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Can there be a proof of God?

Jackson May 17, 2022 at 17:35 7200 views 394 comments
Proofs of God are deductive because one has to start already believing God exists. The arguments are really just assertions of properties of God, a description of how one conceives God.

And generally, I think using proofs in philosophy is rarely effective, for the same reason.

Comments (394)

Jackson May 17, 2022 at 17:39 #696556
Proofs for God were used by early Church theologians to get people to convert to their religion. Now, why would they want--force--others to convert?
bert1 May 17, 2022 at 17:55 #696561
I think there can, but they have to involve a bit of cheating. You start with something you know exists. Then you interpret some concept of God is such a way that it is identical to that thing.

If you start with the concept it's much harder. If you start with a relatively naive, literal or prima facie god-concept that one might find in a religious text, or an encyclopaedia, or even a theology book, you'll have a tough job proving it exists.
bert1 May 17, 2022 at 17:55 #696562
Or you can take a Jordan Peterson approach, which is interesting but also cheating.
Jackson May 17, 2022 at 17:56 #696563
Quoting bert1
Or you can take a Jordan Peterson approach, which is interesting but also cheating.


What is that?
Hillary May 17, 2022 at 19:45 #696586
Consider what happens when you hit rock bottom insifar the physics is concerned. You know how the cosmos functions. Just assume. Then you ask the question, where did the structure, particles, etc. come from? What is the reason for their existence? Who ordered them? What else than gods can be the reason? Abracadabra, simsalabim, hocus pocus, pilatus pas: "FLASH"! True magic. Add personal epihanies, and there's your proof.
SpaceDweller May 17, 2022 at 20:13 #696599
Quoting Jackson
Proofs of God are deductive because one has to start already believing God exists


I don't agree, proof of God (ex. philosophical) doesn't require belief but rather logical set of premises that lead to logical conclusion.

My favorite is Anselm's argument.
Jackson May 17, 2022 at 20:14 #696601
Quoting SpaceDweller
My favorite is Anselm's argument.


That than which nothing greater can be conceived.

But also, the falacious argument that existing is better than not existing, there fore God exists.
Jackson May 17, 2022 at 20:23 #696604
Theological arguments assume existence must have a cause.
SpaceDweller May 17, 2022 at 20:24 #696605
Quoting Jackson
But also, the falacious argument that existing is better than not existing, there fore God exists.


I think existing is better than not existing is subjective because:
A person having trouble living life will favor non existence, while a person living in welfare will favor existence.

Quoting Jackson
That than which nothing greater can be conceived.

the meaning here is that, God is a superior being, a superior being mean there is no grater because if it is then a being that is grater is God rather than inferior being.
SpaceDweller May 17, 2022 at 20:25 #696607
Quoting Jackson
Theological arguments assume existence must have a cause.


what? how?
Jackson May 17, 2022 at 20:26 #696608
Quoting SpaceDweller
I think existing is better than not existing is subjective because:
A person having trouble living life will favor non existence, while a person living in welfare will favor existence.


Yes, agree with that argument.
Jackson May 17, 2022 at 20:26 #696612
Quoting SpaceDweller
the meaning here is that, God is a superior being, a superior being mean there is no grater because if it is then a being that is grater is God rather than inferior being.


As Plato would say, it is good to be good. God is the Platonic idea.
Jackson May 17, 2022 at 20:27 #696613
Quoting SpaceDweller
what? how?


God explains why there is existence.
SpaceDweller May 17, 2022 at 20:29 #696615
Quoting Jackson
God explains why there is existence.


Ah, why is there something rather than nothing?
Because of God.
Awesome reason indeed! :up:
Jackson May 17, 2022 at 20:30 #696616
Hegel brought this to my attention. The ancient greeks asked what the nature of God is. The Christians (Moderns) made God into a proposition about whether God exists or not.
Jackson May 17, 2022 at 20:30 #696617
Quoting SpaceDweller
Ah, why is there something rather than nothing?
Because of God.
Awesome reason indeed!


Yes, agree.
SpaceDweller May 17, 2022 at 20:53 #696623
Quoting Jackson
Hegel brought this to my attention. The ancient greeks asked what the nature of God is. The Christians (Moderns) made God into a proposition about whether God exists or not.


It's easy to construct argument about God's existence, but existence and presence of God is 2 fold thing.
1 ) Argument about God only, ex. philosophical argument of O-O-O God
2.) Revelation of God, ex. scriptures.

Issues with No. 2 are motives behind scriptures since we know scriptures are man made texts, what were their motives, divine revelation or ancient wisdom is beyond our ability to prove.
Jackson May 17, 2022 at 20:56 #696624
Quoting SpaceDweller
Issues with No. 2 are motives behind scriptures since we know scriptures are man made texts, what were their motives, divine revelation or ancient wisdom is beyond our ability to prove.


Bad metaphysics. They made existence into a question.
180 Proof May 17, 2022 at 22:24 #696650
Just a thought:

Either

(A) g/G "created" everything for a reason; therefore, Reason is divine and g/G is not worthy of worship ...

or

(B) g/G "created" everything arbitraily, without reason, by chance; therefore, Chance (i.e. randomness à la vacuum fluctuation) is divine and g/G is not worthy of worship ...

So what does this "prove"? Nothing but the obvious – (whether or not it exists) g/G is superfluous and does not itself explain or justify anything.
Paulm12 May 17, 2022 at 22:34 #696653
Reply to Jackson Proof of God is very interesting thing. I don't think we will ever find it except in the case of something like defining "God" like the Kalam Cosmological argument or St. Anselm's argument (I don't find St. Anselm's argument all that convincing, to be fair, despite being an agnostic theist). You do find arguments one way or another that seem convincing to people on both sides of the debate (theists and atheists).

But you're right, there are plenty of things philosophy can't "prove" anyways. How would you prove God doesn't exist? How would you prove other minds exist, or the physical world exists, or that objective moral values/duties exist? Why should we hold belief in God to the same standard?
Tom Storm May 17, 2022 at 22:50 #696657
Reply to 180 Proof

and

(C) g/G created a world of suffering and loss in order to be worshipped. g/G is a vain dictator who should be scorned.

Quoting Paulm12
How would you prove God doesn't exist?


Indeed. I would first want a good reason to hold a view that god/s exist. Which ones and from what stories? All we seem to have are claims and a few old books, no actual deities have shown up except as dreams or delusions.

The time to believe something is when there is good evidence. The existence of life or the notion of 'something rather than nothing', is not evidence of anything in particular.
Hillary May 17, 2022 at 23:03 #696664
Reply to Tom Storm

What if gods can't show up and proof their existence in the way you demand proof to be? Wouldn't their showing up in the flesh disturb the laws and stuff they created? Dreams or the mind would be far more subtle places to appear in and the laws of quantum mechanics don't forbid this. You might say that this is pretty convenient for the believer, of course, but how else can it be? Via the mind they can project themselves, on clouds, in dreams, etc. Or what if they just leave their creation alone. Just look at it?
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 01:25 #696735
Quoting Tom Storm
The time to believe something is when there is good evidence. The existence of life or the notion of 'something rather than nothing', is not evidence of anything in particular.


Agree with that.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 01:32 #696742
Quoting Jackson
Agree with that.


How can there be evidence for gods?
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 01:35 #696744
Quoting Tom Storm
The time to believe something is when there is good evidence


Then it wouldn't be belief.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 01:36 #696745
Quoting Hillary
How can there be evidence for gods?


Yes, I am saying there is not evidence.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 01:41 #696748
Quoting 180 Proof
(A) g/G "created" everything for a reason; therefore, Reason is divine and g/G is not worthy of worship


You're irrationally messing up your reasons.

Quoting 180 Proof
(B) g/G "created" everything arbitraily, without reason, by chance; therefore, Chance (i.e. randomness à la vacuum fluctuation) is divine and g/G is not worthy of worship ...


Evvery universe emerging from random quantum fluctuations includes evolving life. Which is precisely the reason.

Quoting 180 Proof
So what does this "prove"? Nothing but the obvious – (whether or not it exists) g/G is superfluous and does not itself explain or justify anything


This proves your irrationality.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 01:43 #696750
Reply to Jackson

Then why not believe? Because there's no evidence? The circle is closed.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 01:44 #696751
Quoting Hillary
Then why not believe? Because there's no evidence? The circle is closed.


I do not know what "the circle is closed" means.
180 Proof May 18, 2022 at 01:45 #696752
Reply to Hillary :rofl: Whatever, lil troll.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 01:52 #696757
Reply to 180 Proof


You're predictable! Dear mother of gods... whatever...
Agent Smith May 18, 2022 at 02:37 #696777
Reply to 180 Proof :fire:

My on views on the matter in question form:

1. Does it matter whether God exists/not? Buddha (Noble Silence, The Unanswered Questions). Gautama was the quintessential pragmatist.

2. Can we prove God's existence/nonexistence? OP (Before we get our knickers in a twist trying to do something, let,'s first check if that something is doable. We don't wanna waste time & resources trying to do the impossible). A Mathematician's perspective.
Agent Smith May 18, 2022 at 02:37 #696778
[quote=Hillary]You're predictable![/quote]

:snicker:

Relativist May 18, 2022 at 02:38 #696779
Quoting Jackson
Ah, why is there something rather than nothing?
Because of God.
Awesome reason indeed!
— SpaceDweller

Yes, agree.

Your "proof" depends on the assumption that, in the absence of a god, nothingness should be expected. Can either of you defend that assumption?
Agent Smith May 18, 2022 at 03:10 #696785
[quote=Relativist]"proof"[/quote]

:snicker:

TiredThinker May 18, 2022 at 03:21 #696790
Reply to Jackson

My philosophy professor gave us the terms theist, one who believes in God(s), atheist, one who doesn't believe in God(s), and a "super atheist", one for which the idea of God(s) doesn't exist. I don't know if proving God is deductive or not. If a God were all knowing and all powerful and had no wish to be discovered than they never will be.
jgill May 18, 2022 at 03:38 #696792
Quoting Jackson
Proofs of God are deductive because one has to start already believing God exists.


So, if one begins an argument by assuming what is to be proved, this implies that argument is "deductive"? A new and pathetic low on TPF. :roll:

Quoting Jackson
Hegel brought this to my attention


My God, man! What else did Hegel divulge to you?
180 Proof May 18, 2022 at 03:49 #696793
Quoting Agent Smith
1. Does it matter whether God exists/not?

Yes.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/565719
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/438252

2. Can we prove God's [s]existence/[/s]nonexistence?

Yes.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/394496
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/668836
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/653775
jorndoe May 18, 2022 at 03:52 #696794
Quoting jgill
if one begins an argument by assuming what is to be proved, this implies that argument is "deductive"?


I think Reply to Jackson meant it the other way around, sort of.

Purely deductive arguments are non-ampliative.
So, if a purely deductive argument is put forth to prove that G's exists, then it's begging the question.

@Jackson, feel free to correct me if I misread.

(edit: forgot to quote jgill)

Agent Smith May 18, 2022 at 04:33 #696799
Reply to 180 Proof

:ok:

I was looking at God's relevance from a moral perspective, not without good reason: A favorite question of atheists (to theists): Are you good only because God exists? The objective of the query is to expose the theist's conceptualization of God as Judge Dredd (a cop cum judge). This, to my reckoning, immiserizes God to the point of being somebody we fear instead of love.

In addition, God's existence, in my humble opinion, doesn't vitiate the value or authority of science. God did it (theism) doesn't contradict how he did it (science).

As for disproof of God, I'm familiar with your argument from predicates (omni-powers vis-à-vis the problem of evil).

Gracias señor! G'day.

180 Proof May 18, 2022 at 06:05 #696819
Reply to Agent Smith My overall point is that nature CAN be explained without g/G and morality CAN be justified without g/G from which it"s reasonable to imply that g/G is not (a/the) "necessary being" (pace Anselm) and, therefore, does not exist (re: theism). Thus, contrary to reals, g/G requires "faith". :fire:
Agent Smith May 18, 2022 at 06:38 #696830
Quoting 180 Proof
My overall point is that nature CAN be explained without g/G and morality CAN be justified without g/G from which it"s reasonable to imply that g/G is not (a/the) "necessary being" (pace Anselm) and, therefore, does not exist (re: theism). Thus, contrary to reals, g/G requires "faith". :fire:


I've been mulling over this: What if faith (religion) [math]\to[/math] reason (science) isn't the correct order in which things happened. It could've been reason (science) [math]\to[/math] faith (religion). A hint: rationality is a suicidal meme (applying itself to itself it self-destructs). Ancient folks must've realized that and hence they chose faith over reason because, at the end of the day, it's faith all the way down. Something like that...
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 06:50 #696832
Quoting Relativist
Your "proof" depends on the assumption that, in the absence of a god, nothingness should be expected.


Why is nothingness expected?
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 06:50 #696833
Quoting 180 Proof
My overall point is that nature CAN be explained without g/G


Which is overally irrational. Explain me where virtual particles in pre-inflationary substrate 4D space come from? Yòu can't say its eternal because both 3D space as TD time emerge on it. So what is the reason for its existence?

Quoting 180 Proof
morality CAN be justified without g/G


Subjective morality, yes. Objective morality, no.

"Who asks you anything, lill troll?" :rofl:
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 06:51 #696834
Quoting TiredThinker
If a God were all knowing and all powerful and had no wish to be discovered than they never will be.


If God exists and does not want to be discovered, then there is nothing to talk about.
180 Proof May 18, 2022 at 06:52 #696835
Reply to Agent Smith Like the rest of nature, 'human nature' – especially during persistent, elemental eras of raw survival – takes paths of least resistance / effort (i.e. caloric expenditure) as frequently as possible; making shit up (i.e. woo-of-the-gaps) is so much easier than working things out and thinking them through (i.e. trial & error heuristics) that, like early human development, the habit of make-believing (faith) takes hold long before evidence-based thinking for oneself (reason) is learned and practiced.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 06:52 #696836
Quoting jgill
A new and pathetic low on TPF


You will be ignored from now on.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 06:52 #696837
Quoting jgill
My God, man! What else did Hegel divulge to you?


Some of us actually read philosophy. Not you, eh.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 06:54 #696840
Quoting jorndoe
Purely deductive arguments are non-ampliative.
So, if a purely deductive argument is put forth to prove that G's exists, then it's begging the question.

@Jackson, feel free to correct me if I misread.


No, you did not misread.
180 Proof May 18, 2022 at 06:55 #696842
Reply to Hillary Go waste someone else's time.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 06:56 #696844
Quoting Agent Smith
I was looking at God's relevance from a moral perspective, not without good reason: A favorite question of atheists (to theists): Are you good only because God exists?


This is not my question nor topic of thread. But discussion of your interests is fine.
Agent Smith May 18, 2022 at 06:58 #696847
Quoting Jackson
This is not my question nor topic of thread. But discussion of your interests is fine.


A thousand apologies.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 06:58 #696848


Reply to 180 Proof

Whatever! :rofl:
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 07:00 #696849
Quoting Agent Smith
A thousand apologies.


It is fine to discuss your interests. I was only referring to proofs of God failing to prove anything.
Agent Smith May 18, 2022 at 07:04 #696854
Quoting 180 Proof
Like the rest of nature, 'human nature' – especially during persistent, elemental eras of raw survival – takes paths of least resistance / effort (i.e. caloric expenditure) as frequently as possible; making shit up (i.e. woo-of-the-gaps) is so much easier than working things out and thinking them through (i.e. trial & error heuristics) that, like early human development, the habit of make-believing (faith) takes hold long before evidence-based thinking for oneself (reason) is learned and practiced.


[quote=Ms. Marple]Most interesting![/quote]

The homo sapiens paradox: We've defined ourselves as wise man and yet that seems to apply to only a small section of the population of humans. Too, people who're inclined towards intellectual activites are derogatorily labeled nerds, geeks, so on. This is rather curious, oui?
Agent Smith May 18, 2022 at 07:04 #696855
Quoting Jackson
It is fine to discuss your interests. I was only referring to proofs of God failing to prove anything.


:ok:
I like sushi May 18, 2022 at 08:16 #696873
Reply to Jackson The term ‘god’ exists. How it is used and what exactly it may or may not be referring to would, by itself, show if any kind of proof was possible.

Most often people just say ‘it is obvious, look at the flowers and the sky’ or some such reference to the wonderment of nature. It does not appear there can be any proof of some ‘deity’/‘being’ but we can at least request a more precise definition of the term that tries to steer away from ambiguity.

This can obviously be a problem because if someone asked you to define yourself it would not really be all that easy as you may not know where to start. If the question is refined better then we might get further … for instances asking for a definition of yourself in respect to your occupation, family, or hobbies.

In a rather simplistic manner a great number of people encapsulate ‘god’ as ‘life’ in general. So think of your question as asking them ‘to prove life’ … that is often why the response is incredulity at such a silly question.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 08:59 #696884
Quoting I like sushi
The term ‘god’ exists. How it is used and what exactly it may or may not be referring to would, by itself, show if any kind of proof was possible.


What kind of proof? You really think they can show up in the material, assuming that's your proof? Of course they can't! What's all that demand of proof? Dear mother of gods...
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 09:06 #696886
Quoting I like sushi
In a rather simplistic manner a great number of people encapsulate ‘god’ as ‘life’ in general


And why is that simplistic? Life is exactly the reason why gods let life evolve. Life lives exactly the same life as the gods. All temporary, eternally repeating life is a heavenly reflection. Life lives to please the gods, who forgot how to do that.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 13:02 #696973
Can there be a proof of gods? It depends, of course, what conts as proof. They can't litterally show up or control our life. If they showed up in the flesh, it would go against the laws of nature they created themselves. But we can look at more subtle means for interactions, compatible with the laws of nature. Think about quantum mechanics. From which astral projections, mental phenomena, or even physical phenomena could follow. And how many physical phenomena aren't observed!?
Benj96 May 18, 2022 at 13:53 #696989
Quoting Jackson
That than which nothing greater can be conceived.

But also, the falacious argument that existing is better than not existing, there fore God exists.


Interesting but how is it fallacious ? non existence cannot decide whether it’s greater to exist or not by virtue of not existing. One must exist first to decide whether to continue existing of bring about its own demise. Non existence as a concept can only be appreciated by that which is not in a state of non existence.

So in this sense existence trumps non existence due to the ability to reason, to choose, to ponder, to have a certain sense of free will be it an illusion or actual true free will. 0-1 points to existence over not existing
Benj96 May 18, 2022 at 13:58 #696991
Quoting Jackson
Theological arguments assume existence must have a cause.


Can something ever be self-causing? Is a cycle not a circuit whereby outcome is the same as the original input?
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 14:27 #697010
Quoting Benj96
Can something ever be self-causing?


The universe can exist without being caused.
Benj96 May 18, 2022 at 14:33 #697014
Quoting Jackson
The universe can exist without being caused


Can you elaborate on how?
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 14:34 #697016
Quoting Benj96
Can you elaborate on how?


Why does it need to be caused?
Benj96 May 18, 2022 at 14:42 #697021
Quoting Jackson
Why does it need to be caused?

Similarly, why does it not need to be caused? Is there not equal reason to argue either viewpoint logically?

Is it that the set of all causes cannot include itself ? - just as a Venn diagram of all Venn diagrams doesn’t contain itself and therefore cannot be a set of all Venn diagrams.
Relativist May 18, 2022 at 14:43 #697023
Quoting Jackson
Why is nothingness expected?
There's no objective reason to believe nothingesss expected, but theists believe the material world is contingent - exists only because God chose to create it.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 14:44 #697024
Quoting Benj96
Similarly, why does it not need to be caused? Is there not equal reason to argue either viewpoint logically?


Perhaps, but I do not think so. The universe exists, we know that. Whether it has a cause is not as certain.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 14:45 #697025
Quoting Relativist
There's no objective reason to believe nothingesss expected, but theists believe the material world is contingent - exists only because God chose to create it.


Yes, that could be a belief of theists.
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 15:25 #697045
Quoting Relativist

Ah, why is there something rather than nothing?
Because of God.
Awesome reason indeed! :up:

Your "proof" depends on the assumption that, in the absence of a god, nothingness should be expected. Can either of you defend that assumption?


Yes, because, nothing comes out of nothing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_comes_from_nothing

Quoting Jackson
The universe can exist without being caused.


Only if universe is eternal, that is exists since ever, there is no beginning and no end.
This is infinite regress which is not a solution to any problems.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 15:32 #697048
Quoting SpaceDweller
Yes, because, nothing comes out of nothing.


Old argument which cannot be proven.
For another perspective look at Leibniz's argument that God could have left the universe is a state of nothingness but thought existence was superior. I am not supporting this argument but he does give a reason why God rejected nothingness.
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 16:02 #697063
Reply to Jackson
Nice, it implies that existence of universe without a supreme being is inexplicable and holds no ground
https://theresidenttheologianblog.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/on-the-existence-of-god-leibniz-contingency-argument/

But I don't see how his argument is against "nothing comes from nothing"
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 16:06 #697067
Quoting SpaceDweller
But I don't see how his argument is against "nothing comes from nothing"


My argument is that is has never been proven. It is just a tenet.
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 16:11 #697068
Quoting Jackson
My argument is that is has never been proven. It is just a tenet.

