Thread: What if life actually is all a dream?

@JoannaB
Hm, I see. Sorry, didn't read every post. But if it is, then it would be possible to break the laws of physics and whatsoever, through the power of will, much like in our dreams, correct?
Then why hasn't anyone done it?

Originally Posted by TruMotion

@JoannaB
Hm, I see. Sorry, didn't read every post. But if it is, then it would be possible to break the laws of physics and whatsoever, through the power of will, much like in our dreams, correct?
Then why hasn't anyone done it?

First, there would be the power of combined shared expectations to overcome. Also, who knows whether nobody has really done it? Just because science has not documented as a fact someone breaking the laws of physics in real life, that does not mean it has not been done. Stephen LaBerge had the hardest time publishing about lucid dreaming in a scholarly journal because lucid dreaming was associated with parapsychology at the time, and thus no credible journal that wanted to stay credible was willing to publish on it. Sure claims of levitation have been debunked, but what if there is someone out there who has really levitated, and who just has not been scientifically confirmed to do so and popularized enough for people to accept it as something that really happened? I am not saying it did happen, I am saying that it could have (and I use levitation just as an example). Also, if life were a shared dream, people might be dreaming different versions of the shared dream based on individual expectations, and thus if you do not expect laws of physics to ever be broken in reality, they won't be in your perception. Then there is the Swiss cheese nature of our memory, we adjust our memories to fit our world view, and we might conveniently forget memories that would contradict our expectations, make us question reality too much, if we are not ready to question it yet. The more I question, the more I find that is questionable.

Edit: you know how two or more people when they compare their memories of past events, you question how it is possible that they experienced the same event, and yet recall it so differently? What if they did not actually experience the same event the same way?

Originally Posted by JoannaB

First, there would be the power of combined shared expectations to overcome. Also, who knows whether nobody has really done it? Just because science has not documented as a fact someone breaking the laws of physics in real life, that does not mean it has not been done. Stephen LaBerge had the hardest time publishing about lucid dreaming in a scholarly journal because lucid dreaming was associated with parapsychology at the time, and thus no credible journal that wanted to stay credible was willing to publish on it. Sure claims of levitation have been debunked, but what if there is someone out there who has really levitated, and who just has not been scientifically confirmed to do so and popularized enough for people to accept it as something that really happened? I am not saying it did happen, I am saying that it could have (and I use levitation just as an example). Also, if life were a shared dream, people might be dreaming different versions of the shared dream based on individual expectations, and thus if you do not expect laws of physics to ever be broken in reality, they won't be in your perception. Then there is the Swiss cheese nature of our memory, we adjust our memories to fit our world view, and we might conveniently forget memories that would contradict our expectations, make us question reality too much, if we are not ready to question it yet. The more I question, the more I find that is questionable.

Edit: you know how two or more people when they compare their memories of past events, you question how it is possible that they experienced the same event, and yet recall it so differently? What if they did not actually experience the same event the same way?

Everything you said is true, but that argument can be used against everything. Because of that, does it really matter if we leave in a dream or not? Even though it's an interesting topic, it's pointless. Basically, there would be no difference.

Originally Posted by TruMotion

Everything you said is true, but that argument can be used against everything. Because of that, does it really matter if we leave in a dream or not? Even though it's an interesting topic, it's pointless. Basically, there would be no difference.

I think this topic is interesting like u say because it suggest that you may be able to implement some elements of control in waking reality as you do in the dream reality. For example in your dream u may want to manifest a red Mercedes Benz on the strength of your thoughts alone. Almost instantly your red Mercedes appears before you. In waking reality you want to produce the same Red Mercedes Benz on the strength of your thoughts alone also. Keep in mind when you were dreaming you were most likey not in a wakeful beta brain wave state, you were probably somewhere in the theta brain wave state when manifesting the hypothetical Benz in your dream. So In your waking state you try to achieve the same theta brain wave state you were in when dresming. A lot of people do this through daily meditation. So not instantly but somewhere down the line that same Mercedes Benz appears accept its Green in color and came via a birthday present from a friend of the family. .

Originally Posted by dreamcatcher81

I think this topic is interesting like u say because it suggest that you may be able to implement some elements of control in waking reality as you do in the dream reality. For example in your dream u may want to manifest a red Mercedes Benz on the strength of your thoughts alone. Almost instantly your red Mercedes appears before you. In waking reality you want to produce the same Red Mercedes Benz on the strength of your thoughts alone also. Keep in mind when you were dreaming you were most likey not in a wakeful beta brain wave state, you were probably somewhere in the theta brain wave state when manifesting the hypothetical Benz in your dream. So In your waking state you try to achieve the same theta brain wave state you were in when dresming. A lot of people do this through daily meditation. So not instantly but somewhere down the line that same Mercedes Benz appears accept its Green in color and came via a birthday present from a friend of the family. .

