Of course, neither you or anybody else can prove that there isn't consciousness without the brain. So where is your evidence that there isn't thinking without the brain?
400 years of dark ages because of idiots like this.
Topic: Why do Atheists Hate Religion? - page 419. (Read 901367 times)
400 years of dark ages because of idiots like this.
but i would like to ask to an atheist what happens after death?
Lots of things, but none of them will involve you. The universe keeps spinning totally indifferent to your existence, as if you never existed at all. The universe won't care, and you won't care either. Only your loved ones will be affected.
what happens to YOU. not the universe because thats obvious
Well, first off, nobody knows that there were billions of years...
You are aware that when you look into a telescope you are essentially looking back in time? The light from the stars takes tens or hundreds of thousands of years to reach us. The Hubble Telescope allows us to look back in time an incredible distance. Check out what happens when the Hubble points its camera at a seemingly empty "black" area of space for four months straight. We can see 13 billion year old starlight.
In 2015 the age of the universe is not at all up for debate, it is a scientific fact that our universe is at minumum thirteen billion years old. Fun fact, when you look at the sun you are looking back in time about eleven minutes, or said another way you are viewing the light that left the sun eleven light minutes ago.
Wrong!
We know that the speed of light isn't a constant right now. We know that it is faster sometimes and slower at other times. We know that gravitation affects the speed of light. We also know that other constants aren't always quite the same. In addition, not all scientists believe that Planck's Constant is a constant. Google "variations in Planck's Constant." Keeping this in mind, nobody knows if any of the constants were anywhere near what they are now, say, in the time that we call 10,000 years ago.
Everyone has heard of absolute zero. Few people have heard of "absolute hot." Planck calculated absolute hot. Other scientists calculate figures for absolute hot that are extremely different than Planck's.
We don't really know for a fact that our guesses for the distance away of the far galaxies, or the age of the universe, are even close to reality. And this is common knowledge among scientists and astronomers, though they don't like to look at it or think about it.
Then we have you, proclaiming the guesses as fact.
i was wondering why humans seek god or something spiritual
because we humans love it for some reason
and i think i know why BECAUSE LIFE IS SO SHORT
but you dont need books to tell you how to be good you just need to care for other peoples emotions
move forward its the 21st century
i am bringing a new religion out its called THE EARTH GOD pray to the earth
it created you so pray to it
and how you pray to the earth is you hop on 1 leg while chanting humana humana hoohaaaaa
sounds stupid?
just as stupid as all other religions
your praying to something thats not there
THE EARTH IS ALIVE PRAY TO THAT
THE RULES
RULE 1 always recycle
rule 2 plant some trees
rule 3 pray on a monday night for 3 mins just thank the earth for putting you here
rule 4 always have feelings for your fellow man
rule 5 dont kill
rule 6 dont rob
rule 7 dont teach your kids to hate
rule 8 always respect each other and be kind
rule 9 always help the poor
rule 10 always try to enjoy yourself and be happy
rule 11 and the most 1 every human needs to do treat your children with love and compassion and then he or she will go on to treat every 1 with love and compassion
THEY ARE THE NEW RULES FROM THE EARTH GOD break them and you will die slowly
just like all other religions say ..burn in hell and all that caper
av a nice day all and if you want to pray
pray for love and compassion for your fellow man
not to some entity in the sky
plus all that time wasted on reading bibles when your children can read books on maths science coding art music do some kind of sport
wasted children learn them fact not fiction
fanatical religion is CRAZY little bit ov religion is ok but still wont help you in any way only you can help you
av a nice day all
because we humans love it for some reason
and i think i know why BECAUSE LIFE IS SO SHORT
but you dont need books to tell you how to be good you just need to care for other peoples emotions
move forward its the 21st century
i am bringing a new religion out its called THE EARTH GOD pray to the earth
it created you so pray to it
and how you pray to the earth is you hop on 1 leg while chanting humana humana hoohaaaaa
sounds stupid?
