well if the programmer made many of them they would be assumed as the normality and creatures' logic theories would take them into account. Because a theory that does not model their reality would be crazy.
My theory is that if there are twelve socks in the drawer and i take two, twelve remains in the drawer. It is crazy here. What if I designed a universe with an "always 12 things in any container" patch? then logic principles would have to be built according to this or they would not model the truth.
> A god would be pointless. Unless, of course, the programmer takes part in the virtual world OK, let's assume this and follow it to the consequence, which is the absurd that the programmer does not exist at all. Since we are wrong we have made an error somewhere. Easy to spot. You cannot define the usefulness of a supernatural entity, especially from the inside, even if you have bet succesfully that the concept of "useful" exists at all in the programmer's world, and derive anything by it. If you did, you would have created a metagod called Usefulness and said whatever is supernatural must abide by it. You went beyond religion, you entered metareligion.
If the creatures in the example had been more conservative they might have said it still cannot be ruled out that something supernatural exist, well, that was the entire point of the comment in the context of the story.
>The atheist is pointing out that there are plenty of assumptions happening either way
An alternative scenario disproving assumptions is not an alternative set of assumptions. - "I can buy you dinner with these 100 dollars" - "what if I want dinner on that 300 dollars restaurant?" - "why couldn't you choose a cheaper one?" see? it is a cop-out. Atheists say proof, religious men say belief, they have more experience and it shows.
Every level of a simulation can have an upper level... provided that "upper", "have", "level" are concepts definable there.
Let's play my favorite one: "if this world needs a creator, the creator's world needs a creator". Nope. "creator" means guy who does something that result in a creation. Cause -> effect. Wait. Cause and effect need an unidirectional time axis. So you have to assume that one exists in the creator's world. True for the Game of life example. But the atheist's reasoning is that it goes into an infinite loop so you have to assume it in the creator's creator's world, and so on. Logic trainwreck, the "proof" is valid by making infinite assumptions, and fails for gods defined as eternal and creators of all things (so there is no time at all)
Eternal is not necessarily "forever". Eternal means also without time, which is more in line with the dimension of a god. What if eternal damnation is final damnation, eternal salvation is final closeness to a god?
But I am substituting a flawed model with another flawed one, let first the problem arise then you can file a complaint.:)
> this life is quite shitty and yes, I could easily design a better and more just system
You'd fail because you'd set a different arbitrary threshold for injustice, that's all.
The only continuously just system I can conceive is a particle or an equally spaced grid of identical particles at the same mutual distance in all dimensions. Any perturbation would cause injustice. Why that particle has one less neighbour than the rest? UNJUST.
The eventually just system on the other hand can be whatever, it all depends on how it ends up.
> They are absolutely correct, there is no creator, he doesn't exist inside their universe.
Correct for every creator of abstractions. You are not in the game of chess you are playing, yet no whatsoever move is done without you.
Problem, you have used an "is" defined relatively to the game grid, part of the abstraction, and applied to the creator of the abstraction who is defined as being outside the game, so the creatures have still made a logic error. They applied a concept outside its scope. They would have been more correct, but at the same time more explicit in making their assumptions stand out, by saying: "then, provided that a concept like existence is translatable outside our plane of existence, let's call it meta-existence, the creator does not meta-exist".
Of course the not-strictly-existing god is still potentially able to do all the things ever written in all religious books.
I was saying the same thing to a "Scotsman" just the other day. As we all know no Scotsman was born in Cuba. Well here was this "Scotsman" born in Cuba. I said to him,"No true Scotsman is born in Cuba, that makes you a Cuban" He replied,"Well I was born in Cuba!" I said,"As I said,'No true Scotsman is born in Cuba'"
> there is no evidence that he works like that. I guess not, one guy who promised good things in this life in exchange for worship is shown in matthew 4:8 and is definitely the other guy.
Note also that Jesus doesn't question his ability to provide power and wealth. The problem is that is a bad deal. You basically end up living a life of maintenance of the system which gives you power, and in the end your inevitable demise from this plane of existence will be even more painful.
> Given the fact that I use the same logic to make the (in)existence of any God irrelevant to my living, I would actually applaud those game of life beings for coming up to the same conclusion.
They made a logic mistake nonetheless, they could be atheists without doing that.
If the amount of potential interference of a God has any effect on what someone considers right or wrong, we have a problem.
Fear of God means? fearing who is defined as a just judge? hm. if I fear a just judge then I admit I have done something unjust.
Maybe Fear of God means acknowledging a possible supernatural entity? so if i commit a crime I cannot get away with it? Well I should not commit a crime nonetheless regardless of the consequence, if I want to honestly define myself as a just man.
But indeed, Fear of God defined as taking into account a possible supernatural being gives another perspective to all my actions. The main perspective for an ideal good believer, an additional, potentially useful, perspective if you don't believe. And honest atheists end up thinking about god more than believers. Just avoid logic trainwrecks pls.
It is true that some main religion says god has no use for evil people so they will get destroyed, but that is more like revealing a policy than blackmail, especially because permadeath is the default final state in the absence of a god anyway...
> They can't observe me, and unless I start intervening You'd not be different from some hacker creature who got root, or some creature able to mess with other creatures sensors. There is no way to prove yourself.
The time of the simulation is independent of the time of the PC guy but they are related. Eternal, as outside time, is different from enjoying an infinite amount of time. The Game creatures think in terms of frames, that is lossly related to CPU time. The Game can be backed up, interrupted and reverted and the additional axis of time in the PC guy dimension tells that there is something that binds the PC guy. So if he said he is omnipotent regarding the simulation he lies, ditto omniscient.
On the other hand, as I told, a guy thinking up the whole evolution of an abstraction and knowing its every detail, in an instant, is a better model. Of course an instant, t=0 roughly, is different from being outside time.
"Since we can create an abstraction, can we be an abstraction ourselves?" is a quite valid question, and it's also independent of religion or scientific discoveries.
Demo-cracy indicates the result, not the method. Some methods are named after the result, like the extremely secure server I want to sell you is extremely secure.
You know it is a democracy when you ask yourself "is this government decision what I want" and the answer is a statistically significant Yes. Besides, when you have governments making decision, you have already a problem since it's not their duty to make new laws unless it's an absolute emergency.
Well, I'm working in the coal mine, going down, down, down Working in the coal mine, whoop, my custom management of a freelist for connection buffers has a serious vulnerability...
Art and vandalism are not compatible for my definition, in the case of tags and graffiti.
Art is what you do for the sake of doing it or admiring the result, and, you know, there are walls in your bedroom too. Vandalism means satisfying the naturally present thirst for recognition by destroying/defacing stuff, or imitation of previous vandals. It's not art because it has a different purpose. The artwork is not art, the way it was produced may be art.
The only art piece here might be the drone, for the guy who simply wants to try its feasibility, not for those who buy the finished model.
The guy at the PC is not the god of the simulation, so he can be surprised at the outcome. If he were eternal (that is, unbound by time) he won't be surprised, because the act of creating it coincides with the act of knowing everything about it.
Conway's game of life creatures became sentient. They discovered they are made of cells. They said "Look, THE INFINITESIMAL CELL is always created from NOTHING. If things happens FROM NOTHING, there is NO NEED FOR A CREATOR, so THERE IS NO CREATOR, and besides NOBODY ever witnessed something different THAN THE DETERMINISTIC APPLICATION OF RULES. How smart are we?"
So the guy at the PC said to himself "Thank you for nothing, guys" and went making himself coffee.
- "why there is something rather than nothing?" - "because this can happen according to this newfangled model" - "cool, and what made the universe should follow this newfangled model?" - "because another newfangled proof makes anything else illogical" - "cool and what made the universe forcibly logical? all you did so far is to prove the universe can't help but follow the same logic that you derived from the behavior of the universe itself." The End.
If you make implementation details about the initial condition of an universe proof that such an universe has no superior level, you are already so ridiculous that punching people in the face is probably the best you can do.
Okay, that's the god excuses out of the way... now on with the physics!
Ok, physics may get to: We found a model that accurately describes the current matter/antimatter balance, and it is experimentally proven to predict the behaviour of matter (at smaller scales, since we don't have one universe to play with).
Then the guy who asked the question should raise hand and say, Ok this tells HOW we end up being made of matter, but the question was WHY.
That won't happen of course because science must only yield a chain of facts linked by "because" that deal with the description of a phenomenon at various levels, but invariably ends with "because it's like that".
So, Why are we made of matter? because the universe is like that. You're welcome.
Slashdot Mirror
well if the programmer made many of them they would be assumed as the normality and creatures' logic theories would take them into account. Because a theory that does not model their reality would be crazy.
My theory is that if there are twelve socks in the drawer and i take two, twelve remains in the drawer.
It is crazy here.
