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It should upset, or rather irritate, anyone with a scientific mindset, because the idea of a perfect simulation is an untestable hypothesis, and an untestable h

It should upset, or rather irritate, anyone with a scientific mindset, because the idea of a perfect simulation is an untestable hypothesis, and an untestable hypothesis, listen carefully, isn't worth shit: and why don't you know this already? What makes you keen to promote an untestable hypothesis? The natural assumption to make is that you were bitten by the religion bug, and are seeking a way to sneak religion into cosmology through the back door.

deleted 3y ago
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asdff 3y ago
Was gravity an idea not worth shit before we developed ways to empirically test it out?
- card_zero 3y ago
  I'm sorry: unfalsifiable, then. Fine distinction.
  - asdff 3y ago
    Everything is unfalsifiable until we develop tests for it.
  - knightoffaith 3y ago
    Do you have any thoughts on responses to Popperian falsifiability e.g. those from Kuhn and Feyerabend? The criterion of falsifiability doesn't seem to be a very popular idea in philosophy of science anymore.
photochemsyn 3y ago
Well, we often deal with untestable questions in science, such as: what was the molecular pathway that led to the origin of life? Time has erased the data we'd need to test any hypothesis, thus even if we do create a living cell from simple elements, there's no way at all to be sure that was the route that life took. Hence we can't rule out some supernatural being jiggling the atoms about just so at the origin of life. So, even if we choose to believe in a purely mechanistic universe, we can't definitively test that hypothesis using the tools and methods of science. Practically, this means that the scope of science as a means for discovering the nature of reality is limited. edit: note that a reproducible glitch in the simulation would be of interest, and one could even argue that looking for such glitches is in part what scientists do.
- ausbah 3y ago
  we sort of know the conditions of early earth don’t we? if you can recreate possible pathways to the origin of life based upon those conditions that seems like infinitely better possible explanation something totally supernatural i get what you’re saying with the limits of science but this seems like a bad example
mistermann 3y ago
> and an untestable hypothesis, listen carefully, isn't worth shit You have a proof for this "isn't worth shit" fact? These conversations are surreal. > The natural assumption to make is that you were bitten by the religion bug, and are seeking a way to sneak religion into cosmology through the back door. The unnatural approach, strict logic/epistemology/rationality/etc, is to wonder what is true. But once one falls victim to an ideology filled with heuristics, like science, it often disables those services within the mind, rendering one unable to wonder what is true. For fun: do you believe atoms exist? Do you believe that atoms always existed (post the big bang), or that they only began existing after they were discovered to exist? Also: do you believe that is air you are breathing?

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asdff 3y ago

Was gravity an idea not worth shit before we developed ways to empirically test it out?

card_zero 3y ago
I'm sorry: unfalsifiable, then. Fine distinction.
- asdff 3y ago
  Everything is unfalsifiable until we develop tests for it.
- knightoffaith 3y ago
  Do you have any thoughts on responses to Popperian falsifiability e.g. those from Kuhn and Feyerabend? The criterion of falsifiability doesn't seem to be a very popular idea in philosophy of science anymore.

photochemsyn 3y ago

Well, we often deal with untestable questions in science, such as: what was the molecular pathway that led to the origin of life? Time has erased the data we'd need to test any hypothesis, thus even if we do create a living cell from simple elements, there's no way at all to be sure that was the route that life took. Hence we can't rule out some supernatural being jiggling the atoms about just so at the origin of life. So, even if we choose to believe in a purely mechanistic universe, we can't definitively test that hypothesis using the tools and methods of science. Practically, this means that the scope of science as a means for discovering the nature of reality is limited. edit: note that a reproducible glitch in the simulation would be of interest, and one could even argue that looking for such glitches is in part what scientists do.

ausbah 3y ago
we sort of know the conditions of early earth don’t we? if you can recreate possible pathways to the origin of life based upon those conditions that seems like infinitely better possible explanation something totally supernatural i get what you’re saying with the limits of science but this seems like a bad example

mistermann 3y ago

> and an untestable hypothesis, listen carefully, isn't worth shit You have a proof for this "isn't worth shit" fact? These conversations are surreal. > The natural assumption to make is that you were bitten by the religion bug, and are seeking a way to sneak religion into cosmology through the back door. The unnatural approach, strict logic/epistemology/rationality/etc, is to wonder what is true. But once one falls victim to an ideology filled with heuristics, like science, it often disables those services within the mind, rendering one unable to wonder what is true. For fun: do you believe atoms exist? Do you believe that atoms always existed (post the big bang), or that they only began existing after they were discovered to exist? Also: do you believe that is air you are breathing?