[ExI] A science-religious experience

[Jason Resch]

On Mon, Feb 24, 2025 at 2:12 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 24/02/2025 10:49, Jason Resch wrote:
>
> On Sun, Feb 23, 2025, 1:52 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> A long time ago, I came up with an idea called 'relativity of
>> importance', which has basically shaped my values ever since. Simple
>> idea, I'm sure many others have had it too. Ask yourself "what's the
>> most important thing you can think of?", then "Is there anything more
>> important to you than that?", and keep asking that question until you
>> come to a stop.
>> Then you have a list, in order, of the things that are important to you.
>> Then behave in accordance with it.
>>
>
> That's a nice idea!
>
> Do you think it is possible to rationally justify an ordering? E.g., would
> you expect two superintelligences to arrive at a roughly the same ordering?
>
>
> Well, I'd expect each individual to come up with their own list, and their
> own ordering. It doesn't matter if they are a village idiot, an average
> human or a superintelligence. The point is to come up with your own list,
> and your own ordering. This is in keeping with the (or rather, my) answer
> to the meaning of life: You Decide.
>


I guess what I was asking is whether you see any possibility that goal
prioritization could be made an objective science. If not, then I think
this supports what Einstein said about goals not coming from science. If
science can't decide it, then what is its source?

Note that charity ranking services (like GiveWell) struggle with this: how
do you weigh and compare lifting someone out of poverty vs. saving
someone's life, vs. restoring sight to a blind person, vs. avoiding a bout
of severe illness?

Is there a way to measure these in units of "utils"?



>
>
> Einstein had a lot of insightful things to say about religion. But you may
> not be receptive to it because of the word "religion". I share this with
> the hope that you might consider the value in what Einstein has to say here:
>
> <snip>
>
> While I'm sure Einstein was sincere, what he says is very blinkered, and
> just reinforces my opinion that he should have stuck to physics.
>
> The issue of competition in human societies is interesting enough, but
> this thread isn't the place to talk about it.
>

I found it insightful (but accept that each person experiences it
differently).


>
>> If he even really did say this. Lots of 'Einstein quotes' are apocryphal.
>>
>
> That's true. I checked the validity of this quote many times to be sure.
>
> It comes from his 1954 article Science and religion.
>
> https://einsteinandreligion.com/scienceandreligion.html
>
> Here is the full context:
>
> "Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are
> clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the
> two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may
> be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from
> science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the
> attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by
> those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and
> understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of
> religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the
> regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is,
> comprehensible to reason.
>
> I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The
> situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame,
> religion without science is blind."
>
>
> What, specifically, do you think is wrong in what he said?
>
>
> All of the above. It's written from the pespective of someone brought up
> in a society where the local religion is taken seriously, as if it had some
> essential wisdom and wasn't a pack of lies designed to make people do what
> they're told by a group of other people who were originally clever enough
> and unprincipled enough to trick everyone into being afraid of some stuff
> they just made up.
>
> It's just fundamentally wrong.
>
> "I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith"
> says it all. For someone who came up with two theories of relativity, it
> shows a disappointing lack of imagination.
>

To be clear though, the "profound faith" Einstein was referring to was not
a profound faith in god, or creed, but the profound faith that the universe
is comprehensible and amenable to human reason.



>
> And for me, religion is pretty much the worst way of deciding
>> on our goals. That's basically just letting some priests tell you what
>> you should be doing. And we're all familiar with the tragic consequences
>> of that.
>>
>
> Not all religions are those told to us by priests. The belief that science
> is the best (or only) tool for finding the truth is a belief (one some
> might call a religion (scientism)). I think you just have an impoverished
> conception of what religion can be.
>
>
> I have a realistic conception of what religion is, in practice, in the
> main. I'm sure there are some religions which can be fairly inoffensive,
> but they are by far in the minority.
>

Nascent medicine was quite bad. But that didn't mean all treatments
were bad, nor that the entire field should have been written off and never
improved.

If you think science is the best tool to refine, improve, discard, and
revise ideas, why not apply it to refine, improve, discard, and revise
ideas that originated in the sphere of religion?


>
> What are your guiding principles, what is your personal ethos and
> philosophy, what are your values, and core beliefs? These constitute your
> own personal religion.
>
>
> Philosophy, not religion. I have a personal philosophy, which I'm not
> going into here, but it's definitely not a religion.
>

I am fine with calling it a personal philosophy.


> Religions, on the whole, are based on superstition, and are a tool for
> controlling people.
>

Would you agree then, that modifying those that are, such that they're not
based on superstition, and not used tools of control, would be a net
positive?


> I'm not going to confuse things more than they already are by calling my
> philosophy a religion.
>

>
>> It also implies that there are only those two options, science and
>> religion, which is far from true.
>>
>
> He didn't frame it as either or, he thought both had interdependent
> relationships.
>
>
> He is only presenting those two, and not mentioning anything else,
> implying there is nothing else.
>

His article is titled "Science and Religion"; it's not meant to cover other
topics.


