"String Theory" vs Atheists

[Lord Poe]

Last week, Tom Leykis was discussing the Virginia Tech shootings, and how sick and tired he was about hearing how "God loves the victims". Leykis (an avowed atheist) said that if He did, why did He stand there with His arms folded and let the Virginia Tech massacre happen?

Of course, this generated a slew of calls from Fundies, who Leykis batted away easily. One particular annoying caller tried to "prove" God existence by spouting "string theory" over and over again, and challenged Leykis to answer this question: Could God create a stone so heavy, even He couldn't lift it?

Leykis pointed out that it was a logical fallacy, and that he'd have to have a belief in God to answer the question. The caller continued to harass Leykis with the same question over and over, until Leykis hung up on him. Apparently, ID'ers began calling in and complaining that Leykis couldn't answer the question, which is why he hung up on the caller, and that proves that atheism fails.

I've been looking online for the clip for a week, but no one's posted it, yet. Now that was some entertaining radio!

[mr friendly guy]

This is stupid attacking him for "not answering the question" when it presupposes that he must know something about God, not that not knowing whether God could create a stone so heavy he can't lift it someone proves or disproves his existence.

Its like me asking Christians how do you explain the sky being pink with purple polka dots in it. When they retort its not, I just hammer the same point and say nyah nyah you can't answer.

Or perhaps ask them are they still beating their wives. When they say no, just so " you mean, you used to beat your wife". These stupid loaded questions are so easy to spot, but they just don't get it.

[Twoyboy]

I may be a bit slow tonight or something, but isn't that question usually asked of fundies to show the ridiculousness of the notion of omnipotence? Seems like the caller was trying to draw him into a yes or no answer which would suppose God does exist and thus trip him up. He answered it perfectly as far as I can tell.

[ANGELUS]

Well, he would have to exist in the first place in order for him to try to create it...

Also, I asume they mean the biblical god, right? that guy is really not that powerfull, I mean... he can't even lift charriots of iron. And since he supossedly created everything (even iron)... so my answer would have been: if he existed at all then yes, he can create things he can't lift.

[Darth Wong]

I've run into this "string theory proves God" bullshit before. Their pitiful pseudo-logic works like this:

FUNDIE: I read in a magazine that string theory means everything is made of tiny strings. This means that everything is unified. This means God!

I know, it doesn't make any sense. But it comes from the same mindset as "the beauty of a rose proves God" or "the sunrise proves God" or "Relativity proves God". Basically, anything they find cool or neat proves God in their minds, because they don't know what the word "prove" means. Of course, they never apply this logic in reverse, otherwise we could say that anything we find objectionable disproves God. Ergo, nosehairs disprove God.

[TithonusSyndrome]

This is EXACTLY the kind of horseshit I encountered as a young man among the drug culture. Ignorant fuckers who think that science and spirituality are two faucets of the same transcendental truth and that scientists are stodgy old pedants for not being able to see the simple truth right under their nose, but if they'd only drop acid they'd see that god loves them, yadda yadda. We lose a lot of curious young men and women who might otherwise turn their inquisitiveness to productive ends to this culture after high school, loafing in their mothers' basements, smoking pot and talking about, like, life and the universe and stuff.

I was gladdened to see Dawkins take aim at postmodernism on his website as one of the more pernicious "runner-up" threats to science, and I wish he'd take on the drug culture as well.

[Frank Hipper]

Despite omniscience and omnipotence, God was unequal to the task of creating a universe he was happy with - so he could easily be so incompetent to create a stone he couldn't lift.

[Mr. T]

That stone question is always used to disprove the possible existence of an omnipotent being

I don't see how the hell that even remotely serves as proof of god. I'm actually trying to see there logic and I can't at all.

[Darth Wong]

That stone question is always used to disprove the possible existence of an omnipotent being

I don't see how the hell that even remotely serves as proof of god. I'm actually trying to see there logic and I can't at all.

It's a variation of the Chewbacca Defense.

[The Vortex Empire]

That stone question is always used to disprove the possible existence of an omnipotent being

I don't see how the hell that even remotely serves as proof of god. I'm actually trying to see there logic and I can't at all.

