Simulation Theory according to Dilbert

[Edwardo Piet]

There's empirical science, but then there's theoretical science.

Which is all based on science's empirical observations.

The science of time isn't just about time as experienced, but also the nature of time as it is.

Nope. It's about the nature of time as it is based on empirical observations. All scientists can do is test what they observe and base theories off of that.

How can you possibly test something outside of your experience?

Relativity implies all moments of time are real ... ontologically.

No because it's based off of phenomenological observations. Science can only assume noumenological ontology it can never test it.

Sorry, but not relevant.

It's called an analogy.

Too much stretching going on here just to belittle eternalists. Eternalism is based on the modern science of time, presentism is not.

Eternialism and Presentism are philosophies about time itself. Science deals with experiences. It's literally impossible to test or have evidence of something unexperiencable. All theories about time are based off of experiences which therefore cannot be used as arguments about reality itself outside of those experiences.

If you accept the science, then you have to concede the soundness of eternalism in contrast to presentism which insists some unsound "absolute present" exists to the exclusion of some unsound "absolute past" and unsound "absolute future". So maybe you should ask yourself who really is arguing about Atlantis.

No, I accept the science but recognize that it's ultimately based off of testable observations which don't relate to time itself.

You need to understand that it's literally impossible to have evidence of the nature of the noumenological world.

Time is real under eternalism. It's the flow of time that's the illusion.

No... time is real under Presentism but Presentism accepts that time actually flows and the past and future aren't fixed places.

Science makes use of logic. It's not just observations.

Science does logic based off of observations. Even when science uses deductive logic it has to base it off of inductive logic based on observations.

It's literally impossible to have evidence of noumenological time. Why? because it's literally impossible to have evidence of the noumenological world.

We can talk about moments of time that we don't ever experience. Under eternalism, they exist for real.

Eternalism is saying that what existed still exists and what will exist already exists. That's not saying they're real that's just being delusional about their nature.

I repeat:

It's literally impossible to have evidence of noumenological time. Why? because it's literally impossible to have evidence of the noumenological world.

Until you know the difference between the phenomenological world and the noumenological world then it's completely futile to talk about there being evidence of the nature of 'time itself'. When you know what the noumenological world is and its tautological unreachability you will understand that it's impossible to have accurate theories about time in and of itself or anything in and of itself. Is this a problem for science? No, because science never claims to deal with noumenological reality. Philosophy can't deal with it either: nothing can reach noumenological realtiy, by definition, but that doesn't mean that a theory that is self-contradictory (like Eternalism) isn't complete bullshit and the only alternative therefore not being complete bullshit.

In other words: We can never directly know the nature of noumenological reality by experiencing it because it is by definition that which we cannot know directly by experience... however we can indirectly know slightly of its nature by eliminating what is NOT part of its nature by virtue of certain natures being impossible by definition. And this is where philosophy comes in.

Eternalistic arguments based on science don't understand that science can't say anything about things-in-themselves.

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And, for the record, eternalists aren't referring to any "Sicily". What they are referring to is an "Atlantis" that has been shown to have been above the water the whole time, while we were previously misled into believing it should be underwater. In other words, the underwater Atlantis does not exist, but Atlantis does. This is a better analogy to use for this whole "Sicily vs. Atlantis" thing.

Actually it's more like Eternalists being brains in a jar thinking they're dealing with Sicily and Atlantis and thereby know they must be dealing with Atlantis Itself ™ when they can never know Atlantis Itself ™ because they can't know they're not brains in jars. Even if they wake up and realize they're brains in jars... it does no good to then call the world they wake up in "Atlantis" because that's still Only-Their-Conscious-Experience-Of-What-They Call-"Atlantis"™. They can never know Atlantis itself or reality itself, only their experience of it... even if they're not brains in jars... they're still stuck in their own brains either way. We all are. Everyone is. All we have is phenomenological reality.

If omnipotence is part of the definition of the classical theist God, then "God is omnipotent" is tautologically true. But it doesn't mean that God is real. This shows that a tautologically true statement may contain unsound or even logically incoherent concepts. So it doesn't mean we should use such statements as a basis for the position we take. Because, otherwise, using your overall argument, you should consider yourself a theist.

We're talking about the nature, or essence, of time not the existence of time (one of the very fundamentals of philosophy is the distinction between existence and essence. To paraphrase Dan Dennett: "Whatever love is it's not a word and whatever God is God cannot be a concept. A cup of coffee is not a concept. The concept of a cup of coffee is a concept. God is not a concept. The concept of God is a concept. That's elementary philosophy".). Even if time doesn't exist that doesn't change the fact that what existed and will exist is not the same as what exists. When defining God as omnipotent that does indeed make "God is not omnipotent" a false statement just as when defining the past as "what has passed" and the future as "what hasn't happened yet" that does indeed make "the past and future exist now" a false statement. "Does God actually exist?" and "Does time actually exist?" are indeed separate questions but that's a separate point.

P.S. Jesus Christ some people!... with some people if science found evidence of some strangely quantum objects and they based theories off of it and they needed a model with the strange idea of something they called "square-circles" to help them understand what they were testing and make better theories... there would be some people thinking that squares in the quantum world don't necessarily have four sides and such people would start thinking squares can be circular. This is just what happens when someone doesn't understand what science is saying and what it is not saying. Hell, some of the scientists themselves have great theories and great evidence but thinks it implies further things about the nature of reality that it cannot. Like religious scientists who think that the fine-tuning of a universe is evidence of a creator or Lawrance Krauss thinking that a universe literally came from 'nothing' and then he goes on to talk about a 'nothing' that is actually something.

Even world class theoretical physicists are clumsily stepping outside their domain of expertise when they unwittingly take it to philosophy and think they can have, for example, a 'nothing' that isn't 'nothing'. Yes a universe came from 'empty space teeming with quantum activity' and we can call that 'nothing' but that doesn't actually make it 'nothing'.

I mean... the fact we can split atoms doesn't mean we're splitting something unsplittable...