Only That Which Came About By Itself Is Real

[desiresjab]

Only That Which Came About By Itself Is Real, is a definition I accept. If something exists and is not real, then that thing, by necessity, is artificial, as in artifice.

If I do not believe the universe itself is real, then I must believe in a creator. Because I think, does not mean I am real, and it does not prove the universe is real.

If we are created, we are not real, by the definition above. All things we have built are artificial, of course, because they came about at the hands of creators. They have the reality of recognition, but not the reality of origin required to be fully real. Anything created did not "come about," but was made.

To believe we and the universe are real, I must also believe that all properties required to produce matter and then life, also came about unaided by anything, remember. These properties must have been intrinsic, then, to nothingness itself, which can have no such properties. This contradiction is undeniable. Since nothingness could have no such properties, we were created.

QED

[YesNo]

Does that mean you are a theist?

My only problem is that this seems to imply a dualism between what is "artificial" and what is "real". The dualism seems too sharp.

[desiresjab]

Does that mean you are a theist?

I do not know if there is an s on the end of creator or not. In one scenario, I see future societies running staggeringly advanced ancestor-simulation software. Such software might be formed inside their brains directly rather than be periphreal. We have no idea what it might be.

In another scenario, I see something like the traditional God we think of, who made this thing called the universe for reasons I can only guess at. God may have had experiential limits. In order to fully experience its creation, the God needed some sensitive fingertips. We are one of the more sensitive nerves on its feeling pad. We may be here to experience its creation so it can experience through us. The same for mosquitos and dolphins. That may be our purpose.

My only problem is that this seems to imply a dualism between what is "artificial" and what is "real". The dualism seems too sharp.

It is sharp, but it has to be. A thing was either made or came about by itself, there is no in between. If our race advances to where they are indistinguishable from God, they could become identical to the real, except for origin. You cannot change origin. Without a start from nothingness, you are not real, by the definition I accept.

The reason for Descarte's dualistic philosophy was to separate those things the church would hang you upside down for from those that were safe to investigate and discuss, and to give it a rational basis.

I do not have to worry about the church, and I do not believe that dualism is inherently some kind of mistaken, poison view. My dualism is not the dualism of Descartes anyway. We see and feel objects as solids. We know they are not solids, but fine mists of particles. Isn't that a dualism we accept? Every philosophy is trounced by those that follow, those that trounced dualism were in their own turns trounced. Nothing new there. Dualism is not a fallacy. We live with it everywhere. Is dualism real? Hmmm...part of it came about and part was created. Perhaps too tough to answer right now. It could not be there without its "came about" part (God), so I would probably judge dualism real in effect, though the concept is, of course, our creation.

[desiresjab]

There is, I believe, a third argument to consider. That the universe, ourselves, dolphins and mosquitos and, by Jove, God itself, were all churned up out of nothingness.

Whoops! This means all those properties still had to be intrinsic to nothinginess, which we know is logical fallacy.

God as eternal works much better than God was churned up by the distribution of properties in the Big Bang. Only this type of creator has to be real, I remind you. If our creators are our distant descendants running ancestor-simulation software, that means they are mortal, still trapped by the arrow time.

Man tries to break or thwart the arrow of time, his jailer. That is what archaeology does, and biology, and my friends, what literature does. Without literature from the past we would be not only prisoners, but in solitary confinement. Instead, we know our ancestors were just like us, the violent bastards. We have their stories to prove it.

[YesNo]

I don't think anything can be churned up out of nothingness without even the will to start the churning.

The descendants as our creators does have the problem that they are also mortal. So I agree with you that that is not a solution if it were possible, which I don't think it is.

Is time a jailer?

Part of the problem might be believing that what we see outside ourselves is "objective". Certainly, it is objective to our specific perspective. And it behaves in predictable ways that we can have order in our lives. I think it is another form of subjectivity like the kind we participate in. What I am trying to do here is get rid of the dualism of there being some artificial vs real stuff. It is all subjectivity, but not all subjective from my perspective.

[desiresjab]

To make a long story short, since I believe our universe is artificial, I am forced to believe in a creator or creators of our universe.

I am not forced to concede that the creator is plural or singular or that the creator is eternal. Who says you have to live forever to keep an artificial universe going?

I do not know if the creator/s of our universe is/are the ultimate creator/s of everything. It/they may not be. But this universe we experience ourselves to be in, I believe is artificial. I carry no religious, proselytizing fever or fervor with this belief.

