Why does anyone like the idea of "the Singularity"

[Liffguard]

From the Guardian article above:

Quote

If you were approached by me and my doppelgänger, not knowing which was which, not even the most powerful brain scanner in existence could tell us apart. And the fact that one can even imagine this scenario is sufficient to show that consciousness can’t just be made of ordinary physical atoms. So consciousness must, somehow, be something extra – an additional ingredient in nature.

This seems like it's making some unwarranted assumptions. I don't see why we should assume that consciousness must be "something extra...an additional ingredient in nature." I don't think we know enough about consciousness to make that claim.

What if consciousness is an emergent property of certain types of informational processes? In this case, doppelgangers or p-zombies are not things that actually could exist. I.e. in this framework consciousness and a perfect simulation of consciousness are not just indistinguishable from the outside, they’re literally the same thing. A perfect simulation or copy of your brain would think and feel in the same way your brain does.

I’m not saying that this is necessarily true, and I don’t think there’s any way to test it. But assuming that it’s possible to have a functioning, information-processing brain, without a conscious inner life, and therefore there must be something “more” to consciousness, strikes me as begging the question.

[Darryk]

Not sure about singularity but the idea of "stacks" as seen in Altered Carbon series on Netflix (or in the tabletop role-playing game Eclipse Phase, if anyone's played it) does appeal to me. The idea that you could make a backup of your brain, the thoughts, memories, identity etc and have it waiting on a drive somewhere, kind of like software with your brain being the hardware.

The idea appeals to me not so much because of the implied immortality (if characters die in Altered Carbon, so long as their "stack" isn't destroyed they can have the backup version of them inserted), but because sometimes I get nasty thoughts stuck in my head that I can't shake and it would be awesome to be able to forget them instantly by reverting to an earlier version of me in my brain,

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

30 minutes ago, Darryk said:

Not sure about singularity but the idea of "stacks" as seen in Altered Carbon series on Netflix (or in the tabletop role-playing game Eclipse Phase, if anyone's played it) does appeal to me. The idea that you could make a backup of your brain, the thoughts, memories, identity etc and have it waiting on a drive somewhere, kind of like software with your brain being the hardware.

The idea appeals to me not so much because of the implied immortality (if characters die in Altered Carbon, so long as their "stack" isn't destroyed they can have the backup version of them inserted), but because sometimes I get nasty thoughts stuck in my head that I can't shake and it would be awesome to be able to forget them instantly by reverting to an earlier version of me in my brain,

Sounds like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  I don’t care for that idea.  The pain, horror, and distress I have experienced in my life make up the patchwork that is me.  I don’t want to lose or leave that behind no matter how difficult it is to carry.  

Carrying it is part of what makes me who I am.

RBPL,

Yeah, that is my view as well.  I think Dennet wants people to ignore the hard problem of consciousness and focus on meat.  It seems he believes that if you ignore it the problem goes away.

[maarsen]

Consciousness is a very hard problem to solve. Zeno's paradox was a very hard problem to solve in its day. It took Newton and Leibnitz to crack that one. A hard problem is not an unsolvable problem. Very large networks do not seem to generate consciousness but small collections of neurons do as experiments have shown that some birds can act with intent, make tools and think about the future. i would consider these signifiers of consciousness.

As for believing in something I can't see, well we do that all the time. Quarks are assumed to exist, though none have been seen and in fact cannot in theory be seen as individual particles. Nevertheless they are accepted as having a real existence.

For me consciousness exists as much as atoms, and quarks, and neutrinos exist.  Consciousness also seems to be an emergent quality of brains and as such something is going on in brains that is not going on in other types of matter. All of this is well within our scope of study now as we have tools that did not exist even a few years ago.

Just an aside about Lord Kelvin and his theory of vortexes. Roger Penrose created a theory of Twistors back in the 80's. Right now it has become the hot new theory for calculating  the results of quantum interactions within atomic nuclei that would take years of computer time with older methods. Twistors, vortices. 6 of one, half a dozen of another? Penrose has a lot to say about consciousness also. He may end up as the Newton of the 21st century.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

17 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Consciousness is a very hard problem to solve. Zeno's paradox was a very hard problem to solve in its day. It took Newton and Leibnitz to crack that one. A hard problem is not an unsolvable problem. Very large networks do not seem to generate consciousness but small collections of neurons do as experiments have shown that some birds can act with intent, make tools and think about the future. i would consider these signifiers of consciousness.

