Do you believe in God ?

[zoltanspawn]

The ideas you are expressing in this thread remind me somewhat of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (AKA Osho). His teachings held special appeal for the New Age folks.

Really, you don't have travel that far to find a sterling tradition of phenomenology.

I think some of Benvolio's ideas here are quite respected here in the west, and not merely by lunatics.

 

[opinterph]

I think some of Benvolio's ideas here are quite respected here in the west

I meant no disrespect. Rajneesh taught that we are simply part of the energy of the universe. Form and materialism are distractions.

 

[kallipolis]

But the simulation in which we live, with light, color, sound, heat, cold, pain is the creation of our minds.

External stimuli is independent from the human person processing the stimuli it is experiencing.

Ones perception is processed through the human brain's capacity to filter the stimuli that it receives through its senses.

Human consciousness is one in being with the universe, functioning within its reality as living organic matter able to think, and act on its own...the result of free will enabling each human person to create its own destiny.

 

[kallipolis]

If we are living in a simulation, I'd like to have a few words with asshats in charge.

Well noted.....

...one would need to ask why the simulation grants its players so much choice to serve the common good of its entire population, or become self serving by abusing the rest of the population.

It is understood that when their is choice to live ones life according to ones decisions, there is no control...by a puppeteer...therefore, no simulation manipulated by a master programmer.

 

[kallipolis]

False,
the universe created your mind not the other way around.
Evolution created your mind.

Be very careful here for you are buying into the God scenario, otherwise known as The Creator.

Evolution evidences the ongoing process of creation.

 

[zoltanspawn]

Well noted.....

...one would need to ask why the simulation grants its players so much choice to serve the common good of its entire population, or become self serving by abusing the rest of the population.

It is understood that when their is choice to live ones life according to ones decisions, there is no control...by a puppeteer...therefore, no simulation manipulated by a master programmer.

I honestly don't have a lot of ponies in this conversation, but I thought this video was well-drawn and an interesting take on free-will and evil.

 

[Kulindahr]

Consider that most of what we experience about our surroundings is clearly created by our brains.

I don't agree with this statement.
The brain is the "detector" and storage of memory but outside our brain is real.
If you don't exist, things are still going on ....

I am not sure what your point here is. You are essentially saying that our experience doesn't exist when we don't experience it. The stimulus that has the ability to induce an experience exists whether or not an "experiencer" is around to have an experience.

True but the reality is very,very different from how we experience it and what we think it is like. The universe is a dark and silent place. But my real point related to the links to scientists who think we are living in a matrix or simulation. It is not as far fetched as it first seems. To a large extent we are living in a simulation created by our own minds.

Ben's point is good except for the poor choice of word in using "created"; that's rather extreme. "Constructed" would be a good term, since as Telstra notes the world outside the brain is real; the brain takes the "raw material" and assembles it for internal use. Thus if the final statement is made "... a simulation structured by our own minds" it's far more accurate, since the brain doesn't generate the root material but receives, organizes, interpolates, and assembles a result with sufficient correspondence to the real thing to enable us to function.


BTW, I'd love to hear Neil DeGrasse Tyson address the assertion that "The universe is a dark and silent place".

 

[Kulindahr]

But the simulation in which we live, with light, color, sound, heat, cold, pain is the creation of our minds.

Again not true,
the outside conditions created your mind and your mind experience the outside conditions.

If you believe in the simulation, then who created the simulator ?
It is the same as if you believe in god, then who created god ?

No, Telly, he's more right than you're seeing. What we call "color" is a very rough interpretation of the reality of wavelength. for example, and "cold" is a very subjective concept with no actual existence. Our senses and minds build us an interpretation good enough for getting by in the world and little more.


BTW, "Who created the simulation?" is not the same as "Who created God?"; the only way they would be on the same level is if someone was claiming that the simulation was self-generating.

 

[Kulindahr]

External stimuli is independent from the human person processing the stimuli it is experiencing.

Ones perception is processed through the human brain's capacity to filter the stimuli that it receives through its senses.

Human consciousness is one in being with the universe, functioning within its reality as living organic matter able to think, and act on its own...the result of free will enabling each human person to create its own destiny.

Ah -- "filter" is a good word: the input is real; what our brains present to our consciousness has come through various filters.


BTW, the simulation model for the universe pretty much rules out any meaning to your last paragraph above. The Matrix is a very bad illustration of the simulation concept, since all the people in the Matrix were not part of the simulation, but outside entities trapped in it. For it, and your paragraph, to apply, one would have to assert the model of existence hinted at by C. S. Lewis, that we intelligences are not part of the simulation, but stand outside it operating what are effectively avatars stuck within it.

 

[Kulindahr]

The worst thing...is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired in a few generations. The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.--e.o. wilson

It baffles me that so many of those who believe in God fail to see that this would apply to any Creator as well, that the elimination of entire species is the one thing for which a Creator would be least likely to forgive us.

