Simulation Theory according to Dilbert

[Edwardo Piet]

@ Grandizer.

Yes I am using the standard dictionary definitions of the word.

I am happy to bite that bullet: let's say science uses a different definition of "exist" which can also mean "existed" and "will exist" (although more accurately it would be better to say they use a different model of the concept because it makes it easier to understand Einsteinian Relativity)) .

Well, why am I happy to bite that bullet? Because science isn't actually addressing time it's addressing how we experience it and it's simply a more useful model to speak that way for the purposes of science... but it is an entirely different question because one question presupposes the existence of conscious observers and the other doesn't. One question is regarding phenomena and scientific models and how we experience time and the other question is regarding noumena and definitions and the question of what time itself is with or without people to experience it. Two completely different questions. The former is falsifiable by observers doing science and the latter is tautologically entailed by recognition that the opposite is logically contradictory (and it simply won't suffice to change the subject without realizing you're doing it...)

The Eternalists are like the Compatabilists that change the subject in the free will debate (although less annoying simply because unlike the subject of free will the mistake is not a morally important one).

To re-use Sam Harris' Atlantis analogy only use it for this subject of time instead of the subject of free will:





Eternalism is like Sicily answering questions about Atlantis just as Compatabilism is like Sicily answering questions about Atlantis.

There are some people who believe in Atlantis as in an actual underwater kingdom. And there are some people who fail to understand that Presentism using the definitions it uses is tautologically true and the opposite belief (i.e. eternalism) is as illogical as Atlantis. But Eternalism goes further... it says "Oh but Eternalism can explain the way Science addresses the experience of time". Well that's just changing the subject. That's as illogical as saying "Oh well Sicily is similar to Atlantis in many of the ways people talk about Atlantis." Well, sure, many of them... but it's still something different altogether. There is no underwater kingdom and there is no time present besides present time. Science addresses the phenomenological experience of time by experimentation which is something different altogether to the question of what time itself is philosophically with or without anyone there to experience it passing. Just as Sicily is something different altogether to Atlantis (see the above video).

Eternalists are correct in what they say but irrelevant and changing the subject when it comes to Time Itself ™ just as Compatabilists are correct in what they say but irrelevant and changing the subject over Free Will ™. But, unlike Eternalists and Compatabilists, Presentists and Incompatabilists are both correct in what they say AND actually addressing the relevant questions that are asked regarding those respective subjects.

Maybe there is no Time Itself ™ or Free Will ™ and all there is is the experience of time and the experience of free will and those things don't exist objectively, (not 'really')? Well, maybe so but once again that's a different question entirely than addressing a question that is already beginning with those things at the very premise of the respective question at hand. And... in all honesty.... you can't have an experience of something that doesn't exist at all. It would at least have to exist as experiences. It's possible for something to exist without anywhere there to experience it... but it's not possible for there to be anyone to experience something if nothing at all exists. Experience necessarily presupposes existence but existence doesn't necessarily presuppose experience.

Scientific truths require observers but logical truths don't. Scientific truths have to be discovered by scientists but logical truths are truths in and of themselves even if there were never any logicians or philosophers there to recognize them. Why? Because all science has to presuppose is the world of phenomena because that's the world that science tests... but philosophy and logic also deal with noumenal concepts and questions outside of that.

ETA: I just realized the subject of time may be even closer to the subject of free will than I I realized. Once the illusion of the illusion of free will is gone and you realize there is no illusion... it's very easy to live in the present and be mindful and see your thoughts just as things that come and go and it's ultimately a mystery... and the same with your actions. That present thoughts and behavior and experience is all there is. The intution is to say that we truly experience libertarian free will even if it doesn't exist... but once the delusion of the illusion goes we realize all that we experienced was in fact a delusion only, not an illusion and there was no illusion: just confusion.

In the same way as our intuitions may exclaim "Of course free will exists!" without actually thinking it through fully they may also exclaim "Of course the past and future exists! We talk about them all the time!". We fail to realize that we talk about our own memories of things that we think existed or beliefs about things that we think will exist. We don't talk about things that actually exist in the past or actually exist in the future. Such concepts of past and future are never present to talk about.

And this is similar to how we fail to realize that we talk about our own thoughts and actions as being identical to our experience of them...but we don't actually talk about our selves separate from our experience authoring those experiences of those selves. Such a self isn't there to talk about.

[GrandizerII]

Fuck, I had this long response typed up for you, but the whole thing just disappeared as soon as I pressed the Submit button (and when I go back, all I have is your response quoted without any of my responses to the quotes). This was going to be my last post here for a while as well.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The problem with this theory, for me, is that if our present thoughts create the past in this simulation, then we may have only just been switched on, as a program.

This a problem for presentism as well, even apart from simulation theory. Then there is the proven science of retrocausation, to which I believe Scott Adams linked. This seems to bridge the presentism/eternalism divide (albeit in a very perplexing way) by suggesting that all moments of time are 'present' but all change in response to one another. Even what is currently present is indeterminate to a future present...wrap you mind around that one over a party bowl.

[Brian37]

The problem with this theory, for me, is that if our present thoughts create the past in this simulation, then we may have only just been switched on, as a program.

This a problem for presentism as well, even apart from simulation theory. Then there is the proven science of retrocausation, to which I believe Scott Adams linked. This seems to bridge the presentism/eternalism divide (albeit in a very perplexing way) by suggesting that all moments of time are 'present' but all change in response to one another. Even what is currently present is indeterminate to a future present...wrap you mind around that one over a party bowl.

AND, when you cant flat out quote your comic book, you try to debunk science, when you cant do that you try to get science to point to your comic book, and now you cant do that, so you try to sound compromising just to lead people back to your comic book. 

And you are still stuck with the countless god claims and religions in human history and still stupidly think you got the correct one. 

Allah and Jesus sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first comes love, then comes marriage then comes Yahweh PRIOR TO EITHER OF YOU, which was a character stolen from the prior Canaanite polytheism.

So all this word salad proves what? That Buddha is the way to truth? Vishnu maybe? How about Apollo? 

It cant be that humans merely make this shit up because 99% of the time they spread it because their parents sold it to them? It cant be that religion is merely sold, not proven. It cant be that humans simply made bad guesses. It cant be that religion and god claims are nothing but an artificial construct humans invent to create social order and to falsely give themselves a sense of a fictional forever.

[GrandizerII]

Since I haven't left the state yet, let me just respond to the main points in your overall argument.

Well, why am I happy to bite that bullet? Because science isn't actually addressing time it's addressing how we experience it and it's simply a more useful model to speak that way for the purposes of science... but it is an entirely different question because one question presupposes the existence of conscious observers and the other doesn't. One question is regarding phenomena and scientific models and how we experience time and the other question is regarding noumena and definitions and the question of what time itself is with or without people to experience it. Two completely different questions. The former is falsifiable by observers doing science and the latter is tautologically entailed by recognition that the opposite is logically contradictory (and it simply won't suffice to change the subject without realizing you're doing it...)

There's empirical science, but then there's theoretical science. The science of time isn't just about time as experienced, but also the nature of time as it is. Relativity implies all moments of time are real ... ontologically.

The Eternalists are like the Compatabilists that change the subject in the free will debate (although less annoying simply because unlike the subject of free will the mistake is not a morally important one).

Sorry, but not relevant.

Eternalists are correct in what they say but irrelevant and changing the subject when it comes to Time Itself ™ just as Compatabilists are correct in what they say but irrelevant and changing the subject over Free Will ™. But, unlike Eternalists and Compatabilists, Presentists and Incompatabilists are both correct in what they say AND actually addressing the relevant questions that are asked regarding those respective subjects.

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

Maybe there is no Time Itself ™ or Free Will ™ and all there is is the experience of time and the experience of free will and those things don't exist objectively, (not 'really')? Well, maybe so but once again that's a different question entirely than addressing a question that is already beginning with those things at the very premise of the respective question at hand. And... in all honesty.... you can't have an experience of something that doesn't exist at all. It would at least have to exist as experiences. It's possible for something to exist without anywhere there to experience it... but it's not possible for there to be anyone to experience something if nothing at all exists. Experience necessarily presupposes existence but existence doesn't necessarily presuppose experience.

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

Scientific truths require observers but logical truths don't. Scientific truths have to be discovered by scientists but logical truths are truths in and of themselves even if there were never any logicians or philosophers there to recognize them. Why? Because all science has to presuppose is the world of phenomena because that's the world that science tests... but philosophy and logic also deal with noumenal concepts and questions outside of that.

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

And this is similar to how we fail to realize that we talk about our own thoughts and actions as being identical to our experience of them...but we don't actually talk about our selves separate from our experience authoring those experiences of those selves. Such a self isn't there to talk about.

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

[GrandizerII]

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.

Also, another thing:

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.

[Neo-Scholastic]

This a problem for presentism as well, even apart from simulation theory. Then there is the proven science of retrocausation, to which I believe Scott Adams linked. This seems to bridge the presentism/eternalism divide (albeit in a very perplexing way) by suggesting that all moments of time are 'present' but all change in response to one another. Even what is currently present is indeterminate to a future present...wrap you mind around that one over a party bowl.

AND, when you cant flat out quote your comic book, you try to debunk science, when you cant do that you try to get science to point to your comic book, and now you cant do that, so you try to sound compromising just to lead people back to your comic book. 

And you are still stuck with the countless god claims and religions in human history and still stupidly think you got the correct one. 

Allah and Jesus sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first comes love, then comes marriage then comes Yahweh PRIOR TO EITHER OF YOU, which was a character stolen from the prior Canaanite polytheism.

So all this word salad proves what? That Buddha is the way to truth? Vishnu maybe? How about Apollo? 

It cant be that humans merely make this shit up because 99% of the time they spread it because their parents sold it to them? It cant be that religion is merely sold, not proven. It cant be that humans simply made bad guesses. It cant be that religion and god claims are nothing but an artificial construct humans invent to create social order and to falsely give themselves a sense of a fictional forever.

This is the second time you have made a deliberately insulting post without contributing to or referencing the topic. Please stop.

[Brian37]

AND, when you cant flat out quote your comic book, you try to debunk science, when you cant do that you try to get science to point to your comic book, and now you cant do that, so you try to sound compromising just to lead people back to your comic book. 

And you are still stuck with the countless god claims and religions in human history and still stupidly think you got the correct one. 

Allah and Jesus sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first comes love, then comes marriage then comes Yahweh PRIOR TO EITHER OF YOU, which was a character stolen from the prior Canaanite polytheism.

So all this word salad proves what? That Buddha is the way to truth? Vishnu maybe? How about Apollo? 

It cant be that humans merely make this shit up because 99% of the time they spread it because their parents sold it to them? It cant be that religion is merely sold, not proven. It cant be that humans simply made bad guesses. It cant be that religion and god claims are nothing but an artificial construct humans invent to create social order and to falsely give themselves a sense of a fictional forever.

This is the second time you have made a deliberately insulting post without contributing to or referencing the topic. Please stop.

Yea ok, and again, poor you are being held hostage and someone is forcing you to read my posts. Ok, get back to me when you are really oppressed, say like a hostage of ISIS. Outside that you are aware that this website DOES provide and ignore option which blocks you from seeing my posts without any ban on you or me.

Cry me a river dude.  I find it insulting when believers equate atheists to Po Pot, Hitler and Stalin. I find it insulting when they threaten me with hell. And the reason it insults me, is because their bad logic not that they say stupid unfounded crap. 

Kurdish and Koptic Christians in the east have something to fear, minority Muslims have something to fear. Gays and atheists have something to fear depending on geography. You getting your claims picked on only means your claims are getting picked on. Yes, I pick on them because I know you have NO EVIDENCE and all this fake intellectualism is all to ignore your own cognitive dissonance.

If it offends you, it should, just like if you had toilet paper stuck to your shoe and someone pointed it out. Your logic SUCKS. Being told that isn't the worst thing in the world.

[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.

---

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...

[GrandizerII]

Ok, correct me if I still don't understand you:

The gist of your argument, from my understanding and interpretation, is classical/standard definitions must be adhered to in philosophy and therefore positions should be adopted based on these classical/standard definitions. Even IF the things that are defined classically do not exist as defined classically. So it may well be the case that there are no absolute frames of reference (with regards to time), and therefore no universal present and no universal duration of past and of future, but the question of the existence of such present or past or future is irrelevant. You are a presentist not because a universal present necessarily exists but because, by [classical] definition, the present is the only moment of time that can exist whereas the future and the past cannot.

What am I still misunderstanding?

As for analogies: frankly, I'm not fond of analogies when used in arguments to support one's views, simply because analogies are often written in a way that is favorable to the author of the analogy. We can go on slightly adjusting the analogy, turn by turn, so that it always ends up supporting the author of the adjustment, but that's just an exercise in futility and really not worth it. I like them much more when they are used, instead, to illustrate a concept that's difficult to visualize in an abstract manner. They should only sparingly be used for argumentation purposes.

Regarding noumena vs. phenomena: If you define noumena as that which is independent of even the logical derivations based on observations, then I'm not sure noumena of anything can ever be known, so how would that be of any practical use? If there is an ultimate noumenal world out there (in the way you define it), and I'm sure there is, I don't really care about that world anyway as it doesn't seem to apply much to how we view and should view the world.

This philosopher, by the way, sees noumena the same way I view it:
https://askaphilosopher.wordpress.com/20...d-noumena/