God exists

JV-Stalin

I would like to thank De@th for accepting.

My first argument is formed like so

1. The mind exists

2. Mind is not reducible to non-mind

C1. The mind is not physical

3. Substance dualism is false

C2. Monistic Idealism entails

Premise one is justified. You can’t doubt the mind, because doubting is a mental process. Thus, doubting the mind is self refuting. Famous atheistic neuroscientist Sam Harris said

"Consciousness is the one thing in the universe that cannot be an illusion"

"I think, therefore I am" - Rene Descartes[1]

P1.) Minds COULD exist in purely solipsistic universes.

P2.) Solipsistic universes are purely mental and immaterial. (as everything material* is an illusion of the mind)

C1.) Minds can exist in immaterial universes. (from C1 and C2)

P3.) Nothing material can exist in an immaterial universe.

C2.) Minds can not be material in any possible world. (from C1 and P3)

To quote Sam Harris again, [3]

"There is nothing about introspection that leads you to sense that your subjectivity is at all dependent or even related to voltage changes and chemical reactions going on inside your head. You can drop acid, you can meditate for a year, you can do whatever you want to perterbe your nervous system, you can feel yourself to be one with the universe, and at no point in that transformation do you get a glimpse that there is a hundred trillion neurons in your head, or synapses in your head that are doing anything."

C1 follows.

"According to substance dualism, there are two fundamental kinds of substances; matter and mind. However, this view quickly leads to problems regarding the interaction of matter and mind. The internal contradictions of interactionalism demonstrate that two fundamental types of substances cannot interact. If the did, they would interact via a shared property. However, if they share a property, then they are not separate substances at all. Either mind shares a physical property with matter, or matter shares a mental property with mind. As such substance dualism becomes incoherent on close inspection, and must be rejected"[4]

This argument either means solipsism or idealism is true. We can rule out solipsism because if my mind projected reality, I should be able to control reality. We can easily test this. I can conceivably fly around and turn everything into puppies, but this doesn’t actually happen (unfortunately). This means it follows that our reality is simply a mental projection from a higher mind (Idealism).

Digital Physics Argument

This is an interesting argument from physics.

P1. Simulations can only exist in a computer or a mind

P2. The universe is a simulation

P3. A simulation on a computer must still be simulated by a mind

P4. Therefore, the simulation must exist in a mind

P5. This mind we call God

C. Therefore God exists

This may seem absurd at first glance, but it is supported.

Premise one is obvious. A powerful mind could run a simulation because that’s what it means to be powerful. Also a mind could process information. Or it could be in a computer, after all that’s where simulations we see are.

Premise two is not so obvious, but it is supported when you examine the evidence. Computer scientist Brian Whitworth compiled a list of what we should see if the universe is a simulation. His paper shows thinking the universe is simulation explains much more than thinking otherwise [5]. For example, why is there a maximum velocity? Non-virtual thinking has no answer. But thinking of the universe as a simulation does! Your computer has a limited speed by its processor, similar to the universe. We’ve all had our computer freeze up and slow down when we have a massive program that takes up our CPU running. The universe acts in a similar way. When there is massive gravitational attraction or if something is traveling at a very high speed, time dilates [6][7]. Everything digital can be reduced to the pixel. Similarly, everything in the universe can be reduced to the atom.

Another interesting example with the atom. In quantum mechanics something such as a particle isn’t there until you measure it.

“Quantum probability is not the probability of where the atom is. It's the objective probability of where you, or anybody, will find it. The atom wasn't someplace until it was observed to be there” -Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner[8]

“[T]he atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.” - Werner Heisenberg [9].

Much like a video game. All of the textures aren’t loaded. Different textures and objects have to load when the player requests them. In Skyrim, Whiterun isn’t there when you’re in Winterhold, when you fast travel you load it up.

Our current view of the universe’s early stages fits right in line with this idea.

“…..virtual reality theory fits well with a big bang. No virtual reality can have existed forever, since it needs a processor to start it up. All virtual realities “start up” at a specific moment of time, typically with a sudden influx of information. Every time one starts a computer game or boots up a computer, such a “big bang” occurs. From the perspective of the virtual world itself, its creation is always from “nothing”, as before the virtual world startup there was indeed no time or space as defined by that world. There was nothing relative to that world because the world itself did not exist. It is a hallmark of virtual realities that they must come into existence at a specific event in their space and time, which also initiates their space-time fabric.”[5]

"I seem real enough, don't I? Well, yes. But surprising clues are emerging that everything that you and I, and even space itself may actually be a kind of hologram. Everything we see and experience, everything we call our 3D reality, may be a projection of information that is stored on a thin, distant, 2D surface." - Brian Greene [10]

"If the horizon of de Sitter space is similar to the horizon of a black hole - and mathematically it is; mathematically they are almost identical - then that must mean that everything that is on the inside of the universe must be describable as a hologram, or a kind of 'film' on the surface way out there on the horizon of de Sitter space." - Leonard Susskind [11]

Now, String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity haven’t been verified, but I’m just showing how it fits.

Brian Whitworth states

“Individually none of the above short points is convincing, but taken together they constitute what a court might call circumstantial evidence, favoring virtual reality against objective reality. When coincidences mount up, they present a plausibility argument if not a proof. More powerful evidence is provided by cases which a VR theory explains easily but which OR approaches have great difficulty with.”

Now the question is, where is this computer and who programmed it? One idea that was famously proposed by Nick Bostrom is that we’re being simulated by other humans in the future who are identical to us. But, if they’re identical to us, then they too must bear the marks of a simulation. Bostrom himself agrees

“Moreover, we would have to suspect that the posthumans running our simulation are themselves simulated beings; and their creators, in turn, may also be simulated beings.” [12]

Alternatively we could have a computer ran by humans existing in a world with classical physics. However, all qubits would have to be in the form of classical bits. But this means the computer must be bigger than the universe itself [13]. This justifies premise three. A mind is the best explanation for the way a simulated universe can run.

Premise four, five and the conclusion follow.

I await Con’s response.

Sources

[1] Principles of Philosophy (1644)

[2]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWyPqyjbVxQ

[3]http://www.transcriptsearch.com.es/id/wi2IC6e5DUY

[4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l1lQMCOguw

[5]http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0801/0801.0337.pdf

[6]http://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/timedial.html

[7]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FflcA85zcOM

[8] Rosenblum, Bruce, and Fred Kuttner.Quantum Enigma. London: Duckworth, 2010. p. 129

[9] Heisenberg, Werner.Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science. New York: Harper, 1958. p. 160

[10]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfdMdbSnNSw 4:21

[11] Ibid, 5:02.

[12]http://www.simulation-argument.com/classic.html

[13]http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/books/chapters/0402-1st-lloyd.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

“....quantum analog computers can perform computations that would require a classical computer larger than the universe itself.” If the universe is such a simulation, it would need to contain these in classical bits.

JV-Stalin

:( 

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