Could (a) god(s) exist? Possibly, it’s hard to rule out the supernatural in natural terms since it’s SUPERnatural
Could the universe be a simulation? Possible too, but also on of those things that’s almost impossible to prove.
At the same time, it could be that your e a Boltzmann brain, and that literally nothing existed before and that your brain just kinda formed together spontaneously with all your memories.
All those are possible options that are over 99% likely to be false, but their cooouuullldd be true.
Point is not to rearrange your life on the off changlce that one of those are true. Especially religion, since religions tend to be “believe our particular god(s) or you go to hell for eternity” followed closely by “if you don’t believe our particular god(s) we will help you go to hell right now”. Nearly all human conflicts in Earth’s history were either based on religion or used religion as a tool to whip up the masses to go kill the others.
There are also hundreds of Gods and over 3000 different religious figures out there and they’re all pretty much exclusive or, they all claim to be the right one and the rest is wrong. Bold claim to make when it’s all based off goat herders texts that were first abused for a completely different god (hello, Christianity!) and constantly conflicts with each other.
Simulation theory and Boltzman brain ideas are fun to entertain and talk and think about, but they’ve never been used to control who can love and have sex with who, they’ve never been a used whereas religion just IS abuse and control in every way possible.
I do not like religion
Agree with most of what you said except the “over 99% likely to be false”.
Like you mentioned it’s not possible to prove either way so it isn’t meaningful to describe it as likely or unlikely. We have no way of knowing (at least currently) so the likelihood is simply undefined
Eh, we can prove that human DNA is 99% primate and that there was no great flood. Seems unlikely to me.
It sounds like you’re referring specifically to Christian theology but the comment was just about whether a god or gods exist in general
The mere fact that humans are 1% removed from apes serves to undermine creationism in general.
We’re not talking about creationism or any particular brand of theism
Considering that the overwhelming majority of religions out there are creationists, yes we are.
I understand your point and I feel like maybe I’m sounding a little argumentative. Sorry let me try to be more clear.
I understand your argument is that genetic evidence disproves existing religious beliefs that people have but that’s a different argument to the point I was making.
Even if all global religions are incorrect, that doesn’t mean that a god or gods couldn’t hypothetically exist and my point is that there is no demonstrative proof of that either way.
If you check the original comment again, the question was about whether “a god(s) exist” and up until they mentioned the 99% that I was disputing, religion didn’t even come into it.
You could disprove every creationist claim, every anti-evolution argument, and you’d be right, but you can’t settle the question of “whether a supernatural being exists” because there simply isn’t a way to do that within the natural realm that we know of.
It isn’t just about God either. The simulation and Boltzmann brain hypotheses are similarly immeasurable
The “belief” we’re in a simulation is more like a interesting idea than something people organize their lives around. Is it possible? Yes. Am I going to praise the great programmer every Sunday? No.
The belief in God in most cases is not just belief in some general higher power but a very specific deity with weird morality, silly mythology and bunch of scam artists behind it.
- I think there’s a higher power…
- Ok…
- that got mad at us for eating fruits but then impregnated a lady with itself and pissed us off so that we murdered him and he could say he’s not mad anymore.
- … WTF?
By their own book, the bad guy thought the stupid naked people should have a bit of an education and the good guy punished them for trying to improve their knowledge base. Serpents rule!
I was taught in school that the real battle in the universe is between chaos and order. They gave it a fancy name, Entropy, but that was the gist.
So Chaos is God and Order is Satan. Live all hunter gathering under God or just go to the Supermarket under Satan, and spend the rest of your time doing other things, like making art or scientific theories.
Even now the Church is against progress. Don’t let them Gays get married for fucks sake, the world will explode.
Hail Satan.
I more or less agree, but you keep using “believe” when you ought to use “belief.” Just FYI.
Ups, thanks. Totally missed that.
“Oops.”
Even more material for the “words you have been using wrong” thread.
Could an all powerful, loving God be real? Sure. Why not?
Could a powerful, all loving God be real? Yeah, seems realistic. In many ways, I am a God to an ant.
Could an all powerful all loving God be real?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha no.
God is either inept, indifferent, or a straight up ass. None of those items are something I care to worship, even at the threat of the eternal damnation.
This argument conflates belief with religious practice. The core similarity of both beliefs is that the universe is intelligently designed. And you can believe in the idea of a God without participating in any kind of formal religious practice. That “most” religious belief is wrapped up in a particular religious tradition is ancillary.
The core similarity of both beliefs is that the universe is intelligently designed
The hypothesis of simulation does not address intelligence. Intelligence abstractly is something that exists inside the simulation, it may value nothing outside the simulation. You thesis is lacking evidence.
The theory of simulation does not address intelligence. Intelligence abstractly is something that exists inside the simulation, it may value nothing outside the simulation. You thesis is lacking evidence.
I think you mean “it may value nothing inside the simulation.” Because what you wrote doesn’t make any sense as it’s written. In either case, my “thesis” is not a thesis. It’s an observation of similarity. Both beliefs presume some kind of external motive force behind the universe’s existence. I never made any argument about the intent or abstract values of whatever that thing may or may not be or how it perceives the universe it “created.” I think the only thing lacking here is your reading comprehension skills, as you’re clearly adding unfounded assumptions onto my observation independent of what was actually stated. Also, I posted that like a fucking month ago. Either you’re necroing dead threads looking to pick a fight or whatever instance you’re posting to fucked up its syncing with its federation.
It’s an observation of similarity. Both beliefs presume some kind of external motive force behind the universe’s existence. I never made any argument about the intent or abstract values of whatever that thing may or may not be or how it perceives the universe it “created.”
The universe just getting created by an external force, and your phrasing that it is “intelligently designed” has no similarity. You are just escaping from what you had stated. You yourself assumed that the core similarity is intelligent design. There is nothing to observe here. The only one lacking in reading comprehension is you, or you are probably trying to find the little ounces of loopholes you think you can find because you’re just so disappointed by your thirty-day-old opinion but you also just can’t admit to it, or whatever else the situation may be.
Simulation theory does not share any core similarity with creationism. Just simulating a universe does not mean it is intelligently designed.
You’re getting caught up on phrasing and nothing else. Let it go. “Intelligent design” as an ideology and describing something as “intelligently designed” are not the same thing. The core similarity is what I’ve already described. You want me to mean something beyond what I’ve stated because you’re incapable of accepting what you read at face value. I have no interest in speaking further with someone without the intelligence to do something basic as understand the words they read.
You’re getting caught up on phrasing and nothing else. Let it go. “Intelligent design” as an ideology and describing something as “intelligently designed” are not the same thing.
They are different things, and I am not taking the phrasing in an ideological context. Something being intelligently designed and just being designed, are not the same thing either. Your previous reply elaborates the phrasing of yours that I quoted in a broader way that only you can come up with, because the phrasing simply had an entirely different meaning. I am also uninterested in having any discussion with somebody who throws up words on the internet, expects to be taken seriously, but is bereft of the mental competence to even phrase their words correctly.
I don’t see the hypocrisy. If the universe is a simulation, that wouldn’t make whoever built the universe a god. There would be no analytical reason to conclude that, unless we started from the specially-crafted supposition that any being capable of creating something like the observable universe had to be equivalent to God, but at that point, you’re just defining your way into theism. If the universe is a simulation, which is not a terribly interesting thought experiment tbh, then it could be a simulation for any reason. The simulators could have been interested in the dynamics of gas and dust dispersion within galaxies and just so happened to create a sophisticated enough simulation that it could simulate the evolution of natural life. If the entire Universe had been “created” (although the point of defining it as a simulation is to point to how it doesn’t really exist, ipso facto if God is a simulator, then God is not a Creator in the sense theists mean) to study dust dynamics at the galactic scale, somehow I think theists would be dissatisfied and not feel like they had really found what they meant by “God.”
In theory, any type of Boltzman Brain could assemble itself at any time and start processing information, so in theory, a simulation could also be an entirely natural phenomenon occurring in a higher-order reality. The two ideas are different, even though Christians like to claim everyone is a theist and everything is theism even when they aren’t and it isn’t.
Anyways, the simulation hypothesis is sort of fun to think about sometimes, while “I invoke supernatural powers to explain phenomena I don’t understand” isn’t all that interesting.
The hypocrisy is in claiming to know the truth from a hypothesis with (currently) unknowable factors.
Can we possibly test for the simulation hypothesis? Not at the present. Thus, to say that it’s true is just as bad as claiming a sky fairy made the world in seven days
But no one believes simulation theory on faith so it makes no sense
that wouldn’t make whoever built the universe a god.
Well yeah they would have to open the console and type in.
sv_cheats 1
god
Then they would be god.
No? Ad logicum
yup.
They are similar in that neither are scientific theories, as they are equally non-falsifiable. We may live in a universe where it is impossible to see the face of god or a glitch in the matrix by construction.
Given that impossibility, how then could you perform an experiment or make an observation that contradicts the theory? To be reductive, science isn’t about proving. It’s failing to disprove. If there isn’t a set of circumstances in which a theory can be disproven, it isn’t scientific.
Unless you are a string theorist. Then you just say whatever the hell you want.
Change the top text to remove the word “random” and instead explain how people actually talk about evolution.
Change the bottom text to say “statistics may imply the universe is a simulation…”
And then you remove the straw man argument.
bad religion bait post is bad
There’s no hypocrisy here.
