Truth poll

[ciphergoth]

I should really post this on a Monday but I might as well do it now. A whole bunch of assertions to do with truth that it occurred to me to poll about...

[Poll #1365485]

Comments

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

My line on (the overwhelming majority of) Matrix/brain-in-a-vat/universe-simulation arguments is that they're worse than useless. They're not even wrong, as the phrase goes. They make absolutely no observable difference to the world as we can experience it. By definition.

(The same's sometimes true of some people's conception of God, but often only when you've backed them in to a corner in an argument.)

I'm really pretty convinced that the weaker versions of those arguments (where extraordinary intervention sometimes happens) are also false. I'd be open to evidence of those, but it'd need to be pretty damn good evidence. If Laurence Fishburn and Hugo Weaving starting showing me wacky stuff, my first guess would be they were messing with my head alone, rather than with the fabric of the universe.

[andrewducker]

They make absolutely no observable difference to the world as we can experience it. By definition.

Or at least not observable difference...so far!

To be honest, the simulation argument is one that I mostly store at the back of my brain, only coming out when discussing the nature of reality. It's there, along with The God Hypothesis, as an example of something that cannot be ruled out, and makes for fun fiction, but doesn't actually affect my day-to-day life in the slightest.