their computers would be so powerful, they could run a great many such simulations. Suppose that these simulated people are conscious (as they would be if the simulations were sufficiently fine-grained and if a certain quite widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind is correct). Then it could be the case that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race.”
And here’s his conclusion:
“It is then possible to argue that, if this were the case, we would be rational to think that we are likely among the simulated minds rather than among the original biological ones.
Therefore, if we don't think that we are currently living in a computer simulation, we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears.”
— Nick Bostrom, "Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?", 2003
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis)
Can you identify any part of this that proposes or even implies:
1. An uncaused cause? (Note that he says expressly, “…simulations of their forebears or of people like their forebears” and, “…do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race” by the way. “Uncaused causes” wouldn’t have forebears and would not be descended from an original race.)
2. A maker “who is able to make itself known”?
3. A maker that “make(s) itself an avatar”?
These are all supposed phenomena you claim to be “all the elements of Bostrom idea” (Reply 177) yet none of them are.
Why then do you persist with this obvious mischaracterisation of what he actually proposed?
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Incidentally Vlad, as you keep referencing him for support I thought I’d take a look at what Bostrom actually hypothesised:
“Many works of science fiction as well as some forecasts by serious technologists and futurologists predict that enormous amounts of computing power will be available in the future. Let us suppose for a moment that these predictions are correct. One thing that later generations might do with their super-powerful computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of people like their forebears. Because their computers would be so powerful, they could run a great many such simulations. Suppose that these simulated people are conscious (as they would be if the simulations were sufficiently fine-grained and if a certain quite widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind is correct). Then it could be the case that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race.”
And here’s his conclusion:
“It is then possible to argue that, if this were the case, we would be rational to think that we are likely among the simulated minds rather than among the original biological ones.
Therefore, if we don't think that we are currently living in a computer simulation, we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears.”
— Nick Bostrom, "Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?", 2003
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis)
Can you identify any part of this that proposes or even implies:
1. An uncaused cause? (Note that he says expressly, “…simulations of their forebears or of people like their forebears” and, “…do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race” by the way. “Uncaused causes” wouldn’t have forebears and would not be descended from an original race.)
2. A maker “who is able to make itself known”?
3. A maker that “make(s) itself an avatar”?
These are all supposed phenomena you claim to be “all the elements of Bostrom idea” (Reply 177) yet none of them are.
Why then do you persist with this obvious mischaracterisation of what he actually proposed?
First of all you cannot just take what Bostrom says in part and then ask where the stuff you have left out is in the part you have left in. With all due respect that is a bit of a low dodge on your part.
Secondly, Bostrom is claiming, not only that the universe could be a simulation it probably is. The undeniable aspect is the universe has a creator/creators with purpose in Bostrom that happens to to run a simulation but having introduced the idea of a maker i'm afraid he doesn't get to determine his ideas of the purpose as the only reason for creating the universe. Indeed he only goes so far as to say the creator can be naturalistic....as do I, rather than HAS to be naturalistic. He then, in his original paper available on his website goes on to acknowledge analogy between the theory and Gods.
Bostrom's notion of simulating the world of ancestors and indeed the idea of immersing oneself in the world by taking part in the simulation is a staple of the computer simulation. Again Bostrom declares that the universe could be a simulation but yet again there is no justification to limit possible purposes to the one Bostrom is proposing.
Bostrom's idea of simulating the life of ancestors invites extending the purpose to it being an immersive simulation in which one takes on an avatar in the simulation. You can probably think of ways in which an avatar might give indication that it is not solely a sims and has another mode of existence.
There is to my recollection an article where Bostrom talks about Pop ups revealing the existence of an outside operator but since that probably dates from the 2000 I am still trying to track this down.
The fact is though ,pop ups, avatars etc. are staples of computer simulation.
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Vlad,
First of all you cannot just take what Bostrom says in part and then ask where the stuff you have left out is in the part you have left in. With all due respect that is a bit of a low dodge on your part.
No it isn’t. You never bother with citations for the things you claim people have said, and as you often misrepresent what people actually say it doesn’t seem unreasonable of me to have done your job for you. If though you think I have “left out” the part where he proposes an uncaused cause, a creator that makes itself known, and a creator that appears as an avatar then just tell us where he said that.
What’s stopping you?
Secondly, Bostrom is claiming, not only that the universe could be a simulation it probably is. The undeniable aspect is the universe has a creator/creators with purpose…
That “with purpose” is something you just made up remember? Who’s to say that a descendant millennia into the future would not have such vast computing power that s/he was designing something else entirely from which the universe “we” happen to perceive inadvertently emerged?
…in Bostrom that happens to to run a simulation but having introduced the idea of a maker i'm afraid he doesn't get to determine his ideas of the purpose as the only reason for creating the universe.
Ah, your burden of proof mistake again. I have a speculation that rainbows are simulations. According to you, that’s support for leprechauns doing the simulating then right?
Indeed he only goes so far as to say the creator can be naturalistic....as do I, rather than HAS to be naturalistic.[/
And I don’t say that simulated rainbows HAVE to be naturalistic either. How does that take me even one step closer to validating leprechauns though?
He then, in his original paper available on his website goes on to acknowledge analogy between the theory and Gods.
So you say. Where’s your citation for that claim though?
Bostrom's notion of simulating the world of ancestors and indeed the idea of immersing oneself in the world by taking part in the simulation…
You don’t understand it. It’s not just that “we” inhabit a simulated universe, but that we are simulations too.
…is a staple of the computer simulation. Again Bostrom declares that the universe could be a simulation but yet again there is no justification to limit possible purposes to the one Bostrom is proposing.
Straw man noted. No-one does that – your cheat though is to jump from “you can’t exclude X” too “therefore X”. You may as well argue that telescopes not seeing a giant orbiting teapot supports your claim that it exists. You’re squarely in negative proof fallacy territory again.
Bostrom's idea of simulating the life of ancestors invites extending the purpose to it being an immersive simulation in which one takes on an avatar in the simulation. You can probably think of ways in which an avatar might give indication that it is not solely a sims and has another mode of existence.
You might think that “invites extending the purpose”, but that wasn’t your claim. Your claim was that an uncaused cause, a maker that makes itself known to its creation, and a maker that makes itself an avatar are “all the elements of Bostrom idea”. None of these claims are elements of Bostrom’s idea though – it functions quite happily with none of them present. If you now want to shift ground to “invites extending the purpose” that’s up to you, but your prior claim has collapsed.
There is to my recollection an article where Bostrom talks about Pop ups revealing the existence of an outside operator but since that probably dates from the 2000 I am still trying to track this down.
Let me know when you do.
The fact is though ,pop ups, avatars etc. are staples of computer simulation.
But not of Botrom’s postulation, which was your claim.
Apart from all that though…
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Vlad,
No it isn’t. You never bother with citations for the things you claim people have said, and as you often misrepresent what people actually say it doesn’t seem unreasonable of me to have done your job for you. If though you think I have “left out” the part where he proposes an uncaused cause, a creator that makes itself known, and a creator that appears as an avatar then just tell us where he said that.
What’s stopping you?
That “with purpose” is something you just made up remember? Who’s to say that a descendant millennia into the future would not have such vast computing power that s/he was designing something else entirely from which the universe “we” happen to perceive inadvertently emerged?
Ah, your burden of proof mistake again. I have a speculation that rainbows are simulations. According to you, that’s support for leprechauns doing the simulating then right?
And I don’t say that simulated rainbows HAVE to be naturalistic either. How does that take me even one step closer to validating leprechauns though?
So you say. Where’s your citation for that claim though?
You don’t understand it. It’s not just that “we” inhabit a simulated universe, but that we are simulations too.
Straw man noted. No-one does that – your cheat though is to jump from “you can’t exclude X” too “therefore X”. You may as well argue that telescopes not seeing a giant orbiting teapot supports your claim that it exists. You’re squarely in negative proof fallacy territory again.
You might think that “invites extending the purpose”, but that wasn’t your claim. Your claim was that an uncaused cause, a maker that makes itself known to its creation, and a maker that makes itself an avatar are “all the elements of Bostrom idea”. None of these claims are elements of Bostrom’s idea though – it functions quite happily with none of them present. If you now want to shift ground to “invites extending the purpose” that’s up to you, but your prior claim has collapsed.
Let me know when you do.
But not of Botrom’s postulation, which was your claim.
Apart from all that though…
I'm sorry but the moment you talk of computer simulations of history there is no argument against using it as a virtual reality experience where to understand what is unfolding you put yourself into the simulation.
I'm afraid Bostrom, De Grasse Tyson have let the genie out of the bottle, Bostrom recognises the analogy with religion.
If you merely accept it as a possibility then IMO. To say Avatars or using the simulation as a VR experience is not possible or a possible goal of the simulation, is SU dodging...Which is just another form of God dodging.
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Vlad,
I'm sorry but the moment you talk of computer simulations of history there is no argument against using it as a virtual reality experience where to understand what is unfolding you put yourself into the simulation.
It’d only be “history” if the simulator(s) created a facsimile of the past of their or someone else's ancestors. The SU conjecture doesn’t require that though, and even if it did you still misunderstand with “you put yourself into the simulation” – the idea could equally be that “we” are simulations, not just that we inhabit a simulation.
I'm afraid Bostrom, De Grasse Tyson have let the genie out of the bottle, Bostrom recognises the analogy with religion.
And yet none of the things you claimed to be “elements” of the Bostrom conjecture are elements of the Bostrom conjecture. Why not either provide a citation that says otherwise or just stop lying about that?
If you merely accept it as a possibility then IMO.
Meaning?
To say Avatars or using the simulation as a VR experience is not possible or a possible goal of the simulation,…
Straw man. No-one says that.
…is SU dodging
No it isn’t. You can embrace SU readily with none of the supposed “elements” you erroneously try to jemmy into it.
...Which is just another form of God dodging.
And the big lie to finish.
As you’ve completely avoided all the rebuttals I gave you, why are you bothering just with more straw men, misrepresentations and falsehoods here?
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Vlad,
It’d only be “history” if the simulator(s) created a facsimile of the past of their or someone else's ancestors. The SU conjecture doesn’t require that though, and even if it did you still misunderstand with “you put yourself into the simulation” – the idea could equally be that “we” are simulations, not just that we inhabit a simulation.
And yet none of the things you claimed to be “elements” of the Bostrom conjecture are elements of the Bostrom conjecture. Why not either provide a citation that says otherwise or just stop lying about that?
Meaning?
Straw man. No-one says that.
No it isn’t. You can embrace SU readily with none of the supposed “elements” you erroneously try to jemmy into it.
And the big lie to finish.
As you’ve completely avoided all the rebuttals I gave you, why are you bothering just with more straw men, misrepresentations and falsehoods here?
The sentiment that you can embrace SU and not accept
The elements is tantamount to saying you can embrace SU and ignore the logical implications of it that you don't like in an act of special pleading.
I commend the Bostrom paper, not perhaps in terms of saying it's right but to get what the purpose might be, and the links Bostrom makes with religion and Gods.
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Vlad,
The sentiment that you can embrace SU and not accept
The elements is tantamount to saying you can embrace SU and ignore the logical implications of it that you don't like in an act of special pleading.
Dear god but you struggle. You can embrace the SU conjecture exactly as Bostrom proposed it with none of the characteristics you claim to be “elements” of it at all. If you now want to resile from “elements” to “extra features I want to add” instead and then claim those features to be “logical implications” you can try that if you like, but you'd have all your work ahead of you to explain why they’d be logical implications rather than just baseless and unnecessary additions.
Let me help you here. While you can't claim that the SU conjecture supports your conjecture "god", what you can say is that the two conjectures aren't incompatible. It doesn't take you any way further down the road of validating your claim "god" I know, but at least it's logically defensible.
I commend the Bostrom paper, not perhaps in terms of saying it's right but to get what the purpose might be, and the links Bostrom makes with religion and Gods.
Which paper? You still haven’t cited it remember (though you have complained when I tried to do that job for you)?
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Vlad,
Incidentally, by way of a coda it seems to me that the added feature “god” you’re trying to jemmy into the SU conjecture suffers in any case from the same but opposite problem of infinite regression that wrecks the cosmological argument (at least unless you invoke the same “it’s magic innit” get-out-of-jail-free escape clause). Even if there are (will be?) super advanced descendants of ours many years hence who have created “us”, who’s to say that they too wouldn’t be unwitting simulations made by even more advanced descendants of theirs, and so on forever? It’s an infinite progression problem rather than the infinite regression problem I guess, but it’s basically the same problem nonetheless.
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First of all you cannot just take what Bostrom says in part and then ask where the stuff you have left out is in the part you have left in. With all due respect that is a bit of a low dodge on your part.
Secondly, Bostrom is claiming, not only that the universe could be a simulation it probably is. The undeniable aspect is the universe has a creator/creators with purpose in Bostrom that happens to to run a simulation but having introduced the idea of a maker i'm afraid he doesn't get to determine his ideas of the purpose as the only reason for creating the universe. Indeed he only goes so far as to say the creator can be naturalistic....as do I, rather than HAS to be naturalistic. He then, in his original paper available on his website goes on to acknowledge analogy between the theory and Gods.
Bostrom's notion of simulating the world of ancestors and indeed the idea of immersing oneself in the world by taking part in the simulation is a staple of the computer simulation. Again Bostrom declares that the universe could be a simulation but yet again there is no justification to limit possible purposes to the one Bostrom is proposing.
Bostrom's idea of simulating the life of ancestors invites extending the purpose to it being an immersive simulation in which one takes on an avatar in the simulation. You can probably think of ways in which an avatar might give indication that it is not solely a sims and has another mode of existence.
There is to my recollection an article where Bostrom talks about Pop ups revealing the existence of an outside operator but since that probably dates from the 2000 I am still trying to track this down.
The fact is though ,pop ups, avatars etc. are staples of computer simulation.
Just to refer to three points for information purposes:
First you refer to "Bostrom is claiming, not only that the universe could be a simulation it probably is."
According to his own words this is simply not true.
Bostrom makes three propositions:
(1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.
He suggests that his arguments for the last proposition are sound, but that the simulation hypothesis is not necessarily any more probable than either of the other two propositions being true because we lack strong evidence for any of them. Indeed, his personal view is that he assigns only around a 20% probability to the simulation hypothesis.
Secondly on the subject of its religious connotations, you say "He then, in his original paper available on his website goes on to acknowledge analogy between the theory and Gods."
Correct.
This is the part of his original paper which deals with this:
Although all the elements of such a system can be naturalistic, even physical, it is possible to draw some loose analogies with religious conceptions of the world. In some ways, the posthumans running a simulation are like gods in relation to the people inhabiting the simulation: the posthumans created the world we see; they are of superior intelligence; they are “omnipotent” in the sense that they can interfere in the workings of our world even in ways that violate its physical laws; and they are “omniscient” in the sense that they can monitor everything that happens. However, all the demigods except those at the fundamental level of reality are subject to sanctions by the more powerful gods living at lower levels.
