Non-existence

[Edwardo Piet]

Why can't we be the video game of a very advanced race?

Why can't we? Could just as easily ask: Why can we?

1. What practical difference does it make whatsoever? So you are saying this hypothesis is entirely indistinguisable in experience then?

2. With the computer simulation are you postulating anything futher whatsoever, than what we actually experience...in which case, if you are - I'd require evidence to believe such a thing, I consider any futher unnecessary postulation to be unlikely.

3. If you're not postulating anything futher then it's exactly the same and the fact you call it a 'comptuer simulation' is an entirely semantic thing.

If there's actually no computer then it's just a semantic thing when to say this is a 'computer simulation'

If there is (in this hypothesis) a computer, then you are posulating furhter as I said; it's extra complexity, unnecessary, gratuitous, less parsimonious - and without evidence I see no reason to believe it.

EvF

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I just say that "This" is reality. This experience, whether other minds exist or not (and yes, for the record - I believe they do, lol).

So you appeal to personal experience. Fine.

On what grounds do you believe that other minds exist, again? Personal experience, I presume?

By the fact that I don't know of any evidence that I'm a special case in anyway in my consciousnes. I am personally aware of my own consciousness, yes. I'm not personally aware of others, yes. But I don't consider the fact I personally experience my own consciousness to make me in any way special, so it's contrary to appealing to personal experience there. I see no reason to treat myself as a special case and the only one conscious.

And on what grounds do most people accept the existence of God? Personal experience, exactly.

There's evidence for brains. Not God.

If I get hit on the head hard I lose consciousness. I am an example of that, and the fact that other people appear to experience the same thing when they get hit hard on the head; means that I see no reason to believe they are somehow an exception, and somehow aren't conscious unlike myself.

God however? No evidence for him at all (that I know of anyway - unless you can enlighten me?) - consciousness I am aware of in myself, and I see no reason to believe that other people who also get knocked out when they get hit on the head, somehow 'aren't', just because I'm not 'them'. I don't consider myself to be a special case just because of 'I think therefore I am'.

The question whether reality actually is real or exists, is not about whether you seem to be doing what you seem to be doing (e.g. being here discussing), because you would seem to be doing that if you were a Matrix-style brain in a vat as well.[/quote] But if I was a 'Matrix-style brain in a vat' then that would be reality, so reality would still exist. It would still be a semantic problem again.

The question is if any of reality actually exists (outside our minds), and if it does, then what you appeal to to justify that claim.

Outside our minds? Oh, well I thought it was just about whether reality exists or not. Because if our minds are real and they're all that actually exists then out minds are all that actually is, our minds are actuality, or 'reality'.

All you can really appeal to is presupposition due to personal experience, and the same is the case with the existence of other minds.

If this is just an illusion and I'm a brain in a vat. Then would there need to be something generating the illusion? If that's the case then I require evidence for such a generator.

So I think the whole idea of whether reality is real or not, or the universe exists or not, is just semanticial. Whether we say it does or not - it makes no actual difference its just words.

It makes no difference whether everything is an illusion, arbitrary sense-data fed to you by a computer, or actually real?

But that wouldn't be not real. Reality would then be the computer world. Unless that was an illusion to, and there was another computer, and so on, untill you get to a computer that is real, there you go, that's reality.

I would say it makes very much of a difference, whether everything and everyone I know and hold dear to exist is actually just an illusion, digits coming from a computer, or real things and real minds just like me, who I can have a real relationship to.

If this is really all just a computer simulation then...

...Then it really is all just a computer simulation! That's reality. In other worlds reality still exists - it's just different to what we think it is.

So it's merely that I see no reason to believe that this is a computer simulation. Out of all the countless hypothetical thought-up illusions one could think of as a way to argue that this could possibly "not be real!".

EvF

[Violet]

One practical differance, if this is indeed a video game, is that we might be able to create a virus within it that enables us to do just about anything: Change a primary law of operation, modify the code of a pile of junk to create gold, perhaps change our body structure? Many very practical uses, assuming we don't get deleted by creating the virus.

It is completely possible that what we know as physics is really just a program of some sort. Those of faith (who make up a significant portion of human population) seem to think that some force beyond our comprehension is controlling us. I cannot imagine so many people to be stupid enough to have faith without any reason... so it is possible evidence for the theory.

Perhaps we are not a computer though... we are reffering to highly intelligent beings when we hold the premise that we are a simulation: computers may be outdated for such creatures.

The 'big bang' isn't overly complex and unnecessary (What does frugality have to do with this?)??? Just as that is a theory, with only a little observed evidence to support it (to my knowledge), string theory is also one, and that has even less observable evidence to back it up. THe fact that more than 3/4ths of the worlds population seem to think there is some sort of creator i veiw as far more full of value than galaxys moving away from us. THey are probably wrong too... but isn't skepticism to not believe anything fully without it having being proven beyond all reasonable doubt?