just as stupid as all other religions
your praying to something thats not there
THE EARTH IS ALIVE PRAY TO THAT
THE RULES
RULE 1 always recycle
rule 2 plant some trees
rule 3 pray on a monday night for 3 mins just thank the earth for putting you here
rule 4 always have feelings for your fellow man
rule 5 dont kill
rule 6 dont rob
rule 7 dont teach your kids to hate
rule 8 always respect each other and be kind
rule 9 always help the poor
rule 10 always try to enjoy yourself and be happy
rule 11 and the most 1 every human needs to do treat your children with love and compassion and then he or she will go on to treat every 1 with love and compassion
THEY ARE THE NEW RULES FROM THE EARTH GOD break them and you will die slowly
just like all other religions say ..burn in hell and all that caper
av a nice day all and if you want to pray
pray for love and compassion for your fellow man
not to some entity in the sky
plus all that time wasted on reading bibles when your children can read books on maths science coding art music do some kind of sport
wasted children learn them fact not fiction
fanatical religion is CRAZY little bit ov religion is ok but still wont help you in any way only you can help you
av a nice day all
but i would like to ask to an atheist what happens after death?
Lots of things, but none of them will involve you. The universe keeps spinning totally indifferent to your existence, as if you never existed at all. The universe won't care, and you won't care either. Only your loved ones will be affected.
what happens to YOU. not the universe because thats obvious
Well, first off, nobody knows that there were billions of years...
You are aware that when you look into a telescope you are essentially looking back in time? The light from the stars takes tens or hundreds of thousands of years to reach us. The Hubble Telescope allows us to look back in time an incredible distance. Check out what happens when the Hubble points its camera at a seemingly empty "black" area of space for four months straight. We can see 13 billion year old starlight.
In 2015 the age of the universe is not at all up for debate, it is a scientific fact that our universe is at minumum thirteen billion years old. Fun fact, when you look at the sun you are looking back in time about eleven minutes.
The universe didn't exist for anyone before they were born. Therefore the universe doesn't exist except for the lifetime of people. The suggestion that the universe exists more than your lifetime is all a made up story that you might have heard about before you were born, but that you have apparently forgotten about since.
Well I glad we cleanly sorted that one out.
WTF am I reading? It doesn't even make any sense. Just some random words bashed together.
Shockingly, I understood this, but it's still inaccurate. Of course he doesn't realize it, but this is close to an Occam's Razor-type inference based upon all available, pragmatic evidence acquired throughout our life. It's a perfectly valid conclusion that we can't possibly know whether the Universe does or does not exist in the absence of our experience of it, or some aspect of it.
His mistake is making a definitive conclusion. He is claiming he knows the Universe doesn't exist in the absence of our experience of it, rather than claiming we can't know, which would be empirically correct. There is no theoretical way to empirically validate or invalidate the existence of the Universe in the absence of our experience of it.
Way over my head.
One question. If the universe didn't exist before I was born, how did my parents exist to create me?
Evidence suggests that your parents existed to create you, because you see that other children are created from their parents. If you are a father, you would have witnessed this first hand with the birth of your child(ren).
Here's an analogy I've used previously:
Imagine I bop you on the head and you're knocked unconscious. While you are in that unconscious state, does the Universe continue to exist?
Suppose you become conscious again, and you seek to answer that very question. How would you arrive at a conclusion? One thing you might try is to ask me, the person who bopped you on the head. I could tell you, "Sure, the Universe continued to exist, because I bopped you on the head, saw you fall unconscious, and was with you the whole time until you woke up." Sounds pretty legit, but, how do you know I'm telling the truth? You must now introduce an assumption that I am truthful.
Suppose you tried a different approach. Suppose you had set up a video camera that was recording you at the time I bopped you on the head, and it was set to record continuously until you woke up. After waking up, you then check the recording and you see the entire sequence unfold on tape -- i.e. the recording shows me bopping you on the head, shows you falling unconscious, and shows you to be continually unconscious until you wake up. This, too, sounds pretty legit, but how do you know the recording you're watching isn't the result of some kind of video trickery? Here, too, you must introduce an assumption that no alterations were made to the recording after you woke up.
Occam's Razor only works with empirical data. It advises that the best conclusion is that which accounts for all of the data but introduces the fewest assumptions. Because defining the state of the Universe in the absence of our experience requires introducing assumptions about it, we can simply remove these assumptions and come up with a more sound answer, i.e. we simply don't know what the state of the Universe is like when we don't experience it. It may not be a practical way to think in all cases, but I believe its hard to argue with the fact that in 100% of cases where the Universe has been affirmed to exist, experience of the Universe was present. And, there have been exactly 0 cases where the Universe has been affirmed to exist in the absence of the experience of it.
I understand what you're saying, and yet the thought experiment has almost zero utility outside philosophy. Maybe thousands of people suffering and dying every day is just a really realistic simulation to fool me into believing reality is real. Or maybe philosophers have too much luxury to wonder if others' suffering is just a deception.
The philosophical practice of denying things we know to be true doesn't strike me as having a high utility. Logically necessary, but in academia only?
Like the ending of your last post: "there have been exactly 0 cases where the Universe has been affirmed to exist in the absence of the experience of it." I understand it to be logically true, but what is the utility of asserting this? Since all knowledge only exists in the universe, which can't be indpendently verified outside of itself, the assertion seems to have no meaning.
Is the point we can't know what we can't know? Because that's a truism with no utility. This is where philosophy loses me.
Regarding the emboldened passage, I've been working for ~6-7 years on trying to change that. During that time, I've been working on a theoretical model that lends itself to the development of a formula that may provide loads of practical utility. Once complete, I intend to submit it for peer-review to the most capable audience I can possibly find. The general idea is to arrive at a workable, practical formula without ever controlling for observer participation in the same way that classical formulas do. Why has it been ~6-7 years? Because it's fucking hard
The fact that the formula happens to graph very nicely gives me hope for its validity.Other than that, you're right. It's not an obviously practical way to live, but at a fundamental level, assuming such a perspective -- while at the same time dismissing it in favor of practical considerations as you suggest -- can have pragmatic effects. I hold such a perspective, and I've derived a lot of personal meaning from it which has certainly shaped how I view the world and interact within it.
Well good luck with your work, it sounds revolutionary if it pans out.
The universe didn't exist for anyone before they were born. Therefore the universe doesn't exist except for the lifetime of people. The suggestion that the universe exists more than your lifetime is all a made up story that you might have heard about before you were born, but that you have apparently forgotten about since.
Well I glad we cleanly sorted that one out.
WTF am I reading? It doesn't even make any sense. Just some random words bashed together.
Shockingly, I understood this, but it's still inaccurate. Of course he doesn't realize it, but this is close to an Occam's Razor-type inference based upon all available, pragmatic evidence acquired throughout our life. It's a perfectly valid conclusion that we can't possibly know whether the Universe does or does not exist in the absence of our experience of it, or some aspect of it.
His mistake is making a definitive conclusion. He is claiming he knows the Universe doesn't exist in the absence of our experience of it, rather than claiming we can't know, which would be empirically correct. There is no theoretical way to empirically validate or invalidate the existence of the Universe in the absence of our experience of it.
Way over my head.
One question. If the universe didn't exist before I was born, how did my parents exist to create me?
Evidence suggests that your parents existed to create you, because you see that other children are created from their parents. If you are a father, you would have witnessed this first hand with the birth of your child(ren).
Here's an analogy I've used previously:
Imagine I bop you on the head and you're knocked unconscious. While you are in that unconscious state, does the Universe continue to exist?
Suppose you become conscious again, and you seek to answer that very question. How would you arrive at a conclusion? One thing you might try is to ask me, the person who bopped you on the head. I could tell you, "Sure, the Universe continued to exist, because I bopped you on the head, saw you fall unconscious, and was with you the whole time until you woke up." Sounds pretty legit, but, how do you know I'm telling the truth? You must now introduce an assumption that I am truthful.
Suppose you tried a different approach. Suppose you had set up a video camera that was recording you at the time I bopped you on the head, and it was set to record continuously until you woke up. After waking up, you then check the recording and you see the entire sequence unfold on tape -- i.e. the recording shows me bopping you on the head, shows you falling unconscious, and shows you to be continually unconscious until you wake up. This, too, sounds pretty legit, but how do you know the recording you're watching isn't the result of some kind of video trickery? Here, too, you must introduce an assumption that no alterations were made to the recording after you woke up.
Occam's Razor only works with empirical data. It advises that the best conclusion is that which accounts for all of the data but introduces the fewest assumptions. Because defining the state of the Universe in the absence of our experience requires introducing assumptions about it, we can simply remove these assumptions and come up with a more sound answer, i.e. we simply don't know what the state of the Universe is like when we don't experience it. It may not be a practical way to think in all cases, but I believe its hard to argue with the fact that in 100% of cases where the Universe has been affirmed to exist, experience of the Universe was present. And, there have been exactly 0 cases where the Universe has been affirmed to exist in the absence of the experience of it.
