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Its a bug because its false. Suppose I say to you I have a magical creature in my bedroom. Surely you'd want to know more about it? Well for every question yo

Its a bug because its false. Suppose I say to you I have a magical creature in my bedroom. Surely you'd want to know more about it? Well for every question you ask, I will describe a property it has that prevents me from answering your question. Where is it? Everywhere. What does it weigh? It has no weight. How do i see it? Its invisible. And so on. These are "buggy objects". They actually possess no properties. The term "magical creature in my bedroom" doesnt actually refer to anything. But we are still able to speak of it as-if it does. And thus go around constructing speech around it: "I love my magical creature!". I am an atheist because God clearly falls into this pattern of buggy-object-generation. Take some idea that seems concrete and remove from it every impactful dimension so that what remains seems something, but is in fact, nothing. For the idea of God to even be true there ought to be something that it means for it to be true. Some property which, if absent, would make a difference. False beliefs may have other "value". Faires and sprites may be "fun" and "bring families together". But they are pure bugs. Whatever feel-good factor you want to have can be had without them. I don't believe in any of them as a class. God just happens to fall into this group. To claim that it is reasonable to believe that any object of this kind exists i think breaks reasonable thought to such a shattering degree. At that point I do not know what principles you have left to deny any form of nonesense. That is, why is "leprechauns do not exist" overwhelmingly reasonable but "god does not exist" not? There is no reason. At some point you need to draw a line and debug your reasoning. That isnt an empirical issue, its a thinking issue.

koonsolo 9y ago
> I am an atheist because God clearly falls into this pattern of buggy-object-generation. Are you 100% sure our universe is not a simulation? Because if it would be, that opens up a whole lot of realism to "God". A creator, a possible afterlife, etc.
- mjburgess 9y ago
  The proposition "the universe is a simulation" is just a form of global scepticism. I am reasonably sure that the best explanation for the causal structure of the world is the causal structure of the world -- not some other world which, in some grand mystical paranoia, behaves as-if it were the world. Global scepticism is another "bug" of a different kind. It is a scepticism-loop, like conspiracy theories. In rational thought, doubt attenuates, it doesnt build. The more occurances of events occur which pertain to one hypothesis, the more confidence you should have in that hypothesis. The problem with global scepticism is that it declares, by assertion, that every event cannot reduce doubt -- for some magical reason. And so it makes escape from doubt and explanation itself, impossible. Magical reasoning of this kind is another error. Remove any unjustifiable extra-empirical premises that cause doubt to multiply rather than attenuate. If you spiral into doubt, you're in a loop. Delete the unjustifiable premise. {Simulation, Cartesian Daemon, Dreaming...} is this set.. now, of "empty substances" out of which every object is meant to be made. These are buggy. Premises of reasoning which begin, "everything is drawn from... a simulation/dream/blah" are thought-traps that cause doubt to spiral. They are, of themselves, simply made up. That they cause these spirals of doubt is nothing profound.. its in the nature of the setup.
  - shkkmo 9y ago
    > The problem with global scepticism is that it declares, by assertion, that every event cannot reduce doubt -- for some magical reason. This is true, you cannot and should not be able to decrease absolute doubt. All you can do is reduce relative doubt given a certain set of premises. > The more occurances of events occur which pertain to one hypothesis, the more confidence you should have in that hypothesis. This is rational only given the assumption the of the Doctrine of Uniformity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism) That doctrine allows us to build pretty much all of our useful knowledge systems and is the basis for most of our certainty. However, if we are epistemologically honest with our selves, all of our certainly only exists given that this doctrine is true. Your "magical reasoning" is what allows us to accept and use unprovable premises because we find the knowledge systems we can create with them provide functional utility. This is precisely why I call it a "feature" and not a "bug".
    - mjburgess 9y ago
      We have some options: "uniform and reliable" or one of an infinite varieties of "non-uniform and unreliable". Neither starting point has any effect on what makes "the earth goes around the sun" true. It is true iff there is an earth and iff it goes around the sun. If we are all deceived then that claim is false, regardless of its utility. Utility is a criterion for the most general starting point of our reasoning: how are we going to think. It isn't a criterion for truth, nor for the truth of particular beliefs. Nor does the fact that utility features in my methodological criteria mean that I am not entitled to reasonably infer truth from the method. The factory is made of steel (utility) its products are made of wood (truth), that utility features in the production mechanism does not mean it features in the product. My observation about "the simulation hypothesis" is that it isnt a hypothesis at all. It is just an alternative formulation of how to think: ie., to deny that evidence builds in support of conclusions about how the world works. It is not mysterious then that "nothing seems to work" if we presume simulation. That's by design of the thought process. Since how I think is my choice. I can chose to use the steel factory over the playdo factory. And my products are clearly of a better quality for any person concerned for production (ie., for the making of truth-claims). Whether they are true or not, my method reasonably entitles me to infer they are. The playdo method is a thought trap, and a pretty juvenile one at that. This is the trick being played: simulationy people want you to think "simulation" is just like "the earth goes around the sun". They are both, meant to be, healthy products of reasoning and thus plausible. The former is a bug in this sense: it is in fact a change to the method of truth-production it isnt one among many plausible products (truths). It is broken machinery producing nonesense.

koonsolo 9y ago

> I am an atheist because God clearly falls into this pattern of buggy-object-generation. Are you 100% sure our universe is not a simulation? Because if it would be, that opens up a whole lot of realism to "God". A creator, a possible afterlife, etc.

mjburgess 9y ago
The proposition "the universe is a simulation" is just a form of global scepticism. I am reasonably sure that the best explanation for the causal structure of the world is the causal structure of the world -- not some other world which, in some grand mystical paranoia, behaves as-if it were the world. Global scepticism is another "bug" of a different kind. It is a scepticism-loop, like conspiracy theories. In rational thought, doubt attenuates, it doesnt build. The more occurances of events occur which pertain to one hypothesis, the more confidence you should have in that hypothesis. The problem with global scepticism is that it declares, by assertion, that every event cannot reduce doubt -- for some magical reason. And so it makes escape from doubt and explanation itself, impossible. Magical reasoning of this kind is another error. Remove any unjustifiable extra-empirical premises that cause doubt to multiply rather than attenuate. If you spiral into doubt, you're in a loop. Delete the unjustifiable premise. {Simulation, Cartesian Daemon, Dreaming...} is this set.. now, of "empty substances" out of which every object is meant to be made. These are buggy. Premises of reasoning which begin, "everything is drawn from... a simulation/dream/blah" are thought-traps that cause doubt to spiral. They are, of themselves, simply made up. That they cause these spirals of doubt is nothing profound.. its in the nature of the setup.
- shkkmo 9y ago
  > The problem with global scepticism is that it declares, by assertion, that every event cannot reduce doubt -- for some magical reason. This is true, you cannot and should not be able to decrease absolute doubt. All you can do is reduce relative doubt given a certain set of premises. > The more occurances of events occur which pertain to one hypothesis, the more confidence you should have in that hypothesis. This is rational only given the assumption the of the Doctrine of Uniformity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism) That doctrine allows us to build pretty much all of our useful knowledge systems and is the basis for most of our certainty. However, if we are epistemologically honest with our selves, all of our certainly only exists given that this doctrine is true. Your "magical reasoning" is what allows us to accept and use unprovable premises because we find the knowledge systems we can create with them provide functional utility. This is precisely why I call it a "feature" and not a "bug".
  - mjburgess 9y ago
    We have some options: "uniform and reliable" or one of an infinite varieties of "non-uniform and unreliable". Neither starting point has any effect on what makes "the earth goes around the sun" true. It is true iff there is an earth and iff it goes around the sun. If we are all deceived then that claim is false, regardless of its utility. Utility is a criterion for the most general starting point of our reasoning: how are we going to think. It isn't a criterion for truth, nor for the truth of particular beliefs. Nor does the fact that utility features in my methodological criteria mean that I am not entitled to reasonably infer truth from the method. The factory is made of steel (utility) its products are made of wood (truth), that utility features in the production mechanism does not mean it features in the product. My observation about "the simulation hypothesis" is that it isnt a hypothesis at all. It is just an alternative formulation of how to think: ie., to deny that evidence builds in support of conclusions about how the world works. It is not mysterious then that "nothing seems to work" if we presume simulation. That's by design of the thought process. Since how I think is my choice. I can chose to use the steel factory over the playdo factory. And my products are clearly of a better quality for any person concerned for production (ie., for the making of truth-claims). Whether they are true or not, my method reasonably entitles me to infer they are. The playdo method is a thought trap, and a pretty juvenile one at that. This is the trick being played: simulationy people want you to think "simulation" is just like "the earth goes around the sun". They are both, meant to be, healthy products of reasoning and thus plausible. The former is a bug in this sense: it is in fact a change to the method of truth-production it isnt one among many plausible products (truths). It is broken machinery producing nonesense.