At no point does he say that the simulation creators are gods, only, in some ways, like gods.
Further, when asked 'What is the relation between the simulation argument and religion?', he said this:
It has no direct connection with religious conceptions of a literally omniscient and omnipotent deity. The simulation-hypothesis does not imply the existence of such a deity, nor does it imply its non-existence.
Finally he referred to Pop ups in a response to the question 'Isn’t the simulation-hypothesis untestable?' when he said:
There are clearly possible observations that would show that we are in a simulation. For example, the simulators could make a “window” pop up in front of you with the text “YOU ARE LIVING IN A COMPUTER SIMULATION. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.” Or they could uplift you into their level of reality.
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Just to refer to three points for information purposes:
First you refer to "Bostrom is claiming, not only that the universe could be a simulation it probably is."
According to his own words this is simply not true.
Bostrom makes three propositions:
He suggests that his arguments for the last proposition are sound, but that the simulation hypothesis is not necessarily any more probable than either of the other two propositions being true because we lack strong evidence for any of them. Indeed, his personal view is that he assigns only around a 20% probability to the simulation hypothesis.
Secondly on the subject of its religious connotations, you say "He then, in his original paper available on his website goes on to acknowledge analogy between the theory and Gods."
Correct.
This is the part of his original paper which deals with this:
At no point does he say that the simulation creators are gods, only, in some ways, like gods.
Further, when asked 'What is the relation between the simulation argument and religion?', he said this:
Finally he referred to Pop ups in a response to the question 'Isn’t the simulation-hypothesis untestable?' when he said:
Bostrom is not the only exponent of SU.
But what he does do is propose a creator of the universe which has a purpose.
So whatever is subsequent or below that astounding departure from traditional naturalism is effectively mere detail or superstructure.
In terms of being Gods or like Gods. I have no idea of his preferred theology. I am aware of straw clutching on this board on this issue where “like God” is treated as “nothing like God or gods”....an obvious preference.
When told of theological implications Dawkins gave such a creator praise after declaring
“I wouldn’t worship it” That I move says more about Dawkins than any extra universal creator.
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Bostrom is not the only exponent of SU.
But what he does do is propose a creator of the universe which has a purpose.
So whatever is subsequent or below that astounding departure from traditional naturalism is effectively mere detail or superstructure.
In terms of being Gods or like Gods. I have no idea of his preferred theology. I am aware of straw clutching on this board on this issue where “like God” is treated as “nothing like God or gods”....an obvious preference.
When told of theological implications Dawkins gave such a creator praise after declaring
“I wouldn’t worship it” That I move says more about Dawkins than any extra universal creator.
What is your point exactly? Why are you burbling on about the universe as a simulation?
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Vlad,
Bostrom is not the only exponent of SU.
But he is the one you were referencing for support for your clam “god”, albeit wrongly. That’s why people here have commented on what he actually said rather than on what you mistakenly inferred from it.
But what he does do is propose a creator of the universe which has a purpose.
No he doesn’t. The “with a purpose” part is just your own.
So whatever is subsequent or below that astounding departure from traditional naturalism is effectively mere detail or superstructure.
There is no departure from “traditional naturalism” – he says expressly, “Although all the elements of such a system can be naturalistic, even physical, it is possible…” etc.
In terms of being Gods or like Gods. I have no idea of his preferred theology. I am aware of straw clutching on this board on this issue where “like God” is treated as “nothing like God or gods”....an obvious preference.
Gibberish. You think there to be something you call “god”, and you also think this supposed god to have various characteristics – being causeless for example. What’s being explained to you is that something could be “god-like’ to an observer but not a god at all, namely because it has none of those characteristics. The Aztecs thought Cortes was a god, but in fact he was only god-like. Can you see the difference now?
When told of theological implications Dawkins gave such a creator praise after declaring“I wouldn’t worship it” That I move says more about Dawkins than any extra universal creator.
Actually it would say more about a god so insecure that it wanted to be worshipped, but it’s irrelevant in any case.
So, now that Bostrom is a busted flush for you do you have any SU proponents to cite that do actually support your claims rather than just not contradict them?
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Vlad,
Can you see the difference now?
NO NO NO, a thousand times NO! For Vlad to see the difference would mean him admitting he is in error, he is wrong, and you and I both know that him admitting that is about as likely as Trump turning out to be the Messiah!
Vlad is never wrong, everyone else is wrong, but, on religion, never Vlad!
An unpleasant lesson I will admit, but one I have learnt, hence I ignore his religious bollo comments!
Owlswing
)O(
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Vlad,
No he doesn’t. The “with a purpose” part is just your own.
I am getting concerned with the progressive weakness of your arguments. Of course Bostrom proposes a creator with a purpose. In Bostrom's case, An ancestor simulation. That is a purpose. Your second weakness is, for some reason majoring on the ancestor simulation part rather than the feat of creating a universe for any purpose. IMHO that is creator avoidance.
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NO NO NO, a thousand times NO! For Vlad to see the difference would mean him admitting he is in error, he is wrong, and you and I both know that him admitting that is about as likely as Trump turning out to be the Messiah!
