If there were highly advanced beings that constructed the universe, and designed it to obfuscate that very fact, what would evidence of that look like?
If they are perfect at hiding their hand, we wouldn't be able to tell.
But that kind of thinking is akin to solipsism, a mental dead end. What if you're the only real person and the rest is simulated or a dream? Would you be able to tell?
What if god left all those dinosaur fossils as a joke, and big dinos never really existed? Well, it's possible, but it's a thought-terminating idea, so best not considered.
But you’re the one doing the thought terminating. These things don’t have to be a dead-end.
What if it wasn’t perfectly obfuscated? Is there any evidence at all you’d consider to be in favor of the world being not as it first appears? Not something that’s way more easily explained otherwise, like fossils.
There are things that come to mind for me. One is the brain’s ability to experience hypergeometry and additional dimensions on psychedelics. I don’t see how a brain that has the capability of being enhanced in that way happens through evolution alone. I don’t think geometry scales in the way that running does, for example.
Similarly is are the many cases of people experiencing beings outside of consensus reality. People see people talking to them clear as day, that no one else sees. You can write this off as either a drug-induced hallucination or mental illness, but that’s deciding the cause a priori. It’s circular reasoning.
the_af|1 year ago
But that kind of thinking is akin to solipsism, a mental dead end. What if you're the only real person and the rest is simulated or a dream? Would you be able to tell?
What if god left all those dinosaur fossils as a joke, and big dinos never really existed? Well, it's possible, but it's a thought-terminating idea, so best not considered.
travisjungroth|1 year ago
What if it wasn’t perfectly obfuscated? Is there any evidence at all you’d consider to be in favor of the world being not as it first appears? Not something that’s way more easily explained otherwise, like fossils.
There are things that come to mind for me. One is the brain’s ability to experience hypergeometry and additional dimensions on psychedelics. I don’t see how a brain that has the capability of being enhanced in that way happens through evolution alone. I don’t think geometry scales in the way that running does, for example.
Similarly is are the many cases of people experiencing beings outside of consensus reality. People see people talking to them clear as day, that no one else sees. You can write this off as either a drug-induced hallucination or mental illness, but that’s deciding the cause a priori. It’s circular reasoning.
broscillator|1 year ago