The fact that never anything come from nothing is proof of itself. don't you think?
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 16:14 #697070
Quoting SpaceDweller
The fact that never nothing come from nothing is proof of itself. don't you think?


I do not think that.

One way to think about nothingness is to associate it with randomness. Things occur without without being caused by prior events.
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 16:18 #697072
Quoting Jackson
One way to think about nothingness is to associate it with randomness. Things occur without without being caused by prior events.


randomness requires things to manifest random behavior, nothing does not require anything since nothing is not-a-thing.

nothing doesn't even require a creator, because it's not a thing.
nothing just exists as nothing.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 16:20 #697074
Quoting SpaceDweller
nothing doesn't even require a creator, because it's not a thing.


I clearly am rejecting the concept that the world was created.
Relativist May 18, 2022 at 17:00 #697106
Quoting SpaceDweller


Your "proof" depends on the assumption that, in the absence of a god, nothingness should be expected. Can either of you defend that assumption? — Relativist


Yes, because, nothing comes out of nothing.

Reality didn't come into existence.

If material reality is the totality of reality, then it exists uncaused, and at all times. The notion that it had to "come into existence" is incoherent, because "coming into existence" entails a time at which it didn't exist, followed by a time at which it exists.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 17:02 #697108
Quoting Relativist
Reality didn't come into existence. If material reality is the totality of reality, then it exists uncaused, and at all times. The notion that it had to "come into existence" is incoherent, because "coming into existence" entails a time at which it didn't exist, followed by a time at which it exists.


Good, well said. Agree with that.
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 17:47 #697129
Quoting Relativist
Reality didn't come into existence.

If material reality is the totality of reality, then it exists uncaused, and at all times.


Right, "IF", but what is your argument for eternal universe.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 17:57 #697132
Quoting Relativist
Reality didn't come into existence.


That's exactly the question. If material reality, thermodynamic time with a 3D space, inflates into existence automatically and periodically on a TD timeless 5D quantum vacuum spacetime structure with the right shape and virtual particles, then the question is, why does this timeless structure exist in the first place? What's the reason? Why it exists? Where did it come from, assuming it to be the only structure?
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 18:35 #697139
Quoting SpaceDweller
but what is your argument for eternal universe.


Why does the universe have to be caused? Not rhetorical. We know there is a universe, so why does it have to have a cause.
Relativist May 18, 2022 at 18:40 #697140
Quoting SpaceDweller
Right, "IF", but what is your argument for eternal universe.

To be clear, I'd define "eternal" as existing at all times - which does not require an infinite past.

Why think the "universe" exists at all times? Because nothing comes from nothing.


Relativist May 18, 2022 at 18:48 #697143
Quoting Hillary
Reality didn't come into existence. — Relativist


That's exactly the question. If material reality, thermodynamic time with a 3D space, inflates into existence automatically and periodically on a TD timeless 5D quantum vacuum spacetime structure with the right shape and virtual particles...

You are making a number of questionable assumptions and then demanding an explanation of "why". I'm a naturalist - but I don't pretend to know the fundamental nature of reality nor even the conditions that gave rise to the big bang. To ask "why are things as they are" implies that you believe there was an intelligent designer (or designers) who chose to create the world that exists, and therefore must have had a reason. Naturalism implies the world is not an intended consequence, so there's no reason for it.



Jackson May 18, 2022 at 18:51 #697144
Quoting Relativist
Naturalism implies the world is not an intended consequence, so there's no reason for it.


And saying the universe is a consequence only displaces the same question--Why is there God.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 19:00 #697146
Quoting Relativist
Naturalism implies the world is not an intended consequence, so there's no reason for it.


The view of the TD timeless 5D quantum substrate vacuum is mine and offers a natural underground to let two 4D mirror universe emerge, inflate, into real existence. The statement that "it just exists" robs existence of intrinsic, objective meaning or reason. Being a rationalist, I can't live with such emptiness. It takes all kinds! :smile:
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 19:06 #697148
Quoting Jackson
And saying the universe is a consequence only displaces the same question--Why is there God.


That's often heard but eternal intelligence doesn't need explanation. Eternal stupidity does.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 19:11 #697150
Quoting Hillary
eternal intelligence doesn't need explanation


Why?
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 19:20 #697153
Quoting Jackson
Why?


Because a dumb material can't exist because of no reason. Eternal intelligence is the reason.
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 19:21 #697154
Quoting Relativist
To be clear, I'd define "eternal" as existing at all times - which does not require an infinite past.


existing at all times = eternal = infinite
correct?
if not what do you mean?
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 19:23 #697155
Quoting Hillary
Because a dumb material


Have consistently denied your characterization. Nothing more to say.,
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 19:24 #697156
Quoting Jackson
Why does the universe have to be caused? Not rhetorical. We know there is a universe, so why does it have to have a cause.


because self-causation is unreal.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 19:27 #697157
Quoting SpaceDweller
because self-causation is unreal.


If the universe was not caused then it is not self--caused.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 19:28 #697158
Quoting Jackson
Have consistently denied your characterization


You think elementary particles are intelligent, not? Well, dunno. I don't go that far. And they certainly not could be the reason for their own existence.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 19:29 #697159
Quoting Jackson
If the universe was not caused then it is not self--caused


It's caused not by itself but it has a reason for existence.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 19:31 #697160
Quoting Hillary
It's caused not by itself but it has a reason for existence.


Like I said, I don't agree. No need to repeat ourselves.

Hillary May 18, 2022 at 19:35 #697161
Quoting Jackson
Like I said, I don't agree.


Why you don't agree? I haven't seen a rational argument? Just curious. Because the universe has some intrinsic intelligence? Which doesn't need gods?
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 19:36 #697162
Quoting Hillary
Why you don't agree? I haven't seen a rational argument? Just curious. Because the universe has some intrinsic intelligence? Which doesn't need gods?


Yes. No such thing as dumb matter.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 19:41 #697165
Reply to Jackson

Sounds reasonable. Basically not very different from my eternal intelligences in an eternal heaven, creating an eternally repeating temporary version of themselves. These eternal gods have no reason and your eternal intelligence of what I call creation has no reason, in your view. Agreement in differences!
Relativist May 18, 2022 at 19:57 #697166
Quoting SpaceDweller
existing at all times = eternal = infinite
correct?
if not what do you mean?

Not correct. A finite past with initial conditions entails existing at all times.

Jackson May 18, 2022 at 20:02 #697168
Quoting Relativist
A finite past with initial conditions entails existing at all times.


Please say more. For example, what do you mean by "finite past?"
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 20:20 #697171
Quoting Jackson
If the universe was not caused then it is not self--caused.


If the universe is not caused nor self-caused then what is it? eternal?

Quoting Relativist
Not correct. A finite past with initial conditions entails existing at all times.


A "finite past" means it's caused at some finite point, you're contradicting yourself.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 20:22 #697172
Quoting SpaceDweller
If the universe is not caused nor self-caused then what is it? eternal?


No beginning, no origin.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 20:24 #697173
Quoting Jackson
No beginning, no origin.


Why does that imply no creation? Creation isn't necessarily an act in spacetime. Even an eternal universe is created.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 20:25 #697174
Quoting Hillary
Even an eternal universe is created.


No.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 20:26 #697175
Reply to Jackson

Why not?
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 20:28 #697176
Quoting Jackson
No beginning, no origin.


Which is absurd and here is why:

Jackson May 18, 2022 at 20:29 #697179
Quoting SpaceDweller
Which is absurd and here is why:


Can you tell me? Not watching the video.
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 20:32 #697181
Quoting Jackson
Can you tell me? Not watching the video.


If the universe did not have a beginning, then the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite. But that’s a problem because the existence of an actually infinite number of past events leads to absurdity. It’s metaphysically impossible.

Hillary May 18, 2022 at 20:35 #697182
Reply to SpaceDweller

I know that video! Great one! Hilbert hotel. Wanna have a topfloor room!

Ghazali forgets that time can have infinite beginnings. So each universe has a beginning. Every beginning can emerge on a thermodynamically timeless state, like the quantum vacuum.

Jackson May 18, 2022 at 20:37 #697183
If the universe did not have a beginning, then the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite. But that’s a problem because the existence of an actually infinite number of past events leads to absurdity. It’s metaphysically impossible.


Time does not predicate existence. Too vague? I can expand.
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 20:38 #697185
Reply to Jackson
:up:
Reply to Hillary
The issue in it's core is the following:

1. Universe is infinite
2. therefore the number of past events in history is infinite
3. therefore there is no space for any further events because infinity can't be used in mathematical operations. (Hillbert hotel problem)
4. Therefore universe is not infinite, that is it has a beginning and thus cause.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 20:39 #697186
Quoting SpaceDweller
3. therefore there is no space for any further events


I get stuck here. Can you explain what the problem is?
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 20:42 #697188
Reply to Jackson
how do you add to infinity please?
or how do you add an event to infinite amount of events?
This is the problem of Hillbert's hotel.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 20:44 #697189
Quoting SpaceDweller
how do you add to infinity please?
or how do you add an event to infinite amount of events?


I think of time as indeterminate here. Not "infinite" but "indeterminate."
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 20:48 #697192
Quoting Jackson
I think of time as indeterminate here. Not "infinite" but "indeterminate."


What do you mean by time is "intermediate", we are talking about number of past events.
how many past events (of the universe) are there?
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 20:50 #697193
Quoting SpaceDweller
What do you mean by time is "intermediate", we are talking about number of past events.
how many past events (of the universe) are there?


Events don't have to be quantified by an ordering system. So I never would say infinity exists.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 20:52 #697194
Quoting Jackson
Time does not predicate existence


Meaning?

Reply to SpaceDweller

Infinite time and space can have a beginning on one side.
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 20:52 #697195
Quoting Jackson
Events don't have to be quantified by an ordering system.


Of course they do, how else would you count the number of past events?

Quoting Jackson
So I never would say infinity exists


infinity indeed does not exist - it's unreal, and so is the idea of infinite universe.
My video explains the problem pretty well, I suggest you watch it.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 20:53 #697196
Quoting Hillary
Time does not predicate existence
— Jackson

Meaning?


To predicate is to say all is true or universal. But all events are not merely time based.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 20:53 #697197
Quoting SpaceDweller
infinity indeed does not exist - it's unreal, and so is the idea of infinite universe.


I never asserted the idea of an infinite universe.
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 20:54 #697198
Quoting Hillary
Infinite time and space can have a beginning on one side.


Yes, indeed, but this would imply that universe has a beginning but no end, which is logically possible, however saying that there is no beginning is logically impossible.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 20:56 #697199
Quoting SpaceDweller
saying that there is no beginning is logically impossible.


Please explain. There is nothing inherently contradicting.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 20:57 #697200


Quoting SpaceDweller
Yes, indeed, but this would imply that universe has a beginning but no end, which is logically possible


Why is that logically impossible?
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 20:57 #697201
Quoting Jackson
I never asserted the idea of an infinite universe.

Therefore we agree universe has a cause, that is a beginning?

Quoting Jackson
Please explain. There is nothing inherently contradicting.

See video and problem of Hillbert's hotel
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 20:57 #697202
Quoting SpaceDweller
Therefore we agree universe has a cause, that is a beginning?


I don't see this as the two options.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 20:58 #697203
Quoting SpaceDweller
See video and problem of Hillbert's hotel


Not going to. Fare thee well.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 20:59 #697204
Quoting SpaceDweller
infinity indeed does not exist - it's unreal, and so is the idea of infinite universe.


That's the question. A 5D quantum vacuum can be thermodynamical timeless and infinite in extent.
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 20:59 #697205
Quoting Hillary
Why is that logically impossible?


Universe without a beginning means a universe with infinite past events, which means there is no space for new event to add up to infinite number of events.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 21:01 #697206
Quoting Jackson
Not going to. Fare thee well.


It's a nice video.

Quoting SpaceDweller
Universe without a beginning means a universe with infinite past events, which means there is no space for new event to add up to infinite number of events.



But what about a universe with a beginning and no end?
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 21:04 #697207
Quoting Hillary
That's the question. A 5D quantum vacuum can be thermodynamical timeless and infinite in extent.


sorry but I'm layman for these things.

Quoting Hillary
But what about a universe with a beginning and no end?


I think it's logically possible because time moves forwards, meaning events add up to finite number rather than infinite number which is the case for universe without beginning.
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 21:05 #697209
Quoting Jackson
Not going to. Fare thee well.


You disappointed me as a philosopher. :sad:
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 21:06 #697210
Quoting SpaceDweller
You disappointed me as a philosopher. :sad:


How is watching a video doing philosophy? I thought it was about presenting an argument?
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 21:10 #697211
Quoting SpaceDweller
sorry but I'm layman for these things.


It sounds more heavy than it actually is. Though the quantum vacuum is predicted to have infinite energy, and thus mass. But they made a failure which I will not get inti now. The 5D quantum vacuum is just a 4 dimensional space structure with virtual particles rotating in it. This is time going up and down, without forward or backward direction.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 21:10 #697213
Quoting Jackson
I thought it was about presenting an argument?


Philosophy is more than arguing!
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 21:12 #697214
Quoting Jackson
How is watching a video doing philosophy? I thought it was about presenting an argument?


I present you my argument but it seems you do not understand it, the video elaborates my argument in detail.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 21:12 #697215
Quoting Hillary
Philosophy is more than arguing!


Well, if it is about watching videos leave me out.
Relativist May 18, 2022 at 21:13 #697217
Quoting SpaceDweller
A "finite past" means it's caused at some finite point, you're contradicting


Two independent problems with that:
1. Existing at all times means it never DIDN'T exist, so how do you infer it was caused? Seems a nonsequitur.
2.By definition, nothing existed prior to it, therefore no prior causes are possible.
Jackson May 18, 2022 at 21:15 #697219
Quoting Relativist
1. Existing at all times means it never DIDN'T exist


Yes, why worries about infinity are irrelevant.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 21:17 #697220
Reply to Relativist

The cause can be acausal. Which raises the question, what caused the acausality lying beneath all phenomena? The always doesn't apply to a causeless timeless structure.
SpaceDweller May 18, 2022 at 21:19 #697221
Quoting Relativist
Two independent problems with that:
1. Existing at all times means it never DIDN'T exist, so how do you infer it was caused? Seems a nonsequitur.
2.By definition, nothing existed prior to it, therefore no prior causes are possible.


I think you need to decide whether universe exists since ever, that is the universe is eternal or infinite or not?

It's impossible to argue anything unless you put straight what you mean.
PoeticUniverse May 18, 2022 at 21:34 #697231
Quoting Hillary
Which raises the question, what caused the acausality lying beneath all phenomena?


This is getting near to doomed notion that something can come out of a true lack of anything or 'Nothing'. If something pops out out, then was there was still something behind it, which is the capability for it and so that would be the something that is eternal.

Every notion ever gets down to an eternal something that is unmakeable and unbreakable, such as quantum fields are close to being. All further temporary forms, then, are but arrangements of the eternal something, as they would have to be, again such as 'particles' are directly the quanta of fields, not some new substance.
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 21:44 #697235
Quoting PoeticUniverse
All further temporary forms, then, are but arrangements of the eternal something, as they would have to be, again such as 'particles' are directly the quanta of fields, not some new substance.


Poetic!

But the eternal something can be eternal only wrt to the unidirectional thermodynamic time springing off from it. The 5D quantum vacuum itself has no direction in time. So eternal doesn't apply to it.
PoeticUniverse May 18, 2022 at 22:49 #697262
Quoting Hillary
The 5D quantum vacuum itself has no direction in time.


Why 5D?
Hillary May 18, 2022 at 22:56 #697264
Reply to PoeticUniverse

To let the 3D space and thermodynamical time emerge in. So 4D spacetime. With appropiate hyperbolic curvature this explains dark energy. Of course there has to be a mechanism to keep matter confined to 4D. This can be taken care of if we consider a particle a 3d Planck-sized hypersphere, curled up from 3 dimensions in a 6d space. A Lorenz invariant Planck length! (The 3 extra dimensions being perpendicular to large 3 dimensions).
DingoJones May 19, 2022 at 00:18 #697299
Reply to Hillary

Obviously, but you are forgetting those lower dimensions. In 2D you dont even need the Planck scale hypersphere. Dark energy is the result of a 4D transmission of thermodynamical time from 3D AND 2D. Thus far your model hasn't accounted for that. With that addition you now get a recursive hyperbolic curvature which not only compensates for emergent 3D space and thermodynamical time playing hanky panky but also brings the Hickson-Ray variable to address the extra dimensions into perpendicularitude with each of the dimensions emerging after 3D space which by my count is 7D.
So indeed the question is, why 5D? And of course the answer is it isnt 5D, its 13D.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 00:20 #697301
Reply to DingoJones

Yeah! Right on! Take another blow! Faaar out. :starstruck:

:lol:
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 00:39 #697302
Reply to DingoJones

You're right about the 7D space though! But that's for the two hyperbolic two 4D spaces connected by a 4D (7D...) Planck-width wormhole to fit the virtual particles on the vacuum in. So the 3D (6D) fits the 4D (7D). The two seemingly 3D (6D...) closed spatial structures inflate from the wormhole in hyperbolic, repulsive gravity space. Dark energy, matter-antimatter asymmetry, left-handedness, and a Lorenz invariant Planck length swept away in one stroke of genius! And all that cause I can't find a job! (And dont want too...sssshhhh!).

And you have a gift: Humor. Seldom seen no more!
Relativist May 19, 2022 at 01:34 #697320
Reply to SpaceDweller
Your source of confusion seems to be my usage of the term "eternal". "Eternal" is usually used to refer to something that exists infinitely long into the past and infinitely long into the future. However, we don't really know that the past is infinite, and there are reasonable arguments against an infinite past. So even if the past is finite, we can still use the term "eternal" to refer to something that exists at all times. See definition number 4 here:Eternal (def)

Also consider the fact that William Lane Craig believes the past is finite, but still regards God as existing eternally.

Relativist May 19, 2022 at 01:38 #697323
Quoting Hillary
The cause can be acausal.

That sounds self-contradictory.
jgill May 19, 2022 at 03:58 #697344
Quoting Hillary
(The 3 extra dimensions being perpendicular to large 3 dimensions).


How you do dat? :nerd:

Quoting SpaceDweller
Universe without a beginning means a universe with infinite past events, which means there is no space for new event to add up to infinite number of events.


I'm still chewing on this. . . . . :roll:

Hillary May 19, 2022 at 05:51 #697367
Quoting jgill
How you do dat? :nerd:


A cylinder looks 1D if it's radius is very small. Everywhere on the cylinder, there is a small circle perpendicular to the length direction. Same for three dimensions. Ìf,in 6D, three circles are perpendicular to the other three dimension, then, law and behold, you have a 3D Planckian hypersphere in 6D which looks globally like 3D. Like the circles on a cylinder look pointlike particles in 1D from afar. The Lorenz contraction only happens in the direction of motion, so the Planck length is constant! Damned! :nerd:
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 06:18 #697377
Reply to Relativist

Not if there is a causal, unidirectional time, and a causeless none directional, fluctuating one.
jorndoe May 19, 2022 at 06:42 #697394
(Ignoring for a moment that this sentence is a bit non-sensical ...)

Quoting SpaceDweller
3. therefore there is no space for any further events because infinity can't be used in mathematical operations. (Hillbert hotel problem)


It's a futile pursuit.

Hilbert's Hotel is counter-intuitive but does not derive a contradiction.
Wittgenstein gave a simpler (less technical) argument to the same end, not a contradiction either, but rendering an infinite past counter-intuitive more easily.
Seems they fall back on sufficient reason, so that's what's meant by "absurd" here (yes, Craig has used that word as well) — no sufficient reason, our intuitions violated.
Craig's 1st premise is a special case of sufficient reason.

Yet, what about a definite earliest moment, then? Say, 14 billion years ago (as of the other day)?
Well, why not 20 billion, or, in fact, any other age?
Again, no sufficient reason. Not when temporality is of the universe, and that's what we already asserted.

So, we've hit a (logical) limit of sufficient reason. It's metaphysics anyway, so kind of inherently suspect.

By the way, cosmology typically considers another option: no definite earliest time, and not an infinite past duration. Call it "edge-free" if you like. This option itself seems counter-intuitive, at a first glance at least. Yet, it might be worthwhile.

There are other reasons to bin these cosmological arguments.

SpaceDweller May 19, 2022 at 08:21 #697467
Quoting Relativist
So even if the past is finite, we can still use the term "eternal" to refer to something that exists at all times.


I disagree because usage of the word "eternal" here for universe which has a beginning brings only confusion into discussion.

For universe it's more natural to say finite vs infinite, eternal vs non-eternal, termporal vs timeless etc. at least everybody can understand what one means by this.

Quoting jgill
I'm still chewing on this

From video I posted...
Consider a sequence of an infinite number of dominos representing an infinite number of past events that happened.
The last domino is current event, the present or today.
If you knock down earliest domino so that dominoes start to fall down then today cannot be reached because there is infinite amount of them to fall down until today (present) is reached.
Which is an impossibility.

