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I was thinking about this a bit recently. Now, as a disclaimer, I am not particularly well-versed in philosophy or anything, so chances are I'm either categorically mistaken or echoing a well-known idea.

My thought was this: something that is fundamentally unknowable is also fundamentally irrelevant. Particularly, something only matters if it has some effect. This leads to two cases: it either has an effect, and is therefore measurable, or it does not have an effect and therefore does not matter.

Now, this only applies to problems that are fundamentally undecidable--if it's just practical limitations (say technological shortcomings) then they could have an effect that we just can't reasonably trace.

But the idea of living in a perfect simulation that behaves just like the universe? From our perspective, that is not different from the just living in the universe at all. Now, if we could measure a difference, it could be important, but lets take the premise that we can't: now thinking about the universe as is or as a simulation of the universe as is is equivalent. So in either case the simpler model--no simulation--is, in essence, correct.

The same applies to a religious straw man--the god who does not affect the world at all. If the god just makes the world behave exactly the way it behaves, it may as well be taken out of the picture, mathematically cancelled (in a sense).

Anyhow, just a thought.

Sounds similar to Pierce's thoughts on pragmat{i|ici}sm:

Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, you conceive the objects of your conception to have. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object

Other than Pierce, there are other thinkers who were pragmatists of one variety or the other that had a big influence on american thinking like Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Dewey, Reinhold Niebuhr and William James.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmaticism#Pragmatic_maxim

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism#A_list_of_pragmatist...

This is a fundamental property of the scientific method: that which is untestable(what you call unknowable)is inadmissible in reasoning. This is also the materialist view you are expressing (and my own view as well).

Well stated.

You might have some fun reading the wikipedia page on Solipsism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism)

I think we'd need to distinguish "scientifically irrelevant" from "humanly irrelevant".

Scientifically, discovering that a god created the universe and let it be (the disinterested watchmaker) has no bearing on any future experiments.

Psychologically/sociologically, discovering that some god exists would change humanity forever. Even if the god couldn't be interacted with, the level of religious fervor would rise to unimaginable heights.

Discovering we are simulations living in a matrix [every neutrino has a serial number on it!] might drive people to drastically different behavior (suicide, risk taking, etc.) even there may not be a measurable difference in the simulated and virtual reality.

Basically,

human society with irrelevant knowledge of universe != human society sans knowledge

I think your making a few logic errors there. There would have to be some effect to prove either of those theories and that would be scientifically relevant. Just for example the first may be say seeing into the heavens which would raise questions about what laws of physics governs theres.

In other words "knowledge of the universe" == "knowledge" and there is no irrelevant knowledge as the universe is everything.

> Scientifically, discovering that a god created the universe and let it be (the disinterested watchmaker) has no bearing on any future experiments.

This is wrong, because a deity would have profound implications for the laws that govern reality, which is what science is always concerned with.

But if we could discover that we live in the matrix or at the whim of some deity, it would mean that that fact had some effect on the world. Even a tiny non-zero effect could be amplified, like you explained, to have gigantic repercussions.

However, I was only really thinking of fundamentally unknowable things. That is, my argument is basically (in mathy notation) `∀x: ¬disoverable(x) → ¬matters(x)`. That is, if you can know x, I've said nothing about it. All I'm saying is that if you cannot discover something to be true, it cannot have any effect on you.

The contrapositive is also very important: `∀x: matters(x) → disoverable(x)`. That is, if something could have an effect (like your examples) then it has to be discoverable.

Since your main premise is that disoverable(x) is true--e.g. we can somehow find this out--my statement does not apply (or, rather, thanks to the way implication works, it's true regardless of what effect x does or does not have).

Now, if we fundamentally can't prove whether we're living in a simulation or not, somebody could still convince the human population that we are and cause the same effects you're mentioning. However, the beautiful thing here is that this could happen regardless of whether we actually are in a simulation or not (since the premise is that we can't tell), so the truth of the fact doesn't actually matter.

Yes, many feel this way. After thinking about it, I have found it a bit of circular reasoning, though. When you use a phrase like "fundamentally unkowable" you are using the definition of the thing you wish to explore, simply stated another way. You begin with saying "I can only reasonably take action on things that I know about in a scientific sense." then you point out that when dealing with things like simulations, they exist outside the world of empirical data, ie, scientific knowledge. You ask the question something like "But if I am unable to determine something empirically, what sort of useful action could I take?" and finally end up with "I can only take action with things I know about in a scientific sense." Full circle.

The problem is that the premise is demonstrably not true. We take action all the time based on things that have nothing to do with science at all. You watch a movie about dogs and decide to buy a dog. I tell you a story about a starving kid in Africa and you decide to send him some money. Science enters not into the picture one bit. Humans are not robots.

Here's a thought experiment. Let's say you are living six thousand years ago and about to go die in some epic battle. I am able to visit you from the future, but only you, and only appearing as somebody of your time. I tell you something like "Yep, you're all probably going to die today, but I'm from the future and I want you to know that your death has major meaning and changes the future for mankind in ways that are tremendously good. Thank you."

So you go out into battle motivated and kill a few more of the enemy. Perhaps before the battle you stand up on a rock and tell everybody you know that people from the future will one day remember their names in glory and that what they do here today is a tremendous victory for mankind. You have received information and are acting on it that is completely outside your ability to verify. It's completely outside the ability of your entire culture to make sense of or verify. Yet it has a major, positive impact. The people listening to you, based on science, should not accept what you say. Yet this is not the way it plays out.

Let's run through the scenario again, only this time I lie to you. In actuality your death means nothing. Perhaps I'm not even from the future. Perhaps I came from across the valley. The thing is, it makes no difference at all. The fact that it had an emotional and very real physical impact on the world means that it is something worthy of our consideration as humans -- not as scientists, but as humans.

You might feel like I am going down the road of "religion may not be true, but it has emotional impact on people, therefore it is good." but I am not. What I'm saying is that there is a class of information exchange and reasoning that has nothing to do with science yet is useful and irreplaceable in our lives. How you choose to go about dealing with that class of information and reasoning is your own business, but for me at least I've found the chain of reasoning that sounds like "things I cannot scientifically prove are not worthy of my time" to be unworthy of pursuit. It seems woefully incomplete when compared to what really happens in the world. And perhaps a bit naive. Or at least blinkered.

Just my thoughts. Thanks for sharing yours! :)

EDIT: Just to clarify, when I say "It is not logical to waste energy either believing or disbelieving in them." in the GP, I mean not worthy of my emotional energy. To me, it's perfectly normal to act in as rational a manner as possible, and to enjoy myth, being human, superstition, awe of the unknown, and creative speculation when I need to. I do not spend all of my time in either system, and it's not worth a big emotional investment to try to debate things between two such fundamentally different paradigms. I do not understand why people keep trying to do so.

> Science is provisional. In my opinion we should always approach it with humility. What I am seeing more and more is people who somehow feel elevated by science to be better than their peers.

You seem to be making an odd distinction here. I find the idea that humans are easily fooled and one shouldn't believe things until you have evidence, rigorously checked by other people and with techniques based on hundreds of years of experience in how human beings fool themselves and get things wrong, to be very humble.

I don't see more and more people feeling elevated by science and becoming condescending or superior. I do see people get that way when the idea of evidence is casually dismissed because of some gut feeling. That condescending response isn't helpful and doesn't do the scientific or intellectual community any good but it's because of the incredible arrogance behind the cavalier dismissal of all that experience in searching for what's true.

> Science is provisional

That's quite the statement. Scientific findings are provisional. At this point, it's really hard to argue that science itself is. The idea that one is most likely to be right if they don't believe things without evidence and the enormous philosophical machine humanity has built that turns hard work into facts isn't provisional. It's the only thing we've ever discovered or built that works.

As to the simulated universe: What if the universe where the beings who simulate our universe is also simulated in another 3rd universe, and that one in a 4th universe and so on up until you get to 7. Then it stops.

That's just as likely as 2 nested universes or that the universe is the dream of giant inter-dimensional turtle or that your own mind is the only thing that exists and the rest of the universe is a hallucination.

All these things are possible, and impossible to be disproved, but even if they are true, science is still the only working method for figuring out what the rules are to the simulation/dream/hallucination. So go ahead and believe we are in the matrix, I will still have the same simulated contempt for other simulated people who decide that thousands of years of work by human beings attempting to learn about the matrix is worth the same as what they "feel" should be true. That's incredible arrogance.

The question of whether or not we inhabit a simulated universe only matters insofar as we would be able to determine the fact or not. Any speculation beyond that is unscientific.

Incidentally, the mathematical construction I believe you are referring to is the Boltzmann Brain.

The boltzmann brain arises from a statistical fluctuation. I think he is talking about the simulation hypothesis and in particular arguments put forward by the philosopher Nick Bostrom.

He mentioned the likelihood of existing in a simulated universe in the context of probabilities - the Boltzmann Brain is the construct I know of that directly addresses this.

The Boltzmann brain is about a conscious entity arising due to chance, or the known universe for that matter; cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain The word simulation does not occur on that page, it is about our universe being just a fluke.

Bostrom's argument is also a statistical kind of argument. I can't know what Daniel was thinking - I merely hooked on the words most likely living in a simulated universe. and all of our sensory inputs are being manipulated in ways that mimic the universe we think we live in.

The cause of a Boltzmann Brain does not act directly, it's merely a random fluctuation that allows an arrangement of particles to form a mind that thinks it's existing. There is no simulation or manipulation or attempt to fool. It just is something so unlikely, you have to wait an unmentionable amount of time to have it occur. Assuming there is nothing in physics that ends up barring such.

The Boltzmann brain argument is one that is hard to swallow and very unlikely by definition. Bostrom's simulation argument puts forward that we are most likely in a simulation and makes a compelling case.

There are thoughts that are relegated to philosophy. An important field certainly, but one distinctly separate from modern science, which is concerned primarily with the observable. Is it possible that we are living within a simulated universe? Certainly. However, unless we begin to find evidence that suggests so, in the realm of science, it doesn't matter one bit.

As an aside, this happens to be my view on religion as well. I suppose though with the possibility of eternal damnation and all, it perhaps matter a bit more than the whole Matrix thing.

You can perform empirical experiments on the topics philosophy is concerned with in the same way you can perform experiments in the realm of 'pure' mathematics. I don't think there's any such distinction as philosophy/science.

But philosophy can only offer logical proof, non-observable/measureable.

I would suggest logic is a tool for measuring and observing in the universe in the platonic forms just as the large hadron colider is in the universe of the physical.

I think logic is more a proxy or a heuristic. It helps you make conjectures about the world even if you don't necessarily have direct evidence.

But if your observations contradict your logic? Something must be wrong. It could easily be the observations, but the more you have, the less likely it is. I think, at the very limit, deduction would have to give way to induction.

This happened to Kant. In Critique of Pure Reason, he presents Euclidean geometry as a set of incontestable, fundamental truths that human beings understand intuitively, and uses that as a launching point to argue for the existence of an ideal universe outside of our own perceptions and experience. Problem is, Euclid's parallel postulate is contradicted by observable evidence, as per general relativity. Other fundamental logical ideas about causality seem to be contradicted by experiments involving quantum mechanics. For science to work, though, we do have to take one thing on faith: That the universe can be understood through observation. Everything else, even logic, is fair game.

Why is induction not a logical process while deduction is? They are both logical processes of reasoning. You can do induction in philosophy also.

I'm sorry, my particular choice of words is sloppy. Ricardobeat said that "philosophy can only offer logical proof, non-observable/measureable". In this context, I assumed that "logic" really meant deduction or, at most, observations much less rigorous than science.

Now, assuming that by "logic" I really mean reasoning without observations, I hope my point becomes more clear. My impression is that philosophers do not really go in for scientific studies and experiments; if an idea proved logically by a philosopher contradicted sufficiently good experimental evidence, for some value of "sufficiently good", I would side with the evidence.

Hopefully my thinking is clearer now. I'm working on improving my writing, so hopefully I'll be less needlessly ambiguous in the future :).

Neil deGrasse Tyson does a good job of explaining the difference between modern science and philosophy at the 1:02:00 mark in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zXYTwuwsyI

Tyson appears to distinguish between the two on the basis of topics under investigation, but not by any difference between the scientific method and the methods used by philosophers. I am not sure I agree with this distinction from an epistemological point of view.

> I suppose though with the possibility of eternal damnation and all

Pascal's Wager? Perhaps the way to avoid that eternal damnation is to not worship $DEITY.

That is not Pascal's Wager!

Pascal's Wager is about behaving as if Deity existed even though you're not sure in order to avoid damnation.

Moreover, why do you make Deity a global variable? What if everyone has his or her own's afterlife? If it's global it should probably be a constant anyway, it's one of those things you don't want to mess with…

What you're saying only makes sense as long on no one acts on their unsupportable beliefs in a hidden world. As soon as they start behaving in a manner inconsistent with the mean collective human perception of reality, they become a danger to themselves and others.

You could say the same about anyone who deviates from the norms of whatever society he's in. One could say that Richard Stallman, for example, "behaves in a manner inconsistent with the mean collective human perception of reality". But is he a danger to himself and others just because he does so?

Inconsistent with the mean collective human perception of reality, or inconsistent with an accurate perception of reality? If there's anything that ought to be clear from the article I would think that it's that these two are not the same thing?

When we wade into the idea of whether or not we're living in a simulated universe, we're wading into Rumsfeldan territory: those things we do not know we do not know. Personally, I find God a lot more elegant than the Matrix, but neither are within our epistemic horizons.

I think anyone who says otherwise is vastly overestimating the capacity of human knowledge. And besides, wouldn't the universe containing a simulated universe be even more complicated?

The simulation hypothesis doesn't change anything with regards to science, though. Experience shows that the simulation has some kind of consistency that allows us to make predictions. Science is a systematic way to explore how the simulation works. Call it "the real world" or "the simulation", it doesn't really change anything.

Why do people still think that not believing in something must be an active position to take? Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive, and in fact, most people who identify as one are also the other.

I found the essence of what you are saying and what's there in the book 'Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance' to be somewhat similar.

Also, if somebody can share that simulation piece by the Mathematician, it will be really very good.

I don't care if a person thinks we're living in the Matrix, or that God created the world in 6 days 5000 years ago, or that the world exists on a giant tortoise shell. People can believe whatever bullshit they want. I do have a problem when that shit starts informing policy decisions. It's the difference between "I believe God created the world for man to live in" and "I believe God created the world for man to live in, so I'll pollute that shit as much as I damn well please". The problem is that people vote for politicians who support policies steeped in bad science, or no science at all, because they don't know science or, even worse, they are willfully ignorant of it.

No matter how convincing the argument that we're living in a simulated universe is, or how much a person truly believes in God, until it has a measurable effect on the real world, such a belief has no place in the arena of public policy.

> Those things I do not know about, I do not know about. It is not logical to waste energy either believing or disbelieving in them.

That's the atheist position: An atheist (like me) simply accepts evidence and comes to conclusions based on that. My disbelief in deities is the same as my disbelief that my bank account currently contains one million dollars US: The best I can do based on my current knowledge.

Agnosticism is a belief that we can't know some things, which I do not have.

> but there's nothing wrong with Joe SixPack believing it.

Fine, unless his belief in it means he kills his family and himself so they can escape the Matrix. Beliefs have consequences.

> This means that science education is not simply a matter of learning new theories. Rather, it also requires that students unlearn their instincts

This I fully agree with.