A ROCK CAN'T THINK, SO…

[Davis]

I don’t know Unseen. Descartes uses the “evil demon” which can be fairly easily replaced by “computer simulations”.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

I don’t think Descartes would have been satisfied with proving “something exists.”

His issue was that he did not trust the senses as reliable instruments for claiming “certainty”. We might be mistaken (like with a mirage or the memory of a dream or Plato’s shadows in the cave). These “realities” don’t objectively exist so we can never be fully certain that “something (anything) exists”. It could be the “evil demon” that Davis mentioned, that is behind our perceptions. But even if this demon was or was not distorting reality, it did not really matter. This is because he was still able to have those thoughts. He could contemplate them. That is the important point. It was not important as to where these thought processes led him. The deductions he made about reality were secondary to the fact that he was thinking them. His awareness of the mechanism of himself in the act of thinking proved to him that he existed. But even then, he still continued to use Ontological arguments to conclude a good and just God exists without noticing the irony that his evil demon could possible be the Creator.

This is a separate bugbear of mine. From Anselm to Descartes and on to WL Craig, they all spend a lifetime arguing for and claiming to prove the existence of god only to then claim this God is the Christian God. They move from deism to a specific form of theism and hardly anyone ever points this out. Then they claim that they will become immortals in the future like their god and we atheists will become immortals in Hell for not believing what they believe. If only Descartes had known about the Quantum world that Democritus had hinted at a few thousand years earlier……. before Christianity came along to stifle any such thoughts about the foundations of reality.

[jakelafort]

Reg, excellent critique.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Thanks very much Jake.

I will mention a book in a minute but first a quick story. I once had a business idea and later that day I got introduced to somebody. We spoke over the phone. He liked the idea. The next day I flew from Dublin to Los Angeles and onto Santa Rosa where he met me and we set off to drive to his place an hour or so further north.  On the way the conversation turned to QM (him not me) and he sounded like he was reciting the book I had just re-read on the flight. I said nothing but he then said that “last night I finished reading an excellent book on physics and the Quantum world”.  As he was speaking I reached into my carry-on bag and pulled out a book and said “You mean this one”? It was. We who had no idea of each other two days earlier had both just re-read the book “Reality is not what it seems” by Carlo Rovelli. Now we knew enough about each other to do business together. No fools or bullshitters in that car. We stopped in Healdsburg for food.

I told my brother the story the next time I was in Atlanta. Healdsburg? I know it well, in fact that is where I had my honeymoon!!

[Unseen]

Davis wrote:

I don’t know Unseen. Descartes uses the “evil demon” which can be fairly easily replaced by “computer simulations”.

The Evil Demon (“Evil Genius” in my course work) had intent. The intent was to trick us into trusting unreliable senses. But if we accept that, then we don’t need the cogito, do we? If we are tricked, we exist. A con man needs an existing mark in order to carryout the con.

As to simulations, simulations have an existence of their own, don’t they? “I’m a simulation, therefore I exist.”

[jakelafort]

Okay Reg, you da raconteur. Had to check to see whether Healdsburg is real. Tiz, seems like it is bucolic outside the city. Those are fine coincidences particularly the first. I have some doozies too. What bugs me is the all too common tendency to impute meaning. One of your grrr sunday school articles suggests that atheists are guilty of this also cuz ya know, everything happens for a reason!

[Davis]

I don’t know unseen. Do video game characters “exist”?

Would an A.I. quality video game character be said to “exist”?

In either case, how would you as the video game programmer manipulating the code to make the character believe they exist in some more meaningful way be any different than an evil genius?

[Unseen]

Davis wrote:

I don’t know unseen. Do video game characters “exist”? Would an A.I. quality video game character be said to “exist”? In either case, how would you as the video game programmer manipulating the code to make the character believe they exist in some more meaningful way be any different than an evil genius?

Some philosopher (W.V.O. Quine?) once said something like “Everything exists once properly categorized,” which admits to the existence of categories like myths, falsehoods, rumors, conjectures, video game characters, etc.

Thus, if we allow that much, any video game character exists in some sense, A.I. or not.

As for your question about how a video game character who can make characters believe they exist would be any different than an evil genius, I suppose if a game programmer can create conscious characters, on the one hand, s/he is a kind of god but on the other, referencing Wittgenstein, how would the programmer know that he had created consciousness?

• This reply was modified 5 years, 12 months ago by Unseen.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

I was in an discussion yesterday which reminded me of a recent Bill Maher piece. Some guys were arguing who the next James Bond should be. I said “What about Ruth Negga?”

“But she is Irish so she could not play a British agent”.

“Pierce Bronson is Irish”

“But it is not really a female role. I mean the name is Bond, JAMES Bond”.

“But his boss is a woman”?

I was waiting for them to mention her skin color but they did not go there because I think they thought they had won the argument.

“Guys, you do know that James Bond is not real? He is a fictional character created from Ian Fleming’s imagination. So we can assign any attributes to the character or make the character exist any way we choose.”

Then a debate ensued about how “real” he is because he exists in our collective consciousness. We are so used to the character that he is real enough to make us pause for a second when we are reminded that he is not an “actual” person. But he has saved the world more often than you know who.

[_Robert_]

Unseen wrote:

Davis wrote:

I don’t know Unseen. Descartes uses the “evil demon” which can be fairly easily replaced by “computer simulations”.

The Evil Demon (“Evil Genius” in my course work) had intent. The intent was to trick us into trusting unreliable senses. But if we accept that, then we don’t need the cogito, do we? If we are tricked, we exist. A con man needs an existing mark in order to carryout the con. As to simulations, simulations have an existence of their own, don’t they? “I’m a simulation, therefore I exist.”

Recursive simulations

 

[Davis]

That reminds me of the south park three-parter “imagination land” where in the end Kyle gives a very convincing speech that some fictional characters are more real and have a greater impact on our lives than even hundreds of people we know (like aquaintainces). The consequences of this is losing a terrible bet to Cartman after an adventure into the delightful land of fictional characters blown up by Jihadist terrorists realizing Allah’s will (Jesus is also one of the “real” fictional characters in the series).

[Unseen]

Modern evil geniuses have found a way to cast doubt even on the cogito, haven’t they? It’s now “I seem to be thinking so whoever or whatever is the cause of that exists. It might be me, but it might be an evil genius.”

[_Robert_]

Place your hand on a hot stove for 5 seconds. Is that real enough for ya?

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

“You can’t fake a tape. Pictures don’t lie.”
“At least not until you’ve assembled them creatively.”

Quote by Unseen….err, no, I mean by Max. 🙂

[Unseen]

_Robert_ wrote:

Place your hand on a hot stove for 5 seconds. Is that real enough for ya?

People who’ve lost a leg may feel pain from a toe that is not there. It even has a medical name: “phantom pain.” In the spirit of “everything exists once properly categorized,” one could say that’s real pain, but in what sense of “real”?

There may not be a way out of Cartesian doubt. Maybe we need a leap of faith.

I’m also mindful of Wittgenstein’s notion that there are ways of being wrong about some things that imply something worse than a mere mistake. For example, if I believe (as I do) that I’m NOT writing from a space craft headed for Mars, and I’m wrong, I haven’t made a mere mistake. I may be mad.

[Author]

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