As for believing in something I can't see, well we do that all the time. Quarks are assumed to exist, though none have been seen and in fact cannot in theory be seen as individual particles. Nevertheless they are accepted as having a real existence.

For me consciousness exists as much as atoms, and quarks, and neutrinos exist.  Consciousness also seems to be an emergent quality of brains and as such something is going on in brains that is not going on in other types of matter. All of this is well within our scope of study now as we have tools that did not exist even a few years ago.

Just an aside about Lord Kelvin and his theory of vortexes. Roger Penrose created a theory of Twistors back in the 80's. Right now it has become the hot new theory for calculating  the results of quantum interactions within atomic nuclei that would take years of computer time with older methods. Twistors, vortices. 6 of one, half a dozen of another? Penrose has a lot to say about consciousness also. He may end up as the Newton of the 21st century.

Penrose thinks that Brains are quantum computers.  I think, I'm not certain about this, that he buys into the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics and that he thinks our brains actually sample cross talk from the various quantum possibilities that exists from moment to moment and derive our perception of reality from that quantum phenomena.  

[Rippounet]

 

6 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Then the copy would be so exacting that it'd count as a consciousness transfer when it awoke in the computer world.  You'd remember going in for the waxing/mindcopy procedure, and would understand you'd awoken as a new version in cyberspace.

Ah. Therein lies the problem. You seem to be assuming my consciousness would by itself go from one body to the other.

I fail to see what supports such an assumption.

5 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Nitpick: Heliocentrism was actually moving humans "up in the world", so to speak. The traditional geocentric model had Earth as the cesspit of the cosmos, the lowest part of Creation. Earth being "nowhere special" was an improvement. 

I stand corrected then, as I'd always assumed that the geocentric model was linked to an anthropocentric perspective.

[The Mother of The Others]

On 2/11/2020 at 8:52 AM, Lord Varys said:

Also, it is quite clear that animals - especially mammals - have exactly the same kind of 'consciousness' as human beings -

Yeah.  We prize our apparent edge over other consciousnesses, because it's what we've got: the edge, currently, and prideful ways of explaining it.  But it's circumstance that gave us the Earth to plunder for now.  The actual sentience part of consciousness that we award only to ourselves will turn out to be an illusion, or a negligible distinction from the consciousness of flies and ants.   We and not they inherited the championship belt by being in the right geologic time and place for our particular advantages to run the table.   Doesn't mean we're special, it means we won a hand of timeline poker and are waiting for the inevitable reshuffling of the deck.   

That's why  (going back to the big main topic of AI overtaking us) if anyone actually does yearn for the singularity when we hand the baton over to a new top dog, maybe they fancy the idea of humanity cashing out our chips and collecting our winnings.  By removing ourselves from the biological life cycle now before we go extinct from a worldwide famine or some other flu bug that's always looming ahead to put an end to our 4 billion year trolley ride.   This moment of consciousness should go on, extend into the infinite, as our main gift to our children to enjoy.  But we get the sense humanity will continue screwing it up so our own children won't get to carry the torch much longer.  So if not our bio children, plan B becomes passing sentience on to our synthetic robo offspring, a more metaphorical set of children, "ours" only in that we birthed them.  Avoid that tragedy of leaving no trace of our existence behind by locking in our progress with AI and making it permanently launched as an alternate form of Nature.  More stable, removing biological weaknesses from our foundation so we no longer depend on Nature but could hopefully endure longer than Life biological.   They'll not suffer as much difficulty spreading to other planets and solar systems in the cold of space where corn is sparse.