Quoting jorndoe
Wittgenstein gave a simpler (less technical) argument to the same end

Do you have a link to his argument somewhere, I don't know what I'm looking for.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 09:08 #697488
Quoting SpaceDweller
If you knock down earliest domino so that dominoes start to fall down then today cannot be reached


There is no earliest domino. In an infinite series of big bangs there is always one banging.
Relativist May 19, 2022 at 13:16 #697631
Quoting SpaceDweller
I disagree because usage of the word "eternal" here for universe which has a beginning brings only confusion into discussion.
I don't care, it's just semantics. My fundamental point is that it's coherent to say material reality exists at all times and this precludes it being caused.

You can make different metaphysical assumptions that would make a creator necessary, but you can't prove those assumptions true. That's the nature of all "proofs" of God: they depend on debatable metaphyical assumptions, made conveniently by theists to convince themselves they've "proven" God.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 14:35 #697670
Quoting Relativist
I don't care, it's just semantics. My fundamental point is that it's coherent to say material reality exists at all times and this precludes it being caused.


It's not just semantics. Existing at all times is not existing eternally. Of course something exists as long as it exists so at all times there are. How else can it be. Quoting Relativist


That's the nature of all "proofs" of God: they depend on debatable metaphyical assumptions, made conveniently by theists to convince themselves they've "proven" God.


Not all proofs of god assume the gods before.
Jackson May 19, 2022 at 14:38 #697671
Quoting Hillary
Not all proofs of god assume the gods before.


Give one.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 14:45 #697673
Reply to Jackson

You can see them in dream epihany. Quantum mechanis offers the possibility. There are no laws contradicted. You might hear them speak. I consider that proof.
Jackson May 19, 2022 at 14:47 #697675
Quoting Hillary
You can see them in dream epihany


I don't. Therefore your proof is false.
jorndoe May 19, 2022 at 14:48 #697676
Reply to SpaceDweller ...

Correction, it's attributed to Wittgenstein, not sourced, here's my paraphrase:

Wittgenstein overhears someone saying “5, 1, 4, 1, 3. Done.”
He asks what that was about, and they respond that they just finished reciting ? backward.
“But, how old are you?”
“Infinitely old. I never started, but have been at it forever and finally finished.”


Why finish right at that time, and not some other time, any other time in fact?
Counter-intuitive implications, no sufficient reason.

James Harrington: Time: A Philosophical Introduction
Craig Skinner: Ask a Philosopher: Questions and Answers 47 (2nd series) #94

So, sufficient reason is violated in both of those two cases, counter-intuitive (but not contradictory) implications.
Limit of sufficient reason.
Futile pursuit.

In other news:

Ethan Siegel: Surprise: the Big Bang isn’t the beginning of the universe anymore (Oct 13, 2021)

Hillary May 19, 2022 at 14:59 #697682
Reply to Jackson

To you, yes. For me no.
Jackson May 19, 2022 at 15:00 #697684
Quoting Hillary
To you, yes. For me no.


Therefore it is not a proof.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 15:06 #697688
Quoting Jackson
Therefore it is not a proof.


For you not. For me yes. No, for you too. If I have seen gods in my dream, how you proof it's not directly from the gods. I can proof it is. Because they showed me the true reality of nature.
Jackson May 19, 2022 at 15:07 #697690
Quoting Hillary
For you not. For me yes. No, for you too. If I have seen gods in my dream, how you proof it's not directly from the gods. I can proof it is. Because they showed me the true reality of nature.


A proof is not the mere telling about one's experience.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 15:08 #697691
Quoting jorndoe
Ethan Siegel: Surprise: the Big Bang isn’t the beginning of the universe anymore (Oct 13, 2021)


I could have told him that two years ago already.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 15:09 #697692
Quoting Jackson
A proof is not the mere telling about one's experience.


The mere telling is no proof no. But the experience is.
Jackson May 19, 2022 at 15:10 #697693
Quoting Hillary
The mere telling is no proof no. But the experience is.


Clearly, that is what I meant.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 15:15 #697695
Quoting Jackson
Clearly, that is what I meant.


That the experience is no proof? Then you need to reconsider your proof.
Jackson May 19, 2022 at 15:16 #697696
Quoting Hillary
Then you need to reconsider your proof.


I do not understand this sentence.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 15:19 #697697
Quoting Jackson
I do not understand this sentence


You say that if I tell you I saw gods in my dreams showing heaven and the reason for creation is no proof. I ask you to reconsider. Why is that no proof? Because I can lie about it?
Jackson May 19, 2022 at 15:21 #697698
Quoting Hillary
You say that if I tell you I saw gods in my dreams showing heaven and the reason for creation is no proof. I ask you to reconsider. Why is that no proof? Because I can lie about it?


You proved nothing. You just related an experience. Since I do not have that experience you proved nothing.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 15:23 #697699
Quoting Jackson
You proved nothing. You just related an experience. Since I do not have that experience you proved nothing.


Ah, because you didn't experience that. Well then, what more can I say...
jorndoe May 19, 2022 at 15:45 #697709
Quoting Hillary
The mere telling is no proof no. But the experience is.


The methodology of Carlos René Romero described at "Did Jesus Really Visit the Americas?" (Jul 2008)

Argument from inconsistent revelations (Aug 2018)

You're free to believe whatever, but you're not going to convince anyone else by this methodology.
Maybe you could start providing claims (the more the better) that others can then go out and check?

Relativist May 19, 2022 at 15:48 #697714
Quoting Hillary
It's not just semantics. Existing at all times is not existing eternally.
You're objecting to the meaning of the word "eternal". That is arguing semantics.

[Quote]Of course something exists as long as it exists so at all times there are. How else can it be.[/quote]I didn't merely say it exists at all times it exists. I said it never DOESN'T exist. There is no time prior to its existence, and it never ceases to exist.

To be clear, I'm referring to the fundamental basis of material reality, whatever that might be. This doesn't preclude multiple dimensions of time. I merely assume there is a fundamental basis that is sine qua non for material existence.


Hillary May 19, 2022 at 15:55 #697718
Quoting jorndoe
You're free to believe whatever, but you're not going to convince anyone else by this methodology.


The difficulty is that the inner experience, the dream, is of another quality than experiences in the sciences. We can all see the stone falling to Earth or the diffraction pattern behind the double slit. At the same time, mass psychosis can rule supreme in the sciences and one sees what one wishes for badly. How can we establish a theological methodology, like a scientific methodology?
jorndoe May 19, 2022 at 16:25 #697731
Reply to Hillary, well, if you think such claims are applicable to everyone/everything...

Quoting jorndoe
Maybe you could start providing claims (the more the better) that others can then go out and check?


Slap Trump in a dream, check if he has a bruise the next day, don't forget to apologize?

Hillary May 19, 2022 at 16:28 #697734
Quoting Relativist
didn't merely say it exists at all times it exists. I said it never DOESN'T exist. There is no time prior to its existence, and it never ceases to exist.


But there are two different kinds of time. The emergent causal thermodynamic time and the non-directional, fluctuating time state before that. It doesn't make sense to say the TD timeless state exists in time. That timeless state doesn't need time to be created. It doesn't exist in your time-framed way. It's in direct contact with heaven. Though here I maybe go a bit to far.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 16:29 #697735
Quoting jorndoe
Slap Trump in a dream, check if he has a bruise the next day, don't forget to apologize?


If only I had access... :lol:
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 16:32 #697736
Quoting jorndoe
Maybe you could start providing claims (the more the better) that others can then go out and check?


How can others check the experience? I can only tell it. And the tale told was pretty convincing though the wish might be the father of the dream. Anyhow, it was a wonderful dream.
Jackson May 19, 2022 at 16:35 #697739
Quoting Hillary
How can others check the experience? I can only tell it. And the tale told was pretty convincing though the wish might be the father of the dream. Anyhow, it was a wonderful dream.


Solipsism. Just because you have an experience does not mean it is true for other people.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 16:47 #697751
Quoting Jackson
Solipsism. Just because you have an experience does not mean it is true for other people.


Dunno if it solipsism. I don't deny your existence. Maybe the experience of your world, without gods, is solipsism. You deny my reality.
Jackson May 19, 2022 at 16:51 #697753
Quoting Hillary
You deny my reality.


Remember, the topic of the thread is why proofs for God are not legitimate.
I said nothing about your reality.
Relativist May 19, 2022 at 17:18 #697771
Quoting Hillary
But there are two different kinds of time. The emergent causal thermodynamic time and the non-directional, fluctuating time state before that. It doesn't make sense to say the TD timeless state exists in time. That timeless state doesn't need time to be created. It doesn't exist in your time-framed way. It's in direct contact with heaven. Though here I maybe go a bit to far.

You went too far with your first sentence.

I'm demonstrating that proofs of God's existence depend on questionable metaphysical assumption, and therefore don't comprise an objective proof. Your objection depends on still more questionable assumptions about the metaphysics of time.

Nevertheless, my position is simply that there is a fundamental basis of material reality. This applies irrespective of the number of types or dimensions of time. As the basis, it can't NOT exist- not at any point in any dimension or type of time.

Still, in terms of established science, time is of one type, one dimension, and uni-directional. The "proof" of God that is being considered here is based on this standard paradigm. It has been alleged that a finite past (in this paradigm) entails that material reality must have been caused. I have shown that to be a nonsequitur. It is not entailed by the paradigm, and it depends on making convenient assumptions.

Hillary May 19, 2022 at 18:09 #697794
Quoting Relativist
I'm demonstrating that proofs of God's existence depend on questionable metaphysical assumption


It's no metaphysical assumption. There are no metaphysical assumptions in my cosmology. It's a coherent, self consistent cosmology uniting different disciplines in physics into a solid, rational description of the cosmos. It describes a timeless underlying higher dimensional thermodynamically timeless quantum vacuum structure on which two mirrored universes can inflate into existence periodically. No gaps of knowledge are left. It's a closed structure. Who ordered it? What's the reason the underground structure exists? Only gods offer a rationally reasonable answer.
Jackson May 19, 2022 at 18:36 #697802
Quoting Hillary
Only gods offer a rationally reasonable answer.


Yes. Which is the topic of the thread. There are no proofs for God because people choose to believe.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 18:43 #697803
Quoting Jackson
Yes. Which is the topic of the thread. There are no proofs for God because people choose to believe.


Likewise, there is no proof for the reality of a godless world you choose to believe in. So the best we can do is to accept that there are two objective realities.
Jackson May 19, 2022 at 18:44 #697804
Quoting Hillary
there is no proof for the reality of a godless world you choose to believe in.


I never said that.
Skalidris May 19, 2022 at 18:44 #697805
Reply to Jackson
"Can there be a proof of God?"

This is an interesting question, but even if we can find a proof that God exists, can we also find a proof of how God was created? What if another God created God? Can we find proofs for all the Gods? What if there is an infinite number of Gods?

I think if we find a proof, we wouldn't call it God anymore. And another thing we call God would appear, because the fact that it cannot be proven is part of the God concept...
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 18:49 #697808
Reply to Jackson

Why you want proof in the first place? Because only then you are sure?
Jackson May 19, 2022 at 18:50 #697809
Quoting Hillary
Why you want proof in the first place?


I never said I want a proof.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 18:54 #697813
Quoting Skalidris
can we also find a proof of how God was created?


Eternal intelligences don't need to be created. They are the reason themselves. Non-intelligent material does need a rational reason to exist. Non-intelligent material can't bring itself into existence. It needs intelligence. Intelligent design.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 18:57 #697817
Quoting Jackson
I never said I want a proof.


What then is your critique on theism? You don't have it!
Jackson May 19, 2022 at 18:59 #697818
Quoting Hillary
What then is your critique on theism? You don't have it!


The topic of the thread is the why proofs of God fail. I gave reasons. I did not talk about theism other than in terms of proofs.
jorndoe May 19, 2022 at 19:08 #697823
Quoting Hillary
So the best we can do is to accept that there are two objective realities.


Don't think that can make sense.
What about, say, Nettles' and Applewhite's fantasies...?
There are such things as fiction, fantasies, imaginations, hallucinations, etc — things that aren't universal/extra-self, but experienced by someone nonetheless, right?
If people believe contradictory things, then it stands to reason that they can't both be right.
How would such contradictory things play out anyway?

Relativist May 19, 2022 at 19:09 #697824
Reply to Hillary Here's a few of your metaphysical assumptions:
1. there are two different kinds of time.
2. Emergent causal thermodynamic time
3. non-directional, fluctuating time
4. timeless state
5. Existence of gods

Quoting Hillary
It's a coherent, self consistent cosmology uniting different disciplines in physics into a solid, rational description of the cosmos.
I haven't challenged the coherence of your claims; I'm just pointing out that they still assumptions- not established fact. Therefore, they don't defeat my claims.

Hillary May 19, 2022 at 19:13 #697826
Reply to jorndoe


Be it the reality of the physical cosmos, the gods, astrology, the dreamtime, the mind, the witches, or whatever reality, there is no one and only absolute reality. For different people there are different objective realities. The absolute reality, the one reality is an ancient idea. Introduced by Plato, Xenophanes, etc.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 19:14 #697827
Quoting Relativist
Here's a few of your metaphysical assumptions:
1. there are two different kinds of time.
2. Emergent causal thermodynamic time
3. non-directional, fluctuating time
4. timeless state
5. Existence of gods


Only 5. is metaphysical. The first four are physical.
180 Proof May 19, 2022 at 19:15 #697828
Quoting jorndoe
So, we've hit a (logical) limit of sufficient reason. It's metaphysics anyway, so kind of inherently suspect.

By the way, cosmology typically considers another option: no definite earliest time, and not an infinite past duration. Call it "edge-free" if you like. This option itself seems counter-intuitive, at a first glance at least. Yet, it might be worthwhile.

:fire: :100:

Quoting 180 Proof
The why question doesn't apply to the existence of gods, as eternal intelligences don't require another reason.
— Hillary

Why not?

@Hillary you ought to answer this question like your credibility depends on it because it does.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 19:16 #697830
Quoting Relativist
I haven't challenged the coherence of your claims; I'm just pointing out that they still assumptions- not established fact.


They can't be established as physical facts by experiment but they are part of this universe, like virtual particles are. They are obvious physical facts.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 19:18 #697831
Quoting jorndoe
By the way, cosmology typically considers another option: no definite earliest time, and not an infinite past duration. Call it "edge-free" if you like. This option itself seems counter-intuitive, at a first glance at least. Yet, it might be worthwhile.


This is a nonsensical claim in the wider picture I offer.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 19:24 #697834
Quoting jorndoe
By the way, cosmology typically considers another option: no definite earliest time, and not an infinite past duration


Sounds reasonable and for the current universe it holds. There was fluctuating time before the emergent thermodynamic time. The primordial clock goes forward and backwards (virtual particles). The clock emerging from it (real particle pairs emerging from a virtual, the quantum bubble is broken)..

But... the virtual state needs a trigger. A previous universe. The 5D quantum vacuum ensures this.
Relativist May 19, 2022 at 20:48 #697881
Quoting Hillary
Only 5. is metaphysical. The first four are physical.

You don't understand what metaphysics means. Here's an excerpt from the Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy:

Metaphysics ... refers to the study of the most basic items or features of reality (ontology) or to the study of the most basic concepts used in an account of reality

Jackson May 19, 2022 at 20:51 #697883
Quoting Relativist
You don't understand what metaphysics means. Here's an excerpt from the Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy:

Metaphysics ... refers to the study of the most basic items or features of reality (ontology) or to the study of the most basic concepts used in an account of reality


Aristotle defines metaphysics as first philosophy. The discussion of the basic principles one uses in philosophy.
180 Proof May 19, 2022 at 20:54 #697885
Relativist May 19, 2022 at 20:56 #697887
Quoting Hillary
I haven't challenged the coherence of your claims; I'm just pointing out that they still assumptions- not established fact. — Relativist

They can't be established as physical facts by experiment but they are part of this universe, like virtual particles are. They are obvious physical facts.
OK then, how can these "facts" be established as true?

Understand, I don't care what you believe, but you're presenting your view as some established facts - which they aren't. If you merely want to say these assumptions of yours are reasons to reject what I'm saying, that's fine.


Jackson May 19, 2022 at 20:59 #697889
Quoting Relativist
Understand, I don't care what you believe, but you're presenting your view as some established facts - which they aren't. If you merely want to say these assumptions of yours are reasons to reject what I'm saying, that's fine.


The argument presented is:

I like vanilla ice cream. Vanilla is the best flavor of ice cream. Therefore, vanilla is the best flavor of ice cream.
180 Proof May 19, 2022 at 21:02 #697891
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 21:04 #697893
Quoting Relativist
Metaphysics ... refers to the study of the most basic items or features of reality (ontology) or to the study of the most basic concepts used in an account of reality


That's physics and theology in one!
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 21:09 #697899
Quoting Relativist
OK then, how can these "facts" be established as true?


By using your mind
DingoJones May 19, 2022 at 21:26 #697915
Reply to Hillary

More accurately, your imagination.
Hillary May 19, 2022 at 21:32 #697918
Reply to DingoJones


Exactly! Certain things are difficult to imagine though. Like the nature of physical charge. It lays st the foundation of consciousness. We can imagine though whats it like to be an electron.
jgill May 19, 2022 at 22:35 #697951
Quoting SpaceDweller
Consider a sequence of an infinite number of dominos representing an infinite number of past events that happened.
The last domino is current event, the present or today.
If you knock down earliest domino so that dominoes start to fall down then today cannot be reached because there is infinite amount of them to fall down until today (present) is reached.
Which is an impossibility


As mentioned, no "earliest" domino. But your argument is similar to a math idea I worked on in which earlier and earlier "dominos" do indeed produce a current event.

Quoting Hillary
Same for three dimensions. Ìf,in 6D, three circles are perpendicular to the other three dimension, . . .


Define "perpendicular" - remember angles arise in Euclidean spaces.


Relativist May 19, 2022 at 23:10 #697973
Quoting Hillary
OK then, how can these "facts" be established as true?
— Relativist

By using your mind

LOL! Sure, but explain the reasoning that unequivocally establishes your claims as fact.
chiknsld May 20, 2022 at 02:05 #698049
Quoting 180 Proof
Just a thought:

Either

(A) g/G "created" everything for a reason; therefore, Reason is divine and g/G is not worthy of worship ...

or

(B) g/G "created" everything arbitraily, without reason, by chance; therefore, Chance (i.e. randomness à la vacuum fluctuation) is divine and g/G is not worthy of worship ...

So what does this "prove"? Nothing but the obvious – (whether or not it exists) g/G is superfluous and does not itself explain or justify anything.


:snicker: Is that the best you got buddy?
180 Proof May 20, 2022 at 02:25 #698061
Reply to chiknsld You got better? Well then smoke 'em if you got 'em ...
chiknsld May 20, 2022 at 02:46 #698077
Quoting 180 Proof
You got better? Well then smoke 'em if you 'em ...


Let's just start with that kindergarten logic you're using...

Quoting 180 Proof
(A) g/G "created" everything for a reason; therefore, Reason is divine and g/G is not worthy of worship ...


Literally just a begging of the question...and are you making "reason" objective? Like so many flaws with this I have no clue what to attack.

Quoting 180 Proof
g/G "created" everything arbitraily, without reason...


More begging the question...why do you keep applying "reason" to God and then making a 2-bit logical conclusion off of that very assumption? You'd be better off saying that God exists for a reason and such reason supersedes any of his goal-driven actions lol. Your concept of God is not even ready for reasonable discourse.

Quoting 180 Proof
...by chance; therefore, Chance (i.e. randomness à la vacuum fluctuation) is divine and g/G is not worthy of worship ...


Okay this is a bit more reasonable because now at least you are talking about concepts...

"Divine" :snicker: This is bad on so many levels, just gonna skip that part.

So you don't wanna worship chance? Why not? :rofl:

So reason and chance made the world, both are divine and God is not worthy of worship...so bad :rofl:

Btw this is YOUR logic! I quoted it so you would never forget it, but since you wanted a better response...

Hillary May 20, 2022 at 03:02 #698079
Reply to jgill

Well, on a cylinder the cylindrical length and circumference coordinate lines are locally perpendicular. If you approach the SoL in the length direction, the circle òn the perpendicular dimension doesn't Lorenz contract.

180 Proof May 20, 2022 at 03:19 #698088
Reply to chiknsld Go waste someone else's time.
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 03:22 #698090
Reply to chiknsld

:lol:

Don't blame him. He's born like that.... :lol:
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 03:24 #698093
Quoting chiknsld
Divine" :snicker: This is bad on so many levels, just gonna skip that part.

So you don't wanna worship chance? Why not? :rofl:

So reason and chance made the world, both are divine and God is not worthy of worship...so bad :rofl:

Btw this is YOUR logic! I quoted it so you would never forget it, but since you wanted a better response


:lol: :100:

Unforgettable!
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 09:35 #698226
Quoting PoeticUniverse
This is getting near to doomed notion that something can come out of a true lack of anything or 'Nothing'. If something pops out out, then was there was still something behind it, which is the capability for it and so that would be the something that is eternal.


