Franko's "Universe as a Computer Program" Debunked

[Franko]

Earthborn:
I think there is some confusement here that 'predetermined' somehow means the same as 'preprogrammed'. This is not true. It is possible to make a computer program that does things that are not programmed into it but that are still the inevitable result of it running.

the inevitable result of it running = Fate = Determination

of course A-Theists want to pretend that it is magic. A-Theists want to pretend that the present is NOT based on the past, and that the future will NOT be based on the present. A-Theist want to pretend that they have “free will”, and there will be no consequences for their actions.

 

[Franko]

Jilted-A-Theist:
Franko, I didn't know you had it in you! You discovered the Theory of Everything and didn't tell us. So, how is the Quantum World related to the Macroscopic World, in what you call TLOP? These worlds are not connected in the least sense, but you seem to be able to connect them and claim that we are all insane for not seeing it. The laws of physics are not all connected, as Relativity, Newtonian physics, and Quantum physics will show you.

Really? Well … I must say this is fascinating coming from a person who believes that whenever you flip a coin it ALWAYS lands TAILS up because there is no evidence that it will land HEADS up. I find it amazing that a person who can profess a belief in “free will” despite the stunning lack of evidence for “free will” can profess to comprehend Relativity, or Newtonian mechanics, or Quantum mechanics and expect to be taken seriously.

Give us some hard evidence, and we might believe you. (No, that voice inside your head does not count)

Morons like you are all the evidence I need to demonstrate the non-existence of your “free willy” deity.

And BTW … how do you know that I’m not just a voice inside Your head … ?

 

[evildave]

Blah-blah-blah.

Franko turns to insults and recriminations again.

Standard script.

You know, the only reason he probably believes in this lack of free will is that he's in such a grotesquely deep rut of ingrained behavior that he'll never crawl out of it, no matter how he tries.

Back to the "coin toss", can the "TLOP controls your car with goddesses" gibberish be far behind?

 

[Franko]

evildavey (A-Theist):

Blah-blah-blah.

Franko turns to insults and recriminations again.

Standard script.

You know, the only reason he probably believes in this lack of free will is that he's in such a grotesquely deep rut of ingrained behavior that he'll never crawl out of it, no matter how he tries.

Back to the "coin toss", can the "TLOP controls your car with goddesses" gibberish be far behind?

I don't see how this is evidence for "free will" or any of your other dogmatic religious beliefs davey. Just as I prophesized ... it looks like more of your standard A-Theist Trolling.

 

[evildave]

Ooh! Looky!

Franko's using the word "Trolling" again.

Isn't it cute?

 

[justsaygnosis]

Perhaps this may help you persuade Franko to try and be more reasonable dealing with your program.

 

[Earthborn]

Well, if you want the same demonstration, but easier to find and more largely studied, there's always "life", and the same sorts of web searches that turn up ants will turn that up. "Life" can be randomly seeded, and it will generally turn out stable colonies after a little while.

Yes, but then I can't show you my cool Langton Ant program!

As a closed system, your results are generally guaranteed, but neither simulation is purely deterministic if you add or ramove a single cell (or ant, or block) at a randomly chosen time and a randomly chosen location while the simulation is running.

Indeed.

And "outcome" is subjective. What is the "outcome"? When the colony reaches apparent stability? The state the colony is in after 100 cycles? 1000 simulation cycles? 10000 cycles? A week of cycles?

All true: outcome is a bit subjective. But I think we can call the following instances outcomes:
- It all comes to a grinding halt (End of Times)
- It starts repeating itself (Big Crunch)
- It goes on and on without actually changing much of importance, not making any real structures anymore (heat death)

The Earth its self is not a closed system, nor is any subset of population on this Earth.

Well, duh! But the universe just might be.

If we had provable determinism in the real world, the same joker would win the lottery every week.

If physisists discover a Theory of Everything that does not include any outside influences and what-ever-is-the-smallest-particle behaves entirely deterministically (no room for chance events) then we would have provable determinism

what makes you think you can determine the state of the whole universe a billion years from now?

I don't think I ever claimed it would be possible. In fact quite the opposite: even in the situation the Langton Ants are in, there is only one way to know what the program will do after a certain time: running it. So the only way to predict what the universe will do is to build a huge computer capable of holding the entire universe in memory, putting in the initial states of it and programming the TLOP and running it. Problem is that it will be much slower than the universe itself so it will never predict anything.

And what of applicability of this computational predictability to the real world?

Obviously you can have determinism without computational predictability unless you have a faster model of what computer God is running the universe on.

Your measurements are buggered, your assumptions are imprecise, and elements you never considered intervene.

True: discussing whether determinism is true or not is pretty irrelevant when you consider that we won't know absolutely for sure anyway. Determinism is simply the absence of any true randomness, so proving it is like proving a negative: you would need to prove that there ISN'T anything random to be found anywhere.

 

[Franko]

Earthborn:
True: discussing whether determinism is true or not is pretty irrelevant when you consider that we won't know absolutely for sure anyway. Determinism is simply the absence of any true randomness, so proving it is like proving a negative: you would need to prove that there ISN'T anything random to be found anywhere.

randomness is like the A-Theist “god”. It’s the source of their “magic”, it’s the source of their “free willy” powers.

But I lack-o-belief in their deity. I see no evidence for the existence of “True randomness” , and no A-Theist can even explain what it would look like. It’s just a nonsense word. Besides, Thomas Bayes dispelled this “magic” virtual ages ago.

 

[Checkmite]

I seriously don't get his guy anymore...he's mystifying me more than ever.

I say I prefer a universe where there are cause/effect consequences instead of predetermined events, and Franko says "that's because you don't want there to be any consequences". I say that, rather than being made to commit certain predetermined actions like a puppet, I want to be responsible for my own actions, and Franko responds by saying "that's because you don't want to be responsible for your actions". Where is this guy coming from? After announcing that I want to buy a blue shirt, I half expect Franko to say something like "that's because you don't want to wear a blue shirt". Whatever you say, tiger.

 

[evildave]

He's just fulfilling his sworn duty as everybody's favorite strawman.

You want a religious fanatic who *likes* abuse, there's Franko.

You want someone to play 'argument clinic' all hours of the day and night, there's Franko.

You want someone to justify your personal loathing for mindless, drooling idiots who spout off about phenomenology? There's Franko.

Just look at the priceless contributions he makes here. I mean, you couldn't even get telephone solicitors to take that job; they have too much self esteem.

 

[Aardvark_DK]

Just look at the priceless contributions he makes here. I mean, you couldn't even get telephone solicitors to take that job; they have too much self esteem.

Speaking as a person who's not a telephone solicitor I would have to agree. If, on the other hand, I were a telephone solicitor then I would shoot myself.

Oh dear! Now Franko is going to say that all A-Theists want to shoot themselves.

Incidentally, if you look up "Straw Man fallacy" in the latest Webster's dictionary it says "see Franko". Not bad for such a young upstart.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Well, I must say, if I was manager in some company in Frank's district, I would do whatever was in my powers to get him employed as a salesman.














With my worst competitor.

Hans

 

[Underemployed]

Forgive a poor foolish newbie for pooring oil on a fire,

THESIS:
At or before the Big Bang/First day of Creation/The Dreamtime/[insert preferred story here], everything that was ever going to happen in the Universe was set down. Every movement of every electron was set off on its inevitable course according to the immutable physical laws of existence. Whatever we call 'freedom' in terms of our own decision-making is an illusion arising naturally through these laws.

ANTITHESIS:
As above, except we have special dispensation from physical laws due to Consciousness/Souls/Random Fluctuations in Quantum Foam/Someone from another Universe pressing the '1' key [delete as applicable]. We get to choose our fate.

SYNTHESIS:
Ummm...ah....I'll have to get back to you on this one...sometime next year maybe....

I'll have to side with Franko on the issue of free will I'm afraid - it's all a scam (but then I was fated to say that).

However, Joshua's elegant examples were designed to debunk the notion that even without free will, there are still consequences for your actions. I'm not sure if this isn't more of a linguistic issue than one of logic.

If by 'consequences' Franko is saying that there is an absolute right and wrong, it is bad to murder, rape and steal etc regardless of the existence of humans, then Joshua's Universe v1.0.1 completely disproves this. If our consciousness is the product of a vastly complicated program or mechanism, we can't be held to be 'bad' or 'good'. Being put in the bad books of our Creator simply for following our programming is idiotic.

But if he just means that 'consequences' means effect will follow cause, then it doesn't really matter whether or not we are complex automatons or free-willed entities - of course actions have consequences!

Or have I got the wrong end of the stick completely?

Please set me right,

Underemployed

 

[Checkmite]

Underemployed:

Kudos for hitting the nail squarely on the head, and welcome to the Forum!

 

[Franko]

If by 'consequences' Franko is saying that there is an absolute right and wrong, it is bad to murder, rape and steal etc regardless of the existence of humans, then Joshua's Universe v1.0.1 completely disproves this. If our consciousness is the product of a vastly complicated program or mechanism, we can't be held to be 'bad' or 'good'. Being put in the bad books of our Creator simply for following our programming is idiotic.

But if he just means that 'consequences' means effect will follow cause, then it doesn't really matter whether or not we are complex automatons or free-willed entities - of course actions have consequences!

Or have I got the wrong end of the stick completely?

Please set me right

If You are destined to be born to parents where your mother is an alcoholic, and your father physically abuses you, are you seriously claiming this is a “free will” decision on Your part? Are you claiming that you won’t have to deal with the consequences of being born into this family situation?

Are you claiming that somehow Joshie’s program proves such a scenario never happens in reality?

What are you claiming?

THESIS:
At or before the Big Bang/First day of Creation/The Dreamtime/[insert preferred story here], [ Franko: “Initial State” ] everything that was ever going to happen in the Universe was set down. Every movement of every electron was set off on its inevitable course according to the immutable physical laws of existence. Whatever we call 'freedom' in terms of our own decision-making is an illusion arising naturally through these laws.

Yeah … yet for some strange reason the A-Theists are disputing this is how it works ???