On one hand, the belief in a god doesn’t just end there. There are beliefs in what that god does and what he has control over. So it’s completely logical to believe that there’s no god (although, as someone else pointed out, it’s also not random arrangements of atoms).
On the other hand, simulation theory is a logical theory to rationalize the “purpose” of why we exist. It’s not a belief. The simulation doesn’t respond to prayers or requests. It’s simply conjecture or hypothesis to explain the “why” of the universe. No one who talks about simulation theory (much less who “believes” in it) pretends that the creator of the simulation is uniquely interested in them and responds to their requests and tells them how to live their life. In fact, that would go against the entire concept of simulation theory.
Religion and religious belief have specific definitions. This feels just as dishonest as people claiming that LGBTQ ideology is a religion or that evolution is a “belief”.
I completely agree that’s what this basically boils down too. ST was an interesting concept I read about once and only briefly recalled twice since. Nothing more. This could be a valid criticism of individuals putting more stock into the idea but for anyone else it’s a reach.
The belief system built around God affects me every single day of my life. I have family that are hardcore Christians that pester me about it regularly. Approximately half of the political ideologies being pushed in my country center around Christian dogma.
Honorable mentions: Foreign and domestic terrorism threat and future wars being incited.
…but we’re not just random arrangements of atoms…
Why not? Even if it we’re meant to be important why can it not be by action rather than by birth, see how narcissistic it is to think we’re supposed to be here?
I didn’t say we were important or supposed to be here. Just that we aren’t random. The initial state of the cosmos may have been random but everything after that is following a trajectory based on physics.
Idk what’s the exact purpose of this meme but I really do see a lot of similarities between God creating the world and simulation theory. Obviously ST and religion are wildly different in their impact on society and how many people genuinely believe in them, but ST is pretty silly too.
It’s just a “what if” scenario, one that’s potentially possible but wouldn’t change or explain anything if it was true. All you’re doing is moving the existential problems up a layer and forgetting about it, it’s the same as saying God made us: at the end of the day both the beings in charge of the simulation AND God have to come from somewhere, they live in a “real” universe, and you’re not explaining that.
Why can’t it be that we simply live in a real universe? That’s the simplest answer, the one that requires the fewest assumptions. It doesn’t have a convenient, satisfying reason as to why we’re here, or how reality came to be, but it’s easily the most plausible.
Why can’t it be that we simply live in a real universe? That’s the simplest answer, the one that requires the fewest assumptions.
The argument goes that: a sufficiently technologically advanced society would run ancestor simulations. Those simulations may also run simulations. There’s no ceiling on the number of nesting simulations. It’s the height of conceit to think we’re the top level when there are squillions of simulated universe.
There is a cieling though. A computer made of matter of one universe cannot simulate an entire universe at the same speed. It’s like installing a VM on a computer: the VM is always slower. Each layer would then become exponentially slower with a limit of 0 speed.
Having said that, combined with the fact that our Universe is 13B years old, it would make the age of our root universe exponentially larger than 13B years.
It could maybe feasible if we live in the first layers, but beyond that our root universe would have died from Heat death long ago.
There is a ceiling though. A computer made of matter of one universe cannot simulate an entire universe at the same speed.
Right but we don’t know what the real universe’s limitations are, and I’m geostationary to speak too authoritatively of the capabilities of an arbitrarily advanced civilization.
I don’t think simulation theory is true. Eg calculating gravitational forces between everything in the universe would presumably be extraordinarily cost intensive, but essentially irrelevant (I mean like gravitational waves, not the moon).
Even though our knowledge of physics is incomplete, a VM running a faster simulation of its container would be a paradox. You could stack successive layers of reality that would go faster and faster reaching eventually Infinite processing speed, allowing the computer from the root layer to perform an Infinite amount of computation in a finite time.
You may say that this could be possible as our understanding of physics is lacking. And that’s fine! But I think this paradox shows that the VM can only run slower than reality
Uh, not random. Evolution has a system.
Evolution is just random. The “system” is just the good random changes live and the bad don’t.
It’s a bit more complex than that, with multiple levels of feedback with DNA (potentially even with the nucleotide) and a damn complicated process while creating descendants (vs. just clones).
it’s not a fair comparison, in the sense that the religions people tens to not believe in are those with disputable claims in a book dictated by god.
Caims such as simulation theory or unspecified god without evidence for or against it make way more sense than major deistic religions. And again, that’s not to say it’s true, its just significantly more likely to be accurate.Damn theists really are fucking morons, huh?
God is real and he said to kill all those people that don’t believe the exact same thing as you.
Vs
The subset of mathematical rules that guide the movement of the very small and very large seem to be engineered.
Totally the same shit.
