hedonologist

Those of us who believe there could be no loving god say that a loving God would not allow or cause one form of harm or another, but is there a world that you would like best that he could give you, or would it be impossible for God to satisfy you even if he wanted to? Could you have created a world you would be satisfied with?

In order to have somewhere to start with this hypothetical, I begin in this real world. Imagine that you are suddenly given as much power as it would take to design and create any number of universes (or change this world), but you are the same until you ask for something. You’re given basically whatever you ask for, so long as it would be logically possible for God to grant. How would you run this show?

The first quandary I come to is regarding whether to give others the “freedom” to remain, in my opinion, ignorant, or to zap them with some “knowledge” they asked that I not “give” them. Some people say they would want the world to stay as it is. So if I had the superpower, I'm trying to think of whether I would rather let them live in a world like this and bring suffering on themselves, or try to persuade them or force them to have an experience that might “open their eyes” (to my humble opinion), so that they could be well informed enough to have the freedom to make a rational decision.

Secondly, would you let them have children and teach/brainwash them that they must live in a world where they will die and suffer from nature or from abuse and competition for survival?

kctan

If I've his power, I won't give a shit to this world just like your hypothetical god.

Whats the use of opening their eyes for them to have the wisdom to make a rational choice when they are governed by irrationality & rationality at the same time ? One day they might believe but the next they might not, so why waste the energy & time ?

Of course they will have children, some would ultimately teach them the reality of this world while others would rather brainwashed theirs into a world of fantasy.

echidna

Damn that’s a good question, there’s maybe even a weak "proof" of god’s non-existence in there somewhere, but I wouldn’t give it much credence. It again highlights the human dilemma of the duality between pain and suffering, and goodness. So much goodness seems inexorably linked to forms of suffering, that it seems hard to imagine one without the other. Perfection alone is not.

My answer : No, unless ...

I think that most of all, I want some form of unimaginable "fairness" in the universe.

I want that when a child dies alone in suffering, that he receives the same goodness (for want of a better word) as someone who lives a full life in happiness and comfort.

I want that when a woman is brutally raped and killed, she comes to a place where the pain of her death is not so negatively dominant on her existence.

I want my own existence and the existence of my loved ones to be dominated by a spirit of goodness.

I know that what I am trying to describe is a secular heaven, and that’s why my words are failing so badly.

Maybe if our pain and happiness on earth were balanced into a universe where an objective goodness dominated our existences, then yes, maybe I would be satisfied with the universe.

excreationist

hedonologist:
Well firstly I'd announce my presence to the world - I might talk in a big voice that can be heard all over the world. They would hear it in their native language. Maybe I'd split the world into two parallel dimensions - one where I interfere and do things like fix up lots of problems such as headaches and chronic pain and starvation and the other where I don't interfere much (except speak to the world). I'd be able to change forms a lot e.g. to a giant ghost or to a superman-type character, and I'd be able to reverse time, etc. I'd sometimes take a human or several and show them what it's like behind the scenes.
Anyway, the people would be able to switch dimensions any time - but they'd appear at the point in time where they left originally so that those in that world wouldn't miss them.
Or maybe there'd be several different dimensions - one where you were unable to hurt others, etc, or be very irrational, another which is the real-world except that I announce about the dimensions out loud or in their dreams every few years, and some dimensions in between where a few things are improved.
I'd probably poke fun at myself in the announcements and say that I greatly interfere in some of the dimensions. There could also be a dimension where people go on a council for about a week at a time and can discuss what changes they want made to the world (e.g. make there only be one language, or eliminate chronic pain, etc) There could also be regions within the same dimension where you can hear distinct languages or experience chronic pain.
I'd also visit some new-age thinkers/counsellors like Gary Zukav (from Oprah, who talks like a robot) who thinks that the universe is wise and understanding and that pain is a way of encouraging us to "spiritually" grow (get a more healthy perspective/attitude to things).
Maybe each person could also have the power to create their own virtual world where they can play around with things e.g. if they've never dated before they could get some experience there and learn to understand girls. And when they return to a real (global) dimension, they'd return to the spot where they were before.
But anyway, the present-day world would probably end up being better because people travelling to the alternate worlds would get a better perspective on things and probably learn to love another better. But even if this world isn't any better, people would have the ability to travel to other worlds, including a one of their own creation to try and get their perspective sorted out - I mean the contents of people's experiences aren't that important - contentment is about accepting how things are - even wealthy, popular people can be chronically unhappy while suffering deformed people can be chronically happy.

David Gould

I like the idea of fairness, except I would call it accountability. And there would be none of this confusion as to what are sins - there would be a list of actions and consequences for all to see. I would not worry with a democracy - my moral system is the best moral system there is (if I didn't beleive that, I wouldn't believe in it, now would I?).

I would wipe out human susceptability to disease and I would give humans a preset teleportation ability that would keep them safe from natural disasters and accidents.

If there is such a thing as free will, I would let people have it to the extent that they could kill others but they would know the consequences to themselves of that action.

hedonologist

That is basically like some of the ideas I had. Mine is rather simple. People could create or share almost any sort of experience/world they wanted, but the one rule is that none of my subjects could effect or harm anyone, without their consent.

I’ll tell you what I am thinking would be ideal and the reason for the conflict in my desire. There are two sorts of benefit, freedom and pleasure (if anyone has another way to describe/define benefit, I'm interested in hearing it). This is why there is a conflict in desire, as I’ll try to explain.

A world that would be highest in autonomous freedom would only have the rule “no effecting anyone against their will”. This world would be called the Autonomous Freedom World or AFW for short. People could create any form of experience they want, so long as they follow this rule, and of course everyone, even myself (the God), would have to follow logical necessity. No one can make “square circles”, etc.

But one may argue that maybe one aspect of the real world is more beneficial in terms of pleasure, than this AFW, because in the real world, some people can intervene and keep someone from hurting themselves. This assumes the possibility that anyone would really bring suffering on themselves if they had total freedom over their own mind. So I consider modifying the AFW by allowing Bob to effect Bill, without Bill’s consent, only if I think Bob is going to help Bill. This world would have the rule “no hurting anyone against their will”. This world would be called the Freedom to Force Pleasure World or FFPW. But then I would be deciding for Bill what is beneficial or pleasurable, to the extent that I let Bob effect him.

So the only way to allow freedom to force pleasure (or “benefit&#8221 on other people, without me as the God deciding for other people what is pleasure/benefit, is to allow the freedom to force both pleasure and suffering.

excreationist

hedonologist:
There is the problem of whether you can allow people to create their own private worlds that they are a dictator of or not. But I think it can be useful having personal virtual worlds. Maybe there could be a time limit on how long people can control virtual worlds - e.g. a 1:10 ratio of virtual world experiences to real world (though the real world includes the improved dimensions).

I'd also like to eliminate the unnecessary suffering of brain problems from all the realms - so people wouldn't have unnecessary headaches or dizziness or feel irritable simply because of hormones or have genetically-caused psychiatric problems. Also, I'd eliminate unnecessary chronic fatigue (unless the person is obviously causing it by overworking). So basically I'd eliminate suffering that is usually pretty avoidable. Within the non-moderated realms, the problems that exist would exist because of people's decisions. I'm not sure about the question of intellectual potential though - apparently intellectually handicapped people can often lead happy lives and can enrich the lives of others by being in the moment in a child-like way. But on the other hand, children can do that as well - so I guess there wouldn't be any intellectually handicapped people. I'd make it impossible for people to become deformed through birth defects and I think people should all have the ability to regrow limbs, etc, naturally.
There would still be undesirable things in the world, though - that way people have challenges. Otherwise people would just seek their desires in an addictive, zombie-like way.
I'd also make the brain unable to be affected chemically (with drugs, alcohol, etc) People with depression wouldn't have too severe depression since there wouldn't be genetic chemical imbalances and they would need to deal with their depression and behavioural problems just by talking it through. I might grant them more happy-chemicals in their brain though if necessary. (If they go into a dimension that I interfer with) Or maybe I could provide them with world-class counsellors.
But they would be free to kill themselves as well, if they were too stubborn to get help for their depression or they were bored of living. But I might intervene (if they agree) and modify their brains a bit so that they are more happy or interested about life - this could involve adjusting their memories.

