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Post by bjorn on Aug 21, 2009 12:48:09 GMT
Explain the difference between A Real Universe (TM) and A Simulated Universe. Focus on how to distinguish between the two. Use no more than 1000 words.
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Post by humphreyclarke on Aug 21, 2009 16:39:45 GMT
Well about a year ago a friend of mine told me that he had done an order with a supermarket (I think it was Sainsburys) online but when he checked the receipt that came though, he realised that he had forgotten to buy coriander and lentils. When the order eventually arrived he looked through his shopping and realised to his amazement that, despite not ordering the items, they had arrived with the delivery. Now the odds of that happening in a real universe are statistically unlikely, but in a simulated universe with software bugs in it, they are virtually certain. Besides, in an infinite multiverse etc etc.......
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Post by krkey1 on Aug 21, 2009 20:10:12 GMT
Hey Unklee
Glad you liked my response
About what you said here
1. We go into some other sort of natural but non-physical universe as a natural process we cannot at present understand. But there cannot, by definition be any evidence for that (I would have thought) so it must remain no more than a conjecture.
I am not sure I would say we go into a nonphysical universe, to me that is an oxymoron. However we might go to a different universe. I believe even if we have a soul it is a physical thing, just perhaps made out of very small subatomic particles. I mean even light has weight even if it is a little. Why not a soul?
A soul separate from a body just goes back to it's place of origin, after that who knows. I imagine even if we proved such a world existed we could not truly ever understand it.
As for God. I do not think even life after death would prove God, though it would be suggestive of it. How in blazes do you proof the existence of an all powerful, all knowing being after all. Nothing is evidence enough for that.
Hey Humphrey have you ever read the book The Holographic Universe? It argues the universe is a simulated hologram. It is quite interesting and it does use NDEs as evidence for this ( though it uses other things too)
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Post by unkleE on Aug 21, 2009 22:31:44 GMT
Explain the difference between A Real Universe (TM) and A Simulated Universe. Focus on how to distinguish between the two. Use no more than 1000 words. This is a good question. It amounts (I think) to asking questions like: 1. How do we know which is "real" - waking or dreaming? 2. In the film "The Matrix", how do they know that earth is the matrix (i.e. the simulation) and the people lying in their pods is the "real" world? CS Lewis answered (1) by saying in the waking world we can comprehend the dreaming world, but not vice versa. Not sure of he's right there, but it may work. My tentative answer would be: (a) we could know the answer if we knew the origins of each, (b) the simulated world exists only in the mind of the person experiencing it and the computer simulating it, whereas the real world has objective physical existence independent of any observer - though we observers could never know that for sure, and (c) the real world would be more consistent than the simulated world, which could be easily and arbitrarily altered by programming. Trouble with that, is that this criterion would make our world "unreal" to the extent that God does miracles in it. Perhaps the only answer is "God knows!"
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Post by unkleE on Aug 21, 2009 22:41:20 GMT
I am not sure I would say we go into a nonphysical universe, to me that is an oxymoron. However we might go to a different universe. I believe even if we have a soul it is a physical thing, just perhaps made out of very small subatomic particles. I mean even light has weight even if it is a little. Why not a soul? A soul separate from a body just goes back to it's place of origin, after that who knows. I imagine even if we proved such a world existed we could not truly ever understand it. Thanks again for sharing your ideas. However it seems to me that this is all highly speculative, and based on no evidence beyond the NDEs we are discussing. I can understand that naturalistic science may be inadequate (at present, perhaps forever) to explain NDEs, but from my perspective, explaining NDEs within christian belief, while presenting some problems, gets the best of both worlds in terms of evidence. i.e. the classic reasons for believing in God (the philosophical "proofs" plus experience) and for believing in Jesus (history, logic and experience), then incorporating the evidence for NDEs into that. Of course we cannot "prove" God, but we can asses the evidence and come to the most reasonable conclusion. Like I said above, while I think you are probably right that the current evidence for NDEs is not well explained by naturalistic medical science, I think your explanation is way more speculative and less based on evidence than the evidence for the christian God. But I'll leave it there. Thanks for helping me understand the issues and the evidence a little better.
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Post by krkey1 on Aug 22, 2009 4:22:51 GMT
No Problem Unklee
Glad to help you understand this a little, it is a subject I love. You can keep the Christian God though, I want nothing to do with him!
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Post by unkleE on Aug 22, 2009 4:38:39 GMT
Glad to help you understand this a little, it is a subject I love. You can keep the Christian God though, I want nothing to do with him! If you are right about an afterlife, you may have more to do with him than you imagine!