It's a variation of the Chewbacca Defense.

What's the Chewbacca Defense?

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

The Chewbacca defense stems from South Park. They were mocking OJ's attorney who used a very complex, convoluted, non-sequitur argument to defend his client by muddling up the jury with jargon.

[petesampras]

That stone question is always used to disprove the possible existence of an omnipotent being

I don't see how the hell that even remotely serves as proof of god. I'm actually trying to see there logic and I can't at all.

It's a variation of the Chewbacca Defense.

What's the Chewbacca Defense?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU-tZy3NIS4

[Darth Servo]

Chewbacca defense long story short: something completely irrelevant to the case makes no sense, therefore you must decide in favor of my client.

[Darth Servo]

One particular annoying caller tried to "prove" God existence by spouting "string theory" over and over again, and challenged Leykis to answer this question: Could God create a stone so heavy, even He couldn't lift it?

Leykis pointed out that it was a logical fallacy, and that he'd have to have a belief in God to answer the question. The caller continued to harass Leykis with the same question over and over, until Leykis hung up on him. Apparently, ID'ers began calling in and complaining that Leykis couldn't answer the question, which is why he hung up on the caller, and that proves that atheism fails.

Talk about spin doctoring that would make even the most Rabid Stupid Asshole trektards gape in awe. The "rock so heavy God can't lift it" is an argument against the concept of omnipotence, not in favor of it.

[mr friendly guy]

Talk about spin doctoring that would make even the most Rabid Stupid Asshole trektards gape in awe. The "rock so heavy God can't lift it" is an argument against the concept of omnipotence, not in favor of it.

I bet you the fundie was expecting atheist to answer yes or no. In which case they pounce and say, hah, so you admit God exists right?

[Darth Servo]

I bet you the fundie was expecting atheist to answer yes or no. In which case they pounce and say, hah, so you admit God exists right?

Its amazing that they are that desperate. Of course the atheist's answer should be, "Something that doesn't exist won't be creating anything, ever."

[2000AD]

I know, it doesn't make any sense. But it comes from the same mindset as "the beauty of a rose proves God" or "the sunrise proves God" or "Relativity proves God". Basically, anything they find cool or neat proves God in their minds, because they don't know what the word "prove" means. Of course, they never apply this logic in reverse, otherwise we could say that anything we find objectionable disproves God. Ergo, nosehairs disprove God.

Yeah, people are quick to declare beuatiful things as god's work, but when you do a David Attenborough and bring up stuff like Loa loa filariasis whose life cycle is dependant on larvae infecting humans and causing all sorts of problems they tend to try an find some wriggle room to keep their "kind and merciful" god.

[Lord Zentei]

Of course, this generated a slew of calls from Fundies, who Leykis batted away easily. One particular annoying caller tried to "prove" God existence by spouting "string theory" over and over again, and challenged Leykis to answer this question: Could God create a stone so heavy, even He couldn't lift it?

BWA HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

That quandary is typically used to show that omnipotence is a logical impossibility!

And the fundies think this proves atheism impossible?



To clarify: Tom Leykis should have asked that dipshit caller to answer the question. If he answered "yes", then Lyskis says "then God is not omnipotent, since God cannot lift it". If he answeres "no", Lyskis should have answered "then God cannot create it". Thus, omnipotence is shown to be meaningless (as in, self-contradictory), and God the Omnipotent cannot logically exist.

I know, it doesn't make any sense. But it comes from the same mindset as "the beauty of a rose proves God" or "the sunrise proves God" or "Relativity proves God". Basically, anything they find cool or neat proves God in their minds, because they don't know what the word "prove" means. Of course, they never apply this logic in reverse, otherwise we could say that anything we find objectionable disproves God. Ergo, nosehairs disprove God.

Yeah, people are quick to declare beuatiful things as god's work, but when you do a David Attenborough and bring up stuff like Loa loa filariasis whose life cycle is dependant on larvae infecting humans and causing all sorts of problems they tend to try an find some wriggle room to keep their "kind and merciful" god.

Yeah, he's so loving that he even loves the parasites a la Nurgle. Got to give him that.

