which should win?

[Varenne Rodin]

There are scientific studies that have documented evidence that this, the universe as we know it, is some sort of simulation. It's also very likely that it's a simulation within a simulation within countless other simulations.

It is very unlikely that there is a singular god. It's unlikely that there are any gods. If there are, there may be an infinite amount of them.

It's impossible to know what all of this is or how it came to be. I don't think there's any burden on science to prove a god does exist. Ruling out impossibilities at least simplifies answers to very complicated questions.

Human beings invented religion. We're not gods. We're animals. We're in the dark. The physical things we all have in common, the things we can measure, weigh, and quantify, that's what science is comprised of. The rest is completely beyond our reach. If we ever want to reach closer to knowledge, we have to do away with pigeonholing ourselves into the confines of religious norms.

[MorpheusSandman]

There are scientific studies that have documented evidence that this, the universe as we know it, is some sort of simulation. It's also very likely that it's a simulation within a simulation within countless other simulations.

What scientific studies? This just sounds like a rather classic thought experiment for which there are good mathematical arguments against.

The physical things we all have in common, the things we can measure, weigh, and quantify, that's what science is comprised of. The rest is completely beyond our reach.

Assuming, of course, that there's any "rest" left, or that we won't ever find ways of measuring/weighing/etc. the "rest" we currently can't.

[Varenne Rodin]

I'll simplify it further, Sandman. It's not a given that there's a god. Science doesn't have to prove that there's a god. It would be a waste of time.

As for the simulation theory, I'll refer you to google. My point was not that it's a fact, it's not. My point was that it's a much more likely scenario than the theory that there's a single deity pulling the strings of the tiny lifeforms on this tiny planet. Probabilities matter when deciding on a direction for scientific research. Why should scientists put even more effort into proving or disproving debunked religious ideas? Religion is like...kid stuff. Sorry if that bothers you.

[mal4mac]

There are scientific studies that have documented evidence that this, the universe as we know it, is some sort of simulation. It's also very likely that it's a simulation within a simulation within countless other simulations.

What evidence? If they had evidence then Nobel prizes would have been handed out, and it would be Top of the News for a *long* time. This is physicists indulging in wild speculation (again!)

http://news.discovery.com/space/are-...n-2-121216.htm

[cacian]

I'll simplify it further, Sandman. It's not a given that there's a god. Science doesn't have to prove that there's a god. It would be a waste of time.

I am not so sure. it will give them something to do. now according to some half science half religious belief an alien and god are one and only. the stuff I watch on documentaries is littered with alien/god stuff it is riveting.

As for the simulation theory, I'll refer you to google. My point was not that it's a fact, it's not. My point was that it's a much more likely scenario than the theory that there's a single deity pulling the strings of the tiny lifeforms on this tiny planet. Probabilities matter when deciding on a direction for scientific research. Why should scientists put even more effort into proving or disproving debunked religious ideas? Religion is like...kid stuff. Sorry if that bothers you.

religion is kid stuff? I am not sure about this. I think it is likely to bigbro stuff. people kill themselves for it. that is not kid that's big stuff.

[mal4mac]

As for the simulation theory... My point was that it's a much more likely scenario than the theory that there's a single deity pulling the strings of the tiny lifeforms on this tiny planet. Probabilities matter when deciding on a direction for scientific research. Why should scientists put even more effort into proving or disproving debunked religious ideas? Religion is like...kid stuff. Sorry if that bothers you.

But there must have been a first intelligent species that created the simulation, and so we are still left with the "multiverse vs. God" situation. I agree "God" is a bad idea, not worth considering, but shouldn't we be checking out the multiverse speculation before getting involved in serious investigation of something even more speculative?

One good point for the simulation idea is that it solves the Fermi Paradox (where are all the space aliens?) The aliens who programmed the universe could easily stop at one life form. But you would have to wonder why they bothered simulating all those stars and galaxies if they were wanting to simulate one life form! For me, the "intelligent life is just extremely rare" idea seems the front runner for solving the Fermi paradox.

[cacian]

QUOTE=mal4mac;1244805]But there must have been a first intelligent species that created the simulation, and so we are still left with the "multiverse vs. God" situation. I agree "God" is bad idea, not worth considering, but shouldn't we be checking out the multiverse speculation before getting involved in serious investigation of something even more speculative?

god is not a bad idea what is bad is ignoring it. science has a task on its hand and that is one of them. surely the logical thing to do to prove that god is neither here or there. it has much to gain from it.
the other thing is this 'intelligent species' concept. is one saying man is stupid?