To reconstruct how one arrives at a belief in an uncertain universe is a torturous path always, I think, except for religious ephiphanies, which I profess no belief in. The statistical connotations of a distant future happening now instead of later opposed to how we experience time, and able to run real-seeming ancestor-simulations and universe-simulations trillions of times, was a big factor. The probability that we are experiencing the real universe as opposed to an artificial one is infinitesimal.

Remember, artificial only means it was created, it is artifice, it is not real by our definition, because it did not come about by itself. That is what it means, functionally.

By my belief and definitions:

1 If some traditional God created the universe, it is artificial, and we may be artificial, as well. That is what to be created means.

2 If our distant descendants created our universe, same as above.

3 If the universe came about by itself, it is real, and we may be real, as well.

It is a 50-50 standoff between 1 and 3. We could be artificial beings living in a real universe, or real beings living in an artificial universe. We would not know the difference.

The numerosity of possible artificial universes in number 2, wins me. It is a statistical decision. It is more likely by far that we are experiencing an artificial universe. We could still be beings who came about by ourselves and were placed in this artificial universe, either by ourselves or by a different "breed" of beings which came about by itself, since nothing forces me to believe all beings who might come about by themselves are equal in power.

What people really care about is an afterlife. Interest in God is incidental to that passion. Neither 1, 2 or 3 precludes the possibility of an afterlife. If everything came about by itself, an afterlife theoretically could, too. Nothing says it couldn't. Nothing says the afterlife is not going on right now without us, or even with us. Except the Bible, I guess, which says the afterlife will happen later, which I profess no belief in.

Now. Why would the creator/s provide us with an afterlife? I look for the word empathy. The creators, too, must have a greatest fear, And for us tremble as death frolics near, to pen a spontaneous rhyme.

Whether the creator made us in his image, as claimed in the Bible, if the creators provided an afterlife for us, I deduce they at minimum have enough familiarity with fear to empathsize with us in our greatest fear.

There is nothing that forces me to believe a creator would have enough empathy to provide an afterlife for us. I wish there were.

For we may be no more than nerve fibers on God's fingertips through which it experiences its own creation, handy tools, so sophisticated we became or were meant to be independently conscious, but not worthy of a God's empathy, aye?

Is a limited God/creator more likely to have empathy?

[YesNo]

To make a long story short, since I believe our universe is artificial, I am forced to believe in a creator or creators of our universe.

That makes sense to me.

I am not forced to concede that the creator is plural or singular or that the creator is eternal. Who says you have to live forever to keep an artificial universe going?

I think the creator has to be outside the universe which would be bounded by our universe's time and space. That would be how I would define "eternal".

I do not know if the creator/s of our universe is/are the ultimate creator/s of everything. It/they may not be. But this universe we experience ourselves to be in, I believe is artificial. I carry no religious, proselytizing fever or fervor with this belief.

That sounds like "maya", but I have no religion to offer either. I just pick and choose whatever seems to work at the moment.

To reconstruct how one arrives at a belief in an uncertain universe is a torturous path always, I think, except for religious ephiphanies, which I profess no belief in. The statistical connotations of a distant future happening now instead of later opposed to how we experience time, and able to run real-seeming ancestor-simulations and universe-simulations trillions of times, was a big factor. The probability that we are experiencing the real universe as opposed to an artificial one is infinitesimal.

I think the idea of future generations creating us through some sort of time travel to be dependent on a belief in a sort of spacetime determinism. Quantum physics would likely require that gravity be quantized as well which I suspect would destroy the original idea of spacetime.

Remember, artificial only means it was created, it is artifice, it is not real by our definition, because it did not come about by itself. That is what it means, functionally.

By my belief and definitions:

1 If some traditional God created the universe, it is artificial, and we may be artificial, as well. That is what to be created means.

2 If our distant descendants created our universe, same as above.

3 If the universe came about by itself, it is real, and we may be real, as well.

It is a 50-50 standoff between 1 and 3. We could be artificial beings living in a real universe, or real beings living in an artificial universe. We would not know the difference.

I agree that (2) is unlikely with probability about 0%.

The numerosity of possible artificial universes in number 2, wins me. It is a statistical decision. It is more likely by far that we are experiencing an artificial universe. We could still be beings who came about by ourselves and were placed in this artificial universe, either by ourselves or by a different "breed" of beings which came about by itself, since nothing forces me to believe all beings who might come about by themselves are equal in power.

I agree that not all beings are of the same power.

What people really care about is an afterlife. Interest in God is incidental to that passion. Neither 1, 2 or 3 precludes the possibility of an afterlife. If everything came about by itself, an afterlife theoretically could, too. Nothing says it couldn't. Nothing says the afterlife is not going on right now without us, or even with us. Except the Bible, I guess, which says the afterlife will happen later, which I profess no belief in.