[Lord Zentei]

GHETTO:

To clarify: Tom Leykis should have asked that dipshit caller to answer the question. If he answered "yes", then Lyskis says "then God is not omnipotent, since God cannot lift it". If he answeres "no", Lyskis should have answered "then God cannot create it". Thus, omnipotence is shown to be meaningless (as in, self-contradictory), and God the Omnipotent cannot logically exist.

[Lord Zentei]

I know, it doesn't make any sense. But it comes from the same mindset as "the beauty of a rose proves God" or "the sunrise proves God" or "Relativity proves God". Basically, anything they find cool or neat proves God in their minds, because they don't know what the word "prove" means. Of course, they never apply this logic in reverse, otherwise we could say that anything we find objectionable disproves God. Ergo, nosehairs disprove God.

Yeah, people are quick to declare beuatiful things as god's work, but when you do a David Attenborough and bring up stuff like Loa loa filariasis whose life cycle is dependant on larvae infecting humans and causing all sorts of problems they tend to try an find some wriggle room to keep their "kind and merciful" god.

Yeah, he's so loving that he even loves the parasites a la Nurgle. Got to give him that.

[Starglider]

I can't believe I'm debating this theological word games crap, but...

To clarify: Tom Leykis should have asked that dipshit caller to answer the question. If he answered "yes", then Lyskis says "then God is not omnipotent, since God cannot lift it". If he answeres "no", Lyskis should have answered "then God cannot create it". Thus, omnipotence is shown to be meaningless (as in, self-contradictory), and God the Omnipotent cannot logically exist.

The ability to create a stone that cannot be lifted simply implies that the omnipotent being has to remove their own omnipotence to do it. As far as I can see the ability to diminish or destroy themselves is part of the general definition of being omnipotent. The last time few times I asked a Christian 'can god commit suicide' they said 'no, because god is perfect/unchanging/eternal/whatever' (AFAIK this isn't doctrinal, they're just groping for as many absolutes as they can). The only get out I can see for that is that 'god is omnipotent with respect to our own universe, but not with respect to whatever part of reality he exists in'. If you take that position not being able to create a stone he can't lift doesn't violate 'local omnipotence' (I think). Clearly this is further evidence that god is actually a careless grad student running a universe simulation on the department supercomputer.

[Lord Zentei]

Clearly this is further evidence that god is actually a careless grad student running a universe simulation on the department supercomputer.

Ugh, the computer sim argument. Don't buy it.

Here's why: we are given a parent universe A, which contains enough particles to encode F(A) bytes. All computers contained within that universe must therefore encode a total of less than F(A) bytes, since that is the limit of information processing power that is available.

Any given simulated universe B requires F(B) bytes to encode. Moreover, any set of simulated universes B[n] requires ∑ F(B) bytes to encode. If these universes are within A, that means that ∑ F(B) which is therefore less than F(A).

Moreover, if a second generation simulation of a universe C is run on any of the B universes, the set of all C[n] must encode a total of ∑ F(C) bytes, which must be less than F(B) for the given simulated universe in which they exist for similar reasons: since the particles of B form the structure that allows the encoding of such simulations.

This can also be seen by the fact that if you are running a virtual machine on your computer, you don't magically gain more processing power, it is taken from the processing power of the parent computer.


Therefore, the sum of operations in ALL simulated universes must be less than the sum of processes in the "real" parent universe in which they are existant.

Therefore, for any given information processing system, chances are that it exists within the real universe and not any of the simulations.

[Starglider]

Ugh, the computer sim argument. Don't buy it.

It was a throwaway reference, but it is an interesting argument in its own right.

Here's why: we are given a parent universe A, which contains enough particles to encode F(A) bytes. All computers contained within that universe must therefore encode a total of less than F(A) bytes, since that is the limit of information processing power that is available.

