Am I agnostic, atheist or something else?

[MadMojoMonkey]

Sweetlord, sidebar.

What makes you know that there is an underlying mechanism which presents itself to us as uncertainty?

I ain't trapping you here. ya hear?

Nothing has indicated to me that such a mechanism exists.

Just as nothing had indicated a sub-structure of an atom a while ago, but that was wrong. Nothing predicted the sub-structure of a proton, but that has been discovered as well.

If there is a sub-structure to what are currently understood at complex-valued probability distribution functions, that could shed light on the nature of the inherent uncertainty. It can not make the uncertainty go away. Even if there is some model that is fully compatible with QM which does not involve wave functions, but which looks like wave functions in the special case of particles, the fact that it looks like wave functions (if nothing else) introduces uncertainty.

[ISillyDurrrAK]

I'm absolutely certain that our world was created by Flying Spaghetti Monster, only blind people can oversee His presence. Ramen!

[a500lbgorilla]

If the flying spaghetti monster were real then how do you explain macaroni?

[ISillyDurrrAK]

If the flying spaghetti monster were real then how do you explain macaroni?

He is kind enough to provide food to us in form of pasta.

[boost]

Rilla, you're arguing from a post modernist perspective, and it's really lame. Your same argument could be used to cast doubt on whether or not the statue of liberty actually exists. We can see it there, we can take pictures of it, we know it's history, etc, but can we really know it sits there in New York Harbor? After all, we don't speak reality, so how could we?

[a500lbgorilla]

Rilla, you're arguing from a post modernist perspective, and it's really lame. Your same argument could be used to cast doubt on whether or not the statue of liberty actually exists.

No, boost. I'm really not. MadMojoMonkey will verify this for you.

[boost]

No, boost. I'm really not. MadMojoMonkey will verify this for you.

Or you could cease trying so hard to be the guiding hand, and just join in the conversation. Like, you know, stop being so vague, and just explain it yourself.

[a500lbgorilla]

Or you could cease trying so hard to be the guiding hand, and just join in the conversation. Like, you know, stop being so vague, and just explain it yourself.

... I did. With words. Across all of my posts.

[a500lbgorilla]

Oh, are you saying you want me to describe it to specifically you? It being something of some meaning.

It's not an argument. It's something of incredible study. So we have the answer key and we have a good process for reading that answer key, and we've been at it for 400 years <been at it for XYZ>.

But after 400 years <but after XYZ>, we still don't know how to decipher that answer key perfectly, but we're still at it.

We're real good. Real real good. But we aren't perfect. We just have the german rigor.

People claim to know perfect, they describe perfect as some God or some such, but that's the nonsense from fools trying to cut ahead.

The funny thing is, we'll never know perfect. But we will know real well. And that real well becomes real real well, and then real real real well.

In summation, science knows real well. Science tries to decipher the answer key. And we're gonna stick at it but we won't know reality in terms of reality, only in terms of <human>.

That's as best as I can do to be wholly honest.

[a500lbgorilla]

On the one hand, these conversations, over the internet, devolve into something very silly.

But on the other hand, these conversations are an aspect of the free exchange of ideas.

I'd like to believe the reason that the overwhelming majority of young people in America support gay marriage is tied to the infrastructure of the internet and how it allows for these stupid and complicated sorts of conversations to be run-through time and again.

[oskar]

Maybe I have a misguided understanding of the definition of atheism, but I always understood it to be a rejection of theism, not a position of categorically denying even the possibility of the existence of the supernatural, but the mere rejection of the god hypothesis as being baseless and pointless. I like that because I do not want to call myself an agnostic something, which brings connotations of being a fencehopping simpleton who thinks everything unprooven is equally improbable.

Anyone who calls himself an agnostic-atheist has thought things through enough to reject any theistic deity as completely absurd and astronomically unlikely, but to someone with a less stable grip on reality it sounds like you are a seeker who just hasn't heard the right proverbs yet.

That's why I'd rather not deal with that agnostic nonsense: You reject every major religion as equally absurd, and your level of uncertainty has a devider of Grahams number? Call yourself an atheist! Otherwise we can just throw out the definition alltogether because it applies to noone.

[a500lbgorilla]

Anyone who calls himself an agnostic-atheist has thought things through enough to reject any theistic deity as completely absurd and astronomically unlikely, but to someone with a less stable grip on reality it sounds like you are a seeker who just hasn't heard the right proverbs yet.

Hey man, we're like all seekers.

When you, like, hear the right proverbs... maybe it won't be with your ears. Maybe they won't be from a book... maybe like... one day... it'll click and you'll know, man.

On NPR yesterday they were talking about religious experiences induced by psilocybin. I wish I could find the podcast online and I sent an email to the station without word back.

But they had 20 guys who were going to some religious school that preps priests. On an Easter they took them to the basement of a church and gave 10 a placebo and 10 magic mushrooms.

This one dude had this incredible story about his experience, how he was standing in this circle with colored light emanating in each direction taking him to some other place and time and he had to choose one but he couldn't. It began to tear him up inside and eventually he heard some old dude's voice that he knew say something like "I will die for you this one time, Death. But that is all I will do." and then he died.

After the experience, 9/10 of the mushroomers went on to become full-fledged preachers while 0/10 of the placebo did.

I thought it was pretty cool.

[oskar]

No, you're dumb!

[d0zer]

joe rogan's right: we should require our elected representatives to have tripped on mushrooms at some point in their lives