81–90 of 184 posts
I wonder what Gödel would have thought of Wolfram's opinion on physics. According to that the reality is a kind of superposition of all possible combinations among all possible abstract mathematical concepts to which we have only very restricted, macroscopic insight. That makes mathematics objective and primary structure of the Universe and feeds right in the rationality canon. https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/202…
> His rationale for belief in an afterlife is this: > If the world is rationally organised and has meaning, then it must be the case. For what sort of a meaning would it have to bring about a being (the human being) with such a wide field of possibilities for personal development and relationships to others, only then to let him achieve not even 1/1,000th of it? Far from my petty mind to challenge a great thinker lik…
I think, particularly with the advent of AI and modern computer technology as a whole, Gödel would today be a simulationist of Bostrom’s cut. If we ever have the means to accurately simulate reality - which we already do, at small scales and with significant time dilation - then it becomes almost inevitable that we reside within a simulation, as the simulations would vastly outnumber physical reality, and therefore t…
One of my favourite parts of Bostrom’s seminal paper is an aside, but one I feel would have appealed to Gödel had he lived to read it:
> Reality may thus contain many levels. Even if it is necessary for the hierarchy to bottom out at some stage – the metaphysical status of this claim is somewhat obscure
Bostrom’s argument, although it starts from materialist premises, contains within it an anti-materialist potential: What if there is no basement universe? What if it is software all the way down? Given Gödel’s anti-materialism, I think that potential would have appealed to him
The far reaches of meditation (dhyana, yogic self-cultivation) can provide such. But that requires a lot of work and a deviant lifestyle. Something a rare few are prepared to invest in.
Article doesn't really really explain the proof of god - but a version of the proof is here https://arxiv.org/pdf/1308.4526.pdf
To add to it: I guess this all hinges on what 'positive' means. Christ, I sound just like Socrates now, don't I? Glad it's Friday.
> His rationale for belief in an afterlife is this: > If the world is rationally organised and has meaning, then it must be the case. For what sort of a meaning would it have to bring about a being (the human being) with such a wide field of possibilities for personal development and relationships to others, only then to let him achieve not even 1/1,000th of it? Far from my petty mind to challenge a great thinker lik…
That and being a genius was easy when the majority were functionally illiterate disciples of the religion they grew up in.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that at the end of the day, every rationalization of an afterlife is personal - people believe humans get an afterlife so they can assure themselves of life after death. Of course it's entirely possible for the universe to have been designed and still operate under purely naturalistic rules, without any hint of supernatural elements, but what would be the point of believing that?
Oh, now that's a nice twist, if I follow you. A universe with a creator, but no afterlife. Or another possibility: a universe without a creator, but with an afterlife. Huh. Don't think I've considered those options before. I'm sure some religions have proposed these possibilities already, though?
> The idea that everything in the world has meaning is, by the way, the exact analogue of the principle that everything has a cause on which the whole of science is based.’ Gödel – just like Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, whom he idolised – believed that everything in the world has a reason for its being so and not otherwise. This is the core mistake, I believe, to assume that causation implies meaning, instead of causat…
I think that his assumption that: 'meaning' and 'causation' are the same thing, is similarly tied to his works. For someone like Godel, I'd imagine that he has no conception that they could be different.
> His rationale for belief in an afterlife is this: > If the world is rationally organised and has meaning, then it must be the case. For what sort of a meaning would it have to bring about a being (the human being) with such a wide field of possibilities for personal development and relationships to others, only then to let him achieve not even 1/1,000th of it? Far from my petty mind to challenge a great thinker lik…
I think, particularly with the advent of AI and modern computer technology as a whole, Gödel would today be a simulationist of Bostrom’s cut. If we ever have the means to accurately simulate reality - which we already do, at small scales and with significant time dilation - then it becomes almost inevitable that we reside within a simulation, as the simulations would vastly outnumber physical reality, and therefore t…
Are you saying that belief is woo-woo? Curious to understand how you're relating the two.
> His rationale for belief in an afterlife is this: > If the world is rationally organised and has meaning, then it must be the case. For what sort of a meaning would it have to bring about a being (the human being) with such a wide field of possibilities for personal development and relationships to others, only then to let him achieve not even 1/1,000th of it? Far from my petty mind to challenge a great thinker lik…
Rationality is not an inscribed property but rather a natural consequence of observing the order in place. For example, the table of elements expresses the properties of integers as inherent to reality. As such, it is rational and rationally-ordered. This is not so much “philosophy” as it is “logic”, it is the conclusion of philosophy and mathematics and the subsequent origin of the computational reality.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Peterson's a psychologist, an important field that many evolutionary biologists and HNers sadly don't quite understand, though they do very good work otherwise.
> You seem to be a person of faith, there's no arguing with people of faith. Can you describe the methodology you used to determine that this is necessarily true, with zero exceptions? > I just understand the limits of what we can actually know... Ah, a perfectly rational human....this is like the 50th or so I've encountered this week! Careful...faith is fundamental to human consciousness, and cultures, it comes in a…