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I think we'd need to distinguish "scientifically irrelevant" from "humanly irrelevant". Scientifically, discovering that a god created the universe and let it

by kalid 14y ago

I think we'd need to distinguish "scientifically irrelevant" from "humanly irrelevant". Scientifically, discovering that a god created the universe and let it be (the disinterested watchmaker) has no bearing on any future experiments. Psychologically/sociologically, discovering that some god exists would change humanity forever. Even if the god couldn't be interacted with, the level of religious fervor would rise to unimaginable heights. Discovering we are simulations living in a matrix [every neutrino has a serial number on it!] might drive people to drastically different behavior (suicide, risk taking, etc.) even there may not be a measurable difference in the simulated and virtual reality. Basically, human society with irrelevant knowledge of universe != human society sans knowledge

derleth 14y ago
> Scientifically, discovering that a god created the universe and let it be (the disinterested watchmaker) has no bearing on any future experiments. This is wrong, because a deity would have profound implications for the laws that govern reality, which is what science is always concerned with.
asdfaoeu 14y ago
I think your making a few logic errors there. There would have to be some effect to prove either of those theories and that would be scientifically relevant. Just for example the first may be say seeing into the heavens which would raise questions about what laws of physics governs theres. In other words "knowledge of the universe" == "knowledge" and there is no irrelevant knowledge as the universe is everything.
tikhonj 14y ago
But if we could discover that we live in the matrix or at the whim of some deity, it would mean that that fact had some effect on the world. Even a tiny non-zero effect could be amplified, like you explained, to have gigantic repercussions. However, I was only really thinking of fundamentally unknowable things. That is, my argument is basically (in mathy notation) `∀x: ¬disoverable(x) → ¬matters(x)`. That is, if you can know x, I've said nothing about it. All I'm saying is that if you cannot discover something to be true, it cannot have any effect on you. The contrapositive is also very important: `∀x: matters(x) → disoverable(x)`. That is, if something could have an effect (like your examples) then it has to be discoverable. Since your main premise is that disoverable(x) is true--e.g. we can somehow find this out--my statement does not apply (or, rather, thanks to the way implication works, it's true regardless of what effect x does or does not have). Now, if we fundamentally can't prove whether we're living in a simulation or not, somebody could still convince the human population that we are and cause the same effects you're mentioning. However, the beautiful thing here is that this could happen regardless of whether we actually are in a simulation or not (since the premise is that we can't tell), so the truth of the fact doesn't actually matter.

by kalid 14y ago

derleth 14y ago

> Scientifically, discovering that a god created the universe and let it be (the disinterested watchmaker) has no bearing on any future experiments. This is wrong, because a deity would have profound implications for the laws that govern reality, which is what science is always concerned with.

asdfaoeu 14y ago

I think your making a few logic errors there. There would have to be some effect to prove either of those theories and that would be scientifically relevant. Just for example the first may be say seeing into the heavens which would raise questions about what laws of physics governs theres. In other words "knowledge of the universe" == "knowledge" and there is no irrelevant knowledge as the universe is everything.

tikhonj 14y ago

But if we could discover that we live in the matrix or at the whim of some deity, it would mean that that fact had some effect on the world. Even a tiny non-zero effect could be amplified, like you explained, to have gigantic repercussions. However, I was only really thinking of fundamentally unknowable things. That is, my argument is basically (in mathy notation) `∀x: ¬disoverable(x) → ¬matters(x)`. That is, if you can know x, I've said nothing about it. All I'm saying is that if you cannot discover something to be true, it cannot have any effect on you. The contrapositive is also very important: `∀x: matters(x) → disoverable(x)`. That is, if something could have an effect (like your examples) then it has to be discoverable. Since your main premise is that disoverable(x) is true--e.g. we can somehow find this out--my statement does not apply (or, rather, thanks to the way implication works, it's true regardless of what effect x does or does not have). Now, if we fundamentally can't prove whether we're living in a simulation or not, somebody could still convince the human population that we are and cause the same effects you're mentioning. However, the beautiful thing here is that this could happen regardless of whether we actually are in a simulation or not (since the premise is that we can't tell), so the truth of the fact doesn't actually matter.