I understand what you're saying, and yet the thought experiment has almost zero utility outside philosophy. Maybe thousands of people suffering and dying every day is just a really realistic simulation to fool me into believing reality is real. Or maybe philosophers have too much luxury to wonder if others' suffering is just a deception.
The philosophical practice of denying things we know to be true doesn't strike me as having a high utility. Logically necessary, but in academia only?
Like the ending of your last post: "there have been exactly 0 cases where the Universe has been affirmed to exist in the absence of the experience of it." I understand it to be logically true, but what is the utility of asserting this? Since all knowledge only exists in the universe, which can't be indpendently verified outside of itself, the assertion seems to have no meaning.
Is the point we can't know what we can't know? Because that's a truism with no utility. This is where philosophy loses me.
Regarding the emboldened passage, I've been working for ~6-7 years on trying to change that. During that time, I've been working on a theoretical model that lends itself to the development of a formula that may provide loads of practical utility. Once complete, I intend to submit it for peer-review to the most capable audience I can possibly find. The general idea is to arrive at a workable, practical formula without ever controlling for observer participation in the same way that classical formulas do. Why has it been ~6-7 years? Because it's fucking hard
The fact that the formula happens to graph very nicely gives me hope for its validity.Other than that, you're right. It's not an obviously practical way to live, but at a fundamental level, assuming such a perspective -- while at the same time dismissing it in favor of practical considerations as you suggest -- can have pragmatic effects. I hold such a perspective, and I've derived a lot of personal meaning from it which has certainly shaped how I view the world and interact within it.
I'm a religion person
Sometimes I was amazed to Atheists
Usually religion people do good deeds to get heaven
But atheists do that just for humanity and morality because they don't care about god, heaven, hell, etc
This proves that the usual religious person is actually a bad one. They're helping others for the wrong reasons, for their own salvation. This is selfish.Sometimes I was amazed to Atheists
Usually religion people do good deeds to get heaven
But atheists do that just for humanity and morality because they don't care about god, heaven, hell, etc
The majority of atheists who do help don't do it because of such reasons.
Well some religious groups do believe that this is just a simulation and the real life happens after you die while others believe that we are continually reborn into new lives until we reach the final level.
I happen to like my life so I'm not willing to lose a life just to find out if I have more than one..
I prefer rogue-likes.. they are much more fun than the sims where you can simply reload after your avatar dies.
you'd have to wonder how bad must someone's life actually be for them to want it to end without any guarantee that they will be given another chance at it...
If you really think about it, it is possible. Why would it not be? The real question is how would one crash a simulation from within to prove this theory wrong (aside from suicide, which is the easy way out and the wrong one).?I happen to like my life so I'm not willing to lose a life just to find out if I have more than one..
I prefer rogue-likes.. they are much more fun than the sims where you can simply reload after your avatar dies.
you'd have to wonder how bad must someone's life actually be for them to want it to end without any guarantee that they will be given another chance at it...
Could you elaborate on the 'rouge-likes'? I wonder though, i there is really nothing, how do we cease to exist once we die? It's kind of hard to imagine losing my consciousness. This is certainly an interesting subject.
One of the main reasons that I do not believe in man made gods is this. I don't believe that we get to live in some fairy tale if we are "good". To me that just seems like an attempt to manipulate a good part of the population.
reason may be the rules,orders of god and idea that "belief and ritual makes human stupid"
reason may be the rules,orders of god and idea that "belief and ritual makes human stupid"
The universe didn't exist for anyone before they were born. Therefore the universe doesn't exist except for the lifetime of people. The suggestion that the universe exists more than your lifetime is all a made up story that you might have heard about before you were born, but that you have apparently forgotten about since.
Well I glad we cleanly sorted that one out.
WTF am I reading? It doesn't even make any sense. Just some random words bashed together.
Shockingly, I understood this, but it's still inaccurate. Of course he doesn't realize it, but this is close to an Occam's Razor-type inference based upon all available, pragmatic evidence acquired throughout our life. It's a perfectly valid conclusion that we can't possibly know whether the Universe does or does not exist in the absence of our experience of it, or some aspect of it.
His mistake is making a definitive conclusion. He is claiming he knows the Universe doesn't exist in the absence of our experience of it, rather than claiming we can't know, which would be empirically correct. There is no theoretical way to empirically validate or invalidate the existence of the Universe in the absence of our experience of it.
Way over my head.
One question. If the universe didn't exist before I was born, how did my parents exist to create me?
Evidence suggests that your parents existed to create you, because you see that other children are created from their parents. If you are a father, you would have witnessed this first hand with the birth of your child(ren).
Here's an analogy I've used previously:
Imagine I bop you on the head and you're knocked unconscious. While you are in that unconscious state, does the Universe continue to exist?
Suppose you become conscious again, and you seek to answer that very question. How would you arrive at a conclusion? One thing you might try is to ask me, the person who bopped you on the head. I could tell you, "Sure, the Universe continued to exist, because I bopped you on the head, saw you fall unconscious, and was with you the whole time until you woke up." Sounds pretty legit, but, how do you know I'm telling the truth? You must now introduce an assumption that I am truthful.
Suppose you tried a different approach. Suppose you had set up a video camera that was recording you at the time I bopped you on the head, and it was set to record continuously until you woke up. After waking up, you then check the recording and you see the entire sequence unfold on tape -- i.e. the recording shows me bopping you on the head, shows you falling unconscious, and shows you to be continually unconscious until you wake up. This, too, sounds pretty legit, but how do you know the recording you're watching isn't the result of some kind of video trickery? Here, too, you must introduce an assumption that no alterations were made to the recording after you woke up.
Occam's Razor only works with empirical data. It advises that the best conclusion is that which accounts for all of the data but introduces the fewest assumptions. Because defining the state of the Universe in the absence of our experience requires introducing assumptions about it, we can simply remove these assumptions and come up with a more sound answer, i.e. we simply don't know what the state of the Universe is like when we don't experience it. It may not be a practical way to think in all cases, but I believe its hard to argue with the fact that in 100% of cases where the Universe has been affirmed to exist, experience of the Universe was present. And, there have been exactly 0 cases where the Universe has been affirmed to exist in the absence of the experience of it.
I understand what you're saying, and yet the thought experiment has almost zero utility outside philosophy. Maybe thousands of people suffering and dying every day is just a really realistic simulation to fool me into believing reality is real. Or maybe philosophers have too much luxury to wonder if others' suffering is just a deception.
The philosophical practice of denying things we know to be true doesn't strike me as having a high utility. Logically necessary, but in academia only?
Like the ending of your last post: "there have been exactly 0 cases where the Universe has been affirmed to exist in the absence of the experience of it." I understand it to be logically true, but what is the utility of asserting this? Since all knowledge only exists in the universe, which can't be indpendently verified outside of itself, the assertion seems to have no meaning.
Is the point we can't know what we can't know? Because that's a truism with no utility. This is where philosophy loses me.
I'm a religion person
Sometimes I was amazed to Atheists
Usually religion people do good deeds to get heaven
But atheists do that just for humanity and morality because they don't care about god, heaven, hell, etc
Sometimes I was amazed to Atheists
Usually religion people do good deeds to get heaven
But atheists do that just for humanity and morality because they don't care about god, heaven, hell, etc
What if someone is running a VR simulation on my body? I could be trapped in a simulator similar to Sims just more sophisticated and bigger. Don't tell me that it isn't possible, because it is. I do like to think about these things sometimes when I let my mind loose. Even though I sometimes deeply think about it, I never let the thoughts get to me else I'd become deluded as well.
Well some religious groups do believe that this is just a simulation and the real life happens after you die while others believe that we are continually reborn into new lives until we reach the final level.
I happen to like my life so I'm not willing to lose a life just to find out if I have more than one..
I prefer rogue-likes.. they are much more fun than the sims where you can simply reload after your avatar dies.
you'd have to wonder how bad must someone's life actually be for them to want it to end without any guarantee that they will be given another chance at it...
only someone who thinks they are very special would believe that the universe did not exist before them and will no longer exist after them...
Only someone who is prone to believing in fairy tales would believe for no reason that the universe existed before they did.
So, if you have reason to believe, what is it? And don't say, "'Cause Mommy told me so."
I do not believe, I merely observe.. if you want Jesus to come and save you then that's fine.. I want to win the lotto.. but I wonder which is more likely to happen... the only thing I am sure of, is that I won't be holding my breath...