excreationist

Well this is actually a hard question...
but I think I'll have to change one of my earlier ideas - if people began where they left off when they changed dimensions there could be some messy paradoxes - e.g. if someone went to a world for a year then returned and told someone about it who had left there a year in the past - the returning person would have knowledge about the future - then they could change history and the original visitor would have false memories.
I'd probably announce to the world that there is a God and that I'll be holding some get togethers where people can request things (e.g. eliminating world hunger).
I'd have lots of thinkers with me (e.g. Dr. Phil and Gary Zukav from Oprah) to help me decide if it is better to eliminate the undesirable thing or leave it there so that people can grow and not be so demanding/fussy.
I think there would only be one dimension (and also dream-land where people go in their sleeps - everyone would have fairly vivid dreams).
I might also weed out "unhealthy" personalities (that probably includes me) and the world-class counsellors would work on them. Basically the "unhealthy" people would be pretty dissatisfied with their life and we'd offer them a chance of being content and interested in things by teaching them about different perspectives. But the people can continue with their miserable world-view though e.g. insist that things have to be different - sometimes I might grant their request though, but they will probably become dissatisfied again unless they change their perspective. (have preferences instead of demands)

hedonologist

In either the AFW or the FFPW, there could be no “dictators” because no one has to enter someone else’s world. A person would not be allowed to create beings who are born into the rules of their little world. If they want to create someone, the created being is born virtually omniscient (except they wouldn’t know anyone’s secrets and they wouldn’t even know of people who didn’t want them to know of them), and then the world creator can request that they come to their world and be an animal or whatever (fat chance, hehe). There would be no babies, unless a being chose to be a baby.
What is “unreal” about the “virtual” worlds? What would the “real” world be-- a place where you force your will on everyone? I would have to complain that, that was not as beneficial/free a world as possible if you made that rule.

In my hypothetical ideals, the “real world” would be “inescapable” but consist of only two unbreakable laws: 1) logical necessity (of course), 2) no effecting (or harming) non-consenting beings. The rest of “reality” would depend on what the people would create for themselves-- whatever sort of physics, natural resources, bodies to live in, desires and mental states, empirical senses, etc. If they don’t know what to do they could use the example of Earth and build on that, or try living in someone else’s world, which doesn’t require that they stay forever or forget anything. Our current real world wouldn’t be any realer than any of these worlds created by any of the beings, in this hypothetical.

Basically everything would be done by contract. People would not be allowed to lie about what is in their world before a person enters (people have to knowingly consent in keeping with law 2), but they could reveal as much or as little info as they wanted about the world. People would pretty much have to choose to be omniscient when deciding which world they wanted to live in, if they wanted to avoid the risk of entering a world that was some sort of trap, unless they wanted to stay under God’s wing and have him pick out the worlds which he considers not to be traps, or something like this.

So “reality” would be the pure incarnation of people’s wills, since that is the only thing you don’t have control over. That and learning the dynamics of pure logical necessity, while your will is unfettered by physics. So the purpose in life would probably be a social purpose. Would you try to make a world that everyone would like? Would you just go off on your own experience and leave everyone? Would you want to sign up for a world where you have (some of) the old limitations, like good ole Earth, or enter sort of adventure game worlds where your knowledge is limited? See any world you can think of would be possible in my ideal except that people consent to live there (if anyone would consent to live there).

To me it seems that a loving God would compete with everyone else in this way. If it is true that no spirit could find true fulfillment “without” God, this would be the ultimate experiment to determine if that was true. What if this were what happens when we die? “Hell” would be all the failed experiments of those who thought they could do it better than God, but who will never willingly choose to humble themselves and admit they were wrong so they could enter heaven. Just a little interesting mythological sort of parable.

This addresses an interesting philosophical/”spiritual” question: What would we do if we didn’t have to do anything to survive, and if we had total control of what we desire and what is associated with pleasure or pain? So you could make studying such philosophy as enjoyable as sex. This gets into the question of our ultimate purpose and motives for living, and that is why this issue is so interesting and important to me.
I would let omniscient beings decide whether they want to be “handicapped”. I wouldn’t force it on anyone.
Uuuh let me see if a got this straight. The solution to people being robots who continue to go after what pleases them is to make them avoid things by making them painful? If people inevitably will seek that which pleases them and avoid pain, how is making them suffer going to change this? It seems to me that such people would just deterministically avoid pain, just like they deterministically pursue pleasure.

