Lost and Found

[MorpheusSandman]

...After that, he tries again to get rehabilitated. The religious experience is real whether he ultimately succeeds with his rehabilitation or not.

As I say about NDEs, I don't dispute the experience itself, I dispute the supposed/implied cause of the experience. I've had just as profound experiences with art before, but I don't need to propose that such experiences were divine for them to have such power.

It is his business (and choice), how he wants to interpret what happened. Just because onlookers, not themselves having the experience, feel the need to protect their metaphysics by calling it a "coincidence" does not mean it wasn't a legitimate religious experience.

Once the story gets on the news it is now as much our business to interpret what happened. Like I said, such an event wouldn't even put the slightest dent in the beliefs of anyone who knows the first thing about probabilities and selection bias. It's no different than all the "miracle healing" stories done on The 700 Club, whom conveniently ignore the 100 non-miraculous deaths in the face of prayer in order to find the 1 "miracle healing" story. For anyone who is aware of the other 100 deaths, why in the world would the 1 "miracle healing" story impress them? Look at the same thing on the "holy water" healing thing that was ordained by the Catholic Church; you constantly hear miraculous healing stories from the thousands/millions that visit every year, but the statistical success rate is abysmal, with a miniscule amount receiving any relief at all.

Saying something is a coincidence assumes there is a deterministic, causal explanation that can't be established by that evidence.

I have no clue how you're making this leap at all. Most would say coincidence is evidence for indeterminism rather than determinism.

One can look at them as a resonance between a divine reality and an organism that didn't have to happen in this conscious way for the person. When it becomes conscious, evidenced by the addict's emotional state, onlookers like ourselves have a choice to make: Was this caused by some sort of hallucination, since we don't want to accept the alternative, or did we just witness a dance between the addict and a real partner?

One can also look at them as resonance between the Flying Spaghetti Monster and an organism and it's the same thing. I don't know what the "hallucination" is implied to be. People are programmed to look for "signs" that are "meaningful" to their life. The Coen Brothers parodied this wonderfully in A Serious Man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUTyEEiulQk However much I don't believe this story is good evidence for anything divine, I don't deny the impact it had on an individual in a bad situation who was looking for a meaningful sign. It's not an "hallucination," it's a typical response from a typically biased, desperate, ignorant brain. It's just an example of the stupidity of humanity, especially the stupidity that ensues when we look for meaningful signs in the randomness of life and make ourselves the center of the universe. In fact, the entire film A Simple Man could be said to be about this.

[Melanie]

...just like in poker it's possible to do all the right things and lose on the last, random card; or do all the wrong things and win on that last card.….That's poker. Now let's look at real life. There are those who think if they do everything right they'll win but no one can possibly do all the right things in life because we're all sinners, including Christians. Daily we all make right and wrong choices. But we can win eternal life in paradise on that last card only if we make one ultimate right choice…admit we're sinners in need of a savior. What could be greater a win than an eternal life of peace happiness? Nothing is greater than that. Suffering now (and we all have a story to tell) is but a drop in the bucket compared to eternal life.

It is impossible, given enough trials, to make every right decision and lose in the long run, and vice versa…it depends on what "right decisions" you're talking about. There's only one right decision for the "long run" (long run = eternal life…doesn't get any longer than that).

When you look at the most successful people in life they usually got there because they made lots of good choices…it depends on your definition of "success" and what you consider to be "good choices"

When I spend time with people in miserable situations it's very frequently because of the exact opposite, a life full of bad choices. Apart from God we all make bad choices….including Christians because they sometimes lose focus and don't seek Him first in all things.

There are, of course, lots of additional things one could say, such as the deck is stacked for and against some people at birth due to class, race, gender, and to greater/lesser extremes depending on geographic location. The deck is stacked against all of us because of satan, sin, temptation, evil, etc


...it often just takes one unforeseeable disaster to destroy a life of good choices (like, say, a drunk driver, or a heart-attack). God doesn't look at death as a bad thing, quite the contrary…He's bringing us home for an eternity of peace and joy.

