http://mashable.com/2016/06/02/elon-musk-simulated-reality/#sdLXHm2_jsqB
2,657 thoughts on “Elon Musk Thinks Evolution is Bullshit.”
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The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
Kantian Naturalist,
KN,
But the question at hand is not can we ever really know or estimate the probability of us living in a simulation. That’s a secondary issue. The point is Musk believes we are. Thus, if he really believes this, can he ALSO believe that evolution is true.
Point one, that we are living in a simulation is not up for debate, he already says we are (you seem to be arguing point one). As such, if point one is true, you can’t really have evolution in any practical use of the word, if the programmers are making the parameters of what life is, based on their own ideas. Evolution is said to be idea-less, directionless, purposeless. If its a computer driven reality, by definition it is not idea-less.
That’s a completely fair criticism of my thinking and my writing!
I haven’t read Firth or Chisholm, actually. My background is quite different from yours — I was a “Continental” philosopher throughout grad school (1997-2005) and only came to Sellars in the past nine years. And he’s very hard to read. Without hefty commentaries by Willem deVries and Jim O’Shea I’d be utterly lost. But I will say that I find Sellars’s overall philosophical temperament very close to mine — trying to be a direct realist and a scientific realist and a moral realist.
I’ve not read that, though I did read and immensely appreciated Strawson’s Individuals.
Yes indeed.
The question as to whether or not evolution is our best empirical theory of speciation depends on how well it fits our available evidence. The whole point of ID is to claim that it isn’t. That’s a separate question from whether ultimate reality is a simulation or not.
Not at all. The relevant claim is not that evolution is purposeless and directionless. The relevant claim is that evolution is directionless as far we can tell. To be more precise: the relevant claim is that there is no empirically observable mechanism that first detects what traits will be adaptive in the environment and then causes those traits to emerge.
And that’s just as true if the entire universe is a computer simulation as if it isn’t.
It seems to me its hard to consider one a philosopher, when they can’t maintain a clear grasp of the essential point at hand, but rather turn every idea into convoluted mush.
Question: “Can you have evolution in a computer simulated world”?
Answer: “How can we ever really know if we are living in a simulation, how do we figure the odds, I am not interesting in calculating if we are in one, and besides, Ferrier says this, and Kant says that, and what about the Mālikī school of Islamic law, and the epistemologists said this, and why should I discount the aestheticians who said that…, besides which, I am now reading Ludwig von Mises and his work on Praxeology….blahdi, blahdi, blahdi….So who is to say if we can ever know if we are in a type of simulation…”
If A is true, and B is true, then C is a fish.
Kantian Naturalist,
No that is total bullshit KN.
There is a theory of evolution which says it is a directionless, purposeless process. It is not a theory that says it may have a direction, that is not observable to us. If it said that they wouldn’t have much disagreement with ID. The theory makes a direct claim about the mechanisms and nature of life (not about our ability to see or not see the mechanisms). How can you avoid that. It could be wrong of course, but that’s another issue.
Again, you are just completely missing, and fucking up the essential ingredients of the points.
phoodoo,
The difference here is, you want to talk about ontology, and I want to talk about epistemology and philosophy of science.
As I see it, the right question to ask here is this:
“If everything that any human being can ever observe is a highly advanced simulation, is it still reasonable to believe that there is no empirically observable mechanism that first detects what traits will be adaptive in the environment and then causes those traits to emerge?”
The change in the underlying ultimate metaphysics makes no difference to the available stock of empirical evidence — precisely because it is about everything. To be perfectly clear: even if everything were a computer simulation, that doesn’t affect the evidence base for selecting testable models of speciation.
Of course it is a separate question!!
But if it is a computer simulation that was designed, then that is Intelligent Design! Get it?? If it is designed by an entity using computers, then this is designed. That is no different than the claim made by ID. That it is NOT accidental.
How much more obvious can that be, for crying out loud.
Kantian Naturalist,
Except no one is asking you what is observable.
You make up your own questions and then give yourself the answers that no one asked you.
“We incahsuhrated the alleged poipetratah at 4 PM in the afternoon of the day on which we are talking about.”
I prefer
this interpretation
Thou naughty varlet! X>{
Oho!
From The Rules:
“The principle is in the strapline: Park your priors by the door.”
That includes your prior assumption that atheists don’t exist.
“Assume all other posters are posting in good faith.
For example, do not accuse other posters of being deliberately misleading”
. . .
“This means that accusing others of ignorance or stupidity is off topic
As is implying that other posters are mentally ill or demented.”
So, do tell me how claiming that I am wrong when I tell you that I lack belief in any god or gods is assuming good faith, not accusing me of being deliberately misleading, not accusing me of ignorance or stupidity, and not implying that I am mentally ill or demented.
If you cannot, I invite you to stop being rude and follow the rules.
https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/642961462676160513
As best I can tell, keiths is assuming theism and dualism. (He doesn’t like it when I say that).
For keiths, “true” has a meaning that is completely external to our possibly simulated world. I don’t see how that can be anything other than a “God’s eye view” version of truth. And if “true” is external to our world, this would seem to require something like an immaterial soul if we are to have any access to that version of “true”.
My own view is that “true” has a meaning that is entirely internal to our world. So even if our world is completely simulated to a God’s eye “true”, it can be true that it is not simulated in terms of our “true”. And it can only be our internal “true” that matters for beliefs. (I think this is also roughly what Putnam was arguing).
The simulation, if indeed it is, may have had an entirely different purpose then us. We may just be an accidental by-product.
Therefore you cannot state that with any certainty.
It’s also interesting how you admit that the universe as a whole does not appear designed but you can still claim ID because the container for that universe was designed in a simulated universe situation.
It’s almost as if you are admitting you don’t have any actual evidence at all right now for ID! As if there were you’d not have to argue that a universe that looks undesigned was in fact designed!
Heh.
Wrong.
It is an application of occam’s razor that says we don’t need to posit a direction or plan in evolution. That it simply isn’t necessary for us to make such a postulate in order to explain what we see in the nature and diversity of life. This is different from saying that the process itself has as a property the nonexistence of plans or directions.
Yes, the simulation might be designed, that doesn’t mean what evolves in the simulation is somehow planned or designed. It is entirely possible that life is an unintended, unpredicted byproduct of a simulation designed to investigate an entirely different question or phenomenon totally unrelated to living things.
For example the simulation might have been made to investigate what happens if a “universe” is started with conditions predicted to produce a lot of black holes.
1) I have a higher set of rules that I must submit to
2) being inconsistent and double minded does not mean you are stupid or ignorant or mentally ill or demented or deliberately misleading it just means you are inconsistent and double minded
peace
I hope Patrick does not hear you say that 😉
peace
who is “our”?
If you are speaking of a unified objective entity representing humanity and the world aka federalism your position is close to my own.
If you mean each persons own individual truth then I can’t follow you
peace
Just because a car is designed as efficient vehicular transport does not mean that the heater and radio are not designed.
peace
I moved a couple of posts to guano.
If he takes that position, I agree with him. I don’t think the Peirceian/(one time)Putnamian position is coherent (though, as said, maybe there’s some compicated Sellarsian way to put it together that I can’t fathom). But, in any case, it’s important to understand that warrant is neither subjective nor objective probability. Suppose I believe that-P. P could be highly probable–considering probability as either a subjective or objective quantity without me having any justification for believing it. And it could have a very low degree of either sort of probability, but I might nevertheless have a lot of justification–say because of weird misrepresentative happenstance.
I don’t get your claim that keith must be a dualist and a realist, but it does seem to me that he is taking a view that may give comfort to “revelation” backers–that there’s some sort of necessary match between justification and likelihood of truth. Get a high enough dosage (full revelation dump) and truth is guaranteed. (That was Spinoza’s view, incidentally.) The evil demon and simulation hypotheses illustrate the separate tracks that justification and truth are on–unless one takes the FMM position that not only do frogs not know anything–nobody knows anything (without supernatural help, anyhow).
I prefer to take the common-sense approach that lots of people know lots of things even though (i) they could be wrong, and (ii) probability has nothing to do with any of their knowledge, unless they’re studying statistics at the time.
It’s not a deep view, however. And it could be wrong.
Then probably not that.
Quite correct, but the heater and radio are also not unintended byproducts, and a “simulation of a universe” is not a car.
Simply put, nothing there changes the truth of what I said. It is still entirely possible that life in a simulated universe is an uninteded byproduct of a simulation created for another purpose.
This is merely an assertion that begs the question. A claim you make. You have yet to back it up with anything. What you think you know could just be what the simulators want you to think.
The above does not explain how you know this, it merely asserts that you know it. Once again, what you think you know could just be the simulators planting falsehoods in your mind.
Not at all. There is no proof there, just question-begging. You are simply claiming what I’m asking you to prove.
I mostly agree with that. But then I’m not a “justified true belief” proponent.
My one “disagreement” is that we can have knowledge of probabilities. I’m guessing that you didn’t actually intend to exclude that.
Rumraket,
Nah, until someone can figure out how you get a system of epigentics, without any code, your accident theory is still on hold.
Right, I didn’t mean to suggest that we could never know that kind of stuff.
I meant to type ‘dualist and a theist’ there. Sorry.
neil,
Are you mad that I said that Patrick is the most hated guy on the site, and he is a moderator?
Don’t be mad. I am sure he would be the most hated guy wherever he goes on the internet. He just happens to be yours.
Not in the supposed afterlife. Read your mythological texts. There won’t be any atheists or websites where you’re supposedly going. No sex, no drinking, no jaywalking, no haircuts, no colds. Nothing that could even remotely be construed as or lead to sin of any kind. Nothing but mindless, robotic fawning and singing (at best, but there are a number of RT writers who don’t think the Chosen will even get that.) That’s your Future in Robotics. Enjoy!
I honestly don’t understand what you mean by any of this.
To be fair, some christian writers have suggested you can take time off in heaven by going to “the edge” and look down on people in hell being tortured.
Right.
And that is why you think evolution is possible without a plan.
You misunderstand. The sentence you wrote does not make sense as a response to mine. I know what the individual words mean, but the relation to my question is obscured to me.
Could you elaborate on the whole “epigenetics without a code” thing in relation to evolution in a simulated universe? Why could there not be an unplanned evolutionary process with epigenetics, as a byproduct of a simulated universe? How do “codes” relate to any of it?
This “show me your authoriTAH” schtick is relatively new. How’s it working for you? It looks quite bot-like, so it does play to your strengths. It doesn’t really cover up the fact that you’re either unable or unwilling to engage the actual criticisms of your position, though. You may want to try something less transparent.
For the record, I accept that you are posting such comments in good faith. I don’t think you realize how unsupportive of your views they are.
It is possible to design a simulation without designing the specific results of that simulation. As Lizzie pointed out some time ago, the process of imperfect replication with heritable reproductive success is evolution, whether biological or in silico.
Do those rules require you to be rude and deliberately flout the rules of this site? Are you utterly incapable of parking your priors and considering that you may be wrong? Atheists exist.
Inconsistency requires either stupidity, ignorance or deliberate choice. “Double minded”, near as I can tell, also requires either ignorance, stupidity, or being demented (deluded).
The bottom line is that you are violating the rules of this site, not to mention common courtesy, with your repeatedly refuted assertions that atheists do not exist. When I tell you that I lack belief in any god or gods I am doing so in good faith, honestly, with full knowledge of what I am saying. You have the choice of accepting that in the context of the discussions here or continuing to rudely violate the rules.
Park your priors at the door and come play nice. You might even learn something.
This strikes me as both missing Musk’s (and many other folks’) concept of simulation and holding a very naive view of science as a whole.
First, just because something is “simulated” does make any rulesets within the simulation less real. In point of fact, the very nature of most simulations is that they are grounded in very real conditions that cannot be defied. So on that alone, Phoodoo’s comment (and OP) is absurd.
But then there’s the whole issue of what the simulation is supposed to do, which Phoodoo seems to have ignored entirely. If, as Neil DeGrasse Tyson notes, the simulation is to create an evolving universe with evolving lifeforms (and this is the type of simulation Musk is suggesting, according to other interviews and comments*), then of course evolution exists within the simulation.
So it seems Phoodoo doesn’t quite understand what the simulation hypothesis implies.
* Such as:
@Patrick
Well, if he really believes atheists don’t exist, why should he pretend to do it? Then it won’t be possible to have a conversation with him about what he really believes if he’s not allowed by the site rules to argue from his actual position. Personally I’m fine with him believing and arguing from that position. While I understand and appreciate why the forum rule exists, I think in cases such as this there could be made some leeway to accomodate his unusual beliefs.
After all, even though I can understand that it is in some sense insulting to be accused of not arguing for what you really believe to be true, in point of fact the biblical interpretation he adheres to does actually strictly claim that “all men are without excuse” and this he then takes to mean that somewhere inside all people secretly believe. I don’t believe he’s actually trying to be an asshole about it, I rather take him to be honest about his beliefs.
It seems to me a counterproductive strategy to try to circumvent his beliefs by (an ironically) strict intepretation of the forum rules.
True, but I was referring to RT where such is not possible according to the dogma. According to RT, the Chosen can’t experience any sin in the afterlife, which would preclude viewing it, hearing it, or even indirectly feeling the “heat”, as it were…
Besides, the Chosen will be far to busy diddling their god in rapt brainwashed longing that they won’t even recall there was such a thing as “sin”, let alone “sinners”…
I should have been clear that I include deist with theist.
His (keiths’) conception of truth seems to require access to something from out of this world.
No. But such personal criticisms should be confined to noyau (or moved to guano). (I’m taking your “mad” to be in the sense of “angry”).
It doesn’t provide a basis for discussion. It really just ends meaningful discussion, as it’s counter to truth, to shared belief, and to actual experience.