What if I designed a universe with an "always 12 things in any container" patch? then logic principles would have to be built according to this or they would not model the truth.
> A god would be pointless. Unless, of course, the programmer takes part in the virtual world
OK, let's assume this and follow it to the consequence, which is the absurd that the programmer does not exist at all. Since we are wrong we have made an error somewhere. Easy to spot.
You cannot define the usefulness of a supernatural entity, especially from the inside, even if you have bet succesfully that the concept of "useful" exists at all in the programmer's world, and derive anything by it. If you did, you would have created a metagod called Usefulness and said whatever is supernatural must abide by it. You went beyond religion, you entered metareligion.
If the creatures in the example had been more conservative they might have said it still cannot be ruled out that something supernatural exist, well, that was the entire point of the comment in the context of the story.
>The atheist is pointing out that there are plenty of assumptions happening either way
An alternative scenario disproving assumptions is not an alternative set of assumptions.
- "I can buy you dinner with these 100 dollars"
- "what if I want dinner on that 300 dollars restaurant?"
- "why couldn't you choose a cheaper one?"
see? it is a cop-out. Atheists say proof, religious men say belief, they have more experience and it shows.
Every level of a simulation can have an upper level... provided that "upper", "have", "level" are concepts definable there.
Let's play my favorite one: "if this world needs a creator, the creator's world needs a creator".
Nope. "creator" means guy who does something that result in a creation. Cause -> effect. Wait. Cause and effect need an unidirectional time axis. So you have to assume that one exists in the creator's world. True for the Game of life example. But the atheist's reasoning is that it goes into an infinite loop so you have to assume it in the creator's creator's world, and so on. Logic trainwreck, the "proof" is valid by making infinite assumptions, and fails for gods defined as eternal and creators of all things (so there is no time at all)
Eternal is not necessarily "forever". Eternal means also without time, which is more in line with the dimension of a god. What if eternal damnation is final damnation, eternal salvation is final closeness to a god?
But I am substituting a flawed model with another flawed one, let first the problem arise then you can file a complaint. :)
> this life is quite shitty and yes, I could easily design a better and more just system
You'd fail because you'd set a different arbitrary threshold for injustice, that's all.
The only continuously just system I can conceive is a particle or an equally spaced grid of identical particles at the same mutual distance in all dimensions. Any perturbation would cause injustice. Why that particle has one less neighbour than the rest? UNJUST.
The eventually just system on the other hand can be whatever, it all depends on how it ends up.
> They are absolutely correct, there is no creator, he doesn't exist inside their universe.
Correct for every creator of abstractions. You are not in the game of chess you are playing, yet no whatsoever move is done without you.
Problem, you have used an "is" defined relatively to the game grid, part of the abstraction, and applied to the creator of the abstraction who is defined as being outside the game, so the creatures have still made a logic error. They applied a concept outside its scope. They would have been more correct, but at the same time more explicit in making their assumptions stand out, by saying: "then, provided that a concept like existence is translatable outside our plane of existence, let's call it meta-existence, the creator does not meta-exist".
Of course the not-strictly-existing god is still potentially able to do all the things ever written in all religious books.
I was saying the same thing to a "Scotsman" just the other day.
As we all know no Scotsman was born in Cuba.
Well here was this "Scotsman" born in Cuba.
I said to him,"No true Scotsman is born in Cuba, that makes you a Cuban"
He replied,"Well I was born in Cuba!"
I said,"As I said,'No true Scotsman is born in Cuba'"
> there is no evidence that he works like that.
I guess not, one guy who promised good things in this life in exchange for worship is shown in matthew 4:8 and is definitely the other guy.
Note also that Jesus doesn't question his ability to provide power and wealth. The problem is that is a bad deal. You basically end up living a life of maintenance of the system which gives you power, and in the end your inevitable demise from this plane of existence will be even more painful.
> Given the fact that I use the same logic to make the (in)existence of any God irrelevant to my living, I would actually applaud those game of life beings for coming up to the same conclusion.
They made a logic mistake nonetheless, they could be atheists without doing that.
If the amount of potential interference of a God has any effect on what someone considers right or wrong, we have a problem.
Fear of God means? fearing who is defined as a just judge? hm. if I fear a just judge then I admit I have done something unjust.
Maybe Fear of God means acknowledging a possible supernatural entity? so if i commit a crime I cannot get away with it? Well I should not commit a crime nonetheless regardless of the consequence, if I want to honestly define myself as a just man.
