What would satisfy you beyond the shadow of a doubt that belief in a higher form of Being was justified?

If a burning bush spoke to me, I’d suspect some sort of hoax or theatrical trick.

If a spaceship landed on the White House lawn, I’d also be suspicious. It IS possible to make a craft fly without visible signs of propulsion: Lifters. And we all know how easy it is for filmmakers to make people look like aliens.

If a voice spoke to me inside my head, I’d probably suspect some sort of neurological disorder.

Now, the frying pan spattering a mess into the form of a printed message predicting an earthquake 10 seconds later. Then, yeah. I’d have to admit that reality is seriously effed up at that point (or we’re really living in The Matrix)...

When the United States becomes primarily atheist with a gay hispanic president lol.

In all seriousness, it would take something that is extremely unlikely to happen. Your examples are cool and everything, but until something extraordinary happens, it still goes back to the evidence.

I’d seek psychiatric help if my breakfast wrote me an essay.

I hope there is a higher power, but nothing can prove there is and nothing can prove there isn’t.

If a burning bush spoke directly to you, would you believe that bush was God?
No.
More likely explanations: Hallucinations, Stage magic, Holography, a fire resistant loudspeaker in the fire.

If a spaceship landed on the White House lawn, would you believe in extraterrestrials?
Yes.
If they told you that they were our Gods, would you believe them?
Depends on how they define god. If it is akin to Stagate’s Asgard and Goa’uld, then I would give them the benefit of doubt.

If a voice entered your head and claimed to be the Great Spirit choosing you to represent it to humanity, would you believe it?
No.
Most likely explanation: Hallucination. Or, given that we can affect neuronal activity with electromagnets, some crazy scientists/alien is messing with my brain.

If your Great Grandmother appeared in a vision and said she was happy in heaven, would you believe it?
No.
Hallucination, crazy scientist/alien.

If your frying pan exploded the morning breakfast all over the ceiling into a detailed essay on how time began and warned of an earthquake in ten seconds and then an earthquake actually took place, would you believe that was proof of a God being?
Not neccessarily. It would make me investigate though. And make pictures.

What in the world (or beyond it) could possibly prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that an intelligent Being beyond our comprehension actually existed?

Here is my attempt. This god appears to millions of people at once, at night, is videotaped, photographed and then, on command, he rearranges the stars in the sky according to _MY_specifications. All that would have to be witnessed by all the other millions of people as well. And it would have to be FILMED and PHOTOGRAPHED by as many people as possible. That would be a good start.
Of course, even that has a possible non-divine solution. Their could be an alien spaceship in orbit, projecting a giant holographic screen around the planet, (and the god figure on the ground) and messing with satellites in orbit.
I guess my point is, as long as I can even think of a non-divine solution to a supposed “proof”, there can be no certainty, and certainly no absolute certainty.
He could start altering the laws of physics, but even that could reasonably be emulated by a very advanced alien civilisation.
It would certainly convince me of these aliens though, if they claimed to be aliens.
What is a God? Is it power over the universe? Then any sufficiently advanced alien race will do. I can live with that.

I am not concerned with proof. All I know is that when ever my intentions are pure, and I really, really, want something to ‘happen’ it does!

Just this week 2 great opportunities have fallen in my lap and though I won’t say I ‘pray’, in a traditional manner, I do BELIEVE, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we absolutely manifest our deepest desires if we meditate and focus our energy on what we most want.

I think there is truth in the ’ believe it and you will see it.”

Why would some cosmic super power waste it’s time on skeptics, it’s going to deliver to those that are in synch with the unseen.

I have had too many expereinces to NOT beleive that there is some cosmic connection. :-)

I have a cool solution to your frying pan example:
There could be a cloaked alien operative in my kitchen equipped with a highly sophisticated tractor beam device. He makes my food explode and uses the tractor beam device to form the letters on my ceiling, with the prediction and all. He then telepathically contacts his colleages in orbit to start an earthquake in 10 minutes.