> In my opinion, religion doesn't even belong in the realm of philosophy,
>> but rather psychology (or even psychiatry). Including religion in
>> discussions about philosophy, ethics, etc., is basically equivalent to
>> including homoeopathy in discussions about medicine, astrology in
>> discussions about astronomy, alchemy in discussions about chemisty, etc.
>> Religion is probably the biggest con trick in all of history.
>>
>
>
> Are you an escapee from an organized religion?
>
>
> No.
> I just actually read the bible. Then later a few other 'holy' books, like
> the Koran (vile), the book of Mormon (hilarious), and a few others.
> I say "I read" as if I had actually read them all the way through, but
> that's not true. Let's say that I read enough.
>
> I find that tends to leave a particularly strong distaste for anything
> religious
>
> Then you may view me as though I was an escapee from an organised religion.
>
> , and a specific view of what a religion must be.
>
>
> I have collected several views from examining several religions. They do
> say that atheists tend to know more about religion than most of the
> faithful. That seems to be right, from my experience.
>
> Based on the philosophers you referenced, I presume you believe in mind
> uploading.
>
> Absolutely not.
>
> I think it's theoretically possible, and the only realistic long-term
> alternative to extinction for the human race.
>
I don't know if we will actually figure it out, and be able to make it
> available to large numbers of people.
> I think it is desirable, and would be The Coolest Thing Ever.
>
> But I don't 'believe in' it.
>

Okay, well you believe (or "think") it is possible, which is what I meant
to ask. :-)


>
> Mind uploading is based on the idea that the continuation of consciousness
> (i.e., survival) requires only a continuation of the mind-pattern, not the
> survival of a particular body or brain.
>
> Therefore death of a body or brain is not death, if at any future time or
> place that same mind pattern is brought into existence.
>
> Agree so far?
>
>
> Of course.
>
> Now consider:
>
> Eternal inflation, 'reincarnation', Jupiter brains, all of reality.
>
> No, sorry.
> Some of the things you say may or may not be feasible/realistic/true, but
> they are not worth my time thinking about.
> Like the simulation argument, it doesn't matter to me, here, now.
>

I won't bring it up again.


>
>
>
>> Yes, I do think there 'is no god', or more accurately, 'aren't any
>> gods'. (I find that there's a rather obnoxious short-sightedness (to be
>> polite, and avoiding calling it arrogance), among very many people in
>> the western world, using the word 'god', as if there haven't been
>> thousands of gods throughout human history).
>>
>
> How do you know what exists (or doesn't) in an infinite cosmos, when there
> are infinite conceptions of god, and possibly infinite universes?
>
> I don't. I didn't say I did. I said "I think".
>

My apologies, I misread you.


> I'm not going to base my behaviour on the theoretical maybe-possibility of
> something relating to possibly-infinite universes. I'm basing it on whether
> or not I think what the priests tell us is likely to be true or not. And my
> conclusion is overwhelmingly not. I'm thinking on the level of the
> refutation of Pascal's Wager and "Why doesn't god heal amputees?", not the
> level of multiverses and the omega point.
>
> This is a more tricky question, because you have to define what
>> 'god/gods' means. But in the traditional religious sense of the word,
>> gods simply cannot exist, unless we have our understanding of how the
>> world works totally wrong (which is unlikely, because our bridges and
>> buildings tend to not fall down, we have put people on the moon, and
>> millions of other things that depend on our scientific understanding,
>> work fine).
>
>
> There is a conception of god (in Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam) as infinite
> truth. Most mathematicians are platonists and therefore would acknowledge
> the existence of such a god.
>
> There is a conception of god (in Hinduism) as all of reality. Anyone who
> believes in a reality of any kind, necessarily believes in such a notion of
> god.
>
> There is a conception of god (in Hinduism and in Buddhism) as all of
> conscious. Those who believe in the existence of consciousness also
> implicitly believe in such a god.
>
>
> It's only when one artificially restricts notions of god to bearded men in
> the sky, who care about what people do in their bedrooms, or storm gods
> that shoot bolts of lightning in anger, that we can so easy dismiss them as
> silly.
>
>
> I'm fine with people believing in those more abstract 'gods', if they want
> to. It's not my thing, but as long as they leave me alone, I'll leave them
> alone.
>

Okay, no problem there.