To look at it this way, interesting, now there come more unusual things, people talking about stuff like telekinesis, etc. To think about it maybe people who do it managed to slightly break whatever waking dream logic that is preventing everyone from doing it, somewhat like dream control.

Originally Posted by JoannaB

First, there would be the power of combined shared expectations to overcome. Also, who knows whether nobody has really done it? Just because science has not documented as a fact someone breaking the laws of physics in real life, that does not mean it has not been done. Stephen LaBerge had the hardest time publishing about lucid dreaming in a scholarly journal because lucid dreaming was associated with parapsychology at the time, and thus no credible journal that wanted to stay credible was willing to publish on it. Sure claims of levitation have been debunked, but what if there is someone out there who has really levitated, and who just has not been scientifically confirmed to do so and popularized enough for people to accept it as something that really happened? I am not saying it did happen, I am saying that it could have (and I use levitation just as an example). Also, if life were a shared dream, people might be dreaming different versions of the shared dream based on individual expectations, and thus if you do not expect laws of physics to ever be broken in reality, they won't be in your perception. Then there is the Swiss cheese nature of our memory, we adjust our memories to fit our world view, and we might conveniently forget memories that would contradict our expectations, make us question reality too much, if we are not ready to question it yet. The more I question, the more I find that is questionable.

Edit: you know how two or more people when they compare their memories of past events, you question how it is possible that they experienced the same event, and yet recall it so differently? What if they did not actually experience the same event the same way?

Anything is possible in the dream. That is why it is referred to as a dream.

Originally Posted by TruMotion

@JoannaB
Hm, I see. Sorry, didn't read every post. But if it is, then it would be possible to break the laws of physics and whatsoever, through the power of will, much like in our dreams, correct?
Then why hasn't anyone done it?

There are limitations in dreams, just as there are limitations in waking life, even if those limitations aren't the same. In the dream, you're limited by what's possible for your mind to think, and in waking life we're limited by what's possible for the collective mind to think. In both cases there is a way that it works, even though we don't have physics models describing some of the limitations in dreams.

But yes, in my experience it is possible to do things in waking life that are widely considered impossible. I don't know of anyone who can do them reliably, and maybe its just as well, since we're not very honest or responsible, and some things are destructively disruptive of our consensus reality. If miracles were happening left and right, there would be a really big problem with 'accidents', our desires just aren't that well under control. See something strange happen, recognize the implications, and you might try to shut that down before it starts happening a lot and trashes your life. But a lot of people do experience 'law breaking' events, and in my experience, if you find more of that deeper part of yourself that's less locked into your surface personality, then such things happen more easily.

@dreamcatcher81
I think what you are talking about is called the law of attraction. Basically, if you really hope and expect something to happen, it will eventually happen. Bullshit, if you ask me.
I didn't understand what you said about the theta brain waves though. How does that influence anything in waking life?

Originally Posted by TruMotion

@dreamcatcher81
I think what you are talking about is called the law of attraction. Basically, if you really hope and expect something to happen, it will eventually happen. Bullshit, if you ask me.
I didn't understand what you said about the theta brain waves though. How does that influence anything in waking life?

Wassup Tru Motion. I was hypothesizing on how an element of control can be used in waking reality as it is done in a lucid dream. I brought up theta brain waves because they have been associated with REM sleep. Theta can also be achieved during meditation practices. So maybe if one were able to simulate the dream state through meditation maybe that car manifested during a dream would manifest in waking reality just slightly different. Not saying Im right just entertaining the idea of what if life is actually a dream as eloquently put by the op. lol.

Originally Posted by TruMotion

@dreamcatcher81
I think what you are talking about is called the law of attraction. Basically, if you really hope and expect something to happen, it will eventually happen. Bullshit, if you ask me.
I didn't understand what you said about the theta brain waves though. How does that influence anything in waking life?

LOA isn't about hoping and expecting something to happen. Hoping and expecting are completely different as well. You shouldn't discount something you dont even understand.

We are all creating all the time using our minds. The element of time between the act of creation and the manifestation of the thing makes it hard to pick up on, but if you pay attention, the fact that your creating your reality becomes self obvious.

Originally Posted by tofur

LOA isn't about hoping and expecting something to happen. Hoping and expecting are completely different as well. You shouldn't discount something you dont even understand.

We are all creating all the time using our minds. The element of time between the act of creation and the manifestation of the thing makes it hard to pick up on, but if you pay attention, the fact that your creating your reality becomes self obvious.

Original Poster, Sageous, myself, and a couple of other people argued at length on the LOA topic in the inner-sanctum forum a year or two ago. There are informed criticisms of LOA that don't involve denying power of thought.

How can you tell that the Mercedes appeared because of your meditation, instead of your meditation occurring because of the impending appearance of the Mercedes? Its not clear to me that one causes the other, even though they are clearly related somehow. It seems to me that my thoughts are manifestations also.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

Original Poster, Sageous, myself, and a couple of other people argued at length on the LOA topic in the inner-sanctum forum a year or two ago. There are informed criticisms of LOA that don't involve denying power of thought.

How can you tell that the Mercedes appeared because of your meditation, instead of your meditation occurring because of the impending appearance of the Mercedes? Its not clear to me that one causes the other, even though they are clearly related somehow. It seems to me that my thoughts are manifestations also.

that sounds like a free will kind of debate. I'll relay an experience I had a little while back, since it was I who experienced it and not anyone else I don't expect it to have an impact on you but whatevs. I was standing in a line in the early am in an airport, waiting to check in. I was wearing a red sox shirt and wondered to myself "I wonder if people occasionally mistake me for being a part of the red sox" and that idea of being on the red sox kind of came in and I tried it on because I was bored. I kid you not, a few seconds later the guy standing in front of me in line, who hadn't turned around up until that point or had seen me get in line, turned around and asked me "so do you play for the sox?". Once I picked my jaw up off the ground I said no and had a nice conversation with him, he mentioned it again asking if I worked for the team as opposed to played. Coincidence? technically maybe it was, the odds of it being pure coincidence must be astronomical though, no one has ever asked me that when I wore the shirt before and I've had it for years.

Did the thought and impulse to try on being a red sox member come to me because some all knowing intelligence knew the guy was going to ask me, therefore manifesting the thought in my experience beforehand so as to prepare me for it or something? that seems like an unnecessarily complicated way of explaining it just so that the external world continues to remain separate from and in the position of authority over a person.

Originally Posted by tofur

that sounds like a free will kind of debate.

That discussion was not primarily about that.

Originally Posted by tofur

Did the thought and impulse to try on being a red sox member come to me because some all knowing intelligence knew the guy was going to ask me, therefore manifesting the thought in my experience beforehand so as to prepare me for it or something? that seems like an unnecessarily complicated way of explaining it just so that the external world continues to remain separate from and in the position of authority over a person.

I agree that your posited explanation doesn't entirely make sense. But I don't think it follows from what I said either. Although I can't give you an adequate alternative explanation, we don't have a good explanation of how it would work in any other way either.

Note that if you think of the man's question as being a result of your thought, which you have free control over, that reduces the control he has over his thought. In either case, somebody's thought is at least partially outside of their own personal control. Your perspective seems to maintain a strict cause and effect order in terms of time, but this goes against my experiences which say that order isn't an issue, that it works the same way irrespective of the order.

To illustrate with an example: In my nap-time dream a few hours before birds flew into a jet engine a few years ago, I experienced myself intentionally directing a bird-size blob into an opening containing an engine-like contraption, which started vibrating and tore itself apart after the object went into it. I highly doubt that I personally caused the event though. It affected hundreds of other people, and I was only partially aware of what I was doing during the dream. So there is apparently some way to know about impending events without personally causing them. Also, it shows it is possible to shift one's first person perspective to something else that knows of or causes events. I've had hundreds, maybe thousands of those kinds of experiences now. And just the fact that we share one reality, even though we have individual personal wills, shows that there must my some kind of semi-collective interaction that reconciles all of our independent and competing wills. And in my experience, when two different people's thoughts affect something, its possible to move your subjective perspective to a place that shares something of the thought of both those people.

Here's another example: The radio saying "Eww that smell" right as my car passed over a dead skunk a few months ago. This could not plausibly have been caused by my willing it to happen. And I don't think its plausibly a 'random' coincidence, because I've had too many similar experiences and that event fits too well into the development of my thought process about this. And its not a "premonition of the future". But I think its exactly the same as your baseball experience, even though the time order is simultaneous instead of staggered. I also have many, many similar examples where the event precedes my thought instead of the thought preceding the event, even though I wasn't aware of the event until later. As I experience them, all of these experiences are essentially the same.

I am not denying free will by the way, or positing that an all-knowing personal god is causing any of this.

Originally Posted by tofur

that sounds like a free will kind of debate. I'll relay an experience I had a little while back, since it was I who experienced it and not anyone else I don't expect it to have an impact on you but whatevs. I was standing in a line in the early am in an airport, waiting to check in. I was wearing a red sox shirt and wondered to myself "I wonder if people occasionally mistake me for being a part of the red sox" and that idea of being on the red sox kind of came in and I tried it on because I was bored. I kid you not, a few seconds later the guy standing in front of me in line, who hadn't turned around up until that point or had seen me get in line, turned around and asked me "so do you play for the sox?". Once I picked my jaw up off the ground I said no and had a nice conversation with him, he mentioned it again asking if I worked for the team as opposed to played. Coincidence? technically maybe it was, the odds of it being pure coincidence must be astronomical though, no one has ever asked me that when I wore the shirt before and I've had it for years.

Did the thought and impulse to try on being a red sox member come to me because some all knowing intelligence knew the guy was going to ask me, therefore manifesting the thought in my experience beforehand so as to prepare me for it or something? that seems like an unnecessarily complicated way of explaining it just so that the external world continues to remain separate from and in the position of authority over a person.

?? Isn't the most likely answer also the most obvious here? I would say this is a case of the guy being slightly telepathic. You have a distinct thought while standing next to him. he picks up on it, but not on a conscious level, then voices his thought. So, a small innocent case of low grade ESP on his part?

Sorry too butt in, just an observation.

I don't know about you guys, but lucid dreams, for me, really call into question whether or not this waking reality isn't just a shared illusion. Sages have been telling us this for awhile now. That just like in a night dream, this waking life is just a dream, and you can wake up from it while your still in it, just as when the higher level of consciousness sparks and lucidity rushes in in a night dream. Your still in it, but you now know its just a dream, your consciousness expands and your perspective widens, and as such you have some control over it. Before that you didn't know what you didn't know, you saw the world around you as real so you played by the rules. Hence the fully realized beings allegedly being able to do some crazy stuff that we can't explain through traditional means. They are aware of the illusion and are operating on a higher level, they don't believe the world around them is real and outside of them, they see everything as them, just like a night dream is made up of us, our minds. There isn't an environment out there in a dream, it just appears that way.

Ok, I reviewed the posts in this thread, and I can't find it in this thread though I know I posted it somewhere on DV before:

When I was a student, and was dating my husband to be, we lived about a half an hour or so walk from each other and did not have cars nor cell phones. One day, I decided to go visit him without calling ahead of time. As I walked, I took a different set of streets than I would walk on usually to reach his house - I am a creature of habit and almost always walked the same way even though there were different ways to reach same destination, but this time I was not paying attention and took a different turn but still heading in the right direction on alternate road. If I had taken my usual road, I would not have encountered my boyfriend as he was walking from his home to mine on the road that I absent mindedly chose to take, and so we would have passed eachother each walking toward the other's home, but we met.

Originally Posted by JoannaB

If I had taken my usual road, I would not have encountered my boyfriend as he was walking from his home to mine on the road that I absent mindedly chose to take, and so we would have passed eachother each walking toward the other's home, but we met.

I think this and tofur's example both illustrate something that I noticed about these kinds of experiences. Two different people have desires that are answered in some way by the event. For me it seems to be much easier for this sort of thing to happen when there are two people. The part of you that is common to both of your thoughts is more the subconscious part of us that is responsible for most destiny.

Given that events in the world do have some kind of hidden connection to thought, I think its clear that most of the thought involved is not conscious. I know a very large portion of my thought is subconscious, and apparently this is true for other people also. Since there is a collective element to this, as illustrated by the coordination of all the manifestations, and by our shared dream experiences, this does seem to me to imply the existence of some kind of god-like intelligence, even if its not very much like our ideas about God.

In response to the OP, and as others have alluded to already, there are a seemingly infinite number of unfalsifiable thought experiments like this that you can run.

Take for instance this popular thought experiment by the philosopher Nick Bostrom. If you make the following assumptions that:

1. Consciousness is a product of the laws of physics and there is nothing intrinsically special or unknowable about it, that would therefore allow it to be simulated by advanced computers.

2. That if humanity survives long enough our computers will become so advanced that we'll be able to run virtual worlds complete with billions of conscious creatures on them, and that our descendants will create simulations of the worlds that their ancestors (us) lived in.

With these 2 assumptions on board, it wouldn't be unreasonable to conclude, that since the scientists of the future could create and run as many virtual simulations of the past as they wanted to, that is is then statistically more likely that we are being simulated than that we are living in reality. (and a consequence of this would be the possibility of all kinds of unlikely phenomena, such as deities or psychic powers being possible in our simulated reality, because the scientists of the future could have written them into the programs)


While bizaree ideas such as this one, and the possibility that this is all a dream, are certainly fun to ponder over, I think it's important to remember that they are unfalsifiable, and I wouldn't lose any sleep over them.

Originally Posted by PresentMoment

In response to the OP, and as others have alluded to already, there are a seemingly infinite number of unfalsifiable thought experiments like this that you can run.

Take for instance this popular thought experiment by the philosopher Nick Bostrom. If you make the following assumptions that:

1. Consciousness is a product of the laws of physics and there is nothing intrinsically special or unknowable about it, that would therefore allow it to be simulated by advanced computers.

2. That if humanity survives long enough our computers will become so advanced that we'll be able to run virtual worlds complete with billions of conscious creatures on them, and that our descendants will create simulations of the worlds that their ancestors (us) lived in.

With these 2 assumptions on board, it wouldn't be unreasonable to conclude, that since the scientists of the future could create and run as many virtual simulations of the past as they wanted to, that is is then statistically more likely that we are being simulated than that we are living in reality. (and a consequence of this would be the possibility of all kinds of unlikely phenomena, such as deities or psychic powers being possible in our simulated reality, because the scientists of the future could have written them into the programs)


While bizaree ideas such as this one, and the possibility that this is all a dream, are certainly fun to ponder over, I think it's important to remember that they are unfalsifiable, and I wouldn't lose any sleep over them.

I think these statements are falsifiable in the sense that as you understand better what a 'computer' is, and how physics works, the statements themselves start to make less sense. For instance, the phrase "statistically more likely that we are being simulated than...living in reality" implies thoughts about what it means to be 'simulated' as distinct from 'living in reality'. I think that once you put enough thought into what kind of 'computer' would be suitable to 'simulate' something like that, neither possibility as originally conceived makes much sense, and the distinction between the two mostly breaks down.

Maybe the most common ostensibly 'unfalsifiable' belief is in the existence of God. But actually, most beliefs about God are in fact falsifiable. And once you've pruned some of those away, you have learned quite a bit about what's left. Just because something isn't falsifiable for you, because you lack sufficient knowledge to evaluate it one way or another, does not mean that it is not falsifiable for someone else who has additional information and/or understanding.

Its true that we're not going to be able to make more than a few very modest steps into figuring this out. And its true that most of the ideas that we're considering don't make much sense. There's just too much that we don't know and can't know. But we wouldn't even be talking about the question if we didn't have definite, objective facts of personal experience that raise it, and which allow for meaningful judgments between different possible answers. If you can not make such judgments because the subject is too much outside of your own experience and interest, that's great, and have a nice day. Everyone has different pursuits in life. But I think its a bit ignorant to project that onto everyone else.

Not exactly sure what anyone could possibly know about either the limits of computer modeling or the physics of consciousness that would be required to falsify that thought experiment.

It is also impossible for anyone to prove that the universe didn't begin 15 seconds ago, and that we simply sprang into existence with memories intact. A deistic god is also 100% unfalsifiable, while we can potentially prove how everything in the universe can be explained via the laws of physics, it's impossible to prove a negative, i.e that an invisible god doesn't exist.

I think you had a very interesting interpretation of my post, which was I think a perfectly appropriate response to the O.P, which asked us if there was any way to prove are not a dream. I think it's rather obvious that I'm at least somewhat interested in the topic since I took the time to read and reply, I even said that I thought such things could be fun to think about, my whole point was that I think it's important to keep the impossibility of proving such statements in mind. Not to say that I'm actually aware of anyone who's actually wasting their life spending every waking hour pondering such a question, I only meant it in principle. I'm also not sure how stating my opinion, as was requested by the O.P makes me ignorant.

Originally Posted by PresentMoment

Not exactly sure what anyone could possibly know about either the limits of computer modeling or the physics of consciousness that would be required to falsify that thought experiment.

It is also impossible for anyone to prove that the universe didn't begin 15 seconds ago, and that we simply sprang into existence with memories intact. A deistic god is also 100% unfalsifiable, while we can potentially prove how everything in the universe can be explained via the laws of physics, it's impossible to prove a negative, i.e that an invisible god doesn't exist.

I think you had a very interesting interpretation of my post, which was I think a perfectly appropriate response to the O.P, which asked us if there was any way to prove are not a dream. I think it's rather obvious that I'm at least somewhat interested in the topic since I took the time to read and reply, I even said that I thought such things could be fun to think about, my whole point was that I think it's important to keep the impossibility of proving such statements in mind. Not to say that I'm actually aware of anyone who's actually wasting their life spending every waking hour pondering such a question, I only meant it in principle. I'm also not sure how stating my opinion, as was requested by the O.P makes me ignorant.

what really gets me thinking is whats at the end of the universe? we know there is an end to it (it is rapidly accelerating outward, but theres an end. We picked it up with our telephone satellites, theres a mild heat signature or something of the sort that can be picked up from every direction and is constant in every direction). Whats on the other side, what exists to allow the universe to exist within it?

Originally Posted by PresentMoment

Not exactly sure what anyone could possibly know about either the limits of computer modeling or the physics of consciousness that would be required to falsify that thought experiment.

It is also impossible for anyone to prove that the universe didn't begin 15 seconds ago, and that we simply sprang into existence with memories intact. A deistic god is also 100% unfalsifiable, while we can potentially prove how everything in the universe can be explained via the laws of physics, it's impossible to prove a negative, i.e that an invisible god doesn't exist.

I think you had a very interesting interpretation of my post, which was I think a perfectly appropriate response to the O.P, which asked us if there was any way to prove are not a dream. I think it's rather obvious that I'm at least somewhat interested in the topic since I took the time to read and reply, I even said that I thought such things could be fun to think about, my whole point was that I think it's important to keep the impossibility of proving such statements in mind. Not to say that I'm actually aware of anyone who's actually wasting their life spending every waking hour pondering such a question, I only meant it in principle. I'm also not sure how stating my opinion, as was requested by the O.P makes me ignorant.

A weird thing about my post is I made some vague statements about what a falsifying argument would look like, but didn't actually attempt to make any. I admit that "your statement is wrong but I'm not going to tell you why" is a bit of a BS approach. This is a matter of limited time. I might get a couple of hours tonight, otherwise I won't have any time until at least next week.

No I don't agree that its impossible to prove that the universe didn't began 15 minutes ago, and I don't agree that what most people have in mind when they say 'deistic God' can't be falsified. (Some claims about God can be validated also.) Your statements remind me of an argument I had with a guy a while back who claimed that there was no provable difference between the earth spinning and the universe revolving around the earth. That's true from a strictly geometric standpoint. But if you consider momentum, we know with certainty that its the earth that is spinning. If the earth were stationary and the sun, planets, and stars were rotating about the earth, then a satellite in a polar orbit would trace a nice circular path over the ground. But as it is, the satellite makes a crazy, spiraling path over the ground, because the earth is spinning in an absolute sense. My point is his 'unfalsifiable' claim depended on insisting that 'its impossible to know something about the issue outside of geometry', and it wasn't true. You appear to be similarly circumscribing what can be known about reality, and declaring something to be '100% unfalsifiable' based on what is contained within that sandbox. So I'm criticizing that whole mentality, which I regard as both arrogant and limiting. (Not that I'm free of arrogance - definitely the pot calling the kettle black here.) The best you can truthfully say is that you do not know how to falsify any of these statements, and you do not understand why they might be falsified in principle, if they are.

Yes I still didn't refute your statements, I just set up an easier strawman and knocked it down to try to illustrate what I see the weakness of all such statements to be. But my argument here will take many pages, and I'm out of time, I have to work. I'll intend to get back to this later. Apologies for the rudeness of my approach.

[Update: It turns out I won't have time to post tonight, so it will be next week at the earliest.]

I was up until almost 3am, and my short term memory and language goes first when I'm tired, but I'll take a crack at this 'unfalsifiable' topic now....

Before -1 comes -2, and before -2 comes -3, and so on. Suppose that someone were to declare "there exists a negative integer beyond which there are no further negative integers". For any example integer we give, they can always claim that there is a negative integer somewhere beyond it that is the last one. So is the statement unfalsifiable? I think that we can know that the statement is false, not because it is possible for us to contradict the statement with anecdotal evidence, but because we understand what integers are, and they are not the kind of thing that ends. There is a correct inductive proof embedded in our understanding, even though we may not parse it out and express it as a sequence of logical statements.

Originally Posted by PresentMoment

It is also impossible for anyone to prove that the universe didn't begin 15 seconds ago, and that we simply sprang into existence with memories intact.

I think this is the same kind of problem as the one I gave with integers, its just less obvious. Within the scope of "the universe" as described by the Standard Model, all potential pasts are equally real to the extent that they lead to the present. But none of those innumerable pasts just stop 15 seconds ago, they all follow from potential states that might have been real 16 seconds ago. Within that scope the universe is like the integers, it doesn't stop. But outside of that scope, the thought of "15 seconds ago" has no meaning, since that kind of time is inside the model, not outside of it. In other words, the statement "it is impossible for anyone to prove that the universe didn't begin 15 seconds ago" implies that there's a standpoint from which the universe exists after time t-15 and not before it. But that is not our standpoint inside the universe, since we exist with our "memories intact", and a standpoint outside of the universe doesn't share that standard of time. Furthermore, if there is any kind of difference between having lived 16 seconds ago and merely having memories of having lived 16 seconds ago, such as would make that statement meaningful, we can look to where that difference is to find out if the statement is true or not. If we are strictly animals, then the statement is not unfalsifiable, it is false because 16 seconds ago exists for us, since our memories are intact, and no other perspective is real. If we are not strictly animals, or are potentially in contact with something that is not strictly an animal, such as would make the distinction meaningful, then we can falsify it by attaining additional information. We might have trouble convincing someone else who has less information or less understanding, but that doesn't change whether the statement is potentially unfalsifiable. For myself, I'm pretty sure I'd know it if the world began 15 seconds ago, I'd be aware of the discontinuity between my sensate memory and my deeper being. But if you don't believe this, the statement is still false on purely logical grounds.

Incidentally, maybe the negative integer example isn't as clear as I hope it is. I had an extended argument on slashdot a couple of years ago with a guy who thought that the values of transcendental numbers might depend on physics, and he thought it was presumptuous for me to claim to understand otherwise when he's not aware of a 'consensus'. (Although the circumference of a circle isn't two pi in every metric space, the value of pi is completely independent of that.)

Originally Posted by PresentMoment

A deistic god is also 100% unfalsifiable, while we can potentially prove how everything in the universe can be explained via the laws of physics, it's impossible to prove a negative, i.e that an invisible god doesn't exist.

It is not impossible to prove a negative, just more difficult. We can inductively disprove the claim that there exists a largest (furthest from zero) negative integer for instance.

For myself, the 'deistic' idea of God, as you are using the term, is disproven based on my experience. There is definitely some kind of ongoing creative interaction between nature and a conscious spirit of some sort. If enough people have this kind of experience, and it is shared and repeated collectively, then there will be a 'scientific' consensus that the converse is disproven. But suppose this is not the case, that there is no real god or 'spirit' of any kind. If you completely understand how the universe works, and this understanding includes no potential means of interaction with an external agent, in any timeframe, and no path of development to or from such a means, then it is proven that no such agent has interacted with or created the world. We don't have that understanding. However, as we do gain some understanding, we can generally rule out the ideas that people might have of what such an interaction would be like, which is almost the same thing, as I mentioned last week.

Incidentally, the common dictionary definition of the word "deist", which you seem to be using, seems to me to come from the non-Deist writing of history , and is at best a simplification of Deist criticism of Christianity.

"The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation."

It would be kind of like going to Rush Limbaugh for a definition of what a "liberal" is. Here are words of Thomas Paine for contrast:

"The opinions I have advanced ... are the effect of the most clear and long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament are impositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of God, and of salvation, by that strange means, are all fabulous inventions, dishonorable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty; that the only true religion is Deism, by which I then meant, and mean now, the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral character, or the practice of what are called moral virtues – and that it was upon this only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested all my hopes of happiness hereafter."

Although this bears some resemblance to the dictionary definition of Deism, there's nothing here that exalts reason at the exclusion of love or intuition, for instance. And if God 'abandoned' the universe, then I don't think that Paine's hope for happiness hereafter makes much sense. Not that his thoughts necessarily make sense entirely. But I think they probably make more sense than is generally assumed by people who haven't sympathetically tried to understand his perspective.

Moving on....

Originally Posted by PresentMoment

1. Consciousness is a product of the laws of physics and there is nothing intrinsically special or unknowable about it, that would therefore allow it to be simulated by advanced computers.

2. That if humanity survives long enough our computers will become so advanced that we'll be able to run virtual worlds complete with billions of conscious creatures on them, and that our descendants will create simulations of the worlds that their ancestors (us) lived in.

Originally Posted by PresentMoment

Not exactly sure what anyone could possibly know about either the limits of computer modeling or the physics of consciousness that would be required to falsify that thought experiment [of our reality being a simulation].

I think its not a matter of knowing limits of computer so much as thinking clearly about what modeling is. Suppose I bounce a ball. Then suppose I use a computer to model a ball bouncing. In my model maybe I consider gravity, and the way the ball compresses on impact and springs back into shape, and maybe air resistance. Maybe I neglect electrostatic interactions, and consider something like the color of the ball to be completely irrelevant. Although I neglected all those things, I can still imitate some aspects the behavior of the ball by running my very different system which uses transistors and capacitors configured in a way that can be described by discrete algebra. And maybe if I do consider the ball's color, and include a display, and use sophisticated ray tracing techniques, I can even make a movie of it that appears indistinguishable from an outside view of a real ball. But what distinguishes it from the real ball is what I left out. If I make it faithful in all those ways, then it is no longer a dynamic system of transistors and capacitors and diodes, it is actually a ball. The ball is its own computer. Within the scope of the known physics of how it works, there is no hidden other computer that it depends on. If you have a simple relationship, for example, y = dy/dx, with all that implies, this has some behavior y = exp(x) + k that is wholly defined within itself, not added by some other external witness or 'simulator'. Physically, a ball is like that. In the sense that these 'virtual worlds' are complete, worlds were created, not simulations of worlds. And to a remarkably large extent the physical world as we know it is complete like that, without an external 'computer'. Here again we have proven a negative, because within a certain scope there isn't anything left over for a hypothetical computer to do.

And yet, at the same time, there is something left outside, the world as we know it is in fact incomplete. Aside from the difficulties we have reconciling models that work well on very different scales, much is left out. Some people claim that what is left out is entirely random in principle, or that its randomness or lack of it is unknowable in principle. Again I view that claim to be both arrogant and ignorant. Its ignorant because it claims knowledge where knowledge is currently lacking, and thus precludes gaining such knowledge.

For myself, it seems indisputable that an awful lot of what some people regard as 'random' is not in fact random. But again, I can't convince everyone else of this, and I would actually prefer that people not believe anything based on what I say. My hope is that they'd just leave the possibility a little bit more open.

I know that when I use the word 'ignorant' this sounds like a condemnation of the other person, and I apologize for that, but I don't mean it that way. I am also ignorant. I'm just trying to describe how I perceive the thought, based on the Latin root of the word.

So beyond the details that we regard as 'physical', I do think that much of the bouncing ball is a part of some other computer. There is apparently something like karma, some kind of connection with thought, and some kind of connection with something that we try to understand when we think about parallel worlds. And there is some flexibility for the physical world, for the ball, to behave in ways that we don't at all expect, for reasons that are outside of the physical ball, as we understand it. Likewise for the appearance of a man walking, as viewed externally, or how that man experiences himself. Whether someone else believes the experiences that inform my views are real or delusional doesn't matter to my essential point though. To whatever extent the nature of a physical object is included within what it is, it is its own simulator. The dichotomy suggested in the 'thought experiment' breaks down and goes away because to some extent the world can be known to be not a simulation, and to some extent it can be known to be part of a simulation of sorts, much of which is beyond us. Obviously none of us understand this more than just a little. My point is merely that its possible to understand it enough that the thought becomes falsifiable, albeit with some degree of difficulty.

If your point has been that these things are really difficult to falsify with any degree of confidence, and you have been using the word 'unfalsifiable' as a shorthand for that, then maybe we have been largely in agreement already.

By the way, I would guess that a machine can probably be made to be conscious. I've implied that I believe in something like fate, that there is some kind of non-local, non-causal interaction between things which is not understood. Given that, I think that to whatever extent you have the machinery of a 'brain', with memory, and interconnections, and some means of being manipulated by Luck, its already intelligent. Maybe it can't be intelligent in the same sense that a human is, because of physical capabilities it lacks due to the way it was built. But if some kind of providence or fate is real, which it very much seems to be to me, based on my life experiences, then everything is a part of something that is intelligent because of the non-locality of the action of that mind. Add capability, and it becomes a more significant part of that mind, and gains an identity inherent to its own memory and dynamics and insulation from other objects. The 'ghost in the machine' is always there already, wherever the machine is.

^^ Would it make a difference if we rephrased PresentMoment's "15 minutes ago" statement this way:


It is also impossible for anyone to prove that the universe wasn't created 15 seconds ago, and that we simply were sprung into existence with a story of history built into everything, including the apparent age of the universe, the laws of physics, even an impression of evolution, a sense of the eternal, and sure, even a sense of "continuity between my sensate memory and my deeper being."


Though it might not completely line up with PresentMoment's point, I think this edit more clearly represents the potential for "everything" being completely different that we think it is, but that difference is impossible to prove. By extension, that also matters on this "Life is But a Dream" thread, because, if an omnipotent God did create everything 15 minutes ago, and nothing in truth is as real as we have been near-perfectly* created to believe, then the universe is more dream-like than it is real (and Sivason wins ), at least in terms of how we would have been programmed to understand reality. Also, as there was no "16 minutes ago," period, under this formula, both in the created universe and, I suppose, in reality itself (since "nothing," or something else altogether, preceded the 15-minutes) , imagining that 16th minute would not only be illogical but impossible.

Of course this statement, regardless of edit, is rendered moot because, well, for all intents and purposes the universe is billions of years old because absolutely everything in our perception of reality says it is, and will likely continue to do so for a very long time. Still, it is an interesting statement, and, though I really don't believe it is true (how could I?), the edit might make it relevant to what PresentMoment was positing ... assuming, of course, I understood what he meant in the first place.


* I say near-perfectly because, were that creation perfect, we would probably not be having this conversation.