If God Is Real

If I am placed in the 12th century (or we can use any other species on the planet and remote tribes) the computer example will not hold. Is there anything in regards to the "decision engine" you talk about here that is fundamental to reality?

 

there is nothing fundamentally different about the computing machines in this regard with respect to any other type of system that receives inputs and produces an output. the behavior of the overall system in its entirety should be able to be described by a mathematical function..

examples of such systems can be other people, natual events, the weather, just because its a machine and made of silicon rather than carbon doesnt make it fundamentally different in regards to how it interacts causally. computers are not magical devices and neither are we. there is no magic.

 

It doesn't need to be done. What is essential to your maintenance your body already inspires you to do. You get hungry. All other non essential functions can comfortably be discarded. For instance you ideas of home and family and your sense of responsibility toward them. Consider if you die at any moment the world goes on as before. If you live in absentia the world goes on as before. That you relieved yourself of responsibility in no way damages any genuine affection you have for them although it may piss people off. What I am saying about this is I am such a person as left every social convention in my life and started from scratch. I quit my job with no idea of how I might support myself etc. So what i mean by nothing need be done is that you don't have to live your life according to ongoing conventional concerns. Just as well your contribution is not needed although it is appreciated of not.

 

computers don't "decide" to do anything, so you're computer analogy fails at the outset.

 

causal loop equals communication

 

"Mathematics is never wrong" is pretty much the same as "deductive logic is never wrong". It's a truism about a tautology--useful, but maybe no big deal. To me, the interesting thing is not that it is true but that we know that for sure, without the usual opinions and arguments. How do we know that?

 

what do you call selecting an action from among a set of possible actions? i call it flow control, but whats the difference?

what is decision making? what makes us make them?

 

to my way of thinking computers are a big writing tablet but in space now instead of on the walls in caves...man likes to communicate.....so the internet has become big for this. Computers are also a great place to learn just about anything......but they cannot decide like we can......and they can only if we give them the power to do so. I think you were comparing do we have a choice in our lives or is everything pre determined, right?...so that is where the computer analogy came in?

 

I'm not sure predetermination is the argument I was trying to make. I do however believe that things in this universe follow certain rules that govern their behavior, and do determine how they are allowed to behave. A clock runs clockwise, but not because it simply feels thats the right thing to do. Of course, i have no idea what it "feel like" to be a clock .. or a computer.. it may actually be irrelevant to causality and instead just a side effect of the mechanism that manifests itself subjectively.

 

maybe not you per se....but in the conversation here...some were speaking of numbers...birthdates, etc....and I asked along that reasoning, so we are just beings following dots so to speak, so it was a thread, albeit very thin one in the conversation here......right?

 

maybe we are just following dots but there's plenty of forks in the road ahead.

 

oh,oh....

they better be good ones.

 

Probably should issue a recall on some of his/her/its handiwork.

 

It all depends upon how important you think your personality is. Undoubtedly, it is a part of the universe. And what you see out there is the universe, so could there be a connection?

How much of a reflection are you of the universe, if a reflection at all, and if not a reflection, then what's the difference between you and the universe?

So as you're looking out at the stars, it isn't about someone else having predestined you for something. You are just seeing yourself, plain and simple. So the stars and planets at the moment of your birth...in a way the universe is sort of being born when you are born. What you are witnessing is the universe's becoming of you.

 

If the statement is qualified as mathematics being free from application, then I don't think we can ever know it to be right either. We're basically phrasing whether the glass is half full or half empty at that point.

In regards to Gödel's Theorem and the example of the Oracle computer...

I think the suggestion is that every computer operates within it's given set of parameters, so any subsequent computer which may improve upon the previous one, only does so with newly integrated variables and parameters. Therefore once you change the system, by adjusting variables/parameters/elements or any novel information into the computer I suppose, then you cannot compare the validity of responses to any previous one(s).

So I think ace k is saying Gödel's Theorem cannot be wrong because the computer's that are 'wrong' in light of subsequent information, from the other computers, are only wrong because of the limit in information they contain. However, they are provided only with the given limitations in information, so they cannot be wrong because they don't possess the subsequent information to display an accurate answer.

 

A lot of creativity is inspired in the process of finding one's self. How can you expound upon something you have no familiarity with, after all?

 

finding oneself? aren't you yourself?

 

Yes, but life is a learning experience. You find out what you're made of as you go along.

 

true.....but i already know that I am full of piss and vinegar with a good heart........and in keeping with dots.....