…it's much easier for them to pray than it is to take responsibility and do what they need to do to turn their life around… Now let's marry those two concepts and we'll have the perfect cocktail…pray AND take the responsibility to do what they need to do. That's the answer to life..

My comments are in blue within MorpheusSandman's post #30. I know you knew that but I had to type something because the pop-up was saying my message was too short

[mal4mac]

All these threads seem a bit pointless. They pretty much always come down to the same few members arguing against each other and no matter what the threads original intention was it always comes down to the same argument.

I'm probably one of those "same few members", and I can't remember the scientific studies on intercessory prayer being mentioned in any recent thread. So how is this "the same argument"?

[mal4mac]

... I had to type something because the pop-up was saying my message was too short

That's 'cause you are misusing the system. I though Morpheus had gone schizo Why not just keep Morpheus' quotes as quotes and your responses as normal text? The blue is prettier, and more concise, but sometimes it's better sticking with the old ways (and you do, normally, like sticking with the old ways .)

[Melanie]

There's a system? Are you being facetious or does it really bother you? I can't tell. You've never seen it presented in that format before? I do it that way when there are too many parts to comment on individually. It's too labor-intensive and time consuming to put each part in separate quotes. Also takes up a lot more space. But if it bothers everyone then I won't do it

[YesNo]

As I say about NDEs, I don't dispute the experience itself, I dispute the supposed/implied cause of the experience. I've had just as profound experiences with art before, but I don't need to propose that such experiences were divine for them to have such power.

We all have had similar experiences which is why we can understand what the person having an NDE might have experienced. Enjoying music or thinking of a loved one could be seen as similar to a more explicit religious experience although they don't have any specific religious context. One could even consider the use of drugs as a way to get an experience that is similar to a religious experience.

The existence of these experiences and their ultimate religious interpretation is part of the evidence that religion is based upon.

As a comparison, ask yourself what a deterministic machine might "experience".

Once the story gets on the news it is now as much our business to interpret what happened. Like I said, such an event wouldn't even put the slightest dent in the beliefs of anyone who knows the first thing about probabilities and selection bias. It's no different than all the "miracle healing" stories done on The 700 Club, whom conveniently ignore the 100 non-miraculous deaths in the face of prayer in order to find the 1 "miracle healing" story. For anyone who is aware of the other 100 deaths, why in the world would the 1 "miracle healing" story impress them? Look at the same thing on the "holy water" healing thing that was ordained by the Catholic Church; you constantly hear miraculous healing stories from the thousands/millions that visit every year, but the statistical success rate is abysmal, with a miniscule amount receiving any relief at all.

I don't see these things as "miracles". It is just the way nature is, surprisingly non-deterministic and personal, and it is to our advantage to do whatever helps the patient.

One of the early books by Deepak Chopra, Quantum Healing, seemed to describe the difference between the ayurvedic medicine he was promoting and the drug approach to medicine. I'll have to see if I can find his argument again.

I have no clue how you're making this leap at all. Most would say coincidence is evidence for indeterminism rather than determinism.

I see coincidence as failing to reject the null hypothesis in Fisher's interpretation: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_hypothesis). One cannot conclude anything about the coincidence itself. There could be some other cause. There could be no cause.

One can also look at them as resonance between the Flying Spaghetti Monster and an organism and it's the same thing. I don't know what the "hallucination" is implied to be. People are programmed to look for "signs" that are "meaningful" to their life. The Coen Brothers parodied this wonderfully in A Serious Man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUTyEEiulQk However much I don't believe this story is good evidence for anything divine, I don't deny the impact it had on an individual in a bad situation who was looking for a meaningful sign. It's not an "hallucination," it's a typical response from a typically biased, desperate, ignorant brain. It's just an example of the stupidity of humanity, especially the stupidity that ensues when we look for meaningful signs in the randomness of life and make ourselves the center of the universe. In fact, the entire film A Simple Man could be said to be about this.

Who did this programming? If we are deterministic machines, one can trace that back to some Intelligent Design sort of deity. I don't believe in such deities, because we are not machines. I also don't believe in Spaghetti Monster deities since I didn't see the Spaghetti Monster when the addict had his emotional experience although it looked like a non-deterministic resonance of some sort took place.

