If we are living in a simulation does this mean God does not exist?

[Neogaia777]

You explicitly excluded "any kind of prior events".

Just own it.

Well, I meant it in the context that I thought you meant it in, etc, and that was, "not based on any kind of personal prior events, that happened either with or to them, or to or with them, personally", etc...

Sorry if I was wrong about that, etc...?

The context I thought you meant in I mean, etc...?

Or that assumption on my part I mean, etc...?


Oh, and, about "owning anything", etc...?

When are you going to figure out that for me on here, or on here for me, it is not at all about being either being right, or else wrong, about anything, etc...?

I thought you might have maybe figured that out with me by now, etc...?

I'm just trying to have a conversation/discussion, etc...?

Anyway,

God Bless!

 

[Neogaia777]

It would, by definition, be random, so not a choice in any meaningful sense.

Yes, maybe, but our "definition" is only based on only what we can currently conceive of or fathom right now, is all I'm saying, etc...?

It's still possible it could be different, etc...?

That there could be or would be such a thing, or one, with whom it or Him, or He or She, etc, is not caused, or predestined, or determined/predetermined or whatever, or who is not stuck in this "endless causality chain or trap or loop", etc..."

Just because we cannot conceive of such a thing or one right now, does not mean that such a thing or one doesn't at all exist, or is 100% outside the realm of all possibility (of being there and/or existing) right now, etc...?

God Bless!

 

[Neogaia777]

You explicitly excluded "any kind of prior events".

Just own it.

I also did kind of mean "any kind of prior events period", in a way anyway, but only like I said, only maybe just by only following some, maybe just only "prior knowledge" maybe only, etc, or maybe some set of either written (down), or else not really written (down), rule of law or prior code/program previously only , etc, that maybe just has always been, or has just always existed previously only anyway, etc...

I did kind of mean that also, etc...

But just not anything previously personally, etc...

Anyway,

God Bless!

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I guess, then, like 'chance', mere language. The way we tend to think...? (maybe I should add, 'etc.') I don't know much, that I will grant you. You have taken some of my assumptions and made me try to rethink them. I'm not at all sure they (like causation) are not logical, i.e. mathematically necessary fact, but it has been fun thinking about alternatives, (that still don't make sense to me) but I will happily admit I don't know how to prove them. Thank you for that.

You're welcome. I think that questioning or challenging our most basic assumptions is a great way to learn, especially if they, and/or the alternatives, are testable; it helps us to move away from potentially misleading certainties to more nuanced understandings - when we see that our assumptions are usually limited to particular bounds or domains (e.g. spatial, temporal, & energy scales; fields of knowledge; types of interactions, etc), we can better understand why our assumptions may probably be correct or incorrect within those bounds & domains.

If you think 'chance' is mere language, then it's all mere language. If you're Laplace's demon, in a strictly deterministic universe, then there is no random chance, the idea is meaningless; but if you're are not Laplace's demon, even if the universe is strictly deterministic, you don't (can't) have complete knowledge of the state of the universe, and that changes things.

If you instead take a Wittgensteinian view, and consider the meaning of the words 'chance' or 'random' by their usage, you'll find they are useful precisely because of our limited knowledge of the world, as an expression of our ignorance; like various other words, (unexpected, unpredictable, etc) and whole fields of knowledge (probability, statistics), it only has useful meaning for creatures that are not omniscient.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Not that I fully agree, but for the sake of understanding the dynamics involved I can imagine (were we there within that 'infinitesimal' object), it might have appeared to us as large as it appears now, no?

I'm not sure that's a meaningful question, because at the earliest time for which physics gives meaningful answers (the Grand Unification epoch), that infinitesimal object (the tiny bit of the universe that grew to be what we can observe today) was so hot and dense that there were not even fundamental particles, and the three fundamental forces (apart from gravity) were unified into a single electronucear force. So there would be nothing to see, nothing to see it with, and no meaningful measure of distance given that this was just an arbitrary piece of something much larger (perhaps infinitely large).

As you present it here, it seems the universe, since it 'didn't expand into anything [pre-existent], then there is no such thing as truly 'empty' nothingness --it would be self-contradictory to say there is 'empty (dimension-less (?)) space' for it to expand into, if I understand you correctly.