But it's an unsure gamble.   Really, we're part of a 4 billion year tradition as bio-fuckers.  In our search for specialness we try to set ourselves apart from the animal kingdom, but that's bonkers because what's more special than being at the vanguard of a dynasty that's billions of years old?!   We should embrace the giraffe and panda real hard, not be ashamed of our apeishness.  And now we think we know better and can find more secure footing than Nature by opting for silicon 'life'?  There's no way of knowing what dead ends may thwart AI evolution 5,000 or 50,000 years ahead.  Are we betting the farm on something that won't produce a yield for as long as we could have continued working the fields ourselves?   If humanity goes into decline specifically because of this passing of the baton to machines, and then the machines sputter, .....if they fail to blossom into a real display of personality like Nature has peacock feathers that seem like evolutionary time well spent, ...... if machines go in some offshoot direction we wouldn't see as any kind of legacy worth having....    then we will have made a bad "all in for AI" call at our game of timeline poker.

Odd, how we're still Eve reaching for the tree of knowledge's fruit.  The story describes us well as scrabblers for advancement as soon as we can reach the branch, before we've done a background check on the Snake or poison tested the apple.  Can't you feel the gravity pulling us toward the AI singularity?   We can't not follow this path.  Let's supplant ourselves, Jim.   The apple is so tasty.   Children are the apple of our eye, but robots are the apple of our mind.   It's a crossroads.   Hybrid cyborgs?   That'd be like chopping bio and silicon apples up and baking a pie.   Machines may bring consistent behavior to the Earth that our erratic life cycle lacks, and thus instantly improve things and pave the way to "our" immortality (as the unseen extinct creator gods in the machines' religion.   A plaque hanging in their unimatrix one will commemorate us as the mucus sacks who birthed the Minds of lasting record in the cosmos).   But once we see AI hacking and cannibalizing each other at a pace of milliseconds that makes our wars seem like a motionless ocean, then we'll know where to shove our dreams of immortality.

[maarsen]

6 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Penrose thinks that Brains are quantum computers.  I think, I'm not certain about this, that he buys into the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics and that he thinks our brains actually sample cross talk from the various quantum possibilities that exists from moment to moment and derive our perception of reality from that quantum phenomena.  

He does have a pretty good track record in mathematics and if he can show the math, well I will accept whay he says. 

[Lord Varys]

14 hours ago, Rippounet said:

To be fair with Lord Varys, it's not that what he says flies in the face of anything, it's just that he's taking position in the debate, one inspired by thinkers like Dennet, while Scot (Scott?) would take the role of Chalmers.

Well, yeah, I don't think there is any merit to the qualia debate and stuff like that. You get that kind of debate when amateurs dabble in disciplines they do not belong. The question of consciousness can only be answered scientifically, not by armchair philosophy.

14 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I would take the view that as things stand, science and reason would give a point to Dennet and Lord Varys. However, I don't think that's all there is to it, and more importantly, even if that were the case, it is an illusion or a lie that we humans need. On some level, we need to believe that there is something special about us, about our consciousness, about our soul, lest we devolve into various degrees of nihilism (that was the point of my earlier joke after all).

Oh, but you don't have to base your being special on nonsense or fantasy? We are pretty smart mammals. And the world is infinitely more complex and interesting than the childish explanations mythology or religion have offered throughout our cultural history.

And it is very easily understood why people continue to fool themselves about the illusionary qualities of consciousness/self. I mean, we 'know' cogito ergo sum since Descartes - how can that be wrong? How can something be an illusion if the subject tricked or fooled by or experiencing the illusion is the illusion? That creates a linguistic paradox that is very difficult to deal with, especially since it comes very naturally to us mentally differentiate between *ourselves* and *our body* (which is hardly surprising considering *we* (believe *we*) move our hands and feet, etc.) - but that simply isn't a very well-founded presupposition to put it mildly.

If you look at the great scientific minds who understand a lot more about the cosmos and our place in it then very few, if any, had problems dealing with that by believing in childish myths. Looking the truth in the eye and facing what's going to come is always preferrable to putting your head and in the sand and chanting silly songs that Jesus is going to save you. I find it very condescending to actually expect that this is a challenge only few 'special people' are willing to face.

18 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Religion, by definition, is outside rational scientific discourse. God is not a testable hypothesis, therefore science isn't interested in it (science isn't interested in a good number of things, but then science doesn't set out to Know Everything, contrary to the claims of some). I'd also point out that, apart from biblical literalists, mainstream religion was more than happy to get on the evolution bandwagon - it wasn't as if it was a case of kicking-and-screaming.

That's just the modern spin on it. In the middle ages the only rational discourse happening was theologian. And it depends on your concept of god whether it is a testable hypothesis or not. Evolution was nothing mainstream religion jumped on - it was opposed from the start. Most scientists of the 19th were (more or less) pious creationists before evolutionary theory buried that idea. Nobody was happy with the idea of being an ape. And self-involved, petty people still aren't.

[Lord Varys]

15 hours ago, Liffguard said:

From the Guardian article above:

This seems like it's making some unwarranted assumptions. I don't see why we should assume that consciousness must be "something extra...an additional ingredient in nature." I don't think we know enough about consciousness to make that claim.

Yeah, that's the core mistake. It is like saying a working CD player must need a special internal ingredient to properly work. And there are so many very real confirmations that the brain does not only construct but reconstruct self stuff. If you stimulate certain parts of the brain with the people being conscious they start to laugh without external cause (aside from the brain stimulation). But when you ask them why they did that they don't say 'I don't know' - they tell you are story they very much believe.

Regardless how things work in detail things like that very much make it clear that whatever consciousness is - it doesn't call the shots.

In fact, if consciousness were important or a big thing then we would have long found the parts of the brain 'making it'. Like we learned that crucial brain injuries really can destroy the moral sense of a person, etc. People could no longer function if the part of the brain containing 'the person' or 'the self' or 'making conscious decisions' would be destroyed. But

15 hours ago, Liffguard said:

What if consciousness is an emergent property of certain types of informational processes? In this case, doppelgangers or p-zombies are not things that actually could exist. I.e. in this framework consciousness and a perfect simulation of consciousness are not just indistinguishable from the outside, they’re literally the same thing. A perfect simulation or copy of your brain would think and feel in the same way your brain does.

I’m not saying that this is necessarily true, and I don’t think there’s any way to test it. But assuming that it’s possible to have a functioning, information-processing brain, without a conscious inner life, and therefore there must be something “more” to consciousness, strikes me as begging the question.

Yeah, that's pretty much the case.

10 hours ago, maarsen said:

Consciousness is a very hard problem to solve. Zeno's paradox was a very hard problem to solve in its day. It took Newton and Leibnitz to crack that one. A hard problem is not an unsolvable problem. Very large networks do not seem to generate consciousness but small collections of neurons do as experiments have shown that some birds can act with intent, make tools and think about the future. i would consider these signifiers of consciousness.

Those strike me merely as special cases. A cat or dog doesn't have that many thoughts about the future, but they do have memory, personality, etc.

Our human consciousness is just a special case of ape consciousness designed to cope with the complex social structures of our society. If we were designed by a supreme intelligence we would be less obsessed with interpreting subtleties in human faces and voices and more about the things that actually count.

[The Marquis de Leech]

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That's just the modern spin on it. In the middle ages the only rational discourse happening was theologian. And it depends on your concept of god whether it is a testable hypothesis or not. Evolution was nothing mainstream religion jumped on - it was opposed from the start. Most scientists of the 19th were (more or less) pious creationists before evolutionary theory buried that idea. Nobody was happy with the idea of being an ape. And self-involved, petty people still aren't.

Medieval rationalism had nothing to do with modern notions of scientific enquiry. Modern science is empiricist - experiments and tests - and involves the discarding of theories as new evidence comes to light. Medieval rationalism was, well, rationalist - you learned something by thinking about it, after having read about it in an old book. If there was contradictory evidence, you harmonised it as much as possible with existing ideas.

In short, God has never been a testable hypothesis, and up until a comparatively short time ago, no-one was concerned with testable hypotheses.

As for the reception of Darwin, Darwin provided evidence... and it gelled with developing notions of geology. The biggest issue facing Darwin was the question "if life has been around for four billion years, what powers the Sun to last that long?" And because Victorians were a good deal more open-minded than many modern types, they cheerfully taught both Darwin and nineteenth century physics at the same time, even though they knew they were contradictory.

[Larry of the Lawn]

On 2/12/2020 at 6:36 AM, Darryk said:

Not sure about singularity but the idea of "stacks" as seen in Altered Carbon series on Netflix (or in the tabletop role-playing game Eclipse Phase, if anyone's played it) does appeal to me. The idea that you could make a backup of your brain, the thoughts, memories, identity etc and have it waiting on a drive somewhere, kind of like software with your brain being the hardware.

The idea appeals to me not so much because of the implied immortality (if characters die in Altered Carbon, so long as their "stack" isn't destroyed they can have the backup version of them inserted), but because sometimes I get nasty thoughts stuck in my head that I can't shake and it would be awesome to be able to forget them instantly by reverting to an earlier version of me in my brain,

If you haven't read the source material I'd highly recommend checking it out.  There is some ambiguity is to whether or not your consciousness actually survives a resleeving or going into storage or if it's just a computer program running that acts like you after your death.

[sologdin]

consciousness actually survives a resleeving

I read each 'copy' as another person.  that series presents two sets of information--genetic and mental--that need not match up and can be indefinitely re-used. the same thing comes up in old man's war and any other fiction involving transfer of mental data. i suppose it applies to star trek beaming, too--each time the body is subjected to radical corporeal disaggregation, it's not like it survives; it's just disposing of the dead copy while assembling a new living copy with information taken from the dead one.

[A wilding]

13 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

As for the reception of Darwin, Darwin provided evidence... and it gelled with developing notions of geology. The biggest issue facing Darwin was the question "if life has been around for four billion years, what powers the Sun to last that long?" And because Victorians were a good deal more open-minded than many modern types, they cheerfully taught both Darwin and nineteenth century physics at the same time, even though they knew they were contradictory.

Though we cheerfully teach relativity and quantum mechanics at the same time, even though we know they are contradictory ...

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 hours ago, sologdin said:

consciousness actually survives a resleeving

I read each 'copy' as another person.  that series presents two sets of information--genetic and mental--that need not match up and can be indefinitely re-used. the same thing comes up in old man's war and any other fiction involving transfer of mental data. i suppose it applies to star trek beaming, too--each time the body is subjected to radical corporeal disaggregation, it's not like it survives; it's just disposing of the dead copy while assembling a new living copy with information taken from the dead one.

I know the copy idea probabaly freaks out a lot of people but it's kind of comforting for me - I guess what I meant in the post you quoted was more 'soul' or 'essence' than 'consciousness'. 

 

I mean it's not that different from how people live on through the memories that their descendants and friends carry, or from works they've created that have outlasted their mortality.  A re-sleeved Jimi Hendrix wouldn't just be a Jimi record you can jam along to, he'd be someone you could jam with.  So I guess I'm a materialist?

Obviously, depending on how the tech was handled, this could be part of a disastrous future or a relative paradise.  

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

I know the copy idea probabaly freaks out a lot of people but it's kind of comforting for me - I guess what I meant in the post you quoted was more 'soul' or 'essence' than 'consciousness'. 

 

I mean it's not that different from how people live on through the memories that their descendants and friends carry, or from works they've created that have outlasted their mortality.  A re-sleeved Jimi Hendrix wouldn't just be a Jimi record you can jam along to, he'd be someone you could jam with.  So I guess I'm a materialist?

Obviously, depending on how the tech was handled, this could be part of a disastrous future or a relative paradise.  

One could also say a disastrous relative or a future paradise. 

[The Mother of The Others]

On 2/11/2020 at 5:35 AM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

consciousness that exists on a level higher than we are currently able to perceive?   ...they dismiss this possibility not because it isn’t possible but because it isn’t currently testable

Before we had eyes there was a higher form of consciousness/awareness waiting to be tapped into.   Life somehow identified this potential and dug down into a greater connectedness with the universe, our eyes exposing us to more of a reality previously hidden.  Is it the same with the mind?    Is our current consciousness a proto form of the richer awareness yet to be uncovered as life digs deeper over the eons to reach closer and closer to the heart of reality so we can gain new forms of connectedness and add layers of mental acuity?   How deep will that mineshaft go?    That's where i find wonder.