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Post by krkey1 on Aug 22, 2009 15:19:10 GMT
I doubt it. The Christian God is obviously an invention of Bronze Age people from the Middle East. I put him the same boat as Dagon, Baal etc.
The world isn't flat, man has been around for longer then 10K years etc. It just doesn't look like what Yahweh was claimed to have done.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2009 19:28:15 GMT
However it seems to me that this is all highly speculative, and based on no evidence beyond the NDEs we are discussing. I can understand that naturalistic science may be inadequate (at present, perhaps forever) to explain NDEs, but from my perspective, explaining NDEs within christian belief, while presenting some problems, gets the best of both worlds in terms of evidence. i.e. the classic reasons for believing in God (the philosophical "proofs" plus experience) and for believing in Jesus (history, logic and experience), then incorporating the evidence for NDEs into that. Unklee, the way NDEs are described, they don't conform to the christian conception of an afterlife. In NDEs, people are completely detached from their body and go towards a white light. In Judaism and Christianity, we need our bodies for any form of afterlife, and they are a part of our personal identity (Semitic totality concept). Furthermore, we aren't going anywhere but are waiting for Jesus' second coming and Final Judgment. And Heaven isn't a spiritual nonphysical place but a world purified from sin, and with a direct discourse with God in it. On the other hand, I did try Astral Projection in my younger days. I didn't succeed detaching myself from the body, but I still experienced weird phenomena.
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Post by unkleE on Aug 23, 2009 8:11:17 GMT
I doubt it. The Christian God is obviously an invention of Bronze Age people from the Middle East. I put him the same boat as Dagon, Baal etc. The world isn't flat, man has been around for longer then 10K years etc. It just doesn't look like what Yahweh was claimed to have done. I wasn't going to discuss anything more than NDEs with you, but your use of the objective "obviously" instead of the subjective "in my opinion" leads me to respond. 1. What you say is not objectively "obvious", it is your belief (and others') vs mine (and others'). 2. The christian god was not an invention of Bronze Age people. The Bronze Age ended in the Middle East about 1000 BC according to the Encyclopedia Britannica ( Wikipedia says 1200BC). We have received our understanding of the christian God from Jesus, a full millennium later than the close of the Bronze Age! Even if you are talking about Yahweh, the Old Testament God, your statement is doubtful. (Yes, while they are supposed to be the same person, our understanding of the two are different.) While Bible traditionalists would date the first part of the OT to Moses, before the end of the Bronze Age, most scholars (I understand) would date the composition of the Pentateuch to several centuries after the close of the Bronze Age. And the prophets, who had a significant contribution to the OT, were mostly a full half millennium after the close of the Bronze Age. 3. One of the most basic facts about christianity is that it is a religion of progressive revelation. Within the Bible, the original ideas of the Pentateuch are modified and enlarged by the prophets. Jesus comes with a further, and very significant modification and enlargement of the OT understanding of God, and a significant correction to first century Jewish ideas. The revelation is further developed by Paul and the other apostles. But even that is not the end, because believers are promised the Holy Spirit to guide christians into further truth - and so christian understanding has been further refined over two more millennia. Most christians, including most on this forum, would believe that we are still learning and growing in our understanding of God and his world even now. In my several years discussing religion on the internet, I have learnt to my chagrin two things (among others); (i) The amazing proliferation as truth of ideas and "facts" that are demonstrably false or exaggerated, and by people who otherwise claim to base their views on reason and evidence. They just don't check the statements they make (we all do it at times), but repeat them as dogma. I fear your have repeated a common, and demonstrably inaccurate, dogma here. I hope the rest of your unbelief has a better basis in evidence and reason! : ) (ii) Unbelievers, again supposedly basing their views on evidence and reason, almost always take the very worst features of belief they can find, and present those as the basis for their disbelief. This may be fun, to mock believers (though it is not my idea of fun, and I certainly don't accuse you of that either!) but it is quite unfair at best and dishonest at worst. Your criticism of the God I believe in should at least take account of all that 3 millennia of revelation and development, and should particularly be based on Jesus. I think you can readily understand my chagrin, for I imagine your beliefs about NDEs are often misunderstood and perhaps even mocked - by naturalists who can allow nothing that cannot be explained by physical science, and by religious believers, who find NDEs do not easily conform to their beliefs. I imagine you feel somewhat pissed off at some comments, thinking to yourself that they haven't treated the evidence fairly, have ignored the well researched papers and have based their views on the fringe and the weird. You will have noticed I did not do that. I am not offended by your dismissal of the God I believe in and love. But just as you have a right to your opinion about him, I have a right to draw your and other members' attention to the fact that it is just an opinion, and one I believe not based on the best evidence. For before I could disbelieve in the God of Jesus, I would have to find satisfactory explanations (which I do not presently find forthcoming) about why a complex universe (or even multiverse) should exist at all, and why it should be designed in such a statistically improbable way; I would have to find an explanation of human value, ethics, rationality and freewill which (thankfully) we seem unable to live without, but which naturalism does not seem able to provide; I would have to deny my experience of 45+ years living with this God, and the experience of millions of others; and I would have to either ignore the historical evidence for Jesus or find some way to explain his extraordinary life and impact in naturalistic terms. I can't gainsay that evidence, despite the difficulties of some aspects of belief. I'm sorry if I have over-reacted, but I have explained why I have taken this trouble. I am hoping we can stay on friendly terms and have further worthwhile discussions, but I hope they can be based on mutual respect. Thanks and best wishes.
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Post by unkleE on Aug 23, 2009 8:58:19 GMT
Unklee, the way NDEs are described, they don't conform to the christian conception of an afterlife. Yes, Matko, I am aware of that. But the world is full of phenomena that require us to re-evaluate our beliefs and understanding, and many more claims that need to be assessed. krkey1 has presented some evidence for the reality of NDEs. I have an open mind. My tentative conclusion would be that there is something there that is not yet fully explained. Even if I reject the "afterlife" experiences as simply products of the brain (a conclusion I have not yet come to), there are still experiences that seem to show that consciousness and sentience can exist while the brain is clinically dead. I am interested in knowing the truth (though it isn't highly important to me in this case - there are many truths and one life is too short to know even a fraction of them). If I decide these experiences teach us something new, I will incorporate them into my worldview. People had to do it with evolution, perhaps with genetic research, with studies of neuroscience, etc, and we can do it with NDEs if the evidence is persuasive. I for instance would have no problem if I came to the conclusion outlined above (i.e. "afterlife" experiences are products of the brain and not necessarily "real", but there are experiences that show that consciousness and sentience can exist while the brain is clinically dead), though I am not there yet, and may never be. Thanks for your thoughts.
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Post by krkey1 on Aug 23, 2009 21:17:50 GMT
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Post by unkleE on Aug 23, 2009 22:21:15 GMT
Just out of curiosity how would you respond to this. I guess my brief response would be: 1. I wouldn't think I'd want to come to an opinion without reading a lot more, and I'm not sure I'd choose to spend my time on this matter. (Like I said before, life is too short to investigate everything, and one has to be judicious.) 2. Reincarnation is not anything like a full worldview, it can only be part of a larger worldview. So, like NDEs, how can it be fitted into a theistic or an atheistic, or any other worldview? If one tries to fit it into a naturalistic belief, one is immediately faced with difficult questions like: - how this could be a naturalistic process?
- where do people go between lives?
- with the world population growing, where are the additional people coming from?
- if a person has a new body including a new brain, and naturalism is true, how can this in any sense be the same person as previously?
So first thoughts suggest reincarnation, if it is true, has to be part of some non-naturalistic worldview, much as I think afterlife NDEs (if true) would have to. It certainly doesn't fit within the main monotheistic faiths, but does anyone who values science and logic really believe that Buddhism and Hinduism (with their emphasis on the unreality of the physical world and self) can be true? So like your answers about afterlife NDEs, it seems difficult to place reincarnation into any believable framework, and we are left with some vaguely supernatural belief. So I see some initial hurdles to overcomes. 3. Then there is the evidence. For any alleged "strange" event such as reincarnation, there can be many different types of explanations. I can think of the following (listed approximately in the order we should probably consider them): - it is a mistaken report
- it is a fake or a lie
- the evidence can be explained by naturalistic causes that don't involve reincarnation
- it is a natural occurrence which we don't fully understand (this probably can't apply to reincarnation, but may perhaps apply some "paranormal" events)
- it is the work of God
- it is the work of another spiritual power (e.g. the devil)
- it is the result of some other non-natural or non-earthly cause (e.g. aliens, the Force, etc)
Now I don't necessarily think all those are possible or likely, but they would all have to be considered. And with something with as many difficulties as reincarnation, one would surely have to wonder whether one of the first few options is the most likely. Beyond that, I can only say again that I don't know enough to comment. Except to say that compared to this, believing in a creator God and in Jesus is based on much better evidence in my opinion.
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Post by krkey1 on Aug 23, 2009 23:27:51 GMT
To me I have always thought the greatest problem with reincarnation is population increase. However I do not think this is a lethal problem. Obviously if reincarnation is true their is some sort of a spiritual realm. There would be a greater population then on Earth. Basically we don't all play at once. This is what most reincarnationist say, ie some souls are older then others.
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Post by Al Moritz on Aug 24, 2009 7:52:29 GMT
I doubt it. The Christian God is obviously an invention of Bronze Age people from the Middle East. I put him the same boat as Dagon, Baal etc. The world isn't flat, man has been around for longer then 10K years etc. It just doesn't look like what Yahweh was claimed to have done. I wasn't going to discuss anything more than NDEs with you, but your use of the objective "obviously" instead of the subjective "in my opinion" leads me to respond. 1. What you say is not objectively "obvious", it is your belief (and others') vs mine (and others'). 2. The christian god was not an invention of Bronze Age people. The Bronze Age ended in the Middle East about 1000 BC according to the Encyclopedia Britannica ( Wikipedia says 1200BC). We have received our understanding of the christian God from Jesus, a full millennium later than the close of the Bronze Age! Even if you are talking about Yahweh, the Old Testament God, your statement is doubtful. (Yes, while they are supposed to be the same person, our understanding of the two are different.) While Bible traditionalists would date the first part of the OT to Moses, before the end of the Bronze Age, most scholars (I understand) would date the composition of the Pentateuch to several centuries after the close of the Bronze Age. And the prophets, who had a significant contribution to the OT, were mostly a full half millennium after the close of the Bronze Age. 3. One of the most basic facts about christianity is that it is a religion of progressive revelation. Within the Bible, the original ideas of the Pentateuch are modified and enlarged by the prophets. Jesus comes with a further, and very significant modification and enlargement of the OT understanding of God, and a significant correction to first century Jewish ideas. The revelation is further developed by Paul and the other apostles. But even that is not the end, because believers are promised the Holy Spirit to guide christians into further truth - and so christian understanding has been further refined over two more millennia. Most christians, including most on this forum, would believe that we are still learning and growing in our understanding of God and his world even now. In my several years discussing religion on the internet, I have learnt to my chagrin two things (among others); (i) The amazing proliferation as truth of ideas and "facts" that are demonstrably false or exaggerated, and by people who otherwise claim to base their views on reason and evidence. They just don't check the statements they make (we all do it at times), but repeat them as dogma. I fear your have repeated a common, and demonstrably inaccurate, dogma here. I hope the rest of your unbelief has a better basis in evidence and reason! : ) (ii) Unbelievers, again supposedly basing their views on evidence and reason, almost always take the very worst features of belief they can find, and present those as the basis for their disbelief. This may be fun, to mock believers (though it is not my idea of fun, and I certainly don't accuse you of that either!) but it is quite unfair at best and dishonest at worst. Your criticism of the God I believe in should at least take account of all that 3 millennia of revelation and development, and should particularly be based on Jesus. I think you can readily understand my chagrin, for I imagine your beliefs about NDEs are often misunderstood and perhaps even mocked - by naturalists who can allow nothing that cannot be explained by physical science, and by religious believers, who find NDEs do not easily conform to their beliefs. I imagine you feel somewhat pissed off at some comments, thinking to yourself that they haven't treated the evidence fairly, have ignored the well researched papers and have based their views on the fringe and the weird. You will have noticed I did not do that. I am not offended by your dismissal of the God I believe in and love. But just as you have a right to your opinion about him, I have a right to draw your and other members' attention to the fact that it is just an opinion, and one I believe not based on the best evidence. For before I could disbelieve in the God of Jesus, I would have to find satisfactory explanations (which I do not presently find forthcoming) about why a complex universe (or even multiverse) should exist at all, and why it should be designed in such a statistically improbable way; I would have to find an explanation of human value, ethics, rationality and freewill which (thankfully) we seem unable to live without, but which naturalism does not seem able to provide; I would have to deny my experience of 45+ years living with this God, and the experience of millions of others; and I would have to either ignore the historical evidence for Jesus or find some way to explain his extraordinary life and impact in naturalistic terms. I can't gainsay that evidence, despite the difficulties of some aspects of belief. I'm sorry if I have over-reacted, but I have explained why I have taken this trouble. I am hoping we can stay on friendly terms and have further worthwhile discussions, but I hope they can be based on mutual respect. Thanks and best wishes. No, you did not overreact, Unklee. Your response was appropriate. How can someone think that the Christian God can be compared to Baal (why not the Flying Spaghetti Monster then?) and implies belief in a flat Earth that is 10,000 years old? Only if s/he is not informed at all, except by the worst fables and prejudices against religious faith.
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