ozy

"God [..] it would be trivial for Him to raise Himself from the dead"

It would. But maybe he is crying for humanity as we slowly start yet another religion, costing us yet another two centuries to recover from. Why would a god even need a sacrifice? A very human notion I think.

"although this is generally covered in the Old Testament as well"

Jesus said pretty much the same thing, he says the golden rule is what the law of moses comes down to. But you don't have to look far to see that that is a bit too generous. I mean, stoning a woman if she is not a virgin at her wedding night? Stoning homosexuals? Allowing slaves? There is some horrible bronze age thinking codified in the old testament. Not to speak of the genocide and promise of more genocide in the future when Israel will rule and drink the blood of its enemies.

"The Holy Spirit is a person"

I would like to meet that person. Or watch him/her give a presentation on youtube. But I suppose you mean he is not flesh and blood, so not an actual person. Around 1900 there were many claiming to have an (heavier than air) airplane. You proof that by inviting the media and flying one. Not by handwaving or reasoning.

"Jesus died for our sins, and He gives us power to live new lives in freedom."

How? I mean that literally. How does he deliver you from sin? You mean here on earth? Or only in heaven? If it has an impact here on earth, then isn't that just an idea that delivers you from sin? The idea that you can be forgiven, and that others will forgive you? Just because we sin sometimes, doesn't make us sinners. If that were true, than doing good sometimes would make us all saints. It is a mix of both at the same time. And we can be forgiven, by others and by ourselves. Start over, learn, try to do better.

"Without meaning and significance life is a cruel joke!"

I understand the sentiment. But it is not about the destination, it is about the journey, it is about who you meet, what you learn, what you teach. We are connected to so many people, and in our connectedness, we are more then the sum of our individuality.

Some people are born in poverty, suffer for lack of food and health, and maybe abusive people around them. Their lives are short and brutal, like so many lives in the past. Will there be some cosmic justice? It is a nice idea but it is unlikely. The only faint flicker of hope is that they have ceased to exist, that their suffering is now over.

We should take their lives to heart, make sure it happens the least amount of times possible. By living the way Jesus told us, not because something supernatural exists, not because then you go to heaven, but because that ends cruel joke of life, and turns it into something worth living.

As to Pascals wager, he was a mathematician, and the chance is good he is spending eternity in hell. Around 2 against 1. Just not the christian hell, but the hell of any of the other religions.

Or maybe he is now in heaven, but it is hell to him, because by believing he signed his life away in the service of god and his army. And god is indeed this cruel dictator, the North Korea of the heavenly realms. An ending that fits the old testament much better ... a cruel joke indeed.

And that brings us full circle. How can you know the difference between bronze age thinking, dictatorial propaganda, or a loving god?

Acts was written in greek, 50 years after those events, and that is being generous. This is the common understanding even by christian scholars, right?

Even if the bible is the most coherent book ever, makes sense at ever line and grand plot. And says to be an eye witness account of supernatural things. Still that would not count as proof of the supernatural. If it made testable predictions, or has information truly unknowable to those who wrote it, that would warrant further investigation.

So no, I do not talk about proof. However if "roman soldiers at the grave got scared" is the "evidence", then this is a nice contrast. If you cherry pick, put everything in the best possible light, and ignore other important things and contexts, then maybe it can come out looking this way.

Biased people writing a biased account of things long ago is a very likely explanation. As an exercise, write down why there were roman soldiers guarding the grave in the first place? Write it down twice, once in the best possible light from the christian perspective, and once in the best possible light from the other perspective.

The bible does make testable predictions, I wrote a few at the start of this thread, but may I suggest we put Mark 16:17-18 to the test. Are you volunteering? ("And these signs will accompany those who believe:[..] and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all [..]")

If you think I misused evidence or proof, or switched them, please show me where and why and what difference it makes. But It would be easier if you engage with the content of the argument. I apply something I call maximum grace, that is, interpret the arguments in the best possible way for the other.

I have shown you why I think there is basically no reason to move the needle from 3: people writing down myths. You seem to disagree, but have not commented on Stephens defense. Or for instance what makes you think god is loving and good, seeing how he admits to genocide and cruel and unusual (eternal) punishment. I am really interested in your thoughts here. Why do you think the needle moves up?

In the other comment you said "you probably don't believe me, but it's because He lives I can face tomorrow". And I know many people fall back to nihilism if they contemplate the thought god does not exist. I think though in day to day it does not work that way, people cope just fine. But for me, when I think about the christian god, I just replace it with the best of humanity, and the best society has to offer, that we can all try to strife for.

"That's... pretty good evidence." No it is not. It is extremely weak evidence. Written by people who clearly had alternative motives.

"This was written down for us by a guy who was in the room when it happened." It is extremely unlikely the author was in the room that day.

Again, why did Stephen not even attempt to convince the Sanhedrin? "flashing neon sign" ... apparently it was not back in those days, let alone today. Imagine if early christians had such good evidence, how much faster and more broadly would it have spread if the Sanhedrin would adopt Jesus his views. Muhammad would have been devout christian.

"[..] That is, your presupposition is determining how you view the evidence."

That is true. But it is called the null hypothesis. Innocent until proven guilty. It is the number one "invention" that launched humanity into modernity. But that should not be misunderstood as not giving alternative hypothesis an honest look.

But the claim of something supernatural is quite a strong one, it should come with an equally strong signal before it becomes credible. As things stand today, the conclusion is, god is unlikely and unprovable. Moreover, belief in invisible unknowable things does not do the world any favors.

For the bible or christianity to exist, we do not need a supernatural explanation, it falls well within normal human behaviour.

> Here's a summary of the evidence I'm talking about.

And that is our disagreement, my bar for evidence is a lot higher. Literally the doc itself says: "the resurrection of Jesus Christ is either one of the most wicked [..] hoaxes [..] or it is the most remarkable fact of history." If we had proof, it could be only one thing, not two things.

And we can rule out one of the two, because we have no evidence of anything supernatural and no indication that people can come back from the dead. (If you can proof either, you can collect a million dollars at the JREF.)

So we would need to go with option number one. And how unlikely is that option? I mean people have died for Marxism. Clearly Jesus his teachings were a good message that people thought was important, even at high personal cost. And willing to bend the truth for and exaggerate quite a bit. All very normal human behaviour.

Back to Stephen. He did not even try to convince the Sanhedrin. He could have made is story legitimate with proof: remember when Jesus died and the temple veil was torn in half? Remember the sudden darkness? Remember the dead walking in the city? Remember that despite the Roman guards, the grave was empty? See how we can heal the sick and so could Jesus. But he doesn't, because it wouldn't convince the Sanhedrin, because it did not happen.

When it comes to the supernatural, we have no grounding, we cannot evaluate the difference between people writing down myths, vs a god spreading misleading propaganda, vs a loving god that you wish to belief in.

If belief gives you comfort and perspective in life, good, go for it. But in Saudi Arabia, people kill each other for not wearing headscarfs. And their proof for their beliefs is as good as yours. Namely ungrounded and still at 3: all explained by iron age people writing down their myths and beliefs.

And even if there is a supernatural, the biblical descriptions of it are as accurate as when it describes the earth resting on pillars.

Thanks you for the discussion. If you have any questions or think I was inaccurate, please let me know. If you have proof, please show me by winning the JREF price. Barring proof, I would suggest you read the bible but cut out anything supernatural. It is still a nice message.

Plus just ceasing to exist when you die after having tried to live well is not so bad. Probably preferable to an eternity with a god who, by his own admission, has committed genocide and has no respect for human rights or humane treatment of prisoners.

How does Stephen proof that Jesus rose from the dead? And why does that evidence convince (or not) the Sanhedrin? Remember this is not long after it all happened and these are the same men who asked Pilatus for Jesus his execution.

People are free to belief what they want. But people behave according to their beliefs. And sometimes when people think they know the truth, they feel justified in limiting other people their freedoms. More so if they think the creator of the universe agrees, and others are sinners.

So I look for that "liberal" spark in believers. You clearly have it, and that number is growing, but many christians do not. Many others who belief in unknowable and invisible things are even worse. (Non religious people can also lack it.)

As for what I believe:

Was Jesus a real person existed, likely. Did he rise from the dead, no. Was his message misunderstood, yes. Part of Jesus his message was, it is not about what you do, but why you do it. It is about your heart. An eternity in heaven or hell are exactly the wrong motivation.

I think Jesus meant humanity can go much further if we all follow the golden rule, and are less biased towards foreigners and outcasts. More grace more forgiveness, less judgement. When two or more people cooperate in that way, they can do more. That is the holy spirit, not some supernatural force. And that will bring the "kingdom of heaven" here on earth.

It might not feel like it, but we are getting closer to that. How many lepers did god heal? 50 total? Science has healed 5 million.

Only after our thinkers had the "liberal" spark, and were less bound by the dogma of religion, did we finally start to make strides into removing human suffering.

People forget, but in the time of Jesus, over 50% of children died before they were 15. In the rich areas of this world, it is less then 0.2%, in our poorest countries, it is less then 10%.

To me it is about abstractions. FP cannot abstract over mutable state. In a way that is a good thing, less mutable state is easier to control as you grow a program. But inability to abstract is not a good thing. (Just like how async infects your callers, so does mutability in FP.)

But also note that in this paper, the main trouble pointed out with imperative languages has long been solved. Using objects/classes and generics or runtime typed (dynamic) languages. All these make it easy to extend and compose.

Going back to my line,

> archaeological & prophetic evidences

Nothing that somehow moves away from 3: humans writing down their myths and beliefs. The bible talks about an exodus of 1 million jews from Egypt, zero evidence. The bible prophesied the destruction of Damascus, still here. The drying up of the Nile, didn't happen. The biblical reason for why Nineveh was destroyed is different from the archaeological reason.

The one prophecy (Ezechiel) might be argued is Israel becoming a nation again in 1948. But it requires quite a bit of handwaving. The chance of something happening to Israel that fits some prophecy is high, by the amount and vagueness of those.

> with over 6 billion copies

So by your measure, the quran also has answers, it is number 2 book by far.

> explain away the resurrection of Jesus Christ

Humans writing down myths, a very simple explanation. I would suggest you read how one of the first martyr explains it to the Sanhedrin (Acts 7). But it is not about explanations. It is about knowledge. Many things might be true, but we will never be able to know those things.

No body no crime. But also the positive version, no receipt no reimbursement. Nobody can disproof the resurrection. But nobody can proof it either. Therefor we cannot know.

I am not so sure if your example is of the same level. My questions were more at how can you "anchor" the bible.

Broadly speaking, I think people can be somewhere on the following line:

1. The bible is the perfect word of the creator

2. The bible is inspired by a god

3. The bible is bronze/iron age people writing down their myths and beliefs.

But let me know how you think, I would guess you are somewhere between 1 or 2, but perhaps you would want to word it differently?

When the bible talks about a soul, heaven, hell, judgement, angels, demons. How can we know that that is reliable? The only parts of the bible we can test for reliability is when it talks about things in our reality. But where it does, it shows a very naive view of reality. How then can we conclude its view of the spiritual world is any better?

If we could have knowledge of such things, maybe.

But what if it turns out this is a simulation by some extremist party, who want to see how to stack people against each other using religion? In that case we would owe it to the people there in the real world that we don't ...

Plus you can rest assured that that the sim master himself lives in a simulated universe, somebody else will hold his big button. Buttons all the way down.

From the pit of unknowable things, people can dredge up any coherent story. They might believe it themselves or convince others. Fine when it offers some kind of solace or perspective on life. Not fine when it costs people their freedom or their live.

That is a challenge ;) I am not sure what you think the bible is though. But here are a few things.

The bible predicts the earth is set on pillars (Job). But it is not.

The bible says man was made in gods image, etc. So it is really surprising we can find fossil records from monkeys to humans, and find lots of Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Jesus never heals any mentally handicapped people, as a matter of fact, they seem to be left out of the bible. But he does drive out demons. Is that god misdiagnosing people?

The bible shows us two places where the religion changes: 2 Kings when Jeshua finds an "old scroll" and Jesus bringing a new message. Actually when you look deeper there are at least 5 different god views in the bible, I challenge you to find them.

Imagine the god is like Kim Jong il (North Korea), could it be the bible is propaganda? It is more a bend then truth? How would you know the difference? (Go watch some German, or North Korean propaganda, then you know how that feels.) I can safely say, you are a better person than god, since you have certainly killed fewer innocent people. So all that love, that perfectness and goodness, propaganda ... I bet god never has to take a shit either.

It think you took predicting a bit too far and singular. It is not just predicting that is conscious, and it is more simulating or considering or even pattern matching.

This is what I think: Consciousness is continuously self observing past actions, past plans, actual outcomes, planning new actions and predicting future outcomes. That feels like something to the thing doing such a process, because practically all of those steps involve simulating/predicting/checking what something means to itself. Our brains do this because it is a self correcting mechanism.

> You can see color of red and don't predict anything at all, while still being consciouss.

I don't think so, when you see that color, you cannot help observing its context, what it means, check if something needs to be done, etc. All that is what I meant with predicting. Maybe the color is of no significance, but the only way you figured that out was by "predicting".

---

Even if consciousness is 100% material (as I suggest), we can not prove it exists in others. We don't need consciousness as another dimension for it to be improvable.

As a matter of fact, if it is another dimension, then our brains are "interacting" with that dimension. So the hypothesis predicts that certain configuration of matter can have some kind of interaction with that dimension. That should not be hard to proof.

But since we have no such proof, and more mundane hypotheses, we must conclude that the other dimension hypothesis is extremely unlikely.

Another line of thinking on the dimension hypothesis is this: we have brains as small as from C. Elegance with 300 neurons, to ants, 0.25 million neurons, to mice, 70 million neurons, to humans, 86 billion neurons. At which neuron count does consciousness come in? What if we simulate the full neurons of any of these, will it behave the same? Will it be conscious the same?

Beings that find themselves in a universe that was created a minute ago but looks old, would be correct when they conclude it looks old. Anything else is unknowable and can not be used to further any theories.

Especially when such ideas are grounded in bronze age thinking.

"There is no difference." Indeed, if god exists or not, there is no difference ...

From our universe, and simulations we can create, and simulations in there, etc. it holds.

It is interesting to think that an outside universe could be so different it does not hold going up to base reality. But that implies that logic, math, and computability, are different there. That is not very likely, though ultimately unknowable to us.

Literally "a mere shadow of what others think of as reality" implies that that universe has a lot more compute. Therefor with much higher probability you would have evolved directly in their universe, on some tiny pinhead, or in a corner of their universe, not in a simulation they create, no matter how many they create.

> but I can't see any way that NPCs in a virtual reality/simulated universe can be conscious

If in the future we have even faster computers, and ability to scan all the molecules in your brain (at good enough resolution, but not beyond Heisenberg). Then we simulate the chemistry going on. Do we now have consciousness in a computer?

It is hard to see how billions of neurons together create consciousness. Just like how it hard to see how computer can be conscious. But claiming "impossible" is quite a strong claim. How do you support it?

If our universe is a simulation, it is one of atoms or quantum fields/gravity or something that gives rise to those. Anything else we see is build from those things. Therefor consciousness seems like an effect grounded in this universe.

If we are living in a simulation, it is a simulation of atoms, or quantum fields, or perhaps something deeper behind that. That got started with enormous energy in the form of hot dense quark gluon plasma. From there the rest follows.

It is not a simulation of humans.

We have zero indication there are rules at a higher level than the quantum or gravity. Like rules on what you ought to do in the bedroom.

Also earth nor humans were created by intelligence, just like how mineral crystals or fjords are not created by intelligence.

Hence we must conclude that bronze/iron age religions and maybe living in a simulator are not the same thing.

For the rest of this question of a creator, we cannot know, anybody claiming to know anything beyond "perhaps" or "maybe" is a fool, or will win a nobel price. By lack of the latter the rest of us will assume the first.

If compute power is the only thing that matters, we do not live in a simulation. The best computer we can hope to build in the future will only have a minute fraction of the compute power of reality. Simulating reality on that computer will either be a tiny reality, or a much lower fidelity reality.

If you find yourself alive, likely you live where there is the most compute power, therefor, base reality.

Especially since we have zero indicators that any part of our reality is "fake".

Think about a character in the Sims, it would never be able to understand the mechanism by which its arm moves, if it understood its world completely. Because those movements are part of the simulator, not part of the simulated world. Arm movement is not an emergent effect.

Our reality however is based on atoms. Or quantum fields if you want to go deeper. And maybe some kind of cellular automata behind that.

If evolution had a purpose, we can detect an upwards line in complexity, and we must conclude it is unlikely we humans are the end station. Probably we will create self replicating intelligent machines that can colonize space. Emotional meat bags are not very suitable ...

Maybe this thread is not yet dead, seeing a reply a few hours ago. I did intent to reply, but life happened I suppose.

I am curious about your thoughts. Here is why I think it does address the so called hard problem:

The goals of these plans are evaluated by simulating the world and the body and future mental states. So the brain can measure, or "feel", the response, and thus judge the plans and compare them.

This constant self reflection and self prediction is what feels like something to the thing doing it. Why would it not?

---

But in general I have some objection to the "hard problem".

We cannot proof something to be conscious. Probably we never can. The best we can do is find good proxies indicators of consciousness and good lower bounds for what can potentially be conscious, and what cannot.

But the opposite is also true, we cannot proof there is such a thing as the hard problem of consciousness. For all we know every program we have every written has had some kind of experience as it was running.

I agree it is reasonable to assume this is not the case. But I don't think you can proof this is not the case. Therefor the hard problem might, or might not, actually, be a problem.

An observer observing itself, would that not feel like something to the observer?

What you describe is when the observer is disconnected from longer term memory.

Consciousness is the way your brain self corrects. That is my personal theory.

On a few time scales you brain makes plans. It uses beliefs and a model of the world to make those plans. It stores those plans and the actions it has taken. And then checks if actions had their intended effects, and if plans reached their intended goals. Updating its model of the world, its beliefs, and what useful actions are.

This is a constant process reflecting upon the current situation, and upon the recent past of actions and plans. It is like an observer observing itself. This is the root of consciousness, I think.

Probably abstract thinking and language, enough intelligence, and a theory of mind, leads to self awareness.

If this is correct, we can formulate some necessary parts for a system to be conscious:

* recognition of the environment * a model of the environment * ability to reason about actions, their consequences, and how to achieve goals * memory of past plans and goals and outcomes * a process of executing actions, making new plans, and learning from the outcomes

I completely agree, but am slightly more optimistic.

We have many areas in this life where this applies: god/politics/health/climate change/vaccinations/gmo and more. And almost everybody is searching.

Instead of rebutting people, ask them where knowledge comes from, explain them the difference between belief/correctness/reasons. And the difference between opinions based on feelings or based on reasons, and how to spot the differences, e.g. do you know tradeoffs. Ask them how they feel about people with different opinions on the subject.

But people do think. And it might surprise you who will ask you for more information. Worst case you lost a few minutes. Even if they don't change their mind, they do become slightly more "liberal".

Anecdotal, but I have been surprised quite a bit lately ;) the whole trump thing has stirred things up, even here in Europe.

We don't have to make people rationalists or skeptics. But just 10% in that direction would be nice. Perhaps most surprising is how little, or how badly, people have thought about knowledge vs belief.

I completely agree. And this is the interesting part of the discussion. (Also your other comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12895406 .)

My first part on trying to answer that is, you acknowledge the human/emotional side of it, and discuss it.

"What you don't get is large masses of people changing their minds." (from your other comment)

No but what does? Propaganda? Silence? Unfortunately both easily used by the "other" side. I think only honesty works and let people figure it out. If ultimately that means we will not proceed on GMO, a shame in my opinion, but so be it.

"I don't think that's actually available"

You might be right, ...

However, I do think there is a second thing we can use. Show people the difference between knowledge and belief. Between opinions based on feelings and opinions based on knowledge. A strong proxy for belief/feelings not knowing or discussing tradeoffs.

"sound just like those people who work for Monsanto - which has happened to me today on HN." (also other comment)

lol, don't we ;) . Luckily the "other" side usually grossly exaggerate their points.

But you are right, ultimately people still have their fears and just grab other fig leaves.

Not addressing them also pushes people away, because articles like this will be ignored at best, can be called propaganda at worst.

Moreover somewhat thinking/reasonable people, who are cautiously not against GMO, and then hear such arguments from the anti side, will wonder why the pro side ignores them and maybe switch.

"engage with people's concerns surrounding GMOs, the result is only more concerns"

So propaganda it is then?

Life is tradeoffs. Please show us the tradeoffs, weigh in the counters, those are a signs of healthy opinions grounded in reason.

Anything else shows me it is an opinion based on feelings, perhaps I can gain some knowledge from it, but overall it is best to ignore it.

You are correct, as a matter of fact mon810 is a counter example. Also it is unfortunate I left the word banned in there, I meant to say regulated.

You are absolutely right.

Also, I cannot find anything but sensationalist articles on this pesticide thing I referenced. It allows mon810 which falls under this definition. It just regulates all GMOs and disallows them by default.

Actually, the eu is just by default not allowing GMOs, but as of today allows 51 GMO products. Including 1 that falls squarely into (1) (mon810).

I think you missed the point of my comment. These are not my concerns. In my opinion we should encourage GMOs while making sure we do so responsibly.

My problem is that this article is polarizing the discussion.

By leaving out the core of anti GMO concerns it lets the pro GMO people feel justified in their position. But the other side will not see their concerns addressed, and will discard the article as stupid, and missing the point, feeling equally justified in their position.

To (1) actually the eu merely regulates GMOs, and by default they are not allowed. Today 51 GMO products are allowed, including 1 that has a herbicide (mon810). I would hope that the strictness of checking and data would depend on a case by case basis.

(2) for me is not a concern. In the wild GMOs will not do better than non GMOs, probably even worse, because the traits added by GMO do cost the plant. It is not like we can create zombie maize. But of course, we do need to apply caution. Think about Australia where foreign plants do become pests pushing existing plants out of the ecosystem.

I did not want to use the word banned, but I see I left it there. You are right, regulated is the word. Also I did not mean all GMOs are "banned" but those that specifically produce some kind of pesticide are more strictly regulated. (Though I cannot find it on google, except from news articles, so it might not actually be the case. Actually mon810, a maize with a herbicide is doing exactly this.)

It was however not the point. The point is there are tradeoffs to GMOs. Very valid ones with arguments to both sides. Not presenting those is polarizing the discussion, not adding to it.

If it is a non issue, why is the EU banning it? I think you should rethink that one. Notice there are similar rules about the minimum time between using pesticide and harvest (afaik).

"insane patent laws one allows companies to take control" Nobody is mandating their use. Farmers would not use them unless it makes commercial sense.

But the point is, of all the issues raised in the article, these they kept quiet on. And it is these that anti-GMO people are the most concerned over. No matter how you feel about GMO, it is best to categorize this article as "propaganda", even if every word of it is true. This article polarizes the debate, not add to it. (And note I am pro GMO.)

Well some plants are just poisonous and not fit for consumption. Specifically adding poison is a risk. And that makes it a tradeoff. But add to that these plants did not need to survive on their on in nature for millions of years. Instead are cultivated/protected very specifically.

The eu judgement is not the result of a public scare, I don't think.