Your delusions of grandeu — Harry Hindu

It's you having the delusion of grandeur. You can't stand it not being able to explain me. The thought of being able to explain me is exactly your illusion of grandeur! The gods laugh about you! :lol:

Knowing" gods created the universe does nothing to comfort someone when you don't know the motives behind them creating the universe. — Harry Hindu

Aliens are just a part of the universe. They are created by gods too. And life can't be created by creatures of the gods. Who says the reasons of the gods are unknown? That's what you presume, assume, hypothesize. Science just can't explain the reason or meaning of life. I, on the other hand, can, and dance happy through life, without science able to explain me.

Randomness is just a matter of how a thing is determined, not whether it is. — frank

Yes, but how is randomly determined different from non-randomly determined? How do initial conditions are different in a random and determined process? How can we see the determined motion of gas particles is random?

Can't parallel lines on a sphere intersect?

I don't think a line has positive or negative curvature. A 2D surface can have positive or negative curvature, like the sphere and saddle. A torus has both, but can be defined to have zero curvature, like a cylinder.

If you are on a sphere you can only walk at the same distance from someone if you walk with different speeds.

But the question is, is the initial state random? The initial particle states of the universe seem to be in a low entropy state. Does that make them non-random? Dunno. There doesn't appear to be any patterns in their distribution yet. But time started.

Object-oriented programming and heuristic programming are probably small increments on the correct path but as I have already stated, electronic two-state computing is not ever going to be able to download a human consciousness so you are correct in that but few people have ever suggested that it ever could but those who say it could NEVER be done despite the tiny green shoots popping through from developments in quantum and biological computing — universeness

Interesting computers might be, especially the quantum ones, they reflect a way of thinking, not a process which reflects, or can reflect, consciousness. Like all technique, for that matter.

The memory capacity of a human brain can easily be accommodated by TODAY's electronic computers — universeness

The dynamic brain capacity is about 10exp(10ex20), a 1 followed by 10exp20 zeroes. Instead of the maximum for computer chips, a 1 followed by about 10exp2, i.e., 100 zeroes, the number of particles in the observable universe.

Draw your conclusion...

The point with a collection 1's and 0's in a computer is that the pattern can mean anything.

The most probable future scenario will be that people start realizing, after failed attempts to program consciousness, which is bound to non-programmed natural processes, and repeated confrontations with nature, inherent in the western ideal of so-called progress and technological development (which actually is a backwards development, a regress, throwing the natural paradise in the remorseless fire of progress and development) that it's a false ideal leading to a distancing from nature and eventually extinction. And not only of the human species (in which case it could be forgivable somehow) but of the largest part of creation.

The human species has survived over a 100 000 years already and the people back then were not significantly different from those now. The scientific culture is only 3000 years or so in existence. There are many non-scientific modes of being. A lot of them have stopped to exist in the name of "progress". Progress is not only finding new technology, new means of medicin, better rockets, cars, TV's, computers, etc. If that's your idea of progress then it's a very limited one. It's the western idea though. We even define era's by the technique or scientific knowledge of the that era. The atomic age, the computer age, the space age, the steam engine era, the radio- era, etc.

Saying everything will be accomplished and known in the future, as you do, is the easy way out and will lead to a self-fulfilling disaster. Science needs to be put in it's rightful place. As one culture amongst many. It should absolutely not be given political power as it has nowadays. It's fun to do science but it has it's limits and certainly not the answer to all questions.

But assuming there was an all knowing and all powerful god that created us and wants the best for us. Are they fair? It is easy to imagine how we'd do things differently, but can we determine if such a god is fair — TiredThinker

Assuming they made us in their image we could say they are not fair. So unfairness as well as fairness are part of creation. There will be no judgment day. Maybe an occasional slap in the face to show mankind the roads that have been chosen lead us astray and nature into misery. Preventing species to exist or showing them an eviction warrant from paradise is not exactly how they planned it.

Deleted... I wrote it could be a nice mating trick...

Black mirror — Nick563

Yeah! I have seen them all! Would be great if they made more! Im curious about the movie dr. Strange and the multiverse of madness. Coming soon to your local theater!

Religion can be considered an interpretation of existence in reference to supernatural beings — Angelo Cannata

Religion, so I think in all intellectual honesty and faithfull commitment, is more than an interpretation of of existence. Religion acknowledges the true existence of supernatural beings about whom many stories are in circulation. The weirdest of these stories, in my respectful opinion, is the gods being the members of an alien, technological super advanced civilization, who created us as simulations in a computer or maybe even in reality...

The ontological distinction between miracles and mechanics begs the principle of sufficient reason, which is but another form of absolute infinity in disguise. — sime

Now that's philosophy!

But the particle is what appears. The wavefunction never appears but can only be inferred. 'Phenomenon' means 'what appears'. — Wayfarer

In the double slit experiment, a 2D cross section of the wavefunction seems to show itself directly on the screen. You could even say that the observation of a single flash of light in this experiment is the wavefunction collapsed to one of the eigenstates of the electron (though a dirac delta is not an eigenfunction, but you get the picture).

It is ridiculous to think that our minds can be uploaded to computers, since they cannot even be "uploaded" to our brains, which are much more sophisticated systems than computers. — Alkis Piskas

That's the best argument so far, in my humble opinion! I think its an ridiculous statement too. I don't even think computers or robots can be made conscious. Good to know there is someone "on my side"! Especially as that comes from a specialist in IT! :wink: :up:

So only in the context of infinite experiments we could say something is truly random? But what, say, about the distribution of momenta of the particles in a gas? If the particles move independently (apart from collisions), isn't the distribution random? Or do they still carry the imprint of someone previous interactions where they had functional interactions or common causes?

Alkis, Alkis, sorry, but I think we should show Daemon some gratitude! I think he's right that the 0's and 1's in a computer are just patterns of voltages without intrinsic value or direct connection to the world. Computers function differently from the brain. There is no program stored in the brain, operating on the spike potentials and directing them around. The neural network itself guides the potentials and the strengthening between neurons affects the running around of patterns, not a program stored in another part of the brain, like in computers. The brain has a dynamic memory capacity of 10exp(10exp20)! A computer chip, max 10exp25? You can store a number of books on a chip, or whatever kind of information you assign (another difference between brain and computer!) but in the dynamic brain, every neuron can be involved in many different memories. Memory in the brain is not stored like static 1's and 0's.

It could be though that a particle is the noumenon and the wavefunction the phenomenon. The wavefunction being the observable jacket the particle wears. A wavefunction only reveals it's nature by repeated local interactions of the particles in it (say the flashes on a screen behind the two apertures).

Or, the gods are just not omnibenevolent.

No proof is available in this respect, otherwise there would be no scope for interpretation — Wayfarer

Precisely. There are plans for experiments to discern. Costly and difficult though. But even to imagine this could be discerned 100 years ago!

Thermodynamic time must have a beginning. If not, we would observe chaos only since entropy increases. In nature, all processes are irreversible. Only around time zero cause and effect didn't exist. Which doesn't mean time didn't exist. It did, but not in its thermodynamic, flying-arrow-like shape. There was an implicit time to set things in thermodynamic motion. But what determined when that happened? A previous universe seems to do the trick.

So, was there a first cause? Yes, but it was no internal cause. The internal cause was not a thermodynamic cause, but it needed an external TD cause to set the TD cause and effect in motion. In other words, the non-causal temporal cause, needs an external TD cause to set things in TD motion at (or close to) time zero.

Interesting! You make two contours in the complex plane dependent on each other? The z(n) and ksi(n) seem to have a part of the previous ksi(n--1) and z(n-1)? Somehow they seem to eat each other. Raw sex in the complex plane...

Suppose my random number comes from an observation of unpredictable minute changes in atmospheric pressure?
— jgill

Those changes shouldn't be unpredictable to Laplace's demon — frank

That doesn't make them non-random. You can only predict the gas pressure variations if you know the initial state of the gas particles. You can't predict these. The initial momentum distribution is random.

Yes, but that minority is because in Copenhagen the standard was set. Einstein didn't agree. But it's what the books teach today. A majority is no proof of being right.

Yes— because you can definitely have views when you don’t exist. I guess digestion precedes being alive, too — Xtrix

Then tell me what that being is without viewing

And, non-trivially, I’ll emphasize that I have not once brought up “objective existence.” Being is not an object — Xtrix

But objective existence doesn't mean the existence of an object. It means an existence independent of our subjective existence. You can deny that by ignoring the distinction alltogether but then you will never know what that existence is about.

Why? The diallelus applies just the same. — jorndoe

I think eternal intelligence and reason don't need another intelligence. Dead , non-intelligent matter on the other hand does need an explanation for existence. It's not intelligent enough to bring itself about.

With respect to LaPlace's Daemon - the accepted wisdom is that Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle forecloses the possibility of absolute determinism, because there's an inbuilt degree of uncertainty at a foundational level of atomic physics. Banno posted an academic paper challenging the accepted wisdom somewhere upthread, but I confess I haven't had time to read it. — Wayfarer

Hidden variables make everything determined. The electron in an orbital always has a well-defined position and velocity like this. For example, an electron in an s-orbital always has zero velocity, and a position somewhere in the confines of the wavefunction.

Im not involving QM, insofar the objective existence of space is involved. It's nature. If objects interact doesn't soace have to be an objective medium?

I don't know if the nature of space is a digression from cause and effect. Isn't space a logical a priori for them to exist?

Ah, I understand the glove argument. All relation between the constituents of both gloves are the same. Against Leibniz. So space is more than just the relation between objects, as the two gloves are not the same. Then how the gloves differ? That is only in relation to each other or wrt to an external coordinate frame.

But how can particles then interact? Space is not "the nothing".

Space does not represent any property of objects as things in themselves — Wayfarer

Space is just the non aetheral stuff particles move in and reach for each other. It contains the means for interaction. It can be considered to be made of the hidden non-local (space!) variables of QM, constituting the link between gravity and QM.

Have you never heard of his left- or right-hand glove in empty space?

"Why wouldn't it feel like something to, say, enter into a modelling relationship with the environment?" — bert1

Yes, that's a good one! I can't imagine it wouldn't feel like anything. We have a face and mouth and body. Or better, are a body. Constantly resonating with the world outside and even enactingly shaping it. How could that go without consciousness? But still it leaves a gnawing. Maybe elementary particles contain the seeds already. They can't exist without interaction either. A mystery! :smile:

How original. — apokrisis

Thanks! :smile:

Do you know what he tried to establish with his gloves in empty space?

I'm tied to my home for a still few weeks. So what better to do... Just wanna get some stuff out of my mind. But indeed, I don't take it seriously. I could explain the whole of my being as some dissipative structure between two regimes of thermodynamic equilibrium (day and night), Friston blankets, Markov blankets, enactment, Gibbs free energy, periodic big bangs, etc. but religion and gods is what I'm in the mood for. Why should I describe life instead of living it? Not that I don't like all that stuff, I mean, it's fun to go cosmic and fantasize about big bangs, inflation, the nature of dark energy, preons, quantum interpretations, you name it. I believe you like that too, it seems. But why wouldn't gods exist? Gives me a good feeling! No science can explain me!

I'll try. Forget about the Moon. Science describes the material of the universe. It's nature, causal relations, etc. But it gives no reason for the universe and all life in it to exist. There are attempts made, like in the evolution story ((Dawkins with his selfish genes and memes, claiming the reason we live is to pass on genes or memes), or fundamental laws of physics, claimed to be causes of origin, but in the end these are just descriptions of existence, giving no true reason for the universe and life in it.