But indeed, Fear of God defined as taking into account a possible supernatural being gives another perspective to all my actions. The main perspective for an ideal good believer, an additional, potentially useful, perspective if you don't believe. And honest atheists end up thinking about god more than believers. Just avoid logic trainwrecks pls.
It is true that some main religion says god has no use for evil people so they will get destroyed, but that is more like revealing a policy than blackmail, especially because permadeath is the default final state in the absence of a god anyway...
> They can't observe me, and unless I start intervening
You'd not be different from some hacker creature who got root, or some creature able to mess with other creatures sensors. There is no way to prove yourself.
The time of the simulation is independent of the time of the PC guy but they are related. Eternal, as outside time, is different from enjoying an infinite amount of time. The Game creatures think in terms of frames, that is lossly related to CPU time. The Game can be backed up, interrupted and reverted and the additional axis of time in the PC guy dimension tells that there is something that binds the PC guy. So if he said he is omnipotent regarding the simulation he lies, ditto omniscient.
On the other hand, as I told, a guy thinking up the whole evolution of an abstraction and knowing its every detail, in an instant, is a better model. Of course an instant, t=0 roughly, is different from being outside time.
Given that it is a case and not a theorem, I'd rate it as mere proof that some atheist reasoning is flawed.
"Since we can create an abstraction, can we be an abstraction ourselves?" is a quite valid question, and it's also independent of religion or scientific discoveries.
Demo-cracy indicates the result, not the method.
Some methods are named after the result, like the extremely secure server I want to sell you is extremely secure.
You know it is a democracy when you ask yourself "is this government decision what I want" and the answer is a statistically significant Yes. Besides, when you have governments making decision, you have already a problem since it's not their duty to make new laws unless it's an absolute emergency.
Well, I'm working in the coal mine,
going down, down, down
Working in the coal mine,
whoop, my custom management of a freelist for connection buffers has a serious vulnerability...
Another decent reason:
* Those people didn't end up in the movie with a trick, it's the movie that got to them one by one. It's all legit.
Art and vandalism are not compatible for my definition, in the case of tags and graffiti.
Art is what you do for the sake of doing it or admiring the result, and, you know, there are walls in your bedroom too.
Vandalism means satisfying the naturally present thirst for recognition by destroying/defacing stuff, or imitation of previous vandals. It's not art because it has a different purpose. The artwork is not art, the way it was produced may be art.
The only art piece here might be the drone, for the guy who simply wants to try its feasibility, not for those who buy the finished model.
Nothing that breaks the rules can be proven as breaking them, from the inside. What if the exception is part of the rules?
The guy at the PC is not the god of the simulation, so he can be surprised at the outcome. If he were eternal (that is, unbound by time) he won't be surprised, because the act of creating it coincides with the act of knowing everything about it.
All of this is a bit offtopic anyway.
Let's simplify.
Conway's game of life creatures became sentient.
They discovered they are made of cells.
They said "Look, THE INFINITESIMAL CELL is always created from NOTHING. If things happens FROM NOTHING, there is NO NEED FOR A CREATOR, so THERE IS NO CREATOR, and besides NOBODY ever witnessed something different THAN THE DETERMINISTIC APPLICATION OF RULES. How smart are we?"
So the guy at the PC said to himself "Thank you for nothing, guys" and went making himself coffee.
- "why there is something rather than nothing?"
- "because this can happen according to this newfangled model"
- "cool, and what made the universe should follow this newfangled model?"
- "because another newfangled proof makes anything else illogical"
- "cool and what made the universe forcibly logical? all you did so far is to prove the universe can't help but follow the same logic that you derived from the behavior of the universe itself."
The End.
If you make implementation details about the initial condition of an universe proof that such an universe has no superior level, you are already so ridiculous that punching people in the face is probably the best you can do.
Okay, that's the god excuses out of the way... now on with the physics!
Ok, physics may get to:
We found a model that accurately describes the current matter/antimatter balance, and it is experimentally proven to predict the behaviour of matter (at smaller scales, since we don't have one universe to play with).
Then the guy who asked the question should raise hand and say, Ok this tells HOW we end up being made of matter, but the question was WHY.
That won't happen of course because science must only yield a chain of facts linked by "because" that deal with the description of a phenomenon at various levels, but invariably ends with "because it's like that".
So, Why are we made of matter? because the universe is like that. You're welcome.
You forgot to mention terrorism. No candy for you.
> What if your PIN is a palindrome?
you enter "emordnilap a"