I guess for the same reason as people post their lunch photos on facebook.. because they want to feel important and that they have friends lol...
I totally agree... for a supposedly enlightened age, people really do believe some of the craziest and stupidest things that they see online.
only someone who thinks they are very special would believe that the universe did not exist before them and will no longer exist after them...
in buddhism there is such a concept as the entire world being an illusion but that is not to say that it isn't real, only that our perceptions of the world are not real in the sense that what we see, feel, hear and touch is not fixed and finite... everything is in a constant state of change.. everyone has a different perception so everyone has a different reality... when I am born my universe is created when I die my universe ends... but whether I am alive or not the universe will continue on....
Well that could explain it. I mean, aside from myself a lot of people have suggested others to ignore him. We drifted way off from an actually beneficial thread to nonsense.I totally agree... for a supposedly enlightened age, people really do believe some of the craziest and stupidest things that they see online.
Quote
The universe didn't exist for anyone before they were born. Therefore the universe doesn't exist except for the lifetime of people.
only someone who thinks they are very special would believe that the universe did not exist before them and will no longer exist after them...
in buddhism there is such a concept as the entire world being an illusion but that is not to say that it isn't real, only that our perceptions of the world are not real in the sense that what we see, feel, hear and touch is not fixed and finite... everything is in a constant state of change.. everyone has a different perception so everyone has a different reality... when I am born my universe is created when I die my universe ends... but whether I am alive or not the universe will continue on....
Video footage or images (RAW) that have not been tampered with, taken before your birth prove that the universe existed. With technology it is easy.
It's unfortunate that the majority of people are either ignorant, deluded, or "special cases". Would it not be better if the majority was awake, or listening to reason?
I haven't heard of it, but I have thought of many different scenarios. What if someone is running a VR simulation on my body? I could be trapped in a simulator similar to Sims just more sophisticated and bigger. Don't tell me that it isn't possible, because it is. I do like to think about these things sometimes when I let my mind loose. Even though I sometimes deeply think about it, I never let the thoughts get to me else I'd become deluded as well.
only someone who thinks they are very special would believe that the universe did not exist before them and will no longer exist after them...
Only someone who is prone to believing in fairy tales would believe for no reason that the universe existed before they did.
So, if you have reason to believe, what is it? And don't say, "'Cause Mommy told me so."
Do you believe in the fairy tail story Jesus once existed then? Long before you was born, so how do you know he existed? You trumpet it to everyone as fact.
only someone who thinks they are very special would believe that the universe did not exist before them and will no longer exist after them...
Only someone who is prone to believing in fairy tales would believe for no reason that the universe existed before they did.
So, if you have reason to believe, what is it? And don't say, "'Cause Mommy told me so."
The universe didn't exist for anyone before they were born. Therefore the universe doesn't exist except for the lifetime of people. The suggestion that the universe exists more than your lifetime is all a made up story that you might have heard about before you were born, but that you have apparently forgotten about since.
Well I glad we cleanly sorted that one out.
WTF am I reading? It doesn't even make any sense. Just some random words bashed together.
Shockingly, I understood this, but it's still inaccurate. Of course he doesn't realize it, but this is close to an Occam's Razor-type inference based upon all available, pragmatic evidence acquired throughout our life. It's a perfectly valid conclusion that we can't possibly know whether the Universe does or does not exist in the absence of our experience of it, or some aspect of it.
His mistake is making a definitive conclusion. He is claiming he knows the Universe doesn't exist in the absence of our experience of it, rather than claiming we can't know, which would be empirically correct. There is no theoretical way to empirically validate or invalidate the existence of the Universe in the absence of our experience of it.
Way over my head.
One question. If the universe didn't exist before I was born, how did my parents exist to create me?
You might think that you know that they existed before you existed, but how do you really know that they did?
----------
There was a king in a Middle East country. He had three ambassadors, and he wanted to make one of them his Prime Minister. He wanted to find the one that was the smartest, so the guy could handle the affairs of state if he, the king, were ever incapacitated for some reason. So, the king devised a little test.
He had the 3 ambassadors sit down in a circle (triangle?) facing each other. He showed them 5 little stones that he had in his hand. Two of the stones were black, and 3 were white.
The king then walked around behind the 3 seated ambassadors, and placed a little white stone in the top of the turban of each. He placed the stones in such a way that none of the ambassadors could see his own stone, but each could see the stones of the other two ambassadors. The king was careful to keep the 3 from seeing the two black stones that remained in his hand. He tucked these away in a pocket in his cloak.