- The discovery of a serial number and signature encoded in all DNA.

- A series of scientific discoveries that lead to new information that indicates intelligence is a prerequesit for time, space, matter, etc.

- A miracle, e.g. God shows him self, moves the entire planet in to the center of the sun for 40 days and 40 nights while he hosts a world wide telepathic jazz concert, before moving us all back to our normal orbit and vanishing again.

EDIT:

- 7.7 million euros deposited in to my bank account tomorrow. cant hurt to try

@poisonedantidote – A serial number in DNA would only prove that we are “artificial” life forms created by an alien intelligence. Now, if we discovered a bitmap image encoded in the value of PI, then that would go a long way toward proving a God who created the universe.

@HungryGuy Well, a serial number would leave it open to aliens or gods, both by my deffinition would be higher beings. Assuming we are talking about advanced aliens and not some bacteria in some martian ice.

EDIT: It should be noted that if we are talking about aliens, belief in them would be almost justified already, but not quite.

@HungryGuy
Even the bitmap in Pi would not absolutely prove a “god”, if you consider the possibility that our reality could be a simulated reality run on a very powerful computer.
But you certainly could interpret the creators of said computer as “gods”.

If he/she went down on his/her knees…
...to tie my shoes.

@ragingloli – I agree. That someone who could alter the basic fabric of the laws of physics or the physical constants would prove either we’re all AIs living in a virtual reality simulation (a.k.a. The Matrix), or the existence a God. I guess it comes down to what exactly is the definition of God. If you can define the builders of such an AI system as Gods, then sure.

@HungryGuy
And of those two possibilites, the matrix is the more likely, because 1st, it is a naturalistic explanation and does not require the supernatural (unless you consider everything outside the simulated reality supernatural), and because humans themselves are beginning to simulate worlds. Just think of all the videogames, especially build up strategy games, like the Anno series. In less than 100 years, we ourselves could reasonably have the ability to fill these games, which would by then encompass entire planets, instead of small maps, with fully fledged self aware AIs that would be completely oblivious to their simulated nature.

@ragingloli – Oh yes! As an avid gamer, I’m well aware of how realistic and detailed FPS games portray their worlds through the eyes of the character, and how sophisticated some AI enemies are in war games and RPGs.

So if we, in a three dimensional realm create realities which are two dimensional, then does it not follow that our creators would be at least fourth dimensional?

Assuming your two dimensional character became self aware, could it comprehend the implications of three dimensions? Would you find it silly if it thought it could?

And how could I as a three dimensional being ever enter the realm of two dimensions to prove my existence to my creation?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
Games nowadays are 3dimensional. Might want to keep up with the development.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – Erm… You haven’t played any first person role playing games recently, have you?

“And how could I as a three dimensional being ever enter the realm of two dimensions to prove my existence to my creation?”

You could enter the simulated world via a neural interface and use an avatar to communicate with those people. But proving that you are a god, and not just a mortal being happening to hold a game controller, good luck with that.

Are they 3d represented on 2D? Link me to an example of a character stepping out of the box.

No, I’m not a gamer. School me please.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
Internally, the games are computed in 3 dimensions. The GPU translates that 3d data into a 2d image, mostly because we have not created the technology yet to create holograms.

“No, I’m not a gamer. School me please.”
How about a nice island. ?
Even that game is almost 4 years old.

^^edited the link

or a trip to future new york

OK I get it. I consider that quasi-3D. And my kids 3D game boy is an optical illusion. As well, holograms would only be an evolution of 2D, for it’s still based upon reflective surfaces.

However, I do fathom what you mean. The programming is ahead of the medium which can express it properly. This should be easily transferrable to animatronics, robotics…

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
With holograms, I was referring to the holodecks in star trek, where holograms are fully 3 dimensional projections of light projected on shaped forcefields. That means you can touch them too.

