Essay talk:Some arguments against evolution/Archive1

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What an immense effort in such a silly pursuit!

What an immense effort in such a silly pursuit! ħuman 07:43, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

What makes my pursuit silly? In my own self-conception, I am pursuing the truth; could any pursuit be more noble? You can disagree with my reasoning or my conclusion; but I still think there are important questions worth answering. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:01, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Being wrong? Ignoring millions of bits of evidence? ħuman 08:04, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

What evidence? I know the evidence you are talking about, but its not relevant to my arguments. For to support evolutionary theory on the basis of that evidence, you have to invoke certain assumptions, which I explicitly disclaim. Assumptions such as: (i) materialism; (ii) we are not in a computer simulation (or at least, not in a certain type of computer simulation); (iii) a unitary past. The evidence you are referring to doesn't support those assumptions; combined with those assumptions it indeed yields evolution, but without those assumptions it fails to do so. And those are the assumptions I question. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:12, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Then why make this about evolution? Why not name this essay "arguments against materialism" or "...the scientific method"? On the basis of your arguments, you'd not only have to dispute evolution, but any scientific and naturalistic theory in existence. Leaving posts like this one on the talk page of an article titled "Scientific evidence of evolution being a hoax" is rather pointless when you're not on board with the method anyway. Röstigraben (talk) 08:29, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I have no problem with science when it seeks to discover laws that apply (most of the time) in the present or the near future or recent past. I just disagree with the extension of the scientific method beyond the present (and its nearby temporal surrounds) unto the more distant past and future. My objection is not with science itself, just attempts to extend science beyond what are (in my view anyway) its proper bounds of application. The main argument put forward for the validity of science is the success of science-based technology; and yet, the usefulness of science for technology is not in any way impaired if one limits its validity to a certain temporal period centered on the present. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:33, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

So for you, "science" can only concern itself with the last and next five minutes? Or five hours? Or five days? Five years? ħuman 08:40, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't seek to put precise bounds on the range of applicability of science. I just don't assume it is unlimited either. In my own view, precisely how wide its bounds are is a complicated question which will have a complicated answer. But I would suggest that science is mostly applicable to the previous few and the next few centuries, with its applicability possibly declining prior to then and thereafter. I would suggest science is probably only applicable for at most the last ten thousand years, and at most the next ten million years; outside of those temporal bounds I am very doubtful that science possesses truth or falsehood. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:51, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

And on what do you base these capricious boundaries? ħuman 08:54, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

(EC) I suppose he's coming at this from the human-centric idealist angle again and wants to argue that there was no universe before there were (human) minds to perceive it (or that we have to be agnostic about this past). In order to use the scientfic method, you have to accept its axiomatic assumptions on faith, which he simply doesn't do and argues for solipsism istead. That's a philosophically valid argument, but not one that is of any interest to people who expect to eventually settle questions based on evidence. Röstigraben (talk) 08:58, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Human: They are not absolutes though, they are more reasonable assumptions... From my own viewpoint (and this is an aspect of my viewpoint I don't really address in my essay), I think humanoid desire is what keeps the universes in existence, and around ten million years is more than enough for all humanoid true desire in all universes to be exhausted. The timeframe is bigger on the future-end than the past-end, because I think we are relatively early in humanity's existence (we have not yet commenced interplanetary or interstellar colonisation). On the past-side, a multitude of true desires is better fulfilled by a multitude of parallel universes than more time; but on the future-side, there are true desires (to play among the stars), that truly need time; but not an infinity thereof. Within a few million years we will have colonised the galaxy; ten million years, taking into account the multitude of universe-branches, should be enough for all true desire to unfold. In the past, my estimate assumes no accessible intelligent extraterrestrial life; if there is (whether there is and not isn't, or whether there is and isn't) such life, that might grow the past-side estimate out to about ten million, but I doubt much more. On the otherhand, I think it would shrink the future-side estimate too. So I'd suggest, that whatever the age of the universe, by any internally consistent chronology it is on the order of ten million years at the most, from start to finish. And this contradicts evolution and Big Bang cosmology; thus, I tend to reject evolution and Big Bang cosmology. That said, if evolutionists and Big Bangists truly desire their theories to be true, I can't entirely exclude that their desire might be sufficient to make those theories true; but it would have to be a very long desire (in terms of the amount of Kolmogorov distance it would buy.) And I doubt their evolutionist/Big-Bangist desires are actually that long (apparitional evolutionism/Big-Bangism, whether to the extent we have now or to an even greater extent, would seem to fulfill them just as well as the actual truth of their theories would). --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 09:28, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

But you're completely ignoring Time Cubes here. I mean, seriously... if we're just making shit up, then we can claim anything, even Time Cubes! --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 15:26, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I've tried to make sense of Time Cube - it is interesting to me because I actually believe time is circular rather than cubic - but I can't. I think, agree with me or not, if you study my own ideas in detail, and attempt the same for Gene Ray's ideas, you'll inevitably come to the conclusion that my ideas are much more coherent than his. I don't agree I am just making stuff up; I think my beliefs have reasons behind them, whether you agree with those reasons or not. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:04, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Röstigraben: I don't argue for solipsism. I am an idealist, I agree that idealism has inherent solipsistic tendencies, but I am actually an anti-solipsist. I believe in anti-solipsism on the basis of faith and pragmatism, but it is a faith which I believe will be proven true - the union of souls disproves solipsism with respect to those souls (or at least, makes solipsism equivalent to hyperomphalism), thus the union of all souls shall totally disprove solipsism. I believe that the Goddess Maratrea seeks to fulfill all true desire. Thus, it is sufficient for any one to exist for all to exist - if one exists, that one will truly desire the existence of certain others, and grant that wish by causing them to exist; those others will in turn truly desire the existence of yet others, and existing their true desire for the existence of others shall also be granted; thus the web of desire ensures the existence of all. You say my argument is "not one that is of any interest to people who expect to eventually settle questions based on evidence". Why must I accept your conception of what counts as evidence? Why must I give evidence the same primacy as you do? I'm not disinterested in evidence or opposed to it - I just don't think that evidence, as you conceive it, is the end all and be all of human thought. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 09:28, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

And we're back to theology again. My conception of evidence is not mine in the sense that I came up with it, it's the scientific one. As I said, you have to accept its axiomatic foundations or not, and they are materialistic and naturalistic. Whether they're right or not is a question that itself can't be settled by evidence, and it's possible to argue about this for eternity without reaching a conclusion. There are, of course, other non-empirical endeavours that don't rely on evidence and don't have to, yet can produce knowledge. The whole field of epistemology has only a very tangential relationship to the sheer concept of evidence in the scientific sense, though modern neurobiology and cognitive psychology might have some relevance. It's just that I tire quickly of arguments that can't be resolved and seem to go round and round without meaningful progress. Once you start arguing about your personal goddess and some union of souls, how am I supposed to respond in a way that moves the discussion closer to anything resembling a fruitful insight? I happen not to share these convictions, though they're not any more silly or made-up than other, more established religions. It's something you want to be true and according to your philosophical stance, that's enough to make it true. If that works for yourself, OK. But rationalists will not take you seriously, and other religionists will be offended that you don't worship the same god as they do, so I don't see with whom you can have an actual meaningful dilogue. Röstigraben (talk) 09:56, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, there is a theological aspect to my beliefs, and there is a philosophical aspect. I accept both, but I think a reasonable person could accept the philosophical aspect of my beliefs without accepting the theological aspects. Certainly, I'd argue the theology is built upon the philosophy, rather than the philosophy being built upon the theology.

Define "scientific conception of evidence". A conception of evidence that makes science possible - the kind of science which produces the technological benefits we all know? Well, both my idea, and your idea, of evidence, as different as they are, are I would argue equally proficient in producing the kind of science which makes technology possible. They just differ in their application to extratechnological matters. The main pragmatic argument science has going for it is the success of technology - yet, we can divide science into technological science (the science technology needs for its success) and extratechnological science (science which is excess to the actual needs of technology). As different as our conceptions of evidence are, they are equivalent for technological science. To borrow some evolutionist jargon, extratechnological science is a spandrel of technology; evolution (or at least literalist evolution, as opposed to useful-myth-evolution) is a spandrel of technology also.

Whether they're right or not is a question that itself can't be settled by evidence, and it's possible to argue about this for eternity without reaching a conclusion. Indeed, and you'll believe what you want, and I'll believe what you want, and we never shall agree, shall we? Unless, there is something extra-evidential (at least as you define evidence) that might convince one or the other or both of us.

I don't expect you to accept any of my beliefs about Maratrea. I'd say that Maratreanism is going beyond its own philosophical foundations; but still, its useful to those foundations as example of how they might be developed further, into a more complete view. But I'd be happy just to have you accept its philosophical foundations as a reasonable possibility. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:19, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm with Human here. Whenever someone tries to argue against evolution without considering evidence, it's a phail. Even IDer's acknowledge that. sterile wizard 12:33, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I am more than well aware of all the evidence of which you speak. It just isn't relevant to my type of argument - rather than attacking the evidence, I am accepting the evidence but attacking the unproven and unprovable metaphysical which must be combined with that evidence to produce the theory. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:56, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

The evidence just is. All science can't be proven, just verified, and that is the nature of science. While philosphers have embraced evolution and interpreted it, it is a theory that stand on its own without a need for the "metaphysical." sterile wizard 10:48, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

All scientists engage in metaphysics. In principle, there could be a biologist out there who says "I actually have no opinions on what happened in the distant past, I just see claims about the distant past to be roundabout ways of making claims about the present, albeit expressing those claims in terms of the distant past is easier to cognitively manage than expressing them purely in terms of the present. So we ought to make those claims as useful metaphors or useful myths, but don't have justification in believing in their literal truth" A biologist (or a palaeontologist or geologist or astronomer or physicist whatnot) could believe this, and at the same time entirely accept the (non-metaphysical) content of science, and make positive contributions to the advancement of scientific research. Yet very few scientists actually do take this approach, showing that science is heavy in metaphysical content in practice, even while it is free of it in theory. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:34, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Where are the arguments against evolution?

I had thought this might be interesting and that there might actually be some arguments against evolution. But if there are I can't find them - so it's rather disappointing. As far as I can tell it's an argument against science in general which tries to use evolution in some examples. OK, I know that most other people have made the same point (what with it being obvious and all) but I just wanted to make it again.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 09:48, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree its an argument against science in general. It's more an argument against science applied to the distant past or future; I agree completely with science being true the vast majority of the time to explain the present and recent past or future; I just disagree with its extension from the present/recent past/recent future to the distant past/future. People will object "define recent vs. distant". As I say above, I don't believe it can be defined exactly, but I believe it is on the order of ten thousand to ten million years. And in that sense, evolutionary theory, palaeontology, geology, astronomy, cosmology are the scientific disciplines that make claims about the distant past/future (as I define above); there is a whole lot of science, outside those disciplines, which works perfectly well when restricted to the present. (Even with biology, any usefulness of evolutionary theory in the present can be accounted by my idea of evolution as a "useful myth" rather than an actual truth.) --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 09:54, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

We can't apply science to the distant past or future? Leaving aside how weird that sounds it means that the title of the essay is simply disingenuous. --Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 10:00, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Why? If science is limited in its application, and if the theory of evolution exceeds those limitations, then that would be an argument against evolution. And those are exactly the kinds of arguments I present - hence my title, "some arguments against evolution". --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:04, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Because as you yourself point out it's also an argument against "palaeontology, geology, astronomy and cosmology". I note that you have linked to it from the presently highly-popular Scientific evidence of evolution being a hoax and it is difficult to believe that you have not (mis)titled this article in such a way as to capture views for your remarkable beliefs. In that sense the title is disingenuous. --Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 10:11, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I list four sciences the conclusions of which my views oppose, yet there are many other sciences I didn't mention, and one shouldn't assume I have any objection to them; and I'd add, my conclusions are not that they are entirely untrue, simply their parts which address the distant past I doubt, while those parts which address the present I don't doubt. Those parts of palaeontology that address which fossils were found where, those parts of geology which address which rocks are found where, those parts of astronomy which address which stars are observed to be where, I don't disagree with; just those parts of those sciences which make claims about the distant past or future. I'd add, my doubts regarding distant time also extend to distant space; the further away we get from this planet, the more doubtful the existence of the universe becomes. But, given I expect galactic colonization to be relatively straightforward, but intergalactic colonization to be near impossible, I'd conclude that this galaxy probably exists, although other galaxies quite possibly don't exist (simpliciter) or neither exist nor don't exist. Even in the case of those parts of sciences which make claims about the distant past or future, I'm willing to accept them as useful myths (insofar as their presupposition actually is useful in discussing the temporospatially local), just not as literally true.

You say I note that you have linked to it from the presently highly-popular Scientific evidence of evolution being a hoax and it is difficult to believe that you have not (mis)titled this article in such a way as to capture views for your remarkable beliefs.. If you check the "Fossil record", I created this essay on the 27th Feb (over a month ago), before that page was to my knowledge popular. I simply decided that its present popularity would be a good occassion to draw attention to my page. (A month is a long time in Internet-land...) So there is no way you can accuse me of having titled this article simply to take advantage of that particular present enthusiasm. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:40, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

OK. Sorry. I should have checked the record. The title is still wrong though.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 11:33, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

None of your "arguments" are arguments. It's all just unprovable speculation. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 10:51, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

That depends on how you define "argument", "proof", "speculation". --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:02, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Not really. Explain how you would go about proving we're living in a computer simulation, for instance. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 11:15, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Prove we are not. In the absence of evidence either way (which is the situation we are in), we'd have to say there is a 50-50 chance of it. My argument is not that we actually are, just that there is a close to 50-50 chance we are. Prob(sim) approximately equals 0.5. P(evolution|sim) nears zero. Which takes P(evolution) near to 0.5. Not a reason to disbelieve in evolution, but a good reason not to believe in it. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:33, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Now you're being silly. Even if we are living in a simulation, that doesn't mean that evolution is false. Unless you believe in an infinite regression of simulations, somewhere there is a "real" world that isn't being simulated and evolution would still work there. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 12:09, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Except that the true reality might be a world where creationism is true, and a god just blinked beings into existence. While his arguments are unfalsifiable metaphysics that are logically sound and valid... it carries no practical purpose. The world as we perceive it is the only meaningful world we can appreciate, and that's why science takes the assumption of materialism. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 13:20, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

In an infinite regress of simulations, there is no "real world". And if we are a simulation, the real world may have very different laws of physics from our own; the idea of evolution might not even be meaningful in a world like the world we are simulated upon. Since we don't know if we are in a simulation, and we don't know anything about the level of reality we are simulated on if we are, we really can know nothing about the "real world" - we can't know if this is the real world or not, and if it is not we can't know anything about what the real world is actually like.

Science doesn't need materialism. Much of science (i.e. all science which makes claims about the spatiotemporally local) works perfectly well with either. Even if some parts of science (e.g. evolution or Big Bang) have problems under idealism, there are formulations of idealism in which they work fine - e.g. panpsychism, God as a universal observer (Berkeley's solution), time travelling scientists. So, idealism is not inherently incompatible with evolution or any other scientific theory - although, I accept idealism, but am doubtful about the extra bits needed on top of idealism to make evolution work with it. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 06:50, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

SR, I have a theory that your left hand is a nose. You are only under the delusion that you can use it as a left hand to pick up things or manipulate objects: in actuality, you either use your right hand or just do without in those situations, all the while being convinced that you have a left hand. It's tragic, too, that everyone else has the same delusion. Even a simple picture can't reveal the truth, because everyone's delusion seems to kick in even when looking at pictures, correcting what we see to add in a phantom image of your left hand (where you actually have a second nose, in reality). And you can't prove it isn't true. Prob(nosehand) approximately equals 0.5.--^talk 11:37, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

If materialism is true, what you've described is a possibility. If idealism is true, what you've described is impossible - if no one ever observes the left-hand as a nose, there is no actual thing beyond observation that could be other than everyone observes it to be. Even if you add that someone who actually sees my left-hand as being a nose, there is no reason in idealism to assume that their experience (of my lefthand as a nose) is somehow more veridical than my own (of my lefthand as a lefthand). So, if idealism is true, P(nosehand) nears 0. Let us say we don't know whether idealism or materialism is true (and to simplify things let's ignore other possibilities like dualism). Hence, P(idealism) approx equals 0.5, P(materialism) approx equals 0.5, P(nosehand|idealism) nears 0, P(nosehand|materialism) nears 0.5. So that suggests P(nosehand) is actually nearer to 0.25 than 0.5. For me personally, since my P(idealism) is nearer to 1 than 0.5, my P(nosehand) will be nearer to 0. For you, since I assume your P(materialism) nears 1, your P(nosehand) is going to near 0.5. So, in a sense, as an idealist I know my left hand isn't a nose, but as a materialist you don't. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 06:57, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I was actually just making fun of you in that bit, and the ridiculousness of assuming that two options are automatically weighted the same.--^talk 07:14, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

What you call "making fun of me", I just see as your own lack of reflection - you use certain assumptions in your reasoning, but they are so ingrained into your thought, you don't even realise they are there. If I can help you see your own hidden assumptions, I will have achieved a great deal. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:39, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I also have been assuming that the world wasn't created from whole cloth Last Tuesday. I regret neither that assumption nor the assumption that Maratrea doesn't exist wedged into the gaps in our knowledge.--^talk 07:36, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I think questioning assumptions is intellectually fruitful. We shouldn't think any of our assumptions are beyond being questioned. Rather than just assuming that the universe was not created Last Tuesday, and dismissing that idea out of hand, I think it is better if we search for rational reasons to reject that idea. Likewise, if you don't believe in Maratrea, that is fine; but I think it would be more fruitful then to look for rational reasons to reject her existence, than simply rejecting it out of hand. If we don't know, the best approach (when possible) is to hold the issue in abeyance and take neither side. I think you could take that approach easily with Maratrea (or any other deity) - many agnostics seem to get on well with it. Admittedly, agnosticism with respect to Last Tuesdayism is psychologically harder to swallow; but maybe that itself is evidence that there may exist some genuine rational reason to reject it (as opposing to merely assuming it false without reasons provided). --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:40, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Consensual Reality

That's the term you're looking for.

Inasmuch as I can tell, you believe that there is only a definite truth at any point in the world to the extent that enough people believe in it hard enough. This appears to be your fundamental belief, and about 95% of the rest of your essay is dross because of that belief. Because if you believe that, then you just disagree with the scientific method, which is based on an objective reality. Saying that science might work some of the time as long as people believe doesn't cut it, because such a condition inherently invalidates the basic tenets of science (which include an objective and measurable external reality independent of observation).

So your essay is really this: In this essay, I would like to present a reason to disbelieve in the theory of evolution. This reason is that there is no objective truth and so science does not work. The End.

Incidentally, you can actually test your theory. Just find one of the many, many false things that a majority of people think is true, and see if that makes it true.--^talk 11:29, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

No, I don't believe in consensual reality. I think it is easy to confuse my own ideas with some postmodernist or New Age subjectivism about truth, Nietzschean perspectivism, social construction of reality, "The Secret", etc. But, that is not my viewpoint. I believe in objective truth.

As I mentioned, I am an idealist (in the philosophy of mind sense of that term). While a materialist believes that matter is the fundamental stuff of reality, and mind is a product of matter, an idealist believes that mind is the fundamental stuff of reality, and matter is a byproduct of mind. To me, reality consists of souls and their experiences, and material things are nothing more and nothing less than a particular kind of pattern in the experiences of souls.

I believe in many parallel universes. I also believe these universes are dividing, and even on occassions merging. I'm certainly not the only person who has ideas like this - the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (and some other theories in physics too), David Lewis' modal realism, Max Tegmark's ultimate ensemble theory, Nick Bostrom's simulation argument (if we are a simulation, then other sister simulations are effectively parallel universes for us, and the 'real world' is also a parallel universe, of a somewhat different kind).

I don't believe that belief in something or desiring something, by itself, makes it true. Although the material universe is just a pattern in the experiences of our minds, we have imperfect power over our own minds and hence imperfect power over our experiences, and hence imperfect power over the material universe.

However, I do believe that the Goddess chooses to fulfill our deeply held unfulfilled desires by creating other universes in which they are fulfilled, and granting us knowledge of those universes after our death in this one. So, by itself, my belief that something is true is not sufficient to make it true. But, if my belief is associated with a desire that my belief be true (sometimes it will be, sometimes it won't - often I will believe things to be true which I deeply wish weren't), and if that desire is sufficiently strong (and not just some fleeting whimsy), and unfulfilled in this universe, then the Goddess will create another universe in which it is true.

So, I don't believe in "consensual reality". I believe in objective reality. I just disagree with you as to what it is.

I don't disagree with the scientific method completely. I want to limit the spatiotemporal applicability of the scientific method; and even beyond those limits, I'm willing to accept scientific theories, but as "false yet useful myths" rather than literally true. So long as I make those limits broad enough, the modified version of the scientific method I propose will be equally successful in achieving technological and economic advances (which is the pragmatic justification for accepting the scientific method to begin with).

I agree there is an objective and measurable external reality. I just disagree about its nature or extent.

You say a basic tenet of science is that reality is independent of observation - I don't agree that is a basic tenet of science. Science works perfectly well without that tenet. e.g. adherents of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics explicitly reject the idea that reality is independent of observation; and yet, they see to be just as capable of practical work in the field of quantum physics as adherents of different interpretations are. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:12, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Don't claim QM supports your stupidity. It is science, after all, and relates to longer timeframes than you are willing to allow science to work within. Quantum woo gets tiresome. ħuman 07:16, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't claim QM supports my beliefs. I simply claim that the existence of the Copenhagen interpretation is evidence that the belief that "reality is independent of observation" is not a basic tenet of science. There's nothing "quantum woo" about it. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:09, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

You make a fair point: you don't appear to believe in consensual reality. I guess I should have read closer. Instead, you seem to believe in something even less capable of proof/disproof. Oddly, you believe that science is applicable only within those bounds at which it is convenient for us to examine at the moment (relatively recently and relatively closely). The gaps at the edges of our knowledge - well, you've crammed a god in there.

I'm not touching your multiple-realities, goddess-worlds, etc, stuff... that's just as unprovable as any other aspect of religion, and I believe in it with the same surety as Russell's teapot.

I guess there's not much else to discuss.--^talk 07:59, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Instead, you seem to believe in something even less capable of proof/disproof. - if idealism is incapable of proof/disproof, then materialism is equally so. If the existence of parallel universes is incapable of proof/disproof, so is the denial of their existence. Now, if we move on from there to my specifically theistic ideas - well, theism is unfalsifiable, but it certainly is verifiable - in this life, if/when the deity chooses for it to be so by miraculous intervention; otherwise, it is verifiable post mortem.

Oddly, you believe that science is applicable only within those bounds at which it is convenient for us to examine at the moment (relatively recently and relatively closely). I disagree with your use of the term "convenient", it overstates your case severely. The problem with knowing about what happened 100 million years ago is not merely a problem of present inconvenience, it is a fundamental limitation of our own existence and the nature of this universe's laws. Now, if time travel were to be invented, things would be different (and if it were, much of my argument against evolution would go away as a result); but barring such a fundamental change from that, our knowledge of the distant past is not going to change, it is a fundamental limitation, not just a matter of present inconvience. Given your assumptions, we will surely learn a little more about 100 million years ago in the coming decades and centuries, but baring time travel or similar the fundamental difference between our knowledge of 100 million years ago and much more recent periods is not going to go away. So, you are trying to paint my temporal/spatial limitations upon science as just a present temporary limitation, when it seems they are more like a much more fundamental limitation of our reality.

The gaps at the edges of our knowledge - well, you've crammed a god in there. - you seem to be invoking the proverbial god of the gaps, but the gaps I am talking about here are ones so fundamental that they aren't going to go away (baring as I said, game-changing advances like developing timetravel.)

(PS: Bag PJR for his green text all you want, I actually think it was a good innovation on his part, hence I copy him in it.) --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

"materialism is equally [unprovable]"

Yes. But considering how we all must act as if we consider materialism to be true, that's rather moot, isn't it? It's the same argument as against solipsism (a spectre raised by others against you) - it doesn't much matter whether you think the outside world exists or doesn't, or (as in your case) you think minds are more fundamental than matter. Functionally and in all real respects, you must and will continue to act in a manner exactly in accordance with "materialism." The only extent to which you will not act in that manner will be unimportant, like your prayers.

It's possible that science does not apply to a time 100 million years before now, and that the Big Bang did not really occur because minds were not present to make it exist (or however you want to phrase it), but you seem to have made the limits of your religion fairly fluid. If we discovered more information about that time or did invent a machine to understand it, you could just say it must be 1000 million years, not 100. And that's fine, it's just not worth discussing. Your distinction is useless and unverifiable, and is calculated to remain useless and unverifiable.

"So, you are trying to paint my temporal/spatial limitations upon science as just a present temporary limitation, when it seems they are more like a much more fundamental limitation of our reality."

It seems like you just chose an inconveniently large number out of thin air. Like every number in your arguments, including your probabilities, it's just your arbitrary gut feeling stemming from your religion. You could tell me that your religion says that a new parallel universe comes into existence every 10 seconds, or 30 seconds, or 4,000 years... who cares?

"gaps I am talking about here are ones so fundamental that they aren't going to go away"

Yes, we probably won't ever have complete knowledge of such staggeringly distant times or places. That's why they're convenient gaps these days. Two centuries ago, you could safely hide God a few thousand years ago. Ten centuries ago, you could slide God in just past the ozone layer. Thirty centuries ago, God was riding a chariot that looked like the Sun and was just overhead. Now, you have him out some parsecs or back some millions of years. We know a lot more, so you have to find bigger gaps.

In one of your parallel universes in the year 2112, Maytrein is posting on ThoughtWiki about how science can never know the inner secrets of the neutrino movements during the first millisecond of the Big Bang, and that that point is where science breaks down in its materialist rules.--^talk 09:02, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

we all must act as if we consider materialism to be true. No, why must we do that? I don't act as if materialism is true, I act as if idealism is true. But actually, our actions should be largely the same in either case. I think the biggest difference to our actions, is that if materialism is true we ought to say materialism is true, and if idealism is true we ought to say idealism is true. Since I am saying idealism is true, I am acting as if it was true.

Functionally and in all real respects, you must and will continue to act in a manner exactly in accordance with "materialism." Functionally and in all real respects, I act and continue to act in a manner exactly in accordance with idealism. Materialism vs. idealism makes no big difference to everyday life.

If we discovered more information about that time - and how do you think we'll do that? All information we have about the past is information about the present extrapolated back in to the past, and that isn't going to fundamentally change. We might have more information about 100 million years ago in the future, but without a time machine we are always going to know orders of magnitude less about 100 million years ago than we know about 100 years ago, and that isn't going to change.

If we.... did invent a machine to understand it, you could just say it must be 1000 million years, not 100 - the thing that's important about a time machine, is I believe things only exist because someone observes them. The unobserved past doesn't exist because no one observed it; if a time machine existed, we could observe it, and it wouldn't be unobserved any more. So this isn't just arbitrarily shifting years around to get around our current limitations, its fundamental to the logic of my position.

Your distinction is useless and unverifiable, and is calculated to remain useless and unverifiable. My position is 100 million years ago didn't actually happen, even if it appears it did. Your position is it really did happen. Both are positions are equally useless and unverifiable as each other.

It seems like you just chose an inconveniently large number out of thin air. Some numbers seem big today that one day will seem quite manageable. Other numbers will always be big. In fact, provided humanity only has a finite-duration future, almost all numbers will be too large, since the greatest number any human being will ever think of or refer to must be finite, so almost all finite numbers are so big no human being has ever thought of them or mentioned them or ever will. (I call those numbers the hyperfinite numbers, and any smaller finite numbers hypofinite - clearly, only a finite number of hypofinite numbers exist, and an infinite number of hyperfinite ones; this assumes of course that humanity only has a finite future; if it has an infinite future, there may be no such largest number ever thought of by a human.)

Like every number in your arguments, including your probabilities, it's just your arbitrary gut feeling stemming from your religion. - My probabilities aren't arbitrary, there is logic to them. In particular, I try to use a uniform prior - if there are n possibilities, then my starting position (if I have no other information to indicate one is more or less likely than the others) should be to give each a probability of 1/n. Of course, there is always going to be a certain degree of arbitrariness in Bayesian probability assignments, that is just the nature of Bayesian probability. But if you don't agree with my assignments, propose others instead, and explain what you think is wrong with mine and right with yours.

The god of the gaps argument is irrelevant, since I'm not proposing the Goddess as an explanation of anything. I do believe she created the world, but I don't put that forward as an explanation of the world. The world doesn't need explaining, and I'm not trying to give an explanation for it. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:41, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

" Both are positions are equally useless and unverifiable as each other."

Well, no. The Big Bang happened quite a while ago, but cosmic background radiation, for example, is good evidence for it. The theory predicted it, and in time it was discovered, confirming the theory's prediction and strongly lending credence to the theory. Whereas your theory that nothing existed (or whatever your religion says) has not made any testable predictions that I am aware of. Science predicts verifiable facts about that period in the past... what has your goddess predicting about it that we can verify?

"But if you don't agree with my assignments, propose others instead, and explain what you think is wrong with mine and right with yours."

I propose that it is a fundamentally fallacious exercise to attempt to assign probability to metaphysical concepts based on the number of concepts you can think of at the moment. You think of two "possibilities" and assign them a 50/50 probability? Asinine.

"The god of the gaps argument is irrelevant, since I'm not proposing the Goddess as an explanation of anything."

Your goddess exists only in the gaps of knowledge, where she cannot be proven or disproven. It is exactly relevant. It doesn't matter if she is an explanation of anything (she can't be, because that might be testable! alas!). We don't know much before x time, and so your goddess exists before x time. We don't know much about x place, so your goddess is there. If a fundamental physical law said that we couldn't cut open avocados, then she'd be in there (and as far as I can tell, I'm not even exaggerating). And if we expand our knowledge, then she shrinks back into further gaps. If we could develop the ability to use quantum fuddlyfoo to look at any time or place at will, then your goddess would be eradicated to solely the avocados. A god of the gaps is a deity that can be killed with knowledge. Such is yours. Sorry.--^talk 07:34, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

You insist 100 mya existed, I suggest it didn't. You insist your claim is testable, and mine is not; I think both our claims are equally untestable. You cite cosmic background radiation as an example of your claim being successfully tested: The Big Bang happened quite a while ago, but cosmic background radiation, for example, is good evidence for it. The theory predicted it, and in time it was discovered, confirming the theory's prediction and strongly lending credence to the theory.

Take any scientific theory about the past, how can we test it? Barring time travel, we can't go back in the past to test it, we can only test it in the present.

Any scientific theory can be reduced to the predictions it makes. You suggest that since Big Bang theory's (testable) predictions about the present have been confirmed, we should also accept its (untestable in themselves without time travel) predictions about the past.

However, any scientific theory which makes predictions about the past and present can be transformed into another theory which makes predictions about the present only. Let's do that to the Big Bang. Now we have another theory which makes no such predictions about the past, but makes the exact same predictions about the present. Consider the "semi-omphalist Big Bang theory" - "the Big Bang may or may not have happened, but all present observations are identical to those which one would expect had it happened". This theory makes all the same claims about the present that Big Bang theory does, while being agnostic about the past. (I call it 'semi-omphalist' rather than 'omphalist', since an omphalist theory would deny the Big Bang actually happened in the past, but insist it nonetheless appears that it did; a semi-omphalist theory doesn't deny it happened, just insist that regardless of whether it happened it would appear that it did.)

Now, all the scientific evidence which supports the non-omphalist Big Bang theory equally supports the semi-omphalist Big Bang theory and the omphalist Big Bang theory. There is no prediction made by the non-omphalist Big Bang theory which is not made equally by the semi-omphalist and omphalist versions. So there is no possible test (without time travel) which could distinguish them. (Although, arguably we should prefer the semi-omphalist to the omphalist and non-omphalist versions, since the later two are just special cases of the more general semi-omphalist case.)

Whereas your theory that nothing existed (or whatever your religion says) - well, to clarify, my theory is not that nothing existed. As I clarify in the essay, an idealist approach to unobserved events holds, not that they did not happen, but rather that they neither happened nor did not happen. So, my position is not that the Big Bang never occurred, but more that it neither occurred nor did not occur. That said, I have also made clear certain ways in which evolution or the Big Bang could nonetheless have happened (e.g. time travelling scientists observing it); and have also expressed the possibility that maybe it both happened and did not happen simultaneously (e.g., maybe our universe is the merger of two universes with convergent histories, in one of which the Big Bang occurred, in the other the earth was made in six days.)

I propose that it is a fundamentally fallacious exercise to attempt to assign probability to metaphysical concepts based on the number of concepts you can think of at the moment. You think of two "possibilities" and assign them a 50/50 probability? Asinine. Well, from a Bayesian perspective, if we know there are N possibilities, and have zero evidence as to which of the N is true, it is rational to adopt a uniform prior of 1/N. Now, you are right that there may be further possibilities we have not thought of. However, if we pay careful attention to the logical structure of the issue at hand, we may conclude there are only N possible positions. We need to try to think, not just of positions which are commonly held, but other positions that possibly might be held (even if no one holds them, or we can't think of any good reason to suggest them.) At the end of that process, we may be quite confident that the number of possibilities is in fact N. We should still try to account for the doubt that maybe we haven't thought of all the possibilities - and we should base that accounting on our evaluation of the probability that we have in fact not accounted for all such possibilities. A few approaches are possible: I really don't know if I've accounted for all posibilities or not (P(all possibilities covered) = 0.5), hence maybe we'd use a prior of 1/2*N instead. Or, if we estimate P(all possibilities covered) to be smaller but still significant, we might treat "none of the above" as another possibility, and hence use a prior of 1/(N+1). Or, if I think P(all possibilities covered) is even smaller, we might assign it some small non-zero probability e, and then all the possibilities we can think of get probabilities (1 - e)/N. If our estimation of e is small enough, we could get away with pretending it is zero, and then we'd be back to 1/N. Finally, from a Bayesian viewpoint, probability is just an expression of our degree of confidence in the truth of a belief. We can try to assign probabilities in as objective and rational way as possible, but we can never entirely exclude the subjective and arbitrary components. But I think that's okay, so long as we endeavour to be honest about our own subjectivity and arbitrariness.

Your goddess exists only in the gaps of knowledge, where she cannot be proven or disproven. - No, my Goddess is testable. According to my religion, you will meet her after your death. So, the existence of my Goddess implies the existence of an afterlife. Now, the question of whether an afterlife exists can be tested by dying. If you die (and you surely will eventually), if you then find yourself in an afterlife - that is not proof of my Goddess (since many other types of deities, or even none, are compatible with an afterlife), but it must increase the probability of my Goddess existing compared to where you started. If then in the afterlife you meet a being claiming to be her, that would increase the probability further (but doesn't entirely exclude the possibility that some other deity exists instead, but is trying to deceive you that she exists for some reason.) My religion makes further claims about things that will happen in the afterlife; the more of these that come true, the more evidence you have. And testability is never a demand for absolute proof, just a significant degree of evidece.

We don't know much before x time, and so your goddess exists before x time. You are suggesting I believe my Goddess exists only in the times we don't know about; on the contrary, I believe she exists at every time.

We don't know much about x place, so your goddess is there. On the contrary, I don't believe my Goddess is anywhere in particular. She transcends space.

If a fundamental physical law said that we couldn't cut open avocados, then she'd be in there (and as far as I can tell, I'm not even exaggerating). Huh? Why would she exist inside an avocado? The claim makes no sense. She does not inherently possess any spatial location (although she can choose to manifest herself at such spatial locations as she chooses.) I suppose she could choose to manifest herself inside an avocado, but I can't see why she'd want to. However, if as you hypothetically suggest, a fundamental physical law said we couldn't cut open avocados, then she definitely would not manifest herself inside one - when she manifests herself, she does so in the experiences of other souls (her children); since if it was impossible for her children to cut open an avocado, they could never have the experience of the insides of one inside their souls, she would thus never manifest inside an avocado.

And if we expand our knowledge, then she shrinks back into further gaps. I don't agree. There is no place she used to occupy which she doesn't anymore; and there is no place which might be occupied in the future which she currently occupies.

If we could develop the ability to use quantum fuddlyfoo to look at any time or place at will, then your goddess would be eradicated to solely the avocados.. Even if we had the quantum fuddlyfoo to look at any time or place at will, we would not use that capability with respect to every possible time and place. So, that would not justify (under an idealism) that ever possible time and place we might look at actually existed, only that those times and places we actually looked at (through fuddlyfoo or otherwise) existed.

A god of the gaps is a deity that can be killed with knowledge. Such is yours. Sorry. Give me an example of some additional scientific knowledge which we might get but we don't have now, which would disprove Maratreanism if we had it. You can't. There isn't any. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:29, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

"Now we have another theory which makes no such predictions about the past, but makes the exact same predictions about the present."

All you did was apply an adjective, omphalist. That's not a theory. All you've done is said, "Aha, this word that I tacked on indicates that I am correct, because it indicates a theory that assumes the same things I assume!"

Please tell me the version of the Big Bang theory that makes a testable prediction about the present without theorizing about past events. Because I don't really see how such a thing could exist.

"So, my position is not that the Big Bang never occurred, but more that it neither occurred nor did not occur."

Okay. Well, that's peachy. But it seems to fall more in the realm of religious terminology, not useful distinction in a discussion. You hold that the past does not exist in some form... in this case, because its events neither occurred nor did not occur. No functional difference.

"Now, the question of whether an afterlife exists can be tested by dying."

So you assert that Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Scientology, et al are also testable? I suspect that you don't actually know what testable means. Dying is not considered a reasonable requirement for a scientific experiment.

"we would not use that capability with respect to every possible time and place."

There seems to be no reason not to hook up a few ultracomputers to the quantum foodlyfoo and record all of time and space to 1,654 trillion 3.5" floppies, subjecting it all to observation. So I am going to instruct my descendants to do so in my will, in order to "kill Maratrea." It will be a puzzling but religiously fulfilled command.

"an example .. which would disprove Maratreanism if we had it. You can't. There isn't any."

Whoa there, I thought you were just telling me it was testable! Now it can't be disproven? Make up your mind!--^talk 09:24, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

All you did was apply an adjective, omphalist. That's not a theory. What is a theory? Surely any finite theory can be expressed as a finite string, so a theory is equivalent to the equivalence class of strings that express it. Alternatively, a theory is equivalent to its predictions, so a theory is equivalent to the set of all predictions it makes, its prediction set. And a prediction is a proposition, a potentially counterfactual one - a prediction of theory t is a proposition of the form "if t is true, and conditions c hold, then result r will occur"; so the prediction set of a theory is the set of all propositions of that form which are true for the theory (and a proposition can be reduced to a string in some language expressing it, or the equivalence class of all such strings). So we have reduced a theory to a mathematical object. And we can define functions on these objects. For example, the semi-omphalism function for a time t, given a theory alpha, yields another theory beta, which makes no predictions for times prior to t, but exactly the same predictions for times subsequent to t; in other words, it subtracts from its prediction set all predictions regarding times prior to t, but leaves all predictions regarding subsequent times. Surely semi-omphalism functions exist, and hence for all t, given (the/a) Big Bang theory as input, there is another theory produced by the semi-omphalism function of t upon that input?

But it seems to fall more in the realm of religious terminology, not useful distinction in a discussion.. Well, if the distinction is useless, then both our positions (mine that the distant past neither occurred nor did not occur, yours that it actually did) are equally useless.

So you assert that Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Scientology, et al are also testable? Well, they are all testable insofar as they imply an afterlife, which is testable in the sense of verifiability, albeit untestable in the sense of falsifiability. And if there is an afterlife, they all make predictions about what kind of afterlife there will be, and during the afterlife one could verify and/or falsify each individual religion's claims reagrding the afterlife. So in the afterlife these religions have significant testability. Many of them also make claims about an eschatological end of history; those claims are unfalsifiable (that they have not happened yet is not evidence they will not one day happen) yet verifiable (if they actually occur, that verifies the claim they would occur.) They are even at least partially falsifiable, if one religion's end of the world excludes the truth of other religions. e.g. if the events roughly similar to those described in the Left Behind series occurred, that would be significant evidence in favour of the truth of Christianity (and one particular kind of it), and significant evidence against the truth of other religions (and other versions of Christianity.) So religious claims, while not perfectly testable, are often significantly testable (and in reality, what claim is ever perfectly testable?)

Dying is not considered a reasonable requirement for a scientific experiment. - Why should we restrict our notion of testability to what is reasonable to a scientific experiment? If testability has metaphysical implications for the nature of claims (as e.g. the logical positivists argued), why should it matter whether that testability be "scientific"? And if it has no such implications, why should we care about testability? Besides, I can think of arguably "scientific" experiments that involve at least a grave risk of dying - Wigner's friend, quantum suicide. (They are of course just meant as thought experiments - but how would it be unscientific to actually try them?) A scientist aboard a spaceship might decide to cross the event horizon of a black hole; having done so, they might perform many valid scientific experiments, and thus gain much scientific knowledge, about black hole physics (experiments which could not be performed, results which could not be obtained, from the other side of the event horizon), prior to their death, although it would arguably be impossible for them to convey any of their research results to anyone who has not also crossed the event horizon. Many of Josef Mengele's experiments, while gravely immoral, where nonetheless 'scientific' - but, if it is scientific for a scientist to perform a fatal experiment on a human subject other than themselves, couldn't it also be equally scientific for them to perform the same experiment upon themselves?

There seems to be no reason not to hook up a few ultracomputers to the quantum foodlyfoo and record all of time and space to 1,654 trillion 3.5" floppies, subjecting it all to observation. So I am going to instruct my descendants to do so in my will, in order to "kill Maratrea." It will be a puzzling but religiously fulfilled command. But in an idealist sense, a machine which records all the results of the quantum foodlyfoo isn't actually observing anything - observation only takes place when a mind reads its records. Besides, your machine would require an infinite number of floppies, since the floppies themselves would be in the spacetime the foodlyfoo is observing. Even if you could make a quantum foodlyfoo, how will you make an infinite number of floppies? And, even given those infinite number of floppies, from an idealist viewpoint, observation only takes place when they are read; so you'd need an infinite number of minds, or a single infinite mind, to read them. And at the end of all of this, yes you would have succeeded in disproving Maratreanism - not because you'd have proved evolution (Maratreanism doesn't say evolution definitely isn't - it just implies it is quite unlike), but rather because Maratreanism says an infinite mind, or an infinite number of minds, does not exist. So go ahead and tell your descendants to manufacture an infinite number of floppy disks, and I'm sure having done so (plus one quantum foodlyfoo), plus find an infinity of mind to read what is on those disk, yes they will kill Maratrea. But, I am quite confident Maratrea cannot be killed, and your finite number of descendants will never succeeed in manufacturing the infinite number of floppy disks required.

Whoa there, I thought you were just telling me it was testable! Now it can't be disproven? Make up your mind! Maratreanism is definitely testable in the sense of being verifiable. I suspect it actually is unfalsifiable, but I can't entirely exclude it might have some possible falsification. But if it did, I doubt it would be in the form which in any way resembles what we call scientific theories or scientific experiments. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:51, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

"What is a theory? Surely any finite theory can be expressed as a finite string, so a theory is equivalent to the equivalence class of strings that express it."

Wow. No. A theory is an intelligible proposition to explain a phenomenon. It cannot be reduced to a mathematical object without (a) math and (b) a defined series of symbols to represent the relevant concepts.

So again, please, tell me the version of the Big Bang Theory that you're talking about. I'm just a simple grad student, so please do me the favor of keeping it relatively simple and expressing yourself in language of collegiate level or below.

"Well, if the distinction is useless, then both our positions (mine that the distant past neither occurred nor did not occur, yours that it actually did) are equally useless."

No. Once again, my position allows testable predictions. Like the Big Bang Theory. Your position - be it "no past existed" or "it neither existed nor did not exist" - is sophistry and allows no theories with testable predictions. Any such theory relies on assumptions from my position (i.e. there was a past) and not yours. If you disagree, provide one.

"they are all testable insofar as they imply an afterlife, which is testable in the sense of verifiability, albeit untestable in the sense of falsifiability."

Golly. So it's testable except in the sense of being unfalsifiable. What an interesting thing to say. So you're saying it's verifiable because if you die, then you can possibly verify it by seeing Maratrea. Just like Christianity is verifiable because Jesus might show up and affirm it. Do you perhaps understand exactly how bizarre this definition of "testable" is - the idea that the possibility that death or divine revelation might suddenly confirm it?

That is not testable. It's just a theory that a supernatural event might one day confirm. Pretty much any possible thing you could ever say is "testable" in that way. You could scream "My eyes are watermelons!" at a fire hydrant every day at 3 o'clock, and that would be testable because one day the fire hydrant might reveal itself as a deity and affirm to you and everyone else that, indeed, your eyes are watermelons magically endowed and transformed.

"Why should we restrict our notion of testability to what is reasonable to a scientific experiment?"

Because as we seek truth on Earth, it's generally considered that it is necessary to be able to record and report that truth, as we accumulate knowledge. A "test" that can never be reported, confirmed, or checked is useless and not a test at all. If you died and saw Maratrea, no one would ever know it. And the necessity of dying is pretty different from the risk of dying. That's why Marie Curie was a scientist, and you are just crazy. Do you honestly need this spelled out?

"But in an idealist sense, a machine which records all the results of the quantum foodlyfoo isn't actually observing anything - observation only takes place when a mind reads its records. Besides, your machine would require an infinite number of floppies, since the floppies themselves would be in the spacetime the foodlyfoo is observing."

Really? Observation requires a human to read the records? An interesting religious tenet, albeit not one backed up by any of the pseudo-science you've referenced. Okay, a monastic order will devote all of eternity to scanning the records (sped up to 1,000x speed). It might take a million years, but we'll kill Maratrea eventually.

The machine will be instructed to ignore the floppies, incidentally. No reason to record those. I'll hire a guy at minimum wage to scan them with binoculars every week or so.--^talk 09:25, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Wow. No. A theory is an intelligible proposition to explain a phenomenon. It cannot be reduced to a mathematical object without (a) math and (b) a defined series of symbols to represent the relevant concepts. A proposition is equivalent to the set of all statements which express it. A theory can easily be reduced to a mathematical object - in fact a scientific theory can be reduced to a single integer. Let us restrict ourselves to scientific theories that can be expressed in English, more precisely using a 27-letter alphabet: 26 letters and the space character (space is arguably unnecessary - many ancient languages wrote text without spaces between the words; numbers and equations can be written out in words). Arguably all scientific theories can be expressed in that form (albeit with a loss of some notational convenience.) Rather than such a limited alphabet of only 27 symbols, we could permit the whole Unicode character code to be used. Hey, we could even permit the theories to be written in LaTeX, which would make all the wonders of mathematical typography available to us. Whichever alphabet we choose, we have reduced a written expression of a scientific theory in English to a finite sequence of integers.

So, now we can use Gödel numbering to convert this finite sequence to a single integer. Take all the primes, 2, 3, 5, etc., take each integer in the sequence successively, and raise that prime to the power of that integer, then multiply them all together. Bingo, any finite sequence of positive integers can be reduced to a single positive integer.

So, every scientific theory can be fully explained in English; and for every full explanation of that theory in English, there is a corresponding positive integer derived by the procedure above. Now, a theory does not have a single full explanation in English - many different forms of words can explain the same idea equally well. But for every theory, there is a set of all possible explanations in English, and hence theories can be associated with sets of integers. And, given such a set must have a smallest integer, we have built a one-to-one correspondence between scientific theories and a subset of the natural numbers. (I have used English here, but the same procedure can be done with any natural language which has a sufficiently developed vocabulary to be used for science - e.g. French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, etc. There are many smaller languages, which have never been used for science and hence will likely lack the needed vocabulary.)

I'm not saying that scientific theories are numbers; I am saying that they are reducible to numbers. Clearly, functions exist between those numbers - an infinite number of them. So, going back the other way, functions exist between scientific theories - an infinite number of them. I am talking about one particular family of such functions - the semi-omphalism functions.

So again, please, tell me the version of the Big Bang Theory that you're talking about. I've already explained it - well, its not a single theory, its a family of theories, the semi-omphalist Big Bang theories. What part of my explanation did you not understand? As I said, its the theory which makes all the same predictions as Big Bang theory with regard to the present and the recent past, but which is agnostic as to whether the distant past actually exists. Its a family of theories rather than a single theory, since it depends on where exactly you put the boundary between the recent and distant past.

No. Once again, my position allows testable predictions. My theory and your theory both allow testable predictions, and are almost identical in their testable predictions. There is however a test which could distinguish them, involving time travel. Since we don't currently have time travel, and who knows if we ever will, they are identical in terms of their currently testable predictions, even though they differ in terms of predictions we can't test now but might be able to one day.

So it's testable except in the sense of being unfalsifiable. Testability has two sides, verifiability and falsifiability. There are theories which are both, there are theories that are neither, there are theories that are one but not the other. Different schools of thought have seen one aspect as being more important than the other. Logical positivism focused on the verifiability side, Popper switched the focus to the falsifiability side. Rather than privileging one side over the other, I prefer a holistic approach which sees both as important but neither as essential.

Just like Christianity is verifiable because Jesus might show up and affirm it. Do you perhaps understand exactly how bizarre this definition of "testable" is Yes, Christianity is verifiable and falsifiable, by divine revelation and post mortem experiences. I don't see it as 'bizarre', it's not even my own idea - I forget who (I could look it up), but this was a common response in the philosophy of religion to the challenge of logical positivism. It's so bizarre you can read about it in academic journals.

That is not testable. It's just a theory that a supernatural event might one day confirm. Pretty much any possible thing you could ever say is "testable" in that way.. Well, we are all going to die, and very soon actually. When one takes a broader view of history, our lives pass by in a blink of an eye. So, a theory which requires death to test isn't really untestable - one will test it soon enough. There are actually many scientific theories we can't test right now - for example, there are theories in particular physics concerning what happens at energy levels our current particle accelerators can't explore yet, but maybe one day we will build accelerators powerful enough to test them. But a claim testable by death is much more testable than these physics theories, since our death is a much more certain prospect than the necessary political and economic conditions existing to keep on building ever larger and more expensive particle accelerators.

If you die, and find yourself in an afterlife, you haven't necessarily proven any particular religion. Maybe if one went on to observe certain features or events in that afterlife, that might lend support to one particular religion over another. But, the mere fact you've proven there is an afterlife, immediately makes all religions collectively much more likely, and atheistic materialism much less likely. An afterlife is substantive evidence that some religion is probably true, and atheistic materialism is false. (I say atheistic materialism, because an afterlife wouldn't rule out some versions of Buddhism that believe in an afterlife but don't believe in a god.)

You could scream "My eyes are watermelons!" at a fire hydrant every day at 3 o'clock, and that would be testable because one day the fire hydrant might reveal itself as a deity and affirm to you and everyone else that, indeed, your eyes are watermelons magically endowed and transformed. Yes, I agree that claim is testable. I don't see the point? You want to put all this focus on testability, and then start complaining when testability is defined so broadly that almost everything is testable. I am not bothered - I don't fetishize testability in the way that you do.

Because as we seek truth on Earth, it's generally considered that it is necessary to be able to record and report that truth, as we accumulate knowledge. A "test" that can never be reported, confirmed, or checked is useless and not a test at all. If you died and saw Maratrea, no one would ever know it. You assume the afterlife is a solitary individual affair; but most accounts of the afterlife assume that the dead interact with other dead in the afterlife. So, if you shoot yourself in the head to determine if there is an afterlife, and then find out that there is - you can't communicate that experimental result to the living (let us assuming that ghosts or spiritualism or whatnot are out of the question), but if someone else does the same thing, they join you in the afterlife, you can then share your experimental results with each other. Considering my blackhole example - supppose a scientist discovers a way to orbit a blackhole on the other side of its event horizon, such that they can prolong for a very long time being sucked into it and killed. A group of scientists board a spaceship, they go to the blackhole and cross the event horizon. They then engage in lots of scientific research on the black hole, and make many discoveries, and they share this information with each other. They can't cross back the event horizon, and share this information with the rest of humanity, but they can share it among themselves. It is as if part of the scientific community has been severed from the rest of it, each part capable of communication within itself, but communication is not possible between the two parts. Actually, these two scientific communities can communicate unidirectionally - the community outside the event horizon can send its results to those inside the event horizon, but information can't be sent back the other way. Potentially, scientists from the extra-event horizon community could even migrate to the intra-event horizon scientific community, but once you join you can never leave. Well, in the same way, if there is an afterlife, there could be two scientific communities - a pre-mortem and a post-mortem one. Each can communicate internally within itself, but between the pre-mortem and post-mortem scientific communities there is unidirectional communication only.

Really? Observation requires a human to read the records? An interesting religious tenet. It's not a religious tenet, its a tenet of idealism - a position in the philosophy of mind. Now, my religion is based on idealism, but you can be an idealist without following my religion. I'd add, some versions of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics are based on the same principle - although, what exactly constitutes "observation" in the Copenhagen interpretation is disputed. Before someone mentions 'quantum woo', I'm not claiming my beliefs are implied by quantum mechanics - I am simply pointing out an area where idealism is similar to the Copenhagen interpretation, so if the Copenhagen intepretation is worthy of respect idealism is too. And please don't confuse my religion with idealism - my religion is a type of idealism, but there are many types of idealism other than my religion - consider e.g. the works of Berkeley or McTaggart, neither of whom follow my religion, but both of whom were idealists. Berkeley was an Anglican Bishop, I'm not sure what McTaggart's personal religious beliefs were.

Okay, a monastic order will devote all of eternity to scanning the records (sped up to 1,000x speed). It might take a million years, but we'll kill Maratrea eventually.. It won't take a million years, it will take an infinite number of years (assuming at every time there are only a finite number of monks and each of those monks has only a finite mind). And yes, if such an order of monks existed, it would be disproof of Maratreanism, since Maratreanism insists there are only a finite number of finite minds with finite temporal duration. However, given that you could never know for a fact the order would continue its work endlessly (how does one know it won't one day die out?), you'd never actually succeed in disproving Maratreanism in this way.

This converstaion with you has got me thinking about how Maratreanism could be falsified. I have actually found two ways. Firstly, Maratreanism implies that all mind is finite. So, if one could prove the existence of an infinite mind, you would have succeeded in disproving Maratreanism. The problem is, how can one ever prove a given mind is infinite? You could encounter a mind which seems infinite to you, but maybe it is still finite, but vastly greater than your own? It would seem to me, that the only way to conclusively prove the existence of an infinite mind, is to become one yourself - both the infinity of your own mind would be immediately clear to you, and only an infinite mind can actually conclude that another mind is infinite. So, yes, if you ever become an infinite mind, you will have disproved Maratreanism in the process - but your proof would only be comprehensible to other infinite minds. But, I promise you, if you make my mind infinite, I will cease believing in Maratreanism immediately.

The second way would be if you firstly managed to merge your mind with every other mind your mind had every encountered, and then with every mind those minds had ever encountered, and so on until there are no minds left to merge - a transitive closure. And then secondly, improve your memory to the point of absolute perfection, so that you remembered everything that had ever occurred to your mind (and hence to any of the minds you had merged with). Remembering perfectly all of prior mental history, you can determine whether time is circular - if it is, you would remember the present moment. Up to now, this all corresponds to the truth of Maratreanism (in fact, you have essentially become Maratrea herself). But with your newfound omniscience, you may find some fact in that remembered mental history which contradicts Maratreanism. If you did so, you would have proven Maratreanism false. In fact, the falsehood of Maratreanism would be immediately obvious to you - remembering the present and the future, you'd remember your conclusion that Maratreanism is false before you had even reached it. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 23:58, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

" Let us restrict ourselves to scientific theories that can be expressed in English"

Yes. Let us restrict ourselves. I didn't realize that it needed to be spelled out that I would like you to please express yourself in our conversant language, rather than encoding in an integer. Just for the record, please also confine yourself to standard English, not backwards-talk, and try to avoid any form of sign language. If you have any other questions about how to communicate in a manner so as to be understood, let me know.

"What part of my explanation did you not understand?"

you did not explain it. You attempted to describe it without actually describing it, by applying a defined variable to a theory with which I am familiar. But I do not see how that variable ("omphalic") applies, or what it would mean. Please state in English words a summary of the full theory. The fact that you repeatedly are attempting to obfuscate with esoteric mathematical terms makes it rather difficult for me to believe you are debating in good faith, but if you are unable to describe the theory without gibbering "Baynesian" or the like, just say so.

And by the way, is it possible for you to be less wordy? You indulge yourself in vast paragraphs of verbosity... I would request you leave out any future detailed descriptions of black hole scientific communities, speculations about bishopric theories of mind, and so on. Try to be a little more efficient with both of our time.

"My theory and your theory both allow testable predictions, and are almost identical in their testable predictions."

Okay, name a currently testable prediction of your position that distinguishes it from mine.

"It's so bizarre you can read about it in academic journals."

Citation please.

" You want to put all this focus on testability, and then start complaining when testability is defined so broadly that almost everything is testable."

In a sentence, there you have it. You say something is testable. I say it isn't. You say it is, but only according to your bizarre definition of testability which includes death. I point out that this is a fair departure from what most people would consider "testable." And yet somehow I'm being unreasonable.

"but if someone else does the same thing, they join you in the afterlife, you can then share your experimental results with each other. ... They can't cross back the event horizon, and share this information with the rest of humanity, but they can share it among themselves. It is as if part of the scientific community has been severed from the rest of it."

And yet in both cases, science as a whole has learned nothing, and no test has thus been performed. Implicit within the idea of a test is the possibility of getting results to the larger scientific community.

"It's not a religious tenet, its a tenet of idealism - a position in the philosophy of mind."

It seems like a religious tenet, because you've just declared it without explaining why. In quantum mechanics, a computer's observation is sufficient to affect results a la Heisenberg - but in your religion, a human being has to look at the computer's records before they affect the outcome. It's an interesting but arbitrary defense.

" It won't take a million years, it will take an infinite number of years (assuming at every time there are only a finite number of monks and each of those monks has only a finite mind)."

Why? They are watching it sped up, so they will continuously close the gap between what has come before and where they are now. They'll just view back at the Big Bang, then watch it up to the present day. It might take a few million years, especially as their viewing time will be added to the record, but they'll get it done. Their viewing time will actually add relatively little to watch, compared to the billions of years they'd have already seen. They will observe everything that has happened at all times, so at a certain point humans will have observed everything. Boom, dead deity.--^talk 05:14, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I will try to be less verbose; I am sorry, I am just a verbose person by nature. And I probably think in somewhat strange ways too...

Let me put it this way. Take a theory like Big Bang theory. It makes lots of predictions. But we can index those predictions by time. So, we can talk about what it predicts at certain specific times. But, only those predictions concerning the present or the recent past can actually be directly tested, barring time travel. But, from the truth of its testable predictions regarding the present/recent past, you want us to infer that its presently untestable predictions regarding the distant past are also true.

But I can construct a new theory, which predicts exactly the same things that the Big Bang theory in the present/recent past, but omits all its predictions regarding the distant past. (If you object that 'recent' is not precisely defined, let us define it as e.g. 10,000 years for the sake of the argument). This theory can be precisely stated as "all the predictions of Big Bang theory concerning what will be observed in the present and last ten thousand years are true". It says the same things about the present that Big Bang theory does, but nothing about any time prior to ten thousand years ago.

There is no currently testable prediction that distinguishes this theory from standard Big Bang theory; there are tests which would distinguish them, which however require time travel. If using time travel, you went back to 10,001 years ago, and found that the observations conformed with Big Bang theory's predictions, you would then have evidence for standard Big Bang theory against my theory. My Big Bang theory makes no predictions about what happened 10,001 years ago, whereas standard Big Bang theory does make predictions does make such predictions.

As to your request for a citation for afterlife verification, I can't find the actual cite I was thinking of right now (I probably could with some searching of my personal papers)... But here is another cite which discusses the same ideas: Kai Nielsen, On the Rationality of Radical Theological Non-Naturalism: More on the Verificationist Turn in the Philosophy of Religion, Religious Studies (1978), 14:193-204 (Cambridge University Press). You can call my ideas about afterlife testability bizarre, but professional philosophers have published about them in respected academic journals - they can't be that bizarre then?

If you read some of the academic literature around logical positivism, you'll find some of my ideas about testability are reasonably common. Of course others agree with them vehemently, but they are not something I have invented myself. In particular, you want to focus the notion of testability on the scientific community, a lot of work on testability doesn't contain the same focus. For example, logical positivism - although they conceived their own work as serving the scientific community, I've never seen a formulation of the verfiiability principle which explicitly refers to it.

And yet in both cases, science as a whole has learned nothing, and no test has thus been performed. Implicit within the idea of a test is the possibility of getting results to the larger scientific community. Why only one science? Why not two separate instances of science? One on one side of the black hole event horizon/death horizon, the other on the other? Worded that way, one science has learnt nothing, another has. And, in terms of the larger scientific community, the post mortem scientific community may well be larger than the pre mortem one.

About reading the floppy disks - I've said before, I'll say it again, you are confusing my religion with idealism as a position in philosophy of mind. Idealism implies true observation involves minds, not mere computer mechanisms. My religion is a type of idealism, but there are idealisms which have nothing to do with my religion. (As I've mentioned, Berkeley and McTaggart).

They will observe everything that has happened at all times, so at a certain point humans will have observed everything. - what about what happens after they are done? They haven't observed that. Also, the only way the universe could contain perfect self-observation would be if both the universe and the observation were infinite. Imagine a book which records the position of every particle in the universe precisely at every moment in its history. The only way the universe could contain such a book would be if the book was infinite in size (and hence also the universe the book is in.)

But you miss my point about the monks. Even if your monks observed all of history (and somehow had a finite mind), that would not 'kill Maratrea'. It might arguably make evolution true, but that's fine. (Maratreanism doesn't absolutely say evolution is false, it just says it is doubtful.) Whereas, if you had an infinity of mind (as I argue you would need, but you don't seem to agree), then that would indeed be disproof of Maratreanism, although as I said before you'd have to actually become an infinite mind to know Maratreanism had been proven false. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 05:57, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I just thought of another example regarding multiple scientific communities - suppose there is a generation ship. Due to lack of FTL travel, interstellar colonization is undertaken via multiple generations living on a starship. Now, back home on Earth there is a scientific community. And there can be a community of scientists on this spaceship. But, they may have severe difficulties in communicating, especially as the ship gets more distant on earth - the round trip time will drift into the years. Dependent on various factors, communication might eventually become impossible. Yet both communities can still undertake independent researches, and progress science, even though they are now doing it independently.

Suppose humanity spreads out to colonize many planets. Now there is an interstellar scientific community. Suppose an economic collapse or war or other such disaster occurs, and communication between some of the planets ceases. Yet, scientists may still live on each of those planets, still researching. The interstellar scientific community has now fractured into separate non-communicating scientific communities. Yet each community is independently of the others still doing science.

And if these cases what is going on is still science, then we still have science in the black hole event horizon or afterlife cases. Yet another example - suppose a group of people go down some kind of wormhole and into a daughter universe. They are now in an essentially separate universe from us, and can no longer communicate with this universe. Yet, they can continue advancing science in the daughter universe, as we can also in the mother universe. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 06:33, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I think evolution is false

This discussion was moved here from Talk:Scientific evidence of evolution being a hoax.

I have collected in my essay my reasons for disbelieving in evolution. Note that while I am inclined to disbelieve in evolution, I am also somewhat inclined to believe in it; while I think it more likely than not evolution is false and not true, I would also admit there is a significant probability that evolution is both true and false simultaneously. However, I do not claim scientific evidence for this position; rather, my reasons are religious and philosophical. But whatever scientific reasons there are, are not strong enough to overcome my religious and philosophical reasons for thinking otherwise. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:26, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

So what? Your essay isn't even about evolution. Weaseloid^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 18:19, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

It is about evolution. Not just about evolution - it is about all scientific theories which make claims about the distant past or future, e.g. Big Bang theory or plate tectonics or theories of stellar evolution; but certainly, evolution is a theory making such claims, so it is an argument about evolution. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 06:36, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

"these arguments are not really about evolution in particular". ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 06:47, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed that they are not about evolution only, but they are still arguments about evolution. An argument about mammals is also an argument about dogs. An argument about scientific theories making claims about the distant past or future is also an argument about evolution.

Also, I should note that in public debate the word evolution gets used as a metonym to refer to all scientific claims about the origin of our world. So, people will argue about evolution vs creation, but many of them aren't just arguing about biological evolution, they are also arguing about plate tectonics, stellar evolution, Big Bang theory, etc. So evolution gets used (by both sides of this debate) as a metonym for the entire field of scientific theories about the distant past. My title then is using evolution metonymically, but that is actually conforming to common practice. And my contribution is intended as a contribution to that broad debate, although it really doesn't agree with either of the two major positions, its more a third position. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:55, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Being wrong doesn't mean their opinions have any bearing on this. ħuman 08:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't get what you mean by that comment. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:23, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Evolution being used as a metonym for an ancient Earth is largely the province of Creationists in my experience. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 08:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

What is wrong with metonyms? They are figures of speech. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:32, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Nothing, it's just interesting that you adopt what to me seems like a Creationist approach. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 09:30, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I do have some sympathy with Young Earth Creationism. I share with them a belief that the universe is probably younger than the mainstream scientific consensus. I would estimate around 10,000 years, which is around the same order of magnitude as their estimates, albeit a bit higher. On the other hand, I don't share their belief in the literal truth of the Bible. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:21, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah, so you're insane. Nice to know not to waste time on you any more. 10,000 years? ħuman 07:46, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Unlike biblical literalists, who are quite insistent the earth is only six thousand years old, I don't put so much stock on a particular figure. If I have to pick one, I'd say 10,000, and it is unlikely to be much less than that. It could quite easily be 100,000, or even a million; but I very much doubt it is more than 10 million, although I wouldn't say that is impossible. Call me insane all you want, I don't care. I prefer to engage constructively with others' arguments, rather than resorting to namecalling. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:33, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

You're not arguing constructively at all. It's a highly-accomplished piece of trolling - I'll grant you that - but it's trolling nonetheless. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 08:42, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem with an accusation such as 'trolling', is that once levied how does one disprove it? I think I have been trying to rationally respond to the arguments others have made - granted there are different ideas of 'rationality' itself at play here. But the term 'trolling' suggests I don't genuinely believe what I am saying. How can I convince you that I am genuine? Well, look at this PDF, which contains 330 pages of Maratrean religious scriptures. If I am a troll, I must be the hardest working troll in history. Or else, maybe I actually genuinely believe these things I talk about, rather than just making stuff up to get attention? --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 00:13, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

What's the difference? You're still rejecting evolution based on a bunch of unproveable & unfalisfiable faith-based assertions while handwaving or disregarding any scientific evidence on the subject. Weaseloid^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 12:45, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

As I point out in more detail in my response to AD, my assertions are no more unprovable than yours are. Ockham's razor would suggest we should prefer semi-omphalist theories to omphalist or non-omphalist ones. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:35, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah! now I understand you. There are all these branches of science you have to ignore to believe in young Earth creationism. How did it take so long to understand your position? No wonder you don't want any burden of proof!--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 08:50, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't disagree with semi-omphalist versions of all those sciences. And no test can be devised to distinguish between the semi-omphalist and the non-omphalist ones; but the semi-omphalist one posits less entities than the non-omphalist one, and posits less non-entities than the omphalist one, so Ockham's razor suggests the semi-omphalist theory should be prefered to either the omphalist or the non-omphalist.

Also, I am not a biblical literalist, so I don't believe in a global flood or anything like that. I also don't feel any need to attack the theory of evolution as unlikely or impossible in a non-idealist sense; I actually have no objection to semi-omphalist evolutionism, just to non-omphalist evolutionism. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:38, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

This article needs a good reason to stick around...

Any Essay on RW that deserves to have a side-by-side breakdown of how wrong it is is clearly in violation of our Mission Statements... I'm not saying that the arguments in the Essay can't be raised, because they can be presented as fully valid and sound philosophical arguments... but this Essay as presented is borderline Time Cube territory... We wouldn't stand for a Time Cube essay on our site (except as a satirical joke, of course), so I'm looking for reasons why this article itself shouldn't be deleted the same... --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 15:30, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I have a very good reason: so that we can make fun of it and have a good laugh while refuting it. Hell, we've let others we genuinely disagree with write and leave essays here before. Why not leave it up so we can hone our pro-science stances even more? Gooniepunk2010 ^{Oi! Oi! Oi!} 15:35, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

We have others? Oh, well then, my entire argument goes away if we would let a Time Cube essay stick around... --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 16:23, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

One reason for the essay space is to allow people to present ideas which run against the consensus. Things like this in fact. Or like this--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 17:20, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't know where this idea that essays have to fit into the site missions in the same way as mainspace has suddenly sprung up from. In fact our mission statement says that we encourage those who disagree with us to register and engage in constructive dialogue. Essay space is one of the main places for this. We only ever delete essays which contain overt hate speech or trolling, but there's no reason why essays expressing fringe theories about science, religion & politics can't have a place here. Wéáśéĺóíď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:36, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is one reason why let people write essays.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 17:41, 11 April 2011 (UTC)--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 17:41, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

And the reason for the wording of the "essay" template. We absolutely welcome people to come here and present their views, on talk pages, in essays, no matter how bonkers they might be. ħuman 07:09, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

223 thousand bytes of worthless "debate" about unfalsifiable bullshit, and woo... this page is now twice the size of WIGO:CP Talk, which is by far and away the most active article that we have. And the signal is lower than an Ed Poor stub... thus producing a signal to noise ratio below any real value of epsilon. Why is wasting our time in this way any part of our mission? --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 03:08, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

This isn't an article, it's a talk page. 223KB is absolutely nothing in storage terms. And if you think the debate is a waste of your time, stop participating in it. And if everyone else stops participating in it, the debate will end. As to myself, I find this a good use of my time, so I am happy to keep on going as long as other people are. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 03:20, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

If we stop participating then your bullshit stands uncontested... that defeats the mission of RW. I don't care how much 223kB (it's a small k) is in storage terms... the point is not that computers are being hassled by this wall of text, the computers don't give a shit about this content. The point is that nothing here is worth human consumption... This isn't a platform for you to establish your religion. In fact, that's entirely against our mission. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 03:36, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Eira, you are completely missing so many points here. And if you don't like it, don't read it. Your argument that it is the size of talk wigo cp (ignoring its 150 archives...) is only an argument to get rid of active talk pages. ħuman 04:18, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Hey, if this place wants to ban ideas it doesn't agree with, as you propose, then I can't stop it from doing so. But if it is going to embark on such a ban, it better stop complaining about Conservapedia doing the same thing. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 03:50, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

"It" is not. One user is. And, um, have you suffered any censorship here? ħuman 04:18, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I never said it was, I said if this place wants to ban ideas it doesn't agree with, as you propose. Have I encountered any censorship here? Well, Eira is not the first editor to suggest I should be silenced; SuspectedReplicant has been saying much the same thing. So, not yet actual censorship (although in some cases bordering on it), but certainly proposals for it are being made, so I think it is right for me to speak up against those proposals, which is exactly what I am doing here. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:16, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Burden of proof

If I remember correctly you have argued against the idea of Burden of proof in the past. Would you accept that the burden of proof falls on you in respect of these ideas?--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 06:45, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the burden of proof falls on both my ideas and your ideas equally. I don't think reason in any way singles out my ideas for needing proof, yet exempts anyone else's ideas from that same need. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:48, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

If I said that the universe was controlled by hyperintelligent grapefruit, who controlled all events through tugging on superstrings - would the burden of proof be equal among the three of us?--^talk 08:03, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

A burden of proof applies in a particular debate, between ideas that are in some sense different possible answers to the same question. So, in the question of which is fundamental (mind or matter), the possible answers seem to be matter (materialism), mind (idealism), both equally (dualism), or maybe something more complicated. So, initially, the burden of proof should be equal between all four possible answers; and then, as we consider various evidence or arguments or considerations available to us, we update that initially equal Bayesian probability assignment appropriately. Your theory about hyperintelligent grapefruit isn't really relevant here, since its not an answer to the same question, we can't really compare it to materialism or idealism or so on. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

But in terms of the scientific method (which I suspect you may reject) something would be accepted as "true" once an idea has achieved consensus in the scientific community.

As a consequence the burden of proof would fall on (and only on) those would dispute that consensus.

I have the impression that you would simply ignore this consensus and insist that any and every proposition be argued again from first principles. Have I understood your position correctly?--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 12:36, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Maratrean needs to read Wronger than wrong too. His ideas certainly qualify, and his idea that all theories should be treated equally needs to be taken out and shot. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 09:19, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Bob, well, in terms of the scientific method, something which has scientific consensus may well be false. Scientific consensus has been wrong before; it is almost certainly wrong right now in at least some details; and I'm certain it will be wrong again in the future. Scientific consensus is not truth; it often has a significant likelihood of truth, but can nonetheless be false.

I don't agree with a burden of proof - every idea in principle ought to be argued again from first principles. However, I agree that in practice, when one lacks the skill, the time, or the inclination to evaluate an idea from the beginning, then it is rationally acceptable for an individual to rely on someone else who is willing to do so, or even just community consensus. Thus, we don't all need to work out physics from first principles - so long as some people are willing to do so. (In reality, no one even works out all of physics from first principles, although many groups of physicists will be working on the first principles of different aspects of it, while many others focus more on the application). But there is nothing specifically scientific about this principle, it is a general principle of rationality applicable to other fields of thought also: if one is unable to work out something for one's self, it is permissible to rely on experts to do it for you. Yet, from a rational viewpoint, the ideal is everyone

I think it is rational for the mediaeval peasant to accept the truth of Catholic doctrine on the grounds that the village priest told him the theologians at the University of Paris have got it all worked out. Likewise, it is rational for a lay late modern to accept what Paul Davies or Mikio Kaku write in their popular science books. But it would be best in either case to not rely on the opinions of experts, but work out the truth for one's self; however, given the brevity of human life, the limitations of many people's intelligence, education or interest, and the vastness of human knowledge, no one can be an expert at everything, and many people can't be an expert at anything. But that doesn't change the rational ideal.

As to wronger than wrong, I don't agree that term describes me. It is supposed to be like someone saying that "the earth is flat" and the "earth is a perfect sphere" are equally wrong, even though one is much closer to the truth than another (while still not totally correct). But I have never said science can't find some kind of truth, and even approximate that truth more and more closely. I just disagree on what exactly that truth is (i.e. is it actually truth about the distant past? or only really truth about the present and recent past which is mistakenly dressed up to look like truth about the distant past?) By contrast, I think not even wrong is void for vagueness - there seems to be no clear definition of what it actually is, just a lot of vague handwaving and a few random examples with no clear idea of what they really have in common. ("Not even wrong" is not even wrong!) --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:13, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

It is obviously the case that the scientific consensus may be wrong. In many cases it probably is wrong - science is about reiterating itself to remove these errors.

My point is that anybody who wishes to challenge the consensus is obliged to do two things (1) demonstrate it it wrong and (2) suggest a more plausible explanation. Frequently creationists such as yourself seem to be only interested in the first part - trying to show flaws - on the assumption that the second claim "therefore God did it" is true by default.

But that's not the case at all. Those who claim the scientific consensus is wrong are obliged to both demonstrate flaws with current theories and to present better ones.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 14:19, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Right, but as I've mentioned elsewhere on this page, I think many scientists confuse science with metaphysics. The scientific community has consensus about non-scientific matters too. For example, there is a consensus opposed to human experimentation, but that is not a consensus about a scientific theory. If you did a survey of scientists, you'd probably find consensus about a lot of topics which are not scientific (e.g. "rape and murder are wrong", "democracy is worthy of our support", "Hitler was an evil man", "suicide should be discouraged"). Given that the major centres of science are in Western countries, I think you'd conclude that most scientists tend to have somewhat left of centre political views, and you could probably build a case that moderately left-of-centre politics is part of the political consensus of the scientific community. But, the non-scientific consensus of the scientific community does not deserve the same respect as the scientific consensus, since its members have especial expertise in scientific matters, but not in non-scientific matters.

Consider two theories "the Big Bang really happened" and "the Big Bang may or may not have happened, but everything will appear in the present as if it did". These two theories are equivalent in their predictions for the present; there are possible scientific tests that could distinguish them (e.g. time travel), but we can't do those tests now, so there is no scientific reason to choose one over the other. Yet almost all scientists prefer the first theory to the second. Their reasons for doing so aren't scientific, but metaphysical - due to the metaphysical consensus of the scientific community, which is part of the non-scientific consensus of the scientific community. But as I've said, the non-scientific consensus of the scientific community does not deserve any particular respect, because they lack any special expertise in non-scientific matters.

Before you wheel out Ockham's razor, the second theory is actually simpler than the first, in Ockham's original sense, since it posits far less entities. Some modern reformulations, in terms of minimal message length or Kolmogorov complexity, will favour the first theory over the second, but only slightly - since the difference between the two is about a sentence, whereas it will take more than a single sentence to explain what they have in common. So, which theory to choose depends on which formulation of Ockham's razor you adopt, the original or some reformulated one.

But this is the problem with Ockham's razor - it is an idea which seems intuitively to make sense, but faced with different precise formulations of it, it isn't so intuitively clear which one to adopt. How do we rationally justify Ockham's razor? If two people disagree about which formulation of Ockham's razor is the correct one to apply, how do we decide between them? Ockham's razor is an untestable idea based on intuition, so it should be subject to the same doubt you apply to other untestable ideas based on intuition. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 22:56, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

So what? You can make a case for Last Thursdayism and there is no way it can be disproved. But that doesn't make it convincing.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 11:36, 20 April 2011 (UTC)--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 11:36, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the difference is, we have to disbelieve in Last Thursday, for it is necessary to our sanity we disbelieve in it. Whereas, to a more standard version of the omphalos hypothesis, the same constraint applies - we are under no such compulsion to disbelieve an omphalic theory with a more standard timeframe. See also some of my recent discussions with Philiip Rayment on aSK, where I have made the same point (Talk:Creationism) - look for the section starting with I am talking about records in general. For science - and not just science, human reason and society and culture and life more generally - to be possible, there must be reliability, both in human memory, and in external records such as writing, audio or video recordings, computer databases, etc., etc.... in particular. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:52, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

But we don't have to believe in anything which is not apparent. The world has the appearance of age. It could have been created last Thursday, but we have absolutely no reason to believe that it actually was created last Thursday. So it's more reasonable to believe that its age is a real age and not a magical artifact.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 12:18, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

But we don't have to believe in anything which is not apparent. Your wording of that sounds awfully similar to Berkeley's claim esse est percipi. We don't have to believe that the universe is X years old just because someone's unproveable asumptions combined with available observations yield that conclusion. One can accept all of those assumptions - which in themselves say nothing about the age of anything - while rejecting the assumptions necessary to reach that conclusion from those observations.

The world has the appearance of age. - the world has an appearance. It is only if one accepts certain unproveable assumption that that appearance is one of age.

It could have been created last Thursday, but we have absolutely no reason to believe that it actually was created last Thursday. We have good reasons to believe it wasn't created last Thursday - that belief tends to violate presuppositions of human sanity. Whereas, those same presuppositions are not violated by the claim it was created 100,000 years ago.

So it's more reasonable to believe that its age is a real age and not a magical artifact. There is no real reason to accept one set of assumptions more than another, and it is only by those assumptions that you can derive any age, let alone a real one. And this label of magical is just a label you choose to apply to things you don't agree with, without any actual meaning. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 06:49, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

But if you involve enough magic it's no more insane to chose last Thursday than it is to chose 10,000 years. They violate human sanity equally. But yes if you feel that magic is a big element in the world then you can believe what you like I suppose.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 06:59, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Rather than talk about Last Thursdayism, let's talk about Last Secondism, or Last Femtosecondism? For human thought to be possible, the error rate in human memory must be limited. Some error does occur, for sure, but more than a certain amount and human thought becomes impossible. So a limited error rate is a presupposition of human thought - we have to believe in it for any human thought to be possible. Yet Last Secondism contradicts that presupposition, so we have reason to believe that Last Secondism is false.

Whereas, Last-Hundred-Thousand-Yearsism effectively doesn't contradict that presupposition - if LHTYism was true, then human thought is equally possible than if it was false.

Last Thursdayism is I think an intermediate case. I'd argue it also fails as violating presuppositions necessary for human thought - especially when we consider human thought as something that extends over a long period of time, in the form of society and culture and science and literature; although it doesn't violate those presuppositions as severely as Last Secondism does.

As to magic, you haven't given a clear definition of magic. Contrary to your suggestions, I don't think there is anything magical about my views, although it is hard to respond when you haven't clearly explained what you mean. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:21, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I still fail to see why "Last Thursdayism" is somehow more magical than "Last Millenniumism" or whatever. Could you explain? What evidence do you have in favor of the last ten thousand years which could also not work in favor of last Thursday?--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 08:06, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Here is an argument for you:

1. Suppose there are two possible beliefs, A and B, and these are the only choices available
2. Suppose after exhaustive investigation we have found no reason to rationally prefer A over B or vice versa
3. Suppose that if A is true then human life will be much more meaningful then if B were true
4. Then, as long as points 1-3 above continue to hold, we are rationally justified in believing A rather than B
5. With respect to (1), either Last Thursdayism is true or it is false, and there does not seem to be any other alternative than these two
6. With respect to (2), we do not seem to have reasons to prefer one over the other
7. With respect to (3), if Last Thursdayism is false then human life will be much more meaningful than if it is true
8. Hence, by (4), we are justified in disbelieving in Last Thursdayism

Now, I think (4) above is a basic principle of reason. You may well disagree with me on that. But, if we don't agree what the basic principles of reason are, how can we resolve our disagreement? What experiemnt or observation could be performed to determine whose system of rationality is correct?

So, the above argument seeks to demonstrate Last Thurdayism is false. But we can't make the same argument with respect to Last Million Yearism, since (3) does not hold with respect to the truth or falsehood of Last Million Yearism - or, if it does at all, it does so to a greatly reduced extent compared to Last Thursdayism.

Another argument: Why Last Thursday - isn't that choice of day completely arbitrary? Whereas, an idealist omphalism, the choice of day (the day the first mind began to exist in the universe) is nowhere near as arbitrary. You will still think its arbitrary, but arguably it is much less arbitrary than Last Thursday. It may not be in your view a good reason, but at least it is a reason, as opposed to choosing a day randomly out of a hat. So, the argument against arbitrariness works against Last Thursdayism much better than it does against idealist omphalism.

Yet another argument: If Last Thursdayism is true, then we have to keep changing our evaluation about whether our memories are veridical. On Friday, we believe our memories of yesterday are veridical; on Thursday, we cease believing that regarding the Friday that just came by; in fact we repeat this process every Friday. So, if we believe in Last Thursdayism, our evaluation of our memories must keep on changing. And, we would be trapped in unending error - every Friday we must believe the previous day really happened, the following Thursday we must believe we were wrong on Friday - although, we weren't really wrong, we just falsely remember being wrong. Whereas Last Millenialism doesn't require us to keep on changing our evaluation of whether the same memories were real or not, nor does it trap us in a position where we can't help but commit error (at least in terms of our rcollection), no matter how well we follow our own beliefs. This is an argument against Last Thursdayism which doesn't apply to Last Millenialism.

So, I have presented three arguments to distinguish Last Thursdayism from Last Millenialism. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:23, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

With your regard to your first argument, in point one you suggest the possibilities are either last Thursday or some other arbitrary point in the past. In fact one could make the argument using any - or indeed every - day in the past. Given the billions of years in which the world has been in existence the choice is not between two possible days but an almost infinite series of days for the magical creation. Starting with five minutes ago and working back. In point three of your first argument you seem to be suggesting a more "meaningful" will be more likely to be true. I can see no reason why this should be.

In your second argument why should last Thursday be more arbitrary than last Wednesday? Or the fall of the Roman empire?

With regard to your final argument - so what? Anyway, there are two forms of "last Thursdayism". In one the universe is created every Thursday and in the other the universe was created only once - last Thursday. Your argument seems to suggest that it would need some effort on our part to adjust to the constant recreations - but in fact wouldn't even notice them - assuming that we're going with "repetitive last Thursdayisn".

In actual fact, of course, we're looking at billions of years and it's just a comparison between two ways of denying the obvious.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 18:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

With your regard to your first argument, in point one you suggest the possibilities are either last Thursday or some other arbitrary point in the past. In fact one could make the argument using any - or indeed every - day in the past. True. That was an argument against Last Thursdayism specifically, but it could equally be an argument against Last Wednesdayism or Last Yearism or Last Decadeism. What I said, that "With respect to (1), either Last Thursdayism is true or it is false, and there does not seem to be any other alternative than these two", is true, and your invocation of other points doesn't make any difference. Either Last Thursdayism is true, or it is false. Now, if it is false, there are many ways in which it could be false - maybe Last Wednesdayism is true instead, maybe Big Bangism is true instead, maybe idealist omphalism is true instead (universe began to exist when the first mind existed, whenever that was), maybe the universe has existed forever (like steady state theory held, or the Raelians believe). But that doesn't make point (5) of my first argument invalid, they are all different versions of the second alternative (Last Thursdayism false).

I think we can divide omphalisms into types: hyperomphalisms (those who hold the universe magically popped into existence very recently, like last week), standard omphalisms (those who hold the universe magically popped into existence quite a while back, by human standards, at least thousands of years ago), Big Bangist "omphalisms" (those who claim the universe magically popped into existence 13 billion years ago). OK, the last point is not literally an "omphalism", but the point remains, we are dealing here with a group of theories which all claim the universe began X years ago, they just disagree on the value of X. Then, on the other hand there are the believers in an eternal universe, who deny it ever began. Now, here is a reworked argument:

1. Suppose concerning some issue there are two possible n beliefs, A₀ through A_n-1, and these are the only choices available
2. Suppose after exhaustive investigation we have found no reason to rationally prefer A_i over A_j or vice versa, for all 0 <= i,j < n.
3. Suppose we can divide A into two non-empty distinct subsets, A_α and A_β, such that if a statement in set A_α is true then human life will be much more meaningful than if a statement in A_β.
4. Let us call the proposition α the inclusive disjunction of all statements in the set A_α and the proposition β the inclusive disjunction of all statements in the set A^β.
5. Then, as long as points 1-4 above continue to hold, we are rationally justified in believing α rather than β
6. With respect to (1), concerning the age of the universe, we broadly have these choices. Theses seem to be an exhaustive statement of the possibilities, there do not seem to be any others beyond those mentioned:
   • hyperomphalism (such as Last Thursdayism) - the universe began very recently, like 2 minutes ago or last week or last year or last decade - some time within human lifespans and human history
   • standard omphalism - the universe began thousands of years ago, sometime before any living human, or the bulk or all of human history
   • "theory X" (don't have a name) - the universe is significantly older than claimed by standard omphalism, but significantly less than what Big Bang theory says (e.g. universe is 1 billion years old)
   • Big Bang theory - the universe is about 13 billion years old, give or take a bit
   • "theory Y" - the universe is much older than claimed by standard Big Bang theory, while still having a finite age (e.g. universe is 15 trillion years old)
   • eternalism - the universe has no beginning and is infinitely old
   • circularianism - the universe has no beginning but is finitely old, with time being circular.
7. With respect to (2), we don't have any evidence to distinguish these possibilities. In particular, the evidence for Big Bang only works as evidence when some of the other possibilities (like hyperomphalism or standard omphalism) are ruled out of the picture for philosophical reasons, so ruling them back in we don't have any evidence to decide.
8. With respect to (3), if hyperomphalism is true then human life is significantly less meaningful than if some other theory in A were true; whereas, the rest of the theories in A don't seem to make much difference to the meaningfulness of human life. Hence, let us construct A_β = {hyperomphalism}, and then A_α = A \ A_β.
9. So, with respect to (4), proposition β is "Hyperomphalism is true", while proposition α is "Some theory other than hyperomphalism is true, such as standard omphalism, or Big Bangism, or eternalism, or one of the other possibilities mentioned in (6) above".
10. Hence, by (5), we are justified in disbelieving in hyperomphalism, and thus all forms of hyperomphalism (including Last Wednesdayism, Last Thursdayism, Last Hourism, etc.); but this argument doesn't justify us in disbelieving in any other such theory (Big Bangism, or standard omphalism, or so on).

In point three of your first argument you seem to be suggesting a more "meaningful" will be more likely to be true. I can see no reason why this should be. I can see no reason why it shouldn't be. I think we have different theories of rationality. How do we decide whose theory of rationality is right, and whose is wrong? Isn't this problem as hard as the corresponding problem in ethics - trying to decide whose theory of ethics is the right one?

In your second argument why should last Thursday be more arbitrary than last Wednesday? Or the fall of the Roman empire? The question is "Why this particular date rather than another?" And the Last Thursdayist really has no answer. Whereas, the idealist omphalist has an answer - "It is a consequence of the philosophical theory of idealism". And the classical omphalist (as in Gosse) says "It is because the Bible tells me so". Now, you can completely disagree with both those answers. But, they are much more substantial answers than the Last Thursdayist's. So idealist omphalism, or classical biblical omphalism, whether they are right or wrong, they are certainly less arbitrary than Last Thursdayism.

there are two forms of "last Thursdayism" Right, my third argument is only an argument against repetitive last Thursdayism. However, non-repetive "Last Thursdayism" is really misnamed, since its name will only be accurate for a single week out of all time - it would be better named as a date, like "21st April 2011-ism", since that name will be accurate regardless of the time.

Your argument seems to suggest that it would need some effort on our part to adjust to the constant recreations Well, my point is not about the effort we'd require if it were true but we didn't believe it; my point is about the effort required to believe repetitive Last Thursdayism regardless of whether it is true or false. And actually, if one really believed it and it was really true, one would only have been correct in one's belief for a brief period; prior to the initial creation, one would not have existed to have believed it (even if one has false memories of doing so); after one week after creation, one's belief would be false from then onwards. So repetitive Last Thursdayism is a belief which can only be right for one week.

Actually, there are two forms of repetitive Last Thursdayism:

• I always believe that the universe was created (for the first ever time) the preceding Thursday
• I believe that every Thursday the universe is recreated

Now, the first form I am attacking in my third argument; the second form, well it's not really coherent - recreated every Thursday contradicts the usual definition of creation, as causing something which did not exist to come into existence.

I think the constant revision of belief required in repetitive Last Thursdayism (of the first form) would be such mental effort that no one would be capable of actually sustaining belief in this. And I think difficult in believing a position is evidence against the truth of that position - that which is impossible to believe must be false. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 23:34, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. Last Thursdayism, Last decade, last century, ad infinitum, they are all the EXACT SAME PREMISE with one variable changed: the amount of time that has supposedly passed since the supposed creation. You are suggesting, precisely along the lines of the Last X-ism, that reality has been created in such a manner that it APPEARS as though we were looking at an older universe. It is completely irrelevant whether you qualify it by saying that sentience was the catalyst, it's the same idea: the universe is a misleading lie. Why 100,000 years (I believe that's the figure you've proposed, correct me if I'm wrong)? Why not a million? Why not 5 minutes ago? Hell, you can even say that the universe is OLDER than it appears and call it Last Quintillion Years-ism. The point is that there is no way to disprove this because you're suggest that magical means have conspired through whatever agent you wish to claim to deceive us. You are spouting metaphysical nonsense that has no place in empirical science. It might make for a lovely discussion in a philosophy class or material for a novel, but when it comes to what can be observed and independently verified, your proposition is not only irrelevant, it's counterproductive. I can sit around all day and question whether my computer is actually manufactured by Apple or was simply conjured at my desk along with the appropriate memories to fool me, but it doesn't change the fact that within this reality this computer was designed, commissioned, and built by human hands and transfered into my ownership through completely observable and naturalistic means. It's pointless to suggest otherwise unless you can somehow demonstrate that such magical feats (spontaneous generation, adjustment of physical properties to mislead an observer etc.) are possible, and something tells me that neither you or anyone else who shares your views has stepped up to that plate. Saladin (talk) 05:40, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

they are all the EXACT SAME PREMISE with one variable changed: the amount of time that has supposedly passed since the supposed creation - yet you are assuming that it is an irrelevant variable. I have been arguing it is a decisive one.

the universe is a misleading lie - And maybe it is? While most Christians react to the omphalist hypothesis with the comment that "God is good, he would not intentionally deceive us", I think my Goddess sometimes intentionally leads humanity astray, for its own good. Or, my alternative answer: the universe only looks old because you are looking it through glasses tinted with certain assumptions; wearing different assumptions, does it really look so old at all?

Why 100,000 years (I believe that's the figure you've proposed, correct me if I'm wrong)? Why not a million? I don't claim to know exactly how old it is, I have suggested a range of around 10,000 to 10 million years. I think it is nearer to the low end (10,000-100,000) than the high end (1 million - 10 million). I even think it could possibly be just as long as mainstream opinion says (13 billion years old), or even longer (e.g. 130 billion years old), but I think those are less likely possibilities.

As I've said, it comes from the question of when did mind originate? One approach to answering that question is to take a scientific approach - well, then it depends on how one defines mind. Well, no older than the Cambrian explosion (~500 mya), and probably much younger. If we restrict ourselves to human minds, less than a million years; if we include some or all animal minds, it could be longer. I also have another more theological approach to this question, which I won't go in to right here.

The point is that there is no way to disprove this Faced with a claim that can be neither proven nor disproven, what is the more rational response - disbelief, or agnosticism? My belief compares well to your disbelief in the rationality stakes; but the agnostic may well be beating us both. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:39, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

With regards to an unproven claim, the proper skeptical process is to disbelieve until the claim is proven. If there's no evidence, what is the point otherwise? Nothing wrong with looking for evidence, but if it hasn't been demonstrated there's no reason to buy into it. That's why faith, magic and the supernatural have no place in science: no aspect has ever been demonstrated in any meaningful way, therefore they may as well not exist. Our reality has been demonstrated, as well as a method of learning about it. Your hypothesis has not one shred of supporting evidence to suggest that it is remotely possible, and therefore can be safely dismissed unless some new evidence is demonstrated Saladin (talk) 17:16, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, if the proper skeptical process is to disbelieve unproven claims, then neither materialism nor idealism are proven, and they may well be inherently unprovable, so from that perspective we should be agnostic toward them. Materialism has no more evidence for it than idealism. Although I argue for idealism, if I succeed in converting materialists into agnostics with respect to the philosophy of mind, I will feel like I have achieved something. But, whereas to a convinced materialist evolution, Big Bang, etc., seem very certain, to an agnostic about this issue they must seem much less certain - so, an agnostic concerning the philosophy of mind will likely also be an agnostic concerning Big Bang, evolution, etc.

My own strategy is to start by arguing for agnosticism on this issue; then, introduce the idea, that if there is no strong evidence for either side, we can consider weak/merely suggestive evidence, and we can also consider other factors such as pragmatic or ethical considerations. Not everyone is going to agree that doing so is rational (but, hey, we may well have different conceptions of rationality); and even if they accept doing so as rational, others will evaluate the weak/suggestive/pragmatic/ethical considerations differently from I do. Again, I don't expect I can turn even materialist or dualist into an idealist - if I succeed in changing some, my mission is accomplished. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 00:35, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Back to basics

Sadly, thanks to CP and the few crazies out there, I feel that nowadays people just believe whatever they want and spew it out. So lets go back to basics. The world is 4.54 billion years old. That is an undeniable fact. You must believe that. Now, if that is true (which it is) I find it very hard to believe evolution to not have happened. You take a molten earth with many different elements and over time they will start to build proteins, membranes, cells, bacteria.... and boom, now you have the creation of life. Easy. Nothing more, nothing less. Rationalize (talk) 11:11, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I am doubtful whether 4.54 billion years ago existed. In my viewpoint, things only exist when there are minds to observe them; so the universe began existing when the first mind began to observe it. If there were no minds in the universe 4.54 billion years ago to observe it, then in my view the universe didn't exist then. Likewise, evolution before the first mind didn't happen, because there was no universe or time for that evolution to happen in.

The theory that the world is 4.54 billion years old is based on observing present-day rates of change (e.g. radioactive decay), and extrapolating those back into the past. However, it is based on the assumption that time and the universe existed as far back as we are extrapolating. I don't agree that time goes back that far, so the extrapolation is irrelevant to my position.

In really simple terms, I believe in the omphalos hypothesis, except I date the creation of the universe to the origination of the first mind within it, rather than something in the bible.

People will respond "Last Thursdayism!", but my answer is that if we remember the past, it must have existed (even if not always quite as we remember it); but the first mind(s) would not have remembered a past prior to the commencement of their existence, so the same principle does not imply that time existed prior to the origination of the first mind. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:20, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

well, believe what you want, but in reality, the world is 4.54 billion years old. There is no "maybe" or "we cant observe it so we don't really know" nonsense. No. it is 4.54 billion years old. That's that. Rationalize (talk) 20:18, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Maratrean, "In my viewpoint, things only exist when there are minds to observe them" is just stupid. If a tree falls... yeah, it hits the ground. ħuman 03:32, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree. See my analogy in this essay to a work of fiction - asking whether a tree falls if no one sees/hears it is like asking what events happened to a character in a novel that the novelist chose not to write about. Maybe, from what the novelist did write, we can infer certain unwritten events to have happened, so in a sense those events can be said to have happened - although not in the same sense in which those events the novelist wrote about can be said to have happened. But many other questions, there will not be sufficient information to infer an answer with any reasonable likelihood, so we can say those questions have no answer.

Suppose we come across a fallen tree, but no one actually saw or heard it fall. There are many different ways in which it could have fallen, which are all equally compatible with our knowledge - e.g. did it fall in the morning or the afternoon or at night? Coming across a fallen tree, which no one saw fell, you can't necessarily say - maybe using knowledge of past weather or decay processes or so on you can say some times are more likely than others, but as to whether it fell at 9:15 am or at 9:16 am, most likely no one will ever know. Yet you believe that, even though know one will ever know the precise time at which it fell, it nonetheless fell at a precise time. I disagree.

This is analogous to superposition in quantum mechanics - the tree is in a superposition of falling at 9:15 am and falling at 9:16 am and falling at various other times, and since there is never any observation to distinguish those different possibilities, nothing ever breaks that superposition. Now, before anyone shouts "quantum woo!", I am not saying the tree actually is in a quantum mechanical superposition - simply saying that quantum mechanical superposition is an analogy for this sort of superposition which I believe in - idealist superposition. (Whether or not QM superposition and idealist superposition are ultimately the same thing or different things, I don't know and I don't think it really matters - I suspect QM superposition may somehow be a consequence of idealist superposition, but I don't have a strong opinion on that issue.) --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 06:57, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

You started off with simple bullshit, and ended up with quantum woo (oops, I shouted it!). You have no idea what you are talking about, at any level. Nice work. ħuman 08:43, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Rather than responding to any of my points, you just levy vague accusations like bullshit, quantum woo, you have no idea what you are talking about. If you don't have anything useful to say, why bother responding? In particular, I foresaw your invocation of quantum woo, and tried to argue that it wasn't, and you don't even address my arguments it's not, you just say it is with no further elucidation provided.

Actually, quantum woo and Gish gallop are both good examples of how this supposedly rational wiki is often really not that rational at all. You make up a label, you give it some vague definition, and then think that just applying it to someone you disagree with - without even any attempt to consider in detail whether by your own definition of it, it applies to the ideas in question - and think that doing so is somehow a "rational" refutation of the other person's ideas? Hey, other people who think the same way as me are using these made-up labels too! These sort of articles on RationalWiki, and the associated terminology, are really no better than Conservapedia's "Liberal X", "Liberal Y" and "Liberal Z" articles - although I suppose at least this place has somewhat more inventive naming than that place does, not that that amounts to much. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:51, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Nah, you're just full of shit. Seriously. Comparing a tree falling in a forest to a character in a novel???? And you brought the quantum junk in, who cares if you tried to dodge it at the same time? You aren't saying anything clear for me to argue against as far as I can see. ħuman 10:58, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

You think it's shit because your brain is so hardwired to materialist thought, you just can't imagine there are any alternative ways of thinking. As a curative, may I suggest some articles from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: George Berkeley, John M. E. McTaggart. I think if you were willing to expend the effort to develop a serious understanding of idealism as a position in the philosophy of mind, then what I am saying would make much more sense. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:08, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

You have no idea how my brain is "wired" (such a materialist argument you make!). I've read Berkeley, but not McTaggert. I think if you were to expend the effort to explain your position as an idealist it would be easier to discuss it with you. ħuman 11:26, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you've read Berkeley, how do you think he would answer the question - "what sound would a tree make if it fell in a forest if no one was around to hear it?" And how do you think he'd answer the question "Did the universe really exist 1 billion years ago if there were no minds then to observe it as such?" And how do you think my views on the topic differ from, or are similar to, his? --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:31, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

That is not an answer. That is name-dropping sophistry. ħuman 11:36, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Huh? Have you really read Berkeley? His most famous saying is "esse est percipi" ("to be is to be perceived"). So, Berkeley would agree with me, that a tree falling in a forest doesn't really exist if no one observes it falling. Now, where we would differ is, Berkeley would think the tree still existed, even if no human observed it, because an omniscient God is observing everything, and hence maintaining everything in existence. Whereas, although I do believe in a deity, I think she has better things to do than observe random trees falling in random forests. But, let's leave deities out of the picture for now, and imagine an atheist version of George Berkeley.... an atheist Berkeley would agree, that a tree falling in a forest makes no sound, and if there were no sentient beings in the universe billions of years ago, then there would be no universe for them to be in either. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:42, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

This is getting a wee bit too close to "If you weren't around to personally witness it then you can't say that it happened" territory. Minds exist now, and they are able observe the universe in such a way that they can reasonably ascertain things that happened before they were around to observe them. That tree falls in the forest due to gravity, it makes vibrations that we would interpret as noise, and the presence of a sentient observer is completely irrelevant to that being true. Same goes for the universe. It's been around for a very long time, and it would exist whether we were around to see it or not. Existence is completely non-contingent on sentience. We observe properties of the universe that tell us this. If you're set on this solipsistic idea of "doesn't count if no one was there" then you have to admit that your position is completely unprovable, unfalsifiable, and wholly irrelevant. Because if it was true, we'd have no way of knowing it, and it wouldn't change that we can observe properties of the universe within this proposed "fantasy" (or whatever the hell you'd call the proposed solipsist universe) that tell us much more interesting things than "magic did it". Saladin (talk) 06:18, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

(EC) This is getting a wee bit too close to "If you weren't around to personally witness it then you can't say that it happened" territory. Well, a more accurate statement is if no one was around to personally witness it then you can't say that it happened. I'm not arguing for solipsism - I believe solipsism is false.

Minds exist now, and they are able observe the universe in such a way that they can reasonably ascertain things that happened before they were around to observe them. They can only reasonably ascertain those things based on unproveable assumptions, such as the assumption that idealism is false.

the presence of a sentient observer is completely irrelevant to that being true Only if you accept unproveable non-idealist assumptions.

it would exist whether we were around to see it or not - that is an unverifiable and unfalsifiable statement.

Existence is completely non-contingent on sentience. Application of unproven and unproveable non-idealist assumptions.

We observe properties of the universe that tell us this. No, we don't observe any such properties. You are confusing your interpretation of those observations, based on your unproven and unproveable non-idealist assumptions, with the observations themselves.

If you're set on this solipsistic idea of "doesn't count if no one was there" It's not a solispsistic idea. A solipsistic idea would be "doesn't count if I wasn't there".

then you have to admit that your position is completely unprovable, unfalsifiable, and wholly irrelevant My position is just as unprovable as yours and just as unfalsifiable yours. If my position is irrelevant, yours is equally so.

Because if it was true, we'd have no way of knowing it The same statement applies to your materialist position as well. If we can't know idealism is true, we can't know it's false either. And if we can't know whether idealism is true or false, then we can't know whether materialism is true or false either.

it wouldn't change that we can observe properties of the universe within this proposed "fantasy" - Where have I said that the universe is a fantasy? I never said any such thing. We both agree that this universe is very real, we just disagree about its nature - whether that nature be fundamentally material or mental - you think matter is the fundamental stuff of the universe, and mind is just a product of matter; I think mind is the fundamental stuff of the universe, and matter is just a product of mind. Of course we can observe properties of the universe, but we differ on the fundamental nature of those properties - you think they are fundamentally material, I think they are fundamentally mental.

or whatever the hell you'd call the proposed solipsist universe As I've said, I'm not a solipsist - I believe in the existence of minds other than my own.

that tell us much more interesting things than "magic did it" What is magic? I never said anything about magic. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:11, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘To add even more to Saladin's point, we can't ever be certain that other minds themselves exist nor that our minds existed prior to the very moment we live in and every single memory we have is mysteriously implanted at every second of our existence (i.e., Descartes' demon repeated infinitely). We also can never be certain that angels aren't actually behind gravitational forces or that the Auditors of Reality are actually controlling all physical interactions. I can't see how this position doesn't logically extend to "nothing exists beyond your own mind at the exact present time" (Last Secondism?). There's no way to disprove that this is the case, but the scientific method, even if it doesn't actually "describe" reality, at least gives us a predictable way to manipulate our environment. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 06:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

we can't ever be certain that other minds themselves exist. Proof by contradiction: Descartes' I think therefore I am.

Descartes' demon repeated infinitely As I argue above, if that is so then human thought is impossible and human life is totally meaningless. So, the belief that such a claim is false is a necessary presupposition of human thought and human life - we have no choice to believe it - regardless of whether we can rationally justify that belief. However, faced with a belief which we have no choice but to believe, it is better to choose a standard of rationality which declares that belief rationally justified, than one which insists it is not. Hence, I would argue, we are rationally justified to believe that any necessary presupposition of human thought and human life is true. I see that as a basic principle of rationality, which can't be and doesn't need to be justified in terms of any other principle - a basic belief.

As I have argued, we have reason to reject Last Secondism and Last Thursdayism for violating the necessary presuppositions of human thought and human life; but we have no evidence that Last-Hundred-Thousand-Yearism violates those presuppositions in the same way.

We also can never be certain that angels aren't actually behind gravitational forces Well, so long as those angels obey the laws of gravitation, who can say whether there are such angels or not, and it scarcely matters whether they exist or not. Let me declare myself an agnostic with respect to their existence.

but the scientific method, even if it doesn't actually "describe" reality, at least gives us a predictable way to manipulate our environment I have no disagreement with the scientific method - just materialist applications of it. I completely agree with all the predictions of mainstream science about the present, the recent past and the near future. I don't accept its predictions about the distant past or the distant future, but that rejection lacks practical relevance - although likewise, the acceptance of those claims lacks practical relevance too. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:32, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

You keep saying that materialistic application of science is unproven, that it's based on assumptions we can't prove, but you are failing to acknowledge that these methods, these ideas, these facts that you're protesting have been subjected to the strictest scrutiny within what we perceive as reality. Beyond that, it's irrelevant. You can say "it hasn't been disproved/proved" all you want but it doesn't change that we have an objective reality in this very moment, and that reality currently reveals that this universe is 4.54 billion years old, and we've only been around for a cosmic blink of an eye to the universe's grand indifference. If we apply your model of acceptance until something is conclusively disproven, then we are crippled by infinite hypothetical possibilities (Neb elaborated on this quite well, thanks mate) that we can't rule out in favor of what we directly observe. Our assumptions are justified because they line up with what we observe and predict here and now and hold up to scrutiny. You are in fact suggesting magic is involved because you are proposing that sentient minds possess a power that not only has never been demonstrated, but in fact would contradict all known laws of nature (poofing existence into existence by thinking or however you wish to phrase it). Saladin (talk) 07:47, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

You keep saying that materialistic application of science is unproven... but you are failing to acknowledge that these methods, these ideas, these facts that you're protesting have been subjected to the strictest scrutiny within what we perceive as reality The materialistic application has been subjected to very little scrutiny, and is basically taken as a given. You are confusing scientific theories with a materialist interpretation of them, despite the fact those same theories, insofar as they concern the present or the recent past or the recent future, work equally in an idealist framework of interpretation. Insofar as they concern the distant past or distant future, without in doing so also concerning the near present, they are incompatible with an idealist framework, but are also untestable (baring time travel); insofar as they concern both the distant past/future and the near present, there is another equivalent theory which makes the same claims regarding the near present but no claims concerning the distant past/future.

that we have an objective reality in this very moment I agree we have an objective reality in this moment, I just disagree with you concerning its nature.

that reality currently reveals that this universe is 4.54 billion years old objective reality doesn't reveal that, only a common but unproven interpretation of that reality does so

and we've only been around for a cosmic blink of an eye to the universe's grand indifference again, that is a reflection of unprovable materialist assumptions, rather than any fact about reality knowable independent of those assumptions. From an idealist perspective, the universe is a collective product of our minds - it is not other than the sum of all minds - so appelations such as grand indifference don't make much sense.

If we apply your model of acceptance until something is conclusively disproven, then we are crippled by infinite hypothetical possibilities No, my model is, where there is a lack of evidence either way, we should begin with a position of agnosticism. There is very much a lack of evidence to distinguish materialism and idealism, so our starting position should be one of agnosticism with respect to them

Our assumptions are justified because they line up with what we observe Your assumptions are independent of what you observe; they only line up with your observations because you interpret those observations in terms of them. Your argument is circular.

and predict here and now and hold up to scrutiny materialist assumptions make no testable predictions concering the hear and now which idealist assumptions do not. So what scrutiny can you perform to distinguish them?

You are in fact suggesting magic is involved because you are proposing that sentient minds possess a power that not only has never been demonstrated, but in fact would contradict all known laws of nature (poofing existence into existence by thinking or however you wish to phrase it). No, I don't believe that. Reality is a product of our own minds, but that doesn't mean we can magically make reality be whatever we want, because we lack total control over own minds. We have only a limited power over our own thoughts, feelings, beliefs, desires, etc. So, we have only a limited power over our own mind. And the external world is a collective product of everyone's minds, but just as we have only limited power over our own minds, so do we also only have limited power over external reality. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:56, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

"we can't ever be certain that other minds themselves exist. Proof by contradiction: Descartes' I think therefore I am." Um, no. All dear Rene proved to himself was that he existed in some fashion. And Saladin, I think the word you were looking for was solipsism. Solipsism is a very "smart" and incredibly empty position. You can win every argument from it, but never contribute anything useful. ħuman 08:03, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you are right about that, I misread what was written as "we can't ever be certain that minds themselves exist". Descartes' argument is sufficient to prove at least one mind exists, but is not by itself sufficient to prove the existence of more than one.

But I disagree with the part we can't ever be certain - there is a scenario in which we could know that other minds exist - suppose somehow two minds could merge into one, and two people could become one person. If A and B merge minds, then A comes to know that B exists and vice versa - now we have converted the problem of knowledge of other minds into a problem of knowledge of one's own past existence. So, there is a possible scenario in which the existence of other minds would be as certain the past existence of our own mind - the scenario in which our mind and other minds have ceased to be separate and distinct minds, but have become one mind, one mind however which remembers its previously separate existences.

Now, can we be certain about knowledge of our own past? Well, as I have argued above, belief in one's own past is necessary - one can't help but believe it - anyone who seriously doesn't believe it will very soon find themselves in the mental hospital - and even the vast majority of the people in there belief it. People can and do believe in all sorts of crazy things; but there are some things which no one actually believes, and it is not actually possible for anyone to disbelieve - I would argue that existence of our own past, and the existence of other minds too, falls into this category - and, that which must be believed, is rational to believe, and must be true. This is the rational analogue of the ethical principle of Ought implies can - rationality does not demand the impossible of our beliefs.

By contrast, one can be a non-solipsistic idealist, or deny the universe existed 100 million years ago, without rendering human life and human thought impossible. So, the same rational principle which justifies our disbelief in solipsism does not justify belief or disbelief in non-solipsistic idealism, or in materialism, or in the existence of the universe long before our own lives, and those of anyone we have ever known - quite possibly long enough ago as to be before anyone existed. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:42, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Your A and B thing is just silly. Then you pretty much argue for how science works - we accept a common reality and trust our memories and records to be "real". And the records left by, well, fucking "reality". ħuman 10:57, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's silly, it is a common practice in the philosophy of mind to consider hypotheticals of questionable possibility (as in, we have no clue how to achieve that now, and it is an open question whether we will ever be able to.) Try reading a book like Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons, or another similar book. If you don't have time to read his book, well I have summarised one of its examples on the page Personal identity.

Then you pretty much argue for how science works - yes, exactly these presuppositions of human life and human thought are presuppositions of science true. You are ignoring the point, which is the question of how can these presuppositions be rationally justified.

And the records left by, well, fucking "reality" You are suggesting I somehow don't believe in reality, when I definitely do, I just disagree with you concerning its ultimate nature. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:05, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Back to basics... again

Really, the world is 4.54 billion years old. Just read the Wikipedia article and deal with the actual science that we all know before we make opinions/beliefs about what we want to be true. Rationalize (talk) 01:47, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Try to understand the difference between idealism and materialism. An expert's opinions only deserve respect in the area of their expertise; most scientists are not experts in metaphysics, so their metaphysical opinions (however much they try to dress them up in scientific garb) are worthy of no more respect than anyone else's. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:34, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

So I gotta ask, lolling all the while, "what do you know?" ħuman 08:04, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I do understand the difference between idealism and materialism, which is a topic concerning which many scientists seem to have a poor or totally lacking understanding. I'm not putting myself forward as an expert in the field of metaphysics, but I know more about the topic than many expert physicists or biologists or astronomers or chemists or geologists or palaentologists or whatnot, although my knowledge would be less than that of many professional philosophers. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:59, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

So your argument against "Last Secondism" is simply an argument from final consequences? You also can't disprove solipsism by saying it's conceivable to combine two minds -- you would have to actually experience your own mind merging with another one. Otherwise, it could just be part of the Big Lie those robots/CGI simulations/whatever have been feeding you. All this argument is really is just "How do you know? Were you there?" applied to all humans instead of one. And what about animals? Why don't they count as observers? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 19:28, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

So your argument against "Last Secondism" is simply an argument from final consequences? Well, if you want to look at it that way, yes. I would say a major aspect of my arguments against Last Thursdayism (or hyperomphalisms more generally) and solipsism is an appeal to consequence. I know many think such an appeal is necessarily fallacious, but I don't agree; I think there is a distinction in severity between consequences. With milder consequences, I agree it is fallacious, but I think with very severe consequences it ceases to be so. Severe like solipsism. I also think there is a matter of what other evidence we have, and are likely to obtain. An argument from adverse consequences is going to be fallacious when we already have other evidence pointing the other way; or where we lack evidence, but may well get some in the future. But, considering an issue where (1) we have no other evidence to decide, (2) we are unlikely to get any further evidence, and (3) the consequences of one viewpoint being true are very severe, then I think an argument from adverse consequences is actually non-fallacious.

You also can't disprove solipsism by saying it's conceivable to combine two minds -- you would have to actually experience your own mind merging with another one. Right, I am not saying I have disproved solipsism this way, or that anyone else has. Simply, it is conceivable someone might be able to do this, and if they did they would have in their posession an argument against solipsism. So, this is not a point against solipsism, but it is a point against the claim "we can't ever be certain that other minds themselves exist" - if mind merger is possible (and I'd say we don't know how to do it now, but we have no clue as to whether one day, decades or centuries or millennia away, we will), then the claim we won't ever be able to get evidence against solipsism is false.

And what about animals? Why don't they count as observers? Well, I think some higher animals may have minds, so they may count as observers too. But I think its pretty clear plants and bacteria don't, and I think some animals (like flies), while they may have a "mind", it is so primitive it doesn't even count. I think a dog has a mind, and it counts as an observer; a cockroach, tree, bacterium, virus, these don't have minds, and don't count as observers; other animals in between the cockroach and the dog, I guess it will vary depending on which end they are nearer, and other factors.

So, from the viewpoint of the idealist argument against evolution - if some non-humans animals count as mind, then the universe didn't begin with the appearance of the first human, but with the appearance of the first non-human animal with a sufficiently developed mind. So this could make the beginning of the universe much earlier than just counting humans, but still billions of years shorter than materialist views claim. For example, animals are said to have originated in the Cambrian explosion, about 500 million years ago - so this view would then imply the universe is at most 500 million years old.

Now, if there is alien life, it could be even older. Maybe somewhere out there, there is an alien civilization which is two billion years old. If so, that would imply the universe is at least two billion years old. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 22:20, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

1. Why do the consequences have to be bad? I think Last Thursdayism and Last Secondism would be quite compatible with, say, Buddhist conception of time, ego, suffering, etc. 2. Currently, no evidence can definitively disprove solipsism. You can speculate about technology that will allow us to do just about anything, but it's irrelevant to current standards of evidence. There is evidence against solipsism, but no definitive disproof of it. 3. Ironically, you're using a materialist argument against materialism. Why do only certain animals have minds? You're assuming that a mind requires a brain, i.e., materialism. Why can't we have disembodied minds floating around everywhere? 4. You still fail to answer my central question, i.e., how is this different than "How do you know? Were you there?" If you cannot conclusively disprove solipsism, there is still the chance that these other minds don't exist, and we're back to "How do you know, were you there?" since your (my?) mind is the only one that exists and everyone else is just a p-zombie. Furthermore, from a scientific basis, we know that memory isn't always reliable. So even "being there" isn't definitive proof something happened either. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:42, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

1. Why do the consequences have to be bad? Well, let me put it this way - suppose my mother died two weeks ago, and Last Thursdayism is true - then my mother never actually existed, her entire life was just a false memory. Suppose instead of my mother it was my wife, the love of my life - well, she never really existed either. Suppose I am 99 years old, and have lived a long life with many great accomplishments - well, if Last Thursdayism is true, then most of that life is fake, and none of my accomplishments were real either. That is why I think Last Thursdayism has negative consequences for the meaningfulness of human life.

I think Last Thursdayism and Last Secondism would be quite compatible with, say, Buddhist conception of time, ego, suffering, etc. I will grant that you could make such a case from a Buddhist perspective. I do have a number of criticisms of the Buddhist position, but let's save that for another day.

Currently, no evidence can definitively disprove solipsism Yes, agreed. That is why, as I said, my argument from the possibility of mind merger is not (at present) an argument against solipsism, it's an argument against the position that there is no possible evidence that could ever disprove solipsism. There is such possible evidence, albeit we don't have any of it right now, and who knows if we ever shall.

3. Ironically, you're using a materialist argument against materialism. Why do only certain animals have minds? You're assuming that a mind requires a brain, i.e., materialism. Why can't we have disembodied minds floating around everywhere? As an idealist I have no problem with the idea that minds are closely associated with brains. I don't think they have to be, a disembodied mind floating around is certainly possible. But, the laws of this universe seem to be that minds and brains are associated; assuming those laws also applied in the past, we'd date the origin of mind, and hence the origin of the universe itself, to the origin of (sufficiently developed) brain. Now, certainly those laws might not have held in the past, or they may permit exceptions we don't know about.

If you cannot conclusively disprove solipsism, there is still the chance that these other minds don't exist Well, I adopt rules of rationality, laws of logic, as follows: (1) if the consequences of X being true are sufficiently bad, and we have no evidence to decide if X is true or false, and are not likely to get any more evidence any time soon, then we are rationally justified in believing X is false, and (2) if something is impossible for sane human beings to believe, it must be false. Applying those two rules, we get that solipsism is false. Now, I am sure you will reject that they are rules of rationality or laws of logic. But my rationality and logic are different from yours. Whose is right? Well, how does one even begin to determine whose system of rationality/logic is the correct one?

from a scientific basis, we know that memory isn't always reliable - we don't need science to tell us our memories can be mistaken. Everyday life experience tells us the same thing. But, it is a necessary presupposition of human life and human thought and human reason being even possible, and hence a necessary presupposition of science (since science relies on these things for its existence), that our memory is generally reliable. General reliability doesn't exclude sometimes making mistakes, but it means our memory must be more often right than wrong. Science can't prove our memory is generally reliable, since science is only possible given an assumption of general reliability of human memory, and if that assumption is false then all scientific conclusions are invalid - so attempting to use science to prove the general reliability of our memory is a form of circular reasoning or begging the question. Rather, the general reliability of memory is a consequence of basic principles of rationality, or a basic principle of rationality itself (a law of logic), something neither needing proof, nor being capable of being proven. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 02:48, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘All right, so you've basically conceded a good deal of my argument. You admit that solipsism cannot be definitively disproven. But you give no reason as to why minds may or may not be the product of material brains. The argument is internally inconsistent even within your idealist paradigm you admit the possibility of a disembodied mind, which would then allow the universe to be as old as we want (hey, you can't disprove my universe creating disembodied mind). Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:58, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

You admit that solipsism cannot be definitively disproven I think it depends on what one accepts as proof and what one does not, and how one judges how definite a purported proof is. By my theory of rationality, my argument from adverse consequences is disproof, and very definitive disproof at that. By your theory of rationality, my argument is either not disproof at all, or at best very weak disproof. Whose theory of rationality is correct? How does one decide between competing theories of rationality?

you give no reason as to why minds may or may not be the product of material brains. Given materialist assumptions, minds are the product of material brains. Given idealist assumptions, material brains are the product of immaterial minds. I adopt the idealist position. Do I have evidence for my idealist position? - well, no less than materialists have for theirs.

The argument is internally inconsistent even within your idealist paradigm you admit the possibility of a disembodied mind, which would then allow the universe to be as old as we want This is Bishop Berkeley's argument - the universe existed before there were any minds within it to observe it, because there was a mind outside it (God's) observing it. I don't agree with Berkeley's argument (I agree with him about the God bit, I just think God has better things to do). But, if you are going to adopt his position, I don't have that strong arguments against it. If you are willing to invoke God to save you, I will not too strongly object. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:27, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

You sound like someone who has just taken a 200 level philosophy paper and wants to tell everyone about it. Damo^Hi 04:36, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

ħuman 06:01, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I have studied philosophy at university, but it was over 10 years ago now. Sometimes I wish I had have become a philosophy academic, instead of jumping on the IT gravy train.... I'd have been poorer, but maybe I'd have been happier too. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:27, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

So did I, although 30 years ago. I forgot to keep my prostitute ears out for the gravy train, and have been mostly poorer. But, despite stress factors and ups and down of life, I have been generally happy. I think, ignoring the work of professional philosophers for a moment, a tendency towards happiness is the best "philosophy". Luck of the draw, basically. ħuman 06:45, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

New basics

So the world or universe only "starts to exist" when there is a conscious mind to observe it. Please describe - briefly - how these two things came to happen (the existence of a conscious observer, and everything else). In five sentences or less. I can't get my head around how this supposedly occurred. ħuman 04:22, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

How did these things come to happen? That is like asking what caused the Big Bang. I suppose if you believe in God, you'll say Goddit (or Goddessdidit, in my case). Or, if you are an atheist, you'll say "It's just so." You believe in a materialist universe which began with the Big Bang; I believe in an idealist universe which began when conscious minds began to exist. The question of what, if any, caused the universe to begin to exist, is the same in either case. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:54, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I think you'll find more atheists that say "we don't know yet" with regards to the Big Bang (which evidence points to being an EXPANSION of matter, not a creation). Anything more than that is an argument from ignorance. That's the key difference, we're comfortable with uncertainty. We don't need to conjure up magical solutions to come to grips with the unknown. You have not demonstrated one aspect of your entire premise to be accurate or reliable, and simply repeating that materialistic assumptions and empiricism are unprovable is just plain wrong, and may as well amount to someone saying "nuh uh!" in response to a claim. We've got evidence, we've got observations, and most importantly we have no reason whatsoever to question their validity. When subjected to scrutiny, no problem in the history of mankind has ever reached the conclusion that magic, metaphysical forces, or whatever you wish to label your proposed mechanism of creation and deception was the answer. You only have the fragile claim that lack of a disproof is equally valid as a proof, which is clearly not the case in reality. Sorry. Saladin (talk) 05:48, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Wow, M, that wasn't even an answer. You're welcome to try again. Which came first, the physical universe or the conscious minds, again? ħuman 05:59, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm interested to know how this works as well, since Maratrean seems to subscribe to the materialist notion of minds requiring a brain to exist. But if physical matter is required for the existence of minds and minds create the universe...YOUR HEAD ASPLODE!! Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 06:08, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Maratrean seems to subscribe to the materialist notion of minds requiring a brain to exist - the habits of this universe seem to be that, pre-mortem, a mind requires a biological brain to exist (although I wouldn't exclude a sufficiently advanced AI could substitute for a biological brain.) So, I don't think a brain is absolutely necessary for a mind, just it seems to be in this universe (in other universes, or post mortem, there may well not be such things as brains). All things being equal, I would date the origin of this universe to the origin of the first sufficiently advanced brain within it.

Which came first, the physical universe or the conscious minds, again? They both came at the same time.

Saladin, I'm not too fussed with where the universe came from. I do believe that "Goddessdidit", but I don't subscribe to any form of cosmological argument - just as atheists tend to assume the Big Bang, "just happened", I'm happy with the conclusion the universe "just happened". It is just a disagreement about exactly what and when it was that just happened happened. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:16, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

You're happy with the conclusion, which is all fine and dandy, but that doesn't change the fact that you have no evidence to support that conclusion. There is however, a multitude of evidence to suggest that the universe would chug along just fine without sentient minds in it, and in fact has done just that (as far as we know, barring the discovery of an older sentient civilization) for about 13.749999 billion years. As far as I know there has been no test to indicate that the human mind emits some kind of reality creating wizard dust by virtue of its existence. God, Goddess, Goat, whatever you want to call it is nothing more than a idea if you have no evidence to prove them. Every single point you've made on this page is meaningless because you haven't proved your central premise that the supernatural, metaphysical, or divine exist. Everything you've proposed is contingent on that premise, yet it remains unconfirmed. Saladin (talk) 07:49, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

you have no evidence to support that conclusion I know you think you have evidence for the contrary conclusion, but I don't agree with you.

There is however, a multitude of evidence to suggest that the universe would chug along just fine without sentient minds in it An untestable claim. Tell me, how do you propose to test the claim that the universe would still exist without without any sentient minds in it? This is by its very nature an unverifiable and unfalsifiable claim. And, to borrow a question from the logicial positivist catechism, if a claim is neither verifiable nor falsifiable, is it even meaningful?

As far as I know there has been no test to indicate that the human mind emits some kind of reality creating wizard dust by virtue of its existence I never made any such claim; what you are presenting is a poor caricature of my own views.

God, Goddess, Goat, whatever you want to call it is nothing more than a idea if you have no evidence to prove them. You have no evidence for your central claim that the material universe exists independently of the human mind either.

Everything you've proposed is contingent on that premise, yet it remains unconfirmed. And your contrary premise, that the material universe would still exist even if there were no minds to observe it, remains likewise unconfirmed, and is indeed unconfirmable. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:59, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

We're obviously dealing with a second-year philosophy major, as someone else pointed out. She'll get over it when she has to find a job. Supermarkets are notoriously known for not allowing bad syllogisms to pay for food. ħuman 09:16, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I did study philosophy at university, as I mentioned above, but I haven't been at uni for several years now. Actually, for the last few years, I have been working for a computer software company, in the rather boring field of Sarbanes-Oxley/HIPPA/etc auditing. Unlike philosophy it is rather boring, but unlike philosophy it pays well. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 09:33, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Your major and career choice are your business, I certainly don't want this getting personal. I'll admit that I was injecting some snark into my "wizard dust" hypothesis (and I am sincere when I say that any snark is just snark, and I never intend any personal offence beyond the discussion itself), but my underlying point remains: there is no test, no evidence, no observation that has indicate that the collective human mind possesses the power to create reality (I understand that you think this only happened once). There are no detectable signals emitted that would achieve such an end, nor are there any indications that reality is "maintained" by human minds. Might I ask what you think would happen if every conscious mind were to suddenly be eradicated? Let's say Earth hosts the only intelligent life in the universe and a premature supernova wipes us out tomorrow. What do you think would happen? Would the universe stop existing just because we're not there to see it, barring some kind of afterlife? Saladin (talk) 21:12, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Ideas should be judged on their own merits, not on the basis of who proposed them. So I don't think details of personal life are relevant to this, but since other editors have started speculating on that topic, I felt the need to counter their speculations. Snark can be fun, but if our objective is to discover the truth, whatever that truth may be, snark does not contribute that much.

Referring to the creation of the universe by mind, you say "I understand that you think this only happened once". Well, I think at every moment the universe depends on mind for its continued existence. So, the commencement of its observation by mind is the commencement of its existence, and the cessation of its observation by mind is the cessation of its existence. So, yes, if Earth contains the only intelligent life in the universe, and assuming there are no extrauniversal minds observing this universe (e.g. God or dead people), then if we were wiped out tomorrow, in the same moment in which the last human (or maybe higher animal) died, the universe would cease to exist.

You ask for evidence that the mind is somehow emitting signals that maintain the universe. I don't believe in any such "signals". As I have stated, it is a fundamental choice of how you interpret reality - does mind depend on matter (materialism) or does matter depend on mind (idealism)? There are no practicable tests which can distinguish between the two scenarios. You can say that therefore idealism is unverifiable and unfalsifiable; but then, the same objection applies to materialism too. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 00:27, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

It really doesn't. You could falsify materialism if you were somehow able to demonstrate that something outside of the material universe actually existed. Materialism by its nature is the observation of reality. This reality. The only one we are aware of, and interact with literally every moment of every day. The material is right in front of you, and no amont of philosphical speculation will change that. If you drop a hammer on your hand, it will still cause you pain whether you're aware of the hammer or not, because the physical world is indifferent to your mind. Yes, I can't observe the universe absent a mind to confirm this with 100% certainty, but you know what, I don't need to! Plenty of evidence in the here and now that contradicts any kind of connection between the mind and the existence of reality. You are relying on an argument from ignorance to give credence to your claim simply because there is no possible way to disprove it conclusively. Even if this were all conjured, it wouldn't matter because it's a conjuration that we can interact with in such a way that it still mimics a material world i.e. our reality can still be tested and observed with a great degree of accuracy. So I say again, your claim is unproven, unsupported, unfalsfifiable and most importantly it would be absolutely irrelevant even if it were completely true because the deception is predictable and observable as the current materialistic universe. So what's the point of this proposal? There's no predictive utility to be had, so this is essentially one long statement of faith. Saladin 01:14, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I also have a quick side question...what exactly do you mean when you claim to be a "protoprophet"? Does that mean you see yourself as some kind of precursor to an actual prophet? Just curious Saladin 03:37, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

"Ideas should be judged on their own merits" indeed, I apologize for getting personal. Your ideas as you present them have been completely undefended, and you haven't even answered my simple question yet. (Unless "I don't care" was your answer.) ħuman 04:38, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, Saladin, you say "You could falsify materialism if you were somehow able to demonstrate that something outside of the material universe actually existed. Materialism by its nature is the observation of reality". Well, this is how I define materialism - both materialism and idealism are answers to the question "What is the fundamental nature of this reality in which we exist?". And there are three answers:

• materialism: the fundamental stuff of this reality is matter - mind is a product of matter, but matter is not a product of mind. Mind depends on matter for its existence, but matter does not depend on mind (or anything else) for its existence
• idealism: the fundamental stuff of this reality is mind - matter is a product of mind, but mind is not a product of matter. Matter depends on mind for its existence, but mind does not matter (or anything else) for its existence
• dualism: both matter and mind are fundamental and each exists independently of the other - neither can be reduced to the other - yet somehow the two interact

These are the three main views. I adhere to idealism. You, I take it adhere to materialism. So by saying "Materialism by its nature is the observation of reality", you are actually begging the question.

To take your example of the hammer dropping on my hand - we both agree the hammer exists, we just disagree about what the hammer actually is. To you, the hammer is a material object, which could still exist even if all minds in the universe ceased to exist tomorrow. To me, the hammer is a pattern in the experiences (visual, tactile, aural, painful) in my mind and the minds of others. If our minds ceased to exist - well, then the question of whether the hammer still existed or not would be empty - like asking what comes after the end of a novel when the late author never ever thought of writing a sequel.

You say "Plenty of evidence in the here and now that contradicts any kind of connection between the mind and the existence of reality." Well, I don't agree. I think a lot of evidence seems to say that to you, but maybe that is just begging the question? If you interpret the world through materialist assumptions, your observations of the world will appear to confirm materialism, but all they actually confirm is that those are the assumptions you adopted.

You can object that idealism is unprovable. I agree, in the sense there is no test or observation one could perform in this life to determine its truth or falsehood. But, if idealism is unprovable, then materialism is equally so. There is one major difference - if materialism is true, a life after death is rather unlikely (although perhaps not completely impossible). If idealism is true, then a life after death is much more likely. Likewise, in a materialist worldview, the concept of 'God(s)' or 'Goddess(es)' doesn't make a lot of sense (again, perhaps not completely no sense, but not a lot); whereas in an idealist worldview, the concept of 'God(s)' or 'Goddess(es)' makes much more sense. So, basically a materialist worldview makes religion rather unlikely to be true, an idealist worldview implies it is more likely to be so. And, I think that inevitably will have practical consequences, since one's attitude towards religion will make a difference to how one lives one's life, at least to some degree.

And Saladin, you have guessed correctly about the "protoprophet" title. It means, I don't see myself as being an actual full-blown prophet as of yet, just a potential one - I may become one in the future, although then again I might not. I actually think anyone could potentially be a prophet, so protoprophet is really a title free to anyone to claim - you could be a protoprophet too, if you think of yourself as potentially being a prophet. On the other hand, if prophecy is a meaningless concept in your worldview (e.g. if you are an atheist), then you can't be a protoprophet, because how can you believe you are a potential prophet if you don't believe prophecy exists?

Human, I'm afraid I can't give you the kind of answer you are looking for. You want me to explain how an idealist universe comes into existence in terms that would make sense to a materialist. The two sets of assumptions are so fundamentally contradictory, it's impossible to. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:10, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

How about in a way that would make sense to "anyone"? I have an imagination, you know. ħuman 06:36, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I think I have already explained it in a way which would have made sense to, say, George Berkeley. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:08, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

None of your arguments are falsifiable

None of your arguments are falsifiable... the whole world could be a figment of my imagination, however I can't prove that is the case, and you can't prove it is not the case. Much like the various interpretations of Quantum Mechanics, what one believes is going on "under the hood" is irrelevant, all that matters is what works. If you want to make metaphysical arguments about the state of reality, and that some realities preclude the existence of evolution, that's fine. But it's simply philosophy, and attacks much more of our reality than anything else. For instance, I think about my mom, I know my mom, and I was born from my mom, she can even recount when I was a young child. However, under Last Tuesdayism I haven't even actually ever met my mother, all my memories of meeting her every week on Monday for the past few months, and all the child rearing that I had are counter-factual, because the universe was created last Tuesday. Thus, there is an argument against human propagation of their species.

So, the question is: what do you intend to accomplish arguing unfalsifiable metaphysics? Because there is no practical benefit... the universe will continue working as it does regardless of your unprovable theories... --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 12:00, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, my arguments are unfalsifiable, but to the extent they are, the contrary position is unfalsifiable too.

Evolution theory, and other scientific theories about the distant past, rely for their justification on (1) certain empirical evidences (2) certain metaphysical assumptions. (1) is falsifiable/verifiable, but it seems (2) is unfalsifiable and unverifiable. So, my denial of evolutionary theory - being a denial of (2) - is unfalsifiable and unverifiable, but it is fundamentally no more unfalsifiable or unverififable than evolutionary theory itself is.

You can argue my beliefs are irrelevant to the present - but equally, belief in the literal truth of evolution is also irrelevant to the present. I admit evolutionary thinking can be useful in developing advances in the biological sciences, but there are two interpretations of evolution (1) "evolution is literally true" and (2) "evolution is literally false yet nonetheless a useful myth". Both (1) and (2) work equally well for advancing the biological sciences, so one can argue that deciding between them is just "looking under the hood" and hence is irrelevant. So your argument against my position that (2) works just as well as an argument against your position that (1).

I agree there is maybe nothing facially impossible about Last Tuesdayism. However, I believe that since the Goddess creates universes to fulfill desire, if Last Tuesdayism were true we'd truly desire (if we knew) that it were false; and thus the Goddess would create a universe for us in which it was false. But actually, that universe would be exactly the same as ours from last Tuesday onwards, and would only differ beforehand between being a universe and not being one. From an idealist perspective, that wouldn't really be a different universe from this one, so the end result is that if Last Tuesdayism were true, the Goddess would cause it to be false - if it's false it's false, and if it's true it's false, hence it's false. Of course, this whole argument relies on acceptance of my idea that there is a Goddess who creates universes to fulfill desire, which is something I believe on the basis of faith. (And I defend faith as legitimate, but I'm not going to do so here, since that would take us too far afield from the topic of this essay.) My point is simply, that even though sceptical hypothesises like solipsism or hyperomphalism (Last Tuesdayism/Thursdayism/etc.) are real problems for idealism, there are possible ways out of it.

Without relying on faith, I'd argue against hyperomphalism in that we can use a sorites argument to turn it into Last Femtosecondism, etc., which intutively from an idealist perspective seems illogical. I'd argue there actually exist certain "continuity constraints" that apply to the experiences of mind, which we can know intuitively to exist, and that hyperomphalism ends up violating them. I'd suggest these continuity constraints are a priori synthetic propositions, in the sense of Kant's categories.

What do I intend to accomplish arguing unfalsifiable metaphysics? Well, what do you intend to accomplish by arguing unfalisfiable metaphysics? We both are arguing for an unfalsifiable metaphysic - mine is idealism, yours is materialism - the only difference is I'm willing to admit that's what I'm doing, you are trying to pretend that you are not. Both our views are equally irrelevant in practical terms.

But, my reason is I want to evangelise for my religion. And I ask myself, what is standing in the way of people coming to my religion? And one clear factor is widespread belief in materialism. So, I am trying to undermine the intellectual foundations of materialism, because I think in doing so I can increase their openness to my religious views. A lot of people think that materialism is obviously true, and other views are obviously false; if I can convince them they don't actually know which of materialism or idealism or other views is true, I've made a major advance in weaning them off materialism - if they no longer know what they once thought they did, that is a possibility for them to be led in a different intellectual and emotional and spiritual direction.

On the other hand, this is a complex and intellectual procedure. It is not going to work on the average human being, only on some of the most intellectual, intelligent, educated, open-minded, etc., minds. But, I think this site is a good place I might find such minds (even though I wouldn't say everyone here is like that); so hence I am here.

By contrast, I don't really know you, but let me venture a guess as to why you are so wedded to materialism - even if my guess is wrong for you, I'm sure its true for many others at this site. Maybe you are wedded to materialism because it implies the likely falsehood of religion, and you don't really like religion. That is fine - I'm sure you have some very good reasons for that dislike. Part of what I want to do is get the idea out there that just because a lot of religion (most religion even) is bad, that doesn't mean all religion is bad. Or maybe you are wedded to materialism because you think it is necessary or implied by science, and you really like science; part of what I am trying to do is show that much of science works just as well with idealism as materialism, and the parts that don't work so well, maybe we just don't need them anyway. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:43, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

This is exactly my (and everyone else in the rational world's) problem with idealism. It's like solipsism, a dead end and utterly useless. Personally it also annoys me, because it's always supported by these people who think philosophy is pick and choose. Sure, these things make cool movies, but if you want to pursue truth you got to stop worrying about what makes the prettier story. GTac (talk) 07:42, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Idealism is no more and no less a dead end or utterly useless than materialism is. I don't understand your point about "it's always supported by these people who think philosophy is pick and choose"? --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:45, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you aware of Occam's Razor? You do realize that creating a "goddess" without any justification to believe in one is a total violation of Occam's Razor, right? I mean, the quite literal and original meaning of Occam's Razor. You're multiplying entities left and right in your beliefs. You acknowledge the existence of an objective reality that has certain rules that conform to modern scientific understanding (you do this in order to avoid the pragmatic argument that science makes useful predictions). For all intents and purposes if you believe that the rules the patterns of experience that minds work upon exists independent of these minds which are experiencing it, then you are effectively a materialist. This is because if the wishes and desires that can be effected by your idealism are constrained to parallel universes, then the current universe we are experiencing is by definition indistinguishable from materialistic. If our minds cannot effect this universe contrary to the laws of nature, then you are arguing for materialism. If this universe can only be altered contrary to the laws of nature by a theistic entity, then you are arguing for a materialistic world with supernatural intervention.

You're hiding your god in the metaphysical gaps that are unfalsifiable... congratulations on being capable of placing your god behind the veil of perception, so that we are by metaphysical limitations upon us and any reality that exists unable to disprove your god... but being able to formulate an unfalsifiable theistic entity does not mean inventing one is appropriate, as there are an infinite number of unfalsifiable theistic entities, why is your "goddess" then an appropriate belief? What indication do you have of her existence that would make her anything more than a delusion of your mind?

Your choice of 10,000 years for the beginning of the universe is entirely arbitrary. Why not go with last Tuesday? The claim still works, as everything prior to last Tuesday is just as unknowable as what happened 10,000 years ago. "But we have memories of it." And we have historical evidence of geological records, archeological records, and biological records that indicate that 10,001 years ago did actually happen. If you're stating that it could have been created to appear like it existed before, then why could this not apply to Last Tuesday as well?

But no less, your argument precludes treating times prior to 10,000 years ago as anything but real, because there are pragmatic benefits to understanding the world and universe prior to 10,000 years ago. And really, our understandings and perceptions about the evidence that indicates a world older than 10,000 years is just as applicable as the keyboard and mouse that you're touching and interacting with. From your perspective, both are just extra-observer patterns of experience, and both are equally worthy of doubt. Why then do you accept the near, but reject the inductive rational indicating the valid acceptance of the far? If you accept that there are pragmatic uses to accepting near-end scientific knowledge and methods, then there is no pragmatic reason to reject scientific predictions indicated towards the far-end. Your refusal to believe that prior to X number of years ago nothing actually existed is entirely arbitrary and lacks pragmatism. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 23:56, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Eira, you say Are you aware of Occam's Razor? You do realize that creating a "goddess" without any justification to believe in one is a total violation of Occam's Razor, right? I mean, the quite literal and original meaning of Occam's Razor. You're multiplying entities left and right in your beliefs. I am more than well aware of Ockham's razor. But I am not sure how much I agree with it. But, leaving that consideration to one side, I'd also point out that Ockham's razor was meant to be used to decide between explanations. Confronted with two explanations for the same evidence, pick the explanation which posits the least entities. However, to me Maratrea is not an explanation of anything. She does not exist to explain. Hence, Ockham's razor, whether we should accept it or not, is simply inapplicable in Maratrea's case. You are confusing my view with, e.g., many Christians who claim that the existence of the Christian God is necessary to explain the existence of the universe (cosmological argument). But I don't believe the universe needs an explanation, hence I don't put forward Maratrea as an explanation for it, or for anything.

For all intents and purposes if you believe that the rules the patterns of experience that minds work upon exists independent of these minds which are experiencing it, then you are effectively a materialist. No, I don't agree with that. Supposing there is a tiled floor. A pattern exists in the alternation of different coloured tiles. Does that mean that the pattern exists independently of the tiles, such that the pattern would still exist even if the tiles didn't? Well, if one is a Platonist one might think so; but if one is not, one would hold that the pattern only exists because somewhere there are tiles (or something else) which instantiates it. In the same way, I believe that matter is a type of pattern in mind, but the pattern has no existence separately and independently from the fact that in some mind it is instantiated.

This is because if the wishes and desires that can be effected by your idealism are constrained to parallel universes, then the current universe we are experiencing is by definition indistinguishable from materialistic. But if universes are dividing, then there is no current universe overall, although there is a current universe right now. And if we consider that their division may not be instantaneous, but gradual, then it may not be a single current universe right now, but I may right now be in multiple universes simultaneously. I may right now be in a different set of universes from you. Besides, if idealism is indistinguishable from materialism, that is no argument for materialism rather than idealism; one could make the same argument in the exact opposite direction - since this universe is indistinguishable from an idealist universe, so you are really an idealist even if you think you are a materialist. Of course, that argument of mine is fallacious; but your symmetrical argument is equally so.

If our minds cannot effect this universe contrary to the laws of nature, then you are arguing for materialism. No; what our minds can and can't effect is irrelevant to whether reality is idealist or materialist or something else. Besides, I don't share your ideas about laws of nature. We don't actually know the true laws of nature; all we know are imperfect approximations to the true laws of nature, which we shall never know. If the universe is computable, then the only true and perfect law of nature is the Kolmogorov compression of the universe (or to be more precise the equivalence class of its Kolmogorov compressions), which being itself uncomputable, we can never know it (and arguably we could never know it even if it was.) I believe the universe is finite, and thus it is computable; but if you don't agree with me, well some countably infinite universes are also computable, although most aren't. But even considering the uncomputable countably infinite universes, although they are uncomputable, they would be hypercomputable (to some degree); thus, even though they wouldn't have a Kolmogorov compression, they would have a hyper-Kolmogorov compression. Thus, we can't actually know the real laws of nature, only imperfect human-created approximations to them. From that perspective, the idea of "acting contrary to the laws of nature" is impossible - whatever anyone could do, if they did it, it would conform to the laws of nature. Also, what if we exist in multiple universes, either diachronically or synchronically? - and I believe we definitely do diachronically, and quite possibly do synchronically - but even if you don't share my belief, I can't see how you can exclude it as a possibility. If so, there would be no this universe (although there may or may not be a this right now universe); we would exist in multiple universes. And each of those universes would have a different (hyper-)Kolmogorov compression, and hence different laws of nature. So, the idea of acting contrary to the laws of nature would be doubly meaningless, since there would be no single set of laws of nature which applies to us, but rather multiple contradictory sets, which happen however to agree at this particular spatiotemporal point which we occupy.

If this universe can only be altered contrary to the laws of nature by a theistic entity, then you are arguing for a materialistic world with supernatural intervention. The laws of nature cannot be contravened by any entity, including Maratrea. When she supernaturally intervenes in the world, she does so not contrary to the laws of nature; rather, her intervention is required by them. The distinction between natural and supernatural is a product of a limited human perspective, rather than being a real feature of reality.

You're hiding your god in the metaphysical gaps that are unfalsifiable... Equally so you must hide your denial of her in the same gaps. If a theory is both unfalsifiable and unverifiable, then its negation must be also. But, on the contrary, Maratreanism is verifiable - either post mortem, or by her future eschatological intervention in the world at the end of history.

but being able to formulate an unfalsifiable theistic entity does not mean inventing one is appropriate, as there are an infinite number of unfalsifiable theistic entities, why is your "goddess" then an appropriate belief? I don't agree there an infinite number of theistic entities. I think the number of possible deities, while vast, is definitely finite. But, you nonetheless raise a good point - the number is vast, why this one? I do intend to answer that question, but to do so would take another essay, so I won't do it here - but I do promise I will write another one at some point explaining my reasons for believing in Maratrea specifically (rather than one of the finite number of other possible deities). What indication do you have of her existence that would make her anything more than a delusion of your mind? Again, I will save that for another essay.

Your choice of 10,000 years for the beginning of the universe is entirely arbitrary. Actually, its not, it has its reasons behind it. To start with, there are only a finite number of possible distinct human lives, there is only a finite time in which humanity could have existed without repeating; so the universe must be younger than that. Secondly, although Maratrea will create many lives, she will not create every possible life, since that will make existence meaningless; hence, the actual length must be less than the sum of the length of all possible lives. Thirdly, due to her desire to fulfill contrary desires, some of that length will be simultaneous rather than linear, which cuts it down further. Fourthly, it is one thing to consider the total length, another to consider our linear position within these here branches of it; I think considerations of the nature of desire would suggest we are nearer the beginning than the end. So, these are the considerations which justify a number like 10,000. Now, if you don't share my axioms (which you don't), of course you aren't going to reach the same conclusions. But the number of 10,000 actually has real reasons behind it, rather than purely being picked out of a hat. (Why 10,000 and not 9,999 or 10,001? It is only meant as a rough estimate; I don't claim to know exactly how old the universe actually is - it may not even have one single age - I just am talking about the shape of the probability distribution of its ages.)

Why not go with last Tuesday? The claim still works, as everything prior to last Tuesday is just as unknowable as what happened 10,000 years ago. If that was the case, it would generate true desire that it was not the case, and hence Maratrea would grant it to not be the case. And, I believe it violates certain idealist a priori synthetic principles, which state that mind's experiences must be (to at least a significant degree) continuous and internally consistent.

"But we have memories of it." And we have historical evidence of geological records, archeological records, and biological records that indicate that 10,001 years ago did actually happen. From an idealist viewpoint, a memory is a very different type of thing from a geological/archaeological/biological record. So an idealist will give a strong weight to memory, but a much less weight to external evidence of the types you describe. Thus, from an idealist viewpoint, the present is much more certain than 10,000 years ago; whereas, from a materialist viewpoint, although 10,000 years ago is likewise less certain than the present, the ratio of probabilities will differ by orders of magnitude compared to the idealist case.

But no less, your argument precludes treating times prior to 10,000 years ago as anything but real, because there are pragmatic benefits to understanding the world and universe prior to 10,000 years ago. All the pragmatic benefits of distant-past-non-omphalism are equally benefits of distant-past-semi-omphalism.

Why then do you accept the near, but reject the inductive rational indicating the valid acceptance of the far? Because to an idealist, reality only exists as patterns in minds. If there were no minds then, there was no reality. Whereas, we know there are minds now (at least our own, and by anti-solipsism others); that is why the far and near are treated very differently. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 09:40, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Please stop using the Gish Gallop.

However, to me Maratrea is not an explanation of anything. She does not exist to explain. Hence, Ockham's razor, whether we should accept it or not, is simply inapplicable in Maratrea's case. You're attempting to play semantic games here, and I refuse your game. You have presented a theory of the universe that includes Maratrea. If as you have now decided to claim Maratrea contains no explanatory power, because you have been backed into a corner, then a near-identical theory to yours could be constructed that would exclude Maratrea, and keep all of the same explanatory power. The very conception of Ockham's Razor is that you should not drag concepts into a theory on whimsy, but rather limit concepts to addition based on necessity.

If as you claim, Maratrea has no explanatory power, and no casual agency in the world, and as such serves no purpose in your theory, then she is simply an invisible friend.

Besides, if idealism is indistinguishable from materialism The claim was not that all idealistic theories are indistinguishable from materialism, but rather that your specific conception of idealism is indistinguishable from materialism. If you believe science can provide increasingly more objective evidence to the laws of our universe, then you subscribe that there is a set of objective laws to our universe. In as such if you hold that no two people can experience different realities, then even if such a universe would be idealistic, it would be indistinguishable from a materialistic universe.

Pragmatic materialism holds that regardless of what effect the veil of perception has to doubt the universe around us, the universe as we experience it is consistent among various minds in a consistent manner. (When an individual experiences inconsistent realities, their actions and the consequences of those actions still are bound by the consistency of the world of consensus.) In as such, since the perception of the universe we receive through the veil of perception is indistinguishable from materialism, that materialism is the pragmatic assumption to take.

since this universe is indistinguishable from an idealist universe But this universe is distinguishable from some idealist universes. An idealist explanation of existence that provides a consensual, consistent existences is indistinguishable from materialism. Namely, there is no necessity to doubt the existence of that which we experience through the veil of perception. Thus, the default choice of the null-hypothesis is pragmatic materialism.

.. Kolmogorov compression of the universe .. Thus, we can't actually know the real laws of nature, only imperfect human-created approximations to them. You're applying a bunch of nonsense babble here. It looks nice, because it's grammatical, and uses cool spiffy terms! But you're completely misapplying definitions of terms. That last sentence in particular is a complete non-sequitur because "Kolmorgorov compression" says nothing about being able to know the laws of the universe. But of course, you figure if you can throw out a term that I don't know about and don't understand you might be able to slip something by me, right? Sorry to disappoint... I'm going to demand here that you stop using nonsense terms like "hyper-Kolmogorov compression" or "hyperomphalos" (The Omphalos hypothesis already covers Last Tuesdayism, you don't have to "hyper" anything.)

I can't see how you can exclude it as a possibility. You're confusing me with the other people on this talk page. I have no argued that anything in this article or your believes are provably false. What I have argued is that they are not in the realm of rationalism, and that you're inventing concepts and entities without necessity. And since you don't have necessity for these concepts, you're just inventing imaginary friends.

So, the idea of acting contrary to the laws of nature would be doubly meaningless, since there would be no single set of laws of nature which applies to us, but rather multiple contradictory sets, which happen however to agree at this particular spatiotemporal point which we occupy. Which is my entire point. If the laws of nature all agree at this spatiotemporal point, then pragmatically the world functions indistinguishably from materialism.

When she supernaturally intervenes in the world... I thought you said that Maratrea has no explanatory power, and thus immune to Ockham's razor...

Equally so you must hide your denial of her in the same gaps. If a theory is both unfalsifiable and unverifiable, then its negation must be also. But, on the contrary, Maratreanism is verifiable - either post mortem, or by her future eschatological intervention in the world at the end of history. My denial of her is not definitive, but provisional. She is not a necessary entity, thus belief in her is unwarranted. Of particular note is that Maratrea is indistinguishable from Naratrea, Paratrea, Mapatrea, Meratrea, Marbtrea, etc. By presenting that we can have evidence of Maratrea after death, you need posit not only her existence, but that of a life after death, both of which are unnecessary concepts. Again you also negate your assertion that Maratrea has no explanatory power and thus immune to Ockham's razor. (As a demonstration of the defenestration of Ockham's razor: after you die, you'll learn that she is not actually Maratrea, but rather he is Maratreo... since he is no less conceptually valid as she is, you can't argue that I'm wrong...)

To start with, there are only a finite number of possible distinct human lives, there is only a finite time in which humanity could have existed without repeating; so the universe must be younger than that. Your whole argument falls apart here. You're making the unstated assumption that human lives cannot repeat. I reject this assumption, and do not see why it should be considered valid, as it seems entirely arbitrary.

In fact, your claim that the 10,000 years isn't arbitrary is contradicted by your statements else where that the number is unknowable for certain, yet somewhere in the range of 10 million and 10,000 years. The number has thus been arbitrary chosen out of the range of possible values.

Maratrea will create many lives I thought Maratrea had no explanatory power, and was thus immune to Ockham's razor.

he will not create every possible life, since that will make existence meaningless Fallacy of appeal to consequences.

I think considerations of the nature of desire would suggest we are nearer the beginning than the end. This conclusion is unsupported. You do not explain at all "the nature of desire" and what it indicates. "I'll explain it later," you will say, but this is not a valid philosophical answer.

If that was the case, it would generate true desire that it was not the case, and hence Maratrea would grant it to not be the case. You argue against Last Tuesdayism, but yet, you posit that at some point in the past the universe was equivalent to Last Tuesdayism. (Only a few days old but appearing to be millions if not billions of years older.)

And, I believe it violates certain idealist a priori synthetic principles, which state that mind's experiences must be (to at least a significant degree) continuous and internally consistent. Yet your assertion is that at some point in the past minds began to exist, and thus the experiences we perceive as this universe began. Such experiences would be internally inconsistent. Did they know they were in the first minutes/hours/days of the world? When then would the world appear to them to be older than minutes/hours/days?

So an idealist will give a strong weight to memory, but a much less weight to external evidence of the types you describe. Thus, from an idealist viewpoint, the present is much more certain than 10,000 years ago I'm not arguing that the evidence to the world existing more than 10,000 years ago proves that the world is older than 10,000 years old, I'm arguing that it indicates a world that is far older. The idealist in your conception would have to be conceiving this current world state, and be able to extrapolate the laws of nature back to a period prior to when the real world actually began existing. The the world is consistent with a world older than the real world, and thus pragmatically, there is no reason to assert the necessity of the universe poofing into existence with a True age much younger than that which is indicated by the laws of nature.

All the pragmatic benefits of distant-past-non-omphalism are equally benefits of distant-past-semi-omphalism. Please stop abusing terms. "Omphalism" covers all forms of creation that appear to indicate an age older than that of actual creation. Now, you acknowledge that all the pragmatic benefits of the two systems are equal, and that there is no necessity to posit the sudden creation of a world that appears older than it is. By Ockham's razor, any pragmatist should reject the later idea, as being the non-omphalism theory plus an unnecessary concept.

Because to an idealist, reality only exists as patterns in minds. And all such conceptualization of the far past are equally as much "existent" as the near past. In fact, the very conceptualization that the idealists have of a universe which indicates itself to be older than your whimsy suggests that said history is just as valid as the computer you witness in front of you. Oddly enough, by reconstructing an understanding of the past, the idealist would be creating the past prior to his or other's minds, and such a creation would be just as valid as the construction in your mind of the computer you now sit at. If you accept the existence of the computer in front of you, and that it must have been built somewhere, you are constructing an inductive history of the computer you are using. In the same way, an idealist mind can construct an inductive history about the far past, including a period where minds did not exist.

You're really bad at arguing your own position, as you seem to reject necessary consequences of your belief... but then previously you had already used the fallacy of appeal to consequences, so perhaps you simply refuse to accept that idealism can construct a far past history just as "real" as the world they perceive around them, because such a belief would invalidate your imaginary whimsies? --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 13:04, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, sorry my response tends to jump around a bit quoting different parts of your response in not quite the same order you wrote it. I didn't mean to write it this way, it just happened, and I don't have time right now to fix it.

Please stop using the Gish Gallop. I am not Duane Gish, please don't compare my methods to his. He is trying to argue there is something broken about the science of evolution, or the Big Bang, or whatnot. I am arguing there is something broken about the metaphysics of it - the extrascientific assumptions commonly held by scientists. I do cover a wide range of topics, but I'm not doing so to try to show up my opponents, but simply because I think they are relevant. If you don't understand something I mention, take some time to read up about it, or ask me to clarify. This is not a in-person debate with a fixed time limit, it is an open-ended discussion that can go on as long as there are participants wishing to continue in it.

As to your objection to my use of the concept of Kolmogorov compression, if you don't understand it, see the Wikipedia article on Kolmogorov complexity as a start. You brought up the issue of the laws of nature (which no one else has brought up so far), and my understanding of the laws of nature is based on the mathematical theory of computation. You may not share that understanding of the laws of nature, fair enough; but if I explain mine and you explain yours, we can then discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Hyper-Kolmogorov compression isn't nonsense, but maybe I should have been clearer what I meant. It is the same as Kolmogorov compression, but rather than using a Turing-equivalent computer, we use a hypercomputer, such as an oracular Turing machine with an oracle for the halting problem. Of course, there is not one single "hyper-Kolmogorov compression" of a string, there is an infinite succession of them as we walk up the Turing degrees/arithmetical hierarchy. If this doesn't make sense to you, it's not gibberish, it's all accepted concepts in mathematics - Wikipedia's articles on the topics are a good place to start, or you could find many books that talk about these topics too... (When I was at university, there was a discrete mathematics course they made all second-year computer science students do, which covered the basics of this stuff...)

That last sentence in particular is a complete non-sequitur because "Kolmorgorov compression" says nothing about being able to know the laws of the universe. It's not a non sequitur. Isn't a (hyper-)Kolmogorov compression of the universe a law of the universe? Isn't it fact the most perfect possible law of the universe - perfect in its universal applicability, perfect in its succintness? By Ockham's razor, it is the best theory possible - what a pity we can never know what it is. But even though we can never know what this theory is, we can mathematically demonstrate its existence.

I'm going to demand here that you stop using nonsense terms like "hyper-Kolmogorov compression" or "hyperomphalos" (The Omphalos hypothesis already covers Last Tuesdayism, you don't have to "hyper" anything.) No, I think hyperomphalism is a particular form of omphalism which is so extreme that it deserves calling out as effectively being something else. This is established English usage - witness the term hyper-Calvinism.

You're attempting to play semantic games here, and I refuse your game. You have presented a theory of the universe that includes Maratrea. If as you have now decided to claim Maratrea contains no explanatory power Maratrea is an important part of my worldview, but her role is not to give my worldview explanatory power. To try to restrict the purpose of a worldview to explain things, is to have a rather scientistic concept of what a worldview can do. Consider the work of Wittgenstein or Austin - language can perform multiple functions, "explanation" is only one of them. I see her function as more giving meaning to life, and as providing a foundation for ethics and aesthetics (and even rationality itself). But her function is not to be an explanation, scientific or otherwise, of the existence of the universe. She is not a scientific explanation - and extrascientific explanations (i.e. metaphysical explanations) don't really interest me.

The very conception of Ockham's Razor is that you should not drag concepts into a theory on whimsy - the justification for Ockham's razor is focused on theories which exist to construct explanations. If a viewpoint has a broader range of purposes than just constructing an explanation, is Ockham's razor still applicable? In any case, Maratrea is not being dragged in on a whimsy. She serves a real and essential purpose in my worldview, but that purpose is not to explain things - it is to provide a foundation for ethics and aesthetics and rationality, and for the meaningfulness of life. But it is not an explanation of any of those.

If as you claim, Maratrea has no explanatory power, and no casual agency in the world, and as such serves no purpose in your theory, then she is simply an invisible friend. She doesn't have explanatory power, but she does have non-explanatory power. I do believe she causes the world, but I don't see her causation of the world as being an explanation of the world. (Causation is actually a very complicated matter anyway...)

The claim was not that all idealistic theories are indistinguishable from materialism, but rather that your specific conception of idealism is indistinguishable from materialism. I think most idealistic theories are indistinguishable from materialism. I think mine is, and Berkeley's is, and McTaggart's is, for instance. I can't speak of all possible idealisms... but certainly all the ones I am familiar with are indistinguishable from materialism on the whole. Now, certain specific occurences, e.g. if you died and found yourself in an afterlife, would likely distinguish materialism from non-materialism (but not say idealism from dualism) - and even in that case, one can't entirely rule out one is in some kind of materialistic afterlife.

If you believe science can provide increasingly more objective evidence to the laws of our universe, then you subscribe that there is a set of objective laws to our universe. I think you are confusing the issues of laws of nature, or the uniformity of nature, with the idealism-dualism-materialism issue. As I have said, these issues are unrelated.

About supernatural intervention, you say I thought you said that Maratrea has no explanatory power, and thus immune to Ockham's razor.... I do believe she intervenes in the world, and in a sense we can call that intervention supernatural (even though I believe that ultimately the natural-vs-supernatural distinction is an artifical human concept with no ultimate basis in reality). However I don't put forward her intervention as an explanation of anything currently observed. Although, as well as the ways of her current intervententions, which are very subtle, she could if she wishes to intervene in a much more dramatic matter - in which case, one could reasonably posit her intervention as an explanation of the experiences one would have in that case - but we have no such experiences at the present time.

You're making the unstated assumption that human lives cannot repeat. - well, not quite. I actually believe all human lives repeat, since I believe time is circular. But my point is, that since the repetiions of these lives must repeat in precisely the same way every time, we can also say they occur only once in circular time. As I said, I'm not trying to convince you of my 10,000 figure here - it relies on assumptions I don't expect you to share. I'm merely trying to demonstrate it follows rationally from my own assumptions, rather than being picked out of a hat.

In fact, your claim that the 10,000 years isn't arbitrary is contradicted by your statements else where that the number is unknowable for certain, yet somewhere in the range of 10 million and 10,000 years. The number has thus been arbitrary chosen out of the range of possible values. You misunderstand me. Nowhere have I said the world is exactly 10,000 years old. 10,000 years is just a rough ballpark figure. I certainly agree it could be significantly larger; it could also I think be less, although not so much less. I would say we have here an asymmetric probability distribution.

About her creation of many lives, you say I thought Maratrea had no explanatory power, and was thus immune to Ockham's razor. I am not putting forward her creation of many lives as an explanation of the existence of those lives.

She is not a necessary entity, thus belief in her is unwarranted. Of particular note is that Maratrea is indistinguishable from Naratrea, Paratrea, Mapatrea, Meratrea, Marbtrea, etc. Maratrea is just one of her many names; in essence she is nameless, but we must name her, so I name her Maratrea. But if someone else wants to call her Zeus or Jesus or Allah or Flying Spaghetti Monster, I don't really think she cares. What matters is not the name, but the attributes one ascribes to her. I believe she is necessary; but I don't see her as necessary to the purpose of forming explanations, but rather necessary to other purposes.

you need posit not only her existence, but that of a life after death, both of which are unnecessary concepts - you misunderstand my point. I am simply saying that dying is a way of verifying religious claims which include an afterlife. I do believe in an afterlife, but the existence of an afterlife isn't necessary to my point. Verification and falsifiability conditions are expressed subjunctively/counterfactually "If X occurs, that is evidence for/against Y". That point is true regardless of the actual truth or falsehood of X.

About not creating every possible life, you say Fallacy of appeal to consequences.. As I pointed out before, I am not here trying to convince you of the truth of this, just trying to explain that my reasoning behind my 10,000 year figure, whether right or wrong, is not entirely arbitrary. Anyway, it's not a fallacy of appeal to consequences, if one believes that she actually wants to make our lifes meaningful. Also, I don't agree that fallacy is always valid - according to the principle of highest faith, some consequences of an idea are so negative they actually are evidence the idea is false. You don't accept "the principle of highest faith", but I do - this is an example of where we are using different systems of logic, and different standards of rationality.

"I'll explain it later," you will say, but this is not a valid philosophical answer. It's not a philosophical answer, it's a pragmatic answer. I don't have time right now to explain it to you, but I promise you that if you are interested I will when I get the time. Anyway, you are missing the point of that whole section, in which I was not trying to convincing you of the truth of my reasoning, just trying to disprove what I think you were claiming (maybe I've misunderstood you too), that my figures were chosen arbitrarily and had no reasoning behind them.

You argue against Last Tuesdayism, but yet, you posit that at some point in the past the universe was equivalent to Last Tuesdayism. (Only a few days old but appearing to be millions if not billions of years older.) No, I don't agree. At some point in the past there may have existed minds who believed they were newly created. Although there would be external astronomical evidence to the contrary, they would not have had the skills necessary to notice that. From their own subjective viewpoint, they may have been newly created, even if some objective evidence (which they lacked the ability to notice) would suggest otherwise. Whereas, if Last Thursdayism were true, we'd be newly created yet believing we'd existed for a long time. Different scenario.

Yet your assertion is that at some point in the past minds began to exist, and thus the experiences we perceive as this universe began. Such experiences would be internally inconsistent. Did they know they were in the first minutes/hours/days of the world? When then would the world appear to them to be older than minutes/hours/days? As I've said, they may have subjectively believed they were newly created, and objective evidence which indicated otherwise may well have been beyond their skill to observe.

I'm not arguing that the evidence to the world existing more than 10,000 years ago proves that the world is older than 10,000 years old, I'm arguing that it indicates a world that is far older. I don't think the evidence indicates anything about the actual age of the universe. It indicates the universe looks old, but only tells us whether it actually is old when coupled with unprovable metaphysical assumptions. From a pragmatic or Ockham's razor viewpoint, the best approach is neither to believe nor disbelieve that the universe is actually old, but just agree that it looks old, and be agnostic as to whether it actually is old.

Please stop abusing terms. "Omphalism" covers all forms of creation that appear to indicate an age older than that of actual creation. You don't understand my point. Semi-omphalism is not omphalism; it is agnostic as to whether omphalism or non-omphalism is true. An omphalist believes in a young universe that appears old; a non-omphalist believes in an old universe that appears old; a semi-omphalist believes in a universe that appears old, and has no opinions on whether it is actually old or young.

Now, you acknowledge that all the pragmatic benefits of the two systems are equal, and that there is no necessity to posit the sudden creation of a world that appears older than it is. By Ockham's razor, any pragmatist should reject the later idea, as being the non-omphalism theory plus an unnecessary concept. As I said, the most pragmatic approach is to be a semi-omphalist. From the perspective of Ockham's razor, both omphalism and non-omphalism are more complicated theories than semi-omphalism, but they add no predictive value on top of semi-omphalism (unless we have time travel, which we don't.)

You fail to understand my point about idealism and the distant past. To an idealist, the universe only exists insofar as minds observe it. So, to a materialist the recent past and distant past are interchangeable, to an idealist they are very different. The recent past exists, since there were minds around to observe it. The existence of the distant past is much more doubtful, since arguably there were no minds then to observe it, but without minds to observe it, it would not exist. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 01:20, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

A Gish Gallop is not the substance of the argument, it is the style of argument.

You are completely confused as to what the Kolmogorov Compression actually is. Like... not even wrong style confused.

Your mental gymnastics you take to remove Maratrea from explanatory power, yet retain her as the origin of souls is pure fantasy. I would call it sophistry, but it's not even facetiously close to true. It is a fundamental violation of the definitions involved. You are arguing at contradiction.

I'm not even bothering with anything else you read... you're bullshitting, you're doing it poorly, it's so full of contradiction, definition failure, cognitive dissonance, and outright patent logical prevarication that arguing with you is useless, because no matter how valid of a point I make, you respond with a word salad of equivalent meaning to: "fish the blue a runs whistles ribbon fly!" --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 19:31, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the whole concept of the "Gish gallop" is so vague as to be useless and arguably inapplicable here anyway (as I said, this is not a live debate). is not the substance of the argument, it is the style of argument seems to be a style over substance approach, which is not a very rational approach at all.

You are completely confused as to what the Kolmogorov Compression actually is - why don't you explain to me the nature of my confusion, rather than just asserting that I'm confused? What do you think Kolmogorov compression is, and what do you think I think it is?

you're bullshitting - what do you mean to suggest, that I don't actually believe what I'm saying? That I'm just pulling your leg? Well, if you need convincing I really believe this stuff, maybe you should observe my 332 page Maratrean protoscripture. If I'm just making stuff up, why did I write all that? --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 12:04, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

The Gish Gallop is yes an argument against style of argument, because it raises nitpicky points that are trivial and do not actually refute any part of the arguments that the opponent is making. The reason I told you to stop using the Gish Gallop is because: a) I'm pedantic and will follow your lead, and we'll produce ridiculously long arguments that lead absolutely nowhere, and just focus on arguing the trivial stuff, rather than the meaningful stuff.

It is not my position to explain Kolmogorov Compression to you, but suffice it to say, it's a feature of Kolmogorov Complexity rather than a "law" as you describe it... and Kolmogorov Complexity itself isn't even a law. This fits in nicely into your use of "quantum woo" elsewhere... it sounds cool, and few people have a really solid grasp on understanding it, so it's easy to wave it around and impress the ignorant masses.

Finally, J.R.R. Tolkein wrote 1008 pages of stuff he just made up in "The Lord of the Rings" alone. Your commitment to produce content is not convincing. I'd sooner pledge my worship to the Ilúvatar than to your bullshit. (BTW, at least Tolkeinian mythology has more internal consistency than yours does.) --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 23:02, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

The Gish Gallop... raises nitpicky points that are trivial and do not actually refute any part of the arguments that the opponent is making. Where have I done that? In my discussion of Kolmogorov compression? I don't think it is a nitpicky point, I think it is responding directly to your points about the laws of nature (which was an issue you brought up)

I think you misunderstand what I am saying about Kolmogorov compression. Yes, the Kolmogorov complexity of a string is the length of its Kolmogorov compression. But, my focus here is on the compression, not the complexity.

I am not saying Kolmogorov compression is a law of nature. I am saying that the output of the Kolmogorov compression of a precise straightforward description of the universe is a law of nature (or to be more exact a statement of a law of nature) - and not just a law of nature, but the most perfect and succinct law of nature possible - indeed, the only true law of nature.

The reference to hyper-Kolmogorov compression, is to address the potential objection that the universe may be non-computable - that is not an issue for my definition, provided that it is hypercomputable for some sense of hypercomputation.

When I call the Kolmogorov compression of the universe a law of nature, you think I am saying that the process is a law of nature, when actually I am saying the result of that process is a law of nature.

Your original point was that my views are not really "idealism" unless I posit some violation of "materialist" laws of nature. But, what I have been trying to explain to you, is that argument of yours only makes sense given a certain conception of the nature of the laws of nature with which I disagree. So, I am trying to explain to you my understanding of what "laws of nature" mean, and how given that understanding your attempt to define the materialism-idealism distinction in terms of the laws of nature is fundamentally erroneous.

Of course, you may not agree with my theories about the nature of the laws of nature - in which case, that is fine, you can present your own, and then we can discuss the pros and cons of each viewpoint.

But I think that rather than attacking my style, you'd be better off trying to understand what I am saying, for I am not saying what you think I am. If you don't understand what I am saying, the best approach is to politely ask for clarification, rather than just rejecting it as gibberish.

As I've said previously, I don't think I've used any "quantum woo" at all. I think terms like "Gish Gallop" and "quantum woo" are so vague to be effectively meaningless and a cheap substitute for actually trying to engage with the ideas of one's opponent. Likewise, your use of the term "bullshit" - again a very ill-defined and vague term of invective. I'm not sure what you are actually accusing me of when you accuse me of bullshit - I've tried to respond to what I thought you were saying, but your response suggests maybe you meant something else - a problem which could have been avoided if you'd chosen more precise (if less emotive) language to begin with. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 09:46, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

As soon as I see a statement like

“”The reference to hyper-Kolmogorov compression, is to address the potential objection that the universe may be non-computable - that is not an issue for my definition, provided that it is hypercomputable for some sense of hypercomputation.

I know it's bollocks. Jack Hughes (talk) 10:20, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

How is that bollocks? Take a straightforward and precise description of the universe - which might for example be a listing of the location of every fundamental particle in the universe at every moment of time, and a full listing of each such particle's properties. (Quantum mechanics objections foreseen, but I think they can be worked around - but let's just pretend the universe is classical for the minute).

Now, this description can be expressed as a (possibly infinite) string of symbols. What is the Kolmogorov complexity of this string?

Well, if the universe is computable, the Kolmogorov complexity will be finite; but if Kolmogorov complexity is infinite, then the universe is uncomputable.

But, a string which is uncomputable for a Turing-equivalent machine may be computable for some hypercomputer - e.g. a Turing machine with an oracle for the halting problem. So, even if the universe is uncomputable with respect to a Turing machine, it might be computable with respect to a Turing machine with an oracle for the halting problem; and we can construct an infinite hierarchy of oracular Turing machines - none of which can solve its own halting problem, but each of which has an oracle to solve the halting problem for machines one level below it.

So, even if it turned out the universe was uncomputable, my attempt to define the laws of nature in terms of the Kolmogorov compression of the universe can still work, so long as the universe is computable with respect to some super-Turing computer, in which case it would have a hyper-Kolmogorov compression, which I would define as the laws of nature. Since there is an infinite hierarchy of ever more powerful hyper-computers, there is of course no single definition of hyper-Kolmogorov compression, but one for every level of the hypercomputation hierarchy (or to use more proper mathematical terminology, Turing degrees or the arithmetical hierarchy.)

So I really don't see how you can conclude what I am saying is bollocks without taking the time to try to understand it. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:03, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

This is the part where I show you that you fail at using terms and definitions properly.

Where have I done that? Right where you said this. By being nitpicky about me calling you nitpicky, you are being nitpicky.

Kolmogorov Complexity itself is incomputable. Compression is rather used to define an upper bound of Kolmogorov Complexity, but it is not the Kolmogorov Complexity itself. (If I can compress a string from 26 characters to 11 characters, then I know the Kolmogorov Complexity of that string can be no larger than 11 characters.) It is however interesting that you do not seem aware that our Universe can be compressed into a single bit of information.

A Turing Machine with an oracle for the halting problem does not allow that machine to now perform incomputable problems. The halting problem deals with problems that are undecidable not incomputable. You do not apparently seem aware that there is a difference.

The clarity of the two points immediately above make it clear that you do not understand the terminology that you are attempting to employ.

And you have used quantum woo... In quantum mechanics an "observer" need not be sentient. The state in the Shrödinger Cat experiment is resolved as soon as the box is opened, not the moment a sentient mind looks at it. The term "observer" was chosen by analogy, not because it is an accurate or correct fit. As another example, if I have a particle stored alone in a perfect vacuum in a box, then its quantum state puts it everywhere in that box. It is impossible to know where in the box it is, or how fast it is. If I then insert photons of a small enough wavelength to reflect with sufficient resolution and thus determine the position of the particle in the box, I have now introduced observers in the sense of photons. These photons will collapse the state of the particle and yield a single position for where the photon is located. No sentient mind is necessary for that collapse to occur. The very computer sitting in front of you relies upon nonsentient particles collapsing quantum states without a sentient mind as an observer.

This is all that I mean by "bullshit". There is no such thing as "Kolmogorov Compression", compression is simply used to define upper bounds of the Kolmogorov Complexity for a particular string. Not all hypercomputation is equal, and giving a Turing Machine an oracle for resolving the halting problem is actually kind of a lame oracle to give a hypercomputer, and would most certainly not allow it to process an infinite universe to even one increment of time.

If—as you claim—I do not understand your position or your points, it is because you are abusing terminology. Perhaps if you understood your terminology better, and did not use it incorrectly, I would have a better chance at understanding what you're talking about. But you seem more interested in defending your abuse of terminology, rather than correcting your terminology, and that it why I decline to debate your points further. If you say that "2+3=6", and I tell you that "no, 2*3=6, 2+3=5" and you continue to insist on your own terminology, then there is nothing to debate. You are simply delusional. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 20:59, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

By being nitpicky about me calling you nitpicky, you are being nitpicky. Huh? What does that statement even mean?

Kolmogorov Complexity itself is incomputable. Yes, agreed.

Compression is rather used to define an upper bound of Kolmogorov Complexity, but it is not the Kolmogorov Complexity itself. I think you are confused about what compression is. Compression is any means of replacing a string with a smaller string which conveys the same information, whether that means be computable or not. To measure the effectiveness of compression, we must measure the length of both the compressed data, and the length of the decompression program. Actually, we can simplify things by ignoring the difference between data and program, and just defining compression as a procedure which replaces one string by a shorter string, such that the second string is a program which generates the first string as output. Kolmogorov complexity is the length of the shortest possible such program, i.e. it is the unknowable theoretical upper bound on compression effectiveness. So Kolmogorov compression, in terms of which Kolmogorov complexity can be defined, is a form of compression, albeit an uncomputable one. Whereas, there are also computable methods of compression, which are not as effective as Kolmogorov compression, but you are right that Compression is rather used to define an upper bound of Kolmogorov Complexity, or to be more precise computable compression is. Whereas, the length of the uncomputable Kolmogorov compression of a string is the Kolmogorov complexity of that string.

It is however interesting that you do not seem aware that our Universe can be compressed into a single bit of information. Tell me how. If that was true, then the Kolmogorov complexity of the universe would be close to zero, and the universe would hold almost zero information.

A Turing Machine with an oracle for the halting problem does not allow that machine to now perform incomputable problems. The halting problem deals with problems that are undecidable not incomputable. You do not apparently seem aware that there is a difference. To my understanding, undecidability and uncomputability are essentially the same thing, at least in this context. If you don't agree, can you provide a reference which says what you are claiming? Or explain what you think the difference is?

In quantum mechanics an "observer" need not be sentient. You are confusing quantum mechanics with interpretations of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics itself doesn't say anything much about observers. In the Copenhagen interpretation, observers are seen as being special; whereas in other interpretations (e.g. many worlds or hidden variables), there is nothing that special about them. Now, Copenhagen says observers are special, but Copenhagen exists in many different versions, and different formulations of Copenhagen have different ideas about what actually counts as an observer.

The state in the Shrödinger Cat experiment is resolved as soon as the box is opened Only if the cat doesn't count as an observer. If the cat is an observer, then the state is resolved before the box was opened. Consider also Wigner's friend.

The important point to remember about quantum mechanics is that interpretations of quantum mechanics are not part of quantum mechanics itself. In fact, they are sitting on the borderline between science and philosophy, and are arguably more on the philosophy side of that border than the science side.

There is no such thing as "Kolmogorov Compression", compression is simply used to define upper bounds of the Kolmogorov Complexity for a particular string. There is such a thing as Kolmogorov compression - the Kolmogorov complexity of string A is defined in terms of the length of another string B. What do you call that string B? It is a compression of string A, in fact the most perfect possible such compression. Kolmogorov copmression is a perfectly good name for that string B, or for the uncomputable process which generates string B from string A - if you don't like that term, what would you call it instead?

Not all hypercomputation is equal I never said all hypercomputation is equal. I have said multiple times that there are an infinite number of levels of hypercomputation, which is the Turing degrees/arithmetical hierarchy. As I understand it, there is at least one distinct type of hypercomputation for every ordinal, finite or transfinite.

giving a Turing Machine an oracle for resolving the halting problem is actually kind of a lame oracle to give a hypercomputer Huh? What makes it lame?

and would most certainly not allow it to process an infinite universe to even one increment of time. Huh? What are you trying to say here? A Turing machine can produce an infinite string as output (given infinite execution time). So, a Turing-equivalent computer may well be able to produce even an infinite universe. Of course, it depends on the nature of the universe; there are infinite strings no Turing machine can produce, yet for many of those although no Turing machine can produce it, we can identify a type of hypercomputer that can. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 03:47, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Huh? What does that statement even mean? It doesn't surprise me that you can't understand this... you don't seem to be able to understand any proper terminology...

If you need it explained how the entire extant Universe could be compressed into a single bit, then you don't have any understanding about why Kolmorogov complexity is uncomputable. (Hint: Hamming codes.)

So Kolmogorov compression, in terms of which Kolmogorov complexity can be defined, is a form of compression, albeit an uncomputable one. *sigh* no. It's not. The reason why is that "The shortest string not representable by 55 characters" defines a string that is infinitely long. This is the whole reason why Kolmogorov complexity is uncomputable.

To my understanding, undecidability and uncomputability are essentially the same thing, at least in this context. I already said this. If you don't agree, can you provide a reference which says what you are claiming? It's not my job to educate you on the basics that you should have figured out before you even started this "debate".

You are confusing quantum mechanics with interpretations of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics itself doesn't say anything much about observers. That's why I was explaining that the word "observer" doesn't mean what you keep putting it out to mean. In the Copenhagen interpretation, observers are seen as being special; whereas in other interpretations (e.g. many worlds or hidden variables), there is nothing that special about them. God damn it... now you're misinterpreting shit again. The "many worlds" hypothesizes that any time a state collapse occurs that all results occur, but in different universes... guess what still causes the state collapse? Because guess what quantum mechanics has as a central part of the theory? Superstate collapse. The interpretations are about what happens when that state collapse occurs. The thing about many worlds interpretation is that two universes that only differ in the results of a superstate collapse are indistinguishable prior to the collapse. Now, Copenhagen says observers are special, but Copenhagen exists in many different versions, and different formulations of Copenhagen have different ideas about what actually counts as an observer. More quantum woo from you... caused entirely by your lack of understanding the basics.

Only if the cat doesn't count as an observer. The cat is a macroscopic object and not subject to quantum superstates... it's used as an example that people can actually understand and visualize, but it is not actually the case. In real quantum systems, a particle cannot be an observer of itself. That's because any quantum-linked system creates a collective superstate that collapses all together. I'm doing a horrible job of explaining this... but then again, as I already stated I'm not responsible for your education in the fucking basics of this debate.

the Kolmogorov complexity of string A is defined in terms of the length of another string B. What do you call that string B? Except there is no actual way to define string B. It is a compression of string A, in fact the most perfect possible such compression. and String B is undefined... like the value of zero divided by zero. Kolmogorov copmression is a perfectly good name for that string B, or for the uncomputable process which generates string B from string A - if you don't like that term, what would you call it instead? No, "Kolmogorov compression" is not a perfectly good name for that string. It is jargon filled and obfuscatory. Meanwhile, the phrase "ideal compression" or "prefect compression" expresses the notion succinctly and clearly. But then, why would you throw away the most common tactic of woo: use language that hides and obscures what you're talking about.

Huh? What makes it lame? That it won't be able to solve the Kolmogorov complexity of any string? Oddly enough, "lame" is entirely the appropriate phrase here, because it wouldn't really be able to solve anything more than a standard computer.

As I understand it, there is at least one distinct type of hypercomputation for every ordinal, finite or transfinite. I don't find it surprising that you don't understand... you don't understand the terms that you're using.

So, a Turing-equivalent computer may well be able to produce even an infinite universe. See? You're confused about computability vs decidability, again. A Turing machine would spend an infinite amount of time producing an infinite universe. Thus, it is incomputable. Of course, none of your argument says anything about a Turing machine ever being able to compute the next time increment of an infinite universe. Time wouldn't exist, because there would never be a second time increment.

You're entirely confused and throwing around terms that you don't understand, this is why you're talking bullshit. And we're again wasting a ton of time arguing nitpicking shit that has no constructive purpose. Because you don't understand you fucking terminology. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 05:02, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

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I said Huh? What does that statement even mean? to which your response was It doesn't surprise me that you can't understand this... you don't seem to be able to understand any proper terminology.... Really, if you want to have a discussion with someone, if they don't understand what you mean, the proper response is to explain what you mean in more detail, such as by trying to make the same point in different words, or give an example or an analogy - not the sort of response you have given here.

Likewise your statement If you need it explained how the entire extant Universe could be compressed into a single bit, then you don't have any understanding about why Kolmorogov complexity is uncomputable. (Hint: Hamming codes.). If you want to have a discussion with someone, the way to do it is to not make a vague point and then use your opponent's inability to understand it to try to show they don't know anything at all. As I've said before, to really evaluate the effectiveness of a compression, we need to look not just at the compressed data, but also the length of the decompressor program, and any the length of any associated data or tables the decompressor needs to use to decompress that data. You can compress the universe to a single bit with Hamming codes, hey you can compress it to zero bits without them, but then you'd need either a very long decompression program, or a very long table for the decompression program to use, and if you don't further compress either of those, the end result is you haven't actually compressed the universe at all. (Arguably, you've done the opposite of compression, since the compression overhead will make the compressed data+decompressor(+tables) longer than the original uncompresssed data.)

"The shortest string not representable by 55 characters" defines a string that is infinitely long. Arguably it doesn't. There are certainly finite strings more than 55 characters long that cannot be expressed by a program 55 characters long or less. This will be true for most random strings of 56 characters (some will be coincidentally compressible to less, but most of them won't be.)

This is the whole reason why Kolmogorov complexity is uncomputable. No, it's because the halting problem is unsolvable.

I already said this. How is that a useful response? If someone disagrees with what you say, a useful response is to explain in detail why you believe them to be wrong.

And you answer a request for a reference to one of your claims as It's not my job to educate you on the basics that you should have figured out before you even started this "debate". If you want to have a discussion with someone, and they ask you for evidence for a challenged point, you ought to provide it if you can. If you can't, admit you can't and move on - but if you can't find any references to support what you say, that increases the likelihood that what you say is wrong.

God damn it... now you're misinterpreting shit again. No I'm not - you haven't addressed my basic point - in Copenhagen interpretation, observation has a special place; in other interpretations, it doesn't; different variants of Copenhagen differ on what exactly counts as observation; none of these interpretations are actually part of quantum theory, they are simply interpretations of it

The cat is a macroscopic object and not subject to quantum superstates... It sounds to me like you are stating the decoherence view, or an objective collapse interpretation.

Except there is no actual way to define string B. Yes there is, I just defined it. Sounds like you are confusing definability with computability. Or maybe you are adopting a position of mathematical intuitionism or constructivism. From the viewpoint of classical mathematics and classical logic, B is definable, but not constructible or computable.

and String B is undefined... like the value of zero divided by zero No, it is perfectly well-defined, just not in general knowable.

No, "Kolmogorov compression" is not a perfectly good name for that string. It is jargon filled and obfuscatory. Meanwhile, the phrase "ideal compression" or "prefect compression" expresses the notion succinctly and clearly. Well, rather than spending forever attacking my choice of terminology, if you'd prefer others why not just say so? I really don't care whether we call it Kolmogorov compression or ideal compression or perfect compression; it doesn't matter to me, and I don't see why it should matter to you.

But then, why would you throw away the most common tactic of woo: use language that hides and obscures what you're talking about. When you are addressing complex topics - e.g. my approach of trying to interpret natural laws in terms of the theory of computation - it is really hard not to use jargon. If there are words you don't understand, why not politely ask for further explanation?

That it won't be able to solve the Kolmogorov complexity of any string? Hmm... if you can solve the halting problem, you can calculate the Kolmogorov complexity of any finite string. A computer with an oracle for the halting problem can solve the halting problem (using its oracle), and hence calculate the Kolmogorov complexity of any finite string - something a computer without such an oracle will not be able to solve. However, I'd agree there would be infinite strings it would not be able to do the same for, although again it can do much more with infinite strings than a computer without such an oracle could do...

Oddly enough, "lame" is entirely the appropriate phrase here, because it wouldn't really be able to solve anything more than a standard computer. A computer with an oracle for the halting problem can solve the halting problem. A standard computer, lacking such an orale, can't. There is a lot you can do with a halting problem oracle - if you managed to build one, you'd totally transform the entire computer industry and make billions.

I don't find it surprising that you don't understand... you don't understand the terms that you're using. My understanding isn't perfect, but it seems pretty clear its better than yours.

See? You're confused about computability vs decidability, again. A Turing machine would spend an infinite amount of time producing an infinite universe. So? If I have a Turing machine which, given spacetime coordinates as input, tells me whether there is a particle at that co-ordinates, and what type of particle, and so on, then the infinite universe is computable. Yes, for the Turing machine to generate the entire universe as output it would take an infinite amount of time, but that doesn't matter for the definition of computability. A Turing machine would take an infinite amount of time to generate all the digits of pi, but that doesn't make pi any less computable, since it can generate as many digits as we like, and we can always ask for more and get them.

Of course, none of your argument says anything about a Turing machine ever being able to compute the next time increment of an infinite universe. Time wouldn't exist, because there would never be a second time increment. As I said, if a program given spacetime co-ordinates as input tells us what is at those spacetime co-ordinates as output, then the universe is computable. The fact that it would take an infinite amount of time to do so for all such co-ordinates doesn't itself make the universe any less computable. Whereas, if no such program could be devised, then yes the universe would be computable. If the universe is finite (plus a few other conditions), then it is computable; if it is infinite, it may or may not be computable.

You're entirely confused and throwing around terms that you don't understand, this is why you're talking bullshit. And we're again wasting a ton of time arguing nitpicking shit that has no constructive purpose. Because you don't understand you fucking terminology I don't think you are arguing constructively, with all your ad hominems. Let's make this about the arguments, rather than about the people arguing. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:57, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

"To start with, there are only a finite number of possible distinct human lives, there is only a finite time in which humanity could have existed without repeating;" That is complete bullshit. ħuman 08:48, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not "bullshit", it is quite true, although it is difficult to explain succinctly. I think it is best to start by addressing a distinct but related question. How many possible planets are there? Many think there are infinitely many - but there are good reasons based on physics to believe that only a finite number of distinct planets exist at any one time.

The known laws of physics imply that all planets occupy a finite volume and a finite energy. So there is some maximum possible volume V and maximum energy E, such that every planet has volume smaller than V and energy less than E. Now, according to the Bekenstein bound, there is a maximum possible amount of information contained in such a volume with such a maximum energy, which we'll call that I. So every planet contains less than I bits of information. Since by the Shannon definition of information, information is the logarithm of the number of distinct states of the system, this implies that the universe can contain a maximum of 2^I distinct planets at any of one time. If there are more than 2^I planets in the universe, some of those planets must be precisely identical, down to the quantum level.

I think the same logic can be applied to human lives, to conclude there is a finite maximum number of distinct people in the universe, and a finite maximum possible number of distinct human lives. I also think there are other ways of demonstrating this same point, which are independent of the laws of physics. Actually, my own preference is not to rely on the laws of physics in demonstrating this; but I think the formulation based on the laws of physics is more likely to be accepted by you than one based on other considerations. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:50, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Good point regarding the "finiteness" of the universe. But what you deduce from it is pure bullshit, since you ignore the possibility of other sentient beings, even if I were to accept your ridiculous hypothesis. PS, do you know a guy name Philip, out of Oz? ħuman 05:40, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Your argument about the number of planets possible without repetition is missing a few things. Take the total number of particles in a planet (let's use an example of an approximation of Earth: 3.5847×10^51 nucleons alone source) raising two to this value (which doesn't even count the number of possible quantum states that each nucleon could possess) yields a number well above the size of 78 billion light years across that the whole universe is presumed to be. (source) Given a volume then of 2.485×10^32 cubic light years, in order for there to be an exact nucleon for nucleon copy of the planet (not even exact quantum states) there would have to be approximately 10^(1.079×10^51) planets per light year. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 20:40, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

You're doing the Gish Gallop again. Hint: stop tq'ing every sentence of mine to refute it specifically.

You can compress the universe to a single bit with Hamming codes, hey you can compress it to zero bits without them No, you can't compress anything to zero bits.

Arguably it doesn't. There are certainly finite strings more than 55 characters long that cannot be expressed by a program 55 characters long or less. This will be true for most random strings of 56 characters (some will be coincidentally compressible to less, but most of them won't be.) You're an idiot. This is formulation is the very paradox used to prove that Kolmogorov Complexity is incomputable. Because anything the string refers to, is expressable in a 55 character long string, and thus the string cannot refer to it.

No, it's because the halting problem is unsolvable. *sigh* no.

If you want to have a discussion with someone, and they ask you for evidence for a challenged point, you ought to provide it if you can. It's not my job to explain to you how Quantum Mechanics works if you bring it up. If you bring it into the debate, you damn well should know how it works. If you don't then don't bring it up.

No I'm not - you haven't addressed my basic point - in Copenhagen interpretation, observation has a special place; in other interpretations, it doesn't; *sigh* no. "Observation" is simply the name given to superstate collapse. Superstate collapse however must have a "special place" in every Quantum interpretation, because superstate collapse is a core concept of the very math of how Quantum mechanics works. Again, this isn't something I should have to be explaining to you, if you are the person bringing Quantum mechanics into the debate.

It sounds to me like you are stating the decoherence view, or an objective collapse interpretation. Stop throwing jargon around, because you're using it wrong.

No, it is perfectly well-defined, just not in general knowable. No, the value of zero divided by zero is called "undefined". Again, you're abusing terminology here, and I'm damn sure that you're equivocating here, too.

Well, rather than spending forever attacking my choice of terminology, if you'd prefer others why not just say so? I told you that your terms were bullshit, and it's been the focus of my entire argument with you. Stop throwing around jargon and inventing neologisms because you're just obfuscating your points in the hopes that someone won't be able to refute them.

I really don't care whether we call it Kolmogorov compression or ideal compression or perfect compression; it doesn't matter to me, and I don't see why it should matter to you. BECAUSE NO ONE KNOW WHAT KOLMOGOROV COMPRESSION IS, because YOU invented the term. It is therefore obfuscatory language seeking to hide your argument behind terms that no one can understand. And if someone proves you "wrong" by your given definition, you can now just change the definition on them. This is why we use established terminology, so that when you miss use it (like you have throughout this entire argument) it can be pointed to and it can be said: "You're misusing terminology. Your argument may possibly be true, but that cannot be evaluated until you fix your god damn terminology. Until then, we ignore you.}}

my approach of trying to interpret natural laws in terms of the theory of computation - it is really hard not to use jargon I know and understand computation and Computer Science jargon... and I understand it better than you do apparently, because you CONSTANTLY MISUSE IT. My suggestion is not that you avoid jargon because I can't understand it. I'm insisting that you avoid jargon because a) you're misusing it, or b) you're inventing it out of thin air.

A computer with an oracle for the halting problem can solve the halting problem (using its oracle), and hence calculate the Kolmogorov complexity of any finite string Argument by vigorous assertion here? Do you even understand how you could reduce the Kolmogorov complexity function into a halting question?

My understanding isn't perfect, but it seems pretty clear its better than yours. No... it's not. You're abusing equivocation left and right.

... it would take an infinite amount of time, but that doesn't matter for the definition of computability. If one were to accept your definition here, that would mean that the halting problem is computable.

As I said, if a program given spacetime co-ordinates as input tells us what is at those spacetime co-ordinates as output, then the universe is computable. The fact that it would take an infinite amount of time to do so for all such co-ordinates doesn't itself make the universe any less computable Even accepting your definition (which I don't) your infinite universe remains uncomputable beyond the first time increment, because it would take infinite time to compute that first time increment, thus no time is left for the second (or later) time increments. By your own definitions, an infinite universe would be uncomputable. This is your entire problem, you keep abusing jargon and painting yourself into logical contradictions. THIS IS WHY I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU TO STOP USING BULLSHIT.

I don't think you are arguing constructively, with all your ad hominems. Let's make this about the arguments, rather than about the people arguing. The entire substance of your arguments is invalid, and fallacious, it deserves no attention. I'm trying to help you stop making an idiot of yourself, which can only be done by making ad hominem arguments. The response to someone arguing that "two plus two equals fish" is not to tell them how they're wrong or why they're wrong... it's to tell them that they're absolutely not even wrong and need to go back and learn some shit before opening their god damn mouth. Thus spake the pedant. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 18:04, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Since you have objected to my responding to your every point (You're doing the Gish Gallop again. Hint: stop tq'ing every sentence of mine to refute it specifically.), I'm not going to do so this time.

Eira, I must ask, why the hostility? And I think this argument is going a bit off-track... does it really matter whether I or you are understanding computability theory correctly? Or whether I or you are using standard terminology or not? The same goes for this discussion around who has the correct understanding of quantum physics. Let's focus more on the ideas, and less on the style of argument, or the capabilities of the arguers. I agree I may not be stating my position as well as I could (I'd say the same for you though), but the most polite and rational response is to try to help one's interlocutor state their ideas better, rather than arguing you should reject their ideas just because they were not stated as well as they could have been. My original point was, to rephrase using your preferred terminology (I really don't care what terminology we use):

1. The universe can be given a precise straightforward description, such as, for each spacetime coordinate, whether it is occupied by a particle and if so, what type of particle (e.g. its quantum numbers). (In reality, the nature of the description might be more complicated - it might reference wave functions, or superstrings, or whatnot, instead of or as well as point-particles. My point is just that, in principle, such a description could exist, in a mathematical sense, not what the exact form it should take is)
2. That description can be encoded into a (possibly infinite) string.
3. Either a Turing-equivalent computer can generate that string or not. (Of course, if it is an infinite string, it will take the computer an infinite amount of time to do so)
4. If a Turing-equivlent computer running some program can generate that string, then that program is the ideal/perfect compression of the universe. (If no Turing-equivalent computer can generate that string - well, quite possibly some computer more powerful than a Turing-equivalent computer could (i.e. a hypercomputer), and then possibly we could then rescue the argument by defining an analogue of ideal/perfect compression in terms of what that computer can do.)
5. The ideal/perfect compression of the universe is a string which is (or which states) the most perfect possible law of nature, albeit unknowable - perfect in its total applicability, perfect in its precision
6. Any law of nature knowable to humans is an imperfect human-created approximation to that perfect law
7. Although it is possible to speak of violation of imperfect human-created approximations to the law of nature, the concept of violating the ideal/perfect compression law is meaningless
8. Based on the above, your concept that one only believes in idealism if somehow one believes the laws of nature are violated is wrong, since the real laws of nature cannot possibly be violated, only imperfect approximations to them, and those approximations are a product of human limitations - they are undoubtedly based on the fundamental law of reality, but they are distortions of that law due to human limitations--(((Zack Martin)))^™ 00:59, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, by the way Eira, you keep on insisting "Kolmogorov compression" is a term I invented, yet a quick Google search on that phrase gives over 190 hits, most of which is people other than me using the term. I am not on the first page at all - maybe some of the subsequent pages have me using it, I haven't checked - but here is clear proof that it is a term used by people other than me, and by people who are not associated with me. So your claim that "Kolmogorov compression" is a term I have just made up stands disproven, for other people use it too to mean the same thing I mean by it. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 02:48, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

"Kolmogorov Complexity" has a number of Google hits a number of pages a few powers of ten larger. A number of hits in the hundreds is not any indication that you didn't invent the term on your own. Especially considering that "Maratrea" returns 13.8 thousand hits. And a language that I know that I invented alone returns 1 thousand. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 05:03, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

{{tq|And I think this argument is going a bit off-track...} Exactly, which is the exact reason why I told you to stop Gish Galloping... it derails conversations into meaningless nitpicking. This most recent post is actually quite reasonable.

does it really matter whether I or you are understanding computability theory correctly? Or whether I or you are using standard terminology or not? The same goes for this discussion around who has the correct understanding of quantum physics. Yes, it does matter. If I say, "two plus two is fish", you have every right to object that I'm not using math properly, and I'm just spouting gibberish. If I were to then claim "who cares if I call it fish, or if you call it four?" What kind of response would you even accept that as? I mean, seriously.

If you're going to debate something, you cannot abuse terminology or else the whole argument is lost on your side, not because you're wrong, but because no one worth debating with will debate you. For instance, people who say that apple cider vinegar is an alkalizing agent in the body are immediately identifiable as talking bullshit, and so they tend to get blown off or insulted rather than debated, because the first step in any debate with them is getting them to understand that they're wronger than wrong.

You go on to make a few assertions. But the primary take is that you assert that any change that happens in the universe is natural, because it would follow natural law, because in order for something to occur, it must be validated by natural law. This argument seems more like a philosophical get-out-of-jail-free card rather than any reasonable argument.

It is perfectly reasonable to presume the existence of a universe that has a natural law and an order of doing things that is immutable (materialist for pedantry's sake), but external to this universe, there is a supernatural entity, which is capable of interfering with the proper flow of laws, because being as an entity external to that universe, he is not bound to the natural laws of that universe. "But then there would be a meta-universe that would have to allow the supernatural being to manipulate the universe by natural laws"... such an argument is irrelevant from the context of the universe itself. "but then the natural laws of the universe have to be written such that they allow the supernatural entity to interfere" no, this argument is false. The supernatural entity is interfering with the universe in a way not allowed by the internally consistent natural laws by either breaking or ignoring the natural laws of that universe. "But then the natural laws would just state that this supernatural entity could break or ignore natural laws of that universe" but this leads to numerous paradoxes, and really, if the supernatural entity could break or ignore the natural laws of that universe, then it doesn't really need a natural law to allow it to break or ignore the natural laws of that universe, does it?

Regardless of all this, if the minds of an idealist universe are incapable of altering the natural laws of the universe, then the universe wouldn't really be idealist would it? Because in an idealist universe, even the laws of nature are just figments of the minds inhabiting it. If the minds of this idealist universe are in any way restricted from altering the laws of nature, then the universe becomes indistinguishable from a materialistic world. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 05:03, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, first of all to address your claim that I am abusing terminology - one of your claims is that 'Kolmogorov compression' is not a valid term. But actually it is - see page 10 of this paper, where it is being used in exactly the same sense I am using it. I can find other examples of its use too. I did not write that paper; I don't know its author. Yes, "Kolmogorov complexity" is a more common term than "Kolmogorov compression", but they are both valid terms - they mean different, albeit related, things. It is a perfectly valid term, so I think that claim of yours stands refuted.

Moving on from terminological disputes, you say But the primary take is that you assert that any change that happens in the universe is natural, because it would follow natural law, because in order for something to occur, it must be validated by natural law. This argument seems more like a philosophical get-out-of-jail-free card rather than any reasonable argument. - Well, that is more or less what I am saying - nothing can violate the laws of nature, because if something happened which supposedly violated them, all it would mean would be that they must have been different from what we thought they were. This is in fact the scientific attitude - when evidence is found contradicting a scientific law, the scientific conclusion is not that the laws of nature are being violated, but that our idea of what the laws of nature are is incomplete, and must be updated to account for this new evidence. Our scientific laws are just imperfect approximations to the actual laws of nature, and when we find something which contradicts one of our scientific laws, the response is to replace that scientific law with a new one which constitutes a better approximation. But no one would ever assume our scientific laws are perfect - no matter how good our scientific knowledge, there always remains the possibility of a new experiment or observation which could contradict it. So scientific laws are ever-better approximations to the true laws of nature, but we can never know if we've actually reached the true law of nature, or just another imperfect approximation

In terms of your argument about an external deity interfering with the universe's laws - well, you could interpret that as the laws of nature being violated, or you could interpret the deity's interference as being required by the laws of nature, but only if the deity interferes. In other words, if the deity intervenes, then that intervention results in the laws of nature being different from what they would have been had the deity not done so. This is my understanding of the "laws of nature" - I suppose whose is right just depends on how you understand the term "law", so it is quite possibly just an empty issue of semantics.

if the minds of an idealist universe are incapable of altering the natural laws of the universe, then the universe wouldn't really be idealist would it? Well, I say the universe is a product of the mind, but that doesn't mean minds have absolute control over the universe. Minds don't have absolute control over themselves either. I don't have complete control over what I think or feel or believe or desire or remember, but that doesn't make my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, desires and memories any less the product of my mind.

Because in an idealist universe, even the laws of nature are just figments of the minds inhabiting it In an idealist universe, the laws of nature are a product of mind, yes - but that does not mean minds have absolute control over them, any more than they have absolute control over themselves.

If the minds of this idealist universe are in any way restricted from altering the laws of nature, then the universe becomes indistinguishable from a materialistic world. From the perspective of minds within the universe, there is no way to distinguish idealism from materialism by observation. If you died and found yourself in some form of afterlife, that would be strong (but not absolutely conclusive) that the universe was idealist or dualist rather than materialist. But, without dying, there is no observation, test or experiment that can distinguish an idealist from a materialist universe.

That doesn't mean there is no distinction. Here is a big one: suppose intelligent life becomes extinct in the universe, and there exist no minds outside this universe somehow observing it from without. If idealism is true, then this universe ceases to exist the moment intelligent life becomes extinct within it. Whereas, if materialism is true, then it will go on existing regardless. So, this is a real difference between an idealist or materialist universe - but not one we can observe, since it is impossible for us to observe whether this universe would still exist if all intelligent life within it perished - at least without stepping somehow outside the universe - and, from the idealist viewpoint, if we could step outside this universe and somehow observe it from the outside, that would be sufficient to retain it in existence even after the extinction of all intelligent life within it. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:45, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

The fact that David Donoho also coined the term "Kolmogorov Compression" doesn't mean you didn't just make it up also. Recall, you can only get 190 some results for the term, while I can get more than a thousand results for a completely fictitious language that I invented, and I speak alone. The term is, regardless of someone else having used it as well, a neologism that is nonstandard and abusive terminology. The term "pomosexual" has 32,000 hits, and yet no one would suggest its use in regular debate, because it's an obscure neologism... and your term remains an even more obscure neologism.

or you could interpret the deity's interference as being required by the laws of nature, but only if the deity interferes. But if the deity interferes with the universe in a way that violates the otherwise immutable laws of nature, then the deity would have the ability to break or ignore the laws of nature, but if he had such an ability to break or ignore the laws of nature, then again: he wouldn't need the law allowing him to break the laws.

In an idealist universe, the laws of nature are a product of mind, yes - but that does not mean minds have absolute control over them, any more than they have absolute control over themselves. No, you're arguing against a straw man here. I'm not saying that they do alter the laws of nature, but rather that they must have the ability to alter the rules of nature. As in: "magic and magicians like Merlin, and Unicorns used to exist in the word, but our minds all decided (perhaps unconsciously) that this is now bollocks, and so we've collectively come to believe that they don't exist anymore, which makes them not exist. And even more so, since we now believe that they were never possible to begin with, any and all evidence that could have supported justifying their existence in the past has been oversighted as well."

But even then, people who are hallucinating react like their hallucinations are real, but everyone observing that person witness the person hallucinating, is this hallucinator down voted, such that their individual reality that a truck isn't about to him them is then overruled by everyone else witnessing the truck that is about to hit him? What of a person alone on an island hallucinating, and he hallucinates a bridge for him to walk across a chasm, and then he falls to his death. We later find his body and it's clear to us that he fell to his death, does our minds exert backwards pressure down voting the hallucinating individual to make his bridge not actually exist? Does the hallucinator some how not actually believe in the hallucination? Why would he walk onto the bridge then? Does his unconscious mind somehow down vote his conscious mind's hallucination?

If all of your answers are sufficient to keep the world identical to the world that most of us perceive to be materialist everyday, then why even call the world idealist? Why even make that assumption? And following your line of points below, how is idealism either necessary to believe, or how do believing it keep you out of the asylum? And in fact... if the world were idealistic, couldn't all the minds suddenly decide to change the world to be materialistic? I mean the proposition "the world is idealistic" is again, just a law of nature subject to the whims of minds...

All of this leads to one point: if science worried about this shit all the time, nothing would get done. The world operates by your own admission indistinguishably from a materialist universe... so thus, there is no fault in science taking that assumption and following the conclusions.

And if the people finding the fallen corpse of the hallucinator could push back their universe to down vote the hallucinator at the time he fell, then why can't scientists and modern humans push back the reality of the past of the universe to conform to the evidence that we find? And if we do push back the reality prior to our existence by building a coherent materialist-like past for our universe, what does it even mean to say that it didn't exist, or never happened? If our minds (the only existent thing humoring your position) say it existed, and we perceive the world the same as if it had existed, then why make the assumption that it hadn't?

Coherence of thought and regularity of memory in fact are not required for human life as you seem to claim, in opposition, I in my for-the-moment-argued solipsist universe, have experienced incoherence of thought, false memory, memory loss, non-continuous consciousness... thus in the strictest skepticism outside my own brain, I see the existence of counterexamples to your argument.

You continue to assert that we will know the truth by experiment post mortem but this doesn't actually fly either. It's entirely possible that in death, the mind ceases to exist (which is more supported than much else, because the body and all the same material is still there). Idealism does not carry as a necessary consequence a life after death. So, if you're being radically skeptical, why are you believing in a life after death? Hm? Oh that's right, you're confident that you were able to make a strong argument for a life after death in a idealist world... how wonderfully unskeptical of you. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 18:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

About a deity interfering with the laws of nature - I don't believe in that kind of deity; and, correct me if I am wrong, but I don't get the impression you believe in such a deity either. So I am not sure the question of whether a deity which neither of us believes in could violate the laws of nature is that relevant.

I'm not saying that they do alter the laws of nature, but rather that they must have the ability to alter the rules of nature I don't see how idealism implies either actual minds violating the laws of nature, or even an ability for minds to alter the laws of nature. I'm sure some idealists believe minds do so, or have such an ability to, but I don't believe the laws of nature are alterable, and I don't see any necessary contradiction between that position and idealism

As to your example about Merlin and Unicorns, maybe those things never existed anyway? Nothing about idealism implies our minds can't be mistaken about things; idealism just implies, there is nothing ultimately for minds to be mistaken about except themselves or each other. But that still leaves enormous room for mistaken ideas to exist.

About hallucination - if I am hallucinating, and no one else sees what I am hallucinating - well, there is a pattern which exists in all their experiences which does not extend to mine, and a pattern which exists in mine which does not exist in theirs. If I later become convinced that what I saw was just a hallucination, then my experiences have joined their pattern too, albeit it is expressedly differently in me than it is in them

If all of your answers are sufficient to keep the world identical to the world that most of us perceive to be materialist everyday, then why even call the world idealist? Well, why call it materialist either? If that's an argument against idealism, it's an argument against materialism too.

And following your line of points below, how is idealism either necessary to believe, or how do believing it keep you out of the asylum? Idealism is not necessary to believe. Solipsism is necessary to disbelieve. You are confusing my argument against solipsism with an argument for idealism. It does indirectly defend idealism, in that it helps neutralize the anti-idealist argument that idealism leads to solipsism, since (if my argument is right) it gives an idealist a rational reason to reject solipsism without needing to reject idealism in the process. But it still doesn't give you any reason to believe in idealism, at best it just refutes one argument against idealism, without actually providing any necessity of accepting idealism.

Now, the point about "if X and Y have equal evidence, and that is unlikely to change, then you can use non-evidential reasons to choose between X and Y" - well, that could be an argument for idealism, but only if you agree that there are good non-evidential reasons to choose idealism. If you don't agree with that added premise, then it is not an argument for idealism.

You keep on mentioning voting, as if I think minds are somehow voting with their beliefs on what is real. I don't believe that. Maybe some idealists believe that, but it is not part of my idealism.

Idealism does not carry as a necessary consequence a life after death I agree. But, to a materialist, death is special, so the claim existence ends at death makes a lot of sense. Whereas, to an idealist, death is not so special, so there is no necessary reason to assume existence ends at death more than at any point.

But, I don't think materialism disproves an afterlife, or idealism proves one. I just think, given materialism, an afterlife is rather unlikely (although not absolutely impossible); given idealism, an afterlife is not certain, but a fair bit more likely than it would be were materialism true. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:34, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ So I am not sure the question of whether a deity which neither of us believes in could violate the laws of nature is that relevant. You keep asserting that the laws of nature are inviolable, and immutable. I'm pointing out the missing assumption in that belief that shows that there is no such guarantee that natural laws are immutable or inviolable. There always exists the possibility of an external entity capable of breaking the laws of nature, because it is not bound by the laws of nature. I also pointed out that attempting to explain this away by saying that the laws of nature allow this entity to violate the laws creates a paradox in that if the entity can violate/break the laws of nature, then it doesn't need a law to allow it violate or break the laws of nature. I don't see how idealism implies either actual minds violating the laws of nature, or even an ability for minds to alter the laws of nature. My point is that if you don't hold this position, then your notion of idealism is identical to materialism, which I believe is the null hypothesis. (Since believing that our perceptions are the true and real world is a null hypothesis.) As for Merlin and Unicorns, the whole point, which you seem to have missed, is that belief in them would be just as justified as believing in the black plague. If we accept the black plague existed, then in our reality the black plague existed. (It is a null hypothesis to presume that the past actually happened.) In a possible idealist explanation though, the minds that existed at the time were witness to magic and miracles, but the minds through time have come to reject such notions, and now such magic and miracles no longer occur. You keep speaking about "natural law" being immutable, but idealism asserts no such claim, and in fact cannot assertion such a claim as valid. Since the "real world" does not actually exist, then the minds are working by some mechanism internal to themselves to create the perceptions we perceive. If something external to the minds were to project these perceptions to us, then there would have to exist a reality beyond that of the minds perceiving the world. Now, imagine the Universe's rules as a von Neumann computer... no matter how much you assert that the laws of nature are immutable, such a declaration is not actually written in stone, and for the "laws of nature" to exist external to the minds perceiving it, then it would be required to contradict the position of idealism that only minds exist. Thus, in idealism the very laws of nature must be a perception of the mind internal to the mind itself... a von Neumann architecture where the laws of nature can be altered the same as any of our other senses. Thus, the hallucinator stands upon the bridge of his own minds perception entirely independent of the perceptions of others who see his mangled fallen corpse upon the ground. Well, why call it materialist either? If that's an argument against idealism, it's an argument against materialism too. Because I/we didn't call it materialism. The idealists retronymed the null hypothesis that what we perceive is true and actual reality. Materialism suffers no burden of proof because it is the default choice... only through skepticism are we brought to the question of: "is what we see actually there, or just a figment of our imagination?" The cat chasing a mouse through a field doesn't need to ponder the reality of what she perceives... she is apparently bound by a physical reality, a natural law beyond her control, and the hole that the mouse runs into exerts its presence on her perceptions no matter how much she desires it not to. The trap captures her, even when she is not aware of it. The self-apparent nature of our perceptions puts an immediate limitation of scope on the reality that we logically consider must exist. As to posit a true reality that does not match up with our perceptions is to posit a world that we know is not the case. Finally, Idealism is not necessary to believe. Then why Mr. Skeptic do you assert that it is true? --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 01:40, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

long overdue edit break

You keep asserting that the laws of nature are inviolable, and immutable Well, I think Tetronian's approach to taboo rationality_{I am not a big fan of Yudkowsky on the whole, but his basic point here has some merit}, which he used in another section below, was quite useful. Maybe we could agree to "taboo" the laws of nature? Because I think we simply take laws of nature to mean different things.

My point is that if you don't hold this position, then your notion of idealism is identical to materialism, which I believe is the null hypothesis. (Since believing that our perceptions are the true and real world is a null hypothesis.) I don't agree materialism is the null hypothesis. Agnosticism with respect to the idealism-materialism question would be the null hypothesis. Both idealism and materialism agree that "our perceptions are the true and real world", they just differ in what they mean by that.

You keep speaking about "natural law" being immutable, but idealism asserts no such claim Idealism in itself doesn't imply this, but my philosophy of the laws of nature does. Someone could be an idealist yet reject my analysis of the nature of the laws of nature. But obviously when I am defending idealism, I am defending my formulation of it, as opposed to other possible formulations.

Since the "real world" does not actually exist That depends on what you mean by real world and exist. I see no problem, as an idealist, with asserting that the real world exists; but an idealist means rather different things by real world and exists than a materialist does.

The idealists retronymed the null hypothesis that what we perceive is true and actual reality. Materialism suffers no burden of proof because it is the default choice... only through skepticism are we brought to the question of: "is what we see actually there, or just a figment of our imagination?" I think your account is historically mistaken. Dualism is arguably older than materialism. Idealism is just as old or older than materialism, if we count Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, the Upanishads, etc., as idealisms. The basis for the question of idealism, is not skepticism, but What is the relation between mind and matter? Three main answers: (1) materialism-matter fundamental, mind derivative; (2) idealism-mind fundamental, matter derivative; (3) dualism-both equally fundamental, neither derivative of the other. Now, idealists will use skepticism to try to argue for their position, yes, but skepticism is not the fundamental motivation for their idealism, just a tool to try to advance it. Their skepticism is like Descartes' (doubt as a means to certainty) rather than Pyrrho's (doubt as not just a means, but also as the final destination).

Finally, Idealism is not necessary to believe. Then why Mr. Skeptic do you assert that it is true? In the sense in which I have been using necessary to believe, well necessity of belief is separate from truth. Some things may be true, yet not necessary to believe. Something can be in error, yet still not necessary to disbelieve. Only the most blatant and obvious error is necessary to disbelieve, and only the most blatant and obvious truth is necessary to believe. Many more subtle or complicated truths or falsehoods are neither necessary to believe nor necessary to disbelieve.

For example, it is necessary to believe, and impossible to disbelieve, 1+1=2. It is not however necessary to believe 221467233+92372332=313839565 - it is possible to believe it, and possible to disbelieve it. Both are true, and from a mathematical perspective there is no real difference between them. But no one who understands what the symbols involved mean can disbelieve the first claim, yet it is quite easy for someone who understands the symbols involved to be mistaken about the second.

Calling me Mr. Skeptic makes it sound like skepticism is the foundation, or the be all and end all of my views. It's not, it's just a tool, a means to an end, not the end itself. I've mentioned a distinction between skepticism ala Descartes and skepticism ala Pyrrho, I am a Cartesian sceptic rather than a Pyrrhonian one.

Anyway, why am I an idealist? As I've mentioned, if idealism and its alternatives (dualism, materialism, etc.) have equal evidence, and that is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, then I think it permissible to use non-evidential reasons to choose between them. And I think the non-evidential reasons favour idealism. That is why I am an idealist. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 23:10, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

You fail to answer the most fundamental flaw in your entire argument. You claim that there are "laws of nature" what is the nature of these laws, and how are they enforced. If as you claim, idealism posits that the mind is fundamental, and the rest derived, then the "laws of nature" must be either a faculty of minds, or the derivative product of a faculty of minds. In such a case, if the minds were to alter, then the "laws of nature" would alter. The question then becomes, what keeps minds from altering? And the answer can only be a "law of nature", which again, as stated earlier, must be a faculty of minds or a derivative of minds. Thus, you end up with the circular argument that the "laws of nature" can't change, because the mind can't change, because the "laws of nature" can't change.

So, explain: what guarantees that your proclaimed "laws of nature" cannot change? And how do you avoid the circular argument that everything that is not a mind is a derivative of minds in idealism?

You can doubt the "null hypothesis" status of materialism all you want, but that doesn't change the matter that it is a null hypothesis to posit that what we perceive on the veil of perception are actually existent separate from the minds that perceive them, and not a projection/derivative of their minds.

I'm going to fall back on some of your arguments now, to construct my own, because you seem to be missing some connections due to lack of imagination. Ok, we agree that there is no evidential way to distinguish our world as materialist or idealist... this is immediately apparent, because otherwise philosophers would have settled this debate ages ago. Now, your position is that the only justified position to take in this case would be agnosticism, but agnosticism is not a position, it is a lack of position. In fact, arguably, due to pure skepticism, we know that nothing can be proven to 100% certainty required for gnosticism. (Although to be fair, we cannot be 100% sure about this either... maybe logic is fundamentally flawed in some way.) So, really, arguing any gnostic position (whether you're certain that materialism is true, or idealism is true) is fraught with irrational positions. You yourself cannot rationally argue that you are 100% certain that idealism is true.

So taking the only logically consistent position that all beliefs no matter how conclusively we prove them might be wrong, then agnosticism is the position that everyone here arguing against you does hold. And you yourself readily acknowledge that you hold an agnostic position because in accounting for your position, you readily acknowledge that materialism and idealism are indistinguishable (which also admits the primary point of this original heading: your ideas are all unfalsifiable). So you yourself are taking an agnostic position anyways.

Next, we come to the "provisional position", as I will call it. This is the position that, despite knowing that one can't prove anything with 100% certainty, that one takes anyways, because the majority or best evidence supports that position. Then, there are "null hypotheses" in abundance, in fact one for every possible argument, and this is the position or hypothesis that lacking any and all evidence to decide is the position that makes the least assumptions, or only the most basic assumptions. In fact, given the failure of your criteria (1) to settle the argument, rationalists assert that one should presume the null hypothesis.

The null hypothesis for ghosts, unicorns, magicians, is "they don't exist". In fact, the null hypothesis for any new animal (even if it does exist) is "they don't exist". Prior to scientific findings establishing that gorillas really do in fact exist, there were simply anecdotal, and legendary claims about them. In this situation, with a complete lack of evidence to prove anything, the only rational choice was the null hypothesis: "they don't exist". And the same still applies to bigfoot, and the chupacabra. However, your argument for a second criteria, that being "we can use non-evidentiary criteria to chose between the two" (let's call it the "affirmative action criteria") we could consider that hundreds of people have claimed to see both bigfoot, and the chupacabra, thus, we are justified in believing that they exist. In fact, since we have a well documented strongly held belief from a young girl that fairies exist, and don't have any evidence to the contrary, then we should believe in the existence of fairies, right? ... of course, later evidence comes along and proves that she was committing a hoax, and now you look stupid for lending her evidence credibility, and the rationalists that refused to change from the null hypothesis didn't.

So, now we come to "why is materialism the null hypothesis"? We're limited by the veil of perception, all we have is our perceptions. So, let's take the analogy that we're seeing the world through a literal veil in front of us, where the world is then projected onto this veil. We would be able to distinguish between idealism and materialism easily enough in such an analogy, by lifting up the veil and looking beyond. Is what we're seeing projected on the veil a projection of things that are really there, or is there rather an image projector casting these projections onto the veil?

Given this, I ask you... what is the null hypothesis, that our veil of perception is reflecting things that are actually there (materialism), or are our perceptions just a "deceptive" projection from our own minds? (idealism) Now, this is not an argument that idealism is wrong, rather it is an argument that the assumption that our perceptions reflect things that are fundamentally existent is the most rational assumption to make given a total lack of evidence to the contrary. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 01:45, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Enforcement of laws of nature You ask how the laws of nature are "enforced". And this reveals our very different understanding of them - to you, it seems the laws of nature are like the laws of society - capable of being enforced or violated. I think it would be reasonable to call your idea of the laws of nature "prescriptive", whereas I see them as purely "descriptive". To me, they are simply patterns we observe in our experience. If we experienced different patterns instead, that is not evidence for any pattern being violated, its simply evidence for a different pattern than what we thought was there. Suppose a tiled floor is covered with plain carpet. You rip up one section of the carpet - you notice the pattern in the tiling. The part of the tiles you can see is compatible with many different patterns, but naturally you will expect a simpler pattern rather than a more complex one. But as you rip up more carpet, you might find the pattern much more complex than you first assumed, and then discover the part you saw at first was rather misleading as to the whole. By the same logic, if we see an apparent violation of the laws of nature, rather than concluding the laws of nature have been violated, we can simply conclude the laws of nature were not what we thought they were, that they must be more complex than we at first imagined.

Change in laws of nature You also perceive laws as things that can change over time, but I see them as fixed. They can be fixed because the same laws can imply different results at different times. From the viewpoint of Big Bang cosmology, the universe 5 seconds old was a radically different place from the universe 13.5 billion years old. Yet, it claims the same laws apply at both times, just that these laws have different consequences at different times. In the same way, if minds change, an idealist need not see this as the laws changing as a result, just as the same mental laws having different consequences at different times.

Agnosticism and certainty I think you are confusing the idea of agnosticism with certainty. I am not saying, if you aren't 100% sure, you must be an agnostic. I'm simply saying, if you believe the evidence is equally balanced (50-50), then you should be one. If you believe there is strong evidence for one side over the other (strong can be less than certain), you shouldn't be an agnostic. If neither side has any evidence, then agnosticism would seem the right path (unless, as I have argued elsewhere, it is permissible in that case to follow non-evidential reasons). But if one side has signficantly more evidence than the other, even if it be less than certain, than believing the side with more evidence would be the right thing to do.

Null hypothesis I don't agree materialism is a null hypothesis. Your argument about bigfoot, gorillas, etc., suggests that in the absence of positive evidence for something, the null hypothesis is that it doesn't exist. Well, an idealist can say, we don't have positive evidence for matter existing independently of our own minds, so the null hypothesis must be that such matter doesn't exist.

Likelihood of evidence to change About the bigfoot, the gorilla, etc., I think its important to consider one my principles had two prongs (1) equal evidence and (2) highly unlikely to change. (1) may apply to bigfoot, and have once applied to gorillas. But (2) doesn't seem to be true here. We explore nature further. Our powers of surveillance over nature (satellites, drone aircraft, etc.) keep on growing. There seems every reason to believe, with each passing year, our bigfoot detection ability will grow, so we will become more likely to detect him if he exists, and the continued failure to detect him becomes ever better evidence of his non-existence. Even centuries ago, this fact was still true, although then our knowledge grew by old-fashioned exploration rather than high technology. But a question like idealism-vs-dualism is very different - maybe one day we'll get more evidence, but there seems no reason to suppose that any further evidence will be forthcoming.

Deception To say that if idealism is true, our experiences would be deceptive, is something only a materialist would agree with. A materialist sees our experiences as indicating the existence of a world beyond our minds, and thus concludes that if this indication is wrong, our experiences must be somehow deceptive. An idealist doesn't see this indication in our experiences, so doesn't see any deception going on. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:49, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

You're misrepresenting the way I believe the laws of nature work. Perhaps I haven't been clear.

Ok, as an idealist, you believe that minds exist fundamentally, and everything else is a derivative. Thus, do the laws of nature exist independent of our minds? or are they simply a derivative?

Your lack of understanding of what "agnostic" means doesn't really surprise me; given all of the terminology you've abused already... when I say "agnostic" I mean, "lacking knowledge about one's beliefs". ("knowledge" meaning "true belief") I do not mean "one fails to have a position about a matter one way or the other." The latter would be "apistic", not "agnostic".

I don't find it surprising that you don't understand how believing that our perceptions represent an objective reality is a null hypothesis... you seem so wrapped up in your retarded world of "I want to believe XY, and you can't tell me I'm wrong, because my beliefs are unfalsifiable" that you won't listen to reason. Then you sit there and make contradictory arguments, and ... frankly, I'm getting sick of this... you're not a rationalist, and you're doing a horrible job of making a logically consistent argument. It is to be expected though, because as Tetronian pointed out... the truth invades every belief system, and once you privilege a belief against rationalism, you're willing to contort in some really crazy ways to allow your cognitive dissonance to continue... --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 10:59, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I am left guessing as to what your basic view on what the laws of nature is, since you've never stated explicitly what it is. So it is not surprising if I have misinterpreted it.

In my view, the laws of nature are just patterns in the experiences of minds, in other words patterns in mind. So, a pattern in something does not exist independently of the thing it is a pattern in - it is a derivative. But a closely connected derivative, you change the thing, you change which pattern it expresses. If we consider a pattern which encompass all of mind at all times, then that pattern cannot change, since there is no time without it in which it could change.

Would you mind explaining in more detail how you draw a distinction between agnostic vs. apistic? Apistic is a very rarely used word, so it would be good for you to define more clearly what you mean by it.

Knowledge is arguably more than just "true belief" - a classic account would say "justified true belief", but then the Gettier problem indicates that something even more than that is required.

Anyway, if someone has no belief concerning X, they are arguably an agnostic concerning X, because they don't claim to know regarding X.

You still haven't given a clear argument why materialism must be the null hypothesis - from my perspective, you are just asserting that to treat it as such is rational.

I think you are misrepresenting my disagreements with you and Tetronian surrounding the nature of rationality. I think on most principles of rationality we agree, although obviously there are some one which we do not. But I don't think those principles exclusive to me are relevant to arguing for idealism-materialism agnosticism, just for trying to move beyond that agnosticism to an actual idealist position.

I must ask though - when you say that "materialism is the null hypothesis", do you think that is a basic principle of rationality or a derived principle? And if it is a derived principle, could you produce then its derivation from what you believe to be basic principles? --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 07:09, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I coined "apistic" from the Greek: "non belief". I explicitly stated that it would be the term for what you assert "agnostic" to mean. The validity in coining this term, was to distinguish your claims of what "agnostic" means, from what "agnostic" actually means. I have no intent on using the word myself, because I do not believe that the concept is rationally valid. (As asserting the position would require pure skepticism in an argument; an active refusal to believe any possible position of an argument; and at the same time, would require pure apathy with regards to the answer. Thus, the position would be self-contradictory... an apathetic active refusal of all beliefs on a topic... even of the null-hypothesis which is the rationally justified belief in such a condition.)

What you fail to recognize is that many materialists are, and do consider themselves to be agnostic, because we cannot assert that we have a "true belief". (Whatever additional requirements you assert "knowledge" must contain, it is well accepted that it is a necessary condition that the belief be true to be "knowledge".) We feel that we have a justified belief, but only because materialism is the null hypothesis... yeah, I know, you disagree, obviously because granting this position would rationally invalidate your beliefs, and be a concession that you're wrong... which you can't do, because your belief in idealism is a protected belief, thus you must defend and justify it at all costs.

In the same way as agnostic materialism, prior to the discovery of the Gorilla, biologists were skeptical agnostics... they asserted that gorillas did not exist, but that they do not have any evidence or proof to claim as such. Thus, they have a justified belief, but not a true belief. (In fact, we now know that anyone who asserted to be a skeptical gnostic about gorillas was in fact absolutely wrong, and did not have a true belief in the first place.)

Thus, to assert that the only position that an agnostic can take is "I don't know, and I refuse to believe either way" is wrong by counterexample. I am a materialist, and an agnostic. I cannot prove my assertion to be true, and thus I cannot assert it is "knowledge", but I do have good justification for that belief.

Your inability to understand how materialism would be a null hypothesis probably goes a long way towards explaining your inability to grasp rationalism properly. I am looking at a soda can right now. There are two of many possible explanations: that the soda can exists independent of my mind, and projects sensory input into my senses, which are then cast upon my veil of perception, through which I view everything in the world; and that the soda can is a derivative element of my mind, entirely dependent upon my mind and those minds around me to have existence, and it is this derivative "belief" (for lack of a better name) that results in a projection of that concept upon my veil of perception, through which I view everything in the world.

One of them posits that my veil of perception actually reflects a world that exists independent of my mind, and the other posits that my veil of perception is an internal reflection of beliefs and concepts that are part of my own mind. (Or asserted upon my perception by other minds, if we grant a form of unconscious telepathy so that other minds can ground my perceptions to be consistent with their own.)

Do you not understand or see how one posits that reality actually is, and the other that beyond the veil of perception does not actually "exist" as we perceive it as existing... that the notion of "physical existence" is not real is itself a bold assertion, and requires justification for belief. To clarify: our mere perception of objects establishes materialism as a null-hypothesis... the fact of the veil of perception is simply the pure expression of the unmitigateable doubt that all physics and metaphysics has.

Do you understand now? Your assertion of idealism is the assertion of a positive claim: that which we perceive does not have its own independent existence... despite all natural conclusions to the contrary. Nota Bene: Natural conclusions do not prove an assertion. That is why as a materialist, I am still yet agnostic. There is simply no way to prove that materialism is the truth, thus I cannot claim gnosticism in any way shape or form. However, my agnosticism does not paralyze me from asserting the null-hypothesis as a justified belief. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 01:00, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Apistic vs agnostic - so you mean apistic to mean lacking belief, and agnostic to mean lacking knowledge? Well, I don't see the point of that - belief is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for knowledge, hence anyone who lacks belief must lack knowledge too, so all apistics are agnostics. Now, could an agnostic believe yet think they don't know? Well, one other condition of knowledge is truth - but if I believe something, but don't believe it's true, then arguably I don't actually believe it to be begin with (or else I commit a pragmatic contradiction). The other condition is that the belief be had for good reasons (justification + whatever solves the Gettier problem) - but if I believe something, but don't believe I believe it for good reasons, aren't I committing another sort of pragmatic contradiction? So arguably, apistic and agnostic must mean the same thing in practice, even though they mean slightly different things in theory.

Can materialists have knowledge?. In this section of your response, you seem to say that materialists believe things, and believe they're beliefs are justified, but don't believe them to be true. I don't think that makes any sense. If you believe something, you must believe it is true. That doesn't mean you think it is impossible that it is false, because you admit that you might be mistaken - but, even though you believe it is possible it is false, you still believe it is true. If you don't believe "X is true", you don't believe X. This position can be justified by the deflationary account of truth - "X" and "X is true" are equivalent, so one cannot believe one wihtout believing the other.

Null hypothesis "We feel that we have a justified belief, but only because materialism is the null hypothesis... yeah, I know, you disagree, obviously because granting this position would rationally invalidate your beliefs, and be a concession that you're wrong... which you can't do, because your belief in idealism is a protected belief, thus you must defend and justify it at all costs." Aren't you equally protecting your belief in materialism, with your insistence that materialism is the null hypothesis? I don't think you have any very good reasons for that belief (I will address those you give below). This seems to me to be the materialist equivalent of Alvin Plantinga's adoption of Christianity as a basic belief, which is thus protected from any further criticism - except you seem to do that, not to Christianity, but to materialism.

Skeptical agnostic biologists You say "prior to the discovery of the Gorilla, biologists were skeptical agnostics... they asserted that gorillas did not exist". Did they? To assert the non-existence of gorillas seems not very agnostic. I would say, the agnostic approach, would be to say "We neither assert or deny their existence, we don't have sufficient evidence to draw a conclusion".

You as a materialist agnostic You say "I cannot prove my assertion to be true, and thus I cannot assert it is "knowledge", but I do have good justification for that belief." And here I think you have failed to grasp what it means to believe that one knows something. Let's say Kx = x & Bx & Jx. Where Kx = "I know x", Bx = "I believe x", Jx = "I am justified in believing x". (Let's ignore the Gettier problem for reasons of simplicity). So, when is BKx? i.e. "I believe I know x"? BKx = B(x & Bx & Jx) = Bx & BBx & BJx. So I believe I know x, if I believe x, I believe I believe x, and I believe I am justified in believing x. You believe in materialism, you believe you believe in materialism, and you believe you are justified in believing in materialism. Hence, rationally, you ought to believe you know materialism is true. That does not mean you must believe you know for certain - if you believe less than certain justification suffices for knowledge, then you can rationally believe that you know materialism is true, even while simultaneously believing that it is possible that it is false.

Your argument for materialism as the null hypothesis. You say "Your assertion of idealism is the assertion of a positive claim: that which we perceive does not have its own independent existence". Your assertion of materialism is the assertion of a positive claim: that there exists a reality independent of mind. My idealism is purely a negative assertion, I deny the existence of that reality. By Ockham's razor, my theory is simpler than yours - you assert the existence of additional entites (things which exist independently of minds) which mine does not. We both agree that minds exist, you just want to posit some reality which exists independent of them. So arguably it is my view, not yours, which should be considered the null hypothesis.

Perception You say "our mere perception of objects establishes materialism as a null-hypothesis". I don't agree. Our perceptions don't tell us anything about the fundamental ground of what we are seeing. They prove the existence of mind (if I am perceiving, at least one mind, my own, must exist). But they don't provide any evidence as to what those perceptions are fundamentally of - objects which exist independently of human mind, or patterns in mind without anything external to mind behind them. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 00:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

SOPHISTRY Pure, bare, and naked sophistry. Yes, all apistics are agnostic, but not all agnostics are apistic. While it is true that all squares are rectangles not all rectangles are squares. As such, "apistic" has just as much explanatory validity as "square". Your assertion that one must hold a position that their beliefs are true or else not actually believe it is just that, a bare assertion without any support or argument. I believe that Bigfoot doesn't exist, but I do not assert it to be knowledge, because I do not know that it is true. I hold a justified belief that I do not know is true. "But if I don't know it to be true, why believe in it?" Because it is a justified belief. Modern physicists believe in the existences of a Higgs Boson, despite having no evidence for it... why? Because all of the currently accepted scientific models predict as such. If you're going to argue against the very core of philosophy ("all A are B, but not all B are A" is a well grounded philosophical concept) then it's not worth arguing with you at all. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 01:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Your assertion that one must hold a position that their beliefs are true or else not actually believe it is just that, a bare assertion without any support or argument. Well, I think it is justified from the viewpoint of doxastic logic. Has it occurred to you, maybe we understand belief and knowledge differently? Maybe it would be useful to discuss what we both actually mean by both terms, and how our respective understandings are similar or different, rather than just hurling ad hominems?

I think one problem with talking about "know", is it is rather ambiguous in common use. Is all knowledge certain knowledge? Or is the justification necessary for knowledge less than certainty? If knowledge requires certainty, then we can know very little. If knowledge requires something less than certainty, then we can believe we know things even while believing that further evidence may come along to disprove our belief (and thus, disprove our belief that we knew it).

To say modern physicists believe in the Higgs Boson is maybe putting it a bit too strongly - maybe suspect or strongly suspect would be better terms? This then goes back to Tetronian's whole Bayesian argument, that we should speak of degrees of confidence in our beliefs, rather than binary truth/falsehood. (A position I don't really agree with, but I'll leave that discussion for another day). --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 01:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

More sophistry... all to avoid ever claiming you were ever wrong. Awesome job there... I commend your mental gynmastics... --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 01:49, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

So, rather than respond to my points, you dismiss them by labelling them as "sophistry". This is a very useful technique you have there, if someone disagrees with you, you can just dismiss their arguments with a simple label, be it "sophistry", or "Gish gallop", or "quantum woo", or so on, rather than actually engaging with them. Problem for you, is that this is a game anyone can play; others can dismiss your arguments in the same way you dismiss mine. This isn't rationality. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 08:39, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I am not attempting to make any compelling argument against you by calling your arguments sophistry. And since you seem to lack sufficient ability to understand this unless it is explicitly stated to you: I'm telling you that I am not particularly interested in debating with you anymore. However, should you so choose, you can stop your Gish Gallops (which you have done) and your sophistry (which you've really just picked up more of) stop talking quantum woo and abusing lexicon, and I would be more than happy to continue this debate. However, being as this world appears to permit you no ability to force me to debate with you, and you make such debate so utterly and entirely unappealing to me... I am walking away, and you can't stop me. I stand knowing that I have said my piece regarding and refuting all your bullshit, regardless of all your objections and sophistry to retort with... and anyone who believes in rationalism will not side with your position in the debate. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 10:15, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

You know, if you are tired of the argument, or have better things to do, you just have to say so, rather than being so negative about it all. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:26, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I did, and I believed that you would be able to understand what I was implying with my naked dismissal of your arguments. I was apparently wrong in my belief. Your well demonstrated ability to completely misunderstand everything in order to further your argument though puts this belief as apparently naive on my part. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 10:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Maybe, if you just straight out said "Sorry I am too busy to discuss this further" or "Sorry I have lost interest"? Rather than expressing that statement in the form of a hostile attack? --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 10:55, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Because, I'm not too busy to discuss this further... and I'm not sorry. It's not my fault that you have failed to keep my interest in your debate. You're the one with an assertion to prove, and your unwillingness to acknowledge rationalism on a wiki devoted to the concept kind of puts you on the outs. But in so far as expressing my opinions in the form of a hostile attack, in the future, I will seriously consider your emotional position, and develop and argument utilizing pathos to properly express my contempt for you in a way that you find non-offensive. Or, I could just remind you that you've skull fucking rationalism, and being a sophist asshole... Being as we're not particularly inclined to give a shit about your feelings here, I think I'll stick to the later... --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 11:10, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

This place loves to see itself as rational - it's a very good question whether it really lives up to its own self-conception. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:16, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Please note, I never stated that this site is rational... I said it holds to rationalism. However, I will note that I do not find it surprising at all that this nuance has eluded you. You seem to be very bad at terminology. Plus, I already gave rational debate a try, but since you reject rationalism, the debate kept devolving to sophistry... so, being that there is no common ground to debate on, any response becomes valid, even an otherwise irrationally abusive one. In fact, I would pretty much accomplish the exact same outcomes using rational debate with you as I would if I said "fish block hammer tie red have tent." --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 11:30, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Tell me, what is the difference between rationality and rationalism? I don't think the notions can be as clearly separated as you suggest they can. This has already been covered somewhat in an earlier discussion - there it seems that Armondikov wants to define the difference in terms of subjective-vs-objective, and as you can see from my response I don't think that is a very fruitful approach. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 11:47, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I frankly don't care if you can't understand the difference. Any argument I put before you would be chewed up like cud and spit out upon the ground in a meaningless mass of sophistry anyways. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 12:13, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Sophistry is just what you call positions you don't agree with. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 12:22, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Again, you demonstrate not even wrong, and terminology abuse. A position itself is not sophistry, rather sophistry is a style of debate. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 12:30, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Here you demonstrate the kind of pedantry which completely ignores the point another is trying to make, in favour of an obsession with over-literal misinterpretation of their words. --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 12:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I have never hidden that I am a pedantic bitch. If you don't like me point it out to you when you abuse vocabulary, then learn how to use the words properly. For the record, I knew what you meant, and I disagree entirely with what you meant... I do not call all arguments that support a position that I disagree with sophistry. It's just not worth pointing that out to you, because you're just going to make a bald assertion that I am wrong... or pull out some other piece of sophistry to argue with me. So, I stick to the one assertion that you cannot argue with... that you're using the fucking word wrong. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 12:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Eira, please look at the kitten:

Isn't it cute? --(((Zack Martin)))^™ 01:47, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

IT'S A KITTY! --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 02:32, 8 May 2011 (UTC)