The God / Dawkins Delusion

[grizzleb]

There are serious mathematicians, physicists and philosophers who hold views like this - dunno if that's what you were getting at, or just having a laugh.

It's a theory that's been punted about a lot, I don't think it solves the problem at all really for reasons mentioned above.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

From whence came the non-computer world? Infinite regress going on there.

Not necessarily: I'm not saying that we are necessarily mere data or that there is not a meta-harddiskical universe, merely that we (specifically, us) are more likely to have been created by sentient beings than not.

Original universe comes to be ex nihilo/via an ineffable process -> technologically advanced civilisation evolves, develops Intel i9 processor, synthetic consciousness -> vast number of artificial worlds created inside PCs

 

[grizzleb]

Yeah that seems fair enough to me - but it also doesn't really say anything that interesting from my point of view. Also we'll still be in the 'real' world. On a computer chip. So what then?

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Yeah that seems fair enough to me - but it also doesn't really say anything that interesting from my point of view.

What, that it's vastly more likely that God exists than not, you mean?

I suppose an advantage of this argument is that it gives everyone what they want: evolution, intelligent design, Godful universe and Godless universe. Everyone's a winner.

 

[grizzleb]

I genuinely don't get it, I'll need to get back to you. Just seems like a 'we created ourselves' kind of thing that is more asinine than it seems at first glance.

I suppose an advantage of this argument is that it gives everyone what they want: evolution, intelligent design, Godful universe and Godless universe. Everyone's a winner.

Yeah I know what you mean. All roads lead to Rome kind of thing... 8)

 

[Mr. Tea]

With respect, this is all getting a bit philosophy-freshman-has-mind-blown-while-watching-The Matrix-on-a-couple-of-spliffs...

 

[grizzleb]

With respect, this is all getting a bit philosophy-freshman-has-mind-blown-while-watching-The Matrix-on-a-couple-of-spliffs...

It wasn't me who started it!! haha

 

[mixed_biscuits]

With respect, this is all getting a bit philosophy-freshman-has-mind-blown-while-watching-The Matrix-on-a-couple-of-spliffs...

Wait a minute, so you're saying that we won't have artificial consciousness/intelligence in the near future and thereby be able to create beings who will be in precisely the proposed situation?

I would say that's much less likely than not, right?

 

[Dr Awesome]

Do you reckon our host-disk is part of an array or just a single volume?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Wait a minute, so you're saying that we won't have artificial consciousness/intelligence in the near future and thereby be able to create beings who will be in precisely the proposed situation?

I would say that's much less likely than not, right?

Roger Penrose thinks not. And he is sickeningly clever, which doesn't make him right of course, but he does seem to have thought about this a great deal.

In short, I dunno. I don't how much of the progress that's been made in recent times is really 'artificial intelligence' or just apparent intelligence, i.e. powerful algorithms written by smart people being run on very fast computers with lots of memory. Even the chess programs that can infallibly beat grandmasters work simply by using the brute force of modern processors to iterate deterministic algorithms zillions of times over, which is not clearly not "intelligence" in any meaningful sense. But all the same, I'm a hardcore materialist (though not a reductionist) on this issue, and I'm damned if I can name some special property that human grey matter possesses that can't, even in principle, be duplicated in silico. Penrose thinks it's quantum superposition in neural structures, which I have to admit strikes me as unlikely. My (very vague) guess is that it's some kind of emergent phenomenon to do with the complexity of neural connections.

(Ha, "in short...")

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Simulation arguments by non-freshmen philosophers can be found here

 

[rob_giri]

Yes, us atheists are far too scared to admit that our perceptual limitations can be transcended. That's why space telescopes, electron microscopes, particle accelerators, weather satellites, supercomputers and the Human Genone Project notably don't exist. Also, scientists can't cope with anything outside the mundane spheres of their limited awareness, which is why they never talk about parallel universes, quantum entanglement, black holes or the origin of space-time itself. Oh no siree, if we can't see it with our bare unaided eyes, it doesn't exist. I personally don't even believe in the back of my own head.

Of course I see your point here and appreciate the sarcasm but that's not what I was really driving at.

First of all telescopes and scientific instruments and the HG project and all that might be hinting at transcending perceptual limitations in one (very literal) sense, but still they do not address the issue of directly changing the nervous system and the possibilities of consciousness and the existence of it beyond space and time. That's not to say they are meant to, but I just thought I'd distinguish what I was sayin' from what you was sayin'

I don't consider 'scientists' to be an enemy of this non-atheism that I'm talking about - but instantly you seemed to think I was. Strange, no? I don't consider any branch of science that studies quantum phenomena and things like entanglement to be barking up the wrong materialist tree. If anything quantum physics has been the breakthrough that has destroyed the barrier between rational science and mysticism, forever discrediting atheistic Materialism - and virtually any scientist who studies quantum theory today will vouge for that. Meanwhile, atheists continue to insist that not only 'God' 'doesn't exist', but that non-local information exchange doesn't exist (which everything seems to point to the possibility that it does) and that it's possible to really know anything concretely (which of course, it isn't)

A lot of people who call themselves atheists are clearly not materialists, and really would be closer to agnostics. Others are materialists, and delude themselves into thinking they are people of reason, when clearly their emotional fixation on the fallacy of religion is clouding them from properly philosophically and even scientifically addressing the entirety of these issues. I see Dawkins as being a perfect example of this, and from what I remember The Dawkins Delusion book says much to that effect.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

I don't how much of the progress that's been made in recent times is really 'artificial intelligence' or just apparent intelligence, i.e. powerful algorithms written by smart people being run on very fast computers with lots of memory.

