Old Style Evie/Why "gods" are bullshit.

[Edwardo Piet]

True although I think it's safe to assume that when people define a god as a "creator" they at least almost certainly mean "of the universe" and therefore a deity as opposed to a creator of artificial programs!

[robvalue]

Sure, well... therein lies a contradiction. If they made the universe, they are not part of it. That is why I personally use the phrase "reality" (also it sounds cool). So I don't know what difference it makes if this is some sort of reality some guy made who lives in a different reality, to me making one in mine.

Of course, the theist will then probably say "well that's not God", but as far as this reality is concerned, it is. And that other reality may be all there is, made by nothing. Which is why I find the word meaningless when it's simply a matter of which reality they are in. They might be really dumb, even if they can just about operate a computer program, and don't realise it's become self aware.

Trying to define what is "really real" and what is not is something I have given up on. An artificial reality is real to its inhabitants and they can't tell the difference. What "artificial" even means is troubling, since we have no basis to say anything in this reality is "real" because we have no comparison to make. An AR I make might be artificial with respect to this reality, yet this one might be artificial with respect to another.

[Edwardo Piet]

Sure, well... therein lies a contradiction. If they made the universe, they are not part of it. That is why I personally use the phrase "reality" (also it sounds cool). So I don't know what difference it makes if this is some sort of reality some guy made who lives in a different reality, to me making one in mine.

Wow... that's really profound! Thank you Rob. (No sarcasm, genuine enthusiasm).

I never thought of it like that. I never thought about how it's not really any more meaningful than us creating our own artificial reality, because, of course, whilst any deity must be part of existence itself and therefore it cannot create existence itself (because it, the deity, exists) it can create a reality, just like we can... and creating a reality is no big deal, creating existence itself is not only no big deal but is logically incoherent and therefore impossible.

(I consider creating THE universe and creating existence itself to be identical... although there be a multiverse of multiple universes I think the term "THE universe" should be reserved for the totality for all universes/the multiverse and thereby identical to existence itself and further thereby impossible to create).

Of course, the theist will then probably say "well that's not God", but as far as this reality is concerned, it is. And that other reality may be all there is, made by nothing. Which is why I find the word meaningless when it's simply a matter of which reality they are in. They might be really dumb, even if they can just about operate a computer program, and don't realise it's become self aware.

That makes a lot of sense.

Trying to define what is "really real" and what is not is something I have given up on.

Here's an interesting philosophical question for me "Does the imagination itself exist?" I know my answer, and it's not a simple "yes" or "no".

An artificial reality is real to its inhabitants and they can't tell the difference.

Exactly!

What "artificial" even means is troubling, since we have no basis to say anything in this reality is "real" because we have no comparison to make. An AR I make might be artificial with respect to this reality, yet this one might be artificial with respect to another.

Again, exactly!

[GrandizerII]

OP - The usual but then *snip* we don't have free-will.*snip*

Atheists - Applaud.

Eh, am I missing something? Do people applauding not believe they have free-will? Is that another delusion we got to get rid of?

Sucks to be realistic about life and existence, eh?

[robvalue]

Thanks very much Evie It sounds like you got the point I was driving at. A being in charge of our universe could also be sort of omnipotent regarding it in that it could fiddle with the reality however it wanted, and sort of omniscient in that it could just ask for readouts about anything from the simulator. The fact it's even being run suggests the eventual outcomes are not already known however to this being.

But take a step back, and this being can be nothing special. No more special than us screwing about with our own computer program, blissfully unaware that it is somehow manfesting into its own reality.

Is the imagination in some sense real? Well, the language is incredibly tricky. My own position, ultimately, is that things are as real as they appear to be, to any particular observer. So the imagination is as real as the output the brain gives about the (presumed) objective reality, it's just the mind "knows" one is being generated internally and one is a result of stimuli.

[Edwardo Piet]

Thanks very much Evie It sounds like you got the point I was driving at. A being in charge of our universe could also be sort of omnipotent regarding it in that it could fiddle with the reality however it wanted, and sort of omniscient in that it could just ask for readouts about anything from the simulator. The fact it's even being run suggests the eventual outcomes are not already known however to this being.

Absolutely!

But take a step back, and this being can be nothing special. No more special than us screwing about with our own computer program, blissfully unaware that it is somehow manfesting into its own reality.

Exactly. And thank you for making that clear in my mind, never thought of it quite like that before.

Is the imagination in some sense real? Well, the language is incredibly tricky. My own position, ultimately, is that things are as real as they appear to be, to any particular observer. So the imagination is as real as the output the brain gives about the (presumed) objective reality, it's just the mind "knows" one is being generated internally and one is a result of stimuli.

Very good and fully accurate answer.

My own answer is kind of the same but I like to try and open up words to reveal the equivocation at hand, this another reason I am especially interested in the equivocation fallacy.

The way I see it "real"/"existent" can mean both real/existent in the sense of "Present, there. As opposed to absent, or not there(/nowhere)" and real/existent in the sense of "Not imaginary". The imagination itself is therefore existent in the sense that it is present in our minds, it is existent. We obviously literally have an imagination in our brains. But, of course, the imagination is, by definition, imaginary and therefore in that sense the very opposite of "real".

I tend to use "existent" to mean the "there/present" sense of "real/existent" and "real" to mean the "not imaginary" sense of "real/existent"... if that makes any sense?

Every "thing" exists in the sense that anything that is actually a thing, is existent... because even a (so-called) "imaginary thing" would still be a thing present in the brain, at least as brain chemicals (clearly the image it represents in our minds would "look" completely different to how we experience though, but still) but "everything" does NOT exist in the sense that there are many conceivable things in the imagination to not exist OUTSIDE of the imagination sense of "real/existent" (as in not-imaginary) as opposed to merely the "present/there" sense of "real/existent.

Sorry if that's an abstract/philosophical thinking equivocative headfuck and/or I've explained it very poorly... I spent 4 years on lithium stuck in my head thinking like this and 8 months straight reading the dictionary daily (the lithium is relevant because I feel it made me much less extrospective and much more introspective due to the effects on my mood affecting my thinking).

[robvalue]

You're welcome! I find these ideas fascinating.

That sounds like a good description you have there, and a sensible way of using the words.

I also find it really interesting how we live entirely in a simulated experience created by our brain, and don't actually experience reality. We're walking around in a kind of AR and can simply never directly experience anything for what it "really" is.

[Edwardo Piet]

I also find it really interesting how we live entirely in a simulated experience created by our brain, and don't actually experience reality. We're walking around in a kind of AR and can simply never directly experience anything for what it "really" is.

In a word, our experience of life is "phenomenological".

[robvalue]

*Checks if that is a real word*

Bingo! Not heard that before.

[Edwardo Piet]