pumpilicious, you might also find this fascinating...

http://humanknowledge.net/Thoughts.html#PhilosophyOfMind

Philosophy Of Mind: the study of the faculty for thinking and knowing.

Essence of Mind.
Accidence of Mind.
Relations of Mind.

1.2.1.3. Philosophy / Epistemology / Philosophy Of Mind / Relations of Mind
Have a look at that section, touches on the concept of OP.

Tom, I tried sending you a message, but I do not fit in your filter. I was just going to say, I did not mean to be rude ignoring your first post. I have been meaning to listen to the link thats 30 minutes, but I have not gotten a chance.


Thank you for your input on this thread also

No worries...

I find the Matrix Concept fascinating.
I don't really believe it but I do find it interesting.
Since you also find it interesting, I participate in this thread from a "lets explore this" frame of mind.
Neither agreeing or disagreeing...

I just tried the links I provided to Brian Holtz's page and they don't seem to be working?

http://humanknowledge.net/
You might have to copy the URL and past it into your address bar?

Many humans believe in the existence of phenomena which lie outside the materialist reality of natural science. The phenomena alleged include:

Beings
Ra, Anu, Ashur, Ormazd, Baal, El, Yahweh, Jehovah, God, Zeus, Jupiter, Brahma, Amaterasu, Viracocha, Quetzalcoatl, Great Spirit, Lugh, Pele, Allah, Odin
Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Loki, Osiris, Shiva
souls, spirits, demons, vampires, werewolves, hobgoblins, bogeymen
Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy
angels, fairies, leprechauns, gnomes, elves
Places or States
Heaven, Elysium, Olympus, Asgard, K'un-lun, T'ien
Hades, Tartarus, Orcus, Acheron, Hell, Gehenna, Jahannam, bhumis, Jigoku
Sheol, Styx, Purgatory, Valhalla, Limbo
nirvana, buddhata, satori
Forces or Substances
Good, Spirit, atman, ch'i, prana, karma, life force, Godhead, Nous
Evil, Thanatos
ether, humours, ectoplasm, elan vital, phlogiston, polywater
antigravity, cold fusion, perpetual motion, free energy, orgone
Apparitions
auras, bio-energy, chakras, Kirlian photography
ghosts, reincarnation, samsara
miracles, stigmata, speaking in tongues, possession, spontaneous human combustion
UFOs, alien abductions, crop circles, Bermuda Triangle
Powers
voodoo, witchcraft, sorcery, magick, shamanism, wicca
telekinesis, astral projection
crystals, pyramids
faith healing, alchemy, homeopathy, acupuncture, chiropractic
Knowledge
astrology, tarot, palmistry, numerology, phrenology, enneagrams, dowsing
I Ching, feng shui
prophecy, fortune-telling, Nostradamus, Bible codes
Perception
clairvoyance, telepathy, channeling

Humans have no credible evidence for these phenomena. Over time these phenomena will recognized as delusions, hysteria, myths, nonsense, and hoaxes.

1.1. Philosophy / Metaphysics

I have not been able to go to those links yet, but I would like to respond to your last post.

I am not sure if this is your personal believe or just pulled it from a site, but I do agree with most of it with the exception of ...

GOD is real, just not as we think...

I agree, no Satan, no guy with in red with horns and a pitchfork..

Heaven is just another dimension that we exist when not here...

Good/bad are just actions..They exist

Chiropractic does exist. I have back issues and although it does give temporary relief, nothing is solved, but is it real as it is some kind of treatment.

Honestly, I believe if we think we are the only intelligent life forms in the universe, we are being unrealistic. I cannot believe that so I disagree with Aliens being non existent also.

Just my opinion

Yes, that particular reply was pulled from Brian Holtz's website.
In general terms, I tend to agree with it.

GOD is real, just not as we think
Reality is often something other than we think. Reality is difficult to accept for many people, its why delusions exist (to help us deal with cold, stark reality). I see God as reality. God is everywhere, everywhen and everyhow because God created the Universe that is everywhere, everywhen and everyhow. God exists in me and I within God.

Good/bad are just actions..They exist
I don't see good or bad existing at all. Good and bad are assessments based on acceptance, not 'things'. One person's action can be good in their mind but bad in someone else's and vice versa. Good and bad are relative to the observer.
To quote Jurassic World:
"To a canary a cat is a monster, we're just used to being the cat."

Chiropractic does exist.
Yeah, I scratched my head on that one too.
But, in all fairness to Brian Holtz, I haven't given it much thought to determine if his proclamation has merit.

Honestly, I believe if we think we are the only intelligent life forms in the universe, we are being unrealistic. I cannot believe that so I disagree with Aliens being non existent also.
Understanding the vastness of the Universe and the implications of the Drake Equation I know aliens must exist. I'm not sure if that is the context of his inclusion.
I read it as, we have not experienced aliens so they are a fabrication of the mind and that part is true. If and when we do encounter alien life, belief will become reality.
There is also a context driven definition of aliens as in alien life that has intelligence. Most people, when they say aliens exist, they are saying that aliens visit or have visited this planet and have the capacity for intelligent, reasoning thought.
While I agree that intelligent alien civilizations probably do exist in the Universe (probably the galaxy too), there there is no evidence they are or have been on this planet.

Computer simulating programs (including artificial intelligence) are only as accurate as the individual(s) programming them. Before retiring I worked for an audio amplifier manufacturer and they owned several variations of IG Spice. This program allowed an engineer to design a circuit and simulate it's functionality. Fifteen years ago I played with this program. The one big off fall is there are stray unknown elements that effect a design and unless one enters each and every one (impossible to know) a perfect design is impossible. This is why prototypes are required. When prototypes are build they always display abnormalities that the engineer has to address by tweaking the circuit. To date simulations cannot provide a fully functional end product.

The same goes for artificial intelligence (AI). My first experience with AI was in the early 1990's. I was attempting to develop a program that could be used by our companies service centers in order to service a product when technical staff was not available on the phone. Though I had 20 years experience there are always odd problems that one forgets or later learns about. AI is only as good as the information programmed into it and no one knows everything.

stray unknown elements
In other words = Chaos

In order for there tho be a perfect simulation of the Universe (we are part of the Universe, not separate), everything must be completely understood. Not only what is happening and does exist but all possible scenarios of what could exist and could happen.
To do this, one would have to know everything about everything, everywhere, everywhen and know all the possible variations that could happen which would cause you to know what can't exist or occur.

If an entity understands everything and all possible outcomes, chaos is eliminated because even tho we may not recognize the patterns in chaos doesn't mean those patterns do not exist.
It would require a complete elimination of ignorance.

The Universe exists in a constant change. The Butterfly Effect is real.
People usually don't understand the effects of the Butterfly Effect.
Basically, it is 'cause and effect' governed by Universal laws of physics.
The recent confirmation of gravitation waves supports the Butterfly Effect. Quantum displacement supports the Butterfly Effect.
The Butterfly effect supports chaos but even at its smallest manifestation there is a pattern, we just can't follow that pattern because it is too complex.
In addition, those individual chaotic patterns make up other more complex patterns.
In order to have a simulation of exact performance like implied, the programmer would need to know not only the major chaotic pattern but all possible minor patterns as well.

Chaos is the 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy) in practice. No matter how well we understand this universe we'll never be able to overcome entropy. Everything is slowly winding down.

The term, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the metaphorical example of the details of a tornado (the exact time of formation, the exact path taken) being influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly several weeks earlier.

While this is possible in the sub-atomic areas there are limits to the observation of this effect. Yes, one improperly written "word" in a computer program can cause the program to stop and has been observed. A butterfly flapping it's wings causing a tornado has never been observed. The problem comes in where the improbable theory sounds good and is used as absolute proof of ideas that can't be proven any other way. Similar to "if a monkey could dance on a piano for one million years it could produce Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata". They are trying to prove what is real by circumstances that are impossible.

1. Monkeys don't live for a million years
2. A monkey would not remain on the piano keyboard

Well said Dave.

How do you know a monkey can't live for a million years?
Have you lived for a million years and observed that no monkeys lived for a million years?
Have you ever observed a monkey on a piano keyboard?

Things in this Universe interact with other things constantly.
Forget the butterfly, its insignificant.
A pattern may exist but we can't tell.
Our perspective is taken from a limited view.
Relativity restricts our ability to see the patterns of interaction.
Entropy may be a pattern as well.
We have a limited view.

For everything in reality to be a simulation would require programming that accounts for every possible interaction.
If it doesn't, it will affect our view
The complexity of the interacting patterns within the Universe indicates that reality could not be a simulation.

Scientific study has established life spans of every living creature. If questioning this the proof is on the one claiming that this variation has existed.

The science of genetics proves that with time the dna of all living creatures deteriorate leading to death. Claims outside of this have to be proven, documented and submitted for peer group testing that should lead to the same result.

Statistical analysis has been used and abused to prove anything and everything. Yes, science has a limited view but those in science often make assumptions because of limited information in order to come to the conclusions they believe in.

You obviously missed my point.

The complexity of the interacting patterns within the Universe indicates that reality could not be a simulation.


That we know about.


That we know about.


Assumptions is not science. Reality is science and reality is constantly changing. This is because we live in a dynamic Universe.

The only reason the universal laws exist as they do right now is because we have not found them broken in our observations and testing.
At one time, we thought that photons were waveforms but we now know they are both waveforms and particles.

What we assume to understand about black holes is limited to observations of the result of a black hole, not the black hole itself.
Personally, I don't think they are black or a hole. I think they are superwhite and a particle (singularity). Nothing falls into a black hole, things fall onto the singularity. Until science finds a way to extract realtime data from beyond the event horizon, we will never know.

The latest "discovery" is Dark Energy. In some areas of science they claim that areas of darkness contain large amounts of energy.

The main obstacle is the same scientists say dark energy is not measurable and doesn't interact with our universe. For the next 20 years this idea will, probably, gain popularity and be accepted as "fact" until it is finally disproved. In the mean time deceiving those who don't understand physics.

There are a number of physicists who are asking if this theory is immeasurable and doesn't interact with matter how do they know it exists?

Their response: we observed something in galactic rotation that we don't understand thus this theory was developed.

Science? No. A theory to be placed on the shelf until proven? Yes.

You may or may not be aware that Dark Matter/Dark Energy is a placeholder name. Has nothing to do with darkness.
Its presence is implied in a variety of astrophysical observations, including gravitational effects that cannot be explained unless more matter is present than can be seen.



A simulated Universe could be very complex but unknowns can't be programmed (because they are unknown). It is the unknown things that invalidate the simulated Universe belief.
Reality doesn't care, it just is.