sandlewood

It depends on your definition of ‘god’, of course.
No. Omnipotent does not mean “relatively more powerful than”. Omnipotent means infinite power. Just because I built a universe in my computer doesn’t mean I’m eternal, omniscient and omnipotent. Just because the beings consider me eternal, omniscient and omnipotent doesn’t mean I really am.

Since there is an important difference here between omnipotent and not omnipotent, between omniscient and not omniscient, I think the analogy fails and so the rest of the questions are not very useful. But anyway…
The important point is that we must go with what is most likely to be true. Things that are most likely to be true most often are true. What is most likely to be true is base on available evidence. This system seems to work better than any other. Yes, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that what is likely to be false is actually true. That is not the point.

If you'll allow me to add a couple questions to your list:

s1. If you created a universe that contained beings that were sentient life, would you be morally justified in doing anything you like to them, including torture for eternity? After all, you are their creator.

s2. If you created a computer universe in which the first two beings behaved in a manner you did not want (such as eating an apple), wouldn’t you stop the universe right away, reprogram it, and restart it so that it came out as you liked? Or would you allow it to continue running and condemn all the subsequent beings for the actions of the first two.

I guess there are many more questions like this, but I don't have the time at the moment.

[ July 08, 2002: Message edited by: sandlewood ]</p>

WJ

"In any case, the logical possibility that the walls of my house are filled with gold doubloons cannot be excluded, but I'm not going to invest any of my precious time investigating that possibility. It's just too implausible a priori."

Actually, from a logical standpoint, I think the original thread's statement posits the necessary existence of the synthetic apriori via the computer analogy. Otherwise, how else do we explore that which we [think we] do not yet know (and/or will to know)?

Walrus

Autonemesis

I might call myself that in front of my buds on #efnet, but I'd actually just be a hacker with an overactive sense of self-importance.

Depends on whether I programmed the concept of space-time into them. If I decided not to, then I don't see how they could have any conception of eternity, or of a millisecond.

If I wanted them to be ignorant of me, I could program them and their universe in this way.

No, but it would mean that they would conduct their digital lives as if I didn't. And I don't see how I could expect them to do anything else.

I suppose, if I were bored and sociopathic, I could do this.

If I desired to be understood, I'd update their firmware to make them capable of understanding before I made my "appearance". If I did not want to be understood, then I guess I'd skip this step. One has to wonder what the point of making contact is when there is no hope of communication. If I were a god-programmer who wanted to be understood by my digital creations, I'd program them with the capacity to understand me.

More likely they'd call it a bug and demand a service pack.

As I indicated earlier, if I wanted to be understood, I'd make sure my digital creations were programmed with the capacity to understand.

That seems to be consistent with the other conditions you set. But I wouldn't create sentient digital lifeforms, refuse to program them with a capacity to understand their developer, and then demand fealty from them, knowing they are incapable of responding to my desires rationally. I just wouldn't create a digital universe like that. Neither would I set an anthill on fire just to see the ants run around in a frenzy. I'm just like that.

Not if I prepared them for it, which I would. Unless I just wanted to "play God."

I hope I gave you everything you were after.

lpetrich

That's a matter of definition. I do lots of programming, so I do qualify as a creator, even if a rather limited one by most theological standards.

I may seem to be long-lasting, knowledgable, and powerful, but not necessarily infinite in these. Or I may not even seem to be those; I need not be in order to be a successful programmer.

Not necessarily, if I had designed into their world some access to me.

It would mean that my existence is not very apparent to them.

It's certainly possible to keep one's identity hidden from them as one makes such changes.

True, it may be difficult to comprehend, but one can create mathematical descriptions of the world I live in, such as points being specified as triplets of coordinates.

Not necessarily.

If I had not tried to make it clear that I exist, they might indeed misinterpret my actions, and they may even develop other hypotheses of their origins.

I could make my existence apparent to them without destroying their personalities.

Or otherwise some sort of hallucination.

David Mathews

Hello Everyone,

I enjoyed reading everyone's responses. The beliefs and opinions of the created entities in th computer are dependent upon what they can know, how they perceive their universe, what you reveal to them about your own self and the ability of their intellect to speculate about realities which are dramatically different from their universe.

When I used the word "God", "eternal", "omniscient" and "omnipotent" I am speaking strictly in the relative sense. Computer based life forms whose existence is provisional on your will might consider their creator "God" and "omnipotent." Since they have no awareness of the life cycle of their creator they might consider their creator "eternal." Since the creator comprehends the program which made their universe and their own selves, they would view the creator as "omniscient."

Without a doubt the created beings might view their creator in that manner. All of this is just speculation, of course.

I believe that the thought experiment is relevant to the theism/atheism controversy. I don't imagine that the experiment actually resolves that controversy.

I don't consider your answers either right or wrong. All we are doing is speculating, but even so these thoughts are productive and beneficial to everyone involved.

Thanks,

David Mathews

joedad

Isn't there a huge fallacy lurking in this question? Even if I built the computer myself and then did the programming myself, I still didn't "create" anything. Why not say "built?" Why say "create?" I moved some of the stuff of the Cosmos into a different arrangement but that certainly doesn't qualify in my book as being able to create something, and certainly not in the context of this forum.

So the real question would be whether I was the god of what I had "built." If the act of building makes one a god, then there are a lot of gods, human and not, running around.

That would depend entirely on their level of intelligence.

Once again I think it is a matter of the level of intelligence of the beings, as is the answer to every following question you posed.

Maybe to build is divine.

joe

[edited to fix quotation]

[ July 08, 2002: Message edited by: joedad ]</p>

David Mathews

Hello Joedad,

David: Within the context of the universe which you created, you are the Creator. I am not suggesting that humans are God, nor am I saying that creative acts make us into gods.

The analogy that I am drawing is between the lifeforms in the computer model and humanity in this universe.

The problem for both is how to acquire any knowledge of the reality outside the universe, how to identify and comprehend the Creator and how to objectively detect and verify the existence of a creator.

By examining the problem from the standpoint of the lifeforms created by the computer model, we might gain some understanding of the problems that humans confront when considering the question of God's existence, God's interaction with the Universe, God's interaction with humankind and human perception of God.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

Silent Dave

1) No, since I would lack many of God's attributes.

2) Only if they were rather stupid beings. Eternal, for instance, means eternal -- not very-long-lived.

3) Not if I built an interface program into my universe through which I could talk to the sims.

4) If by a creator they meant someone who created their universe and themselves, then they would be wrong, since I would exist. I would arrange matters in my universe, however, so that everyone would be aware of my existence.

5) I would have to edit the beings themselves, but yes, I could.

6) I don't see why it should be.

7) They might, if they had such concepts, and if they didn't know what I was doing.

8) Probably not, because once again, I would tell them what I was doing.

9) Depending on what you mean by those terms, you would be correct.

10) Once again, they might, if they had such concepts, and if I didn't tell them what I was doing.


Okay, your turn to answer these questions.

1) Would you include an interface program such as I described above so that you could communicate with your sims?

2) Would you build a universe with naturally-occuring suffering and premature death that inflicts almost all your sims?

3) If you had some reason for building such a universe, would you communicate that reason to your sims through your interface program?

4) If for some reason you couldn't tell them that you had a reason for allowing suffering, or what that reason was, would you tell your sims?

5) If you didn't have an interface program, or if you chose not to reveal your existence to all through it, would you expect your sims to believe in your existence anyway?

6) Would you make such belief a prerequisite for things such as salvation from deletion?

7) Would you enjoy the sims worshipping you as a deity?

8) What would you do about religious conflict in your computer universe, particularly conflicts about the correct way to be saved from deletion?

9) Whatever your requirements for salvation from deletion, would you make sure that such information was available to every single sim who lives in your universe?

And finally....

10) What reason would you have for creating such a computer universe in the first place?


Dave

Bible Humper

Hello David,

I'm glad I didn't over look this topic!


Since I have been tackling the implications of this from a different angle in the "Welcome David Mathews" thread, I'll try not to post an excessive
amount of rudundancies here, but instead stick as much as I can to exploring it from your angle alone.

No, in reality I would not be.

From the point of view of the inhabitants of my created reality though, I would indeed be indistinguishable from a supernatural deity if I made my existence outside of their reality known without elaborating on my true nature, nor the nature of my creation.

The inhabitants of my created reality would also be incapable of distinguishing between me and a supernatural deity if they could somehow "intuitively" discern that there was something "beyond the knowable" responsible for their creation and the creation of their reality.

From the point of view of the inhabitants of my reality, if I made myself apparent through activity I would be seen as God unless I made an effort to disprove this notion, or made a mistake somewhere in the design of their reality that allows them to come to the conclusion that they are "brains in a laboratory" empirically.

From their point of view, they would likely come to these conclusions, despite the fact that these conclusions are false.

If I did a good enough job on the simulation, it would be impossible for them to discern that they are living in a simulation.

No, I would exist nonetheless. Their reality would also be a created reality, despite the fact that it is impossible for them to find evidence of this, and despite the fact that if I have done a good enough job, all empirical evidence in their reality would point to a naturalistic origin rather than creation.

But unless I blundered in the design of this reality, or decided to "plant" evidence somewhere in their reality about the truth of their creation,
the assertion that they live within a created simulation is nonetheless groundless, based on what is knowable to them.

Yes, it would indeed be possible to do these things without their knowledge.

I'm assuming that this simulation is indistinguishable from our own for this exercise, for the sake of conceptualization. If the simulation is a radically different reality from our own, it becomes impossible to make meaningful judgements of this sort.

Perhaps a parallel question dealing with a three-dimensional virtual reality is in order.

If the inhabitants of the simulation had a similar history of attributing the unknown to the supernatural that we do, unless efforts were made to refute this idea they would without a doubt attribute any of my perceptible interventions to magic or miracles.

If I was sneaky enough about my intervention there would be an avenue for them to explain my intervention naturalistically, and the virtual naturalists would doubtless explain it in that way.

Free will is an obvious one, changing their minds for them is an obvious breach of their free will.

If I decided to fool him, yes.

Doubting Didymus

I was extremely surprised to see such thorough and detailed point by point responses to what seemed to me a very old and very pointless argument.

David's original post amounts to nothing more than our old freind: "You can't prove that god doesn't exist. It is always possible that he goes about his buisiness in such a way as to make it look like he doesn't exist."

Yes, of course its possible that god works the universe so subtly that we can never know for sure if he is there or not, but the problem here is that the very same argument can be made for absolutely anything.

Its possible that satan is really the one ruling the cosmos. Its possible that I am really ruling the cosmos. I might do it in a way that makes it impossible for humans to comprehend, while at the same time leaving plenty of specially placed clues that force a logical mind to consider the possibility that no one at all is ruling the cosmos.

If I create a universe in my computer, and I want the inhabitants to believe in me, I could do any number of things. I could write "I am real, believe in me!" in 50 foot high letters of digital flame. I could give them a complete, authorised biography in the same text. This does not contradict free will in the slightest. In fact my admission of existance would be the only thing that could equip them to make a sensible judgement about me. (Do you really think that god is powerless to provide us with supernatural and undeniable proof of his existance? Such a powerless god is certainly not the biblical conception of him)

If, however, I choose to make my universe so that the inhabitants are able to find naturalistic explanations for absolutely everthing, I will fully expect them to reach the conclusion that their universe occured naturally. I would only do this if that is the conclusion I wanted them to reach. (or if, as you suggest, I were powerless to do otherwise)

Conclusion: It is meaningless to say 'I believe in X' and follow this with 'X cannot be proven or disproven, and I am exempt from burden of proof regarding X'

Can you see that you could subtitute anything at all for X and the result would be the same?

[ July 08, 2002: Message edited by: Doubting Didymus ]</p>