Hallucination may not be the correct word, but your description, "It's just an example of the stupidity of humanity, especially the stupidity that ensues when we look for meaningful signs in the randomness of life and make ourselves the center of the universe" sounds like someone was making a mistake.

The point is there is an alternate explanation that these experiences are non-deterministic resonances with some divine reality.

[YesNo]

There's a system? Are you being facetious or does it really bother you? I can't tell. You've never seen it presented in that format before? I do it that way when there are too many parts to comment on individually. It's too labor-intensive and time consuming to put each part in separate quotes. Also takes up a lot more space. But if it bothers everyone then I won't do it

I thought what you said was clearly formatted. People quote things in different ways.

The main reason I'm commenting is because I liked this point you made: "The deck is stacked against all of us because of satan, sin, temptation, evil, etc".

I hadn't thought of it like that, but it makes sense.

[MorpheusSandman]

Melanie, the easiest way to use quotes is this:

-Click the "Reply With Quote" button below the post you're responding to
-highlight the part that says "[QUOTE=(poster name);number]"
-right click -> copy.
-Highlight -> cut the parts of the post you don't want to respond to
-Right click -> past before every section you want to respond to
-Add "{/quote]}" (replace "{}" with "[]") after each section you want to respond to
-Write your reply underneath each "{/quote}" section

Doing the above, you end up with formatting like this below:

That's poker. Now let's look at real life.

There are tons of relevant analogies between poker and real life. One of those relevant analogies is that no amount of magical thinking will make you a winner. You can believe all you want that a magical, invisible force can change the next card by you believing in it, but your believing can not change the next card or make you a winner in the long term. Reality is what it is; it doesn't give a crap what you believe about it, and it will not change simply because you change your beliefs.

It is impossible, given enough trials, to make every right decision and lose in the long run, and vice versa…it depends on what "right decisions" you're talking about.

Of course it's impossible to make EVERY right decision, but you can certainly endeavor to make more right ones that wrong ones, and, just like in poker, the more knowledge you have and the clearer and more accurate your thinking, the easier it becomes to make more right decisions. The "right decisions" I'm talking about are those that allow (or make it likely/possible) for a person to accomplish whatever goals they have for their life. EG, if one goal is to not die of lung cancer, then the right decision would be to not smoke and not be around those that do; if one goal is to not die of a heart attack, then the right decision would be to exorcize and not stuff your veins full of fat. Plenty of people can't even get THOSE decisions right.

Your goal is to reach a paradisaical afterlife, and you believe that by believing in myths from thousands of years ago you will accomplish that. Of course, there's not the slightest bit of evidence that your belief is accurate, and plenty of evidence that it's not, so while it's impossible to say definitively whether believing is the right or wrong decision, there are certainly better arguments to made that it's the wrong decision.

Apart from God we all make bad choices….

I probably see believers make bad choices more frequently than non-believers if only because they sit around waiting for God to dump those miracles in their lap.

The deck is stacked against all of us because of satan, sin, temptation, evil, etc

Or just nature, evolution, cognitive biases, etc. You know, things we actually know exist, rather than mythological characters and concepts.

God doesn't look at death as a bad thing, quite the contrary…He's bringing us home for an eternity of peace and joy.

People certainly look at death as a bad thing. Hence all the efforts to prolong life; which, I might add, we only started achieving at the dawn of modern science. Until then, God pretty much allowed people to wallow for centuries in unbelievable suffering.

pray AND take the responsibility to do what they need to do. That's the answer to life..

Or, do as I've done, and just dump the praying. My life now is far better than it ever was when I was believing and praying. Lesson being that you're better of just taking responsibility and making the best decisions you can to achieve your goals; praying will have absolutely no affect on the outcome, as all the current scientific literature shows.

[MorpheusSandman]

The existence of these experiences and their ultimate religious interpretation is part of the evidence that religion is based upon.

As a comparison, ask yourself what a deterministic machine might "experience".

But there's no evidence for a religious interpretation, just an utterly baseless claim. Why religion rather than some aspect of human cognition we (or, at least, most people) don't understand? I think most "religious" experiences are rather easily explained as a brain desperately seeking meaningful signs, and then finding one in a startling, surprising way. I don't know what you mean regarding what a "deterministic machine might experience." What makes you think a "deterministic machine" programmed to look for signs and, when found, to have an unforgettable experience, would experience anything differently? Evolutionarily speaking, it's not hard to imagine that we'd be programmed to have powerful, emotional experiences upon finding signs that seem to relate something important about our life/survival. Evolution would probably favor an organism that would remember such a thing.

One of the early books by Deepak Chopra, Quantum Healing,

Why in the world are you reading such a charlatan?

I see coincidence as failing to reject the null hypothesis in Fisher's interpretation: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_hypothesis). One cannot conclude anything about the coincidence itself. There could be some other cause. There could be no cause.

Coincidence IS essentially the "null hypothesis" as coincidence is claiming that there's no connection between phenomena (ie, addict praying, addict receiving money). The only legitimate way to argue against coincidence would be to do an experiment where there were multiple trials in order to find some connection between the phenomena. I still don't know what you think that has to do with determinism/indeterminism.

Who did this programming?

Evolution. Our cognition is precisely what you'd expect it to be if we were conditioned to survive and reproduce. So much of the biases we come "programmed" with, those same ones that have prevented us from understanding so many aspects about reality, of assuming incorrect things for years--sometimes decades and centuries--before we figured out the truth, can only be explained as existing because of evolutionary adaptation. Put it another way, if there were two mutations and one lead to a higher degree of accurate reality processing, but lessened our survival and reproduction abilities; and another that was the exact opposite; the latter would be what would be passed down, "programmed," into our cognition.

Hallucination may not be the correct word, but your description, "It's just an example of the stupidity of humanity, especially the stupidity that ensues when we look for meaningful signs in the randomness of life and make ourselves the center of the universe" sounds like someone was making a mistake.

The man was making a mistake of causal interpretation, not seeing things that weren't there; the latter is an hallucination, and a very different kind of "mistake" from the former. If look to my right and see a wall and propose that wall was built by aliens, I'm making a mistake of causal interpretation; if I look to my right and see a Cheshire Cat head smiling at me from the wall, I'm probably hallucinating. People routinely make make mistakes of causal interpretation, usually because of cognitive biases, but hallucination is significantly rarer.

[YesNo]

But there's no evidence for a religious interpretation, just an utterly baseless claim.

The experiences that people have is the evidence.

Just stating that there is no evidence only means that there is no evidence that your metaphysics is willing to accept. I already know that. I could just as easily claim there is no evidence for the mechanism interpretation and that it is an utterly baseless claim, but you already know that as well.

Why religion rather than some aspect of human cognition we (or, at least, most people) don't understand? I think most "religious" experiences are rather easily explained as a brain desperately seeking meaningful signs, and then finding one in a startling, surprising way. I don't know what you mean regarding what a "deterministic machine might experience." What makes you think a "deterministic machine" programmed to look for signs and, when found, to have an unforgettable experience, would experience anything differently? Evolutionarily speaking, it's not hard to imagine that we'd be programmed to have powerful, emotional experiences upon finding signs that seem to relate something important about our life/survival. Evolution would probably favor an organism that would remember such a thing.

It is also easily explained with a religious explanation.

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.

Why in the world are you reading such a charlatan?

I read a lot of different authors. Chopra expresses his views clearly. I don't think he's a charlatan.

I still don't know what you think that has to do with determinism/indeterminism.

The mechanistic metaphysics requires determinism. That means we have to think of ourselves as machines, not organisms. When QM showed that physics, something we thought was surely deterministic turned out not to be deterministic after all, then chance had to be introduced.

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. I don't think that metaphysics works.

[MorpheusSandman]

The experiences that people have is the evidence.

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.

It is also easily explained with a religious explanation.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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."

[cacian]

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?

[YesNo]

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.

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.

Again, it has nothing to do with metaphysics.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

[MorpheusSandman]

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

[YesNo]

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

Why do you keep referring to the LessWrong site?

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?

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.

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.

No, they want the truth.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.