I do not say it is likely that we are a computer simulation... i do however, believe it is possible.

[Edwardo Piet]

It is completely possible that what we know as physics is really just a program of some sort. Those of faith (who make up a significant portion of human population) seem to think that some force beyond our comprehension is controlling us. I cannot imagine so many people to be stupid enough to have faith without any reason... so it is possible evidence for the theory.

My bolding. That's actually the argument from personal incredulity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity - a variation of the argument from ignorance.

The fact many believe wouldn't count as evidence at all for such a theory. How would it? Just cos, "you cannot imagine" what kind of logic is that?

So obviously I ask - why cannot you imagine?

Unless you were playing Devil's Advocate

???

THey are probably wrong too

Yes, they [very] probably are.

... but isn't skepticism to not believe anything fully without it having being proven beyond all reasonable doubt?

Yep

I do not say it is likely that we are a computer simulation... i do however, believe it is possible.

Yeah, I say it's possible too



Now,

If there are practical differences in this hypothesis, such as this virus you suggest - then however small an exra complexity they add, if they exist at all....extra to the hypothesis of them not existing; then they must add at least some extra complexity, simply because a universe + the existence of such a virus (to use your example) is an extra accessory that needs evidence to a universe without such a virus.

EvF

[Dotard]

A video game eh?

I'm guessing when I was doing the door to door thing in Iraq some other worldly beings were playing their version of Duke Nuk'em?

cool.

[Jon Paul]

If there is (in this hypothesis) a computer, then you are posulating furhter as I said; it's extra complexity, unnecessary, gratuitous, less parsimonious - and without evidence I see no reason to believe it.

Just like postulating an actually independently existing reality outside of your mind is something extra and far more complex than not doing so.

By the fact that I don't know of any evidence that I'm a special case in anyway in my consciousnes.

You have no evidence of any other consciousness. You have only your own conscious experience.

I am personally aware of my own consciousness, yes. I'm not personally aware of others, yes.

You are not even aware if others have a consciousness, or are philosophical zombies, with the exact mechanisms of brain chemistry as you, and therefore mechanically human behaviour, just like you, but simply no conscious mind.

There's evidence for brains. Not God.

Brain chemistry would be present in philosophical zombies just as well, and it would be the very source of the mechanical human behaviour of that philosophical zombie. All that would not be present is a conscious mind.

If I get hit on the head hard I lose consciousness. I am an example of that, and the fact that other people appear to experience the same thing when they get hit hard on the head; means that I see no reason to believe they are somehow an exception, and somehow aren't conscious unlike myself.

You still haven't given pointed out reasons why you aren't yourself a philosophical zombie, a wholly mechanical and unconscious product of brain chemistry. No actual reason why there even is such a thing as consciousness.

You only have knowledge, which is properly basic to your personal and qualitative experience, that you aren't a philosophical zombie, namely your conscious experience as a mind. Just like a person has knowledge of Gods existence properly basic to his own personal and qualitative experience and knowledge.

You have no evidence others aren't philosophical zombies, because you have no knowledge of their conscious experience, only of their brain chemistry which might as well produce a philosophical zombie acting mechanically without a conscious mind.

God however? No evidence for him at all (that I know of anyway - unless you can enlighten me?)

I can, and have done so in my own thread, where I have presented two arguments for Gods existence which remain unrefuted.

But if I was a 'Matrix-style brain in a vat' then that would be reality, so reality would still exist. It would still be a semantic problem again.

It would be the illusion of the reality, not an ontologically existing reality. Being a brain in a vat, all other persons would not have minds, either.

Outside our minds? Oh, well I thought it was just about whether reality exists or not. Because if our minds are real and they're all that actually exists then out minds are all that actually is, our minds are actuality, or 'reality'.

But the question still remains if the reality our minds experience and interpret is an ontic reality outside of the mind, or only an ontic reality within the mind and thereby not an ontologically indepdently existing reality, but an illusion of such an ontic reality outside of the mind, really confined to your own mind.

If this is just an illusion and I'm a brain in a vat. Then would there need to be something generating the illusion? If that's the case then I require evidence for such a generator.

Brain-in-a-vat was only a metaphor. The only generator you would know (in the case of idealism) would be your own mind. It would be all that can be known to exist.

And if we were to speculate, in that case, about an "outside reality" (such as a generator), we would again be positing an ontic reality independent of the mind.

If this is really all just a computer simulation then...

...Then it really is all just a computer simulation! That's reality. In other worlds reality still exists - it's just different to what we think it is.

Well, the computer simulation was a metaphor to posite the same idea as idealism, namely the proposition that what we experience in our own mind does not represent an ontic reality outside the mind.

And in that case, it's an illusion, and that's all we can know reality consists of. That doesn't mean we know that that is all that reality REALLY consists of, independent of our mind. It means we cannot know anything more than the illusions of our mind, and that we cannot know that an ontic reality exists apart from our mind.

At least, there is no scientific evidence which can tell you so.

There are other forms of justification for such an affirmation (properly basic beliefs in your epistemic structure).

[Rhizomorph13]

up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start!

Yay I now have thirty lives!

Rhizo

[dagda]

I think Arcanus has got the point. There is no reason what-so-ever to believe one argument over the other. The only reason people assume the world is real is because a) they don't understand the argument or b) it is just easier to assume that it is real. In conclusion, one argument is no more valid than the other.

Yes there is reason, reasons I have already covered (and some others).

First of all let me make it clear that I concede there is no objective way to tell the difference and that reality is an assumption.

In essence my argument is not that we know the world/universe is real but that it is much more likely that it is for a number of reasons:

• If the universe is not real then we are, effectively, dead (we are programs, dreams or something else equally pointless to ourselves). Even if we were real, if it's all fantasy, what would be the point of living?
  
• The complexity of a non-real universe is far more complex than the universe. Just think about the supporting mechanisms or whatever that would be needed to support this fully fledged consistent and apparently real universe ..., if we're a dream then the entity dreaming us is infinitely more complex than our universe and if were programs then the computer controlling g it is much the same.
  
• No one, not one of us, acts as if the world were not real (which is essentially what my challenge about stepping out in front of was about ... *you* won't do it, I know you wouldn't do it, and you know I know etc.).
  
• If the universe I so firmly believe in is unreal then yours is too! That means Darwin never lived, no one evolved ... moreover (and all you religious freaks should consider this carefully) your Jesus never died to save any fucker and your God is utterly non-existent.
  
• The universe makes sense (it appears to largely consistent and operating within a given set of rules) when there is no need for it to be so.
  
• A real universe is far more interesting than an unreal one mainly because there would be no point in attempting to explain an unreal one e.g. the laws of physics basically work, we know that but if the universe were unreal how would we know it, how would we trust it, how could we trust anything?
  
• If the universe is not real then why the fuck is anyone bothered about how we behave to each other?

Now none of this proves the universe is real or unreal but what it does do is set an expectation that it is, it sets the base level assumption, explains why we have history, conflicts, science, education, health, wealth, poverty, television, rockets, planes ships, computers, books, art, churches, synagogues, people, races, species, plants, mountains, seas, countries, flags, pogroms, famines, babies and so on, and so on but the key point is that they all hang together, they all exist with in an utterly consistent framework, they work even if you don't like them, they work! In other words the assumption of reality is the base assumption and any other claim that doesn't fit what we appear to observe is an EXTRORDINARY one if you are going to claim anything else it is YOU who has to supply the evidence.

Ultimately, it's a pointless question i.e. it is as pointless to ask are we real as it is to ask are we not.

Kyu

Arcanus has dealt with these points quite thoroughly so I will be brief. Your entire argument is based on the principle that it would be nice/easier if the Universe was solid and exactly as we perceived it, in other words you provide no evidence to support your claim.

Many people have made quite valid and interesting points against various theories which try and explain what the Universe really is-fantasy etc. This is all very well and good, but not the point of the argument. I did not formulate any theory, but tried to challenge the prevailing theory, hence this speculation on the weakness of the other side of the coin is blowing in the wind e.g. not really the point, though very interesting.

I will be gone for a week-visiting family and all that-so when I do not post in answer, I am not ignoring you. I look forward to reading the rest of the debate when I get back.

[Ryft]

I understood that he was asking in which form we exist, and I responded [by] stating that we do not exist as nothingness, and do in fact exist.

So when Dagda argues that we exist in either this form or that form, you respond by arguing that we do exist, that we are not nothingness. My point was that such an argument risks the ignoratio elenchi fallacy because his argument never posited non-existence or nothingness. That is to say, you were making a valid argument that was outside the issue in question; upon reaching the conclusion of your argument, we find that it left the issue in question completely untouched. As an additional argument it would be fine, but as a counter-argument it would be fallacious.

Descartes once said, "I think, therefore I am." But he could have gone further to conclude that anything which can be interacted with must exist.

Descartes was addressing epistemology, not metaphysics (in this case, ontology); i.e., it was not about whether those other things exist, but what we can know about their existence. Specifically, his cogito was derived from a methodological skepticism, which amounted to his efforts in developing "a fundamental set of principles that one can know as true without any doubt." His were epistemological concerns, not ontological ones. (The inseparability of epistemology and ontology would not be realized and formulated until the twentieth century.)

As for our state of existence, though: is it possible that we exist in more ways than one? After all, your dreams exist as surely as a table does, yet they exist in different ways altogether. The dreams are not tangible. They cannot be touched, smelled, felt, seen, or heard; they can only be imagined.

Tables and chairs have tangible existence in spatio-temporal terms only if our space-time manifold is real, an assumption that begs the question (fallacy) on the central issue. If the universe is a simulation, tables and chairs are actually not tangible; they only seem to be, within the simulation. Although we wake up from dreams—we can transcend or step outside of the dreamscape and be conscious of the differentiation—can we "wake up from" a simulated universe? If so, how? This, I believe, is how we would answer Dagda's compelling argument.

(By the way, "touched" and "felt" involve the same sensory apparatus. If you were trying to list our five senses, replace one of those with "tasted.")

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So you appeal to personal experience. Fine. ...

Good form! It was fascinating to watch as you (i) demonstrated that he must appeal to presuppositions informed by personal experience, and then, (ii) that if he thinks such recourse is valid then he must hold that consistently (i.e., that it is valid for others to do so). Well played, sir!

I would say it makes [a significant and important] difference, whether everything and everyone I know ... is actually just an illusion ... or real things and real minds just like me ...

I likewise found it interesting that he thinks it makes no difference whether sensory data is illusory or actually real. If what he thinks is true could actually be false, that makes no difference to him? I must concur with your emphatic rejection of such a stance.

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1. So you are saying this hypothesis is entirely indistinguishable in experience then?

That is what 'empirical equivalence' means, yes. Since a posteriori knowledge is identical under both scenarios, it cannot come into service as epistemic criteria. Under both scenarios, your brain is processing sensory data. The question is whether that data-processing is detecting a real world or an illusory one, which the data-processing itself (a posteriori knowledge) cannot distinguish because the sensory data under both views is identical. "What practical difference does it make," you ask? It makes all the difference in the world. If one has no valid criteria by which to evaluate competing views of reality, then truth can no longer be claimed as corresponding to reality, which does astonishing violence to reason, knowledge, and science.

2. With the computer simulation, are you postulating anything further than what we actually experience?

What it postulates is the necessity of a priori knowledge (because "what we actually experience" is identical under both scenarios), which cuts the ground out from underneath scientism, the atheistic epistemology found in the school of thought championed by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennet, Michael Shermer and others.

If there's actually no computer, then it's just a semantic thing to say this is a 'computer simulation'

I agree. It is only a mere word game if there is "actually no computer." But you can affirm that there is "actually no computer" only by petitio principii (e.g., given my view, it is false) or ad ignorantiam (e.g., it is false until proven true)—and either recourse simply will not do. The only thing weaker than scientism is fallacies.

If there is a computer, then you are 'postulating further', as I said. It's extra complexity, unnecessary, gratuitous, less parsimonious—and without evidence, I see no reason to believe it. ... If this is just an illusion and I'm a brain in a vat, then would there need to be something generating the illusion? If that's the case then I require evidence for such a generator.

First, the reader should be made to realize that 'unnecessary', 'gratuitous', and 'less parsimonious' are all synonyms, and an argument is not made stronger by filling it out with synonyms. Second, if you think that Dagda's scenario adds either complexity or violates parsimony, then why did you not interact with my rebuttal of both those objections? Third, given the issue of empirical equivalence (the fact that "what we actually experience" is identical under both scenarios), then what evidence would your intellectual assent require? This gets to the heart of Dagda's entire point.

There's evidence for brains ...

Irrelevant. He was addressing minds, not brains. And as I have said elsewhere, showing that X (brain states) causes Y (mental states) does not prove that X and Y are the same thing. Using a causal argument to reach an ontological conclusion is irrational (fallacious reasoning).

[Kyuuketsuki]

Arcanus has dealt with these points quite thoroughly so I will be brief. Your entire argument is based on the principle that it would be nice/easier if the Universe was solid and exactly as we perceived it, in other words you provide no evidence to support your claim.

And your entire argument ignores the hosting complexities that ALL (without exception) these vacuous scenarios entail ... I am still considering my reply to Archy.

Kyu

[Jon Paul]

And your entire argument ignores the hosting complexities that ALL (without exception) these vacuous scenarios entail ... I am still considering my reply to Archy.

It doesn't. Postulating the reality and world of our qualitative, subjective sense experience to be an actually ontologically independently existing reality outside of your mind is something far more complex and far more extensive than not doing so. Ultimate reductionism reduces the ontological to the epistemic realm, and leads to absolute skepticism, and solipsism.