Lost and Found

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Originally Posted by YesNo

The experiences that people have is the evidence.

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An experience itself is not evidence alone for any cause. It is only evidence for a cause if an experience can happen differently if the supposed cause is removed, or if other variables and possible causes, are eliminated. If I see a tree, it is not evidence that an alien placed it there, especially when we have plenty of evidence of trees growing when there's a combination of seed, light, soil, and water, and no evidence that trees are planted by aliens. Similarly, if someone has a "religious experience," this is not evidence for the truth of religion, especially given that people can have similar experiences without it being related to religion at all. This article explains it quite clearly.

Again, it has nothing to do with metaphysics. If I propose the "cause" of a tree to be a combination of seed, soil, light, and water, I can "test" this propose cause by removing any of these elements and see if a tree grows. If a tree doesn't grow, then it's good evidence that the "cause" of a tree is dependent on those factors. If I say "the cause of a tree is seed, soil, light, water, and love," then I can test that by simply removing the "love" part and see if a tree grows. What's more, even if we knew nothing of how trees grew, we should automatically prefer the non-love version of this because it's simpler (that's Occam's razor). Taking it back to this case, saying that such an experience happens because of how a brain is programmed fits the given evidence and is far simpler than saying that it happens because of how a brain is programmed by some divine being, especially when the latter can't account for non-religious versions of such experiences.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

It is also easily explained with a religious explanation.

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A rock rolling down a hill is easily explained by the lady down the street's a witch; she did it rather than gravity.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I am using the deterministic machine as a comparison. A machine doesn't experience anything. Perhaps it can be programmed to simulate the behavior of someone who might have such an experience, but it doesn't actually have the experience.

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All of these statements are just naked conjecture on your part. How in the world would you know what a deterministic machine would or wouldn't experience and how, if it all, it would be different from what we experience? I'm not talking about, say, how a sewing machine would "experience" anything, but how an AI programmed with a 1:1 digital cognition to our own would "experience" anything.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Chopra expresses his views clearly. I don't think he's a charlatan.

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Well, at least this simplifies our QM arguments. Every time you make an argument I can just copy/paste this quote and you'll lose credibility with everyone worthwhile having credibility with.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

The goal of a mechanistic metaphysics is to remove consciousness and choice by replacing these with determinism and chance. It is an assault on the evidence of an organism's experiences.

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The former statement is plain wrong, the latter is laughable in the wake of almost every significant scientific discovery in the last 200-or-so years "assaulting the evidence of our organic experiences," and all of this still has nothing to do with someone having a "religious experience."

Morpheus I am liking the word 'charlatan'. I find the word fascinating.
on the same subject am I wrong/fastidious or correct replace this proverb
''believe in a stone and you will be healed''
with
''believe in religion and you'll be healed''

the question is: does religion make us gullible?

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

An experience itself is not evidence alone for any cause. It is only evidence for a cause if an experience can happen differently if the supposed cause is removed, or if other variables and possible causes, are eliminated. If I see a tree, it is not evidence that an alien placed it there, especially when we have plenty of evidence of trees growing when there's a combination of seed, light, soil, and water, and no evidence that trees are planted by aliens. Similarly, if someone has a "religious experience," this is not evidence for the truth of religion, especially given that people can have similar experiences without it being related to religion at all. This article explains it quite clearly.

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Here's a quote from the Yudkowsky blog you cited (http://lesswrong.com/lw/jl/what_is_evidence/):

This is why rationalists put such a heavy premium on the paradoxical-seeming claim that a belief is only really worthwhile if you could, in principle, be persuaded to believe otherwise.

I agree with that statement. For example, many worlds, which this author promotes, is that kind of belief. There is nothing about it that could refute it.

Whether some religious reality underlies a religious experience might be similar, however, the experience still exists and needs to be accounted for. Most people want to know what is actually the case. They don't want any explanation, no matter how simplistic. They want the truth. They don't want an explanation that fits someone's metaphysics, religious or otherwise. They want the truth.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

Again, it has nothing to do with metaphysics.

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It is all about metaphysics. Here's another quote from Yudkowsky, same link:

If what you believe doesn't depend on what you see, you've been blinded as effectively as by poking out your eyeballs.

Again, I agree with him although I don't support his metaphysics. What we see is the religious experience in others. We also have our own experiences, specifically religious or otherwise. That is the evidence. The metaphysics comes in when we think we have an explanation for the evidence when all we are doing is trying to keep our metaphysics afloat.

By the way, Yudkowsky should apply what he says to his own belief in many worlds.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

If I propose the "cause" of a tree to be a combination of seed, soil, light, and water, I can "test" this propose cause by removing any of these elements and see if a tree grows. If a tree doesn't grow, then it's good evidence that the "cause" of a tree is dependent on those factors. If I say "the cause of a tree is seed, soil, light, water, and love," then I can test that by simply removing the "love" part and see if a tree grows. What's more, even if we knew nothing of how trees grew, we should automatically prefer the non-love version of this because it's simpler (that's Occam's razor). Taking it back to this case, saying that such an experience happens because of how a brain is programmed fits the given evidence and is far simpler than saying that it happens because of how a brain is programmed by some divine being, especially when the latter can't account for non-religious versions of such experiences.

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One automatically prefers the truth unless one has a preconceived metaphysics that one has to support.

If simplicity is all that counts then believing that the universe is a deterministic simulation is simpler. However, since the universe is not deterministic, and therefore not computable, such simulations aren't possible. But that doesn't stop some people from believing in the impossible.

Who do you think programmed the brain? You believe in many worlds, so evolution, or more specifically natural selection, doesn't work. Did some clock-maker deity design these deterministic many worlds?

On the other hand, I am not saying that the brain was programmed at all. The brain was not programmed because we are organisms not machines. There is no programming required. However, that doesn't mean there aren't influences.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

All of these statements are just naked conjecture on your part. How in the world would you know what a deterministic machine would or wouldn't experience and how, if it all, it would be different from what we experience? I'm not talking about, say, how a sewing machine would "experience" anything, but how an AI programmed with a 1:1 digital cognition to our own would "experience" anything.

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How do you know such a machine experiences anything? That sounds like a "naked conjecture".

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I agree with that statement. For example, many worlds, which this author promotes, is that kind of belief. There is nothing about it that could refute it.

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Yes there is, and I've listed examples before. I think you have a profound selective amnesia when it comes to that topic. Here's a LessWrong article specifically on this subject, read it 1000 times until you understand it, because, as I said in the last thread, I am sick to death of repeating myself on this subject. Seriously, how many times do you think I could find examples in the last several threads on this subject where you've postulated that Bell-like experiments disprove MW, despite the fact that myself, Cioran, et al. have repeated every time you've mentioned it that Bell assumes the collapse, and any test that assumes a collapse can not disprove MW?

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Whether some religious reality underlies a religious experience might be similar, however, the experience still exists and needs to be accounted for. Most people want to know what is actually the case. They don't want any explanation, no matter how simplistic. They want the truth. They don't want an explanation that fits someone's metaphysics, religious or otherwise. They want the truth.

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I think you are quite wrong in your belief that most people want "the truth." If the truth is something that makes them feel insignificant, unimportant, insecure, etc. most people would vastly prefer to believe a comforting lie or fantasy, and that's precisely what they do. There's an entire bias/logical fallacy called Wishful Thinking, you know. Yes, such experiences need accounting for, but I'm putting my money on the field of cognitive science and research.

I remember once seeing a documentary on cognitive science and art, especially on music, and how scientists were starting to understand how brains responded positively to combinations of a certain level of predictability and surprise, especially when that surprise could be connected to that predictability. It ultimately goes back to our brain's delight in discovery patterns in reality; and I'm inclined to think that most "religious experiences" are nothing but an extreme version of that pattern finding, of connecting "surprises" to our "predictions" relative to their importance in our survival/reproduction and preserving things important to us. It doesn't take a genius to see how all of this is strongly in play in the "addict prays and becomes recipient of random act of kindness" situation.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

What we see is the religious experience in others. We also have our own experiences, specifically religious or otherwise. That is the evidence. The metaphysics comes in when we think we have an explanation for the evidence when all we are doing is trying to keep our metaphysics afloat.

