There is most likely an intelligent creator of the universe

BOP In round 2 I mentioned my interpretation of the resolution's meaning is that I have to prove that there is more than a 50% chance that the universe has an intelligent creator. My opponent has not objected to that view of the resolution in his argument. However he did mention I have more BOP. That's true even if it's just 1 millionth of a percent over 50. By default my opponent has to prove atleast a 50% likelihood that An intelligent creator doesn't exist. Given the default position judges should have assigning a 50% probability to each side, it should be next to impossible for my opponent to win this debate without offering some sort of positive argumentation. Occam's Razor Assumptions are unavoidable. My opponent makes a big to do about assuming things, but there is no way to get around assumptions. We just have to do our best to assign probabilities to assumptions and go with the assumptions that are most likely. You might ask, how do we determine which assumption is more probable. It's simple, Occam's Razor. "Occam"s razor posits that among a set of explanations, the one with least number of assumptions is a priori most likely" http://www.debate.org... As humans we do have a limited amount of knowledge, so assumptions are necessary. We have to look at what we know about our world (our knowledge base), to know what is most likely the case in other worlds. In this universe intelligent beings create computers. In some other universe maybe they randomly pop up, but given what we know about our universe and the fact that some things are likely universally true, Occam's Razor tells us that most likely artificial universes are created by intelligent beings of some sort. It is not enough for my opponent to come up with alternate theories. He has to explain why these theories are more likely to be true than the ones I propose. He states that maybe simulated universes randomly happen for example, but never explains why a simulated universe randomly popping up is more likely or even equally as likely as simulations being created by intelligent species. There is more wrong with that particular statement as well. Even if the seed universe was created by a random simulation, the fact that intelligent operators can create simulated universes, should still lead us to believe we're most likely in a simulated universe create by an intelligent operator. The Hypothesis My opponents are kinda all over the place, the Occam's razor argument deals with most of his responses, but I'll still address some points directly. Pro doesn"t even give a reason to think a post-human civilization exists. Just because *we* can become post-human doesn"t mean someone else already has. Merely possibility doesn"t entail the existence of such a civilization. Again, my opponent fails to understand the concept of Occam's razor. If humans are to reach a post human state and create a simulated universe, then we must consider the possibility that we ourselves are in a simulated universe. Is it possible that we can reach a post human phase but not create a simulated universe? Sure, but merely stating the opposite of what I said is possible, isn't enough. He must show that it is unlikely that a post human civilization would create a simulated universe, and given what we know about ourselves, it's unlikely that nobody would be interested in creating a simulated universe, that replicates ours. As I pointed out earlier we already create simulated universes and brains in a computer to a certain degree. Computer scientists have replicated the Big Bang and parts of the human brain, as well as accidents and numerous other things. It's nonsense to think a post human civilization would randomly decide to stop doing these things. Like my opponent said, it's possible that a post human civilization won't be interested in simulated universes, but if we look at Occam's razor it's unlikely. My opponent has never addressed why he thinks post human civilizations are more likely to not replicate universes, than to replicate them. Occam's razor tells us that, we'll most likely simulate universes when we achieve the capability, which will force us to consider the possibility we are in a simulated universe. Remember this debate is only about doing our best to determine if something is over 50% likely, even if by 1/10000000 of a percentage point higher than that. "Pro says, "When you consider the fact that stacked civilizations could exist, and that a society could create several simulated universes, each simulated universe having stacked simulated universes, we have to assume we're most likely simulations." Why is this true? This seems like a bare assertion. Merely that stacked civilizations could exist doesn"t mean they do." If we can create an ancestor civilization that also reaches a post human phase, they in turn would most likely create an ancestor simulation. This is just common sense. The more ancestor simulations created the reach a post human phase, the more likely they are to create an ancestor simulation. My opponent is sitting back merely stating that other things are possible, but other things being possible isn't what the debate is about, it's about what is most likely, and since it is most likely that we will reach a post human phase and create an ancestor simulation that also reaches the phase and in turn creates one or more ancestor simulations, it means we're most likely an ancestor simulation. My opponent is right that it's possible stacked civilizations don't exist, but this is not about proving they do, nor is this about proving something has enough evidence to defeat the default position. This is about proving what is most likely, what is more than 50% true given the facts we have access to. "Bostrom"s equation relies on an unmentioned assumption. It assumes that the population of a simulated universe would be the same as the population of a posthuman one. There"s no reason to believe that. There"s no evidence of that. Most critics agree that it was likely a mistake on Bostrom"s part to assume that during the calculation." It's not really a mistake. When dealing with these sorts of problems assumptions need to be made. There is no avoiding it. He more than likely evenly attributed likelihood to populations being bigger, smaller and the same size equally, and it evens out. It seems pointless to complicate matters by adding those figures in. Given that most of these simulated universes are ancestor simulations, you'd expect the populations to remain roughly equal to them anyway. That might be the wrong way to look at it anyway. This is not about whether we as individuals are most likely living in a simulated universe. The debate is about an intelligent creator, so this is about whether this universe is most likely simulated. Maybe the universe only has a few simulated beings and the rest are philosophical zombies, maybe we're all philosophical zombies, maybe real humans outnumber simulated humans 500 to 1. However it doesn't matter if we are outnumbered by real humans. It's about whether this universe has a more than 50% chance of being a simulation. If the multiple real world has 400 billion people, but two stacked civilizations have a combined 10 billion people, this universe is most likely created by an intelligent creator. As individuals we'd most likely be real, but when looking at the total number of universes, this universe would most likely be simulated. "Bostrom makes multiple assumptions when he says computation can produce a simulated reality similar to our own. He assumes that (a) we only need to simulate down to the level of atoms and photons, (b) time-wise, we need to simulate only down to the level of basic chemical reactions, which would only take one femtosecond to process, and (c) gravity does not need to be simulated. All these assumptions are false. The first assumption is false because scientists can observe quark-level interactions. The second is false because the current lower-bound for chemical interactions is as small as Planck-time. The third isn"t even justified, and is nonsensical." Bostrom and I have already explained this. For example the quark level interactions only need to be simulated when observed. The double slit experiment actually hints that this is what's taking place since matter seems to do different things when directly observed. Here is Bostrom explaining it. "The assumption that a universe not simulated to a quantum degree of accuracy can be immediately exposed is unfounded.The original paper notes that even an atomic-scale simulation (much less a fully accurate quantum simulation) of the inside of your desk is not needed, and that extremely crude resolution would suffice for distant astronomical objects." If you train an STM on a piece of your desk, then you could distinguish atomic-scale feature, and these would then have to be added to the simulation. "But this could be done on an ad hoc basis: wherever somebody is paying attention, the requisite detail could be created." Moreover, if through some bug in the simulation, somebody were to notice an anomaly, their brains could be edited afterwards to remove the memory (or the whole simulation could be rerun from some cached earlier state in a way that avoids the problem)." http://www.simulation-argument.com... Conclusion/wrap up My opponent really doesn't elaborate on some arguments enough, so I can't and need not respond to some of them. For instance the Chinese room argument he used isn't really explained. However pretty much everything he said can be dispelled with using Occam's razor. He keeps saying that there is a possibility my premises are wrong, but he never explains how they are most likely wrong, and Occam's razor shows they're likely right.