The hypothesis was that there might be a "meta-universe" which contains "normal" universes (which pop up into existence at random, via some property of said meta-universe).
The beauty of this hypothesis is that it doesn't require an intelligence to have created our universe. If countless universes appear all the time, each with a randomly varying set of natural laws and constants (as well as energy), some of them are bound to have the proper constants for life to be possible. This without the need for them to have been specifically "fine-tuned".
The hypothesis that a supernatural (meaning "not bound to this universe") god formed somehow, and it was this god that created this universe, only adds an unneeded additional complex step to the process. It only adds more questions than it answers.
Either way, be there a god or not, it's just not possible to know what kind of "god" it might be, and arguing from ignorance is quite useless.
The fist assumption is that something, whatever it might be, creates universes at random (random is just another way of saying "in a way we don't completely understand"). If you want to claim that it's less likely for that process to be triggered by complex processes than by a simple processes, you have to add a second assumption. Namely that it's more likely for the meta-universe to be of low complexity. It's a bit like saying, "we don't know anything about it, so I guess there is not all too much to know about it". If universes arise from immensly complex processes, it would be very much justified to call them God from our perspective.
Of course it's unlikely that we will be able to grasp this complexity (if it's there) at first. If we can ever find out how universes are created, it will indeed seem to result from random processes at first. Though whether these processes can be part of something that's in itself bigger and more complex and organized, something that could very well be called God is an entirely seperate question.
I don't think you can argue from Occam's razor (which I suspect is what you are doing internally) that it's more reasonable to assume a meta-universe of low complexity. All Occam's razor states is that in essence, scientific development is always a step by step process, each step building upon the last. Because if you don't and try to take multiple steps at a time, you are more likely to be wrong. To conclude from it that everything in the world is of as low a complexity as possible, can't be logically sound. Think from the perspective of the Ancient Greeks. Would you have argued that if matter consists of small, indivisable parts, then it's very unlikely for there to be more to it? I think the widely spread idea that it's "less likely" for there to be a God than no God at all arises from this fallacy/misinterpretation. You can't talk about likeliness without statistics or sound logic to back it up, else it's just a random belief.
Warp wrote:
However, the hypothesis that random universes are randomly popping into existence all the time (possibly in positive-negative pairs to keep the balance of energy) makes less assumptions and thus is more plausible than a sentient, intelligent "god" popping up into existence at random and then creating this universe. (Of course there's still no evidence of either, but usually the hypothesis that makes less assumptions is preferable.)
If all you were saying was that it's not necessary or reasonable to just assume that there is a God, I'd agree, but you aren't. I cannot agree with your statement that it's relatively unlikely for there to be a God. I simply fail to see the logic behind that claim. The hypothesis that makes less assumptions is preferable because it leads to faster scientific progress. It's easier test- and verifyable. That's the whole reason to it. Not because it's unlikely for there to be more to it.
I realize that my argument in part relies on the fact that our definition of God is pretty flexible.
It's a nice, plausible theory. I don't see more evidence for it than for the many other possible explanations of quantum effects though. Even if it's true, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that consciousness plays an essential role in creating parallel universes, as quantum effects can be triggered by any measuring device no matter if you observe what the device is doing at that point.
When I spoke about creating universes, I was referring to "seeding" a universe, creating something that resembles a big bang.
However, the hypothesis that random universes are randomly popping into existence all the time (possibly in positive-negative pairs to keep the balance of energy) makes less assumptions and thus is more plausible than a sentient, intelligent "god" popping up into existence at random and then creating this universe. (Of course there's still no evidence of either, but usually the hypothesis that makes less assumptions is preferable.)
I wonder if you can really apply that kind of logic when it comes to hypotheses that go beyond the known universe. What if in all meta-universes (I hope this is the correct term) intelligent beings that naturally create universes all the time emerge at one point? What if the chances of a universe being created without their aid are miniscule in comparison? Since we know hardly anything about these meta-universes, is it really reasonable to assume they are damp, uninteresting and of low complexity? Is that the nil assumption? Or is the nil assumption that they are in general full of highly complex stuff, and wouldn't we call forms of higher complexity than ours that can create universes "intelligent beings" and more specifically "Gods"? Which one is more farfetched? I honestly don't think we can make any claims about this. We simply don't know how likely it is for the average universe to be created by a God. Of course the more assumptions you make about the attributes of such Gods, it gets less and less likely that exactly those exist in our meta-universe, so that doesn't give religions a green light no matter what. F.e. I don't think it's reasonable to assume that they would be interested in communicating with us.
I don't know if there's a God.
I see no reason to believe in him.
I see lots of stuff I can't explain, but that doesn't mean I should believe in him. It simply doesn't follow.
I have had some strange personal experience that I can't explain (déjà vus, something that could have been interpreted as telepatically communicating with the dead and back) but that doesn't mean I should believe in him either.
Not being able to explain something doesn't make it reasonable to believe in something that would explain it all. The only available explanation at the time that fits isn't necessarily the correct one. There is no reason to believe in it just because it seems to fit. Especially not if there are countless ones that would fit just as well.
Why believe in exactly this God and not another one? There doesn't seem to be a good reason to it, except it feeling just right.
Making 100 predictions 2000 years ago, most of them come true, for some it's up to interpretation, others are still pending, doesn't prove anything either, unfortunately. How can predictions with no specified conditions of when they need to be coming true ever be proven to be wrong? They can't, so there can only be evidence supporting the predictions. 2000 years are a long time for stuff to come true, especially if predictions have been vaguely worded.
Hearing God talk to you unfortunately doesn't make it reasonable to believe in him either. How do you know it was God? Could have been many other things. "You just know" just means you are already believing in him. But why was it reasonable to start believing in him in the first place?
I can't see any good reason to start believing in God and would be curious to hear some. What is it that makes it reasonable to do so?
sudgy, have you watched the video I've posted? I think it raises some interesting questions for creationists. It's also making fun of them, which I find kind of unfortunate though.
Pointing out a small flaw (that could easily be interpreted differently) to prove that the Bible is wrong is little different from pointing out some prophecy that has become true to prove that it's right.
I propose that if you find out that prayer helps you, then it's not the worst idea to continue doing it. It helps for whatever reason, but religion commands us to regard a very special reasoning for explaining its effects as the only valid one. Same with miracles. That's a bit of a leap that I wouldn't be willing to take. I don't believe in scientific theories as absolute truths either, but I see that science works for whatever reason (it's not difficult to imagine why it would work, but it might still be working for a totally different reason), hence I rely on it. I personally haven't found that prayer is any more useful to me than meditation, which both haven't been particularly useful to me. If they turn out to work for you though, why believe in just any random theory that explains why they work and discard all the others? Can't we be satisfied without wanting to be able to explain everything in absolute terms? Why would we trust in holy books if it's easy to see how they could just be man-made with no influence from God whatsoever? Why discard every possible explanation but one? And isn't it a bit arrogant for us to assume even for a second that we could deduce the absolute, real and factual truth from reasoning? Where is the evidence for that? Do we just assume it? If we don't, then why would we believe in any of our explanations to be factual truths? They can be working substitutes for the real thing and be self-consistent, but they might be wrong anyway, can't we be satisfied with that?
Again, believing in anything as a form of experiment, to see where it leads you, to uncover possible inconsistencies or to see whether it helps you looking at the world from a different perspective is something different. You can just loosely believe in something and not be surprised at all if it turns out to be wrong in the end. F.e. I wouldn't be surprised in the sense that my whole belief system would be shattered if I got picked up by a more dimensional being into a different universe or if I suddenly turned into a caterpillar. Strange things can happen every now and then. I would find it very interesting and extraordinary nonetheless, and then I would probably consider that I'm turning insane or that something truly special that I don't understand has happened to me as two possible explanations. Why treat miracles any different? Why assume that they prove exactly this or that? Either somebody has been a bit biased or delusional, is lying or something truly miraculous has happened, which we don't understand and could be explained in many ways. "Science can't explain it, religion can, so I'd rather go with religion." Do we really have that much of a drive to explain everything for us to do that? Accepting that we don't really understand something and that we can't explain what's really going on in absolute terms might hurt our egos a bit, but it's not the end of the world.
Here's a funny possible explanation. Religions are memes. They're part of human nature. Look at [URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIAoJsS9Ix8]this[/URL]. We copy the rituals of our ancestors, such as praying, just for the sake of it. We are able to believe in God for the same reason, because it had always been done. And it feels right. Makes us feel safe.
As I said earlier, there are no benificial mutations.
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html
I personally suspect that if evolution is real, then there could have evolved some mechanism in advanced life forms by which relatively useless (or troublesome) genes are identified and mutations in them are encouraged. Such a mechanism would speed up evolution and thus be preferred by natural selection, so we could all have it. That might just be a thought experiment, but I am curious if we will ever find any real evidence for something like that. I confess I find it difficult to believe that evolution would still rely on chance and natural selection alone, when such advanced mechanisms could have evolved. I'm simply not used to seeing nature working so inefficiently, as to not have something like that.
But even without that, I don't see why there could be no beneficial mutations. Granted, the chance for a mutation to be beneficial on its own should be pretty small, so it should take a long time for them to occur, but they are still possible.
You might also consider this: A mutation could be counter-productive on its own, but not so badly counter-productive as to prevent the life form from producing offspring. That offspring could through various smaller adaptations maybe turn it into a good thing in the end. So I personally don't see how the mutation problem disproves macroevolution at all.
Regarding macroevolution, it's just microevolution on a larger scale (over a longer period of time), coupled with geographical seperation of the population of the species (so they can eventually become sexually incompatible with each other and one long chain of microevolutions changes one part of the species' population, while another long chain of microevolutions changes the other into something different). You might be interested in watching [URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfe4IUB9NTk]this video[/URL].
Not all explanations are equal. Some explanations are more backed up by experimental evidence and research than others. The existence of alternative hypotheses does certainly not make all of them equally valid. That's just silly.
Just nitpicking on this. It's pretty logical that older hypotheses will be backed up by more evidence, as there has been more time to collect evidence and resolve possible conflicts (f.e. gravity stood in conflict with the notion that electrons could be tiny particles surrounding the nucleus at one point. Rutherford has resolved this one, if I'm not misinformed). That's also why there's so much evidence supporting the Bible. But that doesn't make anything more true. It just shows that the hypothesis is self-consistent and reflects reality under most circumstances. It means it's a good hypothesis, but you can't prove that that's how reality truly works that way, it only proves that it's a working substitute for whatever is really going on (of course any working substitute could be the real thing, but there is no way to find out). Better substitutes are found as science advances. Of course for that to be possible, falsifiability is very crucial and religion doesn't have that. Science is definitely superior in that regard. But when it comes to finding absolute truths, they both aren't particularly good instruments (there exist none. we are inherently incapable of finding the absolute truth, there exists no reason to assume otherwise). Science will maybe eventually lead to a pretty good approximation, but we'll never know if it's the real thing.
If we just reject alternate explanations because there's less evidence for them, that's no good for scientific progress at all. We need to test them empirically, preferably as well as the more common explanations have been tested. Then you can make a decision as to what's the better approximation of reality or leave both explanations in tact at the same time (wave/particle duality f.e.). Trusting in new theories to conduct thought experiments leads to progress, believing in either theory as the one and absolute truth is just random and no different from what religion does. I'm proposing we become more open-minded by not believing in anything at all that strongly. I simply don't find it reasonable. (Open-mindedness does not mean blindly believing in anything, on the contrary, that's how you become close-minded)
We are biased by experience. If I eat strawberries for 5 times in my life, and I get sick every single time, it doesn't make sense for me to strongly believe that strawberries are bad for me, but it makes sense for me to believe that it definitely seems that way to me so far. That's a crucial difference imo. Maybe something else was going on. Maybe I should take my time to think of alternate eplanations and test them. It also could have been just chance. If I pray for 5 times and it comes true all of the times, it's the same. Don't jump to hasty conclusions. Don't just believe in the first explanation that makes sense to you as the absolute truth.
We are also strongly biased by how our brain works. Cause and effect, objects, these concepts seem so natural to us, but does the universe really work that way? Isn't how it works at a microscopic scale the real deal and everything beyond that is just extrapolations? If we are honest we really don't know anything at all in absolute terms just because of that.
We will never find out, whether we live in the real world or inside a simulation embedded in a higher dimensional world. If the many-world interpretation of quantum physics is true (which I doubt), we could be a brute force simulation. Does it make sense to believe that? No. Would it make a huge difference? No, but it illustrates that we just aren't capable of knowing everything. If it's a simulation, that could mean that there are components from out of this world strongly involved in how the universe works. Even if we aren't in a simulation that might very well be the case. F.e. some quantum phenomena offer some evidence for that.
Science isn't truth, it's just our best guess. It works and has been tested, so it's a working approximation/substitute for how reality really works. Whether it's really true, there is no way of finding out. Of course that's even more so true, when it comes to religion. Because it isn't falsifiable, it stands on even more shaky grounds.
Well, gravity in the sense that large masses actively attract lower masses is a random belief. It may seem that way, similar to how it may seem that there is a God, but it might not be the correct way to explain the phenomenon. When people say they know there is a God, they can feel him, and for everybody who has actively asked him to give them a sign, they can feel that he's there as well, that's a testable phenomenon as well. If that many people can feel his presence, then it might be that he's real or it might just be a psychological phenomenon. It doesn't make sense to believe in him just because you can feel it, as it doesn't make sense to believe in gravity in the common sense because we can observe it. From wikipedia (I know): "Gravitation, or gravity, is a natural phenomenon by which physical bodies attract with a force proportional to their mass." Now do they really do that or is there something else going on that just makes it seem that they do?
If you ask God to give you a sign, he'll definitely give you one. Once you think you've received it, has he really given you one or is there something else going on?
Edit: @Warp below: If I believe in God as a psychological phenomenon, then I can't just get away with saying "I believe in God", as people would infer I believe in the more common notion of God. For me, it's similar when it comes to gravity. When saying "I believe in gravity", if your idea of gravity differs form the Newtonian one, which I believe is still the most common one, then I personally feel like that requires clarification as well.
Science has shown great evidence for certain things. It can't prove anything, but do you believe in gravity?
It's not a question of belief. The term "belief" implies some kind of blind faith based on flimsy or no evidence, based more on feelings. I prefer to use "I don't have any reason to doubt" that gravity exists.
That's just as much based on belief as believing in God because you see overwhelming evidence for his existance after observing loads of evidence for it from your own experience. Seriously, think about it. You're making the very same mistake you ascribe to religious people here. You assume it's there because it seems like a reasonable explanation to you, then you say there is no reason to doubt it. Basically, you're just assuming it's true and plan to keep doing that untill you see something that disproves it. There is reason to doubt in gravity is an elemental force. It's poorly understood, it's spooky action at a distance and it's for some reason a lot weaker than all the other elemental forces.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hByJBdQXjXUhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropic_gravity
As long as there are alternate explanations, it's not reasonable to just blindly pick one and believe in it, and that includes gravity the way we commonly understand it. Even though it's not reasonable (except for thought experiments), one may take guesses and see if they lead to contradictions, but doing that they shouldn't forget that they took a big random guess at one point, and an alternate guess maybe wouldn't have led to any contradictions either. So, regarding my personal belief system, I prefer to take as little of these guesses as possible.
That's very interesting indeed! I didn't know that. I guess it pays off immensly to study Hebrew, if you are interested in the Bible (no big surprise there). I have come across a few passages (don't remember which) that I highly suspect to be slight mistranslations, and it also annoys me that lots of the symbolism and double/hidden meanings get lost in translation. I actually think I would be a lot more interested in reading the whole Bible if I could read Hebrew, though unfortunately to learn it is very, very low on my priority list atm.
That reminds me, I have read somewhere that the word that Jesus uses when he refers to himself as the "son of God" could also be translated to something akin to "servant of God". Is that correct? Probably not.
A prominent argument is that natural constants, such as c could have changed over time, citing evidence that it has already changed since its first measurement.
What exactly do those strings do when you name folders using that syntax?
Those strings are CLSID keys. I've found a list of more of them [URL=http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/110919-clsid-key-list-windows-7-a.html]here[/URL]. An alternative way to get the same functionality without having ugly folder names is to create an empty folder, create a desktop.ini in it and edit it to the following:
Then save it, open the command prompt and type "attrib Foldername +s"
Edit: This method doesn't seem to work on my desktop though, only in ordinary folders.
WinKey + '+' will activate the zoom function
WinKey + TAB is a more fancy looking alternative to Alt + TAB
The other extreme is Alt + Other Alt, Release Other Alt + TAB
WinKey + 'R' brings up the command prompt, quite useful
WinKey + 'M'/'D' minimizes everything
WinKey + Space for a short peek on your desktop
WinKey + Home minimizes everything but the currently selected window
WinKey + Down to minimize the current window
WinKey + 'X' might be useful too
You can name a folders "anything.anyofthefollowingstrings" for some handy shortcuts, e.g. "GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"
{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} The Infamous Godmode
{00C6D95F-329C-409a-81D7-C46C66EA7F33} Default Location
{0142e4d0-fb7a-11dc-ba4a-000ffe7ab428} Biometric Devices
{025A5937-A6BE-4686-A844-36FE4BEC8B6D} Power Settings
{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9} Notification Area Icons
{1206F5F1-0569-412C-8FEC-3204630DFB70} Credential Manager
{15eae92e-f17a-4431-9f28-805e482dafd4} Install From Network
{17cd9488-1228-4b2f-88ce-4298e93e0966} Default Programs
{1D2680C9-0E2A-469d-B787-065558BC7D43} Assemblies
{1FA9085F-25A2-489B-85D4-86326EEDCD87} WLANs
{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D} Printers
{241D7C96-F8BF-4F85-B01F-E2B043341A4B} RemoteApp and Desktop
{4026492F-2F69-46B8-B9BF-5654FC07E423} Firewall and Security
{62D8ED13-C9D0-4CE8-A914-47DD628FB1B0} Region and Language
{78F3955E-3B90-4184-BD14-5397C15F1EFC} Performance
Use "mklink" in the command prompt (Win+R,cmd) for creating hard links and the like.
"powercfg -energy -output report.html" gets you a power efficiency diagnostics report.
Shift+Right Click on empty space in explorer will let you open cmd with the path already set to there.
Ctrl+Shift+Esc will quick launch the task manager.
Warp, you seem to underestimate God a lot. They can do anything. They could have looked at things as they were then, decided they weren't yet quite done, so they created the big bang in the past, thereby elegantly creating the universe in the then. The way I read Genesis, God have always been independent of time as we know it, but during creation they focused on a specific point in space (the Earth) and time (~6000 years ago) and tweaked the surrounding 4 dimensions (or more) till they saw that it was good. There's no need for them to forge evidence, that's truly ridiculous and only the Satan would do that.
The only thing I don't take quite literally is the word "day". To me, it rather seems to be corresponding to a day in God's reference frame and not in ours. The seventh day hasn't ended, they saw that it was good, so this is still their seventh day of resting. Else, we wouldn't be here. They saw everything, all the times, all the places, decided it had been good and they could rest, and now we are here. Them resting doesn't mean you can't reach and talk to them though or that they don't interfere at all anymore, they aren't exactly sleeping, just resting. Not that I believe in any of this, but this is my reading.
In my layman's imagination every seemingly fixed distance between two masses constantly increases, so the shape would be cloudlike, depending on how masses were distributed during the big bang. The edge should be made up from the smallest possible particles in very small density. This is not meant to be an answer to Warp's question. Just felt like throwing it out there, so I could maybe learn why that idea must be fundamentally wrong, in case it is.
Edit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo ;p
Maximizing annual profits means making the most money you can by the end of the year. Not over the course of 5 years. People and stakeholders pay great attention to the annual balance and generally don't take into account investments that will probably pay off in the future (such as always adhering to higher quality standards than necessary, building a strong and loyal fan base, etc) as much, as these are not easily visible on paper. So as soon as they know the average consumer will be happy with their product, it's not reasonable to invest further time and money into it, just to make people like you and me happy too. Won't pay off. They'll start working on something else instead.
If the annual balance sheet doesn't look good, but they could theoretically more than make up for it over the course 5 years, it won't help them a lot. Stakeholders would already have lost trust in them and there's a good chance that everything would go to hell for them. Of course, the next decade matters too, but nowhere near as much as the annual balance does. Only way to prevail in our current form of capitalism is to maximize annual profits and hardly care about the more distant future at all. It's a pretty dangerous system.
My point is, producing slightly subpar games (which look really promising though, so you just have to try them!! extra dungeons ;))) can be a pretty smart thing to do from a business point of view, even though we might not like it. ^^
Edit:
Lex (2 posts below) wrote:
Please don't die, Pixel!
[URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfCBHq4L-Cg]each life each end[/URL]
inb4 this is just some devo - girl u want ripoff
also inb4 i had no idea the lyrics were english
I'm very annoyed by the concept of milking franchises as well. I get annoyed if companies act reasonably and stop improving a game when they know they've reached the point where they'll get the most money for the least amount of work. I know they are only being reasonable, but it saddens me. Historically, there have been some companies who were willing to take that extra step to make their games not just good enough, but totally awesome! Nowadays it happens very rarely, mostly only when new folks try to prove that they can produce some more amazing stuff than the competition; to get some initial attention.
However, I don't really blame the companies for it. I see capitalism as the culprit and we'll be stuck with that one for quite a while still, until we can come up with a better system. If you want to maximize annual profits, you can't add the extra finnishing touches to leave everybody in amazement and build a fan base that'll buy even more games in the future. You have to milk the existing fan base here and now instead. They're only being reasonable, I don't blame them at all.
I like to avoid buying those kind of games as well though, I also don't want to support that trend. Even though my vote is pretty insignificant...
Maybe a better criterion for comparing the runs would be to use score/time for each level? It would hopefully filter out most of the boring moments in those runs, except for games like Sonic 3* (and I'm sure there are many others). Just an idea. Maybe another guideline would have to be to avoid too much repetition?
*(Launch Base Zone)
Time for some criticism? Why not!
You call these tool-assisted education videos and certainly they are educating, but as they are now they still seem to be more like tool-assisted coding demonstration videos to me. Over the raw source code, which you provide in the video description, the educational contents exclusive to the videos are voice dubs/annotations and coding sequence. What I am missing are verbalizations of your thought processes behind coding stuff the way you did and explanations of why and how the "little tricks" you use work. It's not really necessary and maybe it'd be even annoying to do to you, but I can imagine it'd make those videos more appealing as educational videos. Certainly, you would never be able to cram a whole NES emulator into 15 minutes that way though, I know. Your videos are art, they are beautiful and I love them as they are, and surely explaining every little thing would take something away from that. This criticism is just due to the name you chose to label those videos yourself. Maybe keep the art/demonstration videos seperate from additional videos that attempt to explain things more in detail? Maybe just leave it like this, I'd be happy with that too. ;)
The opcode decoding matrix looks like magic to me. I don't really get it at all.
Not that I get much of the rest of what's going on in this video. ;p
"Suddenly the music changes"