Is the universe real?

[Hoodoo_Ulove]

@SentientMeat

This is, surely, absurd cart-before-horsemanship. We all recognise that thought and language are only part of the story - that there is something else which we are thinking of, that we are talking about. This is the real thing: that which stays there when we close our eyes, or when nobody is around.

Liberal will probably contradict me, but that does seem to be what he is saying.

[Hoodoo_Ulove]

I meant to say “what he is denying.”

[Liberal]

@SentientMeat

“Describe an event that you cannot describe” is a contradiction.

It is. And I think it highlights the problem.

“One’s own personal reality is only a subset of reality” is not.

Agreed again. However, that produces a tautology. And that’s okay, but there’s no new information. Let me put it this way. What can your senses tell you about the universe other than what they can sense? If S is a set that is an element of U, then the intersection of S and U is just S.

Just as you assume the gestalt.

Yep. So now we both must discard either our conclusion or our premise. Which do you choose?

Senses, memory, emotion and language are all couchable in physical terms.

Circular statement. Terms and language are synonymous lexemes.

If I may ask: what is “real” about the person calling to you from the next room which is absent from those atoms which Rutherfords alpha particles visibly bounced back from?

I’m sorry. I do not understand the question.

[Liberal]

@Kitarak

This means that if we can demonstrate according to the working definition that the universe is not real, then we cannot in fact demonstrate that anything at all is real, which strikes me as a bad thing.

I disagree with that premise. It subsumes that the universe is all there is — both existentially and essentially.

[kitarak]

@Liberal

I disagree with that premise. It subsumes that the universe is all there is — both existentially and essentially.

Ah, but that wasn’t a premise. That was a conclusion of my first post to this thread.

Allow me to summarise:

We are unable to determine on the basis of empirical evidence whether or not this universe is real, because of the possibility of a perfect simulation.

Therefore, if we can prove that the universe is not real, this must be based wholly on logical deduction.

So, now look at it from the perspective of this really real thing. Either one of two possibilities occur:

1. Exactly the same logic we have applied to our universe proves that it is not real.

2. The logic we applied does not work in general - it only works in our universe (or some smaller subset of `everything’ that includes our universe but does not include this really real thing). And thus it is based upon our perception of our universe, and so we have deduced the non-existence of our universe from empirical evidence, which it has already been shown we cannot do!

Hence this purportedly real thing is also itself unreal. Contradiction.

Kit

[other-wise]

@SentientMeat

This is, surely, absurd cart-before-horsemanship. We all recognise that thought and language are only part of the story - that there is something else which we are thinking of, that we are talking about. This is the real thing: that which stays there when we close our eyes, or when nobody is around. The sun, Earth and dinosaurs were real, and not just because we have a language which happens to use a past tense, thus reaching into the past to encompass those things. To suggest otherwise is, IMO, to stretch that philosophical definition way past the breaking point of what it is supposed to mean.

Sentient, let me make a floundering, but well-intentioned attempt at suggesting how “reality”, while not mind-independent, may not be mind-dependent, either.

Everyone has a trash bin on their computer desktop. They can grab hold of it with their mouse and move it around. If they place a document into it and hit “delete”, that document is gone; they no longer have access to it. We can think about and talk about the trash bin: it has discernable properties, it’s reliable, it has a systematic relationship to everything else on our computer, and it will even obliterate our files if we’re not careful.

But without us to perceive it and interact with it, all there is a HD with widely-scattered, magnetized bits. As an end-user, there is nothing in my experience of the trash bin that would suggest that it’s really just a bunch of constantly-changing magnetic burps on a metallic platter. Without us, everything that comprises the trash bin is still there, but the trash bin doesn’t exist without us.

As the “end-user” of our evolved sensory apparatus, we conceptualize reality as “suns” or “dinosaurs” (or atoms), just as end-users of computers we conceptualize the pattern of HD bits as a “trash bin”. But “suns” or “dinosaurs” need bear no resemblance whatsoever to the actual, underlying reality, any more than a trash bin resembles fluctuating magnetic patterns on a HD. Without an “end-user” to conceptualize them as such, there were no dinosaurs.

[treis]

Are you real ** Liberal**?

[Loopydude]

@kitarak

We are unable to determine on the basis of empirical evidence whether or not this universe is real, because of the possibility of a perfect simulation.