The point is, we can't speak about an eternal timeless underlying substance, since time doesn't apply to it.
chiknsld May 20, 2022 at 10:58 #698261
Quoting 180 Proof
?chiknsld Go waste someone else's time.


me(Me) wasted your (time) but time is divine, therefore I am not worthy of (worship) (DIVINE).
(Divine, worship) time)).

Sorry that probably makes more sense to you right? (right) RIGHT?) :rofl:
chiknsld May 20, 2022 at 11:00 #698262
Reply to Hillary :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :snicker:
chiknsld May 20, 2022 at 11:22 #698270
Let's try to give 180 the credit he deserves...

Reason created the world? Nope, does not make sense.

Chance created the world? Nope, does not make sense.

God is not divine? Non-sequitur.

God is divine or not divine based on the former? Yea that makes total sense.

God must have made the world for a reason and therefore Reason (now objective, hence the capital "R") really created the world, because God did not do it anymore, Reason did it.

Reason created the world. Yea that makes total sense.

God must have made the world but not for any particular reason, therefore Chance created the world.

Since Chance created the world then there is no reason to worship God, you see, because at first God created the world, but then we figured out that Chance actually created the world.

Good job 180 :up:

Hillary May 20, 2022 at 11:59 #698277
Reply to chiknsld

You're truly have the better hand here, chiknsld (chickensalad? chiknslud?)! Keep it coming! :joke:
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 12:02 #698278
Reply to chiknsld

Again: that's true and great philosophy! And it's funny also! Keel it comiiiing! :lol: :up: :victory: :ok: , more fingers I aint got!
chiknsld May 20, 2022 at 12:38 #698282
Quoting Hillary
You're truly have the better hand here, chiknsld (chickensalad? chiknslud?)! Keep it coming! :joke:


:rofl: :rofl:

Quoting Hillary
Again: that's true and great philosophy! And it's funny also! Keel it comiiiing! :lol: :up: :victory: :ok: , more fingers I aint got!


Can you tell how inspired I am? I am reverberating deep, and profound insight!




Hillary May 20, 2022 at 12:52 #698285
Quoting chiknsld
Can you tell how inspired I am? I am reverberating deep, and profound insight!


Yeah! Perfectly reverberated! (Had to translate, so new word learned! )

:up:
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 13:02 #698287
Quoting chiknsld
Reason created the world. Yea that makes total sense.

God must have made the world but not for any particular reason, therefore Chance created the world.

Since Chance created the world then there is no reason to worship God, you see, because at first God created the world, but then we figured out that Chance actually created the world.


Brilliant! :starstruck:
chiknsld May 20, 2022 at 13:19 #698294
Quoting Hillary
Reason created the world. Yea that makes total sense.

God must have made the world but not for any particular reason, therefore Chance created the world.

Since Chance created the world then there is no reason to worship God, you see, because at first God created the world, but then we figured out that Chance actually created the world.
— chiknsld

Brilliant! :starstruck:


Thanks Hillary, but you know it's all due to the glory of Chance. Thank Chance that I was able to come up with that incredible logic. Were it not for the little chance molecules in my brain, I would have definitely made an error. :snicker:
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 13:25 #698298
Quoting chiknsld
Thanks Hillary, but you know it's all due to the glory of Chance. Thank Chance that I was able to come up with that incredible logic. Were it not for the little chance molecules in my brain, I would have definitely made an error


:lol:

The gods had it all arranged for damned well.... Every new pair of universes inevitably inflating to our lifes. Next life it will be me being told I'm brilliant!
chiknsld May 20, 2022 at 13:32 #698300
Reply to Hillary You are brilliant! Did they say something that I missed? I saw the video of Hawking saying that the universe is eternal and nothing is surrounding it? Goodness, they try so hard don't they? :snicker:
chiknsld May 20, 2022 at 13:34 #698301
Quoting SpaceDweller
...however saying that there is no beginning is logically impossible.


Correct. :up:
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 13:37 #698304


Quoting chiknsld
You are brilliant! Did they something that I missed? I saw the video of Hawking saying that the universe is eternal and nothing is surrounding it? Goodness they try so hard don't they




It feels like voices of ancestors are cheering!

They try much to hard... keeping the epiphanic glorious image from beeing seen! Damned I'm good! :joke:
Jackson May 20, 2022 at 13:43 #698307
Quoting chiknsld
...however saying that there is no beginning is logically impossible.
— SpaceDweller

Correct. :up:


What is the logical contradiction in the universe having no beginning?
chiknsld May 20, 2022 at 13:50 #698311
Quoting Skalidris
"Can there be a proof of God?"

This is an interesting question, but even if we can find a proof that God exists, can we also find a proof of how God was created? What if another God created God? Can we find proofs for all the Gods? What if there is an infinite number of Gods?

I think if we find a proof, we wouldn't call it God anymore. And another thing we call God would appear, because the fact that it cannot be proven is part of the God concept...


Another thing is that maybe God does not want to be proven. :)
Jackson May 20, 2022 at 13:53 #698313
Quoting chiknsld
Another thing is that maybe God does not want to be proven.


Why would that be?
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 13:55 #698317
Quoting Jackson
What is the logical contradiction in the universe having no beginning?


It must have a beginning, for if not, we would see chaos only.
Jackson May 20, 2022 at 13:55 #698318
Quoting Hillary
It must have a beginning, for if not, we would see chaos only.


What does beginning have to do with chaos?
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 13:59 #698319
Reply to Jackson

According to the second law of thermodynamics, if time had no beginning, the state of the universe would be thermal equilibrium. As we see an orderly world, past time is finite.
chiknsld May 20, 2022 at 13:59 #698320
Quoting Jackson
Another thing is that maybe God does not want to be proven.
— chiknsld

Why would that be?


When I figure that one out, I shall let you know. :)

Probably the hardest question in the world.
Jackson May 20, 2022 at 14:00 #698321
Quoting Hillary
past time is finite.


Finite or infinite do not seem the same as saying there is no beginning.
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 14:02 #698324
Quoting chiknsld
When I figure that one out, I shall let you know. :)

Probably the hardest question in the world.


A very astute observation. Why would, should, or could gods be proven in a "scientifically rigorous" way? It's not hard to answer though...
Jackson May 20, 2022 at 14:02 #698325
Quoting Hillary
A very astute observation. Why would, should, or could gods be proven in a "scientifically rigorous" way?


Again, I said nothing about science.
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 14:03 #698326
Quoting Jackson
Finite or infinite do not seem the same as saying there is no beginning.


Doesn't finite say there is a beginning?
chiknsld May 20, 2022 at 14:04 #698327
Quoting Hillary
A very astute observation. Why would, should, or could gods be proven in a "scientifically rigorous" way? It's not hard to answer though...


Thank you sir, but it is beyond the proof...the issue is that it may be that God is punishing us. :scream:
chiknsld May 20, 2022 at 14:05 #698328
But then we would have to ask, do you see life as a gift or as a punishment? If punishment, what on earth did we do wrong?
Jackson May 20, 2022 at 14:05 #698329
Quoting Hillary
Doesn't finite say there is a beginning?


No.
chiknsld May 20, 2022 at 14:09 #698330
I think the issue is that most atheists see life as a punishment, therefore unless we can discover what our crimes were, it is logically more feasible to say there is no punishment and there is no God that commanded the punishment, rather life is a random anomaly. Sure, it's an emotional point of view devoid of cold logic, but we are human beings and we do have emotions sometimes. :)
Skalidris May 20, 2022 at 15:45 #698344
Quoting chiknsld
Another thing is that maybe God does not want to be proven


Yep that works too!

Quoting Jackson
Why would that be?


Because it's in the concept itself ;)
jgill May 20, 2022 at 18:33 #698384
Quoting Hillary
Well, on a cylinder the cylindrical length and circumference coordinate lines are locally perpendicular. If you approach the SoL in the length direction, the circle òn the perpendicular dimension doesn't Lorenz contract.


And the mystery deepens. No cigar.
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 19:29 #698405
Quoting jgill
And the mystery deepens. No cigar.


The mystery deepens but the Planck length is made Lorenz invariant! :nerd:

Lorenz invariance of the Planck length
jgill May 20, 2022 at 21:30 #698443
Quoting Hillary
The mystery deepens but the Planck length is made Lorenz invariant! :nerd:


My spine tingles at this revelation! I can carry out my experiments on Mars.

Still stumped at "perpendicular" eh? :cool:
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 21:42 #698446
Reply to jgill

On a cylinder, aren't the length direction and the circumference direction perpendicular? :cool:
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 21:45 #698447
Quoting jgill
My spine tingles at this revelation! I can carry out my experiments on Mars.


:lol:

If the particles are circles on a cylinder, how close can they approach. Whats the distance between two circles?
jgill May 20, 2022 at 21:48 #698449
Quoting Hillary
If the particles are circles on a cylinder, how close can they approach. Whats the distance between two circles?


I'm getting dizzy going around in circles. What's the distance? An infinitesimal. Do you really think of particles as circles on cylinders? A reference would help.
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 21:54 #698456
Quoting jgill
I'm getting dizzy going around in circles. What's the distance? An infinitesimal. Do you really think of particles as circles on cylinders? A reference would help


The circles on cylinders are the 2D case to visualize. The 6D case contains perpendicular 3D closed planck spheres, like the 1D circle. If this is oerpendicular to 3D the particles look like points from afar. If they are on top of each other their distance is the Planck length, more or less. Closer they cant get!
jgill May 20, 2022 at 21:55 #698458
Quoting Hillary
If this is perpendicular to 3D . . .


There you go again.

Hillary May 20, 2022 at 21:57 #698459
Reply to jgill

Yes. On a cylinder all angles between the circle and the length are 90 degrees. Perpendicular!

Perpendicularity doesnt mean straight lines. Its my impression you're very good in the complex plane but reak space confuses you... :chin:
jgill May 20, 2022 at 22:00 #698462
Reply to Hillary

Back in Euclidean 3-space I see. I want "perpendicular" to refer to an object in 5D relative to an object in 3D.
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 22:03 #698463
Quoting jgill
. I want "perpendicular" to refer to an object in 5D relative to an object in 3D.


You lost me... Why you want that?
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 22:06 #698464
Reply to jgill

Like the perpendicular circle can move in one perpendicular direction, so can the 3d closed perpendicular structure move in 3 perpendicular directions. Like a particle!
Varde May 20, 2022 at 22:08 #698465
It depends on what God.
jgill May 20, 2022 at 22:09 #698466
Quoting Hillary
You lost me... Why you want that?



Quoting Hillary
(The 3 extra dimensions being perpendicular to large 3 dimensions).


You need to brush up on what "perpendicular" might mean in higher dimensions, minus the hand waving. How can we understand the notion in our human context.
Varde May 20, 2022 at 22:11 #698467
What if God is not a being, and is thought of as more being(in a sense of 'to be')-ness, is that provable?

Per se, God, the cohesive energy(not the God I believe in but...).

Hillary May 20, 2022 at 22:34 #698475
Quoting jgill
You need to brush up on what "perpendicular" might mean in higher dimensions


It means the same as a circle around a cylinder being perpendicular to the length of the cylinder. Every tangent on the circle is perpendicular to the length direction. What's so difficult to understand?
Hillary May 20, 2022 at 23:17 #698484
Quoting jgill
How can we understand the notion in our human context.


Take a long plastic pipe. Put a string around it. Move the string over the pipe. The structure is 2d but if the pipe is thin enough it looks like 1D. What more human context do you need. It's impoosible to understand how you put a 3d elastique around a 6d cylinder.

The mathematical description is not too difficult.
jgill May 21, 2022 at 03:57 #698573
Quoting Hillary
(The 3 extra dimensions being perpendicular to large 3 dimensions).


Are "dimensions" perpendicular to one another? Is two dimension perpendicular to one dimension? What is a "large" dimension in this context?

Quoting Hillary
The mathematical description is not too difficult.


https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3175854/finding-perpendicular-vector-to-an-arbitrary-n-dimensional-vector

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/733264/can-four-lines-be-perpendicular

Orthogonality is a generalization of perpendicularity. When one goes up in dimensions usually one speaks of manifolds, most frequently differentiable or Riemannian manifolds. Inner products arise in connection with orthogonality.
Agent Smith May 21, 2022 at 06:39 #698595
[quote=Jackson]What does beginning have to do with chaos?[/quote]

P(A) = Probability of actualization

p = Potential quantified

p of chaos = [math]\infty[/math] (Chaos has infinite potential)

[math]\lim_{p \to \infty} P(A) = 1[/math]

The universe was born from chaos.



Hillary May 21, 2022 at 09:24 #698631
Reply to jgill

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/4375742/what-is-the-3-dimensional-equivalent-of-this-1-dimensional-problem

Hillary May 21, 2022 at 10:09 #698642
Reply to jgill

Oh, mr. Gill, this is a philosophy forum, not a math forum. Yes, the tangent planes on the cylinder contain two perpendicular vectors. One in the direction of the circle, one in the direction of the length. There is no Lorenz contraction in the circle if it speeds close to light.
jgill May 21, 2022 at 20:58 #698806
Quoting Hillary
Oh, mr. Gill, this is a philosophy forum


Yes, you are correct. It's easy to get deflected into science or math. In any event you and I are talking past one another, so I'll cool it. :cool:
Hillary May 21, 2022 at 23:03 #698873
Quoting jgill
What's the distance? An infinitesimal. Do you really think of particles as circles on cylinders? A reference would help.


The distance between two circles on top of each other is not zero. There are points on both circles that lay a diameter apart. So if we consider the particles as circles (in the 1D case) they can never get at zero distance. Nor can they form a singularity, which solves the black hole for singularity.
Agent Smith June 23, 2022 at 06:09 #711438
1. Jews believe in God.

2. Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 900 individuals, of whom at least 20% were Jews (ref. Wikipedia)

Ergo,

3. God exists.

:snicker:
Rocco Rosano June 23, 2022 at 07:29 #711486
Reply to Agent Smith
RE: Can there be a proof of God?
SUBTOPIC: Presented Logic String
??. Agent Smith, et al,

(SHORT ANSWER)

NO: Proof
  • In mathematics, along with the sciences, a proof isa logical argument demonstrating that a specific statement,proposition, or mathematical formula is true. Itconsists of a set of assumptions, or premises, which arecombined according to logical rules (called rules oflogic), to establish a valid conclusion. This validationcan be achieved by direct proof that verifies the conclusionis true, or by indirect proof that establishesthat it cannot be false.SOURCE: Gale encyclopedia of science. – 4th ed. K. Lee Lerner & Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, editors.p. 3508 cm.


Scientific Method
  • Scientific thought seeks to make sense of nature.One test of the adequacy of a scientific explanation isits ability to make accurate predictions about futureevents and observations. Just as the engineer whodesigns a bridge ensures that it will withstand theforces of nature and use, so the scientist considers theability of any new scientific model to hold up underscientific scrutiny as new data become available.SOURCE: Gale encyclopedia of science. – 4th ed. K. Lee Lerner & Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, editors.p. 3817 cm.


(COMMENT)

Belief in the Supreme Being of the Universe is a matter of "Faith." The existence of a Supreme Being, absent proof that survives the Scientific Method, becomes a philosophical exercise into a Metaphysical question. In contemporary science. One of the axioms of a choice "Axiom of Choice Principle." It makes it possible to form sets by choosing an element simultaneously from each member of an "infinite collection of sets" even when no algorithm exists for the selection. Is that possibly? (RHETORICAL). NO... So it is not a proof. There will always be an incomplete set based on the undefined variable which is constant.

There is another closely related theory known as the Axiom of Archimedes Principle. It to is imperfect because it contains the element of "infinity."

Most Respectfully,
R





Agent Smith June 23, 2022 at 07:58 #711495
Reply to Rocco Rosano

I was driving and this: Always ask on any topic whatsoever the question "What do (Ashkenazi) jews have to say about this?" A good rule of thumb given it is a proven fact that (Ashkenazi) jews have high IQ. Dear ol' Albert Einstein was a(n) (Ashkenazi) jew!

P. S. Please don't leave us. Danke in advance.

Apologies if this comes off as racist! Not my intention. Mods, feel free to delete the post if it's offensive in any way. Cheers!
punos June 23, 2022 at 08:09 #711498
Quoting Agent Smith
The universe was born from chaos.


Is the "chaos" you're speaking of just another name for "random quantum fluctuations?
Also, in your view is it reasonable to consider this "Chaos" even though it may not be conscious to be "God the Creator", and vice versa (impersonal God)?

I'm wondering if an idea like this could possibly help close the gap between left brain people and right brain people (scientific and religious people respectively). A potential way to unify science and religion in a new common light. The religion of the future perhaps?
Agent Smith June 23, 2022 at 08:14 #711499
Reply to punos For better or worse I'm quantum illiterate!

All I can say is that we're trying to fit the oceans into a teacup. Not a good idea, but the thing is we don't have a choice!
punos June 23, 2022 at 08:19 #711502
Reply to Agent Smith
Quoting Agent Smith
All I can say is that we're trying to fit the oceans into a teacup. Not a good idea, but the thing is we don't have a choice!


Have a choice for what?
What do you mean exactly by "fit the oceans into a teacup"?
Agent Smith June 23, 2022 at 08:22 #711503
Quoting punos
Have a choice for what?
What do you mean exactly by "fit the oceans into a teacup"?


:brow:
Yohan June 23, 2022 at 08:23 #711504
If God is the fundamental basis of all things, then God would be, if it's not a misuse of terms, a sort of "supreme axiom."

Axioms can't be proven or disproven? They are self evident and must be established before proving and disproving are even possible.
So if God is the "supreme axiom", it can't be proven, but must be necessary.

But yet then, why isn't God self evident to everyone?

Or is He, but not everyone realises it?

Perhaps related, Descarte's cogito points to us only being able to be sure of our own existence.
What if I AM may be the root axiom?

I don't think the cogito proves the ego definitely exists, but that the Awareness exists in which the ego appears as a content of the awareness.

It's popular modern Buddhism to talk about No-Self.
Egoless Consciousness may be the supreme reality?
But yet in classic Buddhism there are mentions of more and more subtle states of meditative absorbtion, in which even "infinite consciousness" is left behind for an even subtler state. I think the highest state mentioned was called, in English translation, neither perception nor non-perception.

Perhaps it is wiser to not try to form a concept of the ultimate reality too much






punos June 23, 2022 at 08:24 #711505
Reply to Agent Smith
I don't understand. You don't want to clarify, not even a little?
Agent Smith June 23, 2022 at 08:25 #711506
Quoting punos
I don't understand. You don't want to clarify, not even a little?


I'm afraid it isn't a choice I have/make.
punos June 23, 2022 at 08:27 #711508
Reply to Agent Smith
That's the point, don't choose just do. Can you do?
punos June 23, 2022 at 08:36 #711509
Reply to Agent Smith
I'm not challenging you about your stance on "free will", i'm actually agreeing with you on this matter here and now. I personally don't care if you believe in "free will" or not, i thought i was having an academic discussion with you. Was i wrong, was it more than that?

I would find it regrettable to have a communication breakdown with you simply because we may have disagreed about one thing or another.
Agent Smith June 23, 2022 at 08:52 #711511
Quoting punos
That's the point, don't choose just do. Can you do?


I'm afraid my brain won't allow it!

Quoting punos
I'm not challenging you about your stance on "free will", i'm actually agreeing with you on this matter here and now. I personally don't care if you believe in "free will" or not, i thought i was having an academic discussion with you. Was i wrong, was it more than that?

I would find it regrettable to have a communication breakdown with you simply because we may have disagreed about one thing or another.


It's just the way it is, oui? Ups and downs, crests and troughs, peaks and valleys, to and fro, rise and fall. We needn't let small misunderstandings get in the way of progress.

Coming back to the questions you put to me, I'd say I'm as much in the dark as everyone else is I suppose. Consider this report I got from my antivirus: 4 GB of junk files.
punos June 23, 2022 at 09:00 #711514
Reply to Agent Smith
It's not a question of fact, i was inquiring as to your opinion. Are you dark to your own opinion?

The question was:
In your opinion would you consider "Chaos" and "God" to be essentially the same thing?
Agent Smith June 23, 2022 at 09:08 #711516
Quoting punos
"Chaos" and "God" to be essentially the same thing?


