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."
Right. You’d need God to actually exist–and he doesn’t. Your definitions do nothing whatever.. Just like your imaginary revelations.
If god existed, which he doesn’t, he couldn’t be logic or truth anyhow. Your view is a muddle wrapped in a confusion masked in a couple of fallacies. But as I’ve said, it obviously makes you happy, and that’s something anyhow.
It’s so predictable first comes the charges that Christians kill infidels then comes hotshoe to stir the pot because folks are a little hesitant to trust the same authorities who have been subjecting them to persecution for centuries .
All of this because I dared when asked to explain why I did not put stock in theistic arguments.
It never ceases to amaze me that you all so obsessed with this God stuff.
Why can’t you find something else to talk about?
peace
If one believes in a divine, special relationship between God and man, then theistic evolution is a completely irrational, completely inconsistent position to hold.
Would there be a divine relationship between a God and a grey slime, if that just so happened to be the most effective accidental replicator?
Why should intelligence be the end by-product of an undirected series of meaningless replicators which are not very precise at copying?
revelations and definitions don’t “do” anything.
Persons use definitions and reveal things.
So you repeatedly claim but you never explain why this should be the case
Again assertions are not evidence or arguments.
peace
Why don’t you go bother your own kind?
It’s easier to do what you do when you classify folks as “the other” isn’t it.
Folks have been doing that sort of thing forever.
we know how it ends
Peace
Also note that this supposedly decent christian, fifthmonarchyman, has zero empathy or concern for the women and children who are abused and raped, because all his sympathy is reserved for the elders of the church who are “a little hesitant to trust the authorities”.
Because “persecution” is sufficient excuse for covering-up rape in a typical christian’s worldview, it doesn’t even strike fifthmonarchyman that he should try to hide his shameful inhumanity. Fifthmonarchyman thinks that is so normal, that the only kind of people who could be against it are pot-stirrers like me. Well, yes, I don’t doubt that all the christian men he knows are the same as he: admiring the farmers who treat their livestock better than their wives and children, and defending them against any attempt to bring them to justice. Gotta stick together, christians! God forbid you should ever testify against one of your own kind, even if he is a child rapist.
The claim that I haven’t explained to you why god cannot be logic, that it’s just an unsupported assertion of mine is absolutely false, and your repeating it is a great example of why it’s silly to try to talk to you. Just like yelling into one’s shoe–a really stupid pastime.
But that’s something *I* need to learn.
Pot, kettle, black.
You’re the person who just accused us – in the very sentence I quoted from you – as being “all so obsessed”.
But not you, of course, you’re not the kind to get “all so obsessed” are you. No sirree bob. That’s something that’s only a failing of the “other”. Of us, not of you.
You’re some other kind. The sane kind, Or at least, you must think so, because you don’t include yourself in the kind who have double-mind, that crap term which you use to turn us into the “other” in your own mind.
There’s no dividing line between you saying that I’m a pot-stirrer with double-mind — and you saying I’m a witch who must not be suffered to live. It’s all part of the same overarching worldview which devalues my equality and inherent worth. Since you’ve already taken the first steps in seeing me as less than fully human, I can’t trust you at all. I can never know when god is going to “reveal” to you that it’s time to bring out the stakes and torches or the bombs at the clinics.
I know your kind. Your kind has been hunting and killing people like me for all of recorded history, but it sure got a lot worse when your kind got that particular book.
Oh, the irony.
🙂
That’s a very funny mental image.
I picture an uncomfortable stiff black shoe, the kind you only wear to job interviews or funerals.
Sorry. I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with you. I hope!
I find it very interesting that demonstrating a contradiction between an a priori claim and an a posteriori claim is much more difficult that demonstrating a contradiction between two a priori claims or two a posteriori claims.
Presumably the theistic evolutionist would have no difficulty telling a story as to how evolution and theism fit together.
My point, however, was simply this: as a scientific theory, the theory of evolution should be accepted or rejected based on how well they explain the available data. But there is no available data for determining if God exists, if our reality is a simulation, etc. The scientific and the speculative simply come apart here.
KN,
Your claim was that you know you are not being deceived:
You started out claiming that Cartesian skepticism was logically impossible, and had to retract your claim. Then you said Cartesian skepticism was inconceivable, and had to retract that claim. Now you’re saying that you know you’re not being deceived, but you’re going to have to retract that third claim too because you acknowledge that it “has a likelihood of being true that cannot be estimated.”
Isn’t it time to take a breather and think things through before making any more claims?
Neil:
You’re making a silly mistake, very much akin to fifth’s when he claims that we are all theists.
That’s as silly as claiming that an architect can’t produce a “birds-eye view” drawing of a planned Martian colony, because there are no birds on Mars and in any case the colony hasn’t been built yet.
Or that an “exploded view” of a fishing reel (hi, KF!) isn’t possible until someone has wedged some C4 inside and detonated it.
How does that help?
You did not present any evidence for increased incidence of abuse or rape by the Amish just an unsubstantiated charge.
I have nothing but sympathy for actual people who have been harmed in some way. I have nothing but contempt for those who cause harm to others.
What I don’t have is sympathy for someone who blames an entire people group for the supposed actions of individuals. Prejudice and discrimination is wrong even when the perpetrator is not a Christian.
I also have no sympathy for someone who brings up treatment of animals and mistrust for authority only to muddy the waters when the original charge was that Christian fundamentalism leads to to killing of those who violate the commandments.
peace
I assure you that I would much rather discuss epistemology or the simulation hypothesis that is one of the reason I don’t offer theistic arguments but as Michael Corleone said
quote:
Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.
end quote:
If you think I talk to much about God don’t spend so much time vilifying him and those who love him.
peace
What has being able to estimate a likelihood of being true got to do with justification?
If you are to be justified in your beliefs you must think your beliefs are more likely to be correct than incorrect.
don’t you agree?
peace
Not obvious to me. I think I can believe that someting is true without believing anything at all about its probability.
ETA: Suppose you believe that Glen Close is in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’: must you estimate her chances of actually being in it? How would you do that?
No one but you makes the claim that atheists don’t exist. It is never the topic of a discussion until you bring it up.
Oh, I’m quite familiar with the concept of the resurrection. I don’t see it as effecting my point however.
Nope…won’t be any (can’t be any) internet. Cat videos lead to sin (sloth). Clearly there will be no porn…
More to the point, however, there will be no need for the internet (or the exchange of information via any medium. There will be no one to make anything…
Point is, there will be no one who even thinks he or she is an atheist. There will be no one with any opinions about anything; everyone will think, act, and do exactly the same thing. Nothing more, nothing less, than robotics.
walto,
I think you’re still stuck on the idea that assessing the likelihood of something requires assigning a numerical probability to it.
Not so. Consider the following two numberless exchanges, only one of which makes any sense:
Exchange #1:
Exchange #2:
But there’s not much use in discussing this with you, since your contribution to the discussion consists of nothing more than a recurring unsupported declaration that you know beyond all doubt you are not in a simulation.
Upon every attempt to try to get you to justify the claim, you just find another way to express the same claim. You seem to labor under the misapprehension that you can do proof by assertion.
In a strangely ironic way, you don’t even seem to understand your own epistemological position. You keep asking for justification when you yourself can offer none. Rather than these endless backs-and-forths about justification you should take a hint from the title of your position: Presuppositionalism. There is no justification in any the things you believe, they are just presumed. Call it what it is: Blind faith.
Rumraket:
Amen.
Consider Exchange #3:
“I know I left the keys in the garage.”
“How likely is it that you’re wrong?”
“No idea.”
Exchange #3 makes no more sense than exchange #1.
If you have no idea whether you left the keys in the garage, then you don’t know that you left the keys in the garage.
But that’s not what I said, is it? You’re just begging the question, assuming that “having an idea whether I left the keys in the garage” requires a probability estimate. That’s what I’m denying.
Let me put this as your buddy would: “Please provide a probability estimate regarding whether you are currently sitting down–and if you can’t, retract your claim.”
You’ve attacked the source and the motivations, not the argument. Can you refute it? How is scripture misquoted and how do you know your interpretation is correct.
Bonus question – could an omnipotent being create an unambiguous document?
Why would it matter WHO quotes or interprets scripture?
I’ll take a flyer here and suggest that FMM will say:
1. It IS unambiguous; and
2. (In spite of the fallibility of we mere mortals and our apparent disagreements), Deep down everyone actually agrees on every jot and tittle of it.
Here is the passage:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2015:1-9
Well it’s def beyond my paygrade.
Of course. But it could still make it so you can’t understand it unambiguously.
Because it’s an omnipotent being.
More importantly, could it make FMM seem convincing?
Glen Davison
You are asking for a miracle.