This assumes that the simulation is perfect and homogenous down to the resolution limit of physics (which is a hell of a lot of computation if you're simulating vacuum fluctuations across the whole universe). AFAIK Bostrom's actual simulation argument is that the intelligent beings are simulated at a resolution sufficient to create accurate cognitive behaviour (including human consciousness in our case), and the rest of the universe is only simulated to the extent necessary to fool them (which is quite easy if you abandon synchronous realtime processing - which isn't needed for the illusion of real time from within the simulation). As such the computing requirements for simulations indistinguishable from reality can be tens of orders of magnitude less than the requirements for a 'brute force' simulation. Our physics are particularly convenient for this as bulk calculations work perfectly well 99.999% of the time - quantum physics only needs to be simulated in detail when someone is observing an event critically dependent on the extra resolution.

This can also be seen by the fact that if you are running a virtual machine on your computer, you don't magically gain more processing power, it is taken from the processing power of the parent computer.

Note that you can give the impression of a vastly more powerful computer from within the VM just by slowing down the simulated 'real time' clock, to make it look there are more ops/second available.

Therefore, for any given information processing system, chances are that it exists within the real universe and not any of the simulations.

True assuming an indifferent prior for the location of any given system; i.e. a homogenous (at the large scale) distribution of such systems across all available computing substrate. However, we observe nothing like this in our own universe: all the sapient creatures we know of are clustered in a thin shell around a single ball of iron orbiting a particular star. Bostrom's argument essentially hinges on an ultratech civilisation devoting rather more of their compute resources to creating 'ancestor simulations' than they do to creating non-boxed humanlike intelligences. Highly conjectural, but not (IMHO) completely farfetched.

[Lord Zentei]

<order reversed>

Note that you can give the impression of a vastly more powerful computer from within the VM just by slowing down the simulated 'real time' clock, to make it look there are more ops/second available.

It does not increase the number of computations.

True assuming an indifferent prior for the location of any given system; i.e. a homogenous (at the large scale) distribution of such systems across all available computing substrate. However, we observe nothing like this in our own universe: all the sapient creatures we know of are clustered in a thin shell around a single ball of iron orbiting a particular star. Bostrom's argument essentially hinges on an ultratech civilisation devoting rather more of their compute resources to creating 'ancestor simulations' than they do to creating non-boxed humanlike intelligences. Highly conjectural, but not (IMHO) completely farfetched.

It is farfetched. He provides no justification for the assumption that a civilization would be able to encode more minds than the universe that contains it contains. Presumably, his parent universe must then be finite, unless he claims that the parent civilization is infinite in extent.

This assumes that the simulation is perfect and homogenous down to the resolution limit of physics (which is a hell of a lot of computation if you're simulating vacuum fluctuations across the whole universe). AFAIK Bostrom's actual simulation argument is that the intelligent beings are simulated at a resolution sufficient to create accurate cognitive behaviour (including human consciousness in our case), and the rest of the universe is only simulated to the extent necessary to fool them (which is quite easy if you abandon synchronous realtime processing - which isn't needed for the illusion of real time from within the simulation). As such the computing requirements for simulations indistinguishable from reality can be tens of orders of magnitude less than the requirements for a 'brute force' simulation. Our physics are particularly convenient for this as bulk calculations work perfectly well 99.999% of the time - quantum physics only needs to be simulated in detail when someone is observing an event critically dependent on the extra resolution.

So, he claims that macroscopic processes are simulated, even though their functioning can be inferred from observed microstructure? Then the burden of proof seems to rest with him; he's basically claiming that observation cannot distinguish the true reality, and that there is a "more real" reality "out there". For one thing it is not parsimonious.

Moreover, he does not account for his assumption that the parent universe would bother with a simulation that allowed for more sentients than its entire universe contained itself (see above). After all, the simulations running in the simulations still draw from the processing power of the parent universe; that at least is unavoidable.

[Starglider]

Gah sorry, was meaning to reply but I forgot about this thread.

Strictly, the simulation argument is 'either we are almost certainly in an ancestor simulation, or our descendants will never run such simulations'. The generalised for is 'either we are almost certainly in a simulation, or such simulations almost never occur in space-time'. You don't seem to objecting to the argument, just going for 'such simulations will never exist' on technical grounds. Personally I think they probably will be feasible with future computing technology, but they're unethical so I hope they will be successfully banned. I don't really know what to think about the generalised version, other than that it doesn't seem to have an impact on my actual decisions.

