All data is potentially a program. The vast majority of all possible programs don’t do anything useful. (And you might say quite a few real programs too!) It’s impossible to write a program that will tell you, every time, if a particular data set codes for anything useful.
Thanks for sharing jovan. I’m going to have to read up a bit more on the philosophies of software design as this is getting (further?) over my head.
Sorry if I derailed this derailed thread.
But…can Jesus tell? If so, why doesn’t Jesus create a program for us?
(Just trying to drag this discussion back on topic…)
There is no God.
I hope that helps. 
I meditated a bit about the particular way in which this thread derailed, and the following dawned on me: Since there is no possible way to tell if an arbitrary program performs a given task, there is no way to tell if an arbitrary program is a daemon. Since a program is really just a sequence of actions, and these actions may very well be executed by a person, rather than a machine, then it follows that there is no sure way to tell if a person is, in fact, a daemon.
Scary stuff.
Flies around the world in a sleigh drawn by eight tiny reindeer, delivering presents to all the good children in a single night?
Sorry, had to.
While I don’t disagree with the point you’re making, I think your example is a bad one (the halting problem, which you’ve already mentioned, or the consequences of Goedel’s incompleteness theorem are much better illustrations of ‘unanswerable questions’, though even there I suppose you could just as well label them ‘unaskable questions’ and no longer be surprised that they have no answer – there’s always a little equivocation with the term ‘question’ at work, I feel), since the question you’re asking, ‘what does exist’, effectively asks for a definition of existence in order to be meaningful, and there are several competing ones possible, including ‘anything that can physically interact with us’. That wouldn’t mean that concepts and ideas have no existence, but merely that they’re realized in the underlying brain wave pattern/brain architecture, or as words on a page or data in a computer. (In this definition, a mathematical statement would not have existence directly as a mathematical statement, but there would be several existing things that have the additional property of conforming to this mathematical statement, similarly to how ‘roundness’ is a property of things and is realized in the form of round things, and not something existent on its own.) Thus, saying the question ‘what does exist’ is scientifically unanswerable is a bit of a strawman (not that you’d intended to use it as such, though), in my opinion.
If you truly ‘experienced God’ then it would no longer be faith, and you should be able to show tangible evidence. So if you would show it then others could see and understand.
Good point. Is it my imagination, or are the strongest advocates of this “god of faith” usually the ones who claim to have actually had direct contact with said god? I’m hearing testimony about how they know their god exists because their god came to them and/or talked to them. Apparently, they want us to accept their religion on faith, but they required some sort of direct contact to be convinced. Are there any strong advocates that are that way despite never having heard, seen or had direct evidence of their god?
I don’t believe in insulting people, but after reading this statement
**Kanicbird: abortion is the single most destructive act that humans are capable of **
I will make this statement: Kanicbird is a fucking insensitive idiot
How dare you insult every woman who ever gave a child up for adoption or had a child and kept it, only to later have that child murdered by a family member? Aborting your fetus is less devastating than seeing your own child murdered? How fucking dare you make that awful, insentive, ridiculous statement. How dare you?
I know a single mother whose son was murdered by his father. Ask her if abortion was the most devasting act in her life.
Have a child, give it to a person who murders it, and come back to me if you still agree with that statement.
I can’t believe I’m defending kanicbird, but Annie-Xmas … that’s a bit of a stretch. It’s not like there’s a program in place to facilitate the murdering of children by step-parents.
Not that your single mother friend should have gone through that, but I’m getting shades of a techchick like melt down – how dare you talk about [thing 1] when [unrelated thing 2] is so much worse.
Seriously. **Kanicbird **has offered at least a megabyte worth of electrons full of batshit crazy. This, within the framework of the “pro-life” argument, is about the sanest thing I’ve ever seen him post.
Not saying a great deal though, is it? And he’s still wrong.
An aborted fetus is better than the fall-out from bringing an unwanted child into the world.
Also, insisting on a woman undergoing the trauma of an unwanted pregnancy, only so it can be adopted, is just plain wrong, in my eyes.
I didn’t say I agreed with his position, but compared to “demons make children gay” … his abortion statement is pretty mainstream.
I’ll cut you some slack then! 
Amen to that one.
:: shrugging ::
I could find half a dozen ministers in Memphis who’d agree with him without looking hard.
Are any of them pregnant to rapists, or abusive partners insistent on them ‘spreading the family name’?
I actually meant the demons-making-children-gay thing, not the abortion thing. But I could find persons who’d share kanicbird’s opinion about abortion too. Several of my relatives were en-fucking-raged at me when I helped my stepdaughter get one a while back.
More destructive than 9-11, the Holocaust, rape, genocide, torture, etc?
Kanicbird is making Ann Coulter look sane and rational almost.
Oh, and folks, I appologize-I WAS over-zealous when I said he needed psychiatric counseling. HOWEVER, if he literally seeing demons in the faces of children and animals, he needs SOMETHING. I don’t think anyone can deny that.
I’m jealous as hell. I had to pay good money for the drugs to induce that kind of state!
Or that according to God’s plan, women were not blessed with common sense. That was a corker.