I don't know if this is the right section to open this thread but if it isn't the mods can move it to the right section.

Here is the vid and I will write some of the premises the guy makes:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfdMdbSnNSw[/youtube]


Presenting the Digital Physics Argument for the Existence of God.

One of four things* must entail:
1.) Local realism is true, meaning someone has successfully taken the Quantum Randi Challenge: http://www.science20.com/alpha_meme/off ... enge-80168
2.) Qubits can be simulated by classical bits.
3.) There exists a substance dualism between mental and physical information.
4.) The universe is a conscious state within the mind of a panentheistic deity.


*Options 1.) and 2.) violate known scientific fact.

Links:
1.) Your Reality May Be Virtual If...: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qiLLrmyqTM
2.) God's Daydream: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELxupWHZnOE
3.) The Emergence of the Physical World from
Information Processing, Brian Whitworth: http://brianwhitworth.com/BW-VRT1.pdf
4.) The Light of Existence: http://brianwhitworth.com/BW-VRT3.pdf

I also sent him a message and invited him here to discuss his ideas.

Erf. That gave me a headache. Bookmarking.

I am not that good at Physics that is why I posted the vid and opened this thread here, maybe people who know more about Physics can tell us more about the vid this guy has made.

bump.........

Patience, the physics guys will get to this thread eventually. They always do.

Edit:

I just looked at the video and although I'm going to leave this to our resident physicists, this guy seems to be dealing with a very subtle misinformation campaign.

Sovereign wrote:Patienc

I just looked at the video and although I'm going to leave this to our resident physicists, this guy seems to be dealing with a very subtle misinformation campaign.

that is what I am thinking too, he is using quantum mechanics to describe something else, I think he is using a lot of out of context stuff, I really don't understand how did he get to the conclusion that the universe exists in the mind of God.

All right let me give a breakdown of my argument:

We have discovered in recent research that the universe is fundamentally informational at bottom and that matter and space-time are illusions of this information. That's a big pill to swallow so here's some links to show you that this is in fact that case and not some pseudoscience I dredged up:

1.) Zeilinger's test of Leggett's inequalities:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/new ... to-reality
http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2529
2.) Stuff on the holographic universe:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/obs ... -illusion/
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHgi6E1ECgo[/youtube]
3.) Objective realism as an emergent effect:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.2696
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/gue ... tum-world/
4.) And some general stuff on digital physics:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiNJRh2fxY8[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKkiy24LqBQ[/youtube]

Summarizing all of this, it turns out that this information based physics shows that our world behaves exactly as a virtual reality. All of the weirdnesses of modern physics (not only quantum mechanics but also things like relativity and the holographic universe suddenly make sense if we view them as derived from the effects of information processing rather than an atomistic "atoms in the void" picture of the world.

To see what I mean look here:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1011/1011.3436.pdf
For a simpler popular level explanation of this watch this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qiLLrmyqTM[/youtube]

Now this being the case, I can establish my first premise that the world is some kind of "virtual reality." I use scare quotes to point out that at this point I am not saying it's necessarily like some guys computer simulation or something -just that spacetime, matter and energy are all illusory and derived from underlying quantum computations.

So;

Premise 1: The universe is a virtual reality. (as justified by aforementioned discoveries)

Now, at this point we can't tell what is the cause of this, is it:

A.) Due to simulation in some larger but material reality (think Bostrom's Simulation Hypothesis)
B.) Inside "God's dream." (Bishop Berkeley style)
C.) Just a generic information construct (not necessarily mental) that is fundamental reality. (digital philosophy)
D.) B.) = C.) (which is a modified version of B.) -best espoused by Alfred North Whitehead, called panexperientialism)

We can rule out A.) as follows:

a.) Our world is comprised of qubits.
b.) Qubits store information exponentially more compactly than classical bits.
c.) Qubits are only possible in a world with "virtual reality" physics (QM being one of the things that information based physics explains).
Conclusion: Thus
i.) EITHER a materially real simulating reality (which does not have God) is using a computer that is exponentially LARGER than our universe (since all of those qubits would have to be simulated inefficiently on classical bits thus requiring more hard drive space than the size of the universe it is simulating)
ii.) OR said reality would need to have to be "virtual" as well.

Since i.) is absurd ii.) must hold, and I can now update the first premise.

Premise 1.) The universe is a virtual reality, and simulism can not be used as an escape hatch to argue for a materially real universe. (meaning any possible universe simulating ours is also virtual)

So having eliminated A.) Let's examine D.)

We all have our own theories as to what the mind is and how it is produced, however no one can seem to agree. Thus it would be fruitless to try to argue from one of these theories that the explanation is something akin to Berkeleyan Idealism. However empirical models of the mind are not all we have to go on.

Regardless of how the mind is constructed, we can all at least agree on what it is subjectively -since we all have conscious experience. Realizing this, we can notice that all the mind is (in terms of our conscious states) is integrated information. Every conscious experience you have breaks down into some kind of information (what color pants someone is wearing, how loud the music is, etc. etc.).

Now this being the case, a dichotomy follows:
1.) Substance dualism is true, and there are two ontologically distinct kinds of information -mental and physical.
2.) Substance dualism is false, and there is only one kind.

Since most every atheist I know does not agree with dualism (and I don't blame them -dualism is intrinsically problematic and I don't buy it either) then it follows that 2.) must be valid.

So with that I can establish another premise:

Premise 2) Mental information is all that exists.

Combining Premises 1&2 we see that the universe is a virtual reality comprised of mental information -aka a conscious state.

Hence Berkeleyan Idealism* follows and a panentheistic God exists.

*Perhaps modified with Whitehead's style of panentheism (which sort of straddles strict mentalism with neutral monism)

sturmgewehr wrote:

Sovereign wrote:Patienc

I just looked at the video and although I'm going to leave this to our resident physicists, this guy seems to be dealing with a very subtle misinformation campaign.

that is what I am thinking too, he is using quantum mechanics to describe something else, I think he is using a lot of out of context stuff, I really don't understand how did he get to the conclusion that the universe exists in the mind of God.

He's basically dealing with the information that he wants to deal with and ignoring others. If you head over to the philosophy section of this site, you'll see several threads where one of our members puts forth a similar type of argument and you can see how that type of argument is dealt with. Also, the example of something not existing when we don't look at it was edited to make it seem as if the moon doesn't exist when we don't see it. That is, imo, a misrepresentation of the wave function. They also talk about proto-consciousness as a fundamental unit. What was the basis of that statement? We see no evidence that shows us conscious function is an independent property from the structure and function of the brain. To make that argument is like making the argument the universe is 6000 years old because a book said so.

I've requested peer reviewed substantiation for his whacky claims, so he replied that he e-mailed a notable physicist with this garbage and said the guy basically agreed with him. He actually thinks thats what peer review is. Just another know it all nutbar with way too much time on his hands.

Post Edited

Macroinvertebrate wrote: "I've requested peer reviewed substantiation for his whacky claims, so he replied that he e-mailed a notable physicist with this garbage and said the guy basically agreed with him. He actually thinks thats what peer review is. Just another know it all nutbar with way too much time on his hands."

It wasn't a physicist, but it was another notable scientist (a neuroscientist actually) who has a lot of expertise in physics -Stuart Hameroff.

He told me he agreed and that there is an Italian astrophysicist named Paola Zizzi who had come up with something called "The Big Wow," which was very similar to my Universal Orch-OR argument (but that isn't the argument I'm using here).

And yes, that's peer-reviewed: http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0007006

And FYI I know what peer-review is. I have a degree in physics myself, (you don't) so you needn't insult my intelligence.

In any case referring to peer-review like you do is just a shallow attempt at an appeal to authority.

Check out some of the links I gave you and you will see that this is all mainstream physics. (also google "digital physics" or "it from bit")

"Also, the example of something not existing when we don't look at it was edited to make it seem as if the moon doesn't exist when we don't see it."

A.) Macrostates are comprised of numerous microstates, so this is a red herring.
B.) I'm not arguing the moon isn't there when we aren't looking -that's what the other Observer is for. (wink wink) (That's why we see QM effects only at a very high degree of resolution -the information content is very high so the the system is at least partly resolved)
C.) Zeilinger blows this kind of argument out of the water anyway; watch @13:13-14:20: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiNJRh2fxY8[/youtube]

Note what he says here addresses exactly your kind of critique: "people say that but there's no reason to believe that, nothing in the theory tells us that" and how once larger effects are discovered that "then the philosophic implications become more relevant because people will not be able to put them into some corner."

"That is, imo, a misrepresentation of the wave function. They also talk about proto-consciousness as a fundamental unit. What was the basis of that statement?"

That comes from particular theorems by Penrose & Lucas that show that some conscious states (particularly those involving conscious knowledge of Godel statements in mathematics) are non-computable and therefore fundamental.

"We see no evidence that shows us conscious function is an independent property from the structure and function of the brain."

And then of course there is philosophy of mind which shows us that mental properties are fundamental a priori before we even start with a posteriori evidence.

I'm glad we cleared up the moon . Well I'll leave the heavy physics to the physics people but I do have a question to you regarding consciousness. Outside of the arguments for the philosophy of mind, do we have any evidence of those states existing independent of the brain? Until I see conscious states and function independent of brain structure and function, I will not make the statement that consciousness is an independent entity. I am curious, I haven't had a chance to go through all of your stuff, but what's your take on what the universe was before consciousness arose? I may not be able to answer your reply but I'm sure someone on this forum should.

Somehow, I think Anton Zeilinger would be the first to state that his view of quantum information doesn't support a mythological magic man ...

Interesting Vids on your opening post jfraatz, I still think that claiming the universe exists in the mind of God is far too fetched, I don't know how did u jump to that conclusion.

Good stuff jfraatz

An open question to those who believe this argument.

Taking one point:-

Do you think that the holographical principle has been fairly represented in this clip?

bookmark

jfraatz wrote:

Premise 1: The universe is a virtual reality. (as justified by aforementioned discoveries)

Is that which is performing the quantum computations also "virtual"?