Yes, the universe is all there is (ignoring any multiverse or metaverse complications). Truly 'empty' nothingness can't 'exist' except as a concept of negation, it's the absence of anything - i.e. it's not empty space (a truly 'empty' box would be completely flat, with nothing between its walls, i.e. they'd be touching). When we use the word in everyday life, it's contextual, referring to a limited domain (much like the words 'random' or 'chance'), so when we say there's 'nothing' in the box, we mean there's nothing relevant to the context in question, we don't mean a vacuum or no space at all (or the imaginary 'Hackenthorpe vacuum' - take a container with an ordinary vacuum and suck all the vacuum out )

Thus, I'm led to think you posit the notion that reality itself is bound by the expansion. That to me, implies that the universe, which does have dimension, (aaargh! --there goes my brain again!), and therefore definite boundaries, ....I don't know, this doesn't add up to me yet. I'm guessing there is something to say the boundary might seem infinite, but only within this reality, since space/time curves at those extremes or something, etc....? (lol, sorry).

There are no boundaries because there's no outside, the universe is all there is, but you could say that if the universe is spatially finite, the extent of reality is increasing; and roughly speaking, space/time is curved so it is continuous (AIUI there are a number of ways this could be modelled) ... An analogy could be a 2D ant on the surface of a growing sphere; it can walk in all directions without encountering a boundary, but it only has a finite but increasing area to explore. The expansion simply means that the space between stuff (galaxies or clusters of galaxies) is getting larger.

Seems to me some sort of blending of philosophy with physics going on here. I hear there is math to show the truth of whatever it is, ('it', that I am unable to grasp as yet), but it escapes description even from those who to any degree understand it. I'm trying.

In terms of the cosmological structure or topology of the universe, we currently have a limited amount of information that is not sufficient to confidently select a particular theoretically possible topology, but we have enough to suggest what is or isn't likely. For example, our best measurements of the curvature of space on a cosmological scale suggest that it's pretty flat, implying the universe is much larger than what we can directly observe and possibly infinite.

It's tricky stuff to visualise or describe, but some people who've worked with the physics long enough seem to develop an intuitive grasp of these concepts; but, as ever, they can only be communicated via metaphors and similes that can only partially communicate that understanding.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Not if we're not going by our own will or choosing, etc, but something else instead, etc, like a rule of law or code, or something like that, to where our own will or choosing is never really ever chosen exclusively, etc...

Even when we choose to do what we would rather not, for that instant of decision, the decision is for the preferred choice. The reasons may be obscure, even contrary to what we wish, but they are preferred.

Well, that's a given, isn't it...?

I mean no one can choose two or more, especially mutually exclusive, things, and or wills or choices or options, at the very same time exclusively, right...?

But I still don't think I was talking about that or saying that though, etc...?

Of course, but you intimated that if we knew all things, we would equally be able to do either one. That is not possible.

It is not a matter of ability, as this even applies to God. God only does one choice, though to him, options aren't quite the same thing as our concept concerning the word. I imagine that to him, there is no, "Hmmm, should I do this or that --I know, I'll do this!", but instead pure will, pure action, no equivocation, no questions as to which is preferable. --In other words, when about God, the question is moot; but not for us; for us there will always be one choice, no matter how much we know.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

We do, I think, right (as in your mathematical proposition), to say that if God is good we can equate that with 'God is God'. It comes to the same thing, but is only meaningless if WE must be the ones to present the meaning of God (or good); but it is not in our understanding to say that Good is God, since we do not know what Good is.

The same argument applies if it is God that defines itself and its actions and commands as good; it has no more semantic content than "You can believe me when I say I never lie because I never lie".

OTOH, I think the idea that we don't know what good is is mistaken. We do have at least an innate sense of fairness, a basic concept of good and bad, right and wrong, as do many (if not most) social mammals. It's not difficult to see how such behaviours would have a selective evolutionary advantage by providing a framework for cooperation (sharing, control of violence, etc) within social groups.

Human societies build a slew of additional moral & ethical rules, laws, and conventions on this basic framework, the everyday practice of which is absorbed and internalised by individuals as they develop, but the basic elements seem to be pretty universal.

btw: my equation was more logical than mathematical.

To me, at least, in some philosophical sense, all the Creator made is a digital 1, not 0. Even logic, or fact, to me is itself a digital positive, (a mathematical absolute value), and if God is first cause, then he 'invented' them.

That 'if' is doing all the heavy lifting here, and it has no more convincing support than the idea that if a phantom goldfish called Eric is knitting the universe from dragon tears, then he made us all from spun reptile secretions...

Anyhow, "Morally impeccable", to me, is implied by first cause. I'm not sure how that is arbitrary. It seems to me it is only so if WE are the ones to define good.

A first cause just starts things off... But if you want to bring human psychology to it, why not an evil first cause, a careless first cause, or an aloof, experimental first cause? But why should starting the universe off have any necessary moral implications?

Otherwise, see my first response, above.

The fact is, we do have a concept of good, however ill-defined and/or subjective - and some commands and actions may strike us (no pun intended) as bad or unfair, regardless of their authority (the God of the Old Testament springs to mind). This is usually excused by the GWIMW clause (God Works In Mysterious Ways), based on the circular reasoning that however bad it appears, it must be good because it's God's work and God says its works are good...

This leads us to the odd situation where God commands us not to do certain things (thus, by definition, bad things) but, from the same source, does those things itself (thus, by definition, good things). A contradiction? Do as I say not as I do? One set of morals for us, another for God? or GWIMW - a mystery beyond our understanding?

To me, it makes no sense to call anything that is not first cause, 'God'

What's in a name? That which we call a first cause
By any other name would still begin it all; [apologies to Shakespeare].

You can call it Einstein if you like, but that doesn't make it a frizzy-haired physics genius.

OTOH the block universe doesn't need a first cause, so there's nothing to name.

I'm hoping you would agree that if God (i.e. first cause) is Good, all that he made is good...

Sure, and if God is evil, then all it made is evil, and if God is comic then all it made is comic, and so-on. If we don't have our own concept of the meaning of those adjectives, they're just arbitrary, meaningless. God is God, God does what God does, God commands what God commands.

But if we run with your suggestion that God is good, and all it created is therefore good, then we immediately run into the problem of evil - all the myriad forms of suffering must be good (or all the suffering from natural causes, if you wish to play the 'free will' card). How can the idea that all God created is good explain all the horrific suffering that is not of human making?

Oh, wait... is it GWIMW again?

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

- Epicurus, ~300 years BC​

 

[Mark Quayle]

I'm not sure that's a meaningful question, because at the earliest time physics gives meaningful answers (the Grand Unification epoch), that infinitesimal object (the tiny bit of the universe that grew to be what we can observe today) was so hot and dense that there were not even fundamental particles, and the three fundamental forces (apart from gravity) were unified into a single electronucear force. So there would be nothing to see, nothing to see it with, and no meaningful measure of distance given that this was just an arbitrary piece of something much larger (perhaps infinitely large).

Yes, I can understand that much. However, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that in this universe, dimension is relative to time (and no doubt other things), we say growing, but without meaningful space outside the dimension, the dimension is only meaningful in relation to what is within it, therefore, the size is, --shoot. Let me try again (I was hoping to have some cogent way to express it by this point of the post, haha).

The total size is no more 'real' than the age? Aaaargh!

 

[sjastro]

Yes I agree but it seems like these ideas are promoted as already being validated. I think that this is because they offer so much support for existing theories and there is nothing else around that offers any hope of explaining what we are observing.

Lets look at String Theory as an example of something that is actively promoted, seems to offer support for existing theories such as quantum field theory, yet is considered by many in mainstream science to not even being a scientific theory.

Before tackling this issue one needs to go back to classical physics and debunk the notion expressed in this thread that classical physics is built around “common sense” and “intuitiveness”.
Consider the inverse square law for gravity and electrostatics;

For a spherical distribution of masses m or charges q, the maths can be simplified by considering the mass or charge to be concentrated at a point.
This point particle is dimensionless and takes up no space; it is clearly a mathematical construct and has no physical reality.

When Einstein found the equivalence between mass and energy E = mc², the concept of a point particle became problematic as the field around a point particle also contributed to mass.

The mass of the electromagnetic field mₑₘ is defined as;

For a point particle rₑ → 0 and mₑₘ becomes infinitely large.
While this was not an insurmountable problem in quantum mechanics it became a serious issue in quantum field theory which is the application of special relativity to quantum mechanics.
The problem of infinities cropped up in quantum field theories as in classical physics of treating particles as point sources.
A saving grace in most quantum field theories is the concept of renormalization.
In the case of QED (quantum electrodynamics) when charged particles interact with each other they undergo an oscillation which “smears” the charge over a small region of spacetime.
Since the charge is no longer point like, the small scales less than this region of spacetime can be ignored in the calculations.
The infinities disappear at they only occur at these small scales.

QED is known as a renormalizable theory but unfortunately there is no quantum field theory of gravity which is renormalizable; one cannot get rid of the infinities in the calculations.
This is where String Theory comes into the picture.
It adopts many of the principles of quantum field theory with the major exception of point particles which are replaced by vibrating strings at extremely small scales.
Since these strings have a size, quantum gravity is renormalizable in String Theory and a theory of everything where the forces are unified in the early universe becomes possible using String Theory.

So what is the problem with String Theory?
This link provides an excellent explanation.
Why String Theory Is Not A Scientific Theory

 

[SelfSim]

.. the dimension is only meaningful in relation to what is within it, ..

Dimensions are only meaningful to the minds which invoke the concept of it.

In other words, the context of the notion of 'dimension', is only to do with how we think about the concept of size.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

The support for humans having an innate knowledge or understanding of dualism and immaterialism is based on scientific tests. It is not something that is based on superstitious or is indoctrinated into humans but a default cognitive position we seem to be born with.

I know those studies - children have a predisposition to superstitious assumptions and magical thinking; it's not knowledge - 'invisible Princess Alice' is not real. But the conclusion suggests a potential selective advantage: "The findings suggest that children's belief in a watchful invisible person tends to deter cheating."

Others believe that this counter intuition is confirmation of something beyond the classical physics that is at work and we will continue as you say to find these strange outcomes. That is why some say that it makes more sense to go with ideas that use something like consciousness and information as a non-physical basis of reality as this fits in better with what is going on and the classical science has reached its limits.

We've already demonstrated that classical physics is incorrect. When people reach the edge of their understanding they have a tendency to invoke the supernatural and attempt to combine mysteries; "quantum stuff is mysterious, consciousness is mysterious, maybe they're connected", "We can't explain consciousness - let's make it fundamental". This is par for the course - what you read in pop-sci magazine articles is the stuff they hope will attract readers, it's not mainstream science.

Lets say there is a simulation and the creators have discovered the theory of everything in uniting classical physics with quantum physics. In doing so they discovered consciousness is immaterial and there is some immaterial force at work. This allows them to create things that defy the material world. How is that different to what is said about God. Just because we can explain things and put some theory to it doesnt mean it is not something beyond the material world at work.

You can only confirm the existence of new forces if they have some detectable (significant) influence on the world, directly or indirectly. If so, it doesn't matter what you call them. If they have no significant effect, they are not significant.

But we already know that there are no new forces that are significant at everyday human scales - if there were, we would have noticed them. Whatever happens in the human brain is down to the interactions of protons, neutrons, and electrons that it's made of, and the physics of their interactions and what can influence them is known in exquisite detail. This link, and the links it contains, explains why & how the laws underlying the physics of everyday life are completely known.

At the level of brain cells, gravity and the electromagnetic force are the only significant forces. That's why mainstream neuroscience sees consciousness as a process involving brain cells, not a speculative 'immaterial' force.

I find that this is not sufficently explained as it is misleading and can cause people to think that Posthuman is referring to the creators themselves and not just the level of technology. Bostrom and many supporters of the simulation refer to the creators of the simulation as Posthumans such as Posthuman civilization or Posthuman decendents.

Meh - it's the computational technology that's relevant.

 

[Mark Quayle]

If you think 'chance' is mere language, then it's all mere language. If you're Laplace's demon, in a strictly deterministic universe, then there is no random chance, the idea is meaningless; but if you're are not Laplace's demon, even if the universe is strictly deterministic, you don't (can't) have complete knowledge of the state of the universe, and that changes things.

If you instead take a Wittgensteinian view, and consider the meaning of the words 'chance' or 'random' by their usage, you'll find they are useful precisely because of our limited knowledge of the world, as an expression of our ignorance; like various other words, (unexpected, unpredictable, etc) and whole fields of knowledge (probability, statistics), it only has useful meaning for creatures that are not omniscient.

But then the usefulness is in continuing the conversation, study, scientific pursuit, not in immediate fact. That is to say, to use 'chance' and the other words, as crutches to continue the walk, even though they may lead us off the path, are useful anyhow, since 'we don't know'.

I just read up a bit on Wittgenstein, and he seems think of things much as I do, even to the point of occasionally seeming to contradict himself. For a long time now, I have considered language to be helpful, for example to help us get a concept into words for the sake of solidifying what we think. The words are not the concept, but a handle for it. But, sadly, the handle can limit us, too.

 

[Mark Quayle]

It's tricky stuff to visualise or describe, but some people who've worked with the physics long enough seem to develop an intuitive grasp of these concepts; but, as ever, they can only be communicated via metaphors and similes that can only partially communicate that understanding.

Haha, yes, and so, Wittgenstein

 

[Mark Quayle]

Dimensions are only meaningful to the minds which invoke the concept of it.

In other words, the context of the notion of 'dimension', is only to do with how we think about the concept of size.

Yes, I get that. Yet, if there is absolute fact, there is absolute dimension, no?

 

[SelfSim]

Yes, I get that. Yet, if there is absolute fact, ..

That's a big 'if' though .. Sounds like a good idea for a forum website .. Oh hang on .. we're at that forum website!

 

[Mark Quayle]

That's a big 'if' though .. Sounds like a good idea for a forum website .. Oh hang on .. we're at that forum website!

Would you say there is absolute truth?

 

[SelfSim]

Would you say there is absolute truth?

Well, I would say that what I (absolutely) mean by 'truth', is never more than what meaning I take from our last best tested facts!

 

[Mark Quayle]

Well, I would say that what I (absolutely) mean by 'truth', is never more than what meaning I take from our last best tested facts!

That attributes mankind with the ability to know the end of a matter.

Truth is what it is, regardless of any commentary or opinion.

 

[sjastro]

For those are interested in renormalization mentioned in my previous post which the old timers such as Feynman and Dirac dismissed as nonsense here is a good summary.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

But then the usefulness is in continuing the conversation, study, scientific pursuit, not in immediate fact. That is to say, to use 'chance' and the other words, as crutches to continue the walk, even though they may lead us off the path, are useful anyhow, since 'we don't know'.

They help us to communicate our everyday experiences. Different contexts and emergent levels of description require different concepts and language.

When we ask for the temperature in a room we don't expect to get a list of trillions of molecules and their kinetic energies, we want a simple approximation related to their average kinetic energy. When we want to calculate the orbit of a planet, we don't try to put the masses and positions of trillions of atoms of various materials into the calculation, we use an abstraction, the centre of mass. We lose a vast amount of information but we get something useful that we can work with.

This is 'coarse-graining'. In both cases, we don't know the relevant details of the individual atoms and molecules, but we don't need to. The same applies with everyday talk of 'random chance' - we don't know the details of how we came to encounter an old school friend on holiday abroad, or how it came to stop raining just as we left the house; there could be millions of possible explanations, for the purpose of the communication those details are pointless and irrelevant, so we coarse-grain our ignorance and say it happened 'by chance' - and everyone knows what we mean.

I just read up a bit on Wittgenstein, and he seems think of things much as I do, even to the point of occasionally seeming to contradict himself. For a long time now, I have considered language to be helpful, for example to help us get a concept into words for the sake of solidifying what we think. The words are not the concept, but a handle for it. But, sadly, the handle can limit us, too.

Yes, he started with an analytical logic approach to the relation between language and the world, but later realised that it didn't really achieve its goal, so he changed tack to ideas based on the interdependencies between concepts, words, and their usage - so that, for example, the word 'game' has no unique definition, but encompasses a variety of different concepts, some of which may seem to have nothing in common, e.g. the games of solitaire and football. He called these networks of relationships 'family resemblances'.