My 3D dog is begging for a walk.

Yes the holodeck is fascinating. I’m still not ready to call that genuine 3D, if it is reflective or projective in any way. Touching the forcefield is nothing more than touching the screen. I’d accept genuine 3D as a physical object such as a robot. It could run the same software.

BTW… how does the holodeck allow for spacial displacement, where Pickard and DATA seem to be miles apart at different elevations, but in reality, they’re standing right next to one another?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
The floor is a moving forcefield. Like a treadmill.

What technology is the forcefield based upon?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – Exactly. Even though we human players can only see the game world through a “camera” looking into a scene on a flat screen, the actual game inhabitants would see their world with as much clarity as we see our real world.

That’s assumption.

4th dimension 101

How do we 3D beings interact with the 4D?

@ragingloli
addendum
the distance part is achieved by putting a wall between the two and projecting an image of the other, corrected for simulated distance, on it.

It is an, as of yet, fictional technology.

As for our perception, our vision is also just quasi 3d. All our brain receives are 2 slighty angle shifted 2 dimensional, upside down images, that were projected on the retina of our eyes. The 3 dimensional “image” we “see” is a composite of those 2 images. And it is purely internal, as well. We only “see” as much detail as the physical limitations of our eyes, and processing capability of our brain, allow, even if our reality is indeed physical.
There is also the fact, that our brain does a lot of interpolation, interpretation, addition, and omission with the data it receives, so that our internally created view of the external world can not be a completely accurate representation.
We are not really different in that regard from our theoretical AI counterparts.
In fact, our AIs could see their world in full clarity, because we, as the creators, can feed the computed data of the world directly into their simulated brains, without having to simulate light projecting onto simulated retinas and simulated nerves sending simulated impulses into simulated brains.

“How do we 3D beings interact with the 4D?”
Since our brains are the product of our 3D reality and are thus computationally limited to 3D (remember, while we understand the math of spacetime warping, our brains can not visualise it, that is why we have to rely on analogies, like the 2D plane with a dent in it), the only way to do it is for that 4D creator to interact with us via a 3D avatar.

Walking the dog to contemplate.

If a burning bush speaks to me, I’ll probably run to get an extinguisher to prevent forest fire.
If aliens landed on the White House I won’t talk to them if they insist on meeting with a white president.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt proof? Ok. I want Pags back. He was my dog for 11 years before I left him to work overseas and I was not there when he died. I could not go home to say goodbye. My brother told me my dog before going outside to lie down on the ground and die sniffed at a framed picture of myself. He was old and sick. Now, whoever gives him back to me, even for just a week, I will worship for as long as I live.

@mazingerz88 – Ah yes. Bringing a person or animal back from the dead would definitely constitute proof (though it could still be argued that only proves we’re AI’s in a virtual reality).

@HungryGuy that’s true but it’s a step closer toward the next unraveling if any.

I suppose if I went out one morning and it started raining flaming skulls that laughed as they crashed to earth, I’d start to wonder. Whether or not there’s some higher thing up there though, even if it were proven to me, doesn’t mean I’d start worshiping it.

@HungryGuy
or an alien replicating an accurate enough replacement.

Sorry about your dog @mazingerz88. My Bart fell eight stories down an elevator shaft. The thing that revives him deserves my worship no doubt.

An entity with enough programming skills should be capable of duplicating the original codified template.
___________

Many questions…

A recent podcast by Terrence McKenna suggested that virtual reality had overtaken physical reality in size of spacial terrain. This was back in the early 1990’s he made this statement. I haven’t been able to verify this anywhere. Anybody know anything about this?

@ragingloli ”...the only way to do it is for that 4D creator to interact with us via a 3D avatar.”

Like a Jesus or Buddha? Or any being which is rumored to have been transfigured away from our realm without a body to confirm physical death. Who was the guy in the white suit who confronted Neo at the end? Wasn’t he an avatar?

