Ghazzali comments on The Wonder of Evolution - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 November 2007 08:49PM

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Comment author: RobertLumley 02 May 2012 07:41:20PM 2 points [-]

First of all, what are you defining as a "world view" and why is that a useful definition to have? It seems like you're trying to say "You believe things, beliefs are dogmas, you're being dogmatic". That is whole manners of cheating.

Secondly, you're right. It is possible that the universe was intelligently designed. But the Kolmogorov complexity formulation of Occam's Razor necessarily requires I assign that a very small probability prior. In order to simulate a universe designed by God, a computer must first simulate God, including why ey would create the universe the way that it is, then simulate that universe, as opposed to just simulating the universe.

Comment author: Ghazzali 17 May 2012 07:30:38PM -2 points [-]

Mathematically you have the same problem whether you believe in God or you don't. If you say that there is no God you must still account for these two questions:

  1. How did the universe begin from nothing, and why?
  2. If the universe did not begin from nothing, what did it begin from and why is it not considered part of the universe so that we say it is the creator of the universe but not an extension of it?

And if you say 2. you still have to go back to one.

The same mysteries are there whether you believe in God or not. It is your world-view, your faith that leads you to conclude in God, not science. For a Muslim, for example, it is his belief in the words of Prophet Muhammad that he is really communicating with God, and so on. For the atheist/materialist it is his world-view that he rejects any kind of notion that a human being has these powers. And so on...

Science itself is neutral on these issues, it must be seen and interpreted by philosophies and beliefs.

Comment author: RobertLumley 17 May 2012 09:38:06PM *  3 points [-]

The consistent downvoting of your posts should give you some indication that your arguments are not going to be well received here. I don't intend to continue this discussion further for the following reasons:

  • I don't believe you're here to genuinely arrive at truer beliefs. I think you're here to try and convert us.
  • You did not answer the one direct question I asked you to answer (which, among other things, leads me to conclude the above.)
  • Other people on this site are far more willing to refute your arguments and will do a better job, and have been doing so.
  • I don't think you have enough background (have read enough of the sequences) in why I (or LW in general) believes what we believe for you and I to be able to have a conversation productive enough to be enjoyable to me. Most of the ensuing discussion would probably consist of me spending 15 minutes looking up exactly which of Eliezer's posts refuted the point you made in your most recent post, and linking you to it, at which point, you probably wouldn't read what I linked to anyway.
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