One good point for the simulation idea is that it solves the Fermi Paradox (where are all the space aliens?) The aliens who programmed the universe could easily stop at one life form. But you would have to wonder why they bothered simulating all those stars and galaxies if they were wanting to simulate one life form! For me, the "intelligent life is just extremely rare" idea seems the front runner for solving the Fermi paradox.

I think the whole thing is alien. to think of an alien being at the heart of anything when the word itself means strange different foreign does not match. the universe suits our need to a T. how is an alien know what a human needs if it is an alien. the whole thing is flawed.

[mal4mac]

religion is kid stuff? I am not sure about this. I think it is likely to bigbro stuff. people kill themselves for it. that is not kid that's big stuff.

Like Santa, it is kid stuff. Unfortunately, unlike Santa, it tends to involve kids with real guns. It's big stuff for anti-terrorist squads, but kid stuff for cosmologists.

[YesNo]

YesNo, I propose we cease this QM discussion. It's not that I can't answer your points/questions, it's just that I'm realizing that this will be at least the third, if not the fourth, thread that we've been through this; and not only am I doubting that anyone else is reading by this point (if any objective third party wants us to continue, feel free to chime in), I'm tiring of having to type the same things ad nauseam only to have you make points/posts that act as if I've never addressed them. Half of the time, you're (still) making invalid objections to MW that only reveal that either you (still) don't know what MW is, or that you're very desperate to latch on to anything you feel could discredit it, and you don't care if those objections are invalid or not. I thought I made it very clear that MW's inability to derive the Born rule is the ONLY valid objection to MW; Bell is not a valid objection as all Bell experiments assume the truth of CI's single-world collapse. That you don't think whether one thinks the wavefunction is real or not is important is also very telling, as the different assumptions of realism VS non-realism are one of the defining elements that separate the various interpretations.

I think the experimental evidence that shows non-separability falsifies the MW interpretation and I provided three ways that MW might escape that, only one of them being reasonable.

Perhaps there is a fourth way: Ignore the claims that MW has been falsified through scientific evidence and go on as if nothing happened.

That doesn't work either.

It also occurs to me that the reason I've been pulled back into these conversations after the first thread was your continuing insults that MW was invented by atheistic metaphysicians that are inventing fantasies to support their a priori beliefs.

I do think MW is a way for some people to maintain their metaphysics in spite of the facts against them. Perhaps it is more useful to study MW from a psychological perspective rather than to continue pretending it is a legitimate interpretation for QM.

Ignoring the fact that no interpretations are inherently "better" for any (a)theistic metaphysical philosophy, MW was proposed by a guy who, like ALL post-QM physicists, thought the seemingly irreconcilable paradoxes that CI produced needed solving. His solution was to assume realism and remove the collapse; to, essentially, treat the wavefunction as encompassing all of reality, including observers. The many worlds came about as a result of following those assumptions to their conclusion. Under those two assumptions you get an interp. that is local, deterministic, real; that can't derive the Born rule; and had diddly squat to do about any metaphysical system, atheistic or otherwise. If you don't understand why MW is local and deterministic, then all that means that you still don't understand MW, and I'm sick to death of explaining it.

I guess I find the existence of parallel universes as absurd as you find the existence of superhuman agents.

[MorpheusSandman]

As for the simulation theory, I'll refer you to google. My point was not that it's a fact, it's not. My point was that it's a much more likely scenario than the theory that there's a single deity pulling the strings of the tiny lifeforms on this tiny planet.

You'll refer me to Google? Really? That sounds like it translates to you saying "when I said there were scientific studies I didn't have any actual studies in mind, I just wanted to sound authoritative and am now too lazy to try and support the claim." I'm fairly sure there are no studies on that subject.

As for the issue of probability of "reality being a simulation" VS "reality being controlled by God," well, I don't know how you'd assign the probabilities for either. The only "simulations" we know about have been created by us, so how could a simulation come about separate from someone creating it? As for Gods, we equally have no evidence of any intelligence coming about except through the confines of material, biological evolution. I think the probabilities of either is vanishingly small and worthy of equal dismissal in science.

http://news.discovery.com/space/are-...n-2-121216.htm

Ha! I'm ashamed for Discovery that they're allowing such hokum on their website. I'm just as ashamed for Nick Bostrom, a philosopher I have a lot of respect for and whom even employed Yudkowsky for a while. I'd think he'd realize the rational, mathematical arguments against such a notion and see the anthropomorphic bias inherent in it (not to mention the worn-out "fine-tuning" arguments).

I think... I do think... I guess I find...

Think, guess, and find better, as you are still stumbling in the dark despite having no less than 4 different posters turn the lights on for you. Just stop with the insults aimed at MW and its proponents. I'm tired of having to defend it against someone who doesn't even know what it is. I would seriously pay to set up a debate between you and physicists like Caroll, or even a non-physicist like Yudkowsky, just so I could replay the video and expose your ignorance every time you insist on insulting MW and save myself the time and trouble of typing. Right now, you're the equivalent of Creationists who insult Evolution because Evolution can't explain where life came from. You don't know what MW is, you don't know what it assumes, and you don't realize that Bell experiments does nothing to falsify it because those tests assume something MW does not assume.

[Scheherazade]

~

R e m i n d e r

Please do not personalise arguments.

Posts containing inflammatory comments will be removed without further notice.

~

[Varenne Rodin]

I was offering my opinion. I try to stay up on science currents. I thought more of you might have already heard about the simulation theories. I'm not writing a college paper. I don't need to offer citations. It's not because my argument doesn't hold water. I just didn't feel like branching off completely into a lecture that would have veered away from my point. My point is that there are far more possibilities than just, "A God did all this." It doesn't make sense to fixate on the god fantasy. It's a little too simplistic.

People saying, "There are a lot of things and someone had to make all this," just leads to the question: who or what created the god you want to believe in? And what created that? Something HAD to have, right? Or maybe nothing did. Maybe this is a machine, or a wheel; some perpetual motion mechanism that is cycling over and over again. Maybe it always has. Maybe it always will.

As for aliens, I imagine that if they do exist, a lot of them are just as small and confused as we are. "Alien creator" and "god creator" are interchangeable to me. I still say it's very improbable that there's only one, and only slightly more probable that there are many, and much more probable that there are no gods of any kind. Energetic phantoms accidentally causing paths of chaos are more likely than a bipolar invisible sky man who likes to watch humans 24 hours a day.

It seems naive to cleave to one idea as the definitive answer in a vast sea of infinite ideas. If you deconstruct it enough, existing or whatever it is, eventually there's nothing but wonder. Wonder or horror, depending upon your perspective, and eventually...void.

The world will end for you when you end. It will be like these questions never were. Earth will be as dead as Mars. Someday bits and pieces of it might fall as meteorites on some other where and when, but we'll never know. We just have moments. Moments with no gods in sight.

I meant no offense earlier by being frank. I respect everyone on Litnet. I don't feel the need to respect what is, in my experience, utter nonsense, but that doesn't have to be an impetus to discord here.

If everyone agreed with the god idea, would that be preferable? Easier to stomach? Easier to cope? I'm so far removed from Christianity that I really don't know what the motivators are toward that cult mentality anymore.

[Varenne Rodin]

Like Santa, it is kid stuff. Unfortunately, unlike Santa, it tends to involve kids with real guns. It's big stuff for anti-terrorist squads, but kid stuff for cosmologists.

That's gold, Mac.

[mal4mac]

You'll refer me to Google? Really? ...

It's good advice!

... I'm fairly sure there are no studies on that subject.

Oh come on, it's the web! There are reams of stuff on every speculation you can think of. This one even has a domain name:

http://www.simulation-argument.com/

... and is taken seriously by several top thinkers, including at least one top cosmologist:

http://www.simulation-argument.com/barrowsim.pdf

Ha! I'm ashamed for Discovery that they're allowing such hokum on their website. I'm just as ashamed for Nick Bostrom, a philosopher I have a lot of respect for...

Well he's a philosopher, so you can't expect his maths to be up to much, but Barrow is a serious equation juggler. What mathematical arguments have you seen against the notion?

[YesNo]

I was offering my opinion. I try to stay up on science currents. I thought more of you might have already heard about the simulation theories.

For the simulation theories to work, the universe needs to be computable. For the universe to be computable it must be deterministic. That would put the simulation theories in conflict with quantum mechanics.

However, I think you could get to something similar to what you are proposing if you consider that you are part of a bigger organism rather than part of a simulation. And then this organism could be part of even a larger one. The organism would evolve through natural selection just like other organisms do. This organism doesn't have to be a "god". It doesn't have to know anything about you. Then the theory would avoid the dead-end of determinism.