If you believe that Glen Close is in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’: you’ve already decided that the likelihood she is in it is 51% or more depending on your level of certainty .
AFAIK According to your worldview you do that by relying on your perceptions and cognitive abilities.
peace
I’m never bring it up except in response to claims implied or otherwise that atheists do exist.
It’s pretty simple
If you don’t want to discuss God ever again just don’t begin with the unwarranted assumption that God is a proposition that needs to be proven.
peace
It gives an operationalized criterion for absolute truth. If you care about that kind of thing.
They don’t for me I’m a dog person or anyone else not prone to sloth.
You sure have some whacked out idea of what a renewed creation would look like. Think Eden but with technology.
The creation was always supposed to be physical and challenging just without folks who are bound and determined to destroy it and kill themselves and it’s creator.
If that is what I thought it would be like I would still be a rebel just like you.
You need to read more 😉
peace
Right. Because knowledge itself only makes sense when doubt also makes sense.
Is it is conceivable that I’m being deceived? Eh, I guess. (I’ve never really tried.) Does conceivability imply logical possibility? Maybe. Is it logically possible that I’m being deceived, even if I couldn’t conceive of my being deceived? Sure. So, can I ever be certain that I’m not being deceived? I don’t see how. Certainty accrues to immediate experience, and not beyond.
But here’s the thing: the bare logical possibility of Cartesian skepticism isn’t enough to give me a reason for thinking that it is true. Doubts need reasons as much as knowledge does (and “let us not doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts” — Peirce).
Meanwhile, I have good reasons for thinking that something like critical direct realism is true: my perceptual capacities are functionally integrated into my practical coping skills such that I can, by and large and for the most part, reliably detect and classify spatio-temporal objects. I can do by virtue of how sensory stimulations caused by those objects are systematically related to my conceptual framework and the causal role of those framework in generating and guiding bodily conduct.
My position here has been that Bostrom’s simulation argument rests on assumptions that I see no reason to accept. That’s all.
Most folks would agree that an omnipotent being can reveal to me that I am not in a simulation. He has done just that
If you ask me how I know he has done that I will say because he can and I have experienced it.
If you ask for proof that he has. I will say that you already have your proof and the reason I know this is because you act as if you know you are not in a simulation and have no reason to believe this sans God’s revelation.
It’s not proof by assertion it’s proof by observation…….and revelation
peace
Wow, that is sooo convenient. You don’t have to prove anything, god just exists no matter what. Why? Because god!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAhaahahahaha
God is the only reliable interpreter of scripture. He is the only person who is not affected by bias and cognitive weakness
peace
As already indicated, I don’t agree with that. I’m not making a probability estimate at all, and my level of certainty doesn’t vary directly with such estimates.
I guess you or Keiths could say it again, though. Maybe I’ll change my mind if I hear it a few more times.
yep I already did you must have missed it.
That commandment was not given to those in the New Covenant.
quote:
These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
(Col 2:17)
and
For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities,.
(Heb 10:1a)
and
They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
(Heb 8:5-7)
If you want a more in depth explanation I suggest you find yourself a good bible study
peace
That’s wrong as I put it, I think. I should have said this:
As already indicated, I don’t agree with that. I’m not making a probability estimate at all [when I say I’m justified in believing something], and my level of justification doesn’t vary directly with such estimates.
Certainty is a whole nuther animal that I hadn’t been talking about at all, and maybe it DOES vary directly with subjective probabilities (in fact maybe they’re the same thing). But that just means that certainty doesn’t vary with levels of justification. And that is my view.
unambiguous to who?
peace
I think you are focusing to much on numbers and not enough on the the act of belief.
When you say you believe something you mean that it is likely to be true rather than false.
If that is not what you mean I am at a loss to understand you.
peace
I mean how does it help respond to Huw Price’s points regarding differences between evidence and truth that you referred to in your post? Let me explain: If truth is different from warranted assertability or best ever evidence (or whatever epistemic term you like) as I believe it to be, then I don’t see how adding “at the end of inquiry” helps. I think one is a metaphysical realist about this (like me) or some kind of idealist (like Neil) and Peircean “end of” biz doesn’t seem to me likely to resolve that conflict.
I don’t know that Price work, but in my own view there are no operationalized criteria for truth and can’t be.
If you insist on bringing your god into a conversation, it is incumbent upon you to provide evidence that such an entity actually exists. Unless and until you do you are literally talking nonsense by using a word without a real world referent.