If the universe was fine tuned for our life...

[The Grand Nudger]

We didn't create the tensile strength of steel either....does that mean intelligence wasn't required for the existence of the Burj Khalifa?

Procedural generation can be accomplished without intelligence because it does not require intelligence. It doesn't matter that we -can- use it, or that we possess intelligence and do use it, or that intelligence may be present when it occurs. Those are all separate propositions.
(rasetsu's chameleon example from pages back tried to communicate this - just because something is happening in the vicinity of intelligent things, that doesn't mean that their intelligence has anything to do with what's happening.)

I understand that we don't create algorithms, but we certainly employ them in ways nature never would.

Oh IDK, we might use them in precisely the same way that nature does. Neither of us know enough to say that for certain (I'm fairly convinced that we do, personally). Procedural generations can create your "sub-realities" without any requirement of intelligence. That we can use the product of that work is unsurprising - and this seems to be what has you tied into knots.

Your claim, that sub-realities appear to require intelligence, is plainly and demonstrably false. Whatever an intelligence -might do- with a "sub-reality" so created is another discussion.

I keep asking you to show me an example of a sub reality which would exist even if there was no intelligence. You claim Secondlife is a sub reality which would exist or could reasonably come into existence if there was no intelligence. That claim is absurd.

Nub, I claim nada about a "sub-reality" other than that you're making shit up. These are your examples. Turn that suddenly perceptive gaze inward. Second life uses procedural generation to create a world without any requirement for intelligence - that's what procedural generation is and does..end of.

Your interpretation of that world is what requires your intelligence*. We could be playing two different games using the same engine - and the same calculations in each will yield a different effect on the screen. It doesn't matter if the engine is running random numbers, or if the engine itself is a random number. Anything that can be accurately labeled a procedural generation - does not require intelligence, only a means by which procedure can be set and carried out. That we can provide those means should come as no surprise to you, knowing that they can be arrived at by chance, essentially as features of a universe with order; the application of a little human (intelligent) work ought to make that a bit more reliable - ought to be able to greatly emphasize the effect, eh? We call that implementation.

Computational systems exist regardless of whether we intentionally create or simply find them. The work they do is an effect of their structure and arrangement -not our intelligence (and all our intelligence can do in this regard is to arrange things in the proper order...we can't use intelligence to "make" the gate any other way than the proper one). If we weren't around - if no one was around, so long as the operating conditions of the implementation are met the system does work.

(*whatever that is).

[Heywood]

Nub, I don't claim nada about a "sub-reality" other than that you're making shit up. These are your examples. Turn that suddenly perceptive gaze inward. Second life uses procedural generation to create a world without any requirement for intelligence - that's what procedural generation is and does..end of.

Your interpretation of that world is what requires your intelligence*.

(*whatever that is).

I never once claimed that sub realities need intelligence to maintain their existence. My claim has always been that sub realities need intelligence to come into existence. The world of secondlife doesn't come into existence...it doesn't exist without an intellect present to create it in the first place. Once it is designed and produced...yeah...it pretty much operates on its own.

---

I'll ask this once more, then I'm done for realsies.

Say there is some being somewhere that made our reality. Do you have a further point, or is that it?

If you conclude our reality was created, the next question would be why was it created?...and that question deserves its own thread.

[The Grand Nudger]

I never once claimed that sub realities need intelligence to maintain their existence. My claim has always been that sub realities need intelligence to come into existence.

Which they don't - procedural generation.

The world of secondlife doesn't come into existence...it doesn't exist without an intellect present to create it in the first place.

A found object doesn't become a manufactured one by you having picked it up and used it for something.

Once it is designed and produced...yeah...it pretty much operates on its own.

The design refers to an interpretation favored by you and the designer. The world itself is a procedural generation, and bears no resemblance to your interpretation. All that is required is an environment which is governed by rules. Conveniently, we have one - this one...where all of this is being done.

[robvalue]

Do you have a hypothesis about why it was created, or are you open to suggestions?

[Cato]

I'm busy developing a procedural generation that will electronically Dutch oven this thread.

[robvalue]

Yeah. The thing is, I have no problem saying there may have been some process, being, whatever that "made" what we perceive as reality.

But since I am not aware of any way of ever learning anything about anything outside our reality, it is irrelevant other than as speculation. Even if they sent us a message or something, we'd have no way to verify its source. Or to know that what was communicated was true.

We'd have to escape our reality somehow, or find an amazing way to observe other realities from our own reality. This sounds like science fiction at the moment, but who knows, maybe in the future it will be possible. Until then, we're just guessing blind or projecting our imagination as far as I can see.

That's assuming that there is anything else apart from our reality, of course.

[Heywood]

Yeah. The thing is, I have no problem saying there may have been some process, being, whatever that "made" what we perceive as reality.