Vlad is never wrong, everyone else is wrong, but, on religion, never Vlad!
An unpleasant lesson I will admit, but one I have learnt, hence I ignore his religious bollo comments!
Owlswing
)O(
Poor Vlad one needs to be kind and pity him. ;D
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Poor Vlad one needs to be kind and pity him. ;D
Does this pity and kindness manifest itself in almsgiving and financial donation?
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Does this pity and kindness manifest itself in almsgiving and financial donation?
We donate to charities, of which we approve, on a regular basis.
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Vlad,
I am getting concerned with the progressive weakness of your arguments.
No you’re not, because there is no progressive weakness.
Of course Bostrom proposes a creator with a purpose. In Bostrom's case, An ancestor simulation. That is a purpose.
No it isn’t. Yes, a “simulator” (or simulators) may have decided to run simulations of its/their ancestors, but equally who’s to say that there might not be software of such huge complexity that it raids the historic records unbidden and creates simulations from them? For that matter, who’s to say that the simulator(s) aren’t long dead, but the algorithms they created are busy whirring away in all sorts of unplanned ways?
The point here is that at these extremes of speculation pretty much all possibilities are on the table. What you’re doing is selecting the one that suits you (purpose) and wrongly claiming it to be necessary. You’re also by the way ignoring the ones that don’t suit you (eg ancestry) so as to preserve your equally unnecessary notion of causelessness.
Your second weakness is,…
You haven’t found a first one yet, but ok…
…for some reason majoring on the ancestor simulation part rather than the feat of creating a universe for any purpose. IMHO that is creator avoidance.
I’m not majoring on it – I’m just explaining to you that you cannot assert causelessness as “an element”, as a “logical consequence” etc of Bostrom when it’s no such thing. It’s quite possible to subscribe to Bostrom's SU conjecture with almost none of the components you think to be necessary for “god”.
Thus there’s no “creator avoidance” at all – rather there’s only “what Vlad thinks a god must be” avoidance because there’s no good reason to think that such a god exists – the SU conjecture notwithstanding.
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Vlad,
No you’re not, because there is no progressive weakness.
No it isn’t. Yes, a “simulator” (or simulators) may have decided to run simulations of its/their ancestors, but equally who’s to say that there might not be software of such huge complexity that it raids the historic records unbidden and creates simulations from them? For that matter, who’s to say that the simulator(s) aren’t long dead, but the algorithms they created are busy whirring away in all sorts of unplanned ways?
This reads as if you are so wedded to the idea of a purposeless universe, you are prepared to kill off the creator and have a universe just running purposelessly. None of that however can detract from the purposeful creator and once you have proposed that you've opened a Pandora's box of possibilities of which the Christian God is just one, although a case could I suppose be made that the creator might be like the Christian God in all respects, save that of being the necessary being for all, yet still be the God of this universe. But then again God could be ''Base reality'', a term often used in connection with SU theory. Sorry if that extra component of SU theory i.e. The consideration of base reality from which all other realities spring from, disturbs your equilibrium.
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Vlad,
This reads as if you are so wedded to the idea of a purposeless universe, you are prepared to kill off the creator and have a universe just running purposelessly.
Ah, your old burden of proof problem re-emerges I see. Try finally to understand your mistake here: I’m not “killing off” anything – far from it in fact. What I’m explaining to you though is that you cannot just assume that a conjecture implies a characteristic (purpose) when all it actually is is not incompatible with that characteristic. The SU conjecture works equally with or without a purposive simulator (or simulators). And that’s all you can say about SU and purpose.
Now write that down 100 times until it finally sinks in.
Actually, you’d better make that 1,000 times….
None of that however can detract from the purposeful creator…
No-one says it “detracts” from the idea of purposive creator. What is being said though is that the SU conjecture does not imply a purposive creator – it functions equally either way.
Could you at least try to catch up with this – repeatedly explaining it to you only for you to ignore the explanation is becoming wearisome.
…and once you have proposed that you've opened a Pandora's box of possibilities of which the Christian God is just one, although a case could I suppose be made that the creator might be like the Christian God in all respects, save that of being the necessary being for all, yet still be the God of this universe.
The Pandora’s box isn’t closed. Anything is possible. Your mistake though is to think that the SU conjecture takes you even one step closer to justifying the claim “god”.
But then again God could be ''Base reality'', a term often used in connection with SU theory.
Leaving aside for now your basic and continuing definitional problem with the term “God”, anything could be a “base reality” (assuming there even is such a thing). So what though?
Sorry if that extra component of SU theory…
It’s not an “extra component of SU theory” at all – it’s just separate speculation you’ve decided to attach to the SU conjecture, even though it doesn’t require it. You may as well have said, “sorry if my belief in unicorns is an extra component in biology”. Biology functions perfectly well without unicorns; SU functions perfectly well without “god”.
…i.e. The consideration of base reality from which all other realities spring from, disturbs your equilibrium.
If you want to disturb my equilibrium a good place to start would be (finally) to show that you have some understanding at least of the arguments that undo you.
Good luck with that.