What’s creepy about this possibility is not only can it not be disproven, it might not even be implausible. Humans are already making strides toward generating realistic digital life. Certainly no one as of yet is claiming to have created something remotely sentient, but I suppose if the system truly can evolve, and Moore’s Law keeps holding down to the theoretical limit, perhaps the forced evolution of artificial life that is “aware” is not out of the question. If we show it can be done, how can we say it hasn’t already happened?

[Liberal]

@Kitarak

Ah, but that wasn’t a premise. That was a conclusion of my first post to this thread.

No, no. Not that part. The unstated premise, the audiatur et altera pars, from: “This means that if we can demonstrate according to the working definition that the universe is not real, then we cannot in fact demonstrate that anything at all is real, which strikes me as a bad thing”. (Emphasis mine.) The universe need not be everthing there is (for your “anything at all”). You’ve merely assumed it without stating it.

[ninetypercent]

[QUOTE=Liberal]

The simplest explanation, I believe, is that you cannot prove your own existence without falling afoul of a circulus in demonstrando fallacy. Before you can do anything at all, including prove your existence, you must exist. That makes your existence axiomatic. Because your conclusion — that you exist — is identical to your axiom — that you exist — your argument is a circle, and therefore unsound.

That only confirms the existence of something. Something that defies description, because it has no properties.

[Liberal]

[QUOTE=ninetypercent]

@Liberal

The simplest explanation, I believe, is that you cannot prove your own existence without falling afoul of a circulus in demonstrando fallacy. Before you can do anything at all, including prove your existence, you must exist. That makes your existence axiomatic. Because your conclusion — that you exist — is identical to your axiom — that you exist — your argument is a circle, and therefore unsound.

That only confirms the existence of something. Something that defies description, because it has no properties.

Well, it really doesn’t confirm anything at all. A circular argument is valid, but unsound.

[Hoodoo_Ulove]

Ninety, you say “That only confirms the existence of something. Something that defies description, because it has no properties.” I believe the ontological argument depends upon “existence” being a property.

[kitarak]

@Liberal

No, no. Not that part. The unstated premise, the audiatur et altera pars, from: “This means that if we can demonstrate according to the working definition that the universe is not real, then we cannot in fact demonstrate that anything at all is real, which strikes me as a bad thing”. (Emphasis mine.) The universe need not be everthing there is (for your “anything at all”). You’ve merely assumed it without stating it.

Not so. Did you read the bit that followed what you have quoted?

Any proof of the unreality of the universe cannot depend on the properties of the universe and thus translates to a proof of the unreality of anything else which we choose to consider.

[vibrotronica]

@Liberal

I don’t know. I guess I’m just sick of the political debates.

What have you done with the real Liberal?

[Hoodoo_Ulove]

@vibrotronica

What have you done with the real Liberal?

You obviously haven’t been following the thread. There is no real Liberal.

[kitarak]

@treis

Are you real ** Liberal**?

Amusingly, despite the fact that I’m arguing for the case that the universe is real, I don’t believe that I am real. (Descartes, take that!).

But that’s a subject for an entirely different debate…

[kitarak]

Hmm. I’ve just noticed a rather gaping hole in my argument which pretty much invalidates it. I’m going to have to regroup and collect my thoughts and have a think about it overnight. In the mean time, feel free to ignore my previous posts and/or rip them to shreds at your leisure.

Kit

[Loopydude]

Never admit defeat. Insist the posts weren’t real.

[ninetypercent]

Ninety, you say “That only confirms the existence of something. Something that defies description, because it has no properties.” I believe the ontological argument depends upon “existence” being a property.

“Something” also does not exist. What I am trying to say that there is no way to divide “something” up, because no part of it is coherent, or different from any other part.

@Liberal

A circular argument is valid, but unsound.

Too many 'shrooms, I guess.

[jeffh3000]

I think that I have to use the “I think therefore I am” argument here. As the universe appears real to me and seems to react to a specific set of laws, that is all that matters. If it looks, feels, tastes, and smells real, and I can interact within it to a specific set of laws, it is real enough for me, as I can exist within it. What is your definition of “real”?

Maybe I am trapped in the matrix or I am just part of a dream in a god’s mind, but it is working well for me.