Religion

[Mykey]

Excuse, that I interrupt you, would like to offer other decision.

[Pie]

There actually is something there though. It's just all energy at sertain frequinsies.

[Floris]

Ofcourse I assume existence, if you do not, you either assume nothing or you assume your non-existence.


And in a way science does assume existence too. They only assume existence farther and farther away each time, while they prove more and more assumptions of existence true (and some false).

[Mykey]

I like your idea. I suggest to take out for the general discussion.

[Nalaris]

Assuming nothing is an excercise in futility.

[Mykey]

You are absolutely right. In it something is also to me it seems it is good thought. I agree with you.

[Joshuamonkey]

You guys are still ranting on? Page number 64...is that a record?

[Nalaris]

Disproving the 'brains in a jar' theory is impossible (to the extent of our knowledge). Believing in it will only impose severe limitations on my ability to achieve things in this world. Four options...

1. I assume a few basic things and am right: I become a happy, productive member of society.
2. I assume a few basic things and am wrong: I become a happy, seemingly productive member of a make-believe society. But at least I'm happy.
3. I do not assume a few basic things and am correct in that those assumptions are false: I spend my entire life attempting to disconnect myself from 'The Matrix', as it were, but will most likely achieve nothing and be miserable.
4. I do not assume a few basic things and am incorrect in that those assumptions are true: I spend my entire life trying to escape the Matrix, but, because there is no Matrix to escape from, I simply hurt society a little bit, go crazy, leech off of my country's taxes inside a mental hospital, and then die having achieved nothing.

The best scenario is number 1, with number 2 making the only sentient being (me) in the program happy. Numbers 3 and 4 simply make me miserable, though it's remotely possible that I'll be able to break free in scenario 3.

[Mykey]

I — the same opinion.

[Pie]

Ok then. lets look at this in a different way.

You assume that god is real, you believe in it, it is true. you are a happy person and a good member of sociaty.


and so on, and so on.

[Nalaris]

1. I assume a few basic things and am right: I become a happy, productive member of society.

In the course of your work, you create the steps for the first solar nuke.
800 years later the solar system is gone.

4. I do not assume a few basic things and am incorrect in that those assumptions are true: I spend my entire life trying to escape the Matrix, but, because there is no Matrix to escape from, I simply hurt society a little bit, go crazy, leech off of my country's taxes inside a mental hospital, and then die having achieved nothing.


Ahh but from the testing of certain drugs, or techniques to repair your schizophrenia, end up ending the affliction for mankind.




I just wanted to shed some perspective on this.... happy/unhappy is not as important as the outcome.

Which, in the grand scheme of things, your chances of predicting are 0.

Happiness is the only thing we can predict, and even that is pretty uncertain. Why shoot for the long term effects when, as you say, they are utterly unpredictable?

And my chances of predicting the grand scheme of things are infintessimally close to zero...but they are not dead zero. There's the slim chance that my random guess will be correct.

And why worry about a 'solar nuke' when you could just detonate bombs inside the gas giants?

[deadboy]

Hmm, Mykey. True, but that is not the essence of religion.

At least not to me, as you can probably see in my posts here, I do not literally believe in Genesis.

Ofcourse I should not, the history of earth has been traced back to 500 million years and I have with my own eyes seen remnants of human civilization older than, if Genesis be literally true, the world would be(which would be somewhere around 6000 years). So, I do not accept that, but that is also not the 'task' of my religion anymore. Explaining how the world was created and such, how nature works, that is all for science. My religion is about living your life with your fellow people in a certain way.


----

Diego, I see that my thinking about multiple universes existing at the same time is a wrong notion. But I don't see any reason why there is only one such singularity. It all having to do with quantum fields and probability, I would expect there to be an infinite number of singularities, and each of them. Difficult to say: with no time, they can not exist 'at the same time', in with no other dimension they can not even be 'infinitely distanced' from each other.

So, somehow, with all dimensions and mass being warped in one point, everything is in it.

If the Big Bang was a result of probability and a singularity just IS, the discussion is somehow changed. The universe being the singularity, and our world being in it, the question is: what was there before the Big Bang, IN the singularity?

Actually some scientists do accept a multi-verse theory. Although yes, we have no way whatsoever to see if this could ever be true so we can never know, but if there was, they would probably exist in other dimensions correct diego? So they would not have to be distanced

Oh and Floris, I'm kind of getting what Diego is trying to say now, so I'm going to try to answer that one with the answer he woud give, if I'm wrong tell me though

Time was in one point, so there was no before the singilarity, time could not "flow" and so everything was stuck at one point in time. The singilarity was, for one moment, a point of infinite density energy, not matter, just energy, but that was only for one point before..... wait a second, just writing this I've realised something. Diego, if time did not exist how could there be quantum fluctuations? If time was in one place and stood still then the singilarity would always be the same, with no sorts of fluctuations wouldn't it? Anway carrying on ...... it began to expand due to quantum fluctuations

You never answered my question Diego [/b]

[Nosajimiki]

3. I do not assume a few basic things and am correct in that those assumptions are false: I spend my entire life attempting to disconnect myself from 'The Matrix', as it were, but will most likely achieve nothing and be miserable.
4. I do not assume a few basic things and am incorrect in that those assumptions are true: I spend my entire life trying to escape the Matrix, but, because there is no Matrix to escape from, I simply hurt society a little bit, go crazy, leech off of my country's taxes inside a mental hospital, and then die having achieved nothing.

Your greatest mistake here is assumtion. You assume that not to assume leads to missery, insanity, and lack of achievment when these are things that come from assumption. If you view the universe as a 'Matirx' senerio, then you've made an assumption just like any religious or scientific conviction.
In my mind there is no greater feeling of satisfaction than being able to accept that it does not matter, sure it's fun to speculate, but if you NEED to know you never will, if you feel that you DO know, than you will be wrong, you might get close but you will be wrong. If you can accept that you will always be wrong, then you know you are right, no one can challenge that you are right, and it leads to happyness. If you don't have to worry about going against what you think you know, then you have more possible ways to express yourself in a productive manner. Finnally, about the insanity issue. To be insaine is to believe that something is that is not. Insanity is by deffinition the result of an assumption.

[Nosajimiki]

Oh and deadboy, to say that time is stoped is a common misconception about what is theoreticly known of singularities. Time is infanintly slowed, not stoped. If you remeber doing hyperbolic equations in Algerbra back in highschool, one of thier properties was those imaginary lines that the graph would get infanantly closer to but never touch and to try to calculate the "zero value" would result in an undefined answer because the graph never gets there, time in a singularity is the same way. If you were to try to calculate a trillion billion years ago, then time would be slowed by an equivilant factor which to our perception of time would seem stoped and infanintly small, but in actuality it would still have a very slow progression of time and a very small volume. The infanint collapse is the theoretical "zero value" in a time equation, but like in those hyperbolic equations, that point does not actually exist

[Pie]

For your first thing

Results vary from person to person.

that secont part whent way above my head.