Anyways, The person who usually browses and moderates is ThreeToe, so if you want to threaten people with moderator support, you should choose the right god-sphere.
I thought armok was being sarcastic. Apparently not. However, I do have to inform you Armok, Religion is an organized belief system that involves spirituality. So, technically if you believe in the Dust Theory, then it is your religion or part of it.
It is not organized nor does it have anything to do with spirituality. Also, religions are faith-based, and INTENDED to be so, admittedly by the practiser. I on the other hand try to be as rational as absolutely possible, assigning as close to the Bayesian correct probability as absolutely possible.
Thirdly, religions are memetic, while Dust Theory can in principle be invented identical by everyone separately.
Also, was my link broken or something? From the sound of you people I must have linked to timecube or something by mistake...
I don't think anyone here except me actually understood a thing the article said... I thought this community was smart, once.
Ninjaedit: Except Psyco Jelly, atleast there is one sensible person here.
1. Second post or so linked to TimeCube.
2. By Dust Theory itself, the world where religion is true and Dust Theory is not is just as viable as the world where religion is false and Dust Theory is true.
Wait... I knew there was a problem here. He's using a "set of all sets argument," which in this case runs screaming into Russel's Paradox. We're never going to be able to say much about Dust Theory until mathematics gets off its bum and figures out how to resolve stronger set-theoretical notions.
3. Religion can also be in principle invented by everyone separately. It is improbable, but it is possible. The fact that we might not arrive at a certain belief by virtue of fully rational processes does not mean that we
cannot come to it with other thought patterns.
4. Comprehension or lack thereof of a single article does not equate to intellect.
5. Other math error--he says we're much more likely to find small numbers when running around than large ones.
This is completely false. Suppose that each digit has a 1/10 probability of being chosen. Then we have that
P(5) = 1/10, P(5098765543) = (1/10)
10.
...
But then we realize that our notation is dumb, and that 5 == 0000000005, so P(5) is actually (1/10)
10 as well, using that computation. We can reconcile this by saying that each digit has a "probability of termination" δ, so that the probability of some number showing up in the 10
nth place is δ
n. Of course, the question remains as to what the "termination constant" of our universe is, and whether or not it changes with time. I suppose it would have to be fixed, given the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Well, anyway. It was beautifully written, but it has some rather grievous flaws.