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Yudkowsky's "metaphysics" of observing the entanglement of different states of an object and its possible causes and factoring that into Bayes' Theorem is innately against believing/disbelieving anything "just to keep our metaphysics afloat," because you cannot do the later while espousing the former without being a hypocrite, and I dare you to point out any example of Yudkowsky being a hypocrite on this point.

I still see you insisting that "our experiences... is the evidence," but I just finished explaining why this is not the case. No experience by itself is evidence for any proposed cause or metaphysical belief. Until you disentangle the variables and see if any one variable is continually linked to a higher rate of occurrence of the experience, you can't possibly begin to speak of anything being "evidence" for a cause. You also can't say that "coincidence" is a "metaphysics" because it is, as I explained earlier, the null hypothesis, the initial assumption that needs to be proved wrong. It's the bulwark against the various False Cause logical fallacies. If you begin by believing that there is a causal connection then THAT'S when metaphysics is getting in the way; not when you start by believing mere coincidence.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

By the way, Yudkowsky should apply what he says to his own belief in many worlds.

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He has. If you understood anything about Many Worlds, Bayesian Reasoning, evidence, etc. you'd know that.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

If simplicity is all that counts then believing that the universe is a deterministic simulation is simpler. However, since the universe is not deterministic, and therefore not computable, such simulations aren't possible.

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Why is it simpler to believe the universe is a simulation rather than real? Any simulation would have to exist in another real universe, which would make any simulation hypothesis automatically more complicated (a real universe VS a simulation universe inside a real universe). You have never established that the universe is indeterministic beyond your metaphysical wish for it to be so. Your appeals to QM to believe in indeterminism rests solely on your near complete ignorance of QM and some kind of mental block against understanding it past the point that it would upset your metaphysical wish.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Who do you think programmed the brain? You believe in many worlds, so evolution, or more specifically natural selection, doesn't work.

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Why in the world doesn't evolution/natural selection work in MW?

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Originally Posted by YesNo

The brain was not programmed because we are organisms not machines.

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Organisms still come programmed, that's the entire point of passing on DNA. That the programming is probabilistic and unpredictable (to an extent) doesn't mean it isn't programmed.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

How do you know such a machine experiences anything? That sounds like a "naked conjecture"

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I don't/wouldn't know what they experience, but you were the one making the claim they wouldn't experience something, which would require you knowing something about it you couldn't possibly know. You should keep better track of who made what claims.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

Here's a LessWrong article specifically on this subject, read it 1000 times until you understand it

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Why do you keep referring to the LessWrong site?

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

Seriously, how many times do you think I could find examples in the last several threads on this subject where you've postulated that Bell-like experiments disprove MW, despite the fact that myself, Cioran, et al. have repeated every time you've mentioned it that Bell assumes the collapse, and any test that assumes a collapse can not disprove MW?

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I think the evidence from the Bell-like experiments falsify many worlds or at least the claim that it is any more local than any of the other interpretations. Many worlds gets its wave function from the same source as Copenhagen and Consistent Histories. Many worlds cannot even create the simplest wave function without getting it elsewhere because it cannot generate the Born probabilities. If the Bell-like experiments leave these other interpretations with "non-separability", then it leaves many worlds with that as well.

Unless you can get past the above, then many worlds has been falsified.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

I think you are quite wrong in your belief that most people want "the truth." If the truth is something that makes them feel insignificant, unimportant, insecure, etc. most people would vastly prefer to believe a comforting lie or fantasy, and that's precisely what they do. There's an entire bias/logical fallacy called Wishful Thinking, you know. Yes, such experiences need accounting for, but I'm putting my money on the field of cognitive science and research.

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No, they want the truth.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

I remember once seeing a documentary on cognitive science and art, especially on music, and how scientists were starting to understand how brains responded positively to combinations of a certain level of predictability and surprise, especially when that surprise could be connected to that predictability. It ultimately goes back to our brain's delight in discovery patterns in reality; and I'm inclined to think that most "religious experiences" are nothing but an extreme version of that pattern finding, of connecting "surprises" to our "predictions" relative to their importance in our survival/reproduction and preserving things important to us. It doesn't take a genius to see how all of this is strongly in play in the "addict prays and becomes recipient of random act of kindness" situation.