@ragingloli “It is an, as of yet, fictional technology.”

What I meant was, Star Trek has always been good about making their tech relatable to current knowledge. Enough to hypothesize validity for the future tech. Are the forcefields based upon magnetism, quantum flux, zero point energy, what…? I understand the transporters and warp drive. And the replicators are conceivable as well. I’m just interested in knowing how the forcefields operate, understanding their functionality can be manipulated to many resources.

Has any programmer undertaken the daunting task of:

a) A self regenerating world.

b) Characters who are subject to forces of entropic decay.

c) Birthed characters who carry mixed traits of the parental genome.

@ragingloli – Maybe. A sufficiently advanced technology might be able to replicate a clone down to identical DNA, but it still wouldn’t have the memories of the original person. Bringing back a person with their memory intact would be about as close to proof as is possible to get.

And that would confirm my hypothesis that memory is not stored, but rather in fact, it is only represented with physical medium.

The words on your screen, my screen, and everyone elses screen are not 10 different pieces of information. It’s really just 10 mediums all pointing to and representing one source, the same source of information… that being, my thoughts.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – Nobody is certain exactly how memories are stored, but they have to be represented somehow electromechanically in the body.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
Like a Jesus or Buddha, yes. Problem with that of course is that you have to do it in such a way that it would be impossible to replicate it in the simulation according to the rules of the simulation. Which is itself a quite difficult task. Neither Jesus nor Buddha managed to do so. And in case of the former, not even enough evidence was left behind to confirm it actually happened.

The guy in the matrix that Neo encountered “the architect” was not an avatar. He was a self aware artificial intelligence maintaining and regularly resetting the simulation.
An avatar is a character without any autonomous decision making that is directly controlledby the outside “player”.

As for the forcefields, I do not know.

As for your tasks, I know of no example of a and b, but there are some for c, for example, this car evolution game. It evolves you a functional car using mutation, natural selection, genetic recombination via mating the two most successful cars of each generation.

@HungryGuy
They could have been hovering in orbit for millions of years and recorded copies of every person’s consciousness, and stored it for later use (why they would do that is another story).
They could also have overcome the heisenberg uncertainty principle, and just scanned the current state of the local neighbourhood (a few hundred lightyears) down to the quantum level and extrapolate the state of consciousness and memories of a particular person by backwards calculation.

@HungryGuy
We may not know how exactly they are stored, but we can in fact, delete memories, by manipulating brain chemistry: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081022135801.htm

I really don’t see this as erasing memory as much as it is modifying the mechanics which access them.

@ragingloli – Well, to focus on a specific atom from 100 miles or more above (as in the Star Trek teleporter to “beam” people up and down) would require a “lens” of immense diameter (if the laws of physics are being obeyed, anyway). And again, in order to alter the laws of physics would be either proof of God or that we’re AIs in a virtual reality.

@ragingloli “Problem with that of course is that you have to do it in such a way that it would be impossible to replicate it in the simulation according to the rules of the simulation. Which is itself a quite difficult task. Neither Jesus nor Buddha managed to do so.”

The rules of the simulation don’t provide for transfiguration, or being swept up into the heavens. Doing such a thing is definitely outside the boundaries of the programming logic. That’s why it seems miraculous to those who can’t do it.

@HungryGuy
Not necessarily alter the laws of physics. Might just be a case of overcoming those limitations with a trick. (at the beginning of rocketry, scientists said that launching a rocket into space was impossible because the amount of fuel required to do so would make the rocket to heavy to make it. They were right in principle, but we tricked physics by inventing the multi stage rocket).
Or our understanding of physics, especially the heisenberg uncertainty principle, is wrong, and their understanding is correct.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
I am not exactly sure what you mean by “transfiguration”, but as for “being swept up into the heavens”, there are several things that may be allowed by the simulation’s rules, like a tractor beam, an antigravity belt based on negative energy. Or something trivial like a thin carbon nanotube string coated with light bending metamaterials, making the string invisible. (can also be attached to donkeys, if you catch my drift)

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
Also, on an episode of Nova ScienceNow (with Neil DeGrasse Tyson) an american researcher did something similar. IIRC, he suppressed a protein that was responsible for maintaining memories, to delete memories.

Transfiguration happened to Jesus twice. Once when he was transfigured into a being of light and conversed with Moses and Elijah, as witnessed by the disciples. They could not approach for the light was so brilliant.

The other time was when he appeared to the disciples and told them not to touch him for he had not yet completed his ascension. It was like he was still cooking, and not ready for prime time.
__________

Isn’t suppressing a protein the same as flipping a one to a zero? It doesn’t mean the info is gone for good. Run a disk repair utility and access it again. This is common with digital forensics.

No lie, I had to run Disk Warrior on a compact flash card to save a job, a huge job. To my surprise, not only were the files recovered, but amazingly, photos appeared that I had shot years ago. I make my living as a photographer. This card had been erased and reformatted at least a hundred times. Yet photos from two years ago were still available. I was blown away.

Some would argue that it’s not about belief at all.

Believing or disbelieving does nothing to verify Truth.

Until one experiences a relationship with _______ one cannot say with certainty one way or another.

And there’s no way I can transfer my experience to you.

The great spiritual Masters understood this, so their role was to push or motivate the devotee toward obtaining their own experiences, or their own realization.

So, taking Christianity as an example, it was never about Jesus wanting anyone to follow Him; it was about the so-called followers following his directives.

Unfortunately, it ain’t easy to obtain such realizations.
One must surrender too much.

Far easier to create “The One”, and build a religion.

@Isn’t suppressing a protein the same as flipping a one to a zero.
Not really. A neuron is not that stable and the neural net especially not. It would seem reasonable that such a fragile network would have to be maintained to prevent data loss.
Like on the beach when you write something in the sand, the next wave destroys it.

The wave destroys the medium. But the message is still accessible by the original author and all those who receive the transmission visually.

That’s the funny thing about information. It’s the only thing that reproduces its representative medium just by being observed.

“But the message is still accessible by the original author and all those who receive the transmission visually.”
Only because it is stored in their neural net. e.g. stored on another medium. If the neural nets of both the author and all the recipients were wiped, the information would be lost.
Information is intrinsically linked to a medium. It can not exist without one.
If you write something on a piece of paper and then burn the paper, the reason the information still exists is NOT because it is independent from the medium, but because the paper wasn’t the only medium it was stored on. The other one is your brain.

This supposes that two separate mediums are in fact two separate agents of information. This is where we disagree. I reject your position based upon the fact that many different mediums can simultaneously represent the same exact agent of information. Destroying one medium does not affect the agent. Destroying 99% of them does not affect the agent. We have no research to suggest that destroying all mediums affects the the agent whatsoever. Only our ability to access it is compromised.

what does “agent of information” mean?

I want to see someone besides Chris Angel walk on water

The “ation” of information denotes a process. The in-form (informare) designates that which has no physical form being represented as a physical form.

Information is the process of representing that which has no physical form with a physical form. The agent of information, is the platonic form before it is represented physically.

One cannot be satisfied with justification because nothing can be justified, including what I’ve just written.

Justification is a poor substitute for justice. That’s why it can never be justified.

Since you didn’t justify your statement, I cannot trust you. :)

Justice served.

If a spaceship shaped like a cheeseburger, piloted by Elvis landed on my lawn & he waltzed up to me holding Michael Jackson’s stash of kiddie porn & a shit load of mosturiser….then i’d be inclined to believe in…....well, something. I don’t know what though.

@ragingloli – Maybe. Arrays of radio telescope dishes are a “trick” to get the precision of a single telescope dish many miles in diameter.

maybe these guys have a good answer