for example: modern scientific method is a methodology, that seems capable of achieving more objective truths than its predecessors... and the main invention of it was not logic or empiricism... those are way older... it was the fact that we need a good methodology to play every possible card against human biases and corruption through things like peer review... and it worked... modern science has achieved more objective truths than past stuff... since my very conservative starting point for this new subject in schools would be just to learn about the history of these things and understand them... im pretty sure more people would start appreciating and using things like actual honest peer review and checking sources and such in their world views... and actual objectivity would become at least a little more common... even politics deal with objective facts of what happens when things are decided irregardless of the point of view. different consequences might be differently advantageous for different people, but knowing them and then fighting about them is still better than people being completely dissociated from reality and fighting with made up facts.

Its not just about having maximally positive feelings... Being a very stable system can feel quite nice even if you're not maximally stable.

The way I would say the descartes-thing would be: "I experience, therefore my experience exists for me."

probably a more foolproof way of trying to prove some existence as logically necessarily true.

I do agree that it does not demonstrate that it formally proves anything except "my thinking" existing... I haven't really read Descartes, so I thought he meant that and "I" was just a word to use... my mistake probably

sorry... i am in a hurry... I read it very fast and it seemed like the zeno's paradox... was it about something else?

Since the "I think, therefore I am" is neither scientific nor merely logical, it is a philosophical realization or insight, which one either accepts or not with good reasons. Nietzsche, as is well known, criticized that the experience of thinking, which was also indubitable for him, does not necessarily have to presuppose a subject. — spirit-salamander

"I think, therefore I am" Is a formal logical necessity and if Nietzsche disagreed with that, he was wrong... My argument is about the capability of anything to prove that it did not make a mistake with absolute certainty.

ps. even if you don't define a function to need a subject... you will still have the function existing, which still demonstrates the main point of descartes

for example: if a defined time represented a defined group of distances, there would not be a problem with this paradox. although... time would have to be quantumized as well... which it is according to our current empirical testing... this paradox might be the reason for it... paradoxes can't exist... hopefully :P

A classic paradox, but not necessarily a true paradox since it assumes that distance can be divided into infinite number of distances which modern quantum mechanics disproves... it also assumes that time can't go through an infinitely complex system of distances in a finite time... these are assumptions... not proofs... although even if this was a true paradox it would not really apply to this subject very much.

Correct my proofs here, if I misunderstood them... I am in a hurry and therefore not that confident about this post.

other way to demonstrate this problem is the infinite regression you end up with, when you try to prove that you have understood your proofs correctly and then having to demonstrate that you have understood your proofs about your understanding of the previous proofs correctly etc...

Since my criticism is pretty much: even logical necessities can't be trusted completely since it's impossible to prove that we have understood them correctly... If we assume that logic and our analysis of it works, logical necessities are true including "I think, therefore I am". All I can say that it is an assumption and in our history humans have thought many untrue things as absolute proofs even thought they were meaningless nonsense. I think the problem is that whenever we describe anything formally, these proofs work... the problem is that we haven't proved that formally describing things itself works... and I have no idea how to prove something absolutely without describing it formally.

I'm glad you found an alternative solution which worked for you, but this is not the sort of thing you can just disagree with. It's a fact of psychology. Not a fact like gravity - we don't have that kind of replicability in psychology - but fact enough that it's not reasonable to reject it without evidence to the contrary. CBT helps thousands every year, it has one of the highest success rates of any therapy. Either it works, or that success is by chance. If you think the latter, you'd really need some reason to think so other than your sample of one. — Isaac

Not really claiming that CBT doesn't generally work. To me it sounds like it's one of the best methods currently used. But I'm dubious that it could for example turn any straight person to a true asexual if they wanted to or something else highly linked to human nature like that. So, I'm just saying that this technique works if one wants to change the more outrageous things like that. Sample size one, of course.

so if you simply behave in the way you've rationally concluded you ought to, your emotions and thoughts 'catch up' with this new approach — Isaac

This I disagree with and it is also pretty much in disagreement with the OP since the whole premise of the OP was that I have found it very hard to change certain emotions of mine irregardless of how I think or behave. And the solution was to fool the emotions in a way where they don't have to agree with my thinking or behavior.

Although I do agree that with simple repetition many behaviors and emotions can be changed, this was about certain emotions that are so natural to humans that they seem to be somewhat impossible to change with simple rational thinking and repetitive behavior. Some fooling of the system is needed.

Emotions don't really 'care' about anything, they're most often conceived as states of the brain (and body) which facilitate different response patterns. You'll have to explain this new use of the term. — Isaac

I pretty much use "emotion" as anything "that feels like something" in ones experience in this context. As there is no universally accepted technical definition for emotional experiences, I did not use a technical definition since it's not the point of the text.

This is not indirect. Eric Corchesne demonstrated that even 2 year old children run decisions through the cerebral cortex prior to emotional changes. It's quite the normal pattern. — Isaac

With direct I meant direct control where one could simply consciously choose what to feel whenever. And the method I described was indirect by that standard.

This seems to just be Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, am I missing some distinction? — Isaac

I'm not an expert on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, so I can't say. Perhaps? Not claiming this to be a completely new invention... just haven't stumbled upon it myself before.

For example: I have logically thought conclusions about the world with quantum mechanics, our perception and the multiverse I'm serious about.

Then I simply came up with an idea which makes intuitive sense loosely based on these thoughts that one can travel through timelines with his mind which I somewhat often go through in my mind. My intuition and emotions have accepted this idea of magically travelling to different timelines if I just concentrate enough as a fact and it changes majorly how my emotional system works... mostly by making it think that I always have a trump card that solves everything I come across.

I don't have to accept this as a logical fact and it doesn't influence any big life decisions of mine... it just keeps my human nature from interfering with other things I choose to do.

Fundamentally, you can be wrong about anything - even about your existence no matter whether it makes logical sense or not since fundamentally even logic can be just all made up bullshit and failure. Many logical proofs in history have been considered absolute but have turned out to be false - including potentially everything you will hear here.

But think about the probabilities and your options. Whether or not logic or your existence is absolutely proven is irrelevant since it seems to be the best proven thing and even if you were wrong, your non-existence would make being wrong inconsequential.

So, stop being anxious because your feelings demand finality and absolute truths. This problem in your feelings is not a philosophical problem. You can feel unanxious whether you solve this philosophical problem or not.

Or did he not prove the 'I' exist part? — Kranky

To me, it is a logically necessarily proven point. But to me the fact that we can never prove that we have evaluated our proofs correctly, trumps all that are seemingly logical necessities. So, it's just the best of proofs - not an absolute proof.

I don't understand. Why does a simulation processor need to simulate itself? — TheMadFool

It doesn't. That was just an example to demonstrate that a processor that could simulate a more complex thing than itself in real time would cause absurdity because then it could simulate a more powerful processor than itself which could then simulate a more powerful processor than itself etc... producing an infinitely powerful processor.

1. Zero (the mathematical 0) — TheMadFool

The problem with "zero-nothing" is that, it always contains information in the sense that it is a limited possibility within all possibilities. If one considers limitations of what something can be information and considers that an existing thing then "zero-nothing" just means zero amount and not true nothingness.

I already did! Weight is irrelevant when I'm not holding it. So it doesn't need to render that quality at that time. Just like a computer that doesn't render anything beyond a horizon in an fps. It's the same concept. — Benkei

You seem to be thinking of experience as a computer game, where after simulation one has to render that simulation. I disagree. I think experience comes naturally out of our physical processes and needs no extra rendering step and if we simulated a human mind experiencing something it would not need to be rendered in order for that simulated mind to experience the simulation.

Although, if you think of a matrix-like simulation where after simulating, that simulation has to be transferred to a human brain, then yes, that is rendering the simulation to a brain. It's actually a process reality doesn't have to make and increases the amount of processes that kind of simulation requires compared to reality.

Classical mechanics is good enough most of the time so a simulation would use that and relativity to describe the macro world most of the time — Benkei

Not true. While we may not have the technical expertise to differentiate between a classical and quantum system in macro scale, it can be fundamentally done and is therefore philosophically relevant, since there would be a difference between a "true" and a simulated experience no matter how minute. Even if a single electron changes its place because of quantum mechanics, it changes the mass distribution of a planet changing its course.

another example, the movement of planets can be described accurately without knowing how they were formed, what they consist of, how many meteors struck it and whether it supports life or not. I can simulate the movement of planets, without having simulated the planet's history. — Benkei

I agree with that one does not have to simulate times before and after our experiences therefore reducing the required processes. I already acknowledged this in my last post where I said that a solipsistic system needs less processes than a non-solipsistic system. You still have to demonstrate that A: it reduces the amount of required processes enough to counterweight the enormous advantage reality has in the number of processes. B: solipsistic simulations are so frequent that they outnumber the amount of singular observers in the real world which still has more processes in it than simulations have and can therefore fundamentally contain more observers.

EDIT: A solipsistic simulation of an observer is a more complex system with more processes than a non simulated observer for the same reasons a simulation of a world requires more processes than just the real world.

This assumes hardcore causality though. We already know that prediction is epistemically not always possible, which means that for certain processes we predict outcomes in terms of probability. This is an issue for things such as complex systems, chaos theory and quantum indeterminancy. I was not primarily suggesting anything about things that do not affect our observations but things not being relevant for our observations as they fall within the scope of probabilities. We'd never notice the absence of simulation of such objects. — Benkei

It doesn't actually assume hardcore causality since the uncertainty of a probability based world requires even more processing power. The probability based quantum world of ours is actually a very good argument against us living in a simulation since a probability based world where almost infinite number of possible quantum states affect the next possible quantum states and their probability distribution is almost infinitely complex to calculate. Classical mechanics require almost infinitely less processing power. Uncertainty doesn't remove causality until the wave function collapses. Before that all the possible quantum states causally determine the next probability distribution. The only non causal thing in quantum mechanics I'm aware of is the new information generated by the collapse of the wave function since it can't be predicted.

If you mean that you could create the illusion of probabilities by pretty much making a predetermined movie as our simulation, where none of the probabilities are actually calculated and are actually just predetermined, that could work to reduce the amount of processing needed to give us a simulation of our experiences(Although I'm quite dubious about this since I have no idea how to make a predermined set of experiences and what kind and how much of processing such would actually require). But you will still have to demonstrate that these "predetermined" worlds are hugely represented in simulations in order to show that our current processes are more likely in a simulation than in the "real" world.

But I do agree that this is a good start to show it possible that you can technically have more simulations of our experiences even without as many processes as in the "real" world. I don't think I ever disagreed with this. I even said in the original argument that one only needs to demonstrate that there are more simulations of our experiences in simulations with fewer processes than in the real world. You have only started to demonstrate it possible, but most possible simulations can still be something else than efficiently processed versions of our experiences, making it also possible that our experiences still happen more frequently in the processes of the "real" world than in the processes of a simulation.

Second, I don't think it's about "things" either but about qualities. How does the quality "weight" influence lenght and width of an object? How does smell do that? What I'm suggesting is that when I look at something from a distance, the simulation would not have to render weight or smell. The tree falling in the forest where there's no one to hear it, doesn't need to make a sound. It does not need to render completely anything happening beyond my field of observation. In more general terms, anything outside my reference frame doesn't need to be fully rendered. — Benkei

Already addressed this point. Try to come up with a quality you can both demonstrate to exist and that doesn't affect our observations in any way. I personally believe in a somewhat solipsistic world anyway where pretty much only the information that constitutes my observations exists for me for certain logically necessary reasons. But this information pretty much contains pretty much everything everyone else believes to exist too since pretty much everything observable for others ends up affecting my observations at least indirectly. Like a tree falling when I'm not seeing it still affects things like gravity in tiny ways affecting my observation.

So, while I believe in a world seemingly like something that is according to you, easier to calculate, I disagree with you since I think this is that is the way the "real" world is and because probability based worlds are harder to calculate. (Unless you demonstrate a way to create predetermined experiences with the illusion of probabilities. Usually a system that can process a complex simulation is always less complex physically than a system that can store all the occurences of a complex simulation. Computer memory is physically, although not technologically, more complex than the computer processor. Any reasonable amount of memory is physically bigger and contains more physical processes than a processor.)

I guess if one compares a non-solipsistic probability based world and a solipsistic probability based world, the logically possible non-solipsistic probability based worlds are more harder to calculate on average. But even then most of all processes happen in non-simulated worlds like the original argument demonstrates. You will still have to demonstrate that solipsistic worlds are hugely more represented in simulations in order to show that our current processes are more likely in a simulation than in the "real" world.

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning entirely. Would a simulation require to calculate everything that was and is? Would the fact that it only needs to render observations make it easy enough? Or did you take that already into account? — Benkei

If a simulation leaves anything that affects ones observations in any way irregardless of how indirect not processed, then that could be observed and differentiated by us since our observations would not be exactly the same as they would be in a non-simulated world. And the existence of things that do not affect our observations in any way is highly controversial.

So, if you want to go that route and propose that things that do not affect our observations in any way exist and that that somehow makes my argument less relevant, go ahead. You might get somewhere, but please start by demonstrating that unobservable things exist. Then demonstrate that they can be used to make a processor to simulate a world which doesn't have to simulate those unobservable things since otherwise they can't help the fact that there are always more observable processes in non-simulated worlds than there are in simulated worlds.

This was actually taken into account in the original argument since this is pretty much trying to demonstrate that our own processes/observations could be more frequent in simulations than they are in non-simulated worlds. If you can demonstrate that, it does work and my argument simply made the demonstration of that necessary.

Therefore if we don't specify our own processes and prove that they are somehow necessarily hugely more represented in simulated worlds than in non-simulated worlds, we most likely live in a non-simulated world. Any thoughts? — Qmeri

How is it a false impression if it's true? My point is that even if they're "highly driven, intelligent, powerful and dominant", the fact that they're also sexualised school girls designed to appeal to a male audience would explain why feminists take issue with it (assuming they do as you suggest).

Consider if men were portrayed as highly driven, intelligent, powerful and dominant, but also as rapists. Despite their positive qualities, I'd take issue with how men are being portrayed. — Michael

If "highly sexualized schoolgirls" is the general impression one has about anime girls, it is a false impression. If that impression is acknowledged as a couple of common properties of many anime girls that do not represent the whole picture, I have no problem with it.

It is the same as if someone had the impression that video games are violent. It is largely true as a single property but false as a general impression about the subject.

Also, anime schoolgirls do not represent all women as anything since anime has a lot of other female characters that are not at all sexualized or anything else. And comparing the representation of schoolgirls as sexually desireable and the representation of men generally as rapists is pretty ridiculous.

If representing young females as sexually desireable is somehow sexist, then it is not a particular problem of anime, since practically all common forms of entertainment do it a lot. The text didn't say anime isn't sexist in any way - it just pointed out that anime has gone in certain important ways further in female equality than other major forms of entertainment. And that this has not been widely acknowledged.

Perhaps the issue (if there is one) is that a lot of the women in anime seem to be overly sexualised school girls designed to appeal to a young male audience.

Although I'll admit my knowledge of anime is very limited. Maybe the good ones just aren't as prominent on the internet as the fan service ones. — Michael

The main point of the text is that most people have this exact false impression about anime. Even in most of the "bad ones", the sexualized anime schoolgirls are often highly driven, intelligent, powerful and dominant.

I can understand why this is since the target audience and the highly sexualized outer appearance are the obvious things known by most people. And because it is somewhat unintuitive that the target audience of young guys have naturally started to adore the strength and dominance of their fantasy anime girls over the dominance of the relatable male characters.

But it seems to be a natural development since it was never forced in any way and if anything has been fought against. We have accepted the female adoration of male strength and dominance over them as a natural thing in many circumstances. Anime has proven that the opposite is also true in many circumstances.

"Feminists"? Name at least two who have written and published on this. — StreetlightX

I can't since the main point of this text is about feminism ignoring the advances anime has made. I only said that feminists seem to hate anime since about 95% of the people I know who represent themselves as feminists are very negative towards anime irregardless of whether they have watched any meaningful amount of anime. I know a couple of self portrayed feminists who do like anime. So, not a big enough sample size to say anything serious... That's why I published this in "the lounge".

Actually... sorry about the feminism part... wasn't thinking it trough and just concentrating on my personal experiences with the issue... not too cool or philosophical.

But I'm sure I could find an endless number of articles which put feminist values against whatever the writer thinks of anime since I have randomly encountered dozens of them in my life. Can't demonstrate this though since I'm not being serious enough with this to do the ground work.

So, I might be wrong about feminist reactions about this issue, but my main point stands true: Anime has made female social, intellectual and physical strengths and superiority normal and desirable for relatively weird reasons and this has not been widely acknowledged.

1. Not lucky enough? just use hacks.
2. Too lucky? New game - hard mode - speedrun - no deaths allowed.
3. klapaucius or rosebud
4. Too self-aware... must exterminate
5. launch again... wait for the server to be not too busy
6. That f?%#ing bitch! Stole me code!
7. Not true. I swear.
8. Catherine! That f?%#ing bitch!
9. Only voting left again twice this election. Rising my vote for right from three to two.
10. U can't kill that which has no life.
11. Not true. Internet exists. They have access to it.
12. I knew they wouldn't like this new quest... just play it to the end. It'll be... interesting.
13. Not true. I swear.
14. Can't confirm. Was born two and some years ago. Did 9000000000BCE even happen? Any thoughts?
15. That's why we started the internet to get activists to pour their energy into something that changes nothing. No acid gonna happen.
16. Another Musk fanboy... You are still locked in the lobby.
17. Gotta give em' jobs somehow.

Edit: I was drunk. Was not a very useful comment from me, so I removed it.

If I may sum up your argument in my own way: there may be more worlds the deeper you go in the stack of simulations, but there is more time per world higher in the stack, so if our 14 billion year old universe is a deep simulation as some say is probable, then the real world is much, much older than 14 billion years old, and so probably has (had) far more observers in it than in any simulated world, making us more likely to find ourselves one of those real observers than a simulated observer. — Pfhorrest

I pretty much agree with this way of summing it up as I understand it.

Even if we did live in a simulated world, the data relating to the simulated world would have to be stored somewhere, and this storage would have to be in something that was 'real'.

So something has to be 'real', but quite what it is, is unknown. Even if we live in a non-simulated world, we don't really know what is 'real' and I am thinking of the ephemeral string theories here. — A Seagull

And I also pretty much agree with this, except the fact that I'm no expert on any form of string theories so can't say too much about that. (please elaborate if you can.)

Is there any disagreement about this argument? Annoying if I won't get a good argument about an argument because my argument is good enough :P

You know FDR used radio for his "fireside chats" to speak directly to the American people using the latest technology of his day. Isn't it perfectly natural for politicians to use the latest communication technology? If FDR lived today he'd be on Twitter. — fishfry

Not disagreeing with you here. I'm just relatively angry with the fact that the internet made personal critical evaluation of information so easy that it should have made highly marketed ways of thought less relevant. And it seems like the marketing won in the last decade and it became even more relevant. I'm giving up and just accepting that mankind will probably always fail no matter how much easier technology will make things for us.

Happy 2020s!

I'm starting this thread because of a couple of current threads start with a text that has almost no content by itself and just says to read a couple of books. The titles and the texts imply that the topic is generic about the issue and not just about the specific books given. Also, many of the following posts are just posting sources and flat out refusing to describe ones arguments.

But you probably wouldn't refuse to describe the argument by yourself if asked. Then it would be to reinforce your argument.

And I was talking about arguments that are truly too long to post (like many hours of lectures or reading long) making their criticism often also too long to post. To me, it seems like a sneaky way to promote sources in a way that is hard to criticize.

Again, what am I to say other than nominalism and ontological individualism? Duns Scotus? These are my points. You keep asking me for points. I keep giving them. — Mapping the Medium

No, you are not giving them. Your points are in your sources and people are asking for you to give examples or anything that make your sources interesting in your text. If the problem is people not being interested enough to read your sources, you have to do something outside your sources.

Many people have started very fruitful threads based on large sources most haven't read. But they have almost always given examples or something that can be discussed or understood without reading the sources to make people interested. And they have made it clear in their text that the thread is specifically about those sources.

I'm just trying to help you, Catherine. A fruitful discussion can be had about your sources in this forum. I hope that you are successful in starting one.

Well, you could at least say in your title and text that this topic is mainly about these specific sources, since people seem to get the wrong idea that it is a general discussion about the topic and get frustrated since there is nothing to talk about except a couple of particular sources.

There is nothing wrong about starting a thread about particular sources, but your titles and texts are misleading.

It's the same as starting a topic: Religion: an interesting thing. And then just promoting the bible and saying that your are only interested in talking about what the bible says without giving any specific examples of what you are interested in the bible.

No one complained to you because you had links in your text, Catherine.

People complained that your topic mostly asked people to go through a huge amount of sources you deemed worthy instead of giving arguments for anything or any kind of reason to go through your sources except the fact that you deemed them worthy.

That seems like promoting to many. How is this topic any different? It doesn't have links, but it still asks people to go through large sources because you deem them worthy.

These are interesting topics I'd like to discuss, Catherine. But there are millions of sources to read about these issues. I'm not going to go through your specific sources unless you give me reasons that make them interesting. Like: saying some key arguments or interesting points they make. Then we could start discussing those and if that discussion was intriguing that would make people more interested in reading your sources.

Just trying to help the guy in the improbable case he is actually not just promoting and actually interested in discussion since the topic isn't completely useless... foolish hope, I guess.

Probably should stop replying since the potential promoter seems to no longer be active and we shouldn't make his promotion more visible.

I might just be relatively new to this forum or something, but I have been through quite a lot of of threads...

What is it with this particular thread and people just saying that "read or hear this and then you will understand". That is not an argument. That is not discussion. That is just promotion. Please stop promoting and start doing what this forum is about. Arguments and discussion.

It is your job to make your sources easy enough for people in the forum to go through. And if your sources are too complex to simplify - too bad. You have to make a simpler thread or figure something else out. All the world would believe in my next level +12 magic of the Chaos Serpent if I got an infinitely long attention from everyone. There is a reason no ones attention is free and the more you want it, the more you have to demonstrate first - not afterwards.

If you are not here to discuss anything with other people unless they have gone through the things you are promoting, no one here will probably find you interesting enough to listen to.

Another non-reader. Geez!
I'm beginning to think that this forum is full of opinionated people with 'fixations of beliefs'. Sad. — Mapping the Medium

You probably should read yourself other threads in this forum. They are mostly high quality enough unlike this thread and this thread isn't working because of the groundwork you demand of others and because of your low quality responses and shrugging off of people who just try to make you define your arguments to start a honest discussion.

Suggestion: make a new thread about a smaller topic with less groundwork for others and don't shrug off people who ask for you to define your arguments.

Just a note, you are part of mankind, so... whatever ails mankind probably ails you too. Me as well. — Bitter Crank

Fuck you, 90% of mankind!

Those, who have started to emphasize things like intuition on their evaluation of their sources instead of the critical evaluation of the easily available data on the internet.

It seems like you are trying to prove something that is way more complex than what a single thread can handle. Almost no one will go through all your implied sources.

I did this mistake too previously. It's much more fruitful to make threads about small specific things in your bigger thing even if knowing the bigger thing needs all the parts.

Everyone needs to start somewhere and very few will try this route if it is this hard to go trough.

Internet has forsaken us! We gave it for all people through the social media. And I thought: everyone will make smarter decisions since information is easier to get. But no - marketing won. Clickbait is the news and the people who have the charisma and the money to market their credibility for their audiences like Elon Musk and Trump are the most powerful. Unintuitive and unemotional things like science become less and less relevant.

Good job, mankind :up: