How do we know, inductively or deductively, that other minds exist?

[STT]

The problem with your computer scenario is that a computer only produces intelligently ordered information by analogy. Without a real mind to interpret it, the information it produces is meaningless and not intelligent at all…

Do you believe on omniscience, there is always a best answer for any questions? If yes, then the scenario is valid. You can think of a Demon who fakes everything if you are not happy with my first scenario.

 

[IWantGod]

if you are not happy with my first scenario.

The first example doesn’t explain the existence of intelligently ordered information, since a computer is only analogous to an intellect and is not actually producing intelligence…

 

[STT]

The first example doesn’t explain the existence of intelligently ordered information, since a computer is only analogous to an intellect and is not actually producing intelligence…

There is no need for producing new things when the computer knows everything. The knowledge also exist eternally in the computer.

What do you think of the Demon?

 

[IWantGod]

computer knows everything.

A computer does not know anything. It produces information analogously through symbols and programming. It’s order has been given to it artificially.

So to begin with a computer and nothing else to explain intelligently ordered information makes no sense because the information is only meaningful because we give meaning to it, like the words i am typing in this post.

A computer is not intelligent in the true sense of the word.

 

[AlNg]

Do you believe on omniscience, there is always a best answer for any questions?

We seek the best answer and we would like to believe that there is a best answer, but where is the proof that there always is a best answer to every question?

 

[STT]

A computer does not know anything. It produces information analogously through symbols and programming. It’s order has been given to it artificially.

So to begin with a computer and nothing else to explain intelligently ordered information makes no sense because the information is only meaningful because we give meaning to it, like the words i am typing in this post.

A computer is not intelligent in the true sense of the word.

There is no need for intelligence when the data is available. You just need to know what is the right answer to a question. I can program that if you give me a list of questions and answers.

 

[IWantGod]

What do you think of the Demon?

If by the word demon you mean an evil God, i don’t think that’s possible. And i don’t think a true God would allow a being the power to create that kind of a simulation.

 

[IWantGod]

data is available.

The data is either intelligently ordered information or it is something analogous to it. Computers produce something analogous to intelligently ordered information, and since only i mind can interpret it, it wouldn’t make sense if a mind did not produce it.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

Entertainment. Or, if they really were robots, perhaps conflict would give the impression that they have a mind to disagree with each-other, if the purpose is to create an illusion of other minds.

Then there would have to be more than one “mind”—one to think up the entertainment, and one to suffer

 

[IWantGod]

Then there would have to be more than one “mind”—one to think up the entertainment, and one to suffer

Yes. We receive consistent and intelligently ordered information that we did not create, thus there has to be at least more than one mind.

 

[STT]

We seek the best answer and we would like to believe that there is a best answer, but where is the proof that there always is a best answer to every question?

It is matter of believing that reality is consistent: by consistent I mean that there is only one valid answer to any question. There are three imaginable scenarios for any type of question: 1) Question does not have an answer, 2) Question has only one answer and 3) Question has two or more answers. (3) is absurd. I cannot argue against (1) but that doesn’t harm my thought experiment.

 

[STT]

If by the word demon you mean an evil God, i don’t think that’s possible.

What is your argument against evil God?

 

[IWantGod]

What is your argument against evil God?

The reason i would reject this is because

1. i am more or less a Thomist in how i interpret the idea of evil.
2. Evil is a lack of good and is not itself a being. There cannot be a lack of good however unless good is real thing.
3. God by definition is the ultimate reality by which all other beings come to exist. God does not lack anything, and since he is source of all good it cannot be said that God lacks good or is an evil God. It’s impossible.

The only way around that is to say that good does not meaningfully exist, and thus evil is meaningless. But that is not my position.

 

[goout]

IWantGod:

A computer does not know anything. It produces information analogously through symbols and programming. It’s order has been given to it artificially.

So to begin with a computer and nothing else to explain intelligently ordered information makes no sense because the information is only meaningful because we give meaning to it, like the words i am typing in this post.

A computer is not intelligent in the true sense of the word.

There is no need for intelligence when the data is available. You just need to know what is the right answer to a question. I can program that if you give me a list of questions and answers.

Ok, so you are intelligent, correct?
And you make the thing work, and feed it data, right?
So there is self evidently a need for outside intelligence to make a computer work.

 

[goout]

STT:

Do you believe on omniscience, there is always a best answer for any questions?

We seek the best answer and we would like to believe that there is a best answer, but where is the proof that there always is a best answer to every question?

The fact that human beings incessantly search for truth (or “best answers”) can be proof that best answers in fact exist.
The fact that we discover better or best answers continually is proof that best answers are available.

I mean, here we are, discussing the truth of a thing to obtain a best answer…
(I think sometimes we like to outsmart ourselves with thought games)

 

[STT]

The reason i would reject this is because

1. i am more or less a Thomist in how i interpret the idea of evil.
2. Evil is a lack of good and is not itself a being. There cannot be a lack of good however unless good is real thing.
3. God by definition is the ultimate reality by which all other beings come to exist. God does not lack anything, and since he is source of all good it cannot be said that God lacks good or is an evil God. It’s impossible.

The only way around that is to say that good does not meaningfully exist, and thus evil is meaningless. But that is not my position.

His definition is skewed but I can accept it for sake of argument. The reality is however that you can call the lack of good as you experience it as evil too. That is just naming. The fact is that you experience evil and the person who commits evil exists. Satan, as a evil character for example, is not non-existence.

 

[AlNg]

The fact that human beings incessantly search for truth (or “best answers”) can be proof that best answers in fact exist.

To seek a best answer is not the same as proving that a best answer always exists.l

 

[STT]

Ok, so you are intelligent, correct?
And you make the thing work, and feed it data, right?
So there is self evidently a need for outside intelligence to make a computer work.

The data and computer exist eternally. The only difference between this computer and God is that God is conscious but for what is needed to perform this simulation you just need an unconscious computer.

 

[IWantGod]

The fact is that you experience evil and the person who commits evil exists.

You can say evil exists, but you cannot say that evil exists as an actual thing. Much like blindness in the eye is not the presence of an actual being that is blindness but rather it is the lack of sight, so to is evil a lack of good. You can say that blindness exists but you cannot say that blindness is a being.

When we say God is good we mean that good is an actual being that we call God. We are created by good, and thus we participate in the good we call existence. To do evil is to act contrary to the nature of God.

 

[AlNg]

1. Question has two or more answers. (3) is absurd.

I don’t see that.
Is capital punishment right or wrong?
There are two answers.
1.Yes it was right to burn heretics at the stake.
2.No, capital punishment is wrong today because of the advances in rehabilitation psychology.

Is the parallel postulate true or false.

1. the parallel postulate is taken to be true in euclidean geometry.
2. The parallel postulate is taken to be false in hyperbolic geometry.

Is the photon a particle or a wave.

1. The photon is a particle as seen by photoelectric effect.
2. the photon is a wave as seen by the double slit experiment.