+Bryan514 LOL....man my chest hurts and I've got tears in my eyes. You sir have made my day. Also I knew where he was going with it so I skipped ahead because his "hypothetical" proves nothing.
i love when a caller says something like: - well (blabla) is like (blabla) right? we agree that far? - mmh..... no... - .............. well blabla??? - no, no i don't agree. - ........ *tries to figure out a way to tapdance around the disagreement*
Johnathan from Auburn, WA. If you're reading this, fair play to you matey. You're the first caller I've heard on this show that gets the point. The point ISN'T being 100% right 100% of the time. The point is challenging, adjusting and outright changing your own beliefs through civil dialogue. This is VERY hard to do! Especially nice ideas. Don't feel bad, don't feel stupid. You aren't. You have my respect. I'd way sooner talk to you than 99% of the callers on this show, from EITHER side.
This has been the most entertaining episode of the atheist experience that I have watched. The callers, the co-host, and of course Matt, plus someone capable of accepting that they're wrong. Excellent.
Most people who claimed to be atheist before before becoming Christian are confusing not being a Christian (or saved, if you will) as being an atheist. This is simply not true. Before I became a Christian I wasn't an atheist. I just didn't care, either way. But, before becoming an atheist, I was definitely a Christian. I think, because so many of us atheists are ex-Christians the Christians are wanting to try and even the score by saying they are converted atheists. It's the lying for Jesus schtick.
I use to watch you guys all the time when I was a kid even tho my mom was a christian banned me from watching and got kicked out of christian summer camps for using your quotes. But now I can't find your show on AT&T uverse. You guys are the reason I became and Atheist when I was 13. And I thank you for that. Much love from South ATX. :)
This episode took me from losing the will to live to havin a big goofy grin on my face. It's good to see that there are still people out there who're at least thinking in the right direction and asking the questions.
I'd liked to have heard more from David. Please get him on again and let him take a more active role in answering the callers, especially from the theists. Thanks
I think it was the same lady. I remember: Maine, acquaintance with unfriendly religious nurses in hospital, only business in small town, afraid of peers finding out she's atheist, she loves the show. Same story we heard before. But yeah, she basically told everyone exactly where she works. If discrimination is a genuine threat, her unnecessarily informative calls put her at risk.
Yeah, I agree. I made that comment before I watched the show. After seeing it, while I do not immediately denounce the idea that we are a computer simulation that is so complex that we can't tell... if that is in fact the case, why bother assuming it? If we can't tell either way, it would be most productive to simply assume we're not.
First caller is a great example of the dangers of telling yourself a story in total solitude over and over again... You notice how probable and sound he seems to think the whole incoherent hypothesis is? Every time that he rehearsed it in his head, with no one to bounce it off of, the more familiar and comfortable and understandable it was to him, and ONLY HIM. You must let people listen and object to the things you haven't thought to question yourself.
18:52-19:21 Matt says in 29 seconds what took that caller 15 minutes to badly articulate. Matt is so much smarter and more patient than anyone else I've seen talk on this subject matter.
I gotta say that the whole "god" or "higher power" thing in AA was such a huge turn off for me. Thank goodness I still got sober. Took a trip to the hospital but sober nonetheless :) Looking to start an atheist group in my community. Any tips or ideas on what to do after and besides creating a FB please let me know! How to promote? I need to find leadership types as I am a very busy and can in now way pull this all together by myself LOL
Well I suppose I want to provide a community of freethinkers to come out of the closet, share ideas, provide opportunities for education, and social, humanitarian type, community services. A progressive community :)
+Clarice Rachelle you go girl! how about just creating a basic discussion group via "meetup" site. keep it simple and just get people together to talk and grow from there. what ever you decide to do I wish you good vibes and success. do your thang :)
I once thought about roughly the same hypothetical as the first caller for a short time, but ultimately found a few logical inconsistencies with an infinite progression of simulations. Firstly, the computational complexity would drop with each successive iteration, most likely by several orders of magnitude. I like to explain this as "a computer can never simulate itself". Even if the laws of entropy did not apply and it was physically possible to devote all of the computational power of one universe towards simulating another, there would be no intelligence to actually carry out the simulation. Therefore, each embedded simulation would be progressively smaller and less complex, to the point where it is no longer possible to carry out any meaningful simulation. Secondly, whenever you deal with infinity, probability really tends to ruin your day. If we were a part of an infinite chain of simulations, it would be infinitely unlikely at any moment that every simulation upon which we depend would continue to run.
I hope you don't mind me bringing this conversation back, but I recently learned that there is a fallacy specifically for the argument that he made. It's called a base rate fallacy. It's making a probability judgement based on conditional probability. In other words, he said something is more probable if something else happens, but that something else has not happened.
I have been watching these for years and have now seen the callers as very simple and repetitive arguments that, I assume must be difficult to grasp by humans. Well basically these videos have taught me to see through the bullshit justifications so clearly that i dont need to sit through these hour long episodes anymore and would just like to say thank you Matt and the team for making these available. My eyes are now open cheers.
Callers: 06:58 a theist on quantum Matrix-like reality simulations and AI, 20:07 about argument of evil and conservation of energy, 25:18 about apatheism and about Jesus being a bad carpenter (this one is actually funny), 28:49 about mean Christians, 37:34 about Hinduism and ex-atheists, 42:51 about reincarnation, 47:47 about why atheists care. Thumbs up so it stays on top.
I provide an hypothetical construct - a dot 3D space with out time, and talked about how if it were to exist, it cannot be cause to some effect. Now add time, at t = 0, there is no dot, at t = 1, a dot is placed in at (1,1,1). The dot is a factor in causing the space to contain an entity between the duration of t = 0 and t = 1. It is a cause. This is as abstract as it gets, but it demonstrates causality as soon as we introduce time.
The significant question in relation to artificial intelligence and artificial universes is not so much whether such things are possible, but how much energy or entropy each one will cost. It seems clear enough that any simulated universe would necessarily be less complex than the real universe, and that there is a trade-off between the quantity of simulations and their fidelity. This it seems to me would significantly limit the probability that we are in one.
I think an example will clarify: think of 1 pound on a barbell - it's not heavy - add another pound repeatedly and heaviness will begin to exist. We use the same word "exist" for heaviness existing and a molecule existing but in different senses. Concepts do not have casual power in the sense that a number can't power a motorcycle. I don't know who or if anyone has said a diety causes existence, but I would extend the courtesy that they meant the natural universe.
The caller who wanted information on debunking Hinduism apparently never heard of Google. Simply search on "debunking Hinduism" and several sites come up immediately.
1.) It would imply that we may very well be in a simulation. Even the scientist who found it, James Gates, suggested it may be some kind of simulation artifact. 2.) Yes it does. The HG applies to space in general, and when you apply it to de-Sitter space on the whole you get the holographic universe. 3.)The Orch-OR argument is an argument for panentheism specifically.
the guy from 51 minutes in taught me so much about human nature,he was just a good guy who wants the best for everyone.really good to hear,I like to be that way too.
There is nothing "created" only a re-arrangement of what already exist. It simply is,until we understand how anything started, if it did at all then we do not know. You can assign a creator to it, but that still begs the question for those of us who do not think that a creator is the answer.
I agree with Joan from Maine, in my experience at the work place, many Christians I encountered on the job were some of the meanest most cruel people you would ever meet, they just had a few rules they adhered to that non religious people didn't..... Many Christians abuse that phrase "I'm not perfect, I'm forgiven!!!"
I really think that the zeroth law of thermodynamics is what should be listed if you are going to try to start randomly listing simple laws without stating what they mean. The zeroth law of thermodynamics is what points towards time being finite and every astrophysics theory has to start with the answering the question of if time is infinite or finite.
I agree. Amazing how many people here are in the comments section are dissing him out of hand as a crank. Sure what he is talking about is just a science fiction fantasy but I still thought Matt was too rude to him. If you want to learn more about his ideas check out Ray Kurzweil, Frank Tipler, Teilhard De Chardin
I need to create a lengthy mathematical hypothesis on the probability that David's voice is actually just low quality, and he doesn't simply have a bad mic.
I love how Matt handled that kid with the reincarnation question. He didn't mock or ridicule him though the option to do so was there. The kid learned something and he was able to keep his pride. Great work, Matt.
Also, regarding the reincarnation issue- one can actually compute the number of quantum states a certain volume of space can have, and (for a 1m^3 volume, which is roughly the size of a human) it is somewhere around 10^(10^80). That means that to be, more or less, certain that there is (or was) another "occurrence" of yourself the universe would have to be roughly 10^(10^80)m- it is nowhere near that size.
I think I did not clarify what I meant by concepts as causes. When I say concept I meant the instances of concepts - America as an instance of democracy, color of banana as an instance of yellow. I agree without concrete examples concepts are just abstract ideas that do not mean much. But I must defend my use of the world concept, because when we talk about some concepts relative to the reality, we are almost always referring to some particular instance of it.
Here is the thing, IF something exists in a realm without time, then by that very thing, what ever it may be, can NOT do or act or accomplish anything. Because action or the ability to do something requires time. Without time, you would be frozen in place not even able to think, because thinking also requires time.
And by the way, that story the first caller had... it's actually a nifty piece of sci fi. Very exciting if done well in a novel or movie. It's just not an argument.
I highly recommend that you question your beliefs. Not you exclusively! Christian, Muslim, Jewish, theist, atheist, everyone NEEDS to question their beliefs, as often as possible! Everyone, should look at what they believe, and truly, critically assess whether they have enough reason to believe it. Otherwise, what is your life? If you don't question what you know, then how do you decide what is true? How to live your life? I'm not saying change your beliefs. But you should question them.
The main problem with the simulation argument, is that it needs power. At some point, one of these computers is going to be shut down, eradicating everything. It also means that there definitely is not an afterlife, thus, not a traditional god.
Matt - the best way to phrase the randomness thing you were after with the coin-tossing bit is that the coin has no memory of what it was when it was flipped. Whatever occurred previously, when looking at isolated events, does not affect a future event. Same thing goes for people who claim that dice in the game of craps can be predicted - the dice have no memory of past rolls.
Concepts can be argued not to ever be a cause to effects. For example, one can argue (I usually do) that the brain being physical matter and energy, each subject to cause and effect, have no real "choice" in what they do. We're essentially pre-programed, but lack the ability to count for all variables to predict human thought and reactions, so our pre-programming is not too much of an issue to us in general. However that means concepts are just our interpretation of physical cause and effect.
The omega point argument is actually quite an interesting thought / theoretical experiment, I actually enjoyed the discussion. It's unfortunate that we can't all easily get into the math the caller was referring to (it certainly wouldn't be easy for me). To be fair, theoretical physics is clearly beyond the scope of the show, it'll be interesting if some of these things start to come about over the next few decades.
It's true that given an infinite amount of time, an event that happens once is bound to happen again. The problem is that we don't know we got an infinite amount of time. Also, if an afterlife is indistinguishable from just a life, what's the point in making the distinction?
To summarize: when we are talking about existence we need to differentiate the existence of concepts and the existence of causal things. We use the same word "existence" but they are used in two different senses here. Existing as concept is not particularly interesting: God exists as a concept. In the context of God's existence we are concerned with causal things. So is existence temporal in this context?
Its an idea that is not the callers own crackpot theory. It's an idea that has been around for about 60 years. The Omega point, or point of maximum computation and complexity that the universe reaches was first postulated by French philosopher and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his book 'The Phenomenon of Man'. It has since been expanded upon in different ways by Frank Tipler, John Barrow and Ray Kurzweil. It also seems to be influential on the technological singularity community.
if that first caller reads this, you should look up Feynman's lecture (in black and white) on the scientific method. Especially the bit when the laymen tell the lock technician "Hey you should try 10 20 30". Because this is what you are doing.
Haha yeah - the a priori vs post priori or temporal aspect isn't the only way this argument diverges from the typical definition. It's focused more on the omniscient and omnipotent aspects. If you push it a bit you'll question those aspects as well - just because we build UT simulators in the future doesn't automatically grant us complete knowledge or complete control of everything contained (an understandable mistake of our inductive reasoning - we've never built "living" things before)...
Christians are now my New Source of Comedy, you just have no idea what will pop out of their mouths in most shows. I just piss myself Laughing at a lot of them, I am thinking of putting together all the clips of Crazy Christians on DVD's and give them to all my mates and drop off a few copies at churchs
to summarize: 07.00-18.25 = a guy who played sims too much 20.15-25.00= conservation of energy- evil god 25.25-28.50= quantum mechanics - agnostic- jesus a bad carpenter 29.00-37.30= live in christian community - bad day at work 37.40-42.50= 1.interested with hindu ,2.confused about atheist-need to read holy book 43.00-47.00= 1. said hes "normal", 2.believe in reincarnation -after- didnt believe anymore 47.53-56.50= 1.believe in soul ,2. want matt go with him to heaven ,3. soon to be atheist
"I fail to see how conceptual existence is any less valid than causaul/temporal existence." Did someone say it was less valid? My point is we need to differentiate the two.
It could never be the same in that scenario. Each time the universe collapses, all matter is converted to energy. In the resulting big bang, matter is created again. Every atom, quark and wave would be completely new. It's not a repeating system, it's a fluctuating one :)
Logical reasoning works by the means of generalization. Because the world is to complex, all of our reasoning is of some abstraction. We can reason about concepts (e.g space and time) and apply it to the real world. 1+1 = 2 is an example of such abstractions (no two objects are of an absolute 1:1 ratio), scientific theories are as well. No one knows if string theory is the actual answer, but the math works out, so we can make predictions and attempt to interpret real world data using it.
It would be amazing if one of Joan's neighbors in Friendship ME, who also happened to be a free-thinking person (even if the person was a believer) listened to the show. Maybe Joan would have someone to reach out to.
I grew up in "rapture ready" Tulsa in the 1960's and 1970's, and I wish I could have joined an atheist group in my teens just to have some sane people to talk to. I've known a few people who had the good fortune to grow up as atheists, and to me they seem like characters from an advanced, futuristic civilization out of science fiction.
Posted too early, so to cont: I meant DISCUSSION is fun. Also, when a thinking person, Christian or not, proposes an intricate idea to discuss, yes that can be fun, for someone with a good attitude. Furthermore, we know SOME christians DO realize their error. So a good dialogue might be the way to get there. Humiliating a "guess" is surely not the way to get there.
If we could construct a UTM, we could simulate a subset of our total reality. If the UT expands to encompass the entire universe, we are simulating the "entire thing" - but we can't understand how much we'd "know" from this. The process of building a simulation out to the extents of the universe would be challenging / enlightening however. It's an interesting thought, and it would get us closer to full understanding, but it doesn't make us "divine", (this is popularized by Ray Kurzweil lately).
Regardless of what the caller said, Dillahunty says he doesn't find the problem of evil compelling. I can't remember what the caller said, but the problem of evil is a huge issue, if not in a debate with fundamentalists, then with many, if not the overwhelming majority of moderate believers and thinkers from all faiths. The problem of evil is as big a problem in philosophy and the debate of God as any other, if not bigger.
I could only listen to Kermit the Frog talk about quantum computing and simulation for so long before I had to skip ahead.
+Bryan514
LOL....man my chest hurts and I've got tears in my eyes. You sir have made my day.
Also I knew where he was going with it so I skipped ahead because his "hypothetical" proves nothing.
i went to the kitchen and made a cup of tea cos really he might speak for days but there's only three minutes actual content.
same
"Catholics are encouraged not to read the bible, while protestants are encouraged not to read anything else." Great Line!!!
i love when a caller says something like:
- well (blabla) is like (blabla) right? we agree that far?
- mmh..... no...
- .............. well blabla???
- no, no i don't agree.
- ........ *tries to figure out a way to tapdance around the disagreement*
tl;dr version of the first caller: The less someone has to say, the longer it takes them so say it.
you said it perfectly. They just...wow. yeah I don't even know where to begin with that one
"i have just one quick question....
...and my life story"
I had never heard of David Smalley or Dogma Debate before watching this show. Now I'm watching a bunch of his vids. Thanx for introducing me.
Johnathan from Auburn, WA. If you're reading this, fair play to you matey. You're the first caller I've heard on this show that gets the point.
The point ISN'T being 100% right 100% of the time. The point is challenging, adjusting and outright changing your own beliefs through civil dialogue. This is VERY hard to do! Especially nice ideas.
Don't feel bad, don't feel stupid. You aren't. You have my respect. I'd way sooner talk to you than 99% of the callers on this show, from EITHER side.
Is Johanan done? I fell asleep.
Joans call was one of the best yet on the show, I really dug that one
This has been the most entertaining episode of the atheist experience that I have watched. The callers, the co-host, and of course Matt, plus someone capable of accepting that they're wrong. Excellent.
Most people who claimed to be atheist before before becoming Christian are confusing not being a Christian (or saved, if you will) as being an atheist. This is simply not true. Before I became a Christian I wasn't an atheist. I just didn't care, either way. But, before becoming an atheist, I was definitely a Christian.
I think, because so many of us atheists are ex-Christians the Christians are wanting to try and even the score by saying they are converted atheists. It's the lying for Jesus schtick.
I use to watch you guys all the time when I was a kid even tho my mom was a christian banned me from watching and got kicked out of christian summer camps for using your quotes. But now I can't find your show on AT&T uverse. You guys are the reason I became and Atheist when I was 13. And I thank you for that. Much love from South ATX. :)
I'm starting to see why they disabled the comments on their later videos.
This episode took me from losing the will to live to havin a big goofy grin on my face. It's good to see that there are still people out there who're at least thinking in the right direction and asking the questions.
Wish the after show calls where posted - even if it is just radio style.
Best show in a long time.
one of the best things about Matt is he does the best response then somehow adds a little extra!
I'd liked to have heard more from David. Please get him on again and let him take a more active role in answering the callers, especially from the theists. Thanks
I think it was the same lady. I remember: Maine, acquaintance with unfriendly religious nurses in hospital, only business in small town, afraid of peers finding out she's atheist, she loves the show. Same story we heard before.
But yeah, she basically told everyone exactly where she works. If discrimination is a genuine threat, her unnecessarily informative calls put her at risk.
that last caller was a nice breath of fresh air.
Yeah, I agree. I made that comment before I watched the show.
After seeing it, while I do not immediately denounce the idea that we are a computer simulation that is so complex that we can't tell... if that is in fact the case, why bother assuming it? If we can't tell either way, it would be most productive to simply assume we're not.
First caller is a great example of the dangers of telling yourself a story in total solitude over and over again... You notice how probable and sound he seems to think the whole incoherent hypothesis is? Every time that he rehearsed it in his head, with no one to bounce it off of, the more familiar and comfortable and understandable it was to him, and ONLY HIM. You must let people listen and object to the things you haven't thought to question yourself.
18:52-19:21 Matt says in 29 seconds what took that caller 15 minutes to badly articulate. Matt is so much smarter and more patient than anyone else I've seen talk on this subject matter.
I gotta say that the whole "god" or "higher power" thing in AA was such a huge turn off for me. Thank goodness I still got sober. Took a trip to the hospital but sober nonetheless :) Looking to start an atheist group in my community. Any tips or ideas on what to do after and besides creating a FB please let me know! How to promote? I need to find leadership types as I am a very busy and can in now way pull this all together by myself LOL
+Clarice Rachelle What need would the group fill? What is your goal and intention in forming a group?
Well I suppose I want to provide a community of freethinkers to come out of the closet, share ideas, provide opportunities for education, and social, humanitarian type, community services. A progressive community :)
+Clarice Rachelle you go girl! how about just creating a basic discussion group via "meetup" site. keep it simple and just get people together to talk and grow from there. what ever you decide to do I wish you good vibes and success. do your thang :)
A.A. is nota religious organization
AA has spiritual/religious dogma in its structure, yes.
You need him on the show more!
I once thought about roughly the same hypothetical as the first caller for a short time, but ultimately found a few logical inconsistencies with an infinite progression of simulations.
Firstly, the computational complexity would drop with each successive iteration, most likely by several orders of magnitude. I like to explain this as "a computer can never simulate itself". Even if the laws of entropy did not apply and it was physically possible to devote all of the computational power of one universe towards simulating another, there would be no intelligence to actually carry out the simulation. Therefore, each embedded simulation would be progressively smaller and less complex, to the point where it is no longer possible to carry out any meaningful simulation.
Secondly, whenever you deal with infinity, probability really tends to ruin your day. If we were a part of an infinite chain of simulations, it would be infinitely unlikely at any moment that every simulation upon which we depend would continue to run.
Gavin from Annapolis sounds like a great guy - self aware, open minded, knows what he doesn't know. I hope he learns more as time goes by.
Come on people, this HAS to be the most inspirational AA show yet! Interesting people, great arguments and alot of comedy! :)
I love the laughter of other people in the studio, show is even better with a laugh-track, now it just needs more whacky sound effects.
David's awesome, I hope they have him back.
I love watching these guys.
You are a wise man. I am glad we sorted that out. ^_^
I hope you don't mind me bringing this conversation back, but I recently learned that there is a fallacy specifically for the argument that he made. It's called a base rate fallacy. It's making a probability judgement based on conditional probability. In other words, he said something is more probable if something else happens, but that something else has not happened.
I have been watching these for years and have now seen the callers as very simple and repetitive arguments that, I assume must be difficult to grasp by humans. Well basically these videos have taught me to see through the bullshit justifications so clearly that i dont need to sit through these hour long episodes anymore and would just like to say thank you Matt and the team for making these available. My eyes are now open cheers.
My two favorite dudes!!!!
My point was that there are two different senses in which the word "existence" is used and that we shouldn't treat them as the same.
Great show!
best show yet! love you guys :D
That last caller(before the guy at the very end) was pretty cool.
Callers: 06:58 a theist on quantum Matrix-like reality simulations and AI, 20:07 about argument of evil and conservation of energy, 25:18 about apatheism and about Jesus being a bad carpenter (this one is actually funny), 28:49 about mean Christians, 37:34 about Hinduism and ex-atheists, 42:51 about reincarnation, 47:47 about why atheists care.
Thumbs up so it stays on top.
Yeah I confirmed you are correct..thank you for explaining.
I provide an hypothetical construct - a dot 3D space with out time, and talked about how if it were to exist, it cannot be cause to some effect. Now add time, at t = 0, there is no dot, at t = 1, a dot is placed in at (1,1,1). The dot is a factor in causing the space to contain an entity between the duration of t = 0 and t = 1. It is a cause. This is as abstract as it gets, but it demonstrates causality as soon as we introduce time.
The significant question in relation to artificial intelligence and artificial universes is not so much whether such things are possible, but how much energy or entropy each one will cost. It seems clear enough that any simulated universe would necessarily be less complex than the real universe, and that there is a trade-off between the quantity of simulations and their fidelity. This it seems to me would significantly limit the probability that we are in one.
this is all we have!!!!!! Take that theist!!!!!!
I think an example will clarify: think of 1 pound on a barbell - it's not heavy - add another pound repeatedly and heaviness will begin to exist. We use the same word "exist" for heaviness existing and a molecule existing but in different senses. Concepts do not have casual power in the sense that a number can't power a motorcycle. I don't know who or if anyone has said a diety causes existence, but I would extend the courtesy that they meant the natural universe.
The caller who wanted information on debunking Hinduism apparently never heard of Google. Simply search on "debunking Hinduism" and several sites come up immediately.
1.) It would imply that we may very well be in a simulation. Even the scientist who found it, James Gates, suggested it may be some kind of simulation artifact.
2.) Yes it does. The HG applies to space in general, and when you apply it to de-Sitter space on the whole you get the holographic universe.
3.)The Orch-OR argument is an argument for panentheism specifically.
the guy from 51 minutes in taught me so much about human nature,he was just a good guy who wants the best for everyone.really good to hear,I like to be that way too.
Go to 18:25 to skip Johanan's call.
There is nothing "created" only a re-arrangement of what already exist. It simply is,until we understand how anything started, if it did at all then we do not know. You can assign a creator to it, but that still begs the question for those of us who do not think that a creator is the answer.
I am aware of the argument. It debunks it to within a percentile or two, but I am not convinced that it goes the whole way.
I agree with Joan from Maine, in my experience at the work place, many Christians I encountered on the job were some of the meanest most cruel people you would ever meet, they just had a few rules they adhered to that non religious people didn't.....
Many Christians abuse that phrase "I'm not perfect, I'm forgiven!!!"
haha that first rant was hilarious, just a freaking laundry list of hypotheticals..
I really think that the zeroth law of thermodynamics is what should be listed if you are going to try to start randomly listing simple laws without stating what they mean. The zeroth law of thermodynamics is what points towards time being finite and every astrophysics theory has to start with the answering the question of if time is infinite or finite.
I like hearing the audiance
I agree.
Amazing how many people here are in the comments section are dissing him out of hand as a crank.
Sure what he is talking about is just a science fiction fantasy but I still thought Matt was too rude to him.
If you want to learn more about his ideas check out Ray Kurzweil, Frank Tipler, Teilhard De Chardin
I need to create a lengthy mathematical hypothesis on the probability that David's voice is actually just low quality, and he doesn't simply have a bad mic.
Once Miss Piggy left him Kermit went a little crazy.
I love how Matt handled that kid with the reincarnation question. He didn't mock or ridicule him though the option to do so was there. The kid learned something and he was able to keep his pride. Great work, Matt.
Also, regarding the reincarnation issue- one can actually compute the number of quantum states a certain volume of space can have, and (for a 1m^3 volume, which is roughly the size of a human) it is somewhere around 10^(10^80). That means that to be, more or less, certain that there is (or was) another "occurrence" of yourself the universe would have to be roughly 10^(10^80)m- it is nowhere near that size.
This episode reminds me of the movie Coneheads for some reason.
I think I did not clarify what I meant by concepts as causes. When I say concept I meant the instances of concepts - America as an instance of democracy, color of banana as an instance of yellow. I agree without concrete examples concepts are just abstract ideas that do not mean much. But I must defend my use of the world concept, because when we talk about some concepts relative to the reality, we are almost always referring to some particular instance of it.
Here is the thing, IF something exists in a realm without time, then by that very thing, what ever it may be, can NOT do or act or accomplish anything. Because action or the ability to do something requires time. Without time, you would be frozen in place not even able to think, because thinking also requires time.
The problem with 'the problem of evil' is that "evil" is such an arbitrary word.
And by the way, that story the first caller had... it's actually a nifty piece of sci fi. Very exciting if done well in a novel or movie. It's just not an argument.
I like this song so much better than the one they're using nowadays.
that first caller should make a movie or something cause that concept sounds like it would make a interesting movie, like the trumin show
I highly recommend that you question your beliefs.
Not you exclusively! Christian, Muslim, Jewish, theist, atheist, everyone NEEDS to question their beliefs, as often as possible!
Everyone, should look at what they believe, and truly, critically assess whether they have enough reason to believe it. Otherwise, what is your life? If you don't question what you know, then how do you decide what is true? How to live your life?
I'm not saying change your beliefs. But you should question them.
The main problem with the simulation argument, is that it needs power. At some point, one of these computers is going to be shut down, eradicating everything. It also means that there definitely is not an afterlife, thus, not a traditional god.
Matt - the best way to phrase the randomness thing you were after with the coin-tossing bit is that the coin has no memory of what it was when it was flipped. Whatever occurred previously, when looking at isolated events, does not affect a future event. Same thing goes for people who claim that dice in the game of craps can be predicted - the dice have no memory of past rolls.
Concepts can be argued not to ever be a cause to effects. For example, one can argue (I usually do) that the brain being physical matter and energy, each subject to cause and effect, have no real "choice" in what they do. We're essentially pre-programed, but lack the ability to count for all variables to predict human thought and reactions, so our pre-programming is not too much of an issue to us in general. However that means concepts are just our interpretation of physical cause and effect.
The omega point argument is actually quite an interesting thought / theoretical experiment, I actually enjoyed the discussion. It's unfortunate that we can't all easily get into the math the caller was referring to (it certainly wouldn't be easy for me). To be fair, theoretical physics is clearly beyond the scope of the show, it'll be interesting if some of these things start to come about over the next few decades.
The Omega Point concept does not rely upon the Kalam argument. It places a God like being at the end of time not at it's beginning.
It's true that given an infinite amount of time, an event that happens once is bound to happen again. The problem is that we don't know we got an infinite amount of time.
Also, if an afterlife is indistinguishable from just a life, what's the point in making the distinction?
To summarize: when we are talking about existence we need to differentiate the existence of concepts and the existence of causal things. We use the same word "existence" but they are used in two different senses here. Existing as concept is not particularly interesting: God exists as a concept. In the context of God's existence we are concerned with causal things. So is existence temporal in this context?
I'm currently living in Maine. And I want to shake this woman's hand.
Good luck Joan!!!
Its an idea that is not the callers own crackpot theory. It's an idea that has been around for about 60 years. The Omega point, or point of maximum computation and complexity that the universe reaches was first postulated by French philosopher and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his book 'The Phenomenon of Man'.
It has since been expanded upon in different ways by Frank Tipler, John Barrow and Ray Kurzweil. It also seems to be influential on the technological singularity community.
johanan needs to join the real world
if that first caller reads this, you should look up Feynman's lecture (in black and white) on the scientific method. Especially the bit when the laymen tell the lock technician "Hey you should try 10 20 30". Because this is what you are doing.
the theist caller at the end needs to let me buy him a beer.
Haha yeah - the a priori vs post priori or temporal aspect isn't the only way this argument diverges from the typical definition. It's focused more on the omniscient and omnipotent aspects. If you push it a bit you'll question those aspects as well - just because we build UT simulators in the future doesn't automatically grant us complete knowledge or complete control of everything contained (an understandable mistake of our inductive reasoning - we've never built "living" things before)...
The GREAT DEBATING SOCIETY!!
I love these.
Christians are now my New Source of Comedy, you just have no idea what will pop out of their mouths in most shows. I just piss myself Laughing at a lot of them, I am thinking of putting together all the clips of Crazy Christians on DVD's and give them to all my mates and drop off a few copies at churchs
If you do that, post it online. I can't get enough.
Yeah! indeed! An endless source of comedy and stupidity! LOL
Being a bit sarcastic... look for "prophetic dream" in YT for really hardcore comedy.
I looked it up - It looks like it's called the freethought festival, and it's free to attend.
How is the problem of evil not compelling? It's a huge issue.
to summarize:
07.00-18.25 = a guy who played sims too much
20.15-25.00= conservation of energy- evil god
25.25-28.50= quantum mechanics - agnostic- jesus a bad carpenter
29.00-37.30= live in christian community - bad day at work
37.40-42.50= 1.interested with hindu ,2.confused about atheist-need to read holy book
43.00-47.00= 1. said hes "normal", 2.believe in reincarnation -after- didnt believe anymore
47.53-56.50= 1.believe in soul ,2. want matt go with him to heaven ,3. soon to be atheist
I believe that was her. The size of her town, the store, the nurse, the accent, all seem strongly familiar.
"I fail to see how conceptual existence is any less valid than causaul/temporal existence."
Did someone say it was less valid? My point is we need to differentiate the two.
It could never be the same in that scenario. Each time the universe collapses, all matter is converted to energy. In the resulting big bang, matter is created again.
Every atom, quark and wave would be completely new.
It's not a repeating system, it's a fluctuating one :)
April 28th, Madison, Wisconsin. Finally, something nearby! Hopefully I can get a ride...
Logical reasoning works by the means of generalization. Because the world is to complex, all of our reasoning is of some abstraction. We can reason about concepts (e.g space and time) and apply it to the real world. 1+1 = 2 is an example of such abstractions (no two objects are of an absolute 1:1 ratio), scientific theories are as well. No one knows if string theory is the actual answer, but the math works out, so we can make predictions and attempt to interpret real world data using it.
It would be amazing if one of Joan's neighbors in Friendship ME, who also happened to be a free-thinking person (even if the person was a believer) listened to the show. Maybe Joan would have someone to reach out to.
Ah, great show! Applause all around!
at 8:43, David's look and the sigh is both amusing and saddening because he (and we) all knew where the argument was going before it really started.
I grew up in "rapture ready" Tulsa in the 1960's and 1970's, and I wish I could have joined an atheist group in my teens just to have some sane people to talk to. I've known a few people who had the good fortune to grow up as atheists, and to me they seem like characters from an advanced, futuristic civilization out of science fiction.
Posted too early, so to cont: I meant DISCUSSION is fun. Also, when a thinking person, Christian or not, proposes an intricate idea to discuss, yes that can be fun, for someone with a good attitude. Furthermore, we know SOME christians DO realize their error. So a good dialogue might be the way to get there. Humiliating a "guess" is surely not the way to get there.
thumbs up from Poland
The first caller totally inadvertently dismissed Kalam!! LOL!!!
If we could construct a UTM, we could simulate a subset of our total reality. If the UT expands to encompass the entire universe, we are simulating the "entire thing" - but we can't understand how much we'd "know" from this. The process of building a simulation out to the extents of the universe would be challenging / enlightening however. It's an interesting thought, and it would get us closer to full understanding, but it doesn't make us "divine", (this is popularized by Ray Kurzweil lately).
Regardless of what the caller said, Dillahunty says he doesn't find the problem of evil compelling. I can't remember what the caller said, but the problem of evil is a huge issue, if not in a debate with fundamentalists, then with many, if not the overwhelming majority of moderate believers and thinkers from all faiths. The problem of evil is as big a problem in philosophy and the debate of God as any other, if not bigger.