ANTITHESIS:
As above, except we have special dispensation from physical laws due to Consciousness/Souls/Random Fluctuations in Quantum Foam/Someone from another Universe pressing the '1' key [delete as applicable]. We get to choose our fate.

That’s what the A-Theists are claiming:

Anti-Thesis = A-Theism

Somehow via magic we are able to defy TLOP and the Initial state and act in accordance with our own “free will”. It’s an unprovable supernatural claim, and the reason it’s unprovable, is because there is absolutely no evidence for it.

 

[Checkmite]

Franko, my programs have nothing to do with the topic of whether "free will" exists or not...stop changing the subject.

 

[Franko]

Franko, my programs have nothing to do with the topic of whether "free will" exists or not...stop changing the subject.

That’s right A-Theist. Your programs are a diversion, nothing more.

If you had a point to make, you would have made it.

There’s no evidence for your magic powers A-Theist, and we both know it. I just find it amusing making you face this fact day after day.

 

[Checkmite]

No, they did have a point, which Underemployed illustrated again...but that point seems to have been lost on you, since you have a hang-up on this "free will" thing and can't have a single discussion without trying to make "free will" fit into it somewhere. If we were discussing the colors of turnips, you'd have to say something like "how does this prove free will?"

The point of this thread is determinism vs. true cause and effect.

Let me outline the argument once again.

1. In an absolutely predetermined universe, the only truly meaningful "cause" any event can have is that said event was predetermined by the Creator. Some events may appear connected, but if the universe is "predetermined", any connection between events is coincidental. The short hand is, as someone mentioned, the "death fate" argument. If it has been predetermined that you will die by gunshot, then you may drive wrecklessly, or swim in a rough ocean even though you're not a good swimmer, because you can't die in a car crash or by drowning, you can only die by gunshot.

2. In a true cause vs effect universe, a choice is made between two or more options by some entity seperate from the Creator. That entity may be another consciousness, or the D&D "player" you so often refer to. Nevertheless, the Creator may program various "possible consequences" for choosing each option, but that Creator cannot know which option will be chosen. If he/she did know, then the whole concept of "options" would be an illogical and unnecessary addition, and it would essentially be the same as the universe described in Item 1.

The whole point behind me writing the computer programs to illustrate the above two items, Franko, is so that you couldn't call these arguments "illogical", because if the computer programs were "illogical", they wouldn't work - and they do, in fact, work. The arguments are perfectly logical...unless you want to claim that computers work illogically.

Nowhere in this explanation does "free will" show up in the equation. This thread is not about "free will" - so, as I said, don't keep trying to change the subject.

 

[Franko]

Joshua Korosi: (A-Theist)

No, they [Josh’s Program] did have a point, which Underemployed [Josh’s sockpuppet] illustrated again [dogmatically intoned] ...but that point seems to have been lost on you [religious dogma = no effect], since you have a hang-up on this "free will" thing [since I require evidence to believe something] and can't have a single discussion without trying to make "free will" fit into it somewhere [this is the religion and philosophy forum after all]. If we were discussing the colors of turnips, you'd have to say something like "how does this prove free will?" [perhaps you’d like it better back over at Banter? ]

The point of this thread is determinism vs. true cause and effect.

Let me outline the argument once again.

[Snipped] A-Theist Diversion #1

[Snipped] A-Theist Diversion #2

The whole point behind me writing the computer programs to illustrate the above two items, Franko, is so that you couldn't call these arguments "illogical", because if the computer programs were "illogical", they wouldn't work - and they do, in fact, work. The arguments are perfectly logical...unless you want to claim that computers work illogically.

Nowhere in this explanation does "free will" show up in the equation. This thread is not about "free will" - so, as I said, don't keep trying to change the subject.

Joshie is basically using his “computer programs” to try and prove that if you happen to be born to an alcoholic mother and a physically abusive father who are both uneducated and unemployed that you will not have to deal with any consequences associated with this family situation.

Either that or he is somehow claiming that his computer programs prove you really DO get to select who your parents are going to be in advanced. Actually I have no idea what Joshie is trying to prove.

All he has proved to me so far is that he is a ultra fanatical religious nutcase who comes to a skeptics forum with no evidence for his beliefs and expects everyone to take his word as gospel, about how reality functions even though he has no evidence for the things he believes. Like all these A-Theists it’s more than obvious to me that Joshie is nothing more than a dire pessimist. He is absolutely convinced that a bad future ultimately awaits him.

I think he may be right …

 

[Checkmite]

Joshie is basically using his “computer programs” to try and prove that if you happen to be born to an alcoholic mother and a physically abusive father who are both uneducated and unemployed that you will not have to deal with any consequences associated with this family situation.

Either that or he is somehow claiming that his computer programs prove you really DO get to select who your parents are going to be in advanced. Actually I have no idea what Joshie is trying to prove.

The computer programs prove neither, nor are they intended to.

But isn't it interesting, Franko, that you so casually ignore demonstrably logical arguments? "Logical" Deism indeed. You refuse to even consider that which may prove you wrong. Is this not one of the signs of "religious fanaticism"?