The Simulation Argument plus Eternal Optimism equals...

[Ephrem Moseley]

Theism of some sort.

Anyone disagree?

https://www.simulation-argument.com

[Fenring]

Theism of some sort.

Anyone disagree?

https://www.simulation-argument.com

I'd have to do a lot of studying to find out what some of these people actually mean by the word "simulation" because I don't think it's a trivial concept to just put into play. Here's a segment from Joe Rogan talking to Nick Bostrom, where the following exchange happens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td_qaNy1W9U&ab_channel=JREClips

JOE: I know that you've developed this argument, and I know that you've spent a great deal of time working on this, but personally, the way you view the world, how much does it play into your vision of what reality is?

NICK: Well, um, it's...hard to say, I mean, for the majority of my time I'm not actively thinking about that, I'm just, like, you know, living. Now my work is actually to think about big picture questions, so it kind of comes in through my work as well, when you're trying to make sense of our position, our possible future prospects, the levers which we might have available to affect the world, what would be a good and bad way of pulling those levers. Then you have to try to put all of these constraints and considerations together. And in that context I think it's important. I think if you're just going about your daily existence then it might not be really useful or relevant.

So that answers that: from his perspective it's really nothing like theism in its usual sense. It could be 'trivial theism', like saying maybe there's a god but not in any way that can affect my life or matter to me. What he's talking about (and this is not necessarily the end-all of a simulation argument) is just rudimentary philosophy - metaphysics, and some ethics corollaries.

[Ephrem Moseley]

sounds like Bostrom isn't an optimist

I'm thinking about how Pascal's Wager plays into this

[TheDeamon]

Theism of some sort.

Anyone disagree?

https://www.simulation-argument.com

Become Mormon, the simulation theory in general applies exceptionally well to their doctrines when you stop and think about it.

Although it may not apply directly to their specific version of it.

Maybe we are living in something like the matrix. Only we're stuck in an Anthropology/Sociology experiment where God is the Graduate Studies advisor (and father to) to guy running the experiment while he's trying for his PhD. 

The "Book of Life" becomes the event/system log, and so on and so forth.

[alai]

See also The Matrix, His Dark Materials, gnosticism, etc.  Sub-creating an entire universe containing a multitude of distinct sentient beings might or might not 'technically' make you god.  But probably is good enough for them, and might be in danger of being good enough for you.

[TheDrake]

This guy disagrees.

[Fenring]

This guy disagrees.

I can't finish the read just right now, but I agree with this proposition he makes especially:

I sympathize with all of the criticisms, but more crucially, I simply think the sort of metaphysics Bostrom wants to do has been dead for centuries, replaced by science.

This was actually the first thought I had when listening to Bostrom speak: how can he actually know that what he's saying has any truth content? And really he can't, he's just saying stuff that sounds logical to him about the actual world. And it's especially damning that his view that I pointed out above actually leads to a nefarious circumstance, where the theory 'doesn't really matter' to normal people, but can still act as a made-up pseudo-fact which says that only highly educated people who study this stuff can make informed statements about the future. It's a self-made religious order appointing oneself as the high priest, using language one has made up, with facts that one assumes to be true because they are yours. Not that he intends to do all this, but I think it's the 'practical' reality of proposing a theory in this manner. The worst case scenario would be for someone with actual power to treat this guy like an "expert" an base policy on these ideas.

Now I don't claim to have studied it all that much so I'm not condemning Bostrom per se, but more the type of position and arguments he's making.

[alai]

And really he can't, he's just saying stuff that sounds logical to him about the actual world.

I see you're new to philosophy, then!  (Or to philosophers, perhaps.)

Now I don't claim to have studied it all that much so I'm not condemning Bostrom per se, but more the type of position and arguments he's making.

In science, this would be a serious critique of someone's work.  And indeed is, as this comes up in things like cosmology.  "Our universe was created by a collision of Branes in an 11-dimensional M-space."  "...  ... ...  Are we're testing this how?"  Or even high-energy physics.  "I've discovered the most beautiful grand unification of the fundamental forces, and all we need to verify this is to build a new accelerator..."  "Woo-hoo!"  "... the diameter of the orbit of Ganymede."  "Yello, budget office?"  Sometimes it's just because the theories are too vaguely formulated and just-so.  Looking at you, 'evolutionary psychology'!

But in philosophy, if you were to say "your theory isn't falsifiable!" to someone, they'd just smile beatifically and say "I know, great, isn't it?"  See also that horrendous "god exists" thread.

I'll leave all y'all with a quote from the the late, great (if also unfortunately as racist AF) British astronomer and broadcaster, Sir Patrick Moore.  "Now when a great philopsher makes a serious, profound and dogmatic statement, he [sic] is almost certainly wrong."  The particular butt of this barb on an old The Sky at Night being Auguste Comte, founder of the philosophy of science of all things.  He infamously made such a statement about the impossibility of determining the composition of the stars.  (Within a generation, done and dusted.)

[Fenring]

I see you're new to philosophy, then!  (Or to philosophers, perhaps.)

Not quite

But even though I'm used to shenanigans it still annoys me when they get airtime. Even though I'm very interested in philosophy (and majored in it before I switched out) I nevertheless tend to refer to philosophy as "history of wrong ideas".

Now I don't claim to have studied it all that much so I'm not condemning Bostrom per se, but more the type of position and arguments he's making.

In science, this would be a serious critique of someone's work.  And indeed is, as this comes up in things like cosmology.  "Our universe was created by a collision of Branes in an 11-dimensional M-space."  "...  ... ...  Are we're testing this how?"  Or even high-energy physics.  "I've discovered the most beautiful grand unification of the fundamental forces, and all we need to verify this is to build a new accelerator..."  "Woo-hoo!"  "... the diameter of the orbit of Ganymede."  "Yello, budget office?"  Sometimes it's just because the theories are too vaguely formulated and just-so.  Looking at you, 'evolutionary psychology'!

But in philosophy, if you were to say "your theory isn't falsifiable!" to someone, they'd just smile beatifically and say "I know, great, isn't it?"  See also that horrendous "god exists" thread.

Yeah, a lot of it may just be gobbling up that academia money and having to justify it. Nothing like a lifelong gravy train to justify. That being said, I fundamentally disagree that advanced physics or philosophy have to be stupid bubbles. They can both involve very important work. It's just that probably most people involved are just not 'good enough' to come with anything amazing but still have to come up with something. So naturally it...won't be amazing. Anyhow I found it more galling that he said his work probably didn't matter in ordinary life, more so than it being non-falsifiable and based on nothing. If you're going to spout arcane BS at least say it's important!

[Ephrem Moseley]

This guy disagrees.

That guy obviously hasn't considered the possibility that in the "Base Level" it's considered to be more loving to create a "reality" (multiverse) rather than to create any kind of "simulation" (where we're all 100% predictable robots)

(we're not all robots in my view perhaps I should make a thread about "free will", which necessarily constrains "omnipotence")

"that we are most likely at the lowest level of simulation (from which point one’s impression will be that it is impossible to perform a simulation), which contradicts the arguer’s assumption that advanced civilizations can most likely perform simulations.

[Fenring]

That guy obviously hasn't considered the possibility that in the "Base Level" it's considered to be more loving to create a "reality" (multiverse) rather than to create any kind of "simulation" (where we're all 100% predictable robots)

I don't see it as necessary to suppose that even beings created in a simulation must be deterministic robots. It depends on what type of simulation it is, presumably. And that's putting aside the Matrix type of simulation, where the environment is simulated but its inhabitants are not (although they may represent in the simulation through avatars).

One of the dumbest parts of suggesting we're in a simulation is the lack of any discernible differentiation between a 'simulation' and a 'reality'. Simulations...are real. They contain 'things' and 'work' in a certain way according to principles. They're not fake, they are real, and comprise a real system, just not a closed system. The only issue making a simulation different in a relevant way is to support another 'level' of reality, but that's really only a response to a very strict materialist reading of the world which itself is only a proposition and not a fact. In other words, it's only interesting to suggest there's another level of reality if you're specifically talking to someone insisting there are no other levels of reality. So that's not a simulation argument so much as a repudiation of the "this is all there is" argument, which can take many MANY forms.

[alai]

But even though I'm used to shenanigans it still annoys me when they get airtime. Even though I'm very interested in philosophy (and majored in it before I switched out) I nevertheless tend to refer to philosophy as "history of wrong ideas".

I'm familiar with the phenomenon!  "If it annoys you every time, by definition you shouldn't let it annoy you."  It's a great theory, but if it worked in practice, we'd not have road rage, and we'd all be cross-legged levitating Buddhists.

That being said, I fundamentally disagree that advanced physics or philosophy have to be stupid bubbles.

I'm certainly not saying that about physics.  Just that some of the theoretical work is...  Maybe a Comte-generation or two away from either looking true-adjacent, false-adjacent, or even "I maybe see how we might eventually able to evaluate this"-adjacent.  Look how (historically) recently the theory of black holes was fanciful nonsense and an impossibility -- now we have pix, detailed measurements, and ever-fancier models.

Anyhow I found it more galling that he said his work probably didn't matter in ordinary life, more so than it being non-falsifiable and based on nothing. If you're going to spout arcane BS at least say it's important!

Just to pop those DA horns on myself, there's always the "basic research" argument.  Funding bodies are very keen that as many people work on the "immediate applications" stuff:  ideally one with a technology transfer or a spin-out company attached, if they can!  But you can't have anyone on the planet working exclusively on the low-hanging fruit forever.

But there do seem to be ideas that not merely aren't applicable to testable right now, they're kinda setting about covering their own tracks so that they never can be.  Which is what we have religion for, no pressing need to reinvent it!

[alai]

That guy obviously hasn't considered the possibility that in the "Base Level" it's considered to be more loving to create a "reality" (multiverse) rather than to create any kind of "simulation" (where we're all 100% predictable robots)

(we're not all robots in my view perhaps I should make a thread about "free will", which necessarily constrains "omnipotence")

"Predictable" is different from "deterministic".  At least in any pragmatic sense.  "Gimme a computer vastly larger than this universe, and I'll be able to exactly predict your behaviour in it by simulating the whole thing!  At least once we have an 100% accurate and complete Theory of Everything"  Suddenly makes the aforementioned "Jupiter Project" particle accelerator budget proposal look like small beer...

[Ephrem Moseley]

"Predictable" is different from "deterministic".  At least in any pragmatic sense.  "Gimme a computer vastly larger than this universe, and I'll be able to exactly predict your behaviour in it by simulating the whole thing!  At least once we have an 100% accurate and complete Theory of Everything"  Suddenly makes the aforementioned "Jupiter Project" particle accelerator budget proposal look like small beer...

can randomness exist or not?

reminds me of a Rick and Morty episode

[alai]

And that's putting aside the Matrix type of simulation, where the environment is simulated but its inhabitants are not (although they may represent in the simulation through avatars).

Which is of course a nod to dualism (as well as a plot device).  Plato, the cave, two worlds of woo. Of course Aristotle -- a philosopher back when "philosopher" really did mean scientist-of-all-work, and more besides -- got rid of all that crap, but the Gnostics, the Neoplatonists, and worst of all the Christians brought it all back, with poor Aristotle grafted back on, on top.

One of the dumbest parts of suggesting we're in a simulation is the lack of any discernible differentiation between a 'simulation' and a 'reality'.

I suppose the distinction is ultimately if there's some sort of 'glitch in the Matrix', or one is anticipating the possibility of such.  The slightly less trivial resemblance between theism, perhaps, is if you're anticipating that the 'simulator supervisor mode' is running on some sort of ethical basis.  Which for fun and self-serving profit, why not assume just happens to correspond to one's own prejudices!  But this is likewise similarly idle speculation.  Is the SSM doing to step in, like Tolkien's Ilúvatar, and do a convenient fixup is things go wrong?  In which case, why worry, be happy!  Or is the SSM more like old-school Yahweh, where the judgy intervention will be in the direction of, if things aren't going the way it likes, making things considerably worse?  Fire, brimstone, pestilence, flood, heads, walls, spikes.  Or anything, frankly.

I nevertheless tend to refer to philosophy as "history of wrong ideas".

To belatedly double-dip on this line, in a way it's the "victim of its own success".  Philosophy periodically had ideas so right, that they spawned off into whole other disciplines, and indeed families of other disciplines.  "Natural philosophy", most obviously.  Mathematics and logic.  So those having left, Rump Philosophy tends to be the academy of the gaps, with notions of its own importance -- supervisory mode indeed, witness the above observation about Comte.  But those can both on occasion be very valuable.  Specialisation is for insects!  As another notoriously Ornery American once wrote.

[alai]

can randomness exist or not?

Can or does?

[Ephrem Moseley]

can randomness exist or not?

Can or does?

I stand by my words.

[alai]

Broader and vaguer than I have the spoons for, then.

[Ephrem Moseley]

So I'll summarize because I think it'll be more effective than answering all of y'alls points one-by-one.

I was baptized an Eastern Orthodox Christian around 1998. I didn't believe in God then. Instead, I desperately wanted to believe. I wanted what they promised: eternal life in eternal joy. I stayed with it because my then-wife was/is Eastern Orthodox and I respected her views. They had an answer to every single theological dilemma: free will vs. determinism, why God in the OT behaved radically different from the one in the NT, slavery, etc. All of my questions about Christianity had answers. I was stunned when I learned that they bend over backwards to not judge anyone, because I was raised to judge, pretty much, in the Baptist church. Instead, they view church as a hospital where we fix ourselves and not others.

Also, Eastern Orthodoxy has been around for ~1600 years. Since the beginning. Only two other religions can make the same claim (Catholicism and Oriental Orthodoxy). That is key for me.

And even better, they don't claim exclusivity. We believe that it's possible for a Baptist, or a LDS, or an agnostic, etc, to find God and go to Heaven. We don't believe that we are automatically granted a ticket to Heaven upon baptism. Instead, we believe that all throughout our lives we are to seek our salvation in fear and trembling.

Six years ago, starting around I think November 2016, God revealed Himself to me. It was all crazy coincidences. A psychologist might call this all confirmation bias plus hallucinations. Maybe it was.

But when the Simulation Argument website went live, and after I read the Tao of Christ which was recommended to me by my spiritual father, everything clicked together. (Side note: some agnostics started converting to theism just based on the argument, and that's a fact.)

The point is, the Simulation Argument made some of them leave agnosticism and move in the direction of Christianity. Not to Christianity, mind you, but taking a step that could end up at Christianity, or Deism, or Islam, or Mormonism, or anything with a Creator-being.

That is because, I suspect, there is only one optimistic conclusion from that argument: that our shared reality was created for some kind of reason, inscrutable perhaps or perhaps even scrutable. And keep in mind that "Simulation" vs "Reality" is meaningless to us if free will exists.

Note that I'm an eternal optimist because I like it. It works for me.

What religion is the most optimistic? Well, it seems to me that eternal life in eternal joy would be. Christianity isn't the only religion that has that. The ones with multiple "gods" made no sense to me. I want to pray and worship perfection. There can be only one perfection. Two perfect "gods" (or three, ha!) made sense only if those "gods" are completely alike in essence.

Further, the best selling book of all time is the Bible. I don't think that a loving God would be hard to find. I do think that a loving God would be hard to obey, though, because we're all imperfect, and, when there is no evidence (PLEASE don't ask me for evidence; all the evidence is evidence that cannot be successfully conveyed with mere words.) This is all personal experiences after committing yourself with a baptism or something like it.

Those who give up their life for the Christian God will find it. That is what happened to me.

Baptism to me seemed like a silly ceremony. What is does, though, is force one to examine every bit of personal suffering through the lens of the religion that demands that everyone be baptized, unless it's a deathbed conversion (like the thief on the cross).

Now we are at Pascal's Wager. What bet do I want to place? Because I want to bet. If I choose the wrong religion, then that's on me, and I can live with going to Hell if God doesn't like how I evangelize or whatever.

I want to place a bet. So I placed it firmly on Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Why not? I'm happier and happier all of the time now. I am attempting to perfect myself (and that has no end; "perfection" can happen only after an infinite amount of time, it seems to me) and it's working, as measured by me and those who take the time to know me in-person (anyone in Portland, Oregon?). Virtually all of my prayers are being answered, but only if I am open to any possible answer at any possible time, because a perfect being could only answer a prayer at the perfect moment in time and that's not necessarily when we want the answer, or when we are truly open to the answer.

An answer like: transwomen ARE NOT women. Seems like everyone here but me is not willing to believe that.

Broad is the path to destruction, Jesus said, and narrow is the path to life. A narrow path to life isn't necessarily a "little world". I was on such a broad path until 2016. Fortunately I was able to turn around and follow the narrow path of (what non-fundamentalist-Christians would call) transphobia, homophobia, racism, and sexism. I'm afraid of no man, but I am deeply afraid of bad philosophies.

Lastly let me remind everyone that the map is not the territory. I may not be speaking with words that you currently understand as I do. That would be because I'm working off a different map. Plato's Allegory of the Cave is on-point here. Some people like their chains. Or I'm chained to Jesus Christ. Doesn't matter who's in chains.

So, I'm necessarily happier than any of you. I love my life and I actually do want to live forever, and I 100% believe that I will, in eternal joy. So I'm not rushed at all. I also believe that polygamy will make a return, and I just love the idea that I will have as many wives as I want. I find young women very easy to what you would call grooming. In your view, I'm a con-man, I think.

So what? I'm happier. I want to be happy more than anything else and I get to take my own sweet time to get everything I wish for. And please note that my happiness depends on my loved ones also being happy. Anyone here hear of compersion? That's what I'm about.

And if I'm wrong, then I don't wanna be right.

[Aris Katsaris]

I'm amused that you say something like "the map is not the territory" and then you also say things like "transwomen ARE NOT women".

I don't think you quite understand what is meant by "the map is not the territory" if you are making such errors. For starters one thing that sentence means is that all categories (including categories like "men" and "women") are man-made, they're not the underlying reality of things.

XX and XY chromosomes are part of the territory.
Vaginas and Penises are part of the territory.

"Man" and "Woman" are part of the map.

[alai]

So I'll summarize because I think it'll be more effective than answering all of y'alls points one-by-one.

Summarise, you say.  Effective, you say!

Also, Eastern Orthodoxy has been around for ~1600 years. Since the beginning. Only two other religions can make the same claim (Catholicism and Oriental Orthodoxy).

Timeline and religious history claims don't make any sense at all here. 

So, I'm necessarily happier than any of you.

Only if the word "necessarily" means "clearly desperate to presume", somehow.

I also believe that polygamy will make a return, and I just love the idea that I will have as many wives as I want.

How does the second of those follow from the first?  Or is this just stream-of-consciousness run-on and random juxtaposition?  And for clarity, is this to be a mortal or a post-mortal "return", for you personally?

[Ephrem Moseley]

I'm amused that you say something like "the map is not the territory" and then you also say things like "transwomen ARE NOT women".

I don't think you quite understand what is meant by "the map is not the territory" if you are making such errors. For starters one thing that sentence means is that all categories (including categories like "men" and "women") are man-made, they're not the underlying reality of things.

XX and XY chromosomes are part of the territory.
Vaginas and Penises are part of the territory.

"Man" and "Woman" are part of the map.

No map is the territory. Not yours nor mine. We will never get there, so we get as close to the territory as is required to have a functioning culture.

That you add changes to your map doesn't make it any more sociologically valid.

People are free to define words (maps) however they choose to. Idiolects, right?

The core issue here is every culture needs to decide if TWAW or not.

That's it. Everything else about "human rights" is a distraction that is just dragging this out.

Problem: who gets a vote in this? A vote on TWAW.

How about, just the FEMALES, and not the WOMEN, for obvious reasons?

[alai]

How about, just the FEMALES, and not the WOMEN, for obvious reasons?

Let's testbed that with reproductive rights, shall we?

How about, just the FEMALES, and not the WOMEN, for obvious reasons?

I think you just lost track of your own thread again.  Or else, conceded the very point you keep opening up all these redundant threads to ANGRILY YELL about what a contented person you are.

[alai]

I still have no idea what the attraction for theists here is, and I'm still a bit perplexed by the S-A.com site and what their game might be.  But I did stumble across this paper hosted there by philosopher (oh no!) David Kyle Johnson. https://www.simulation-argument.com/johnson.pdf    As best as I can tell from a quick read-through, he spends the entire thing using the simultation hypothesis to beat up on the god-botherers.  So I've less idea than ever, if anything!

[Aris Katsaris]

People are free to define words (maps) however they choose to. Idiolects, right?

The core issue here is every culture needs to decide if TWAW or not.

Sure, I guess. For example you know that the theocratic culture of Iran, has also decided that trans women are indeed women, they can change their gender legitimately? It's not just us whacky western godless progressives who are doing so?

Also not sure why you keep focusing on whether Trans Women Are Women so much.
What about the Trans Men?

For example the bearded guy at https://www.sfaf.org/collections/beta/my-life-with-anorexia-as-a-trans-man/
You want to call him a woman?

Okay, but don't pretend that any earlier human society would have understood you in this, and that it's just modern people who are changing the map. Older cultures would certainly take one glance at the beard and his overall apperance and insist the guy is a guy.

[NobleHunter]

At one point, the English were convinced that a woman could become a man just by putting on trousers.

[alai]

Sure, I guess. For example you know that the theocratic culture of Iran, has also decided that trans women are indeed women, they can change their gender legitimately? It's not just us whacky western godless progressives who are doing so?

It must be said, in large part down to deciding that they hate gays even more than they hate trans people.  If it's one or the other...  Naturally EM isn't restrained by such dangerous moderation.  Conversion therapy all round!

Also not sure why you keep focusing on whether Trans Women Are Women so much.
What about the Trans Men?

I tried him on that one a couple of times.  Not nearly such a fruitful seam of (happy, loving of course) hate, evidently.  It's a fairly familiar pattern.

[Ephrem Moseley]

Look. I'm just maintaining my own sanity. That requires hope. The only hopeful way I can interpret the Simulation Argument is that something created us, meaning something more intelligent that us.

I look at history and those who I trust to figure out what that means. The Bible all alone is only part of the picture. Church history is another important part. There have been zero gay marriages in the history of my church and we don't change.

I cannot be what I consider to be "sane" (and others consider to be "delusional") without a Creator-being who IS love. If the Creator being doesn't exist then we are doomed because I am as certain as I can be that one day humans will be able to create a simulation ala The Matrix.

No Creator makes no sense if my sanity depends on eternal life; an eternal life with a quixotic quest to move in the direction of infinity. I can never reach that infinity of being, but, I can get as close as I want.

Christianity, and therefore the Christian view of history beginning with the OT, answers all questions I want to be answered.

Christianity results in the only kind of political system (a theocracy), which has a chance at enduring eternally. It does that by restricting sexual relationship only between a married man and woman, and shaming any other kind of sexual relationships. Polygamy's fine of course.

No it's not perfect. Rather, it's more perfect than what I see now. I think that Iranians are smarter than us here. You are AMAB and want to be a woman? Fine, let's cut off your penis and butcher your body so that you can have a neovagina which currently, I understand, smells like *censored*. If someone wants to do that, then more power to 'em, but they are still not a woman, with "woman" being defined by how we've defined it for the entire history of the Orthodox Christian church.

Narrow is the path to life. Well, I've chosen a narrow path, and that's a fact. It's not the only narrow path of course, but it's one that I can live with. It's a caste system and that terrifies a lot of people. Too bad and so not sad. You can choose your priorities, and choose one that denies the possibility that a five-year-old with a developing brain to KNOW his or her own gender in addition to knowing his or her biological sex.

Also no TRA likes to talk about John Money, and I don't wonder why. Your hero is a pedophile, and all pedophiles today are cheering you on and hoping that TWAW prevails. Much like Mohammed was a pedophile for Muslims.

In any event, TERFs are gaining more and more followers all the time, and that is inarguable. The victors will write the history books. Maybe they'll write that me and people like me were the Nazis. That is perfectly acceptable to me. I want a fascist theocracy after all. Now there's a narrow path for a country such as the USA.

Or, they will write something else that Nazi-fies all the TWAW adherents.

Anyone ever hear of Roko's Basilisk? Get on the wrong side of the Basilisk and your punishment in the here-and-now is more severe the longer you hold out. And that is exactly what is happening now in my lived experience.

You can of course believe what you want.

History will vindicate my point of view. I am gaining fame for my point of view. Random strangers ask me for my autograph, and some of them tell me that I'm courageous for taking the stand that I do. The Internet is written in unerasable ink. I'm a pariah if the TRAs win.

You'll see. Time will tell.

[Ephrem Moseley]

Also not sure why you keep focusing on whether Trans Women Are Women so much.
What about the Trans Men?

Because transwomen piss me off. They're getting themselves incarcerated with AFAB women, and that's an absolute wrong. I don't see transmen raping AMAB men in prison.

For example the bearded guy at https://www.sfaf.org/collections/beta/my-life-with-anorexia-as-a-trans-man/
You want to call him a woman?

A woman who wants to make a baby with that bearded human being cares, so I care.

Okay, but don't pretend that any earlier human society would have understood you in this, and that it's just modern people who are changing the map. Older cultures would certainly take one glance at the beard and his overall apperance and insist the guy is a guy.

Yes, but what happens in his doctor's office when the clothes come off?

(I don't believe in a right-to-privacy. SCOTUS creating penumbras scare me.)

[alai]

Has anyone the slightest idea how EM plans to connect any of these wild rambling, ranting tangents back to his own supposed topic?  Or even if he's at all likely to?  Reads more an ongoing exercise in fractal self-derailing.  (Or maybe the future post-Singularity AIs did it to him, who knows.)

[Fenring]

Look. I'm just maintaining my own sanity. That requires hope. The only hopeful way I can interpret the Simulation Argument is that something created us, meaning something more intelligent that us.

You can stop right there - a simulation argument does not act as a stand-in for intelligent design. They are really totally separate arguments. The simulation argument, for instance, allows for the possibility that we are actually the creators of the simulation, and put ourselves in on purpose. It also allows for the possibility, yes, that there is an intelligent designer and that we originated in the simulation, or that we did not originate in the simulation. It allows for a lot of stuff. But the argument in and of itself is not about whether there's a creator.

[Aris Katsaris]

Look. I'm just maintaining my own sanity. That requires hope. The only hopeful way I can interpret the Simulation Argument is that something created us, meaning something more intelligent that us.

That's not how it works. The simulation argument implies powerful computers, but not particularly intelligent users, nor even any deliberate design. Perhaps we're actually the game run on a 13-year old (but 5-dimensional) girl's ap in her equivalent of a smartphone, playing her equivalent of Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley. Perhaps we're tests run on a company's mainframe, parameters set by some low-wage office worker.

I look at history and those who I trust to figure out what that means. The Bible all alone is only part of the picture. Church history is another important part. There have been zero gay marriages in the history of my church and we don't change.

Yeah, having been born in an Eastern Orthodox nation, it's certainly been my impression that if the Church has to choose between what is Good on one side and what Tradition on the other, they'll go with Tradition every single time -- to the extent that I think they worship Tradition much more than they worship even their (non-existent) God.

Anyone ever hear of Roko's Basilisk? Get on the wrong side of the Basilisk and your punishment in the here-and-now is more severe the longer you hold out. And that is exactly what is happening now in my lived experience.

Dude, I'm a LessWrong rationalist, I've heard about the Simulation Argument, I've known about the "map is not the territory" phrase, and I know about Roko's basilisk many many years now -- and I'm thoroughly horrified by how ignorantly you misrepresent all of them, using them as mottos rather than as anything that has anything to do with anything.

Roko's basilisk for example is about a hypothetical AI that would punish you if you haven't helped create it: It really doesn't have anything to do with your delusions about God or your desire for a fascist, patriarchal society, because those aren't inherently relevant to its creation.

You spew words you don't understand, and you spew them as flashy fireworks to impress -- on people who've known what they mean much better than you do.

[Ephrem Moseley]

You can stop right there - a simulation argument does not act as a stand-in for intelligent design.

No. It can, but only for eternal optimists. Simulation Theory is the most optimistic interpretation of the Simulation Argument, but only when God is love; love as defined by how Jesus Christ treated others.

Note that Jesus called out the hypocrites and whipped the money-changers. That was necessarily loving behavior.

Or it could all be fiction, certainly. As an eternal optimist I choose to believe otherwise. I choose to believe that God is precisely as real to me as my daughter is. The only difference is I don't get to see God physically, but I do communicate with Him through my prayers. My prayers pretty much always get answered, and only when I am open to any possible response, and particularly when my prayer is for understanding, and not at all to change someone, except for myself.

[Ephrem Moseley]

and I know about Roko's basilisk many many years now -- and I'm thoroughly horrified by how ignorantly you misrepresent all of them, using them as mottos rather than as anything that has anything to do with anything.

Roko's Basilisk as applied to those who have a core belief in TWAW. To them, the God of the Bible is necessarily evil. Surely you can see that?

Whether it's an AI or not is completely irrelevant. It's like whether we're living in a "simulation" or "reality" is completely irrelevant, from our point of view.

You spew words you don't understand, and you spew them as flashy fireworks to impress -- on people who've known what they mean much better than you do.

Hahahahahaha.

History will vindicate me, in the same way that history is now vindicating JK Rowling.

[Ephrem Moseley]

also this is important: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

you cannot trigger me because my only core beliefs are metaphysical in nature; like "God is love"

[alai]

No. It can, but only for eternal optimists. Simulation Theory is the most optimistic interpretation of the Simulation Argument, but only when God is love; love as defined by how Jesus Christ treated others.

So your "point" -- I use the term...  quite incorrectly! -- is that with sufficient presuppositional guff you don't need any evidence or argument.  'K.  But what TH does any of this have to do with the simulation hypothesis?  You've started an entire thread on something on which you've then literally failed to construct a single lucid or intelligible sentence.  And not for the lack of sentences written of...  other kinds.

Is this as good as it's gonna get?

[Aris Katsaris]

If optimism is required for your sanity, let me offer you an alternate scenario where you still have eternal life, without needing to resort to theism.

It's not an idea that I'd like to share, but perhaps some people would find comfort in it:

Imagine our universe as a mathematical structure. It's admittedly a mathematical structure that contains aspects of entropy/decay/etc, which prevent eternal life -- some bazillions years in the future it will die.

However imagine the hypothesis that all mathematical structures have existence (Tegmark IV hypothesis) to some degree or another.

Our universe has a relatively simple and deterministic structure, but we can imagine an infinite number of larger universes that contain it and can *see* into it, even though its own behaviour is inviolable by them -- they can see the universe as a *mathematical structure*, they wouldn't be able to affect it by an act of will any more than we could affect the digits of pi no matter how much we force we apply.

This implies a large number of entities that could copy people's minds and transfer them into the larger universe beyond, thus "saving them".

These creatures wouldn't be god-creators because they didn't actually create the universe, they didn't make it happen any more than we made the digits of pi happen. They're just viewing from outside a mathematical structure -- and extracting beings from that structure, taking them into the larger universe that contains it.

One might also guess that most such entities who endeavour to do such a thing to be benevolent, because it'd be primarily benevolent that'd want to 'rescue' minds from oblivion.

I'm giving you the above idea only with great hesitation, just in the hopes that it's a more benevolent idea might perhaps fill the place that your much more toxic christianity now occupies. An omnipotent god creating a universe with so much suffering is a toxic idea -- perhaps you'll be satisfied with the idea of bigger-than-us-but-still-limited entities from outside the universe just rescuing your soul (possibly everyone's souls) as an act of charity, even if they can't affect the universe itself. 

[alai]

An omnipotent god creating a universe with so much suffering is a toxic idea -- [...]

It's an eternal mystery and/or we're sent here to be tested for some ineffable purpose...  by a tri-omni, who by definition can have no possible need to, benefit from, or purpose in doing so!

The biggest mystery to me is what the distinction between theodicy and regular-variety idiocy is.  But apparently it still keeps Divinity students in work, so economic modelling would suggest it'll continue, somehow.

[rightleft22]

An omnipotent god creating a universe with so much suffering is a toxic idea -- [...]

It's an eternal mystery and/or we're sent here to be tested for some ineffable purpose...  by a tri-omni, who by definition can have no possible need to, benefit from, or purpose in doing so!

The biggest mystery to me is what the distinction between theodicy and regular-variety idiocy is.  But apparently it still keeps Divinity students in work, so economic modelling would suggest it'll continue, somehow.

Consciousness could never exist in a a universe without suffering
An omnipotent G_d could have created a world without suffering but then we or G_d would never notice as their would be no experience of we or I or G_d

[alai]

Consciousness could never exist in a a universe without suffering
An omnipotent G_d could have created a world without suffering but then we or G_d would never notice as their would be no experience of we or I or G_d

You can't even have individuality without suffering?  That's a tad bleak.

[Fenring]

Consciousness could never exist in a a universe without suffering
An omnipotent G_d could have created a world without suffering but then we or G_d would never notice as their would be no experience of we or I or G_d

A very apt argument. Any conception of hard free will has to incorporate the option to pick poorly, and the consequent repercussions of that. No suffering means no choice, means no free will, means no loving relationship (I'm talking in Christian terms strictly). Therefore any conception of the universe as ideal, which includes free will, must necessarily value choice over things 'being nice'.

[Fenring]

Consciousness could never exist in a a universe without suffering
An omnipotent G_d could have created a world without suffering but then we or G_d would never notice as their would be no experience of we or I or G_d

You can't even have individuality without suffering?  That's a tad bleak.

His argument appears to imply that there is (formally speaking) no such thing as individuality, only existing in relationship to. And any free (i.e. voluntary) relationship is subject to some degree of disfunction.

[alai]

A very apt argument. Any conception of hard free will has to incorporate the option to pick poorly, and the consequent repercussions of that. No suffering means no choice, means no free will, means no loving relationship (I'm talking in Christian terms strictly). Therefore any conception of the universe as ideal, which includes free will, must necessarily value choice over things 'being nice'.

How did we suddenly get to "must value"?  I thought the claim was about what was even cosmologically possible?

But these Plato-themed discussions are entirely cart-before-the-horse.  "Ah, souls!" as the old student rag-mag joke goes.  Maybe we should study the universe as it is -- or at least, as it consistently appears to be -- rather than making vitalist assumptions and working backwards from there.

[Fenring]

A very apt argument. Any conception of hard free will has to incorporate the option to pick poorly, and the consequent repercussions of that. No suffering means no choice, means no free will, means no loving relationship (I'm talking in Christian terms strictly). Therefore any conception of the universe as ideal, which includes free will, must necessarily value choice over things 'being nice'.

How did we suddenly get to "must value"?  I thought the claim was about what was even cosmologically possible?

You're mistaking a turn of phrase. "Must value" in this context is an issue of design, not of preference. It means if there is free will there is suffering, that's the trade-off. Many people believe there is no hard free will, so in a universe working as they suppose there could in principle be a universe design that doesn't include suffering. It could be a giant pleasure machine, or whatever else you like, with automatons inhabiting it. But if you give people the choice to turn away from the good then necessarily the not-good must exist in that framework, else they could not choose it. This isn't armchair physics, it's so fundamental that if we can't accept syllogisms like this then reasoning of any kind goes out with it.

But these Plato-themed discussions are entirely cart-before-the-horse.  "Ah, souls!" as the old student rag-mag joke goes.  Maybe we should study the universe as it is -- or at least, as it consistently appears to be -- rather than making vitalist assumptions and working backwards from there.

I'll go off on a complete side tangent, but I always love this reversal of what they actually said. Aristotle was the one opining about scientific matters even though, unlike Plato, he never studied what was at the time natural science. Plato was the one to challenge preconceptions about the world and about words, suggesting that things may be far more complicated than we think, and that the only way to study it is - pause for drama - to do constant investigations. Aristotle figured he could just sit in a chair and determine how all of physics, biology, and politics work. And then Plato gets the reputation of pie in the sky philosophy. /rant

[Ephrem Moseley]

So your "point" -- I use the term...  quite incorrectly! -- is that with sufficient presuppositional guff you don't need any evidence or argument.  'K.  But what TH does any of this have to do with the simulation hypothesis?  You've started an entire thread on something on which you've then literally failed to construct a single lucid or intelligible sentence.  And not for the lack of sentences written of...  other kinds.

There are three possible outcomes of the Simulation Argument.

I would argue that they're all true to an extent:

First, (extinction) millions if not billions of people will be required to change their personality to adapt to the fascism that's coming--the transgender will continue to be marginalized, back into the closet--they're the ones who are going extinct.

Second, (no human-created simulations) could mean that God (or our leaders) doesn't want people to create realities where they get to have pretend-but-totally realistic intimate encounters with the person(s) of their choice.

Third, (Creator(s) of our shared reality exist) is theism of some sort; minimally Deism

The third one is the most optimistic one IF such a Creator(s) is love

I believe in the third one, because it's the most optimistic position, given that God is love

Is this as good as it's gonna get?

That depends on who's the one in chains inside Plato's Cave. I concede that I am chained to Christ as interpreted by the church who can credibly claim to have assembled the Bible 1600 years ago.

You appear to be chained to bodily autonomy.

[Ephrem Moseley]

If optimism is required for your sanity, let me offer you an alternate scenario where you still have eternal life, without needing to resort to theism.

It's not an idea that I'd like to share, but perhaps some people would find comfort in it:

Imagine our universe as a mathematical structure. It's admittedly a mathematical structure that contains aspects of entropy/decay/etc, which prevent eternal life -- some bazillions years in the future it will die.

However imagine the hypothesis that all mathematical structures have existence (Tegmark IV hypothesis) to some degree or another.

Our universe has a relatively simple and deterministic structure, but we can imagine an infinite number of larger universes that contain it and can *see* into it, even though its own behaviour is inviolable by them -- they can see the universe as a *mathematical structure*, they wouldn't be able to affect it by an act of will any more than we could affect the digits of pi no matter how much we force we apply.

This implies a large number of entities that could copy people's minds and transfer them into the larger universe beyond, thus "saving them".

These creatures wouldn't be god-creators because they didn't actually create the universe, they didn't make it happen any more than we made the digits of pi happen. They're just viewing from outside a mathematical structure -- and extracting beings from that structure, taking them into the larger universe that contains it.

One might also guess that most such entities who endeavour to do such a thing to be benevolent, because it'd be primarily benevolent that'd want to 'rescue' minds from oblivion.

I'm giving you the above idea only with great hesitation, just in the hopes that it's a more benevolent idea might perhaps fill the place that your much more toxic christianity now occupies. An omnipotent god creating a universe with so much suffering is a toxic idea -- perhaps you'll be satisfied with the idea of bigger-than-us-but-still-limited entities from outside the universe just rescuing your soul (possibly everyone's souls) as an act of charity, even if they can't affect the universe itself.

"God" can be a super-intelligent alien (Arthur C Clarke on "magic"), sure, but what difference does that make, from our POV? We're being manipulated either way it seems to me. Perhaps that alien race thinks that we've gone overboard with our sex lives and thus is trying to force us to go back to sex only inside of a male-female marriage.

[Ephrem Moseley]

An omnipotent god creating a universe with so much suffering is a toxic idea -- [...]

It's an eternal mystery and/or we're sent here to be tested for some ineffable purpose...  by a tri-omni, who by definition can have no possible need to, benefit from, or purpose in doing so!

The biggest mystery to me is what the distinction between theodicy and regular-variety idiocy is.  But apparently it still keeps Divinity students in work, so economic modelling would suggest it'll continue, somehow.

The "purpose" is weeding out all of the dead-end philosophies. It's just evolution, really.

[Fenring]

\
"God" can be a super-intelligent alien (Arthur C Clarke on "magic"), sure, but what difference does that make, from our POV? We're being manipulated either way it seems to me. Perhaps that alien race thinks that we've gone overboard with our sex lives and thus is trying to force us to go back to sex only inside of a male-female marriage.

Just wanted to clarify that if you're talking the Judeo-Christian God then, no, God can't be an alien (or any being). If God was such a being, then to quote Star Trek V - what does God need with a starship?

[alai]

He could, if "He" were speaking in what some people like to call "metaphorical" terms, or "honest hyperbole".  Or what the Cockneys in another bit of alliteration prefer to call "porky pies".

[Aris Katsaris]

"God" can be a super-intelligent alien (Arthur C Clarke on "magic"), sure, but what difference does that make, from our POV? We're being manipulated either way it seems to me. Perhaps that alien race thinks that we've gone overboard with our sex lives and thus is trying to force us to go back to sex only inside of a male-female marriage.

I don't think you understood a single word I said.

The scenario I described, provides you with "Gods" that inherently cannot interfere in our universe (though they could still save your soul after death) any more than we interfere in the digits of pi, thus explaining why everything in our universe shows absolutely zero evidence of Gods interfering with it.

That scenario I gave isn't theism (with Gods interfering in your universe) and it's not even deism either (with Gods creating our universe).

So it is kinda VERY relevantly different, isn't it? Such a god can't give "instructions" to force you one way or another. As evidenced by the fact they haven't. Such a god can't create the universe or humanity, as evidenced by the fact it looks remarkably undesigned.

You're mistaking a turn of phrase. "Must value" in this context is an issue of design, not of preference. It means if there is free will there is suffering, that's the trade-off.

Free will hardly explains things like leukemia in children, does it? Or earthquakes, or tsunamis?

"Free will" is a bloody lazy and bloody unsatisfying answer to explain "why evil, if an omnipotent god", takes five seconds of thought to think up of suffering that doesn't relate to free will.

Even if somehow, free will necessitated permitting the existence of murderers and rapists -- why does it also necessitate the existence of things like disease and natural catastrophes?