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Or that pattern finding is nothing but a basic form of religious experience. I could agree with that.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

Yudkowsky's "metaphysics" of observing the entanglement of different states of an object and its possible causes and factoring that into Bayes' Theorem is innately against believing/disbelieving anything "just to keep our metaphysics afloat," because you cannot do the later while espousing the former without being a hypocrite, and I dare you to point out any example of Yudkowsky being a hypocrite on this point.

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It is not hypocrisy so much as being caught in a metaphysical box that one cannot see one's way out of.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

I still see you insisting that "our experiences... is the evidence," but I just finished explaining why this is not the case. No experience by itself is evidence for any proposed cause or metaphysical belief. Until you disentangle the variables and see if any one variable is continually linked to a higher rate of occurrence of the experience, you can't possibly begin to speak of anything being "evidence" for a cause. You also can't say that "coincidence" is a "metaphysics" because it is, as I explained earlier, the null hypothesis, the initial assumption that needs to be proved wrong. It's the bulwark against the various False Cause logical fallacies. If you begin by believing that there is a causal connection then THAT'S when metaphysics is getting in the way; not when you start by believing mere coincidence.

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In all of this I am not looking for a "cause" unless that cause is a non-deterministic explanation. The non-deterministic part of this gives the coincidence potential meaning. Consider a placebo effect in medicine as an example. It does not always work, but when it does the cure comes from the consciousness of the patient and not the drug.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

Why is it simpler to believe the universe is a simulation rather than real? Any simulation would have to exist in another real universe, which would make any simulation hypothesis automatically more complicated (a real universe VS a simulation universe inside a real universe).

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For the record, I don't believe we are in a simulation. However, a simulation is simpler than many worlds. In the simulation there are only two real worlds.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

You have never established that the universe is indeterministic beyond your metaphysical wish for it to be so. Your appeals to QM to believe in indeterminism rests solely on your near complete ignorance of QM and some kind of mental block against understanding it past the point that it would upset your metaphysical wish.

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Quantum indeterminism is standard physics. I don't need to wish for it.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

Why in the world doesn't evolution/natural selection work in MW?

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Evolution doesn't work in any deterministic universe where the determinism is at the quantum level. In such a universe, evolution would only be an illusion that nature does some sort of "selecting" when the real cause is a quantum configuration set up during the big bang. In many worlds, with the wave function encompassing the whole universe, any act of natural selection splits the universe into many different sets of worlds each containing a different outcome. Nothing is selected because everything is selected.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

Organisms still come programmed, that's the entire point of passing on DNA. That the programming is probabilistic and unpredictable (to an extent) doesn't mean it isn't programmed.

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There are a lot of factors affecting us. We do not have absolute free will. Organisms aren't programmed. They are involved in natural selection. DNA I suspect is overrated. What is underrated is psychic phenomena.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

I don't/wouldn't know what they experience, but you were the one making the claim they wouldn't experience something, which would require you knowing something about it you couldn't possibly know. You should keep better track of who made what claims.

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My computer, as a computer, doesn't experience anything. However, I can see that my cat does. In general it looks like organisms do. Perhaps even electrons do, since they are in perpetual motion and give uncertain answers when asked questions. The claim is that one day in the future we will create a deterministic object that can experience something requires a metaphysics suggesting this is possible. It is on the same order as assuming we could create a simulation world.

Perhaps the reason I would make the claim is a belief that totally deterministic entities don't experience anything.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Why do you keep referring to the LessWrong site?

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Because it's accurate and insightful as to many of the problems you're having.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I think the evidence from the Bell-like experiments falsify many worlds

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Of course you do. Now go tell this to any quantum physicist and watch them laugh in your face.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

No, they want the truth.

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Cognitive science says differently.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Or that pattern finding is nothing but a basic form of religious experience. I could agree with that.

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Or religious experiences are a basic form of pattern finding.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

It is not hypocrisy so much as being caught in a metaphysical box that one cannot see one's way out of.

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The way out of it is Bayesian rationality.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

In all of this I am not looking for a "cause" unless that cause is a non-deterministic explanation.

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So you've just admitted your own "metaphysics" of not accepting any deterministic explanation. No wonder you're so resistant to understanding MW.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

However, a simulation is simpler than many worlds. In the simulation there are only two real worlds.

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This is factually incorrect, and you'd understand why if you'd read and understood the article I linked to.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Quantum indeterminism is standard physics.

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"Standard" physics fails Occam's Razor and everything else we know about physics.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Evolution doesn't work in any deterministic universe where the determinism is at the quantum level. In such a universe, evolution would only be an illusion that nature does some sort of "selecting" when the real cause is a quantum configuration set up during the big bang. In many worlds, with the wave function encompassing the whole universe, any act of natural selection splits the universe into many different sets of worlds each containing a different outcome. Nothing is selected because everything is selected.

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This assumes that every big bang would have the same initial set of parameters. Within a set of initial parameters selected by the wavefunction there would be "natural selection" within those limits. This is identical to Game Theory where every game with its own set of rules creates a "correct" strategy. Natural selection is simply what we call the "correct strategy" given the universe and its parameters that we find ourselves in and, more specifically, the part of the universe we find ourselves in (meaning our galaxy, solar system, planet, etc., which creates its own "rules within the rules" of the larger universal game). While it's true that MW would exclude an indeterministic natural selection, this does not mean that natural selection as we understand it wouldn't still occur.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Organisms aren't programmed. They are involved in natural selection. DNA I suspect is overrated. What is underrated is psychic phenomena.

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Organisms being involved in natural selection has nothing to do with them being/not being programmed. DNA says you're overrated, and psychic phenomena cannot exist without the DNA that forms it.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

My computer, as a computer, doesn't experience anything... The claim is that one day in the future we will create a deterministic object that can experience something requires a metaphysics suggesting this is possible. It is on the same order as assuming we could create a simulation world.

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I already excluded objects like your computer with the example of a sewing machine, same thing. Obviously AI is still in its infancy, but we've already managed to digitize all kinds of things we never would've dreamed of. If you can digitize photography, you can digitize an eye; if you can digitize music, you can digitize an ear. Now all that's needed is a digitized brain, which will, indeed, be much more complex and may or may not be possible. I'm agnostic on the issue, but things are currently pointing in that direction, and this is in no way on the same level of a simulation world as a simulated world would be magnitudes more complex than a lone human brain. This is like saying in 1940 that flying to the moon and flying to another galaxy are equally likely metaphysically speaking.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

"Standard" physics fails Occam's Razor and everything else we know about physics.

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I'll stick with standard physics.

Would you also like to stick with a flat earth and Geocentrism?

An Atheist's View on Life

I will live my life according to these beliefs
God does not exist
It is just foolish to think
That there is a God with a cosmic plan
That an all-powerful God brings redemption and healing to the pain and suffering in the world
Is a comforting thought, however
It
Is only wishful thinking
People can do as they please without eternal consequences
The idea that
I am deserving of Hell
Because of sin
Is a lie meant to make me a slave to those in power
"The more you have, the happier you will be"
Our existence has no grand meaning or purpose
In a world with no God
There is freedom to be who I want to be
But with God
Everything is fine
It is ridiculous to think
I am lost and in need of saving


A Christian's View on Life
(read this bottom to top)


~Anonymous

Well, it's somewhat clever that you can read it forwards and backwards and get two opposing meanings, but that's about the only redeeming quality. It's utterly prosaic: no striking images, no figurative language, no sense of musicality or rhythm, just banal propositions from beginning to end. It should go without saying that not all atheists think all those things, but it's typical of the Christian caricaturization of atheists.

Morpheus, I don't think that is a poem. From above is a declaration of freedom and from below is a confession of faith. Both are expected to be prosey and yes, straight to the point. Melanie, be careful. Post your source. There's a plagiarism/copyright policy here.

Oh, thank you Miyako! I never intended for that to look like something I wrote since this thread has nothing to do with writing poetry or prose! I just never thought of that. My apologies. It's actually anonymous as far as I know so I'll post that. It was posted on my Facebook as an image. If you know the author, please let me know.

I just googled it and no one seems to know the source. It's making it's way around the internet.