In the same way that if I construct a personal truth whereby theft isn't illegal I will still get prosecuted if I steal stuff, I see reality as a thing that can bite us on the arse if we are wrong about it.
I think we're probably stuck here to be honest. I've been trying to construct feasible propulsion systems for a sci-fi RPG setting and frankly the rocket equation is a bitch and the speed of light limitation an absolute swine.
If I were planning to leave a planet by stealing a spaceship, I'd bear in mind that theft is a social construct in the way that gravity isn't.
But incarceration is as real as it gets, which is rather my point.
Incarceration is itself a social construct. One clue is that it only applies to human beings. It requires there to be a reason - getting locked in a room by accident isn't incarceration. Or consider two people, each locked in a cell on their own - one is there against their will, the other is there with their consent (eg for protection). Only one of those people is incarcerated. Whether incarceration is as real as gravity depends on your perspective.
Theft is a social construct. The British Imperial Companies (East Africa, East India, others I have forgotten) were basically pirates and bandits with a bit of paper from the British Crown saying that they were acting legally.
In the same way that if I construct a personal truth whereby theft isn't illegal I will still get prosecuted if I steal stuff, I see reality as a thing that can bite us on the arse if we are wrong about it.
I think we're probably stuck here to be honest. I've been trying to construct feasible propulsion systems for a sci-fi RPG setting and frankly the rocket equation is a bitch and the speed of light limitation an absolute swine.
If I were planning to leave a planet by stealing a spaceship, I'd bear in mind that theft is a social construct in the way that gravity isn't.
But incarceration is as real as it gets, which is rather my point.
Incarceration is itself a social construct. One clue is that it only applies to human beings. It requires there to be a reason - getting locked in a room by accident isn't incarceration. Or consider two people, each locked in a cell on their own - one is there against their will, the other is there with their consent (eg for protection). Only one of those people is incarcerated. Whether incarceration is as real as gravity depends on your perspective.
I tbink we're talking past each other.
You seem to accept that gravity, and the limitations of the rocket equation and the speed of light are objective reality. It seems to me that truths about God are of the same nature - objective and totally non-dependent on the individual. The nature of God is what it is, totally unaffected by any beliefs I may or may not have. If Jesus is going to return in a human timescale, he will whether I believe it or not. The difference is that it's not amenable to scientific investigation.
In the same way that if I construct a personal truth whereby theft isn't illegal I will still get prosecuted if I steal stuff, I see reality as a thing that can bite us on the arse if we are wrong about it.
I think we're probably stuck here to be honest. I've been trying to construct feasible propulsion systems for a sci-fi RPG setting and frankly the rocket equation is a bitch and the speed of light limitation an absolute swine.
If I were planning to leave a planet by stealing a spaceship, I'd bear in mind that theft is a social construct in the way that gravity isn't.
But incarceration is as real as it gets, which is rather my point.
Incarceration is itself a social construct. One clue is that it only applies to human beings. It requires there to be a reason - getting locked in a room by accident isn't incarceration. Or consider two people, each locked in a cell on their own - one is there against their will, the other is there with their consent (eg for protection). Only one of those people is incarcerated. Whether incarceration is as real as gravity depends on your perspective.
I tbink we're talking past each other.
You seem to accept that gravity, and the limitations of the rocket equation and the speed of light are objective reality. It seems to me that truths about God are of the same nature - objective and totally non-dependent on the individual. The nature of God is what it is, totally unaffected by any beliefs I may or may not have. If Jesus is going to return in a human timescale, he will whether I believe it or not. The difference is that it's not amenable to scientific investigation.
Gravity was commonsense until Newton and then was complicated by Einstein.
This is the way that knowledge grows and expands. What was once novel (sometimes) becomes sedimented as usable engineering-type knowledge.
The Newtonian knowledge of gravity still largely works within the parameters we normally experience as far as I understand physics. Einstein expanded the parameters beyond simply what we experience on earth.
It is entirely possible that there are other conceptions of gravity that we cannot imagine outside of the frameworks we know.
This is partly what is meant by the difficulty of discussing objective reality.
You seem to accept that gravity, and the limitations of the rocket equation and the speed of light are objective reality. It seems to me that truths about God are of the same nature - objective and totally non-dependent on the individual.
But your examples illustrate the converse - aspects of reality that are only experienced by human beings living in societies similar to the ones we are familiar with.
The nature of God is what it is, totally unaffected by any beliefs I may or may not have. If Jesus is going to return in a human timescale, he will whether I believe it or not. The difference is that it's not amenable to scientific investigation.
I'm kind of reluctant to say it, but scientific investigation, in and of itself, is another social construct - it is something particular to (most) modern, human societies.
This sounds like the fallacy that if there are two options it's a 50/50 chance.
Which pill?
Anyway there are many more than two options. Another of which is that @The_Riv was thinking about the movie, not reality.
I have no idea what movie you're suggesting, and it's unwise to attempt to post others' thoughts. I was referring to Bostrom's original paper, which was fleshed out a bit by David Kipping. His (Kipping's) determination was 49.8% probability that we're all in, and are, a simulation. Others ahve calculated that number to be much higher. Sorry, @mousethief.
I detect a certain rhetorical fudge in Bostrom's original argument in that proposition one is: either humanity will destroy itself or otherwise be incapable of running multiple simulations. This buries the chance that multiple simulations are infeasible under the chance that humans may become extinct. Multiple simulations being infeasible certainly seems something one should consider since the energy cost of running a sufficiently accurate simulation must be of the same order of magnitude as the energy required for that amount of information in the subject modelled.
As an aside, his Wikipedia page says that he's interested in existential risks to human civilization and does not mention global warming among them. This seems to me familiar from the Silicon valley techbro ideology.
Not to mention questions of why a civilisation may choose to simulate an entire universe and that of fidelity and detectability of such things.
It's basically a massive exercise in hand waving that's useful in certain niche philosophical debates but is not to be taken particularly seriously otherwise.
You seem to accept that gravity, and the limitations of the rocket equation and the speed of light are objective reality. It seems to me that truths about God are of the same nature - objective and totally non-dependent on the individual. The nature of God is what it is, totally unaffected by any beliefs I may or may not have. If Jesus is going to return in a human timescale, he will whether I believe it or not. The difference is that it's not amenable to scientific investigation.
If the only tool you have for reasoning about objective truth is scientific investigation, and you have already decided that truths about God are of the same nature as things subject to scientific investigation, but that they are not amenable to scientific investigation, then by definition you are not going to be able to reach any conclusions about truths about God.
The thing about Jesus' return is that it is a (future) historical event, and so not subject to scientific investigation (I mean, it's not repeatable for confirmatory purposes, and its position on the timeline means it is currently inaccessible to us. What you want for such an event is primarily the testimony of authorities and witnesses, just as you would for any other event in history.
There may well be measurable effects associated with this event which can be analyzed by science (he tells us there certainly will be), but the event itself, its cause and meaning, are properly subjects for historical investigation--and that's after it has happened.
You seem to accept that gravity, and the limitations of the rocket equation and the speed of light are objective reality. It seems to me that truths about God are of the same nature - objective and totally non-dependent on the individual. The nature of God is what it is, totally unaffected by any beliefs I may or may not have. If Jesus is going to return in a human timescale, he will whether I believe it or not. The difference is that it's not amenable to scientific investigation.
If the only tool you have for reasoning about objective truth is scientific investigation, and you have already decided that truths about God are of the same nature as things subject to scientific investigation, but that they are not amenable to scientific investigation, then by definition you are not going to be able to reach any conclusions about truths about God.
This seems pretty reasonable to me. If God is not material or physical, then we can't say very much about him, using scientific language. I suppose one way out is atheism, and another is subjective idealism, where subjective experience counts.
The Matrix was released in 1999 and may have predated Bostrom’s paper.
Or, I suppose, nicked the idea!
Anyway(!) on the assumption that you haven’t seen it, taking the red pill rather than the blue pill ensures that the hero discovers that he has been living in a computer simulation, believing it to be real.
(I enjoyed the three movies in the series as fantasies.)
You seem to accept that gravity, and the limitations of the rocket equation and the speed of light are objective reality. It seems to me that truths about God are of the same nature - objective and totally non-dependent on the individual. The nature of God is what it is, totally unaffected by any beliefs I may or may not have. If Jesus is going to return in a human timescale, he will whether I believe it or not. The difference is that it's not amenable to scientific investigation.
If the only tool you have for reasoning about objective truth is scientific investigation, and you have already decided that truths about God are of the same nature as things subject to scientific investigation, but that they are not amenable to scientific investigation, then by definition you are not going to be able to reach any conclusions about truths about God.
This seems pretty reasonable to me. If God is not material or physical, then we can't say very much about him, using scientific language. I suppose one way out is atheism, and another is subjective idealism, where subjective experience counts.
Atheism isn't a way out as much as it is an inability or unwillingness to opt in.
I saw the first Matrix movie years ago, @Barnabas62. It's not one I've carried down the years.
I misunderstood. I thought your 50/50 observation possibly related, ironically, to The Matrix example. An assumption that made an ass out of me. Apologies.
From what I can gather from your link re Bostrom and also the Wiki article, Bostrom’s published simulation hypothesis was predated by other SF including The Mattix. Which proves absolutely nothing about its validity.
But I did read the criticisms. Suffice to say that it is a long way short of general acceptance.
We’re gonna tut-tut the simulation hypothesis, but leave all kinds of room for the wildly supernatural wish thinking of Christian Mythology. Okay then.
This sounds like the fallacy that if there are two options it's a 50/50 chance.
Which pill?
Anyway there are many more than two options. Another of which is that @The_Riv was thinking about the movie, not reality.
I have no idea what movie you're suggesting, and it's unwise to attempt to post others' thoughts. I was referring to Bostrom's original paper, which was fleshed out a bit by David Kipping. His (Kipping's) determination was 49.8% probability that we're all in, and are, a simulation. Others ahve calculated that number to be much higher. Sorry, @mousethief.
This sounds an awful lot like an appeal to authority.
Personally I am intrigued by the considerations about whether the hypothesis might be tested. Without that, I guess the hypothesis remains in the category of philosophical speculation. It’s intriguing of course, which may explain the interest it has generated.
What confuses me about this specific situation is the use of precise probabilities. It is not even a clean 50%.
In most contexts when we talk about probability there's a possibility of this or that. You flick the coin and it could land on heads or tails.
But if this is a simulation, presumably there is no possibility of it being anything other than a simulation. The probability of it being a simulation is 1.
What confuses me about this specific situation is the use of precise probabilities. It is not even a clean 50%.
In most contexts when we talk about probability there's a possibility of this or that. You flick the coin and it could land on heads or tails.
But if this is a simulation, presumably there is no possibility of it being anything other than a simulation. The probability of it being a simulation is 1.
I suppose I'm pointing to our own perspective. As the subjects of this Creation (plenty of Christian sects claim that we are exclusively that), we are the ones attempting to determine whether we're in base reality or a simulation. Right? Highfalutin naval gazing?
What confuses me about this specific situation is the use of precise probabilities. It is not even a clean 50%.
In most contexts when we talk about probability there's a possibility of this or that. You flick the coin and it could land on heads or tails.
But if this is a simulation, presumably there is no possibility of it being anything other than a simulation. The probability of it being a simulation is 1.
I suppose I'm pointing to our own perspective. As the subjects of this Creation (plenty of Christian sects claim that we are exclusively that), we are the ones attempting to determine whether we're in base reality or a simulation. Right? Highfalutin naval gazing?
I suppose the way we casually use probabilities is a bit confusing and displays underlying assumptions we have about the world. I am not a Probabilist in any sense, but there are at least 3 different ways:
1. An uncertain outcome, like flicking a coin, can be calculated in advance based on information like known prior events
2. Science trying to measure "reality" and setting some boundaries on how close to reality we think it is
3. Extrapolation of things we do not know based on the things that we do know when that thing has an absolute value.
The problem with having 3 alongside 1 and 2 like that is that the frame makes it sound like it is doing the same thing. If we cannot see the dark side of the moon then we can set a probability of the number of craters there based on the side we can see.
But this also feels like trying to put a number on a historical fact that has already happened. There's no uncertainty there in the sense of an event which has yet to happen, and it's not about sampling errors and statistics. It's happened, there is a reality there. And we are guessing whether it was A or B based on extrapolating other data, but the guess itself may have no relation at all to what actually happened.
The percentages confused me to. Mind you, these days that’s not unusual!
From the link I provided, astrophysicist Neil Tyson’s estimated the probability of simulation as better than 50% even though he didn’t like that. Then he heard a better argument ….
FWIW my nonscientific estimate is “intriguing but probably bonkers”.
I suspect @The_Riv might say the same about Christian belief, but possibly without the “intriguing”.
I'd say if you were going to simulate a universe you wouldn't simulate this one.
A while back I was talking to a colleague of my wife who works on complicated computer languages at a university.
As with everyone else, the university is keen to use and teach AI and in this particular case this meant getting the AI to generate computer code. He said to me that what they do is get an AI agent to work on a problem and they then assess the quality of the code.
The problem is that the AI agents will go beyond what they have been asked to do and if there is an introduced error they will tend to end up in a place that is far from the intended one.
I cannot explain this any further because I do not really understand it, however it seems that one has to be vigilant to "rein in" your AI agents to ensure they remain on the straight-and-narrow.
I am sorry if that is convoluted but the short response I was trying to make is that if there were the equivalent of AI agents running the simulation in this thought experiment, the universe we are in could be way off the intended one.
We’re gonna tut-tut the simulation hypothesis, but leave all kinds of room for the wildly supernatural wish thinking of Christian Mythology. Okay then.
I think it was a bit disingenuous to introduce the simulation hypothesis without including the preceding condition: “if a civilization becomes capable of creating conscious simulations …”, which is a pretty big "if". And which (echoing Dafyd's earlier point) brings to mind the tech bros, who (rather unsurprisingly) tend to be fans of computational theories of consciousness.
The category's page on Landscape of Consciousness (a comprehensive resource for theories of consciousness) addresses Bostrom's view, following which James Reggia points out that
no existing approach to artificial consciousness has presented a compelling demonstration of phenomenal machine consciousness, or even clear evidence that artificial phenomenal consciousness will eventually be possible.
And the page ends by noting:
The mildly dismissive critique is that the computational theory of mind follows the historical trend of analogizing the mind to “the science of the day”.
The thing about Jesus' return is that it is a (future) historical event, and so not subject to scientific investigation (I mean, it's not repeatable for confirmatory purposes, and its position on the timeline means it is currently inaccessible to us. What you want for such an event is primarily the testimony of authorities and witnesses, just as you would for any other event in history.
There may well be measurable effects associated with this event which can be analyzed by science (he tells us there certainly will be), but the event itself, its cause and meaning, are properly subjects for historical investigation--and that's after it has happened.
The return of Jesus strikes me as having parallels with future one-off cosmological events, concerning which scientific investigation is eminently feasible. (Not all scientific investigation involves experimentation, which is where repeatability becomes relevant.) And many historical events don't involve witnesses - the extinction of the dinosaurs comes to mind (for some reason). Even cause and meaning aren't outside the scope of scientific investigation.
Point of Personal Privilege. This past weekend NASA launched the Nancy Grace Roman telescope. Once the telescope is in place it will map the whole Milky Way Galaxy in about a month. It will look for more exoplanets similar to earth and help solve questions regarding dark matter and dark gravity.
Here is the point of personal privilege. My son took his family with the in-laws to watch the launch. I had thought my grandson who is on the spectrum would have trouble with it because of the sound of the launch even at a distance, but son said he was enthralled with everything.
Just to add: Son's brother in law was involved in the development of the Nancy Grace Telescope so the family literally had front row seats in watching the launch.
The problem with our reality as a simulation is the usual regression: if we live in a simulation, then someone must have set it up, and then we have to ask whether that party is living in a simulation.
The thing about Jesus' return is that it is a (future) historical event, and so not subject to scientific investigation (I mean, it's not repeatable for confirmatory purposes, and its position on the timeline means it is currently inaccessible to us. What you want for such an event is primarily the testimony of authorities and witnesses, just as you would for any other event in history.
There may well be measurable effects associated with this event which can be analyzed by science (he tells us there certainly will be), but the event itself, its cause and meaning, are properly subjects for historical investigation--and that's after it has happened.
The return of Jesus strikes me as having parallels with future one-off cosmological events, concerning which scientific investigation is eminently feasible. (Not all scientific investigation involves experimentation, which is where repeatability becomes relevant.) And many historical events don't involve witnesses - the extinction of the dinosaurs comes to mind (for some reason). Even cause and meaning aren't outside the scope of scientific investigation.
It's a good point, that there are major overlaps between historic events like the dinosaur extinction and, well, other historic events. But in fact, there are -- well, maybe "repeatable" isn't the best word for it, but it's the one I've got -- elements in the dinosaur extinction event that we can't really look for in the Parousia.
What I mean is this. I gather that the Chicxulub meteor is held responsible for that extinction event by most scientists now. And this rests not only on the finding of the crater, but on the dating of that crater--and the dating of a great many other fossils, that together demonstrate the extinction event.
Now the "repeatable" aspect of this is that, when other scientists go to check those results, they will get the same answers as the first scientists did. They perform the same tests, and get the same results. That establishes the two sets of dates, and a fairly firm theory is confirmed.
Trying to do this with the Parousia before it happens is a problem. Theoretically you could look for the "run-up" to this major event. There ought to be something out there, though whether we can get at it is another question entirely.
And of course there is. There are the reported remarks and promises of Jesus on the subject, passed on by the eyewitnesses (ear-witnesses? whatever) and preserved in the text. But this is historical evidence, and must be judged by historical standards. We have nothing else that relates to the run-up to Jesus' coming that we can test scientifically--for example, some kind of chemical or fossil (future fossil? whatever) evidence that we could use to extrapolate a date.
And surely this is what we'd expect, given the nature of the event? This isn't Halley's comet, something that happens on a regular basis and can be predicted well into the future. This isn't even the heat death of the universe, which we can work out (theoretically) a date for, by extrapolating a whole lot of evidence which is way over my head.
This is an event that originates from outside the physical universe, though it certainly affects it (transforms it!); and until it begins to affect that physical universe in more than what we've got--a series of promises--we'll not be capable of doing any analysis. Once it DOES begin to affect the physical universe, there will no doubt be any number of things we could do scientifically to verify it; but I think we'll have other things on our minds at that point.
The problem with our reality as a simulation is the usual regression: if we live in a simulation, then someone must have set it up, and then we have to ask whether that party is living in a simulation.
The problem with our reality as a simulation is the usual regression
Yes, and it's exactly the same for a Creator.
Aquinas spends questions three to eleven of his Summa Theologica asking what an entity that was not subject to such a regression would have to be like.
(Or rather he's asking what we can reasonably say about such an entity.)
Comments
I tbink we're talking past each other.
You seem to accept that gravity, and the limitations of the rocket equation and the speed of light are objective reality. It seems to me that truths about God are of the same nature - objective and totally non-dependent on the individual. The nature of God is what it is, totally unaffected by any beliefs I may or may not have. If Jesus is going to return in a human timescale, he will whether I believe it or not. The difference is that it's not amenable to scientific investigation.
Gravity was commonsense until Newton and then was complicated by Einstein.
This is the way that knowledge grows and expands. What was once novel (sometimes) becomes sedimented as usable engineering-type knowledge.
The Newtonian knowledge of gravity still largely works within the parameters we normally experience as far as I understand physics. Einstein expanded the parameters beyond simply what we experience on earth.
It is entirely possible that there are other conceptions of gravity that we cannot imagine outside of the frameworks we know.
This is partly what is meant by the difficulty of discussing objective reality.
I'm kind of reluctant to say it, but scientific investigation, in and of itself, is another social construct - it is something particular to (most) modern, human societies.
Anyway there are many more than two options. Another of which is that @The_Riv was thinking about the movie, not reality.
I have no idea what movie you're suggesting, and it's unwise to attempt to post others' thoughts. I was referring to Bostrom's original paper, which was fleshed out a bit by David Kipping. His (Kipping's) determination was 49.8% probability that we're all in, and are, a simulation. Others ahve calculated that number to be much higher. Sorry, @mousethief.
As an aside, his Wikipedia page says that he's interested in existential risks to human civilization and does not mention global warming among them. This seems to me familiar from the Silicon valley techbro ideology.
It's basically a massive exercise in hand waving that's useful in certain niche philosophical debates but is not to be taken particularly seriously otherwise.
There may well be measurable effects associated with this event which can be analyzed by science (he tells us there certainly will be), but the event itself, its cause and meaning, are properly subjects for historical investigation--and that's after it has happened.
This seems pretty reasonable to me. If God is not material or physical, then we can't say very much about him, using scientific language. I suppose one way out is atheism, and another is subjective idealism, where subjective experience counts.
So you’ve never seen The Matrix?
The Matrix was released in 1999 and may have predated Bostrom’s paper.
Or, I suppose, nicked the idea!
Anyway(!) on the assumption that you haven’t seen it, taking the red pill rather than the blue pill ensures that the hero discovers that he has been living in a computer simulation, believing it to be real.
(I enjoyed the three movies in the series as fantasies.)
Atheism isn't a way out as much as it is an inability or unwillingness to opt in.
I saw the first Matrix movie years ago, @Barnabas62. It's not one I've carried down the years.
I misunderstood. I thought your 50/50 observation possibly related, ironically, to The Matrix example. An assumption that made an ass out of me. Apologies.
From what I can gather from your link re Bostrom and also the Wiki article, Bostrom’s published simulation hypothesis was predated by other SF including The Mattix. Which proves absolutely nothing about its validity.
But I did read the criticisms. Suffice to say that it is a long way short of general acceptance.
This sounds an awful lot like an appeal to authority.
@mousethief has a point. And so do you.
But this is Purgatory. Appeals to, and criticisms of, various authorities are fair game. For any of us.
For those who have further interest in Bostrom’s hypothesis, the background, the assertions and the criticisms, I think this is an OK starting point,
Personally I am intrigued by the considerations about whether the hypothesis might be tested. Without that, I guess the hypothesis remains in the category of philosophical speculation. It’s intriguing of course, which may explain the interest it has generated.
In most contexts when we talk about probability there's a possibility of this or that. You flick the coin and it could land on heads or tails.
But if this is a simulation, presumably there is no possibility of it being anything other than a simulation. The probability of it being a simulation is 1.
It was meant more as a citation and acknowledgment of others' work. Just giving due credit.
I suppose I'm pointing to our own perspective. As the subjects of this Creation (plenty of Christian sects claim that we are exclusively that), we are the ones attempting to determine whether we're in base reality or a simulation. Right? Highfalutin naval gazing?
'In the Navy, you can sail the Seven Seas ...'
On 'appeals to authority', heck, we all do that all the time. Even if we set ourselves up as the ultimate authority or arbiter.
How can we not do so?
I suppose the way we casually use probabilities is a bit confusing and displays underlying assumptions we have about the world. I am not a Probabilist in any sense, but there are at least 3 different ways:
1. An uncertain outcome, like flicking a coin, can be calculated in advance based on information like known prior events
2. Science trying to measure "reality" and setting some boundaries on how close to reality we think it is
3. Extrapolation of things we do not know based on the things that we do know when that thing has an absolute value.
The problem with having 3 alongside 1 and 2 like that is that the frame makes it sound like it is doing the same thing. If we cannot see the dark side of the moon then we can set a probability of the number of craters there based on the side we can see.
But this also feels like trying to put a number on a historical fact that has already happened. There's no uncertainty there in the sense of an event which has yet to happen, and it's not about sampling errors and statistics. It's happened, there is a reality there. And we are guessing whether it was A or B based on extrapolating other data, but the guess itself may have no relation at all to what actually happened.
The percentages confused me to. Mind you, these days that’s not unusual!
From the link I provided, astrophysicist Neil Tyson’s estimated the probability of simulation as better than 50% even though he didn’t like that. Then he heard a better argument ….
FWIW my nonscientific estimate is “intriguing but probably bonkers”.
I suspect @The_Riv might say the same about Christian belief, but possibly without the “intriguing”.
That’s not mind-reading, just a guess.
A while back I was talking to a colleague of my wife who works on complicated computer languages at a university.
As with everyone else, the university is keen to use and teach AI and in this particular case this meant getting the AI to generate computer code. He said to me that what they do is get an AI agent to work on a problem and they then assess the quality of the code.
The problem is that the AI agents will go beyond what they have been asked to do and if there is an introduced error they will tend to end up in a place that is far from the intended one.
I cannot explain this any further because I do not really understand it, however it seems that one has to be vigilant to "rein in" your AI agents to ensure they remain on the straight-and-narrow.
I am sorry if that is convoluted but the short response I was trying to make is that if there were the equivalent of AI agents running the simulation in this thought experiment, the universe we are in could be way off the intended one.
The category's page on Landscape of Consciousness (a comprehensive resource for theories of consciousness) addresses Bostrom's view, following which James Reggia points out that And the page ends by noting:
There's still some intrigue left in my struggle with religion, @Barnabas62.
I'm curious what you are struggling with. Does it offend you in some way? But think of the aesthetic value!
I don't think the problem is with this universe, it's with us.
Would a universe without sentient life would be an improvement?
Maybe the simulation itself is just an experimental model that escaped its sandbox during testing…
Here is the point of personal privilege. My son took his family with the in-laws to watch the launch. I had thought my grandson who is on the spectrum would have trouble with it because of the sound of the launch even at a distance, but son said he was enthralled with everything.
The Nancy Grace Roman story in itself is very interesting. Here is the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Grace_Roman
Also, here is information about the telescope itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Grace_Roman_Space_Telescope
It's a good point, that there are major overlaps between historic events like the dinosaur extinction and, well, other historic events. But in fact, there are -- well, maybe "repeatable" isn't the best word for it, but it's the one I've got -- elements in the dinosaur extinction event that we can't really look for in the Parousia.
What I mean is this. I gather that the Chicxulub meteor is held responsible for that extinction event by most scientists now. And this rests not only on the finding of the crater, but on the dating of that crater--and the dating of a great many other fossils, that together demonstrate the extinction event.
Now the "repeatable" aspect of this is that, when other scientists go to check those results, they will get the same answers as the first scientists did. They perform the same tests, and get the same results. That establishes the two sets of dates, and a fairly firm theory is confirmed.
Trying to do this with the Parousia before it happens is a problem. Theoretically you could look for the "run-up" to this major event. There ought to be something out there, though whether we can get at it is another question entirely.
And of course there is. There are the reported remarks and promises of Jesus on the subject, passed on by the eyewitnesses (ear-witnesses? whatever) and preserved in the text. But this is historical evidence, and must be judged by historical standards. We have nothing else that relates to the run-up to Jesus' coming that we can test scientifically--for example, some kind of chemical or fossil (future fossil? whatever) evidence that we could use to extrapolate a date.
And surely this is what we'd expect, given the nature of the event? This isn't Halley's comet, something that happens on a regular basis and can be predicted well into the future. This isn't even the heat death of the universe, which we can work out (theoretically) a date for, by extrapolating a whole lot of evidence which is way over my head.
This is an event that originates from outside the physical universe, though it certainly affects it (transforms it!); and until it begins to affect that physical universe in more than what we've got--a series of promises--we'll not be capable of doing any analysis. Once it DOES begin to affect the physical universe, there will no doubt be any number of things we could do scientifically to verify it; but I think we'll have other things on our minds at that point.
Yes, and it's exactly the same for a Creator.
(Or rather he's asking what we can reasonably say about such an entity.)