>
> It's precisely the beardy-in-the-sky gods that most people who are
> believers, believe in, that are the problem. Those are the gods who want to
> tell you who you can have relationships with, what you can eat and wear,
> who you should be trying to kill, and which version of hell you should be
> so afraid of that you'll do anything the priests tell you to do to avoid it.
>
> And it's the worshippers of those gods that will do all they can to
> infiltrate your government, your schools, your systems of justice, subvert
> your news, corrupt and terrify (not to mention rape and otherwise abuse)
> your children, steal your money, stifle progress and dissent, and control
> your life.
>
> Yes, I know that not all religions are like that.
>
> But consider this: Which person do you think you should be more concerned
> about, the slightly batty old lady who thinks fairies are real, or the
> raving lunatic who has an automatic rifle and thinks that anybody who even
> looks slightly gay needs to be 'taught a lesson' (meaning: killed)?
>
> Here are words of another thinker you like:
>
> "Evolution moves towards greater complexity, greater elegance,..
>
>
> Well, nobody is right all the time, and in this, Kurzweil is flat-out
> wrong. He's not a biologist, so we can perhaps cut him some slack, but
> evolution emphatically does not 'move towards greater complexity' etc.
> Evolution is completely blind to whether it results in more, or less
> complexity (otherwise we wouldn't have cave fish or viruses, for example).
> The other things he mentions are of a different kind (apart from
> intelligence, I think), in that they are not objective, they are concepts
> in human minds, and only tangentially related to evolution.
>

As evolution proceeds, more niches for life are created, which allows for a
greater number of species, operating in a greater number of ways. Life (as
a whole) is more complex now than it ever has been before. This doesn't
mean every species is on a track for a larger brain and brain, but I think
what he says is true for the biosphere as a whole. The trend is definitely
noticeable if you consider the encephalization quotient for the mass of all
life forms on the planet (or the population of all neurons on Earth).



>
> ...greater knowledge, greater intelligence, greater beauty, greater
> creativity, and greater levels of subtle attributes such as love. In every
> monotheistic tradition God is likewise described as all of these qualities,
> only without limitation: infinite knowledge, infinite intelligence,
> infinite beauty, infinite creativity, infinite love, and so on.
>
>
> Which completely removes it from reality as we know it, therefore it
> becomes irrelevant, and more importantly, not real.
>
> Of course, even the accelerating growth of evolution never achieves an
> infinite level, but as it explodes exponentially it certainly moves rapidly
> in that direction. So evolution moves inexorably towards this conception of
> God, although never quite reaching this ideal."
> -- Ray Kurzweil in “The Singularity is Near” (2005)
>
>
> Ok, so he's using the concept of god as a metaphor. Fine.
>
> Here are words of the physicist who invented the quantum computers:
>
> "In the final anthropic principle or if anything like an infinite amount
> of computation taking place is going to be true, which I think is highly
> plausible one way or another, then the universe is heading towards
> something that might be called omniscience."
> -- David Deutsch in “The anthropic universe” (2006)
>
>
> Again, fine. Something that might be called omniscience. In the far far
> distant future. If you want to define that as a 'god', ok, none of my
> business. As long as it doesn't want to roast me for 'an eternity' for not
> taking seriously the idea that somehow I'm responsible for something my
> great-great grandfather did, and need to not only apologise for it, but
> give up eating peanut butter sandwiches for the rest of my life.
>

LOL


>
>
>> I simply don't know if there are universes beyond this one.
>
>
> The evidence is really overwhelming.
>
> Ok, if you say so. I'm probably not qualified enough, or intelligent
> enough, to evaluate the evidence. Not to mention not really that interested.
>

That's fine. Thank you for telling me so I didn't have to type anything up.
:-)


>
> I don't even
>> know how to properly define this universe.
>
>
> I would define it as a a connected domain of causal interaction. But
> you're right it gets complicated when we consider the various kinds of
> horizons, and even moreso when we consider the ability for universes to
> simulate one another.
>
> Ok then.
>
> I don't know why you say these are all in the realm of religious ideas.
>
>
> They're all ideas related to fundamental philosophical assumptions (i.e.
> beliefs) which further can't be empirically proven or disproven.
>
>
> philosophical assumptions which can't be empirically proven or disproven
> are not the same thing as beliefs. Try asking any christian (or better
> still, muslim) about their 'assumptions' about their god, or their prophet.
>
>
>
>
>> Only the first two relate to religion, in that without it the questions
>> wouldn't even exist, but they are still amenable to thinking logically
>> about them, and coming to reasonable conclusions.
>>
>
> I believe all these ideas are amenable to logical thinking.
>
>
> So do I. Ergo: not religion. Do you think that transubstantiation, the
> holy trinity, original sin, immortal souls, the infallibility of the pope,
> just to pick some examples from the most familiar religion in the west, are
> amenable to logical thinking?
>

Yes, I think so. One could work to clearly define those ideas, and consider
whether those definitions are logically consistent or not. If we
cannot find any logically consistent definition, we can abandon the idea.
If we do find a logically possible one, then we can further consider if it
is nomologically possible, if there is evidence for or against it within
this universe, and whether its existence (or non-existence) would lead to
any observable consequences.

Jason
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