 

[Benvolio]

Ben's point is good except for the poor choice of word in using "created"; that's rather extreme. "Constructed" would be a good term, since as Telstra notes the world outside the brain is real; the brain takes the "raw material" and assembles it for internal use. Thus if the final statement is made "... a simulation structured by our own minds" it's far more accurate, since the brain doesn't generate the root material but receives, organizes, interpolates, and assembles a result with sufficient correspondence to the real thing to enable us to function.


BTW, I'd love to hear Neil DeGrasse Tyson address the assertion that "The universe is a dark and silent place".

Thr words structured or constructed would obscure my meaning. Sound is much diffeent from the original waves of air. Much better for our understanding. Much better than the raw material. The colors, for our understanding, are much superior to the electromagnetic waves. It is as though an artist started with mud and ended with the Sistine chapel ceiling. It is more than structured; the result is too different than the raw material. Creation is not too strong a word, but the result exists only in our minds. I do accept that this is the result of evolution, but as with much of evolution one wonders how it was possible.

 

[Kulindahr]

Thr words structured or constructed would obscure my meaning. Sound is much diffeent from the original waves of air. Much better for our understanding. Much better than the raw material. The colors, for our understanding, are much superior to the electromagnetic waves. It is as though an artist started with mud and ended with the Sistine chapel ceiling. It is more than structured; the result is too different than the raw material. Creation is not too strong a word, but the result exists only in our minds. I do accept that this is the result of evolution, but as with much of evolution one wonders how it was possible.

[Text: Removed]

My upper-level college physics professors, especially the one who taught "Physics of Light and Color" because he had a master's in biology and did his thesis on the physiology of sight.

With both hearing and sight, we LOSE more than we gain -- in fact in both cases, our brains frequently lie to us about what's actually happening.

 

[kallipolis]

With both hearing and sight, we LOSE more than we gain -- in fact in both cases, our brains frequently lie to us about what's actually happening.

Noteworthy....for the senses provide us with access to the world around us.

“All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.”― Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

 

[Benvolio]

Noteworthy....for the senses provide us with access to the world around us.

Nevertheless, if something is lost, much more is created. Our ears are bombarded with a barrage of waves from the air and our brains turn it into the works of Mozart and Puccini. Our eyes receive a mixture of electromagnetic waves and create stained glass windows.

I thought that you at least might see the implications of the links suggesting we live in a matrix or simulation for the God argument. While many scientists are atheists, here we have reputable scientists saying it is highly probable that will live in a simulation created by beings (or our descendants)which we cannot see. And, as I have pointed out, this is consistent with our knowledge that much of what we experience of the world is a simulation created in our own minds.

 

[kallipolis]

The human person perceives its experiences, or stimuli as an individual human being.

Perception determines how each human being responds to any given stimuli.

Were the human race part of a matrix manipulated by an advanced brain, there could be only one result for all responding as a herd of sheep would.

Free will is the evidence that each human person determines our own fate, according to our freely chosen decisions.

That human beings can make choices there can be no control, or manipulation by a super brain acting as ones puppeteer.

“God's greatest gift to man
In all the bounty He was moved to make
Throughout creation-the one gift the most
Close to his goodness and the one He calls
Most precious-is free will.”
― Dante Alighieri, Paradiso

 

[Benvolio]

Perhaps you people don't really exist but are merely part of the simulation which I experience.

 

[kallipolis]

^I am conscious of my self inasmuch as I am, who I am the result of perceiving, and interpreting the stimuli that daily inform me that I am a living, breathing human person making decisions free of any manipulation by a master programmer. I know this for I am also aware that I occasionally regret a few of my decisions, leading me to learn that my self improvement will take me my life time.

An angry man said to me, just this morning that his life had become very difficult because he chose to live his life, his way.

I replied that ones life is as easy, or as difficult as one makes it when choosing to believe that ones choices are easy, or difficult...when in reality ones choices are the building blocks of a life that one chooses to celebrate life.

You will not be punished for your anger,
you will be punished by your anger.
- The Buddha

 

[kallipolis]

Perhaps you people don't really exist but are merely part of the simulation which I experience.

You are welcome to believe that you are a slave, and pawn existing in a matrix of some one else's construction.

I am master of my destiny, not the slave of a computer program. While also recognising that my decisions are made by me, with due consideration for other human beings, with whom I interact daily.

 

[Benvolio]

Where did you get the idea that those in a simulation would have less free will than those in whatever world you belive you live in?

 

[kallipolis]

^Where do you get the idea that a simulation exists, in which every human being is a product of a computer program?

Free will evidences the free choice of a human being to make its own life, without being manipulated by a puppeteer.

Have your choices always been the correct ones, or are you continuing to learn that making the right choice is still fraught with the risk of making the wrong choice?

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson