Death

[Sriram]

Actually...how would we differentiate between extra terrestrial beings and so called 'supernatural' beings.....since both of them may not follow 'Natural' laws, as we understand them?!

When I say 'extraterrestrial' it could also include beings from another parallel universe......not necessarily another planet only. 

[Shaker]

Well...something that is beyond this universe would be beyond our understanding.....ok.  That is how people normally define God in any case.

No they don't. They seem to think that they have some privileged back-stage pass such that they want us to think they know what this unknowable being wants/demands/expects of humanity. That's not unknowable.

[torridon]

Well...something that is beyond this universe would be beyond our understanding.....ok.  That is how people normally define God in any case.

But why should it be subject to natural laws?

Claiming the unknowable being is intelligent is contradicting the claim that it is unknowable.  How could we know anything about anything that is definitionally unknowable.

Cake/Eating.

[Sriram]

Claiming the unknowable being is intelligent is contradicting the claim that it is unknowable.  How could we know anything about anything that is definitionally unknowable.

Cake/Eating.

You are being quite silly.  Postulating that Dark Energy could be driving galaxies apart is not the same as understanding it.

[torridon]

You are being quite silly.  Postulating that Dark Energy could be driving galaxies apart is not the same as understanding it.

Not the same. "Dark Energy" is an observable phenomenon within the known universe.  An intelligent creator beyond the universe is definitionally unknowable, so how could we know it is intelligent.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Not the same. "Dark Energy" is an observable phenomenon within the known universe.  An intelligent creator beyond the universe is definitionally unknowable, so how could we know it is intelligent.

Ah but Bostrom, one of the authors of the simulated universe theory has proposed the creator would reveal itself and message the universe it had created. After all, there are such things as avatars even in computer simulations......avatars.......which kind of brings us back to the parallels with religion.

Certainly there is a long tradition in western theology that we can only know God through revelation.
So there we have it ...........avatars and revelation.

Meanwhile back in the unintentionally religious theories of Bostrom et al Bostrom even has a thesis on why the creator giving signs to the created might have those signs misinterpreted and ignored.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_reality

[Stranger]

Meanwhile back in the unintentionally religious theories of Bostrom et al Bostrom even has a thesis on why the creator giving signs to the created might have those signs misinterpreted and ignored.

It's a pretty dodgy speculation (not a theory) and any connection to religion is in the eyes of seriously desperate theists who don't think about it.

 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It's a pretty dodgy speculation (not a theory) and any connection to religion is in the eyes of seriously desperate theists who don't think about it.

The desperation is all yours leading to extreme actions resulting in philosophical and intellectual suicide on your part.

Namely effectively arguing that the proposal of an external intelligent creator external and independent of its universe is magically different from the same proposal made by Greene, Bostrom, NDG Tyson etc.

Thinking erroneously that the universe of the creator must operate in the same way as ours does.
There is no guarantee of that I'm afraid.

Thirdly what warrant have you to rule out parallels.

To say that an intelligent creator of a universe who is independent for existence of the universe it creates is in no ways the same as saying an intelligent creator of a universe who is independent for existence of the universe it creates is the height of denial.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It's a pretty dodgy speculation (not a theory) and any connection to religion is in the eyes of seriously desperate theists who don't think about it.

 

Prove its dodgy and demonstrate that no thought has gone into it.

What about PZ Myers and The philosopher Chalmers who do see obvious parallels.

[Stranger]

The desperation is all yours..

-YAWN-

Thinking erroneously that the universe of the creator must operate in the same way as ours does.

I never said any such thing.

Thirdly what warrant have you to rule out parallels.

I didn't say that there aren't parallels, what I said was they are fundamentally different speculations based on entirely different assumptions.

If you can't see that then I can only conclude that you're desperate, promiscuous with your idea of god, haven't thought about, or are to dim to understand or some combination of those things.
 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

-YAWN-

I never said any such thing.

I didn't say that there aren't parallels, what I said was they are fundamentally different speculations based on entirely different assumptions.

If you can't see that then I can only conclude that you're desperate, promiscuous with your idea of god, haven't thought about, or are to dim to understand or some combination of those things.

Promiscuous?

I suppose you are now going to claim that I borrowed the idea of an intelligent creator who is independent for its existence from the universe it created from science..........ha ha ha.

My admiration for you has dropped since it turns out you are just a replacement antitheist spin doctor bidding us to do extreme denial it's intellectual gyrations.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I didn't say that there aren't parallels, what I said was they are fundamentally different speculations based on entirely different assumptions

Let's see.

An intelligent creator of a universe who,s existence is independent of that universe.

Against.

An intelligent creator of a universe who,s existence is independent of that universe.


No difference.

[Stranger]

What about PZ Myers and The philosopher Chambers who do see obvious parallels.

As we discussed at great length before, the parallel Myers saw was that they were both hopeless arguments.

Promiscuous?

I suppose you are now going to claim that I borrowed the idea of an intelligent creator who is independent for its existence from the universe it created from science..........ha ha ha.

On the one hand you are desperate to co-opt the simulated universe science fiction story about beings using technology to run simulations in a universe that is at least as much like ours for the base assumptions to work, as being about god(s). And on the other, you offered Feser's contrived nonsense about the base of the hierarchy of existence.

They are both hopeless arguments but the 'gods' they argue for couldn't be more different.

I didn't say that there aren't parallels, what I said was they are fundamentally different speculations based on entirely different assumptions.

Let's see.

An intelligent creator of a universe who,s existence is independent of that universe.

Against.

An intelligent creator of a universe who,s existence is independent of that universe.


No difference.

So long as you miss out absolutly everything about both of them except the parallel.   

We've done this all before and it was boring then - have you thought of anything new to say or are you just going to blindly repeat the same drivel over and over...?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

As we discussed at great length before, the parallel Myers saw was that they were both hopeless arguments.

On the one hand you are desperate to co-opt the simulated universe science fiction story about beings using technology to run simulations in a universe that is at least as much like ours for the base assumptions to work, as being about god(s). And on the other, you offered Feser's contrived nonsense about the base of the hierarchy of existence.

They are both hopeless arguments but the 'gods' they argue for couldn't be more different.
Let's see.

An intelligent creator of a universe who,s existence is independent of that universe.

Against.

An intelligent creator of a universe who,s existence is independent of that universe.


No difference.


So long as you miss out absolutly everything about both of them except the parallel.   

We've done this all before and it was boring then - have you thought of anything new to say or are you just going to blindly repeat the same drivel over and over...?

Your downfall is allowing characteristics for a natural intelligent creator.....an absurd contradictory idea since the creator is existentially independent of its creator......and disallowing them for anything which doesn't fit your limited philosophical position or conceptions in an act which is the mother and father of special pleading.

When talking of something outside the universe you don't have the luxury of guaranteeing it is natural, evolved, or whether it can't communicate with us through avatar, or whether it's interventions don't look miraculous.

The genii is out of the bottle I'm afraid

[Stranger]

We've done this all before and it was boring then - have you thought of anything new to say or are you just going to blindly repeat the same drivel over and over...?

Your downfall is allowing characteristics for a natural intelligent creator.....an absurd contradictory idea since the creator is existentially independent of its creator......and disallowing them for anything which doesn't fit your limited philosophical position or conceptions in an act which is the mother and father of special pleading.

When talking of something outside the universe you don't have the luxury of guaranteeing it is natural, evolved, or whether it can't communicate with us through avatar, or whether it's interventions don't look miraculous.

The genii is out of the bottle I'm afraid

Nope - same old drivel with a large side helping of misrepresentation...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And another thing earlier you seemed to me to remark that simulated universes were a dodgy idea. How do you square that with your sympathy with Tegmark?

[ippy]

Claiming the unknowable being is intelligent is contradicting the claim that it is unknowable.  How could we know anything about anything that is definitionally unknowable.

Cake/Eating.

I remember going past an advertising poster a few years back when I was on my way to doing some work in London, the poster was advertising a film titled 'The Unknown', I can remember thinking to myself how would anyone know they wanted to make this film and strictly speaking none of this should exist, the poster, the film?

ippy

[SteveH]

There is no depth of loathing low enough to express how much I loathe these interview-type questions. Five years' time? How the fuck do I know? Perhaps by then I'll have got the money together for the gender transition and I'll be living in Uttoxeter called Barbara. How do I know?

How about answering "working for a company that doesn't ask fucking stupid questions in interviews"?

[Maeght]

How about answering "working for a company that doesn't ask fucking stupid questions in interviews"?

Yep,that would do it.