Indubitably real (I cannot fault this, please help)

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I’ve got to the following argument and I genuinely can’t fault it and I have tried sincerely. What do people think of the following:

  1. Logically whatever can be copied or simulated has a doubtable reality.
  2. Therefore; that which cannot be copied or simulated in anyway is indubitably real.
  3. Only the following items cannot be copied or simulated in anyway: omnipresence (substance) omnipotence and omniscience
  4. Therefore that which is indubitably real is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient.

If this is the case, then God (provided that it has the three aforementioned traits) is the first item of knowledge??

2

Why? Can you be copied or simulated? Do you doubt your reality? Can a language be copied, and does that make it less real?

Things surely must be real to be copiable. What is a simulation of, if not reality?

That doesn’t follow at all from (1). All X is not Y doesn’t imply that all not-X is Y. There may be nothing that is indubitably real, for example. So this step fails, logically.

They’re not items, they’re properties. I don’t think it makes much sense to think of properties being simulated or copied: you simulate red as red. Copying is creating something with some of the same properties as something else, not giving something new properties that are copies of existent properties.

Even if step 2 held, “That which is X is also Y” does not imply “that which is Y is also X”. All Minnesotans are blonde doesn’t imply that all blondes are Minnesotan.

I can’t find a single step to agree with, I’m afraid.

3

If you have a bronze statue :
It can be copied in bronze by making a mold. It can be copied (simulated) in plaster by making a mold. It can be scanned in three dimensions and simulated in a computer.

In what way is the original bronze statue not real?

4

I should have included the following premises. I apologise for missing them out earlier:

  1. To establish something immune to doubt, we must use doubt maximally (this would establish something certain)
  2. The first outcome of this process is that doubt cannot be doubted as its meaning is needed for its application
  3. Doubt is only possible within an existence as opposed to nothingness
  4. If there is an existence, then there is at least one thing that is indubitably real.

Existence encompasses all realities. Am I right in asserting that dreams and virtual worlds are simulations? If yes, then they are encompassed by and dependent on some other world or thing that is real as opposed to a simulation or copy. Language can be copied but are we using it in the real world?

But if there is existence, how can there be nothing that is indubitably real?
What other reason do we have to doubt the reality of something other than that the thing in question can be copied or simulated? And with this in mind;
aside from filtering through all items of thought, trying to spot that which cannot be hypothetically copied or simulated, is there any other logical way that we can rationally reach that which is indubitably real? It all comes down to this: If you can’t copy or simulate something, how can you doubt its realness?

I meant items of thought. I should have been more clear, I apologise.
Redness, happiness, squares, pyramids, humans and almost all other things and properties, can all occur within a simulative world can they not? On this basis, would it not be justified to say that we cannot classify them as being indubitably real?

I agree.
“All Minnesotans are blonde doesn’t imply that all blondes are Minnesotan.”
Whilst there may be other blondes in addition to Minnesotans, Minnesotans are still blondes. Similarly, whist there my be other traits or things in association with that which is indubitably real, they are all in addition to omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience.

If existence was corporeal, then substance is indubitably real because it would be omnipresent. In opposition to this, is the possibility of an incorporeal existence. Because we can’t rationally determine whether existence is corporeal or incorporeal, we don’t have the rational authority to say matter or thought is indubitably real because they cancel each other out.

Again, I apologise for my not sufficiently clear post earlier. I hope I have adequately clarified in this post.

Cheers

Certainly real

5

If it is hypothetically possible that the bronze statue being copied or simulated into other properties is part of a simulative world or thing, then how can it be indubitably concluded that the bronze statue was real to begin with?

The bronze statue is the original model for the copies or simulations occurring within a possibly simulative world. On this basis, it cannot be indubitably real because there is a hypothetical possibility that the statue is part of a simulative world.

But in the case of omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience, there is no way that they could be part of a simulative world. It would be paradoxical. How can something omnipresent be limited to a simulative world? How can something omniscient know all things knowable if it does not have reach or access to reality and all simulations of it? And how can something omnipotent do all things doable if it did not have access or reach to the entirety of existence, including reality?

6

The argument is missing steps here. Why is that ‘logical’? It seems to me however that a stronger case can be made for ‘logically whatever can be copied or simulated is real’. If something can be copied, it is, well, something. One copies something real. Simulates is trickier, but once you have called it something…

This is not a valid conclusion from # 1. There may be other ways that something logically has a doubtable reality.

Again, an argument needs to be made. This is incomplete. I can guess what that argument will be, but it needs one. I Think the toughest part will be to prove that those are the ONLY ‘things’ that cannot be copied.

Why the adverb ‘indubitably’? Why not simply ‘real’.?

If this is the case, then God (provided that it has the three aforementioned traits) is the first item of knowledge??
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7

If something like the Mona Lisa painting can be copied, then you can never know if you are looking at the real Mona Lisa painting painted by Da vinci. But if somehow you knew that the painting could not be copied or simulated, then you know that you are looking at the real Mona Lisa painting.

The problem is that the reality we experience could be simulated or copied. Therefore we don’t know if the reality in which we preoccupy is the original reality or a simulation or copy of it. As a result of this, everything within this “reality” including us, may not be real.

If you can’t copy or simulate something, what other hypothetically possible way is there for the thing in question to have a doubtable reality?

I should have added the four premises to the first post I made, but I have added them in my 2nd post in this thread. I apologise for this. Also please note, that as a new member, my replies have to be moderated before they are posted, so they won’t show immediately after I press submit.

I thought about concepts such as omni-matter (where existence is corporeal and matter is in everything) and omni-thought (where existence is incorporeal) but I could not associate them with that which is indubitably because the two concepts cancel each other out. It cannot be both of them. It has to be only one of them. Therefore it is not something I can know.

Omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience, don’t cancel each other out. And if I am to be unbiased, I am rationally obliged to associate them with that which is indubitably real. Everything else (as far as I know) can either be copied, simulated, is contradictory, or impossible to know (such as a 100th spatial dimension) by us. That’s why I concluded only those three traits as indubitably real.

I wanted to make a clear distinction between that which may be real and that which is certainly or indubitably real. I opted for indubitably as the focus is on the realness of the thing being immune to doubt.

8

I think I may not have addressed this specific point you made.

If something can be copied or simulated, then the reality from which it is copied or simulated from, must be able to accommodate the copy or simulation in question. For example:

If I see a unicorn in a dream, then all the simple ideas and core attributes that make up a unicorn (3-dimensionality, shape, colour, etc.) must be accommodated by the reality on which my dream is dependent on (it must have at least 3 spatial dimensions or more). If it’s logically impossible in the real world, then it is impossible in the simulative realities that are wholly contingent upon the true reality.

For example, I know that I will never dream of a square-circle. Existence can’t accommodate such absurdity; therefore it won’t feature in any sort reality within existence.

So, If anything can be copied or simulated, then we can be certain that the reality from which it was copied or simulated from, can accommodate it. But my point is that the specific thing in question may not have a duplicate feature in reality. There may be no unicorns in reality, or we may not be featuring in the true reality (this may just be a simulative world). Therefore we, and the unicorn, cannot be indubitably real. We may be real.

9

As already said it’s axiomatic and the axioms are questionable at best.

  1. Logically whatever can be copied or simulated has a doubtable reality.

Why? I mean really, do you mean exact copies? What? Nothing can be copied exactly… Even copying some software will render the original different from the copy. Can you copy God does it then have any meaning?

The whole argument is banal.

It leads to the dubious revelation that everyone is God since you can’t copy anything.

10

I don’t know why people, and it is a fairly wide range of people, are convinced by such deduction. We now have particles that are also Waves. I am quite sure that someone would have said, Before it became clear this was the case, that something could not be both. There are plenty of other kinds of counterintuitive things that seem really rather true after all.

11

That doesn’t make any of the painting involved unreal. I means you have an epistemological problem determining which is the original REAL thing. It would improve the OP if you said perfect copy. Though this still doesn’t help with ‘real’.