It does not increase the number of computations.

Of course not. The point is just that even a low powered computer can run very long computations (still subject to storage space limitations) given a lot of time. It's possible that the containing universe has simply existed for much longer than our own. If you're generalising 'computations' to 'all the computations possible over a universe's entire space time' that just implies that child universes have to have much shorter histories. AFAIK there's no real argument against the possibility of a parent universe having a history 100 orders of magnitude longer (in compute-equivalent terms) - Occam's razor only works against the complexity of a theory, not the sheer vastness of physical quantities. For the more limited argument, it just means that you can simulate humans at full resolution on a slow computer (as long as it has sufficient storage) if you don't mind taking say a year to simulate one minute of time. Since for these low resolution simulations it's quite plausible that the simulation was created at an arbitrary point in history (i.e. five seconds ago from the point of view of the simulated humans), lots of short simulations are quite possible. That runs smack into a reference class problem (another aspect of computational philosophy that makes my head hurt ) - do you calibrate the personal prior for 'where I am likely to be' based on subjective time experienced or discrete instances? I'm pretty sure it's 'subjective time experienced', but people more attached to the notion of unique personal identity (i.e. people who object to transporters on moral grounds) usually seem to pick discrete instances.

It is farfetched. He provides no justification for the assumption that a civilization would be able to encode more minds than the universe that contains it contains.

That seems trivially obvious to me. Just looking at our planet, we have around seven billion humans running on biological brains. Using ballpark estimates for nanocomputers we can design but not yet build (i.e. rod logic) we can simulate somewhere between one and ten thousand humans per cubic centimetre of device and watt of power, depending on exactly what resolution we have to model synapses in. Electronic nanocomputers will almost certainly be more efficient than this. One mainframe sized rod logic computer running off a large nuclear plant could simulate somewhere between a hundredth and five thousand times the current planetary population, depending on how much additional computing power you allocate to environment simulation (which largely depends on how clever the control system is about optimising away unnecessary simulation - you can get away with a lot less brute force if you have a powerful general AI controlling the whole thing, particularly if you permit mind-state modification to make the simulated humans ignore any glitches).

So, he claims that macroscopic processes are simulated, even though their functioning can be inferred from observed microstructure? Then the burden of proof seems to rest with him; he's basically claiming that observation cannot distinguish the true reality, and that there is a "more real" reality "out there".

Microscopic processes only need to be simulated in detail when the simulated sentients (i.e. virtual humans) would notice the difference if bulk modelling was used. You don't even need any fancy control software to do this if you use an asynchronous simulation; you just need a means of detecting it when it occurs, then you reset the simulation to the last known good state and rerun it with fine detail enabled on the causally critical chunk (though in practice you'd try to use a conservatively high level of detail to avoid costly resets).

For one thing it is not parsimonious.

Not in a conventional sense no. The argument 'we might be living in a simulation we can't detect' is pointless - specifically, it by definition can't be falsified by observation. Bostrom's argument attacks the problem from a different direction, by looking at something we may be able to do with technology in the future and generalising from that to a total sum of conscious experience in which all sapients are embedded somewhere. It seems like a cheat somehow, but currently I don't have a good counterargument (note: I've debated this in person with Nick, over dinner no less, and I've participated in extended debates on it on other forums).

Moreover, he does not account for his assumption that the parent universe would bother with a simulation that allowed for more sentients than its entire universe contained itself (see above).

That's not assumed - sorry if I gave the impression that it was. His basic point is just that you have to make this assumption or the assumption that we will never be able to simulate huge numbers of humans (noting that generalising across 'all sentients' as a reference class is probably wrong, given that humans are tiny and inefficient compared to almost all possible sentients, though that assumption also runs into problems if you assume most humans have an open-ended potential for transhumanist self-enhancement, at least if they're not in a compute-limited simulation).

My best guess about how this actually works is kinda like Egan's 'dust' theory, but it's complicated and I don't have a good rigorous argument to support it, so I keep it to myself. Fortunately none of this (AFAIK) has a bearing on real-world decisions.