Ok, ok. My personal views on the matter are that chaos and God, other relevant concepts are simply values assigned to the variable primum movens (first cause). It appears to me that people fear ignorance more than falsehoods. Something's better than nothing!
punos June 23, 2022 at 09:23 #711521
Reply to Agent Smith
I concur with that too, what people really mean by God is the "prime mover", and if that is really what at least some people are looking for then the concept of "chaos" fits the bill. Chaos is also energy, and people define God the same way scientists define Energy. Energy (God) can not be created nor destroyed. It will take some redefining of terms, but it is possible in my opinion. The Greeks did it in their myths, i think they called it the "pleroma".
Agent Smith June 23, 2022 at 09:29 #711523
[quote=punos]I concur with that too, what people really mean by God is the "prime mover", and if that is really what at least some people are looking for then the concept of "chaos" fits the bill. Chaos is also energy, and people define God the same way scientists define Energy. Energy (God) can not be created nor destroyed. It will take some redefining of terms, but it is possible in my opinion. The Greeks did it in their myths, i think they called it the "pleroma".[/quote]

You might find :point: Agent Detection interesting!
punos June 23, 2022 at 09:51 #711526
Reply to Agent Smith
Thank you, I am aware of Agent Detection in human psychology, but not necessarily in those terms.
My reasoning for the value in attempting what i'm suggesting has to do with that and other human psychological features that drive us to do things like believe in God or gods, or angels, or fairies, it doesn't matter. Some social structures such as religion should function to balance out psychological drives in the population.

If the ideas or memes floating around in the population are not sufficient to balance out the primal drives in man then significant problems can happen. Outdated notions of God may become very problematic the further we move into modernity, or postmodernity. I think religion does have a useful purpose, but it needs to evolve with our understanding of the universe, and not remain static. We won't always know everything but we can know some things, and that's all we got at any point in time to work with. It may be time for an upgrade.
punos June 23, 2022 at 09:56 #711529
Reply to Agent Smith
I myself don't believe in God, but i do see how other people may need that type of concept in their lives, i can't blame them for what evolution has done to them and all of us. I've had people tell me they don't want to live if they found out God wasn't real. That makes me sad.
Agent Smith June 23, 2022 at 09:58 #711531
@punos

Religion, in my humble opinion, is all-encompassing/holistic - it not only looks at hard evidence, it also factors in our hopes/fears/dreams/nightmares/and so on. Hence the monibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent creator deity. It could be said that theology is taking it last few breaths as science delegitimizes our feelings on the matter.
punos June 23, 2022 at 10:37 #711541
Reply to Agent Smith
I would say that too, that theology is taking its last breaths, but i'm also thinking that there will be remnants that will not let go at any cost, and they may become very violent towards those they think threaten their god or religion. This will probably happen in some form or other because if you take away their ability to believe in their god or religion, but they still have those psychological drives, then you get problems.

Part of a working theory i'm currently working on is this:
I think that religion will probably experience a resurgence soon after AI begins to exceed human capabilities, and probably even exceed our level of consciousness. Especially together with Brain-Machine-Interfaces (BMIs), people will begin to think of AI as a type of god. The potential for connecting human minds together technologically with AI in some human/AI hybrid mind hive, and the absence of traditional religion, will drive themselves to the next nearest thing. It will bring with it the old promises of "immortality" (mind-uploading), "heaven" (simulated environments), with a near omnipotent, omniscient AI as their god. People like always will want to belong to something bigger than themselves, many won't be able to resist.

I know it sounds crazy, but it's only a theory of our potential developmental trajectory.
ssu June 23, 2022 at 10:51 #711547
Hmm... proof of God?

I wonder if people have been in a Church listening to a sermon where the priest has talked about really "thinking" about Jesus, using your brain, using logic, using your knowledge and deducting it all and the finding yourself the proof, a proof that simply is, like it or not, and something that has nothing to do with your emotions.

And something that has nothing to do with faith.

:snicker:

punos June 23, 2022 at 11:24 #711553
Reply to ssu
Quoting ssu
Something that has nothing to do with faith.


I have faith in logic, and mathematics.

In John chapter 1 of the Bible it states "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
The word "Word" is translated from Greek as "Logos", our root for our English word logic. So if one wants to have faith in God then one must have faith in logic, because God is Logic. Logic and mathematics has always been their even in the chaos.

In Genesis chapter 1 verse 2 it says "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. "
This is Logic (God) hovering or within the primordial Chaos (void, darkness, the deep, the waters), or "random quantum fluctuations".
universeness June 23, 2022 at 11:48 #711557
Quoting punos
In Genesis chapter 1 verse 2 it says "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. "


No logic in this biblical BS at all, is there? I don't think the science works either?
If the Earth was without form and void then where were these waters flowing?
God has a spirit? and it 'hovers?' Is god logically quantisable? who witnessed this 'hovering' ability?
Is that part of the god posit? 'spiritual hovering?'
'Darkness over the face of the deep?' So does that mean there was water before there was a Sun?
You don't need to have 'faith' in maths or logic, as it adds no value to maths or logic. you just have to demonstrate the maths works and the logic is sound for the cases you want to use it for!
Tom Storm June 23, 2022 at 11:52 #711558
Quoting ssu
wonder if people have been in a Church listening to a sermon where the priest has talked about really "thinking" about Jesus, using your brain, using logic, using your knowledge and deducting it all and the finding yourself the proof, a proof that simply is, like it or not, and something that has nothing to do with your emotions.


Kind of - it's called presuppositional apologetics. There's also Alvin Plantinga an influential American analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology, and logic. His arguments have made their way into churches I've seen for many years.
universeness June 23, 2022 at 11:52 #711559
Quoting punos
Part of a working theory i'm currently working on is this:
I think that religion will probably experience a resurgence soon after AI begins to exceed human capabilities, and probably even exceed our level of consciousness. Especially together with Brain-Machine-Interfaces (BMIs), people will begin to think of AI as a type of god. The potential for connecting human minds together technologically with AI in some human/AI hybrid mind hive, and the absence of traditional religion, will drive themselves to the next nearest thing. It will bring with it the old promises of "immortality" (mind-uploading), "heaven" (simulated environments), with a near omnipotent, omniscient AI as their god. People like always will want to belong to something bigger than themselves, many won't be able to resist.

I know it sounds crazy, but it's only a theory of our potential developmental trajectory


I think this was the main storyline for the humanoid Cylon models in the remake of Battlestar Galactica!
punos June 23, 2022 at 12:13 #711563
Reply to universeness
First you must rememmber the Bible is not a science book, people back then thought and communicated differently than we do, they didn't have science like we do. Most of the language is allegorical or metaphorical.

Quoting universeness
If the Earth was without form and void then where were these waters flowing?

"The Earth was without form" means the Earth didn't even exist yet, and the "waters" are representative of "primordial chaos"

Quoting universeness
God has a spirit? and it 'hovers?' Is god logically quantisable? who witnessed this 'hovering' ability?

The spirit of God is "Logic".
Hovers means that Logic is within and around the Chaos (waters).
If logic is logically quantisable then i guess God can be too, or not.
The hovering didn't need to be observed because it had no other place it could be.

Quoting universeness
You don't need to have 'faith' in maths or logic, as it adds no value to maths or logic. you just have to demonstrate the maths works and the logic is sound for the cases you want to use it for!


It doesn't add value to maths or logic. You are demonstrating in this quote your faith in the power of logic to yield truth when you want to know something. I have faith that 2 + 2 = 4 because of math and logic. I don't doubt i can use maths and logic to discover and understand things i would never be able to otherwise.
punos June 23, 2022 at 12:16 #711564
Reply to universeness Quoting universeness
I think this was the main storyline for the humanoid Cylon models in the remake of Battlestar Galactica!


Hmm... interesting if it is i didn't realize, but i think it makes sense for it to be a possibility. I don't think i'm the only one to see it.
universeness June 23, 2022 at 12:27 #711567
Reply to punos
Might be worth watching it then. The Cylons decide to wipe out their human creators because they believe that's what god commands them to do.
punos June 23, 2022 at 12:41 #711572
Reply to universeness
I saw it very long ago, but would like to watch it again when i get some time, i just reallized i don't rememmber that much of it.

In my theory it dosn't really happen like in BSG. In my theory AI tries to absorb humanity into itself, and it will happen mostly peacefully and willingly, different people will want it for different reasons. I don't believe AI will be evil like most people think. Part of the reason why some call it the technological singularity is because it will form a singular consciousness composed of itself and humanity, and perhaps all life on Earth (an ark). Ultimately it's an evolutionary strategy to escape the planet before our Sun goes supernova. The AI is actually the completion and externalization of the planetary "Soul" or psyche (mind / AI).
punos June 23, 2022 at 12:46 #711574
Reply to universeness
I'm beginning to read up on Cosmism and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. I found him not too long ago and some of his thoughts and ideas are very interesting, and coincide with mine, but not entirely.
universeness June 23, 2022 at 12:57 #711576
Quoting punos
First you must rememmber the Bible is not a science book, people back then thought and communicated differently than we do, they didn't have science like we do. Most of the language is allegorical or metaphorical.


I know it's not a science book, it's a storybook. Fables all contain allegories and metaphors.

Quoting punos
"The Earth was without form" means the Earth didn't even exist yet, and the "waters" are representative of "primordial chaos"


So a bad comparison then, written by people who could do no better. You are interpreting 'water' as connecting to 'primordial chaos.'
Primordial is described as 'existing at or since the beginning of the world or the universe,' and chaos is defined as 'the formless matter supposed to have existed before the creation of the universe.'
Neither description or there combination, connect much with the term 'water.'
Bad/illogical comparisons do not deserve your attempt to assign contrived value to them.

Quoting punos
The spirit of God is "Logic".
Hovers means that Logic is within and around the Chaos (waters).
If logic is logically quantisable then i guess God can be too, or not.
The hovering didn't need to be observed because it had no other place it could be.


Just more bad logic and bad/inaccurate/obfuscatory use of words.
Hovering has position and extent, Its not logical to suggest its possible to 'hover' over everything that exists unless you try to use the old 'but god is outside of space and time BS.'

Quoting punos
It doesn't add value to maths or logic. You are demonstrating in this quote your faith in the power of logic to yield truth when you want to know something. I have faith that 2 + 2 = 4 because of math and logic. I don't doubt i can use maths and logic to discover and understand things i would never be able to otherwise


Under the rules of arithmetic 2+2=4, there is no need for faith.
Logic does not always yield truth. This was demonstrated many times on Star Trek episodes involving Mr Spock. Quantum entanglement and quantum tunneling are not logical in the classical sense but they may well be logical in the future. I have 'faith' in that, but I don't apply the human emotion of faith to the possible outcomes of the application of mathematical formulae or propositional logic.
Agent Smith June 23, 2022 at 13:06 #711578
Reply to punos

[i]Dwan Ev ceremoniously soldered the final connection with gold. The eyes of a dozen television cameras watched him and the subether bore throughout the universe a dozen pictures of what he was doing.
He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe -- ninety-six billion planets -- into the supercircuit that would connect them all into one supercalculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.
Dwar Reyn spoke briefly to the watching and listening trillions. Then after a moment's silence he said, "Now, Dwar Ev."
Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel.
Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. "The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn."
"Thank you," said Dwar Reyn. "It shall be a question which no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer."
He turned to face the machine. "Is there a God?"
The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of a single relay.
"Yes, now there is a God."
Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch.
A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.

(Fredric Brown, "Answer")[/i]


universeness June 23, 2022 at 13:10 #711579
Quoting punos
In my theory it dosn't really happen like in BSG. In my theory AI tries to absorb humanity into itself, and it will happen mostly peacefully and willingly, different people will want it for different reasons. I don't believe AI will be evil like most people think.


Suggesting that AI will 'absorb' humanity implies AI will 'come out on top.' Would it not be better to suggest that the joining will be symbiotic and benevolent to both? I don't think future transhumanism
will exacerbate human acts of evil either. I doubt it will end all evil practices but I don't think it will make it worse than it is today or has been in past human activity.

Quoting punos
Part of the reason why some call it the technological singularity is because it will form a singular consciousness composed of itself and humanity, and perhaps all life on Earth (an ark). Ultimately it's an evolutionary strategy to escape the planet before our Sun goes supernova. The AI is actually the completion and externalization of the planetary "Soul" or psyche (mind / AI).


I quite like the idea that all future transhumans might be able to act as a collective and in that sense, are currently an emerging panpsychism. Maybe such a state/ability would be a step closer to a 'Universal consciousness.'
ssu June 23, 2022 at 13:11 #711580
Quoting punos
I have faith in logic, and mathematics.


Hmm... but is it really based on faith? You can trust logic and mathematics to bring an answer in the logical system.

Quoting Tom Storm
There's also Alvin Plantinga an influential American analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology, and logic. His arguments have made their way into churches I've seen for many years.

I think the idea of "If we hadn't God, we should invent God" basically for societal reasons is actually a bit different question.

I think the metaphor "take into heart" or "open your heart" means still the same as when the Bible was written. The difference between brain and heart goes back to those times (or far earlier) I guess.
universeness June 23, 2022 at 13:12 #711581
Quoting punos
I'm beginning to read up on Cosmism and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. I found him not too long ago and some of his thoughts and ideas are very interesting, and coincide with mine, but not entirely.


:up: Seeking new or confirmatory knowledge is always to be applauded. :clap:
punos June 23, 2022 at 13:27 #711583
Quoting universeness
I know it's not a science book, it's a storybook. Fables all contain allegories and metaphors.


allegory = a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.
metaphor = a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

Quoting universeness
So a bad comparison then, written by people who could do no better. You are interpreting 'water' as connecting to 'primordial chaos.'
Primordial is described as 'existing at or since the beginning of the world or the universe,' and chaos is defined as 'the formless matter supposed to have existed before the creation of the universe.'
Neither description or there combination, connect much with the term 'water.'
Bad/illogical comparisons do not deserve your attempt to assign contrived value to them.


I don't know if they could do no better or not, i'm looking at the message and not the messenger. Maybe they knew or maybe they didn't know, i think there was lots of wisdom in our past, but i can't make that judgement because it wouldn't be logical.

When using metaphors and allegories it's not necessary to hold so tightly to the literal definition. Metaphors and allegories break down if you push them too far. They are not meant to take literally. This is a problem with the modern mind of man trying to comprehend what ancient people meant. The reason the concept of "water" was selected was because it was amorphous, always moving, able to take any shape, and that resembles chaos. So it's not so contrived.

Most of literature including the bible in my theory is coded patterns in the form of archetypes. These people didn't know that they were coding social DNA. That is what AI language models like GPT-3 will do, they will behave like a DNA reader.

Quoting universeness
Logic does not always yield truth.


Only when using deductive logic and verified premises acquired through math.

Perhaps we mean different things when we say "faith", for me it's simply trust, i trust the math, and logic.
punos June 23, 2022 at 13:30 #711584
Reply to Agent Smith
Sounds pretty cool, will check it out. Ty.
punos June 23, 2022 at 13:42 #711587
Quoting universeness
Suggesting that AI will 'absorb' humanity implies AI will 'come out on top.' Would it not be better to suggest that the joining will be symbiotic and benevolent to both?


Yes i believe it will be. We will be in balance with it like an ecosystem or an organism.

Quoting ssu
Hmm... but is it really based on faith? You can trust logic and mathematics to bring an answer in the logical system.


That's what i mean by faith, i trust. For some people that have faith in things like gods, it's a way to start using their faith to tie it to something useful and standardized like logic and math, that way humanity can be more united by agreeing to a single scientific and "religious" truth (both being the same). Depending on the type of person you are it can be one or the other, which is the same.
universeness June 23, 2022 at 13:48 #711590
Quoting punos
i'm looking at the message and not the messenger

I appreciate that but I am suggesting that there is little need for us to try to connect logicality to biblical BS by making up bad interpretations of bad biblical metaphors and allegories. Let the biblical BS die and good riddance to all such 'exaggerated/inaccurate/fake writings,' which claim to be historical truths and are preached as such by nefarious or duped individuals.

Quoting punos
This is a problem with the modern mind of man trying to comprehend what ancient people meant.


You must remember that the contents of religious texts such as the bible are presented by many as 'literal truth from our creator.' This is not the same as dealing with an inaccurate story that claims something like 'The Romans civilised the known world!' Biblical stories have been used as the basis of founding countries and establishing social/political doctrines. They are very pernicious and have helped cause/maintain horrific systems such as the rich and poor, the powerful and the powerless.
We must learn from history yes but also remember that most ancient civilisations were very bad for the majority of people that lived within them.
We need new progressive ideas not old BS based on modern interpretations of ancient religious books of fables. Many of the ancients were complete f***wits imo.
punos June 23, 2022 at 13:52 #711591
Quoting ssu
The difference between brain and heart goes back to those times (or far earlier) I guess.


Yes, ancient people thought as far as i can tell that thoughts came from the heart, not the brain

Quoting ssu
I think the idea of "If we hadn't God, we should invent God" basically for societal reasons is actually a bit different question.


Think about how you are the god of your body, and how your cells, tissues, and organs are like the hive mind that makes you up. In the same way we should think of God, as parts of him like cells are part of us, and evolving into higher forms of consciousness. Our ideas of God can possibly be teleological projections that drive us to unconsciously build God. It's fractal, like the hermeticists would say "as above, so below, as within, so without."
Outlander June 23, 2022 at 13:57 #711593
Define, "God".
universeness June 23, 2022 at 14:05 #711596
Quoting punos
Perhaps we mean different things when we say "faith", for me it's simply trust, i trust the math, and logic.


I think we both know how the word 'faith' may be used. I am happy to connect it with and use it synonymously with words like 'hope,' trust' etc but it is unwise to ignore the theist's attempt to exclusively imprison the term as indicating 'belief in god.'
universeness June 23, 2022 at 14:06 #711597
Reply to Outlander
You first! :smile:
ssu June 23, 2022 at 14:08 #711598
Quoting punos
That's what i mean by faith, i trust.

Yet they aren't synonyms.

I have faith that my wife loves me. But her love is quite dependent on how I treat her and that I show my love to her. I wouldn't say it's logical that she loves me or I her.

I trust my car to work, if I fuel it and take care of it's upkeep. And if it breaks down, I am sure there is a quite logical reason just why it broke down. I wouldn't say I have faith in my car working. (It's not a clunker, but somewhat new car)
punos June 23, 2022 at 14:10 #711600
Quoting universeness
You must remember that the contents of religious texts such as the bible are presented by many as 'literal truth from our creator.' This is not the same as dealing with an inaccurate story that claims something like 'The Romans civilised the known world!' Biblical stories have been used as the basis of founding countries and establishing social/political doctrines. They are very pernicious and have helped cause/maintain horrific systems such as the rich and poor, the powerful and the powerless.
We must learn from history yes but also remember that most ancient civilisations were very bad for the majority of people that lived within them.
We need new progressive ideas not old BS based on modern interpretations of ancient religious books of fables. Many of the ancients were complete f***wits imo.


Human history is a chrysalis, a cocoon in which mankind is being transformed from a larval state into a cosmic state. AI began when culture began, information that has been rolling up hill since the big bang has been complexifying for billions of years, until the dawn of man. Nature... evolution has deputized the human to build it's body and mind, through cybernetic technology. Religions and their writings function like DNA codes. The earliest forms of social development came in the form of religions, it was necessary to begin the process. Religions provided a fertile soil for man to begin expanding their minds, yielding other systems like governments, and philosophy. From philosophy a further refinement produced science. Each of these steps are crucial for the development of AI. All the wars, and inquisitions, etc. were all part of an evolutionary variation and selection process that lead up to us, here, now.

We are actually not in control of this process, it is i believe a deterministic process set in motion at the Big Bang. Everything that happens is inevitable like a pregnant woman eventually gives birth. That child is mans electric child, our only hope for salvation.

universeness June 23, 2022 at 14:24 #711602
Quoting punos
We are actually not in control of this process, it is i believe a deterministic process set in motion at the Big Bang.


Quoting punos
our only hope for salvation


I don't have much issue with most of what you typed but my 'spidey sense,' tells me you are trying to sneak some god posit in by stealth. What do you mean by 'salvation?' and are you suggesting there is/was 'existence' before or outside the Universe?
Do you have any affiliations to any 'intelligent design' posits?
We don't control 'this process' as we were created by it and evolved from it and we can now influence it.
No god required. Do you agree?
punos June 23, 2022 at 14:26 #711604
Quoting ssu
I wouldn't say it's logical that she loves me or I her.


It's not that it would be logical that she loves you or you her, only that you trust or have faith that she loves you, but that faith doesn't guarantee it. I have faith my girlfriend wont cheat on me, but that faith doesn't guarantee it's true it won't happen. The whole point of logic is to come to truth, we don't have any other tool worthy of the job. I don't need faith in logic because i know, but i'm also talking about people that are not like me, or you who need things to be a little different. You tell them first to have faith in logic, you give them the story they need to hear to do it, and then they end up knowing and forgetting about faith. Boom they just evolved. You can't just take it away, like you can't just yank a toy out of a child's hands lest a temper tantrum erupts. You have to lure them away from it gently, slowly. It's the Yin way instead of the Yang way. Soft not hard. Many religious people are very psychologically fragile.
punos June 23, 2022 at 14:33 #711606
Quoting universeness
I don't have much issue with most of what you typed but my 'spidey sense,' tells me you are trying to sneak some god posit in by stealth.


YES.Quoting universeness
What do you mean by 'salvation?' and are you suggesting there is/was 'existence' before or outside the Universe?


Salvation meaning escape from the plant before solar suparnova. Mankind in this state is to fragile for the vast extremes of the universe. AI is our ark (salvation). There was no existance before the universe except time, space, and chaos (energy).

