Lost and Found

[MorpheusSandman]

Why do you keep referring to the LessWrong site?

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

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

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

No, they want the truth.

Cognitive science says differently.

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

Or religious experiences are a basic form of pattern finding.

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

The way out of it is Bayesian rationality.

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

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

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

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

Quantum indeterminism is standard physics.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

[YesNo]

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

I'll stick with standard physics.

[MorpheusSandman]

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

[Melanie]

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

[MorpheusSandman]

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.

[miyako73]

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.

[Melanie]

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.