What if my belief is that presuppositionalists are Nazis? Should that be used as the “basis for discussing” presuppositionalism? Of course I went for something more insulting than the bizarre and incredible claim that there are no atheists, the point I’d make is not how insulting or what-not it is, but what a ridiculous thing it is to try to discuss basic facts/non-facts like whether one is a Nazi because one is a presuppositionalist.
It’s not a basis for discussion, it’s quite the opposite. FMM may be religiously rude, arrogant, and prone to false accusation, but I don’t see how that matters. What matters is that there’s no basis for discussing atheism, religion, and claims made about these from the false claim that everyone knows that God exists or whatever the twaddle he’s spewing at a given time. He has these positions that trump meaningful discussion, apparently giving him the idea that he wins because he holds to several unassailable, but meaningless, fallacies.
We’ve all played these games as children, where you can always make up a rule or “fact” that gives one the win at the starting point. Even if they’re religious positions, however, they’re just childish manipulation of discussion, Calvinball or some such thing. Why indulge such behavior?
Glen Davidson
Moved comment to Moderation as that was really a more appropriate thread.
Just curious Glen, buy why don’t you just put him on ‘ignore’?
Why should I?
How is that going to help this site to have meaningful discussions? That’s not your point, it would seem.
Glen Davidson
I’m not suggesting you should. I’m just asking.
It is actually. I just don’t see attempting to force certain people to conform to a given perspective as leading to meaningful discussions either. Which gets back to my previous question. Let me ask it a different way: what meaningful outcome do you think can come out of a discussion with FMM? I don’t mean in general, but for you specifically?
Let’s just assume (for the sake of it) that after a few of his comments are moved to guano that FMM dropped the whole “there are no atheists” retort. Do you really think that just because he wasn’t posting it, he’d stop believing it? And do you think that he wouldn’t find a different way to express his position and still ignore all your salient points regarding the silliness of his position?
I guess I just don’t see the point in FMM’s case. I don’t see it changing his perspective or the way he chooses to treat others based on that perspective. It might end up getting him to stop posting here, which on some levels might be nice, but otoh I don’t see that helping this site have meaningful discussions either (since it appears there are other folks who not only tolerate his particular style, but are actually having meaningful discussions with him.) It just seems to me to be a lose/lose situation.
walto,
I’m not sure what you had in mind with “the Peircean/Putnamian position” — but maybe this will help. Some pragmatists, esp. Dewey & Rorty, have thought that we should do away with the concept of “truth” and just use “warranted assertability” instead. That is not my view (nor was it Sellars’).
The Peircean view is not that we can or should replace truth with warranted assertability, and certainly not that we can define truth in terms of warranted assertability. Rather, Peirce’s view is that for any proposition p, p is absolutely true iff p would be accepted by the entire community of inquirers, should inquiry be taken as far as possible.
This is best thought of as an ‘operationalization’ of the concept, because “being accepted by the entire community of inquirers, should inquiry be taken as far as possible” is a reliable criterion of “being absolutely true”. It’s a criterion, not a definition.
I am all in favor of both (i) the distinction between truth and justification and (ii) retaining truth as correspondence while also thinking that the pragmatists were right about (iii) justification is a social practice.
The difference between myself and Neil is that he thinks that we must reject a correspondence theory of truth once we begin with a bottom-up, organism-first picture of cognition. That’s why he thinks that any attempt to retain correspondence betrays a covert theism. Since the place of God in a theocentric epistemology is to assess the relationship between intellect and reality, and thereby guarantee that there is adequacy between them, it would seem as it any epistemology that conceives of truth in terms of correspondence is requiring that there is something like God in the picture. To use Nietzsche’s language, the correspondence theory of truth is a “shadow of God” that must be banished. (That’s also how Rorty read Davidson & Sellars in light of Nietzsche.)
By contrast, my view is that if we begin with a bottom-up, organism-first theory of cognition, we will be able to understand what correspondence really is. And that is Sellars’s view, as I understand it. So there’s a very subtle and interesting debate here between Dewey and Sellars that needs to be reconstructed. The quarrel I have with Rorty is focused on whether Sellars’s naturalized, pragmatized successor-concept to correspondence — what Sellars calls “picturing” — is sufficiently liberated from the shadows of God (my view) or just one more iteration of them (Rorty’s view, and perhaps also Neil’s)
I’ll be writing a paper on Rorty’s synthesis of Nietzsche and Sellars later this summer, and how my version of the Nietzsche Sellars synthesis is similar to and different from Rorty’s , so these abstruse questions are forefront in my mind right now.
Apologies to the rest of you for the name-dropping.