So you mean the entrepreneur providing a service or a utility doesn't benefit anybody? — ssu
and you replied,which benefits them and, no one else. — Kaarlo Tuomi
The above is what I disagreed with... — Brett
I didn't say that. (see, two can play that game). I did not claim that there were no benefits from entrepreneurs. I said their wealth benefits only them.What does that have to do with your denial of any benefits from entrepreneurs? — Brett
I didn't claim to "know" it. I said that it seemed, on the face of it, to be that way. entrepreneurs have to first have an idea, then persuade other folk to believe in them and invest in them, and persuade other folk to come and work for them, planning, organising, number crunching and all this requires a lot of social and inter-personal skill and an outgoing personality with a persuasive mentality and demeanour to get people on their side. philosophy does not require any of those skills or manifest any of those qualities, beyond having an idea. but what happens after they have had the idea would be quite different. divergent, even.How do you know this? — Brett
many years ago when I was a small boy who had first heard about molecules I had this idea that our universe could be a molecule in the toenail of a giant. I don't know why it had to be his toenail, but there you go, and it fascinated me for a while. I'm not sure that a naturally occurring phenomenon can strictly speaking be called a simulation, unless you want to think of a polar bear as a particularly inept simulation of a pussy cat, but this is a stunningly original idea that I will have to spend a lot of time thinking about and will probably return to again and again. thank you very much.Simulation might be a part of nature. Perhaps folk who think on it should look to ways it might be happening in nature, rather than via computation. — Punshhh
this suggested to me that Nils was thinking of something completely different, but I was not able to figure out what he was imagining, and that, on its own blew my mind. what was he thinking about, how could a civilisation construct their own universe? this was a very difficult problem for me and I spent a long time thinking he meant that they had copied their own universe so that the people inside the simulation were simulations of themselves rather than their actual selves.The ones inside it are presumably the ones who made it. — Nils Loc
this really helped me to focus on the civilisation doing the simulating, who they were and why they were doing this and why there needs to be urgency to their work and what motivates them and drives them. before this post they were just cookie-cutter characters that were in my story because I needed a villain, but after this post they became people with hopes and dreams the reader can sympathise with so that you might in some sense want them to succeed. the reader is now conflicted because she can no longer be certain, is Alan a victim, or is his suffering necessary for the survival of a whole civilisation?It reflects progress and expectation. To simulate a universe in which the civilization is reflected implies uncertainty on the part of the creators. Man is looking for ways to survive, so then the simulation will reflect overlooked damaging properties. If these are identified (due to the revealing nature of complexity), updates become eventually applied, ending in absolute resolution. — Francesco
this interesting insight created a new strand to my story where the simulators no longer agree on why they are doing the simulation in the first place. some of them think of it as a survival strategy, while others see it as pure science. this is like Elon Musk's Mars mission, he thinks he is building a rocket for going to Mars but I doubt there is a single human prepared to get in it and actually go there but the science aspects of it with reusable rockets and landing stage one boosters vertically on a floating barge 200 miles out to sea are utterly fascinating.when a quantum leap breaks the symmetry of progress, it would be like discovering prime numbers in nature. Usually this implodes the symmetrical decimation into natural standards which is of course impossible as we do not understand the nature of time fully. — Francesco
this is a very interesting point because as far as I am aware, singularity has three or four different definitions, and Francesco could be referring to more than one of them. singularity is the point at the centre of a black hole to which everything inside the event horizon is attracted. and singularity is also the (fictional) point at which a human consciousness merges with a computer. and singularity is also a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible. and there was this one time at band camp... maybe later.Its easy to model singularity, but nobody in the simulation has ever actually seen it, let alone construct it in the beginning with a beginning. — Francesco
this is an extremely interesting question and is at the heart of Alan's problem. how much information is required to make something true. I've never been to New Zealand but I am reasonably sure it is there, to the extent that I would be prepared to say that Wellington is the capital of New Zealand, and I would even say that it is a fact. but I can't prove it beyond the intellectually challenged process of "appeal to authority." so if my knowledge of the universe is merely stuff I read in books why don't Never Never Land, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy also exist? the characters in my story will have to wrestle with these questions once Alan reveals to them his suspicions.How much experience of this universe led you to consider this universe to be a universe? — Key
I cannot begin to express how grateful I am for this. it isn't relevant to my story because the creators are not fifth-dimensional beings, but it helped me see how other posters were approaching the question and what other possibilities there are I had not previously considered. really helpful, thank you.If you allow for the possibility of beings being able to traverse dimensions then you have a means to solve the conundrum of how the creator of a universe can inhabit that universe. A being creates a three dimensional universe while inhabiting a fourth, or fifth dimensional universe. Then steps down to become present in the three dimensional universe via some appropriate vehicle (a human body).
in my naivete I thought that "those" were quite obviously the inhabitants of the simulation. without getting bogged down in a philosophical quagmire they think they are real but are not. I don't play World of Warcraft but I would hazard a guess the characters in it don't think of themselves as being real. but the question is not silly or trivial because once again it revealed to me that there are other ways of looking at this, and that diversity of view points has been, far and away, the most valuable contribution so far. thank you, all of you.What do you mean by "those"? Is my World of Warcraft character it's own person now for some reason? — Outlander
okay we're getting down to the fine detail now and Brett wants to concentrate on wealth formation. Brett thinks that entrepreneurs create wealth and that this is somehow a net benefit to society. I guess if you grew up on the economics of Paul Krugman and Alan Greenspan that might not be a sloppy assumption to make but there is very little evidence that it works. it used to be called "trickle-down economics" but today books on it are found in the section devoted to Fairy Stories.The above is what I disagreed with, not your refutation of this; — Brett
not only has he not answered this, he has also not provided any evidence that "wealth" is a thing that can benefit folk who do not possess it, or that the benefits of "wealth" can somehow filter down to the folk at the bottom of the poverty ladder.how do you benefit from the wealth of Jeff Bezos? — Kaarlo Tuomi
Who built the house you live in, who made the coffee you drink in the morning after you put on your pants that someone made, who opened the cafe where you had your breakfast, who transported the food across country, who produced the food, who made the bed you slept in, the table you sat at, the shoes you walked? — Brett
one way to think about it is to consider the following:You have no idea what you're talking about. — Brett
except that the discussion in this one thread alone makes it abundantly clear that folk have different ideas of what political correctness is. so folk might have "a general sense," of what it means, but they sure seem to have a diversity of general senses.People have been speaking about, writing about, and have been warning us about political correctness for decades. Quibble all you need, but I wager most people understand the general sense of the term by now. — NOS4A2
I agree with this.Hate speech is a problem. But political correctness was never about hate speech. — NOS4A2
but in a pragmatic sense, I also agree with this. which is just my charitable view that you don't have to agree with me.Not everyone has categorically drawn lines between speech that is considered hateful or offensive or just unpleasant and rude, and where political correctness intersects between this and other types insults and expressions... — Maw
this is not a view I have seen expressed anywhere else, so my tendency would be to think this is not common. I'm not saying you're wrong, but this probably not the majority view.Political correctness is, in both definition and in practice, almost entirely about condemning and avoiding derogatory/hateful language and rhetoric towards particular (religious, ethnic, etc) groups. — Enai De A Lukal
I think that what you are doing is conflating your opinion of what some entrepreneurs have done, with the motivation of entrepreneurs generally to be entrepreneurial.What a narrow minded assertion! Entrepreneurs create wealth, they put ideas into practice, They make the world a better place for everyone. — A Seagull
which benefits them and, no one else. how do you benefit from the wealth of Jeff Bezos?Entrepreneurs create wealth... — A Seagull
robbing a bank is putting an idea into practice. are you able to explain how this is of benefit to society?they put ideas into practice — A Seagull
some entrepreneurs make the world a better place for some of the very small minority of the world population that have access to whatever their business does. Elizabeth Holmes was an entrepreneur. are you able to cite a single person for whom the world was a better place as a result of her actions?They make the world a better place for everyone. — A Seagull
Thinking something, even assuming something, doesn't make that thing subjective, — Pfhorrest
Objectivity means always proceeding on the assumption that things can be solved. It doesn't mean that you already know how to solve it. I don't know how many times I have to repeat that. — Pfhorrest
You might be interested to know that there is a history of 'undetermined questions' in Buddhism. These mainly concern what we could translate as metaphysical questions. — Wayfarer
thank you very much for engaging.A being creates a three dimensional universe while inhabiting a fourth, or fifth dimensional universe. Then steps down to become present in the three dimensional universe via some appropriate vehicle (a human body).
So you can assume ten flavour timmy and a potentially infinite number of multiverses, but you can't figure out where the waiters fit in?! Interesting... — Key
so when I'm sat in the ice cream parlour there is a single wavefunction, but there are ten "worlds", and when I make a choice from the menu I entangle with the wavefunction and there are then ten of me, each of whom made a different selection from the menu, but there is still only a single wavefunction.the wavefunction that Schrodinger sees is basically a combination of two "worlds", and when Schrodinger observes this, he just entangles with this wavefunction, after which, there's a Schrodinger that sees the dead cat, and a Schrodinger that sees the live cat; both Schrodingers are part of the universal wavefunction. — InPitzotl
There is no way a simulation could duplicate the complexity of the actual universe. — Nils Loc
It reflects progress and expectation. To simulate a universe in which the civilization is reflected implies uncertainty on the part of the creators. Man is looking for ways to survive, so then the simulation will reflect overlooked damaging properties. — Francesco
In that case, every statement that something is your favorite flavor of ice cream is objectively false. — Pfhorrest
well, actually, I don't. and the reason is to be found in an earlier post in this thread but you dismissed it in a very superficial way so I'm not sure you even really took it in or thought about it.No, but you do. — Pfhorrest
which you dismissed with this...suppose, for example, I do not believe there is such a thing as objective reality. in that case EVERYTHING would be conditional and subjective. — Kaarlo Tuomi
since we are no longer discussing your philosophy, but mine, I think I should declare that I don't actually have a favourite flavour of ice cream. I don't understand what folk mean when they say, "my favourite [insert appropriate noun]." the expression is essentially gibberish to me, and when I say those words it is as though I were reading a story written in a foreign language, I suspect my audience might understand but I do not personally have a clue what it means.But I think that that antecedent belief is false, and so the consequent is not entailed. — Pfhorrest
If I told you that your favorite flavor of ice cream was pistachio, would I not be wrong? — Pfhorrest
so I would advise proceeding with caution — InPitzotl
That there's an illusion means there's something, the mind, that perceives this illusion. — TheMadFool
In other words, there is no object that corresponds with the first person. — Wayfarer
That Paris is the capital of France, and that chocolate is my favorite flavor of ice cream, are both states of France and of me, respectively, and are both objectively true. — Pfhorrest
it seems to me that if subjective really is "the state of a subject," then "Paris is the capital of France" is the state of a subject and therefore subjective. but you also said that "Paris is the capital of France" is objectively true. which suggests to me that there is no discernible distinction between subjective and objective.Preferences are subjective inasmuch as they are states of subjects. — Pfhorrest
I'm afraid this directly contradicts what you said earlier.No, because it's still objectively true that I prefer this and you prefer that... — Pfhorrest
which means that you consider your subjective preference to be objectively true.Preferences, being explicitly subjective... — Pfhorrest
Most if not all of those are examples of opinions that are not contradictory. Many of them are mere preferences... — Pfhorrest
...in saying that no question is unanswerable, I just mean that there's always some possible answer that would be the right one... — Pfhorrest
But I didn't understand your point. — fishfry
It isn't that you can't imagine it as much as you don't wish to consider such a scenario in this discussion. — Nils Loc
If you are meeting Bill Gates via Skype, are you really meeting Bill Gates? — Nils Loc
I disagree with this. why does either one of them necessarily have to be "right" ?But it nevertheless can’t be the case that they are both right, if they disagree. — Pfhorrest
I also disagree with this. you are not wrong just because I disagree with you.And of course each of them thinks themes right and those who disagree consequently wrong: — Pfhorrest
and I also disagree with this.To be of some opinion just is to think that something or other is right (and the negation of it thus wrong). — Pfhorrest
I wonder if perhaps you mean something different by “opinion” than I do. — Pfhorrest
it was Aristotle who said the greatest gift that we can give to ourselves (and each other) is to 'know thyself'. — 3017amen
Let me know what you think! — Have some tea
So it's not difficult to see issues with confirmation bias and the like in this kind of scenario. See: Do you believe in God, or is that a software glitch? — Wayfarer
You can't imagine aliens in VR — Nils Loc