On whether we live in a computer simulation and God’s existence

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lisaandlena said:
If something is to be conscious, then there must, by necessity, be things that it’s conscious of.
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If you mean that other things have to exist in-order for it to have self-knowledge, by what standard do you judge this to be necessarily true? You have no objective standard, you are simply making a judgement based on the contingent nature of your own experiences. But if one can infer that an intelligent cause must exist under pain of contradiction , then it must follow that a necessary intelligent cause exists and can in principle exist without causing anything else to exist and can know itself without being dependent on the existence of potentially knowable things
 
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lisaandlena said:
This is true of everything.
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An assertion. There is no reason for me to accept this absolute ontological relativism you asre pushing for.

You are arguing for a contradiction. You wish to argue that a thing can be both contingently real and necessarily real at the same time. But that is not possible in the context of beings. If a thing doesn’t necessarily exist, then it will never exist unless something causes it to. Something that does not exist cannot cause the uncaused cause to cause it to exist as that would be a contradiction. An uncaused necessary act of reality is not potentially something other than what it is, so that which is not necessary cannot be an emergent property of it’s necessarily actual nature. Thus there is no natural reason for unnecessary things to exist other than what is necessary.
 
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You seem to be aware that i have made arguments for an uncaused cause before. And there are plenty of them on this forum. If you are really interested you can go find them. And if you find something you really don’t understand or disagree with, maybe i will discuss it. But i doubt your intentions, and so i am not compelled to present any argument here.

This thread is about proving why an uncaused cause would have to be intelligent in order to cause something that is not a natural property of existence or not a necessary act of reality. I’ve done that, and we can agree to disagree.

Edit: I thought i was on another thread loool, In any case i am not presenting any argument here.
 
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lisaandlena said:
that there’s no such thing as something which isn’t a natural property of existence.
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You haven’t made an argument. You have simply asserted that the objects of your experiences rely on each-other and that this applies to everything…

If you wish to argue that no thing begins as potential and becomes actual due to a cause, then i will let somebody else debate you.

Perhaps you misunderstand what i mean by the idea of something being a natural property of existence.

A natural property of necessary existence does not begin to exist or become actual and neither is it in a process of becoming for the simple fact that it is necessarily real and does not lack any realisation in it’s nature; otherwise that which is necessarily real would at the same time not be a necessary act of reality which would be a contradiction. Clearly physical reality does not have the characteristics of a necessary act of reality. That’s all i have left to say on the matter.
 
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lisaandlena said:
After all, you can’t control what I think,
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My goal is not to control what others think, but rather my Goal is only to show you that as far as the principles of metaphysics and reason is concerned, an intelligent uncaused cause follows necessarily and is inescapable as a conclusion.

However some people do not accept the principles upon which metaphysics is grounded, and that is fine. But personally i see no other choice in the matter; either the principles upon which metaphysics is grounded are true, or otherwise there is no possibility of true knowledge and no intelligible conception of being can be had. Truth itself becomes a double standard and loses its meaning. So when you give me your point of view, in my mind you are operating outside of what reason permits, and that is why i reject your ideas.

I hope you can accept that we fundamentally disagree with each-other, and not for no arbitrary reason, but rather because i accept the underlying principles of metaphysics and you don’t.
 
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There is no evidence whatsoever that computer simulations are conscious. We might as well assert that simulations of fish in an aquarium are edible . . .
 
lisaandlena said:
I’ve given you a basic overview of how I think. I look at things such as the lawnmower man, and I try to figure out why he does what he does. And in so doing I’ve come to the conclusion that everything is connected. That there is no part of reality that’s “ unnecessary ”. Every piece must be there. So when you refer to things as being “ contingent ” I know that you and I are giving slightly different connotations to that word. To me, nothing is contingent, everything is necessary. The simple concept of " I am" , carries with it everything else.
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I have two question in here: (1) How did you reach to conclusion that everything is connected? and (2) How could you conclude that everything is necessity because everything is connected?
 
I see what do you mean? But that to me applies to human society. Let’s say that we observe two electron, one goes this way and another goes another way. How could we say that they are connected?
 
I am convinced fortnight is addictive. It gives kids social interaction via the headset. They can feel like they accomplished something that they have mastered, and where they may be awkward socially they can feel like they are comfortable. I have also read that the video game company has machines that allow it to learn what makes the players tick. It is similar to a slot machine. I hope that it would go out of style as my son is obsessed.
 
lisaandlena said:
What I’m suggesting, is that it’s the mind that creates the material world, and not the material world that creates the mind. And the mind does this by taking what it knows to be true, and extrapolating from it, what must also be true. So if the lawnmower exists, then other things must exist as well. And there must be a logical causal connection between them. There must be an explanation for why they exist.
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I agree with your observations, mind creates physical and physical cannot lead mind.
lisaandlena said:
The argument is, that that which exists necessarily ( the first cause ), doesn’t give rise to a material world, with stars, and galaxies, and planets, and people, and me…nor does it consciously create a spiritual world, and a material world, and then sort of mash them together. But rather, that which exists necessarily simply gives rise to consciousness, and consciousness, by necessity, includes everything else. It includes an explanation for what “I” am, and where “I” came from, and why there’s a lawnmower mowing the grass on the golf course.
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Mind however cannot be created. I have an argument for that.
 
Here is the argument:
  1. Causation requires knowledge
  2. Knowledge is structured
  3. Therefore any caused thing is structured
  4. Anything which is structured cannot be free
  5. Therefore one cannot cause a thing which is free, mind
 
Consciousness is an ability of mind. Mind has other abilities, decision and causation. Of course you cannot be conscious if there is no thing, so called physical. So we have two things, mind and physical.
 
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