Bear in mind that quite a lot of progress has been made in a very short period of time (as a proportion of time since the beginning of our (probably simulated) universe) - I don't think that it would be especially foolish to extrapolate to an optimistic conclusion.

 

[DannyL]

virtually any scientist who studies quantum theory today will vouge for that

Now this I'd like to see.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Furthermore, simulated worlds could be of importantly different types:

1) simulation involving complex facsimile - requiring re/creation of consciousness or neural architecture, for instance
2) simulation with initial conditions only - what I was thinking of, I guess: provide building blocks of life and let an evolutionary mechanism take care of the rest
3) simulation of simpler life-forms - we might have been created by more advanced beings for whom the task of creating us is trivial (we, ourselves, can be expected to create basic AI and a rogue's gallery of artificially intelligent 'creatures' before we manage to crack human-like AI)
4) simulation of higher life-forms - facsimile + 'tweaks'

I reckon that we are most likely to be living in a simulation that involves 2) and 3), as evolved, digital, relatively simple life-forms that 'take care of themselves' would be most likely to be created and easiest to manage.

 

[nomadthethird]

If anything quantum physics has been the breakthrough that has destroyed the barrier between rational science and mysticism, forever discrediting atheistic Materialism - and virtually any scientist who studies quantum theory today will vouge for that.

Snicker.

 

[nomadthethird]

I don't how much of the progress that's been made in recent times is really 'artificial intelligence' or just apparent intelligence, i.e. powerful algorithms written by smart people being run on very fast computers with lots of memory.

I used to have great discussions about this with a friend of mine who I think recently finished a PhD in AI.

Basically, to play devil's advocate, because I don't really believe this, I said- if intelligence seems to be something that isn't algorithmic (which he actually believes, iirc!), then most of our AI machines thus far are just simulacra of what intelligence looks like to us as third-person observers. (Convincing facisimiles where little robotic creatures raise their eyebrows when your tone registers as sarcastic, etc...) Which he basically conceded. I thought maybe if you could design an algorithm that would evolve in tandem with its environment, you'd get closer...

Re: earlier discussions, claiming that we must have been created by sentient beings merely moves the problem of origins back a step, it does not solve it. I.e., who created those beings? Really the worst argument for creators that there is.

 

[grizzleb]

Re: earlier discussions, claiming that we must have been created by sentient beings merely moves the problem of origins back a step, it does not solve it. I.e., who created those beings? Really the worst argument for creators that there is.

Yeah that's what I meant when I talked about an infinite regress earlier. I mean, under that argument we could be a billionth order from the 'original' world. Computers making computers creating more computers. Sick bastards. I think we should agree to not make any universes if we can. It's pretty big headed I think. Loads of universes running about in our image...

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Re: earlier discussions, claiming that we must have been created by sentient beings merely moves the problem of origins back a step, it does not solve it. I.e., who created those beings?

No, it doesn't solve the problem of the existence of an original creator or not but it does suggest that, locally speaking, we were created. This is not surprising, as the argument does not seek to solve the ultimate problem, merely to shed light on the nature of our own existence and environment. The argument does, however, have implications for the formulation of any theories relating to the primary originating event as, because we should not expect that our universe necessarily to be of the same kind as our creator's universe, we can expect to be further away from solving the problem of the original popping-into-existence than we think.

Regarding the relevance of not thereby solving the problem of the original coming-to-be, the greater the difference between the conditions applying within our universe and that of our creator's universe (and however many nesting universes regressing on), the less inclined we would be to look to the primary originating event to help us interpret our particular existential situation (re science and religion's comparative strengths in helping us to do this) and the less it might actually pertain to it.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I don't consider any branch of science that studies quantum phenomena and things like entanglement to be barking up the wrong materialist tree. If anything quantum physics has been the breakthrough that has destroyed the barrier between rational science and mysticism, forever discrediting atheistic Materialism - and virtually any scientist who studies quantum theory today will vouge for that.

Umm...no. What is it with quantum mechanics? So many people seem to think you can start with the Schroedinger equation and derive the existence of ESP or some shit. How many "scientists who study quantum theory" do you actually know, by the way? I've studied it to postgraduate level and it hasn't turned me into a mystic - however I can vogue with the best of them.

Meanwhile, atheists continue to insist that not only 'God' 'doesn't exist', but that non-local information exchange doesn't exist (which everything seems to point to the possibility that it does)

Really? What evidence is there for this?

I should imagine most atheists, not being physicists, have no strong opinions one way or the other on non-local communication. And what if it were found to exist, after all - how would that in any way support the existence of god?

and that it's possible to really know anything concretely (which of course, it isn't)

Yeah, because everything's like, relative maaan...

Any physicist will tell you there are plenty of situations in which it's not possible to know something concretely. Heisenberg demolished the notion that one could have perfect knowledge of a physical system the better part of a hundred years ago.

A lot of people who call themselves atheists are clearly not materialists, and really would be closer to agnostics. Others are materialists, and delude themselves into thinking they are people of reason, when clearly their emotional fixation on the fallacy of religion is clouding them from properly philosophically and even scientifically addressing the entirety of these issues. I see Dawkins as being a perfect example of this, and from what I remember The Dawkins Delusion book says much to that effect.

He gets worked up about a subject he's emotionally invested in; that's not the same thing as being irrational. He may be irrational for other reasons, I don't know. He's not a Vulcan, he has the same right to get emotional about things as anyone else, surely?