Ludwig V

I am so sorry. I started a hare by mistake. The horse first appeared in this comment So a horse here is shorthand for whatever physical object one is ...

Yes. I've heard stories. I was very lucky to be able to work for the same institution for forty years. But I managed that by turning my hand to whatev...

In the UK, the student loan repayment scheme was predicated on the "graduate premium" - that is, the idea that students would earn more money with the...

Yes. I realized soon after I had logged off what you were talking about, went back in and edited my response. Too late to avoid revealing how dumb I h...

Very true. I'm afraid what I wrote is a rather embarrassing case of tunnel vision. But it rather matters what mathematics you are trying to apply to w...

So there is a common understanding of what the issue is. Your disagreement is about different ways of responding to it. Don't you think? Ryle might ha...

Yes. I've seen some analysis of this. The media told us it was about supporting the workers, but it wasn't. It was about supporting the economy. Actua...

I'm not going to disagree with you. But I think regarding it as a plot in the standard sense is not the best way to think about it. I think it was the...

Very interesting. If only I knew what "metaphysically possible" means? Can you help? (I do know what "I said <x>" meant and what seconds are)

Oh, well, I can't make you do anything you don't want to do.

Life certainly does suck. But I'm not at all sure that genetic determinism is the explanation and even less sure that IQ tests measure it. The most im...

I can sign up to that. It all went wrong in the 1990's, when the West and capitalism indulged in triumphalism instead of recognizing the need to sprea...

So do I. There's a paradox about agreement, that it is the purpose, but also the end, of the discussion. So people tend to focus on disagreements. I f...

Interesting. A cosmic brain would be at least very like a god and there are plenty of ideas along those lines - and plenty of people believe them. So ...

Well, there are different ideas of what constitutes a waste of time. I do think that Descartes' exercise is a waste of time. It's just that I don't eq...

That's not what the quotation says - unless you take "not involving practical action" to mean "waste of time". Well, perhaps we do. But when we do, we...

Fair enough. How do we know what the locale is really like, so that we can evaluate the simulation as accurate or not?

Yes. But some people have peculiar ideas of fun. Other people get annoyed and engage in the forlorn hope of persuading them to stop being so silly. Tr...

I suppose it is not unreasonable to apply a judicious, but not radical, scepticism to this argument or at least some of it. Long posts risk not being ...

Yes he does, and, as you say, he doesn't say which of them he thinks most likely - though many people seem to have decided that 3) is the best bet. I'...

I don't see why you say that. I think you are assuming at least a soft determinism? But given that the starting-point of the history in the simulation...

Both make some sort of sense. It would also be possible to say that the aquarium is a little bit of the ocean. It would also be possible to say that, ...

It rather depends on what your project is. If the project is to make a space for fantasies, then the fact that we don't know is an opportunity, not a ...

Good point. Come to think of it, the argument could be seen as a version of Berkeley's "proof" of God. It rather depends on what your project is. If t...

I agree with you. It suits my approach well, in that the existence of the problem is a result of the way it is defined, or not defined. That's the way...

I have been known to take my bat home when I think that a discussion has become fruitless, even before it gets bad-tempered.

Yes. But I have an obstinate feeling that that fact is a reductio of the process that generated it. So I'm not questioning what you say, but rather wh...

I understand. It's probably best not to comment any further.

I agree. I understand the argument as being a version of Cartesian scepticism. The possibility that God, or an evil demon is feeding us false informat...

So there are two ways that a simulation of our world would differ from the real world - sorry, the world as we know it. The first is that the whole of...

Not quite. They can simulate them, but that just means they can create an illusion of them. They can't create them for real. Yes. It's a curious game....

I think that's all right. When I walk a mile, I start a potentially infinite series of paces. When I have done (approximately) 1,760 of them, I stop. ...

I take it you are talking about physical space, not mathematical space? But there are 3-dimensional figures in physics, aren't there? It's the solidit...

I think the point goes deeper than that. We can experience a constellation of coloured shapes as a frog, but only as a picture of a frog. My past expe...

I like that argument a lot. :smile: "Three things" might prove to be contentious, depending on how you define "thing". But the conclusion seems to me ...

That's very generous. If this world is simulated, the "real" world must be very like this one - as in the "Matrix". But then, it if the real world is ...

:smile: I find this very confusing. I take your point about abstraction. But I find that abstraction can create confusion, because it persuades us to ...

Yes, he did say that. He was also right about that, as well. People are making a mistake when they think that voters need to decide on specific measur...

Churchill does quote it, but doesn't take credit for it. Also, there are various forms of it. See Quote Investigator. I thought I had already said tha...

Yes. The idea that we all know how to bring up children, just because we have been through it ourselves, or because of "instinct" is arrogant beyond b...

I don't know what you have in mind when you say that. I don't see how state can exist without society, or society without the state. They are interdep...

I don't know much about the detail of what he said. But Government does like to think of itself as above the fray. In some ways, it is, but in other w...

Exactly. Capitalism and socialism - Tweedledum and Tweedledee. So we have only two things to fear - the state and everyone else. Excellent. But you sh...

There's always a group of people in control, who exclude most of us. In either state, in theory, I could join the group that's in control. But then I ...

..... but what they all have in common is that it isn't us.

What other state, other than anarchism, wouldn't relegate us to serfdom?

I agree - no-one would disagree - until it comes to the question of what children need. Then, we're all over the place.

.... and do you really think that capitalism doesn't resemble serfdom?

I don't think you can have it both ways. I'm not quite sure what you are saying. Do you think that the passage of time occurs when we can't measure it...

I hope you don't mind my saying that your choice of free will as an example was perhaps ill-advised. It's far too contentious to work. Quantum mechani...