The big flaw in his argument is using evolution and brains to make the case that what we experience is an illusion. Brains and evolution would be part of his desktop metaphor, not the underlying reality that leads to the illusion of desktop icons and folders.

You can't have your evolutionary brain cake and eat it too. Either we have a way of ascertaining how the computer creates a desktop interface, in which case it's not all an illusion, or we don't and we might as well be envatted in that desktop.

Besides, if it helps with the example, assume it's a TV show that isn't based on a book. Do claims about what will happen have a determinant truth value? — Michael

Yes, in the future.

Given that the script for the next season hasn't been written, would it be correct to say that "Jon Snow will sit on the Iron Throne" has a determinant truth value? Nothing in the world satisfies the requirements to be a truth-maker (whether to make it true or to make it false). — Michael

If GRRM had that as part of his outline for how the series ends, then yes. Otherwise, the truth value becomes determinate in the future.

Where is Landru? I fervently agree with half he says and fervently disagree with the other half. I haven't heard from him in ages. I miss him. — andrewk

Agreed on both accounts. I don't know that he ever made it over here.

That is, if advanced human civilization as such is still functioning in the not-to-distant future. — 0 thru 9

Someone might have said about the various fighting clans in the past (Vikings, Mongols, etc) that if human beings kept doing that, we would have disastrous results by now. But aside from the two world wars, it would seem that most places on the planet are trending toward more peaceful coexistence with their neighbors over time.

Human society evolves. Democracy is the norm across the world now. If and when we colonize space, we may have entered a post work world where the machines do all the labor for us.

Further society's interest in, and considerable investment in, science is principally driven by its instrumental value, not by any philosophical beliefs about Truth. We invest in science because it brings us useful things. — andrewk

So you've adopted Landru's beliefs about science. *sigh*

Are you really interested in QM, GR and thermodynamics because of their instrumental value? I'm not. I'm interested in them because I think they reveal something true about the world. Now this isn't absolute truth in that all things in science are subject to revision. But neither is it merely social construction, because these are theories about how the world works.

I really don't understand the view that people are only interested in science because it has instrumental value. No doubt that's true, but it seems awfully apparent that the majority of people think science is approximating the truth about the world, best as we can get at it. And so we're often fascinating by all sorts of discoveries that have no real insturmental value for our lives.

I think Black Holes are fascinating, but they have zero instrumental value for my life.

I read Ishmael years ago. Profound reading, but I'm not entirely sold. Makes me wonder how a Kurzweil/Quinn debate would go. Quinn includes in the myth telling that we're headed for some kind of Star Trek like future, when in fact we're headed for collapse. Kurzweil would say that our technology will save us, transforming human society into something greater than ST.

Can I still be evil, or must I gave that up to rule the world?

I'm a metaphysical realist because it's quite obvious that mind is secondary to bodies, to being born, to things in the world, to the effects of foods and drugs we ingest, and so on, and more than anything, that we die. Also because it makes sense of the other being situated bodily in relation to myself. And it makes sense of events happening. Time is real, space is real, things are real.

What I'm not at all sure about is ontology. The world exists regardless of what I think, perceive or know about it. That is almost certainly true. Whether we can truly carve nature at it's joints and describe in terms of one category or another is questionable.

It's also true that the mind plays an important role in how we perceive and understand the world, but the mind itself is shaped by being embodied. We have bodies that move about and change in space and time and communicate with other similar bodies. The mind is part of that, not separate from it.

Liars aren't honest ever — Wosret

Except when they say they're lying ;)

How do you intelligibly talk about genetic material without allowing that there are molecules carrying information? — Srap Tasmaner

I wonder if a precise physical description for genetics could be given, would there be any need for information?

Is information a kind of heuristic shortcut we use to make sense of highly complex physical systems?

But it's a good question. However, also keep in mind that DNA's role is a little messier than it sounds. There was a Radio Lab episode which started out talking about how the thinking was that protein production was like clockwork, since DNA specified precisely what sort of organism is to be produced (or maintained). However, when scientists figured out a way using light to watch proteins being produced, it was a very random affair, even for genetically identical cells.

The conclusion was that there is no order at the level of protein production, but somehow other systems (eleven total) give order to the chaos. They contrasted it with cleaning up an old song from a noisy tape with creating a song from random noise, protein production being the random noise.

That doesn't sound very computer-like, at least not at the level of genes. It does sound like emergent complexity, though.

I don't think of those physicists as being pedantic. — Reformed Nihilist

They're being philosophical, which is fine, as long as everyone understands the distinction, although if a way can be devised to test different interpretations, then it goes from philosophical to scientific.

Which raises the question as to what is the line between theoretical physics and metaphysics. Because the multiverse, 11 dimensional Branes colliding, and creation from quantum vacuum states certainly sound metaphysical.

Do we have to define computation as symbol manipulation? There are clearly phenomena in nature that are driven by information transfer rather than just energy transfer. — Srap Tasmaner

Why is it clear that any information is being transferred? Information seems like something that minds are concerned with, not physical processes. Information is intentional by nature. It's about something. But aboutness is mental.

In contrast, physical systems aren't about anything.

Well, if you define computation as involving symbols, and if you define symbols as things that have a particular meaning to us, then it follows by definition that computation doesn't exist independent of human minds and culture. — Michael

Then the question is whether defining computation in a broader sense is meaningful. If every physical system can be understood as computing, what would non-computational system look like? How do you distinguish computation from non-computation?

So for something to count as computation, the output has to be useful? Then how about the physical processes that brought about the Sun, or DNA? — Michael

Keep in mind that we coined computation in the context of symbol manipulation and mathematical calculation, not nuclear physics or protein production.

I think you're being too pedantic. If we just look at the physics of a calculator, all that happens is some physical thing reacts to some physical force. Kinetic energy causes a chain reaction that results in certain LEDs emitting light. — Michael

This is an ontological question, so being pedantic is expected. You're right that the physics of a calculator doesn't involved symbol manipulation, which goes to a deeper point. Computation exists when we say a physical system produces meaningful symbols for us.

Since there's nothing meaningful to the universe, I would suggest that computation can't be ontological. Rather, it's a product of mind and culture.

But what does that mean? If it's just a case of taking some input, doing something with it, and then outputting something else, then every physical process is an act of computation, isn't it? — Michael

We can say that, but I'm not sure how meaningful a rock computer is. I can't use it to do anything useful I would use a computer for. And how am I supposed to differentiate between computing machines and computing rocks? Does that mean computers existed before we built computing machines and people computed with pen and pencil? Was the Big Bang the first computer?

Also, the idea that physical systems are transforming inputs into outputs is an interpretation where we treat things as inputs and outputs.

What counts as computation? — Michael

Something like symbol manipulation via calculation.

If something is not subject to modality, then ipso facto it cannot be discussed in terms of possible worlds. — Banno

I suppose so. But then again, did we just make that up?

Or what I'm trying to point out is that maybe brute facts are like infinity in counting. Infinity doesn't follow the same rules as the finite numbers.

Or maybe brute facts are like 1 divided by zero, which is not a number, but it is something that comes up when you have zero in the number system.

I don't know. If it's brute, there's no explanation for it, right?

If there's no reason why something is brute, then there's no reason for it to be brute in another world, perhaps?

The truth value of brute facts are not subject to modalities and are not contingent unlike facts per se. — Question

Interesting. Could there be different brute facts in other worlds?

I don't know whether every law is computable, I've just seen the claim that it is.

Real in philosophical context means ontological, not whether the term applies in some language game.

Does that make it real?

That's what the ladies have to wear when I'm in charge. — Terrapin Station

Better invisible pink than nothing at all. We have to keep Augustino's sensibilities in mind.

I see, so Satan helped create the best possible world. Always wondered why God let that snake into the garden. Now we know. It was necessary to maximize goodness.

We categorically deny that you were ever a member of the Church of the Invisible Pink Unicorn. It's all lies! Lies and falsehoods! And innuendoes! Icky ones, with little thingies growing on them. — Srap Tasmaner

My new church will categorically deny that categorical is necessary for existence. That is the great lie the the followers of the false IPU (which OP is clearly one) has propagated upon humanity.

You've left me no choice but to leak this to the BBC, The New Trump Times, and The Daily Prophet (just in case).

I shall write a book, alright. Detailing the abuses and lies of the original IPU church, and how it lost it's way. I will redeem myself by starting a new church. The IPU was never the IPU, but rather the new IPU.

Weird how some forums don't show edited information. I must have changed it as you replied.

infidel — Srap Tasmaner

I am eternally damned! But I may have just coined an alternative IPU into existence. Maybe it will save me.

Autocategorical.

agree with the OP. Science is essentially an umbrella marketing term for fundraising and shielding against criticism. There are no standards, there are no methods. Just some claims that are rarely challenged since the industry has so thoroughly insulated itself both in academia and commercial industry. Once in a while though there are some articles that challenge the scientific method myth, that are accepted in some journal, which are quickly shot down by the industries' hired censors self-named skeptics. — Rich

What sort of claims? Climate change, evolution, radiocarbon dating, QM, DNA, cell theory, the periodic table, the heliocentric model?

What you stated there is on the level of creationism or holocaust denial.

I read this science fiction story with a villain that sort of reminds me of you. This scientist had invented a time machine. He had a drinking buddy who would go on right wing rants. The kind of person you roll your eyes at but figure they are just venting their frustrations at life.

Well, the scientist had lost his wife or something, and decided that he had no more reason to stick around, so he takes off and lands a couple thousand years in the future. The human race has changed quite a bit, and so has society. I don't think you would approve. Everyone is a genderless genetic clone with the same status, and there are no authorities. Nobody needs to work. Nobody tells anyone else to do anything. It's all voluntary.

Anyway, our hero happens across his bar friend who had gotten a hold of his plans back in the past and hand an engineer to make another time machine. I guess the machine was geared to go the same amount into the future. So our right wing villain was none too happy with how things turned out, and thus set about trying to teach inequality and social hierarchies to the future humans, while creating a terrorist plot to bring the whole society down, in order to restart things with hard work and inequality. Of course the villain would get to be king of the new society.

To be honest though, I wasn't much of a fan of that future either (I don't want everyone to be the same), although I disagreed with the villain of the story.

There will be, for instance, snakes. — Bitter Crank

I'm guessing that human beings have caused far more suffering from snakes than vice versa. And when it comes to suffering, snakes never cross my mind amidst being stretched on the rack, burned alive, waiting on traffic lights, and having to socialize on occasion.

For some people, snakes are interesting. I can't say that a snake has ever caused me suffering.

The Invisible Pink Uniform categorically exists, and will judge all doubters most severely in the afterlife.

And 2:17 in the marathon is almost inhumanely fast. How many people out of 7+ billion could realistically run that fast (with any amount of training) over 26.2 miles?

My point is that a woman's top time today would have won a big margin against top male runners back in the day, look at the time difference. — Cavacava

True, which isn't as true for shorter distances, which lends support to there being less of a gap over longer distances.

Pretty much all athletic performances have improved since the 50s across genders.

It would never make biological sense to make the females more risk taking, regardless of any gaps in competence. — Wosret

Makes sense. I'm only arguing that there is a physical difference that can often be seen in athletic events. This isn't a value judgement, just that it exists. It's not universal, and it varies among individuals, obviously.

I don't think men or women are physically that much different, but the culture of physical training has changed them dramatically. — Cavacava

As opposed to hominid evolution over the past 2 million years? I don't see what the athletic training would have been for most males prior to the late 19th century. Would it have been military? Or perhaps physical labor?

Anyway, tennis is relatively recent. I don't believe Serena or her sister Venus were lacking in opportunity to get on a tennis court growing up.

When I grew up, females had the same opportunity to participate in athletics as the males did, and we often played sports together on the playground. There was still an athletic gap between males and females.

nd then wished to explain why men excel in some areas, and women in others. — Wosret

Fair enough. And Serena is still better than 99.99...% of human beings who have ever picked up a tennis racket, male or female.