Then the king said, "The one who can tell me the color of the stone in his own turban, he is the one who can be the Prime Minister. But, if you guess, and you guess wrong, it's off with your head! And no cheating! If you cheat, it's off with your head."
The ambassadors sat there for a while, looking sort of dumbfounded. Finally one of them proclaimed, "I can't figure it out. And it isn't worth guessing. So, I give up." After a little longer, a second ambassador said the same.
The third ambassador proclaimed loudly, "I have a white one."
The third guy wasn't guessing. He KNEW he had a white one. He wasn't guessing. There is a logical way to figure out that he had a white one. How did he know that he had a white one?
----------
Some of you have seen this before, and know the answer. Maybe it was from the previous time I listed it.
Some of you are good thinkers and have figured it out immediately.
Some of you have the answer because you can feel it. You don't know why your answer is right. You haven't been able to explain the whole thing clearly to yourselves. But you might be on the edge of explaining. Just the same, you know there is a logical answer.
Others will never figure it out on their own.
So, how DID the guy know that he had a white stone?
The universe didn't exist for anyone before they were born. Therefore the universe doesn't exist except for the lifetime of people. The suggestion that the universe exists more than your lifetime is all a made up story that you might have heard about before you were born, but that you have apparently forgotten about since.
Well I glad we cleanly sorted that one out.
WTF am I reading? It doesn't even make any sense. Just some random words bashed together.
Shockingly, I understood this, but it's still inaccurate. Of course he doesn't realize it, but this is close to an Occam's Razor-type inference based upon all available, pragmatic evidence acquired throughout our life. It's a perfectly valid conclusion that we can't possibly know whether the Universe does or does not exist in the absence of our experience of it, or some aspect of it.
His mistake is making a definitive conclusion. He is claiming he knows the Universe doesn't exist in the absence of our experience of it, rather than claiming we can't know, which would be empirically correct. There is no theoretical way to empirically validate or invalidate the existence of the Universe in the absence of our experience of it.
Way over my head.
One question. If the universe didn't exist before I was born, how did my parents exist to create me?
Evidence suggests that your parents existed to create you, because you see that other children are created from their parents. If you are a father, you would have witnessed this first hand with the birth of your child(ren).
Here's an analogy I've used previously:
Imagine I bop you on the head and you're knocked unconscious. While you are in that unconscious state, does the Universe continue to exist?
Suppose you become conscious again, and you seek to answer that very question. How would you arrive at a conclusion? One thing you might try is to ask me, the person who bopped you on the head. I could tell you, "Sure, the Universe continued to exist, because I bopped you on the head, saw you fall unconscious, and was with you the whole time until you woke up." Sounds pretty legit, but, how do you know I'm telling the truth? You must now introduce an assumption that I am truthful.
Suppose you tried a different approach. Suppose you had set up a video camera that was recording you at the time I bopped you on the head, and it was set to record continuously until you woke up. After waking up, you then check the recording and you see the entire sequence unfold on tape -- i.e. the recording shows me bopping you on the head, shows you falling unconscious, and shows you to be continually unconscious until you wake up. This, too, sounds pretty legit, but how do you know the recording you're watching isn't the result of some kind of video trickery? Here, too, you must introduce an assumption that no alterations were made to the recording after you woke up.
Occam's Razor only works with empirical data. It advises that the best conclusion is that which accounts for all of the data but introduces the fewest assumptions. Because defining the state of the Universe in the absence of our experience requires introducing assumptions about it, we can simply remove these assumptions and come up with a more sound answer, i.e. we simply don't know what the state of the Universe is like when we don't experience it. It may not be a practical way to think in all cases, but I believe its hard to argue with the fact that in 100% of cases where the Universe has been affirmed to exist, experience of the Universe was present. And, there have been exactly 0 cases where the Universe has been affirmed to exist in the absence of the experience of it.
People are wasting times on trolls such as BadDecker. The real question is why?
I guess for the same reason as people post their lunch photos on facebook.. because they want to feel important and that they have friends lol...
I totally agree... for a supposedly enlightened age, people really do believe some of the craziest and stupidest things that they see online.