In my ideal people can recreate what they actually desire and what is pleasurable. If they just want to experience infinite pleasure, with no more movement or “progress”, why not give this too them? Maybe this is all anyone really wants. This is not to say we should do that in our current real world, because people need to endure pain to survive and not end up in worse pain.

But what would you do if you could associate pleasure with whatever you wanted? It is not like you have to take a drug to have the pleasure, you could do whatever you wanted and still have the pleasure.

(I’ll probably read the rest of your post later.)

excreationist

hedonologist:
Your idea sounds good... I might do that if I was God... I'd probably consult many people first before I did anything too drastic (like stopping births).

The virtual world is just like an easy to use customizable computer game that a person has a lot of control over. The real world just be changed so easily and some things are final in it (e.g. you can't usually repeat history)

Yes, I might give up my omniscience every now and then. I think I like your version better. I was a bit worried about reality becoming too fragmented but I guess it just makes reality a richer experience.

Yes I agree about private hells - that's why I thought that maybe people could be offered the help of world-class counsellors. Their life is normally hell though - counselling probably couldn't make it any worse.

My version might be pretty misguided but I'd at least like to try it out for a while - but maybe then I'd make something kind of like yours.

As I said, I would probably eliminate it - though people could make themselves disabled deliberately - e.g. blindfolding themselves, etc.

Undesireable things aren't necessarily painful. e.g. if you had a choice between a million dollars and 10 million, the one million dollars may be undesireable to you, assuming that you could choose between the two.
What I'm talking about is that I might not just allow people to have everything they wish for. e.g. They might wish to rule the world and torture all their enemies, etc - also part of the reason is just to provide challenges. But I guess in your version there would still be challenges and problems though since people might have different and possibly conflicting preferences. So in your version there are still some undesireable things present - e.g. someone might wish to eliminate someone else, but your system would prevent it. Though this is just undesireable from someone's own perspective, not from a global perspective.

Well I believe that anything we do, including think, we do only because it maximizes our expected pleasure and/or minimizes our expected pain. If you were already experiencing maximum pleasure and no pain then you'd have absolutely no motivation to do anything else, including think. This is assuming that you get displeasure from a lack of intellectual stimulation/excitement. You might also get displeasure knowing that others were suffering. You might also think it is degrading to be unproductive. But if these undesireable feelings were eliminated then you'd just lie there, forever. You'd have no reason to sense the outside world. You'd just be alone, feeling the infinite pleasure. You wouldn't desire anything else since it is impossible to conceive of more pleasure. I think their life is pretty meaningless but I guess if it is easy to support them forever then I might as well do it. But on the other hand, I don't see much of a difference between thousands of years of thoughtless infinite pleasure then death and a month of it then instant death since you wouldn't have been worrying about anything and having a sense of time.

Yeah... I sometimes wish that I could just lie around all day and not do anything - but sooner or later something wakes me up to reality - that I have to do some work every now and then and do things like eat.

Actually I have been in this situation....
I basically accepted reality but also appreciated the pleasurable things. So things were either neutral ("that's just how it is") or pleasurable ("that's cool") - or blissful ("awesome").
But the problem is that it is fairly important to desire social conformity. I was no longer limited by a fear of being unpopular though I think I became much more popular (at least to most others) - some were worried about my change. I basically took things as they came, yet made improvements to things where-ever possible. So if something couldn't be easily changed, then it was accepted - for now - though it may be able to be changed in the future.
Anyway I became generous and went about making people happy - though it was easy for me to do - I just had the insight to think of things that they didn't. I has on a massive "high". I thought I'd go to the crime-filled areas and try and project a positive influence. I asked the police about this. They said that I was putting myself at risk - but I wasn't committed to achieving any goals (I only did what seemed appropriate at the time) and I'd just go away if it looked like the violent people were giving me trouble... I could talk for hours about this... and I said how it is legal for people to fight on the front-line where many die, so I should be able to risk my health and hang out with the gangs. Anyway, they put me in a hospital for a month where I had high dosages of lithium that initially turned me into a zombie. Since I couldn't sense long-term pleasure or pain, I had a very limited view of things and became disinterested in a lot of things, including thinking. (Well that was just initially though, I kind of got out of that)
Anyway, what I did was respect people's wishes - except if they are being too intolerant - but sometimes I just gave in straight away, just to shock them, and I'd have an insane amount of patience and endurance - I guess I just did things for kicks.