May not be the original. That is different from being real. I don’t Think it is good use of the Word real to use it as original.

a question is not an argument. Perhaps I had never Heard of black holes, or duck billed playpuses, or Silicon based Life forms - all kinds of exceptions. Someone then asks me for an exception and uses my inability to come up with one as a demonstration there are no exceptions. This is not a sound argument. If you are making the claim that no other things cannot be copied, or whatever, you bear the burden of demonstrating how you know this.

OK

Omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience, don’t cancel each other out. And if I am to be unbiased, I am rationally obliged to associate them with that which is indubitably real. Everything else (as far as I know) can either be copied, simulated, is contradictory, or impossible to know (such as a 100th spatial dimension) by us. That’s why I concluded only those three traits as indubitably real.

I wanted to make a clear distinction between that which may be real and that which is certainly or indubitably real. I opted for indubitably as the focus is on the realness of the thing being immune to doubt.
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But are we even sure they exist. Doesn’t it seem like if they existed than perhaps they could not be copied. Just because as concepts they seem to represent ‘things’ that could not be copied does not mean they are real. It might mean they would be real if they existed.

12

Can the Bible be copied? If so, would the OP conclude that it is unreal?

13

Which axiom is questionable in your opinion? Can we deny existence and reality? Or can we plausibly maintain that that which cannot be simulated may actually be a simulation or part of a simulative reality?

Ok, what about simulation? Can something that cannot be hypothetically simulated, feature within a simulative reality?

The conclusion is; if something cannot be simulated, then surely it cannot have any simulations of it within existence. Could an item that cannot be simulated, be part of a simulative world? I don’t see how; because the traits in question necessarily encompass all realities. For example, how can something be omnipresent if it does not feature within reality?

14

I can’t say anything with authority here. But I would think that if a scientific observation was made that lead to a conclusion that was rationally absurd (like something coming in and out of existence) then they would either change the theory they are working within to explain the observation or they would find some other explanation for the observation within the theory they are working in. If they can’t make rational sense of it, then they haven’t understood it. But the whole point of the observation was to understand and make sense of things.

15

Bad example on my part. What I should I have said was that if a painting can be hypothetically copied or simulated, then you cannot know for certain that you are in possession of the original one. The realness of the painting is therefore irrelevant. The focus is on whether we can be certain of its originality.

Unfortunately, this problem applies to reality. We know that reality can be simulated (imagination, dreams, virtual reality). So how can we indubitably associate ourselves with the original reality when we, and all that we experience can be simulated? Ideally, reason requires something that cannot be exclusively part of a simulative world, and something that cannot be simulated at all.

Actually yeah you’re right.

Other items that cannot be simulated may or may not be spotted in addition to the three already spotted. If this happens, then all the items discovered should rationally be associated with the original reality. Only when an un-simulative item cancels out omnipresence etc., should omnipresence be disregarded as an attribute of reality. I can’t demonstrate an un-simulative idea that cancels out the traits I am proposing. That’s why I proposed them. If someone else can do this, then they have provided proof counter to the the traits I’ve proposed.

I get what you’re saying and I do agree that if it’s not in existence, then it’s not in any level or type of reality.
All I did, was filter through all the ideas in my mind. But if these are ideas in my mind, then they are in existence are they not? If I have an idea of Zeus, then Zeus may or may not be real, but Zeus is certainly within existence. More specifically he exists in my mind because if he is in my mind, then he is not in nothingness.

So provided that there is a coherent idea of omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience, then god’s existence in the mind is certain. But the nature of this idea, and the nature of reason is such that this idea cannot be limited to just a simulative reality (our minds) because:

How can something that is in existence, that cannot be limited to a simulative reality and cannot be simulated within reality, fail to be real?

16

Using doubt maximally doesn’t ensure certainty.

17

I think it can be copied. It may or may not be within reality. All I know, is that it is not certainly within reality. My goal is to try and establish things or properties that can be indubitably associated with reality.

18

Yes. But if using doubt maximally brings about something immune to doubt, then something certain is established.

19

That’s a big “if”.

20

But it has brought about something immune to doubt:

doubt cannot be doubted as its meaning is needed for its application
Doubt is only possible within an existence as opposed to nothingness
If there is an existence, then there is at least one reality.