It could be going on now. If you listen to people who report near-death experiences, they experience an afterlife now.

Now. Why would the creator/s provide us with an afterlife? I look for the word empathy. The creators, too, must have a greatest fear, And for us tremble as death frolics near, to pen a spontaneous rhyme.

Whether the creator made us in his image, as claimed in the Bible, if the creators provided an afterlife for us, I deduce they at minimum have enough familiarity with fear to empathsize with us in our greatest fear.

There is nothing that forces me to believe a creator would have enough empathy to provide an afterlife for us. I wish there were.

Empathy might be a way to describe such a relationship, but that would mean it is personal which brings you back to traditional theistic positions.

For we may be no more than nerve fibers on God's fingertips through which it experiences its own creation, handy tools, so sophisticated we became or were meant to be independently conscious, but not worthy of a God's empathy, aye?

Is a limited God/creator more likely to have empathy?

I like the idea of us being nerve fibers on God's fingertips, but I don't know where it leads.

I don't see anything "artificial" in the world. That may be the main difference in our views. True, we see the world as exterior to us and we can make things which are artificial. For example, when we make a table we create something that the word "table" refers to, but basically it is only a reworking of atoms. It is only a table for us. Also when we look at anything we see an "object" because we are a "subject" and that is how we see things. That doesn't mean there isn't something really out there. There is. We just have a subject-object relationship to it as humans.

[desiresjab]

I think you misunderstood some of what I tried to say. (2) is almost certain to be true, if you indeed agree with me. We are almost certainly experiencing an artificial universe, when you consider that traditional God created a single universe, as did Nature (happening by yourself), and our descendants could generate limitless artificial universes we were able to experience, then it becomes almost certain we are in an artificial universe instead of the single one.

The idea is, in fact, an alternative interpretation of multi-verse.

The key idea of our descendants running ancestor-simulation software, which is the actual basis to our experience, is not my own idea. The rest of the development is. I picked that key idea up from a cosmologist whose name I have misplaced. The definition that only that which came about by itself is real, all else was created and therefore artificial, is my own thought, as far as I know.

[YesNo]

We probably don't agree, but it doesn't matter.

For the record, I think (2) is almost certainly false because it requires time reversal. However, let's put that aside.

I was thinking about this thread today and I have a question. Let's say you have something "artificial" and not "real". It is made out of something. Is that something it is made out of artificial or real? If it is artificial then ask the same question about what it was made out of.

[desiresjab]

We probably don't agree, but it doesn't matter.

For the record, I think (2) is almost certainly false because it requires time reversal. However, let's put that aside.

I was thinking about this thread today and I have a question. Let's say you have something "artificial" and not "real". It is made out of something. Is that something it is made out of artificial or real? If it is artificial then ask the same question about what it was made out of.

A sand sculpture. It is artificial and not real. Only if sand and all its constituents back to the beginning of the universe came about unaided by anything would sand be real. Then we would have something artificial made out of something real.

If the universe was created, then everything that follows is artificial, so that part is easy enough.

Something real cannot be made out of something artifiical, for something real cannot be made, period.

I can refine and correct an earlier statement. If the universe is artificial, mankind is necessarily artificial, too, unless we are from outside the universe. I had it that way, then I changed it. Now I must go back to the original. But if the universe is real, mankind could still be artificial. Yes, there is still hope.

Can something real be composed of something real? Of course. Sandstone. Tree sap.

[desiresjab]

It follows that if the universe is artificial, it will contain all artificial things. But if the universe is real, it may contain both real and artificial things.

[desiresjab]

People who are religious, who believe in God, believe in an artificial universe without making the realization in words. They want to immediately jump to the defense of God's creation and declare that it is real, under the false impression that artificial carries its negative connotations as usual. But it doesn't. To some people it would be a sin to say that God's creation is artificial. They would be afraid to utter it or seriously entertain it. They do not realize that artificial is good, it is what they want. Without an artificial universe, they would also have an uncreated one.

* * * * *

Without the overwhelming statistical argument of our descendants running ancestor-simulation software, we are back to the tradtitional standoff between willful and accidental universes.

But whoa now. I do not think we have to chuck the ancestor simulation scenario out the window because of time reversal. Not necessarily, anyway.

Let's take a closer look. Time is an elastic parameter. Newton would kill me for that, but nowadays we know it is true anyway. Its elasticity may also have unsuspected properties and dimensions. Godel himself proved time travel was theoretically possible through manipulation of Einstein's field equations.

But for our advanced descendants, no time travel is necessary. They are fighting the arrow of time the old fashioned way--with their brains and new techniques. They cannot physically travel back in time, but they know an awful lot about physical laws nonetheless, and they know an awful lot about history, and they know an awful lot about their ancestors. With complex enough software that perhaps grows within their own brains and is not per se written as we think of that activity, they made all of this and they made it seem so real to us that it is impossible for us to tell for sure if we are real or artificial. No time reversal is required.

All that is required are beings far enough in the future to create the ancestor simulation technology. I know they would find motive.

Let us ask why. They know their history worked out exactly as it did. What could be more obvious? But they might in addition ask the question whether it had to work out exactly as it has, and if all those seeming other paths that it might have taken were simply mirages on the way to completing what had to happen.

By running their simulations trillions of times and more, they might get very close to results which would allow a conclusion or a good theory. With enough repetitions they might discover there never was a chance of altering even the smallest thing in universal history, let alone the course of large events.

The beautiful thing--no manipulation of time required anywhere.

The above is one scientific reason our advanced descendants might develop such software and run such simulations. It is even easier to imagine illicit uses for such software.

The point you overlooked or that I did not express right is that no time manipulation is required for this scenario to unfold, and this is why I think its statistical domination is so powerful. We are not their ancestors sharing the same universe, but their artificial ancestors in our own artificial universe. They would be monitoring us but we would not be monitoring them. What seemed like 13.7 billion years or thereabouts to us, and could be backed up by data, might be to those doing the monitoring about...say, oh, six or eight thousand years. Gulp!

[desiresjab]

Just what do those distant descendants make us out of, for everything to seem so real to us, for us to seem so alive to ourselves? Would it be possible?

On top of your medical records and history, including genetic profiles, they have arrest records, military records, all municipal records, complete internet history of both posts and searches, and any miscellaneous sources to compose a real-seeming you out of. Is that enough?

Ah, but we left out the most important thing they have to assist them in building us's that seem real to ourselves--an advanced understanding of themselves and humanity, of the human brain, of the limits of behaviorism if any.

They should be able to do it.

[YesNo]

Why would our descendants want to create us as simulations? They already have us as history.

I think you are missing our subjectivity in this theory, but are relying on a deterministic view that everything can be objectified.

[desiresjab]

Why would our descendants want to create us as simulations? They already have us as history.

I think you are missing our subjectivity in this theory, but are relying on a deterministic view that everything can be objectified.

I just answered that. I will give you another reason they might run ancestor simulations-- besides all the viable commercial ones that are so easy to dream up, such as meeting or at least observing in action your grea-great-great grandparents, eerily precise simulations of them that feel conscious and alive, who feel like you and me, in fact, or to learn more about oneself. Some site like ancestrydotcom would include not only a full background report but a sophisticated ancestry-simulation as well.

The scientific reason I alluded to above is to study the Butterfly effect. Small shifts of input from a powerful creator, such as voices in ones head, could lead to large to changes from normal output, such as ancient goatherds becoming religious and writing down their visions and spreading notions to others.

Why would they want to run these simulations? Because they will be an important scientific tool for gathering information. Simulations are already very important. They will only get better. A simulated universe is the ultimate simulation. It already contains the objects for any simulation you want to run on local phenomena within it.

One could make an almost endless list of reasons why human beings would create and run these simulations. Profit would be behind many of them, scientific research behind many, as well. There is no reason they cannot fast/forward these simulations to run right into and past their own era. The simulations would be powerful predictors and increasingly powerful ones in big demand. Like supercomputers or space before them, they might have their own race.

Recreation is another real possibility. If the consciousness of individuals can be temporarily integrated with the simulators.

They could become commonplace, something you buy and take home with you--a universe simulator. It has battalions of parameters you can adjust. You can create different types of universes. Fun for the whole family. Create an evil universe and let the kids see what happens, as the whole family integrates with the simulator and experiences the evolution at various play speeds. Multiple universes could be left running, while yet others are created.

Not to get too science-fictiony, but you see plausible reasons for doing it will be everywhere around the actual descendants of these simulated beings. I called them actual, not real. A semantic foresight. You asked the easiest question of all--why? A reason is everywhere we turn.

The next exercise seems evident to me. Later for that.

No, I do not forget subjectivity. How can artificial beings be anything but subjective? An objective being of any kind is an impossibility, it seems to me, because an objective being has no sense of self, it does not differentiate between itself and what is outside. It does not see itself. Anyway, the beings in the simulation have to be as close to us as they can be created, subjectivity and all.