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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Which is basically just Anglican

Cue Henry VIII memes.

[TD1]

Which is basically just Anglican

Which is basically just CoI.

[Hanslanda]

I meant to ask. Railguns are several sequentially activated electromagnets and a coilgun is just one long curly one right?

[Rowanas]

I meant to ask. Railguns are several sequentially activated electromagnets and a coilgun is just one long curly one right?

Exactly.  Although a railgun can use a single pair of magnets, or plasma, apparently, which is pretty cool.

[Teneb]

Coilgunners are heretics that should be Railgunned. Into the afterlife.

[wierd]

I am still waiting for my magnetically self-contained hypersonic plasma projectile launcher, damnit!

The physics says it is possible-- I DONT CARE that it will quickly turn into a wall of searing hot gas that ceases to be magnetically confining, and thus killing its range-- I want a freaking high energy plasma shotgun!  That it might burn my face off is A-OK, that's what a mylar suit is for!

/joke

[Hanslanda]

I meant to ask. Railguns are several sequentially activated electromagnets and a coilgun is just one long curly one right?

Exactly.  Although a railgun can use a single pair of magnets, or plasma, apparently, which is pretty cool.

Now in wiki-diving on mass drivers and plasma Railguns.

[IndigoFenix]

I did come to my current understanding of God by contemplating the philosophical issues of teleportation.

You know, the old "Ship of Theseus" question; if you break someone into atoms and reconstruct them elsewhere, are they the same person or did you just kill them?  What if you make a second copy?

Since no "vital principle" that gives matter the ability to "experience" qualia has ever been observed, Occam's Razor would suggest that it does not exist, and that anything that behaves like an "aware" being is, in fact, just as aware as anything else regardless of where it came from.  However, since the ability to experience things definitely does exist (in fact, it is the only thing we can truly be certain about) it must derive from something.  This suggests that awareness is a property of reality itself, and that anything with a bare minimum of certain traits has a degree of awareness.

These traits are, I believe, an ability to absorb stimuli and also to retain information about the stimulus it receives over a period of time.  This would include any bit of matter, even a single atom (an atom can absorb a photon and this boosts its energy state for a time).  The only difference between a human being and an atom is one of complexity; unless we assume an arbitrary threshold of complexity that spontaneously generates awareness, it stands to reason that an atom also possesses a unique view of reality, if one orders of magnitude simpler than what we are capable of experiencing.

The next bit is a bit complicated, so I'll try and simplify it by using single massive particles as "observers".

Imagine a universe with three entities: Particle A, Particle B, and Photon C.  Photon C is emitted, and may be absorbed by either Particle A or Particle B.  Particles A and B are both observers who represent a particular "viewpoint" of the universe; each one "perceives" a universe in which it either did or did not absorb Photon C.  (If it did absorb the photon, it "experiences" a heightened energy state.)

This universe has now split into not two, but four unique perspectives, depending on which particle's perspective we are using and which event actually occurred.

Universe A-A, where A observes that it absorbed C.
Universe A-B, where A observes that it did not absorb C.
Universe B-A, where B observes that it absorbed C.
Universe B-B, where B observes that it did not absorb C.

As long as Particles A and B never interact, all of these universes can exist without any contradiction.  However, once the particles interact, any mutually exclusive universes must collapse.  Universe A-A cannot coincide with B-A, and A-B cannot coincide with B-B.

Now, here's the leap in logic that the bizarre theory requires: Nature abhors mutually exclusive universes.  The simultaneous existence of perspectives that cannot be allowed to interact places a form of "stress" on the fabric of reality, encouraging timelines in which mutually exclusive perspectives do not occur.  (I will call the force that collapses mutually exclusive universes "Arel").

The solution to this problem is to generate more complex structures that are capable of perceiving and remembering a greater slice of reality.  A universe of independent atoms has little need for consensus reality; every atom can perceive the universe more or less independent of each other.  But complex, living structures do not operate this way; each possesses a vast amount of information which swiftly collapses multitudes of potentially exclusive universes before they are allowed to form, lest they create a contradiction in the mind of the organism.

In order to ensure that such entities exist, the laws of physics as well as individual events are retroactively manipulated in order to bring them about in the future.  This creates a universe that is conductive to the development of intelligent life.  (I will call the force that retroactively manipulates the past in order to bring about a given future "Ophan").

However, it is not over yet.  Humans are a crowning achievement for this cosmic drive that causes the universe to try and perceive itself in its entirety, but are far from the crowning achievement, which will not come to fruition for an unfathomable amount of time in the future.  Therefore, our present is still being manipulated in order to bring about the event in which a single entity perceiving all of reality is able to be brought into existence.

[KittyTac]

I'm for the anthropic principle. The universe is hospitable to sentient life because if it weren't, we wouldn't be here and thus, obviously, would not be able to perceive it. Makes sense and does not require anything supernatural to explain.

[wierd]

While mostly pseudoscience bunk,  the connection between behavior of particles and how it changes based on the act of being observed, and the thus demonstrable ability TO observe (even by inanimate objects, such as a detector) might be all that is required to nudge more high-level "awareness" into possibility.

This is not to say that I suggest consciousness is quantum in nature or something, just that the existence of the phenomenon (consciousness) is at least partly derived from the unpredictable dissolution of superpositioned states by the act of observing, coupled with the ability to observe.

[IndigoFenix]

It's not related to quantum mechanics itself - the same principle applies to the old "if a tree falls in the forest" question.  Any aspect of reality that a given observer is not directly conscious of is, from their perspective, undefined.  The question remaining is "how does 'any possible reality' coalesce into a single consensus reality, and under which rules?"

People just like sticking poorly understood quantum mechanics into things because it sounds sciencey.  This is a philosophy question, not a physics one.

I'm for the anthropic principle. The universe is hospitable to sentient life because if it weren't, we wouldn't be here and thus, obviously, would not be able to perceive it. Makes sense and does not require anything supernatural to explain.

True.  The "Nature abhors mutually exclusive universes" premise that this theory rests on is not required for an understanding of the universe as it is, and defies Occam's Razor to suggest it.  However, it does allow a belief in God which is more sophisticated than "old man in the sky", more relevant than "abstract force that created the universe and then left" and has semi-predictable sapience-like properties while also being entirely inhuman and mostly ineffable.  It is therefore a belief that can be used to formulate a proper religion that works in the modern age.

[Egan_BW]

It doesn't make much sense to me to say that conciousness is the only thing we can be sure exists because we experience it. If consciousness did not exist, then it would still be possible for some species of ape to talk to each other about how they can be sure that consciousness is real because they're conscious.

If you can't prove to other people that you are actually real, then how can you prove it to yourself? If you can get a rock to say "cogito ergo sum", then how is it significant that you can say it?

[Rolan7]

Solipsism is lonely, but it's all we've got /s

It's like the idea of being a brain in a jar, I guess.  It seems possible, but I don't choose to live my life as if it's true.

[Teneb]

Solipsism is lonely, but it's all we've got /s

It's like the idea of being a brain in a jar, I guess.  It seems possible, but I don't choose to live my life as if it's true.

What if you could be a brain in a jar with a sweet robot body?

[Rolan7]

Hm well that could be interesting, I mean, most of my body changes out anyway and I don't-  HEY!  Nice try, Mi-go!