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The universe didn't exist for anyone before they were born. Therefore the universe doesn't exist except for the lifetime of people.
only someone who thinks they are very special would believe that the universe did not exist before them and will no longer exist after them...
in buddhism there is such a concept as the entire world being an illusion but that is not to say that it isn't real, only that our perceptions of the world are not real in the sense that what we see, feel, hear and touch is not fixed and finite... everything is in a constant state of change.. everyone has a different perception so everyone has a different reality... when I am born my universe is created when I die my universe ends... but whether I am alive or not the universe will continue on....
staunchly religious and staunchly atheistic (non theist/religious) people really are just two sides of the same coin.. everyone else is either Agnostic (I don't know) or Apathetic (I don't care)...
-snip-
and yes I agree, ultimately, people will only believe what they choose to believe.. for thousands of years religious people have believed that non believers are the ones who cause all the worlds problems.. but also during those thousands of years, there have been plenty people who believed that religion was the cause of all the worlds problems...
As is often the case, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle...
wise man say "God did not make humans in his own image, Humans made God in their own image... and then God made atheists in his own image."
I understood that, but I did want to open up a mini discussion in regards to that since I'm somewhere between an agnostic/atheist. I was a bit annoyed due to the fact that there were too many news in regards to it.-snip-
and yes I agree, ultimately, people will only believe what they choose to believe.. for thousands of years religious people have believed that non believers are the ones who cause all the worlds problems.. but also during those thousands of years, there have been plenty people who believed that religion was the cause of all the worlds problems...
As is often the case, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle...
wise man say "God did not make humans in his own image, Humans made God in their own image... and then God made atheists in his own image."
After seeing people argue over it in certain places I actually had to abandon them. Social networks have become pits for the uneducated and the worst of our kind.
You're right, there have been opposing sides to just about anything. This started back in the early days, as I assume the people who were against religion didn't have a spot in society.
The 'I'm right and you're not' wars are just taking shape in other things (e.g. Android vs iOS, Windows vs Linux vs OS X, etc.). I'm okay with having healthy discussions with followers of any religion as long as they don't slide to some logical fallacies.
Just look at this thread, it has become a ridiculous mess. People are wasting times on trolls such as BadDecker. The real question is why?
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The universe didn't exist for anyone before they were born. Therefore the universe doesn't exist except for the lifetime of people.
If my professor of logic heard this nonsense he'd probably throw a brick at you. Even if we put logic aside, a healthy person wouldn't make such a statement.
each side thinks they have seen the light and that the other is living in ignorance.
-snip-
Since you've already brought up "seeing the light", I might as well say something in regards to that. You can read from time to time how person X saw *insert random god/saint or other nonsense* that talked to the person in his NDE (near-death experience). This is what deluded people believe. Even though the exact reasons are still unknown due to the lack of knowledge of the brain, this happens because of oxygen starvation.-snip-
Oxygen starvation causes failure of all the organs and tissues of the body, and the eyes and brain are most sensitive to its effects, failing before any other organs. It doesn't affect all parts of the brain at the same time.
People see, hear and believe what they want to, even though it's irrational and often wrong. That's how deluded they can be.
"Seeing the light" was a metaphor not a literal statement.
modern people who believe that science holds all the answers consider themselves "enlightened", this comes from the period known as the "enlightenment".. enlightened literally means to be "in the light" or to "shine brightly"
ancient philosophers and theologians who were believed to be every wise beings were also considered enlightened, that is why prominent figures in Islam, Christianity and Buddhism were all depicted with halos (i.e. bright illuminating auras).
staunchly religious and staunchly atheistic (non theist/religious) people really are just two sides of the same coin.. everyone else is either Agnostic (I don't know) or Apathetic (I don't care)...
I will agree that people who are near death are much more likely to believe in an afterlife.. after all, they have much to gain by hoping its all true and nothing to lose... but you can't put it all down to near death experiences. there are plenty of fundamentalist Christians and atheists in the USA and other places who are so far away from being "near death" that it simply doesn't explain their fervent beliefs.
and yes I agree, ultimately, people will only believe what they choose to believe.. for thousands of years religious people have believed that non believers are the ones who cause all the worlds problems.. but also during those thousands of years, there have been plenty people who believed that religion was the cause of all the worlds problems...
As is often the case, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle...
wise man say "God did not make humans in his own image, Humans made God in their own image... and then God reshaped atheists in his own image."
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