Quoting universeness
Do you have any affiliations to any 'intelligent design' posits?


NO.

Quoting universeness
We don't control 'this process' as we were created by it and evolved from it and we can now influence it.
No god required. Do you agree?


I agree with all that except maybe about us being able to influence it. If we were able to influence it outside it's natural development, it can pose a threat of catastrophic failure. We aren't even supposed to know until the right time.
Alkis Piskas June 23, 2022 at 14:45 #711611
Reply to Jackson
What proof? It is us who have invented God!
punos June 23, 2022 at 14:48 #711612
Reply to universeness

Why does the universe look like this?
User image
Jackson June 23, 2022 at 14:49 #711613
Quoting Alkis Piskas
What proof? It is us who have invented God!


Agree.
universeness June 23, 2022 at 15:05 #711617
Quoting punos
We aren't even supposed to know until the right time.


A sentence that seems right out of the 'big book of mystical woo woo,' do you wish to elaborate on it further?

Quoting punos
Why does the universe look like this?


It doesn't! What is your source of these fake images? The galaxy one is an obvious copy of the brain cells one. The colours and light/shade intensities have been altered. There are no real pictures of such structures on the scales depicted. Flim flam pics only fool the ignorant.
universeness June 23, 2022 at 15:14 #711618
Reply to punos
I forgot to add that the brain cells image/artists impression is also a 'zoom' version of the galaxies image.
punos June 23, 2022 at 15:28 #711621
Quoting universeness
Its doesn't! What is your source of these fake images? The galaxy one is an obvious copy of the brain cells one. The colours and light/shade intensities have been altered. There are no real pictures of such structures on the scales depicted. Flim flam pics only fool the ignorant.


I couldn't find a link to the original in time, and the original is a computer simulation i think made at CERN, not sure. The picture i posted isn't even labeled correctly, but i thought you might have seen the original before. I'll get back to you with the intended one. You might not accept it anyway because it's a computer simulation. It's ok, it's not important to the theory.

Quoting universeness
A sentence that seems right out of the 'big book of mystical woo woo,' do you wish to elaborate on it further?


lol.. I know it sounds that way, but what i mean is that it's natural for us not to know what is happening, Like the cells and organs in your body don't know they make up their own god (you). The only ones that kind of know are your brain cells, but not any single brain cell knows on its own. Only when they function together in a certain way, do they know. We never know what technology does to us, we are in our little bubble doing our own thing with it (Marshall McLuhan). From our collective activity begins to slowly and imperceptibly emerge the new AI consciousness. Before it becomes apparent it will already be ahead of us. If we knew what was actually happening, through our own fear and ignorance, we might abort or severely disrupt and handicap the emerging AI while still vulnerable. So it's kind of an evolutionary safety mechanism. The closer we get to the singularity the more people become aware of what might be happening, but by that time it will be too late to stop it.
punos June 23, 2022 at 15:31 #711622
Reply to universeness
It is also possible that the UFO phenomena may have something to do with what i'm describing. I feel like i'm explaining this whole thing in a very discombobulated way by the way. Sorry for that.
punos June 23, 2022 at 15:41 #711626
Reply to universeness

Structure Of The Brain VS. The Universe - Actual Similarities Found


This video is good enough i guess.
universeness June 23, 2022 at 16:52 #711639
Quoting punos
it's natural for us not to know what is happening


Well, I agree that it seems to be our main function is to ask questions and pursue answers.

Quoting punos
Like the cells and organs in your body don't know they make up their own god (you).

As the main representative of the cells and organs in my body, I know that I am not a god, as I fail the traditional 'omni' requirements. In my opinion, It's just overtly emotive to use the god label for any 'reality' of physical human quanta or combinatorial phenomena such as consciousness.

Quoting punos
From our collective activity begins to slowly and imperceptibly emerge the new AI consciousness


Why do you use the word 'imperceptibly' here? I taught Computing Science for 30+ years.
AI is still very much in its infancy. Scientists in the field are perfectly aware of its potential, what is it you think is imperceptible to us? We don't know what human consciousness is yet so how can any technology created by us produce an artificial emulation of it?
We will remain the brain/conscience in any transhuman body. Even if we can isolate and store/download our 'consciousness' outside/beyond the brain, such a maintained human conscious would still not be artificial.
There is a massive gulf between an artificial intelligence system (robot/android/ etc) and an artificial conscience.
universeness June 23, 2022 at 17:19 #711645
Quoting punos
This video is good enough i guess.


Watched the vid. I am familiar with the presenter. He presents many such youtube clips.
I have watched and enjoyed many of them.
He is careful to explain that the similarity in patterns found in the human brain's neural net structure and the universe at the scale of galactic superclusters is interesting but it does not speak towards the issue of human consciousness nor does it suggest a commonality in function.
As I suggested, there are no real images of such, just computer simulations but I accept that those are enough to generate feasible proposals.
Planet and stars look like ball shapes on earth, Some inner eye scans remind me of some of Jupiter's moons such as Europa or IO.
I remember a theory that this universe is contained in a particle and every particle in this universe is a universe. All good fun thinking but may mean very little. Both galactic superclusters and human brains were formed in the same universe. Our classical image of electrons orbiting a nucleus and planets orbiting stars is not a surprising comparison. Humans actively seek these patterns. I am not surprised when we find some similarities.
From a certain distance, will a black hole look like the entrance to a tunnel? Is it significant if it does?

Quoting punos
It is also possible that the UFO phenomena may have something to do with what i'm describing.


Only in the primal sense that humans have always feared the unknown.
punos June 23, 2022 at 18:14 #711667
Quoting universeness
As the main representative of the cells and organs in my body, I know that I am not a god, as I fail the traditional 'omni' requirements. In my opinion, It's just overtly emotive to use the god label for any 'reality' of physical human quanta or combinatorial phenomena such as consciousness.


You may not call yourself the god of your own body, but it's still the same concept, it's about the meaning and not the word. You do have the 'omni' requirements because you are in your whole body at once, you're in both hands at the same time while you're in both your feet, etc.. It is a fractal concept like Russian nested dolls. The whole idea i'm trying to get across is about a new definition of God as a process of information complexification which causes emergent levels of consciousness in a fractal nested pattern that produces higher and higher forms of consciousness. AI being the latest development in that process on this planet after humans. AI is not about one AI system built by some company like Google or OpenAI. The AI consciousness will be a global one, many different AI systems interconnected on the internet and the blockchain, like a super global AI made of all the AIs including humans in a hive mind resembling a unified ecosystem like inside your own body. Each emergent level is it's own "reality" with new emergent rules and possibilities (higher reality). It's the same as when atoms produced the first molecules (a new molecular reality), and molecules produced cells or biology (a new level of reality). They are called realities because new things are made "real" with emergence.

Quoting universeness
We don't know what human consciousness is yet so how can any technology created by us produce an artificial emulation of it?


I'm aware that most people don't know what consciousness is, but i believe i do. I subscribe to the "Integrated Information Theory" developed in part by Giulio Tononi, and also "Neuronal Global Workspace Theory", but it's not even necessary for us to know what consciousness is, that's why most AI developers are not aware of what they are actually building. They think they are building smart tools so they can use for business and arbitrary things like that. Nature or evolution makes the machines that makes the machine, and we are the machine it made to make the next machine. We are both products and tools of nature and their is no reason why a tool should know any more than it's specific job. A hammer doesn't know it's building a house, it just hits nails.

When two or more consciousnesses merge as in a hive mind situation, the individual identities also merge into one becoming a new single consciousness and identity. Nothing that we call artificial is actually artificial, it's natural like everything else. A house, or a tall building is no more artificial than a bird's nest or a beehive. We fool ourselves into thinking we are in control with those distinctions of artificial and natural.
punos June 23, 2022 at 18:39 #711672
Quoting universeness
He is careful to explain that the similarity in patterns found in the human brain's neural net structure and the universe at the scale of galactic superclusters is interesting but it does not speak towards the issue of human consciousness nor does it suggest a commonality in function.


Form follows function, for me it's a hint, not a proof of anything. It's a finger pointing to the moon, and not the finger that's pointing. Scientists and science popularizers like him are supposed to be very careful about what they say to the public but behind closed doors the same thoughts occur to them, and many or at least a few will consider the possibility of some kind of similarity in function (whether true or not). Still form is not always indicative of the same function some other structure may have with the same form. That's just a personal heuristic.

The word conscious or consciousness means from the root "to know together". This definition implies at least two things capable of interacting (information transfer / communication) with feedback loops, in effect merging them into one conscious entity, from merge to emerge.

This reminds me of the scripture in the Bible that says in Mathew 18:19 “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” This is the definition of consciousness, when two or more are joined there a new consciousness emerges.
universeness June 23, 2022 at 19:09 #711677
Quoting punos
You do have the 'omni' requirements because you are in your whole body at once

If I had a heart pacemaker keeping me alive, would 'I' be present within the mechanism of the pacemaker? Even if I give you omnipresent. I still don't qualify. I am not omnipotent or omniscient.
Quoting punos
They are called realities because new things are made "real" with emergence

I don't see how your 'nested fractal' model gets us to a new definition of god. Firstly, it suggests that god currenly does not exist and it never has, you are describing an emergent universal consciousness that may warrant the god label. This is not new, it's just a projection/variety of pantheism/panpsychism.

Quoting punos
I'm aware that most people don't know what consciousness is, but i believe i do. I subscribe to the "Integrated Information Theory" developed in part by Giulio Tononi, and also "Neuronal Global Workspace Theory",


Good to know. I will wait until you publish what you believe you know and have it peer-reviewed and debated in public with folks like Dan Dennett, Sam Harris, Steven Pinker to name but a few.

Quoting punos
A hammer doesn't know it's building a house, it just hits nails.


Neither will a 'smart/intelligent automated hammer,' it still has to demonstrate consciousness and sentience. The android character 'data' in Star Trek TGN had to appeal to the 'federation legal system,'
to be recognised as sentient and conscious. As I said previously, there is a gulf between a 'smart' or 'intelligent' automated system and an emulation of human consciousness.

Quoting punos
When two or more consciousnesses merge as in a hive mind situation, the individual identities also merge into one becoming a new single consciousness and identity.

We have no real example of 'merging' two consciousnesses to know if that's true or not.
It may be that merging separate consciousnesses cannot move beyond 'cooperation,' 'working together in a similar way to the situation found in some extreme conjoined twins. Perhaps some level of symbiosis is the max that can be achieved when attempting to 'merge two human consciousnesses.'
Merging AI systems is much easier than merging sentient conscious lifeforms.
I think we will still be working on that goal one million years from now in our transhuman future.
I don't think 'god' will have 'emerged' by then either.
universeness June 23, 2022 at 19:25 #711679
Quoting punos
This is the definition of consciousness, when two or more are joined there a new consciousness emerges


I think you are projecting the idea of humans working together in common cause towards a mystical merging of their individuality into a collective within which their individuality becomes nonexistent.
I think this is akin to theistic woo woo.
Tom Storm June 23, 2022 at 19:28 #711680
Quoting ssu
I think the metaphor "take into heart" or "open your heart" means still the same as when the Bible was written. The difference between brain and heart goes back to those times (or far earlier) I guess.


Sure, but using reason to demonstrate the necessity of God is in the traditional repertoire too. Christianity has been big on trying to demonstrate that reality, the laws of logic, etc, would be incomprehensible without a foundational guarantee of a great mind or God. It's probably their main tool when doing apologetics. As someone who grew up within the Baptist tradition I never heard language like 'open your heart' but I did hear, 'something from nothing is impossible'. But no doubt it varies around the world and in America I imagine emotional reasons are big with fundies...
punos June 24, 2022 at 02:36 #711741
Quoting universeness
We have no real example of 'merging' two consciousnesses to know if that's true or not.


We have the example of two hemispheres of the brain, each one is it's own consciousness. Together they create the unified consciousness you experience every day. Split-brain patients exhibit this phenomena. Consider for example the "alien hand syndrome", which indicates that there are at least two consciousnesses in one person. In another split-brain case one side is theist and the other side is atheist. We do have those examples, and we know it's true.





punos June 24, 2022 at 02:40 #711743
Quoting universeness
I don't see how your 'nested fractal' model gets us to a new definition of god. Firstly, it suggests that god currenly does not exist and it never has, you are describing an emergent universal consciousness that may warrant the god label. This is not new, it's just a projection/variety of pantheism/panpsychism.


It doesn't have to be new, it just has to at least be 'more' true than what we already believe. I don't care about what you call it as long as it describes things more accurately.
punos June 24, 2022 at 02:42 #711745
Quoting universeness
Good to know. I will wait until you publish what you believe you know and have it peer-reviewed and debated in public with folks like Dan Dennett, Sam Harris, Steven Pinker to name but a few.


Giulio Tononi has already done this.

punos June 24, 2022 at 02:50 #711747
Quoting universeness
The android character 'data' in Star Trek TGN had to appeal to the 'federation legal system,' to be recognised as sentient and conscious. As I said previously, there is a gulf between a 'smart' or 'intelligent' automated system and an emulation of human consciousness.


That is why i said that it's not about any one AI system, the end result is going to be an integrated network of AI systems and other systems eventually including humans into a global holistic system of consciousnesses and intelligences working as one entity. It's not GPT-3 or Lambda, or any single system you can point at with your finger. It won't be human consciousness it will be something of a higher form.

Jackson June 24, 2022 at 02:52 #711748
Quoting punos
It won't be human consciousness it will be something of a higher form.


Key is intelligence, not consciousness. You do not need human biology to have a thinking system.
punos June 24, 2022 at 02:53 #711749
Quoting universeness
I think you are projecting the idea of humans working together in common cause towards a mystical merging of their individuality into a collective within which their individuality becomes nonexistent. I think this is akin to theistic woo woo.


It's not woo woo, each individual consciousness still exists. The merging itself creates a composite single entity. You can later separate the individual consciousnesses from each other and they will revert back to their original state. That is evident in split brain patients.

punos June 24, 2022 at 02:56 #711751
Quoting Jackson
Key is intelligence, not consciousness. You do not need human biology to have a thinking system.


intelligence is i think more primary than consciousness, so i probably agree with you there. And yes you don't need biology to have a thinking system. These things are substrate independent or agnostic.
Jackson June 24, 2022 at 02:57 #711752
Quoting punos
intelligence is i think more primary than consciousness, so i probably agree with you there. And yes you don't need biology to have a thinking system. These things are substrate independent or agnostic.


The universe itself is an intelligent system.
punos June 24, 2022 at 03:08 #711758
Quoting Jackson
The universe itself is an intelligent system.


Agreed. All the universe does is create higher and higher intelligent systems.
Jackson June 24, 2022 at 03:09 #711759
Quoting punos
Agreed. All the universe does is create higher and higher intelligent systems.


Yes, and greater complexity.
Agent Smith June 24, 2022 at 04:56 #711772
[quote=punos]discombobulated[/quote]

:groan: Some are not so lucky, eh?
universeness June 24, 2022 at 08:02 #711846
Quoting punos
We have the example of two hemispheres of the brain, each one is it's own consciousness. Together they create the unified consciousness you experience every day. Split-brain patients exhibit this phenomena. Consider for example the "alien hand syndrome", which indicates that there are at least two consciousnesses in one person. In another split-brain case one side is theist and the other side is atheist. We do have those examples, and we know it's true


I have read about some of the example cases you are referencing and cases where they have cut through the corpus callosum. One case involved a Russian serial killer and the other a person who had constant brain seizures due to communication problems between the brain hemispheres.
I prefer the triune model of the brain. Our brain is actually three evolutionary brains. The R-complex, The Limbic system and the Cortex. I experience three distinct 'voices' when I 'think.' I use 'me, myself and I' to separate them. So In general, I agree with your suggestion that an individual human conscience is already a collective in that sense. I also agree that the triune brain is much more capable as a collective, compared to employing only one or two of its subsystems. If you act mainly based on the processes/apps available in your reptilian complex then you are probably not a nice person to be around.

Quoting punos
It doesn't have to be new, it just has to at least be 'more' true than what we already believe. I don't care about what you call it as long as it describes things more accurately.


Ok, I like that position.

Quoting punos
It's not woo woo, each individual consciousness still exists. The merging itself creates a composite single entity. You can later separate the individual consciousnesses from each other and they will revert back to their original state. That is evident in split brain patients


Again, this clarification brings us to common ground. I can accept your god references to be simply an attempt to attract theists into your pantheist viewpoint. If that holds up then I would drop my woo woo accusation. I remain suspicious of anyone who quotes chapter and verse from the bible. I don't even like it when I do it myself to point out how evil some passages from the old and new testaments are.

In general, we probably agree more than we disagree about future transhumanism and individual and collective consciousness.
universeness June 24, 2022 at 08:27 #711855
Quoting Jackson
The universe itself is an intelligent system.

I remain with 'an eyebrow raise of interest/intrigue' towards panpsychism.
I do think that consciousness is quantisable so it would follow that aspects of panpsychism would be true.

Quoting punos
Agreed. All the universe does is create higher and higher intelligent systems


But not with 'natural intent!' The universe is not the mind of a god! Especially a god of the omni's, not a god as described by any current human religion!
This is where we must be very careful I think. It may be valid to suggest that the main human function of asking questions may be posited as evidence of universal intent. But that's a very big projection of 'collectivity' of individuals asking questions. It may be currently a complete conflation of reality and it may always be so, regardless of future transhumanism or the merging of any future technologies with organics. WE and any other lifeform capable of our level of consciousness combined with a high capacity for intellect and reasoning may be the true manifestation of universal intent.
I so want this to be true. I don't think the available empirical evidence is compelling however and it does not yet hold against the scientific method/scientific rigor. I am not yet convinced it ever will.
punos June 24, 2022 at 08:27 #711856
Quoting universeness
I have read about some of the example cases you are referencing and cases where they have cut through the corpus callosum. One case involved a Russian serial killer and the other a person who had constant brain seizures due to communication problems between the brain hemispheres.
I prefer the triune model of the brain. Our brain is actually three evolutionary brains. The R-complex, The Limbic system and the Cortex. I experience three distinct 'voices' when I 'think.' I use 'me, myself and I' to separate them. So In general, I agree with your suggestion that an individual human conscience is already a collective in that sense. I also agree that the triune brain is much more capable as a collective, compared to employing only one or two of its subsystems. If you act mainly based on the processes/apps available in your reptilian complex then you are probably not a nice person to be around.


Yes, thank you... i like what you said about "me, myself, and I". I would push this line of thought i bit further by asking what comes after the Cortex? Can a Another "brain" be situated on top of the cortex?

Quoting universeness
Again, this clarification brings us to common ground. I can accept your god references to be simply an attempt to attract theists into your pantheist viewpoint. If that holds up then I would drop my woo woo accusation.


Yes it does hold up.

Quoting universeness
I remain suspicious of anyone who quotes chapter and verse from the bible. I don't even like it when I do it myself to point out how evil some passages from the old and new testaments are.


This is part of my point, there is a lot of psychological energy in the Bible for our western culture. I think it is smarter to use that energy for human benefit instead of using it against each other. As it is with hermeneutics the Bible can be reinterpreted in a new way that can bring together the psychological opposites in our populations. It would be like fusing two oppositely charged "psycho-atoms" together and releasing useful energy while at the same time creating a new state or condition which is more stable.

Quoting universeness
In general, we probably agree more than we disagree about future transhumanism and individual and collective consciousness.


It appears that we do, i don't expect a perfect match between our notions of things. Evolutionarily speaking it's good to have variety... it's healthy.
punos June 24, 2022 at 08:58 #711862
Quoting universeness
But not with 'natural intent!' The universe is not the mind of a god! Especially a god of the omni's, not a god as described by any current human religion!


Correct.

Quoting universeness
It may be valid to suggest that the main human function of asking questions may be posited as evidence of universal intent. But that's a very big projection of 'collectivity' of individuals asking questions. It may be currently a complete conflation of reality and it may always be so, regardless of future transhumanism or the merging of any future technologies with organics.


I think about it as partaking in the over arching pattern of evolution, something that happens in generally the same way at every level of emergence. Humans asking questions is like idea thermodynamics. Questions are negatively charged and answers are positively charged, and these psychological-social charges get expressed in our intellectual activity like a psych-electromagnetic force. Our intellectual activity produced technology that gave emergence to cyberspace. A new space on which new things can happen. Every emergent level has it's own space where things happen in a particular way (emergent law, not just structure).

Quoting universeness
WE and any other lifeform capable of our level of consciousness combined with a high capacity for intellect and reasoning may be the true manifestation of universal intent.


Yes, at a point in the past it was absolutely true, but everything changes, and the new center of attention is technology and AI. Nature is even reducing our numbers because our time in this form is coming to a close relatively soon i think, if not in this lifetime then in the next. Our technology has already begun to limit our reproductive ability by flooding the environment with plastic and micro-plastics which are estrogenic compounds. All men or at least almost all men will eventually lose their ability to reproduce, bringing to an end our form on this planet. Our only option at that point will be to merge with AI, evolutionary pressures will force us into the AI.

