1 Million Downloads of OpenOffice 3.4 and only 2% are Linux!? This is kind of surprising - maybe open office is dead in the Linux community, but it sure is alive and well in MS.

levl · 2012-05-25T17:32:30.496828+00:00

Huh, you're right. Openoffice isn't even in the AUR.

levl · 2012-05-25T15:00:31.122152+00:00

Arch linux had it in their repository.

jaiwithani · 2012-05-25T11:46:09.301461+00:00

Alright, I bet significant advances on these problems might be made by ten scientists working together for two months! Let's get working!

44-98 · 1 day

And nagios for monitoring.

jaiwithani · 1 day

True, but wouldn't a rationalist robot be awesome? we should totally build one!

44-98 · 1 day

Ehh, wouldn't be that hard to set up a web front end to that whole setup.

44-98 · 1 day

OpenVPN. If you want to know whether a computer is online or not you're going to have to ping it, I think. I'd use static ip assignments.

EntrepreneurStatus · 2 days

My logical side doubts god exists, but my spiritual side has been influenced to think that maybe there is.

Then your spiritual side is wrong. Ask it why it believes that. If it can't give you an answer based on logic, either accept that you're not driven by logic (which is fine), or a desire to know truth, and move on. Or tell it to fuck off. It's alright to lie to yourself, it it makes you sufficiently happy.

which is so personal to everyone.

It can be harder for some people to give up untrue beliefs then others. That emotional difficulty doesn't make them any less wrong however. Saying they should be cut some slack because of their situation doesn't make much of a difference, because we're debating a fact, not a judgment. And believing in a god implies that you're not properly using the teaching of science and rationalism, whatever your reasons.

reasoning to keep pursuing the truth and entertaining the thought.

Privileging the god hypothesis above the invisible pink unicorn hypothesis without evidence is bad. Why do you believe that one deserves your attention while the other doesn't?

But aside from that I don't understand exactly what you mean. "I guess I just don't understand how you can logically conclude beyond doubt that god doesn't exist, while at the same time acknowledging he could (and be satisfied with that)." Doesn't really parse for me. He could what?

EntrepreneurStatus · 2 days

haven't figured out that god doesn't exist just aren't smart enough to

Cruel or not, if it was true would you believe it? Smart isn't the issue here however. You can be very smart and not skilled in the methodologies for figuring out what's true, or in probability and game theory, 2 very closely related fields.

It may seem cruel to say that people who believe in a god are lacking in those departments. That being said, some of the nicest and cleverest people I've ever met have been religious, being able to accurately gauge what's truth and what isn't is not a very important skill. Most people get by fine with a set of guidelines that's correct most of the time. But science, more then any other profession, benefits from these skills.

There's no shame in that, god know that I'm mediocre at separating truth from fiction, but I'm trying to learn. If you're interested in learning I can recommend some reading material to you.

f it was something that could be logically proven, then it would be well established that god doesn't exist, simple as that.

And this is where your personal understanding of what constitutes evidence falls down. I'm not really someone who should be explaining this, but I'll do my best. Google "you can't prove god doesn't exist" for a better explanation then I can provide. Or look here.

I trust you're aware of the flying spaghetti monster, russles teapot, and the invisible pink unicorn? They're all trying to warn you against doing something called privileging the hypothesis.

So let's start by asking ourselves, why is the existence of the catholic god particularly more likely then the invisible pink unicorn in my garage?

And sorry for the terseness. I got very busy half-way through righting this. I'll post a better explanation later.

EntrepreneurStatus · 2 days

From the wikipidia article.

I'm not an atheist. I don't think I can call myself a pantheist.

Regardless, he was an atheist. Pantheists are atheists, they just don't like the atheist label and want to be able to continue to state they believe in a god, and don't really identify with atheist subculture.

They're not atheists, in that they don't identify with other people who identify as atheist. They are atheists in that they don't believe in anything that a catholic or a muslim would identify as a god.

So if you prefer atheism to mean identifying with the group of people on the internet calling themselves atheist, you're entirely right and he wasn't an atheist.

Personally I prefer to use the term to identify someones beliefs, not their subculture. But there is no right here, use whichever definition please.

What I actually mean by "Einstein was an atheist" is that he didn't believe in anything that I would call a god. He certainly didn't believe in an afterlife or Cartesian dualism. Both requirements for being religious, for the most part.

EntrepreneurStatus · 2 days

Are you saying that you can not justify a belief in god, or at least the acknowledgement that a god could exist?

Yes I am. I'm an agnostic atheist of course, I don't believe anything with a 100% or 0% probability. But god as most people describe him existing is as close to certain as I think I've ever been about anything that I haven't directly observed.

I think the established truths in physics are quite compatible with god,

True (although it depends on the particular interpretation of god), none of the established theories contradict the existence of a god, but science isn't believing in the established theories, it's the systematized methodology of arriving at the truth. You can be brilliant at figuring things out without using science. Some great medical strides were made before we discovered why double blind testing was important.

But if you're good at science, if you're good at figuring out what's the truth and what isn't, and you still believe in god, you're either not applying your skill at figuring out the truth to whether or not god exists or you're not as good at figuring out the truth as you believe you are.

God doesn't exist, and if you claim to be good at science and you haven't figured that out, you're not good at science. You don't need to be good at science to be brilliant and have amazing insights. It helps but plenty of fools are good at science, and plenty of brilliant people suck at it.

EntrepreneurStatus · 2 days

First, Einstein was an atheist. An agnostic atheist by modern terms. Definitely ant-anti-theist, but an atheist none the less.

As for the rest, I'd hoped the link would have explained it, more or less, but I'll summarize.

Paraphrasing, suppose you have a shepherd, trained to count sheep. You give him a bushel of apples to count, and he says "I don't know how to count apples, just sheep". You'd presume he had a pretty poor understanding of how counting works. Sure, he may be able to count, in some circumstance, but his understanding of how counting works is still wrong.

Same thing with science. Science is the art of figuring out the truth. If you can figure out the truth in physics, but not recognize such a blatant lie elsewhere, your understanding of how to arrive at the truth is obviously limited. You can still go through the rigours and the steps to arrive at the truth, but you'd obviously lack an intuitive understanding of exactly what you're doing.

TLDR. To be a good scientist you need to understand epistemology on an intuitive level. Religious people don't.

EntrepreneurStatus · 2 days

Yes. At least good science. If you claim to be a scientist and aren't an atheist, you obviously lack a proper understanding of what constitutes evidence and why.

There are plenty of people who do science and believe in god, but they don't apply those teachings to their lives, I'd even wager that they don't truly understand them.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/gv/outside_the_laboratory/

Tolkoto · 2 days

Windows has issues with 2 mice.

idonotexist12345 · 3 days

Err, no?

FlintShaman · 3 days

Catholicism holds little in common with modern Christianity because Catholics and Protestants (all other Christian denominations) believe very different things.

I'm aware of the history.

I think a part of why you're having a hard time seeing it from my way is that you are still looking at Jesus from a non religious standpoint.

Define "religious standpoint". If you're saying that Jesus has an excuse, that rationality and the same logic I'd use to understand the rest of the world, then I simply can't buy it.

Honestly, I'm not certain that you have well defined beliefs. It seems like they flow and change to suit your mood. I've conversed with schizophrenics, and they have a very similar shifting of belief (no offence, you're probably just high). I meditate regularly, I'm not certain that DMT is a whole lot better then dreaming, and I've honed my ability to do that almost perfectly.

very naive question in the sense that you do not understand Jesus as I do

True, I wasn't raised knowing Jesus. But you're dodging the question. Pretend that the bible has been corrupted by Lucifer, as he's inclined to do. His influence would certainly explain some of the evil in the bible, so it's not that big of a stretch.

FlintShaman · 3 days

you also used a bunch of incomplete sentences

Sorry about that. Let me at least fix that one sentence. "If prayer has, statistically, caused more people to be healed then a control group, that would be pretty good evidence for a god existing". I was trying to answer a question, I should have made that more clear.

I asked how the world would look if everyone believed what I do

I misunderstood. When I ask that question I mean, how would the world be different if that were true/false? The point of the exercise is to make a distinction between 2 worlds, one in which the world is mostly the same but your premise is true and the other where the world is mostly the same but your premise is false. It helps you figure out whether a premise is actually true or not. I'd appreciate if if you'd answer the question again with that in mind.

My goal is to understand why people believe in religion, so that I can hopefully come to an answer that would allow me to believe. I've studied epistemology and under some of the best philosophers the world has to offer to that end, and so far I haven't found an argument that can convince me, without violating my personal integrity to try my best to figure out what really is the truth. So that's why I'm doing this. It's also why I find it a bit insulting when you say I'm not open minded. Open minded doesn't mean gullible, or willing to do anything but your best in figuring out what's true and what isn't. I promise you I will try my best to understand your point of view, but if you're wrong I'm not going to lie to myself and tell myself you're right, no matter how much I want you to be right. Sorry if that can be a bit abrasive.

Without knowing exactly what you believe, it's hard for me to know what the world would look like if everyone believed what you do. I imagine that it might be without strife, but I couldn't tell. Lot's of people try to believe in the catholic god and still do great evil.

But I can draw upon history. There was a time where everyone believed in Catholicism. The dark ages. During that time Catholics burned a great deal of scientific literature, some people argue putting humanity behind hundreds of years in our scientific development. The big example of this is geocentrism. The church very much opposed the idea that the earth went around the sun, not the other way around. There are many other examples, that probably pushed humanity back even farther. The catholic church still holds a great many books from that time. At least the didn't burn them.

Still, dark ages Catholicism holds very little in common with modern day Christianity. So it's not a great mark for how the world would look if everyone believe in Catholicism today.

I just don't know what the world would look like if everyone believe as you, in particular, believed. I don't know enough about what you in particular believe.

God even if he hopped off the clouds and slapped you across the face.

Depends on his that god could do things that only god could do. Many people have impersonated Jesus over the years, figuring out the difference between the real Jesus and a Charleston pretending to be Jesus would be difficult. How would you do it? That's the lesson I'm trying to impart, by getting you to think of a world where god exists and where he doesn't, you can figure out, theoretically, if someone claiming to be Jesus really is or not. But let's try a different tactic.

Picture 2 people, both of which claim to be Jesus. One of them really is. How would you tell the difference between the 2 of them? And don't say because one can turn water into wine, I can do that with enough preparation time. You can get powders that nicely dissolve in water. And don't say healing the sick, because I can hire an actor to pretend to be ill, then lead you to him. Same thing with walking across water, with enough prep time I can make it look like I can walk across water.

Better yet, presume one of them is Lucifer, pretending to be Jesus and trying lead lead you astray; while the other is the real Jesus. How do you tell the difference?

tiny_nosferatu · 3 days

Or she has to use energy bending to give everyone all the bending powers.

kindrudekid · 3 days

You can do four-dimensional modeling with any n+4 dimensional controller. That has linux support anyway.

kindrudekid · 3 days

You are awesome. Just thought you should know that.

FlintShaman · 3 days

They might have proof enough for them to believe that their religion is right.

If someone else also has enough proof to believe that their contradictory religion is true, then at least one of them doesn't have enough proof. Someones got to be wrong. Requiring a higher standard for proof is the first step to knowing what's true.

Imagine a world where I'm right and there is God and everyone believed in him. What would it look like?

If prayer has, statistically, caused more people to be healed then a control group. This doesn't count if it works for a bunch of different gods that are incompatible and generic belief in things like chakras. To test I'd create a new god and a new spell, testing to see if it has the same affects as a belief in the already established deities.

If it does, then my primary theory would be in something akin to the placebo affect. It's not the god or the spell that does it, it's the belief that you're going to be healed that makes you healed. Like the placebo effect.

If made up/fake spells/deities failed to work then I'd have 2 main theories.

all the deities people believe in are real (that have statistically significant healing factors), they're just not omnipotent. They're incredibly powerful, but they lie, to make themselves seem bigger then the other gods. That nicely solves the problem of why they allow suffering in the world, while supposedly being good and moral.
We're in a sort of consensus reality. A mass of people believing in something makes it more or less true. So a new spell isn't going to have efficacy at all, because very few people believe in it.

There are other paths available, but that seems like the easiest for god.

I'm not certain how I'd differentiate between the first scenario and the second one though. Any thoughts on the matter?

I can see a world without God. But that would also include a would without the Jewish God, Allah, Buddha, Shiva, and any other deities worshiped.

You're confusing an actual god with people believing in a god. I don't think it's a big stretch to think that people could believe something was wrong. So presuming for the most part people believe the same stuff, through chance or just a long string of good luck, how is the world different? Presuming there's no god I mean.

fregoli · 4 days

You can sort of nudge 2 point clouds together until they match to sort of approximate an acceleromitor. Not that big of a deal. As long as you have a continuous field of vision and a static object, you can approximate that change in position between to point cloud snapshots.

fregoli · 4 days

Fuck that, let's us very accurately scan any object into 3D. The homebrew 3D printing industry is going to have a field day.

TommieKelly · 4 days

So far, if you're aiming to make revendale look like a heroic character, you're not doing too well. From my point of view anyway. He sounds exactly like the thousands of people who have made similar claims in the past and been lies or just outright frauds.

If you need a rationalist to give a more reasoned rationalist perspective on your world and what's happened in it, I will. I'm very good at sticking to the appropriate rigours when I have to, so even if I know that this world does in fact have magic, or a deity or whatever, I'll still be able to require the amount of proof I would if this was really happening and appropriately emulate a rationalist with the knowledge one would actually have.

TommieKelly · 4 days

You're the author, aren't you?

It looks a lot like self indulgent fantasy. A couple of people with magic powers fight against arrogant atheists and asshole skeptics, eventually taking over the world and making it a better place.

I hope that at some point, when your little band of rebels is having financial issue, one of them claims the randi prize, netting a nice million dollars and converting most of the sane skeptics to his cause.

If magic is real than most of the skeptic in the world are going believe in it. It could be good, but only if it doesn't strawman skeptics too much, and if the main characters have realistic hubris and flaws.

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