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Working on the principle that SU is analogous/homologous to theistic creation. The dead simulator idea is SU's version of deism.
To say that simulation theory works as well without a simulator is just taking the mickey. A handwave which conflates suggestion of a purposeless naturalistic answer to the existence of the universe with the idea of a simulator.
We are as near to legitimately suggesting God as we are suggesting SU since in essentials they are the same.
Those who embrace SU or it's possibility are saddled with working through the consequences of the line of argument they have chosen, I'm afraid an SU proponent would be unable to suggest anything that could not apply to gods nor are their suggestions immune from comparisons with theism.
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Working on the principle that SU is analogous/homologous to theistic creation. The dead simulator idea is SU's version of deism.
To say that simulation theory works as well without a simulator is just taking the mickey. A handwave which conflates suggestion of a purposeless naturalistic answer to the existence of the universe with the idea of a simulator.
We are as near to legitimately suggesting God as we are suggesting SU since in essentials they are the same.
Those who embrace SU or it's possibility are saddled with working through the consequences of the line of argument they have chosen, I'm afraid an SU proponent would be unable to suggest anything that could not apply to gods nor are their suggestions immune from comparisons with theism.
I accept that, if we are in a simulation, the entity that created the simulation is God from our perspective.
Where does that actually get you? Nowhere. Why? Because there's no evidence that we are living in a simulation.
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I accept that, if we are in a simulation, the entity that created the simulation is God from our perspective.
Where does that actually get you? Nowhere. Why? Because there's no evidence that we are living in a simulation.
I don't think i've suggested that there is.
All I am saying is that those sympathetic to SU theorists whether they want to or not , find themselves, were they to develop philosophy around the premise, in the same landscape more or less of theologians of old.
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Vlad,
Working on the principle that SU is analogous/homologous to theistic creation. The dead simulator idea is SU's version of deism.
The SU conjecture and many religious beliefs are analogous, but only in one limited respect. Both suggest an act of creation/simulation by an agency (or agencies) that did it. That’s it though. None of the other components necessary for theism (causelessness, purpose, intervention in human affairs etc) are required for the SU conjecture.
I know you struggle with analogies conceptually, but try this: “Finding a good husband is like finding a needle in a haystack”. That’s an analogy – two entirely different objects (husband/needle) have the common characteristic of being hard to find, but that’s all they have in common. None of the other characteristics necessary for “husband” are present in “needle”, and vice versa.
And that’s what we have here – the creation/simulation part could relate to simulator(s)/god(s), but that’s all.
To say that simulation theory works as well without a simulator is just taking the mickey. A handwave which conflates suggestion of a purposeless naturalistic answer to the existence of the universe with the idea of a simulator.
It might be if anyone had actually said, “simulation theory works as well without a simulator”. No-one has said that though. What I actually said was that simulation theory works as well without a purposive simulator, which is simply true.
We are as near to legitimately suggesting God as we are suggesting SU since in essentials they are the same.
Only if you think suggesting “needle” thereby legitimately suggests “good husband”.
Can you see where you’ve gone wrong now?
Those who embrace SU or it's possibility are saddled with working through the consequences of the line of argument they have chosen,…
Perhaps, but you now know that “the consequences” are not what you thought they are so you’ll have to look elsewhere for support for your notion “god”.
I'm afraid an SU proponent would be unable to suggest anything that could not apply to gods…
An SU proponent could suggest anything he liked, but if he wanted to confine himself to statements that would be necessary for the conjecture to be coherent then aside from an act of creation/simulation none of the characteristics you think to be necessary for “god” would be present. I could be a “needles in haystacks are hard to find” proponent, but that would tell nothing at all about good husbands other that is than that they’re hard to find too.
…nor are their suggestions immune from comparisons with theism.
One very narrow part of theism, but none of the other components that theism requires.
Same with needles and husbands.
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Vlad,
The SU conjecture and many religious beliefs are analogous, but only in one limited respect. Both suggest an act of creation/simulation by an agency (or agencies) that did it. That’s it though. None of the other components necessary for theism (causelessness, purpose, intervention in human affairs etc) are required for the SU conjecture.
I know you struggle with analogies conceptually, but try this: “Finding a good husband is like finding a needle in a haystack”. That’s an analogy – two entirely different objects (husband/needle) have the common characteristic of being hard to find, but that’s all they have in common. None of the other characteristics necessary for “husband” are present in “needle”, and vice versa.
And that’s what we have here – the creation/simulation part could relate to simulator(s)/god(s), but that’s all.
It might be if anyone had actually said, “simulation theory works as well without a simulator”. No-one has said that though. What I actually said was that simulation theory works as well without a purposive simulator, which is simply true.
Only if you think suggesting “needle” thereby legitimately suggests “good husband”.
Can you see where you’ve gone wrong now?
Perhaps, but you now know that “the consequences” are not what you thought they are so you’ll have to look elsewhere for support for your notion “god”.
An SU proponent could suggest anything he liked, but if he wanted to confine himself to statements that would be necessary for the conjecture to be coherent then aside from an act of creation/simulation none of the characteristics you think to be necessary for “god” would be present. I could be a “needles in haystacks are hard to find” proponent, but that would tell nothing at all about good husbands other that is than that they’re hard to find too.
One very narrow part of theism, but none of the other components that theism requires.
Same with needles and husbands.
Obviously SU proponents are going to include sappy enthusiasts who think they are entering a brave new world of thinking. As I said they just have the prospect that whereever they go with this in terms of the philosophy they will find that a theologian will have probably been there before.
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Vlad,
Obviously SU proponents are going to include sappy enthusiasts who think they are entering a brave new world of thinking. As I said they just have the prospect that whereever they go with this in terms of the philosophy they will find that a theologian will have probably been there before.
So I took the time to correct you point-by-point, and you just ignored all that in favour of irrelevant gibberish. An SU proponent might want to go to where theologians have gone before (or for that matter where leprechaunists have gone before). He’d have no need to do either though to make a coherent SU argument nonetheless.
That’s the point.
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Vlad,
So I took the time to correct you point-by-point, and you just ignored all that in favour of irrelevant gibberish. An SU proponent might want to go to where theologians have gone before (or for that matter where leprechaunists have gone before). He’d have no need to do either though to make a coherent SU argument nonetheless.
That’s the point.
You THOUGHT you were correcting me, but then you are the guy who, as far as I could tell suggested that simulation theory does not actually need a simulator. Amerite?
The SU conjecture works equally with or without a purposive simulator (or simulators).
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You THOUGHT you were correcting me, but then you are the guy who, as far as I could tell suggested that simulation theory does not actually need a simulator. Amerite?
You're wrong (again), Vlad: try reading again what BHS actually wrote since you missed an important word (clue: it begins with 'p').
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You're wrong (again), Vlad: try reading again what BHS actually wrote since you missed an important word (clue: it begins with 'p').
Simulation IS the purpose. Although Bostrom states the creator could be naturalistic(i.e. the product of evolution) Simulation is still the purpose. As many an atheist commenting on the purpose of life has said ''We make our own purposes''. Simulation is a purpose.
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All I am saying is that those sympathetic to SU theorists whether they want to or not , find themselves, were they to develop philosophy around the premise, in the same landscape more or less of theologians of old.
You mean unable to satisfactorily explain where the simulation creator came from? Maybe it's simulations all the way down.
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You mean unable to satisfactorily explain where the simulation creator came from? Maybe it's simulations all the way down.
I think the notion of ''Base reality'' in SU is familiar to both you and I, Jeremy, God is mine and this universe is yours if I understand your suggestion that we should accept that the universe just is.
I think in a recent Sabine Hossenfelder has done a youtube video on infinities outside mathematics and has I believe given them the thumbs down.
But then it may be....and then we can ask the question ''why an infinity of whatevers rather than nothing?''
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Simulation IS the purpose. Although Bostrom states the creator could be naturalistic(i.e. the product of evolution) Simulation is still the purpose. As many an atheist commenting on the purpose of life has said ''We make our own purposes''. Simulation is a purpose.
So, if you have a 'simulator' that, having done a bit of simulating, then fucks off permanently, how is that analogous to the Christian idea of a 'God' that remains actively involved with what it created?
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So, if you have a 'simulator' that, having done a bit of simulating, then fucks off permanently, how is that analogous to the Christian idea of a 'God' that remains actively involved with what it created?
I haven't claimed that. I said that a simulator who as you say ''fucks off permanently'' is analogous to a deistic God. Now such a God or simulator might appeal to the atheist or Asimulist, but it is only one possibility and I would imagine many deists have to have their fingers crossed that such a God doesn't show up again.
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Vlad,
You THOUGHT you were correcting me,…
No, I corrected you. As you’ve shown no sign of engaging with the corrections, they stand.
…but then you are the guy who, as far as I could tell suggested that simulation theory does not actually need a simulator. Amerite?
No. The first time you claimed falsely that I’d said that it was a mistake. As I corrected you and you just repeated the false claim, now you’re lying.
The SU conjecture works equally with or without a purposive simulator (or simulators).
Exactly.
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Vlad,
Simulation IS the purpose. Although Bostrom states the creator could be naturalistic(i.e. the product of evolution) Simulation is still the purpose. As many an atheist commenting on the purpose of life has said ''We make our own purposes''. Simulation is a purpose.
Wrong again. An observed simulation would be just an outcome. Purpose requires intentionality, and observing an outcome would tell you noting about whether it's also intentional.
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Vlad,
I haven't claimed that. I said that a simulator who as you say ''fucks off permanently'' is analogous to a deistic God.
No it isn’t. Bostrom’s simulator has ancestors – deities (or so the story goes) don’t.
Now such a God or simulator might appeal to the atheist or Asimulist, but it is only one possibility and I would imagine many deists have to have their fingers crossed that such a God doesn't show up again.
No-one says that Bostrom’s simulator of its own ancestors is the only possibility. You can tack on as many other types as you like, just as I can tack unicorns onto biology. SU though no more requires gods for its model than biology requires unicorns for its model.
How can I put this any more plainly for you?
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Vlad,
Simulation IS the purpose…
Just to put the final nail in that coffin of non-thinking, let’s try an example: until recently various Pacific atolls were considered too dangerous for commercial shipping to navigate so they were avoided. With the advent of GPS though ships could pass close to these islands safely, but when they did they also emptied their ballast tanks and so introduced non-native species which then caused significant environmental degradation.
Now let’s say you were a local biologist who observed the change, and let’s say too that you knew the role GPS had played in causing it.
Would you then say that the purpose of the GPS inventors was to damage the flora and fauna of Polynesian atolls?
OK, now do you understand that observing a phenomenon and knowing its cause does not thereby tell you something about purpose?
QED
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Vlad,
Just to put the final nail in that coffin of non-thinking, let’s try an example: until recently various Pacific atolls were considered too dangerous for commercial shipping to navigate so they were avoided. With the advent of GPS though ships could pass close to these islands safely, but when they did they also emptied their ballast tanks and so introduced non-native species which then caused significant environmental degradation.
Now let’s say you were a local biologist who observed the change, and let’s say too that you knew the role GPS had played in causing it.
Would you then say that the purpose of the GPS inventors was to damage the flora and fauna of Polynesian atolls?
OK, now do you understand that observing a phenomenon and knowing its cause does not thereby tell you something about purpose?
QED
Anyone?
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Vlad,
Anyone?
You cannot just assume that phenomena are purposive.
I really don’t know how to make this any simpler for you.
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Vlad,
You cannot just assume that phenomena are purposive.
I really don’t know how to make this any simpler for you.
I think you are coming at this the wrong way. We all know Simulation theory is just one proposal (see Greenes's classification of multiverses) It just happens to be the one we are discussing at the moment.
Your point however does have a purposeless phenomenon ( something we should also perhaps not assume ) but an obvious purposeful creator of that phenomena.
All in all you shouldn't have bothered to counter what everybody understands as SU with the suggestion that the universe is an accident perpetrated by an intelligence. That situation is in no ways a simulation and thus your contribution is Non SECKWITTER.
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Vlad,
I think you are coming at this the wrong way. We all know Simulation theory is just one proposal (see Greenes's classification of multiverses) It just happens to be the one we are discussing at the moment.
So? You’re the one who introduced SU, and who mistakenly asserted it to support your assertion “god”. If you think there are other conjectures that can do that though, by all means jump ship and make your case.
Your point however does have a purposeless phenomenon ( something we should also perhaps not assume ) but an obvious purposeful creator of that phenomena.
Incoherent. What are you trying to say here?
All in all you shouldn't have bothered to counter what everybody understands as SU with the suggestion that the universe is an accident perpetrated by an intelligence.
As ever, you have the burden of proof backwards. You’re the one who asserts that an SU would have occurred purposively. All I need to show is that it need not be so – a purposive SU would be possible, but a non-purposive SU would also be possible (and is all Bostrom's conjecture requires) – so it’s your job to explain why it’s the former but not the latter.
Good luck with that.
That situation is in no ways a simulation and thus your contribution is Non SECKWITTER.
Said the puddle:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/70827-this-is-rather-as-if-you-imagine-a-puddle-waking
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Vlad,
So? You’re the one who introduced SU, and who mistakenly asserted it to support your assertion “god”. If you think there are other conjectures that can do that though, by all means jump ship and make your case.
Incoherent. What are you trying to say here?
As ever, you have the burden of proof backwards. You’re the one who asserts that an SU would have occurred purposively. All I need to show is that it need not be so – either a purposive SU or non-purposive SU would be possible – so it’s your job to explain why it’s the former but not the latter.
Good luck with that.
Simulation is a purpose. there is no such thing as an accidental simulation. That is just an accidental phenomenon.
That explains why it isn't the latter because the latter is an absurdity. I'm not out to prove the former either since my argument is that SU is analogous to theistic creation of the universe and if you embrace SU you are forced to allow theism.
And that, is an argument which can and has been made by atheists and theists alike.
So having put all my cards on the table I have no more to say here until and unless you come up with some better points.
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Vlad,
Simulation is a purpose. there is no such thing as an accidental simulation. That is just an accidental phenomenon.
You’re deep in the wrongness weeds here. A simulation (noun) is a phenomenon: how it came about may or may not be purposive.
That explains…
Assertions don’t explain anything, especially when they’re wrong…
…why it isn't the latter because the latter is an absurdity.
Like the hole fitting the puddle just so without purpose is an absurdity you mean? Rather than just assert claims, why not try to justify them with arguments?
I'm not out to prove the former either since my argument is that SU is analogous to theistic creation of the universe and if you embrace SU you are forced to allow theism.
But your “argument” (ie assertion) is wrong. “Theistic creation” requires purpose; an SU does not. Write that down until it sinks in…
And that, is an argument which can and has been made by atheists and theists alike.
You haven’t make an argument – just assertions.
So having put all my cards on the table I have no more to say here until and unless you come up with some better points.
Your only “cards” are assertions. My “better points” are the arguments that falsify them. Try to counter my arguments with arguments of your own or not as you wish, but so far at least you’re not even at the table.