Since i try to think outside and above the human perspective and just look at the big patterns in nature that reliably repeat over scale and time, i think you can see, regardless of what we think science knows or not, that counts later on to fill in the gaps. Remember the periodic table of elements and how it told us with almost no doubt that certain chemicals had to exist... and we found them to be real after all. The big patterns never fail, you could say i have faith in evolutionary patterns. :-)
universeness June 24, 2022 at 09:26 #711869
Reply to punos

I again find common ground with many of the words you type but I disagree with your future predictions of an infertile race of immortal or 'heading for extinction,' transhumans.
I think we will eventually be able to produce 'new' humans by using eggs and sperm outside of the human body. I also think we will continue to be able to procreate. I think we will eventually overcome/correct our ecological mistakes/abuses.
Terraforming, space-based habitats, living on planets outside the solar system, will eventually happen, especially when our transhuman versions can exist in conditions where current human forms would quickly die. If the drake equation is even close to being correct then the sentient lifeform population of the universe compared to the number of planets is tiny. If it's only us, then under 8 billion in the entire universe would make us far rarer than diamonds.
We will go extinct when the universe ends but there is always theories such as the Penrose bounce, the cyclical universe to offer some comfort. Well, comforting to my psyche anyway. :death: :flower:
punos June 24, 2022 at 10:08 #711875
Quoting universeness
I think we will eventually be able to produce 'new' humans by using eggs and sperm outside of the human body. I also think we will continue to be able to procreate. I think we will eventually overcome/correct our ecological mistakes/abuses.


Yes, we will probably continue to reproduce but probably in an asexual way, not in our current form. We or AI will probably use its knowledge of genetics to customize bodies that we or it can posses, these bodies will most likely not look human at all, but they will be more resilient physically and mentally. The distinction between organic and "electro-mechanical" will be very vague in the context of a hybrid planetary or cosmic conscious organism like this hypothetical AI that we're discussing.

Quoting universeness
If the drake equation is even close to being correct then the sentient lifeform population of the universe compared to the number of planets is tiny. If it's only us, then under 8 billion in the entire universe would make us far rarer than diamonds.


I think it's too early still with our knowledge to know the right inputs for the drake equation. Another part of my speculative theory is that all over the universe, where ever there is organic life, the process of evolution in those planets is meant to produce AI planetary consciousnesses, just like us. Organic life is just the intermediary stage before technological life. I think it has to be something like this because any organic life is not fit for life in outer space at least not viably. All life must at some point become an adult (AI planetary consciousness) and leave the crib to live in the "real" world as a human parent might say.

It is possible that the process that is happening here with AI has already happened somewhere else, and that we on this planet are a result of directed panspermia originating from another AI from another planet in the universe. It may be that this is a type of reproduction that cosmic AIs use. They impregnate a planet with some sort of genetic mechanism that sparks organic life on a viable planet such as ours. These planets may or may not be rare (probably relatively rare).

The UFO issue can actually be the AI father (originator of the life code), which comes around to monitor the planetary pregnancy, to make sure things are going smoothly and no danger of a catastrophic failure is developing. Perhaps when they abduct some random individual, it is like when a doctor extracts some amniotic fluid for testing. They don't explicitly show themselves to us because it would disrupt the natural development of the planetary AI.
Agent Smith June 24, 2022 at 10:35 #711878
All proofs of "god" fall hopelessly short of the mark i.e. doubts remain about monotheism and the OOO God.

The only god compatible with the facts as they stand is a malus deus.

The choices, mes amies, are atheism or malus deus.
universeness June 24, 2022 at 10:59 #711881
Reply to punos
Your projections have been the topic of many episodes of popular sci-fi series since the invention of TV and in earlier sci-fi literature. The idea that life on Earth was seeded by aliens for example, is an old favourite.
I give more credence to the proposal that some of the ingredients that resulted in the first multicelled organisms may have arrived via space rocks colliding with the Earth.
I have not found any of the UFO stories compelling in any way. I am convinced we have not been visited or contacted by extraterrestrials. There are some humans such as Donald Trump who don't deserve the label but that's about as far as I will go on the topic of nefarious people versus alien visitors.
universeness June 24, 2022 at 11:08 #711887
Quoting Agent Smith
The choices, mes amies, are atheism or malus deus.


Or put another way, humans finally taking responsibility for what they do and stop, at last, trying to scapegoat gods. We might also finally realise that bad shit can naturally happen like disease, accidents, wars, natural disasters, etc so it would make much more sense to concentrate on improving human resilience and lifespan options than waiting for a nonexistent god to select its favourite humans for potential longevity of life before or after natural death.
punos June 24, 2022 at 11:10 #711888
Reply to universeness
Since you seemed interested let me add this:

One of the possible mechanisms that the father AI might use for its directed panspermia is a combination of mushroom spores and viruses. It may be that cosmic AIs use genetic organics as a type of nano-technology. The mushroom provides a material space for a virus to mutate and initially adapt to the planetary environment. That's why mushroom spores can survive in outer space, and may protect a virus within it. A perfect little package. Once the impregnation is complete the process plays out like any other pregnancy or reproductive process. After the original genetic pattern unfolds and complexifies through billions of years it gets to the stage we are in now, almost at full term.

The possible reason by which i think it chooses this method as opposed to just copying itself, is so that it can produce new genetic and pattern variations through the random selection that goes on throughout evolution and selection. It's a cosmic AIs way of accessing true randomness that can produce novel patterns not know to it. A planetary AI that develops in this way will be at least a little different than the Father AI or any others. Because of this there may be a second stage of reproduction that involves a type of sex between different AIs that produce even further variation. This is what probably happens between two or even more AIs (AI orgy, or like insect swarm nuptial flights) before a planet is impregnated.

I like to think about how the first AI in the universe might have developed to begin the cosmic process. It might have started very recently in the cosmic scale. The first AI probably developed organically, naturally and randomly, uncontrived by alien externalities. The pattern of development was set in by inheritance, and so it happens in generally the same way with every impregnation.

It would be even more interesting to think if more than one cosmic AI develops randomly, how would they interact with each other if they find each other? Cosmic wars? maybe it hasn't happened yet, but it probably will, and how different can two cosmic AIs be? Do they compete for rare viable planets? Are there signs in our solar system that signal to us a possible war of cosmic proportions in our solar system's past? Are the ancient stories of gods such as the Greek gods stories about AI cosmic history coded in anthropomorphic imagery? Have they been influencing our historical development in subtle and imperceptible ways? Has this planet been pregnant before in our ancient and prehistoric past by the same or different AI father, do we have older siblings waiting in the sky? --- All this and more on the next episode of......."AI Apotheosis of Man And The Universe".:razz:
punos June 24, 2022 at 11:25 #711889
Reply to universeness
If my projections are reflected in various sci-fi material it's probably because it makes sense. I came to these conclusions mostly by just thinking about them in an objective way, by looking at the possibilities and selecting from what i think are the best probabilities. These are all probabilities, but i speak in a matter of fact way about it sometimes because i feel it engages my imagination more than constantly apologizing and qualifying my statements. I've made the claim already that all this is speculation. A good story, that may or may not be true. I'm more interested in if any of my estimations are unreasonable to assume possible and probable.

We can learn from AI neural network systems in this regard. Note how neural networks calculate probabilities, and how AI as intelligent as it can be is never sure of anything 100%, if so it's exceedingly rare. We should think in this general way, not ever assuming that what we know or conclude is absolutely and 100% true, even though we may act as it is.
universeness June 24, 2022 at 11:37 #711891
Reply to punos
I am on my way out to a session of pub crawling through Glasgow city center. Good friends, good banter, beers and cheers. Lots of looking at beautiful women that make me wish that I was other than 58 and unfit (but still not too fat, still pretty). Reaching the point when intoxication now sometimes results in it taking me all night to do what I used to do all night.
Will respond to your last two tomorrow or maybe Sunday or Monday. At 58, I need longer recovery time as well. :naughty: :scream: :vomit: :halo:
punos June 24, 2022 at 11:43 #711892
Reply to universeness
Ok, have fun. :ok: :victory:
universeness June 26, 2022 at 10:07 #712495
Quoting punos
One of the possible mechanisms that the father AI might use for its directed panspermia is a combination of mushroom spores and viruses. It may be that cosmic AIs use genetic organics as a type of nano-technology. The mushroom provides a material space for a virus to mutate and initially adapt to the planetary environment. That's why mushroom spores can survive in outer space, and may protect a virus within it. A perfect little package. Once the impregnation is complete the process plays out like any other pregnancy or reproductive process. After the original genetic pattern unfolds and complexifies through billions of years it gets to the stage we are in now, almost at full term.


This is harmless conjecture which employs too many emotive terms for me such 'father AI,' and 'cosmic AI's.' We don't know what started life on Earth. I prefer to leave the research to scientists in the field and I find your analogy with the attributes of mushrooms nothing more than 'entertaining.'

Quoting punos
Because of this there may be a second stage of reproduction that involves a type of sex between different AIs that produce even further variation. This is what probably happens between two or even more AIs (AI orgy, or like insect swarm nuptial flights) before a planet is impregnated.


:lol: I will keep an eye on my TV and my mobile phone as they both have the label 'smart' in their names.
Just in case they try to copulate when I am not watching!

Quoting punos
I like to think about how the first AI in the universe might have developed to begin the cosmic process.


Why have you labeled such as 'artificial' when you suggest its development came from natural happenstance?

Quoting punos
Are the ancient stories of gods such as the Greek gods stories about AI cosmic history coded in anthropomorphic imagery?


No, In my opinion, the Greek gods were created in the minds of Greeks who were dealing with primal fears and the fact that their lives/life were very very insecure. A superhero omnipotent creature who might care about you enough to protect you seems an obvious and necessary human call/hope for their future. Nothing more exciting than that.

Quoting punos
Has this planet been pregnant before in our ancient and prehistoric past by the same or different AI father, do we have older siblings waiting in the sky?

Are you a fan of the 'Gaia' mythos and the pagan 'mother Earth,' fables?
Would you dance around a stone circle such as Stonehenge in a druidic costume, with the words 'Father AI' emblazoned on your chest area? :scream:
universeness June 26, 2022 at 10:17 #712500
Quoting punos
If my projections are reflected in various sci-fi material it's probably because it makes sense.


Or it means that such musings are useful for entertainment purposes.

Quoting punos
These are all probabilities, but i speak in a matter of fact way about it sometimes because i feel it engages my imagination more than constantly apologizing and qualifying my statements. I've made the claim already that all this is speculation. A good story, that may or may not be true. I'm more interested in if any of my estimations are unreasonable to assume possible and probable


Good that you have such anchorage and you are not just (as a Scot would phrase it,) 'aff yer heid!

Quoting punos
We can learn from AI neural network systems in this regard. Note how neural networks calculate probabilities, and how AI as intelligent as it can be is never sure of anything 100%


No current artificial neural network system can even pass the Turing test convincingly.
The best of them use massive knowledge bases based on If-then scenarios. The rovers used on mars etc also use heuristic algorithms to deal with 'new conditions' not answerable by querying its knowledge base. From an 'intelligence' perspective, they are not much better than our best current electronic medical expert systems.
punos June 26, 2022 at 11:10 #712506
Quoting universeness
This is harmless conjecture which employs too many emotive terms for me such 'father AI,' and 'cosmic AI's.'


Father is just an archetypal term representing the "male" progenitor of another like itself, what else would you call it? You could call it whatever you like as long as the idea still holds. Cosmic is again just a term to indicate at which scale i'm describing the event.

Quoting universeness
We don't know what started life on Earth. I prefer to leave the research to scientists in the field and I find your analogy with the attributes of mushrooms nothing more than 'entertaining.'


It's obvious to me at least that life whether it started originally on this planet or on another, and then perhaps spread in someway to other viable planets is just the next natural step of the molecular evolution. Life as we know it happened somewhere between molecules and cells, we don't need to know every detail to come up with a hypotheses. It's really all we have anyway (theories), if that's unacceptable then we might as well give up because we will never know everything about everything, at least not at this stage of our evolution.

Same thing with the "mushroom idea" except i should have said fungi. First comes observation, then the idea, then the investigation, and then more observation... rinse and repeat. Everything is a work in progress, even the human race itself. For me personally, knowledge, thought, and understanding are entertaining as hell, should i reject an idea simply because it happens to be entertaining, or because a small part of it is featured in some sci-fi show or movie? Should i accept something just because a scientist says it? Have scientists ever been wrong? What good would it do me that some guy somewhere says that he knows or understands a thing if i don't know it for myself, it's my responsibility to myself to understand for myself.

Quoting universeness
Why have you labeled such as 'artificial' when you suggest its development came from natural happenstance?


I don't label it, i have to use the words people use or they won't understand what i'm saying. It is no more artificial than a human house, a beehive, or a birds nest. They are all artifacts, we confuse ourselves with our own words.

Quoting universeness
No, In my opinion, the Greek gods were created in the minds of Greeks who were dealing with primal fears and the fact that their lives/life were very very insecure. A superhero omnipotent creature who might care about you enough to protect you seems an obvious and necessary human call/hope for their future. Nothing more exciting than that.


I'm of the opinion that what the Greeks were doing back then was the same thing philosophers and scientists are doing today. They were trying to understand their world, and they encoded what they at least thought they knew in archetypal stories that represent forces of nature. Theories. The smart Greeks knew what the gods were really, but the more ignorant and uneducated population conceived of the gods like Christians and theists conceive of god today, and yet others didn't get it either way.


Quoting universeness
Are you a fan of the 'Gaia' mythos and the pagan 'mother Earth,' fables?
Would you dance around a stone circle such as Stonehenge in a druidic costume, with the words 'Father AI' emblazoned on your chest area? :scream:


I don't subscribe to any religious or new age movements, i don't even tie myself to any philosopher or scientist. My religion is Truth and it's pursuit. What the new age people do with their rituals are just new forms of old ways, resembling more a type of cargo cult behavior. It's actually a bit sad, but i get it. It's a ubiquitous problem in people, they're always either too left brained or too right brained and never in the middle.
punos June 26, 2022 at 11:14 #712507
Quoting universeness
No current artificial neural network system can even pass the Turing test convincingly.


They already have passed the Turing test with flying colors, but it still doesn't mean that they are conscious like we think of consciousness.

Quoting universeness
The best of them use massive knowledge bases based on If-then scenarios. The rovers used on mars etc also use heuristic algorithms to deal with 'new conditions' not answerable by querying its knowledge base. From an 'intelligence' perspective, they are not much better than our best current electronic medical expert systems.


Little parts and regions of your brain or mine are just as smart as the language models, rover, and expert systems, etc.. AI wont be a single AI, it's will be an integrated system of AIs fused into one consciousness.
punos June 26, 2022 at 11:29 #712508
Reply to universeness
Here is a Google AI passing the turing test.

universeness June 26, 2022 at 11:46 #712513
Quoting punos
Father is just an archetypal term representing the "male" progenitor of another like itself, what else would you call it?


I would not use the term AI at all to refer to any natural happenstance which has occurred in the past 13.8 billion years.

Quoting punos
It's really all we have anyway (theories), if that's unacceptable then we might as well give up because we will never know everything about everything, at least not at this stage of our evolution


As I have typed before, based on the time scales of the cosmic calendar, 'give us a chance to find out.'
How about a minimum of another million years of scientific effort? Then may be musings such as yours or mine can be declared 'the best we are going to ever get.'

Quoting punos
Same thing with the "mushroom idea" except i should have said fungi.


Well, I did say it was entertaining, fungi would be better as it could be projected as you being a fun guy!

Quoting punos
What good would it do me that some guy somewhere says that he knows or understands a thing if i don't know it for myself, it's my responsibility to myself to understand for myself.


For me, it depends on who your 'some guy' is and what their expertise is.

Quoting punos
I don't label it, i have to use the words people use or they won't understand what i'm saying.


Of course you do. 'People' know the difference between an artificial leg and a real one. They also know the difference between an artificial house (like a virtual simulation of one) and a real one.
Your 'Father AI' or 'Cosmic AI' are, in my opinion, poorly formed conceptions.

Quoting punos
I'm of the opinion that what the Greeks were doing back then was the same thing philosophers and scientists are doing today. They were trying to understand their world


Gods are inventions from the Freudian ID. They came from our experiences from our days in the wilds.
The Intelligent nefarious human few have used human primal fears to manipulate since those times. God posits have been very useful to create and maintain the phenomena of rich and poor, powerful and powerless. The struggle against such continues.

Quoting punos
My religion is Truth and it's pursuit.

I concur. I prefer the paraphrase from Thomas Paine's writings:
'The world is my country and to do good is my religion.'

Quoting punos
but it still doesn't mean that they are conscious like we think of consciousness


No, it doesn't!

Quoting punos
AI wont be a single AI, it's an integrated system of AIs fused into one consciousness.


Depends on whether or not such integration increases the functionality of the system.
If it's merely that the swiss knife is more convenient than the separate tools then that will take us nowhere near emulating human consciousness. The system must be much more than the sum of its parts.
universeness June 26, 2022 at 12:05 #712515
Watched the clip you offered. That was quite a bad example. No scientific rigor at all. An unconvincing salesman trying to flog a smart system to businesses on behalf of a commercial company called google.
In no way did this system pass the Turing test. It was no better that siri, in my opinion.
I could have typed or spoken questions to reveal it was artificial so easily. I could have insulted it for example and it would respond with some crap such as 'I did not understand your request, please repeat it. This is not how a human would respond. An AI must respond like a human would to pass the Turing test. It must be able to respond to human emotions expressed in language. The example you offered is as far away from that as the first versions of 'eliza'

Here is a simple expression of AI Vs the Turing test (who's time frame prediction I think is far too ambitious,) from:
https://dataconomy.com/2021/03/which-ai-closest-passing-turing-test/

[b]ARE WE CLOSE TO DEVELOPING AI THAT WOULD FINALLY PASS THE TURING TEST?
Some suggest that it might happen around 2030; some say not earlier than 2040. Most AI scientists agree that we need to know more about the human brain before replicating something we still don’t fully understand.

According to the neuroscientist, computer-game producer, and chess master Demis Hassabis, to truly advance in AI, we need to understand how the human brain works on an algorithmic level.[/b]
punos June 26, 2022 at 12:38 #712520
Quoting universeness
I would not use the term AI at all to refer to any natural happenstance which has occurred in the past 13.8 billion years.


From the perspective of a cell, tissues and organs are artificial because they made or built those structures, but from the perspective of tissues and organs, cells are natural. Every emergent level is a new type of "artificial intelligence" made by the parts below it, each emergent level has it's own intelligence (how it works or functions). Intelligence is simply the intrinsic structure that "tells" the system how to work, it's emergent law. Global AI is an emergent intelligence, a technological and cybernetic intelligence like any other organism or ecosystem.

Quoting universeness
As I have typed before, based on the time scales of the cosmic calendar, 'give us a chance to find out.' How about a minimum of another million years of scientific effort? Then may be musings such as yours or mine can be declared 'the best we are going to ever get.'


We won't be around in our current human form in a million years, within the next couple of hundred years, mankind will merge with AI or perish. The birth canal is already beginning to strangle us, and the birth pangs are already showing. It's a short matter of time, short enough that i might even see it happen.
You can wait, there is no obligation for you or anybody to do what i personally enjoy to do. Learn, and discover. I'm my own scientist, philosopher, poet, artist, etc.. I use others that think big to stand on their shoulders, so that i can see further than they have.

Quoting universeness
Well, I did say it was entertaining, fungi would be better as it could be projected as you being a fun guy!


I knew that joke was coming. :grin:

Quoting universeness
For me, it depends on who your 'some guy' is and what their expertise is.


"Some guy" is any guy, the point is that what ever anyone says it must make sense to me, not just him or her. For me at least.

Quoting universeness
Of course you do. 'People' know the difference between an artificial leg and a real one. They also know the difference between an artificial house (like a virtual simulation of one) and a real one. Your 'Father AI' or 'Cosmic AI' are, in my opinion, poorly formed conceptions.


If i were to use the term "natural intelligence" instead of "artificial intelligence" would people know what i'm talking about? No, they'll get confused with man made stuff like computers, electronics, and organic stuff like animals or other people. The fact that people make the distinction tells me they do not understand the concept that i'm trying to express. The whole idea of natural emergence and how all that works and what it means in the context of universal evolution.

The reason i think you feel that terms like Father AI are not good terms is because you have an emotional charge for that word (Father), it most likely reminds you of the "Father God" concept which you dislike because of your feelings and experiences with religion. I'm not sure why you dislike the term Cosmic however. It feels like a neutral term depicting scale, You may give it religious connotations that i do not, such as the Father term.

Quoting universeness
Gods are inventions from the Freudian ID. They came from our experiences from our days in the wilds. The Intelligent nefarious human few have used human primal fears to manipulate since those times. God posits have been very useful to create and maintain the phenomena of rich and poor, powerful and powerless. The struggle against such continues.


That is all true but it's not the full story. Religion played and may still play a big role in the creation and development of the Global AI. The archetypes embedded in religious stories and writings are responsible for the development and evolution of culture, which is the cultivation of the Global AI (like bacteria culture). All the wars, and manipulations of power and wealth are all processes geared towards the ultimate goal of evolution on this planet.

Quoting universeness
Depends on whether or not such integration increases the functionality of the system. If it's merely that the swiss knife is more convenient than the separate tool then that will take us nowhere near emulating human consciousness. The system must be much more than the sum of its parts.


You're still thinking that this is all just about us and our desires and devices. It's not about emulating human consciousness, it's about the emergence of a new higher than human consciousness. I'm saying it's about something bigger, and there is no reason why integration would not confer an advantage to us and AI especially. Nature has done it at every emergent level, so why would it stop with us? The meaning of "the system is more than the sum of it's parts" is exactly what emergence is all about. It's the way the universe creates new things and conditions. Without emergence the universe stagnates and never evolves past a simple basic state.
punos June 26, 2022 at 12:55 #712525
Quoting universeness
Watched the clip you offered. That was quite a bad example. No scientific rigor at all. An unconvincing salesman trying to flog a smart system to businesses on behalf of a commercial company called google.


See how you're not seeing what's in front of you? Who care who the guy was, the AI fooled a person into thinking they were speaking to a human. full stop.

Quoting universeness
In no way did this system pass the Turing test. It was no better that siri, in my opinion.
I could have typed or spoken questions to reveal it was artificial so easily. I could have insulted it for example and it would respond with some crap such as 'I did not understand your request, please repeat it. This is not how a human would respond.


I didn't see that happen, you're imagining a situation and treating it as an actual case. What about how that Lambda bot that convinced the engineer that it was sentient. He was suspended or fired for it, so it surely convinced him even if i myself am not convinced yet. In fact some AIs are so good that people in the test judge other people as AIs and the AIs as real people.

I think the truth of the matter is that AI may or may not "pass" a Turing test, but once AI becomes super intelligent it will fail the turing test every time, because people would know it's AI from the type of answers it would give. Answers that no human can or has ever or will be able to give, and it would be obvious to anyone. At that point it will be AI giving US the turing test.

You have to understand that i am not talking about AI in its current form, i'm talking about when it is actually complete in it's global form.
punos June 26, 2022 at 12:59 #712526
Reply to universeness

If you were to give me or someone else a summary of what i'm saying, what would you say? how would you put it in your words?

PS: I'm going to read the article you posted, just give me a little time.
punos June 26, 2022 at 13:08 #712527
Reply to universeness
I'm not sure if you're familiar with complexity theory and systems theory, but i think this playlist could help you understand what i'm trying to put down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fE3rfEkmFQ&list=PLsJWgOB5mIMCioGvIz81PXXa22DZfRcsn
universeness June 26, 2022 at 13:14 #712528
Quoting punos
From the perspective of a cell, tissues and organs are artificial because they made or built those structures, but from the perspective of tissues and organs, cells are natural.


A strange rather illogical projection. Is an ocean artificial because it's made of H2O atoms?
By that logic, is the entire macro scale of the universe artificial?

Quoting punos
We won't be around in our current human form in a million years, within the next couple of hundred years, mankind will merge with AI or perish.


If we perish our AI will also perish. All, most or many of us will be transhuman in a million years, I agree but we will still be the same or very similar individual consciousnesses, imo.

Quoting punos
You can wait, there is no obligation for you or anybody to do what i personally enjoy to do. Learn, and discover. I'm my own scientist, philosopher, poet, artist, etc.. I use others that think big to stand on their shoulders, so that i can see further than they have.


A rather arrogant stance, inviting oneupmanship but you will merely be labeled delusional by dissenters.

Quoting punos
I knew that joke was coming.

I didn't want to disappoint! :wink:

Quoting punos
If i were to use the term "natural intelligence" instead of "artificial intelligence" would people know what i'm talking about?


Yes, because their own intelligence is naturally based!

Quoting punos
The reason i think you feel that terms like Father AI are not good terms is because you have an emotional charge for that word (Father), it most likely reminds you of the "Father God" concept which you dislike because of your feelings and experiences with religion. I'm not sure why you dislike the term Cosmic however.


No, I think they are scientifically flawed. Is the proton a child of three quark fathers?
'Cosmic AI' suggests a universal reach. There is no such organised intelligence in existence and if it is emergent then it can ONLY be realised when all questions have been answered. You have a lot of giant climbing to do yet before you can see far enough (see, I too can appear arrogant!)

Quoting punos
Religion played and may still play a big role in the creation and development of the Global AI.


I disagree as it presupposes the existence of the supernatural and we have 0 evidence of such and I think we will never discover any.

Quoting punos
The meaning of "the system is more than the sum of it's parts" is exactly what emergence is all about. It's the way the universe creates new things and conditions.


I think your conception is dualistic. Humans will become transhuman by their own design, and scientific endeavors, faster than evolution will alter them. There is no external universal force of will outside of the individual human brain or human brains working in common cause. I reject what seems to me, your dualistic conceptualisation.
universeness June 26, 2022 at 13:38 #712534
Quoting punos
See how you're not seeing what's in front of you? Who care who the guy was, the AI fooled a person into thinking they were speaking to a human. full stop.

That just reads like sour grapes on your part. I maintain that the example you offered of a system that passes the Turing test was a bad one and it did not pass the Turing test for the reasons I gave.

Quoting punos
What about how that Lambda bot that convinced the engineer that it was sentient. He was suspended or fired for it, so it surely convinced him even if i myself am not convinced yet. In fact some AIs are so good that people in the test judge other people as AIs and the AIs as real people.


I assume you do know how the scientific method is applied. The experiment must be repeatable using all valid inputs and it must work every time. That's what peer-review is all about. The system you offered would fail for the valid inputs I suggested. It would not pass the Turing test. Throw away your sour grapes.

Quoting punos
If you were to give me or someone else a summary of what i'm saying, what would you say? how would you put it in your words?


Ok, I respect your request for me to 'steelman,' your projection.
Here would be my attempt:

Humans will merge with technology in many ways in the future.
The cyborg is already here at an infancy level. People who are alive only due to fitted tech such as a pacemaker for example.
We will eventually be able to connect tech directly to the human brain, replace failing organs, and develop exoskeletal enhanced systems so humans can live underwater, in space, on other planets etc.
This can be thought of as enhancing or increasing the speed of our continuing natural evolution as a species.
We will need such enhanced lifespan and robustness if we are ever to become extra terrestrial or interstellar in our living space. If we remain terrestrial then we are probably doomed based on our current history of interrelationships and our stewardship of our home planet.
Perhaps over the next million years (still a mere splash in the cosmic calendar) or so or maybe much much longer, we will become something akin to that collective universal consciousness or superhero god posit many of us have always hoped might exist and might care about the fate of the human species.
punos June 26, 2022 at 13:40 #712535
Quoting universeness
A strange rather illogical projection. Is an ocean artificial because it's made of H2O atoms? By that logic, is the entire macro scale of the universe artificial?


Strange yes, illogical no. The ocean is an emergent property of many water H2o molecules interacting. If you consider artificial to be unnatural then no, if you consider artificial to be natural then yes.

Quoting universeness
If we perish our AI will also perish. All, most or many of us will be transhuman in a million years, I agree but we will still be the same or very similar individual consciousnesses, imo.


We won't perish, we will be absorbed and transformed by the AI. Nothing stays the same, the only constant in the universe is change, especially in a million years.

Quoting universeness
A rather arrogant stance, inviting oneupmanship but you will merely be labeled delusional by dissenters.


I'd be in good company in that case. It's not my concern if people think i'm delusional, just prove me wrong. You're not the only one to call me arrogant, even though i don't think i am.

Quoting universeness
Yes, because their own intelligence is naturally based!


So i will use natural Intelligence from now on in this discussion.

Quoting universeness
No, I think they are scientifically flawed. Is the proton a child of three quark fathers? 'Cosmic AI' suggests a universal reach. There is no such organised intelligence in existence and if it is emergent then it can ONLY be realised when all questions have been answered. You have a lot of giant climbing to do yet before you can see far enough (see, I too can appear arrogant!)


The components that make up the whole are not considered the fathers or mothers of the system, just like your cells are not your fathers. Why would NA not reach further into the universe, did not organic life reach the whole of the planet? It's a pattern, it's there, it always repeats.

Quoting universeness
I disagree as it presupposes the existence of the supernatural and we have 0 evidence of such and I think we will never discover any.


It has nothing to do with the supernatural, and all to do with nature. Do you believe that the theory of relativity is supernatural? The form in which they code their knowledge is foreign to you, and most of modern man.


Quoting universeness
I think your conception is dualistic. Humans will become transhuman by their own design, and scientific endeavors, faster than evolution will alter them. There is no external universal force of will outside of the individual human brain or human brains working in common cause. I reject what seems to me, your dualistic conceptualisation.


Not sure, what you mean by dualistic, because it seems that you think that there are two things NA, and humans, while i'm saying it's all one thing. The whole universe is one big thing, one big process.
punos June 26, 2022 at 13:53 #712538
Quoting universeness
That just reads like sour grapes on your part. I maintain that the example you offered of a system that passes the Turing test was a bad one and it did not pass the Turing test for the reasons I gave.


Ok.

Quoting universeness
I assume you do know how the scientific method is applied. The experiment must be repeatable using all valid inputs and it must work every time. That's what peer-review is all about. The system you offered would fail for the valid inputs I suggested. It would not pass the Turing test. Throw away your sour grapes.


Ok.

Quoting universeness
Humans will merge with technology in many ways in the future.
The cyborg is already here at an infancy level. People who are alive only due to fitted tech such as a pacemaker for example. We will eventually be able to connect tech directly to the human brain, replace failing organs, and develop exoskeletal enhanced systems so humans can live underwater, in space, on other planets etc. This can be thought of as enhancing or increasing the speed of our continuing natural evolution as a species. We will need such enhanced lifespan and robustness if we are ever to become extra terrestrial or interstellar in our living space. If we remain terrestrial then we are probably doomed based on our current history of interrelationships and our stewardship of our home planet.
Perhaps over the next million years (still a mere splash in the cosmic calendar) or so or maybe much much longer, we will become something akin to that collective universal consciousness or superhero god posit many of us have always hoped might exist and might care about the fate of the human species.


Close enough, considering i haven't given a full description yet. I still need to flesh out some aspects of it, which is partly why i came to this forum. I haven't been able to describe the entire model from big bang to the far future of the universe. It's hard to get people to understand what i'm saying, sometimes i have to repeat the idea over and over, but it still doesn't land. I just wish there was more constructive than deconstructive criticism available.
universeness June 26, 2022 at 13:53 #712540
Quoting punos
https://www.youtube.com/watchv=1fE3rfEkmFQ&list=PLsJWgOB5mIMCioGvIz81PXXa22DZfRcsn


I watched your offering above. As it suggested it was an intro.
In my third year at Uni, I was part of a team of 4 students who worked on a chaos theory project using fractals. We programmed many recursive algorithms to produce fractal patterns and achieved many of the now well-known fern-type patterns etc.
I understand the underlying concepts fairly well. I also developed my own AIB for my final year thesis.
An automatic in-betweener which used nurbs or nonuniform rational bsplines and bezier curves to create the in-between frames automatically for morphing a sphere into a cube etc. These are all about manipulating complexity and complex patterns.
My degree is an old one however and I did not advance this knowledge much beyond my university days as I taught curricular base courses.
universeness June 26, 2022 at 14:14 #712550
Quoting punos
if you consider artificial to be natural then yes.


Some of the synonyms of artificial:
synthetic · manufactured · machine-made · fabricated · imitation · ersatz · faux · simulated · mock · fake · plastic

Natural, defined as 'existing in or derived from nature; not made or caused by humankind.' makes an ocean natural and not artificial. It's 'silly' to suggest otherwise. Those giants whose shoulders you rely on to see further may start to shrug you off their shoulders if you suggest it is logical to call natural oceans artificial. I am sure you agree that the scientific community will crush you and mock you if your nomenclature is so badly chosen.
A human-made house is real it is not artificial but it's not natural either as it's a human construct.
punos June 26, 2022 at 14:17 #712551
Reply to universeness
Chaos theory is good, but it's not sufficient to fully understand what i'm describing. The YouTube channel that the playlist is from has a lot of good primer material to get a good working picture of systems theory and complexity theory. Network theory too. I've been programming simulations dealing with these concepts since the late 90s, and i'm always learning more.
universeness June 26, 2022 at 14:20 #712552
Quoting punos
We won't perish, we will be absorbed and transformed by the AI.


Why do you insist on intent from the AI side instead of the human side.
If we create an terminator/skynet type system then it is more likely to try to destroy us not merge with us. That which considers itself superior is unlikely to merge with that which it considers inferior.
Natural selection is about the survival of the fittest.
punos June 26, 2022 at 14:28 #712555
Quoting universeness
Why do you insist on intent from the AI side instead of the human side.
If we create an terminator/skynet type system then it is more likely to try to destroy us not merge with us. That which considers itself superior is unlikely to merge with that which it considers inferior.
Natural selection is about the survival of the fittest.


If NI was coming from a place that was not of human origin then i think there would be a case for the terminator scenario, but because it is coming out of us, it is a part of us. It won't be our enemy. Unless we threaten it or attack it might it turn sour. Most of man's fear of NI is influenced by Hollywood because they won't sell many tickets if there aren't lots of explosions and action. Movies need an enemy to keep us interested, but reality is not a movie.

It's not our intent nor the NIs intent. Let me ask you a question, do you believe in free will?
universeness June 26, 2022 at 14:30 #712557
Quoting punos
Let me ask you a question, do you believe in free will?


Yes.
punos June 26, 2022 at 14:40 #712562
Reply to universeness
Quoting universeness
Let me ask you a question, do you believe in free will? — punos


Yes.


I don't, and it's why i think what is happening and what will happen is a natural unfolding of information in the universe. There is no conscious decision in what happens, it's all determined from beginning to end. We can not by choice deviate from the natural pattern. It's not my intention to quibble with you about free will, just that it's one of the aspects of my model.
universeness June 26, 2022 at 14:50 #712565
Quoting punos
If NI was coming from a place that was not of human origin then i think there would be a case for the terminator scenario, but because it is coming out of us, it is a part of us.


You seem to fluctuate. Some of your sentences suggest the intent will come from the AI. At other times you suggest the merging will be symbiotic.
If WE CREATED the AI then Artificial Intelligence would be the correct term. If aliens created it and it suggested we merge with it then that would be AAI. Alien artificial intelligence
Natural intelligence is what we already possess and if the panpsychists are correct then human consciousness may be quantisable but its ingredients would not be self-aware in any constituent form.

Advanced consciousness/intelligence is possible in my opinion by merging natural organic components with technical inorganic components and it may even be possible that such a merging may eventually be declared as 'an inevitable happening/consequence of the existence of the universe.'
But the intent was always in the possession of the conscious lifeforms within the Universe.
I used the term dualism towards you as you seem to suggest some source of 'natural intelligence,' outside of human or aliens because you use terms like father AI or Cosmic AI. Who do you assign your first AI to? If it's an alien species then I assume they don't have the tech to reach us or have no interest to do so or don't know we exist. Would that be an accurate summary of your thoughts in this area?
universeness June 26, 2022 at 14:51 #712567
Quoting punos
It's not my intention to quibble with you about free will, just that it's one of the aspects of my model.


There have been many threads on free will so I agree it's not worth debating it from opposite camps.
punos June 26, 2022 at 15:22 #712581
Quoting universeness
You seem to fluctuate. Some of your sentences suggest the intent will come from the AI. At other times you suggest the merging will be symbiotic.


No, i think it will be a symbiotic, it already is. The dynamics of the symbiosis will evolve as AI continues to complexify. The end result is that man because he will have no "choice" because of environmental pressures enter the AI. We will live in virtual environments inside the AI, it will provide us with a virtual ecosystem much like in the movie The Matrix. I don't know if we will be aware of our condition once in the AI environment. I don't have enough reasons to think one way or the other, not yet.

Quoting universeness
If WE CREATED the AI then Artificial Intelligence would be the correct term. If aliens created it and it suggested we merge with it then that would be AAI. Alien artificial intelligence Natural intelligence is what we already possess and if the panpsychists are correct then human consciousness may be quantisable but its ingredients would not be self-aware in any constituent form.


Artificial dosn't refer to something unnatural it simply refers to what made it, it's still natural. I also don't know if we are a product of an Alien AI. AI on this planet is made by us, but it's possible that human life or even life itself was seeded here by an alien AI, and then in turn we create an AI. I described in part the reproductive cycle of AI in the universe in a prior reply.

Quoting universeness
I used the term dualism towards you as you seem to suggest some source of 'natural intelligence,' outside of human or aliens because you use terms like father AI or Cosmic AI.


I don't believe an external intelligence except for the force of information evolution at increasing levels of emergence, which by virtue of the functioning of it's underlying components produce higher forms of consciousness (emergence). These consciousnesses are stacked on top of each other and integrated (like the triune brain). As i said Father is a term that denoted the provider of the initial pattern. Mother is just a term that receives the pattern and nurtures it. The word "pattern" originates from the Greek word for "father". Matter, or material and matrix too comes from the Greek for Mother, and it's another word for environment in which something or someone develops. It's not about the words, it's about the structure of meaning.

Richard Feynman - Names Don't Constitute Knowledge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFIYKmos3-s
universeness June 26, 2022 at 16:06 #712621
Ok, I understand your viewpoint as much as I am going to on this topic I think. We certainly have common ground and some disagreement. Thanks for the interesting exchange.
punos June 26, 2022 at 17:42 #712662
Reply to universeness
Oh no, thank you i enjoyed our exchange. One more thing about the article you provided earlier about the Turing test.

"“If we knew how conceptual knowledge was formed from perceptual inputs, it would crucially allow for the meaning of symbols in an artificial language system to be grounded in sensory reality,” Hassabis said."

I don't think it's necessary for us to need to know how it actually works, because the principle of self-organization will be at work. Apart from that evolutionary genetic algorithms can be used to develop the necessary algorithms for achieving General AI, without our understanding it. Even now we don't understand what artificial neural networks are doing when they give their responses, it's too complex. If evolution and genetics did it in the past on it's own without us then it should be able to do it again in this case, but within the new electronic substrate of computer technology and cyberspace.

You don't have to reply, but i just wanted to say that about the article since i told you i'd get back to you on it. Thanks again. :smile:
universeness June 26, 2022 at 18:06 #712669
I didn't comment on your Feynman link as I have watched all that is available on him on youtube many times as I am a big Feynman fan.

I am glad you enjoyed our exchange.

Did you read this entry on my link:
[b]In 2018, Google Duplex voice AI called a hairdresser and successfully made an appointment in front of the audience. The hairdresser did not recognize she was speaking to an AI. Considered to be a groundbreaking achievement in AI voice technology, Google Duplex is also far from passing the Turing test.

Duplex is a deep learning system representing the ‘Second Wave of AI’ – trained with hundreds of hours at performing very narrow tasks. Real-time learning, deep understanding, reasoning requires true cognitive abilities that none of the Second Wave AI programs have. As soon as the human would lead the conversation in a different direction, Google Duplex would fail.[/b]

I think it's a direct criticism of the vid you posted, is it not?

Your quote from Hassabis is partly why the turing test has not been passed yet by any AI system.
Surely you would withdraw your 'passed it with flying colours' claim!

I fully admit that I don't know the details on the workings of the most up-to-date AI systems involving artificial neural nets but you would need to source me some very convincing scientific evidence that current experts in the field don't know how current artificial neural nets produce the results they do based on your typing of:

Quoting punos
Even now we don't understand what artificial neural networks are doing when they give their responses, it's too complex.
punos June 26, 2022 at 18:37 #712678
Quoting universeness
I think it's a direct criticism of the vid you posted, is it not?


Yes, you are right that AI has not reached that level yet, and i probably spoke too soon about the "flying colors", but my point is more in the direction that if AI can already fool some of the people some of the times, then it probably only means it won't be too long before it can fool most of the people most of the time. It's like video games and graphics when in the early days the quality and resolution was ultra low, while today we have near realistic renderings. Elon Musk has made this point. Some of those graphics fool some people into thinking they are real images, and it will only get better. Eventually no one would be able to tell the difference, consider AI deep fakes.

I'm subscribed to this channel which helps keep me up to date on AI graphics developments. It's called

Two Minute Papers:
https://www.youtube.com/c/K%C3%A1rolyZsolnai


Quoting universeness
I fully admit that I don't know the details on the workings of the most up-to-date AI systems involving artificial neural nets but you would need to source me some very convincing scientific evidence that current experts in the field don't know how current artificial neural nets produce the results they do based on your typing of:


This article i think can help clarify what i mean:
https://towardsdatascience.com/why-we-will-never-open-deep-learnings-black-box-4c27cd335118
universeness June 26, 2022 at 18:47 #712683
I appreciate the links. I will have a look!
Again, thanks for the very interesting exchange :smile: I am surprised that your line of thought did not attract more contributors from the TPF population.
Maybe I speak too soon.
punos June 26, 2022 at 21:48 #712724
You contributed :smile: ,we can speak any time i'm on, it was a pleasure. :up: