Religous debates and questions [2]

The software remains on the machine.
If I have an image making software, say photoshop, and you have photoshop on your pc, ad we both swap pictures, the software remains separate and on our relative machines, even when they can interact.
Further how the software reacts depends on the machines it runs on, the difference in their 'brains'.
But the software remains the same from which everything else arises.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:The software remains on the machine.
If I have an image making software, say photoshop, and you have photoshop on your pc, ad we both swap pictures, the software remains separate and on our relative machines, even when they can interact.
Further how the software reacts depends on the machines it runs on, the difference in their 'brains'.
But the software remains the same from which everything else arises.

It seems to me you're using "software" in two different ways above, one which is specific to a particular machine at at a particular instant in time, and one that can be run on different machines at different times. Am I wrong?

Software is both- its merely a set of instructions. So it can be run on one machine, or many machines can run the same software.
But not all the results will be the same unless all the a machines are also the same- for testament to that visit any pc  games forum where you will find people having problems running games because of the particular way all the component parts (their hardware) interacts with all the software.

On that principle all human brains could operate off the same basic set of instructions contained in the DNA that makes brains (the software), but differences in each brain (the hardware) can account for differences between people.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:

On that principle all human brains could operate off the same basic set of instructions contained in the DNA that makes brains (the software), but differences in each brain (the hardware) can account for differences between people.

An interesting principle in deed! I would seem to run contrary to an evolutionary model in some ways. Which do you see coming first, the instructions or the DNA which contains them?

Now thats a good question.
I would have to assume its been a symbiotic development through time, so neither really came first, but bith evolve over time.
To use the pc analogy again my first computer was a sinclair spectrum 48k.

My current pc could run the entirety of that one thousands of times over.

What changed between the two? Both the hardware and the software developed together, one taking advantage of the other, sometimes the hardware leads in development and the software comes afterwards to fill the gap, sometimes the software pushes the hardware until new hardware develops better able to utilise the new software.

I see it as an organic system of that I suppose.

OK then. But the analogy seems to imply an outside intelligence that leads the process, and I'm not sure that's what you're intending.

To me it seems clear that the "software" is an ideal that may be reflected onto the "hardware" at any given time, but lives in a more rarefied world of relationships and ideas, causes and effects. Not in the world of tangibles.

Without that step to another level, the paradoxes just seem to me to compound upon themselves.

No need for an outside intelligence as the 'software' and the 'hardware' can write themselves all you need is the basic simple rules and the complexity arises through evolution and selection.

"To me it seems clear that the "software" is an ideal that may be reflected onto the "hardware" at any given time, but lives in a more rarefied world of relationships and ideas, causes and effects. Not in the world of tangibles."- David

Dunno if its because its almost 3am here, or if it the fifth barrel, but I didnt follow that!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:No need for an outside intelligence as the 'software' and the 'hardware' can write themselves all you need is the basic simple rules and the complexity arises through evolution and selection.

But where do these rules come from? And how are they enforced?  

It's like the world created on the back of an elephant, which stands on the back of another elephant, which stands on....
 
If you choose to see the rules as part of the machine rather than reflected in the machine you'll always be tripping over these paradoxes.

Simple logic just works better if you assume there's and "outside" for rules (like logic     )

The rules wrote themselves, you have the Big Bang and then the coalescing of matter (eventually) and at each stage things begin to effect other things and the rules start to come into being. They dont need writing, they form naturally from events and arise as a consequence of interactions.

If you are looking for a God-space its right at the start, not afterwards, there's no room afterwards in my view.

I don't like the term God-space for two reasons. It implies we know something more about God than we do, and the term space implies we can measure it. At least for now, we can't.

But if you choose to visualize it as a space, then I'd say what I'm talking about is the space where mathematicians work.
When you're doing anything theoretical, you can't let yourself get caught in the trap of thinking that the Pythagorean theorem, for example, was created by somebody, or that there somehow is a separate rule that governs each individual right triangle.

When you're thinking about fluid dynamics you can't let yourself get hung up on the water itself. You've got to think about how pressure, waves etc. are transferred through an ideal fluid. Otherwise you miss the truth entirely.

You've simply got to see the generalizations as implying something larger, something that has a fundamental reality almost like Platonic theory of Forms (but not). Otherwise it all falls apart.

At least that's my experience.

I wasn't thinking of God-space as an actual space- sorry should have been clearer on that- I meant it as in 'room for'- in the story of our universe as we currently understand it I dont see room for a God in it except right at the beginning to set it all in motion (which I believe is something akin to the Catholic view of religion and science when they say that evolution exists and is 'how God  gets stuff done').
My mind works on stories, I am a story person and make no claim to science, you and Halfy know more science in your little finger than I do in my entirety so I understand my universe through the prism of story. And in that story I dont see where the character of God fits at all.
My instincts tell me its a completely different story from the story of the universe, superimposed onto it by the desires of humans.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I wasn't thinking of God-space as an actual space- sorry should have been clearer on that- I meant it as in 'room for'- in the story of our universe as we currently understand it I dont see room for a God in it except right at the beginning to set it all in motion (which I believe is something akin to the Catholic view of religion and science when they say that evolution exists and is 'how God  gets stuff done').
My mind works on stories, I am a story person and make no claim to science, you and Halfy know more science in your little finger than I do in my entirety so I understand my universe through the prism of story. And in that story I dont see where the character of God fits at all.
My instincts tell me its a completely different story from the story of the universe, superimposed onto it by the desires of humans.

But it's a story of your own telling, isn't it? So if God doesn't fit in the story, what does that prove? Only that you wrote him out, I think.   

Meanwhile, I know plenty of other intelligent, thoughtful storytellers like you whose stories make God the central character. What does that prove?   

That's their story, and they're entitled to theirs as much as you are to yours, don't you think?

Back to your walnut analogy, I think it's fair to say that if we view the entire Cosmos as a giant forest, then we're all nuts!  

We are certainly all nuts, planet of nuts.

But the story I refer to is not mine, its the story of our universe and I didnt get to write that one or there would be free buckie in it.   

OK then who is the author, if not you? I need to know who get's the buckie  

The story consists of the bits of the universe we have so far worked out as a species and can demonstrate. Gods dont fall into that category, they seem to be from a different, suspiciously human orientated story.
I dont think the universe gives tuppence for humans, or at least no more than it does to any other thing in it animate or inanimate, we are all the same stuff in different shapes.

Because of this no one gets free buckie   

Pettytyrant101 wrote:The story consists of the bits of the universe we have so far worked out as a species and can demonstrate.

By "we" do you still mean just the storytellers, or are you inviting the scientists and mathematicians to the party now that we're useful again?

{{{Typical storyteller!    They grab little bits and pieces of your work, string them together out of context to get maximum oooo's and ahhhh's from their audience, take all the credit, drink all the buckie, and then ask you to clean up the mess!  }}}

By 'we' I mean humans collectively, so I suppose by default I have to include mathematicians in that and scientists, I guess you qualify. Or at least the version of their work they tell as story so people like me whose head goes into boggle mode when confronted with the actual maths can have a grasp on it.

And in those stories of the maths if you like I haven't heard a credible version that includes God as a necessary piece of a universe (although as I mentioned, there is currently a gap right at the start of the story where you could insert one to light the touch paper as it were).

Some of the very best theoretical mathematicians I knew at the university, while perhaps skeptical of organized religion, talked freely about divine inspiration.  One was fond of saying that all we were doing was looking for God's fingerprints on the Machine.

There are clearly patterns, rules (I hate the word Law in this context) and something that enforces them. There are ideas of such beauty it makes you want to cry, but no words to express them unless you make up your own.  And when you do, people's minds boggle and they walk off to get another drink.    

That doesn't prove there is a God, or what such a God would do or be, but there's definitely room for one in my story. If nothing else it's useful to imagine that there is a REASON that theoretically can unite all the little reasons we can glean from within our little walnut.

And I still think if the story of the universe you're telling isn't big enough to include a God, that has mostly to do with how you choose to tell it. Of course if you choose to remove the boggley bits, it's going to be a shorter story!  

Nobody likes boggly bits! And I didn't say there wasn't room for a God in the story, I said there there didn't seem to be room for one or the necessity for there to be one in the story (as it currently stands the story seems to work fine without a God interfering in the plot) save for the big hole in the story which is chapter 1.

And to me thinking out of a sort of hope that there is a big reason joining all the little reasons is human wish-fulfilment, a desire for there to be a comprehensible explanation.
I am always suspicious of explanations that suit humans in a universe of this scale.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Nobody likes boggly bits!

I like boggly bits!

And to me thinking out of a sort of hope that there is a big reason joining all the little reasons is human wish-fulfilment, a desire for there to be a comprehensible explanation.
I am always suspicious of explanations that suit humans in a universe of this scale.

Wish-fulfillment  doesn't say anything about validity, one way or the other. And either way the structure is useful.  If you assume there's order and go looking for it you've got a chance of finding something. If you assume you're f***ed to begin with, you'll never find anything.

Suspicion is healthy, but it's dangerous when it becomes defeatist.

There is nothing wrong in looking for an explanation, I just think we shouldnt be surpised if we never find one.
I doubt the universe exists just so humans can one day work it out. We might through our inherent curiosity and desire to poke things we probably shouldn't with a stick, but even if there is an answer I doubt its geared towards humans.
Its a bit like thinking pulsars only exist so humans can discover them and use them to work out things about the universe- thats just to human centric for me in a universe of such colossal scale and diversity.

And Im not sure we could cope with the actual scale of everything in relation to ourselves-

My dialup connection isn't playing nicely with YouTube right now, so I can't watch the link, but if I'm reading your point right, I'm not expecting any Big Answer to be on a human scale.

I have to admit, I'm still a bit shocked at the idea of leaving out the Boggly Bits from the Universe Story. It's like leaving the Tardis and other Timey-Wimey bits out of Dr Who.  What's left is nothing but pablum. A story hardly worth telling or watching.   

The vid, in written form-

The Total Perspective Vortex is allegedly the most horrible torture device to which a sentient being can be subjected.
When you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little mark, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, "You are here."

Located on Frogstar World B, the machine was originally invented by one Trin Tragula in order to annoy his wife. Because she was forever nagging him for having no sense of proportion, he decided to invent something that would show her what having a sense of proportion really meant. Unfortunately the shock of being placed in the Vortex destroyed her brain, but Trin Tragula's grief was tempered by the knowledge that he had been right and she had been wrong. In Adams's words, the Total Perspective Vortex illustrated that "In an infinite universe, the one thing sentient life cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion."

The machine produces a virtual reality model of the entire universe by means of the axiom that any piece of matter is affected by all other matter. The Vortex reconstructs the universe through computer processing of a high-resolution scan ("extrapolated matter analysis") of a piece of fairy cake. In the words of the Hitchhiker's Guide,

   ...since every piece of matter in the Universe is in someway affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation - every Galaxy, every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition, and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake.

Only Zaphod Beeblebrox is reported to have survived the Vortex unscathed (and then to have eaten the small piece of fairy cake). When it showed him the "You Are Here" marker, Zaphod correctly interpreted the Vortex as simply telling him that he was the most important being in the universe. This is due to the fact that he entered the Vortex in an artificial universe, which had been specially created for his benefit (thus making him the most important being in it) by Zarniwoop. After emerging from the artificial universe's Total Perspective Vortex, Zaphod ate the piece of fairy cake, saying "If I told you how much I needed this, I wouldn't have time to eat it."


And of course I like the boggly bits- but only the story version of boggly bits- timey-whimey in a Who story is great- being presented with an equation and diagram of it, not so great  

Back from the weekend, reading through this...the hell are Boggly Bits?      Oh I see, the parts you have to struggle with to understand...but they are usually worth it when you do!

Anyway, I'm not gonna contribute directly because you both have been rolling on quite entertainingly.  But I will put out this wonderful story about the mathematician Laplace.

See, back a few hundred years ago, All mathematicians did applied stuff, didn't turn their noses up at it at all.  I think this may be because the separate class of scientists and engineers hadn't developed enough yet to do the equivalent of taking Math joy-riding like a teenagers in a Lamborgini who don't know you have to shift it out of first gear.

Anyway, Laplace was working on planetary orbits, being sort of the court mathematician for Napoleon.  He had written a book in which he developed all these wonderful techniques and worked out planetary orbits to multiple decimal places, and presented it to the Little General.  

Napoleon worked through it, and commented to Laplace "This ees very nice, but Mon Dieu, how ees it possibleh, in thees calculations of the universe, you have never mentioned the prime mover, God heemself?"

Laplace replied with a Gallic shrug: "I had no need of that hypotheesis."

If only Id known that story (or you had chipped in earlier Halfy) this whole thing would be at least 3 pages shorter!! Thats pretty much what Ive been trying to say, only succinct and with less buckie.