Is evolution like Stephen King's Tommyknockers, with our current level of sentience akin to those lowly zombie-esque townsfolk who were compelled to dig away all night as they uncovered more and more of the

 

spaceship

underfoot.    Science itself is this urge to dig deeper made conscious.   Look at us, compelled to uncover whatever's underneath.   Compelled by what?   A "drive," officially.  Our biochemical processes.   Does that drive also compel our bodies to experiment with mutations on the molecular level?  Are cells ordered to uncover more potential, to stretch our future, to yearn to supplant themselves.  Are we following the same evolutionary orders now by building machines so steadfastly to supplant us?

Eyeless, somehow life knew it was in the dark and aimed its evolution down avenues that would one day result in eyesight.   Like, millions of years down the road.   What was driving that?   For a start life just began moving things into place, surely not as building blocks for a sight organ atop the food oriface, because as we "know" mutations are more random and don't come with 100 million year plans like a Japanese corporation in the 90's.  

Clumps of molecules only, then, which anthropologists must become apologists for.  They have the unenviable job of saying, "uh, yeah, each of those clumps provided an evolutionary advantage during every step of the process , even as complete eyeballs remained a gazillion generations away.  Sure, like, maybe a puffiness built up on their heads where the eyes would one day emerge, and that deflected tongue strikes away to the sides so a frog couldn't latch on to your head with its tongue as easily, making it more likely you'd survive.  ....Yes.   That's my position and nothing can get me to budge on that OR use a breath mint."    

I guess what I'm saying is life appears to be entangled with something guiding its hand from deeper within reality than we have succeeded in uncovering or explaining thus far.  Not a god, which is the oversimplification of this insight.  But this insight is the reason we developed religions.  To arrive at the wing, something shaved a lot of the randomness out of evolution for long enough to hunker down and focus on design something fierce. 

The new age cult I may be susceptible to joining would be the one preaching that our consciousness is the tip of the thoughtberg and there's more of it waiting to be found attached to the part we've accessed.  I think we'll eventually find that our subconscious influences mutations through some kind of wishcraft, yearning, a bodily imperative spoken through sustained fear or need or desire that the cells hear as a work order.   More directed than we realize.

So if the brain isn't set up as a receiver, and consciousness isn't being received as a gift from some higher reality that deigned to send us divine inspiration, maybe there's still a mystery just as wondrous looking us right in the... eye.   Consciousness may be actively ramping up to a higher reality over time.

We may be in the tadpole stage of the brain's development.   What a shame then, if we create the machine overlords of the galaxy now, and they kill off life before we get a chance to evolve godsight, or whatever's next for us.  How much more enlightened the permanent ruling class of machines could have been.   Oh well, let's at least make them super attractive then.

[Lord Varys]

18 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Medieval rationalism had nothing to do with modern notions of scientific enquiry. Modern science is empiricist - experiments and tests - and involves the discarding of theories as new evidence comes to light. Medieval rationalism was, well, rationalist - you learned something by thinking about it, after having read about it in an old book. If there was contradictory evidence, you harmonised it as much as possible with existing ideas.

That is not really true. Ivory tower clerics controlling access and content of written knowledge rejected empiricism - the (mostly unknown) builders of the Gothic cathedrals knew how to do practical science.

But my point was more that western religion only decided to not compete with science when it was clear they no longer could do that. If you could ask pre-20th century popes or John Calvin or the Mayflower gang about their opinion whose 'facts' should control society then you would get a very definitive answer.

It is a rhetoric strategy to enshrine privileges based on nothing in our societal framework.

18 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

In short, God has never been a testable hypothesis, and up until a comparatively short time ago, no-one was concerned with testable hypotheses.

Many gods are testable hypotheses - Jesus Christ is, basic logic deals with the trinity, transsubstation is nonsense, etc. The Olympian gods also were testable hypotheses, any deity which supposedly answers prayers or works miracles is a testable hypotheses. Many books of the Bible show how you the powers of various gods can be put to the test, etc.

18 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

As for the reception of Darwin, Darwin provided evidence... and it gelled with developing notions of geology. The biggest issue facing Darwin was the question "if life has been around for four billion years, what powers the Sun to last that long?" And because Victorians were a good deal more open-minded than many modern types, they cheerfully taught both Darwin and nineteenth century physics at the same time, even though they knew they were contradictory.

Unless I'm very much mistaken the age of the Earth was only discovered in the 20th century. The guys of the 19th centuries were speculating about the Earth being millions of years old, not billions.

Creationism was the prevalent scientific theory about the complexity of life prior to modern evolutionary theories. But this is, of course, something that originates with religious dogma. Human presumption might also play a huge part. One does not want to be an animal and one prefers to be 'specially created' - like we make dolls or figurines, etc. But the evidence that this is nonsense was there for everybody to see.

[The Marquis de Leech]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is not really true. Ivory tower clerics controlling access and content of written knowledge rejected empiricism - the (mostly unknown) builders of the Gothic cathedrals knew how to do practical science.

But my point was more that western religion only decided to not compete with science when it was clear they no longer could do that. If you could ask pre-20th century popes or John Calvin or the Mayflower gang about their opinion whose 'facts' should control society then you would get a very definitive answer.

Empiricism as a model for science had to, you know, actually be developed, and in a world where the ghosts of Plato and Aristotle loomed large, adherence to the older way of knowledge wasn't some Evil Plot. Indeed, Kant pretty much deals with the issue - Empiricism isn't actually a universal path to understanding, since results have to be absorbed through our personalised senses, from which it follows that there limits to what Science can actually do. Science itself acknowledges this, of course.

As for religion and science competing, Gregor Mendel and Isaac Newton say hello. Sure, Newton was a creationist, but he didn't see a competition. He thought studying natural philosophy (as science was called then) would help him understand God. 

Quote

Many gods are testable hypotheses - Jesus Christ is, basic logic deals with the trinity, transsubstation is nonsense, etc. The Olympian gods also were testable hypotheses, any deity which supposedly answers prayers or works miracles is a testable hypotheses. Many books of the Bible show how you the powers of various gods can be put to the test, etc.

How are you disproving the trinity and transsubstantiation? It's just I've got Pope Francis on the phone, and he really wants to know.

Finally, as for creationism, you are aware that biblical literalism is a comparatively recent thing, and that plenty of people well before Darwin were insisting that Genesis must be read as allegory?

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Empiricism as a model for science had to, you know, actually be developed, and in a world where the ghosts of Plato and Aristotle loomed large, adherence to the older way of knowledge wasn't some Evil Plot.

People always knew how to do complex things. Empiricism didn't need to be invented. It needed to systematized and allowed to undermine, overcome, and replace stupid fantasy presuppositions.

1 hour ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Indeed, Kant pretty much deals with the issue - Empiricism isn't actually a universal path to understanding, since results have to be absorbed through our personalised senses, from which it follows that there limits to what Science can actually do. Science itself acknowledges this, of course.

Well, Kant metaphysical approach deals with more than just the senses, but it isn't some deep understanding that we can only know things the way we can know the way our epistemological framework works.

Any actual science is empirical - even theoretical physics of our day and age. It either deals with aspects of reality or it is just fantasy.

1 hour ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

As for religion and science competing, Gregor Mendel and Isaac Newton say hello. Sure, Newton was a creationist, but he didn't see a competition. He thought studying natural philosophy (as science was called then) would help him understand God.

Well, people are complex, they can do many contradictory things. It is irrelevant what people privately believe when they do proper science (there is a reason why nobody gives two cents about Newton's or Mendel's (did he write any?) theological works. But if you let your fantasy beliefs intefere with your science you usually do not do science.

1 hour ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

How are you disproving the trinity and transsubstantiation? It's just I've got Pope Francis on the phone, and he really wants to know.

Well, the trinity is just logically impossible. And that transsubstation doesn't work is rather obvious considering the nonsensical and arbitrary philosophical presuppositions behind it (which are just a ridiculous attempt to explain away the fact that there was no real transfiguation involved).

1 hour ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Finally, as for creationism, you are aware that biblical literalism is a comparatively recent thing, and that plenty of people well before Darwin were insisting that Genesis must be read as allegory?

Not that I'm aware of. Genesis was historically not read as an allegory - or if it was then not in the sense that anyone doubted that gods or deities weren't the one who had created the plants and animals and humans. Whether you buy the garden and original sin and the other stuff is another thing. But there was no other explanation but creationism for the origin of plants and animals that I'm aware of. It became a very strong argument for god with natural theology and all that in modern times (18th century and so).