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> true nature of reality If it’s as you said, > Something that science is by design unable to probe, just like someone inside the simulation will not be able

> true nature of reality If it’s as you said, > Something that science is by design unable to probe, just like someone inside the simulation will not be able to look at its own source code. Is there a point in creating hypotheses regarding this if none of them will be falsifiable?

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
That you have a conscious experience of reality instead of being a souless biological machine in the shape of a human is not falsifiable, and yet we base a significant portion of our decisions on the assumption that it is true.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Exact this. Free will is by definition supernatural if you believe it exists.
  - worrycue 5y ago
    Free will can also just be a psychological illusion - even if we objectively believe it doesn’t exist we can’t shake it off even if we tried; or at least as I have tried.
    - mensetmanusman 5y ago
      That sounds like faith :)
- johnday 5y ago
  That's a response, but it's certainly not an answer to the question that was asked. Unless your suggestion is that it's because people are acting illogically, and there is in fact no reason to ask the question in the first place?
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    My suggestion is that while we talk about the concept of objective measurement as the one and only source of truth, deep down we are keenly aware that it is not. Either this means that our intuition is wrong, or that empiricism is not sufficient to fully model reality. If you are leaning towards the latter, I suggest a subjective experiment: do you think you are an automaton simply reacting to stimuli in a complicated fashion, no different than machine? Because empirically no one can ever say otherwise. Yet, if you are like most people, you know for a fact this is not true; that you experience reality is undeniable.
    - Thiez 5y ago
      > do you think you are an automaton simply reacting to stimuli in a complicated fashion, no different than machine? Yes. Although it's a fairly advanced machine, with an architecture that is unlike (most?) machines built by humans. I do believe it may never be possible to import an existing human brain in a computer for practical reasons: you would have to cut the brain into extremely thin slices to copy the layout. But if such a detailed scan were possible and we would have sufficient knowledge about the biological workings of the brain and a sufficiently powerful computer, I don't believe there is any theoretical reason why my consciousness couldn't be simulated with reasonable accuracy on a computer. > Yet, if you are like most people, you know for a fact this is not true; that you experience reality is undeniable. Why wouldn't a machine be able to experience reality (or what it perceives to be reality - human senses have various known flaws, for example various optical illusions)? My robot vacuum detects walls and moves to avoid them. It's clearly perceiving reality, and responding to it. It even responds in ways that I find hard to predict (sometimes it turns left, sometimes it turns right, sometimes it moves backward).
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        In truth, I'm a panpsychist so I don't actually believe that machines (or anything else for that matter) doesn't have an experience of reality. What I find odd is that you don't recognizing the difference at all between the conception of a p-zombie (an automaton with no experience of reality) and your own experience of reality. Typically we use machines as an example because most people would say that, unlike with people, machines don't really think, or feel, or suffer, so we there are never any moral considerations for dealing with them. Dark Mirror likes to demonstrate this common belief frequently in its episodes about "cookies", or people who are replicated in technology: "it's just code". Given that most people make the distinction, it is usually sufficient to point out that empiricism can make no measurement to determine the difference between an entity that experiences the world, and one that is an automaton. You're purely materialist way of looking at things, where consciousness is a product of being a sufficiently complex system still begs the question: how complex? Again, I do not think there is any satisfactory empirical definition.
- worrycue 5y ago
  Based on current evidence we do seem to be soulless biological machines though. We don’t feel like it nor do most of us act like it is, most of the time, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Also just because we cannot determine the objective truth due to limitations in our conditions doesn’t mean there isn’t one. It just means it’s pointless for us to try to determine what said truth is - although we can speculate for entertainment.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    > Based on current evidence we do seem to be soulless biological machines though. We don’t feel like it nor do most of us act like it is, most of the time, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. The fact that we (or rather I) have an experience of reality as opposed to not having one is evidence that we are not simply biological machines. And by 'machines' I mean something like Searle's hypothetical Chinese Room, a system that operates based purely on sufficiently complex rules but has no experience of actually speaking Chinese. If you claim this is illusion, then what is experiencing the illusion? [0] At least according to Searle. Other philosophers disagree, as do I. For the purpose of the argument though we will assume there is such a thing as an automata that doesn't have an experience of the world the way you and I do.
    - Thiez 5y ago
      > The fact that we (or rather I) have an experience of reality as opposed to not having one is evidence that we are not simply biological machines. That's exactly what a sufficiently advanced biological machine might claim. It may even believe it. If we could make an exact molecular copy of Jackie Chan, would that copy be able to speak Chinese even though it has no experience of actually speaking Chinese?
proc0 5y ago
> Is there a point in creating hypotheses regarding this if none of them will be falsifiable? Here, we would enter an ontological discussion. What does it mean to know? So to be able to answer this, first we would need to solve the nature of consciousness. Maybe there are experiments on the brain showing where we store memories, but I don't think we have a good explanation on how, and more importantly what the nature of subjective experience really is. This could mean the best way to explore that question is subjectively, as Buddhists (and other religions, although to a lesser extent I think) have done for thousands of years, so hypothesis and falsifiability goes out the window, because those are also subjective concepts. That's a tough question.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

That you have a conscious experience of reality instead of being a souless biological machine in the shape of a human is not falsifiable, and yet we base a significant portion of our decisions on the assumption that it is true.

mensetmanusman 5y ago
Exact this. Free will is by definition supernatural if you believe it exists.
- worrycue 5y ago
  Free will can also just be a psychological illusion - even if we objectively believe it doesn’t exist we can’t shake it off even if we tried; or at least as I have tried.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    That sounds like faith :)
johnday 5y ago
That's a response, but it's certainly not an answer to the question that was asked. Unless your suggestion is that it's because people are acting illogically, and there is in fact no reason to ask the question in the first place?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  My suggestion is that while we talk about the concept of objective measurement as the one and only source of truth, deep down we are keenly aware that it is not. Either this means that our intuition is wrong, or that empiricism is not sufficient to fully model reality. If you are leaning towards the latter, I suggest a subjective experiment: do you think you are an automaton simply reacting to stimuli in a complicated fashion, no different than machine? Because empirically no one can ever say otherwise. Yet, if you are like most people, you know for a fact this is not true; that you experience reality is undeniable.
  - Thiez 5y ago
    > do you think you are an automaton simply reacting to stimuli in a complicated fashion, no different than machine? Yes. Although it's a fairly advanced machine, with an architecture that is unlike (most?) machines built by humans. I do believe it may never be possible to import an existing human brain in a computer for practical reasons: you would have to cut the brain into extremely thin slices to copy the layout. But if such a detailed scan were possible and we would have sufficient knowledge about the biological workings of the brain and a sufficiently powerful computer, I don't believe there is any theoretical reason why my consciousness couldn't be simulated with reasonable accuracy on a computer. > Yet, if you are like most people, you know for a fact this is not true; that you experience reality is undeniable. Why wouldn't a machine be able to experience reality (or what it perceives to be reality - human senses have various known flaws, for example various optical illusions)? My robot vacuum detects walls and moves to avoid them. It's clearly perceiving reality, and responding to it. It even responds in ways that I find hard to predict (sometimes it turns left, sometimes it turns right, sometimes it moves backward).
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      In truth, I'm a panpsychist so I don't actually believe that machines (or anything else for that matter) doesn't have an experience of reality. What I find odd is that you don't recognizing the difference at all between the conception of a p-zombie (an automaton with no experience of reality) and your own experience of reality. Typically we use machines as an example because most people would say that, unlike with people, machines don't really think, or feel, or suffer, so we there are never any moral considerations for dealing with them. Dark Mirror likes to demonstrate this common belief frequently in its episodes about "cookies", or people who are replicated in technology: "it's just code". Given that most people make the distinction, it is usually sufficient to point out that empiricism can make no measurement to determine the difference between an entity that experiences the world, and one that is an automaton. You're purely materialist way of looking at things, where consciousness is a product of being a sufficiently complex system still begs the question: how complex? Again, I do not think there is any satisfactory empirical definition.
worrycue 5y ago
Based on current evidence we do seem to be soulless biological machines though. We don’t feel like it nor do most of us act like it is, most of the time, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Also just because we cannot determine the objective truth due to limitations in our conditions doesn’t mean there isn’t one. It just means it’s pointless for us to try to determine what said truth is - although we can speculate for entertainment.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  > Based on current evidence we do seem to be soulless biological machines though. We don’t feel like it nor do most of us act like it is, most of the time, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. The fact that we (or rather I) have an experience of reality as opposed to not having one is evidence that we are not simply biological machines. And by 'machines' I mean something like Searle's hypothetical Chinese Room, a system that operates based purely on sufficiently complex rules but has no experience of actually speaking Chinese. If you claim this is illusion, then what is experiencing the illusion? [0] At least according to Searle. Other philosophers disagree, as do I. For the purpose of the argument though we will assume there is such a thing as an automata that doesn't have an experience of the world the way you and I do.
  - Thiez 5y ago
    > The fact that we (or rather I) have an experience of reality as opposed to not having one is evidence that we are not simply biological machines. That's exactly what a sufficiently advanced biological machine might claim. It may even believe it. If we could make an exact molecular copy of Jackie Chan, would that copy be able to speak Chinese even though it has no experience of actually speaking Chinese?

proc0 5y ago

> Is there a point in creating hypotheses regarding this if none of them will be falsifiable? Here, we would enter an ontological discussion. What does it mean to know? So to be able to answer this, first we would need to solve the nature of consciousness. Maybe there are experiments on the brain showing where we store memories, but I don't think we have a good explanation on how, and more importantly what the nature of subjective experience really is. This could mean the best way to explore that question is subjectively, as Buddhists (and other religions, although to a lesser extent I think) have done for thousands of years, so hypothesis and falsifiability goes out the window, because those are also subjective concepts. That's a tough question.