But since I am not aware of any way of ever learning anything about anything outside our reality, it is irrelevant other than as speculation. Even if they sent us a message or something, we'd have no way to verify its source. Or to know that what was communicated was true.

We'd have to escape our reality somehow, or find an amazing way to observe other realities from our own reality. This sounds like science fiction at the moment, but who knows, maybe in the future it will be possible. Until then, we're just guessing blind or projecting our imagination as far as I can see.

That's assuming that there is anything else apart from our reality, of course.

Robvalue

One thing you need to know about me is I am not going to try to convert you to some religion or convince you God wants you to do this or that. When I participate in a thread like this, my goal is to make a case that observations of this physical world suggest the existence of an intellect external to this world. I leave it to the religious types to convince you that God has a plan for you or you have a purpose in this world.

---

The world of secondlife doesn't come into existence...it doesn't exist without an intellect present to create it in the first place.

A found object doesn't become a manufactured one by you having picked it up and used it for something.

Rhythm,

I just don't except this idea that realities like SecondLife are found and then used. They are clearly the products of intellects.

[The Grand Nudger]

-Because you don't understand how computers work. You see the pretty pictures and fail to realize that this is -not- whats actually happening in the "sub reality", that all of the pretty pictures the artists have plugged in are the product of an intelligence, whereas the game world is a product of a computational system running a procedural generation: the "creation" or existence of which (in both cases) depends on an environment with rules, not intelligence. Additionally, these things are designed to fool you, in a sense, and they certainly seem to have done so - in that you imagine that there are feet and inches "in there" - there aren't. That's not how these things work.

Help me to explain this to you, what is it that has you hung up..why can't you accept something that is both plainly demonstrable and true -by definition?

(now heres something I find mystifying. In all of this, I haven't even touched the idea that our reality is a simulation - perhaps not the same as second life but using the same principles, a different implementation of similar machinery. Maybe not even the world exterior to us, just the one we percieve - hell maybe it's turtles all the way down as well. That would be an "oh shit" sort of concept - all by itself...it's not good enough for you though, because it doesn't yield a "god". What if we -are- in a simulation? What if we -are- computational systems (or simulations ourselves)? Wouldn't all of that be amazing..even though nothing we've observed implies that there would be any creator, or any requirement thereof if this were the case....wouldn't that still be amazing?)

[Heywood]

-Because you don't understand how computers work. You see the pretty pictures and fail to realize that this is -not- whats actually happening in the "sub reality", that all of the pretty pictures the artists have plugged in are the product of an intelligence, whereas the game world is a product of a computational system running a procedural generation: the "creation" or existence of which (in both cases) depends on an environment with rules, not intelligence. Additionally, these things are designed to fool you, in a sense, and they certainly seem to have done so - in that you imagine that there are feet and inches "in there" - there aren't. That's not how these things work.

Help me to explain this to you, what is it that has you hung up..why can't you accept something that is both plainly demonstrable and true -by definition?

(now heres something I find mystifying. In all of this, I haven't even touched the idea that our reality is a simulation - perhaps not the same as second life but using the same principles, a different implementation of similar machinery. Maybe not even the world exterior to us, just the one we percieve - hell maybe it's turtles all the way down as well. That would be an "oh shit" sort of concept - all by itself...it's not good enough for you though, because it doesn't yield a "god". What if we -are- in a simulation? What if we -are- computational systems (or simulations ourselves)? Wouldn't all of that be amazing..even though nothing we've observed implies that there would be any creator, or any requirement thereof if this were the case....wouldn't that still be amazing?)

Digital Physics suggests that the universe is, if not a computer itself, computable. Seth Loyd takes it to another level and proposes that the universe is a giant quantum computer.

http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Univer...e+universe

I think a good case can be made that our reality operates just like a reality contained within a computer. This whole idea that the universe is essentially a computer is a mainstream scientific idea and not some fringe notion. Perhaps the problem is not me not knowing how computers work but rather you don't understand just how much our reality operates like a computer.

[The Grand Nudger]

Digital Physics suggests that the universe is, if not a computer itself, computable. Seth Loyd takes it to another level and proposes that the universe is a giant quantum computer.

A fascinating possibility.

I think a good case can be made that our reality operates just like a reality contained within a computer.

So do I....since we made it in this reality, and very often to simulate some other part of this reality via abstraction. We can't take that very far without running afoul of a comp fallacy though. It's a fine line to toe...lol.

This whole idea that the universe is essentially a computer is a mainstream scientific idea and not some fringe notion. Perhaps the problem is not me not knowing how computers work but rather you don't understand just how much our reality operates like a computer.

Wheres the mainstream idea that this simulation or computer, if it existed...had a creator - some "intelligence"-, or that one would be required? Ah, I see, that's additional nonsense you tacked on in ignorance.

(if you want to have a convo about the similarities between machine logic - simulation- and human thought and experience, even the "operation" of the universe make that thread and I'll be there, tongue wagging -like I always am with those threads)